Hello there, good friends. If you still receive this email, I have undoubtedly added to the chaos of your 2020 by infrequently publishing. The reasons are simple and boring: a constant state of busyness, interrupted only by ennui or rage, and the patient waiting for something that spurs the old mind into action.
Enough of that. Tickets handy. 2021 is demanding more structure for us. Here’s what God Damn Honey stands for in 2021. 3 newsletters a week, 3 things to consume. 1-2 paragraphs at most. That’s the God Damn Honey promise. As current events dictate, I can always dive deeper for special interests, but for now, this is what it is. Onto the things.
1) Your Favorite MC’s Favorite MC
An ignominious title to be sure (one would rather be everyone’s favorite MC, rather than removed by one degree. But MF Doom (who had even more aliases than the collective Wu-Tang Clan) was everything you wanted him to be (prolific while never being boring, predisposed to inscrutable lyrics, and an obsessive flow-finder). He lives in that netherworld of being adulated by all who matter, yet not given the proper credit. He was a unicorn. May he rest in peace.
We Cooked Eleven Madison Park $475 Meal Kit. Here’s How It Went Bloomberg/Gary He)
What is a restaurant in a pandemic and what is anything worth anymore? How much should you pay for luxury goods in various levels of states of completion? Hell if I know, but what is clear is no restaurant review will be straightforward anymore, as people continue to weigh the cost of living and feeling normal with the costs people who work in restaurants are burdened. Meal looks good, though.
Life Without Amazon? Good luck buddy (NYT)
Your favorite writer’s favorite writer John Herrman tackled the topic on many people’s minds. How difficult is it to live without Amazon. This is both a philosophical question (what price of inconvenience are you willing to bear while lining the pockets of a company that is by every metric more powerful than you would want in a just society) and factual (can you even be expected to know what activity benefits Amazon in a world where it owns much of the Internet’s plumbing. Seems difficult. On a separate note, seems bad that a company that is reviled by mostly everyone is still reporting record profits.