Adventures in Onionism

GF was in town for the weekend. We saw the Philadelphia Chamber Orchestra . Why? Because I read about orchestras in an economics journal article I taught my students last semester. An oldy but a goody from Claudia Goldin and Cecilia Rouse: "Orchestrating Impartiality: The Impact of "Blind" Auditions on Female Musicians." A change in the audition procedures of symphony orchestras-adoption of "blind" auditions with a "screen" to conceal the candidate's identity from the jury-- provides a test for sex-biased hiring. Using data from actual auditions, in an individual framework, we find that the screen increases the probability a woman will be advanced and hired. Although some of our estimates have large standard errors and there is one persistent effect in the opposite direction, the weight of the evidence suggests that the blind audition procedure fostered impartiality in hiring and increased the proportion women in symphony orchestras.

Two REI Presentations: Pretty good reviews, with the inevitable exception from someone who clearly does not get my sense of humor. Three more this coming week. Inception: I almost always disagree with David Edelstein, and thus I loved this movie. Yojimbo: Badass Capturing the Friedmans: Interesting. American Splendor: Did I mention Harvey Pekar makes me happy? Our Cancer Year: I really dislike the art, but the story is great. An Unreasonable Man: Ralph Nader is cool. I wish I believed in something like he does. Dead Weather live at the Warfield: Even from the nosebleeds, Jack White and his giant eyeball backdrop are phenomenal. The Human Condition: Got disc 1 (of 4), haven't started yet. Ran several times but wasn't really feeling it, gave my bike a decent post-trip cleaning, picked 12 pounds or so of wild blackberries, made two pectin boxes worth of freezer jam, baked fresh honey whole wheat bread, and will make a pie tomorrow.

What a huge waste of time. Or not. Maybe it's a humorous creative outlet for my sarcasm and a way to keep in touch with people. Today, it's three youtube clips of folk/country musician John Prine, to whom I was recently introduced to by the movie Big Fan , Fresh Air , and a friend on facebook. Listen and enjoy. "Your flag decal won't get you into heaven anymore/they're already overcrowded from your dirty little war/now Jesus don't like killing, no matter what the reason's for." Brilliant. The Fresh Air review of two new albums. His set at Bonnaroo .

I ran a 50K on Mount Diablo today. It took me 7:57 , which is slightly ridiculous, but it was about 85 degrees out and the course climbs straight up and down Mt. Diablo twice with 8,900' of climbing, so I finished about in the median like normal. Last fall with a worse knee but better weather I did this course in 7:19. I'm disappointed in myself for making excuses not to ride my bike the 27 miles to the start of the race, but I'm happy with the run given the heat for which I am not at all conditioned. But I'm to the point where running 50K is not a big deal, so if I'm not in good enough shape to be setting PR's, then at least I can add a bike ride or extra miles to mix it up (and save the planet some carbon). Speaking of, I'm still tentatively planning on paddling to Angel Island for a run in two weeks. I'd given up on biking my kayak to the marina, since I didn't want to spend $300 buy a trailer, but today a friend suggested I just ask around and ...

My friend AL and I went to the Atoms for Peace show at the Fox Theater last night. It rocked. They raced through the entire Eraser set. Harrowdown Hill is brilliant live with Flea on bass. This is a version from the night before last at the Fox: This version has much better sound: Then Thom Yorke came back out solo, played a couple new songs ("works in progress") on the piano: and Airbag solo on the guitar. Then the band came back out in the middle of The Daily Mail (this version's from last week's show in Boston): They played several more new songs, and what I'm pretty sure was just an awesome jam session, and came back out one more time for a final encore of Joy Division's Love Will Tear Us Apart : Or here's another version: UPDATE: I usually love The Daily Cal's concert reviews. This is an exception . This one is much better, and has video of a song they played Wednesday night with a trumpet that's brilliant.

1. I am going to Rwanda on Thursday for two weeks on a short term contract with the World Bank as part of a team that will teach statistics, program impact evaluation, and Stata programming to public health school faculty and government health ministry folks. 2. This may be premature, but I may finally have my running mojo back. I did a nice 4-hour run today, and I've been running semi-consistently lately. For shorter distances I've been running laps around a big grassy park that's only two or three blocks from the house in my Vibram Five Fingers. 3. I saw the Dodos live in concert with the 26-piece Magik Magik Orchestra a couple weeks ago and Slow Club on Wednesday. Both were great. I've been liking the band Blind Pilot the past few days. 4. MRB turned me on to the blog of ultra-runner Anton Krupicka . I don't read many blogs of other ultra-runners, but I like his. Perhaps that's just because, like me, he hates driving to trailheads and runs there instead, or...

Conversation at the Berkeley Bowl Checkout Cashier: When you peel those Shasta tangerines the smell is really strong. Me: Really? Like after you eat asparagus? Cashier: What? Me: After you eat asparagus your pee smells. Cashier: Oh, yeah. It totally does. I didn't realize that until somebody pointed it out. Me: And the tangerines do the same thing? Cashier: What? Me: They make your pee smell? Cashier: I said "peel" not "pee." Me: Oh, that makes a lot more sense. I had a pretty good tri-sport three day weekend. I took my bike to the community workshop on Saturday, replaced 4 broken spokes and trued the back wheel, fixing the speed wobble I'd been getting, meaning I can ride no-hands again, meaning air guitar is back, which is awesome. Sunday I took the kayak out and paddled from Berkeley marina under the bay bridge and back. The new spans are bird-free, but dodging the falling bird poop under the old span was quite a challenge. (I promise to take my camera ...

But I'm really not. I mean, I haven't even been running that much lately; I've been sick, it's been raining, and I've been listening to a lot of music ( Thao with the Get Down Stay Down , Vampire Weekend, Them Crooked Vultures, and just last night I rediscovered my love for all things Elephant 6). But anyway, here's an NPR article about barefoot running, and here's what shoe company Brooks has to say. Oregon voted to raise taxes to pay for stuff. What a novel idea . Kasparov wrote a fascinating piece on man v. machine chess for NY Review of Books . It might be gated, or maybe it's just me. [thanks JS] Oh, and I'm totally, totally disappointed politically lately, as Obama is apparently the Clinton-like centrist he promised he would be instead of, you know, remotely progressive, and interpreting one Senate loss by a poor candidate as anger over far-left policies instead of what I think it is: anger about Dems being a bunch of gutless wimps (who have...