Bend, Ore as a haven for the Times' affluent readers

I skimmed this odd solipsistic piece in Slate last week, and in fact forwarded the link to my friend Joel:

Are Journalists Underpaid? - Pity the sad, broke New York Times reporter.
By Daniel Gross

The piece is about journalists (and other members of the "creative class") "suffering" from, Gross writes, "what David Brooks (in his excellent Bobos in Paradise phase) identified as status-income disequilibrium."

(Brooks was insightful back in those days. As I wrote to Joel, I regret I read half of "Bobos" and then set it down for some reason--it really is a good book. E.g., I set it down just after getting through a section about Jane Jacobs and her Amazon.com: The Death and Life of Great American Cities--another book that's been on the to-read list for a while.)

Gross went on to mention something I'd been noticing too--the Times has been going heavy into "reporting" on the lifestyles of those whose status and incomes are closer to an equilibrium--at high levels:

...much of the expanded coverage of both the Times (Thursday Styles, House & Home, Real Estate) and the Journal (the Friday weekend section, the Saturday edition) is dedicated to the sort of high-end consumption that reporters can't really afford.

Those sections mentioned above, plus Escapes, that pile up at the end of the week...as usual, the question is, who is it that can afford to live like this? The liberal elite, I suppose the populist right-wingers would say.

At times, this coverage tends towards self-parody. Last Friday's Escapes had a piece headlined "The Third Home Comes Within Reach"! The three featured couples for whom that 3rd home has come within reach: an elderly lesbian couple, a younger gay couple, and a token hetero couple (but interracial).

All this is prelude to another piece in that Escapes section. This installment of "Havens": Bend, Oregon: Where Timber Was King, the Golf Club Replaces the Ax.

Thought that one might be of interest. Plenty of real estate quotes sprinkled throughout, plus Pros ("Growth has brought big-name music - Willie Nelson, Lyle Lovett, Bob Dylan - to town, and restaurants appeal to sophisticated palates.") and Cons ("Bend is 94 percent white. The joke among locals is that diversity means Subarus of different colors.")

Performancing

Just wanted to wish all y'all a happy holidays. We've let this rot for a while here. As I just wrote over here, it's certainly not the case that I want to be spending more time on the web in '06. But I still think we need to have a forum for interacting--trading links, ideas, thoughts. B/c othw next thing you'll know it'll have been years and we won't know what to talk to each other about.

Here's something that might facilitate some action: Performancing for Firefox. First you'll have to download Firefox 1.5, which is where you should be doing your browsing anyways. Then install the Performancing Extension, and you'll be able to compose a post within Firefox while viewing any webpage--an editor comes up in the bottom half of a split screen--and send it to direct to Blogger. It's pretty nice. I'm posting from within it now.

happy birthday to the fatmango...

...one day late. I wanted to put together a mix CD for this occasion too--but I still
haven't done one for juniocooper's birthday. I may just have to roll it all into one
year-end mix that goes out to all of you. Once again, I'll post the tracklisting up in
here.

2005 almost done. "Time is moving on, you better get with it before it's gone." (g.u.r.u.)