INTRODUCTION
1. Steve King, Anthony Townsend, and Carolyn Ocklels, “The New Artisan Economy,” Institute for the Future, 2008, http://http-download.intuit.com/http.intuit/CMO/intuit/futureofsmallbusiness/SR-1037C_intuit_future_sm_bus.pdf.
2. To test this assertion, I searched the terms “artisan” and “artisanal” in Amazon to a depth of one hundred entries.
3. Scott Pelley, “AMEX CEO Touts ‘Small Business Saturday,’” CBS News, November 21, 2011, accessed October 9, 2014, http://www.cbsnews.com/news/amex-ceo-touts-small-business-saturday/.
4. Jason Mick, “Wendy’s New ‘Natural Fries’ Caught Using Chemical Stew,” DailyTech, April 16, 2011, http://www.dailytech.com/Wendys+New+Natural+Fries+Caught+Using+Chemical+Stew/article21394.htm.
5. “Since 2000, the U.S. has seen 5.8 million manufacturing jobs shift overseas.
6. Nick Reding, Methland (New York: Bloomsbury USA, 2009), Kindle location 106): “The economy and culture of Oelwein [Iowa] are more securely tied to a drug [i.e., methamphetamine] than to either of the two industries that have forever sustained the town: farming and small business.”
CHAPTER 1
THE BEGINNING: INDUSTRIAL AMERICA
1. John Kenneth Galbraith, The Affluent Society (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1958): “The family which takes its mauve and cerise, air-conditioned, power-steered and power-braked automobile out for a tour passes through cities that are badly paved, made hideous by litter, blighted buildings, billboards and posts for wires that should long since have been put underground. They pass on into a countryside that had been rendered largely invisible by commercial art… They picnic on exquisitely packaged food from a portable icebox by a polluted stream and go on to spend the night at a park which is a menace to public health and morals. Just before dozing off on an air mattress, beneath a nylon tent, amid the stench of decaying refuse, they may reflect vaguely on the curious unevenness of their blessings. Is this, indeed, the American genius?” (p. 223). Newton Minow, “Television and the Public Interest: An Address to the National Association of Broadcasters, Washington, D.C.,” 1961, American Rhetoric, accessed September 27, 2010, http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/newtonminow.htm.
2. Edwin C. Breeden et al., The American Yawp, edited by Joseph Locke and Ben Wright, 2 vols. (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2018), http://www.americanyawp.com/text/26-the-affluent-society/#identifier_5_117.
3. Robert A. Nisbet, Social Change and History: Aspects of the Western Theory of Development (New York: Oxford University Press, 1969).
4. Matt Novak, “Push-Button Promises,” Pacific Standard, January 25, 2013, updated June 14, 2017, accessed September 27, 2020, https://psmag.com/environment/push-button-culture-51858.
5. Alfred P. Sloan, My Years with General Motors (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1963), p. 323.
6. Herbert Brean, “’54 Car: 3 Years Old at Birth,” Life 36 (3): 80–92; Penny Sparke, A Century of Design: Design Pioneers of the 20th Century (London: Mitchell Beazley, 1998); Bevis Hillier, The Style of the Century, 1900–1980 (New York: Dutton, 1980), p. 146; Frances Basham, Bob Ughett, and Paul Rambali, Car Culture (New York: Plexus, 1984).
7. Grant David McCracken, “When Cars Could Fly: Raymond Loewy, John Kenneth Galbraith, and the 1954 Buick,” in Culture and Consumption II: Markets, Meaning, and Brand Management (Bloomington: Indiana University Press), pp. 53–90.
8. For an excerpt of the performance in which Seinfeld talks about Pop-Tarts: https://youtu.be/YmCTUBEluSE.
CHAPTER 2
THE AWAKENING: HIPPIES AND THE COUNTERCULTURE
1. Donald R. Katz, Home Fires: An Intimate Portrait of One Middle-Class Family in Postwar America (New York: HarperCollins, 1992); Elaine Woo, “Susan Lydon, 61; Author of Influential Feminist Essay,” Los Angeles Times, July 25, 2005, https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2005-jul-25-me-lydon25-story.html.
2. Jonathan Kauffman, Hippie Food: How Back-to-the-Landers, Longhairs, and Revolutionaries Changed the Way We Eat (New York: William Morrow Paperbacks, 2019), pp. 2, 5.
3. Todd Gitlin, The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage (New York: Bantam Books, 1987), p. 209.
4. Stewart Brand, “Summer of Love: 40 Years Later,” SFGate, May 20, 2007, https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Summer-of-Love-40-Years-Later-Stewart-Brand-2559651.php.
5. Joe Samberg in Jennie Rothenberg Gritz, “The Death of the Hippies,” The Atlantic, July 8, 2015, https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2015/07/the-death-of-the-hippies/397739/.
6. Erika Anderson, “What Life Is Like When You’re Born on a Commune,” Vanity Fair, August 2014, accessed September 3, 2020, https://www.vanityfair.com/news/daily-news/2014/08/the-farm-born-on-a-commune.
7. “Father Yod,” Wikipedia, last modified May 24, 2021, 22:16, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Father_Yod.
8. Jonathan Kauffman, Hippie Food (New York: William Morrow, 2018, Kindle), p. 7.
9. Jon Wiener, “When Abbie Hoffman Threw Money at the New York Stock Exchange,” August 24, 2017, https://www.thenation.com/article/archive-it-was-50-years-ago-today-abbie-hoffman-threw-money-at-the-new-york-stock-exchange/.
10. Dominic Hood, “Harvard Explained,” Harvard Crimson, October 2002, https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2002/10/24/harvard-explained-where-does-the-phrase/.
11. Grant McCracken, Chief Culture Officer: How to Create a Living, Breathing Corporation (New York: Basic Books, 2009), pp. 74–76, http://www.amazon.com/Chief-Culture-Officer-Breathing-Corporation/dp/0465018327, pp. 74-76.
12. Josh Karp, A Futile and Stupid Gesture: How Doug Kenney and National Lampoon Changed Comedy Forever (Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2006); Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain, Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk (New York: Grove Press, 2006).
CHAPTER 3
THE PIONEERS: ALICE WATERS, STEWART BRAND, AND MARK FRAUENFELDER
1. Tom Wolfe, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (New York: Picador, 2008), p. 2.
2. Fred Turner, From Counterculture to Cyberculture: Stewart Brand, the Whole Earth Network, and the Rise of Digital Utopianism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006), p. 62.
3. Stewart Brand, “Summer of Love: 40 Years Later,” SFGate, May 20, 2007, https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Summer-of-Love-40-Years-Later-Stewart-Brand-2559651.php; Adam Hirschfelder, “The Trips Festival Explained,” Experiments in Environment: The Halprin Workshops, 1966–1971, January 14, 2016, https://experiments.californiahistoricalsociety.org/what-was-the-trips-festival/.
4. Turner, From Counterculture to Cyberculture.
5. Stewart Brand in Walter Isaacson, The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2014), p. 271.
6. Anna Wiener, “The Complicated Legacy of Stewart Brand’s ‘Whole Earth Catalog,’” New Yorker, n.d., accessed October 22, 2020, https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-silicon-valley/the-complicated-legacy-of-stewart-brands-whole-earth-catalog.
7. Isaacson, The Innovators, p. 20.
8. Wiener, “The Complicated Legacy of Stewart Brand’s ‘Whole Earth Catalog.’”
9. Turner, From Counterculture to Cyberculture, p. 135.
10. David Brooks, “Opinion: The Man Who Changed the World, Twice,” New York Times, May 7, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/07/opinion/stewart-brand-hippie-silicon.html.
11. Wiener, “The Complicated Legacy of Stewart Brand’s ‘Whole Earth Catalog.’”
12. Mark Frauenfelder, Made by Hand: Searching for Meaning in a Throwaway World (New York: Penguin, Kindle, 2010).
13. Ibid., p. 50.
14. Anonymous, “DIY Simplest Automatic Pet Feeder with Arduino,” Maker Pro, June 26, 2019, https://maker.pro/arduino/projects-diy-simplest-automatic-pet-feeder-with-arduino.
15. Rebecca Kesby, “Technology: How the World’s First Webcam Made a Coffee Pot Famous,” BBC News, November 22, 2012, https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-20439301.
16. Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays (New York: Basic Books, 1973).
17. Anonymous, “Rube Goldberg,” n.d., http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rube_Goldberg.
18. This image of Rube is clipped from an image created for the Literary Digest and published there on April 12, 1919. The image consists of self-portraits supplied by fifty-two editorial cartoonists. Wikipedia says this image exists in the public domain. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Rube_Goldberg#/media/File:Editorial_cartoonists’_self-portraits_(1919).png.
19. Grant McCracken, Culturematic: How Reality TV, John Cheever, a Pie Lab, Julia Child, Fantasy Football… Will Help You Create and Execute Brilliant Ideas (Boston: Harvard Business Review Press, 2012), p. 38.
20. Cliff Kuang, “Eye Candy: OK Go’s Insane Rube Goldberg Machine,” Fast Company, March 2, 2010, accessed July 6, 2010, http://www.fastcompany.com/1567383/eye-candy-ok-gos-insane-rube-goldberg-machine.
21. E. Mazareanu, “FedEx Express: Total Average Daily Packages 2020,” Statista, July 2020, https://www.statista.com/statistics/878354/fedex-express-total-average-daily-packages/.
22. Jordan Vallejo in Brendan O’Connor, “A Simple Task: Inside the Whimsical but Surprisingly Dark World of Rube Goldberg Machines,” The Verge, April 22, 2015, https://www.theverge.com/2015/4/22/8381963/rube-goldberg-machine-contest-history-ideas.
23. Thomas McNamee, Alice Waters and Chez Panisse: The Romantic, Impractical, Often Eccentric, Ultimately Brilliant Making of a Food Revolution (New York: Penguin, 2007), Kindle locations 1582–83.
24. Ibid., Kindle locations 253–57.
25. Marian Burros, “Home & Garden: What Alice Taught Them: Disciples of Chez Panisse,” New York Times, September 26, 1984, https://www.nytimes.com/1984/09/26/garden/what-alice-taught-them-disciples-of-chez-panisse.html. I can’t find the original article in Gourmet magazine, which has gone out of business. But the article is referenced here on Fodor’s website: https://www.fodors.com/community/united-states-best-restaurants-usa-gourmet-magazine-01-a-205744/.
26. Paul Freeman, “How Food Became Chic,” Yale Alumni Magazine, September/October 2017, accessed October 26, 2020, https://yalealumnimagazine.com/articles/4575-how-food-became-chic.
CHAPTER 4
TEN WAVES AND THREE TOWNS: A MOVEMENT GROWS, FROM CONNECTICUT TO KENTUCKY
1. Several women have accused Mario Batali “of sexual harassment… [and he] has been charged with indecent assault and battery stemming from an allegation that he groped and kissed a woman at a Boston restaurant in 2017.” As of May 23, 2019, he has denied the charge. “Mario Batali Charged With Assault and Battery in 2017 Case,” New York Times, May 23, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/23/us/mario-batali-charged-boston.html.
2. This list is a partial list. It excludes precedents like Helen Evans Brown, West Coast Cook Book (New York: Little, Brown, 1952), and alternate views, for which see Todd Kliman, “How Michael Pollan, Alice Waters, and Slow Food Theorists Got It All Wrong: A Conversation with Food Historian and Contrarian Rachel Lauden,” Washingtonian, May 29, 2015, https://www.washington.com/2015/05/29/rachel-lauden-how-michael-pollan-alice-waters-got-everything-wrong/. For a historical overview, see Joyce Goldstein and Dore Brown, Inside the California Food Revolution: Thirty Years That Changed Our Culinary Consciousness (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2013).
3. Paul Freeman, “How Food Became Chic,” Yale Alumni Magazine, September/October 2017, accessed October 26, 2020, https://yalealumnimagazine.com/articles/4575-how-food-became-chic.
4. Oliver Schwaner-Albright, “Food: Brooklyn’s New Culinary Movement,” New York Times, February 24, 2009, https://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/25/dining/25brooklyn.html.
5. Ronda Kaysen, “Food Start-Ups Flock to Old Pfizer Factory in Brooklyn,” New York Times, March 27, 2012, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/28/business/food-start-ups-flock-to-old-pfizer-factory-in-brooklyn.html.
6. Benjamin Wallace, “The Twee Party: Is Artisanal Brooklyn a Step Forward for Food or a Sign of the Apocalypse?”, New York, April 13, 2012, http://nymag.com/news/features/artisanal-brooklyn-2012-4/.
7. David Black, “The Sixth Borough,” [Hudson, NY] City Journal, July 14, 2017, https://www.city-journal.org/html/sixth-borough-15334.html.
8. Grant McCracken, “Frank Capra Capitalism?”, Medium, March 12, 2018, https://medium.com/@grant27/frank-capra-capitalism-c2ffc94a524e. See the video in this post for more on Lenihan’s vision.
9. Ann Barr and Paul Levy, The Official Foodie Handbook: Be Modern—Worship Food (New York: Arbor House, 1985).
10. Ben Schaffer, “The Local: How Dale DeGroff’s Epochal Blackbird Revitalized Cocktail Culture,” Rum Reader, July 2020, https://www.rumreader.com/the-local-how-dale-degroffs-epochal-blackbird-revitalized-cocktail-culture/.
11. Camper English, “Has the Mixology Movement Created a Monster?”, 7X7SF, February 2011, http://www.7x7.com/eat-drink/has-mixology-movement-created-monster.
12. Tom Acitelli, The Audacity of Hops: The History of America’s Craft Beer Revolution (Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2013).
13. Jordan Weissmann, “Americans Now Drink More Craft Beer than Budweiser,” Slate, November 24, 2014, http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2014.11/24/budweiser-sales-decline-americans-now-drink-more-craft-beer-than-bud.html?wpsrc=fol_tw; E. J. Schultz, “Young Drinkers Have Abandoned Big Beer—Can It Be Saved?”, AdAge, October 1, 2014, http://adage.com/article/cmo-strategy/beer-industry-debates-mainstream-beers-fixed/295222/.
14. Tim Carman, “Why Fast-Casual Restaurants Became the Decade’s Most Important Food Trend,” Washington Post, December 31, 2019, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/voraciously/wp/2019/12/31/why-fast-casual-restaurants-became-the-decades-most-important-food-trend/.
15. Andrea Blázquez, “Whole Foods Market Statistics & Facts,” Statista, n.d., https://www.statista.com/topics/2261/whole-foods-market/.
16. Zoya Gervis, “Here’s How Many Americans Consider Themselves ‘Foodies,’” New York Post, May 28, 2019, https://nypost.com/2019/05/28/heres-how-many-americans-consider-themselves-foodies/.
17. Anonymous, “2019 Organic Survey Results Show Sales Up 31% from 2016,” news release, United States Department of Agriculture, October 2020, https://www.nass.usda.gov/Newsroom/2020/10-22-2020.php.
18. Isabel Angell, “Annie’s CEO Defends General Mills Buyout of Organic Food Company,” KQED, September 2014, https://www.kqed.org/news/147250/annies-ceo-defends-general-mills-buyout-of-organic-food-company.
19. Alicia Wallace, “Natural Grocery Stores Are at Risk as Organic Goes Mainstream,” CNN Business. February 2020, https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/25/business/organic-mainstream-natural-foods-grocers-survive/index.html.
20. Raphael Brion, “Watch Lewis Black Slam the ‘Artisanal’ Food Trend,” Eater, May 2, 2012, https://www.eater.com/2012/5/2/6590799/watch-lewis-black-slam-the-artisanal-food-trend; Josh Ozersky, “The ‘Artisan’ Hoax: Has That Word Become Meaningless?”, Time, May 2, 2012, https://ideas.time.com/2012/05/02/the-artisan-hoax-has-that-word-become-meaningless/; Benjamin Wallace, “The Twee Party,” nymag.com, April 13, 2012, accessed October 22, 2014, http://nymag.com/news/features/artisanal-brooklyn-2012-4/.
21. Anonymous, “Artisanal Capitalism: The Art and Craft of Business,” The Economist, January 4, 2014, https://www.economist.com/business/2014/01/04/the-art-and-craft-of-business.
22. Duncan LaBarre, “32 Etsy Statistics You Need to Know in 2020,” Veeqo (blog), September 10, 2020, https://www.weeqo.com/us/blog/etsy-statistics.
23. I want to take this opportunity to thank Monty Sommers for encouraging me to think like this.
24. “Darien Connecticut,” Wikipedia, last modified May 24, 2021, 21:16, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darien,_Connecticut.
25. I have written about Ken before: Grant McCracken, The New Honor Code (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2021), pp. 38–43.
26. Ken Skovron in ibid., pp. 41–42.
27. This is surmise on my part. I reached out to Ms. Waters. She declined an interview.
28. Erving Goffman, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1959).
29. Anonymous. “Roton Point,” Rowayton Historical Society, n.d., https://www.rowaytonhistoricalsociety.org/roton-point.
30. Frank Raymond, Rowayton on the Half Shell: The History of a Connecticut Coastal Village (West Kennebunk, ME: Phoenix, 1990), p. 101.
31. Deborah Wing Ray and Gloria P. Stewart, Norwalk: Being an Historical Account of That Connecticut Town (Canaan, NH: published for Norwalk Historical Society by Phoenix Publishing, 1979), p. 161.
32. Lisa Prevost, “Real Estate: Where Norwalk and Darien Collide,” New York Times, January 14, 2014, https://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/19/realestate/where-norwalk-and-darien-collide.html.
33. Cliff Coady, “New York: The View From Rowayton; a Yacht Club Survives Condos and Pretensions,” New York Times, May 23, 1993, https://www.nytimes.com/1993/05/23/nyregion/the-view-from-rowayton-a-yacht-club-survives-condos-and-pretensions.html.
34. See figure 29 in Anonymous, Darien CDP, Connecticut Housing Data, TownCharts, n.d., https://www.towncharts.com/Connecticut/Housing/Darien-CDP-CT-Housing-data.html. (Note that the data for Rowayton is in fact the data for Norwalk, the larger town of which it is a part. Rowayton homes might be a little larger than five rooms.)
35. Faiza Elmastry, “New US Trend: Living in a Walkable City,” Voice of America, December 2015, https://www.voanews.com/usa/new-us-trend-living-walkable-city.
36. Madeline Stone, “The American McMansion Is Dying for Good,” Business Insider, August 25, 2016, https://www.businessinsider.com/the-mcmansion-is-dying-2016-8?international=true&r=US&IR=T.
37. I must note that the flight from New York City created by COVID meant that Darien was once more a highly desirable place to live.
38. David Brooks, Bobos in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001).
39. Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities (New York: Random House, 1961); Brooks, Bobos in Paradise.
40. McCracken, The New Honor Code, p. 36.
41. Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt, The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure (New York: Penguin, 2018).
42. McCracken, The New Honor Code, p. 36.
43. The prime mover of Erin’s approach to child-rearing is Lenore Skenazy, Free-Range Kids: Giving Our Children the Freedom We Had without Going Nuts with Worry (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2009).
44. I am sorry to say that I am unable to identify the source of this story. I read it fifty years ago.
45. Grant McCracken, Transformations: Identity Construction in Contemporary Culture (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008), http://www.amazon.com/Transformations-Identity-Construction-Contemporary-Culture/dp/0253219574/.
46. Thomas Massie in Off the Grid with Thomas Massie, directed by Matt Battaglia, produced by Matt and Kerry Kibbe (Washington, DC: Free the People Productions, 2018), circa 1:20. For more on this documentary, see Logan Albright, “Individualism, Independence, and Incongruity in Rural Kentucky,” Free the People, October 12, 2018, https://freethepeople.org/individualism-independence-and-incongruity-in-rural-kentucky/.
47. Sam Ford and Grant McCracken, “Project Entry # 7: The True Service of a ‘Convenience Store,’” The Artisanal Economies Project (blog), May 18, 2017, https://artisanaleconomiesproject.org/2017/05/18/project-entry-7-the-true-service-of-a-convenience-store/.
48. “Maritimers” is a term for Canadians from New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and sometimes Newfoundland. They are widely admired for their ability to talk. This link from Storytellers of Canada will give you a glimpse: https://www.storytellers-conteurs.ca/en/events-calendar/maritimes.html.
49. This photo taken by Grant McCracken February 23, 2019. I do not yet have Erinn’s permission to use it.
50. I interviewed Erinn in Hartford, Kentucky, on February 23, 2019.
51. Erinn Williams, “The Preacher’s Daughter: The Unknown,” Times-Tribune, July 29, 2020, https://www.thetimestribune.com/opinion/columns/the-preachers-daughter-the-unknown/article_61d46f90-ee5e-5448-930c-58d60b01d341.html. See her reply to J. D. Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy here: Erinn Williams, “The Preacher’s Daughter: The Appalachia I Know,” Times-Tribune, December 2, 2020, https://www.thetimestribune.com/opinion/columns/the-preachers-daughter-the-appalachia-i-know/article_ed8a3be4-592a-54a4-aba4-e308219b4013.html.
52. Robyn Minor, “Home Cafe & Marketplace’s Ambitious Opening,” [Bowling Green] Daily News, July 20, 2011, https://www.bgdailynews.com/community/home-cafe-marketplace-s-ambitious-opening/article_f48e0baa-5641-58ba-bda8-a6d175f89cd.html.
53. Anonymous, Kentucky Diabetes Face Sheet, https://chfs.ky.gov/agencies/dph/dpqi/cdpb/dpcp/diabetesfactsheet.pdf.
54. From an interview Sam Ford and I did with Josh Poling in a speeding car driven by Josh and going about 75 miles an hour on the way out of Bowling Green on the afternoon of March 8, 2017.
55. Picture shows Nathan Howell of Need More Acres. Taken February 23, 2019. Photographer: Grant McCracken.
56. See the very interesting video at the bottom of the page at needmoreacres.com.
57. This interview with Gavin Mann (left) and David Moore (middle) conducted at the farmer’s market in Bowling Green, February 23, 2019..
58. Grant McCracken and Sam Ford, “Project Entry #2: The Peacefield Farms Interview,” The Artisanal Economies Project (blog), April 29, 2017, https://artisanaleconomiesproject.org/2017/04/29/the-artisanal-economies-project-entry-2-the-peacefield-farms-interview/. For more on Peacefield https://peacefieldky.wixsite.com/peacefield/.
59. Marshall Sahlins, Stone Age Economics (Piscataway, NJ: AldineTransaction, 1972).
60. Laurel Wilson, “Top Crops: Volunteers construct garden beds for program that assists special needs adults,” The Daily News, August 23, 2013, https://www.bgdailynews.com/news/top-crops/article_0b3da88c-81a5-59a7-a075-fc2feed9ee3e.html.
61. Grant McCracken and Sam Ford. “Project Entry #6: When Your Business Model Is a Moral Model,” The Artisanal Economies Project (blog), May 15, 2017, https://artisanaleconomiesproject.org/2017/05/15/project-entry-6-when-your-busines-model-is-a-moral-model/.
62. Thomas H. Davenport, Thinking for a Living: How to Get Better Performances and Results from Knowledge Workers (Boston: Harvard Business Review Press, 2005); Thomas H. Davenport and Laurence Prusak, What’s the Big Idea?: Creating and Capitalizing on the Best New Management Thinking (Boston, Harvard Business School Press, 2003); Richard Florida, The Rise of the Creative Class: And How It’s Transforming Work, Leisure, Community and Everyday Life (New York: Basic Books, 2003); Paul H. Ray and Sherry Ruth Anderson, The Cultural Creatives: How 50 Million People Are Changing the World (New York: Three Rivers Press, 2001); Thomas A. Stewart, Intellectual Capital: The New Wealth of Organizations (New York: Crown Business, 1998); Thomas A. Stewart, The Wealth of Knowledge: Intellectual Capital and the Twenty-First-Century Organization (New York: Doubleday Business, 2001).
63. Mark Frauenfelder, Made by Hand: Searching for Meaning in a Throwaway World (New York: Portfolio, 2010).
64. David Kamp, The United States of Arugula: How We Became a Gourmet Nation (New York: Broadway, 2006).
65. This photo (Community Farmer’s MarketTruck) taken by Grant McCracken, Bowling Green, Kentucky.
66. Grant McCracken, “The Coming Point-of-Sale Revolution,” Harvard Business Review, May 6, 2011, accessed September 13, 2014, http://blogs.hbr.org/2011/05/i-gotta-hit-ya-the-coming-revo/.
67. Rachel Botsman and Roo Rogers, What’s Mine Is Yours: The Rise of Collaborative Consumption (New York: HarperCollins, 2010); Lisa Gansky, The Mesh: Why the Future of Business Is Sharing (New York: Portfolio, 2010).
68. Mark Granovetter and Richard Swedberg, The Sociology of Economic Life (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1991); Sahlins, Stone Age Economics.
CHAPTER 5
THE RULES: TWENTY-FOUR THINGS THAT DEFINE THE ARTISAN
1. Mark Frauenfelder, Made by Hand: Searching for Meaning in a Throwaway World (New York: Penguin, Kindle, 2010), p. 57, emphasis in the original Derek Guyer of Kentucky Reclaimed says, “We really believe something can be perfectly imperfect, in Grant McCracken, “Product Imperfect,” The Artisanal Economies Project (blog), May 2, 2017, https://artisanaleconomiesproject.org/2017/05/02/project-entry-4-product-imperfection/.
2. Marc Henshall, “Vinyl’s Imperfections Improve the Listening Experience,” Your Sound Matters, October 2, 2017, https://www.yoursoundmatters.com/vinyls-imperfections-improve-listening-experience/.
3. Grant McCracken, “Low Fidelity Culture,” CultureBy, June 16, 2010, http://cultureby.com/2010/06/low-fidelity-culture.html.
4. The photo of P&G headquarters is from Wikipedia Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license. Photo shot by Derek Jensen (Tysto), August 9, 2005, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cincinnati-procter-and-gamble-headquarters.jpg. I am told that any resemblance to the Daleks in Doctor Who is entirely coincidental.
5. Tom Eblen, “Millersburg Woman Turned Fried Apple Pies into a Delicious Retirement Business,” Lexington Herald-Leader, October 4, 2015, https://www.kentucky.com/news/business/article42632499.html.
6. Kate Bernot, “Case Study: The Ale Apothecary,” Beer Brewing: Brewing Industry Guide, March 31, https://brewingindustryguide.com/case-study-the-ale-apothecary/.
7. Homa Dashtaki in Nikita Richardson, “The Accidental, Surprising, Thriving Artisanal Incubator,” Fast Company, July 16, 2015 https://www.fastcompany.com/3048309/the-accidental-surprising-thriving-artisanal-incubator.
8. David Morey and Scott Miller, The Underdog Advantage: Using the Power of Insurgent Strategy to Put Your Business on Top (New York: McGraw Hill, 2004).
9. Personal communication. I talked to Mr. King by phone December 16, 2020, emergentresearch.com.
10. Lexi Krock, “Stone Age Toolkit,” PBS, n.d., https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/clovis/tool-nf.html.
11. Peter Laslett, The World We Have Lost, 3rd ed. (Milton Park, Oxfordshire: Taylor & Francis, 1999). The term “satanic mills” comes from William Blake’s Milton: A Poem in Two Books, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_did_those_feet_in_ancient_time.
12. Thomas A. Stewart, Intellectual Capital: The New Wealth of Organizations (New York: Crown Business, 1998); Thomas H. Davenport and John C. Beck, The Attention Economy: Understanding the New Currency of Business (Boston: Harvard Business Review Press, 2002); Richard Florida, The Rise of the Creative Class: And How It’s Transforming Work, Leisure, Community and Everyday Life (New York: Basic Books, 2003); Susan Crawford, “The Origin and Development of a Concept: The Information Society,” Bulletin of the Medical Library Association 71 (4): 380–85; Tyler Cowen, The Age of the Infovore: Succeeding in the Information Economy (New York: Plume, 2010).
13. Matthew B. Crawford, Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry into the Value of Work, reprint ed. (New York: Penguin, 2010).
14. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience (New York: Harper & Row, 1990).
15. Please see the appendix.
16. Gary Dinges, “Lawsuit: Tito’s Vodka Isn’t Actually ‘Handmade,’” Statesman, October 16, 2016, https://www.statesman.com/business/20161006/lawsuit-titos-vodka-isnt-actually-handmade.
17. Anonymous, “Hollow Balinese Pyramid Salt Harvested by Hand,” Sun Gods Superfoods, n.d., https://sungodssuperfoods.com.au/product/balinese-sea-salt.
18. Faythe Levine and Cortney Heimerl, eds., Handmade Nation: The Rise of DIY, Art, Craft, and Design (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2008); Faythe Levine (director) and Cortney Heimerl (producer), Handmade Nation (Milwaukee: Milwaukee DIY, 2009). See also Handcrafted America, a documentary series hosted by Jill Wagner, with many illuminating interviews that take us right into the artisan experience.
19. Sue Daly, “Timber!,” in Levine and Heimerl, eds., Handmade Nation, p. 74.
20. Faythe Levine, “Preface,” In Levine and Heimerl, eds., Handmade Nation, p. xi.
21. I interviewed Tyler in 2009 as part of a research project commissioned by a client who wanted to know what the great chefs were thinking.
22. Alice Waters in Thomas McNamee, Alice Waters and Chez Panisse: The Romantic, Impractical Often Eccentric, Ultimately Brilliant Making of a Food Revolution (New York: Penguin, Kindle, 2007), Kindle locations 1568–69.
23. Tom Acitelli, The Audacity of Hops: The History of America’s Craft Beer Revolution (Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2013, Kindle), p. 24.
24. Duane D. Stanford, “Craft Beers Account for About 8 Per Cent of the U.S. Market by Volume; That Share Is Expected to More than Double by 2020, according to the Brewers Association,” Bloomberg Businessweek, September 22–28, 2014, p. 29; Jan Conway, “Total Number of Breweries in the United States 2012–2019,” Statista, June 24, 2020, https://www.statista.com/statistics/224157/total-number-of-breweries-in-the-united-states-since-1990/.
25. This is my phrasing of Sofi’s argument. It comes from a conversation I had with her in late April 2017. Grant McCracken, “Artisanal Economies, Entry #1, The Sofi Interview, The Artisanal Economies Project (blog), https://artisanaleconomiesproject.org/2017/04/29/the-artisanal-economies-entry-1-the-sofi-interview/ (blog). Here is Sofi on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/CGP0TbmHFxi/.
26. Lowell L. Bryan and Michele Zanini, “Strategy in an Era of Global Giants. Sidebar: Where Complexity Hurts,” McKinsey Quarterly, November 1, 2005, http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/strategy/strategy_in_an_era_of_global_giants#sidebar1.
27. Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable, 2nd ed. (New York: Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2010).
28. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automat.
29. Michelle Ott, “Who Are You?” n.d., https://thepostcardmachine.com/pages/about. If you like Ott’s work, you can support her on Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/thepostcardmachine.
30. See my effort to fix capitalism: Grant McCracken, Culturematic: How Reality TV, John Cheever, a Pie Lab, Julia Child, Fantasy Football… Will Help You Create and Execute Breakthrough Ideas (Boston: Harvard Business Review Press, 2012).
31. Evan Andrews, “Who Invented Beer?”, History.com, January 8, 2014, updated September 7, 2018, https://www.history.com/news/who-invented-beer.
32. Winifred Gallagher, New: Understanding Our Need for Novelty and Change (New York: Penguin, 2012).
33. Jocelyn gave me permission to use this quote by email on November 17, 2020. Anonymous, “PetitFelts—Handcrafted Felted Sculptures from the Hudson Valley,” The Hudson Valley Sojourner, n.d., https://www.hudsonvalleysojourner.com/crafts/other-crafts/petitfelts-handcrafted-felted-sculptures/, accessed November 18, 2020. Photo: Glenda the Fox by Jocelyn Gayle Krodman, https://www.petitfelts.com/shop/glenda-the-fox.
34. Sam Ford, “Project Entry #14: Lacey, Media Wonder Dog, and the Hustle of an Artisanal Portfolio Business,” The Artisanal Economies Project (blog), August 6, 2017, https://artisanaleconomiesproject.org/2017/08/06/lacey-social-media-wonder-dog/.
35. Bren Smith, “Don’t Let Your Children Grow Up to Be Farmers,” New York Times, August 9, 2014, http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/10/opinion/sunday/dont-let-your-children-grow-up-to-be-farmers.html. See the reply: Anonymous, “Does a Passion for Growing Food Mean a Life of Poverty? Response to a NYTimes Op-ed,” Southern Maryland Agricultural Development Commission, September 11, 2014, https://smadc.com/does-a-passion-for-growing-food-mean-a-life-of-poverty-response-to-a-nytimes-op-ed/.
36. I talked to Eric Glasgow by phone December 9, 2016.
37. Michael Idov, “Bitter Brew. I Opened a Charming Neighborhood Coffee Shop. Then It Destroyed My Life,” Slate, http://www.slate.com/id/2132576.
38. Grant McCracken, Dark Value: How to Find Hidden Value in the Digital Economy (New York: Periph.: Fluide, 2016). See thoughts from Sam Ford on the tensions between commodity and gift economies here: Grant McCracken and Sam Ford, “Project Entry #2: The Peacefield Farms Interview,” The Artisanal Economies Project (blog), April 29, 2017, https://artisanaleconomiesproject.org/2017/04/29/the-artisanal-economies-project-entry-2-the-peacefield-farms-interview/.
39. Taffy Brodesser-Akner, “How Goop’s Haters Made Gwyneth Paltrow’s Company Worth $250 Million,” New York Times, July 25, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/25/magazine/big-business-gwyneth-paltrow-wellness.html.
40. I interviewed Mateo on the phone November 20, 2020.
41. Carl Bialik, “Numbersguy Blog: Starbucks Stays Mum on Drink Math,” Wall Street Journal, April 2, 2008, https://www.wsj.com/articles/BL-NB-309.
42. Barry Schwartz, The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less (New York: Ecco, 2003).
43. Nicholas Carr, The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains (New York: W. W. Norton, 2011); Mark Bauerlein, The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future (New York: Tarcher, 2009).
44. Steve Pinker, Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress (New York: Penguin, 2019).
45. Max Weber, “Science as Vocation,” in From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, edited by H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills (New York: Oxford University Press, 1946), pp. 129–56.
46. I am indebted to Pip Coburn for his thoughts, and our conversations, on personalization.
47. Kendi and DiAngelo have thought a lot about this task; Ibram X. Kendi, How to Be an Antiracist (New York: One World, 2019); Robin DiAngelo and Michael Eric Dyson, White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk about Racism, reprint ed. (Boston: Beacon Press, 2018).
48. Next time the music and culture festival called Afropunk comes to town, go. https://afropunk.com.
49. Anonymous, “Volunteering in America Report Finds Increase in Volunteering and Civically-Related Activities,” AmeriCorps, November 13. 2018, https://www.nationalservice.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2018/volunteering-us-hits-record-high-worth-167-billion; Anonymous, “Giving Statistics,” Charity Navigator, n.d., https://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=content.view&cpid=42.
50. Grant McCracken, “Screw the Gift Economy, a Reply to Clay Shirky,” CultureBy, December 15, 2015, https://cultureby.com/2015/12/screw-the-gift-economy-a-reply-to-clay-shirky-html.
51. Mark Fedeli, “Agricultural Revolution: Farm Hotels Are Growing Up,” part 2: “The New World,” “Blackberry Farm,” Tablet: The Agenda, March 23, 2018, https://magazine.tablethotels.com/en/2018/03/agricultural-revolution/.
52. It looks like the Heritage Tea House has been overwhelmed by current affairs and the coronavirus. Its long-term status is unclear. I am waiting to do a follow-up interview with Raeisha.
53. Heritage has suffered the effects of COVID. It is suspended, perhaps closed down. Details forthcoming.
54. Anonymous, “About Us,” The Flowers and Bread Society, n.d., https://www.flowersandbread.com/pages/about-us.
55. Frank Giustra, “Welcome to the Million Gardens Movement,” ModernFarmer.com, n.d., https://modernfarmer.com/million-gardens-movement/.
56. Thanks to Scott Gilmore at Modern Farmer for an illuminating interview, December 14, 2020.
57. This passage taken from the Facebook passage of Tyson Gersh: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tysongersh/.
58. Tom Perkins, “On Urban Farming and ‘Colonialism’ in Detroit’s North End Neighborhood,” Detroit Metro Times, December 20, 2017, https://www.metrotimes.com/detroit/on-urban-farming-and-colonialism-in-detroits-north-end-neighborhood/Content?oid=7950059.
59. Anonymous. “Artisanal Chewing Gum Factory,” Thrillist, October 25, 2010, http://www.thrillist.com/bayswater/food-dining/2010/10/22/artisanal-chewing-gum-factory.
60. Levine and Heimerl (eds.), Handmade Nation; Levine (director) and Heimerl (producer), Handmade Nation.
61. Levine, “Preface,” in Levine and Heimerl (eds.), Handmade Nation, p. xi.
62. Susan Beal, “Craft Fairs Redux,” in Levine and Heimerl (eds.), Handmade Nation, pp. 121–25.
63. Kathleen Habbley in Beal, “Craft Fairs Redux,” p. 122.
64. Christy Petterson, Sharon Mulkey, and Susan Voelker in Beal, “Craft Fairs Redux,” pp. 122–23.
65. Mark Granovetter, “Economic Action and Social Structure: The Problem of Embeddedness,” American Journal of Sociology 91 (3): 481–510; Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation, foreword by Robert M. MacIver (New York: Farrar & Rinehart, 1944).
66. Charles Coolidge Parlin, Department Store Lines (Philadelphia: Curtis, 1912). This idea has been endlessly recycled. Poor A. G. Lafley, twice the CEO of P&G, witlessly made “consumer is boss” his mantra. Anonymous, “A.G. Lafley,” n.d., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A.G._Lafley.
67. McNamee, Alice Waters and Chez Panisse, Kindle location 827.
68. And this leads to a tension as artisans look for the balance of work that is crowd-pleasing and work that is true to the artisan’s art.
69. Tyler Cowen, “Automation Alone Isn’t Killing Jobs,” New York Times, April 6, 2014, accessed September 13, 2014, http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/06/business/automation-alone-isnt-killing-jobs.html. See also Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee, Race Against The Machine: How the Digital Revolution Is Accelerating Innovation, Driving Productivity, and Irreversibly Transforming Employment and the Economy (Digital Frontier Press, 2011).
70. Nick Reding, Methland: The Death and Life of an American Small Town (New York: Bloomsbury USA, 2009).
71. Ryan Tate, “Blue Bottle Cashes In on Coffee Authenticity,” Wired, October 2012, accessed October 26, 2014, http://www.wired.com/2012/10/blue-bottle-cashes-in/.
72. For a middle-ground approach: John Peabody, “Moneybox: How to Scale Your Artisanal Business in Four Easy Steps,” Slate, October 30, 2014, http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2014/10/30/how_to_make_an_artisanal_business_scalable.html.
73. I am sorry to say that I am unable to identify the source of this story. I read it years and years ago.
74. Kevin Kelly, a writer and beekeeper in Pacifica, in Frauenfelder, Made by Hand, p. 164.
75. Linda Hedman Beyus and Sam Dangremond, “How Two Manolo Blahnik Executives Became Award-Winning Dairy Farmers,” Town & Country, June 26, 2017, https://www.townandcountrymag.com/leisure/dining/a10041551/arethusa-farm-and-dairy/.
76. David Rees, “Artisanal Pencil Sharpener, YouTube, April 11, 2012, https://youtu.be/spMaP-_Cq_8.
77. Eliza Barclay, “‘Bespoke Water’ Video Pokes Fun at Earnest Artisanal Food Makers,” NPR, August 5, 2015, https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/08/05/429031666/bespoke-water-video-pokes-fun-at-earnest-artisanal-food-makers. For an illuminating treatment of a company dedicated to artisanal kindling, see this earnest treatment of the Smoke & Flame firewood company, “North America’s only premium handcrafted firewood manufacturer”: https://youtu.be/TBb9O-aW4zI.
78. McDonald’s McCafé ad, https://youtu.be/KraleWAiKvE.
79. Raphael Brion, “Watch Lewis Black Slam the ‘Artisanal’ Food Trend,” Eater, May 2, 2012, https://www.eater.com/2012/5/2/6590799/watch-lewis-black-slam-the-artisanal-food-trend.
80. Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein, “Colin the Chicken,” Portlandia, December 1, 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_PVLB8Nm4.
81. David E. Shi, The Simple Life: Plain Living and High Thinking in American Culture (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985).
82. Robert Potts, “An Adaptable Gather: The Revival of the Penguin Modern Poets Series,” Times Literary Supplement, no. 4814, July 7, 1995, p. 31; Ted Polhemus, Street Style: From Sidewalk to Catwalk (London: Thames & Hudson, 1994), p. 9; Jason Fine, “The Hardstuff: Are the Chemical Brothers Techno’s First Rock Stars?”, Option 72, no. (January 1997): 62; Clifford Geertz, “Blurred Genres: The Refiguration of Social Thought,” in Local Knowledge: Further Essays in Interpretive Anthropology (New York: Basic Books, 1983), pp. 20, 21.
83. Aristotle in Arlene W. Saxonhouse, Fear of Diversity: The Birth of Political Science in Ancient Greek Thought (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), p. 15.
84. Isaiah Berlin, “Alleged Relativism in Eighteenth-Century European Thought,” in The Crooked Timber of Humanity (New York: Fontana Press, 1990), p. 90.
85. See the Wikipedia entry for Heraclitus here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heraclitus.
86. Reding, Methland; Sam Quinones, Dreamland: The True Tale of America’s Opiate Epidemic (New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2015).
87. Grant McCracken, “Project Entry #10: Bee Keeping with Dr. Christoph Ohngemach,” The Artisanal Economies Project (blog), June 26, 2017, https://artisanaleconomiesproject.org/2017/06/26/project-entry-10-bee-keeping-with-dr-christoph-ohnegemach/.
88. Colin Dwyer, “Sacklers Withdrew Nearly $11 Billion from Purdue As Opioid Crisis Mounted,” NPR, December 17, 2019, https://www.npr.org/2019/12/17/788783876/sacklers-withdrew-nearly-ll-billion-from-purdue-as-opioid-crisis-mounted.
89. David Epstein, Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World (New York: Riverhead Books, 2019).
90. https://www.warren-wilson.edu/programs/ma-in-craft/.
91. This paragraph has been adapted from Grant McCracken, “The Intrinsic Economy,” CultureBy, August 4, 2016, https://cultureby.com/2016/08/the-intrinsic-economy-why-the-republicans-must-lose-in-the-long-term.html.
CHAPTER 6
THE MOMENT: CRAFT IN THE TIME OF COVID
1. Anonymous, “Epson America Introduces ‘Artisan’—New Flagship Line of Premium Ink Jet All-in-Ones That Combine Power and Performance with Sleek and Chic Styling,” press release, https://news.epson.com/news/Artisan_Release.
2. Dana Steinberg, “Rebuilding the U.S. Economy: One Heirloom Tomato at a Time,” Wilson Center, April 2011, https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/rebuilding-the-us-economy-one-heirloom-tomato-time.
3. In Community Supported Agriculture consumers agree to buy some or all of their produce from a local farmer. More formally, “growers and consumers [provide] mutual support and [share] the risks and benefits of food production.” Anonymous, “Community Supported Agriculture,” USDA National Agricultural Library, https://www.nal.usda.gov/afsic/community-supported-agriculture#. By 2012, the number of CSAs was sixty-five hundred. By April 2020, it was thirteen thousand. Steven McFadden, “Unraveling the CSA Number Conundrum,” Deep Agroecology, 2012, https://deepagroecology.org/2012/01/09/unraveling-the-csa-number-conundrum/; Hannah Ricker and Mara Karda-Nelson, “Community Supported Agriculture Is Surging amid the Pandemic,” April 9, 2020, https://civileats.com/2020/04/09/community-supported-agriculture-is-surging-amid-the-pandemic/.
4. Anonymous, “Year in Food: Artisanal Out As Apps Get Hype,” CBS News, December 22, 2010, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/year-in-food-artisanal-out-as-apps-get-hype/.
5. Jen Doll, “Artisanal, Reluctant Branding Pioneer, Dies at Age 474,” The Atlantic, May 30, 2012, https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2012/05/artisanal-reluctant-branding-pioneer-dies-at-age-474/327491/.
6. Jen Doll, “Artisanal Won’t Die,” The Atlantic, April 3, 2013, https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/04/artisanal-wont-die/316659/.
7. A.C.S., “The Return of Artisanal Employment, The Economist, October 11, 2011, https://www.economist.com/free-exchange/2011/10/31/the-return-of-artisanal-employment#. (P. H. Kapp makes the argument several years later: “The Artisan Economy and Post-industrial Regeneration in the US,” Journal of Urban Design 22 (4) (2017): 47793, https://doi.org/10.1080/13574809.2016.1167588; Paul Solman, “Could Brooklyn Hipsters Help Save the Middle Class?”, PBS NewsHour, July 10, 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xHun6klxvA#t=490, Andrew Ward, “Can Hipsters and the Artisan Economy Save the Middle Class?”, Daily Finance, July 17, 2014, http://www.dailyfinance.com/2014/07/17/can-hipsters-artisan-economy-save-middle-class/. See also Joseph Berger, “N.Y. / Region: Small Factories Thrive in Brooklyn, Replacing Industrial Giants,” New York Times, August 7, 2012, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/08/nyregion/small-factories-thrive-in-brooklyn-replacing-industrial-giants.html.
8. Sabrina Tavernise and Sarah Mervosh, “U.S.: America’s Biggest Cities Were Already Losing Their Allure. What Happens Next?”, New York Times, April 19, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/19/us/coronavirus-moving-city-future.html.
9. Alissa Morris in Sara Morrow, “The (Not So) Simple Life,” Modern Farmer 10 (Winter 2015): 74.
10. Staff, Pacific Standard, “Americans’ Diets Are (a Little Bit) Better Than They Were 15 Years Ago,” Pacific Standard, June 21, 2016, accessed September 30, 2020, https://psmag.com/news/americans-diets-are-a-little-better-than-they-were-15-years-ago.
11. Anonymous, “2019 Organic Survey Results Show Sales Up 31% from 2016,” news release, United States Department of Agriculture, October 22, 2020, https://www.nass.usda.gov/Newsroom/2020/10-22-2020.php, number rounded.
12. Craig Smith, “70 Amazing Etsy Statistics,” DMR, March 15, 2015, with updates, https://expandedreamblings.com/index.php/etsy-statistics/. I am grateful to Steve King of EmergentResearch.com for sharing his thoughts on the artisanal economy.
13. Amber Burton, “Markets: Etsy and Shopify Buoyed As Covid-19 Boosts Online Sales,” Wall Street Journal, December 23, 2020, https://www.wsj.com/articles/etsy-and-shopify-buoyed-as-covid-19-boosts-online-sales-11608719401, numbers rounded.
14. Waiting for Guffman, directed by Christopher Guest, written by Christopher Guest and Eugene Levy, produced by Castle Rock Entertainment et al. To hear Corky’s speech in full: Waiting for Guffman-Corky’s Speech, YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=De6AkndwRpM.
15. Kevin Zimmerman, “Goodbye City Life: Litchfield County Booming Due to NY Exodus,” Westfair Communications (blog), August 3, 2020, https://westfaironline.com/126353/goodbye-city-life-litchfield-county-booming-due-to-ny-exodus/; Mihir Zaveri, “A Violent August in N.Y.C.: Shootings Double, and Murder Is Up by 50%,” New York Times, September 2, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/02/nyregion/nyc-shootings-murder.html; Emma G. Fitzsimmons and Dana Rubinstein, “150 Big Businesses Warn Mayor of ‘Widespread Anxiety’ over N.Y.C.’s Future,” New York Times, September 10, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/10/nyregion/de-blasio-economy-coronavirus.html.
16. Dana Rubinstein, “New York: De Blasio Vows for First Time to Cut Funding for the N.Y.P.D.,” New York Times, June 7, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/07/nyregion/deblasio-nypd-funding.html.
17. James Altuchur, “NYC Is Dead Forever,” New York Post, August 17, 2020, https://nypost.com/2020/08/17/nyc-is-dead-forever-heres-why-james-altucher/.
18. Azi Paybarah, Matthew Bloch, and Scott Reinhard, “New York: Where New Yorkers Moved to Escape Coronavirus,” New York Times, May 17, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/05/16/nyregion/nyc-coronavirus-moving-leaving.html.
19. Zimmerman,“Goodbye City Life.”
20. Ellen Barry, “U.S.: The Virus Sent Droves to a Small Town. Suddenly, It’s Not So Small,” New York Times, September 26, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/26/us/coronavirus-vermont-transplants.html.
21. Sara B. Franklin, “Real Estate: Kingston: A City Remade by the Coronavirus,” New York Times, August 14, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/14/realestate/kingston-coronavirus-new-residents.html.
22. In this research fifty qualitative interviews and five hundred quantitative ones were conducted in late June and July of 2020. The research was covered in several places, especially in Jillian Kramer, “How Covid-19 Is Changing the Way Mothers Parent Their Daughters,” Washington Post, November 2, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2020/10/30/mothers-raise-kind-daughters-covid/, and Clare Ansberry, “How Covid-19 Lockdowns Have Boosted Mother-Daughter Bonds—WSJ,” Wall Street Journal, September 22, 2020, https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-covid-19-lockdowns-have-boosted-mother-daughter-bonds-11600804296.
23. Barry, “The Virus Sent Droves to a Small Town.”
24. Contact me for the full report: grant27@gmail.com.
25. Jed Kolko in Tavernise and Mervosh, “America’s Biggest Cities Were Already Losing Their Allure.”
26. Lisa Kay Solomon, “Making Futures Tangible,” Medium, May 12, 2019, https://medium.com/@lisakaysolomon/making-futures-tangible-b2aceabe2017.
27. Andrew Van Dam, “The Unluckiest Generation in U.S. History,” Washington Post, June 5, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/05/27/millennial-recession-covid/.
28. Janet Adamy, “US: Millennials Slammed by Second Financial Crisis Fall Even Further Behind,” Wall Street Journal, August 9, 2020, https://www.wsj.com/articles/millennials-covid-financial-crisis-fall-behind-jobless-11596811470.
29. Tavernise and Mervosh, “America’s Biggest Cities Were Already Losing Their Allure.”
30. Jack Kelly, “New Yorkers Are Leaving the City in Droves: Here’s Why They’re Moving and Where They’re Going,” Forbes. September 5, 2019, https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackkelly/2019/09/05/new-yorkers-are-leaving-the-city-in-droves-heres-why-theyre-moving-and-where-theyre-going.
31. Sabrina Tavernise and Sarah Mervosh, “America’s Biggest Cities Were Already Losing Their Allure. What Happens Next?”, New York Times, April 19, 2020, sec. U.S. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/19/us/coronavirus-moving-city-future.html.
32. The Merriam-Webster definition of “humblebrag”: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/humblebrag.
33. Fiona Duncan, “Normcore: Fashion for Those Who Realize They’re One in 7 Billion,” The Cut, February 2014, http://nymag.com/thecut/2014/02/normcore-fashion-trend.html.
34. “Sunday Candy,” Surf, artist: Donnie Trumpet & The Social Experiment, featuring Jamila Woods, produced by The Social Experiment, written by Patrick Paige II, Franco Davis, Jack Red, Macie Stewart, Nico Segal, Chance the Rapper, Nate Fox, Eryn Allen Kane, Peter CottonTale, J. P. Floyd, Sima Cunningham, Stix, and Jamila Woods, full lyrics at https://genius.com/Donnie-trumpet-and-the-social-experiment-sunday-candy-lyrics.
35. “Familiar,” Surf, Donnie Trumpet & The Social Experiment, featuring King Louie & Quavo, produced by The Social Experiment, written by Dustin Green, Jack Red, Nico Segal, Chance the Rapper, Nate Fox, Peter CottonTale, J. P. Floyd, Sir The Baptist, Ilan Kidron, King Louie, and Quavo, full lyrics at https://genius.com/Donnie-trumpet-and-the-social-experiment-familiar-lyrics.
36. “Wanna Be Cool,” Surf, Donnie Trumpet & The Social Experiment, Featuring Jeremih, KYLE & Big Sean, produced by The Social Experiment, written by Jeff “Gitty” Gitelman, Cam O’bi, Jack Red, KYLE, Nico Segal, Kiara Lainer, Chance the Rapper, Nate Fox, Jeremih, Big Sean, Eryn Allen Kane, Peter Cotton Tale, and Carter Lang.
37. The Jack Reacher novels are written by Lee Child. See Abell’s tweet here: https://twitter.com/StigAbell/status/947231929610461184.
38. See Stig Abell’s podcast here: https://podcast.apple.com/gb/podcast/stig-abells-guide-to-reading/id1535641697. See Season 1, episode 3, for thoughts on what a book should have to engage, especially circa 7:36. See Season 1, episode 7, for his thoughts on historical fiction. See Season 1, episode 4, for the useful similarities between Abell’s forthright style and that of his guest James O’Brien.
39. Joseph A. Schumpeter, Can Capitalism Survive?: Creative Destruction and the Future of the Global Economy (New York: Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2009); Alvin Toffler, Future Shock (New York: Bantam, 1984); Peter Schwartz, The Art of the Long View: Planning for the Future in an Uncertain World (New York: Currency Doubleday, 1996); Clayton M. Christensen, The Innovator’s Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1997); Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable, 2nd ed. (New York: Random House Trade, 2010).
40. Christian Lorentzen, “Why the Hipster Must Die,” Time Out, May 30, 2007, http://newyork.timeout.com/things-to-do-this-week-in-new-york/8355/why-the-hipster-must-die.
41. See the Bud Light TV commercial here: https://www.ispot.tv/ad/dDwM/bud-light-bud-lights-for-everyone.
42. The world-renouncing impulse encourages people to retreat from the world, sometimes to enter religious orders. It was considered by the German sociologist Max Weber. Robert N. Bellah, “Max Weber and World-Denying Love: A Look at the Historical Sociology of Religion,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 67, no. 2 (June 1999): 277–304.
43. Erving Goffman, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1959).
44. For more on multiple selves: Grant McCracken, Transformations: Identity Construction in Contemporary Culture (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008). Some people would prefer to talk about different aspects of the self. “Different selves” feels just a little overreaching. But I think it especially applies when we find ourselves hosts to quite and perhaps entirely different points of view.
45. Fernand Braudel, Civilization and Capitalism, 15th–18th Century, vol. I: The Structure of Everyday Life (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press), p. 323.
CHAPTER 7
THE FUTURE: A NEW ARTISANAL ECONOMY
1. Take the case of the engineers at Carbon Engineering who claim to perform carbon capture at around $100 a ton. Anonymous, “Bill Gates–Backed Carbon Capture Plant Does the Work of 40 Million Trees,” CNBC, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHX9pmQ6m_s; anonymous, “Carbon Engineering Pioneering Direct Air Capture of CO2,” Carbon Engineering, https://carbonengineering.com/.
2. This is a little like the profile of Apple computers. They only make up 10 percent of the computers in the United States, but they attract most of the attention.
3. Grant McCracken, The New Honor Code (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2020).
4. Miles Raymer, “Meet 11 Indie Sneaker Labels Changing the Game,” Nylon, n.d., https://www.nylon.com/best-indie-sneakers.
5. See Annie Mohaupt’s work at https://www.mohop.com and on Season 1, episode 1, of Handcrafted America, the TV show hosted by Jill Wagner, https://www.insp.com/shows/handcrafted-america/.
6. Thanks to Laurent Rejto of the Hudson Valley Film Commission for his prompt and generous kindness. For more details, see the website here: www.hudsonvalleyfilmcommission.org.
7. Sinead Bovell, “I Am a Model and I Know That Artificial Intelligence Will Eventually Take My Job,” Vogue, accessed January 13, 2021, https://www.vogue.com/article/sinead-bovell-model-artificial-intelligence.
8. More on my approach: www.mapping-the-future.com.
9. The play Mousetrap opened in London in 1952 and closed in 2020, staging over twenty-eight thousand performances, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mousetrap. Mysie Monte played her part for twelve and a half years. When asked why she left the play, Ms. Monte said, “I think I have earned a rest.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mysie_Monte.