A long-running joke between a friend of mine and me has it that he intends to give me highly poisonous scorpions for my birthday.
1: Are some scorpions more poisonous than others?
So, if anyone out there is struggling to complete last-minute holiday shopping, please take a moment and consider bees.
I would think, given your situation, that you would want to give someone a box of stinkbugs, Stanley.
But why not go whole hog and give them the loving gift of a box of shit? ('I got it free from a cable TV news channel!') Recyclable! Compost able! Fertilizer!
max
['Merry Christmas!']
I mentioned on another thread that my brother recently acquired a pet scorpion; I have since learned it is named something really, truly awful.
6: sounds like a mouthful. Does he just call it "SeRTA" for short?
6: This the guy who likes the inappropriate "shock" jokes on Facebook, right? If so, I suspect I can guess the kind of thing he came up with it.
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Wealth is wasted on the wealthy.
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6:"Deathstalker"?
Even the poisonous pet communities think they should be banned
12: I was thinking something along the lines of "xyz Killer." Where xyz is some shameful epithet.
13: It's more like xyz-xyz in that case.
10: All it lacks is Pakistani child camel jockeys riding around in the distance retrieving the golf balls.
There are poisonous pet communities? I really should stay in more.
Maybe it's a shameful racist epithet.
I got my atheist self properly churched this evening, so Merry Christmas to all of you. Especially Ari.
Maybe it's a shameful racist epithet.
No, I think it just refers to people who have a lot of poisonous pets.
Stockings stuffed. Tree decorated. Presents under tree. Carrots and cookies eaten. Merry Christmas to all!
6: I have since learned it is named something really, truly awful.
Horst Wessel Flesh Eating Virus Waterboarding Prison Rape Joke W. Bush?
Here's hoping that all is calm and all is bright for all of you.
Just as heebie always listens to Alice's Restaurant on Thanksgiving, I find no Christmas is complete without this insane version of O Holy Night.
I know the police cause you trouble,
They make trouble everywhere,
But when you die and go to heaven,
There'll be no policemen there.
If, in the course of a lessons and carols Christmas Eve service, one finds oneself full of the spirit moved to ad lib before one's solo carol, one should think twice. "All things are possible with God" is not really the point of the Gospels.
In unrelated news, our Christmas dining plans comprise turkey, gingerbread and Indian pudding, because, apparently, we are in a contest to determine the whitest people in New England in the late 1950s.
I gave myself the gift of figgy pudding. And break dancing!
I'm picturing someone unwrapping a Christmas gift and being suddenly swarmed by bees
"BAH! HUMBUGS!"
32: Ha! Throw in some johnny cakes, too.
35: We're not animals, he typed, the bookshelves full of mystery novels and P.G. Wodehouse reminding him to buy sunscreen.
Allow me to be the first to say happy birthday to our Mexican friend, Jesús. (Sorry about the DREAM Act, amigo.)
Oh, hey: how do all you child-raising people handle the Santa thing? I think I'd want to punt on it entirely, but I'd guess that does not, in practice, actually work.
Everybody cut! Everybody cut—FOOTLOOSE!
In all seriousness, though, they really will give almost anyone a computer and internet access.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HoBxPzmOccI&feature=related
"We'll see who brings in more honey!"
Stanley: how old is the child, what's your relation, how did the question arise?
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LB, it's not defending tobacco companies, but how do your colleagues sleep at night?
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41: No kids for me; I was just wondering what people do.
42: I have already been vomiting about that story on this lovely Christmas morn! The story of the woman who was raped in the hospital and then billed for the privilege was special.
There was the 20-year-old woman raped at South Beach Psychiatric Center on Staten Island in 1992. Six years later, a judge deducted $101,000 from her $250,000 award to cover what the state contended she owed for services; the judge ruled that a hospital might be negligent on some days while providing valuable services on others. The patient appealed, to no avail.
how do all you child-raising people handle the Santa thing?
Hasn't come up yet, but I plan on doing a lot of "Well, what do you think?" and letting HPs supply the story.
Merry Christmas, you miserable bastards!
As for me, I am happily surrounded by family (in-laws) and feeling quite happy about the bottles of quality bourbon that await my attention later. I may have to leave the room shortly because my wife and SIL have started watching a Ghost Hunters dvd. They have started laughing at it though, so it may be a friendly atmosphere for mockery.
On Santa, we're pretty unobservant pagans on our own, but celebrate Christmas as a family/gifting holliday. We'll probably tell Future Children some version of the Santa story and then celebrate Solstice as well as Christmas, with some talk about "Some people believe x, we belive y and/or z. As you grow up, you'll have to figure out what you believe." (which is more or leas how I was raised) I'm firmly in the magic of childhood over ruthless honesty camp.
The first year she was old enough to understand "Santa," Rory was scared shitless of him. As in, refused to leave her room until we did a thorough search of the apartment and assured her he wasn't there anymore. She half-heartedly was feigning belief this year, and I half-heartedly played along. Stuck her presents in the stocking, but that's it. She's too old for it, and I suspect she was hoping to milk it for the presents.
The first year she was old enough to understand "Santa," Rory was scared shitless of him. As in, refused to leave her room until we did a thorough search of the apartment and assured her he wasn't there anymore. She half-heartedly was feigning belief this year, and I half-heartedly played along. Stuck her presents in the stocking, but that's it. She's too old for it, and I suspect she was hoping to milk it for the presents.
What do you mean, Santa "story"?!
I am having a truly multidenominational Christmas. Went out to a movie last night, opened presents this morning, and said hello to all the Muslim neighbors are out walking this afternoon.
I can't imagine making a big deal of Santa either way. There's enough Santa imagery in the culture that no kid would need to be formally introduced to the idea. While setting the kid up for the discovery seems needless cruel, I also don't see the point of formally debunking the fantasy either.
The first year she was old enough to understand "Santa," Rory was scared shitless of him.
My little brother, too, especially the reindeer. "But they just want to kiss you," my mom told him, which kept him up until one.
42, 44: It is awfully unseemly sounding. As far as I can tell from the story (I don't know anything about it from work), not actually wrong, but boy does it sound bad.
I pretend, and it's definitely a fun magic-of-childhood thing, but I'm not going to go to any great lengths to preserve the pretense beyond its natural expiration. And I definitely don't use the "Santa's watching" thing to try to extract good behavior. Who threatens to punish a small child by withholding presents at Christmas?
53: Does your "not actually wrong" mean anything besides "permitted by statute"? Because I'm prepared to say it is wrong, legal or not.
God rest ye, Jerry Mendelbaum, let nothing ye dismay! I totally snagged a present on Jewish Christmas by calling Mrs. Ksky a Scrooge because she asked for less Christmas music in the house or at least exclusively secular. "It's not Jesus, it's Frank," I said.
merry christmas everyone. We had our traditional dinner last night and are doing the bird tomorrow to avoid stuffing ourselves two dazs in a row. Tonight is oysters.
So should I watch Tiny Furniture or Rare Exports?
There's enough Santa imagery in the culture that no kid would need to be formally introduced to the idea.
Yes to this, so we go with it, and we'll just let them grow out of it when the time comes. The question of belief in Santa is already in the air, so I suspect that'll be soon. That said, I was on the verge of telling mine this morning that there is no Santa when they woke me up to get their stockings at ten minutes to five, seeing as how I'd been up until three getting everything ready.
We had our traditional Christmas Eve clam chowder. I'm wondering if this is a common tradition, as several other people were buying clams when I was.
My mom's family did clam chowder on Christmas Eve; my parents switched it to New Year's Eve. Last night we had our traditional posole and tamales. Today, ham -- 'cause, you know, Jesus.
My mother has taken to saying "that really puts it over the top" to approve of putting some particular ingredient in a dish. Is this a Food Network thing?
Today, ham -- 'cause, you know, Jesus.
The ham of god?
Jesus came to redeem us from kosher laws?
57: My family's always had oyster stew on Christmas Eve. My parents got some, and it was $15 for a tub. Unopened they were a dollar a piece--restaurant prices. The fish monger said that it was because of all the oil in the gulf.
All I got for Christmas was a bunch of coal!
But like my mom always said: when life gives you coal, you make coal slaw! Who wants seconds?
I told both kids right away that Santa wasn't real; he was just a metaphor for how much Mom and Dad love you. Molly was less that sure this was a good idea, and still puts on Santa pretenses. She also tells the kids emphatically that they cannot reveal the truth about Santa to other kids at school.
At age 5, Joey is able to hold remarkably contradictory beliefs in his head at the same time, including the pair "Santa is isn't real" and "Santa brought this gift, not Mom and Dad." Also, for a while he was saying that he believed in Santa, but not elves, for some reason.
A downside to that metaphor is that it can obscure the real thing. More than once I've put enormous effort into fulfilling their hearts' desires—by, say, traveling all over hell and gone in heavy weather to obtain a used pair of Heelys—only to have that imaginary fuck take the credit. But I can't hog the glory; it's not my style.
We're having pig too tonight, a pork roast that may be great, could be bad but will in any case be interesting. I used this rub involving honey, and the only we had on hand was buckwheat honey, which it turns out is surprisingly pungent. I'd already rehydrated some porcini in marsala to go with, so it's a pretty earthy affair. Chthonic, even, which isn't very Christmasy. Whatever, I'll tell the girls Santa made it.
59: After much pleading, I told my son he could wake me up for stockings at 6:50 this morning instead of the usual 7:00. Then after he went to sleep I turned his clock back 20 minutes.
60.2: You should try and get her to switch to "it really pulls the dish together" because it would be funny to have your mom unwittingly channeling The Dude.
As planned, Jewish Christmas was Burlesque and then treif at Grand Sichuan. Deeply satisfying. Burlesque is one element short of being a really terrific movie musical. (Unfortunately, that element is the memorable songs.)
I like it better with the definite article, Smearcase. It has an old country feel to it that way.
Hee. Now I'm reading reviews that totally slag on it. I don't get it. They seem to think good movie musicals aren't inane. Ok Manohla Dargis have you seen The Music Man? Because Rashomon it ain't.
Jesus came to redeem us from kosher laws?
NOW THAT YOU MENTION IT....
Huh, there are more movie musicals than I'd have thought. I even saw The Corpse Bride of which I remember next to nothing.
What was that musical set in a working-class neighborhood of it must have been New York from a few years ago? For some reason I thought Stanley Tucci was involved.
I'm not so old and out of it that I think West Side Story is from a few years ago, young Stanley.
Answer: it was Romance & Cigarettes. I guess John Turturro + James Gandolfini = Stanley Tucci in my mind.
The greatest of the gifts I received today, allowing for the possibility that the Barolo might turn out to be fantastic, is wisdom, specifically this: stay the fuck away from buckwheat honey. Buckwheat honey is like what you'd get if you took all the warm sweetness out of normal honey and replaced it with the harsh musty minerality of buckwheat. It's probably all nutritious and shit, and it had better be. Stupid fucking bees. I'd rather eat that Brooklyn Maraschino cherry crap.
80: Man, I could not make it through that movie. And I love Susan Sarandon and Kate Winslet! I kept thinking it was going to turn into Henry Fool!: The Musical, but that didn't happen.
I loved True Grit. And Mandarette held up its end of the Jewish Christmas Holy Dyad.
We were going to rally for Easy A after, but Mrs. K-sky and I have a flight to catch in the wee hours.
83: 2004 Boasso Serralunga. Nothing monumental, but worth looking forward to in a couple years or so. I also received a 2006 Ken Wright Elton Vineyard, which I opened tonight (his wines don't age well, so no rationalization necessary).
I really identified with the film Elf.
Funny, I quite like buckwheat honey. Like honey mixed with blackstrap molasses. Nicely complex. Good on sourdough toast with lots of butter.
As for holiday news, my family's alacrity for jumping photos pretty much made my day, photo-wise.
Hey guys! Merry merry. So, you know those movies where it turns out the guy you thought he was is actually SOMETHING MUCH BETTER?
And the movie is totally unbelievable because you're like, duh, breasts! But the romantic lead is just an idiot, that's how they wrote the script. Not really his fault at all.
Also holiday-related, my brother and I just exchanged text messages reminding ourselves that it's totes cool that our parents lived, because our god parents ended up: (1) incarcerated (2) crazy (3) crazy and (4) functional but a bit of an asshole.
85: I opened a bottle of the 1999 a few weeks ago, and while it was delicious, I probably would have done well to wait a bit longer.
Meanwhile, last night I was apparently standing at the intersection of holiday sentimentality and too much wine, plus I'm nearly divorced so goddamn it I deserve to do something stupid and crazy, and so I discovered that I can get to LA for a tiny fraction of my frequent flyer miles. I did not actually book the ticket, but it is on hold and I will consider doing so if (a) I have a place to stay and (b) I can figure out how to explain to my wife why I need to go to LA for the weekend leaving our son in her care. The first is in your hands, and if you have any good advice for the second, I'm all ears.
92: I fully endorse this plan and suggest reposting the second half of your comment in the MLALALAALLALALALAL thread.
Blandings, email me at my secret email address.
92: Do it do it do it. Biohazard offered up crash space if needed a while back.
DO IT! DO IT! DO IT!
Holy crap, is it snowing here. We were supposed to load up and drive down to Florida today to visit my grandmother, but right now the top local headline is DOT: Plows can't keep up with snowfall.
whoa, dude, the heat miser totally signed off on white christmas in dixie!
Do it. And then knock over a liquor store.
Atlanta got snow on Christmas for the first time since the Chester A. Arthur administration.
Do it! I flew halfway across the country to attend the last one, despite not having met anyone before, and I had a blast.
I'm a Canadian tomato milkshake! Happy Boxing Day, amigos.
Definitely do it Blandings.
There's enough Santa imagery in the culture that no kid would need to be formally introduced to the idea.
Yup, this was our approach too, kind of DADT. When Kid B was 4 1/2, she turned up at about 10pm on Christmas Eve, crying that she didn't want a strange man in her bedroom, so I just told her (and Kid A) that it wasn't real. (Which had various friends and acquaintances telling me that I should have made up stories about him leaving presents at the front door or whatever, but fuck that.)
They then went along with it for the younger two, but at 8 and 10 this year, actual belief is long gone, although wholehearted playing along is still happening. Father Christmas only fills the stockings in our house, and all the good presents are under the tree and from real people - I *do* want the credit.
Blandings: "Hey, can you watch the kiddo for a couple of days? There's a networking event out in L.A. and, after some wavering, I've decided I really should go."
Do other people get presents from pets? My parents usually label one or two presents with something like "To: Stanley, From: Whiskers and Chairman Meow" which I find charming. But it might also be yet another sign of my parents slowly going crazy with no kids in the house.
We used to as kids. Don't now, even though my dad is probably fonder of his cats than of anyone else. I think last year I might have written a few labels from the dog.
My childhood cat would get us presents for the whole family -- tickets to something, things like that. Not every year, but sometimes.
Also, my self-image has been shattered. I spent yesterday afternoon drinking eggnog at a neighbor's, and got talking with another neighbor who I've sort of known for years, but not particularly well. He asked where I was from originally, and when I told him I was born in Manhattan, he said, "I wouldn't have thought so -- you've got a rural look."
Rural look?! Admittedly, the party was in our building, so I wasn't wearing shoes, but I wear shoes most of the time. I'd never been so insulted in my life.
No, our pets frequently received presents, but never were held to have given any (excepting the odd decapitated mouse on the pillow or poop on the floor next to the bed).
Admittedly, the party was in our building, so I wasn't wearing shoes, but I wear shoes most of the time. The important thing was that I had an onion tied to my belt, which was the style at the time. You couldn't get white onions, because of the war. The only thing you could get was those big yellow ones.
This has not been a great year for travel. Got stuck in London when UnpronouncableVolcano erupted, and now I'm trying to get to New York...
Snagged the last seat on a 4 pm flight over there, so fingers crossed that LaGuardia gets its act together by tonight!
(Oh, and LB, it doesn't sound like you dress flashily at all, so maybe the neighbor just never knew that middle class people used to live in Manhattan almost as if it were their home?)
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Yep, that's a lot of snow.
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109: Might should have left that whittlin' stick back home.
113: Right, so no more goddamn whining.
There's a lot of snow where I'm supposed to be leaving from today as well. They were getting an inch an hour when I flew in, and we landed on time like it was the easiest thing in the world. Now I'm set to fly home this afternoon, and Newark Airport is closed.
Of course Newark Airport got 24.2 inches of snow* in half a day which would shut those fucking arrogant weather punks at MPLS down as well.
*Over half the annual average in the Twin Cities.
I fully endorse this plan. Do it do it do it. DO IT! DO IT! DO IT! Do it. Do it! Definitely do it. Definitely do it Blandings.
So you're saying I should do it?
The support for my questionable decision-making is touching, but I do still need to turn up a place to stay. Unless Blandings, email me at my secret email address was meant to address that, but if so, text, your secret is safe withfrom me.
maybe the neighbor just never knew that middle class people used to live in Manhattan almost as if it were their home?
I was thinking of this today. I had a doctor's appointment, and the doctors and the higher-end techs were all there, but none of the receptionists or billing people were able to make it in. I don't know this for a fact at all, but I was pretty sure the distinction was "people who live in Manhattan and people who don't."
Hey, I hadn't seen this until now. Blandings, you should definitely come. DO IT! There's some room at my place, but it's a pretty uncomfortable floor/couch situation. Maybe one of the MLAers is still looking for someone to share costs with?
Also, there's a nearby motel that's cheap, if you don't mind crack and hookers.
if you don't mind crack and hookers.
It's not that I mind, but I assumed I'd be getting my fill at the party.
120: The dude who was judging my ruralness fixes restaurant kitchen equipment and grew up in Manhattan. We're pretty down with the whole middle-class Manhattanite thing up on the north end of the island.
I just have to reconcile myself to giving off a hayseed vibe. I'll live through it.
Do other people get presents from pets? My parents usually label one or two presents with something like "To: Stanley, From: Whiskers and Chairman Meow" which I find charming.
Yep, my parents do this, and always have. They also label some of the presents they give each other as "From: Santa". So, if your parents are slowly going crazy, mine have been there for a long time.
Now I'm set to fly home this afternoon, and Newark Airport is closed.
Oof, did you have a late enough flight that it's not canceled? Or are you now among the poor and huddling masses?
124: Mine do this too! Sometimes the presents from the dog are signed with paw prints and their notes contain LOLpet-esque misspellings.
123: Maybe start wearing kohl or something.
Apparently all the NYC-area airports are due to reopen at 4. Not that that will help everyone much, since EWR and LGA both have too few runways at the best of times.
I feel so shortchanged. I was hoping for some snow here. All we got was a dusting here in RobertELeeLand.
Well, Northern RobertELeeLand.
124: Don't do the pets, but all of my family (including us) certainly do "From: Santa" for some gifts (there are informal rules as to which gifts get that treatment). Sometimes leading to confessions such as, "that was from the Pittsburgh Santa".
120: My friend the Wobbly Sbux barista made it all the way in from Brooklyn 5 hours ago.
The truly amazing thing, given the history of the place, is that poor people don't live in Manhattan anymore. Well, south of 96th street, I guess, but still. And I suppose there are a few projects. But the idea that "Manhattan"=rich people seems incredibly recent, definitely in livin memor for me.
I've never met LB in person, but in my imagination her accent alone would prevent confusion with anyone outside of a thirty mile radius of Zabars. I guess the other native NYer didn't
g, y, and "have that signal."
Oof, did you have a late enough flight that it's not canceled?
I thought so until I got an email notification a few minutes ago (7 pm scheduled arrival). Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.
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Thing That It's Okay To Think But Probably Shouldn't Be Said Allowed in a Business Meetings of People You're Only Vaguely Familiar With: "Well, buying property at all—let alone in Florida—in that last five years may well have been not the wisest approach to managing one's resources."
Mouth? Meet foot.
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We've always gotten presents from the pets AND Santa Claus. It is a big thing with both of my parents to be as clever as possible when coming up with things to write on the To/From tags. I should probably set aside some time this week to complete my Xmas shopping.
Also, I can't even get on interminable hold with Continental. There's just a recording that basically says "We're not taking your call". I guess I'm off to the airport.
135: Ah geez, I managed to swap into a flight with a 7:15 arrival time. Still showing up as fine, but I really hope nothing gets pushed off further since I'm only supposed to be in NYC until Thursday anyway.
With that late of an arrival time, are they canceling or just delaying for the moment?
133: In high school my best friend (XY configuration) was pretty buttoned down looking and I was all fishnets and combat boots. Some of the younger teachers found our friendship amusing and would refer to us as "Upper West Side and Lower East Side." My mother got wind of this and was wildly offended and I couldn't figure out why until I realized she thought they were essentially calling me "dirty little wop immigrant." Oh NO, Mommy, I explained. More like "aspiring Bowery junky." This was much better.
The title of this thread has put Petra Haden's cover of "Silas Stingy" in my head and it won't go away.
We've gotten about one inch of snow this winter so far, divided between three days in three different weeks. A whole month now of sub-freezing temperatures, though.
133: Data from the spreadsheet at this link shows the dramatic shift in NYC boroughs:
Median household income % above or below US average
    1949 1979 2006
Brooklyn 20.3%,   -29.2%, -16.6%
Bronx    25.9%, -35.0%, -35.0%
Manhattan -10.4%, -17.4%, 23.9%
Queens    45.7%,   1.1%,   5.7%
Staten Island 31.5%, 25.9%, 41.6%
143 amazes me.
Manhattan was the only borough of New York whose people were NOT significantly richer than the national average?
Queens was like the non-NYC parts of Long Island are now?
I wonder if the four other boroughs could get together and sell Staten Island to New Jersey. I bet Chris Christie would jump at the chance to get the extra tax base and Republicans for the Garden State.
144: I've seen 1950 pegged as the peak year of New York City Classic. Queens was basically a close-in suburb (Nassau County nearly doubled in size from 1950 to 1960, Suffolk more than doubled and had even greater numerical growth 1960 to 1970).
145: Then he'd pave paradise Fresh Kills and put up a shopping mall.
145: Um, no.
This was filmed overnight in Monmouth Co., NJ, near my mom's house. Nutty.
Um, no.
I assume that you're objecting on behalf of New Jersey, not NYC. Which is funny to me.
149: Well, yes. But Staten Island would object strongly as well. They feel pretty rejected by the rest of NYC, and wouldn't at all mind being their own town/civic entity, but being sold to NJ would be a bridge too far. (Hur hur.)
144: I wasn't around in 1949, but my sense of Manhattan back then was a fairly small rich-person area on the Upper East Side, some middle-middle-class neighborhoods, and a whole lot of very very poor areas -- tenements with no bathrooms, and a bathtub in the kitchen. That breakdown looks reasonable to me.
I've never met LB in person, but in my imagination her accent alone would prevent confusion with anyone outside of a thirty mile radius of Zabars.
She didn't have an accent when I met her, and has denied having one online. I bet if you get her drunk and loosened up though, she talks just like Bugs Bunny.
I detected no significant accent, at least when she took the corn cob pipe out of her mouth.
It was the jaw harp that I didn't expect when I met LB
157: Haven't noticed that, but she does write mean things about the Welsh, occasionally.
Stanley called her a jaw harp, which is so bad that I don't know what it is.
It's because he's an anti-semite and trying to deprive the Jewish people of their rich musical heritage.
I guess it's late in the game to make my obligatory Winnicott reference but there's some essay I'm forgetting the name of where he talks about children using possessions ("transitional objects") to sorta feel their way around me-vs.-outside-world distinctions. That's all way pre-Oedipal though.
re: 153
Sounded like she had an accent to me. She didn't say 'aye', or 'ken', once.
144: I wasn't around in 1949, but my sense of Manhattan back then was a fairly small rich-person area on the Upper East Side, some middle-middle-class neighborhoods, and a whole lot of very very poor areas -- tenements with no bathrooms, and a bathtub in the kitchen. That breakdown looks reasonable to me.
When does Harriet the Spy take place? It is my own touchstone for basically that configuration of Manhattan Classic. Harriet lives in an Upper East Side pocket of genuine wealth (a very specific one, though I don't remember offhand where it is, you can pinpoint it via her school) but is in easy walking distance of the homes of grocer's families and a crazy cat guy and Spike and his starving-writer dad, as well as a rich old lady who stays in bed all day eating bonbons.
I get no credit for opening all my remarks with "Hoots, mon"?
Er, 161 actually is not late in the game; it's on the wrong thread.
re: 164
I just assumed you had something stuck in your throat. FWIW, I could easily see the 'rural' thing. Then again, actual Americans often seem very corn-fed and wholesome to me.
Back from the airport. First available flight to NYC? Thursday the 30th. The kid and I will be flying to Philadelphia tomorrow and then taking the train.
Also, Halford? Email me.
FWIW, I could easily see the 'rural' thing.
I refer you to the last sentence of 109. I'm gritty, goddamnit.
163: I'd love to know if Harriet the Spy sounded less insane when it was written -- the combination of affluence and total emotional and physical neglect seemed screwy to me when I was eight, and has only gotten weirder since. I wonder if there's a population of rich baby-boomer Upper East Siders to whom it sounded normal.
From now on, I'm going to read all of LB's comments as if they started with "I'm just a simple hyperchicken from a backwood asteroid..."
163, 169: I wanted her life (and all those houses with dumbwaiters) so. very. badly.
167: I will be on Amtrak tomorrow, getting on in NYC. I'll wave as you guys exit.
163: This sounds like the far east bit of the UES. You'd have mansions and extravagant apartments very near to Hungarian and German groceries and much more modest apartments on 3d, 2d, 1st avenues. Also -- near Brearley.
My old boss had a childhood kinda like Harriet the Spy -- hotels, boarding school, emotional neglect. He's in his late '70s. John Le Carré / David Cornwall had an autobiographical essay in the New Yorker a few years ago about similar moneyed neglect.
Right -- on the line between the real UES and Yorkville.
167: Oof, I'm sorry. My new flight hasn't been canceled yet, but every other flight before it has. If the airports don't open on cue at 4 pm, it's likely to be pushed off...
My only hope is that this is the flight that all the airline's people with priority have been bumped on to, so they'll be super loathe to cancel it. If that fails, apparently Logan is still open?
I'm flying in to Boston via O'Hare this evening. It looks like my plane for that leg of the journey is over the Pacific right now on its way from China, so yay.
I imagine LB looks like a lizard, which isn't exactly standard American "rural", but native New Yorkers typically aren't lizards either.
178: Just 'cause the Geico gecko has an accent, it doesn't mean he can't be a New Yorker. Xenophobe.
109
... I'd never been so insulted in my life.
Why Kansas doesn't vote for Democrats.
I have a sweatshirt that I love, simply because in my mind, when I wear it I look like Harriet on the cover of my childhood copy.
Brad Delong comments on the original post:
Without language it is really difficult to learn from the experience of very many other people: you actually have to see Ogged poke a hornet's nest with a stick. With language it is easy: the cautionary tale of not to do what Ogged did to the hornet's nest can spread rapidly around the entire globe.
180: We're letting people from Kansas read this blog now?
According to this the Italian Wall Lizard can be found in western Long Island and parts of New York City.
153/155: I wouldn't say it was a strong accent, but when I met her LB definitely sounded like a New Yorker to me.
Kansas keeps Nebraska's ass from hitting Oklahoma. What more reason could it need to exist?
185: compared to what? It's pretty damn rural, relatively.
Why Kansas doesn't vote for Democrats.
Kansas has had a Democratic governor for 20 of the last 32 years.
It's more rural than the US average, sure, but not that close to the high end. According to the 2000 Census, 29% of Kansans lived in rural areas. The US total is 21%. The highest state is Maine with 60%.
Lowest (excluding DC) is California with 6%.
Kansas isn't particularly rural.
Heck, Wichita's the air capital of the world.
That strongly suggests that "rural" does not correlate well with "successful farms"
Anyway, I'm not sure what it would even mean for a person to have a "rural look." One of the defining characteristics of rural areas, after all, is that they contain relatively few people.
20 of the last 32 years
I guess that won't be technically correct until a year from now. Democrats have won 5 of the last 8 governor races, anyhow.
Well, there are relatively few of me.
That strongly suggests that "rural" does not correlate well with "successful farms"
It's based on population, so yeah.
189: I assume young teo is going by percent of population, by which measure Kansas is at 71% to 79% for the country as a whole (2000 census). By that measure, Maine, Mississippi, West Virginia and Vermont are the most rural with >50% of their populations. It does not necessarily give a good estimation of the overall nature of a state.
Well, there are relatively few of me.
Small sample sizes make it difficult to generalize.
I would guess that the average "farm" in Kansas is about 1,000 times bigger than the average "farm" in Maine. Nothing but megacorporate monoculture requiring not many humans.
I see JP is also capable of navigating the Census website.
Anyway, I'm not sure what it would even mean for a person to have a "rural look."
Outfits combining overalls and flannel.
The highest state is Maine Vermont with 602%.
My ex-MIL, age 70, had a childhood very much like that described in 174. She ended up in an insane asylum. Frankly, for people with shit tons of money and social status in the biggest city in the most powerful nation in history, that generation of the ruling class did not acquit itself particularly well.
I'm not sure what it would even mean for a person to have a "rural look."
According to google, this and this are representative.
202, 204: I see JP is also capable of navigating the Census website successfully.
29% of Kansans lived in rural areas. The US total is 21%. The highest state is Maine with 60%.
That seems like an odd way to measure how rural a state is, since a state with one small city in which 99% of its population lived and a vast rural expanse in which the other 1% was thinly scattered would score very low, yet I'd think of that as a very rural state. (I.e., I've sort of hyperbolically described Alaska. That's pretty rural, no?)
Shouldn't we just look at population per sq. mile instead? By that measure, Kansas is 40th out of the 50 states.
I like Teo's way of defining rural better. population/square mile, which doesn't work for the West, which has lots of empty spaces and then high-density zones where people actually live. I don't think of Alaska as a particularly rural state, b/c it doesn't have much of a rural population.
The real question for Kansas is: why does Topeka continue to export crappy steakhouses, and what can we do to make it stop?
Wikipedia: "Rural areas are large and isolated areas of an open country with low population density. The terms "countryside" and "rural areas" are not synonyms: a "countryside" refers to rural areas that are open. Forest, wetlands, and other areas with a low population density are not a countryside."
I guess it depends on whether we care about how many of the people in the state are living in a rural area, vs. how much of the state itself is a rural area. I suppose either works, although they're obviously measuring very different things. The latter seems more intuitive to me.
On game day in Lincoln, Nebraska, the cornhusker stadium is the third largest city in the state.
I guess it depends on whether we care about how many of the people in the state are living in a rural area, vs. how much of the state itself is a rural area. I suppose either works, although they're obviously measuring very different things. The latter seems more intuitive to me.
The thing about the latter is that it makes almost every state look very rural, because rural areas by definition take up more land than urban areas. I don't think it tells you very much about the people in a given state to know how much of that state's land area doesn't have any people in it. For other purposes, sure, that might be a better measurement.
Would you call Nevada a rural state? That seemed weird to me.
216: And when it's cold that's a lot of neb nosflows.
I bet people here would consider you urban, LB. I bet you've never even worn a pair of Wranglers.
214: Yeah, the question is whether a rural state is a state with a lot of people who live in rural areas, or a state with a lot of lightly populated area. (Am I wrong to want to distinguish between 'rural' and 'wilderness'? It seems weird to me to think of most of Alaska as rural, given that there's literally no one there -- rural seems to me to mean lightly, not un-, populated. But this could be true only in my head.)
Given that this all started as a reply to 180, 217 makes sense.
I bet people here would consider you urban, LB.
C'mon heebie, nobody's going to believe LB is black.
Isn't a state sort of a nonsensical unit to measure as being urban or rural, given that every state has both?
The Government's on the case.
The Goldsmith Modification was developed because of the need to identify small towns and rural areas within large metropolitan counties. Some of these communities were isolated from central areas with health services because of distance or other physical features. This variation expanded the eligibility for Rural Health Grant programs to assist isolated rural populations in large metropolitan counties. The Goldsmith Modification preceded the RUCA methodology.
RUCAs are a Census tract-based classification scheme that utilizes the standard Bureau of Census urban area and place definitions in combination with commuting information to characterize all of the nation's census tracts regarding their rural and urban status and relationships. The Health Resources and Service Administration's Office of Rural Health Policy, the WWAMI Rural Research Center at the University of Washington and the USDA's Economic Research Service (ERS) collaborated to create the RUCA system that classifies sub-county areas on a scale representing urbanization, population density, and daily commuting.
Would you call Nevada a rural state?
Nevada's a great example of the difference between the two measurements. Well over 90% of the land is rural, but only about 8% of the people live there.
223: People here are not going to pull down her pants and check.
Isn't a state sort of a nonsensical unit to measure as being urban or rural, given that every state has both?
I would think so, yeah.
223: Hm, maybe in this context "rural" just means "white."
224: Yes, somewhat. Although another measure I like to use for some purposes is total rural population in a state. Pennsylvania had the most for a long time. In 2000 it was Texas, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Michigan, New York, Georgia.
It seems weird to me to think of most of Alaska as rural, given that there's literally no one there -- rural seems to me to mean lightly, not un-, populated. But this could be true only in my head.)
I'm not sure what this could mean. Of course there are people there. They're just not as densely populated as in a lot of other places. I mean, you could define some arbitrary boundries around areas in which no one lives (and that exercise would be easier for Alaska than for a lot of other places), but you could do that in a city, too.
229: Surprisingly says the man from New Mexico.
(Am I wrong to want to distinguish between 'rural' and 'wilderness'? It seems weird to me to think of most of Alaska as rural, given that there's literally no one there -- rural seems to me to mean lightly, not un-, populated.
I feel like there is a meaningful difference there, although I would actually tend to use "rural" for the unpopulated part. It's related to the difference in what "rural" areas (by, e.g., the Census definition) can look like in different parts of the country.
Surprisingly says the man from New Mexico.
Probably why it hadn't occurred to me before.
Anyone who thinks of the North Slope for instance as "rural" is either a lawyer, a Federal bureaucrat* or wrong.
*Although the Feds do have a classification of "frontier"--although it is a subset of rural.
I mean, you could define some arbitrary boundries around areas in which no one lives (and that exercise would be easier for Alaska than for a lot of other places), but you could do that in a city, too.
Maybe Detroit could re-brand its decline as ruralization.
Rural has to be a little poor, too, right? Crested Butte in Colorado is isolated but ritzy. It doesn't feel rural.
235: Or maybe aspiring to one of the first two.
I love wikipedia's list of suggested additional reading for "Rural area":
See also:
American Old West
Boondock
Country house
Developed Environments
Digital divide
Folk culture
Landed gentry
Nature
Outback
Peasantry
Rural Community Council
Rural crafts
Rural ghetto
Rural health
Rural Internet
Rural markets
Urban decay
White trash
Rural has to be a little poor, too, right?
I wouldn't think so, no.
See "landed gentry" on urple's list.
240 GETS IT EXACTLY RIGHT
Shockingly urban/rural does not divide the lands of the world into two easily distinguishable parts each possessing a set of common characteristics.
I wonder if Urple has driven cross country. There is just a huge, intuitive difference between areas with lots of isolated farms, small towns, and agriculture (what I think of as rural, but is maybe called "countryside" by the bureaucrats) and the Western pattern, where you have very high density settlements surrounded by almost totally unpopulated desert.
I don't think of the Berkshires or Napa Valley as rural. I am probably quite wrong in this.
Manhattanites consider the other boroughs of New York City to be rural.
Isn't that right, LB?
There should be only one Berkshire, okay? As in Royal County of. And some of it is very rural.
249: We pronounce it funny too. Berk rhymes with kirk.
Manhattan wears Central Park like a rural belly button.
Underneath the city, Manhattan is completely rural.
249: I know what you mean, Berks County, Pennsylvania. That's where Reading is.
252: Nothing but 11-foot gators and C.H.U.D.s.
The brown stuff that's in a plastic bottle at the ABC store is sub-bourbon.
There is just a huge, intuitive difference between areas with lots of isolated farms, small towns, and agriculture (what I think of as rural, but is maybe called "countryside" by the bureaucrats)
It sounds like you're describing agricultural regions, which are one sort of rural area, but not the only sort.
And yes, I've driven across the country.
With an oink oink here
And an oink oink there
Here an oink, there an oink
Everywhere an oink oink
Old McDonald had a farm
But you guys are the BEST!
I don't think of the Berkshires or Napa Valley as rural.
I guess I'm curious what you think of them as?
Well, Napa might have a lot of "farms," but it also has a decent number of people living there, no? (And really, the answer may well be no for all I know, but I have been to many houses and restaurants and stores there and the area isn't all that big.) The Berkshires is perhaps less populated (in my imaginings) but it seems like 30% of NYC moves there in the summer time.
259: Oh, so you think they just have too many people to be rural? Maybe so, I actually have no idea what the relevant cutoffs are (nor what the respective populations are). But neither suburban nor urban seem like better descriptions...
NAPA usually has more people in it on the weekends, because that's when a lot of folks work on their cars.
I guess I'm curious what you think of them as?
Well, the people there seem cosmopolitan and swipple. But maybe I've only seen the tourists.
Napa has pretty strict anti-development laws, which is why it's so insanely expensive. So I guess it's pretty rural for some definitions of rural, but also a ludicrously rich area. Sonoma has more real cities and poor people.
And Blandings, sent you an email. Let me know if you don't get it.
252: Were you thinking of these classic lyrics?
The ocean is a desert with it's life underground
And a perfect disguise above
Under the cities lies a heart made of ground
But the humans will give no love
As a kid my address was Rural Route 1 Box 41B. Our road didn't get a name until I was in college, when the county embarked on a gravel road naming project in the attempt to make it easier for emergency vehicles to find people. Every road was named after the family that had lived there the longest.
All that to say: my very address told me that we were rural.
216: On other days, Grand Island has that honor.
Anyway, I had high school classmates who attended primary school in one room school houses.
And a perfect disguise above
For a while I used to think this went "and the perfectest skies above".
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Today I had the deeply satisfying feeling of answering my boss's inquiry as to what Let Me Google That For You was by sending her a LMGTFY of "Let Me Google That For You". It's the little things in life, ya know?
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Er, feeling? I meant to type "experience".
253 - it is! Just after I moved here, I was trying to look up bus timetables online, and accidentally got to Reading, Berks County bus website. I only realised I wasn't in the right place when I got to the bit describing how to use a bus stop and how to get on a bus.
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Ed Rendell can be something of an idiot at times:
"My biggest beef is that this is part of what's happened in this country," Rendell said. "I think we've become wussies."
"We've become a nation of wusses. The Chinese are kicking our butt in everything," Rendell added. "If this was in China do you think the Chinese would have called off the game? People would have been marching down to the stadium, they would have walked and they would have been doing calculus on the way down."|>
I've never been to Berks County, but I keep hoping they run election ads saying, "Jane Smith Works for Berks" or something like that.
Also, hockey in the rain might be something. They should try it.
274: I had no idea football was so popular in China! I wonder what other insights into the subtleties of Chinese culture the Governor might supply.
Ohh. Rendell meant the Eagles game, not the Winter Classic. My bad.
Wow that was a windy approach into Boston.
Ooh yeah it's breezy out. That can't have been all that fun.
Maybe LB was wearing a feedcap. That's usually a tell around here.
280: For reasons complicated and unimportant, I've found myself hanging around horse farms a lot lately. People seem to take my Carhartt jacket as a sign that they should do things like hand me the reins and instruct me to do specific, complicated, horse-related tasks. It's profiling of the worst kind, and it's a miracle I, someone else, and several horses have not yet died as a result.
281 makes me laugh like crazy, and not just because I've gotten into the Christmas bourbon. I'm sure the horses appreciate your humility and restraint.
For reasons complicated and unimportant
284: Yeah, but who's that magician dude standing in front of me?
Ever since they added sound, it just got too confusing.
Re: the neighborhoods of Manhattan past, I was amused to recently read Al Kooper's suggestion that "Desolation Row" was a stretch of Eighth Avenue, "an area infested with whore houses, sleazy bars, and porno-supermarkets totally beyond renovation or redemption." I suspect it's redeemed up pretty well.