This week's small talk is about some big food. Our friend Richard Lawson - currently with Atlantic Wire, just named the new Hollywood columnist for Vanity Fair - pops in to talk about a new mutant food.
Small Talk
Taking a (Slow) Walk in Love
Reyhan Harmanci, executive editor of the food/culture magazine Modern Farmer, tells us about love, walking, and the evolutionary justification for spending Friday night at home with Netflix.
Ben Schott Expands His Vocabulary
Writer and "gentleman miscellanist" Ben Schott turned to the linguistic flexibility of German to create his own glossary of new words for very specific modern states.
The Creepiest Awards Show Going
Reyhan Harmanci, Deputy Editor of the food culture mag Modern Farmer, lays out the results of the coveted “Spider of the Year” awards.
Every Viking Gives Birth to a Book
Sadie Stein of The Paris Review shares a new BBC report which names Iceland's 300,000 residents the most bookish population in the world.
There’s No I in Team – Or the Bosses’ Emails
Richard Lawson, senior writer for The Atlantic Wire, gives us a little writing workshop. New studies reveal that that a person's use of the pronoun "I" says a lot about them.
ESP is Now Real, Thanks to British Art Students
Wearable technology to enhance the senses - and make humans look like creepy robots - developed at the Royal College of Art.
Rihanna, Crime Solver
Marah Eakin, music editor of The A.V. Club, tips us off to a crime story from her pop-music beat - a minor scandal involving R&B star Rihanna, a selfie, some shady Thai gentlemen, and the cute (and legally protected) mammal known as the slow loris.
Spaceship to Table Agriculture
Reyhan Harmanci is the senior editor of Modern Farmer, so it makes sense that she brings us news of some very modern farming: growing food in space.
Lotti the Lake Turtle and the Village Blacksmith
Townsfolk enlist the village blacksmith to help capture a monster - and this all really happened, just last month.