I happened to visit the Condé Nast building today and tried your sneaky elevator trick. It worked! Eleven straight floors with no stops. Maybe you got a bum one? I'd give it another go. The magazine is full of crime tips this week (OK, bypassing pissed elevator-callers isn't really a crime, but in New York you could get beat up for it)—ever wanted to remove a rare map from an antique atlas? William Finnegan tells you how, writing in a bold second person ("Take an ordinary cotton string, wad it into your cheek, go to the library, and, when the desired map is found, unobtrusively place the string along the tab of the book or atlas...") as if to say, yes, even you could gum some twine if you think you're up for defrauding the Ivy League and the NYPL. Cheeky.

Speaking of Paumgarten, I liked the balance of the Talks this week; both the elevator story and Ben McGrath's absurd report on a floating taxi—clever but not preciously Gopnik-cute—were pleasantly breezy and about bits of city life we either all experience (elevators) or are unlikely to try (floating taxis). Jon Mooallem's I Am Curious (Political) piece has a nice lilt, too. That's the kind of light but meticulous musing-reporting the magazine began with, and while it would be silly to put too many things like this in one issue, having a few here and there cleanses the palate nicely.