{"id":61,"date":"2003-09-06T17:12:09","date_gmt":"2003-09-06T21:12:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vmalt\/?p=61"},"modified":"2005-12-04T10:03:25","modified_gmt":"2005-12-04T15:03:25","slug":"hail-to-the-chief","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/hail-to-the-chief","title":{"rendered":"Hail to the Chief"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s been a busy week: a Labor Day drive down to Princeton to meet up with one of my best friends for lunch, a trip to Boston for a healthcare investor conference on Tuesday (where I stayed with another good friend in Worcester), a couple of late evenings in NYC (Thursday for a fiction reading by Adam Haslett<\/a>, and Friday for a reading of The Designated Mourner<\/em><\/a> by my buddy, John Castro<\/a>), and now a party to celebrate a friend’s elopement.<\/p>\n

There were a bunch of high points, including the moment of manic, mantic fire leaping from my pen as the idea for a novel struck me during lunch at PF Chang’s near Boston Common. More on that as it evolves.<\/p>\n

But the peak, at least physically, had to be when I got back to the Four Seasons hotel after lunch. Standing at the counter to check in was one of the tallest men I’d ever seen. His back was to me, but it was relatively clear to this detective that he was a basketball player (nearly 7 feet tall, black, and checking into the Four Seasons). So I pretended to have to rearrange things in my briefcase until he left the counter and I could see who he was.<\/p>\n

And that’s when I saw the face of the man alternately goofed on as “that big wooden Indian” and “that Easter Island statue-looking mo’fo'” by me and my friends for years. Yes, I was face-to-face (well, face-to-sternum, to be accurate) with Robert Parish, former center of the Boston Celtics. He was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame this weekend, so it made sense for him to come to Boston a few days early (the Hall is in Springfield, about 70 miles away).<\/p>\n

Which makes me think of how much I hated the Celtics in the 1980s, when they were always battling the Lakers in the NBA finals, and how much I grew to respect them, once they all got old and started retiring. I’m saving my long piece on that for another novel about mythology and death. You’ll see.<\/p>\n

Off to the elopement party. Wish the groom<\/a> good fortune.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s been a busy week: a Labor Day drive down to Princeton to meet up with one of my best friends for lunch, a trip to Boston for a healthcare investor conference on Tuesday (where I stayed with another good friend in Worcester), a couple of late evenings in NYC (Thursday for a fiction reading … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Hail to the Chief”<\/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-61","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-Z","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":258,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/notes-from-new-hampshire","url_meta":{"origin":61,"position":0},"title":"Notes from New Hampshire","author":"Gil","date":"June 19, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Hey, VM readers! Here's another non-Gil treat for you! My buddy Elayne is up at her farm-house in New Hampshire this summer, finishing up her book, and sent me a lengthy missive yesterday. She's a pretty funny story-teller, so I asked if it'd be okay to run this piece. I'm\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "literature"","block_context":{"text":"literature","link":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/literature"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1498,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/unrequired-reading-may-11-2007","url_meta":{"origin":61,"position":1},"title":"Unrequired Reading: May 11, 2007","author":"Gil","date":"May 11, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"So many links, so little time. Long-ass article on the design side of Apple. * * * There's a western country where they still sell cassette tapes? * * * Fake your way through the NBA playoffs. * * * Dan Drezner writes about outsourcing, and gets a lot of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Adventures in Gin"","block_context":{"text":"Adventures in Gin","link":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/adventures-in-gin"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2365,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/unrequired-reading-sept-5-2008","url_meta":{"origin":61,"position":2},"title":"Unrequired Reading: Sept. 5, 2008","author":"Gil","date":"September 5, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"No more Friday summer hours at my office! I'm almost too sad to post a passel of links! (for more, just click more!) NYTimes illustrator Christoph Niemann came up with a great idea for bathroom decor. * * * Of course, his decor is nowhere near as gorgeous as 1903\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Art"","block_context":{"text":"Art","link":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/art"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5423,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/unrequired-reading-july-9-2010","url_meta":{"origin":61,"position":3},"title":"Unrequired Reading: July 9, 2010","author":"Gil","date":"July 9, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Maybe next week's Unrequired Reading will be an hour-long special on ESPN, but for now, all you get is this silly-ass blog. Here's a neat essay by John Crowley about Herman Hesse, the Glass Bead Game, and the nature of competition. * * * Speaking of which: be a man.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Architecture"","block_context":{"text":"Architecture","link":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/architecture"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=virtualmemories-20&l=as2&o=1&a=B003TWZ86C","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1213,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/cat-cradle-spoon-etc","url_meta":{"origin":61,"position":4},"title":"Cat, cradle, spoon, etc.","author":"Gil","date":"November 18, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Yesterday at lunch, I read some more of Kaddish. The book doesn't focus too heavily on the writer's father -- I mean, it's not a Mitch Albom schmalzfest or anything -- but it does get me thinking a lot about Dad and what went through during his heart surgery in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Religion"","block_context":{"text":"Religion","link":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5015,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/unrequired-reading-feb-19-2010","url_meta":{"origin":61,"position":5},"title":"Unrequired Reading: Feb. 19, 2010","author":"Gil","date":"February 19, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Llllllllllllllet's get ready for Unrequired Reading! I inadvertently copied this post, because my research assistants didn't label it properly. It's your fault for expecting so much of me. * * * Of course, the Nazi baseball team was from Boston. * * * Jughead is a punk rocker! * *\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Architecture"","block_context":{"text":"Architecture","link":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/architecture"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61","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\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}