New York New York! Part 1

[alula_auburn]

While I was looking for my next snark, I was surprised to find that this one had only been tackled once, and not since 2008.  I guess we just don’t ❤ NYC like Ann.  Plus, I had some artsy lolcats leftover from Rosie, and honestly, I didn't feel up to fifteen chapters of any particular sitter without inspiration.
Anyway, my impressions before

Comments

[flipflopgoddess]

All the BSC are embarrassed by their loving families, who are, admittedly, being ridiculous and paranoid.

They wouldn't have been ridiculous and paranoid in 1991. Before Giuliani became mayor in 1994, you had to be a lot more careful in New York City - crime levels were much higher, the streets were much dirtier and Times Square was filled with X-rated movie theaters and peep shows instead of chain restaurants and toy stores.

[alula_auburn]

I think giving your children permission to do something and then carrying on like twits at the last minute is ridiculous no matter what. They're also being paranoid about all the wrong things, since Ann either doesn't know or can't admit what might actually be dangerous for very young teenagers in a big city. Worrying about cockroaches in Mr. McGill's fumigated apartment, but being fine with thirteen year olds wandering about as much as they want as long as they are in pairs is ridiculous, regardless.

My parents wouldn't have for a second let me wander around Manhattan--or Chicago--alone at thirteen or eleven, but they wouldn't have limply agreed to it and then had a meltdown at the train station.

Also, the BSC travel around the most sanitized version of New York ever. The closest they come to grit is that one trip on the subway. The rest of the time is all cabs and four-star restaurants.

[anonymous]

This line "Stacey’s mind is blown by such wild, NYC-only sights as two little boys dressed identically who were NOT twins" made me laugh.

My two brothers had matching outfits that my mom would sometimes have them wear. They are not only not twins, they're ten years apart. The younger one loved looking a Big Kid so the older one put up with it.

-bscag.blogspot.com

[alula_auburn]

Aw, that's cute!

[sgrfrostedflake]

That's so cute! What an awesome older brother.

[lippian]

But did Quint say "I don't mean to sound conceited?" Also I remember Father Desmond Tutu on the Late Late Show making a joke about how no one can see you blushing, if you have dark skin, so now I wonder how Jessi could see Quint "turn red." I suppose that that and Claudia describing her Asian looks as "exotic" are just a result of an upper-class white woman with no empathy attempting to write from a different viewpoint

[alula_auburn]

Well, Peaches's husband Russ is Irish, iirc. (Like, ethnically Irish, not Irish-Japanese or something.) And Claudia mostly dates white guys. But yeah, Jessi only gets "imported" black guys--there's one in Shadow Lake and a random black seventh grader who shows up now and then to go to dances with her. I don't even know how to unpack that, except that I think in a weird way, Ann and the ghosties ALWAYS think of Jessi as black, and only sometimes remember Claudia is Asian, or they have some really gross hierarchy going on

[lippian]

The Mal thing is sad... (also I know from experience that teachers will sometimes sympathetically give encouraging compliments to the most hopeless student, while always spurring on the more promising student with criticism, and I assume that this is what's happening here, which is even more sad).

And I forgot to rant about the fact that Dawn, who lives AN HOUR OUTSIDE OF LOS ANGELES and will go on to take a cab to LAX alone with a stolen credit card number, is scared of New York. Because LA is a crime-free paradise.

[kakeochi_umai]

First, YOU MET THE BECHDEL TEST LADY?!?!?!?! That is awesome. (Even if that name always makes me think of bechamel sauce.)

Second, my eye is twitching something crazy at this whole thing with Stacey telling the other girls what to wear, even before we got to the whole "tomboy = immature" thing.

Also, she is “gorgeous” and has “just enough freckles to be interesting.”
Ann M. Martin: providing impressionable young girls with new ideas for insecurities since 1986. PS: Telling girls they have to look and dress a certain way in order to be worthy as a person, right down to the number of goddamn freckles they have, is not very feminist, Miss "It's METEOROLOGIST, not weatherman".

The Pikes are not strict, but they haven’t allowed her to ... straighten her hair
Because it's not like curly hair was so ~in~ at that time that the appointed fashion guru of the Cult was risking her life to get perms or anything.

instead of packing better, she’ll just borrow Janine’s suitcase.Hey, Ann, you know what's worse than being a hag to your sister

[alula_auburn]

Alison Bechdel is awesome.

Kristy's "special friend" has fur and four legs. Er, and is not a werewolf.

[lippian]

In the 80s and 90s, only people with non-naturally curly hair were supposed to perm and frizz it. Everything had to be as artificial as possible. I suppose. I remember my mother walking around in an enormous maternity dress with an enormous halo of frizz for hair, and being quite fashionable for her time.

[wavvedout]

Dawn’s head-to-toe denim ensemble

At least she's lacking the usual half up ponytail with a super sized scrunchie. I HATED THAT LOOK.

(Oh, man, I suddenly desperately want some kind of Greek mythology/BSC fusion fic. At least then you can blame logic and continuity gaps on “a god did it.”)

WANT WANT WANT.
I despise departure scenes in the series when its only for a short trip. Like these parent ever spend any time with their children anyway. How will these two weeks be any different?

Stacey, Claud, and Dawn will stay there, while everyone else stays at the Dakota with Laine

I know Stacey wants to stay with her dad, but it would be kind of sucky to stay in his tiny apartment when you could be staying at the swanky Dakota, at least for Dawn and Claudia.

I know they aren't spelled the same, but in my head Alistaire is Aleister Crowley. I dont even think they are prononced the same, but its just one of those things that ran thru my head and now I can't change it. Also, Mrs. Harrington is Victoria Beckham in my head.

[lippian]

"Pocketbook" was a common term in the Northeast (or at least in Maryland) in the 50s when my mother was a little girl, but she says "purse" now. I can see fussy Mary Anne saying it, but not really anybody else. My eccentric professor from Rhode Island (who's in his 60s) says it, but he says all kinds of strange things.

[wavvedout]

Oh its old school for sure. My grandma and great aunt carried "pocketbooks" that deserved awards for how little they carried- they always contained the same thing- one tube of lipstick (no one goes anywhere without her lipstick), a pepppermint candy, and some crumpled Kleenex. God knows my great aunt wasn't carrying around no license, THANK THE LORD. She would have had no shame in wrecking her car in the name of putting on her lipstick while driving. There's a bit of respect I award her for that, I think :)

[alula_auburn]

The first usage of "pocketbooks" was in the train station, when Dawn is screaming constantly--the first time, when she sees the "cockroach" Mary Anne cries "grab your pocketbooks!" because she thinks Dawn is being mugged or something. And yeah, in Mary Anne's voice it didn't twig me as super-out of place.

The second time is Jessi, saying she "grabbed her pocketbook" and ran to catch up with Stacey etc, and that's when it leaped out at me as a weird word choice for early-90s, Northeast teens/tweens.