NUT SAY WHAT??: Quick Takes, Vol. 2

Bits of nutty New York dialog… overheard by readers… and from various sources… thanks, eavesdroppers, for the gems you’ve submitted… all the unintentionally hilarious things New Yorkers have said to you, or stuff you’ve heard someone say to someone else… keep them coming… short and sweet… very welcome here at Nuts in NY.

NOT ENOUGH QUESTION MARKS FOR ME ANSWER SERIOUSLY?
Source: Bronx Women

WHO: momo
WHERE: The Bronx

I like the emo fashion? i like the hair and the clothes. im totally not emotional or sad and thinking about cutting my wrists. but i live in the bronx NY where its all hispanics and blacks (im arabic) and all about freshness and sex and no one knows what emo prolly is? is it strange to start dressing and looking emo?

TRUER WORDS WERE NEVER SPOKEN
Source: Above the Law

New York City raised the fine on people who refuse to pick up after their dog for the first time in 30 years. The fine now stands at $250. The fine should be $1,000 and your neighbors being allowed to poop in your shoes for a week.

UH, BECAUSE GOD INVENTED BEER?
Submitted by: DD

WHO: thirtysomething-looking guy talking to similar friend
WHERE: sitting sharing a big bottle of seltzer water

“Man, did they have this stuff when we were in college? Why didn’t we drink it then?”

WAKE UP AND SMELL THE CONSERVATIVE COFFEE
Source: Metro, also covered here.

WHO: Daniel Licari
WHERE: Bushwick via Miami

In Florida “you see those people from Middle America on their vacations: They’re not voting for Barack… In New York you’re surrounded by all these liberals, but New York is not like the rest of the country. The majority voted for Bush last time, and they haven’t disappeared.”

WELL NOT THIS CHICKEN, AT LEAST
Submitted by: DD

WHO: 4-year-old Leelee
WHERE: at the dinner table eating vegetarian chicken nuggets

“Daddy, do you know where chicken comes from? It comes from chickens! You run after the chickens and you have to catch them and then get the meat out.”

BUSH AND BIN LADEN ON THE GOLF COURSE
Source: The Dancing Image

WHO: construction worker talking to a buddy
WHERE: on the streets of New York

“They’re all in it together, ya know. You ever see that Michael Moore movie? On the morning of 9/11, Bush was playing golf with bin Laden!”

WOMAN SEEKING OMEN
Source: MissMoll

Call me crazy, but the most beautiful, amazing thing just happened. I have a cheap hair clip from H&M that’s perfect for my hair. Hair doesn’t fall out, doesn’t pinch head, etc. And it broke 2 days ago. So today, I pull out this purse that I seriously haven’t used in 2 years… I open it up, and find the exact same hair thing, but not broken.

It’s going to be a good night.

HER GOOD EAR NEVER HEARD OF THE NIGHT SHIFT?
Source: MissMoll

Someone’s alarm clock actually goes off every single night at midnight. One of my neighbors. I mean, why in god’s name would you set your alarm clock for midnight?? I can only conclude that it’s a psychological experiment to drive their neighbors crazy. Perhaps a bet on who’s going to violently knock on everyone’s apartment door first… Every day I am thankful for my “bad ear.” I highly value being able to sleep on my “good ear” to muffle everything even if the trade off is asking everyone to repeat what they’re saying and missing all the under the breath insults.

© 2008 NutsInNY.com

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Down on the Boredwalk: The Hipsters of Bedford Avenue

“I’m sitting in a Williamsburg cafe, wearing a scarf, leggings and flat boots, writing a column on an expensive laptop, judging others for being try-hards.”

So writes Lisa Pryor in a Sydney Morning Herald article wherein she takes a stab at deconstructing “hipsters” (whoever they are) and “the hipster mind” (whatever that is).

“I am writing to you from the world headquarters of hipsterdom, the Brooklyn neighbourhood of Williamsburg,” she writes. “This slice of New York is the Haight-Ashbury of ironic self-loathing.”

Now, since Williamsburg is also the world headquarters of nuttiness — it’s where Nuts in NY Plaza is located — more of Ms. Pryor’s observations and pronouncements follow, illustrated by a legion at Flickr photographers.

by risi_kondor

“In Verb Cafe on Bedford Avenue, a sign reads ‘Missing: brown felt fedora’. Only four guys in the cafe are not wearing fedoras.”

by geistbear

“Young men with messy hair…”

by Compton & Wright

“…tattoos and full beards abound.”

by Mareen Fischinger

“Around the corner at egg, an uncapitalised cafe, the beardage rate tops 50 per cent.”

by cassetteject

Gentrification: “a topic on which hipsters have passionate, confused views.”

by 416style

Hipsters “hate watching property prices rise in cool neighbourhoods…”

by swilkes

“They do not want to see the earthy, quaint, ethnic working class displaced by white professionals with modular sofas…”

by lensjockey

Hipsters hate fashion. “What they love is design. It is just a coincidence that the kind of design they love happens to be fashionable right now.”

by pheezy

“They always loved Rockabilly… Just like they always had a thing for sleeveless blazers, fringed scarves and fingerless gloves.”

Photo by tizzie

“Almost as soon as the label [hipster] became common parlance, the backlash began…”

by Vidiot

“One of the seminal backlash tracts…‘Kill the hipster: Why the hipster must die. A modest proposal to save New York cool’ [by] Christian Lorentzen…”

by cloudcity

“Lorentzen wrote… ‘These hipster zombies [are] more likely to be brokers or lawyers than art-school drop-outs… And they must be buried for cool to be reborn.’”

Finally, the journalist’s appropriately self-loathing closing sentence: “I’ll shut up. I need to go away and despise myself.”

Source: Sydney Morning Herald
Photo credits: risi_kondor, geistbear, Compton & Wright, Mareen Fischinger, cassetteject, 416style, swilkes, lensjockey, pheezy, tizzie, Vidiot, cloudcity.

© 2008 NutsInNY.com

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SOUP TO NUTS: Enjoy Some Nutty Bits Before Halloween!

Late breaking bits of New York nuttiness!… All the nuts that’s fit to print… Odds and ends our Nuts in NY interns might not have time to investigate fully… But don’t miss these… Hot off the press from New York City… Sometimes weird, often wacky… And remember don’t be shy about clicking here to share your own nutty bits with the rest of the class…

A MORE APPEALING CHOKING VICTIM POSTER

Most people are familiar enough with the standard, required Choking Victim poster which hangs in most restaurants around town, informing us how to save such a victim using the Heimlich maneuver. Well here’s an alternative version:

This version hangs in Porchetta in the East Village. According to Slashfood, it was designed by Alex Holden for a Cuban-themed bar, because they couldn’t deal with the standard version. He had this extra copy, which he passed on to Porchetta.

Source: Slashfood
Photo credit: Joe DiStefano

A LESSON FROM SNL ON THE STATE OF COMEDY

Somewhere in NYC, Carla Thompson teaches something, but I’m not sure what or where. Anyway, the following, which reportedly happened to her in her classroom the other day, is the kind of thing that can happen to a New Yorker at some point:

Last Friday, sick as mangy dog, I hauled myself into class to teach… Just as I was about to sit…one of my students burst into the room, talking mile a minute about Saturday Night Live and…could they come in and shoot…

SNL’s Andy Samberg

Andy Samberg, dressed as a Rasta Man and singing…sat among the students as they pretended to take a test. They even got into the act a bit “singing” a few words and waving their arms… [I]t aired on Saturday Night Live. I am happy for my students, but I am so sad for the state of comedy.

Source: Carla Thompson’s The Ride
Photo credit: James Dittiger/Paramount Pictures

UPPER EAST SIDE RECESSION: BOTOX, VACATIONS, HAIR COLOR AND DOGGY BAGS

Former Cosmopolitan Magazine senior editor Betsy Perry, now NYC’s Commissioner for Women’s Issues, brings us this heart-wrenching tale of upscale economizing from the Upper East Side:

I was part of a conversation at Settemezzo about what one might give up first in hard times — Botox or a vacation. The vacation was first to go… There’s still a lot of Upper East Side streaked blond hair, but I’m now into the trashy rock star look myself with lots of roots thanks to my color wizard Frank Friscioni at Madison Avenue’s Oscar Blandi salon.

Betsy Perry

While I never pay less than $250 for a half head of streaks, I’m still saving since I gave up the perfect blond look which needed $100 touch ups every two weeks. Frank confided that even his laid off Goldman Sachs clients — men and women — aren’t giving up hair color. What he does hear is economizing in other areas including taking doggy bags home with unfinished dinners to be recycled for next day’s lunch…

Source: Huffington Post
Photo credit: New York magazine

FOR THOSE WHO ARE SERIOUS ABOUT THEIR LOOKS

Photo credit: sharon.sk

Read more NYC nutty bits here: NUT SOUP WEEKEND: I’m Meeting Beyonce on the GWB…

© 2008 NutsInNY.com

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PROFESSOR 007: The James Bond of Columbia Law?

Columbia University Law’s website calls Philip Bobbitt “One of the nation’s leading constitutional theorists.” The New York Observer says he’s “a former member of the Carter, Bush I and Clinton administrations and an adviser to foreign heads of state”. But here at Nuts in NY we’re struck by the Cold War trappings: the anachronistic black & white portraits on his book covers… the anecdotes about his uncle LBJ… the scotch and soda and cigars.

Philip Bobbitt

Described as an expert on international security and strategy, Philip Bobbitt’s books have been read by presidential candidates McCain and Obama, and endorsed by Kissinger and Tony Blair.

“Most students see him as a dedicated teacher who happens to lead an impossibly cultured and glamorous life,” the Observer says. “He can blow smoke rings, and sponsors a national poetry prize in honor of his late mother.” And, he “rotates seasonally among his homes, and can’t shake his habit of a nightly cigar and scotch-and-soda.”

According to a teaching assistant for his classes, Bobbitt “teaches class on Monday and Tuesday and flies around the world solving the world’s problems Wednesday through Sunday.” Another says, “His mannerisms just kind of ooze a James Bondian kind of quality.”

As for us, we’re not sure about any “matinee-idol looks”, as abovethelaw.com puts it. To us Bobbitt looks more like 007 author Ian Fleming than any incarnation of his Bond character:

James Bond author Ian Fleming

Anyway, given a character like Bobbitt, we can’t resist taking a look at some reactions from the comments section at abovethelaw.com:

Comment #4:

He’s such a tool. He drives this classic convertible and hops over the door. Also, every single book he’s ever written has some…J. Crew type pose…

Comment #12:

Bobbitt’s house had paintings of naked people on the bathroom wall. Maybe it was supposed to be cultured, but I found it just gross.

Comment #24:

I thought his wife chopped his penis off and threw it out the window.

Comment #32:

So does the guy sleep with his students? …it would be very Bond-esque of him to have a new “Bobbitt girl” every year.

Source: NY Observer via Above the Law
Photo credits: via New York Observer; Horst Tappe/Hulton Archive/Getty Images, via Media Bistro

© 2008 NutsInNY.com

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NUT SOUP WEEKEND: I’m Meeting Beyonce on the GWB

Hot-off-the-press from New York City… All the nuts that’s fit to print… Sometimes weird, often wacky… You might wanna postpone that trip to the 99 cent store with your Aunt Mona, sit yourself right down and read this post… You’ll be a better informed, lighter-hearted citizen for it!… And don’t be shy about clicking here to share your own nutty bits with the rest of the class!

ATTENTION NUTS: GET TO NYC ON YOUR OWN, THEN THE SKY’S THE LIMIT…

He was arrested in Connecticut, on his way to the George Washington Bridge for a rendezvous with Beyoncé, he said. According to Bossip.com, “Thirty-three year old Robert Williams Jr., from Michigan, was taken into custody in Milford on Sunday, October 19 after almost smashing into a police car…narrowly missing the cop car and driving over a sidewalk.”

Beyonce as a cop

“Williams, who had flowers and a teddy bear in the car, is also alleged to have asked the cops if they would escort him to New York City, where he claimed [Beyoncé] had agreed to meet him at the George Washington Bridge…”

Source: Livesteez, via Bossip.com

WHO KNEW? IT’S GINGKO PICKIN’ TIME ON STATEN ISLAND

“Ginkgos are hardy trees, which is why they represent almost 3 percent of New York City’s tree population: Their resilience to pollution and insects make them ideal for city living,” according to Pamela Silverstri of the Staten Island Advance. “The October/November gingko fruition is highly anticipated among Koreans and Chinese. The fruit is believed to ameliorate everything from high blood pressure to dementia, a homeopathic cure valued by Asians for thousands of years.”

Ginkgo tree on Roosevelt Island, NYC

“Round, marble-sized fruit from female ginkgo trees…have a nauseating odor… Staten Islanders who harvest ginkgoes recommend wearing one or two layers of rubber kitchen gloves when handling the fruits as the skins are toxic.” And remember, if you’re serving them over a salad, “the green meat inside can be pan-roasted for a few minutes for extra flavor.”

Read the rest from the source: SILive
Futher reading: Gourmet.com
Photo credit: chedpics on Flickr

YOU ARE NOW BEING MARKETED TO MORE PERFECTLY…

NYU Local brings us this tale of New York City buses featuring advertisements now which, thanks to GPS tech, change their content based on the demographics of the neighborhood the bus is passing thru.

“You know, so that every bus starts flashing its American Apparel signs as it passes by Washington Square Park.”

Source: Gothamist via NYU Local
Photo credit: Metropolitan Transportation Authority

A BEAUTIFUL, UNTHIRSTY ASIAN NUT GOES INTO A BAR…

And lives to write about it:

Dark bars are no bueno. Wanting to test out how much lighting is a factor in the [mis]conception of one’s attractiveness, I went around taking random pictures of people that looked not bad in the dark. FAIL. Fail, fail, fail. Who let the dogs out?…

I don’t know how things are done in Europe but it is not appropriate to pick up a girl and bang her head on the ceiling, booty bump her and knock her over, and then ask her to dinner. FAIL… If your opening lines are “You’re beautiful”, “Let me buy you a drink”, “I love Asian women” or anything other than properly introducing yourself, FAIL.

Source: Sleepless in New York
Photo credit: Devon McSee

WHEN A GET WELL CARD ISN’T ENOUGH, SEND THIS KIND OF FLOWER…

Queens resident “Sam Lal…is convinced the mysterious blossom is an incarnation of the elephant-headed Hindu god Ganesh — and neighbors and friends are flocking to see it,” according to the NY Daily News.

“The nearly 4-foot-tall flower grew in June and began to resemble an elephant’s head and trunk in August. Lal said that the ailments that had plagued him for months disappeared.”

Source: NY Daily News
Photo credit: Showalter/NY Daily News

Read more NYC nutty bits here: SOUP TO NUTS: Week-Before-Halloween Edition…

© 2008 NutsInNY.com

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SOUP TO NUTS: Week-Before-Halloween Nutty Bits

Hot-off-the-griddle nuttiness from New York City… Sometimes random, sometimes redonk… Odds are you won‘t want to miss these odds and ends… Amusing and/or bemusing… Check them out before you even think about disembarking from the SS Nuts in NY… For the whole story, straight from the horse’s mouth, click the links…

SCANDALOUS TABLOID NEEDLEPOINT?

A collection of NY Post and Daily News front pages created by artist Brigid Berlin, a central character in Andy Warhol’s circle. She has an exhibition opening on Oct 21 and running thru Nov 22.

As the gallery says, “Her subjects are typically crude, salacious paper-selling press announcements in origin designed to appall, shock, and titillate viewers.”

Trivia from Wikipedia: The artist’s sister “Christina was instrumental in engineering the defection of Russian ballet star Mikhail Baryshnikov. The third sister, Richie, was…the roommate of…Edie Sedgwick.”

Source: AnimalNewYork

THIS BEARD HAS FLOWN

At one point a New York judge, Philip Straniere, decided that growing a beard would be a good way to protest the capping of NY state judges at $136,700 for the past ten years. However, he changed his mind recently and shaved.

Judge Philip Straniere, before and after

According to abovethelaw.com, “Straniere has not given up the protest, but he has given up the beard, in order to look less like Father Christmas while he runs for a state Supreme Court judgeship.”

(Subtitles: “Father Christmas” means “Santa Claus” in American.)

Photo credits: via Above the Law

ROMANTIC GRAFFITI NUTS

Photo credits: newyorkshitty; David Donnell

INSANE, SICK WEDDING GUIDE FOR THE PERFECT GROOM

Phew, these folks are from a different planet. Plenty of “advice for the curious bride, the gentleman looking for sartorial advice and, most importantly, the NYC groom.” (Plus they squeeze in a quote from Zsa Zsa Gabor: “You never really know a man until you have divorced him.”)

Moreover, check out their “series of essays exploring the history, architecture, art, film, music and culture of New York City.”

Read more NYC nutty bits here: SOUP TO NUTS: Oct Weekend Brunch Edition…

© 2008 NutsInNY.com

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Why On Earth Would Anyone Want to Live in NYC?

Here at Nuts in NY we have again been reminded that New York has no corner on the nut market. A woman living in Texas has been identified as fitting the diagnostic criteria for moderate to profound nuttiness, to use the clinical terminology.

Blogger Alice Bachini-Smith came out of her nutshell last week when she questioned the sanity of the entire population of New York City.

“I can’t figure out why on earth anyone would want to live there,” the Austin resident wrote.

New York City pizza

She accepts that a certain level of craziness is inherent to life in our city, it’s “like pizza and the Macy’s parade” she analogizes. But there are still many things here that are too crazy, too nonsensical for the British-born woman’s tastes.

Posting as “The Mad Housewife”, Bachini-Smith tells us she has been living in the US for a few years. During that time, she asserts, she has managed to figure America out, with the exception of one place: New York City. Situated 1,500 miles to the northeast, it remains elusive to her, and of her brief visits here in the past she says simply, “it didn’t grab me.”

New York City subway

On one hand she acknowledges the positives about New York: it is America’s “unofficial capital” and “the most recognisable city to an urban European.” And it is “more civilised, polite, reasonable and pleasant than a big European city.” On the other hand, she lists the things that give her pause, preventing her from truly ‘getting’ New York City.

High-rise buildings, for example: “all those people living in the sky! How can that work?!,” she demands.

Skyscrapers in Lower Manhattan

Also, NYC’s public transportation, which transports 4.5 million of us every weekday: only “one train station for almost all the trains,” she complains, adding an emphatic “are you crazy?!”

And finally, the aforementioned Macy’s Day Parade: Ms. Bachini-Smith has seen it on television — it doesn’t seem like her cup of tea.

The Macy‘s Day Parade

Obviously, this mad housewife Alice Bachini-Smith provides some serious food for thought for 8 million of us here in New York City, and we’re left with one burning question: what on earth are we doing here??

(On the other hand maybe some of us are thinking this: somewhere in England, a village is missing one of its nuts!)

Photo credits: kingfal (pizza); tyfo (Macy’s Day Parade); femme_makita (lower Manhattan); lorenzodom (subway)

© 2008 NutsInNY.com

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Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Rescued from Queens Sewer

Cowabunga!! The police called them “idiots”, we call them our Nuts of the Month!… Three Queens teenagers, two of them over 16, playing pretend.…

The Daily News reports:

Three teenagers…got lost and had to be rescued by firefighters yesterday… “These three idiots were playing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and wanted to go into the sewers,” said a police source…

Three blockheaded teenagers were busted playing in a sewer Wednesday in Queens - after getting lost while pretending to be Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, police sources said… The make-believe heroes were crawling around the sewer system when they got confused and lost their way…

Rescue of teens pretending to be Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in a Kissina Park sewer.

Of course, the nutty value of the story wouldn’t be complete without a few voices from the Daily News peanut gallery:

ERNESTOMAN: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is so last century.

SMASHSIMPKIN: Head to the sewers NYers. World’s largest bulldozer is on the way to level the world’s largest stinkhole… Good ridddance Rotten Apple. You won’t be missed!!!!

KEEPIT: Their real punishment will be when they go back to school…

ELLA GURU: In the sewer they lived, in the sewer the died, they said it was murder but it was sewercide.

Source: NY Daily News, via Newser
Images: Warner Brothers; DelMundo for News

© 2008 NutsInNY.com

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SOUP TO NUTS: October Weekend Brunch Edition

Late breaking nutty bits from the Big Candied Apple… Bite-size pieces that help us put together a much larger picture of widespread New York nuttiness… Amusing, often bemusing, these odds and ends are not to be missed… Before you leave work on Friday, or after a mimosa or two this fine October weekend — it’s all good…

NEW YORK CITY WAS BETTER WHEN IT WAS LO-TECH

A New York Times writer bemoans the advent of GPS and other state-of-the-art technology that prevents us from getting lost:

WHAT we are witnessing is the death of disorientation. What is a city like New York with no walks halfway down the wrong block? With no wrong blocks? With no need to pause, take a breath and synchronize the senses with the clues embedded in the urban landscape? No need to ask questions of one’s fellow human beings? None of that subtle mixture of gratification and satisfaction that comes from giving or receiving directions that help us find our way?

Those few moments of disorientation are the moments in which we are reminded of the dizziness of this world — its irrationality, its chaos, its unexpected beauty.

Source: NY Times via Gawker
Illustration: Jon KeeGan

SUBWAY SEATING ARTIST? (OR JUST ANOTHER NUT?)

From NY1:

“If you’ve noticed some extra seating on subway platforms lately, it might not be the MTA’s doing. A Queens man has launched a one-man campaign to help people take a load off their feet while they wait for the train. NY1 Transit reporter Bobby Cuza filed the following report.”

“It’s not that unusual to find Jason Eppink in the subways carrying a chair. The Queens artist has made a habit of picking them up off the street, bringing them underground, then setting them up on subway platforms.”

Source: NY1 via Queens Crap
Photo credit: NY1

“COPY EDITORS DESPERATELY NEEDED!”

“Please apply at the New York City Department of Transportation ASAP.”

That perfectly good headline and opening line, and this photo of a misspelled street sign for Mercer Street, courtesy of EphemeralNewYork.com.

Source and photo credit: EphemeralNewYork.com

© 2008 NutsInNY.com

Read more NUT SOUP: Mid-October Edition.

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Pretentious Cyclists: I Know You Are But What Am I?

In the New York Times’ Field Guide to the New York City Bicyclist, this fancy fellow was one of the featured cyclists:

Andrew Valentine, 36, a London-born writer who lives on the Upper East Side, rides a Schwinn 3-speed that cost $175. In a wire basket he ferries his cairn terriers, Toby and Kate.

His look: “In the winter, I wear lots of fedoras and scarves, foulards and tweeds, and in the summer, basically linens. I would say kind of very English, ‘30s style — very Evelyn Waugh.”

BikeSnobNYC, the popular blog for bicycle enthusiasts in the city, had this response:

Andrew Valentine, above, says his look is “kind of very English.” Well, I’m sort of completely nauseous. He also says that he’s an “anachronism,” though I’m not sure he’s using the word correctly because it doesn’t mean “pretentious fop.” Also, his look doesn’t evoke Evelyn Waugh… It does, however, evoke someone else who’s not English and who is not so much anachronistic as he is timeless:

And for anyone who doesn’t know the titular line, “I know you are, but what am I?”, from the mother of all bike-envy scenes in “Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure”, watch it here.

Photo credits: Ruby Washington/NY Times; Warner Bros Pictures

© 2008 NutsInNY.com

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