Thinking Out Loud in Public

Parking this here for the future:

“As arts organizations become part of the world of markets instead of being buffered from it, their focus shifts from preserving human heritage and culture to attracting and building a paying audience. It’s easier, after all, to measure artistic success in terms of tickets sold than in terms of something vague like aesthetic triumph. Arts organizations start to think and act like businesses, adopting management philosophies and marketing techniques and training staff in management and business practices. That training is offered mostly through business schools, which also stress the importance of the market.”

– F.S. Michaels, Monoculture

Hey, look, Ma! My letter is in American Theatre Magazine!

This post by @ayjay pretty much describes me as well. “Back to My Books,” by Alan Jacobs.

Yesterday was my birthday, and my wife and I went to the Habitat ReStore and I bought a used desk for my study for $32, which is the height of birthday celebration!!!

“We exchange something very precious for money: our life energy. Do we want to spend our time and energy earning money and contributing to the market economy, or fostering creative pursuits, our relationships, and community, and contributing love?”

Twelve by Twelve: A One-Room Cabin Off the Grid and Beyond the American Dream by William Powers

I wonder how many people would heave a sigh of relief and enthusiastically support this platform described by Matthew J. Franck in his (somewhat) tongue-in-cheek article “My Presidential Candidacy.” It certainly would restore legislative balance, make the House and Senate elections more important, and help us get away from the overheated idea of the imperial presidency that we’ve labored under for more than 50 years.

OK, I’m settled in for the NFL draft. I’m not hard-core: I’ll probably turn it off after the Panthers pick (at #8…or will they trade back???)

Do stock market people ever get tired of knee jerk responses? “Oh, look!” Trump said something nice about Powell. Huzzah! Let’s run the prices up!" Insanity.

“In a letter to Menoeceus, Epicurus noted that an old man is in an ideal position to open his mind to new ideas “in consequence of his absence of fear for the future.” An old man does not have to fret about his next move because the chess game is over. He is free to think about any damned thing he chooses.”

Travels With Epicurus by Daniel Klein

I have often had some version of this hurled at me: “Easy for you to say – you’re retired” or “You can talk because you have a tenured position.” And I’ve never denied this, because those of us in “ideal positions” are able to consider radical ideas because “the chess game is over.” But instead of seeing this as something that disqualified me from participation in the discussion, I see it as an advantage I have over those who are spending all of their energy and attention simply trying to survive and inch forward. It seems to me that a large portion of new ideas that, when eventually adopted, turn out to be game changers are made by people secure enough to risk imagining a new direction.

Today’s reading: On Consolation: Finding Solace in Dark Times by Michael Ignatieff – a welcome salve for the soul. I’ve been particularly drawn to the chapters on Job and on Marcus Aurelius. The book was inspired by the 2017 event in Utrecht in which four choirs would sing musical versions of all 150 Psalms. Three years later, during the early months of the pandemic, these performances were broadcast, one per day, to provide consolation. __