The Downtown Brooklyn Thread

At last a post-election event we skeptics can show up for, at the Grand Army Library:

Saturday, November 15, 4:00PM
Central Library, Dweck Center

Funny Men: Rees vs. Taibbi: How Doomed is America?

Comic artist David Rees (Get Your War On) and journalist Matt Taibbi (Spanking the Donkey) discuss politics and journalism, placing America's future on a scale of one to doomed.

matt taibbi is pretty dumb

u should go there and tell him so

do i have to be super aggressive and on acid and totally full of myself

i have a question? u r pretty dumb

just a matter of fact sort of delivery will suffice

"you retardation annoys me"

i approve this message

max, how so? I haven't read him exhaustively but what I have has usu seemed smart.

The library has some Rees ncartoons on display ... with about every third word redacted.

hes not that stupid, but his aggressively self-aggrandizing hst-wannabe "gonzo" journalism is really fucking annoying

i dont know who this guy is but max is obv jealous of his amazing lifestyle

i like the idea of interviewing politicians while on acid in theory but in practice my brother would be much better at it than this dude

Rolling Stone: ya gotta have a gimmick

i just cant stand people who have the same level as self-regard as i do but without the associated and simultaneous self-loathing

i totally hear ya maxers

dude has already worked for New York Press and Bill Maher ... I don't totally dismiss Rolling Stone out of hand like I do those other two, but that's pretty much the smug annoying d-bag trifecta there

GOOD DANCING VENUE SUGGESTIONS 4 2NITE HERE THX :)

Obama Nation boycotts buzzkill realists

hahahahahaha morbo read taibbi sometime hes uhhhhh not exactly a 'realist' politically stylistically or otherwise

Still no William Hurt sitings? I don't even live there anymore and I went to visit somebody and saw him within five minutes.

Ok, I was thinking William Hung for like a whole minute.

i never go to the heights - i think hurting lives there tho - maybe he pals around w/w hurt

max, I guess I was thinking primarily of library-program-theme "America is Doomed" realism! I recall reading Taibbi when he wrote for NY Press and he never seemed smug. Rachel Maddow is a bit smug. Indie kids jumping up and down outside Union Hall on Election Night? More naive than smug, i guess.

by 'smug' you mean 'cheerful', right?

Anyone have any ideas as to what might be open for regular lunch on Thanksgiving Day? I need somewhere to go with my parents before we head over to the in-laws in the evening. I'm thinking the only options in this neighborhood are going to be chains, since everything else tends to close every chance it gets. But ideas are appreciated.

you should all just sit around a giant junior's cheesecake

Also, does anyone know a place that makes a good no-added-sugar apple pie?

i'd head to manhattan and go to whole earth bakery on st mark's, or babycakes between ludlow and orchard below delancey. i think there's another sugarfree place too, but i forget. i know whole earth do stuff to order, too, so if you wanted some specific kind of sweetener or whatever ...

brooklyners: is fusetron a real shop?, or is it just mail order? i want something from there and it feels kind of silly to buy online.

pretty sure it's mail order. if they have a physical store I've never been

he's just mail-order, last I checked.

sweet site

ok i missed that whole mind blowing matt taibbi exchange when it occurred but let me just say: wtf morbius?

i was kind of hoping it was some guy's living room, and he'd clamber over stacks and mailers to bring something to the front door. i used to look up nagisa ni te records on there from the other side of the world, so it being local but still only postal is kind of bummin'.

but yes cool store.

might try emailing guy and asking if you can stop by?

i may well do that, thanks. i'm housesitting in brooklyn this week, & think it is a good opportunity to utilise its early morning and late night services i miss as an occasional borough toedipper daytripper.

ask him if he wants me to make his site so you can actually like order from it

ha ha. i assume that if i go round to his house i am also allowed to barter, as was customary in the days before the internet.

Chris @ Fusetron is pretty decent about letting ya pick stuff up from him. He's a busy man though, so just make sure you figure out what a good time is.

Anyone have any thoughts about the big public library on Cadman Plaza as a place to study? Thinking about avoiding the law school library for a day (it's a little like a refugee camp during finals)

shd be OK since on a weekday you'll have room to stay away from the occasional homeless crazies (I'm talking about the ones who sit cursing at the computer terminals w/ no uintervention from staff).

wtf @wtf, schef? "Matt Taibbi is worthless cuz he usta write for NY Press," just like my lefty scribe Perrin?

pretty much everyone who has written for NY Press is worthless, btw

cadman plaza library is fine, generally quiet unless there are hyperactive kids running around.

no, matt taibbi is worthless because he's a terrible writer and kind of a moron. you should probably delve deeper into the man's writings before you defend him because one time you saw him talk and he seemed "kinda smart", bro! he's awful. i agreed, in theory, with several of his political rs pieces and the aggressively stupid and obvious and tired and cliched "lol look at me i'm hunter s. thompson" way that is beaten out of normal human beings in j school in which he writes made me want to disagree with opinions like "sarah palin is retarded" which is like UHHHH. seriously i was just wtfing at the fact that you were a) referring to him as a "realist" b) halfheartedly defending him.

seriously it is a big problem in general with ny press AND rolling stone, this "seriously you are 30 years old or older and you still write like this? you must not be very good then lol!" thing, but i don't dismiss writers out of hand for working for either publication, since both still, even today, boast some real talent. it's just that this bro is not one of those ppl.

btw i read taibbis book so im something of a taibbi expert

well i don't read RS, I read him plenty in the "smug" NYP 5-10 years ago.

If anything, he & David Rees went too easy on the Savior-elect, just before the Clinton Restoration appointments began. But you've heard that b4.

i support neo gonzos in their imaginary quest to do something "different" and "edgy" w/o actually reading the crap

srsly tho, interviewing a politician while trippin is pretty hilarious on the face of it, i just dont want to read an essay about it, just watch a 30 sec youtube video, and btw i would laughing at the dude on acid, not at the politician

(I also read political stuff only for content, not style. which is why I now skip gabbnerd's posts)

boo hoo!