Transcript 0:00 [upbeat music] Welcome back to Tasteland. I am Francis Zehrer. And I'm Daisy Alioto. And Daisy, who are we speaking with today? Today we're speaking with Charlie Wilder. 0:16 She's the executive editor of Roads & Kingdoms, and was previously a longtime contributor to The New York Times, where she wrote stories about the return of the jaguar in the Yucatan; that's the animal, not the car- [laughs] 0:29 ... uh, rewilding in the Transylvanian Alps, traveling the Silk Road, and more. Yeah. Uh, I have been reading a bunch of stories from Roads & Kingdoms in preparation for this. Good writing. It'll be fun. 0:43 I wanna say something from this weekend. Okay. I had never really watched figure skating before, and I, you know- Mm... I put on the figure skating on Sunday, sitting at home, and it blew me away. 0:55 It's incredible what the human body is capable of. Now, do they have drones with the figure skaters too, or is that- I think so... for other sports? You think about the- Okay... 1:03 well, the, the speed skating and the skiing, the drone shots. Okay. 1:05 'Cause speed skating, I watched some of that too, and it's like the drone shots are so exciting 'cause otherwise it can be kind of boring when it's just like a long, like zoomed in shot from far away- Oh my God... 1:13 and it kind of just looks like they're out for a stroll- Yeah... but they're going like 30 miles an hour. Did you see the Norwegian guy mogging everyone by like, in the uphill ski? Oh, yeah. 1:23 He was like- He was like 50 feet ahead... he was like galloping. Yeah. It was crazy. Insane. That was so cool. I loved it. I bookmarked it to watch later 'cause I was like, "This is genuinely inspiring. 1:32 I need to harness this energy." But then it got taken down for like copyright violations. Tsk. The, uh, the, the big story, the hype for the, for the figure skating was the US men's like solo skater, Ilya Malinin. Yeah. 1:46 And you know, he was in all the ads, so I was really feeling the hype. Um, uh, he, he lived up to it. The... I think I like... I think I, I was audible when he did his back flip. 1:57 Is he s- Did he skate to a voiceover of himself? [laughs] No, but it was some sort of like spoken word. Okay, the thing about him too that I can't really handle is this, this nom de plume, if you will. Yeah. 2:12 Uh, the Quad God. [laughs] I just can't deal with that. It, it's called that because he's the only person who has landed in competition the quad axel jump, I believe is- Yeah... why he is called that. 2:24 But it, he has it on his tank top of, of when he's like warming up. He has it in his Instagram. His name is Ilya "Quad God" Malinin on, on Instagram. Yeah, everything's branding. 2:34 And he, you know, he's 21, so I guess, I guess that's just what that is. It... Yeah. And I also like, you can't really have a drone hovering over somebody when they're doing a triple axel, so I guess like... 2:43 I mean, figure skating, I guess it's, it is easier to- Quad axel, by the way. Triple... He did do triple axels- Quad... but he's the Quad God. Put, put some respect on his name. Everything is quad. I got it. 2:53 [laughs] Um, yeah, Quad God sounds like something MrBeast would come up with, who by the way just bought a bank for teenagers- Mm... called Step. Okay. What is... What happens? 3:03 [laughs] It does really seem like an industry plot line, doesn't it? Yeah. [laughs] Yeah, it's just like a neo-banking app like geared towards teenagers. Um, 'cause remember- Hm... he had taken out, um... 3:14 Like, I'm trying to remember what it was. I guess- When I was a teenager, I, I used my local credit union like a normal person... people saw like when he filed for permission to have like a bank. Mm-hmm. 3:24 But I think people thought that he was gonna do like a MrBeast Bank, but he's clearly like building [laughs] this thing through acquisition. What, are you... [laughs] There's like a... 3:31 All you can withdraw is one golden ticket, and you either don't get your money [laughs] or you get $10 million. I mean, the future of media is a bank, famously. What's... Famously. I, I... Who said that? Um, what was... 3:42 He did an ad with Salesforce and Slack where it's just like... I didn't... It's like a... I- Oh, the bank is terrible... you know, actually, wait, I don't even- Super Bowl... I don't even wanna talk about this. 3:51 I don't even wanna talk about the Super Bowl ads. Okay. I'm not inter- Okay, great. We'll talk about it... I'm not interested. I'm not interested. Can I tell you about the chili that I had? 3:56 I would love to hear about your chili. Ben made Drew McGary's Super Bowl chili recipe, which famously includes ash from a joint instead of- Hm... liquid smoke. Does he, does he add that? 4:07 I did find out this later that he had done, he had added that. Um, I... But fortunately, I ate it before. [laughs] No, uh- It's okay... it was fine. It was, it was really good. Who's, who's Drew McGary, by the way? What? 4:17 I'm not- Are you saying that for you or the listeners? No, I don't know. Is he like a football player? He's like an OG Deadspin writer. Okay. I'm not- He's- Look, I was not following Deadspin. I was- That's okay... 4:29 not, not really following sports- I'll send you-... until three, four years ago... Drew McGary's greatest hits. He really, he came out of the kind of Gawker era of blogging. Hm. Very voicey. He has some big hits. 4:39 Um, so yeah, this- Such as the chili. [laughs] Such as the chili, which I have eaten. I'm not... This sounds like a joke that I'm making for the podcast. 4:46 Three out of five of the last meals I've eaten at my house have been this chili. And I think he cut the recipe in half. Hm. Um, but it's very different from the chili that my mom made growing up. It's a very thick chili. 4:59 Hm. It's almost like a meat sauce. Are you talking beans or no beans? Not a lot of beans, only like one can of beans. It's like primarily meat. Oh, but that's still beans, right? 5:05 Because isn't that kind of the big thing w- among chili heads is, is, is like religious- I mean-... beans versus no beans?... my mom puts like black olives and corn in chili, so like I don't know what to tell you. 5:13 [laughs] Like I don't, I don't know what qualifies as a chili. And my mom's chili is a lot more like liquidy. Yeah. So anyway. [laughs] But 5:23 in Ben's family, when they do burrito night, when they do white people burrito night, they put chili in the burritos- In the burritos... with some rice, and that's a, that's a burrito. 5:32 So- There's nothing wrong with that. Let's... We could ask Charlie. Nothing wrong with that. [laughs] Charlie is hearing us- Okay, perfect... describe what's beans or chili. 5:38 [upbeat music] First thing is we wanted to talk about what defines Roads & Kingdoms' perspective on travel relative to other sort of influencers and publications that really claim to have travel at their core, but it's travel as consumption primarily, and it's, it's changed a lot over time with social media really directing how people plan their trips. 6:10 So I'm curious, like what, what was the sort of early DNA of that? 6:13 Obviously very influenced by Anthony Bourdain's perspective, but-How has that sort of stayed steady over time as, like, the nature of travel as consumption has changed? 6:25 Yeah, I mean, it's interesting because for, like, my own pers- obviously I wasn't there in the beginning. 6:30 I'd been working with them for a couple of years, but I knew of Roads & Kingdoms as, you know, you did, and read it. And, um, to me it would, was always 6:42 interesting in the sense that I was doing a lot of mostly travel writing over the years. Like I've, I've written for almost every 6:49 rubric, but like doing largely because I, like, left the States, was living overseas, I would end up doing a lot of travel writing, mostly for The New York Times. 6:56 And so often it would just felt [laughs] honestly such a downer what would end up coming out versus what my experiences would be, like reporting these pieces. 7:06 And just kind of traveling and being a curious person, not to say, obviously, like I'm proud of a lot of what I write and, and a lot of this is good. 7:16 But I remember over the years thinking like, imagine if I could write more what actually happened- Mm... on these trips. 7:22 But you, there's not really anywhere to publish that in any kind of like relaxed way, and I would go like, maybe Roads & Kingdoms [laughs] especially when it had to do at all with food, travel. 7:31 It had this kind of, um, very actually rare, especially at that time, where it felt kind of, um, engaged with politics and social issues. Mm. 7:41 And it had sort of like a heart and a brain, but it was still fun and voicey and focused on culture and food, um, and these things. 7:51 And I mean, the real sort of DNA of that is that like Nathan Thornburgh and Matt Goulding, who, who founded it, you know, Nathan had been coming from this sort of hardcore foreign correspondents background. 8:03 He was like, um... 8:05 I think he was actually coming back from a trip where he was jailed in Miem- Myanmar, and it had been like a really grueling, intense reporting experience, and he was sort of reaching the end of really just like his capability to keep reporting in war zones, and then also just like the dryness of what would come out, where there didn't feel, you didn't feel the color and the local life and the culture as much as he would try to get it in there. 8:29 And Matt was a food writer, like, you know, to my mind one of the great food writers, honestly, of, of like our generation, and he was coming to it from the other side, where he was like, I think he was on a, an assignment where he was, it was called like There Are No Nachos in Mexico or something. 8:45 [laughs] And he was trying to use this idea, this sort of like Tex-Mex conception of Mexican cuisine to talk about like broader s- like cultural and social issues. And they sort of came together, and for a lot of reasons 8:59 wasn't, weren't really happy with where they were at and where, and sort of tried to build something out of that. 9:05 So like the ex- it's, it's interesting you ask the question 'cause that is really how it all originated, like finding a way into travel and food that h- was like deep and intelligent and engaged but fun and messy and could allow to do like trips where you basically just travel around and eat and drink with people, but without having to like turn off your brain and tell rich people how to spend their money in, you know, 48 hours in Vienna or whatever. 9:33 And so I think that like that was really how it started as a Tumblr. Mm-hmm. 9:38 And then, um, once, you know, they started the first, I don't know how long, but for a while it was, it was maybe in the first year that Anthony Bourdain caught wind and came to them really more, and it just, you know, resonated so much with him. 9:54 Um, and they kind of all really, um, you know, just were like instant sort of soul brothers, and they, and then he kind of was like, "I'll support whatever they do." And, um, you know, I wasn't there. 10:08 Can't speak to that time. But essentially what happened with Anthony Bourdain, as always does, like he was such an incredibly generous and supportive figure, and engaged really with all of that. Mm. 10:19 But he was also becoming a massive celebrity, and it sort of just like ended up subsuming the whole business. And so, you know, 10:28 the downside of that is like when he killed himself, the Roads & Kingdoms had basically become an Anthony Bourdain business. And so aside from their personal, 10:37 um, you know, like what a challenge that was personally, it was also like, well, what is Roads & Kingdoms now? Um- Mm-hmm... yeah, which was a long-winded way to answer your, your question. [laughs] No, I mean- I know. 10:48 How... Go ahead, Francis. I was gonna say like e- I think in the same way that especially like latter day Anthony Bourdain is like less a travel and cooking show than it is sort of like a political travel show. 10:59 Like it's more about, you know, it's not like you watch an episode and it's not like, "Oh, here, yeah, here are the restaurants I should go to and like the sights I should see if I go to this place." 11:07 He's like in Turkey talking to people about like protesting the government and if they feel comfortable talking to him on camera about that, right? 11:15 And then in the latest print issue, right, like there's one article on cooking during the genocide in Gaza. 11:21 There's, the magazine ends on a piece where the writer is talking about how his house burned down in the Palisades fire and he's leaving, moving to Ibiza because he doesn't wanna be in Trump's America. 11:32 Um, and like that's the note you ended on, right? Like there is- Mm... 11:35 I, I, I think of like the Lauren Oyler piece on going to t- going to see beehives in Slovenia and like beehive art, and that's more of like a traditional travel piece. 11:45 Like, oh, maybe I should go to Slovenia and do honey tourism and think about my, uh, you know, situationships. Um, but- [laughs]... it's more like the, the, the- Or is it [laughs] I think it's two boyfriends. 11:55 Ask me on a hinge. There's four. There's four? Yeah, four. Oh, perfect. [laughs] Yeah. But, but the question- Inflation has hit everything. [laughs] Yeah. Right. Lauren Oyler has four boyfriends now. [laughs] Yeah. Yeah. 12:08 I mean, but, but sorry, let's finish, finish what you were gonna say. 12:10 No, no, no, I mean the, the, the only point was that like more than this is like a, "Oh, I should go to this place," it's more like about like understanding other places and countries through a more political lens.Yeah, and or, or just like the c- the messiness and complexity of all the lenses [laughs] that you take- Yeah... 12:27 with you when you travel. Like, like political always, you know, everything is political, but also, I mean, that, that the Lauren Oyler piece, for instance, it's like, you know, she, 12:39 I, I think it's such a great piece because she plays with like what are we looking for from this more kind of like traditional travel. She talks about honey nationalism and the way- Mm-hmm... 12:49 that, you know, go to a place like Slovenia and their, their ki- their kind of, um, whole folk and cultural history becomes like packaged in this very contained way. 13:00 So you're going and looking at these very strange beehive panels that are actually like kind of sexist morality tales of like a, uh, the devil sawing off a woman's tongue and stuff, but at the same time she's like escaping her own four-boyfriend personal drama. 13:19 And I think that like... And, and talking about the Carl Toro Greenfeld piece about where he- Mm... his house burns down and he moves to Ibiza, you know, that's, uh, they're interesting counterpoints. 13:30 Um, I mean, both of them are kind of like, uh, droll, ironic, long form [laughs] writers, so they have that in common, but they are... 13:38 But like he's very this like Gen X, um, you know, like, uh, I don't know, the h- world-weary, has a different vibe to it. Mm-hmm. But both of them, I think, take on these, the, the construct of like going to 13:52 a European destination in both those instances, but like they're coming at it with s- i- the it's really none of it is actually like what you would ever read in a normal, in, in- Yeah... 14:02 in a like mainstream travel publication. And I think- They're both kind of about escaping their lives, but also like not really like big in love with what they're doing in the place. 14:10 [laughs] Like enjoying being there, but it's like really more about escaping their lives. [laughs] Yeah. 14:14 Like, they're kind of neurotic and tortured, but they're also kind of l- like enjoying themselves all the time in a weird way. 14:21 And, and in, and in, you know, Greenfeld's piece he's actually like trying to figure out where he can live because he is also like leaving Trump's America. 14:31 Like when your house burns down right before Trump's inauguration and you don't have... You know, it is really like, well, what do you do in that case? Maybe you leave. 14:39 Um, but then what it means to put down roots a- and I just think that like in both cases it's like travel, the whole notion of travel is, is kind of escape. Like it's kind of baked in in a way. 14:52 Otherwise, you know, obviously y- you can do a lot. It, it's also should be discovery and, uh... But if you really wanna become part of something, you move there. Travel, almost by definition, you are escaping. 15:05 So I think it's... 15:05 But I think it's like fun to play with the different notions of what that can mean, and I think that's one of the things that we thought about while making this magazine, 'cause it's crazy that b- Roads & Kingdoms has been around for 13 years, and they never made a print magazine. 15:20 They made these books with Anthony Bourdain, um, and but like it's the first print magazine, so that was really fun and interesting. 15:28 And I think one of the things that I kept thinking about was like with each story, obviously there are just, you want it to be good and engaging and compelling, and each of them would have their own sort of baked in standard for what that would be, but I really wanted everything in the magazine to be something you couldn't read somewhere else. 15:47 Mm. 'Cause I felt like in 2025 now j- you know, making a print magazine, like what is the point if it's just like a competent version of something you could find in another... 15:57 O- obviously, like I'm not saying we're singular in the history of humanity, but, you know, in terms of something to kind of like hold in your head and think about- Yeah... a different way into food and travel. Totally. 16:08 We're working on our first print magazine right now for- Oh, cool... our tennis newsletter, Strong, and I've been trying to answer like a lot of the same questions around like the why, um- Yeah... 16:19 both like why put this in print and not online, but also what is the perspective that we're bringing, um, to tennis that's unique and not just taking up space. Yeah. Totally. 16:29 Well, and I was even reading, I just read the, i- the like little New York Times profile of you, and you were talking about the dirtyverse or [laughs] this- Yeah... 16:37 the whole notion, I mean, it was making me think about like it is a, a different thing when you're, w- especially with the print magazine because online there's sort of infinite space in a way, and you can kind of just keep packing things in there, and it, it just like takes on a different significance when you print something and it's like, you know, obviously you, you're not gonna update it. 16:59 You're not gonna take it away. It just, it's, it's like, I don't know, there's something kind of about that that crystallizes this idea of like what are you [laughs] as a voice. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 17:11 It's an exercise in world-building and- Yes... I was actually thinking about that when I was reading the piece on Roads & Kingdoms about how Roads & Kingdoms builds a trip because I know- Mm... 17:20 that like group trips is part of the business model for Roads & Kingdoms, this sort of new, new era of it. 17:27 And I really like that they were described as like group trips for people that hate group trips, but I was wondering if you could like talk about that a little bit more. 17:35 Like how does it fit in with the brand, and, um, you know, does it align with how you plan a trip as well? 17:41 Yeah, I mean, back, I mean, sort of that moment I was talking about after the death of Anthony Bourdain and the, the brand kind of just came to a standstill. It was- Mm. 17:53 They, they tried a couple things, and then COVID happened. Um, and by a couple things, I think they did like, tried to do like a tourism campaign for Japan, like really random ass shit to try to like- Mm... 18:02 keep from having to lay people off. [laughs] I probably shouldn't call it that, but you know what I mean. Yeah. They, they were trying things. And- That's the game... 18:09 it was actually the chef José Andrés, the Spanish chef who was like a close friend of Anthony Bourdain and who Matt Goulding has, I think he even met Bourdain through José. 18:20 Um, and, and he was the one who said, "Okay, you've been talking for a while about this trips idea" 'cause they, it had been something they'd talked about with Bourdain. And h- when they first... 18:31 suggested it to him, he had said, he, he was like, "Absolutely not. That's terrible." He was imagining, like, flag- walking with the flag through the, you know- Yeah... just the, the worst idea of what group travel is. 18:43 And so the guys kind of reminded him that the, the model for it is more like these production trips they would do. Mm. 'Cause they had been doing these television production trips, and it would be like... 18:54 So in some ways, the trips are kind of modeled after that in the sense that they have- Like a scouting trip to scout- They were-... the location before you actually go. Like living an episode of, like, one of his shows. 19:02 Well, and the actual trip to, to do the- And the trip itself. Got it... 19:04 they would, because it would be, like, 10 to 12 people, which is where we cap the trips, and they would be sort of these, like, storytelling adventures, which [laughs] I mean, that makes it sound, like, w- weirdly infantile, but it's more like, um, you know, we, we, we sometimes talk about it as living journalism, but it- Mm... 19:21 it, we really want it to feel like, um, a narrative n- versus some kind of, like, bucket list one, you know, where... And, and it really starts with, like, one compelling character at the center of it all. 19:34 So as you saw, I mean, that was in our how we build a trip thing. And, like, I think even... 19:39 So the first trip, so it was José Andrés who not only said they, they have to do this, but he gave them the money to do the first one. Mm. 19:46 So they did it in Asturias, which is where José is from, and basically they, they ended up finding this guy who's still, like, he's, he's just an incredible human, and he does all our Spain trips, Alejo Sabugo, but he had been a fixer for Bourdain, and he had been the one who had kind of been on the fixer production side of the Parts Unknown Asturias trip. 20:07 And you kind of start with him. He's from there, and all of his local connections, his whole... I mean, i- once you find that person, the rest of it kind of falls into place. You just have to sort of 20:20 know best practices of how you do all of this stuff. Mm. But, but it kind of builds from there. 20:24 And so, like, the trips that we do, every single one of them is like that, and a lot of them, the people, those people are from Bourdain's circle. 20:33 I mean, there's still, like, a fair, almost on every trip, most of our trips have someone who was from those days. And, and it's kind of like, you know, those, these, these trips... 20:43 It's also, like, the way he liked to travel. Like, he was not staying in hole-in-the-wall, shitty little... He wanted to stay in a nice hotel, Bourdain. Mm. Like, always. 20:53 Not a chain, but something with style, something that was comfortable. 20:57 And, like, these trips are not cheap, and it, it, it was a little bit of a disconnect, I think, at first for the guys because, like, um, you know, I don't think Roads & Kingdoms readership, you would think of them as being people that are spending, like, 10 to $14,000 for a week-long trip. 21:12 So there was a little bit of, like, suddenly we're aiming at a different demographic. Although there's more overlap than I think they at first thought there would be. 21:22 Well, there's also, there's, like, 30 trips a year or so, right? So that's, like, 30... That's like 300 spots on a trip about that you need to sell a year, which isn't that much. 21:32 Right, and that's [laughs] I wish we were put- like, selling all of those spots. Up to, I mean, we, we, it's, it's, it's done pretty well. That's how we, we're doing a print magazine and a, and digital editorial again. 21:42 But it's, it's definitely less than that, um, you know, in terms of how m- But these are small groups of people. 21:49 And what I think the real kind of epiphany of it was, was, like, always they had been thinking about how do you make a journalistic enterprise sustainable? 21:59 Because, like, in the Bourdain days, he was not super business-minded. Pe- you know, people gave him money to do his thing. 22:06 He liked to make decisions 'cause it was just, like, cool and interesting and great, and that was amazing for Roads & Kingdoms, but it didn't, they weren't left with a, like, great economic model. 22:16 And so I think what they sort of realized is you don't need, you know, 100,000 people. You really just need... 22:23 I mean, they, Roads & Kingdoms, we got to a place of being, like, a sustainable business with more like 300 people or 400 people- Mm... who were going on these trips. And, you know, I think that that was a lot of the 22:37 motivation for finally getting back to the editorial work, which is really who we are. I mean, even the people on these trips, they're not from the travel industry. Very few are. It's been a bit of a problem. 22:47 We ended up having to, like, hire one or two people that had real experience with this, 'cause it's all, like, journalists, filmmakers, chefs, fixers. That's, like, who's, who's doing this. 22:57 And so, but I think that, like, we, there was always the goal to get back to the actual journalism and- Mm... 23:03 and it was, like, realizing we could do a version of that, that where you don't have to, like, scale it and have it be... 23:11 You know, Nathan came from Time magazine, so his idea of, you know, and, and Matt was at Men's Health, and doing- Yeah... you know, I think- How many subscriptions can you sell? And, and I had been 23:20 doing New York Time stuff all the time. 23:21 So we, I think it, it took a while to get to this point where we're like, "No, you can build this in a smaller way, and price it at what it's worth, and the people that, like, really rock with you will pay for, you know, they'll pay 30 bucks for a magazine, 10K for a trip if it's really amazing." 23:40 You know? And so I think that, like, that has really been the thing that's, like, gotten the fires burning again [laughs] you know, is realizing, is thinking differently about scale. Yeah. 23:50 So I can, I mean, I can pretty easily think of the type of person that would be interested in going on a trip like that. But it also leads me to the question of who is the audience for Roads & Kingdoms? 24:03 Like, Roads & Kingdoms today, I mean, obviously in 2018 that, you could answer a certain way. Today, that answer might be a little bit different- Mm... 24:12 as the publication has evolved and sort of found its footing post the Bourdain era. Mm. So, you know, is it the metropolitan American? Is it an expat? 24:22 You know, who, who are you thinking of in your mind, or what sort of personas come to mind as you're putting together this first print issue? Mm. 24:30 Well, I mean, yeah, that's what I was kind of getting to with this, like, there was a bit of [laughs] a gap in the beginning. Yeah. 24:36 Especially with, like, pers- the perception of that, like-Nathan, I think, says that, like, the Roads and Kings audien- Roads and Kingdoms audience was, like, lovable dirtbags. [laughs] You know, myself- Yeah... 24:46 us, us included. [laughs] We weren't, like, the kind of people who were, you know, spending money on trips like that. It, this wasn't, like, an Aspen cro- you know, it was like- Yeah... 24:55 and, but I think, so I think that with the trips, it was really the small group of kind of, like, lefty, more affluent Americans- Mm... mostly Americans. 25:06 It's still, I mean, it's branched off a little from there and it's, but I would say the, like, it averages kind of, like, Ge- Gen X or young boomers. 25:18 Um, but we have, especially in the Asia and Africa, like when you get outside of Europe, they, it skews a bit younger. It's more like millennial, Gen X. Mm. 25:26 And, um, but I think what was exciting about getting back into, like, h- we, we launched basically a membership. 25:32 I mean, it's a subscription concept, but where we have now, we have, like, a digital-only membership where you're getting, it's, like, twice weekly newsletters where we're basically doing these, uh, city guides really sharp- Mm... 25:46 like, with these fixer-types people all over the world. 25:49 So the people that we've worked with before, 'cause, like, what we sort of realized the commonality of all of these different realms that Roads and Kingdoms has been working in is that person, the fixer, who, like, knows their shit, they know where to go, they know what's happening now. 26:02 They're, they're, like, smart, and they're with it, and they're cool. And so it's kind of just tapping in. 26:07 And it's also, like, as for me, as a travel writer, really just someone who lived abroad, the thing that I get asked more than anything is just, like, "My f- the friend of my friend is coming to Berlin, where should they go?" 26:20 Or, and, and they'll ask me about places I've been, like, I wrote about for the Times travel section like 17 years ago [laughs]. [laughs] Not that long, but, like, a while ago. 26:28 And so it's also sort of, like, our version of that, of, like, the quick hit city guide. 26:35 And then we're also doing this thing, the food chain, where we started, we basically started with Ferran Adria, the, like, you know, um, the, the kind of like- Famous modernist chef... father of modernist cuisine. 26:46 Mm-hmm. Yeah. And then he recommends the next person who's influencing him, and they recommend the next. So these are the two series we're running. But how did I get there? Our audience. 26:55 So, so we basically have, our membership starts at 650 a month, right? So for the first time, we went from, like, the lowest price point being, like, 8K or something to 650. 27:08 And I think that was really important for us so that we could actually offer something to the people who, I mean, to be frank, that's, like, more, I'm, [laughs] I'm probably more a 650 a month girl than a 10K a week. 27:21 You know what I mean? Like- Yeah... I, I think that, like, it's great to, um, have something, you know. And then we have the next tier is 27:30 150 a year, and then you get the print magazine, and you're also having, like, we, we launched the Anti-Ice Supper Club- Mm-hmm... this, this last month, um, in LA, and it's gonna, it's, we're raising money. 27:40 I mean, it's a completely charitable operation. Um, but we're y- you know, doing these fundraising dinners all over the country, and we're gonna do it in Mexico City and probably in Canada. 27:52 Um, and, and you get some access to that, so there's real world things happening too. 27:57 And so now we have, like, this much more variegated, like, price diverse world, and I think that broadens who we can think about and who we can talk to. 28:06 But I think, a- and we've seen now that we're offering something that's, like, we're, that now that we're offering a broader range, we're seeing that the, the, a lot of, a much broader range in who these people are too. 28:19 So they're still, like, mostly in the States, but n- but, like, a slim majority. You know? They're, they're all over. They're pretty much on the left. They are kind of Bourdain people, but not... 28:30 Like, with each year, that mixes up a little more and more. Mm. 28:33 There's still, like, I'd say a third or half of our audience are just, like, since the Bourdain years riding with us and, like, you know, that's their connection. But it's, it's, like, mixy now. It's not just that. 28:46 Um, and it's, like, really, I think people who want all of the things that we talked about for now and, and, like, see it in us. So it, it does- Mm-hmm... it does vary more than that, yeah. 28:57 Um, I wanted to talk about the contributors and how you chose those and how much- Yeah... you were going out and asking people to bring stuff in versus how much you were getting pitched. 29:05 Um, the first contributor after the table of contents is a, a little, like, how I travel from Julianna Huxtable. Didn't really expect to see that. Uh, we talked about Lauren Oyler. 29:13 I didn't necessarily expect to see her in there. Katie Parla talking about dishes in Rome, and a Sam Ulysse photo on the back cover, uh, like, were a little more expected. 29:21 Um, but I, I don't know, I thought it was a great mix. But t- yeah, t- talk to us about how you chose the contributors. No, thank you so much. I mean, those are, like, my girlfriends, [laughs] those first two. 29:30 [laughs] Julianna and Lauren, like, that's how they get in that mix. I thought so. [laughs] So you're right to point out that that's, that's expected. Yeah. I mean, Julianna's the godmother of my child. Um- Mm... 29:41 and a close friend, and Lauren lives in Berlin, and we, we know each other from here and just from... Actually, I think we met on Twitter. 29:47 That doesn't happen anymore, but, um, and, uh, and so, but really, I think, I do think part, you know, for, for a long time it was really, like, Matt, and it was a very male operation, Roads and Kingdoms. 30:03 [laughs] They did have, like, they worked with women always since the beginning. It wasn't, like, complete sausage fest vibes. 30:08 But I think that part of what they wanted me to do and what I wanted to do was sort of, like, diversify the, the pool of contributors and just of, like, I mean, what I love about them and the whole kind of, you know, Roads and Kingdoms universe [laughs] is that it's not really... 30:26 Like, they're gonna always work with the people who they fuck with and who they like and who they think are talented. So there wasn't really, like, a consorted effort to, to... 30:35 But, like, they are, you know, Roads and Kingdoms coverage has always been extremely diverse, and I would say that, like, the, the right, the contributors have-Never been like all male, but like definitely Matt and Nathan were the ones making the editorial decisions and, and Anthony Bourdain. 30:51 And so that was part of it. But some of it, some of that like, and I mean Sam Yewless is like knows Matt Goulding really well, and he's come on- Mm. He's started to come on our trips, which is amazing. 31:03 Um, so he's kind of like we have this kind of pool of photographers who mo- most of them either... 31:11 Most of them we have like journalistic connections with going back, but like we, they, you know, part of what made I think the trips really stand out in the beginning is that we'd like shot them beautifully. Mm. 31:23 And they were often shot by like lifestyle and photojournalists and like lifestyle journalists who would not be shooting like touristic content. You know what I mean? Like, so it- Yeah... it had a different kind of feel. 31:36 Um, and so we have a lot of great photographers in the circle. 31:41 Um, but we also took like cold pitches, and like one of my favorite pieces, two of, two of my favorite pieces, the, the Gaza piece you mentioned, and then also the- Mm... Nigerian stockfish, Ayana Uban. The stockfish. 31:53 The stockfish, yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. 31:55 She basically, um, t- you know, takes this stockfish, which is dried cod that has become this staple of Nigerian cuisine, and she uses it as a jumping off point to write about sort of collective trauma, her own h- history with domestic violence, but also how this food, this, this like ingredient and the way it's cooked with can hold all of these different things like comfort and hope, but also like deep emotional scars. 32:23 But she does it in this beautiful way 'cause she's actually like a spoken word poet. And it was a, it was a cold pitch, and it wasn't even like pitched like that. It was so... 32:32 It was, it was just one of these things where, um, I think it's really [laughs] good to actually read your inbox and like look who's there and, and, um. 32:41 So I would say that the magazine is probably because it was the first, um, time we were commissioning in years, it was probably like slightly more people who we knew and who we were... 32:53 But it was still, I would say 40% like people who pitched to us who we maybe didn't know or didn't know well, um, their work at all. So yeah. 33:05 Uh, I just think it's like good to think [laughs] outside the box with who you're gonna assign to, because the Gaza piece is like really incredible. It was- Yeah... Sama Imam, she... 33:14 And it wasn't even her who wrote to us, it was this other like Al Jazeera journalist who heard of her, like had found her, and she was basically, you know, trapped in Gaza with her family and started to compile through photos, handwritten notes, and like collage just to document the way people were eating, um, under, you know, Israeli siege during this time of like, you know, weaponized starvation. 33:45 And it was like such an incredible way to talk about that. Like, it was kind of written as a cookbook, but like, 33:53 you know, in a d- It's obviously just unthinkable to actually like produce work under those circumstances at all. But, but as like a format to talk about that, it felt so like lived in and like visceral and moving. 34:09 And that was just so... I mean, some of these were just, we were really lucky that the, these people reached out when they did, and that we were able to, to print it. Yeah. 34:17 Uh, so I also wanted to ask how you joined up with this. I mean, you were writing like mostly for the Times for like 15 years, and there's this line. I thought of this when, when you were... 34:26 Something you said like five minutes ago. 34:27 There's this line in the letter from Matt to Anthony Bourdain that opens the magazine where he says, uh, "Together with a powerful new accomplice, Executive Editor Charlie Wilder in Berlin, we see this magazine as a continuation of the work we did together, sometimes lurid and transgressive, occasionally earnest and heartfelt, but always looking to celebrate the beauty and the complexity of the world beyond the headlines." 34:48 Um, but yeah, I was, I, I thought of that accomplice line, like that specific wording when you were talking- Yeah... about how they brought you in to like bring this different perspective. 34:55 How did you end up joining [laughs] Friends of the Times? I mean, for me it's such... It was so crazy, too. When I read that line, it was very like, you know, the feels. 35:04 Uh, that, that felt, that felt great, but also like it was so random. I was out in LA for the winter and kind of just like, "What am I doing?" Like, "Am I doing journalism anymore?" Like, [laughs] can I... 35:17 It's such a bloodbath [laughs] and it's so... It felt pretty bleak. Like, I was living in Berlin, but like, um, kind of tired of living in Berlin and I was really at a, I would say, like a crossroads. 35:27 And we met through a f- it was actually like a mutual friend of Nathan and mine, Simon Schuster, who he's like an amazing kind of like war reporter, does stuff in Ukraine, and now he's at The Atlantic. 35:38 And I think Nathan was just like, "Do you know any..." You know, it was, it was just like one of these questions, you know- Yeah... anyone talented? 35:44 And at the time it was like Nathan is a very like, he dreams big, he's ambitious, and he's optimistic, and in the end like we did all the things that he said. 35:54 But so he was talking about restarting the editorial and all of this, but it, I was basically doing travel marketing, you know? 36:01 In the very beginning I was like, and I didn't know him yet, and I was kind of like, "Well, this is like the coolest travel marketing job I could imagine," but it is still that. 36:10 And the way it like evolved, you know, and I think we just together really took... We had this like retreat with all the people, all the like hosts and guides and fixers from the trips. 36:22 Um, and I think we, we all met like near Bologna at, like, I guess it was a year ago actually, almost exactly. 36:29 And from that group of people, I was like, "Okay, this is actually something really, this is really interesting." Mm. 36:35 There's like a whole world here, and there is the kind of energy and the motivation to do something more with it, and just sort of like right after that trip, we kind of just-Put our heads together and we're like, "We've gotta get it going," and sort of built it into what it is now. 36:51 And, um, the, the... It's been really amazing, you know, to, to be, to have him say an accomplish- You know, obviously Anthony Bourdain, I never met him, I never worked with him, but, you know, what can you say? 37:02 He was like just such an incredible, original figure. Like, a hero. And so, like, obviously to hear that is, is great, and it's really fun to take kind of like a legacy media thing, but like a scrappy legacy- Mm... 37:16 media one that probably your parents haven't heard of and, and, and try to like restart it in a way that's totally independent, too. 37:23 I mean, you guys, you guys know, like, when you do something without, you know, the backing of a big corporate structure, it's like definitely more precarious, but it's also like way more fun. 37:36 You mentioned, um, you still get, like, friends of friends asking you about something you wrote 17 years ago. It, it made me think, like how often do you update your city guides? 'Cause there seems to be... 37:48 There's like a sweet spot, right, where it's like you don't wanna be constantly, uh... You know, it's not Roads & Kingdoms style to go like infatuation mode, where you're constantly- Mm-hmm. Yeah... 37:58 updating lists of the hottest or coolest. Eater every month, the 30 best. But at the same time... 38:03 Yeah, but like given the nature of like food and travel, like things crop up and then they can be ephemeral, they go away, and- Mm-hmm... um, you know, 36 hours in Tokyo looks very different today than it did- Much... 38:16 you know, even five years ago. So how do you balance that, where you're like, okay, a city guide is an evergreen piece of media, but it also has to be kind of a living piece of media? Yeah. 38:27 Well, first I should say that 17 years maybe dates me too much. 17 years ago, I was primarily, like, bartending and doing drugs. Yeah. Uh, just to clarify. 38:35 We can talk about your Berlin piece- But definitely I was writing this. Yeah, yeah, yeah... from three years ago. Berlin opening back up after the pandemic. But like 16, so I just, you know. Um, no. But, uh, I think... 38:45 So we have all of these city guides that we built, like, with Bourdain back, back during... And actually I think they were all produced in kind of the last Bourdain years. Um- It just says 2018 on the website. Yeah. 38:59 So yeah. Roads & Kingdoms also created the, like, digital space for Parts Unknown called Explore Parts Unknown, so it was- Mm... and it's still actually online. 39:08 [laughs] It's like a CNN property that just sits there dormant and rotting now. But those were also city guides. 39:15 And so there was this time, you know, we produced all of those, um, during, you know, in this one very funded period of time, and then those have not been updated at all. 39:26 So w- how we put them now, we, we clearly mark that those are like archival. Um, we do no- And so now we're doing The Fix, which is this travel guide series. Mm. So we're getting really fresh intel. 39:40 Um, and, but it's kind of its own series, and we've talked about... 39:44 I mean, frankly, like our team is still so small and we're doing this all, um, on, in a pretty sh- like, condensed timeline, that like some of these topics we're just like, "We'll get to that later. 39:55 Let's just [laughs] make the new, the new city guides." 39:57 Because we're also, you know, we, they're, it, we're not quite sure whether we wanna go back and actually like refresh those old ones and update them or combine the new ones with the old. 40:07 But we feel like the important thing is that, like, we're getting really good, fresh ones now. Mm. 40:12 But it's still sometimes nice, especially because, like, those old city guides we did, they also have things like, you know, uh, like play li- Like, they ha- they have more essayistic pieces, they have like more kind of a history of Mexico City in 10 dishes. 40:29 That's something that you don't necessarily wanna go in and update. Maybe you add an 11th dish. [laughs] But you know what I mean. 40:35 Well, I think, I mean, to me it's like something like that, uh, in the infatuation, eater sense, it serves as this like SEO play or like, "Oh, I'm gonna bookmark this," and like whenever I like, "Oh, man, I haven't gone out to eat in my own city for a while. 40:46 Let's... Where, where should I go for this special occasion?" And you look it up. But your, the Roads & Kingdoms business model isn't necessarily tied to doing that and needing like- Yeah... the updated, updated thing. 40:56 It's more interesting to have this as this like archival piece of like, "This is what it was like to visit this place at this point in time," and you don't need to like make the new version of that every time. 41:06 W- I mean, I'm reminded of in the magazine you have this older piece, it was published in 2016, about dog thieves in, in Vietnam, which is like so insane and amazing piece. [laughs] Uh, but, uh- Mm-hmm... 41:18 like, I don't know if you would then like do that, like in a future issue print one of those 2018 city guides, but maybe something like that becomes like a jumping-off point for some new work that's like looking back at that. 41:30 And it doesn't have to be like, "Oh, I went to these places to see what was up with them," but there's like something in there of like, we don't have to like... 41:36 [clicking tongue] Like I'm thinking of, um, [clicking tongue] when Brat came out, Charli XCX's album, right? Mm-hmm. 41:41 Like suddenly on Apple Music, all her old, uh, album covers were updated to be in the same style, a different color with the text- Yeah... in the middle, and it's this like, like nothing can ever like- Yeah... be. 41:52 You have to like update this old thing and bring it into the now. Um, I don't know. Long way of saying I think it's interesting to, to, to leave those as their own thing- Yeah, yeah... 42:00 and like not be updated constantly and abused almost [laughs] in that way. Yeah, no, totally. I mean, that's funny. Um, but I, I think that, you know, we're never gonna be able to provide like that kind of... 42:15 Well, never say never. Who knows? [laughs] We've now, we've changed shape so many times. But I don't think that's what we're going for, to be like, you know, infatuation, which obviously I read all the time, very useful. 42:26 Um, I think that like we have this thing in the print magazine which we, we did our own like 50 restaurant list. Mm-hmm. 42:32 Which is fun because like for years Roads & Kingdoms was like very much like, if anything, making fun of those lists- Mm-hmm... and like defined against that. 42:40 But this is like a very different version of it, and I think it speaks to what you're saying because, like, it is a list.You know, but it's, it's places that, you know, these... 42:50 We, we basically like reached out to kind of our favorite people, writers, chefs, eaters, whatever, who we really trust their opinion and asked them for the places that they, they really love where they feel like at home. 43:03 So it's like m- most of those places are not new. I don't know if any of them are really like brand new. And, and like if one closes down, it's kind of like that's a document [laughs] of that time. 43:13 I don't know, it's definitely- Exactly... the kind of list where you wouldn't, you wouldn't wanna update it. It's like is what it is now. 43:19 Um, and, and I think it's also cuts against the idea of like a, um, yeah, super actualized, you know, like ra- you know, ranking list. It's definitely not a ranking. 43:33 It's like a random old Armenian place in, um- Yeah, wait. I-... Seoul Here, I'll, I'll read one. Yeah. I'll read one that's really short. Please do. Yeah. So this is like the shortest one. It's like, "Sowato. 43:42 It's an izakaya in Tokyo, Japan." This one's written by Katie Cole. "You start by entering through what feels like a secret door into this amazing dynamic room. 43:49 Then there's this extremely high quality of all these Japanese ingredients, the dynamic of the drinks, the friendliness of the staff. Order the, order the ikashumai with squid ink ponzu." And that's it. 43:58 It's more like a thought- And then, yeah... of like this is a place that is there, but it's not like, you know. 44:04 Again, n- I also read the infatuation, but it's not like here are the seven dishes you have to order and a photograph of each one. Oh, yeah. No, and it's funny 'cause we even like, we just start... 44:12 like reached out to the restaurants to like kind of tell them about it and give them... we made a little badge, and like, you know, if they wanna do the whole badge thing or I think we're even making a window decal. 44:22 And the restaurants were like, "You don't..." W- actually, only one. I'm, I'm- [laughs] I shouldn't say the restaurants. Like, one was like, "You're not talking about our chef. You don't have any..." 44:30 And it was like, yeah, we don't have any relevant [laughs] information in there. Actually, maybe... Like one of them is literally the whole thing's written just when you're driving to the place. Like- Yeah... 44:39 the, the trees drop away and then... and it's almost like, and, and, and we won't even say what happens [laughs] when you go inside. I mean- Yeah. [laughs]... 44:46 just to say most of them do talk about the food and the, the ambiance- Yeah... but, you know, not required. It's really just like what are you getting from it because I'm kind of an ambiance person myself. 44:57 Like I will take a, I will probably take slightly worse food, but like the room is just so great. Mm-hmm. Then, you know, it's not always about the food. 45:05 I should say also, I'm like the least foodie of anyone who they've probably had working- I, I heard you say this. I was listening to, you were on another podcast like a month ago, and you were saying- Yeah, yeah... 45:14 that before this you never really thought much about food or like saw food i-a- in your writing at least as a way to like tell the stories that you were trying to tell. 45:22 So this is sort of a new thing for you, um, having to think about food in this way. Well, it's weird. 45:27 Like I've always been obsessed with food in the way of like, uh, you know, I don't know, uh, maybe it's a Jewish thing. I don't know. I'm obsessed with food. I'm obsessed with eating. 45:36 But I'm not yet, I never wanted to write about food. I did do like a restaurant review in Moscow that was really fun when I was living there. 45:42 Like I've done a little bits of food writing, but definitely like I don't, I'm not an amazing cook. I'm not like, you know... s- I... And when you look at traditional food media, I'm, it's, I'm not really interested. 45:57 Like of course- Yeah... you know, the like New York Times food section and the recipes, like th- that's a very like skimmable, readable product. But like I wouldn't say that like I'm going Food & Wine cover to cover. 46:10 No shade. I'm just not interested. But I think that almost is like a, th- that they definitely didn't care about that. Mm. 46:17 And I think it can even be a benefit 'cause like I'm interested in all cultural topics, including food, and then I like love to eat food. 46:25 So those things come together in a way that I think is maybe more valuable than if I was like actually like, you know... 46:34 Now I know more like names of chefs and everything, but two years ago when I started working for the... I mean, it was like literally like, "Name a chef," and I would be like- Yeah... "Uh, I sure do know a lot about it." 46:41 Well, the perspective, I- Yeah... I feel like this pers-perspective of Roads and Kingdoms and the perspective of like- Yeah... one of Anthony Bourdain's shows is like food is something you do when you travel. 46:50 It's not necessarily like the, the point of. 46:51 It's like it's something that's part of that, but it's secondary to the travel and the being there and like the people, and it's about, you know, breaking bread and that kind of thing rather than- Yeah... 46:59 like seeking out the dish. Yeah, it's like a way into, like we have this line, like food is a tremendous window on humanity. It's like- Mm... it's a way to talk about... 47:09 I think also when, when you're talking about food it's like usu- who makes food? Like mothers and grandmothers a lot. 47:16 I think that like it allows you to also connect to parts of society that maybe aren't as, as prominent in other forms of storytelling. Like it's actually now I'm kind of like, "Why wasn't I more interested in food?" 47:28 It's so... You, there's also, I mean, Roads and Kingdoms would always do these like the camel milk smuggling ring, and like the dog thief killers, and, you know, there's crime stories, there's... 47:38 I used to think this about travel writing, that it was great that you could like write about a lot of different things. 47:43 Like you could write about art, you could write about social issues, you know, if, if you weren't like forced into this like servicey 9:00 AM have a matcha latte- [laughs]... uh, thing. 47:53 But, but like, you know, I think now, and I, and I didn't necessarily think that about food, but especially making the magazine and pieces like the Gaza piece, the, the Nigerian piece I think have really opened my eyes to like how rich of a topic it is and how much- Mm... 48:11 it can let you tell stories that aren't being told otherwise. Yeah. I mean, Charlie, from your perspective, what are the qualities of a great travel writer or I guess food writer by extension? 48:22 I mean, I don't think it's really prescriptive because I think- Mm... it's probably like what makes... 48:28 I, I, I guess what I would say is like it's just the, it's not really different than what makes a good writer period except that if you're one of these people... There are people who like can't enjoy food, you know? 48:38 And they're just like, "I wish I could take a pill that would give me my daily sustenance." Like the, I don't care how good of a writer- Yeah... a person is, they won't be a good travel writer or food writer. 48:47 Like you definitely have to, I think, have a sort of-A hedonistic drive maybe- Mm... in some way. A willingness to suffer. It's true. Like, there's, there's smart people- [laughs]... 48:58 who are great writers, but they're so neurotic that, like, I feel like they can write really well about cerebral experiences- Mm-hmm... 49:05 but they kind of, like, fail at writing about pleasure, anything a little bit more somatic. Like, it ends up being a story about how they couldn't enjoy that thing, and like, okay, great. Like, that's interesting. 49:15 But it's true that there has to be some sort of, like, heat or friction to the experience. 49:20 And, um, now that, like, so many people write for the internet, we, we had this piece that Greta Rainbow wrote for our books newsletter about laptop nonfiction- Mm... 49:29 which is, like, a braided essay that brings in elements of history and braids different experiences together- Mm... 49:35 and different facts together and scientific, you know, like, knowledge, but it's clear that person never left their computer to write it. [laughs] And you can't, you just can't do that with food- Yeah... or travel. Yeah. 49:49 No, you're totally right. It's a r- I, I think, I think that, like, what made me, like, take to it is, like, I already liked to travel alone, which I know is, like, actually not so common. 50:00 A lot of people really don't, as was made very clear to me when I would, like, tell someone I was traveling with, like, "Let's just... Okay, you wanna go there? I wanna go there. I'll see you in a few days." 50:08 And they'd be like, "Excuse me?" [laughs] Um, but, like, I've always kind of, like, liked to travel alone. I mean, I like to meet people when I travel. I, I mean, this was like- Yeah... 50:18 I feel like post-COVID and, like, the digital colonization of our souls, I might be less like this now. 50:24 But like, you know, I was very open and would h- would, would, you know, make connections, but I did like to just, like, go... I think you... 50:33 I mean, obviously there have been amazing travel writers that re- had, like, crippling neuroses [laughs] like, you know, David Foster Wallace or something. You... 50:40 But obviously that's, like, a little more of a exceptional situation. I do think that, like, you, you... And, and clearly he was cool to be alone. 50:49 You know, going out, experiencing things, and maybe they're in the mind, but ideally they're, like, in the world, that are a total, like, break from your comfort zone and aren't, like, a purely, um... 51:01 Like, yeah, just, like, a purely cerebral experience, like, where you actually have to, like, accept other people's reality. I think that's a huge part of it. 51:09 Like, p- what, what would frustrate me a lot with, say, like, writing for The New York Times was that there would be this, like, expected narrative arc. Mm. 51:19 And if it differed from that, you kind of just, like, weren't delivering what's been ordered. 51:24 And often it would, it, it would be like, you know, I'm not saying maybe it was my skill that would, didn't pull it off, but I think often it was just more that it was, like, too formulaic. 51:34 And I think to be a good travel writer you can't be formulaic, 'cause that's not, like, the nature of travel. 51:39 Like, w- whatever you have been doing, whatever formula you have should be broken if you're traveling properly. [laughs] And probably that's true about food. 51:50 I mean, it's probably true about anything where you're kind of experie- like, I, I think that's probably honestly true about cultural writers period, you know? 52:01 You, you can't, you can't go in with too much of a, like, goal and a structure and a preconceived- Well, that, that's like the idea of essaying period, is like you're not supposed to have the, the preconceived conclusion. 52:10 Yeah. The, like, preconceived notion. You're supposed to, like, write it out and, like, figure out- Yeah... where your ideas end up. I actually had an experience like that this morning. I was reading, um... 52:20 [laughs] Do you know what the Metropolitan Review is? Yeah. Okay. 52:24 So they just published, like, this 20,000-word memoir piece, uh, by somebody who has, like, thought about and tried to commit suicide at various times over their life and has not. 52:33 And I was like, "Well, that's an interesting topic to me." Hm. I think it's called Men Who Kill Themselves. 52:38 I get halfway through and the writer starts talking about their girlfriend by first initial, and I realize I know this person. 52:45 I met them in passing a couple years ago, and I remembered enough facts about them to realize... And all of a sudden, like, I was immersed in the writer's reality- Hm... 52:56 because I had nothing to compare it to, but as soon as this woman was mentioned by initial and I realized that I had actually met her- Mm... it took me out, and I realized, like, that there was no way for... 53:12 There was no way by the way that it was written that he could, he could represent her reality as well. And as soon as I realized that, it was like the spell sort of broke. Mm-hmm. 53:21 And a lot of times, like, you know, if you're a food writer or travel writer, like, the likelihood that somebody i- that's reading it is going to be privy to the realities of the other people mentioned is low- Mm... 53:32 so you can kinda get away with characterizing people however you wanna characterize them. 53:36 [laughs] But it is something that runs through all writing, because there are people who are great writers and storytellers who are extremely limited in their point of view, and I think, like, there's a ceiling on- Mm... 53:49 what they're capable of. Even David Foster Wallace, had he lived, like, I think the compounding effect of getting the perspective of people like Mary Karr and other people that knew him- Yeah... 54:00 would have eventually changed the way that he was perceived as a person and a writer. Mm-hmm. Um, and so I feel like the theme, this underlying episode theme is [laughs] men who killed themselves. 54:09 [laughs] And that's not, it's not my intention. But, uh, it is, I mean, it's a great way to seize the narrative in a lasting way. I just think, like, 54:18 I've been thinking more and more about, um, you know, how, especially, like, o- when you write for the internet, how you get out of just representing a singular point of view when the, the information, uh, economy itself is so multimodal in how people get their information, who they get it from, and conflicting versions of reality. 54:43 Yeah, totally. 54:44 I mean, I guess I would say, though, that one thing that I have found sort of, like, interesting and frustrating sometimes about travel writing is, like, sometimes it's almost more like-They know the woman with the one initial because people have such... 54:58 If they've been there or even they just like, you know, the, the travel writing that, like, just talking about, like, New York Times algorithms, the, the ones that would be read the most would be, like, 36 Hours in Paris. 55:12 Mm. You know? Like, the most kind of, like, basic, like, you know this place, you think you know this place, you wanna go to this place, and here's what to do when you're in this place. 55:20 So just talking about, like, consumption patterns, like, I think that is happen- people want to, like, probably there's some degree of also, like... 55:29 I mean, this is so different than what we're trying to do with Roads & Kingdoms, but I think it's just interesting as an exercise, this idea of, like, the unnamed chara- like, the unknown character versus the known character. 55:40 And I think that, like, travel- Parts unknown. Yeah. [laughs] Right. Parts unknown- Well... versus parts known. Ugh. But that's, like, what Bourdain did really well, and what I think- Yeah... good travel writing does. 55:50 It's, like, as far as you can get from the, like, 36 recognizable- Mm... hours in Paris, [laughs] you know? It's like- Yeah... actually, 55:58 you know, and hopefully that doesn't just mean you can describe the person deceptively because no one knows any different, the person as place, but it means that there's really more of a, you know... 56:08 I think when done well, it shouldn't be recognizable necessarily. 56:12 Like, at least that shouldn't be, uh, the, you know, if it, if, if you're just playing to what people specifically want from a place or wa- I, I think it's not good writing and not good travel writing or anything. 56:26 But that's interesting. Speaking of good travel writing, when are you next accepting pitches? Well, we are gonna do... I mean, basically right now the, we're, we're start, we n- we now get tons of pitches- Mm... 56:37 because as soon as you start publishing, you guys know, you start getting tons of pitches. But we're not really commissioning for the digital at all until we get more members, so people sign up. 56:47 You know, that's can change. So sign up so you, so we can pay you, right? [laughs] Um, but, uh, but we're gonna do the, the print magazine. It's an annual, so probably at some point we'll put out a call for pitches. 57:00 So what I would say, people who want to be, like, added to our contributor list, they can email us at pitches@roadsandkingdoms, and I'll just,.com, and I'll, I can put you on the, the list, and then we will s- send out a call for pitches. 57:15 And then, um, you know, the, for the print magazine, we actually have, like, a budget that we're going to spend on sending writers places, and hopefully, I mean, we've only been doing, you know, we launched the membership basically January 1st. 57:28 So it's been a month, and we're really hopeful that it's gonna keep growing. 57:34 It's doing pretty well, but there's, it's still small numbers, and, like, hope, I hope we'll be able to, like, pull in a lot more voices and, uh, yeah. 57:43 Can the theme of my episode not be men who kill themselves, by the way? [laughs] I'm just saying, I'm fine with that. Oh, no, w- that would not be indicated by the title of the episode. Oh. [laughs] Yeah, we'll see. 57:54 But in your mind as title. [laughs] That's how you will promote. No, not the theme. [laughs] I'm kidding. No, no. I'm actually being facetious. I'm with Ashley. Men who kill themselves, no. Um, but, um, yeah. 58:05 That was pattern matching, I'm sorry. No, no. No, I think we covered a lot more ground than that. We did. How about women who live? How about that? [laughs] No. Okay, got it. [laughs] Oh, man. Okay. 58:15 Well, let's, let's end it. Whatever you guys wanna call it, it's just a pleasure to talk to you. [laughs] Thank you. Let's- Charlie, thank you so much for coming on TASTELAND. Listener, we'll see you next week. 58:25 [outro music]
