Urgent message to the US Treasury Department

Señor Coconut was a timely reminder to those who needed one that the best performers of Latin American music have always been Central Europeans. Here’s der Onkel Bumba as immortalised by the Comedian Harmonists:

Their life made impossible by Mr Goebbels, half the Comedians ended up in the States, but an even stranger fate awaited Dajos Béla. Born of a Jewish-Russian-Hungarian family in Kiev, he became a star in pre-war Berlin playing tangos and then fled via Paris, London and Vienna to … Buenos Aires, where his success continued. One suspects that if he had been a coal merchant his grave would be on the banks of the Tyne. Here’s his orchestra playing “You look absolutely scrumptious again tonight, my dear lady”, and, ahem, doesn’t she:

What about Xavier Cugat? Well he was a Polak, of course…

Posting may be light over the next few weeks due to my old friend Mr Mammon.

Something puzzling me on V-E Day on May 8 last week: no one seems to have noticed that Ben Shahn’s Liberation is a French maypole scene. Here it is:

I believe from the MOMA@NY blurb that it draws on a Cartier-Bresson image, but I can’t remember whether this was intended to represent the liberation of France from June to August 1944 or the events further east in May 1945. The French do (did) have maypoles (in September), of course, because they are actually Germans, curse their dark and devious souls.

This excellent piece by Mr Butler provides background to Deutsche’s warning on Spanish mid-table banks and illustrates the eternal perils of investing in real estate in Andalusia–unless you happen to have Manuel Chaves’ mobile number. It will be ghoulishly interesting to observe whether interventionist regions fcuk up better or worse than the ones that still haven’t worked out what’s happening.

Edward Fennell writes: “Looking ahead to the height of summer, I must commend to sunseekers a place at the specialist course that the City Law School is to run in Barcelona… Those who successfully complete the programme will be awarded a certificate of achievement. Those who fail to complete will earn a suntan (cum laude) instead.” Let there be no misunderstanding: the Il·lustre Col·legi d’Advocats de Barcelona is an extremely serious organisation and as such puts on fine choral concerts in St Whatsisname on Rambla de Catalunya. (Merci MM)