I'm on the Editorial Committee at FUSE magazine with a great bunch of people. It's very very interesting, I'm learning lots. I hope y'all can come out to the launch on Thursday of our current issue. Details below...
an invitation from FUSE magazine, precarity-canada
and the Toronto School of Creativty and Inquiry
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Thursday, February 1, 2007
Smiling Buddha Bar
(962 College St., Toronto)
7:30pm sharp
Pay What You Can or
$10 dollars includes a copy of the issue
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For the launch of the current issue of FUSE magazine, we have invited
community organizations, political groups, and individuals to make
statements on how "PRECARITY" affects their work and lives and how they are
fighting back. We see the concept of precarity as a useful way of linking
existing struggles and strengthening networks of solidarity and we want to
hear how this network could help in your struggles.
We invite you to join us and make your own statement on precarity by
participating in the on-site production of a video archive, or to just come
out to support community organizations, FUSE magazine and precarity-canada
by enjoying a night of djs, dancing, and drinking.
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
We are precarious when we are homeless, unemployed, and underemployed; when
we are struggling to pay rent, to find work, to access resources; when we
are exploited, living under occupation, without status, and without
benefits; when we are policed, surveilled and imprisoned; when we are
isolated, alienated, and under-romanced. For these and many other reasons,
we are precarious.
more information on precarity....
http://www.euromayday.org
http://republicart.net/disc/precariat/
http://www.precarity-map.net/
http://metabolik.hacklabs.org/alephandria/txt/Foti_Precarity.pdf
http://fusemagazine.org/current.html
[for more information on the event, contact precarity {at} gmail.com]
Speaking of precarious, this article is behind the pay wall at the Globe so I'm copying the whole thing here:
And no flowers bloomed Why did the Conservatives take the weed whacker to Canadian arts promotion abroad? asks MARGARET ATWOOD
During the last days of September, I was at a trilingual literary festival in Vincennes, near Paris. It's called Festival America: Litteratures et Cultures d'Amerique du Nord. It was Canada's year of honour, so there were 26 Canadian writers there, as opposed to two Cubans, four Mexicans, and 24 Americans. The festival was attended by 23,000 people over three days, and generated a million mentions of Canada in the French press.
The Canadian Embassy staff in Paris did a lot of work for the festival but the embassy didn't spend much money. It couldn't even afford to throw its own reception. Thus it was while attending the U.S. Embassy's reception for its own authors that I first heard an astonishing fact: The Canadian government had just cut every penny once budgeted for the promotion of Canadian artists abroad.
That's it -- every penny, for everything cultural and Canadian, around the world. Some of those pennies have now been "unfrozen" but they're not enough to save the programs and networks that have been built up over the past 40 years (in part by art-savvy Tory cabinet ministers such as Flora MacDonald, Marcel Masse and Barbara McDougall). Staff remain in place, but they can't do much. It's like a dance floor with no more dancers.
Not that there were that many pennies to begin with. The amounts of money removed were minute -- a fraction of a fraction of a per cent of Canada's federal budget. And the Harper government had just posted a $13-billion surplus. So why had they taken this bizarre step? The axing of culture abroad is even stranger when you consider the following facts: The money generated by Canadian-based artists' works that sell abroad flows into the country and is taxed here, a net gain to the economy. The arts and creative industries in Europe now earn "more than double the cash produced by European car-makers and contribute more to the economy than the chemical industry, property or the food and drink business," according to The Independent of Dec. 26. There are comparable statistics for Canada -- some say $40-billion, but even if it were half that it wouldn't be a number to blow off easily. Or so you'd think.
So why had the Conservatives taken the weed whacker to Canadian arts promotion abroad? Was it just part of Finance Minister Jim Flaherty's shoot-first, ask-afterwards habit -- familiar now to anyone with money in an income trust -- of slicing the heads off anything in sight, leaving the mangled stems to be dealt with by later regimes? Due to the impenetrability of Fortress Harper -- colder than the Kremlin, more secret than the Inquisition -- it was unlikely we'd get any answers. But we are still free to speculate, so here's what I came up with to explain why they did it:
1) Ignorance. The Harperites have no idea how much money the arts generate.
2) Willed ignorance. They've seen the figures, but have labelled them "junk economics" in the same way they once labelled global-warming statistics as "junk science."
3) Hatred. The Harper Conservatives think artists are a bunch of whiners who don't have real jobs, and that any money spent on the arts is a degenerate frill.
4) Frugality. There's lots of arts around. We can get them cheaper from across the border than it costs to make them here, and if you've seen one art, you've seen them all.
5) Stupidity. They thought they were gassing a hornet's nest, not poking it with a stick.
6) More hatred. They tried to slash local museums, until too many people screamed. They've cut the Canada Council top-up proposed by the Liberals down to a sixth of its size. They've stuck the knife into the National Literacy Program, perhaps on the theory that they won't be able to set up a working dictatorship if too many people can read. And that's just for starters. If these things can be done in a minority government, lo, I say unto you, what things shall be done in a majority? The banner under which the Conservatives have been ditching stuff that displeases them has been "waste." They're trashing programs that "don't work." They want things that "get results." (That went for the environmental plans they once binned, and have now hastily revivified.) Arts promotion is like supporting entrepreneurs, or local hockey teams, or school systems. But how do we define "results" in relation to the arts? And what exactly does "work" mean? Does it mean that money must flow back in the same year it's invested? If so, the Conservatives should get rid of all primary education, since no 10-year-old marches right out of Grade Five and gets an executive job.
Typically, cultural money is arranged so that younger artists who need to build their audiences can piggyback on old poops like me who have already done that. That's how you support the next generation, and the one after that. Not to do so is truly wasteful. Yes, you might save a lot of money by killing all the children: You'd cancel those pesky education expenses. But you wouldn't survive long as a society.
But maybe the Harper Conservatives don't want a society in which the arts and the creative industries are important. Maybe they don't want the jobs in those fields to exist. Maybe, as in so many other areas of their thinking, they want to turn back the clock to the good old days -- some time back in the golden fifties, when there wasn't all this bilingualism and multiculturalism, or indeed any lingualism or culturalism at all, and most Canadian artists left the country, and those who remained could be referred to jokingly in Parliament as a bunch of fruits jumping around in long underwear.
That's a lot of maybes. But maybes are all we have in the absence of any coherent cultural policy or even any explanation for the lack of one. Who was it said that there's more culture in a cup of yoghurt than in the Harper Conservatives? Let's hope that person was wrong.
I saw that article on Saturday. Her line "you might save a lot of money by killing all the children" made me laugh out loud.
(Part II - today's Globe and Mail)
Just pay the piano player
Even Genghis Khan valued the artist. Too bad Harper's government doesn't see it that way, MARGARET ATWOOD writes
It's Use It or Lose It time for the artists of Canada. Thanks to the Stephen Harper government's Shoot the Piano Player policies, the Canadian creative community now finds itself pondering some rabble-rousing in relation to government non-support for the arts. Rumour has it there's even an Ottawa demonstration or two in the works. When was the last time that happened?
It's bothersome rousing rabble -- the writers would rather be writing, the dancers dancing, and so forth -- but the consequence of failing to act could be evaporation, since it seems to be the intention of the Harper neocons to bleed and starve Canada's cultural institutions until they croak. (Factoid: proposed Liberal top-up to the Canada Council before the last election: $300-million. Conservatives have delivered: $50-million.) Once it's lying in the ditch, Canadian art will be accused of not having been strong enough to survive in the Alpha Chimp social-Darwinist marketplace model favoured by Harper's Conservatives, thus justifying the contempt and scorn with which the arts sector has been treated.
Once upon a time, this scorn was general in Canada. If you wanted to act like a long-haired weirdo pinko fellow-travelling guitar-playing tap-dancing nutbar, you had to go to New York or London or Hollywood or Paris to do it; and Canadian artists did go, by the trainloads. That was why, for instance -- as revealed at the recent Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada gala -- so many songs we've thought of as quintessentially American turn out to have been written by Canadians. It was necessary for artists to go to a place where they might earn a living, and that place was not Canada.
But that changed. In the sixties, the Canadian government began to actively encourage individual artists through the Canada Council, and then Ottawa and the provincial governments began investing in institutions and infrastructure, and now we have an artist-stimulated "creative economy" that's worth -- so they say -- $40-billion dollars a year. Why invest money in the arts? Because -- simple answer -- it's a great investment: A few dollars in means a lot of dollars out. Without the arts, the average Canadian citizen would be poorer, and I don't mean just spiritually.
Why don't the Conservatives grasp that? Maybe they just feel in their disapproving bones that art sucks. If so, that's retrograde of them, because countries around the world now realize that a vital arts sector increases their energy in a multitude of ways. Even Alberta is reconsidering its strangle-the-arts stance: Alberta arts funding, frozen at $22-million for many years (as opposed to the $70-million Alberta pours into the support of horse racing), would appear to be thawing somewhat.
But -- to paraphrase Joni Mitchell -- I've looked at arts funding from both sides now: The relationship between artists and the politically powerful has always been an uneasy one. Plato wanted poets kicked out of his ideal Republic because he felt they were immoral, but Genghis Khan valued them: He killed the aristocrats, rulers, and rich people in the towns he was sacking, but saved the artists, artisans, linguists, teachers and intellectuals, and put them to work in his Empire. Exiles or salaried Yes-men -- are these the choices?
Stalin murdered a lot of dissident artists, but poured money into showcases like the ballet. Hitler was keen on Wagnerian opera and also on painting, though the paintings had to be of "healthy" subjects like heroic soldiers, mountains and bowls of fruit. One of his biggest thrills was designing the uniforms for his troops and the props for his rallies. If only he'd been accepted into art school, history would have been so different.
Then there's the United States. Unlike Canada, it's not a small country threatened by a supersized popular culture from elsewhere washing over it like a tidal wave. It doesn't need to fund its arts defensively. Nevertheless, during the Cold War, the U.S. dumped millions of dollars into the arts, both openly through institutions like the National Endowment for the Arts and clandestinely via the CIA. Why? To show that the United States -- unlike its rival, the Soviet Union -- was an open and tolerant place. But the funding crumbled along with the Wall, after 1989, and then it was open season on the arts.
However, now that the U.S. perceives another rival -- the Muslim world -- and now that its reputation has sunk so low worldwide, the funding is coming back. Writers and artists are being flown hither and thither, and told they can say whatever they want, as yet one more demonstration of openness and democracy.
Which raises the question of the artist's soul. If you hop into bed with power, how much snuggling can you do before you lose that essential item? If you're dependent on government money, will you become a captive dancing bear?
And what are your alternatives? Through the ages, they have been: 1) Artists as quasi-priests, feared and propitiated; 2) Artists as court entertainers, in the pay of kings and princes; 3) Artists supported by private patrons, hence the word "patronizing." Today we have corporations instead of dukes and lords, but it's similar; 4) Those peddling their wares in the marketplace (see "soul," losing of, above); 5) Those with day jobs that can destroy their talent; 6) Artists with money of their own. Government funding would seem to be a blend of (2) and (3).
There's a famous New Yorker cartoon that shows a painter holding out his hand to a man in a suit. On his easel is a portrait of the same man, with the letters A-S-S-H-O below. The painter is saying, "Can I have a grant so I can finish my picture?" That's the dilemma, for both sides. Why should the man in the suit help the artist to finish some art in which he himself features as an Assho?
It's always been a problem. But rid your society of the artists and you'll end up in Plato's Republic, which -- closely examined -- is a nasty little dictatorship. Who would want that?
Margaret Atwood is the author of more than 40 volumes of poetry, fiction and non-fiction. Her latest is a collection of short stories, Moral Disorder.
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I'm on the Editorial Committee at FUSE magazine with a great bunch of people. It's very very interesting, I'm learning lots. I hope y'all can come out to the launch on Thursday of our current issue. Details below...
- sally mckay 1-30-2007 6:17 pm
Speaking of precarious, this article is behind the pay wall at the Globe so I'm copying the whole thing here:
- L.M. 1-31-2007 8:10 am
I saw that article on Saturday. Her line "you might save a lot of money by killing all the children" made me laugh out loud.
- sally mckay 1-31-2007 6:38 pm
(Part II - today's Globe and Mail)
Just pay the piano player
Even Genghis Khan valued the artist. Too bad Harper's government doesn't see it that way, MARGARET ATWOOD writes
It's Use It or Lose It time for the artists of Canada. Thanks to the Stephen Harper government's Shoot the Piano Player policies, the Canadian creative community now finds itself pondering some rabble-rousing in relation to government non-support for the arts. Rumour has it there's even an Ottawa demonstration or two in the works. When was the last time that happened?
It's bothersome rousing rabble -- the writers would rather be writing, the dancers dancing, and so forth -- but the consequence of failing to act could be evaporation, since it seems to be the intention of the Harper neocons to bleed and starve Canada's cultural institutions until they croak. (Factoid: proposed Liberal top-up to the Canada Council before the last election: $300-million. Conservatives have delivered: $50-million.) Once it's lying in the ditch, Canadian art will be accused of not having been strong enough to survive in the Alpha Chimp social-Darwinist marketplace model favoured by Harper's Conservatives, thus justifying the contempt and scorn with which the arts sector has been treated.
Once upon a time, this scorn was general in Canada. If you wanted to act like a long-haired weirdo pinko fellow-travelling guitar-playing tap-dancing nutbar, you had to go to New York or London or Hollywood or Paris to do it; and Canadian artists did go, by the trainloads. That was why, for instance -- as revealed at the recent Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada gala -- so many songs we've thought of as quintessentially American turn out to have been written by Canadians. It was necessary for artists to go to a place where they might earn a living, and that place was not Canada.
But that changed. In the sixties, the Canadian government began to actively encourage individual artists through the Canada Council, and then Ottawa and the provincial governments began investing in institutions and infrastructure, and now we have an artist-stimulated "creative economy" that's worth -- so they say -- $40-billion dollars a year. Why invest money in the arts? Because -- simple answer -- it's a great investment: A few dollars in means a lot of dollars out. Without the arts, the average Canadian citizen would be poorer, and I don't mean just spiritually.
Why don't the Conservatives grasp that? Maybe they just feel in their disapproving bones that art sucks. If so, that's retrograde of them, because countries around the world now realize that a vital arts sector increases their energy in a multitude of ways. Even Alberta is reconsidering its strangle-the-arts stance: Alberta arts funding, frozen at $22-million for many years (as opposed to the $70-million Alberta pours into the support of horse racing), would appear to be thawing somewhat.
But -- to paraphrase Joni Mitchell -- I've looked at arts funding from both sides now: The relationship between artists and the politically powerful has always been an uneasy one. Plato wanted poets kicked out of his ideal Republic because he felt they were immoral, but Genghis Khan valued them: He killed the aristocrats, rulers, and rich people in the towns he was sacking, but saved the artists, artisans, linguists, teachers and intellectuals, and put them to work in his Empire. Exiles or salaried Yes-men -- are these the choices?
Stalin murdered a lot of dissident artists, but poured money into showcases like the ballet. Hitler was keen on Wagnerian opera and also on painting, though the paintings had to be of "healthy" subjects like heroic soldiers, mountains and bowls of fruit. One of his biggest thrills was designing the uniforms for his troops and the props for his rallies. If only he'd been accepted into art school, history would have been so different.
Then there's the United States. Unlike Canada, it's not a small country threatened by a supersized popular culture from elsewhere washing over it like a tidal wave. It doesn't need to fund its arts defensively. Nevertheless, during the Cold War, the U.S. dumped millions of dollars into the arts, both openly through institutions like the National Endowment for the Arts and clandestinely via the CIA. Why? To show that the United States -- unlike its rival, the Soviet Union -- was an open and tolerant place. But the funding crumbled along with the Wall, after 1989, and then it was open season on the arts.
However, now that the U.S. perceives another rival -- the Muslim world -- and now that its reputation has sunk so low worldwide, the funding is coming back. Writers and artists are being flown hither and thither, and told they can say whatever they want, as yet one more demonstration of openness and democracy.
Which raises the question of the artist's soul. If you hop into bed with power, how much snuggling can you do before you lose that essential item? If you're dependent on government money, will you become a captive dancing bear?
And what are your alternatives? Through the ages, they have been: 1) Artists as quasi-priests, feared and propitiated; 2) Artists as court entertainers, in the pay of kings and princes; 3) Artists supported by private patrons, hence the word "patronizing." Today we have corporations instead of dukes and lords, but it's similar; 4) Those peddling their wares in the marketplace (see "soul," losing of, above); 5) Those with day jobs that can destroy their talent; 6) Artists with money of their own. Government funding would seem to be a blend of (2) and (3).
There's a famous New Yorker cartoon that shows a painter holding out his hand to a man in a suit. On his easel is a portrait of the same man, with the letters A-S-S-H-O below. The painter is saying, "Can I have a grant so I can finish my picture?" That's the dilemma, for both sides. Why should the man in the suit help the artist to finish some art in which he himself features as an Assho?
It's always been a problem. But rid your society of the artists and you'll end up in Plato's Republic, which -- closely examined -- is a nasty little dictatorship. Who would want that?
Margaret Atwood is the author of more than 40 volumes of poetry, fiction and non-fiction. Her latest is a collection of short stories, Moral Disorder.
- sally mckay 2-04-2007 6:51 am