Strands of Genius: A Soundtrack of Burps, Nestflix, Simplicity Manufactures Consent
Strands of Genius: A Soundtrack of Burps, Nestflix, Simplicity Manufactures Consent
plus our thoughts on: sandwiches
WRITING FROM | Lisbon, Portugal
WORKING ON | Finalizing the run of show for our first in-person talk and workshop since March 2020 - The Power of Play
LOOKING AHEAD
August 15-August 29 | Lisbon, Portugal
Aug 29-Sept 6 | Orlando, FL
Sept 6-23 | Aix-en-Provence, France
Sept 24-30 | Toulouse, France
Oct 1-31 | London, UK
Nov 1-20 | Mexico
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:: WHAT’S NEW & WEEKLY GRATITUDE ::
We trained down from Porto to Lisbon for the last bit of our time in this lovely, friendly, interesting and not well known (to us? globally?) country. There are lots of countries that have a very similar neighbor that is less globally known for historical, economic or some reasons. They tend to be fantastic and consider themselves very distinct but in the global marketplace of countries brands aren’t distinct or culturally famous enough to overcome the shadow of their usually much larger neighbor. I don’t want to cause any offense here but France and Belgium, Spain and Portugal, USA and Canada, Australia and New Zealand, Thailand and Cambodia/Laos, especially back when we were growing up, are usually grouped together, and culturally similar because they are proximate. This is often where one of the great joys of travel is derived, on what we call the familiarity wave. When you get somewhere for the first time your mind contains only fragments of abstract knowledge about a place. It’s hard not to think about Kangaroos when you head Down Under for the first time. Upon arriving you realize that most things there are different than you thought, then not as different as you thought, then more different than you first realized, &c. Anyway, all of which is to say Portugal is fantastic, welcoming, with its own amazing and very cheap wines and great food, and it feels like a hybrid of Italy and Spain. We cannot explain, or think, or reason, mostly, without analogy.
This week, we’re especially thankful for:
Suicide Squad in 4D (moving seats and that), aerial yoga, Melissa, Neil, Jean&Luz, Antonio, our fresh herb garden which lived in a casserole dish, playing songs in the park, Gary Larson, the Crystal Palace Jardin, a lovely lunch with views, trains, public transport, everyone wearing masks on said transport, Super Bock, & not Sagres, the other beer and also not the terrible sandwiches from train stations in may parts of Europe. Speaking of sandwiches….and analogy…see our thoughts below.
:: THE LINKS ::
A SOUNDTRACK OF BURPS AND FARTS
Spending 24/7 with your partner was unusual for most couples until the lockdowns came. Living in close proximity means having to confront the concealed physicality of human beings, which means farts and burps, among other things. We’re basically a package that is wrapped in skin. Inside, it’s blood, muscle and faeces. We’re potentially very disgusting. Including to our spouse….BUT What we find disgusting is not an objective truth but a subjective judgment, shaped by the society and culture we live in. It’s about the breaking of a code. And who writes the code? (The Guardian)
THE PLAY WITHIN THE PLAY
The platform for your favorite nested films and shows. Fictional movies within movies? Got ‘em. Fake shows within shows? You bet. Browse the selection of over 400 stories within stories. (Rosie here! Speaking of/if this is appealing to you, you should probably read The XX, recommended to us by our friend Reuben.) (Nestflix)
THE SIMPLE LIFE OF HUMANS
Humans love simplicity because it seems to make sense of the inherently complex and unpredictable world. However, simplifying complex things tends to make us wrong and, worse, easy to manipulate. Simplicity is a weapon of propaganda, and thus a tool of advertising, because it limits the ‘parameters of discussion’. “Resisting such simple explanations for a complicated problem demands much more from us. It would force us to stop, zoom out of a situation, consider the level of complexity, and acknowledge the limits of our understanding — that’s scary.” (Hackernoon)
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:: WHAT WE’RE THINKING ABOUT: SANDWICHES ::
I (this is Faris) really, really love a sandwich. It doesn’t feature directly in my favorite foods list (yes, I have one, eggs are very close to the top, because they are so versatile and delicious in all forms) because there are so many different sandwiches that to consider them all the same ‘thing’ doesn’t make sense to my tasting brain, even though my language brain insists they are.
Language does this a lot, it makes categories of things, slicing the world into 'things that are the same’ but also this disguises a great deal of cognitive complexity. Sorry, but it does. In a dictionary we get a list of all possible definitions of a word, as though they were discrete, but they aren’t - the different meanings interact, in culture and in our heads.
I’m reading a book called Surface and Essences - Analogy as the Fuel and Fire of Thinking (see what they did there) and it starts out making this important point.
Consider the word “Play”, as we did last week. It English it links together activities that are quite diverse: playing football, playing chess, playing a trumpet, playing with our hair or *ahem* any other body part. In other languages there are different words for these different activities. In Italian, it…
“would be unthinkable for anyone to play (in the sense of giocare) a musical instrument; the mere suggestion is enough to make an Italian smile”
…because there are two different verbs, one for playing sports and one for playing games. (I don’t speak Italian but if you do I hope you are smiling). In Mandarin Chinese, there are different verbs for ‘playing’ an instrument depending on the kind of instruments, string or wind etc.
All of which is interesting but not about sandwiches, sorry. However, sandwiches are not simple, because what is a sandwich? It seems obvious that it’s something we eat in which a filling is held between two pieces of bread, but what about burgers? Is that a sandwich? If I said ‘do you want a sandwich?’ and then brought you a burger would that be what you were expecting? What about hot-dogs or lobster rolls?
Because Twitter and the internet can be serendipity engines, I was idly browsing this morning and came across this site called “Definition Mining” in a tweet from Justin Lines, with this image in it:
Which I found fascinating enough to head to the website and discover an excellent exploration of the definition of sandwiches, which Rosie had recently suggested I write about, since they keep coming up. Bingo!
What about grilled like the American Grilled Cheese or the British Cheese Toasty? Welsh Rarebit is an open face, so see above on that front.
I’ve always found it hilarious, and culturally telling, that we call sandwiches after the the Earl of Sandwich, John Montagu, based on a story about him not wanting to leave the gambling table and needing something easy to eat with his hands. The Wall Street Journal once described this as Britain’s “greatest contribution to gastronomy” which sounds damning with faint praise to me.
According to the story, this was roast beef between two slices of toasted bread. I tend to think of a toasted sandwich as being different to a ‘sandwich’ but Rosie thinks sandwiches should be served hot. See, words are complex clusters of ideas! (Rosie’s note: I prefer hot food, in general. Even salads I want to have some element of warmth. I don’t know what that says about me, but I poo poo cold food and this is why sandwiches rarely pop into my mind as something desirable, unless, of course, they are toasted!)
He may have helped popularize the concept his cook delivered to him, and certainly branded it well, but people have been putting food in bits of bread for as long as we’ve had bread.
Today, America has a particular passion for sandwiches, perhaps because they are convenient, filling and infinitely flexible, allowing endless variation. Every region has its own terminology and today Americans eat about 300 million sandwiches everyday, or about 200 per person per year. (Which equates to a daily consumption of sandwiches for 2/3 of the year.) (Rosie again: WHAT?! I mean… really?! This is crazy to me, and not at all in line with my sandwich consumption. If we can’t count open-faced sammies as such, then my count lowers even further.)
When we first arrived in Portugal, I was once again on Twitter and the serendipity engine took me from a tweet to an old thread I did on the best sandwiches, and at the top was the Francesinha, which originates from, and is available very widely in, Porto, where we had just arrived. Everything connects, eventually (Eames), even sandwiches, word, travel and t-shirts…
:: AND NOW… HOW TO MAKE A FRANCESINHA ::
From the excellent local t-shirt store Typographia in Porto - you can order some of their stuff online but some are only sold in specific stores, which is awesome. They work with local artists in collaboration, and we love that, too :)
If we can ever be of help to you, even outside of a formal engagement, please don’t hesitate to let us know.
rockON,
faris & rosie & ashley | your friends over at geniussteals.co
@faris is always tweeting
@rosieyakob hangs out on instagram
@ashley also writes for deaf, tattooed & employed
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It's called Genius Steals because we believe ideas are new combinations and that nothing can come from nothing. But copying is lazy. We believe the best way to innovate is to look at the best of that which came before and combine those elements into new solutions.
Co-Founders Faris & Rosie are award-winning strategists and creative directors, writers, consultants and public speakers who have been living on the road/runway since March 2013, working with companies all over the world. Our Director of Operations is nomadic like us, our accounting team is based out of Washington, our company is registered in Tennessee, and our collaborators are all over the world. Being nomadic allows us to go wherever clients need us to be, and to be inspired by the world in between.
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