quantifiable

In general, nations with a higher measure of gender equality also have higher levels of Emotional Investment. As gender equality increases, though, the increase in women’s Emotional Investment score is greater than the increase in the men’s score. Everyone is more loving with greater gender equality, but the difference between men and women’s tendency to love diverges as equality increases, so that women become notably more loving than men in countries with high gender equality. Economists have long struggled with the realization that while we recognize that culture matters for economic outcomes, only quantifiable evidence can tell us by just how much. Cultural traits are often difficult to quantify, unfortunately, and the absence of reliable measures leaves us with a hand-waving exercise, the reliability of which our mathematically-oriented minds find difficult to accept.

Subtil nettoyage

« Ce qui n’était que pigment sur la terre est glorifié dans le ciel par le moyen de la transparence, écrivait Paul Claudel à propos de la Sainte-Chapelle. Ces panneaux de verre coloré autour de nous, c’est la matière sensible au rayon intellectuel. Voici le paradis retrouvé. »

irresistibly quotable

“No other critic approaches [Sheed’s] ability to synthesize the vast literature on a subject or to illuminate a writer’s oeuvre in a short starburst of words.” It’s those starbursts that led fellow critic Jonathan Yardley to call him “irresistibly quotable.” Barra’s tribute was almost entirely a list of “Sheedisms,” and I can’t blame him. It’s almost impossible to write about Sheed without simply offering a buffet of his epigrammatic genius:

[Edward] Albee can no longer wait to tell us what’s on his mind: his plays are coming perilously close to his interviews . . .

It seems [Robert Lowell] was strictly a line poet, string them as you will, so that his poems are like all-star teams that haven’t practiced together.

I have never seen (or joined in) such drinking as the Lit set could contrive in those days. So what would have seemed like a personal drinking problem elsewhere was lost in the crowd, and Berryman drifted into alcoholism without noticing. He and Schwartz had once talked with contempt of writers who drown their talent in booze, but both would now proceed to do so themselves, having badly misjudged the undertow.

Best of the Year Award

The fifth annual design competition recognized superior interior design projects and products in more than 70 categories. Cindy Allen, editor-in-chief of the magazine, described the achievement as “a perfect trifecta” of honors for Andre Kikoski Architect, whose 2010 distinctions for the Wright also include the James Beard Award for Outstanding Restaurant Design and the Gold Key Award for Excellence in Hospitality Design. Since opening in December 2009, the Wright, named for the Guggenheim’s famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright, has received numerous accolades for its innovative design. The 1,600-square-foot space features a curvilinear wall of walnut layered with illuminated fiber optics, a bar clad in innovative custom metalwork and topped with white Corian, and a sweeping banquette with blue leather seating. The modern American menu, which emphasizes seasonal, local, and sustainable ingredients, was created by David Bouley protégé Rodolfo Contreras. Reflecting the museum's modern and contemporary focus, renowned British artist Liam Gillick was commissioned for a site-specific work, titled The horizon produced by a factory once it had stopped producing views (2009). Conceived as a sculpture that can be expanded or contracted to fit any designated space, Gillick constructed a sequence of horizontal planks of powder-coated aluminum mounted to the walls and ceiling.