A HUGE PORTRAIT OF NANCY REAGAN FILLED MY DREAMS LAST NIGHT

There were a million posters all over the place at the Women's National Republican Club for the launch of Content, a architectural mindfuck book-cum-magazine exploring Rem Koolhaas' post-jadedist social-construction fetish. The hall looked like a political rally, and despite the fact that there was precious little in the way of food (hipsters, like any army, travel on their stomach, and none of us were going far on teeny chicken satay skewers and cucumbers), the bar was open, which kept the conversations between the other writers appropriately lubricated. Which for an operation like this is a bare minimum.

Now, I'd never heard of Herr Koolhaas before (he's as teutonic as you'd think in person, with all the ironed corners and stern clockworky precision in his movements you'd expect of an accomplished German Architect), but this book is typical Taschen, superglossy, oversized by half, and perfect for creatively blocked layout types to have a serious wank over. Every page looks like it was ripped from a different ad agency, and it hurt my eyes when I tried to read more than a couple of pages at a time.

It reminded me of one of those hippy-dippy books by Buckminster Fuller or someone from the '60s that weren't so much books as pieces of clip art and provocative photographs and slogans and aphorisms that were supposed to open that third eye & expand your mind into new and transgressive frontiers. The one I remember was Vietnam and astronaut-heavy, full of the-present-sucks-but-dig-the-future-oh-yeah-the-glorious-fucking-future.

This one is exactly the same, but about four times as big, with 9-11 and Mars substituted in. It'll turn a nice profit I'm sure, and you'll never hear about it again.

Oh, if it wasn't for Stephanie and Ron, I would have drank a lot more and left a lot earlier. Thanks, I think.