Grant Achatz, a chef on the cutting-edge of molecular gastronomy, combines a gin and tonic with bubble tea. He mixes together two of my favorite summer drinks.
8/25
Wells Tower spent a week working at an Amsterdam coffee shop then wrote about it for GQ. “‘Paranoia’ doesn’t adequately get at what I suffer while I’m high. It’s more like Ebola of the superego, a self-loathing catatonia of uncertainty and dread. When I’m stoned, Homo sapiens and its customs become terrifying and obscure. Shortly after the first good toke, I can almost hear a delicate shardwork of baffling human etiquette crystallizing in the air around me, making it impossible to so much as reach for a Cheeto without causing an apocalypse.”
8/25
David Winner on how the Dutch are playing German football and the Germans are playing Dutch football. “The current tournament is making the Dutch both happy and troubled. They are euphoric that Oranje is winning, but uncomfortable about the “ugly” fotball and loss of attacking elan. Meanwhile, seeing the once-hated Germans is getting Dutch fans even more confused. They look in the mirror and see the face of the old enemy. They see the beautiful, creative, new multi-ethnic Germans and realize, with a flush of potentially healing recognition, that they remind them of the best of themselves.”
7/6
“This is a story of two great cities emerging from isolation – and of western Europe beating the world – thanks partly to a train.” Simon Kuper on how the Eurostar is transforming both Paris and London.
6/29
Farhad Manjoo on what makes Apple great. “When Martin Lindstrom, a brand consultant and author of Buyology: The Truth and Lies About Why We Buy, examined [the brains of Apple fans] under a functional magnetic-resonance-imaging scanner, he discovered that Apple devotees are indistinguishable from those committed to Jesus.”
6/28
The Problem with Joe Soucheray
Nothing gets me riled up like a good Joe Soucheray column. This time, he chooses to focus his ire on the planned installation of bike lanes along one St. Paul street.
He’s an asshole, obviously, but does he actually not understand that installing bike lanes will get cyclists out of the way of cars? Clearly not:
This, to me, sounds like an argument for adding bike lanes. But not for Joe—his argument is that the only reason people choose to travel by bicycles is so they can feel morally superior.
Right, because adding one bike lane means that Ms. Kelly will no longer be able to drive her SUV to Target.
I think Soucheray makes one decent point, though I’m sure he doesn’t realize it. I don’t think anything else in American cycling culture does more to dissuade the population at large from viewing the bicycle as a viable mode of transportation than the prevalence of riders in ridiculous, expensive lycra racing suits. See The Problem with Biking in America and Cycle Chic for more.
The original link is to a Google cache since the Pioneer Press has removed the article from their website. I don’t know why.
(via Hindsight 20/20)