How Every City Became Brooklyn ... or perhaps not
February 25, 2016 12:15 PM Subscribe
Bon Appétit looks for Brooklyn in the Midwest. The Midwest is not impressed.
In his survey of restaurants and chefs in Indianapolis with hipster credentials, John Birdsall looks for evidence of cultural Brooklynization of the Midwest, and he finds it. Eater contributing editor Sarah Freeman would beg to differ, or at least demand some more analysis, and certain chefs take her side. All of which raises some interesting questions about cultural migration and appropriation and "authenticity" that can't be answered in a pair of articles (the first of which is really more of a travelogue than a fleshed-out thesis), but the questions they raise are FUN.
Sarah Freeman can say what she likes, but I've seen the bearded, tattoo-sleeved chef / craft bartender / barista thing migrate out from Brooklyn to basically everywhere their customer base potentially exists - Berlin, St. Louis, the Virgin Islands, etc., ad nauseum. I'm an old guy that fondly remembers regional scenes and a time when the entire culture wasn't evolving in one (or a handful) of directions simultaneously, but the internet put an end to that and we all need to just accept it. "Authenticity" is a pre-digital phenomenon and, at least in the food world, it is on the verge of ceasing to exist altogether.
posted by ryanshepard at 12:23 PM on February 25, 2016 [6 favorites]
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posted by ryanshepard at 12:23 PM on February 25, 2016 [6 favorites]
Williamsburg is mostly midwesterners, as far as I can tell, so dining is a flat circle.
posted by maxsparber at 12:25 PM on February 25, 2016 [22 favorites]
posted by maxsparber at 12:25 PM on February 25, 2016 [22 favorites]
Indianapolis? I know from Indianapolis, and believe me, what's driving stuff there isn't Brooklyn. It's NASCAR and the push the city has made to become a conference/sports-conference host, plus a bunch of Indiana-specific cultural stuff. Indiana has a culture, it sure does. I'm always torn between hating Indiana because I get harassed when I visit family and loving Indiana because of its Indiana-ness - there's a particular accent that isn't southern but is related, there's a particular stubborn localism/hickness that yields, occasionally and bizarrely, to high modernism and high-mindedness; there's the landscape, which is flat and blah over the long haul but surprisingly pretty and taking if you look closely; and of course, there's the food. The Eater article is completely right that Indianapolis (and Indiana) have their own long-standing local traditions, particularly in the matter of persimmons. Indiana persimmons don't travel. You can freeze the pulp, but the competition locally even for frozen pulp is pretty fierce. Indiana persimmons are an anti-capitalist food.
My very own grandmother - an upright woman, not to say severe - attempted to rob a seemingly unattended persimmon tree in front of her own family and was chased off by the owner. That is how people feel about persimmons.
posted by Frowner at 12:25 PM on February 25, 2016 [32 favorites]
My very own grandmother - an upright woman, not to say severe - attempted to rob a seemingly unattended persimmon tree in front of her own family and was chased off by the owner. That is how people feel about persimmons.
posted by Frowner at 12:25 PM on February 25, 2016 [32 favorites]
I don't enjoy the idea that all of these places are striving to be Brooklyn. I really, really doubt they are. Brooklyn is not the be-all end-all and to suggest that these people are just trying to imitate New York City is rather insulting to their own creativity.
posted by everybody had matching towels at 12:26 PM on February 25, 2016 [17 favorites]
posted by everybody had matching towels at 12:26 PM on February 25, 2016 [17 favorites]
Across the country? Across the globe. And Brooklyn itself is in denial about how much it has "appropriated" from Melbourne, Australia or Berlin. But is it really "appropriation" when you're just copying boring middle-class white wankery?
Authenticity. Is. Bollocks.
posted by Jimbob at 12:26 PM on February 25, 2016 [8 favorites]
Authenticity. Is. Bollocks.
posted by Jimbob at 12:26 PM on February 25, 2016 [8 favorites]
I have been making persimmon and pear salads that literally have been causing people to cry and faint with pleasure.
At least, I hope it's pleasure. Jesus. It better be pleasure.
posted by maxsparber at 12:27 PM on February 25, 2016 [13 favorites]
At least, I hope it's pleasure. Jesus. It better be pleasure.
posted by maxsparber at 12:27 PM on February 25, 2016 [13 favorites]
I would say farm to table eating, and making stuff by hand is a common definition of what it means to live in the Midwest -- now as always. It's just not called "artisinal." Does he really think homemade pickles and pulled pork are "Brooklyn"?
posted by Malla at 12:30 PM on February 25, 2016 [24 favorites]
posted by Malla at 12:30 PM on February 25, 2016 [24 favorites]
I mean, this is an interesting question, I guess: What if it isn’t so much Indianapolis trying to be Brooklyn, as Brooklyn wanting to capture something of Indianapolis? but it's just sort of floated there at the end, sandwiched between the author's cred drop of "how actual Brooklyn used to be" and a note that if everything goes right for a kid on stage, he'll end up in Brooklyn. This is meant to be a part of the magazine's Culture Issue but the only culture examined in this piece is growing in the author's navel.
posted by everybody had matching towels at 12:31 PM on February 25, 2016 [6 favorites]
posted by everybody had matching towels at 12:31 PM on February 25, 2016 [6 favorites]
As someone who was dragged back to Brooklyn for work, I will find these pieces useful in the next few years for when I leave here, so that I will know where *not* to move.
posted by laerm at 12:32 PM on February 25, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by laerm at 12:32 PM on February 25, 2016 [1 favorite]
I live very close to my city's "Brooklyn" (moved there before that happened, tyvm) and here it seems like a lot of it is driven by a need to at least prove that we can do that. If we wanted to. Here's our little show neighborhood so everyone who moves here from the coasts can see that it's not all babushkas and pizzelles as far as the eye can see. So you can feel safe in your decision to move here, it's okay. Your friends back home won't judge. Post an Instagram from time to time of you at the craft brewry or you eating artisinally butchered meats with a chalkboard behind you and all will be well.
posted by soren_lorensen at 12:38 PM on February 25, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by soren_lorensen at 12:38 PM on February 25, 2016 [2 favorites]
Locally-sourced produce, cheeses, meats, etc. have been a big thing with Indy chefs and eateries at least since the mid-80's when Drew and Susan Goss opened Something Different, on Indy's north side.
posted by Thorzdad at 12:40 PM on February 25, 2016 [7 favorites]
posted by Thorzdad at 12:40 PM on February 25, 2016 [7 favorites]
There's a certain amount of that in any city with even a small college in it, because kids want to be cool and cool = Brooklynesque hipster right now. (It tends to shift around; before that it was Seattle; before that, downtown-ish Manhattan; before that, California, I guess?) But in terms of what they're actually doing, there's often a hefty crossbreeding with scenes or crafts that are of local origin and were going on well before the younger practitioners adopted beards or Buddy Holly glasses or whatever.
posted by Halloween Jack at 12:44 PM on February 25, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by Halloween Jack at 12:44 PM on February 25, 2016 [1 favorite]
I'm waiting for the day when Hipsters will embrace guilds. Yes, feudal style guilds. I'm certain it'll become a thing.
posted by Fizz at 12:47 PM on February 25, 2016 [6 favorites]
posted by Fizz at 12:47 PM on February 25, 2016 [6 favorites]
Time was, only hip internet rags could make "the Brooklyn of X" jokes, but I see the trend is expanding into more traditional news outlets, who are trying to make themselves look trendier to appeal to the Millenial crowd. The, as it were, Brooklynization of "The Brooklyn of X."
posted by Mayor West at 12:48 PM on February 25, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by Mayor West at 12:48 PM on February 25, 2016 [2 favorites]
Across the country? Across the globe.
A quick thumb-through in any issue of Monocle will drive this fact home. It's actually a bit depressing to read about, say, Indonesian or Australian "creatives" who emulate the stereotypical Brooklyn aesthetic. Or is this really the other way around, as mentioned earlier?
posted by stannate at 12:49 PM on February 25, 2016 [1 favorite]
A quick thumb-through in any issue of Monocle will drive this fact home. It's actually a bit depressing to read about, say, Indonesian or Australian "creatives" who emulate the stereotypical Brooklyn aesthetic. Or is this really the other way around, as mentioned earlier?
posted by stannate at 12:49 PM on February 25, 2016 [1 favorite]
This is all sort of hilarious and annoying. The cliched thing where someone from New York visits another place and, rather than take in the whole gestalt, only notice the things that remind them of New York.
posted by mandymanwasregistered at 12:56 PM on February 25, 2016 [27 favorites]
posted by mandymanwasregistered at 12:56 PM on February 25, 2016 [27 favorites]
The Portland based Ace Hotel just moved into an old YMCA here and opened a meat-based restaurant run by the owner of the Brooklyn butchery, The Meat Hook. So I think (or hope) that we've reached peak hipster here in Pittsburgh.
posted by octothorpe at 12:57 PM on February 25, 2016 [5 favorites]
posted by octothorpe at 12:57 PM on February 25, 2016 [5 favorites]
Basically, I am all for homegrown culinary scenes that use Brooklyn/New York etc as a template in order to show people the beauty in what they already have and can do rather you having to move or think those places are the only places that can offer you those things.
posted by Kitteh at 12:57 PM on February 25, 2016 [5 favorites]
posted by Kitteh at 12:57 PM on February 25, 2016 [5 favorites]
I admit I got into the mead scene around the time it was trending but it was honestly a complete coincidence. My brother was pushing me to get into homebrewing and I realized mead is just technically much easier to make.
posted by fraxil at 1:00 PM on February 25, 2016
posted by fraxil at 1:00 PM on February 25, 2016
I admit I got into the mead scene around the time it was trending but it was honestly a complete coincidence.
It's already beginning.
posted by Fizz at 1:06 PM on February 25, 2016
It's already beginning.
posted by Fizz at 1:06 PM on February 25, 2016
I think I had a not atpyical small town midwest experience growing up of helping my mother can and freeze all sorts of produce in the summer. Jams! Pickles! Mason jars as utilitarian household item. Foraging for wild leeks and morels. Stopping for fresh sweet corn from the stand on the way home from town. Etc. Using local tasty ingredients. Brooklyn did not invent such things. I always assumed people who left places like the midwest merely brought their exotic customs with them to places like Brooklyn and jacked up the price.
posted by mandymanwasregistered at 1:10 PM on February 25, 2016 [30 favorites]
posted by mandymanwasregistered at 1:10 PM on February 25, 2016 [30 favorites]
Those "Brooklyn" guys? NONE of them are from Brooklyn. They live in Brooklyn, that's where their tattoo artist and artisanal peanut butter shop and bespoke vest maker is, but please stop blaming us. We're not much more pleased than you are.
posted by 1adam12 at 1:10 PM on February 25, 2016 [5 favorites]
posted by 1adam12 at 1:10 PM on February 25, 2016 [5 favorites]
Locally-sourced produce, cheeses, meats, etc. have been a big thing with Indy chefs and eateries at least since the mid-80's when Drew and Susan Goss opened Something Different, on Indy's north side.
posted by Thorzdad at 2:40 PM on February 25 [+] [!]
I object to this sort of specific cultural knowledge! When writing about culture in the Midwest, one is supposed to make sweeping generalizations, include lots of comparisons to things in New York or California, and condescend like its going out of style.
Also, if you are visiting a town in the Midwest with a small college and it doesn't seem like a total cultural desert, you should say the town is like New England. Education and high culture should always be treated as exotic species which just happen to grow in Midwestern soil. Ignore the relatively high literacy rates and any other signs that valuing education is an actual part of local culture.
posted by Area Man at 1:13 PM on February 25, 2016 [27 favorites]
posted by Thorzdad at 2:40 PM on February 25 [+] [!]
I object to this sort of specific cultural knowledge! When writing about culture in the Midwest, one is supposed to make sweeping generalizations, include lots of comparisons to things in New York or California, and condescend like its going out of style.
Also, if you are visiting a town in the Midwest with a small college and it doesn't seem like a total cultural desert, you should say the town is like New England. Education and high culture should always be treated as exotic species which just happen to grow in Midwestern soil. Ignore the relatively high literacy rates and any other signs that valuing education is an actual part of local culture.
posted by Area Man at 1:13 PM on February 25, 2016 [27 favorites]
Everything about this thread feels like it fell through a time tunnel from 2012
posted by theodolite at 1:14 PM on February 25, 2016 [9 favorites]
posted by theodolite at 1:14 PM on February 25, 2016 [9 favorites]
Oh, no, the nice things that were once shibboleths for city dwellers are now widely available for everyone.
So tired of that. How about: yay, the nice things that were once shibboleths for city dwellers are now widely available for everyone!
posted by phooky at 1:16 PM on February 25, 2016 [9 favorites]
So tired of that. How about: yay, the nice things that were once shibboleths for city dwellers are now widely available for everyone!
posted by phooky at 1:16 PM on February 25, 2016 [9 favorites]
I'd also like to note that I've been making maple syrup using sap from the sugar maple in my backyard. I have no idea whether that's a thing in Brooklyn (it doesn't seem like a great location for a sugar bush, but what do I know), but if it is I had no idea. I am in no way copying people in Brooklyn. I was inspired by (1) a visit to a local park with my kids for a syrup making demonstration (I attended a similar event as a child); (2) a visit to a sugar bush in Northern Minnesota; and, (3) hearing about my cousin co-owning a sugar bush in Vermont.
posted by Area Man at 1:24 PM on February 25, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by Area Man at 1:24 PM on February 25, 2016 [3 favorites]
Brooklyn is not the be-all end-all and to suggest that these people are just trying to imitate New York City is rather insulting to their own creativity.
Then why is is all the same shit?
I mean, I take your point: I don't think all these people are trying to imitate New York City. But it seems to me that what people are protesting is the label. The reality of the homogeneity, it's pervasiveness, seems to me undeniable. Shall we call it merely Urban Hip-land? Does that make it better?
There's an especial twist of the knife here because one of the highest shared cultural values of Urban Hipland is kow-towing to localness, the idea that makers and growers are due reverence, that a berry tastes sweeter the closer you stand to the dirt it was grown in. So the affront in the reaction is all about "no no no, we support our local heritage, we are authentic!" With no acknowledgement that the way in which this is done --- the your-chicken's name-was-Dave, chalkboards and gingham and $15 cocktails, try our house-made charcuterie --- is this universal shared culture whose signifiers you can find in a dozen, a hundred cities now. Twenty years ago, you would have had to go to Berkeley and Alice Waters to find a menu that spent more time describing its sourcing than its preparation; that's everywhere now.
Call it something other than Brooklyness, if that's the sore spot. But it's real. It's the new face of the bourgeoisie. Clever and forward thinking, in a number of ways: A way of sustaining a middle class lifestyle by doing peasant handicrafts by managing to fetishize authenticity to the extent that people will pay you $20 for a bar of soap or chocolate.
posted by Diablevert at 1:26 PM on February 25, 2016 [17 favorites]
Then why is is all the same shit?
I mean, I take your point: I don't think all these people are trying to imitate New York City. But it seems to me that what people are protesting is the label. The reality of the homogeneity, it's pervasiveness, seems to me undeniable. Shall we call it merely Urban Hip-land? Does that make it better?
There's an especial twist of the knife here because one of the highest shared cultural values of Urban Hipland is kow-towing to localness, the idea that makers and growers are due reverence, that a berry tastes sweeter the closer you stand to the dirt it was grown in. So the affront in the reaction is all about "no no no, we support our local heritage, we are authentic!" With no acknowledgement that the way in which this is done --- the your-chicken's name-was-Dave, chalkboards and gingham and $15 cocktails, try our house-made charcuterie --- is this universal shared culture whose signifiers you can find in a dozen, a hundred cities now. Twenty years ago, you would have had to go to Berkeley and Alice Waters to find a menu that spent more time describing its sourcing than its preparation; that's everywhere now.
Call it something other than Brooklyness, if that's the sore spot. But it's real. It's the new face of the bourgeoisie. Clever and forward thinking, in a number of ways: A way of sustaining a middle class lifestyle by doing peasant handicrafts by managing to fetishize authenticity to the extent that people will pay you $20 for a bar of soap or chocolate.
posted by Diablevert at 1:26 PM on February 25, 2016 [17 favorites]
We're in an old Midwestern resort town on vacation right now, that's been around since the 1930s, and it's got some old, old restaurants and some trendy little places, and the primary difference is that the local slab-mixed ice cream and the local fancy fudge are called "homemade" in the old places and "artisinal" in the new places. But it's the same darn local ice cream and fudge it's been since the CCC came and built the park.
I read this and I was like "... didn't we already have homemade pickles?" But then I was like, "ohhhhh, now we call them artisinal and that's supposed to mean imported from trendier places."
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 1:26 PM on February 25, 2016 [8 favorites]
I read this and I was like "... didn't we already have homemade pickles?" But then I was like, "ohhhhh, now we call them artisinal and that's supposed to mean imported from trendier places."
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 1:26 PM on February 25, 2016 [8 favorites]
How about: yay, the nice things that were once shibboleths for city dwellers are now widely available for everyone!
At three times the price!
A way of sustaining a middle class lifestyle by doing peasant handicrafts
I've said it before. "Artisanal" just means middle-class people of independent means doing the jobs working class people used to do.
posted by Jimbob at 1:30 PM on February 25, 2016 [4 favorites]
At three times the price!
A way of sustaining a middle class lifestyle by doing peasant handicrafts
I've said it before. "Artisanal" just means middle-class people of independent means doing the jobs working class people used to do.
posted by Jimbob at 1:30 PM on February 25, 2016 [4 favorites]
An article that shits on both Brooklyn and the Midwest but never mentions San Francisco. Thank god.
posted by GuyZero at 1:30 PM on February 25, 2016 [11 favorites]
posted by GuyZero at 1:30 PM on February 25, 2016 [11 favorites]
That's because the brogrammers have you all drinking Soylent now. The geeks have leached the hipness out of San Fran.
posted by Diablevert at 1:35 PM on February 25, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by Diablevert at 1:35 PM on February 25, 2016 [2 favorites]
Also, the author is from Oakland.
posted by JimInLoganSquare at 1:35 PM on February 25, 2016
posted by JimInLoganSquare at 1:35 PM on February 25, 2016
I realized mead is just technically much easier to make.
Are you kidding? Yeah, dumping honey in to water is way easier than making wort, but mead (especially long mead) is an absolute bear of a ferment...
I think we need a mead thread, now.
posted by Itaxpica at 1:42 PM on February 25, 2016 [2 favorites]
Are you kidding? Yeah, dumping honey in to water is way easier than making wort, but mead (especially long mead) is an absolute bear of a ferment...
I think we need a mead thread, now.
posted by Itaxpica at 1:42 PM on February 25, 2016 [2 favorites]
Has anyone started a factory to table restaurant? Spam and Velveeta on Wonderbread. Stuff made with Funions. Kool Aid. Beef that is 100% corn-fed from an enormous feed lot. Milk from cows guaranteed to have had those hormones. The comfort of knowing that the edamame are Round-Up Ready soybeans.
posted by Area Man at 1:45 PM on February 25, 2016 [19 favorites]
posted by Area Man at 1:45 PM on February 25, 2016 [19 favorites]
I love this: "'I think the most fucked up thing about the article is the comparison of the so-called small towns to Brooklyn, when it should go the other way... Brooklyn's food culture made its name off of biting other cultures and trends...'"
That said, Columbus is biting Brooklyn SO HARD.
Reminded me of this: How the Brooklynization of culture killed regional music scenes
posted by kevinbelt at 1:51 PM on February 25, 2016 [3 favorites]
That said, Columbus is biting Brooklyn SO HARD.
Reminded me of this: How the Brooklynization of culture killed regional music scenes
posted by kevinbelt at 1:51 PM on February 25, 2016 [3 favorites]
There's been something of an explosion of microbreweries in Indianapolis over the past five years or so. To the point where I'm starting to wonder if there are now more than can be financially sustained long-term and if we'll see some of the lesser ones going out of business in the not-too-distant future. And as with anything where there are so many, there are some that are very good and some that are not so good.
Which is my roundabout way of saying that when Birdsall mentions the local "stout that tastes like chocolate porridge" I wish he had actually named it, so I could either agree or disagree with it.
I know from Indianapolis, and believe me, what's driving stuff there isn't Brooklyn. It's NASCAR...
It's IndyCar, not NASCAR. No, wait, scratch that. It's the Indianapolis 500...even people in Indianapolis don't pay much attention to the rest of the IndyCar series, aside from the 500. But even given that, it's probably the only place in the US where one single open-wheel race is more popular than NASCAR.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 1:51 PM on February 25, 2016 [2 favorites]
Which is my roundabout way of saying that when Birdsall mentions the local "stout that tastes like chocolate porridge" I wish he had actually named it, so I could either agree or disagree with it.
I know from Indianapolis, and believe me, what's driving stuff there isn't Brooklyn. It's NASCAR...
It's IndyCar, not NASCAR. No, wait, scratch that. It's the Indianapolis 500...even people in Indianapolis don't pay much attention to the rest of the IndyCar series, aside from the 500. But even given that, it's probably the only place in the US where one single open-wheel race is more popular than NASCAR.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 1:51 PM on February 25, 2016 [2 favorites]
I definitely think there is an affluent urban cultural homogenization going on across the country. Whether this is an organic process driven by the internet, a deliberate attempt at the replication of urban "success" stories like Williamsburg driven by developers, a mix of the two or something else entirely, it is happening.
The developers always seem to come later in the trend. Or maybe it's different in the midwest, the article kind of glossed over the "benevolent poppa" who sets up these hip restaurants. Quite the contrast between the rapacious capitalists of the city, who view small businesses as merely a stepping stone to getting CVS as an anchor ground floor tenant in their next luxury condo building. Or maybe it's not all that different, I wonder how benevolent their benefactor will be when the rents go up from the concentration ofcapital hipness.
It's easy to take potshots at the hipsters on the next wave of Brooklynization but none of these articles ever seems to take into account the economic considerations of why so-called millenial hipsters all seem to open these kinds of restaurants or barber shops. Could it be because there are zero fucking 'real jobs' out there? Could it be because the banks won't even give the time of day to someone who wants to open something as modest as a food truck or a retail store that isn't a chain?
So if manufacturing anything that isn't hyper-local is a non starter, you have no access to capital or other forms of institutional support, and no one else in your town is hiring that leaves... the service industry. And the way to differentiate is by playing up your localness, by telling a story, emphasizing things like craft over convenience because the only way to pay your rent and yourself is to target the higher end of the market (if you're in the sandwich biz, you can't really try to beat Subway at their own game, so you go the opposite direction and make some fancy ass pickles).
And since you have no real cash to start this whole thing up, the only kind of build out you can afford consists of stripping a deindustrialized building to it's bones, hanging a few edison bulbs, and calling it a day.
Sure beats being an Uber driver in this brave new economy.
An article that shits on both Brooklyn and the Midwest but never mentions San Francisco. Thank god.
Did you miss the Blue Bottle reference? I think there was even more than one.
Last time I was in Brooklyn, I wandered into one of the dime a dozen hip coffee shops in search of a place to pee that wasn't an alley. Only something wasn't right. It was a little off. The signage was a little too slick, the line a little too efficient, the lighting a little to high. Then I realized I had wandered into a sales office for a luxury condo disguised as a third wave coffee shop.
posted by bradbane at 1:52 PM on February 25, 2016 [14 favorites]
The developers always seem to come later in the trend. Or maybe it's different in the midwest, the article kind of glossed over the "benevolent poppa" who sets up these hip restaurants. Quite the contrast between the rapacious capitalists of the city, who view small businesses as merely a stepping stone to getting CVS as an anchor ground floor tenant in their next luxury condo building. Or maybe it's not all that different, I wonder how benevolent their benefactor will be when the rents go up from the concentration of
It's easy to take potshots at the hipsters on the next wave of Brooklynization but none of these articles ever seems to take into account the economic considerations of why so-called millenial hipsters all seem to open these kinds of restaurants or barber shops. Could it be because there are zero fucking 'real jobs' out there? Could it be because the banks won't even give the time of day to someone who wants to open something as modest as a food truck or a retail store that isn't a chain?
So if manufacturing anything that isn't hyper-local is a non starter, you have no access to capital or other forms of institutional support, and no one else in your town is hiring that leaves... the service industry. And the way to differentiate is by playing up your localness, by telling a story, emphasizing things like craft over convenience because the only way to pay your rent and yourself is to target the higher end of the market (if you're in the sandwich biz, you can't really try to beat Subway at their own game, so you go the opposite direction and make some fancy ass pickles).
And since you have no real cash to start this whole thing up, the only kind of build out you can afford consists of stripping a deindustrialized building to it's bones, hanging a few edison bulbs, and calling it a day.
Sure beats being an Uber driver in this brave new economy.
An article that shits on both Brooklyn and the Midwest but never mentions San Francisco. Thank god.
Did you miss the Blue Bottle reference? I think there was even more than one.
Last time I was in Brooklyn, I wandered into one of the dime a dozen hip coffee shops in search of a place to pee that wasn't an alley. Only something wasn't right. It was a little off. The signage was a little too slick, the line a little too efficient, the lighting a little to high. Then I realized I had wandered into a sales office for a luxury condo disguised as a third wave coffee shop.
posted by bradbane at 1:52 PM on February 25, 2016 [14 favorites]
I'm waiting for the day when Hipsters will embrace guilds. Yes, feudal style guilds. I'm certain it'll become a thing.
Of course they would. Where "hipster" is just another pejorative for "millenial," which is just a pejorative for "youth who doesn't embrace Reaganite capitalism," it definitely makes sense that guilds would be embraced. What's the difference between a guild and a union, or other collectivism?
posted by explosion at 1:54 PM on February 25, 2016 [4 favorites]
Of course they would. Where "hipster" is just another pejorative for "millenial," which is just a pejorative for "youth who doesn't embrace Reaganite capitalism," it definitely makes sense that guilds would be embraced. What's the difference between a guild and a union, or other collectivism?
posted by explosion at 1:54 PM on February 25, 2016 [4 favorites]
As a hipster millenial in a non-unionized trade with a completely worthless and toothless (by law) professional organization, yes I would join a fucking guild.
posted by bradbane at 1:56 PM on February 25, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by bradbane at 1:56 PM on February 25, 2016 [3 favorites]
Does he really think homemade pickles and pulled pork are "Brooklyn"?
I know nothing of this pulled pork you speak of, but Brooklyn and pickles? Oy.
posted by Sophie1 at 1:58 PM on February 25, 2016
I know nothing of this pulled pork you speak of, but Brooklyn and pickles? Oy.
posted by Sophie1 at 1:58 PM on February 25, 2016
middle-class people of independent means
Isn't this a contradiction in terms?
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 1:59 PM on February 25, 2016 [2 favorites]
Isn't this a contradiction in terms?
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 1:59 PM on February 25, 2016 [2 favorites]
What I don't understand is how this -
What is the Brooklyn connection? Is he just taking as a given that Missoula, Portland, Seattle, and Chicago are Brooklyn proxies? As mentioned in this thread, a lot of the drivers of the Brooklyn cultural scene are transplants from elsewhere, which suggests that what is happening in Brooklyn is not something intrinsically local.
Instead, what I took from this piece was the growing democratization of cosmopolitanism, which used to be a trait that only well-off people who traveled and lived in well-off cities could possess. Now cosmopolitanism is avaiable to a wider segment of the population, due in large part to the internet exposing more people to more ideas about food, fashion, aesthetics, and night life. Brooklyn is as at least as much a product of that trend as it is an influence on specific aspects of the increasingly homogeneous rich country urban culture.
That said, I tend to think that gentrification is playing a bigger role in defining urban culture than this article suggests. When you have artists and students moving into economically depressed neighborhoods and cities, the businesses that follow will cater first to those groups' interests, which will naturally include aspects of the aesthetic and intellectual zeitgeist, like minimalism, environmentalism, localism, slow food, etc. Those ideas hardly started in Brooklyn and would likely play a role in urban development even if no one ever moved to Williamsburg.
posted by palindromic at 2:00 PM on February 25, 2016 [10 favorites]
That sort of migration helps explain why things that once defined Brooklyn—pottery studios, mead distilleries, or millennials selling their crafts—have turned up all over. Folks like Brooks read about them online, or got into them while traveling or while living in Brooklyn proper, then decided there was no reason their hometowns shouldn’t have them too.- follows from Brooks' story of moving from Indianapolis, to Missoula where he visited Portland and Seattle, before moving to Chicago, then resettling in Indianapolis.
What is the Brooklyn connection? Is he just taking as a given that Missoula, Portland, Seattle, and Chicago are Brooklyn proxies? As mentioned in this thread, a lot of the drivers of the Brooklyn cultural scene are transplants from elsewhere, which suggests that what is happening in Brooklyn is not something intrinsically local.
Instead, what I took from this piece was the growing democratization of cosmopolitanism, which used to be a trait that only well-off people who traveled and lived in well-off cities could possess. Now cosmopolitanism is avaiable to a wider segment of the population, due in large part to the internet exposing more people to more ideas about food, fashion, aesthetics, and night life. Brooklyn is as at least as much a product of that trend as it is an influence on specific aspects of the increasingly homogeneous rich country urban culture.
That said, I tend to think that gentrification is playing a bigger role in defining urban culture than this article suggests. When you have artists and students moving into economically depressed neighborhoods and cities, the businesses that follow will cater first to those groups' interests, which will naturally include aspects of the aesthetic and intellectual zeitgeist, like minimalism, environmentalism, localism, slow food, etc. Those ideas hardly started in Brooklyn and would likely play a role in urban development even if no one ever moved to Williamsburg.
posted by palindromic at 2:00 PM on February 25, 2016 [10 favorites]
which is just a pejorative for "youth who doesn't embrace Reaganite capitalism,"
what
posted by Hoopo at 2:02 PM on February 25, 2016 [2 favorites]
what
posted by Hoopo at 2:02 PM on February 25, 2016 [2 favorites]
It's IndyCar, not NASCAR. No, wait, scratch that. It's the Indianapolis 500...even people in Indianapolis don't pay much attention to the rest of the IndyCar series, aside from the 500. But even given that, it's probably the only place in the US where one single open-wheel race is more popular than NASCAR.
Isn't that weird...I know a lot of people (from Kentucky, admittedly) who actively go to Indianapolis for something they call NASCAR, and that they talk up as a big positive about Indianapolis. Maybe they are just calling it that when talking to me so that I will know sort of what it is? I freely admit that I do not follow any of this car racing stuff, and indeed only visit Indianapolis occasionally - my family is elsewhere in the state.
Huh. Learn something new every day.
posted by Frowner at 2:07 PM on February 25, 2016
As a Midwesterner I always liked: Midwest Discovered Between East and West Coasts.
posted by persona au gratin at 2:08 PM on February 25, 2016 [6 favorites]
posted by persona au gratin at 2:08 PM on February 25, 2016 [6 favorites]
The whole concept of 'brooklynization' seems so deeply arrogant to me. A lot of the things seemingly defining brooklyn as an idea (brewing beer, making sausage, eating offal, selling crafts, flea markets) are things that never stopped in the midwest/south/wherever else they'd like to wrap up into this. There are obviously some larger aesthetic trends in restaurant designs, but MAKING THINGS from what you have around is not exactly new to us in the flyover states.
I guess I'll give them third wave coffee, though. We've appropriated that. Except that third wave coffee, in my mind, doesn't necessarily have its roots in brooklyn either.
posted by anthropophagous at 2:10 PM on February 25, 2016 [9 favorites]
I guess I'll give them third wave coffee, though. We've appropriated that. Except that third wave coffee, in my mind, doesn't necessarily have its roots in brooklyn either.
posted by anthropophagous at 2:10 PM on February 25, 2016 [9 favorites]
If drinking good beer makes one a hipster brooklynite, then wtf.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 2:13 PM on February 25, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 2:13 PM on February 25, 2016 [3 favorites]
I tend to think that gentrification is playing a bigger role in defining urban culture than this article suggests
There's definitely an interplay there. But in this sense I think Brooklyn may have ended up the poster child for this because this started earlier and more intensely there. It all goes back to the drop in crime in the early to mid-90s. In the 80s cultural imagination, the big city was where you went to get mugged, and New York was the biggest of big cities. Then Guliani came in, crime went down, they kicked the junkies out of Tompkins Sq. Park and took down the barbed wire...and a couple years later young, artsy new to the city people started moving to Brooklyn, because they couldn't afford the East Village anymore.
posted by Diablevert at 2:14 PM on February 25, 2016 [1 favorite]
There's definitely an interplay there. But in this sense I think Brooklyn may have ended up the poster child for this because this started earlier and more intensely there. It all goes back to the drop in crime in the early to mid-90s. In the 80s cultural imagination, the big city was where you went to get mugged, and New York was the biggest of big cities. Then Guliani came in, crime went down, they kicked the junkies out of Tompkins Sq. Park and took down the barbed wire...and a couple years later young, artsy new to the city people started moving to Brooklyn, because they couldn't afford the East Village anymore.
posted by Diablevert at 2:14 PM on February 25, 2016 [1 favorite]
Yessssssss now I know where to go eat when I'm in Indianapolis for work next month. Woohoo!
posted by maryr at 2:15 PM on February 25, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by maryr at 2:15 PM on February 25, 2016 [1 favorite]
Indianapolis does have a NASCAR race, the Brickyard 400 (click through if you want to see the hideous actual complete name of the race). It however isn't as famous or popular as the Indianapolis 500.
posted by mmascolino at 2:15 PM on February 25, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by mmascolino at 2:15 PM on February 25, 2016 [1 favorite]
ok but do any of these places have home selzter delivery or shabbos sirens at the edge of the eruv
posted by poffin boffin at 2:16 PM on February 25, 2016 [6 favorites]
posted by poffin boffin at 2:16 PM on February 25, 2016 [6 favorites]
Seattle and Brooklyn are each other's evil twin.
posted by Charles_Swan at 2:17 PM on February 25, 2016
posted by Charles_Swan at 2:17 PM on February 25, 2016
I think that the Midwest is not and never has been immune to cultural trends. This seems not really to be news.
Anyway, if anyone is under the impression that we're becoming Brooklyn, I would be happy to email you some real estate listings that will quickly convince you otherwise.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 2:19 PM on February 25, 2016 [3 favorites]
Anyway, if anyone is under the impression that we're becoming Brooklyn, I would be happy to email you some real estate listings that will quickly convince you otherwise.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 2:19 PM on February 25, 2016 [3 favorites]
This is confusing to me. My dad lived in Portland in the 70's and always described it as a place where people brewed their own beer, grew their own weed and mushrooms, played shows, went to bars and played foosball, walked everywhere, went to parks, people ran their own businesses selling their own leather, sold crafts, etc. He lived here in 1973. Those are all things that people still do here. They're all things made fun of on Portlandia, and they're all things the rest of the world (like my friends in Phoenix) get to point and laugh at as if they're wholly ridiculous, when they really aren't.
So did Portland steal these things from Brooklyn? Isn't it possible that the cultural information of these specific topics and activities could have come up independent of each other? Aren't their studies about human beings that point to similar technologies cropping up in places thousands of miles apart but around roughly the same time? Why is it that Brooklyn is considered the epicenter? That sounds so bogus to me.
You could visit a city for one day, see something you think is really cool and take that information with you as you leave back to your hometown. Did you really appropriate that?
posted by gucci mane at 2:21 PM on February 25, 2016 [9 favorites]
So did Portland steal these things from Brooklyn? Isn't it possible that the cultural information of these specific topics and activities could have come up independent of each other? Aren't their studies about human beings that point to similar technologies cropping up in places thousands of miles apart but around roughly the same time? Why is it that Brooklyn is considered the epicenter? That sounds so bogus to me.
You could visit a city for one day, see something you think is really cool and take that information with you as you leave back to your hometown. Did you really appropriate that?
posted by gucci mane at 2:21 PM on February 25, 2016 [9 favorites]
EXTREMELY STUPID picky grammar note for Eater: The 41-70 restaurant you mention is in Woods' Hole, on Cape Cod.
posted by maryr at 2:21 PM on February 25, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by maryr at 2:21 PM on February 25, 2016 [2 favorites]
"By my count, the planet now has 3,487 “New Brooklyns,” from Stockholm’s SoFo to Hong Kong’s Tai Ping Shan."
— Peter Jon Lindberg writes about The Booklynization of the World in Conde Nast.
"… the sameification of difference.”
posted by Kabanos at 2:22 PM on February 25, 2016 [1 favorite]
— Peter Jon Lindberg writes about The Booklynization of the World in Conde Nast.
"… the sameification of difference.”
posted by Kabanos at 2:22 PM on February 25, 2016 [1 favorite]
Shall we call it merely Urban Hip-land? Does that make it better?
Yes actually, because isn't it really Brooklyn and other places converging on the same thing that isn't what Brooklyn - even in my relatively short life but to be fair I might not know this if I didn't have family from Brooklyn - was?
posted by atoxyl at 2:27 PM on February 25, 2016 [2 favorites]
Yes actually, because isn't it really Brooklyn and other places converging on the same thing that isn't what Brooklyn - even in my relatively short life but to be fair I might not know this if I didn't have family from Brooklyn - was?
posted by atoxyl at 2:27 PM on February 25, 2016 [2 favorites]
Maybe we should just drop the word "Brooklyn" from this conversation and make it about how every major metropolitan area in the US is exhibiting the same symptoms, to varying degrees, of moneyed white cultural homogeneity.
posted by grumpybear69 at 2:29 PM on February 25, 2016 [7 favorites]
posted by grumpybear69 at 2:29 PM on February 25, 2016 [7 favorites]
(Actually as far as I know the part of Brooklyn my family is from has become more and more "nothing but Hasidic Jews next to the hipster neighborhoods" but they don't live there anymore so I might be behind the times even with that)
posted by atoxyl at 2:30 PM on February 25, 2016
posted by atoxyl at 2:30 PM on February 25, 2016
Sure a lot of this stuff has been going on forever in other places but Brooklyn makes it hip. It's not worth paying attention to until it hits New York then it's a thing.
posted by Max Power at 2:33 PM on February 25, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by Max Power at 2:33 PM on February 25, 2016 [2 favorites]
Is there anything more hipster than demanding everything be different and cultural and authentic?
posted by Zalzidrax at 2:38 PM on February 25, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by Zalzidrax at 2:38 PM on February 25, 2016 [3 favorites]
I'd also like to note that I've been making maple syrup using sap from the sugar maple in my backyard. I have no idea whether that's a thing in Brooklyn
DON'T YOU DARE GIVE BROOKLYN MAPLE SYRUP.
Sincerely,
Vermont
OK, fine, I don't live in VT anymore, I live in the "Brooklyn" of Massachusetts with the cocktails and the artisinal donuts and the high rents and some friends of a friend do legit make maple syrup from trees on the bikepath near my house. Which is a terrible idea, btw, because that bikepath may have arsenic contamination. I'm not sure where I was going with this. Not Brooklyn.
posted by maryr at 2:42 PM on February 25, 2016
DON'T YOU DARE GIVE BROOKLYN MAPLE SYRUP.
Sincerely,
Vermont
OK, fine, I don't live in VT anymore, I live in the "Brooklyn" of Massachusetts with the cocktails and the artisinal donuts and the high rents and some friends of a friend do legit make maple syrup from trees on the bikepath near my house. Which is a terrible idea, btw, because that bikepath may have arsenic contamination. I'm not sure where I was going with this. Not Brooklyn.
posted by maryr at 2:42 PM on February 25, 2016
Don't worry, Mary; give global warming five or ten years and Quebec will be the only ones with maple syrup anyway.
posted by Diablevert at 2:45 PM on February 25, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by Diablevert at 2:45 PM on February 25, 2016 [3 favorites]
I'm just glad the cured meat plate obsession has died down. We're in a weird transitional place with lots of vegetables but going out no longer means breaking into pork sweats after the appetizer.
posted by The Whelk at 2:49 PM on February 25, 2016 [4 favorites]
posted by The Whelk at 2:49 PM on February 25, 2016 [4 favorites]
Is this new? Or have provincial lifestyles always imitated the metropolis, no matter where they are? Is this really so different from Emma Bovary dressing according to what she reads in Parisian fashion magazines?
I think what's different in the American context is three-fold:
1. that the US is more multipolar than Paris/provinces: not just NYC, but also LA, SF, to a lesser degree Chicago, etc. are
2. Elevation of certain otherwise relatively minor cities as culturally prestigious: notably Portland and Austin. Though even those are regional centers, and notably university towns.
3. Most significantly, a defensiveness and denial that these practices are at work -- you can totally see this in this thread.
Anyone know of any books on this kind of thing? It's pretty interesting.
posted by crazy with stars at 2:52 PM on February 25, 2016 [1 favorite]
I think what's different in the American context is three-fold:
1. that the US is more multipolar than Paris/provinces: not just NYC, but also LA, SF, to a lesser degree Chicago, etc. are
2. Elevation of certain otherwise relatively minor cities as culturally prestigious: notably Portland and Austin. Though even those are regional centers, and notably university towns.
3. Most significantly, a defensiveness and denial that these practices are at work -- you can totally see this in this thread.
Anyone know of any books on this kind of thing? It's pretty interesting.
posted by crazy with stars at 2:52 PM on February 25, 2016 [1 favorite]
"Pork Sweats" is the name of my Meatloaf cover band.
posted by grumpybear69 at 2:52 PM on February 25, 2016 [8 favorites]
posted by grumpybear69 at 2:52 PM on February 25, 2016 [8 favorites]
So did Portland steal these things from Brooklyn?
Maybe not but it's NYC so it happened more importantly there
posted by Hoopo at 2:53 PM on February 25, 2016 [3 favorites]
Maybe not but it's NYC so it happened more importantly there
posted by Hoopo at 2:53 PM on February 25, 2016 [3 favorites]
It happened 3h earlier except where preempted by local sporting events
posted by poffin boffin at 2:54 PM on February 25, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by poffin boffin at 2:54 PM on February 25, 2016 [3 favorites]
What I don't get is how, in these conversations, Minneapolis never even makes it into the list of "also cool" cities like Portland, Maine. So many of the things being discussed as cool here are things I encountered first in Minneapolis. Just as well, I guess that way my friends who still live there can continue to lead sustainable lives on middle-class salaries!
I do agree there is a problem (or maybe just a phenomenon) of all these neighborhoods starting to seem the same. It's a little jarring to come across the same stores, restaurants, aesthetics, etc. everywhere you go. And I'm fine with people using "Brooklyn" or "Portland" as shorthands for that aesthetic. But to take that a step further and act as if all of that culture emerged from Brooklyn/Portland (as the author of the Bon Apetit piece seems to do) is just silly, provincial, and frankly embarrassingly ignorant.
posted by lunasol at 3:08 PM on February 25, 2016 [2 favorites]
I do agree there is a problem (or maybe just a phenomenon) of all these neighborhoods starting to seem the same. It's a little jarring to come across the same stores, restaurants, aesthetics, etc. everywhere you go. And I'm fine with people using "Brooklyn" or "Portland" as shorthands for that aesthetic. But to take that a step further and act as if all of that culture emerged from Brooklyn/Portland (as the author of the Bon Apetit piece seems to do) is just silly, provincial, and frankly embarrassingly ignorant.
posted by lunasol at 3:08 PM on February 25, 2016 [2 favorites]
There is no Brooklyn but Brooklyn. Do not blaspheme.
posted by Splunge at 3:09 PM on February 25, 2016
posted by Splunge at 3:09 PM on February 25, 2016
DON'T YOU DARE GIVE BROOKLYN MAPLE SYRUP.
Sincerely,
Vermont
Vermont, what the hell do you know about syrup?
Signed,
Quebec
posted by GuyZero at 3:19 PM on February 25, 2016 [2 favorites]
I have spent lots of time in coffee shop/bookstore/art galleries listening to local musicians, and at a little vegan place drinking out of mason jars. And I was a barista at a small artisanal coffee and chocolate shop for a while. In Denver. In the 80s.
I was probably wearing skinny jeans, "ironic" vintage shirts from thrift stores, and Buddy Holly glasses, too.
There has never been a time since I've been alive when there wasn't a significant anti-corporate, DIY-focused youth subculture, and there also hasn't been a time when trends didn't spread, or 'trend,' if you will.
We didn't use the words artisanal and hipster (except 'ironically,' ironically, because it was a sort of old timey word), and I don't remember beards and pickles being specific things, though, so I'm sure those are recent Brooklyn-based innovations.
posted by ernielundquist at 3:35 PM on February 25, 2016 [6 favorites]
I was probably wearing skinny jeans, "ironic" vintage shirts from thrift stores, and Buddy Holly glasses, too.
There has never been a time since I've been alive when there wasn't a significant anti-corporate, DIY-focused youth subculture, and there also hasn't been a time when trends didn't spread, or 'trend,' if you will.
We didn't use the words artisanal and hipster (except 'ironically,' ironically, because it was a sort of old timey word), and I don't remember beards and pickles being specific things, though, so I'm sure those are recent Brooklyn-based innovations.
posted by ernielundquist at 3:35 PM on February 25, 2016 [6 favorites]
What I don't get is how, in these conversations, Minneapolis never even makes it into the list of "also cool" cities like Portland, Maine. So many of the things being discussed as cool here are things I encountered first in Minneapolis
Don't tell them about Minneapolis. Do you want people moving here and driving up the prices?
Minneapolis is so uncool, it's like the deeply uncool step-uncle of cities. It's the fern bar of cities, the fake dive bar of cities, the baggy polo shirt of cities. You would never want to live here. Nothing fun or interesting every happens here, and we are slavish, inferior imitators of the provincial capital, Omaha.
posted by Frowner at 3:45 PM on February 25, 2016 [16 favorites]
Don't tell them about Minneapolis. Do you want people moving here and driving up the prices?
Minneapolis is so uncool, it's like the deeply uncool step-uncle of cities. It's the fern bar of cities, the fake dive bar of cities, the baggy polo shirt of cities. You would never want to live here. Nothing fun or interesting every happens here, and we are slavish, inferior imitators of the provincial capital, Omaha.
posted by Frowner at 3:45 PM on February 25, 2016 [16 favorites]
Minneapolis never even makes it into the list of "also cool" cities like Portland, Maine.
Are you sure they aren't referring to Portland, Oregon? Because I don't think I ever hear anyone refer to Portland, Maine for any reason, while Portland, Oregon is well known as the place the weird hipster culture lives now that Seattle has grown up a bit. Or are the West and East Coasts each operating in parallel cultural universes which share the idea of the local Portland as a cool (albeit weird and slightly pretentious) junior city? I'll admit I don't pay as much attention to east coast culture since my sister left Brooklyn and joined me here in Seattle.
posted by Mars Saxman at 3:52 PM on February 25, 2016
Are you sure they aren't referring to Portland, Oregon? Because I don't think I ever hear anyone refer to Portland, Maine for any reason, while Portland, Oregon is well known as the place the weird hipster culture lives now that Seattle has grown up a bit. Or are the West and East Coasts each operating in parallel cultural universes which share the idea of the local Portland as a cool (albeit weird and slightly pretentious) junior city? I'll admit I don't pay as much attention to east coast culture since my sister left Brooklyn and joined me here in Seattle.
posted by Mars Saxman at 3:52 PM on February 25, 2016
make it about how every major metropolitan area in the US is exhibiting the same symptoms, to varying degrees, of moneyed white cultural homogeneity.
As opposed to middle-class white culture, which features such local restaurants as Applebees and McDonalds.
Cultural homogeneity already happened. The problem is when snake people want to do it another way.
posted by steady-state strawberry at 3:54 PM on February 25, 2016 [2 favorites]
As opposed to middle-class white culture, which features such local restaurants as Applebees and McDonalds.
Cultural homogeneity already happened. The problem is when snake people want to do it another way.
posted by steady-state strawberry at 3:54 PM on February 25, 2016 [2 favorites]
Minneapolis is so uncool horrendously cold I don't think you have to worry about it.
posted by thecaddy at 4:06 PM on February 25, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by thecaddy at 4:06 PM on February 25, 2016 [2 favorites]
I won't say too much to let the secret out, but Minneapolis is near the top of the list of cool cities I've been to.
posted by kevinbelt at 4:39 PM on February 25, 2016
posted by kevinbelt at 4:39 PM on February 25, 2016
Minneapolis is so uncool, it's like the deeply uncool step-uncle of cities. It's the fern bar of cities, the fake dive bar of cities, the baggy polo shirt of cities. You would never want to live here. Nothing fun or interesting every happens here, and we are slavish, inferior imitators of the provincial capital, Omaha.
Yeah and we definitely DO NOT pickle anything. Ever
You're right, thecaddy, we probably shouldn't worry.
posted by Bacon Bit at 4:59 PM on February 25, 2016
Portland is the only place where I hear people say "that's so Portland", especially when it's about whatever newest quirky thing that happens here, before the New York Times has to write an article about (like the unicyclist in a Vader mask). I never hear anyone say "oh that's so Brooklyn!" about anything here.
posted by gucci mane at 5:11 PM on February 25, 2016
posted by gucci mane at 5:11 PM on February 25, 2016
I live in Mississippi. When is Brooklyn supposed to arrive?
Because I will be waiting for it at the curb, waving a hip little flag.
posted by washburn at 5:14 PM on February 25, 2016 [12 favorites]
Because I will be waiting for it at the curb, waving a hip little flag.
posted by washburn at 5:14 PM on February 25, 2016 [12 favorites]
This has absolutely nothing to do with how one gets their pickles or where their tomatoes are grown or unicycles or whatever, it's pure branding. This is what yuppies look like now and the aesthetic they have adopted and I have no idea what its literal historical origins are but I can tell you that over the last 10 years in Brooklyn there was a shift from places looking like places to places looking like WELCOME TO BROOKLYNLAND, and I don't know if all the other cities who also have a neighborhood that shares this aesthetic look similarly self-parodic but I can tell you for sure that they all look the same.
posted by StopMakingSense at 5:37 PM on February 25, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by StopMakingSense at 5:37 PM on February 25, 2016 [2 favorites]
Ok, I'll bite.
Metafilter: we are slavish, inferior imitators of the provincial capital, Omaha
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 5:38 PM on February 25, 2016 [3 favorites]
Metafilter: we are slavish, inferior imitators of the provincial capital, Omaha
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 5:38 PM on February 25, 2016 [3 favorites]
I can tell you that over the last 10 years in Brooklyn there was a shift from places looking like places to places looking like WELCOME TO BROOKLYNLAND
Same thing happened on the north side of Chicago, it's like a giant theme park.
posted by Max Power at 5:43 PM on February 25, 2016
Same thing happened on the north side of Chicago, it's like a giant theme park.
posted by Max Power at 5:43 PM on February 25, 2016
Oh, no, the nice things that were once shibboleths for city dwellers are now widely available for everyone.
The funny thing to me is how much of the recent urban "hipster" (ugh) aesthetic deliberately mimics rural stuff, like lumberjack beards and home pickling, while being ever so slightly wrong. (This image captures what I mean.)
But at the same time, like most complex cultural shifts it is not nearly as simple as imitating Brooklyn or vice versa -- people move back and forth, they read and exchange ideas, and the zeitgeist of the time will appear in many places more or less at the same time.
posted by Dip Flash at 5:51 PM on February 25, 2016 [3 favorites]
The funny thing to me is how much of the recent urban "hipster" (ugh) aesthetic deliberately mimics rural stuff, like lumberjack beards and home pickling, while being ever so slightly wrong. (This image captures what I mean.)
But at the same time, like most complex cultural shifts it is not nearly as simple as imitating Brooklyn or vice versa -- people move back and forth, they read and exchange ideas, and the zeitgeist of the time will appear in many places more or less at the same time.
posted by Dip Flash at 5:51 PM on February 25, 2016 [3 favorites]
That sort of migration helps explain why things that once defined Brooklyn—pottery studios, mead distilleries, or millennials selling their crafts—have turned up all over. Folks like Brooks read about them online, or got into them while traveling or while living in Brooklyn proper, then decided there was no reason their hometowns shouldn’t have them too.This is where I WTF as a native Hoosier. Mead and craft beer popped up everywhere due to deregulation in the 80s and 90s, the same is true of craft distilleries which were deregulated later. One of my first purchases when I turned 21 in 1990-mumble was a bottle of mead from Oliver (not to my taste, but better than any of their wines.)
Pottery and craft stores have been a staple of artsy tourist towns/districts like, oh, Nashville, but I've found them of varying quality all over the United States. I have a tea set from a Nashville shop that's more beautiful than useful. A few doors away was the leather guy who sold me three of the best belts I ever owned and a beautiful bespoke leather briefcase before I went vegetarian in 1990-mumble. My partner found she got the cheesemonger position at the coop grocery (founded in 1976) when she was invited to a artisanal farm down by New Albany.
Back then, that sort of thing was hippie rather than hipster.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 6:35 PM on February 25, 2016 [8 favorites]
Don't worry, Mary; give global warming five or ten years and Quebec will be the only ones with maple syrup anyway.
Americans, always thinking that VT maple syrup is what gives the world maple syrup.
Y'all, I'm an American who lived in the TRUE heart of maple syrup for nearly six years. I love ya VT--esp yer beer--but sorry, La Belle Province provides you and most of the world with what goes on your pancakes and etc.
posted by Kitteh at 6:41 PM on February 25, 2016
Americans, always thinking that VT maple syrup is what gives the world maple syrup.
Y'all, I'm an American who lived in the TRUE heart of maple syrup for nearly six years. I love ya VT--esp yer beer--but sorry, La Belle Province provides you and most of the world with what goes on your pancakes and etc.
posted by Kitteh at 6:41 PM on February 25, 2016
Vermont, what the hell do you know about syrup?
Province of Quebec, Canada: 7, 989,000 gallons harvested.
State of Vermont, USA: 890,000 gallons harvested.
Province of Quebec, Canada: 8,215,000 people.
State of Vermont, USA: 627,000 people.
Province of Quebec, Canada: 595,400 mi².
State of Vermont, USA: 9,623 mi².
Vermont produces more syrup per capita (1.42 vs 0.97 gal per person) and per square mile (92.5 vs 13.4 gal per mi²). Quebec is welcome to provide the rest of the world with what they put on their pancakes - it's usually not real maple syrup.
Also your province is flat and ugly.
posted by maryr at 6:52 PM on February 25, 2016 [3 favorites]
Province of Quebec, Canada: 7, 989,000 gallons harvested.
State of Vermont, USA: 890,000 gallons harvested.
Province of Quebec, Canada: 8,215,000 people.
State of Vermont, USA: 627,000 people.
Province of Quebec, Canada: 595,400 mi².
State of Vermont, USA: 9,623 mi².
Vermont produces more syrup per capita (1.42 vs 0.97 gal per person) and per square mile (92.5 vs 13.4 gal per mi²). Quebec is welcome to provide the rest of the world with what they put on their pancakes - it's usually not real maple syrup.
Also your province is flat and ugly.
posted by maryr at 6:52 PM on February 25, 2016 [3 favorites]
No, QC provides most of the world's maple syrup. I am sorry that is hard for you.
Please provide math that is comprehensible to everyone, not just Special American Math to Make Us Feel Like Yay We Are Not Terrible Anymore Math.
posted by Kitteh at 7:02 PM on February 25, 2016 [3 favorites]
Please provide math that is comprehensible to everyone, not just Special American Math to Make Us Feel Like Yay We Are Not Terrible Anymore Math.
posted by Kitteh at 7:02 PM on February 25, 2016 [3 favorites]
Yeah, regarding arty stuff, one of the great things about being in a small Midwestern city is that it's HELLA CHEAP for artists. We all the time have young chefs come downstate to open their first restaurant where rents are cheap and farms are close, and after working out the kinks for five years they move back to Chicago (with banks much more willing to give them money after they ran a successful business for five years) to open their "big" place. Or, I know several artists ranging from folks in regional juried shows up to a guy who teaches at and is in the collection of the Art Institute who came to open their studios downstate where rent is SUPER CHEAP but they can still easily get to Chicago. (Especially people in 3D media like potters and glassblowers and sculptors who need a bit more space and aren't as mobile.) It's weird that people think the artists have just arrived in outlying cities ... Artists have always fled to where it's cheap!
(And word on the Indiana mead ... I remember being able to buy small local Indiana and Michigan meads in the chain supermarket in the 90s in South Bend ... They all just had a "local meads" section, it was a local thing local people liked but there weren't really national brands at the time.)
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 7:11 PM on February 25, 2016 [2 favorites]
(And word on the Indiana mead ... I remember being able to buy small local Indiana and Michigan meads in the chain supermarket in the 90s in South Bend ... They all just had a "local meads" section, it was a local thing local people liked but there weren't really national brands at the time.)
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 7:11 PM on February 25, 2016 [2 favorites]
I don't care if the Belgians make my beer, but I want to know the person that makes my whiskey.
posted by ridgerunner at 9:10 PM on February 25, 2016
posted by ridgerunner at 9:10 PM on February 25, 2016
Applebees and McDonalds.
always felt bad, malls (and worse, strip malls) and sprawl and being parked in traffic jams always felt bad. (iirc - which i don't, really - this was (probably) addressed in the film reality bites. or it might as well have been.) people want to connect with each other, and make lovely things in ways that provide the feeling of connection, because that legit feels (and often tastes) better - more empowering - than going to applebees and mcdonald's does. (excepting the quarter cheese combo.) i don't know, i'm too old (or something) now to get at all excited about the semiotics of syrup or pulled pork or what have you. if people want to bike around and feel their youth instead of paying stupid car insurance, if that feels good, i'm glad for them. as long as they wear helmets. (which i know they do. some people have adorable helmets. so no problem there.)
posted by cotton dress sock at 9:11 PM on February 25, 2016 [2 favorites]
always felt bad, malls (and worse, strip malls) and sprawl and being parked in traffic jams always felt bad. (iirc - which i don't, really - this was (probably) addressed in the film reality bites. or it might as well have been.) people want to connect with each other, and make lovely things in ways that provide the feeling of connection, because that legit feels (and often tastes) better - more empowering - than going to applebees and mcdonald's does. (excepting the quarter cheese combo.) i don't know, i'm too old (or something) now to get at all excited about the semiotics of syrup or pulled pork or what have you. if people want to bike around and feel their youth instead of paying stupid car insurance, if that feels good, i'm glad for them. as long as they wear helmets. (which i know they do. some people have adorable helmets. so no problem there.)
posted by cotton dress sock at 9:11 PM on February 25, 2016 [2 favorites]
Idk about the rest of the world but my maple syrup comes from Dragonfly Sugarworks as the sweet sticky lord intended
posted by poffin boffin at 9:29 PM on February 25, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by poffin boffin at 9:29 PM on February 25, 2016 [1 favorite]
There's something about artisan food that makes you feel special. Care was put into the product, and you are the recipient! This leads to happy feelings and more money spent.
You're never going to feel special at McDonalds. Even having a standing custom order at Starbucks has gotten pretty old.
Back to the money thing, restaurants don't have a great survival rate, so it makes sense that those still in extistence would have copied (or independently discovered) a formula that successfully gets lots of people to part with lots of money.
posted by mantecol at 10:14 PM on February 25, 2016
You're never going to feel special at McDonalds. Even having a standing custom order at Starbucks has gotten pretty old.
Back to the money thing, restaurants don't have a great survival rate, so it makes sense that those still in extistence would have copied (or independently discovered) a formula that successfully gets lots of people to part with lots of money.
posted by mantecol at 10:14 PM on February 25, 2016
There's something about artisan food that makes you feel special. Care was put into the product, and you are the recipient! This leads to happy feelings and more money spent.
So hipsters exist because of distant parents?
Is there nothing Freud can't explain?
posted by GuyZero at 10:17 PM on February 25, 2016
So hipsters exist because of distant parents?
Is there nothing Freud can't explain?
posted by GuyZero at 10:17 PM on February 25, 2016
You're never going to feel special at McDonalds.
I was at McDonalds yesterday with my kid, and she saw a lady working there and gave the lady a big smile and wave and the lady was so impressed with how polite and sweet and friendly my kid was she came over to us before her break and gave my kid a free Happy Meal toy. And plus I could tell my McDoubles were made with love. Ba-da-ba-ba-bahhh!
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 12:12 AM on February 26, 2016 [1 favorite]
I was at McDonalds yesterday with my kid, and she saw a lady working there and gave the lady a big smile and wave and the lady was so impressed with how polite and sweet and friendly my kid was she came over to us before her break and gave my kid a free Happy Meal toy. And plus I could tell my McDoubles were made with love. Ba-da-ba-ba-bahhh!
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 12:12 AM on February 26, 2016 [1 favorite]
There's something about artisan food that makes you feel special. Care was put into the product, and you are the recipient!
If they're doing it for the love and care, it's surprising they want to charge you $13 for a loaf of that special artisan bread.
It's just marketing. Very very successful marketing, at the moment. And I get it, it's fashion, it comes and goes. But we are deep, deep into emperor's-new-clothes territory here. The people who are struggling, the people who are stuck eating McDonalds because they can feed their family and keep their children happy cheaply - they're the people who I wish could have that fantastic amazing wholesome artisanal bread. Maybe with some tomatoes on it. But those heirloom organic locally sourced tomatoes you're selling in tiny little bags for $6.50 - those aren't for those people. They're just for thesuckers people who can afford to pay $6.50 for a pound of magic tomatoes.
I know this is a stupid thing to get frustrated and angry about, because this is just culinary fashion, no-one (well, not many people) are claiming they're out there saving the world with their ancient grains and small-batch mayonnaise. I guess I just tolerate yuppies acting like yuppies and eating like yuppies when they're wearing suits much better than when they're trying to impersonate an 18th century blacksmith.
posted by Jimbob at 2:29 AM on February 26, 2016 [3 favorites]
If they're doing it for the love and care, it's surprising they want to charge you $13 for a loaf of that special artisan bread.
It's just marketing. Very very successful marketing, at the moment. And I get it, it's fashion, it comes and goes. But we are deep, deep into emperor's-new-clothes territory here. The people who are struggling, the people who are stuck eating McDonalds because they can feed their family and keep their children happy cheaply - they're the people who I wish could have that fantastic amazing wholesome artisanal bread. Maybe with some tomatoes on it. But those heirloom organic locally sourced tomatoes you're selling in tiny little bags for $6.50 - those aren't for those people. They're just for the
I know this is a stupid thing to get frustrated and angry about, because this is just culinary fashion, no-one (well, not many people) are claiming they're out there saving the world with their ancient grains and small-batch mayonnaise. I guess I just tolerate yuppies acting like yuppies and eating like yuppies when they're wearing suits much better than when they're trying to impersonate an 18th century blacksmith.
posted by Jimbob at 2:29 AM on February 26, 2016 [3 favorites]
I know this is a stupid thing to get frustrated and angry about, because this is just culinary fashion,
Yes, yes, it is.
But speaking of intersectionality, the issue you're apparently angry about isn't that some snake people have money -- it's that some snake people have money and they're not spending it on the luxuries you deem appropriate. Apparently big screen TVs and huge houses are completely okay (and huge gardens or something), but God forbid snake people start buying hats or vegan leather shoes or something extravagent like that.
And because of that, we're going to start problematizing things. Snake people are imitating Brooklyn (because it's not possible for a bunch of people to look at something, see it as an alternative to something they dislike, and think hey, I want that)! Snake people are living in luxury the wrong way!
If you want to get upset about a $13 loaf of bread, that's your call. But unless your hatred for that $1.5 million house is equal to your hatred for that $1.5 million condo, then it's probably not just inequality that you're upset about.
posted by steady-state strawberry at 4:17 AM on February 26, 2016
Yes, yes, it is.
But speaking of intersectionality, the issue you're apparently angry about isn't that some snake people have money -- it's that some snake people have money and they're not spending it on the luxuries you deem appropriate. Apparently big screen TVs and huge houses are completely okay (and huge gardens or something), but God forbid snake people start buying hats or vegan leather shoes or something extravagent like that.
And because of that, we're going to start problematizing things. Snake people are imitating Brooklyn (because it's not possible for a bunch of people to look at something, see it as an alternative to something they dislike, and think hey, I want that)! Snake people are living in luxury the wrong way!
If you want to get upset about a $13 loaf of bread, that's your call. But unless your hatred for that $1.5 million house is equal to your hatred for that $1.5 million condo, then it's probably not just inequality that you're upset about.
posted by steady-state strawberry at 4:17 AM on February 26, 2016
sidetrack: Mostly my problem with vegan leather shoes is that they suck to different degrees, and it's awkward when religious and ethical observance conflict with workplace costuming demands.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 4:49 AM on February 26, 2016
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 4:49 AM on February 26, 2016
It's just marketing. Very very successful marketing, at the moment.Yeah, you know what? I think that's kind of bullshit. I am not a snake person, and I do not live in a fancy place or have a very fancy lifestyle. But I take my lunch to work every day, and I can tell you that a sandwich on bread from the bakery is much better than a sandwich on bread from Aldi. Bread from the bakery costs $3.99 a loaf, and bread from Aldi costs $1.25 a loaf, and it is worth an extra $2.75 a week to have the good bread. There's nothing hipster or Brooklyn about the place where I buy my good bread. It actually dates from the early '70s and is more hippie than hipster, although there are definitely some bearded, tattooed guys who work there now. I find this unsurprising, because even out here in the hinterlands, the youngs are not and never have been immune to sartorial trends.
So anyway, I'm sure that some of it is bullshit, but I also think that good food is good, and people will sometimes pay a little more for good food when they have access to it. And where I live, local, small-batch, etc. is not necessarily associated with a Brooklyn aesthetic. I mean, this is the local artisanal gourmet mustard that I buy. It was founded by a German immigrant in the 1880s and is family-owned and operated by the second and third generations of the family that bought it in the '60s, and I think it owes pretty much nothing at all to Brooklyn, although the 20-something production manager does have a beard.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 5:01 AM on February 26, 2016 [6 favorites]
Funny, didn't we have a just have big post about how Southern cuisine was all the rage right now?
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 6:00 AM on February 26, 2016
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 6:00 AM on February 26, 2016
sidetrack: Mostly my problem with vegan leather shoes is that they suck to different degrees, and it's awkward when religious and ethical observance conflict with workplace costuming demands.
Yes, this. It is for this reason that, though I have been varying degrees of food-vegan, I have always stuck to gently used non-vegan shoes. I have really, really hard-to-fit feet and much experience with synthetic shoes and the ensuing bleeding and pain. Mixed feelings about athletic shoes - often fit my feet, often made in terrible, exploitative ways, totally not suitable for work.
I try to buy used shoes that were made by people paid a fair wage in the first place, but I personally have to put not-bleeding-through-my-shoes first. (And indeed, I bled through and ruined a pair of Purcells last year - the heel was absolutely saturated with blood because I couldn't get home to get another pair.
posted by Frowner at 6:10 AM on February 26, 2016 [1 favorite]
Yes, this. It is for this reason that, though I have been varying degrees of food-vegan, I have always stuck to gently used non-vegan shoes. I have really, really hard-to-fit feet and much experience with synthetic shoes and the ensuing bleeding and pain. Mixed feelings about athletic shoes - often fit my feet, often made in terrible, exploitative ways, totally not suitable for work.
I try to buy used shoes that were made by people paid a fair wage in the first place, but I personally have to put not-bleeding-through-my-shoes first. (And indeed, I bled through and ruined a pair of Purcells last year - the heel was absolutely saturated with blood because I couldn't get home to get another pair.
posted by Frowner at 6:10 AM on February 26, 2016 [1 favorite]
I do wonder if the sink or swim DEATH RACE 3000 economy means more and more things are simular. If everyone is copying the popular things because ONLY the popular things survive in an industry that had a huge die out rate even before we went Gilded Age 2.0 then it makes sense everything at a certain level would start to look and feel alike.
posted by The Whelk at 6:46 AM on February 26, 2016
posted by The Whelk at 6:46 AM on February 26, 2016
Please..everyone stay away from NM. Just go..turn right at abq and go to Denver. Nothin' to see here...
posted by judson at 8:05 AM on February 26, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by judson at 8:05 AM on February 26, 2016 [1 favorite]
I have always suspected that the handcrafting/artisan thing is a naturally occurring phenomenon.
I've worked in tech for a long assed time, in various capacities that consist of sitting in front of one of those newfangled cipherin' boxes all day. And it is really really common in those industries for people to get antsy after a while and to get a hankering to make physical things. Lots of people, especially young single people whose home lives weren't demanding, would start fantasizing about being carpenters or lumberjacks or tailors or chefs or bakers, most of them would take up some kind of related hobby, and a subset of them would go into business. Home brewing has been HUGE in tech industries at least since the 90s.
So I have a theory that humans have some fundamental need for physical objects--to make them and to own them--and that increasing automation and junk consumer goods aren't satisfying those needs, so these trends bubble up simultaneously in lots of different places.
posted by ernielundquist at 9:11 AM on February 26, 2016 [6 favorites]
I've worked in tech for a long assed time, in various capacities that consist of sitting in front of one of those newfangled cipherin' boxes all day. And it is really really common in those industries for people to get antsy after a while and to get a hankering to make physical things. Lots of people, especially young single people whose home lives weren't demanding, would start fantasizing about being carpenters or lumberjacks or tailors or chefs or bakers, most of them would take up some kind of related hobby, and a subset of them would go into business. Home brewing has been HUGE in tech industries at least since the 90s.
So I have a theory that humans have some fundamental need for physical objects--to make them and to own them--and that increasing automation and junk consumer goods aren't satisfying those needs, so these trends bubble up simultaneously in lots of different places.
posted by ernielundquist at 9:11 AM on February 26, 2016 [6 favorites]
Bread from the bakery costs $3.99 a loaf, and bread from Aldi costs $1.25 a loaf, and it is worth an extra $2.75 a week to have the good bread
No see that middle ground stuff is great. It's not bread from the bakery that was founded in the 70s I'm worried about. It's the bread from the hipster who founded his bakery last year but who has somehow become a magical ancient artisan in that time.
What I'm trying to get at;
$1.25 Aldi bread: Crappy
$2.75 bakery bread: Perfect
$13.00 "artisan" bread: Wanker
But it's that $2.75 bread from the independent family baker that's starting to disappear, pushed out by chain stores on one side and hipster gentrification on the other.
posted by Jimbob at 12:56 PM on February 26, 2016
No see that middle ground stuff is great. It's not bread from the bakery that was founded in the 70s I'm worried about. It's the bread from the hipster who founded his bakery last year but who has somehow become a magical ancient artisan in that time.
What I'm trying to get at;
$1.25 Aldi bread: Crappy
$2.75 bakery bread: Perfect
$13.00 "artisan" bread: Wanker
But it's that $2.75 bread from the independent family baker that's starting to disappear, pushed out by chain stores on one side and hipster gentrification on the other.
posted by Jimbob at 12:56 PM on February 26, 2016
This article is why Midwesterners like me wish people who call us flyover country would just keep right on flying over.
Cripes. I have lived in one version or another of Midwestern urbanity my entire life. This stuff ain't from Brooklyn, yo.
posted by RedEmma at 1:09 PM on February 26, 2016 [4 favorites]
Cripes. I have lived in one version or another of Midwestern urbanity my entire life. This stuff ain't from Brooklyn, yo.
posted by RedEmma at 1:09 PM on February 26, 2016 [4 favorites]
When good quality baguettes can be had for $2, culture is doing something right in my part of the Midwest.
posted by fraxil at 1:11 PM on February 26, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by fraxil at 1:11 PM on February 26, 2016 [2 favorites]
We're talking about professionals in a largely decentralized service industry who mostly all read the same trade journals, deal with a limited number of equipment and supply sources, and face the same economic pressures from massive luxury chains with international scope. (They also have their own research search engines.) If it's homogenized, I'd say blame Harvard who publishes the case studies used to teach how to run the business.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 1:54 PM on February 26, 2016
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 1:54 PM on February 26, 2016
Minneapolis never even makes it into the list of "also cool" cities like Portland, Maine
I was pleasantly surprised by Minneapolis and St Paul when I went there on a conference last year. It's very true, you hear next to nothing about it and I wasn't expecting much, but it was actually really nice and a lot of fun. By the end I even found some of St Paul's nightlife, but for whatever reason you could walk right past it and not hear a thing from outside.
Also your province is flat and ugly.
Wow. WOW. Now I know that was said in jest but it is so wrong I'm not even sure what to say. I've been to a lot of places in this world and Quebec easily stands among the most beautiful. I mean, what, did you cross the border and look at a suburb and figure that's all there was?
posted by Hoopo at 2:20 PM on February 26, 2016 [1 favorite]
I was pleasantly surprised by Minneapolis and St Paul when I went there on a conference last year. It's very true, you hear next to nothing about it and I wasn't expecting much, but it was actually really nice and a lot of fun. By the end I even found some of St Paul's nightlife, but for whatever reason you could walk right past it and not hear a thing from outside.
Also your province is flat and ugly.
Wow. WOW. Now I know that was said in jest but it is so wrong I'm not even sure what to say. I've been to a lot of places in this world and Quebec easily stands among the most beautiful. I mean, what, did you cross the border and look at a suburb and figure that's all there was?
posted by Hoopo at 2:20 PM on February 26, 2016 [1 favorite]
I mean, you know what *is* from Brooklyn? The pretentious overpricing of formerly authentic culture.
So, if it's the hipsterizing of Americana we can trace to Brooklyn, then yeah. That twee sort of fakery that passes for "local artisanship" is a "style" that I find to be more about Disney than it is about America. But Midwestern small cities have made their own beer and cheese and had chickens, and canned and butchered for longer than "less than a decade."
However, most of us don't buy our backyard chickens for their funky feathers, can our garden produce because we read about it in a magazine (unless its title is Mother Earth News), or pay $300 to learn how to butcher a tiny goat.
my usual rant about New Yorkers and California fuckers thinking they invented everything is coming on, so I'll stop and have myself some local fucking moonshine and let the husky in for a locally produced jerky treat.
posted by RedEmma at 3:34 PM on February 26, 2016 [2 favorites]
So, if it's the hipsterizing of Americana we can trace to Brooklyn, then yeah. That twee sort of fakery that passes for "local artisanship" is a "style" that I find to be more about Disney than it is about America. But Midwestern small cities have made their own beer and cheese and had chickens, and canned and butchered for longer than "less than a decade."
However, most of us don't buy our backyard chickens for their funky feathers, can our garden produce because we read about it in a magazine (unless its title is Mother Earth News), or pay $300 to learn how to butcher a tiny goat.
my usual rant about New Yorkers and California fuckers thinking they invented everything is coming on, so I'll stop and have myself some local fucking moonshine and let the husky in for a locally produced jerky treat.
posted by RedEmma at 3:34 PM on February 26, 2016 [2 favorites]
Of course, I got made fun of for wearing one of these to a gathering of people from the coasts in 1997 after I moved to Duluth, Minn. And now apparently that wool pattern is something of a thing and costs about $150 more than anyone around here would pay. If I were a man, I would have had one of those fluffy beards then too. *rolls eyes*
posted by RedEmma at 3:44 PM on February 26, 2016
posted by RedEmma at 3:44 PM on February 26, 2016
It's very true, you hear next to nothing about it and I wasn't expecting much,
We keep it a secret because it's the best place in the world.
posted by maxsparber at 5:14 PM on February 26, 2016 [1 favorite]
We keep it a secret because it's the best place in the world.
posted by maxsparber at 5:14 PM on February 26, 2016 [1 favorite]
I mean, what, did you cross the border and look at a suburb and figure that's all there was?
In fairness, I have only seen what lies between Vermont and Montreal and it is pretty flat. And mostly not very suburban. And again, in fairness, that's pretty much what the most northern bits of Vermont looks like too. (I'm sorry to offend, it was said in jest.)
(And also that math was not hard or tricksy. VT is tiny compared to QC so per capita and acreage are perfectly valid comparisons. It's a tiny little state made mostly of granite and marble so I'm pretty proud of our trees because other than cows not much else grows all that well.)
posted by maryr at 9:05 PM on February 26, 2016
In fairness, I have only seen what lies between Vermont and Montreal and it is pretty flat. And mostly not very suburban. And again, in fairness, that's pretty much what the most northern bits of Vermont looks like too. (I'm sorry to offend, it was said in jest.)
(And also that math was not hard or tricksy. VT is tiny compared to QC so per capita and acreage are perfectly valid comparisons. It's a tiny little state made mostly of granite and marble so I'm pretty proud of our trees because other than cows not much else grows all that well.)
posted by maryr at 9:05 PM on February 26, 2016
Are you sure they aren't referring to Portland, Oregon? Because I don't think I ever hear anyone refer to Portland, Maine for any reason, while Portland, Oregon is well known as the place the weird hipster culture lives now that Seattle has grown up a bit.
Yep, I am sure. Portland, Maine is often cited as one of the "lesser-known" cool cities (it has a big locavore culture). I believe TFA even refers to it, but I don't really have the stomach to go back and read that thing again.
posted by lunasol at 10:36 PM on February 27, 2016
Yep, I am sure. Portland, Maine is often cited as one of the "lesser-known" cool cities (it has a big locavore culture). I believe TFA even refers to it, but I don't really have the stomach to go back and read that thing again.
posted by lunasol at 10:36 PM on February 27, 2016
I'm sorry to offend, it was said in jest
don't worry, not offended, just surprised. Quebec is huge, and there's a lot of flat and boring like there is in th erest of the country, but there is also some pretty spectacular scenery and places
posted by Hoopo at 4:40 PM on February 29, 2016
don't worry, not offended, just surprised. Quebec is huge, and there's a lot of flat and boring like there is in th erest of the country, but there is also some pretty spectacular scenery and places
posted by Hoopo at 4:40 PM on February 29, 2016
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posted by grumpybear69 at 12:21 PM on February 25, 2016 [6 favorites]