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This file is now CLOSED, you should assume it is OUT OF DATE.
The latest version of this file is: BARBELL
April 21, 2009
October 25, 2013
A very common strategy is
to try to use income from
the low-but-popular to
finance the high art that
you'd rather be doing.
For example:
There were magazines like "Spicey
Stories" and "The Black Mask" (Or... could it be that
that were founded by H.L Mencken Mencken really wanted to
and friends to finance the "Smart do these "side projects",
Set" magazine. and thought it expedient
to *claim* it was only for
the money?)
At Cellspace, we often did DJ-dance
parties to pay the bills (or try to)
in order to be able to do more
interesting things at other times...
There's a joke from a Bruce Sterling
story about a Bollywood producer: he
was being self-indulgent for producing
a weird, odd-ball movie, and to make up
for it he's also done a "weepie", a
standard sure-fire box office success,
but the public sees it the other way
around: the weird one is the success,
and his boss hassles him about doing
that other boring one.
And indeed, I wonder a bit
about this stratgy (a variant
of the barbell strategy?).
It can be hard to do a good job
with something you don't care about;
and it's hard to know if what you
do care about is actually worthwhile.
What has "The Smart Set"
done for *you* lately? (Well, I guess there was
that Fitzgerald guy.)
Meanwhile, the "Black Mask"
haunts us still.
BLACK_MASKS
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