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23
User's avatar
Tim's avatar

OMG! Thank goodness EAckerman told me how to travel like a gentleman! I am going to print out these instructions, along with his instructions on how to write a note, dress properly, get my haircut and trim my nose hairs. Oh, and how to clip my finger and toe nails! I need instruction, though, on how to shower properly and apply deodorant. I anxiously await the next column!

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Mike Doherty's avatar

I'll assess Suzy's musical tastes: I'll listen to Submarine by the Marias. This geezer will take the plunge. I pray that Frank or Ella won't roll over in their graves.

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Robert  Hill's avatar

I don't know. Staying married considered is taboo? I'm recently widowed and this story is just too empty in places.

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ronetc's avatar

Unless I am the first commenter, I am sure someone has already said, "strike the 'beautifully' part" in the phrase "beautifully weird buildings" by Gehry.

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WW82's avatar

Suzy’s topic question— Has divorce stopped being a tragedy?—reminds me of an old New Yorker cartoon: Two young women are seated together and one is saying, “I guess it’s time to get my first marriage out of the way.”

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paul goldberg's avatar

Divorce is only an issue if you have kids and not ruin their lives.

They didn’t ask to be put on this earth.

Other wise if you don’t like who you are with what’s the big deal.

Humans are not expected to stay with person for 50 years.

Gets kind of boring don’t you think.

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Tim J Storey's avatar

Seems like there would be a Modern Way to weed out articles like this—which do not inform but just form, or something. Can we subscribe to weekdays only maybe? And what a clever tool “modern” is.

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Franklin O'Kanu's avatar

Love this quote: “do not inform—but rather form.”

This is how cultures, whether good or bad, are formed.

That comment is spot on!

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Daniel Lee's avatar

Dissent. Gehry's buildings are not beautifully weird; they're just weird and pretty much unusable as actual workplaces.

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user name's avatar

I agree

in places where there is snow his building roof lines create snow and ice hazards, which is possibly the least of the objections one could make

gutters were not part of the plan

"just let it all slide off . . . it'll be fine"

"look out below!!!"

" . . . eeeeewwww, are you gonna be alright?"

on a personal idiosyncratic level, I do not trust people who change their names

I am stuck with a first name I don't like

I have never liked it

My surname is not so grand either

I'm gonna ride them out to my death though

Old Frank jettisoned his name and became Frank Gehry

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Tim's avatar

What foresight your parents had to give you the first name “user”!

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user name's avatar

way ahead of their time

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B.'s avatar
2hEdited

"Though divorces have fallen, the culture has shifted to treat them as something worth celebrating."

From cradle through college these many long years, mediocrity and even failure are celebrated ("Good job!"); so is it any wonder that divorces, too, merit participation prizes?

As I said elsewhere today, I feel I must be inhabiting another planet. I just don't get a lot of this stuff.

But then, yesterday at the Morgan, to see the Renoir show, I noticed for the first time a large, framed Land Acknowledgement off the main hall. Oh, come on. I had thought that the Morgan could resist that tripe. And then, strolling up Fifth to see the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center, I smelled that awful perfuming of the outdoor air I had read about. Foul! Made my eyes water! Are they crazy?

And never mind the hordes of Africans selling shoddy knockoffs off dirty blankets flung onto the sidewalks of Fifth Avenue.

I guess the planet I live on is the Past. It was nice while it lasted.

(The Christmas tree is magnificent, set against a dismal sky, and the trumpet-wielding angels along the plaza are the same as they've been all my life. That's something anyway.)

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Susan Russell's avatar

I love those angels and I Love Rock Center. Haven't been yet.

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Clarity Seeker's avatar

Sorry Brave New World

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B.'s avatar

One nice thing, though, Clarity: The tourists were legion. You could hardly move through the strolling crowds, and that included side streets.

And the lines! In Bryant Park, lines stretched to Fifth Avenue to purchase coffee, hot cider and, of all things, grilled-cheese sandwiches. The grilled-cheese sandwiches are, evidently, Instagram-worthy.

At Rockefeller Center, the line to get into F.A.O. Schwartz went down to Sixth Avenue.

Everyone was cheerful. They were all fully dressed (as opposed to summer tourists, who think they've come to the beach instead of the metropolis) and pleasant. It was thrilling to see them, actually.

God, we're such a mixed bag.

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Clarity Seeker's avatar

I am not a NYer but have been there hundreds of times for business or pleasure. Alas Those were the days my friend.

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Clarity Seeker's avatar

Gone with the wind B. But not to worry cause UTOPIA is right around the corner. Or is it Beace New World. Who needs love anyway? Of course there are certain groups not interested in utopia. They support violence even against those who stupidly support them

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steve petarra's avatar

Is that a house?

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Daniel Lee's avatar

No, it's an ego in built form.

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Steve's avatar

That "Building" say a great deal about Modern Culture. None of it good.

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Michael Welsh's avatar

All of these essays are excellent and interesting.

However, they are prima facie evidence that I am even more out of step than I was thirty years ago.

And proudly so, I might add.

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Michael Karg's avatar

Saturdays on The Free Press are for those living a pop culture, on the old "hip, slick and cool" side. Life before 60, you might call it.

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