On The Turning Away

Crossposted.

Crossposted.

A quiet revolution, of the aqua sort, is underway in Manhattan’s high-end or green-conscious dining establishments. Soon, you’ll be paying $5 per glass for “homemade, specially treated sparkling water from the tap”. And bottled water, part of the “bottled water and tofu” Gore era emblem for Bobos, is fast becoming an environmental pariah. Who knew?

Bloomberg’s city hall is purportedly to have spent $700,000 on a PR campaign urging New Yorkers to drink from the tap, although New York City is among the 34 cities that haven’t tested their drinking water for drugs, or “trace pharmaceuticals”, as shown present in water providers in the 24 cities AP investigated last month.
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Another day, another update on the attention-grabbing sexual harassment suit by former trader Andrew Tong against SAC Capital. CNBC reported today that EEOC is “ramping up its inquiry into” the accusations that include the sensational “female hormones” and a sexual assault where Tong “claims to have been tied up” by his then boss and start trader Ping Jiang.

“EEOC investigators have recently taken the unusual step of doing an
“on site” interview of Jiang at SAC’s New York City headquarters where
he works. Such interviews rarely take place at company locations,
say people with knowledge of the EEOC’s activities.”

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You can always count on NYPost to bring you the latest scandal du jour. “Two in the Sac“, about a “scurrilous” lawsuit by an ex-trader, Andrew Tong, against Stevie Cohen’s SAC Capital, sends Wall Street into a tailspin. First reported by CNBC yesterday afternoon, the suit alleged “sexual harassment” by the married trader’s superior - Ping Jiang, a star trader and a neighbor of Yoko Ono - that ultimately resulted in an affair between the two men.

It has all the elements of a New York drama of money and intrigue: top secretive hedge fund, bizarre claim of estrogen hormones, and a salacious homoerotic affair. At the center of the complaint is an alleged “training program of strict confidentiality”, ostensibly for “the elimination of Tong’s alleged personality flaws”. Details from court documents include Tong’s wearing “certain kinds of clothing at work” as a result of taking illicit female hormones, at the urge of his boss.
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Walking up Columbus Ave the other day, we noticed the closure of Hunan Park, an unassuming place that served somewhat bland Chinese. Nearby, the demise of Aegean, a Greek restaurant, was more conspicuous in the summer. And a popular Malaysian eatery across the street also decamped. Are Greek and pan-Asian/Chinese out of favor or what?

The subject of changing palates came up when we shot the breeze with friends recently. One of our pet peeves has been the growing number of Thai eateries in the city, against the backdrop of ever dwindling presence of Chinese restaurants. It’s no seismic shift, as our friends reassured us. After all, Thai cuisine, to most people, is nothing more than spicy Chinese food.
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On the last business day of September, Gawker ran an “easy money” post, ostensibly mocking a personal ad on Craigslist. It went viral and pretty soon everybody in town got wind of the plight of the “spectacularly beautiful” 25-year-old woman. Progressive types scorn the anachronistic exchange of beauty for wealth, much less lament at the spectacular failures of feminist movement; others appreciate, if not outright applaud, the candor with which Miss Golddigger acknowledges her vulnerability.

Then someone from “Diversified Industrials Investment Banking” at JP Morgan, who proclaims to be fitting the bill (making 500k, etc), perhaps in a rare moment of altruism, bares it all in economic terms: the woman is a “depreciating asset” and himself an “earning asset” that will grow in perpetuity. He concludes, rather persuasively, that a “pump and dump” deal might be the best outcome.

True to its digital motto - “all the news that’s fit to click” - the NYT picked up the “Acquisitive Craigslist Post” yesterday. It fact-checked the banker’s existence, albeit not the identity of the purported respondent. Nonetheless, last we checked, it’s No. 2 on the Most Emailed List.
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“[W]hat better time to hook up than a beautiful fall evening while waving a banner for democracy?” Wait, scratch that, and replace it with Obama. Now you have a perfect pinup for the “young and intelligent”: the Illinois senator is having a fund-raiser rally tonight in Washington Square Park.

As always, it takes Gawker to decode the message: “the hottest rally in New York” will should “provide even the most unattractive and inept among you with the opportunity to get some hot, politically-motivated ass.”

We can debate whether “[l]eftie girls are easy“, but their hero’s voice we heard at last night’s Dems debate wasn’t all that bold inspiring. In fact, there seemed little daylight between Sen. Obama and Sen. Clinton, on issues ranging from troop withdrawal to social security reforms.
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If a quick trip to Whole Foods is any guide, the Le Retour season seems to be in full swing. That any hour is rush hour is unpalatable even by New York standards: permanently-tanned and blackberry-clutching self-important locals; Eurotrash standing two-and-half-wide on the escalator; stroller-pushers; Japanese flocking to see and to be seen.

Color us enochiophobic. We simply fail to see the attraction of sauntering down the aisles - perhaps to be greeted by produce in abundance and variety? Three years ago, grabbing a coffee at the Whole Foods and indulging in a spot of people watching could pass for a novelty pastime. After all, there were beautiful attractive people. At least in our estimation.

Anyone who’s been to a Marks & Spencer (M&S) in the UK would find the whole (parochial) phenomenon amusing. Unless, of course, you’re in the know - Whole Foods is not just an upscale farmers’ market but a fashionable meet-up spot.

If you’re a regular gym goer, you may have your fair share of enduring the nuisance of someone grunting, pathetically, while lifting weights. The other top “pet peeves” include not racking weights when done, slamming of weights, and lounging around.

What about people who “war-whooped”, “hollered, ‘Great song!’ and ‘You go, girl’”, ad nauseam, next to you, pedaling?

The “gym spin-out” incident maybe extreme, but the media miss the point if they only spotlight the altercation. What needs to be addressed is, among others, gym etiquette. While gyms have rules posted on the wall, there are also unspoken ones self-respecting exercisers observe.
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