{"id":1415,"date":"2007-03-30T05:00:09","date_gmt":"2007-03-30T10:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/unrequired-reading-mar-30-2007\/"},"modified":"2007-03-30T13:51:13","modified_gmt":"2007-03-30T18:51:13","slug":"unrequired-reading-mar-30-2007","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/unrequired-reading-mar-30-2007","title":{"rendered":"Unrequired Reading: Mar. 30, 2007"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yeah, yeah: make with the links.<\/p>\n

I’ve been reading a lot about Afghanistan’s history and how the country ended up in such bad shape. Here’s a piece from Spiegel on the possibilities of legalizing the country’s opium trade<\/a>.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

I think Daniel Gross exaggerates the “CDs are dead” argument so he can make his counterargument that they’re still a commercially viable medium<\/a>. Still, he brings up some good points about their market.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

Paul Di Filippo has more great ideas than he has time to write about, so take one<\/a>!<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

I wish anything I did — besides my approach to dating in college — could be described as “brutalist”<\/a>.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

Mad Mix gets more than he bargained for<\/a> from The Wicker Man<\/em> (the original version, natch).<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

Some rappers have terrible names. Here are 25 of them.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yeah, yeah: make with the links.<\/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":[25,27,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1415","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-architecture","category-big-business","category-literature"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4C7K-mP","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1635,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/unrequired-reading-aug-24-2007","url_meta":{"origin":1415,"position":0},"title":"Unrequired Reading: Aug. 24, 2007","author":"Gil","date":"August 24, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"The links just keep coming, dear readers! Whither the skyscraper? * * * Wither the skyscraper! * * * When is a rescue not a rescue? When Goldman Sachs does it! * * * Go, underworld! * * * An added benefit of NetFlix: avoiding snotty video-store clerks. * *\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Architecture"","block_context":{"text":"Architecture","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/architecture"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4028,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/unrequired-reading-june-5-2009","url_meta":{"origin":1415,"position":1},"title":"Unrequired Reading: June 5, 2009","author":"Gil","date":"June 5, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Now, where did I leave those links? Oh, yeah! Right under the \"more\" link! I can't think of a good way to write about this post, but I've been saving it for nearly a month, so here it is. * * * This shit always happens in Harlem. * *\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Architecture"","block_context":{"text":"Architecture","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/architecture"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5720,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/unrequired-reading-nov-5-2010","url_meta":{"origin":1415,"position":2},"title":"Unrequired Reading: Nov. 5, 2010","author":"Gil","date":"November 5, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Let's kick off with a whole bunch of articles and posts about books and bookstores! (then back to the other craziness for which I'm renowned) Do today's book editors suck? Pretty much, yeah. Is \"the book\" in crisis? I just re-re-re-read a 3,000-year-old poem of 15,000+ lines, so I'm not\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Architecture"","block_context":{"text":"Architecture","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/architecture"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1195,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/yeah-brock-you-hit-him-so-hard-he-has-an-afro-now","url_meta":{"origin":1415,"position":3},"title":"Yeah, Brock! You hit him so hard he has an afro now!","author":"Gil","date":"November 7, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Official VM buddy Mitch Prothero sent over a news item about how the Washington Wizards' two centers got into a brawl last week. He was amazed that Brendan \"Brenda\" Haywood showed some fire, body-slamming Etan Thomas. I, on the other hand, was amazed that Haywood \"[tore] out at least two\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "basketball"","block_context":{"text":"basketball","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/sports\/basketball"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":650,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/hell-or-high-water-my-ass","url_meta":{"origin":1415,"position":4},"title":"Hell or high water, my ass","author":"Gil","date":"September 15, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"The President just delivered his address about the rebuilding of New Orleans and the gulf coast communities blow'd up by Katrina. He spoke from Jackson Square, which is about 400 feet away from where the official VM fiancee and I plan to get hitched next March.Yeah, I'm using the present\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4390,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/what-it-is-82409","url_meta":{"origin":1415,"position":5},"title":"What It Is: 8\/24\/09","author":"Gil","date":"August 24, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"What I'm reading: Moby Dick and The Jew of New York. What I'm listening to: The Lexicon of Love, by ABC, and Give Up, by The Postal Service. What I'm watching: Inglourious Basterds at a 1:30 p.m. matinee on opening day. I enjoyed the heck out of it, but it\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Adventures in Rufus and\/or Otis"","block_context":{"text":"Adventures in Rufus and\/or Otis","link":"http:\/\/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=0199535728","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1415","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=1415"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1415\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}