Avoiding The Post

New York is an interesting place, to say the least. There is obviously a lot going on, not only fun stuff like the Lincoln Center Jazz Band playing in the courtyard outside your building, but clearly lots of work, as seen from all the poor analysts with their hands and faces pressed against the glass upstairs wishing they could go down and enjoy the music.

Famously, New Yorkers walk really fast as well, to demonstrate exactly how important and late they are. I thought this was dumb until I realized yesterday I was huffing past lopey tourists and grumbling. Anyhow, one important element of this constant hurrying is the fashion in which people absorb news in the morning.

There are several options, but they fall into three categories: Real Papers (of which I mean the Wall Street Journal or Financial Times, or NY Times if you're unemployed), the Free Papers (AM New York and Metro), and The Post. People who read the Real Papers are obviously posturing and taking up too much space on the subway with their broadsheets. This is an asshole thing to do.

The more acceptable and plebian thing to do is read the Free Papers. Every city has some version - they're about 20 pages, cover a lot of important topics, including celeb gossip and local sports, and importantly, they're free. The barkers stand by the subway entrances and tell you good morning and are generally pretty pleasant people. Unless there is one representative from each paper. Then it's an angry competition between two aproned fellows yelling "AM NEW YORK!" "NO! METRO!" at which point everyone just walks by choosing neither.

Importantly, while these papers are certainly not good in the objective sense, they're not really all that biased and are acceptable to read by all walks of life. There's a sudoku in the back, a coverage of league-wide sports scores, and a brief sampling of world news. It's exactly 15 minutes worth of reading, and it doesn't make you mad.

On the other hand, the New York Post is without question the worlds worst newspaper. To begin with, they have perfected the alarming font, which early in the morning on the subway lets you know with no uncertainty and in a very loud (written) voice that "HILLARY MAY RUN FOR WHITE HOUSE!" and soforth. Not only is it the largest headline of any paper, but they do their best to pun it up as much as possible. A few weeks ago, when they nabbed the guys in the airplane bomb plot, it was, predictably, "SNAKES ON A PLANE!".

Not only that, the contents of the paper are probably the most biased and poorly written of any printed materials other than possibly college campus Socialist propaganda. Yet here is the crazy part: *everyone* reads it. And they pay 50 cents for the privilege. CEO-types, arty NPR-types, homeless guys, construction workers, and drag queens all find the change and time for the New York Post.

I really don't get it. Please help.

NOW I'm a local

Dear Loyal-ish readers:

Despite your worst assumptions, all is well here in APland. I disappeared abroad to do some training and made some fun international friends. Now I'm back and doing a pretty fun non-profit project in my first for-real work thing. Also, I moved this weekend to my new apt and its a total tornado as of right now and way smaller than what I'm used to. That's sort of a lot, but nothing so interesting as to be worthy of blogging about. Also, hilarious stuff happens at work, but I'm sworn to secrecy so no leaks there. Sorry.

Aside from that, I'm going to get my camera fixed and return the focus of this blog to photos (a "flog" I'm told) because NYC is super weird. Anyhow, hope you are well. Also, my friends are having a kid so check out their baby blog.

Naveen/Reena's Baby.

Feel free to comment on Naveen's lack of spelling ability.

Eating Pickles

By the way, the titles are meant to be read as the answer to "Where is AP?" "Oh, eating pickles." etc.

At a wedding recently, I discovered a tub of pickles which I did not do justice to. It is a glorious creation of brine and cucumber. I think I had at least a dozen, maybe two. I highly suggest investing in one if you get married and have invited me.

New York

I am currently a fresh tranplant to New York. I have already found myself cursing out tourists and bustling about. As of yet, I do not have access to my apartment and no address (curiously, you need an address to get a PO box) but its beginning to set in that I live here now.

Some observations: women here have to have both hands occupied with some combination of the following - coffee, dog leash, shopping bag, phone, man, or purse. Both hands. Swinging wildly.

I'm not clear where the money goes, but somehow it gets spent at a much more rapid clip here than anywhere else. Also, even though I've given up coffee, I find myself drinking copious amounts in The City. No idea why.

Its fun and there is a lot of life and character, especially in Brooklyn where I'm staying. I hope at some point I stop looking like a tourist.

In SF

This weekend I'm in SF, CA, someplace I haven't been since the 90's. The advent of the internet and the bags of money which came with it have definitely changed the face of this town. San Jose airport, which I flew into, now has a private jet area, although the rest of the airport is unremarkable.

I like SF and California in general for visiting, but it's not so much my kind of place for living. Everything is sort of taken with a breezy unseriousness that I find unsettling. I am going on a houseboat trip this weekend at Lake Shasta for a friends birthday, and decided to come in on Weds to see as many old friends as possible. I'm staying with a close family friend who left academics for the Real World Job and its giving me the willies. But her place is cool and there are literally cable car trolleys outside her window. I feel like some Rice-A-Roni. What is that stuff anyhow?

Weds I met some friends who work at eBay, at an internet startup, and an Asian PE fund down closer to San Jose. Thursday I went to the startup's office, which included a windowless soundproof meditation room left over from the bubble days. In the evening, I met a friend from school who works at a biotech firm and her husband who works in the wine industry. After that I met up with a friend in Berkeley who worked in public health and was married to an environmentalist. To be sure, I've covered nearly every stereotypical Bay Area profession and managed to catch up with a ton of folks.

People here talk of the halcyon Bubble days in such vivid terms, it sounded like a Roman party. Everyone has a story of how much X was done, who sold the most companies and for how much, and the excessive childishness of office environments. Those that "got out at the right time" are now largely taking lifestyle jobs and often times doing nothing at all and those who didn't are now in regular jobs at large tech companies.

I definitely consider myself a liberal although in this part of the country, I find myself telling hippies to get a job and scoffing at the number of raw/vegan restaurants, herbal healing stores, and shaman drum outlets. It is, however, super easy to get great vegetarian food. Additionally, no one really seems to have grown up here - everyone moved here from someplace else, giving it a very transitory feeling. Also, people speak about how great it is and how much I should move here in eerily cultish terms.

Like I said, a great place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live here.

Mandela?

 

Instead of doing a solid job describing the country of South Africa, I'll drop some photos representative of how fucked up people get when you institutionally implement racism.

For example, at one of the nicest restaurants in Capetown, for some reason, this dude in a Mandela mask comes in and freaks everyone the fuck out. Just to clarify, the other two people who came to our table to "entertain" us were a belly dancer and a coked-up cigar girl. 

Toaster Ovens

This space is normally reserved for photos and ruminations, and theres a lot of requests for South Africa recaps from people who read this for some reason, but tough shit for you, Reader. Instead I post this great chat regarding kitchen appliances I had this morning. (SA stuff will come soon)

9:09 AM Emily: I saw this:
http://www.posewithyourtoaster.com/
and thought of you, for some reason.

me: thats sweet
i have no idea what to make of that association, but I appreciate it

9:10 AM Emily: Just kind of random, I suppose.
It kind of makes me want to get all gothed out and take a pic,
but unfortunately my toaster is white.

me: you could be angry at your toaster
i don't even own one. I have a toaster oven.

9:11 AM Emily: I'm not sure if that counts...

me: i don't think I've ever owned a toaster
i wouldn't count it

Emily: I only have one because my parents got one free when they bought the breadmaker ages ago, and they didn't need it.

9:12 AM me: i use mine to heat up all kinds of pizza and its easier for toasting bagels

Emily: I've wondered whether it's worth getting one - a toaster oven, I mean.
Seeing as I already have both a toaster and an oven, it's hard to justify.

9:13 AM me: having a toaster is sort of classic, but the toaster oven sort of takes over a different space than the conventional oven. Its for quick use - none of this pre-heating - but when you don't want something microwaved

Emily: It definitely makes sense for heating up pizza.
9:14 AM I'm not really happy with the results of microwave or oven for that.

9:15 AM me: thats what I'm saying. The microwave is really only good for beverages, popcorn, and leftovers already covered in plastic wrap. Lets face it - the microwave isn't the revolutionary item it was promised to be. You could do just as well with a tea kettle, some jiffy pop, and the stove

Emily: I never thought of it that way.
Talk about a product really failing to live up to the hype.
9:16 AM I imagine the aging, disillusioned fifties housewives,

me: And the oven is just excessive, energy wise. Who wants to wait 15 minutes to heat up your oven? This is where the toaster oven bridges the gap between microwave and oven.
I'm not sure if you're old enough to remember, but the original microwaves were actually made to look like conventional ovens for some reason. If it were up to me, I would have made them look like teleportation devices

9:17 AM Emily: With lots of chrome, and led flashy lights?

me: Yeah, and they're heavy as fuck for some reason. I had a small one from the 80's and it must have weighed 35 lbs. I never figured it out and eventually gave it away in anger

9:18 AM Emily: Good call.
My parents actually had a nice one for ~20 years...
...it even had wood panelling that matched the kitchen cabinets.
It was permanently mounted above the oven, though, so portability wasn't an issue.

9:19 AM me: what was the fascination with making things look like they were made of wood using paneling? I never got that. We had it all over our house. Are we supposed to be in some sort of log-cabin?

9:20 AM Emily: It was some very bizarre appeal to fashion, I think,
as though cars from the Flintstones were still hip.

me: in closing, think about the toaster oven. I think it'll do a lot for you and ask very little in return.

Emily: I wonder why woodgrain-print fabric never caught on.

me: thats even less plausible

9:21 AM Emily: True. A few strategically placed knotholes and you're a laughingstock.
But yeah, I'll think about a toaster oven.