{"id":5903,"date":"2014-05-17T15:21:05","date_gmt":"2014-05-17T21:21:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/?p=5903"},"modified":"2014-05-17T15:21:05","modified_gmt":"2014-05-17T21:21:05","slug":"what-is-the-economic-future-of-literature-chipotle-cups-will-now-feature-stories-by-jonathan-safran-foer-toni-morrison-and-other-authors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/?p=5903","title":{"rendered":"What is the economic future of literature? Chipotle Cups Will Now Feature Stories by Jonathan Safran Foer, Toni Morrison, and Other Authors"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><A href=\"http:\/\/www.vanityfair.com\/online\/daily\/2014\/05\/chipotle-cups-will-now-have-stories-by-jonathan-safran-foer-toni-morrison-and-other-authors\">Kia Makarechi<\/a>: <\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Jonathan Safran Foer was sitting at a Chipotle one day, when he realized that he had nothing to do while noshing on his burrito. He had neglected to bring a book or magazine, and he didn\u2019t yet own a smartphone. \u201cI really just wanted to die with frustration,\u201d Foer told VF Daily.<br \/>&nbsp;<br \/>&nbsp;Suddenly, the Eating Animals author (and vegetarian) had an idea: What if there were something truly good to read on his Chipotle cup? Or the bag? A few years earlier, he had met Steve Ells, Chipotle\u2019s C.E.O., so he decided to write the executive an e-mail. \u201cI said, \u2018I bet a shitload of people go into your restaurants every day, and I bet some of them have very similar experiences, and even if they didn\u2019t have that negative experience, they could have a positive experience if they had access to some kind of interesting text,\u2019\u201d Foer recalled. \u201cAnd unlike McDonald\u2019s, it\u2019s not like they\u2019re selling their surfaces to the highest bidder. They had nothing on their bags. So I said, \u2018Wouldn\u2019t it be cool to just put some interesting stuff on it? Get really high-quality writers of different kinds, creating texts of different kinds that you just give to your customers as a service.\u2019\u201d<br \/>&nbsp;<br \/>&nbsp;Foer didn\u2019t know what to expect, but Ells went all in. Starting Thursday, VF Daily can exclusively reveal, bags and cups in Chipotle\u2019s stores will be adorned with original text by Foer, Malcolm Gladwell, Toni Morrison, George Saunders, and Vanity Fair contributing editor Michael Lewis. Foer says ,\u201d Chipotle refrained from meddling in the editorial process for the duration of the initiative, which the burrito chain has branded Cultivating Thought. \u201cI selected the writers, and insofar as there was any editing, I did it,\u201d Foer said. \u201cI tried to put together a somewhat eclectic group, in terms of styles. I wanted some that were essayistic, some fiction, some things that were funny, and somewhat thought provoking.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Kia Makarechi: Jonathan Safran Foer was sitting at a Chipotle one day, when he realized that he had nothing to do while noshing on his burrito. He had neglected to bring a book or magazine, and he didn\u2019t yet own a smartphone. \u201cI really just wanted to die with frustration,\u201d Foer told VF Daily.&nbsp;&nbsp;Suddenly, the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5903"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5903"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5903\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5904,"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5903\/revisions\/5904"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}