even more quiddities and agonies of the ruling class - a new rolling new york times thread

Ms. Ginn, left, in her rat-pelt dress, and Ms. LaViola chatting with guests before dinner.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/misc/pixel.gif

damn, for some reason i couldn't get that rat-pelt dress picture to show up. maybe a moderator can add it.

i couldn't even save that picture to my computer. the times is tricky.

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2012/07/27/arts/design/20120727-RATS-4.html

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2012/07/26/garden/26TWENTIES_SPAN/26TWENTIES-articleLarge.jpg

she needs to come along for the ride.

Across the table Mr. Hutchings gnawed on a rat bone, pronouncing it delicious. The dinner delivered on its once-in-a-lifetime promise. “I don’t care about it as art,” he said. “I care about it as something that makes me a more interesting human being.”

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2012/07/27/arts/27RATS_SPAN/27RATS_SPAN-articleLarge.jpg

For Ms. Ginn skinning and eating rats represents the survivalist instincts she likes to explore in her work. “To have these sorts of skills, it’s very empowering,” she said. “It makes me feel like I have more control over my world.”

Cheryl
Westchester Cty

It reminds me a bit of the Woman Warrior ( Maxine Kingston) description of the narrator's mother as a Great Eater, one who could literally and figuratively eat any dish set before her without the slightest expression of fear or disgust. But in a setting of extreme comfort, and the best condiments and disguises for the purchased rats, it doesn't seem to signify anything. Now, if all the rats had been "wild raised" in NYC and caught by the participants, that would be a better story... Or perhaps if different rats had been trapped in different restaurants, again, we could compare the effects of different restaurant fare on their taste.... Overall, ick.

jg
San Francisco

How is this any different from the sensationalism of TV Shows like Fear Factor. Rats are disgusting and only eaten in the worst of times. They are in fact disease ridden and thoroughly disgusting. Why does this generation insist on destroying paradigms or structures without any sensible or tangible replacements. Did they learn nothing from the Baby Boomers and the "Me" generation? I hate everything about this from it's pettiness to its barbarism to the sensationalistic and cynical nature of it. Rich people eating rats. Rich indeed.

comments get really real:

Sami
Long Beach, CA

This can be seen as the expected result of the gentrification of New York that has been occurring for the past 20 years or so. Rats, formerly associated with urban squalor, became reified as a kind of aesthetic signifier of "authentic" New York-ness by the post-collegiate hordes of mostly white middle class young people who flocked to places like Williamsburg in the late 90s and early 2000s. These people were ravenous for real urban life, and embraced the rat as a component of a lifestyle they sought - even as their (the gentrifiers) increasing presence destroyed that same reality by displacing working class residents and communities that had been associated with the presence of rats during the Reagan era of urban decline. This event combines the role that art plays in the gentrification process with the gentrifiers obsession with "local" food culture in an ironic glorification of their (Pyrrhic) conquest of the "urban."

something about eating rats that really pisses people off.

sorry, link: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/27/arts/design/dinner-at-an-exhibition-rat-prepared-many-ways.html?ref=dining

Sometimes I feel like the cycle of trolling and being trolled has just become a ritual for the Times style sections, like the commenters are just this chorus of people who "come to boo"

I mean that's what we are, basically

ya they know what theyre doin

Sami
Long Beach, CA

This can be seen as the expected result of the gentrification of New York that has been occurring for the past 20 years or so. Rats, formerly associated with urban squalor, became reified as a kind of aesthetic signifier of "authentic" New York-ness by the post-collegiate hordes of mostly white middle class young people who flocked to places like Williamsburg in the late 90s and early 2000s. These people were ravenous for real urban life, and embraced the rat as a component of a lifestyle they sought - even as their (the gentrifiers) increasing presence destroyed that same reality by displacing working class residents and communities that had been associated with the presence of rats during the Reagan era of urban decline. This event combines the role that art plays in the gentrification process with the gentrifiers obsession with "local" food culture in an ironic glorification of their (Pyrrhic) conquest of the "urban."

― scott seward, Friday, 27 July 2012 04:07 (13 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^ rad

I think we can't totally discount the possibility that this artist is trolling us too, like basically going for what that commenter is describing? I mean “I don’t care about it as art,” he said. “I care about it as something that makes me a more interesting human being.”

that sounds like trolling

i don't know, do you think that psychiatrists think their case studies are interesting as human beings, or just... interesting...?

I think we can't totally discount the possibility that this artist is trolling us too, like basically going for what that commenter is describing? I mean “I don’t care about it as art,” he said. “I care about it as something that makes me a more interesting human being.”

― Will Chave (Hurting 2), Friday, 27 July 2012 16:53 (28 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this wasn't the artist, this was one of the guests

this seems totally fine to me tbh

i hope that they get the plague and die.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/29/automobiles/autoreviews/you-cant-beat-it-with-a-stick.html

Priced from $26,795, this is the ILX that screams “compromise” at the top of its little 2-liter lungs, with standard cloth seats and just 150 breathless horses from a version of the Civic engine.

the ILX seems limited to fans of zing-it-yourself compacts at a relatively high price.

too much time on nyt

http://storify.com/jcstearns/lessons-from-the-fake-new-york-times-wikileaks-op

hey, in the interest of fair play, i read that article about the girl tavi who had the fashion blog and now has the rookie site and she seems cool and her site looks great and smart.

don't want to hate every young person in the new york times. makes me feel bad.

"in the spirit of sassy magazine" is always a good move. plus, john waters loves her and that's good enough for me.

wish more websites looked like the rookie site for real! so easy to read and navigate and pleasant to look at.

http://rookiemag.com/

ya tavi is awesome

yep rookie is great and i wish i was as cool and smart at 28 as tavi is at 15/16

nothing to hate about tavi.

Rookie is great and I wish it was there to read when I was 12+ years old. So much better than so many teen girl mags.

LONG ILX THREADS HATE THIS ONE SIMPLE TRICK:

1. Click on the Permalink of the message right after the cutoff.

2. The URL will now contain something like "bookmarkedmessageid=3669956"

3. Change that number to something smaller and you will be jumped back to an earlier point in the thread without loading the whole thing.

― Godzilla vs. Rodan Rodannadanna (The Yellow Kid), Friday, July 27, 2012 12:52 PM (6 days ago) Bookmark

I feel dumb for not having thought of doing this myself!

i tried it on the long orig breaking bad thread & it didnt seem 2 work

Which part didn't work? The only maybe tricky part is that if you don't make that number small enough, you won't get any older messages. And if you make that number too small you'll be at the first messages. Usually lowering it by thousands or ten-thousands is enough.

i have tried it and it worked

What I do with a long thread is open it at my bookmarked spot and then hit permalink on the first post while the rest is loading.

fyi you can also click on the permalink for the last post before the fold and then just click “view previous page"

View Previous Page has only ever worked sporadically for me.

i enjoy that scott is all 'that tavi girl'

View Previous Page has only ever worked sporadically for me.

― Godzilla vs. Rodan Rodannadanna (The Yellow Kid), Friday, August 3, 2012 4:46 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/05/nyregion/four-men-sharing-rent-and-friendship-for-18-years.html

men. living together.

i was looking for a thread on like manchildren or something to post this on but i guess this is close enough because lol nytimes not so much these guys are the ruling class

"Shyaporn Theerakulstit, actor and audiobook narrator"

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/05/fashion/montauk-feels-the-effects-of-too-many-hipsters.html

In the meantime, longtime residents are left to harken back to that first crowd that had to endure an invasion of newcomers, the Montauket tribe. As Mr. Devlin’s wife, Eileen, joked on Friday as the restaurant prepared for another busy night, “Now I know how the Indians felt.”

Nope. No you don't.

it notes clearly that she was joking

yah what gives

Another showed a rifle and the words “Defend Montauk.”

printing hipster shirts against hipsters u might be a hipster

also isnt the fedora more of a broish affectation

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/05/nyregion/four-men-sharing-rent-and-friendship-for-18-years.html

men. living together.

― goole, Saturday, August 4, 2012 1:57 PM

this was hilarious! The comments, though, are mostly horrifying.

quiddities thread has made me insensitive to the real articles, i want all the stupid setup cut so i can get right to the aughs

so by hipster they just mean young money?

http://i.imgur.com/aXnRN.jpg

well

If by hipster you mean a person that doesn't just jump on the patriotic bandwagon, then sure.

wrong thread lol

haha I thought you did that on purpose. it worked.

For the past eight months Mr. Brown has been dating Monica Ross, 25, a bartender and actress. “She was working as a waitress in a cocktail bar,” said Mr. Brown of the night they met.

this has to have been intentional, right?? also how do you think she feels about her name being two friends characters

this isn't actually the NYT and sort of not appropriate for this thread but i don't know where else it goes?

http://nymag.com/news/business/themoney/jeff-greene-2012-8/

couldn't get past: “I wish we could spend more time here,” he says. “Honestly, we have so many great homes.”

Mo homes you got, the mo agonies you have

Greene calls his loss “a huge mistake on behalf of the people of Florida.”

“I wasn’t as crazy as I was perceived to be,” he says in his defense.

hahah

Etc. etc.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/14/education/a-hamptons-summer-surfing-horses-and-hours-of-sat-prep.html

haha the url alone has so much Q&A crammed into it

not the new york times but its a slow news week and this is sooooooooooooo courtney:

http://newyork.grubstreet.com/2012/05/courtney-love-new-york-diet-includes-babbo-brooklyn-fare.html

like, let them eat cake x infinity.

"Then someone always gets chicken potpie and potato salad from D.D., you know, Dean & Deluca. If I can't afford D.D., I just don't eat."

so many quotable lines though. would end up just cutting & pasting the whole damn thing.

literally lots of cake. awesome,

'Sometimes I forget to eat'

'Me and André were going to open a salt store.'

i want her and all the people she talks about in her stupid thing to xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

haven't actually read this

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/18/act-like-a-writer/

love molly but i couldn't read that whole thing.

I think there is a natural curiosity that many people have when they hear about an actor writing fiction.
lol

That post is like the main character's flashback monologues in Airplane -- I'd wind up hanging myself before it was over.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzItX3UmduQ

ethan hawke seems even more like his character in reality bites than his character in reality bites does

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/23/garden/if-summer-goes-why-wont-the-guests.html

is crashing with strangers with air-conditioned suburban homes a "thing" in New York?

slash do New Jersey homeowners frequently allow strangers to wander in and sleep there for no reason?

"crazy person takes advantage of feeble-minded riches" is so far from a trend that I don't know what to think about what's going on here

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/08/why-arent-twentysomethings-buying-cars-or-houses/261490/
motherfuckers

'tell us your story' how bout you fuckin pay me for it you cheapass motherfuckers

On Sunday, Ms. Schwab drives the guest to the train station.

“As she’s getting out she says to me, ‘Oh, yeah, I didn’t have time to get to the cash machine, so I went to your purse and took some cash,’ ” Ms. Schwab says. “It was basically everything I had taken out of the A.T.M. the night before, $100.”

WHO DOES THIS NOBODY DOES THIS EXCEPT SCAM ARTISTS AND CRIMINALS WTF

I kind of like the beginning of that guest article, it's like they present it as though it's going to be a quiddity thing but instead it is a nightmare

True, you could snatch one of the soggy towels left on the newly finished floors of the guest bedroom, hold it firmly over the guest’s mouth and nose, and bring your misery to an end, but the courts frown on such behavior and you’d have the problem of getting rid of the body.

Houseguests can be a real pain! For example, some are sociopaths!

yeah but why do you let them into yr house in the first place?

Because they're friends of friends IE presumed members of the ruling class. Possibly holding a copy of the New York Times in their convulsively clutching hands.

If you show up at any house in the Hamptons with a print copy of your wedding announcement from the NYT they are required by law to let you stay in the guest room for one week.

Can't keep up with all threads. Is there a UK quiddities? Has this been linked yet?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2085486/As-family-led-life-privilege-face-5m-debt-said-upper-crust-recession-proof.html

that cleveland clinic ad on the ipad version is going to drive me away

all i ask is for my newspaper to sit the fuck still

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/26/fashion/maude-apatow-is-growing-up-writing.html

“The story behind that tweet is that, at my school, there’s a lot of Jewish kids,” said Maude (her father is Jewish, her mother is not). “Last year, I probably went to 40 bar-bat mitzvahs. They started in mid-sixth grade, and they kept going into eighth grade. And I remember, at one of the last ones, I was like, I don’t want to go to this. I’m going to get into a fistfight. I was so sick of them.” When Maude expressed the thought aloud, she said that her father told her, “Tweet that, that’s funny.”

how is that worse than long chestnut-colored hair, a pale delicate frame and a face that is at once cherubic and knowing?

also how can your frame, i.e. skeleton, be pale? that's just bad writing

It all reads slightly paedoish bleugh.

I can't imagine any reasons why tens of thousands of people would follow the tweets of the adolescent daughter of a hollywood powerhouse other than that they're really witty and original

every skeleton i've ever seen is quite pale

yes but how could the writer be sure though

writer is superman

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/09/09/realestate/09cover-graphic.html

JFC trinity college students spending $2000 each on an apartment? They're in for a rude awakening when the student loan man comes knocking.

kind donations from their parents

http://i.imgur.com/iflV0.png

they should rename manhattan parentsmoneyville

dayo otm

FINALLY

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/13/booming/13intro.html?hp

Welcome to Your Living Room, Boomers
By MICHAEL WINERIP 8:19 AM ET
A new destination for news, entertainment and commentary about baby boomers and the way they live.

Related

Boomers vs. Millennials — Who’s Really Getting Robbed?
By MICHAEL WINERIP
The millennials whose future I’m robbing are my four children, and it’s costing me a fortune to do it

- Music Match: If You Like Crosby, Stills and Nash
- One Year Older: Baby Boomers Who Celebrate Birthdays This Week
- A Quiet Drink: Mellow Drinks in a Surprising Neighborhood

winerip, cokesnort, grassdig

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/17/nyregion/unscenic-walking-tour-goes-from-lower-manhattan-to-jfk.html?_r=1&ref=nyregion&gwh=

An Unscenic Urban Walk: From Lower Manhattan to Kennedy Airport

Mr. Maskin, an official city tour guide, felt compelled to live up to his billing. He explained the transformation of the Bowery (“Have you heard of CBGB?”) and the marvel of Brooklyn bodegas (“They’re these very small grocery stores”).

Great parentheticals Batman

as usual, there's like three threads where this could go: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/25/nyregion/the-farm-life-draws-some-students-for-post-graduate-work.html

eh, i'd do that

oh shit I was just applying to farms to work this winter

now I'm going to have a bunch of nyt readin' grad students to contend with

“You don’t get into farming for the money,” he said. “You do it for the love of the game.”

I hope he's embarrassed by this quote.

And yet another generation of college graduates is drawn into farming, 95% of which will be out of it within five years.

I made up that stat, but it's accurate.

Sure but that's true for the Peace Corp or whatever too.

"now I'm going to have a bunch of nyt readin' grad students to contend with"

haha, ivy league dudes sitting outside the barn with their briefcases.

cheaper than a two year vision quest through europe after college or whatever.

Mr. Krauss-Malett said he became interested in farming after working in a restaurant and seeing how much food was wasted. Mr. Bobman had the same realization working in the produce section at a grocery store before college.

'people waste so much food! i think i'd like to grow that food that they waste!'

Sure, and I had a number of college friends who did this (state school, btw, not expensive private quid u.). The ones that survived were the ones who actually came from my U's ag school and were very serious and knowledgeable about agriculture, although even some of those left the field, as it were.

what's your field? that one over yonder!

i think its great because it means these people are too tired at night to start indie rock bands.

oh i think they have their hootenannies

they do tend to take up ukelele

I had a bunch of ag school housemates, in fact. Some of them took a course called "Meats" in which there was a lesson on "Hog Killin'". I didn't even realize at the time how proto-Brooklyn all of this was.

the only thing that gets between a man and his washboard is his spoon

Alternately, the only thing that gets between a man and his Spoon is his washboard.

leave it to the quid ag thread to get me to continuously watch youtubes of people playing washboards

tumblr

http://images.canadianlisted.com/nlarge/antique-t-eaton-monarch-hand-crank-wringer-washing-machine_4732761.jpg

i did work on a farm once, for two days or so. it kind of sucked.

^ history of human civilization in one sentence

Yeah, picking veggies for a couple hours is nice. Cleaning caked sheep manure off the bottom of a pen for a couple of hours is not. And doing these and many other things from sunup to sundown every day is most definitely not.

but, it always looks so picturesque from a distance!

http://www.maggiore.net/greenacres/images/ztheme7.jpg

I aint gonna work on maggies farm no more

I like the idea that there are an increasing number of farms, I get sad when I hear old farmers talking about how they have no-one to give their farms to when they die etc.

But at the same time unless you're a dedicated aggie and not just a hippy who hates seeing beet tops in the trash, the burnout rate has gotta be pretty high over a 5 yr span, surely. I mean, those are looooong days. And it's constant work, it's not like once everything's planted you can kick back and watch the money roll in.

well that's why we give those jobs to illegal immigrants

I grew up on a farm and spent a lot of my teenage summers working on farms. It is hard and repetitive work and I can't imagine that most of the people doing this have much of an idea of what they're getting into. Aspiring to work on a farm seems almost akin to aspiring to be a factory worker to me.

that too

I was watching a Bourdain No Reservations where he was hanging out on some farm and said to the farmer about why he does it, and that there has to be some element of romanticism, surely

and I was like WTF, only ppl who don't grow up around farms say shit like that

well the smell of cow urine definitely affects your thought processes but romanticism, loooooool gtfo

what did the farmer say back to him?

I can't remember but there was definitely an edit where they took out the long pause of confused silence. it was an old Australian farmer, which made it funnier to me

I grew up on farms and worked in hog/turkey/chicken houses. Not fun. Not for a second.

Yeah I was a town kid but all my friends were farm kids, so whenever I slept over at a friends house the parents would be all 'great, extra pair of hands', lol

"i love the smell of cow shit in the morning"

This used to be called "back to the land," and most of it didn't last. I hung out on a farm of a sort of "last man standing" of that generation in New Hampshire, and he was pretty cool but kind of grizzled from the whole experience. He also had to do a mix of vegetable farming, maple syrup farming and occasional lumber selling to make ends meet. And one of his two kids was pretty non-keen on the lifestyle and had posters of pop icons all over her bedroom and envied the suburban kids at her regional school.

I guess maybe now there's potentially more money in the kind of boutique, high-end farming? Although I don't know if that's even true, and it's probably a tough business to establish oneself in.

artisanal vegetables

It may have changed but my impression is that unless you live in a cool area where you can sell your goods directly or to people who will pay a decent amount for what you're growing/raising, so much of farming is selling to larger corporations because they're the only ones who buy, and they are pretty much out to keep you poor. The only rich farmers I knew growing up were the ones who came from money and never actually worked their own farms.

oh, you mean heirloom vegetables xp

artisanal = avoiding the crude and artless things that farmers do to actually make ends meet = how to makes a small fortune is start with a large one.

no he means handcrafted tomatoes

i find it weird that vanity farming hasn't been turned into a turnkey operation with an army of roomba robots doing your bidding.

haybaling app

there are lots of small boutique-y farms that sell directly to fancy restaurants or fancy wholesalers and who make good money doing it. and a lot of them are run by old educated ex-hippies. the guys who went back to the land and decided not to leave the land and go to law school.

the guys who get laughed at by regular farmers but who make good money selling fancy potatoes to french restaurants. i thought it was funny that lorrie moore wrote about one of these guys in her last novel cuz i knew people like that when i lived and worked in philly. philosophy-major old dudes who had the most killer onions you've ever seen in your life.

It may have changed but my impression is that unless you live in a cool area where you can sell your goods directly or to people who will pay a decent amount for what you're growing/raising, so much of farming is selling to larger corporations because they're the only ones who buy, and they are pretty much out to keep you poor. The only rich farmers I knew growing up were the ones who came from money and never actually worked their own farms.

I read an article once that detailed how farmers get fucked in this system, particularly in dealing with Wal-Mart, who'll just refuse to pay for a shipment if they leave it sitting and anything goes bad.

after a semi-dumb facebook argument, I realized that the article is kind of conflating three things (1) people who just wanna do a farm internship after college for an "experience, (2) romantic types who think they can be farmers, and (3) people who actually go to agricultural colleges to study farming (I'm guessing that's what the colorado state tractor guy is). People in category 1 don't intend to be serious about it in most cases, people in category 2 do and mostly fail (but occasionally succeed), and people in category 3 are mostly serious about it and are much more likely to succeed.

I'm rooting for category 3. go Aggies!

I'm starting 'farm for america'

let me guess - no tractors though

:)

Solar powered tractors! (cue Jackson Browne)

More 'Booming' LOLs but

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/25/booming/25match-booming.html

http://theamericanscholar.org/numbers-game/

think he just touched the third rail there

man let me at the posts from that weekly blog

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/30/realestate/how-do-you-get-a-key-to-gramercy-park.html?hp

had no idea there was an entire series

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/features/timestopics/series/booming/index.html

ugh, old people

Reading through the list of articles reminds me of an email my wife got from my mom yesterday. Apparently my mom was reading reviews of some random book on Amazon and came across a review written by someone in Austin (where I live), so she wanted to know if my wife wrote the review or if not, did we happen to know the person who did.

So anyway, that's what boomers are like.

I once met a person from Austin, where you live. She was very quick to jump to conclusions and made broad generalizations about the world and other people, mostly based on little or no experience.

So anyway, that's what Austin residents are like.

well, now I been told

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/10/dining/reviews/restaurant-review-yunnan-kitchen-on-the-lower-east-side.html

ATMOSPHERE Contemporary, with Chinoiserie limited to framed jewelry and a carpet showing a tiger standing on its head.

thank GOD the chinoiserie is limited!

thank god I can eat ethnic food at a restaurant not owned by immigrants

opening line is so perfect for this thread

SOME dream of the redistribution of wealth. For eaters in search of fresh adventures, a more pressing agenda might be the redistribution of excellent ingredients.

Actually I think the way he meant it was less quiddy than I thought, nm.

'How dare you show that in public. Keep it hidden away.' Well, not an exact quote...

i had a feeling that would end up here

“BlackBerry users are like Myspace users,” sneers Craig Robert Smith, a Los Angeles musician. “They probably still chat on AOL Instant Messenger.”

It has been so long since I've used chat I have no idea what people would even use now.

tons of NYC lawyers still have blackberries. they don't seem ashamed.

Ugh, lawyers.

All right, I was trolling, I admit.

I still miss the keyboard. Even as the iPhone autocorrect has gotten much better, I find it humiliating not being able to accurately type the words myself. It's like having prosthetic robot hands or something.

BlackBerry users are like Myspace users

The vanity of small differences.

"sneers"

Ugh, lawyers.

I get my lawyermail right in my iPhone inbox. With iPhone, nobody has to know you're a lawyer!

they are really going hard on this BBC/jimmy savile thing. which of their demos cares about that? is it the ruling class?

i don't think the nyc ruling class knows who he was, so no

cd have something to do with a certain new ceo of ny times named mark thompson?

ah ha

tracer otm

though i'd kinda think they'd soft-pedal it given that thompson himself could be implicated - dunno

theres a big ongoing contract fight btw the newspaper guild and management! its a power play

also: http://publiceditor.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/23/times-must-aggressively-cover-mark-thompsons-role-in-bbcs-troubles/

aha yes

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-31/wall-street-finds-sandy-silver-lining-in-wine-monopoly.html

“I had to go to the wine cellar and find a good bottle of wine and drink it before it goes bad,” Murry Stegelmann, 50, a founder of investment-management firm Kilimanjaro Advisors LLC, wrote in an e-mail after he lost power at 6 p.m. on Oct. 29 in Darien, Connecticut.

The bottle he chose, a 2005 Chateau Margaux, was given 98 points by wine critic Robert Parker and is on sale at the Westchester Wine Warehouse for $999.99.

“Outstanding,” Stegelmann said. He started the day with green tea at Starbucks, talking with neighbors about the New York Yankees’ future and moving boats to the parking lot of Darien’s Middlesex Middle School.

lol @ drinking starbucks green tea before moving on to a premier cru

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/08/fashion/sandy-five-weight-gain-due-to-storm.html

Times Square, with its teeming chain restaurants, suddenly looked as intoxicating as Montparnasse to beleaguered residents of Chelsea and SoHo, so on forays there, they partied with End of Days abandon.

As usual, Divya was a few steps ahead of me. When our doctor suggested we buy a humidifier she said, “Oh, I already have one!”

I really enjoy how the idea of canned of otherwise nonperishable food (dried pasta, grains, etc.) seems completely beyond the comprehension of those interviewed.

A tightening of the waistband hardly counts as a crisis in a region where so many have endured actual devastation. [...] Still...

Preparedness, in some cases, only made things worse. Like a good Girl Scout, Andrea Lavinthal, a 33-year-old editor, loaded up at Whole Foods, thinking that she could be holed up in her Union Square apartment for days as the storm raged. But she did not anticipate a power failure that rendered her refrigerator useless,

wtf? isn't that, like, the main thing you are preparing for in these situations?

I know -- what was she buying, like sushi-quality fish and gourmet pre-marinated meats? Just like loading up at the pasta bar?

quiddities-style, my sister-in-law and her husband hung out at the yale club after the storm. that ivy league education finally came in handy for them. they live on the 12th floor of an apartment building with no power. so they got a hotel room. i didn't even really think about that part of city living. no elevators. that is way too many stairs.

I know -- what was she buying, like sushi-quality fish and gourmet pre-marinated meats? Just like loading up at the pasta bar?

what an idiot, olive bar is obv. the way to go

beef jerky bar way to go.

otm but that would be the death of me

olive bar would have kept real well! if i was trapped with olives and a cheesewheel (and maybe some smoked sausages), the blackout would have been way less horrible and maybe even sort of awesome, tbh.

totally doing that next time.

Add some red wine and I'm in.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/11/fashion/yale-graduates-seek-a-degree-in-hip-hop.html?smid=tw-share

lol @ 'bryan crawford'

But some critics suspect that Rap Genius’s founders are engaged in a sort of perpetual parody of the music they claim to be rhapsodizing. “There’s a consciousness about what they’re doing — we call it ‘slumming,’ ” said Camille Charles, a sociology professor at the University of Pennsylvania who studies race.

I guess this is kind of a side conversation from this thread, but isn't this pretty much a description of what a significant chunk of chart hip-hop inherently is today? Like doesn't someone like Gucci Mane already have perpetual self-parody kind of built in? Who does this prof think most of the audience for hip-hop is today, and aren't the record labels, producers and rappers themselves aware of that by now?

clowning vs. slumming vs. (apols, but it seems appropriate) tomming.

if they dis you they are showing you respect- gtfo nerd

you just respected him

i'm well known in the comments section of bc.com. who are you?

I don't know, this just seems thematically appropriate to this thread: Heritage Hen Mini Farm

hahaha, nobody who has owned chickens for ten seconds is gonna have a yard that green

“I’m driving in my big Lexus coming down here,” Ms. Warren said, betraying her self-consciousness as she stood in a parking lot amid people riffling through donated clothing. I said, ‘Thank God the car is dirty.’ ”

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/17/nyregion/after-hurricane-sandy-helping-hands-also-expose-a-new-york-divide.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/18/magazine/how-to-survive-societal-collapse-in-suburbia.html?ref=magazine

Jimmy Brady, 35, a New York firefighter who lived next door, was prying up carpet alongside the visitors. “If there is any way you want to get accepted to a family or a community, it is to help,” he said. “I’ve heard it from the hardest locals, that these guys are unbelievable. They get out with their little fedoras and they just start helping.”

lol

ha ha i'm reading about survival guy and thinking, "well, this guy is basically doing the mormon preparedness thing, right?" bingo

In seriousness, I kind of wonder how much of that article was just a reporter looking to force an angle. I mean, if most residents of the rockaways really feel insulted by the relief efforts, that would make me sad, and if most of the people coming there to help have a condescending attitude about it, that would also make me sad. But it's hard for me to believe that's the case. I think of it as just a shared responsibility to pitch in. If my neighborhood were destroyed, I'd want and accept help, and when I volunteered, I tried not to be gawky or walk around snapping pictures. I just figured the sheer need for stuff and hands kind of outweighed any class weirdness or whatever. I mean even focusing on that stuff (OMG MY LEXUS!) seems kind of self-centered.

the lactation consultant story was pretty o_O though. I guess the missionary spirit can be found in secular people too.

Posted this in the Israel thread, but it's kind of perfect for here.

https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/542832_10151167341308003_1128272432_n.jpg

Sharon Udasin reports on on environment, energy, scientific innovation and Negev issues. New Jersey born and bred, Sharon moved to Israel in September 2010, after spending two years as a staff writer at The New York Jewish Week in Manhattan. Prior to her position there, she earned a Master's degree in 2008 from the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University, which directly followed her four years as an undergraduate at the University of Pennsylvania.

Eh I don't care to unpack who gets to be offended by what, nor do I think it's useful. Those who have more/are not in need can handle it, the only important thing is that people who are in need get help. It's too bad if volunteering ppl are being patronizing/unhelpful, that's not good for the organization they ostensibly represent, but it's not really the point, either.

Also tbf breastfeeding WOULD be better, safer, and cheaper for those kids (I guess barring unusual circs like the moms having substance issues or something, but that's true in any population). It's a shame.

That's not necessarily true -- if the mothers work long hours at a place where there's no room for pumping, e.g. And tbf, even if you have a "room" at work, it's a pretty big hassle.

We covered this in another thread, I think you were there, I don't want to rehash at length. But I didn't say it wasn't a hassle. I said it would be better for the kids, which is true regardless of whether the mom's schedule or employer or own choices allow it.

oh jesus for a second i thought you guys were blandly equivocating about the israeli pet-disturbance shit and i was about to flag post the entire thread

Uri Honesh @ Sharon Udasin
Children are being murdered in #Gaza and the Jersualem Post is running a story about puppies in Ashdod afraid of sirens. OK.

tbf breastfeeding WOULD be better, safer, and cheaper for those kids

― grossly incorrect register (in orbit), Monday, November 19, 2012 11:19 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

xxp I mean the benefit to infants and the mom's time and her work schedule and her own desire to bf or not are all separate conditions that constrain the final outcome but some of them are independent from each other. It will still be healthier, cheaper, and in conditions with possibly tainted water, bottles, nipples, no sterilization, etc, arguably safer.

fair enough

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/26/business/even-cupid-wants-to-know-your-credit-score.html?_r=0&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1356624513-VijgO+3xPsd6YEpUDdIv0w

i mean

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/26/business/even-cupid-wants-to-know-your-credit-score.html

Lauren Dollard, a 26-year-old assistant at a nonprofit in Houston, said her low credit score had helped to stall her romantic plans. Her boyfriend is wary of marrying her until she can significantly pay down the more than $150,000 she owes in student loans and bolster her credit score, she said.

Feel like in this particular case the credit score per se is not really as much of an issue as dude doesn't want to get married to a lifetime of debt.

nobody actually does this

I think there was another similar article posted on this or the last quiddities thread. I remember commenting that I was glad Jeff and I got serious before I incurred my prodigious law school debt or else I would die alone, or something.

Point being, nobody actually does this but there is small but growing trend of trend pieces about this thing nobody does.

Sarah Klein, who manages myFICO Forums, an online discussion group, likens credit scores to dieting because both affect dating but often are shrouded in secrecy.

...what?

it would be great if at the end of every one of these articles there was just a line 'nobody actually does this'

this made me look up my credit history, which is actually really good I find out

"shrouded in secrecy" = both can be practical characters in your imaginary morality play

My credit score is really good, too, despite my law school debt because I make my loan payments in a timely fashion. Who wants to date me??!?!?! LINE UP, BOYS AND GIRLS!!!!

“Credit scores are like the dating equivalent of a sexually transmitted disease test,”

what? and also no

Hahahah wait, so when is an STI test appropriate then?? Taking out a second mortgage?

Feel like in this particular case the credit score per se is not really as much of an issue as dude doesn't want to get married to a lifetime of debt.

this strikes me more as a striver issue than a ruling class issue

narcissism of small differences

uh not rly

i see what you're saying though. it's either pretend-forgetfulness and shock at credit scores as this new thing that is affecting the dating lives of young people (striver) or pandering to noblesse oblige who need a soft awareness of such things as credit scores in today's economy (ruling). either way it's totally oblivious. xp

how is this different from asking a date how much money they earn? totally rude.

I just meant that it strikes me more as a symptom of financial worry and precariousness to do this admittedly crass and ridiculous thing than of high status.

the ruling class doesn't worry bout credit scores

yeah concern trolling about credit scores is more middle class hypocrisy i guess.

now i'm curious about the correlation between credit score and gross income. it can't be that strong, right?

i am glad the consensus is that nobody actually does this because i was pretty worried about dying alone thanks to that time i skipped town and forgot to return my comcast box.

and of course the crushing college-related debt.

so happy i still have both role models from hollywood video and a shot at a fulfilling and long-lasting partnership.

my college-related debt has crossed the crushing event horizon and now i don't even know what it is.

yeah to be honest it's been so long since i've given serious thought to the size of my college debt. it probably hasn't figured into my day to day worries for about seven or eight years now. and considering i feel like i'm living in a modern-day steinbeck novel most days i figure i've got more pressing concerns than paying back loans for my worthless uncompleted education.

thankfully no one's asked me "so who do you identify more with, jay gatsby or tom joad?" on a date lately.

otm. and they're actually pretty nice about it, which i majorly appreciate, even though when and how and how much and how long it will fuck me is still in play. xp

It is documented on this board somewhere, but a few months I decided that I needed to stop being in denial about my loans and actually look at how much they are and how long it will take me to repay them. So I did, and then I went into the bathroom at work and cried for awhile.

the last time i looked it was in the $25k to $30k range. which isn't TOO terrible. i guess. but i doubt it's gone down much since then. and that was...a while back.

Oh that's cute.

i look at it this way: it's like i bought a cute little starter home, the repayment plan is super flexible, and i never have to live there! xp

it even has a garage

for the car i already sold

to get a sweet credit score for my future love

Eh, I wouldn't scoff at anybody's student loans.

you'd scoff if you knew what i spent that relatively piddling amount on.

No way.

I have almost-a-bachelor's degree, and almost-law-school debt. And I've been single for 11 years. Coincidence?

I know someone who broke it off with a guy she loved over massive debt, and later regretted it.

maybe the dumbest NYT op-ed i have ever seen (and that's saying something):

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/31/opinion/lets-give-up-on-the-constitution.html?ref=opinion&_r=1&

but how could a 21st century democracy operate w/o a magic piece of paper written by gods

That op-ed piece was far from stupid. It's entirely true that when it came to actually governing the USA, the constitution was seen as non-binding by the people who helped write it, not because they didn't respect it as a necessary guide for the conduct of the government, but because circumstances kept forcing them to either supercede it or else ignore the urgent needs of the country.

That the author of the piece concludes that we should ignore it is a questionable conclusion, but only because the odds are we'd get through the present 'crisis' okay if the needs of the moment were given precedence over the weird kludges we all must live under, but we'd live to regret it later as those in power became more and more arbitrary.

I am more in favor of fixing things under at least a fig leaf of constitutional justification. The most obvious one would be changing the internal rules of the Senate, which are entirely outside the constitution and totally under the control of each new session.

arguing that we should ignore the law whenever it suits us is stupid. it has nothing to do with any strawman arguments about our 'perfect' framers, et al.

funny how fast the constitution went from being a precious thing that we must all cherish and uphold when a republican pres was enthusiastically shredding it to a lame outdated unworkable product of white male elitists (who owned slaves, remember) now that a democratic pres is enthusiastically shredding it.

I for one have never cherished the constitution

good for you

i use it to wipe up my dog's leavings.

I print out a copy every morning and then burn it

it is the worst document in human history

you forgot 'just a goddamned piece of paper.'

i'm sure there'll be a const-conv p soon. we can't even raise taxes on richies.

if only there were other countries that had human rights w/o this one magical piece of paper but alas we are the country w/ human rights, and it's all thanks to our magical piece of paper. we really do have the best magical piece of paper, even though it mostly just constrains our government in stupid ways and ensures a horribly nonrepresentative voting system. why don't other countries model their magical piece of paper on our magical piece of paper? it is a mystery.

what is it with you and pieces of paper lately

it is time to embrace the digital age

i don't always shoot paper, but when i do it's the constitution

I agree with iatee to an extent. Right-wingers are not entirely wrong when they argue that judges distort the constitution (in order to give us rights that almost anyone today would agree should never be infringed -- the right to have children, to marry someone of another ethnicity, etc.). They have to do so, because the constitution is not so hot.

the left doesnt have much to gain from romanticizing rules written during a period of v. limited government. constitution should be treated like a vestigial organ not 'the source of our liberties' etc.

god is the source of our liberties

usa has daddy issues

the Soviet Constitution also "guaranteed" Soviet citizens lots of wonderful civil rights and liberties. just sayin'.

yeah what kind of fool would 'romanticize rules' like freedom of speech, assembly, et al.

http://yatf.org/images/EagleCrying.GIF

http://youtu.be/saCtEfDetCw

The sons of a noted former NYT writer profiled in the NYT. Yes of course.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/06/fashion/nathaniel-and-simon-the-brothers-rich.html

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-txO_g8rU5X0/T87AtwV6FTI/AAAAAAAAAlk/OppdqukN96M/s640/Gladiator.gif

Joaquin should just go around doing that in real life.

Aspiring writers from Peoria might roll their eyes, of course.

Oh, maybe more than just that group are rolling their eyes.

That may explain why “dates” among 20-somethings resemble college hookups, only without the dorms. Lindsay, a 25-year-old online marketing manager in Manhattan, recalled a recent non-date that had all the elegance of a keg stand (her last name is not used here to avoid professional embarrassment).

After an evening when she exchanged flirtatious glances with a bouncer at a Williamsburg nightclub, the bouncer invited her and her friends back to his apartment for whiskey and boxed macaroni and cheese. When she agreed, he gamely hoisted her over his shoulders, and, she recalled, “carried me home, my girlfriends and his bros in tow, where we danced around a tiny apartment to some MGMT and Ratatat remixes.”

She spent the night at the apartment, which kicked off a cycle of weekly hookups, invariably preceded by a Thursday night text message from him saying, ‘hey babe, what are you up to this weekend?” (It petered out after four months.)

the end of courtship?

whiskey and boxed macaroni and cheese

People who know how to live . . .

I'll bet if you poured whiskey on some mac and cheese powder you could start a really, really big fire with it

"said Anna Goldfarb, 34, an author and blogger in Moorestown, N.J. "

"A fancy dinner? You’re lucky to get a drink."

“Maybe there’s still a sense of a man taking care of a woman, but our ideology is aligning with the reality of our finances,” Ms. Rosin said. As a man, you might “convince yourself that dating is passé, a relic of a paternalistic era, because you can’t afford to take a woman to a restaurant.”

Not sure any of this is quid ag territory. But it's terrible/great nonetheless.

“At 10 p.m., I hadn’t heard from him,” said Ms. Silver, 30, who wore her favorite skinny black jeans.

xpost yeah i knew this thread wasn't perfect for it but wasn't sure where else to post it.

I think perhaps a "millennial culture alert" thread is in order?

I don't know. The part ZS quoted looks about like my GenX, 20s in the 90s hookup/dating life, just with different bands.

hannah rosin never not trolling men

didn't really know where to put this so I'm putting it here

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/13/nyregion/new-generation-confronts-unaffordable-luxury-of-food.html

“I don’t think about what anything costs,” Emily Gerard, a recent graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and a publishing assistant making the requisite salary, told me recently.

Spoken like someone who doesn't pay her own bills ime.

But what solace can it offer to realize that $300 a week put into an S. & P. 500 Index fund over the past five years would have provided an annual rate of return of 10.34 percent and grown to $100,354 today?

hahaha the girl in the article is 23, if only she had started saving $300/week when she was a college freshman and hadn't spent any money on food in the last 5 years she'd have enough for a downpayment on an apartment she couldn't afford.

New Yorkers in their early 20s spend almost all their money on rent and going out, shocking new trend.

kids be eating!

But what solace can it offer to realize that $300 a week put into an S. & P. 500 Index fund over the past five years would have provided an annual rate of return of 10.34 percent and grown to $100,354 today?

hahaha the girl in the article is 23, if only she had started saving $300/week when she was a college freshman and hadn't spent any money on food in the last 5 years she'd have enough for a downpayment on an apartment she couldn't afford.

New Yorkers in their early 20s spend almost all their money on rent and going out, shocking new trend.

― Sadly, 99.99 percent of sheeple will never wake up (I DIED), Monday, January 14, 2013 9:48 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I agree this is a poor example, but it's still pretty dumb to live like these people do in your 20s and not save any money.

it's pretty dumb to do a lot of things

And I don't think it's true that most people in their 20s in the city always spent most of their money on rent and going out -- certainly not the going out part.

I mean, we are talking about this:

Typically, she told me, she spends about $250 a week eating in good restaurants, which amounts to about $13,000 annually, and this does not include the additional $50 to $100 a week she spends on cooking classes, wine tastings and cheese pairings. Because about half of her salary is given over to food, she works an additional 10 to 15 hours a week tutoring and baby-sitting to supplement it.

What is she supposed to do, not eat?

I would guess the average white 20 something in nyc probably spends more money on food and less money on drugs than his/her equivalent in 1980 but america's foodie-addiction problem is probably not going to destroy a generation because it is mostly imaginary

http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2013/01/14/the-invidious-reach-of-personal-finance-snake-oil/

Yes, I can't imagine why she hasn't been investing 15,000 dollars a year.

yeah if anybody can tell me how to earn 6% on my money please tell me!!!

it doesn't really make sense to save anyway since the economies gonna implode in 10 years. your 15,000 invested at 6% that grows to $20,000 in 5 years is gonna be real useful when hyperinflation sets in and northeast america is sold to JP Morgan and a big mac costs $1500 morgan-loonies

yeah if anybody can tell me how to earn 6% on my money please tell me!!!

put all your money on a short for this stock: 'NYT'

I don't really think poor investment returns are a good justification for spending $1200 a month EXTRA on food (i.e. on top of what it actually costs to feed yourself, presumably well based on this girl's standards) while living on an editorial assistant's salary. I mean forget the starter condo, how about just putting some money aside for emergencies?

do we know she doesnt have any money set aside for emergencies?

A 23-yo production asst at MTV makes 30K after taxes?? I'm in the wrong industry.

that does seem high

I thought MTV's m.o. was to hire people right out of school, pay them nada, and they move on after a year or two

PAs can make a lot in overtime but no benefits

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/13/fashion/the-end-of-courtship.html
“The word ‘date’ should almost be stricken from the dictionary,” Ms. Silver said. “Dating culture has evolved to a cycle of text messages, each one requiring the code-breaking skills of a cold war spy to interpret. It’s one step below a date, and one step above a high-five,” she added. Dinner at a romantic new bistro? Forget it. Women in their 20s these days are lucky to get a last-minute text to tag along. Raised in the age of so-called “hookup culture,” millennials — who are reaching an age where they are starting to think about settling down — are subverting the rules of courtship.
http://www.lordheath.com/web_images/margaret_dumont___the_dancing_masters.jpg

OTM

http://thebillfold.com/2013/01/setting-the-record-straight-yaffa-fredrick-on-the-nyt-column-about-her-restaurant-spending/

man, what a dick the new york times was being

but maybe, possibly

haha man reading that response at the bottom I just feel all "you're just a writer for the nyt, you're not my real mom!"

She has less student loan debt and puts more in her 401k than I do. God speed, lady.

I should say a higher percentage into her 401k.

iirc author has been full of crap fairly regularly, like this was the first nyt occupy article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/25/nyregion/protesters-are-gunning-for-wall-street-with-faulty-aim.html

And yet the middle class stubbornly hangs on, trading economic pain for the emotional gain of hot restaurants, the High Line and the feeling of being in the center of everything.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/20/realestate/what-is-middle-class-in-manhattan.html

the first picture = stubbornly hanging on in gorgeous subsidized apartment. fuck you nyt.

In any case, it's bizarre spin to say that the middle class "stubbornly hangs on" when in fact the middle class has been dwindling for decades as people flee for brooklyn, queens, the suburbs, etc. Most of the non-rich left who don't live in subsidized housing are probably young singles with roommates.

Upper edge of middle class, horrifying. oh geez. Is lower upper class the minimum for a non-horrifying life?

I saved a little money in my 20s by not knowing anyone to hang out with and living in a crappy smalltown, and it turns out that a few years of keeping a little off a crappy smalltown wage each month don't buy you a whole lot in the 30-something world of houses and can-I-afford-kids and how-come-my-friends-go-skiing, so I say go out and eat all the fancy pork bellies of New York City while you're young, I wish I had

one male friend recently told her: "I don't like to take girls out. I like to have them join in on what I'm doing — going to an event, a concert."

thought for a moment this might actually lead to the radical thing of guys going out with women with shared interests and maybe that would be a GOOD thing for actually seeing them as humans with thoughts, but no, I guess it is another chance for the man to curate his experience portfolio while the woman is expected to go "you are so cultured, I would not have thought of any ways to spend my time without joining in on yours!" and be the great plains hunter's trophy until something with a prettier skull comes over the horizon

hi I'm bitter. let me weep w/ Hanna Rosin for the downtrodden 20something males, some of whom may now have to wait until age 30 to have the decisive upper hand in all their relationships for the rest of their lives

(am i trolling? i'm having a bad weekend)

Is lower upper class the minimum for a non-horrifying life?

Once you've taken care of the bare necessities of food, shelter and warmth, a non-horrifying life has much more to do with how you spend your time than how much money you spend.

aps, that is a booming post that I very much enjoyed reading.

Booming indeed. Quite OTM.

Oh the agonies they must suffer

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/27/realestate/being-related-to-the-family-firm.html

man I am not the scion of anything

Real estate salesperson???? Was real estate agent too gauche?

Also as the child of a real estate salesperson who is not an heir with vast lifestyle options and who lost a whole lot of money in the latter half of the '00s, I would like to personally strangle everybody involved in this article.

http://observer.com/2013/01/when-your-townhouse-is-actually-too-big/

Not sure where else to put this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ketrhWr58wA

class class

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/18/opinion/sunday/the-quiet-ones.html

didn't everyone in masada kill themselves rather than surrender? that's one grim-ass train car.

And yes, I said “devotee.”

dear reader, she bit him.

Today, online, NYT front page:

Article title: "In Kansas City, Learning the Butcher’s Art"

Below that, the summary:

Rather than attracting hipsters in search of one-off adventure, a class in butchering caters to people interested in actually applying the lessons in life.

I'm not even sure what to say anymore...

class takes novel approach of appealing to people actually interested in learning the subject being taught

small but growing number of people outside of New York City sincerely pursuing their interests

^fake trend

Also in today's NYTimes:

In Nashville, One Order of Bluegrass Please, Hold the Kitsch
Mexican-Born Los Angeles Man Finds New Career: Selling Tacos to Other Mexican People
Alabama Man Eats Bacon Every Morning "Because It Tastes Good"

Kitchen Cabinetry a Lucrative Niche for Carpenter Who Actually Trained As Carpenter

An Affordable, Not Particularly Attractive Axe With a Purpose: Chopping Wood

hahahah

Amtrak "Quiet Car" article is full of gems, especially:

People practice rap lyrics on the bus or the subway, barking doggerel along with their iPods as though they were alone in the shower. Respecting shared public space is becoming as quaintly archaic as tipping your hat to a lady, now that the concept of public space is as nearly extinct as hats, and ladies.

The gutter, I tell you! The gutter!

http://www.businessinsider.com/american-airlines-international-economy-class-2013-1?op=1

"hats, and ladies"

business insider piece is sorta like 'what would the "I was otherwise very normal before I became 4 years old" guy be like if he were a millionaire?'

rip hats, rip ladies

barking doggerel

As we approached our destination a professorial-looking man who’d spoken to them twice got up, walked back and stood over them. He turned out to be quite tall. He told them that they’d been extremely inconsiderate, and he’d had a much harder time getting his work done because of them.

“Sir,” the girl said, “I really don’t think we were bothering anyone else.”

“No,” I said, “you were really annoying.”

“Yes,” said the woman behind them.

“See,” the man explained gently, “this is how it works. I’m the one person who says something. But for everyone like me, there’s a whole car full of people who feel the same way.”

i love this fantasy

then the couple who had been talking realized the error of their ways and became law professors

society needs more quite tall men

xxp Oh me too, that shit is better than any other, more illicit kind of fantasy. I'm working seriously on turning from that kind of person to one who is entertained by human variety/expression in public and let me say it is HARD FUCKING WORK.

Although the woman yelling this morning about how we were all bound for hell and God would judge us on not having taken her advice and the opportunity to get saved had a strangely compelling delivery style.

"barking doggerel" has been a phrase that's haunted me ever since I read it

is that the official NYT term for rapping?

i love eavesdropping on other peoples weird conversations on the streetcar

often times theyre not even that weird, just poorly expressed or disjointed so they are easier to spin into something weirder than they actually are, also if the book you're reading is any good its p easy to tune most of the ambient noise of public transit out and kinda just focus on that although im not doing anything as creative as calling all modern woman sluts in the times or w/e so

Once on the C train a man was drumming loudly on the shared bench seat (and they're hollow so basically big drums) and I asked him to stop, clumsily because I was nervous to say anything, so I stupidly said something about how everyone would probably appreciate it if he stopped and he was like, you bitch, if you want me to stop have the guts to say so. Man, those were a rough few years on the C.

C train is a bad scene, no joke.

people who make noise / make a scene on the subway are just attempting to get reactions, so reacting never really solves the problem

C train is less rough these days, or maybe I just notice less or get targeted less than when I was so wide-eyed. Still happens, though.

this is why god made ipods

I share the last car of the A train with the same amateur preacher a few times a week. suuucks. everyone just tries to look away.
C train rules. you can look out the front window!

Truth! That's the good part.

I share the last car of the A train with the same amateur preacher a few times a week

is it the (african?) guy who exhorts you to love jesus christ 'with OLLL of your mind and OLLL of your body and OLLL of your spirit' or else 'you WILL. go. to hell'?

because that guy is awesome

The woman this morning helpfully described hell as being like Trinidad or Jamaica or Europe--places you've never been but that doesn't mean they don't exist. It's a big world full of islands and places; have you been to ALL of them? Of course not; likewise you shouldn't doubt the existence of hell any more than those places in the world.

makes u think

the existence of hell is what i'm counting on at this point.

If it's like Europe I'm pretty much unconcerned at this point.

Is there a dedicated NYC subway thread btw? I always want to post about the current round of terrible, inescapable movie posters or w/e but don't know where it would be on-topic.

i could totally get behind that thread

Subways are for sleeping: NYC Transit survival thread

Holla

I think there is another thread for ads even

i love eavesdropping on other peoples weird conversations on the streetcar

― future crimes (Lamp), Tuesday, January 29, 2013 12:47 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

weird streetcar

ok this is pretty good http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/shouts/2013/02/hacked-new-york-times-articles.html

bwaahahahaha

When Chris Finch gave up his six-figure job as a commercial-real-estate broker in Manhattan, feeling an inchoate itch for “something real, where I could get dirt under my fingernails,” he never thought it would lead to a brick-walled workshop on a grimy industrial street, hard by the Brooklyn side of the bridge. That’s where the twenty-eight-year-old now spends his days, and many of his nights, turning out the artisanal syrups and bitters that bartenders from Greenpoint to Harlem say have become essential tools of their trade. The rise of Mojo Mixological—named after Finch’s eleven-year-old Labrador—is just the latest “success” story in a borough that is rapidly losing its essence as it continues to ignore the lessons of the Stalinist two-stage theory of revolution. “The thing is, I’m rotting from within,” Finch said recently, with a haunted look in his eyes, as he paused for a smoke break on the workshop’s bare concrete patio.

Not sure how accurate these are as a sendup of present-day Chinese communist sloganeering, but the detournement of Q&A is always good for a chuckle.

I'm fond of this:

Mr. Wynn, thirty-two, is a hegemonist.

and the doorman, a worker

Not NYT, just a quid/ag of the ruling class: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324445904578284090209676324.html

1,300-square-foot his-and-hers closets for husband-and-wife clients

hahaha what is this even about

Ms. Charlton of Clos-ette says a new feature she's including in recent designs is a "virtual styling tool" consisting of computer screens and iPads set up in the closet so people can work remotely with a stylist who has a visual inventory of their clothes to scroll through.

LOL

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m7y4w5rKQQ1qczd7uo1_500.png

hahaha

clueless so ahead of its time

Small, but relevant:

Brooklyn Mom Kindly Looks To Listserv For Gluten-Free, Dairy-Free, Possibly Sugar-Free Personal Chef For Her 4-Year-Old

RIP childhood.

how is everyone coping in the post-url-shortening trick era

Just do the same trick but hit yr browser's stop button after the article content has loaded but before the popup appears.

does this bookmarklet still work? http://euri.ca/2011/03/21/get-around-new-york-times-20-article-limit/

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/12/nyregion/paying-top-dollar-for-condos-and-leaving-them-empty.html?hpw&_r=0

Have almost certainly seen this exact story done by the Times before, but this one is worth it for perfectly crafted one-sentence paragraphs, like:

“For the record,” she said, after stepping off an elevator shared with a man in a suit and a woman with an enthusiastic bichon frisé, “I have never seen those people before.”

and

Our next-door neighbors were absolutely lovely, and we saw them maybe once a year,” said a former resident at 25 Columbus Circle, the south tower of the Time Warner Center, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “Most people don’t actually live there.”

my bookmarklet (don't remember where i got it) seems to have stopped working. not sure if the issue is it's no longer deleting the right cookies, or that deleting cookies is no longer enough. developing...

does INCOGNITO MODE still work??

afaik the bookmarklets work by just getting hiding the pop-up, not by deleting cookies?

presumably incognito mode and deleting cookies should both still work

There's a crime novel in that Times story.

THE MAN WHO WASN'T AROUND MUCH

who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The dream is over:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/17/fashion/creating-hipsturbia-in-the-suburbs-of-new-york.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&hp

bum bum BE dum, dum dum de dum dum

"Even a two-bedroom duplex in Carroll Gardens with a garden for the little ones can run $5,500 a month."

cool borough

http://travel.nytimes.com/2013/02/17/travel/rio-with-eyes-open.html?pagewanted=1&hpw&_r=0

"Brooklyn is turning out to be the last three days of Burning Man.”

"As a server at Marlow & Sons, the nose-to-tail temple in Williamsburg, Ms. Ghiorse said she loved being surrounded by “that unbelievably saturated population” of creative influencers, like James Murphy from LCD Soundsystem."

this article is a goldmine.

“Once in a while, you’ll think, ‘This place gets it,’ because they have a Fernet Branca cocktail on their menu.”

i want to marry this quote.

"in a Wittgensteinian sort of way"

ok this article is trolling us. or these people are. this can't be real.

“I saw some moms out in Hastings with their kids with tattoos. A little glimmer of Williamsburg!”

even the kids have tattoos now

what is a "futurism consultant"?

what is the "slow-learning movement"? is this what hipster moms are calling persons with mental disabilities now?

its all too perfect. it smells like a set-up.

http://www.fastcompany.com/1830306/ari-wallachs-career-solution-become-real-life-problem-solver

this isn't the first time he's been in the nytimes either: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/21/business/for-their-children-many-e-book-readers-insist-on-paper.html/

he's like a go-to made up trend artist.

if the WSJ's funny pages are its Opinion section; then the NYT's funny pages are its Style section.

there is no other rational explanation that i can think of!

is reading to your child via kindle/ipad really a thing? i dont think reading to kids out of a book is that rare of a thing, even in the most upperclass families

i'm still in awe of the hipsturbia article, but i can't be shocked at this point w/ nyt's obsession over the eternal battle of one type of rich people v. another type of rich people. i suddenly feel dirty i ever lived in williamsburg in the first place.

i'm still in awe of the hipsturbia article, but i can't be shocked at this point w/ nyt's obsession over the eternal battle of one type of rich people v. another type of rich people.

they know their target audiences! and that they're oblivious to parody (to wit: shameless).

He needed more convincing. “Nicole brought me up here kicking and screaming,” Mr. McNeil recalled. But he was won over once he saw a rambling three-story, five-bedroom Victorian with a wraparound porch for $860,000. There was even space for a basement rec room. And it was only a 40-minute drive to his Brooklyn studio.

classic

is reading to your child via kindle/ipad really a thing? i dont think reading to kids out of a book is that rare of a thing, even in the most upperclass families

― chilli, Saturday, February 16, 2013 5:34 PM (44 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

of course it's a thing! people have ipads and kindles, and they buy books on them and then read those books to their kids, they are things from which you can read a book, just that it's upperclass families that tend to have them. so sure, some well-off ppl read books, and keep the ipad in the whatever ipad holder, but most ppl are reading from books as a matter of course. what's weird is that the nyfnt is touting not-reading-actual-physical-books as some kind of looming threat to childhood development, when the greater danger is not being read to in the first place

“Somehow, I think it’s different,” she said. “When you read a book, a proper kid’s book, it engages all the senses. It’s teaching them to turn the page properly. You get the smell of paper, the touch.”

i wish proust had never lived

i think there is maybe room for some anxiety about exposure to mediated screen images from very early ages but as a parent i've pretty much given up and all my digital devices can now read to my daughter.

He needed more convincing. “Nicole brought me up here kicking and screaming,” Mr. McNeil recalled. But he was won over once he saw a rambling three-story, five-bedroom Victorian with a wraparound porch for $860,000. There was even space for a basement rec room. And it was only a 40-minute drive to his Brooklyn studio.

classic

― christmas candy bar (al leong), Saturday, February 16, 2013 7:31 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Wow, only $860,000. Thank god there's still a place in the area low-income creative professionals can afford.

if yuppies are going to drop $860K on a home, better it should be a Victorian than the usual cookie-cutter condos.

but that's me being a snob talking.

What is a "futurism consultant?"

http://www.weirdwildrealm.com/filmimages/plan9criswell.jpg

And it was only a 40-minute drive to his Brooklyn studio.

Sentence custom designed to give iatee a stroke.

http://www.faithpopcorn.com/

suburbs are the new cities! jerkin!

I called this one like six months ago after meeting some williamsburg artist couple who moved to peekskill

“Somehow, I think it’s different,” she said. “When you read a book, a proper kid’s book, it engages all the senses. It’s teaching them to turn the page properly. You get the smell of paper, the touch.”

It's insufferable crap like this that makes me wish I liked reading on the Kindle and the iPad more than I do.

idk I don't think it's that particularly outlandish an opinion, esp as it pertains to childrens books (of which we've got, jeez, 50-60 and they're all different shapes, sizes, and have a wide variety of tactile qualities.)

would you mind smelling them for us, you know, to confirm some of these claims empirically

if you'd like I'll send you a sample of my newest artisanal scented candle, I call it "book"

Books that smell usually smell of dust or mildew.

militant luddite sentiments (e.g., "Kindle deprives us of the crumbly feel & mildewy smell of old books BOOO!") are just as insufferable as militant technophile sentiments (e.g., "Kindle deprives us of the crumbly feel & mildewy smell of old books YAYYY!") since current American quiddities sensibilities privilege "authenticity" over "innovations," it's natural that a quiddities article expressing a luddite bibliophile sentiment would get printed (the converse is relegated to Apple or Amazon press releases for iPads and Kindle, i suppose).

http://www.sensesofcinema.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/fahrenheit451-285x300.jpg

nb: i don't even have a tablet of my own at this point. mostly outta laziness at this point -- i like books well enough, but paeans to their touch & smell strike me as a bit silly.

I guess it's just that I too read books on paper most of the time, and when reading to my kids all of the time, but it's not because I have some kind of olfactory fetish about them, it's because books are well-designed and useful tools that serve their purpose really well, indeed better (for me, not for others) than a tablet or reader serves that purpose. That's the reason to have them. If the point of the paper book is that it smells nice, the paper book really IS dead.

books can smell nice, but not nearly as nice as a fresh pack of Magic cards, so it's probably something else that is the point of books

hipsturbia, shut the style secretion down, this one will never be topped

lmao

Mr. McNeil is one half of the lauded street-art duo Faile, known for its explosive swirls of graffiti art, wheat-paste sloganeering and punk rock. He wears his hair in a top bun and bears tattoos with his sons’ names, Denim and Bowie, on his forearms. His wife, Nicole Miziolek, is an acupuncturist.

Denim and Bowie, cursed to open a McNeil Brothers' Artisanal Mustard Shop in 2028.

Denim and Bowie

I think the nyt deserves a Pulitzer for these pieces, this is high high comedy.

Maybe it's supposed to be "tattoos with his sons' names, denim, and bowie"

“Hastings-on-Hudson is a village, in a Wittgensteinian sort of way,” Mr. Wallach said.

What does this even mean?

NYTimes writing aside, those suburbs sound pretty nice to live in. If you're a struggling street artist who can only afford an $860k mortgage.

It would be so awesome if the kids' names were pronounced de-NEEM and BOO-wie, like the town in Maryland, or the knife.

NYTimes writing aside, those suburbs sound pretty nice to live in. If you're a struggling street artist who can only afford an $860k mortgage.

― Kiarostami bag (milo z), Sunday, February 17, 2013 2:35 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I've half considered the hudson valley for a long time. And I thought fed up artists leaving the city and setting up little shops and galleries in those towns wasn't an established tradition. Maybe this is just the new wave.

xpost

The greatest thing about this article is how if frames moving to an $800K house in a trendy suburb as failure.

hasting-on-hudson is a nice town. i used to know a failed musician-turned-lawyer who moved there in 1998 or so.

lol failing upwards

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xy_Clys4ul4

he's like a go-to made up trend artist.

The website for his company reads like a parody, too:

synthesis corp. is a New York City based consultancy that lives at the intersection of innovation, strategy and purpose driven culture. ... synthesis works with governments, NGOs, foundations, and corporations at the C-suite level to discover new ways to drive sustainable innovation, rethink business models and improve top-line metrics. ... Our methodology embraces design science, behavioral economics, foresight analysis and data driven hypothesis prototyping to tackle complex client challenges. We then apply systems-based thinking to identify untapped areas of opportunity and deliver comprehensive 4D strategic blueprints. ... We are a process driven enterprise that applies our expertise, insights and network in collaboration with our clients’ core principles, knowledge and experience to deliver best-in-class results. ... We are on the cusp of an entirely new macro/micro economic, technological and social paradigm. What we do now will set the trim tab for decades to come.

Set the trim tab!

that type of incomprehensible/silly corporate web-page speak is sadly very very common, though.

I'm sure that's true. I don't look at too many consulting websites. I'm sort of amazed anyone still says "new paradigm," I thought that died around 1996.

Also, I had to look up what a trim tab is -- which just goes to show how far from the C-suite I am.

that long quote is the reason the word "bafflegab" was coined

i pity the poor foreign translator who would have to translate a web-page such as that into, i dunno, German or Spanish. or more accurately, into German or Spanish corporate jibber-jabber.

hasting-on-hudson is a nice town. i used to know a failed musician-turned-lawyer who moved there in 1998 or so.

― i have a history of enabling your mother. (Eisbaer), Sunday, 17 February 2013 20:04 (48 minutes ago) Permalink

serious q: do you think it's worth a day trip? Was thinking about going somewhere out of the city tomorrow and I don't want a long drive on account of baby.

Ohh, Hasting-on-Hudson is Westchester County, that explains it, for some reason I was thinking it was like this new frontier of yupsterdom. I had family in Westchester County who lived in this compound-type mansion back in the 80s, it's always been like this.

Yeah, it's the classic NYTimes thing of reporting a thing as a new trend when it's just a thing that people do. There are fake trends that no one actually does, and fake trends that are just stuff people always do, like move to the suburbs when they have kids.

serious q: do you think it's worth a day trip? Was thinking about going somewhere out of the city tomorrow and I don't want a long drive on account of baby.

i think it is -- esp. if you are considering moving there. it's been a while since i've been up there, but i remember that it was pretty funky (by Westchester standards, anyway). and it's been so since 1998 (long before this last quiddities article -- dunno if the NYT has noticed it or not before).

then again, i've got high standards for "small funky suburban towns" -- having grown up so close to New Hope, PA/Lambertville, NJ (New Hope being the town that sprang Ween onto the world).

the grow up, have kids, move to the burbs, but keep it a little bohemian thing has probably been happening for just about a century. so yeah, reporting it as a trend is sort of hilarious.

yeah, like Montclair, NJ has been a thing for as long as I can remember -- suburban home of ex-boho ex-manhattanites.

Aw, New Hope. One of my best pals from college is from New Hope.

See also p much any suburban/rural college town, like Northampton MA.

He conducted a Google Maps street-view search of Westchester, and settled on Hastings for his family when he saw Subarus parked on the streets, not Lexus SUVs.

THE ONLY TOWN IN AMERICA WHERE EVERYONE DRIVES A SUBARU

I'm fuckin sick of Subarus let me tell ya

It's that age old challenge of having to live in the suburbs with all the comforts and amenities that brings while still signifying that you're not really the type of person who lives in the suburbs.

livin in the suburbaru

subaru ownership as performance

I found that sentence hard to read, do those people not know that the Subaru is the standard suburban yuppie parentmobile? There are sixty of them (including mine!) parked outside the Whole Foods every single Saturday and I promise you the drivers are not hipsters.

yeah tons of these type of articles confuse rebranded yuppie consumerism with being a hipster

although it's hard to say someone's confused about the usage of a word that has no meaning

anyway, lagooon otm

hipsturbia, shut the style secretion down, this one will never be topped

― lag∞n, Sunday, February 17, 2013 12:16 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

ok, get ready

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/24/fashion/lindsay-heller-mediates-between-parent-and-nanny.html?smid=tw-share&_r=0

It wasn’t that Kimberly Van Der Beek’s new nanny was unqualified. She had come with sparkling references and a gold-star recommendation from her agency. She knew three languages and had philosophies about child development. She was nice and prompt and had an excellent driving record.

Still, Ms. Van Der Beek, the wife of the actor James Van Der Beek and a parenting blogger, noticed that when she entered the room, the nanny was often just getting off the phone. And though the nanny was doing a good job with the Van Der Beeks’ 7-month-old son, Joshua, there was some tension with their 2-year-old daughter, Olivia, Ms. Van Der Beek thought.

And so it came to pass that on a rainy morning not long ago, a black Volkswagen Beetle with the license plate NANNY DR drove up to the Van Der Beeks’ Hollywood Hills home. Ms. Van Der Beek ushered its occupant, a woman named Lindsay Heller, up the back stairs of the house, sat across from her on a couch and began a list of concerns and questions.

“She’s very emotionally invested in my kids,” she told Dr. Heller. “I just don’t know if she has passion about Olivia.”

She went on. “She lets Joshua just lie on the floor while she’s drinking her tea. Put some pep in that step. Put the tea down.” She leaned back and sighed. “I just find that if I’m around, I’m the one taking care of the kids. I like to be preventive about things. If Olivia wakes up from her nap at four, I’d like to know that there’s a snack ready. There never is.”

Dr. Heller listened. “I wonder how much she knows about what your approach is and what you like,” she said.

End life on earth.

Man, I wish I had someone to make sure there was a snack ready when I woke up from a nap :(

Someone in NY needs to start an apre nap snack delivery, delivering hand-crafted, organic snacks at pre-determined post-nap times.

that's my dream career, but not in ny

If you want to do some market testing on that business plan, I volunteer.

it'll have to be in the summer but i'll think about it!

That article was so depressing I hadn't the heart to make fun of the people in it. The ridiculous, horrifying people.

lol yeah saw that, was planning to post it

OOH the people are horrifying

OTOH the entire enterprise of strangers raising your kids, which affects both rich and poor, is kind of horrifying.