Krugmania and self-loathing at the Lotos Club

Yep, that's him, the universally beloved New York Times columnist and author of the new book The Conscience of a Liberal (not to be confused with The Conscience of a Liberal). Why such a low-quality photo? Well, this is now the third in a series of Curious Capitalist posts featuring lousy cameraphone photos from book parties, and it would be kind of weird to switch to a good camera now (plus, Mrs. CC has the family camera out in California at the moment).

I only stayed at the party for a couple of minutes. I was in a cranky mood when I arrived, and when I surveyed the crowd of tweedy, conscience-filled liberals and realized I didn't recognize a single one except for Paul, who wasn't exactly going to have the time or the inclination to hang with me, I decided to bail. After shaking Paul's hand, of course.

Let me emphasize that my crankiness had nothing to do with Paul Krugman. Although maybe it did have something to do with it being a book party. Because that means he finished his book. For any regular readers wondering what came of last week, when I handed this blog over to Mark Gimein so I could work on The Myth of the Rational Market, I'm afraid I have to report: Not nearly enough. During the workweek I spent some of the time working on my Denmark saga, which I should have finished writing the week before. Then on Saturday I ended up blowing almost the entire day watching college football. I did have my laptop in front of me, but let's say I was a little distracted. And after Cal lost that game to Oregon State, I was also disconsolate. So no, I didn't get nearly as much done as I should have. Which, after more than four years of messing around with this thing, is seriously pathetic. So I've been intermittently furious at myself all week and, well, that's the state of mind I was in when I arrived at the Lotos Club

There. Glad to have gotten that off my chest. As for Krugman's book: Haven't read it. Been busy. I did crack it open briefly today to see if I could find anything I disagreed with violently enough to write a column about, but no luck.