// excerpts from "What Patti Smith Can Teach Us Today", by Charles McNulty

// Los Angeles Times, Arts&Books Section.

On the relevance of the Institution

"We've established enclaves to protect Young artists from an American economy so ruthless that the ivory tower has become a primary locale for creative development and mentorship.. but there's a price to be paid for the separation from the workaday world. Consider the plight of contemporary playwrights fresh out of top-flight universities and searching frantically for arable soil for their theatrical endeavors."

Is this symptomatic of an educational system that is out of touch with its period?

On the current batch

"But I detect a renewed idealism in the newer generation. The MFA students I've taught in recent years, the young artists I come across in my theater going, seem to be less self-enclosed, more attuned to progressive political and social change. The crises they face - economic and environmental - won't allow them to fret all day over their resumes. The planet beckons them with alarm bells. Advice from the generation that more or less thrashed their future should be treated skeptically. But if they read "Just Kids," they might just learn that friendship can lead to radical new ways of seeing."

.quotes

"She makes eluding pigeon-holes a priority"

"These experiences, no picnic for her, widened her palette of influences"

.definitions

Shabby Elegence: a style that comes wtih a release of control, the acceptance of the unpredictable and the nimble acuity aestheticize it