I love it. "Being rich is not important. We should go in on a yacht."
I read that Fitzgerald spelled it "yatch" repeatedly.
"My typical customer will have three real estate assets and perhaps also do some sharing of jets. The yacht experience is the experience these people are seeking next."
Awesome. That's a sweet boat, dude. We should buy one.
I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that your inner Qutb and my inner John Knox seem to say the same thing at the same time.
The point of having an expensive handbag is to look rich, right?
The point of having an expensive handbag is to signal wealth, which is not the same as actually being able to afford ridiculously priced luxury goods.
Which is your point. I should finish reading things before commenting.
OK, on to the most important question: what should it be named? I vote for At The Minemast.
I've crewed on some friends' sailing boats occasionally, and they all seem to own them in shares. I'm talking halves, thirds or quarters of boats that cost maybe €10,000 to €25,000. Mind you the annual running and maintenance cost can be considerable. Hence the old joke about reproducing the experience of owning a boat by standing under a cold shower tearing up 50-(pound/euro/dollar) notes.
I certainly hope they wash that jet before passing it all around.
Women's handbags are a big deal status symbol around here, especially since those damned twins showed up and set the fashion for dressing like a starving orphan but distinguishing oneself with 4-inch stillettoes and three square-foot crocodile-skin couture bags.
Yachts are so 20th century. What if we all went in on some rims?
My inner Qutb also reads "Experience is becoming more important than ownership." as "people have no idea what they feel or believe, but they know what the market and society expect them to do."
I thought the handbag idea was brilliant. I wish that I had thought of it first.
re: 11
My wife is in that business -- she manages a high-end shoe/handbag place -- and people really do seem to obsess about handbags as much or even more than the shoes.
Wait a minute...Is Ogged's real name Pearlman? Is Ogged/Pearlman just looking to raise a little cash?
what should it be named?
Compensation.
The handbag thing totally confounds me. You have to switch your wallet and all the crap you keep in your purse every few days? What a pain in the butt.
One of the reasons women obsess about handbags is that handbags all fucking suck. None of them are as functional as, say, an ugly-ass backpack, and all of the pretty ones will fail to go with some part of your wardrobe. You keep hoping that somehow, somewhere, someone will come up with the Uebersack, and in the meantime you make do with a stream of failed hopes and knock-offs. Or, in my case, you give the fuck up and carry those sad canvas totebags.
One thing that seems odd about this particular fractional yacht company is that they're building very distinctive yachts, which means that everyone will know you don't fully own the thing.
all of the pretty ones will fail to go with some part of your wardrobe
Really? Don't most people stay within a certain range of colors and styles? Tailored vs. hippie, jewel tones vs. earth tones, etc.? I mean, surely the entire point of caring about/noticing things like handbags is somehow related to the idea of having a defined sense of style.
One of my co-workers got his wife a membership to the bag place for her birthday because he was sick of her spending so much and hoped that would help. I don't get it, though. The one time I could see that site being really good is something like a formal occasion or a wedding, if you needed jewelry (which they also carry) for just one big occasion. Even suitable costume jewelry for an event like that can get pretty expensive.
What also cracks me up is how the fashion magazines always have the "get the look for less!" columns where they show a $5000 handbag and then a similar one for "only" $400, when I would never spend close to $400 on a handbag.
re: 23
My wife has a couple of $400-ish bags. Which make my mind boggle -- they're not even (to my taste) pretty bags. Admittedly, she doesn't actually pay anything like full price for them.
that they're building very distinctive yachts, which means that everyone will know you don't fully own the thing.
I don't think that really matters, so long as they don't plaster a ZipCar-esque logo on the hull. It's not like the handbag thing, which depends on a ruse for it to work--these yacht owners aren't likely to be embarrassed about owning a fractional share.
25.--Sifu, I'm sorry to inform you that no woman over 22 would be caught dead carrying that bag around here.
25: That is not the one true übersack.
I think what the Netflix handbag scheme shows is that the counterfeit market has become so saturated with cheap imports that even middlebrow consumers have become sophisticated distinguishers.
JM, will you just admit that New York is hell?
Hey, I carry a New Yorker canvas tote. I've already surrendered.
I try not even to think about handbags -- if I'm at work, I have a briefcase, if I'm not, I try to always have enough pockets to carry my stuff in. The complexity and expense of caring about bags at all frightens me.
(A friend of a friend, back in the day: "So, I understand shoes are supposed to match your bag."
"That's right."
"Where do I get wrinkled, hairy, shoes?")
Will I be pilloried if I suggest that not caring about handbags is also a character proxy?
28: That makes me concerned for women under 22.
31: Only if you buy into the society page crap. Part of what's great about that (or any other) city is that most people actually don't.
Not that regional norms don't make a difference, because they certainly do. But for everything I read about how New York women care so much about heels and bags, most of the New York women I actually know care about comfortable walking shoes and carry backpacks or messenger bags.
And man, would I love to arrange my life so that a share in a sailboat would be practical. I raced Sunfish (teeny little oversimplified boats) in high school, and crewed for this great old guy racing slightly larger boats, but I haven't been able to make time or space to sail much at all since then. I've forgotten pretty much everything.
I would love a two-week sailing bootcamp somewhere to get me back up to speed, and then access to a boat I could sail on weekends -- I loved it so much. (Actually, Sally can swim in water over her head now, and Newt's just about to get there. I've got a lot more flexibility to take them out off shore than I used to. So I really just need the time.)
Messenger bags? What fakers. Unless they ride fixed gear bikes with no brakes and whip in and out of traffic, they shouldnt have messenger bags.
35: Depends. Not caring at all? B/c, it's unlikely that a normal woman would truly not care at all. Or merely not caring very much, beyond things like "jesus the current style is ugly" or "I prefer totes to mini-purses"? B/c that's acceptable.
LB, you could rent lasers out on Long Island. And if you do, take me along.
But for everything I read about how New York women care so much about heels and bags, most of the New York women I actually know care about comfortable walking shoes and carry backpacks or messenger bags.
Well, yes. There's the layer of glamor at the high end of the income bracket, and I rub up against those people because a lot of female lawyers play that game, but it's nothing like most of the women in NY.
42 - There's a sailing school run out of South Cove by the World Financial Center.
39: Bah, you sound like my boyfriend (who no longer carries his messenger bag b/c his neck injury means he can't bike any more). Messenger bags are extremely practical for, among other things, carrying laptops. Which everyone does.
There must something like this in New York.
Ah, yup.
Cheaper than owning a yacht, anyhow.
41: Oh, I've still got Peaches (named after our cat, Fred), my old Sunfish, in the basement of my mom's summer place on Long Island, and I've dragged her out a couple of times in the last few years. But I don't do it often.
43: I know, and they sail J-24s, which are the boats I used to sail with Bud. And if my interview works out, I could end up working right there.
pwned by 43.
39: you don't need a fixed gear to be a messenger.
Also, the great thing about New York is that, while there is a segment of the population that cares about handbags and shoes and such, nobody cares if you say "fuck it, that's not for me". There are so many cities within the city and, for most of those cities, it doesn't matter. Their city just has better PR.
I read that Fitzgerald spelled it "yatch" repeatedly.
He did. He also repeatedly spelled "etc." "ect." and "Hemingway" "Hemmingway." He was a Jazz Age Yglesias, sort of.
There are so many cities within the city
Ok, fair enough.
a Jazz Age Yglesias
Poor Fitzgerald.
I remember back in the day that fake car phones and fake carphone antennaes were available for sale.
39:
Of course not. You can be a dorky messenger who uses gears and brakes or you can be a hip messenger who risk life and limb to be cool. You know, like wearing high heels.
who no longer carries his messenger bag b/c his neck injury means he can't bike any more
I have a notion of his sensibility, and for the exact same reasons I would hate to make this choice myself, but has he considered a recumbent? They're more common and perhaps less dorky than they were.
Doesn't Yglesias actually live in the orgiastic future that day-by-day receded before Fitzgerald?
Your inner Qutb consistently agrees with a strain of anti-consumerist environmentalism which I have explicitly bought into. I'd say I have an inner Wendell Berry that is like your Qutb, but really there is nothing inner about him.
This actually furthers my thesis that the natural place for the environmental movement is the Republican party, and it is only some bizarre accident of history that environmentalism has become a "liberal" idea.
Poor Fitzgerald.
I'll say. You should see his vlogs.
anti-consumerist environmentalism
But there are some kinds of consumerism that I'm all for. Sometimes I really love buying stuff, and figure that "cool stuff" is a pretty basic human need.
59- I think your thesis is really that conservatives should provide the natural support for the environmental movement, right? Dragging the Republican party into it complicates things.
the natural place for the environmental movement is the Republican party
That would be the Republican Party of my youth, which dominated New England and the Upper Midwest. The children of that party have joined the Democrats to a man and woman in my experience, if they have any party affiliation at all.
May I shill for just a moment? Since I'm a dirty hippie and don't own a car, I actually carry a messenger bag almost all the time, even when I'm not riding my bike. However, I show my fakey-fake qualities by carrying one of these gold-plated numbers, which I would unhesitatingly recommend to most anyone. Real messengers, of course, carry faded, stained ones. On the other hand, the most punky-authentic messenger I know is missing both front teeth and has been for years--cosmetic dentistry is totally out of reach for him. A sweetheart, but it gives you just a little pause when he smiles.
In my own defense, though, I do carry a lot of books and work stuff and miscellaney, and the other alternative would be a dorky nylon backpack of some kind.
"the most punky-authentic messenger I know is missing both front teeth and has been for years"
It is, objectively, a terrible, terrible job. There's a reason why everybody who's good at it does tons of drugs.
64 - Why not just wear a backpack?
Backpacks do really, really crappy things to women's sweaters and jackets. Heavy shoulder bags do too, of course, but a little more slowly.
A good designer handbag is a leather sculpture that also carries things, and if you have a well-cultivated personal style per 21 you should be able to carry it 90% of the time. But most handbags are crap, and the accelerated pace of changing styles is for suckers.
a strain of anti-consumerist environmentalism
Except when it comes to cars and handbags.
I like messenger bags better than backpacks; easier to take on and off, and you can crap more crap in them before that start being uncomfortable to wear. Plus, every time I wear a backpack on both shoulders I get this feeling in the back of my mind somebody's going to call me poindexter and break my glasses. And I don't even wear glasses!
I was a messenger for a week, though, so when I do it it's super authentic.
you can crap more crap in them before that start being uncomfortable to wear
I'd start getting uncomfortable pretty quick if I started doing that.
66--Because I am in mourning for my dead punk-rock army surplus backpack with the patches and the meaningful left-wing quotes inked on it. (A complete chart of my political development, such as it has been, and ending with an extended passage from Donna Haraway that took forever to ink in). It gave out after years of service and now I'm really too old and sold-out for it anyway. I refuse to carry any lesser pack.
Also, I just like messenger bags better. Backpacks...well, I don't wear athletic shoes or own bluejeans either. They're just...I don't like...well, I think there's this particular combination of practicality, "modern" design and universality that just doesn't attract me.
Nylon backpacks look dorky; leather backpacks look dorkier. No other material is strong enough to support the vast quantities of books and papers and stuff that I carry all the time.
72: Wow, that sentence went pretty far wrong, didn't it.
Stuff more crap in them before they start being uncomfortable to wear.
I wonder if there's some coffee around here someplace.
59. Teddy Roosevelt agrees with you concerning Republicans and the environment.
I'm in longing for a bag that'll hold my laptop and some other shit, look nice (i.e., not make me look schlumpy if I'm wearing a dress and heels), and not fuck up my neck any more than it already is.
No other material is strong enough to support the vast quantities of books and papers and stuff that I carry all the time.
Spider silk?
Sifu:
How many bones did you break or how many teeth did you lose in that week?
Without a broken bone, a missing tooth, or at the very least, a picture of windshield that you slide into, then you are a poser. Sorry.
Why would you be wearing a bag that would affect your neck while wearing a dress and heels?
I don't understand why you wouldn't just have your fractional valet carry your belongings.
79, one might wear a dress and heels to work. Even I might. Or to a presentation, or to give a talk.
77, that sounds good. Do you know any spiders who do custom work? I find that keeping enough spiders to produce the silk frustrates my housemate.
78: None, because I know how to ride in the city. And I lasted a week.
Also, I was in Boston, where drivers can't pick up so much speed.
I do have plenty of insane urban bicycling stories/scars. But, yeah, of course I'm a poser. I just try to be a funny one.
79: Because a shoulder bag that's big enough to hold a laptop weighs down my right side and I adjust my stance to compensate. Which sucks. And yes, I sometimes dress up and still need to bring along the laptop.
81: Exactly the kind of backpack I'd sooner die than be caught wearing.
86: Well that's not very cyberpunk of you.
"78: None, because I know how to ride in the city"
Does "knowing how to ride in the city" mean "f-no!@!@! I would never ride in the city"?
If so, then me too!
88: For certain definitions of city, sure. But, no, biking was my primary mode of transport when I was young, reckless, and on the east coast. Great way to get out aggresion, and taught me a healthy disregard for traffic laws. Not to mention an abiding fondness for turn signals.
I used to be in a vegetarian supper club with a bunch of bike messengers. Those who biked would deliver the meals, and those of us who didn't would take turns cooking and packing them. Every Sunday you'd come home to a hot meal at your doorstep. It was fun, but at least half of the messengers who came to my door were missing front teeth.
The handbag thing totally confounds me. You have to switch your wallet and all the crap you keep in your purse every few days? What a pain in the butt.
Yeah, but you Californians signal status with cars. New Yorkers don't get to do that.
I find that keeping enough spiders to produce the silk frustrates my housemate.
So just get you one of them transgenic goats
92: Like a sevenish old Saturn wagon with 211k miles on it that we got as a hand-me-down from my sister-in-law when they bought a new car? Oh yeah, baby. Status a-plenty.
93: I want one of them now, although it's a little bit Oryx and Crake/gider-ish. Maybe one could milk it and make a cheese stronger than any other.
95: I don't understand you kids and your hiphop slang.
Backpacks do really, really crappy things to women's sweaters and jackets.
I wear a backpack almost every day and I've never noticed it doing anything to my jackets or sweaters.
I've never noticed it doing anything to my jackets or sweaters
Of course not. It does all that stuff behind your back.
94: Exactly equivalent to Jackmormon's canvas totebag
100: Yup. Which, why the fuck not? It's cool in an "I could give a shit" way.
But does it have rats? I think not.
Handbags should cost no more than $20 because they are often chomped upon by cats.
63, 75: As near as I can tell, it was Rachel Carson who sparked the Republicans to denounce environmentalism. The Goldwater republicans decided their big corporate allies and libertarian ideology were more important than any natural alliance between conservationists and conservatives.
This was also the moment when the image of the environmentalist moved from Rugged Mountain Men like Roosevelt to Nurturing Earth Mother, like Carson.
IIRC from reading hunting magazines, manly men who care about the outdoors are conservationists, not environmentalists, and get tetchy about being misnamed.
Re Bike Messengers: I lived with couple in Seattle who both worked as messengers. They had all their teeth, and actually were incredibly good looking people.
In the mornings they would wake up, do bong hits, and go to work. They came home in the afternoon, ate about twice their body weight in pasta, did more bong hits, and went to sleep.
108: God that sounds perfect. Except for the "go to work" bit.
107: The split between environmentalists and conservationists is a post 60s phenomenon, and is frequently mended. Ducks Unlimited and the Sierra Club are capable of forming a coalition. Prior to the 60s, there really isn't a clear split. Both manly conservationists and nurturing environmentalists trace their roots to Aldo Leopold, for instance.
108: Yup. Pretty standard. "Bong hits" s/b "heroin" for the rougher looking ones.
109: You would get fat really quickly if you ate that much starchy food and didn't sprint around on a bicycle all day.
I worked as a messenger too, and 108 sums it up. My fellow messengers made up the pot-smokingest group of people I've ever been a part of.
112: I think I could make peace with that.
apo: I have an even better role model for you.
for me, expensive handbags are a mixture of the reasons in 68 (if you buy a classic, well-made one, it really will last you years and years), and kind of the feeling that maybe other people get when they pick up the "cool stuff" that ogged mentions. just, "ooh, nifty." status is the last thing i think about, if i think about it at all.
I wonder if you can use the Times interactive chart from the previous post to see if buying a handbag is better than renting.
When I was just starting out, I
had to make do with Brenthaven and Tumi.
"Coruscation and Schein!" is the new "stuff and nonsense!".
Actually it should probably be "Schein and coruscation!".
It's sad, I know, but I think the Bagflix concept is a good one: you can only carry a bag for so long before you get sick of it, and some of these suckers cost in the 5,000 to 10,000 dollar range, which is obscene.
Handbags are easy. What I want is a replacment for my unlined leather briefcase/shoulder bag, a Cole Haan that I found in a Filines a decade ago: it can comfortably hold massive amounts of stuff, partly because it's a big leather box, and partly because it's not lined -- women's briefcases are always divided into little *compartments* for all the crap they think you *should* carry. The lining takes up half the space.
I've taken to walking into luggage and bag stores with the fully loaded briefcase, setting it down on the counter and daring the salesclerk to find a bag *of identical design* -- ie, not a wheelie piece of luggage or a messenger bag that will swivel around my body and bump me when I walk, but an actual hang-from the shoulder shoulder bag -- that holds its contents.
I've never found one.
