PicoBlog

Happy Easter! To everyone celebrating, I hope you have a wonderful time. I took a break from bookwork this weekend, and I binge-watched the entire season of 3 Body Problem(Netflix). I needed something good after Foundation (Apple TV), and this filled the gap well. This week, we’re getting into the science of vinaigrettes and why the notion of a perfect ratio is somewhat murky. DON'T FORGET: I’ll be in New York next month at the James Beard Foundation’s new Platform to celebrate Earth Day, and I’ll be conversing with the award-winning food writer Helen Rosner of The New Yorker to discuss my book, Veg-Table.

Does anyone have anything new to say about John Boorman’s 1967 film, Point Blank? Those who know me or follow me on any of my various social media accounts will be familiar with the fact that I am a huge Lee Marvin fan. And no matter how my cinematic moods or tastes change, Point Blank remains a stone cold top five favourite film. I must have seen it at least half a dozen times.

Welcome to “Is This Band Good?”, a semi-regular feature where I, with the help of a knowledgeable and accomplished musician, try to determine—quantitatively—if certain bands are actually good.  Check out past entries on Cake, Soul Coughing, B-52s, Ben Folds Five, They Might Be Giants, late ‘00s indie darlings, Social Distortion, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Korn and Oingo Boingo. Share Hole doesn’t need an introduction. You either love them or hate them, and if you hate them, it’s a good chance that you’re a man.

Something strange is happening on some of America’s trendiest shopping streets. Neighborhoods that not so long ago graced Esquire lists of the best bars in America are now showing up in news reports on high crime and economic collapse. Temescal in Oakland, Valencia Street in San Francisco, and H Street in Washington DC are among the high-profile, hyper-gentrified neighborhoods whose woes have recently been featured in major stories. Similar phenomena have been reported in hip urban neighborhoods like Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles and Uptown Minneapolis.

Arthur Engoron, the New York Supreme Court judge in the real estate case brought against Donald Trump by the state attorney general, has fined Trump and members of his family $464 million. This raises the question of whether the fine – which does not reflect damages actually done – is "excessive" under the Eighth Amendment of the US Constitution, which reads as follows: "Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

Note: Just before we get started, I wanted to say thank you to everyone who reached out with condolences after my cat, Bertie, passed away last week. It meant so much to hear from each of you… I’m hoping it will be therapeutic to return to writing again this week. For a brief time on Saturday, it looked like maybe there was a chance at least one of the two upstarts in the men’s Final Four — NC State or Alabama — would stop the UConn-Purdue collision course this entire NCAA tournament has seemingly been building toward.

Kimchi, the tangy Korean fermented cabbage condiment for spicing up a boring chicken mayo sandwich or cheese toastie, may prevent weight gain. Or so says new research hitting the headlines this week. Scientists think that the bacteria that proliferate in kimchi as it is fermented - namely various types of lactobacillus - may help silence genes which are involved in us gaining weight. They think that eating 1-3 portions of kimchi containing live bacteria daily, may help keep a lid on weight gain.

The NFL schedule came out last night — to much fanfare. (Everything the NFL does is to much fanfare.) Which makes today a sort of golden moment for the fanbases of all 32 teams, the moment when you can go through the schedule game-by-game and dream that this is the year your squad goes undefeated. As ESPN’s Dan Graziano wrote today: Admit it. You got your favorite NFL team's full 2024 regular-season schedule Wednesday night, went through it game-by-game and came to the only conclusion any good fan can reach at a time like this.

Over the weekend, The Atlantic ran an essay of mine about the Apple+ TV series Foundation, a science fiction epic ostensibly based on Isaac Asimov’s classic novels, which ultimately functions as a rejection of just about every important idea Asimov presented in his books. The story is here, and I urge you to read the whole thing. It’s about Liberalism, empire and epic drama. For this newsletter, however, I want to focus on some material that we decided was a little too dorky and obscure for the Atlantic’s big general audience.