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Economics of Art 8/13/2003 8:21:21 AM
I receive a comp copy of a literary magazine that includes some of my work. I engage in the business end of the arts while a favorite poetry venue of mine encounters difficulty because of business.
Note: In most entries, "James" refers to James Van Looy, my collaborator in Cosmic Spelunker Theater. In this case, "James" is James O'Brien, a singer/songwriter/poet and staff member of Club Passim, the legendary folk music club in Harvard Square. Monday. August 11, 2003:
Today I receive my complementary copy of the Summer 2003 issue of _Flash!Point_. It's always exciting for me to see my poetry reach print, especially in such a nicely put together literary journal. It feels particularly good because some of the poems are ones I wrote well over two years ago and it was over a year ago that I submitted the poems-- it's been a long journey in that sense. I believed in the poems and finally found an editor/publisher who believed in them as well.
My brief meeting with an actor a few weeks ago lead to being called by a theatre with an inquiry as to my availability to teach mime for a youth program. I hadn't done so on a formal level before, so when asked about my fees, I was forced to do some research. Eventually that took me to the Massachusetts Cultural Council artist roster. I looked at what other artists with my basic skill set charged for workshops, and decided that since I was new to the profession to name the lowest fee in that range as mine.
When I quote the fee to the theatre program director, she pauses. It’s higher than she hoped, but she admits that it was a fair price for an artist to teach his or her craft, but like so many arts programs, they had a lack of money. So we're talking about applying for a grant so that I can teach the workshops.
* * *
In the evening, I head over to Club Passim for the Open Poetry event. I'd only been there once since I was the feature and decided that I wanted to maintain my relationship because it had been a great gig both for me and the club. James, the host, had described it as the most financially successful evening of the series.
I order dinner and notice that the crowd is smaller than I remember. James shows up to set up the mic stand and the music stand. I apologize for having not been by in such a long time, explaining that it's hard to find out when Open Poetry is scheduled. James responds that the big difficulty has been that there has been no regular evening for the event and that it's made it very hard to maintain a regular audience, since Open Poetry is basically an experiment that usually loses money and is usually but not always tied to being after the irregular art openings. Because it usually loses money, it gets little support and because it gets little support it usually loses money. It’s the only spoken word venue that I have to research before I can put it on my calendar.
There's no feature poet tonight, just a few poets sitting alone of which I am one and a gaggle crowded around one particular table-- I presume they are a writing group. James takes the mic explains the format-- which is a particularly innovative take on the open mic: people take center stage as the mood takes them and they may return as often as they want-- before he goes to the sound booth and puts on Miles Davis' "In a Silent Way" which fades in and out in between readers. The format requires a certain awareness of the room that the traditional open mic does not encourage. I find myself alert to the silences and the shifts that signal if someone wants to read; I find myself not merely awaiting my turn so much as recognizing my turn. it is a small crowd and people rarely read more than one our two poems a shot, and it is only after most of the room has read and James has come to the mic and returned to the sound board that I make my way up. I perform the "View from a Train: Bridgeport, Connecticut/River Crossing at New London" that I have been developing for the last two weeks.
Miles plays for the better part of a minute before somebody goes up. I realize that in this room people may not feel comfortable to go on immediately after me-- that's the one advantage of the signup sheet at most open mics or the cabaret gigs I do at the Zeitgeist-- the line up forces one to follow me. I forget what it is like to be in the poetry circuit sometimes. My writing is good (though I always see room for improvement) but I also bring my performance training to the stage. It’s different from when I am sharing the bill with dancers-- whose movement technique is usually more advanced over all, and where I standout more for my peculiar vision.
Being a small room, we quickly arrive at a point where nearly everyone has read twice. So I go up again, this time with my copy of _Flash!Point_. I preface by explaining that "sometimes I forget what I have written and then get something like this in the mail to remind me" I read "Leaky faucet Mantra", a poem that I must have written two and a half years ago and then follow with "Fish Market in Portland, Maine" both are short pieces, but "Fish Market..." seems to elicit a strong reaction from the room-- again, it's a two year old poem that I rarely perform-- perhaps I should more often.
The room cycles through again. I return to the mic again and recite "Beacon Hill Panorama with Paper Airplanes" as a pure spoken word piece. The tables in the club around me prevent me from even considering doing much of the choreography I created for the Green Street Studios show, but the poem stands on its own.
A few more people return to the mic, and I seem inspired to go up one last time. I pull out all the stops on "Copley Square Farmer's Market", whose effect on audiences I am only just now appreciating. After that point, the evening has reached the crescendo that James aims for and he raises the lights.
Everyone clears out and James and I start talking about music. Miles Davis, jazz, and especially jazz/rock fusion are new to him. John, the volunteer who works the box office joins us. We trade stories about how we were exposed to different musics and how we were either prepared or not to understand them. James has this idea of writing musicological biographies-- life stories told only in the formation of listening habits.
James doesn't know when the next Open Poetry evening will be. The series is on hiatus but he wants to bring it back...
