Truth (II)

"I am coming to realize this: of the 10,000 tunes I have in iTunes, I don’t like about 7,000 of them. Or I am indifferent. But I can’t get rid of them because I might need them. Or come to like them. I did, however, get rid of all the 30s European swing I somehow picked up, because that stuff creeps me out. Most of the music is by The Ramblers, a Dutch group that played nice with the Nazzis (as Churchill would have said; I always find that pronunciation jarring) but ended up in a concentration camp anyway. But it must have been one of those Stalag 13 B-grade camps, because according to a review of a Ramblers compilation, “they managed to escape.” Man, there’s a story: an entire band gets set to the camp, and escapes en masse, preferably in costume. It’s The Beatles Meet the Killing Fields! Or not: this page says the band’s darkest moment was when it kicked out the Jewish members in 41."

From James Lileks.