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

and with David Buuck's BARGE group, which does work around the Bay Area relating to environmental aesthetics and writing.

He's the guy that runs Small Press Traffic, right?

^^ if you have stumbled across this and you are someone I know and actually in addition to "working" for rent/food I also "borrowed money from you," I'm sorry

class til noon, work til eight, read/write til two

did you have a social life??

umm it wasn't necessarily the most fun year of my life, but I do remember going out a decent amount! also getting annoyed that people would (very politely) call me every other night to tell me they were headed to the bar, as if they hadn't figured out that I was invariably in QUEENS, at WORK. I dunno, weekends and the odd night off -- I was more bothered by the 1.5-hour commute and always eating the $2.50 turkey plate at the convenience store.

although I guess one time around 3 in the morning I realized I was having a conversation with my TV

for the past year i've lived off of:
- tacos from the cheapest places
- chinese pressed tofu that lasts for four meals and is delicious and costs one dollar
- deals on chicken legs and thighs at Safeway

thank god i take supplements.

also yes sarahel, David Buuck runs SPT...which is associated with my MFA program at CCA...where they've paid for about 1/2 of my time? can't remember my most recent financial award, but they definitely have taken some certain amount of pity on me b/c i am poor.

also yes sarahel, David Buuck runs SPT...which is associated with my MFA program at CCA.

I see J0seph Le4se several times a week at the Whole Foods.

I'm not sure yet about the best way to market the Grad School Diet, but I assume it would just involve people sending me all their money and then having to walk around all day searching for the cheapest bag of lentils

sarahel, i have much to say about the man, but i cannot right here. if you want to know, message me.

Do students really subsist on lentils?
http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/40127000/gif/_40127544_students_203152.gif

Like Que, I'm aghast at taking out loans in careers in which the possibility of landing a job that will repay the loans is almost non-existent. I know it happens -- I see this at the university all the time -- but we're still a commuter campus (most students live at home).

The thing is, a lot of people get the MFA thinking that if they don't make it as a writer, artist, musician, etc. they can get a teaching position to pay the bills. However, there are lot more people thinking this than there are full time teaching positions, or even part time ones that pay well.

the possibility of landing a job that will repay the loans is almost non-existent

I assume you have MFA programs at least partly in mind here(?), and just to be fair, this isn't always necessarily true -- it's not a huge stretch to strive to, e.g., sell a good general-audience non-fiction book for $50k and pay off your loans. I suppose it just depends on accurately judging your own skills and plans and chances, with whatever it is you happen to be doing.

xpost - haha everyone I know is under the impression that they need to make it as a writer/artist/etc. before getting a teaching position to pay the bills

okay I mean that is definitely a betting-on-success kind of plan, but it's not like a pipedream situation

compare/contrast prospects for MFA grads versus NBA hopefuls.

master of fart ass

key grad school money savers in my experience: stop drinking in bars/clubs and make lunch at home.

However, there are lot more people thinking this than there are full time teaching positions, or even part time ones that pay well.

This. With enrollment down, the number of lower division undergrad courses have dropped, therefore I haven't taught all summer (and likely won't in the fall either). I can't imagine paying for loans too.

Lentil and sausage stew or lentil and pancetta stew (over rice if you're feeling poor and need to bulk up) is my go-to option when I want to make a whole bunch of cucina povera OTOH puy lentils are probably tons more expensive in the US amirite? Things that are NOT expensive anywhere are eggs and potatoes so another go-to for Americans could be the Spanish omelette.

^^^here concludes this episode of Recipe Corner...

lentils are cheap but not cheaper than ramen! (counting prep time)
how long are you supposed to soak lentils?

you soak them until your money runs out, and then you eat them

in grad school you seriously had time to prepare lentils?

for me it was burritos, pizza by the slice, and mac and cheese

I always thought you soaked lentils until they turned into money.

ramen carries the hidden expense of being pretty bad 4 u though

1 - the NY Times coverage of health care is a joke.
2 - its coverage of poverty is mainly confined to the Metro section, whose greatness has scarcely dimmed over the eyars
3 - there is some OK-to-good stuff on immigration, though a weird lack of follow-up
4 - housing crisis involves gigantic pools of money + homebuyer angst = ding ding ding ding
5 - general economics of working and middle classes: again this is almost exclusively a metro section phenomenon

perhaps i am a little harsh but i don't think it's by much

i shouldn't really get into this for assorted reasons, but most of those things aren't true. (especially about the metro section -- which definitely does a lot of good stuff, but has no monopoly on stories about poverty or the working class.) i mean, with 100-plus stories a day, anybody could put together a dossier to indict or praise the paper on all sorts of different grounds. this thread being a fine and entertaining example. but crossing over from making fun of these particular stories to a broader indictment of the whole enterprise is pretty unfair and wouldn't withstand the scrutiny of a search engine. in any given week, there's a lot of good and serious journalism done there. (and just as an e.g. on health care, here's a collection of the recent coverage, including editorials, op-eds, columns, etc.)

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/23/fashion/23nostalgia.html

“Nostalgia comforts people and the Millennials are probably craving comfort right now.”

Jeff Taylor, a 24-year-old media analyst in Arlington, Va., agreed.

“Sept. 11 was a moment where our generation took a second to think,” he said. “We grew up quicker because of it.”

Mr. Taylor, who was a sophomore in high school on that day, sees the appeal of the Blink-182 reunion tour...

I used to find the Style section repellant... then laughable... thanks to this thread I now read it as utterly deadpan, deeply mordant social critique... seriously I could read those lines over and over. ALMOST EVERY WORD IS PERFECT.

(They can’t fly, but still compete with brooms between their legs.)

what tips it into kitsch is that all these style articles are DEADLY SERIOUS! it would be totally inoffensive if the writers were explicit about being the fluff that they are - i guess they all harbor ambitions of working for the serious sections some day though?

whereas the phrase "sees the appeal of the Blink 182 reunion tour" is a serious lol here.

"a 24-year-old media analyst"

What is this? Does it involve ringtones?

Blink 182 song about nostalgia for pre-9/11 would be ace.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2009/07/30/garden/30prewar_600.jpg

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/30/garden/30prewar.html?_r=1

Leave it to the NYT to reveal the new Arcade Fire album cover.

For those of you who were wondering how long it would take the decor from Les Trois Garçons in Lonfdon to go overground...eight years.

funny how these antiquarians manage to avoid any brush with the classes of people who would have made up the vast preponderance of the eras they fetishize - sort of like how everyone's reincarnated from like, amelia earhart rather than ollie the baker

bet these guys go to a lot of World Inferno Friendship Society concerts

also, can't believe there's actually a store called Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, and that it's located in Philly!

ok the line about the kid who grew up in a scandanavian-modern home and then "got fed up and rebelled"

really, what a luxurious way to say "fuck you, mom & dad! i want to romanticize the late-colonial ruling classes and you can't stop me"

Lutefisk is not a dessert! I'm outta here!

i can't even decipher wtf "authenticity" means to these ppl

I am angry that that one guy has completely misunderstood 'The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction' but I think that may make me as bad as he is.

I don't buy puy lentils b/c I think I'd have to go to a specialty/"nice" store for them, but you can get regular ones in the GOYA aisle or in the beans & rice section. They only take about 15 minutes at a boil to be soft through and ready to eat. I don't know what is the deal with lentils that you have to cook for hours? For me, they're like the fastest recipe possible.

wait what?

Discussion up-thread about cheap grad student eats. I'm just a week late to the conversation.

lentils in the age of mechanical reproduction

I just took it for granted that the guy had never read the essay past the title xxxxp

our mass-produced quirky curios and t-shirts have more aura than those cheap trinkets from China, and ours cost more too, so you know they're unique

lentils in the age of mechanical reproduction

This is basically the theme of the big summer festival in my town.

I'd love to see a bunch of people fetishizing the past by living as members of the diseased, malnourished, downtrodden masses that 99% of everyone would have actually been a part of.

i'm going to be a tubercular prostitute operating out of gropecunt lane. ironically.