The Bloom Is Off The Berg

Word to Obama:

He arrived here for what seemed like it could be a big moment. Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, eyeing a third-party presidential bid, joined Republican and Democratic elders at a forum to denounce the extreme partisanship of Washington and plot how to influence the campaign.

But even as the mayor gathered on Monday with the seasoned Washington hands on the campus of the University of Oklahoma, the surging presidential campaign of Senator Barack Obama seemed to steal energy from the event and set off worry elsewhere among Mr. Bloomberg’s supporters.

Mr. Obama has stressed that he wants to move beyond gridlocked politics and usher in an era of national unity. A key organizer of the effort to draft Mr. Bloomberg for a presidential run acknowledged in an interview on Monday that that Mr. Obama’s rise could be problematic.

“Obama is trying to reach out to independent voters, and that clearly would be the constituency that Mike Bloomberg would go after,” said Andrew MacRae, who heads the Washington chapter of Draft Mike Bloomberg for President 2008. “An Obama victory does not make it impossible, but it certainly makes it more difficult.”

Then again, how scary have you considered whether Bloomberg could avoid being a spoiler to Hillary by joining her? This passage in this week’s John Heilemann column jumped out:

But Clinton’s bid, as her campaign manager, Patti Solis Doyle, said after the caucuses, “was built for a marathon.” (Or, as one rival operative put it to me, “They’ll start a fucking third party before they’ll give up on putting her in the White House.”)

Sanitation Expert And A Maintenance Engineer; Garbage Man, A Janitor And You My Dear . . .

Every executive knows that the cheapest way to keep employees happy is to give them exciting new job titles:

Five years into the tenure of Schools Chancellor Joel Klein, a major administrative restructuring of the city schools has brought the wacky culture of corporate job titles to the Tweed Courthouse.

There, among the ranks of top school officials working for Klein is a chief accountability officer making $196,000, a chief knowledge officer making $177,000, a chief talent officer making $172,000 and a chief portfolio officer making $162,000.

There’s also a chief equality officer, but he’s working for free this year.

Then there are all the corporate titles, in spades. Several divisions each have a chief executive officer, there’s a product manager for knowledge management, a demand research manager, a director of virtual enterprise and dozens of senior achievement facilitators.

There was someone called the director of restructuring and human capital, but he’s now the senior director of sustainability, at $123,000.

Parents say it’s enough to make them dizzy.

“It’s a whole mess,” said Anastatia Davis-John, the parent association president at Brooklyn’s Public School 135.

“It’s totally confusing. They switched from districts to regions and now they’ve switched back, and half the titles you don’t know what they mean. . . . It’s especially difficult for parents who can’t speak English. They don’t know who is representing what and who is doing what.”

Teachers are still called teachers, of course. And principals are still principals — though under a new system that gives principals more autonomy and Klein often calls them “school CEOs.”

The Metropolitan Museum Of Gawker

I don’t know which is worse — that the Met is incorporating blogging into its exhibits or that the Post actually used the word “fugly” in a headline:

The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute is inviting the public to unleash its inner fashion critic, and blog about all 65 items found in a new exhibit.

The museum, which just kicked off its “blog.mode: addressing fashion” exhibit, will periodically post its objects on a special online site — and anyone can comment on them from the comfort of home or a computer station at the exhibit.

“While painting and sculpture can sometimes seem to be an intimidating conceptual remove, fashion is so familiar, so ubiquitous to our experience, that it is inherently and immediately accessible,” Harold Koda, curator in charge of the Costume Institute, said.

“Individuals who might shy away from commenting on the merits of a Juan Gris or Henry Moore will readily disclose their thoughts on a gown by John Galliano or a mule by Manolo Blahnik.”

That said, it actually may contribute a new thin slicing technique: intuitively avoiding pretentious exhibits that use periods and lower case in the title.

Hail No!

The War on Traffic may soon replace The War on Drugs as the most fruitless battle ever waged:

“Everything that is being looked at is being looked at seriously,” said Marc V. Shaw, chairman of the Traffic Congestion Mitigation Commission, at a meeting of the panel yesterday. “There are a lot of committed people on this issue that feel very strongly about it, and we’re taking all these things seriously.”

Yesterday’s meeting included presentations on a series of possible alternatives or additions to Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s congestion pricing proposal, which calls for charging drivers $8 a day to bring their cars into Manhattan below 86th Street. The mayor has championed the plan as a way to reduce traffic and raise money for public transportation.

The commission was created by the State Legislature to come up with a plan by the end of next month on how best to achieve both those goals. Under the timetable set by lawmakers, the Legislature would take up the plan by the end of March.

One proposal could be nearly as controversial as the mayor’s congestion pricing plan: the establishment of a No Hail Zone in the area below 86th Street.

Under such a plan, yellow cabs could pick up people only at designated taxi stands. The stands, up to 1,200 of them, would be set up on each block in busy areas and every few blocks in other parts of the zone.

Taxis account for close to a third of the traffic — or vehicle miles traveled each day — in the area, according to a research report prepared for the commission. It is hard, however, to predict what impact the change would have on traffic. While taxi drivers would spend less time cruising in search of fares, some might drive greater distances to get to the busiest taxi stands, said Bruce Schaller, deputy commissioner for planning and sustainability at the city’s Department of Transportation.

And the attitudes of riders have to be taken into account, Mr. Schaller said. The image of an intrepid or even aggressive New Yorker, hand upraised and hollering for a cab to stop, is an iconic one for many people. Some riders might resist lining up in orderly queues, waiting their turns.

“It wouldn’t be New York without it,” said Ricardo Barajas, 22, a law student. He saw the proposal as an encroachment on New Yorkers’ freedom to stand on street corners of their choosing with their hands in the air. “I don’t want to be restricted,” he said.

There Oughta Be A Law . . .

. . . against billboards that speak:

Last week, at the corner of Prince and Mulberry Streets in NoLIta, a scene was playing out that would have gladdened the heart of any advertising buyer. Pedestrians were turning and gawking at a six-story tenement emblazoned with a giant billboard for “Paranormal State,” a new television series about ghosts on A & E.

But passers-by were not reacting to the billboard. Each of them was hearing an urgent, disembodied female voice whispering suggestive messages. “What’s that?” the voice hissed. “Who’s there? It’s not your imagination.”

The voices, which belong to A & E employees, were emanating from two large black speakers above the billboard, which contained a technology called directional audio. The speakers use ultrasound to produce a highly focused beam of sound, making people within their reach feel as if they are wearing headphones, listening to sounds intended for them and them alone.
. . .

This appears to be the first commercial use of such technology on a billboard.

Peter Swimm, a 27-year-old technical support worker at Pando, an Internet startup with offices nearby, was among those transfixed one morning last week. Clasping his shaggy, bearded head, Mr. Swimm peered up at the billboard through the falling snow. “It’s neat,” he said. “With terrifying implications, like all things that are neat.”

. . .

According to Guy Slattery, A & E’s senior vice president for marketing, no special approval from the city had been required for the sonic billboard. And Kate Lindquist, a spokeswoman for the Department of Buildings, confirmed that the city does not regulate sounds emitting from billboards. She added, however, that this particular billboard lacked the permit required for all city billboards.