Several of the Mutineers are fans of Tyler Cowen over @ Marginal Revolution. The authors of Marginal Revolution are ostensibly Libertarians but have enough intellectual honesty, spark, and insight to draw a broad audience across the political spectrum.
Tyler is perhaps best known for applying the lessons of economics to the global culture industry and has published multiple books on the subject (my reviews are here and here.) In a nutshell, Tyler argues that far from the bland Disney-fied vision of corporatized culture pushed forth by anti-globolists of all stripes, Economics and Culture are actually rather natural allies and responsible for far more cultural creation than homogenization.
Today, Tyler posts on Marginal Revolution: My favorite things Indian and it appears the man is rather erudite on the Desi diaspora –
My favorite things Indian Being here is number one at the moment, but here are a few specifics: 1. My favorite Indian musician – I have to go with Zakir Hussain; yes the CDs are wonderful but they do not compare with seeing him live. Honorary mentions go to Ali Akhbar Khan (sarod) and L. Subramaniam (violin). …3. My favorite Indian novel – Rushdie is the obvious favorite, but I will opt for Vikram Seth’s A Suitable Boy. Better than any Dickens but Bleak House. And did you know that he was an errant economics Ph.d. student at Stanford when he wrote the manuscript?
appears the man is rather erudite on the Desi diaspora
yeah, seems that way, but he’s regrettably got vishy anand’s ranking wrong.
He used to be ranked number two in the world, though he has slipped in the last few years.
ugh, he’s still second at 2781, and the lowest he’d ever slipped to was third.
He’s well informed, but I would hardly call his selections erudite.
The book selection is pretty standard, and as for the music, the three names he mentioned have been known within world music circles since … well, before it was called “world music.”
Heck, a white friend of my Dad’s introduced him to L.Subramaniam in the 80s, with an LP of Subramaniam playing a double necked violin. I’m pretty sure he toured with Peter Gabriel on the WOMAD tour, so he’s gotten alot of exposure.
Zakhir Hussein is a star (I saw him live, again with a largely white audience, close to 15 years ago and it was sold out), and Ali Akhbar Khan was getting billing at Tower Records in the 1980s.
If you live in a big city, on one of the coasts, and you exercise even a bit of initiative, all of this is easy to learn.
Props to Tyler for learning more about Indian classical music than just Ravi Shankar, and he is clearly a well read individual with subtle tastes. I’m just saying that his choice of music doesn’t reveal an obscure level of knowledge any more than love of the Gypsy Kings or Youssou N’Dour would.