Cold Comfort

Ebola is far from the first disease to be politicized. Venereal diseases in particular invite political grandstanding, which for centuries has been one of the infections’ nastier side effects. My degree is in history and classical humanities, so I have no expertise and no opinion in the current debate about what quarantine standards should or should not exist for those in contact with Ebola patients – other than the opinion that, as in other politicized matters, too many folks with opposing views are ungenerous when describing each other.

However, the talk of quarantine touched something in a dusty corner of my memory. Some readers might be familiar with former NASA scientist Randall Munroe. On his website What If Munroe gives serious scientific answers to even the most absurd questions. Examples: How long could I swim in a pool of spent uranium fuel rods without it being fatal? (Answer: As long as you can swim without tiring and drowning. Water is great at absorbing radiation which is why spent fuel rods are stored in deep pools of water. So, unless you dive down right next to the rods you’ll be fine; near the surface you’ll actually be partially protected from normal background radiation and so will receive a lower dose than if standing in open air. Munroe notes that a bigger risk is getting shot by a security guard.) What if everyone in the world aimed a hand-held laser pointer at the moon? (Answer: nothing visible.) He backs up the answers with appropriate data. One old question involved quarantines.

One reader asked, “If everybody on the planet stayed away from each other for a couple of weeks, wouldn’t the common cold be wiped out?” Answer: Maybe, but probably not. Diseases rely on the chain of infection. If, on average, each person with a cold does not infect at least one other person, that particular rhinovirus will fade away. Rhinoviruses are completely eliminated by a healthy person’s immune system within two weeks. Ah, you caught that qualifier. That’s where the “probably not” comes in. We don’t all have healthy immune systems. It is almost certain that cold viruses would survive far longer than two weeks in some people – also in some animals since not all infectious diseases are species-specific. From that remaining pool there is every likelihood that colds would spread out again. Then there are the practical problems of a universal quarantine. Some people absolutely must go to work – and interact with others while there – in order to keep modern civilization from collapse. How long would the electric power grid, for example, last without intervention? I suppose essential workers in principle could isolate themselves by wearing hazmat suits, but I wouldn’t count on compliance.

On the other hand, for reasons having nothing to do with disease control, the proposal to avoid other people for two weeks has a decidedly pleasant sound to it. Maybe we’d all be a little less cranky with each other after such a two week vacation.

This Halloween I’m Dressing as a Stockbroker

In a typical October, the trees shed their leaves and stocks shed their value. This one is no exception. During Halloween month, the scariest place is not the cemetery but Wall Street – not so much for the traders, who (unless trading on their own accounts) make money regardless of what the market does, but for the rest of us.

Very few “rules of thumb” for investors stand the test of time. There is a random element to price movements that baffle even expert analysts. For two decades Alan Greenspan was the most respected central banker in the world, yet in his latest book he admits he totally misread the movements of asset prices while in office. What hope is there for the rest of us? Strangely enough, one idiotically simple rule of thumb has been a winner for centuries: “Sell in May, go away.” The months November-April really have had better returns than May-October; October in particular repeatedly has been nasty indeed. A hypothetical investor who put $10,000 in stocks reflecting the S&P in 1958 (a recession year) and then followed the sell-May-buy-November strategy now would have a portfolio of $544,323. The reverse strategy (buy-May-sell-November) would leave the investor in 2014 with $9,728, a $272 loss. Professional investment advisers tend to pooh-pooh the sell-May strategy, because it seems to make no sense. To them it has the smell of superstition: an unreliable interpretation of a statistical oddity. Yet it is hard to dismiss the persistence of the pattern. Besides, it does make sense in human psychological terms, if not in terms of the underlying economic realities. Octobers are bad for the market because Octobers historically are bad for the market. It is self-reinforcing. Investors, aka humans, are jittery creatures when they suspect bears are about, either in the woods or in the market; they know October is an especially ursine infested month, and flee on hearing the first scary rustle or grunt.

Beyond this simple calendar trick, investment strategies by individuals and professionals alike are surprisingly useless. Often worse than useless. Several years ago Terry Odean, professor of finance at Berkeley, analyzed 163,000 trades in 10,000 individual brokerage accounts. Clearly the account-holders expected to benefit by the trades, i.e. do better than if they simply had held the stocks they sold. Yet, overall, the stocks they sold did better than the stocks they bought by an average of 3.2 percentage points. (Why? The human tendency to sell stocks that are up from their purchase price and to keep those that are down until their prices recover – “loss aversion” – meant they dumped their strongest stocks and ended with a weaker portfolio.) Odean and his colleague Brad Barber published an oft-quoted paper called Trading is Hazardous to Your Wealth, which demonstrated that active traders on average do worse than less active ones. Individuals who simply hold a diversity of stocks can expect to track the market. Beating the market rate of return is a matter of luck, and luck, as we know, is fickle.

 “Experts” are scarcely better with their stock picks. When Nobel-winning economist Daniel Kahneman was preparing a talk for investment advisers he received a wealth of data on their performance from their employing (well-known) firm. The advisers’ bonuses were based on the performance of their investment picks, so they had every incentive to choose well. His analysis of the data: “The results resembled what you would expect in a dice-rolling contest … the firm was rewarding luck as though it was skill.” To be sure, there really is a substantial amount of education and skill required to count as a financial expert. Few people understand how some of the more arcane derivatives really work. There is a huge amount of information (product lines, industry trends, balance sheets, corporate culture, etc.) to be evaluated when trying to make an informed judgment about a particular company. Yet, the informed judgments prove to be as hit and miss as the uninformed, for there are always more factors than what you see. As for whether the company is overvalued or undervalued (whether the stock will fall or rise), “Traders apparently lack the skill to answer this crucial question, but they appear to be ignorant of their ignorance.”

Well, as Socrates noted some time ago, this is not an uncommon human condition. I don’t pretend to be immune to it. I’ve never followed the sell-in-May strategy, for one thing, though I’d be far far better off if I had. My informed picks (not only in finances, alas) usually have been worse than my random ones. Yet it’s hard not to overthink the next decision anyway, even knowing that it won’t help. That, I suppose, is human, too.

1929, the archetypical Crash. Mr. Forbes' advice to buy was off by a few years: 1932 was market bottom. 1933 was the best year ever for stocks (yet to be surpassed) even though the Depression would last until 1940.

More Midnight Movies

Time again for mini-reviews. As is my current habit, I paired each newly viewed flick with an older one to make double-features.

Are You Here (2013) – This is billed as a comedy, but, despite the presence of Owen Wilson, Zach Galifianakis, and Amy Poehler, unless the viewer has a peculiar sense of humor it isn’t. This mis-billing may account somewhat for the dismal rating on Rotten Tomatoes. But only somewhat. It is not a particularly upbeat film. Ben is well meaning, idealistic, and generous, but he also has serious mental health issues and lives on the margins of society. His childhood friend Steve is modestly successful as a Maryland TV weatherman, but he is a pothead Peter Pan whose most serious romantic relationships are with the prostitutes he hires. Ben’s estranged father dies and leaves him a valuable farm in Lancaster PA; this distresses Ben’s hard-headed sister Terry who thinks (with some justice) Ben is incompetent to handle an inheritance. Complicating matters at the farm is Ben’s stepmother Angela, a hippie-ish woman younger than he is. Steve in his shallow pothead way tries to be supportive of Ben while taking a fancy to Angela. All of them clash, but from those clashes they painfully learn to appreciate life as it is – Ben with the help of medication – even if it is less than they would like it to be. It’s not a terrible message. Too bad it isn’t in a better movie.

Network (1976) – This film is so much a part of the culture that it scarcely needs a summary, but the final line is a pretty fair one: "This was the story of Howard Beale, the first known instance of a man who was killed because he had lousy ratings." Howard Beale is a newscaster who goes bonkers on the air, but the viewers like what he has to say. Ratings soar, so the network goes with the flow and lines up other outrageous shows. When Beale’s populist message undoes a deal important to the conglomerate that owns the network, however, the CEO gives Beale a lesson on why his ideas are passé in a world administered by global business.  Beale buys it and begins to spread the new message. Narrator: “It was a perfectly admissible argument that Howard Beale advanced in the days that followed. It was, however, also a very depressing one. Nobody particularly cared to hear his life was utterly valueless.” Ratings slip, so executives arrange for Beale to be killed on the air by members of one of their other reality shows. Faye Dunaway, William Holden, and Peter Finch all give great performances.

** ** ** **

Edge of Tomorrow (2014) – Tom Cruise is still doing action movies, and doing pretty well with them as often as not. In this high budget scifi film a hive-like alien race has invaded earth. The central coordinating alien entity, called the Omega, is able to reset time by a day if things go badly in the invasion, which makes the aliens very hard to defeat. By accident this ability is transferred to a cowardly soldier named Cage (Tom Cruise). The catch: he has to die to reset time. As he relives the day of combat over and over, getting killed time and time again, he gains skills and, more importantly, character. He also gains an affection for Rita (Emily Blunt) who has a reason to believe him. Will his increasing ability and knowledge about the aliens enable him and Rita to take out the Omega? Well, that question is answered (where else?) in the final reel. Thumbs up.

Rogue Moon (1960) – OK, I’m cheating. This isn’t a movie. It’s a novel by Algis Budrys. But it kept coming to mind while watching Edge of Tomorrow, so I include it here. A large alien artifact has been found on the moon. It contains a labyrinth that must be traversed in a particular way to be survivable. But how do you learn the way? How do you learn from your mistakes if the first mistake kills you? An earth scientist has developed a matter transmitter something like what we see in Star Trek, but it can transmit two copies as easily as one. The plan is to transmit one copy of a person to a sensory deprivation tank and the other to the moon; it had been discovered that a sensorially deprived copy maintains a psychic connection with the copy on the moon and experiences all that one does – the deprived one is unaware he isn’t on the moon.  So, the same person can be retransmitted (and get killed in the labyrinth) time and again until he works his way through. The problem is finding someone who won’t be driven insane by experiencing the repeated slayings.  Fortunately, there is a thrill-seeking adventurer named Barker with a sociopathic girlfriend named Claire. Barker is the right man for the job. Even he is shaken by his repeated deaths, but they prove to be just what he needs. He is the way he is because of dark issues of his own, but, in conquering the labyrinth, he satisfies his death wish and emerges a better man – actually two better men. One stays on the moon so as not to complicate things on earth.

** ** ** **

Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) – Though nowhere mentioned in the movie, the reference, of course, is to Thomas Paine’s The Crisis: “The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.” Though a duck out of water with his Greatest Generation values in the 21^st century, the Cap answers the call of duty as we expect him to do. SHIELD, for which Captain America works, supposedly consists of the good guys, but it has been infiltrated by Hydra – and why not? Where else would power-hungry evil-doers set their sights? The power of SHIELD to defend the earth is also the power to oppress it. While publicly re-branded as a villain, the Captain with help from Black Widow and others must take down SHIELD and face off against his old friend Bucky. Underlying the plot is the notion that all authority is by nature…well, authoritarian. As Marvel superhero movies go, this one is pretty good.

The Green Hornet (1940) – This can be found as a 13-part serial and as a 1990 feature length movie recut from the last six episodes. Both work. Britt Reid, the Lone Ranger’s nephew, along with Korean martial arts expert Kato fight organized crime by posing as criminals. By day Reid is a playboy editor of a major newspaper. When in the mood for WW2-era fictional heroes, why not go for an original instead of a reboot? Great fun.

Black Beauty, Green Hornet's ride (Lincoln Zephyr)

** ** ** **

The Maze Runner (2014) – With the success of The Hunger Games it is unsurprising that other post-apocalyptic films based on YA novels would be funded by the studios. In this one a pleasant glade is surrounded by a seemingly impenetrable maze of walls; the maze is patrolled by deadly beasts called Grievers. Delivered by a box into the glade at a rate of one per month are young men who have lost their memory. The result is not Lord of the Flies savagery; the boys establish order, which some are more rigidly inclined to maintain than others. Something about Thomas, the last of the boys to arrive, is different though. Then the box delivers a girl Teresa. (Readers of the novel series know that there is a Site B that is all girls with one boy, but Site B plays no role in this film.) Whether the glade is intended as a metaphor for the real world of clueless people confined by complex barriers put in place by a hidden and cruel elite with unfathomable motives is for the viewer to decide. Thomas has dreams about life before the glade and they include Teresa. He eventually remembers that all this is a test of some kind. He thinks he knows a way through the maze, so, defying the rules of the glade dwellers, he leads those willing to follow him into it. As you might expect, this ends in a set-up for the sequel due in theaters next year. Upshot: it’s no Hunger Games, but it is passably entertaining.

Games (1967) – Katherine Ross and James Caan are a wealthy young New York couple with way too much time and money on their hands. They play intricate and scary pranks on company and each other for amusement. The arrival of a psychic (Simone Signoret) raises the intensity of play to a new level – including murder. This is a good little thriller and is marvelously 1960s.

** ** ** **

Life after Beth (2014) – Zombie movies are a staple of the horror genre. Few of them interest me, so my only hopes for this one lay with the appealingly off-beat actress Aubrey Plaza. Those hopes were partway (yet only partway) met. Zach and Beth (Aubrey) have a troubled relationship, which only makes Zach’s grief worse when she dies from a snake bite; too much was left unsaid and unresolved. Beth digs herself out of her grave and returns home, but she has memory problems and unusual strength. Zach – at first thinking her supposed death was a hoax or some awful mistake – begins to doubt she is really alive. Then other deceased people start showing up in town. Somehow, in a way not made fully clear, the events have something to do with the unfinished business of Zach and Beth. This is a comedy, strangely enough, but more dark than broad. I don’t recommend going out of one’s way to see it, but when looking for a new movie to watch during Halloween week, one could do worse than this.

Night of the Comet (1984) – This film is one of the basics of 80s teen movies. A comet passes near the earth and humans exposed to its emanations are desiccated right down to crystalline dust. Only those who were surrounded by steel (in most cases by accident, as in the back of semi-trailer) are spared. Those with partial exposure are doomed but pass through a phase of being flesh-eating zombies. When survivors Katherine Mary Stewart, Kelli Maroney, and Robert Beltran go on the air at a still functioning radio station, they attract the attention of a team who had predicted the catastrophe and taken cover. Uh-oh, the team made a stupid mistake that gave them a little (but still too much) exposure. Their plans for a cure make them as dangerous to the survivors as the zombies are. This is a fun campy flick that doesn’t try to be anything more. It doesn’t need to be more.  

Life After Beth Clip

It Was Night in the Lonesome October: Corporal Punishers vs Hudson Valley Horrors

Having been beaten by the Risky B’s of the NJRD last week in a see-saw bout, the Hudson Valley Horrors returned to Morristown NJ last night for a swipe at the Corporal Punishers of Morristown’s other league, the Jerzey Derby Brigade.

The Corporal Punishers have lost some of their veteran skaters in the past year, thereby reducing the pool of fresh replacements, but they remain a scrappy force. Nonetheless the Horrors jumped to an early lead as Cherry Lifesaver gathered points in a power jam. The first 10 minutes looked as though the bout might by a runaway as Horrors jammers, notably Daemon Mistress and Blazy Susan, powered or maneuvered their way through stiff blocking by the Punishers, including a take-down of Blazy Susan by Doom Hilda. The Punishers recovered their footing, however, and slowly closed the gap. ApocElyse and CaliforniKate for the Punishers were repeatedly able to add a few points per jam while their blockers stepped up the aggression, with Foxie Five-Hole delivering an especially hard hit to Daemon Mistress. At 20 minutes, the score stood at 61-43 in favor of the Horrors, which in derby is an extremely vulnerable lead. In the final minutes of the first half the Horrors expanded their lead in power jams thereby giving the Punishers an uphill battle for the second.

Both teams stepped up their game in the second half, with tough blocking leading to pile-ups. Yet, despite game jamming by Brass Muscles, CaliforniKate, and Beast Witherspoon, the increase in energy favored the Horrors. The Horrors added steadily to their lead, finishing the bout with a final win of 218 – 87.

MVPs

Corporal Punishers:

jammer – Beast Witherspoon

blocker – Brass Muscles

Hudson Valley Horrors:

jammer – Prada G

blocker –  Pinky Swears

Table Talk

Orson Welles (1915-1985) remains a puzzling figure in the history of cinema. He looms over American filmmaking thanks to his acknowledged masterpiece Citizen Kane and yet retains a reputation as a “might-have-been.” This is surely unfair. It is true that he spent years of preparation on numerous grand projects that never got off the ground (King Lear was the last of these), but he did complete an enviable body of work as director and actor/narrator: The Stranger, Othello, Touch of Evil, Chimes at Midnight, F for Fake, among others. I omit The Magnificent Ambersons as it was recut by the studio, to his fury, to have a happy ending.  It is also true, though, that his movies, including Citizen Kane, were not commercial in their own day. Sometimes they weren’t even well received critically until years had passed. Reviews for Chimes at Midnight, now regarded by many as his best work, in 1965 were sniffy. This undercut his financing, which explains all the unfinished projects. He was so chronically short of money that he appeared in Paul Masson wine commercials and acted in dreadful films such as Butterfly (a Pia Zadora vehicle) and was happy for the work.

Orson was a first class raconteur, as those old enough to have seen him on TV talk shows recall. Those interviews often made me wonder what he would have been like in more unguarded moments. Now we know. In the 1970s Welles befriended the younger director Henry Jaglom. Welles' very last screen appearance would be in the quasi-documentary Someone to Love, Jaglom’s inquiry into modern love and why it doesn’t last. From 1983 to 1985 Jaglom recorded their lunch conversations – at Welles’ suggestion according to Jaglom but with the stipulation that the tape recorder be hidden so he could ignore it successfully. Excerpts are collected in My Lunches with Orson, now in paperback.

Ignore the recorder Welles did. The dialogue certainly reads as though Orson doesn’t feel someone outside the table is listening. Jaglom seems more self-conscious, objecting (for the record?) to some of Orson’s casually un-PC remarks. Orson spills dirt on everyone from Charles Laughton to Charles Chaplin to Carole Lombard to Katherine Hepburn to his personal friend FDR – and on himself for cheating on Rita Hayworth. Despite his solidly leftist credentials, Welles has kind words for British fascist politician Oswald Mosley, not for his politics but for his friendliness as a host. While discussing John Wayne, he annoys the very partisan Jaglom by saying of right-wingers that, except for their politics, “They’re usually nicer people than left-wingers.” He does speak about his work amid all the personal chatter, too, but that is not the reason to read this book. The reason is to experience pulling up a seat to a table with Orson and friends – including Jack Lemmon on one occasion. During one conversation, though, Richard Burton walked over and asked to bring Elizabeth Taylor to the table. “No,” Orson said, “as you can see I’m in the middle of my lunch.” After Burton retreated Jaglom objected, “Orson you’re behaving like an asshole.” Orson answered, “He’s ruined his great gifts. He’s become a joke with a celebrity wife. Now he just works for money, does the worst shit.” Jaglom refrained from noting the jobs Welles took just for the money. There is something fascinating about witnessing the iconic Welles being a very human jerk while still displaying flashes of brilliance.

This shouldn’t be the first introduction one has to Orson Welles (other than through his movies), but the book nonetheless is hard to put down. It also is a warning – as if Richard Nixon’s weren’t enough – not to record what you don’t want public or shared with posterity.  With the spread of technologies such as smartphones and Google Glass we may not have a choice much longer. Whether these will increase our inhibitions (Jaglom?) or cause us to shed them a la Welles remains to be seen.

Orson paying the bills

Doom without Gloom

It sometimes happens that one suddenly encounters a rash of references to some relatively obscure person, topic, or work. I don’t mean something or someone in current events, for that would be unsurprising. Nor do I mean something or someone obscure to people within a specialized field (art, music, history, one of the hard sciences, or what-have-you), for that truly would be weird. I mean the repeated mention on TV/radio talk shows, in magazines, and in journals within a short span of some lesser known impressionist painter, or epicurean philosopher, or silent film director, or medieval general – someone or something notable, to be sure, but not high in the present-day consciousness of the general public.

Such rashes could be coincidence. Or perhaps the references feed off each other as a writer or talking head uses something he or she just heard to make a new point. Then again, perhaps the references happen all the time, but the listener or reader suddenly becomes conscious of them for some random or personal reason. Maybe all three. However that may be, I’ve recently had the experience with regard to existential philosopher and psychologist Ernest Becker who published The Denial of Death in 1973 just before he died. Among psychologists and philosophers, Becker is anything but obscure. He won a posthumous Pulitzer Prize in 1974 for The Denial of Death, the key book of terror management theory. Among other folks, though, he is not a household name. Yet, for no obvious reason, he turned up in a dozen different articles I read in the past couple months. (This blog makes it a baker’s dozen.) So, proving that repetition sometimes works as an advertising method, I bought the book. It is a dense but rewarding read with sometimes startling insights on writers from Kierkegaard to Freud.

It long has been noted that, among all animals, only humans know intellectually that they will die. Others creatures may feel it in their bones as when a jackrabbit runs from a coyote (another way of saying they react instinctively to threats), but only we, so far as we know, conceptualize death. Becker, whose mind was focused by his own terminal illness, tells us that we spend most of our energies denying that terrible knowledge, developing civilization, art, religion, and neuroses in the process. In a sense there is little difference between an obsessive compulsive hand-washer and a prolific artist; both are engaged in an effort to deflect doom, the former in an essentially superstitious way (he feels something bad will happen if he doesn’t do the ritual) and the latter by creating something that will survive himself. Both attempts ultimately are futile – art may survive a long time but not forever. Like the world itself, it will vanish one day. The artist is more likely to be happy, though. Becker has a lot of respect for Freud and offers astute commentary on him, but he believes Freud erred in emphasizing sex rather than death as the fundamental human motivator. In short, Becker tells us reality is legitimately frightening, so we sublimate our fears into endeavors (many of them neurotic) that divert us from our sense of doom: whether building a family, designing bridges, or identifying with some ideological cause, we try to find a way somehow to survive ourselves. Becker offers no grand solution because none is possible, but he does offer some kindly advice on how to face one’s inevitable demise with dignity.

This is not the cheeriest of books, but I can see why it is a classic. As for his points of disagreement with Freud, by the way, my own opinion is that the mature Freud (not the younger one still finding his way), who did write of the Death Instinct as well as Eros, had the balance of motives closer to right – Becker might have been overly focused by the immediacy of his own personal end. Nonetheless, all of Becker’s remarks on psychoanalytic theory are thoughtful and worthwhile. Thumbs up.

Season Closer

The closing bout of the season for the NJRD took place last night in its home rink in Morristown, NJ. The NJRD’s B Team the Risky B’s, consisting of newcomers (and relative newcomers) stiffened by a few veteran skaters, took on the Hudson Valley Horror Roller Derby ZomB Squad.

ZomB took an early lead. S. Scar Go and Ultra Sonic Boom proved effective time and again against the B’s defenses. Pina Killada’s persistence, pressing on after hard blocks and knock-downs, also added points for ZomB at key moments. Despite scoring by Risky B’s jammers, ZomB Squad held its lead for most of the first half. The turning point came when B’s Chase Windu scored 29 points in a single power jam, pushing the B’s ahead 72-50. ZomB chipped away at the spread; Ultra Sonic Boom added points in power jam as the halftime clock ran out. Score at halftime was 89-78 in favor of Risky B’s.

During halftime, the NJRD’s junior derby, the Small Stars, skated a 10-minute demonstration bout, dividing themselves into white and blue teams. (See their facebook page.) The white team prevailed 34-24, though all skated well. I expect to see a few of them in the adult teams in the not-too-distant future.

In the second half of the primary bout, both the Risky B’s and the ZomB Squad toughened their blocking. The B’s tactical coordination has gotten better lately. Carcinojen on the ZomB side was particularly effective, though she took a serious tumble near the end of the bout. The B’s put a various jammers to the fore, including Nutin’ But Trouble who scored points on her one jam, but Luscious Malfoy and Chase Windu did heavy lifting as jammers. The B’s efforts paid off, and they expanded their lead as the clocked ticked down on the entertaining match. The Risky B’s prevailed with a final score 195-131.

MVPs

Risky B’s:

jammer – Luscious Malfoy

blocker – Alcaspaz

ZomB Squad:

jammer – Ulta Sonic Boom

blocker – Carcinojen