There is no shortage of funny moments in Ruby Cramer’s recent profile of Eric Adams. New York’s new mayor professes to the Politico writer that he believes the city has a “special energy” that comes from its placement atop a store of rare gems and stones. He cops to being buddies with both Fat Joe and Bill Clinton (Adams, like many a New Yorker, worships celebrity, which is why he’s a fixture at Zero Bond, an exclusive club in NoHo where such types circulate; in Cramer’s profile, he mentions seeing Kate Hudson there just the other night). He talks about his claim to veganism — though by now, it’s clear that Adams eats fish, too. He addresses the argument over whether he even lives in New York, an issue on which evidence remains inconclusive.

These eccentricities are irresistible to the press. Adams is one of the weirdest people ever elected to a position as visible as mayor of New York. In Cramer’s profile, Adams recounts a reporter friend telling him, “You get clicks, Eric.” No writer can forgo what he offers: Ask me about whether a “plant-based-centered lifestyle” not only cured my diabetes but brought back vision in my left eye; ask me if I became a cop after robbing a sex worker as a teenager. (The details of the latter story seem to change in every telling; and as for the former, let’s call it suspect.) As Adams tells Cramer of his relationship to the press, “When I got elected in the primary, I said, ‘You guys are gonna have the most fun you’ve ever had covering a candidate.’”

But a consensus is emerging in the cottage industry of Adams dispatches: the writer admits to knowing that a focus on quirks rather than policies is what the mayor wants; they wink at the reader, acknowledging the gambit, and then they take the bait anyway.