{"id":3729,"date":"2008-12-01T13:55:01","date_gmt":"2008-12-01T18:55:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=3729"},"modified":"2008-12-01T15:30:55","modified_gmt":"2008-12-01T20:30:55","slug":"since-were-on-the-subject","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=3729","title":{"rendered":"Since We’re On The Subject (“A Piece Of The Action” Predux)"},"content":{"rendered":"

BACKGROUND:\u00a0 Oops.\u00a0 I thought I’d posted this on Friday.\u00a0 I apparently did not.\u00a0 And since this piece is intended to mock the story behind this post<\/a>, it’s probably only fair that I actually post this, and pronto.\u00a0 I apologize for any confusion, stress or altered worldviews due to this mixup on my staff’s part).\u00a0<\/p>\n

———-<\/p>\n

There are plenty of conservatives who scoff at the idea of art as a noble goal in and of itself – at the notion that art can be something other than decoration or background music.<\/p>\n

I’m not one of them.<\/p>\n

But I’ll say this; when art becomes a creature of subsidy – a hothouse flower that can only exist when the government foots the bill – then it’s dead.<\/p>\n

Sisyphus at Nihilist in Golf Pants <\/em>details the “winners” of Minnesota State Arts board subsidies – grants from a couple of hundred bucks up to $6,000.<\/p>\n

There are the usual predictable howlers:<\/p>\n

Peter B. Becker Nelson,<\/span> Minneapolis <\/span>
\n$6,000 \u2014 to purchase video equipment and create a new video work that explores themes of relationships, empathy, sexuality, and gender<\/span><\/p>\n

Wonderful. The taxpayers of Minnesota are buying this guy video equipment to explore themes of relationships, empathy, sexuality, and gender \u2013 themes that would never be artistically explored without our tax dollars. Once Mr. Nelson is done with that, perhaps he will do a video version of his mustache series (a previous work where he drew mustaches on photographs of people<\/a>).<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

John S. Jodzio, Minneapolis
\n$5,700 \u2014 to finish his short story collection, If You Lived Here, You’d Already Be Home
\nFinally, someone has written a short story collection based on the popular apartment rental sign!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Now, I’m not one of those guys who’s going to mock an “artist” for producing something that reeks <\/a>of smug self-indulgence<\/a> – art often reflects the artists, and an awful lot of artists are <\/em>smug and self-indulgent, and that’s just fine.<\/p>\n

And I’m not one of those people who thinks art needs to be “accessible”.<\/p>\n

I do<\/em> think, however, that art benefits greatly from the struggle to create it. And judging by the almost uniformly dismal quality of the “art” produced on the public nickel…:<\/p>\n

Arlene Atwater<\/strong>, Duluth
\n$3,000 \u2014 for time to polish two new short stories, record them in her own voice on MP3 files embracing the new literary dimension of voice-only literature, and submit them to boundoff.com and Write On Radio, KFAI<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

…much of what we’re funding could use <\/em>a little struggle.<\/p>\n

The goal of art isn’t necessarily to last forever – but why do I suspect the “art” we’re funding has a shorter-than-average shelf-life?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BACKGROUND:\u00a0 Oops.\u00a0 I thought I’d posted this on Friday.\u00a0 I apparently did not.\u00a0 And since this piece is intended to mock the story behind this post, it’s probably only fair that I actually post this, and pronto.\u00a0 I apologize for any confusion, stress or altered worldviews due to this mixup on my staff’s part).\u00a0 ———- […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3729","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-a-n-e","category-liberty"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3729"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3729\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}