A Beatle On The Rooftop, Circa 2009

Talk about a full circle. Paul McCartney in NYC yesterday playing, not on the Ed Sullivan Show of course, but ON the Ed Sullivan Theater. Close enough, right? CBS has put up a rocking, tight little, five-song concert video.

I'm still kicking myself for not knowing about this sooner. I've seen Paul live on stage before but watching him play on a rooftop would have been so cool.

Related: Letterman is on a roll. (I suppose Conan will now have to summon George's spirit to play some rooftop in LA to beat Letterman's ratings?)

The Unchanged And The Unchanging

A poem by Wallace Stevens and a wonderful bit of transcendental commentary on the poem by Space Bar:

"In other words, only one who can see and hear without modifying what is seen or heard, can see things as they are. The only quality one must possess is the quality of not overlaying what is external with the cloth of thought – ‘not think’ but merely behold, merely listen. Be both unchanged and unchanging."

Yes I know, it somehow feels wrong to be reading a poem about snow and "junipers shagged with ice" in July. It's July, for crying out loud! It's a happy 83 degrees outside. The "frost and the boughs" business is still five months away. Shoo! Shoo!!

Also, read the Wiki on the poem. (Caution: contains the words "epistemology" and "Nietzchean thought" which make you feel smarter than you really are.)

A Contrarian View On Asia's Future

On the Foreign Policy magazine website, a provocative piece on Asia:

"...it's a gross exaggeration to say that Asia will emerge as the world's predominant power player. At most, Asia's rise will lead to the arrival of a multi-polar world, not another unipolar one."

and

"...in thinking about Asia's future, let's not get ahead of ourselves. Its economic ascent is not written in the stars."

If you work in the technology sector, please go start a flame war on FP's site over the author's take on the lack of innovation in Asia and the quality of engineers in India and China ;)

Going Off The Rails Like A

Tornado-struck train. 2-minute YT video. Will make you promise never ever to make fun of Mother Nature.

(From)

The Original Killer App

Searching for music online is the only cure for those long summer afternoons when you feel you have surfed to the very end of the Internet. (There *is* an end. You do know that, right?)

Cnet has a neat little post on search engines that only look for music. I was pleasantly surprised by the results on all the engines. Give them all a spin and see for yourself.

Who Will Mourn An Accountant's Death?

Allen Klein died a couple of days ago.

I found an absolutely fantastic site that tracks the economic history of the Beatles. Read that linked page about what Klein did for the Beatles. Among other things, the Beatles' royalties went up from 6 cents per sale before 1966 to 39 cents per record between '66-'69. Sweet mother.

Not To Touch The Earth

The levitation of Jim Morrison's girlfriend (link to a single photo; Jim Morrison doing a P.C. Sorcar)

Don't ask. I have no idea what that picture's all about. It is trippy, silly and funny.