What are economists good for anyway?

I look at Tyler Cowen and I ask for one main piece of information: Does this man have a sense of humor? Yes or no. This is a binary decision.

Once I have the answer to this question, if I happen to be entering my apartment building from its southern angle, I abdicate my own sense of humor to the doorman. The truly successful man — and I learned this from reading Dale Carnegie, Tony Robbins, and Tyler Cowen — is one who simply says yes or no. Just as when you are presented with a pair of breasts in front of your face. You either nibble the nipple or you walk away and make money. One choice or the other.

There can be no room for vacillating over a decision. No room for irony. No room for emotion. Long tail. Long tail. Tipping point.

We live in a world in which gray areas are no longer possible. It is the critic’s job to write like Harriet Klausner. Forget those who dare to plunge further. Google has made them irrelevant. I bore easily. Like Tyler Cowen. I am more concerned with my dividends.

Imagine that. An asshole who believes in nothing but antipodean qualifiers. Is it any wonder why so many people think Tyler Cowen is a very silly man?

To me, the most valuable economists are those who write silly sentences contained within short paragraphs. Because there is the illusion of pithiness.

Sometimes I think it is enough to replace my brain with Ubuntu and have some hacker control my every critical thought. The unexamined life is well worth programming.

Lazlo Kovacs dead.

I’ve met Howard Junker — the man was silly enough to drink a barely drinkable pint of Pabst Blue Ribbon with me — and I also email him from time to time. He’s a quietly intelligent and friendly gentleman. I also know that he’s outspoken about what he likes and what he doesn’t like. He does this not to be spiteful, but because he cares tremendously about literature. Like any good literary enthusiast, he demands the best out of people. And if that means telling people point-blank that their work isn’t up to snuff, then that’s simply the way that Howard operates.

But for Stephen Elliott, a writer who purports to chronicle misfits and the misunderstood, a remark Junker made at a competitive reading contest was enough to send him over the edge.

Elliott misheard a remark that Junker made concerning Elliott’s “literary merit.” Elliott didn’t come up to Junker or ask for an apology or express his anger or initiate any attempt to clear things up. (As Howard wryly notes, Elliott didn’t even ask to settle things in the alley.) Instead, he threw beer onto Howard Junker, as well as the new owners of the Booksmith — who are also both very kind people. There was no explanation. No effort on Elliott’s part to talk things out.

Junker immediately left the room without causing any additional fuss. What was Elliott’s response? “I don’t understand why Junker left that night. I had a shirt in my bag he could have borrowed.”

I realize that Elliott has had a tough life. But this does not justify acting like a boor in the present. Particularly when the target is as understanding a man as Howard Junker. Things did not have to escalate to this level.

As Junker noted, “‘Literary merit’ is not a term I use on my own, and it is certainly not among the criteria I use to judge a man as a man. A man, I feel, should be able to hold his beer. Should be able to take his lumps. Should exhibit courage in the face of adversity. And so on.”

The very least that Elliott owes Junker is an apology. Real men own up to their mistakes.

What Elliott did is far from taking his lumps, far from exhibiting courage, and far from being a gentleman.