Mind the Gap: October 2009 Archives

Moving into a new community, even for a short time, requires adaptation. When traveling in America, I usually find these adjustments to be small in scale and yet strangely frustrating--challenges of the "they sell 10 kinds of Coke and yet there's not a single bottle of plain seltzer at the gas station?!?" variety.

And grumble though I do about eating dinner before six, the lack of public transport, and what's not playing at the local cineplex--basically, the way people live their lives in community X as opposed to where I have chosen to make my home--the truth is that I recognize that the smacks about the head these trips deal me are very valuable. I live in a bubble of assumptions about life, surrounded by people who tend to agree with me, and if that shell doesn't get punctured from time to time, I risk forgetting that there are millions of people who live their lives quite differently than I do and, more importantly, I might never learn about why that is.

My mom has a habit of clipping out newspaper articles for me, often of the "opinion" variety from the local newspaper. In the last batch she included a syndicated piece by a conservative columnist named Rod Dreher, who writes for the Dallas Morning News. Titled Polanski Affair Reveals True Hollywood, it was a look at why groups of people--American citizens, Hollywood actors, the Catholic Church, etc.--will quickly rally to defend people "like them" even when controversial (and in some cases illegal) activity is involved. I was willing to follow him through the first few graphs, but then he decided to take down "Art" and the "cult of the artist" and I had to pause:

Does the filmmaking world celebrate child molestation? Of course not. What it celebrates is Art, which is to say, aesthetic pleasure elevated to the level of moral principle. It wasn't until I left reviewing films professionally that I realized fully what immersing one's mind in the imaginative world of contemporary filmmaking can do to one's moral sense. Without realizing it, one might come to see boredom as the root of all evil, and the artist who can deliver us from dullness as a kind of priest who brings us absolution through beauty and transcendence through self-forgetting.

That's greatly oversimplifying matters, admittedly, but this is only a crude version of a concept deeply embedded in modern thought: the cult of the artist. The creative class sees the artist's role as revealing deep truths to humanity, especially verities we may not wish to hear. It's all too easy to accept that men who serve as a bridge between the sacred and the profane are somehow exempt from the moral code the rest of us live by.

Leaving aside the Polanski issue for a moment, since that was flat out illegal, assuming that the moral code "the rest of us live by" is a fixed idea dividing "artists" and "everyone else" seems beyond an oversimplification to me. These codes are fluid in so many ways, variable by so many factors--geography, economics, age, religion. More than most groups, artists seem to flow between them, ferreting out their fundamentals and illustrating how communities of people apply them to their lives. And if we're going to count on this creative class of people to do the exploring and the feeling for those who can't or won't go there for themselves but yet go buy tickets to see what those artists have discovered, is it hypocritical to then chastise those same artists for bad behavior (as long as it's of the legal kind)? Is there a line, or does the value in the exercise require that we don't draw them one?

Now that's not to pretend that the things artists want to show us aren't scary and shocking and uncomfortable sometimes. But you don't have to reflect on the travails of your local drug dealer or watch another Lars von Trier movie if you don't want to.

Hipsters everywhere should take heed. Buble's success demonstrates the enormous power of that not-yet-banished sector of entertainment consumers: uncool people. While their tastes may account for zero percent of the stories America's hipster-obsessed music press writes, they still control a vast swath of the actual music spending dollar.

I'm seriously into musicals lately, of a television kind. First there was this, and now this:

The humor lies in having actually sat in the theater when the curtain went up once or twice, though, no? Would it, could it actually be a murderously good joke without that part?

As anyone who has lived some of it knows, there is plenty of funny to be found in orchestra life [link via Adaptistration], but there are people who get anxious when you giggle over it. 

I love that Leonard Slatkin (or the people behind his website at least--anyone know if he'd be the sort to pen this kind of thing himself? Leonard, are you out there?) was willing to go there. I mean, it  has impact precisely because it's a Music Director of Slatkin's reputation tossing out ideas like:

For the final work on the program, Rachmaninov's 2nd Symphony, the conductor is not only going to reinstate the cuts sanctioned by the composer, but will add some additional ones as well. All in all the total performing time will be about 12 minutes.

"The piece is so long and repetitive. Once you have heard the main tunes, well, they are so memorable that they do not have to be played again."

Slatkin went on to say, "It is my hope to perform a Bruckner cycle using this philosophy. In that way, we can get through all of them in one concert, perhaps with time for the two that have no number as well."

Shield your eyes if you find such satire shocking, but really, love or hate that the Maestro is cracking jokes, it offers all symphony patrons something vital--something to dish about over intermission cocktails. 

Considering I've had my head buried in the "so how are we going to pay for this whole internet journalism thingy" issue quite a bit over the past couple of weeks, I read this article covering "public radio's 10 most effective fundraising strategies" with a close eye. I mean, what NPR listener hasn't groaned aloud when turning on the radio in the wee hours only to discover that she is going to have to endure the guilt trip that is the week-long fundraiser? Still most of us remain unable to change the channel in response, and apparently enough of us open up our checkbooks to keep public radio (alongside its other streams of revenue) afloat. Could this work on the internet?

Reading over the list, I don't think that websites foster the same sense of obligation in the reader that public radio can suggest to those consuming its transmissions. We might be offering similarly enriching news and information, but no single site holds me captive or emotionally connects strongly enough that I wouldn't just click away. Am I wrong about this? If your favorite website carved out a week and relentlessly asked you for cash, implied that you owed them for what you'd been reading for free and enjoying all year, threatened that without you they couldn't go on, and offered you an umbrella in return for your charity, would you pony up?

(And if so, do you need my mailing address? I've got these lovely tote bags I can send as a thank you, and for the next hour your donation will be matched dollar-for-dollar by my Aunt Sallie.)

Well, kids, a cold and steady October rain is falling and the radiators are knocking. I'm not complaining, however, because such changes in the season are all strangely comforting to this Midwestern girl's heart. Also, I have a stack of New Yorker's to catch up on and the Shouts & Murmurs contributions are making me laugh so hard I'm scaring the cat.

First, in last week's issue we got a few words on program notes:

"The Dialogue Between the Wind and the Sea" pits roiling strings against strident brass, belligerent woodwinds, and unhinged timpani bent on physical reprisal. Again, the composer ingeniously juxtaposes regular and triple figures, a development that for many years was hailed as a breakthrough in modern composition, although it is now generally acknowledged to have been a printer's error. Still, the layered rhythms create a spectacular lurching effect that vividly evokes the roll of waves, as well as a tremendous desire to urinate.

And now this week we get a few tips on marketing when the only person left on staff is the intern:

If you already have a blog, make sure you spray-feed your URL in niblets open-face to the skein. We like Reddit bites (they're better than Delicious), because they max out the wiki snarls of RSS feeds, which means less jamming at the Google scaffold. Then just Digg your uploads in a viral spiral to your social networks via an FB/MS interlink torrent. You may have gotten the blast e-mail from Jason Zepp, your acquiring editor, saying that people who do this sort of thing will go to Hell, but just ignore it.

And if everything your tech department has ever said to you sounds something like that, it only gets better from there...

For some reason, I tend to drag my feet when the idea of adopting some snazzy new technology is introduced. Hand cranked pasta maker? That's just practical. iPhone? Um, now really, do I need that?

No, of course I don't. But staring out at a sea of panel attendees taking pictures and video with their iPhones last week suggested to me that it was perhaps wise that I board this bandwagon already if I was going to continue working in internet media. (Also, a bit later when starvation was eminent and Sidney asked his iPhone where we should eat lunch, it literally drew us a map.) And so, with my reservations finally tamped down, Brian and I welcomed twin iPhones into our lives this past weekend--his wearing the black case, mine in steely mauve.

I have to admit that it is a pretty cool device and I am enjoying getting to know my new little gadget. Still, suddenly having five more ways to organize my copious to-do lists did not exactly lower my stress level.

"You need a game!" I thought to myself, while browsing through all those actually productivity increasing apps. But the whizz and bang of the games on offer didn't really seem like my thing. The zen garden, however, was a bit too much of a cat nap. And then, across a crowded iTunes store, I saw it. Bloom. For the remainder of the weekend, every time Brian looked up from his own iPhone to ask what I was doing, I was not exploring new ways to organize my travel reservations or plan dinner menus. I was actually making music again. Well, sorta-kinda.

(Video is by mrk087, not yours truly. Sorry for any confusion there, folks.) 

In the past week, I've had the chance to take in both the National Summit on Arts Journalism at USC Annenberg (via webcast) and the Future of Music Coalition's three-day Policy Summit (in person, and this one included a two-hour round table on the "Critical Condition" as well--and they let me play too!--so I feel like I doubled down in that department).

Anyway, it was an eye-opening, career-examining, industry-evaluating set of events, and though being a "music" "journalist" sort of feels like standing on the decks of two sinking ships in this economic environment, I ended up really jazzed about the field because of how passionately people create, consume, and connect over music these days. Sure, making a living wage and having health care are not small concerns, but if those first pieces aren't in place, we are surely lost on the rest of it, so I was encouraged.

Now, on to the things I learned about, or learned more about, that you might find useful in your own life and work:

1. Need money? Try Kickstarter

What does that do, you ask? Kickstarter is "is a funding platform for artists, designers, filmmakers, musicians, journalists, inventors, explorers..." I personally know at least one composer who successfully used this platform to raise the funding he needed to make a record.

Think this can't possibly work? Seriously, none of these videos make you at least consider opening your wallet? Not even Allison's?:

2. Need dynamic multimedia? Meet Sophie

Love all the crazy multimedia content out there but feeling technically under-skilled to put it all to use in the digital realm? There's an app for that! Well, actually not an app, it's a whole set of software tools and it's really for educational institutions to use, but I see a wider application of this kind of product coming down the pike, don't you? Go ahead and dance about architecture!

3. Need new music? Get ready for Spotify

Not yet available in the US (licensing deals still to be done), it's the streaming music service Europe is abuzz over that's completely legal and completely free (ad supported). Subscribe for extra bells and whistles and to avoid the ads. I tried not to get sucked in as Spotify's founder and CEO Daniel Ek spoke to the crowd, but he was just so,...so rational in all his answers about why Spotify was successful, what it would offer users directly and what it would partner with others to do. I couldn't help myself, I was completely mesmerized.

Also:

1. Al Franken is still bringing the smart and funny, even though he is now a serious Senator dealing with lots of heavy issues.

2. Music journalists: You are only worth the audience you bring.

3. Facts and figures courtesy Ariel Hyatt via Greg Kot: "U.S. album sales in 2008: More than 115,000 albums were released, but only 110 sold more than 250,000 copies, a mere 1,500 topped 10,000 sales, and fewer than 6,000 cracked the 1,000 barrier."

There is a fleeting moment in Bright Star, Jane Campion's quietly powerful film chronicling the last year or so of John Keats' life, when the poet reports that two people wrote glowing reviews of his new collection of poems. They were both friends of his, he is careful to mention. Then there were a handful of mixed appraisals and "four hostile" notices. Someone listening to this account, trying to be encouraging, asks Keats if that means it's selling well then, and there is an awkward silence.

It was an eerily familiar set of events, a conversation I've seen play out among well-meaning strangers to the new music community in multiple scenarios. Now, of course, the people in the movie theater knew going in that Keats would die young, feeling like a failure, but that eventually he would come to be respected as one of the great poets of the Romantic age (and if they didn't already know it, it would be pointed out to them before the closing credits). But it got me thinking about the divide between the composers I know today who are hoping for a similar immortality/recognition of their genius after the fact, and those not expecting anything of the sort. It's not a hard and fast line, of course, but there's a break around maybe age 35. I wonder if as people age and start sensing their own mortality they necessarily change their tune on hoped-for success past death, or if it's an external societal thing--a shift we might attribute to the digital age. Along with our shrinking hope for the scope of potential fame, has the ephemerality of "content" made us skeptical about the lifeline of our art?

You can lip sync with it, Kanye can, um, advocate for it, and babies who can't even walk yet can dance to it on national TV. Maybe "Single Ladies" is the video of the year?

Personally, I like how this crew slowed down, sat down, and made a whole new version.