authenticity

Everything old is new again in the food world

Learning how to navigate a teat without expert supervision is integral to the experience

A roundup of stuff I’ve written recently, here and there:

Post-Wildean British artist/writer/dandy Sebastian Horsley has died of an apparent heroin overdose. The good people at Q have reposted an interview Jian did with Horsley two years ago. It’s an amazing bit of performance art, from the very start, and almost everything out of Horsley’s mouth is quotable. I especially like the exchange that starts just after the six minute mark, when Jian asks why Horsley didn’t just put his memoir online for all to read. Horsley responds that ‘The internet is loser central, and it is basically replacing masturbation as a leisure activity.” Then comes this:

One of the more pointless aspects of the whole BP spill fiasco is the ongoing debate about whether Obama’s reaction to the whole thing has been appropriate. Has he shown enough anger? Too much anger? Has he been too cerebral? Too dispassionate?Too uncaring?

All should read Jacob Levy’s Cato piece on Red Toryism. For obvious reasons, I really liked this part:

1. The Tories spent double what Baird said they did wrapping a GO train in propaganda

Obviously, I’m a sucker for stories that explore the subtle (and not-so) mechanisms of status display, especially when that display masquerades as a quest not for status but for the authentic. That kind of story is the meat-and-two-veg of the New York Times style section, and today’s is great.

 Aspiring Florida rapper Steven Gilmore felt he needed a bit of OG cred to kickstart his singing career. So he robbed a restaurant, then tried to stick up a convenience store with a BB gun. But the store clerk fought back and took a BB in the forehead. Gilmore took off empty handed, making his getaway on a moped driven by a 16 year-old accomplice. 

Greetings, PotterGoldsters:

You have to hand it to the New York Times: With Americans facing what is shaping up to be the worst economic downturns in decades, they still duty-bound to give their readers this sort of stuff:

Thomas Frank’s column in today’s WSJ does a good job of setting up my piece in the print edition of Maclean’s out tomorrow. Here’s Frank: