Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Special Events Man Fed Up with Brooklyn, Writes 1,500 Words About Leaving It
Posted by Jonny Diamond on Wed, Oct 13, 2010 at 12:06 PM
Good heavens. A man named Daryl Lang, who moved to Park Slope South Slope, somewhere on 21st Street in 2002, recently encountered a Zach Galifianakis-type man in the grocery store who was unkind to an old lady—so now Daryl Lang (who is also a blogger!) is ceding Brooklyn to the "hip and despicable." In yet another fine case study in self-hating gentrifiers, Mr. Lang has left us 1,500 words as to why he's leaving Brooklyn. Here are some of the best of those words (and by "best," I really just mean, you know, "worst").
In the snack aisle I walked passed a guy intently studying two bags of potato chips. He looked a lot like me, only with a shaggy beard and an untucked flannel work shirt, a popular look here.
Beards and untucked flannel make me think of Williamsburg and Zach Galifianakis, not Park Slope. (Also, it's "walked past," numbskull.)
I remember walking through Prospect Park in autumn 2002 and seeing dads in fleece pullovers playing with their kids on the swings. “Those guys look like me in 10 years,” I thought.
Ugh. Fleece. It was bad in 2002, it's bad now. Fleece pullovers are everything that's wrong with everything. SPARE ME YOUR COMFORTABLE CLOTHINGS!
The kids were precocious, but there was a Lake Wobegone-style charm to this urban neighborhood where all the children were above average
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When I look around Park Slope [...] I see too many guys my age [early thirties] who aren’t put together, who slouch when they walk, who can’t order a slice of pizza with confidence, who look fidgety and skittish. A lot of these guys are also fathers. It troubles me.
Actually, I agree with this one. We are a generation stranded in permanent adolescence, that would rather be playing video games than coming to the table to sit down for dinner.
Park Slope of 2010 is Park Slope of 2002 viewed through a Coney Island funhouse mirror.
And there it is, the central trope of the self-hating gentrifier: "When I moved here it was cool. Now it is not."
Goodbye, Daryl Lang.
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