Boerum replaces Murray as yuppie Hill-of-choice

Hipster Brooklyn has been taken over by frat boys. I know because Katherine and I just got back from a new "beer garden" that opened down the street, and it was chock full of beefy guys in baseball hats; a screen played MTV by the bar; and there was so much heterosexual, non-ironic, non-hipster scoping going on that it might as well have been Lincoln Park in Chicago. Katherine mentioned the frattiness of the place, and as if on cue, a robust young man in a SUNY Geneseo t-shirt said hello, thus beginning and ending what might have been a productive conversation had we been more sorority-ish ourselves. Apparently there had been free shots earlier in the evening, but we'd missed them, although we did come away with a free Jagermeister t-shirt and a free flashing bike light--a chipper female bartender was passing all this around, who knows. Another new place opened, "Flatbush Farm," which promises organic-local nonsense and a more upscale bar setting, more Swann than Odette, so to speak. (So close to finishing the re-read, so close!)

Continuing on that Francophilic note, I'm excited to see the Italians and the French kick around a soccer ball, whenever that's happening. Furthermore, for those concerned about my lacking Francophilia (Godard, one of these days...) watching "Life of Brian" and "Jules et Jim" in quick succession taught me that I understand British English and French French equally, a sign either that I'm way better at undertanding French than I'd imagined or that I need to stop thinking a subway pulling into the station is a signal to turn up the iPod volume to full blast. American English is also starting to get a bit incomprehensible, now that I think of it...