i find a large part of success is being able to play head games. the way you talk, handle people’s little manuveurs and what not is probably more important than how well you can do your art. people want to feel comfortable with you since they’re puting their money on you.
but this homogenization by the corporate culture bothers me. do we really expect an artist to talk like a businessman? would an artiste type person even have the vocab to pull it off, not to mention the emotional cool?
people seem to have forgotten what the real artists of the past century were like; reclusive, almost unitelligiable when explaining what they did, subject to emotional outbursts, hysteria, and depression.
lao dz said that the closer to the truth we get, the less we can explain it. but our western corporate culture wants us to be articulate, dynamic, etc.i would take a person being unable to express him self in words about his art as indication that this person is probably the geniune article, an artist. of course art is a subjective word nowadays. we don’t pay for pure creativity, we pay for what suits our needs (ad music, commerical art, etc)
one of my students told me that as a person exercises artistic skills, his/her speech ability diminishes. artists become frustrated becuase they CANNOT function on both levels, that of being articulate, level emotioned and being emotionally expressive.
fuck this thread. somebody take over for me here.
Leave away away the “reclusive” and you got your average Westerner in Taiwan. 
Uhm no, actually I wanted to say that many of the “real artists” were also poor, so, if you want to be a weirdo/genious and do some “real art” then just do it, but don’t expect to become rich and respected in your lifetime.
I was about to say the same thing - if you want to draw the parallel to “real artists” of the past, don’t expect to get anywhere until you’re dead.
Sorry ran but I think you are way off here. Great musicians tend to be wonderfully articulate people. Their conversation is usually warm, soulful and nuanced. They speak as though the people listening were artists too. That’s what I have noticed anyway. It is true though they aren’t great at hype.
i’m really concerned about what’s happening in the arts, particularly music.county cultural officials in taiwan talk a lot about culture and art but their idea is having a band get up on stage and do karaoke sing alongs.
i would like to see theater in the parks. yung ho city was stupid about making that freaking coffee shop in ren ai park. they call that culture? how about supporting a theater group on that great stage there? how about having a yung ho musician’s society, or what the fuck ever?
i played that damn coffee shop, only to be told to turn down so people could talk. damn it! i didn’t go there to be a fucking CD player. this is their idea of culture.
by the way, i was never asked back. i wonder what they’ve got playing there, cause i can’t imagine any musician wanting to play for them.