Layer 476 . . . World Markets, States of Emergency, Turmoil, Panic, Infidels and Union Sundown

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"World Markets In Turmoil" screams today's main headline atop the Guardian. And we're not talking here about fruit and veg. No friends, we're talking about the big one here - the next great meltdown of our wonderful globalised capitalist system. Wonder what's going to happen this time to protect the wealthy and the powerful? - what more can the wretched of the earth possibly suffer in order to protect the wealthy and the powerful? Wonder . . . and be afraid. Be very afraid.

Market turmoil carries echoes of August 2007


There was the stench of panic in the air again on Thursday. Are we heading for Meltdown 2?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/aug/04/market-turmoil-august-2007


Someone on Newsnight last night was talking about the inevitable collapse of the Eurozone - but not till after the dollar collapses, which will be any moment now.


Financial markets: State of emergency


In 2007 the world financial system suffered a near death experience. You could have been forgiven for thinking that it was happening all over again

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/aug/04/financial-markets-state-of-emergency


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For some reason, today felt like a day to listen to Dylan's "Infidels" album.

"An infidel (literally "one without faith") is one who has no religious beliefs, or who doubts or rejects the central tenets of a particular religion - especially in reference to Christianity or Islam."

How about belief in capitalism? Faith in 'the markets'?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infidels -

"Beginning with Infidels, Dylan ceased to preach a specific religion, revealing little about his personal religious beliefs in his lyrics. In 1997, after recovering from a serious heart condition, Dylan said in an interview for Newsweek, "Here's the thing with me and the religious thing. This is the flat-out truth: I find the religiosity and philosophy in the music. I don't find it anywhere else...I don't adhere to rabbis, preachers, evangelists, all of that. I've learned more from the songs than I've learned from any of this kind of entity."

This is a truly great album, containing many great songs - Jokerman, License To Kill, I and I,  Sweetheart Like You, Don't Fall Apart On Me Tonight - all of which are fabulously beautiful and inventive musically and melodically, as well as lyrically. There are two tracks that are regular bluesy rockers as far as the music goes - Man of Peace and Neighbourhood Bully - but also have outstanding lyrics.

And then there's Union Sundown -

Well, my shoes, they come from Singapore
My flashlight’s from Taiwan
My tablecloth’s from Malaysia
My belt buckle’s from the Amazon
You know, this shirt I wear comes from the Philippines
And the car I drive is a Chevrolet
It was put together down in Argentina
By a guy makin’ thirty cents a day


Well, it’s sundown on the union
And what’s made in the U.S.A.
Sure was a good idea
’Til greed got in the way


Well, this silk dress is from Hong Kong
And the pearls are from Japan
Well, the dog collar’s from India
And the flower pot’s from Pakistan
All the furniture, it says “Made in Brazil”
Where a woman, she slaved for sure
Bringin’ home thirty cents a day to a family of twelve
You know, that’s a lot of money to her


Well, it’s sundown on the union
And what’s made in the U.S.A.
Sure was a good idea
’Til greed got in the way


Well, you know, lots of people complainin’ that there is no work
I say, “Why you say that for
When nothin’ you got is U.S.–made?”
They don’t make nothin’ here no more
You know, capitalism is above the law
It say, “It don’t count ’less it sells”
When it costs too much to build it at home
You just build it cheaper someplace else


Well, it’s sundown on the union
And what’s made in the U.S.A.
Sure was a good idea
’Til greed got in the way


Well, the job that you used to have
They gave it to somebody down in El Salvador
The unions are big business, friend
And they’re goin’ out like a dinosaur
They used to grow food in Kansas
Now they want to grow it on the moon and eat it raw
I can see the day coming when even your home garden
Is gonna be against the law


Well, it’s sundown on the union
And what’s made in the U.S.A.
Sure was a good idea
’Til greed got in the way


Democracy don’t rule the world
You’d better get that in your head
This world is ruled by violence
But I guess that’s better left unsaid
From Broadway to the Milky Way
That’s a lot of territory indeed
And a man’s gonna do what he has to do
When he’s got a hungry mouth to feed


Well, it’s sundown on the union
And what’s made in the U.S.A.
Sure was a good idea
’Til greed got in the way


Copyright © 1983 by Special Rider Music


Nearly 30 years old, and as relevant today as it was back then. Only more so.


The sun's taken longer to go down than Bob may have imagined when he wrote this song - thanks to the development of computers and the Internet, thanks to the chicanery of the bankers, thanks to Reaganomics and the consolidation of wealth in the hands of the already wealthy, thanks to the growth of China, India, Brazil, etc. But going down - it most certainly is.


It's not dark yet . . .


 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZgBhyU4IvQ


http://www.bobdylan.com/songs/not-dark-yet


. . . but it's getting there.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpRKstHl7Y0&NR=1

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Layer 49 Zen Cat, the Ox and the Chartered Accountant

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Summer reappeared today, with blue skies and warm sunshine. It was there, casually hanging around, as I emerged from an hour’s meeting with a certain chartered accountant. By which time I was in dire need of therapy, or therapies. I hit the nearest café with tables out in the sun, and helped myself to a large dose of sunshine and a double shot of espresso. Mmmm. They felt good. I also needed a strong cigarette, of which I must say I heartily disapprove, dear reader, but needs must.

The fourth element in my self-medication was to take out the Zen player and fill my head with the masterful sounds of His Bobness. Ah yes,

People are crazy and times are strange
I'm locked in tight, I'm out of range
I used to care, but things have changed.

I have a friend who never, ever, heard music through headphones till she was well past 40, and this is someone who’d been in her twenties in the 1960s. How could the delights of the finest quality hi-fidelity stereo sound delivered direct to your ear drums have passed someone by, throughout the entire heyday of rock and soul? Music as it’s meant to be heard. It beats me.

Lot of water under the bridge,
Lot of other stuff too
Don't get up gentlemen,
I'm only passing through.

How well I remember her lying on a Spanish beach, inserting the earphones for the first time, and ‘turning on’. Freaking out, more like. I’m not sure what she was expecting, but when Ry Cooder’s ‘Get Rhythm’ sprang like a noisy tiger into her head she reacted like the proverbial startled rabbit, and jerked bolt upright, convinced that the entire beach was being blasted with Ry’s most rocking sounds. Oh, how we laughed!

Some things are too hot to touch,
The human mind can only stand so much,
You can't win, with a losing hand.

Of course she was hooked instantly, once she’d calmed down and realized that the music was inaudible to anyone but her. In the same way that I became hooked after donning headphones for the very first time, circa 1968 - at home, in my student flat. There were no mobile music players of any description in those pioneering days.

"There must be some way out of here,"
Said the joker to the thief,
"There's too much confusion,
I can't get no relief."

And yet way back then the masters of rock, Dylan and Hendrix, were already producing masterpieces that have proved unsurpassable over the intervening 40 years or so. I like to keep both their versions of All Along The Watchtower on the Zen, and play them virtually every day, for reasons of pure pleasure, as well as therapy.

I have to say that Jimi’s version has the benefit of some brilliant sound engineering, albeit using prehistoric analogue equipment, so that the various guitar and percussion layers swirl and swerve around the inside of your head when you hear them through headphones. Still amazing after all these years.

"No reason to get excited,"
The thief, he kindly spoke,
"There are many here among us
Who feel that life is but a joke.

But you and I, we've been through that,
and this is not our fate,
So let us not talk falsely now,
the hour is getting late."

The surrounding sounds of the city are annoying and harsh. They make a walk in the city far less agreeable than it could be, without the aural irritation. I much prefer silence, and if I can’t have silence then I’m damn sure I want a soundtrack of my own choosing, rather than the racket that someone else is making. I want the very best, the most beautiful and the most pleasing sounds ever created. With those sounds in your head, the city seems transformed. It rocks.

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Meanwhile, back home, White Cat is on the roof, curled up in the sun. She may be stupid, but she’s not an idiot. I think we can learn a lot about living a Zen life from observing animals. Their unalloyed instinctual intelligence, undiluted and uncorrupted by alien thoughts and misconceptions, guides them through a life of just being what they ought to be.

Whilst we poor humans, confused and corrupted, baffled and bewildered, used and abused by other people’s weasel words and ideas, often don’t have a clue. We’re the dumb ones, thanks to our ‘intellect’.

We run around doing crazy and unnecessary things every day, when we ought to be lying in the sun, pleasurably absorbing its life-enhancing power.

Ludwig Wittgenstein said, 'Explanations come to an end somewhere', and "How small a thought it takes to fill a whole life!", which I discovered through the music of minimalist and philosopher Steve Reich. And it also takes only one or two idiotic and self-defeating thoughts, either deliberately implanted or self-absorbed, to guide vulnerable lives towards disaster. Like ‘an eye for an eye’, for instance. Like ‘don’t let anyone give you no disrespect’. Teenagers are dying on the streets thanks to those evil seeds having been absorbed and having taken root.

White Cat, on the other hand, goes with the flow, and does what comes naturally. These days she couldn’t chase another cat out of the garden even if she wanted to, she’s become so old and feeble. On the other hand she’s left alone by the other cats, who come and go, see that she’s no threat, and mark the territory as their own.

White Cat doesn’t care. She eats and she sleeps, either inside in the winter or outside in the summer. She goes with the flow. She’s slowing down and getting herself ready for the Big Sleep. Why should she worry about anything? Why should she care?

Why do any of us care? Lots of us care about things that we shouldn’t pay any attention to. We waste time on ridiculous things that should be of no consequence. And we fail to care about things that we maybe should.

The bodhisattva understands that in many ways “life is but a joke”, but cares very much that many of those around us are suffering, and need help in order to live well and to avoid needless suffering. Much suffering can be avoided if we can only become our true instinctual zen-like selves, and if we can only transform the ways in which we order our societies and re-order the ways in which we and other people live.

These days White Cat can’t even be bothered to take a dump in another garden, let alone cover it over with earth. She’s turned my garden into a turd minefield: you go out there at your peril. I go out there from time to clear her unlovely stink bombs, her minefield of muck. We humans crap all over our planet, and stink the place out. And we don’t even have the excuse of senility and feebleness. We just don’t care.

I’ve also been observing my daughter’s dog, and its doggie ways. It’s part of a Staffordshire terrier’s nature to want lots of affection from time to time. It also needs to be active and to go out for long explores regularly, just like Pooh. It needs to walk, and run, and find whatever stimulation it can in the surrounding territory. If it doesn’t have that opportunity it will tear around in hyper-active circles, chasing its own tail; bored, frustrated and somewhat crazed. And then, of course, there’s sex . . .

We humans often don’t allow animals to be themselves and to do what nature intends them to do. And we damned sure have plenty of difficulty in figuring out what nature intends for ourselves. Too often we live by the mores, expectations and exigencies of others who have our well-being and our happiness very far from the centre of their concerns. Or else they have a very fucked-up idea of what well-being consists of.

Each of us has to transform ourselves, and then assist others who are looking for help in transforming themselves, looking to find their own Way, their own Tao. It’s hard work, and very often impossible without a helping hand or two. Ox-herding is far from easy. Even just finding the Ox or the Tao can be next to impossible. Realizing the impossibility of possessing the Ox, or completely determining your own life, can be an impossible task in itself. Understanding that life, the Ox, will of its own accord offer you the benefit of its limitless power and its unstinting support if it so chooses - ah yes . . . that’s another matter entirely. We all need to meditate on that and to remind ourselves of that on a regular basis.

It’s like Kahlil Gibran’s ‘Prophet’ says,
“Think not that you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.”

Maybe he could as well have said, “Think not that you can direct the course of life, for life . . .”

The issue is all about being worthy. And that’s all about being true to your true nature: finding your true nature, and being true to yourself. I'm pretty sure this is the Way of Zen.

http://adventuresinmusic.biz/Archives/Interviews/stevereich.htm

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Victory!

History was made in the early hours of this morning, London time, when Barack Obama made a stirring speech and claimed victory in the race to become the Democratic nominee for president of the United States of America. It was a thrill to see the speech in real time, in full. Wonderful!

Read the full text and see a video of part of the speech here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7434843.stm

Layer 38 License To Kill

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Bob Dylan - Infidels

License To Kill

Man thinks 'cause he rules the earth he can do with it as he please
And if things don't change soon, he will.
Oh, man has invented his doom,
First step was touching the moon.

Now, there's a woman on my block,
She just sit there as the night grows still.
She say who gonna take away his license to kill?

Now, they take him and they teach him and they groom him for life
And they set him on a path where he's bound to get ill,
Then they bury him with stars,
Sell his body like they do used cars.

Now, there's a woman on my block,
She just sit there facin' the hill.
She say who gonna take away his license to kill?

Now, he's hell-bent for destruction, he's afraid and confused,
And his brain has been mismanaged with great skill.
All he believes are his eyes
And his eyes, they just tell him lies.

But there's a woman on my block,
Sitting there in a cold chill.
She say who gonna take away his license to kill?

Ya may be a noisemaker, spirit maker,
Heartbreaker, backbreaker,
Leave no stone unturned.
May be an actor in a plot,
That might be all that you got
'Til your error you clearly learn.

Now he worships at an altar of a stagnant pool
And when he sees his reflection, he's fulfilled.
Oh, man is opposed to fair play,
He wants it all and he wants it his way.

Now, there's a woman on my block,
She just sit there as the night grows still.
She say who gonna take away his license to kill?


Violence 1

Do soldiers have a license to kill?

“Waltz With Bashir” is “a daring new animated documentary that follows Israeli director Ari Folman as he tries to piece together memories of the 1982 massacre of Palestinians in Beirut's Sabra and Shatila refugee camps“.

It’s in competition at the Cannes Film Festival. Folman was on the radio this morning explaining how he intends to do everything he can to persuade his sons never to take part in any violence whatsoever, regardless of any demands that the State or the Army may make of them. He wants his work to persuade everyone that violence can never be a solution to conflict.

“Folman was a soldier in the Israeli army when it invaded Lebanon earlier that year. It allowed Christian militiamen into the refugee camps and stood by as they went on a killing spree shortly after the assassination of their leader, Bashir Gemayel.”

Well there’s still hope for the Middle East, and for the world, when artists like Folman are able to release powerful films that highlight State and military atrocities, and make the case for shunning violent solutions to problems in all circumstances.


Violence 2

Bob sings, “Oh, man is opposed to fair play,
He wants it all and he wants it his way.”
(License To Kill)

Well this now clearly includes girls and women, as we know it always has, though maybe to a smaller degree.

This week we’ve been hearing news reports that more and more girls are behaving aggressively and violently, and being generally anti-social. Factors are assumed to be alcohol, our ‘pushy, acquisitive age‘, an ‘economy driven by competition’, and an attitude that’s usually described as ‘laddish’, which presumably means being loud, crude, cocky, rude, insensitive, threatening, gangsterish, binge-drinking, insulting, bragging, attention-seeking, inconsiderate, lacking self-control, over-sexed and generally disgusting.

Clearly what we’re dealing with here are girls who completely lack emotional, social and spiritual intelligence, and we need to ask ourselves why. It’s not hard to see that there are issues about role models, cultural influences, values, greed, sensation-seeking, etc.

And still our education system does nothing to provide for the real developmental needs of these young people, which are to do with substantial amounts of time to consider themselves and others objectively, philosophically and psychologically; to learn something about desirable human values; to learn techniques of self-restraint and self-control; to learn how to relate in positive ways to others, including those outside of the immediate peer group, etc.

None of the above work and learning is really happening, and where it is timetabled in schools it isn’t done well, and it generally isn’t taken seriously, either by the kids or the teachers, and especially the kids who are most in need of it. Neither are schools offering one to one and small group counseling sessions, or opportunities to explore kids’ levels and aspects of EQ and SQ with sympathetic adults. It’s not in the National Curriculum, you see. Kids often have to actually get themselves permanently excluded from mainstream schools before they can access some of the good things and the good teachers that may be on offer in Special Schools. How mad is that?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/may/16/ukcrime.gender

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/may/15/ukcrime.youthjustice1

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Here’s another stanza of Bob’s to think about, from another track from Infidels, a track called “I and I”.

Took an untrodden path once, where the swift don't win the race,
It goes to the worthy, who can divine the word of truth.
Took a stranger to teach me, to look into justice's beautiful face
And to see an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.

Note the words “worthy”, “truth”, and “divine” - which are favourite words of mine.

As in

“And think not that you can direct the course of love,
for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.”

It’s always good to re-read “The Prophet” by Kahlil Gibran from time to time.

http://leb.net/gibran/works/prophet/prophet.html
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/5484/Gibran.htm

Collins defines “divine” as:

“To perceive or understand (something) by intuition or insight” (spiritual intelligence) and
“To discern (a hidden or future reality) as though by supernatural power”.

The whole notion of hidden realities I find very interesting. This is fertile territory for reflection and meditation. As is the whole realm of the spiritual, the metaphysical, the supernatural, if you like. This is indeed the realm of intuition and insight. Looking within, not without.

We must train ourselves to let insight pierce and illuminate the dark areas, where logic, reason and the senses cannot penetrate, since our knowledge is always so limited and so open to interpretation, since our senses often fail to make sense of what’s around us, since reason is often based on false premises.

We need these things on the school curriculum.

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Another song to check out on Infidels is “Man Of Peace”.

http://www.bobdylan.com/songs/peace.html

http://www.bobdylan.com/songs/license.html

http://www.bobdylan.com/songs/iandi.html
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Layer 36 Man in a Long Black Coat

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For all its cares and woes, life is still full of awe and wonder. For instance, music continues to amaze me. Whenever I hear some brilliant new music, especially when it’s by a genius like Bob Dylan, I’m transported to new peaks of pleasure and enjoyment, and something like spiritual bliss.

This morning I saw Macca, of all people, being interviewed on an Open University programme and talking about how for him music was always about discovery, and how much he’s always enjoyed discovering news things when he sits at a piano - new sounds, new chords, new melodies, whatever.

He’s 60+ and still has a childlike joy in discovery and invention. What a pity that our children for the most part do not - especially those who need it the most in order to bring joy into their lives, but go to school only to face drills, rote learning, tests, and so-called ‘catch-up programmes’, all of which leave no time for voyages of discovery and invention, even if they should be fortunate enough to have teachers who see the need for such things in the first place.

The more I think about what Ashley Walters was talking about on the radio yesterday, the more angry I get. “A lot of our kids are bright, talented, artistic. But they’re not given opportunities to grow and use their talents . . .” And he should know. There’s a guy who had no issues with literacy - he loved books, reading and writing. Yet he was still denied the opportunity to develop as a talented artist by his school, though he was fortunate enough to have a parent who saw the need to arrange special classes for him outside of ‘school’ hours. Most parents do not.

I had two different friends talk to me yesterday about the news regarding the House of Commons Select Committee report on testing in schools, one of whom was talking to me on Skype from Namibia! Good news travels fast, eh?. They both expressed hope and optimism that the report would cause the government to scrap SATs and put in place a more enlightened system.

I’m afraid I dampened their enthusiasm by saying that I can’t bring myself to believe that the current consensus, mind-set, conspiracy, dogma, hegemony, call it what you will, is going to collapse because of a puff of wind from a Select Committee, whose seeking after truth is not valued by the big boys and girls who seek only to perpetuate their own position and power, and pay far more attention to the editorials of the right-wing press and its owners, and can hardly be expected to recant all they’ve been doing and admit they’ve been idiots and have pursued policies that are anti-child and anti-education (as more enlightened people know it).
I also suggested that an incoming Tory administration is also very unlikely to show more enlightenment. Since when has Conservatism been about enlightenment and doing things in the true interests of the working classes and underclasses?

No - the best we can hope for is that in about 10 years time some sort of coalition of the enlightened finally comes to power, though I’m not holding my breath for that either. After all, this is the country that has a history of successful counter-revolutions against any progressive or radical movements that managed to make political headway - be they peasants and Levelers, Roundheads, anti-monarchists, anti-Tory, social democratic, Europhile and Eurocentric, educationalists, etc. We’re not still a monarchy for nothing. We’re not still on the fringes of the European Union for nothing. We don’t have a ‘special relationship’ with the USA for nothing. We’re not a world centre of business and finance for nothing, either.

Frankly our education system has never set out to encourage free-thinking, progressive, radical criticism of the status quo. No-one in government has ever set the education system the task of producing emotionally literate, creative and enlightened thinkers who will challenge the status quo and drag the country into an era of social justice, peace and prosperity for all.

No - what they want is for more kids to get exam passes and prepare themselves for ‘the world of work’, as if passing so-called academic tests actually does that anyway, as any enlightened business person or industrialist well knows - and that is not an oxymoron. Such people do exist.

Our political masters, however, can see no further than the utilitarian view of education - and according to them our schools are there to serve the university system and to regulate who has access to that system, and thereafter access to the professions, and to careers in business, the senior civil service, etc. Gatekeeping - sorting sheep from goats.

Skilling people to become productive units and to earn money is the name of the game, not enabling people to find a voice, to develop creative thinking skills, to see the rat race for what it is. ‘Education, more than wealth or power, is the key to human dignity.’ Wise words. Regrettably our education system isn’t designed to enable young people to discover human dignity, and only provides for the academically able to pursue real wealth and power.

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So what’s all this to do with a man in a long, black coat?, I hear you ask. As well you might, dear reader. Well yesterday my good friend N came round and turned me on to two Bob Dylan albums that have passed me by over the years - Infidels and Oh Mercy. I apologise to His Bobness for my slackness. I must have had my mind on other things.

It was N who’d managed to get me a ticket to see Bob at Wembley last year. When we were in the Caribbean N had played me Jokerman, the opening track on Infidels, which blew me away with its driving rhythms and lyrical & melodic genius.

Oh Mercy kicks off with ‘Political World’, which rocks and rolls as well as anything has ever done in the history of blues and rock. “We live in a political world / under the microscope / you can travel anywhere / and hang yourself there / you’ve always got more than enough rope.” Indeed we have.

Take a look at the rest of the lyrics: http://www.bobdylan.com/songs/political.html

The whole album is a melodic masterpiece, with superb musicianship, incredible writing, great basslines, brilliant harmonica solos, and so on. Dylan sings as well as, if not better than, ever.

And so to The Man with the Long Black Coat. The song begins with chirping crickets, slow, echoing guitars, and suddenly, thirty seconds into it, a tapping foot (one two three, one two three,) and a piercing blast of slow, spine-tingling harmonica blues, followed by and accompanied by a low-slung bass - a single note per bar - dom . ., dom . ., dom . . . It sounds like doom, though it might be liberation. The guitars seem to gently and melodically speak of hope, but the harp wails out notes of heart-breaking sadness. “People don’t live or die / people just float / she went with the man with the long, black coat.”

http://www.bobdylanonline.com/songs/coat.html

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Margaret Mizen, mother of Steven Mizen, a South London 15 year old who was stabbed to death this week, was quoted on the radio today. “Anger killed my son. There’s too much anger in the world. My prayers are with my son’s killers and their families.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/05/13/do1302.xml

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1949676/Bakery-murder-Mother-speaks-of-Jimmy-Mizen

The speaker on today‘s ‘Thought For Today’, the Reverend Roy Jenkins, spoke about angry and resentful young (and old) people who awake every day to yet another day of being treated unfairly. He spoke about millions of people who are affected by global hunger and poverty, every day of their lives. He spoke of powerful people who exploit the poor. He spoke of a need for us to engage with ‘creative anger‘.

Such an engagement is what I’d prefer to call creative channeling of one’s passions. Passion for life and for social justice. Passion for creating more joy and more enlightenment. Passion for global brotherhood and sisterhood. First we need to see things as they really are, and see clearly where the solutions might lie, and then we can begin to create a movement for peaceful change throughout our societies and the world at large.

In the words of Ashley Walters (yesterday’s blog), you can’t fight fire with fire. But we can all take a peaceful stand and insist on running the world more justly and fairly. We can all band together and stand up for human values, a more spiritual world, and an education system that will over the long term create more emotionally and spiritually intelligent people and a more enlightened world.

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I’d really thought we’d heard the last of the public schoolboy tones of Tone on the radio. I can’t stand hearing Blair speak - on any subject. To hear him talking about Middle East peace is painful indeed.

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Postscript

Trawling the net for the lyrics to Man In The Long Black Coat I came across a beautifully written San Franciscan blog that includes some excellent pieces on the Hurricane Katrina disaster and on the 40th anniversary of the killing of Martin Luther King. Enjoy them at

http://dontcallmeishmael.blogspot.com/2006/08/man-in-long-black-coat.html