Tag: Philip Glass

Writer’s Desk: Work to Create

On By chrisbarsantiIn Books, WritingLeave a comment
Philip Glass (Nancy Lee Katz, 1992)

In the 1970s, Philip Glass had become an American composer to watch. Celebrated and also vilified, his minimalist work got attention. But it didn’t pay the bills. In fact, Glass lost money pretty much every time he took his ensemble on tour. So how did he get by? The son of Baltimore immigrants, Glass did whatever he had to do. Working a crane at a steel foundry. Driving a New York cab in the Taxi Driver days. Running his own moving company (sometimes advertised in the Village Voice as Prime Mover). Also being a self-taught plumber.

Which led to this encounter when Glass was installing a dishwasher in a Soho loft sometime in the 1970s:

While working, I suddenly heard a noise and looked up to find Robert Hughes, the art critic of Time magazine, staring at me in disbelief. ‘But you’re Philip Glass! What are you doing here?’ It was obvious that I was installing his dishwasher and I told him I would soon be finished. ‘But you are an artist,’ he protested. I explained that I was an artist but that I was sometimes a plumber as well and that he should go away and let me finish…

The very obvious moral of this story? Some artists have sponsors. They are the lucky ones. For the rest of us, do what you have to do to pay for paper, toner ink, and the electric bill.

Even if that means installing an art critic’s dishwasher.

(h/t Ted Gioia)

Writer’s Desk: Philip Glass Drove a Cab

On By chrisbarsantiIn Books, WritingLeave a comment

If you’re like most writers, you know that it almost never pays the bills. (The other writers know this, too, they just haven’t admitted it yet.) That means you need to keep working while writing. How do you do both? As usual, it’s whatever works for you. But flexibility is key.

Take composer Philip Glass. He had a couple day jobs that kept the lights on until he was in his 40s. He did some contracting work like plumbing and also building kitchens and putting in heating in SoHo lofts.

An even better fit, though, seemed to be his time as a cabbie. This is what he told Lolade Fadulu:

I would pick up a car, usually around 5 o’clock in the afternoon, and I would drive till one or two in the morning, and I would get up early in the morning, actually to take my kids to school, because I had kids growing up in New York at the time. And sometimes I would stay up all through the night, write music, then take the kids to school. Then I would go to sleep around 8 or 9 o’clock and I would wake up around 4 o’clock and go back to the garage or wherever I was going. So I could combine a workday and a regular writing schedule at the same time.

It seems like there should be a good minimalist opera in him about driving the city at night. Or plumbing. Time will tell.