December 2011
3 posts
4 tags
Gathering of Narcissists Turns to Tragedy
To get rich is to magnify the marginal utility of your consumer preferences, if we might be permitted a clinical paraphrase of Deng Xiao Peng (or some nameless Deng functionary). So if you’re going to commute to Wall Street from this or that tastefully cloistered suburb, you should forgo the seedy bus-ferry-subway nexus in favor of a helicopter. And if you’re trying to kick an...
5 tags
The Chavs and Have-Nots
In which I review Owen Johnson’s Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class.
4 tags
Cargo Van Cult Haunts Gotham Streets
In my unmourned midwestern youth, vans were a status symbol for a certain drugged-out kind of dude-on-the-make. If the vehicles in question were airbrushed with the countenances of R Crumb characters or pastel-drenched beachscapes, the owners were singled out on the roads of Davenport—and so they fondly hoped, in the hearts of eager young lasses—as true masters of countercultural...