A New Vision for the DC Mall

A report was released today by the National Capital Planning Commission outlining some great new ideas for the National Mall.

Last days in Marblehead

I've been too busy to blog my activities over the past few weeks... In any case, our last days in Marblehead involved:

* a surprise visit to Dad in New Hampshire on Father's Day
* a visit to Michael, Karen, Isabelle, and Ian in North Conway, NH
* visits from Jeff & Katie, Dave & Joy, Nana, and the Murrays
* dinner at Tango in Arlington, with J&K, D&J
* a ferry ride into Boston from Salem on our last day (June 28)

You can see our last two sets of photos here and here.

Our day in Boston was action-packed: Quincy Market, to the New England Aquarium, to the Old Gramary Burial Ground, the State House, Boston Common, and the Public Garden, and finally dinner at Antico Forno in the North End (and, of course, cannolis from Mike's Pastry).

Best muffins in Marblehead

Without a doubt the best muffins in Marblehead can be found at The Muffin Shop. Dad and Kenda were here this weekend... we did some touristy activities around Marblehead (including the painting Spirit of 76 in Abbott Hall) and had lunch at the Barnacle.

Pictures to come later...

Dinner at Sweeneys

Dinner tonight with the locals at Sweeneys Retreat Irish Restaurant... delicious scallops

Weekend in Tarrytown

May 25-26 - spent the weekend in Westchester County, for Matt and Amanda's wedding. The wedding took place at the beautiful Tappan Hill Mansion in Tarrytown, NY. Lots of pics here. Congrats Matt and Amanda!

On the afternoon of the 26th, we left for Marblehead... more soon

Wow, this blog is really out of date! It's not that I haven't been doing anything fun in the past few months...

May 18-21: with Dad in town, visited the Guggenheim Museum, where the Cai Guo-Qiang exhibit "I Want to Believe" was on display (and about to close). The nine-car installation called Inopportune: Stage One was by far the most impressive piece, and worth the price of admission.

On Tuesday, attended the New York Philharmonic's performance of Broadway's Greatest Showstoppers, featuring Kristin Chenowith, Raul Esparza, Michel Bell, and J. Mark McVey. The program included "Bring Him Home" from Les Miserables (one of the highlights), "Ol' Man River" from Show Boat, and "Glitter and Be Gay" from Candide. The Chenowith-Esparza duets "Tonight" (West Side Story) and the surprise "Anything You Can Do" (Annie Get Your Gun) were fantastic. You can read the NYT review here.

Oh, and some good eats at Otto and Molyvos (Greek, in midtown). Thanks Dad!

May 10-11: in Rochester visiting Javier and Angie (Jeff and Katie were also in town). This weekend was the Rochester Lilac Festival in Highland Park. The only thing prettier than the lilacs was the delicious breakfast at Unkl Moe's.

View some pictures here.

Opera, opera, and more opera! The last two operas of my Met season were two of the best:
1) Satyagraha - a new staging of the 1980 opera by Philip Glass (Satyagraha means "truth force" in Sanskrit). This opera on the life of Mahatma Gandhi was one of the most spellbinding, engrossing, and beautiful performances (of anything!) I've ever attended.




2) La Fille du Regiment - another new production, this time of the 1840 opera by Donizetti. The Met brought out the big guns for this one, with Natalie Dessay as Marie (the "daughter" of the regiment) and Juan Diego Florez as Tonio. On the opening night of Fille, Florez did an encore of "Ah! Mes Amis..." the famous aria with 9 high C's. Of course, after the word spread of this rare Met encore, Florez pulled it out again for this performance. He nailed it. I was much more impressed with this tenor this time around.

I've read countless versions of this story on rental prices in New York, but never cease to be amazed. (Note the small studio apartment photograph that leads the article). Some highlights:

* Average monthly rent for a one-bedroom apt in the Village: $3,100+
* Average monthly rent for a studio apt in the Village: $2,200+
* Average monthly rent for a one-bedroom apt in Manhattan (doorman bldg): $3,500
* NYC landlords often require renters to earn 40 times their monthly rent--i.e. $80,000 a year to afford a $2,000/mo (below average) apartment
* Brokerage fees are usually 15% of the annual rent--or about $3,600 on a $2,000/mo apartment

Opera double-header this week:

1) On Wednesday: Un Ballo in Maschera at the Met. I would not have changed a thing about this production: great voices, beautiful, classic setting, and lush orchestra. All of the leads were fantastic: Salvatore Licitra as Riccardo, Angela Brown as Amelia, the phenomenal Dmitri Hvorostovsky as Renato and the even more phenomenal Stephanie Blythe as the gypsie Ulrica (Ofelia Sala was an uneven but entertaining Oscar). Thankfully, unlike Tristan (see below), there were no accidents in this one. (You can read the NYT Review here).

20 On Thursday: Bernstein's Candide at the New York City Opera. I've always wanted to see a stage production of this, and the NYC Opera did not disappoint. With Daniel Richard as Candide, Lielle Berman as Cunegonde, Kyle Pfortmiller as Maximillian, and (Mad About You and the Sopranos') Richard Kind as the comical Voltaire/Dr. Pangloss. Once one dismisses the rest of all possible productions, one knows that this is the best of all possible productions. (See the NYT review here).

P.S. For the price of my one Met ticket, I could have paid for *four* tickets to the NYC Opera (in the side orchestra), and a glass of champagne.

NYU is in the Final Four--in chess.

Tonight: saw Tristan und Isolde at the Met. This production has been cursed from the start...first Ben Heppner took ill, and then Deborah Voigt was pulled from the cast mid-performance last week. Voigt was back tonight, but Gary Lehman was still covering for Heppner. Lehman wasn't really up to the task, which was unfortunate--an earlier Tristan cover, John MacMaster, received a generally disappointing review from the New York Times. Lehman could barely be heard over the orchestra.

The music and production were lovely, but the biggest excitement of the night was Lehman's slide down the inclined Met stage after a stage fixture apparently broke. After sliding head first into the prompter's box, the opera stopped and curtains closed while doctors examined Lehman. He was fine, but the delay pushed the opera to 5 1/2 hours. Given Heppner's heft (or Voigt's pre-stomach surgery size), its probably a good thing Lehman was the one doing the tumbling.

This David Leonhardt column in the NYT profiles economists who aren't doing "freakonomics".

For posterity: my favorite video resume ever, and Michael Cera's version. The whole backstory can be found here.

An Article in the Chronicle of Higher Education covers the recent AEA session on re-thinking core course work in Econ Ph.D programs.

Dover-Foxcroft, Maine

A backlog of pictures! Now posted here. Includes pictures from Notre Dame, Thanksgiving (New Hampshire and Boston) and Charleston.

Economists on the loose in Columbia bars: "An economist solves the mysteries of dating." in Slate

Ms. Booher-Jennings is all over the ed policy world this week! See this commentary in Education Week (and its "Talk Back" section) and this article in Education Next that leads with a quote from Jen's 2006 paper. Go Jen Go!

Saw Sufjan Stevens at the Brooklyn Academy of Music's Next Wave Festival. Sufjan was commissioned to write the BQE, "a 30-minute symphonic and cinematic exploration of New York City's infamous Brooklyn-Queens Expressway" and performed this piece with his band, a 31-piece orchestra, and five hula-hoopers. The BQE was not bad--it definitely had its moments--but the real treat came after intermission when Sufjan played his "hits" with a full orchestral accompaniment. You can read the NYT review here and a great Pitchfork article here.

Spotted in front of us on the way out: Keri Russell. (And earlier in the day at ABC Carpet and Home: Julianne Moore).

Attended a talk with Natalie Portman and William Easterly on FINCA at NYU's Skirball Center to learn more about (ahem) microfinance in Africa:

This weekend (Oct 19 - 21) a short trip to Ithaca and Cayuga Lake, NY to see the fall colors. We were a bit early but the colors were beautiful, nevertheless. Here are the pictures!

Stephen Colbert makes a NYT op-ed appearance. And on the serious side of the page, Thomas Friedman crafts a terrific contrast of Gore and Bush.

October 12-14: in Boulder, Colorado for the Education Policy Research Unit / Education in the Public Interest Center (EPRU / EPIC) annual fellows meeting.

Tonight: saw a wonderful new production of Lucia di Lammermour at the Met, featuring the best soprano on the planet Natalie Dessay.