The Politics of Art & Authenticity

As the soothing voice of Katherine Vaz began to unravel the story of her latest novel, I found myself being pulled into the plot and picturing the vivid scenes she was describing. I pictured the mother and her child, the guards, and the songs of the birds outside the cell. I began to notice that the pictures I was creating were slightly fragmented; like something was missing. The reason for this was that I was not directly reading the text myself making it slightly harder to picture the scene because I wasn’t staring at the text thus being able to glance around at my surroundings. As she continued to read on, the inflection in her voice gave the reading a distinct style; one that was characteristic of her writing style. It was almost as though her interpretation of her own work was being thrust upon me precluding me from formulating my own interpretations. This is one thing that I dislike about hearing a reading over actually reading on my own because it detracts from the judgements I would have made on my own. Readings by an author tend to have a hint of the their own interpretations and steer the audience in a specific direction whether intentionally or not. Another major issue I often have when being read something is that I focus more on listening than I do on the actual content. This results in the need to glance at what was being read to me in order to fully grasp the concept. Not only was I able to grasp the text better than the reading but I also got a better feeling of the tone and mood that Vaz was trying to convey simply based on her diction; something that is better noticed when reading a text. However, this aspect of a reading can work in the opposite favor as well. By listening to the author, the amount of flawed interpretations are minimized. The author also has the opportunity to explain their reasoning for writing a certain part the way they did and also clarify any misconceptions that may have arose during the excerpt. All in all, the reading was something different and provided a new perspective on the text by letting me hear from the author in the way it was intended to sound. Not having to question the way the author meant for something to sound was something new for me.

P.S. I apologize for the lateness of this post, I lost power yesterday and I’m currently sending this from a Dunkin Donuts.

I didn’t know what to expect while going to see the House Divided and I got lost by going to the wrong BAM theater which made it even worse. The performance started off dry by beginning with a couple people in the 1930s in their house. I realized this was from The Grapes of Wrath because I remembered some of the plot from when I read the book a few years ago. 

Then I began to take an interest in the play when the stock market and housing crash of 2008 began to be portrayed. This had a strong emotional connection for me because I was a trader during the 2008 market crash. I remembered how bad some bank stocks crashed and remembered the fear and uncertainty during the time. One thing I noticed about the play was that the some of the stock prices during that time were wrong. JP Morgan Chase’s stock was never 62 dollars. Bear Stern’s stock was never six dollars. While most people would never notice these inaccuracies, I did. Also, some stock prices movements were wrong, like Bank of America’s stock being up over 100 percent in a day. This never happened during the financial crisis.

I liked the humor of the two stock traders and how they argued and made fun of each other. It reminded me of some of the experiences I had while trading and reminded me of some of friends that are traders. I also liked how you could visualize their lives.

I thought the tie in into the Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck was creative,but I felt that it made the play boring. I liked how the play incorporated some of the fear during the time by having interviews with Lehman Brothers CEO. I felt the close up interviewers were done very well and that the use of a foreclosed house was very creative.

Image Source: http://www.bam.org/media/312114/2012_NWF_Mainstage_HouseDivided_613x463.jpg

I enjoyed having my elementary school teachers give the class story time when I was younger, and this reading made me feel like a kid again. It’s neat that we got to listen to the actual author, Katherine Vaz,  read her short story to us, but this neatness wore off after a couple minutes.  Although I felt special that I got to hear the Vaz’s unfinished story before it was published, I felt cheated that her reading was not fully capturing the emotions that it meant to portray. Literature is meant to be read not listened too. Usually when someone reads to me, I have a hard time paying attention, and the words go in one ear and out the other.

There is more insight to be gained during reading since the reader can use his or her imagination to make the story more interesting. Also, its more difficult to visualize whats going on in the story if someone’s reading to you.

Katherine Vaz is a great writer of a metaphors and uses an extensive amount of metaphors in her writing. In her Lisbon Story, she describes Mateus Soares’  flickering eyes “as if fireflies had stepped in the quicksand of his irises and were pulsating ferociously before they went under” (Vaz 3). Just this amount of detail allows the reader to clearly imagine his eyes is simply brilliant. I have never read an author like this before and it’s great that I got to experience something new. This metaphor makes perfect sense to me, but during her reading the metaphors were more difficult to understand. The metaphor about the cobb webs during her reading was very difficult to understand and allowed the listener to be lost in the story.

Besides using an extensive use of metaphors, Vaz is a very descriptive writer. In her  Lisbon Story, Vaz describes the the cupboards as “canary-yellow and apple-red, cheery plastics”(Vaz 3). Just by describing the certain shade of yellow or red shows the precision and dedication the author has used to make her story perfect. These descriptions are easy to follow while reading the story, but during Vaz’s reading the descriptions were more difficult to follow. I got lost at one point during her reading because it was way too descriptive. Her voice really didn’t connect with a writer that uses an extensive amount of descriptions either so this contributed to the disruption of the  flow.

Both her reading and the Lisbon Story share an authentic element of recreating the scenery. In her Lisbon Story, she uses authentic elements to make the reader believe that he or she is actually in Portugal. For example,  Mateus using the Portuguese word, “Pá” or the use of Portuguese names like Mateus or Toninho. In her reading, Vaz incorporated some elements of her travels into her story. This allows the listener to better visualize the setting and allows the reader to experience what Vaz experienced during her travels.

I thought that going to the reading was a truly unique and rewarding experience because I got to experience something new by  listening to a published author read her unreleased work.  I look forward to going to future book readings, and I also enjoyed experiencing a new style of writing.

Image Source: http://129044.myauthorsite.com/images/site_graphics/Vaz%20Image%20smaller.jpg

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I didn’t attend the reading so I can’t compare both experiences. Based on prior experience, I can say that reading a passage is completely different from actually reading the passage on your own. When we read anything on our own time, we give our imaginations room to give the characters personality, voice, we’re allowed to make the words on the page come to life. The author in a way loses control over the words they show us because we are the one deciding how to interpret the words. I like that about reading. I like knowing that there isn’t anyone dictating how I should feel about the content presented to me and that there isn’t a right or wrong way to react to that content.

Being read to however, changes that dynamic completely. Personally I find it very easy to zone out when someone reads to me. It is easier to pick up on the emotion that authors try to convey in their novels but at the same time I feel like that’s all it does. I’m so focused on the way that the author reads, that I lose track of the content itself, which is what matters in the end. It could give me a new perspective on the passage being read, and perhaps some things might make more sense, but in the end I think it would have a negative effect on my perception of the passage.

My experience reading Katherine Vaz’s writing was a positive one. I didn’t have any trouble reading through her material and she successfully kept my interest throughout all 48 pages of her short story. I appreciated the simplicity in her writing. I didn’t feel like I needed a dictionary by my side, or that I had to keep an eye out for unexpected metaphors or details that might be crucial in my understanding of her story.

Sometimes the ethnic references and phrases threw me off a little bit, especially in the beginning. Most of the time she explained their meaning following their appearance in the passage. At first I didn’t know how to feel about it. A part of me thought, “Well, she has to think of her audience. Not all of us are fluent Portuguese speakers with knowledge of their culture.” After reading the whole story however, I was able to appreciate all the ethnic anecdotes. Her story would not have been the same without them and in a sense they were necessary for the development and flow of the plot.

The plot of the story itself was interesting. From the very beginning I was interested to find out who the sickly man she encountered was. Why was she in Lisbon? Who was Tónio and what kind of relationship did Catarina have with him? The simplicity in her writing allowed me to find the answers to these questions fairly quickly. I thought the theme of illness and sexuality were interesting topics to bring up because it gave the passage a more modern spin. The way that they were integrated into the plot made me want to keep reading and know more about the characters.  The ending was predictable, but the buildup of conflict between Mateus, Catarina, and her dying father again kept me interested. The moment in which Mateus was choking on the fish bone and Catarina was desperately trying to save him…I felt like I was there feeling the anxiety and pain that they were all experiencing. The passage came to life there in a way that it hadn’t done so beforehand. Her use of imagery made me feel like I was there with them as this event unfolded. The effect that Katherine Vaz created for me in that instance and many others were ones that I wouldn’t have experienced if she read the story to me.

I heard from my classmates that the reading wasn’t the greatest. That her voice was raspy, that it didn’t seem to fit the things she was reading about. That she wasn’t the best reader and sometimes the things she was reading about just weren’t interesting. Since I can’t judge or compare, I guess I can walk away from Katherine Vaz’s writing with a positive impression. She might not have the writing style that I look for, but I can say I enjoyed her Lisbon Story.

Unlike operas, I feel that books are meant to be read, not read aloud, or technically, performed. There’s a special bond bond between reader and text that exists only between the two, and it’s always unique to that specific pairing. The way one person reads the book will never be the same exact way another person will read it, whether it be the way they envision the characters, or which images their mind chooses to expand upon. Now, I had never been to a reading before, but I was curious to find out what it’s like to be read to, as opposed to simply reading on my own. (The last time I was read to was well over a decade ago, and even when teachers would read aloud passages in high school, we had our own copies of the text to read along to. Those standardized test “read and take notes” passages don’t count.)

The reading was an experience in itself, because at the very least, I was able to sit in the same room as an accomplished author who went on to read and discuss passages from a book that she wasn’t done writing yet. People live for events like this, so why shouldn’t I? There’s something vulnerable about an author being brave enough to read something unknown to her audience when she knows there’s going to be a possibility that people don’t like it, and that made the whole night for me. The detail that Ms. Vaz went into when telling us how she decided which passages she was going to read to us, as well as the stories she brought up afterwards about the actual process she went through that lead her to write this novel, made me think of books in a whole new light. Sure, there’s a story within the pages of a book, but what’s the story that created this book? Her stories were hilarious, and I enjoyed them as much, or even more, than I did the actual reading.

A collection of short stories by Katherine Vaz

When I read, it’s more about mental images and developing an imaginary scene than it is about actual words, but when I was listening that night, I felt myself connected to each word that I heard, and I had trouble coming up with a fluid picture in my mind. The first passage that we heard (and I know I’m not going to do Ms. Vaz any justice in trying to recall the exact wording here,) went into detail about how the mother would reassure her son that she would always be with him. To walk through spider webs and to make bandages from webs as well, for she would be in the web. I don’t know if it was because I heard those words rather than simply scanned over them, or if it’s because it’s just that great of a literary metaphor, but it stuck with me.

I feel like I appreciate words more when I hear them, and that descriptive sentences (with tassels hanging off of them,) aren’t as draining when they’re not staring you in the face just waiting for you to trip up and reread them because you get lost. That was “Lisbon Story” for me. Now, I know that it’s a completely different experience from what we heard, but the same level of description applies, but it becomes an issue of voice. When I read Lisbon Story, I was hearing my own voice, or the voice of the characters that I was making up – and I find it very, very easy to find my own voice irritating. Reading a story gives you unlimited creativity in how you’re going to interpret the text, which takes away from maybe really “reading.” Hearing the story spoken to us took that away, and I was able to hear a story the way the author intended it to be read; the only true interpretation.

Hearing a story is great. You have a different voice, a different understanding – and if I can judge other literary readings based off of this one – a great time.

Ever since I was a child, I never liked having books be read aloud.  My parents would always read to me, but I felt like I wasn’t grasping and taking in the entire story as I would when I was reading a book.  When I went to hear Katherine Vaz read some excerpts from her new novel, I had the same feeling.

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Her novel sounded interesting from her description of it, but it was difficult to form a mental picture of the events she was reading.  I’m a very visual person, so I must see what is in front of me to fully grasp the idea.  What I did take away from the reading, though, was that her novel was full of description.  She uses a lot of similes in her work and describes every moment in fine detail.  Sometimes I felt like it was too much detail, especially when reading something aloud, it can make listeners lost.  I know I was lost at times when she was reading.  When Katherine Vaz was reading parts of the novel with dialogue, I felt that she wasn’t capturing the emotions of the characters.  She was just reading the line, instead of taking on the role of the character.  I know I probably sound very critical of the reading, but I feel that way towards anyone who reads aloud.

A week before I heard Katherine Vaz read from her excerpt, I went to Lincoln Center to hear J.K. Rowling speak about her new book, The Casual Vacancy.  Even when J.K. Rowling was reading her novel (with her amazing British accent!) I still felt like I wasn’t fully delving into the story.  There is so much that gets lost between the reader and listener when reading a book aloud.  I feel that reading is an intimate and one-on-one experience with the reader and the book, and is up to the reader’s interpretation.

With that being said, when I read Vaz’s Lisbon Story, I could actually picture what she was describing.  I still think that her writing is very passive and at times too descriptive, but I was now able to get my own experience out of it.  I gave each of the characters their own voice and set the pace of the story to how I thought it would be.  While reading it, though, I could see the same style in the story and the excerpts that Katherine Vaz read aloud.  At least she has a consistent and defined writing style.  Although Katherine Vaz might not be my favorite writer, I did learn a lot from her reading and motivated me to apply for the Harman Writer-In-Residence Program at Baruch.  If I could learn so much from one reading by an author, imagine how much I would learn in a semester!

I really have to stop dreading these events when I know they’re going to be amazing. Because it happened again – what a shocker…

House / Divided turned out to be one of the more interesting pieces of theatre I’ve seen this year, and it’s certainly left me wondering where the future of theatre may lead us in the future. Yes, I’ll admit that when I read the insert in the program that said that we could use our phones to view some “Augmented Reality” during the show, (it was… interesting,) I had a PTSD-like panic attack of that video of Patti LuPone stopping Gypsy mid-“Rose’s Turn” because someone took a picture of her. That’s something you do not want to happen to you.

High-Tech Tragedy

The show was endless in spectacle, and if I wasn’t wondering if the actor speaking into the camera wasn’t trying to mimic a pre-recorded video or not, then I was trying to keep an eye on either the stocks floating above, or on the actors who managed to change costume in the blink of an eye. The details were marvelous – don’t tell me you didn’t guffaw when the repo workers took the actual kitchen sink out of the house. I loved it all.

I found the story triple-layered, using its pieces together to paint a fuller, more devastating picture of the reality of foreclosure and the faults of the housing market. The Grapes of Wrath “past” was the emotional angle. We saw the devastation of a family torn from the home that their family has lived in for generations. We follow their journey out West, and how the rise of corporate banking haunts them every step of the way. The “present day” storyline of the brokers, real estate agent, and corporate higher-ups reveals the business angle of foreclosing. While we still see emotional impact in the man who pleads to find a way to save his home, this part of the show deals with that other side of the phone call. Who are the people who work with statements like “We don’t own the deed to your house,” and “Minimizing human capital,”? The show highlights the “future” through its extensive multi-media usage. There’s no emotion in numbers and computer screens, and yet at times, that’s what seems to dominate the stage, especially if you did use the AR feature.

It was a fascinating use of multi-everything for a theatre production, and I don’t think it hurt the message at all. Even though the ending did seem to throw in a bit of optimism that’s all too familiar in American theatre, it was a thoroughly good show. Let’s just say I don’t plan on buying a house anytime soon.

Photo Credit

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This play production was like no other. To experience this was truly breath-taking in my perspective. The idea of having the actual play being played on the house and to use the house as a prop throughout the show was truly incredible and it was done beautifully. The one thing that really stood out with me was that they didn’t just give facts. It wasn’t all about facts, it was about telling a story, giving a side and showing the people what happened. It was more about showing the people what went on during the market crash rather than telling them what went on. I guess that is what draws my attention the most because it just helps clarify the incident.

Another thing that truly drew my attention was the parallelism that they used. The connected the two time periods, which were the Dust Bowl and the housing bubble  and used it into one production. It just shows that no matter what time period it is, whether it is the past or the present, people don’t learn form their mistakes. During the 1920s, we experienced a great economic disaster, and in the present we are basically following that same path, Americans don’t learn. Just a thought that came through my head.

I guess another thing that surprised me was that I knew exactly what the actors or the script was saying. I knew exactly what was going on and knew exactly what they director was trying to get at through this play. I guess I actually learned something from getting placed into Business 1000H. Thank you Professor O’Malley.

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Katherine Vaz came to Baruch College to read one of her stories. Of course the story she read was completely different from the Lisbon story that I read, I experienced a different feel through Vaz’s work. Reading her story, I felt as if her descriptions and the way she wrote her stories made me feel as if I was part of the story. I felt as if I could picture myself viewing this story first hand, and that everything that she described within her story was right in front of me. However, I was not able to depict emotions well through her writing. Therefore, the one thing I noticed while I read her story was that I could picture whatever she was trying to portray in her story, but could not put emotion towards the story. So I was basically reading a story without emotion, sort of like a documentary. I view it as a documentary because I can hear what the person is trying to portray to the audience, but there is no emotion to the story, just pure facts.

However, during the reading, I received a different feel compared to when I read her story on my own. When I read her story on my own, my mind was focused more on creating the scene through the descriptions and details of her story. However, during her reading, it was more about the emotions that she was trying to portray in her story rather than the setting. Her writing was so detailed that when I read her story I was able to create a scene and feel as if I was part of the story, but as an outsider in the story. When she was reading her story, I didn’t really picture the scene as much as I did when I read alone. Instead, I received more of the emotion towards her story. The way she read her story and her tone reflects the emotions that Vaz tries to portray in her writing. I feel as if that when a person reads their story or their own writing, that they feel personally attached and bring more of the emotion to the audience so the audience feels what the author felt when writing. Therefore, when Vaz was reading her story, I was able to feel the emotion that her character was feeling at the moment and even her emotion towards the story as she read.

In my opinion, I can’t really read a story without having to picture the scene and feel as if I’m part of the story. Therefore, I prefer to read the story on my own and have my own mind create the idea or the emotion that the story brings. I feel that author’s write stories to portray a certain point or emotion, however, the reader is the one that interprets the meaning. Therefore, I feel that if I read it myself and picture the story through my own thoughts, I have my own personal view on the story. Although, having the author read her own work and provide her own emotions through her reading for the audience is wonderful, I feel as if it takes away from allowing the reader to depict what he/she feels is the emotion that the author is trying to portray in the story. Even though I prefer to read a story on my own rather than having someone read the story to me, to experience the author herself read her own work to me was truly an experience that made me realize that I need to depict the story myself in order to understand the meaning behind the story.

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When I first sat down to watch this play/multimedia presentation my first thought was “what is with these seats?” I felt as though I was going to fall off the edge of my chair and onto the stage. However as the play or story or whatever you want to call it progressed I found myself completely lost in the storyline. I loved how they used lighting and music and live performances all in one to create this play. For some reason I could not turn my eyes away from the stage. I was fascinated how they kept changing the size of the house and how they would project videos onto the house to make it seem like you were there.

The storyline was also great and I loved how that one house was able to tell the story of American hardship in two separate eras. It made me realized how important a home is and no matter what decade it is home will still be  the most important aspect of American life. For many of us it is a home that idealizes the American dream,often referred to as the house“with the white picket fence.” This story evokes emotion in anyone who watches it because it is so relatable. It is so easy to picture your own family being evicted from your home and forced to fend for yourselves on the streets. Overall A House Divided was a spectacular multimedia play that gave me a very clear insight into the hardships of the housing crises in two seemingly very different eras in American history.