Joel Rose

I had this sat on my shelf so long before getting round to reading, and I think it came from a remainder bookshop back in the 90s. So I was a bit surprised to see some of the authors in it are actually much more well known now than they would have been back then - so you get David Foster Wallace with an author bio saying he's 'working on something long' (gotta be Infinite Jest right?), and A M Homes before she's published May We be Forgiven etc.

I really dislike the cover, and so was a bit show more sorry to see it was by Art Spiegelman.

Anyway its a collection of quirky and disturbing short stories, all vaguely about love, romance and sex. Some are better than others, and I'm finding it hard to remember them all in detail now, but I'm glad I finally got around to reading it. Its odd to read something that was probably edgy and modern at time of publishing but now seems a little dated. show less

Jiro is a sushi chef working on the outskirts of a city and time where food rules. There are no more movies, books or sports, it's all about the food. Unfortunately his reputation has begun to spread. The big two food companies have heard of him and they both want him for themselves (although only so the other can't have him). Jiro eventually brings the little guys together.

You can absolutely tell this book was written by Anthony Bourdain, what with the food purity and the extreme reactions show more to food errors. I loved it. It made me laugh and I hope that he writes more. show less

Oh mannnnn I really wanted to love this. It could have been perfect. I don't know if it was a short production schedule or what but the transitions between issues just did not make sense. First it's these rich guys doing this ritual and I'm thinking damnnn this is going to backfire on them but then in the next few issues the rich dudes are not even there?

They explained at the beginning that everyone was to sit together in one room and light 100 candles and after each person told a scary show more story they were to extinguish one candle. Except they moved rooms and characters disappeared and the candles kept multiplying???

We have the chefs go into this room with the candles alone without the rich dudes (the characters are divided into the richies and the chefs who just cooked their 5-star dinner), but the whole conceit was that you sit together and one at a time extinguish a candle, chefs and rich dudes alike. I seriously went back to the beginning several times because I was like, am I missing something?

It was a genuinely terrifying concept that was executed poorly. A group of people from different worlds, summoned by a mysterious and eccentric millionaire, is convinced to play an ancient samurai game where 100 candles are lit and everyone has to go around telling a scary story and extinguish one candle until all the candles are out and a demon is summoned. That's a genuinely awesome story!

But this isn't that story. show less

I find Tony Bourdain amusing. He is smart, arrogant, funny, and that special kind of rich which involves focusing entirely on his authentic connection to the goodness and purity of the poor and disenfranchised. He also talks about food in ways I find exciting. This comic is such a great idea, but in it Bourdain goes from arrogant to insufferable and from underlying anger to Texas Chainsaw Massacre levels of violence. Seriously, you can't make fun of the pretension of vegans and locavores and show more then justify the murder of people who eat nigiri incorrectly. I know it's tongue-in-cheek, but its important that tongue-in-cheek castigation be consistent to be amusing, and it also helps if the humorist learns to laugh at himself and not just at others.

A side note: I have spent a lot of time in Japan in my life, and I have seen plenty of people eat sushi with chopsticks even at the most expensive restaurants and in the company executive dining rooms of several Japanese companies. Yes, the sushi soy dunk is purely American, but if you are eating run-of-the-mill sushi, its also pretty delicious. I look at it as fusion, but food miscegenation is clearly a bigger deal to Bourdain than it is to me. show less