Here’s a cruel joke for you: the first day of Frankfurt’s Musikmesse trade show? The date on which all the music tech press releases for the show have dated their embargo? April First.

Now, to me, the whole point of April Fool’s is surprise, or at least humor. April Fool’s has become so obligatory that everything from faux press releases to blog posts are dedicated to the topic whether they were inspired or not. So, you know what? No April Fool’s Day here. Anything covered on this site tomorrow will be – to the best of my knowledge, anyway – real. (Or as near reality as we ever get.)

Ironically, news in our world is so unsurprising, any interesting news is immediately suspected of being fake. Teenage Engineering’s Operator-1 is so cool looking that, aside from concerns it may not ship, some of you have gone so far to worry the whole thing is an elaborate April Fool’s prank. (One clue that that’s nonsense: it was announced on March 30. It even missed the Ides of March.)

But there you go: case in point. Reality actually can be cool. So we’ll stay away from the pranks this year, and any foolery will be of the technological kind. Enjoy.

The tech press stopped today to keep up with Apple’s new SDK, version 3.0. It is a huge overhaul, and let’s give Apple credit where it’s due: they’re relentless in improving their mobile software, and they do listen to complaints and respond. I don’t think you can classify copy and paste as news, given Apple is the company that popularized the concept eons ago. (How long ago? Not only was Reagan President, but MTV still played music videos.) But 3.0 is a huge upgrade. Most mobile devices develop some usability quirks and functionality holes and leave them for years on end; Apple is actually improving their device.

Synthtopia goes out on a limb and says iPhone 3.0 kicks ass for music.

Well … sort of. The thing that makes the iPhone special for music is that it has Core Audio and can run C/C++ code. Google’s Android, by comparison, currently has a limited set of APIs and, as near as I can tell, no easy way to get a real synthesis or effects library going. That’s allowed the likes of Pure Data and ChucK to run serious real-time synthesis and audio processing, in the guise of consumer-friendly apps. Think this doesn’t matter to non-CDM readers? Tell that to the zillions of people who bought Ocarina for the iPhone as a toy. This is, mark my words, a very big deal. It just isn’t any more of a big deal in iPhone 3.0.

The other improvements still have the caveats that the iPhone has always had. The iPhone still has a closed ecosystem that’s dependent on iTunes, plus restrictions on hardware and software that keep it from being, well, as open as your Mac or Windows computer is, or even many mobile devices. Now, what you do with those limitations is up to you. I believe in dissent and disagreement on the Web, and I think the iPhone has no shortage of cheerleaders. I’m not a fan of Apple’s model. That’s my bias, and I’m upfront about it, I think.

But my opinions aside, let’s talk specifics.

MSA Remote for iPhone from Memo Akten on Vimeo.

Since the dawn of computing, developers have been free to create whatever software they can imagine for computers. Windows, Mac, UNIX, Linux, Atari, Amiga, Apple II, Commodore 64 – it doesn’t matter. Come up with an idea, and short of doing something destructive on the system, you can make it work on a computer. It’s this freedom that has made the computer age possible. Game consoles have been different, a relic of the days when cartridges were physical objects you put in the machine. But mobile devices have generally acted more or less like computer platforms – look at Windows Mobile, Symbian, Linux, Android, Palm OS, Palm’s Web OS, and so on. It wouldn’t be odd to expect the same of the iPhone or iPod touch, which is essentially a Mac running on a low-power platform with a mobile-optimized set of libraries. The iPod doesn’t even connect to a wireless phone network; it uses WiFi just like your computer.

As musicians and artists, this sort of freedom has given us the freedom to make expressive music and art using powerful tools. That same freedom hasn’t applied to comparatively restrictive game platforms, which is why music apps for platforms like PSP and Nintendo DS require hacking hardware and software.

But then there’s the iPhone / iPod touch. Apple claims that they create a superior user experience by controlling quality, and they use that control to pick and choose which applications they think are appropriate for their phone. Never mind that a whole lot of what’s available on the iTunes store is simply worthless crap. And, frankly, that’s okay – users pick and choose the good stuff, and a lot of it’s really great.

But far from simply protecting mobile carriers like AT&T from abusive apps, it’s clear from developer experiences that Apple has extended that supposedly superior judgment to second-guessing developers on design and application purpose.

The latest victim: a fully free wireless multitouch server that would empower iPod touch and iPhone users to control live art and perform, created by one of the world’s leading interactive artists, Memo Akten. It seems Apple’s powers that be rejected the app because they simply don’t understand what the heck it is.

The story so far:

Here in the US, Congressional Democrats have reversed not one but both bad decisions on the role of the arts in the economic stimulus package. Provisions that would have blocked any stimulus funds from reaching arts centers, museums, and theaters have been dropped. (Golf courses and casinos are still in the ban. Maybe this time, someone read the actual legislation.) And the US$50 million (out of some $800 billion) that would go to the National Endowment for the Arts, dropped from a Senate version, has been restored to the bill. It appears both of those changes not only cleared the House but are part of the Senate version that’s in votes as I write this.

If you believe artists shouldn’t rely exclusively on government funding, you can still celebrate. The arts will receive far less of a handout than a lot of other industries — and do more with it. Arts advocacy groups estimate that for every dollar of the NEA money, another seven dollars will come from public and private supporters. What the tiny amount of federal spending does is make up for shortfalls in lean times, protecting an arts sphere that depends on a variety of sources for revenue. Nearly 15,000 real jobs could be saved by those same estimates. That means an arts infrastructure in the US that can remain healthy and independent.

But the important story here has nothing to do with the stimulus bill, or even the US. It’s that public outcry from people like you rescued this legislation. And if public support can do that, it can do a lot more for the arts, not only in federal spending but other key areas.

Americans for the Arts says supporters from its organization alone sent some 100,000 messages and letters to their Members of Congress. That’s not counting the many more letters and phone calls from constituents, not to mention letters to the editor and press attention.

Here’s one example from CDM comments, by Dartanyan Brown:

I heard the congressman from Nashville (!) talking down the $50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts. I immediately called his office and let his staffers know that (blue dog democrat Cooper) was full of hot air on this issue. As a synthesist, jazz musician and former NEA artist-in-residence I had the facts and anecdotes to make my points clear.
If Rush Limbaugh can get his folks to call, we can at least counteract them with some facts and persistence.
Call them, they listen, they respond to numbers.

More background on today’s developments:
House passes stimulus bill with $50 million for artists [Los Angeles Times]
U.S. Senate Begins Voting on Obama’s $787 Billion Stimulus Plan [Bloomberg, including various other details]

To all of you who were active, and to our elected representatives who got this right, thanks.

Targeting the arts in this way may have backfired for those elements seeking to vilify it. Instead, it caused thousands of people to rally to the cause. Here’s an example of organizing meetings in Chicago – and a renewed sense that the arts could be part of the economic solution, not the “costly distraction” so many try to make it out to be.
Organizing around art [Chicago Tribune]

Folks, we have a lot of work ahead of us.

To wrap up the thread I started, the plot in US politics, in the space of a few short weeks, has gone something like this:

1. A new Administration could bring new vision to making the arts part of the economy.
2. Arts spending is wasteful.
3. Any spending on anything should be specifically prohibited from reaching the arts, as that would be wasteful and evil, and the arts are the best symbol of Waste itself.

I live on Wall Street (technically, on the corner of Pine). I guess we’ve now forgotten about them.

As digital musicians and visualists, relevancy to the rest of the people around us is important. What we do can be meaningful to people, and it can pay for our health care and our loved ones and our kids. It’s often not a life or death thing – but then, neither are many jobs. It’s a gig. Heck, even if it’s a hobby, it supports someone else’s gig.

So that raises some really deep questions about what’s going on with our society when arts-related jobs are singled out above nearly every other sector as meaningless or “wasteful” or not “real jobs.” This stimulus bill will pass, but that fundamental misunderstanding isn’t going anywhere – and it’s time to recognize there’s a problem, and start to work to set it right.

Roughly half of one one hundredth of one percent of the US economic stimulus plan was slated to support job protection in the arts — US$50 million. Meanwhile, we’ve just passed one trillion-dollar bailout of finance and are told another trillion is needed.

You might expect anger to be directed at finance, given their industry was at the heart of the problem. Instead, legislators single out — the arts?

In last-minute negotiations in the US Senate, legislators — including key liberal Democrats — have gone still further to ban any use of stimulus funds for the arts (”museums,” “theaters,” and “arts centers” get singled out). The move was largely symbolically-motivated, not fiscally-motivated. Adding insult to injury, arts institutions are lumped together with casinos and golf courses – literally.

U.S. Senate votes against arts [Chicago Examiner]

Arts Bashing [Center for American Progress]

Some of those Democrats, incidentally, are now pleading ignorance – including my own Senator Schumer:
UPDATE: Senator Charles Schumer in Hot Water With Local Arts Organizations [New York Magazine]