Arlene’s Blog

This third installment in a weeklong blogfest on art and political power I’m cohosting with blogger Barry Hessenius was authored by Diane Ragsdale, currently attending Erasmus University in Rotterdam (in the Netherlands), where she is researching the impact of economic forces on US nonprofit regional theaters since the 80′s and working towards a PhD in …

This second installment in a weeklong blogfest on art and political power I’m cohosting with blogger Barry Hessenius was authored by Roberto Bedoya, who has served as the Executive Director of the Tucson Pima Arts Council since November of 2006. He is also a writer and arts consultant who works in the area of support …

Over the next week, I’m co-hosting this special blogfest on art and political power, planned with blogger Barry Hessenius, former Director of the California Arts Council; President of the California Assembly of Local Arts Agencies; Executive Director LINES Ballet. Author (Hardball Lobbying for Nonprofits – MacMillan & Co.; Youth Involvement in the Arts – 2 …

All spiritual traditions teach that even the most mundane tasks have meaning when they are undertaken with higher intention. I’ve written about a zillion words on the ways art can embody this truth. Today, I’d like to tell you about a new film that shows it truly, deeply, and beautifully. Andrew Garrison’s film Trash Dance …

I’ve been taking a break from online dating. I’m not sure how long it will last, probably another month or so (or maybe forever, if you introduce me to Mr. Right). Work is especially engrossing and demanding now, and I want to focus. But not without a certain ambivalence. The writer’s life tends to solitude, …

I spent a couple of days this past week with a group of smart and capable people who are trying to develop a model for the workings of a complex human endeavor, complete with “metrics”—quantifiable factors—that serve as benchmarks for success. To explain metrics to the assembled, a consultant showed us a PowerPoint that, among …

Much more than sufficient unto the day is the self-delusion thereof. Study of the human subject is always rewarding, but lately, scientists have showered us with revelation, making an ironclad case that what we think we know is mostly dead wrong. Yes, you guessed it: I’m reading Daniel Kahneman’s masterwork, Thinking Fast and Slow, and …

More than once upon a time, mass protest movements have arisen in this country. In some of these, I have been privileged to witness and take part. If you believe there might be something to learn from experience, read on and judge for yourself. In three sections, I describe my personal experience and the collective …

I’m not planning to break up with President Obama, but he is definitely giving me flashbacks to relationship dysfunctionality. Tolstoy is forever being quoted on the subject: “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” But I don’t think he had it right. There’s often a familiar, cyclical character …

A friend contacted me yesterday for help in tracking down the provenance of a quotation attributed to W.E.B. Dubois, the towering writer, scholar, and activist who contributed so greatly to the liberation of African Americans. Here it is: Begin with art, because art tries to take us outside ourselves. It is a matter of trying …