{"id":98,"date":"2003-12-31T10:10:20","date_gmt":"2003-12-31T15:10:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vmalt\/?p=98"},"modified":"2005-12-04T13:03:36","modified_gmt":"2005-12-04T18:03:36","slug":"low-resolution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/low-resolution","title":{"rendered":"Low Resolution"},"content":{"rendered":"

New Year’s resolutions have never been my bag. I tend to do things as they arise, rather than waiting for a particular calendar-based occasion (friends who’ve received out-of-the-blue presents from me can attest to this). I already treat my friends with love, and I’ve tried opening up to my family much more in the past few months (the broken heart and the grandeur of the New Zealand trip<\/a> have done wonders for shaking me out of whatever rut I was in).<\/p>\n

I’ve had some time off this week, so I’ve taken care of some things that have been nagging. So they’re kinda<\/em> like New Year’s resolutions:<\/p>\n

Yesterday, I quit the gym I belonged to. A rep asked why, and I said, “It’s my resolution to get fat and out of shape in 2004. Know where I can buy some cigarettes?” (In fact, I plan on buying a treadmill and setting it up in the living room, so I can run while watching basketball a couple of evenings a week.)<\/p>\n

I let a many of my magazine subscriptions lapse. New Yorker, Publishers Weekly, The Forward, New York Observer, Wired: all done. I plan to read less in 2004, or at least to let fewer magazines and papers pile up in my house. For some reason, I retained my subscription to The Atlantic Monthly, even though it tends to be the least-read magazine in my house.<\/p>\n

I returned to work on Gold\/Stopwatch<\/em>, my essay about the Cold War, the parallels between espionage and intimacy, the parallels between the ABM treaty and French movies, and the ways in which we translate love. (It’s that last part that I’ve been turning over again and again, these past few months.)<\/p>\n

I started reading a pile of manuscripts that were submitted for my publishing company. They’ve really added up in the past six months, and it’s been unfair of me to let them sit so long, especially when I have no idea what Voyant’s next book is going to be.<\/p>\n

I bought a home theater system (just a small one from Samsung: nothing super-extensive), then set up an audio-input switcher and an IR remote so I can hook up the iPod to the thing. So I guess the resolution is this: in 2004, I’ll incur the enmity of my neighbors, who surely never bargained on living near a 32-year-old bachelor with an insatiable taste for music.<\/p>\n

I’ve already dropped the 40 lbs. I wanted to lose, and there’s little possibility that I’ll make the time to read the last 5 volumes of Proust in the next 12 months, so this sounds like a good set of resolutions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

New Year’s resolutions have never been my bag. I tend to do things as they arise, rather than waiting for a particular calendar-based occasion (friends who’ve received out-of-the-blue presents from me can attest to this). I already treat my friends with love, and I’ve tried opening up to my family much more in the past … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Low Resolution”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"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":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-98","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4C7K-1A","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":783,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/resolved","url_meta":{"origin":98,"position":0},"title":"Resolved!","author":"Gil","date":"January 1, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Great article from Virginia Postrel in the NYTimes today about New Year's resolutions: In the early 1980's, [Nobel economics laureate] Professor Schelling applied similar analysis to individuals' internal struggles, seeking to develop what he called \"strategic egonomics, consciously coping with one's own behavior, especially one's conscious behavior.\" The problem, he\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1273,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/low-res","url_meta":{"origin":98,"position":1},"title":"Low-res","author":"Gil","date":"January 3, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Well, it looks like my New Year's resolution of posting every day is already shot. That's what I get for having a modicum of ambition. Amy wrote about our quiet New Year's Eve celebration over on her site: she cooked a nice meal, we watched Annie Hall & some South\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "literature"","block_context":{"text":"literature","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/literature"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=voyantpublishing&l=as2&o=1&a=0394720245","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":782,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/resolutions","url_meta":{"origin":98,"position":2},"title":"Resolutions","author":"Gil","date":"December 31, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm not sure what resolutions I can make for 2006. In the past year, I read more (and more deeply) than I ever have, experienced that revelation of love that culminated in popping the question to Amy, and did all sorts of charitable activity. I didn't write as much as\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1267,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/achievements","url_meta":{"origin":98,"position":3},"title":"Achievements","author":"Gil","date":"December 30, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Well, I'm still working on my New Year's resolutions, but it looks like I've already achieved two of my long-term goals in life: Outlive Saddam Hussein Get named Person of the Year by Time","rel":"","context":"With 1 comment","block_context":{"text":"With 1 comment","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/achievements#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3163,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/rip-donald-westlake","url_meta":{"origin":98,"position":4},"title":"R.I.P., Donald Westlake","author":"Gil","date":"January 1, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Donald Westlake died on New Year's Eve at the age of 75. My condolences to his wife and family. I read a bunch of Westlake's caper novels when I was a kid, and recently returned to the first one (which I took out of my local library, 25 years ago).\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":1846,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/show-some-resolve","url_meta":{"origin":98,"position":5},"title":"Show some resolve!","author":"Gil","date":"January 8, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Whoops! I was so busy getting the Jan\/Feb issue of my mag together that I almost missed my New Year's Resolution of making sure I post at least one item every day! Fortunately, I came across this neat writeup about companies that worked for\/with Nazi Germany. \"Enjoy\"! (And, yes, I\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":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98","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\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}