Sentences are for sissies

As part of his plan to conquer the universe, LeBron has been writing a "very short reviews" sidebar for the NY Times Sunday magazine, where he reviews a book in one sentence.

But a sentence is just so prolix!

I propose reviewing a book with a song title!

Some examples:

The Glass Castle: Ain't that America, 

Coming Apart: The Bi*ch is Back, 

Poor Economics: Love the One You're With

The Steve Jobs Bio: Yonder Stands the Sinner

The Great Stagnation: Eve of Destruction

White Man's Burden: Whippin' Post

The Rent is too Damn High: Wishing Well

This video presented by Tucks Medicated Pads

People, Ken Tremendous directs a music video for a cool new song by Colin Meloy that is based on a section of "Infinite Jest".

Life is good.

Find the cost of freedom

As part of a fascinating debate about measuring inequality, the generally excellent Interfluidity made the following remark that simply threw me for a loop:

In my view, freedom, not consumption, is the central distinction between rich and poor. It is odd that I should argue this point with libertarian Wilkinson.

I guess that I am somehow missing his point or else fundamentally misunderstanding what the word freedom means.

In the United States at least, we are all free to vote, speak, practice (or not practice) our religion, etc. etc. We are not all free to send our kids to expensive schools, but that's consumption. We are not all free to travel to other countries, but that's consumption.

Interfluidity only gives one concrete example, which throws me for another loop:

Indebtedness also entails a cost in freedom that we miss if we focus on consumption.

I think that, if anything, this is backwards. Having little to no collateral, the poor are not "free" to borrow money. The ability to take on debt is liberating. However, I would still argue that this shows up mainly in consumption.

I guess I could agree with a statement like "the poor are not free to smooth their consumption stream", but I'd still be quite conflicted about how exactly that is freedom.

I was bothering Mrs. Angus about this (she thinks I'm at least partly wrong, which means I probably am, but I honestly can't see it), and she brought up differences in life expectancy across identifiable groups, but again to me, that is an exceedingly tenuous use of the concept of freedom. Men are not free to live as long as women? (NB: that was NOT the example that Mrs. Angus used).

In Hansonian terms, I must recognize that Interfluidity, Mrs. Angus and Sen are all smart people, so I'm probably somehow wrong, but to me, freedom is nowhere near the central difference between the rich and the poor, at least not in the USA.

I have to go with Hemingway here people: The main difference between the rich and poor is that the rich have more money!

Does anyone want to go Kristofferson here: "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose".

What I've been reading

1. "Chronic City". I am a big fan of J. Lethem and I really enjoyed this book, though there is no plot to speak of, and good editing to make it 10% shorter would make it 24% better. "Motherless Brooklyn" remains my favorite Lethem novel, but I'd recommend CC for sure.

2. "Ilustrado". This is good, people. Ambitious, funny, out of control, absorbing. Some of the themes end up a bit cartoonish, but this is a great debut novel, up there with "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao" and "The Ecstatic".

3."The Lacuna". It starts so slowly that I almost quit, but patience is rewarded. The parts set in Mexico City are transcendent.

4. "The Thousand Autumns of Jacob DeZoet". I adored the first part of the book and the unlikely hero DeZoet. The middle, DeZoet free, part dragged for me, too cartoony and lurid. Then Mitchell kind of pulls it together toward the end. What can I say, it's no "Cloud Atlas", but then again what is?

5. "Witz". After 15 minutes I physically deposited this POS into the garbage.