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

will anyone wear a watch 50 years from now? like will it last as a style thing? I'm guessing no, but random things do stick around as cultural vestigial organs

Steven Alan, a designer who carries a curated selection of vintage watches in three of his boutiques, compared it to the techno-lust for McIntosh stereos with vacuum tubes. “Having some analog component in your life is refreshing,” he said. “I’ve noticed there are a lot of people shooting with film recently. People like that return to things that are very tactile.”

feeel the film do u feel it

I like to touch the tubes of my stereo and feel the, uh, tube-rations

do 12 year old kids still wear watches? do they even know what they are?

The funny thing is that I actually have my grandfather's McIntosh stereo. It's in storage and in need of repair, and I need to buy new speakers for it as well. Meanwhile I've just gotten by with my computer and decent monitor speakers, especially since I live in a small place.

I mean didn't people always like having cool old stuff from their grandparents though? I don't really think that's some reaction against Our Digitized Age.

I used to "collect" watches. 2 or 3 years out of college living cheap and in my second job and making what seemed like real money and no expensive hobbies at the moment (one of my many breaks from synthesizers, pre-record label) I decided watches were cool. I bought a 25 dollar Waltham off eBay and a neat looking 125$ watch from some online store. Then I got as a gift a new Hamilton, which is cool. Hamilton is an old company but now is just part of the Swatch group, but they still make some of the old styles. They used to be great, now it's been diluted and modernized but they still have some of the nice old styles, you have a relatively cheap way of getting a really beautiful watch without worrying about condition. They're best known for the space-age electric watch popularized/revived in the movie Men In Black, but a lot of their styles are awesome.

Then my grandfather passed away and I was given his Rolex. It's not super old, probably from the 80s, but it's also way classy for a rolex. Simple, leather strap. I wear it on special occasions. Otherwise I wear either the Hamilton Lloyd or a Swiss Army military watch I was given as a high school graduation present.

If I'm feeling like changing things up, those two vintage watches are still around, but neither of them work really well.

If I had a spare 500 dollars right now, I'd buy one of these:

http://www.hamiltonwatch.com/en/gents/american-classic/jazzmaster/viewmatic/H32515535

I've got a 1962 Rolex oyster perpetual air king that my dad gave me when I graduated high school in 1992 - he had gotten it from his uncle 30 years earlier. Nothing fancy, just stainless but it never quite worked right and I haven't looked into getting fixed but this thread is making me want to look into that.

Something like that, may just need an oiling.

fucka watch i have a phone

worst thing about phones as timepieces is when the time feature is tied to your phone having a signal. this wasn't a problem on my older phones, but this most recent one takes the clock away if it has no reception.

can always check the ipad

I wear watches because I want to feel futuristic

I wear watches so I can know what the time is without reaching into my pocket, removing my phone and pressing a button.

I can't really imagine being "into" them in the sense of having more than two or three,

I had a client once with a serious shopping addiction. He owned hundreds of watches. When he went out, he usually wore two or three on each arm.

worst thing about phones as timepieces is when the time feature is tied to your phone having a signal. this wasn't a problem on my older phones, but this most recent one takes the clock away if it has no reception.

In my experience, this isn't a matter of newness. I've had one phone in 2004 that required a signal to display time, but I've had 3 or 4 other models since, none of which did.

Anyway, that set up is fucking absurd and terrible. The phone can sync time and time zones when it has a signal, but there is no reason to make time a constant feed.

lol american phones

Please explain.

caek finds american phones amusing.

it's like Joe Mathlete explains today's caek post.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/10/business/summer-camps-are-facing-new-economics.html?src=recg

Ok someone is just making this shit up:

"This year, a seven-week session at Pine Forest costs $9,700, a big-ticket price for a rustic canoe-and-campfire experience. (Some camps charge even more.)

And many parents, Mr. Black says, want something more for their money. They want their children to come home with a better tennis serve, say, or a stronger backstroke, or perhaps a better technique for making chocolate soufflé"

“It is not enough anymore to just go to camp to have fun and make friends and improve independence and self-esteem,” Mr. Black says. “Some parents want actual takeaways. They want to see skills, achievements, patches and certificates.”

“It’s like a cruise ship,” says Ms. Black, the camp’s co-director, pointing to the campers lined up at the all-you-can-eat buffet stations and salad bars.

Ms. Black has taken on the job of catering to increasing numbers of campers who have food allergies or special diets. The dining halls offer vegetarian options and gluten-free options and kosher options. Then there are special items for children who are allergic to onion powder or peaches, and for kids who won’t eat anything but potato bread or croissants or organic granola bars.

A couple of girls approach Ms. Black at the salad bar, asking her to store salad dressing they brought from home. Earlier, one mother gave Ms. Black a hunk of Parmesan cheese for safe-keeping.

http://i56.tinypic.com/30bmcqu.jpg

allergic to onion powder

I can't wait for the follow-up piece, in which a growing number of parents are backlashing against elite summer camps and sending their children to newfangled neo-traditional summer camps, i.e. ordinary summer camps.

a couple friends of mine went to a camp where a plane flew over once a week and dropped candy on them

Was this camp on a mysterious island?

not sure if this really counts but if you weren't already aware that the subways are overpacked on the weekend... you might be the ruling class
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/11/nyregion/with-weekends-not-sleepy-anymore-subway-faces-a-test.html?src=ISMR_AP_LO_MST_FB

Yeah, saw that. It's basically the equivalent of "It rained yesterday" as a news story.

huh? that's not a quiddities article, it's actually a pretty good article.

subways are packed during the weekend *because* the ruling class are taking them again (among others)

Not on the nytimes per se, but a classic quiddities piece from the nyt makes the cut: http://www.salon.com/news/david_sirota/2011/07/13/great_recession_elitism_slideshow

that slideshow linked to this article which is kind of amazing

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/08/fashion/08halfmill.html

did we ever talk about it?

I guess it is kind of tongue in cheek

People at every income level have a funny way of finding "necessities" that happen to just stretch whatever income they have to the limit, at which point they say "gosh, this isn't really much money after all!"

yeah it's keeping up w/ the jones all the way to the top

People at every income level have a funny way of finding "necessities" that happen to just stretch whatever income they have to the limit, at which point they say "gosh, this isn't really much money after all!"

If I'm not paying attention, I do this! It's annoying!

Yeah, I mean as much as I don't want to be too forgiving of such people, it is a very human tendency. Of course I also tend to think that people who reach that level of wealth tend to be more rapacious and entitled less self-aware in that regard (because those traits are part of what enabled them to reach their level of wealth). But I certainly catch myself doing it sometimes -- even if it's only the arbitrary commute distance that I find unacceptable or the arbitrary square footage I think an apartment has to have or whatever. There are also certain things that I'm only coming to understand as I get ready to enter a real profession -- e.g. dry-cleaning becomes a "necessity," and long working hours do make it a lot harder to do some things for yourself.

Jenny OTM

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/16/growing-up-then-going-home/

these kids are pretty lucky they get to live at home

I’ve been living here for a while now, and you know what? It’s not bad. This apartment has it all. Zabar’s chocolate croissants for breakfast and a seemingly unlimited supply of Pellegrino. The laundry is fresh, the bathtubs are pristine and there’s even a treadmill and a TV with HBO. My parents must have worked thousands of unpaid internships to pay for all this! How can I complain?

My parents must have worked thousands of unpaid internships to pay for all this!

I like this line. dude is self-aware, at least.

Self-awareness is often presented as a mitigating virtue on this thread but I think it often makes these pieces even more infuriating.

Then during dinner, she said, “I would never have dreamed of going home after college. It’s amazing that this is a palatable option for you.” I apologized profusely for not hating her and Dad more.

Fuck that guy, i'm trading him off my team on madden as soon as i get home.

guys guys guys we've got a new winner:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/21/garden/playhouses-childs-play-grown-up-cash.html

jesus christ that's a long article

I think of it as bling for the yard,” said Ms. Schiller, 40.

Some people might consider it “obnoxious” for a child to have a playhouse that costs more and has more amenities than some real houses, she conceded. But she sees it as an extension of the family home. “My daughter loves it,” she said. “And it’s certainly a conversation piece.”

oh my god those pictures oh my god

“I wanted another reason for the grandkids to come over,” said Mr. Burnham, 64. “Also, I wanted to be able to go up there on Sunday morning and read The New York Times Magazine.”