Not the Arts We Were Looking For...

The Madville Times loves live music. We even like to pump up the volume every now and then. But we'd rather not have a thunderous live music event at midnight keeping the entire lake awake. Such was the case last night, as a rather raucous party with a live band thundered its music at the Madison Country Club until at least one a.m.

Madville Times World Headquarters sits one and a quarter crow-flying miles south of the country club. The windows were closed, a movie was playing (The Motorcycle Diaries -- a fun, beautiful, and thoughtful movie, enjoyable even if you aren't a communist revolutionary), and we could still hear the party. We can only imagine how thunderously loud the ruckus must have been to the dozens of families who live around the golf course and on nearby Pelican Point and Territorial Road.

It was obviously loud enough to draw several calls to the Lake County Sheriff's Department. When contacted at 12:20 p.m., the sheriff's dispatcher reported several calls about the noise had already been received. The dispatcher offered an assurance that a deputy would be sent out to the source of the noise. The deupty must have hit some heavy midnight traffic, as the band played on until at least 1:00 a.m.

To put this event in context, we've been talking a lot this week about the arts and the need for more music in our local life. More live music in Madison would be a wonderful improvement to our culture. However, arts should build community. They should express our neighborliness. if someone's going to host an arts event, I'd prefer to be invited to enjoy it rather than to have such an event barge into my living room and interrupt my other chosen entertainment (or my baby's precious slumber).

Such is the ethos followed by the Madville Times. I offer these small contributions to the local political and literary culture to all readers who feel like clicking and commenting. However, I don't plant viruses to reset everyone's homepage to the Madville Times or drive through neighborhoods shouting my latest entries by bullhorn into everyone's homes. Sharing the arts is one thing; forcing your particular arts on unwilling and uninvited listeners (especially after midnight) demonstrates an arrogance and lack of community spirit to be ashamed of.