I did end up applying for it, after all that sturm und drang – and two days after my birthday – I got a rejection email from them. You may not be shocked to learn that the City did not give me one of its 5k City Artist Corps Grants. Image via Old Book Illustrations by Narcisse Virgilio Díaz To keep reading The Internet Is Not a Friend visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog. Not Facebook, not Twitter, not Reddit, not Instagram. Over and over, I turned to the internet and over and over, it did not help. You will be stunned to learn that the internet did not make me feel any better! In the throes of my grief, I thought I’d just go along as normal, just get on the internet, see what’s what. To read more of Lessons from Italian Media visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog. Only the cinema managed to deliver high quality contemporary art. I went to Italian theatre and mostly found translations of works in English.
#Barbie fashion fairytale music full
I watched TV and the shows all seemed to be tacky variety shows full of show girls. I listened to the radio but the pop music was pretty lousy.
I understood, too, that watching and listening to these things would help me improve my language skills. I was hungry for Italian pop, Italian TV, Italian cinema, Italian theatre, whatever I could get my eyes and ears on. The internet was in its infancy then, so going places was really the only way to see what other nations were making. One of the things I was most excited about was getting to see the culture and art of an entirely different country. To keep reading Circles of Gen X Friends visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog.īack in 1993, I got my first passport and moved to Italy for my junior year abroad. I did not say, “I guess most of your friends didn’t move to NYC to chase their theatre dreams or their art dreams or their music dreams or their poetry dreams or their film dreams or their dance dreams and I guess everything worked out for your people, huh? Someone replied that they still had a lot of Gen X friends in NYC and I did not respond to that person with a hearty sarcastic, “Well good for you! Aren’t you a lucky one?” Though I wanted to. I expressed my enthusiasm for it, saying it appealed to me because most of my Gen X friends have moved out of NYC. Someone in the Gen X subreddit proposed a “dating” app for making Gen X friends. Listen to The Dragoning here (it's my audio drama) and support via Ko-fi here: Support me on Patreon: Or buy me a coffee on Kofi: Join my mailing list: Like the blog/show on Facebook: To keep reading Give Me Your Witches, Your Ghouls, Your Severed Limbs Hanging in Trees visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog. I embrace your paper pumpkin, your hay bale, your autumnal faux leaf display.īut I am delighted by your circle of witches, your zombie doll babies, your floating spectres, your plastic bag ghosts, your homemade headless magician, your skeletons engaged in activities, your dagger wielding clown child on a swing, your smoke machine, your sound effects, your back-lit and up-lit cloaked figures, your spiders, your crows, your ravens, your bats. The cheerful scarecrow dolls and corn cob clusters don’t thrill me but I will celebrate any nod toward decoration this month.