Art and more government...

I like art. I spend my money on museums and books and reproductions instead of getting the AC in fixed in my car (which I really regretted yesterday, let me tell you).

But "art people" really put me off.

J-S has an article today about "the state of art and culture" in SE Wisconsin, where they interviewed a bunch of people who run art organizations in the area. I might be picking on it for some time, there's just so much here...

First up, people seem to think that regional events and the ballet are sparsely attended because we don't have enough public transportation. True, you can't get from the corner of Capitol and Teutonia to downtown Memominee Falls and back on a Friday night without a car. But that's not the reason people don't go. If I asked 150 people from Milwaukee why they didn't see the last community theater performance in *insert suburb*, not a single one would say, "because there wasn't a bus to take me there" (OK, we might get a smart-ass "urban justice studies" UW-M student in the survey...). A dozen might say they don't like any theater or don't like the particular musical. The rest all either didn't know about it, had some family or social event to attend, or would just rather spend their entertainment time and money plaing video games or watching a Hollywood DVD with 'attractive' professional actors (we'll file 'shit, girl, you think I got time for that shit?!' under "other obligations on their time"). In other words, the same answers that residents of that suburb will give you when you ask they didn't attend the performance.

But why admit your product doesn't have universal appeal when you get the government to build stuff with other people's money?

There's so much more, but I'm off to the ballpark.