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

i will give credit where credit is due tho

5. What is it you most dislike?

The fact that personal finance isn’t taught in schools. It’s crazy to me! We make 8-10 financial decisions a day, yet no one educates us on this topic!

4. Frozen peas. These delicious little droppings of mother nature go on everything. Dunkin Donuts or Starbucks? Why not try frozen peas?

9. When I wake up in the middle of the night its because I’ve had a nightmare that I’m ___ .

I have the most vivid dreams!! It’s insane — I dream in color, remember them fully, and often my dreams even reference OTHER dreams that I have had weeks before…It’s like movies in my head. I often wake up and think “whoa…”

omg that interview, i want to murder her

This person would not have lasted long on the Oregon Trail.
posted by mmmbacon at 10:18 AM on May 8 [66 favorites]

t/f the backlash from this article will be the single best thing that has ever happened to this girl?

"Four weeks ago, I met him [Richard Branson] on his private island, Necker, and he tried to get me to jump off a 50 foot cliff into the ocean."

can't blame the dude tbh

hahaha

"That night, I decided to go on a simple mission to live a full 24-hour day without spending a penny (I really should go a week). Millions of people do this all across America easily,"

this is my fave part.

t/f the backlash from this article will be the single best thing that has ever happened to this girl?

t/f it was her intention all along?

no I meant in terms of her worldview being crushed

my favorite part is that she doesnt even have a 'free' day. when i read the title i thought it actually might be an interesting article then it basically turns into How to Go 24 Hours in NY Without Spending Money: just use all the shit you've spent money on beforehand

^^^what i'm sayin. next she should go freegan.

I dunno guys, maybe she really does have a magical cupboard that produces vodka marinara sauce out of thin air

not from the nyt, but i thought this was an object lesson in how to do recession frugality with dignity:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/pacificnw/2011906512_pacificpfoodhunt30.html

"iconoclastic young people from middle-class backgrounds living some version of the freegan dream," if by "some version of the freegan dream" you mean "in piles of their own filth": http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/06/magazine/06Squatters-t.html

I haven't read the whole article yet, but the slide show might be all you need.

Not to worry. Judging by this picture everyone in that house will be dead of ptomaine poisoning or salmonella soon enough.

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2010/06/01/magazine/20100606-squatters-11.html

Tim said that he struggled to “find a way out of what looked like a really cloned and synthetic world that people get plugged into.” And just before graduating from high school*, in the spring of 2005, he found it. He met some young people who had found the boarded-up mansion on the West Side of Buffalo, which they hoped to take over and convert into a utopian safe haven for freegans and other dropouts. Mark and Ruth remember their son’s departure vividly. “That Friday night he came downstairs with a backpack, hugged, kissed us, got on his bike and moved,” Ruth says. “There was no stopping him.”

*In North Buffalo.

That Friday night he came downstairs with a backpack, hugged, kissed us, got on his bike and moved... to the other side of town.

Judging by this picture everyone in that house will be dead of ptomaine poisoning or salmonella soon enough.

Also this:

Tim stood barefoot in the mud and was shoveling vigorously. He explained that he had already unearthed quite a few used condoms and hypodermic needles — vestiges of the days when the abandoned house was used by prostitutes and drug dealers.

And this:

“Why are you walking around barefoot? Are you crazy? With all the crack vials and needles here?”

Kit glanced down at his bare feet and then explained with a smile that he always watched his footing.

cleanliness is for squares, man

"That Friday night he came downstairs with a backpack, hugged, kissed us, got on his bike and moved... to the other side of town."

i'm irrationally irritated that this is the story about Buffalo life that showed up in the times. the West side is an awesome neighborhood; it would be cool to hear about how the various recent immigrant groups are getting by in some detail.

nope, it's the NYT. coverage of freegans only.

i tutor in an after-school program on the west side. weirdly i have never encountered one of these freegans.

Soon everyone was rifling through the clothing. “I haven’t worn underwear in eight years,” declared Tim, as he clutched several pairs of boxers with a grin. “I am feeling fancy as hell!”

Horseshoe, stop by the Freegan Mansion and tell Tim that he can probably pick up some free underwear the next time he goes home to do laundry.

ha! maybe we can take the kids on a field trip to study this way of life in its "natural" habitat.

One morning, after I had been hanging out at the mansion for a few days, we were about to have breakfast when someone noticed that all the forks and spoons were missing.

“What happened to all the silverware?” someone asked.

“They got turned into a wind chime,” someone replied nonchalantly. Sure enough, moments later, we could all hear the sound of forks clanging in the breeze.

One evening, a foraging party visited a nearby bike path and gathered several hundred snails. They stuffed them into mushrooms and cooked them in butter. Occasionally the menu at the house also included roadkill like duck, deer or raccoon. Tim was fond of this cuisine. His father told me, “It just hurts his heart to see an animal lying on the road not being consumed if it’s already dead.”

:O

i'm irrationally irritated that this is the story about Buffalo life that showed up in the times. the West side is an awesome neighborhood; it would be cool to hear about how the various recent immigrant groups are getting by in some detail.

― horseshoe, Tuesday, June 8, 2010 7:20 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark

I guess this is the reason why:

Tim worked with Garrett and a local community organizer named Aaron Bartley (who is a friend of mine), and they appealed to the bank to forgive the lien.

h8 wearing shoes so much f the man

Not a perfect fit for this thread, but I often kept thinking of it as I was reading this article. Not that the greater point isn't someone valid, that there's too much internet distraction out there and maybe it's ruining our lives, but uh, maybe picking someone who doesn't seem to have such a great life might be a better story...

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/07/technology/07brain.html

Not alot of freegan love on ilx!

I was in Detroit a few weeks ago and went to a mansion like this, except most people were reasonably hygienic and it was more orderly than this article makes freegans out to be. For instance there were chore wheels up on the wall, notes (which were followed) to wash dishes after you use them, lot of local kids and adults stopping by to sell their arts & crafts, trade homegrown foods, make some music, etc.

Good thing too, because we walked to the nearest diner (30 minutes away) and the scene on the way was desolate, mostly shut-up buildings and out of commission union locals. I bet freegans from wealthier families really are a different breed altogether....

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/26/nyregion/26hospitals.html?scp=1&sq=manhattan%20birth&st=cse

http://www.bestweekever.tv/bwe/images/2008/07/Shrug.jpg

I dunno, I have more sympathy for the freegans than I have for just about any of the other "iconoclasts" that the NYT has focused on.

otm

yeah, i think i just had an irrational reaction to that article because of my experience with the west side.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/01/garden/01peter.html?_r=2&src=twr&pagewanted=all

This was both irritating and pleasing to Mr. Buchanan-Smith, who says that he constantly worries that he’ll be perceived as “just some design hipster kicking it old-school selling some chic tools to a handful of other hipsters.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/27/realestate/27cov.html

the axes are fucking stupid

The buyers of these apartments, which range in price from $2.5 million to $7 million, are not typically people with five or six children; they tend to have two to four. But they want a bedroom for each child as well as a guest room, a family room or a home office. Maintenance or common charges for these larger apartments range from about $3,000 a month, for a three-bedroom, to $6,500 a month for a seven-bedroom.

I'm gonna have to save up to afford this new fad

It's amazing how that one and the birth/hospital story above seem to start from the assumption that everyone else in the city is at best a sideshow. Fewer births from gentrifying neighborhoods! Why? Not, maybe, because the people who were having more babies and using the hospitals are no longer in the neighborhoods, but because those hospitals aren't good enough for the people who took over the neighborhoods.

No one should pay more than $40 for an axe.

"Their apartment’s most appealing feature is its 1,000-square-foot kitchen. 'Not even many houses have kitchens that big,' Ms. Davie said."

That's twice as big as my entire apartment!

I'm also struggling to relate to this:

"Last summer Irene and Oleg Davie moved into a five-bedroom apartment at 225 East 74th Street with their son, now 11; their infant daughter; two Havanese dogs; a live-in nanny; and a live-in housekeeper."

If the Davies are on trend, according to this article, "want a bedroom for each child as well as a guest room, a family room or a home office," I do wonder whether they are making the nanny and the housekeeper share a closet.

Expensive is the new black.

Irene and Oleg share a room, each kid and each dog gets his/her own room, and the nanny and the housekeep take turns sleeping in the cabinet under the kitchen sink. Which to be fair, is about 300 square feet.

They should do a story about hipsters who rough it in bushwick but still go to mom's to do their laundry.

I went to a house once where the maid slept in the wall - a tiny door opened to a space barely big enough to fit a bed, it was about 4 feet high, no windows.