Once it was seen as a blessing in certain circles to have a wealthy, powerful partner who would leave you alone with the credit card while he was busy brokering deals. Now, many Wall Street wives, girlfriends and, increasingly, exes, are living the curse of cutbacks in nanny hours and reservations at Masa or Megu. And that credit card? Canceled.

NYT, 27.1.2009 > RaviI Somaiya: It's the Economy, Girlfriend über Dating a Banker Anonymous:

Are you or someone you love dating a banker? If so, we are here to support you through these difficult times. Dating A Banker Anonymous (DABA) is a safe place where women can come together – free from the scrutiny of feminists– and share their tearful tales of how the mortgage meltdown has affected their relationships. DABA Girls was started by two best friends whose relationships tanked with the economy. Not knowing what else to do, we did what frustrated but articulate girls have done since the beginning of time - we started a blog. So if your monthly Bergdorf’s allowance has been halved and bottle service has all but disappeared from your life, lighten your heart with laughter and email your stories to dabagirls@gmail.com

He volunteered in 1971 to teach a course on the short story to inmates at Sing Sing. He befriended some of the inmates, especially a “pale, emaciated white man” and “serious loser” (son Fred’s term) named Donald Lang, whom Cheever continued to associate with after his release. It was Lang who, hostilely, wondered “where a little shit like you gets the balls to come in here”: even at the time of the prisoner riots at Attica, Cheever remained blithe, and later told an interviewer, “If the cons and I were lined up against a guard, I was all with the cons.”

New Yorker, 9.3.2009 > John Updike: Basically Decent, über eine neue John Cheever-Biografie

Siehe auch: NYT Magazine, 1.3.2009 > Charles McGrath: The First Suburbanite

Antony and the Johnsons > Another World (Regie: Colin Whitaker)

Almost everyone I interviewed found a polite way to mention her ease at attracting men, but potential boyfriends don’t tend to respond well to Usher’s. Sam Swiller, who is still close to her after their failed romance, gamely explained his hesitancy. “The unfortunate thing about her disease is you don’t know how quickly it’s gonna get bad. And while things were perfectly great then, I was always thinking about the future, and it didn’t give us enough time to develop the present. You ask yourself, ‘Am I going to be able to get what I need from this individual?’ I was idiotically overcome by a relationship where neither of us could make restaurant reservations by phone.”

Portrait der 29-jährigen New Yorkerin Rebecca Alexander, die an einer seltenen Krankheit namens Usher-Syndrom (nicht) leidet und dabei ist, ihr Hör- und ihr Sehvermögen zu verlieren. New York, erfährt man in diesem Stück auch, ist eine Stadt der Blinden: "The New York area is home to 6 percent of the country’s legally blind, creating a subculture of roughly 80,000. The young flock here for the opportunity to play on a level field, where everybody is dependent on public transportation, cabs, deliveries, and Internet ordering. “It’s very attractive that most of New York is on a grid system,” says Matthew Sapolin, the city’s disabilities commissioner, who as a young blind man came here to attend NYU. “If you can count, you can get around.”"

Quelle: New York Magazine, 1.2.2009 > Arianne Cohen: Going Deaf and Blind in a City of Noise and Lights

accidents of pen, ink, hand, grain, scent, biography

Schöne kurze Besprechung eines Buches über das Schreiben mit der Hand: New York Magazine, 15.2.2009 > Sam Anderson: Hand Off. Loving, and mourning, scribbling.

A "mic in track" is a recording made on a PC using MusicMatch Jukebox, a music utility packaged with many new PC's that allows the user to record from the microphone input of the PC's sound card and save the recording in mp3 format. The default filename is "mic in track" followed by a number.

If that user also happens to be running a file-sharing program (WinMX, Audiognome, Kazaa, etc.), and shares the directory in which the mic in track is stored, then these personal recordings can be easily downloaded from the user's computer. The vast majority of them are either silent or uninteresting, but many are like Christmas presents giftwrapped in nondescript serial numbers. They represent unique examples of audio vérité.

Dr. David Dixon, lecturer in physics at Cal Poly > mic in track

The New Yorker, 9.3.2009 > D.T. Max: The Unfinished. David Foster Wallace's struggle to surpass "Infinite Jest"

The New Yorker, 9.3.2009 > David Foster Wallace: Wiggle Room (nachgelassene Prosa)

Der Essay ›Wie ich lebe und warum‹ besteht aus einer Serie von Fotos, die Brinkmanns nähere Lebensumgebung, das vermeintlich Private, Ende der sechziger Jahre in Köln, wie seine Wohnung, zeigen. Banal, schmuddelig, trostlos. Die Bilder zeigen einen Alltag, dessen Sinn, ›warum‹, den Lesern zum Geschenk gemacht wird: Da könnten sie selbst darauf kommen. Es geht nicht um die Verwandlung relativ trostlosen privaten Lebens eines Autors in Kunst; als ›Fotostrecke‹, Foto-Essay, verschiebt der Text die philosophisch-existentialistische Frage des Titels auf die Ebene eigensinnig künstlerischer Produktion. Das ist das ›Anfangen‹, der schreibende Anfang von Brinkmann, den er in den Tonbandaufzeichnungen “Die Wörter sind böse” als etwas Schönes bezeichnet.«

Quelle: Schröder & Kalender (taz), 5.3.2009 > Wie ich lebe und warum

Von den 33 000 Einwohnern Orange Mounds leben die meisten in Sozialbauten, die Häuser, schmal und lang, «Shotgun-Houses» genannt, mögen kaputt sein, die Strassen löchrig, die Autos aufgepeppt, hier und da lehnen ein paar Prostituierte artig an Häuserwänden, doch viel passiert nicht: keine schweren Jungs, keine Dealer, keine Ghetto-Kinder in den Seitenstrassen, dafür viel bunte Weihnachtsbeleuchtung. John ist ausser sich. Und je harmloser die Gegend wirkt, desto mehr spricht er sich in Rage, «sonst ist es hier voller übler Typen und voller Dreck», flucht er, «wo stecken sie nur?» Und er macht sich auf die Suche, wie ein Jäger nach Wild, und er trinkt noch ein Bier, doch er lacht nicht mehr, denn ohne Schwarze, die Ärger machen, macht auch sein ganzer Hass keinen Sinn. Er weiss das.

Quelle: NZZ am Sonntag, 8.2.2009 > Der letzte Aufstand der Rassisten. Der Ku-Klux-Klan regt sich wieder

Snark is written by people who don’t have an ear for genuine wit. Comedy is hard work. Comics are cultural heroes, rightly so, and everyone wants to be like them, but most of us don’t have the discipline, the timing, or the phrasing. Comedy takes a great ear. Now that I’ve gotten this off my chest, I’m giving up the snark hunt. Social pressure is the only thing that will change it. If people tell the snarker that what he’s writing isn’t cool, that’s a beginning, but the trends, despite Obama’s calls for civility, are all leading toward more of it, not less.

Schönes Interview mit David Denby über die Rhetorik des snark, Aufmerksamkeitsökonomie und Verdrängungsgeschubse.

Quelle: The Book Bench (New Yorker), 19.2. 2009 > The Exchange: David Denby

After handing him a few dollars, I asked, “How’s the economy affecting you?’’ “No different,’’ he said. “It’s always lousy.’’

Gay Talese denkt sich Schilder für New Yorker Bettler aus.

Quelle: NYT, 17.2.2009 > Gay Talese: When Panhandlers Need a Wordsmith’s Touch