The English use a word “rubbish” that better describes this stuff, but even that would be talking it up. There was nothing to be said for any of it in the end. The more words used to describe it, the worse it was, and the worse it was, the more it begged for words to dismiss it and call attention to its worse-ness. Why was there a red plastic trash bin with the words “Extra Light Ice” on it, and why would it be full of sodden, rotting sawdust? Never mind, the question is rhetorical. The green and brown wine bottles, the sodden drapery, the lampshade, the taxidermied pheasant that now looked like one of those tar birds from an oil spill, these things as well as the big red trash bin all had explanations for being there. They were all there because someone had put them there, and then they had never been removed. Ever.

“One reason online education isn’t that good is I don’t think it is trying to be that good,” says John Katzman, the CEO of 2tor, an online education startup that is trying to break that mold. The company, headquartered in New York City’s Chelsea Piers, just raised a $32.5 million series C financing, led by Bessemer Venture Partners. All of its existing investors—Highland Capital, Redpoint, Novak Biddle, City Light—re-upped. Since it was founded in 2009, 2Tor has raised a total of $65 million.