INCOMING

CONTINUED an assistant professor at the FRESH FLICKS THE BEAT GOES ON Wharton School of the University “I use Rotten Toma- “I love watching of Pennsylvania, whose research toes’ Netflix search drum solos on You- is focused on giving (and whose algorithm. Not ev- Tube. There’s this brother has a start-up called eryone knows about kid, Avery Molek, DipJar, which replaces old-school it, but it saves so who’s just a freak tip jars with an electronic device much time. The last of nature. He has preset to take gratuities from thing I found was a to wear big head- plastic). But automating the pro- Werner Herzog [2] phones that make cess can suck the joy out of it. documentary called him look like he’s Uncle Louie would’ve hated this. Happy People: A landing a plane No matter how hard Silicon Year in the Taiga, because he’s so Valley strives to stamp its boiler- about fur trappers little that his ears plate ethos of making the world in Siberia. One guy can’t handle what a better place onto the tipping gets dropped off he’s doing. And economy, you can’t tip every CULTURAL DIET with a dog and a [session drummer] worker in the house individually chain saw, working Bernard Purdie’s on a tablet. Square, which allows a government job videos are hilarious. just about anyone with a smart- for the Soviet Union. He’ll explain how he phone to be a personal point-of- He’s out there for, invented a specific sale terminal, doesn’t have an AFTER EARNING HIS REPUTATION AS A WORLD- like, 20 years, but kind of shuffle that algorithm for ballers. Nor does class songwriter, first as a member of the south- this son of a bitch nobody else can do an app like Tip.ly—“Tip anyone, ern-rock outfit Drive-By Truckers and later as a is so tough, he just as well as Bernard anywhere simply by taking a pic- solo artist, Jason Isbell raised the lyrical stakes makes it work!” Purdie. He’s one ture of their smiling face”—or a with 2013’s Southeastern, an intensely personal of those guys who service like ChangeTip, which lets album (author Walter Kirn said it evoked the ALL THE PRETTY has no qualms with you send Bitcoins via Facebook melancholy of Flannery O’Connor and Raymond NOVELS speaking of himself and . There’s also the nag Carver) that led the 36-year-old native “Next up is Blood in the third person.” factor. I’d like to think that these to a sweep of the Americana Honors & Awards. Meridian. I’ve read electronic prompts target con- His recently released follow-up, Something Cormac McCarthy’s EMOTIONAL sumers who were too cheap to tip More Than Free, again confirms that Isbell takes other books. I really EATING properly in the first place—like his storytelling seriously—not unlike his Netflix liked his Border “Husk [3] is a any number of Internet-shamed and corn-bread consumption. —David Walters Trilogy, but I hear favorite restaurant. losers tried and convicted by this one is the best. Sean Brock’s a the court of public opinion. (Take RAP GENIUS off, I would not mind It comes down to friend—he cooked LeSean McCoy, who, as a mem- “Outkast’s Aquemini making the kind of the craft of the at my wedding. His ber of the Philadelphia Eagles [1] destroyed me. music they make, author: Can I picture corn bread is the earning more than $7.6 million It’s melodic, there’s but I’m not qualified myself in the room? best. He serves it in last year, left a waiter 20 cents.) attitude, and there’s to do that. Though, Can I smell the food the skillet he cooks Tight asses could certainly use something about the you know, we’re or feel the blood it in, with the bits of more than a nudge to do the right way Big Boi and Dre all qualified to talk from the knife fight? bacon. My grand- thing. But because these prompts deal with issues of about what it’s like Do I feel desperate? mother made it just are nondiscriminatory, they deliv- family and kids and to be a man tryin’ Anybody who’s really like that—it really er a virtual wrist slap to those of having to be grown to straighten up and good at it puts you makes me want us who are skilled at spreading men. If all bets were fly right.” in the situation.” to cry.” the wealth to begin with. Like the Chairman of the Board. There’s a famous Frank Sinatra 1 2 3 story in which the star hands a parking attendant two hun- dred-dollar bills and asks, after the attendant thanks him, if it was the biggest tip he ever got. “Well, no, sir,” the valet says—to which Sinatra replies, “What the? Who the hell gave you more than that?” The attendant says, “Why, you did, Mr. Sinatra. Last week!” Imagine that going down on an iPad. PHOTOGRAPHS, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: GETTY IMAGES; COURTESY OF HUSK NASHVILLE; GETTY IMAGES; COURTESY OF EPIC RECORDS. IMAGES; GETTY COURTESY OF HUSK NASHVILLE; IMAGES; GETTY CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: PHOTOGRAPHS,

36 DETAILS AUGUST 2015