Anthony Bourdain's Lost Li.st's

bourdain.greg.technology

332 points by gregsadetsky 6 days ago


I read through the years about Bourdain's content on the defunct li.st service, but was never able to find an archive of it. A more thorough perusing of archive.org and a pointer from an Internet stranger led me to create this site. Cheers

fredoliveira - 2 days ago

One of the few people that has a voice (written and otherwise) so distinctive that even reading those lists, I read them in his voice. I miss that guy.

deeptishukla22 - 5 days ago

Bourdain had a way of writing that made even throwaway lines feel meaningful, but so much of that era of content is basically disappearing. It’s nice to see someone do the unglamorous work of gathering the fragments before they fade completely.

bink - 2 days ago

For those who haven't read it yet, the book "In the Weeds" does a pretty good job of showing the hidden side of Bourdain (if there was such a thing). He was as imperfect as you might imagine. I personally enjoyed learning how cruel he could be as I always had a tremendous amount of respect for him and it made him more human to me.

They even cover an incident where the crew played a practical joke on him with a clown (his fear is mentioned in a li.st).

yawpitch - 5 days ago

Hands down the funniest thing I ever saw, live and in person, was Anthony Bourdain staring with naked, enraptured joy at the woman doing the American Sign Language translation of what he’d just said, then stopping just after she did to let us all know that “I just had to know what it looks like to sign ‘felching Mrs. Butterworth.’”

Thank you, Tony, wherever you are… if for nothing else, then for the Pho Chay I the Lunch Lady made just for my newly vegetarian self in Saigon.

thadk - 2 days ago

It seems like li.st was founded by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B._J._Novak#The_List_App — unlikely to show on HN but maybe someone knows him.

rgovostes - 5 days ago

Awesome. I refer to https://bourdain.greg.technology/#food-im-thinking-about about once a year. One of my favorite vacations was going to a different hawker stall on his list each night in Singapore. Unsurprisingly, his picks are all pretty good, and #1 is justified in crowning the list.

yakkomajuri - 2 days ago

Didn't know he was such a fan of rap, interesting point about brioche buns.

Also: "Karaoke should only be performed with people who have already seen your genitals." :D

pimlottc - 2 days ago

There used to be a mirror of the Wayback Machine [0][1] hosted at the new Library of Alexandria in Egypt [2]. Sometimes you could pull pages from them that otherwise errored out on the main archive.org site. Sadly, it seems the mirror has been offline [3] for some years now.

0: https://www.bibalex.org/en/News/Details?DocumentID=1550&Keyw...

1: https://www.bibalex.org/isis/frontend/projects/ProjectDetail...

2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bibliotheca_Alexandrina

3: http://web.archive.bibalex.org

villaaston1 - 2 days ago

Maybe someone here knows the creators of li.st and we can get the missing lists back online?

cultofmetatron - 2 days ago

his show was what inspired me to leave san Francisco and travel the world fulltime.

rest in peace king.

rishabhaiover - 2 days ago

If there's anyone who can sell you to travel, it's Bourdain. Travel deep, travel in mundane streets without the thirst to capture each moment.

pimlottc - 2 days ago

It looks like the original URL for Anthony's profile on li.st was https://li.st/Bourdain/

https://web.archive.org/web/20181204232645/https://li.st/Bou...

mihaitodor - a day ago

Nice to see Motorhead in there! I did not expect that

W-Stool - 2 days ago

Was there ever a cooler guy who could actually write? I don't think so.

Anyone who rates "Dr. Strangelove" as a great movie is OK by me.

jimmydddd - 2 days ago

greg.technology is a great person for putting time and effort into this. Faith in humanity restored!

sexy_seedbox - 2 days ago

His Hong Kong restaurant choices are all expensive tourist traps.

DocTomoe - 2 days ago

As someone who was mildly familiar with Bourdain ("some sort of American TV cook", some badly-dubbed shows in our private TV channels which didn't really catch on, because 'cooking show') until he decided to end it ...

... it is fascinating to me that one person, especially in a very niche profession, has had that kind of cultural impact that his random writing is being discussed seven years after his death.

gausswho - 2 days ago

In the SCARY SHIT!!! Things I find genuinely terrifying section:

> Switzerland: I think I must have experienced some awful childhood trauma in view of a mural of snow capped peaks and Lake Geneva. I live with a persistent dread of alpine vistas, chalet architecture, Tyrolean hats, even cheese with holes in it. You will notice I have never been there. That’s because Switzerland frightens me.

Huh. He was just over the border from there when he was finished.

IAmGraydon - 2 days ago

I was lucky enough to meet him in 2013. A truly good guy and a massive loss. No Reservations and Parts Unknown are still some of my favorite shows to binge.

ltbarcly3 - 2 days ago

I never heard of Anthony Bourdain until years after he died. I guess I wasn't the right age, I was having a family and at work all day whenever his shows took off. He seems like a genuinely interesting person, but there are so many other interesting thoughtful people that don't have relatable cooking shows and I think Anthony Bourdain, as great as he is, gets quite a bit more attention than he probably warrants. Don't take that the wrong way, he's genuinely thoughtful and interesting, but he gets a LOT of attention OVER AND OVER.

I'll throw out Tim Kreider (author of We Learn Nothing, among other books) as someone else you might find worthwhile to checkout.

kawie - 2 days ago

thank you!!!

hermitcrab - a day ago

"Karaoke should only be performed with people who have already seen your genitals."

M1kelawrence - 4 days ago

Thanks

barrenko - 2 days ago

Gentle reminder that the /kitchenconfidential reddit is a fun place to occasionally visit.

Rakshith - 3 days ago

[dead]