Category Archives: Culture

Michael Chabon on the 70s

We are crippled in so many ways today by the desire to avoid fashion mistakes, to elude ridicule – a desire that leads at one extreme to the smiling elisions of political candidates and on the other to the awful tyranny of cool – that this willingness to be foolish is hard for us to

The problem with Per Se; conventions and uniqueness

There is a glowing review of Per Se in the New York Times today, declaring it the best restaurant in New York City. I went there, and I agree: the food was incredible, the service impeccable, the experience indelible. The challenge, I think, is that food at that kind of restaurant, particularly if you are

since I'm not posting anything useful

I may as well continue to post Mad Men stuff. Here’s a behind the scenes look at Mad Men, where you can see how surreal it looks when Apple products are sent into the Wayback machine. Also, Peter Campbell is a total cutey.

What happens in August

Well, as I mentioned last month, I like to take a month a year off of looking at any news. And it’s always August, because the combination of nothing happening in August and the need/desire of news to keep people breathlessly interested, means that August is a time for swift boating, death panels, shocking fake-heartfelt

Peggy rocks my world

You should be watching Mad Men.

taking up room on the dance floor

Ok, this is some pretty good looking stuff. Loving the dude with the white shirt. (via J Kottke.

I am a force of motherfucking nature and I will not rest until every uptight armchair typographer cock-hat like you is surrounded by my lovable, comic-book inspired, sans-serif badassery

Rock on, Comic Sans.

Howard Zinn

I always liked Howard Zinn. Along with Studs Turkel, he defined for me an old-school commitment to listening to people and caring about what they said and did, without great self-promotion. Hearing about his passing today, I wonder where the Zinn’s of today and tomorrow are. Time for a drink and another pass through A

Two models for understanding what people like, which is better?

I have a sort of interesting question, though perhaps it’s less interesting than I imagine it to be. Given the following two scenarios, which is more likely and why? Scenario 1: In the first case, we have a series of attributes attached to a person, and then we can make arguments (empirical, theoretical) about how

NBC and Jay Leno

Gabriel had a thoughtful post about Jay Leno, comparing his programming to NPR and classical music over the past couple decades. I’m much more sympathetic to Grant McCracken’s view of Leno as a failure because he misses the contemporary moment’s desire for specificity and instead provides the blandest of something-for-everyone variety. Though McCracken and Rossman