Happy New Year’s Eve, dear readers! Welcome to the final installment of Unrequired Reading! That’s right! Not a dream! Not a hoax! Not an imaginary story! This feature is O-V-E-R!<\/p>\n
For a while now<\/a>, I felt like I’ve been battling against the tide of instant\/mini-blogging by posting a weekly collection of links I enjoyed and wanted to share. The thing is, most of the items I put on Unrequired Reading are recycled from my twitter feed or my facebook page, so it hasn’t made much sense to collect them here, except to allow me to say, “I posted something!”<\/p>\n So, it’s the end of the Unrequired Reading era. I’m planning to use this blog for longer writing, travelogues and the like. If you’re interested in keeping up with those links I posted to Unrequired Reading, then follow my twitter feed: twitter.com\/groth18<\/a>.<\/p>\n Twitter also auto-tweets links to my new blog posts, but\u00c2\u00a0adding my RSS feed<\/a> to your reader will clue you in to any long-form posts I write, as well as my\u00c2\u00a0What It Is<\/em> posts (the necessity of which I’m also reassessing). I really hope to do some longer writing next year, but I make no promises. I’m much more intent on getting a regular podcast series off the ground.<\/p>\n (I know, I know: podcasts are\u00c2\u00a0even more passe than short-form link-blogging, but I’ve wanted want to work in that form for a while now, and I think I have a recurring segment that’ll make it something more engaging than The Gil Roth Show.)<\/p>\n If you want to keep up with my pictures, check out my flickr posts here<\/a> or subscribe via RSS<\/a>.<\/p>\n In other news, I turn 40 in less than 2 weeks, so if you want to buy me something nice, you can check out my wish list on Amazon<\/a>.<\/p>\n And now, on with the show! Have a happy new year, dear readers!<\/p>\n You could argue that this is all just a lot of hot air<\/a>.<\/p>\n * * *<\/p>\n Bourgeois Surrender\u00c2\u00a0knows how I feel<\/a>, I bet.<\/p>\n * * *<\/p>\n The indomitable blackness of Teena Marie<\/a>.<\/p>\n * * *<\/p>\n Leo Tolstoy: man of our time, 100 years later<\/a>.<\/p>\n * * *<\/p>\n If I lose my job in the next year, I promise that I will sink my money into launching an artisanal gin<\/a>.<\/p>\n * * *<\/p>\n Anton Corbijn’s thriller-of-stillness, The American, came out on DVD this week. You should check out some of his photography<\/a>! (I saw the movie in the theater and enjoyed it. Not mind-blowingly great, but beautiful to watch. Plus, it’s Clooney.)<\/p>\n * * *<\/p>\n 30 Rock<\/em> over Studio 60<\/em>: make with the laugh-laugh<\/a>!<\/p>\n * * *<\/p>\n Unrequired Reading regular Witold Rybczynski on architects coming up short<\/a>.<\/p>\n * * *<\/p>\n The Frank pinball machine<\/a>: Manhog approved!<\/p>\n * * *<\/p>\n Not quite as incongruous\/inappropriate as using Blister in the Sun as theme music for a Wendy’s ad, but here are Angels at the Limelight<\/a>.<\/p>\n * * *<\/p>\n Caravaggio . . . in HD<\/a>!!!<\/p>\n * * *<\/p>\n Boy, I’d love to catch this movie<\/a>.<\/p>\n * * *<\/p>\n Maybe I can sell this blog to China<\/a>.<\/p>\n * * *<\/p>\n John Lanchester on the immense, zietgeisty complexity of Rupert Murdoch<\/a>.<\/p>\n * * *<\/p>\n You can keep the 3-D world. I’m sticking with Monocle<\/a>.<\/p>\n * * *<\/p>\n Let’s close out with one of my favorite Unrequired Reading regulars, Christoph Niemann: cookie dough and the world<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Happy New Year’s Eve, dear readers! Welcome to the final installment of Unrequired Reading! That’s right! Not a dream! Not a hoax! Not an imaginary story! This feature is O-V-E-R! For a while now, I felt like I’ve been battling against the tide of instant\/mini-blogging by posting a weekly collection of links I enjoyed and … <\/p>\n