The Funniest Secret Society in (Portable) Literary History
Every secret society has its founding myth, and the “Shandies” were no different. In the winter of 1924, or so the story goes, Russian symbolist Andrei Bely suffered a nervous breakdown on the selfsame “towering rock” where Nietzsche first discovered the concept of “the eternal recurrence of the same.” On that same day, composer Edgar Varèse fell from his horse while parodying French poet Guillaume Apollinaire. The coincidence of these two seemingly unrelated events held great importance for the Shandies, who counted Marcel Duchamp, Varèse, Walter Benjamin, Aleister Crowley, Francis Picabia, the suicidal poet Jacques Rigaut, and many others, among their ranks. … Read
New Tech Company Names That Brilliantly Reinterpret Famous Poems
Recently we read about a new media company that aims for the elusive market known as millennials. Nothing new there, except for the fact that its name, OZY Media, has some decidedly highbrow origins.
Watson said the name of the company came from one of his favorite poems—Shelley’s Ozymandias—which tells the story of an ancient king whose broken statue now sits forgotten in the desert. Some have taken the poem to mean that even mighty kings are eventually forgotten, but Watson said the lesson he takes from it is that you have to dream big. And there is no question OZY is dreaming big.
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