The New York Historical Society is putting on “the first large-scale exhibition of materials from the Grateful Dead Archive.” As far as I know, this is an act of private philanthropy. Yet the Grateful Dead Archive, housed at UC-Santa Cruz, is the recipient of $615,000 in stimulus money. There was a time when music was supposed to stimulate the public, rather than the other way around. As for what the Grateful Dead once did for stimulation, I have no comment — except to say that it didn’t cost me anything.

UPDATE: A reader points out that for a dead guy, Jerry Garcia still rakes in the bucks, thanks to the miracle of capitalism.