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Arts funding: Where I stand
Dan Rottenberg
Common sense about arts funding:
Just give me the money, and soon
DAN ROTTENBERG
Local playwright Armen Pandola recently proposed in these pages that Philadelphia promote itself as “Premiere City” with a nationwide new-play festival, financed by a one-dollar surcharge on hotel rooms. Not to be outdone, local author and food/wine critic Lynn Hoffman has exhorted Mayor Nutter to make “one big symbolic, quixotic gesture” for Philadelphia’s artistic profile: a “Philadelphia Laureates" program, financed by “this city’s corporate giants” (both of them). These two proposals have been attacked by Jim Rutter, who says he objects to “treating local industries, business owners and consumers as one more resource to plunder in support of the arts.”
Numerous Broad Street Review readers (specifically, Milton and Caroline Numerous, of Society Hill) have asked where I stand on this contentious issue. Indeed, you have a right to know my position on public funding for the arts. (Actually, you have no such right at all; this is just a rhetorical device to get me into the subject.) So let me suggest a clear and simple principle for this debate:
Whenever a collective body— public or private— contemplates funding the arts or any other enterprise, the fundamental test must be: Where is the money going? If, for example, the money will support a quality artistic enterprise with an established track record that I am involved with, such as Broad Street Review, then obviously we have a prudent community investment. If, on the other hand, the intended recipient is an untested fly-by-night scam— say, the Philadelphia Orchestra or the Museum of Art— then we are talking about a wasteful bureaucratic snatching of taxpayers’ hard-earned dollars from their trousers and brassieres.
“One Book”— but whose?
The same principle applies to any collective endeavor, whether or not money is involved. Take, for example, “One Book, One Philadelphia,” a joint effort of the Free Library and the Mayor’s Office to bring Philadelphians together by coercing all of us into reading and discussing the same book at the same time. If the “one book” selected to be read by all Philadelphians was written by me, this is a truly inspired concept. (Since I’ve written nine books, surely they could find one that people would be willing to read, at gunpoint if necessary.) Conversely, if the nod goes to some tired old hack like Proust or Tolstoy, obviously the whole program is waste of precious forests as well as an outrageous imposition on time that could better be spent watching re-runs of “Law and Order.”
The “multiplier effect” of arts funding is by now a concept well appreciated by most sophisticated arts connoisseurs. As studies conducted by the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance consistently demonstrate, every dollar donated to the arts can provide a week’s supply of poetry to a starving family in Bangladesh. Five dollars will provide six hours of music downloads for refugees fleeing from the Sudan.
What just $1 could do for Governor Spitzer
The genius of collective arts funding is that it can aggregate awesome amounts for a single worthwhile project without causing financial pain to any one individual. Even the poorest Philadelphian would not miss a dollar a year— yet with just one dollar from 1.5 million Philadelphians, the former governor of New York could patronize a $4,000-an-hour call girl from the Emperor’s Club VIP every night for a year. Better still, I could patronize the same call girl every night for four years (since I have it on a good authority from my sources in the Emperor’s Club VIP that their $4,000-an-hour call girl and their $1,000-an-hour call girl are actually the same woman).
Come to think of it, why not forget about “Premiere City” and “Philadelphia Laureates” and just give the money to me, right now? My head is buzzing with terrific ideas that could benefit the whole Philadelphia arts community. Maybe even Camden, too. And I’m not getting any younger. I’ve led an exemplary life so far. Surely I could be trusted to make the best possible use of those funds.
You may not find this argument persuasive, but I do, and this is my column. I want that money— from hotel rooms, corporate giants, corporate midgets, whatever— and I want it now. Come to think of it, why are you wasting time reading this column when you could be lobbying Mayor Nutter on my behalf, for the good of the arts community? Get going before I get angry!
To read a response, click here.
Just give me the money, and soon
DAN ROTTENBERG
Local playwright Armen Pandola recently proposed in these pages that Philadelphia promote itself as “Premiere City” with a nationwide new-play festival, financed by a one-dollar surcharge on hotel rooms. Not to be outdone, local author and food/wine critic Lynn Hoffman has exhorted Mayor Nutter to make “one big symbolic, quixotic gesture” for Philadelphia’s artistic profile: a “Philadelphia Laureates" program, financed by “this city’s corporate giants” (both of them). These two proposals have been attacked by Jim Rutter, who says he objects to “treating local industries, business owners and consumers as one more resource to plunder in support of the arts.”
Numerous Broad Street Review readers (specifically, Milton and Caroline Numerous, of Society Hill) have asked where I stand on this contentious issue. Indeed, you have a right to know my position on public funding for the arts. (Actually, you have no such right at all; this is just a rhetorical device to get me into the subject.) So let me suggest a clear and simple principle for this debate:
Whenever a collective body— public or private— contemplates funding the arts or any other enterprise, the fundamental test must be: Where is the money going? If, for example, the money will support a quality artistic enterprise with an established track record that I am involved with, such as Broad Street Review, then obviously we have a prudent community investment. If, on the other hand, the intended recipient is an untested fly-by-night scam— say, the Philadelphia Orchestra or the Museum of Art— then we are talking about a wasteful bureaucratic snatching of taxpayers’ hard-earned dollars from their trousers and brassieres.
“One Book”— but whose?
The same principle applies to any collective endeavor, whether or not money is involved. Take, for example, “One Book, One Philadelphia,” a joint effort of the Free Library and the Mayor’s Office to bring Philadelphians together by coercing all of us into reading and discussing the same book at the same time. If the “one book” selected to be read by all Philadelphians was written by me, this is a truly inspired concept. (Since I’ve written nine books, surely they could find one that people would be willing to read, at gunpoint if necessary.) Conversely, if the nod goes to some tired old hack like Proust or Tolstoy, obviously the whole program is waste of precious forests as well as an outrageous imposition on time that could better be spent watching re-runs of “Law and Order.”
The “multiplier effect” of arts funding is by now a concept well appreciated by most sophisticated arts connoisseurs. As studies conducted by the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance consistently demonstrate, every dollar donated to the arts can provide a week’s supply of poetry to a starving family in Bangladesh. Five dollars will provide six hours of music downloads for refugees fleeing from the Sudan.
What just $1 could do for Governor Spitzer
The genius of collective arts funding is that it can aggregate awesome amounts for a single worthwhile project without causing financial pain to any one individual. Even the poorest Philadelphian would not miss a dollar a year— yet with just one dollar from 1.5 million Philadelphians, the former governor of New York could patronize a $4,000-an-hour call girl from the Emperor’s Club VIP every night for a year. Better still, I could patronize the same call girl every night for four years (since I have it on a good authority from my sources in the Emperor’s Club VIP that their $4,000-an-hour call girl and their $1,000-an-hour call girl are actually the same woman).
Come to think of it, why not forget about “Premiere City” and “Philadelphia Laureates” and just give the money to me, right now? My head is buzzing with terrific ideas that could benefit the whole Philadelphia arts community. Maybe even Camden, too. And I’m not getting any younger. I’ve led an exemplary life so far. Surely I could be trusted to make the best possible use of those funds.
You may not find this argument persuasive, but I do, and this is my column. I want that money— from hotel rooms, corporate giants, corporate midgets, whatever— and I want it now. Come to think of it, why are you wasting time reading this column when you could be lobbying Mayor Nutter on my behalf, for the good of the arts community? Get going before I get angry!
To read a response, click here.
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