This is the third installment of my hopefully endless series of jazz/bluegrass/bossa nova/Afro-Cuban/etc. recommendations. (First installment & second installment) I can’t explain why jazz isn’t all anyone ever listens to. Hoping to infect you with my excitement by giving you more free samples… Luna Watanabe & Masato Honda Tokyo Train ...

I read quite a few books in 2023, mostly as audiobooks while making coffee, taking long walks, doing laundry, raking leaves, watering the lawn, showering, washing dishes, preparing lunch, brushing my teeth, shoveling snow (ominously little of that these past several winters!), etc. I sometimes even enjoy watching sports – mostly condensed soccer match highlights from around Europe – with the sound off while listening to an audiobook. You can find a lot of time to “read” if you put audiobooks (or podcasts) on your phone (which you can likely borrow for free from your local library!) and seize the many opportunities that arise when your brain is only half occupied with simple tasks/chores. ...

In June, I committed to practicing piano at least fifteen minutes a day for the rest of my life. Here are a few new recordings for anyone curious how quickly a middle-aged man can learn piano with non-intensive daily practice. Georgia On My Mind Sweet Georgia Brown Fly Me to the Moon My previous update (Christmas songs) ...

I’m blessed to live in a safe, walkable town with plenty of trees, good sidewalks, a pretty downtown, and several lovely parks. I used to jog frequently and play squash, but I’ve grown lazier. I now enjoy long walks. On days I’m too busy working, I’ll often walk late at night around our local middle school because it’s nearby and has good lighting. (I occasionally see deer, foxes, and bunnies!) ...

Six months ago, I bought a Yamaha DGX-670 – which I’m very happy with – and committed to spending 15+ minutes a day for the rest of my life learning piano. As I explained in Never Stop Learning… Slowly; Old dog learning new tricks in small, daily steps: I’ve said many times that I’ll die regretting I never learned to play jazz. After hearing myself say that one too many times, I decided to do something about it. I have too many other things I love and want to do to spend hours a day becoming a musician, but I decided I could set aside 15 or 30 minutes a day for the rest of my life to learn piano. ...

NOVA’s “Ancient Earth” I yesterday discovered a fascinating new NOVA science series, “Ancient Earth,” which presents scientists’ best understanding of our amazing planet’s 4.5 billion-year history. Earth began as a molten, lifeless, hellscape with no atmosphere or oceans and evolved step-by-step over billions of years into the amazing live-rich planet we’re lucky enough to inhabit. This incredible story – which enabled your existence – is told by the scientists themselves and depicted visually with visits to rocks and fossils that informed our understanding of our planet’s evolution and with graphical recreations of ancient Earth. ...

This is the second installment of my hopefully endless series of jazz/bluegrass/bossa nova/Afro-Cuban/etc. recommendations. (First installment) I can’t explain why jazz isn’t all anyone ever listens to. Hoping to infect you with my excitement by giving you more free samples… Red Rodney, Chris Potter, and Bill Watrous Girl from Ipanema ...

You can find additional music videos in this series at: (Jazz I love (2/?)) I love jazz (and its many cousins, including: bluegrass, bossa nova, Afro-Cuban, etc.) and listen to and watch a bazillion performances. I honestly don’t understand why everyone isn’t obsessed with jazz. In the hope you either love jazz and are looking for new artists or have a latent love of jazz you’re about to discover, here are some artists I love, with one performance from each: ...

I really enjoyed this fact-filled conversation about education, friendships, community/neighborhoods, inequality, social and geographic mobility, role models, and college admissions between NYU professor Scott Galloway and Harvard professor Raj Chetty: I encourage you to watch the whole conversation, but I’ll highlight one thing Professor Chetty said: ...

Aside from the thousands of Chinese protestors – possibly 10,000 – murdered by the CCP in the Tiananmen Massacre, I long admired post-Deng Xiaoping China and its pragmatic approach to economic growth that lifted hundreds of millions of Chinese out of poverty. And 28 years ago, I married an amazing woman from China and began seriously studying Mandarin. As I was completing my economics Ph.D., I had a fellowship to study advanced Chinese the following year and was excited to be choosing between The Inter-University Program for Chinese Language Studies (IUP) at Tsinghua University (China’s MIT) and the Hopkins-Nanjing Center when the U.S. bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, Yugoslavia on May 7, 1999. On TV, I watched Chinese hurl Molotov cocktails at the US Embassy, where I had recently helped a fellow Stanford economics Ph.D. student from China skip the line. Instead of pursuing my dream of becoming a professor of Chinese political economy, I drifted into tech but have remained fascinated by China. ...