Jazz Impressions of Japan

The flawless Koto Song is my newest 'creative background piece': works miracles for theory modeling! For running regressions give Tokyo Traffic a shot.

More on Brubeck's best album ever (with some credits to my jazz-expert friend Dean). 

Earlier on Brubeck's genius. 

Earlier on my (incipient) fascination with Japan's culture. 

Econlinks: The applied maths edition

• Serious fight on evolutionary theory ground. The bulk of evolutionary theorists seem to be set on taking Nowak et al to the guillotine, but there is also a small minority of fans: among them, my former Tinbergen Institute colleague Matthijs van Veelen (see a picture of him from when he was older, wiser, sporting a big white beard; NB: yours truly is the junior black-and-yellow fellow at his left, learning on the job) and his co-authors have a nice correspondence in Nature supporting Novak et al. PS. Note also that one co-author of the controversial paper is Romanian mathematician Corina Tarnita (whom, allegedly, many girls would/should like to have as role model)
• The wave equation and tsunami propagation: a concise exposition by Terry Tao. Brings back nice memories of my maths classes at Utrecht University.
• Life arithmetic with (unavoidable?) implications: "Life is short. Have an affair".
• New chess strategies (more)? Now to the good guys: the latest (and seemingly, last) Amber chess tournament was clearly won by Aronian-- followed in the combined rankings by Carlsen and Anand: these three are in my view also the only consistent, long-run runners in the chess marathon. And related: Carlsen's bold decision to challenge a by-now-obsolete chess world championship format.  
• Greg Mankiw with the correct (and scary) budget arithmetic. 
• This is piece of cake, walk in the park: should have focused on predicting Burgundy 2011 vintage quality :-). But agreed, it was better than mine.
• A trip through a Mandelbox. Via Alex Tabarrok at MR.
• The science of stout foam. Or: the time of cheaper Guinness is nye! I confessed already that I had chosen a great Condrieu (relative to the other wines I had at Alinea, this was the one unforgettable) on St. Patrick's, but obviously I still fancy the good old Irish stout! 
• On continuous harmonic spaces (the original paper). Shows that consonance and dissonance  in music are to a considerable extent routed in nature and can be described/defined mathematically, beyond cultural or time relativism. We like it!

What I have been reading

A couple of books I have read within the past few weeks, most of them on my Kindle 3G device(*):

Scott Berkun's "Confessions of a Public Speaker" (get the Kindle edition): the author is a professional speaker, in front of audiences large and small, hence he has got some very helpful tips for anyone who ever needs to engage in public speaking, mostly drawn from his own experiences. These tips range from the a priori preparation for your speech, to engaging your audience, to knowing what to do when you have a too large room and too few people in there etc.What is missing, but understandably so given the author's career, is the treatment of academic public lectures, which can be quite different than any other public types of speech-- nevertheless a series of Berkun's recommendations work perfectly also for academics. The book is at the same time a very fun reading.

***

Jason Zweig's "The Little Book of Safe Money: How to Conquer Killer Markets, Con Artists, and Yourself" (get the Kindle edition): useful advice for small investors (that can be probably summed up by the following quotes "for most small investors, an indexed bond mutual fond is the best way to go" and "[d]on't invest in leveraged and inverse ETFs. Leave them to professional traders" ...) and adapted particularly for the US audience (you do find for instance very helpful info on the so-called '529 plans,' including some online links to compare various such plans, in case you are interested in that). Definitely not for more sophisticated investors (some of you, readers of this blog) or for people who've read much more detailed stuff on financial investments earlier (although I am myself in this category, sometimes it is useful to consult other perspectives at a more elementary level). A tad too cautious and limited on scope and purpose. Anyhow, if you are a beginner and (plan to) live in the US, by all means do read this book.

***

Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner's "Superfreakonomics" (get the Kindle edition). I find this better written than their first Freakonomics success (see, e.g., the first bullet point here for some of the huge debate on that earlier book)-- probably experience and learning on the job-- though it contains as little economics as the first one (it is written more in an investigative journalism style: Dubner obviously has the feeling for what sells and what not). That being said, I still think it is eventually a great service even to the economics  academic community (at least in drawing attention to the range of situations/phenomena that economics can be applied to; NB: I personally doubt it would give the/a too wrong impression of what economists do and should do-- if anything, it might convey the idea that some economists know very well how to sell their books,), and probably that writing it in more 'econo-prose' would have reduced its popularity. I would particularly recommend it to any non-economists, for sure (e.g. last winter I noticed the Romanian translation of the book is already out, and made it present to a good old Transylvanian friend of mine-- in function of his reaction I might offer it to my parents as well). By the way, related, the Freakonomics documentary is currently available for instant viewing on Netflix (I correct myself: right now their site is down, but it is the first time I do not see it functioning), if you are in US and have access to that service-- I plan to watch it one of the next days.

***

And now to my two favorites in this set: 

John Adams's "Hallelujah Junction. Composing an American Life" (unfortunately not available on Kindle): this is one of the best autobiographies I have ever read, within the musical realm and beyond. Honest, full of wit, style, and extremely informative-- and that to say the least. As somebody who's listened to a large set of Adams's compositions (and working on the remaining ones...) and who regularly follows his blog, I simply had to read his autobiographical piece in order to have access to Adams's detailed perspective on both his  own work and his general ideas of music (composition, interpretation, intrigues, all the hoopla), politics, life, everything... Highly recommended: one of those books that you simply cannot stop reading once you have started. I'll most likely refer to passages or ideas from "Hallelujah Junction" in many of my future blogposts.

Steven Landsburg's "The Big Questions" (get it on Kindle): I will only tell you that this book is from my perspective really scary, in that its author appears to think about  crucial stuff --i.e. mathematics, economics, physics, philosophy, tax policies, trade, sex, religion, life, Universe etc.-- in an almost identical way to yours truly (ok: I should maybe phrase it as "I think almost exactly like him"-- after all he was there before me...). In any case, even if you've known all the time and agreed all the way with everything in the book (though he does cover an enormous range of topics, requiring that you'd be an extremely well read person), Landsburg's exposition is one of the clearest I've ever encountered (this is true also for his previous books, some of them recommended earlier on this blog; I will only say here that I even used an earlier quote from him as one of the "propositions" --"stellingen", in Dutch-- to go along with my PhD thesis defence-- see under IX in this list). In particular, he's got the rare ability to explain in few paragraphs, mainly by means of easy examples and analogies, some highly complex material (try explaining quantum physics or deontological vs. consequential ethics to the non-initiated!), albeit he needs to strip them down to the bare essence (but then again this is a popularizing book, aimed for a wide audience). Landsburg's writing style is also something I personally like a lot: he's got just the right amounts of humor, irony, and even the tiny bit of arrogance (why not?) mixed in his book. Check out also Landsburg's "The Big Questions" blog, something I've followed and enjoyed since its very start. I end with a larger quote from the introductory chapter of "The Big Questions" that is likely to give you a good feeling of Landsburg's 'creed' and goal in this book (as well as the similarity with my own academic training and beliefs, c.f. the scary/eerie part from above):

"[...] I went on to a career of research in teaching in both mathematics and economics, with a little dabbling in physics along the way, but I never lost sight of my fascination with the big questions of philosophy: Where did the Universe come from? Why is there something instead of nothing? How is knowledge possible? What justifies a belief? How can we tell right from wrong, and good from evil? How should we live our lives?

Philosophers have useful ways of thinking about these questions, but so do people  who are not philosophers. Physicists know something about the origins of the Universe; mathematicians know something about the patterns of reality; economists know something about how our choices affect the lives of others, which is not distinct from the problem of distinguishing right from wrong. I've come to believe that these disciplines provide some of the best available tools for chipping away at the problems of philosophy.

When a man  with a hammer tells you that everything looks like a nail, you should doubt his objectivity. When a man who knows some math and economics tells you that the problems of philosophy can be solved with math and economics, you're entitled to exactly the same reaction. But in this case I believe the causality runs the other way: I was drawn to math and economics because they illuminate the big questions. I saw the nails and went out to find a hammer. [...]"

(*)which is absolutely fantastic and you must have it, despite 1. the fact that David Letterman cannot find page numbers on the Kindle books -- and hates it because of that; 2. the fact that each Kindle book costs more if you buy it outside US-- function of the IP address from where you log in to your Amazon account when buying it (before investigating and realizing this, I did actually buy quite a few Kindle books during my European winter holidays-- and ended up paying about 50 bucks more than I would have paid, had I bought them here in the US). In any case, I am the owner of more than 100 Kindle books already (yes, Amazon, I expect some loyalty awards!): given my fairly long commuting time between Lakeview, where I live, and Northwestern Univ in Evanston, I can read up to two or three books in good weeks.

Work in progress

In the quest for the epiphany, I am happy to report reaching the lesser, though nonetheless revealing, epistrophy stage. Credits due to Thelonius Monk --and a (was it 2006?) François Villard Condrieu De Poncins quaffed yesterday at Alinea.

Sondheim, Burton, Depp and Rickman's "Pretty Women"

I tend to watch great movies with a considerable delay..., but then again, my feeling is that I get to appreciate them much more in this way, aside all the initial hype and the turmoil associated with a new release (an auxiliary gain is that I can discard-- without having to go through the pain of actually watching them-- a lot of movies which were released with high expectations, only to turn out total flops, hence really what remains is above average or, in the best case, excellent). One of these movies is Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd (IMDb, RottenTomatoes), the movie version of Stephen Sondheim's famous musical that premiered only days before I was born (i.e., an eternity ago)-- and which I still promise myself to see on Broadway at some point (or: in London-- Sweeney Todd the musical was rumored to know a revival in London this year-- perhaps with Alan Rickman in the role of Judge Turpin, as in the movie; but, as it looks, this will hardly happen before next year...). In any case, this movie easily gets very high in my top movies all time, at least top 10 (my 25-movie hierarchy put together a while ago has changed significantly since then, as you no doubt noticed if you followed --particularly recent--blogposts set in my "movies" category).

Briefly, this movie broke several personal records among my earlier movie rankings/assessments: i). it is by far my favorite film version of a musical (Chicago was my top choice so far); ii). it is also my winning choice for a dark humor movie (title claimed earlier by Delicatessen); iii). it is my number one Tim Burton movie so far (though I still have to see some of his movies that might challenge that); iv). it is my best Johnny Depp movie to date (and I can safely say that I have seen most productions in which he acted; however, with Depp one can expect any time a new movie which can claim the first place in this ranking; another interesting observation I would make here is that Johnny Depp has that amazing quality of almost always being outstanding in his role, even if the rest of the movie in which he happens to play is mediocre or worse, which happened in a few cases). These opinions were strengthened after watching 'the make of', i.e. a series of interviews available  also on the DVD of the movie, with Tim Burton, Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Alan Rickman, and several others among the actors and crew, plus the one and only Stephen Sondheim*.

Anyway, the point of me writing this post was to emphasize my possibly favorite scene of the movie (I say "possibly" because this choice might be mood-dependent to some extent), also my favorite piece of music from the soundtrack, the "Pretty Women" duet scene between Sweeney Todd and Judge Turpin (which remained in my memory and would not go away since). Here's the full scene from the movie. Here's an audio version only, with better sound quality. And here's an audio version with lyrics**.

* I thought of Sondheim as a genius ever since I first saw/listened to West Side Story, the Bernstein-Sondheim masterpiece. Among the interviews available on the DVD of "Sweeney Todd" there is one amusing line of Alan Rickman (who, by the way, played superbly Judge Turpin; more generally, the few movies where I have seen Rickman acting--still have to see some of the older ones-- already place him extremely high in my actors' ranking). He confesses that he thought absolutely crazy the fact that the great Stephen Sondheim himself came to listen to, criticize, and encourage the actors--most of whom never sang publicly before and were thus 100% amateurs when it came to musicals.

** There are other fabulous parts of the soundtrack/scenes (after all, the whole thing is superlative, you should not miss anything!). A personal selection: "No place like London", "Johanna" (Antony's version), "By the sea", "Epiphany",  "My friends", "A little priest"-- the latter with a bonus: "A little priest" 2005 live version, with the original Sweeney Todd musical casting of Angela Landsbury as Mrs. Lovett and Len Cariou as Sweeney Todd.

Ah não ser eu toda a gente e toda a parte!

I've watched it most recently via this smart* video rental & online streaming service called Netflix : a true gem of a movie, albeit one of the most underrated cinematographic creations of the past decades (does not have a RottenTomatoes critics' rating!). This is a Wim Wenders meisterwerk, most of the time my favorite (nontrivial; I hold most of Wenders's movies in high esteem). As a by-product, the film is also an effective branding/ marketing tool for Lisboa, and, by extension, Portugal** --in fact, Wenders's original intention had been to make a documentary about the city; suffice to say that Lisbon Story alone would convince me to place Lisboa among my in-no-way-can-miss destinations.  Some highlights: Rüdiger Vogler plays superbly the confused German sound engineer; even though his effective role here is minimal, Patrick Bauchau is perfect as the elusive film director (alter ego of Wenders himself); while Madredeus's Teresa Salgueiro... well, she is just so unique; around them fascinating Lisboa snapshots-- images, sounds, poetry, music, life: what's a key without a kiss?

Earlier on my live discovery of Portugal. Earlier on Madredeus. Earlier on Pessoa.

* not ideal: so far I could find only about 60% of the movies I was interested in watching, with the post-mailed DVD option included. Given my typically unusual choices though, 60% is not that bad. Something like this is badly needed on European soil, too.

** I am going to claim more: this is eventually a great cinematographic statement for and about Europe itself.

A little blizzard. Treated with Tanya.

Will it beat the legendary 1967 one? My Lakeview Lake Shore apartment windows are shaking,  but so far holding up (they'd  better: in Chicago terms, I am paying a fortune for this place). Yes, somehow  I made it home; Evanston likely cut off from Chicago for the next couple of days, Northwestern closed for the time being. No better time than now for listening loudly to Gordon and Byrd's Tanya: Part 1 + Part 2 in the original 1964 recording; later Tanya sample with Dexter Gordon proving his worth. A tune indeed* one flight above pretty much anything else. Blizzard-proof, too.

* some credits due to my jazz-expert friend Dean

Des petits trous, des petits trous, toujours des petits trous...

I attended two excellent jazz events last week, jazz being one thing the Chicago music scene excels at (*).

The first was "Brazilian Nights" with Paulinho Garcia and some very talented NU jazz students, at the Regenstein Hall in the NU campus. Best live bossa nova since Eliane Elias's concert in Denmark a couple of years ago. Could not find any of the pieces from the concert I mention above (let me know if you trace Chega de Saudade in Paulinho Garcia's rendition anywhere) but check out Garcia in an amazing duet on Batida Diferente, one piece that well emphasizes both his guitar and vocal abilities.

The second was a super interesting fusion of gypsy jazz, chansons, latin & more-- indeed a "fantastic French-y performance" as they themselves call it-- by Paris La Nuit, at Katerina's. On their site you can directly listen to several nice pieces (try for instance J'ai Un Revolver, that rendition is superb). All the members of the quintet, format in which they played at Katerina's, are superlative on their own  (though only the bassist markets herself properly), while they also almost perfectly synchronize within the team. A plus for Marielle, the talented lead singer and violinist: she's got the style and theatrical presence, something one might think a sine qua non in this business, but nonetheless pretty hard to come by... Way above my uninformed priors; I am sure I'll hear many good things about them in the near future. Check them out also in quartet format, interpreting Serge Gainsbourg's Le Poinçonneur des Lilas (with the risk of committing the sacrilège: despite that song launching Gainsbourg, I prefer Paris La Nuit's jazzy version)

(*) although, talking about Chicago jazz in general, not all is rosy: local organizers & hosts tend to overstate the public's demand for "large band jazz", think long Green Mill Thursdays, for instance...; in other words, I'd vote anytime for New York- vs. New Orleans- type of jazz.

Take 5 in 2011

Let us start this new year with a legendary jazz piece: Paul Desmond's "Take Five"; recall first the original instrumental version, superbly interpreted here by The Dave Brubeck Quartet, exactly 5 decades ago. Once you've got the feeling, proceed to the vocal variant--with lyrics by Iola and Dave Brubeck-- to capture the whole message; one of my favorite versions must be the very creative Dave Brubeck- Al Jarreau '97 get-together, the first and likely the only time they performed on the same stage.

Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas!

From me, Tony Bennett, Graham Chapman, and the rest of the crew.

Flawless: Kseniya

I have not seen anything more dramatic and powerful than this in the modern art world perhaps since Pink Floyd's The Wall movie. This is a work of perfection, there is no single detail left to chance; for instance, obviously it could have only ended apocalyptically-- on Apocalyptica's version of Nothing Else Matters.

After this, what is left for us to write? I bow in front of the real talent.



Blog birthday. Senses. And jazz.

Born in the anonymity of the blogosphere 5 years ago, this weblog grew up a curious, motivated, and responsible toddler: its (no longer) secret ambition remained no less than saving the world-- despite repeated trials of dissuasion by its author, who once foolishly pledged allegiance to the infusion of blogs about nothing. Thus, as this blog claims and proved a certain maturity, it will receive two significant presents for its half decade birthday. To be shared with its select audience:

• a second perennial motto, see blog footer; David Hilbert's Optimismus in der Forschung (und in das Leben!) is joined by Giacomo Casanova's raison d'être.
• a wonderful, complex, complete musical masterpiece; Chicago right now feels almost as dim and rainy as Barron and Haden's flawless "Twilight" in NYC.

Eterna è la strada che va

I've been a fan of "Banco del Mutuo Soccorso" (wiki, official) for an indefinite number of years now. I hold for instance the view that their first three early '70s albums -- which I listen to frequently, on my iPod, e.g. while travelling from Chicago to Evanston and back--, Banco del Mutuo Soccorso, Darwin!, and respectively Io sono nato libero, are composed almost entirely of genius works, surprisingly underrated and little known outside intelligentsia circles (even in Italy). It is pretty hard to pin B.M.S.'s style down, or relate it to any other band's, since they combine uniquely various musical genres, rock, jazz, classical, all that plus the so Italian cantautore sort, in masterpieces that ought to rival in status and fame Pink Floyd's brightest creations.

Anyway, here is my number 1 choice: enjoy the superlative Il giardino del mago (very decent quality YouTube clip), from their first album-- with today's runner-up being Canto nomade per un prigionero politico, the major piece from Io sono nato libero.

Check out also my earlier blog incursions into the territory of Italian good music, here, here, and here. More will follow.

Shawms and bagpipes

Superlative medieval tones, and a combined use of Romanian & Latin lyrics, in Mille Anni Passi Sunt. Plus, you cannot afford to miss my other personal favourites (including videoclips of live --ad litteram-- shows): Dulcissima, O Varium Fortune, Venus Vina Musica, Totentanz, Chou Chou Sheng, Ballade de Mercy, Suam Elle Ires. A total medieval feast, by the extremely creative Corvus Corax!

(with credits to The Eclectic Metalhead, and YouTube).

Indignation. Leila. Zigeunerweisen. Leila

For some reason I (once in a while) remember something Supachai Panichpakdi, then-WTO boss, said at a keynote speach in a Rotterdam conference celebrating 100 years since the birth of Jan Tinbergen (earlier on this blog, in Romanian): namely that we, then-PhD students in Economics, should stop reading [all sorts of books, papers etc.] and start writing immediately [papers, books, anything?], without wasting any further time (footnote here: -- which I do not know if Blogger can handle-- next to that, Dr. Panichpakdi, who also appeared to speak more than decent Dutch, had all sort of nice memories involving his PhD supervisor, Jan Tinbergen, and, my favourite part, he had plenty of anecdotes about the intense interactions between himself, Pascal Lamy, the-- ironically-- current WTO boss, then- EU Commissioner for Trade, and Robert Zoellick, current World Bank boss, then-US Trade Representative; Lamy said later that year that 'Panichpakdi talks too much', when I brought that up to him, in a "Young European Citizen Convention" videoconference, where we could ask him questions...). Now, the thing is that I am more and more convinced (despite similar advice from other, call them, "seniors") that Panichpakdi was dead wrong in that particular suggestion: there is simply too much written stuff around, and most of it is worthless (vox populi: crap); you don't need to be part of that. Au contraire, in order to make a(ny) difference (assuming you do not get significant utility from simply writing down stuff, that is, from the action of writing/typing per se...), you'd better take all the time in the world and read sufficiently... before you write anything. I mean, you're still in gain committing the error of too much reading (can one ever err there?), then that of too much writing, all else equal. Some caveats surely apply (some revolve around the slight alteration "live sufficiently", instead of "read sufficiently.. before you write anything"), but no more space for those here: I wrote too much already :-).

Anyway, what I actually wanted to bore you with is that I have recently returned from home, i.e. Cluj, Transylvania, Vampire Empire, which nowadays happens to be part of Romania (more), a country where in order to get a new, biometric, passport, you have to wait no less than 20 (twenty! and they stress: week)days. In the Netherlands or Denmark (or any other sane country) you get the same, biometric, passport in 5 (five) days. And there they also do not (implicitly or explicitly) ask if you agree to be fingerprinted because (as in my country, the default assumption is that) you, as in you-citizen, might believe there is some connection of fingerprinting/digital photography/anything involving a biometric passport to a peculiar 666 number, or some-- whatever-- religion, or to both. Pathetic. And still (what a child, ain't it?), I insist: I want to have my Romanian (biometric or not) passport. I am by now 99% sure that Marcus Messner's so perfectly displayed indignation (hopefully they get back to their senses in that Nobel Literature committee and give the next prize to Roth, rather than persisting in rewarding mediocrity) is simply a most natural feeling, with or without Olivia (or Bertrand Russell) in the background.

Maybe it is better to talk/write about what we love. So here she is once again, Leila: this time together with Sarasate and his Zigeunerweisen (earlier). More about Pablo de Sarasate's masterpiece (including an incredible 1904 recording of Sarasate himself playing it!). More on Leila's Zigeunerweisen. Fabulous!

Albert Einstein Bizottság: Szerelem

I don't think it has occured to any of you that simulated maximum likelihood OX programs, which often take days to converge (given I do not--yet!-- have the parallel computing power I would love to possess...), run much faster if in the meantime one listens to Albert Einstein Committee's brilliant music. Without any doubt, this is the best ever Hungarian band (where I 200% agree with the master of all good Hungarian music, wisest Daniel); and-- as conjecture-- probably the best Eastern-Central European band of the 80's (this should be as clear as-- to switch areas for a second-- the best movie of the same time, same region, being the Polish film "Seksmisja"; unfortunately no time to go in that direction today). Had they sung also in English, they could have been as popular as, dare I say, the Beatles (ok, I said it), two decades earlier; in any case, a band with a similar fate (extremely popular among domestic intelligentsia, but without too much exposure outside, mainly because of the language barrier) , about the same period, but in Western Europe, is for instance the Dutch band Doe Maar. In Romania, the closest to A.E. Bizottság is probably Timpuri Noi (though their top work came out in mid/late 90's).

A subset of my favourite A.E. Bizottság pieces: "Szerelem" (perfect; if you make an effort to understand the lyrics, you will fully agree); "Kamikaze"; "Már megint ez a depresszió "; "Konyhagyeplő" ; "Putty Putty"; "Egy lány kéne nékem" (oh well, I see this one comes with a striptease session in the youtube clip; depending on your tastes/orientation that might be a plus or a minus :-)); finally (update) listen to/see this if you want the total fun part. You will enjoy all of it!

PS. Check out some other excellent/interesting Hungarian music I mentioned earlier on this blog: here, here, here, here, or here. Blame YouTube if clips are not available any longer (though, tip: you can still find them, if you search carefully, under different links).

ASSA '10 @ Atlanta

My whereabouts these days: attending the ASSA 2010--- I will present an obviously-will-be-top paper (joint with Elena), in the 5th of Jan, within the AEA section (you can find me in the program). Otherwise, first time in Atlanta, looks interesting so far, need to explore some more (by the way, it is rather chilly, but less so than in Chicago). Meawnhile, Ben Bernanke's just ended talk was pretty convincing, -- and his answers to the audience questions even better-- in a nutshell: there seems to be a weak link between mishaps of monetary policy and the housing bubble; while Chris Pissarides organized this morning a pretty good session on unemployment patterns/analysis/forecasts in this recession (with Shimer, Davis, Katz, and Pissarides in overall agreement ultimately-- except for the usual fight over lowering/raising minimum wages, with Davis and Katz on opposite fronts here--, though the devil's in the details...).

PS. Oh, and yes..., given that I am in Atlanta: Eva's unique "Tall Trees in Georgia" (earlier). Enjoy!

Happy 2010!

... although still more than 6 hours to go of '09, here, in Chicago. Where I have already discovered (in Devon Market; all credits to Daniel) an interesting range of rather decent Romanian wines (eventually I have settled for a Feteasca Regala from Jidvei and, something special for tonight-- I am very curious!-- a Dracula's Blood Merlot). Good to know, given that I'll soon spend quite some time around here.

Anyway, let us enter 2010 on Massenet's Méditation de Thaïs, wonderfully interpreted by the one and only Leila Josefowicz (how can one not be in love with this woman?!). THE music piece for the New Year (why not)?

Merry Xmas!

With credits to Irving Berlin, Bing Crosby, Mark Sandrich, and all the dolls out there.

PS. Recall also a most interesting analysis of Irving Berlin's creativity profile, once you wake up from the hangover :-).

The hard road to Transylvania

4 hours inside a KLM/Malev plane that just wouldn't take off at Schiphol (after 2 extra hours of waiting for the-- eventually, wrong-- plane to arrive); a (involuntary, for a change) night spent in beautiful but frozen Budapest (helped by the fact that my friend Balint was very inspired for the dinner suggestion; even the house white wine was very decent!-- though nothing like my favourite Hungarian white); quality time the next day (inter alia, absolutely great mushroom soup and venison with juniper berries, for lunch!) spent with my good old friend, master of all things Budapest, Daniel, while waiting for the uncertainty concerning trains towards Cluj to be resolved; and partly resolved it was after endless hours, although they forgot to provide a 1st class (they were considerate enough to give me a full 2nd class compartment instead, all the >8 hours long trip...enough time to go through quite a few Econometrica articles, tons of coffee, and a number of jazz and classical music albums...); but, finally, Transylvania it is, for the last couple of days: great feeling to be home. All nice and well, for the rest; among other things, my Xmas present arrived just in time, with compliments from the EU Commission.

Oh, and not to forget: You Baffle Me... (by the one and only female equivalent of Yann Tiersen out there, Shannon Wright; e.g. Shannon can also do this, or this, or this, or this.., and much much more, check out for instance all her wonderful Let in the Light album; plus, naturally, she had to collaborate on a fantastic album with Tiersen : for instance, this and this are simply perfect).