CultureFuture

QUOTE OF THE DAY: Know Your Own Worth

2012-01-22T16:30:00.000-05:00

"I don't want to be embarrassing but I do have a tendency to be a best-selling author."
-- Douglas Adams, declining a standard £600 advance to write a Dr. Who novelization.

HERO: Do Your Job How You Want To

2012-01-22T16:27:00.001-05:00

First nomination for hero of the year:

Just because you have a job to do, doesn't mean you can't do it with your own flourish.

PRODUCING: Things We Learned

2012-01-22T16:24:00.004-05:00

Organs of State had our (quarterly?) summit, where we get together for way too many hours and talk about what we've done, what we're doing, what we're going to do, and how and why we do it.

I think it's incredibly important that every organization constantly revisit their mission statement (ours, here, from our first summit) and revisit each other.

Here's what we learned last night from our third summit, which focused on the nature of our collaboration:

Know what everyone's up to. If you're building a group of collaborators, it's very important to know what they're up to outside the collaboration. You never know when your collaborators' other parts of their lives will be fuel for what you're doing in the room together.
Bring your politics into the room. If you're building a group of collaborators, it's very important to know where they stand. Their principles are going to be their guiding compass for how they build work, so you'd better air it out.
You're never so far into a mistake that you can't back out. It's a tough lesson to learn, I know, but you're never better off throwing good money after bad. There's no set of deadlines, no pride, no obligation so large that you can't back out of it if you think it's a massively disastrous mistake.
Always let your employees stop the line. Related to the previous point, one of the things Toyota makes a big point of is "automation with a human touch;" -- specifically, all the employees have the ability to stop the line if a defect is found, rather than forging on and fixing errors afterwards. Employees are encouraged to pull the rip-cord and demonstrate errors. That's how your collaborators need to feel about the artistic process.
Be as curious about one another as you are about yourself.

PERSONAL: A Quick Apology

2012-01-22T14:20:00.002-05:00

A reader of my blog caught me in the real world asked me why I haven't posted in quite some time, and there have been a lot of good reasons.

I went to New Zealand, where I got to see this (I promise you this is a real thing):

I got a major promotion at my job, and it ramped up the amount of mental focus I was spending on non-theater things.

I launched a new website for my theater company.

I launched the web presence of our theater company's next project.

I found out I was going to be an uncle.

etc. etc. etc.

But now it's 2012 and it's time to get a move on, so starting today I'm going to get back on the posting horse.

POLITICS: My 15 Minutes of Fame ctd.

2012-01-21T23:20:00.000-05:00

On the heels of my last citation by Andrew Sullivan, another one (I'm the one who took screenshots of InTrade.com).

Carve it on my mausoleum.

QUOTES OF THE DAY: AEA

2012-01-11T22:15:00.002-05:00

I'm still coming back from my two week vacation (and I've commited myself to reading everything from while I was gone -- for theater, that is) but here's two quotes that look great together:

6. Did you even know it was up for negotiation?

The Actors' Equity - Broadway League contract was negotiated and ratified with such little fanfare that a lot of folks didn't even know it was happening. My contacts who lined the walls of these proceedings told me it was mostly smooth sailing through the proceedings, and they credited both sides for understanding the challenges that both were facing in the coming years and remembering that we all needed to win in order for the industry to prosper. A peaceful negotiation with positive results for all definitely gets on my 10 Best list.

-- Ken Davenport

AEA is in most aspects a vanity union, and is more about perception than purpose. Being able to say “I belong to Equity” conjures up dreams of getting on Broadway and every myth that goes along with those dreams. It offers the promise of access, but cannot truly deliver on that promise for all its members. AEA has done a great job of publicly spinning itself as a great union achieving great things for its members and as portraying itself as having “the best of the best” as its members (exclusivity), and to some extent that is true and cannot be denied. But on the whole, neither the numbers nor the general quality of American Theatre taken as a whole bears this out. Generally speaking, its members are vastly underpaid when compared to total theatrical gross revenues, and there is plenty of high-quality non-union theatre to be seen in this country.

-- Tom Loughlin, who backs up those fighting words with a lot of data.

To understand his conclusion, take a look at this:

As an interesting comparison, my son had made two regional commercials for a restaurant chain called On The Border. He is now a member of SAG because of it. In total, the work in those two commercials earned him enough money to hit his goal of having $10K savings in the bank in one year. AEA has absolutely no ability to do that for any stage actor who isn’t already a major star and can negotiate a salary far above AEA minimums. So which union would you rather get into first?

POLITICS: My 15 Minutes of Fame

2012-01-10T21:39:00.002-05:00

I'm quoted at 9:23 PM.

ARTS POLICY: Really? We're Important?

2011-12-10T21:43:00.001-05:00

So sayeth Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel:

A few months after his May inauguration, Emanuel said, he decided that he would work out of the mayor's so-called ceremonial office — and not the relatively plain office in the back that he has turned into "kids study hall" for his children after school — and he would make it a showcase for Chicago art and furniture. He said he especially liked the idea of promoting Chicago artists, given the dignitaries who pass through his doors regularly, including foreign leaders such as President Lee Myung-bak of South Korea, China Investment Corp. Chairman Lou Jiwei and various ambassadors and mayors.

Oh, so, you think the local arts are important?

So Emanuel talked to the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and local furniture designers about contributing works, and now the room boasts a series of conversation pieces that reflect the city. "The goal was, A, we could showcase things about Chicago that people don't expect, and, B, it had to be free," he said. "People had to donate them."

But, uh, not important enough to pay for?

PRAGMATIC: Dark Humor and Rape

2011-12-10T21:15:00.001-05:00

Not a subject I'd ever know how to tackle, but there's an incredible personal essay on the subject here. Read the whole thing.

PRAGMATIC: Importance

2011-12-10T20:32:00.001-05:00

A must-read from Rob Weinert-Kendt on the need for importance in theater:

But why do I feel the need to go further than to say it's entertaining and leave it at that? I agree with one of the more astute critics I read, David Barbour, that the play does have more to say than may meet the eye—for one, there's that extraordinary monologue, delivered by Alan Rickman, at maybe the two-thirds-point, which anatomizes a writer's dissipation in terms at once hilarious, acrid, and finally existential. But how much does a play that entertains us this well in the moment need to also satisfy our sense that it's also deeply valuable on some world-historical level, and/or that it will "survive" and somehow measure up beyond this production, i.e., without the first-rate cast and director it has now? (It's not unlike the dilemma I outlined in my thoughts about Jerusalem.)

It has a lot to do with what we mean when we say we're entertained—with what parts of us a play tickles, flatters, stimulates. We feel cheap if it's just pumping us for laughs, flattered if we're allowed space to think for ourselves about what we're watching, stimulated if we're surprised or teased into thinking about something more than what we're watching (other than the grocery list). But are a tickle, a tease, and a release of laughter enough?

Isaac tags on:

I wonder if this has to do with two other currents within the theater: its irrelevance to the culture at large and the price of its tickets. Do we do this because we're shelling out a lot of money and thus we either want a Big Epic Production OMG!!!1! or we want to know that we've seen something capital-i-Important? Do we also do this because we have anxiety over the art form we love-- whether as audiences, artists or both-- and that the heyday of it as a cultural force in America has been over for some time? Thus, if we're going to go play in our little sandbox, do we need the validation that what we're doing is vital, damnit, even if nobody's looking?

Isaac's got two of the ingredients for our need for theater, but hey, let me throw out a third: the alternatives are getting cheaper, and you can have them delivered to your home!

If you want to have something that is playful, tickles, stimulates, and is funny, there's the biggest repository of easily digestible clips. Here it is. It's got some of our best stand-up comedians, men who dress up and do funny raps, great slapstick duos, and amusing political satire. If you want something that's over ten minutes, you can head over to Netflix, and have great films or hilarious sitcoms streamed to you.

Suppose history had been reversed, and these things had been invented before theater. Now a theater person comes along and says, "Hey, instead of sitting at home on your couch and watching this entertainment, why don't you get in a car, drive for fifteen to forty minutes to a theater, pay fifteen to fifteen hundred dollars, sit in a foreign and probably uncomfortable environment."

You had better do something better, or at least make me feel like it's better.

So, one way is simply to do something of higher quality. But, hey, everyone says that their thing is of higher quality. That's hard to communicate. So many be a nice shorthand would be to tell them, "Our thing is more important."

LOCAL: BFG Collective

2011-12-10T20:18:00.001-05:00

Our powers combine to form...:

Three of New York City’s top indie theatre companies, Boomerang Theatre Company, Flux Theatre Ensemble, and Gideon Productions, have joined forces to form the BFG Collective, which will hold a six-month-long residency at Long Island City’s The Secret Theatre. Productions will include Mac Rogers’ sci-fi epic The Honeycomb Trilogy, Boomerang Theatre Company’s revival of Tom Stoppard’s The Real Thing, William Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, and the New York premiere of Melissa Gawlowski’s Spring Tides, and Flux Theatre Ensemble’s world premiere of August Schulenburg’s new play, Deinde.

Consolidating theaters is an idea that's been thrown around since the financial crisis. Three years into my theater company, I have a hard time imagining that level of commitment, but I'm looking forward to seeing how it pans out.

(h/t Matt Freeman)

SCIENCE?: The Joy of Theater

2011-12-04T16:02:00.001-05:00

I wish I could believe this, but this shit sounds bananas:

According to a new UK study involving Apple and the London School of Economics — reported by Hannah Thomas at Marie Claire — people are happiest when they are having sex, exercising, and visiting the theatre. Sure, the having sex part is a no brainer. The exercise part is a bit surprising; people are often pretty happy when they've finished exercising — your feel-good hormones are coursing through your body and you have a great sense of accomplishment — but the during part can be quite a struggle. And the theatre? Hey, I like theatre — but I only get there a few times a year, and I imagine only very few people make it part of their regular routine.

I put the question mark after "science" because the data-set is self-reported (there's an app where people mark how content they are), there's no control, it includes only a select group (users of the app), etc. ... at best, it's about as reliable as OK Trends.

LOCAL: Fractured Atlas Event with Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer

2011-11-30T22:52:00.001-05:00

Fractured Atlas held a meet and greet last Wednesday evening at Topaz Arts featuring NY City Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer, Chair of the Council on Culture. (Official Press Release here).

FRACTURED ATLAS

Before I get into the notes of what Van Bremer said to the group, and the issues which were discussed, I want to spare a moment to say that if you're not already hip to what Fractured Atlas does, hurry the fuck up. They do more for independent arts in the United States than any major funding body, in my opinion, and the times that they have personally saved my skin are numerous. I literally can't imagine practicing art in New York without them. I'd probably just sell software for a living.

They're also really nice and approachable people, and it was great to meet them in person.

VAN BREMER!

So, Van Bramer worked at the Public Library before getting a seat on the local community board (Queens CB2) and then winning a seat in the City Council. He's engaged now to be married, thanks to the legalization of same sex marriage (he fiddled with his wedding ring the entire time -- it was adorable).

Because I was livetweeting, my note-taking was a little broken up, but here are the important points that Van Bramer hit while he was talking:

Van Bramer, because of his position on the Committee of Cultural Affairs, Libraries and International Intergroup Relations, sees himself as a "defender of the arts."
If you want to see what they do, here's a link to all of their meetings, along with agendas and minutes. Van Bramer acknowledges that city websites are not as transparent as they could be, and sometimes it's difficult figuring out when committee hearings and information are. He suggests signing up to Councilperson mailing lists, like his own.
He acknowledge that the economic times are such that it's "astounding" that we got "no cuts in the 2011 budget." A moment later he qualified that as "almost no cuts in the 2011 budget." Still, he acknowledged how unenviable it is that the best we can do right now is stop further cuts and bleeding.
On a question around Speaker Quinn cutting the arts out of her discretionary funds, he declined to comment on her decision-making. Spoke about her with respect, and said that each councilperson is responsible for their own discretionary funds. (I guess that's why they're "discretionary")
On the key question of the night, how do we arts advocates cause change, he says: "Politicians (for the most part) are human beings." Show up at meetings. If you keep coming and cropping up, we will remember you. You have to be present.
On getting money, he says, The money is at the city level, far more than the state or federal level. "But you have to ask for it." If you need $5,000, or $10,000, or finding a way to get a piece of legislation changed. If you don't ask, you can't get it.
On how arts advocates cause change: artists need to force questions on cultural policy during debates. There's no better time to put pressure on a politician then when they're running for office.
Also on that subject: community boards are critical, and people can actually get their voices heard on a number of important subjects. Councilmen have a certain amount of seats on community boards they can appoint, and they like to appoint people who are passionate about issues that they're passionate about (he appointed someone from Transportation for America to Queens CB2, because he's passionate about bike lanes).
One of the artists in the audience (a visual artist) asked about live/work spaces. It's hard enough to find affordable living spaces, but even when the city requires affordable housing, they don't focus on live/work spaces. Van Bramer acknowledged the need for more. He also mentioned that he and the director of MoMA have been talking about artists going and living in Far Rockaway. (The assembled artists did not seem warm to that idea.)
Another artist asked about doing work in public spaces, and how to negotiate that with the police if, for some reason, they decide its easiest to ask for forgiveness than permission. Van Bramer said that his office is always willing to serve as a go between artists and any city office (including Police Commissioner Kelly), to help them... and the earlier they're involved, the better.
Van Bramer spoke about his mission to make the city administration remember that the city includes Queens, not just Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn. His example was the planned unveiling of bike-share to include just Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn -- he said "I'm confident that when bike-share is unveiled this summer, it will include Queens."
On a question about whether there will ever be a top-down arts policy, Van Bramer shook his head. The City has the best top-down, but when it comes to the state and federal governments, there isn't much. "If we have a country that refuses to ask the wealthy to pay more to support the arts, we will always have trouble."
Van Bramer paralleled our struggle for more visibility in the arts to his activism for LGBT rights. If more artists run for office, the arts will have more champions, and political training schools run by advocacy groups are invaluable.
On a question about the push for one percent of the city's funding to go to the arts, similar to the one percent of arts education that the Department of Education is recommended to spend, Van Bramer was pragmatic. Not under Bloomberg, who hates to ever have his hands tied on the budget. (He also raised concerns about unevenness in practice of the DoE's 1% for arts) Maybe if a Democrat wins the next election.

Overall, Van Bramer was enthusiastic (he says he was running pretty late to his next meeting), but also practical -- some things he was optimistic about, but he acknowledge that fighting for the arts in this economic crisis is a defensive game.

LOCAL: Not Funny. Don't Laugh.

2011-11-30T22:30:00.001-05:00

"Student Maces Class at Academy for Social Action."

Don't laugh. It's not funny. Kids got hurt.

Really, don't think about the irony of a bunch of kids studying social action getting the full UC Davis protestor treatment. Because it was an accident, and people got hurt, so it's not funny.

It's not funny.

Why are you giggling?

It's not funny!

HUMOR: The 99%

2011-11-29T18:43:00.001-05:00

Very Philip K. Dick.

Quote of the Day II: Dumb as a Bag full of Newts

2011-11-29T18:39:00.001-05:00

I try not to indulge in schadenfreude, but Newt Gingrich completely fails to evoke even the barest of sympathies. So I enjoyed this immensely:

"Language is supposed to be a package that carries substance, but Gingrich is sometimes so pleased with his uninterrupted stream of words, that he mistakes it for an actual flow of ideas…"

My Mind Lately

2011-11-29T18:35:00.001-05:00

This race is HEATING UP:

Open more doors in life:

Fellow blogosphere inhabitant RVCBard is working on putting her work in the universe; you can donate to help make that a reality.
Another option would be to sponsor Belarus Free Theatre. If you want to know why, check out the 2amt profile.
A nice lady picked up K-Mart layaway payments for random strangers.
The FCC intends to make broadband internet reach the poor.

Because you'll find good things outside:

Guardian Online is noticing the growth of site-specific/site-general work.
Socrates Sculpture Park sure is beautiful.
A judge won't allow Citibank to settle with the government because they won't admit wrongdoing.
After being blocked from moving into the Tobacco Warehouse and threatening to leave, St. Ann's Warehouse has a new home in Dumbo.

And because some are closing:

Age-specific discounts may be illegal. At least as illegal as ladies' night.
My favorite bible is being pulled off shelves because it's too racy, just because it literally depicts the occurrences in the bible.

QUOTE OF THE DAY: Channelling Abbie Hoffman

2011-11-29T18:32:00.001-05:00

This beautifully designed compendium contains all manner of whimsical scribblings, photographs and cartoons, together with some rock and roll music and vaudevillian ballads.

[...]

Unfortunately, we at www.elviscostello.com find ourselves unable to recommend this lovely item to you as the price appears to be either a misprint or a satire. All our attempts to have this number revised have been fruitless but rather than detain you with tedious arguments about morality, panache and book-keeping - when there are really bigger fish to filet these days - we are taking the following unusual step.

If you should really want to buy something special for your loved one at this time of seasonal giving, we can whole-heartedly recommend, “Ambassador Of Jazz” - a cute little imitation suitcase, covered in travel stickers and embossed with the name “Satchmo” but more importantly containing TEN re-mastered albums by one of the most beautiful and loving revolutionaries who ever lived – Louis Armstrong.

The box should be available for under one hundred and fifty American dollars and includes a number of other tricks and treats. Frankly, the music is vastly superior. If on the other hand you should still want to hear and view the component parts of the above mentioned elaborate hoax, then those items will be available separately at a more affordable price in the New Year, assuming that you have not already obtained them by more unconventional means.

ElvisCostello.com.

RULES OF ENGAGEMENT VIII: Disorder Control Memo

2011-11-29T17:37:00.001-05:00

Previous installments: I, II, III, IV, V, VI, an update, and VII

The NYPD Disorder Control Memo leaked on Gothamist contains this point as point #1:

"A strong military appearance, with sharp and precise movements, is a force multiplier and a psychological advantage to us."

I wrote a long series of posts in the past about how rules of engagement are actually key to our culture, because:

Rules of Engagement are an under-examined but crucial aspect of a civilization. Every human being has the capacity for violence and destruction, but as societies we have slowly crafted a series of rules as to when we consider it acceptable to use that violence. A man beating another man to take his cell phone is banned by law; a man fighting off an attacker is presented.

Usually, if you ask the question "Am I allowed to use force?" the answer is usually no. For the average civillian, questions of force and violence are simple, because we have removed most of the need for force and vested it in a number of uniformed force officials: police, agents, and soldiers. But having vested broader powers of force into police, agents, and soldiers means that those classes of individuals have a more complex relationship to force.

In terms of how we live out our beliefs as a country from day to day, these rules of engagement are more important than even the death penalty, because they are tested and tried every single day, and can be the difference between a brutal, detached dictatorship and a tolerant democracy.

Reading that memo recalled strongly to me a conversation I had with my father, which I recorded in an earlier installment:

[I]n the last story from the last segment, border agents used deadly force on a young boy because he was throwing stones. That's not an unfamiliar story, although the usual background is in Israel. It brought to mind (obviously) the recent shootings of protesters on the aid boat.

I mentioned this to my father, after hearing the story, and he mentioned that Israel didn't used to shoot people with bullets. He said, "At some point in the last ten years, they simply stopped. They just started using bullets. Nobody talks about it, I don't know exactly when the decision was made."

I don't know much about the behind-the-scenes of the NYPD, but underlying the calculus of creating a "military" appearance and thinking in terms of force multipliers/psychological antagonism is the assumption that Occupy Wall Street is the enemy.

Shorter Newt on Cain

2011-11-29T17:00:00.001-05:00

"There but for the grace of God go I."

CHANGE: Lessons in Effective Protest

2011-11-22T22:55:00.001-05:00

Lesson #1:

The remaining students, who far outnumber the contingent of police, slowly start to encircle the officers while chanting "Shame on you!" The chants get louder and more menacing as the crowd gets closer, herding the police into a defensive huddle. Officers raise their weapons toward the crowd, warning them to back off, but at this distance and in these numbers, their riot gear would offer them little protection should the crowd suddenly charge. Sensing their advantage, the students change their chant to the more defiant "Whose university? Our university!" Tensions rise. One twitchy trigger finger and anything could happen. Then a lone voice initiates the familiar call and response of the human mic:

Voice: "Mic check!"

Crowd: "Mic check!"

Voice: "We are willing..."

Crowd: "We are willing..."

Voice: "To give you a brief moment..."

Crowd: "To give you a brief moment..."

Voice: "Of peace..."

Crowd: "Of peace..."

Voice: "In order to take your weapons..."

Crowd: "In order to take your weapons..."

Voice: "And your friends..."

Crowd: "And your friends..."

Voice: "And go."

Crowd: "And go."

Voice: "Please do not return..."

Crowd: "Please do not return..."

Voice: "We are giving you a moment of peace."

Crowd: "We are giving you a moment of peace."

The crowd then starts chanting "You can go! You can go!", and after a few moments the police turn their backs to the crowd and do exactly that, wisely taking advantage of the offered truce, and eliciting cheers and applause from the crowd.

(h/t Mike Daisey)

Lesson #2:

UC Davis chancellor Linda Katehi – the school official who OK’d the violent assault on students for peacefully protesting – was greeted by three city blocks of students on the way to her car, all of whom gave her the silent treatment. Click to watch. It’s an eerie yet powerful protest.

Continued:

A pretty remarkable thing just happened. A press conference, scheduled for 2:00pm between the UC Davis Chancellor and police on campus, did not end at 2:30. Instead, a mass of Occupy Davis students and sympathizers mobilized outside, demanding to have their voice heard. After some initial confusion, UC Chancellor Linda Katehi refused to leave the building, attempting to give the media the impression that the students were somehow holding her hostage. A group of highly organized students formed large gap for the chancellor to leave. They chanted “we are peaceful” and “just walk home,” but nothing changed for several hours. Eventually student representatives convinced the chancellor to leave after telling their fellow students to sit down and lock arms.

ME: Chancellor, do you still feel threatened by the students?

KATEHI: No.

One of the students pepper sprayed yesterday, a young man wearing a brown down coat over a tie-dye shirt, said he met with Kotehi and personally showed her a video of pepper spraying attack. Speaking to about a thousand students with the “human mic,” the young man said he personally asked for her resignation.

This protest, unlike the fuzzy, on-going protest at Occupy Wall Street, managed to throw its opposition to stark relief while still taking the high road. Part of it is luck - I don't know if you can plan for pepper spray. But from that moment forward, the students of UC Davis took the same approach my mother took in all her fights in life: calm, rational, straight to the point.

POLICY: The "Internet Censorship" Bill

2011-11-17T12:05:00.001-05:00

A lot of buzz on the internet around the bills being debated in the House and Senate (with broad, bipartisan support) that would allow the Government to issue take-down notices to websites, turn streaming copyrighted content (even noncommercially) into a 5 year felony, and otherwise creates chaos on the internet among any platform that hosts content.

The current law (DMCA - which is already not a great bill), at least gives websites like YouTube or Facebook the ability to be legally safe so long as they respond to copyright take-down notices in a timely manner. For instance, if someone posts a movie that includes copyrighted content, the copyright holder can send a notice to YouTube, and YouTube can exercise discretion and either take it down, or respond to the request.

Now, if someone posts a movie to YouTube that has copyrighted content, the copyright holder can take the complaint to the domain registrants and demand that YouTube be taken off the internet.

This is worse than simply censorship. This is vigilante censorship -- censorship done outside of the courts, by self-appointed warriors.

If it passes, we go from all being criminals to all being felons.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

2011-11-15T19:33:00.001-05:00

From Jeremy at CultureBot:

Don’t be suckered. The idea of the critic that Kaiser laments isn’t the idealized public intellectual he tries to paint a picture of. This “serious” critic of “serious” art is, in the end, providing just another consumer report. This is a deeply important task in the world Kaiser imagines we live in–without a member of the cultural elite defining the value of a cultural good, how are the plebs supposed to know whether the ticket’s worth the cost?

That’s why the thing Kaiser finds truly “scary” is the idea that audiences can now voice their own thoughts via the Internet. Because the audience, of course, isn’t supposed to have its own thoughts. It’s supposed to accept the value of what it’s consuming and, should it find itself out of step with elite opinion, worry about its ignorance, about why it’s so wrong.

MUSIC: The True Story of Abner Jay

2011-10-29T11:11:00.001-04:00

h/t George Lazenby, who says:

This guy is unreal. Everything people got wet about with Neutral Milk Hotel, is already here, in 1970.

Perfect for this gray morning.

RESPONSE: Self Expression v. Communication

2011-10-27T15:46:00.001-04:00

Isaac's briefest manifesto ever:

The ultimate purpose of art-- particularly writing-- is not self-expression. Self-expression is, in general, what art is made out of, it's base materials. But like how a wooden table's purpose is not to be made of wood, art's ultimate goal cannot be to be self-expression. It's already that. That's where it begins (most of the time, broadly speaking). It must do something else, something more. One of those things, preferably, is to give something to the reader. If that something is the experience of what is going on in the writer's head at that moment, the question becomes why this gift is worthwhile. If you are only writing for self-expression, just get a fucking blog.

Thumbs up to that. Since art is not self expression, what it is is communication. That's why self-expression is the raw material: what you want to get across, the idea or experience (whether it's a concept or a feeling) you want to transmit comes from you, but is aimed at someone else. If you ignore the other person, you're not communicating, you're pontificating.