Molly Sheridan

Two years ago when I still lived in New York, I purchased a ticket to see a production at the Metropolitan Opera. Ever since then, I have received a steady stream of promotional emails, and though I’ve never purchased anything else, I have enjoyed looking at the pictures. Then a couple weeks ago, they sent this to me in Baltimore:

The package struck me for a number of reasons. It was exceptionally heavy, had traveled far (considering what it was selling), and emitted that intoxicating fresh ink smell. Inside was a five-piece subscription solicitation that included personalized mailing labels plus a 50(!)-page four-color brochure jam-packed with more tempting pictures than the JCPenny’s Christmas catalog. The real kicker, however, was the eight-page, double-sided, tri-folded (and perforated!) “Order Forms” section. If I had been perusing the catalog with “Maybe we should go to the opera in New York this year!” fluttering around in the back of my mind, I was now paralyzed by the complexity of buying tickets. Forget Tosca; I suddenly did not feel mentally equipped to handle filling out the seat request form. There were New Year’s Eve tickets and Opening Night tickets and Season Tickets and Single Tickets and something that cost $50,000, but I was too scared to look.

Now, I bet opera fans were drooling all over this same package, so I don’t mean to knock the concept. And it must have cost a small fortune to produce and mail, so I hope they all immediately put in extensive season orders. But it was way more than I, a one-time single ticket buyer, knew what to do with. I’m more a teaser video and “Buy nosebleed seats for this Friday’s show NOW for only $25!” kind of girl, myself.

And at root, that’s probably the real problem. My image of myself does not include season subscriptions to anything, though (peeking cautiously back in on the order forms) I guess I could afford to incorporate one. This package was a great sales piece, I just wasn’t the right customer.

Tell us what you really think. Voting closes Friday!

UPDATE: Though the comments you leave in the “Other” field do not show up publicly, they are being logged. I’ll post those next week when the poll closes.

During one of my first panels here at the Conference on World Affairs, someone in the audience threw out the idea that perhaps society was crawling so far up into our technology that we were losing the ability to interact on old-fashioned, face-to-face terms. Were we doomed? Sounds like a reasonable fear, but considering even just the people I’ve met at this conference so far, in reality nothing seems further from the truth.

Selfishly, I report that I am having an amazing time up here in the mountains of Boulder. From the charming UC sophomore who gamely picked me up from the airport in the middle of the night to the gracious family that has opened their lovely home to me this week, to the scores and scores of amazing speakers and planners and attendees with their insightful, daring questions, this has been an experience I’ll be turning over in my mind for a long, long while. In session after session I’m forced to both re-evaluate what I think and incorporate ideas I would never normally even come into contact with because that’s how these people play “conference panel”. There’s a topic title (no description–that’s open to interpretation) and three or four panelists from all sorts of backgrounds. Then, the moderator shouts go and we are off. And man can we talk.

During my time so far, some over-arching themes have started to emerge. The world is in a great period of recalibration–not only economically, but socially, politically, and technologically. In the technology sphere, media creators (pro and amateur and combinations in between) are evolving in terms of the stories they tell and the many sophisticated methods they can now choose to use to tell them; the consumers are changing their habits and standards right along side them. After a period of happy, shiny gadgetry, we’re also looking more closely at what our technology does and how it can be refined to meet our needs better. Though admittedly it may be a little scary sometimes, everything is in play, and so it is a vital time of experimentation that is best embraced rather than feared–maybe now is the time to take a lesson from the past and not jump to judgment about the evils of evolutionary change. Sometimes we might  leave behind things that are valuable, and we’ll have to learn the hard way and reincorporate what
we find we miss, but we don’t need to let that slow us down. Really, most of us are speaking internet technology as a second language, anyway, and it shows. It’s the generation coming up that will most likely truly teach us what we can do with this rocket ship.

We talk a lot about the shrinking attention span of the audience in a tone of voice that tends to imply “less sophisticated audience,” when what we’re really dealing with is the phenomenal increase in competition for people’s eyes and ears and minds. In response, we’re learning better ways to get our message across–in words, in audio, in video. Long form isn’t dead, even if it’s (arguably) a bit unfashionable at the moment. Where commercial demands force us to sacrifice what we feel is too much (smaller newspapers, commercial radio, Hollywood movies) we move to new venues (often, the internet) that provide what we need.

I’ve also been into deep conversations about the future of radio, the benefits to society presented by the economic fallout, and the evolution of women’s artistic voices, and then observed some of the more heavy-hitting political and religious panels. Strangely, and yet in another way obviously, a certain refrain followed me along: Focus on the real goals at the core of your being or your business, and let the rest fall away when it prevents you from moving towards them; do unto others as you would have done unto you. Good for commerce, good for society, and good for the soul.

Okay, the creative commons/copyright panel is tomorrow. Look out.

After watching this cover of “Creep”, I got a little nostalgic and looked up the original Radiohead video from (gasp) 1992. I listened over and over, clicking for a replay every time the last notes died away.

Part of my fascination was the emotional lockbox I had forgotten I’d left inside music that was part of my high school life. Lots of fun stuff to kick around and blow dust off of in there! But when that was over and done, something was still scratching at me. Sure it helps that Jonny Greenwood has that wounded puppy look on his face that just makes you want to flash your claws and protect him from the world, even while he rakes his own against his guitar. But sonically, the song is all fish hooks, attractive in the most base sense, which isn’t about beauty or cool so much as how it holds itself–immediate and raw and temptingly close. That’s what I heard, anyway. Think back and recall the sounds that spoke most to you when the adult you’d become started waking up inside you.

“Creep” makes a basic and fast and easy connection, and I don’t mean to hold it up as any kind of musical ideal or goal. It’s just what got me thinking. A lot of us who talk about art feel a need to push whatever we presume falls into the entertainment category into the wastebasket, or at least keep it isolated in the junk food drawer. We tend to get protective of the line drawn between because it’s art that’s “teaching us something profound about how to be human”. Great art as Bible or something. “Creep” would not make the cut using the definitions we are taught; it probably wouldn’t for me if I had only just heard the track for the first time today. But whether you’re 15 or 50, you don’t necessarily go looking to the Western canon for guidance. You look and read and listen, and when you’re hunting for some deeper understanding of yourself and your world and your messed up head, you sometimes find it in places like this and discover something that sticks with you for a long time after, making it art in every sense of the word, no, even if it’s only for you, only for a little while?

I’m off to Boulder on Sunday to serve as a panelist for the 61st Annual Conference on World Affairs (April 6-10)! I know! Why the hell would they have asked me?!?

Public speaking makes me incredibly nervous, so usually when people are kind enough to invite me to sit on panels and suchlike, my first thought is how to graciously get out of it. But then I tend to find the people and the topics so damn interesting I just can’t resist (this also explains how I’ve been talked into a few New Year’s Eve parties, but that’s a story for another time).

How I ended up with an airline ticket to Colorado, however, is pretty much the same story writ large. The Conference on World Affairs sounds like summer camp for intellectuals–big idea discussions on “the arts, media, science, diplomacy, technology, environment, spirituality, politics, business, medicine, human rights, and so on.” Plus, once I found out that Molly Ivins used to go every year, there was no way I was going to miss the chance. They said they were interested in me because of the whole “writing and music and internet” thing going down around me. Does anyone smell copyright debate and conversations about new media in the air?

Yesterday, however, I read the bios of my fellow panelists and seriously started to sweat. These are some major league heavy hitters. Will I sound foolish?

Okay, deep breath–enough with the whining. Here’s hoping I can string my words together in an interesting fashion and add something to the conversation. The entire event is massive: some 200 panels, plenaries, and performances. I’ll try and report in while I’m there. If you see anything in the line-up you’d like some vicarious eyes on, let me know. And if you know of any good coffee shops I can hide out in if I embarrass myself, let me know about those, too.

Fair readers, do you sometimes find yourself perplexed by rap music? Scratch thy head in anxious confusion no longer! This just in the inbox: Discover UnderstandRap.com, which “lets people who don’t understand rap music submit confusing terms (parts of lyrics) used in rap songs for other people to explain”–often with Webster-like literalness.

Examples:

“the party was jumpin'”

Term from Song: Who Let the Dogs Out? on Album: Who Let The Dogs Out by Artist: Baha Men

the party had escalated to such a point that it could be considered “jumpin.” this does not necessarily mean that everyone at the party was actually jumping, but that is definitely a possibility. it most likely refers to a lot of people being present.

or

“me and that kush, I got acres”

Term from Song: Dey Know on Album: Units in the City by Artist: Shawty Lo

this may be an exaggeration as he claims to have acres of marijuana. probably not a possibility in the United States as it is illegal and a field of marijuana plants an acre in size would be almost impossible to conceal from authorities. 

Now, if it’s the body counts in the great operas that have you confused, you can get that break down here.

Announced today: Orchestras Feeding America National Food Drive

Yes, it’s tied to a movie promotion, but it’s all for a very worthy cause and such efforts are especially important in such fraught times.

Yet meanwhile…

• Minnesota Orchestra to cut budget, staff and salaries

• Philadelphia Orchestra “is lurching into crisis.”

• Atlanta Symphony Orchestra to cut pay, freeze hiring

• New Jersey Symphony Hunkers Down For the Future

• Master Chorale to Shut Down in May

• Cleveland Orchestra plans ‘deep’ cuts; Welser-Most takes pay cut

And those are just the headlines from the last week.

Elsewhere, people are trying to keep a smile on it:

• $11 tickets beginning at 11 a.m. on April 11 for 11 Days

• First Annual New Music Bake Sale

Alas, what a day in the world. Perhaps that explains the recent popularity of this distraction. Miss Mussel may be mining Twitter parameters, but personally, my mind has been escaping by considering what other plot lines could be effectively recast as Facebook status updates.

Yesterday I returned from New York to find that once again my neighborhood teen bad boys had tried to steal our scooter. The thing is equipped with lockable steering and a lockable kickstand, and the battery is still sitting in the house in winter storage, so pretty much all they could do was drag the 200 lbs. bike a few feet into the yard. Still, I am irritated. So today I went to my friendly local hardware store and purchased $43.75 worth of security. The rest is up to fate, I suppose.

The hardware store is a little more than a mile from my house, so I had time to muse on the situation while I walked through a persistent drizzle. (What can I say? All attempts at performing Singing in the Rain for one fell flat.) I thought about our discussion of copyright last week and re-examined if I had misjudged the situation in any way now that theft had come to my own back yard (unfortunately, in the literal sense). For me, it was kind of like watching The 700 Club.

Anyway, when my comparisons were complete, it seemed that I was iTunes-ing the situation (very similar strategy of slowing potential thieves down with locks–though I’ve seen them cut through 1″ steel cable before, so no illusions on its effectiveness given adequate time to work). The difference, of course, was that if they took the scooter, I would not have a scooter. Still, a scooter is a thing I bought. What if it was a thing I had built…from scratch…with my dad (sniff)? Talk about quadruple pissed to the nth degree. I empathized with the music creators who felt they were being robbed blind with no cops in sight.

But I realized that that’s precisely the reason I feel so desperate to get reasonable rules for this new game worked out. I don’t argue that rights and regulations are still valuable in the digital age. It’s the chaos I hate. Right now when people consider how they can correctly use materials in their own work, they’re likely to feel wrapped in a bunch of heavy Marley-style chain link while the content is just sitting there in the open field, innocent as a babe. For anyone who wants to do things right, they’ll struggle mightily to do anything at all. All this at a time when almost any conversation about recorded digital media is how to monetize it!

By the time I got back to the house, I didn’t have any new answers, but pushing the conversation felt even more critical. Carrying around all that metal was exhausting, and I’d like to be able to expend my energies on building something new rather than protecting something old.

Last night Scott and I were having a drink and a nosh and the subject came ’round to concert music and reality TV, as these things have a way of doing. Okay, okay, it was actually that we were comparing the TV we seemed to be consuming of late, and while I have been watching sub-par dramas, Scott copped to the fact that he’d been thoroughly enjoying the reality series Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders: Making the Team. What he seemed to like about the show was that it wasn’t about the trappings of the contestant’s lives, but pretty well focused on the goals they had their eyes on: learning routines and getting through uniform fittings and other tests of pro cheerleader skill. These people were fighting to succeed at something they wanted to do professionally very badly, and it made for some knuckle-biting drama. (In cute outfits, but I let that part slide.)

From there we started imagining what it would be like if they pulled the curtain back on musicians from the X orchestra and got into the real working lives of the people behind the black wall o’ performers: study, auditions, rehearsals, unions, politics, performances. I knew from experience that, if done well, a pretty colorful picture would emerge and yes, that would most definitely shake up people’s perceptions of the industry. But two major road blocks lay in the path of this “new slant on a classic program model” coming to fruition:

1) Viewers have to care about the people in the abstract already, and by and large they probably wouldn’t care about orchestra musicians. But wait, isn’t that just feeding into the self-defeatist perspective we in the industry tend to lug around on our backs? People melt when amateur contestants reach for classical repertoire (think Paul Potts on Britain’s Got Talent). I can see a trailer made up of clips from my own orchestral experiences that would have everyone tuning in. Pure drama.

2) We couldn’t make the show ourselves in-house. This one I think we can’t surmount. The frame is super important and a major network would have to make the show on their own if it is to have any chance of being popular in the same way and having a similar cultural impact. Repeat, this is not an audience development move the orchestra can engage in. I mean, they could, but it would not have the same result. It needs an outsider, a team of creative people who know nothing about this world, so that what they find is not balanced, not tempered–it’s just raw reaction. The things that would strike outsiders we may no longer even notice. What would they see in us?

Silly conjecture, yes, but there’s something inside this fantasy that I can’t shake. On top of the practical impossibility of knowing all 70 people in your local symphony, there’s also a certain amount of subsuming the players into the ensemble, supposedly in service to the music. But if that’s so, why are athletes never asked to remain so anonymous for the good of the game? If there were 10 members of an orchestra that the nation started to really feel invested in, wouldn’t the stock of all orchestra members rise?

Did you see this? Blatant copyright infringement, wrapped in a heartwarming story! Tisk, tisk. And perpetuating this fraud through the US mail, no less.

Kidding, kidding.

So, it was more like several pots of coffee rather than a few bottles of cab, but I had tons o’ fun hosting the book club crew here at MTG this past week. The guests left plenty to chew on (and yet no left over cheese plates or cracker crumbs between the sofa cushions) so we may still see a few posts trickle in. Meanwhile, big hugs and much appreciation to everyone who came over for the Remix playdate. I’ll be on the hunt for more conversation-starting material, so if you see anything out there, do let me know. Maybe we can do an easy one next and consider, oh, how about the question of taste?

More soon.