In Which Emily Gould Is Bored To Death With Brooklyn Cliches

No Sleep Till Brooklyn

by EMILY GOULD

"Crowds of men and women attired in the usual costumes! how curious you are to me! On the ferry-boats, the hundreds and hundreds that cross, returning home, are more curious to me than you suppose; And you that shall cross from shore to shore years hence, are more to me, and more in my meditations, than you might suppose," wrote Walt Whitman in 1900, of his fellow Brooklyn ferry passengers. 

Time-travel-noise! It's 2009.  And now here is how those who cross from shore to shore are typically limned:

"The people like organic food and bicycles. They compost. They fuss over their children. They don’t miss living in Manhattan. You get the idea." So NYTimes Moscow correspondent Clifford Levy wrote recently, in an article that purported to give Muscovites a primer on Brooklynites and vice versa. "Denizens of Brownstone Brooklyn like to pad around in plastic clogs," Levy also pointed out.

This kind of generalization is easy to come by, and so, to be honest, are Crocs, at least in Park Slope.  That neighborhood and several others near or nearish to it -- Prospect Heights, Boerum Hill, Cobble Hill, Brooklyn Heights and Fort Greene -- are what Levy is referring to when he says "Brownstone Brooklyn."  Levy is not referring to Bed-Stuy, though it is full of brownstones.  Those brownstones don't count as brownstones, because they are not yet entirely occupied by white gentrifiers.

The trouble with dismissing the stereotypical people who lazy writers describe when they want to call up an emblematic image of Brooklyniness is that they exist.  I see them all the time, glowy and unkempt, pushing their double stroller -- that odd kind where one child rides underneath, which seems un-fun for him-- and walking their large dog in the middle of the day on a weekday. 

What do they do? How does it enable them to afford an $800 imported stroller?  Why, during the pickup time for our Community Supported Agriculture vegetables, do they insist on letting little Phineas slowly, deliberately pluck his favorite 10 onions from the bin?  "One... (an eternity passes)...two...(another eternity, this one longer)"... They apologize to me, in line behind them, and shoot me winsome smiles as they throw up their hands like "What are you going to do?"  I have some suggestions, but I keep them to myself. 

I try not to get too worked up, knowing that these people constitute but one skein -- well, maybe three or four skeins, and they're the most visible, they're some flashy kind of sparkle-thread -- in the incredibly diverse tapestry that makes up my neighborhood and my borough. 

This, despite what pop culture would have you believe, but well, it's understandable that TV shows and movies and books and the New York Observer and New York magazine tend to fixate on either rich, overparenty breeders or rich, overstyled hipsters when writing about Brooklyn.  The consumption habits and recreational activities and intellectual preoccupations of these groups are simply the easiest to mine for yuks.  

It's hard to imagine Sarah Jessica Parker optioning an book about Borough Park Hasids, or Jonathan Ames developing an HBO series about a group of French-speaking African Baptists who stage lively revels in their Fort Greene church every Sunday. 

Instead, Parker has optioned Amy Sohn's recently-published novel Prospect Park West, which is a fantastical romp about the status anxieties of rich but not quite rich-enough Park Slope parents who vie for the attention of a secretly-troubled celebrity couple in their midst. 

Ames' series is about a feckless Fort Greene writer who spots a Raymond Chandler paperback on the floor of his sunny brownstone apartment after Moishe's Movers finishes loading out the belongings of his erstwhile girlfriend and immediately decides to declare himself, via Craigslist, a private eye. 

I watched the first episode of this series, Bored To Death -- a risky name for a show that, for people who aren't watching it for the thrill of spotting local landmarks, might be less than riveting -- at the end of a Brooklyn day.  It was Yom Kippur and I had spent the morning at free services that are provided by an organization called "Brooklyn Jews."  The services were held in Park Slope and I rode there from Clinton Hill on my bike. 

Later I rode my bike to Brooklyn Heights for a break-the-fast meal of bagels and lox.  As we wolfed the bagels and ate little mini-shortbreads from One Girl Cookies and looked out the beautiful bay window at the tall trees up and down the block shaking in a cloudburst, we talked about real estate, and the inexplicable dearth of good supermarkets in that neighborhood.   

Afterwards I went to a bar in Fort Greene -- a German beer garden with no garden -- and, while waiting for my friends to arrive, chatted with an middle-aged man who was sipping a beer while his laundry spun in the dryer at the laundromat next door.  He'd moved to the neighborhood -- actually, to an apartment above the beer garden -- from a Park Slope brownstone one year earlier.  "It's a one bedroom about the size of this half of the bar, like, from there to there," he said, delimiting an arc with his pointing finger that encompassed a wide swath of bar-space.  "$1350."  

"FUCK you," I said. The man took this in the intended spirit, and chuckled and felt good about himself.  It was the fourth time that day that someone had told me, unbidden, how much rent he paid.  

Then I went home and watched Bored To Death. In the first episode the protagonist, "Jonathan Ames," who is Jason Schwartzman, has coffee with his friend Zack Galifianakis at Smooch.  I guess the fictitious Jonathan Ames is unperturbed by the worst Yelp reviews I have ever seen for any business, and the flies.  (To be fair, the veggie burger is great). 

Jonathan and Zack have to sit outside because a postnatal yoga class has just gotten out and the shop is packed with mommies.  A herd of their parked strollers clog the sidewalk outside; Jonathan trips over one as he gets up to leave. 

I yawned.  The ghost of Walt Whitman yawned.  "Maybe less curious than I had supposed!" he mumbled.  We shut off my computer and went to bed.  

Emily Gould is a contributor to This Recording. She lives in Brooklyn and writes at Emily Magazine. 

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In Which We Drink the Clean Draught of Mad Men

Dark Waters

by ALMIE ROSE

Male. Female. Shallow. Deep. Lie. Truth. These are some of the conflicting themes boldly represented in last night's tonight's episode of Mad Men.

Mad Men is like a John Updike piece and a New Yorker cartoon formatted into a television show. It's not so much a television show as it is a culturally significant piece of art that I am lucky to bear witness to.

In these episodes we witness the eternal struggle between the opposites listed in the aforementioned lines. We watch as Pete tries to balance being a boy with being a borderline rapist. When Pete's wife goes out of town the first thing young Pete does is remove his shirt and tie all in one fell swoop. Pete's shirtlessness speaks volumes about nudity in madmen. Or the lack thereof. Which reminds me of something Kafka once said, but as viewers of Mad Men, I'm sure I don't need to tell you what.

As we watch young Pete grapple with the tower of responsibility we see Betty trying to climb a similar Jenga tower of her own; the one of womanhood. Betty and her female cohorts try to save the reservoir but Betty decides to enlist the help of a craggy looking man of political power. The question is, does Betty save the day, or does Betty's male friend save the day? Water, like gender, is a complex issue.

Don's shirt is white.

Pete's comely German neighbor stains a pink poofy dress, a garment that Pete is all too quick to sweep off of her hands. Pete, the man-child who was previously watching cartoons while eating cereal on the couch, is now trying to juggle the delicate and complex dynamic of gender issues. He wanders like a lost soul, or a poet, in the female clothing department. ("Republic of Dresses" as he refers to it, in his crisp and manly manner.)

Notice how he bows again to Joan who is always taking on the role of the eternal grandmother. Thus Pete is able to return from the department store not with a Chip N Dip, not with a rifle, but with an evening gown. This speaks volumes about the roles of men and women in the 1960s and foreshadows the women's movement. But then Pete basically rapes his female neighbor.

Betty is tackling a similar gender bend in which she tries to navigate the male dominated field of politics. She does so by kissing her reservoir savior. Later she and unknowing husband Don have the following exchange about something completely unrelated:

DON: "That's real politics."
BETTY: "Well you know, when you don't have any real power, you have to delay things."

Oh we know, Betty. We know, but can the women's movement be delayed? No, it cannot. The times are a-changing and a magic bus is pulling into its stop. All aboard the magical mystery tour and get off of my cloud. Betty's suit is pink. I think we all know what that means.

When even hinted at infidelity by Pete's starry-eyed wife, much like Lot's Wife, she falls into a pillar of Salt when Pete stumbles and in silence, confesses what his guilt cannot say. In this way, Pete's silence speaks volumes about his infidelity.

Trudy made a variety of cold salads.

And what of Betty's exterior compared to her interior? Betty's hairdo is exquisite. It's like sculpture, much like the fine city of Rome in which she is vacationing. In this way her hair echoes her suroundings, reminding us that Betty is always in style. "You think because of the way I'm dressed I'm shallow?" she asks Don, harkening back to the ever present reservoir theme. When Don later undresses her, we see that Betty is thin, but her hair is fat. This speaks volumes about the 1960s in so many ways. At least four.

They say that still waters run deep. But no water is still in Mad Men. These are churning waters rife with strife. These are waters that cannot be filtered into a reservoir, for no matter how many times you purify the waters of Mad Men, they will never be clean enough to quench your thirst. Bottled water is better for that.

Almie Rose is the contributing editor to This Recording. She is a writer living in Los Angeles. She blogs here, and she twitters here. She last wrote in these pages with tips for gentlemen.

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In Which We See Our Future In Halloween Costumes

In Costume

by ELEANOR MORROW

Seeing someone dressed up as someone else is never comforting. Only Matt Lauer is improved by such a transformation, and this because otherwise he's going bald. JFK found his kids' costumes entertaining. We find them somewhat morbid and ironic. For a disguise to work, context is everything.

katie couric & matt lauerHalloween more often exposes societal ills without suggesting a more nurturing, religous path. Ms. Glock suggests Halloween is degrading to women:

I walked past the displays for the sexy devil and the sexy bunny and the sexy leopard — which, confounding logic, was already sold out — before happening upon the wall of full adult costumes. The first was Tavern Lady, an off-the-shoulder dress and faux-leather vest. It was followed by French Maid (ruffled mini-dress with matching headpiece), Cheerleader (pleated micro-mini and fitted vest) and Wonder Woman, which had not only a nearly invisible skirt but also red vinyl boot covers that reached to the thigh.

 At $49.99, Wonder Woman was among the priciest costumes, along with the Geisha — both $20 more than Stewardess, which consisted only of a polyester wrap dress with a plunging neckline.

Heidi Klum usually dresses up as something objectionable. Looking at her on Halloween is the same way I feel about viewing Ross Perot's real face. For feminist ex-Muslim Irshad Manji, Halloween is simply the site of her entry into open society.

hubert humphrey on halloween 1964Let's face it though, Matthew Weiner is a secret racist and blackface of course is among the most famous of the degrading costumes. I mean, who would dress their child in such a fashion? It's a wonder he didn't become a Somali pirate.

ted kennedy in his pirate costume, 1934To dress oneself in an objectionable fashion is common even in the highest levels of our government. As an AP dispatch reported in 2007,

A Homeland Security Department employee has been placed on leave for wearing a Halloween costume that drew complaints from other workers as being racially insensitive, even as it won ''most original'' honors from managers at an agency party. An inquiry is under way to determine proper sanctions in the incident, said Michael Chertoff, the homeland security secretary. The unidentified employee's costume of dreadlocks, dark makeup and prison stripes was deemed by Julie L. Myers, assistant secretary of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement division, and two other managers to be the most original at the party.

This year I'm not going out on Halloween.

Eleanor Morrow is the senior contributor to This Recording. She is a writer living in New York. She last wrote in these pages about District 9. She tumbls here.

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