Today I attended the 164th Meeting of the National Council on the Arts, the NEA's advisory council. The tri-annual meetings are open to the public, and if I lived in DC year-round, I would go to all of them. The Council is composed of artists, arts execs, and general patrons of the arts. The NEA sometimes seems like this nebulous, remote agency, but the meeting put a face on the federal body that brings art to the people. It's chaired by the chairman of the NEA, Dana Gioia.
After talking shop, a presentation on the NEA's latest and largest project, The Big Read, began. Putting aside the somewhat ironic fact that the National Endowment for the Arts is sponsoring a literacy program, while the National Endowment for the Humanities is concurrently sponsoring a visual arts program, it was an inspiring presentation about the potential of this country to better itself — precisely what both of these agencies exist for.
(I suppose this makes me an elitist. I think we should all aspire to read more, do more, be more. We can always find ways to improve ourselves. I want a president who thinks so, too.)
The talk started out on an abysmal note: Less than 50% of Americans read for 'fun'. This isn't all that surprising, since I'm one of those folks who should actually read more. Don't get me wrong — I love books, but I'm a painfully slow reader, which often discourages me. Add the mountain of reading for grad school, and the last thing I want to do is read more on my 'free time'. But, I'm trying. I've read half a collection of short stories since I've arrived, and just started a novel. Commuting is great for reading.
Anyway, I digress.
The Big Read aims to make sure that that percentage does not get any lower. As Mr. Gioia stated, with The Big Read, we can draw a line and say [the title of this post].
I won't regurgitate the whole presentation here, but I'll share what I found most interesting. Assuming you all followed that convenient link, you know what the Big Read project is all about. One of the communities participating is Norman, Oklahoma. Over the course of two years of Big Read-ing, public library patronage (the # of adults checking out books) has increased by 23% overall. The citizens of Norman voted to voluntarily raise their taxes to increase library funding by 50%. Their program also featured the most hilarious promotional tie-in for Bless Me, Ultima.
Another element of the project which instantly caught my eye, cultural diplomat that I am, was the international component: Big Read Russia, Big Read Mexico, and the most extensive, Big Read Egypt/US. One criticism leveraged against the program was its emphasis on American authors to the exclusion of many many fantastic non-American authors. In this program, participating organizations in the US read Naguib Mahfouz's The Thief and the Dogs, while the Egyptian orgs read Fahrenheit 451, To Kill a Mockingbird, or The Grapes of Wrath. While book selection is always going to be debated, I think this is a really interesting approach since literature is such an excellent entry into gaining some perspective about another culture.
I also must say that the NEA employs the nicest people on the planet. I was talking with one of my new colleagues, and an NEA rep came over to introduce himself because he'd never seen us at any other NEA events. Then I met their director for research, also amazingly friendly and chill (and he gave me his card). Then yet another lady came over to introduce herself, and to complement my shoes. NEA is good people.
So, this overly drawn out post is just another way of saying, I'm really loving my internship because I get to do things like this.
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