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

Naming your house is like getting vanity plates on your car, except that no one is naming their house SMITHFAM or HESRISEN or EATSPPL or whatever. But maybe they should.

The concept of naming your house seems incredibly pretentious to me, but I considered it when my daughter became familiar with the concept and insisted that we should name our house "The turtle house". She also wants us to get a vanity plate for our car which says "TURTLE".

I'm wondering if the firewood in the TV stand is for actual use. That sounds like a mess of bark, wood chips, dust, and cables.

"people named their houses where i summered"

such comments imply that such people as featured in the article are innocuous. they are not, and they deserve scorn.

― butt dumb tight my boners got boners (the table is the table), Thursday, April 11, 2024 10:50 AM (twenty-three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I didn't say "summered". I would literally never use that; it's obnoxious and pompous. We had a summer house because my parents owned a seasonal business there and they built that house for less than 20k. A lot of the named houses there were very small with some being shacks. Not all named houses are Saltburn style mansions. Not trying to excuse the ppl in the article at all - they sound unbearable. Still think named houses can be cute.

Naming houses is rich ppl shit but also it’s free and anyone can do it if they want.

(or it’s five bucks to buy a sign that says DUNROAMIN to put by the front door.)

“Keep Away By Court Order”

near our house on marthas vineyard was a road called Goa Way.

my grandparents had a named house. Seagull! it was a beautiful house. actually, when we moved to the Vineyard we lived in a tiny house owned my Maria's grandmother and it was called Wood's Edge. it was...600 square feet? maybe a little bigger. so, no mansion.

I was just pushing back against the dichotomy of “instagram house” vs “disorganized houses or whatever jeez, i hate rich people too

xpost - Maybe it's an east coast island thing. I was talking about Fire Island which has a similar vibe to MV just more gays and no cars. Yes, obv it's largely a rich people thing but not always and in beachy places it can be very cute. I bet Seagull was gorgeous.

we have, like, no backyard where we live. we do have a lovely ravine or "dingle" if you will way back behind our house for when we want to commune with mosquitos. but i have fantasized if i ever had the money to build a kinda long tiny house on our tiny yard and put one of those long lap pools in it! and have the tiny house be heated. a tiny pool house. i hate going to the river to get into water. that is the full extent of my rich people dreams. other than making our big attic into a real room where i can put all my books and records. because most of my books are in boxes in the attic. but we never have extra money.

Seagull got bought by a super-rich guy and he totally made it twice the size and all weird looking. it was right on the water. long island sound.

:( Of course he did.

Perfect description of the aesthetic. I like how there are no visible books or cultural ephemera or decoration you can’t get at a West Elm, or evidence of an inner life.
― Slorg is not on the Slerf Team, you idiot, you moron (Boring, Maryland), Thursday, April 11, 2024 9:55 AM (forty-nine minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Right. It would probably make a good separate thread, but it's like there are always a handful of vague signifiers of quirk or hipness but nothing that points to a particular person with a particular personality living there. Which I guess makes sense for an airbnb, because it has to straddle the line between being homey like a house and impersonal like a hotel. Guests don't want to feel like they're intruding in someone else's home. But to actually make your own house that way is so fucking weird.

My many bookshelves are covered in dust, as they should be.

TBC my earlier post was meant in a self-deprecating way and I'm not suggesting wanting your house to be neat is a bad thing

lol I’m sorry I totally misread your tone

Let us not forget the son named “McKenzie”. (How did that become one of the most popular child names?)

― Slorg is not on the Slerf Team, you idiot, you moron (Boring, Maryland)

It happened . . . one day at a time.

My many bookshelves are covered in dust, as they should be.

Nothing wrong with trying to stay neat. As a bachelor I gave up, now that I’m a married man in a new home I am making a bit of an effort (it helps my spouse is a clean person who tries to declutter).

_Let us not forget the son named “McKenzie”. (How did that become one of the most popular child names?)

― Slorg is not on the Slerf Team, you idiot, you moron (Boring, Maryland)_

It happened . . . one day at a time.

lotta tree names where we live. willow. cedar.

dylan and jaden waning though...

lotta tree names where we live. willow. cedar.

― scott seward, Thursday, April 11, 2024 4:49 PM (twenty-eight minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink[

Aww! My family house where we grew up was named "The Cedars" long before we got there. It was sweet. No one called it that, there was just a very picturesque old plaque on the gate to the driveway.

My mum's house in devon has a name. Last time I sent her a package the lady at a midtown USPS rolled her eyes at me when she had to copy out the address.

This Daily ep about Mexican cartels doing timeshare fraud is quite something. I cannot stop thinking about the retired state cop who sent this supposed Mexican businessman a million bucks, his entire retirement savings PLUS money he had to borrow! because he's a retired law enforcement official who "has a pretty good sense about people." Do you though. And of course his wife "had doubts" but the little lady doesn't handle their money.

People who defraud seniors are evil, beneath contempt--no question. But this is a funny case for the NYT to choose to cover.

And by funny I mean it's very NYT of them.

Well it sounds like an entertaining story at least, I want to listen to it now

calling my house* "dunpoastin (i will never be dunpoastin)"

*flat

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GLaQqXxWEAAm-yC?format=jpg&name=small

Too on the nose. WSJ?

indeed

It is funny how the WSJ is so much more openly ruling class, whereas the NYT tries to hide it a bit.

― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Monday, January 8, 2024 4:12 PM (three months ago) bookmarkflaglink

Yeah, its a bit obvious when the WSJ weekly real estate section is called "Mansion", no beating around the bush.

― o. nate, Monday, January 8, 2024 4:35 PM (three months ago) bookmarkflaglink

I have to admit, it's a really nice house

https://www.architecturaldigest.com/gallery/inside-the-sag-harbor-home-of-interior-designer-bryan-graybill

meanwhile, the post is aghast that the CEO of a major media organization spent . . . $2.7m on a 'sprawling' brooklyn townhouse

https://i.imgur.com/1oXP6Wr.jpeg

sorry, i know these aren't precisely NYT quiddities but NYC real estate coverage is so insane

there are brownstones on my block going for twice that

Same people that piss and moan about Bernie "Socialist" Sanders living well.

you're right, she's just like us

I just looked up some currently-for-sale $2.7M NYC townhouses in a real estate database, and their square footage is roughly equivalent to that of my cramped Maryland single-family home.

(which is currently appraised under $300,000)

assessed, not appraised

That's probably completely detached from value, some places wait a really long time to re-assess properties or don't assess at full value

I do find something kind of quid-aggy about the new NPR CEO, like she's this rich white lady from Connecticut who has perfectly memorized the Ibram Kendi/Robin DiAngelo talking points but it rings hollow.

Don’t confuse CEOs with people