The first reference I saw to the Count of Saint Germain was in <I>Foucault's Pendulum</I>, Umberto Eco's dense novel about a man whose paranoid delusions become so overpoweringly real that, by the end of the book, the reader is left wondering whether the protagonist's enemies actually exist. That their number should include Saint Germain was a nice touch: Part cabalist, part confidence man, the real-life Count was thought by some to be immortal (in <I>Pendulum</I> he's pushing 300), and while Casanova wrote vividly of meeting Saint Germain at a dinner party in 1757, so did the English writer and pederast C.W. Leadbetter&mdash;in 1926. Like Aleister Crowley, the Count of Saint Germain can be seen peering over the shoulders of countless parlor (but not <I>parleur</I>, or even <I>haut-parleur</I>) occultists: He keeps popping up all over the place.

The first reference I saw to the Count of Saint Germain was in <I>Foucault's Pendulum</I>, Umberto Eco's dense novel about a man whose paranoid delusions become so overpoweringly real that, by the end of the book, the reader is left wondering whether the protagonist's enemies actually exist. That their number should include Saint Germain was a nice touch: Part cabalist, part confidence man, the real-life Count was thought by some to be immortal (in <I>Pendulum</I> he's pushing 300), and while Casanova wrote vividly of meeting Saint Germain at a dinner party in 1757, so did the English writer and pederast C.W. Leadbetter&mdash;in 1926. Like Aleister Crowley, the Count of Saint Germain can be seen peering over the shoulders of countless parlor (but not <I>parleur</I>, or even <I>haut-parleur</I>) occultists: He keeps popping up all over the place.

The first reference I saw to the Count of Saint Germain was in <I>Foucault's Pendulum</I>, Umberto Eco's dense novel about a man whose paranoid delusions become so overpoweringly real that, by the end of the book, the reader is left wondering whether the protagonist's enemies actually exist. That their number should include Saint Germain was a nice touch: Part cabalist, part confidence man, the real-life Count was thought by some to be immortal (in <I>Pendulum</I> he's pushing 300), and while Casanova wrote vividly of meeting Saint Germain at a dinner party in 1757, so did the English writer and pederast C.W. Leadbetter&mdash;in 1926. Like Aleister Crowley, the Count of Saint Germain can be seen peering over the shoulders of countless parlor (but not <I>parleur</I>, or even <I>haut-parleur</I>) occultists: He keeps popping up all over the place.

The first reference I saw to the Count of Saint Germain was in <I>Foucault's Pendulum</I>, Umberto Eco's dense novel about a man whose paranoid delusions become so overpoweringly real that, by the end of the book, the reader is left wondering whether the protagonist's enemies actually exist. That their number should include Saint Germain was a nice touch: Part cabalist, part confidence man, the real-life Count was thought by some to be immortal (in <I>Pendulum</I> he's pushing 300), and while Casanova wrote vividly of meeting Saint Germain at a dinner party in 1757, so did the English writer and pederast C.W. Leadbetter&mdash;in 1926. Like Aleister Crowley, the Count of Saint Germain can be seen peering over the shoulders of countless parlor (but not <I>parleur</I>, or even <I>haut-parleur</I>) occultists: He keeps popping up all over the place.

The first reference I saw to the Count of Saint Germain was in <I>Foucault's Pendulum</I>, Umberto Eco's dense novel about a man whose paranoid delusions become so overpoweringly real that, by the end of the book, the reader is left wondering whether the protagonist's enemies actually exist. That their number should include Saint Germain was a nice touch: Part cabalist, part confidence man, the real-life Count was thought by some to be immortal (in <I>Pendulum</I> he's pushing 300), and while Casanova wrote vividly of meeting Saint Germain at a dinner party in 1757, so did the English writer and pederast C.W. Leadbetter&mdash;in 1926. Like Aleister Crowley, the Count of Saint Germain can be seen peering over the shoulders of countless parlor (but not <I>parleur</I>, or even <I>haut-parleur</I>) occultists: He keeps popping up all over the place.

Dear Readers,<br>
I admit it. When Jerry commented to <a href="http://blog.stereophile.com/stephenmejias/041408really/">last week's entry</a>, saying that vinyl wears out with every single trip around the platter, it kind of shook me up. My heart raced and blood rushed to my head. I began to sweat. What had I done? What was I getting into? How would I afford this? Had I stepped into AlexO's bottomless pit?