I was watching Season 7 of Billions (wooo boy is it not good; for sure what we need is more) and there’s an episode where (spoiler alert, but also no one is watching Billions for the plot) Michael Prince Capital has a casino night that doubles as a secret observational study Wendy uses to give performance reviews using something called Prospect Theory. In addition to what I have to imagine are numerous HR violations, this is ridiculous. It’s a hedge fund. Just look at how much people made and give them some of it. Performance review complete.
What I’m saying is that Three Point Four Media’s compensation structure will now be based entirely on Bill’s performance in baccarat.
Very demanding, this subscribe button. Onward.
An Article
He spent his life building a $1 million stereo. The real cost was unfathomable.
An incredible read by Geoff Edgers in The Washington Post about Ken Fritz, who built “the world’s greatest stereo” while alienating his entire family. Dark stuff. Sounds great, though. This was my favorite detail (“Frankentable” pictured above):
The $50,000 custom record player, his “Frankentable,” nestled in a 1,500-pound base designed to thwart any needle-jarring vibrations and equipped with three different tone arms, each calibrated to coax a different sound from the same slab of vinyl.
And I thought our Sonos setup was expensive.
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A Movie
I missed Oppenheimer the first time around because it’s very long. Now that it’s colder outside, however, an 11 a.m. Saturday screening seemed like a great idea. More showings should start before noon.
Review: good movie. I liked how Rami Malek had like six lines. The real win, though, was the Drafthouse staff being nice and charging us $0 for two seltzers instead of $7.95 each.
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A Book
On the Christopher Nolan theme, I read The Nolan Variations by Tom Shone. It goes through the making of each of his movies in exhaustive detail, while also filling in plenty of biological details about the filmmaker. It’s a lot.
Sam Mendes called the book “as close as you’re ever going to get to the Escher drawing that is Christopher Nolan’s remarkable brain,” which, I dunno, is true although hard to know if that’s a compliment or not.
The book was physically heavy in a way that seemed impossible given its length. Would make a good plot point in a Nolan movie, tbh. My main takeaway was that I remember very little about many of Nolan’s movies and that I should watch Tenet again. Nolan did not talk about the incredible take down of The Dark Knight chase scene, which was a missed opportunity. The people demand a sequel.
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A Project
We have some good stuff in the hopper coming up, including the launch of a new website for a long-time client, but nothing new in the last couple weeks. The kind folks at The Creative Factor did run a little bit about us: How I Work: Three Point Four Media Co-Founder Bill Bradley.
The Loop got a shoutout, too: “Their fun and breezy weekend company newsletter tells you more about their favorite recipes and recents races than their business, a refreshing change of pace from most self-promotional studio missives.” Fun, breezy, not focused on business. That’s us?
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A Coffee Shop
Velvette Black (814 Union Street)
I have a soft spot in my heart for Velvette generally as the one on Smith Street features prominently in the Three Point Four Media origin story although that one is now called Poetica and part of a different small but mighty New York City coffee shop empire. I think the owners split up, one taking the Velvette name and one taking Poetica, and went their separate ways, but I’m not going to do any research to confirm that theory. Anyhow, Park Slope Union Street Velvette is lovely with plenty of space (much bigger than it looks from the outside), two baristas who were complimenting each other on the quality of their foam drawings, and a location that’s both convenient and annoying to get to, which is the best kind of location. Downsides include Substack wanting to autocorrect Velvette to Velvet and a potentially confusing corporate structure.
Four out of five stars in your cappuccino foam.
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A Swim
In my ongoing effort to become a real swimmer, I recently purchased a Speedo, having decided that a bathing suit wearable to Fort Tilden is not ideal for the YMCA pool. Is it helping? Who knows. I stopped wearing a watch when I do any sort of workout—what is time, anyway?—but I feel sleeker in the water. My next goals include learning how to do a flip turn and teaching myself to breathe on my left side.
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Thanks for reading. Bill’s back in two weeks with pre-race thoughts about the Birkie.