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Joking. Its a huge development for economics and open access publishing: the Econometric Society and the Society for Economic Theory have agreed to bring the journal Theoretical Economics into the ES fold. A little background: about three years ago, these people had the bold plan to launch a new field journal for economic theory and to make it free in every sense of that word. We wanted to show that an open access journal could also be a top journal.
The Econometric Society has recognized our success and is seeing the light on open access. What better way to bring open access to the mainstream than to become the field journal of one of the oldest and most respected professional societies in economics.
I think one of the most entertaining ironies of this experience is that now economics (you know: laissez faire, maximize profits, invisible hand) is one of the very few disciplines which has a top journal that is fully open access.
Here is the announcement.
The new CD from the 21st-century-defining trio The Bad Plus was released in the US yesterday (for some reason it was available in Europe for a few months now.) The big news is that they have added a vocalist, Wendy Lewis, and the album is exclusively covers (rumor is that their next album will be all originals, presumably back to the trio.) The covers are mostly rock-pop tunes in a spirit similar to the covers they have been doing since the beginning, but they have added classical music to the mix, like a Stravinsky that they re-work to sound like very conventional jazz-pop, and something called semi-simple variations. Partly because these tunes shed the vocals from the other tracks they come closer to the style of music the Bad Plus has been doing succesfully in their previous records.
The recording is not ideal. To make room for the vocals, the other instruments are mushed into the background. The drums seem sometimes badly miked and even the piano loses definition at moments where you really want to hear it, especially on the last tune “Feeling Yourself Disintegrate.” On the other hand, the bass stands out beautifully and really sits right in the middle of the music. In some of its best moments the CD feels like a duet between the bass and the vocals.
Wendy Lewis has a good voice which is ideally suited for many of these tunes, but not all. The ballads are the weakest because her voice is not always “pretty.” I am not knocking her here, she is truly a “vocalist” in the sense that she uses her voice as an instrument and she is doing surprisingly well at integrating her instrument into this already dense music. But in ballads like “Lock Stock and Teardrops” and “Feeling Yourself Disintegrate” nothing complicated is going on and it comes across more like a coffee-house poetry reading than singing. By contrast and proof that she really has command of different vocal styles, in “How Deep is Your Love” she takes on a sultry, breathy voice which adds a dimension to the music which is missing elsewhere on the album. Her voice soars over Iverson’s arpeggios in “Comfortably Numb” and she flat out rocks on “Barracuda.”
What is the verdict on this work? For sure there are many reasons to applaud the Bad Plus for experimenting with vocals and these covers. In some ways they are being brilliantly opportunistic because pop musicians inexplicably refuse to try and build a canonical repetoire and these great tunes are therefore just sitting there waititng to be reinterpreted for the first time. If “Long Distance Runaround” was “jazz”, it would be a standard. Still, I come away disappointed with the CD. Largely this is because of the recording, but also because with just a few exceptions this doesn’t advance what the Bad Plus is doing, instead it feels more like a side project.
But what’s really important to me is what this CD suggests the live performance is going to be like. I can imagine that on stage the trio will open up more behind and in between the vocal passages and this could make the whole thing pay off. We’ll see.
Naming a blog is like naming a baby. * Those of us who have gone thorugh the baby-naming process recognize some subtle strategic issues that arise. Each spouse searches for names in books, online, in the garden, etc. and when a good idea comes up suggests it to the other spouse. Then there is some discussion and possibly the name is put on the shortlist and the process continues. At some point a name has to be chosen.
Here is where the strategy comes in. Suppose there is a name you really like and you think your spouse might find acceptable, let’s say Hercules. You put Hercules on the shortlist. But now suppose you come up with another name that you know your spouse likes better than the first one but which boders on unacceptable for you. Let’s say “Brad.” Do you suggest Brad?
At first glance it seems obvious you should hide Brad in the drawer, lock it tight and throw away the key. But its not always clear. By suggesting Brad you might convince your spouse that you are playing ball and you might get points for that and it might even improve the chances of a baby Hercules.
In fact, I think something like this would be a property of an efficient mechanism. In economics we think about situations like this and how to design the rules of the game to deliver an acceptable outcome, in this case a baby whose name will not scar him for life. The unusual feature of this particular problem is that the alternatives, i.e. the possible names, are not given in advance but have to be suggested in order to be considered. If I keep “Brad” a secret, chances are my spouse won’t think of it and I won’t have to worry about it.
So the key issue in designing the rules of this game is to give each spouse enough incentive to reveal the names that they might otherwise try to keep secret. After all, taking into account both spouses preferences, Brad might actually be the best name if say my spouse really likes it much better than Hercules. And in that event we want to give it a chance to be selected.
How would we design the rules to give that incentive? The only way to do this is to “pay” a spouse who offers an additional name by increasing the chance of that spouse getting his preferred choice. And in practice the goodwill your spouse feels when you suggested Brad has exactly this effect.
*In answer to your question, Sandeep is the Mommy.
Usual problem with pasta: not enough protein! So, I was happy to see this pasta recipe in the New York Times (see http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/29/health/29recipehealth.html?scp=1&sq=pasta%20lentil&st=cse). I decided to skip the red pepper: too much chopping. Also, went with the pre-ground cumin and coriander – with two kids and a hungry wife around, who has the time to roast and grind fresh ingredients? Made one mis-calculation: hadn’t realized the recipe called for cooking the lentils for 45 minutes or so. Luckily, this turned out to be an overestimate for the green French lentils I used so I was in good shape by the time the pasta was ready. Went down well. This is going to be on our regular rotation. Probably at weekends though as it takes a little longer than the usual quick pasta fix. Oh, I almost forgot: we had a 2006 Chateau Pesquie Terrasses ($20). Parker likes it. It’s drinkable enough but nothing to get to too excited about. Read the rest of this entry »
We spent the last week trying to think of a name for this blog. Because Sandeep has bad taste lots of really good names were rejected and we in the end settled for an ok but not great name, Cheap Talk.
This blog-christening process points out an important asymmetry in the creative process. It is much easier to think up interesting names for *some* blog than it is to think up names for this particular blog and these particular bloggers.
For example, some bloggers, somewhere in the blogosphere would love the name “Vapor Mill.” It’s a pun on “Paper Mill” which, especially for academics, suggests productivity. But “Paper” is replaced by “Vapor” which turns it into a symbol for fanciful and ultimately useless ideas.
But those bloggers are almost surely not going to think of that phrase if they just sit down and search their brains. I am not saying it takes great creativity to come up with it. Its almost purely accidental. But that accident happened to me and not to them and unless the name finds them there is lost welfare.
Yes the welfare loss is tiny but every time you have a specific purpose that you are looking for an idea to fit just right you come up with many good ideas that don’t quite fit your specific purpose but would be really great for somebody else’s purpose and each time a valuable thing just disappears. It adds up.
I guess its an argument for the space program and all of the resulting Tang that comes with it.
Hey, that’s a great name for a blog!: Tang.
(appendix: I hate the word blogosphere and I can’t believe that I only lasted one post in my short blogging career before I had to use it.)
Cheap Talk 