One of our literary correspondents has brought to our attention the Brecht / Eisler song Supply and Demand in which a merchant sings about Rice as a material for financial speculation. There is obvious potential here for a double bill alongside Of All The People In All The World. As it happens we’re not using the song and if we were we’d like to stress our interpretation would differ from Robyn Archer’s. We’d also like to stress that our ‘explanation’ of contemporary financial derivative’s trading will be nothing like this.
been wanting to mention the historical detail that in the extreme times of hardship during WWII dutch citizens were reduced to eating tulip bulbs to survive. Seems like a poignant image of desperation.
and an extreme contrast to those stories of extremely valuable tulip bulbs being eaten in error during Tulipmania (apparently they don’t taste great in any circumstance).