Sweeping

When the "Girls" backlash (and backlash to backlash...) first broke, and everyone was saying that the show was too white, my thoug...

Middle school and the neurosis of narcissism

As I sit waiting for commenter Caryatis's mystery " suggestion  about" my "writing style" (about which I'm of co...

A good mind to write a letter

The comments left on ancient blog posts here tend to be on the furious end of the spectrum. What inspires someone to leave a comment on a po...

Food court imminent?

Mark Bittman wants ( link !) an indoor food market to go where the Fulton Fish Market once was. Not that this would much benefit me at this ...

Manhattan: because I'd never make it as a farmer

-New Brooklyn continues to represent aspirational farming by non-ethnic white people. On that front, we have Swedish Brooklyn obsession , a...

The thrill of the hunt

Sample sales. I grew up with them, and then, as an adult, basically lost track of them. Yes, it's possible to buy high-quality clothing ...

Lena-not-Dunham UPDATED

Caity Weaver of Gawker has written a hilarious but essentially mistaken  take-down of a NYT real-estate-section profile of some parents bu...

Someone was right on the Internet

Chris Schonberger, Nick Schonberger, and Foster Kamer wrote this endlessly compelling if somewhat NY-centric  list of "20 Things Every...

WWPD, language police

-Yes, yes, the First Amendment, but whevs. I'm going to hereby advocate for a ban on the use of the word "fresh" to describe h...

Write what you know

Lena Dunham confirms what I've been saying since forever: everyone should wear eyeliner. It's always a good idea. Meanwhile, "...

The universal and particular in "Tiny Furniture"

Every so often, some piece of entertainment comes along that so resembles my own biography that I have trouble judging how it might be recei...

What your great-grandmother recognized as de-frizzing serum UPDATED

-A Frenchwoman lectures an American audience on chic, which she humbly implies she was born with. A Frenchwoman in a track-suit . But she...

Of folk-singers and lactation consultants

Sarah Maslin Nir's somewhat controversial story about privilege and post-Sandy volunteering illustrates exactly where YPIS goes wrong. ...

Dude

At NYC taco mini-chain Dos Toros, there's always this sign up about how you may only sit once you've gotten your food, i.e. no grabb...

With tiny-violin music playing on the waahmbulence radio

Waah : -NYC-centrism and the storm: On the one hand, commenter Sigivald has noted that I no longer live in NYC, and should thus stop getting...

The tristate area

Cropped for emphasis. The "are you Jewish" set were way off their game that day, going right past me twice  and asking the questio...

New York City, 2012

-A missing-person sign up in and around Penn Station indicates that the young man "is not wearing a yarmulke." -One Facebook frien...

On a lighter note

Two Australian (?) women on the subway, of a certain age and in the TOWIE/Real Housewives mold. One is telling the other about a certain ...

Reports from the longest day ever

-Class itself: fun. Sorting out the mystery that is online homework: less so. A work in progress, but to be resolved, I estimate, in the nex...

The commute thus far

Pros : -My four-leg-each-way journey would make for a fantastic RNC speech.  -The train I take to get me in on time gets me in early. Early ...