{"id":1238,"date":"2006-12-08T07:21:38","date_gmt":"2006-12-08T12:21:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/unrequired-reading-dec-8-2006\/"},"modified":"2006-12-08T07:21:38","modified_gmt":"2006-12-08T12:21:38","slug":"unrequired-reading-dec-8-2006","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/unrequired-reading-dec-8-2006","title":{"rendered":"Unrequired Reading: Dec. 8, 2006"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sorry for the paucity of posts this week, dear readers. I’ve been pretty burned out from work. Plus, we spent last night picking up my wife’s new Mini Cooper S<\/a>, which has her pretty excited. Pix to follow this weekend.
\nYour Unrequred Reading is carefully hidden away under that “more” link!<\/p>\n

I always thought Cate Blanchett was from another planet, but now it looks like she’s from the same place<\/a> Milla Jovovich came from in The Fifth Element<\/a>.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

One of the great contemporary cartoonists, Eddie Campbell, started a blog a week or two back. Here’s a piece about illustration vs. cartooning<\/a>.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

Here’s an interview with Mick Jones by the AV Club<\/a>. Not a lot about Big Audio Dynamite, a band I’m wistful for.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

An opinion piece on how the Italian healthcare system is crippling Italian healthcare<\/a>.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

The 2008 Olympic Stadium: Another Chinese structure that I don’t believe will stand up<\/a>. Also, check out this article from last year on how much Beijing is consuming in its construction-binge<\/a>.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

Anne Applebaum connects the dots<\/a> in the Litivenko radiation-hit.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

Charles Krauthammer has some choice words on the same subject<\/a>.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

I was too tired and burned-out last night to watch the best regular season NBA game in years<\/a>.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

Here’s a roundtable conversation of novelists about “secret histories”<\/a>. Unfortunately, Charles Portis, Thomas Pynchon and Ron Rosenbaum (not a novelist, but still) weren’t in it.
\n* * *<\/p>\n

The official VM wife writes about the hunt for blood-free engagement ring<\/a>!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sorry for the paucity of posts this week, dear readers. I’ve been pretty burned out from work. Plus, we spent last night picking up my wife’s new Mini Cooper S, which has her pretty excited. Pix to follow this weekend. Your Unrequred Reading is carefully hidden away under that “more” link!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_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},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[25,2,26,4,12,18,24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-architecture","category-basketball","category-comics","category-literature","category-pharmaceuticals","category-politics-implicit","category-wedding"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4C7K-jY","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1043,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/between-the-lines","url_meta":{"origin":1238,"position":0},"title":"Between the lines","author":"Gil","date":"July 21, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"In case you're sitting around bored this weekend, here's an interview with a book designer who isn't Chip Kidd. Here's a blog post by Dylan Horrocks (a.k.a. one of the finest cartoonists alive and an all-around swell guy who let me crash at his home in New Zealand a few\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Art"","block_context":{"text":"Art","link":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/art"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1506,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/emerald-architecture","url_meta":{"origin":1238,"position":1},"title":"Emerald Architecture","author":"Gil","date":"May 16, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Haven't posted one of these in a while: a slideshow by Witold Rybczynski about the architecture in Seattle! (here's my slideshow about Seattle, including a bunch of architecture pix. And here's my wife's slideshow, from the same trip to Seattle!)","rel":"","context":"In "Architecture"","block_context":{"text":"Architecture","link":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/architecture"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":653,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/unreal-city","url_meta":{"origin":1238,"position":2},"title":"Unreal City","author":"Gil","date":"September 13, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm insanely busy at work, dear readers, but here's a short article by Bidisha Banerjee discussing aspects of the devastation in New Orleans as they relate to the novel Dhalgren, by official VM buddy Samuel R. Delany. Oh, and here's a separate page of commentary about the article.","rel":"","context":"In "Urban issues"","block_context":{"text":"Urban issues","link":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/urban-issues"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":342,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm","url_meta":{"origin":1238,"position":3},"title":"\"What were the skies like\u2026","author":"Gil","date":"September 26, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"\"What were the skies like when you were young?\"My hotel's on the Thames, in Dockland (east London). Not a gorgeous area, by any means. But here's the view from the terrace outside the restaurant this evening:Here's that Millennium Dome. More beautiful views here, here, and here. I'm awfully glad to\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3361,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/unrequired-reading-feb-6-2009","url_meta":{"origin":1238,"position":4},"title":"Unrequired Reading: Feb. 6, 2009","author":"Gil","date":"February 6, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"In honor of black history month, I, um, don't actually have any links that pertain to black history. But they're still awesome! Just click \"more\"! Just clowning. Here's Ta-Nehisi Coates on the \"meh\" aspect of BHM! * * * I looked over the guest list for the New York Comic-Con\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Comic books & strips"","block_context":{"text":"Comic books & strips","link":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/literature\/comics"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5178,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/happy-chipday-part-2","url_meta":{"origin":1238,"position":5},"title":"Happy Chipday, Part 2","author":"Gil","date":"April 4, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"We took Chip Delany out for a belated birthday brunch today, arranged by our pal Elayne! Here's the 68th birthday boy with his cake! And here's a shot of Chip with the full-page pic from that article in last week's New York Magazine: We had a lovely meal, even if\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "literature"","block_context":{"text":"literature","link":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/literature"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1238"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1238\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}