Other than that, how did you like the play?

taken from: http://annak.smugmug.com/gallery/5691633_NZqfy#350962380_7LL2bI was talking to my mom today and she said something really funny.

Until very recently my parents had three pets. The cat and the older dog both had to be put down unexpectedly in the last month. Now the young dog has a blood disease, and is going to have to be put down soon. So thats really painful. Losing a pet is one thing. Losing all three, randomly, one at a time, within a short time span, is awful.

Things in my life have been difficult lately, too, though in a very different way. But weve talked about that. You keep going, and you try to enjoy the world.

We chatted about our plans for the next days, etc, and she quipped, “Other than that Mrs. Lincoln, did you enjoy the play?”, which made me laugh. Sometimes its hard to really enjoy even the nice things in daily life, because of bigger issues.

I googled the phrase to find an image to illustrate, and found that a lot of people like it as a title. The image here is from a series of camping trip pictures with the same title. I’m glad I wasn’t on that trip!

Sometimes daily appreciation for the good – or bad – gets overwhelmed by the context. I think that happens in both personal and professional ways. It’s easy for people who know you a little, interact with you a little, to draw certain conclusions. I know I do that. Sometimes life is just like that… you’re going along with your personal stuff and someone walks up and asks (more or less directly):

“Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, did you enjoy the play?”

‘course the nature of it is that sometimes I do that without knowing I’m doing it. So it goes. In the same google search I found a blog by a very smart government employee. The post on the front of the blog right now is about new media efforts in government:

Changing the paradigm from producing products to producing conversations is never an easy transition…. . Interestingly, many planners forget this step and that, paraphrasing the Cheshire Cat, “if you don’t know where you want to go, you will probably end up someplace else.” But the direction must be light. We work with creative people and we have to let them be creative in their own ways. We must also recognize that MOST of the creativity available to us is outside our own organization.

I’m sure he’s right. But sometimes we explain the world so beautifully that there is no way to develop action off of the inspiration…. Sometimes work and planning get abstracted. I wonder how much all of this new media writing will actually influence things.

Does DC Need Arts Advocacy?

Bill Wilson and Ebby Thacher, founders of AAI am the chair of the DC Advocates for the Arts. I REALLY care about the arts. The studio – the dance studio – is the place I feel most at home in the world. I believe in the arts, because they are my home. But you don’t make much money in the dance studio. You support the dance studio time (mostly) outside of the studio – through grants, commissions, performances, and teaching. That money… it’s hard to get.

I’ve gotten really involved in arts advocacy, in part, because I believe in myself. Advocating for the arts en masse has been a way for me to defend my own choices. But at this point I’m uncertain what I’m fighting for. Funding is the only issue I’ve been able to get people to talk about regarding Arts Advocacy. Not priorities in funding, not efficiency in funding, just funding.

I believe DC does need arts advocacy. But not to advocate for funding. Due in no small part to the granting programs that spend the money, over the last ten years there are a larger number of mid-sized organizations drawing funding with professional development staff, and the stream of small orgs and individual artists stays constant. Nobody talks about patronage, cause it doesn’t serve them to do so, but there is a reason why more money is spent in NW DC, and the reason is the relationships that exist. Not the quality of the artists, or the possibility for arts businesses. Collegial support systems develop between staff, consultants and arts administrators, and no rules exist to manage those relationships toward the public good. Arts businesses are just businesses.

This city has – per capita – a very large arts scene, as appropriate to a locale where a major revenue stream is tourism. But how do we efficiently ensure that every child receives real arts education? How many stable mid/large sized organizations should the city be supporting? How can funding programs really encourage the kind of art that will best serve this city? What categories of art do we need to encourage to best serve this city? How can the arts leverage community development? How can we maximize government investment in the arts for revenue growth?

We cannot expect politicians to actually be experts on everything under the sun. Advocates must inform and educate themselves so that they can contribute to the dialogues, and pressures, which politicians manage on a daily basis. Does dc need arts advocacy? Yes. Because the politically expedient decision and the right decision are sometimes two different things. We might wish that arts business leaders would selflessly contribute to open ongoing intelligent policy discussions, and the needs of the city. But perhaps it’d be better to plan within the reality that exists, and build a broad, participation-driven advocacy organization.

Finished a good full draft of All Good Men; ready for the cast

I’ve been sitting up, watching Independence Day in the background (on A+E), and working on the script for All Good Men. As earlier posts reveal, I’m adapting a script for use as a dance theater project. I’m terribly behind in my schedule, but don’t doubt it’ll get done. I’ve done this before… I had a company from 2001-2003, and made full evening length shows in a little over three months. Twice! I think these twenty minutes of dance won’t be too burdensome to complete by July.

The script, the frame, for the dance, is this story written by Dylan Thomas. I just finished placing in the dances, agreeing on almost all of the music. Here is the final scene – the Doctor speaking to his students for the last time:

To think is dangerous. The majority of men have found it easier to droop into the slack ranks of the ruled. I beg you all to devote your lives to danger; I pledge you to adventure; I command you to experiment. [slowly]

I have attempted to teach you the dignity of man: to think. But to think…. is to enter into a perilous country, colder of welcome than the polar wastes, darker than a Scottish Sunday, where the hand of the un-thinker is always raised against you, where the wild animals, who go by such names as Envy, Hypocrisy, and Tradition, are notoriously carnivorous, and where the parasites rule.

Pay no attention to the mob. Remember that the louder a man shouts the emptier is his argument. Remember that the practice of Anatomy is absolutely vital to the progress of medicine. Remember that the progress of medicine is vital to the progress of mankind. And mankind is worth fighting for: killing and lying and dying for. Forget what you like. Forget all that I have ever told you. But remember that.

Independence Day is now at my favorite part — the speech that the ‘president’ gives before leading the troops into the final air battle. Bill Pullman as the President in Independence DayOddly enough – he says: ‘we will not go quietly into the night!’. Which is theft of a Dylan Thomas line: “Do not go gentle into that good night”.  I realized a while ago that the theme played by Bill Murray on the piano in Groundhog Day is actually a variation by Rachmaninov. Apropos of nothing…

I wonder which part of this project I’ll perform. As President Bill Pullman just said: “I’m a combat pilot, bill. I belong in the air.”  I know one of the smaller parts is best for me… I’m thinking I’d like to play either the student or the Doctor’s assistant. Next few days will include re-recruiting the dancers and setting the rehearsal schedule.