architectonic

 I mentioned the new Wilco record yesterday, but I should also point out how much I relish the cover art. That building in downtown Chicago is one of my favorite structures, and I've written about it in a few different places. I can think of no other building that makes me ask this question so relentlessly: what does it look like on the inside. It turns out that Marina City, built by Bertrand Goldberg, a disciple of Mies van der Rohe, is a self-contained living environment with apartments, stores, recreational facilities, offices, restaurants, banks, and parking garages. Built at the apex of high modernism (1964), it critiqued chilly modernist steel with organic cochlear concrete. The slice-of-pie-shaped balcony apartments all converge on a shared public middle-space, where laundry, storage, and recreational activities are communal. Sounds like yesterday's vision of the future, which makes it a vision of today. Let's call it a parallel history. I used to have many pictures of it, but the only one I could find is the one of Lisa-the-ex looking off to the Chicago skyline.

 "I'd rather be here [Grand Forks, ND] than Afghanistan right now." --Ozzy Osbourne on last night's The Osbourne's. Tidbit: The tattooed letters "O-Z-Z-Y" that appear on Ozzy's knuckles were done at Magoo's Tattoo Parlor in Grand Forks decades ago.

 A Glossary Of Hardboiled Slang.

 What's the first word you want to type into the American Sign Language Fingerspeller?

 Profile of the guy who writes the "Ethicist" column for the NYTimes Magazine.

 New TV Guide: 50 Greatest Shows Of All Time.

 2002 Webby Nominations announced.

 Dickens: The First True Celebrity.

 Gary Glitter has been hiding in.... Cambodia?

 StCloudSuperman.com. I have no idea.

 While we're at it: Minnesota's Roadside Architecture