Andreas Kluth talks Hannibal
At Red Herring we used to do a thing called “Fish or Cut Bait,” part restaurant review, part character assassination. We’d take some notable innovator to a fancy dinner, attempt to get them smashed and write about both (my favorite was the one with Apple legend Jean Louis Gassee, who was contemptuous and favored very nice wines). Andreas Kluth, the Economist’s Los Angeles correspondent, just had the same done to him at Zocalo Public Square.
Andreas talked about his work and his new book, Hannibal and Me, over a couple of glasses of Lateral Bordeaux. The picture wasn’t flattering, but Andreas is never dull.
The book is reviewed here and plugged here, and also given a read by the inimitable Mr. Crotchety (I confess I sometimes wonder if Mr. Crotchety is Andreas’ mouthpiece, a la Ben Franklin’s Silence Dogood or Mike Royko’s Slats Grobnik). It’s high on my list, which never seems to get any shorter, a consequence of knowing lots of good writers with valuable things to say.