Graydon Gordian

I first met Graydon Gordian (GG) when he was interviewing for a marketing role at Percolate. He had been well-vetted at that point and most of our conversation shifted to Dennis Rodman’s Hall of Fame case (we had both recently read the same epic article). While he happens to be the biggest NBA fan I know, that’s not really the point of the story. What makes Graydon fun (beyond an infectious excitement for everything) is an ability to navigate nearly any topic and an encyclopedia of stories (I frequently call him the Forrest Gump of the NBA). His Twitter profile photo is also him in a hot dog costume, so there’s that. - Noah (NRB) [PS - We’ll be taking Monday off for Memorial Day. Back to regularly scheduled interesting on Tuesday.]Graydon here. NBA coaches and players spend a lot of time interacting with the media. Coaches speak with the press before, during, and after most games. And while players are mostly spared the pre- and in-game chats, the regular season post-game media session is made up of a throng of reporters encircling sixteen freshly showered and half-dressed athletes who just ran up and down a basketball court for 48 minutes. During the playoffs, pressers are more civil and more public, with players sitting at a table atop a small stage taking questions on camera from rows of reporters sitting in front of them.It was in that setting that Russell Westbrook, the mercurial, hyper-athletic, and famously reckless point guard of the Oklahoma City Thunder, recently rekindled his longstanding conflict with Berry Tramel. Tramel is a veteran reporter for The Oklahoman who earned the ire of Westbrook in or around 2015. A few weeks ago, during the opening round of the 2019 NBA Playoffs, Tramel attempted to ask Westbrook two questions. Instead of listening to them, he spoke over Tramel to his teammate Paul George, with whom he was sharing the stage. He responded to both of Tramel’s inquiries with “next question”. It was characteristically uncooperative and during the rounds of talking heads shows that follow any incident in sports, was labeled as outright disrespectful. Even more damningly, Golden State Warriors Head Coach Steve Kerr weighed in on the incident, referring to Westbrook’s treatment of the media as “dangerous” for the league.Why is that interesting?The criticism of Westbrook brings to mind another prominent NBA figure who is famously curt with the media: San Antonio Spurs Head Coach Gregg Popovich. As a lifelong San Antonio fan and former credentialled Spurs blogger, I’m very familiar with Coach Pop, as he is lovingly called around the league. I closely watched all 5 of his NBA championships along with hundreds of his 1,245 wins and plenty of his 575 losses (an exceptional win-to-loss ratio, if that’s unclear). And I’ve interviewed him on a number of occasions. A surly, cerebral veteran of the United States Air Force, who is celebrated for both his impact on the game and its culture, Popovich has been described by NBA reporters as the league’s most woke coach, its most sophisticated gourmand, “a national treasure”, and “the most interesting man in the NBA”.It’s a bit odd that the press lavishes such praise on Pop, given that he is a famously difficult, if not outright disrespectful, subject. Countless members of the media, including your humble author, have been on the receiving end of a tongue lashing from the storied coach (known around the NBA as getting “Popped”). But while Pop can push veteran NBA reporter Doris Burke to “the verge of tears”, he receives nothing approaching the pointed criticism of Westbrook. Even in those times he’s been called out, it’s often been characterized as funny, if not outright lovable.What makes Pop’s treatment of the press all the more confusing is that he is, in fact, pretty woke. He hired the first female assistant coach in the history of the league and embraced the international game, bringing players and coaches from abroad into the league. He speaks as eloquently about white privilege, human dignity, and the need to fight for an inclusive and just society as any figure in sports, if not beyond it. Given his deeply humane politics, it’s odd that one of his best known traits is treating reporters like shit.But the question still remains: Given how similarly Westbrook and Popovich treat the media, why does the media treat them so differently? I’ll let Gregg Popovich start my answer off:.Obviously, race is the elephant in the room and we all understand that. Unless it is talked about constantly, it’s not going to get better. “Oh, they’re talking about that again. They pulled the race card again. Why do we have to talk about that?” Well, because it’s uncomfortable. There has to be an uncomfortable element in the discourse for anything to change, whether it’s the LGBT movement, or women’s suffrage, race, it doesn’t matter. People have to be made to feel uncomfortable, and especially white people, because we’re comfortable. We still have no clue what being born white means.Gregg Popovich is a 70-year-old five-time NBA champion, a millionaire many times over, and white. Russell Westbrook is 30 years old, has never won an NBA championship, has been in the spotlight since he was 18, is a millionaire many times over, and is black. Somewhere in those lists of facts lies the messy truth about how race, age, wealth, and professional success help us judge similar actions differently.You can’t simply say “We respect Pop more because he’s won titles and Westbrook hasn’t” or “Americans resent young black men who achieve immense financial success, especially those who do so working a job many could only dream of having,” although of course both of those are true and contribute to the dynamic.What you can say is that, the truth is messy, and telling messy truths is not always the sports media’s forte. Their preference is to tell simple stories. Stories with good guys and bad guys. I’d say it’s pretty clear whom it’s easiest to label which. (GG)Chart of the DayWhile we’re on the subject of Gregg Popovich: If you need further evidence of his success, consider the fact that the city of San Antonio has the 7th most playoff wins of any American city since 2000, despite having only one team. (GG)Quick Links:What would a Quick Links section be without a recommendation for another email to subscribe. Kneeling Bus from Drew Austin is a great read every week. From this week’s issue: “I like the idea of a leather jacket being a form of armor — the idea that the outside world is a harsh wilderness and clothing is the only layer shielding you from its threats. That is something to be nostalgic about in the present condition, where we’re embedded in layer upon layer of additional protection, and only by artificially engineering those man-vs-nature situations (by getting on a motorcycle or going camping) does clothing’s protective role kick in.” (NRB)Emojis as a security trojan horse: “With emoji as the driving factor, consumers are much more likely to apply software updates. When ‘emoji day’ happens, now an annual event during which Apple adds the annual set of 100+ emoji to iOS and macOS, iPhone owners clamber to run their updates so they can send the 🦜 U+1F99C PARROT to their friends. They’re also, perhaps unwittingly, patching their phones with the latest security updates. It’s a remarkable phenomenon. While, for example, an app advertising a new update as having ‘various bugs and fixes’ may not be immediately updated, the new system update with over 100 new emoji has users actively—even eagerly—installing it. Emoji, like the toy at the bottom of a cereal box, are an impressively effective feature for marketing major version updates.” (NRB)The many bad hats of Steven Spielberg. (NRB)Rodney Brooks, roboticist and founder of iRobot, uses the delay in self driving cars (now pegged by some in the 30-50 year range) to extrapolate that artificial general intelligence (human level intelligence that can be applied to anything) must also be delayed. The logic is simple: if we had AGI, it could surely drive a car (since it would be human-level intelligence and that’s something humans can do). (NRB)Thanks for reading,Noah (NRB) & Colin (CJN) & Graydon (GG)

Why is this interesting? - The Westbrook Edition

Graydon Gordian (GG) is Group Creative Director at an independent agency in Atlanta, Georgia, where he works with fellow WITI contributor Ryan Anderson. He used to work with Noah, has contributed to WITI previously, and is passionate about a variety of frequent WITI topics, including the NBA, F1, climate change, and marketing/advertising. In college, he worked at P.F. Chang’s, so if you are looking for some killer off-menu items at America’s premier Chinese-themed bistro, you know who to ask.Graydon Here. Nochebuena is the Spanish term for Christmas Eve, and in some Latin countries, it’s the big show. The 25th is an afterthought compared to the festivities surrounding the night before Christmas. I spent the holiday in Uruguay and experienced the excitement first-hand. It was a warm evening and our neighbors were all outside, cooking asado on the wood fire grills, known as parillas, that are traditional to the area.Most restaurants are closed on Nochebuena, as nearly everyone spends the evening with their families. But at least one remained open: a restaurant called Garzon, in a small town of the same name about an hour off the coast. The proprietor and head chef of Garzon is none other than WITI favorite Francis Mallmann.Why is this interesting?It’s hard to impress when someone comes in with exceptionally high expectations, but that’s just what Mallmann did. From beginning to end, the meal was as delightful as it was challenging, an unexpected blend of the communal and the performative. It exceeded and undermined so many assumptions around what a restaurant should be, but never lost sight of what a meal could be.As we arrived, my father and I debated whether or not we were at the right place. He was convinced this dusty, quiet collection of decrepit buildings could not be the location of an internationally known chef’s restaurant. But alas, when I saw two lambs splayed out on wooden crosses built above fires raging in the middle of the street, I knew we were not lost.Garzon is a literal one-horse town. As we stood out in the street, drinking negronis from a make-shift bar that had been set up outside the restaurant’s front doors, a young boy rode by on the same dusty cream-colored horse a few times, gawking at the collection of gringos that had come from, by my count, at least 3 different continents to enjoy Mr. Mallmann’s food. I knew where our fellow guests were from because the meal began by meeting nearly everyone else who would be dining there that evening. As the waiters passed around empanadas and other amuse-bouche, we were encouraged to momentarily step away from our families and make friends with the rest of the people we’d be dining with that evening. What kind of Nochebuena would it be if you didn’t know the names of the other people in the room?As the sun set, I found myself standing with a young British couple next to the huge fires over which pork, pineapple, lamb and various other food had been cooking for what appeared to be hours. As we petted some happy-go-lucky stray dogs that were making their way around the gathering, I joked that, in the U.S., lighting fires in the middle of the street was frowned upon. The staff had blocked off the street with a few logs but, according to the couple, that wouldn’t equate a permit back home in East London. We laughed and made our way back to the bar where new friends from Singapore, San Francisco, and Canada awaited. Mr. Mallmann’s magnetism had ensured that, at least for one evening, this wouldn’t be just any old small South American town.After over an hour spent in the street, making new friends and eating a meal’s worth of appetizers, we were ushered into a restaurant that could not have stood in starker contrast to the brown, barren street on which we’d been mingling. Inside the walls of Garzon stood a lush garden, overflowing with vegetation and bathed in gentle candlelight. It was an undeniably elegant, thoughtfully constructed scene, made all the more so by the charmingly makeshift setup in which we’d begun the evening.The meal had all the hallmarks of a best-in-class dining experience: The waiters were warm yet restrained, present the second you needed them and not a moment earlier. The food was simple, ingredient-driven, and plentiful. Well, plentiful is putting it gently. The food my family of 6 was served could have easily fed 15. But it didn’t have the boorishness of a restaurant that’s making its name by serving meat in uncomfortably large portions. Many of the dishes were measured, and imbued with an invigorating brightness: Lightly salted slices of fresh zucchini. Mallmann’s hallmark smashed potatoes and freshly caught white fish. But of course, when the main course came, there was no reason for the chefs to hold back: Huge platters of pork, chicken and of course, the very publicly barbequed lambs were served along heaping piles of onions, shallots, carrots and pineapple, all of it cooked to perfection. It was a meal that I won’t soon forget.As midnight approached, people began to get up from their tables and mingle again. The staff set out champagne flutes, preparing for a midnight toast. Sadly, we couldn’t stay. We had a long drive back to the coastal town of La Barra where we were staying, and my mother, whose physical condition requires that she get plenty of rest, had done a valiant job staying up this late. As we finished our drinks (the freely flowing wine would have also been enough for 15), I wandered over to the manager, who was standing next to a table littered with Mallmann’s many books.“What’s he like as a boss I asked?” I asked. “Is he fun or is he crazy?”“He has some crazy ideas, for sure,” he said. “And when he’s not having a good day, we all know it. But he’s great. This is great.”I had to agree. (GG)Hotel of the Day:While WITI co-captain Colin Nagy is uniquely passionate about hotels and hospitality, the broader WITI contributor community takes a keen interest in the subject as well. There have been some good conversations about the best hotels we’ve stayed in and, after my adventures in South America this holiday season, I wanted to make a recommendation.Hotel Awa, built on the shores of Chile’s Lake Llanquihue, is a great hotel. The perfect gateway to explore the country’s often overlooked lakes region, it has all the hallmarks of an exceptional hospitality experience: architectural distinction; attentive, at times even heartfelt service; an elevated yet casual food and beverage program; and a view from each and every room that is breathtaking. If you are in Chile, the hotel alone, much less the ecologically diverse and geographically stunning region, is worth the short flight from Santiago. (GG)Quick Links:If you want to try your hand at cooking like Francis Mallmann, here’s a rather unique, multi-dimensional grill he designed for Best Made Co. (GG)While in South America, I read Andrea Wulf’s wonderful book on 19th-century scientist Alexander Von Humboldt, The Invention of Nature. Aside from being a joy to read, it came up constantly in conversation with people I met: Streets, parks, oceanic currents, plants, and animals throughout the continent bore his name. (GG)My wife and I are planning on converting our lawn into a natural, self-sustaining habitat for native flora and fauna, and we think you should think about it too. (GG)Thanks for reading,Noah (NRB) & Colin (CJN) & Graydon (GG)Why is this interesting? is a daily email from Noah Brier & Colin Nagy (and friends!) about interesting things. If you’ve enjoyed this edition, please consider forwarding it to a friend. If you’re reading it for the first time, consider subscribing (it’s free!).

Why is this interesting? - The Mallmann Edition

Graydon Gordian (GG) runs the creative team at a digital agency in Atlanta, Georgia, where he works with fellow WITI contributor Ryan Anderson. He used to work with Noah, has contributed to WITI on a couple of occasions, and is passionate about a variety of frequent WITI topics, including the NBA, F1, climate change, and marketing/advertising. The height of his musical career was when he and a buddy won the high school talent show with a sloppy but impassioned rendition of Thelonious Monk’s “Blue Monk.”Graydon here. On April 15th jazz saxophonist Lee Konitz died from complications related to COVID-19. While not a household name, he was a giant of the jazz world. The last surviving member of The Miles Davis-led Birth of the Cool sessions—a series of iconic recording dates in the late ‘40s and early ‘50s that would eventually be compiled under an album of the same name—he helped define, expand, and eventually challenge the cool jazz style which dominated West Coast clubs in the ‘50s. His darting yet smooth phrasing, gentle deconstruction of jazz standards, and inherent adventurousness influenced horn players as diverse as Art Pepper, Paul Desmond, Ornette Coleman, and Anthony Braxton.Konitz is just the latest in a long list of jazz greats to succumb to the coronavirus. Pianist Ellis Marsalis Jr., patriarch of “the first family of jazz,” as he and his children have become known, died in early April. Afro-jazz luminary Manu Dibango died in late March. Trumpeter Wallace Roney. Pianist Mike Longo. Saxophonist Marcelo Peralta. Bassist Henry Grimes. Guitarist Bucky Pizzarelli. The list of COVID-19 victims who made meaningful contributions to the evolution of jazz is growing tragically long.Why Is This Interesting?There is a widespread perception by both its admirers and detractors that the best days of jazz are behind it. To love jazz is inherently to love the history of jazz. The fact that so many greats would be older, and therefore among the population most vulnerable to COVID-19, comes as no surprise given that the genre’s most meaningful contributions to American culture are accepted to have been made between the ‘30s and ‘60s. And while those contributions are widely respected, the veneration of jazz is a backhanded compliment. No genre in the messy process of growing and evolving gets the kind of uncritical reverence jazz receives: the academic posts, the presidential medals, the lifetime achievement awards. It’s all an attempt to preserve or, worse, eulogize an art form that many presume to be in irreversible decline.And yet, even in this moment of institutional adoration, the complex, highly racialized history of jazz rears its ugly head. As numerous media outlets have covered with increasing righteous indignation, COVID-19 is disproportionately impacting the black community. The jazz musicians who have died because of coronavirus are as diverse as the music itself. But, given the dominant role African-Americans have played in the history of the genre, it’s hard to imagine that food insecurity, housing segregation, medical discrimination, and the other factors contributing to this shameful trend aren’t at least partly responsible for the growing number of jazz greats to fall victim to the disease.It’s a complex feeling, when someone whose cultural contributions you appreciated, or perhaps even loved, dies. There can be genuine sadness, and but also some guilt or embarrassment: a lingering sense that whatever grief you are experiencing is somehow stolen from those who knew and, in a much truer sense, loved that person. But as one of the countless recipients of the gift of their talent, it’s only natural to want to honor that gift, acknowledge their influence, and safeguard their legacy.For those of us that love jazz, when a famous jazz musician dies, those feelings of sadness can be all the more acute. Each musician’s obituary can read like an obit for the genre itself. You could easily get the sense that, once a critical mass of these musicians have died, jazz might simply cease to exist. But while I am honored to commemorate these men and women, I refuse to eulogize the genre they helped to shape, not out of stubbornness, but out of genuine optimism. Jazz is quietly resurgent. In the bars of London and the studios of Los Angeles, a new, daring generation of musicians is preserving the legacy of individuals like Lee Konitz the best way they know how: by pushing the music into uncharted territory. Musicians like Kamasi Washington, Thundercat, Yussef Dayes, Shabaka Hutchings, and the Ezra Collective are breaking free of the stuffy, stay-in-your-seats style that has dominated jazz ever since it retreated into the comforting confines of institutions like Lincoln Center. Finally, thankfully, we are again asking where we are going, not reminiscing on where we have been. (GG)Album of the Day:Lee Konitz’s Motion, recorded in 1961, is an often overlooked but nonetheless invaluable member of the jazz canon. Featuring Elvin Jones, most famous for his role as drummer in the John Coltrane-led quartet that recorded A Love Supreme among numerous other jazz classics, and bassist Sonny Dallas, the album is a modern jazz masterpiece. Free-flowing yet forceful, it strikes the perfect balance between the open-ended imagination that would define the next decade in jazz and the more accessible musicality that had typified the cool jazz and hard bop era. The trio format gives the album a stripped down quality that allows each musician to really demonstrate his talent. I had been listening to jazz for many years when I first heard it, and it immediately became a favorite. (GG)Quick Links: It’s hard to talk about the future of jazz without mentioning Kamasi Washington’s 2015 album The Epic, a momentous work that made it clear jazz’s next generation intended to break new ground. (GG)London is a hotbed of the new jazz movement, and this playlist does a solid job covering off on its major players. (GG)A few jazz book recs (if you feel like going down the rabbit hole): Ted Gioia’s The History of Jazz for something pleasant yet authoritative; Amiri Baraka’s Blues People for something moving that grounds the music in the black experience; Geoff Dyer’s But Beautiful for something genre-bending and beautiful. (GG)While it’s not about jazz musicians, this 2018 New York Times Magazine piece about the dangers that black mothers face, tells the story of an African-American health crisis that extends beyond socio-economic factors. (NRB)Thanks for reading,Noah (NRB) & Colin (CJN) & Graydon (GG)—Why is this interesting? is a daily email from Noah Brier & Colin Nagy (and friends!) about interesting things. If you’ve enjoyed this edition, please consider forwarding it to a friend. If you’re reading it for the first time, consider subscribing (it’s free!).

Why is this interesting? - The Jazz Legend Edition

Graydon Gordian (GG) works and lives in Atlanta, GA. He’s written WITIs on Jazz, Christmas Eve in Uruguay, and the NBA. He never scored a touchdown. He got close once, but a defender tripped him from behind at the one-yard line.Graydon here. I first strapped on football pads and a helmet in 1992, when I was around seven years old. I played for the Corsairs, an Austin-area Pop Warner team that’s still around. I probably weighed barely more than the pads themselves, and generally hated it. I was somehow both scared and bored, and not especially athletic. But my dad and uncle had played college football, and my mother’s parents were lifelong Pittsburgh Steelers season ticket holders, so men in our family played football. About eight years later, when I was a sophomore in high school, I hung up my pads for the last time. Somewhere along the way, the speed and ferocity of the game had passed me by (if I had ever been in front of those aspects, to begin with). I was 120 pounds soaking wet, maybe less even, and that just doesn’t cut it when it comes to Texas high school football.But I didn’t stop watching the game, at least not right away. In fact, I watched more of it as time went on. I attended a college without a football team (that was intentional), but still watched the Texas Longhorns every Saturday and the Steelers every Sunday. For years, both weekend days were dedicated to hours upon hours of American football. In my 20s, I became a serious student of the game. I started reading highly detailed, tactics-driven books and blogs written by coaches and other seasoned practitioners—although I knew I would likely never coach myself, much less suit up again. I could spot the difference between a nickel and a dime package, give you an intellectual history of the spread option, and wax poetic on the zone blitz. I even wrote a bit about football from time to time. But aside from some touch football in the park, my playing days were long gone.Why is this interesting?My limited experience on the field might put me in the 80th percentile of football-minutes-played among Americans. While as a country we watch a lot of football, but we really don’t play it. Some young men and a very small number of young women do, but that number goes down with each passing grade (not to mention generation). If you don’t make the team in high school, your playing days are done. Maybe you’ll play a little flag football during PE, or join an intramural touch football team in college, but that game is nothing like 11-on-11 tackle football.It’s important to point out because the gap between amateur and professional play is not so wide in every sport. According to the National Sporting Goods Association, I’m among the 26 million Americans who play basketball. And when I happen to play 5-on-5, I’m effectively playing the same game as NBA players, if at a much lower skill level. But aside from the general absence of refs and dunks and the embarrassingly low 3-point percentages, the game’s pace and pattern is recognizable. The same goes for the 17.8 million people who play tennis in the United States. When I lace up my clean-as-a-whistle white New Balances, I’m abiding by the same rules as the professionals, on a court that’s the same size as theirs, and playing with the same (if considerably lower quality) equipment. My serve may be 40 miles/hour slower, but I’ve gotta get the ball in the same box. But drawing an out route on your chest huddled up with your friends on Thanksgiving or hurriedly counting down from “5 Mississippi” so you don’t burn your one blitz, has almost no relation to the modern-day gladiatorial games that tens of millions of Americans tune into every Saturday and Sunday (and now Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday).That means that the only people who really play tackle football, excluding children, are the million or so high school athletes who run out under those lights on Friday nights and the guys we watch on TV. (Where I grew up those are actually the same.) So how many people is that? According to the NCAA, around 7.3% of those high school players, or roughly 73,000 athletes, go on to play in college. And of those, about 1.6%, or 250-ish players annually, go on to play in the NFL. There are some secondary and semi-pro leagues, but they only add a few thousand players to the total, if that. In other words, about .005% of the population ages 15-64 plays football, and the overwhelming majority of that group are high schoolers. Just .0004% (the 80,000 or so athletes on a college or professional team) of that same age range play the country’s most-watched sport after high school.I find that incredibly strange and think it says something about what football really is. It’s still a sport, or at least it resembles what we think of when we use that term, but at some point, it may no longer primarily be that. It could be more accurately described as a TV show. Over the years, as football has taken up more and more air time, fewer and fewer minutes of actual gameplay reach our television screens. The average NFL game lasts over 3 hours, during which a fan can expect to see somewhere between 11 and 15 minutes of actual action. Most of what we do when we “watch football” is simply watch TV.And when we strap on a helmet and pads as kids, we aren’t learning a game we’ll enjoy playing for the rest of our life. We’re just in the first round of auditions for the big show. (GG)_____Partner post: Brightland x WITINew year, new resolutions. And one of ours is to re-evaluate the building blocks of our kitchen. One of the best things we’ve switched to last year has been our olive oil. We’re fans of Brightland, a new consumer brand that feels soulful has a clear aesthetic vision and tastes really good. This product is designed to be front and center in your kitchen and with your cooking, a far cry from that dusty green bottle in the back of your cabinet. Brightland is grown in California on family farms, and also fits nearly every lifestyle: vegan, vegetarian, pescatarian, Keto, Paleo, Atkins, and Mediterranean. We are partial to their OG products, Awake and Alive (bought as a duo, of course), but for gourmands, we’d recommend the essential capsule which includes their new champagne vinegar and balsamic vinegar. Your kitchen and cooking will thank you. Brightland offers subscriptions to all of their products, and are kindly offering WITI readers a code for $10 off the Essential Capsule or DUO: WITI10. _____Quick Links:If you really want to dig into the insanity and misery of the NFL, there’s no better guide than David Roth. (GG)If you want to understand the beauty, tragedy, and absurdity of football, there’s no better guide than Spencer Hall. (GG)If you want to think like a football coach, there’s no better guide than Chris Brown. (GG)Have you ever watched Bo Jackson play? Really watched him. That’s a human cheat code you’re looking at. (GG)Thanks for reading,Noah (NRB) & Colin (CJN) & Graydon (GG)—Why is this interesting? is a daily email from Noah Brier & Colin Nagy (and friends!) about interesting things. If you’ve enjoyed this edition, please consider forwarding it to a friend. If you’re reading it for the first time, consider subscribing (it’s free!). 

Why is this interesting? - The Football Edition

Graydon is the Head of Marketing at Fractal Software. He’s written several WITIs over the years, but his favorites are probably the Jazz Legend and Mallmann editions. He almost bought a rally car with a buddy a couple years ago, but their wives convinced them it was a bad idea. At times he regrets that decision.Graydon here. The rallying community is abuzz with the news that nine-time world champion Sebastian Loeb will be returning to the series after a two-year hiatus when he competes in the Monte Carlo Rally in late January. A true racing legend, he and his co-driver Daniel Elena dominated rallying in the late aughts and early teens.For the uninitiated, rallying is a century-old category of motorsport in which a driver and a navigator race point to point on closed roads in a series of “stages,” the total time it takes a team to complete all the stages determining the winner. The World Rally Championship (WRC), is the top level of the sport, equivalent to Formula 1 in open wheel racing or the NASCAR Cup Series for stock cars. The WRC takes its competitors across the globe, from the snow-covered forests of Finland to the dirt roads of Argentina to the perilous cliffs of Corsica. As much as anyone in motorsports, rally drivers operate on the limit: they are trying to squeeze every ounce of pace out of their vehicle, often while skirting the edge of a ravine, narrowly avoiding the trunk of a tree, or accelerating through a slippery corner crowded with eager fans, missing them by margins that never cease to shock me.Jari-Matti Latvala driving his Ford Focus RS WRC 06 at the 2007 Rallye Deutschland. [Via Wikipedia]But when Loeb slams on the gas and whips off the line in the first stage of this season’s opener, his former co-driver Elena won’t be seated alongside him. Instead, Isabel Galmiche, a longstanding member of his gravel crew (a team that drives and reviews course conditions before the race), will be riding shotgun. That might sound inconsequential—Loeb is the one steering, after all—but all eyes will be on Galmiche as she assumes a critical responsibility. She will be reading the pacenotes.Why is this interesting?Pacenotes are the guides rally drivers use to navigate each stage of the event. Written in shorthand, these highly detailed instructions help the driver complete the stage safely in as little time as possible. Masterpieces of information heuristics, pacenotes help drivers anticipate the details of a route: the distance between major features, the sharpness and direction of corners, the camber and conditions of the road, and special instructions that suit a driver’s style or preferences.There is no standard system for creating pacenotes, although they tend to fall into a few broad categories. Descriptive-first systems describe the severity of the turn then the direction: a fast right corner would be notated FR, whereas a hairpin to the left would be described as HPL. On the other hand, a direction-first system would read RF (right fast) or LHP (left hairpin). Meanwhile, a figure-based system uses numbers to describe the severity of the turn. Most teams who take this approach use 6 for fastest and 1 for slowest, with the numbers corresponding with the car’s gears. A 6R is a righthander you’d take flat out in 6th gear, while a 1L is a sharp left turn taken in first. But even amongst those who use the figure-based system, 6-fastest is by no means universal. Some drivers invert the order—1 fastest, 6 slowest—while others use entirely different scales. Whatever gets you to the end of the stage quickly and safely is the best method.Shockingly detailed manual pacenotes made for Dirt Rally, a fairly realistic rally video gameThe more sophisticated a driver, the more detailed pacenotes he or she will want. Notes often include whether a corner opens (“<”) or closes (“>”), impacting how a driver approaches the turn. For example, a driver might accelerate into the apex of a corner that opens, knowing that there is room to slide into the exit beyond the blind spot. Bumps (Bmp), jumps (Jmp) and crests (Cr) will all be captured, and may include a note about their size (SmJmp vs BigJmp, for example). Exclamation points signal a need for caution: “!” means there’s a chance you might crash. “!!!” means that, if you crash, there is a chance you might die.Suffice it to say, delivering pacenotes timely and accurately is a high stakes activity. Mistakes can have severe consequences. Rumor has it that two-time champion Carlos Sainz once crashed during Rally Argentina because his co-driver Luis Moya accidentally turned two pages of the notes at once. The no longer accurate directions caused Sainz to take a turn at the wrong speed and roll the car.Creating pacenotes is no less intensive an activity. For those building their pacenotes from scratch, they are often limited to just a couple reconnaissance or “recce” passes through the stage route. The first will be taken slowly, the second more quickly, but neither will be at true race pace. Will that bump be a jump when taken flat out? Is that righthander best taken in 3rd or 4th gear? The more experienced a rally team is, the more effectively they can create the sort of detailed pacenotes that allow them to gain miniscule advantages at various points throughout the stage and fight for the fractions of a second that can separate winning from losing.The 2022 Monte Carlo Rally, which runs January 17-23, will consist of almost 300km of racing across 17 stages. Unlike a racing circuit, it’s impossible to memorize the course and drive it at the speeds needed to win. That’s where pacenotes come in. When you need to drive faster than you can think, have someone else do the thinking for you. In any motorsport, there is a tension between speed and safety. Pacenotes are a snapshot of that tension, an attempt to boil down what it looks like to push limits of the driver while keeping the car on the road into just a few characters. (GG)Quick linksThe original pacenotes were developed by F1 driver Stirling Moss and journalist Denis Jinkinson for use in the 1955 Mille Miglia, a legendary but now defunct 1000-mile road race in Italy. They used hand signals because the open car was too loud for verbal communication, and the notes are rumored to have characterized corners as “saucy” and “dodgy,” among other frankly hilarious terms.It’s impossible to mention rally racing without mentioning Group B, an infamous class of rally racing from the 1980s. Considered by many rally enthusiasts to be the golden age of the sport, Group B cars were powerful and sophisticated, but the class was outlawed after several major accidents caused both drivers and fans to lose their lives.If the aesthetics of Rally pique your interest, watchmaker Autodromo has an entire line inspired by the Group B era. The Series 2 Safari is an everyday wear for me.The 2022 WRC Calendar, if you’re interested in following along this season.WITI x McKinsey:An ongoing partnership where we highlight interesting McKinsey research, writing, and data.Improving organizational performance and sustaining it over time remains a challenge that few companies have cracked. One key finding from our latest McKinsey Global Survey?  Three core actions during a transformation can help predict value capture. New research on the topic could up your organization’s odds of achieving its full transformation potential.Thanks for reading,Noah (NRB) & Colin (CJN)—Why is this interesting? is a daily email from Noah Brier & Colin Nagy (and friends!) about interesting things. If you’ve enjoyed this edition, please consider forwarding it to a friend. If you’re reading it for the first time, consider subscribing (it’s free!).

The Pacenotes Edition

Re-running this classic from Graydon today. -CJNGraydon Gordian (GG) has written for WITI on several occasions, but after much deliberation has decided he is ready to compete with Felix Salmon for the wine beat.Graydon here. To call the wine market fragmented is to put it lightly: wine brands are practically as numerous as the stars. Mere awareness is difficult to achieve, much less affinity. This sets it apart from its alcoholic cousins’ beer and liquor, both of which are dominated by a few behemoths. Your local cool liquor store likely still carries Johnny Walker. Hip beer stores still stock Budweiser. But a good wine store wouldn’t be caught dead with bottles of Yellow Tail on the shelf—partly because there is arguably an inverse correlation between quality and recognizability.Consistency is a key characteristic of quality in beer and liquor, enabling a certain scale of operation. The opposite is true in wine, in which geographic hyper-specificity and year-over-year variance (if not bottle-to-bottle or even sip-to-sip) are inherent parts of the category. To mass-produce wine is to by definition ignore the aspects of winemaking that are likely to make great wine, such as a commitment to capturing a sense of place or a sensitivity to how the season affected the harvest. Any given winery does not lend itself to the scale needed to establish broad recognition, much less ubiquitous distribution. Historically, winemakers solve this by prominently associating their wine with a region or varietal. A consumer might have never heard of Marcel Lapierre, but perhaps they remember enjoying the last Beaujolais they tasted and can narrow their search to the three to six wines from that region even the smallest wine store is likely to carry. Shopping gets a bit easier when you know your dad likes Cabernet Sauvignon. A slightly more informed consumer might use appellations (smaller areas with which a winemaker is allowed to identify her wines if they abide by certain rules) as a similar, more detailed decision-making tool. I generally prefer Savennieres to Saumur Blanc, both Chenin Blancs produced in France’s Loire Valley, but I could only name you a producer or two from either area.Why is this interesting?There are a few recent, notable attempts to overcome these brand-related challenges. Wine importer Mary Taylor is using a laser focus on appellation and a simple, winery-neutral visual identity to sell high-value wines in the United States. Natural wine importer Selection Massale’s house brand La Boutanche has a similar approach, selling affordable low-intervention wine made by the stars of their portfolio in playfully labeled but recognizable liter bottles. Berkeley-based producer Broc Cellars is tackling the assumption that scale and quality cannot mix head-on. There is a common sensibility across both their label design and winemaking that allows their ever-expanding list of wines to achieve a degree of recognizability most wineries could only dream of. (Although there are some rumblings that perhaps Broc Cellars has gotten a bit too big and isn’t quite what it used to be!)But from my perspective, the most interesting wine branding project going on right now is Brutal!!! Wine. The mere fact that I just called Brutal a brand might cause its creators to bristle. It might better be defined as a movement, a philosophy to which any winemaker the world over can commit herself. Brutal wine must be zero/zero, “nothing added, nothing removed.” In other words, no fining (a technique for removing tiny molecules from the wine) or filtration is allowed, nor can any sulfur be added to the wine. (Additive processes like chaptalization are too obviously offensive to even merit mention.) The production must be limited, under 200 bottles by some accounts. And the style must be experimental, to the point of being unashamedly flawed. As long as it embraces those characteristics, the wine can bear the name Brutal and reference the increasingly iconic label featuring a grim reaper clutching a scythe, splattered red paint (or is that blood?) and the word Brutal followed by three exclamation points.Who manages this brand? It’s unclear. It doesn’t appear to be Barcelona’s Bar Brutal, although they are certainly zero/zero wine advocates and a group of rowdy Catalan winemakers plays a pivotal role in the brand’s potentially apocryphal origin story. But its production is in no way limited to, or even centered around, Spain. Natural wine luminaries as diverse as Christian Tschida, St. Reginald Parish, Gut Oggau and Christian Binner have all produced wines under the Brutal label. Who told them they could make a Brutal wine? Were they given permission? I’ve never seen those questions answered definitively. The fact that the public knows so little about Brutal is part of its allure: in a world where control and consistency are the defining characteristics of good brand management, Brutal is an ever-changing enigma that nonetheless no wine store can keep in stock. (GG)--WITI x McKinsey:An ongoing partnership where we highlight interesting McKinsey research, writing, and data.COVID-19: What comes next. It’s been over two years since COVID-19 was declared a global pandemic. Here’s a look back—and a lens on what’s next. A special feature takes stock of the pandemic's effects on business and society, plus where we're going as the transition toward endemicity continues. Don't miss it.—Thanks for reading,Noah (NRB) & Colin (CJN) & Graydon (GG)—Why is this interesting? is a daily email from Noah Brier & Colin Nagy (and friends!) about interesting things. If you’ve enjoyed this edition, please consider forwarding it to a friend. If you’re reading it for the first time, consider subscribing (it’s free!).

The Brutal Wine Edition 

Graydon Gordian (GG) is the Head of Marketing at Fractal Software. He’s written several WITIs over the years, but his favorites are probably the Jazz Legend, Mallmann and Pacenotes editions.Graydon here. Just around the time the Japanese became obsessed with selvedge denim and baseball, they fell in love with another iconic American invention: Jazz. No foreign nation, with the possible exception of France, embraced jazz so wholeheartedly. And just like jeans and bat-and-ball sports, at some point jazz transformed from an import to an export. Musicians such as Masabumi Kikuchi, Terumasa Hino, and the incomparable Toshiko Akiyoshi (whom I cannot overstate the genius of) created music that rivals that of their American inspirations in terms of quality and inventiveness. It’s hard to identify what exactly typifies Japanese jazz, but at the risk of sounding cliché, I’d argue it’s the attention to detail and the ability to find power in the gentle that unites many of the leading voices of the subgenre.Pianist and composer Toshiko AkiyoshiWhy is this interesting?A little while back, Colin Nagy asked me to make a jazz playlist for him and, after spending what is an embarrassing amount of time reflecting on what theme should tie the playlist together, I decided that Jazz in Japan was something Colin of all people would appreciate. Any semi-regular WITI reader will know what I mean.Jazz in Japan is interesting for countless reasons, but it’s Friday. I’ll let my playlist do the explaining.Album of the DayThe legendary jazz saxophonist Pharoah Sanders died this past Saturday, September 24th. His second album, and first for Impulse! Records, Tauhid, is among my favorites of his, partly because it includes the rhythmic and enchanting “Japan,” which serves as a cleansing interlude in between the longer and more adventurous opening and closing tracks. —WITI x McKinsey:An ongoing partnership where we highlight interesting McKinsey research, writing, and data.Want a refresher on inflation? Are you up to date but want to dive deeper? Check out our McKinsey Explainers—curated quick reads on big topics, backed by our insights. Read an Explainer on inflation here.—Why is this interesting? is a daily email from Noah Brier & Colin Nagy (and friends!) about interesting things. If you’ve enjoyed this edition, please consider forwarding it to a friend. If you’re reading it for the first time, consider subscribing (it’s free!).

The Jazz in Japan Edition

Graydon Gordian (GG) works and lives in Atlanta, GA. He’s written WITIs on Jazz, Christmas Eve in Uruguay, and the NBA.Graydon here. Colmar, France is not cool, at least not in the sense people commonly use that term. Eater does not have an article on the best restaurants in town. The New York Times has never sketched out what you could do if you found yourself there for 36 hours. Coffee shops with white subway tiles and hulking La Marzocco machines are no longer trendy, but that trend never made it to Colmar in the first place. (At least they hadn’t arrived the last time I visited, the year before the pandemic started.) There is a sort of person that you bump into in Jose Ignacio or Tulum or Marrakech that you most likely won’t find walking the cobblestone streets of central Alsace.Colmar’s La Petite VeniseHowever, there is something magical about Colmar. The brightly colored, timber accented homes that line the streets feel more like a movie set than a real town. (This area was the inspiration for the village in Beauty and the Beast.) It’s this fairytale feel that brings families from around Europe to this small city, where they munch on baeckeoffe and stroll with their children down La Petite Venise, a small canal that runs through the center of town.But for me, it’s not (just) the dreamy residential architecture that makes Colmar special. It’s the wine. Alsace is unlike any other wine region in France. Tucked behind the Vosges range, it is the driest winegrowing region in the country, shielded by the mountains from storms blowing in off the Atlantic. It is best known for growing grapes — Riesling, Gewurztraminer, Silvaner, Pinot Blanc — less closely associated with France than Germany (where Pinot Blanc is known as Weißburgunder). And it is among the most geologically diverse regions in all of Europe. As you move from the mountainside vineyards into the gentle foothills and finally onto the planes that sweep along the Rhine, the composition of the earth ranges immensely: steep, siliceous soil turns to calcareous-sandstone and marly-clay as the slopes grow gentler, and then to alluvium and loam as the banks of the river near. This soil variety gives the wine made in each little town, many of which are near Colmar, its own sense of place.WITI Classifieds:We are experimenting with running some weekly classifieds in WITI. If you’re interested in running an ad, you can purchase one through this form. If you buy this week, we’ll throw an extra week in for free on any ad. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to drop a line.How to Make New Friends: Nobody teaches adults this! But after hosting 100s of small parties, I found what works. The 2-Hour Cocktail PartyBut you can of course get the wonderful wines of Alsace without making the hike to within a stone’s throw of the French/German border. The reason to go to Colmar and surrounding towns like Ammerschwihr, Wettolsheim, and Dambach-la-Ville is who you will drink the wine with. Far away from the professional tours and well appointed tasting rooms of Bordeaux, Burgundy, and Champagne, Alsace’s wine industry is made up almost entirely of small, family-run wineries. Actually getting in touch with local winemakers takes a bit of effort: You are gonna have to dial a number and hope your French is good enough to schedule a visit, or fill out a contact form and pray that someone is checking their email that week. But send out enough feelers, and you’ll find yourself sharing a glass in some special places with some special people.Take Christian Binner, Alsace’s official entry in the cool kid wine scene. Their wines are represented stateside by chic importer Jenny & Francois, and their sub-label Les Vins Pirouettes is beloved by the natural wine crowd. You can bike from Colmar to their location in Ammerschwihr in about 30 minutes. (WITI contributor Mark Slavonia insists you know that Alsace is among his favorite biking regions in the world.) Upon arrival, you’ll find yourself not at a storefront or vineyard but what appears to be their home. It could be a very homey winery, I’m not sure to be quite honest, but the room next to the tasting room looked to have well loved couches and other living room staples. Mrs. Binner is happy to pour you a few glasses and tell you all about how her kids are doing in between tasting notes. (Last time I stopped by, their son was studying abroad in Dallas! Maybe he can write a WITI on why it’s interesting, because I sure can’t.)Your author, across the street from the Binner home, thinking about wine.Just south of Colmar, little more than an hour walk from the center of the city, can be found Domaine Albert Mann, one of the great winemakers of Alsace. Once you are done tasting some of the best Riesling in a region known for the grape, you’re welcome to linger in the courtyard outside their house and have an extra glass, just as long as you are willing to help their niece work on her English.And if you decide to venture a bit farther from the city limits, the warm-hearted duo of Florian and Mathilde Hartwig will be thrilled to welcome you to their winery in Dambach-la-Ville, about a 30 minute drive north of Colmar. I think about going back to Alsace simply so I can try their Grand Cru Frankstein Riesling again — it is perhaps my favorite wine I have ever tasted.So yes, Colmar is not cool. But on a sunny Alsace day, with a glass of dry riesling in your hand and a smiling winemaker by your side, it can be magical. (GG) —Thanks for reading,Noah (NRB) & Colin (CJN) & Graydon (GG) —Why is this interesting? is a daily email from Noah Brier & Colin Nagy (and friends!) about interesting things. If you’ve enjoyed this edition, please consider forwarding it to a friend. If you’re reading it for the first time, consider subscribing.