People you would have seen snickering at golf years ago were toting expensive clubs, quoting Ben Hogan and debating the virtues of the interlock grip versus the overlap.
I grew up in Washington, and I was at the Corcoran Gallery — it was a Saturday in May — and there was a group of people about my age who were debating the virtues of a particular painting, and I thought, this is interesting to eavesdrop on.
On a recent clear, bright Saturday, various tan, bearded men popped in after surfing since sunrise to use the wooden outdoor shower and talk shop, debating the virtues of the super-rare ten-thousand-dollar surfboard vs. the seventy-five-dollar foam plank that even a first-timer could ride.
One of the great divides in martini culture, inspiring a passion similar to debating the virtues of Macs over PCs or Ali over Marciano, is whether the superior martini is made by shaking or stirring.
Highlights of the conference included a colorful exchange between TechCrunch editor Michael Arrington and Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz; Sean Parker and David Kirkpatrick discussing the past, present and future of Facebook, and VCs Fred Wilson and Ben Horowitz debating the virtue of the lean vs. fat startup.
But I had forgotten that pastry chefs will debate the virtues of a grain of salt.
Let's take a moment to debate the virtues of a thicker, sturdier crust, which has fallen out of style in Neapolitan-mad New York in recent years.
This is not the time or the place to debate the virtues or otherwise of this stealth Darlene Connor lookalike's music, which have been considered at length elsewhere.
Critics still debate the virtues of cool: Max Harrison praises its "muted colors" and "lucid proportions"; Stanley Crouch dismisses it as "another failed attempt to marry jazz to European devices".
Mr. Oakley and his team debated the virtues of the open overhead racks traditional on trains versus the closed bins of airlines.
