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Saturday, October 23, 2021

Frozen in Haunting Time: Anthony Bourdain

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.
Anthony Bourdain, 

 

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.

~Anthony Bourdain, 


Roadrunner” begins where Bourdain’s life as a public figure begins: it’s 1999, he’s a forty-three-year-old undecorated cook and aspiring writer, and his big break—the bombastic New Yorker essay “Don’t Eat Before Reading This”—has become the basis for a book, “Kitchen Confidential,” that’s about to go off like a star in supernova. We see him head off on his first book tour, encounter early fans, and learn in real time that the book is a best-seller; despite being solidly in middle age, Bourdain fidgets on the cusp of fame with the gawky, awestruck charisma of a teen-ager. When Neville uncovered the footage, which was shot by the photographer Dmitri Kasterine, for a documentary that was never released, it felt like kicking off the lock on a treasure chest. “It’s like the last vestiges of his old life,” Neville said. Bourdain was “given everything he always wanted: money, and a chance to travel, and freedom,” he continued. “Does that find him happiness? Of course, it doesn’t, because happiness doesn’t come from external things.”

A Haunting New Documentary About Anthony Bourdain

“Roadrunner,” by the Oscar-winning filmmaker Morgan Neville, presents Bourdain as both the hero and the villain of his own story.



“I Knew It Was Doomed; I Knew Someone Was Doomed”: Inside Anthony Bourdain’s All-Consuming Relationship


Anthony Bourdain: Feast of Memory He went from chef with an outlaw streak to ambassador to the world. One shared meal at a time


“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’


In the new Anthony Bourdain documentary Roadrunner, Bourdain narrates his own story from beyond the grave, as the film utilizes clips of Bourdain's voice ...
 Anthony Bourdain's wildly popular CNN docuseries, Parts Unknown, isn't leaving Netflix after all. Though the show was previously scheduled

Web results

Media Dragon: Russia: Bourdain's Field Notes
Jozef Imrich, name worthy of Kafka, has his finger on the pulse of any irony of interest and shares his findings to keep you in-the-know with the savviest trend ...

Anthony Bourdain Knew There Was Nothing More Political Than Food The Nation
Anthony Bourdain's Top 10 Rules: “Don't Care What People Expect Of You!” P.D. James, The Children of Men. “Early this morning, 1 January 2021, three 


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.”




The Great Escape. "Follow Aaron Rolph's 2700km bikepacking trip up the United Kingdom, taking anything but the shortest route."


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."


The 9090-piece Titanic is the largest Lego set ever built (and retails for $630). "You can be blasé about some things, Rose, but not about Titanic. It's over 1500 more pieces than the Millennium Falcon and far more luxurious."


       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:

       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