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

if yuppies are going to drop $860K on a home, better it should be a Victorian than the usual cookie-cutter condos.

but that's me being a snob talking.

What is a "futurism consultant?"

http://www.weirdwildrealm.com/filmimages/plan9criswell.jpg

And it was only a 40-minute drive to his Brooklyn studio.

Sentence custom designed to give iatee a stroke.

http://www.faithpopcorn.com/

suburbs are the new cities! jerkin!

I called this one like six months ago after meeting some williamsburg artist couple who moved to peekskill

“Somehow, I think it’s different,” she said. “When you read a book, a proper kid’s book, it engages all the senses. It’s teaching them to turn the page properly. You get the smell of paper, the touch.”

It's insufferable crap like this that makes me wish I liked reading on the Kindle and the iPad more than I do.

idk I don't think it's that particularly outlandish an opinion, esp as it pertains to childrens books (of which we've got, jeez, 50-60 and they're all different shapes, sizes, and have a wide variety of tactile qualities.)

would you mind smelling them for us, you know, to confirm some of these claims empirically

if you'd like I'll send you a sample of my newest artisanal scented candle, I call it "book"

Books that smell usually smell of dust or mildew.

militant luddite sentiments (e.g., "Kindle deprives us of the crumbly feel & mildewy smell of old books BOOO!") are just as insufferable as militant technophile sentiments (e.g., "Kindle deprives us of the crumbly feel & mildewy smell of old books YAYYY!") since current American quiddities sensibilities privilege "authenticity" over "innovations," it's natural that a quiddities article expressing a luddite bibliophile sentiment would get printed (the converse is relegated to Apple or Amazon press releases for iPads and Kindle, i suppose).

http://www.sensesofcinema.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/fahrenheit451-285x300.jpg

nb: i don't even have a tablet of my own at this point. mostly outta laziness at this point -- i like books well enough, but paeans to their touch & smell strike me as a bit silly.

I guess it's just that I too read books on paper most of the time, and when reading to my kids all of the time, but it's not because I have some kind of olfactory fetish about them, it's because books are well-designed and useful tools that serve their purpose really well, indeed better (for me, not for others) than a tablet or reader serves that purpose. That's the reason to have them. If the point of the paper book is that it smells nice, the paper book really IS dead.

books can smell nice, but not nearly as nice as a fresh pack of Magic cards, so it's probably something else that is the point of books

hipsturbia, shut the style secretion down, this one will never be topped

lmao

Mr. McNeil is one half of the lauded street-art duo Faile, known for its explosive swirls of graffiti art, wheat-paste sloganeering and punk rock. He wears his hair in a top bun and bears tattoos with his sons’ names, Denim and Bowie, on his forearms. His wife, Nicole Miziolek, is an acupuncturist.

Denim and Bowie, cursed to open a McNeil Brothers' Artisanal Mustard Shop in 2028.

Denim and Bowie

I think the nyt deserves a Pulitzer for these pieces, this is high high comedy.

Maybe it's supposed to be "tattoos with his sons' names, denim, and bowie"

“Hastings-on-Hudson is a village, in a Wittgensteinian sort of way,” Mr. Wallach said.

What does this even mean?

NYTimes writing aside, those suburbs sound pretty nice to live in. If you're a struggling street artist who can only afford an $860k mortgage.

It would be so awesome if the kids' names were pronounced de-NEEM and BOO-wie, like the town in Maryland, or the knife.

NYTimes writing aside, those suburbs sound pretty nice to live in. If you're a struggling street artist who can only afford an $860k mortgage.

― Kiarostami bag (milo z), Sunday, February 17, 2013 2:35 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I've half considered the hudson valley for a long time. And I thought fed up artists leaving the city and setting up little shops and galleries in those towns wasn't an established tradition. Maybe this is just the new wave.

xpost

The greatest thing about this article is how if frames moving to an $800K house in a trendy suburb as failure.

hasting-on-hudson is a nice town. i used to know a failed musician-turned-lawyer who moved there in 1998 or so.

lol failing upwards

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xy_Clys4ul4

he's like a go-to made up trend artist.

The website for his company reads like a parody, too:

synthesis corp. is a New York City based consultancy that lives at the intersection of innovation, strategy and purpose driven culture. ... synthesis works with governments, NGOs, foundations, and corporations at the C-suite level to discover new ways to drive sustainable innovation, rethink business models and improve top-line metrics. ... Our methodology embraces design science, behavioral economics, foresight analysis and data driven hypothesis prototyping to tackle complex client challenges. We then apply systems-based thinking to identify untapped areas of opportunity and deliver comprehensive 4D strategic blueprints. ... We are a process driven enterprise that applies our expertise, insights and network in collaboration with our clients’ core principles, knowledge and experience to deliver best-in-class results. ... We are on the cusp of an entirely new macro/micro economic, technological and social paradigm. What we do now will set the trim tab for decades to come.

Set the trim tab!

that type of incomprehensible/silly corporate web-page speak is sadly very very common, though.

I'm sure that's true. I don't look at too many consulting websites. I'm sort of amazed anyone still says "new paradigm," I thought that died around 1996.

Also, I had to look up what a trim tab is -- which just goes to show how far from the C-suite I am.

that long quote is the reason the word "bafflegab" was coined

i pity the poor foreign translator who would have to translate a web-page such as that into, i dunno, German or Spanish. or more accurately, into German or Spanish corporate jibber-jabber.

hasting-on-hudson is a nice town. i used to know a failed musician-turned-lawyer who moved there in 1998 or so.

― i have a history of enabling your mother. (Eisbaer), Sunday, 17 February 2013 20:04 (48 minutes ago) Permalink

serious q: do you think it's worth a day trip? Was thinking about going somewhere out of the city tomorrow and I don't want a long drive on account of baby.

Ohh, Hasting-on-Hudson is Westchester County, that explains it, for some reason I was thinking it was like this new frontier of yupsterdom. I had family in Westchester County who lived in this compound-type mansion back in the 80s, it's always been like this.

Yeah, it's the classic NYTimes thing of reporting a thing as a new trend when it's just a thing that people do. There are fake trends that no one actually does, and fake trends that are just stuff people always do, like move to the suburbs when they have kids.

serious q: do you think it's worth a day trip? Was thinking about going somewhere out of the city tomorrow and I don't want a long drive on account of baby.

i think it is -- esp. if you are considering moving there. it's been a while since i've been up there, but i remember that it was pretty funky (by Westchester standards, anyway). and it's been so since 1998 (long before this last quiddities article -- dunno if the NYT has noticed it or not before).

then again, i've got high standards for "small funky suburban towns" -- having grown up so close to New Hope, PA/Lambertville, NJ (New Hope being the town that sprang Ween onto the world).

the grow up, have kids, move to the burbs, but keep it a little bohemian thing has probably been happening for just about a century. so yeah, reporting it as a trend is sort of hilarious.

yeah, like Montclair, NJ has been a thing for as long as I can remember -- suburban home of ex-boho ex-manhattanites.

Aw, New Hope. One of my best pals from college is from New Hope.

See also p much any suburban/rural college town, like Northampton MA.

He conducted a Google Maps street-view search of Westchester, and settled on Hastings for his family when he saw Subarus parked on the streets, not Lexus SUVs.

THE ONLY TOWN IN AMERICA WHERE EVERYONE DRIVES A SUBARU

I'm fuckin sick of Subarus let me tell ya

It's that age old challenge of having to live in the suburbs with all the comforts and amenities that brings while still signifying that you're not really the type of person who lives in the suburbs.