Personal to Albert Stern

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• Steven Santos says:

  April 19, 2010 at 11:03 am

  Summation of the art­icle: “Isn’t it cool I live in Brooklyn, have celebrity encoun­ters and that the Paper of Record pays me to tell you about them as if my anec­dote was pro­found in some way?”
  Did no one from the writer to the NYT edit­ors con­sider the obvi­ous pri­vacy issues here?

• John Keefer says:

  April 19, 2010 at 11:16 am

  This is a fine example of a phe­nom­ena I’ve noticed over the years. Namely par­ents who cross the line from “Isn’t my baby the cutest wootest widdle baby in da whole wide world?” to “Let me describe my son’s beha­vi­or in a way that will make you extremely uncom­fort­able.” Why, dear God why?!? does it not occur to the author that mak­ing allu­sions to the pos­sible romantic long­ings of a two year old would be, in a word, creepy? Forget the name/location drop­ping and over­all point­less­ness of the art­icle DO NOT make me think about a two year old try­ing to hit on a three year old. I mean it’s not so atro­cious as to make me ring child ser­vices but kids are kids dagnab­bit! Can’t we hold off pro­ject­ing your own BS onto their shoulders until at least the awk­ward­ness of high school? And what the hell was he let­ting him bang obnox­iously on a table for? Your two year old is not your drink­ing buddy from col­lege, tell him to sit there and be quiet and stop drool­ing over thoughts of using play dates to see the inside of a celebrity’s house!

• d.a. says:

  April 19, 2010 at 11:27 am

  Yeah, it’s a little creepy. Even the things he thinks he’s jok­ing about – like hop­ing his son does­n’t blow it so he’ll be able to hang out with the near-celebrity in the future – are reveal­ing. Revealing creepiness.

• ptatleriv says:

  April 19, 2010 at 11:37 am

  I had to stop after the unveil­ing of his “clev­er” head­line. I like how he does­n’t even pause to think that such a hil­ari­ous anec­dote might be a little inap­pro­pri­ate because, y’know, Ledger died tra­gic­ally and all.

• d.a. says:

  April 19, 2010 at 11:58 am

  I was think­ing the same thing, ptatle­riv. It’s so Rupert Pupkin – the things that are sig­ni­fic­ant for him in terms of his “rela­tion­ship” to her would just scare her.

• Ryland Walker Knight says:

  April 19, 2010 at 12:03 pm

  Wow. The world is an amaz­ing place full of won­der and coin­cid­ence and tears!

• Yuval says:

  April 19, 2010 at 7:40 pm

  Come on, I did­n’t think it was that bad. If I were Michelle Williams I might be annoyed that the per­son I chat­ted with while our chil­dren played decided to pub­lish a thes­is about it, but oth­er than that, it was an enjoy­able little story.

• John M says:

  April 19, 2010 at 9:15 pm

  I will nev­er ever read any­thing by that man again. You’re dead to me, Albert Stern.

• Claire K. says:

  April 20, 2010 at 12:36 am

  But if it were simply an enjoy­able little story, it would have been just as enjoy­able if he had­n’t men­tioned the iden­tity of the oth­er par­ent. Michelle Williams should be able to pre­sume that her inter­ac­tions with oth­er par­ents are not going to be pub­li­cized in this way, even if they are com­pletely innoc­u­ous. Stern has the right to write whatever he wants about it, but it’s com­pletely sleazy and, frankly, just ungen­tle­manly to do so. And his eager­ness to score a play­date with the celebrity kid is revolt­ing. She’s THREE.

• jasctt says:

  April 20, 2010 at 12:59 am

  I was in a cof­fee shop a couple of years ago in chica­go and there was a cer­tain fam­ous act­ress at the next table over from me. I was alone, with my cof­fee and also on my Blackberry, exchan­ging email with a col­league back home. I had been there before the fam­ous act­ress came in and sat down. As she was on her phone, two young­er girls came in, saw the act­ress and imme­di­ately sat where they could watch her. Seeing all of this, I saw the act­ress’ eyes dart to the girls, espe­cially when one of them made to take her pic­ture with her phone. that’s when the act­ress got up and moved to a table facing a wall and away from them. I have to admit, it’s got to suck to be that recog­niz­able and to see people on their phones, tex­ting and telling every­one they saw you or to come hurry and see for them­selves or tak­ing pics or whatever. I don’t envy the rich and fam­ous at all. I really don’t.

• John M says:

  April 20, 2010 at 1:13 am

  “But if it were simply an enjoy­able little story, it would have been just as enjoy­able if he had­n’t men­tioned the iden­tity of the oth­er parent.”
  Indeed, it would’ve been much, much more enjoy­able. If he’d turned it into a fic­tion­al first-person story, it could’ve been even better.
  But as is, it reads as preen­ing, creepy, pre­cious, exploit­at­ive. A tar pit of badness.

• KEL says:

  April 20, 2010 at 1:38 am

  I some­times envy the type of women who have their shit togeth­er enough that they can hang-out sip­ping lattes in cutesy Brooklyn cafes with their yoga mats. Then, I real­ize I’d wake up and be mar­ried to this guy.