Author Archives: chloechai

Just Kids

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There were rarely any parts of the book that I felt were boring or slow. Every chapter or page had an adventure in it. I really enjoyed reading about Patti Smith’s adventures as a growing artist. She left the comfort of her stable life with her parents to pursue what she wanted to do. She was able to meet so many influential artists that inspired her to do things she never would have done, like writing lyrics or singing. Originally Patti Smith wanted to be a poet but as she met more and more artists, they encouraged her to write lyrics, sing, and act. All of these experiences would not have been possible if she stayed with her parents and lived a sheltered and stable life.

Much of the focus of this book was about Robert Mapplethorpe so there aren’t as many details about Patti’s personal life away from Robert. Nevertheless, Patti really captured Robert’s personality and personal conflicts without commenting on them and making them judgmental. She was able to write about Robert and have the readers understand Robert’s ups and downs. Their unorthodox relationship worked so well and smoothly, which came as a huge surprise because I thought the ending would have ended with both of them filled with regrets. Patti comes off as a really understanding friend while Robert seems a bit lost and needs Patti’s support, which she willingly gives. Even until the end when Patti already had a family she would still take care of Robert, really demonstrating the strong bonds they have with each other, and the promises they made.

Tara’s Visit

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Tara’s visit was another highlight of this class. I could never wrap my head around abstract painting and the reasoning behind all the little details in paintings. Tara’s paintings had that same style that I would just skip over whenever I visit exhibits at the Met. She was heavily influenced by Indian philosophy and the art of it, so there were many little details, intricate designs that permeated her paintings. There were many hidden people, animals, designs, houses, and nature throughout her works.

We were able to see how her paintings changed as she progressed in life, and the influences in her life. It was more engaging than having a tour around a museum and having the guide explain to you what was going on in the artist’s life at that point in time and what influenced the specific style, color, and technique of a painting. She was able to directly answer our questions and give us insight on what she was feeling and the different themes she was playing with for a sequence of paintings. Tara also explained a lot about the placement of her paintings and her thought process, which was better than just telling us why she placed a painting with more white space between two darker colored ones.

She said one thing that really stuck in my head when she answered Adrian’s question about the tree being on fire and his uncertainty whether that was the correct interpretation. Tara told the class “It is what you make of it”. Having a living artist give viewers agency on her work, allowing them to interpret it however they want even if it wasn’t her true intention gave me a lot of confidence to believe in my own interpretations of paintings, and art in general.

We were also able to ask her questions about pretty much anything; from the style she painted, to the symbols in her paintings, to her thought process. This transparency really helped relieve some of the stress I feel when I can’t understand a painting. She even offered her own uncertainty as a way to tell us that there really was no definite answer to anything.

“Memory Prints”

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This museum was really charming. It had many small rooms that lead the visitor through the history of the Asian American struggles. Although, the actual exhibition, “Memory Prints” was only one room. “Memory Prints” told the story of Philip Chen’s family’s long struggle living in the midwest and how they adapt to America’s hostile reaction toward outsiders. This was a different medium of art, this was a combination of paper and ink. The pieces on the wall looked really delicate with the white silvery ink against the black paper. They had many different geometric shapes contrasting the more organic shapes.

Here is a video about the process of creating the pieces:

This is just one of the many videos in the playlist, feel free to explore them!

“Becoming Robot”

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This exhibition at first glance was really dysfunctional and weird. I couldn’t wrap my head around what the artist was trying to accomplish, many of the pieces were just T.V.’s with incomprehensible scribbles drawn on them. It just looked like Nam June Paik took a paint brush and scrawled over everything with little thought.

Nam June Paik dabbled in many of the arts such as music, painting and video editing, but in all these different mediums he included some sort of technology. I started to learn that one of his purposes was to humanize technology and he did it quite literally in one of his pieces. He stacked many televisions together to create a robot family, as well as drawing on them to create a face and basing them on specific influential people like Li Tai Po.

Other pieces included placing a camera right in front of a golden Buddha and then projecting the image on a television that is also facing the Buddha. I began to see Nam June Paik as a playful person who likes to poke fun at certain concepts for amusement. His personality really did show through his art work and he was able to use technology, something that disconnects and hinders more intimate communications, and make it more personable.

“Straight White Men”

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I was forewarned of the interesting music that would be playing as we entered the theater, but I was still surprised. I thought we were walking into some club or DJ performance, and it did feel out of place for a bit, but after 5 minutes Erica, Daniel and I were starting to enjoy the beat of the music until Daniel pointed out some of the lyrics and Erica started to translate them quite fluently, which was a huge surprise.

Throughout the play and even afterwards when the same music started to play, I understood why the music was playing. The play was addressing issues that everybody seems to be tiptoeing around in society, and just how the rap song made the audience feel uncomfortable, it was a foreshadowing of the actual play. Young Jean Lee aims to make certain crowds uncomfortable and tries to pull people out of their comfort zones by addressing issues that are taboo head on.

Banksy

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When Banksy was in NYC for a month, I visited his instagram, youtube channel, blog posts quite frequently. Just how Professor Drabik said that NYC is like a giant art gallery, this was exactly how Banksy treated the streets and people of NYC. He did many public performances, such as this one:

He plays with his fame in this public performance. All these people were unaware that they were buying the artworks of Banksy which could’ve been sold for thousands.

The Waste Land

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This documentary felt complete to me. Since it was a documentary the ending wasn’t planned, and could’ve gone any way that life wanted to take it.

Even though I wasn’t there for the beginning of the film, I was still able to see the transformations of the workers. Vik Muniz was able to change the lives of these people by allowing them to work for it and seeing the fruits of their labor. He knew about their life stories, and could just have easily raised money for them, instead he connected with them and used his talents as well as theirs to bring change. He gave them the hope and recognition by bringing their stories to light. The work the catadores did weren’t the ones that were greatly sought after but they still made money through their humble works. Vik was able to see them as equals even when the people of their own communities didn’t. When they would take the public transportation home, people would turn their noses up and look down on them because they smelled from a day’s worth of hard work. They all had the drive to do something better with their lives, but not through the easy way out. The catadores wanted a better lives for themselves and saw that they could accomplish something through hard work.

–Chloe Chai

Patti Smith

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Patti Smith is a very interesting character. She isn’t known first and foremost as an author but rather a musician. She is a singer, songwriter, poet and visual artist. Her band the Patti Smith Group debuted their first album Horses in 1975, this album was a major influence on  the punk rock scene in New York City. This album was ranked number 44 in Rolling Stone magazine’s 2003 issue of 500 greatest albums of all time. Patti Smith is also known as the Godmother of Punk as she fuses rock and poetry. She has also co-written a song with Bruce Springsteen, “Because the Night”.

Listen to it here:

— Chloe Chai

Carnegie Hall

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This was definitely one of the more relaxing performances we have been on. Our past visits to performances required us to listen as well as watch what was happening on stage, and understand the plots, and the artist’s intent but for this performance, I was able to just close my eyes and listen. There were less boundaries in this performance, since the music predominately appealed to our ears, I felt more freedom to sit back, relax, close my eyes. The funny thing about this performance was that I felt more engaged with what was happening on stage even though I wasn’t watching. My heart rate would increase and I would feel nervous and tense when the music escalated to match the plot’s climax, and the story I was creating in my head that went along with the music would also change accordingly. When I did open my eyes, I loved watching the first violinist’s movements, she really had a stage presence among the many musicians surrounding her. Maybe it was her seating position on stage or the way she used her whole body to play the violin, it was just captivating. Not only her, but every musician seemed to show a bit of their own personality and style of playing in the way they moved to the music. I really appreciate how music can affect your mood, and the different senses that it indirectly affects. Relating this back to Fall for Dance, when many responses (myself included) were about music and how it made the listeners feel, I could feel the uneasiness of the situation in Tchaikovsky’s The Tempest and jumping on the bandwagon, this piece was easily my favorite from Thursday’s performance.

— Chloe Chai

Six Characters in Search of an Author

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Although this play was really enjoyable, I was utterly confused throughout the whole event. My confusion didn’t really deter me from watching it, but rather kept me on my toes. It would have made it so much easier to follow the play if the subtitles didn’t distract from watching the actual play, but glancing at the subtitles once or twice for a scene was enough to figure out the overall situation. The story itself did remind me of Inception, as Erica mentioned in her post. Like the movie “Inception”, “Six Characters in Search of an Author” had many layers of reality. There was a layer in which we exist as an audience that was watching a fictional play containing characters who are brought to life by professionally trained actors. Pirandello plays with this layer of reality by tugging at our emotions and while I was watching the play I unknowingly began to believe the story’s verisimilitude. Then the layers after this start to get all fuzzy. This is when it begins to confuse me, I don’t know whether or not to believe the characters are the creation of an author’s imagination that have come to living, or if the whole event was fictional in the layer of reality which the actors’ and actresses’ existed. But the last layer is the reality of the characters. I don’t doubt that they were living and breathing and have complex lives as the author of their story intended, but whether they actually existed in any reality besides their own is the question we are all asking. This was a thoroughly enjoyable play that got us all talking about so many aspects of theater, writing, life, so even though I was extremely confused, I enjoy this confusion because it sparked a really great conversation in class.

–Chloe Chai

“Give me your tired…”

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I wanted to take a better picture, but I was so tired, I couldn’t focus my camera or angle it correctly so this was the best I could do in my state. But I had to really capture it since it was the first time I took the train late at night by myself.

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This photo was taken 11:23pm on October 11 in the A train going downtown toward 42nd street Port Authority Bus Terminal. My closest friend, Stephanie, called me at 9:00pm on Saturday and said she was heading back to school the next morning and wanted to see me before she left. I hadn’t seen her all week because I had class, and her break was inconveniently placed right in the middle of the week. I really wanted to see her before she headed back to school, so I stuffed some clothes in my bag and was headed for the train station at around 10:00pm when my roommate Rebekah, ahem, warned me about the dangers of walking by myself at night. She also added a nice little story about gang activities in the area that one of our mutual friends had experienced. I was thoroughly frightened, so we texted a few people and only the one and only Pun answered! Yay for Chris! It was already around 11:30 by the time we started walking to the train station and I was exhausted. The walk to the A train on 125th street wasn’t bad at all that time of night, despite Rebekah’s warnings I got to the station safely.

I had to transfer from the A to the 1 and then the 7. I was hoping for a nice quiet empty subway ride home, but surprisingly there was a healthy amount of commuters still up at this time of night. The A train was filled with sleeping commuters, and all I could think of was Emma Lazarus’ poem “New Colossus” specifically the quote, “‘Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.'” But mostly the first part of the quote, haha. I was extremely tired, and even though there was a significant amount of people on the train, all you could hear was the braking of the train and the movement over the tracks. Everyone was sleeping, besides two girls who were texting or something. I can tell that most of them were just getting off work, they had their bags, work clothes on and looked exhausted. The city that never sleeps actually does sleep, on the trains, waiting for the bus, and anywhere it can. This city is filled with people that are trying to reach their dreams or just working hard to allow someone else to reach theirs. Just watching the amount of people getting on the train at 11:30pm, 12:00am, 1:00am in their work attire, sitting down and instantly falling asleep puts into perspective the reason why the city never sleeps.

A Tree Grows in Queens

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This photo is the tree that grows in front of my house. This tree was planted when my youngest sister was born, making it around 14 years old and also the youngest on the block.

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I have no idea what kind of tree this is, but every year it is always the first tree on our block to change colors. This tree represents a changing of the seasons, that transitions so seamlessly and elegantly. Just by looking at a tree, you are able to tell what season it is; if it is bare, colorful, budding, or clothed in leaves.

I was home alone the whole weekend, so I spent it in my sisters’ room since it was bigger, and when I opened their blinds this explosion of color instantly hypnotized me. I was staring at a tree for about 5 minutes, just looking at it, standing there with the window blind chord still in my hand. When I snapped out of it, I took a look down the block and everything was still green. Quite an amazing contrast.

I was a bit nostalgic that day so I had spent it looking through childhood pictures since my whole family was out on a church retreat and I came home to an empty house. I went through all the baby pictures, from when it was just me and my older sister, to when my youngest sister was born. Our family kept growing and it was all a seamless transition from having only one sister, to now three, similar to this tree. This tree was planted the very same year my third sister, Acacia (ironically her name is a type of tree), was born. Every year, the tree grew significantly but we didn’t notice on a day to day basis until one of us pointed out that we were able to touch the top of the tree just last year, its growth was so seamless and unnoticeable. I didn’t notice how much all four of us had grown within the past 10 years. Maybe it was the air that day, the dark gloomy sky or just remembering how small the tree and all four of us were, but I really missed when all four of us sisters were at home together. My older sister and I are in college, leaving only two of us at home now, so there isn’t that daily commotion that used to pervade through our house. What was once a noisy and rambunctious daily life became a quiet one, and I really missed that. A new season of life started for me this year, and it came so quickly just like how this tree rushed to scream that fall was here, while the rest of the older trees seemed to want to enjoy summer longer. The older I get the more I want time to slow down.

–Chloe Chai

Fall for Dance at New York City Center

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When I first saw the syllabus, this was something I definitely looked forward to. I always loved to watch people dance. Whether it was the street performers on the subway or impressive YouTube videos. Despite all of that, I was really exposed to dance by my friend who majored in Dance throughout high school and now a Theater major in Taiwan. She loved to dance and took master classes during her whole entire stay in the U.S. with my family. She is trained in modern, ballet, classical, Chinese opera, lyrical and jazz, and even choreographed many of her dance troupe’s performances. She would take any opportunity to dance. We would walk down the street and turn around to she her pirouette-ing or leaping or just moving her body in anyway that doesn’t resemble normal walking.

She taught me a lot about how disciplined dancers have to be. She would start classes at 7:00am and leave at around 9:00pm, or even later if there was a performance approaching. For the entire performance, even if I didn’t understand what the dancers were trying to portray, I was utterly amazed at what they could do with their bodies and thinking back to what my friend told me. These dancers pushed their bodies past breaking points and have achieved so much to be on the stage.

Dance is very much intertwined with the dances and choreography styles of each performance. The music that left the most impact on me was Lucinda Childs Dance Company’s Concerto performance. It had really jarring music that wasn’t my taste, but I can understand why the choreographers had chosen them. The music I enjoyed the most accompanied Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater’s performance of Minus 16. The music was fun, simple, and soulful.

What I also learned from my friend is the importance of lighting. Her dance troupe would always hire a different lighting designer to come and create the lighting for their specific dance. The way body movements looked in different lightings were extremely important, and even the mood of the dance is partially through the lighting. This was clearly seen in Minus 16, it was bright and well-lighted when they took audience members on-stage to dance with them, creating a really cheerful mood along with their ridiculous body movement. But in the dance when they were chanting, the lighting was from above and cast a shadow over their bodies as they were crouched over, because they wanted to create an intense mood.

The highlight of that night was seeing Sebastian Ramirez and Honji Wang outside the building after their performance. The large crowd was already gone and Sebastian Ramirez and Honji Wang were just talking to their friends. I had to get a picture with them, so I did!

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and then the rest of the class decided to photobomb.

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And a shoutout to my friend Sarah who came with us to the performance!

 

 

 

Billie Holiday

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Despite saying I’ve never heard the blues before, I actually have! Billie Holiday is a famous blues, jazz, soul singer. She has many other talents but she is most well-known for her voice. I heard blues for the first time when I listened to Billie Holiday singing “Strange Fruit” in a Civil Rights Movement Through Photography workshop at the Museum of the City of New York. This song if you listen carefully to the words (or google them) is about the hanging of slaves in the South. This song perfectly combines the slow, heavy rhythm of the accompanying music with the lyrics that contain a powerful message.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4ZyuULy9zs

Le Nozze Di Figaro

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I arrived at the Met Opera a whole hour early and just admired the buildings. The Met Opera House has such an extravagant look to it, even though it was boxy, the interior design was really incredible. You could see the inside of the building through its large windows. The chandeliers, the red carpets, and even the way the windows were shaped gave off a luxurious impression, as any renowned opera house should.

As for the opera itself, I would not have chosen a better opera to watch for my first experience. The plot of the play really kept me from sleeping through the whole thing because it was truly entertaining. I have tried watching a few operas (not soap operas) on PBS when I stumble upon them, but what makes me change the channel is how little movement the opera has. However Le Nozze Di Figaro broke this image I had about operas. Figaro had so many physical slapstick comedy, which really surprised me because I always thought operas were suppose to be reserved for more solemn stories, with long boring musical exchanges between characters. What also deterred me from watching the operas on PBS was the language. Even if the opera had a really captivating plot, I wouldn’t understand a word of it. But since The Met Opera provided subtitles, the audience was able to catch all the jokes and plot twisters.

Although the seating was quite far from the stage and a bit too high, it didn’t take away from enjoying the opera. Now I really understand why Operas are nicknamed The Queen of the Arts.

–Chloe

Let the Great World Spin Reaction

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I wanted to answer one of the questions that was not brought up in class today.

The question was: The final chapter seems almost not to belong to the novel as it is separated by 32 years from the main events. In what ways does this ending add to, complicate, or even change the story?

First, I want to disagree with the question! I thought the final chapter fit quite nicely with the novel. Even though it was separated by 32 years from the main events, so was the beginning of the story. Let the Great World Spin started off with a description of John and Ciaran’s childhood, which really helped introduce their characters and begin their stories. The ending is just as fitting because it shows the impact all of these different characters had on the new generation. The ending adds to the cycle of stories that brought all these characters together. Just like its title, the stories of every character continues on as the world spins. By showing how the past affected the future of a character like Jaslyn really solidifies the point Colum McCann’s makes in his title as well as through all the different stories he weaves together.

Construction Site, Windy Night Reaction

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I was really confused when I first read this poem. But, I still appreciated how it sounded when I read it aloud after reading it silently and having no clue what it all meant. What is iconic about New York City are the tall skyscrapers, the brownstones, plentitude of apartment buildings and just everything tall. There is always this constant sound of construction around the city, new office space, new family friendly apartments, newly paved streets. The city is always changing and improving for the constant flux of people coming in and moving out.

9/11

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My memory of 9/11 was a quite vivid one. I had been preparing to play violin at the U.N. with the rest of my violin troupe for a few months now and it we were all really excited to showcase our talents. I remember sitting on the ground outside of the U.N. (we arrived extra early because we were extra excited) and feeling really eerie because of the weather. I remember it being a humid and cloudy morning, but not cloudy enough to smother our excitement.

When we were finally escorted into the building and through security we unpacked our violins and went through the line-up. I don’t remember what order I was in, but just as the second violinist started her piece, security briskly walked in and called for our attention. They said bluntly that the Twin Towers were hit and we had to leave immediately because this building might be next. Panic filled the air and everyone began to scramble for their bags, their cases and grabbed the closest person they were next to and ran for the lobby. We had so many questions and none of us knew where to go, where it was safest and how to get there.

As we continued walking on the streets, all these bars were filled with people, their mouths gaping wide at the giant screens. The televisions kept showing repeats of the plane hitting the North Tower. The adults and the older college students who were in our troupe counted all the kids and made sure everyone was accounted for. But they didn’t know what to do next. Our troupe began to disintegrate as everyone tried to find their own way back. My dad grabbed my moms hand and yelled at all my siblings to hold hands as we went back out into the streets. Everyone was running in no particular direction, people yelling, cars beeping, it looked and sounded like any ordinary rush hour but everyone was panicking. We couldn’t catch a cab, there were plenty but no one was willing to take us to Queens. We finally caught a cab that would only take us across boroughs for 300 dollars. My dad didn’t hesitate and quickly agreed. We all loaded onto the cab and as we were crossing a bridge (I can’t remember which one) I could see the smoke rising into the gray sky. It was the first time I ever saw my dad cry. He lost many of his colleagues that day like many others and still remembers them every year. My younger sisters can’t remember that day but I can’t seem to forget it. My story isn’t particularly special as I am just one small life that has been affected by this tragedy.

Man on Wire- Reaction

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I knew about Philippe Petit walking between the Twin Towers from reading the children’s book, The Man Who Walked Between the Towers by Mordicai Gerstein back in 3rd grade. But after reading Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann, I was again immensely curious to see how this man accomplished his walk on a wire between the Twin Towers. I was specifically interested on how he managed to tie his cable between the towers. I don’t know why but I imagined that this was a one-man feat, which made it seem even more amazing to me. Contrary to my original thought, this was hardly a one-man feat. Philippe had all his friends on board to help him accomplish his dream, and at some point in the movie I really began to see why the feat had a deeper impact, more than the media had portrayed it to be.

The amount of time, money, and risk Philippe was taking with his relationships and physical body was crazy to think about. All of his friends were postponing their own lives and journey to join Philippe. They supported him and really cared about him, but I couldn’t see an inkling of concern Philippe had for his friends. To blatantly put it, he was quite selfish. When each of his friends were interviewed, his best friend Jean-Louis constantly spoke about Philippe’s safety and their relationship. But Philippe was so caught up describing how he accomplished sneaking past the guards, anchoring his cables and the excitement of it all. He was blind to see that it wasn’t just as simple as getting the job done, but there were major consequences bound to happen. What shocked me the most was when Philippe abandoned his friends after his walk and put them on hold when all this time they had put their lives on hold for his. It really was amazing to see the behind story and all the effort Philippe and his friends put into this once in a lifetime show, but heartbreaking to see what it was actually worth.

Photograph from September 11th-Wislawa Szymborska

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This poem is describing the infamous photo of an unidentified man who jumped from the Twin Towers before they collapsed. What hits a chord is the third stanza that says:

“Each is still complete

with a particular face

and blood well-hidden.”

I just can’t imagine what a body looks like after falling that many stories. Szymborska is describing the body that is falling using what it looks like after it has hit the ground. She uses the negative to create an image of both the before and after-math of the jump. The 4th stanza elongates the time frame of the jump and really puts into perspective how long it took for the man to fall,

“There’s enough time

for hair to come loose,

for keys and coins

to fall from pockets.”

I can’t imagine what the man is thinking to himself, his death was definitely not a swift one, there must have been so many thoughts racing through his mind. The poet also exudes hopeless and wishes she could have done more. Szymborska wants to leave the ending unsaid for these jumpers, she only wants to describe this flight. Szymborska wants to keep them in flight, to keep their memories alive. Flight is usually used to describe a plane ready for take-off, but not in this case. The jumpers are in flight, however, it is a descending flight to their deaths, and the use is not describing a plane but rather a person. The plane in this scenario has ended its flight but the person is just in the midst of theirs.

 

Chloe Chai- Introduction post

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Hi everyone! I’m Chloe Chai and I love tea. Not really, but I feel obligated to because I have been asked countless times if I’ve tried the Starbucks drink (Chai Tea Latte), cause y’know my last name is Chai and its CHAI tea. I have and it’s really good.

Anyways, I grew up in Flushing, Queens where you can buy extremely cheap and delicious, that’s very important, food right off the sidewalk. There are also plenty of bubble tea places so you can always get your fill. If you’ve never tried bubble tea and don’t know what it is, bubble tea is a popular Asian drink that consists of two parts. The first is the liquid; this could be anything from juice to tea, but the key traiScreen Shot 2014-09-14 at 1.05.18 AMt is that it has to be sweet. The second part, and the most important, is the bubbles, or tapioca balls. Tapioca balls are starchy, chewy, soft, delicious and also sweet and when you put these two components together you make the Queen of all drinks, the bubble tea. If you are a first timer at a bubble/boba/pearl tea place you might be overwhelmed with all the different liquids you can choose from, but the best is always the original. So I would recommend the milk tea.

Another fun fact: the Queen of all drinks originated in my native country Taiwan! So there might be a bit of a bias here. Just a little.

My parents were born in Taiwan and so my sisters and I grew up swimming in Taiwanese culture, since my parents really only enjoyed Taiwanese food and only spoke mandarin. Thanks to my parents, I am fluent in speaking, writing, and reading traditional Chinese characters from all the years spent slaving away at a Chinese school.

As you can probably tell, I quite enjoy food and am always open to trying different delicacies, so if you have any recommendations, please do share!

Aside from my interest in food, I enjoy playing sports and if you can find the little hint I put in the previous paragraph, I am swimmer, a trackie, and a volleyball player. I am a Biochemistry major, and although I truly enjoy the sciences my high school has cultivated in me an enjoyment for the humanities.

Speaking of high school, I graduated from Townsend Harris, a relatively small humanities high school located in the outskirts of Flushing, Queens. Our graduating class was 283 students, or 283 family members, so this transition to a larger school like City College has been quite an experience. There are over 12,000 undergraduates and it is hard to believe that when I’m walking through campus, I will most likely not see the same faces again.

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This post is getting out of hand, so Ill just end it here. I am really looking forward to exploring this city with you all!