Is Rogan mocking the style of dance or is he fretting about the transmission of covid-19 outdoors? Or is it something else — De Blasio paying attention to the arts when he could be tending to health and economics (even though the arts are a core component of NYC's economy)? Is it that when people are suffering and deprived of the normal components of ordinary life, ballet is never the answer?How the fuck is this a real thing. https://t.co/xi4DYlnrP2
— Joe Rogan (@joerogan) February 16, 2021
ADDED: Whatever Rogan might have in mind, I want to step back and consider a larger topic: Is art superfluous, a frill that you get to after the basics are satisfied? I think human beings produce and want to experience art even when they are deprived and suffering. There's a difference, however, between the art of the suffering people and art staged by the government to entertain the public.
The source and the nature of the art is different. Is it an expression of suffering or is it an amusement intended to distract people and keep them from demanding too much from the government?
The ballet in that video does not express any real feeling about our current predicament. It's more: We have dancers who can't perform in the usual theater setting that you probably can't afford anyway, so lucky you, they're willing to bestow their talents on you out here in the streets.
ALSO: I'm thinking about those Jules Feiffer dancers....
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85 comments:
Ballet would be way down on the list of answers.
Maybe between "playing Jenga" and "scuba diving."
But the poor dears can't help it. They dig deep into their bourgeois souls searching for their human hearts, and what they come up with in response to ordinary people who are suffering and deprived of the normal components of ordinary life, is mask-wearing ballet dancers in the empty streets of a crippled city.
McDonalds gift cards would have been more welcome.
Maybe, like me, he's wondering if this is the best use of taxpayer dollars. Or maybe, first make the streets for the citizens that use them every day and then you can put on street shows.
Every aspect of the music biz pushes the musician toward more fanatic leftism in the struggle for some sort of government or non-profit funding.
It’s difficult to get around this even as a church musician. Most of the Protestant and Episcopal Churches are auxiliary wings of the Democratic Party.
I’m pretty good at finessing this, but the pandemic has kicked the shit out of my business and I don’t know if it will ever come back.
Thanks Governor Cuomo and Mayor De Blaiso!
He's begging for taxpayer money to bail out the parts of the city that BLM burned down, and yet this is what he is doing?? Fuck the people that are suffering...let them look out their window and watch people dance?? New York City has become the dump that Staten Island used to be.
For those who can’t decipher my previous post:
Which is better for musicians?
1. Performing in the streets under government supervision, or
2. Making a few bucks in clubs, theaters and churches?
I have friends that are looking to leave the city, because it isn't SAFE anymore. The Guiliani days are long gone, and the left has taken control to bring it back to it's glory days of the 70's when it was a drug infested Porno hub.
Maybe the idea of five people doing modern dance amid dirty snow piles to an audience of three is hardly the path toward a renewed society ... especially given that kids are still not in schools.
I'm all for opera, ballet, painting and other fine arts. But not one cent on the taxpayer dime.
How many millions of so-called stimulus $ did Pelosi earmark for the Lincoln Center? THAT is an impeachable offense.
The performers are only a small part of a production. The economy needs to open up fully now. Safetism has caused incalculable damage. T
Your story has become tiresome! Now is the time on Sprockets when we dance!
Paging Ministry of Silly Walks!
Ballet thrived in the old Soviet Union. Sure, there were a few famous defectors who eventually found work on SATC. It could happen in NYC as well and the best of them could eventually hope to tour China or Russia.
I must add that de Blasio's balletprop made me happy as a little girl!
I remember expressed anger at shutting NYC down and now deblasio is doing little arts skits to appease it. Guys with a band can't do their gigs though.
Pro Tip... Avoid The Subways
It’s hard to argue with the fact that art is a lot of what made NYC special. It’s also hard to argue that once the elderly have been vaccinated, any justification there may have been for lockdowns is gone.
Of course, another thing that made NYC special was the safe streets in Manhattan and the safety of the Subways. I don’t think that “modern dance” is the way to bring those things back.
Some Dutch E.R. doctor said that if you vaccinated every male over 65 and everybody with a BMI over 25, any crisis would soon be over. Of course that science driven solution that reduces the solution to mere numbers is unacceptable in our current fascist regime where every action must be judged by a moral test, and that moral test has nothing to do with the most effective way to reduce hospitalizations and death. We are being ruled by a moral minority of the Tipper Gore kind. They just don’t call themselves that.
Yes, it's likely the money. With hat in hand to the feds for money they wasted, he's paying artists to perform, which makes art a public institution. Not a good idea.
Rogan is generally pretty sensible about COVID so I doubt he's worried about that I don't know what his issue is and, personally, I think this is a good thing. It's something interesting to look at when there is so little interesting going on.
As the COVID situation and the weather improve, people are going to release a lot of pent-up socialisation energy. On any given night, far more people than normal are going to be looking for something to do and if we are offered the same number of activities, they will be unpleasantly crowded and may contribute to virus spread before it's fully kicked.
So anything that can be done to sponsor, promote, encourage activities in the next year or two I wholeheartedly support.
Dance of the Montagues and Capulets Kissim
Not a single public dime will arrive in an artist's pocket until it has been marketed, advertised, leveraged, and politicized by an army of administrators who are all primarily adept at messaging for purposes of reinforcing the cultural narrative of the moment.
This is a particularly unappetizing moment.
Meanwhile gigging musicians are locked out of work until further notice.
The winners of the political contest own this. Hope I'm around to see the worm turn. I suspect they will try to kill this worm off before it can turn.
Does this appear to be sustainable? That's what I thought too. Hope I'm right.
Bread and Circuses...
"Meanwhile gigging musicians are locked out of work until further notice.”
They should come to Florida, and bring the golf clubs. Florida is doing everything right, just like they did the election right. Competent government. Nobody moving here should be allowed to vote for five years though, until they see how smoothly stuff runs without the Democrats screwing it up.
BTW, if you come to Florida, you will be asked to wear a mask in the supermarkets and drug stores. If that’s too much for you, stay in your locked down shitholes.
tim in vermont said...
"Meanwhile gigging musicians are locked out of work until further notice.”
They should come to Florida, and bring the golf clubs. Florida is doing everything right, just like they did the election right. Competent government. Nobody moving here should be allowed to vote for five years though, until they see how smoothly stuff runs without the Democrats screwing it up.
2/16/21, 6:29 AM
EXACTLY!! All these Democrats fleeing my state of New Jersey, New York and California should stay where they are, and stew in what they voted for.
He pretty much stole this idea from the Amazon commercial, no?
When will indoor dining come back to NYC? Or schools fully reopen?
The street fair vibe seems ok to me since it is a step toward normal city life. Anything that demonstrates progress on that front is encouraging. However this is but a wee thing compared to dining and schools.
For one, it's a very snowy February, so outdoor theater is a bit odd. There's a reason Shakespeare in the Park is a summer thing.
For another, NYC is getting a lot of flack for how badly they've been handling the vaccine rollout. Perhaps some might call that a higher priority than ballet.
Then there's NYC's big jump in homicides...
One complaint I would have about this is-- the theaters still aren't open. So there are a lot of people who own businesses that NY relies on to have its "arts" reputation who won't make any money off arts in the streets.
Maybe they could have a violinist play at the next 5 alarm fire?
"Is art superfluous, a frill that you get to after the basics are satisfied?" Abraham Maslow says yes.
For some among us dance does not speak to us, tell a story or convey a specific meaning or theme. Is that performance intended to entertain? Inspire? Get a dancer a paycheck? All of the above? Why not open the theaters, museums, and performing arts venues, that will do a lot more to benefit everyone.
That's funny. You were reminded of the Jules Feiffer dancers. I was reminded of the Chicago Teachers, working on their dance moves instead of actually teaching: Union Dancers. And this move by DeBlasio has the same stink.
I think the arts are, like sports, a very important anchor and outlet for us. During good times, yes. But even more so during bad times. Where I live, I happen to love our small town symphony orchestra. It's typically something I look forward to and when I'm there to see them, it's like the world is shut out for 90 minutes or so. I love it. They've not been able to perform their normal schedule at all for the past year, but they've done a few online steamed concerts. With just a small group of the musicians on a stage, distanced. It's announced and you can subscribe to watch it. I still love it as it's better than nothing. And of course, sports has been a huge anchor- a reach back to normalcy.
But I think Joe Rogan is probably looking at is as pissing in the wind in the case of NYC. There's so much going wrong there, led by two horrible officials, DeBlasio and Cuomo. People are leaving the city in droves. I've got a lifelong cousin, who is pure Manhattan, has lived there her entire life, and has finally had enough. Thousands of others are gone or going. Given the demise of businesses- 30% or so restaurants closing- and so many others. The rise of crime, filth. I suspect wildly maneuvering random people throughout the city will seem like pissing in the wind and nothing more than a flailing Mayor can do about it. He's impotent as a Mayor and he's showing it.
I love the arts and they are hugely important. But not when the ship is sinking.
In Chicago the teachers were dancing to keep the schools CLOSED.
https://youtu.be/V45xKPZPTeo
"Is it that when people are suffering and deprived of the normal components of ordinary life, ballet is never the answer?"
From Medium online:
"Dancing Around the Truth
Ballet. It’s everywhere, it’s big time racist."
"Dance is consumed by a large audience that needs to look at content they are consuming and its intersection with white supremacy and racism...Typically, the relationship between ballet and white supremacy is not discussed together; however I think it’s important that critique is given. In this modern world we need to see the part that art can play in upholding the system that is white supremacy...Ballet is a beautiful and complex art form, but it upholds systems of white supremacy..."
I am Laslo.
Is art superfluous, a frill that you get to after the basics are satisfied?
No. Art is the sharing of perception, which makes it a crucial aspect of the psyche. Art is intimately tied to worship, bonding, various rituals, and is a means of transmitting knowledge, ideas, and culture throughout a society.
Thousands of people are employed in the performing arts industry in NYC. Most have been out of work for almost a year.
I'm for anything that gets people back to work and this long dark day behind us.
When you have more people on stage, than are in the audience...
How can you say, Anything besides....
How the fuck is this a real thing.
.Ballet is a beautiful and complex art form, but it upholds systems of white supremacy..."
white supremacy! is there ANYTHING it can't do?
Ballet is racist. Too much White Supremacy. He should be ashamed....https://pwperspective.com/2020/08/13/racism-in-dance-how-dancers-are-speaking-out-against-systemic-racism/
The circus begins! Where's the bread?
It's probably too cold for Nude Performance Art.
I am Laslo.
"Now is ze time on Sprockets vhen ve dance!"
- Dieter. A bored, disaffected West German expressionist and minimalist who interviewed celebrities in whom he was demonstrably barely interested, and then invariably sought to bring the discussion around to his "limited" monkey, Klaus, seated on a platform atop a miniature column.
"Or is it something else —"
It's that government shouldn't be picking winners among artists.
is it an amusement intended to distract people and keep them from demanding too much from the government?
I've been saying this for months... the Left is all about Bread and Circuses now. Red meat and UBI for the base in the hopes of establishing a permanent majority.
Seems more important to get eateries and other small shops open for business to bring the hustle bustle of lively streets back to NYC. Government paid street performers just seem sad and emphasize all the poor decisions that have been made.
Sorry Clyde, immediately went there without first looking.
The video I linked gets the viewer there quicker.
OK: it might be white supremacist and all, but here is a piece of ballet I like: What is Life
I am Laslo.
You can't dance en pointe on asphalt. Trained dancers, masters, turned into buskers by the city is wrong. They risk injury. It shows no understanding of the art or how it's made.
Also, the govt dime paying for this show is wasteful.
Also, Sprockets lives in my soul. Perfect.
They should come to Florida, and bring the golf clubs. Florida is doing everything right, just like they did the election right. Competent government. Nobody moving here should be allowed to vote for five years though, until they see how smoothly stuff runs without the Democrats screwing it up.
I'm in Florida, and you are correct to a great extent. Still, due to national conditions, working musicians are even struggling here to sustain through the pandemic. When the shows don't play (and they don't, even here) the IATSE guys (stage techs) are all without work and pretty much without hope. If you were to do to entertainment what Amazon has done to retail and cartelize the process through a filter (established by experts from the nation's leading universities) to leverage performing talent to the purposes of agit-prop, this crisis could look like an unbelievable opportunity to some far-thinking progressive leaders. I don't know, maybe somebody else sees this, maybe not.
What do I know after all?
Is art superfluous, a frill that you get to after the basics are satisfied?
The “basics” satisfied facilitate the creation of art.
When you're mayor of NYC, rich men's wives must be dealt with.
Corruptocrats always use street performance as an excuse to grab more taxpayer dollars. Every year Boston reinvents the multi-day art suck that nobody attended last year.
" (even though the arts are a core component of NYC's economy)?"
Core? Not even close. Banking and Finance. Media. Tech. Trade. Real Estate.
The dancing looks ridiculous. The mayor sounds ridiculous. They combine for a particularly ridiculous looking tableau of "the arts." It's only missing Dieter asking the mayor to touch his monkey.
A question: "How is this a real thing?"
Same question with nuance: "How the fuck is this a real thing?"
I'm reminded of the movie Brazil, where they are trying to enjoy a 'meal' at a restaurant, while explosions, bleeding are dying are happening around them.
I was in Panama City last Thursday. Went to Shuckers. Nobody, not the staff or the dozens of Yankees that filth the place up were wearing masks. Oh and Tim, nobody was wearing them at the Publix except for the staff. They don’t have to, but Publix ain’t what it once was which is sad. Fuck masks.
The crazy part is thinking that someone performing solo on a street corner in February weather is making up for the lost 'art'. It's freezing cold for both performers and audience, it's dangerous for the performer (ice, etc.), you can't have an ensemble perform or you are blocking up the sidewalks, only people who happen to be walking by at that place on that day can see the performance, and of the people who happen to be walking by, how many have the luxury to stop their daily activities at that moment in time to watch for any length of time?
Oh, and by the way, this does nothing for the stage manager, lighting crew, orchestra, attendants, ticket sales staff, etc. that would normally be working a ballet performance.
If you are going to go ahead and subsidize ballet in this instance, why not open up the theaters for the benefit of the audience, the performers, and all of the staff and have an honest-to-goodness performance? Just subsidize the seats that you cannot sell due to having only half or a quarter of the audience that you would normally be allowed.
Althouse wrote: Is Rogan mocking the style of dance or is he fretting about the transmission of covid-19 outdoors?
Rogan is making fun of the fact that the arts should be indoors when warranted, which is usually. Broadway, Ballet, Symphony, Concerts… This is peak De-Blowhard stupidity.
Only in Madison would someone think transmission of COVID outdoors is a real thing people worry about. Unbelievable.
Rogan probably would have made fun of the people of Madison, WI who thought painting on plywood boarding up broken windows on vandalized business was a great opportunity for more outdoor art.
His criticism is not about the art, the dancing, or even outdoor COVID transmission. He's making fun of De Blasio.
I'll tweet him the name of Madison's Mayor so he can make fun of her too.
"What exactly is Joe Rogan's problem with Mayor De Blasio's "Open Culture" program?"
You guys are missing the OBVIOUS problem!
The dancers in the thumbnail are all WHITE damnit!
Deblasio is a racist!
RAAAACCIISS!
You have to give the people circuses and bread.
They have to do street art as there is no room in down town for a really big roman colosseum...
Fiddling on the Titanic comes to mind. You cannot educate children but you can find time for some genuinely silly dancing.
'Support for the arts -- merde! A government-supported [interpretive dancer] is an incompetent whore!' -- Robt. A. Heinlein
Perhaps if the Madison Ballerina Company had made the little girls perform The Nutcracker the health department wouldn’t be going after them for $23K.
Little girls dancing outside in the freezing Wisconsin cold. Rogan would have thought that stupid as well. But Madison would have bundled up and applauded their virtue.
I guess in Madison Wisconsin it’s impossible to see the shallow, inept, corrupt leadership in New York. Madison must use to it.
Funny...Like DD Driver I was reminded of "And the Band Played on"...I am a born/raised NYer. The city of my youth/young adulthood is gone, having sunk beneath the waves.
I would be pissed about tax dollars going to pay people to play music in the streets and dance, while businesses are forced to be closed. To the extent I have issues with the music and dance; it is that, in the case of music, I may be forced to listen to whatever the performer thinks is entertaining rather than what I consider to be entertaining. Whether art is superfluous or not, there is still various styles that appeal to some and not others.
In short: get a room!
I'm participating with a performance art piece called "Man in a recliner watching old movies on television." I don't need an audience for this. I think the national endowment for the arts might be interested in giving me a grant.
This is DeBlasio flailing. He’s always trying to do “something” but it’s usually stupid and meaningless. What better represents New York are the folks across the street who run a small place with craft brews, wine and coffee. They’ve survived by creating a space where people want to gather...they offer good heaters, good product and often music. As a result, there’s a festive atmosphere on that corner, and every business around is benefiting.
Wince said...
Sorry Clyde, immediately went there without first looking.
The video I linked gets the viewer there quicker.
True, but it's the journey, not the destination! 😁
The Woody Harrelson one was hilarious, all the way through. Back in those long-ago days when SNL was funny.
Look at this part of the application:
Insurance Requirements:
Commercial general liability insurance with a minimum of $1 million per occurrence naming the applicant as insured.
Additional Insured: The City of New York, including its officials and employees, must be covered as additional insured.
Certificate Holder: The certificate holder should be listed as “City of New York c/o Street Activity Permit Office, 253 Broadway, New York, NY 10007.”
Insurance Hardship Waiver: applicants that cannot afford insurance can include a letter addressed to the SAPO Director seeking a hardship waiver. This letter should include a statement outlining that the cost of insurance would exceed 25% of the anticipated revenue of the event.
He is being referred to as Nero in the Twitter feed...
The arts are as important as forest bathing and exercise to combat Covid bubble fever.
The arts really only work if you do art yourself weather it's fine, commercial or practical. Like restoring the Volva 1800.
It's all good.
This is my favorite response to the Mayor’s tweet:
AB Interceptor
@ABInterceptor
·
Feb 14
Replying to
@NYCMayorsOffice
I saw quite a performance today in the subway. Wish the mayor was there to enjoy it.
It always shocks me that someone (the big, tall commie) so incompetent can rise to such heights of power.
Ballet is my favorite art form. Ballet music is what I listen to obsessively. I could easily listen to the Knights' Dance a dozen times in a row. Our local dance company can do, and frequently does, some amazing work. I did not renew my season subscription when I got tired of watching exercise classes instead of dancing. Joe has a point
Bill Owens said...
Funny...Like DD Driver I was reminded of "And the Band Played on"...I am a born/raised NYer. The city of my youth/young adulthood is gone, having sunk beneath the waves.
Sadly, Billy Joel was only off by three years.
Miami 2017 (I've Seen the Lights Go Out on Broadway) (from Old Grey Whistle Test)
Why wasn't DeBlasio wearing his face diaper?
From the post:
"Whatever Rogan might have in mind, I want to step back and consider a larger topic: Is art superfluous, a frill that you get to after the basics are satisfied? I think human beings produce and want to experience art even when they are deprived and suffering. There's a difference, however, between the art of the suffering people and art staged by the government to 'educate' the public."
De Blasio---"Hold the bread, but we'll have circuses instead". I mean DeBlasio has gone a long way towards wrecking the NYC economy (with more than a soupcon of help from good old Cuomo in Albany) but if there's no "bread"--then circuses to still the mob.
He should have just played the video of him and his wife dancing in Times Square on New Years Eve while he banned anyone else from being there.
It would have been cheaper and the ballerinas wouldn't have to freeze for their gov't stipend.
Surprised that our hostess doesn’t get the condescension and smugness here. Police cuts, murders and mugging up, covid screw ups, vaccines dumped rather than injected, deficits, school fuckery, but I the Great and Powerful De Blasio will let you enjoy mimes on street corners.
Six or seven people watching (quizzically?) at the performance.
Hizzonor pontificating.
The "art" of free form dance.
115 locations!!!!
Too bad there's nowhere for an after theater feast.
Yaaas. Take my money. Raise my taxes. Go get a Federal bailout.
Open culture has been euphemistically substituted for progressive culture (PC). People are understandably cautious and apprehensive that it will liberalize to force a dysfunctional convergence.
The grifting must continue, the money must flow, or someone later will object with, "Hey, why should we spend that money NOW?" If you keep the budget item alive, the grifting can continue unabated. Do you think any single member of the paid performers has ever in their lives voted Republican? Not just no, but HELL NO.
Jules Feiffer, God bless him, was a mediocrity who did not like ballet dancers. If he liked them he would not have used his crony power to post his low-level phony artist crony caricatures in the crony sections of the crony paper that paid him way way too much for being their phony cartoonist crony.
The problem with those wonderful dancers on that awful street in the cold was this ----- HEY YOU BALLET DANCERS YOU CAN SIT AT THE TABLE WITH THE KIDS WITH FUNNY LOOKING HEADS AND NO FRIENDS EXCEPT THE OTHER KIDS WITH FUNNY LOOKING HEADS. Just plain human mean-spiritedness, corona-days style.
After years of training to do what they do, they have the right to be performing in beautiful buildings, to be watched by people wearing nice clothes, but instead ----- hey watch out where you land that pirouette people walk their dogs here and they don't clean up!
De Blasio is a bad politician.
OF COURSE the arts must come back, not just in New York City but everywhere. Sports must come back -- and not just with images of fans in the stands; real people. Country music must come back -- all sorts of live music from live performers before live audiences must come back. Ballet, theatre, rock, drama, movies in theatres must come back. So must dinners and lunches and even breakfasts in restuarants and lunch counters must come back. While millions of people are being vaccinated there are people telling us that the "new normal" is wearing a mask, and fist bumbing your sister when she gets married, and grieving the loss of your mother on Zoom. No, No, No! Don't accept it! The new normal must be the old normal. Accept nothing less.
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