{"id":5049,"date":"2010-02-26T04:00:20","date_gmt":"2010-02-26T09:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/?p=5049"},"modified":"2010-02-25T20:20:08","modified_gmt":"2010-02-26T01:20:08","slug":"unrequired-reading-feb-26-2010","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/unrequired-reading-feb-26-2010","title":{"rendered":"Unrequired Reading: Feb. 26, 2010"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s a snowbound dose of Unrequired Reading! Click somewhere to continue!<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->Ron Rosenbaum gets back in his groove with a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.slate.com\/id\/2245895\/pagenum\/all\/\" target=\"_blank\">paean to the <em>New York Post<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>* * *<\/p>\n<p>Clyde &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2010\/02\/25\/garden\/25frazier.html\" target=\"_blank\">fell hard for a house on hilly terrain with four tentacle-like columns that reminded him of a space ship.<\/a>&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>* * *<\/p>\n<p>Back in college, my pal Mark &amp; I taught a January-term class called <em>Soft Hearts, Hard Liquor,<\/em> focusing on great drinkers who wrote (as opposed to great writers who drank). Wish we had <a href=\"http:\/\/www.life.com\/image\/50698313\/in-gallery\/38742\/famous-literary-drunks--addicts\" target=\"_blank\">this slideshow<\/a> for the first class.<\/p>\n<p>* * *<\/p>\n<p>Alex Balk teaches us <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theawl.com\/2010\/02\/how-to-be-happy\" target=\"_blank\">how to be happy<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>* * *<\/p>\n<p>Let&#8217;s keep <a href=\"http:\/\/www.avclub.com\/articles\/synecdoche-new-york%2C38324\/\" target=\"_blank\">trying to understand Synecdoche, NY<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>* * *<\/p>\n<p>And let&#8217;s keep trying to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.newgeography.com\/content\/001431-what-answer-suburban-question\" target=\"_blank\">understand the suburbs without making boring generalizations<\/a>!<\/p>\n<p>* * *<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.gq.com\/style\/blogs\/the-gq-eye\/2010\/02\/tigers-other-problem.html\" target=\"_blank\">For a crappy dresser<\/a>, Tiger sure got a lot of action.<\/p>\n<p>* * *<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.monocle.com\/monocolumn\/2010\/02\/25\/the-annual-book-sale-and-crimes-against-literature\/\" target=\"_blank\">A crime (novel) wave sweeps Stockholm<\/a>! (which was an awesome city; I&#8217;d love to go back)<\/p>\n<p>* * *<\/p>\n<p>Dr. Strange: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.comicsreporter.com\/index.php\/index\/21_things_i_like_about_dr_strange\" target=\"_blank\">All kinds of awesome<\/a>. (And with an oriental sidekick, to boot!)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s a snowbound dose of Unrequired Reading! Click somewhere to continue!<\/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":[34,26,4,21],"tags":[827,977,571,86,69],"class_list":["post-5049","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adventures-in-gin","category-comics","category-literature","category-sweden","tag-alex-balk","tag-clyde-frazier","tag-dr-strange","tag-ron-rosenbaum","tag-tiger-woods"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4C7K-1jr","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3425,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/unrequired-reading-feb-13-2009","url_meta":{"origin":5049,"position":0},"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 &quot;Art&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Art","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/art"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2758,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/unrequired-reading-oct-31-2008","url_meta":{"origin":5049,"position":1},"title":"Unrequired Reading: Oct. 31, 2008","author":"Gil","date":"October 31, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Slappy Halloween! Time for some oddball links! Boomshakalaka! NBA Jam was one of the greatest video games of all time. * * * Ron Rosenbaum hated Dr. Atomic. To be fair, I hear he also hated Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along-Blog. * * * He's the got the biggest bombs of them\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"AC\/DC\"","block_context":{"text":"AC\/DC","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/tag\/acdc"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1133,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/unrequired-reading-4","url_meta":{"origin":5049,"position":2},"title":"Unrequired Reading","author":"Gil","date":"October 6, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"I promised some Unrequired Reading for a Friday morning, so here it is: Jane Galt has a sad post about the economic destruction of Zimbabwae. There are some \"interesting\" comments after the post. * * * Via Bookslut, a collection of covers from old Penguin and Pelican books. * *\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;basketball&quot;","block_context":{"text":"basketball","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/sports\/basketball"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5212,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/unrequired-reading-april-16-2010","url_meta":{"origin":5049,"position":3},"title":"Unrequired Reading: April 16, 2010","author":"Gil","date":"April 16, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Your Unrequired Reading anthologist has been laid low by a sinus infection this week, dear readers, but the amoxicillin, methylprednisolone and fluticasone propionate have kicked in. So here's a week's worth of oddball links for you! Volcanoriffic! * * * Gah! Undermall! (I'm still sad that Bergen Mall did away\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Adventures in Gin&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Adventures in Gin","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/adventures-in-gin"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4361,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/unrequired-reading-aug-21-2009","url_meta":{"origin":5049,"position":4},"title":"Unrequired Reading: Aug. 21, 2009","author":"Gil","date":"August 21, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"What links lurk? Just click \"more\"! Frank Wilson on sin: \"A whiskey too many or an inappropriate tumble in the hay reveal only that one is human. Unkindness reveals that one has fallen short of the human.\" * * * Best music endorsement ever. * * * Whistling through the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Comic books &amp; strips&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Comic books &amp; strips","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/literature\/comics"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=virtualmemories-20&l=as2&o=1&a=1594743347","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3069,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/unrequired-reading-dec-19-2008","url_meta":{"origin":5049,"position":5},"title":"Unrequired Reading: Dec. 19, 2008","author":"Gil","date":"December 19, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I've been working pretty hard this week at laying out our annual directory. It's both tedious and exacting, which is a sucky combination. But you don't want to read about that; you want goofy links! So just click \"more\"! I'm disappointed that NJ isn't in the mix. * * *\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Architecture&quot;","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\/5049","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=5049"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5049\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5052,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5049\/revisions\/5052"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5049"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5049"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5049"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}