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

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/26/nyregion/26hospitals.html?scp=1&sq=manhattan%20birth&st=cse

http://www.bestweekever.tv/bwe/images/2008/07/Shrug.jpg

I dunno, I have more sympathy for the freegans than I have for just about any of the other "iconoclasts" that the NYT has focused on.

otm

yeah, i think i just had an irrational reaction to that article because of my experience with the west side.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/01/garden/01peter.html?_r=2&src=twr&pagewanted=all

This was both irritating and pleasing to Mr. Buchanan-Smith, who says that he constantly worries that he’ll be perceived as “just some design hipster kicking it old-school selling some chic tools to a handful of other hipsters.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/27/realestate/27cov.html

the axes are fucking stupid

The buyers of these apartments, which range in price from $2.5 million to $7 million, are not typically people with five or six children; they tend to have two to four. But they want a bedroom for each child as well as a guest room, a family room or a home office. Maintenance or common charges for these larger apartments range from about $3,000 a month, for a three-bedroom, to $6,500 a month for a seven-bedroom.

I'm gonna have to save up to afford this new fad

It's amazing how that one and the birth/hospital story above seem to start from the assumption that everyone else in the city is at best a sideshow. Fewer births from gentrifying neighborhoods! Why? Not, maybe, because the people who were having more babies and using the hospitals are no longer in the neighborhoods, but because those hospitals aren't good enough for the people who took over the neighborhoods.

No one should pay more than $40 for an axe.

"Their apartment’s most appealing feature is its 1,000-square-foot kitchen. 'Not even many houses have kitchens that big,' Ms. Davie said."

That's twice as big as my entire apartment!

I'm also struggling to relate to this:

"Last summer Irene and Oleg Davie moved into a five-bedroom apartment at 225 East 74th Street with their son, now 11; their infant daughter; two Havanese dogs; a live-in nanny; and a live-in housekeeper."

If the Davies are on trend, according to this article, "want a bedroom for each child as well as a guest room, a family room or a home office," I do wonder whether they are making the nanny and the housekeeper share a closet.

Expensive is the new black.

Irene and Oleg share a room, each kid and each dog gets his/her own room, and the nanny and the housekeep take turns sleeping in the cabinet under the kitchen sink. Which to be fair, is about 300 square feet.

They should do a story about hipsters who rough it in bushwick but still go to mom's to do their laundry.

I went to a house once where the maid slept in the wall - a tiny door opened to a space barely big enough to fit a bed, it was about 4 feet high, no windows.

I just found my dream home on a high-end realtor's website, but to be fair it's way the hell in Brooklyn and it's not "New York Times"-expensive (although it is expensive).

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/01/garden/01peter.html

this caption: With “authentic” becoming a buzzword for selling handmade products, Peter Buchanan-Smith, a graphic designer, can become a mini-star.

can't wait for the roving bands of hipster scavengers fighting it out with 'authentic' axes in the ruins of williamsburg over the last working macbook

jesus these people

“It was like an invitation to this world I wanted to create. The world of making things where notions of courage and fortitude are associated with it, but also playfulness and levity.”

“Peter is like a regular guy with an eccentric way of thinking, and he’s interested in things that function. You know he loves a Shaker table. He probably loves a yellow pencil or a bar of Ivory soap or a paper clip or a well-designed tube of toothpaste. It’s all about stuff that’s what it is. That’s an idea that’s really popular right now.”

lol @ the idea that a $185 axe sold in NYC boutiques "is what it is"

He jumped up to show a reporter his rope ladder, and a stiff canvas satchel made by an American company, Archival Clothing, “that I could see passing down to my son,” he said.

"Honey, what did your dad say about this bag again?"

"God knows. Put it on the donate pile."

his son is going to be very disappointed by his birthday presents

And then he himself will wonder why he got the Z-grade nursing home robot in future years.

... so I murdered an axe marketer

Win

+1

this dude is totally just some design hipster kicking it old-school selling some chic tools to a handful of other hipsters.

"It’s all about stuff that’s what it is. "

this sentence is kind of blowing my mind right now

aieeeee i know that guy

feel the writer of the article is A+++ though, I love how he just slips this in 3/4 into the article:

Meanwhile, Mr. Buchanan-Smith’s marriage had foundered. Maisie, the border collie, was diagnosed with a rare brain disease and had to be put down. The immaculate Victorian had to be sold, at a $100,000 loss, and emptied of its contents.

aieeeeeeeeeeee!

I can only imagine what my UHB college classmate with the five pretentiously-named kids is doing for an apartment right now.

guess what the article doesn't mention????? that this guy used to be the illustration editor of...... the new york times op-ed page.

trebles all around

Gonna drop them in it? That's skeevy.

huh?

Think they ought to declare an association in the clarifications and corrections dept.

"peter's axes are totally, like, a thing"

"let's give him a little PR, he's had a rough time lately"

"should i mention that he used to sit next to me?"

"you mean when he bothered coming in?"

"yeah"

"it's not really relevant, is it?"

"i guess not"

http://rlv.zcache.com/mee_ow_postcard-p239757717745542191trdg_400.jpg

...

fwiw i have nothing against peter, he always was always pretty nice and refreshingly un-frothy when we hung out (tho i was mainly buddies w/his ex) - like pretty much every other example on this thread my extreme irritation is not with the subject of the piece but with the way it's written and presented; which details are included, and which ones - like that peter used to edit the op-ed art for the same fucking newspaper that's currently giving him a gigantic PR boost - are conveniently omitted

well that and the apparent diktat given to all style writers to include the rental price of their subjects' apartments

I don't really have a problem with this article, if only because a really nice axe will probably run you a hundred bucks by itself. It's not like he's selling $10000 diamond-studded axes, you could still use these for work.

if you want people to think you're not wearing that flannel ironically, buy that hipster axe

wait

if only because a really nice axe will probably run you a hundred bucks by itself.

No.

http://www.homedepot.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Search?keyword=axe&langId=-1&storeId=10051&catalogId=10053

http://www.google.com/products?hl=en&safe=off&q=wood-handle+axe&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=8QQyTIWPHoL88AafuO3ICw&sa=X&oi=product_result_group&ct=title&resnum=3&ved=0CDYQrQQwAg

Dull, made in China with inferior materials != "really nice axe."

http://www.shopatron.com/products/productdetail/Large+Splitting+Axe/part_number=442/235.0.1.1.0.0.0.0.0?