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

i have a pretty high tolerance for "kids being kids" but i also LOVE kids \(o_O)/

times were you could punish your child for misbehaving in a store by locking them in the car but those days are gone

*puffs pipe*

those days, you could smack someone else's kid for sassmouth, good times they were

i have a pretty high tolerance for "kids being kids" but i also LOVE kids \(o_O)/

― J0rdan S., Tuesday, November 1, 2011 2:28 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark

dude this is totally how i feel, fwiw, lest anyone get the wrong idea. i used to work with kids, it was great. but i still feel like there are times when it's ok/justifiable to think "ok buddy there's a line between puckish little imp and actual inconsiderate person and you just crossed it"

moreover, when i feel like a grouch, i'm actually thinking to myself "you are being a grouch, cut it out," but...i can't help it. i def had the "that's not the way it works around here" chat with several of the kids i taught, who were seemingly devoid of any social graces whatsoever (children of the 1% in entitled-attitudes shocker)

Manners are so middle-class.

one time on a plane this kid threw a non stop tantrum the whole way taking time out only to blow some milk on me through a straw

milk all over me

the new mixtape

I'll be glad when we move past the archaic practice of meeting/conversing with people in person. Then we won't need handshaking classes.

I like this comment, at least the first half. I think I've seen that jug band.

Reality BasedBrooklynOctober 27th, 201111:54 amLast evening whilst walking on my urban Brooklyn block I was bemoaning the apogee of faux or "vintage" life-styling seeing another group of suspender and tweed clad hipsters pretend to be a jug band. They were performing a horrendously unmusical, "rootsy" version of the spiritual "When I Die" inside a new bar built to mimic some half baked idea of "vintage authenticity". This impulse to deny the truth of the cultural and political moment and instead seek refuge in an imagined virtualized "cozy" past seems to me the apogee of indulgent sentimentalist decadence.

Esty represents he triumph of mediocrity in design and creativity. The "designs" on the site are almost exclusively copies of copies, derivations of ideas that were done to death a decade ago. Esty is however a very clever and modern business model; a trope, seeming to help artisans market their "wares" but actually about monetizing clicks and an easy source for "trend spotters" and retailers to collate mediocre ideas to knock off.

can you really pretend to be a jug band

IDK but I hear music like that all the time in the L and it's starting to make me want to go animal house.

Demonic kids on plane needs fabled response of Paul Lynde: "Lady, if you don't control that kid... I'm gonna fuck her!"

Worst is the little kids that sit behind you on the plane and kick the back of your seat the entire flight.

flying is such a horrible experience i cant really stay mad at the sobbing kids, im just thinking, "man i want to be doing that too"

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/03/garden/sheep-lawn-mowers-and-other-go-getters.html

not very quiddy imho

Worst is the little kids that sit behind you on the plane and kick the back of your seat the entire flight.

Uh, tell them to stop?

xpost, Oh it picks up: "Richard Charles, a Wall Street technology manager, decided to become an urban farmer after he was laid off twice, first by Citigroup, in 2008, and then by Goldman Sachs, in 2009. He and a former colleague from Citigroup, David Lowe, started EcoVeggies, a company that uses aeroponic technology to grow plants without soil. Their plan is to convert abandoned buildings in Newark into high-tech urban farms that will supply produce to local restaurants and schools."

I don't really understand the Stockbox shipping container grocery store thing. Isn't it just, like, opening a grocery store?

arent YOU just like opening a grocery store

I repurpose old commercial storefront spaces to open grocery stores.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/03/fashion/millennials-in-church-up-close.html

Mr. Aiuto, 39, bristles when his church is singled out as particularly cool. “I don’t want this church to be special,” he said over chicken mole at a Williamsburg taqueria. “I don’t want us to be a church for artists. I want it to be a garden-variety church. What we have to offer people is God.” He paused for a moment. “And I think our music is really good.”

http://asthmatickitty.com/the-welcome-wagon

The Welcome Wagon is a married couple, the Reverend Thomas Vito Aiuto and his wife Monique, who execute a genre of gospel music that is refreshingly plain. Their hymns are modest and melodic takes on a vast history of sacred song traditions, delivered with the simple desire to know their Maker—and to know each other—more intimately.

NOT MENTIONED: dude's band on asthmatic kitty

i take that back; actually it was mentioned and my eyes must have glazed over or something

What the what.

The tight-lipped look of the groom in the photo says, loud and clear, "I'm so upright that I took over from my autonomic breathing function, now I have to remember to inhale." Mentally unbalanced by divorce imo.

What a maroon.

Re-enacting the wedding may pose a particular challenge, the studio pointed out, because the couple divorced and the bride is believed to have moved back to her native Latvia.

Incidentally, I have occasionally heard music coming out of a church -- often hispanic or brazilian -- that I thought was so good that I was really tempted to just go in and ask if I could hang out for a bit. I feel like that would get awkward though, I mean not that they'd mind me being there so much as they would start asking me questions and it would turn awkward when it was clear that I had NO interest in church and only wanted to hear the music.

Uh, tell them to stop?

I guess I should have. The kid's father was sitting next to her. I looked behind me the first time it happened and caught his attention and he told her to stop. But then shortly thereafter she forgot or didn't realize she was doing it again. It was more like pushing on the back of the seat rather than kicking. I didn't feel like turning around every time so I just tried to ignore it.

After a gospel band played, the group listened as a man with a tattoo and a shaved head, Thomas Vito Aiuto, gave a talk that referred in turn to Woody Allen, jogging and London cabdrivers.

jogging JOGGING who tf calls it jogging, so not hipster

Last evening whilst walking on my urban Brooklyn block I was bemoaning the apogee of faux or "vintage" life-styling seeing another group of suspender and tweed clad hipsters pretend to be a jug band. They were performing a horrendously unmusical, "rootsy" version of the spiritual "When I Die" inside a new bar built to mimic some half baked idea of "vintage authenticity".

who writes like this

whilst bemoaning the apogee

gtfo

l0u1s jagg3r

otm

juggling inscrutable cultural signifiers like a bear on a tricycle

http://toughpigs.com/uploaded_images/Jugband-stageshow-763812.jpg

Not the NY Times, but crossposting from "Is this racist?":

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/roiphe/2011/11/the_99_percent_takes_over_brooklyn.html

Glenn Kenny's take on that article: http://somecamerunning.typepad.com/some_came_running/2011/11/dont-worry-katie.html

I really don't know if this is quiddities or just a series of 'how many warning signs do you need?' -- but it puts me in mind of the very first post that started this thread:

I answered an ad in 1995 that I thought was for a job related to “security” (as in security guard) but was in fact related to “securities.” That’s how little I knew about the stock market. A few months later I found myself working a phone at a Fidelity Investments call center. Things went well, and by 1999 I was a Merrill Lynch financial adviser and a certified financial planner.

--

I felt we could afford around $350,000. We called a real estate agent named Mitch, who had signs on all the bus stops: Talk to Mitch! He picked us up in a gold Jaguar, and suddenly we were looking at houses that listed at $500,000 or more.

--

We borrowed 100 percent of the purchase price. In fact, I was told I could borrow even more if I wanted. I had perfect credit and a solid income that was growing. But even so, when the lender approved us at 100 percent, it was more than I had expected. I remember thinking something like “Wow. I guess if they’re willing to lend it to us it must be O.K.”

Etc. etc. but then there was also:

Someone recently asked me what I’d say to people like him. I guess I’m saying it now. As I was writing this article, I pulled behind a truck with a bumper sticker, “Honk if I’m paying your mortgage.”

In which case, KEEP YOUR EYES ON THE ROAD INSTEAD OF WRITING YOUR ARTICLE.

Not the NY Times, but crossposting from "Is this racist?":

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/roiphe/2011/11/the_99_percent_takes_over_brooklyn.html

― Dr Morbois de Bologne (Dr Morbius), Friday, November 4, 2011 4:18 PM Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
Glenn Kenny's take on that article: http://somecamerunning.typepad.com/some_came_running/2011/11/dont-worry-katie.html

― wmlynch, Friday, November 4, 2011 4:23 PM Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Um, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that Roiphe at least sort of has half a point, which Kenny seems to miss entirely/avoid by taking it too literally.

Gentrification is the art of pretend blaseness

what point does roiphe have exactly?

some kids, she saw them

I mean at least she was -- kind of hamfistedly -- trying to make an admittedly well-worn point about the contrasts of gentrification and the uncomfortable fact that a lot of people in those neighborhoods don't really want the people they displaced around, and the response is "well actually that's just temporary because soon the subway will take them further away again, where they're supposed to be."

i didnt realize park slope was once the exclusive domain of unruly teenagers

that's a p kind reading of roiphes piece

One of my students noticed a great sign at Occupy Wall Street saying “Big signs always catch your attention.” And it occurs to me that maybe this fight is one of those big signs that should be catching our attention.

like... Teenagers fighting is a "big sign"?