Parabasis

Drag Me To Hell

Is awesome. If Sam Raimi can do a couple more of these kinds of movies at this quality level, I might forgive Spiderman 3.

Grizzly Bear

Although I'm enjoying their new album, I think this article in the Times gets at some of my ambiguity about them.

I Am Not So Sure This Is True

Writing on TAPped yesterday, Mori Dinauer commented on Obama's demand for a settlement freeze thusly:

Laura Rozen shares Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu's reaction to the Obamaadministration's tough stand against expanding Israeli settlements, as well as Netanyahu's surprise that unlike past presidential administrations, Obama's isn't passively yielding to the Israeli position. I think moments like this serve as a good example that claims of the deep influence of the "Israel Lobby" on U.S. foreign policy are the result of a reputation for influence, rather than influence itself.

Now, this was a throwaway sentence, not a cogent argument, but I'd like to hear this teased out more, because on its face, I don't think there's much evidence that the Israel Lobby's influence is merely via reputation. This is evidence that Obama is willing to play toughish (more on that later) with certain issues with Israel, but that actually says nothing about the relative power of the Israel Lobby other than they're not all powerful.  

Of course, it's also worth mentioning that where we are in the conversation about Israel and Settlements right now reflects the entrenched power of the pro-Israel lobby as well as the overtly zionist slant of US politics. The settlements are illegal. Not some of them.  All of them. They are part of an illegal post-1967 land grab.  Obama is telling Israel to stop breaking the law for its own sake, but no one is even whispering about redressing the forty years of lawbreaking that have gotten us to this point. I think it's great that Obama and Clinton are getting serious about settlement growth but it is worth noting that somewhere down the line, dismantling them is going to have to get seriously discussed if the two state solution is ever going to happen.

Sotomayor...

...not, it turns, out, a racist, despite what GOP leaders are saying:

Other than Ricci, Judge Sotomayor has decided 96 race-related cases while on the court of appeals. 

Of the 96 cases, Judge Sotomayor and the panel rejected the claim of discrimination roughly 78 times and agreed with the claim of discrimination 10 times; the remaining 8 involved other kinds of claims or dispositions.  Of the 10 cases favoring claims of discrimination, 9 were unanimous.  (Many, by the way, were procedural victories rather than judgments that discrimination had occurred.)  Of those 9, in 7, the unanimous panel included at least one Republican-appointed judge.  In the one divided panel opinion, the dissent’s point dealt only with the technical question of whether the criminal defendant in that case had forfeited his challenge to the jury selection in his case.  So Judge Sotomayor rejected discrimination-related claims by a margin of roughly 8 to 1.

Of the roughly 75 panel opinions rejecting claims of discrimination, Judge Sotomayor dissented 2 times.  In Neilson v. Colgate-Palmolive Co., 199 F.3d 642 (1999), she dissented from the affirmance of the district court’s order appointing a guardian for the plaintiff, an issue unrelated to race.  In Gant v. Wallingford Bd. of Educ., 195 F.3d 134 (1999), she would have allowed a black kindergartner to proceed with the claim that he was discriminated against in a school transfer.  A third dissent did not relate to race discrimination:  In Pappas v. Giuliani, 290 F.3d 143 (2002), she dissented from the majority’s holding that the NYPD could fire a white employee for distributing racist materials.

Our President...

Pretty awesome:

President Obama and his wife, Michelle, plan to visit New York City on Saturday and take in a Broadway show, the August Wilson play “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone” at the Belasco Theater on West 44th Street, according to three theater executives who have been informed of the First Family’s plans.

Outrage Again!

Rob Weinert-Kendt, co-founder of Critic-O-Meter claims that Elvis Costello's King of America is his best album. This claim is ludicrous on its face!  Trust, Armed Forces and This Year's Model are all superior albums.  This is an outrage!  Our differing tastes prove that Rob has insufficient moral fiber (or character for that matter!) and he should print a full retraction or risk not being invited to my fortieth birthday party in ten years! Arg! Angry! I'm angry! Grr.

On another note, did you know the character of T-Bone in the book High Fidelity is names after EC producer T-Bone Burrnett? It's true. One of many Elvis Costello references (including the title) removed in the film.

Another way to say all of this is...

All The Reviews That Are Fit To Print

The Broadway season might be over, but Critic-O-Meter keeps on going and going and going!  Oy vey!  Click here to find out what the reviewers thought of Groundswell, 10 Things To Do Before I Die, Le Serpent Rouge, Pure Confidence, Vieux Carre and more!

Coming Soon...

I am very excited about this reading I've got on Tuesday. It's a really funny exploration of love, youthful possibility, nostalgia and regret...  Here's all the relevant info:

JANUARY 2ND
a comedy by J. Holtham

Directed by Isaac Butler

 

With Rebecca Naomi Jones, Julie Leedes, Jared McGuire, Natalia Payne, Matt Rauch

New Year's Eve, 1993. A college town in upstate New York. Jake and Kate have been good friends for years, but, full of New Year's spirit, are on the verge of taking their relationship to the next level. Full of optimism and youth, they imagine a beautiful life together. But when a mysterious visitor intercedes, they find themselves looking at their future in a whole new light. A comedy about getting things right the first time...the second time around.

 

Tuesday, June 2nd

7:30 p.m.

The Ensemble Studio Theatre

549 West 52nd St.

 

For information, call (212) 247-4982

Maybe Not the Best Idea?

What happens when a marketing director invites patrons to vent their spleen at a critic who didn't like a show? Thomas Garvey is on the case. Is this good audience activism and organizing? Or a disastrous breach of all kinds of boundaries?  He reports, you decide.

Hey Academics!

Looking for an idea for a paper?  Look no further! At the gym this morning I thought it would be a good idea to write a long-form piece about how commerce works in August Wilson's 20th Century Cycle, relating it to ideas of the economic development in general and African American economic development in particular.  Weave together some 20th century social history, some play analysis, maybe a little bit of Lewis Hyde's discussion of the development of Capitalism and Usury in The Gift for good measure.

I, however, have no reason to write such a paper. But you might.  So if you want it, take it.

Things I Agree With (This One Will Surprise Nobody)

Mike Daisey edition. I am basically a creature of the non-profit theatre world about to marry a creature of the for-profit theatre world (who has also worked in non-profit).  I'll just say both worlds have  a shitload of disfunction and both worlds have plenty to teach each other. Rocco's fundamental perspective-- that non-profits need to stop behaving like commercial producers-- is exactly what the non-profit world needs to hear right now.  

Two Revolutionary Ideas Worth Reading About

The first, from Createquity, the "Income-Sensitive" Ticket Pricing Scheme. 

Here's how this could work in the arts. A city-wide agency, like the local cultural council, could offer an "Art Card" to all residents. Eligibility would be based on financial aid criteria like that described above, particularly tax returns. This information would be fed into a formula that would then be connected to the resident's account with the city agency. The Art Card would then act something like a supermarket loyalty card for its holder, with a preset individualized discount off of any posted price for participating organizations. So say I want to go to City Opera. I buy a $50 ticket, present my Art Card to the box office or the website form, and am told that my price for this ticket will be $37.16 based on my personal financial situation. This setup would be expensive to implement, but it would be fundamentally fair -- and would have the additional benefits to participating organizations of allowing them to dispense with other hard-to-verify discounts andraise prices on their highest-income customers (just as colleges and private schools have been doing with tuition for years). It also benefits residents and extracts value from tourists, something any local government should be able to get behind. And if institutions are reluctant to play along, the city could always make participation in the program a requirement of receiving grant funds (at least for its largest institutions).

Read about it here.

The other, from August at Flux Theatre Ensemble is about the "Audience Engagement Platform":

Imagine that instead of your Facebook account being just acquaintances and friends, it is a social network of self-selected audience members who want to follow your work. Let's say that one of the audience members on your list is convinced that you as Playwright A simply must work with Director B, Actors C, D and E, and Designer F. That audience member then proposes the idea of this collaboration to the network of all six artists. Let's say that 500 audience members following each artist agree that this collaboration has to happen. These 3,000 people each give $20 to the project, and $60,000 is now raised. Perhaps this donation serves as their ticket as well, making the project sell out its first few weeks (assuming the online functionality could handle some form of self-reservations).

These artists now have enough seed money to create a unique work of art with revenue generated solely by an audience already committed to seeing it. Each audience member is a producer, and as such, is intimately more connected to the project, and more likely to follow the artists' work afterwards. Each artist sees their audience base grow significantly from the crossover.

Read about it here.

Either idea, if implemented would be huge.   Your thoughts?

New (To Me) Music

It's been awhile since I've actively been listening to new (or at least new to me) music.  But recently, thanks to some gift certificates etc. here's what I've picked up:

Grizzly Bear- Veckatimest. I've gone back and forth on GB for awhile. I think a couple of songs on their last album are okay, but I'm a much bigger fan of GB side-project Department of Eagles. Apparently this is the album where they put it all together, we'll see.

Darcy James Argue's Secret Society- Infernal Machines. I've had the luck of befriending Darcy over the past couple of years. An artist I discovered purely due to the blogosphere, I asked him if I could use some music of his in a show I directed and it turned out we had a lot of similar interests and artistic preoccupations and values.  Finally, he's got an album out and it is really awesome. Check it out.

Kutiman- Kutiman. Remember ThruYou? The thing where the Israeli DJ remixed YouTube videos to make awesome funk awesomeness? Well, that's Kutiman. he has an album. It's a lot of fun.

White Rabbits- It's Frightening. I liked White Rabbits first CD. I liked how they made piano-fronted indie rock with two drummers but eschewed the King Crimson dueling percussionists thing for a more poly-rhythmic approach. Also, I love the band Spoon. And Spoon's lead singer produced this album. It works out well.

Camera Obscura- My Maudlin Career It sounds a like their last album. And i loved their last album, so I'm cool with that. Remember when Belle and Sebastian were good? Now imagine them fronted by a woman and given the full Phil Spector treatment.  

Sparklehorse and Danger Mouse- Dark Night of the Soul. Yet another Danger Mouse project that will never be released commercially due to copyright issues (this one looks a lot more spurious than The Grey Album which was self-consciously transgressive). This one is a collaboration with Sparklehorse and features a whole host of guests including Wayne Coyne, David Lynch (?!), Black Francis, Iggy Pop and Julian Casablancas.

Jonathan Lethem- Score! Vol. 5. The latest in Merge's curated-mix-CD series, this one has tracks from Robert Pollard, The Magnetic Fields, The Clear, Spoon and all sorts of other great groups. I particularly love Caribou's She's the One and M. Ward's To Go Home (which is, incidentally, a cover of a Daniel Johnston song).

Cymbals Eat Guitars- Why Are There Mountains. I like Broken Social Scene. I like Pavement. I like Cymbals Eat Guitars. They paint on a very big sonic canvas and each song takes some interestingly epic twists and turns. 

Ray Charles- The Genius of Soul Plays and Sings the Blues. As Marvel Comics would say... 'Nuff Said

Set Your Browsers on Read

Scott Walters has a brand new home.  Can't wait to see what he'll cook up now!

Kids and Theatre

Apropos of this article about a High School production of Sweeney Todd, I would just like to add this.  There were four events in my life that made me want to make a life in the theatre.  The first was seeing a Michael Kahn-helmed St. Joan as a child (I think eleven, but I'm not sure). The second was being cast in a professional production of Falsettoland in seventh grade. The third was seeing my high school do Sweeney Todd when I was in eighth grade. The fourth was seeing both parts of Angels In America on Broadway in one weekend and feeling more alive than I thought was humanly possible by the end of it.

As a kid of thirteen... I had never seen anything like Sweeney Todd. The music was so compelling but so bizarre. The humor was so dark (like I liked it!). It was about eating people!  It seemed strange that this thing existed. Not only existed was revered as one of the greatest musicals of all time.  It was a key I'd-be-able-to-let-my-freak-flag-fly-in-this-life moment.

Anyway, read the article.

This also got me to thinking about Coraline.  Parents bring their kids to Coraline. It's recommended for nine-and-up, the box office is pretty explicit that it's not a kid's show, and no one under 5 is permitted (although I've seen a couple under-5s smuggled in).  And you know what? Kids are kind of annoying to have in an audience. They talk. They might get up and move around.  They might very vocally freak out when the ghosts of three dead children sing about being dead and then talk about having their souls eaten by a witch.

And there's a part of me that gets really reactive around this... we want a perfect environment for the work we do. We want the people who didn't bring kids to be able to appreciate the show undistracted, of course.  It's only natural. But then I think for a moment about that nine year old kid who is annoying the other people around them and is discovering at that moment I fucking love this and I want to devote my life to it.  Because when I saw St. Joan, I talked to my dad during it, it was George Bernard Shaw, it's not like I understood every moment of it. And I remember distinctly getting the whip-around STFU look from patrons around me. And I probably negatively impacted their experience. And they probably left going "fucking parents bringing their fucking kids to Shaw. What the hell were they thinking?".  

But without that show, my life might've taken a very different path.

What was the moment when you figured out you wanted to pursue theatre? Was there a show that inspired you?

Look Out, Nerds!

A movie possibly expanding the Buffy The Vampire Slayer franchise possibly involving Joss Whedon possibly might be made.  Vague details here.

Can you imagine if we announced plays like this?  In two years The Public might program in a new play by Arthur Kopit that might be about a plague maybe spread by killer ants that might destroy the upper class or something. Bart Sher might direct. Maybe.  Would anyone print that announcement?

Should Theatre Artists Encourage "Shareholder Activism"?

I said I was going to follow up on Adam's (muy excellente!) post about Endowed Artist Chairs and donor behavior. Having talked a little about his "quibbles" with the idea, I want to look a bit into his diagnosis of a key problem because I think it's important and spot on:

Most individuals who have the means to support arts organizations via donations, don't have a clue what artists get paid.

Yes, some may assume the artists make a ton of money.  Others may assume they are working for free.

But a lot of them just don't know.  Because they are never directly told by the people responsible for doing so, i.e. leadership within the organizations.

So they donate their money to an endowment, or an annual fund and then they trust the leadership of the organization to spend those funds (which are generally unrestricted) in any way they see fit.

It's the same with capital campaigns.  When a fundraiser walks in and asks for 100K for the building, that donor is thinking the same thing you are:

If they want me to give 100K for this building, then everything must be fine internally, or else why would they ask?

Hell, I know a few donors who, if they knew the employees of the organization didn't have health insurance would NEVER donate to a capital campaign.

We often make the mistake of assuming that the people funding these sorts of campaigns are as knowledgeable about life inside the arts as we are.

They aren't.  Basically these are laymen (and women) with a lot of money.

So the reason these people aren't funding the artists are basically:

1.  They think they are funding the artists by donating to annual funds and such

2.  They are directly asked to support capital campaign, which often leads them to believe everything is fine.

This is raised in the context of trying to raise money for endowed artist chairs instead of buildings.

(I want to pause here for one moment and digress: It's worth mentioning the context in which the idea of Endowed Artist Chairs was raised earlier. It was, essentially, in response to an oft-heard buildings-over-people argument... namely that donors want to fund something they can put their name on, and they won't fund artists, they'll fund buildings.  The EAC is a counter-argument idea: It essentially says "What about this? Other art forms have been able to do this. Why aren't you trying to do this?".  It appears the answer to that question is... "Because honestly we don't want to".  There's lots of reasons why institutions might not want to, which I want to address at a later point.)

Anyway, back to the points above... I've been thinking a lot about Saul Alinsky and his book Rules for Radicals (actually for another post that I haven't written yet). Towards the tail end of his life, Alinsky started working on something called Proxy Activism where essentially they would inform shareholders of the nefarious deed their companies were responsible for (and its worth noting that as shareholders, it is their company) and then getting this newly informed share holder to sign over proxy voting rights. Then they'd pool together these proxy voting rights and be able to actually have a large amount of influence on the actions of companies. 

This was a pretty brilliant idea for a couple of reasons. First, companies try to limit the influence of their shareholders by doing things like holding conferences in strange locations and not publicizing them that well. Also, if you hold a small number of shares in, say, McDonald's, are you really going to go the annual share holder's meeting hoping your .01% of the company will give you sway? No.  It's inconvenient and expensive and you got shit to do. But here's this nice labor organizer who is saying they're pooling together a bunch of smaller shareholders so they can collectively act through the organizer. 

Not bad.  Alinsky died not that long after writing Rules for Radicals and Proxy Activism never really took off as he was imagining it.  Part of what Alinsky was good at, however, was recognizing how the system works and, rather trying to change everything he tried to use his understanding creatively (and often humorously... he recommends using flatulence as a protest tool in the book).  It's the pragmatic part of his pragmatic progressivism.

Anyway... So this got me thinking.  Adam's right... if an organization doesn't want to fund artists over buildings (or is too scared to try) then they're not going magically create endowed staff positions for artists. Similarly, most subscribers and donors assume that theater's are run in a way that is somewhat ethical and considerate of their staff and the artists.  They don't know a lot about how the business end of it works. They assume that if you're raising money for a building, the rest of your house is probably in order.

Institutions care ultimately about survival and growth. This means that the are influenceable.  That's the good news.  The question becomes... how are we to have influence

Well, one way we have influence is through our unions.  The unions themselves are, of course, institutions at least as interested in their own survival and growth as theaters, they just answer to a different constituency, namely their member artists.  And perhaps there's something to be done there, although honestly, I'd need a deeper understand of Equity and how it works before I'd really start advocating that.

But another way we could have influence is through subscribers and donors. Maybe we need to find a way to have our own version of shareholder activism.  Institutions do respond to subscribers and donors.  I wonder if there is some what to essentially organize subscribers and donors to begin to agitate for things like endowed artist chairs etc.  I'm not saying i know how to do this. I just think that's the logical implication of what Adam is talking about.  

Anyone got any ideas?

Really, This Must be Read to Be Believed

Sam Schulman last week wrote an opinion piece in The Weekly Standard about Gay Marriage that truly must be read to be believed.  It's... staggering... amongst other things it basically confirms every critique that feminists have leveled against marriage over the past two hundred years, but then says that all of those things are good things and that gay marriage will spoil the traditional values of marriage which include (and this is a direct quote)  that it's about "protecting and controlling the sexuality of the child-bearing sex"   It also argues that current heterosexual marriage is, essentially, decadent and corrupt.  

Because I don't want to link to it, however, I really recommend you read this thorough fisking from Sadly, No!

And if you have a favorite sentence you'd like to leave in the comments, be my guest.

Broadway League's Hidden Fees

I am so sick of this shit. I never really bought the arguments they put forth against taxing Broadway tickets. I think they should be taxed, I mean, I think it would be good if it wasn't the full sales tax (that I would like to see imposed on secondary ticket brokers like TicketsNow) but I never bought the arguments against it.  It seemed... disingenuous for the Broadway League to be worried about high ticket prices. That they were putting forth that argument while also designing a hidden fee on discounted tickets is just lame.

I have to say... Charlotte St. Martin's tenure at the Broadway League has not exactly been a bastion of integrity (or progressiveness for that matter). But then again, they brought her in to bust unions and raise their bottom line, so I don't think we should be surprised.

Outrage!

Over at Balloon Juice, John Cole writes:

So I stopped by the kitty prison to check out what kind of dogs and cats they had up for adoption, and every single dog in there was beagle or part beagle. I supposed I should take advantage of the fact that Sullivan is on vacation to note how much I can’t stand beagles, because I think they are the worst behaving dogs on the planet. I will adopt a mutt, just so long as I am sure that no more than 5% of its bloodline is beagle. The fact that the kitty prison is filled with unwanted beagles merely reinforces my opinion.

This kind of bigotry will not stand!  As the proud owner of this:

all I can say is that he doesn't know what he's talking about.

It's important before owning a specific breed of a dog to understand what they were bred for and how that will impact their behavior. Cole owns several cats, so I wouldn't expect him to understand this.  Beagles were bred to be hunting dogs, which means they naturally (a) are very oriented around their nose (b) they have a very loud baying bark and (c) somewhat obstinate.    They also get very attached to their owners which, unlike some dogs, does not manifest in territorial aggression but rather in separation anxiety.

The problem is is that people get Beagles because Beagles (along with the horrendous Puggle*) are "in" right now. They don't understand what the dog needs or how to raise it, and they turn them into shelters.  A similar thing happened with Dalmations after the live-action 101 Dalmations came out.  People didn't realize that Dalmations are not, in fact, great with kids, and wound up in a similar bind.

Beagles take some time before they'll consistently obey their training over their natural stubbornness, but they're totally worth it. They're fiercely loyal, very friendly, love children and are lots of fun. I happened to luck out in some senses in that Ramona doesn't bark at all and isn't super-food oriented. She is stubborn and has minor separation anxiety issues, but every dog has something up with them it's just a question of finding the dog you're compatible with.  Some dogs need to be walked and/or played with for at least an hour a day, for example, something which I couldn't really do (which is why I don't have a Border Collie). The problem isn't Beagles, it's careless dog owners.

Oh, also, now would be a good time to mention that you shouldn't go through a breeder and that if there's a specific breed you want you should go through a rescue service. Many rescue organizations are very good at finding the dog that's right for you.  Based on the website, Ramona was not my first choice dog but they told me she'd be much better suited to an apartment than some of the other ones I was looking at who really should have yards.

*Puggles are horrendous because they're (a) ugly and (b) tend to combine the worst behavioral aspects of Pugs and Beagles, they're stubborn and hyperactive and yelpy and needy and difficult to train.