Category: Big Business

Posted on

What it is: 1/28/08

What I’m reading: John Lanchester’s Mr. Phillips, Cormac McCarthy’s No Country for Old Men, and Osamu Tezuka’s Buddha, Vol. 3

What I’m listening to: Sing You Sinners, by Erin McKeown

What I’m watching: almost finished with the first season of The Wire!

What I’m drinking: Balgownie Estate 2004 shiraz

Where I’m going: No trips planned this week, although we’re thinking of visiting our friends in Providence next weekend

What I’m happy about: that the heavy push to get my Jan/Feb combo issue done in time for Informex has left me a little more leeway in putting together the March issue and planning out April and May

What I’m sad about: that one of my best pals just deployed for “parts unknown” with his carrier group, and the dad of another of my pals just had surgery to remove some not-so-good cells from his pancreas

What I’m pondering: how awesome it is that, when I felt a twinge of nostalgia for my old college stomping grounds on Saturday, I was able to zoom in the satellite view on Google Maps, retrace my old travels, and remember that the Amherst Cinema is where I first watched Miller’s Crossing

Posted on

Cheap Novelties

Sure, Bobby Fischer’s death got all the press, what with the worldwide reactions and reminiscences of his chess-playing genius, his uncomfortable relationship with celebrity, and his later hatred of Jews. But let’s also take time to mourn Richard Knerr.

I’d never heard of Mr. Knerr till I opened the NYTimes on Friday morning, when I learned about the demise of the co-founder of Wham-O. Yes, the man who unleashed the Frisbee, the Super Ball (inspiration for the Super Bowl), the Hula Hoop, and Silly String on an unsuspecting public has shuffled off this mortal Slinky coil.*

I found his obit absolutely fascinating (which is probably a sign that I need to get out more), especially the part where we find out that Wham-O sold 100 million Hula Hoops, but managed to make only $10,000 in profit by fad’s end. And, being a fan of cheap novelties, I chuckled over the penultimate paragraph:

Not all of Mr. Knerr’s brainstorms succeeded. Among them were mail-order mink coats for $9.95, a $119 do-it-yourself bomb shelter and Instant Fish, an African import whose egg-laying ability could not keep up with product orders.

For the rest of the day, I found myself humming Joe Jackson’s “I’m the Man” and wondering if I’d appreciate The Hudsucker Proxy more than I did when I saw it in 1995.

(That’s Mr. Knerr on the right. The NYTimes didn’t provide a photo credit, so I guess I should just write, “Photo: New York Times.”)

* Slinky was not marketed by Wham-O.

Posted on

Conference Call

As the editor of a (trade) magazine, part of my job involves finding pertinent topics for articles and good writers to cover them. One way to do this is to look through brochures for conferences and call presenters who are speaking on subjects of interest. Sometimes they’ll be able to adapt their presentation into an article. Other times, they have a suggestion for another writer, or are available for an interview on the subject.

And today, this happened:

“Hi, [X], I’m Gil Roth, the editor at Contract Pharma magazine. I was going through the brochure for [conference Y] next week and noticed that you’re speaking on [subject Z]. I was wondering if we could talk about adapting your presentation into an article for an upcoming issue.”

“What conference?”

“[Conference Y].”

“Really?”

“Yeah. They have you listed as a ‘distinguished speaker’ and you’re scheduled to speak at 2pm on the second day.”

“Hmm. Where is this conference?”

“[City A]. Ringing any bells?”

“Nope, but at least it’s not far from here. What’s the URL for the conference?”

“[Website B]. But that’s just the main site for the company.”

“I’ll look it up. Next Friday, huh?”

“That’s what the brochure says.”

“Well, thanks for letting me know. I’ll start adapting my basic presentation.”

“Sure thing!”

Amazingly, I actually did ask him to adapt the presentation into an article for the March issue. And he accepted! Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to set up my e-mail to send him a reminder every 36 hours until the deadline. . .

Posted on

Belichick Chemicals?

Yes, clients occasionally put me up in fancy-pants hotels (where amenities include loaner laptops and goldfish) for press briefings.

Yes, clients occasionally take me out to dinner in fancy-pants restaurants.

No, this hasn’t stopped me from hitting a halal street-meat cart for lamb & chicken rice platter.

* * *

Best line from the press briefings: When asked about about the rigorous process his company has for suppliers of chemical ingredients, one of the VPs told us, “One supplier sent us the chemicals in a cut-off sweatshirt sleeve.”

Evidently, the supplier didn’t want to bother filling out proper certificates or taking care of traceability requirements, so they just . . . wrapped the chemicals in a cut-off sweatshirt sleeve and shipped ’em off to a global provider.

“The supplier was based in an, um, evolving economy,” we were told.

* * *

Here’s a picture from the staircase in the restaurant:

Staircase at Amalia NYC

And here’s a picture of Greene St., running north of Canal:

Posted on

Unrequired Reading: Jan. 11, 2008

It’s my birthday, dear readers! So I’m taking today off to celebrate!

Still, you deserve some Unrequired Reading, so here’s a neat article detailing the history of the development of the iPhone, because

a) it’s a really neat story about how the wireless industry works and how Apple has tried to shake it up with this device, and

b) my wife just got me one for my birthday!

Thanks for enabling my geekiness, darling! (more Unrequired Reading after the break)

Continue reading “Unrequired Reading: Jan. 11, 2008”

Posted on

Show some resolve!

Whoops! I was so busy getting the Jan/Feb issue of my mag together that I almost missed my New Year’s Resolution of making sure I post at least one item every day!

Fortunately, I came across this neat writeup about companies that worked for/with Nazi Germany. “Enjoy”!
(And, yes, I do own a Hugo Boss suit, but it was in clearance, so I got to exert my Jewish stereotype on that one.)

My other resolution is to get back to only drinking water, black coffee or gin. I slipped up and had a Dr. Pepper a few days ago, and Amy broke out a bottle of wine Saturday night, but I’m sticking with it pretty well!

Posted on

Unrequired Reading: 2007 Year-End Edition

As promised — somewhat spur-of-the-moment-ly — here’s a collection of posts that I’ve been holding onto for a while. I wanted to write about each one in more depth, but the last few months have been so busy that I simply haven’t been able to give them the attention I think they deserve.

I think one of the reasons I didn’t write about some of these is that they would’ve led me into the familiar and boring territory of my failures as a book-publisher and as a writer. When I’m work-stressed and in need of a break, I don’t tend to think, “Maybe some public self-flagellation will make me feel better!”

In that spirit, here’s the last batch of Unrequired Reading for 2007! (If you want more, go plunder the Unrequired Reading archives!)

Continue reading “Unrequired Reading: 2007 Year-End Edition”

Posted on

A new personal best/worst!

Thanks, federal government and state of New Jersey! I didn’t really want the other FORTY-FOUR PERCENT of my holiday bonus and online sales commission anyway!

Maybe in another year or two you can take more than half of my cash!

Posted on

Unrequired Reading: Dec. 21, 2007

The year-end 400+ page issue is finished at last! This one is dedicated to QuarkXpress, the layout program that includes such features as “This file cannot be opened by this version of QuarkXpress” and “Why would we bother making our font-handling system compatible with Mac? It’s not like the Mac is a computer of choice in the publishing industry!”

Time to embarrass myself and others at our office holiday party!

Continue reading “Unrequired Reading: Dec. 21, 2007”