I recently entered a competition to create “a pithy ad” for the New York Review of Books Classifieds, and won a half-bottle of distinguished wine (not yet delivered) for my honorable-mention tongue-in-cheek entry:

“FANNIE MAE with troubled assets, bored with Freddie Mac, seeks well-regulated stimulus package from counterparty too big to fail. No cash for clunkers.”

Though the NYRB listed the winning ads as competition winners in their print edition, in their online edition at www.nybooks.com…, for reasons known only to them, they simply listed the ads with all the others, as though all were genuine.

To my initial surprise, I have therefore received quite a bunch of propositions, some risque, some not, mostly from self-admitted upper west siders, who are definitely a good-looking and pretty fearless bunch as far as I can tell from the unrequested photos they sent.

Things are looking up for America.