It’s a crisp, but clear and beautiful morning. Susan had to leave quite early for meetings, so we said our goodbyes last night. I did some rearranging in the car and found it wasn’t really as bad as I’d thought. Had a bowl of cereal and some coffee and took a shower.
Sitting here in the remarkable quiet, I realize my sister and her husband Steven live artful and art-full lives. Steven’s career as an inspired artist and superb art teacher has, I think, nicely complemented my sister’s powerful intellect and confidence. As I look around, I see balanced influences of each individual. This is a very comfortable and welcoming environment and I feel grounded here.
The morning rush hour is nearly over and I’ll be on the road by 10. I do need to stop at Trader Joe’s, though, to acquire a traveling supply of black pepper cashews and fat-free caramel corn.
Pulled out of Trader Joe’s about 10:30 and was on the Merritt Parkway fifteen minutes later. The trees along the Parkway show the first pale green blush of spring color. The night was cold, but the leaves are responding to the warm sun. I expect they’ll burst forth any day now.
Across the George Washington Bridge about 11:45 and into New Jersey.
The Jersey Turnpike is long and smooth and fast. For a while they segregate the trucks and buses in a set of lanes to the right, with a nice guard rail separating us and them. All the rest areas are named for famous people – Vince Lombardi, Clara Barton, Walt Whitman. Since this is an ‘art’ adventure of sorts, I choose the poet. Gas is cheap in NJ – just $2.37 per gallon – and it’s full service all the way. I understand NJ is one of a few states that don’t permit self-service gas stations. The person who pumped my gas looked pretty down and out. If I saw him on the street, I’d have assumed he was homeless. He may be. But he was very well spoken and polite. It made me remember that I do tend to be judgmental. A lesson for today: don’t make assumptions about people.
Tolls seem to be a theme of the day through NJ, DE and MD. With $6.45 at the end of the NJ Turnpike and $3 and $2 tolls every few miles thereafter for bridges, tunnels and for no apparent reason, it seemed like my Federal tax dollars just weren’t enough.
There was one minor directional issue. I apparently wasn’t paying attention and overshot exit 25. It was exit 30 before I realized. Fortunately the exits come thick and fast in this urban area. I was able to get off and back on in the opposite direction easily, and found the Super 8 Motel in College Park with little difficulty.
Stone Buffalo was fascinated to find the Holy Bible left by the Gideons. He asked about them, but I had no answers.
Took a ride into College Park and the University of Maryland area to see what was going on. It was like a summer day, about 68 degrees, and there were blossoms everywhere. Grass is green and leaves are out in earnest. Samurai Sam’s provided a chicken teriyaki wrap for dinner. The chicken and veggies were nice, but I didn’t need the four pounds of rice.
Back to the hotel and now I’m updating my web pages for the day. Must rest up for my visit tomorrow to the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center.
‘Night all…
Up at 5:30 and look out the window of my third floor room at the Super 8 here in College Park, MD. The pavement is wet and it looks like it’s drizzling. Yuk. But I do notice a few trees with bright blossoms and feel better.
No morning paper delivered to my room, so I switch on the TV. On CNN (Anderson Cooper 360) there’s a story about a woman who at age 18 was forced into an arranged polygamous marriage with a man who was 50 at the time. The story was about her escape from that terrible situation, along with her eight children. It seems pretty astonishing that this sort of thing takes place here in the USA in the present time. But I guess there are many things going on in this country that astonish me.
Shower, pack up and checked out by 8:15. I head to the Starbuck’s that I noticed the night before on my exploration. Well-known opera music is playing quite loudly. There’s a line, but it moves quickly and there are plenty of seats. I choose a comfortable upholstered chair with an ottoman, over in a corner. I’m joined soon in the adjacent space by a group of six guys who obviously work together. Judging from the discussion and the attire – some jeans, some slacks, one in shorts – I’m guessing they work in some sort of technical field. They’re smart, but a few of them, the younger ones wearing jeans and work boots, look like they do need to get their hands dirty from time to time. Although I can’t hear the conversation clearly, at one point I overhear that one of the group is amazed to learn that another person (not here) ‘delivered the mail’ before he came to work at their company. The others thought this was common knowledge. They laugh. I hear the word ‘meeting’ and the group departs to face the day.
I try to make sense of the Washington Post’s Weekend Section, but it’s difficult. Being Friday, of course this is a section dealing with things to do this weekend, arts, entertainment. There’s so much going on. How do people figure out what to do? I suppose most people, like me, get into our routines, we travel the same routes on a daily basis, we see things over and over again until we don’t see them anymore. But we do know where to look when we want to do something outside our home. Also like me, though, people are going out less and less. When we get home after a day at work, or home for a weekend, the gravitational pull is strong. It’s easier to see what the mail carrier delivered from Netflix.
Back to the Washington Post. There’s an interesting article that discusses two people I’ve had the honor of meeting, one living and one dead. Kenny Leon is directing Radio Golf, August Wilson’s final installment in his 10-play Pittsburg Cycle, at Baltimore’s Center Stage. August Wilson was at Dartmouth College, where I used to work, a few years before he died of liver cancer. I got to shake his hand when I ran into him in a corridor. And Kenny Leon gave one of the most stirring speeches I’ve ever experienced at an arts conference a few years ago. His topic was ‘why we do what we do.’ Of course he was referring to people who work in the arts, whether as artists or in administrative roles. It made me feel very good about what I do and want to be like Kenny. But he was named one of People magazine’s 50 Most Beautiful People in 2004. I don’t think there’s any danger that I’ll be similarly recognized any time soon. Or ever.
The music at Starbucks has changed from opera to something that sounds ethnic and techno, with jazzy overtones. There are several competing rhythms and melody lines, but it works. Time for me to head to meet with Brian Jose and Susie Farr at the Clarice Smith Center now. A good note, so to speak, on which to depart.
My friend Brian, the director of marketing and communications, was a very gracious host. (Regrettably, Susie Farr had injured her knee the previous week, so I wasn’t able to visit with her.) First he had to ‘talk me’ across the UMD campus on my cell phone to find the Center and a parking space. It was open house day at UMD and it must have been just between classes, too, so people were everywhere. I understand the campus has about 35,000 students. I think they were all out and crossing the streets simultaneously, so traffic really crawled.
Main entrance to the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center at the University of Maryland.
Once at the Center Brian gave me a tour of all the venues and support spaces. The complex is very impressive. The set for an opera, to be performed by students, was being constructed on one of the stages. Although early in the process, it was very clear that the end result would rival sets created for professional opera companies. The Center supports and collaborates with music, theater, dance and opera departments. Like other cultural centers with intended synergistic inter-relationships among departments that also perceive themselves to be competing for resources, things are not always smooth, according to Brian. But maybe that’s the way it needs to be to keep people stimulated and functioning at a high level. Worth thinking more about.
After looking around the Center, Brian and I sat down and talked about the broad topic of arts marketing and current issues in the field. Brian’s current practices and thinking is around the concepts of precision and relevance. Precision and relevance refer to being sure that you’re communicating with the right prospective audience member about something that is relevant to them. This involves knowing much more about your audience than just the traditional demographic details – age, gender, household income, zip code, etc. Today’s marketers need to know about their prospects’ values and attitudes.
Brian gave the example of a person he knows who attended a theater performance. The reason this person attended the performance is not because she enjoys theater, but because the socially conscious topic of the play was of interest. But now this patron is designated in the database as someone who enjoys theater, so she’ll receive future mailings about all theater events regardless of how relevant their content may be to her, and this is a waste of marketing resources.
Brian’s a great conceptual thinker and interesting to talk to about marketing. And he also gave me terrific directions to get into downtown Washington DC from College Park. All I needed to do was drive down US 1 until I connected with Rhode Island Avenue, which would take me right into the city. And this worked out fine.
Some of the colorful row houses I passed on Rhode Island Avenue in DC.
From our visit to DC last summer for my nephew Ben’s wedding to Sara Straka, I was at least familiar with the layout of the city and found my way to Georgetown easily. Traffic wasn’t all that bad. I found a parking garage in G’town and walked up to M Street to find a place to have a snack before taking the Circulator bus downtown to meet with Patrick Madden at the Association of Performing Arts Presenters. I found Barnes & Noble that I recalled from our summer visit and knew that it had a nice café with wireless internet access. Had a nice vanilla latte as I checked my email.
On the bus
I took the bus downtown about 2:40 and found my way to the Arts Presenters headquarters easily, arriving there exactly at 3:00. Patrick was unexpectedly quite engaged in preparing some information for a grant application, so I had a nice chat with Margie in the reception area. She was folding pages and stuffing envelopes, so she didn’t seem to mind the distraction of me droning on about my journey and the cause thereof. And it was interesting to learn that she’d gone to Brandeis and has had a dual career for some years working as a stage manager and at Arts Presenters. Now she’s recently cut back to just one job and actually moved to the suburbs, a big change for her.
Patrick and I went to Caribou Coffee, just around the corner from Arts Presenters offices and sat outside at a table to talk. We discussed many of the challenges facing the presenting field, with a focus on marketing, and also the seemingly universal issues of balancing work and home life. I’m not sure we really reached any conclusions, other than to agree that no one ever went to his or her death bed saying, “Gee, I wish I’d spent more time at the office.”
I was very glad to finally see the Arts Presenters offices. In 20 years in this field, I’ve never been there.
As Patrick suggested, I went out the back door of the building to 17th Street and a taxi appeared immediately to take me to the offices of Dutko Worldwide, where my nephew Ben Wallerstein works. It was neat to see Ben in his work environment for the first time. After wrapping up some end of day details, Ben and I got in his car and headed back to Georgetown to pick up my car and then go to his house. I had a glass of wine and Ben had a beer out on his back deck. (His wife Sarah was out with friends and would be home later.) It was great to talk with Ben one-on-one about his work, life in this incredible city, and lots of other things. We went out to 2 Amy’s Pizza and I highly recommend it if you’re in DC!
Went home and met Ben and Sarah’s tenant/friend Avery, an attorney in the Commerce Department. Being all under 30, they were heading out to meet others and do what young people do. I declined their kind offer to join them and went to bed. In the morning, I knew I’d made the right decision. Poor Ben and Sarah were suffering the effects of being out too late and perhaps consuming just a little too much beverage. Been there, done that, is about all I can say.
