Angelin Preljocaj, Snow White, Michael Powell. The 7 dwarfs coming out of holes in the wall, suspended in lines, like spiders, is a powerful image in Preljocaj Snow White’ s Ballet. However, it is the image of the Queen dancing initially in high heels and wearing a Jean-Paul Gaultier dress that mostly entices the viewers. One really enjoys everything in the Ballet but the character of the Queen is one notch up there, together with her two “cats”. Another catching point is the end of the Ballet when the Queen has to walk over the burning ashes. The message is visually conveyed by giving her two red shoes. Yes, for all you movie buffs out there, one cannot avoid bringing to mind Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s Red Shoes. In both cases, the Queen in Preljocaj‘s Snow White cannot stop dancing (jumping around), while in Red Shoes whoever puts on the crimson ballet slippers is also compelled to dance forever. Such was indeed the fate of Moira Shearer in the fabulous 1948 film and of Céline Galli (in the version I saw) in the 2008 Preljocaj inspired choreography.

Keynes, Ideology, Pragmatism. In the 1990s the idea (or ideology) of letting the markets regulate themselves flourished. Alongside, travelled the belief that the size of the government should be contained, favouring a smaller public sector as the obvious thing to pursue. It was also interesting to observe the fashionable idea of the “expectational view of fiscal policy”. In other words, if cuts in government spending appear to the public as a serious attempt to reduce the public sector financing needs, there may be an induced wealth effect, leading to an increase in private consumption (the hypothesis being that citizens would expect fewer taxes in the future, so they could save less today and spend more today as well). In addition, the reduction of the government borrowing requirements diminishes the risk premium associated with government debt, contributes to reduce real interest rates, and crowds-in private investment. This would be the best of the worlds.

Interestingly, the possibility of the existence of expansionary fiscal consolidations had already been echoed in the so-called “German perspective” of fiscal consolidations, expressed in 1981 by the German Council of Economic Experts, while two economists, Hellwig and Neumann, also gave it a strong push in a paper published in Economic Policy in 1987. Such view would afterwards have an influence on the fiscal convergence criteria of the Maastricht Treaty, and on the underpinnings of the Stability Pact in Europe, calling for discipline of public accounts as a precondition for stable economic growth. We would be then in a world of “expansionary fiscal consolidations” and non-Keynesian effects. Sorry about that John Maynard, I bet you didn’t thought of this one during your times of Bedford Square, while strolling around Bloomsbury.

Being applied economists keen on gathering data and in trying to validate hypothesis, that’s what they did. Unfortunately, like almost everything in life, you have opposing opinions and results, and you can find your Keynesian effect as well as your non-Keynesian outcome. Funny enough, someone referred to this idea of expansionary fiscal consolidations as something that may occur if two conditions are met: i) the study is done by Italian economists, and ii) the study is about Nordic countries! I would not go that far, but it seems that a pragmatic approach to policy making is in order, cutting a fine balance between Keynes and liberal ideology. The simple, somewhat demagogical and simple query is: do we want to pay taxes to finance minimum subsistence social networks or to bail out private business, as for instance in the financial hiccups of 2008? In the end, and after full consideration, pragmatism should help and prevail when dealing with this “small” economics-market problem of allowing past private profits to become current public losses. Of course, that little thing of non-Keynesian effects and small government seems to have been kind of flushed away… At some point one wonders whether the best policy conclusions and advice are indeed the more solid ones or just the ones that were more convincingly argued in front of the right audience.

Nick Hornby, Stephen Frears, Roddy Doyle, and Alan Parker. In 2006 I read a book called “The Complete Polysyllabic Spree: The Diary of an Occasionally Exasperated But Ever Hopeful Reader”. This was a collection of the columns that Nick Hornby wrote for several years in the Believer, and the idea was the following. Nick would by each month a few books, read them and report about them in the magazine. This appeared to me as a simple, but still quite ingenious idea. Naturally, the coincidence between what he bought, read and reported on, was never 100 per cent, but that is really beside the point. I had great fun reading that collection, since it allowed me to discover some other extraordinary books. I cannot fail her to recall that Nick Hornby also wrote High Fidelity, later passed to the big screen by Stephen Frears, in a most inspired film. In there, it’s all about music, and how the character played in the film by John Cusack simply manages to mess up all his most promising relationships with several women. This brings me almost in direct line, at least in my mind, to The Commitments, the film and the book. The second was written by Roddy Doyle, and the first directed by Alan Parker, with Roddy co-authoring the screenplay. All solid names, and indeed The Commitments is a fabulous film, where music prevails again, and where Jimmy Rabbitte (odd name) pushes along to put his music band together. To all the four guys mentioned in the beginning, thank you for putting this together.

H. Bosch, painter and cop! Michael Connelly’s idea of naming his fiction detective Hieronymous Bosch, Harry for short, after the great XV-XVI century painter seemed to me a good twist. Indeed, sometimes, Harry Bosch comes out across the pages has having inners pains and tumultuous thoughts as one could only just guess that Bosch had in the XVI century when he managed to paint those outstanding paintings. Something I got used to, whenever I am in Madrid, is to pop up in the Prado Museum, just walk through to the first floor into the Bosch room and stand in front of Bosch’s Garden of Delights. What was going on his mind when coming up with those scenes? More astonishing even are both the Temptation of St. Anthony in Lisbon’s Ancient Art Museum and the Last Judgement in the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. The somewhat nightmarish like figures and characters depicted particularly in those last two triptychs are remarkable and no doubt quite outside the usual ethics and values for the time. One could even say that Bosch was a XVI century Surrealist. When Michael Connelly pushes Harry Bosch, who in turn drags partner Kiz Rider, and surrounding cops, along tortuous investigations, was he thinking any of those things?

Bill Murray and Sam Shepard, or should I say Jim Jarmusch and Wim Wenders? Anyway, the first two were looking for their sons in the films of the other two, in that order. Looking in a sort of backward looking way since first they did not seem to be aware they had fathered the kids and second the search was probably already a bit late in time, with kids being no longer kinds but rather young adults. I saw these two movies when they came out in 2005, first Jim’s Broken Flowers and afterwards Wim’s Don’t Come Knocking. Apart from somewhat parallel topics, there is some good acting and directing in there, and I would say that probably the costs of making such pleasant movies were not that high by the current international patterns. My point is that good stories and human skills do seem to be able to create terrific films. In both cases there is this feeling of something lost in the past by the main character, in other words, the son that by the turns of life he did not see and accompany in his growing up odyssey. They pity this to some extent, maybe a lot, particularly given the rather emptiness nature of their current lives.

Wim Wenders already had done an extraordinary film in the eighties were similar feelings seemed to have been in place, and were Harry Dean Stanton could not seem to forget Nastassja Kinski but could nevertheless stay with her anymore… yes, it was Paris Texas, in 1984! Interestingly, I think that the first film I saw by Jim Jarmusch was also the 1984, and it was Stranger than Paradise where John Lurie and company go on a road trip that reaches Florida. That was also a great little movie, and I particularly recall that poster where the two guys stand by the car, and the girl is inside looking at the window, all wearing dark shades!