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is dedicated to the enjoyment of audio and visual stimuli. Please visit our archives where we have uncovered the true importance of nearly everything. Should you want to reach us, e-mail alex dot carnevale at gmail dot com, but don't tell the spam robots. Consider contacting us if you wish to use This Recording in your classroom or club setting. We have given several talks at local Rotarys that we feel went really well.

Pretty used to being with Gwyneth

Regrets that her mother did not smoke

Frank in all directions

Jean Cocteau and Jean Marais

Simply cannot go back to them

Roll your eyes at Samuel Beckett

John Gregory Dunne and Joan Didion

Metaphors with eyes

Life of Mary MacLane

Circle what it is you want

Not really talking about women, just Diane

Felicity's disguise

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Wednesday
Jul302008

In Which Stalin Is The Biggest Goy We Can Think Of

Some Out of The Way Corner of the Universe

by Alex Carnevale

Once upon a time, in some out of the way corner of that universe which is dispersed into numberless twinkling solar systems, there was a star upon which clever beasts invented knowing. That was the most arrogant and mendacious minute of “world history,” but nevertheless, it was only a minute. After nature had drawn a few breaths, the star cooled and congealed, and the clever beasts had to die. One might invent such a fable, and yet he still would not have adequately illustrated how miserable, how shadowy and transient, how aimless and arbitrary the human intellect looks within nature. There were eternities during which it did not exist. And when it is all over with the human intellect, nothing will have happened.

— Friedrich Nietzsche

Times standards editor (you wouldn't even know they had one) wrote an e-mail to Times staffers requesting reporters not display the paraphernalia of any candidate in this November's election.

Since we cannot imagine any reason a conservative would work at the only newspaper more liberal than the Daily Worker, they meant Obama stickers.

Life has improved, comrades. Life has become more joyous.

Instead of correcting the serious problem of total homogenity in their newsroom, they just fire more Dems and hire more Dems. "The press must grow day in and day out — it is our Party's sharpest and most powerful weapon," Stalin once said.

By keeping their affiliations private, reporters bring shameful cowardice to the fore instead of honesty and openness. The public should have the choice, not the paper.

For one of the most important newspapers in the world - a paper whose correction rate is slightly lower than Mad magazine - there is the shining monument to their newspeak: Pravda. The Times admires, wishes to be Pravda. It served the cause well, and that is the best that can be said about it. Howell Raines' description of the institution he led makes it sound even more repressive than Pravda in its heyday. (He fought for more Britney, if you were wondering.)

We should only wish the editors of the Times were as free-thinking as the editors of Pravda when Joseph Stalin led the editorial board.


On some topics in Wikipedia, our most important cultural newspaper, evil but powerful figures are given the sheen of achievement because of their place on the grand stage. The contribution to the Josef Stalin entry has the unknowing Times-ian polish - a glowing sense of admiration for the Georgian-born dictator comes through loud and clear.

Like Hitler, Stalin was a failed artist. The worst kind: a poet.

When I am gone, the capitalists will drown you like blind kittens.

The beauty of the democratic system is that is prizes popularity over deviousness. The Soviet system was like high school - the same basic message as a workshop from Mystery - he who was most charming and evil won the day.

The ascension of Lenin, the dictatorship of Stalin, the Second World War. He assembled a nation that would consume its people.

But what a life! Banging thirteen year olds, killing his wife. Killing millions of wives. He stole a nation; and he stole other nations. He coddled Germany, then promoted a patriotic war against it. This is what is so admiring in his wikipedia profile - the balls on this goy!

A sincere diplomat is like dry water or wooden iron.

Our contemporary Stalinism exists in those who would willingly concede a right. Why must we contribute our earnings to the government, the Politburo, to Robin Hood? Stalin was unemployed. Constantly exiled. He was the benefactor of thousands giving up the right of what to do with the money they earn.

What shall we do? We shall envy!

When we play God, and appeal to a sense of cosmic justice, we abdicate the only responsibility a government has - to make its citizens free, not to make some freerer than others.

stalin's first wife


If the Soviet Union didn't exist, we'd have to invent it.

Alex Carnevale is the editor of This Recording. He tumbls hard for cash money here.

I know that after my death a pile of rubbish will be heaped on my grave, but the wind of History will sooner or later sweep it away without mercy.

Ideas are more powerful than guns. We would not let our enemies have guns, why should we let them have ideas?

ENJOY STALIN'S FAV

shostakovich and stalin

We think that powerful and lifeful movement is impossible without differences — "true conformity" is possible only in the cemetery.

"Eyes Wide Shut" - Dmitri Shostakovich (mp3)

STAMP OUT THE REVOLUTION BEFORE IT STARTS

"Time To Send Someone Away" - Jose Gonzalez (mp3)

"Teardrop" - Jose Gonzalez (mp3)

"Cycling Trivialities" - Jose Gonzalez (mp3)

"How Low" - Jose Gonzalez (mp3)

PREVIOUSLY ON THIS RECORDING

Molly’s a mindfreak.

Why we are the way that we are.

Frank O’Hara was the man.

Gratitude is a sickness suffered by dogs.

References (1)

References allow you to track sources for this article, as well as articles that were written in response to this article.

Reader Comments (3)

God damn it Alex you're such a libertarian sometimes. Wouldn't a true libertarian be opposed to the predictable tenets of libertarianism? Try harder!

July 30, 2008 | Unregistered CommenterMolly Lambert

you're confusing libertarianism with emo, molly.

July 30, 2008 | Unregistered CommenterD'Aziz
In the picture you label Stalin and Shostakovich, the guy with Stalin is not Shostakovich, -; check google images for pictures of the composer. I'm pretty sure it's V.M. Molotov.
June 6, 2012 | Unregistered CommenterDirk van Nouhuys

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