Build Your Community

My entry yesterday has received a comment from a somewhat appropriate source. Kevin Smokler has written a book, Bookmark Now: Writing in Unreaderly Times, which essentially asks, is it worth writing a book if no one is reading them.

He also offers a consulting service to newly published and aspiring authors to help them operate in the current reality of literature. I don’t know much about consulting and coaching in this area, but what you get for his rates seems pretty reasonable to me.

But anyway, at first blush his suggestions seemed pretty naive to me. As a society, we are looking for easier ways to do things and aren’t about to inconvenience ourselves for the sake of nostalgia. You’d just as soon wish that the Donny and Marie Show were still on so your family would have something wholesome to watch on Friday nights. I am sure there will come a day when we look back nostalgically to the days Home Depot was bustling with excitement and talk about how much we miss the unspoken camaraderie and respect when do-it-yourselfers stood side by side with building contractors.

As I thought about it though, I came to realize I had witnessed some community building activities like those he suggested. As a society, we may be moving in a certain direction, but individually, our actions and gestures still have power. Home Depot and Walmart may never notice if you don’t shop in their stores, but the places you do shop instead might recognize your gesture.

Also, it may be easier than you think to build a community and establish the types of traditions and values I mentioned yesterday. My sister moved into one of those houses in the suburbs Kevin mentioned (though to be fair, the mortgage payments on her large house were less than the rent on her two bedroom apartment in Hoboken, NJ). Shortly after they did, they invited their neighbors to a “meet the new folks” bar-b-que.

Come to find out, most of the neighbors had never met each other either. They enjoyed each other’s company and decided they should have more parties. The started a themed round the world party at Christmas time. It is now in the 5th year. Right now, the biggest problem is whether to let others in the neighborhood into their circle because they are getting so bloated and drunk from all the food and alcohol available at the half hour stops at participating houses now.

Since then the people in #15 have established that they will have an annual picnic on July 4th and my sister has drawn her neighbors into the annual August summer party tradition she had going when she was living in Hoboken. When I was there in June, another of the neighbors had decided to establish the first annual ice cream social. (Alas, I missed it!)

In a sense, Kevin is correct. If we, as a society are engaging in conspicious consumption far beyond our means, it might be nice to turn it to the benefit of our community and create our own niche traditions and culture. Sure you have a 60′ television with an awesome sound system. Pick a night and roll it out on the patio and turn your yard into a drive-in for the neighborhood kids (minus the cars, of course.) The kids are probably amusing themselves with the fact they can watch television through your windows from all the way across the street anyway.

Cultural Literacy

Back in the late 80s, early 90s I read Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know by E.D. Hirsch. While I felt his list was a little on the conservative side politically and basically ignored or glossed over important figures and events in our history, I have come to feel he did have a point.

Though I haven’t read the book in at least 15 years, I clearly remember that he wrote that at one time, he could use the phrase “There is a tide” and business associates would know exactly how things stood without explanation. (The quote is from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar.)

He bemoaned the fact that he could not do that in the 1980s because of the way students were being educated and the lack of emphasis by families that children be exposed to culturally important things. But times change and old cultural touchstones give way to new.

Just recently I found myself similarly mourning the loss of channels of common culture. Or more precisely, the literal increase in the number of channels. When I was a boy, television was comprised of seven stations the three networks, PBS, two independent stations that 20 odd years later become Fox, WB affiliates and the original WWOR. Because there were so few stations, chances were you were watching the same shows as your neighbors and had something in common to talk about.

When I was in 5th or 6th grade, West Side Story was on Sunday afternoon. The next day at recess, my friends and I had a rumble and I got my first black eye. (Matt Mays ducked when James Barry and I were trying to grab him and I hit my face on James’ head). The inspiration of violence aside, there was no need for explanations about how to conduct ourselves because we all saw the musical the night before. (Well, actually, the dancing was beyond us so we skipped that part and went straight to rumble.)

I have noted the problems advertisers face these days reaching audiences (here and here) because there are so many television channels as opposed to the handful back in the old days.

While cable television and the internet allow more people to become familiar with new ideas than would have been possible when a handful of stations dictated what we knew, the weakness of this system is that now only a comparative handful of people can become familiar with a particular new idea. A smaller segment of the population witnessed the fall of Bo Bice on American Idolthan watched Roots.

Even worse, with more channels competing for eyeballs, the programming is even more mainstream and pitched to appeal to the widest audience possible so even fewer new ideas are being introduced to the country. Though granted, A&E, the History Channel, Discovery Channel, TLC, etc do give me an opportunity to learn about more than that single PBS station I watched — but even they have repositioned themselves to appeal to the most people since they arrived on the cable line up. Their stuff is interesting, but doesn’t challenge general attitudes and thinking.

Honestly, I am a little confounded by the recent brouhaha over Corporation for Public Broadcasting Chair, Kenneth Tomlinson, attempting to scuttle PBS. Or rather, I am confused by the actual attempt. With so many fewer people watching PBS these days than in Nixon’s days when he attempted to interfere with the network of stations, I have to imagine PBS is pretty much preaching to the converted and bringing few new people over to whatever way of thinking he feels is unbalanced.

With all the attention the attempted makeover of PBS is getting, I think more people may start thinking that maybe there is something on the stations that they should be watching. It is that old adage that there is no such thing as bad publicity. It might have been better to leave well enough alone and let the station be continually overshadowed by competitors rather than give people a reason to yank it into the light, dust it off and examine a lost treasure more closely.

I am not suggesting that cultural values and knowledge be standardized and everyone learn them because you quickly fall into the argument about who decides what is important. I know that the NEA’s Shakespeare in American Communities is controversial for this reason. The same is true with the programs where everyone in a city reads the same book over the summer. If you are picking one artist or one book, you are excluding so many others whose equal value can be argued.

At the same time, these program fill a desire in our lives to touch upon the time that humans lived in close knit communities where we found joy in our shared values, stories and traditions. Yes, times change and we have to face that inevitability.

But there is also something noble about thinking back to things like the family traditions of our childhood and wanting to share and create similar memories for others. Comfort and security can be found in these type of practices. The mistake comes when we grasp on these things as the only true ways to find comfort and security and insist on the same to others.

I don’t know where and how this common base can be built or found. I don’t believe the Shakespeare initiative and all Chicagoans reading A Raisin in the Sun was intended as a declaration of the true things citizens should know about the exclusion of all others. I am not as sure about Hirsch’s book, though there are certainly things in there worth knowing. With so many options for entertainment and information, I don’t know that any of these programs could have a wide enough an influence to create a common base.

It would sure be nice if we had some stronger common cultural ties beyond reality TV these days though.

Arts in Every Classroom

I usually spend my Saturday mornings watching cartoons. But, you know, they are into repeats now so the last few weekends, I have been flipping through the channels. On one of the local public access channels, I have come across a series of programs put together by Annenberg/CPB about teaching the arts to elementary school children.

The programs for Arts in Every Classroom are really fantastic. But let me first promote the above link to those readers who may not read to the end of the entry. You can watch all the 8 one hour programs over a high speed connection by video on demand for free.

So off with you if you have to go or want to watch the shows immediately. Everyone else, let me tell you why I liked watching the shows. (Keeping in mind, I haven’t watched them all.)

What I liked was that the programs alternate showing the teachers discussing and executing the activities in the workshop and then working with the students back in the classroom. And really, while it is fun to see how silly adults look doing some of these things, the rewarding part is realizing the kids really get it!

One of my favorite activities is watching the students make hats that express an idea, integrate that idea into movement while wearing the hat and then discuss how the construction of the hat dictated the way they moved (they moved carefully so that pieces didn’t fall off or perhaps wiggle too much indicating more joy than they intended, etc).

Leading up to the hat construction, the students were shown period costumes and were asked what sort of person would wear those clothes. The students responded with observations about everything from social class to the climate of the place in which the person lived.

This is what I thought was so fantastic about the program–it was crossing so many subject areas. In just one or two episodes, the classes were touching upon dance, visual arts, history, physics, acting, teamwork, etc.

Even though the observation about climate was based on the fact that the costume had layers upon layers dictated more by fashion than weather, the students did show some good critical thinking skills. Another example that pops to mind was that the students attributed a costume as belonging to either a poet or a prince. When asked why they felt the clothing would be worn by people of two distinctly separate classes, the students’ answer showed that they had a sense that a person would want to dress to the level of the company they hoped to keep. (The old adage of dressing for the job you want, not the one you have.)

The other thing I liked was the fact you couldn’t dismiss these activities as ones only a school with money and resources could afford to engage in. In many of the in-school segments, you can clearly see the classes are occuring on the floor of the cafeteria with the tables pushed up against the walls.

These are schools that don’t have the resources for an arts room of any size and have to squeeze classes in around lunch. I have taken programs into a number of these schools. In some, the transformation from classroom to lunchroom and back is pulled off with astounding coordination in the course of 3-5 minutes.

Anyway, it looks as if the program may have run its course on the cable access channel so I may have to watch the show on the ‘Net if I want to see more. I will let you know if I am impressed further.

NYFA–It’s Ain’t Just for NY

“NYFA’s online database, NYFA Source, is the largest searchable resource of grants, services, and publications for artists in all disciplines nationwide. If you’re seeking funding, residencies, or specialized information, it’s the definitive place to search – and it’s free. Yet many artists don’t utilize the breadth of information it offers, or are unaware of it altogether.”

Since many artists don’t know about it, I figured I would help NYFA out and let people know. NYFA, by the way, is the NY Foundation for the Arts. While many of their activities are understandably focussed on NY, their grant database is rather extensive and instructions for its use are good.

For those that are interested, there is a page where a NYFA staff member responds to comments about NYFA Source.

This month’s issue of NYFA Current also discusses health care for artists. This article is New York City specific, but does discuss what one city hospital is doing to make care affordable for artists. A similar program might be worth advocating for in other cities.