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Yo quiero un cerebro

In today’s WSJ (likely $ required), there’s an article on how Taco Bell is trying to make a global push. In case anyone thinks that idiotic American culture is something the rest of the world as outgrown, the article begins with this image:

Earlier this month, a Taco Bell opened at a massive Dubai shopping mall. Patrons waited as long as four hours to buy beef gorditas and chicken chalupas at the chain’s first location in the Middle East.

In a feat of Baudrillardian self-cancellation, we learn that Taco Bell is a success precisely because it isn’t Mexican:

[David Novak, Yum’s chairman and chief executive] says the lack of authenticity in the chain’s Mexican cuisine is an advantage. “It owns its own category,” he says.

Still, it’s lack of Mexicosity isn’t enough for it to triumph in Mexico, as it turns out. The chain has made a run for the border only to find that “[t]he transactions in Mexico are not yet where we want them to be.”

(All this is just an excuse to link to that Achewood strip about Taco Bell’s secret menu.)

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My very unique synergistic solution is unstoppable

I was fortunate not to work in a company that employed idiotic jargon to cover up a lack of substance; my lack of substance is right out in the open. But during the dot-com era, Bullshit Bingo was one of my favorite concepts.

In that spirit, I was quite happy to receive an e-mail yesterday promoting a whitepaper entitled, “Mastering Innovation: Roadmap to Sustainable Value Creation Using Strategy Driven Innovation.”

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Too unnerving an idleness

I feel guilty when I don’t manage to write for a day or so. It’s not like there’s a massive audience hanging on my every post, but I get mad at myself when I fall out of the habit of offering up at least a daily snippet of my psyche.

Yesterday, I was pretty swamped with work and bad work-vibes. This morning, I decided to read some Montaigne rather than engage in my usual routine of scanning through the 400 or so items in my RSS reader. I’m pretty close to finishing Book Two of the essays and, while I don’t feel as though I’m in a race, I did find the final three essays pretty compelling and complementary: Of three good women (pp. 683-690), Of the most outstanding men (pp. 690-696), and Of the resemblance of children to fathers (pp. 696-725).

I’ll try to write about them this weekend (I’m still working on the last one), but I’m traveling to Atlanta on  Sunday for a conference, so I may have to pare back. Regardless, M. managed to help me get over my guilt with his intro to Of the resemblance . . .:

This bundle of so many disparate pieces is being composed in this manner: I set my hand to it only when pressed by too unnerving an idleness, and nowhere but at home. Thus it has built itself up with diverse interruptions and intervals, as occasions sometimes detain me elsewhere for several months.

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I do have plenty of halfassitude

Sorry I didn’t post anything today; I was swamped at work, trying to get our “Live from the conference” e-mail together for the show we’re attending next week.

I’m sorry: that’s bitchassness. And we’re in a No Bitchassness zone:

My bad.

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Because that’s the way God wants it?

I have an editorial advisory board at my day job. I hit the members up for article topics, send them “Ask the Board” questions and otherwise kibbitz about the direction of the magazine. It’s a non-paying gig, but it carries some sort of esteem, I guess.

Since we’re coming to the end of the year, I just e-mailed all 30 members and asked them to update their job titles and companies and confirm that they want to stay on the board. And that’s when I noticed something odd: There’s only one woman on my advisory board.

I’m no fan of political-correctness or quotas, but I have to admit that I’m a little embarrassed by this fact.

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What It Is: 10/27/08

What I’m reading: A whole ton of magazines that have piled up, including the recent issues of Monocle, New York, Foreign Affairs, the Atlantic, Harvard Business Review, and Fantastic Man. Not Montaigne, which is why there’s no Monday Morning Montaigne this week. Sorry. I know you were looking forward to it.

What I’m listening to: The Four Tops’ Definitive Colection, La Radiolina by Manu Chao, and Underworld’s Oblivion with Bells.

What I’m watching: NOT THIS! AAIEE! (We did watch Casino Royale, which sucked)

What I’m drinking: Stella Artois . . . and my first G&T since Sept. 26! It was eh!

What Rufus is up to: Convincing more of my coworkers to adopt retired racing greyhounds! Another trek up to Wawayanda state park! Developing some sort of fatty tumor on the “elbow” of his left foreleg! (probably not serious, but I’ll take him down to the vet this week to check)

Where I’m going: Maybe to the Cowboys/Giants game next Sunday!

What I’m happy about: One of my mom’s pals, whom I haven’t seen since I was around 13, recognized me and called me over while I was out walking Rufus. We had a nice chat. Okay, actually, I’m not happy about this so much as I am weirded out. I mean, one of mom’s friends didn’t know who I was last month when I actually told her my name (despite the fact that I wrote her daughter’s college application essay), until I said, “Miriam’s son,” so the fact that I was identified this one — whom I haven’t seen since around 1984 when I was part of the Dungeons & Dragons gang that played in her basement — is frankly bizarre.

What I’m sad about: Fantastic Man doesn’t put its articles online. Otherwise, I’d link to some neat interviews with Fergus Henderson and Tyler Brule, as well as a funny piece on Karl Lagerfeld’s mysterious Chanel menswear line.

What I’m pondering: I find most “acclaimed” contemporary novels start out strong but get mighty dull. Is that a sign that these writers blow their creative load early on, or that my attention span is for crap?