(1) ‘Non-Stop’ by Jack El-Hai: How a small local carrier grew into the most debonair of airlines before declining into “Northworst.” (WSJ)

(2) 20 Odd Questions for Designer Marcel Wanders (WSJ)

“With design, the most common mistake is: to think it’s about functionality. If something is functional, you no longer think about it. I care about how meaningful things are.”

(3) ‘The Power of Glamour’ by Virginia Postrel: What is glamour? A dream of flight to a perfect world, of being transformed into who you want to be. (WSJ – Registration Required)

“In the end, when history, art and advertising have been combed for evidence, we are left with the idea of a dream of flight to a perfect world and a process of transformation that will (presumably) turn the aspirant into the person he or she wants to be—a concept necessarily rendered bittersweet by the knowledge that, save in exceptional circumstances, the dream is unlikely to get off the ground. To the fascinated observer, its allure lies in the existence of an abstraction, tantalizingly elusive to begin with, whose manifestations can end up light years away from its source.”

(4) A House Rooted in Nature (WSJ)

(5) ‘Ecstatic Nation’ by Brenda Wineapple (WSJ)

“But her descriptions of public events are beautiful. ‘On a sunny, warm Wednesday, May 23, [1865] Washington decked itself out for a two-day victory parade’ by the armies of Meade and Sherman. Abraham Lincoln, assassinated just five weeks before, ‘should have been in the reviewing stand,’ all agreed. ‘Clover Hooper said, ‘It was a strange feeling to be so intensely happy and triumphant, and yet to feel like crying.'”