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A golem revolt. Pratchett must be the best living satirist in the English language.

My country was such a different place before FDR and World War II. It is a struggle to see that world through 19th and early 20th century eyes. FDR’s responsibility for the transformation cannot be underestimated and this book does an estimable job of reviewing his life and work. Highly recommended. But having finished it, I can’t say I have any idea where his radicalism came from. Perhaps this is not the fault of the book; he seems to have been a fundamentally private person. And a truly singular one at that.

Full confession: I skimmed the last two chapters. Spoiler alert: some people really like tulips.

Although both written by economists, the contrast between this book and “Are You Missing the Real Estate Boom?” is so stark in every way, in matters of both style and substance, I am afraid if I put them next to each other on the same shelf a literary vortex would form and proceed to swallow the entire written record of human existence. So I won’t do that.

One last one in Open D. This is Elizabeth Cotton’s version of Vastopol. I guess she spelled it with an ‘A’.

Vastopol

This is my 1000th blog post. Huh.

Not so easy to describe this one. Damn funny, though.

This may be my favorite John Hurt tune of all. Open D.

Payday

It’s an Open D marathon. This is a classic parlour guitar tune, Grossman version.

Vestapol

Lewis explains why the Oakland A’s do so well with so little money (relatively): they actually try to figure out the difference between a good ballplayer and a bad one. With math, no less.

Another one in Open D.

Sitting on Top of the World