Free College in San Francisco

[Hanarchy Montanarchy]

He was kicked out of the school, dude. Everything he contributed, he contributed without the assistance of any formal education.

That is simply untrue.

Being at the Conservatory put him in the sphere of people like Debussy, who promoted him early on. And who knows what tricks he picked up from the instructions he actually received.

Satie is the damn poster child for giving the talentless weirdos art classes.

No, it's absolutely true.

In 1879, Satie entered the Paris Conservatoire, where he was soon labelled untalented by his teachers. Georges Mathias, his professor of piano at the Conservatoire, described his pupil's piano technique in flatly negative terms, "insignificant and laborious" and "worthless".[4] Émile Decombes called him "the laziest student in the Conservatoire".[5] Years later, Satie related that Mathias, with great insistence, told him that his real talent lay in composing. After being sent home for two and a half years, he was readmitted to the Conservatoire at the end of 1885 (age 19), but was unable to make a much more favourable impression on his teachers than he had before, and, as a result, resolved to take up military service a year later.

That pretty well sums up the value of art school, in my opinion.

Yes, that was my whole godamn point. Thank you for reinforcing my Whole. Godamn. Point.

[Speaker to Animals]

Yes, that was my whole godamn point. Thank you for reinforcing my Whole. Godamn. Point.

So your point was that art school is a waste of time and we ought not to subsidize it? Good to know.

[Hanarchy Montanarchy]

Yes, that was my whole godamn point. Thank you for reinforcing my Whole. Godamn. Point.

So your point was that art school is a waste of time and we ought not to subsidize it? Good to know.

Do you want me to connect the dots for you, or save you the embarrassment by letting you actually read anything I wrote in this thread?

[TheReal_ND]

Give me a quick rundown of the dots.

[apeman]

Me need dot connecting.

[Fife]

Needs moar dots.

[Hanarchy Montanarchy]

Give me a quick rundown of the dots.

Me need dot connecting.

Needs moar dots.

Well, okay, but only 'cause I like you guys so darn much.

Right from the start I was arguing that the degree is not the most important part of an arts education. Rather that the experience of meeting and working with talented people was much more valuable.

In the case of Erik Satie, a person who was not viewed as particularly talented by his contemporaries, and would have not been able to attend the Conservatory if it weren't for heavy subsidizing that made it accessible to students of limited talent and means.

While he never graduated, being at the conservatory put him in the sphere of Debussy, who saw promise in Satie, and promoted his work all around paris. The connection with the respected Debussy (who, by the way, also was seen as pretty untalented when he was young by a lot of faculty, but was liked and promoted by Gabriel Faure) accounted for most of Satie's ability to sell works and find gigs. Eventually they would have a falling out when Debussy accused Satie of composing works without any form (which is completely true), and Satie, in response, wrote his Pieces in the Form of a Pear. Not his best, but I guess spite makes a mediocre muse. By that time though, Satie was a salon fixture, and could survive in a city that prized novelty and artistic expression.

I am not trying to make a broad claim about subsidizing education in general, but I am making the very narrow claim that there are benefits to university arts programs that go beyond accreditation. So, if SF wants to spend some property tax on subsidizing City College, there are good reasons to include arts and humanities.

Maybe it will turn some of those terrible hipsters that hang out in cafes all damn day talking about massive projects that never seem to materialize (like Erik Satie), and survive largely by asking for help from friends and family (like Erik Satie), into people who actually contribute something lasting (like Erik Satie).

Arts are a lot like tech startups. You wind up investing a lot of time, energy, and resources into failures on the outside chance you wind up with something valuable. Lots and lots of loss leaders.

Now, if I wanted to make a broader claim, I would point out that, while everybody seems to like the arts, nobody wants to pay for them. And that while capitalism has given us Justin Bieber and Katy Perry, state subsidies gave us Prokofiev and Schostakovich.

Sure, Stalin killed a shitload of people, but Prokofiev's Visions Fugitives and Schostakovich's 24 Preludes and Fugues are some of the greatest pieces of 20th century music, hands down. So I guess I give Soviet Communism about a B.

[Speaker to Animals]

He was friends with Debussy through Le Chet Noir.

[Okeefenokee]

Instead of subsidizing insanely high costs they should lower the cost of college.

A dead end road to price controls.

[Okeefenokee]

I don't have a problem subsidizing the most talented students in fine arts programs or whatever, precisely because they possess talent and will likely contribute culture instead of garbage and Starbucks coffees.

That would called a scholarship.

... which someone like Erik Satie would be unlikely to receive. He still benefited from his time at the Paris Conservatory, and thus we all benefit from France subsidizing the school, even for a pupil that was thought to be lazy and untalented by his instructors.

lol that's the guy that minecraft ripped off. amiright?