Helen DeWitt's Blog, page 41

fried ants revisited

Justin Fox sums up the overwhelming majority of economics papers in one sentence:

The basic form of an academic economics paper is a couple of comprehensible paragraphs at the beginning and a couple of comprehensible paragraphs at the end, with a bunch of really-hard-to-follow math or statistical analysis in the middle.

What he doesn't (need to) mention is the way that journalists, myself included, read economics papers: we generally have no ability or inclination to try to understand the...

Calling Torvill and Dean

Electronically Read Editions: The right to publish the text of published print editions of the Property via the Internet and in the form of CD-ROM, DVD, videocassette tape or similar electronically read devices individually purchased by the end-user. Such electronically read editions may not contain moving visual images (other than the text) or audio tracks of any kind.

Look at that last sentence. Here it's clearly stated in the film contract that the ebook cannot have any animation or sound e...

A: 42

Some of us sat downstairs in Islington with Douglas Adams's editor, the saintly and incomparable Sue Freestone, typing out chapter after chapter of Mostly Harmless and sending it upstairs via email to where Douglas sat. There would be a from his computer, followed by cries of rage and alarm and "But that's not what bloody happens," followed by furious adversarial typing until Douglas had dismantled and reassembled it into something he liked—or, to be accurate, hated marginally less—at which...

Gordon Lish in the House of Bayes

Andrew Gelman gives a statistician's take on the Lish method:

In any case, in the grand tradition of reviewing the review, I have some thoughts inspired by DeWitt, who quotes from this interview:

LRS: I was studying writing at college and then this professor showed up, a disciple of Gordon Lish, and we operated according to the Lish method. You start reading your work and then as soon as you hit a false note she made you stop.

Lipsyte: Yeah, Lish would say, "That's bullshit!"

If they did...

oh to be in London

IT:

We're very pleased to announce that the writer and activist Tariq Ali is coming to the saveMDXphil occupation this Saturday 15 May, 3:30pm, to speak on the struggle against neoliberalism in higher education. Tariq Ali is an editor of the New Left Review and was a leading light of the 1968 radical student movement.

Londoners: details here.

to the tune of My Country 'Tis of Thee...

'We are all here for a citizenship ceremony this afternoon, is that correct?' the council registrar asked. A general mutter[image error] of assent. 'This is a formal occasion so no jeans, no trainers. If you need to go home and change, you can do that now.' No one had mentioned a dress code. Naturalisation is an arduous process that requires masses of documentation, costs hundreds or even thousands of pounds in legal and Home Office fees, and typically takes years: it seemed a bit tough suddenly to throw ...

the trick of it

Suppose we have 100 mortgages that pay $1 or $0. The probability of default is 0.05. We pool the mortgages and then prioritize them into tranches such that tranche 1 pays out $1 if no mortgage defaults and $0 otherwise, tranche 2 pays out $1 if 1 or fewer mortgages defaults, $0 otherwise. Tranche 10 then pays out $1 if 9 or fewer mortgages default and $0 otherwise. Tranche 10 has a probability of defaulting of 2.82 percent. A fortiori tranches 11 and higher all have lower probabilities...

the ask

While in Boston I read Sam Lipsyte's new book, The Ask.

A witty paean to white-collar loserdom in the fund-raising racket, "The Ask" describes a crisis in the life of one Milo Burke, a deeply cynical academic development officer, earnest binger on doughnuts, avid consumer of Internet porn, and devoted father and husband. Detailing the meltdown of Milo's career and marriage, "The Ask" takes place in an exhausted and passive institutional workplace — the kind of futile office space we know...

Andrew Gelman on religious affiliation of Supreme Court j...

Andrew Gelman on religious affiliation of Supreme Court justices. With graphs.

books overfurnish a room

New Yorkers.

Jenny Davidson is trying to get rid of books. Would happily give them to anyone willing to pick up (she's up by Columbia). If you're interested, get in touch.