HILARIOUS!

Just get it.

Link:
Buy it here (Amazon – cheapest)

This guy animates the talk. Very worthwhile 10 minutes.

Links:
Watership Down
Monkey Business
Christie’s

Excerpt form Adam Bryant’s interview with Barbara Krumseik of the Calvert Group Ltd:

…I think the key is that people who work for me honestly believe that there is going to be a win-win here. I’ll bring it back to my obstacle-course analogy. I believe that the whole career ladder concept is a very disruptive concept because what does it suggest? You can’t get past the person ahead of you unless you push them off the ladder. It promotes aggressive behavior.

When you think of an obstacle course, there are a lot of people on the obstacle course at the same time, and my success doesn’t impede your success. And I may be able to take a minute and help you over that next obstacle and still get where I want to get to.

I also think you have to be a little humble. You have to be maybe a little bit overly confident to break into new things, but a little bit overly humble about what you don’t know, and admiring of the talents different people bring to the table.

Link:
Corner Office: It’s Not a Career Ladder, It’s an Obstacle Course, New York Times, 5/21/10.

With added commentary, stories, and really nice photos, they’re really more than just cookbooks.

Glimpsing inside the French Laundry – how to prepare foie gras.

His famous roast chicken inside Bouchon.

Ad Hoc at Home is good for bulk cooking.

Links:
Thomas Keller – French Laundry Cookbook
Thomas Keller – Bouchon Cookbook
Thomas Keller – The Complete Keller (includes both French Laundry and Bouchon Cookbooks)
Thomas Keller – Ad Hoc at Home

Link: Borowitz Report

Copy + Paste from Indiepulp:

He accepted the job because it would be like doing the 1929 issue of the magazine, and he filled the image with tons of satirical imagery, like the U.S. [Treasury] being raided by Wall Street, China dumping money into the ocean, homes being flooded, homes being foreclosed, and CEOs dancing a jig while society devolves into chaos.

It’s too bad that the folks at Fortune don’t have a sense of humor.

Links:
Indiepulp
Link to a giganormous jpeg of the cover for downloading pleasure

Anyways, here’s the part of the review that got me to pick up the book:

The story begins almost whimsically in Jamaica, with five English children surviving a hurricane. Later on, as the ship is returning to Europe, we enter Treasure Island territory when the vessel is boarded by pirates.

Here’s where it gets good, because the pirates and the children begin to switch places. At first the pirates are the brutal ones, drinking heavily and throwing people overboard as pirates will. But the children have such a deformed sense of right and wrong that it’s soon the pirates who are frightened of them.

Having just finished it, I’d say that the book did not disappoint. In the course of a couple of days, the 1929 novel transported my mind to colonial Jamaica, then on board a pirate ship, and finally to an English coutroom. All the while, I was given omniscient access to the thinking and reasoning of the pirates and children. This gave credence to the characters’ calculated interactions and to the eventual story conclusion, which kind of left me unease (in a good way).

Note: The picture in this post is a screen shot of the 1965 film adaptaion of the novel, which I have yet to see.

Links:
Buy The Book for Cheap
Andrew Sean Greer, A Delightfully Evil Tale of Pirates and Children, NPR, 7/7/2009.
Introduction to A High Wind in Jamaica by Francine Prose (a worthwhile read)

Liar’s Poker by Michael Lewis
The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine by Michael Lewis
Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcom Gladwell
A High Wind in Jamaica by Richard Hughes

..and that’s my ring that I wear everyday, right middle finger.

Get the books off of Amazon for cheap. No tax (at least in California) and Free shipping (spend over $25).