By "party," do you mean "orgy"?
Either way, I'll come.
Can I call Standpipe for the group sex marathon? I like surprises.
Wait, it's a blogospheric party, and whoever throwing it was just all, we'll invite this blogger and that blogger, and hell, let's invite the whole mineshaft?
That's about it. We are pretty much the Borg.
Yeah. If it weren't for the fact that I crawl up the Mineshaft every few days, my piddly blogging ass wouldn't get invited to fancy parties.
Can I call Standpipe for the group sex marathon?
Becks, you sweet talker.
AWB (and anyone else): email me at Lizardbreath at Unfogged for the evite.
I suppose this is the appropriate place to say that I will be in New York the first weekend in August.
Oh, crap, Teo! I'm going to be in Kansas that weekend.
12: To be sure. Too bad AWB can't make it.
I will be in New York the first weekend in August.
I would have liked to met you. Unfortunately, I will be taking my kids to visit family in Montana then. Shucks.
I would have liked to meet you too, Idealist. This doesn't seem to be the best weekend for the NY people.
Completely off-topic, but have y'all seen today's Doonesbury?
I'll be around (to the extent that I'm ever sure of anything.) Mmm. Pastry!
I'll be available to objectify you, Teo.
Oh, true -- wear something revealing.
16: Yeah. I don't think it's very accurate. Tell me who, besides evil John Tierney, thinks feminism has "succeeded" in its goals? At least, it hasn't in the sense that the suffragettes and abolitionists succeeded.
17: You guys are going to get together and have St. Agnes's marzipan boobies without me, aren't you?
I'll be madly rehearsing for my (eek!) recital up here in boston, but I will send what mental bees I can spare to accompany the Unfogged hivemind.
Excellent. What are you playing?
Damnit, I want to come to the orgy! Pout.
You're going to live in LA. Won't you be all blase about orgies after a bit? (Not that I've ever lived in California, but my understanding is that it's mostly about the group sex.)
And we'll throw you an orgy any time you make it to NY. You can leave PK with Sally & Newt's babysitter.
second violin in a quartet playing Bach's Gavotte from Suite #3 in D Major. Never played in an ensemble before--quite an exercise in humility.
Who can we orgy with when I come to LA, B?
30 - And we'll hold you to it, B. After all, Mr. B offered to sew Tia's pockets but never followed through.
Hmmm, so I'll be moving or cancelling a dinner-with-female-friend-that-may-or-may-not-be-a-date to go to this party. I'm glad I have my priorities straight.
As a public service announcement, the H&M flip-flops I bought today (I can't find a link, and am in fact having trouble finding a browsable collection of their stuff on the internets), while comfortable, will break within five hours of purchase (n=1).
31: I don't know. Maybe we can make a road trip up to the Bay Area. I wonder if Ogged will be up for it by then?
33: Your priorities are way off, man.
Nah, I was calling as I was writing this comment, she might be availalbe Thursday and if not, there's next week.
35: "Maybe it's a date" vs. "blog orgy." I'd say his priorities are just right.
No trolls. Pastry.
Everyone ought to go wearing masks. LizardBreath with a lizard mask; AWB as a white bear; Idealist as a Platonic solid.
At masked balls, are people really fooled by Zorro-masks and other such paper-thin disguises? I can't trust the books I've read, can I?
Man, not living in NY sucks. I want to go to a blog party.
Anyone want to come to Providence to see my band play on 8/11? (Crickets...)
(Crickets...)
So where are you playing? I haven't been out to see a band since, um, '99 or '00, I think, though I could be wrong (and I am; I saw Le Tigre at the Met Cafe in either '01 or '02.) Anywany, where: AS220? The Safari Lounge? I don't know your band, so I'm not sure where or what level of venue at which to guess.
(I'm sorry that I probably won't go anyway; but I am curious.)
We're playing at the Brooklyn Tea and Coffee house. It's a tinyish but cute little place over on Douglas Ave. We're kind of a folk-pop/alt-country thing.
(We're building up to AS220 and the Met... well... I can dream.)
re: 39
Some of us not-live-in-New-York more than others. Still sucks.
We're playing at the Brooklyn Tea and Coffee house.
Oh yeah, I know it. Never been, though it does look cute. Used to drive by it on the way to LJ's, and was always surprised. I used to live on Smith Hill in the early '90s and walk over to Douglas now and again; it was really awful in those days. I'm not sure if it's actually better now, but the coffee house at least looked like a sign of hope.
Getting a show at AS220 is not hard. They'll let pretty much anyone up on stage, as long as you don't do covers. I'm sure scheduled can be difficult, but they'll put anyone on stage, really. Hell, even me, repeatedly, once upon a time.
The neighborhood still seems kind of, well, medium rough. I wouldn't want to walk there from Smith Hill at night, but I may be overly cautious. The coffee house still seems to stick out a bit to me, but I've only ever been there in the evenings; it's possible there's foot-traffic in the morning.
It happens to be only a few blocks from the Foxy Lady, though, so it's got that going for it.
re: 44, McGrattan, you live in Oxford. You're less than an hour from London by bus. You can meet up with dsquared and OneFatEnglishman.
The DC meet-up happened after I left DC, and Tweedledopey/jvance left Boston not long ago. Those of us in the provinces in the US are out of luck.
And surely academics travel.
(Although, bg -- by your hour-by-bus standard, shouldn't you be in Providence listening to mrh?)
The Foxy Lady is creepy, with their omelettes and strippers. I can't get behind mixing those concepts.
sj, I couldn't agree more. I have to believe that "Legs and Eggs" is one of the more depressing sights you'll ever see.
Are you a Rhode Islander, too?
Proably should (though I've only been through Providence on the train), but my crazy work schedule right now means that I'm always working on Saturdays and usually work on Friday nights. Also, I'm broke. I bet that McGrattan who has a wife probably has more dispoable income than I do.
I can't make it this week, but I should be around in August.
I've never been a big fan of LA, although I've also never taken advantage of all it has to offer.
I've never gone to the "Legs and Eggs" breakfast at the Foxy Lady, though friends of mine did about 15 years ago. They described it as typical horrible strip club, but with steam trays of rubbery scrambled eggs lined up on the side.
The now-departed pharmacy on Smith St. was at one point the nearest source of drink, but closed at (I think) 8 PM. So to sate a thirst that arose after that hour, if one lacked a car, involved an evening walk to Douglas Ave., and then, more hazardously, a walk back obviously carrying liquor. I lived next to the church with the blue cross at the time.
53: If it had blog orgies to offer, you'd like it much better.
re: 48
I'm not a full-on academic yet, unfortunately. Grad student (soon not to be one, fingers crossed) who does some adjunct-type teaching. I was lecturer in philosophy at one of the colleges here for a year filling in for someone on leave but won't actually be going 'on the market' till the end of this year.
47: McGrattan won't find me in London. I shall have to have a microorgy with OneFatIrishAmericanWoman oop 'ere in t' not remotely frozen north.
Party on, guys.
Who can we orgy with when I come to LA, B?
Me, obvs. You'll just have to time it for a school holiday.
Such a Casanova: "orgy next week? I can't, I have to read more Hegel."
Oh wait, you meant as in, school holidays mean you'll be in LA. Never mind.
Lizardbreath,
If I had your email, I'd tell you I want to show up at blog party on 19th at 6.
Guess I'm still far outside inner circle. Sniff.
Adam, the email address is posted in 9, for heaven's sake.
And the rule for figuring it out is under the list of Abouts in the left sidebar. In any case, it's Lizardbreath at Unfogged dot com.
The people cry out for an Unfogged-style-event in the Boston/Providence area. (Boston qualifies as Providence-area, I think.) Maybe not right now, you know, but keep it in mind...
Is there going to be a table with a little card on it that says, "reserved for the Mineshaft," so I don't have to go around asking weird questions of strangers like "Hi, are you washerdreyer?" "Are you LizardBreath?"
The people cry out for an Unfogged-style-event in the Boston/Providence area.
"The" s/b "Three"
Both previous times, when I knew I was speaking to fellow Mineshaft dwellers, I would say, "Hi, I'm [name], or washerdreyer." Now I might just do "[name]" and add washerdreyer if asked, or if I know it's relevant.
I'm not actually certain I'm going to be able to make it -- work's pretty bad this week. But I'll email around everyone who's asked for details on Wednesday afternoon, and we can exchange recognition signals then. ("The bat roosts at dawn." "But the hummingbird fears the night.")
Isn't the proper Mineshaft greeting "Show us your tits!"? And if you are not sure who you are speaking to, I believe the accepted way of determining their status is to ask, "Do you want to sex Motumbo?"
Well, if y'all time your LA-orgy for the end of August, I will probably be there.
Also, I'm going to be in London in a week! Woo!
But not in NYC on Wednesday. Pity. I like blog-orgies.
The punctuation in 71 makes me happy.
But seriously, what would be the MLA-accepted way to write Isn't the proper Mineshaft greeting "Show us your tits!"? ?
64: That's quite generous of you, arthegall. I think most Bostonians would say that Providence is actually in the Boston area. Subvert!
re: 72
If you get a couple of hours free and can make it up to Oxford, I'd be happy to show you around.
77: Noted! Thanks.
I haven't even thought about what I'm going to do the two weeks I'm there. I understand it will be mostly working, but I hope that that's not entirely true.
76: I'm not a Bostonian, I only live here! But that said, don't call me generous yet: I only said it that way to imply that any north-of-New-York Unfoggedathon should be in Boston -- I don't wanna have to drive anywhere.
I think most Bostonians would say that Providence is actually in the Boston area.
Actually, most Bostonians would say that Providence is off the map. And most Rhode Islanders would say the same of Boston.
Would they say it's off the map, or off the hizzy?
What are we talking about here? Neither one is off the proverbial "hizzy."
re: 78
Well, I'm out of the country from the 29th to the 4th. But if you are here either before or after that and fancy seeing Oxford, drop me an email.
If not, no problem.
The Boston-Cambridge-Quincy, MA-NH Metropolitan Statistical Area had a 2000 Census population of 4,391,344. Providence-New Bedford-Fall River, RI-MA MSA was at 1,58,977. No point to this except that the Census is cool.
Would they say it's off the map, or off the hizzy?
Off the edge of the earth.
I'll be there from the 23rd to the 5th. Then I'm going to Berlin.
Where are you going?
Then I'm going to Berlin.
Blog orgy in Berlin!
Hey New Yorkers! Anyone know of anyone who needs a roommate? Tenant is a nonsmoker, charming raconteur, newly dumped, has no pets or large plants. Recently purchased a snazzy laptop, so WiFi is desirable but not required.
I don't, but I'll keep you up to date if I hear anything in the near future.
Sorry to hear that, Joe. Rents are lower up here in the frozen north.
I'm sorry Joe. Maybe you can pick up a new girlfriend/apartment at the blog orgy?
re: 86
Prague, and the Czech Republic, to visit my wife's family.
Yay orgies! But I can't make it. I've got a friend's show to go to.
Thanks for all the condolences, guys. It's actually for the best. It was kind of a long time in coming.
Is "recently dumped" in there to explain your need for a new place, or to entice potential roommates with the promise of a fragile, easily manipulable mark? Or both? Either way, I am sorry to hear it.
re: 89
That sucks. Sorry. I have no specific leads, but do not discount the advantages of living in Queens. Many places have good subway access to Manhattan (look for stops on the E Train, like Jackson Heights), rents are much lower, and to me many neighborhoods are much more diverse and interesting than much of Manhattan.
Astoria. Can't beat the Greek food.
Queens is a problem -- I work in lower Manhattan, so it's very inconvenient. Hourlong commute. Brooklyn is much better.
I hesitate to say this, but for lower Manhattan there are some very, very short ferry commutes from Jersey.
Is Hoboken less expensive than Brooklyn? It is a very nice place to hang out though I have never lived there.
Also, 99 is technically false.
I don't know why anyone would ever want to live in Queens when they could live in Brooklyn.
Depending on the neighborhood, you can get much cheaper for the same commute, and what you lose in terms of hipsters you make up in terms of cheap ethnic food and groceries.
Alright, but Astoria's not that cheap anymore. Maybe Jackson Heights still is. And it's not pretty there. It's a bunch of rumbling els and charmless three story buildings that all look the same. I don't think Astoria is any cheaper than Prospect Heights, which, depending on the street you live on, is very pretty and tree lined, near a huge park, a museum, BAM, the food co-op...I could go on.
105 and 106 are technically correct.
You're absolutely right on the pretty -- all the neighborhoods I'm thinking of in Queens look like hell. Is Astoria really up there with Brooklyn Heights, pricewise, now? I haven't looked for an apartment in a decade, so my advice may be way, way out of date.
Prospect Heights != Brooklyn Heights. PH is in general way less expensive than BH.
I am predicting that Prospect Heights will never be "as expensive as Brooklyn Heights" by a fair margin, though it will almost certainly at some point be as expensive as Brooklyn Heights currently is.
I meant Prospect Heights, the area on the other side of the park from Park Slope. I saw a place there in 2004 for 600, for a *big* room in a beautiful three bedroom with roof access on St. John's Place, which is a gorgeous, wide, tree lined boulevard (in the right stretches). I liked the potential roommies but tragically they didn't pick me (and people almost always pick me, but it was right after I'd shaved my head and my vibe was different because I'd gone super femme to compensate, and they were kind of crunchy). Sadly, people have gotten wise and rents have gone up there too. But it's probably still roughly equal to Astoria, where the rents are pretty high, unless you're going to live in a part of Astoria that doesn't have any of its virtues. Brooklyn Heights is not as undoable as people think, I learned recently. Kim is sharing a one bedroom for 750, and the layout of the apartment is such that the entrance and the bathroom (though not, sadly, the kitchen) is in between the rooms, and she's three blocks from the promenade. Her room is fairly big, and she's in a doorman/elevator building. I'd take that situation.
It sounds like transportation issue make Queens a less attractive option, but in brief defense of that fair borough, I think 109 gets it exactly wrong. In terms of neighborhoods, Queens has at least as much to offer as Brooklyn, although admittedly it cannot compare in terms of really nice (but expensive) places to live with ready access to Manhattan (particularly lower Manhattan).
Sunnyside and Woodside are close to the City and have lots of trees and small apartment buildings. Jackson Heights/Elmhurst has lots of different kinds of housing. The part of Flushing where I lived had single family homes with front and back yards and lots of trees. Forest Hills has the same. Heck, in Douglaston and Little Neck there are houses on the water with docks for small boats.
IME, the Queens neighborhoods that are reasonably pretty don't have the kind of close clusters of restaurants, nice bars, and businesses that make New York a fun place to live. It's one or the other out there.
in Douglaston and Little Neck there are houses on the water with docks for small boats.
I've seen that kind of thing on my way to the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Preserve. Incredibly pretty, but wow, that's a hell of a commute.
I love the liveliness of Jackson Heights. Every time I go there, I think, wow, my neighborhood's so sedate.
112: This is true.
And of course, there's no reason to write off Manhattan -- it's expensive, but you can get lucky. East Harlem to Lower Manhattan is really quite fast on the 4/5, or anyplace else if you can afford it.
but wow, that's a hell of a commute
This is a bit of a tangent, because I do not get the sense anyone is looking for a house on the water, but Douglaston is only about a half hour train ride from Penn Station. You are right that there are similar (and much bigger) areas in Brooklyn, but they are, as you note, not convenient to Manhattan.
I love the liveliness of Jackson Heights.
Absolutely. When I walk down Roosevelt Avenue, I think that this is why I live in New York (except that like most people in my position, I have moved to the suburbs (but just over the county line) for the schools [insert sad face emoticon here if they were permitted]).
Also, I know of people paying 1600 for a good sized two bedroom in the slope. Not bad at all. At least given what I value in neighborhoods, I would never want to live in Queens again. I pay 580 for my little windowless room, and I sure love my neighborhood.
I actually got a "Where should I live in New York" for 1200-1500 Ask the Mineshaft, so this can be my answer:
Live in Brooklyn, unless you value ethnic food and multicultural bustle really highly. Then Astoria or Jackson Heights would be worth considering. I don't know about JH, but in Astoria, only live near the 30th or Broadway stops on the NW, or the Steinway stop on the R. I lived at 36th Ave stop and the Astoria Blvd. on the NW, and those neighborhoods didn't even have Astoria's virtues to recommend them. But for that price, you should be able to get a nice studio in Park Slope or Brooklyn Heights, or a one bedroom if you stretched to the higher end of your price range. You could also live in Prospect Heights or Cobble Hill. (Williamsburg is too high density hipster, which is annoying if you're not one of them, and it has the same kind of depressing uniformity I don't like in those Queens neighborhoods.) Brooklyn has the best mixture of attractive environment and fun, truly mixed use neighborhoods, and you have enough money to afford a comfortable living situation there. Given my preference for a pretty environment, I would try Harlem, Washington Heights, where LB lives, or Inwood, before I would look in Queens. (You'd have to get a place near the A, which gets to Midtown very quickly.) There are nice streets up there, and if you lived in Inwood you'd be up near Fort Tryon park.
Did the asker give any indication about his or her price point, or do you exclude some of the more popular Manhattan neighborhoods for another reason?
One small correction, and one additional note: I'm in Inwood, not Washington Heights, and we're actually by Inwood Park, which is even bigger than Fort Tryon. And real estate agents are trying to split a new neighborhood out of Washington Heights -- Hudson Heights. It's all about gentrification; Hudson Heights refers to the area west of Broadway and between the GWB and Fort Tryon Park, and it's richer and whiter and has more upscale retail than the remainder of Washington Heights. I hate the name, but it is a distinctly different neighborhood.
He said 1200-1500. That will get you a lot more space in Brooklyn/Upper Manhattan than it will below 96th St. I cannot in good conscience as an advice giver recommend that someone live in a shoebox.
You could also look in Morningside Heights.
on the 4/5, or anyplace else if you can afford it
??
Oops, I read "for 1200-1500 Ask The Mineshaft" as something along the lines of a Jeopardy monetary amount and category and thought I was missing a joke. Also, that person could afford my share of my (very nice, which you'd all have the oppurtunity to know if I'd acted on my crazy plan to invite New York Mineshaft denizens to the Saturday night party) East Village 3 Bedroom.
It's surprisingly humid in Los Angeles today.
It's nothing compared to many other parts of the country, though.
North Carolina is pretty awful right about now.
The seats in my car retain heat so well that I can drive for 40 minutes with the AC on full blast and still feel like my kidneys are overheating.
More honestly, the only reason I'm okay with sitting in a jury pool room this week is because the AC in the courthouse is blasting during this heatwave.
I got voir dired on a case in which, had the judge ever got around to asking me about, I would have had to admit that I'd cheerfully see both parties run out of town on a rail--something about whether one party had cheated another party in a deal to exploit 9/11 imagery.
No, I shouldn't talk about it now, but if I get called back to that case, I'm going to get booted anyway, so. Plague on both of their damned houses.
And the judge drove me nuts, too. Your captive audience of seventy doesn't want to hear about your evening at the Yankees game, Mr. Yerhonor.
It could get more humid, if I say were to go jump in a lake.
What makes you so sure you're going to be booted?
Her Kaczynski Tshirt bothers people.
133--A number of reasons. I have a deep-seated hatred of credit card companies and generally believe that they're all predatory; a credit card company is a party to the dispute. Also, I have a knee-jerk loathing of any company seeking to commercialize 9-11 imagery; a woman got sent out for expressing similar sentiments. Third, I have a deep-seated, probably irrational conviction that many of the post-9-11 charities are somewhat shady; it seemed pretty clear from the jury questionnaire that the 9-11 imagery was going to be used for credit cards promising some marginal benefit to one of these funds.
I'm helplessly prejudiced in a lot of different ways, most of which swing against one side, though. Oh, and I would cop to these prejudices since I'm already convinced that I would hate serving for this trial.
You know, Emerson, I may be one of the few (the proud?) who's read most of Kaczynski's manifesto. One of my students wrote a nearly kick-ass paper on Kaczynski and Thoreau.
My sartorial strategy has been minimalist, though--as in tube-tops and little sweaters.
Did you ever see the interesting analysis Kirkpatrick Sale did for the Nation when the manifesto had been published but before his brother recognised it?
No--if you had a link, I'd be interested to read it.
I read the manifesto long after it was published; my student, who was German and very earnest, foisted a printout of it on me. At the time of the bombings and arrest, I followed the Unibomber story as much as any 20 year-old might have: I was generally aware of the story, his line of argumentation, the controversy, and, in a more silly vein, I remember best hearing the news that Kaczynski's old, old student reviews had pegged him as a crazy.
That was a lot more funny to me before I read student reviews of my classes.
http://www.eff.org/Censorship/Terrorism_militias/sale_unabomber.analysis
I've come to the conclusion that I loathe southern California.
Inwood is really nice.
EB, don't loathe So Cali. So Cali is required to be fabulous, b/c I am going to live there.
I haven't finished the Sale analysis, but in the first few paragraphs he gets things wrong in such a variety of ways - Kacynski must be a social scientist, Kacynski isn't really that smart and probably never made it through senior year - and the reasons he gives for coming to those wrong conclusions are so full of shorthand assumptions - only a social scientist would think and write in a certain way, etc - that it's hard to see any reason to continue.
In my experience, my loathing of southern California has never once affected others' enjoyment of the region, nor should it. So you have nothing to worry about.
I read the manifesto not long after he was captured but don't remember much about it besides overarching themes, to the extent those existed.
144: This is, of course true. But I always find it sad when people don't love things I love. Anyway, if you're still stuck in the area this fall, let's get together?
143 -- So he's a stupid social scientist who dropped out of high school?
146: If I'm around, sure, I'd like to meet up. I'm actually a bit more than an hour (when there's no traffic, 2 or even 3 hours when there is) outside of LA, depending on what is meant by LA.
I was hoping already to be out of here, but for a variety of reasons, many of which have been unexpected and beyond my control, it's now more realistic for me to aim for mid-to-late August.
Ah. I won't arrive until early Sept, probably. Bummer. (And we'll probably be an hour outside too.)
Kaczynski was Al Gore, remember?
EB, don't loathe So Cali. So Cali is required to be fabulous, b/c I am going to live there.
I grew up in an L.A. suburb and rather enjoyed it. Definitely spoiled by the beaches. I went to a reunion on my wife's side of the family that was down at Padre Island in Texas. They'd been talking about how great it was going to be to go to the beach. We get there and I'm thinking, "Are you fucking kidding me? This tarry shithole? With no waves? You call this a beach?"
Huh. And now I see from the post on B's blog that I'm closer to where Mr. B will be working than I am to LA. I don't know what that commute's like in the reverse direction at the rush hour - when I've gone down to an archive/library in LA I've always left just after rush hour both directions, and I've never gone more than 3 or 4 times in a week - but I can see it becoming exhausting pretty quickly. If you can avoid the 101/405 interchange, it's probably not as bad.
See you guys tonight! Who's going?
Last chance to email me for details!
Why can't the blog party ever be in Textville?
I'm still trying to decide whether I'll go.
Hey Tia, I posted something I think you should use over at Henley's.
I see, Clown. Quite scathing. I hope I have an opportunity to put it to use.