6 ms·

I spend a lot of time thinking about, and trying to solve for, these sets of issues. There is an implicit boon that one gets from reading, perhaps especially re

I spend a lot of time thinking about, and trying to solve for, these sets of issues. There is an implicit boon that one gets from reading, perhaps especially reading print, a phenomenon which writers know well, and the job of literary magazines is to make this implicit boon explicit. The whole model needs to be updated, and investments into technology and physical spaces need to be made. Literature has always been the proto 'lifestyle-brand' lifestyle. I think literary magazines and nimble publishers could learn a thing or two about the dynamics of lifestyle-brands. Take, for example, yoga, surf-shops/apparel stores in NYC, and meditation more and more. What one has to struggle against at all costs, however, is the commodification of literature. For literature to discover its survivable form for the 21st century, it really must focus on making that implicit boon explicit. I could go on and on and on about this subject. I am very near to opening a coffee shop in Chicago that will also function as a kind of arcade for writing and reading. I have also been developing a web app to attempt to formalize the process and craft of literary production. I believe literature, and even new literature, to be resilient, and novel implementations will be discovered. Long-standing literary institutions do perhaps needs to fail first.

marcus_holmes 5y ago
I'm always opposed to government funding the arts. Mainly because if the government funds it, then they become the customer. Arts programs become designed to appeal to whatever the current set of civil servants think is worth funding. Academics get pulled in and join the bubble. The whole mess starts moving away from any kind of relevance to wider society and disappears up its own intellectual orifice. And the sheer arrogance of arts intellectuals saying "we're invaluable for society, so we should be paid by the government to do whatever we want to do" beggars belief. I'm way happier for the market to decide. There are viable business models out there for good quality content with niche appeal. It doesn't all have to be mass-market pap to be commercially sustainable. Failing that, there's always UBI. We should all be paid by the government to do whatever we want.
- gumby 5y ago
  > I'm always opposed to government funding the arts. Even participatory theatrical work like the TSA?
- mrcrumb1 5y ago
  The way you frame it is only a problem if civil servants are not part of society and that people don't have an influence about what the government spends money on, that is: you don't live in some form a representative democracy. Clearly lots of people value the arts enough to want the government to be funding it. To frame it as some ivory tower conspiracy to get a free ride from the government seems a little disingenuous. I don't necessarily disagree that there are business models that could support good quality content, or that UBI is a good way to keep arts alive; maybe we could have all three.
  - WalterBright 5y ago
    > Clearly lots of people value the arts enough to want the government to be funding it. More accurately, they want someone else to fund it. They don't find it worthwhile to spend their own money on it.
  - srl 5y ago
    > The way you frame it is only a problem if civil servants are not part of society and that people don't have an influence about what the government spends money on, that is: you don't live in some form a representative democracy. I mean, we don't live in a representative democracy. Not in the sense you're describing. (Assuming you, like me, live in the U.S.) Civil servants are not elected, are not directly accountable to elected officials, and are certainly not drawn from a representative cross section of the public. You may feel like they represent you, but that is (to be frank) little more than an expression of your own place in society. Civil servants form a discrete and powerful class, with their own interests, unions, and lobbying groups. Ignoring this is, optimistically, naive.
    - mrcrumb1 5y ago
      To be clear, we're talking about funding of the arts here. Without going down the rabbit hole of debating all of your critiques of the civil servant, if you really have this view of the public sector of the government of the US, then public spending on arts funding is pretty far down the totem pole as far as problems go. I will say I think your general picture of civil servants as a cabal of lobbyists and special interest does apply to a portion (arguably a disproportionately powerful portion) of them, but the population of civil servants is huge and is definitely not monolithic.
- pklausler 5y ago
  Do you oppose government funding of parks?
  - marcus_holmes 5y ago
    If the point of funding a park is to create a beautiful space that we can all enjoy for free, then no. If the point of funding a park is to "fund parks" and some people get allocated a bunch of money to create whatever they feel like creating, while others get nothing, based purely on the whims of whoever allocates the funding with no accountability, then yes.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- blacksmith_tb 5y ago
  Hmm, if the market were the only decider, presumably only the richest could have, say, a large sculpture? Or would businesses underwrite those as a goodwill gesture? I'm not sure that public art is all good, or was even the best use of the money, but I guess on balance I appreciate the impulse.
  - WalterBright 5y ago
    There's a long history of rich people funding the arts, voluntarily. The great art coming from medieval Italy, for example.
    - wolverine876 5y ago
      There is a long history of feudalism and ignorance and illteracy, of starvation and war. What does that tell us?
      - WalterBright 5y ago
        It tells us that life in modern America is pretty good.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- abathur 5y ago
  I agree with parts of this, but I do want to complicate it a bit... > the sheer arrogance of arts intellectuals saying "we're invaluable for society, so we should be paid by the government to do whatever we want to do" beggars belief. The arts aren't the only place where this happens. A lot of scientific/medical research is in part or whole funded by public money. Is your belief just as beggared by "the sheer arrogance of scientists saying: we're invaluable for society, so we should be paid by the government to study whatever we want"? > I'm way happier for the market to decide. There are viable business models out there for good quality content with niche appeal. It doesn't all have to be mass-market pap to be commercially sustainable. I see a connection between people trying to carve out a living in OSS and in the arts. Many artists and OSS developers are just people who work a day job that they may like, hate, or be indifferent to--and then go do something they are passionate about in their spare time. Do we, at scale, have a better society when most of these people's productive hours are fettered to whatever pays their bills (whether it uses their talents or squanders them) and they have to squirrel away energy for those passions--or are we better off when they can chase what makes them want to wake up on this side of the dirt every day?
- WalterBright 5y ago
  - wolverine876 5y ago
    Absolutely not. As a simple, specific example, look at much of the art funded during the New Deal. But regardless, the measure of art isn't mass appeal - similar to basic research, if the market funded it, we wouldn't have to. And that especially is a an issue when it's made: famously, many artists considered brilliant and very mainstream now were ignored and even reviled during life. Van Gogh didn't sell any paintings and was desperately poor. Stravinsky's Firebird caused riots. > nobody would pay for out of their own pocket People have such a strong reaction to it, such an urge to shut it down and leave no room for it to breath. That's actually a great start to art. The next step, however, is one few take (and fewer now it seems, when the wisdom of learning, knowledge, and being open-minded is politically rejected): Figure out what buttons it is pressing in you - not politics or whatever, but personal. Almost all my favorite artwork really pissed me off when I first saw it. I learned it was a great signal that there was something there. And that is how art, in large part, more than any other thing in the world, helps us expand and grow.
    - WalterBright 5y ago
      > Absolutely not. Compelling riposte! > art funded during the New Deal I've seen it. Not impressed. But heck, why don't you pay an artist to make some more for you? (We both know why <g>) > the measure of art isn't mass appeal Yeah, it is. Consider The Beatles, one of a looong list of examples. Though they didn't take off until they got a manager who understood marketing. They still weren't government funded. > Van Gogh was very bad at marketing. It turned out he didn't need government funding, either. And people are willing to personally pay for his art, though the prices they fetch means it's likely 99% virtue signalling.
      - wolverine876 5y ago
        > why don't you pay an artist to make some more for you? I do, though not New Deal stuff in particular. I do pay for New Deal stuff as part of admission to museums, etc. > Consider The Beatles, one of a looong list of examples. Some art is popular, therefore all art must be popular? But I'll give you this: It's hard to come up with artists I never heard of who would have done better with government funding! But many well-known artists have benefitted from government funding. > <g> Wow, how long has it been since I've seen that one! I actually prefer those tags, but gave up.
- bccdee 5y ago
  Markets can absolutely be unsustainable. Here's a very simple model of an art ecosystem which can't be sustained by the free market: "Popular art" is widely consumed, but can only be produced by "good artists." "Good artists" are a minority, and must be inspired by "high art." "High art" isn't popular enough to sustain itself, but without it, "popular art" can't exist. Voila, grants are a necessity within the model. Obviously the model is pretty simplistic, but my point should be clear: You can't just assume that the free market leads to the best outcomes. Lots of the time, incentives just don't line up. > Academics get pulled in and join the bubble. The whole mess starts moving away from any kind of relevance to wider society and disappears up its own intellectual orifice. Surely politicians would rather be seen as supporting popular art than academic art, no? "Disappearing into their own orifices" won't impress voters. Besides, lots of great art gets government grants. I suspect this isn't a real-world problem.
  - marcus_holmes 5y ago
    I dispute that popular art is inspired by, and cannot exist without, high art. Popular art usually comes from street art, not high art.
    - bccdee 5y ago
      Then we can make the reverse argument, substituting "high art" for "the art of the downtrodden," which is sanitized and repackaged for the mainstream. The underlying idea — that the art which inspires popular artists is distinct from the art produced by popular artists — is the same. It's still a simplistic model, but it illustrates the point equally well.
      - marcus_holmes 5y ago
        but the key point about street art is that it is not funded (and I would argue that it cannot be funded - any attempt to do so destroys it).
        bccdee 5y ago
lokalfarm 5y ago
> ... could learn a thing or two about the dynamics of lifestyle-brands. I think that is out of touch with the way that American culture has been trending. (Yes, the world is much bigger than America, but this article is focused on US literary mags.) There is a continual push for efficiency & profit - driven by capitalism & technology - so I think it's clear the audience for this 'literary lifestyle' is continually shrinking. Getting a bachelor's degree in the Arts in America basically is just a setup for entering graduate school (ie, spending more money + time, and even then, only making a fraction after graduation compared to other degrees... like CompSci). Pew Research Center found almost 25% of Americans in their survey admitted to not reading a book in the last year - and this is during the pandemic[0]. Our middle class is shrinking and being squeezed in ways that haven't been seen for over a century. The gig economy means people are often working multiple jobs, for low pay and no benefits. And most of the upper class is also continually trying to hustle and stay atop all the new technologies/products. I love reading and completely agree that it is valuable -- I just don't believe that our society agrees. Most of the 'Bar Arcades' in my area have closed down during the pandemic (along with many restaurants, also a 'lifestyle brand'), so I can't help but feel your potential business model has a long road ahead of itself. I wish you the best in it though! [0]: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/09/21/who-doesnt-read-books-in-america/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/09/21/who-doesnt-...
- blockwriter 5y ago
  I do not doubt that the audience is shrinking. In fact, I feel it. All the same, I am of the opinion that people that already participate in the lifestyle of literature, that is the reading and writing of literature in earnest, could benefit from an ecosystem that extends their practice beyond the solitary. If it yet cannot assuage the symptoms, then perhaps this system can diagnose the disease. This, in turn, might positively influence the writing that gets done. At the end of the day, it is unlikely that any given writer of literature will find mainstream or financial success, but at the core of many writers is the innate drive to assess the world and put down in words something that is meaningful. The pandemic was an illuminating study of the failure of literature in the 21st century. It seems like it should have produced a great work and a great moment, but it did not. Many writers need to go through the humbling process of discovering that the world writ large, despite the writer’s estimation of their own intellect, remains too confusing for them to say anything of value. This tension is also, I think, what accounts for our more absurd, even hallucinatory, ideas about what literature, and by extension man, was, is, and can be. I went through that process and had to come to terms with the tension between my appreciation for the aesthetic wonder of literature and my often unaesthetic and distracted upbringing. I then thought extensively about my environment and how little of my linguistic life was a matter of course. I did not pen letters, nor discuss literature extensively with peers. My peers did not read or respond to my writing. I ultimately came to understand what the problem set is. My solutions are yet unlikely to solve the big question of whether or not literature can survive in the 21st century, but they ease my load. The road ahead is a long one, and appropriately Quixotic, but I undertake it with the notion that it will ease the tension of others as well, even if they only end up being accomplished writers in search of accomplished readers.

marcus_holmes 5y ago

I'm always opposed to government funding the arts. Mainly because if the government funds it, then they become the customer. Arts programs become designed to appeal to whatever the current set of civil servants think is worth funding. Academics get pulled in and join the bubble. The whole mess starts moving away from any kind of relevance to wider society and disappears up its own intellectual orifice. And the sheer arrogance of arts intellectuals saying "we're invaluable for society, so we should be paid by the government to do whatever we want to do" beggars belief. I'm way happier for the market to decide. There are viable business models out there for good quality content with niche appeal. It doesn't all have to be mass-market pap to be commercially sustainable. Failing that, there's always UBI. We should all be paid by the government to do whatever we want.

gumby 5y ago
> I'm always opposed to government funding the arts. Even participatory theatrical work like the TSA?
mrcrumb1 5y ago
The way you frame it is only a problem if civil servants are not part of society and that people don't have an influence about what the government spends money on, that is: you don't live in some form a representative democracy. Clearly lots of people value the arts enough to want the government to be funding it. To frame it as some ivory tower conspiracy to get a free ride from the government seems a little disingenuous. I don't necessarily disagree that there are business models that could support good quality content, or that UBI is a good way to keep arts alive; maybe we could have all three.
- WalterBright 5y ago
  > Clearly lots of people value the arts enough to want the government to be funding it. More accurately, they want someone else to fund it. They don't find it worthwhile to spend their own money on it.
- srl 5y ago
  > The way you frame it is only a problem if civil servants are not part of society and that people don't have an influence about what the government spends money on, that is: you don't live in some form a representative democracy. I mean, we don't live in a representative democracy. Not in the sense you're describing. (Assuming you, like me, live in the U.S.) Civil servants are not elected, are not directly accountable to elected officials, and are certainly not drawn from a representative cross section of the public. You may feel like they represent you, but that is (to be frank) little more than an expression of your own place in society. Civil servants form a discrete and powerful class, with their own interests, unions, and lobbying groups. Ignoring this is, optimistically, naive.
  - mrcrumb1 5y ago
    To be clear, we're talking about funding of the arts here. Without going down the rabbit hole of debating all of your critiques of the civil servant, if you really have this view of the public sector of the government of the US, then public spending on arts funding is pretty far down the totem pole as far as problems go. I will say I think your general picture of civil servants as a cabal of lobbyists and special interest does apply to a portion (arguably a disproportionately powerful portion) of them, but the population of civil servants is huge and is definitely not monolithic.
pklausler 5y ago
Do you oppose government funding of parks?
- marcus_holmes 5y ago
  If the point of funding a park is to create a beautiful space that we can all enjoy for free, then no. If the point of funding a park is to "fund parks" and some people get allocated a bunch of money to create whatever they feel like creating, while others get nothing, based purely on the whims of whoever allocates the funding with no accountability, then yes.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
blacksmith_tb 5y ago
Hmm, if the market were the only decider, presumably only the richest could have, say, a large sculpture? Or would businesses underwrite those as a goodwill gesture? I'm not sure that public art is all good, or was even the best use of the money, but I guess on balance I appreciate the impulse.
- WalterBright 5y ago
  There's a long history of rich people funding the arts, voluntarily. The great art coming from medieval Italy, for example.
  - wolverine876 5y ago
    There is a long history of feudalism and ignorance and illteracy, of starvation and war. What does that tell us?
    - WalterBright 5y ago
      It tells us that life in modern America is pretty good.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
abathur 5y ago
I agree with parts of this, but I do want to complicate it a bit... > the sheer arrogance of arts intellectuals saying "we're invaluable for society, so we should be paid by the government to do whatever we want to do" beggars belief. The arts aren't the only place where this happens. A lot of scientific/medical research is in part or whole funded by public money. Is your belief just as beggared by "the sheer arrogance of scientists saying: we're invaluable for society, so we should be paid by the government to study whatever we want"? > I'm way happier for the market to decide. There are viable business models out there for good quality content with niche appeal. It doesn't all have to be mass-market pap to be commercially sustainable. I see a connection between people trying to carve out a living in OSS and in the arts. Many artists and OSS developers are just people who work a day job that they may like, hate, or be indifferent to--and then go do something they are passionate about in their spare time. Do we, at scale, have a better society when most of these people's productive hours are fettered to whatever pays their bills (whether it uses their talents or squanders them) and they have to squirrel away energy for those passions--or are we better off when they can chase what makes them want to wake up on this side of the dirt every day?
WalterBright 5y ago
- wolverine876 5y ago
  Absolutely not. As a simple, specific example, look at much of the art funded during the New Deal. But regardless, the measure of art isn't mass appeal - similar to basic research, if the market funded it, we wouldn't have to. And that especially is a an issue when it's made: famously, many artists considered brilliant and very mainstream now were ignored and even reviled during life. Van Gogh didn't sell any paintings and was desperately poor. Stravinsky's Firebird caused riots. > nobody would pay for out of their own pocket People have such a strong reaction to it, such an urge to shut it down and leave no room for it to breath. That's actually a great start to art. The next step, however, is one few take (and fewer now it seems, when the wisdom of learning, knowledge, and being open-minded is politically rejected): Figure out what buttons it is pressing in you - not politics or whatever, but personal. Almost all my favorite artwork really pissed me off when I first saw it. I learned it was a great signal that there was something there. And that is how art, in large part, more than any other thing in the world, helps us expand and grow.
  - WalterBright 5y ago
    > Absolutely not. Compelling riposte! > art funded during the New Deal I've seen it. Not impressed. But heck, why don't you pay an artist to make some more for you? (We both know why <g>) > the measure of art isn't mass appeal Yeah, it is. Consider The Beatles, one of a looong list of examples. Though they didn't take off until they got a manager who understood marketing. They still weren't government funded. > Van Gogh was very bad at marketing. It turned out he didn't need government funding, either. And people are willing to personally pay for his art, though the prices they fetch means it's likely 99% virtue signalling.
    - wolverine876 5y ago
      > why don't you pay an artist to make some more for you? I do, though not New Deal stuff in particular. I do pay for New Deal stuff as part of admission to museums, etc. > Consider The Beatles, one of a looong list of examples. Some art is popular, therefore all art must be popular? But I'll give you this: It's hard to come up with artists I never heard of who would have done better with government funding! But many well-known artists have benefitted from government funding. > <g> Wow, how long has it been since I've seen that one! I actually prefer those tags, but gave up.
bccdee 5y ago
Markets can absolutely be unsustainable. Here's a very simple model of an art ecosystem which can't be sustained by the free market: "Popular art" is widely consumed, but can only be produced by "good artists." "Good artists" are a minority, and must be inspired by "high art." "High art" isn't popular enough to sustain itself, but without it, "popular art" can't exist. Voila, grants are a necessity within the model. Obviously the model is pretty simplistic, but my point should be clear: You can't just assume that the free market leads to the best outcomes. Lots of the time, incentives just don't line up. > Academics get pulled in and join the bubble. The whole mess starts moving away from any kind of relevance to wider society and disappears up its own intellectual orifice. Surely politicians would rather be seen as supporting popular art than academic art, no? "Disappearing into their own orifices" won't impress voters. Besides, lots of great art gets government grants. I suspect this isn't a real-world problem.
- marcus_holmes 5y ago
  I dispute that popular art is inspired by, and cannot exist without, high art. Popular art usually comes from street art, not high art.
  - bccdee 5y ago
    Then we can make the reverse argument, substituting "high art" for "the art of the downtrodden," which is sanitized and repackaged for the mainstream. The underlying idea — that the art which inspires popular artists is distinct from the art produced by popular artists — is the same. It's still a simplistic model, but it illustrates the point equally well.
    - marcus_holmes 5y ago
      but the key point about street art is that it is not funded (and I would argue that it cannot be funded - any attempt to do so destroys it).
      - bccdee 5y ago

lokalfarm 5y ago

> ... could learn a thing or two about the dynamics of lifestyle-brands. I think that is out of touch with the way that American culture has been trending. (Yes, the world is much bigger than America, but this article is focused on US literary mags.) There is a continual push for efficiency & profit - driven by capitalism & technology - so I think it's clear the audience for this 'literary lifestyle' is continually shrinking. Getting a bachelor's degree in the Arts in America basically is just a setup for entering graduate school (ie, spending more money + time, and even then, only making a fraction after graduation compared to other degrees... like CompSci). Pew Research Center found almost 25% of Americans in their survey admitted to not reading a book in the last year - and this is during the pandemic[0]. Our middle class is shrinking and being squeezed in ways that haven't been seen for over a century. The gig economy means people are often working multiple jobs, for low pay and no benefits. And most of the upper class is also continually trying to hustle and stay atop all the new technologies/products. I love reading and completely agree that it is valuable -- I just don't believe that our society agrees. Most of the 'Bar Arcades' in my area have closed down during the pandemic (along with many restaurants, also a 'lifestyle brand'), so I can't help but feel your potential business model has a long road ahead of itself. I wish you the best in it though! [0]: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/09/21/who-doesnt-read-books-in-america/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/09/21/who-doesnt-...

blockwriter 5y ago
I do not doubt that the audience is shrinking. In fact, I feel it. All the same, I am of the opinion that people that already participate in the lifestyle of literature, that is the reading and writing of literature in earnest, could benefit from an ecosystem that extends their practice beyond the solitary. If it yet cannot assuage the symptoms, then perhaps this system can diagnose the disease. This, in turn, might positively influence the writing that gets done. At the end of the day, it is unlikely that any given writer of literature will find mainstream or financial success, but at the core of many writers is the innate drive to assess the world and put down in words something that is meaningful. The pandemic was an illuminating study of the failure of literature in the 21st century. It seems like it should have produced a great work and a great moment, but it did not. Many writers need to go through the humbling process of discovering that the world writ large, despite the writer’s estimation of their own intellect, remains too confusing for them to say anything of value. This tension is also, I think, what accounts for our more absurd, even hallucinatory, ideas about what literature, and by extension man, was, is, and can be. I went through that process and had to come to terms with the tension between my appreciation for the aesthetic wonder of literature and my often unaesthetic and distracted upbringing. I then thought extensively about my environment and how little of my linguistic life was a matter of course. I did not pen letters, nor discuss literature extensively with peers. My peers did not read or respond to my writing. I ultimately came to understand what the problem set is. My solutions are yet unlikely to solve the big question of whether or not literature can survive in the 21st century, but they ease my load. The road ahead is a long one, and appropriately Quixotic, but I undertake it with the notion that it will ease the tension of others as well, even if they only end up being accomplished writers in search of accomplished readers.