Monty Python's "Travel Agent Sketch" and the West Village

This is one of my favorites of the classic Monty Python sketches. I've included it here because Eric Idle's lengthy monologue reflects the way I'm starting to feel about my neighborhood - the West Village - during tourist-crowded weekends. Between the fashionista wannabes and the "middle America" tourists on "Sex and the City" tours, disgorged from diesel-puffing buses, the sidewalks are overrun. Many of them will wait for an hour in the line at Magnolia Bakery just for cupcakes. Cupcakes (which are that great)! But, they're part of that "Sex and the City" mystique which draws people from all over the world to gawk at spots in the neighborhood. Sure, they pump money into the local economy - as well as the hotels and bus companies that run the tours - but they also leave mountains of trash in Bleecker Park, and, by shopping at the high-end boutiques of Ralph Lauren and Marc Jacobs, further erode the historic character of the West Village.