Whether "Gen-X" or "New-Vic", New York is almost completely self-obsessed. I hope that article was written tongue-in-cheek.

Indeed, muddgirl. I foolishly skimmed through some of the New Yorker's website the other day, and narrowly avoided vomiting when I saw this: 'New York—that “savage’s romance,” as the poet Marianne Moore described it—occupies such a peculiar, powerful place in the world’s imagination that one marvels at those writers who are brave enough to take it on as a subject.'

haters.

That's part of the reason New York is so awesome - it's a storied and self-celebrated place, generating its own legend daily.

Unique New York.

Humbuggery of the tawdriest order.

Well, that was an excruciating read.

So, some people choose to lead uptight lives? There are lots of kinds of people in this world. Just because chirpy magazine writers notice one group this week, and another group the next, doesn't mean things are necessarily changing all that much.

Heaven forfend!

Man, I got all excited thinking this was going to be about The Diamond Age.

Anyway, why all the h8? Where is the l0ve people? It's Friday!

I LUV MOTORHEAD!

New Vics? That's quite a stretch. I guess we've run out of labels to slap on people?

Anyway, why all the h8? Where is the l0ve people? It's Friday!

Here ya go!

Love and Sleep

Lying asleep between the strokes of night
I saw my love lean over my sad bed,
Pale as the duskiest lily's leaf or head,
Smooth-skinned and dark, with bare throat made to bite,
Too wan for blushing and too warm for white,
But perfect-coloured without white or red.
And her lips opened amorously, and said--
I wist not what, saving one word--Delight
And all her face was honey to my mouth,
And all her body pasture to mine eyes;
The long lithe arms and hotter hands than fire,
The quivering flanks, hair smelling of the south,
The bright light feet, the splendid supple thighs
And glittering eyelids of my soul's desire.

I do think there is an air of desperation in stories like this. Journalists have to find something to write about, and I think 'trend packaging' is a pretty seductive way to go. What if you're the first to coin a phrase or name a movement? Instant bragging rights and career boost.
Look what happened with the word Yuppie. I remember when it was a new, irritating phrase. Though it's no less irritating now, it is in the vernacular.

But it is pretty tiring to see this sort of attempt at social Balkanization. Label, label, label.

If it weren't for the prams, I don't think anyone would have thought 'Victorian' at all, anyway.

Golly, Otis, that was.... Golly.

Is it warm in here?

If it weren't for the prams delight that we take in calling them "prams" rather than "baby carriages," I don't think anyone would have thought 'Victorian' at all, anyway.

Or so I suspect, anyway. It's the little touches like this, the little self-inflicted flourishes and markers of "lifestyle" rather than the general way of life* that allow the broad strokes of labelling.

*Though the article puts emphasis on the "Home and Hearth and Eating," is it really all that unusual for newly settled couples to take up home renovation or gardening or other home-based activities?

Yeah, it's like, "OMG,]young women are settling down, focusing on family and careers, worrying about their future, and saving money! They're not Girls Gone Wild?! They're not partying or slacking or messing around?! The humanity!!"

Elsa, it was written by a True Victorian.