Zombies Attack Chicago!

Last weekend, Wicker Park played host to a massive band of roving zombies. The horde of undead had collectively risen and come out for a Michael Jackson Thriller Zombie Walk, an event one part flash mob, one part killer dance moves, one part gore. When Melissa jokingly suggested going ("Check out this facebook event...not to say that we should go"), my only question was, "Why aren't we going?" So on Sat night, I found myself in a bathroom, dousing my hair with talcum powder and applying circles under my eyes with the appropriate rest-in-unpeace zeal. The end result looked something like this:

To further prepare, I also spent some time analyzing the Thriller dance. Actually, there seems to be a cottage industry of instructional videos that show you how to get the perfect blend of Jackson-finesse and jutting, angular movements. My personal favorite was this 80s (parody?) video of "Totally Rad Dances with Dancing Kim," in which the narrator talks about how the Thriller dance is "totally cool" and she is "totally obsessed" with it. If you are looking for a more accurate version of the choreography though, I recommend this 40-part video series with helpful mnemonics for each dance move. I can now do the March Booty Swim!

At this point we were running 15 minutes late, and racing to get to the meeting point of Wicker Park. I mentally surveyed our options for the rest of the night should we not find the zombie horde; what bars could we hang out inconspicuously at with outstretched claws?

Luckily, as we were walking down Damen, we were greeted with the sound of howls and screams in the night. All of the sudden, we were in the midst of a mass of people who looked something like this:

There were definitely a few confused pedestrians who got caught in the zombie invasion. One guy said to his friend, "And this is why we live in the suburbs." (Then he pretty much put on a shirt that said "I am a square.") Actually, the event invitation made sure to emphasize a few ground rules, the first one being "No touching of pedestrians!" Also, "Do not drip blood on the sidewalks!"

We continued down Ashland towards the Polish Triangle, hooting at cab drivers, banging fists on bus windows and reaching outstretched claws to people who had otherwise been having a peaceful al fresco dinner. At first, we tried to stay on the sidewalks, but as the crowds grew in size and unruliness, the zombie mob ended up blocking street traffic and intersections. It was like being at Critical Mass, only with fewer bikes and more blood. (Wait, scratch that, there's plenty of blood at Critical Mass too.) And for hipster-approved Irony, there was even an Anti-Zombie Task Force of people clothed in black leather waving batons, trying to arrest and control the zombie horde.

After looping back to the Damen/Milwaukee intersection, we milled around in front of the Wicker Park Fest stage, until a security guard tried to shoo us out of the street. Someone muttered, "Yeah? There's 700 of us and we don't have to go anywhere!" Then, a bike with a stereo system trailing it pulled up to the front of the crowd, and on cue, we all began to dance.

Dancing to Thriller in the middle of the moonlit street in sync with hundreds of people dressed up as zombies was one of the most surreal experiences of my life.

At the end of the night, it was pointed out to me in the middle of 7-11 that there was a bloody hand print on the back of my shirt. Grr, and I really liked this shirt too! If it doesn't come out in the wash, I am going to personally hunt down the perpetrator and make them wish they were undead. I have no idea when it happened or who did it (was it the guy that I gave a fake name to?), but let's just say the Thriller Zombie Walk left an indelible imprint on my life.

Why Our Meetings Rock

"Is there a Super-Duper Senior?"

"Nationally, we're back to 2003-level home prices."

"That's so much better than the stock market!"

"So, this picture is telling me that I shouldn't be worried because my bank is well-capitalized?"

"Yeah, they're well-capitalized...by us."

"Instead of presenting the forecasts, why don't we just show the SNL skit on Geithner?"

EconomyCat is Sad

The next FOMC meeting is on the 27th, which means that here at the Chicago Fed we are busy as beavers, preparing our forecasts for the new year. At a department meeting this afternoon, there was abysmal news from nearly every sector and the mood was downright depressing. Financial markets? A few spreads are down from historic highs, which means credit conditions have gone from "outrageously bad" to "really bad." Labor? Last month's unemployment figures were uglier than Anna Nicole Smith. Manufacturing? Like Steve Jobs' weight, steel production is 41% of what it was a year ago. On the bright side, at least we don't have the inflationary pressures that we had a year ago, but this will change quite soon when the printing presses are running full-speed.

Toward the end of the meeting, we began brainstorming ideas for what to do when the economy is going to hell in a hand basket. As you might expect, there are no easy policy prescriptions, particularly when the federal funds target rate is already at/near zero. Should we continue introducing programs to buy troubled assets? This will at least keep the Acronym-Generating sector fully productive. What if we move into the business of buying longer-term debt? How can we justify buying some assets and not others, implicitly making value judgments on certain goods? Will the Fed be able to eventually disentangle itself when it needs to exit these markets?

At least the current situation makes for plenty of dark humor, as evidenced by the following comments:

"The unemployment numbers are in...the good news is, everyone in this room is still employed!"

(Looking at the S&P 500) "This is where I'd retire at 60, this is where I'd retire at 70, and this is where I'm never retiring."
Me: "Oh yeah? Well, this is where I pay for your social security."

"All the business guys want to know which sector is going to grow this year."
"Don't worry, academic publishing will save us all."

Let us all cross our fingers that Obama (and his $825B stimulus package) will prevent a crippling depression.

Finally, I particularly enjoyed these captions (courtesy of Dealbreaker) from yesterday's US Air plane crash in the Hudson. (Too soon? I've decided that since no one died, the answer is no.)

Obamatown

As I was heading out of the Loop tonight at rush hour, I was dismayed at the backlog of traffic near Clark & Jackson. Squeezing my bike toward the front of the intersection, I could see several policemen stopping all vehicular, bicycular and pedestrian traffic. I asked one of the cops how long the delay would last, and he told me, "Just wait two minutes." Much to my annoyance, the surrounding intersections also appeared to be blocked off, so I couldn't maneuver around the blockage. I silently fumed and exchanged irritated looks with the biker next to me.

Then a slew of flashing police cars sped down the street, followed by a series of black SUVs. It was Obama's motorcade! As we all cheered and craned our necks, you could see Obama (or a look-alike?) chatting on his cell phone, waving to the crowds outside. He passed not even 10 feet away from me!

As it so happens, today's NYT featured a nice article on Chicago's resurgence in national importance since the election. I was particularly amused at the way the article draws broad generalizations on the attitudes of Chicagoans: we are "humble," have a "strong sense of self," and "comfortable to losing." In other words, we have endured years of playing second fiddle to New York, but good old-fashioned Midwestern sensibilities allow us to brush the water off our backs. And though I resent being stereotyped, a lot of it has basis in truth.

Chicago, as Carl Sandburg writes, is a no-nonsense city. It does not have the urbane sophistication of New York, the liberal elitism of San Francisco, or the political clout of Washington. What it can offer though, is a slice of down-to-earth pragmatism topped with the amenities of an urban center. We tout our deep-dish pizza and hot dogs, but we are also home to the jibarito. You can take in the drunken revelry in Wrigleyville after a Cubs game, or you can check out a Lyric Opera performance in the Millenium Park.

So here's to Chicago's increased national prominence! I still don't support the city's 2016 Olympics bid (I think we have too many infrastructure problems and not enough money to host that), but I am proud to call the city home, and even prouder that Obama is a fellow Chicago resident. At least until Jan 20th.

Don't Panic!

This article is one of the best accounts of the last two weeks of financial turbulence out there. It's written in layman's terms; if Dan Brown wrote a thriller about Wall Street, this would be it.

Times are very bad indeed, and with every new development, I am reminded that I am living and experiencing unprecedented events, while working from the Fed no less. We had a town hall meeting yesterday afternoon, to give an overview of the financial market turmoil and answer questions about how the Fed has been impacted. I decided to ask what would happen if the bailout bill didn't pass, what other magical tricks does the Fed have in its bag? The answer wasn't exactly comforting.

When I went home for the day, there was a quartercard attached to my bike, inviting me to join a protest against the Fed next week. Among other things, this group was protesting the bailout because it was "illegal" and "immoral." LMAO. Should I join in on Monday morning?

Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me

Through my vast, mostly untapped connections, I managed to score a last-minute comp ticket to a taping of NPR's Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me. This is generally taped on Thursday nights in the basement of the Chase building in the loop, an odd location for a quirky show.

The show focuses on current events, and features several types of quizzes and contests between phone-in callers and guest panelists. This week, we were honored with the presence of Boston Globe writer Charlie Pierce, Washington Post columnist Roxanne Roberts, and comedian Paula Poundstone. Unfortunately, Carl Kasell was away on vacation, so Corey Flintoff graciously stepped in as our scorekeeper, announcing to us, "I want America to know, that I am, like, totally ready to lead."

That of course set the stage for this week's comedic fodder, featuring the infamous Paris Hilton presidential campaign ad, a spoof of McCain's spot comparing Obama to major celebrities.

The first thing I noticed was how much of the live show would be drastically edited and polished into a one-hour segment. The taping lasted about 2 hours, and only an hour of that would make the cut to air. This should reassure anyone who calls in on taped radio shows, because it means your awkward pauses and incorrect answers often get edited out of the show. In an effort to make everyone a winner, you are also supplied with ample hints to answers, and opportunities to guess again.

Awkward pauses aside, the redactions also mean that many of the less appropriate jokes are cut. Pierce's line about Bush making it to the locker room in time to see the wrestling team's clean & jerk will not make the air. Nor will Sagal's comments about breaking up with himself via Slydial, because "it's not me, it's me," "I just don't have any chemistry with myself," and "a man's got needs." I'm willing to bet that a lot of the political banter that was overtly anti-Bush and anti-McCain will also get cut. (NPR lives up to its reputation as a liberal bastion!)

It also appears that sitting in front of a computer all day at work is doing wonders for my knowledge of current events. I recognized a broad variety of stories in the quizzes, from the guy who called 911 after a Subway worker didn't make his sandwich properly, to the $79B surplus in the Iraqi government's budget, to the impending foreclosure of the Shire, a fantastic neighborhood in Oregon inspired by Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. Particularly now that I know how difficult it is to sound stupid on air, I am tempted to submit my name as a live caller. Good thing this isn't common knowledge, otherwise we'd have a serious moral hazard problem on our hands.

After the show, a few minutes was spent re-recording selected lines from the script, bits that weren't clearly spoken the first time around. You could hear the producers through the headsets, giving Sagal directions and page numbers of sections to redo. The audience tried to laugh politely at the jokes for the second time around.

The show will air on Saturday morning (check your local station listings for times). If you listen carefully, you might hear my notoriously distinctive laugh.

Random Acts of God

In a freak accident (very much in the vein of Wilder's Bridge of San Luis Rey), a semi-trailer truck barreled off the Dan Ryan Expressway at 5:20 pm this afternoon and into the Cermak/Chinatown red line train stop. The truck barreled through an intersection and straight into the escalator at the station. Two people died and at least 21 were injured. The driver himself was fine and left the hospital after being treated.

This is the stop that I use most frequently, and though I generally prefer to avoid trains and bike instead, today I opted to leave the bike at home because I needed to bring an apple cake into work. (It was Haley's last day of work at the Fed.)

After work, we headed to Phil's for a session of Dungeons & Dragons. Earlier, I'd decided I didn't feel like driving to Phil's because last weekend, I was the designated driver, and I wanted to have the option to drink this time. If I hadn't insisted on being an alcoholic, we would have been taking the red line to my place to pick up my car, and could easily have been on the train at that time. As I walked past the wreckage tonight, it was a sobering thought.

Quake!

Last night at 4 am or so, I rolled over in my sleep, and awoke with the startling realization that my legs were shaking. Small vibrations, as if the neighbors were having a party with subwoofers in frequencies that I somehow couldn't hear. The thought that I might have some sort of crazy neurological disorder (multiple sclerosis? Parkinson's?) crossed my mind. The vibrations went on for 15 or 20 seconds, and then, brushing it off as a dream, I went back to sleep.

Still disconcerted the next morning, I went to my computer and googled "sleeping motion sensation." After some quick browsing, I came to this conclusion: I was coming down with restless leg syndrome. Oy!

Then, I went to work and someone mentioned the 5.2 magnitude earthquake that rattled Illinois last night. It was a reminder that on a geological scale, we are all but specks on a wall.

A "War" on Asians

So, the past month is clear evidence that time spent on class substitutes away from blogging activity. I keep thinking of things to write about...and then doing math instead.

Anyway, Jie forwarded an article to me a few days ago, attached with the question "Is America still collectively anti-Asian?" Before reading, I would not have hesitated to answer "no," but this article gives me pause. Perhaps I've been living in yuppie, "progressive" parts of the country for too long?

The United States has a long history of institutionalized discrimination against Asians, beginning with the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which banned and limited Chinese immigration for the subsequent 60 years, the first (and only) instance of federal immigration law targeting a specific ethnicity. This legislation was fully repealed in 1943, and was followed by the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. However, most people are wholly unaware of all this, for a number of reasons. (Personally, I would know much less if I hadn't written a paper on Angel Island for history during junior year of high school.) The first is the prevailing myth of the "model minority," that because a portion of Asians have assimilated and have achieved academic and financial success, all Asians are similarly well-off and don't face the usual minority struggles. The second is the lack of a figurehead to act as a civil rights leader. There is no Jesse Jackson equivalent to advocate for the Asian community, which makes it more difficult for our voices to be heard.

Earlier this week, the University of Colorado Campus Press published a piece titled "If it's War the Asians Want, It's War They'll Get." Now, I fully understand that college newspapers, including the Cornell Sun, often publish silly items and radical opinion pieces. However, this article takes things to an extreme, and masquerades hate speech as satire. It calls for Asians to rounded up and "hog-tied," and then lists a three phase plan for their "reformation," all the while listing a stream of racial stereotypes.

In the morning, the Asians will arrange themselves in rows, if they haven't naturally done so already. I will stand in front of them and hold up a card with the name of an emotion on it such as, "sad," or "surprised." The Asians must then make a facial expression to match the word on the card. Any Asian who remains deadpan or makes the wrong face will be tickled until they pee. When all Asians make the correct face at the same time, the game will end, but then they will be yelled at for being conformists.

Frankly, I'm shocked that this even got published in a campus-wide newspaper. Campus Press editors later issued a statement emphasizing that the article was not meant to offend, but was intended to be satirical. I can take a joke (and I've heard plenty of comments in my day about being an Asian female driver), but this was about as funny as a plan for a mass lynching or a concentration camp. Not only were the article's claims ludicrous, but the proposed plan was chilling in its thoroughness. Everyone else I spoke with was similarly appalled, but in response to the question "Do you think a satire entitled 'If It's War The Asians Want' is racist?" on an ABC-7 Denver poll, 48% of respondents voted "No." I'm not quite sure what to make of that, and whether the use of the word "satire" versus "piece" would have made a difference. (To contrast, for an example of well-written satire, see "Stuff White People Like.")

Not surprisingly, the author has a history of inflammatory writing and inappropriate comments. He also went to Amherst High, which is about half an hour away from my house. (wince*)

And the Nobel Prize in Economics goes to...

The 2007 Nobel Prize in economics was announced today, and goes to three American economists: Eric Maskin (Princeton), Roger Myerson (Chicago), and Leonid Hurwicz (University of MN). As is often the case, the winners were not on the "short list" of potential candidates, but turned out to be unexpected dark horses.

This is the sort of story that journalists have nightmares about--a bunch of economists, whom they've never heard of, win a Nobel prize for developing a discipline, mechanism design theory, which they've also never heard of. To explain briefly, a mechanism is a framework of rules that enable a market to function efficiently. Many markets don't need mechanisms to work well, but lots do (think organ allocation, public goods like utilities or water, or the sale of rare paintings). Mechanism design can take a variety of forms, like taxation or the creation of auctions.

At age 90, Hurwicz is the oldest Nobel laureate in history. There was some talk that if the academy wanted to award him, they needed to do it soon before he died. As for Myerson, there was no shortage of opinions on him from the Chicago alums around the Fed cafeteria.

"One time, Myerson was running up the stairs so I held the door open for him at the top, and he blew right past me without saying a word!"

"Ha, in his mind he was probably thinking 'And that's the way it should be.' Myerson is notorious for taking things out on his grad students whenever he's angry. Apparently, one time he was pissed at Levitt (of Freakonomics fame) over, I dunno, a hiring decision or something, and at this grad student's seminar presentation, he just completely ripped a new one in him."

In the meantime, I'd like to give a shout out to this year's Ig Nobel Prize winners, who are recognized for quirky, entertaining and sometimes scientifically legitimate research. This year's laureates include the developers of the "gay bomb" which would provoke widespread homosexual behavior amongst enemy troops (Peace), researchers who ironed out the problem of how sheets get wrinkled (Physics), and Cornell's very own Prof. Brian Wansink, who studied mindless eating behavior using self-refilling bowls of soup (Nutrition).

Marathon Madness

The Chicago Marathon took place today and with the race route going down my street, it certainly made its presence known. As a matter of fact, I woke up bright and early at 9 am to the sounds of a rock band on the street corner. Super, I understand the need to keep the runners pepped and entertained, but there's no way you will make it to mile 22 just one hour after the start of the marathon, for crissakes. After a few valiant attempts to roll over, I decided to just climb out of bed and watch the marathon.

By this time, it was around 11 and the sun was beating down on the crowd outside. Runners were streaming past, and with temperatures in the high 80s and pushing 90, they were streaming sweat and mostly looking haggard and miserable. The Chicago Marathon is considered one of the easier competitions for marathoners because of the city's level terrain, but with the heat and humidity at record highs, no race records would be set today. Actually, runners were dropping like flies, collapsing on sidewalks and clamoring for water at the hydration stations. One man died and about a hundred others were taken to the hospital. Around noon or so, the race was called off and runners were told to return to the finish line. That pretty much killed my newly inspired goal of running the '08 marathon. (Damn global warming.)

Meanwhile, the elite runners had finished the race in dramatic style. I particularly enjoyed the live updates posted on the marathon website for the women's race:

10:35am - The men's winning time is confirmed as 2:11:11.

In the women's race, Pirtea still holds the lead, 25 seconds up on Adere. She can see the finish line and appears a sure winner. But Adere is sprinting like crazy.

10:37am - Pirtea is waving to the crowd. She has no idea that Adere is coming on like a jet plane. Adere is sprinting as if this is a 200 race. Pirtea thinks she has won. She has no clue of the danger. Adere is closing with every stride. She overtakes Pirtea just 50m from the line. Pirtea responds, but it's too late. Adere is charging for the line. This is incredible. Adere has retained her title. Pirtea is stunned. She collapses at the line. Notably, at 40K Pirtea had a 30 second lead. Kate O'Neill takes third.

And that kids, is why you never let down your guard.