Friday links! Perfection of the form edition

By Dan Brooks in Friday Links 0 Comment
A rendering of the Hemnet Home by Tham & Videgard of Sweden

A rendering of the Hemnet Home by Tham & Videgard of Sweden

Plato knew what was up: while the apparent world is disorganized and forgettable in its particularity, meaning lives forever in the world of forms. Right now, I’m typing from my Chinese knockoff of a Le Corbusier recliner. It could support my gamey shoulder a little better. But the form of a chair—oh man, that thing is perfect. It is, by definition, that which supports my whole body in a sitting position, its function and structure unsullied by actualization. Today is Friday, and every form can be perfected. Won’t you transitive verb phrase of contrasting literal and figurative meanings with me?

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Friday links! Cultural decadence edition

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Motley Crue in the Decade of Decadence era

Motley Crue in the Decade of Decadence era

Thanks to history (753 BC—1992 AD), we know that cultures rise and fall. Ancient Rome, for example, lasted about 1100 years, and some of those years were better than others. In his classic treatise on the decline of the Roman empire, Gibbon observes that foreign wars made the army more powerful than the rest of the state, whose administrators became corrupt as, among the ordinary people, “bizarreness masqueraded as creativity.” Fortunately for us, that’s not happening to America. Foreign wars have made heroes of everyone connected to our military, and our public servants would never put money ahead of the duties of their offices. As long as we can stamp out Tim & Eric Awesome Show: Great Job!, we should be fine. Today is Friday, and America has achieved in a mere 250 years what took Rome a millennium. Won’t you bask in the twilight of empire with me?

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Friday links! Formal expectations edition

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Ramp

If I see a bicycle and a ramp on my computer screen, I know someone is going to get hurt. Certain forms create their own expectations, and the internet video is one of them. So is the school board meeting, the science fiction book, the episode of MTV Cribs. But what about more organic forms, like the parent-child relationship of the presidential campaign? Once you start thinking this way, anything can be a form, and events within them take on a strangely concocted quality, as they shift from the realm of ontology to aesthetics. Not Combat! blog, though—we will never succumb to formal expectations. Today is Friday, and it’s hard to realize what you’re doing from the inside. Won’t you satisfy the conventions of the form with me?

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Friday links! Totally fair systems edition

By Dan Brooks in Friday Links 0 Comment
From the Tumblr "Selfies With Homeless People"

From the Tumblr “Selfies With Homeless People”

What an improbable collision of historical trends is this selfie with a homeless person. First, we have to invent camera phones and a culture that encourages us to point them at ourselves. Then, we need an economy strong enough to make personal camera phone ownership nearly universal, but also weak enough that many people have to sleep at Taco Bell. If you can synthesize all that in a lab setting, I’ll give you multi-finger dollar-sign rings. Today is Friday, and it’s so weird that it must be perfect. Won’t you pull up the ladder with me?

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Friday links! Ted Cruz in Cruisin’ edition

By Dan Brooks in Friday Links 1 Comment
Ted Cruz had seen hard times, but nothing could prepare him for his hardest adventure yet.

Ted Cruz had seen some hard times, but nothing could prepare him for his hardest adventure yet.

Ted Cruz fingered his Bible nervously. He was only going to get one shot at this, and if he missed—well, he wouldn’t allow himself to think about that. Somewhere, floors above him, he heard the elevator doors shudder open. Somebody was bringing back the groceries, coming home to the dog, living the kind of normal life that Ted Cruz dimly remembered but no longer understood. He said a quick prayer for whatever poor schmuck lived on floor six. There wasn’t time for anything more, because the elevator had returned to the lobby, its doors opening, ready to take him to the penthouse and whatever awaited him there. Today was Friday, and Ted Cruz was going all the way to the top. Would a lifetime of hard luck and dark secrets come with him?

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