Nicolas Cage, National Treasure

Over the weekend it was revealed that the New York Times, in keeping with its ongoing recent mission to trash journalistic standards it once held dear, actually concealed from the public the fact that Raymond Davis, who killed two Pakistanis in Lahore some weeks back, is actually a former Special Ops/Blackwater guy and a member of the CIA. He claims that the men in question were attempting to rob him. Whether or not that is the case, one of the men he shot in the back as he was fleeing. In broad daylight. In the streets of a country we cowardly drop remote control bombs on routinely, a country we claim to be a great ally in the muddled global war on terrorism.

Why is this important? In part because the Pakistani government has detained Raymond Davis, and the American government insists he's entitled to diplomatic immunity. It may be the case that he is, but it is also looking very likely that the American government sent a trained killer into the streets of Lahore to do intelligence gathering, and he used this license instead to murder someone. As for the New York Times, at the behest of the Obama Administration it decided not to report the truth of Mr. Davis' employment, and has instead allowed its readers to accept as credible Administration claims of Mr. Davis' fictional employ with the Consul and/or Embassy's offices.

So, basically, once again, fuck the New York Times. Thank God for Wikileaks. Et cetera.

But if the Times is ever going to weasel its way back into my heart, it will do so by continuing to celebrate in barely contained snark the full-bodied wonderfulness of Nicolas Cage. Here is a piece in today's Times about good actors who appear in schlock. I clicked on it, hopeful for a nugget about my friend Nic. But a mere nugget? I should have known better. The article, largely a meandering stupidity that perpetuates the lie that Anthony Hopkins is a good actor, crescendos in the final paragraphs thusly:

And it is what good actors bring to movies, even bad ones: discipline, conviction, the ability to help us suspend our disbelief by persuading us that they believe in what they are doing. The more preposterous the situation, the more impressive the feat of seeming to take it utterly seriously. There are other measures of excellence of course — emotional subtlety, psychological acuity, wit — but this kind of unwavering, fanatical commitment is surely a sign of greatness. You might almost say that greatness shows itself precisely in the discrepancy between the performance and the material. If that is true, then it is something like a mathematical certainty that the greatest actor in the world today is Nicolas Cage. 

This hypothesis will be tested next Friday, when “Drive Angry 3D” opens in theaters, just two days ahead of the Academy Awards broadcast. Mr. Cage is no stranger to the Oscar — he was a best actor winner for “Leaving Las Vegas” and a nominee for “Adaptation” — but he has also been an action star, a comic player and, in recent years, the American cinema’s most popular and prolific purveyor of craziness. 

With a handful of exceptions (Werner Herzog’s “Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans” and Gore Verbinski’s “Weather Man” among them) critics have not smiled on Mr. Cage’s films of the past decade, which include a grab bag of hits and flops in various genres. He has anchored the juvenile action “National Treasure” franchise, and also science fiction and fantasy like “Ghost Rider,” “Knowing” and “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.” Mention must be made of “The Wicker Man,” Neil LaBute’s transcendentally awful remake of a 1970s horror movie, which has enjoyed a rich afterlife as a YouTube laughingstock. 

Mr. Cage may have been driven to some of this by well-publicized financial difficulty, and some of his admirers have surely been puzzled by his choices. But it can never be said that he phones in a performance. He is more likely to scream into the telephone, or smash it to pieces, or some other sublime and unpredictable piece of business. Just doing his job, in other words.

we return to our regularly scheduled programming

no no, not whining. that will resume at some point, but not now.

someone recently gave me grief over my increasing interest in the wall street journal. what can i say? they're trying to become a mainstream paper instead of a stock ticker with hedcuts and yes, i have totally fallen for it. (minus their op-ed page, which i realize is certifiably insane most of the time). their in-depth treatment of the feud between england and snoop was fun to read and not just out of an overdeveloped sense of irony. it actually raised some fairly real questions about the scope of governmental powers and the business consequences of england's actions. the paper also has a rather smart and practical section with advice for small businesses and entrepreneurs, way better than anything the times offers.

also, did you know that if you google the title of a subscription-only wsj article, you can read it for free? apparently this is one of the reasons why murdoch is trying to destroy google. considering murdoch completely overpaid to acquire myspace, i don't think the google is losing sleep over murdoch's instincts about the internet.

new york magazine has a sort of tedious article on murdoch and his quest to conquer his old enemy, the new york times. and as with a lot of new york magazine articles, there is a ton of pop psychology and melodramatization (is that a word?) of family relationships. the threat of patricide is always lurking.

anyway, the point of this entire post is that i discovered this factoid through that article: did you know that james murdoch, aka heir to the murdoch megabillions and probable future of newscorp, founded rawkus, the label responsible for both talib kweli and mos def? that kind of blew my mind a little.

everything is coming up blankfein

did you see this? i know, the headline is just so predictable that you couldn't bring yourself to read it, could you? can you really stomach yet another article about how goldman sachs is, in its own words (wink, nudge), doing "god's work?" how many ways can these assholes win?

last year, banks awarded its bonuses in stock instead of cash. everyone approved, except the recipients, of course. bitching and moaning ensued. [insert some sarcastic comment about how they're going to have to settle for X equally extravagant item instead of Y prevailing extravagant item.] stock prices circa late-2008 were in the toilet. government hands over gobs of $$$. stock prices appreciate, and what happens in late-2009? windfall! underwritten by whom? you, me, other taxpayers. how about a quote to drive the point home:

"And so the bonuses Wall Street received last year, billed as paltry at the time, are turning out to be among the most lucrative payouts ever."

what happened to the legal industry at the same time? oh right. this.

groan, moan, eyeroll, envy, exclamations of disgust, throwing hands in the air in defeat, etc.

anyway, c4ts, i think you should send ben sisario a piece of your mind.

what the fuck is david brooks yapping about - part ??

in this part whatever of what appears to be an infinite-part series, i again examine the latest and greatest david brooks column in the new york times and ask the question we've all been wondering: what the fuck is david brooks yapping about?

i was planning on reading this article when this lead-in caught my eye: Cellphones and texting technology give suitors instantaneous contact, without the stability of guidance from the community.

not to be redundant, but what?

david brooks begins the article thusly: Since April 2007, New York magazine has posted online sex diaries.

AHHHHH! my eyes! my ears! my everything!!!

so i guess the point of the article is how texting is ruining romance because this technology enables us to hunt for an endless array of sexual/romantic partners without the stabilizing force of elk clubs or whatever. i dunno, man, most people i know still meet their mates through school, friends, work, kickball leagues, etc. y'know, communities. his theory that cellphones and texting dissolve obstacles is complete bunk. you're not texting into the ether--you gotta meet the textees (hehe, textees) somewhere! yeah ok, i kind of get it. texting = fragmentation. but what isn't fragmented nowadays? why single out texting? is it any more or less a force than cable tv or google books or twatter or whatever other new medium? why not just blame alexander graham bell for starting us down this path of ruin? or fucking gutenberg for destroying the oral tradition? and why, for chrissake, conjure up the image of david brooks perusing online sex diaries?

[ed note: my badz. link to said article now provided.]

problems i'd like to have - part 1 of an occasional series

the news media has long exhausted the usual supply of recession stories about job loss, healthcare crises, detroit, retirement, etc. running parallel to this theme of quiet desperation are stories about (what i like to call) problems i'd like to have. the chief source of PILTH (ha!) is, of course, the new york times, which consistently runs stories about people on the brink alongside tips on how to weatherize your second home.

example #1: you saw this story about williamsburgers who can no longer rely on their parents to support their lifestyles. you rolled your eyes, too, at ridiculous anecdotes like -

Luis Illades, an owner of the Urban Rustic Market and Cafe on North 12th Street, said he had seen a steady number of applicants, in their late 20s, who had never held paid jobs: They were interns at a modeling agency, for example, or worked at a college radio station. In some cases, applicants have stormed out of the market after hearing the job requirements.

“They say, ‘You want me to work eight hours?’ ” Mr. Illades said. “There is a bubble bursting.”

and the biggest PILTH of all:

Mr. Weinstein has been advising two brothers in their late 20s who wanted to buy a $700,000 apartment with $250,000 from their parents. But their parents’ investment portfolio has lost so much value that they now can give only $50,000. Since the brothers make about $45,000 a year each, they are now shopping for a $500,000 apartment.

bailout, please. and then it made me think, is this article meant to be tongue-in-cheek?

in contrast, the journal--which you expect would run out-of-touch to the max stories (here is one)--has been surprisingly practical with its advice. revise your resume, don't screw up that phone interview, y'know. it also featured this story about a former wall street banker turned waiter:

Recently, their oldest daughter asked Mr. Araya if the family would have to move. He told her he didn't know. She countered: "How much money do we need?"

"The way she looked at me," Mr. Araya says, "I could tell she was counting the money in her piggy bank." He went into the bathroom and cried. After a few minutes, he dried his eyes and walked back into the living room.

oh god, bring back the PILTH.

anyway, obligatory hockey reference--red wings, what happened?

billionaire's dilemma

god, i'm so disappointed in myself. i must confess, dear reader, that i actually agreed with at least one david brooks op-ed from a couple of weeks ago. i'm still reeling. it's not like brooks came up with any original thoughts, but he at least managed to admit that we all contributed to the current economic situation. (probably from all our whining?)

so now where am i supposed to direct my disdain? can someone help?

matt taibbi, who writes for the new york press, which i think is a free daily/weekly, excoriated tom friedman's "hot flat and crowded" and "the world is flat" in two separate "reviews." if you feel the need to screed (ha--i know, it rhymes) but just can't work up the requisite level of anger/sarcasm/bon mots, take a few minutes and read both articles. i'll wait.

thanks for coming back.

taibbi takes friedman to task for his lazy generalizations and hapless metaphors: e.g, "Approach-and-rhetoric wise, however, it’s the same old Friedman, a tireless social scientist whose research methods mainly include lunching, reading road signs, and watching people board airplanes. " "His description of the early 90s:The walls had fallen down and the Windows had opened, making the world much flatter than it had ever been but the age of seamless global communication had not yet dawned. How the fuck do you open a window in a fallen wall? More to the point, why would you open a window in a fallen wall? Or did the walls somehow fall in such a way that they left the windows floating in place to be opened?"

hmm. even i thought that was kinda mean, albeit entertaining. i dunno, i thought maybe taibbi was overreacting. there was a rather sunny profile of friedman in the new yorker a while back about what an authority he is and how well respected he is. and the man can sell books, although a book about how "Aliens have taken control of the minds and bodies of most human beings, but one woman won’t surrender" is like 4 on the nytimes best seller list, so i guess that don't mean much.

so who's right? i've not read the lexus and the olive tree or from beirut to jerusalem, so i decided to take a gander at his most recent column. if you haven't noticed, i harbor some doubts about the need for op-ed columnists, but at least they should digest the news and tell us how this affects us, right? they should be able to provide insight...or at least a new way of viewing a problem?

well, i suggest you look elsewhere if you're seeking enlightment, even of the dimmest sort. friedman decides upon two "signs of our times" by (1) quoting some "banker friend" of his, and (2) using GOOGLE SUGGEST. i can see the smirk on your face. i'm not kidding:

[G]o to Google and type in these four letters: m-e-r-e. Before you go any further, Google will list the possible things or people you’re searching for, and at the top of that list will be the name “Meredith Whitney.” She comes up before “merengue” and “Meredith Viera.” Who is Meredith Whitney? She is a banking analyst who became famous for declaring last year, long before others, that Citigroup was up to its neck in bad mortgages and would not likely survive in its present form. Do you know how many people have to be searching for you if all you have to do is put in four letters and your name pops up first? A lot!

and then he goes on to blab about god knows what. maybe some of it is substantive, but you can't overcome a handicap like that intro and his research "methodology." dude.

anyway, friedman's whole point is that the banking system is in super deep shit and it's gonna prevent obama from tackling the myriad of problems facing america. oh yeah? give me some proof. i'll let friedman take the reins:

For now, though, the banks still threaten to consume the Obama presidency. Indeed, I’m sorry to report that if you just type two letters into Google — “b-a” — the first thing that comes up is not Barack Obama. It’s “Bank of America.” Barack Obama is third.

you know you get when you type in t-o-m into google? tom cruise, tomtom, tom and jerry BEFORE tom hanks! omg, our national anxiety is causing us to convert to scientology and chase unattainable goals while using a GPS system. why can't we all just fucking relax and just watch joe vs. the volcano??

...and they pay her to write this?

i don't know who gail collins is and what she's about, but i know i've defended her to heidi before. i dunno, although her editorials are not very sophisticated they sometimes closely track my own thoughts, so to criticize her would be to criticize myself. or something.

but you know, maybe i'm not giving myself enough credit because even i didn't bother to think this thought:

Saxby Chambliss’s victory in Georgia means that Republicans will have at least 41 seats in the Senate, and if they stick together, the party has the capacity to stop a bill in its tracks.

ugh.

oh well, still better than maureen dowd.

Calling All Douche-staches

This is Tom Friedman's latest sad sack of racism and unreasonable generalizations.

Below is the (unedited -- Director's cut!) letter I submitted to the Times in response:

In his most recent op-ed piece, "Calling All Pakistanis," Thomas Friedman asks "ordinary" Pakistanis to gather in the streets to denounce the depraved lunatics who perpetrated the recent terrorist attacks in Mumbai. On the surface, this is not an unreasonable request. After all, in the name of a shared faith several Pakistanis, it would seem, have murdered scores of innocents, and yet no outpouring of organized dissent has spilled forth onto the streets of Lahore and Karachi.

How can this be, Mr. Friedman wonders, given Pakistanis' easy devolution into violent street protest in the wake of the frivolous Danish cartoon affair. The only conclusion to be drawn from Mr. Friedman's words is that Pakistanis are irrational, petty, and disinterested in substantive affronts to their faith and to their nation. In reading his piece, I am reminded how empty our own streets have been in the wake of all that we know about Guantanamo; I am reminded how spirited the boycott of the Dixie Chicks was following their remarks about the President. I am reminded that we too are a people more inclined to protest words with which we disagree than violent acts committed in our name. Perhaps, there remains a question of degree, but in this regard are the Pakistanis very different from us?

And this is my letter were it a Lolcat:

huh?

is this for real??

mo'lympics

i enjoy the olympics in a very unironic way. yeah, i'm pretty sure everyone is drugged up and the chinese have infants on their women's gymnastics team or whatever, but still.

anyway, i do feel conflicted every 4 years. where do my loyalties lie? (un?)fortunately, the canadian olympic team seems unable to win a medal in a single event, so i guess i'm going to go with korea. i am sure we will sit comfortably in third until all the track and field events begin. what happened to canada? we used to win a medal or two in the summer olympics. [update: korea is now behind germany in the medal count. boo...]

i find it somewhat amusing that all of my not very patriotic friends get seriously peeved when i don't cheer for the USA. there also was this ridiculous new york times article expressing incredulity over the fact that the chinese are (gasp!) uninterested in michael phelps. yeah, guess what? not everyone cares about america. deal with it.

btw, did anyone happen to read this david brooks op-ed? is he accusing americans of "whining" over katrina? why did he wait until the final sentence to state his thesis?

what the fuck is david brooks yapping about - part 5 (?)

in this part 5 (?) of what appears to be an infinite-part series, i again examine the latest and greatest david brooks column in the new york times and ask the question we've all been wondering: what the fuck is david brooks yapping about?

i knew today's david brooks column was going to be awesome as soon as i read the headline: lord of the memes. holy shit guys, TWO references in one pun-LARIOUS title! it also began with my favorite david brooks literary device, the Q&A. who's supposed to be kierkegaard, you daavid brøoks?

anyway, i didn't really read this shit in depth, but here are some choice quotes:

But on or about June 29, 2007, human character changed. That, of course, was the release date of the first iPhone.

(In this era, MySpace is the new leisure suit and an AOL e-mail address is a scarlet letter of techno-shame.)

Maximum status goes to the Gladwellian heroes who occupy the convergence points of the Internet infosystem — Web sites like Pitchfork for music, Gizmodo for gadgets, Bookforum for ideas, etc.

those are NOT WORDS. i know this is his attempt at humor or something, but seriously, who is this guy's intended audience?? is anyone laughing?

careless whispers

omg, whilst speaking with heidi last night she reminded me that i hadn't posted in almost a month (egads!!) and that she has begun reading OTHER BLOGS for entertainment. such things are forbidden! i have to admit i've not been as inspired of late, but that photo was something else.

anyway, here's what's news.

c4ts texted me a while back to let me know that he'd seen some dude from real world new york (the first round) in his oakland neighborhood. true confession - i've actually never seen any episodes from that season, although, of course, i know who eric nies is. oh wait, is he from LA? anyway, i know he's from the real world and that's all that matters. and then it came out that some dude from the real world is running for congress! of course, i read this as "different world" and thought, hell, this ain't dwayne wayne.

not much has been going on. i don't care to really weigh in on the "is obama not left enough" debate bc as far as i'm concerned, stevens and probably ginsburg will either retire/die and i sure don't want mccain at the helm when that happens. i think this gail collins editorial sums up my views in general on this pointless (as far as i'm concerned) debate. hey green party supporters, good luck with that.

oh yes, c4ts, here is a news roundup:

• sienna miller is now with balthazar getty, who i only remember as some pudgy slash washed-out actor from the 90s, but turns out is actually an heir to the getty oil fortune. he drinks her milkshakes. or something. he has 4 kids. and i believe is still married. gross.
• seems that nobody enjoyed the c-rod/a-rod/madonna/lenny kravitz love quadrangle as much as i did. nonetheless, here's an infographic summing up what you missed.
• i also enjoyed the christie brinkley/peter cook madness, but it was pretty seamy.
  
• and do you remember that awesome show "dear john" starring judd hirsch? bc it turns out my sisters and i are the only ones who do.
  

what the fuck is david brooks yapp--

i started reading today's column for the "newest" platitude plus requisite eyeroll, but brooks stymied me with this opening:

My first thought on the running mate question is that to balance his ticket, Barack Obama should pick a really old white general. Therefore, he should pick Dwight Eisenhower. John McCain, on the other hand, needs to pick someone younger than himself. Therefore, he also should pick Dwight Eisenhower.

hahaha! you can't go wrong with a good "just how old is mccain" joke in my books. so maybe i don't hate george packer for his repeated references to brooks in his otherwise engaging article.

in any case, i stopped reading after that opener bc i just didn't want to ruin a good moment. next time, brooks. next time.

discreet charm of the bourgeoisie

first, "mancations" and now "nakations." but all i gotta say is:

no

no

noooooo

god, i hope these people don't have kids.

you're outta touch

sometimes the new york times just makes me laugh/cringe with inane sections like this (no, not just sunday styles). because, y'know, we all were looking for advice on how to bequeath our vast sums of wealth so that our heirs don't turn out like brandon davis or hey! maybe i should consider moving my seven figure investment account into a hedge fund! oh gosh, there is always the question of whether my second home should provide respite or additional income. mo' money mo' problems, indeed.

anyway, this headline caught my eye. holy shit, dudes! i live in new york! my job is tied to wall street! the sky is falling! who knew "each Wall Street job supports three workers in other sectors?" dig a little deeper, however, and you'll find where the times's concerns really lie:

Last month, Shai Shustik, a broker with Manhattan Residential, was helping a 27-year-old client find a $700,000 one-bedroom apartment on the East Side of Manhattan. But then the client suddenly put her search on hold. Her father, a banker, said he had lost too much money in the stock market to buy such an apartment for her.

Until two weeks ago, Mr. Shustik was also working with a Credit Suisse banker who wanted to spend up to $1.6 million for a one-bedroom apartment in the West Village or TriBeCa neighborhoods of Manhattan. The banker abruptly stopped his apartment search because he was too concerned about the stock market and his future bonus potential.

what?! fuck you, new york times. seriously.

anyway, here is my promised rant on bear stearns, which seems more legitimate now that jp morgan has decided to up its bid to $10/share. at least at $2/share the fed could claim with a somewhat straight face that this was not a taxpayer-financed bailout of one of the most unsympathetic firms on wall street. after all, it wasn't so long ago that bear stearns refused to bail out long term capital management. so now the fed is rescuing one of the instigators of the mortgage backed security meltdown with my, no, our tax dollars. these renegades who decided that they were above regulations are now begging the government for a handout and so here we are. okay, i get it, what was the fed supposed to do, merely watch while the banking system fell one by one? i'm not naive: of course the big players have a direct line to the government while the vast majority of law-abiding taxpayers don't. i get it. it's just completely demoralizing to see it so vividly in play.

anyway, back to our regular programming...

burning questions answered

the times today poignantly asks, "what makes people give?"

answer: certainly not that photo.

and this mystifying quote: In addition to established figures like Colin Firth and Helen Mirren, Oxfam is affiliated with Scarlett Johansson, who has visited South Asia (where the organization promotes girls’ education) and is scheduled to go to Mali. Cruz notes that while “trendy young people” are attracted to the star of “Match Point” and “Lost in Translation,” Johansson had “great credibility with an older audience because she’s such a great actress.”

since when?

i've been wondering this very thing

the nostagiathon continues. i think this might be a sign that the times has one too many blogs...

but huh? what is the conclusion here: I think that Alex might just be ready to take a chance. I can picture him stepping into the voting booth, closing the curtain behind him, taking a deep breath and then for the first time in his life putting his hand up to the Democratic Party lever. He’d touch it tentatively, trying to get comfortable. Take his hand off. Put it back. He’d grasp the lever firmly. Squeeze it. And as he was about to pull, we FADE OUT.

what the fuck is david brooks yapping about - part 4

in this part 4 of what appears to be an infinite-part series, i again examine the latest and greatest david brooks column in the new york times and ask the question we've all been wondering: what the fuck is david brooks yapping about?

so...we find ourselves back here again and a lot sooner than i'd anticipated. or wanted, frankly. david brooks definitely has a distinctive voice, one which involves mysterious references and humorless attempts at humor. even the new yorker's shouts & murmurs column elicits more laughs.

i think the point of his most recent op-ed was to illustrate how you can (potentially) use educational levels to explain the democrats' 50-50 split between hillary and obama. i'm not sure if i even believe this thesis, since my very well-educated friends are split between the two. moreover, who can decipher what the underlying message is considering his convoluted words?

he tries to be all cute and wink-wink funny by presenting his column in a q & a format. i have the following questions for him:

1) who is "dr. retail"? am i supposed to get this reference?
2) what is he referring to in the following sentence? in describing obama supporters brooks writes, "They fall for all that zero-carbon footprint, locally grown, community-enhancing Third Place hype. They want cultural signifiers that enrich their lives with meaning." huh? what is "third place"?
3) i think the following sentence describing obama should have CLUNK written next to it: Have you noticed that he’s actually carried into his rallies by a flock of cherubs while the heavens open up with the Hallelujah Chorus? I wonder how he does that.
4) as usual, vast overstatements dominate: High school grads are much less optimistic than college grads. oh yeah? have you met me? my friends?

but! i actually found myself agreeing with brooks on something. i know. i should hang myself in shame and maybe change the name of this series altogether, but how can you not agree with this: "There’s a “Yes We Can” video floating around YouTube in which a bunch of celebrities like Scarlett Johansson and the guy from the Black Eyed Peas are singing the words to an Obama speech in escalating states of righteousness and ecstasy. If that video doesn’t creep out normal working-class voters, then nothing will." although you know he was so proud of knowing who the dude from the black eyed peas was.

anyway, i was going to blog about this real estate article, but suffice to say, how is it that a freelance film maker and his non-profit director wife are able to afford a house in fort greene?

convenient stereotypes for the new year

i loathe (but maybe love to hate) modern love, the most insipid addition to sunday styles, of which my college idol once said, "what is the point of that section? seems like anyone with a prada bag can get in it nowadays".

anyway, i usually try to ignore modern love but the premise of this week's column was irresistible: a divorced 46-year-old woman decides to marry her friend's brother. sounds boring and predictable, right? joke's on you - the friend and brother are chinese, and the latter lives in china. having never met the brother, the intrepid divorcee flies to china, says yes to the man's halting proposal, "do you want to marry?" and brings him back to albany, new york.

this discomfiting column appears to be an exploration of the old cliche, "all chinese people are bad drivers". and guess what, it's true! not only that, they speak poor english, albeit in an adorable and semi-exotic fashion (His voice was balm to my nerves, and the monthly rice-paper letters were always from “the brootom” of his heart) and all white people who travel to asia feel like scarlett johansson in my least favorite movie ever (describing the beijing airport: This was unlike an American crowd, where you feel harried, even accosted. There, I sailed comfortably through a sea of introverts.).

ick. i just thought of my first new year's resolution: stop reading modern love.

go blue

i blogged a long time ago about "the hunt", one of my favorite columns in the NYtimes. the most recent one features a girl (umich grad! woot!) who's looking for a 1-bedroom apartment in which she could create a second bedroom by building a wall. sounds pretty good. then the usual folly ensues, where we discover people's hidden prejudices and sheer stupidity.

i highlight only the best quotes:

A wall divided the living room, creating a third bedroom. The guys were investment bankers, “and were making way more money” than she and the friends she was planning to live with earned, Ms. Stephens said. (Two-bedrooms in Stuyvesant Town start at $4,025.) The wall was so nicely installed it looked like “part of the original structure," she said.

It was on to Brooklyn. “Every place I looked, I looked because people had told me about it,” Ms. Stephens said. “It was all hearsay: So-and-so is living in this neighborhood; you should look there. I guess we were looking in Park Slope. We didn’t know much about Brooklyn.” But it felt far away, and nothing there seemed worth the price.

[Ed note: these girls were willing to spend nearly $2,500 for a 1-bedroom. What were they looking at?!]

Ms. Stephens had Stuyvesant Town in the back of her mind. Now that she was certain she had a roommate, they could afford a one-bedroom. With a wall, of course. Ms. Pakfar wasn’t sure what Stuyvesant Town was. “I had seen it in a cab going down the F.D.R., and I always thought it was projects,” she said.

Both are happy in their new home. “It feels very grown up and clean,” Ms. Stephens said. Some of her colleagues and former sorority sisters also live in Stuyvesant Town, so “I have neighbors I know, which is nice when you are moving away from home.”

[Note to self: don't go to Stuy-town]