Monday, November 9, 2009 | by nathan

Weekly Reader – 9 November 2009

The Bitter Tears of Johnny Cash
"In July 1972, musician Johnny Cash sat opposite President Richard Nixon in the White House’s Blue Room. As a horde of media huddled a few feet away, the country music superstar had come to discuss prison reform with the self-anointed leader of America’s "silent majority." "Johnny, would you be willing to play a few songs for us," Nixon asked Cash. "I like Merle Haggard’s ‘Okie From Muskogee’ and Guy Drake’s ‘Welfare Cadillac.’" The architect of the GOP’s Southern strategy was asking for two famous expressions of white working-class resentment.
"I don’t know those songs," replied Cash, "but I got a few of my own I can play for you.""

Steak House – Or Gay Bar?
Being a gay guy from Oklahoma I’m no stranger to the double entendre required when naming establishments of … let’s say of a certain sort. I am speaking, of course, of steak houses, which are on occasion so homoerotically named that one might confuse them with homosexual gathering establishments. See how well you do!

Ever Dream This Man?
It seems that this site is either viral marketing or a giant hoax, but even so, it entirely creeps me out and makes me wish I’d come up with the idea. The horror story, the screenplay, they practically write themselves.

Buildings … OF THE FUTURE!
A cool story and poll at HuffPo that talks about some plans for buildings that are currently being discussed. I’m a particularly big fan of the "dragonfly" in NYC and the submerged hotel in a filled-in rock quarry in China, but I seriously doubt we’ll ever see any of these.