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With both boys at boarding school, we sometimes find ourselves at loose ends on weekends and unable to get off the couch. Even when my sons are home, we still don't do a whole lot, as they keep vampire hours, stay tethered to no fewer than three electronic devices at a time and partake in adolescent activities with their friends (parents most definitely not invited).
So I was delighted when on his most recent visit home, my eldest, Haden, suggested that we all go see Jiro Dreams of Sushi, a documentary about an 85-year-old sushi chef. Procuring tickets involved complicated logistics (what movie theater is cash only, for pete's sake?), including the "rousing of the undead" ceremony needed to get Lucas up in time for a 4 p.m. showing.
Whether you find the concept of raw fish appealing or not, go see this movie.
Jiro Ono left home at 9 to apprentice in a sushi restaurant and dedicated his entire life to the pursuit of excellence in his craft. His 10-seat restaurant in the Ginza subway station in Tokyo was the first to receive 3-stars from the Michelin guide.
He serves nothing but sushi, reservations need to be made months in advance, and dinner will set you back at least $300. His sushi is art masquerading as food.
In a culture where perfectionism is most decidedly not viewed as neurosis, Jiro Ono is hardly an outlier. Still, the way he spoke of his life's work almost made me cry. His desire to continually take sushi to new heights is a spiritual calling - that striving is what gives his life meaning, which takes it way beyond the realm of mere obsessive compulsiveness.
Part of being able to serve fabulous sushi is using fabulous ingredients. In Tokyo, this means going to the Tsukiji fish market, the largest fish market in the world (400 species sold, 700,000 metric tons moved in a year, $5.5B worth of annual sales).
The movie follows Jiro's 54-year-old son, Yoshikazu - who like Prince Charles lives in suspended career animation as heir apparent - as he makes the rounds of the market.
Of course, Yoshikazu only buys from vendors who share the family's obsession with quality. At one point, for example, their tuna wholesaler says something along the lines of, "There's only one tuna that's the best at every auction and that's the one I want to buy. If there isn't anything good, I won't buy at all."
Every vendor in the market is a specialist, from octopus to eels, and they trot out only their best for Jiro's son.
All of which got me thinking... if stock picking were like making sushi, and if we were worthy of Michelin 3 stars, who would our favorite purveyors be?
After all, every day in the stock market is like navigating Tsukiji, a place of controlled chaos, subcultures, and gamesmanship. If the key ingredient to investment sushi is new ideas, then we too need to understand which "idea vendors" have the most to offer.
And while we prefer to catch our own fish (find our own ideas), we have to shop the Tsukiji of stocks, if only to know what the going price for merchandise is or to educate ourselves on whether or not that red spotted fish with the purple fins (a company in an industry we may not know well) is edible.
