I’d rather have rap music beamed directly into my cortex, 24/7 for a week than listen to one hour of Wagner.
Ooh, tough decision…
… wait, I can vote Neither, can’t I?
[skips off happily, humming Alt-Folk ditties…]
Maybe, but it just wouldn’t have been the same if Elmer Fudd had sung So long, bitch you did me so wrong/I don’t wanna go on/Living in this world without you to Bugs Bunny.
Bricker, I’m going to have to join the group saying you need to learn to let it go. I play in a rock band, and attend quite a few shows to boot. Loudmouths you don’t agree with are part of the territory in bars.
If you’re going to argue with them successfully, you have to learn that you aren’t going to engage in a logical argument while in line for drinks. If you’re gonna win, you’re gonna have to race to the bottom faster, and get away. I usually just say something on the level of “Oh sure, I should listen to some fucking genius in line at a bar!”, get my drink, and avoid that asshole for the rest of the night. It’s out of my system, and I move on.
I realize the level of discourse at the opera is probably slightly more civilized, so just take a move from Heather Mooney, and spontaneously develop an overbite while drinking. I always feel better when I do that around loudmouths I don’t agree with, at least. The effect is even more spectacular when done into a beard with a drink of beer.
You know what they ultimately want, right? Socialist opera! (Or maybe they themselves don’t know, and are just useful fools like all limousine liberals). But the end will be all the same: *The East is Red, * with Lisa Simeone doing to American high culture what Trofim Lysenko did for Soviet agriculture
To the earlier point about many of the well-to-do patrons of the opera going there simply to be seen by the other well-to-do’s, I have a couple of supporting anecdotes.
Last winter, we went to a performance of La Cenerentola at the Palm Beach Opera. That’s a big-money, show-offy community, and it was pretty blatant to see the social action in the lobby and at the bar before the show and at the intermission. But fully a third of the seats were empty for Act II. That many of them had already what they came to do, and that didn’t include actually listening and watching the opera. Oh well, all the opera company really needs from then is their money, and there are still enough actual fans in the theater to make it worthwhile for all the rest concerned.
Some years earlier, we were able to get tickets in the orchestra at the Met to hear Leontyne Price, the definitive Aida, in her farewell tour. She had a little quaver in her high notes, and it was time, sure, but she was still damn gorgeous to hear. At the first intermission, the rich-looking guy next to us turned to his wife and commented “That black woman seems pretty good, doesn’t she?” That’s Leontyne Motherlovin’ Price, you fool! Why didn’t you just stay at the bar with the rest of the Beautiful Rich People and give your tickets to a couple of Juilliard students - you’d *all *have had a more fulfilling evening. :rolleyes:
I’d be mortified if I was Bricker’s wife.
Now, what’s all this about the opera?
HEY-O! POW! BANG! ZOOM!
Yup, like that opera that is about a half-breed trying to marry into the white aristocracy, with the plot turning on a tragedy illustrating the need for gun control.
What was that opera’s name?
That is a reasonable position.
How do you feel about sports stadiums? Often they are funded by municipalities.
How do you feel about any number of arts and sports grants from the government?
The thing is, government does subsidize entertainment in numerous ways, so why shouldn’t the opera lovers get a bit of their tax dollar back toward their preferred form of entertainment just as other folks are getting a bit of their entertainment (whatever it may be) paid for by the opera lovers’ tax dollars.?
You stumbled upon a nest of them! Best use a flamethrower. “When man entered the liberal age, he opened the door to a new world. What we may eventually find in that new world, no one can predict.”
I think it’s safe to say that Bricker would be against all those things. It’s not too difficult to be consistent on this issue.
I was at a dinner party last night with a bunch of older, very conservative folks. The conversation kept drifting towards politics (and particularly the various wars we’ve had recently). It wasn’t the time or place to get into a raging debate, so I just raised my glass and said: “Let’s just hope all our men and women come home safely, and that we don’t get ourselves into another war anytime soon”. Everyone seemed good with that, and the evening continued on without incident.
Or it is a tiny amount of money that creates direct jobs (e.g. producing the opera) and indirect jobs (e.g. tourism), which generate more wealth than the expenditure.
Join the opera company’s board of directors and show them the figures.
If they are smeared in chocolate, then I’m in.
Peer reviewed grant applications with such pre-defined requirements and limitations as the government sets out prior to submissions, but then that was what the whole Finley thing was about, for the nature of a lot of art is to push boundaries, and in this instance, the Republican boundary in the form of a Bush appointee pushed back.
And if the government subsidy is only a few points of the company’s budget, then it is teetering anyway.
I think Bricker might be mortified and more than a little disoriented if he woke up to you one morning. For your sake, I hope he didn’t have sex with you the previous night.
You could also ban direct grants to artists, but keep support for cultural institutions that showcase them. The latter has a quasi-market check, since cultural institutions are shaped by attendance and changes in charitable donations.
If you think a single exhibition of Serrano automatically outweighs everything else a gallery does over a five year period, then methinks you need to get a grip. Although I could see making demands that the gallery provide voice for those who dislike certain controversial works. Generally though, institutions usually shouldn’t be judged solely by their greatest missteps assuming they don’t involve death, injury, lost national treasure or crime. New Coke and Newton don’t really capture the essence of the Coca Cola company or Apple.
Personally though, I don’t have a problem with the direct grant program, though I think it could use an audit. That said, I don’t even know if it exists anymore.
I have yet to see any evidence that opera watchers are more likely to be liberals than conservatives.
Beyond that, is there anything inherently wrong with the government trying to support high culture since it seems to stand the test of time so well.
People have been watching Shakespeare and listening to Beethoven for several centuries and I see no reason to believe this won’t be the case several centuries from now whereas I can say with almost mathematical certainty the same will not be true for either James Patterson or Brittany Spears.
You leave Beethoven alone! (Sob!) He tried so hard, he gave and gave and gave, and you bastards just want to tear him (snivel, sob) DOWN!
Just to show you how hard he tried! (sob) After he became deaf, he still tried to conduct his music, as was expected. (blubber, sob) He was well into the last half of his famous Ninth Symphony, when the binding on the musical score disintegrated, leaving poor Beethoven (simper, sob) desperately lashing it to the podium with string (wimper)! On top of that, the bass section of the chorus had been passing around a guzzleflagon of schnaps, and were totally (sob, weep) shitfaced.
So there he was - bottom of the Ninth, score tied, bass loaded. (simper) You bastards!