Annoying New York Times articles

[Incandenza]

A NYT opinion editor thought we needed an essay about what it's like to see your ex-boyfriend dating Lady Gaga. It starts out with this opening:

I was eating bodega grapes at my desk on a recent Monday morning, gearing up to wrangle my inbox...

BODEGA GRAPES

[WOM]

More authentic than grapes from the Piggly Wiggly.

[Incandenza]

NOT PARODY:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/25/o...gtype=Homepage

On Thanksgiving in 2016, Mr. Trump’s friend Lois Pope told the president she wanted to give him a Goldendoodle named Patton (after the general). Ms. Pope thought it might be sweet for Barron Trump, the president’s son, to have a dog in the White House. She showed the boy a photo of Patton, and she said later, “This big smile came over his face, and it just brought tears to his eyes.”

But Mr. Trump told Ms. Pope he was too busy for a dog. Later, he told supporters he didn’t need one. Because “that’s not the relationship I have with my people.”

Maybe. But if he’d become the owner of a Goldendoodle, maybe he’d have had a different relationship — and not just with “his people,” but with all of us. Because a dog might have encouraged Mr. Trump to take himself just a little less seriously. Because a dog might have given him someone to love besides himself.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

who is he going to test the cyanide capsule on when the time comes?

[Balderdasha]

A NYT opinion editor thought we needed an essay about what it's like to see your ex-boyfriend dating Lady Gaga. It starts out with this opening:



BODEGA GRAPES

What are bodega grapes?

[caja-dglh]

They aren't anything. I mean, I guess they would be a tub of grapes already picked from the stalk (much fruit is available prepared to this extent in a bodega, though that isn't really distinct from any other food store in NYC)

[Balderdasha]

Ah, the difficulty I was having is that I don't recognise the word "bodega". So does it just mean "food shop"?

[ad hoc]

In Spain a bodega is a place that sells wine. I get the sense that in the US it's just a food shop

[Sporting]

Or in Spanish a place where wine is stored. Cellar, if you like.

[That Night In Barcelona]

Ah, the difficulty I was having is that I don't recognise the word "bodega". So does it just mean "food shop"?

It's a small owner-operated grocery store, they receive a hushed reverence from trendy people in New York because they're perceived to be more authentic than the larger, chain grocery stores. I don't live in America but I would hazard a guess that the bodegas are getting a lot of their produce from the same wholesalers as the other shops.

[DCI Harry Batt]

More authentically what?

[That Night In Barcelona]

Exactly.

[Incandenza]

They're "real New York." From what I understand (this could be wrong), most real bodegas are mostly in the more black/Latino areas, and they sell a bit of everything--basic groceries, liquor, loose cigarettes under the table, some hardware stuff, a hot food counter, and have a cat roaming around.

But from what I can tell, since they are a vestige of ungentrified New York, they have been fetishized by young white New Yorkers, and no one actually says something like "bodega grapes" normally, that just seemed like a painfully blunt way the writer was trying to make themselves appear down to earth.

[ursus arctos]

That is spot on

Many don't even sell grapes. Some will still have bullet proof glass enclosures for the cashier. Some have cats (another object of hipster fetishisation). The closest UK equivalent is the corner shop.

[pebblethefish]

If anyone's been fetishising our corner shops, they've thankfully kept it very quiet round me.

[ursus arctos]

Annoying is much too mild for this

https://twitter.com/abrahamjoseph/status/1268263716774195200

[Hot Pepsi]

It’s the “most liberal paper,” I’m told.

[Hot Pepsi]

They're "real New York." From what I understand (this could be wrong), most real bodegas are mostly in the more black/Latino areas, and they sell a bit of everything--basic groceries, liquor, loose cigarettes under the table, some hardware stuff, a hot food counter, and have a cat roaming around.

But from what I can tell, since they are a vestige of ungentrified New York, they have been fetishized by young white New Yorkers, and no one actually says something like "bodega grapes" normally, that just seemed like a painfully blunt way the writer was trying to make themselves appear down to earth.

I also think that New Yorkers are always looking for ways to make everything they pay so much for seem somehow better than the much cheaper version of the same thing that can be had elsewhere. I’d probably do that too if I lived there.

[ursus arctos]

There is a very powerful commercial impetus to do so, which is of course funded by the people charging outrageous prices, and as the Times has become ever more a creature of its advertisers, their voices are promoted

But we aren't all like that at all

[S. aureus]

I did enjoy the people piling onto the woman describing Manhattan as a war zone further down UA's twitter feed link.
But the NYT, WTF?

[ursus arctos]

It gets better

Turns out that McCain hadn't been in the city for months

[Hot Pepsi]

There is a very powerful commercial impetus to do so, which is of course funded by the people charging outrageous prices, and as the Times has become ever more a creature of its advertisers, their voices are promoted

But we aren't all like that at all

That’s true. I shouldn’t have generalized for all New Yorkers. A lot of you are more pragmatic and understand the difficult trade-offs.

A lot of alumni who come back here from New York to visit love to visit Target and Wegmanns. It’s not as interesting as going to a separate shop for everything to make sure you get the “best in the city” but it’s way less exhausting and much cheaper.

[Hot Pepsi]

It gets better

Turns out that McCain hadn't been in the city for months

It occurs to me that Meghan is a better name for the stereotype of a “Karen.”

[San Bernardhinault]

Why the fuck is the NYT publishing any of the fascist, crazed ramblings of Tom Cotton?

[San Bernardhinault]

Is that the actual Meghan "Daughter of John, voice of non-liberal liberalism" McCain?