The Playgoer: Bloomberg Courts Artists for ReElection

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Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Bloomberg Courts Artists for ReElection

NYC Dept of Cultural Affairs today unveils some outreach to the struggling artist community:

The new programs will give visual artists a chance to display their work in various city-owned properties, including the Brooklyn Army Terminal and St. George Ferry Terminal; provide free outdoor performance space in the city’s parks; train 50 out-of-work entrepreneurial professionals to apply their skill sets to the nonprofit cultural world; help artists develop business plans and provide them with low-cost studio space; and provide $25,000 grants to each of two neighborhood “arts clusters” to help organizations draw audiences.
Interesting timing for this announcement as Mayor Mike goes for his broken-promise third term in a matter of weeks. But since he seems a shoo-in*, let's hope (nay, let's make sure) he follows through.

*see fascinating etymological comments below!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

small-minded comment: shoo-in (the other reminded me of a shoe horn somehow...)

Playgoer said...

Not small minded at all, anon. Thanks.

Well damned if you don't learn something new every day. Here I was going around using the phrase with no idea how it's spelled and where it comes from.

In fact, you've led me to Michael Quinion's blog "World Wide Words," where he claims the word "seems to have come from the verb shoo, meaning to drive a person or an animal in a given direction by making noises or gestures." For more (horse racing is involved, too!) goto:
http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-sho1.htm