Steve Schwartz:

>Another sad consequence is that human beings actually need art.  People
>need music, but they're willing to accept Hillary Duff.  People need
>drama, but they'll settle for Seventh Heaven.  They need poetry, but
>they'll settle for Nashville hacks or for most rappers.  The problem is
>that the substitutes satisfy only momentarily.  Does anybody still listen
>to, say, Melanie?  Can anyone imagine somebody listening to Madonna ten
>years from now?

No, but there will be a succession of Madonnas, all getting hyped in
People Magazine and Entertainment tonight.  So you can keep your old
Eine Kleine Nachtmusik,

>In the US, it takes the sale of 25,000 copies hardcover to make a
>best-seller.  In the Netherlands, it takes 30,000 copies.  Most Americans
>don't read even a book a year, and "book" includes self-help and romance.

In this connection Phillip Roth estimated some years ago that there were
60,000 serious readers of novels in the USA.  Allowing for population
growth, maybe there are 80,000.  Yet good novels continue to be written
-trust me, I am a novel nut.  Allowing for differences in taste, I would
say that there are at least 50 serious and productive American, English,
and Indian novelists in this category- just counting the ones written
in the mother tongue.

>It's going to take considerably more than a candle to stave off (in
>Jane Jacobs's phrase) dark ages ahead.  For one thing, it's going to
>take a serious commitment to public education, to training and retraining
>teachers, to somehow make thinking something other than a burden in
>people's minds.

Yes- thinking- how did that ever get lost among the goals of education?
It is important also to insist that serious education and curriculum
reform unapologetically include the arts
.
And, judging from my own problems, spelling as well.

Bernard Chasan