Adrift in a world of nonessentials
Like every event, the Pittsburgh Humanities Festival was canceled this month to stop the spread of COVID-19. Like every event of scale, its planning took much effort by many people, in this case a yearlong effort by more than 100 people whose time and work has inherent value with or without the end result.
I was looking forward to hearing Robert “Faruq” Wideman talk about the commutation of his life sentence last year after serving 44 years. That talk was scheduled to be one of the core conversations on March 22. Faruq, who had been convicted and sentenced in a 1975 killing, is the brother of John Edgar Wideman, a much better known writer (“Philadelphia Fire,” “Sent for You Yesterday,” among more than 20 books of fiction and
nonfiction), but Faruq’s book “Life Sentences,” which he compiled with five other lifers, was bringing him to the festival.
I committed $5 for a ticket to hear Faruq Wideman, a price the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust sets low to make the festival inclusive. Obviously, that doesn’t cover its cost.
Scott Shiller, the Trust’s vice president of artistic planning, didn’t want to talk money, but an event of this scale requires a lot of it. The Trust raises funds among corporate sponsors, foundations and individuals, and it draws support from Carnegie Mellon University, its partner.
The festival was to have taken place March 20-22. Its tagline is “Smart talk about stuff that matters.” It brings academics, artists, musicians, writers, educators, innovators, scientists and policy experts to inform and entertain in a kind of TED Talk atmosphere.
At my first festival several years ago, I heard filmmaker John Sayles (“Matewan,” “Lone Star” “Eight Men Out”) and Terrence Hayes, a prolific and gifted poet who has won numerous awards, including the National Book Award for poetry. Mr. Hayes was named a MacArthur Fellow in 2014.
With several friends in the audiences, I felt elevated by the experience and so lucky to live in a city that has a festival that celebrates the great subjects — language, literature, history, jurisprudence, philosophy, ethics and the arts.
In reflecting on all the people and events we are missing during this time of social isolation, feeling elevated can seem like a luxury. Millions of people are living on idle, their work on hold. Public support, subsidies, unemployment benefits and other federal remedies won’t be enough to sustain them if this goes on, as some predict, well past summer.
That will mean more canceled events, from the cultural to the sporting, and increasing general angst.
Even with so much uncertainty in the months ahead, the Trust’s staffers are beginning to think about the 2021 humanities festival, Mr. Shiller said. They will make hundreds of phone calls to line up speakers and organize lodging, food and technical needs, including lighting and visual presentations like slide shows, and then the marketing folks will go to work selling tickets.
“We spent a huge portion of the budget and it was to support the local economy,” he said, “but money not spent will contribute to next year’s festival.”
Anyone who bought a ticket can ask for a refund, donate the ticket price to the Trust or use its value for another Trust program, he said.
This is an opportunity for someone like me, who only spent $5, to let the Trust keep the money as a small token of my appreciation, but some families are going to be toughing out their days to come and $5 might be helpful at home.
“We understand every family needs to do what’s right for them,” Mr. Shiller said. “We’re here to be community supporters. We like to call this [cancellation] an intermission.”
Living in a world of rampant pandemic, with so many more questions than answers, it is essential to prohibit gatherings and to warn people away from interactions that can be avoided. In an emergency, we should distinguish between things essential and nonessential.
But as I hunker down, working from home as much as I can, calling off dinner dates out of concern because someone coughed near me, getting more reading done, with pets getting suspicious of all the attention, I mostly wander mentally through the world I miss — the one that considers the humanities, the arts, mom-and-pop stores, baseball games and hugs from friends essential to life.