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

LOL you try getting an ex-gallerist to do a fire sale on the secondary market. It's the last thing they'd do because the artists in question have to hold value and they also get very, very pissed off when their work is sold like this.

huh? she's not the worst-suffering person in America therefore she deserves no pity? she was a self-made woman who lost her business/savings/apartment/purpose.

there's nothing in that article that suggests she's a bad person other than that she's dating an ex-finance guy, so I'm not sure why you're so keen on attacking her. so yeah, not all recession stories are poor people becoming poorer, sometimes it's upper-middle class people becoming lower-middle class...

Ilxors rag nyt about it because basically all of the lifestyles pieces there regarding the recession are about upper-middle class or rich people "suffering" somehow. It's not newsy and it's not even interesting reading, unless you want to say, "OMG, this is stupid. Tom, look at this." Brick and mortar trolls.

This week's episode of Frontline reminded me of this thread when I was watching it:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/closetohome/view/

xp - i dunno, maybe i'm overthinking it, but i feel like it's a weird mix of aspirational fantasy and schadenfreude, that yes, is blunted by repetition.

I think that's right.

Some of it is also "Oh how the mighty have fallen"

definitely - but the crux of these stories is - they haven't fallen all that far compared with "the rest of us."

basically all of the lifestyles pieces there regarding the recession are about upper-middle class or rich people "suffering" somehow.

to be fair (not that that's the overarching purpose of this thread), the art-gallery owner was part of an op-ed page package that also included this, this and this. none of which are necessary revelatory or gripping, but they mostly don't involve upper-middle-class or rich people.

His apartment is not “big and lush and grandiose,” he said, “but sometimes you want to have a ridiculous 150 people and a world-class D.J. in your basement.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/08/realestate/08cov.html

But these days, to afford these sexy-factor places, Mr. Seawood said, bachelors make concessions, either by sacrificing location or by “tag teaming,” as he calls subdividing a space. In previous years, for a $3,500-a-month one-bedroom, “I would have had a few solo guys. Now it’s like, ‘Me and my buddy are going to be here,’ ” he said.

sounds like Mr. Seawood has a rich fantasy life

a two-bedroom condominium in a new building in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, for which he paid $3,300 a month.

sentences like this make my head spin.

the $500,000 apartment purchase "on a decrepit block in Bushwick" is even more o_0

Uneasy lies the head that strolls a baby

Elsewhere:

Part of the appeal, in fact, is in how the clothes relate not to the runways or the estates of Europe, but to America’s heartland in ways that few fashions do. Country and city men alike have rediscovered old-school American brands like Filson, Orvis, L. L. Bean and Duluth Pack.

...wait, L. L. Bean 'rediscovered'?

Three webpages worth.

the best part about how quickly fashion trends change is that you can write the same article every 9-18 months and still have it be up-to-date

i always wonder what it must be like to write the least important articles for the newspaper of record. would i care more about writing the crappy content our would i still feel proud of where i did it?

the only luxurious aspect of my bachelor pad is that i don't have to pick up the laundry off the floor every day.

where do they find these people?

guys wanna see the front page washington post style story today?

the writers at the SF Chronicle must have internal competitions for who can write the puffiest puff piece.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/11/AR2009111127404.html?hpid=topnews

this was front page of the entire newspaper

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/11/AR2009111115683.html

The culprits could be anywhere -- a crowded train, an SUV on the Beltway

Naked things. Naked, noisy things, unfettered by the restraints of human anatomy
!!!!

Teenager Writes In Indecipherable Street Slang

hippos are pretty fucking important imo.

indecipherable

"where's my pancakes" is not that hard to understand? dude just wants some eats.

Nu-Americana has been a big trend for a couple of years now. Hard to imagine it's not on its way out.

ilx needs more hippos posting

I enjoyed it, though, because my lumberjack beard and flannel made me look fashion-forward rather than unkempt.

The Post and the Times both covered this story, about a man accused of robbery whose alibi was a Facebook status update. Both papers though, censored the update itself, which was apparently "indecipherable". Except it wasn't.

The Times story, on The Local blog, opened with this:

Where's my pancakes, read Rodney Bradford's Facebook page, in a message typed on Saturday, Oct. 17, at 11:49 a.m., from a computer in his father's apartment in Harlem.

They admit they paraphrased because the update was written in "indecipherable street slang." The Post, meanwhile, actually ran some of the original update, in its distinctive all-caps:

Prosecutors dropped a robbery charge against Rodney Bradford, 19, after learning his Facebook account status had been updated with the inside joke "WHERE MY IHOP?

A look at the screenshot above however (it's at the bottom, you have to squint) reveals that the real status update was:

ON THE PHONE WITH THIS FAT CHICK… WHERER MY IHOP

I'm no street-slang deciphering expert, but it seems like he was saying he was on the phone to a fat chick and wanted some pancakes.

http://gawker.com/5403874/papers-find-facebook-status-too-risque-to-print

LOL indecipherable street slang

pancakes = crack cocaine in street slang

rly?

want pancakes (no crack)

not rly, sorry

3. pancakes 109 up, 75 down

A slang term for crack cocaine and flapjacks

This term started after the episode of Family Guy when Meg inadvertently tricks a social worker into thinking Stewie is addicted to crack
Some guy: I gotta score some Pancakes man
Another guy: It's a little late for breakfast don't you think?

oh haha ˘\(o_º)/˘

well its slang for crack on one episode of family guy

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/27/nyregion/27doormen.html

(Full disclosure: I live in a building on East 74th Street, where I grew up playing ball with the doormen and today often find myself in long chats with them about politics and family. And while the doormen of my childhood sat and listened to the ball game in shirt sleeves, staff members today keep jackets on and stand behind a little wooden lectern.)

???
really didn't need this disclosure nytimes reporter

(just fyi im totally down w/ doormen)

Did you grow up with them in a lectern?

(Full disclosure: I live in a building on East 74th Street, where I grew up playing ball with the doormen and today often find myself in long chats with them about politics and family. And while the doormen of my childhood sat and listened to the ball game in shirt sleeves, staff members today keep jackets on and stand behind a little wooden lectern.)

Also, great headline

hahaxp

there's a good article or five to be written about doormen but that ain't it

One need not look further than the lobby of Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino, Calif., to see that the iPhone and applications that run on it are centerpieces of the company’s mobile strategy.

Fascinating! Tell me more!

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/06/technology/06apps.html?em

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2009/12/04/ST2009120402037.html?sid=ST2009120402037

Hey now, we have another thread for that!

quiddities and agonies of the ruling class, DC edition - a rolling washington post thread

oh ha didn't kno

o man the post is just like *smh*

the only reason i can think of for this not being on this thread yet is that nobody could bring themselves to read it. (i made it onto the second page, just barely...)