July 22, 2007
Beastly ArtBeat Brings Out the Crowd.
On Saturday I spent a couple hours hawking dog tags for the Somerville Arts Council at the ArtBeat (ArtBeast is the theme) arts festival in Davis Square. I was feeling good about how many dog tags I’d sold when I discovered that some guy had sold 3x as many. He claimed to be using some Jedi, positive thinking, people want my product, mind powers (I think he just has a nice soft approach…but who am I to disparage the strength of creative visualization). After learning that I had been crushed by the force, I couldn’t help thinking about my mom, who at that very moment was probable losing a rally in a senior badminton match thanks to the bad sales energy my performance had lobbed out into the cosmos. Before she retired my mother made her living working on commission and could sell anybody (except me) anything. When I think about my mom’s “people don’t know they want it and they need me to show them that they do” personality and my “people want to figure out whether or not they want it on their own” personality, I can hardly believe that the two of us, who look and sound like twins (except that I am much taller), came from the same gene pool. I highly dislike selling stuff although I enjoy the hawking part – paying attention to people and getting them to laugh. But I don’t like convincing people to hand over their cash even if it is for something that I really like and would buy. The minute a person pulls out their wallet I start thinking, “Geez, I wish I could just give you this for free.” So… maybe selling is all about Jedi mind tricks…in that it REALLY matters what you are thinking when you are trying to get people to buy something.
Anyway, my favorite ArtBeast moment was a performance by the Silver Swimmers, a group of performance artists from Western Massachusetts. The kids were gonzo for them. I would like to know though… are the Silver Swimmers a spin-off from the original British group, or are they the original group that is now based in Massachusetts? Anybody know?
And I thought I had too much time on my hands…: )
Garden variety North American Nomad. Born in the Midwest; lived and worked on the West Coast and abroad; studied in the South. Recently spotted putting down roots in New England.