madness
My abiding memory of tutoring New Yorkers is of sitting with one girl as night fell late in October. Tears coursed down her cheeks and onto the hem of the distinctive skirt of her elite private school. She was too upset to sip from the mug of hot chocolate her housekeeper had brought up. Her parents were working late, as they always did, and other than the staff, we were alone in the house. Spread on a table before us were college essay drafts.“It’s hopeless,” she sobbed. “I’ve got nothing.”
From her bedroom window, where we sat, an unobstructed view of Central Park stretched north to the autumn sky.
market research
Chaim, it turned out, was Chaim Pikarski, an Orthodox Jewish man with a wispy red beard who seemed amused at my attempt to understand his business. He also knew his Hipe speaker would appeal to me, because that insight--knowing what people are searching for on Amazon--is at the core of what he does. He has an entire team of people who read reviews on Amazon, looking for moments when people say, "I wish this speaker were rechargeable." Pikarski then makes a rechargeable version. Hipe exists, in essence, because enough people think like me. It's a profitable trick: C&A Marketing does "in the nine figures" in sales every year, Pikarski says, and grows at about 30% annually.
out of business
From today's reading:
Will the Lord walk off and leave us for good? Will he never smile again? Is his love worn threadbare? Has his salvation promise burned out? Has God forgotten his manners? Has he angrily stalked off and left us?“Just my luck,” I said. “The High God goes out of business just the moment I need him.”
(Psalm 77:7-10 MSG)
recommendation letters
From Letters of Note:
In November of 1911, two of the world's most revered scientists, Henri Poincaré and Marie Curie, were asked to write letters of recommendation for a 32-year-old man who was looking to become a professor of theoretical physics...
Two extracts.
First, Poincaré:
What one has to admire in him above all is the facility with which he adapts himself to new concepts and knows how to draw from them every possible conclusion.
Now Curie:
I was able to appreciate the clarity of his mind, the extent of his documentation and the depth of his knowledge.
translation
From today's reading:
Jacob fled to the land of Aram;
there Israel served for a wife,
and for a wife he guarded sheep.
(Hosea 12:12, ESV)
And...
Are you going to repeat the life of your ancestor Jacob?
He ran off guilty to Aram,
Then sold his soul to get ahead,
and made it big through treachery and deceit.
(Hosea 12:12, The Message)
Seriously.
How?