Private stock

Some things I've been pondering:

A lot of odd compilations have been showing up on YouTube with titles like "Noir Jazz" and "Autumn Forest."  I'm listening to one called "Being alone in a 1950s private club on a rainy night" which kind of overdoes the rain but is otherwise pleasant.  Who is doing this?  Suspicious customer that I am, I wonder if there are subliminal messages in the Chet Baker, like "Don't be so paranoid."  Who was it that said "Paranoia is another word for having all the facts"?  Should I try "you're studying in a haunted library with ghosts (dark academia playlist)"?  Cheaper than therapy.  BTW how can I opt out of being shown any more master classes led by countertenors?

It's the bombe!  Reuters had a story yesterday about young men in Kinshasa, Congo, getting high by snorting a powder made from the catalytic converters of cars.  My first thought:  this is going to speed up climate change, isn't it?  My second thought:  Who figured this out?  Did someone try ingesting every part of a car -- wipers, upholstery, brake fluid -- until one day, bingo!  So many colors....

TCM, we need to have a talk.  You program a night of Ned Beatty movies without Deliverance or The Big Easy?  Why have you never shown The Big Easy?  Also, I can't be having a whole Saturday monopolized by Sergio Leone westerns.  Also, too, what's up with this Francis X. Bushman doc in the middle of the night?  Some of us have daytime stuff to do.  Get on all that.  We'll talk again.

If Proust could conjure seven volumes out of a cookie I guess Warren Ellis can get a book out of a wad of gum.  Nina Simone's Gum will be published October 11 in Australia.  I wonder if the technology exists to create a Simone clone.

A Nippon Airways flight and four others were late taking off from Narita Airport while a large turtle was gently removed from the tarmac.  Meanwhile in Alaska two humans and a dog have been bitten by usually docile river otters near Anchorage.  I'm interested in weird animal behavior because of what it may portend.  Some can be traced to last year's lockdowns, like the UK's toilet rats.  Keep the lid down.

Rep. Danny Davis (D-IL) describes himself as "a law and order policy maker" and says "women and children must be respected and protected at all times."  He also says R. Kelly will "be welcomed back into Chicago as a person who can be redeemed" because he's "an artist, one who's gifted."  There's a bit of cognitive dissonance here, as Kelly was just convicted of racketeering and child sexual abuse, among other things, and won't even be sentenced until next spring (he has more trials scheduled in the meantime).  Davis's primary opponent Kina Collins tweeted, "He's silent about attacks on our reproductive rights...but he has time for R. Kelly."  This man may not have the instincts of a politician, at least not a Democratic one.

Easy come, easy go:  Barack Obama supports tax increases for the rich -- "We can afford it" -- to fund Joe Biden's spending plan.  He and his wife are said to be worth a cool $70 million, none of it inherited.  Maybe that's it:  the Mercers and Kochs don't know what it's like to work your way through college or save up for the down payment on your first house.  Warren Buffett says he's also willing to pay higher taxes, while Bill Gates, Mike Bloomberg and Jeff Bezos have given away billions.  So let's start with a 90 percent inheritance tax.  It's how Clem Attlee financed the NHS.  Too many Americans identify with the Crawleys of Downton Abbey instead of the ex-maid who has to prostitute herself to feed her baby.  

Disturbing:  According to the Grisham book, when Trump got depressed a staff member (code name:  Music Man) was supposed to play his favorite song for him.  I won't keep you in suspense -- it was "Memory" from Cats.   The melody is a rip-off of Charles Aznavour's "She" and the words are not by T.S. Eliot.  So, more derivative crap from Andrew Lload Rubbish.  Perfect.