Llllllllllllllet’s get ready for Unrequired Reading!<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I inadvertently copied this post<\/a>, because my research assistants didn’t label it properly. It’s your fault for expecting so much of me.<\/p>\n * * *<\/p>\n Of course, the Nazi baseball team was from Boston<\/a>.<\/p>\n * * *<\/p>\n Jughead is a punk rocker<\/a>!<\/p>\n * * *<\/p>\n Barbie: now soulless-er<\/a>!<\/p>\n * * *<\/p>\n Ms. Ben-Day: Queen of Lichtenstein<\/a>!<\/p>\n * * *<\/p>\n I haven’t read the big Roger Ebert profile in Esquire<\/a> yet, nor Ebert’s follow-up<\/a>, but everyone says they’re both fantastic.<\/p>\n * * *<\/p>\n I’ve also never seen Death Wish, but this is a pretty funny essay discussing the similarities between modernist architects and Bronson’s vigilante<\/a>.<\/p>\n * * *<\/p>\n Lye to me<\/a>.<\/p>\n * * *<\/p>\n Last week, I wrote about how I (we?) can’t read Salinger without looking for clues<\/a> to his decision to go into seclusion. This week, I’m reading a collection of essays by David Foster Wallace, and it’s really difficult to read his stuff \u00e2\u20ac\u201d even from 1994 or thereabouts \u00e2\u20ac\u201d without looking for clues to his 2008 suicide. Good thing David Gates wrote about this<\/a> after DFW’s demise in 2008.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Llllllllllllllet’s get ready for Unrequired Reading!<\/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":[25,632,4,32],"tags":[323,120,971,285,972],"class_list":["post-5015","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-architecture","category-baseball","category-literature","category-sports","tag-david-foster-wallace","tag-david-gates","tag-jack-shafer","tag-roger-ebert","tag-roy-lichtenstein"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4C7K-1iT","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4735,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/unrequired-reading-dec-18-2009","url_meta":{"origin":5015,"position":0},"title":"Unrequired Reading: Dec. 18, 2009","author":"Gil","date":"December 18, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"It's been a tough couple of weeks for me, trying to get the year-end ish of my magazine together, but it's almost all wrapped up now! Congratulate me! And enjoy this week's dose of Unrequired Reading. Just click \"more\"! What's John Madden up to nowadays? * * * Matt Zoller-Seitz\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "baseball"","block_context":{"text":"baseball","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/sports\/baseball"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4124,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/unrequired-reading-june-26-2009","url_meta":{"origin":5015,"position":1},"title":"Unrequired Reading: June 26, 2009","author":"Gil","date":"June 26, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"No doubt about it: these links suck. Just click \"more\"! I'm sorry, Kathryn Bigelow. You made Strange Days. Hence, you suck. * * * I'm sorry, Huckabees. You still suck, especially as a followup to Three Kings. * * * Painter of light? You suck as a businessman and as\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":[]},{"id":3425,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/unrequired-reading-feb-13-2009","url_meta":{"origin":5015,"position":2},"title":"Unrequired Reading: Feb. 13, 2009","author":"Gil","date":"February 13, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"It's an extra-spooky, hockey-mask-wearing Friday the 13th edition of Unrequired Reading! Boo! The A.V. Club offers back-to-back Random Roles interviews with two VM faves: Illeana Douglas and Bruce Campbell! * * * Roger Ebert contemplates the long-term view, as in that Flaming Lips lyric, \"Do you realize that everyone you\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Art"","block_context":{"text":"Art","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/art"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4415,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/unrequired-reading-aug-28-2009","url_meta":{"origin":5015,"position":3},"title":"Unrequired Reading: Aug. 28, 2009","author":"Gil","date":"August 28, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"It's been a busy week, so cut my links some slack, okay? And just click \"more\"! Long Live the King. * * * Biography Bookshop or thousand-dollar purse: Which Bleecker Street do you want? * * * For those of you scoring at home. * * * I know you've\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":3939,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/unrequired-reading-may-15-2009","url_meta":{"origin":5015,"position":4},"title":"Unrequired Reading: May 15, 2009","author":"Gil","date":"May 15, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Oh, it's on. Just click \"more\"! American Idol's in decline, evidently, but that's a relative term. \"In the 2003-4 season, the first in which 'Idol' was the top-rated prime-time series, its lead over the second place show was about 7 percent. That margin has grown every year since and this\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":[]},{"id":5796,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/unrequired-reading-dec-10-2010","url_meta":{"origin":5015,"position":5},"title":"Unrequired Reading: Dec. 10, 2010","author":"Gil","date":"December 10, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Everybody ready for the weekend? I know I am was, but then I got this lousy headcold. Grr! Now enjoy some links! So, um, Phil Collins has world's largest private collection of Alamo memorabilia? * * * I guess this means Gutfest '89 never took place, either. (Why, yes, my\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Fashion"","block_context":{"text":"Fashion","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/fashion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5015","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=5015"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5015\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5017,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5015\/revisions\/5017"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}