The Killing of the Creative Class

A must-read by Scott Timberg

I do believe that the right book falls into one’s hands at the right time.

Such is this: Culture Crash: The Killing of the Creative Class, by Scott Timberg, 2015, Yale University Press, ISBN 9780300195880

(Use this International Standard Book Number for ease-ful ordering from your beloved local independent bookstore. Before it’s gone.)

Chapters are each built around occupations and art forms, from architecture to print to music. The breadth of knowledge is admirable, amassed in a short life-time. But the depth that Scott Timberg dived to, too, requires some serious amounts of oxygen; it is dark down in the murk of art and creatives and curiosity trying to root and grow in a system that is — increasingly — all about bottom lines of dollars and measurables. Art is a slippery immeasurable thing, and the powers-that-believe-themselves-to-be don’t understand how to measure it. We know it’s measurable because it is life and death. But it doesn’t tip scales, except from some eyes.

So much of culture is chance encounter between human beings ~ Dana Gioia

The problem isn’t the decline of economy…the problem is the collapse of culture ~~ Timberg

Carolyn Forche said the thing she most feared about the Internet was that it would destroy the contemplative mode. It’s about attention.

I suppose if I believed in trigger warnings, here is where I’d post one. But I don’t believe. I think there are things we need to know, things we need to act upon, to the best of our ability. (See my link at bottom, if you insist on knowing how I feel about TW.)

Wanting to say “thanks!”

Some pages in I found myself hungry to write a note to the author, to Mr. Timberg, just to let him know how much I appreciate the work and knowledge, the intellectual inquiry and human emotion.

The book as a whole was making me feel it was a love letter of sorts — the begging sort. Not pretty emotions, but keenly felt. His sheer amount of collected knowledge took the edge off the emotion or what might be read as negativity. I was feeling that these words were things I — as a writer, and the mother of young adults trying to create lives in film and music — need to understand. There was missionary zeal, yes, but with solid backing. So, a missionary love-letter. I can live with that.

Halfway through the book, I decided to look up the man. This book was published in 2015. I did the search thing. And discovered that Scott Timberg died, not long ago. I felt saddened (pause), and returned to the book. Read on. Went back to search. After all he was only 50, younger than me by a half dozen years.

Too late

Minutes later, I felt as if I’d been hit. In 2008, he’d lost his job at The Los Angeles Times, and had been freelancing as well as writing and publishing this book. On December 10, 2019, he committed suicide.

I read the second half of the book with this knowledge, re-envisioning it as a suicide note. Still absorbing as What I Need To Know. Now with an edge to it. To try to make the world a better place. More open. Healing.

The book is written about and for mid-list artists, middle-class artists, if you will. Not the big name people, but those of us who eke a living, either as creatives or as those who connect the works of artists with those who need it and enjoy it and consume — in the healthy sense of the word. So it is still a love letter.

I’m going to suggest now that you read this book. If for no other reason than to remember things we have lost — do you remember the record store clerk who turned you on to that song? that artist? Do you remember when any newspaper that took pride in what it was had weekly book and music reviews? What about when every school had a full-time librarian who knew the student body and chose books accordingly?

Now we can write lists of Endangered Jobs and Extinct Vocations. We have lost ways to be. What is replacing them? What is replacing them of value?

Sir Kenneth Robinson (also recently deceased — another huge loss) spoke of how we waste human resources daily.

This time of COVID is revealing the sustaining nature of art in all its forms. I know I am suffering from the loss of live music. It plays a serious role in my mental health.

Keep going

I’m hanging on by writing more, reading more, reaching out to those I love more. But collectively, we need to keep art, creatives, and creativity, close to our hearts, and act on that. We need to care about each other, and feed each other. That means — yes, consuming — buying and appreciating — each others’ work.

The alternative is unthinkable.

Read the book; you’ll see what I’m on about.