Hélène Massam (1949-2020)

I was much saddened to hear yesterday that our friend and fellow Bayesian Hélène Massam passed away on August 22, 2020, following a cerebrovascular accident. She was professor of Statistics at York University, in Toronto, and, as her field of excellence covered [the geometry of] exponential families, Wishart distributions and graphical models, we met many times at both Bayesian and non-Bayesian conferences  (the first time may have been an IMS in Banff, years before BIRS was created). And always had enjoyable conversations on these occasions (in French since she was born in Marseille and only moved to Canada for her graduate studies in optimisation). Beyond her fundamental contributions to exponential families, especially Wishart distributions under different constraints [including the still opened 2007 Letac-Massam conjecture], and graphical models, where she produced conjugate priors for DAGs of all sorts, she served the community in many respects, including in the initial editorial board of Bayesian Analysis. I can also personally testify of her dedication as a referee as she helped with many papers along the years. She was also a wonderful person, with a great sense of humor and a love for hiking and mountains. Her demise is a true loss for the entire community and I can only wish her to keep hiking on new planes and cones in a different dimension. [Last month, Christian Genest (McGill University) and Xin Gao (York University) wrote a moving obituary including a complete biography of Hélène for the Statistical Society of Canada.]

Peter Lee (1940?-2017)

Just heard the sad news that Peter Lee, British Bayesian and author of Bayesian Statistics: An Introduction, has passed away yesterday night. While I did not know him, I remember meeting him at a few conferences in the UK and spending an hilarious evening at the pub. When the book came out, I thought it was quite fine an introduction to Bayesian Statistics, with enough mathematical details and prerequisites to make it worthwhile studying, while also including computational recommendations. Fare thee well, Peter.

recent reads

During my trips in the recent weeks, I managed to read a few books, although nothing spectacular:

Arnaldur Indriðason’s Outrage (Myrká in Icelandic) is a thriller in the Erlandur series, where inspector Erlundur does not appear at all but is replaced with inspector Elinborg who deals with the murder of a drug rapist. And her family problems. The book got a prize in France and its focus on women issues makes it more interesting than the polce story itself, which meanders quite a lot and relies on too many coincidences. But I do like the stuffing no-exit (huis clos) atmosphere. (The above image is the critique in French from Le Canard Enchaîné.) Given that Erlundur has disappeared, this book stands in between other Indriðason’s books, Hypothermia (Harðskafi) and Black Skies (Svörtuloft).

I had mentioned my uneasiness about Hoffman’s The Left Hand of God a few months ago, both because of a very uneven style, a plot borrowing so much to real events and locations, and a highly ambiguous central character. I nonetheless read the second tome, The Last Four Things, following a request from my son. My impression has definitely not improved, mostly again for a high rate of borrowing from existing facts and places (like Chartres used for the papal seat). The title itself is found in many books and comes from a painting by Bosch I missed in Madrid last time I visited El Prado. The characters are mostly the same ones as in The Left Hand of God and they remain shallow and unconvincing. The political plot(s) are of no interest whatsoever. The reunion between Cale and Arbell is botched, to say the least. (And still some people love it!)

Another thriller I quickly read is Susanna Gregory’s Mystery in the Minster, the 17th chronicle of Matthew Bartholomew… In line with the recent chronicles in the series, the book is not worth any level of recommendation. The plots get thinner and thinner, the dialogues and settings less and less realistic for their 14th Century environment, and the resolution is rushed with no even a pretence of disguise for the massive infodump in the Epilogue! It feels like I have already seen it all in previous books: the trip away from Cambridge to gather an uncertain inheritance, the flow of new characters taking an unreasonable interest in Michelhouse affairs, an endless sequence of deaths, poisons, “wanton” nuns, attractive women turning into insane murderesses, fights for life in an abandoned and crumbling church, &tc. Among the many implausible facts in the current volume, the vicar-chorals’ obsession with shoes, speaking of “intelligent, liberal people” as in a 21st Century society, or hiring an actor to play the role of a (long dead) priest for more than a month… I will for certain abstain from buying the incoming 18th chronicle, appropriately planned for April the 1st!

When ordering books from amazon.fr for my daughter, I added Ascension, a manga by Shin’ichi Sakamoto about climbing. I was however quite disappointed by the result, both for the silly plot and for the lack of realism in its climbing connection!