New York Times reporter Alan Feuer went downtown and found out that construction workers smoked during their lunch and coffee breaks; "It is an image so ubiquitous it often goes unnoticed: the construction worker in his hard hat pausing for a smoke." Jesus H. M. S. Christ. [NYT]

How can we describe Alan Feuer's profile of Laura Albert in today's New York Times? It is misery. For one thing, we are told that the woman formerly known as JT Leroy is now reduced to living in a "San Francisco walk-up." You know what? If she was actually poor she'd move to Oakland like everyone else. And anyway, how many buildings shorter than six floors in quake country actually have an elevator? "Ms. Albert has veracity issues. Can she be trusted? What, in short, should be discarded? What believed?" That's fun, coming from a guy with a bullshit memoir. He then describes Atascadero, California as "a cheerless town of bedding stores," which is sad, as he might have enjoyed knowing that Atascadero is actually home to California's favorite all-male maximum security psychiatric facility, which employs a decent percentage of the town's residents. Boy he would have loved to torture that metaphor. Then they get to L.A. and David Milch shows up and gives her some cash and boy I bet he wish he'd kept that $500 bucks, now that, thank God, "John From Cincinnati" got shot in the face.

Usually we post headlines to make fun of them. But this one, for some reason, we just kind of love. We like the flow. We like the odd story it's telling. We like the pileup of elegant noun-adjective combos: young dancers, speeding car, long trail.