All the Vaguely News-Shaped Stuff That's Fit to Get the Staff Through to Labor Day

News flashes from the United States' preeminent Sunday paper, August 21, 2005:

People with summer homes are reluctant to go back into the city come Monday.

Suburban teenagers hang out in parking lots and act rowdy.

It's hard to find a nice, affordable apartment in the West Village.

People have fun rooting at minor-league baseball games.

A writer can find something soulful and authentic about choosing to drink in a semi-hostile dive bar.

Many foreigners fly into Kennedy airport, some of them carrying contraband food products, which get confiscated by customs.

Smokers are reluctant to quit smoking, even when nagged to quit smoking.

There are places called greenmarkets in New York that sell produce.

Extra credit goes to ersatz danger slut and metafabricator Alan Feuer for turning his disgust with the greenmarket assignment into an assignment-editor-baiting passive-aggressive lead:

It may be that, aside from money, traffic, team sports, sex, real estate, the subway, the weather, politics and how lame Los Angeles can be, the average New Yorker's favorite topic of discussion is food. Here, then, is a food story - mainly about fruits and vegetables.