I'D BE OUT OF BUSINESS

I had to go to the drivers license office yesterday. The U. S. Department of Homeland Security now requires everyone to have an approved "Real ID" card to go through airport security and enter federal facilities. Backward Missouri will run out of its last extension to convert our drivers licenses in a few months so I decided it was time to get mine.

While waiting my turn, I saw this sign and took a sneaky phone cam shot. Following this policy would put me and most other lawyers out of business. But look it at it another way. If it's true, would this mean that we Americans would not have to pay our federal taxes?

          

HINT OF SPRING

Like many kids, I was interested in professional sports. There are memories of happy days in the cheap seats in Yankee Stadium, when a boy could buy a  ticket on the day of the game for what was in his pocket.  There were the occasional Giants and Rangers games. Over the years I have soured on the whole thing, the big money, mass marketing, emotional manipulation business.

But there is still a fondness for baseball as such. I enjoy the game for its flashes of great athleticism and subtle strategies, going to a couple of games a year, particularly if someone else is paying. Pre-season training is starting now. The season itself begins about the first of April. Workers are preparing the stadium and adjoining attractions for all the fans willing to pay the (now very high) asking price.   

MADELEINE MONDAY

Not about life in St. Louis in general but I couldn't resist this shot of dental inevitability. Great iPhone 11 shot by daughter Emily. The kid got five bucks under her pillow. I thought she should get colones since we have some left over.       

ZERO SUM GAME*

Stifel is a fair sized financial services company whose headquarters is across the street from my office building. The statue, obviously, represents the bull and bear, the endless combat of the markets. Note that neither is winning. Sometimes the overall size of the market grows and sometimes it shrinks. Maybe that's why economics is sometimes called the dismal science. The passer-by may have something to say about that.  

   * This post approved by Adam Smith.

Cash Bar, Heavy Oeuvres, Beethoven

Mrs. C and I have been subscribers to the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra for more than forty years. Once a year they have an evening open rehearsal (they are usually during the day) for subscribers and donors. They asked people to call if they were coming; when my wife did so she was told there would be a cash bar and "heavy oeuvres" [sic.]. The staffer said that meant more than little finger food but not enough for dinner. A new term has been coined.

Our marvelous new music director, Stéphane Denève, is blowing out all the stops with the Beethoven 9th this weekend. Before the rehearsal started, he told us that the metronome was invented around this time by a friend of L v B and that he loved it. The work is full of these timing marks but few conductors follow them. Denève intended to do so and at times the result sounded quite odd, often quite fast and a little stiff. But if the master says so... We will hear the final outcome at the performance tonight.

Above, a fuzzy low-light phone cam shot of our principal cello, Daniel Lee, starting to warm up.