{"id":1446,"date":"2007-04-13T05:00:11","date_gmt":"2007-04-13T10:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/unrequired-reading-apr-13-2007\/"},"modified":"2007-04-13T05:01:04","modified_gmt":"2007-04-13T10:01:04","slug":"unrequired-reading-apr-13-2007","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/unrequired-reading-apr-13-2007","title":{"rendered":"Unrequired Reading: Apr. 13, 2007"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s my weekly round up links I didn&#8217;t have the time or inclination to write about!<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.computerworld.com\/action\/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&amp;articleId=9012345\" target=\"_blank\">21 biggest high-tech flops<\/a>!<\/p>\n<p>* * *<\/p>\n<p>Heroin: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.baraskit.se\/random\/archive\/8\/pancake_2.html\" target=\"_blank\">a gateway to pancakes<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>* * *<\/p>\n<p>What makes &#8220;literary fiction&#8221; better than &#8220;regular ol&#8217; novels&#8221;? Michael Blowhard opines on the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.2blowhards.com\/archives\/2007\/04\/michael_blowhar_3.html\" target=\"_blank\">misconceptions of literary reputation<\/a>. (It&#8217;s lengthy, but worth it.)<\/p>\n<p>* * *<\/p>\n<p>Speaking of which, why does everyone <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wired.com\/culture\/culturereviews\/news\/2007\/04\/scifighetto_0412\" target=\"_blank\">avoid the label of &#8220;Sci-Fi&#8221;<\/a>?<\/p>\n<p>* * *<\/p>\n<p>Kate and Pete: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.spiked-online.com\/index.php?\/site\/article\/3080\/\" target=\"_blank\">Britain&#8217;s new first couple<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s my weekly round up links I didn&#8217;t have the time or inclination to write about!<\/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-1446","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-nk","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":963,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/market-down","url_meta":{"origin":1446,"position":0},"title":"Market Down","author":"Gil","date":"May 23, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Rachel Donadio at the NYTimes has an article about why literary fiction sucks. Okay, it's not really about why literary fiction sucks; it's really about why the market for literary fiction sucks. It has the dumbest concluding paragraph I've read in a while (soon to be topped by the conclusion\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;literature&quot;","block_context":{"text":"literature","link":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/literature"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":225,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/literary-production-numbers","url_meta":{"origin":1446,"position":1},"title":"Literary Production Numbers","author":"Gil","date":"May 24, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"British literary critic James Wood reviews The Oxford English Literary History, Vol. XII: 1960-2000: The Last of England?, and sharpens his knives:Mind you, Stevenson's three lines on A House for Mr Biswas make one glad that the rules [of the Oxford guide regarding what constitutes an \"English\" writer] allowed him\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;literature&quot;","block_context":{"text":"literature","link":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/literature"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1930,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/this-and-that","url_meta":{"origin":1446,"position":2},"title":"This and that","author":"Gil","date":"March 16, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"While finishing Love & Sleep, the second novel in John Crowley's \u00c3\u2020gypt cycle, this week, I came across the word, \"rufous.\" I checked with my dog Rufus to see if he knew what it meant, but he was as clueless as I was. Probably moreso, since he's just a dog\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Adventures in Rufus and\/or Otis&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Adventures in Rufus and\/or Otis","link":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/adventures-in-rufus-and-or-otis"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=virtualmemories-20&l=as2&o=1&a=1590200152","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1994,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/stop-trying-to-be-literary","url_meta":{"origin":1446,"position":3},"title":"STOP TRYING TO BE LITERARY!","author":"Gil","date":"April 8, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"This article in New York on the grotesquerie that is the New York Knicks is pretty entertaining. It's got some great stories about the paranoia and dysfunctional environment of a team I used to follow. Unfortunately, I almost missed the good stuff because I was tempted to throw the magazine\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;basketball&quot;","block_context":{"text":"basketball","link":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/sports\/basketball"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6905,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/podcast-sound-before-story","url_meta":{"origin":1446,"position":4},"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 &quot;literature&quot;","block_context":{"text":"literature","link":"https:\/\/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&ssl=1&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&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/8523402458_ede1142ce6_k.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/8523402458_ede1142ce6_k.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/8523402458_ede1142ce6_k.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":514,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/to-the-editor","url_meta":{"origin":1446,"position":5},"title":"To the editor","author":"Gil","date":"March 7, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"On March 7, the New York Times published an article entitled, \"Literary Novelists Address 9\/11, Finally\", on the occasion of several new novels about the attacks and their aftermath.Unfortunately, your writer seems not to have researched this matter well enough. In September 2003, I published Paul West's novel, \"The Immensity\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;literature&quot;","block_context":{"text":"literature","link":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/literature"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1446"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1446\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}