Some serious pivots

Startups in Silicon Valley get plaudits for pivoting, but a company that has had to make some real pivots with a capital P across many decades is none other than mobile phone goliath Samsung.

I had dinner tonight with a friend whose grandfather was one of several people brought to Samsung to help them make their first entry into technology hardware. At its founding in 1938, though, Samsung was a simple trading company that dealt in local produce. Later it shifted to processing sugar cane, then it moved into textiles. That was the first in a long line of transformations in its evolution from small family business to global conglomerate. From making your own noodles to making your own smartphones, that is survival and adaptation of the highest form.

There aren't many U.S. tech companies that have even been around that long, let alone having evolved so drastically. Off the top of my head, IBM and Xerox are the only two tech companies I can think of that were founded in the U.S. prior to Samsung in 1938 and that still exist. I'm going to venture that neither of those began as noodle makers.

Batman: Death by Design

A Batman graphic novel reviewed in The New York Review of Books? Yes, when it's by acclaimed dust-jacked designer Chip Kidd and artist Dave Taylor.

Martin Filler writes a review which had me clicking the buy button on Batman: Death by Design as soon as I finished the last sentence. The book features a character named Kem Roomhaus ("an affected, narcissistic creep, but he's also a genius" is how none other than Batman describes him) who is a not-so-veiled riff on controversial architect Rem Koolhaas. In the eyes of Filler, "the megalomaniacal Dutchman drawn by Taylor bears less of a resemblance to the Nosferatu lookalike Koolhaas than to a somewhat chubbier Daniel Libeskind (minus his industrial-strength eyeglass frames.)".

Filler does such a good job decoding all the historical inspirations for characters and places in the book that the first comment on the review is from Chip Kidd himself (or at least I presume it's him, who knows):

Wow, Mr. Fller. I am truly humbled. You totally got everything, the first reviewer to do so. Thank you so, so much. Chip K

For Your Consideration

The Academy can save some money on greenscreening Seth MacFarlane's head popping up out of Noomi Rapace's stomach for the Oscar opening number. They can just play this video and then cut to Anne Hathaway for reaction shots, for which she'll be well-rehearsed, I'm sure.

Full disclosure, I have not yet seen Les Misérables [please read that with French pronunciation, dear readers]. After watching the above video 60 times on loop, with no break, I feel like I have, though.

It will be hard for her to escape these accusations of disingenuous surprise given how much want she exudes. However, on Oscar night, if Hathaway suddenly breaks into song during her acceptance speech and spends three minutes singing a rehearsed thank you speech, managing to harmonize with the orchestra's shoo-off music at the same time as she completely ignores it, I will be the first to lead the standing ovation.

♫ Do it for me ♫

♫ Anne with an E ♫

Sell Out

Simon Rich's comic novella Sell Out is being serialized in the New Yorker this week. It's about a guy who falls into a vat of pickle brine and is miraculously preserved for 100 years. When he wakes up, he meets his great great grandson, Simon Rich, in Brooklyn.

“Please,” I say. “I must know. What path have you chosen for your life?”

Simon smiles proudly at me.

“I’m a script doctor,” he says.

I shake my head with astonishment.

“That is so wonderful,” I say, my eyes filling up with tears. “I am so proud. I cannot believe my descendant is medical doctor.”

Simon averts his eyes.

“It’s actually just a screenwriting term,” he says. “ ‘Script doctor’ means I, like, punch up movie scripts.”

I stare at him blankly.

“ ‘Punch up’?”

“You know, like, add gags.”

“What sort of gags?”

He clears his throat.

“Let’s see.… Well, the script I’m working on now is about a guy who switches bodies with his pet dog? So I’m adding all these puns, like ‘I’m doggone mad!’ and ‘I’ve got a bone to pick with you!’ You know, things like that.”

A long time passes in silence.

“So you are not medical doctor.”

“No,” Simon admits. “I am not.”

That's from Part One of Four. Here are Parts Two and Three. Especially wonderful if you live in Brooklyn:

He leads me down Atlantic Avenue. We pass many strange peoples wearing tight pants and circus mustaches.