Reviews and News:
Emily Wilson—daughter of British writer A. N. Wilson—recently completed her translation of the Odyssey. She is the first woman to translate the entire poem into English.
How church records could help solve the mystery of an ancient Roman plague: “The Plague of Cyprian, named after the man who by AD 248 found himself Bishop of Carthage, struck in a period of history when basic facts are sometimes known barely or not at all. Yet the one fact that virtually all of our sources do agree upon is that a great pestilence defined the age between AD 249 and AD 262.” (HT: A. M. Juster)
This is a bad idea: “Campaign launched to lift ban on posthumous Nobel.” I like the injustice of great writers and scientists dying without winning the award. It reminds us that life is unfair and that death always comes too soon.
The craft and verve of Aaron Poochigian.
The real John Maynard Keynes: “Hoerber’s contention is that the fight between Hayek and Keynes has been mischaracterized as one between freedom and control, when really both sides were equally interested in freedom. Hayek’s mistake, he argues, was in failing to see that Keynes embraced economic planning precisely in order to preserve liberal democracy from the threat of revolution. This is an old tactic…In reality, Keynes did not care a fig for freedom.”
John Updike’s many letters to readers: “James Schiff…is working on a volume of Updike’s letters and has unearthed thousands of letters, postcards, and notes the author sent to complete strangers who wrote to him. ‘While it is hardly surprising that he carried on a correspondence with editors, translators, publicists, critics, journalists and fellow writers, what is remarkable is how often and generously he responded to letters from readers, fans and complete strangers,’ Schiff says. As Martha knew all too well, her husband received daily requests for autographs, photographs, donations, interviews and invitations to speak. But Updike seemingly responded to them all, no matter how big or small.”
Hidden chamber discovered in pyramid: “Though they were constructed nearly 5,000 years ago, the Great Pyramids of Egypt are still packed with secrets. Using a technique that leverages the power of cosmic rays, scientists have confirmed the presence of a large empty space within Khufu’s pyramid—a void that’s signaling the presence of a possible hidden chamber.”
The late Umberto Eco on not reading books: “Knowing a book’s relationship to other books often means you know more about it than you do on actually reading it.”
Essay of the Day:
In the New York Times Magazine, Burt Helm reports on how Facebook can make or break start-ups:
“One night in the summer of 2015, over Sichuan at Han Dynasty on 85th Street, Cogan asked Horwitz for advice about his latest notion: selling contact lenses online. The contacts business was dominated by a handful of companies like Johnson & Johnson and Bausch & Lomb, which seemed to charge whatever they wanted — at least in Cogan’s view, based on the price increases for his own lenses. Surely a low-cost competitor could tempt away customers. Cogan pulled his laptop from his bag and opened it at the table in the middle of dinner, pushing aside plates of dumplings and scallion pancakes. He had two plans to show Horwitz. They could sell a cheap disposable lens to doctors. Or they could mimic Cogan’s employer, a wildly successful start-up called Harry’s.
“By late 2015, Harry’s, which sold safety razors and shaving cream, was in the vanguard of upstart online retailers known as direct-to-consumer companies. The business model works like this: Firms sell only their own products, only through their own websites. By cutting out retailers and distributors, they can charge less for their specialty products than entrenched competitors. That year, Casper, then a direct-to-consumer mattress and bedding seller, was reported to be on track to exceed $100 million in sales in its second year of business. Dollar Shave Club, another seller of razors, had reached $152 million in revenue. Warby Parker, the eyeglasses purveyor that many credit with pioneering this business model in 2010, had recently closed an investment round that reportedly valued the company at $1.2 billion. Venture capitalists — convinced that consumers would increasingly patronize specialty online retailers as they grew more comfortable shopping online — were pouring money into direct-to-consumer start-ups, more than $2 billion over the past four years, according to CB Insights.
“Horwitz, by now bored in his job, pushed Cogan to keep pursuing his idea and volunteered to help him do research. ‘It’s hard to intellectualize whether an idea is good or not,’ Horwitz says. ‘You have to just start doing it and see.’
“By February 2016, after many nights and weekends of emailing Asian manufacturers and reading up on Food and Drug Administration compliance, the vision of a viable business was coming into focus. The pair had found an F.D.A.-approved manufacturer in Asia and figured out how to meet the necessary regulations. Still, Cogan was reluctant. He had been accepted to Wharton and had even put down a deposit. He believed that was the smarter option. At best, the contact-lens business would become a side project.
“Before shelving their venture, they decided to try one more tack. They recruited two friends: Paul Rodgers, a buddy of Horwitz’s from Columbia who knew how to write computer code, and Dan Rosen, a friend of Cogan’s from Bronx Science who was handy with Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. Together the four built what is known in the world of online retailing as a demand experiment. The technique, credited to Harry’s founders (who give away its basic code), amounts to a two-page website. The first page explained the concept of a monthly subscription for contacts and asked those who were interested to submit their email addresses. Visitors who did so were taken to a second page and were made an offer: Share this referral code with friends, and if enough of them sign up, you’ll get free contacts.
“They posted a link to their site on the walls of about 40 Facebook friends. Within a few days, not only had their own friends signed up, but friends of friends of friends had, too — some 2,000 people in all. Some of those distant connections were even evangelizing the company on their own Facebook walls. ‘It went mini-viral,’ Cogan says.”
Photo: Lofoten
Poem: Cortney Lamar Charleston, “Sonic & Knuckles (1994)”
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