Odds and Ends

I feel sort of petty writing about personal minutae in this blog, given the state of the country politically and economically. But those of you who talk to me on even a semi-regular basis bear the full brunt of my political positions (neuroses?) And as I've alluded to before, I have no intention of broadcasting my profound ignorance of economic matters. Still, I feel like I should at least tangentially mention these two salient topics before moving on:

1. On the financial crisis - I find it hard to believe that people whose jobs and careers are staked on seeing and avoiding this kind of thing in advance didn't, well, see it and avoid it. Even ignoring the apparent failure of the regulatory system in place, it seems fairly clear that the inflation of the housing market in a way that didn't reflect underlying fundamentals of the economy couldn't last forever. This ostensibly simple realization seems to have never occured in the minds of various portfolio managers and investment bankers. Strange.

2. On the election - I will be traveling to Nevada to campaign the weekend before the election. That weekend is in the post-midterm lull, so I think it is a relatively opportune time to go. And if this election was lost, and Nevada could have changed the outcome, it would be hard to forgive myself. And I have to do something. 

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I keep waiting for that moment when I'll start geniunely feeling like a PhD student. As of yet, it hasn't happened yet. I think it might be because I've had a fairly gradual transition from undergraduate to the PhD program, at least, for an American (foreign students generally enter with a much higher level of preparation that domestic students): the AEASP program, then interning at the Fed, then the AEASP again, and then the MA before entering the PhD program. I don't mean that the material is easy, or that I'm crusing through it - far from it. The feeling of non-reality doesn't really come from the difficulty of the material, but more because the structure of my life and thoughts haven't changed all that much. Class, problem sets, the occasional seminar, going to the computer lab, study groups, procrastination blogging, listening to music - the furnishings may have been shifted around, but the architecture remains the same.

If the moment comes, it will probably come with my 3rd year, when I switch my focus from classwork to research, a more fundamental shift than what has happened so far.

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The new TV On The Radio album, "Dear Science," is really fantastic. In lieu of posting a review of it, I'll just slightly edit something I wrote in the comments section of a blog I read: 

This is probably, all told, the best TV On The Radio full-length yet (I still say that Young Liars is the best thing they've released so far). It isn't just that Sitek has stripped back the layers of noise and production to reveal their pop hooks and soul sensibility, it is that the songs themselves are better and more melodic. Tunde and Kyp dovetail rather than tug of war on the shared lead vocals, which makes for sharper, tighter harmonies. The rhythm section hits with refreshing clarity, too, and I think that they have finally completed the transition from a bedroom 4-track-and-a-laptop project to a full-fledged capital R rock band, and haven't lost their soul in the offing. They've managed to work the tension between uncompromising and accessible beautifully. I think my favorite song so far is actually "Love Dog", which I haven't seen mentioned in any of the reviews of the album, but I don't think there's a weak track there, although the drum beat and production on the latter half of "Shout Me Out" leaves something to be desired. 

Metacritic has it as the album of the year so far, and I think I probably agree.

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It was time to go do some work when this blog began, but now I'm actually going to do it.