A Brooklyn Culture Mafia

[Clinamenic]

You’ve been asserting facts which aren’t true in the conventional sense, but are actually “Luka-true”

 

[Leo]

We live in a post-truth world. My being out of town is an alternative fact.

 

[Clinamenic]

We live in a post-truth world. My being out of town is an alternative fact.

Wanna grab a beer tomorrow afternoon?

 

[Clinamenic]

If you say no, I will post a very large frowny emoji, not one you can quickly scroll past

 

[Leo]

Gonna rain tomorrow, plan to spend the day changing over the closets. That's kind of the equivalent of "rearranging my sock draw", except it's true.

 

[Clinamenic]

I’m come to the tentative conclusion that Leo must be horribly disfigured, and that is why he is reluctant to meet with his fellow Dissensians.

 

[Leo]

I was once told I looked like Jeff Goldblum. So, yeah.

 

[WashYourHands]

There’s a fly joke in there but I’m above such insolence

 

[IdleRich]

Superfly

 

[shakahislop]

ended up at a japanese food festival today on the upper west side. was a good reminder that there's a dirge of a mainstream that the downtown / brooklyn cool kids thing exists in opposition to. cycled down colombus all the way downtown and that whole stretch from the upper west side to hells kitchen to chelsea to greenwich village feels a lot more like normal america has seeped into new york city. it looks different, it's all these big glass plated shops, it's a totally different sense of taste in terms of how things look, and it still feels like cars rule over there on the big wide avenues. i can see why people want to stand aside from that. obviously once you think about it a bit its not as simple as mainstream vs non-mainstream, its something a bit more fractal in reality, twenty different shards sitting next to each other rather than a binary, but that shorthand more or less works.

all the japanese food was exactly like all the other japanese food i've had, which is basically only in the US, quite nice but essentially a variation on the grease and salt formula.

 

[shakahislop]

was hanging out in tompkins the other night with rats everywhere, teenage girls shouting at passers-by about how they were treating their dogs, a rowdy group of cyclists who had commandeered a corner and were playing some tunes and smoking weed. i know the east village isn't exactly something countercultural now, or at least, it's a very expensive place to be countercultural, but there's still something going on round there which doesn't feel like the rest of america to me. it also doesn't feel like europe, its way too rule-less and dirty, i don't know what it is really, maybe something more akin to central or south america

 

[sus]

Stan and I will be listening to "Yacht Fascism," the famous lost (but re-salvaged, thanks to tireless archival work) Oliver Craner playlist

 

[linebaugh]

Stan and I will be listening to "Yacht Fascism," the famous lost (but re-salvaged, thanks to tireless archival work) Oliver Craner playlist

stans with you now? how is the meeting? @Clinamenic ?

 

[linebaugh]

@Clinamenic will you still be there in late november?

 

[Leo]

was hanging out in tompkins the other night with rats everywhere, teenage girls shouting at passers-by about how they were treating their dogs, a rowdy group of cyclists who had commandeered a corner and were playing some tunes and smoking weed. i know the east village isn't exactly something countercultural now, or at least, it's a very expensive place to be countercultural, but there's still something going on round there which doesn't feel like the rest of america to me. it also doesn't feel like europe, its way too rule-less and dirty, i don't know what it is really, maybe something more akin to central or south america

For generations, St. Mark's Place (and by extension, TSq Park) has attracted a certain element unique to Manhattan. You're right, the EV isn't cheap but there are still lots of rent controlled apartments that still house old punks who moved there in the '80s, so it retains a certain freewheeling vibe you don't find elsewhere on the island. My wife even keeps her non-rent controlled apartment below $2k, a nod towards honoring the old neighborhood.

 

[Clinamenic]

stans with you now? how is the meeting? @Clinamenic ?

The meeting is imminent. On a bus sluggishly covering the last few blocks toward Gus’s abode

 

[Clinamenic]

@Clinamenic will you still be there in late november?

Unfortunately not - leaving later this week.

 

[Clinamenic]

Among my cargo is a fine bottle of dessert wine, and a plot to change the world.

 

[Leo]

ended up at a japanese food festival today on the upper west side. was a good reminder that there's a dirge of a mainstream that the downtown / brooklyn cool kids thing exists in opposition to. cycled down colombus all the way downtown and that whole stretch from the upper west side to hells kitchen to chelsea to greenwich village feels a lot more like normal america has seeped into new york city. it looks different, it's all these big glass plated shops, it's a totally different sense of taste in terms of how things look, and it still feels like cars rule over there on the big wide avenues. i can see why people want to stand aside from that. obviously once you think about it a bit its not as simple as mainstream vs non-mainstream, its something a bit more fractal in reality, twenty different shards sitting next to each other rather than a binary, but that shorthand more or less works.

all the japanese food was exactly like all the other japanese food i've had, which is basically only in the US, quite nice but essentially a variation on the grease and salt formula.

One of the worst things to happen to Manhattan was Battery Park City, the first step in redeveloping a whole swath of Manhattan with nondescript architecture and a safe blandness that appealed to suburban tastes. The west side was next, there are huge neighborhoods in the far west 50s-60s that I had no idea existed until I walked thru it last year, enormous ugly glass towers like an entire campus, self-contained with grocery stores and schools, all looking like it could be Cincinnati or some other normietown. And don't get me started on that abomination that's Hudson Yards, another sanitized world representing the triumph of the real estate lobby and developers.

 

[shakahislop]

One of the worst things to happen to Manhattan was Battery Park City, the first step in redeveloping a whole swath of Manhattan with nondescript architecture and a safe blandness that appealed to suburban tastes. The west side was next, there are huge neighborhoods in the far west 50s-60s that I had no idea existed until I walked thru it last year, enormous ugly glass towers like an entire campus, self-contained with grocery stores and schools, all looking like it could be Cincinnati or some other normietown. And don't get me started on that abomination that's Hudson Yards, another sanitized world representing the triumph of the real estate lobby and developers.

i've always been a bit surprised that people don't talk about manhattan in terms of the differences between the east side and the west side, it's one of the first things i noticed when i moved here. couldn't explain what it was at that time but that stretch of the west side always felt particularly alienating.