From a young age, I’ve always been fascinated by financial markets. My fascination began as curiosity; a desire to understand the daily movements of the S&P and Dow Industrial Average that I read in the newspaper or heard on NPR on my way home from high school.

This desire led me to studying finance as an undergraduate student, where I gained an entree into the theorizing behind the markets’ mysteries: the efficient market hypothesis, modern portfolio theory, and the relationship between risk and return. I supplemented my college coursework with books that poked holes in the arguments and dented the authority of my theory-first finance professors: Lowenstein’s When Genius Failed, Michael Lewis’ Liars Poker, and Taleb’s Black Swan and Fooled by Randomness. These books (especially Taleb), as well as the ongoing financial crisis that served as the backdrop for my initial finance education, led to an ingrained skepticism of markets and the strange mix of rationality and irrationality belying their daily movements

From this early education onwards, markets always seemed to be a human construction more than a mechanical reliability, subject to fashionable trends, human hubris, and a level of inherent enigma that captivated me. I relished the opportunity to accompany the markets as a casual observer: an intellectual exercise of (mostly) intelligent individuals squaring off against one another for an “edge,” with extremely high stakes coloring their emotions and behavior.

A tidy summary of the mystery of investing were recently summed up by Morgan Housel on his Collaborative Fund blog, which gets at what I find so inherently interesting about the practice:

If investing were all about math, mathematicians would be rich. If it were all about history, historians would be rich. If it were all about economics, economists would be rich. If it were all about psychology, psychologists would be rich. In reality it’s a mix of many disciplines, but some of the brightest people specialize in one topic and can’t see the world through another lens.

To me, it seemed like these individuals, with decades of experience under their belts and a full and nuanced understanding of efficient markets and the average return of so-called “active” investors (one thing professional investors aren’t lacking is information), had to be a bit crazy, arrogant, or both to clear-headedly take on such a massive challenge. Further, the key players  operating within “the market” seemed pulled from the pages of classic novels, with their stories of espionage, closely-held tradecraft, economy-shaking speculation, and robber baron behavior. Active investing seemed like a contact sport — as entertaining to watch as football, and potentially as dangerous to play.

I first came across Ben Hunt’s Epsilon Theory blog via Tyler Cowen’s Marginal Revolution, a repository of curiosity and knowledge from the wide-ranging mind of Cowen and his team. The first blog post I read, offering advice to a passive college-aged observer like I was once was, rang immediately true to me, and as with other writers that I quickly fall in love with, I traveled back in time to familiarize myself with his work and broader worldview.

Undergirding Hunt’s observations and analyses, I soon learned, was the Epsilon Theory Manifesto, explaining the origins of the blog’s title and his view of markets.

Hunt believes that the Greek letter “epsilon,” meant to signify error in the modern portfolio theory (return = alpha + beta + epsilon), is a vastly underexplored concept worthy of its own school of study. Whereas countless ink had been spilled on the relevance of beta (i.e., the passive return of the market) and alpha (i.e., unique characteristics of a specific security that made it differ from beta), epsilon is an afterthought. However, Hunt sees that ‘error’ as something that merits an equal amount of study to the other two Greek letters it shares an equation with, and even further can be an opportunity for ‘arbitrage’ – to outwit other market participants via a clearer picture of the environment around you. Every single active investor in the world has a position on their ability to achieve alpha – i.e., returns above a passive investment strategy – but very few offer a position on epsilon.

In Hunt’s interpretation, the “error” underlying the equation are humans themselves, and our strategic decision-making capabilities and shifting behavioral preferences. The discipline of behavior economics has provided an introduction to the human role in markets’ imperfection, but Hunt suggests taking things a step further: using the study of game theory (“a methodology for understanding strategic decision-making within informational constraints”) and informational theory to analyze the oftentimes counterintuitive movements of the markets. Like a game of poker (beloved by investors), movements are made up of “dynamic interactions,” considerations that are far beyond traditional investment indicators or financial ratios.

Following the hypothesis of the efficient market theory, as more and more information has become available over time, the markets theoretically should be closer to perfect, with limited legal ability to gain an informational edge on other market participants. This has led to an environment of “alpha scarcity,” and countless examples of one-time esteemed market “gurus” with multiple years of sub-passive performance, an embarrassing reality for any billion/millionaire who grew rich on their initial rightness and their hubristic belief in themselves to beat the monolithic market.

(Note: Another example of investors ‘seeking alpha’ was highlighted in this week’s New York Times via a profile of Farnam Street’s Shane Parrish, who pitches “reading, reflection and lifelong learning” as the antidote to the attack on the active investor: “These days, if you are not getting better you are falling behind. Reading is a way to consume people’s experiences, to learn something timeless and then apply it to your life.”)

According to the Manifesto, Epsilon Street represents Hunt’s attempt to analyze the markets through the lens of game theory, by studying “narrative” and “common knowledge,” two concepts that seemingly color the day-to-day political newscycle than the financial markets. However, as Hunt presciently explains, narrative is far from truth (it just has to sound truthful), and is normally driven by our human appetite for “news,” even in its absence. The competing narratives of Trump’s impact on global trade, and the ongoing EU/Brexit spat, and the various competing interests (oftentimes without “skin in the game”) inserting their views into the global conversation, serve as ongoing examples of the power of narrative, and its divergence from the “truth.” Per Hunt, the ability to “identify narratives, measure their strength, assess their likely impact” through an analysis of narrative through the lens of game and information theory is an underexploited and worthy of examination.

Similarly, the concept of common knowledge, known as “what everyone knows that everyone knows,” adds a further, postmodern wrinkle to narrative. Common knowledge, or the “second order” consensus (“the consensus view of the consensus view”), represents a war of competing narratives to reach a consensus, and the second order effect of how those competing consensus arrive at a universally held view. The battle for common knowledge is a battle of loudly promoting one’s view and one’s ability to conquer competing views to reach ubiquity, either by virtue of the loudness with which one shouts, or the ability to compound-grow these beliefs onto others. Confusing, but actually incredibly insightful.

An example of the impact of narrative and common knowledge pertain to the recent rollercoaster ride associated with Tesla’s ($TSLA) stock. For the past few years, short sellers, who seek to profit from poor performance of a stock, have sought to create a narrative around Tesla’s inevitable decline, associated with production shortfalls and a perceived inability to ever meet demand for vehicles in a cost-effective way. Meanwhile, Tesla products continue to wow both consumers and automotive reviewers, coloring their view of Tesla’s ability to dominate the market in the future, driving up its stock price. In both cases, the truth is not the underlying driver of their ongoing attempts at creating common knowledge – their behavior is guided by their financial and human incentive to be right. Even more recently, comments made by Elon Musk, who has every right to be incensed by the economically-counterproductive efforts of short sellers, have sent the stock plummeting among questions of his fitness as a leader, and Tesla’s future as a result. In all of these cases, the actual value of Tesla is far from point – it’s very quickly turned into a battle of competing narratives in an attempt to reach a common consensus.

Amid all of this news, a fascinating but incredibly rare volte-face was recently published by a Tesla short seller, which shared the underlying assumptions behind their initial dour view of Tesla, followed by information that rebuts these initial hypothesis and has now led them to reverse their decision. The fact that this type of reversal is so rare gets at the heart of Hunt’s thesis – that a better understanding of how we shape narratives to reach common knowledge is a fundamental tool worthy of study.

Per their summary page:

The story has become too compelling to ignore.

As much as you can’t believe you are reading this, we can’t believe we are writing this!

The most challenging part of being a short seller is to constantly check your thesis to make sure nothing has changed. You must let all predispositions and prejudices disappear and stay focused on only the facts. It is in that spirit and with a great deal of analysis and due diligence that we can say for the first time, Citron is long Tesla as the Model 3 is a proven hit and many of the TSLA warning signs have proven not to be significant.

It has been almost 5 years since Citron published the following line: “By the time this product is even approaching market, there will be multiple other 200-mile range plug-ins that have been out for years.”

Rumors of the Tesla killers have been as constant and unfounded as Bob Lutz’s call for Tesla’s bankruptcy.

While the media has been focused on Elon Musk’s eccentric, outlandish and at times offensive behavior, it has failed to notice the legitimate disruption of the auto industry that is currently being DOMINATED by Tesla.

What has changed?? Plain and simple — Tesla is destroying the competition.

A new narrative? Maybe. There inlies the challenge of the markets, and the reason that so many are drawn to its magic and mystery as a hobby, career and/or vocation.

The New Yorker has a habit of posting their longform articles weeks before their physical publication to the benefit of their online readership. This week’s edition of The Best Thing I Read This Week (still a working title) comes from the November 19th issue, entitled ‘The Mystery of the Havana Syndrome.’

The article is a fascinating inside look at the insider’s game of US / Cuba diplomatic bartering leading up to the historic normalization of relations in 2015 (which Wikipedia calls ‘the Cuban thaw.’) The article counts as its primary sources many of the principal players leading the US side of the negotiations, including Deputy National Security Advisor and Obama’s right-hand man, Ben Rhodes and Ricardo Zuniga, a career Foreign Service Officer with with extensive LatAm experience (matched with Rhodes to buoy his limited knowledge of the region and lack of Spanish).

On the opposite side of the negotiating table was Alejandro Castro, the only son of Cuban leader Raúl Castro, then thought of as the third most powerful person in Cuba (after Raúl and the now-deceased Fidel). Faced with shrinking revenues and resources from its ideological partner in the region, Venezuela, Alejando’s appointment to lead the Cuban side of the negotiations underlined its importance to the Cubans, and the seriousness with which they were pursuing a potential agreement.

The article capably sheds light on the complicated history that colored the considerations on both sides leading up to the deal, further underlining just how unlikely the accord actually was. On the surface, the deal was an almost overnight success, leading to an almost six-fold increase in US tourists arriving to Cuba by 2017, just three years later.

However, the initial optimism of a rapprochement and normalization of diplomatic and economic ties was always beset by a vast and ingrained ideological chasm, including Cuban anti-imperialism and historic (and warranted) distrust, as well as hawkish views on both sides. Neither side sought to cede any ideological territory in the agreement — it was more so a typically Obama-ian attempt at hoping cooler, more logical heads prevail — letting progress take over, and getting out of the way. After Obama’s historic visit to Cuba, Fidel Castro wrote an editorial in the Communist Party daily (the primary Cuban government mouthpiece), where he wrote: “Nobody should be under the illusion that the people of this noble and selfless country will renounce the glory, the rights, or the spiritual wealth they have gained.”

The teetering balance of voices that formed the US / Cuban agreement was thrown into disarray with the death of Fidel Castro and election of Trump. In the infamously disorganized leadership transition which followed, career Foreign Service Officers were kept out of the loop, and hundreds of State Department roles were left unfilled by the inept management of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. Many of the deal’s architects were suddenly disempowered (and soon to quit) or outright fired, creating vast uncertainty and an ununified voice towards Cuba.

The US priorities in Cuba seemingly shifted overnight from opening up dialogue, normalizing relations, and trying to rehabilitate a 70 year relationship of distrust and antagonism to trying to “make Rubio happy” (Trump’s words, per a source), referring to Trump’s need to placate Senator and Republican leader Marco Rubio. Rubio, the now-Senior Florida Republican Senator, is a loud anti-Cuban voice and leader of the all-important Latino-Republican union in Florida that has been fundamental to recent Republican victories in Florida (including the recent Republican victories of Rick Scott for Senate [over Bill Nelson] and Ron DeSantis for Governor [over Dem darling Andrew Gillum]).

For Trump to secure his hold over the the Republican Party, the buy-in of Rubio was crucial. The sudden shift in US policy towards Cuba was best summed up by the condolences offered by outgoing President Obama and President-elect Trump towards deceased Cuban leader Fidel Castro:

Obama: “At this time of Fidel Castro’s passing, we extend a hand of friendship to the Cuban people,” he wrote. “History will record and judge the enormous impact of this singular figure on the people and world around him.”

Trump: “Today, the world marks the passing of a brutal dictator who oppressed his own people for nearly six decades. Fidel Castro’s legacy is one of firing squads, theft, unimaginable suffering, poverty and the denial of fundamental human rights.”

The article also provides a fascinating picture of the symbiotic relationship between the State Department and CIA, and the CIA’s dependence on the State Department to provide diplomatic cover and on-the-ground resources for its field agents operating around the world.

Some time beginning in 2016, these field officers, operating under diplomatic cover in the US Embassy in Havana, began complaining of concussion-like symptoms (difficulty concentrating and sleeping, blurred vision, pounding headaches). Before long, after numerous complaints surfaced, officials became convinced that ousted CIA officers were being specifically targeted. Initially dubbed “the thing,” later morphing into “the immaculate concussion” (for its concussion-like symptoms despite a lack of impact), before landing in the name its taken on publically, “the Havana syndrome.”

As the article hints, the Cuban government vociferously deny any involvement in the attack, forcing US officials to speculate the origin and motivation behind the attack. Popular theories include include the denying Cuban leadership, hardline dissidents within the Cuban intelligence establishment angry with the ‘thaw,’ foreign agents of Russia or China seeking to create distance and sow discord between the two countries, or a malfunctioning of Cuban spy technology. The article cites a private suggestion by Raúl Castro that China was behind the attacks, certainly plausible given the Chinese’s growing strength in surveillance and espionage technology, but given the high stakes of US/Chinese relations at this moment, it feels like an incredibly risky adventure halfway around the world.

Meanwhile, incidents of the attack continued to be perpetrated in private residences and hotel rooms alike against CIA officers, their support staff, and State Department Foreign Service Officers. In all, the State Department announced that twenty-one Americans had been “targeted in specific attacks.” As a direct result of these attacks, in an attempt to to protect the identities and careers of the cia officers, as well as the livelihood of the diplomatic staff in Cuba, Secretary Tillerson announced that the US would significantly reduce its US footprint in Havana from 54 staff on-the-ground to 18 or so, including a near-complete exit of the CIA (at least that’s what they’ve publically claim.)

If the ultimate aim of the unknown perpetrator was to create distance between the US and Cubans, it’s clearly been successful in its aims, and have given further ammunition by US hawks that the Cubans are not to be trusted. Meanwhile, the “Havana Syndrome’s” actual cause, effect, and intent remain a medical, technological, and intelligence mystery.

Over the past two weeks, the New Yorker and NYTimes published pair of profiles on Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner, one year into his term.

• New Yorker: Larry Krasner’s Campaign to End Mass Incarceration
• New York Times Magazine: In Philadelphia, a Progressive D.A. Tests the Power — and Learns the Limits — of His Office

Between the NYTimes Magazine piece on the Kensington neighborhood of Philadelphia and the recent obsession with the Philadelphia Flyers’ new mascot, Gritty, it seems like Philadelphia has suddenly been thrust into the national spotlight. Even the South Philly Mexican restaurant Barbacoa was given Netflix’s Chef’s Table treatment in October, leading to even-longer lines. Stretching further back into this extremely long year, Philadelphia’s unlikely Super Bowl LII ascendance and subsequent parade captured the hearts of millions. In some ways, it really does feel like the Year of Brotherly Love.

However, much more quietly and behind the scenes, Larry Krasner has been remaking Philadelphia’s criminal justice system from inside the institution — a career-long criminal defense attorney with no prosecutorial experience suddenly given the keys to the opposing side’s castle.

In an national environment where Trump’s ‘tough on crime’ rhetoric seems to have won over voters nationally, and his appointed (but mostly reviled) DA Jeff Sessions has become renowned for the impunity with which he carries out his job, it feels like strict adherence to law-and-order would be in ‘vogue’ politically.

However, as both articles recount, there has been a countervailing wave of ‘progressive’ district attorneys being voted into office across the country (and not just on the overwhelmingly-Democratic coasts). In cities like Kansas City and Corpus Christi, voters are clearly exhausted with a broken system that overincarserates offenders into overcrowded jails, boasts extremely high rates of recidivism, and shields violence committed by policemen.

Krasner is at the vanguard of this movement, seeking to radically rethink managing urban crime in one of the most historically violent cities in America, and bravely trying to do so within the system, as opposed to as an system-opposing activist or from within an academic institution.

Aside from the obvious sympathy one must feel for the reporters who worked for months on their respective articles, I do think they are mostly complementary. For the most part, they use different sources, and choose to focus on different aspects of Krasner’s assumption of the job.

Drawing on the work and literature of inspiring individuals like Michelle Alexander, Bryan Stevenson, Adam Foss, and others, Krasner has dramatically changed how crime (especially minor crimes) are prosecuted in Philadelphia, removing minimum bail and minimum sentencing for crimes like petty theft, marijuana possession, and prostitution, and instructing his prosecutors (including pre-Krasner city prosecutors and new recruits) to share the estimated cost of incarceration associated with any prison sentence.

In the wake of Obama’s Presidency, where an idealist and (mostly) outsider was suddenly charged with ‘change’ in an institution that is designed to impede dramatic action, Krasner’s first year is a fascinating case study in trying to change an ingrained culture, bring along naysayers, make an immediate impact on a broken cycle of criminal justice, and operate within the political system, all while trying to maintain the support of the activists and idealists who brought Krasner into office in the first place.

The articles are also a useful look into the bifurcated politics of Philadelphia, a city I continue to call home even while away — where no-tolerance district attorneys (Specter, Rendell, Abraham) have been a consensus for the past 30-odd years despite overwhelmingly liberal Congressional and Presidential voting, and the local policemen’s’ union, the Fraternal Order of Police, is a powerful and unified voice in support of the police force. In addition, the articles are cast in the backdrop of an opioid epidemic that has completely ravaged parts of Philadelphia, compelling Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf to declare the drug-laden North Philadelphia a ’state emergency’.

While Philadelphia has long been an afterthought, proclaimed part of the ‘acela corridor’ (i.e., between NYC and DC), or ‘the sixth borough’ of NYC every couple of years by story-starved NYC journalists, it is heartening to see innovative thinking and progressive action being taken in the city.

Sometimes, you come across the right art / essay / information at the exact right time. Whether due to serendipity or some greater cosmic force, the subject matter or its conclusion seems almost preternaturally tailored to you and your current situation, and provides some nugget of wisdom that guides your path forward. And no, I’m not talking about horoscopes.

I first came across Frank Chimero’s blog via two released released (and hugely popular) posts: A Modest Guide to Productivity and MVP Soundsystem, a guide to listening to music in our age of plenty. Both articles immediately resonated with me, as they presented methods for managing our relationship to technology in a way that works for you, as opposed to letting yourself be driven by technology and its designs on your time and attention (increasingly a popular topic, though ironically mostly in online circles.)

As much as I’m generally drawn to articles that offer methods or systems for greater organization / clarity / space for reflection, his posts and the advice therein seemed genuine  and uniquely human, based on his own experience and shared in an attempted to help others, rather than as a ploy to increase email subscribers or shill a book or course.

My favorite tip, from the Modest Guide:

Get enthusiasm on the cheap by buying a fancy wooden pencil to write everything down. A $3 pencil is now more exciting than a $2,000 computer. Many people will do the most mundane work just to feel a good tool fly.

I’ve since taken this advice to hard, though my apartment is now strewn with more $10 notebooks and $3 pencils/pens than I’d care to admit.

After reading these posts, I made a mental note to check out Frank’s blog and work in general, as he is a designer in “real life.” Last week, I finally visited the archive of his blog, and pulled out several non-design-related posts to read. Three posts in particular have stuck with me, and are the Best Thing I Read This Week™ (yes, I know I’m stretching the concept a bit – it’s my blog and I can do what I want!)

Jettison the Rest (October 2014) deals with the taking on of obligations, and the need to consiously pit those committments against your own desires, facing headfirst “the whiplash of modern life, to automatic and unchecked desire, to the anxiety created by spinelessness.”

I oftentimes feel this spinelessness after a long session of email digestion and response, where at the end I feel no closer to my initial intentions than when I started, yet find myself when reduced mental capacity as a result.

As Chimero counsels, himself inspired by Joan Didion’s 1961 essay on self-respect, “It’s best to identify and do what you’re required and able, then jettison the rest.”

I Can’t Read Walden (August 2014) follows my recent capsule review of reading Walden, where I contemplated what motivated Thoreau to write a treatise on his retreat from the modern world as a 30-year-old.

Chimero, who admits to not making it much further than 15 pages into Walden but successfully imagines its contents and conclusion, ponders Thoreau’s decision to leave behind to “noise” (both literal and figurative) of modern society and dissatisfaction of adulthood.

Chimero sees himself in Thoreau’s Walden, “reflected 150 years in the past, still just as foolish and making the same mistakes I make today.” However, Chimero openly questions Thoreau’s decision to flee from obligations and seek refuge in nature and his own mind:

Did escaping modern life leave you feeling curiously trapped? Were you running away or running towards? And, most importantly, were you ever able to reconcile the tension between enjoying the world and trying to set it straight? I want to ask because Thoreau ostracized himself, and seclusion, for some, can be just as addicting as any drug. It’s a defacto solution that feeds the problem which requires itself as a solution.

As someone who has taken the active step of moving continents, not necessarily beset by the same immediate struggles but certainly wary of the constant revolutions of modern life, this line of questioning opened me up to questioning my own desires of retreat, whether, as Chimero asks, “those fussy middle parts between the mind and nature  (family, your relations, workplace, city, nation, society, etc.) weren’t a crutch, but the third leg of a stool?”

Lastly, This One’s For Me (March 2014) is a reflection on the eve of his thirtieth birthday. In this post, Chimero takes stock of the various personas we assign ourselves as our identities become more congealed as working adults, and the associated traps that break the illusion of those “perfect personas,” including fear, judgement, and pressure – all enemies of modern life (and especially public life, online.)

The essay is incredibly personal, as it touches on his experience returning to work and the world after the traumatic and unimaginably difficult experience of losing both of his parents, months apart.

At the risk of merely repackinging his powerful words, I’ll just post them here below:

Two terrible years taught me the most important lesson about life I’ve ever learned on my own: you only become bulletproof when you refuse to disguise your injuries. This ends the show and deflates any notion that you have your shit together all the time. The wounds are a gift: with the mask gone, you get to be a person again. You learn how to accept help, and better yet, how to better give it.

Suddenly, all the stakes become much lower. Life is somehow more precious and less. You are a monkey in pants, after all. So what? There’s no need to be loud and stupid and desperate, because the desire that made you behave that way was so convoluted to start. What could those desires be for, and what would you ever do if they were fulfilled? You don’t know. But you shouldn’t feel bad for not knowing or for thinking such silly things. You’re just a monkey, kid, so cut yourself some slack.

In an (long-time, ongoing) attempt to shift from consuming less to reflecting more, I’m hoping to start a new weekly routine, which I’m calling (working title) the best thing I read all week.

While I read tens of articles / news stories / blog posts every week, I end up forgetting most of them hours later, let alone retaining them by the end of the week and beyond.

However, every once in a while there’s an article / podcast / “thing” that completely captures my attention and engages me in an intellectual and oftentimes surprising way. Those are the articles that I hope to highlight here, once a week.

Hopefully, by intentionally singling out a single essay / article for attention and reflection, I can more closely hone in on what’s meaningful to me, and simultaneously spend less time trying to stay on top of the endless news/newsletter cycles.

At the very least, I’ll end up sending less of these articles to my family and friends directly via email, which I’m sure they’ll appreciate.

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Broken Time: “Nardis” and the Curious History of a Jazz Obsession, by Steve Silberman

The article takes on two separate forms, woven masterfully: a profile of Bill Evans, one of the most enigmatic jazz musicians ever (saying something, as every jazz player seems to have their own idiosyncrasies) and a personal essay on the author’s “full-on musical obsession:” the jazz standard “Nardis,” which was written (though never recorded) by Miles Davis but popularly performed by Evans throughout his career.

Silberman covers Evans’ arrival onto the jazz scene playing with Miles Davis as a white musician in a then-black-dominated jazz world, onto his formation of the Bill Evans Trio, and his descent and ultimate demise from drug addiction. Incredible stories are interspersed throughout, including Miles’ initial recognition of Evans (“I know that motherfucker”), his initiation into Miles’ band, the legendary sessions behind Explorations and the Village Vanguard Recordings, and the last chapters of his life, where he was penniless and strung out, yet still seeking out inspiration and pushing the boundaries of his craft.

The author’s background as a science writer focused on the brain and autism provides a unique lens into the work of Bill Evans, who is considered an especially cerebral player. As the author describes, Evans demonstrated a “nearly mystical immersion in the music: a state of pure, undistracted concentration.” While many of his contemporaries grew more frenetic, skittish, and fast-paced in their explorations of free jazz and fusion, Evans’ playing remained meditative and almost-methodical, seemingly seeking out a ‘zen’-like state through his playing. Per Evans himself: “it’s more the mind ’that thinks jazz’ than the instrument ‘that plays jazz’ which interests me.”

In addition, the piece is a study of the act of interpretation, re-interpretation, study, and homage. The author has become something of a scholar of ‘Nardis’ as a piece of performance art, dutifully cataloging and ranking his favorite versions of the song, which span genres as wide-ranging as Latin Jazz and ska. Silberman’s top two versions of Nardis are two different Evans recordings, followed by a gypsy guitar version by Ralph Towner, and then Richard Beirach’s epic version (which sounds very much in the vein of Kamasi Washington). In his drive to understand the song and its enduring appeal to the musicians who’ve played it, Silberman goes to lengths to speak to some of the more inspired interpreters, asking for their own favorite versions of the tune.

Throughout the magic of music streaming catalogs, over one hundred of these versions are conveniently (mostly) available via Spotify, which I’ve compiled below (yet unranked):

The author masterfully weaves his own personal relationship with Nardis with Bill Evans’ relationship with the song, which remained a standard tune played at Evans’ gigs until his death. Despite its mainstay status, Nardis became a vehicle for Evans’ experimentation, including “unusual harmonies, dissonant lines, [and] spontaneous themes.” Later in Evans’ life, as he openly struggled with heroin followed by cocaine addiction (heartbreakingly dubbed the “longest suicide in history” by jazz critic Gene Lees), Nardis was played night-after-night. Up until his death, Evans’ mental energy focused on continued exploration into the depths of jazz music, even as his body increasingly succumbed to its chemical dependencies. Silberman again: “”Nardis” became [Evans’] way of projecting himself into the future–of conjuring another resurrection out of the sheer force of his craft.”

In many ways, “Nardis” is a story of Jazz’s ongoing struggle of breaking through convention while staying true to its founding principles and roots that continues to alienate, frustrate, and captivate fans of jazz, including myself.

After discovering Blue Trane and Kind of Blue as a eager 14-year-old, I remember my frustration with my inability to find things that resembled these two melodically pleasing masterworks. In my mind, jazz followed a single convention: one or two leading horns playing leads and alternating solos with a backing rhythm section keeping time. Over time, led by a continued exploration into these two masters’ discography and continued exploration, as well as my own journey through the catalogs of Blue Note, Impulse, Black Jazz, Atlantic, Colombia and plenty of others, my tastes, as well as my appetites, expanded.

Beyond merely seeking to enjoy the music, I began to try and understand it: its evolution, the setting and context behind the recordings, and their relative importance to jazz music. Each of these musicians, while mostly uniformly trained, underwent their own personal evolutions and explorations deeper into the music. Throwing on a random song by Cecil Taylor, Roland Kirk, Albert Ayler, or Sun Ra might leave listeners confounded by what they are listening to, but with a bit of historical context and background, one might find themselves inspired, or at the very least provoked into thought.

I continue to marvel at jazz’s refusal to sit still, with each era mixing in new ideas and fusing with other music to expand conceptions of the genre, led by 70s jazz fusion like Bitches Brew and On the Corner, the 80s jazz downturn and its adoption of disco and dance music, the 90s revival, led by the Marsalis family, as well as the funk-laden stylings of Maceo Parker or Roy Hargrove, into the 2000s hip hop-infused work of Robert Glasper. At the same time, each era has its own share of with its own series of radicals and pioneers, requiring the listener to try and engage with what they are listening to (try if you don’t believe me, or some of ECM’s catalog). In short, the spirit of Bill Evans lives on, not only through new interpretations of “Nardis,” but also via the unabated exploration of jazz by its practitioners.

1. Despite Maduros re-election in Venezuela and his promises of food for votes, an estimated 4,000 Venezuelans are leaving the country every day for Peru, Colombia, Ecuador, and Brazil, creating further dysfunction in a country already considered a failed state by most.

Last week, the Washington Post checked in on the increasingly fragile state of the country following Maduro’s reelection, and the increasingly sparse civil institutions that undergird any working society.

“If we continue like this, Venezuela won’t even be a Third World country anymore,” said Flores, the school principal.

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2. A recently published study has debunked the famous marshmallow test, which correlated the recipients ability to delay gratification (in this case, by not consuming a single marshmallow based on the promise of a second to come) with successful outcomes later in life. The long-held notion, popularized in a bestselling book entitled The Marshmallow Test: Why Self-Control Is the Engine of Success was that children able to innately understand the benefit of self-control and delayed gratification in childhood would carry into their education and adulthood, and ultimately produce less impulsive, and more successful adults.

Using a larger sample size that spanned across race, class, and parents’ educational level, the revised study tied the child’s social and economic background as the primary determinant behind the childrens’ decision to forego the first marshmallow, with limited long-term correlation between the decision to consume the marshmellow and the childrens’ medium term outcome (using performance in standardized testing as a barometer).

As the Atlantic hypothesized, children who are brought up in relative abundance are able to more easily internalize the promise of a future reward than someone of limited means, where meals, rewards, and other day-to-day routines are less promised.

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3. In the NY Times Opinion section, Paul Krugman provides a “primer” on the history of the politicization of trade and trade “wars” in the United States, and the “political realism” that often outweighs economic theory in trade-related decisions.

While Krugman concedes that it is historically the role of the Executive Branch to manage trade relationships and implement tariffs, he sees no logic or justification for Trump’s levied tariffs.

Related to Trade, NPR podcast Planet Money did a feature on the current state of the WTO several weeks ago that explained the Trump Administration’s efforts to paralyze WTO rulings by vetoing all nominated judges.

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4. Marking the publication of a 930-page collection of the works of Brazilian writer Machado de Assis, NYTimes Book Critic Parul Sehgal writes on the literary legacy of the author, who has been compared from everyone from Dickens to Kafka, and in between.

The collection of stories appears to span decades and various styles, from straight romances to modernist stories to political satire. While a bit maximalist in its scope, the book lover in me has already mentally filed this onto my to-buy list.

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5. With the recent announcement of the June 2018 release of John Coltrane’s  “undiscovered” album, Both Directions at Once, there’s always a lingering doubt in my mind whether is getting the Jimi Hendrix / Tupac treatment – a thirst for new and repackaged material that doesn’t necessarily justify a new release.

However, all signs point to the album being a worthy addition to Coltrane’s catalog, including the “who” (John Coltrane’s reknowned quartet – Tyner, Garrison, and Elvin Jones), “where” (recorded in famed engineer Rudy Van Gelder’s Studio) and “when” (1963 – leading up to the 1965 Love Supreme sessions), not to mention the “what” (a new John Coltrane album!).

Attached to this article was a posthumous appreciation of Coltrane written by the Times’ longtime jazz critic, Ben Ratliff. The article provides incredibly useful contexts for the prodigious rigor and study behind Coltrane’s genius, and his desire to continually improve, expand, and innovate. Ratliff’s commentary led me to reexamine and listen to two of Coltrane’s later albums, Ascension and Meditations, both of which are hardly easy listens, but avant garde, free jazz masterpieces in their own right.

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6. In an article reminiscent of the B”razil’s initial pre-sal discovery and Lula’s 2008 proclamation that “God is Brazilian, Brazil has once again returned to the auction markets to sell blocks of its offshore oil deposits, with global oil corporations like Exxon Mobil, Chevron, and Royal Dutch Shell lining up to own a piece of some of the world’s richest (and most inaccessible and expensively extracted) stores of oil.

Invoking Brazil’s mix of capitalism and state-subsidized industrialization that was so apparent over the past month’s trucker’s strike, Petrobras exercised its ‘legal’ right to own a stake in each of the blocks, as well as serve as their operator. The Economist provided a helpful explanation on the convoluted rules surrounding the purchase and operation of the blocks back in 2013.

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7. The Financial Times checks in on the current state of Bitcoin, which seemed ubiquitious last year as it climbed up to $20k / bitcoin and has since settled around $7k over the past few months.

Using data from blockchain research company Chainalysis, there seems to have been a shift in the trading volume from longer term holders, or investors to traders/speculators, who are focused on the rewards from smaller fluctuations.

While Steven Johnson’s longform piece in the NYTimes Magazine remains essential in explaining the long-term use case and potential of bitcoin, for the moment bitcoin continues to remain primarily an investment vehicle. Quoted at the risk of ridicule years from now, one cryptocurrency observer commented: “Speculation remains the primary use case for these digital assets; merchant or institutional adoption does not appear to be a primary driver of price,”

As the number of coins and their use cases continue to grow exponentially, I am curious to what extent bitcoin will continue to be at the vanguard of innovation and an accurate measure of cryptocurrency sentiment more broadly, or whether the decentralized nature of the currencies will result in a fracturing of investment vehicles and use cases.

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8. This week’s NYTimes Book Review has no shortage of compelling reviews of books that seem worthy of reading, just in time for the summer:

• “Reinventing Capitalism in the Age of Big Data” by Viktor Mayer-Schönberger and Thomas Ramge.
• “How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence,” by Michael Pollan
• The Efficiency Paradox: What Big Data Can’t Do, by Edward Tenner
• The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels, by Jon Meacham
• President Carter: The White House Years, By Stuart E. Eizenstat
• The China Mission: George Marshall’s Unfinished War, 1945-1947, by Daniel Kurtz-Phelan

1. Beth Kowitt wrote a fascinating article on the genesis and hypothesized (as Amazon chose not to comment on the article) vision behind Amazon’s purchase of Whole Foods.

Like most of their entries into new businesses, Amazon’s ambitions for the grocery segment were massive, and for good reason: as the article recounts, just 2% of grocery shopping is currently done online, and groceries are seen as an essential category to win on the company’s growth path. However, unlike Amazon’s other market entrances, the company failed to build its own grocery business due to the massive complexities associated with ensuring the perishable groceries arriving to the end consumer remain both intact and fresh, and then ramping up to a profitable scale in an industry where the average profit margin is 1%. Enter Whole Foods.

Interestingly, the article contends that one of the major things that Amazon was buying in its lock-up of Whole Foods was credibility – the comfort that the consumer has in both the branded (365- and other Whole Foods-labeled) and unbranded (i.e., produce) groceries from Whole Foods. However, the challenges of bolting-on Whole Foods’ retail stores to the broader Amazon machine are challenging, especially as Amazon has already acclimated its consumer to free- or low-cost, timely shipping.

As with most things Amazon, the answer seems to be in the long game. There are certainly synergies to be realized that will buoy Whole Foods’ margins, as well as significant customer overlap (per the article, 81% of Whole Foods customers were already Amazon shoppers — though then again, who isn’t at this point.) Amazon seems to be experimenting and iterating its end-concept for retail, through its expanding bookstore footprint, the Amazon Go concept-store, and the deployment of Amazon lockers at most Whole Foods locations. In addition, by linking its Prime membership with Whole Foods’ customer base, the company . Lastly, its Alexa platform seems to be aimed at creating ‘frictionless’ shopping – moving from creating a grocery list on the voice platform into the groceries themselves arriving at your doorstep hours later. Truly the future.

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2. Umair Haque – known for his provocative and original thinking, has written a piece decrying the United States as the first “rich poor” country.

As he explains, earning $60k (the medium family income) in America is a very different from earning the same in France or Germany, two countries seen as similarly wealthy, due to the extremely high cost of healthcare and other “necessities,” and in turn creates a “middle class” with a much lower quality of life and potentially teetering at the edge of insolvency in the event of an emergency.

As wages have stagnated and inflation has continued to rise, consumer debt has served as a financial buffer for many American families, who pay hundreds of dollars a month in housing and car payments, healthcare, and other basic needs.

Haque argues that despite the US’ status as the richest country in the world, most Americans live a state of constant uncertainty, and are less happier, work more, and are more stressed, creating a new form of poverty that defies traditional definitions, “extreme capitalism meets Social Darwinism by way of rugged self-reliance crossed with puritanical cruelty.”

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3. In typical British fashion, the FT provides a humorous introduction to Jordan Peterson in this week’s Lunch with the FT, claiming that prior to his recent acclaim he was “destined to remain a well-regarded psychologist with a slot on Ontario public TV. Think Frasier without the humour.”

Peterson’s megalomania is apparent throughout the article, as he comments on his “multimedia empire,” sudden celebrity, and, as his former University of Toronto department chair commented in a recent essay, “present[s] conjecture as statement of fact:” “Hospitals may do more harm than good”, “solar power kills more people than nuclear,” and other drivel delivered straight-faced and humorlessly.

When pressed by the FT correspondent to back up his declarative statements and most popular soundbites, Peterson’s responses are surprisingly hollow. He comes off as someone convinced of his own credentials and ultimate rightness, with no qualms about his anointed prophet status or the consequences of any of his statements. Even among the alcohol-less series of Lunches, this one was especially dry.

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4. A worthy appreciation of Studs Turkel in the New York Review of Books, commemorating the release of his vast library of 5,600 tapes of interviews and other stories from throughout his career. The author compares Turkel’s published books, which overwhelming focused on the everyman and his radio shows, which oftentimes interviewed prominent celebrities, thinkers, and artists.

With such a vast library of content to dig into, I’m oftentimes intimidated and unsure where to start.

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5. In part 2 of The NY Times / ProPublica story on the murder of high school teacher Mickey Bryan and the conviction of her husband for the crime, the reporters focus on a the forensic discipline of bloodstain-pattern analysis, which was used as the primary evidence by the prosecution in the case.

While “experts” are often called on to testify and provide their “professional” opinion on cases involving blood splatter, these analyses are explained to be extremely subjective, and the bar for expertise to be extremely low, as little as a course and the passing of a subsequent exam.

The authors demonstrate the specious basis of bloodstain analysis, and the problematic air of “science” surrounding its use for the prosecution and acquittal of murder cases, which oftentimes pits two competing analysts against one another on the basis of the same evidence. In the case of the Bryan case, the bloodstain pattern expert called upon by the prosecution had just one 40-hour course under his belt, which, per the appeal lawyers, was “the equivalent of allowing a first-year law student to represent a defendant in a capital-murder case.”

The article is a maddening example of the inadequacies of our justice system, and the tendency for human egos to win out over what’s right. Whether or not Joseph Bryan killed his wife, it is clear that justice was not served.

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6. In this week’s NYTimes Magazine, Wesley Morris convincingly argues that the militancy of critics and fans, and their ‘canonization’ of both old works and newly crowned “masterpieces,” has reached a fever pitch of conflict and derision in our current moment of divisiveness and polarization.

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7. Amidst the vast corruption associated with FIFA leading up to this summer World Cup, Chinese companies are spending hundreds of millions of dollars to reach the estimated three-billion viewers who will tune in throughout the competition. Per the NY Times Magazine, the Chinese companies’ exertion of “soft power” serves to “solidify China’s growing bond with Russia and signal a global economic shift from West to East.”

The article also mentions Xi Jinping’s broader soccer ambitions for China, using “soccer diplomacy” (the construction of stadiums and broader support of soccer in the developing world) to build ties across the world, as well as his continued investment in building soccer’s popularity in China. Unfortunately, Xi’s investment and attention has yet to reflect success by the Chinese team on an international level, who remain ranked #73 in the world based on FIFA’s 2018 rankings.

1. Several weeks ago, a NYTimes correspondent and photographer visited Easter Island, the likely scene of the first major landmass to become a victim of climate change, as the erosion of land from rising sea levels threatens to envelope the island.

The resulting report not only includes gorgeous video and photography, but also presents an initial case study for managing the effects of climate change and its consequences that will likely leave the people of Easter Island homeless and landless.

Aside from its impact on the Island’s residents, archeologists are now pitted with a race against time to conserve the Island’s rich cultural and anthropological history, as well as discover its principal mysteries: discover many of the island’s mysteries, namely the civilization of Polynesian explorers that inhabited the island approximately one thousand years ago and constructed more than 1,100 moai statues using methods that are still largely unknown to scientists.

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2. Per a fascinating paper recently published by the Stanford Graduate School of Business, East Germans invest less than their counterparts who were raised in non-Communist environments. When they do buy investments, they are more likely to hold stocks of companies in communist countries (such as China and Russia) than US-based companies.

From the authors:

East Germans with negative experiences invest more in the stock market today, e. g., those experiencing environmental  pollution and suppression of religious beliefs and those without access to (Western) TV entertainment. Election years appear to have trigger effects inducing East Germans to reduce their stock-market investment further. We also provide evidence of negative welfare consequences, as indicated by investment in more expensive actively managed funds, less diversified portfolios, and lower risk-adjusted returns.

This has been a long-held suspicion of my that has been amplified while living in Brazil, so it’s interesting to see it validated by academic research. As I’ve witnessed firsthand, Brazil’s experience living through hyperinflation in the mid-90s has impacted their personal finance habits to date (more than 20 years later), resulting in an extremely low savings rate relative to their GDP per capita, in line with similarly inflation-ridden Argentina and war-torn Iraq. In obvious contrast, the US’ steadier economic growth and lack of major incident seems to have encouraged broader investment and stock market participation, which has carried across generations.

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3. Alan Cumming reviews the latest collection of essays by David Sedaris, Calypso. Cumming is effusive in his praise of Sedaris, who is one of our generation’s most beloved American writers, claiming that reading the book had the effect of changing his worldview, to one that’s “weirder and funnier and darker and bleaker than, well, real life.”

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4. This week’s NYTimes Magainze Letter of Recommendation resonated with me more than most: drinking at lunch. Just several months removed from my time as an American worker, I was shocked to read the results of a survey conducted on American lunch breaks: 16% reported taking a 1-to-15 minute lunch break. 45% reported taking a 16-to-30-minute lunch break, 25% take 31 to 60 minutes, and a just 2% take more than an hour.

The author of the piece calls to mind the bygone tradition of the beer or two- or three-martini lunch, and argues that drinking at lunch is an act of resistance against our age of 24/7 connectivity and productivity, where lunch is oftentimes food-accompanied-by-work, rather than a work-less opportunity to recharge and reflect.

Here in Brazil, where an hour-long lunch is the norm and few bat an eye at a two-hour lunch break, the idea of eating at one’s desk is complete anathema. The “lunch hour,” as it’s called, is not only to eat out with colleagues, but also to get a mid-day coffee or resolve any necessary mid-day errands. In fact, the COO of our company recently admonished several workers for doing so, imploring them to at least bring their lunch to a common area.

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5. Anytime the NYTimes enlists Mark Leibovich to write a longform piece on the latest in Washington, it’s usually worth putting aside 20 minutes to read. The depth of his sources and his ability to get Washington’s key players to say things on the record that they wouldn’t nearly anywhere else (without the Wolff-ian embellishment) is near-unique in a town where everyone has something to say. Beyond that, Leibovich is a master of bridging the current events that are covered and analyzed to death with a straight face, and expose the sheer absurdity of them – the petulance, careerism, and wrongheadedness that is at the center of American politics.

In this weekend’s piece, Leibovich looks at the President’s communications infrastructure, who are pitted with the “absurdist proposition” of acting as a mouthpiece for a mouthpiece itself. In Trump’s White House, leaks have consumed the daily news cycle, whereby seemingly every day a new comment made by Trump or someone within his circle makes its way to the Press via “confidential” source(s) – as many as five in a recent leak on Trump’s animus towards Amazon. This whirlwind of daily “news” has slowly become the new normal, leaving the Press Secretary, who is accountable for near-daily meetings with the White House pool, to clean up, or more often, talk around the mess.

Leibovich shares his own experience as a correspondent pitted with covering Trump’s unpredictability and the futility of Trump’s minders. He expresses his personal frustration and admonition for the Trump Administration’s conflation of the “mainstream” press with the infiltration of the Russian intelligence arm into the US election, defends the Press and their pursuit of the truth, and is critical of the Press Secretary’s role in obfuscating the truth and demonizing the press for seeking it out in the first place. Ultimately, we are left with the feeling that Trump’s spokespeople are speaking as if they’re being closely watched by an intensely insecure and temperamental President, and are solely acting to win over his affection (and keep their jobs).

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6. I’ve increasingly learned that I’m a sucker for true crime, having ‘binged’ my first show in recent memory, Netflix’s Evil Genius miniseries, last week.

This week, the NYTimes Magazine released its first installment of a two part-story on the murder of a central Texas high school math teacher.

The story, which was done via a partnership with the non-profit investigative journalism outlet ProPublica, tells the story of the murder, subsequent investigation, trial, and conviction of her husband, the school’s principal, for the murder.

Familiar elements of wrongful convictions seem to be present in the case, reminiscent of the heartbreaking Death Row cases recounted by Bryan Stevenson in his powerful memoirs, Just Mercy: pressure felt by an overmatched local police force to reach a conclusion, dubious rumors and hearsay that snowball into consensus, and a willingness to ignore logical explanations or minimal evidence in a rush towards a conviction.

The article emphasizes the limitations of pre-DNA evidence investigations: convictions seemed to be much more reliant on scant evidence and the testimonies of biased or motivated witnesses or experts. Despite a jury’s decision of guilt, these themes laid out in the broader context in the case run counter to the commonly held notion of a burden of proof and innocent until proven guilty.

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7. A$AP Rocky’s latest album, Testing, is out this week, and the NYTimes covered his performance-piece-cum-album-release party at Sotheby’s. Hopefully the music speaks for itself.

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8. Tim Harford writes in the FT about the “promise” of the ultra-long term as an universal solution, and its associated danger: despite the “wonder” of compound investing, an investment valued at zero will still be zero no matter how long your time horizon is.

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9. David Frum succinctly summarizes on 15 criminal law questions that ensnare President Trump (for the moment) in The Atlantic, ranging from pedestrian tax evasion and money laundering, to million-dollar hush payments, to business- and bribery-based influence peddling and foreign efforts to impact the US election and democracy. While I’m no a Presidential historian, 15 seems a bit higher than usual.

On a related note, a recently released book (also reviewed by Frum in The Atlantic) argues that the threat of impeachment serves to energize and entrench the President’s base of support, rather than adopt or convert newcomers to the cause. While this seems counterintuitive at first blush, it also makes sense given the unwavering support of Trump’s base throughout the noise-laden primary and general elections, as well as Trump’s quietly-increasing approval rate.

1. I’ve been mulling over the article written by Dan Nosowitz for New York Magazine’s Select All page – I Don’t Know How to Waste Time on the Internet Anymore. Nosowitz laments the fact that our time web browsing has increasingly concentrated on a select number of sites (in his case, Twitter, Netflix and Facebook, in my own case, Reddit, Youtube and GMail), as opposed to the more free-form, quirky collection of blogs, discussion boards, and random webpages that made up the Internet 1.0 (otherwise known as the pre Facebook age, say 1995-2005?).

As Tim Wu and others have chronicled, this reflects a concerted effort on the part of Big Tech to monopolize your time on the internet – both via web browers and mobile.  

Incidentally, in commemoration of the 25th anniversary of Cyan World’s first game, the immersive Myst, I’ve been playing Myst’s sequel, Riven, which builds on everything that was so great about Myst, and improves on it. In comparison to our current age of maximalist, big budget games, the game is an incredible example of the concept of doing more with less – in this case, gorgeous art and sound production to create an immersive gaming experience.

In particularly thorny spots, I’ve unintentionally traveled back in time to the bygone internet era described in the article – the video game walkthrough. These guides were written by passionate, unaffiliated authors on old Angelfire and Geocities pages with ASCII art and walls of Courier font – no clickbait slide shows or jump-cut-laden Youtube videos. Nostalgia, ultra.

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2. From the ongoing “Infuriating Accounts From Inside the Trump Administration” Series, Evan Osnos reports for the New Yorker on the ongoing dysfunction and distrust inside the vast collection of Federal agencies and departments.

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3. An always upsetting check-in from the Economist on the upcoming Venezuelan elections on May 20th. Maduro is currently polling second behind an opposition candidate, but it seems unlikely to expect any semblance of a Democratic election (Maduro’s term ends in January – ample time to falsify / nullify results). Bravo to John Oliver for shining a broader light on the situation to the American, HBO-watching public.

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4. In this weekend’s NY Times magazine was an article that, on its face, seems almost too logical and straightforward to be the subject of a longform piece: the importance of a long-term relationship between a medical doctor and patient in primary care.

The article accurately captures a lot of what I am most repelled by when it comes to the US healthcare system – the conflation of one’s health and the human need for care in improving livelihood with the financial concepts of profit and loss. The fact that an Economist (in this case David Meltzer, who is both an economist and a primary-care physician) needs to prove that there’s a long-term beneficial relationship between a doctor and his long-term patients is both sad and a clear statement on the current state of the US healthcare system.

As the article recounts, the inability to maintain a single primary care doctor and consistent care disproportionately effects the poor, which creates a cycle of escalating costs and poor outcome. When people don’t have caregivers in their family, longtime doctors, or funds to ensure transportation and care in the United States, they suffer. 

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5. Christopher Nolan is releasing an restored version of 2001: A Space Odyssey in US theaters this weekend after premiering the film at Cannes last week. 

However, in a mix of nostalgia and the continued insistance of the supremacy of analog film by many of our greatest filmmakers, Nolan has chosen to “unrestore,” rather than “restore” the film. 

His goal is to provide filmgoers with the experience of seeing 2001 the way audiences saw it in 1968, with all of the imperfections of film. Nolan compares the difference between film and the digitization of the film: “the best analogy for the way the eye sees, [the] most immersive, the most emotionally involving.”

Immersive is the key word to me. Like other artifacts of the analog age, viewing movies in a movie theater may be one of the last refuges of concentration, and devoting that concentration to the deep colors and overall richness of film is certainly a worth endeavor in my eyes.

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6. Trump’s actions on trade (and related sanctions) seem haphazard, impulsive, and unplanned, just like his broader Presidency to date. The Economist surveys the delicate balance in global commerce under the Trump Presidency, who has increasing used financial sanctions to pressure countries to kowtow to its political will.

The Economist asked whether Europe would be willing to impose the sort of retaliatory sanctions on the US that the Americans plan to levy on the Europeans and European companies for their ongoing commercial relations with Iran. Former Obama officials see this as incredibly unlikely, citing the increasingly dollarised world, businesses and banks are so worried about being shut out of the financial system that there is in fact “over-compliance” with the legal requirements imposed by America.

Per an US Executive: “Trump is the sort of guy who punches you in the face and if you punch him back, he says ‘Let’s be friends’. China punched back and he retreated. The Europeans told him how beautiful he was, but they got nothing.”

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7. Late last year, I picked up the book Other Minds, which is a remarkable pop science account of the incredible and unique properties of the octopus and its related species (squid, cuttlefish, etc.).

The book’s author, Peter Godfrey-Hall, is a Professor of the History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Sydney. Godfrey-Smith has devoted his career to the “philosophy of biology,” studying the origin of life on Earth and its evolution.

Through his study of octopi in labs and oceans across the world, Godfrey-Smith contended that the octopus’ brain and cognitive function, including its nesting habits, range of vision and ability to intuitively camouflage, are foreign to any other known species, and therefore fall outside all known evolutionary trees.

Now, a collection of scientists have published a paper speculating on the origin of the octopus, and its prehistoric antecedents, positing that they could be “extraterrestrial imports.”

The transformative genes leading from the consensus ancestral Nautilus to the common Cuttlefish to Squid to the common are not easily to be found in any pre-existing life form – it is plausible then to suggest they seem to be borrowed from a far distant “future” in terms of terrestrial evolution, or more realistically from the cosmos at large.

“One plausible explanation, in our view, is that the new genes are likely new extraterrestrial imports to Earth – most plausibly as an already coherent group of functioning genes within (say) cryopreserved and matrix protected fertilized Octopus eggs.

“Thus the possibility that cryopreserved Squid and/or Octopus eggs, arrived in icy bolides several hundred million years ago should not be discounted as that would be a parsimonious cosmic explanation for the Octopus’ sudden emergence on Earth circa 270 million years ago.

Cool stuff.