The firm’s glass-and-steel headquarters in lower Manhattan, finished in 2009, has no name on the outside, so it attracts little attention despite taking up two city blocks. But Goldman wouldn’t mind getting more recognition now for its success outside of trading.
— Jack Hough “How Goldman Sachs Is Regaining Its Touch” Barron’s
One of the big issues is that because of money, so much journalism is being cut back — not necessarily at the big operations, but in local markets, where it really counts. You have national or international news organizations parachuting into the middle of the country for a few hours, but you don’t have as much of that great indigenous local reporting that you used to have. That’s what harms the country, because that’s where you get the real story.
“Christiane Amanpour Believes in the Power of Local News” The New York Times Magazine
They told me they never meet their customers. They do it all on the phone. I say, ‘How do you sell a $5 million plane on the phone?’ But that was just the way the business was done.” They allowed him to work on a commission-only basis. At night he put in shifts as a waiter in McLean, Va., and by day he tried to sell planes. “At 4 p.m. I’m talking to a guy about a $4 million Learjet, and at 6 p.m. I’m getting yelled at to refill some guy’s coffee. It was a humbling experience, and it kept me grounded.
— Gideon Lewis-Krausjan “Selling Airborne Opulence to the Upper Upper Upper Class” The New York Times Magazine
Last year, Kanye West, Drake, and Justin Bieber all sat the show out; their shrugs reverberated. The R. & B. singer Frank Ocean declined to submit his album “Blonde” for consideration, and then offered a brutal assessment to the Times: “That institution certainly has nostalgic importance,” he said. “It just doesn’t seem to be representing very well for people who come from where I come from, and hold down what I hold down.”
— Amanda Petrusich “Lorde Help Us, Here Come the “Woke” Grammys” The New Yorker
If all of Ladner’s pastas tasted so clearly like the work of a chef—or, better yet, a grandmother—he might really be on to something.
–Hannah Goldfield “The restaurants trying to shake up pasta” The New Yorker
Mr. Miller’s films depicted winter sports with grandeur, beauty and a mischievous sense of fun that attracted viewers who had never set foot on a slope. The mainstream appeal of his films helped turn winter sports from a niche pursuit to a widely popular pastime and a multibillion-dollar industry.
…
In a 2008 speech, Mr. Miller summed up with uncharacteristic seriousness what had led him — as well as ski bums and heads of state and corporations — to head for the mountains.
“It’s our search for freedom, ” he said. “It’s what it’s all about — man’s instinctive search for freedom.”
–Matt Higgins “Warren Miller, Ski Bum Turned Filmmaker, Is Dead at 93” The New York Times
Maybe it was all just a dream — or a nightmare.
As the Chinese stock market’s disastrous 2015 boom-and-bust fades from memory, investors are in a mood to buy. Chinese stocks both on the mainland and in Hong Kong outperformed the S&P 500 last year, as economic growth accelerated for the first time since 2010.
“China stocks at risk of outpacing fundamentals” FT
“We were pretty naïve about that,” Mr. Musk said in July at a conference in Washington, D.C. “At first, it sounds really easy. Just stick two first stages on as strap-on boosters. How hard can that be? But then everything changes. All the loads change. Aerodynamics totally change. You’ve tripled the vibration and acoustics.”
–Kenneth Chang “SpaceX’s Big Rocket, the Falcon Heavy, Finally Reaches the Launchpad” The New York Times
Then, around 1985 or so, Bocuse turned into an icon. One moment: famous guy at stove. Then: Pope of restaurant people. He became the undisputed emissary of the kitchen mission. He became Frenchness.
It is not entirely clear how this happened, because (and Bocuse would have agreed) there were, and are, more talented and savvy chefs around. He never hosted a food show.
–Bill Buford “The First Time I Met Paul Bocuse” The New Yorker
The Metal Detector 