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

wooooooooow

just a bit of fun

I can kind of get behind the 'technology is replacing jobs' part of this op-ed but the author is really tone-deaf. the by-line is a nice punchline too

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/30/opinion/sunday/our-unpaid-extra-shadow-work.html?ref=opinion&pagewanted=all

There was a time when a gas station attendant would routinely fill your tank and even check your oil and clean your windshield and rear window without charge, then settle your bill. Today, all those jobs have been transferred to the customer: we pump our own gas, squeegee our own windshield, and pay our own bill by swiping a credit card. Where customers once received service from the service station, they now provide “self-service” — a synonym for “no service.” Technology enables this sleight of hand, which lets gas stations cut their payrolls, having co-opted their patrons into doing these jobs without pay.

Reminds me of a line in the New Yorker's otherwise mostly good Ikea feature -- something to the effect of "Ikea has stealthily scored a massive coup by shifting labor to the customer." I mean it's not like everyone used to just get pre-assembled, delivered furniture at Ikea prices.

Half of that article belongs in our "society is in the gutter" thread, seriously.

I understand the whole "shadow work" thing but I've heard it applied much more effectively to modern living than the examples given. These are basically the "why must I move things with my hands" complaints. The parts where they complain about the end of travel agents and the like is especially lulzy

Yeah I'm kind of split on this one between being sorry that this kills jobs for people but also just feeling like "Come on, I can pump my own goddamned gas." I do hate self-checkouts though, those are for suckers.

I like them when I have very few items or I'm feeling misanthropic.

IIRC, a lot of the places that had massive amounts of personal service (department stores, forex) back in the old days also did massive amounts of markups on merchandise.

I do hate self-checkouts though, those are for suckers.

how about signs on the checkout lanes at co-ops that say 'due to the repetitive stress involved in moving a large number of items per day, we ask you to please remove your own items from your cart at checkout'.

I tuned out when you said "coops" as that is its own world of quiddities and agonies

if you're a rich person in manhattan you can walk outside and immediately have a car drive you somewhere, have someone else do your grocery shopping, have someone walk your dog. almost anything you can imagine, prob. I mean lot of these services are basically affordable to the middle class cause they're omnipresent and there are economies of scale.

but gas stations and grocery stores that are frequented by people across the class spectrum are a different story. they're going to inevitably compete on price. that guy's writing from cambridge, which is far above median income but not the kinda place where gas and grocery stores are gonna be competiting on 'experience' instead of price. I don't think grocery stores in extremely wealthy and isolated suburbs are rushing towards self-checkout.

OMG proto-quiddities
http://www.philnel.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Redfield_RC_novel.jpg

http://www.philnel.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Redfield_RC_novel.jpg

I mean lot of these services are basically affordable to the middle class cause they're omnipresent and there are economies of scale.

This was the weird realization I had recently about Fresh Direct, btw. Every time we order I still kind of have to look at the receipt three times to believe that it's about the same price as our grocery store to have these two guys bring food into our kitchen like I'm some kind of british colonial administrator

not to turn this into another suburbs thread but it does seem like dense places are naturally going to be better markets for personal service jobs because there are going to be more niche markets and economies of scale.

feel like even if you attempt to totally remove the super-rich from the equation, which is obv impossible, the average 'middle class' person in nyc is more likely to be funding personal-service industry jobs with their forms of consumption. food delivery, taxis, fresh direct etc. I have no concrete evidence to back this up w/ but it 'seems true'.

and I mean unemployment still sucks bad here so whatever this effect is it isn't overwhelming or anything but I'd like to read a paper on this subject

I have to get into this Fresh Direct thing because it took me 2.5 hours to go to the store today.

i will cop to heavy freshdirect usage
fucking sucks to haul two weeks groceries fifteen blocks, specially when you don't have a cart

After we moved to an apartment that was not directly next to a grocery store (and across the street from a second and two blocks from a third), we decided that we would use Peapod sometimes, when we were really busy, and then get a I-Go car and drive to the grocery store that's about .7 miles away other times. That lasted about five months and now we just order from Peapod. It's cost-equivalent when you factor in the cost of the car share and damn is it nice not to have to carry boxes of cat litter up the stairs.

When I lived near a Trader Joe's and a decent produce store it was cheaper to shop on foot, but now my options are the bougie C-Town (which has almost no produce), the Kim's market (which is pricey and not even good) and some pretty lousy and overpriced korean grocers. I do have the McCarren farmer's market on weekends about a 15-20 minute walk away but it's kind of expensive, and Fresh Direct has surprisingly good produce for less. I still do meat at the local butcher.

Relevant to speak of self-checkouts and "shadow labor":
http://www.macrumors.com/2011/10/31/apple-retail-stores-to-allow-self-checkout-via-ios-app-for-accessory-purchases/

“I had a whole vintage teacup collection that is now so hideous to me,” Ms. Koons said. “I feel like I am going to make my own fire and torch it all.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/27/garden/all-that-authenticity-may-be-getting-old.html?_r=1&hpw

“I felt like an employee at a Ford plant,” he said, “drilling 1,200 holes in a day or two.”
such unbearable hardship
poor dear

I don't really think that guy is *the ruling class*

I mean I also don't really think that guy is the point of why the article was posted here

"how much authenticity is too much?" is the defining question of our age i think

I also think the 'glut of rarity' thing is kind of interesting -- I've been feeling it for several years in the world of limited edition music pressings, books, art, etc. It sort of reminds me of the baseball card bubble where you suddenly had like ten brands of super-premium cards all putting out five different even more limited editions each and 8 million 10-year-olds suddenly all shrugged their shoulders at once.

As they began furnishing their new house from scratch, they found themselves choosing pieces with clean, modern lines that “could be a backdrop for whatever we were interested in at the moment,” Mr. Siegel said. In other words, he said, “not trying to express your personality and your total individuality with every single thing in your house.”

Ms. Koons, who recently completed her doctorate in clinical psychology, calls it a “very unornamental aesthetic.”

What does that mean to her?

“No bird pillows,” she said. “And actually, we had a lot of bird pillows. I had two bird duvets. I had birds on the wall. So it’s a real about-face.”

This part just reminds me of my eventual shift from band/concert posters everywhere to barely any at all. It's not Etsy, it's just getting more comfortable with yourself internally so you don't need to constantly project it/reinforce it externally.

Also you bought all your "authentic" stuff on the internet, it's just "stuff."

Anyway aren't we basically just talking about tschotchkes? They're nothing new, I've never liked them that much, and there will always be people who do. I guess the difference being that it used to be more dominated by stuff from international travel or at least evincing a *global* sensibility ("btw I traveled to Colombia") and now it's more about *local* stuff ("btw I had a beardo make me a salad bowl")

yeah i guess these people aren't exactly "ruling class" -- they're not whining about how difficult it is to go to (and dress for!) so many parties in some tony vacation spot for rich people -- that's true
but they are still acting rather put upon for an imposition to their precious (and unique!) taste

which is kind of lol/sad

No you're misunderstanding. I'm just saying that the dude making the tables isn't really the target of this thread.

As for people complaining about how they can't buy specialness anymore, THAT is a ruling-class agony.

I think the authors are linking two arguments that aren’t really the same.
The real issue here is big box retailers trying to capitalize on handmade, when in reality, handmade is not something that is sold at West Elm, no matter how much they want to market it as such.

one of the heads of our board, discussing moving our offices to a different and less accessible part of town for both our staff and clientele noted in a recent email that "hey, it's just a short cab ride at the worst" and the first thing i thought was that i should post to this thread and the second thing i thought was too much time on ilx

"how much authenticity is too much?" is the defining question of our age i think

I kind of feel like the real questions are "what is authentic?" and "how can I be authentic without it being an affectation?" for anyone who buys into a certain amount of cultural capital.

xp re "handmade" btw: i wasn't crazy about mike daisey's new show about steve jobs/apple/apple's business practices in china but he makes one great point which is that with labor as cheap as it is overseas, nobody invests in machinery when you can get a fourteen year old girl to lay the same circuitry a zillion times a year so, in fact, nearly everything we own IS handmade
we just don't want to think about that

the first thing i thought was that i should post to this thread and the second thing i thought was too much time on ilx

Sentences that effortlessly define ilx or whatever that thread is called.

I think really what it comes down to with the article is:

- This woman bought too much shit because she thought it worked with her aesthetic and little of it actually meant anything to her
- She is actually becoming more authentic in rejecting some of her surroundings as things that no longer have an appeal

http://www.artisanalpencilsharpening.com/

Who is Artis and how is he sharpening pencils with his asshole?

ha I was joking. "how much authenticity is too much" is like the most nyt style section question of all time

oh. true, that.

the artisinal pencil sharpening is David Rees from Get Your War On and it's an elaborate and brilliant joke.

I'm going to open a boutique that just sells one handmade table. I mean not a single model of table, but just a single table.

"Do you have anything else in the store?"
"No sir, we just have this table."
"I would like to purchase the table."
"I'm sorry sir, it's been sold."

not NYT but holy hell

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204394804577010351275810044.html?mod=WSJ_NY_MIDDLELEADNewsCollection

Some New York City children take after-school classes in dance, pottery or softball. Once a week, Gillian and Hunter Randall add an unusual activity to the list: lessons on how to shake hands.

It's a class taught by SocialSklz:-), a company founded in 2009 to address deteriorating social skills in the age of iPhones, Twitter and Facebook friends.

Faye Rogaski, the founder of socialsklz:-), is attempting to wean children off junk words like "um," "ya know" and "like." WSJ visits the modern-day manners class.

"It's hard to have a real conversation anymore. And you know what? I'm guilty of it too," said the Randalls' mother, Lisa LaBarbera, noting that her 10-year-old daughter and 8-year-old son both have iPod touches and handheld videogame devices. "You get carpal tunnel, but you're not building those communication skills."

Ms. Rogaski now offers classes that range from $150 for a one-day workshop to $540 for a 12-week after-school program, with sections for children as young as 4. The classes cover skills as varied as how to host play dates, talk on the phone and hold a conversation.

SocialSklz:-) looks like a name that was created by a 60 year old soccer mom