{"id":5898,"date":"2011-01-28T19:46:38","date_gmt":"2011-01-28T23:46:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/?p=5898"},"modified":"2011-01-28T19:46:38","modified_gmt":"2011-01-28T23:46:38","slug":"maybe-leo-strauss-was-onto-something","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/maybe-leo-strauss-was-onto-something","title":{"rendered":"Maybe Leo Strauss Was Onto Something . . ."},"content":{"rendered":"

Last Saturday, Amy & I went to a going-away party for an old pal of mine. I got to catch up with a bunch of guys I used to watch Yankees games with during that great run when they won four World Series in five years. I hadn’t seen any of them for much of the past decade, so there was a ton to talk about.<\/p>\n

I also got to meet and have a long conversation with a guy whom our hostess had been trying to connect me with for years. We’d friended each other on Facebook, but had never sat down to talk. I had a great time at the party, talking about publishing (he works at the HQ of a major book retailer), e-books, how impossible it is to keep up (in a general sense), whom we’re reading (he: Eudora Welty’s short stories, me: that Anthony Powell series), SEO and the gaming of, um, every aspect of the world, our obsolescence, and more. It turned out that he’d been checking out Virtual Memories for a while, and made a reference to my Monday Morning Montaigne<\/em> posts near the end of the evening.<\/p>\n

I told him I was thinking of annihilating all traffic to this blog by replicating the MMM experience with Plutarch’s Parallel Lives<\/a>. He said he was thinking of getting back into Plutarch, and I told him to let me know if does, so we can launch the New Jersey Atheneum. (Or form a book club. Whatever normalish people do.)<\/p>\n

The next day, I looked him up on Facebook to drop him a line and thank him for the good conversation. On his profile page, I discovered that he’d attended St. John’s College<\/a> (Santa Fe branch). “If only I’d known!” I thought. I could’ve talked with him about my recent reading of Homer instead of just trying to vaguely allude to things, for fear of coming off like a classics weird. (Which I am, but hey.)<\/p>\n

And it’s not like we spent our time talking about American Idol<\/em> and The Jersey Shore<\/em> or anything. We really got into conversation. But it occurred to me that the bond of the St. John’s curriculum \u00e2\u20ac\u201d even in the truncated form in which I received it, as part of the Graduate Institute \u00e2\u20ac\u201d was tantamount to having another language. It was struck by the notion that the St. John’s education was like a secret society. Talking to another initiate, I could’ve dropped the pretense of normal talk and actually delved into those books that we shared.<\/p>\n

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how rare it is that I get to talk about those books and share in that conversation. (My wife’s a voracious reader, but didn’t go to St. John’s.)<\/p>\n

Many years ago, one of my best pals joined me for drinks with two other Johnnies. The four of us shot the breeze in what I thought was a congenial but not too Great Books-y way. After, my pal told me, “I felt like I should have been wearing a pair of overalls and a straw hat, with a hayseed in my mouth.” He’s a smart, well-read guy, yet felt totally out of his depth. And it’s not like we were discussing Kant!<\/p>\n

When my pal from the party wrote me back a few days later, he told me that he’d enjoyed the evening and was glad to talk to someone “who has also been ruined by reading.” He also sent me a link to this great article on The Revolt of the Elites<\/a>.<\/p>\n

(I had sent him The Awl’s great one on SEO<\/a>.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last Saturday, Amy & I went to a going-away party for an old pal of mine. I got to catch up with a bunch of guys I used to watch Yankees games with during that great run when they won four World Series in five years. I hadn’t seen any of them for much of … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Maybe Leo Strauss Was Onto Something . . .”<\/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":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5898","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-literature"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4C7K-1x8","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":490,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/mystery-achievement","url_meta":{"origin":5898,"position":0},"title":"Mystery Achievement","author":"Gil","date":"February 3, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Jennifer Weiner explains how to submit a Talk of the Town piece to the New Yorker.Step eight: Paranoia. Decide that Talk of the Town assistant is twenty-two-year-old Brown graduate with size zero leather miniskirt and degree in semiotics who automatically shuns any book or short story with actual plot and\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13110,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/covid-check-in-with-ben-model","url_meta":{"origin":5898,"position":1},"title":"COVID Check-In with Ben Model","author":"Gil","date":"April 9, 2020","format":"audio","excerpt":"Virtual Memories Show COVID Check-In: Ben Model Silent-film accompanist Ben Model checks in from the Upper West Side of NYC. We talk about how the pandemic and self-isolation led him and his partner Steve Massa to launch the Silent Comedy Watch Party, a livestream on YouTube that airs every Sunday\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "COVID Check-In"","block_context":{"text":"COVID Check-In","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/covid-check-in"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/modelcovidcomp.jpg?fit=1200%2C480&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/modelcovidcomp.jpg?fit=1200%2C480&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/modelcovidcomp.jpg?fit=1200%2C480&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/modelcovidcomp.jpg?fit=1200%2C480&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/modelcovidcomp.jpg?fit=1200%2C480&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":11322,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/episode-263-jonathan-ames","url_meta":{"origin":5898,"position":2},"title":"Episode 263 – Jonathan Ames","author":"Gil","date":"April 2, 2018","format":"audio","excerpt":"Virtual Memories Show 263: Jonathan Ames \"For me, all writing -- scripts, essays, novels -- it comes down to enjoying writing a sentence.\" On the eve of the premiere of You Were Never Really Here, writer Jonathan Ames returns to his stomping grounds of northern NJ to talk about crime\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "literature"","block_context":{"text":"literature","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/literature"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_9145.jpg?fit=1200%2C1055&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_9145.jpg?fit=1200%2C1055&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_9145.jpg?fit=1200%2C1055&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_9145.jpg?fit=1200%2C1055&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_9145.jpg?fit=1200%2C1055&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":3143,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/lost-in-the-supermarket-house-party-edition","url_meta":{"origin":5898,"position":3},"title":"Lost in the Supermarket: House Party edition","author":"Gil","date":"December 30, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"There are too many great moments in House Party -- the film debut of Kid & Play -- to list. 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