Gathering granola on Bedfoprd Avenue
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Correction of the month, from Henry Alford, "How I Became a Hipster", NYT 5/1/2013:
An earlier version of this article referred incorrectly to the products sold at By Brooklyn. The store does not sell dandelion and burdock soda, lovage soda syrup, and Early Bird granola “gathered in Brooklyn.”
An earlier version also referred incorrectly to the thoroughfare that contains the thrift shop Vice Versa. It is Bedford Avenue, not Bedford Street, or Bedfoprd Avenue, as stated in an earlier correction.
Jerry Friedman said,
May 3, 2013 @ 8:45 am
Maybe the Times could correct that second sentence to "The dandelion and burdock soda, lovage soda syrup, and Early Bird granola sold by the store are not 'gathered in Brooklyn'." (Two passives and everything.) At least, I think that's what the sentence means.
I really should have predicted that dandelion and burdock would become hip. It's probably time to get into the oshá business.
Alex Blaze said,
May 3, 2013 @ 1:02 pm
Seems appropriate. I posted a facebook update a couple weeks ago about my hatred of the word "hipster," because it seems less attached to any type of person and more just a general invective hurled at anyone who is younger or more trendy or richer or whiter or lives in an urban area or who knows what.
Sure, the Times writer here gets closer to the general idea of what a hipster than most people who use the term (my favorite internet usage of hipster literally referred to anyone who doesn't own their own house; Seinfeld's Kramer also once sincerely called himself a hipster). But the term denotes stereotypes and always negative ones, so why not just make up stupid stuff for a hipster store to sell and not even google the name of a street?
Who cares about accuracy when you're really just trying to make people feel better by making fun of someone else.
Sybil said,
May 3, 2013 @ 1:59 pm
@ Alex Blaze: "Who cares about accuracy when you're really just trying to make people feel better by making fun of someone else."
Indeed.
Keith M Ellis said,
May 4, 2013 @ 8:09 am
Not to mention that NYT lifestyle stories already read like parodies of something — a lifestyle story about a "hipster" just seem egregious.
markonsea said,
May 4, 2013 @ 12:42 pm
The Oxford comma threw me. I read it as saying that none of the items – including "Early Bird granola 'gathered in Brooklyn' " – is sold by the shop, but they were previously wrongly claimed to be.
I thought the NYT had writers.
G Jones said,
May 6, 2013 @ 7:30 am
And don't miss the critique of "hipster fashion" in this past weekend's WSJ Review section.
Corey B said,
May 6, 2013 @ 9:57 am
So… where was the granola gathered? I had a bucolic vision of early-rising foragers, wearing cotton bonnets and bearing hand-woven reed baskets, trooping slowly down Flatbush Avenue just after dawn gathering clumps of newly congealed granola flakes for the day's harvest.
mollymooly said,
May 6, 2013 @ 11:07 am
I wish to associate myself with Jerry Friedman and markonsea's comments.
The current version of the article states that, at By Brooklyn, "you can find espresso soda, not to mention hibiscus soda syrup, and Granola Lab granola". It makes no mention of dandelion and burdock soda, lovage soda syrup, or Early Bird granola. After verifying that Early Bird granola is a real thing, I guess the correction is trying to say:
(1) the shop does not sell dandelion and burdock soda, lovage soda syrup, or Early Bird granola; and
(2) Early Bird granola is not gathered in Brooklyn.
In which case, I surmise the confusing phrasing is to make it look like there was only one error to be corrected rather than two.
Mark Dowson said,
May 10, 2013 @ 6:52 pm
@ Alex Blaze: Hipster, in its more-or-less contemporary sense enters the language – per OED – in Mezz Mezzrow's 1946 Really The Blues (slightly mis-cited in the main entry as "Really Blues", but corrected in the citation details) – a great book if you have the slightest interest in early jazz. The move of use the term into a wider culture was triggered by Norman Mailer's 1957 The White Negro (Dissent 1957 although it seems to have been re-published in the original or a revised form many times – the bibliography is confusing). See http://www.learntoquestion.com/resources/database/archives/003327.html for a copy.
Hector said,
May 30, 2013 @ 9:30 pm
NB The correction was recorrected six days later as follows:
An article last Thursday about Williamsburg, Brooklyn, erroneously included several products that are not sold at the store By Brooklyn. Its merchandise does not include dandelion and burdock soda, lovage soda syrup or Early Bird granola. The article also referred incorrectly to the address of the thrift shop Vice Versa. It is on Bedford Avenue, not Bedford Street.