The Midtown hipster talking party (Gen Y version).
One of the benefits of being a regular patron at, say, your average retail establishment is that you get to know the people behind the counter. This process is generally helped by tipping. It also helps to share a liberal point of view. This is especially true for coffeehouses.
Recently Da Partner and I attended the birthday party of a barista we’ve come to know. This party occurred at what in Boston would be called a triple-decker, though in this particular case there were six apartments rather than three. Da Partner and I fully expected to be the oldest people present. However, we figured that we should attend nonetheless, bringing a gift certificate to the BBQ Spot as a present for our host.
I need not describe the apartment in any real detail. It was precisely what you might assume it would be, upon being told that it was in Midtown and inhabited by two baristas. It was, for all practical purposes, interchangeable with apartments in SES-equivalent neighborhoods, inhabited by SES-equivalent occupants, in cities such as Boston, Portland, Seattle, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, or San Francisco. It was not precisely “one of those railroad apartments that all those horrible yuppies are living in now,” (darnit! no link, because evidently no one has thought fit to memorialize that quote from Last Days of Disco) but it did have a Hollywood bathroom sandwiched between the two bedrooms. And because of who happened to live there, and who and how they preferred to entertain, it had a stained-wood bar in the living room, stocked with better wine than my father typically serves. Though I should hasten to add that this is not, in fact, a high standard.
We were not the oldest persons present, as we soon learned. Two gentlemen gregariously introduced themselves* to Da Partner and me, during the course of which one of them revealed that he was just barely younger than myself.
Now, I should reveal at this point that at this sort of party I often find it quite difficult to turn off the sociologist. The dilemma lies less in the possibility that I might not enjoy myself in doing so (I always do), or even that when I do so, it is as a sort of consolation prize for attending an otherwise boring event (I do this even when the evening delivers utter hilarity). Rather, the dilemma lies in the fact that engaging in this kind of participant observation can quite quickly descend into completely unfettered bitchiness.** This temptation can reach Wildean levels of acuteness when one’s interlocutor is such a regular pot-smoker that his eyes are totally bloodshot.
Thus it was that I found myself subtly pumping my new-found friends for information:
Moi: So.. how do you know the hosts?
Mr. Bloodshot Eyes: We go to BLANK all the time. What about you guys?
Moi: Oh, the same.
Friend of Mr. BE: Hunh, I wonder why we haven’t met before. We’re there all the time.
Da Partner: We’re usually there in the morning, on our way to work.
Mr. BE: Oh, well we’re usually on the patio, playing chess.
Moi: Chess, really? Really? I’m…impressed.
Mr. BE: Why? It’s not as hard as you might think. It’s easy to pick up. We’d be happy to teach you.
DP (á moi): What, aren’t you going to tell them?
Moi: No, I was thinking I would keep it in my back pocket.
FoMBE: (evidently not catching the aside): Oh, yeah, we play blitz all the time. It’s super-easy. See, you get a clock, and you play fast for like two, three minutes, and then by that time all your major pieces are gone so it’s not so hard anymore. Except, of course, for the horsie. That’s always tricky to move.
Mr. BE: Oh that’s just the way you play. It’s really just a different style. You don’t have to do what he does.
FoMBE: Sure, sure. But it’s harder in blitz to think more than one move ahead of time.
Moi: So do you guys ever play down at the Senior Center?
Mr. BE: ….
FoMBE: Sure, he plays there. He’s even beaten some of them.
Mr. BE: Just a couple of times, really. There they don’t play blitz.
Moi: So, where are you from, then?
FoMBE: Santa Rosa.
Moi: Like Santa Rosa, Santa Rosa? Or someplace near there?
FoMBE: Well, Rohnert Park, actually.
Moi: What about you?
Mr. BE: Oh, I’m from around here.
Moi: Really? Which high school did you go to?
Mr. BE [looking at me quizzically]: Ponderosa. Why do you ask?
Moi: Just curious. Dude, isn’t that in like Placerville?
At this point I think Mr. Bloodshot Eyes may have realized that I was not exactly playing the conversation straight, and so the group drifted apart, as they do at this sort of party, for the purpose of getting another beer (Friend of Mr. BE) or chatting up a girl (Mr. BE). Luckily for us, the entertainment didn’t stop there, as our host introduced us to someone who, in his words, “would soon be going to school in Boston, like we used to.”
Now, as the readers of this blog are surely aware, when told that someone “went to school in Boston,” this constitutes the starting round of a game whose rules are as hermetic as cricket and as variable as mao, the game of “dropping the H bomb.” This game is always best played with 3 or more, but can constitute cruel sport indeed when one of the players does not know all the rules.
Mr. Peacoat: Really? You guys lived in Boston? So where’s a good place to go out? [opening thrust]
Moi: Go out as in like dinner? [parry right]
Peacoat: Sure. Or other things, you know. I’m sure you fellows would have recommendations. [advance, thrust again]
Moi: Oh, well, we haven’t lived there in 7 years. I’m sure everything’s changed. We mostly knew stuff in Somerville and Central Square. [parry, false opening] What sort of program will you be in? [tossoff of a thrust]
Peacoat: A joint MBA/JD program. [parry left, thurst]
Moi: Well, there’s a candlepin bowling joint in Jamaica Plain that serves decent pizza and beer. [parry, feint] Other than that, I’m really not sure what’s still around from when we were there. [counterfeit retreat] So where are you from? [feint, thrust]
Peacoat: Chico. [first blood] Speaking of beer, I think I need some more.
Moi: What, to dull the pain of having grown up in Chico? [pressing the attack]
Peacoat: Uh….sure. (returning with beer) [retreat, call for ruling]
Moi: So… what part of town will you be living in? [feint, thrust]
Peacoat: I haven’t decided yet. [having learned the lesson, parries down and to the right]
Da Partner: Which school will you be attending? [bored with the show, joins the melee and goes straight for the jugular]
Peacoat: [caught off guard, he admits the name of a former proprietary institution that specializes in offering law degrees to working professionals. This, within the standard rules of the game, constitutes an essentially mortal blow made all the more painful because the wounded man does not know it]
Moi: Oh, well that’s right downtown then. I wouldn’t know anyplace right around there, but I’m sure there are plenty of options. [declining to participating in the slaughter, wiping my gloves and epee from the spattered gore]
Peacoat: Yes, it’s right downtown. [tacitly admitting defeat, even in ignorance of the outcome]
DP: So you said you were from Chico, right? Surely you’re actually from Paradise or some such? [slapping him with his glove]
Peacoat: Wha…? Er, no. Colusa, actually. [stunned by the blow]
Moi: Can I get you another beer, perhaps? [reaching down to give him a hand up, only to sucker-punch the poor fellow]
Peacoat: I’m still working on this one, thanks. [getting up on his own]
Moi: So you must be, what, finishing up at [a perfectly good school not quite in Sacramento] then? [offering him a set of bandages and aloe for his wounds]
Peacoat: No, I’m in the Government department at [some other, but not as prestigious, local institution]. [tearing at the packaging, unable to stanch the bleeding]
Moi: Excuse me for a moment, my glass appears to be empty. [exuent]
Peacoat: So, what do you do? [gamely entering the fray again, thrust]
DP: “Landscape Architecture”. [parry right]
Peacoat: Oh, so you must be a liberal, then. [down, thrust]
DP: Sure, but why do you say that? [parry, swipe, thrust]
Peacoat: Anything to do with the environment is for liberals [parry, thrust clumsily, missing the target entirely]. Me, I’m an independent [Retreat. Discards former weapon and chooses another]. Socially liberal, mind you, but fiscally conservative. Like for instance, I’m happy we bombed Japan – I’m all in favor of bombing small countries, ha, hah!*** [grandly slashes the empty air with his new saber, preparing for his next attack]. But you would hate my father [slash]. He’s a real fascist [slash, slash]. And not like just a conservative fascist. I mean like a fascist fascist. [slash, slash, slash]
DP: Is this some sort of distinction between Sarah Palin and John Birch? [parry, thrust, home]
Peacoat: Yeah, that pretty much sums it up. [a wound so clean he doesn’t even feel it]
DP: I see, and what specifically makes you think I would hate your father? [pricking the new wound deftly]
Peacoat: Well, I’ve worked for him for three summers now digging trenches to store waste oil. [weak, unsuccessful parry]
DP: Oh, that’s nothing. We used to live in Texas; where I worked documenting the clean-up on ranches where they used arsenic pits to de-louse cows before sending them to auction. [pitching his sword point down to the floor, quivering, at the feet of his bleeding opponent]
Moi [returning from the kitchen, surveying the carnage]: So, what did I miss in this conversation?
Peacoat: You know, I had this friend once who told me that every girl wants a little piece of me in her. He meant it as a compliment, but it’s really an insult, I think. What do you guys think? [stripping to a singlet, offering to wrestle]
DP: I think we need to go home so that I can get up for church in the morning. [picking up his sword for another day and wiping it clean].****
And that, as they say in the trades, was game set and match for that conversation.
Baristas, unlike urban planners and academics, do not tend to accumulate books. Instead, they tend to accumulate art. The art produced (and displayed with the appropriate lighting) by the two hosts was of two sorts: one roommate made large impressionistic oils, generally of single individuals in uncluttered backgrounds. A blend of Hopper’s choice of subject, Keleti’s technique, and the Wyeths’ color palette. One piece , in particular, seemed inspired by the scene in Amelie where the subject’s face (a young woman in the mid-ground of Renoir’s Dejeuner au Canotiers) is half-hidden behind a large coffee mug from which she is taking a gulp. The other roommate’s chosen genre consisted of postcard-sized reductions of the publicity stills for all of Almodovar’s movies, arranged in shadow-boxes backlit by the streetlight shining through the piano-window.
According to one of the baristas, these pieces were potentially available for the taking. Provided the interested party offered an explanation of why they appreciated it, wanted it, why it inspired them, what they wanted to do with it.
This was, in other words, a talking party taken to its highest logical form.
The Christmas marathon.
“(There is no other business in Sacramento, no reality other than land – even I, when I was living and working in New York, felt impelled to take a University of California correspondence course in Urban Land Economics.)” (“Notes From a Native Daughter”)
This holiday, for whatever reason, everyone decided to throw their parties, not just on the same weekend, but on the same day. Thus we found ourselves attending three events: a young professionals talking party (inner-suburbs version), a young professionals talking party (Midtown alley version), and that rarest of rarities, a games-night party.
The inner-suburban YPTP occurred in a “starter home” for a conventionally pretty, slender brunette with large eyes, slightly younger than myself (these dealies do have types, as you can see), and her husband, a labor lawyer who routinely sues the firm for which Da Partner works. No hard feelings taken either way, of course. This was the first time in awhile I had been to a party with children (who amused themselves alternately by jumping around in the mini-bounce house in the study, or whacking quite loudly at their wooden tool sets). Children, by the way, are an optional feature – much like the Tudor-style leaded-pane picture window in the living room, or the skylight in the kitchen – at parties thrown in this neighborhood. It does not matter whether the hosts are from here, or someplace else; I have been to at least one party thrown by someone from around here that occurred not 4 blocks away and also involved screaming children in a mini-bounce house. In any case, the wife’s parents were in attendance; mother took care of the canapés (spanikopita and pigs-in-a-blanket, etc.) while dad told stories – and I swear I’m not joking about this – about his time working for an aerospace firm in the Bay Area. After 15 minutes of this, more guests arrived, including the gentleman responsible for the Midtown hipster party (Gen X version) who, as it happens went to undergrad with the wife hosting the party. He brought along his girlfriend, a conventionally pretty slender brunette with large eyes who is exactly my age and works as a labor lawyer, but at a different firm from the husband hosting the party.
Because…what have we learned on the show tonight, Craig?
That’s right, kiddies: it’s that kind of town, even when it’s not that kind of party.
Or, to say the same thing in jargon: class and status, when operating in combination, provide social closure like a mothafucka.
The midtown-ally YPTP occurred in, well, one of those light industrial spaces that surely must once have served as a stable, then as a repair shop, now as an art gallery, bakery, sushi restaurant, non-profit organization or, indeed, professional services office. A space with gloriously high ceilings, way more wood than is ever used in commercial construction these days, and a poured-slab concrete floor. A space, in other words, that is totally suited for a dance party, complete with Bose sub-woofers, LED-projected music videos, a keg, and, because this is a YPTP, canapés that were functionally interchangeable with those served at every other YPTP described in this series: brie, dill-and-garlic jack, rosemary-flavored water crackers, spinach dip, a Costco vegetable platter and, unless my memory does me a disservice (which is entirely possible, given the hour at which I arrived at this event), petit-fours. The price for all this lovely spread? A donation to – wait for it… — a charitable organization founded by someone not unknown to the readers of this blog. I arrived shortly before the niece of the lead singer of Sacramento’s Most Famous Band (not Tesla) made her appearance. Because even the children of the aerospace engineers have their gentry. Sadly, I missed DP completely embarrassing himself dancing on a cube with the daughter of the founder of a rival professional-services firm. I made up for this by swing-dancing with a young lady (strikingly pretty, curvaceous, blonde; you see I do not quite share the tastes of my caste) who was the last person but one with whom I shared the pleasure of a game of dropping the H bomb.
But I have left the best for last, the fabled games-night party. This occurred, thank Christ, not in second-floor walkup in a gated community in Natomas, for lord knows everyone would’ve had to park at the liquor store across the six-lane arterial. Instead it occurred it a far more suitable location, a two-bedroom pre-war with a built-in, French doors, and parquetry. This is the kind of apartment whose SES-equivalent occurs not in Central Square, Alphabet City, the Mission or Japantown, but rather Porter Square, Tribeca, Parnassus Heights, and Silver Lake. It is an apartment made for entertaining – as witnessed by the fact that everyone had a place to sit. The food was entirely different from a YPTP. Instead of canapés there was bone-in ham, scalloped potatoes, green-bean casserole, and a cake from Freeport Bakery. The drinks table was slightly disconcerting in its utter lack of nonsense. In the manner of a story I once heard,***** there was only hard liquor, and the differences lay in the taste, not the brand. As one wag put it, it’s amazing what you can do when put to the challenge; tequila and Martinelli’s go surprisingly well together.
And of course, of course, there was a game. Now a word must be said about the game chosen by the hostess. It is tailor-made to produce in-jokes, but in the playing context of which insider humor constitutes a potentially double-edged sword. Clever wordplay – homonyms, off-color puns, pop-culture references – is de rigueur, but one can be too clever by half. On this occasion the play was stopped, twice, to clarify for all present (a) the meaning of an in-joke from a previous game, and (b) a phrase drawn from French structuralist social criticism. Charades figure prominently, and the end result is an exercise of competitive demi-telepathy.
When I teach, I tell my students that they should not be surprised if, during the course of writing an essay, they come to quite a different conclusion from where they started. It occurs to me now, having engaged in this little exercise in auto-ethnography, that perhaps my local informant was wrong. Perhaps there do not exist two types of parties in Sacramento, but only one. I had forgotten something I’ve said quite often, but in a different context: games are merely an excuse for conversation, something to keep the hands and mid-brain occupied while the harder fore-brain work of socializing is going on. They are what one does when you’ve told all the stories you know and the time has come to invent new ones. And the game favored by this hostess in particular is conversation distilled to its component essences: description, gesture, and the condensation of meaning into code.
Is it any wonder that the smarter emigrants to this town – such as my cousin – never refuse an invitation to this sort of party?
*This, by the way, is a key difference as compared to parties in Boston. There you never introduced yourself to someone at a party. Introductions are usually more deftly played, to avoid the necessity of such a breach of decorum.
**This temptation is made all the more acute, of course, by the potential for producing subsequent blog posts.
***Some species of racism (e.g., “tell it to the Japs!”) are buried so deep they can be temporarily forgotten, assumed not to have been transmitted between generations. But when brought to the surface they tellingly reveal, like some recessive trait for “Mongolian Blue” or “weak blood,” what for want of a better word I shall call the ethnic difference between the children of the aerospace engineers and the local stock.
****I have no real excuse for having engaged in this exercise in conversational cruelty, though I can think of at least two false ones. Such as the fact that the fellow was clearly the finest piece of ass ever to graduate from Colusa High. Or that he was from a well-off enough family that he must have had access to tetracycline and orthodonture as a teenager, to judge by his, how shall we say, purty little mouth. These are not in and of themselves unforgiveable faults. What really set me and DP off was that he was well aware of these advantages, and dared to trade upon them by flirting with us, jointly, while at the same time maintaining his ostensible (but totally laughable) status as a heterosexual. Invitations to view the gang shower, when made directly and unapologetically, can be dealt with discreetly. When made indirectly and ashamedly, they are insulting to everyone concerned.
*****The story goes like this: there once was a lady whose husband, upon his death, left her a legacy of 60 acres on Block Island. This set her up rather well in retirement: there was a 2-acre zoning limit, she expected to live only to about the age of 90, and she found that selling off one parcel at a time once every other year or so paid handsomely enough to enable her to travel, maintain a subscription to the symphony, and even to subsidize her daughter’s habit of collecting antique rugs. She used cut-glass jars in which to keep her liquor and was known to remark when mixing drinks: “gin, vodka, they’re both clear. What’s the difference?” As bracing as the question may be, let the record reflect that she stocked those cut-glass jars with Bombay and Absolut.
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