From 539m acres of abundance to 2 microns of misery?

On Aug 1st, the day slipped in and out quietly. In the evening, I opened a bottle of wine and reflect on the day. It was the 9th anniversary of the day I joined a company we now call BORN.

The number 9 is magical as many of us know. Whatever you do with it, it retains its essence. 9 x 1 = 9, 9 x 2 = 18 and 1+8 is 9, 9 x 5 = 45 and 4+5 is 9. We have been acquired and transformed maybe like 9 x 200 = 1800 but hey, everyone knows BORN (aka 9) is still very present as 1+8+0+0=9. There is no escape.

If B=2 (the second alphabet) and O=15 (the fifteenth) and we add up what BORN GROUP comes to it is 126 which in numerology is 1+2+6 which is … er …. um … 9. Just kidding – I am not a numerologist and do not believe in the divine provenance of numbers, but I think you can tell, my mind gets a bit wobbly when I reflect on things.

Which brings me to tennis. Has anyone figured why the scores go from 0 to 15 to 30 and abruptly to 40 and not 45? And it is not zero it is love from the French word, l'oeuf which means egg, which of course looks like a zero. So, then, speaking of France, I came upon an article that said that in 2015, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman bought a 57-acre estate in France for $300m. In 1803, American spent $15m buying a vast tract of land in the mid-west (aka the Louisiana Purchase) –$15m in 1803 is now equal to $342m in 2020.

According to the Oracle of Delphi of modern times, yes, our Wikipedia, “The Louisiana Purchase extended United States sovereignty across the Mississippi River, nearly doubling the nominal size of the country. The purchase included land from fifteen present U.S. states and two Canadian provinces, including the entirety of Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Nebraska; large portions of North Dakota and South Dakota; the area of Montana, Wyoming, and Colorado east of the Continental Divide; the portion of Minnesota west of the Mississippi River; the northeastern section of New Mexico; northern portions of Texas; New Orleans and the portions of the present state of Louisiana west of the Mississippi River; and small portions of land within the present Canadian provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan.” The Louisiana tract was 529,280,000 acres. So, think about the math: $300m for 57 acres, and then ~$300m for 530m acres.

Gulp! That just tells you when things become scarce, prices go up.

The Louisiana Purchase was done by President Thomas Jefferson. By all accounts he was a very natty dresser. In 1862 Hamilton W. Pierson wrote of the 6-foot 2-inch President, “He was always very neat in his dress, wore short breeches and bright shoe buckles. When he rode on horseback, he had a pair of overalls that he always put on.”

Which of course brings me to the subject of clothes and dressing. I look like a retiree these days – old guy in sweatshirt, cap, jogger pants and sneakers. No tie, no suit, no formal shoes. But thanks to Zoom – my only window to the business world, people cannot judge me on the poverty of sartorial sensibilities. I must add, that is because they are often in their shorts and dressed far worse than me! What's worse is the Zoom backgrounds people pick when they do these calls - beaches, sunrise-landscapes, Star Wars.... (I hope you like mine in the pic above). Anyway, that brings me to a certain Lord & Taylor (I hope you like the pun).

Samuel Lord started the business in 1824. George Taylor joined him in 1834. I will say that 80% of my wardrobe comes from this store, Lord & Taylor. So, it was sad to see this beauty stumble when it quietly filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on August 2, 2020. In 1946, Dorothy Shaver, the maker of handmade dolls, closely associated the American Beauty rose with the brand’s American-women look. At the time, Shaver was probably the first female President and Board Member of a retail giant. [The American Beauty Rose was bred by Henri Lédéchaux in France in 1875. He named the flower after a friend, Madame Ferdinand Jamin, and I have tried to research her and can’t find anything].

I started with a Saudi Prince and have landed on Lord & Taylor’s Red Rose campaign. If you are still with me clearly, we are birth mates – conjoined in the twisted phantasms of history and a rambling mind.

So, as I wrap up, let me go from 530m acres to something that is super small. The SARS-CoV-2 aka Covid.

A little organism, 2 microns in diameter has taken 750,000 lives worldwide. It has devasted our way of life, economies, businesses.

With all the chaos around us, very few clients of ours, have cut us slack for the seismic changes we have had to make to deliver projects on time, on spec and to quality. Our offices, equipped with advanced security and data protection, are empty. Our staff work from home with noisy kids and/or immense distractions. We have had to take salary cuts, avail of no government assistance (due to our size), furlough people we love and keep the show going, with no relief. I guess that is the real world we live in. The show must go on.

But with all this, in Q1, our agency business won over 40 deals from some of the greatest brands in the world. We hired 5 new sales folks and expanded our platform principal relationships. We raised a fund to support BLM and other causes. And we worked on a new website for BORN. When you see it (soon), remember to buy an extra pair of socks. I guess you know why so I won’t state the obvious.

So, there you go, that’s my missive for July 2020.

Stay safe. Stay strong.

Onwards. Upwards.

Your Fearless Follower