I could go on, but why should I -- Isn't the fact that Andrew Sullivan prefers DC to New York proof enough for you? Apparently he has a long thing about it in the Times of London, to which I'm not going to subscribe but the bits that have been quoted are probably all I should read for my heart's sake:
Every journey to any other place in the city is a battle of wills with everyone else; no one ever steps aside or evinces the slightest shade of civility on the pavement. There are no queues, just teeming masses of selfishness and hostility...Picture Sullivan pausing to contemplate the muse of centrism on a Midtown sidewalk and getting knocked on his ass by people who have to get to fucking work. It improved my day!
If you think you’ll find intellectual stimulation you’re thinking of another era. The conversations are invariably about money or property or schools.What else would one talk to Andrew Sullivan about? They were trying to do you a favor, schmuck. Or maybe themselves -- just imagining Sullivan trying to talk about art, for example, makes me cringe.
If you bring up any political subject you are engulfed by a smug liberal consensus that borders on outright bigotry and brutal intolerance towards dissent."Oh, so you're that asshole Andrew Sullivan, huh? Well let me tell you something...." -- Overhead at the 92nd Street Y. After years of having his ass kissed, Sullivan probably ran into people who don't care who Andrew Sullivan is. No wonder he fled.
Oh, Sullivan earlier referred to DC as a "Second Brooklyn." This is probably based on brunches in the Heights with Martin Amis. "And over there, Andrew, is where Norman Mailer used to live." "Rather small, isn't it? Have I mentioned my DC apartment? 1500 square feet of a school classroom I got for a steal in 1991?" "Many times."
Thanks!
ReplyDeleteYou started my day off with a big smile.
Your Bennigans crack reminds me that last weekend I got talked into having lunch with a friend at a "fabulous" "new" "restaurant" out in the 'burbs here. I should have known that all words receive a 30% discount as to their meaning the greater the distance from a major urban center. We sat down in what appeared to be a smaller version of a cheesecake factory and were treated to an excited recitation of their "concept" by a perky waitress--their concept was "seasonality" and they "change their menu with the seasons!" You will be delighted to know we are in "autumn" right now with "heirloom tomatoes" which must have been hydroponically grown and shipped in from Holland since in the real world November is not your Tomato month.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I love the image of Andrew Sullivan being chased from the 92nd street Y by angry elderly jews and liberals, waving their canes and gnashing their dentures because fuck it, in New York we are free to give anyone a piece of our mind.
ReplyDeleteOh, Sullivan earlier referred to DC as a "Second Brooklyn."
ReplyDeleteMore like Brooklyn with a lobotomy.
She said "season", not "month". You'll have three months of tomatoes... note that she never said "locally sourced".
ReplyDeleteWhat... is the Russian mafia moving into DCNW?
ReplyDeletethe brown-nosing little climbers who throng DC's "corridors" on weekends
ReplyDeleteAdd the psychically arrested jocks and frats who spill in from Woodbridge and you've got the makings of a second north Raleigh,NC, or Birmingham Alabama on a Friday night. New York? Never.
DC is always going to be an asshole southern town.
Every month is my Tomato month, IYKIWIAITYD.
ReplyDeleteThe only Bennigan's around here closed up, and was converted to an "SBC Restaurant and Brewery," which is apparently a local chain dedicated to bringing brewpubbery to the masses. That location subsequently closed, and the building stands vacant to this day. No realtor has yet realized that the entire site must be purged with fire, and I say that as someone who actually didn't mind the potato soup (which I'd fill up on to avoid the entrees). I mean, we're talking about the strip with TGI Fridays and Panera, and Bennigan's couldn't make a go of it.
... Anyway, despite all Rudyberg's efforts, New York rules, D.C. drools. Last time we were in the city, the mdslet had a great time chatting with apartment doormen, and so did they. Oddly, he managed to avoid being trampled by selfish, hostile mobs, and he wasn't even four yet. Gender-neutral version of "man up," Sullivan.
The conversations are invariably about money or property or schools.
Subjects which naturally never pass anyone's lips in Washington, D.C. It's a wonder Bluestockings hasn't relocated yet.
As someone who grew up in D.C. and later lived in NYC for over two decades, I can say that NYC still has better subways.
ReplyDelete~
Since you point this out I will cop to the name of the Restaurant in question. Are you sitting down? Season's 52--that's right, not four seasons, but 52. Tomatoes should have been out several seasons ago. Also: when someone proposes to roast a brussel sprout, they shouldn't steam it. I'm a biblical literalist on some things.
ReplyDeleteHey hey hey there...watch those slurs, mister!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jAVM0prVm4
~
When Mr. Aimai was living in Atlanta (shudder) and a capuccino meant watery coffee with whipped cream, endless driving around the ring road to get to Chinese food prepared entirely with sterno, and etc... we used to go to "Little Five Points" for excitement--the excitement of seeing four roads that weren't multi lane highways cross and of being able to walk on a sidewalk to a shop that wasn't a mega mart.
ReplyDeleteDC has always been like a jumped up strip mall. Its not the southernness or the townness, its the blandness and the planned ness.
Why, thank you.
ReplyDeleteDC is bluer than NYC, voting Dem at like 90%+. But we're just a bunch of fifth columnists and traitors in our coastal cities! Why the hell isn't Sully extolling the awesomeness of Dallas, or Salt Lake, or Billings, or Branson?
ReplyDeleteLittle Five Points was pretty nice. Dekalb county farmer's market was even worth the drive from Durham for us, back before you could get food in NC.
ReplyDeletePerhaps they did mean seasons and the entire restaurant chain will self-destruct after 13 years?
ReplyDeleteOh, wow, another piece from a New York expatriate about how the place he lives in is inferior to New York! I guess there's a real shortage of those on the internet!
ReplyDeleteTrolls are also in short supply. Good thing we're both on the job, eh?
ReplyDeleteWe loved the farmer's market--where everyone wore a tag saying "My name is ___, I speak French, Amharic, and English!" and the Indian families were buying green mangoes and chilis by the handtruck full. The problem for me is that I was only visiting on the odd weekend, and it was just the two of us, so I couldn't do the kind of mass market shopping and cooking I wanted to. We basically went to bask in the greenery and spices and then eat at the five fresh veg section. IT was like aromatherapy and disney for cooks.
ReplyDeleteYou should day trip to Baltimore. Less friendly (I know, right?) but some great places to hang if you are more John Waters than Andrew Sullivan.
ReplyDeleteLike this place.
ReplyDeleteI mean, is his takedown of H Street not correct?
ReplyDeleteBeats me, I don't go there. But I have a feeling that there are asshole bars in NYC as well. All those guys who work for investment banks must drink somewhere. And at least when DC elects a Democratic mayor, its not news.
ReplyDeleteAs a NY expatriate, it's just a given that most places are inferior in terms of places to go and things to see. About the only city I've ever been to that compares to New York in that respect is Paris .. but you have to deal with French people there.
ReplyDeleteI currently live in Austin, TX, and I love it. But I still miss the big city from time to time.
Dallas is blue, too. Most urban areas in Texas are majority Democratic. Austin, where I live, is an oasis of blue.
ReplyDeletePeople in New York City aren't rude, they're direct. A lot of people make that mistake. I'm not surprised that Sullivan did, since he's not very self-aware, so how could he be aware of others.
ReplyDeleteHoly crap--if they can't figure out how to roast a damn brussel sprout they shouldn't be in the food business for another 52 minutes.
ReplyDeleteWhat else would one talk to Andrew Sullivan about?
ReplyDelete"Posted any good ads on Craigslist recently? On second thought, Andrew, don't answer that."
I know, right? That's the thing--the entire menu reminded me of the time I had a shirt made for me in Nepal. The tailor at "Human Fit Tailoring" had a catalog of pictures from J.C. Penney or something like that and you picked your shirt, brought in your fabric, and they made it for you. But the cuff of the sleeve was not in the picture I chose for my model. So they just didn't finish the edge or put on buttons or anything. Didn't occur to them, actually. The menu at this restaurant didn't have pictures (making it an aesthetic step up from various avatars) but the cooking and presentation was based on a "looks like X and sounds like X" style in which "eats like X" finished a distant...52nd.
ReplyDeleteYeah. I don't find New Yorker's rude at all. But there are no class distinctions in how they treat people--I'd say that if Sullivan is implicitly expecting a certain deference from people, rather than camraderie or indifference, he's in the wrong city. DC has as much or more poverty and misery than New York so its not that it protects you from the grittiness of the city--its that New York still has a rushing, working class, no time to bootlick Andrew vibe to it.
ReplyDeleteI'm a biblical literalist on some things.
ReplyDeleteThou shalt not cook a Brussels sprout in a goat's milk. Or in any other liquid. Verily, into an oven shall it be put. If it's in a pot of water on top of the stove, thou art dead to Me, sayeth the Lord.
What else would one talk to Andrew Sullivan about?
ReplyDeleteI'm betting that they talked to him about plenty of things; those were the only things he was capable of hearing about. The rest of it sounded to him like NYC-flavored babble, just a bunch of "fuggedaboutit" and stuff like that.
Oh wow, another post about just how fucking mean New Yorkers are because they think Andrew Sullivan is a preening dick.
ReplyDeleteBeats me, I don't go there.
ReplyDeleteAaaaannnnnd... scene.
There are no queues, just teeming masses of selfishness and hostility...
ReplyDeleteHe's got you there Roy, DC and London are places where the people know how to stand the fuck in line.
Well, there's your problem. In NYC, you stand "on line."
ReplyDeleteReally? Because I wasn't trying to give the impression that these ubiquitious "everywhere other than NYC sucks" posts are mean so much as pathetic.
ReplyDeleteBumpkin that I am, I've never been to NYC, but this is what I've gathered about the place (and the spirit in which I'll approach it when I do get around to going there.) I have been to other places that have a reputation for assholishness but never had a problem - people everywhere seem to understand who's being a dick and who isn't and treat them accordingly.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I was never able to adopt that in 8 years. I was born an "in line" person and I'll die an "in line" person. Now I'm an "in traffic" person because LA.
ReplyDeleteIt's a source of shame, but I've never been to NYC. Been to a lot of other places, but not there yet. My brother has, though, and he likes it. He's not fond of cities, but he digs visiting the town. Of course, we grew up country and always heard about how unfriendly New Yorkers were.
ReplyDelete"Brother," I asked him one night after his first stay in the town, "are those New York people as rude and unfriendly as I've been told?" He took a big pull on the tube to help ponder the matter and said, "No, not really. They're just busy, really. Everybody there has someplace to go and shit to do, and don't have time to kiss your ass."
After more pondering, we decided everyone was so busy because rent there was too damn high and everyone was living with at least six roommates in otherwise tiny apartments. We figured we'd better give 'em some room, then.
DC's small scale is what kept me there for years, though - traveling the distances I had to travel when I lived in NYC and wanted to visit friends in another borough, or even get to Manhattan, was a constant annoyance. Absolutely true about H Street, though, and it'll only get worse if/when the streetcar starts running.
ReplyDeleteFunny how a year of sharing a 500-square-foot one-bedroom with your fiancee and her 45-pound-dog and paying $1700 a month for the privilege of doing so wears on you, though. And sends you to Chicago.
So, spouse and I visit Brooklyn Botanic Garden. Spouse goes off in search of info about access to special exhibit. Spouse returns bewildered, saying that guard told her she'd have to use a computer to get a ticket. Spouse becomes further bewildered, and annoyed, by my laughter once I decipher what happened.
ReplyDeleteFortunately, I wasn't laughing in mockery, but in delight.
You're right, the 18-22 year old denizens of NYC's bedroom communitites never come into the city on the weekends to do things they'd never do in their own towns and go home, leaving their mess behind.
ReplyDeleteHell, just move there, if it's feasible.
ReplyDeleteOkay, at first I thought I had been callously downvoted because the tomato thing was incomprehensible. But subsequent thread inspection leads me to believe it's because I invoked "rules / drools" about D.C. for humorous effect. Or because I suggested that D.C. and NYC share some common conversational topics, while putting the name of the former in italics.
ReplyDelete... On the other hand, I did cop to not hating Bennigan's's potato soup. Jeez, tough crowd. Probably from New York.
Well, sure, but they're mostly from Jersey.
ReplyDeleteWell, if "impression of pathetic" is what you were after, congratulations!
ReplyDeleteBitch, bitch, bitch. I find DC suffocatingly stupid, especially in the cloistered enclaves of Douchebaggia, which is packed with the awful people who run our country. The seething hostility and selfishness noble Andy is fleeing New York over? Has he -- have you -- actually experienced American politics over the past 15 years? DC is the throbbing tumor of seething hostility and selfishness. Yes, Wall St. too, and of course they fund the whore-bullshit industrial complex which is the lifeblood of the District, and Wall St is in New York, but just like Yankee fans and the Upper East Side, you can easily avoid the toxicity. In DC its saturated and concentrated. You see it in our "national dialog", you see it in our courtesan press, you see it in our politics. Awful, selfish, hateful people making decisions that hurt hundreds of millions of people because they can. Sullivan is too much of a raging moron to notice, I'm sure, and he'll fit right in. You should send him a welcome basket.
ReplyDeleteSo, New York is actually different from other places. Of course, this story goes back to the 80's--I was sitting in the window booth at Shopsin's, (The original not the Essex Street incarnation. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jesse-kornbluth/shopsins-is-a-taste-of-ol_b_587411.html) Kenny and his wife (who my mother called Gargantua and Pantagruel) were very close to my Great Aunt and Uncle who lived around the corner. In those days if I came into the city my great aunt would leave her keys for me with Kenny, or with her dry cleaner. The Village is that kind of place. Anyway, a guy all dressed in black leather, pants and all, was walking his doberman pinscher (I SAID it was the 80's) and he stopped and let the dog shit in the doorway of the restaurant. Kenney went out on the stoop carrying an enormous cleaver and began screaming at the guy that he'd "cut hisfucking dog's head off." They got into it for a little while, the guy cleaned up his dog's poop and wandered off, huffilly, and Kenny came back in filled with sunny good cheer. My friend, a lifelong New Yorker, turned back to our lunch and said reassuringly "I think that went rather well. No one was injured, after all."
ReplyDeleteMy point is, and I do have one, its a style.
Well Andrew since you seem to talk about things like what a great president Reagan was and how right the guy who wrote the Bell Curve was right about 'those' people I'm not suprised the response is 'You're wrong and you're stuipd."
ReplyDeleteWell, in 37 years here, having come from the Midwest, I have made a point not to adopt that phrase, because…because it's stupid. No one is standing on a line. Kinda like that phrase "went missing" which you heard tell of.
ReplyDeleteNew Yorkers are brusque, not rude- morons and knee biters simply aren't tolerated, there's simply no time to deal with chuckleheads.
ReplyDeleteYay.
ReplyDeletePlus there are motherfuckers in DC who think it is the omphalos. Not because of the museums so much (the only damn thing there) , but because of the sacred view up their own ass.
I haven't been to "North Cary" in a while. Did they ever let go of the whole cigar afficianado thing?
Did you know there are people in DC who don't work for the Federal government? True story!
ReplyDeleteEverywhere there are motherfuckers who think where they are is the omphalos. The difference with New Yorkers is that they think NYC is the omphalos even when they're not there.
ReplyDeleteKnee biters? Is that like rug munchers? Or is it like ankle biters? Or do you mean Tuft hunters http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/tufthunter? Or Toad Eaters? Gimme a hint.
ReplyDeleteI'm not from New York, but I've been to New York and I've been to DC.
ReplyDeleteI'm going to visit New York again.
I AM the Omphalos--you know how I know? Because I'm filled with lint. Bow before me.
ReplyDeleteOK--who is the closet Atlantean who downrated me--was it for the sterno crack or the attack on Southern Cappucinos?
ReplyDeletePossibly someone clicked "down" by accident. I have done so a couple of times. Luckily, one just clicks it again.
ReplyDeleteAs someone who grew up in Atlanta and now lives in DC, I can say that Atlanta almost has better subways at this point.
ReplyDeleteIt's a chain owned by the same folks who inflict Olive Garden and Red Lobster on the world.
ReplyDeleteI wish more people here worked for the federal government. It's an honest paycheck and they do some pretty amazing work, like the people at the Library of Congress, and a lot of people in the background who are actually serious about making things better, people you never hear about, quietly and competently getting shit done. We need more people on the federal payroll-- at places like the National Labour Relations Board, or the EPA, or the Department of Transportation, or OSHA, where work is done that cannot be privatized despite the dreams of plutocrats. The boom here is not the federal govt; it's contractors and lobbyists and marketing people and other assorted hustlers whose dislike of government is nothing but a desire to render it ineffective for the purpose of stripping its assets. They have been as successful as they have because apparently the joke that every public servant is a moocher on your taxes just never gets old. And here's you with it again haw haw Jethro you just kill me.
ReplyDeleteAnyone remember a Mary Tyler Moore show where her boss told her "We're going to you favorite American city!" and she exclaimed "San Francisco!"
ReplyDeleteUh-no, not SF.... "New Orleans!" Noooo.... "New York!" She never DID get to D.C.
Oh, well, Chicago's all right.
ReplyDelete"Darden Restaurants, Inc. is a multi-brand restaurant operator headquartered in Orlando. The firm owns several casual dining restaurant brands: Olive Garden, LongHorn Steakhouse, Red Lobster, Bahama Breeze, Seasons 52, Eddie V's Prime Seafood, The Capital Grille and Yard House."
ReplyDelete(Emphasis added)
And I note the above as someone who sometimes goes to Red Lobster, as the mdslet enjoys their popcorn shrimp. But "seasonal menu" at a geographically-dispersed midlevel chain restaurant?
Hey, on a Midwestern road trip, a Bob Evans can be a reasonable place to take a timeout. But it doesn't play on the insecurities of fine dining wannabes, either.
Parisians were extremely nice to my and my family when I visited. London was OK. New York helpful. So much for cliche reputations.
ReplyDeleteNah, there's a liberal sprinkling of downvotes throughout this thread, wherever someone says mean things about Washington, D.C. Because NYC is so superior, whoop-te-do. As is Chicago. And Boston. And San Francisco. And Seattle. And Hamilton, Bermuda. Not Houston, though. Houston is right out.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely! Hear Hear! Library of Congress. CDC. The White House staff. For fuck's sake those people work for us. I totally don't get the hate for people who do serious work for the public good--for christ's sake its not like they are Wall Street Bankers or Gallo Brothers or the Koch Brothers.
ReplyDeleteTrue! I don't think anyone at Booz Allen works for the Federal Government. The Federal Government works for them. Shit, my godfather and his partners are Fed lifers and work for things that people can actually enjoy, but they are the ones who always have to worry about furloughs and budget cuts.
ReplyDeleteI know--now I know! The waitress did explain excitedly that they originated in Florida, at which point, long before ordering the food, I gave up on the meal. But when we walked in we thought it wasn't a chain at all. More fools us!
ReplyDeleteWe take everyone visiting from out of town to "Your Dekalb Farmer's Market" (their official name); they always shop like there's no tomorrow.
ReplyDeleteSo Sully's annoyed that he's not receiving the deference accorded the intellectual, in a city full of intellectuals? Go figure.
Did you know there are people who work for the federal government who don't live in DC? True story!
ReplyDeleteOnce word gets around that the Mallard Fillmore caricatures are inaccurate and many of our federal employees are black, these guys will probably secede. So, win-win.
ReplyDeleteSpecifically, Orlando. Where restaurants go to die.
ReplyDeleteIf you think you’ll find intellectual stimulation you’re thinking of
ReplyDeleteanother era. The conversations are invariably about money or property or
schools.
"Did you see South Park last night? Their libertarian lack of decorum is truly a breath of fresh air. I was thinking of that while reading Oakeshott..."
"No, I missed it. Say, here's my stop. Yeah, I changed my mind about going to Midtown, there's this hot dog stand in Bushwick I've been wanting to try."
I'm wondering whether Andrew, like Joe Klein, thinks that his readers should have no memory for the shitty, stupid, things he's said? I haven't forgotten the "fifth column" crack but I'm sure Andrew is surprised to find the people he's standing "on" line with also haven't and, to the extent they recognize him, aren't willing to give him a pass on that or the unprotected sex.
ReplyDeleteSo is this more or less self-absorbed than that time he descended into the Pit of Despair because his broadband speed was slower in NYC than it was in DC?
ReplyDeleteGarrison Keillor once memorably described off-season tomatoes as being "strip-mined down in Texas."
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure that the post is so much "everywhere other than NYC sucks" than "DC sucks." Which is... not an uncommon opinion.
ReplyDeleteDo you realize how distracting it is when the porn feed suddenly stops? It totally ruins the mood.
ReplyDeleteThe conversations are invariably about money or property or schools
ReplyDeleteI live in NYC and I don't recognize the place he's talking about. Conversations are about anything and everything, especially if they're with natives and not British ex-pats who want to whine about NYC, which must have gotten him lots of dinner-party invites. Besides, complaining about life in NYC is something most New Yorkers do all the time, and it's usually about people like Sullivan.
no one ever steps aside or evinces the slightest shade of civility on the pavement.
Bullshit. What Sullivan doesn't understand is that if you're not maintaining sidewalk cruising speed, then you might as well be pushing one of those triplet baby carriages that only bears one kid and 800 pounds of kiddie survival gear. You are no longer a fellow human being, you're an impediment. At the same time, if you twist an ankle or even if you're a tourist in need of directions, New Yorkers will stop and aid you just as long as you don't do it in the middle of the goddamn sidewalk. The one thing living in NY (or any city for that matter) should teach you is that you are not the only person in the universe, so get the fuck out of the way.
no one ever steps aside
ReplyDeleteMost folks don't walk go through life expecting everybody else to step aside.
Well...sure...but is it time for my Great Aunt's story of falling down in the street and breaking her ankle, in her 70's, and dragging herself without help to the gutter where she finds a bum already there who regards her blearily and sympathetically and says "I know just how you feel?"
ReplyDeleteI think that people must subscribe to The Dish for the same reason that Stephen King said he used to watch Dan Rather: King expected Rather to just flip the desk one day and start babbling about the aliens before he was dragged off. Sully gives off that same air, even when he's marginally in control, as here. I had high hopes when he started going on about how Palin's latest baby was actually one of her daughters', and he doesn't seem that much more balanced.
ReplyDeleteI can only commiserate with you and your fallen taste buds.
ReplyDeleteHere in Chicago we are waiting until New York and D.C. are either submerged by global warming, or until everyone is priced out who cannot afford to live in $2k apartments while doing unpaid internships with Jonah Goldberg. Then we're going to cash in.
ReplyDeleteAn opinion with a long and glorious history, stretching back almost to the rosy dawn of our republic.
ReplyDeletedragging herself without help to the gutter
ReplyDeleteSee, there's a woman who knew the first rule of sidewalk behavior. Brava!
Couldn't he just move to Staten Island?
ReplyDeleteIt's the awesome slang term that results when US copyeditors are looking to replace the use of "asshole" in Life, the Universe, and Everything.
ReplyDeleteOr do you mean Tuft hunter
ReplyDeleteI'd use this for the basis of yet another "IYKWIMAITYD" moment, except you already went with "rug munchers" right out of the gate. IYKWIMAITYD.
or until everyone is priced out
ReplyDelete[LOOKS UP FROM BARREL FIRE INSIDE COMMUNAL SQUAT THAT USED TO BE A GOLDMAN SACHS EXECUTIVE'S PENTHOUSE]
You'll be waiting a long time now, capitalist running dog, thanks to Comrade de Blasio!
then you might as well be pushing one of those triplet baby carriages
ReplyDeletethat only bears one kid and 800 pounds of kiddie survival gear.
I see you've been to Park Slope.
Why not try reading a reply in the context of what its replying too?
ReplyDeleteI'm proud to say that my daughter is a devotee of Bluestockings, so I hope they don't relocate.
ReplyDeleteKia's interesting to read whatever context she's in. In other words, Billy Boy, she's your polar opposite.
ReplyDeleteI actually have a perverse liking for Houston, having heard some terrific blues in a tiny bar called the Reddi Room and had some scrumptious Mexican food the last time I was there, which was about twenty years ago. Anyway, it sure beats Dallas.
ReplyDeleteI think people are lonely, and they like connecting with someone they "know" every day. And the amount of money seems trivial, to them. So why not. Its basically the same people who watch Good Morning America every day--its not the actual information that they care about, its just knowing that there is somewhere to stare every few minutes that they enjoy.
ReplyDeleteGotten a lot of reactions here, Royboy, but I can't say I've noticed a lack of interest. See you on H street!
ReplyDelete99 comments, and mine ain't one.
ReplyDeleteYeah, given the reputation, Paris was one of the most pleasant surprises of my life. Other than one brief encounter with a grouchy a Metro ticket saleswoman, the people were probably the most tourist-friendly of any large city I've been to. Buying some passes at the main tourist office was the only time I've had someone DOWN-sell me into a cheaper option more appropriate to my needs.
ReplyDeleteGood God, Roy — Your description of DC's reeking banality and swarms of obnoxious political climbers makes it sound like a much less appealing version of Brussels. Only without the good beer and antique charm.
ReplyDeleteBrooklyn Botanic Garden. You aced that test.
ReplyDeleteI am from rural South Dakota, and during the times I've been to New York, I found it nothing like what Sullivan described. There were no hordes of rude people trampling everyone in their path. Maybe he was waiting in the Black Friday line at Walmart instead and got confused?
ReplyDeleteAn ongoing mischaracterization of a post by someone with whose oeuvre she's rather familiar?** Relating to D.C., with which she is also rather familiar? Is that what you're presuming to advise her to read in context? Or were you just quoting from your "NOTE TO SELF" scratchpad?
ReplyDelete**IYKW...Oh, never mind.
He's entitled to his preferences, but if they aren't 90% due to the fact that in DC he's a celebrity and in NYC he isn't I'd be shocked.
ReplyDeleteDamn you reds! Oh well, just wait until all the Wall Street fat cats move to Chicago and we implement our Transactions Tax on Unadmitted Wrongdoing Settlements. If that's okay with them, of course.
ReplyDeleteWasn't me originally, but might as well just for old time's sake. Always hated that "feature" anyway.
ReplyDeleteSee, I down voted myself. It's kinda fun once you get started.
ReplyDeleteSullivan's probably miffed that not only did they not care who he is, they don't even know who he is.
ReplyDeleteDamn, once I get started, just can't help myself
ReplyDeleteSpecifically, Orlando. Where restaurants go to die.
ReplyDeleteActually a laboratory where mad culinary scientists make theme restaurants come to life.
"There's only room in this town for one insufferably high self-opinion, and that's mine!"
ReplyDeleteI guess if New York's too stuck-up on itself for you, then a city of transplants who are ambivalent about it and largely unengaged in the life of the city itself... well, I guess it looks like Club Med.
Go for it.
ReplyDelete"Did you hear that the Mafiya is relocating from Brooklyn to DCNW? It's improving the honesty and public service level of both places."
ReplyDeleteSome old dude opened the door to let me out of my car once, as a purely friendly gesture. And then he just walked on away I was astonished.
ReplyDeleteIt was a lime green 70's boat of a car ('73 Mustang Grande). Maybe he'd owned one and knew how hard it was to open one of those heavy-ass doors, or he was a footsoldier in the New York vs. DC public relations wars.
As you say, NYers aren't rude. It's high context v low context. If you live in Bumfuck, Iowa, population 12, everybody knows everybody and knows everything about you. In fact, everyone knows each other so well that you can say, "pass the butter" and everyone will know that what you really mean is, "I still remember what you did behind the silo with Becky Jean after the ice cream social, you piece of shit."
ReplyDeleteIn NY, you don't have time to know all the details of everybody's shit. Directness is the only way anything can be communicated. In fact, it's rude to waste the time of others by beating around the bush and hinting at things.
Since Pittsburgh is my idea of a great city, I don't feel with it or "hep" enough to participate in this discussion, but please... DO carry on...
ReplyDeleteI've lived in DC twice, spent a lot of time there and in its environs for work and took a couple short vacations there with the wife and kids. Actually worked for the federal government for awhile and can verify what Kia says. I was shocked by how many people had a sincere belief and appreciation for public service. It was the political appointees who were fucking most everything up.
ReplyDeleteShort story is that I love to visit but hate the town. The overwhelming vibe of grim striving just gets me down and always has. Back in the day there was Kilimanjaros and DC Space and the 930 Club (actually at that address) and the most interesting strip club I've ever been to (big Howard U hangout) out on Georgia Avenue. I'm not into those scenes anymore, but from what I can see, nothing like that exists anymore. Just fake New York bars full of grim strivers.
Of course there's still the Arboretum and the various Smithsonians and the zoo and Great Falls and I love all that, but still the grim strivers get me down. Was there a couple months ago and went out to Great Falls on the Maryland side. It was full of bicyclists and runners and they were all dressed in the latest workout fashion and had the most expensive bikes and accessories and they all went about it with grim determination and perseverance. When I complained about it to people who know me, they all pointed out that I spend nearly half my life in Brooklyn's Prospect Park and there are plenty of yuppie bicyclists and runners there. And that's true, but it's an entirely vibe. Grim is not a New York attitude and for the most part making a public display of ostentatious wealth isn't either.
The insight I've got lately as both my wife and I have been traveling, and this is born out by your constant complaints about the DC subway, is that New York and New Yorkers are just so fucking competent and efficient that it's hard to deal with all the crap you have to deal with elsewhere. To cite just one of many examples, I've been shopping for jungle gear lately and went to a couple Cabela's, a Dick's and a Goose Mountain. At none of those places did the salesperson know anything about what they were selling or what was available in the rest of the store. I went to Paragon at Union Square and the sales guy went off on a lengthy discussion about the relative merits of different sewing stitches for different types of climates. I could literally tell hundreds of stories like that. When I'm in small towns or the country I tend to realize all the things I hate about New York. But when I'm in lesser cities, I miss it badly.
Anyway Roy, I've always feared for you living there. I hope Kia's got resumes out all over New York. It's not like it's a place an excellent writer can't find a job.
Eh, they might be in a less-than-ideal locale right now, but I'm not sure moving into the 8x10 is the answer. Unless it's not the club in Baltimore, but the measurements of an Upper West Side apartment. HEY-O!
ReplyDeleteOh, I don't know. I'd pick Pittsburgh over Philadelphia, for example, and I think some of my more intangible reasoning is similar to why I'd pick NYC over DC.
ReplyDeleteI've waited for this comment all day.
ReplyDeleteOh, he's recently released an e-book titled "I Was Wrong" or some shit about his appalling post 9/11 era writings. I'll give the guy credit - he knows how to re-brand his product when there's been a recall.
ReplyDeleteI especially enjoy his recent epiphany that 'Huh, maybe health care isn't the most appropriate place to unleash market forces.'
His kind of erudite stupidity can only be cultivated by an expensive, half-understood liberal arts education.
"Anyway Roy, I've always feared for you living there."
ReplyDeleteLook at the bright side - at least the poor man isn't in Texas anymore.
please tell me that someone had an onion on their belt.
ReplyDeleteOh wow, another post about just how fucking mean New Yorkers are because they think Andrew Sullivan is a preening dick.
ReplyDeleteI suspect it's even worse than that. I suspect they think Andrew Sullivan isn't anything at all - just another guy going somewhere to do something like they themselves are. He's invisible in NYC.
Brace yourself, Amai. CDC is HQ'd in... Atlanta. This would be why there has been no epidemic of sternovirus spread by contaminated chopsticks.
ReplyDeletei read that fifth column bullshit too. fuck andrew sullivan
ReplyDeletePssst. L5P is actually just three roads. Get it right.
ReplyDeleteTufthunter!
ReplyDeleteForgive the digression, but this is a word I have known for a long time, for in my youth did I play a famous computer game called Ultima IV: Quest Of The Avatar, where if you proved to be particularly lacking in virtue a character would refer to you as "a self-serving Tufthunter" (as well as "a cad and a bounder" and "a fulsome meddler").
It's a word I enjoy. Thank you.
I'm an Atlantan who has never been remotely impressed with DC or NYC but prefers DC to NYC because the people I know and love in DC haven't resorted to eating toilet paper for sustenance like the people I know and love in NYC, and don't need for me to pay for swill beer whenever we go to local bars (which, I should add, are just the same as everywhere else for both cities).
ReplyDeleteNot only do I live in Atlanta, I live in an entirely walkable area with easy public transit access to home, work, drankin', etc.
Address my point, libs!
You are right. I have a strong memory of standing on one of those corners absolutely dumbfounded that it was no more than that--during one of those gay people restored house walks that they hold around there and right before plunging into a great bakelite shop. But I couldn't remember the actual number of roads.
ReplyDeleteWhat the hell do you mean "less friendly"? Come say that to my face and I'll...I dunno, buy you a cup of coffee of something.
ReplyDeleteL5P doesn't insist that it's anything more than what it is. It's a little central vice area for a few neighborhoods that are near each other. (Including mine.)
ReplyDeleteTo illustrate just how hip even the lowliest of NYers are:
ReplyDeleteA well dressed toff and his equally well dressed wife are walking down Broadway when they are approached by a homeless person asking for money. The toff, hoping to impart a moral lesson, lifts his finger to the homeless guy's face and says: "Neither a borrower nor a lender be. William Shakespeare." The homeless guy eyes the toff and replies: "Fuck you. David Mamet."
Hey, I'm sorry I dissed your city. That was rude.
ReplyDeleteDiss away! I dissed both DC and NYC further down the page.
ReplyDeleteOk, but was the toff actually David Mamet?
ReplyDelete....
Kidding.
But your feeling seem hurt, so I'm happy to apologize.
ReplyDeleteNY is not everyone's cup of tea and its pretty hard to live in it even if you enjoy, or think you'd enjoy, some of the outstanding cultural features of the city. I wouldn't move to NY unless I had Rupert Murdoch's money and I'd gotten it without banging Rupert Murdoch for it. I did not enjoy Atlanta--it was the first enormous, sprawling, highway and gated community structured city I've ever lived in and I wasn't living there anyway. I was just visiting my boyfriend. We had no community and unlike New York the delights of the city depend very much on your sense of community. Maybe the city is very libeable, walkable, enjoyable but he didn't live in those parts and we simply couldn't find them.
For liveability, walkability, theater, schools etc... I'd rank Chicago higher than my own city and way higher than Atlanta or DC or NY.
I live in Jersey. The pizza's okay here. Sorry about Chris Christie, everyone.
ReplyDelete"Oh, so you're that asshole Andrew Sullivan, huh? Well let me tell you something...." -- Overhead at the 92nd Street Y. After years of having his ass kissed, Sullivan probably ran into people who don't care who Andrew Sullivan is. No wonder he fled.
ReplyDeleteBingo.
Dear Andrew,
If nobody looks twice when Mick Jagger walks in the room, what the fuck makes you think people here give a shit about you?
Sincerely,
BG (Brooklyn Girl, soon to be Queens Girl --- no pun intended)
We know who he is, and we think he's an asshole.
ReplyDeleteThank you. On the nose.
ReplyDeleteAnd Cobble Hill. :-)
ReplyDeleteConsidering that he's the guy who scratched his ass on national tv, yeah, he's not very self-aware.
ReplyDeleteOr he was in Times Square, where none of us would be caught dead.
ReplyDeleteAnd people do stand on line to get into John's pizza. Of course, they're all tourists --- :-)
Nah. There's just a lot to do here, and many of us don't own cars.
ReplyDeleteOMG --- Shopsin's!!! I ate several times at the one he had on Carmine Street, which was the interim location. He was a trip, and so was the menu. Macaroni and cheese pancakes. If you used a cell phone in there, he'd throw you out. But if you were good, you got a piece of candy of your choice at the end of the meal.
ReplyDeleteThere's a documentary about him called "I Like Killing Flies" --- you can find it on YouTube.
so is (or at least was) Salt Lake City, at least in the sense of being able to elect Democrats
ReplyDeleteIndeed, as a Salt Laker, I'll own that the place is no NYC for culture and such, but isn't quite the red state hellhole that - well, the rest of the state is. If we weren't gerrymandered to hell and gone we could probably even send a non-Blue-Dog Dem or two to congress.
ReplyDeleteOkay, I will concede that there were definitely 2 different Baltimores when I lived there. I did like the super friendly 35 year old grandmother that was my bartender, but tired of fixing my broken car window at least once a year.
ReplyDeleteNot unlike, well, you know.
ReplyDeleteI'd say that if Sullivan is implicitly expecting a certain deference from people, rather than camraderie or indifference, he's in the wrong city.
ReplyDeleteSomeone call Guinness Book of World Records. We've got a serious contender for safest ever bet.
Baltimore is, relatively speaking, right next door and is also considerably cooler.
ReplyDeleteWhat? Not enough quotation marks? Haven't you heard... there's a culture war on, and there's a shortage of quotation marks due to the massive deployment of "scare quotes."
ReplyDeleteHe also published a memoir/recipe book called (nicely) Eat Me: The Food and Philosophy of Kenny Shopsin. The menu in the original place--single spaced mimeographed Courier type--could make you blind. But you could always ask the Shopsin kids, doing their homework at the next table, to read it for you. I never saw the place he moved to.
ReplyDeleteMe, too. We said "in line" in Balmer, Merlin. And what's with people saying "I had a pit in my stomach," when the real expression is, "I had a feeling in the pit OF my stomach"? /Andy Rooney
ReplyDeleteAs someone who grew up there but left in 1968, to hear B-more described as "cool" is science fiction. But why not? We're living in the future.
ReplyDeleteI also occasionally go to Red Lobster when my sister comes to town because they really like it; in Little Rock there's not a lot of places to get any kind of seafood, good or otherwise, so you take what you can get. But I'm tempted to boycott them on principle because of Olive Garden. It's got to be the worst of them.
ReplyDeleteTo be fair, "it beats Dallas" is a very low bar to clear.
ReplyDeleteYep, this is one of the things that gave me fits when I visited NY. I'm not a fast-talker; I'm a southerner. At the lunch counters they would fire questions quicker than I could get out the answers. Not being rude, just trying to move things along.
ReplyDeleteI have a great NY story from when I visited once in college. This would have been around 1983 - Times Square was still full of hookers and things were still somewhat gritty. The architecture school organized a trip to the AIA student convention being held in NY over Thanksgiving. So I figured, "hey, I can save the money from registering for the conference since I won't go anyway, and get a flight for about the same as the cost of taking the bus + the registration, and get the time off classes and get there earlier to boot." So I did - the only thing I cared about was going to the Thanksgiving meal, and I planned on buying a ticket for that.
After we get there, I find out that the ONLY thing you can't pay for separately is the banquet. So I was bummed - all my friends were going and I was going to be eating Thanksgiving dinner all alone. And they were rubbing it in, too. To make things worse, my mom and dad were on a trip so I couldn't even call them. So what I ended up doing - don't laugh - was to walk a few blocks up from the hotel to the Hard Rock Cafe. Lame right? But as a hick 19 year old from Bumfuck, I didn't know at the time it was lame. Also, when we passed it a few days earlier, they had a Thanksgiving menu posted. So it seemed like the best solution.
Fortunately the meal turned out to be pretty good. The place was deserted, though - I seem to recall that if there was anyone else there eating, it couldn't have been more than 2 or 3 tables. But the cool thing was, right after the waitress took my order and turned it in, this guy comes up to the table, tells me he's the manager and thanks me for joining them for Thanksgiving, and then tells me my drinks are on the house. I figure the waitress must have commented on the poor hick girl who was eating all alone on Thanksgiving! In any case, I made good use of the drinks on the house, and got back to the hotel fairly blasted right about the time my friends got back from the banquet. They were pissed because they said the food sucked and asked what I had done, so I told them about the good meal and the free drinks, and then they got even more pissed, because they didn't even have wine at the banquet. Which served them right for being mean to me about having to eat Thanksgiving dinner alone.
To wrap up, whenever I hear anyone talk about New Yorkers being rude assholes, this is the story that I think of. About as far from "rude asshole" as it's possible to get.
I agree with Roy on overdeveloped crap in DC. Still, there's the Shakespeare Theatre (and some other good local troupes), the Kennedy Center, many great free film series and free concerts (many organized through the Smithsonian), cultural activities through the embassies… NYC is so much larger, it offers many more opportunities, and more often. DC requires more work. I stayed largely clear of the entitled douchebags, strivers and Villagers and more frequently ran into the dedicated government worker set (family, friends, neighbors, college pals who went to work for the State Department and valued learning about other cultures, etc.). Like Kia, I wish more people saw or experienced that side of the DC area, but it's hardly uncommon (even if the number of contractors has grown over the years).
ReplyDeleteAs for Sullivan, I agree with others' assessment that in DC he feels he can be a big fish and in NYC no one's genuflecting before his BS.
Oh, it's not quite that bad here. Yet.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteActually a laboratory where mad culinary scientists make theme restaurants come to life.
... or a hideou, shambling mockery of same, at any rate.
Wait, now "me first, me only, outta my way" and the pursuit of ALL THE MONIES are BAD things all of a sudden? When did this happen? Did someone test Sully's DNA and reveal he's 14% liberal or something?
ReplyDeleteWait... what is the alternative idiom to "in traffic"? Surely not "on traffic"?
ReplyDeleteUpvoted for "Bennigan's's".
ReplyDeleteI got the sense that he thought by simply announcing that he was moving to NYC that the doors of the city would be flung open to him and he'd be buried in invitations to cocktail parties where Very Important People stand would around him and be dazzled by his bold opinions and oratorical brilliance. When that didn't happen (because in the great scheme of things Sullivan barely rises to the level of "pissant"), he stomped his little feet and stormed off in a huff.
ReplyDeleteIt's also funny because he just flat-out failed at living in a big city. 12 million people manage to make it work every day in NYC, but his writings made it clear that he couldn't accomplish even the simplest tasks (like getting things delivered to his apartment) without everything going hilariously wrong, and of course its the fault of the stupid, no-good city, and not that he hasn't figured out how to make it work for him like all those other 12M people have. It's not even a NYC thing - he'd fuck everything up if he moved to LA and had to deal with the traffic there, or if had to navigate the swamp of influence/bribery/ethnic group politics you need to get anything done in Chicago. Big cities are bigger than you and you have to adapt yourself to them. They're really bad fits for solipsists (non-multi-zillionaire edition) and so Sullivan's failure in NYC was pretty much foreordained.
In one of the Hitchhiker's Guide books we're introduced to the most soul-destroying torture device ever invented - a Total Perspective machine that projects a scientifically-accurate map of the entire universe into your conscience, along with an infinitesimally tiny dot representing you (marked "You Are Here", of course). Every single person exposed to the Total Perspective machine becomes instantly, irreversably insane from being forced to confront just how insignificant they are in the face of creation. New York City seems to have had the same effect on Sullivan.
Not everyone is maddened by the Vortex, remember - Zaphod Beeblebrox handled it just fine. Of course, that was because that entire universe had been built just for him.
ReplyDeleteSo what I'm saying is this: your comparison to Sullivan's situation is spot on. He just isn't Zaphod Beeblebrox.
Sully is no Zaphod, he just thinks he is.
ReplyDeleteDammit, I should pay attention when I see that "somebody is typing a response" thing.
ReplyDeleteI'm wondering whether Andrew, like Joe Klein, thinks that his readers should have no memory for the shitty, stupid, things he's said?
ReplyDeleteYes, because neither of them remember anything they've said.
There's no idiom for being in traffic in L.A., just like there's no idiom for being in air anywhere that isn't underwater.
ReplyDeleteWonder if theres one for ellipses...
ReplyDeleteI feel compelled by shame to announce that I like Yard House. I don't seek it out, and often whatever beer I order they are out of (which defeats the whole purpose of the place, good grief), but if I'm with friends who like the chainy nightmares, I always steer us to Yard House, and I secretly actually like it.
ReplyDeleteThat said, if I ever set foot in Olive Garden or Red Lobster again, the universe is out of joint.
Oh, and just to keep this thread on track: NONE of these things should appear in any of the five boroughs. They are all a cancer, and even the one I like should be burnt off with a hot poker, no anesthesia, because I deserve the pain for letting it exist in the first place.
That the Secret Science Club at Bell House?
ReplyDeleteI notice they also build a pretty persuasive case. Better than the cases built for Juneau, Mobile, Atlanta, Tulsa... But I guess your opinion is that no one should form an opinion?
ReplyDeleteOne of those just opened up in Sacramento, at the mall. I once glanced at the menu, but it seemed rather pricey when we actually do have a lot of restaurants that use local and seasonal (which, granted, isn't that hard here) ingredients for less. Also, at the mall.
ReplyDeleteOh, no worries - I didn't pay attention. I just was a jerk and tried to get to the post button first.
ReplyDeleteFirst time I heard Songs For Drella by Lou Reed and John Cale, my first thought was "only a New Yorker could write a song about Pittsburgh and call it 'Smalltown'!"
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure Mamet dresses well enough to be called a "toff".
ReplyDeleteOh, I don't know, me local malt shop would be pretty happy to hear a Laureate lecture.
ReplyDeleteCan't we all simply agree that the worst aspect of both of these cities is that Andrew Sullivan has called them both "home" at some point. The fact that D.C. is his current home makes it the winner...or loser, I suppose.
ReplyDeleteBe still, Eli and Ms Rabett treasure the real estate appreciation that H Street NE has brought.
ReplyDeleteSubways are for getting you there. The trip experience. . .eh
ReplyDeleteThe only more depressing thing than knowing that Andrew Sullivan lives in DC is that Matt Yglesias lives in DC
ReplyDeleteI've lived in both cities and here's the thing:
ReplyDeleteNYC: pop 8,334,000
DC: pop 632,000
These are not the same kind of things. Yeah, the federal government is here, but in terms of daily life DC is more like Denver or Atlanta than New York.