You Stole My Bit
To conclude today's NY Times-sourced troika (the Edwards thing was pure Times), there's this article about a couple who decide to live a zero-emissions lifestyle, "for some reason," as the article didn't have the nerve to say. The Times decided to use the fact that they don't use toilet paper as a hook, despite barely mentioning it in the article. (I was kind of hoping that was their only idiosyncrasy.) But no, they don't make trash, and use cloth diapers, and only eat food grown within 250 miles of New York City, and generally make pests of themselves at restaurants and at work and in the pages of the Newspaper of Record.
The husband is a writer of "historical nonfiction," a genre that, I think, used to be called "history". He also sounds like a horrible person. I don't know what people like, but making your wife use "homemade fruit-scrap vinegar" sounds like a good way start fights. Nobody is that good of a sport.
It's easy to make fun of people different from us, but the real reason I bring this up is a commentary on the Times. What is this article? It's not exactly news; nothing has happened, and even if it had, it wouldn't be important. It's not a social trend; this is just one family, and the reporter doesn't even pretend that there are others. No, the newspaper just saw this one interesting ("interesting") thing, and thought you might like to hear about it. No pretense that it's important, or relevant or anything you might need to know. Just a big, "huh, think of that." Sound familiar?
The husband is a writer of "historical nonfiction," a genre that, I think, used to be called "history". He also sounds like a horrible person. I don't know what people like, but making your wife use "homemade fruit-scrap vinegar" sounds like a good way start fights. Nobody is that good of a sport.
It's easy to make fun of people different from us, but the real reason I bring this up is a commentary on the Times. What is this article? It's not exactly news; nothing has happened, and even if it had, it wouldn't be important. It's not a social trend; this is just one family, and the reporter doesn't even pretend that there are others. No, the newspaper just saw this one interesting ("interesting") thing, and thought you might like to hear about it. No pretense that it's important, or relevant or anything you might need to know. Just a big, "huh, think of that." Sound familiar?
posted by apk01004 at 2:56 PM
1 Comments:
you obviously don't have enough experience with the thursday times, which manages to include not only the overwhelmingly banal "thursday style" section (at least the sunday style section comes with an undrinkable and usually unmakeably esoteric cocktail recipe or depressing dance club review (house drink: kecap manis cosmo, $18)) but *also* the "home and garden" section from which you drew this unpleasant article. it's the gray lady's weekly low point.
give me the sleek, to-the-point saturday edition any day.
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