Skip to main content

City of Gold

An independent studio (Sundance Selects) made documentary about food and culture.  Culture of Los Angeles.  A city that I and the family have come to love.  For a variety of reasons.

Many centered around the plethora of food the expanse offers.  A microcosm of ethnic communities that migrated to make a life for themselves. A true definition of America the beautiful.

In this vast grid of highways and streets lives a food critic.  A native of the city, a former cellist and classically trained music lover, a writer and Pulitzer prize winner called Jonathan Gold.

The documentary is about the reveal of who Gold is.   For a while an anonymous and respected food writer he has a knack for story telling.  This skill is used with a versatility to describe communities in which the food is made and their history.  A lot many local eateries that are inhabited by common folk got reviews that brought them into the limelight and literally made for successful businesses.

His approach is not much of a critic but of a willingness to offer guidance to help a business succeed. After multiple meals at a place that he may not fully understand and yet in appreciating why there are still a lot of people eating the food he helps himself and the audience or readership see a different viewpoint.

'First we eat and then we do everything else' is the quote this movie made by a woman director from the Midwest opens with.

I have been on an indie film watching binge that has yielded some very informative and enjoyable nuggets and this documentary is certainly one worth watching if you are not watching your girth.


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Charges attract

It is said that opposites attract meaning people with contrary viewpoint sometimes find chemistry to be together.  But I'm referring to a modern twist where people are merely attracted towards a common place because their uber communication device aka smart phone is about to die.  The charging station. From airports to hotel lobbies or even bathrooms, when in need they are attracted to this power outlet like moths to a flame or a junkie to a needle. A whole new business of supplying these hyper connected folks is now born whose lifesaver product is a backup charge. Asian tourists perpetually carry a phone sized battery pack stuck to their latest Apple phone updating their status to folks in Hong Kong or Shanghai or Bangalore as they pose for selfies with weird facial expressions and fingers pointed out in a letter V. Vain? PS:  I dis'charged' my blogger duties making this insightful observation as my phone is about to breathe it's last and my flight gets call...

Costa Rica

 Our first foray into Central America. That elongated isthmus that forms the geographic boundary between two vast continents of North and South America. Specifically landing for NYE 2026 in San Jose, Costa Rica. Capital city for this region that does not have its own army, instead relying on its big bro the Estados Unidos to the north is a metropolis of approx. 500K people. Largely wilderness and with both a Pacific and Carribean/Atlantic coast the country is rich in bio diversity. In Spanish it means the rich coast so named by Columbus landing in early 16th century and being mesmerized by the local tribes sporting gold jewelry.   Our stay included visiting the foothills of a large strato volcano called Arenal and enjoying the naturally heated thermal baths for a while.  Lunching amidst lush forest and watching indigenous species of avian noise makers fly overhead. Toucans, some sort of pea hens, multiple song bird species completed the spectacle. Iguanas and a lonel...

Back in DC

This time for a tech conference in the realm of what else? AI. But applied to an oft neglected space called Knowledge Management. The latter is a community of practice that focuses on analyzing, organizing and making available reams of data that have been gathered over time by various functions within an organization for anyone in the company to utilize. This function or process is ripe for applying AI agents (or agentic AI framework) and optimize for better outcomes. It was informative. More rewarding was getting acquainted with folks who practice this craft as well as learning of what they see in the corporate or public sectors. Since the venue was Washington DC it also afforded me the chance to take evening strolls albeit the weather was trying. With wind chill in the single digit it still is a glamorous place to perambulate through history absorbing what this country has been through since its founding days. I was able to visit the place Lincoln was killed along with his monument t...