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The 10 tritest passages from the NYT’s latest BK article

Our mysterious kingdom, in the eyes of the New York Times
Our mysterious kingdom, in the eyes of the New York Times

The New York Times has re-re-re-discovered Brooklyn! Their latest foray into our mysterious hermit kingdom was led by Henry Alford, former writer for Spy and alleged humor writer. Alford managed to keep it in the Times family by combining the wide-eyed cluelessness of David Brooks with the Thomas Friedman-esque naive discovery of a thing everybody already knows. Did he have anything new to say? No, of course not.

10. Alford shops for clothes just like we do!
“When a scruffy, ponytailed salesman in his 20s approached, I told him: ‘I’m going for a Mumford & Sons look. I want to look like I play the banjo.’

9. Oh sure, and a car didn’t hit him. Real fair, universe
“To get the true Brooklyn experience, it became clear I needed to do some of my visits while riding young Brooklynites’ vehicle of choice, a fixed-gear bicycle. A grizzled older gentleman rented one to me at Zukkies bike shop in Bushwick, but not before asking me four times if I’d ever ridden one, and telling me ‘I couldn’t do it.'”

8. This is what everyone says when they got to Roberta’s
“I said, ‘I was sort of hoping you’d be naked,’ referencing a Roberta’s waitress who had recently worked her last shift without clothes on (so boho and Lena Dunham-accustomed is the Roberta’s clientele that no patron batted an eyelash).”

7. The East River being notoriously difficult to ford
“It’s been a month since my Brooklyn sojourn.”

6. Girls!
“I wanted to see what the demographic behind nanobatched chervil and the continually cited show “Girls” could teach me about life and craft cocktails.”

5. Not found in Manhattan: nose piercings
“Williamsburg, a beehive of instrument-bearing musicians, nose-pierced locals and twentysomethings who use the word ‘ridiculous’ in nonpejorative contexts.”

4. The judges also would have accepted “ratchet”
“It was, as the kids say, totally ridic.”

3. Single dudes in Brooklyn are just up to their eyeballs in sacks
“I bet those sacks are very popular with single men.”

2. You kids and your crazy slang
Upon exiting, I told the employee: “Thank God you took at least one of my books. That would’ve been awk.”

1. Finally. All we’ve wanted was some validation from an old person
I like this generation of young folk. Their food is terrific, and they find even the most insignificant things “awesome.” I admire their adventuresome quality vis-à-vis fixed-gear bike-riding and their non-prudishness in the face of nudity. Yes, their attention to detail on the fronts of locavorism and beard care can verge on the precious, but I’d much rather have a young Abe Lincoln serve me his roof-grown mâche than I would have an F. Scott Fitzgerald vomit all over my straw boater. Today’s twentysomethings are self-respecting, obvi.

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12 Comments

  1. Rachel

    You missed “So I decided to embed myself among the rooftop gardeners and the sustainability consultants and the chickeneers.” Really? Chickeneers? Douche.

    • Rachel

      and “Roberta’s has the ugliest entrance of any restaurant I’ve ever seen, barbed wire leading to heavily graffitied concrete cinder blocks: gulag in da hood.”

  2. You are so wrong, Mr. Colon. The subject matter may be well-worn to say the least, but it was full of really funny zingers, only a few of which are reprinted here. Henry Alford is a genuine comic talent, not an “alleged humor writer.” And I don’t even know the guy.

    • David Colon

      I disagree with your disagreement. If this hadn’t been done to death already, it’d be funnier. It had some funny lines, but no one my age asked some middle aged guy to tell us he approves of the way young people are doing things.

      • Wait, are you a Times editor or a Brokelyn editor? Why does someone your age have to sign off on anything? However, to be clear, I will not defend the tired premise, merely the elegant execution.

        • David Colon

          “I like this generation of young folk. Their food is terrific, and they find even the most insignificant things “awesome.” I admire their adventuresome quality vis-à-vis fixed-gear bike-riding and their non-prudishness in the face of nudity. Yes, their attention to detail on the fronts of locavorism and beard care can verge on the precious, but I’d much rather have a young Abe Lincoln serve me his roof-grown mâche than I would have an F. Scott Fitzgerald vomit all over my straw boater. Today’s twentysomethings are self-respecting, obvi.”

          He can say that if he likes, but if Alford and the Times really feels like they need to give us a pat on the head, well, they can very politely and affectedly go fuck themselves.

          • Paulo

            I think someone’s upset that the stupid beard-parade is going to come to an end one way or another. Hopefully, the morons with the Skrillex haircut, idiots with nose piercings, attention-whorishly-colored hair, the hipster glass frames, etc. will go with it.

            In going for ‘individuality’ I think a lot of people forgot they are basically just copying each other anyway. You’re all lame.

  3. eric_silver

    When 2 Broke Girls is beating you to the punch on beating a dead horse, I think it’s time to hang up the suspenders. At best Alford, is taking fancy, six-shooter trick shots at a corpse in the road.

  4. weswithanley

    This guy is trying to be some kind of modern day Jane Goodall. Like we’re some kind of unusual species needing in-depth studying. No thank you, Mr. Alford. Spending $225 on a fucking shirt, and riding a fixie does not a cool one make.

  5. bknative

    Just another case of white people writing about white people? I like how Williamsburg and Bushwick have come to represent the entirety of the 2.5 million people who live in Brooklyn. Journalistic myopia at its best.

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