Im always up for

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I’m always up for a new art form since my tastes are so varied and such. And that’s one of the reasons I’m so into the most dynamic new American art form to come along in some time: merginalia.

Never heard of it? The unsubtle way of explaining this would be to say it’s when you go out of business, tank, go belly up, etc., and spin it to make it sound like you’re actually merging with another company or entering into some sort of corporate alliance. The Mona Lisa of the genre of course is the recent ‘merger’ of Inside.com with Brill’s Content.

But there are many other examples and there was another entry today. The new deal struck between Amazon and Borders Books. The headline at CNBC.com says “Amazon, Borders join forces.”

But if you read this article from the Washington Post it’s pretty clear the headline might have been written “Borders Bites the Dust, Avoids Utter Ignominy By Getting One Page at Amazon.com with Borders Logo at the Top.”

Now the question is, what company tanks next? And what’s their merginalia going to sound like? And why didn’t Pets.com get with the program and ‘merge’ with Hanes socks division?

P.S. Late Update. Now we know who’s next: Kozmo.com. As of this afternoon. But apparently they couldn’t even get a mercy ‘buyer.’ So they can’t even attempt a merginalia.

P.P.S. Aren’t you going to come up with a way to swing this merginalia concept into a slam on David Horowitz? Still workin’ on that.

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