Recently by FlyOver

Now that the election is over, the object of my obsessing has shifted from presidential politics to the disarray of the global economy. From the macro to the micro, stories about the economy dominate the news. While I read quite a lot of personal finance stories and have an affection for the fabulously weird Suze Orman, I don't generally read actual, y'know, books on economic matters.

Yet I was intrigued by an interview I heard this past June on Wisconsin Public Radio (which you can stream online via this link or, if that ever fails, search the online story archives) with Nan Mooney, author of (Not) Keeping Up with Our Parents: The Decline of the Professional Middle Class, which came out earlier this year from Beacon Press. Now, a few months later, I've finally gotten around to reading Mooney's book.

Mooney's topic will, I imagine, be of interest to lots of ArtsJournal readers since her focus is on the economic straits of what she dubs the "educated professional middle class." These are white-collar workers whose jobs require at least a bachelor's, if not a master's or PhD, and are in--as Mooney phrased it in her WPR interview--"professions that, oftentimes, got you more moral prestige than financial rewards," such as journalism, nonprofit work and the arts.

While Mooney has interviewed a large number of subjects of different ages, her perspective, as someone born in 1970, seems very much of a piece with the Generation X mindset. X-ers have had to come to terms with a climate in which the value of a four-year degree has shrunk, making it, in many cases, akin to a high-school diploma for previous generations.

Yet Mooney's central point is that the sharp rise in fixed, necessary costs such as health care premiums is eroding the already modest salaries of teachers, social workers and the like. While I found some of her anecdotes a little lacking (such as a Chicago couple with a combined income of $93K and a home purchased for $179K; that doesn't seem like much of a stretch to me), the book makes for interesting reading.

I'm also glad to see Mooney discard the tired "latte myth," one of those irritating little tidbits that seems to make it into every magazine personal-finance story (and which I heard Matt Lauer recycle just this morning on NBC's Today). The idea is that if you cut out your $3 or $4 latte every day and plunk the money into a savings account, a worthwhile amount will rack up by the end of the year. As Mooney writes:

This may be useful advice to some degree, but it's hard to imagine that saving a few dollars here and there will ever add up to a home of your own... The only thing this theory seems to accomplish is making us feel guilty for enjoying small pleasures, when we definitely can't afford the larger ones. Forgoing a fancy cup of coffee can't ameliorate the fact that wages have stagnated and the cost of most major items has risen.

I'm all for economizing and limiting frivolous expenses (I can't help it; I grew up in a middle-class but ultra-frugal family), but I think Mooney makes a great point. This trite latte example, which we've heard over and over, doesn't address the fact that the level of consumer spending hasn't really gone up since the 1970s, but fixed costs have risen and wages have stagnated. There's more at work here than occasional self-indulgence.

While I have quibbles with some aspects of this book, I think it's a useful counterbalance to the rosy picture painted by Richard Florida's much-hyped The Rise of the Creative Class, which made it seem as if the creative and well-educated were endlessly in demand and could write their own tickets in terms of where to live and work. I always found it strange that Florida lumped together hairdressers and more highly paid types like software developers. Income level was simply glossed over.

If these sorts of issues intrigue you, I recommend listening to Nan Mooney's Wisconsin Public Radio interview with host Joy Cardin or reading her book. While I'm sure some will deride her as a whiner (and I'll admit I found some of her interviewees unsympathetic), she raises worthwhile questions about how certain professions are valued and where we're headed in the future, especially for those with children. I'll close with another excerpt:

If we feel torn between money and values, imagine the pressures our financial anxieties will place on our kids now and in the future... How fully do we propagate those ideals that left so many of us disenchanted: the sense of entitlement, the idea that hard work and fair play will automatically get you somewhere, the virtues of meaningful work, generosity of spirit and a life of the mind? Much as we might relish having grown up in an era where possibility was the watchword, can we say we're responsible parents if we encourage our children to do as we did, bypass financial security and focus on following their dreams?

On Tuesday night, I had the pleasure of reviewing "Avenue Q" at Madison's Overture Center for the Arts.  It was a lot of fun and I was pleased to see that the house looked quite full, especially with younger audience members.  But, as well all know in this lousy economy, many things are not so rosy.  The Overture Center is dealing with financial difficulties precipitated in no small part by the stock market's gyrations, and the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra's musicians are in a labor dispute with management.  (The WCO is one of several resident arts groups that use the Overture Center facility.)  While this has been going on for a while, I was reminded of it anew by the musicians picketing outside the arts complex Tuesday evening.

Performances have already been missed, and the WCO's upcoming Halloween concert has also been canceled.  Since I generally don't write about classical music, I don't have any particular commentary to add to what's already been written; I'm blogging this simply to bring it to the attention of ArtsJournal readers.  So, to that end, here are some links if you're interested:

"WCO musicians and management engage in bitter public battle," Wisconsin State Journal, 10/23/08

Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra official site (with statements from management)

WCO musicians' blog, with commentary on the strike

Wow. It's hard to get back into blogging after an unexpectedly long hiatus. But, since fall is a time of renewal (at least for me), I thought I'd jump back in. The first leaves are starting to turn red and gold here in the Great Lakes region and I'll admit it's hard to truly focus on the arts with the looming election and global economic crisis. But I'll give it a shot...

One of the biggest cultural happenings is the opening of a new George Segal exhibition at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art (MMoCA). The show, organized by MMoCA, heads to Dallas, Kansas City, Mo., and West Palm Beach, Fla., after its run here ends in December. The show represents quite a coup for MMoCA in that a cast of "Depression Bread Line," which Segal did for the FDR Memorial in Washington, will head back to Madison and join the museum's permanent collection after the show is over. For preview coverage, see Isthmus, 77 Square or the Wisconsin State Journal. My review will appear in Isthmus later this week. I've been told the show will also be covered by the Wall Street Journal and Art in America, but I'm not sure when those articles will appear.

Madison's only professional theater company, Madison Repertory Theatre, opens its season this week with Becky Mode's "Fully Committed." The Chicago actress Amy J. Carle, who has performed with Madison Rep before, stars. I'm looking forward to seeing her again, since she was one of the best things about Madison Rep's production of "The Diary of Anne Frank" this past January. "Fully Committed" looks like fluffy fun, but we'll see.

This 40th anniversary year is an important one for Madison Rep. Former artistic director Richard Corley's contract was not renewed near the end of last season. While it sounds as though he and the board made a mutual decision to part ways, I can't help but wonder--and this is my own personal musing here--if he was blamed for not getting enough butts in seats. Which begs the question, who really is getting enough audience members in these tough economic times? And how will Madison Rep's direction change under its interim artistic director? The season's choices seem pretty safe (including well-known fare like "Bus Stop," "True West" and "My Fair Lady"), but of course the proof will be in the pudding.

Under Corley's tenure, I saw a few shows that I'd file in my "all-time most memorable" category, such as "I Am My Own Wife" starring David Adkins and "Permanent Collection" with a more local cast, including UW-Madison professor Patrick Sims.

About 45 minutes west of Madison in Spring Green, classical repertory theater American Players Theatre is winding down its season. I had a chance to catch a Sunday evening show of George Bernard Shaw's "Widowers' Houses," which didn't knock my socks off but was still enjoyable (as far as Shaw goes, I preferred APT's production of "Misalliance" two summers ago). APT is an outdoor theater in the woods and, when the weather cooperates, it's fabulous. Other times, it's, um, challenging--as it was Sunday. Light rain started almost as soon as the show did and got heavier throughout the play. Luckily, I had a tacky-but-useful plastic poncho so the rain didn't faze me too much, but it did halt the show temporarily at one point. That, coupled with two intermissions, broke up the flow of the play, but there was a sort of camaraderie between the audience members who stuck it out and the actors. In its own weird way, it was a fitting and fun end-of-summer experience--rain, swooping bats and all.

I had to laugh out loud when, after a brilliant "Daily Show" segment on Sen. Barack Obama's speech on race, Jon Stewart dropped the yuks for a moment and said (to paraphrase): "And so it is that a prominent politician spoke to Americans about race as if they were adults." Stewart hit the nail on the head. Although I haven't had a chance to watch Obama's speech in its entirety yet, from what I have seen, it was an honest, direct and nuanced attempt to grapple with a complex problem.

All of this leads me to something I had meant to blog about a couple of weeks ago, when I saw a preview performance of Madison Repertory Theatre's current show, Thomas Gibbons' "Permanent Collection." The show blends art-world and racial politics as Sterling North, a black corporate exec, takes on the directorship of the Morris Foundation, which houses a priceless collection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist art, as well as some little-displayed African art. North's desire to incorporate more of the African pieces into the displays rankles the museum's white director of education, and controversy ensues.

After the preview-night show, I felt invigorated in way that, frankly, I rarely do when leaving the theater. Sure, there are good plays to be seen in Madison, but this seemed to me an almost perfect blend of entertainment with meaty ideas. The production was fiery, at times funny and offered characters with real moral complexity. It's a play on race and culture that treats the audience as if they were adults, capable of seeing the merits of each character's position from shifting angles.

I was previously unfamiliar with this play, and I'm glad Madison Rep chose to make it a part of its season. Madison is a changing city but its older generations - you know, the people who are more likely to go to professional theater - are largely white. We like to think of ourselves as an enlightened, progressive place, and to a good extent I think Madison is, but anyone who doesn't believe that they have blind spots regarding race is probably fooling themselves. In that way, I thought Madison's Rep choice of this play was especially well suited to its community. Being entertained and being made to think - in equal measure - is, for me at least, a perfect night at the theater. And if art, as well as political speeches, can move forward our national dialogue on race, I think this is the sort of play that can accomplish that.

For some local reviews of Madison Repertory Theatre's production of "Permanent Collection," see Isthmus, the Capital Times and the Wisconsin State Journal. The show runs through March 30 at the Overture Center for the Arts.

Tomorrow, March 5, is Arts Day here in Wisconsin. It's an annual event organized by Arts Wisconsin, a statewide arts advocacy group. Although it works closely with our state Arts Board, it is an independent organization. Part of the goal of Arts Day is to get Wisconsin's artists, arts administrators, educators, etc. together with state legislators. Legislators are unlikely to fund what they don't even know about, and they need to know about what their constituents are doing. Arts Day is spearheaded by the vocal, passionate and determined Anne Katz, and I've asked Anne to do a guest post one of these days to talk about the role of arts advocacy from her perspective.

Arts advocates have had some recent successes here in Wisconsin, one of which is the passage of tax breaks for films (and other forms of entertainment) made in Wisconsin. While the knee-jerk liberal in me typically views any sort of corporate tax break with suspicion, I think this is great news. We've lagged behind nearby states in this regard, losing potential business to them. The first major film to be shot here, after the tax incentives took effect on Jan. 1, is "Public Enemies," based on Bryan Burrough's book about John Dillinger and starring Johnny Depp, Marion Cotillard (whee!) and Christian Bale. UW-Madison graduate Michael Mann will direct.

According to the AP, the film company plans to spend about $20 million in Wisconsin and will earn about $3.9 million in tax credits.

While Wisconsin's Arts Day will no doubt touch upon these sorts of large-scale economic issues, the overall vibe is much more local and grassroots, and the arguments put forth in favor of the arts are certainly not all based on dollars. Rather, it's a time for anyone who cares about the arts and arts funding to have a say based on what is most important to them -- and it's a challenge to all of us to try to become arts advocates in some form throughout the year, not just one day in March.

While my personal e-mail account is blissfully free of spam, my work one is not. Today, this little nugget appeared with the perky subject line "Greetings!":

America is die! Read tihs!!!

Um, thanks, but no.

(And yes, I realize this post has nothing to do with the arts, but I couldn't help myself.)

The big media news in Madison over the past week was one of those shocks that's not really a shock: the Capital Times, an afternoon paper that is one of two local dailies, will cease daily publication on April 26. Beginning April 30, the paper will publish two tabloid-format editions a week: a news and opinion section on Wednesdays and an arts and entertainment section on Thursdays. The paper also claims that it will significantly increase its Web presence.

The two weekly tabloids will be distributed to subscribers already getting Madison's morning paper, the Wisconsin State Journal, and also made available free in racks.

While the Cap Times trumpets its "increased circulation" to over 80,000 under this new plan, that seems largely due to its being distributed with the State Journal and given away. The Cap Times' subscriber base is currently just north of 17,000--and this in a metro area estimated at 550,000 (Madison itself is about 225,000).

While this seems like a gain for State Journal readers since they'll be getting content from an additional paper for (presumably) no extra cost, I'm guessing faithful Cap Times readers are not pleased. But it is doubtful that the Cap Times, in some form, will go away completely due to the terms of a rather confusing Joint Operating Agreement governing Madison's two papers.

Here's some coverage on the shift from the Cap Times site and some commentary by local blogger Madison Guy (see especially his thoughts on the possible drawback of this plan).

And in other local news... it appears Wisconsin's primary on Feb. 19 might actually matter, since the race is not yet sewn up. Barack Obama is headed here for an appearance on Tuesday, mere blocks from where I work. Though I will likely vote for him, I'm hoping to hightail it away from work before the crowds build up... I never miss an election, but large crowds are not my thing. Last week, AJ blogger Tyler Green offered up some thoughts on presidential candidates and the arts - with a useful link to policy statements on the Americans for the Arts Action Fund site.

P.S. As I write this on a Sunday night, it's -6 degrees here (and no, that's not the windchill). Oof.

The Wisconsin Arts Board recently unveiled a new logo and is now using the tagline "Creativity. Culture. Community. Commerce." All good stuff, and that last bit could be taken as a nod to the fact that, here in the Dairy State, our arts board falls under the department of tourism. As we've discussed previously on Flyover, economic development is increasingly advanced as a rationale for arts support.

Arts Wisconsin, an advocacy organization that partners with the Wisconsin Arts Board on a number of fronts (including professional development workshops for artists), is helping to lead a push to increase state tax support for the Arts Board. Currently, per capita support here is an anemic 44 cents, and Arts Wisconsin would like to see it increase to an even dollar. Meanwhile in Minnesota, our neighbors to the west, per capita support is nearly quadruple ours at $1.67. The disparity is especially hard to fathom when you consider how similar our states are in other respects: we're both northern states with few big cities, fairly progressive reputations and similar demographics. Why, then, do Minnesotans put so much more support towards the arts? How has this been politically feasible? (And I'm asking this seriously, not rhetorically--we here in Wisconsin would do well to emulate Minnesota in this regard.)

On another note, Visit Milwaukee (Milwaukee's convention and visitors' bureau) has announced that sufficient funds ($85,000) have been raised to pay for the "Bronze Fonz" it wishes to erect along Milwaukee's Riverwalk. Although I haven't followed this story closely (because I live nearly two hours west), it does strike me as a disappointment that Milwaukee is going with a relic of a fictitious past rather than installing some forward-thinking contemporary art by a local artist. Of course, there are a number of these TV-themed sculptures in various cities, but I can't see that it is going to add much to Milwaukee. It also seems a deadly dull commission for an artist, with little creative leeway. To my knowledge, Visit Milwaukee has not chosen an artist yet.

A young Milwaukee gallery owner, Mike Brenner, has taken considerable flak for his public opposition to this sculpture. In fact, he's now closing his gallery to focus on other projects. Brenner writes: "I cannot see running a contemporary art gallery in a city whose 'leadership' is so eager to invest its limited resources in garbage instead of fostering its burgeoning arts community... I want the world to see what I see... a city full of warmhearted, hardworking, creative individuals who deserve to be defined by so much more than beer, brats, cheese and Arthur Fonzarelli." Brenner linked to this TV news story on his gallery's Web site; it quickly sums things up for those unfamiliar with the project:

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel writer Jim Stingl alludes not-so-subtly to Brenner's gallery closing in his column. Stingl also writes: "Irritating the snobby arbiters of serious art is not the only good reason to erect a Fonzie statue downtown" and closes with "I know it breaks the rule that art is best when it's hard to understand, but it doesn't doom our chances of being a first-class city." (I guess Stingl hasn't seen any of the whimsical, accessible yet contemporary stuff in Minneapolis' sculpture garden, like Claes Oldenburg's "Spoonbridge and Cherry;" love it or hate it, it's easy to grasp and is definitely identified with Minneapolis.)

Sadly, Stingl seems to buy into the mindset that wanting to support new, local work or something less literal than a lifesize bronze of a TV character is snobbery (pardon me while I adjust my beret). The "contemporary art = inscrutable" attitude is a well-worn cliché. I agree with Stingl only in that one statue doesn't have the power to wreck the city of Milwaukee, a city for which I have a lot of fondness even though I have never lived there. (My family moved away just before I was born, but my grandparents were Milwaukee residents for over 60 years.)

I guess the whole Visit Milwaukee / Bronze Fonz controversy points up the conflict between needing to market a city to tourists via familiar icons (though Fonz defender Stingl concedes that a lot of whippersnappers don't even know who the Fonz is; let's face it, "Happy Days" ended its run 24 years ago and was viewed by aging Gen X-ers like myself) and supporting a city's indigenous culture via artists and artwork that don't have instant recognizability.

Earlier this week, our AJ blogging neighbor book/daddy linked to a short but funny bit on Craigslist. In that spirit, I wanted to share a favorite bit of my own: "To: Guy Who Screamed Obscenities at the Ballet the Other Night." If you've been working as hard as my fellow bloggers have been lately, this should provide a much-needed chuckle (and it's really not that far off-topic if you consider our recent posts about sports vs. arts, audience behavior, etc.) Enjoy!

Though it's purely coincidental, the last two plays I've seen in Madison have revolved around issues of disability.

I caught the opening of "Tidings from the Seasonally Affected," the new show from Encore Studio for the Performing Arts, which describes itself as "the only professional theater company for people with disabilities in Wisconsin" (and I'll take their word for it).

Written by Encore's artistic and executive director, KelsyAnne Schoenhaar, and Wendy Prosise, "Tidings" looks at the holiday season from the perspective of a young woman who is moving from an institution to a small group home. The play is set in 1977 ("the golden age of group homes," according to the program notes), as deinstitutionalization created significant change in the lives of those with physical and cognitive disabilities. "Tidings" is a serio-comic look at these issues, ranging from pointed observation to goofy musical interludes between scenes (my review of the show will appear soon in Isthmus). It's also a welcome offering for those seeking holiday fare off the Nutcracker/Christmas Carol path.

On Saturday, I caught one of the final performances of "A Nervous Smile," John Belluso's drama about three parents of children with severe cerebral palsy. It was staged by the University of Wisconsin-Madison's University Theatre, with MFA students acting and directing.

While "Tidings" looks at issues of disability largely from the perspective of those living with disabilities, "Smile" considers the psychological strain that able-bodied parents of disabled children can feel--leading to potentially rash actions. A wheelchair user himself, the late Belluso based his play on a real-life incident in which two parents abandoned their disabled child in a hospital emergency room.

Although these two shows are utterly different in tone, they both gave me something to think about as a person who is not faced with disability issues every day. As a theater-goer, I appreciate seeing work that's socially engaged but, for the most part, not heavy-handed.