Updates 4/6/09

We had one of the most amazing interviews of our career with Al Hawkes on Tuesday! For about two hours Al covered the history of recording technology as only a witness truly could. Amazing! We're considering posting some clips on the site, but we don't want to give too much away!
In what would prove to be a busy week I also interviewed Al Miller of The Theater Project in Brunswick, Maine as another installment of the Spindleworks Oral History project.

I got the idea for my latest project after reading the final line in the NY Times obituary
for folklorist Archie Green-

In his final months, Mr. Green continued to organize and agitate, issuing directives from his deathbed to colleagues and friends. His pet project was to convince Congress that it should, as in the days of the New Deal and the Works Progress Administration, set aside money for artists, filmmakers, photographers, writers and, yes, folklorists, to document the projects put into motion by the stimulus bill. The last letter he wrote, his son Derek said, was addressed to Representative Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker, telling her exactly what she needed to do.

My interest piqued I wrote to Barry Bergey of the NEA to see if this idea got any traction. He replied that the money in the stimulus bill is meant to save existing jobs but that a new bill is being proposed to form an "artist service corps".

The new provision in the House and Senate bills would encourage the use of "skilled musicians and artists to promote greater community unity through the use of music and arts education and engagement through work in low-income communities, and education, health care, and therapeutic settings, and other work in the public domain with citizens of all ages."

I'm waiting to hear back from Jeanne Shaheen
-andrew