Musing Musician

Musing on art, music, and culture.

[Musing Musician @MusingMusicianX]

“The successors of Western civilization’s weighty musical legacy have squandered their inheritance; they lie knee-deep in swill but refuse to turn back.”

Check out my latest @FDRLST on the state of classical music and what’s needed for an artistic revival:

[The Federalist @FDRLST]

Composer Arvo Pärt’s Popularity Exposes A Hunger For Beauty Amid Modern Musical Ugliness
https://t.co/44GS9R4kFB

[Musing Musician @MusingMusicianX]

“In a world of artificial art, true art will rise to the top like cream in a cup of raw milk.” ~ from my latest on AI and the true value of art.
https://t.co/fcOpAjVKtl

[Musing Musician @MusingMusicianX]

https://t.co/JAxknNui5O

[Musing Musician @MusingMusicianX]

The question of whether the right can produce great art and dominate culturally is rooted in a deeper question.
https://t.co/Oq70BWm9o7

[Musing Musician @MusingMusicianX]

Can anyone name the painting used for this album?

[Musing Musician @MusingMusicianX]

My gym has a real mixed bag of wall art and vibes. But this room nails it imo

[Musing Musician @MusingMusicianX]

“While we accept submissions from everyone, we therefore strongly encourage works from composers who…”
It’s hard to overstate how much leftist ideology pervades the arts from the ground up.

[Lomez @L0m3z]

https://t.co/HCpBwr7ZZs

[Lomez @L0m3z]

Okay. Last point on this art/culture question (for now).

Very few remarked on this, but a few months ago a coalition of non-profits, including Mellon and McCarthur and Ford etc., launched a $50 million Literary Arts Fund.

$50 million.

You, reading this, will never see this money. You, reading this, will never participate in this project. It will be spent on regional poetry journals, local workshops, small grants for short story writers, creative writing programs, short term residencies, bulk book purchases, awards, prizes, teaching fellowships, etc. etc. Wonderful, important things. But it is not for you, dear reader. It is for them.

$49 million of it will be spent on writing and writers you will never hear of. Work that will never break through to mainstream culture. And yet it is not a waste! It is money incredibly well spent. It is money to build the invisible infrastructure that the visible culture sits on top of and depends on.

You do not get a visible culture without all of this stuff underneath it. I cannot stress this enough. And until the right, broadly speaking, wakes up to this asymmetry, all we have are our impotent complaints.

[Damian Chávez - Artist @DamianChavezArt]

All such spaces like museums, music halls, Art Depts, etc take federal/state funding which is then matched by quasi-private & private funders. The state is the ultimate legitimising agent that secures the risk.

This is a vulernability for the current ecosystem but the right who havent studied the subject keep thinking the same thing for every area where the left is powerful resulted from a magical neutrality.

Its never been the case. The right sabotages its cultural influence over its territory by framing the culture as a neutral space, a market place.

The left wins here because it structurally changes any system it infects for expanding its power. Its never treated its state enhanced power as neutral.

If you are *fighting fair within a neutral space* you are already at a disadvantage.

Force the left 2 get all their funding privately (like the right currently must suffer) then see how powerful they really are.

[Musing Musician @MusingMusicianX]

@latterdaylaura Just wait until she smiles at you for the first time, holds your gaze and touches your face for the first time, laughs hysterically for the first time… she, the little person you brought into this world

[Musing Musician @MusingMusicianX]

@DamianChavezArt Right. And in the “eat your vegetables” metaphor, self ingratiating ugliness doesn’t actually provide any benefit to the soul. Art that magnifies redemptive suffering is more like vegetables, art that glorifies ugliness for its own sake is more like poison. Not like— it is poison

[Musing Musician @MusingMusicianX]

@CultureExploreX So unfortunate. I loved visiting Trevi Fountain some years ago, and experiencing the intermingling of everyday life with extraordinary art— when art is the environment, the backdrop. And now that won’t be the case.

[Musing Musician @MusingMusicianX]

The annual Terrain event is one of the largest art exhibits in the PNW. I went so you don’t have to — check out my review.
https://t.co/OqwnkShRUh

[Musing Musician @MusingMusicianX]

So nice to spend time with such a lovely instrument.

[Old Sovereign Publishing @OldSovPub]

Old Sovereign Publishing are delighted to launch The Grand Agon.

This is the event of 2026.

A $1500 prize and a book contract with 10% royalties.

The two finalists will have 1 Act of their play performed on the London stage by the players of @thebasecreates.

The winner will be acclaimed on the theatre floor by the entire audience of a large London stage and crowned with the laurels of victory.

The play must be based on an episode in the Lives of Plutarch. No matter how small an anecdote, we want you to turn it into an entire world of human life and emotion. If you want to use an entire biography, you are free to do so. What we desire is that, like Shakespeare, you use Plutarch as the source material for your play, drawing from the deep well of its wisdom and experience, to craft something worth adding to the pool of human achievement.

The Deadline for submission is Monday 3rd August 2026

The play will be performed in December 2026

Act worthy of yourselves!

As such events offer the opportunity for unlimited artistic expression, we also want to give artists the opportunity to contribute to this project. We are offering $500 to the artist who can come up with a poster for the event. All they need to do is leave space in the design for the final date and venue to be added later, otherwise the canvas is yours. Whether your inspiration is the Belle Epoque, Toulouse-Lautrec, Alphonse Mucha, or something else entirely, we want a beautiful, hand painted poster for the event. The deadline will be Tuesday, 1st April, submissions must be 1200dpi or more.

Check out below for submission details.

For Partners & Sponsors: We welcome any like minded individuals or groups, who would like to contribute to the development of - rather than merely critique - culture, as partners and sponsors in this event. Please reach out directly to the Director of OSP George Carter on the email available on the competition page on our site

Help us turn this into a sensation!

[Musing Musician @MusingMusicianX]

Why does our society glorify ugliness?

[Musing Musician @MusingMusicianX]

@ChildnotChoice @FDRLST Thank you!

[Musing Musician @MusingMusicianX]

“The successors of Western civilization’s weighty musical legacy have squandered their inheritance; they lie knee-deep in swill but refuse to turn back.”

Check out my latest @FDRLST on the state of classical music and what’s needed for an artistic revival:

[The Federalist @FDRLST]

Composer Arvo Pärt’s Popularity Exposes A Hunger For Beauty Amid Modern Musical Ugliness
https://t.co/44GS9R4kFB

[Musing Musician @MusingMusicianX]

Look what just arrived 📫

[Musing Musician @MusingMusicianX]

Fascinating read on the history of art and it’s fall into ugliness and perversion, by @Signorelli89 https://t.co/gEu5405erG