{"id":1961,"date":"2008-03-21T05:59:29","date_gmt":"2008-03-21T09:59:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/unrequired-reading-mar-21-2008\/"},"modified":"2008-03-21T09:04:06","modified_gmt":"2008-03-21T13:04:06","slug":"unrequired-reading-mar-21-2008","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/unrequired-reading-mar-21-2008","title":{"rendered":"Unrequired Reading: Mar. 21, 2008"},"content":{"rendered":"

Happy Good Friday to my Christian readers! To all other readers, Happy Everybody’s Working for the Weekend day!<\/p>\n

Now let’s make with some linkage!<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I tip pretty well at Dunkin Donuts, but it’d take a lot of orange mocha frappuccinos to add up to $105 million in tips at Starbucks<\/a>?<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

I used to trot out Carly Hennessy<\/a> as an example of how the recording industry burns through money, but she only ranks as #15 on Blender’s list of the 20 Biggest Record Company Screw-Ups of All Time<\/a>. (For the record, I felt that the giant deals given to REM, Aerosmith and Janet Jackson in the late ’90s were actually worse for the biz; Blender ranks the REM deal at #13).<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

Pop charts:<\/a> I’m partial to the Venn diagram of the Blur song, but that’s just me.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

While Borders was busy using big-box stores to demolish smaller competitors, the company got walloped by the Internet and reduced margins on book sales. Now it’s staring at bankruptcy, and some analysts think Barnes & Noble should buy it up<\/a>.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

I haven’t given you a creepy post from BLDG BLOG in a while, so here’s one on submarines in the Arctic<\/a>.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

And speaking of NYTimes<\/em> and Cold War phenomena, Daniel Drezner corrects the paper’s editors on their use of the word “deterrence.”<\/a><\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

This seems like an awful lot of work<\/a> — and a serious violation of Asimov’s 3 Laws — to get off of this mortal coil.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Happy Good Friday to my Christian readers! To all other readers, Happy Everybody’s Working for the Weekend day! Now let’s make with some linkage!<\/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":[27,46,4,18,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-big-business","category-design","category-literature","category-politics-implicit","category-religion"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4C7K-vD","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2237,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/unrequired-reading-aug-15-2008","url_meta":{"origin":1961,"position":0},"title":"Unrequired Reading: Aug. 15, 2008","author":"Gil","date":"August 15, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"It's time for an all-architecture edition of Unrequired Reading! So if you don't care about this stuff, go visit the Unrequired Reading archives instead! Frank Gehry tries to justify his work. * * * Rem Koolhaas tries to justify his work. * * * Is Zaha Hadid's work past the\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":778,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/chinese-fire-drill","url_meta":{"origin":1961,"position":1},"title":"Chinese Fire Drill","author":"Gil","date":"December 28, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"I like some of Rem Koolhaas' designs. And I enjoyed a bunch of Delirious New York. That said, I don't believe there's any way that his CCTV building in Beijing will actually stand.","rel":"","context":"In "Urban issues"","block_context":{"text":"Urban issues","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/urban-issues"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3404,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/missed-by-thatmuch","url_meta":{"origin":1961,"position":2},"title":"Missed by . . . thatmuch","author":"Gil","date":"February 9, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"I actually meant \"there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no goddamn way the building next to the CCTV building is going to stand up.\" Of course I'm hoping there are no fatalities from the fire, but I still believe that kooky main CCTV building is going to tip over in a stiff wind.","rel":"","context":"In "Architecture"","block_context":{"text":"Architecture","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/architecture"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/koolhaas_beijing_tvcc_fire.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":227,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/delirious-seattle","url_meta":{"origin":1961,"position":3},"title":"Delirious Seattle","author":"Gil","date":"May 19, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"The new public library building in Seattle just opened. Designed by Rem Koolhaas, it's drawn rave reviews, including this one from Herbert Muschamp at the NYTimes (you have to be registered to read it, I tihnk). It includes the priceless line:\"[W]hat kind of adult would deprive a child of the\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2110,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/towering-folly","url_meta":{"origin":1961,"position":4},"title":"Towering! Folly?","author":"Gil","date":"June 22, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"A few weeks ago, the NYTimes published a magazine supplement about architecture or something. It included this meandering ramble about building cities that have no history. Written by the paper's starchitecture critic, Nicholas Ouroussoff, it glowingly describes the miraculous super-projects to be designed by Rem Koolhaas, Zaha Hadid, Steven Holl\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Architecture"","block_context":{"text":"Architecture","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/architecture"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=virtualmemories-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0452273331","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1441,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/lifes-rich-pageant","url_meta":{"origin":1961,"position":5},"title":"Life’s Rich Pageant","author":"Gil","date":"April 9, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Design Observer has a neat article about Rem Koolhaas and his CCTV building in Beijing. I'm on record -- as much as this blog serves as record -- as saying that there's no goddamn way that building is going to stand up. But evidently it's at 14 stories and rising.\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":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1961","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=1961"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1961\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}