At the Joslyn Art Museum here in Omaha there is a sign next to a Gauguin explaining that the stock market crash of 1882 resulted in Paul Gauguin’s unemployment from the investment bank where he was earning a comfortable bourgeois salary. Gauguin’s family life suffered when his wife left and took the kids with her back to her parents’ house in Copenhagen but his art improved.
Consider all of the creative people who were lured into tech-oriented careers during the 1990s. Most of them aren’t hardcore nerds at heart so now they’re back doing creative things again. 100 years from now art museums will have signs reading “the turn-of-the-century tech crash enabled Jane Frobenius to stop writing press releases and go back to her video art”.
[Oh yes, life is sweet here in Omaha. The hotel is right in the Old Market area, surrounded by funky shops and restaurants. My cousin Harry Gittes produced a movie here (“About Schmidt”) and consequently was able to send his local friends out to show me around (including the obligatory drive-by of Warren Buffett’s house; our nation’s 2nd richest guy lives in a nice modern house in a residential part of the city without any thugs or fences in evidence). If the weather is good, however, N505WT will be departing tomorrow morning for Alliance, Nebraska and www.carhenge.com.]
I am completely jealous of your trip to Oshkosh. I really need to get there at some point. Two things: Check out DIA:Beacon up the Hudson from NY if you haven’t already. It’s quite worthwhile.
Second, exactly where are the Maritime Adventures of Philip Greenspun? You do seem to have a variety of experience mediums covered, with that notable exception… 😉
Econ 102: the down side of the inevitable business cycle produces corrective and productive change.
Phil, how many famous cousins do you have? First that guy from MSNBC and The Nation, now the producer of an Oscar-nominated flick.
Ross: I’ve been to (and blogged) the Dia:Beacon (right next to KSWF among other virtues). My brother is the family mariner (he just got a sailboat on the Chesapeake Bay); I get seasick.
Bill: I don’t have any famous cousins! You have to be in front of the camera to be famous in this society.
Maybe not that famous, true. But do you find it humorous that your cousin made a movie about an old guy driving around the country in a Winnebago? Not that I’m implying you’re old but you could have consulted on the flick.