Comment of the Week

Vote for the comment of the week.  Here are this week's contenders.  Put your vote in the comments for this post:

Comment #1: a new comment on your post "Should Government Fund "the Arts"?":

Are you fucking kidding me?

After one opinion piece everyone is all of the sudden is, "Oh you know what maybe governement should cut funding for the arts?" "Maybe they should direct that funding to schools instead." Here's a wakeup call people - the government wants to cut funding to both arts and education. If one goes, they both go. There's no common ground. But even if that wasn't the case, what good does it do to continue to supply funding for education and training if there is no industry for those students to enter? We have now introduced even more individuals crippled by student loans into an economy that can't support them and they can't support their debt?
I can't understand how someone can justify a death sentence to the arts (there are a lot of theaters who depend on the NEA to stay afloat) just because their government has a problem prioritizing expenses. Did no one think that just maybe, if are country was so addicted to war than maybe the government wouldn't have such hard time paying its bills? No that's okay, I'm okay with killing Afgahni citizens even if that means I'm going to work at Walmart for the rest of my life. It's okay though because I can watch TV when I need the arts.
Maybe we should look at the root of the problem - the government itself. Why should we compromise our lifestyle and interests? We have the power to the change the government, to align ourselves with fiscal policy that benefits our interests. Doesn't it make sense that we start there?

Comment #2: a new comment on your post "Seurat's Masterpiece Comes To Musical Life in Surp...":

I am SO happy you posted this article. This summer, I helped to paint the set of Sunday in the Park with George at a children's summerstock theatre in New York. After painting the set completely in pointillism, I had a new appreciation for Seurat and for the art of pointillism as a whole.

I love that Sunday in the Park is a theatrical piece of art which is based off of an artist, and the art in which he created. It is absolutely brilliant, as Kael said, for the Chicago Shakespeare Company to promote themselves in this fashion. If I were in Chicago, I know that I would not have missed this event, and I would certainly not miss the show as a result! It is great that the Art Institute collaborated with Chicago Shakes to bring this event to life. It is also really cool to see collaboration taking place amongst various art forms, not just within the theatre community.

Comment #3: a new comment on your post "Why Doing Awesome Work Means Making Yourself Vulne...":

Ugh. This woman is far too obsessed with herself and how great she thinks she is. Also the title of the article has pretty much nothing to do with what she actually wrote because all that she wanted to write about is how excellent it is to be herself whether she is an actress or a playwright. There was no vulnerability here only a lot of self love. Which is too bad because I agree with at least the title and would like to talk about that instead of how magical it is to be an actor/playwright. I think that if you're doing anything creative you really need to be reaching into a vulnerable place in order to achieve any kind of success. The critique/review process is very important. You need to be able to listen to people say why they don't like your work sometimes, and you need to analyze those comments without getting offended. Also the best work comes out of a vulnerable corner of people's brains. Everything there is much more honest and interesting than the creative equivalent of this woman's article, where everything is magic and perfect and great in the world of Me!

Comment #4: a new comment on your post "State, Strip Club Fight Over Taxes":

Wow, this article was eye-opening... I guess I've never thought about whether strip clubs "count" as performance spaces, but now that I think about it, I'm not sure that they are much different. I don't think that it's fair of the prosecution to say that because the strippers aren't necessarily trained, that means they are not dancers. Street dancers aren't trained. The article points out that Eric Clapton wasn't trained either.

I don't agree with Jacquelyn's opinion about self expression v. performance... I don't think you can separate the two. Ballet dancers perform for the product and the pleasure of the audience. Some strippers may do the exact same thing. It could even be a means of self expression... why do you think there are pole-dancing classes popping up at every gym? I'm not saying that I think that pole-dancing is the epitome of self-expressive art, but I do think that the government shouldn't have the right to decide whether it's a performance. 

Comment #5: a new comment on your post "More SawStop BS":

I couldn't agree with this article more; and even better than its sentiment is the heart-on-its-sleeve language that implies safety starts with BEING CAREFUL. If contractors buy a table saw and immediately take off all the guards, what makes anyone think contractors won't do the EXACT SAME THING and disable the sawstop tech on their now more expensive table saw.

Hmm, the guy bought a brand new table saw, took all the safety devices off and then made a dangerous cut made MORE dangerous by not using ANY supplemental tools (miter gauge, etc). And he got hurt. Yeah, it's the tool's fault.