Can one be a great American novelist and an extremely online person? Well, one woman can! Plus avoid debasing yourself before a landlord, and buy some good cheap perfume. |
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It’s rare to get a glimpse of the room where the magic happens, but Emma Alpern managed to snag a visit with Joyce Carol Oates, who writes in a nook in her Princeton home surrounded by cats, views of nature, and empty Diet Coke cans. Her latest is a short-story collection, bringing her tally of published books to well north of 100. She also teaches. And, perhaps most visibly, she tweets — many times each day, sometimes late into the night, earning the moniker “Joyce Carol Posts.”
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Her account there is excessive and loose, a counterweight to her essays and memoirs, which can seem opaque and professorial. In one day this May, for instance, she tweeted 36 times about the following subjects: boxing, the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, shortened attention spans, Jonathan Swift, Madame Bovary, Jude the Obscure, people who read works of classic literature too quickly, her late husband, the Elizabeth Taylor Cleopatra, the Unabomber, and her cats, Zanche and Lilith.
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Choosing a favorite JCO tweet is a personal journey. If you would like to share yours, please email me at [email protected]. |
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Illustration: Emma Erickson
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Today, Clio Chang takes on the scourge that is “cuck money” — i.e., the practice of offering more than the asking listed rental price of an apartment, which began happening in earnest about four years ago. (As I very well know, ugh.) It’s hard to compete with people who are willing to pay more than you are month after month, but there are ways.
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You probably already know this, but a thoughtfully written, deeply personal letter will not save you. “I have not seen that work,” Janna Raskopf, a broker at Douglas Elliman, says of the tactic. “It’s not really helpful.” But, she offers, there are some non-monetary methods to possibly win over a future landlord. One is being very prompt about your paperwork — have it ready before you even see the place. That means getting everything in order for anyone and everyone on the application: roommates, guarantors, boyfriends. And check your work before you submit: “Don’t have the wrong apartment address on your application,” Raskopf says. “You wouldn’t believe how many times I see that.” Every time Raskopf sees someone win out over a higher bid, she says the applicant had their papers in “within seconds” of seeing the place. No time to dawdle while finding your credit score!
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Other tactics include being willing to move in (or at least start paying rent) ASAP and offering to do chores or renovations yourself. Basically, do anything you can to show that you’re a nice, reliable person who will stay in the apartment for a while. |
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Photo-Illustration: The Strategist; Photos: Retailers |
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Great news for broke fragheads: Those of us who like to change it up all the time but can no longer justify our monthly perfume outlay have some new options at mass-market stores like Ulta, Target, and Walgreens. Krista Bennett DeMaio tested a bunch of new scents and found some standouts, like the $16 Sol de Janeiro dupe NatureWell Cheeky and a $17 body mist from Saltair that she calls “summer vacation in a bottle.” Overall, the new class of drugstore perfumes are well worth sampling: Krista says that technology that used to be inaccessible at these price points has now become industry standard, which is part of why fragrance is the fastest-growing category in mass beauty right now. Intriguing intel!
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Photo: Michelle Groskopf for New York Magazine |
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JCO-wise for me it’s gotta be the ISIS tweet, simply because it’s so much fun to ask, “Is query naïve?” |
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A weekly dispatch on the cultural discourse. |
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https://link.nymag.com/oc/60bf85689b7a136e4b473b24ri5sb.9sa/ed8ca81d
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