Clay Aiken needs to go on tour. If increased consumer spending is what it takes to stimulate the economy, this is the way to go.
Here are just a few of the products, services, and brands that fully stimulated Clay Aiken fans support:
- computers,
- peripherals (keyboards,printers, optical mice, scanners),
- routers,
- wireless services,
- external hard drives,
- computer repair services,
- binoculars,
- cameras,
- videocams,
- flash drives,
- cell phones,
- BlackBerrys,
- GPS navigation systems,
- DVD and CD blank discs,
- Yahoo!
- AOL,
- Google,
- Lycos,
- Rhapsody,
- Pandora,
- Ticketmaster,
- iTunes,
- iPods, iPhones, iTouch, iWhatNot
- video and photo editing software,
- photo gift services,
- concert tickets,
- airplane tickets,
- train tickets,
- bus tickets,
- hotel rooms,
- Hotels.com,
- cheesecake,
- peach ice cream,
- chips,
- McDonald's
- Sardi's,
- Radio Shack,
- Best Buy,
- Walmart,
- Target,
- Kmart,
- Amazon.com,
- Burberry,
- Paul Smith,
- hats,
- scarves,
- pashminas,
- T-shirts,
- university hoodies (sweat shirts)
- books,
- magazines,
- photo paper,
- frames,
- new clothes!
- shoes,
- makeovers and spa treatments,
- new cars,
- gasoline and oil,
- car repair services...
The producers of American Idol should also pay attention to the Clay Aiken Economic Package. American Idol is about selling advertising, so if you have any of these products to promote, consider encouraging [i.e., demanding] that Clay Aiken appear on AI with at least two performances (for example, "Lover All Alone" and, for dramatic irony, "Everything I Don't Need"), an interview segment, guest mentoring, and all what-not.
Win big by paying tribute to the man (so he doesn't sneak up and take the wind out of the show's sails on the finale next time).
Love, hosaa
Stimulated by Clay
Friday, March 20, 2009
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Stimulating Arts and Minds
Gosh. I thought I was done tirading about supporting the arts, and could go back to talking about what matters: futurism and Clay Aiken.
The Washington Post this morning carries an editorial by David A. Fahrenthold, entitled "Very Clever. But Is It a Stimulus?" Don't get me wrong - I don't automatically think anyone asking practical questions is a jackasss.
In fact, Fahrenthold does a good job at illustrating the main concerns that people have about investing any money into the arts: what's in it for us? What's the payoff? And how will artists really use the money? (And will I approve?)
He asked a poet how she would spend the money, and unfortunately the answer was a little self-absorbed: she'd buy more notebooks and spend more time on her poems. Fahrenthold goes on to lament:
BIG opportunity missed here by Fahrenthold, his poet interviewee, and arts supporters in general. If the government is going to put strings on its "investment" in artists, instead of demanding "Tell us how many jobs you'll create and convince me your art is worthwhile," it should be demanding that the artist take a week and go teach a workshop in a school where arts funding was cut.
It isn't fair to blame it all on the success of Kelly Clarkson's current pop trifle. I guess you could applaud the stimulus she's giving the dying record and radio industry. But it's sort of like giving CPR to a corpse. There's more than the economy that needs stimulating.
Showing young people that there are higher forms of expression is an investment in a future of not just better art, but better minds. We're not necessarily teaching them to be artists, but to be thinkers and creators. It stops the decay of moribund minds, which don't just wither from neglect, but turn toxic if we let it happen.
The Washington Post this morning carries an editorial by David A. Fahrenthold, entitled "Very Clever. But Is It a Stimulus?" Don't get me wrong - I don't automatically think anyone asking practical questions is a jackasss.
In fact, Fahrenthold does a good job at illustrating the main concerns that people have about investing any money into the arts: what's in it for us? What's the payoff? And how will artists really use the money? (And will I approve?)
He asked a poet how she would spend the money, and unfortunately the answer was a little self-absorbed: she'd buy more notebooks and spend more time on her poems. Fahrenthold goes on to lament:
But it's unclear what kind of ripples she would create in the broader economy. ...And if you think that there's a big commercial market for good poetry -- dense, crystalline stuff that gives up its meaning only with time, like the bitter juice that seeps from a grated onion . . . then you are unaware that the No. 1 song in the country recently was Kelly Clarkson's "My Life Would Suck Without You."
BIG opportunity missed here by Fahrenthold, his poet interviewee, and arts supporters in general. If the government is going to put strings on its "investment" in artists, instead of demanding "Tell us how many jobs you'll create and convince me your art is worthwhile," it should be demanding that the artist take a week and go teach a workshop in a school where arts funding was cut.
It isn't fair to blame it all on the success of Kelly Clarkson's current pop trifle. I guess you could applaud the stimulus she's giving the dying record and radio industry. But it's sort of like giving CPR to a corpse. There's more than the economy that needs stimulating.
Showing young people that there are higher forms of expression is an investment in a future of not just better art, but better minds. We're not necessarily teaching them to be artists, but to be thinkers and creators. It stops the decay of moribund minds, which don't just wither from neglect, but turn toxic if we let it happen.
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Does Jon Stewart Take Requests?
The "Brawl Street" smack-down heard around the world, seen here at Hulu, inspires me to ask if Jon could please smack RCA for its squandering of Clay Aiken's talent.
As I've mentioned repeatedly, Time magazine noted way back in 2003 that RCA just didn't "get" Clay Aiken, but that Clay instinctively knew what his audience wanted from him. Whatever Clay thinks of the individual employees he worked with at RCA, and he has said kind and collegial things about them at his official fan club, RCA as a corporation squandered him (their resource) and his audience (their customers).
The problem was that RCA was a "cool" shop, and they were handed a "warm" product. RCA was rock 'n' roll; Clay was an entertainer. The closest marketing paradigm they could come up with for him was Barry Manilow, a warm artist but not a product they could sell to customers for cool.
Hell, even I know how to make "warm" go hot. You just blow a bit on the embers and step back. That's all Clay needed.
But if that wasn't simple enough, and RCA still demanded cool, even Clay knew how to do that for them if they'd let him.
How do you turn "warm" into "cool"? Ask Harley-Davidson. How do you sell a teddy bear in a Harley shop? You put a leather jacket on it.
"Cool Luke" photo by HDTalking
Clay knew that. That's what he did for the 2005 "Jukebox Tour," when he was between albums. He made a great show out of nothing.
photo by "Tasapio"
Now that Clay is free of the RCA chains of incompetence, there probably isn't really much of a battle to fight right now. They say living well is the best revenge, and I have a feeling Clay will be living very well for many years to come.
Thanks anyway, Jon. You've got bigger fish to fry.
Love,
hosaa
feeling warm
As I've mentioned repeatedly, Time magazine noted way back in 2003 that RCA just didn't "get" Clay Aiken, but that Clay instinctively knew what his audience wanted from him. Whatever Clay thinks of the individual employees he worked with at RCA, and he has said kind and collegial things about them at his official fan club, RCA as a corporation squandered him (their resource) and his audience (their customers).
The problem was that RCA was a "cool" shop, and they were handed a "warm" product. RCA was rock 'n' roll; Clay was an entertainer. The closest marketing paradigm they could come up with for him was Barry Manilow, a warm artist but not a product they could sell to customers for cool.
Hell, even I know how to make "warm" go hot. You just blow a bit on the embers and step back. That's all Clay needed.
But if that wasn't simple enough, and RCA still demanded cool, even Clay knew how to do that for them if they'd let him.
How do you turn "warm" into "cool"? Ask Harley-Davidson. How do you sell a teddy bear in a Harley shop? You put a leather jacket on it.
"Cool Luke" photo by HDTalking
Clay knew that. That's what he did for the 2005 "Jukebox Tour," when he was between albums. He made a great show out of nothing.
photo by "Tasapio"
Now that Clay is free of the RCA chains of incompetence, there probably isn't really much of a battle to fight right now. They say living well is the best revenge, and I have a feeling Clay will be living very well for many years to come.
Thanks anyway, Jon. You've got bigger fish to fry.
Love,
hosaa
feeling warm
Friday, March 13, 2009
Quantum Art
Yesterday at Clayversity we were having an interesting discussion about Art. (Not "Ahhhhrrrrt" that the Spamalot French Taunters loved so.)
The question was about Clay Aiken's masterpiece, "Lover All Alone," and whether or not it was more moving now that he is out of the closet. Were the lyrics really about what he was experiencing, and is that what made it Art?
I was frustrated because I was trying to say that the song is art not because it was a true and accurate description of Clay's feelings but because of the way it makes me feel. If all an artist does is tell us what he feels, I don't give a shit. If the art work makes me feel something, then that's why it is art. It communicated something to me.
I realize that isn't completely true. Unless the artist also felt something in the creation, then making the viewer or listener feel something is flat-out manipulation. Those old telephone commercials that had us all reaching out and touching someone - that wasn't art. That was commerce.
So I am revising my statements. It's art when the artist makes you feel what he feels.
A friend asked me about #11 on my Random list, why did "Starry Night Over the Rhone" make me cry? What it came down to was that being in the physical presence of that painting (not looking at a picture of it) took me to the time and place where Vincent was.
In a sense, this is time traveling, but in the quantum mechanics sense of entanglement (I think the New Age term is synchronicity.)
At Clayversity, I snarkily mentioned that I would be attending the Corcoran Gallery's Member's Preview tour of the Maya Lin installation, "Systematic Landscapes," and said maybe someone there knows what art is. Of course that would have been a stupid question, so I didn't interrupt the curator doing the hour-long tour of the five rooms of Maya's landscapes.
(I couldn't help asking one stupid question, though - how the wire-frame grid depicting the undulations of a mountain managed to stay up on the wall. The depiction of the Potomac River using nails as pixels was easy to figure out - NAILS - but I couldn't see anything holding the grid up. It turned out that the end pieces pierced through the wall, clutching it.)
Maya's art consisted of breaking apart the landscapes she experienced into component pieces and systematically reconstructing them. Her vision is so encompassing, it is hard to imagine how it can be broken apart. She brings landscapes indoors where people can look at them and experience them as objects. This changes the way we look at things.
On the way to work, I was looking at the systematic landscapes I pass every day - the stones in the low walls surrounding the property of an office complex, the patterns in the bricks in the sidewalks.
Art is communication and transportation. It's interactive. It makes you see and feel things you hadn't seen or felt in quite that way before. This time-travels you to the heart and soul of the artist and establishes that quantum connection, even for a brief moment.
Here are some photos I borrowed from the Internet. Just Google Image search Maya Lin:
This last one is from the Systematic Landscapes exhibition. The peak of the tallest mountain is probably about chest-high, and the viewer is invited to walk through the landscape.
Once again, I look at art and marvel at what human beings can do.
Love,
hosaa
The question was about Clay Aiken's masterpiece, "Lover All Alone," and whether or not it was more moving now that he is out of the closet. Were the lyrics really about what he was experiencing, and is that what made it Art?
For all I know the feelings
And the picture that I
tried
So hard to find
Isn't mine.
I was frustrated because I was trying to say that the song is art not because it was a true and accurate description of Clay's feelings but because of the way it makes me feel. If all an artist does is tell us what he feels, I don't give a shit. If the art work makes me feel something, then that's why it is art. It communicated something to me.
I realize that isn't completely true. Unless the artist also felt something in the creation, then making the viewer or listener feel something is flat-out manipulation. Those old telephone commercials that had us all reaching out and touching someone - that wasn't art. That was commerce.
So I am revising my statements. It's art when the artist makes you feel what he feels.
A friend asked me about #11 on my Random list, why did "Starry Night Over the Rhone" make me cry? What it came down to was that being in the physical presence of that painting (not looking at a picture of it) took me to the time and place where Vincent was.
In a sense, this is time traveling, but in the quantum mechanics sense of entanglement (I think the New Age term is synchronicity.)
At Clayversity, I snarkily mentioned that I would be attending the Corcoran Gallery's Member's Preview tour of the Maya Lin installation, "Systematic Landscapes," and said maybe someone there knows what art is. Of course that would have been a stupid question, so I didn't interrupt the curator doing the hour-long tour of the five rooms of Maya's landscapes.
(I couldn't help asking one stupid question, though - how the wire-frame grid depicting the undulations of a mountain managed to stay up on the wall. The depiction of the Potomac River using nails as pixels was easy to figure out - NAILS - but I couldn't see anything holding the grid up. It turned out that the end pieces pierced through the wall, clutching it.)
Maya's art consisted of breaking apart the landscapes she experienced into component pieces and systematically reconstructing them. Her vision is so encompassing, it is hard to imagine how it can be broken apart. She brings landscapes indoors where people can look at them and experience them as objects. This changes the way we look at things.
On the way to work, I was looking at the systematic landscapes I pass every day - the stones in the low walls surrounding the property of an office complex, the patterns in the bricks in the sidewalks.
Art is communication and transportation. It's interactive. It makes you see and feel things you hadn't seen or felt in quite that way before. This time-travels you to the heart and soul of the artist and establishes that quantum connection, even for a brief moment.
Here are some photos I borrowed from the Internet. Just Google Image search Maya Lin:
This last one is from the Systematic Landscapes exhibition. The peak of the tallest mountain is probably about chest-high, and the viewer is invited to walk through the landscape.
Once again, I look at art and marvel at what human beings can do.
Love,
hosaa
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Artist Unemployment News
The job news is not good for artists. A new report from the National Endowment for the Arts shows a higher rate of unemployment among artists compared with other professionals, and the rate would have been even higher if the discouraged artists had not left the labor force entirely.
Architects and designers, typically the professions with the highest employment rates among artists, have been hard-hit in this recession. Says the report:
But artists - with a labor force in the U.S. slightly smaller than the military - also have impacts on the economy, the NEA notes:
Architects and designers, typically the professions with the highest employment rates among artists, have been hard-hit in this recession. Says the report:
As an example of how arts jobs intersect with the larger economy, consider the construction industry. Industry-wide declines, which began in 2006, have contributed to the shrinking job market for architects. While this group usually has the lowest unemployment rates among all artist occupations and all professionals, architect unemployment rates doubled, from 1.8 percent in fourth quarter 2007, to 3.8 percent in the fourth quarter of 2008.
But artists - with a labor force in the U.S. slightly smaller than the military - also have impacts on the economy, the NEA notes:
[A] National Governors Association report recognized that the arts directly benefit states and communities through job creation, tax revenues, attracting investments, invigorating local economies, and enhancing quality of life. There are 100,000 nonprofit arts organizations that support 5.7 million jobs and return nearly $30 billion in government revenue every year, according to a study by Americans for the Arts.
Friday, February 27, 2009
Why Music?
March 2009 is "Music In Our Schools" month, and the National Association for Music Education has posted a series of public-service announcements by quite a variety of musicians answering the question, "Why Music?" Give them a listen!
As Clay Aiken puts it, "Learning music opens up the mind like nothing else."
As Clay Aiken puts it, "Learning music opens up the mind like nothing else."
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Art and Artists
There's some rejoicing going on in the Kingdom of Clay:
Clay Aiken Leaves RCA, as reported exclusively by People magazine.
Spin it any way you want (fired? quit? negotiations breakdown? artistic differences?) the truth is, RCA has never known how to handle Clay Aiken. Never. Did not know who he was as an artist, baffled by his versatility, did not know how to market someone completely original. That would have required creativity.
Even the Time magazine profile of Clay back in 2003 ("Building a Better Pop Star") noted the label's ignorance and even contempt for Clay Aiken. How could anyone expect to succeed without their boss's support? And yet Clay succeeded very well within these constraints.
From Time:
As Time also noted, Clay knew his audience instinctively and could communicate with them. That's art. And now, Clay's Fantasies can come true. He's on his way!
Flames of Paris
(credit: ABT, published in Washington Times)
Speaking of artists, I got to see this beautiful dancer perform with the American Ballet Theatre at the Kennedy Center on Thursday night (Feb. 19). Thanks to YouTube, I could find an earlier performance of the same program by this artist, Daniil Simkin. But this 2007 performance pales compared with what happened the other night. Two more years of maturity, athleticism, and - for lack of better word - chutzpah have turned this young colt into a magnificent thoroughbred.
Watch for Daniil's solo passes in this video of the Flames of Paris pas de deux. His variations now consist of leaping into the air and spinning, but then stretching those strong legs out into a full splits before landing the jumps. His performance on Thursday was "an honest-to-God, 'where did that guy come from,' star" moment.
Come on, Daniil! Now that I see you have your videographers following you all over the world, please please put up your latest variation of this pas!
ETA, update 2-23-09: Here is a review of the ABT's mixed rep program, including kudos for Daniil: "A Lithe and Lively ABT" (Washington Times)
This will be one of many unforgettable moments I've experienced in live theater - or in a gallery or a concert hall. That's why I wrote....
An Open Fan Letter to the Arts
(mailed after Valentine's Day to three dozen arts organizations in the U.S.)
from the back row
Clay Aiken Leaves RCA, as reported exclusively by People magazine.
Spin it any way you want (fired? quit? negotiations breakdown? artistic differences?) the truth is, RCA has never known how to handle Clay Aiken. Never. Did not know who he was as an artist, baffled by his versatility, did not know how to market someone completely original. That would have required creativity.
Even the Time magazine profile of Clay back in 2003 ("Building a Better Pop Star") noted the label's ignorance and even contempt for Clay Aiken. How could anyone expect to succeed without their boss's support? And yet Clay succeeded very well within these constraints.
From Time:
Ask the employees at Clay Aiken's record label, RCA, if they would listen to Aiken's debut album, Measure of a Man, by choice, and the response is almost uniform: a lengthy pause followed by laughter. RCA was the home of Elvis Presley, and its current roster includes critical favorites like the Strokes and the Foo Fighters. It's a rock label. Aiken, who came in second on the most recent installment of American Idol, is not only not a rocker, but, as he says in his aggressively self-deprecating way, "I'm not an artist. I'm just a guy who was on a reality show—and I didn't even win!" Humility aside, Aiken, 24, doesn't mind being doubted because he believes in his bones that his detractors are wrong. "There are many people at the record label who are afraid of me," he says. "They don't understand the reasons that someone as uncool as me is here. In a way—and this is a horrible word to say, and once I say it you're going to print it—it's a revolution."Let the Revolution begin!
As Time also noted, Clay knew his audience instinctively and could communicate with them. That's art. And now, Clay's Fantasies can come true. He's on his way!
Flames of Paris
(credit: ABT, published in Washington Times)
Speaking of artists, I got to see this beautiful dancer perform with the American Ballet Theatre at the Kennedy Center on Thursday night (Feb. 19). Thanks to YouTube, I could find an earlier performance of the same program by this artist, Daniil Simkin. But this 2007 performance pales compared with what happened the other night. Two more years of maturity, athleticism, and - for lack of better word - chutzpah have turned this young colt into a magnificent thoroughbred.
Watch for Daniil's solo passes in this video of the Flames of Paris pas de deux. His variations now consist of leaping into the air and spinning, but then stretching those strong legs out into a full splits before landing the jumps. His performance on Thursday was "an honest-to-God, 'where did that guy come from,' star" moment.
Come on, Daniil! Now that I see you have your videographers following you all over the world, please please put up your latest variation of this pas!
ETA, update 2-23-09: Here is a review of the ABT's mixed rep program, including kudos for Daniil: "A Lithe and Lively ABT" (Washington Times)
This will be one of many unforgettable moments I've experienced in live theater - or in a gallery or a concert hall. That's why I wrote....
An Open Fan Letter to the Arts
(mailed after Valentine's Day to three dozen arts organizations in the U.S.)
If all the world's a stage, somebody's got to be the audience.Love, hosaa
14 February 2009
Dear Artist,
This is a simple thank-you letter from a fan, to acknowledge all the support you have given me over the past few years.
In times of economic hardship, when belts are unwillingly tightened throughout our society, it is demoralizing to see so little public support for that which makes civilization worth saving: the arts.
Do not artists support society by inspiring us with their dreams, exciting us with their imaginations, transporting us to new worlds, and accelerating innovation through new perspectives and new ideas?
I cannot imagine a better model for economic and social success than an orchestra, a theatrical production, or a simple, magical pas de deux. The arts cultivate a spirit of pure cooperation that teaches responsibility for pursuing a shared goal. It should be part of the core curriculum for preparing students to build an enlightened future economy.
Art for art's sake is an underestimation of its value. Art is not for the artist, but for the audience it communicates to and inspires. I see a play whose author plays with words and characters, and I then dream and imagine in ways I had never before explored. I take a class in stone sculpture, and I feel the volume and form of geometry in my own hands; I see the many dimensions of the world from new perspectives.
I fall in love with a singer's voice and discover a community of others similarly inspired; from this community I learn about music, radio and recording, and even about photography, videography, and design. We travel, we explore, and we dream some more.
So this fan letter is for you, with love and gratitude. Thank you for my dreams, my visions, my soul.
Your audience,
[my name]
For identification purposes, I am managing editor of The Futurist magazine (World Future Society, Bethesda, MD). My opinions are my own.
Also: writer of one short play (performed in the Source Theater's 10-Minute Play Competition, 1993), one full-length play (publicly read but unproduced), one novel (unpublished), and two screenplays (unsold); a reader of Shakespeare; a Claymate; a perpetually beginning tap and ballroom dancer; and a lifelong dreamer, happy in the second-to-last row of the balcony.
Special thanks to the following artists and art facilitators, whether public, private, commercial, nonprofit, or informal:
Round House Theatre (Bethesda, MD)
John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
American Ballet Theatre
Ford's Theatre (Washington, DC)
National Theatre (Washington, DC)
Warner Theatre (Washington, DC)
Bethesda Theatre
Shakespeare Theatre, Lansburgh Theater (Washington, DC)
Shakespeare Theatre, Sidney Harman Hall (Washington, DC)
Vienna Town Green (Vienna, VA)
Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts (Vienna, VA)
The Birchmere (Alexandria, VA)
Koka Booth Amphitheatre (Cary, NC)
Meyerhoff Symphony Hall (Baltimore)
Lyric Opera House (Baltimore)
Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra
Shubert Theater, Cast, crew, staff, producers of Spamalot
St. James Theater, Cast, crew, staff, producers of Gypsy
Golden Theater, Cast, crew, staff, producers of Avenue Q
Brady Theater (Tulsa)
Jesse H. Jones Hall for the Performing Arts (Houston)
Community Arts Center (Williamsport PA)
National Endowment for the Arts
Smithsonian Institution
National Gallery of Art
The Phillips Collection
Corcoran Gallery of Art
Museum of Modern Art
The Writer's Center
Bethesda Urban Partnership
Shakespeare Readers
Classical WETA-FM
Theater Communications Group / American Theatre
Playbill magazine
BroadwayWorld.com
Clayversity
Clay Aiken Official Fan Club, c/o Clique Services/Sparkart Group
CC: The Washington Post, op-ed
from the back row
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