Coolness in writing

Reading ‘Fooled by randomness’ by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. Good book, in the same vein as ‘A random walk down Wall Street’, (makes one wonder how on earth there are still so many stock gurus! greed and ignorance of the public…). However I cannot stop noticing how NNT cannot refrain from name dropping, how often do you run across references to koine Greek and Jorge Luis Borges in the space of 2-3 pages of a *finance* book!? Of course many smart writers (eg William Gibson) have this habit; and I like the book and the author’s style so I do not wish to knock it. Just wondering though where does erudition end and willingness to dazzle start.

And yeah I do it too, permanently looking for ways to tie Acapulco’s las Brisas resort, Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport, Sanrio company products, Osho and Jung to whatever conversation is at hand.