Our friend Min plays in a string quartet. We went to hear them at Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center today, where they did three Beethoven quartets. For an informed critique of their performance you should probably ask someone with a better and better-trained ear; I thought they played beautifully, and where the music was intrinsically accessible, they made it engaging. To me, while they do shine in the fast virtuoso passages, they shine even more in the slow lyrical ones. The most moving parts for me were the conclusions (I think) of the slow second movements of the first two quartets they played, opus 74 and opus 18 no. 2. A short cadence is played in a major key, and then nearly the same phrase is played in a related minor key. In earlier composers this is usually a signal that the "development" section is starting: the composer is done with the exposition of the main themes and now he's going to spool them out in exciting new directions. So I got ready for this to happen (not knowing these pieces well). But here, the movements come very soon to a hushed conclusion, still in the minor key. The way they played it today it had a very haunting effect.
My main point here is about the last piece they played, the one that necessitated the qualification "where the music was intrinsically accessible" above. It's Beethoven's last work, opus 131. Late Beethoven is something that gets talked about a lot, even, due to the human drama of the deafness story, in non-specialist settings. You hear words like "strange," "ethereal," "otherworldly," "beyond our sublunary ken." Actually I made up sublunary ken but if you know what I'm talking about you know it's not out of place. Anyway I warned Dao that this piece would be relatively inaccessible. And after the performance, she said she quite liked it, and didn't understand what I was warning her about. This got me thinking about better ways to characterize late Beethoven: I think Dao assumed I was trying to steel her against an onslaught of dissonance or something. It's not dissonant -- none of his late works have ever struck me as dissonant. The problem, I think, is the intelligibility of medium- and large-scale phrases. I just don't grasp where he's going, or why. Now, on a very short scale, everything is fine. I hypothesize that a five or ten second snippet from a late work would be hard to distinguish from other late Classical or early Romantic music (experts can feel free to smack me down here if I'm full of BS). It's on a sixty- or six-hundred-second scale that the logic escapes me. Borderline banal phrases get repeated with slight variations, without building up the momentum, the drive, that's so characteristic of his earlier music. Let me attempt an analogy with the philosophical thought experiment called the "Chinese Room." Some professor (John Searle?) tried to disprove the idea that the brain's linguistic function is ultimately computational, by imagining people in a room taking in Chinese characters in through a slot, passing other it and other bits of paper (or mah-jongg tiles or something) around according to some rule book, and then passing some Chinese characters out through another slot by way of response. It just seemed crazy to Searle that this room and the workers in it could constitute a conscious, communicating being. Others have objected that this arguments proves only the insufficiency of Searle's mind to grasp the millionfold neural complexity of the computational program responsible for consciousness. Now, I have no strong opinion about this argument per se (other than a general feeling that it would be best if the disputants on both sides stopped wasting our nation's education dollars and took up plumbing or house-painting instead). But the set-up seems analogous to late Beethoven. I just don't see how all these notes getting swapped around for minute upon minute upon minute can add up to music. And on the other hand I cannot discount the possibility that a musical genius (Beethoven himself, say) could digest an hour's worth of music the same way that I can digest a four-measure snippet, that the brilliant architectonic structure could shine through to him as he sits listening in the concert hall, that at as the last cadence sounds he can process all the cosmic noodling that came before and understand the great man's final message to his brethren, "So long and thanks for all the Wienerschnitzel," presumably.
[Gombrecht the Irrefrugnable: 2/8/10 01:18]
An Actually Helpful Journalistic Analysis
Of course, it's a trivial topic: Leno vs. Conan. But it's just refreshing to an arrangement of facts in an interpretable pattern.
Funny you should have posted that just as I was about to post a Nietzsche quote. Iris threw "Untimely Meditations" at me (without provocation) and I opened to a random page which, like most of his pages, offered concise proof of his brilliance as a polemicist.
The masses seem to me to deserve notice in three respects only: first as faded copies of great men produced on poor paper with worn-out plates, then as a force of resistance to great men, finally as instruments in the hands of great men; for the rest, let the Devil and statistics take them!
Perhaps the test of a great quip is that it retains its punch in translation -- the last clause here certainly does.
Incidientally, this makes me think of a French douchebag who was a great media darling when I left, a philosophy professor named -- actually, it's to my credit here that I can't remember his name, but he described himself as a "Nietzschean of the Left." This quote alone shows this person to be a complete fraud.
[Gombrecht the Irrefrugnable: 2/4/10 21:31]
Immanuel Kant, Sometimes I Love You
Even if a Civil Society resolved to dissolve itself with the consent of all its members—as might be supposed in the case of a People inhabiting an island resolving to separate and scatter themselves throughout the whole world—the last Murderer lying in the prison ought to be executed before the resolution was carried out. This ought to be done in order that every one may realize the desert of his deeds, and that bloodguiltiness may not remain upon the people; for otherwise they might all be regarded as participators in the murder as a public violation of Justice.[Ben A.: 2/4/10 20:39]
Last night, I went to a fundraiser for n+1 Magazine. The n+1 guys had persuaded Gladwell to serve as one of the co-hosts, which duty he discharged graciously (I guess he's had at least 10,000 hours practice at fundraiser chitchat). As often happens at these kinds of events, the very few non-literary-world people end up clustering. I was chatting to a Barclays high-grade credit trader who had been brought along by his girlfriend. Gladwell passed behind us on his way to the canapes, and the Barclays guy gave him a look-over. He turns back to me and says, "hey, who invited Sideshow Bob?" A look of horror crosses his girlfriend's face. "That's Malcolm Gladwell," she hisses. He looks at me with a helpless smile and shrugs. "Dude," I say, "I know we just met, but would you permit me to give you a high-five?"
[Ben H.: 2/3/10 18:47]
Hawaii
Iris has good taste. Isn't it paradisaical? Deb and I often talk about moving to the big island. They need pediatric endocrinologists there! Biotech guys, less so.
[Ben A.: 2/3/10 14:13]
Mozart: The Man
I think I have referred to the story of Allegri's Miserere before. Briefly, the Miserere was performed annually in the Cistine chapel, and all transcriptions were strictly forbidden. Then the 14-year-old Mozart visits Rome, hears the piece, and bam! -- writes it down from memory that night.
I guess Malcolm Gladwell would say he was able to this because he had practiced for 10,000 hours.
That's very cool -- thanks for posting it. There's a letter of Mozart's, I think, where he talks about being able to perceive music pieces in their entirety, in the same way that regular people can walk around a statue and perceive it. This goes some distance toward helping the rest of us do this.
Incidentally, Iris is in the background saying "I want to go to Hawaii again" ...
Graphical Representation of Beethoven's 7th, Second Movement.
This is a great tool for musical illiterates (or near-illiterates) like me. This was an odd song to hear in the mall yesterday. One doesn't like to be reminded of one's mortality while looking for a suit.
[Ben A.: 1/31/10 16:01]
Though I now spend my days separated from "Wall Street" by a river (and at least as much psychic as geographic distance), I did manage to hear a faint sound of screaming in the minutes after newswires reported Obama's proposal to ban proprietary trading at commercial banks. All those prop desk BSDs who jumped on the Obama radical-chic cool train are wishing they could take their campaign contributions back. Did I say, "give me your vote?" No, I clearly remember saying, "kindly sign your own professional death-warrant!" The wages of class treason are... lower than Wall Street prop desk wages, let's say!
But I should put schadenfreude aside for a moment (I'll have months to savor it; my barbed bloomberg messages to a few of said BSDs are just the amuse bouche to the schadenfreude feast), and tell you what I think of the President's proposal. I think sharply restricting proprietary trading at big, deposit-funded, FDIC-insured, too-big-to-fail commercial banks is absolutely the right idea. Some people say that this is just the reinstatement of Glass-Steagal. I think Gramm-Leach-Bliley (the repeal of G-S) remains a good call. It's not a question of separating commercial banking and equity underwriting. These are both legitimate customer businesses, and nothing in this crisis argues for their separation. In point of fact, it's also quite difficult to see how proprietary trading contributed much to the current crisis. Prop traders didn't load up on subprime paper. However, it is quite easy to see how prop trading could blow up a bank (I'm lookin' at you, Goldman! Luck don't run furever!) and likewise clear that deposit insurance or informal government credit backstops should not funnel capital to high-risk, high-return-to-shareholders-and-employees speculative trading*. The plan does follow from the recent crisis (as opposed to merely addressing a longstanding and latent threat) in that a few large and notable prop-trading heavy investment banks (GS and MS) turned themselves into commercial banks in order to avail themselves of Fed support facilities. Incidentally, I wish the regulators good luck at defining proprietary trading. It's a labile concept and its practitioners are pretty slippery, too. "Yes, Mr. Regulator, it's true that in my book I'm holding $1bb face of Smegcorp bonds, but it's not a proprietary position! I need inventory to accomodate customer flow!"
I think the bank liability tax the Administration has proposed also makes some sense, though I don't share the stated reasoning and have reservations about the disposition of the proceeds. If the failure of large financial institutions causes multiplicative economic damage, then broadly disseminated exposure to large financial institutions creates a negative externality. Either the government (i.e. the taxpayer) needs to rescue improvident or unlucky TBTF institutions or the citizenry (i.e. the same taxpayers) bear some small out-of-the-money risk of financial damage via financial institution failure. A small tax on liabilities of these institutions (outside those the institutions already pay fees to the FDIC to insure) is a pretty sensible Pigovian tax. It's worth pointing out, though, that much of the fear during the recent crisis related to off-balance-sheet/contingent liabilities, such as CDS. Some of the risk associated with these liabilities will be mitigated by centralized clearing, but if the liability tax misses them entirely, expect the banks to shift as much funding as they can off the balance sheet. It would be wise to plug this hole at the outset.
Where I think the Administration proposal is off base is in the rhetoric it uses to justify the tax. "We intend to get paid back." Well, the Capital Purchase Program of the TARP has made the government a decent profit. It's the autos, AIG, and the GSEs that still owe money and will likely inflict a loss. They aren't getting hit with this tax. The Administration will reply that the TARP banks made a mint because the government saved the financial system. The benefits derived from the TARP go beyond the capital committed under the program. True, but the near-death of several of these institutions was also a consequence of government actions. Not every TARP bank was Bear Stearns or Lehman, stuffed to the gills with subprime garbage. Plenty of these banks were quite solvent, and suffered runs and instability due to a generalized crisis. That crisis was in meaningful part the making of dumbass government policies like the Community Reinvestment Act, Fannie and Freddie retained portfolios, etc. The argument that "the government did it" cuts both ways. The Pigovian argument is sufficient justification for a liability tax. The Administration should leave it at that. Of course, doing so might raise uncomfortable questions about how, in fact, the government intends to get paid back for its bailout of the autos, Fannie and Freddie, and AIG. It also muddies the water about the appropriate use of the proceeds of the liability tax. If you believe, as I do, that the tax ought to internalize externalities related to the operations of large, interconnected commercial banks, then it is folly to toss the proceeds of the tax into the general government coffers. These externalities take the form of rare, large drains on the Treasury. The tax ought to be used to build up savings from which these large drains can be met. I don't mean a bogus account like the Social Security "Trust Fund", which, invested in US Treasury Bonds, merely functions as current tax revenue under another accounting concept. In a future financial crisis, the dollar may well come under pressure. It would be useful at a time like that for the US fisc to have claims on the rest of the world. Therefore, I think it would be appropriate for the proceeds of the liability tax to go to the purchase of foreign securities. Who could manage that trust fund... well, ahem, I know a certain somebody with a little free time!!
*Some critics of limits on prop trading remonstrate that there isn't a meaningful difference between proprietary trading and straight-up lending. If it's OK for a bank to take deposits and make long-term loans to homeowners or property developers, how is that different from taking deposits and making purchases of high yield bonds, commodities, or whatever else prop traders want to dabble in. I would refer them to Potter Stewart on how to recognize pornography. Moreover, lending officers don't get paid (a) 12-15% of the profits of their lending activity (b) on a mark-to-market basis (c) annually.
[Ben H.: 1/21/10 17:26]
Citizens United
The First Amendments kinda, uh, means what it says. Currrraaaaazy! My compliments to your uncle, Doug!
[Ben H.: 1/21/10 17:05]
Vindication!
Congratulations to my uncle, whom I watched 20 years ago argue the corporate campaign spending case whose initial ruling got overturned today. Other than the impressive curtains in the main room of the Supreme Court, I don't remember anything about the case. That includes any feelings about the rightness of one side or the other; I don't have time to read up on it and see if I have any feelings about it now, so I'll just stick with the family angle and say that, when it comes to sophistry -- er, juridical insight -- mine is tops!
[Gombrecht the Irrefrugnable: 1/21/10 12:58]
Wouldn't it be great if political pundits delivered analysis in the same way athletes do?
You know, what this election was all about, it was about getting more votes in the ballot box than the other side. They got more votes in there early, but the key was that when the polls closed, we got more votes. Also, we gave it 110% and it was a team effort.
I'm reminded of a little cartoon that Doug once drew about Massachusetts elections. Right about now, the Mass Democratic Party is probably wishing it had followed the lead of Doug's old cartoon and nominated a bag of Ted Kennedy's feces.
[Ben H.: 1/20/10 12:01]
Although it involves hardly any exertion, the shoulder stand (sarvanga-asana) is surely the best position for weight loss. Because it wrenches your head down so that you're looking directly into your belly, whose fat hangs upside-down right in your face, disgusting you into a more intense workout afterwards.
"The historian who refuses to believe in Satan labors at a crippling professional disadvantage"
Whereas Pat Robertson enjoys full mastery!
"And you know, Kristi, something happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it. They were under the heel of the French, you know, Napoleon the Third and whatever, and they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, 'We will serve you if you'll get us free from the French.' True story. And so the devil said, 'O.K., it's a deal.' "
