What Would Indiana Jones Read?

Why, a 1939 edition Paideia: The Ideals of Greek Culture.

The Strand bookstore is one of my favorite places to buy books. Apparently, it's Indiana Jones' favorite as well. The current issue of The New Yorker has an article, Books in Bulk, that begins-

"Between digging for artifacts and dangling from cliffs, Indiana Jones must have very little time to read, never mind to buy books Luckily, he has a team of people to do it for him Dr. Jones—as represented by the set decorator for the forthcoming film “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull”—recently engaged the Strand Bookstore’s Books By The Foot service, which provides ready-made libraries for private homes, stores, and movie sets."

The Books By The Foot service (my new dream job) can be used for sales or rental, and there's eighteen different types of service. "Bargain Books" service nabs you random hardbacks for ten bucks a foot. A "Leather Looking" library for your bookshelves in the Hamptons will set you back seventy five bucks a foot, while the real deal "Antique Leather" is a mere four hundred dollars per foot. Egads.

I go to The Strand for bargains and the occaisional migraine, who knew you could pay money for someone to browse for you?

Now Calling, The Google Phone!

Just when you thought you'd have to wait two presidential elections before you could afford the iPhone, Business Week just announced that Google has been working on a phone of their own. You have to wait until the second half of 2008 to become an advertising whore.

"That kind of 24/7 advertising engagement--on a phone, no less--may sound like a nightmare. But what if you could determine the kinds of products you get pitched? Or, when your flight gets canceled in a faraway airport, text messages pop up for the best hotel deals in town? No random insurance ads or airline deals for trips to places you never visit. Best of all: Watch or read the custom ads, and your phone minutes are free. For big cell carriers, that's the real nightmare. And it may be coming in the form of a Google phone."

There's already GOOG-411 and Google SMS for free info texted (is that a word??) to your phone. Does the cell phone trauma never end?

These Are A Few Of My Favorite Things (a song you don't want stuck in your head, sorry...)

Last night M and I finished up watching the TV series The West Wing. It was sad to see our friends leave our living room, but I, who loves a good rebound, immediately went to my computer and re-ordered our Netflix queue. Netflix just happens to be one of my absolute favorite everyday parts of my life that are here simply because I was trying to save $.

So here's a list, in no particular order, of my favorite things I can't live without, and how they got there to begin with; by saving me money.

*Netflix. I love that I have access to the worlds largest cache of DVDs. I love zenning out to queue accumulation. I love finding great flicks off of my Netflix friends' queue. And the cost benefit? Prevents me from getting cable, and if you could have only seen the Blockbuster fees I was racking up every month! Sure, I could have been better about returning my movies on time, but hell wasn't freezing over anytime soon.

*The Park Slope Food Co-op. Okay, this is a tough one, and anyone who lives here will laugh at me, but I am hardly above group riddicule. Food Co-ops serve their community with stocked shelves of goodness, and they are a fraction of the cost of the over-priced Whole Foods. So the Russian breadline-like checkout aside, I eat better for a lot less money.

*TJ MAX and Marshall's outside of the city. While I don't do it frequently, I do like shopping. I know the Marshall's exit off the highway between New York and Boston, I know there's one in suburban CT near M's folks, I know that I can drive 70 mph and dodge traffic and be mid-sentence and still spot one off the side of the highway. And I know that there's nothing like grabbing a coffee (shopping outside of cities seems to always happen in shopping plazas), and losing a good two hours of my life in that elevated state of elation that shopaholics know all too well.

*Matinee Movies. In downtown Brooklyn there is a large movie theater that has $7.50 matinee movies. With my free Regal Cinema card, I get points for buying tickets. One of these days, perhaps after I see a thousand films, I will get a free movie ticket. The only real benefit to the card is the free popcorn. And the fact that seeing an afternoon movie for under eleven bucks, eating free popcorn, guzzling down the water I brought from home because I just ate a pound of salt, and sneaking into another movie afterwards, is what I call blowing an afternoon with a smile.

*Downloading CDs from the public library. Last month I downloaded Iron & Wines's new album, an old Wilco album, Dinah Washington, Count Basie, Thelonious Monk, and an African hip-hop compilation. I don't know if it's legal, but it sure is fun.

*Blogs. Last but not least. The information highway is free. Sure, there's some tolls to get on it (ie Verizon online), but for the most part it's an inexpensive way to kiss hours and hours of your life goodbye. It also holds an incomprehensible amount of information, and it's bloggers who break it down for me. I love writing about things I would normally never write about. Ditto that for reading blogs. And if writing and reading things isn't just the happiest thing a person could do, then I don't know what is.

So what makes your list of favorite things you can't live without, that you got by way of trying to be frugal?

US Stocks at a Bargain

It may have slipped my mind that there is a bright side to recent economic news, money managers view US stocks as undervalued and prime for buying. Especially US large caps (big a$$ companies=large caps). The WSJ article, Money Swings Fail to Deter Money Managers, opens-

This summer's wild market swings didn't damp money managers' enthusiasm for U.S. stocks, according to a survey set to be released today. In fact, 28% of managers responding to Russell Investment Group's quarterly Investment Manager Outlook now believe U.S. stocks are undervalued, up from 21% three months ago."

Of course, 28% is hardly a resounding endorsement, but still. I think I'm just bummed about my puny interest rate on my savings account, and the low dollar is dragging down my super ego a bit. Who knew I had a currency complex?!

A Good Time to be Frugal

Your financial picture is being assaulted right now. Your savings account has an interest rate that’s got more decline left than Romulus Augustus, the stock market seems like one big drama queen, and who even has money to invest right now when your student loan is more expensive than a brand new Maserati GranTurismo (and not nearly as sexy).

Well, I think we already covered the fact that you need to save for your retirement. Hell, I even suggested that you shove your money where the sun don’t shine (a Roth IRA that, after the Baby Boomers get done sucking Social Security dry because someone forgot to tell the US government to save that money, we won’t even be able to touch until we’re eighty). So I started thinking about just how important diversification is, because when it rains it pours but it doesn’t rain everywhere at once unless you’re Noah. So, short of currency trading, what could I, the average person with PiggyBankBlues, do to protect myself?

First and foremost you need to make sure you are invested in international companies. Also, in the age of a global economy and multi-nationals, many large US companies receive nearly half of their revenue overseas, from Hollywood to oil to technology. Of course, it doesn’t replace investing abroad, but it does hedge your risk to the full tilt madness in our own markets.

Diversification normally applies to the stocks and bonds a person is invested in, spreading the risk to many sectors/markets/countries so that your whole portfolio doesn’t go in the toilet at the same time. But my take on it right now is that investing in frugality is another way to diversify. I have only so much money, and quite frankly it aint a helluva lot right now. Sure, I look at my IRA and make sure I’m diversified, but I think the best thing to do right now is be frugal, save money, and pay down debt. Of course, that’s what one should always do, but there is usually emphasis on investing and you feel bad if you can’t do that right now. Well you can rejoice, because frankly this is the best time in the world to feel better about the fact that you may have no money to invest and you’re just taking care of business; paying down the credit cards, saving for a rainy day, or honing your budgeting skills by wearing the same damn winter coat yet again. If credit card debt is savings in reverse (paying an APR instead of earning an interest rate), then I say this is a grand time to save!

So I’m going to do the little things. Call my credit card companies and try to get them to lower my APR and increase my credit limit (one of the largest components of your credit score is debt to credit ratio), vow to never pay another ATM fee, figure out if I can eat the entire pantry this winter without adding to it.

Investing in frugality is a sure thing- eventually paying no APR, a paid off student loan, a little cushion in your crash landing pad- and I don’t see anything even close to a sure thing out there.

Cramer Gone Wild

James Cramer has a loud article, In Bernanke We Trust, in New York Magazine this week. He's a big fan of the rate cut and and thinks it will prevent a recession. He also rails against everyone from Greenspan to Bush, but is thankful Bernanke found his cojones.

"I’m not surprised by President Bush’s sunny economic outlook—this president would praise the Weimar Republic’s hyperinflation as great for Home Depot and the wheelbarrow industry. But Hank Paulson? I expected better from the ex–Goldman Sachs chief. One of the few honest-to-Betsy revelations in The Age of Turbulence was Greenspan’s acknowledgment that the position of Treasury secretary, once a post for the best and brightest businesspeople and economists, has under Bush been reduced to nothing more than White House water boy for the “fundamentals are sound” mantra."

King Lear

There are some evenings where the stars align just so and you get to see that proverbial performance of a lifetime. Last night I witnessed on stage such an act. King Lear is playing at BAM's Harvey Theater with Ian McKellen as Lear. If you live in the city, you probably know this already because it is a short run with a big name and tickets to the UN's General Assembly were easier to score. You can see a snippet of the play here. Thanks to our friends, H&S, M and I were able to go. Many, many, many thanks.

The Brooklyn Academy of Music is only a twenty minute walk from our apartment. We stepped off the noisily trafficked Flatbush and into the narrow tree-lined streets that tuck in BAM's spotlit buildings. Other theatergoers started to fill the sidewalks. As we approached you could sense the electricity in the air.

I've never had such great seats to a performance, and the stage was only eight rows away. We first saw Vanessa Redgrave in the theater lobby, and once we were seated we looked up and saw Vanessa Redgrave and Lynn Redgrave help Lauren Bacall walk gingerly down the stairs. They ended up a few rows ahead of us, and I can now say I was with the Redgrave sisters and Lauren Bacall for a night at the theater.

And what theater it was. Drop dead gorgeous ball gowns, fantastic lighting and staging (though I didn't quite get why it looked so wooden barn-like), a rainstorm on the stage, and the jarring violent noise of gunshots, murder and mayhem. And all because brazenly greedy offspring twisted money and love and fought over their Kingless Kingdom (there's Buffet's critique of dynastic wealth live and on stage right there). The entertainment factor alone made the three and a half hour play fly by for this Shakepearean neophyte. I thought William Gaunt's Duke of Gloucester was breathtaking. In fact, I was pretty impressed with almost all of the acting. And the star of the show delivered. McKellen's Lear is pompous, funny, humiliatingly human, and a stark raving mad old man in the descent of his own folly. The trap is money. And while language, costume, and era have progressed well beyond the play's moment in history, the humanity of us all has not changed. And that, in and of itself, is our own tragedy.

photo by Manual Harlan