The kingdom of heaven is like unto a man seeking goodly pearls: who, when he had found one of great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it.
Matthew 13: 45-46
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WHAT I’M SPINNING NOW
Superb big band Latin dance music, just one great groove after another.
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WHAT I’M SPINNING NOW
Man, is this a good record, and boy does it sound great in the set of new vinyl pressings of the Beatles albums in mono. The pressings, cut directly from the tape masters, without the intervention of a digital intermediary, are clear and warm, with uncanny presence. The music just jumps out of the speakers.
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LOVERLY
SYSTEMIC CORRUPTION
If you take a peek inside the N. Y. Fed, courtesy of Carmen Segarra (above) and the tapes she made of meetings when she was working there, you’ll discover a truly egregious breach of public trust by the institution, one which should have criminal consequences for its leaders, past and present, like Timothy Geithner below:
We the taxpayers pay the members of the N. Y. Fed to regulate Wall Street, to make sure it doesn’t engage in reckless and criminal behavior that might, just possibly, bring down the world economy, as it very nearly did in 2008.
They take our money and do just the opposite — they coddle and suck up to Wall Street, in essence shielding it from meaningful scrutiny and regulation, all the while knowing that if they do this well they can cash in with lucrative jobs on Wall Street once they leave the Fed.
This is direct theft from the public treasury for personal gain — those who engage in it should be in jail. Any president who condones it — I’m talking to you, Barry — should be impeached.
THE VENETUS A
If you don’t know what The Venetus A is, spend eleven minutes watching the video above and find out, from someone who’s actually seen it, who’s actually stood in its presence.
WHAT I’M SPINNING NOW
When I was six my dad brought home our family’s first record player and with it one Long Playing record — the original Broadway cast recording of My Fair Lady. The LP format was only four years old at that time, 1956, and it felt like a technological miracle, especially in the tiny North Carolina where we lived.
I don’t know if my dad bought the machine (like the one pictured above) so he could play the LP — it was an incredibly popular album and still holds the record for the most weeks in Billboard‘s top forty chart — or if he got the LP as part of the deal for the machine. Maybe it was just the one LP he picked out among many to demonstrate the wonder of our new jet-age appliance.
The album was played endlessly in our house — I myself played “Wouldn’t It Be Loverly” endlessly, though I’m not sure why its wistful longing enchanted me so much at that age.
Miraculously, I just found a copy of the 1956 album on eBay in fairly good shape. It still ravishes me and takes me back magically to the day I first heard it.
WHAT I’M SPINNING NOW
When I moved to New York in the 1970s I started collecting the British versions of all The Beatles albums. I’d never seen them on sale in America before, but this was New York and they could be found in many of the big record stores.
I knew they were the canonical albums, the albums as The Beatles had created them, before Capitol chopped them up and rearranged them for the American releases. They had more songs on them and more attractive covers and tended to be better pressings.
I had to save up for months to get a new one — they were more expensive than the Capitol albums and I was always short of ready cash — but they were good company in those scrambling days.
I remember feeling down one day in my crummy loft on 21st Street and putting on Beatles For Sale and instantly cheering up. I thought, “The Beatles never let you down.” They really don’t.
GOOD RIDDANCE
. . . to one of the most corrupt public officials in American history. He invented the “too big to fail” concept that kept Wall Street firms intact in the wake of extreme and disastrous criminal behavior and kept their executives out of jail. His relentless war on the press kept it tame in the face of his boss’s equally relentless war on the Constitution.
He leaves behind a legacy of momentous villainy in the service of the plutocracy and state tyranny.
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AN AMERICAN HERO
Carmen Segarra, the Edward Snowden of Wall Street. If I were her, I’d be exploring the possibility of sanctuary in a foreign country.
Listen to her story here — for a portrait of the New York Fed as a culture of systemic corruption, like the office of a crooked small-town sheriff working to protect an illegal gambling joint run by his brother-in-law. The stench is nauseating.
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A STEVAN DOHANOS FOR TODAY
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NAUGHTINESS
THE ONLY ONE
A HUNTER S. THOMPSON QUOTE FOR TODAY
“The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There’s also a negative side.”
[With thanks to Paul Pearson . . .]
WHAT I’M SPINNING NOW
Mystery Girl — Roy Orbison’s last album but by no means his least. A collection of terrific cuts, including the masterpiece “In the Real World”, with achingly beautiful vocals by The Big O in top form.
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