Dave Hickey Does The Art Market

“So think of the art world as a beach and money as the surf. Waves roll in but they always suck back out, leaving a few masterpieces, taking some beach with them. When a really gnarly monster rolls in, the best we can hope is that it will leave some beach behind and a few treasures in the sand, along with the wreckage and the bodies–because the wave will suck away.”

Why Making A Living As An Actor In Seattle Isn’t Possible

“The institutions have grown large, metastasized, at the expense of the actors, the designers – the artists. The weekly acting salary at the big Seattle theatres was between $700 and $900 back in the early nineties. The price range for acting at the big theatres in 2008 is . . . between $700 and $900. It hasn’t changed in over fifteen years!”

China Needs a Good PR Team (or Ten)

James Fallows: “How can official China possibly do such a clumsy and self-defeating job of presenting itself to the world? China, like any big, complex country, is a mixture of goods and bads. But I have rarely seen a governing and ‘communications’ structure as consistent in hiding the good sides and highlighting the bad. […] [sometimes] it was as if the government had hired The Onion as its image consultant.”