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

“We both write about pretty extreme subjects and apocalyptic global scenarios,” he said a few days earlier at a coffee shop in San Francisco. In the title essay of “Last Girlfriend,” for example, every woman but one is believed dead. And in “What in God’s Name,” a novel he published last August, the world is set to explode unless two 20-somethings kiss. (Spoiler: They do and then go out for Indian food.)

jesus christ.

the lede of that story is hilarious... "nepotism is hard... people might think you've benefited greatly from nepotism"

also the nyt paid for this writer to go to san fran & nola to interview frank rich's kids. i need that gig.

why would you want to talk to them?

i would consider it an acceptable price to pay for getting to chill in SF & NO on someone else's dime

Many have stumbled along the way. Just ask Susan Cheever (whose books document her struggles with alcoholism and sex addiction), or David Updike (how could one possibly be as prolific as Dad?), or Scottie Fitzgerald, whose career was forever shadowed by that of her parents, F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald. “In my next incarnation,” Ms. Fitzgerald once wrote, “I may not choose again to be the daughter of a Famous Author. The pay is good and there are fringe benefits, but the working conditions are too hazardous.”

This is a batshit fantasy way of looking at things -- isn't it more likely that these writers just aren't as good as their parents and only got as far as they did on their names?

i like how nathaniel is all "i did tons of research on disaster zones for my novel, so i'll never live in seattle" meanwhile he lives in new orleans. cool story.

xp

i dunno, it's not that hard to feature that being the child of a revered famous writer could fuck you up. of course a lot may also depend on the parenting abilities of said writers.

I usta see Frank at the movies with his kids quite often about 15 years ago, sounds like they were more interesting then!

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/20/realestate/what-is-middle-class-in-manhattan.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&

this already got bumped in the other quiddities thread

somebody should close one of the two

I didn't dare click through to a "The Hunt" story that began thus:

A Vote for the East Village

After looking in Morningside Heights for an apartment to buy, Kat Gang realized she did not want to leave the East Village after all.

feel like the East Village hardly needs the help

I mostly associate the east village with awful, cramped apartments and NYU students. Seems like the kind of place that was only cool once because it was cheap. Not all that charming otherwise.

quiddities and agonies of the norwegian
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/20/world/europe/in-norway-tv-program-on-firewood-elicits-passions.html?hp

here's a good one:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/07/greathomesanddestinations/jay-fieldens-restoration-drama.html?pagewanted=1&_r=0

caring for a father with dementia kinda levels out the quid/ag quotient somewht

yeah I agree that took me out of it a little, but I mean:

The Fieldens lived for a month with friends, and then moved into a rental apartment, followed by another rental in a farmhouse. They threw themselves into the quagmire of insurance and cleanup that follows a disaster. When it became clear that the most pragmatic thing to do was rebuild the house — not an easy or joyful decision, they said, because what you really want to do after a catastrophic fire is walk away — Robert Dean and Jesse Carrier, the architect and designer who had rehabbed the house in 2007, helped them with this rebuild.

“The object becomes, how do we create a place that reflects who we are but doesn’t own us,” Ms. Fielden said.

Her husband added: “Or put us in debt.”

This time around, there is a lot more Ikea, Ms. Fielden said, than “Jesse is probably used to.”

Built by James Evans, a protégé of Louis Kahn, the house had all the optimism of its period, as Mr. Dean put it recently, “when architects thought they had made a breakthrough to a fresh new time.” It had all the drawbacks as well: tiny bedrooms, cheap materials, awkward connecting spaces. So the new house, into which the Fieldens moved last summer, is a nearly perfect design — open and light, yet private and safe — seasoned as it is by their experience.

Not all their belongings were ruined. Mr. Fielden saved half of his books, along with artwork by Irving Penn and by his own children, and some family furniture. Ms. Fielden’s Madam Alexander dolls, which Mr. Fielden’s mother painstakingly cleaned up and now live in Eliza’s room, have only slightly blackened eyes.

not the times but http://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/comment/articles/2013-03/11/top-tables-new-york-restaurants-dining-scene/viewall

going to the right restaurants is at least as important as going to the right schools.

You're a bore and rube if you haven't eaten where everybody has eaten.

'boor' nor 'bore' iirc

not*

ugh

i think' bore' works there because british

boar

A world where eating out is more life or death than ER surgery

dude seriously.

this guy has no idea where to eat in new york, clearly.

lol

my takeaway is that i need an assistant

disgusting savages

no matter how far flung your neighborhood is, there are no ethnic foods and local diners? suuuuure

hah i know there are ethnic foods and local diners in every neighborhood

but i guess metaphorically or something there are not

but are they WORTHY, lagoon.

no obvs not you would of course drop some one who brought you there

"WTF is this dark, small place? YOU'RE DROPPED!!!" - overturns table, storms out of diner

I dunno what it says about me that at least half of my favorite places to eat are a) dark and b) small

I guess I'm dropped, in life

ur dropped sry

;_;

older manhattan residents trekking to brooklyn looking confused excited and out of place is a real and kinda funny thing tho, you just want to say to them you know its not really any better right

You're a bore and rube if you haven't eaten where everybody has eaten

Ironically, saying something like this makes you about as boring (and boorish) as they come. And also a rube.

boorish, rubbish

hate the game not the player xp

I dunno what it says about me that at least half of my favorite places to eat are a) dark and b) small

wrong thread

Modern life has become a three- and often four- or five-meal-a-day restaurant habit. There is the breakfast meeting. At one time, egg-white-only breakfast meetings were a behaviour limited to fat cats - but fat-cat rituals are what we all emulate. So now it's unthinkable for the rest of us to begin a day without a breakfast meeting (the most important meeting of the day). We are all would-be entrepreneurs, or creative collaborators, or producers of you-name-it, trying to woo potential partners over porridge.

what the hell is this guy talking about

"yeah so this taqueria is like a super exclusive place, it's wicked hard to get a table but i know the owner so it's cool yeah there he is YO WHAT UP DAWG HOW U DOIN" *daps*

if i had to have breakfast meetings id prob write columns that read like suicide notes too

the more i think about this piece, the better it gets, especially when read in the voice of grandpa simpson.

im imagining it written in the locked bathroom of a restaurant michael wolfe couldnt get a reservation to, the staff are banging on the door saying the restaurant is full try coming back after 1030