Luke Burgis: preference

Transcript context

…I am the exception. My wife sometimes talks of wanting to live in the smaller towns nearby, which we’re not going to do because we’re slated for a third-tier city in Mexico, but we’re not going to do that either. I sometimes think of Northern Italy as a place where there were fewer different dimensions for mimetic desire. That is, more people dress the same. There are fewer status dimensions, maybe less room for eccentrics compared to America. Do you think that’s true, or do you think I’m off base? Paris is a bit like this also. There’s a certain notion of what kind of shoes an Italian man should wear. They wear them, and they’re amazing, and actually more affordable than here. There’s a sameness to some things. I don’t think the sameness is a bad thing. I think the sameness is very charming. The sprezzatura of an Italian man, the way that an Italian man dresses, something I’ve never been able to pull off in my life. For those that don’t know what that sprezzatura means, it means you put tremendous care into putting on an outfit that looks like you didn’t think about it at all, and somehow it comes together and looks amazing. Even that seems highly mimetic to me, the idea of sprezzatura. I love Naples. Naples is maybe my second-favorite city in Italy. It’s my second favorite, too. Maybe it’s my favorite. That and Genoa, to me, are the two undiscovered, less discovered gems.…

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