notes on notes on taste

My observation of the Brat cycle is that most people have never looked up the lyrics to this album — it’s unambiguous that Brat is about... doing drugs in the club ( “Should we do a little key?” ). It’s noteworthy when the right-wing criticism of a thing is more apt than the the left-wing co-opters.

Emily Sundberg • Hard to do key bumps when homework is due

I’ve been thinking about the enduring, perhaps increasing currency of personal recommendations (practically artisanal craft now if you think about it!) as well as the value of connoisseurship and curation in a culture where unthinking automation has left us feeling drowned in a deluge of content.

I suspect that’s the core appeal of all the... See more

well lol i finally got laid off...but on the bright side.......

curation is the move

It may possibly be that acuity and taste in choosing which Deciders one submits to is now the real measure of informed adulthood.

David Foster Wallace • Both Flesh and Not: Essays

You probably already have an intuitive sense of the people in your life who have great taste in something. They’re the people you always go to for restaurant or movie or gear recommendations. Maybe it’s the person you ask to be an extra set of eyes on an email or a project brief before you send it out.

Brie Wolfson • Notes on “Taste”

i like addressing the reader by ‘you’ here

Writer George Saunders calls this “achieving the iconic space,” and it’s what he’s after when he meets his creative writing students. “They arrive already wonderful. What we try to do over the next three years is help them achieve what I call their “iconic space” — the place from which they will write the stories only they could write, using what... See more

Brie Wolfson • Notes on “Taste”

loving how much of this is quotes

While taste is often focused on a single thing, it is often formed through the integration of diverse, and wide-ranging inputs. Steve Jobs has said, “I think part of what made the Macintosh great was that the people working on it were musicians and poets and artists and zoologists and historians who also happened to be the best computer scientists... See more

Brie Wolfson • Notes on “Taste”

Taste hits different. It intrigues. It compels. It moves. It enchants. It fascinates. It seduces.

Brie Wolfson • Notes on “Taste”

Still, taste is closely intertwined with snobbery. And indeed, many snobs (coffee snobs, gear snobs, wine snobs, etc.) often have great taste. But I would say that taste is the sensibility, and snobbery is one way to express the sensibility. It’s not the only way.

Brie Wolfson • Notes on “Taste”

So, how to wrap my arms around this term in a way that captures its spirit without flattening it?