Top-Down Frustration in a Bottom‑Up World Not Guilty, Pay Anyway: An Update After the ‘End of History’ The New Obamacare Dilemma No Smoking Gun on Russia Hack When, a few days ago, Rod mentioned Jiro Dreams of Sushi I remembered that I had been meaning to watch it. And it’s a really good film. The filmmakers’ interest is clearly focused on the family relationships: What kind of father was Jiro to the sons who work for him? How do they feel about having such an illustrious father? When he finally retires, or — more likely — dies, how will they carry on? (Oddly, though, we do not even learn whether Jiro’s wife is alive, or, if she is, whether she is the mother of his sons. At one point Jiro says that if he didn’t go to work every day he would just be underfoot at home, but we don’t learn whose foot he would be under.) However, me being me, I was more interested in the food and didn’t learn nearly enough about that to suit me. There’s a brief passage where Jiro and his preferred rice merchant discuss the importance of taking immense care to prepare the rice properly — but how do they prepare it?

Perhaps the details are trade secrets, but it would be nice to learn at least some of the general guidelines. We watch octopus simmering — but in what? A broth of some kind? Jiro finishes each piece of sushi that he prepares by brushing it neatly and evenly with oil — but what kind of oil? And from whom does he procure it? (Update: Gavin Craig on Twitter thinks it’s soy sauce, which of course makes sense, but I thought it was too light a color and oily a texture for that. But I know nothing.) More generally, while we’re told that Jiro is the most celebrated sushi chef in the world, we don’t get a really clear picture of what separates him from everyone else. Judging just from the film, and from my rather limited experience of sushi, I’d say that he prepares highly traditional sushi but does so with an unmatched level of attention to every detail of purchase, preparation, and service. That is, Jiro appears to be no innovator, but rather a profoundly devoted servant of the tradition he has inherited.

And yet he speaks at one point of having dreams — thus the title of the film — in which he comes up with new sushi dishes. So which is it? Is Jiro an innovative genius blazing new trails in sushi creation? Or does he, in classic Japanese fashion, devote himself to mastering, with an unexcelled devotion, a Way of food preparation that has been canonical for many many years? This inquiring mind wants to know.Ranging from CDs I played during my angsty teenage years to something I read last week to an embarrassing guilty pleasure, these works and artists have had a profound impact on my work and approach to life. Hyperlinks are provided for the lesser known works. “What $50 Buys You at Huaqiangbei, the World’s Most Fascinating Electronic Market.”, by Keyboardio | “How to Pick Your Life Partner”, by Tim Urban | “Inventing on Principle”, by Bret VictorThe Glitch Mob | The Reign of Kindo | Turquoise Jeep Records | “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother”, by Amy Chua |

“Talent is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else”, by Geoff Colvin | “The 4-Hour Workweek”, by Timothy Ferriss | “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up”, by Marie Kondo | “So Good They Can’t Ignore You: Why Skills Trump Passion in the Quest for Work You Love”, by Cal Newport | ingredients for sushi noriHarry Potter series, by J.K. Rowling | best sushi london mayfair“I Will Teach You To Be Rich”, by Ramit Sethi | healthiest option at sushi restaurant“Elon Musk: Inventing the Future”, by Ashlee Vance | sushi lebensmittel online“The Motivation Hacker”, by Nick Winter

The Dark Knight | The Great Gatsby | How I Met Your Mother | I Am Legend | Iron Man trilogy | Jiro Dreams of Sushi | The Lord of the Rings trilogy | Mostly Ghostly 3: One Night in Doom House (featuring Vivian Full!) | The Phantom of the Opera | Pokemon handheld series | Every year, thousands of people pay more than $350 to eat sushi at a 10-seater restaurant in a Tokyo subway station, making reservations at least a month in advance to dine at one of the few fast-food stands in the world to earn three stars from the Michelin guide. The proprietor, Jiro Ono, is in his mid-80s, and has spent his life innovating and refining, always asking himself, “What defines deliciousness?” David Gelb’s documentary Jiro Dreams Of Sushi shows what a meal at Sukiyabashi Jiro is like: each morsel prepared simply and perfectly, then replaced by another as soon as the previous piece is consumed, with no repetition of courses. Once an item is gone, it doesn’t come back. That’s why each one has to be memorable.

Jiro Dreams Of Sushi also covers Ono’s background and his family, including his two grown sons: the elder has been waiting patiently for decades to take over the business, and the younger runs a more casual version of his dad’s restaurant across town. Gelb talks to a top Japanese food critic who explains what makes Ono’s sushi so sublime, and shadows Ono’s apprentices, who have to learn how to properly wring a hot towel before he’ll allow them to slice a fish or cook an egg. He also follows Ono’s vendors, who adhere to the philosophy “If 10 tuna are for sale, only one can be the best.” But while everyone takes their jobs seriously, Gelb’s documentary is far from humorless. At one point, Ono probably speaks for some people in the audience when he jokes that one of his vendors “seems so knowledgeable, I worry that he’s making it up.” Even at a brief 81 minutes, Jiro Dreams Of Sushi runs a little longer than it needs to, given that it’s making the same point over and over: that it takes uncommon dedication to repeat the same steps every day for decades, always looking for ways to make the process better, not easier.