This Week - Aug 09, 2013

Ugly is relative, of course. One man’s driving range net is another man’s Disney Concert Hall...Faux-Italianate apartments, mid-century modern office building, cracking liquor signage, pristine Craftsman bungalow, seedy vacant lot—we’ve got them all, and they’re all stacked on top of each other, scattered across this wide basin. This makes us the best worst-looking place on the planet, but—it’s also what makes L.A. so interesting. And maybe that’s the real beauty of living in L.A.

— U.G.L.Y., L.A. Ain’t Got No Alibi (Alissa Walker)

That’s the second biggest recreational activity on Twitter besides getting whipped up into a frenzy over stuff that (usually) doesn’t matter. Journalists like to talk about what their journalist friends are doing, and then report about what their friends are doing as if it was a reflection of what society is doing, even though it’s usually the furthest thing from reality.

— The End Of My Twitter Account Is Finally Here (Brandon Mendelson)

I will never understand sunglasses that aren’t wayfarers. Everyone looks good in wayfarers, or at least agreeably stupid. Grab a marker and draw some sunglasses. You just drew wayfarers. Sometimes aviators are okay, are sleazy in the correct way. Everything else makes you look like a baseball player or a teenage gunman or an uncle with broken jetskis.

— Sexpigeon

Now after 5 modest years working as a strategist to Fortune 500 and challenger brands, I see social strategy nearing its standardization as a skill-set. Without reinvention, I believe the role of the social strategist will soon become obsolete.

— An open letter to Social Media (Michael Mann)

We want to believe we can have it all. It’s the dream. Some of us make it work. But most of us are picking our paths and living with the results of those choices.

— What If Steve Jobs Was Balanced And Happy? (Bijan Sabet)