The Digest. 12.15.08.

South by Rail, by Andrew Pope. See the full series on his website, primitivenerd.com. (Image courtesy of Andrew Pope.)

• How to Redneck. (World’s Best Ever.)
• At the Guggenheim: Coffee as art. Make mine a cortado.
• The MOCA Mess: The board shoulda seen this calamity coming, reports the L.A. Times: “By mid-2001, as the economy slumped toward recession, independent auditors warned that MOCA’s reserves had fallen $3.8 million below ‘the level required by donor stipulations.’“
• In other museum mismanagement messes: The Basque parliament is investigating the Guggenheim Bilbao’s problematic financials.
• Saatchi setting attendance records at his new London gallery.
• Ten years after graduation, art history majors make more money than forestry majors. But not as much as philosophy majors. Time to bust out the Nietzsche, eggheads! (Thank you, Robin.)
• Dale Chihuly has kicked in some serious cash for Obama’s inaugural.
• Plus: Two U.S. Mayors list museums—in Philly and Miami—as infrastructure projects for the proposed economic recovery program.
• Severed heads in museums. (Marshall Astor.)
• Neckface, the video. Includes charming footage of his decaying toe nails.
• Today’s Graff: Uneone in Houston.
• The Day in Art Merch: Futura snowboards.
• Pussy Pop and butt glue. (matthewgallaway and Gearfuse.)
• Not a moment too soon: Fentress unveils their concept images for a redesigned LAX. (Unbeige.)
• A fascinating landscape architecture story about the future of Fresh Kills, the Staten Island landfill.
• The NYT on I.M. Pei’s Qatari museum: “The ideals it embodies — that the past and the present can co-exist harmoniously — are a throwback to a time when America’s overseas ambitions were still cloaked in a progressive agenda.” Slideshow here.
• The Chicago Trib’s Blair Kamin gives his run-down of the best architecture of ’08. On the list: Yale’s Paul Rudolph Hall and a coupla thingies in China.
• An interesting conceit, even if I’m not sold on the functionality of the layout: Tomorrows Thoughts Today, a site that organizes its post according to whether they’re “fast,” “medium” or “slow” thoughts. (Life Without Buildings.)
• A BetaMaxMas. (Mercy, Mlle. Connasse.)
• Your moment of jizz in my pants.