That's a gift link — like all NYT links — so you can see the very bed where she prefers to sleep and lots of other rooms in the cozy, catty house. The cattiness is in the artworks, not a lot of real cats, though there is one real cat, seen in 2 of the photos. I really like this house, especially with its tiny guest cottage, used as an office.
Speaking of travel — I'm a connoisseur of travel critique — I wanted to show you...this video clip of a man who is quite concerned about men. I want to see if you notice what I notice:
I'll add my observation in a little while. I just want you to have a chance to make your own observation before I let any more of my influence leak out onto you.@vincecrane_ Where did all the men go?
♬ original sound - Vince
ADDED: My observation is that the guy was looking in restaurants and that seems to mean that women like to spend time in restaurants. Men could be somewhere else. Many people in the comments said basically the same thing.
AND: Restaurants are such an important part of travel. If you love to spend time in restaurants, then it's great to find yourself in a position where you simply must go to a restaurant every day — probably 3 or more times a day. Grace Coddington said "I hate travel. Just the slog of it. I like sleeping in my own bed." One could also say "I hate travel. Just the slog of it. I like getting food in my own kitchen."
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89 comments:
Ha, ha - they are working. (At real jobs, not social media influencers)
Guys go out together after work. And if i remember my younger days, go out in pursuit of women. Most men don't think getting together with a group of guys for dinner to be fun.
Its the same with "Brunch". Women have brunch. Men dont.
He keeps making this weird motion with his right hand...
To his point: Women need validation from others. They are no longer getting it from men, so the get and give it to and from each other. Men are far more self sufficient (as a rule).
Shouldn't he have done that TikTok thing sitting in his car?
'No groups of guys anywhere'. At least, not that he's willing to provide any pictures of, or even make an effort to find. Did he go to any gyms? Any sporting events? Any places where it might be likely to find guys? Or just restaurants with lots of potted plants?
It's an interesting observation.
In my experience, men went out in small groups in college, to the bars any night or to a restaurant, usually Sunday night. But in the working world, it was different. I'm sure the reasons are many.
Women are indeed more attuned or comfortable going out or meeting together in larger groups.
I'm no fan of travel either. The biggest issue is that it's boring to me. You can do some fun or exciting things, but it's also many hours without access to my tools or my own projects that keep me busy. I'm rarely bored at home, but away I just don't have enough to do.
I used to get really excited by having time off from work, even weekends. Retirement ruined it for me. I miss that.
Travel is hard work, generally. At some point, the juice isn't worth the squeeze.
Are pussy cats female sex, feminine gender?
The men are at home doing laundry and the dishes crocheting Afghans and darning socks. Yeah, I'm letting the secret out. That's what we're doing, and it's our right to do it.
Rich crazy cat lady lives in the Hamptons.
"Her preferred brand of colored pencil is Caran d’Ache." I love their pens!
When I was young, I wanted to travel and see the world. Now I have the time and money, but no desire. Maybe it was just wanting what was out of reach then, but when I think about doing it, I just see myself standing in lines, surrounded by other tourists, looking at cheap junk. It seems more like punishment. Enjoying your time becomes a job with appointments and paperwork and goals, and that's what you are trying to get away from. When I do travel, the one thing I enjoy is the same thing I enjoy at home: driving, just randomly following new roads, seeing how regular people live and build, and enjoying the scenery, maybe stop and have lunch in a small country town far from people like me.
One thing that I really, truly, despise about liberals is their absolute conviction that all right and proper people should rightly share the idiosyncrasies they fetishize. Neither Althouse nor Grace Coddington will ever experience:the wonder of entering the Lion Gate of Mycenae and thinking that 3000 years ago Agamemnon rode his chariot out of this gate to lead the Greek city-states against Troy. Or toured the Palace of Knossos and gazed into the oldest throne room im Europe. Or stood between the front paws of the Sphinx.
Their loss.
The ladies are out together talking, which is exactly why the men are home where it's peaceful. When women stayed home, the men went out for the same reason.
That wasn't Texas beach? Or an East coast beach? Or a southern beach? The rocks are wrong. Yet everyone is wearing light colored clothes as if it was somewhere far south.
Guys go to sports bars and pubs? Guys don't arrange to eat lunch together? Guys don't network at lunch? Guys don't go to tourist places?
He keeps making the letter C with his hand. He evidently hates women and sees them and only them everywhere. He needs help.
Her house is my speed. Like.
When I travelled I saw the Sistine Chapel, real castles, cathedrals, the Alps, the Highlands, Jerusalem. Afterwards, when I knew they were for sure real, I learned about them. No, not really. Afterwards, I was interested in how they influenced us.
Don’t go where you might not feel welcome? It’s just a guess. A stab in the dark.
You never appreciate what we have here in this country until you travel and see the rest of the world.
Blue state airports - esp the large hubs - SUCK.
'...You never appreciate what we have here in this country until you travel and see the rest of the world....'
That's a very true statement. Also, once you've lived in a few different places that don't have it so good, it makes one eager to return home, and it also makes one much more attuned to what you stand to lose if you don't pay attention.
He is going to places where women like to go ....so of course he is going to see more women. Men have different general likes and events that they would want to go to. Not to be disparaging to the guy in the video...but he is making my gaydar go off a bit. (Nothing wrong with that....he just probably doesn't go where other men usually do group together . He has his own interests)
Men don't usually have "friend groups" that go out to fancy lunches or shopping or art festivals and gaggle around in a group. Men will meet up at sporting events sure. Meet up after work for a drink. Do things together usually task oriented...like work on a car, go hunting, help with another guys project.
My husband likes to go to the local real estate office in the morning, drink coffee and shoot the breeze with the guys. It isn't a date, it isn't required and if you just don't show up...no one cares. Women get all pushed out of shape in someone in the "friend group" doesn't perform as expected. Get all catty 😉 about it. (This is the reason why I avoid women in groups in general. Have a couple of good female friends and we expect nothing from each other)
“ I just want you to have a chance to make your own observation before I let any more of my influence leak out onto you.”
Well….eww. Anyway, it’s good to travel so that you learn to appreciate how much better it feels not to.
One nice thing about being an American is that everywhere you go in the world anyone who takes money speaks English.
Has anyone ever used a squat toilet?
In the city near me, I only notice couples and families out together. I haven't seen groups of women, or men, since I left Europe. There, it was common to see groups, largely of military folks, out together.
To be fair I haven't been to the types of places he's probably frequenting in a long time.
Sure. Travel while you're young, healthy, resilient, and adaptable enough to put up with the difficulties and frustrations. Eventually you're going to end up an old stick in the mud stuck in the mud, so take that junior year abroad, go overseas, find a base, and make excursions from there, rather than going abroad every year for a week or two.
FWIW, maybe combined BS/BA programs will be the salvation of humanities departments. Learn a language, study abroad, have fun, but also get a career that will support you.
I saw a FB Reel last night where a woman who lived in China and had traveled to America and noticed the difference between toilet facilities. She said one place in China had four squatting toilets in a row, with no privacy partitions between them. She said that in America even the men's urinals have privacy partitions (she obviously hadn't seen them all, but still )
Did he go to a sports bar?
Have guys ever gone out in groups like that? I don't think so.
See what happens when you close all the bathhouses?
Dude needs to visit Wilton Manors, near Fort Liquordale. More dudes than you can shake a stick at, so to speak.
I don't know where he hangs, but my experience is just the opposite. Places I go have overwhelmingly more men than women, and I don't even want to be around lots of men.
I bet he is right. I don't travel that often anymore. I do travel - but I don't pop around all over the place like he is describing.
Men don't talk to other men for all sorts of reasons. It is a thing.
First , if a woman talks to a man - the man automatically thinks "you want to have sex, don't you."
the women - just wants to chat. (I'm generalizing)
So often women don't talk to men . But women want to talk.
I love talking to complete strangers. I prefer it.
I assume straight men and married men - worry that the other guy just wants to have sex. (I'm generalizing again)
anyway - I was on a southwest flight to Salt Lake last year - and the plane was 100% full. I sat next to a woman who breeds doodle dogs. We had the best conversation and when we landed we walked thru the airport together and gave each other a hug goodbye. She told me about her children and how one of them runs a tattoo shop in Ogden. I don't keep in touch with her - but I know where I can get a precious doodle dog.
If I tell hm we'll have to find another place.
I enjoy travel, but only if I plan to spend at least a week in a place, usually much longer, and I need to have at least an apartment with a kitchen. So is this really "travel", or just living somewhere else for a while?
Old and slow - That's how we travel. 2 to 3 months at a time and lots of Airbnbs. We're living somewhere else for awhile.
I’ve confirmed that critique here on the blog. Boston has the same gaggles of women but no groups of guys. His theories are crap. The guys in my family left for hunting camp on Sunday while the women shit on them. My theory is there are differences between men and women. Guys don’t like to hit fancy restaurants to see each other and drink fifteen dollar cock/mocktails. Radical I know…
…ask Mr Margaret Mead how many hetero couples he saw..
…she has puking chicken pitchers. Nice…
"She told me about her children and how one of them runs a tattoo shop in Ogden."
This would be my wife. For me, I can't tell you how much I wouldn't care about some stranger's child's tattoo shop. Men and women are different. Nothing wrong with that.
Nice house, but I'd hate to have to dust it. More than two cats is a sign of mental illness. Couldn't put my finger on anything specific about the video, except for the gay vibe others have noticed. I did wonder if that was actually his hand, or someone else's, making all those gestures.
"For me, I can't tell you how much I wouldn't care about some stranger's child's tattoo shop."
You and me both. The worst thing about flying is having to sit next to someone like that. Lady, I'm sure you're a fine person and all, but I don't want to talk to you and I'd really prefer to not hear your stories.
I mean, I've just come back from the Czech Republic to see my son, whose Czech. It's not true, there, a normal mixed crowd, 60 ℅ men, 40℅ women. It must something particulia0rly American. Even here, in England, the pub are overwhelmingley men, what's left of them ( I mean the pubs, not the men! Though you could say that, to! )
O Mike - It was the entire discussion that was enjoyable. Not just the tattoo shop. We mostly talked about her dog breeding business. Just a nice person. I always feel lucky talking to a genuine nice person. I'm rather a curmudgeon - but I have a nice side too.
Mason G - I often retreat into "leave me alone mode" on airplanes.. But not always.
O-Mike - As far as your wife - it's a good thing she likes to talk - she invited me to tag along on your trip to New Zealand to star-gaze. ;-]
more than 2 cats = crazy.
Testify.
"It was the entire discussion that was enjoyable."
I understand. I would have found the entire discussion a bore, merging into excoriating the longer it went.
As to my wife inviting you along; she would.
Though I don't know that you would qualify as a 'stranger' at this point.
Well it was not a bore. and I know what boring conversations sound like.
A very long time ago I was stuck sitting next to the most excruciating guy imaginable. Blizzard forced landing in CO Springs.
Pure. HELL.
I can't do small talk. It's a curse. I wish I could. I think I'm a sociopath or something, because I just don't care what strangers have to say about anything. I know - I'm awful, but at least if you're female, I'm probably thinking about having sex with you. That's a good thing, right? Should I mention it? I got nothing else, and it is something that we could both talk about.
"I can't do small talk. It's a curse. I wish I could."
I can do it, I just don't enjoy it. *Unless* it's about something I have an interest in; in which is it "small talk"? I want to talk about ideas and things, not about people I don't know and will never meet.
Maybe they should have special sections on planes for those who like to shmooze and those who don't.
Travel is great now that Mrs. Maynard and I are retired.
In an earlier life, we both had consulting jobs with a lot of travel. It got tiresome after a few years.
Now the best thing is not worrying about delayed or cancelled flights.
I'm cursed with the same affliction my father had. I'm antisocial and hate chitchat, but when thrust into a social environment where it is called for, it just pours out and people seem to love it, so they seek me out.
I traveled extensively with my parents and brother as a child.. throughout the US, Canada, Mexico, Central America. It was fun and interesting because as a child I had no responsibilities. As a Teen and Young adult, I traveled with friends to Ireland, England and parts of Europe .Spain, Portugal, Italy (skipped France). It also was fun, interesting, and exhausting..
Now as older adults, and partially retired...I still like to travel, but only for a week or two. Camping in our RV is fun. Taking a few days to explore areas that we haven't been to yet or haven't been in years. Staying in a new hotel...visiting new restaurants, scenery and meeting new people. Again fun, no pets to worry about, no responsibilities for a short time other than to pay the bills and have someone watch our property.
The best part about going home is that everything at home somehow seems new. Looking at it with different eyes. Different yet comfortably familiar.
Travel? As we speak my wife, age 76, is stuck in the airport in Entebbe, Uganda, because Qatar Air screwed up her return by failing to route her through one of the Ebola screening POEs. She was not allowed on her 1 AM flight even though it went through Doha where remedies were available. Given that the fare was $thousands you’d think somebody could get it right or at least be helpful. I hate travel too.
I traveled a lot for work -- all 50 states and then some. The idea of flying now doesn't do a thing for me. I like trips to nearby. Door County is great.
The men exist, they haven't disappeared, so they have to be *somewhere*. So it's pretty lazy of him to not find out where they actually are. Did he even bother to ask anyone?
The fashion lady was quoted as saying Caran D'ache was her favorite brand of colored pencils, but her pencil box in the photo was full of Prismacolor.
I hate to travel. Every time we pull out of the driveway/cul-de-sac to go somewhere, I'm already counting the minutes until we're pulling back in.
For colored pencils of Caron D’ache:
Luminance 6901, wax-based, richly pigmented, with excellent lightfastness.
Pablo, firmer, water-resistant pencils suited to detailed drawing.
Supracolor Soft, water-soluble colored pencils that can produce watercolor effects.
Museum Aquarelle, artist-grade watercolor pencils.
I think Luminance is best, but overall best is Faber-Castell Polychromos, because they are hard and good for detail.
Watch any nature show, males tend not to hang out together like females. I also don’t see men hanging out in public together nor talking about doing so. Deer stands, duck blinds, fishing boats, poker tables, diners are places men congregate. Beaches, fancy restaurants, shopping malls are good places to find women. Go to any restaurant that opens before sunrise, there you’ll find men.
Travel is an expensive hobby. but it's cheaper than golf. I travel in order to spend time in places I like better than where I live, which is Las Vegas, and which I don't particularly like. I have recently been in Montréal, Budapest, Vienna, and Prague, ll of which I enjoy more then Vegas. But getting there can be a huge pain in the proverbial ass.
Travel isn't cheaper than golf. You can spend a lot of money on golf if you travel to remote golf "destinations." However travel to just about anywhere costs far more than playing regularly at a few local courses.
Are there no "dive bars" anymore? That's where the men are.
Every restaurant in town, at lunchtime, is FULL of women. Very few men, except the retired types, and they are sitting with their wives
My dad, late in his life had a great lunch group with five or six others. Guys from my cousin’s high school class (1959) meet for lunch every few weeks. My brother’s navy squadron mates travel together most every fall. Ditto my son and several college track teammates. When I lived in Tokyo, I went with two coaches and the guidance counselor at the international school my kids attended, one night a week in search of the best gyoza on the planet. Good times!
I talk to people on trains, planes and in shops and restaurants. It’s not hard to know when-to and when-not-to. Small talk sucks but people a long way from home are likely to tell interesting and very personal tales. I once talked for hours with the minister of aviation of a middle eastern country on a night train between Salzburg and Geneva. When I asked why he was on a slow-moving train instead flying, he admitted he was terrified of flying. I’m still in touch with fellow solo travelers met as far back as 1980 (both men and women). I don’t do groups and, to me, the definition of travel hell would be a week sharing a boat with thousands of others. I don’t cruise. Can’t even imagine it.
I’m not demanding or aggressive in seeking companionship, it just seems to easily find me. I am thankful for that.
Circumstances have kept me at home base since April and I hope to be far away again in a few weeks. Destination undecided but most likely somewhere between Japan and Singapore.
He makes a completely different point regarding men. Paraphrasing, for guys, there is a lack of men forming new friendships after college and high school.
What does this have to do with women gathering more, or more visibly (still seems the key to me), than men?
Restaurants have lost their power for male camaraderie except those types that others cite here -- the local coffee-and spot, the hamburger diner, etc. Restaurants about 20 years ago became ever more theatrical as a major part of their appeal. The big reveal was the food. There were all those silly presentation quirks with the sauces and their mocha-latte shapes and designs.
I remember being in an irregular dining group. The women loved this stuff. The men made fun of it gently because the truth was, they loathed it and knew it meant there was a lot of junk pumping up the restaurant's profit-margin calculation. More junk means less food. Our group eventually shifted more toward dinners together in our own homes. And everyone seemed to like that.
I think women, in general, don't care as much about food as a man. In a restaurant, they are going into that weird salad-happy mode; or they are going to order vegetarian mush; or just a wrap, the true culinary equivalent of a turd.
As a great man said, What do women want? Can be hard to figure at times.
Also, our American society has become extremely feminized. Way overly feminized. So women want to be seen in that context; they want others to know they are ENJOYING LIFE to the fullest! Whereas men are definitely seeking havens from the overly feminized atmosphere. As someone commented up above, women going out more today means men staying home, or its equivalents, more. And it would be vice versa in other circumstances.
"Neither Althouse nor Grace Coddington will ever experience:the wonder of entering the Lion Gate of Mycenae and thinking that 3000 years ago Agamemnon rode his chariot out of this gate to lead the Greek city-states against Troy. Or toured the Palace of Knossos and gazed into the oldest throne room im Europe. Or stood between the front paws of the Sphinx."
And you will never experience how silly it is, to me, that your appreciation of history and art has so much to do with your personal body standing somewhere. Between the paws!
I'm more concerned with the great potential that if I were to go to see the Sphinx, I'd be stuck seeing it festooned with tourists trying to get off on standing between the paws. And then I'd have to try to feel the right feelings so the purpose of my slog of a trip would be fulfilled. But I'd know that was phony and I'd prioritize truth-telling and experience the awe of how could I be so stupid.
I mean, really, how does that "entering... and thinking" work? You get to the place and you think the appropriate thoughts. So you're there and you think about how, long ago, Agamemnon was also there. But what you are doing is the furthest thing from what he was doing. What would he think of you? Are you somehow identifying with him and feeling augmented with heroism? But you're just a piddling tourist on a dumb bucket-list trip. If you want to get high *imagining* yourself in grand historical events, why don't you read history books?
This idea of "the wonder" is such bullshit. It's one thing to be a wide-eyed child on Christmas morning... when you are younger than 7. A grown adult going on a planned trip to a famous destination is not going to experience anything that deserves to be called "the wonder." If you tell me you really do, I'm only going to think you are bullshitting.
If you really have the capacity for wonder, it should be in play whenever you notice a bumblebee on a flower.
I think these experiences really are different for men. Men tend to build things, to have a determination in construct, in achievement. To stand in a place where something profound and magnificent happened brings not a sense of wonder, like a child, but of respectful awe. 'Something great happened here'. When I saw the pyramids, it was from a horse, and that was awe. I didn't see any tourists, although they were there. Same when I saw a bunch of shot up Zeros on an old airstrip in Papua as I was scouting gravel. Or walking into some of Europe's cathedrals. There's nothing stupid or childish about those feelings, and the emotional connection is only made stronger by the history you have absorbed prior to going there.
If you were walking into the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusulem, would you truly feel no sense of wonder or awe, and not even for a moment reflect on what ended there, and what started, at the same moment, and what it has meant for the world, from that very spot? I can't imagine thinking that it would be an insignificant experience, a mundane sweaty exercise with too many people around. They would be there, but it would always be incidental - even though I hate crowds and tours.
I love travel. I even love the slog, unless it's in Columbus, Ohio, or its environs.
The slog of driving from Banff to Surrey BC was incomparable.
"If you were walking into the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusulem, would you truly feel no sense of wonder or awe, and not even for a moment reflect on what ended there, and what started, at the same moment, and what it has meant for the world, from that very spot? I can't imagine thinking that it would be an insignificant experience, a mundane sweaty exercise with too many people around. They would be there, but it would always be incidental - even though I hate crowds and tours."
It's the stress on being there that spoils it for me. I could feel deeper feelings — things that might make you want to use the words "awe" or "wonder" — but not on schedule. Not after being imprisoned in a metal tube for hours and confused by signage and time changes and forced to rely on a hotel bed and restaurant food. Not with a crowd of people who are talking out loud about their own planned experience of awe. I would prefer to be alone with a book, perhaps an audiobook while I walk in the woods near my home. The experience is in the mind, so tell me the value of where the body is.
A cool book on this topic is "Innocents Abroad" by Mark Twain.
Ann Althouse said...
If you really have the capacity for wonder, it should be in play whenever you notice a bumblebee on a flower.
It's wooly caterpillar time again. It's why I don't wear ear buds when I walk. I want to hear the sounds around me. I walked Dick Young prairie park yesterday. I found out that Wild Bergamot(I had to look it up, Meade) not only exists in blue but in purple and pink as well. Almost stepped on a big Garter Snake. sunning on the trail. Saw a vivid green Praying Mantis in the grass. And the aforesaid Wooly Caterpillars.
People are looking for something "real" and "authentic." "Being there" is seen as a way of cutting through the second-hand stereotypes and phoniness. The emphasis on being there can be mocked, but so can the idea that being at home with one's books and imagination will give one all that one needs or wants. You look up from your books, and you are still in your kitchen or study, and you wonder when you are going to see or touch something "real" and outside of the routine and expected and banal.
I've always appreciated this Anthony Bourdain quote: "The journey is part of the experience - an expression of the seriousness of one's intent".
Last week I was walking through some Anasazi ruins, a combination of pueblo and cliff dwellings. They would cut rooms into the cliffs, then expand them with adobe rooms, sometimes multistory. There was a whole pueblo village near the edge of the cliff dwellings, closer to the water. You can still see the ruins, the kiva holes in the cliffs, the petroglyphs, the kivas. Some reconstructed, some still unexcavated. These come from about 1200 AD. An early civilization, a brutal life, and they still don't fully understand where it went to, why it disappeared. They suspect drought and climate change. It was pretty interesting, and I love the desert Southwest, even though we had to step around a rattlesnake (small one). The Trinity site isn't very far away, and I really want to see that some day, too.
Thinking about those two things together, brings a sense of wonder at the course of human experience, how everything kind of layers on itself, in a place where the rocks are ancient and similarly layered.
But now I reflect upon that pueblo site, and compare it to the pyramids, built around 2600 BC, or 4,000 years earlier, and just think to myself 𝘏𝘰𝘭𝘺 𝘚𝘩*𝘵. When you get up next to one of those pyramids, almost 500 ft tall, still in excellent condition, and realize that this was the biggest manmade object on Earth for almost 4000 years, how can you not feel awe? What an accomplishment ! What a civilizational milestone, this expression of the concept of afterlife. Being proximal to it stirs the imagination.
Way back in 1985 in Arches N.P. we went looking for an undisturbed kiva a park ranger had alluded to in a conversation. Found it. Ladder still in place, little tiny corn cobs scattered on the floor as if they left without tidying up. It was a moving experience. Not the same as seeing a picture in a book.
On our trip to France, since travel expands the horizons, we stopped for the night in Aubagne. Gemini AI said it had charm. NO. A 14 yr. Old boy there put a shotgun in his musical instrument case and shot 2.
when it comes to travel my biggest regret is that I haven't done enough of it. I would happily return to any of the places I've already been.
OTOH you'ld have to pay me to attend a play or sportsball game around the corner.
"I'm more concerned with the great potential that if I were to go to see the Sphinx, I'd be stuck seeing it festooned with tourists trying to get off on standing between the paws."
Not to mention the smelly and diseased camels nearby with touts hustling potential riders.
But when I took 2 grandsons to the Science Museum this morning and they viewed a mummy both said they wanted to see the pyramids.
About 20 years ago when I took one of the kids to India we visited the Taj Mahal and then walked to the Red Fort. On the way we saw a small group of lepers begging.
There are a lot of sites and sights, important from Antiquity to today in Africa and the Near East, that I would like to see, but not while they are infested with Muslims.
Two years ago this week some friends and I spent a Friday night a few blocks from Brussels South train station. We were all glad to board the Eurostar to Paris on Saturday morning
I’m not fond of bumblebees, regardless of what they’re doing.
A long time ago, one did a kamikazi number on my ear canal while I was on a long run. I snapped my head around so hard, I’m lucky I didn’t break my neck. Stunned the bee, too. For a few seconds I thought it was stuck in there. Then it slowly wiggled itself out and flew away. Not a cause for wonder but a happy ending if there ever was.
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