slow news day?

the nytimes travel section seems to be soliciting essays from enthusiastic 9th grade budding JOURNALISMISTS!

that is the only way i can explain this totally unnecessary and sort of confusing bit by Seth Kugel (yes that is really the byline) about how “cheesy” activities can in fact be “fun!”

gee whiz guys,

“You’ve got to head down to Lower Broadway, to the classic “Charging Bull” sculpture, where you’re almost certain to find a mob of tourists taking pictures. And, of course, there are always a couple of jokers who go around to the anatomically correct back end of the bull, and pose in every position you can imagine — and some you cannot.

So cheesy. But, come on, pretty funny, too.”

uh, no.

and then there’s this assertion, which i actually don’t even understand, about a recently shuttered peep-show establishment: “Playpen on Eighth Avenue, which added an extra dose of cheesy classlessness by keeping a few Beaux-Arts architectural details from its days as a theater high above the booths. Or so they say.”

why is it “classless” to retain Beaux-Arts architectural details of a building, even as you alter its use? am I missing something? is he insinuating that they were fake Beaux-Arts details? Or is it a dirty joke that has escaped even my actively filthy mind?

WHAT THE HELL IS SETH KUGEL TALKING ABOUT????????

i can has cheezjrnlsm?

p.s. if one of my 3 readers is friends/cousins with Seth Kugel, I apologize for the harshness of my tone. but someone should talk to him.