Fans of PJ O'Rourke and enemies of Starbucks will like Mr. O'Rourke's book review of,
STARBUCKED
A Double Tall Tale of Caffeine, Commerce, and Culture.
By Taylor Clark.
See the NY Times magazine December 16, 2007.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007
Jeromey, if you're still out there -- let me know what you think.
3 comments:
mmmmm... something meaty for my brain to chew... :)
i like the review - both the book and the review seem somewhat balanced. of course, i had to run over to amazon and check the "real people" reviews. they echoed some of the same points as the NYT review. i think i'll add this to my wish list.
as is obvious in my previous posts, i feel very anti-corporate, anti-bad,over-roasted coffee, and pro-environment. these feelings usually put me in the anti-starbucks camp (and also anti-mcdonalds). but, truth must be told... lazy, rich (relative to the world) Americans are as much to blame as the corporations that have learned how to use and abuse their patrons.
i still "feel" (in quotes because i know that there's no logic or reason in my feelings) that if things get bad enough, we will either collapse as a society or move back to a community-based system of growing/buying/selling at least some of the products we buy and we will be better off because of it. if that means that i can sell the beans that i home-roast to my neighbors each week, awesome! i'll be happy to buy my peppers and tortillas from them in return. but, it will take THE PEOPLE ousting big government and big business BOTH out of power before this can be done in any real quantity.
coffee and community lovers, rise up! "i roast for freedom!" ...or something...
oh yeah, and home-roasting green beans is THE ONLY way to drink coffee. starbucks coffee really *is* over-roasted and bitter. check out sweet maria's for awesome, fresh, and constantly changing beans that you can roast yourself. roasting your own beans will cost you $20 or less for a hot-air popcorn popper from target and each batch takes about 4-5 minutes to roast depending on your taste and the bean.
I agree with you, as we have discussed before, I'm just not as
anti-corporate. By the way -- totally hooked on B Gallactica. Love the premise, dislike the too-forward attempts at religious parallels, the blond Cylon dream girl is nice to look at, the prophetess annoyed me. But the plot keeps you coming back. I'm on year 2.
during the "off season" i forget how much i enjoy some shows... and i'm sad to be on the brink of the "last season" of BG. i did get the chance to see the 2-hour special, "Razor" episode at the movie theater awhile back, and i must say, that was awesome!
the twists are just enough to keep it interesting - and not enough to make it "jump the shark" (imho). i can say that you should get Razor on DVD if you can when you get to that point.
thanks for the heads-up on the starbucked book. being an INTP, i am in love with the idea of reading books but have a very hard time reading them all. but eventually, when i get to this one, i know i'll enjoy it !
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