Ummm…how about nowhere?

Random linkage for a Thursday night spent with Netflix and a cookie:

• This may be the vaguest job posting I’ve ever read for what you might assume would be a fairly specific position. This is my field and I imagine I’m probably somewhat qualified for it, but I have absolutely no earthly fucking clue what they’re looking for nor what the person they hire might actually do on a daily basis. Not that I’d consider doing whatever it is in Texas, anyway.
• I really despise “news” pieces like this. They don’t define their have any methodology at all. Apparently, misery is caused exclusively by either a bad housing market or by crime. Yes, Detroit is probably somewhat miserable. But Sacramento? Sorry. I just don’t buy it.
• Speaking of Detroit and misery, though, this seems a fairly reasonable assessment.
• I think I want to see this.
• Tagline heard on the way home: “CBC Radio 3: For whenever you need nonstop Canadian indie rock.” Funny thing: I never realized quite how much I needed nonstop Canadian indie rock until I had it so handy. Sort of like the iPad, I guess.

I guess I won’t be going to Clifton’s on this summer’s LA trip after all. I somehow missed the story about its having been sold. I’m glad the place is to be preserved (and as a cafeteria, yet) but I’m always suspicious of renovations, particularly in gentrifying areas. I love the decor but I also love the dowdiness and I hope it doesn’t get sanitized too much.

This brings up another preservation issue as well: The modern facade was actually in place for much more of Clifton’s existence than the original. Which is really the more “historic” version? But it’s too damned early for me to think about that.

Random thoughts for the last Friday in January:

• It’s kind if a drag that it’s never really seemed like winter here this year, but I must admit that that the $107 gas bill I just received (half of last January’s) went a long way toward easing my pain.
• I may make a quick trip to Atlanta the weekend of 10 February to see this movie, in case anyone there wants to tag along. I’ve been obsessed with the Pruitt-Igoe saga ever since I first read about it in an urban sociology textbook almost thirty years ago. It was one of those pivotal reads that started me down the path toward my fascination with urban history (and urban decay).
• Thing I love this month: free copies of the dead tree edition of the New York Times every day at work. It’s apparently part of some “newspapers in education” program or something. I hope it lasts.
• Thing I hate this weekend: the fact that I’ll be spending most of it working. But I’m on deadline for a grant application to fund the first phase of my dream project, so work I shall…
• I bought Bugles tonight and I’m not afraid to use them.