Althouse: An article is irking me, and I express my irritation herein by quoting one sentence.

September 10, 2009

An article is irking me, and I express my irritation herein by quoting one sentence.

"[Amy] Sohn said she and her husband have fallen into a comfortable routine of going out once a week — 'just like Barack and Michelle' — to Park Slope restaurants like Al Di La and Franny’s, Although, she added, 'I can’t call it date night, because if you call it date night you might as well shoot yourself in the head.'"

31 comments:

phosphorious said...: Irked. . . that she didn't call Obama a liar?; 9/10/09, 2:38 PM
Anonymous said...: It's the new way for the moneyed white left. If you don't call something what it is, it isn't what it is. For instance, rationing and shortages are something else. Date nights aren't date nights. They are these other things.

And with words they defy facts. Nice system, really. For awhile.; 9/10/09, 2:42 PM
Dustin said...: Irked that Barack is more of a celebrity than a leader in tough times?

Or irked by the idea that it's bad to say 'date night'. I don't understand the idea that it's wrong to schedule a date with your spouse. Some people are really busy and need to organize their fun. If they stop calling it 'date night' they will call it something else, and then I guess that will become the unfashionable term as well.

Sounds like someone who is more concerned with being outwardly cool. Whatever floats her boat.; 9/10/09, 2:43 PM
Greg said...: Well, at least she admitted the hero worship has gone too far by wanting to shoot herself in the head.; 9/10/09, 2:46 PM
ricpic said...: Calling it date night bothers her so much why? Because it's an admission she's part of a stodgy old couple, no longer a swinging single? I guess that's it. It's the I don't wanna grow up syndrome.; 9/10/09, 2:51 PM
Anonymous said...: Help, I'm drowning in the SWPL Sea!

Peter; 9/10/09, 2:52 PM
mccullough said...: New York City is as provincial as Wasilla, Alaska.; 9/10/09, 2:53 PM
traditionalguy said...: Dates are always fun...but scheduling the same time once every a week with no surprises is called a rut, no pun intended.; 9/10/09, 2:57 PM
Unknown said...: If calling it 'date night' makes it a little more fun, why not? Just because most of Barry's ideas are bad, that doesn't mean the staged ones are, too.; 9/10/09, 2:59 PM
BJK said...: Irking you...perhaps because of the subject's sense of superiority to the people around her, which formed the basis for her book, and which explains why she now finds it hard to make friends.

Could that be it?

WV: nonfo -- slang term for ObamaCare rationing (see also, 'nonfo you').; 9/10/09, 3:02 PM
DADvocate said...: You might as well shoot yourself in the head if you're someone this hung up on what you call going out on a "date" with your husband once a week.; 9/10/09, 3:03 PM
phosphorious said...: Hmmm. . . insight into the world of the easily irked.; 9/10/09, 3:03 PM
ricpic said...: All those Park Slope broads feign unhappiness. It's the fashionable thing to feign.; 9/10/09, 3:04 PM
BJM said...: Althouse, I'll see your irk and raise you one.; 9/10/09, 3:09 PM
former law student said...: I thought Sohn was going to turn out to be Korean.

Any NYT column about New Yorkers' lifestyles irks me. The worst is probably the wedding announcements.; 9/10/09, 3:14 PM
David said...: Nearly everything about the NYT can be explained by its yuppie staff and audience.; 9/10/09, 3:17 PM
Fred4Pres said...: I would shoot myself if I was married to Amy Sohn.; 9/10/09, 3:38 PM
former law student said...: All those Park Slope broads feign unhappiness. It's the fashionable thing to feign.

I guess that's better than feigning orgasm -- for peace in the home, anyways.; 9/10/09, 3:40 PM
Joe said...: If it's not date night, is it "going out to eat and then banging each other night?"; 9/10/09, 3:44 PM
paul a'barge said...: shoot yourself in the head?

To where does one contribute a box of bullets?

wv: skravism
- dunno but it sounds venal; 9/10/09, 3:47 PM
KCFleming said...: She's probably already optioned her proposed book on the divorce, just in case.

I am shamed by a brief pang of envy, only to be reminded how transitory are such idylls as hers, how quickly the world can change and uproot all that once seemed so easy and stable, with them at the upper rungs of the modern elite, seemingly forever and right. But it is, mostly, a facade, a Potemkin village. You can feel the ground moving beneath even now.

One hopes she is never tested, having gotten so far without one.; 9/10/09, 5:24 PM
rhhardin said...: It's the NYT version of a woman.

I recommend moving to rural Ohio.

Autumn.

Actually poison ivy and early soybeans are the first color, around the 3rd.; 9/10/09, 5:58 PM
Joan said...: RH -- isn't poison ivy gorgeous in the fall?

I couldn't bring myself to read the entire article. What's wrong with date night?

I guess I am too bourgeois to care.; 9/10/09, 6:35 PM
Nichevo said...: I guess nobody ever heard of Amy Sohn? Ten years ago she had a little column in the New York Press, a free alternative weekly paper in NYC. Her shtick was writing about her sexuality - i.e. who and where she boffed last week and how it's all such a drag.

I'm sure she looks back and thinks of when her stuff was good enough to share...and weeps. I haven't the slightest doubt she intended to die before she got old.

TW: wayst. Indeed, it is.; 9/10/09, 6:49 PM
BJM said...: @rh, poison oak turns color first out here and you realize its everywhere.; 9/10/09, 6:50 PM
rhhardin said...: Britain was considering importing poison ivy because of its glorious fall color. I don't know if they did.

It probably looks good with nettle.; 9/10/09, 6:54 PM
kentuckyliz said...: The first rule of F*** Club is, you don't talk about F*** Club.; 9/10/09, 8:44 PM
Michael Haz said...: Date night? Feh. Sounds too high-schooly for me.

We enjoy date morning, every day. Quiet time in sleepware (or not, depending on the weather and the mood), a cup of good coffee and the happy realization that we've been given another day together.; 9/10/09, 8:46 PM
k said...: Just like you can't own a minivan or carry a conventional diaper bag or shop at Costco (remember that article?) lest you appear too much like those rubes who don't live in Park Slope and prolly don't even know where it, like, IS.

VW: hessyn - he's syn, or shorthand for hessian?; 9/10/09, 9:36 PM
MadisonMan said...: I would think a writer, being good with words 'n' all, could think up an alternative phrase for date night and just call it that without explanation.

It would not be hard to do for an actual writer.; 9/10/09, 9:44 PM
Ern said...: Until about two minutes ago, I had never heard of Amy Sohn. I'm wishing that I still hadn't heard of her.; 9/10/09, 10:04 PM