The Digest. 01.26.11.

L’il B, by Zoe Strauss. Part of her shrimp and petroleum series on the U.S. Gulf Coast. (Image courtesy of Strauss.)

Congrats to Mel for winning the C-Mon Giveaway Extravaganza, LP Costa Rica edition.

• A Monopoly House, life size.
• Author Nick Flynn, on why it pays to have a Protestant family when writing a memoir. (Thank you, Liz.)
• “The World is dividing into two blocs—the Plutonomy and the rest.”
• William Donohue of the Catholic League has been so busy sweating the Smithsonian over David Wojnarowicz, it appears he hasn’t had time to read through all his commandments. Namely, the one about lying.
• Related: Jeffrey Goldberg has a good take on the whole controversy and Clough’s cluelessness over at The Atlantic. Plus: More on Clough’s inconsistencies here.
• In which Village Voice art critic Christian Viveros-Faune dismembers Jeff Koons. (Interventions.)
• At Davos: The Damien Hirst spin class.
• Me, me, me on VIP, the online art fair. Plus: An excellent take on all the tech problems from Paddy Johnson. The part about the e-mail addresses is MESSED UP.
• I’m with El Saltzino’s take on Whitney’s Singular Visions show. It is all kinds of fantastic. (Stand-outs, in my mind, include AA Bronson, Eva Hesse and Robert Grosvener — the latter of which looks like it wants to stab you in the heart.)
• A nice review of The Woodmans, the film about photographer Francesca Woodman, who killed herself at 22.
• On art and pranks.
• “So much ruin photography and ruin film aestheticizes poverty without inquiring of its origins, dramatizes spaces but never seeks out the people that inhabit and transform them, and romanticizes isolated acts of resistance without acknowledging the massive political and social forces aligned against the real transformation, and not just stubborn survival, of the city.” An excellent essay in Guernica lays out a taxonomy of Detroit coverage.
• Related: The case against economic disaster porn. (@felixsalmon.)
• The Day in Art Merch, Francophile Edition: Manet high heels and Versailles “Let Them Eat Cake” vanilla candles.
• Which brings me to a story about what some European museums are doing to make money.
• The World of Soviet Groceries.
• Like, whoa: Photos from the Tokyo Auto Salon. Here’s the one I want. (Marshall Astor, via Pink Tentacle.)
• Revok and Insa, gif style.
• Today’s Graff, mellow yellow edition: Eron in Athens.
• Handy: An architectural guide to LA — with map.
• “Up or Down? A Male Economist’s Manifesto on Toilet Seat Etiquette.” (@Atul_Gawande.)