Taste, Goat Man, Persuasion, Marilynne Robinson, Meat, Ghostwriting
A Unified Theory Of Deliciousness
David Chang | Wired | 19th July 2016
How to invent a new classic dish: Discover the essence of an old classic dish, and express it with new ingredients. “When you eat something amazing, you don’t just respond to the dish in front of you; you are transported back to another moment in your life. Where this gets really exciting is when you realize that many dishes from around the world share some base patterns, and by reverse-engineering one of these dishes you can actually tap into many of them at the same time” (3,100 words)
Speaking With The Legendary Goat Man
Arvind Dilawar | Literary Hub | 22nd July 2016
Interview with Thomas Thwaites, an English designer who is trying to live as a goat. He crossed the Alps wearing a “goat-like exoskeleton”, and eating grass. “I’ve learnt a lot about my prosthetics. I’ve changed the back-leg prosthetics so that they now support my legs from the front, which allows me to relax into a better goat posture. There’s also things I didn’t manage to finish in time for the experiment — growing my hair long then using resin to stick it together into horns, for example” (1,700 words)
How Design Made The Difference
Rob Coke | Creative Review | 20th July 2016
Design professional takes apart the rival referendum campaigns urging Britain to Leave or Remain in the European Union. The Leave campaign was miles ahead on words and visuals, starting with the basic branding. “Irritating as it is, ‘Brexit’ ticks all the boxes for a strong brand name: short, easy to spell, good mouthfeel. It’s immediately familiar – the sort of brisk, sprightly portmanteau you might use to name a new breakfast cereal” (More good pieces on the same subject here (https://warrenhatter.wordpress.com/2016/07/20/the-brexit-referendum-through-a-behavioural-lens) and here (https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/epicfail-how-britain-stronger-europe-blew-basics-pr-marketing-hind) ) (1,500 words)
Awakening
Marilynne Robinson | Financial Times | 24th October 2015
Essay on the place of Christianity in American life. “In the last few decades a profound change has taken place in American society. The word ‘Christian’ is seen less as identifying an ethic and more as identifying a demographic … What some have seen as a resurgence of Christianity, or a defence of American tradition, has brought a harshness, a bitterness, a crudeness, and a high-handedness into the public sphere comparable to the collapse of politics in the period before the Civil War” (5,400 words)
More Equal Than Others
Julian Baggini | Times Literary Supplement | 20th July 2016
On eating meat, and the moral obligations of humans towards animals. “The idea that morality of some form exists elsewhere in the animal kingdom is not so bizarre once you fully embrace the truth that human beings and all their capacities evolved, and that therefore we should not be too surprised to find human practices, or at least their precursors, in other species … If we are looking for beastly morality we should not assume it will be a simple variant of our own” (2,900 words)
Donald Trump’s Ghostwriter Tells All
Jane Mayer | New Yorker | 18th July 2016
Tony Schwartz ghost-wrote The Art Of The Deal for Donald Trump; now he worries that, by helping build Trump’s reputation, he has contributed to a national disaster. “I put lipstick on a pig. I feel a deep sense of remorse that I contributed to presenting Trump in a way that brought him wider attention and made him more appealing than he is. I genuinely believe that if Trump wins and gets the nuclear codes there is an excellent possibility it will lead to the end of civilization” (Metered paywall) (7,030 words)
Video of the day: Turkey
What to expect:
Thanksgiving in the 1970s. A stylistic cross between Terry Gilliam and David Lynch (2’50”)
Thought for the day
Truth has only one face: That of violent contradiction
Georges Bataille