Chandler Burr, to be precise, the avidly self-promotional, ethically challenged first-ever perfume critic for the New York Times. (Commenter fractal_elves identified him.)

In his Craigslist post, he says he's a well-traveled book author, and yet his ad is ridden with conversational clichés ("Life's too short," "what you see what you get," "so there you go," "I'm in this for real"). But that makes the whole thing all the more awkwardly sweet: Even a professional writer struggles with marketing himself to potential mates in a personal ad. Now that Burr has been ID'd, can someone set him up with a date? He sounds like he could use one.

I'm a professional guy, 44, journalist, 6'2" 185 and physically your basic European-American. I'm masculine, and only interested in other masculine, solid, serious guys. I'm pretty direct—you can talk to me about anything, pretty much any time, no scheduling conversations, no judging the right moments. Life's too short. I'm what you see you get, and that's what I'm looking for in the other guy. I realize that this part of Craig’s List is generally about sex, but strangely enough I've had some great luck meeting serious guys here, so there you go.

I'd like to have kids, probably by adoption— there are so many kids out there who need parents—and I wouldn't mind becoming a step-dad.

I'm educated, masters in international economics and Asian political economy. I'm a journalist at a NY paper and a book author. I've traveled a lot— I think it's about 60 countries by now; I have my original passport somewhere with all the old stamps in it starting from when I was 17, but it's weird, you keep stuff like that and then you don't look at it, or at least I don't.

I'm looking for a solid guy who can handle the stuff that comes up in life, hold his own, and hang in for the long haul. I'm willing to do the work. I'm pretty optimistic. I've had some bad experiences dating like all of us, and they've made me a little wary, but maybe that's a good thing, who knows. I'm definitely not into casual flings, and games I'll cut off immediately. I think I know what I want, but at the same time I've been surprised, so I'm open to whatever. I'm in this for real.

Last week, MediaPost noted that Out and its sister publication The Advocate suffered "big drops in ad pages and newsstand sales during the first half of the year—making 2007 the second year of double-digit declines for the titles," and that Out's ad pages in that period were down 20.% over last year.

We asked Out's editor Aaron Hicklin to tell us more, and he cast it like this: "I would say that the first six months of 2007 reflected a protracted handover between former editor and myself (Out had no editor in chief for five months), and the fact that the impact of our redesign (last November) is only now being felt in terms of an uplift, which is typical of this industry. September 07 was our biggest book in terms of ad pages to date, and December—our annual OUT 100 issue—is looking likely to beat last December."

As we recall, Out (and Advocate) lost their publisher back in February, so we're not surprised to see their ad pages suffer during the period of his departure. Oh and also the company is run by crazy people. That doesn't help at all.

Page Six picked up on the story on Sunday, getting Burr to sort of recant. "The Post gets credit for raising the bar and bringing it to our attention. We're not going to give out perfumes any more," he told the paper. But what did the higher-ups at the Times think? Toohey sent the same letter to publisher Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., who wrote back himself and then passed it on down.

Here's how Standards Editor Craig Whitney handled the issue:

From: Craig Whitney
Date: Aug 20, 2007 12:38 PM
Subject: Chandler Burr's perfume dinners

Dear "Ellsworth Toohey" (I put the Ayn Rand name between quotation marks because you do in your e-mail address; please forgive me if it is not a pseudonym):

In answer to your letter to Arthur Sulzberger (and Page Six) about the perfume dinners that our "T" perfume critic, Chandler Burr, participates in, I can tell you that Mr. Burr, although not an employee of The Times but a freelance contract contributor, has been made aware that it would be a violation of our ethics policy for him to review any more of the perfumes used at the dinners you wrote about, since the parfumiers had made free samples available for that purpose. He understands that it was a mistake to have used sel de vetiver, since he had given that perfume a favorable review.

The dinners, however, are not hosted by him or by The New York Times; he does not charge attendees, the dinners' host does.

Thank you for writing.

Sincerely
Craig R. Whitney
Standards Editor

Well, there's Him Her Him Him Her Again Him Again Again. Patricia Marx gets all high-concept in a column in which she and her "main friend" Paul go to very expensive Swedish mattress emporium H stens, where they loll around on mattresses and watch television. Here's a snippet: "I am Patty. I am much older than 6. I am a city grown-up. I live in my own apartment. But one night I got to sleep in a store called H stens. They sell beds." Is she playing a joke on her editors? On us? We don't know!

Then there's Perfume Columnist Chandler Burr's latest several hundred words on the intricacies of developing a new scent for Procter & Gamble's Febreze. Yes, Febreze: "To come up with what it would smell like, the P&G team looked at the point where scent and lifestyle trends intersect, and it struck [Febreze "consumer trends specialist" Alyce Nicholson] Sheehan that it was 'a fantastic time for lavender.' People are going back to nature, she says, they're into health and wellness, they're interested in herbs and simplicity, all of which is associated with lavender." Right, then. When did Chandler Burr turn into Rob Walker?

Then there's yet another article about architect Steven Holl and a house he designed in the New Mexico desert.

Also, chairs. A whole lot of really expensive chairs. —Doree