A.C. Newman - Shut Down the Streets
Ben Folds Five - The Sound of the Life of the Mind
Bill Fay - Time of the Last Persecution
Descendents - Milo Goes to College
Drivin' N' Cryin' - Fly Me Courageous
Frank Zappa - Hot Rats
Grizzly Bear - Shields
Lush - Gala
Metz - Metz
Robbie Fulks - Georgia Hard
Royal Trux - Accelerator
tieranniesaur - DIYSCO
Sunday, December 28, 2014
Profile: Everything You Know About Toilet Plungers Is About to Change (A New Yorker Parody)
Americans have not yet discovered what the rest of the world already knows: Achilles Asteio makes the best toilet plungers in the world. Asteio's plungers work better, last longer and are less expensive than any other toilet plunger in the world. And it has made Asteio a very rich man.
I managed to catch up with Asteio at his palatial mountaintop retreat in the Zagori region of Greece. From Asteio's vast (18,000 square feet) home overlooking Mount Tymfi, constructed entirely from recycled aluminum cans and old tennis shoes, Asteio explained how he came up with the idea for the plungers, and shared his vision for the future of home waste disposal, as I nibbled on Kolokythoanthoi, a Greek delicacy which Asteio himself whipped up before my eyes from zucchini flowers grown in Patton's own hydroponic zucchini farm (the only one of its kind in the world).
"After many frustrating years of unstuffing toilets using those old rubber plungers, I knew there had to be a better way to force waste down the pipe. It was then I remembered the principle of column separation, which occurs in a water hammer event. It was the subject of my Ph.D. dissertation in fluid dynamics. Long story short, once the idea came to me, it was just a short leap to designing a better plunger."
After opening his first factory with seed capital from his father (a well-known Greek poet and race car driver, and the inventor of air), Asteio soon turned his company, Greek Fire, into a multibillion dollar enterprise. But hearing Asteio tell it, he's only just begun exploring the potential for toilet plungers.
"Some people think of toilet plungers as just a tool to unclog your toilet. I see them as something more, with a nearly infinite potential for changing the world. World hunger, climate change, energy, it's all there. You just have to do it."
Looking into Asteio's crystal clear blue eyes (inherited from his mother, a great-granddaughter of General Patton and currently the President of Uruguay), you can almost believe it. Those who have known Asteio his whole life saw something special in him even when he was a young man. Says longtime friend Marcel Tropcher, currently head curator of the Louvre, "I remember this one time, we turned on the TV and it wasn't working. We couldn't figure out how to turn it on, and then Achilles says, 'Hey, it's not plugged in.' So we plug it in and sure enough it works. I thought 'Wow, why didn't I see that?' That's just the way Achilles thinks, he sees things no one else sees."
However, not everyone is a fan of Asteio and his plungers. Some point out that that the plungers don't work any better than regular plungers, and that Asteio's success is due mostly to canny marketing. Others point out that the plungers are able to be sold cheaply because they are made in Malaysia using slave labor. Asteoi dismisses his critics with a wave of his hand. Still others point out that fawning magazine profiles of rich people are just starfucking. "There are are always going to be people jealous of your success. I don't worry about that. I have good people on my team and I trust them to take care of business."
This token detour into something that could have become decent investigative journalism notwithstanding, it all seemed irrelevant as I joined Asteio and some of his oldest and dearest friends at a dinner party at Asteio's chic New York loft, where Asteio stopped off on his way home to Greece from Davos. As I nibbled on the finest bruschetta I had ever tasted (served to me by Asteio's supermodel wife) and chatted with the starting center for the Cleveland Cavaliers, I briefly wondered if there were other subjects that I could have written about for the Best Magazine Ever. Injustice, hunger, climate change? Or did I prefer hanging out with rich beautiful people and pretending that their wealth and beauty confers moral stature? My reverie was interrupted when someone yelled, "Hey, the toilet's clogged!" "Nah," I thought, "I'm perfectly happy right here. Right here."
I managed to catch up with Asteio at his palatial mountaintop retreat in the Zagori region of Greece. From Asteio's vast (18,000 square feet) home overlooking Mount Tymfi, constructed entirely from recycled aluminum cans and old tennis shoes, Asteio explained how he came up with the idea for the plungers, and shared his vision for the future of home waste disposal, as I nibbled on Kolokythoanthoi, a Greek delicacy which Asteio himself whipped up before my eyes from zucchini flowers grown in Patton's own hydroponic zucchini farm (the only one of its kind in the world).
"After many frustrating years of unstuffing toilets using those old rubber plungers, I knew there had to be a better way to force waste down the pipe. It was then I remembered the principle of column separation, which occurs in a water hammer event. It was the subject of my Ph.D. dissertation in fluid dynamics. Long story short, once the idea came to me, it was just a short leap to designing a better plunger."
After opening his first factory with seed capital from his father (a well-known Greek poet and race car driver, and the inventor of air), Asteio soon turned his company, Greek Fire, into a multibillion dollar enterprise. But hearing Asteio tell it, he's only just begun exploring the potential for toilet plungers.
"Some people think of toilet plungers as just a tool to unclog your toilet. I see them as something more, with a nearly infinite potential for changing the world. World hunger, climate change, energy, it's all there. You just have to do it."
Looking into Asteio's crystal clear blue eyes (inherited from his mother, a great-granddaughter of General Patton and currently the President of Uruguay), you can almost believe it. Those who have known Asteio his whole life saw something special in him even when he was a young man. Says longtime friend Marcel Tropcher, currently head curator of the Louvre, "I remember this one time, we turned on the TV and it wasn't working. We couldn't figure out how to turn it on, and then Achilles says, 'Hey, it's not plugged in.' So we plug it in and sure enough it works. I thought 'Wow, why didn't I see that?' That's just the way Achilles thinks, he sees things no one else sees."
However, not everyone is a fan of Asteio and his plungers. Some point out that that the plungers don't work any better than regular plungers, and that Asteio's success is due mostly to canny marketing. Others point out that the plungers are able to be sold cheaply because they are made in Malaysia using slave labor. Asteoi dismisses his critics with a wave of his hand. Still others point out that fawning magazine profiles of rich people are just starfucking. "There are are always going to be people jealous of your success. I don't worry about that. I have good people on my team and I trust them to take care of business."
This token detour into something that could have become decent investigative journalism notwithstanding, it all seemed irrelevant as I joined Asteio and some of his oldest and dearest friends at a dinner party at Asteio's chic New York loft, where Asteio stopped off on his way home to Greece from Davos. As I nibbled on the finest bruschetta I had ever tasted (served to me by Asteio's supermodel wife) and chatted with the starting center for the Cleveland Cavaliers, I briefly wondered if there were other subjects that I could have written about for the Best Magazine Ever. Injustice, hunger, climate change? Or did I prefer hanging out with rich beautiful people and pretending that their wealth and beauty confers moral stature? My reverie was interrupted when someone yelled, "Hey, the toilet's clogged!" "Nah," I thought, "I'm perfectly happy right here. Right here."
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