The Choke
In a piece that highlights the difference between panicking and choking, Gladwell channels his inner play-by-play sports announcer. He brings to life through imagery the first few minutes of play at the 1993 Wimbledon ladies’ final which saw Jana Novotna tumble from absolute control of opponent Steffi Graf into the unwanted wasteland of the “choke.”
“Novotna was in white, poised and confident, her blond hair held back with a headband — and then something happened. She served the ball straight into the net. She stopped and steadied herself for the second serve — the toss, the arch of the back — but this time it was worse. Her swing seemed halfhearted, all arm and no legs and torso. Double fault. On the next point, she was slow to react to a high shot by Graf and badly missed on a forehand volley.”
She Does
One of the most fascinating selections in the collection is Gladwell’s social history of hair dye. The history of little boxes you take home and an hour later gives you a completely different color of essentially begins with the iconic commercial tagline “Does she or doesn’t she?” because back then, of course, dying one’s hair was kind of shameful secret. Especially dying it blonde. What is really fascinating is Gladwell’s social critic analysis of those commercials and the imagery used to make sure that the question wasn’t perceived as sexual:
“The model had to be a Doris Day type — not a Jayne Mansfield — because the idea was to make hair color as respectable and mainstream as possible…a housewife in the kitchen preparing hors d’oeuvres for a party. She is slender and pretty and wearing a black cocktail dress and an apron. Her husband comes in, kisses her on the lips, approvingly pats her very blond hair, then holds the kitchen door for her as she takes the tray of hors d’oeuvres out for her guests.”
FBI Profiling
The Netflix series Mindhunter has done much to make sure the public has even more confidence in the FBI’s psychological profiling division. The reality is that their profiling framework is fundamentally flawed for reasons too complex to mention here. What’s fun, however, is reading the imagery of profiles of a suspected serial killer:
“Look for an American male with a possible connection to the military. His IQ will be above 105. He will like to masturbate and will be aloof and selfish in bed. He will drive a decent car. He will be a `now' person. He won’t be comfortable with women. But he may have women friends. He will be a lone wolf. But he will be able to function in social settings. He won’t be unmemorable. But he will be unknowable. He will be either never married, divorced, or married, and if he was or is married, his wife will be younger or older. He may or may not live in a rental, and might be lower class, upper lower class, lower middle class, or middle class. And he will be crazy like a fox as opposed to being mental… and nothing even close to the salient fact that BTK was a pillar of his community, the president of his church, and the married father of two.”
Why has Ketchup Remains Ketchup?
Gladwell notes that over the last few decades, mustard has exploded from just the one yellow variety into a condiment available by the dozens in the mainstream. And yet outside of specialty markets, ketchup today remains pretty much as ketchup has always been. Why? Partially because Heinz perfected it:
“What Heinz had done was come up with a condiment that pushed all five of these primal buttons. The taste of Heinz’s ketchup began at the tip of the tongue, where our receptors for sweet and salty first appear, moved along the sides, where sour notes seem the strongest, then hit the back of the tongue, for umami and bitter, in one long crescendo. How many things in the supermarket run the sensory spectrum like this?”
