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I know time doesnt feel real right now but time is running out.
The Paycheck Protection Program loans are drying up.
As of July 31, the $600 unemployment insurance assistance checks will stop coming.
Athird of U.S. museumssay they might not recover at all.
Music festivals and arts-in-education programs and theaters are all in existential peril.
The freelancers who make the art are about to be evicted.
Perhaps during this quarantine youve listened to some music or watched a livestream to keep the isolation at bay?
But workisbeing done, though theres no figurehead for it.
In the U.K., when pandemic funding for the arts was in question, public figures rallied.
Not next week, or next month.
If they die, an ecosystem this intricate and evolved cannot be rebuilt from scratch.
If it stops breathing, it cannot be resuscitated.
InThe Guardian, the West End producer Sonia Friedman said that British theater was on brink of total collapse.
Celebrities demanded help for the arts sector and the result was a bailout package of 1.57 billion.
Where are our Mendes equivalents?
You dont save 5 million jobs that way.
Where are their demands?
Fancy people, the countrys op-ed pages await you.
One new effort,Be an Arts Hero,has stepped into the gap.
research) to reach out to all 100 senators.
These shutdowns are negatively, and disproportionately, affecting BIPOC people.
And there have been victories.
But she says the vast majority of aid will need to come from the Feds.
Keep the pressure on their shoulders, she says.
But of course thats actually the sound of the last-to-reopen businesses crying out for their lives.
These are also the businesses that, if they survive, help a community revive.
The celebrity dependence on both sides of the equation is incredibly depressing.
Are we really not capable of paying attention without a boldface name attached?
Even if its difficult to focus, we cant wait for the junket to start.
It would be nice if some famous American person decided to get involved, sure.
But I know my senatorsphone numbers too.And I have the time.
