Geoff Nuttall, RIP

To hear him play with SLSQ was to be transported. He was, among other things, a committed California native plant gardener.

Congrats, Steve Ruggles!

Recipient of a 2022 MacArthur "genius" grant– unexpected but richly deserved. Where would I be without IPUMS? 

Congrats, Ben!

Ben Bernanke is now the second Nobel-prize winner who taught me during my first year as a PhD student in Econ at Stanford. The first was the late Kenneth Arrow. Bernanke is not in the same league as Arrow in terms of his contributions to the discipline, but really almost nobody is. Bernanke is a very smart guy who wrote some really important papers in macroeconomics based on his careful studies of the Great Depression. Some people think the wisdom he gained from those studies prepared him to take actions that prevented a second Great Depression during the 2008 financial crisis. I incline toward that view myself. Sure, he may have been too friendly toward the banksters, but who is the counterfactual Fed Chair who does it better? He was also, in my experience, an excellent teacher– one of the best I had in the program.

Gordon Ramsay cooks

His enthusiasm is undeniable, his technique impeccable, his advice solid and simple, his recipes look awesome, production values high, youtube videos abundant, informative, and free. He knows he's good but disarms his vanity with a wink and a nod. I cook a lot and consider myself pretty good at it, but I suspect I'll get better and better with each ten minutes I spend with Mr. Ramsay.

Pharoah Sanders, RIP

One of the paths leading from Coltrane, not explored by enough great musicians, was taken by Sanders, who then continued beyond with some fellow travelers.

Hilary Mantel, RIP

She wrote two of my all-time favorite novels– specifically, the first two in the Cromwell trilogy. The third installment was, for me at least, a disappointment, but she was clearly still at the peak of her formidable powers as a novelist when it appeared in 2020. 

What makes a great novel? Storytelling, of course. Storytelling is sometimes reduced to plot or, to be fancier, narrative drive. But at least as important is worldbuilding. That term is most often applied to science fiction and fantasy, but it is equally relevant to any good fiction. You the reader must be dropped into a new place and reside there. That place might be a 25th-Century asteroid belt, 1970s Oakland, or 16th-Century England. If you are not transported to an amazing place you have never been, it is not great storytelling. 

Plus: great characters. Real, flawed, heroic humans. Nobody should be (only) a monster or a caricature. Cromwell, More, Boleyn.

Plus: a theme that makes you think about things. 

Plus: Poetry, music. Sentences you want to read over and over again, just to hear them in your mind's ear.

She had it all, in abundance, and died way too young.

Two more from NYRB Classics

On the scale from meh to wow, both a little closer to meh... 

Sleepless Nights
Elizabeth Hardwick

A critic's critic and editor's editor, she must also have been a writer's writer, which may have something to do with my inability to get very far into this artfully written novel/memoir before... well... overcoming my own sleeplessness! 

A Way of Life, Like Any Other 
Darcy O'Brien

This is a somewhat dated Hollywood coming-of-age story. It's quite amusing in parts, but for me it didn't add up to much more than a diversion.

A High Wind in Jamaica

I had started to read Richard Hughes's acclaimed 1929 novel a couple of times before, and it failed to take hold. This time was different. I could barely put it down. Exquisitely written, by turns funny, exciting, and quite deeply disturbing. Several children are kidnapped (maybe?) by pirates... adventure on the high seas and all that. The novel has been compared with Lord of the Flies in terms of its cynical depiction of children's a/im/morality, but Jamaica is ten times more subtle and well-written than what I remember of that book. The protagonist, ten-year-old Emily, is a character for the ages. As for her a/im/morality, along with that of the other kids and all the grownups around them... well, read it and judge for yourself.