Dealing with contemporary consumerism, capitalism, and the life it permits. 2009-11-22T14:07:56Z Copyright (c) 2009, PopMatters.com ExpressionEngine tag:popmatters.com-marginal-utility,2009:11:20 tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/marginal-utility/9.116404 2009-11-18T21:30:18Z 2009-11-18T21:30:18Z Rob Horning tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/marginal-utility/9.116348 2009-11-16T17:59:09Z 2009-11-16T17:59:09Z Rob Horning This NYT article about font nerds by Alice Rawsthorn seems to have attracted a fair share of attention. It’s always a pleasure to discover a formally gorgeous, subtly expressive typeface... ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/marginal-utility/9.116359 2009-11-16T11:13:26Z 2009-11-16T11:13:26Z Rob Horning tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/marginal-utility/9.116254 2009-11-13T21:11:26Z 2009-11-13T21:11:26Z Rob Horning tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/marginal-utility/9.116136 2009-11-12T04:27:58Z 2009-11-12T04:27:58Z Rob Horning Metropolitan, which played as a sort of fond lament for the1980s. The film is extremely enjoyable despite being... ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/marginal-utility/9.116070 2009-11-10T20:15:45Z 2009-11-10T20:15:45Z Rob Horning tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/marginal-utility/9.115877 2009-11-09T10:00:03Z 2009-11-09T10:00:03Z Rob Horning tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/marginal-utility/9.115756 2009-11-04T16:30:42Z 2009-11-04T16:30:42Z Rob Horning tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/marginal-utility/9.115640 2009-11-03T15:39:22Z 2009-11-03T15:39:22Z Rob Horning tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/marginal-utility/9.115578 2009-11-02T08:05:58Z 2009-11-02T08:05:58Z Rob Horning tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/marginal-utility/9.115501 2009-10-29T18:16:36Z 2009-10-29T18:16:36Z Rob Horning tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/marginal-utility/9.115433 2009-10-28T17:16:35Z 2009-10-28T17:16:35Z Rob Horning Reason that libertarianism should concern itself with social coercion (the tyranny of traditions and conventions) as well as government interference. Convention creates... ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/marginal-utility/9.115366 2009-10-27T15:55:44Z 2009-10-27T15:55:44Z Rob Horning Travel & Leisure by Peter Jon Lindberg, about "bad" music in corporate spaces open to the public, resonated... ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/marginal-utility/9.115091 2009-10-23T06:45:12Z 2009-10-23T06:45:12Z Rob Horning tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/marginal-utility/9.114940 2009-10-20T00:16:51Z 2009-10-20T00:16:51Z Rob Horning NYT Magazine article about Pandora, the online music-recommendation service, sets up an opposition between musical taste that is grounded in our social context (what our friends... ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/marginal-utility/9.114765 2009-10-17T17:03:30Z 2009-10-17T17:03:30Z Rob Horning n+1 at sexual freedom as a way out of capitalism's confinements. Greif... ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/marginal-utility/9.114717 2009-10-17T00:50:52Z 2009-10-17T00:50:52Z Rob Horning tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/marginal-utility/9.114711 2009-10-15T18:36:16Z 2009-10-15T18:36:16Z Rob Horning tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/marginal-utility/9.114632 2009-10-14T15:22:14Z 2009-10-14T15:22:14Z Rob Horning tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/marginal-utility/9.114533 2009-10-12T21:45:27Z 2009-10-12T21:45:27Z Rob Horning I still don't get why instant messaging is preferable to email. I don't want to share my thoughts with people "instantly" -- I am not aspiring to telepathic connection with the random people in my Gmail address book. I want to actually take a moment and think about what I want to communicate and how best to express that in words. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/marginal-utility/9.112949 2009-10-11T02:00:35Z 2009-10-11T02:00:35Z Rob Horning tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/marginal-utility/9.112893 2009-10-08T17:44:42Z 2009-10-08T17:44:42Z Rob Horning New Yorker column about consumer spending. But the evidence for a radical shift in the way we consume seems more... ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/marginal-utility/9.112799 2009-10-07T15:00:14Z 2009-10-07T15:00:14Z Rob Horning Frugality is one of those traits we piously praise in others because we secretly believe that takes us off the hook for exhibiting it ourselves. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/marginal-utility/9.112762 2009-10-06T15:30:38Z 2009-10-06T15:30:38Z Rob Horning I wonder if at any point it would have been possible to arrest this development of biking into a lifestyle -- is anything "nonconformist" doomed to be seen as an attempt to self-promote? Or is that the fault of hipsterization? Of social media? ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/marginal-utility/9.112694 2009-10-05T16:40:03Z 2009-10-05T16:40:03Z Rob Horning tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/marginal-utility/9.112512 2009-10-02T13:25:30Z 2009-10-02T13:25:30Z Rob Horning tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/marginal-utility/9.112490 2009-10-01T17:22:28Z 2009-10-01T17:22:28Z Rob Horning New York Times foments about the "erosion in economic values" that he expects to launch the "next culture war." A crusade for economic self-restraint would... ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/marginal-utility/9.112422 2009-09-30T20:48:07Z 2009-09-30T20:48:07Z Rob Horning important in describing the art they have invested in. There is no better... ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/marginal-utility/9.112184 2009-09-28T12:13:13Z 2009-09-28T12:13:13Z Rob Horning tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/marginal-utility/9.112136 2009-09-26T17:59:59Z 2009-09-26T17:59:59Z Rob Horning tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/marginal-utility/9.112079 2009-09-24T21:02:53Z 2009-09-24T21:02:53Z Rob Horning tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/marginal-utility/9.112017 2009-09-23T17:25:52Z 2009-09-23T17:25:52Z Rob Horning tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/marginal-utility/9.111899 2009-09-22T01:22:24Z 2009-09-22T01:22:24Z Rob Horning tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/marginal-utility/9.111723 2009-09-17T20:03:06Z 2009-09-17T20:03:06Z Rob Horning tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/marginal-utility/9.111514 2009-09-15T18:05:56Z 2009-09-15T18:05:56Z Rob Horning tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/marginal-utility/9.111367 2009-09-11T04:23:47Z 2009-09-11T04:23:47Z Rob Horning NYT Magazine, the always interesting Jon Mooallem has an article about the self-storage industry in America. The need to store one's belongings in a 6-by-6-foot box miles... ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/marginal-utility/9.111187 2009-09-09T12:59:32Z 2009-09-09T12:59:32Z Rob Horning tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/marginal-utility/9.111147 2009-09-07T20:19:14Z 2009-09-07T20:19:14Z Rob Horning tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/marginal-utility/9.111113 2009-09-06T20:07:31Z 2009-09-06T20:07:31Z Rob Horning NYT Magazine article, which looks at shortcomings of economics as a discipline, reminded me of a question I have been mulling over. Does macroeconomics, in aggregating and... ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/marginal-utility/9.110949 2009-09-02T19:50:44Z 2009-09-02T19:50:44Z Rob Horning tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/marginal-utility/9.110909 2009-09-02T13:42:04Z 2009-09-02T13:42:04Z Rob Horning tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/marginal-utility/9.110789 2009-09-01T13:46:02Z 2009-09-01T13:46:02Z Rob Horning tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/marginal-utility/9.110700 2009-08-31T23:27:25Z 2009-08-31T23:27:25Z Rob Horning And Then There's... ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/marginal-utility/9.110860 2009-08-31T10:35:34Z 2009-08-31T10:35:34Z Rob Horning tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/marginal-utility/9.110656 2009-08-30T12:10:27Z 2009-08-30T12:10:27Z Rob Horning tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/marginal-utility/9.110236 2009-08-21T14:03:20Z 2009-08-21T14:03:20Z Rob Horning tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/marginal-utility/9.110144 2009-08-19T22:42:16Z 2009-08-19T22:42:16Z Rob Horning tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/marginal-utility/9.110130 2009-08-19T16:47:09Z 2009-08-19T16:47:09Z Rob Horning tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/marginal-utility/9.109995 2009-08-18T09:15:21Z 2009-08-18T09:15:21Z Rob Horning tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/marginal-utility/9.109895 2009-08-14T19:59:56Z 2009-08-14T19:59:56Z Rob Horning tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/marginal-utility/9.109785 2009-08-13T17:20:05Z 2009-08-13T17:20:05Z Rob Horning tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/marginal-utility/9.109694 2009-08-11T15:16:13Z 2009-08-11T15:16:13Z Rob Horning Free. It also touches on the jobless recovery, though I wonder whether I carried that line of thinking... ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/marginal-utility/9.109641 2009-08-10T21:43:50Z 2009-08-10T21:43:50Z Rob Horning tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/marginal-utility/9.109619 2009-08-09T12:37:07Z 2009-08-09T12:37:07Z Rob Horning tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/marginal-utility/9.109512 2009-08-07T10:00:31Z 2009-08-07T10:00:31Z Rob Horning New York magazine reviewer Sam Anderson apparently does, but I agree with him about this: "I hate -- maybe most of all -- his characters’ stupid names."... ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/marginal-utility/9.109445 2009-08-05T18:53:43Z 2009-08-05T18:53:43Z Rob Horning tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/marginal-utility/9.109311 2009-08-04T19:00:12Z 2009-08-04T19:00:12Z Rob Horning Julia and Julia, Michael Pollan's article about cooking shows for last Sunday's New York Times Magazine is a... ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/marginal-utility/9.109240 2009-08-03T12:02:05Z 2009-08-03T12:02:05Z Rob Horning tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/marginal-utility/9.109206 2009-07-31T16:49:34Z 2009-07-31T16:49:34Z Rob Horning tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/blogs/marginal-utility/9.109115 2009-07-29T19:13:40Z 2009-07-29T19:13:40Z Rob Horning