Gal Costa, RIP

One of the greats...

Candidates Make Final Pitches on Economy, Abortion, and Democracy

Apparently there are differences of opinion on all three... NYT.

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.