Hello Minnesota Orchestra management!!! Welcome!!!
Slap on a name-tag and step right up! We’ve been waiting for you!
Just in case the discs I sent you on 19 September didn’t burn correctly – or they don’t work on your system – or they’ve gotten lost – here is a link to the hundred-ish questions I’d like you to answer re: the Minnesota Orchestra…
Here’s the link again.
:)
Here’s a link to a PDF version of my questions.
And here’s a link to a .doc version of my questions.
And if you want any more document formats, let me know, and I’ll convert them right away for you.
I’m trying my best to make it as easy as possible for you!
I’ll keep this entry at the top of the blog for as long as it takes until I hear back from you!
When you’re done, let me know. We’ll get in touch about how you want to deliver your answers. My return mailing address is on the manila envelope I sent you. Or you can comment in the comment section. Or contact me through Facebook. Somehow we’ll touch base with one another.
Anyway, thanks so much for your time. You really have no idea how much it’s appreciated. Can’t wait to hear from you, and neither can my readers…
Edit, eight months later (5/30): I’m still waiting…
Song of the Lark 
Haha…funny. We know they’re reading this stuff. But they won’t come forward. Cowards.
Hey management! Here’s a chance to prove one of your most devoted patrons wrong about you being cowards! Right here! Step right up! :D
Ha, we’ll see how this goes. Thank you so much SOTL. YOU actually did something; something that could potentially help the situation. Ken, you’re absolutely right, they’re reading this (if they aren’t, they’re way stupider than they’re making themselves out to be). Let’s hope we get something out of this. Even a “stern-talking-to-don’t-interfer-with-our-negotiations-thank-you-very-much” would be great! At least then we’d know where their position lies in the grand scheme. Bring on the answers MNO management! Let’s see you climb out of the hole you’ve dug. I won’t start reconsidering that you **might** have some good ideas/best interest of the MNO at heart until I hear some substantial explanations.
How likely do you think it is we get a response???
I say there’s a 2% chance that Henson answers. I think the likelihood of Campbell or Davis answering is about the likelihood of a Romney landslide (that is, .4% according to statistician Nate Silver). http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/ (Note that’s a .4. In that, I think it has less than half a percentage point chance of happening.)
But, the more people that spread this around…Twitter, Facebook…the more people that question them…write them…maybe the more pressure they’ll feel to say something, if only “we can’t talk about this now”… (Which, btw, is total bullshit because they released their frigging proposed contract. I don’t know why they did that if they weren’t prepared to answer questions about it…) But still, it would be SOMETHING. SOME acknowledgment that orchestra patrons are upset and concerned.
(That’s management’s cue to step in and prove me wrong.)
but let’s be honest. Best case scenario, top management gets the letter. Even if they don’t respond, they’re still gonna be pretty pissed off. And what more could we ask for?! Really, if that’s the best we can do, I say well done!
*thumbs up*
I have to say, I started out being really pissed at both sides – you know that from reading my previous rantings. But I’ve really come down full-board on the side of the musicians now. I’m still of the belief that the fix is somewhere down the middle, but I just don’t like how Management is treating the situation. There’s a right way and wrong way to do approach things in life, and they are not doing this the right way. The ‘it’s our way, or the highway’ approach frankly has no place in our society.
Management, are you listening?? Keep going the way you’re going and you are going to crash and burn in the PR battle. And despite all your money…YOU NEED TO WIN THE PR BATTLE.
I agree with you wholeheartedly, Ken.
I’m the same way! I wanted to be impartial, open to both sides, but management is absolutely beyond reason at this point. Completely ridiculous. Go Musicians!
Lark, I don’t want to dampen your enthusiam but I feel you should be aware there is a possibility your blog is being visited by a botnet. They’re not really capable of viewing your videos on YouTube so there’s a possible reason for the low views numbers there. Anyway, be as professional as you can (I would have verified the CDs contents, but that’s just me, eek!) and definitely consider at some point getting a journslism degree. So many people could benefit from you doing that, not just you. I know money doesn’t grow on trees, but still. Anyway, anyway, yeah, good luck and here’s to hoping you have a HUGE and positive impact on this. :)
If you’re talking about the “thousands” of views I claim I’ve gotten, happily, that number is pretty safely corroborated… My entry “Is Minnesota Orchestra management lying to us?” got into the hands of A LOT of people, both in ways I could and could not track, and although I’m generally a pretty cautious person, I feel confident in saying that thousands of people have seen this blog in the last few weeks, and a certain percentage of those viewers are checking in intermittently. (Tens of thousands? Eh, probably not. But thousands? Definitely.)
I’d also like to clarify: I did check all of the discs’ contents before I sent them off. BUT once in a great while my drive or my computer fucks up, and tells me there’s stuff on discs I’ve recently burned that’s not actually there. Are you a computer expert? Would you know what causes that? It doesn’t seem to have any rhyme or reason; just every once in a great great while there’s an issue. Maybe it’s me misunderstanding what I’m doing…but I don’t have issues for long stretches of time, so… Anyway, I thought I was all set after I checked them, but then later I got the “you still have files waiting to burn” message and I got paranoid that of all times, this was the one of those very few times that I’d have issues. I need to clarify the blog entry, because it does indeed sound right now like I sent them out without even attempting to check them, but I did. Sorry, brain frazzle. I’ll edit the entry.
And a musicology degree focusing on the role of gender in historical performance is very possibly in the future. So more of this, just less controversial, and about dead women. I don’t really like dealing with living people, especially living people with large amounts of power. Too stressful. I will be very happy when this is all over, because I am not cut out for covering perpetual conflict & crisis.
Thanks so very much for the feedback and friendly advice. xx
Could be just your PC having caching problems. Think of burning a disk like reading through sheet music as you play. You need to focus and concentrate. The same goes for your PC. All other programs should be closed when you burn a disk. I’m in no way an expert though, so dunno. Bit of a head scratcher.
And I see your point with regards to living people versus dead, lol. I imagine you’re a little nervous about now.
Fingers crossed and hoping for the best.
Thanks for the feedback. I’ve never heard that you should have all other programs closed, so thanks for that tip. *feels dumb* Heck, maybe I’ll send one more set of CDs to management in a week or so, just to make sure! :D lol
But the chances of management actually acknowledging, let alone reading, my questions are slim to none, so……. *shrug* The only person who I think has a vague possibility of answering is Henson, but judging by what I’ve read about him, I honestly don’t think he’d even insert the CD. (Mr. Henson, if you’re reading this, PLEASE prove me wrong!!!) Actually, I don’t think his assistant will even give it to him. (Mr. Henson’s assistant, if you’re reading this, PLEASE prove me wrong!!!) But anyway, this might well be an irrelevant conversation lol!!!!