Literary World Unveils Doomsday Machine

I’m more familiar with the art world than the literary one, but there are, I think, some commonalities.
Among writers and artists, there’s often a belief that they should be financially rewarded regardless of whether there’s sufficient (or any) demand for what they do, regardless of oversupply, and regardless of whether what they do has any market value. In conversations on this subject there’s usually an emphasis on the time taken to produce a finished manuscript, a finished piece, typically many months, as if the financial reward should therefore, automatically, be commensurate. “But it took a year of my life,” etc. This is an almost Marxoid view of things. One might just as well decide, “Hm. A year spent working on a novel is highly unlikely to be financially supportive. I’d better do something else for a living and write on the side.”
It’s no coincidence that artists of little commercial appeal often pointedly refer to what they do as “the work,” as if they’re hoping to persuade us, or perhaps persuade themselves. But calling a thing ‘work’ doesn’t make it valuable to others.
Despite which, this kind of attitude is actively encouraged. For instance, the Observer’s Elizabeth Day acknowledges that the market for art is very limited and very few artists make a viable living as artists and that poverty and dependency are likely to result. She therefore concludes that life-long stipends are in order – at public expense, naturally – rather than a rethink of one’s vocation. Similar noises were made by the Guardian’s Laura Barnett, who claimed, rather indignantly, that “the British government makes no specific social provision for artists,” even though it does, to the tune of half a billion pounds a year. One Guardian reader suggested that free studios, free electricity and unending public subsidy should be provided so that people could “just be artists.”

Oh noes! The Irish are in trouble: http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/culture-shock-why-it-s-time-for-irish-artists-to-go-on-strike-1.2053120
Oddly, it is possible for artists to strike successfully, as has been shown many times in Hollywood. The trick is that your product has to be wildly popular first.

Actually, I’m starting to wonder whether we shouldn’t actually be encouraging artists to go on strike if this is the kind of thing we’ll be spared from having to see.

As we’re discussing assorted production issues, I wonder if I might ask a favor of the assorted and assembled.
Amongst the collection of things I do is research into relatively extremely inexpensive computer animation production, and what can be done with such, while noting One Definite Shortcoming.
The link leads to a just revised briefing paper on such possibilities, where I‘ve been staring at the thing and editing here and there, where at this point I think everything is covered, commented, whatnot, but what do other sets of eyeballs see?
Thank you!

*trembles*
I’ve mentioned before one of the local arts centres bankrolled by the taxpayer, both nationally and locally, to the tune of over £200,000 a year, and which, judging by attendance, is of interest only to the handful of people who work there. If it were to close down in solidarity with our Irish cousins, I suspect it would be several years before even one tenth of one percent of the city’s population registered this fact. Before somehow, bravely, getting on with their lives.

“Even within the Department of the Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht (DAHG), arts funding has been hit harder than any other sector.”
It sounds like they don’t like Dahgs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQSnua3M2lo

jabrwok,
(the book, there was no movie)
Exactly. Paul Verhoeven hated the book, its premise, and Heinlein’s politics as well, so his movie based on it was intended to be an “anti-Heinlein” satire.
Apologies to Adam Baldwin, I know you’re one of the “good guys”, but that movie was a bottomless pit of suck.

Oh noes! The Irish are in trouble
If, at some point, Laurie Pennie, various Grauniad columnists, and performing artists the world over ever fail to provide you with material for your posts, then rest assured that the Irish Times can fill that gap.
It is our little parochial version of the Grauniad.
And you can think of Fintan as a secular, socialist Fr Ted

I keep waiting for some Hollyweird genius-du-jour to make a screenplay of “The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress” or “Stranger From A Strange Land”. I foresee a long wait.

Halfway through part one of the dune miniseries, there is a scene where Paul and Irulan are set up for a kiss a la Aladdin and Jasmine. I should have stopped right there, but suffered through the end of part one. Absolutely horrible.

Just to defend the Dune mini-series, remember that it was done by the SF channel on an absolute shoe-string budget with unknown actors on bluescreen and filmed in Eastern Europe – and yet it is still miles better than the dreadful offering that Hollywood produced.
With the exception of the wooden buffoon they had “acting” as Gurney Halleck, I thought they did a superb job. The brief meeting with Princess Irulan was probably only introduced as a nod to her constant presence in the book’s chapter headings.
Get the special edition of the first series, (there was no special edition for the second series), and just enjoy. In the absence of Jodorowsky’s vision it is the only version we will ever have, and considering the pitiful amount of money spent on it, much better than is being suggested.