Pater Familias

SCHADENFREUDE.

Philip — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 16:53:17 +0000

SCHADENFREUDE. I have from to time posted on critics who support dismissive judgments with affectations. This morning the Financial Times (March 11) had a review of the new Martin Scorsese movie Shutter Island. The critic makes the point that the movie is not for the intelligent: “Thought can be fatal, here…..” He compares it to a painting which he considers a “kitsch classic.” and says the movie would be more enjoyable “if you could take out your brain and experience it only with eyes and ears.” I was amused to see that he begins his treatment of the film by saying: “Fancy people call it schadenfreude: joy in shadows.” Of course, the dictionary definition of schadenfreude is: “enjoyment obtained from the troubles of others.” The etymology is: “Etymology: German, from Schaden damage + Freude joy.” (The German word for the shadow is der Schatten.)

A NEW EMPHASIS ON DEFENSE?

Philip — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 23:46:59 +0000

A NEW EMPHASIS ON DEFENSE? I look at the Baseball Musings blog more than any other baseball blog. The blog reported recently on a conference at MIT on sports analytics which featured some very impressive speakers. The session described here featured Rob Neyer, John Dewan and Dan Duquette. I posted last week on the success that the Seattle Mariner had last year by emphasizing defense. John Dewan says that: “the Mariners, the Tigers and now the Red Sox are all improving their defenses to win more. John says the Red Sox will gain six to eight wins with their defensive improvements.” (Among other changes, the Red Sox have signed Mario Scutaro, whose defense I posted on last year.) Dewan also pointed out (and other speakers at the conference agreed) that with improved statistics we know a lot more about fielding than we did 15 years ago. I would add that other teams, including the White Sox and the Yankees, seem to be stressing defense this year.

VAN GOGH, THE LITTLE GARDENER.

Philip — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 00:51:56 +0000

VAN GOGH, THE LITTLE GARDENER. In light of Robert Lane Fox’s appreciation of Van Gogh as a lover of gardens, I was struck by another passage in Letter 537. Van Gogh compares the contemporary art market to the tulip mania in the Dutch flower market in an earlier century. The comparison is poignant because Van Gogh never sold a painting during his lifetime. The comparison is also comforting because Van Gogh expresses the joy he gets from painting even without a market for his work. He writes: “Suppose, I say, that like tulip mania at the end of the previous century, the art trade, with other branches of speculation, were to disappear at the end of this as it came, that’s to say relatively quickly.
Tulip mania may have perished, BULB-GROWING REMAINS. And for my part I’m content, for better or worse, to be a little gardener who loves his nursery.”

VAN GOGH’S CHOICE OF PALETTES.

Philip — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 02:13:24 +0000

VAN GOGH’S CHOICE OF PALETTES. My impression is that popular legend portrays Van Gogh as an inspired madmen. The letters show a very different Van Gogh—one who thinks through what he does and studies intently what other artists have to say. In letter 537, for example, he discusses a passage from a book by an art critic: “True painters are the ones who don’t do it in the local colour [the sentence is italicized in the original]— that was what Blanc and Delacroix discussed once. May I not simply understand by it that a painter does well if he starts from the colours on his palette instead of starting from the colours in nature?” I am quoting this letter not only to show how Van Gogh studies and analyzes, but also because it shows how important the choice of the palette for a painting was for Van Gogh. I came across letter 537 because Richard Dorment, in the New York Review of Books (March 25), quoted from the following passage in the letter: ” Suppose I have to paint an autumn landscape, trees with yellow leaves. Very well — if I conceive it as — a symphony in yellow, what does it matter whether or not my basic yellow colour is the same as that of the leaves — it makes little difference. Much, everything comes down to my sense of the infinite variety of tones in the same family.
If you think this a dangerous tendency towards romanticism, a betrayal of ‘realism’ — painting from the imagination — having a greater love for the colourist’s palette than for nature, well then, so be it.”

VAN GOGH, GARDENS AND COLOR.

Philip — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 02:10:15 +0000

VAN GOGH, GARDENS AND COLOR. Robin Lane Fox, who is a distinguished gardener and a distinguished classical historian, had an article in the Financial Times (February 6-7) which was inspired by the Van Gogh letters. Van Gogh loved gardens and flowers. Fox says that gardeners today are still often encouraged to plan in terms of the “color wheel”, which at the time Van Gogh was painting was a recent development. (A French chemist promoted it in the 1860’s.) The color wheel arranges the colors in graduated shades. (Annalisa looked over my shoulder and suggested “chroma” instead of “shades”; I was unfamiliar with the word.) The idea is to use opposite colors or neighboring shades. Van Gogh never mentions the wheel, but his letters show that he knew its ideas. Van Gogh kept a basket of balls of wool in different colors to test whether shades could be combined. He wrote his sister that there are “colors which cause each other to shine brilliantly, which form a COUPLE [italics in original], which complement each other like man and woman.” I think of painting in terms of what the eye sees; you paint what you see. The idea of choosing a palette for a painting seems novel.

THE VAN GOGH LETTERS.

Philip — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 02:09:27 +0000

THE VAN GOGH LETTERS. The complete letters of Vincent Van Gogh have now been published in a fully annotated, indexed and illustrated edition. They are available here at an absolutely wonderful website. Van Gogh often illustrated his letters and those illustrations are reproduced at the site. Van Gogh is a wonderful thinker about art. He was also a great writer about himself. Richard Dorment in the New York Review of Books (March 25, 2010) writes that: “In these pages we come as close as literature can to taking the reader inside the mind of another person.”

EXPLAINING THE RAP VIDEO.

Philip — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 00:59:14 +0000

EXPLAINING THE RAP VIDEO. Kids, here is an excellent explanation of the Keynes-Hayek rap video I linked to yesterday (link via instapundit). Keynes and Hayek are usually considered to be diametrically opposed, with Keynes being the liberal and Hayek the conservative. But notice how each of them stresses the importance of uncertainty and lack of knowledge. Take Keynes first. Rap: “C, I, G, all together gets to Y .” Explanation: “It’s the central equation of macroeconomics. C + I + G = Y.” I is investment and when Keynes explains what determines investment, he winds up saying that investment is determined by “animal spirits.” Try testing that proposition empirically. As the rap says: “Business is driven by the animal spirits….” For Hayek, uncertainty and lack of knowledge make centralized planning and centralized policies ineffective. The Explanation gives an example of the difficulty of designing stimulus programs: “How many of …[the unemployed]…” are dry-wall hangers who won’t benefit at all from highway building?” Rap: “That simple equation, too much aggregation .” Explanation: “One major criticism of C + I + G = Y is that those four simple looking variables conceal tremendous complexity.” Kids, if you listen to the rap and read the explanation, you’ll know a lot of macroeconomics.

THE RAP VIDEO WHICH EXPLAINS THE FINANCIAL CRISIS.

Philip — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 21:21:30 +0000

THE RAP VIDEO WHICH EXPLAINS THE FINANCIAL CRISIS. Kids, here is a rap video which explains the financial crisis.

THE SEATTLE MARINERS DEFENSE.

Philip — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 15:06:54 +0000

THE SEATTLE MARINERS DEFENSE. Last year I posted here in early March on “The Importance of Mario Scutaro.” I pointed out how good the Toronto Blue Jay defense had been in 2008 and highlighted Mario Scutaro, their shortstop, who was an outstanding fielder who had finally gotten a regular job at the age of 32. Toronto had a good defense in 2009, anchored by Scutaro at shortstop, and Scutaro had a surprising breakthrough as a hitter, with an OPS of .788. But it was the Seattle Mariners who showed the importance of defense in 2009. Seattle’s new general manager, Jack Zduriencik, emphasized defense, and the new Baseball Prospectus shows, using four of the leading fielding metrics, that Seattle had the best defense in the majors. (That there are four different metrics indicates how controversial fielding statistics are.) It worked. Seattle was last in the American league in scoring runs by large margin, but compiled a won-lost record of 85-77 and won 24 more games than it had the previous year. (Seattle’s park favors the defense, but not by that much). This year, Seattle will have arguably the best defensive player in baseball at four positions: Franklin Guitterez in centerfield, Ichiro in right field, Jack Wilson at shortstop and Chone Figgins at third base.

A MONEYBALL TRADE IN RETROSPECT.

Philip — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 15:06:06 +0000

A MONEYBALL TRADE IN RETROSPECT. Michael Lewis is a wonderful storyteller. One of the stories he tells in MONEYBALL is how Billy Beane hornswoggled Kenny Williams of the White Sox into a trade in which Beane got relief pitcher Chad Bradford and the White Sox got catcher Miguel Olivo. Lewis wrote of it as a sabermetrics versus scout trade. Bradford had astounding results in the minors, but had an unusual underhand delivery. Olivo had a throwing arm that would awe any scout. Lewis portrays the trade as a triumph for Beane—the 2010 BASEBALL PROSPECTUS refers to the idea that Williams was “…flayed in a best-seller for getting Miguel Olivo for Chad Bradford…..” I always thought that the trade showed how good both men were at evaluating players who were at a very early stage in their careers. Both Bradford and Olivo have gone on to good careers. I was pleased to see the 2010 BASEBALL PROSPECTUS has a footnote on the trade pointing out that Olivo is “a good bet to match Bradford in career value when all is said and done….—and really, what WAS the fuss about?”

PICKING BASEBALL PLAYERS WHO HAVE A “GOOD FACE.”

Philip — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 15:04:21 +0000

PICKING BASEBALL PLAYERS WHO HAVE A “GOOD FACE.” MONEYBALL, Michael Lewis’s book about how Billy Beane of the Oakland Athletics had applied sabermetrics principles to baseball, was published in 2003, so that there is now some perspective about the predictions in the book. (Lewis, a marvelous financial writer, has since written THE BLIND SIDE). MONEYBALL portrayed how Billy Beane’s statistical analyses often put him at odds with scouts. This wikipedia article reviews Beane’s judgments on players in 2002, especially amateur players drafted in 2002, and how they worked out. Beane’s best judgment was probably his enthusiasm for Kevin Youkilis, then in the minor leagues. Beane famously referred to him as the “Greek God of Walks.” Scouts tend to consider what a player looks like—his swing, pitching motion, his speed. One of the categories that scouts look for is a “good face.” This review has a quote from Kevin Kerrane’s DOLLAR SIGN ON THE MUSCLE, a book about baseball scouts: “‘The Good Face’ is a mystical quality that the scouts look for in baseball players and it’s based on pure personal feeling. ‘Some players have the good face, others don’t,’ one scout says.” As this wikipedia article says, Youkilis looked chubby and unathletic, and so he was selected 243rd in the 2002 draft. Sabermatricians like Billy Beane look at results. Both methods have had their successes. In the case of Youkilis, the sabermatricians were right. Youkilis is an all star.

MONEYBALL COMES TO SOCCER.

Philip — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 16:01:51 +0000

MONEYBALL COMES TO SOCCER. Simon Kuper had an article in the Financial Times (February 6) about how European soccer clubs are paying spending much less money to buy players than they had in recent years. He argues that clubs are learning from statistical studies which show that “Transfers rarely help teams.” He cites one study that between 1978 and 1997 expenditures on transfers explained only 16% of total variation in league position. (Kids, you will see that there are causation problems—are weaker teams forced to spend more to try to catch up?) The article quotes a Barcelona official who argues that there are problems with new players who have to adjust and cites a “One-second Rule”: If a player delays one second in deciding which player to pass to, that’s the difference between winning and losing. Familiarity with your teammates makes for quicker decisions.

“YAKKITY YAKS”—HOW I FEEL ABOUT POLITICAL CORRECTNESS.

Philip — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 15:00:18 +0000

“YAKKITY YAKS”—HOW I FEEL ABOUT POLITICAL CORRECTNESS. Tyler Cowen criticizes eloquently the way that people speak about people on the autistic spectrum. He gives examples at the beginning of his article of well-meaning academics whose writings about autism reflect what he calls a “dehumanizing ideology.” However, strangely, I found it charming that Temple Grandin refers to people who are not on the spectrum as “yakkity yaks” (who apparently sit around the campfire socializing.) Kids, I am generally sympathetic to political correctness insofar as it calls attention to lack of courtesy and respect for others. It really comes down to etiquette. We all tend to say things which can be hurtful, and hurtful words are part of our language. Political correctness has a bad reputation because of the penalties which are inflicted by people who enjoy inflicting penalties. Politeness has traditionally been enforced by sanctions that are themselves polite—because on the whole that kind of sanction is effective.

THINGS I LEARNED ABOUT THE AUTISTIC SPECTRUM.

Philip — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 15:57:52 +0000

THINGS I LEARNED ABOUT THE AUTISTIC SPECTRUM. Here are some things I learned from the articles I linked to yesterday: 1. Temple Grandin says that “The thing about being autistic is that you gradually get less and less autistic…because you keep learning, you keep learning how to behave.” 2. Temple Grandin compares this learning to acting: “It’s like being in a play; I’m always in a play.” Interestingly, Tyler Cowen cites a psychologist who says that “acting is a profession well-represented on the autistic spectrum.” 3. Temple Grandin thinks in pictures. Bari Weiss calls this “the defining characteristic of her mind.” 4. It is very important to recognize that there is a spectrum of autistic characteristics. 5. Tyler Cowen has a long list of cognitive skills—I counted ten of them in one paragraph—that people in the autistic spectrum are better in. 6. Cowen views “higher (and lower) education as teaching people to be more autistic in many of their basic cognitive skills.”