George Meyer Sends Up Airline Branding

zeplane.jpgWe understand that you’re saving the latest issue of The New Yorker (and the promise of a swell fact piece by Patricia Marx about the wacky world of high-end timepieces as she reports from Baselworld) for your imminent Memorial Day weekend plane/train/car/van/burro ride to Bilbao/Sag Harbor/Hoboken/Niagara Falls/The Grand Canyon, but we simply couldn’t resist sharing this excellent piece—a bite-sized Shouts & Murmurs that sneaks in among this week’s Talk of the Town casuals—by George Meyer about the wondrous absurdities of frequent flyer program branding. And so we present “The Privileged Few.” Return your seat to its upright position, stow your tray table, and take a read:

Good afternoon. This is your pre-boarding announcement for Flight 505 to Milwaukee. All first-class and business-class passengers, passengers needing special assistance, and families travelling with small children may now board the aircraft.

We also invite any Platinum Club, ProTravel Select, Apogee Plus, and Sigma Alliance cardholders to board at this time.

Thank you for waiting. We now welcome members of Skyline Advantage, Priority Partners, Front Row Preferred, Exclusa, Summit V.I.P., Head of the Line, A-List Connections, Imperial Privilege, InCrOwD, Icarus Prime Choice, Top Rank Silk, and Top Rank Crystal Reserve. You may now board the aircraft.

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At White House Correspondents Dinner, an Unlikely Trio

(Kyle Samperton).jpgOur interest in Our Nation’s Capital usually involves whatever’s cooking at the Corcoran, the National Building Museum, or the Hirshhorn, but then we saw this photo taken by Kyle Samperton at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner. The Saturday night gathering of a whopping 2,500 journalists, politicians, diplomats, celebrities, and a smattering of fashion designers (including Donatella Versace, Narciso Rodriguez, and Jason Wu) brought out rocker—and Obama fan—Jon Bon Jovi, who had the good sense to stand proximal to what we recognized as an Andy Warhol-style pop art graphic of Larry Summers, director of the National Economic Council. To recap, that’s Bon Jovi, Warhol, and Summers. As George Constanza would say, “Worlds are colliding!” Our brother blog, Fishbowl DC, has more images of the “politi-pop” artwork, which adorned the walls at the Atlantic/NJ reception, here.

The Onion Asks Area People About the World Trade Center 30-Year Delay

Back in September of last year, things seemed to finally be going well for the World Trade Center rebuilding and memorial constructing. Then, of course, the real scope of the financial fall started to loom over everyones heads and…

Why His Business Card Is Better Than Yours

Because it’s die-cut, foil-stamped, embossed, and expensive (“about four dollars a card”). Because it took 25 years to design. Because it doesn’t fit in a Rolodex. Because it doesn’t belong in a Rolodex. Because it’s on card stock so thick and creamy that it can slice cheese. Because there’s a surprise inside. Because it demonstrates “incredible marketing capability.” Because it’s the pride and maniacal joy of this results-oriented entrepreneur, the Patrick Bateman of event planning. Thanks to Design Observer for sending us his way.

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Mysterious Naval Vessels, Free to Good Home

sea shadow.jpgOh Wall Street Journal A-Hed column, you had us at “a cross between a Stealth fighter and a Batmobile” (although frankly, we would have gone with the definite article before Batmobile). That’s how the paper’s intrepid Barry Newman describes one of two top-secret vessels that the United States Navy is looking for someone to take off its hands. In addition to the aforementioned Sea Shadow (pictured), a big black thing designed to “escape detection on the open sea,” there is a barge named after Howard Hughes.

It looks like a floating field house, with an arching roof and a door that is 76 feet wide and 72 feet high. Sea Shadow berths inside the barge, which keeps it safely hidden from spy satellites.

The barge, by the way, is the only fully submersible dry dock ever built, making it very handy—as it was 35 years ago—for trying to raise a sunken nuclear-armed Soviet submarine.

Since 2006, the Navy has been offering Sea Shadow and the Barge (which sounds like the name of a terrific sitcom!) for free in a package deal. So far, no takers. “A gift ship from the Navy comes with lots of strings attached to the rigging,” writes Kaplan. “A naval museum, the Historic Naval Ships Association warns, is ‘a bloodthirsty, paperwork ridden, permit-infested, money-sucking hole…'”

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