Hello to all my new readers from Balloon Juice and elsewhere! Now that my long absence from the ‘net is over, and I have fully purged all my feelings about David Brooks’s back catalogue, I will be writing lots of fresh posts about everything that’s new and annoying in my daily paper.
Also, remember the IHateNYT illustrator? He hasn’t disappeared, but has been struggling with computer issues in several months(!). Maybe the computer offending will be fixed soon? Expect more great illustrations at an unknown date and time… probably just days, weeks or months from now… perhaps when you least expect it!
In the meantime, I’m curious to know what you, the reader, would like to read more about. The Vows section? Travel? Real Estate (somebody told me this was a great section to read; could never quite bring myself to do it)? Thomas Friedman? Ross Douthat? Dippin’ Dots as the latest trendy dessert? The impending hipness of the Finger Lakes region? The Ombudsman? Or just some more crap about sexting? Let me know in the comments, on the Facebook page, or on the new Twitter feed!
I Hate the New York Times 
“Real Estate (somebody told me this was a great section to read[)]”
Was this “person” an actuary? Or perhaps they literally count beans all day as a means of employment? Are you sure they are not a robot?
Well, this person seemed to feel that it was hilariously out-of-touch and was filled with articles about luxury condos for billionaires. I think? Commenter A.M. Rosenthal, where are you? Defend yourself!
Oh, good. I thought they might have been the kind of person who finds reading about the number of bathrooms in a converted brownstone to be vicerally exciting. As broadminded as I try to be, that kind of deviance is more than I can stomach.
A M Rosenthal checking in here. The Real Estate section is the most over-the-top feature in the Times, although as a Manhattan resident maybe I am biased. Yes, I know, Styles, Vows, Travel, The Magazine, all so very gravity-defyingly removed from reality, but believe me, do yourselves a favor and enter the NYT Real Estate world, where nothing less than $3 million apartments and 3 bedrooms will do! Masochists among us love to read things like “When Mr. Madmen bought the co-op in 1963 for $21,000 he…but after almost 50 years he is leaving behind his beloved Burmese teak molding and the seven original fireplaces, six of which still function, and it is now under contract for $14.6 million. He and his fifth wife, Padua, or Pud as she is known socially, plan to live permanently in their vacation home in Fauxberge, a stylish neighborhood of Geneva, Switzerland, partly so Mrs. Madmen can become more active in “Les Riches Sans Frontieres”, a philanthropic organization founded by her great-grandfather, Leopold II, King of the Belgians.”
Sometimes they wander into “up-and-coming” neighborhoods. Invariably the neighborhood either up-and-came at least a decade ago, or the writer does this strange soft-shoe shuffle around the fact that s/he has never been there, no one s/he knows has ever been there, and those who have been there know it makes Thunderdome seem like Green Acres. (Yes, I am old). I am also especially cranky because it hit 102 today. Believe me, Manhattanites were not made for this.
Stay well, faithful readers of this site,
A M
Now I’m nervous to enter the NYT Real Estate world. It’s like Sunday Styles is Mount Everest, & Real Estate is K2 — known only to connoisseurs, but 5 times more deadly. Besides, you offered to write a guest post!
IRL LOL at this comment. Stay cool up there — it’s slightly more temperate down south, for once.
Oh no! I wrote a guest post the weekend after you said you’d be amenable to one! Did you not get it? It talked about Reese Witherspoon selling an apartment, some crazy widow living in an apartment bought for peanuts and now worth millions (the inspiration for Pud in my f’r instance post above) whose apt was filled with all kinds of hoarder crap, like 100s of cookbooks (including “Je Sais Cuisiner”, which is now what I say to people who hit me up for cigarettes, because I am one of the Last Men Smoking) and who married a Mad Man, kind of, and as a wedding present they gave each other yarn/batik-somethings. It was not the guy’s first marriage. They met because she was the secretary to to the guy’s publisher, and he was married at the time. I am not lying. There was also something about buyers “demanding” larger, 3- or 4-bedroom apts, so develepors were combining shabby, $1 million-plus 2-bedrooms to satisfy this insatiable need. There was also a guy who was looking for a rental and apparently had never heard of Brooklyn (even tho his sister lived there and he lived near the South Street Seaport so his view was of, yes, Brooklyn).
It’s dated now but I can resend if I can find it. Or I can do another one!
A M
Resend it! It sounds timeless!
I’m don’t care what you write about, long as you smack it around like you did in the previous post. ‘Shameless flirt’ made me laugh. As did {looks at her ass}/’this gives me a boner!’ Apparently you have met straight men.
The real estate section sounded completely boring, until AM made it look good.
(And what kind of book deal? I’m a shitty, mid-list author. Drop an email if you want so shitty, mid-list advice.)
Er, ‘some’ shitty, mid-list etc.
A M here. Found the post. Sent it to the g mail. Hope you get it.
I used to subscribe to the Times at my remote outpost of civilization, but now only peruse via internet (while my free subscription holds out…). In any event you have taken on a task of mythical proportions (though only about half the proportions, since Judith Warner left). Today’s outrage is probably too obvious, but here it is anyway:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/25/nyregion/to-reach-simple-life-at-camp-lining-up-for-private-jets.html?_r=1&src=ISMR_HP_LO_MST_FB
I am replying to Bob. YES. That has been flying around the Interwebs like nothing I’ve seen since…well, the Wendi Deng “I want to fly like an eagle” video from the British Parliamentary Music Television Channel. Or maybe it was “Programme”
Is anyone reading this site not aware of this summer camp/private plane story? Maybe you’re just coming out of a medically induced coma? If so, read it and read it to the end. SPOILER ALERT: One mother is so fed up with the constant jockeying for seats on the private/chartered flights up to Camp Cantspendthemoneyfastenough in Maine that she is very nobly enduring the ultimate sacrifice and (I can barely write this, it is so heartbreaking) sending her children to camp “in Europe”
I actually am, in all seriousness, wondering why the Times let it go at “Europe”. The Times is often quite picky about geographical specificity. In the REAL ESTATE SECTION (my personal obsession) they will often toss off lines like “on this leafy block of East 73rd Street, just steps from bustling Madison Avenue…” I sense that the mother got kicked out of the Rich Parent Aviators’ Club and had to scramble to find a place and wound up somewhere that might have caused embarrassment all around. Europe is a big place. Somewhere someone has dug up where this selfless, Marian figure has sent Her begotten Sons (or Daughters if they were). I pray for them all.
Oh sorry, I am replying to Bob again.I am sorry Bob. I was not criticizing your comment. Just the opposite. I just reread my comment. I meant YES like YES that is a platinum-plus-grade example of NYT trendpiece wormhole-ism, so egregious that I think somewhere people are literally shouting lamentations from their rooftops. A mother-of-three coworker of mine couldn’t mouth words when I asked her reaction to it. The story may turn out to be one of the most emailed in the Times’s digital history.
Sorry again,
A M