[OT] [Long] [Inflammatory] Re: [Coco] Jingo - Jango - Mars

[Dennis Bathory-Kitsz]

At 02:31 PM 1/15/04 CST, ostro011 wrote:
>I'm sure you have looked at all the positives and negatives of each
>society, and you chose the Netherlands because of your research.  I hope
>things work out for you there, and you are not disenchanted by the
>experience.  Sometimes the grass always looks greener..., but sometimes it
>really is.

I've lived there. It really is greener. There are very non-American things
both negative (it is a monarchy, trials are not before juries, land use is
highly regulated) and positive (what I've already said, national health
care, respect for my wife's work as a midwife, plus their free speech is
far freer than American free speech). It is also the first place that I had
my music broadcast on national radio, the first place to present a concert
dedicated to my work, and I am already part of the community there -- even
though I've only been back a week each year since I lived there in 1991-92.

>What is your timeframe for the move?

As soon as I can afford to (they require a certain amount of money on
arrival to reside and not immediately drop into the welfare system) and
begin easing the extended family into our departure from them. It could be
5 years -- more if it gets very sticky here, and less if the opportunities
there continue to arise and it becomes too expensive to travel back and
forth. One can make a living as a composer there, unlike in America, where
composers must either teach or become commercial successes to have their
work keep them sustained.

Frankly, I am very tired of being part of the unpaid American Research &
Development team for music, where my techniques and those of my colleagues
will appear in commercialized music in 10 or 20 or 50 years. In other
countries, they support their artists because they respect the very nature
of the work, not because there's a euro to be made.

>What will your citizenship status be at both places
>- dual?

I'll probably become a Dutch citizen. I speak the native language (badly,
but improving) and the other languages taught in their schools (English,
French, and German) and know the history, and have been welcomed into the
society already.

>Is the move mostly because of "artistic" reasons, or are there
>other, very fundamental, reasons?

For me, artistic reasons *are* fundamental. I am a composer and have always
sought to make it possible to survive as one here in America. But as I grew
older I realized that my idealism was ill-founded, and that America has
never treated its children in the arts with respect. We remain a Puritan
state, just as mistrusting of arts and what they meant (and challenged) as
our ancestors did. Though we claim fundamental principles, those principles
are worth no more than their selling price.

>I know that most of us come from backgrounds that had distant relatives
>immigrate to the US for some of the same reasons you are mentioning for
>leaving the US.  Have we changed that much as a country since the 1800's?

I think so. Greed and power have always existed, but we have
institutionalized it and celebrate it more and more. The wealthy today keep
an increasing portion of the money they have "earned" (a word I use very
advisedly) largely from the labor of others, give just enough of their
extreme wealth to foundations who distribute to agencies who distribute to
projects the IRS has deemed appropriate. The artists are today either
commercialized or 'charity cases'. I have refused to be either, and find
myself unable to accept that the richest and most powerful nation in the
history of the world has become so while infantilizing its cultural
development.

And in my personal interest, we are the first civilized country for whom
the teaching of reading and writing in music is not even a goal. I taught
for six years to demonstrate that it was not only possible, but it was
basic. I won the New England Regional Award for my work. But ultimately it
had no effect because society as a whole believes, despite their words, in
mediocrity and ignorance.

>(Oh, and before you go, if you still have that Rainbow tape I sent you -
>remember the sticky tape conversation thread on this list many moons ago

I am *so* forgetful sometimes. I lead three lives, 18 hours a day working,
and have rudely forgotten to do this twice now.

Dennis