Neil Gaiman and Paulo Coelho Write Essays for Chipotle

Posted on January 29, 2015

Chipotle had such a good response to its Cultivating Thought project in which famous authors write essays people can read on their paper drink cups that they decided to do it again. The first set of cups and bags were revealed last May.

Ten new authors are now sharing their thoughts with Chipotle patrons. This round of authors includes Amy Tan, Walter Isaacson, Neil Gaiman, Aziz Ansari, Paulo Coelho, Barbara Kingsolver, Carlos Ruiz Zafon, Julia Alvarez, and Jeffrery Eugenides. The stories are curated and edited by Jonanthan Safran Foer, who came up with the idea.

The two minutes essays run the gamut from serious to comic. Neil Gaiman has been working for the United Nations High Council on Refugees and wrote an essay about what it's like to leave everything behind with only two minutes to grab the belongings you can carry. He illustrates the fragility of the refugees' lives and how lucky we are to wake up in a world where we feel sure our homes will be still standing when we get home after work.

Aziz Ansari wrote a comic piece about the importance of choosing a new toothbrush. Paulo Coelho, who has sold more than 165 million copies of his books in over 170 countries, wrote a wonderfully simple story which illustrates how important a simple change in perspective can be.

Amy Tan, author of The Joy Luck Club and guitarist in Stephen King's band, The Rock Bottom Remainders, was asked why she was participating in the project. She replied, "Jonathan Safran Foer offered me the challenge to write 300 words about anything ​I wanted. I must have written thousands of words in emails to get Jonathan to define what he meant by anything, since not everything can be expressed in only 300 words. He threatened to publish the emails."