I would be surprised if there wasn’t already an app that aggregated events from different websites, based on your personal preferences. Seems that whenever I come up with a brilliant idea, someone bursts my bubble by telling me it already exists :-p

It is, and probably always will be, my weakness to ask people to take more responsibility for their actions, and to think more critically before they share content. I am also content with what I enjoy. But I am not just disturbed by what the mass market does. As you say, they will do what they do. I am more disturbed that as our technology becomes more advanced, I’m just not seeing art becoming necessarily better because of it. I’m miffed that with the tools, people have chosen to become… well, lazy. It’s like there’s been an overall lowering of the standard, instead of the standards raising ever higher because of the potential to do so much more with our innovations.

Admittedly, a good amount of people who read this are in the Seattle area, and a good amount of those people are in the tech industry. They have education, they’re programmers, or they simply have more access and influence. While you don’t have to “fight to save the masses” from anything, let alone wallowing in swill, I also believe that there were any number of people in the tech industry when certain advances were being developed, and similar to Jaron Lanier’s position, they probably had no idea what their decisions did to the current atmosphere in music and art technology. We could have made a difference.

And yes, I will always be disturbed that true artists don’t get discovered and have to suffer so much. I think it’s a myth that suffering and poverty must be a part of artful creation. In a way, I’m simply naming another aspect of why I started this blog in the first place. I believe truly good artists can learn how to share their art and be compensated for it.

I’m not being elitist here – like some kind of intellectual 1% disdaining the 99% for enjoying pro wrestling or all that reality TV offers – I am content to like what I enjoy and appreciate and not bemoan that the rest of the world doesn’t always share my tastes.

I’m glad that making content is easier for everyone – that anyone can be a publisher, a photographer, anyone can make movies, anyone can make music – the ubiquity of access to creative tools is a wonderful thing for this age.

What I think you are disturbed by is that the mass market buys crap and makes the purveyors millions, while real artists and entertainers eek out a living, or perform as a hobby because it can’t feed the kids.

True artists will always starve, and the public will always buy crap – this has been a true statement no matter what age you live in.

After seeing Midnight In Paris I wandered over to Gasworks Park for a late night walk and a group of performers were juggling and hula hooping rings of fire. The sight assured me that the magic and creative spirit is still alive. True, there been no real breakthrough in new genres of music for a long time. But there’s plenty of great art being created outside the mainstream, even here in the Northwest — Erin Corday and DAE to name just two. I also saw an amazing kinetic art show at IMA Gallery a while back and recently saw Late Autumn, a brilliant film shot in Seattle.

And paradoxically, while digital has gone downhill with MP3 downloads, analog keeps improving. I recently heard a friend’s stereo after he upgraded to a new Benz Micro LP-S cartridge and it sounds more live than live music!