Purple Cow

"Purple Cow" is a short nonsense poem by American writer Gelett Burgess. It was first published in 1895.

Poem

I never saw a Purple Cow,
I never hope to see one;
But I can tell you, anyhow,
I'd rather see than be one.

Publication history

The poem was first published in the first issue of Burgess's magazine The Lark in May 1895 and became his most widely known work. It originally had the longer title "The Purple Cow's projected feast/Reflections on a Mythic Beast/Who's Quite Remarkable, at Least". This publication of the poem also included an illustration by Burgess featuring a cow jumping over an art nouveau fence heading towards a naked human, with both the cow and the human filled in black. A poster version of his illustration is part of the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The poem became popular, eventually becoming what one commentator called "[t]he most quoted poem in twentieth-century America, after 'The Night Before Christmas'". In addition to being widely anthologized, it was often transmitted orally without credit to Burgess. Many years after its appearance, publicist Jim Moran appeared at Burgess' home with a cow he had painted purple.

Seth Godin

Seth Godin (born July 10, 1960) is an American author, entrepreneur, marketer, and public speaker.

Background

Born in Mount Vernon, New York, Godin graduated from Williamsville East High School in 1978. He received degrees in computer science and philosophy from Tufts University, followed by a MBA in marketing from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. From 1983 to 1986, he worked as a brand manager at Spinnaker Software.

After leaving Spinnaker in 1986, he used $20,000 in savings to found Seth Godin Productions, primarily a book packaging business, out of a studio apartment in New York City. In the same offices he met Mark Hurst and founded Yoyodyne. After a few years, Godin sold the book packaging business to his employees and focused his efforts on Yoyodyne, where he promoted the concept of permission marketing.

Business ventures

In 1995, Godin launched Yoyodyne, which used contests, online games, and scavenger hunts to market companies to participating users. In August, 1996, venture-capital firm Flatiron Partners invested $4 million in Yoyodyne in return for a 20% stake. Over one million viewers visited the site, and the companies America Online, American Express, H&R Block, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble, Sony Music, Sprint, and Volvo have used its services. At Yoyodyne, Godin published Permission Marketing: Turning strangers into friends and friends into customers. In 1998, he sold Yoyodyne to Yahoo! for about $30 million and became Yahoo's vice president of direct marketing, a position he held until 2000.

Doris Day

Doris Day (born Doris Mary Ann Kappelhoff; April 3, 1922 or 1924) is an American actress, singer, and animal rights activist.

Day began her career as a big band singer in 1939, and is well known for her string of romantic comedies with leading man Rock Hudson including 'Pillow Talk' and 'Lover Come Back' in the early 1960s. Her popularity began to rise after her first hit recording "Sentimental Journey", in 1945. After leaving Les Brown & His Band of Renown to embark on a solo career, Day started her long-lasting partnership with Columbia Records, which remained her only recording label. The contract lasted from 1947 to 1967 and included more than 650 recordings, making Day one of the most popular and acclaimed singers of the 20th century. In 1948, after being persuaded by songwriters Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne and by Al Levy, her agent at the time, she auditioned for film director Michael Curtiz, which led to her being cast as the female lead in Romance on the High Seas.

Over the course of her career, Day appeared in 39 films. She was ranked the biggest box-office star, the only woman appearing on that list in the era, for four years (1960, 1962, 1963 and 1964), ranking in the top 10 for ten years (1951–52, and 1959–66). She became the top-ranking female box-office star of all time and is currently ranked sixth among the top 10 box office performers (male and female), as of 2012. Day received an Academy Award nomination for her performance in Pillow Talk, won three Henrietta Awards (World Film Favorite), and received the Los Angeles Film Critics Association's Career Achievement Award. In 1989, she received the Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievement in motion pictures. She made her last film in 1968.

Purple

Purple is defined as a deep, rich shade between crimson and violet, or, more broadly, as a range of hues of color between blue and red, or as a dark color that is a blend of red and blue. According to surveys In Europe and the U.S., purple is the color most often associated with royalty, magic, mystery and piety. When combined with pink, it is associated with eroticism, femininity and seduction.

Purple was the color worn by Roman magistrates; it became the imperial color worn by the rulers of the Byzantine Empire and the Holy Roman Empire, and later by Roman Catholic bishops. Similarly in Japan, the color is traditionally associated with the Emperor and aristocracy.

Purple and violet are similar, though purple is closer to red. In optics, there is an important difference; purple is a composite color made by combining red and blue, while violet is a spectral color, with its own wavelength on the visible spectrum of light.

Etymology and definitions

The word 'purple' comes from the Old English word purpul which derives from the Latin purpura, in turn from the Greek πορφύρα (porphura), name of the Tyrian purple dye manufactured in classical antiquity from a mucus secreted by the spiny dye-murex snail.

Your Business

Your Business is a small business oriented program on MSNBC, hosted by JJ Ramberg.

Format

Your Business consists of a weekly program with new editions broadcast on MSNBC Sundays at 7:30 a.m. ET and reruns of those episodes on the following Saturday at 5:30 a.m. ET. The program includes a profile of a small business owner, presenting the challenges and successes the person experienced.

The program also feature guests panelists, including Venture capitalists, angel investors, business journalists, academics, and successful entrepreneurs. They help answer questions from the viewers using their own experiences. The show also include a segment for entrepreneurs to present a pitch idea to a panel of experts.

Your Business includes the latest small business headlines, websites of interest for small business owners, and a weekly list of top 5 tips for improving your business. Scott Leon is executive producer. Lisa Everson, Frank Silverstein and David Foster are the show's producers. Dawn Stackhouse is the Booking Producer for the show.