My interests—other than economics and statistics—include books, music, movies, running, and computing. Here is a map of my personal microculture.
People whose ideas have influenced me: Frédéric Bastiat, Richard Dawkins, Richard Feynman, Milton Friedman, Friedrich Hayek, Christopher Hitchens, Steve Jobs, Deirdre McCloskey, Michel de Montaigne, Karl Popper, Carl Sagan, Adam Smith, Benedictus de Spinoza, Edward Tufte.
Currently reading:
Desert-island books:
… and books by: Douglas Adams, Paul Auster, Lawrence Block, Godfried Bomans, Martin Bril, Raymond Carver, Anton Chekhov, Ted Chiang, Philip K. Dick, Franquin, Kinky Friedman, Hergé, Gary Larson, Elmore Leonard, Henning Mankell, Ed McBain, Haruki Murakami, Patrick O’Brian, Charles M. Schulz, David Sedaris, Maj Sjöwall & Per Wahlöö, Neal Stephenson, Willy van der Heide. I couldn’t miss The Economist and The Financial Times either.
Other craftsmen (of any gender) I admire: Bashir Abdi, Pierre Alechinsky, Dennis Bergkamp, Constantin Brancusi, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Tyler Cowen, Johan Cruijff, M.C. Escher, Vilhelm Hammershøi, Mitch Hedberg, Edward Hopper, Katsushika Hokusai, Hasui Kawase, Yuki Kawauchi, Henry Kloss, Donald Knuth, Jan Erik Kongshaug, Akira Kurosawa, Saul Leiter, Vivian Maier, Nasreen Mohamedi, Edwin Moses, Richard Neutra, Yasujiro Ozu, Steve Prefontaine, Dieter Rams, Gerhard Richter, Marc Rothko, Rudy Van Gelder, Guido van Rossum, Johannes Vermeer, Steve Wozniak. Craftsmanship is underrated.
Johann Sebastian Bach, The Band, Beastie Boys, The Beatles, Beck, Paul Bley, Blind Willie Johnson, the Blue Note record label, Alfred Brendel, Bob Dylan, Can, Captain Beefheart, J.J. Cale, Bill Callahan, Johnny Cash, Hariprasad Chaurasia, Leonard Cohen, John Coltrane, Cornelius (Keigo Oyamada), Miles Davis, Dinosaur Jr, Eric Dolphy, John Dowland, Nick Drake, Bob Dylan, the ECM record label, Eels, Brian Eno, Bill Evans, The Fall, Morton Feldman, Glenn Gould, GRAINDELAVOIX / Björn Schmelzer, Grateful Dead, Jon Hassell, Angela Hewitt, Mark Hollis / Talk Talk, Huelgas Ensemble, Skip James, Robert Johnson, Ali Akbar Khan, Masabumi Kikuchi / Tethered Moon, Kraftwerk, Fela Kuti, Jakob Lindberg, Nick Lowe, Bob Marley, John Martyn, Hank Mobley, Thelonious Monk, Van Morrison, Mississippi John Hurt, My Bloody Valentine, Randy Newman, Charlie Parker, Charlie Patton, Pavement, Pearl Jam, Lee “Scratch” Perry, Prefab Sprout, Radiohead, Ramones, the RCA Living Stereo record label, Nik Bärtsch’s Ronin, Scott Ross, Boz Scaggs, Domenico Scarlatti, Jean Sibelius, Nina Simone, Eliott Smith, Steely Dan, Talking Heads, Teenage Fanclub, Television / Tom Verlaine, Tinariwen, A Tribe Called Quest, The Velvet Underground, Neil Young, Tom Waits, Ween, Paul Weller, Tony Joe White, Whitney, Wilco, Bill Withers.
What I have been listening to in 2024: Matthieu Bordenave, The Blue Land. The Smile, Wall of Eyes. Vijay Iyer Trio, Compassion. J Mascis, What Do We Do Now. Paul McCartney and Wings, Band on the Run (Underdubbed). Brittany Howard, What Now. Helado Negro, PHASAR. Philip Glass, Philip Glass Solo. Real Estate, Daniel. John Surman, Words Unspoken. Sabine Devieilhe, Raphaël Pichon & Pygmalion, Bach & Handel (2021). Santtu-Matias Rouvali, Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, Sibelius: Symphony No. 4, The Wood Nymph & Valse Triste. Julien Lage, Speak To Me. Joel Ross, nublues. Alexandre Tharaud, Tic, Toc, Choc: Alexandre Tharaud joue Couperin (2007). Charles Lloyd, The Sky Will Still Be There Tomorrow. Berliner Barock Solisten & Reinhard Goebel, Symphonies of the Bach Family (2022). Masaaki Suzuki, Johann Sebastian Bach: Die Kunst der Fuge. Beyoncé, COWBOY CARTER. Khruangbin, A La Sala. Fred Hersch, Silent, Listening. John Zorn, New Masada Quartet (2021). John Zorn, New Masada Quartet, Vol. 2 (2023).
What I’ve been listening to in previous years.
Tokyo Monogatari (Yasujiro Ozu, 1953); The Seven Samurai (Akira Kurosawa, 1953); Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot (Jacques Tati, 1953); A Hard Day’s Night (Richard Lester, 1964); The Godfather I & II (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972 & 1974); Close Encounters of the Third Kind (Steven Spielberg, 1977); Una Giornata Particolare (Ettore Scola, 1977); The Party (Blake Edwards, 1967); The Empire Strikes Back (George Lucas, 1980); Das Boot (Wolfgang Petersen, 1981); This is Spinal Tap (Rob Reiner, 1984); Goodfellas (Martin Scorcese, 1990); The Big Lebowski (Joel Coen, 1998); Lost in Translation (Sofia Coppola, 2003); Boyhood (Richard Linklater, 2014). TV series: Breaking Bad; Cheers; Forbrydelsen (The Killing); Flight of the Conchords; House MD; The Office (BBC); The Queen’s Gambit; Seinfeld; The Sopranos; True Detective (season 1); The Wire.
I am a passionate but slow long-distance runner—driven by grit (“passion and perseverance for long-term goals”) rather than talent. For my marathons (link) I use a training plan from Dave Khuels (1998), Four Months to a Four-Hour Marathon, New York: Perigee.
My first computer was a Macintosh Plus (1987) and I have been using Macs and macOS ever since. The setup in my home and campus offices consists of a MacBook Air (M1, 2020) on a NewStar laptop stand; a 3rd generation iPhone SE; a 2019 10.5” iPad with a Paperlike screen cover, Apple Pencil, and Smart Keyboard; Bose QuietComfort headphones; (at home) Bose Companion 2 Series III speakers. For writing and research I use the text editors BBEdit and iA Writer, Notes, the bibliography manager BibDesk, and the LaTeX editor TeXShop. pandoc is useful to convert Markdown and LaTeX files to the word processor format that bureaucrats use. I back up with Time Machine and iCloud. As a fan of open and reproducible science, I write Python code in Jupyter Notebook to analyze data, build models, and for play. My favorite game is Pinball Tristan (macOS and iOS). White Noise by TMSoft is a background noise generator that helps create a distraction-free work environment. Useful iPad apps: GoodNotes, Juno (a Jupyter Notebook integrated development environment) and Pretext (a plain text editor that renders Markdown).
Favorite gear: Apple HomePod mini; Beats Flex earphones; Bose Soundlink Color II Bluetooth speaker; Bose QuietComfort noise cancelling headphones; Buff neck gaiter; Camelbak Marathoner hydration backpack; Converse Chuck Taylor All Stars sneakers; Dopper water bottle; Falke RU4 running socks; Fjällräven Kånken backpack (with shoulder pads); Fjällräven Skogsö (padded) and Sten jackets; Garmin Vívoactive 4 sports watch; GORUCK GR1 & GR0 (Echo) backpacks; Hanes plain white T-shirts; Hario Skerton Plus coffee grinder; Herzog compression running socks; iPhone SE; Kalita Wave pour-over coffee dripper; Leatherman Wave multitool; Levi’s 501 jeans; MacBook Air; Martin D-28 guitar; Merkur 23C safety razor; Midori MD notebooks; Muji A5 notebooks; Nike Pegasus running shoes; Olympus PEN E-PL1 camera (with a Panasonic Lumix G 20mm f/1.7 II ASPH pancake lens); Pentel P205 mechanical pencil; Pilot V5 Hi-Tecpoint pen; SecrID wallet; Speedo Fastskin Elite goggles; Uni-Ball Kuru Toga mechanical pencil; Vans Era sneakers; Varier Thatsit chair (designed by Peter Opsvik, 1991); Victorinox Swiss Army knife (and WD-40 to clean and protect it); Zannata Black Shadow racing bicycle.
Objets de désire (aspirational products): (black or butterscotch blonde) Fender Telecaster; Leica Q3 camera; Zwilling J.A. Henckels Santoku knife; MIYABI Hinoki chopping board; Demeyere Industry 5 wok.
eiπ + 1 = 0