Thanks to my friend Mark, who has a eye for amazing podcasts, for this documentary. Sammy “The Bull” Garavano was one of the most feared mob bosses in history, and this talk he has with Patrick Bet-David of Valutainment is two hours of thoughts on criminality, sociology, modern politics and what he has in store for the future. It’s a tour-de-force of brutal common sense.
Culture
[Literature/Social Commentary] We live in Philip K. Dick’s future, not George Orwell’s or Aldous Huxley’s
“Philip K. Dick and the Fake Humans” is a compelling essay by Henry Farrell published today in The Boston Review. From the essay: This is not the dystopia we were promised. We are not learning to love Big Brother, who lives, if he lives at all, on a cluster of server farms, cooled by environmentally friendly technologies. […]
via We live in Philip K. Dick’s future, not George Orwell’s or Aldous Huxley’s — Biblioklept
Our friends at Biblioklept never cease to surprise. The political junkies followed the wrong person into a future oblivion. It was the cyberpunk Philip K. Dick who may have had the right vision all along.
[Literature] The Past, the Present, and the Bridge: Ali Dehbashi’s Bukhara Magazine
Bukhara Magazine is one of Iran’s literary treasure stores. The Los Angeles Review of Books interviews its editor, Ali Dehbashi.
[Linguistics] The 10 Oldest Languages Still Spoken In The World Today
Many thanks to my friend, Guðmundur, who has a keen eye for important articles like this.
[Music] Afghanistan’s Institute of Music
All due credit and respect goes to my dear brother Paolo Merolla, who pointed me to this article from Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Afghanistan has a magnificent music tradition, and though the place is still a hotbed of Satanic Taliban butchery, people have decided to revive their culture piece by piece.
A Miscellany Of Tasteful Music 