The thought was in fact a memory. I write fiction now, mostly, but back in the nineties I worked for a magazine in New York, one that sent me to France to profile Bernard Loiseau, after he earned his third Michelin star. I was picked because I was half French and spoke the language, not because I was good. But I wanted to be good, and writing a profile was a major step for me, so I did a lot of research on Loiseau. I concluded that interviewing him would be easy: the guy was funny, passionate, generous in his answers. The piece would write itself. A piece that wrote itself was dubious to me, though, even as a mostly inexperienced young writer. I needed to introduce conflict, I thought, something abrasive, get Chef Loiseau off balance.
I asked him about food, of course, but then I quickly jumped to questions of ambition, of jealousy and envy. Those were the kinds of things that were on my mind at the time. I was seeing too many people around me sign book deals and make connections while I was stuck cataloguing everyone else's successes in hundred-words-or-less reviews for our culture pages. That was my story back then: twenty-four years old and already bitter. I don't remember exactly how I phrased it to Bernard (he'd asked me to call him that), but I remember the sentiment, I remember wanting to get this honest man, this man who'd done nothing but work hard and make it to the top, to talk shit. I wanted to know if he was angry at another chef's success, if there were dishes that others got famous for which he thought were crap.
"Do your readers need to know this?" Loiseau had answered, the way he'd answered all my questions-not taking a split second to think about them.
"Pardon me?"
"Your readers should they hear this? Do they want to know this?"
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة July 10 - 17, 2023 (Double Issue) من The New Yorker.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك ? تسجيل الدخول
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة July 10 - 17, 2023 (Double Issue) من The New Yorker.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك? تسجيل الدخول
President for Sale - A survey of today's political ads.
On a mid-October Sunday not long ago sun high, wind cool-I was in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, for a book festival, and I took a stroll. There were few people on the streets-like the population of a lot of capital cities, Harrisburg's swells on weekdays with lawyers and lobbyists and legislative staffers, and dwindles on the weekends. But, on the façades of small businesses and in the doorways of private homes, I could see evidence of political activity. Across from the sparkling Susquehanna River, there was a row of Democratic lawn signs: Malcolm Kenyatta for auditor general, Bob Casey for U.S. Senate, and, most important, in white letters atop a periwinkle not unlike that of the sky, Kamala Harris for President.
LIFE ADVICE WITH ANIMAL ANALOGIES
Go with the flow like a dead fish.
CONNOISSEUR OF CHAOS
The masterly musical as mblages of Charles Ives
BEAUTIFUL DREAMERS
How the Brothers Grimm sought to awaken a nation.
THE ARTIFICIAL STATE
A different kind of machine politics.
THE HONEST ISLAND GREG JACKSON
Craint did not know when he had come to the island or why he had come.
THE SHIPWRECK DETECTIVE
Nigel Pickford has spent a lifetime searching for sunken treasure-without leaving dry land.
THE HOME FRONT
Some Americans are preparing for a second civil war.
SYRIA'S EMPIRE OF SPEED
Bashar al-Assad's regime is now a narco-state reliant on sales of amphetamines.
TUCKER EVERLASTING
Trump's favorite pundit takes his show on the road.