Brown Motion

Cilantro, Incense, Camphor, Shit, Spices, Sweat, Jasmine, Firewood? All of the above? Nostalgia? A human nose is among many advanced technologies that a computer cannot replicate. Everyone has one.  Not just the nose but a memory saved in their Hippocampus.  That is to say everyone has one of these campuses right inside of their brain and an amazing ability to retrieve the stored data when a certain trigger is pulled. I had to visit Bombay (now Mumbai) on the western coast of India recently.  Described as a maximum city it is a constantly alive microcosm of a multi cultural, multi language, foodie heaven populated like no place on earth. I grew up here and therefore have a distinct impressions of the terrain etched somewhere deep in the grey matter. Landing here and starting to operate is a muscle memory that springs to life like a dormant seed bursting to do its thing in the parched California Death Valley with the onset of first rain. Below are some sna...

A long lesson in capitalism or a history of Coca Cola, the book by Bartow Elmore, an author from Alabama (formerly from Atlanta where Coke is based) is an interesting read that I am not sure I will finish. The main thesis of this narrative seems to me that every silver coin has a cloudy lining, as in while Coke is a globally recognized brand that in some press seems to be doing right by the environmentalists and being a good corporate citizen it is really a massive machine that has sucked on the teat of large governments and third parties that invest in the actual raw material production and sourcing. Be it Clean Water, Corn for the high fructose sugars, Caffeine for the kick or materials for packaging its wares (plastic, glass or aluminum) it has spread its vast network into various parts of the globe to get what it needs. It has been masterful to let people believe in the power of marketing that consuming the sugar flavored water (mixed with a gas no one in their right mind wo...