Category: The Arts

Here is Rafael’s Adoration of the Magi:

Thieves simply drove up and loaded a two-ton Henry Moore statue into a truck.  But why?  Some commentators fear the statue — worth millions if sold properly — will be melted down to scrap and sold, possibly for no more than $9000.  It is hard to sell famous stolen artworks, and the number of clandestine buyers is smaller than many people think. The Financial Times (22 December, p.6) suggests another hypothesis:

…stolen masterpieces have other uses.  Criminal gangs sometimes use them as surety in deals: a drug dealer might give a supplier a 3 million pound painting in return for a batch of cocaine.  When he has sold on the cocaine, he pays back the supplier and the supplier returns the painting.

Is the use value of paintings so high for thieves?  It is odd to value collateral by its cost of production (i.e., its theft), or its non-realizable "white market" value, but nonetheless this sounds like a coherent equilibrium.  If you can steal a multi-million two-ton statue, and prove it, obviously you are a man to be trusted.

This one is not as bad as the last edition, but ugh nonetheless.  Women are selling paintings, not of their breasts, but rather made by their breasts.  (Do larger-breasted pictures go for more?)  Here is the story; the accompanying photo is work-safe (barely), but not recommended.  Thanks to Paul Lawson for the pointer.

The Soviets pioneered the technique but capitalists have perfected the art of the photoshop (takes a moment to load).  Perhaps this explains this.

1. Jazz musician: Umm…should it be John Coltrane or Thelonious Monk?

2. Bluesman: Reverend Gary Davis remains underrated.  Try "Maple Leaf Rag" or "Sally Where’d You Get Your Liquor From?"  For country music — really just another form of blues — you have Earl Scruggs and Merle and Doc Watson.  George Clinton did funk.

3. Female singer-songwriter: Tori Amos, favorite album Little Earthquakes.  Her most underrated album is Strange Little Girls.  Nina Simone is another good candidate, although she did mostly covers.

4. Movie, set in: I hate Bull Durham, so you will have to help me out here…Is part of Sherman’s March set in the state?

5. Writer: Thomas Wolfe, Look Homeward, Angel.

6. Basketball player.  You-know-who was actually born in Brooklyn, so I say Meadowlark Lemon.

The bottom line: The state is strong on music, sports, and barbecue.

Infrastructure: A Guide to the Industrial Landscape.  A picture book for those who love Duisburg, Gary, Indiana, and the Pulaski Skyway.  Addendum: Here is a working link to Infrastructure.

Murderball, just out on DVD.  I know, some of you thought "I don’t want to see a movie about cripples."  That was a mistake of instrumental reason.

Seu Jorge, The Life Aquatic Studio Sessions.  David Bowie songs on acoustic guitar, sung in Portuguese, not just the cuts from the movie.

Here is a meta-list (why is there no "best of" the "best of" lists?); it is expected to grow to over 500 entries.  Thanks to the ever-excellent http://kottke.org for the pointer.

Here is the (cute) artist.  Here is an article.  Try this picture too.  Here is Presentation, go see it in MOMA, I am still thinking about it.

The answer so often is money, what is the question?  Alfonso Lorenzo, on the other hand, insisted on being delivered a TV set.

Remember the old saying "Nothing but for Providence"?  Well it is not (quite) true.  Here goes:

Music: Thumbs down to George Cohan ("Yankee Doodle Dandy").  The obvious pick is saxophonist Scott Hamilton.  Have you heard of guitarist Les Dudek?  There is also trumpeter Bobby Hackett.  But is that all?

Painter: It is hard not to pick Gilbert Stuart.  Here are some images.  Here is my favorite.

Literature: I have never found H.P. Lovecraft readable, nor have I tried Spalding Gray.  Did you know Cormac McCarthy was born in Providence?

Movie, set in: I don’t like Spielberg’s Amistad, nor have I seen Outside Providence.  Safe Men is only OK.  Please help me out in the comments.  Here is a good general list of best movies set in particular states.  And if you are looking for directors, the Farrellys are from Providence.

The bottom line: Rhode Island offers some good names, but thematically they don’t add up to anything very particular.  In my mind, I keep coming back to the music festivals.

Tonight I am giving a talk at Brown University, in case you are wondering.

You may recall, from a few months ago, a Wall Street Journal article about the mentally ill Mexican amate painter Alfonso Lorenzo.  He was the guy who was chained to a wall for a few years; here is my earlier post.  The full WSJ article is now available on-line, thanks to Raymond Suarez for the pointer.  Once again, here are links to Alfonso’s works.

…After 1660, with the monarchy restored, Milton’s political dreams lay in ruins under the double blow of the collapse of the Puritan Republic and the failure of said republic to uphold freedom while it lasted. Milton retired to private life and returned to his true vocation, the writing of poetry. He had gone blind while serving as secretary to Cromwell, and now sat composing his poems in his head, and dictating each day to his daughters the portion that he had composed. It was in this retirement that he produced his three long poems, Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, and Samson Agonistes. He died 8 November 1674.

Milton was born in 1608.  Here is my previous post on age and achievement; read the comments on Coase and Stigler.

Randall Jarrell similarly observed that "[Wallace] Stevens did what no other American poet has ever done, what few poets have ever done: wrote some of his best and newest and strangest poems during the last year or two of a very long life."

In contrast:

[Jean-Luc] Godard has directed scores of movies in a career that continues today in its fifth decade, but there is a strong critical consensus that his most important single work is his first full-length movie, Breathless, which he made in 1960 at the age of 30.

Those two passages are from David W. Galenson’s forthcoming Old Masters and Young Geniuses: The Two Life Cycles of Artistic Creativity.  Here is a related working paper.  Here are many other interesting papers.

My question: Which economists have done extremely important work after the age of 50?  Have done their best work after 50?  After 40?  Comments are open, I welcome your suggestions but it is not easy…