Strange ad in a strange land

Yesterday's New York Times Sunday Styles section was its usual mixture of things, but one thing that was new caught my eye.

It was on page 11.

Page 11 was divided into eight discrete areas.

The two-column-wide section on the left had Bill Cunningham's feature, "Evening Hours," a group of annotated black-and-white photos of posers and poseurs: Al Gore, Bronfmans and Pillsburys, Wynton Marsalis and Ahmet Ertegun, you get the picture.

Under that was the "Letters" section.

The two columns to the far right consisted of an ad for Sergio Rossi shoes, one for Cassina furniture, and one for Jimmy Choo.

The middle section was what got my attention.

Up top was an ad for Steuben Glass; below it was one for Pashmina scarves.

The fascinating thing was just below: an ad for the Genetics & IVF Institute headlined "DONOR EGG" - Immediate Availability"

Now, I've seen this ad in the Times pretty regularly over the years, but its placement in the Sunday Styles section was new.

Because this section is basically the sports section for girls, as one of the characters on "Sex and the City" once drolly noted.

It's where women go to read about who got married and to whom, and then decide "who won."

The fact that the Genetics & IVF Institute finally broke through, and got the Times to allow them and their message of barrenness and infertility problems into the land of la-de-da and make-believe and happily-ever-after is, I think, significant.

The Times is reeling from the plain fact that newspapers are more and more perceived as part of the Buick/Cadillac crowd's lifestyle, not the hip, 18-34-year-old demographic advertisers so crave.

The Gray Lady, like any institution, will do whatever it takes to survive.