Twin Ports Arts Gossip and a Plug for Zenith Bookstore

Zenith Bookstore, Central Avenue

This is an off-the-beaten-path blog post, a catch-all of miscellaneous notes from the local scene.

THE TWEED
As most in the Duluth art scene know, Tweed Museum of Art Director Ken Bloom stepped down and left a vacancy there. As of his retirement party in June, there was no word of any immediate prospects to fill the position. More recently, word passed through the breeze that a replacement has been lined up, an announcement coming soon. I've heard that she's going to be quite excellent. If I'm not mistaken we'll learn more within the next two weeks.

UMD SCHOOL OF FINE ARTS
The holidays were painful for some this year. A decision had been reached in late autumn to merge the School of Fine Arts with the College of Liberal Arts. Dozens of jobs are being cut and even those who were not cut are heartbroken over the friends who are being forced to move on. According to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, jazz studies is "dropping from a major to a concentration, and the masters in English program won’t accept new students for two years. Early-childhood studies will be suspended and relaunched in the future."

Evidently declining enrollments are the culprit. UMD has nearly 4000 fewer students than when my children were looking at colleges. Rising tuition costs have no doubt a been contributing factor to the drop in enrollment.

In its most basic form, a college education is a product. Determining how to price a product is one of the challenges every manufacturer wrestles with. Price, in theory, should correspond to value. Does the drop in enrollment suggest that a college education is no longer a no-brainer?

It's a weird time for young people who have grown up receiving mixed messages. On the one hand, they're told that without a college education they will be left poorer and in society's lower tier. On the other hand, they keep hearing about the burden of debt they will be forced to carry if they do choose college. It's a tough decision point.

Alice Cooper's song Eighteen comes to mind here. "I'm eighteen, and I don't know what I want."

THE HISTORIC DULUTH DEPOT
Word on the street is that Oneida, the company that has been managing the Depot these many years, is now yielding control to another company that will manage the property that houses the Train Museum, Duluth Art Institute, St. Louis County Historical Society, the Underground, Playhouse offices and more. It's my understanding that the exorbitant fees for experiencing the exhibits here will soon be significantly cut, giving more people access to the WWII Museum and other collections.

This is hearsay, and I have as yet not been able to find a confirmation.

DAI MEMBER SHOW
For many years the Member Show has taken place the third week of January. This year the Opening Reception is slated for Thursday, February 6, 5 - 8 PM and will be on view through March 1, 2020 in the Great Hall. All Art Institute Members are invited to contribute one new piece that has been created in the year 2019. Make sure your membership fees are up-to-date.

This same evening will be the opening for Laura Andrews & Paula Gudmundson's Integrated Vision in the George Morrison Gallery on the Fourth Floor. Details here.

Do you like books but want to support our local alternatives to Amazon?
I picked up thie FREE Indie Bookstore Roadmap yesterday at Zenith Bookstore.
Thank you, Bob and Angel for planting your store in our community.

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You can see The Bookstore at Fitgers here as well. Zenith and Fitgers are, not
adjacent to one another, nor is Sweet Peas in Two Harbors a short hike away,
though each June thousands of runners have traipsed this path from there past
Fitgers. I'm guess you can find this free map at any of the stories you see here.

* * * *

I'm going to call this a wrap. It's the first Saturday of 2020.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend.

Up-to-the-Minute

"Today we are continually barraged with the latest news and up-to-the-minute instant coverage of events so that we can practically participate as spectators to holocausts and disasters wherever they occur, as they happen. Not long ago I heard there was even an hourly newspaper for people who needed the absolutely latest details on the timely matters of business and government."

The idea of an hourly newspaper seemed almost comical to me in 1993 when I wrote the above words in a short piece titled, "Up to the Minute." Today, with Twitter, we not only get hourly news, we have moment-by-moment thoughts, observations and impressions from around the world, on every topic imaginable, from disappearing passenger jets to Dubai kidnappings.

Tinseltown gossip rags have been dispensing the latest dirt from magazine racks and grocery store check-out lanes forever, but today bloggers and others are providing competition with instant news of celebrity sightings, happenings and delicious malfeasance. Readers swoop in and learn who did what and with whom. Sizzling sightings of Justin Bieber, the latest celebrity sex tape, a salacious new story about Hannah and Hillary, the stolen and recovered photos of Angelina, or J-Lo, or Hank.... that break-in at Julia Roberts' pad, Brad's latest photo shoot, whatever. If you're into this sort of thing, here's a Forbes article on the current Most Popular Celebrity Gossip Sites.

Then there's the Washington scene. Yes, The Hill has its own network of gossip action. Who betrayed whom, what really happened on the White House lawn last night, what's the current mood on Obamacare and why it matters, etc. Who's moving up? Who's going down? And where's Waldo?

The Washington scene doesn't really need rags like the Enquirer. It has talk radio, Politico, the Drudge Report, CNN, MSNBC and it's own battery of blogs and websites that serve up the manifold perspectives of our immense media industry.

Evidently there is an appetite for all this up-to-the-minute blather or the public wouldn't tune in to it and businesses wouldn't be supporting all that media infrastructure with advertising dollars.

By way of contrast, I often think about C.S. Lewis with regard to these matters. Lewis claimed that he never read the newspapers because the things that really mattered you only learned six months later. Yes, celebrities make headlines, but the really important people and events often do not.

All too often what passes for news is a massive manipulation and the re-shaping of our perceptions of reality.

Summing Up

This is not to say that staying current with what's happening has no value. For example, when there’s a major snowstorm about to land on your doorstep, or a tornado zigging and zagging in your vicinity, finding out about it six months from now is not going to be very helpful. If tickets are about to go on sale for a sure-to-be-sold-out concert, it’s better to find out sooner than later, if you aim to get seats.

So it is that I strive for a balance between timeless and timely blog content here. Announcements about upcoming art openings fall into the category of relevance in the now. My interviews with artists and others here aim for a more timeless aspect. For the most part whatever the topic it's my hope to feed you something to think about, to give you a takeaway.

In either event, thank you for dropping by. Make the most of your weekend. And make a difference wherever you are.