The Secret of George Mason By Peter Boettke and Alexander Tabarrok (on the basketball team and economics department).

March 19-29: trips to Boulder, Denver and Kansas City.

Thomas Quasthoff (German baritone) in recital at Carnegie Hall. Quasthoff sang Die schöne Müllerin (the Maid of the Mill), a song cycle by Franz Schubert on poems by Wilhelm Müller. He was accompanied by Justus Zeyen.

Saw one of the best shows of my life in Stereolab at The Town Hall. Surreal. Read the New York Times review here.

A design for the new Washington Nationals stadium is released (take a virtual tour here). I think this stadium would blend in a little too much. Read a commentary on the design by Washington Post sports columnist Thomas Boswell here, or see the photo gallery here.

Enjoy that voice while you have it, kid. (A must-see video).

Saw Luisa Miller at the Met. This was a straight-ahead production designed by Elijah Moshinsky. Veronica Villarroel sang Luisa, Eduardo Villa sang the part of Rodolfo, James Morris was Count Walter and Carlos Alvarez played Miller (Luisa's father). Two of the leads were not the original cast; Veronica Villarroel took over the role a few months ago, and Villa was filling in for a sick Neil Shicoff.

The singing improved as the night went on...Act I was simply dreadful, with Villa seemingly forgetting lines and sounding less than confident, singing at a barely audible level. The prompter (Joan Dornemann) took over in Act II--she was easily heard from the back of the orchestra section.

See the New York Times review here.

Must read: Paul Krugman's column about John McCain's increasingly conservative record in the Senate.

More details from my colleague Howard Rosenthal (co-creator of Voteview): "Krugman cited www.voteview.com to the point that McCain was the third most conservative member of the 109th Senate. Here are some details omitted in the column. In the 108th Senate, McCain was fourth; in the 107th an almost liberal 46th, in between Susan Collins and Gordon Smith. Those rankings were based on Poole’s optimal classification method.

In the Poole and Rosenthal D-W NOMINATE scalings, McCain starts off in the 100th Senate at a conservative 0.403, in between Pete Wilson and Strom Thurmond. He ends at the 108th at a less conservative 0.249, in between John Warner and Dick Lugar. He has one of the largest linear trend terms for contemporary senators.

What is striking about McCain is his inconsistency. He went from conservative to moderate and back to very conservative. Most senators have no presidential ambitions and have temporally stable ideological positions. McCain does have ambitions; in his moderate period he was mentioned as a possible Democratic nominee. (See the 2002 New Republic piece)."

With Dad in town... dinner at Patsy's (Thursday) and an evening with the Wallace Roney Quintet at the Village Vanguard. Friday lunch at the Foundation; spent the afternoon at the Neue Galerie, Museum for German and Austrian Art, at 86th and 5th Avenue. The gallery primarily featured works by Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele, on the 2nd floor (Austrian fine arts) and a special exhibition of Paul Klee, "Klee and America" on the 3rd (German fine arts). On Friday evening, saw The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee at Circle in the Square theater (50th btw Broadway and 8th Avenue).

A casual Saturday, with breakfast at Le Pain Quotidien and a long walk through the Village and Soho. I was lucky enough to run into an NYU colleague and get a preview of NYU's Washington Square Village apartments...

Bowling does not get any cooler than this. Dinner beforehand at Republic, Union Square.