Cultural Center of Cape Cod

Cultural Center of Cape Cod... Where Hypocrisy Rules!

No response was ever received from the Cultural Center! 

 

From: George Slone <todslone@hotmail.com>
Sent: Saturday, April 2, 2016 10:28 AM
To: bnash@cultural-center.org
Cc: ahowes@cultural-center.org; lwolk@cultural-center.org; info@cultural-center.org; apiliavsky@gmail.com
Subject: Query for a potential art exhibit
 
To the Cultural Center of Cape Cod:  
        Besides vaunting “inclusivity,” as in “all the arts for all of us,” why not do something truly inclusive by not excluding “some of the arts for some of us”?   Why not exhibit the “Entartete Kunst” series I’ve been working on for the past several years?  It features art unlikely to be included, for example, in the inclusivity mantra of local arts centers because of its critical component (fond) regarding local arts centers themselves, as well as other “muzzlers” of the arts, one might call gatekeeper guardians of forme.  
The watercolor below (see also attached) is included in my “Entartete Kunst” series and features the Cultural Center of Cape Cod (i.e., you, Lauren Wolk, and Angela Howes).  Now, why would you reject such art?   Indeed, by rejecting it, you increase its validity and veracity.  
Well, hopefully, at least, this little missive might actually compel you to think a moment—just a brief, brief moment—out of the local arts box.  

Thank you for your hopeful attention.

Sincerely,
G. Tod Slone, PhD (universite de Nantes, FR) aka P. Maudit,
Founding Editor (1998)
The American Dissident, a 501c3 Nonprofit Journal of Literature, Democracy, and Dissidence
www.theamericandissident.org
wwwtheamericandissidentorg.blogspot.com
todslone@hotmail.com
217 Commerce Rd.

Barnstable, MA 02630

 

 

From: todslone@hotmail.com
To: ahowes@cultural-center.org
Subject: Query
Date: Sat, 18 Apr 2015 18:33:51 -0400

Hi Angela Howes, Publisher, Bass River Press (Cultural Center of Cape Cod):  
Am I perhaps unofficially excluded from all things Cultural Center of Cape Cod for having criticized the Center last year with regards its inclusion statement et al?  If not, I'd love to send a manuscript on poetry pertinent to Martha's Vineyard Island or something more critical.  Please let me know what subjects are taboo, besides the usual.   Please do respond.  Thanks!  
Sincerely,

G. Tod Slone, PhD (universite de Nantes, FR) aka P. Maudit,
Founding Editor (1998)
The American Dissident, a 501c3 Nonprofit Journal of Literature, Democracy, and Dissidence
www.theamericandissident.org
wwwtheamericandissidentorg.blogspot.com
todslone@hotmail.com
217 Commerce Rd.
Barnstable, MA 02630

Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 20:03:30 +0000
> From: ahowes@cultural-center.org
> To: todslone@hotmail.com
> Subject: Re: Query

Good afternoon,

The submission process is open to all residents of the Cape or 
Islands. Are you a full or part-time resident of the Cape? If so, you 
are eligible to submit to Bass River Press.

All manuscripts that follow the submission guidelines and contain the 
$20 submission fee will be considered. Bass River Press utilizes a 
blind reading process, so all manuscripts will be reviewed anonymously 
and judged on their merit alone.

There are no restrictions on subject or style, and the poetry does not 
necessarily have to be about the Cape or Islands.

Thank you for your email!

Sincerely,

Angela
From: todslone@hotmail.com
To: ahowes@cultural-center.org
Subject: RE: Query
Date: Tue, 21 Apr 2015 11:57:12 -0400

Hi Angela,
Thanks for your response.  Nothing personal here.  I do not know you.  BUT, as an artist and poet, I do overtly question and challenge.  I'd rather stand for truth, than get published.  Here's a few things for you to contemplate:  

1.  "Merit alone" really makes no sense.  What might the definition of "merit" be for a poem?  Who might the anonymous person or persons be to define the term?  Without a concrete definition, it remains vacuous.  Judging poems is entirely subjective.  But the term "merit" gives it some kind of vague, false objectivity. 

2.  "There are no restrictions on subject or style" is simply NOT true, so why make the statement? Examples of subject restrictions would likely include poems critical of pillars of the Cape Cod community, as well as cultural institutions, including the Cultural Center of Cape Cod from which Bass River Press was hatched.  They'd likely also include personal experience poems critical of the cultural scene on Cape Cod, which tends to abhor criticism and manifest apathy regarding democracy (e.g., issues of freedom of speech and due process).  Also, business and poetry have become far too intimately connected today and here on the Cape.  

3.  Why the $20 submission fee?  That seems quite unusual for a poetry journal.  I publish such a journal and never require a fee.  Besides, with your connections, surely you'd be able to haul in a bundle of taxpayer money from the Mid-Cape Cultural Council, which will NEVER accord my journal a dime because of its dissident stance.  

Finally, ”All the Art for All of US" is a hypocritical logo.  And "a democratic philosophy of inclusion" is downright Orwellian, especially coming from a cultural autocrat like Robert Nash, who has excluded all of my art from his Cultural Center.  How does that jive with that logo?  Most poets (99%) do not dare question and challenge people like Nash and institutions like his.  So when out of the blue a poet like me appears, the only reaction tends to be non-response.  After all, what could Nash possilby respond regarding, for example, criticism of the logo?  Questioning and challenging the Nashs clearly constitutes a hazardous risk to poetry and academic careers.  Sadly, most poets and academics prefer conformity and ladder climbing to bold truth telling.  Well, now you know who I am.  Anyhow, thanks again for the response.

G. Tod

Cultural Center of Cape Cod

Robert M. Nash

Open Letter to Robert M. Nash,

Executive Director of the Cultural Center of Cape Cod

(From Issue #28, The American Dissident)

 

As a fervent free-speech proponent, who actively tests the waters of democracy here on Cape Cod, I find your statement commendable:
 

The Cultural Center of Cape Cod is a community-based organization that strives to live up to its motto “All the Arts for All of Us” by offering a wide range of events, exhibits, and educational programs.  Everything that happens at the Cultural Center of Cape Cod—everything it does and represents—is predicated upon a democratic philosophy of inclusion, encouragement, and accessibility. Everyone who comes to the Center with an idea, question, or request is given the time, attention, and energy it takes to consider all possibilities and address needs creatively and compassionately.  At the same time, the Center strives to maintain a level of quality in its offerings that puts it among the area’s best galleries and performing arts centers. Its goal is to encourage both excellence and inclusion.
 

Sadly, however, the waters of democracy on the Cape seem to be quite murky.   Might the Cultural Center waters be equally murky?  Does “all the arts” include my art too?  Likely it does NOT.  “Inclusion” pronouncements tend to be fraudulently issued by cultural apparatchiks, poets and artistes of the machine, political hacks, and Cape Cod library directors… you know, as in “libraries should provide materials and information presenting all points of view,” but somehow manage to permanently exclude points of view like mine.   Director Lucy Loomis, for example, permanently excluded my viewpoints from Sturgis Library without warning or due process, proving the point. 

These things said, how about a show to counter your “Heavenly Bodies:  The Human Form, Transformed” exhibit called “Shaky Community Pillars:  Business-as-Usual” in which artists would submit work critical of local art apparatchiks, librarians, chamber-of-commerce bureaucrats, academics, etc.?   Why is art so dull, predictable, and safe on Cape Cod?  Why is it so smiley-face and lacking in societal criticism?  Why is it rarely, if ever, art against the established order?  Evidently, the latter has been quite successful in coopting it.  “Quality” and “excellence,” two highly subjective terms, are evidently used to dismiss art of a critical nature. 

Can I meet with you to propose an art and literary exhibit that would test the veracity of your “inclusion” statement above?  Your poet curator, Joe Gouveia, has already proven it to be essentially untrue, so I thought I should check with you before drawing my final conclusions.  Thank you for your attention and hopeful response.  I’d be glad to come down to the Center to meet with you.  If I do not hear from you, I will come down to knock on your door.  Thank you for your hopeful attention. 

[No response.  Nothing like excluded inclusion!]

 

Open Letter #2 to Robert M. Nash

So, your non-response leads me to believe that you are commonly thin-skinned regarding valid criticism and also shamefully hypocritical regarding your very own statement, in particular, “All the Arts for All of Us” and “democratic philosophy of inclusion.”  Clearly, you have decided that I am ONE ARTIST NOT FOR YOU and YOUR CENTER, which clearly points to the hypocrisy of your purported “inclusion.”  Why feel compelled to jabber about INCLUSION when you must certainly know in your hearts that by nature you wish to be EXCLUSIONARY?  As a perhaps rare intellectually honest person, I do have great difficulty understanding the COMMON CULTURAL APPARATCHIK.  How about helping me in that endeavor?  When will you be available to meet with me at YOUR Cultural Center… in the name of INCLUSION?  Please do respond!  I am a taxpaying citizen of Barnstable… and you are receiving tax funding. 

[No response.  No accountability. Culture as Usual...]