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Gideon Lewis-Kraus’ New York Times Magazine profile of a man who sells private jets to the “the 1 percent of the 1 percent of the 1 percent” is a document that should go down in the annals of this gilded age. It includes the writer flying on Tony Robbins’ private jet with Robbins, and many a word choice worthy of the jet set, including phocine, umber, coruscating, and empyreal. But what makes the piece so moving is its pairing of the oligarchic class’ obscene tastes—a public tragedy—with the private tragedy of a salesman so convinced owning a jet is a necessity, but who just can’t afford one himself.
