I've Got A Song I Ain't Got No Melody

Another relatively quiet week, blogging-wise. Work has picked up considerably, but that's been ameliorated by a general dearth of extra-curricular projects, so it all balances out.

Did a volunteer bartending shift Friday for a local arts funding organization; Molly and I spent about five hours on our feet pouring beer & wine for local arts scenesters, netting a very large amount of tip-cash for our efforts (at one point we had filled a plastic bag so full of dollar bills it looked like a small money-pillow).  I promptly took my part of the booty and spent most of it the next evening at a fundraising event for an upcoming solo performance festival, during which it occured to me that this is in fact how a significant portion of the local arts economy tends to work, particularly on the lower rungs: somebody gives you some money at an event, and you in turn take that money and spend it at another event - lather, rinse, repeat.

Someone should do an art project that tracks the movement of a twenty dollar bill as it circulates through the local art scene; how many artists touch it, what events it gets spent at, which organizations wind up with it; basically creating a sort of documentary of how much of the "funding" for arts is really a matter of artists re-spending the same currency to support each other.

Hm, sounds like a good use for a Flickr album...