Our hearts were young and, um, cheery

This New York Times correction (and change to the original text) cracked me up.

First, the correction:

An appraisal on Dec. 31 about David Levine, the caricaturist for The New York Review of Books who died on Dec. 29, may have left the incorrect impression that the Russian writer Aleksandr Pushkin, the subject of one of Mr. Levine's drawings, was homosexual. The description of Pushkin as "a gay man" was a reference to his demeanor, not his sexual orientation.

What did the paper do? Accidentally pick up an article written in the 1920s? It's possible. The Times recently published a report of the arrest of playwright/actor Sam Shepard. Only it was, oops, a year old.

But back to Pushkin. The original passage has been changed to read:

[Levine's] drawing of Pushkin in 1971 captures the impulsive, proud, independent quality of a cheery man whose "many affairs with women were a means of filling the emptiness of boredom," as the author of the piece it illustrated wrote.

Yes, I guess the original wording suggested Pushkin was "on the down low," as they say.


(Note: Go to Regret the Error for all your correction needs.)