If I were to catalogue the people I know intimately – those who others might see as cool – they are, to a one, pretty much not cool. Take a moment to do the same – think of all the people you know well to whom others have attached the label “cool” and think about how uncool they are. That’s me. That’s you. That’s them.Being cool – the antithesis of the suck-at-something ethos – might have a historically very recent and very specific origin.
To help me, I contacted one of the coolest of cool cats, Anthony Bourdain. I knew Tony from his early days as a Mr. Fix-It Chef. I published his first book,. He was always generous and funny, but also a bit shy and, well, goofy. But in all the good ways, and I wanted to see what he had to say about it all.Story continues below advertisementIn trying to dig into cool, Tony offered, “I think cool suggests the absence of caring,” echoing Mr. Dinerstein’s aestheticizing of detachment theory.
For the self-described man who made “commercially successful pure food porn,” excelling is overrated. It shouldn’t be surprising, then, that he’d taken up Brazilian jiu-jitsu. And … he regularly got his ass kicked. Tony, it turned out, was expert at sucking at something.
GlobeDebate ...she still has a home in paradise costa rica...bravo Karen🏡🎶