Art and commerce

14 April 2007

For your Strad.

Sarah

Thanks very much for sending this. I don’t know whether to laugh or pound my head against the wall: it’s the perfect demonstration of how hard it can be to make people hear (literally, metaphorically…). Of course I hope I’d be one of the people who stopped, but maybe not — it’s so easy to hurry by beauty and skill when it’s offered in passing, when it’s not ritualized by setting. When art is offered out of context, it makes a lot of people nervous and grumpy. It’s weird that our culture is so monetized that we regard freely-offered public performance with suspicion: after all, no one’s making anyone listen, and no one’s making anyone pay.

I wish the economics of art were different, both for artist and audience. And I think those economics are changing. Anyone keeping up with the music industry (a giant rollercoaster ride these days) knows that MySpace and P2P and recent developments about payola and royalty payments are changing the ways that people make a living with music (artists, distributors, broadcasters, promoters, labels… everyone’s world is different today). In February 2009, there will be no more analog television. Nineteen screenwriters are changing how writers play in the Hollywood sandbox. And what will happen in publishing? I don’t know, it’s a mystery, but I’m confident it won’t be business as usual.

As long as we don’t all end up like Strad… for those of you not familiar with my short fiction, she is the protagonist of Strings (read more about the story here). Strings is the lead story in Dangerous Space.

I hope people will enjoy the collection, and that some of you will want to talk about it over a virtual pint. There’s always room at the table.

Cheers.

Posted by Kelley | Filed Under blog, life, talk to me, virtual pint archives 

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