Quincy Jones is asking President Obama to create a Secretary of the Arts, and they will need as much support as possible.
http://www. petitiononline. com/esnyc/petition. html
Take a minute to go sign this petition, and pass it on to your friends, colleagues, and family.
The arts are not an optional hobby. They are not just something to pass the time. They are not about entertainment and advertising.
The arts are a necessary, absolutely vital, part of life and culture.
As long as there has been civilization there has been art. Aristotle told us that theatre was a source of the katharsis necessary for a person's balanced, happy life. Every major revolution has been aided and abetted by the arts, whether on the stage, in literature, or in the visual arts. Fashions have come and gone, technology has progressed to nearly unrecognizable degrees, regimes have risen and fallen, and humanity has progressed and evolved in myriad other ways. But always there have been the arts. They are a given, a staple, a keystone of humanity, and they have gone unappreciated in our country for far too long.
Other countries have had Ministers of Art and Culture for years, but the U.S. has never created the position. The arts are a part of our American culture that have been shoved to the back of our minds. We do not think of them anymore as necessary; we think of them as entertainment, as hobbies, as luxuries.
Art is not a luxury. It is a deep-seeded need of human beings; why else would it have endured through all the centuries of civilized mankind?
The arts provide us with a way to express, to release, to feel and believe and want anything and everything. The arts are our refuge from and our doorway to the world. The arts enrich all of our lives, whether we visit museums and concert halls or simply appreciate the beauty of some random thing. The arts provide us with a sense of beauty, a sense of balance, a sense of possibility and promise. The arts are what make it possible to keep going, no matter how bleak the world is. The arts are the inspirations that lie beneath our hope and genius and progress.
America is in a rough spot right now. I've heard it said that the arts are the last thing we need to worry about now, in a time of conflict, war, and recession. Now is the time when the arts are more necessary than ever before. It is the troubled times, the dark times, when the catharsis and release of the arts (which cannot be gotten from any other source) is most vital. It is most important to us as individuals, to keep our personal heart; it is most important to us as a nation, to feed our unity and determination to persevere and grow.
I believe that one of the first steps in repairing and advancing America is to look to our education. I believe that arts education is absolutely necessary. Put emphasis back on music, on theatre, on visual arts and creative writing. Make these a hub of our educational system, and allow students to explore their interests, their minds, and their whimsy. Do not let the expression and release of art be overshadowed by the necessity of math and science.
I believe that the creation of a Secretary of the Arts is the first step to bringing the arts into the spotlight of our education, and into the spotlight of our culture.
This is an important opportunity for necessary, real, and long-term change. We as artists have a responsibility to ourselves, our communities, and our crafts to ensure that the arts receive the respect and recognition they deserve. It is a small step, yes; it's an internet petition. But in signing the petition, don't just write your name for the hell of it. When you sign your name, sign with a promise to do your part in bringing the arts out of the darkness into which they have been thrust and back out into the light, into the world, into the present and give them the chance to help us fly into the future.
Whew. That was impassioned.
>climbs down from soapbox<
Tim is a guy who went to Alma College. I believe he graduated from Alma at the end of my freshman year. I never really got to know TIm. We knew each other by sight, and would greet each other if we saw the other passing through a hall. But we never really spent much time together, or really learned much about the other.
This evening, I was at Theta Chi (surprise). I spent a few hours hanging out with various people, and aroung 3:30am, I ended up in the chapter room with a few other people, Tim being one of them. I was playing with a deck of cards I found, and it came up in conversation how a regular deck of playing cards corresponds with the Minor Arcana of a Tarot deck. Tim expressed an interest in what I was doing. This started a very interesting conversation with the man.
It began in a regular sort of way, talking about nothing developing into talkinga bout something, and we had a discussion about Free Will Vs. Destiny. I always enjoy these kinds of conversations with people who actually think about what they feel about the topic. Tim and I don't agree on our perception of Free WIll Vs. Destiny; in fact, we're more or less polar opposites in a lot of ways. However, it was very interesting to talk to him about it, because A) we were both okay with the fact that the other didn't agree with us; B) we were both open enough to really think about what the other was saying, and tried to understand it, even if we didn't agree with it; and C) we both were willing to take what the other said and try to make our own viewpoint more clear. It was nice, to talk to someone whom I don't agree with, but whose point of view can help me to clarify my own.
What was especially nice about it was in fact the acute opposition. Tim described himself as a very scientific, rational, materialistic kind of person (materialistic in the philosophical sense, not in the conceited sense). I personally am much more intuitive, abstract, and spiritual; I base my life and my decisions on faith and emotion more so than on cold fact and apparent reality. Both are completely legitimate; but each is rather contradictory to the other. It was interesting to talk to him, because his agruements made me refine my own thoughts; they made me specify and delve into my own ideas about things, not so much to convince him of anything, but more so that I could understand my own self better. Being confronted with an entirely different point of view forced me to really assess what I've been thinking, and whether or not it really makes sense with what I feel and believe, or what I feel I believe (which, by the way, I still feel that it does, make sense, for me). It was also interesting because, in listening to him and his thoughts and ideas and even process of thinking, I was able to try to delve into his personality a bit, which I do, frequently, as an actor. Hearing his point of view made me think of how I could believe the same things; that is, what circumstancs of my life would have to be different for me to feel the way he does about existence? What childhood lesson would I have had to absorb that I never got to? What personality quirk do I lack that inspires one to look at the world through those particular lenses? Where does our line of thought separate, and what could have caused me to take a different direction than I did? These are all things I like to think about when I'm having a discussion with someone, especially on a one on one basis. THe conversation itself, while it may be extremely enjoyable, is almost always secondary to the experience and exploration of the other person in themselves.
After this conversation/debate/discussion, the fact that I was playing with the cards came into focus. I mentioned how the regular deck of playing cards corresponds with the Minor Arcana of Tarot. Tim (jokingly) applied each of us in the room with a card of the Major Arcana. I was impressed by this, as Tim doesn't actually know anything about Tarot; that is, he's never studied it. Thinking on it, while he assigned us each with a card more or less randomly (as he couldn't really assess us on the basis of the meaning of the carads that he didn't know), interpretations of the cards to the person he gave it to made a lot of sense. He called himself the Heirophant; me, Death; Nati, The Wheel of Fortune. If one thinks about it, these cards in conjunction with these people actually makes a lot of sense. So that was surprising and impressive.
Then we started playing with the cards. I gave Tim a basic outline of what each suit represented, and we took turns reading the cards for each other. THis was a lot of fun. Firstly, I was able to test my knowledge of the cards, as I've been studying Tarot for a few months now, and am pretty much at the place where I should definitely know what one card generally means or represents. Secondly, it was fascinating to observe the differences with which we each read. I, in my abstract kind of way, went on what I had learned through study of Tarot, and on my intuition on what each card was referring to in that moment. Tim, in his more scientific, materialistic kind of way, went on my basic overview of each suit and its associations, and with a more numerological assessment of the progression of the cards. His readings were actually extremely astute. Both in that his interpretations of each card's individual meanings, and in the overall idea that the spread seemed to be addressing. THis was EXTREMELY interesting to me; to observe how two such different ways of approaching something can both lead to the same general conclusion or insight. In fact, that idea in itself was more or less the culmination of the experience for me.
That, and the realization that I have had some of the best philosophical conversations with Theta Chis, though always on a one on one basis.
Oh, and, apparently, I'm poised on the edge of my reality changing. Who knew?
- Mood:
contemplative
Baby carrots in moss sauce reflect the china pattern.
Raisonettes tumble down the back stairs in fighting formation.
A skinny parrot sits silent on its perch,
awaiting the guinea pig's favorite summons.
Spiked lemonade warms in the late summer sun,
the glass sweating in a puddle on the deck rail.
Photos of lilies drift back and forth,
fading into a black void of pixels, breathing light.
As a folding chair wraps in on itself in chagrin,
the company's ham roast sneaks away.
Thwip. Thwip. Thwip.
- Mood:
hungry
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