Earlier this year, we went to Legoland California for a family trip. We were lucky enough to get a VIP tour of the build room, the place where designers and architects build the displays. Inside, the tables were groaning with models-in-progress, and the walls were stacked with drawers containing every conceivable size, shape, and color of Lego brick. I was excited, of course, a fan in his element. We all were. But I also had […]
Lots said about Rolling Stone founder Jann Wenner’s interview with David Marchese—from his comments on inarticulate black musicians, to his inability to see the limits of his imagination, to his shruggy response to the UVA campus rape story. But beyond the headline-grabbing parts, the most interesting to me is this answer: his unapologetically defensive boomer viewpoint, so absolutely of its time: “What didn’t the rock ’n’ roll generation do? I mean, it didn’t get everything […]
There are moments when you realize you are living in the future. Watching a driverless car pull up to a stop sign, front seat empty, a handless steering wheel starting to turn. FaceTiming a family member on the other side of the world, remembering what it used to take to talk with them 15 years ago. Seeing a moment, taking a photo, editing it, contextualizing it and sharing it with a global network of people […]
Lots of little gems in John Seabrook’s 1994 New Yorker profile of Bill Gates, but this note stuck with me particularly. The story itself is an interesting case in how you write about something new. The article still stands up, more or less, but so many of the ideas that are revelatory to Seabrook at this specific moment in history—email, the internet, even computers and software—became so normal so soon after. How can you capture […]
• Brocken spectres are the terrifying ghosts that appear when you cast a shadow on a cloud that has a light source behind it. • Marcin Wichary is getting ready to launch his many–years-in-the-making book about keyboards, Shift Happens. The effort and dedication to making this thing is visible in every element of how he has put it together, including the book’s delightful website. • Did you know the CIA has a museum?
There are many ways to become invisible. If you’re a person you can try to go underground, take yourself off the grid. If you are a new US military bomber, you can use the laws of physics and materials science to stay off the radar. And if you are a glass frog, you can simply turn your blood transparent. We’re transfixed by invisibility, the art of disappearance. It’s magical. Sometimes that absence is a problem: […]
A few years on a visit to Seoul, I found myself stuck. It was my first trip to east Asia, and I was riding around on public transport to meet with a friend when I hit the trifecta of travel panic: I tried to use my bank cards and they got blocked; my European phone didn’t work on Korea’s networks; and I couldn’t read hangul. My resources were zero and there was little way to […]
Thanksgiving is my favorite American holiday. It’s not pure, exactly—name me a celebration that doesn’t carry some baggage—but it is simple. Get together with people you care about, take a moment to reflect on what you’re thankful for, eat until your eyes roll around in your head. It’s very direct. No country is as in love with itself as the US is, and nothing reflects that love as much as the Thanksgiving plate. It swoons over […]
I spotted Seakor for the first time when we were shopping for furniture a few weeks ago; it’s an unassuming Polish deli on a corner of the Richmond opposite a gas station, graced by a sign that says “& SAUSAGE FACTORY.” Who wouldn’t be intrigued? It was always easy to get Polish food in the UK, one flat we had in Brighton was slapped next to a Polish corner shop (or perhaps the shop was […]
German food gets a surprisingly easy ride. We all know the jokes about English cuisine, or the wincing references to Scandinavia’s pickled herrings, or the apparently endless parade of cabbage-based dishes that represent an Eastern European dinner table. And yet somehow German grub—which essentially combines all of those into a single menu—doesn’t come in for the same skepticism. At least, that’s what I figure given the number of German food spots around the Bay. Sausage […]
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