Cohen calls his tailor on the `phone

• Yahoo! asked to explain alleged perjury
• Giant space monster continues its approach
• Yahoos in suits choose cash flow over human rights
• Junior high textbook publishers act like junior high students
• Giant space monster is watching us
• Murdoch conspiracy uncovered
• Web site induces massive loss in worker productivity
• Reading public fail to surprise.
• Super-smart objectified.
• Porn averaged.

topics covered:

I'd just gotten off the Chinatown bus in Nueva York, and had an hour or two to kick around before meeting my pal at the best named restaurant in the universe: House of Vegetarian [68B Mott St (between Canal & Bayard)]. So I'm walking around, and what do I see in a gigantic heap of trash, but a big pile of 78s. More than I could carry, even. It ran the usual gamut of foxtrot records and now-kitschy orchestras, but there was a heavy Yiddish slant to it all; I picked up the Yiddish subset, hoping I could do something with it later.

I have a record player, but despite the vague similarity, the old and new formats are incompatible. 78s don't compare to records from the 1980s. They're heavy, and don't give the slightest indication of bending. One is a pleasing orangish color, giving the impression that it's made of clay, like a flat bowl pulled from an archaeological dig in Chinatown.

I spent a month with them in my apartment before giving up. Either you have something that can play 78s, or you're completely and totally out of luck. CDs will be like this some day, I guess. So I sold the records on ebay, with the additional note that if the person put them on MP3 for me, then I'd give back a few bucks. [These discs are from the 1920s and before, so this is even legal. Take that, RIAA!]

After a month of not hearing from her, I'd assumed the buyer didn't feel like taking me up on that part of the deal, which I was basically expecting. And then, much to my amazement, one day I got an MP3 in the mail—followed by eleven more. Ms SM came through and sent me all six records.

Oh, but I would be a tease if I told you a story about music but didn't let you hear it. These records from the trash heap of history are now up at gmail.com. Log in as some.files , password caring (like sharing is --). The records are there as email attachments.

If you have any files that you think may be interesting to me or whoever reads this (a slowly growing group of people I still really can't identify), feel free to email them to the account. Maybe this can be fun.

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