Manhattan Diatribes

So this morning, I ask watertiger if "Manhattan Diary" is the NYT feature a watertiger finds most annoying. Yes, my question was leading. I find "Manhattan Diary" the most annoying of The Annoying, i.e., the big winner in the "Vows," "Styles," "Dealbook," and "Escapes," race to the bottom (or top, as it may be). As I said this morning, "Manhattan Diary" sucks utterly because:

This is where you read about how clever little Brearley or Dalton is was on the M101 on the way home from mommy-baby pilates. Yuck.

Two types of people enjoy "Manhattan Diary." The mommies of little Brearley and Dalton, who hope clips of these oh-so-terribly-charming anecdotes can be clipped to the little darlings' applications to, well, Brearley and Dalton, and Adam Gopnik.

(Yes, sorry. But I'm not really linking to The New Republic(an). I'm linking to a review of Gopnik's book by Wolcott. So you can feel okay about having a look just this once.)

I'm not going to rip Gopnik because Wolcott is the undisputed master at delivering such spankings, but I did want to note one thing. Wolcott quotes Gopnik, whose book appears to be some sort of insufferable paean to living with (his) children in Manhattan (sort of a "Manhattan Diary" writ large):

"Has any place ever been better contoured to [children] than Manhattan is now? We take them out on fall Saturday mornings--Paul Desmond saxophone mornings, as I think of them, lilting jazz sounds almost audible in the avenues--to go to the Whitney or the park to look dutifully at what remains of the avant-garde in Chelsea, or to shop at Fairway, a perfect place, more moving than any Parisian market in its openness, its joy, a place where they have cheap soap lets you taste of six different olive oils [sic]."

Say what?! I don't know who Paul Desmond is, but I spend a lot of time in Fairway (both of 'em). There is nothing "open" about Fairway, which is a claustropbic hive of what passes for a supermarket here. And the only "joy" to be found in Fairway is that which comes with the realization that you managed to get out of the place without an injury, an altercation, or an assault on your dignity.