Why is a 1999 Comic Book Hurting Japanese Tourism?

Plus: yes, Chef AI!

Welcome to Small Talk, an email I serve out every Monday morning exclusively to our Breakfast Club members in NYC and Charleston. The premise is simple: my top of mind topics for the week’s worth of breakfasts, lunches, and dinners ahead anytime some chatter is required. From now on, I’ll be sharing it with subscribers of The Supersonic as well. Enjoy, and crib topics as necessary.

Below, your ticket to being the most interesting guest at dinner tables this week.

For consideration …

• Disaster season
  Hurricane season has started, but natural disasters are occurring much further afield. In Italy, Sicily’s Mount Etna erupted today, with ash and rock being thrown “several kilometers high.” It’s the first eruption of this size since 2014. Last week, there was bad news out of Switzerland, where the tiny mountain village of Blatten was decimated when nine million tons of rock and glacier collapsed, burying it. Residents were evacuated before disaster struck, as local scientists had been predicting the event (though not at such a devastating scale). Yes, climate change is to blame, but perhaps not in the straightforward way one would think. While glaciers across the Alps have been receding, the Birch glacier above Blatten has actually been advancing for a decade now. However, that’s not due to more ice being formed, but due to rock from above having previously collapsed on top of the glacier, thus pushing it forward. The culprit? Melting permafrost, which causes rock to loosen. Japan might not be immune from natural disaster either. Or so says a “manga” comic book original published in 1999. “The Future I Saw” predicted the March 2011 earthquake, and it warns of another striking this summer. Several psychics have corroborated this prediction, and the tourist industry is taking a hit.
  

• The group chat to blockbuster pipeline?
  While never easy, back in the day a publicist's job was relatively straightforward. Repping a star with an upcoming movie? Cool. Get them a magazine cover, a late night appearance, do the press junket etc. Bingo, bango. But today’s new media circuit is much more fractured and frenetic. Podcasts, TikToks, memes, hot takes while riding the subway? Nobody knows what will stick, stars are spread too thin, and publicists admit they no longer recognize their jobs, likening them to—like everything else on the Internet, from dating apps to the slot machine nature of any social app—gambling. Perhaps these publicists should consider infiltrating the group chat. That’s the tactic of WhatsApp and Offball, who have partnered to create “The Chat,” where some 48,000 members can chat about things like the NFL Draft and Champions League with actual sports celebs like LeBron James (a Cleveland Browns fan) and soccer fanatic Jimmy Butler. The “second screen” viewing habits of Gen-Z make this a potentially interesting play. For the more gossip-oriented, there’s the tactic of seeding a blind item to Emily Sundberg’s Feed Me on Substack. Nothing too new there, as Sundberg has been riding a wave of publicity lately for her Gawker-era level of snark and insider access, but it’s interesting to note that her very NYC-centric newsletter has found a rabid fanbase in London, as the Observer reports.
  

• Yes, Chef AI!
  If you think AI will never make you a meal at a restaurant, think again. It’s already happening in Chicago, where Chef Grant Achatz—of Alinea fame—is using AI for a nine-course menu at his restaurant, Next. In devising the menu, Achatz created nine fictional chefs, and then prompted ChatGPT for recipes from each, saying what chefs they’ve worked under and at what restaurants. “I want it to do as much as possible,” Achatz says of ChatGPT. “Short of actually preparing it.” Some chefs say it’s no different than a band working with a visionary producer (i.e. something that can shake a creative out of a creative rut). Others are less enthusiastic. While AI might never win a Michelin star (then again, you never know), it could be competing with college grads for entry level jobs. That’s one theory that might explain the narrowing gap in lifetime earnings between college grads and non college grads, plus the fact that online job postings targeted at workers with a four-year degree have declined. Also? College grads are typically tasked with reading and synthesizing information into reports, something that AI is pretty good at. All this could also explain the rise of “stay-at-home-sons.” Even a recent Jeopardy champ considers himself one.

Quicker hits …

• The late director David Lynch's coffee makers are up for auction.

• Themed cruises are having a moment.

• The new "it" bag marries Hermès and L.L. Bean aesthetics.

• Eminem is in Happy Gilmore 2.
  

Enjoy your week.

BL

Ben Leventhal
Founder + CEO
Blackbird