I think someone downloading an app to help them be more spontaneous for a partner who wants that is extremely authentic, it takes someone seeing that they have a blind spot.
On the most recent iPhone pro I have a query running (about ~15 minutes so far) and the results are really good, just really slow, but I imagine the performance is worse on an older device
A lot of people are taking fentanyl thinking it's something else. It's pervasive in the drug supply. Kids who are being served ads for ketamine on social media are buying street K (obviously with a confidence boost from the advertising big tech allows) and boom, fentanyl. People who have been prescribed xanax, and got a little addicted and then buy it on the street because the pharmacist and doctor are onto their misues... It's not as simple as calling it an opiate thing, and even then, opiate addicts in my book deserve to like live. We have to rethink our approach to drugs, because this isn't the same game as even a decade ago. I think legalizing and deshaming to the point of exhaustion makes sense, but I'm not sure my thought is right.
I thought this seemed fair till i read it was in flushing. Nyc is the worst, but, if you’re American where else can you get a city that international and walkable
Chicago, DC, Boston, SF, Philly (depending on "international"), Portland (walkable but not really international - it's just 90s-2000s white Americans doing 90s-2000s white American stuff, you'd think Kurt Cobain still roams the earth)
Though if you want affordability, that leaves Chicago and Philly.
NYC sucks in that sense though, as a lot of industries that are conglomerated in NYC haven't ensured salaries keep up with those in High Finance and Tech
At least Boston has relatively affordable suburbs and Bay Area level wages, DC has plenty of federal jobs that pay competitively, and SF has the larger tech industry (which is still going great despite a couple high profile layoffs)
Miami? I was impressed with Miami when I visited. Lots of high rise residential housing, sane political governance, nice downtown, and pretty walkable.
IIRC Miami was the worst on a list put together by CityNerd of large cities with a high (housing+transit)/income ratio. I can't access YT at the moment so feel free to correct.
Yeah, though I think Bay Area is similar - LA is huge and more equivalent to compare to Bay Area (SF + Oakland + Peninsula + San Jose), than just SF itself.
To be clear; what I mean LA as in LA city not the county. LA and Miami are similar in they have some neighborhoods that are walkable (the most popular parts), but the majority of them are not and they’re not very walkable between the two. Little Tokyo is walkable but then there’s a gap between there and downtown, then you have a huge Hollywood stretch then a huge gap around ktown if you go between them. Miami has the same issue, Brickell is walkable but as soon as you leave it has a bunch of impassable areas to go to downtown, same as if you were to leave wynwood. The worst part of Miami city’s unwalkability is once you leave those neighborhoods it pedestrian hostile like Shendahdoah or Little Havana.
SF and NYC do have neighborhoods like this, but those occupy very tiny portions of those cities comparably to Miami.
Yes. In the US, sure. Compared to cities outside the US it is horrible. Less walkable than most, food is ok if you know where to go but nothing special and also super expensive like everything else, aggressive drug addicts wandering the streets, high crime including random acts of violence for literally no reason at all, incessant aggressive honking at all hours of the night, even when you are paying $5k a month for your 1 bedroom apartment it the apartment itself is not a nice place to live in terms of things like sunlight and ventilation, and the city itself is super corrupt. There’s a million folks in unions and other arrangements who are “grandfathered in” to all sorts of privileges that are used to secure their vote. The city has an astronomical budget, all the money is going to more or less bribe key voting blocks. It has been this way for well over a century.
The thing that NYC really has going for it is that the rest of the country is a giant suburban dystopia.
i live in NYC and have traveled to plenty of other international cities.
none of the things that you're saying are true compared to my experiences (or those of my friends) in any way that i can think of as meaningful.
the only city i've been to that feels like it's captured the same "vibe" as NYC, for me, has been Paris.
Tokyo was more impressive in its sprawl and history (and obviously cleanliness), but there is a sense of Japanese monoculture that saturates everything in a way that is almost tactile. not in a bad way, but definitely such that i felt like something was "missing" during my visit.
Singapore gets really close to the same feeling, but for all of its heterogeneity there's an undercurrent of authoritarian sterility that made it very difficult to feel comfortable (Disneyland with the Death Penalty, indeed).
anyway this is already pretty long winded so i should probably stop talking, but NYC has a lot "going for it" besides the rest of the US just sort of being a suburban hellscape. at some point i'll move out, but living here has been a really comforting reminder that international views such as yours of American cities are incorrect.
I was born in Manhattan and lived in the city for over a decade and still own an apartment downtown. I know a thing or two about the place. It's cool that you get a vibe from being a transplant here for a couple years, that has literally nothing to do with anything I said. The lawlessness is also quite a different experience for women--I am guessing having random guys off the street try to force your door open and follow you into your building or corner you on a subway or follow you around riding a bike aggressively catcalling you is probably not something you are dealing with on a regular basis.
The day I left I moved out over a pool of dried blood from a stabbing in front of my door the night before. I've lived in over 20 countries since then and not experience anything similar except maybe in Canada, which has similar drug problems as the US.
With the caveat that I moved away (due to work) a little under a decade ago... what you describe doesn't match my experience with NYC at all. Maybe back in the 80s, before it was cleaned up... but I was less frequently there back then. Before you said you lived in the city, the message from your first post made me assume you were talking about the city as someone who learned everything they know about it from the news.
Visiting another city is not in any way comparable to living there. Or would you defer to the opinion of some tourist who visited NYC for a random weekend?
I already felt like I was ranting for too long, but yes that too. People are paying far more now for a much worse experience/quality of life compared to before the pandemic. I was at one point in the city among my reasons because it had good public transit, but then taking taxis all the time because my partner did not feel safe on the subway after numerous incidents, and just had a “what the fuck am I even doing here” moment.
Oh. Yeah I would also probably pay $15k for $1k rent if I intended to stay in NYC long term. You'd have positive ROI on that before the end of year two.
But Flushing is too far from Manhattan and too close to La Guardia. I'd gladly pay more not to listen to that shit all the time, the car noise in the city is bad enough.
Well, if it's "international" you're looking for, there are other cities abroad like that. But I get your point, the US has very few walkable cities with high levels of diversity.
Down The Drain by Julia Fox, fun memoir of a nyc fashion icon, it's a beautiful mess, "I know the influence, I know the impact, and I know the vibes, and the girlies love the vibes, and that's just what it's about."
How To Murder Your Life by Cat Marnell, recommended by Julia Fox in an interview, similar book, if you're interested in fashion, publishing or beauty and where it intersects with addiction. Super funny, super sharp, super bitchy, reading her 2nd book now
Walking Through Clear Water in a Pool Painted Black by Cookie Mueller, if you like Nan Golden or John Waters you know who Cookie is, a really fun and crazy ride, made me wish I was best friends with Cookie.
Black Friend by Ziwe Fumudoh, if you like Ziwe, then obvi. An interesting mini memoir, has some of the bite of her talk show but pulls back the mask and makes you realize how damn brilliant she is, really interesting refection of the experience of a 2nd generation Nigerian
I Was Better Last Night by Harvey Firestein, a fun look back at the alt theater scene in NYC, still listening on audible, he has the best voice ever, something that is a must listen
Feeding the Soul (Because it’s my business) by Tabitha Brown, if you fell in love with Tab’s vegan soul during the pandemic like me this audio book was like a warm hug from a super nice auntie. I don’t share a lot of the same beliefs as her, but it was interesting look at one person’s faith and how it made them the person they are
The Fuck Up by Arthur Nersesian, if you ever dreamed of living in the East Village in the 1980s this book was great, paints a lively picture of NYC at that time
The New Animals by Pip Adams, a kiwi fashion scene slice of life, like if Virgina Wolf had written Bret Easton Ellis' Glamorama. Some interesting musings on social media and it's place in the fashion world
Glamorama by Bret Easton Ellis, re-read after 20 years, really appreciated the non stop references, if you want to live in the late 90s fashion world for a bit it’s a great book
I Am Not Ashamed by Barbara Payton, old hollywood starlet who ended her life broke and addicted, an interesting look at the dark side of the old studio system and the seedier parts of Los Angeles. Picked up at Mast Books in the East Village (along with a few others on this list), highly recommend the book store, great selection of artsy fartsy stuff
The Shards by Bret Easton Ellis, didn’t finish it, mostly because it’s massive and I never could bring myself to pack it, intend to finish to next year, but if you like his other books, especially less than 0, it’s worth reading. Picked up at Literati in Ann Arbor, great bookstore near a few other great bookstores on the edge of Kerrytown, highly recommend
Eve's Hollywood by Eve Babitz, if you want to fall in love with a Los Angeles even more, great writing
An Attempt at exhausting a place in Paris by George Perec, a quick read can’t remember if it was the first book I bought from Wakefield Press at Artbook Hauser & Worth LA, but thankful for that bookstore introducing me to that press
Psychology of the Rich Aunt by Erich Mühsam, another Wakefield title, funny and still felt modern despite being a century old. The authors real life was really interesting to me, he was one of, (if not the first, I remember reading somewhere but can’t find the source), victim of the Nazis
The Sundays of Jean Dézert by Jean de La Ville de Mirmont, another Wakefield title, I read it one sitting (easy to do with this press, they publish almost entirely novellas from what I can gather), made me think of Notes From Underground and Seinfeld
Honey I'm Homo by Matt Baume, A really wonderful guided tour of LGBT representation in television. Was not expecting this book to hit so hard. I cried more times reading this than anything else this year. If you grew up gay in the 1900s, it's a really powerful reminder of how vital accurate and compassionate representation is. Made me realize how much things have changed for the better, really made me appreciate being alive today.
The Art Thief by Michael Finkel, really romantic crime non fiction about a prolific art thief, his girfriend, his family, extremely cinematic, would be shocked if it's not made into a movie very soon
Paris by Paris Hilton, a really dark look at the troubled teen industry, made me really respect Paris Hilton as a cultural engineer (she was mostly in on the joke) and abuse survivor. Also, a really dark look at revenge porn, consent, and technology in the aughts
Mean Baby by Selma Blair, really enjoyed the parts about her childhood, a very specific look at the Jewish Detroit suburbs at the last quarter of the 20th century
Unprotected by Billy Porter, if you watched Pose, and wanted to know more about the actor that brought Pray Tell to life . A memoir about demanding your place in the world
Spinning Plates by Sophie Ellis Bextor, read at the start of the year, but love that with Saltburn coming out “Murder on the Dancefloor” is everywhere again. Loved the early parts of the book and the britt pop teenage stories, the obvious music career throughout, and then interesting look at motherhood. She’s so charming, smart and talented, I’ve always wondered why she wasn’t as big as the other pop stars of her era but her podcast Spinning Plates is also great, and most recent album Hana is a charming love letter to japan.
Pageboy by Elliot Page, really made me want to go Nova Scotia, feels like a long late night conversation on a porch chain smoking cigarettes in college while a party is going on inside but the conversation is more compelling
When We Cease To Understand The World by Benjamín Labatut, suggested to me in last years version of this, really beautiful and thoughtful, lots of very specific truths in a fictional history
I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jenette McCurdy, a look back at being a child star, written as if it’s all happening in the present, interesting reflections on Mormonism and Nickelodeon
Atomic Habits, nothing earth shattering but a pleasant, picked up a few things from it i started doing day to day that increased my quality of life
Friends, Lovers, and The Big Terrible Thing by Matthew Perry, a really dark look at what addiction combined with fame does to a person, didn't enjoy reading it, but when Matthew Perry died I was glad I had.
The Woman in Me (Le Femme en Moi), currently enjoying this as an audio book in French, if you're learning another language and love pop culture, the vocab is simple, being able to slow down the speed on audible is really nice. Read the book in English first and it was a really interesting look at sexism in the media and the commodification of celebrity, super sad
Valid by Chris Bergeron, currently reading, trans dystopian sci fi in a near future Montreal. Enjoying it so far
Bunny by Mona Awad, also currently reading, reminds me of Heathers if it was made by Wilt Stillman
The Love of Singular Men by Victor Heringer, also still reading, really visceral writing, one of those books that really makes you feel like you are seeing what the author is writing about, was suggested by the staff at De Stille in Montreal on Duluth, a great english language bookstore highly recommend
> Eve's Hollywood by Eve Babitz, if you want to fall in love with a Los Angeles even more, great writing
Goodreads recommended me this after I read Slouching Towards Bethlehem (which I really liked). Now I have a second opinion so I'll check it out. Thanks :)
https://www.cnet.com/culture/internet/the-way-kids-use-memes... , this article is pretty interesting, it touches on how digital culture permeates young children and how they aren't constantly connected. But they are connected enough to have these disembodied memes on the playground the way my generation heard about Marilyn Manson's missing rib and that superman S we all drew.
I had never heard the "superman" part of that, I always thought it was Stussy. But I knew exactly what you meant! Turns out both were accepted origins, but not necessarily true.
I started using chatgpt last week for coding problems, and while it's not perfect, with very specific questions and code examples fed in, the results coming out saved me a lot of time, even if i'm rephrasing a question 5 times
CNBC has a youtube video on the economics of Trader Joe's and the piece that stuck out to me is that they will have essentially a white label option, but have it slightly modified so it is "unique" to them
