The other night a friend told me iGavel Auctions is auctioning off Property from the Collection of Anthony Bourdain. It started on October 9th and runs through October 30th.

From the website:

This auction showcases nearly 200 lots that Anthony Bourdain personally acquired during his life and it includes some of his most valued possessions: artwork, books, home and decorative furnishings, knives, wrist watches, apparel and more. A significant portion of the proceeds will benefit the Anthony Bourdain Legacy Scholarship at his alma mater, The Culinary Institute of America. The scholarship was established –in the spirit of Bourdain himself–to support CIA students pursuing a semester abroad or taking part in one of the college’s global cuisines and cultures international programs. The remaining proceeds will go to the estate of Anthony Bourdain. The sale is divided into categories that reflect Bourdain’s multifarious interests: film, art, cooking, travel, writing and his endless observations of world culture.

It feels a bit weird looking though all of Tony’s stuff, like I’m snooping around his home, but that’s also what makes it so interesting. He was a creative, globe-trotting, cultural sponge so it’s no surprise he surrounded himself with interesting cultural artifacts.

Here’s a few things that caught my eye.

In this episode Mike talks about employers not always wanting to hear the truth in interviews, Harlan Ellison’s advice on not working for free, another reason Mike loves Anthony Bourdain, one movie reco, and one doc-series reco.

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Anthony Bourdain, Chef, Travel Host and Author, Is Dead at 61:

In everything he did, Mr. Bourdain cultivated a renegade style and bad-boy persona.

For decades, he worked 13-hour days as a line cook in restaurants in New York and the Northeast before he became executive chef in the 1990s at Brasserie Les Halles, serving steak frites and onion soup in Lower Manhattan. He had been an executive chef for eight years when he sent an unsolicited article to The New Yorker about the underbelly of the restaurant world and its deceptions.

To his surprise, the magazine accepted it and ran it — catching the attention of book editors. It resulted in “Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly,” a memoir that elevated Mr. Bourdain to a celebrity chef and a new career on TV.

This is very sad. From everything I’ve seen and read about Bourdain he seemed like a great person.

When I worked in the Financial District in downtown Manhattan back around 2008-09 I used to take new hires to Les Halles all the time. It was located on John Street but it closed down last year.