[FanDeAliFee]

For years, Alizée America has sought some more intimate contact with Alizée, whom many members have said is an extraordinary artist. When the opportunity to meet with her upon release of her latest album emerged and one of our number, Scruffydog, set out to pilgrimage to Paris to get a few CDs autographed, I inquired of the hosting venue what numerical quota would apply.

To our amazed delight, we were told that as a great kindness, Alizée and her entourage would meet privately with us for an entire half-hour and autograph 50 CDs. Rather than refuse this extraordinary service as disproportionate to our passion and commitment, we instead leapt at the opportunity and shamelessly exploited every liberty and favor we were granted at the session.

First was what our amateur status as show-businesspeople would testify was impertinent advice to the Alizée team (including the Open Letter pledging to assist Alizée as her team directs, through our supposedly valuable service). Second was extensive photography of a world-famous professional model who kindly posed and spoke as she was requested. Third and last was the original grant of 50 autographed CDs, which to our long-delayed apprehension included extraordinary design efforts at customization and glorification.

Whatever Alizée does with the rest of her artistic career and life, no one can say she was only a one-hit wonder. For three years she was a true music star and for a year of that, a super-star as well. I am not a professional artist myself, but for what it is worth, I think she is not only a competent, but a gifted, multidisciplinary artist. It is not impossible that the fickle finger of fate will again point to her and great success can emerge. But in the meantime, those who wish her well want her to continue her artistic odyssey.

I especially marvel at her charismatic appeal as a performer, which is only fully appreciated when she can be seen as well as heard. And as if this were not enough, her wonderful personality and graceful social and family life are a stark contrast to the appalling trainwrecks called lives which not a few other of today's famous entertainers exhibit and thereby aesthetically undermine their presentation to anyone who is neither a stone nor lacks a memory.

As if diminished commercial popularity does not threaten Alizée's artistic future enough, today the inevitable progress of Napsterism, the illicit displacement of revenue-generating licensed music consumption, is making serious inroads into the music business. I think in a few short years, when CD sales have all but vanished, the combined revenue from CD plus "download" sales will be only a tiny fraction of what they are today. When that happens, superstars like Madonna might still be able to mount spectacles at physically sequestered live performance venues, but second-tier entertainers in Alizée's position today will not. They will have to scrap the creation of original music and lyrics, and settle for covering extant songs which they license for performance before small groups, with minimal backing from the special theatrics which made the <i>En Concert</i> presentations so special.

Perhaps it is folly to think that with such small numbers and such limited showbiz skills, the small lot of us in Alizée America who are really involved can make any difference in the future of her career.

Yet I have had the impertinence to outline one strategy of trying to leverage the active and readily identifiable American francophone community in New York City to eventually win Alizée a booking at a 400-seat venue in a distinguished French cultural center there where she could try to sell herself to the important professionals who call the city home - all the same an uphill battle for any French performer, especially a singer. And even doing this would take a year or more to accomplish, if it could be done at all with so few of us now active in and near the city.

Thus I feel that if we are to be any help at all to Alizée, it would have to be without regard to career possibilities in the United States, and commensurate with our small numbers.

That is why I started inquiring whether what limited money we might raise at once as a group could create a positive impact on Alizée's immediate career prospects. We are so few and her work is so expensive, clearly we alone would have negligible effect on her destiny. But could some gesture we make so testify to the depth of our appreciation of what she has done and still might do, that it inspires large numbers of others in France, Mexico and perhaps other places where she has done very well in the past to take another look at her and support her with new recording and concert sales which sustain and uplift her career?

That is why I created a poll asking our members to pledge financial support for a hypothetical Art Grant, which as I write, has secured pledges from half of those answering. I especially want all those who received a customized CD, whom I christened the Fortunate Fifty, to take part in the poll. They are especially obligated to support Alizée for the extraordinary indulgence of the half-hour private session, the market value of whose produce I have elsewhere argued had a potential market value well in excess of 1000 Euros.

The structure of vBulletin prevents me from rephrasing the exact question asked, as well it should. For if I could corrupt it, I would be misrepresenting the meaning of the votes already cast. I suspect I will soon create another poll, but it would be extremely helpful if the Fortunate Fifty each spent a minute answering the extant poll as spadework. The poll is anonymous, so please do answer truthfully.

The poll elicited a lengthy and sometimes passionate discussion in this thread which has had the salubrious effect of exposing many vehicles people are trying to launch to subsidize the production of new art in the face of Napsterism. It has also reformed my specific recommendations for how the Fortunate Fifty might help Alizée. Believe me, from the outset I was hardly unaware of how my original suggestion could work to Alizée's disadvantage, as I documented in one of my previous posts.

My present recommendation to the Fortunate Fifty and those who choose to join us is to establish a small (€1000+) scholarship in Alizée's name at the theatrical school at which she studied, as a celebration of her ten-year anniversary in showbiz this July. It both testifies to the passionate appreciation we few here have for Alizée, and more importantly, <b>establishes a financial value for her time as a famous, celebrated guest, a designer and a model, which her business agents might monetize</b> as do innumerable other people who earn a living doing those very things. I hope this has no small potential to supplement the income which is lost as it becomes increasingly impossible to charge people for the music they choose to enjoy, but refuse to buy.

So please do vote now in the poll at the top of this thread. Thank you! I joined the others in pledging money for an Art Grant for the same reason I would support a museum, the opera or help fund the Nobel Prize.

P.S. I will imminently contact each of the Fortunate Fifty and point at this posting, which is the reason I have published it.