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

why do i think that someone at the NYT got punked again (a la "grunge-speak")?!?

re: chill article, at first I was like 'what's wrong with savin some energy' and then I got to the part about artista domestica

And anyway, she pointed out, “we didn’t evolve to sit on a chair in a temperature-controlled environment staring at a screen all day.”

there's a deer over there, go catch it and drink its blood

(xposts) pretty amazing article, I love the assertion that the people buy razor wire patterned hoodies and the people who buy actual ballistic vests are part of the same trend.

I am reminded of: "Is it true you guys don't use heat?"

can't believe this bullet proof vest thing

And anyway, she pointed out, “we didn’t evolve to sit on a chair in a temperature-controlled environment staring at a screen all day.”

Hence our thick, warm pelts and excellent long-distance vision.

...you...you mean we're not Wookies?

What a fucking SNOT (xpost)

Winifred Gallagher, a behavioral science writer who lives in a warm town house on the Upper West Side

i evolved to lie in a hammock in a tropical zone and be feted by flaxen-haired maidens all day.

i evolved to lie in a hammock in a tropical zone and be fetedfellated by flaxen-haired maidens all day.

― hellzapoppa (tipsy mothra), Friday, January 22, 2010 6:02 AM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark

^^ fixed

i figured that'd be included in the fete-ing. but in between there could be some food and wine and backgammon.

the OG frozen artista domestica:

http://a0.vox.com/6a00c2252704628e1d0110166c0ea8860d-500pi

And anyway, she pointed out, “we didn’t evolve to sit on a chair in a temperature-controlled environment staring at a screen all day.”

there's a deer over there, go catch it and drink its blood

― dyao, Thursday, January 21, 2010 9:03 PM (Yesterday)

Which brings us to our next story: The New Age Cavemen and the City

Mr. McCloskey, 22, bought two poorly insulated turn-of-the century clapboard houses for $41,000 in the Lawrenceville neighborhood there, and turned them into a writer’s retreat he named the Cyberpunk Apocalypse Writer’s Co-op

btw i thought there were legal issues with wearing bulletproof vests - isn't that one of the things ODB got arrested for, i.e. simply wearing one was enough for him to get taken in?

silly tracer -- it's one thing for scary half-crazy black dudes like ODB to be running around wearing bulletproof vests in giuliani-era NYC, and something else for pasty white hipsters dudes to be running around wearing them in bloomberg-era NYC.

... though i doubt that this is an actual TREND, as opposed to the NYT getting punked again.

Patricia Legros is living in a bus-long shamble of blue tarps and shower curtains with an American flag for a door. She lives with her parents, a brother, cousins, neighbors. There is an artist, a taxi driver, a police officer, a tailor — 30 people in all. They sleep side by side on mattresses pulled from the rubble. Each night three of the men stand guard by firelight to keep cars from running them down.

^^^ A friend posted this NYT quote as his Facebook status and I seriously had to stop and think about whether this was actual news coverage of conditions in Haiti or another lifestyle piece about privileged hipsters intentionally living in fashionable squalor. Then I decided that the NYT could suck it.

when your house is 15 degrees, the only problem you have is getting warm.

OKAY this is the one non-abhorrent thing in the article, I think, because like any other extreme-condition activity, it's true -- having a natural predator (cold, gravity, altitude, dehydration) does make a lot of other things seem irrelevant, and simplifies your priorities a ton.

But a better question is probably "Why not get rid of the irrelevant shit RIGHT NOW and turn the freaking heat on?"

rich people paralyzed from having too many choices, many choose to freeze in order to simplify their priorities

Yes, if you're counting all of us as "rich" compared to the rest of the world. The guy whose rent is $300 a month isn't rich, he's just a douchebag.

just because his rent is $300 doesn't mean he doesn't have a trust fund. living in squalor is cool!
note: i did not read this article because these people sound thoroughly repellent

That's true!! And these people are pretty bad, but then the impulse to get away from things and challenge yourself is not so bad -- look at people, probably gbx knows some, who feel like they "have" to do really risky sports because life is simple in those moments. You could say that risking your life for excitement is a douchey first-world thing to do, too. Or winter camping. Or any endurance sport.

i wish those people would put their considerable energy to better use, i guess

And anyway, she pointed out, “we didn’t evolve to sit on a chair in a temperature-controlled environment staring at a screen all day.”

there's a deer over there, go catch it and drink its blood

― dyao, Thursday, January 21, 2010 9:03 PM (Yesterday)

And die at 30!

I don't care what those people do - live without heat, hunt rats and pigeons for food, buy 5000 sq. foot homes and stare pensively into their filthy pools, engage in risky sports, smugly pat themselves on the back for them superior lifestyle - but I wish the NYT would stop fucking profiling them.

when your house is 15 degrees, the only problem you have is getting warm.

Also, while that is true, I'm not going to give her much credit for saying it. I mean, it's also true that getting shot in the face really makes you reexamine your priorities, but I don't then go out and get shot in the face to help me deal with my complicated, modern, privileged life.

Or as Laurel put it, "Why not get rid of the irrelevant shit RIGHT NOW and turn the freaking heat on?"

i went 2 a nye party where sum1 was wearing a bpv and the dude hosting it had creepy model photos of himself and his girl hanging on his wall

they had heat tho

xpost w/ Jenny: i swear, if i didn't know better then i'd swear that the NYT writers are deliberately trying to find the most obtuse and repugnant pseudo-iconoclasts in NYC as some sort of grand joke on its audience. alas, i think that that's not the case.

writing about these people is far worse than their lifestyle choices

agreed

i wonder if these "chilled by choice" jackasses are also breatharians. hopefully, at least one of them can win a Darwin Award.

this is half challops and half idk something else - stupidity maybe - but i really dont get why shitty thursday styles articles are so terrible. like i def dont buy tracer hand's thing that if they took away cintra wilson's column abt chelsea boutiques selling eight hundred dollar pairs of pants wed be getting amazing reporting abt health care reform. and as myopic and lol as articles abt dudes dressing up as victorian chimeny sweeps and playing rugby or w/e are there not inaccurate in describing a certain type.

i mean i guess its shitty that these are the ppl that get written abt? but idk if the style section is place for.. what? articles abt down to earth bros that play xbox and raquetball and volunteer their time w/afterschool literacy programs?

they are terrible because a) they make me feel bad about the world and b) i'm terrified that one day they will run an article and i will lol at that despicable savage until i realize that that savage....is ~me~

I'm glad these articles are written. They are hi-larious.

haha gbx this thread always makes me feel bad bcuz i no and sympathize w/these dudes sometimes. i was thinking in aggregate that these type of articles might make it seem like this shit is representative or a norm and the stlye section perspective is v mypoic abt "how ppl live" outside their view... idk.

I think my main problem with these articles, other than being annoyed at the sheer wankery of it, is that when The Paper of Record profiles a bunch of people who don't turn on their heat for artistic reasons or runs a sympathetic story about some privileged jagoff who can't figure out how to live within his six figures of means, it trivializes the lived experience of people who can't afford heat but would really fucking like to, and who are trying to live within their five or four figures of means.

yer down w/ hypothermia, lamp?!?

god protect us from new york times articles about health reform!! srsly

also cintra wilson is awesome - i don't recall anything from her about how the richies have it tough

jenny otm

It doesn't make the chosen/frozen people any less stupid, but heat in NYC is by law included in your rent. I'm sure there are places that are barely warm enough, and there are slumlords who don't care, and etc., but I would hazard a guess there are a lot more poor people with heat in this city than in most. So going WITHOUT it is pretty rare of instead of "an everyday-type reality, asshole".

Jenny otm re: trivialization. though i dunno i guess the style section is by def pretty trivial?

it is actually impossible in mpls to live someplace that, simultaneously, has pipes with water in them AND isn't heated

Heh heh. "So-called chosen frozen".

It doesn't make the chosen/frozen people any less stupid, but heat in NYC is by law included in your rent. I'm sure there are places that are barely warm enough, and there are slumlords who don't care, and etc., but I would hazard a guess there are a lot more poor people with heat in this city than in most. So going WITHOUT it is pretty rare of instead of "an everyday-type reality, asshole".

― WHY DON'T YOU JUST LICK THE BUS DIRECTLY (Laurel), Friday, January 22, 2010 11:00 AM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

hi there are places in the world other than NYC

I still hold a grudge against Cintra Wilson for that shitty article she wrote about how the opening of JC Penny in Manhattan heralded the downfall of NY society because it would attract so many disgusting fat people.

Evan, you bring up my other huge beef with the NYT, which their habit of publishing just about any story they deem as being related to "women's issues" in the style section, regardless of the actual content.

wait srsly

hi there are places in the world other than NYC

I don't believe you.