The Blue Collar Jobs of Philip Glass • Hacker News Board

Re: The Blue Collar Jobs of Philip Glass

#31

Post by JKCalhoun » Sat, Aug 17, 2024, 10:31 PM UTC

mettamage wrote: post #13

It's inspiring for sure, and I think this post will have some impact on my life. Giving me a stronger/better attitude basically. But I'd like to take a moment for people who live lives like Philip Glass but don't have that famous composer label attached to them. There are so many anonymous people going through such a crazy amount of work that they do and we never hear of them. I suppose that at least I think of them…

That's good to hear.

Lest you feel any guilt for how you may have felt before reading this piece, I have to say that artists are going to art — whether they are successful or not. It's what they do and it's something that they cannot stop doing.

Re: The Blue Collar Jobs of Philip Glass

#32

Post by JKCalhoun » Sat, Aug 17, 2024, 10:34 PM UTC

antognini wrote: post #12

John Adams wrote in his memoir about trying something similar around the same time, but with less success. When he moved out to the Bay Area he ended up taking a job as a longshoreman at the port. He wrote that he had this Marxist fantasy of laboring with the proletariat during the day and composing avant-garde music during the night. But the job left him so exhausted when he got home that he could barely read a few…

And Laurie Anderson got a job at McDonalds. But somehow I think with her it was kind of part of her art, ha ha.

> Standing behind a cash register in her uniform, Anderson became practically invisible, even to her friends. "They would come in and I would be like 3 feet away from them," she says. "And I wasn’t trying to disguise anything. But I wasn’t supposed to be there, so I wasn’t."

Re: The Blue Collar Jobs of Philip Glass

#33

Post by paulpauper » Sat, Aug 17, 2024, 10:36 PM UTC

I don't know why people look down on trust-fund kids. Being born smart ,as this author clearly was- is just another innate advantage, like being born rich. It's that the latter is denigrated. High IQ, or music talent, or sports talent is just as unearned as having rich parents. Yet we're supposed to downplay or feel ashamed of the latter.

Re: The Blue Collar Jobs of Philip Glass

#34

Post by paulpauper » Sat, Aug 17, 2024, 10:41 PM UTC

ilamont wrote: post #4

Many of my cultural heroes were ignored by academia Ignored, or the jobs just weren't there? A department head once told me that she couldn't hire any new tenure-track faculty. Turnover at the school is so rare, and when a position does open up, there are literally hundreds of highly qualified applicants. It's been that way for decades, particularly in the humanities and arts. She noted that among the existing facult…

The rise of social media and 'smart culture' has led to huge, sudden interest over the past decade in all sorts of niche or esoteric subjects. Talented people are making a good living at math videos, TikTok tutoring, playing instruments on TikTok, reaction videos, food videos, etc. In the '90s, if you were a 'philosophy buff' your options were limited to academia. Now there is a devoted, captive audience for practically anything you can think of.

Re: The Blue Collar Jobs of Philip Glass

#35

Post by thechao » Sat, Aug 17, 2024, 10:47 PM UTC

baerrie wrote: post #7

vatys wrote: post #3

> “I could manage quite well working as few as twenty to twenty-five hours a week—in other words, three full days or five half days. Even after I returned from Paris or India in the late 1960s and well into the 1970s, I could take care of my family by working no more than three or four days a week.” Would today's youth, even if equally gifted and ambitious, have the same opportunity? I think now there is such a great…

In New York particularly this could maybe work. They have strong blue collar unions so benefits and pay would be actually livable. Plumbing anywhere is pretty viable. Faulkner worked in construction and did a similar thing. I am working in tech to fund my creative pursuits, an industry on its way to being blue collar

> I am working in tech to fund my creative pursuits, an industry on its way to being blue collar

I can't tell if you think tech or art is going to be blue collar, but based on the AI revolution, you should stay in tech, or join UA.

Re: The Blue Collar Jobs of Philip Glass

#36

Post by jonnycomputer » Sat, Aug 17, 2024, 10:48 PM UTC

Most artists can't make a living from their art. So they do other things to supplement that income. Its not glamorous. It sucks.

Re: The Blue Collar Jobs of Philip Glass

#37

Post by globalnode » Sat, Aug 17, 2024, 10:50 PM UTC

ZoomerCretin wrote: post #17

His experiences are completely alien now and not reproducible today. How is it possible to get any blue collar job at all without extensive training and certifications on your own time and with your own money in that very specific field? How is it possible to not only be able to support your family on 3 working days per week, but to find a boss willing to hire you as a part time worker for what seems like a high wage…

this is sadly true. as much as i "want" the old stories like OP to be true now (they may still be in rural areas i suspect), those times are basically over. i suppose one could do jobs like fruitpicking (totally unskilled) or other things like that but those employers dont want someone fluffing around for 3 days a week they want your life

Re: The Blue Collar Jobs of Philip Glass

#38

Post by blt » Sat, Aug 17, 2024, 10:56 PM UTC

bartonfink wrote: post #30

financltravsty wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry, but I don't hold them in high regard as artists. They're part of the "western/southern frontier" crowd that encapsulated the zeitgeists of their environments, rather than create something that transcended it. The "frontier" is a notable and interesting subject in itself, but it has only peripheral cultural value to... civilization.

[flagged]

I was going to write a more serious rebuke, but I can't really do any better than yours

Re: The Blue Collar Jobs of Philip Glass

#39

Post by stonethrowaway » Sat, Aug 17, 2024, 10:57 PM UTC

I don’t get this piece. I don’t know who honest broker is but I’ll take it he’s a Philip glass (PG) fan. So I’ll start there.

What is the difference between PG doing blue collar work and anyone else? Why is PG having to drive a taxi or work at a plant any different?

The article seems to want to praise PG by, what I’m reading anyway, almost patronizing him. But there is an undertone that insults people who have to work for a living and there’s no glamour there. I doubt I will read a “the blue collar jobs of joe nobody” expounding joe’s salt of the earth character for having to make ends meet.

I’m not posting this with sour grapes, I just genuinely don’t get what is different between PG working and anyone else working that same job that warrants writing about it.

To be fair it’s not the first time. Reading people waxing poetic about Charles Bukowski’s life like he relished in the down-trodden shit of it all is just makes them sound pretentious.

Re: The Blue Collar Jobs of Philip Glass

#40

Post by kjellsbells » Sat, Aug 17, 2024, 10:58 PM UTC

Could a new composer replicate this? is too broad a question. Rather,

- could they support themselves with a blue collar job?

- could they support a family with said job, as the primary breadwinner?

- could they do it in X, where X is the geographic location of the cultural center of their art form?

Glass was lucky enough to hit all three. Today's young artists might be lucky to hit 1, and maybe the internet helps with 3 a bit, but if you work in an art form that really, really needs in person connection (eg theater, or you need to be where the gallerists and dealers are), I guess it doesnt solve the problem. 2 is very difficult.

The perfect trifecta is when you have a dense urban center that happens to be the center of your art form, but still has enough of a rough edge to it that you can live and work cheaply. New York, 1970s, classical music. Berlin, visual arts, 2000s. Or you can create the scene yourself given enough mass and energy (see: Atlanta, 1990s, rap, or NYC, 1980s, hip hop).

The next Glass is therefore more likely working in an urban coffee shop than a suburban landscaping crew, living with roomies or parents rather than alone, has no children or spouse to support, and exists on the fringes of a city like London, NY, or Berlin.