Sitting petty in the First World

David Rakoff’s new book is a record of incredulity

On the afternoon of our meeting, it’s drizzling and miserable outside. This has made David Rakoff very, very happy.

“For me, it’s like waking up out of a coma. I’m so happy it’s grey and rainy and cold,” the writer said in Toronto last Friday, literally sighing with relief. “My brain works again after months of being comatose. We had a hell of a summer in New York.”

Then, abruptly, Rakoff leaned forward and said, “ Look. Perspective. We are not under eight feet of water, our houses weren’t washed away by a hurricane. It was a bad summer, but not that bad.”

Rakoff is hyper-alert to a condition he calls First World Problems, wherein people whose lives are on the whole pretty OK get in a tizzy over petty frustrations.

It’s not surprising, then, that the subject of sea salt harvested in France and available in New York City for US$36 a kilogram is still a sensitive one. As is the topic of ice cubes frozen from a river in the Scottish Highlands that can be overnighted to your doorstop in order to complement your single malt.

Rakoff learned about both those items in the food section of The New York Times — a paper he not only reads every day, but has written for extensively in the past. It occurs to Rakoff that the Times, and specifically food writer Amanda Hesser, may have lost the plot in these cases.

“I’m still reeling from the fact that these things exist,” Rakoff said incredulously. “ And it was in the paper of record!”

“I’m not good at singing — I’m very bad,” says Côté, whose father was a violoneux — a traditional folk fiddler — but whose musical talent went to the younger brothers. “[Director] Jean-Marc Vallée told me, you know, ‘ You should try to rehearse very hard because I want you very, very neat, very accurate. You have to be very good at imitating Charles Aznavour.’ ”

After Côté finally nailed the song, however, Vallée changed his mind. Côté was too good; it didn’t seem natural. So, on the soundtrack, Vallée pushed the actor’s vocals slightly off to make it seem as though he wasn’t a great singer. “So I thought he was an asshole, because I worked so hard to be right on,” jokes Côté. And he and Grondin laugh like two boys making a joke behind their father’s back.