{"id":5942,"date":"2011-03-24T19:59:48","date_gmt":"2011-03-24T23:59:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/?p=5942"},"modified":"2011-03-25T07:49:09","modified_gmt":"2011-03-25T11:49:09","slug":"who-am-i-14","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/who-am-i-14","title":{"rendered":"Who Am I?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m the guy who was in serious doldrums this evening. I think it’s anxiety about work, but it’s been running me down for a while now. I feel overwhelmed, unable to get ahead because there are so many fires to put out. I’ve been talking to people less and less, and having more difficulty just keeping up a normal conversation.<\/p>\n

When I got home tonight, I was pretty burned out. The mile with the dogs didn’t help much, and I came home and found myself staring out the window, emptying the dishwasher, and otherwise trying to avoid looking at computer or TV screens.<\/p>\n

Eventually, I went downstairs to the library. Still dolorous, I looked over some shelves of books and told myself, “I’m never going to read any of these.” Then, on a whim, I reached out to pick up one of several collections of essays by William Gass, whom I haven’t read in many years. I opened The World Within the Word<\/a>\"\" to its table of contents, saw, Proust at 100<\/em>, took the book upstairs, cracked open the spine on page 147, and started reading.<\/p>\n

At first, I kept losing focus, partly because of Gass’s gorgeous by sneaky prose but mainly because thoughts from the office kept intruding. So I began reading the pages aloud. I thought it would be good practice for the podcast, because I need to learn to record prose without falling into my distant, nasal, uninflected tone. But reading it aloud, finding the rhythms of the sentences, also drove all the office banalities from my mind.<\/p>\n

I’m the guy who’s amazed at how far he’s fallen from himself.<\/p>\n

UPDATE: Here’s a 9.5-minute audio clip of me reading from the essay<\/a>! Enjoy! Or try to!<\/em><\/p>\n

http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/images\/podcasts\/gassproust.mp3<\/a><\/audio><\/div>

Podcast: Play in new window<\/a> | Download<\/a><\/p>

Subscribe: Spotify<\/a> | TuneIn<\/a> | RSS<\/a> | More<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m the guy who was in serious doldrums this evening. I think it’s anxiety about work, but it’s been running me down for a while now. I feel overwhelmed, unable to get ahead because there are so many fires to put out. I’ve been talking to people less and less, and having more difficulty just … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Who Am I?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","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":[1239,881],"class_list":["post-5942","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-literature","tag-proust","tag-william-gass"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4C7K-1xQ","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6905,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/podcast-sound-before-story","url_meta":{"origin":5942,"position":0},"title":"Podcast: Sound Before Story","author":"Gil","date":"March 4, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Virtual Memories - season 3 episode 5 Greg Gerke - Sound Before Story To celebrate the publication of Middle C, the new novel by literary legend William Gass, I sat down with writer Greg Gerke, who interviewed Gass for Tin House literary magazine. We talked about Gass' position in the\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\/8523402458_ede1142ce6_k.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/8523402458_ede1142ce6_k.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/8523402458_ede1142ce6_k.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/8523402458_ede1142ce6_k.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/8523402458_ede1142ce6_k.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":6285,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/who-am-i-party-monster-edition","url_meta":{"origin":5942,"position":1},"title":"Who Am I? (party monster edition)","author":"Gil","date":"February 19, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm the guy who went to a party last night and met a guy who recently interviewed William Gass, met a guy who read A Dance To The Music Of Time three times already, and drove past the Federal Reserve building in East Rutherford, NJ while listening to the B-52s'\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"anthony powell\"","block_context":{"text":"anthony powell","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/tag\/anthony-powell"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/boil-gas","url_meta":{"origin":5942,"position":2},"title":"Boil Gas","author":"Gil","date":"February 25, 2003","format":false,"excerpt":"Last night, I went to the 92nd St. Y for a literary reading. Well, half of a literary reading. The writer I went there to meet was William Gass, one of the best writers in America (and therefore, cynically speaking, one of the least read). Mr. Gass and I had\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "literature"","block_context":{"text":"literature","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/literature"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4576,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/publishers-at-play","url_meta":{"origin":5942,"position":3},"title":"Publishers at Play","author":"Gil","date":"October 25, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"When I was a pretentious young man (I'm older now; but that doesn't mean I'm less pretentious), the Paris Review Writers at Work anthologies were my Bible. (Or at least my Apocrypha. My Bible was a mash-up of Tropic of Cancer and Inside the Whale.) I'd seek out the collections\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "0-fer"","block_context":{"text":"0-fer","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/literature\/0-fer"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=virtualmemories-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0802131786","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":12884,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/episode-361-dmitry-samarov","url_meta":{"origin":5942,"position":4},"title":"Episode 361 – Dmitry Samarov","author":"Gil","date":"February 11, 2020","format":"audio","excerpt":"Virtual Memories Show 361: Dmitry Samarov \u201cI\u2019ve been very fortunate to have an undying inner need to keep expressing myself, in the face of fairly universal indifference. It just doesn\u2019t discourage me; it might be some sort of insanity.\u201d With his new memoir, Soviet Stamps, artist & writer Dmitry Samarov\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Art"","block_context":{"text":"Art","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/art"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/dmitry2020comp.jpg?fit=1200%2C775&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/dmitry2020comp.jpg?fit=1200%2C775&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/dmitry2020comp.jpg?fit=1200%2C775&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/dmitry2020comp.jpg?fit=1200%2C775&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/dmitry2020comp.jpg?fit=1200%2C775&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1264,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/eco-chamber","url_meta":{"origin":5942,"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\/5942","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=5942"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5942\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5945,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5942\/revisions\/5945"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}