Friday, February 17, 2012

IPO

The following is not a sentence, it is three. I like that the three together complete an idea, that any one on its own does not provide enough context to make much sense (even the three leave much unknown), but that all three provide grammatical gratification  look at those short distances between subject and verb! (RUN STYLE RUN!)  I also like the sort of upward cascading parataxis, as we learn he made money, BECAUSE he lent a gut his car, but IF only he had done more he could have made more money. I also like the very personable voiced style.
     "I made $29,295. For lending a guy my Oldsmobile station wagon. If I had given him a Saab, I bet I could have retired that day."
     For a bit more context, Joel Stein received a letter in the 90s inviting him into the "friends and family" IPO deal for a company owned by a guy that he went to Stanford with. Stein invests, makes a good sum of moolah over the first few months, and then eventually the stock becomes so worthless that the brokerage told him to drop it or they'd have to charge him for holding an account with such a low balance (he ended up losing money). His conflict was that he felt obligated to hold the stock because of the gesture made by this friend, even though they fell out of touch. The lesson learned is that he should have sold as soon as it started dropping, and well before the bubble burst.  The learning of the lesson, is that he was stupid, and hopes that he made enough of an impression when visiting the offices of the Facebook, that someone will hook him up with an IPO deal, and this time he will sell, baby, sell.
     I purposefully mixed some prose styles above. For zero late tickets, can you identify the style of each sentence above? (!)
     ROFLMBFFAOMF!

No comments:

Post a Comment