T Bone Burnett on Music & Art

[Christopher Sanderson]

A wonderful speech/essay here in transcript on the value of Art & Artists in our digital age

[Patricia Sheley]

Thank you for passing this along Chris. True to his core, as he always seemed to be on tour in the Dylan rare air. Appreciated.
Patricia

[Rob C]

Thanks, Chris; but there and here's the rub: moral rightness doesn't bring us actual success. It's easy to feel right, but it helps not a lot on an empty stomach.

Reality has always been that artists are a dependent lot: whether the church, the banks, the galleries, the design groups or the ad agencies, we need all those money people to give us something to do for which value we collect what we can negotiate, if negotiation is even on the table.

It's an impassioned plea he makes, but the deal is clear from the beginning: how many rich artists does any of us actually call friend? I think I met one once years ago, but even there I'm not sure what was real and what facade or family circumstance. Sure, the talent was there, but so it is in thousands of cases. I had a pal in the 80s travel industry whose son was at a loose end and whose mind had drifted to photography. Papa took him off to London to consult with, not a shrink, but a careers specialist (see how we all get screwed by 'experts'?). This man told the pair that the figures showed there were possibly a dozen people in London having what could be called a real career in photography, with the rest just flying on empty. AFAIK the son went on to a PR job in Sun City and promptly forgot silly art references.

The truth seems to be that, except for a relative few with their own natural marketing skills or the luck to find a genuine agent interested ¡n them, art is never going to be other than an ego trip with all the possible disasters that brings with it.

I believe those of us who do set sail do so simply because we just can't help ourselves: we do it because we must, and all who might sail with us accept that situation or opt to stay on the dock. It makes or kills relationships.

July 16, 1945, 5:29 and 45 seconds. Even science couldn't avoid premature congratulation. Bet few women designed that thing.

Rob

[GrahamBy]

Not sure it can be pinned to the hour of the bomb. What about the steam engine, which led to industrialisation, huge population movement into cities, increased early mortality, dreadful pollution....

... but also the possibility of ordinary people to own usable clothes and other objects, which in their hand made forms had been available only to the tiny elite?

Or the 1914-18 war, the first time relatively modern weapons were used, with mind-boggling casualties... but which destroyed so much of the capital of the elites, along withh the depression and WW2, that the social order was up-ended and we had the dramatically better social mobility of the 1950's to 90's?

Or the adoption of marketing specialists of discoveries of academic psychologists to persuade people so effectively to want what they don't need? But which means I can look at the work of almost any major artist on my telephone...

[Rob C]

Not sure it can be pinned to the hour of the bomb. What about the steam engine, which led to industrialisation, huge population movement into cities, increased early mortality, dreadful pollution....

... but also the possibility of ordinary people to own usable clothes and other objects, which in their hand made forms had been available only to the tiny elite?

1.  Or the 1914-18 war, the first time relatively modern weapons were used, with mind-boggling casualties... but which destroyed so much of the capital of the elites, along withh the depression and WW2, that the social order was up-ended and we had the dramatically better social mobility of the 1950's to 90's?

2.  Or the adoption of marketing specialists of discoveries of academic psychologists to persuade people so effectively to want what they don't need? But which means I can look at the work of almost any major artist on my telephone...

1.  Indeed, lots of things were wiped out by war, and rich families were ko'ed by many different factors, one such one the venomous, hate-and-envy-driven purge by insane taxation on death, that brought down country estates and eventually (and easily forseen) the poor folks working therin. But they were as much fodder to the equalizing ethic as the rich: they counted for squat: collateral damage.

Of course, that solved nothing: all that happened was that there was a change of the guard, and now it's foreign plutocrats, some bankers, industrial billionaires and football heroes that have all the money. And the estates. (Or the National trust, which now means that Joe Public is ultimately paying for it where before he was not.) But it hardly mattered: the underlying objective of killing off those suspected of having any class was almost complete. So what if a yob now owns that patch of the forever green; at least the toff won't have it. Job almost done.

I say almost, because the sad thing about it for the left is this: once ensconced, the new man starts to see the advantages of having his own brood be better educated... that old wheel just keeps on turnin'.

2. Yes, we can, but the experience is nothing like being there, be 'there' gallery, arena or concert hall. It's all a substitute for living. As, at lunches, is the cellphone the excuse not to interconnect with your physical companions. In fact, I think that that bloody little slab must cause a helluva lot more unnecessary stress to those now unable to disconnect from the 'boss' even when in the car en route to some goddam meeting or client or wherever salesmen find their lives leading. What a wonderful world of empty, robotic people and hearts. I'm almost glad my time runs short.

Rob

[GrahamBy]

You really shouldn't under-estimate how much it sucked to be poor at the end of the 19th century. Everything was out of reach: education, travel, medical care, sanitation, heating, owning your residence. Having something like a modern lifestyle required a staff of 10, to light the fires, feed the horses, clean the clothes, etc. And poor meant 99% of the population.

There was essentially no income tax, only death duties.

The 20th century tipped that upside down, started taxing and created a middle class able to buy property and mass-produced goods. It became possible for a David Bailey to become comfortbly wealthy. That forced the rich to do something with their money, since if they just left it in the bank it would be wiped away by inflation.

Now you could argue that the 90% marginal tax rates of the 60's and 70's pushed that barrow too far, and Thatcher and Reagan based their platforms on giving money back to people who would use it. The middle class optimistically thought that was them.

Thirty years later, the middle class is shrinking again across Western Europe and the US and the measures of inequality are approaching those of the end of the 19th century in Europe. In the US, they are already more extreme than ever before, and an ever greater proportion of the current rich are children of the rich. The "anyone can make it with hard work" story is getting less credible. Meanwhile, with Syria becoming a clear Russia vs the West proxy war, we've regressing to cold war politics as well. Expect the diversion of funds from education to military spending to increase.

The consequences of all that will be interesting to watch, if you have a comfortable seat.

[RSL]

The quest for a life in Art. As in all things...requires balance. The balance one seeks is often not the balance one needs. Elusive at best, crushing at worst. It's far easier to secure a cloud in the palm of your hand.

Peter

Well said, Peter. But I'm not sure there really is such a thing as a life in art. There's art in life, but an artist has to eat too, and that's not a very artistic thing. Some painters have brought it off.  Jackson Pollock did, but he wasn't actually a painter. He was more a dripper. There have been others -- writers, painters, musicians, who've made it big in terms of eating from their art. But in many cases the thing that put them over the top had very little to do with art. Mostly it was hoopla.

Then I come to poetry, one of the arts at the apex of human creativity. There have been a few meteoric poets who lived fast and died young, and actually lived on their poetry for a short time. Dylan Thomas comes to mind, though he ripped off a number of people to support his lifestyle. Dylan's "Fern Hill," among a few others will ring from the tongue until the English language changes significantly. But one of the very best; one who inspired a generation of poets, T.S. Eliot had to work in a bank to eat. Poetry, one of the most wonderful art forms, wonderful as it is, simply doesn't pay.

In the end, it's the art that matters, and it comes when it comes. You can't force it. In the meantime you need to eat.

[Rob C]

The problem with the new resurgence - or perhaps the first one - depending on your point of view and personal datum line, is that it ended up being a fake, based on credit and hire-purchase. Like insurance schemes, where people still imagined, until a decade or so ago, that insurance companies were mad enough to give you out more than you paid in. Right. The best insurance company for a pension is yourself, or state employment. If not, you get enough to buy food, and depend on dying bank accounts with which to pay for the rest of the overheads. I think back to the 80s and over 15% interest off-shore and almost weep, but them ducts is dried out.

And just today Corbyn announced his brand new plan to raise taxes, take on more debt. You couldn't make it up. Forgetting completely that his red predecessors left a note apologising - sort of - for the moneybox being empty. Now, Corbie wants to sell the box.

It is either insanity or straight hubris, based upon and fed by the wider madness of the supporting crowd. Most of his party gunmen left for the shelter, hoping to prevent their own annihilation. But what did it matter? Rabies spreads from bite to bite. We got Brexit: why should anything surprise or dismay ever again?

Rob

[Telecaster]

You really shouldn't under-estimate how much it sucked to be poor at the end of the 19th century. Everything was out of reach: education, travel, medical care, sanitation, heating, owning your residence. Having something like a modern lifestyle required a staff of 10, to light the fires, feed the horses, clean the clothes, etc. And poor meant 99% of the population.

When I was a kid my Aunt Anna, who grew up in turn-of-the-century Scotland, loved to tell me stories about what life was like for her as a child. She often talked about her parents too. For me it was like hearing science fiction read aloud. Dispatches from another planet. For a good part of her life Anna was one of the people who lit the fires for and cleaned the clothes of other people. Her uncles and father were all coal miners, and all died young. Same with her older brothers.

Just last night I was thinking about how the life I lead would've been unimaginable to even the top tier of the wealthy 100 years ago. This degree of self-sufficiency combined with this level of material comfort is a whole new technology-enabled thing.

-Dave-

[Rob C]

When I was a kid my Aunt Anna, who grew up in turn-of-the-century Scotland, loved to tell me stories about what life was like for her as a child. She often talked about her parents too. For me it was like hearing science fiction read aloud. Dispatches from another planet. For a good part of her life Anna was one of the people who lit the fires for and cleaned the clothes of other people. Her uncles and father were all coal miners, and all died young. Same with her older brothers.

Just last night I was thinking about how the life I lead would've been unimaginable to even the top tier of the wealthy 100 years ago. This degree of self-sufficiency combined with this level of material comfort is a whole new technology-enabled thing.

-Dave-

I assure you, Dave, geography made a lot of difference. It's still like that though in modern format, even down in remotest England. (Wales? Where's that?) It is possibly true of all lands, except that now instead of spending days in relative working slavery, the same days are spent doing nothing and living off the state, and as states have no money of their own and simply purloin that of others, essentially, then, off those who do manage to make a bob or three.

London is full of brilliant Scots who fled at the first opportunity - some of the greatest battles are often mindsets, one of the most dangerous being the one that, even in the face of reality, protests that we never had it so good and we lead the world. Perhaps its current greatest believer is called Nicola.

How dangerous those politicians with the obsession of being listed in the history books. (I'm not suggesting your aunt was a politician!)

Rob