Category — EGreenberg

Richard Price has a natural ability to capture and entertain an audience. Utilizing media ranging from paper to screen he knows what a character needs to say, what a narrator needs to share and how best to keep a crowed transfixed. This ability clearly translates from his oratory skills. Price is fundamentally a storyteller and hasn’t lost the ability to share a captivating story with an open audience.

He held true to his “story teller” title this past Tuesday, as he shared with us not just snippets of Lush Life and a preview of a work in progress on Harlem but also dozens of personal interactions he had with people all over New York City (and Jersey). Price is not by any means show offish- in fact his appeal is subtle. He shares stories of familiar major and minor interactions between people but he does so from a dryly-amusing voice, including vividly minute details that make the story more personal.

Price’s decision to depart from screenplays and return to print is encouraging for he long ago proved his skill in seemingly every creative vehicle. I haven’t read Lush Life but as is often the case, his performance reading made me want to. Furthermore the peek of his work on Harlem sounded hysterical. His talk certainly gained him a bundle of new readers, and allowed him to further establish himself in the Baruch College community as a great writer and a likely equally good teacher. I look forward to reading his works, and perhaps more so to seeing what he comes up with next.

“Just Wen Bo chillin with his boys.”

In the prison world a tattoo of a spider web on one’s elbow used to mean that the wearer had killed a member of an enemy minority. Eventually the meaning expanded to someone who killed anyone and eventually just someone who did time in a correctional facility.

Meanings of symbols constantly change; the most common example of this is the swastika, once a symbol of peace, now one of hate. While change is expected and can be good, the shift in the meaning behind the web tattoo has inspired a generation of people who see it as solely artistic. In the last week I’ve seen five individuals adorning that tattoo, while I couldn’t be certain that two scrawny hipster types with black elbow webs didn’t fall under the traditional prisoner stereotype, I’m pretty sure they did not.

I’m not saying people shouldn’t get a tattoo like that, only that there continues to grow generations of people who are completely unaware of the vast array of symbolism around them. Anything from the color red to the number eighty-eight can represent something hostile. My fascination for symbolism has made me aware of what’s around me, and has occasionally proved invaluable. Almost everything around us means something significant to someone else.

A trip to The Met is a return to familiarity for me. Some families go to every other Yankee game, some have a weekly movie night, my mother took me to dozens upon dozens of operas, and ballets. As a child I slept through the second half of Carmen, Hansel und Gretel, Madama Butterfly, Otello, Falstaff, Tosca, Manon, Faust, Il Trovatore, Romeo et Juliet, and others. In truth I used to dread trips to the velvet-walled palace. As a five year old its royal appeal was only so distracting, and as a ten year old the intermissions were never long enough. Eventually I came to not merely tolerate the performances but appreciate the music, tradition and glamour that together are opera.

I appreciated Thursday night’s production of Rigoletto. The singers fused actions and melody at a proper ratio that made the story easy to follow, and the emotions fueling the story easy to sense. The story of Rigoletto is a classic perverted love tale, complete with naïve daughter, untrustworthy lover and concerned, vengeful father. The various performers told each individual branch of the story appropriately, even well, but nothing about the show was astounding, which is what opera must be in order to be considered great. Granted, each aria was in tune, and every set change was impeccable but there was no “wow” factor that might have otherwise differentiated the production from past ones.

One specific element I particularly enjoyed was the weaving in of threads of humor throughout the performance. As a kid I never would’ve picked up the small but sharp sarcastic commentaries and sexist or sexual quips, but now I do. This additional layer of the script provided me a bit of newfound respect for the libretto of Rigoletto, which is likely the birthplace of any humor in the show. An opera must have a story, and although the story will likely be archetypal, it helps to have minor twists (like an assassin) thrown into the mix to upgrade the tale from one that’s been told to one we haven’t really heard before.

Finally Rigoletto served as a reminder of how beautiful other languages can be. I loved Margaret Garner, because its English script allowed me to focus more intently upon the performers and the staging but there remains something classic and beautiful about an Italian opera that automatically lays out a strong foundation for any production to build off of. An alluring language is that much more likely to yield an appealing performance.

A less than hospitable waiter placed our slightly extravagant bill on the table. Temporarily ignoring it, five hands made a mad grab for the small pile of fortune cookies that had appeared on the table. Fortune cookies are really nothing special. They aren’t even Chinese, I recall being disappointed to learn of their American origin in my freshman year of high school. The obvious appeal of the small treat is of course the fortune within, but fortunes now seem to have developed an attitude which detracts from what little appreciation one can have of fortune cookies.

“The greatest danger could be your stupidity.” I don’t remember who received this tiny piece of “wisdom” but I do recall a communal sense of insult. It was funny, really funny actually, to be so maligned by a tiny scrap of paper shoved inside of a cookie. Together we discussed how fortune cookies have really deteriorated over the years, slicing apart whoever was responsible for the decline as though said person was a dirty politician.

We were disappointed in the fortune but thinking about it, I suppose fortune cookies are letdowns more often then not. Anyone who relies on the “lucky numbers” is almost sure to be letdown, a person who expects a sound piece of philosophy is unlikely to receive such and again the cookie tastes kind of like a stale cracker. I am a fan of the “Speak Chinese” vocabulary word now featured on most fortunes, but it doesn’t make up for all the other sub par elements of contemporary fortune cookies. One can only hope that some innovation in the field will be developed to save the ebbing breed. If not, what little luster remains in the tiny packages may completely fade.

I have never been particularly keen on modern dance. While I occasionally manage to find pockets of beauty within (what for me is) otherwise confusing and fragmented movement, for the most part I try to avoid the genre. I approached the Fall for Dance performance with this outlook, unfairly expecting to be bored, annoyed and altogether disappointed.

After the first company “danced” I was certain my negative predictions were accurate. For what felt like forty-five minutes I sat transfixed by the ridiculous performance before me. Men and woman in white unitards leaped around the stage, as though participating in an awful game of charades. The “music” sounded like a combination of monkey howls and minimalist trance. Half of the time I wanted to laugh (which would’ve been wildly inappropriate, so I refrained from doing so) and the rest of the time I wanted to walk out. When the dance was finally over and a solid portion of the audience gave the performers a standing ovation I was completely discombobulated.

My mind understood the amount of time and effort required to stage such a presentation, but my eyes and my ears were exhausted and unsympathetic.

All this being said, I was genuinely shocked when the second performance began and was awesome. The dancers were wild and youthful, their movements were fast and the music was fun- the complete opposite of the previous soundtrack. Furthermore the set was shorter, which allowed every action to feel new and kept the audience watching, and laughing.

My opinions of the final two groups were mixed. The third dance was fascinating but I felt that the dancing “leader” wasn’t ideal for the position. I now know she is a world renowned teacher of that type of dance but I still think that the job of a teacher is to give her students the center stage, especially if it’s clear that the students have the ability to be significantly more captivating.

The last dance group was most similar to other troops I’ve seen. In these sorts of dances I recognize the incredible technical skill of the dancers but don’t really find the actual style to my liking. Nevertheless the dancers themselves would certainly fall under the category of polished, and impressive.

My vision of modern dance hasn’t really changed, but it has been slightly expanded. I suppose that it, like many other categories, does in fact have a little something for everyone (emphasis on the little). I would be interested in seeing another scattering of performances to see what other gems might appeal to my taste. I do not, however, plan to frequent modern dance recitals and continue to prefer other areas of dance to this one.

I learned the rules of table tennis when I was about six years old. My dad would always offer to play easy, but this offer was always paired with a reminder that if he played easy I’d never improve. My response was always a quiet smile and steadfast “no thanks.”

As I improved I began to mirror his teaching style. Now for any opponent I’ll offer to shift down a level and their answer usually provides a relatively sound character sketch and game prognosis. A mischievous smile tells me my opponent isn’t in it for the game, he or she is showing off for a friend or just indulging my hunger for a match. The player’s head is somewhere else, an easy win but not a worthwhile game. A conceited response along the lines of “Only if you want to…” (emphasis on the want) shows the person’s obsession with image and that he or she has a bit too much belief in their own ability and intelligence. The player is a nuisance. Indecisiveness leads to empty arguments and inevitably bitter conclusions. You win the game but that person is going to guilt you into feeling like a cheater, and you’re not a cheater. Then there is the swift corner grin and two-word response of “no thanks”. A worthy adversary, the game will be brutal and you may not even win.

It’s called a match for a reason; you’re supposed to play people who are at an equivalent level. If you’re not, then you should play just as hard to bring them up to your standards. If you go easy then you too are sending a message, a message that the status quo is just hunky-dory. The status quo is rarely hunky-dory. There’s a reason that the word change is so closely associated with the world. We have changed, are changing and will change. If we don’t, we’re doomed to indefinitely remaining stationed as the loser. No one wants to be the loser, but overcoming the forces that prevent everyone from being victorious takes effort, which not everyone is willing to put in.

My dad hasn’t beaten me in a few years. We play good games; long, trying, but I always end up with the win. Dad never frowns when he loses for the forth time in a row; instead he radiates happiness. This level of delight is only attainable by a person who recognizes the beneficial significance of their failure. I suppose for every tired winner there is a happy loser. When I eventually grow drowsy I can only anticipate the void of happiness soon to be sealed. I will gladly pass on the paddle when the time arrives, but I’m not tired yet.

It was well past my bedtime when Pablo, a Peruvian friend and Maria, a Mexican friend, showed up at my door. My room is known as the “work room” which really means it’s the room people come when it’s 2:00 AM and they aren’t close to finishing (or beginning) their homework. I had nearly completed my assignments for the next day but let them in anyway, well aware it meant putting a few hours hiatus on sleep. Pablo was visibly distressed over his personal crisis of the day while Maria was wired on over-exhaustion and glucose.

The combination was a recipe for procrastination, and one hour later zero papers had been written and the two had engaged in a vivid discussion about Anthony “Romeo” Santos, a Dominican heartthrob. They were blasting “Los Infieles” and yelling out their favorite songs over deafening Spanish lyrics.

“Yo,” Pablo yelled out, “did you see the clips from that concert where Romeo asked for gorditas to come on stage so he could kiss one?”

“What?!” Maria cried out, “he can’t do that! He has a girlfriend!”

“It’s all for publicity, don’t worry, look see he got a much bigger fan base from this.” Pablo turned his laptop to Maria and she watched transfixed as her Latin dreamboat made out with a heavy-set Hispanic girl in front of tens of thousands of people.

“Why would he do that?” she whined, “It’s so unfair!” Pablo laughed, and so did I, mostly because I had no idea who Anthony Santos was or why he was making out with gorditas to sell records instead of running a regular ad campaign. I learned that if there’s one thing Hispanic people from any country can bond over it’s the music of “Romeo” Santos.

I’m usually critical of any sentence that begins with “Following the dream,” but when Howard Greenberg continued to explain that doing so “gives you that not so common feeling of good fortune and thankfulness,” I was instead inspired. People rarely recognize their own good luck. If they do, whether it was earned drudgingly or serendipitously, giving thanks has continued up a path of infrequency.

Another interesting subject Greenberg touched on was the continual evolution of photography. He would be considered a sort of “old world” photographer having learned and prospered during an age of film and dark rooms. Being a well-established connoisseur of the field in a contemporary market must be awkward at times. He differentiated to us between what he considered the old craft and vision at the heart of photography’s beginnings and modern, conceptual photography, Greenberg described current-day photography as a “documentation of an idea.” Which sounded like a careful way of expressing his lack of appreciation for at what photography has become.

Nevertheless it was lovely to be in the presence of someone who so clearly knows and can explicate his art. Greenberg is a portrait of success not only because of his talent but also because of his attitude.

“Elisabeth, can I ask you a very important question?” Whenever my coworker Chirag communicates something like that I can’t help but brace myself for what will inevitably turn out to be a ridiculous inquiry on an arbitrary but amusing subject. I gave him a half-hearted go ahead and he continued in his heavy accent, “you are Jewish, right?”

“Yes Chirag, I am Jewish.” Already I regretted entertaining his absurd question of the day. He intensified that regret by launching into a highly detailed story of what he knew about Jews because of his multitude of Jewish neighbors and his experiences with Jewish customers at Kmart.

“Ok, don’t take this the wrong way”

“Just ask the question!” When you let Chirag go off on a tangent he tends to forget why he was bothering you in the first place.

“Okay okay,” he held up his hands in defense and continued, “you are Jewish, so you only eat bagels, right?” I raised an eyebrow, convinced he had finally lost it. Any chance of miscommunication was shattered when he began to describe the shape and texture of a bagel.

“I know what a bagel is!” He laughed and began to nod as though I had proven his theory. In an attempt to retaliate I protested, “Just because I’m Jewish doesn’t mean I only eat bagels! That’s like saying you only eat curry…” but it was a lost cause. “Go away Chirag,” was the only lame comeback I could contrive. For the rest of the summer Chirag never failed to ask what type of bagel I had eaten that day.