1. Fred Astaire
3. Critical vs. Amazon rankings of composers; which are under- and over-valued? Take Brahms and Tchaikovsky out of the over-hyped category and the resulting lists are pretty good ones.
5. Summer movies to look forward to (or dread).
Assorted links
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Have you seen the trailer for Moon? I can’t decide if it looks good or if it looks like every other trapped-in-outer-space movie that’s been made. I’m sure I’ll still see it either way.
One of the commentors on the music hype link pointed out a significant flaw in the metholdology of the ratio: it overstates the “hype” of composers with one significant work (such as Vivalido, who we might call, albeit a litte unfairly, as a one hit wonder). Vivaldi and Grieg’s place on the overhyped list is due to having one hugely popular (and deservedly so) work.
Greig may have only one hugely popular work, but it is available in two arrangements.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vP8TUe993uo
This is fun stuff for economics profs:
belowthemean.blogspot.com
Why does the ranking of composers use the space in music encyclopedias as fundamental value and results on Amazon as subjective valuation? I would argue the space in music encyclopedias reflect some subjective opinion and Amazon results reflect more aggregated information of the music market and the real value. Then, the undervalued composers would bet the ones that are over-hyped †¦
Re: Fred Astaire
Talent of performers seems to have been very high in the past. One of the quotes said that the movie had been in production for 3 days before Fred knew Ginger Rogers would be joining him. The talent level was such that you could almost throw it together and get a great product. Nowadays, we have kids coddled from birth, born to be movie stars and specialized production techniques honed to a tee and still don’t often reach the quality of entertainment. I barely perceive this paradox and surely don’t understand it and obviously can’t explain it.
re: terrorism is good for you
seems very true. When I’m worried about something essentially personal (my success/failure) thinking about the threat of death makes me exhilarated, for some reason. Work troubles are dismal; world troubles are stirring. We may have a psychological bias towards narratives about fighting for survival. I know it plays into the way I think about climate change, though I try to stick to learning the science.
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