{"id":5818,"date":"2010-12-27T10:28:37","date_gmt":"2010-12-27T14:28:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/?p=5818"},"modified":"2010-12-27T10:28:37","modified_gmt":"2010-12-27T14:28:37","slug":"what-it-is-122710","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/what-it-is-122710","title":{"rendered":"What It Is: 12\/27\/10"},"content":{"rendered":"

What I’m reading:<\/em> I finished Black Swan Green<\/em> on the 24th, read The Humbling<\/em> on Christmas Day, and am undecided on what to start. Im tempted to begin Anthony Powell’s A Dance To the Music of Time<\/em>, but it is<\/em> 12 books long. I should probably write a post about reading\/writing projects.<\/p>\n

What I’m listening to:<\/em> Not Christmas music.<\/p>\n

What I’m watching:<\/em> On the flight down to Louisiana, I watched a Ken Burns doc about Huey Long (which made me want to read All the King’s Men<\/em> again), and started a second viewing of Danny Boyle’s Sunshine<\/em>. Amy & I went out to a ratty theater to catch True Grit<\/em> on Sunday. Of course, A Christmas Story<\/em> was on its 24-hour rotation. And, if I haven’t mentioned this before, virtually all of my in-laws will watch college bowl games regardless of who’s playing. I also discovered that they would rather watch high school football than an NBA game. Boo…<\/p>\n

What I’m drinking:<\/em> Except for a Beefeater & tonic on Christmas night when Amy & i went to Bistreaux in the French Quarter to listen to my pal Paul Longstreth play piano, I’ve been dry for a week.<\/p>\n

What Rufus & Otis are up to:<\/em> Playing with their grey-girlfriends, Ruby & Willow, while we’re away.<\/p>\n

Where I’m going:<\/em> Back to NJ, I hope. We were supposed to fly home Sunday afternoon, but the blizzard rolled up so quickly that Continental cancelled all flights for that day by Saturday evening. They put us on an early morning Tuesday flight, for which we’ve just checked in. Good thing I always pack a few extra days’ worth of contact lenses.<\/p>\n

What I’m happy about:<\/em> Not being home for the blizzard, which may have dumped around 2 feet of snow on our place.<\/p>\n

What I’m sad about:<\/em> That I started the year with a funeral (my pal Sang) and ended it with one (one of Amy’s elderly relatives).<\/p>\n

What I’m worried about:<\/em> The volume of snow waiting for me when I get home. Bad enough that I parked the car on the roof of the parking garage at Newark; I’m hoping my neighbors remembered to ask their snowplow guy to take care of my driveway, too.<\/p>\n

What I’m pondering:<\/em> Borrowing my mother-in-law’s car and driving in to New Orleans for a few hours today. Also, I keep thinking about Achilles and how that recent reading of The Iliad<\/em> affected me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What I’m reading: I finished Black Swan Green on the 24th, read The Humbling on Christmas Day, and am undecided on what to start. Im tempted to begin Anthony Powell’s A Dance To the Music of Time, but it is 12 books long. I should probably write a post about reading\/writing projects. What I’m listening … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “What It Is: 12\/27\/10”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5818","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-new-orleans","category-travel"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4C7K-1vQ","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4746,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/blogbreak","url_meta":{"origin":5818,"position":0},"title":"Blogbreak!","author":"Gil","date":"December 22, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm taking this week off! I just finished our 430-page year-end issue, so I'm taking a break from everydarnthing! No Unrequired Reading, no wacky literary recommendations, no etc., etc., amen! Come back next week for my big-ol' decade-end post and a special New Year's edition of Unrequired Reading! And have\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1277,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/unrequired-reading-jan-5-2007","url_meta":{"origin":5818,"position":1},"title":"Unrequired Reading: Jan. 5, 2007","author":"Gil","date":"January 5, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"The official VM wife & I are headed to St. Louis for the weekend to visit family & friends, so it's another quick-n-dirty Unrequired Reading, dear readers. It's chock full of posts I didn't have time to write about! Jane Galt fails to see the light (that's a bad pun).\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Big Business"","block_context":{"text":"Big Business","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/big-business"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1836,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/unrequired-reading-dec-28-2007","url_meta":{"origin":5818,"position":2},"title":"Unrequired Reading: Dec. 28, 2007","author":"Gil","date":"December 28, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"I lied, dear readers! Here's a fresh passel of links to see you through the New Year's weekend! It seems that British historians -- legal and otherwise -- have some trouble putting Cromwell and the commonwealth in context. Okay, maybe that sounds like a dull topic, but I found this\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Architecture"","block_context":{"text":"Architecture","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/architecture"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3126,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/dreaming-of-a-grey-christmas","url_meta":{"origin":5818,"position":3},"title":"Dreaming of a Grey Christmas?","author":"Gil","date":"December 25, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"","rel":"","context":"In "Adventures in Rufus and\/or Otis"","block_context":{"text":"Adventures in Rufus and\/or Otis","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/adventures-in-rufus-and-or-otis"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4854,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/unrequired-reading-jan-8-2010","url_meta":{"origin":5818,"position":4},"title":"Unrequired Reading: Jan. 8, 2010","author":"Gil","date":"January 9, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Sorry this is late. After Sang's death, I've been all over the place emotionally, and trying not to let grief cloud any long-term decisions about my writing priorities. So, uh, just click \"more\"! Other people died this week, including Casey Johnson and Art Clokey. * * * Still, try to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Art"","block_context":{"text":"Art","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/art"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1264,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/eco-chamber","url_meta":{"origin":5818,"position":5},"title":"Eco Chamber","author":"Gil","date":"December 27, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"I finished the Berlin Noir trilogy on Christmas morning. They're fantastic novels, and I recommend them highly. I don't read many mystery novels, but these were amazing (and are highly recommended by Ron Rosenbaum), and I devoured the 830 pages from Thursday to Monday. I'll hit my local library next\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Budapest"","block_context":{"text":"Budapest","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/travel\/budapest"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=virtualmemories-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0060955228","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5818","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5818"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5818\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5819,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5818\/revisions\/5819"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}