'An important message about the arts' - an animated video by artist Davi...

Dear All, Please take a moment to view this cute and funny video on the relevance of the arts to Britain (and, correspondingly, to the United States).

Blogging Janelle Monae

So, I bought both Janelle Monae cds because I was sent her music video twice by friends. TWICE. They were absolutely right that Monae's music is exactly what I like, and I bought. She's fantastic. She's just as much of a performance artist as GaGa, with as much funky gender-bending design, but she's a better singer and has a MUCH more interesting musical environment. I just started listening to her stuff, and oh, she's just spectacular.

I will admit, I've never been one for orchestral music, but I was totally surprised by how much of a visceral reaction I had to the opening of her CD the Archandroid. It's pegged as the overture to "Act II" of her android saga. I had to close my eyes and just drink it up. I'm SO excited for the rest of the CD.

Uh Oh...

I was just watching Rachel Maddow Show clips from last night, and OMG it was so frightening - Stephen Chu, Secretary of Energy, HAS NO CLUE WHAT DRILLING IS APPROVED OR NOT APPROVED UNLESS HE READS IT IN THE PAPER.

I immediately started panicking. What the heck is the Administration doing? Don't they know that in a case like this Interior and Energy should be communicating every single day? Who cares that permits to drill are Interior? They should have a hold on them that is totally binding, and approval of any new ones should be ferried up the line to be approved by the heads! Ugh. This is turning into a horrible disaster. My interpretation of what ought to be done:

1) Send out a "request for volunteers" to all high schools and colleges in the US, and have the government organize the shore cleanup. BP should not be in control of that. They don't care about wildlife, they don't care about Louisiana.

2) Have the government control the on-sea cleanup effort. they should stop BP from spraying any chemicals, and instead organize that cleanup themselves.

3) Sequester BP officials and scientists in a room and have them focus all their attention on capping the spill. The government should say that damages will be calculated after the spill is capped, and set no ceiling on damages. BP would then fight the spill while understanding that the quicker they cap it, the less money they'll be sued for.

If a BP manager or other spokesman comes to the government (aside from interior or energy scientists), the ONLY question should be: Is the spill stopped? If it isn't, THEY SHOULDN'T BE TALKING.

At least the gamma ray mapping of the blow out worked...

I am growing an avocado tree in a cup

I am excited to be venturing into this kindergarten-level experiment in gardening and the growth of seeds. Reactions to the seed in a cup:

My Father: You know, Cara - you are not likely to be here when this tree would be planted, so your mother and I are not going to be responsible for the continued health of this plant.

Me: Ok, well if it dies I'll look sad.

Father: That's acceptable.

My Mother: Oooh! I would love to have an avocado tree.

Two reactions, both wonderfully indicative of their characters.

I am now going to attempt to post a picture of said tree.

Cool Arrangement

Nobunaga Oda just opened his short program with a bit from Dido and Aeneas by Purcell - When I am Laid (in Earth). Then it went into synth dramatic music - and then it went into something vaguely 80's hard metal - which was totally cool. Thought I should mention.

Comcast/NBC annoys me right now

So, I thought I'd take a look at the COMPLETE figure skating from yesterday - you know, check out some of the non-american or non-top-4 pairs...gee! who'da thunk. So, I go onto NBC.com, where I could watch it. But there, not only do I have to download "microsoft blah-viewer", because obviously one of the other video players ISN'T ENOUGH, but then I also have to verify my cable/tv provider, and register for a "Comcast Video" username and password, because I DON'T HAVE ENOUGH PASSWORDS ALREADY. Honestly, people - I thought NBC was a not-for-pay network - you get your revenue through ads, right? And Comcast - I'm already getting my service through your friggin network - can't you tell? We have wireless, it's password protected, and there's a router. Is it somehow impossible for you to detect that I have your service? Or impossible to detect that I have certain things approved/not approved? I mean, you do it on my TV ALL THE TIME. That's why I can't watch Starz or HBO whenever I want. So LET ME WATCH MY COMPLETE FIGURE SKATING, because jeez! Few enough people want to watch the full program, and apparently, you want to make it harder. Good job, screwups.

Plus, I don't care about the polar bears, when you've avoided playing figure skating for a full 25 minutes now. It was the first event you said you'd cover. BTW, NBC, you deserve to lose money on this, if you're going to cover it so badly.

Note on Last Night

Ask and ye shall receive:

Last night the Germans did a short program to "Send in the Clowns" from A Little Night Music... by Sondheim. I was pretty appreciative (it was a nice, if unimaginative arrangment), except what ruined it was the OVERWHELMINGLY AWFUL clown costumes.

And I guess that partly answers my question about why all figure skating music is somehow awful - because skaters don't understand what the song means. *shudder*

In honor of the olypics (hopefully part I)

I'm trying to watch the opening night of figure skating (pairs' short program) which is being interrupted constantly by luge (I don't care) advertisements (many of them totally awful - there was one about a "preparation H"), and talk of the luge competitor who was killed (I feel awful about this - he was younger than me :( ).

So, in honor of figure skating, here's this article from the Washington Post, about the utter crud music that figure skaters perform to. There is a clear bias against modern music in the article, one which I think is worth a bit of thought. Why is pop music so rare? One reason the article states is that vocal music (sung words) is against the rules in singles and pairs, if not ice dance. But why couldn't you do arrangements of other popular music?

Again, back to the purists where classical music is the only good music. Personally, I feel like a Sondheim arrangement might be kind of cool - and unique. "You need something people can relate to, something that can evoke some kind of picture quickly," Weisiger says, wondering how many iterations of "Phantom of the Opera" will be heard at this year's Olympics.

Why is ballet and classical music the only music that both gets "good for figure skating" and "good music" tags?

If you actually have knowledge about this, I'd love to hear what you think.

Awesome Sauce #1

I wish America would do this......

Createquity - the blog I ought to read every chance I get, but don't

As a welcome but still disheartening reminder about why good, prolific bloggers don't really have other jobs, Createquity (see updated blogroll) just put out a list of the 10 biggest arts policy stories in 2009. There are 2 reasons this is disheartening (for me) 1) there are some things on there that I didn't even know! Like Number 8. I had no idea that the two biggest west-coast funding groups were going through a leadership change! Yeah - I ought to have kept on top of that. 2) it proves that other people are doing this better, and more thoroughly than I am. Go figure.

Check it out. The list is BEAST.

Also, this quote is my life, and feels really true to me right now, for some reason.

The problem of course, as far as private funding goes, is that what billionaire wants to fund school education? Where’s the glamour in that? You don’t get your name etched in marble on the outside of a hall for that, or get invited to amazing galas, so what’s the point? That’s why I’m focusing on public and state funding — let the private funders bankroll the opry halls, if that’s where they want to hang out.

I sense that in the long run there is a greater value for humanity in empowering folks to make and create than there is in teaching them the canon, the great works and the masterpieces. In my opinion, it’s more important that someone learn to make music, to draw, photograph, write or create in any form than it is for them to understand and appreciate Picasso, Warhol or Bill Shakespeare — to say nothing of opry. In the long term it doesn’t matter if students become writers, artists or musicians — though a few might. It's more important that they are able to understand the process of creation, experimentation and discovery — which can then be applied to anything they do, as those processes, deep down, are all similar. It’s an investment in fluorescence.

It's all an investment in fluorescence. Beautiful, beautiful sentence.

Shows I want to see #536

Enron. The play.

And this is news to....

Anyone who hasn't ever bothered to learn about the dramatic side of Shakespeare.

I'm very sorry this academic is dead, and he seems like he was a really amazing guy, but his insights are really very....hmm....accepted? Understood? Been told to everyone 20 times over (hopefully). I guess the fact that he first encountered Shakespeare in a college Shakespeare course accounts for why he was so amazed that Shakespeare is really only alive when in performance. But go figure.