CUNY Macaulay Honors College at Baruch College/Professor Bernstein

Quality of Life. 5:45PM

The Quality of Life Task Force: a bunch of college kids in their washed jeans and heavy black coats sat on the sturdy, cold metal chairs while nervously staring at the clock until they could see Richard Price, the author of Lush Life, on the 7^th floor of the Newman library building at Baruch college. Their mantra: focus, do not fall asleep, and get out of here early; their motto: Everyone’s got something to gain.

“Is dead tonight,” when Richard Price started to read this line, I instantly realize that all those expectations that I had before were useless. Focusing and not falling asleep were no longer my mantra. I was immediately drawn to Richard Price’s Lush Life.

I always loved reading, but I hated when the author himself read off his book to people. I subconsciously felt some sort of pressure in the author’s tone at the latest reading I went: “This is my book. Since I wrote this , you must understand this in my way.” Especially, I disliked the question and answer that followed the reading. The author was giving away all the sources of his inspiration and conveying the deeper meaning. The author interpreted the book for me. There was no place for my imagination. However, Richard Price was not the author but a storyteller who made extraordinary out of the ordinary. His reading changed my initial preconception on the unappealing nature of author readings.

Richard Price was a writer like a projector at the theater, which enlarges the tiny still-cuts of the movie into the lively scenes on the huge screen. The reading started with a night fishing on Delaney street, where used to be known as the center of Heroine and other illegal drug smuggling. However, if you are making hasty presumption, “Yah Yah Yah, that is how it is for all NYC based novels: Cops, Pots, and Gun,” you got it very wrong. The vivid description and speedy progress of the story itself would prove that every point of your generalization is wrong. Richard Price was an author who only writes about what he knows. Thus, he is not afraid to question back to the readers “how do I possibly know everything?” Furthermore, his story flowed with the dialogue between the characters that further empowered the realistic tone.

For about two hours, he guided us through the sneaky backstreets in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. With slightly shaky voice and humor, he made us imagine the incident of that night. We were welcomed to make gasps and laughs at every little thing that was projected in image of the street from his book without feeling any pressure. Price’s philosophy toward diversity provided an entirely different scope of our city lives. He started questioning how everyone -Jews, Catholics, Asians, Blacks, Republicans and Democrats- all can mingle and ignore each other at the same time in New York City.  Eventually he ended up figuring out nothing about the cause of such collision. Maybe he simply regarded such a job is for some super smart physician, but not a cool writer like him. Truly, his free and easy-going personality made myself to acknowledge newly found pleasure of listening and imagining.

On October 19^th, I fulfilled all my required task forces. I could never allow myself dare to fall asleep or lose focus. However, my mantra had to change five seconds after Richard Price started his reading. “Tell me more!” became my new mantra for the next one-hour and half. My mind is still chanting that mantra while I am trying to read the hard copy of Lush Life in my dorm room. I’ll be gladly chanting this mantra more than a thousand times until his new book comes out. “Tell me just a little bit more, Mr. Price!”

The image was taken from <http://frazeurphotography.com/portfolio/source/lower_east_side_nyc.htm>

There are two types of people in the world, people that work for companies and people who work for nonprofit agencies and the government. Basically everyone in my family started out their careers with a government job  and I plan to follow suit. Most people in the U.S. end up working for corporations or small businesses. Demographically speaking, the poorest, richest, least educated, and the smartest people end up working in a for profit industry. On the other hand, government jobs are jobs for the middle class, while people that work in the nonprofit agencies usually don’t stay there for long. Take for example Doctors Without Borders, Red Cross, and the Salvation Army. What makes people decide between nonprofit agencies, a government job, or working in the private sector? I think it has something to do with money, job security, and persons’ choices. Obviously someone who loves political science would want some experience in government, and someone who is interested in finance would probably want to work for a large corporation. But what motivates lawyers, doctors, teachers, accountants, mangers, and everyone else to choose between the two?

I used to know someone who joked around with a mischievous smile that “Everybody loves you when you’re six foot in the ground.” He was the godfather of hippies who used to sing “All you need is love!” with his old guitar. The sincere philanthropist, environmentalist, and musician, John Lennon has been under the ground for few decades now. However, his songs are still echoing in people’s mind in the name of peace and love. I visited Strawberry Fields, the heart of the culture that John Lennon created, on the day after his seventieth birthday.

At first, my day started out as an ordinary Sunday evening. After coming back from church, my cousin’s family and I sat in front of the dinner table, casually joking around whose life was more miserable. This typical dinner conversation was dramatically changed when my cousin-in-law brought John Lennon to our table. My cousin-in-law, who has been playing guitar for more than 30 years, told us that yesterday was John Lennon’s birthday. John Lennon from the Beatles, of course I knew him. Once the main singer-songwriter for the world’s famous band the Beatles, met Yoko Ono, fell madly in love with her, abandoned everything that appeared profitable in his life, ditched the Beatles, and decided to live his remaining life as a happy hippie in Manhattan instead. Or at least, that was all what I knew about him.

I always had a tendency of separating music from art. I often introduced myself as an artist, but music was something totally outside of my sphere of interest. Furthermore, I had a cheesy taste as a listener. I was born and raised in the 90s, growing up listening to all that “pop-sick-cle” music featured by the Backstreet boys and Britney Spears.  Then, there came the 21^st century and I danced to the “Boom Boom Pow” flow with obnoxiously loud bass sound and incomprehensible rap.  When my cousin-in-law asked me if I want to visit Strawberry Fields, I thought why not- I love strawberries. He kindly informed me that we’re going to Strawberry Fields not strawberry picking. It was the little portion of Central Park that was dedicated to the memories of John Lennon. Oh, okay, I thought, still why not. At least, there should be one strawberry if they named after it like that.

When we finally arrived at the 72^nd street, west side of Central Park, we could hear a band playing Lennon’s song “Imagine” from a distance. My family and I walked faster and faster as if we are drawn to a magnetic field. In the middle everyone -hippies, non-hippies, musicians, and non-musicians- we finally stopped. I had no idea how that happened, but I started to sing along with them. I didn’t even know that I knew the lyrics. We sang and sang in complete circles, looking and smiling at each other and the strangers, as if we’ve known each other for a long time.

As to what my kindly cousin-in-law said, there was not even a single strawberry at Strawberry Fields. However, I was able to pick something sweeter than strawberries. It was the seed of culture that John Lennon strived to cultivate throughout his life that eventually grew up into a fruit and ripened in the people’s mind. It was also the power of his culture that made me start imagining a world without religion, possession, greed, and hunger, but only filled with peace and love. Everyone thought he was a dreamer, but he was not the only one. And today, I’m joining this circle of life because I am simply curious- what color is the sky in his heaven?

The image was taken from <http://www.nycgovparks.org/sub_about/parks_history/strawberry_field_images/large/Strawberry_Fields_Forever.jpg>

I’m in the New York State of Mind.

(http://www.pbs.org/kcet/tavissmiley/archive/200804/20080428_price.html)

Richard Price is not afraid to say that he has talent, and to be quite honest, he certainly does deserve the credit he gives himself. Through his talk with the audience members and answers to their questions, it became clear that he was well aware of his natural writing abilities. At the same time, he remained genuine and down to earth, never giving off the feeling that he was above anyone else in the room. In fact, he was rather funny, and while his blunt remarks often caused waves of laughter throughout the audience, his humor never appeared deliberate or forced.  When asked about his writing, he emphasized intuition, which seemed to play a large role not only in his work, but also in the way he carried himself and interacted with people. He was clearly not here to put on an act, and did not attempt to impress others with haughty responses to questions. Instead, his replies were candid and truthful, allowing the audience to feel comfortable with the esteemed and successful writer. For instance, he made a quick reference to some author, and then joked that he was quoting from a writer he had never even read before. Certainly, he could have left that detail out, but by mentioning it, one could see that he was truly a humble and comic man.

His humor was also evident in his writing, especially in the excerpt he read aloud from his latest work in progress. His repetition of the word “God” was just the touch that pushed the audience into hysteria. After his reading, I wondered how he learned to craft such an entertaining and clever style of writing. Later, when someone asked him that very question, I was not surprised that he did not accredit his sharp work to any of his former teachers. He claimed that they were only able to provide him with encouragement, which was enough for him to continue honing his writing skills. He also compared writing to running, describing it as something instinctive, rather than something that could be taught. While I always looked at writing as a skill developed through practice and learned techniques, I can tell that for Richard Price, it truly is an inborn gift.

I never heard of Richard Price before Professor Bernstein told us about him. I thought it would be boring listening to an author I never heard of talk about a book I would probably never read, but the reading and talk back session turned out to be a lot of fun. Richard Price turned out to be a really interesting guy.

I’m not much of a book person, instead of reading I mostly watch movies. While listening to Richard Price read from his novel, Lush Life, I couldn’t help comparing his book with movies like Serpico, Dog Day Afternoon, and Mystic River. His writing is gritty and straight to the point. He doesn’t waste time with too many adjectives, metaphors or poetic language. From what I could tell his books try to be realistic about crime and tensions in the city, which is similar to a lot of movies I’ve seen.

I also was interested in his opinion on the gentrification of NYC, since I have always been interested in demographics, especially when analyzing certain trends like the shifts occurring in the Lower East Side and Harlem. After asking him whether or not he would rather have NYC be the way it was in the 1970’s or keep it the way it is now, he said that the question was “a mess” and was unable to give me a yes or no answer. For one thing, he said he misses the diversity, the culture, and artsy way NY was back in the 70’s compared to the white, yuppie, hipster, bohemian bourgeoisie demographic that represents most of NYC today. On the other hand he said that the crime rate and drug problems today have greatly improved since the 1970’s and it would be hard too hard to choose between what boiled down to be the culture of the 70’s and the quality of life today. He ended my answer with a self referential anecdote: he said that back then no one ever talked about the kids who grew up in the projects, went to college and became relatively successful. The things that we hear on the news about the kids who got into the drug business and gunned down someone in the street are only a small minority of the population, even in the 1970’s.

To the rest of the world, Richard Price is a prestigious novelist and screenwriter. To me, he’s just a humble person who will always be connected to the Lower East Side, a well-known melting pot of Jewish culture, Fujinese immigrants, yuppies and hipsters. As Price entered the Lush Life reading, he was dressed in a simple way, and didn’t make a grand entrance like I assumed he would. Instead, he was simply reading to himself, and made it extremely difficult to make him out. When he talked, it put me at ease due to his manner of speech, even though he is an extremely educated individual.

I knew I had witnesses an amazing performance after Richard Price was finished with Lush Life. As a natural storyteller, Price gave us an honest account by speaking in a colloquial way that helped the audience to capture the essence of the story. During the Question and Answer session, the most alerting fact was that Richard Price didn’t care to take notes, but instead decided to immerse himself within the story itself.

Was that Richard Price who just walked through the door? The middle-aged, moppy-haired, yellow-socked guy? I anticipated a grander entrance for such a well-acclaimed author and screenwriter, but Price’s casual attire begged otherwise. Unfortunate for me, I did not recognize him when he first showed up on Tuesday evening. His frumpy shirt, yellow socks, and no-brand briefcase, were so unassuming; I couldn’t imagine it was he. It took me three seconds to realize it was the author himself who had just slipped through my fingers. By then it was too late. I missed my chance to be the first to welcome him.

Price’s heavy “New Yawk” jargon accessorizes his informal getup. An ex-pat of Lower East Side who never truly left, Price recreated the neighborhood for us with sentimental talk of his own “Bubbe” and witty anecdotes of the resident loony tunes. I spotted a twinkle in his eye as he outlined the transformations of the LES, as a haven for Fujianese immigrants, a hub of Jewish life, and now a magnet for today’s hip yuppies. Price puts the LES on display, using a timeline of events to outline the renovation he has witnessed and the ever-changing dynamics of the neighborhood.

Price wowed the crowd with his synthesis of pride and humility, all the while camouflaging himself into his predominantly New York audience. (Also, I’m just a wee bit jealous of his natural theatrical flair.)

nymag.com/…/2008/03/richard_price.html

Listening to Richard Price speak, I could hear a down-to-earth presence about him. The way he spoke made me feel comfortable listening to him. You can see that he is extremely intelligent, but he doesn’t flaunt it in the way he speaks or gets his message across. He doesn’t get too wordy which is something I liked about him. He wasn’t afraid to use foul language in a room full of people. He spoke in the language he knew how and didn’t try to hide it. He speaks using his own voice and doesn’t try to sound different than who he is, which was admirable. To be honest, I expected to hear some big time writer talk about his books in a way I couldn’t comprehend. I thought it would be a bore the whole way through. Instead, he was genuine with his answers and added his own touch of humor which made him fun to listen to. After every question, I was waiting to hear the witty answer he had and a comment to follow it. He sure does know how to keep an audience’s attention.

Aside from the interview itself, you can see how much work he put into his books with all the research and interviews he had to do. Using his own experiences and the collective information of those around him, he creates these real life stories, such as Lush Life. But its his creativity that makes them as famous as they are. You need to have a sense of history, humor, and writing in order to create those types of books. Having those three qualities isn’t an easy thing to have, but Richard Price has it and it shows in the way he speaks and writes.