Letter from the Editor
“Mixing pop and politics he asks me what the use is / I offer him embarrassment and my usual excuses…” (1)
Does art imitates life or does life imitate art? The age-old question becomes ever more poingnant when rock stars get nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize and the Academy Awards sell 30-second advertising spots for $1.7 million dollars (and manage to sell out faster than the Superbowl broadcast) and when tourism is still the world’s leading industry, accounting for an excess of $450 billion dollars in revenues from over 700 million global tourists annually (2). It begs the question, just how much of the global economy and just how much of global politics are fueled by the entertainment business, (entertainment + business), i.e. the busines of entertaining….I’m thinking a lot.
And it has led me to ponder, just what does one need to do to get nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize, good deeds or good deeds that reach millions of people…and to reach them do you need millions of dollars? And do the Oscars® really have anything at all to do with tourism and the ever-growing appeal of a little beach resort in Mexico?
…Ehh…
In a month when we have the Oscars® and the Nobels® being announced at the same time, it really ignites a competitive streak… There are a few things that I will probably never achieve in this life: I will never be a prima ballarina or an ice dancer or an Olympic downhill skier, or a teenaged mother for that matter, and it is every year less likely that I will be the rock star or Kung Fu master that I dreamed about becoming as a child…but there are yet a few dreams left.
“A dream is different from a goal because a dream involves magic, while a goal involves a series of practical steps taken in a certain direction. Take the practical steps that achieve a goal and a dream can happen.” –Harold Ramis, comedy writer-director Animal House, Caddyshack, et al. (Entertainment)
“The less you leave to chance, the better chance you have.” –Ross Perot, American businessman, Former United States Presidential nominee. (Business)
It has been my experience that the most successful goals are the ones you place way out into the future…and then make consistent effort to achieve them. With the hope that when you look back far enough you will find that the goals you made so many years ago are the small achievements you take for granted now. What did you do to get where you are today? I used to sit in a cubicle up there and scribble quotes on yellow post-it notes ® and dream about a better view.
Go figure,
1 Billy Bragg, “Waiting for the Great Leap Forward”, Workers Playtime, Capitalism is killing music, 1989.
2 Yann Arthus-Bertrand, Herat From Above, 366 Days, New York, Harry Abrams Inc., Publishers, 2003, March
