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Hey it’s Cues - this is our weekly newsletter about our sliver of Bed-Stuy and its stuff.

• Sat 4/25, 2pm - Clothes Swap w/ Persephone @ Cues rsvp
• Wed 4/29, 10am - Donuts & Donation w/ Mitch @ Mitch’s Provisions rsvp
• Sat 5/9, 2pm - Books Swap @ Cues rsvp
• Any Monday PM - Coffee with Cues. rsvp

• Sun 4/26, 12pm - Crown Heights Flea Market @ 238 St Marks Ave map
• Sun 4/26, 1pm - Worn Not Torn Exchange @ Von King Park map
• Sun 4/26, 1030am - 6th Ave & 14th St Stoop Sale @ 533 6th Ave map
• Sun 4/26, 11am - Still Good NY Kids Swap @ 94-96 Saratoga Ave map

ICYMI: In Case You Missed It

20 things you could buy all less than a roasted chicken in Greenpoint

SINCE YOU ASKED: “Why are you named Cues?”

If you ever find yourself hungry and near the Empire State building, try the Thai restaurant ‘Thai Food Near Me’. It’s at the corner of 34th and Second. I’ve never been, but with a name like that it must be near and it must serve Thai food. The second most relevant Google review remarked, ‘Chose this place because it was close to us’. Exactly!

It’s easy to think this is a new trick - search engine optimization - to solve a new problem - sell stuff in a world of short attention spans. But in fact, this naming trick is merely lipstick on a very old pig.

Take the enterprising British politician James Oglethorpe. In 1732, he wanted to solve the problem of poor conditions and livelihoods of those in debtors’ prison. His solution was to create a place where the ‘good poor’ could be sent and be productive. This would require a royal charter. For that, he needed the attention of King George II. What did he do? He named the place after the King himself. And so the colony of Georgia, the Australia of the United States, was born.

As company charters proliferated, the name trick evolved. Businesses used their name to convince us they were the only game in town: General Electric, General Insurance Company (GEICO), General Mills, General Motors, General Radio, General Dynamics, General Oil. Some used the ‘this is what we do’ tactic: International Business Machines, Music Television, United Parcel Service. And who could forget the move of putting one’s name on the business, like Ford or Chanel, to help folks remember who didn’t like the Jews.

Now we’re in the baby name era: Hulu, Kaggle, Google, Lelo. These baby names are today’s Trojan Horse. They came into our homes as ‘good’ multinational companies - throw off your tie, eat all the snacks, ‘do no evil’, get paid to film your ‘day in the life as a user experience designer’. Their ubiquity became literal language: Uber it, Google it, Grindr it. Now their progeny, Mr. Beast, iShowSpeed or Clavicular; babysit your kids while you attempt to take a quiet shit. Capitalism entering it’s gaseous state is no biggie anyway. Soon, Sam Altman’s Skynet will be engorged and all of the toads on Instagram asking people ‘how much do you pay in rent’ will have just been a fever dream.

We took a different approach. Cues is the phonetic combination of our initials Q and S…Qs…Cues. We thought this was pretty novel. Then we found Iowan entrepreneurs William Krause and Tony Gentle. In 1975 they named their convenience stores using the letters K and G. Their company: Kum & Go.