Gambling

In the middle of this fascinating Wired article about the evolution of sports betting is this gem:

"My job is not to judge the morality of why people gamble. My job is to invest in and create things that make money for my partners."

At least he's being honest.

The Beach Boys

Martin Cizmar:

"The Roman Catholic's current canonization procedure requires but one otherwise inexplicable miracle in a prospective saint's name. Brian Wilson has two: one you know well, one you probably don't."

The one you know well is Pet Sounds of course, which I encourage you to explore deeply via its Box Set on Rdio — there'll you find track after track (90 in all!) of Brian and his musicians fiddling in the studio take after take, painstakingly assembling what would become the mindblowing masterpiece that is Pet Sounds.

The other one Martin's referring to is Beach Boys Party!, which we also have on Rdio:



Here's Martin again:

"In a nutshell, Party! is a faux live record with 12 songs, clocking in at just over a half-hour. Among those songs are several Beach Boys hits, three Beatles covers, a Bob Dylan cover, and versions of a few old rock 'n' roll standards like "Hully Gully" and "Mountain of Love." Party! is all acoustic, and all the tracks are mixed together with between-song dialogue, clapping, and catcalls, to make it sound like one continuous take. The album is a highly stylized imitation bootleg that's almost too fun and loose to be a commercial release."

Enjoy.