The Blue Collar Jobs of Philip Glass
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The Blue Collar Jobs of Philip Glass
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Re: The Blue Collar Jobs of Philip Glass
#2I read once that a passenger in his cab told him "You have the same name as a very famous composer."
Re: The Blue Collar Jobs of Philip Glass
#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 imbalance in cost of living and pay rates, it may no longer be possible to follow a similar path and get similar results.
Re: The Blue Collar Jobs of Philip Glass
#4Many 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 faculty were several tenured professors who had been hired in the previous century when their respective areas of study were hot. Even though their expertise was outdated and students weren't signing up for their classes, they were still on the books until they voluntarily retired ... or died.
Fresh Air had a great interview with Glass in which he talked about his career and the various jobs he had to take as he developed his music. He was driving a cab in NYC in the 70s and he said it was very dangerous. It's the top interview in this list:
Re: The Blue Collar Jobs of Philip Glass
#5Many 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…
Yeah, I think a lot of people miss that these jobs opened up when the population was growing much faster due to the baby boom, plus people are living longer. Things have changed since the 1950s-80s.
Re: The Blue Collar Jobs of Philip Glass
#6> “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…
Sure, you could move out to rural nowhere, where housing costs next to nothing. Find some part time job, and live your life.
I'm from a place like that, and a bunch of my old classmates from HS have lived like that their entire adult lives working part time. They work 2-3-4 days a week.
Of course, you'll be sacrificing lots of materialistic things, but that's a given.
Re: The Blue Collar Jobs of Philip Glass
#7> “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
Re: The Blue Collar Jobs of Philip Glass
#8> “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…
Sure, you could move out to rural nowhere, where housing costs next to nothing. Find some part time job, and live your life. I'm from a place like that, and a bunch of my old classmates from HS have lived like that their entire adult lives working part time. They work 2-3-4 days a week. Of course, you'll be sacrificing lots of materialistic things, but that's a given.
100% - but people don’t want to make those sacrifices. They want to live and do what they’ve always done. It has and likely always will be possible to pick up stumps and move somewhere very cheap and get on with a personal creative endeavour - not many have the courage though.
Re: The Blue Collar Jobs of Philip Glass
#9Many 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…
Also tenure Glass would have been just different than blue collar Glass we had.
Re: The Blue Collar Jobs of Philip Glass
#10> “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…
Sure, you could move out to rural nowhere, where housing costs next to nothing. Find some part time job, and live your life. I'm from a place like that, and a bunch of my old classmates from HS have lived like that their entire adult lives working part time. They work 2-3-4 days a week. Of course, you'll be sacrificing lots of materialistic things, but that's a given.
If Philip Glass had had to live in "rural nowhere" in order to afford to make music, we would have never heard of Philip Glass. vatys isn't asking if you can make any living this way, because of course you can. The specific conditions that allowed Philip Glass to work part time jobs and still live in the same city as people like Steve Reich and institutions like The Kitchen don't exist anymore.