Michael Phelps and Katie Hoff aren't just showing off their swimming in Missouri. They're showing off their new Speedo LZR Racer swimsuits. And that means they're showing off their birthday suits, too.
What Speedo calls "the world's fastest swimsuit" is kinda, well, see-through.
At least in the right light. Like on a stage in midtown Manhattan last week, where Phelps, Hoff and others modeled the high-tech suits for the media. And on the set of the Today show, where Phelps, Hoff and other elite swimmers also appeared.
"[T]he lights cut through their translucent suits like X-rays," The New York Times reported, describing the Today show peep show as "awkward."
Cathy Lears, aquatics director at the Meadowbrook Aquatic Center, where Phelps and Hoff work out, said she noticed the problem in one version of the suit Hoff wore, with an American flag motif.
"Probably today, probably she'll have a solid color," said Lears, who thought the trouble was confined to the leg area in that suit.
But under those bright midtown stage lights, the gray-on-gray version modeled by Phelps was sheer in the worst possible location. Speedo had Phelps pose with his arms and legs outstretched to evoke Vitruvian Man. It was the old da Vinci anatomy lesson all right, more than anybody wanted to know.
The full-length suits, which will retail for as much as $550, are challenging in ways beyond modesty. They're also very hard to put on. The suits are super tight to compress swimmers' bodies into something more "hydro-dynamic."
"Oh my God, it takes forever," said Lears, who helped Hoff squeeze into one last week. "For us, it would be like putting on the tightest pair of pantyhose you can ever imagine that go up to your neck. She put a plastic bag on her feet to get it through the holes at the ankles. Then you have to do that whole thing of working it up. It's really, a good 10 minutes. I'm, like, 'Katie, you're going to be exhausted.'"
Why bother?
Apparently, it works.
"It's all about compression, getting everything in there," Lears said. "Katie said it felt fantastic when she dove in the water."
It's Chow down for good in Hampden
A woman launched a small pet supply store in Hampden a few years ago, and she's been so successful that she's moving to a much bigger location in the neighborhood.
Sounds like an upbeat small business story. And it is, but for Purina's claim on the word "chow."
The upshot: Chow, Baby! pet supply is saying "ciao" to its name.
"It has recently come to our attention that your company is using "CHOW, BABY!" as a company name and service mark," reads a letter from St. Louis attorney Thomas Polcyn on behalf of Purina. "Such uses of 'CHOW, BABY!' in connection with the sale and distribution of pet food, pet treats, and other pet-related products is likely to cause confusion with Purina's CHOW trademarks, and dilutes the distinctive quality of those marks."
Store owner Robin McDonald got the letter way back in September 2004, when she'd been open less than a year.
"I didn't want to start all over," she said. "I called Bowie & Jensen. They said I could fight it but it would cost $12,000 to $15,000 and I'd have a 50-50 chance of keeping the name."
She kept the name anyway, hoping to stay under the Purina radar by pulling down her Web site. The strategy has worked. McDonald hasn't heard again from Purina lawyers (who didn't return my call Friday).
But McDonald feels she needs to get a Web site going again. So she's trying to come up with a new name for the store by the time it moves in late March.
She's offering a $100 gift card for the best name (hampdenpets@ gmail.com). Just don't try trading it in for Purina chow. The store doesn't carry the stuff.
Talk about finding yourself upstaged
Last weekend was a big Democratic brunch in Montgomery County, and with the Maryland primary just days away, the buzz was that Hillary Clinton herself might show. She didn't. But she had a high-profile surrogate speaking on her behalf: Martin O'Malley.
Barack Obama had a surrogate, too. But it wasn't somebody like Doug Gansler, Peter Franchot or Elijah Cummings, as had been expected. Only that morning did O'Malley learn he was going head to head with - gulp! - Ted Kennedy.
"Not a fair fight," was how one attendee put it.
Connect the dots
State government and at least one U.S. senator's office should be running more smoothly now that the primary is behind Maryland. Brian Hammock, special assistant to O'Malley chief of staff Michael Enright, took a few days of personal leave to do field work for the Clinton campaign. Melissa Schwartz, spokeswoman for Sen. Barbara Mikulski, took off to serve as Maryland communications director for Clinton. And David Weaver, chief of staff to Comptroller Franchot, was communications director for Obama. ... Baltimore attorney and former judicial candidate Arthur Frank, who worked a judicial election up in Harford County, reports on the wonders of electoral technology. "The officials kept the polls open until 9:30 due to inclement weather conditions," he wrote. "That was nice, except the new computers shut down automatically at 8 p.m. so no one can vote after the polls close. Not to worry though, the election staffers brought out good old-fashioned paper ballots to save the day."