There’s a secondary market in In-N-Out burgers. American capitalists are filling it with illicit burger deliveries. Mark Emerson kicks off Dez Reads this week with a simple axiom: In the United States of America, people will find a way to pay for the things they want, whether that’s Knicks tickets, illicit drugs, or mediocre hamburgers.
Sticking to the food beat, Katie Davis takes a look at the optimal months of the year to eat oysters. Every edition of DR, our people force me to think about something I’d never considered for a second. Add “October and November are optimal oyster-eating months” to that list.
It would be impossible to curate a newsletter of cultural trivia without an examination of Nathan Fielder’s new documentary on Elizabeth (now “Liz”?) Holmes. So we threw it to Beach, who compares the film to the allegory of Plato’s cave. A typically cerebral Dez Take.
And finally, Phil Bogdan poses some ethical questions about the common practice of dressing your dog up in a Halloween costume. My take is best expressed by Will Ferrell on SNL many years ago.
Thanks, as always, for reading along with us.
Here we go.
The Price of Convenience.
KTLA. Online black market for In-N-Out delivery grows in Southern California: report
I’ve always felt compelled to recognize human creativity and entrepreneurship when I see it. Some of the world’s greatest innovations were born out of necessity. Others were born because someone simply couldn’t be bothered to leave the house.
KTLA reports that a black market for In-N-Out delivery has emerged on Facebook Marketplace. Since the burger chain refuses to partner with delivery apps, enterprising Californians are offering their own services and charging as much as $50 on top of the food. Some even demand payment upfront. One driver reportedly serves 20 customers weekly, while a reporter testing another service was ghosted after sending a deposit.
Now, I like In-N-Out as much as the next person, and I respect their refusal to work with food delivery companies. But trusting a complete stranger on Facebook with $50 and hoping your Double-Double arrives is insane. Established delivery services barely get orders right half the time, yet people are willing to gamble on some random individual from Facebook? No thanks.
I can’t decide whether to admire the entrepreneurial hustle or marvel at our collective laziness. Then again, it’s In-N-Out. Who am I to judge?
– Mark Emerson
In Good Taste.
Oyster Tasting Guide. The R Month Myth.
As my calendar fills up with ‘Oystober’ fests and November oyster roasts, I started thinking about the rule about only eating oysters in ‘er’ months for health and safety. As someone who happily consumed the briny deliciousness all summer long with no problems, I am here to myth bust. Sort of.
The guide to oyster months actually goes back thousands of years, simply because of peak harvest season. The same reason watermelons are better in July, Sumo citrus in January, strawberries in May. The lifecycle of an oyster mimics that of a bear. They plump up for the winter. Peak size and taste for oysters are in November and December, right when they have stuffed themselves full.
The safety concerns started in a time of no refrigeration. Of course, eating seafood from warm water, with no cooling technological device, would make you sick. Still would.
So basically, you’re welcome to enjoy oysters any time. That being said, they will be tastiest in just a few weeks. Enjoy Oystober (but you won’t enjoy the oysters as much).
– Katie Davis
Can You See Everything?
WIRED. Nathan Fielder Tells Us Everything.
Plato imagined prisoners chained in a cave since birth, facing a wall with a fire flickering behind them, watching shadows dance and mistaking them for the whole of reality. The fire was real. So too were the shadows, in their own way. What the prisoners lacked was a place to stand where they could see both.
Elizabeth Holmes cast shadows of a technology that never was and went to prison for it. Then she opened her home to Nathan Fielder, a filmmaker whose whole career lives in the gap between performance and sincerity. You Can See Everything asks whether an audience can tell the two apart. I suspect we can’t.
Every public statement involves choices about what to show and what to leave out. A press release does this. So does a documentary’s final cut. That doesn’t make either one a lie. The prisoners’ real mistake was believing the shadows were all there was. Seeing clearly may start with knowing that what you’re watching was chosen for you.
Holmes told Fielder she trusts him. It may be the most honest thing she has said in years. Trust is what people offer once they accept they will never see everything.
– Nathaniel Beach
Beware of Dressing Up Your Pet.
BBC. Pet owners warned against dressing up animals.
When I was a kid, one of my favorite Halloween traditions was the annual “placing of the devil horns” on our cat, Sammy. Sure, Sammy tried to run away when he saw the headband, but so did Ralphie when his mom forced him to wear that pink rabbit suit in A Christmas Story.
Ralphie may not have appreciated it, but Ralphie’s mom knew what was good for him – and ‘twas only once a year; so we forced a little cuteness onto his head as he cocked it back and twitched for a few seconds before forgetting it was even there.
Decades later, animal activist groups like the RSPCA are warning pet parents not to do what I did – just as pet costumes have become a nearly $1 billion per year industry. This is an interesting test for pet parents. Do they “cruelly” dress their pets up for Halloween, knowing it can stress out their animals, or do they sacrifice many guffaws from neighbors and the chance for your pet to go viral on TikTok? One thing’s for sure: I know what side the pet costume industry is on.
– Phillip Bogdan