“William Whyte’s rule: virtually all corporate relocations involve a move to a location which is closer to the CEO’s home than the old location. Whyte discovered this principle after an extensive study of Fortune 500 companies that left New York City for the suburbs in the 1950s and 1960s. They always had big, complicated Relocation Committees which carefully studied all the options and chose, coincidentally I’m sure, to move to within half a mile of the CEO’s home in Danbury, Connecticut. Whyte also showed that these companies all tanked after the relocation.”
Category: Uncategorized
chris reeve bald
Dude, am I the only one who didn’t know Christopher Reeve is bald? (Here too.) Nothing wrong with it, of course, but at least kill the bad toupees.
confederacy of dunces movie
Longtime readers will remember my mix of excitement and fright at the filming of my favorite book, A Confederacy of Dunces. Matt informed me today that the movie’s shaping up: Stephen Soderburgh writing and producing, Drew Barrymore as Darlene. Philip Seymour Hoffman is rumored for the lead (just as I proposed ten months ago!), which would be a relief. And ex-Dallasite David Gordon Green, whose George Washington got great reviews, is set to direct.
Thankfully, he seems to have the right idea.
“It’s a book I’m very invested in. I’m not a big reader, but it’s the greatest book I’ve read. I mean, I got it when I was 15, and I’ve read it every year since. It’s a different game but something I’m totally excited about trying to do. It’s pretty awesome to have a movie that from the get-go is gonna have a certain profile.”
coffee and soviet constructivism
I’m not a coffee drinker. Sure, if a bunch of people are heading for Starbucks, I’ll blow a few bucks on some long-named drink. But coffee is a few-times-a-year thing for me.
But this week has been crazy busy, and I figured I might need a little extra pep. On Tuesday, I started drinking a cup in the morning.
Last night, I slept perhaps 10 total minutes. I also had a very vivid dream that the Dallas schools web site had been redesigned in Soviet constructivist style — lots of strong reds and blacks, Cyrillic block letters, abstracted forms, the whole nine.
I think I’m going to stop drinking coffee.
michael kelly dies
A damned shame. I didn’t agree with Michael Kelly much, but he turned into a superb editor, as anyone who’s read The Atlantic Monthly the last couple of years could tell you.
Update: Here’s what is probably Kelly’s most famous piece, about how a band of Iraqis surrendered to him during Gulf War I.
sars spread
How SARS spread. Thankfully, there’s no little square labeled “crabwalk.com Global HQ” yet.
colossal squid
“That’s a big squid.” “Nope.” “No, seriously, that’s a giant squid.” “Nope.” “Huh? I mean, that’s a huge damned squid.”
“Nope. That’s a colossal squid.”
cajun music preservation
An important appeal for help preserving Cajun and Creole culture. Longtime readers know I’m a proud south Louisiana Cajun, and it kills me to hear about this.
Considered by musicians (including the Mamou Playboys, Zachary Richard, and Beausoleil among others) and scholars to be one of the most important audio collections in the world, hundreds of tapes in the Archive of Cajun and Creole folklore are in danger of permanent loss caused by aging and environmental damage.
The recordings were stored without climate control during three years of renovations on the University of Louisiana Dupr
jerry haleva
SACRAMENTO — Jerry Haleva used to get a kick out of being known here as the lobbyist who moonlights as Saddam Hussein.
“What I do has always been in good fun,” he said, “but some things are no longer funny. My physical resemblance to Saddam may well be one of them.”
zambian aids
I’ve spent the last week learning all I can about the AIDS crisis in Zambia. (This is for a future project that may or may not happen.) Official crabwalk.com advice: If you want to be a happy person, do not spend a week learning all you can about the AIDS crisis in Zambia.
To recap: 21 percent of all Zambian adults are HIV-positive. 61 percent of Zambian teenaged girls think you get AIDS from mosquito bites or witchcraft. About 15 percent of the nation’s children are AIDS orphans. Seven percent of Zambian households are led by a child 14 or younger. Reports of rapes and sexual assaults have more than doubled in the last two years, particularly among young girls. The nation’s educational system, health system, and economy are all bordering on collapse. Average life expectancy has dropped by 11 years since 1990.
The really scary thing: Zambia’s not the worst off country in sub-Saharan Africa. In Botswana, the adult infection rate is almost 40 percent. Of the 15-year-old boys in Botswana today, between 65 and 90 percent will die of AIDS. (Take a look at Figure 7.)
I need a beer.