Author Archives: Anand Sarwate

conservative viewpoints in theater

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The NY Times has an article about the puzzling lack of conservative playwrights. The lack of “fair and balanced” political perspectives in regional theaters and festivals is pretty clear, but the fact that interviewees couldn’t think of any contemporary conservative playwrights is a bit odd. I would argue that Neil LaBute is a little right of center — he addresses cultural politics and doesn’t construct paeans to Iraq war, though. I am thinking particularly of The Shape of Things.

I think a far bigger factor is the kind of resurgence and celebration of anti-intellectual and anti-“elitist” sentiment in the broader conservative movement. Going to see a play is definitely elitist, and the kind of Bill Buckley conservatives who would write theater are a bit rarer in the younger generation of playwrights. I’m surprised that some libertarian or objectivist playwright hasn’t popped up, but after reading Ayn Rand’s attempts at theater, it is tempting to think that the ideology doesn’t make for riveting drama.

Krugman on Interstellar Trade

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While reading the comments over at Crooked Timber, I saw a link to one of our new Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman’s more insightful papers: The Theory of Interstellar Trade. The abstract reads:

This paper extends interplanetary trade theory to an interstellar setting. It is chiefly concerned with the following question: how should interest charges on goods in transit be computed when the goods travel at close to the speed of light? This is a problem because the time taken in transit will appear less to an observer travelling with the goods than to a stationary observer. A solution is derived from economic theory, and two useless but true theorems are proved.

a small point I noticed in the debate

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A presidential debate is really another piece of theater, and so much is conveyed in the body language and tone of the participants. The first question last night came from Alan, an older white gentleman — McCain walked right up to the section, all but leaned on the railing, and talked to him, mano e mano. The second question is from Oliver, a young black man. In this case, McCain turns into story mode, a slight condescension with “you may not have heard of Fannie and Freddie.” He keeps a distance, he’s less direct.

What does that say to you?

UPDATE : I should replace “mano e mano” with “one on one.”

amusing footnote in Symmetric Functions and Hall Polynomials

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In I.G. Macdonald’s Symmetric Functions and Hall Polynomials, on page 2 there is the following comment on the standard way to write down diagrams of partitions and tableaux:

Some authors (especially Francophones) prefer the convention of coordinate geometry (in which the first coordinate increases from left to right and the second coordinate from bottom to top) and define the diagram of \lambda to be the set of (i,j) \in \mathbf{Z}^2 such that 1 \le i \le \lambda_j. Readers who prefer this convention should read this book upside down in a mirror.

Oh, snap!

Yudof and accountability

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The University of California wants to “provide greater accountability at the institution after several years of criticism by lawmakers and others who viewed the president’s office as bloated and unresponsive.” This comes not that long after a major strike by service workers over wage stagnation. Meanwhile, despite a budget crisis, the university spends $10m renovating Yudof’s house. The longer you put off renovation the more expensive things are, so it needs to be done now. Besides, a house lasts a long time while the meal eaten by janitor’s kid is gone in 30 minutes.

Racist “Wild West Tribute” at Ocean Beach

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American “artist” Thom Ross has recreated a tableaux of Buffalo Bill Cody and his Wild West Show on Ocean Beach in San Francisco. This show was the equivalent of blackface minstrel shows of the 19th century but for Native Americans, yet is lauded in the press as a “tribute.” He himself is quoted as calling it a “Valentine to my hometown.” Of course, since Native Americans are such a marginalized population in the US, he can get away with it — life-size plywood figures of Sambo eating his watermelon with the head cut out so you can take a photo would never have made it off the drawing board. So much for cultural sensitivity, San Francisco.

It boggles the mind that such an astoundingly uncritical recreation is put up as a public art project in an ostensibly progressive major city. I’m used to dull things like giant arrows coming out of the ground. But is this art? Does it invite us to think about the image and it context? Does it intend to implicate us by inviting us to take the cutout photo-op because it should leave a dirty taste in our mouths? No. It’s simply a paean to a degrading, exploitative, and racist past. Valentine, indeed.

Here is some more information (pdf), courtesy of mark27. Hat tip to Jen for pointing out the article and the link to the flyer.

p.s. The comments on the Chronicle’s website are equally horrific.

p.p.s. There is some reaction from a show on KPFA.

blogging to resume next week

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Sorry for the extra-long hiatus. I have come down with a post-thesis case of repetitive stress injury, which makes my right arm feel like it is being pulled out of its socket/shoulder blade and then run over by a horde of angry clowns on tiny tricycles.

I will be blogging soon from the warmer climes of southern California — on Monday I will start a postdoc at UCSD’s Information Theory and Applications Center. I am very excited about it! I will be working on… something TBA. We shall see…