PicoBlog

Which came first, the wine or the marketing campaign? In my career writing about wine, I have received, along with wine, of course, the usual and the odd assortment of devices from marketing and PR people. These include corkscrews and foil cutters, little notebooks with pens, packets of spices and jars of condiments and, back in the 1990s, when this was … ncG1vNJzZmiamZy0pr7ToZinsZ%2Bqv6mxwJ1lrK2SqMGir8pnmqilX2d9cYWOamloaGFkwaa5z6uYZqyRo8GzwcxmpJqcXZbAbrTEpaM%3D

We live in a food-obsessed culture. We fawn over celebrity chefs and actively seek out the best restaurants, fancy food preparations, and unusual ingredients. Food is also an important societal marker for us today, as not everyone can afford a gold-laced cocktail or a Kobe beef burger, but you can still be trendy by seeking out the most delicious food truck or farmer’s market.   Despite our world’s current culinary ambitions, food as a status symbol is centuries old, and one of the most famous examples is the ancient Roman gourmand Apicius, the main character of my novel, Feast of Sorrow.

For more articles, videos, books, and resources about faith and art, visit RabbitRoom.com. The best advice I’ve ever heard on writing came from Stephen King: “Read a lot. Write a lot.” Today on the Substack we are tweaking King’s sage and pithy advice for our audience of poets and poetry lovers. Read a lot of poetry about poetry. Write a lot of poetry about poetry. Below you will find ten offerings from poets who are wrestling with, celebrating, and reveling in the topic of poetry in their work.

Quick public service announcement to get started.  Many of you have told me it's tough to get new clients and customers via social.  Luckily, I've been doing that for years now.  That's why I'm hosting my FREE masterclass, How to Get People to STOP Scrolling and BUY Your Stuff, next week.  (Super subtle title, right? lol)  Grab a seat by clicking right here.  Like last time, I'm giving away $200 in free courses, just for showing up.

As it often happens with musicians with a background in punk - go no further than legends, and former The Devil's Mouth alumni, like Greg Mackintosh, Mike IX Williams, Michel Langevin or Noah Landis, for instance, to name but a few -, no matter what styles/genres they end up playing in the future, there's always a certain edge, a certain attitude that remains ingrained, and that can also be said of Justin DeTore, who’s been in many punk/hardcore/oi!

Terrence Malick is my favorite director. He can be a divisive figure; critics dismiss him as a pretentious airhead who would rather film grass blowing in the wind than tell a story. But these complaints always seem tin-eared to me. For one thing, most of his movies have more satisfying plots than people claim; Badlands, for example, is an expertly crafted Bonnie-and-Clyde story even while it’s a distant and dreamlike meditation on nature and man.

Simply put, this is the greatest wrestling match of all time. No, I am not being hyperbolic. I mean it with every fiber of my being as a fan and critic of professional wrestling — Ric Flair and Terry Funk put on the greatest wrestling match of all time at Clash of the Champions IX: New York Knockout, a violent triumph that may never be equaled in my lifetime. Everything I love about wrestling – its past, present, and future – is right here.

A WHILE BACK, one of my previous bosses described his personal automotive journalism philosophy to me like this: “Every car is shit. Until proven otherwise.” Personally, it’s not my favorite. I’m more fond of something like: “Comfort the afflicted; afflict the comfortable.” You know—look out for the little guy. But they both hint at something that I consider crucial. And that’s skepticism. Who gets to call themselves a journalist is murky these days.

A few weeks ago, I visited the Tesla plant in Fremont —the original NUMMI plant which was Tesla’s first production line. But actually, the plant that’s making headlines these days is the one being built in Monterrey, Mexico, where Tesla is planning to test a new way of making cars.  This new manufacturing method was introduced at Tesla’s Investor Day 2023 event and is called theunboxed concept:  “Tesla Inc. claims that it has developed a new assembly process that can reduce EV production costs by 50 percent, while reducing factory space by 40 percent… The “unboxed” system was outlined during the automaker’s recent Investor Day when executives talked about next-generation vehicles and manufacturing improvements.