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More from @nntaleb

31 Jul
Flaneuring cities in non-fancy, non-touristic streets, getting the neighborhood spirit Σ' αυτή τη γειτονιά:
Naples (#1 by far)
Beirut
Athens
Istanbul
Palermo
Belgrade
Bucharest

Non Med, non-post-Ottoman cities ("North Atlantic") are too self-conscious abt hanging laundry...
2) Perhaps my best flaneuring was with @sez_dss in Tripoli when #ISIS was still present in some neighborhoods where stores sold #ISIS flags.
3) ODORS
In Patrick Süskind's Perfume, the wet nurse returns an orphan, repulsed at his lack of smell.
You get the same w/cities of the North, or those with large avenues, as if there was a truncation into lower dimensions.
Did Jane Jacobs discuss the odor of neighborhoods?
Read 5 tweets
25 Jul
Mikati might be part of the old school in Lebanon, but he is a real businessman & made much of his money outside the country. If you *must* stick with the old establishment, he is the most capable of them all.

PS: Mikati is also richer (& more solid businessman) than Trump.
2) The point is: Lebanon can't afford the stalemate.

You don't pick the least corrupt one, but the one who understands business enough to *not* block the growing adaptation by industry post #RiadPonzi.

Others are both corrupt & stupid: like parasites that kill their host.
3) The Brazilian Paulo Salim Maluf used to say "rouba mas faz": I steal but deliver.
Pbm in Lebanon isn't parasites & corruption.
It is parasites killing their host! Patronage is worse than corruption.

I would settle for a Maluf over both an incompetent but honest technocrat.
Read 5 tweets
22 Feb
Gratitude to @JeffBezos: my Saga.

1) As an author, I owe Amazon. Before, publishers were subservient to bookstores & their book placement.
So when I wrote FBR *on my own terms* it was a problem: fictional characters, math discussions, philosophy... Was it popularization? No. Image
2) Was it about finance? No. It's about what? So no publisher.
I found a weird outfit who accepted at ½ price. Bookstores were good at ignoring my work: why should a neighborhood bookstore isn't interested in higher things, just moving books.
Amazon did not have rigid shelves!
3) There is this romantic idea of the neighborhood bookstore out to save literature, social life, & thinking: these people survive on books that have a specific public. So the "monster" that drove them bust allowed me to get an audience I would've never had.
Read 5 tweets

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