{"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_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_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},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-61","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"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":874,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/lunch-of-the-gods","url_meta":{"origin":61,"position":1},"title":"Lunch of the gods","author":"Gil","date":"March 17, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"You should score yourself an Ambrosiaburger at Nepenthe someday.","rel":"","context":"In "California"","block_context":{"text":"California","link":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/travel\/california"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":16965,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/episode-599-mirana-comstock","url_meta":{"origin":61,"position":2},"title":"Episode 599 – Mirana Comstock","author":"Gil","date":"August 6, 2024","format":"audio","excerpt":"Virtual Memories Show 599: Mirana Comstock \"This is the first book in 70 years that can conjure up that era, and there will never ben another book that can, because everyone connected with that era is gone.\" This one's all about legacies: familial, literary, cultural & institutional! Mirana Comstock joins\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Art"","block_context":{"text":"Art","link":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/art"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/comstockcomp.jpg?fit=1200%2C538&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/comstockcomp.jpg?fit=1200%2C538&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/comstockcomp.jpg?fit=1200%2C538&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/comstockcomp.jpg?fit=1200%2C538&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/comstockcomp.jpg?fit=1200%2C538&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":998,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/lunch-break","url_meta":{"origin":61,"position":3},"title":"Lunch break!","author":"Gil","date":"June 22, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Here's a neat post at the Cato Institute's blog-group, about the scandals of former (and now late) Irish PM Charles Haughey: [W]as Ireland better off with a corrupt prime minister who kick-started economic growth than it would have been with an honest socialist who kept Ireland in poverty? Back to\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1323,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/revenge-of-schooly-d","url_meta":{"origin":61,"position":4},"title":"Revenge of Schoolly D","author":"Gil","date":"January 31, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"A guerrilla promo for Aqua Teen Hunger Force brings Boston to a halt. (Of course, this is a hoax story since it implies that there's a traffic condition in Boston that's dissimilar to a halt.)","rel":"","context":"In "Urban issues"","block_context":{"text":"Urban issues","link":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/urban-issues"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1503,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/just-half-ass-it","url_meta":{"origin":61,"position":5},"title":"Just Half-Ass It","author":"Gil","date":"May 13, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"I was sitting in Boston's South Station for an hour or so last week, and I found myself\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 transfixed by Reebok's new ad Run Easy campaign. Huge banners hung above the doors of the train station, bearing slogans that I found a little perplexing: Run to the beat of your\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Big Business"","block_context":{"text":"Big Business","link":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/big-business"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_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}]}}