Good morning, Quartz readers!
In a 2012 episode of The Layover, chef, writer, TV personality, and traveler Anthony Bourdain offered this sage wisdom on exploring Paris:
“Most of us are lucky to see Paris once in a lifetime. Please, make the most of it by doing as little as possible. Walk a little. Get lost a bit. Eat. Catch a breakfast buzz. Have a nap. Try and have sex if you can, just not with a mime. Eat again. Lounge around drinking coffee. Maybe read a book. Drink some wine. Eat. Repeat.”
It’s great practical advice that also captures an attitude for living.
Bourdain, who died Friday at 61, didn’t just offer tips on scoping out good street food or seamlessly navigating an airport. Whether he was eating bún chả with Barack Obama, sitting with kids in Gaza, or charming food vendors on every continent, to watch Bourdain conduct himself was to watch a global citizen in the most aspirational sense of the phrase. You could see it in the sweaty film that dappled his forehead as he drank a cold beer on a hot day. In the look of industrious seriousness with which he approached a steaming hot bowl of noodles. In the earnest politeness and gratitude with which he unfailingly treated his hosts. Bourdain possessed a no-bullshit vitality, a humble awareness of his privilege as a white, male American, and an appreciation for the things—cold beer, hot noodles, the fact that seafood always tastes better when you’re barefoot in the sand—that are true no matter where you find yourself on this big Earth.
Bourdain didn’t just create good TV—he created a roadmap to becoming someone who moves through a world of connections and contradictions with grace, swag, and curiosity. At a time when the word “globalist” can feel tinged with elitism, Bourdain’s model brings another meaning to it entirely. He gave us a reason to believe that a more generous, open, and delicious world is not only possible, it’s waiting for us to go out and find it. —Rosie Spinks
Five things on Quartz we especially liked
Bollywood’s gender bias, personified. Actor Harshvardhan Kapoor believes female stars like his sister, Sonam, have it easier because they don’t have to drive a movie. Ananya Bhattacharya shows how Kapoor fails to understand that meaty roles elude women because of the industry’s deep-seated gender bias.
God is alive in Silicon Valley. For Christians in the capital of tech, life can be an uneasy negotiation between wanting to express their beliefs and needing to integrate into secular workplaces. Oliver Staley speaks with the faithful in a region where religion is widely viewed as an anachronism, if not an outright evil.
Donald Trump finally went too far for Republicans. His party has tolerated the most extreme of the US president’s actions—until his latest tariff moves. As a bipartisan group of senators works to curb his powers and the influential Koch brothers threaten to pull GOP campaign funding, Heather Timmons details what Trump stands to lose.
The global effort to raise a generation of empowered girls. Quartz’s year-long series How We’ll Win is now focusing on ingenious ways to instill confidence and resilience in girls. Leah Fessler reports on how the startup Gold Comedy is teaching girls to control their own narratives through the art of standup. Lauren Brown explains how one school is addressing high-achieving girls’ fear of failure by helping them cope with stressful situations. And Maria Thomas reports that in Bengaluru, India, girls are learning to skateboard as a way of asserting their right to occupy public space.
The measure of great leadership, in eight counterintuitive charts. Are the best-run teams stalwart or adaptable? Pessimistic or optimistic? Skeptical or credulous? Cohesive or cognitively diverse? Author and entrepreneur Shane Snow did the research and lays out his analysis for Quartz At Work.
Five things elsewhere that made us smarter
Kim already has a big win from his summit with Trump. The North Korean leader’s nuclear ambitions and tyrannical rule had antagonized even China, his main benefactor. Now, Don Lee writes in the Los Angeles Times, Kim Jong-un has parlayed the upcoming sitdown into better relations with Beijing—which may have the most to gain from a positive outcome.
Guess who? A powerful country is led by a man fixated on his press coverage—unpredictable, inept, and a compulsive liar. He believes he is a brilliant dealmaker, despite alienating other national leaders. That man was Kaiser Wilhelm II. Miranda Carter, in the New Yorker, notes the unsettling similarities (paywall) between the German monarch and the current occupant of the White House.
Acquire and merge. If Microsoft is going to pay $7.5 billion for GitHub, you should know what it is. Paul Ford explains in Bloomberg how something as simple as keeping track of edits to text files became such a big business and why the site sits next to Windows, Google, and Facebook in the pantheon of transformation.
Why the US is not in the World Cup. A German soccer legend who promised to remake the US men’s soccer team wound up managing it to its worst showing in 32 years. But Jürgen Klinsmann didn’t do it alone. His tenure was enabled by the country’s soccer establishment, Andrew Helms and Matt Pentz write for The Ringer.
Big in Japan. A group dedicated to an elaborate traditional Japanese method of fish slaughter called ike jime is trying to bring the practice to America. For Topic, Cat Ferguson untangles the moral, scientific, and culinary strands of a technique that promises to greatly reduce the suffering of fish, broaden American palates, and, ultimately, lead to better-tasting seafood.
Our best wishes for a relaxing but thought-filled weekend. Please send any news, comments, counterintuitive charts, and properly slaughtered fish to hi@qz.com. You can follow us on Twitter here for updates throughout the day, or download our apps for iPhone and Android. Today’s Weekend Brief was edited by John Mancini and Kabir Chibber.