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

I remember reading that Lyndon B Johnson insisted his secretary / aide / whoever follow him into the toilet and take notes while he was having a dump. Presumably as a way of establishing dominance. It's one of those things that old people did in the past that just feels bafflingly weird nowadays. Like licking a comb before combing your hair.

"Marta Baranowska says she was elevated to chief of staff after several years in a recent job but left in search of a new challenge. She would like to try serving European royalty."

Are any of the people in that article telling the truth? The interviewer refuses to press Baranowska on her age, so he presumably didn't press her on her salary. On the one hand the interview subjects are supposedly top PAs, but they seem weirdly naive. Why would anybody want to serve European royalty?

This prompted me to see if there was still a Duke or Duchess of Saxony, which led me to this chap:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael,_Prince_of_Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach

What stood out was the absurdly puffed-up paragraph about the man's daughter, Leonie Mercedes Augusta Silva Elisabeth Margarethe of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach. Apparently she was "an Intern Photographer of Contemporary Art for Sotheby's London between January and June 2007, an Intern for "BILD" at Axel Springer SE at Frankfurt and surrounding area in September 2008, an Intern at "Tatler" in April 2009 and then an Intern for "Vogue Russia" in June 2009 both at Condé Nast International, and then again at Axel Springer SE as an Intern at the Editorial Team of "ICON Welt am Sonntag" at Berlin and surrounding area in September 2009."

After graduating she became an intern again. By emphasising all of these minor roles the paragraph implies that she's a third wheel, and she appears to have been given a sinecure job. I imagine there is an opening for a PA to the child of defunct European nobility, but are you going to earn $400,000? Your personal connections will be with people who are irrelevant and unlikely to be relevant again.

idiomatic favorites of copy editors at the NYT which I have used on occasion (but infrequently!) and for which at least once I was reprimanded:

horse trading
outsized

NYT: Meet the Rich Cokeheads Whose Parents We Know

— Patrick Cosmos (@veryimportant) August 9, 2022

Being a cokehead is probably the most relatable thing these people do

These people are so fucking lame my god - if you have a guilty conscience about being professionally useless at least do Works or something. They can’t even be Catholic without being Protestant pic.twitter.com/LaSRZbAoye

— bad vibes coordinator (@dkulchar) August 9, 2022

"Beat", that's another word that annoys me. I get the idea. It's journalism-ese, presumably a reference to the police. But "the podcast covers X" is slightly easier to type and conveys the same meaning. It's just better. And that's official.

In my opinion slang has three uses. Firstly it expresses something that's otherwise inexpressible, but that doesn't work in this context. Secondly it demonstrates that the writer is "cool", "gas", and "with it", but again that doesn't work because "beat" is overused and anodyne. It's so overused that it's barely slang any more.

And thirdly slang can be a fun stylistic quirk or literary flourish - reading is a voluptuous pleasure - but there's nothing fun or stylish about that tweet. And fourthly slang can condense language to fit a small space, but I have scientifically destroyed that argument. So that's three points plus a fourth, bonus point.

Checkmate, atheists. Checkmate.

I'm assuming that because the writer called the podcast "trendy" they decided to use some hep language to convey trendiness. Therefore you associate the podcast with someone cool, who covers a beat--like a policeman!

I am treating my family to a special vacation in Alaska. My grandson, 28, and his wife are unable to join us; they are expecting a baby soon. I’m sorry they can’t come, but I was shocked when my grandson asked me for a cash gift equal to what I would have spent for them to join us on the trip. He suggested I donate the money to the baby’s college fund. I am stunned! I was happy to help them with wedding expenses and part of the down payment on their first home. But I told him this is not how life works. Was I wrong?

POPSY

What's the play here? If you're 28, your grandparent has got to be old enough that you're going to get that cash in the near term anyway.

I am shocked, shocked that my grandson would want money.

you're going to get that cash in the near term anyway.

Especially if we're talking about when someone now a baby goes to college! Just wait! What, you think you can invest it better than grandma and grandpa? They're in position to book an Alaska cruise for an entire extended family, so probably not!

i mean yeah but also, grandpa, just say of course, we’d like nothing better, and be done with it, and you’ll have done something that makes everyone happy. instead of this, which is bad!

Or just say no, and then don't write into the NYT parading how you put your entitled grandson in his place.

yes pretty much any other option

Dear Ethicist, my question is that I have an axe to grind.

"Is Popsy gone yet?"

Only Murders in the Building have you hankering for the Upper West Side? These sheet-pan rugelach will make you think you're at Zabar's.

— New York Times Pitchbot (@DougJBalloon) August 17, 2022

The quiddity and agony of your kitchen needing a kitchen

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/16/realestate/back-kitchen-scullery.html

lol this article is literally about quiddities and agonies of the ruling class: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/16/nyregion/trinity-grace-church-school.html

First paragraph:

As we have seen over and over in recent years, privilege is in crisis. Undone by guilt, jittery about an authority it is not eager to relinquish, lost in internal conflicts and contradictions, privilege has earnestly worked to rebrand itself, at times alienated its longstanding constituents, backtracked, corrected, wrung its hands.

It doesn't get better.

My god that may actually be too irritating to read in full, and I tried

Privilege is in crisis and Something Must Be Done.

I'm out of free articles, but that is quite a headline

Gonna be honest with you, reading that article came at a cost even for us NYT subscribers

"Is Popsy gone yet?"

― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Thursday, August 11, 2022 1:05 PM (one month ago) bookmarkflaglink

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgiJ0OS9LwU

What to do when you inherit a château https://t.co/KDMwHgCPru

— Financial Times (@FinancialTimes) September 17, 2022

not if but when

finally someone who understands my bat corridor needs

New York is a place singularly obsessed with reinventing its own rituals and power moves — and there’s nothing like sharing agnolotti with friends before dusk on a Tuesday to demonstrate you’re a master of your own universe

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/20/t-magazine/eating-early-new-york-restaurants.html

wait till they meet my grandma, she eats so early they’ll probably give her her own column

As tenants face increasingly high rents, publicly traded corporate landlords are reporting some of their highest margins ever. For smaller landlords, the situation can look very different. https://t.co/iLNvpR4UB6

— The New York Times (@nytimes) September 27, 2022

Just a small lil landlord of 6000 units

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/liberapedia/images/7/75/Toodamnhigh.jpg

ongoing in my immediate neighborhood
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/07/nyregion/dog-attack-park-slope-brooklyn.html

TBF (although I don't know that this really matters), it sounds like that guy's company manages rather than owns those apartments, i.e. is the property management company? Or am I misunderstanding?

6000 just seems like a less shockingly large number for a management company to manage than for a "small" owner to own.

What's shocking is including a 6000 unit landlord (whether he's a middleman or outright owner of the properties) in your sob story about the struggles of "smaller operators."

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/09/technology/minecraft-universe-developer.html
offered without comment


except “a squared plus b squared equals c squared”

fantasy guest feature - Didion writing this (not to discredit the actual writer): https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/09/us/california-high-speed-rail-politics.html

It’s time to stop scrolling when you see shit headlines this this :
“When the Tax Agency
Won’t Let You
Deduct Your Reindeer-
Herding Dog”

On the same day, three New Yorkers—a trader, a lawyer and a social worker—ordered cocaine from a delivery service. Within hours, all three were dead from fentanyl. https://t.co/JOSFKf91v0

— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) October 23, 2022

Dealers also cut it into cocaine, a stimulant, to be more potent and addictive

So dealers cut their upper with a downer to "be more potent"? This sounds like my friends debating whether some batch of x was "heroin based" or not circa 2000, but they worked at TGI Friday's and not the WSJ.

Giorgia Meloni and the Politics of Power Dressing

The first female prime minister of Italy can’t avoid people caring about what she wears, but she can use it, our fashion critic writes.

not as thread appropriate but jesus:

Jeff Bezos Says He Will Give Away Most of His Fortune

The Amazon founder, estimated to be worth $124 billion, suggested in an interview on CNN that he would donate most of his money to charity during his lifetime.

xp
When fashion dictates, you're living in a fashion state!

hey bezos don’t talk about it just do it

https://archive.ph/2022.12.28-193921/https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/27/travel/babies-flying-first-class.html

https://www.washingtonian.com/2022/12/28/home-cocktail-lounges-for-entertaining/

“ A separate outdoor entrance into the lounge amps up the speakeasy element. “You feel like you’re going out to a bar, right?” Healey says of the space. ”
NOT REALLY THO

“It’s that essential question: Does first class buy you the right to avoid hoi polloi and their kids, or do you need to fly private for that?”

for millennia, philosophers and theologians have agonized

Essential