Book Of The Month (BOTM)

Back in the 30's and 40's, the dance you did to 'swinging' jazz and big band music was the Lindy Hop. Jazz of course was the precursor to many of the musical forms that developed in the 70 years since.

Frankie Manning was born in the South but was part of the great migration, and settled down in Harlem in the 20's. He used to hang around and dance at the ballrooms there, which were the home to Count Base, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald and pretty much every major African-American musician of that era. He sets off on a showbiz career though it takes a pause in the 40's as America goes to war. He fights in the Pacific, and when he returns to the US he sees the popularity of swing music decrease as other forms become more popular. He then takes up a job in a post office in Manhattan and works there for 30 years. All of a sudden, in the 1980's swing has a revival, and guess what he becomes one of the primary figures in it. He died a couple of months back at the young age of 95.

'Frankie Manning : Ambassador of Lindy Hop', is a wonderful autobiography. It feels almost like an history of blacks in 20th century America. Always cheerful and upbeat, despite all the racial bigotry he had to face early on in his life. If you enjoy a good story, you will enjoy this.

PS: If you are planning to read the Twilight series or Dan Brown, please consider reading this instead. :)

This and that

Has anyone read Nikolai Gogol? His short stories are phenomenal. Reminds one of Franz Kafka. Weird perspectives and surreal storylines, though Gogol is funny and Kafka depressing. It isn't surprising that they were more than a little nutty in real life!

Isn't the Blues awesome? Went to this event called Bluetopia, it was in a studio in the middle of nowhere (warehouse district in West Chicago, where you go to get robbed), but the music - intoxicating.

Holiday shopping. Nothing for me. 70% off still means you are paying the remaining 30%. Heh.

Why do people develop a patina of superciliousness? In some ways everyone wants to feel important, and this is a mechanism to assert that I suppose. See it in specific sections of the populace. In this Facebook for yuppies called ASW, which is so selective that you can join only by invitation from specific privileged members. Having finagled an invitation, the only 'benefit' from membership is that I get a weekly stream of emails trying to sell me overpriced watches and vacations. Another section is the newly anointed NYC/London set, who see themselves as the 'nouveau sophisticates' from their theatre/art/music soaked lives. Pah to the bumpkins.

DXB

Dubai, the Land of Dreams, goes up in smoke. (Photo courtesy : AP)

Oops! Somebody gonna get a hurt!

Beats

Do you know why Indian and Western music sound so different? You can instantaneously tell the difference, even if the instrument is the same. I could not nail it down to an exact reason, but I can now. Its the beat. Western music almost always runs on an 8-count beat cycle. Indian music is polyrythmic, which gives it the longer meandering sound. Sometimes 'phrases' are much much longer. Now you know.

Money, Models, and Marginal Cost

National Geographic has a 12 month subscription plan for 15$. Isn't that a deal or what? Why are they doing it? Lets see. We all know that newspaper circulation is on an inexorable ride down, except if you are a gossip mag like US Weekly or People. Anyway, as a magazine is confronted with declining circulation, it is going to see lower sales revenues as well as less advertising revenue as advertisers have more incentive to leave. One way to stem the circulation decline is to cut prices. Even if you keep circulation up by selling at cost, it has a nett positive benefit because you have higher advertising revenue. One could actually sell extra copies at a loss, if that additional circulation leads to sufficiently higher advertising revenue. Which is the business model for your commuter free papers like Red Eye (Chicago) or Metro (London). The online model is essentially the same thing, where content is free in order to attract viewership, and then advertising is where you try to make some money.

Coming back to my original point, 15$ sounds like a steal. $ 1.25 for an issue filled with gorgeous photos and beautiful essays on the wonders of this world. I can live with that. Hail Economics! Those who are about to get a deal salute thee! Ha ha.

Lakshmi and Saraswati

Growing up, my grandfather's little puja stand had two large prints of Lakshmi and Saraswati. I found them hauntingly beautiful, something about them I couldn't exactly pin down. Combine that with the smell of incense and freshly made dosa (the stand was in the kitchen), the cool morning, and my grandfather coming from his bath smelling of Hamam soap - it makes for a very fond childhood memory. Recently I found those same prints online.

It turned out that they were by Raja Ravi Verma. I wonder if art inspires religion or religion inspires art. I would think art inspires religion, though over the millenia, from the Egyptian Pyramids to the cathedrals of Europe to the paintings at Ajanta, religion has definitely been a topic of interest.

Bing

Microsoft has done a good job with Bing. Like the part where in the new IE you can highlight a word, right click and kick off a Bing search on a new tab. Nice presentation of results. Note that by supporting Microsoft you are supporting AIDs workers in Africa, as a decent chunk of the company's shares belong to a charity. Don't know why Microsoft doesn't play that up more?

 

Also, by purchasing insurance from Geico, you do the same because about half of Berkshire is also held by the same charity. Let the overpriced "Earth" water from Starbucks go to hell. Give the capitalist way.

Pros and Cons of Fall/Winter

Cons

- Greatly reduced tennis. Sustained indoor tennis would require a monthly budget of 200+$.

- Switch to daylight saving time, and it starts becoming dark at 4pm.

- 2500 layers of clothing and day after day of mind numbing cold (its winter, duh!).

- Football season begins. Its all that everyone watches and talks about. Whats the fascination with 300 pound men running into each other at full throttle? Seems to be some modern day version of the Roman Coliseum where gladiators beat each other senseless.

- Around Christmas time every restaurant and shop starts playing the same Frank Sinatra Christmas CD and trust me, it gets to you after a while.

 

Pros

- Sitcom season begins. Family Guy. American Dad. 30 Rock. Parks and Recreation. Some good new ones too - Modern Family and Community.

- Holiday time! Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year....

- Skiing ?! Its super fun but need to get head count (not body count.).

- Improv season might begin if I decide to start classes again. Or, is it going to be Lindy in the Windy City?

- Chicago starts looking like a scene from the Batman movie, which is not particularly surprising as Batman Returns was shot here.

Best Latin Food in Chicago

is in Irving Park. Where Mexican is different from Peruvian which is different from Colombian which is different from Cuban which is different from Chilean which is different from....and you can stuff your face for under 10 bucks.

On Turnarounds

We have written in past reports about the disappointments that usually result from purchase and operation of "turnaround" businesses. Literally hundreds of turnaround possibilities in dozens of industries have been described to us over the years and, either as participants or as observers, we have tracked performance against expectations. Our conclusion is that, with few exceptions, when a management with a reputation for brilliance tackles a business with a reputation for poor fundamental economics, it is the reputation of the business that remains intact.

Chrysler, Sears, Readers Digest....larger economic and competitive issues dominate management skill. Humans, they get so deluded about what they can control.

Berkshire Hathaway, Chairman's Letter - 1979

Overall, we opt for Polonius (slightly restated): "Neither a short-term borrower nor a long-term lender be."

Fairly accurate statement I might say.

Coincidences

I think life is random. While events can be scheduled/predicted in the short term, long term control is largely illusional. Also, specific sets of highly correlated events which can take up a lot of your time and energy, and contribute a lot to your happiness are driven by coincidences. I know what you are thinking. Exactly.

3 weeks back we were having a discussion at work about disguised ethnicities and I brought up that Freddie Mercury was actually Farrokh Bulsara, a Parsi from Mumbai (George Michael is Greek btw). Then a week later I was at a coffee shop which for some reason played 2 hours of Queen straight. Then, I left that coffee shop and went to get a sandwich at Jimmy Johns, which for some reason was playing Queen as well. The right song at the right time - you have no idea what that can do to you. I have been obsessively listening to Queen songs since, and by default the opening riff from "Under Pressure" (copied by Vanilla Ice to make Ice Ice Baby) makes its rounds in my head.

A lovely dream

Silently crossing the ocean of death,
You come as a lovely dream,
My tears call for you hour by hour;
Wandering everywhere, everywhere repulsed,
I was sealed in this dark dream of this life;
Now you have come as a lovely dream.

Now I see darkness pour down like dark hair,
In its folds gleam the jewels of the evening stars,
Now the sky fills with the pain of song,
And trembles with the hum of crickets underfoot.
You worship with incense from the trembling forest -
Now you have come as a lovely dream.

from "The Housewarming", Rabindranath Tagore

I wish I could read it in the original Bengali, but one does what one can.

Warren Buffet Shareholder's Letter from 1978

"We make no attempt to predict how security markets will behave; successfully forecasting short term stock price movements is something we think neither we nor anyone else can do.  In the longer run, however, we feel that many of our major equity holdings are going to be worth considerably more money than we paid, and that investment gains will add significantly to the operating returns of the insurance group."

Turned out to be a fairly accurate forward looking statement.

Names Again

Names of the sandwiches at work :

Ice Man
Spider Man
He Man
Super Man

"Super Man" was my veggie sandwich, and it tasted like a wet sock. I just have to re-iterate my previous statement about names being indicate of content. Alternate names:

Rubber Sole
Wooden Sole
Wet Rubber Sole
Wet Sock

Now thats more like it. Creative and informative.

Whats with the names?

Names of the salads at work today :

As the World Turns
Days of Our Lives
Bold and the Beautiful
Guiding Light

I somehow believe that names for food should be indicative of content. It would be even better if names for people were also indicative of content. For example, the name Phoolan Devi conjures up the image of a goddess ambling amidst flowers (Phool = flowers, Devi = goddess), when in fact she was a dacoit with a rather nasty record of armed robbery.

A picture speaks a thousand words...

..but a few words can also paint quite a picture.

"After the cessation of rain, which had begun in the morning, all the foliage, the sky and the breeze were like eylashes still wet after weeping. "

from Boshtami, Rabindranath Tagore

Announcement

Summer is half over. Don't panic but do something about it. You know life is flashing by you when you have vague recollections of what you did in previous summers, but have no clue which year it was.

Chicago Blues Festival

The crowd. The festival was in Grant Park.

The main stage. The building right behind the stage is the Sears Tower.

One of the substages.

Lou Pride.

Oh that blues guitar!

So much anger and bad grammar!

Peru

Chicago (Thursday, May 21st) ->

Miami (May 21st) ->

Lima (Friday, May 22nd) ->

Cuzco (May 22nd) ->

Tinki (Sunday, May 24th) ->

Around Ausungate with Colque Cruz (Silver Cross) and Jatunpampa (Large plain) looking on (May 24th - May 28th) ->

Cuzco (Thursday, May 28th) ->

Olaytambo (Friday, May 29th) ->

Aguas Caliente (Hot Water!) (May 29th) ->

Machu Pichu (May 29th) ->

Aguas Caliente (May 29th) ->

Olaytambo (Saturday, May 30th) ->

Cuzco (May 30th) ->

Lima (May 30th) ->

Miami (Monday, Jun 1st)->

Chicago (Jun 1st)

Machu Pichu was impressive but not worth the hassle getting there and the gazillion tourists. Might be better in the off-season (November-March).

Cuzco is a town of 500,000 at an altitude of 3400m. The Andes in Peru reminds me of Sikkim (Nepal and Tibet possibly too, though I haven't been to either of the places). The altitude and latitude lead to comparable fauna/vegetation leading people to take to similar adaptations.

La Grenouille

The current sentiment is that the recession is over. Good times are back again. Back to being healthy, wealthy and wise (economy wise). Party like its two thousand and six.

But, The Economist begs to differ, a choice quote -

The danger is that sentiment has flickered higher rather as a dissected
frog’s leg will twitch when an electric current is applied.

It may or may not be an accurate analogy, but it sure is colourfull.

Thieving

For a good example of how a CEO and board steal from a company, read Chesapeake Energy's proxy statement.

Some choice excerpts:

Executive Officer Compensation :
Messrs. McClendon, Rowland and Dixon are responsible for analyzing, developing and recommending base salary adjustments, cash bonuses and restricted stock awards with respect to the executive officers, including themselves, for review, discussion and approval by the Compensation Committee at its regularly scheduled meetings in June and December of each year.

The CEO McClendon gets to decide how much he pays himself. I am sure he is extremely fair in deciding how deserving he is.

Non-employee director compensation currently consists of (i) an annual retainer of $55,000, payable in quarterly installments of $13,750; (ii) $15,000 and $3,500 payable for each board meeting attended in person and telephonically, respectively, not to exceed $110,000 per year for board meetings attended; and (iii) an annual grant of 12,500 shares of restricted stock, 25% of which vests immediately upon award and the remaining 75% of which vests ratably over the three years following the date of award. The annual grant of restricted stock is made from our Long Term Incentive Plan (see page 7, “Voting Item 3—Proposal to Amend Long Term Incentive Plan”) on the first business day in July of each year. No additional compensation is paid to directors for participating on or chairing a Board committee.

Under the Company’s 2003 Stock Award Plan for Non-Employee Directors, 10,000 shares of our common stock are awarded to each newly appointed non-employee director on his or her first day of service.

Under the Company’s policy regarding the use of fractionally-owned company aircraft, our directors are provided access to fractionally-owned company aircraft for travel to and from Board meetings. For Board meetings and other Company activities at which the attendance of a director’s spouse and immediate family members are also requested by the Company, we make tax gross-up payments to the director associated with the taxable compensation attributable to the spouse/family member travel. In addition, each non-employee director is entitled to personal use of fractionally-owned company aircraft seating eight passengers or fewer for up to 40 hours of flight time per calendar year in North America, the Caribbean and Mexico.

Given the stock price has been between $ 20 and $ 80, each director gets between $ 250,000 to $ 1mm a year, as well as a 'sign on' bonus of $ 200,000 to $ 800,000. As a director, you can pop down to the Caribbean with your family on a fractionally owned NetJet and have Chesapeake Energy foot the bill.

Richard K. Davidson - $ 739,673
V. Burns Hargis - $ 479,557
Frank Keating - $ 762,858
Breene M. Kerr - $ 784,687
Charles T. Maxwell - $ 620,526
Merrill A. Miller, Jr. - $ 542,024
Don Nickles - $ 753,379
Frederick B. Whittemore — $ 673,421

Each of the directors made close to a million dollars a in 2008 year just sitting on the company's board. The share price went from 40$ in the beginning of 2008 to 17 $ in the end of 2008. The average shareholder lost close to 58%. So much for alignment of management and shareholder interests.

Because of Mr. McClendon’s unique role as co-founder of the Company, he is the only executive officer with the opportunity to participate as a working interest owner in the natural gas and oil wells that the Company drills.

Special Incentive Compensation.

On December 31, 2008, the Company entered into a new five-year employment agreement with Mr. McClendon. The agreement recognized his leadership role in completing the four transactions in 2008 (discussed above under “2008 in Review” and detailed below) that were exceptionally advantageous to the Company and its shareholders, further aligned his long-term financial interests with those of the Company and its shareholders and obtained his long-term commitment to remain in his position as CEO. In addition to the cap on cash salary and bonus compensation described above, Mr. McClendon’s employment agreement includes the following provisions:

• A one-time $75 million well cost incentive award that, after reduction by state and federal withholding taxes, was structured as a net credit against future billings from the Company for well costs owed by Mr. McClendon under the FWPP, with a five-year clawback;
• A five-year employment commitment by Mr. McClendon;
• An extension of the non-competition period with respect to certain
  terminations by the Company; and
• A reduced stock holding requirement
  during 2009.

Mr. McClendon has given himself the opportunity to co-invest in company projects, and then have the company buy out his interest for lots of money. In this case $ 75 mm. This is in addition to the $ 1mm base salary and $ 15 mm bonus for non-performance.

In December 2008, the Company purchased an extensive collection of historical maps of the American Southwest from Mr. McClendon for $12.1 million, which represented his cost. A dealer who had assisted Mr. McClendon in acquiring this collection over a period of six years advised the Company that the replacement value of the collection in December 2008 exceeded the purchase price by more than $8 million.

In 2008, the Company became a founding sponsor of the Oklahoma City Thunder, a National Basketball Association franchise owned and operated by The Professional Basketball Club, LLC (“PBC”). Mr. McClendon has a 19.2% equity interest in and is a non-management member of the PBC. The Company paid $3,495,525 in 2008 and $1,165,175 in 2009 pursuant to its sponsorship agreement for the Oklahoma City Thunder’s 2008-2009 season.

Shocking to say the least. A public company being treated like your personal bank account. Didn't Enron, Worldcom and Tyco teach anyone anything? Why do shareholders put up with crap like this. The fruits of what is a nice business are being reaped disproportionately by those running it.

Mama's Boys

NYTimes, April 4th 2009

The veneration of the mother in India has a long history, rooted in part in
Hinduism’s powerful female gods. [Ok] The country is often referred to as Mother
India. [Agree] Nearly every Bollywood movie features a strong mother character in a
leading role. [Not exactly but vaguely plausible] And one of India’s largest suppliers of milk and cheese is Mother Dairy. [What!!]

Helicopter Ben Bernanke

Did you know that his stated intent to drop some money by helicopter is actually a reference to an essay by Milton Friedman, where he explains the relationship between an increase in money supply and inflation? (Chapter 2 : "Mystery of Money", Money Mischief, Pg. 29)

That chapter is the best short description of monetary policy ever. At least, its the only one I have understood. It sheds a lot of light on the recent actions of the Federal Reserve and Treasury.

Recent economic events can be summarized as follows :

- Economic shocks to the system have reduced the supply of credit (bankrupt banks), demand (What if I lose my job tomorrow, I need to save!!) and increased preference to hold cash.

- As demand reduces , producers start losing money and react by cutting prices, reducing production and reducing jobs.

- Since debt is in $ terms, the real cost of debt goes up.

- This sets up a vicious cycle. Job losses reduces demand even more, and that spurs even higher job losses and more bankruptcies.

What can the Federal Reserve do about this ?

- Flood the system with cash.

- In "normal" conditions this cash is more than what typically people like to hold, so they spend it. This increases demand, leads to higher prices which then would reduce demand, and in aggregate you are back to where to you started, except that everything costs more. The real value of a previous debt goes down proportionally.

- In "worst case" conditions this cash is not spent but held in entirety as everyone is shell shocked. Absolutely nothing changes, and we continue to deflate.

- The Fed is hoping for something in between, where some fraction of the additional cash finds its way into the system, leading to demand coming back, prices going up and the real value of debt going down - reflation essentially.

- Once confidence has come back, try to pull out some of that cash so that inflation does not go out of hand. One problem with doing that is the size of US household and government debt, and overall fiscal and trade deficits. Though China and Japan would be very unhappy, inflating away a moderate fraction of it is key. They shouldn't actually be so unhappy, because in the other scenario they wouldn't get a cent, as the US will be bankrupt baby. I am not exactly sure how they can take possession :).

PS: This speech by Ben Bernanke, as a Governor of the Federal Reserve System, almost exactly explains the rationale for many of the current Fed actions.

The Key

The key to humor is uncertainty, surprise and absurdity. Amplify, heighten, exaggerate and lampoon the strange situations that life is filled with. Its all about looking at life from a novel and different viewpoint. The "garden path"- you are led into a situation expecting one reality to unfold but you are hit by another. All the stuff that makes you nervous in real life, makes you laugh if done on the stage.

Idiot!

I am an idiot. I think the biggest contributor to mistakes is not incompetency but hubris. Believing you are right doesn't count anywhere except in religion. What counts is systematic effort and analysis, and infinite scepticism. Assuming you know something is infinitely worse than admitting you know nothing.

Random Culture Vulture (Sepulcher) Observations

My favorite few paragraphs in all of literature must be Tom Sawyer getting Ben Rogers and a bunch of others to whitewash his fence.

I saw this play "Strange Interlude" by Eugene O'Neill. It must be the strangest play I have ever seen. It has 9 acts and goes on for 5 and a half hours. We started at 2pm, had a dinner break at 5pm and the play finally finished at 9pm. The basic premise is that life is lived in the past and the future, and the present is but a strange interlude. Also, what is the "right" thing to do may not be the "moral" thing to do. Very dark with characters that launch into inner monologue soliloquys every once in a while. Leave the play with the feeling of having been privy to a crazy neurotics mind. Its like Freud + Jung with a background of hideous screams.

What did the comic say about his life?

Life is a stage, but mine is a joke.

By the way, if you are ever looking to write good comedy use 30 Rock, Arrested Development and The Office as templates. Its all about developing wacky interesting characters, letting them interact with each other and allowing the magic to be made! The Ha ha one liners are for the escapists who don't want to do the real thing. Its a gourmet meal compared to a McDonalds hamburger.

Art Institute

• Firstly, and most importantly its free for the month of February!
• New and improved impressionist galleries. Fortunately, most of the modern mumbo jumbo paintings have been carted off to the yet unopened Modern Wing. Unfortunately, that includes the Picassos and Dalis.
• One huge gallery of art from the Indian sub-continent.
• The Munch exhibition. Doesn't that make you want to Scream? (Get it? Get it? 'Scream' is Munch's most famous painting. Get it? Get it?)
• Daily museum tours at 2pm on weekends. Did you know that this painting by Toulouse Lautrec (left) and this painting by Renoir (right) are both at the Circus Fernando? Now you do. Use that information wisely next time you want to impress someone at a museum.

Generalissimo

Did anyone see the investment banker dig in the new 30 Rock episode? Ha ha very funny. They have the show nailed. Good comedy is like a great meal, a beautiful painting or an exquisite narrative - entrancing but you just can't figure out how it was done.

Never bothered...

..to listen to Coldplay and Maroon 5, until now that is. Love the sound.

Like Maroon 5 a little bit more though. Coldplay sounds too much like U2 at their melodic best (e.g. Angel of Harlem) - in terms of vocals, lead guitar, drums and overall song structure.

Benefits of a vacation, slow internet and being forced to listen to the hard disk music collection.

2 weeks off

In Chennai, away from the warkpalce for doo weaks. Wayy too much Counterstrike. I mentally note down vantage points as I walk down a street, and stay away from open places.

Saarang. Shobana in a creative rendition of the Ramayana entitled Maya Ravana. Opeth, the Swedish death metal band rocked us into Republic Day. A good way to save costs in this tight economy would be to purchase a pig, tie to a board, stick in front of a mike, and then torture assortedly, to obtain the music generated by the aforementioned human forms.

Knock knock who is there?
Me.
You who?
DMV the Death Metal Virtuoso.
Who?
Bahhhrrgggwwwwaaarrgghhhhharrghhhhaarr
Ahh, DMV. Do come in.
Thanks.

American Dad

Has anyone seen that show? Seth McFarlane has it nailed down. The main protagonist Stan Smith is the extreme right wing alter-ego of Peter Griffin in Family Guy. Many of the characters are also similarly set up - hyper dad, relatively passive and sane wife, talking animals and 2 kids (one guy one girl). All in all, they form a vehicle for some extremely witty social commentary.

Guess the book!

Nous acheterons de bien belles choses
En nous promenant le long des faubourgs

Les bleuets sont bleus, les roses sont roses,
Les bleuets sont bleus, j'aime mes amours.

We'll buy some lovely things
Walking down the avenue.

Violets are blue, and roses are red,
Violets are blue, and my love is true.

Hint : Eugene Delacroix meets Liberty in a book.