If you’re twenty-two, physically fit, hungry to learn and be better, I urge you to travel – as far and as widely as possible. Sleep on floors if you have to. Find out how other people live and eat and cook. Learn from them – wherever you go.
Do we really want to travel in hermetically sealed popemobiles through the rural provinces of France, Mexico and the Far East, eating only in Hard Rock Cafes and McDonalds? Or do we want to eat without fear, tearing into the local stew, the humble taqueria's mystery meat, the sincerely offered gift of a lightly grilled fish head? I know what I want. I want it all. I want to try everything once.
A Haunting New Documentary About Anthony Bourdain
“I think he felt he’d won the lottery,” says Woolever, “or had somehow harnessed lightning in a bottle – being at the right place at the right time with the right book for the moment, with the right people around him to help him catapult into this new life. I think he felt extraordinarily lucky.”
Photographed for issue three of Observer Food Monthly, the chef is all innocence and enthusiasm, on the cusp of life-changing success
Tony ultimately prevailed, and he was right: the show won Zach and Todd a well-deserved Emmy for cinematography. It also set a precedent that raising the bar sometimes required traveling to more challenging locations. It also required knowing how and when to push back against the powers that be
The Thing That Made Anthony Bourdain So Good
Anthony Bourdain’s producer talks star’s ‘guilty pleasures,’ missing his family: ‘It was hard for him’
Tom Vitale wrote a book about the 'Parts Unknown' star titled 'In the Weeds: Around the World and Behind the Scenes with Anthony Bourdain'
Anthony Bourdain Said the ‘No Reservations’ Haiti Episode Led to a ‘Breakdown’
It has been three years since the suicide death of chef-turned-writer-turned-TV-food-and-travel-star Anthony Bourdain. An outpouring of illuminating, incisive stories have flowed forth — from Laurie Woolever’s book Bourdain: The Definitive Oral Biography to Academy Award-winner Morgan Neville’s Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain. That there still remain fresh, mesmerizing insights about life with Bourdain is astonishing, as revealed in the compellingly intimate new memoir by Bourdain’s longtime producer and director, Tom Vitale. Published this month (Hachette Book Group), In the Weeds: Around the World and Behind the Scenes with Anthony Bourdain is a fast-flying, deep-diving, funny, loving, tender, joyful, painful, jolting, twisted, tumultuous and shockingly wild ride. Reader: Hold on tightly.
Astonishing New Stories Revealed In ‘In The Weeds: Behind The Scenes With Anthony Bourdain’
Wildlife photographer of the year 2021 winners – in pictures
The Guardian – “Winning images from this year’s competition, which will be exhibited at the Natural History Museum, London, from 15 October.”
FamilySearch: “If you find yourself struggling to know how to find your ancestors, FamilySearch has a new search experience that can help you find your ancestors in a quick and easy way without having to sign in. The FamilySearch Discovery Search experience provides a way to quickly search select databases on FamilySearch—the tree, records, memories, and last name information—all at the same time. This is a great way to get started with your family history and connect with your ancestors quickly! There are two ways to get to this search experience. You can either find it on the logged out FamilySearch home page, or you can click the button below. Then all you have to do is type the name of your family member and click Search. It’s really that easy! And you don’t need to provide all the information—just fill in what you know, and you will still find some cool results…”
Hollywood Age Gap: the age difference in years between love interests in Hollywood films. (Search "Woody Allen" for an unsurprising correlation.)
In a "regret lottery", everyone is automatically entered but when the drawing happens, only people who took a certain action (like getting vaxxed) are eligible to actually win.
Updating Disaster Films to Be More Realistic. Like Independence Day: "Humans continue to fight one another up to the moment that they are annihilated by hostile space aliens."
Abdulrazak Gurnah reactions
Last week, they announced that Abdulrazak Gurnah will get this year's Nobel Prize in Literature -- see also my mention-- and there have been a fair number of reactions now. Some of interest include:
- At Brittle Paper Ainehi Edoro collects: 103 African Writers Respond to Abdulrazak Gurnah's Nobel Prize Win
- At Africa is a Country Bhakti Shringarpure writes But, first we'll take this W -- noting, among much else, that: "The truth is crystal clear: US publishing is truly hostile to African literature"; see also her piece at Scroll.in (with some overlap), Why Tanzanian writer Abdulrazak Gurnah's Nobel Prize for Literature is important
- At Africa is a Country Nicole Rizzuto writes about Abdulrazak Gurnah's skepticisms
- At The New Yorker Kristen Roupenian considers The Impact of Abdulrazak Gurnah's Nobel Prize
See now also David Shariatmadari's profile in The Guardian, ‘I could do with more readers!’ – Abdulrazak Gurnah on winning the Nobel prize for literature.