Category — PD’Antonio

I have always been told that New York abounds with many ‘different’ people (to put it gently), so I have come accustomed to not being surprised by the varying absurdities that I may come in contact with throughout the day. Still, there are times that my surprise gets the best of me; case in point: yesterday, November 1^st.

As I was waiting on the Shuttle between Times Square and Grand Central, just as the doors were about to close, a loud (and very obtrusive) ‘clacking sound’ seemed to grow louder and louder, as at the same time, it grew closer and closer. And suddenly, just as the doors were about to close, a man in his mid-50s squeezed into the subway car. His dress seemed normal enough, and otherwise would not have come to my attention had it not been for the enormous wooden clogs that he was wearing on his feet.

It is not that I haven’t seen a pair of clogs before, I have. It is just that the size of the shoes that he was wearing were larger than one can imagine. In fact, to merely speak of the size of them would not suffice, as they also appeared to be handmade, essentially chiseled out of a block of wood. I know little else about the man other than what his figure presented, and will never know why he was wearing those particular shoes. In a city in which people are generally ignored, it is sometimes interesting to pay attention to things that generally would not go unnoticed anywhere else.

Two things caught my eye about this particular sign located in the Union Square 14th Street Subway Station:

1. Look at the date.
2. It is impossible to read the full sign without being:
   a) in a subway car, at which point it doesn’t matter.
   b) standing on the third rail, at which point the rats (and/or the poison) won’t be what is going to kill you

It’s not often that I have the opportunity to hear a celebrated novelist and screenwriter speak, so I was particularly looking forward to attending Richard Price’s talk last Tuesday.  Relatively unfamiliar with Price’s work, as I was going into the night I was expecting an organized, laid out and serious talk; what we got however was anything but.

At first, I thought that describing his style (at least in public forum) as laid-back or nonchalant would be a criticism or an injustice to his writing ability. Yet as I gave it further thought, I came upon the realization that his blasé demeanor isn’t something to ignore but instead an important part of his personality to understand. It is that same disposition that is likely to credit for his successful works, which often times center around character interactions and dialogue from average people. Whereas many writers of his level of success may be inclined to raise themselves in status among the normal folk, Price seemingly refused to do so. Why? Possibly its because so much of his achievement comes from chronicling the normal, the average, and the less than fortunate, or maybe its just because Price is a little bit normal himself.

Either way, his material makes for great reading (as showcased by his reading selection that night), and I hope to find the time to read one of his novels in the weeks, or months to come.

A few weeks ago, I decided (for no particular reason) that rather than take the subway, I would walk through the downtown Financial District. At some point, every so many steps that I took, a plaque appeared on the sidewalk bearing a date and a particular person or event. It didn’t take me long to realize that I was walking down the “Canyon of Heroes,” a walk that I had certainly done before at a much younger age but since forgotten.

Anyway, as I progressed down the street, I passed such placards noting past parades celebrating world leaders such as Winston Churchill, or Dwight Eisenhower, and events such as ‘V-J Day,’ (the day World War II ended). It dawned on me however that the most notable use in recent years of the ‘Canyon’ was by the Yankees and the Giants, both sports teams celebrating their respective championship efforts. Certainly, sports teams have been lauded in the past, but never were they the main focus of the parade route. In August of 1945, at the conclusion of the Second World War, in the masses all different kinds of Americans centered on the Canyon to celebrate, ultimately dumping some 5000 tons of ticker-tape (compared to avg. 50 tons for sports teams) down onto the streets. Of course it is great to celebrate when the Yankees (or Mets for that matter) win, but it is also great to think of the time, when such parades were reserved for more important things.

There were several points during Thursday night’s production of Rigoletto that I lost track of what exactly was going on. It wasn’t a miscast character in the ensemble, an unentertaining script, or the fact that the words were spoken in archaic Italian that caused my lapse in attentiveness; rather it was the set behind the performers that for the better part of the play kept me in awe, and pure amazement. Naturally there are more aspects to an opera than just the set design, but once the chandeliers and the curtains rose, the grandeur of the Duke’s palace enveloped the stage, and with no coincidence, the splendor of the rest of the performance followed suit.

While certainly I am no opera critic, I’d like to think that I have somewhat of a discerning taste when it comes to various art forms; yet when I entered the New York Metropolitan Opera for the first time last week, it dawned on me that rather than treat the experience as an assignment to be reviewed, my primary purpose should be to enjoy it first…and what a difference the change in mindset made. Being its some one-hundred and fifty years since the opera’s transition from Victor Hugo’s forbidden French play to a world renowned opera, it is difficult to criticize the overall storyline, which proved to be not only humorous at times, but an observation of the society at the time of its initial production.

The opera, first performed in 1851, consists of three acts and is widely held to be one of composer Giuseppe Verdi’s greatest works. Having never seen a previous rendition of ‘Rigoletto,’ naturally it is impractical to try and compare it to anything else. While having little outside knowledge of what to expect may be considered a negative to some, it allowed for me to enjoy the performance for what it was, not what it could have been. That being said, I felt the opera was particularly well cast. Playing the title character, Georgian-born baritone George Gagnidze (in his debut role at the Metropolitan Opera) adopted the role of the hunchback Rigoletto as well as one could hope, bringing with him not only his singing ability, but an emotional portrayal of a man mocked, jeered and beaten down by life, only to later on lose the single thing most important to him. Playing his daughter Gilda, was German-born Christine Schäfer, a soprano not many years Gagnidze younger (if any at all), Schäfer skillfully interacted with her costars onstage, all the while maintaining the innocence and naïveté that her secluded (and not yet mature) character possessed. Having not enough time to devote to the other singers, it should be mentioned that considering that the entire opera was done in Italian, each of the stars should be commended for their ability to inflect the emotional significance of their words in their voices.

An opera, while very much similar to a play, relies heavily on its orchestra and conductor; while I may not have the ‘ear’ to have heard possible errors, I was able to appreciate the integration of the music into the action as well as the great dramatic effect that the orchestra had on what was going on. It has always been said that the soundtrack makes or breaks a Hollywood movie, the same holds true even more so with opera productions. Whether it was supplying the background to the now well-regarded “La donna è mobile” or completely setting the scene with a dramatic open, the orchestra only deserves praise for what they accomplished.

Undoubtedly there were points of the production that I could not fit into this limited review, yet the important thing remains: I, a sports-loving, comedy-watching, teenage male, not only went to the opera, but it enjoyed it.

Up until this point in my life, I have only attended private schools; so, on Friday when I went to the theaters to view Davis Guggenheim’s Waiting For Superman, I was more than a little taken aback from what I saw. Beyond the startling statistics regarding the nation’s public schools presented every so often, lied the stories of five children, who despite their inner yearning to learn were stuck in situations beyond their control, namely their compulsory enrollment in some of the worst public schools in the country.

What I had always taken for granted, the parents of the children portrayed in the documentary would have given anything for, and their efforts are chronicled in attempts at charter school admission. What’s more however is that the children were strikingly similar to my little brother in both age and interests, for instance, several were eight years old, enjoyed superheroes and one wore similar SpongeBob pajamas, and one little girl, Daisy expressed her desire to be a veterinarian, just like my little brother. If anything, the film put faces to the problem of public schools, and I found myself unable to remain a detached viewer. In the end, the film got me to think just how different a path in life that my little brother will lead from his counterparts in the documentary.

Certainly, we all would like to think of ‘culture’ as being differences that make us unique, unfortunately there are also disadvantages to certain ways-of-life as documented in the film, and it just makes me more thankful for the opportunities that I have been given, and eager to see the same opportunities given to others as well.

For purposes of full disclosure, it should first be mentioned that I have never been to a professional dance performance before, it also should be noted that I have never had that high of a perception of the art. Yet, as I took my seat at the NY City Center last Wednesday night, I was willing to set all my prejudices aside and was hoping, nay praying that the performances would somehow surpass the minimal expectations that I had set for them in the moments before the curtain rose.

Sadly, it was not meant to be. As the first performance Xover took to the stage, I quickly realized that this would not be the fun-loving highly synchronized dance routine that I had hoped against hope for. Instead, we were greeted with what sounded to be an incomprehensible muddle of mixed vocal and sounds, which one might expect to come from a garbage disposal, certainly not a professional stage. To each their own, but to me the sound only detracted from what was going on onstage, but perhaps this is partly due to my fledgling flavor for dance. As I overheard someone state on the way out: “it seemed they needed to fill every second with some sort of sound,” I couldn’t have agreed more; but it was a dance that I had attended, not merely a musical performance and the unorthodox soundtrack forced me to realize the importance of the two running hand-in-hand. With the wildness of the sounds, it was impossible to expect the performance onstage to somehow flow with the music, it didn’t. Not to discredit the hard work of the performance of Xover over the past three years, the dancers undoubtedly put a concerted effort in, but in no way did I feel it warranted ‘opening’ this year’s Fall For Dance program.

If my expectations were low going into the first act, they only dropped further during the break that preceded the second. Fortunately, the two dances that followed not only were a change of pace, but much more enjoyable as well. The second, I Can See Myself in Your Pupil was in an entirely different league than the dance that had come before it. Set to upbeat and carefree music from Israeli group, Balkan Beat Box, Gallim Dance Company’s performance was inventive and enthusiastic, and utilized music to their advantage as it was inextricably weaved into their routine. Compared to the drab white garb of Xover’s dancers, Gallim’s crew was refreshingly colorful in both appearance and attitude. Following them came the dance: Vistaar, which was a take on the traditional Oddisi movement. While the dance style itself may be customary, the performance was enjoyable in not only its synchronicity but its constant movement and rhythm created bells worn by the dancers. Also worth pointing out were the live musicians for the act, which were a major and important component of the performance. The final dance featured a much more technical yet modern ballet performance, which as far as I could tell went along very smoothly.

It is a shame that the night had to be dampened by the show’s opening act, which unfortunately took away from the show as a whole. Yet the dance that followed the first (I Can See Myself in Your Pupil) did its best to redeem the night, and for the most part, it did a good job in doing so. While in no circumstance would I recommend the viewing of Xover again, the poor choice in opening act should in no way affect one’s enjoyment of the other performances; unfortunately however it has undeniably affected my memory of the night as a whole.

Generally speaking, the first important decision teenagers are required to make is deciding upon a college, for me however, choosing a high school was just as if not more difficult. In under to understand my predicament at the time, it’s imperative that some background information be given.

I have lived my entire life in Orange County, New York, a large part of the Hudson Valley, which given my opinion, is nicer than any borough with the exception of Manhattan, but that’s beside the point. At the age of six, I entered a small Catholic school in a small town located on a big river, the Hudson. I stayed in the school from Kindergarten through Eighth Grade and with few exceptions, graduated with many of the same kids I entered the school with nine years before. During those years, for the most part, I stuck with the decisions of my friends, because in many regards my class was a large group that in many instances acted together; however once the time came for looking to school after the eighth grade, things changed rather quickly.

As all of the other kids in my class weighed one of two options: a) their local school district’s Public School or b) a mediocre Private School a few towns away, I sought after something else. As it turned out, most chose the latter option, which isn’t a surprise considering the path between the two schools had been paved by past graduates, yet the school hadn’t interested me at all, so the possibility never entered my mind. Instead, I set my sights on a school which was not only located in a different state, New Jersey, but was relatively unheard of by any of my classmates and never attended before by anyone from my elementary school.

The funny thing in all of this, was that I was the person least expected to stray so far from the rest of the class, certainly there were moments when I separated myself from the others, but when attending nine years of school with many of the same kids, choosing something different isn’t as easy as one might think it would be.

The end of that year, I began high school not knowing a single person that would be graduating with me four years later, not knowing a thing about the town it was in or the state for that matter, and taking a train full of New York City commuters to school each day, plus I had to wake up at 5:30. Yet, it was something entirely different than what I had been used to and I ended up enjoying it immensely.

Now reflecting on my choice four years later, I am absolutely positive that I made the right decision in going against everything that I had normally would have done and doing something that nobody else in my class had even considered. I made new friends, gained new opportunities, had a totally different high school experience than anyone else I graduated 8^th grade with, and most importantly, loved the school. And none of this would have been possible if I hadn’t decided to be different than the rest.

While an enjoyable read, it wasn’t until I reached the final pages of Charles Li’s “The Bitter Sea” that the novel evoked any real feeling in me, it was the humanity shown in his father that ultimately enabled me to better appreciate the work as a whole, which was a personal attempt to describe Li’s own journey for his father’s affection.

Often jumping from place to place and time to time, one constant throughout Li’s narrative was that he kept moving along, and spent limited time on describing each part of his childhood. While there may be some criticism of the tempo he set throughout, I found it quite a good representation of his childhood as a whole: getting acclimated to a certain situation only to leave it for an entirely new one soon after; we, as the readers often felt the same thing during certain points of the book, as often just as we were getting accustomed to a certain environment, Li propelled the storyline in another direction. Had it been a work of fiction, this may not have been appropriate, but since the work was non-fiction, and Charles Li is the best person to write about the life of Charles Li, I have no problems with the direction he took the novel in.

An argument many will try to make is that by separating the book into distinctly different and separate parts, Li created too much of a disconnect between each phase of his life. On the other hand, I found it more so a unique touch rather than a weakness of the book; because no matter how you looked at it, each past ‘life’ of Li contributed to how he presently lived; the attitude he had while in the slums of the Nanjing was undoubtedly present in him many years later even when he was tutoring as a young adult. Certainly there were points in the book in which Li could have finessed his change in settings and subplots, but the abruptness that was very often apparent was fitting for the childhood in which he led. From the start of the story it was obvious, Li had no intention of documenting a ‘sob story’ so when moments of emotional importance arose, to me, they felt much more genuine than if they had been seen throughout the story all along.

Before I left Manhattan on Monday night, I decided to make a stop at the Feast of San Gennaro. As I neared the festival, music blared, roads were closed and lining the streets were green, red, and white colored tents hanging with signs promising the best cannoli, zeppole or sausage and pepper sandwich in the world. Even if they happened not to be the best, their smell filled the air and they were enticing nonetheless. Stretching down several blocks, the Feast of San Gennaro seemed to be in full swing as I turned to walk down Mulberry Street.

However, despite how festive the atmosphere seemed, certain elements of the event were unquestionably commercialized and no doubt different from the tradition that has been present in the Little Italy area for the past eighty-four years. Now an eleven-day spectacle, the Feast was once a locally run affair, in which many local families would set up handmade stands, advertising their specialty food, whether it be canolis or sausages, with children setting up and hawking passersby into playing their coin games. At a time, in which the food was a means, not an end, locals and visitors alike gathered to join in the excitement.

Since my grandparents, great-grandparents, and even great-great grandparents have lived in the Mulberry Street area since the turn of the last century, I can only imagine the sense of community and celebration that once spread throughout the neighborhood during the festival which stretched even further downtown than it does today. While I certainly enjoy a good celebration of my (half) Italian heritage, and the Feast today was filled with great food, I am left to imagine (and listen to stories retold by my grandparents) of the time when the Feast of San Gennaro was for more than just the food.