Prime Cuts #8
Idiosyncrasy masquerading as a newsletter.
Welcome to Prime Cuts, a curated weekly collection of the most interesting content for your Reading, Watching, or Listening playlists.
A tragic tale of hubris, of course, but Venkatesh does a nice job using this event to specifically frame a discussion about the incomprehensible and the unknown. “Premature aestheticization, you might say, is the mark of all evil. Things should be ugly in proportion to how poorly you understand them.” The sub was too pretty, too spacious, and this should have been an obvious sign that something was very awry.
I’ve previously waxed poetic about the beauty of The Bear, undoubtedly the best show of 2023, and Episode 7 “Knives” is probably my favorite of the second season. This article takes us behind the scenes at the actual restaurant used for the filming of that episode, and even for those of us who have consumed every episode of Chef’s Table, it hits different when the Michelin-starred restaurant has already been presented so cinematically.
I’m a bit late to Somebody Somewhere but it is a delight! Short and breezy with two seasons of 7-episode 30-minute episodes, we’re transported to the unusual (for television at least) town of Manhattan, Kansas - home of the KSU Wildcats and a whole host of misfit 40- to 50-somethings, just trying to figure out how to live well. The fact that it’s so funny makes the dramatic drops that much heavier.
Danny Crichton’s “Securities” podcast and newsletter is a must-read every week, and I love that he’s now moving into short-form video. It certainly helps being embedded into Lux Capital, who invest in some of the coolest companies on the planet, including in the defense space.
Om Malik on his Conversation with Brunello Cucinelli
Om is perhaps the most philosophically-oriented “tech writers”, and has been a key voice in the industry for decades. Yet it is his interview with cashmere king Brunello Cucinelli that so many think of when his name comes up in conversation, and for good reason - it’s a great piece, a great conversation, with a super interesting billionaire. Not just interesting in the “built an empire from nothing” sense but as an ardent capitalist who also believes in personal balance, for himself and his employees. This episode takes Om back to this very conversation but turns into a much larger (again, philosophical) dialogue about working and living.
I’ve previously highlighted Ichika Nito’s unique and ethereal guitar playing, and I have no qualms about including him once again in Prime Cuts given he just dropped a new music video that is far longer than most he releases (an otherwise normal sub-4-minute jaunt).