{"id":4572,"date":"2009-10-23T06:12:27","date_gmt":"2009-10-23T10:12:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/?p=4572"},"modified":"2009-10-23T06:17:00","modified_gmt":"2009-10-23T10:17:00","slug":"unrequired-reading-oct-23-2009","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/unrequired-reading-oct-23-2009","title":{"rendered":"Unrequired Reading: Oct. 23, 2009"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last night, I had dinner with pals in Brooklyn and walked in the door at 1:15 a.m. (at least 40 minutes of my lateness was due to a two-car collision in the Lincoln Tunnel and two separate construction zones near the Meadowlands that turned magically turned three lanes of Rt. 3 into one). This morning, I drive down to suburban Philadelphia to deliver a flatscreen TV to the winner of a raffle at my annual conference. Because my publisher doesn’t want it to get damaged in shipping.<\/p>\n

So while you read these links, I’ll be cruising along the highway, checking out the foliage, trying to stay awake, and wondering how this ever became part of my job description.<\/p>\n

Oh, just click “more”!<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Via The Awl<\/a>, here’s a story the most forbidding place in the world<\/a>. With mind-blowing photos<\/a>!<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

Will no one think of the penthouses<\/a>?!<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

A new Blowhard writes about Literary Signaling<\/a>. (That’s why I keep this list of every durned book I’ve finished since 1989<\/a>: so’s you can see the “highs” and the “lows”. But not the comic books, or the list would go on forever.)<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

How exactly do you write a revisionist take on Thucydides<\/a> and avoid the Melian dialogues and Pericles’ funeral oration? My pal Homayoon didn’t cover the Melian dialogues in his graduate thesis at St. John’s and he still ended up getting into an argument about it during his oral defense.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

My new pad? It’s the bomb! (shelter)<\/a><\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

So that’s<\/em> what happened to Mr. X<\/a>!<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

I know a lot of people think Andy Warhol’s work was bullshit, but I think he had a neutron-bomb effect on how art (and I don’t just mean “fine” art) is perceived. This piece on the question of authenticating “An Andy Warhol”<\/a> does a great job of exploring his impact.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

Ohpleasepleaseplease<\/a>!<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

Peter Paul Rubens may have been a good graphic designer<\/a>, but I’m still mad that Pee-Wee Herman postponed his stage show in LA.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

I haven’t watched these yet, but it’s Philip Roth interviewed by Tina Brown<\/a>, so bam!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last night, I had dinner with pals in Brooklyn and walked in the door at 1:15 a.m. (at least 40 minutes of my lateness was due to a two-car collision in the Lincoln Tunnel and two separate construction zones near the Meadowlands that turned magically turned three lanes of Rt. 3 into one). This morning, … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Unrequired Reading: Oct. 23, 2009”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","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":[25,22,46,4,17,5,19],"tags":[334,67,879,609,878],"class_list":["post-4572","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-architecture","category-art","category-design","category-literature","category-politics-explicit","category-travel","category-urban-issues","tag-andy-warhol","tag-judy-greer","tag-peter-paul-rubens","tag-philip-roth","tag-thucydides"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4C7K-1bK","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3226,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/monday-morning-montaigne-on-okay-i-didnt-finish-this-one","url_meta":{"origin":4572,"position":0},"title":"Monday Morning Montaigne: On okay I didn’t finish this one","author":"Gil","date":"January 12, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"This week's Montaigne essay, On some verses of Virgil (pp. 774-831), turned out to be really good. However, I didn't have time to write about it, so I'm going to reread it this week and try to put something together for you by next Monday. Suffice to say, my worries\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Monday Morning Montaigne"","block_context":{"text":"Monday Morning Montaigne","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/monday-morning-montaigne"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":843,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/grouse","url_meta":{"origin":4572,"position":1},"title":"Grouse!","author":"Gil","date":"February 14, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Because I wasn't the guy who got shot, I think the Cheney hunting accident is pretty funny. Maybe not as funny as Bobby Knight plugging a buddy while grouse hunting in 1999, nor beating up his son on another hunting trip (broken nose, dislocated shoulder), but still pretty good. What\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Politics (explicit)"","block_context":{"text":"Politics (explicit)","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/politics-explicit"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3366,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/mauled","url_meta":{"origin":4572,"position":2},"title":"Mauled","author":"Gil","date":"February 5, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"There are several awesome things about this NYTimes article about shopping malls: it's written in the second person; it turned me on to deadmalls.com; it is a near-parody of the Times' legendary condescension toward \"flyover\" country, but not near enough; it is completely blind to the ways in which Manhattan\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "suburbs"","block_context":{"text":"suburbs","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/suburbs"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5872,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/who-am-i-10","url_meta":{"origin":4572,"position":3},"title":"Who Am I?","author":"Gil","date":"January 11, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm the guy who used to think about quitting his job at 40 and taking a year off to focus on writing. Now that I've turned 40, I'm just gonna take the day off and go to NYC to spend some time with the various Rembrandts at the Met.","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2033,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/its-the-quiet-ones-you-need-to-worry-about","url_meta":{"origin":4572,"position":4},"title":"It’s the quiet ones you need to worry about","author":"Gil","date":"May 2, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I've always loved Marvin Harrison for great performances and his lack of showboating, but how awesome would it be if he turned out to be the most badass mo'fo' in the NFL? Amy thinks it'd be like that SNL skit about Neil Diamond.","rel":"","context":"In "Football"","block_context":{"text":"Football","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/sports\/football"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1497,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/quote-of-the-day","url_meta":{"origin":4572,"position":5},"title":"Quote of the Day","author":"Gil","date":"May 8, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"From a BusinessWeek interview with Nobel Prize-winning economist Robert Mundell: Q: Why are the Chinese such huge savers? A: The large savings comes about through population policy. Historically, Chinese had children as durable goods to provide for retirement. When the one-child policy was introduced, it cut off this form of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Big Business"","block_context":{"text":"Big Business","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/big-business"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4572","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=4572"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4572\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4575,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4572\/revisions\/4575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}