The latest issue of Time Out NY has a cover story on "New Dork City". It's nice to see that nerds are making a come back in a post dot.com era (it took long enough):
"Consider, as examples, the following: a reading series in which people share junior-high-school journal entries with kindred spirits; pitched lightsaber battles between organized teams; a weekend outing during which participants take over the Staten Island Ferry dressed as pirates. This is avant-nerdism: a new sensibility, an updated hip-to-be-square attitude—even a new rumbling of the collective consciousness.
The movement knowingly embraces all things geeky in a marriage of the cutting edge and the socially retarded. Fashionwise, its manifestations have been noticeable for years on the streets of Nolita, Williamsburg and the Lower East Side. “People are nerdier-looking than they were in the past,” says Jen Miller, a.k.a. Saint Reverend Jen, the elfin host of the Anti-Slam open-mike night at Cake Shop on Ludlow Street. “Everyone’s dressing like they’re on my seventh-grade cross-country team.” She herself sports pointy, Spock-like ears as “a fashion accessory".”
...the article also covers the Williamsburg Spelling Bee!
