"A natural-born exaggerator with a superb taste for the absurd, Tony was the ultimate storyteller. Tony’s way of looking at the world, his ability to transform the bland everyday into a fantastic reinterpretation of reality, only seemed to add more meaning and truth to the original event.

“'Both versions of the scene will begin with the same shots of the train approaching the station. Keep my version straightforward, about food—with a passing reference to the hungry kids,' Tony said, talking a mile a minute, pausing only to light a cigarette. 'We want to leave almost no hint of how badly things spun out of control in my version, skim over the ugliness and culpability and shame and spare the viewer the awkwardness we felt.'

"Trying to focus over the sound of gunshots in the background, I struggled to keep up, scribbling down Tony’s edit direction in my notebook. We were standing in a modest backyard in the Hezbollah-controlled Dahieh suburb of Beirut, waiting for the cameras to finish setting up a family meal scene. As was often the case, while shooting one show, I’d be overseeing another through the post-production process. And, as was also common, the edit—in this case Madagascar—had hit a speed bump."

Book Excerpt: “A Glorious Mess.” On Confronting the Complexities of Storytelling with Anthony Bourdain