My wife, son and I were among the 6,000 jammed into Bender Arena at American University to hear the Kennedys and Barack Obama speak on Monday. The hours of icy standing in line were well worth it. I've seen endorsements before, but never in person, and there have seldom been endorsements of this significance. The Kennedys didn't just endorse, they passed the torch, their own Camelot torch, to Barack Obama, with the 6,000 witnesses in person and a few million more on TV.
The Obama campaign does a lot of little things right -- the music ("Graceland," the fusion of black and white, of old and new), the slogans, the campaign-created handmade billboards designed to look spontaneously homemade, and the Kennedy appeal to older folks via TV while filling the room with college students to generate that crazy enthusiasm that, well, only college students can produce.
I feel lucky to work at American U. and to have been part of this historic, made for TV art happening. I actually haven't decided who to support in the election, but being in Obama's presence does help one understand the appeal...
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Monday, January 21, 2008
No audience
Blogging seems the perfect and logical consequence of the profusion of literary magazines and journals in the 1980's and 1990's. I founded my own, Indiana Review, in 1981, and it's still going. Most of the ones begun then are still around, chugging along through subsidy, editorial grit, and human desire, fueled by the massive number of submissions from writers who, weirdly, dwarf the number of readers.
Litmags are still where good writers get their start, so the function is important. But even in my heyday as a "creative writing person," I never devoured them by the dozen, nor do I recall animated conversations with other writers about the latest TriQuarterly or Fiction issue.
So now we have come to the point where millions of us are Authors of cost-free Blogs about everything from thrift-shopping to cat-photographing, and often about nothing in particular.
I asked my students in arts management to invent an arts organization and their choice was one in which the audience members and the performers were essentially the same people. So it has become, in a high-tech reprise of the arts and crafts movement, a participatory, hands-on culture, where the work is done for its own sake, apparently, and not for the audience's.
If everyone is an author, what's really being said, exchanged, understood?
a holiday weekend meditation.
what if Martin Luther King Jr had been an unread blogger, writing the same brilliant words we universally celebrate today?
Litmags are still where good writers get their start, so the function is important. But even in my heyday as a "creative writing person," I never devoured them by the dozen, nor do I recall animated conversations with other writers about the latest TriQuarterly or Fiction issue.
So now we have come to the point where millions of us are Authors of cost-free Blogs about everything from thrift-shopping to cat-photographing, and often about nothing in particular.
I asked my students in arts management to invent an arts organization and their choice was one in which the audience members and the performers were essentially the same people. So it has become, in a high-tech reprise of the arts and crafts movement, a participatory, hands-on culture, where the work is done for its own sake, apparently, and not for the audience's.
If everyone is an author, what's really being said, exchanged, understood?
a holiday weekend meditation.
what if Martin Luther King Jr had been an unread blogger, writing the same brilliant words we universally celebrate today?
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
And then there's farce, Mittens-style
The GOP nomination battle is tragedy turning into farce. The tragedy is what GOP control has done to the country in 8 short (long?) years; the farce is this campaign. So Mitt Romney has won Michigan. We have a Mormon multi-state panderer, a formerly truth-telling Vietnam veteran war hawk, and a preacher-turned-politican who can play the bass and joke with Letterman while saying evolution isn't true.
Mr. President???
Not far behind are a washed up actor, an endearing but nutty Libertarian, and a self-parodying, philandering, scandal-ridden ex-mayor.
It's a tossup! No, it's a sitcom!
Too bad John Cleese as Basil Fawlty isn't an American citizen. He could run for President and bring art and politics together at last.
Where are the adults?
Mr. President???
Not far behind are a washed up actor, an endearing but nutty Libertarian, and a self-parodying, philandering, scandal-ridden ex-mayor.
It's a tossup! No, it's a sitcom!
Too bad John Cleese as Basil Fawlty isn't an American citizen. He could run for President and bring art and politics together at last.
Where are the adults?
value of gruesome art
Comedy can be entertaining but tragedy sticks to your bones. Well, that's the conventional wisdom about art, and after seeing "The Savages," marketed with a light-hearted tone but comprising two hours of wall-to-wall suffering only occasionally leavened by humor, I think the old saying is true. Except that "The Savages" is just too gruesomely realistic -- not in the sense of explicit images, but with its relentless focus on the consequences of aging and death.
I suffered.
I had a bad night after I got home.
I'm glad I saw the movie. I think it deserves a ton of awards.
It's the story of a dying man whose companion dies and whose alienated adult children (Laura Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman) step in to care for him. He's a jerk and it's an ugly situation. No one is connected to anyone else in a meaningful way, and though the characters grow during the film (the only real positive of tragedy), it's a rough, rough ride.
But wow. I felt cellularly rearranged by seeing it. Glad Hollywood had the guts to make it, even if the marketing was a little deceptive.
I suffered.
I had a bad night after I got home.
I'm glad I saw the movie. I think it deserves a ton of awards.
It's the story of a dying man whose companion dies and whose alienated adult children (Laura Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman) step in to care for him. He's a jerk and it's an ugly situation. No one is connected to anyone else in a meaningful way, and though the characters grow during the film (the only real positive of tragedy), it's a rough, rough ride.
But wow. I felt cellularly rearranged by seeing it. Glad Hollywood had the guts to make it, even if the marketing was a little deceptive.
Saturday, January 12, 2008
abu ghraib as only an artist could do it
Fernando Botero's exhibit "Abu Ghraib," an obsessive's several dozen oils and drawings of prisoners at Abu Ghraib has now left he art gallery down the hall at American University's Katzen Center, where I work. I would say I'll miss it, but it was very hard to look at. By using a muted palette (except for blood-red), by varying the skintones of his victims to imply all races, not just Iraqis, and by focusing on the victims in a timeless, painterly but not "beautiful" way, Botero did what only an artist can.
He ripped through the veil of blah-blah we shroud upon ourselves iwth our overexposure to "both sides," to "necessary war," and the like. His paintings were about human diugnity in the face of indignity imposed. Decades from now, who were the victims and who were the torturers will be a footnote at best. The paintings, which Botero created over an intense few months from his imagination and the few photographs that accompanied the original Seymour Hersh article, are both remarkable by themselves and, in the context of the endless war on terror, which we fight WITH terror, a testament to the power of an artist to tell the truth. In a way that no one else can.
The other ugly truth is: no one else in the U.S., except for a library in Berkeley, would show these works. All the major museums gutlessly passed, while little American University was left with the honor. For which we thank our director, Jack Rasmussen, and our president, Neil Kerwin, who had the guts to let this go forward.
If only Michael Mukasey had come before his hearings, he would have seen waterboarding in a way that no one could ever forget.
He ripped through the veil of blah-blah we shroud upon ourselves iwth our overexposure to "both sides," to "necessary war," and the like. His paintings were about human diugnity in the face of indignity imposed. Decades from now, who were the victims and who were the torturers will be a footnote at best. The paintings, which Botero created over an intense few months from his imagination and the few photographs that accompanied the original Seymour Hersh article, are both remarkable by themselves and, in the context of the endless war on terror, which we fight WITH terror, a testament to the power of an artist to tell the truth. In a way that no one else can.
The other ugly truth is: no one else in the U.S., except for a library in Berkeley, would show these works. All the major museums gutlessly passed, while little American University was left with the honor. For which we thank our director, Jack Rasmussen, and our president, Neil Kerwin, who had the guts to let this go forward.
If only Michael Mukasey had come before his hearings, he would have seen waterboarding in a way that no one could ever forget.
Friday, January 11, 2008
microblogging?
Spent the day at American University's annual Ann Ferren Teaching Conference. Like most conferences, a mixed bag. The morning session on Second Life held great promise, but they never could get Second Life to load. Maybe it's too soon for that one...second session was on "Using Technology the way your students use it," with five students on the panel, all of them agreeing they really don't use much technology! ipods, cellphones, and laptops, but no seamless integrations, few blogs, lots of facebook, and blackboard, the instructor's technical class-site. Boring!
Well -- we're teachers, we're supposed to lead. We would be way ahead of the students to have classes in Second Life.
So I just might.
The third session was on blogging in all its forms, particularly mass-blogging by an entire class full of students.
But you know what? It's still just thinking and writing and a little design. If you can't write, you can't blog. If you don't want to grade papers every night, you don't want to grade blogs!
I still feel comfortable with the markers and the whiteboard...
but shouldn't it be more artistic, since I'm teaching the arts?
Well -- we're teachers, we're supposed to lead. We would be way ahead of the students to have classes in Second Life.
So I just might.
The third session was on blogging in all its forms, particularly mass-blogging by an entire class full of students.
But you know what? It's still just thinking and writing and a little design. If you can't write, you can't blog. If you don't want to grade papers every night, you don't want to grade blogs!
I still feel comfortable with the markers and the whiteboard...
but shouldn't it be more artistic, since I'm teaching the arts?
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
Exit Polls, etc
The blogs are rife with speculation that the exit polls in New Hampshire predicted an Obama landslide and that Hillary, utilizing voting-machine hackery, stole the primary.
I've written elsewhere about my belief that such shenanigans occurred in 2004, when exit polls in Ohio and many other states showed Kerry winning but the states went to Bush. Nationally, the exit polls were 6-8 percent off, and in some states as much as 15 percent.
Exit polls, it bears reiterating, are taken AFTER the person has voted. It's "What did you do?" not "What do you think you will do?" Theoretically, they should be accurate, but because they use sampling (13,000 nationally in 2004, under 2,000 in NH last night), they can't be perfect. So there can be mistakes. 2004 doesn't pass the smell test because the mistakes weren't random -- they all favored Bush.
So the bottom line in New Hampshire last night? The exit polls were accurate. The sample stated a 39-37 preference for Hillary, and that's exactly how the real vote turned out.
So we can put away our tinfoil hats, or redeploy them to art projects, until fall.
I've written elsewhere about my belief that such shenanigans occurred in 2004, when exit polls in Ohio and many other states showed Kerry winning but the states went to Bush. Nationally, the exit polls were 6-8 percent off, and in some states as much as 15 percent.
Exit polls, it bears reiterating, are taken AFTER the person has voted. It's "What did you do?" not "What do you think you will do?" Theoretically, they should be accurate, but because they use sampling (13,000 nationally in 2004, under 2,000 in NH last night), they can't be perfect. So there can be mistakes. 2004 doesn't pass the smell test because the mistakes weren't random -- they all favored Bush.
So the bottom line in New Hampshire last night? The exit polls were accurate. The sample stated a 39-37 preference for Hillary, and that's exactly how the real vote turned out.
So we can put away our tinfoil hats, or redeploy them to art projects, until fall.
By the time you read this someone else will be ahead
It's the day after New Hampshire. Hillary won by complete surprise. Collapsed after Iowa and rallied on the day before the election. Does the whole state of New Hampshire need some kind of crop duster laden with ritalin to fly over and medicate everyone for what can only be a mass case of ADD?
I'm not against Hillary, just amazed that our political convictions can be so slight. I love news and politics (obviously), but it's in the arts where a sense of timelessness can be anchored. A great book can last forever or be devoured in a day. A dance performance or a concert can be a self-contained world in which time is stopped. Or a play, like the Neo-Futurists' Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind, can be advertised as a whirlwind ("30 plays in 60 minutes!") but seem to drag on...
Well, we have time to swing back and forth between HRC and Obama a dozen times or more before the election contest gets to the next state. Put on your seat belts!
MW
I'm not against Hillary, just amazed that our political convictions can be so slight. I love news and politics (obviously), but it's in the arts where a sense of timelessness can be anchored. A great book can last forever or be devoured in a day. A dance performance or a concert can be a self-contained world in which time is stopped. Or a play, like the Neo-Futurists' Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind, can be advertised as a whirlwind ("30 plays in 60 minutes!") but seem to drag on...
Well, we have time to swing back and forth between HRC and Obama a dozen times or more before the election contest gets to the next state. Put on your seat belts!
MW
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
Barack Obama "exposed" and asbestos.
When I set up this blog I agreed to allow "google ads" figuring that when the day came that thousands of people read it, I might get paid a little bit, because, well, I'm a professor of the arts in an expensive city and I need the cash. Do the math. (ABC's Charles Gibson thinks we professors are in the Bush tax cut bracket, but sadly he's wrong.)
So hovering above everything I write like a devil horn or a twisted halo is "Barack Obama Exposed!." Just fyi, I'm not trying to tear down Obama, but one of my advertisers is, because my posts mention his name.
A few years ago, another blogger told me that the highest-paying ads came from asbestos trial lawyers, so let's try another tag: asbestos asbestos asbestos.
It's a good looking word, and somehow art could be made of it, either sonically or visually. Have at it, reader, and adsense too!
So hovering above everything I write like a devil horn or a twisted halo is "Barack Obama Exposed!." Just fyi, I'm not trying to tear down Obama, but one of my advertisers is, because my posts mention his name.
A few years ago, another blogger told me that the highest-paying ads came from asbestos trial lawyers, so let's try another tag: asbestos asbestos asbestos.
It's a good looking word, and somehow art could be made of it, either sonically or visually. Have at it, reader, and adsense too!
Bipartisanship and artistic vision
There was a meeting of conservative democrats and "moderate/conservative" Republicans yesterday at which they all agreed (to the press's great cheering) that the era of "partisanship" must end and that Washington must now become a lovefest, led by the next president, who must appoint an equal number of cabinet members from both parties.
Pah.
The myth that's being manufactured here is that "both sides" have engaged in "excessive partisanship" which has hurt the country, so now it's time to stop.
In other news, all the great artists, playwrights, and novelists now must stop following their own visions and crafting compromise works jointly with their fiercest critics. I don't think so.
Let's do a little history (Digby's Hullabaloo has been on this for several days now): in the 1980's, the Congress had the goods on Ronald Reagan's illegal and possibly treasonous Iran-Contra deal, but Democrats decided for the good of the order not to impeach or push the investigations too far. The payback? In the 90s, the Republicans gained control of Congress by first refusing to join in the budget reform that ushered in the surplus (remember that?) and the economic book, but also in making sure Clinton could not pass any health care reform, no matter how business oriented.
After they got control of Congress, they set out to shut down the government, impeach Clinton for lying about sex, and generally run roughshod over the Democrats.
In 2000, both the Senate (50-50) and the Presidency were tied. Where was the coalition government then? Where was the bipartisanship? Instead, the GOP set out to build the "permanent majority" by threatening the "Nuclear Option" of revoking the right to filibuster when the Democrats dared question some of their judicial appointees. Our simian president in 8 years has made absolutely no efforts to include Democrats or to consult them on anything. When the Dems took Congress back in 2006, the GOP reverted to its 90's "block everything" strategy and stopped virtually everything from getting through, launching 62 filibusters in just one year.
Now that it looks like another big Democratic year, with possibly all three branches going liberal, it's time for bipartisanship? Right.
Meanwhile, back at the arts, you have to give Dana Gioia and his staff a lot of credit for growing the NEA during such a take-no-prisoners era. One could do worse than look to the NEA to see bipartisanship in action. Leave it to artists to work together to share vision when possible but to protect moral and artistic individuality when necessary.
But some things can't be compromised, like a real vision or a real principle. The call for bipartisanship is a ruse, a fallback position for Republicans in case they don't win in November. If they do win, you can hold your breath until the whole world runs out of oxygen before President Romney, McCain or Huckabee produce a true coalition government.
Pah.
The myth that's being manufactured here is that "both sides" have engaged in "excessive partisanship" which has hurt the country, so now it's time to stop.
In other news, all the great artists, playwrights, and novelists now must stop following their own visions and crafting compromise works jointly with their fiercest critics. I don't think so.
Let's do a little history (Digby's Hullabaloo has been on this for several days now): in the 1980's, the Congress had the goods on Ronald Reagan's illegal and possibly treasonous Iran-Contra deal, but Democrats decided for the good of the order not to impeach or push the investigations too far. The payback? In the 90s, the Republicans gained control of Congress by first refusing to join in the budget reform that ushered in the surplus (remember that?) and the economic book, but also in making sure Clinton could not pass any health care reform, no matter how business oriented.
After they got control of Congress, they set out to shut down the government, impeach Clinton for lying about sex, and generally run roughshod over the Democrats.
In 2000, both the Senate (50-50) and the Presidency were tied. Where was the coalition government then? Where was the bipartisanship? Instead, the GOP set out to build the "permanent majority" by threatening the "Nuclear Option" of revoking the right to filibuster when the Democrats dared question some of their judicial appointees. Our simian president in 8 years has made absolutely no efforts to include Democrats or to consult them on anything. When the Dems took Congress back in 2006, the GOP reverted to its 90's "block everything" strategy and stopped virtually everything from getting through, launching 62 filibusters in just one year.
Now that it looks like another big Democratic year, with possibly all three branches going liberal, it's time for bipartisanship? Right.
Meanwhile, back at the arts, you have to give Dana Gioia and his staff a lot of credit for growing the NEA during such a take-no-prisoners era. One could do worse than look to the NEA to see bipartisanship in action. Leave it to artists to work together to share vision when possible but to protect moral and artistic individuality when necessary.
But some things can't be compromised, like a real vision or a real principle. The call for bipartisanship is a ruse, a fallback position for Republicans in case they don't win in November. If they do win, you can hold your breath until the whole world runs out of oxygen before President Romney, McCain or Huckabee produce a true coalition government.
Friday, January 4, 2008
The Year of Young Leaders
Arts and Politics converge on this blog, as they did in my life today, when I worked on putting together a spring symposium on young/emerging leaders in the arts and thought about that Young Fella Barack Obama's big victory last night. At 46, he's just beyond the reach of the Boomer generation, in which I'm solidly entrenched. Barack doesn't remember Robert Kennedy or Martin Luther King or the Beatles pre-breakup; the explosion of psychedlic art, of Andy Warhol's heyday and underground media and art happenings and Poets Against the War and Allen Ginsberg levitating the Pentagon -- he doesn't remember any of it.
Nor do any of my students, young artists all, who will be the next generation of artistic leaders and policy makers in this country. To them, the battle of academe vs. the "real world" will be as quaint and inexplicable as was the Korean War to my generation. Last night, their generation voted in numbers far exceeding anyone's expectations, and they voted overwhelmingly for Obama.
I don't really know who Obama is, or what directions they will choose to lead America's arts infrastructure toward, but I feel the convergence. They're bored with the culture wars, except as a piece of interesting history; they see the National Endowment for the Arts model as creaky and impractical, and they figure there must be a better way to generate the funds artists need rather than fighting the Right over them in the musty halls of Congress. Like Obama, they seek a new path that gets beyond the old distinctions. I hope they find it, and more immediately, that if he is to be the nominee for President, that he really does have a path and a plan and is ready to take us there.
A part of me thinks -- these young people are kids, and Obama doesn't understand what a rough game partisan politics in DC is and how much the Right will do anything to stop him. Another part of me thinks, go for it -- let's all hope the New Way works better than the broken-down old one.
As to Mike Huckabee, well, he's very funny, but I'd rather watch the movie I Heart Huckabees any day than have to listen to him try to bring Jesus even closer to the center of our national public square.
Nor do any of my students, young artists all, who will be the next generation of artistic leaders and policy makers in this country. To them, the battle of academe vs. the "real world" will be as quaint and inexplicable as was the Korean War to my generation. Last night, their generation voted in numbers far exceeding anyone's expectations, and they voted overwhelmingly for Obama.
I don't really know who Obama is, or what directions they will choose to lead America's arts infrastructure toward, but I feel the convergence. They're bored with the culture wars, except as a piece of interesting history; they see the National Endowment for the Arts model as creaky and impractical, and they figure there must be a better way to generate the funds artists need rather than fighting the Right over them in the musty halls of Congress. Like Obama, they seek a new path that gets beyond the old distinctions. I hope they find it, and more immediately, that if he is to be the nominee for President, that he really does have a path and a plan and is ready to take us there.
A part of me thinks -- these young people are kids, and Obama doesn't understand what a rough game partisan politics in DC is and how much the Right will do anything to stop him. Another part of me thinks, go for it -- let's all hope the New Way works better than the broken-down old one.
As to Mike Huckabee, well, he's very funny, but I'd rather watch the movie I Heart Huckabees any day than have to listen to him try to bring Jesus even closer to the center of our national public square.
Thursday, January 3, 2008
Iowa and the Caucuses
It's a year with life-changing possibilities. I always feel that way when the Presidency is up for grabs. The national agenda, our place in the world, what we all think about and resonate against and make our art in response to is on the line. This time, it looks as though the little state of Iowa -- where a close friend lived for a long time and next door to two of my former homes -- is more central to the decision than ever.
Caucusing is fun -- I did it in Madison, Wisconsin, in 1984. Our Jesse Jackson group (we were so much younger then) had outnumbered the Mondales and thus got the central section where our caucus was located, which happened to be the state house chamber in the massive Wisconsin capitol building (second only in size to that one down the road from here in DC). It was a wild and inspiring scene -- someone had a boom box and the Jackson insiders, African-Americans all, were dancing to "Thriller" when they realized they had won the caucus.
Wisconsin never had caucuses again!
Tonight is it Obama time for a reprise of that moment on a national scale? Or will the first woman take the big step toward the Presidency? It's bizarre: the political left finds itself, at such a world-changing moment, supporting one of two white guys. Complicated! But my hunch is that there will be a surprise tonight, in that it won't be as close as is now thought.
Caucusing is fun -- I did it in Madison, Wisconsin, in 1984. Our Jesse Jackson group (we were so much younger then) had outnumbered the Mondales and thus got the central section where our caucus was located, which happened to be the state house chamber in the massive Wisconsin capitol building (second only in size to that one down the road from here in DC). It was a wild and inspiring scene -- someone had a boom box and the Jackson insiders, African-Americans all, were dancing to "Thriller" when they realized they had won the caucus.
Wisconsin never had caucuses again!
Tonight is it Obama time for a reprise of that moment on a national scale? Or will the first woman take the big step toward the Presidency? It's bizarre: the political left finds itself, at such a world-changing moment, supporting one of two white guys. Complicated! But my hunch is that there will be a surprise tonight, in that it won't be as close as is now thought.
Welcome to 1/2 mile outside the beltway
Somewhere in May of 2007 I got an unexpected phone call: an offer to become a professor of arts management at American University in Washington, DC. As I write this, 2008 has just begun, the Iowa Caucuses are tonight, and it's time to begin writing as a Washingtonian, after many years in my hometown of Bloomington, Indiana. I used to write newspaper columns, alternatively about the arts and political issues, and after a semester of teaching and studying cultural policy with 25 brilliant graduate students from all over the world, I've come to realize that the best format for a blog would be to blend both of my major interests in one glop of prose.
But enough about me. I hope this blog will grow interactively and will represent views on art and politics, separately and together, that are informed about what's going on but that retain some of that flyover-country perspective that comes with the territory of living outside the Beltway. And on a warm night with the windows open, I can hear the Villagers buzzing by in their policymaking Toyotas, bound for a quiet evening in our leafy suburbs.
But enough about me. I hope this blog will grow interactively and will represent views on art and politics, separately and together, that are informed about what's going on but that retain some of that flyover-country perspective that comes with the territory of living outside the Beltway. And on a warm night with the windows open, I can hear the Villagers buzzing by in their policymaking Toyotas, bound for a quiet evening in our leafy suburbs.
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