I was asked if I’d come and talk at Stillwater, and be paid $40,000. I said, “That’s an awful lot of money for a little library.”There. now you don't have to read Gaiman's side of it. You can thank me with reading another article in a different place before you comment ignorantly.
“It’s not from the library. It’s from the Legacy Fund, a Minnesota tax allocation that allows the library to pay market rates to bring authors to suburban libraries who otherwise wouldn’t be able to bring them in. They have to use the money now as it won’t roll over to next year and expires next month.”
“Ah.”
Well, that seemed fairly simple. They’d already booked a number of other authors. They had the money sitting there and were happy to pay me my rack rate. Either they gave the money to me or it went away – it couldn’t be used for anything else. And, most importantly, the dates worked. Another week and I would have had to say no, as I would have been away writing. But I got in from Chicago that morning. I said yes.
I figure money like that, sort of out-of-the-blue windfall money, is best used for Good Deeds, so I let a couple of small and needy charities (one doing social work, the other library/book based) know that I would be passing the money on to them, after agents had taken their commission, and did not think twice about it.
are pretty ridiculous. Neil Gaiman knew he was attending a tiny public library, and that the money was state funded. That he blithely decided to charge full price instead of reducing his fee ("because nobody asked") was a super poor decision. The idiots in charge of the library may have been primarily at fault, but he doesn't deserve to escape his share of the blame just because he's a leftist we like.Well, he gave the money to charity, so what's the problem? If Gamin hadn't taken it would have just gone into the general fund for the state. Since it wasn't budgeted for anything it wouldn't be spent. On the other hand, Gaiman actually donated the money to charity, so it was actually put to a better use.
What's up with all the people assuming that it is impossible to have read the links and and still to disagree with them?Because some people seem to misunderstand the basic series of events?
Gaiman, as I understand it, knows a bit about the seductive power of myth. And that's why I'm angry at him: he should have known better, should have realized, in the current political climate, that this would be misused, against him, and against funding for the arts in general.That's completely fucking ridiculous. Do you sit around every day and wonder how your actions will reflect on liberalism if they suddenly became national news? Because that's completely ridiculous.
This has nothing to do with the fpp controversy but: if a writer's time is so short that he has to set his rate up to $ridiculous to defend himself against all the requests to come and talk to some group, why do speaking gigs at all? Why not just state "Mr. Gaiman is a writer not an entertainer, he does not do speaking gigs"?Well, there's no reason not to do that but I don't see what the point is. Presumably he's OK with doing speaking engagements occasionally and is happy to take $45k to do it.
I'm a fan of Gaiman. I think he's a generally a standup guy. But there is no way in hell that he should have charged a library (or the state) just a few miles from his house $45,000 to make an appearance. Period. I don't care if he gave the money to charity. It's obscene.He didn't charge "a library" the money came from the state government. He was paid to speak at a library. So just to be clear: you would prefer he turn them down and have the money just roll back to the state government, instead of being spent on the charities he donated too?
The real question here is why was this library sitting on $45,000 that they had to spend right now or lose.They didn't. The money didn't come from the library. Seriously it's RTFA-Day for a reason.
In November 2008, Minnesotans passed the clean water, land, and legacy amendment to the Minnesota Constitution. As a result, over the next twenty-five years, 3/8 of one percent of the state’s sales tax will be dedicated as follows:
33 percent to a clean water fund,
33 percent to an outdoor heritage fund,
14.25 percent to a parks and trails fund, and
19.75 percent to an arts and cultural heritage fundThis is a ridiculously nitpicky statement, btw. The money was allocated to bring speakers to libraries. It doesn't really matter if it was accounted for out of state dollars or the library budget. The facts are the same-- they spent an absurd amount of money to get Gaiman to speak, and they shouldn't have.Wtf are you talking about? I honestly don't understand what you're trying to say here: do you think the money could have been used for library books or something instead?
I'm pretty sure that anybody can come up with a thousand better uses for 45k off the top of their head that would fit in with their mission statement.Maybe, but they had to spend one hundred million dollars The $45k was just a part of that.
No one is saying that. It's not clear how you could think anyone was saying that. It would be impossible to do 8 $45k speeches in 8 locations each day five days a week 52 weeks a year. Doing a speaking engagement takes at least an entire day of actual time, it requires adjusting schedules and turning down other engagements, and so on.
Assuming a standard 2000 hour work-year, you think Neil Gaiman makes "considerably more than" 90 million dollars a year?
According to Forbes magazine, that means Gaiman makes more annually than all but the top four most highly paid CEOs in the world?
Only Larry Culp Jr, Larry Ellison, Aubrey McClendon, and Ray Irani makes more than Neil Gaiman? And even some of those make less if we look at a five year average?
What does "it had to be spent" even mean? If they had spent $10k on a speaker, were they going to light the other $35k on fire?They wouldn't have been able to spend it on anything else. I'm not sure why this is so complicated for people.
Otherwise that is some pretty shoddy planning on spending a hefty chunk of taxpayer money.Again they had $108 million dollars to spend. Is it realistic to expect people to spend that much money without spending any of it on stuff random people might declare 'frivolous' later on? What happens if they make plans and some of their stuff doesn't come through, or comes in under budget?
We all want money to be used for good, but process matters.Well, some people are criticizing Gaiman for taking the money, saying he never should have taken it, or whatever.
They have to use the money now as it won’t roll over to next year and expires next month.posted by smackfu at 12:35 PM on May 6, 2011
An autuer! Not at your level! In a much higher position than you! He's A-list, you plebs don't understand how it is in the stratosphere!Apparently government arts money should be spent on shitty art. For someone living paycheck to paycheck and making $20k per year the tax would amount to $75 a year. Oh boo hoo. Also the money was allocated by a constitutional referendum, not by "the democrats" or whatever.
Yeah, how's that play to the guy who makes minimum wage and pays for this Legacy Fund through a regressive sales tax?
It plays to him like out of touch liberals in their ivory towers playing Marie Antoinette with money he would have spent on diapers for his kid. And then he votes Repoublican and against the arts.
Quit with the RTFA shit already. We read it, we just think paying an already mega rich dude the equivalent of most peoples annual salary for 4 hours work was a wrong decision and not a prudent or wise way to spend public funds.If hal_on_c had read the article, he wouldn't have made that moronic comment about spending the money on books or whatever.
Really. Please to direct me to which of my comments said that.Who said you, in particular didn't read the article? No one as far as I can tell. So you must have been talking about someone else, and clearly there were people in this thread who hadn't read the article or else they wouldn't be making claims that were clearly incorrect.
Urdahl also released a letter from the executive director of the Metropolitan Library Service Agency, who apologized for using "poor judgment" in paying Gaiman's fee. "In our naivete, we simply thought there was no room for negotiation," said Chris Olson, the group's executive director. "I am very sorry."Chris Olson is the executive director of MELSA, not Stillwater Library.
Another alternative that would have been much better value would be to ask Neil Gaiman for something special under the unusual circumstances; to visit ten or twenty libraries rather than just one, for example. Obviously, that would have been 1-2 weeks of work, like a mini-tour in itself. Being a solitary and creative type myselfBut why would someone who doesn't like giving lectures and can actually get $45k for a speaking engagement want to do that?
Why not? Poor people don't read? Maybe they might like to see him and they got the opportunity because of this program. I'm willing to bet a lot of the 500 people who saw him were poor. Do you seriously think poor people don't like to read or what?Apparently government arts money should be spent on shitty art. For someone living paycheck to paycheck and making $20k per year the tax would amount to $75 a year. Oh boo hoo.And let's face it, in his time off, this guy is unlikely to go to see a speech by Neil Gaiman.
Anyway, the lesson here seems to be that inefficiency can get very expensive. Maybe next time they could invite Paul Krugman and ask him to give a lecture on microeconomics.Paul Krugman would say this counts as economic stimulus and is a good thing in a down economy.
Reading, education level, income level, and social class are all positively correlated.*blink*.
People who read tend to be educated, the educated tend to make more money, more money pays for social status.
Neil Gaiman is a local. And the working class would probably be more interested in Stepanie Meyer, or whatever sells well at Wal*Mart.I'm sure they would. Do you think she would do an appearance for $45k?
Say, if the library had a staff vehicle budget and spent the year-end $45,000 on a 2010 Porsche Boxter instead of a boring fleet vehicle or two, I think I would feel pretty bad about that.Sure, but if the money had been allocated for a automotive history musiem to buy 'sweet rides' in order to get people to come in and check out the collection then buying ten 1990 geo prisms wouldn't be a more effective use of the money.
so, instead contracting with several speakers for a decent, sustained program of events, they just pissed it away on one guy? - this could have been done - a lot of other public entities do it all the timeIt was the end of the year and this particular program had that money left over. Lots of people are saying the money should have been spent to pay for roads/books/orphans but the money was earmarked for speakers and they had to spend it right away. It's not at all clear that 10 $4.5k speakers would have been as worthwhile for the community as one $45k speaker.
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posted by Artw at 8:40 AM on May 6, 2011 [5 favorites]