I really enjoyed the theater day performance by Jonathan Safran Foer, particularly because I had already read Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close in my 12th grade English class and the book immediately became one of my favorites. What really drew me to the story was the relationship between Oskar and his father—my father and I have always had a special bond, and my main memory of September 11 is that my father came home scarcely before midnight (he works in Manhattan). Reading the book made me think about how lucky I was that he was nowhere near the Twin Towers that day, since Oskar’s father also did not work in the World Trade Center and was only there for a meeting. I was very pleased that Foer chose to read the story of the Sixth Borough because that was one of my favorite parts of the novel—at its core the scene is a sweet bedtime story from a father to his son, but it also ends up being Oskar’s last memory of his father. I believe that this reading qualifies as art because Foer himself was reading his own words and conveying them with the feelings he intended them to have; if someone else had read the story of the Sixth Borough it would have been just another person giving a reading. To me, an author reading his own words gives them so much more meaning and generally makes them more interesting. Or maybe I’m just a delusional fan of the novel. Some people noted that they would’ve liked more feeling in the reading—I disagree, actually. He wasn’t overly passionate because the story was Oskar’s bedtime story, not a Shakespearean soliloquy. He read it simply, which is the way I would think Oskar’s father would have told the story to his son.
I also enjoyed the subsequent interview with Foer, but that was mainly because it was hilarious to watch the associate dean make a fool of himself for an hour. I think he really got too caught up in the fact that this was the “Arts Day Orientation” and most of his questions focused on Foer’s views of art. I would have preferred more questions about Foer’s actual books, particularly Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. They had us read the book in preparation for the orientation, but overall you really didn’t need to know anything about the book for that presentation. I think that “Arts Day” should not have been called that, because I felt like the theme of art was forced into the interview and made it pretty awkward. Despite it having an unfitting title and a clunky theme, this was still my favorite day of the orientation (I’ve never been a fan of camp activities and the technology orientation was more about the laptop than getting to know people).
But now back to the art– personally, I think that one of the most unpleasant discussions a person can have is the “What is art?” debate. Perhaps it’s because I was an art student in high school and I’m simply tired of it by now, or maybe it’s because someone inevitably takes the debate to the next level and decides that the design on the oatmeal box is art. It’s probably because I get annoyed at people who just give up and say that they “don’t get” art. I don’t really think there’s much to “get”—it is what it is, generally. Now, that’s not to say I like every kind of art—I most certainly don’t—but I can appreciate the time the artist took to make the piece and the fact that there is always someone out there who does enjoy it. I’ve never had to stop and look at something and wonder, “Is this art?” Art is something that comes naturally and is a manifestation of the artist’s feelings. To me, that makes a book reading art, just as a painting is art as a sculpture is art as a dance is art as a song is art. An oatmeal box design is not art because it was created to sell oatmeal, not to express the designer’s deep inner feelings about oatmeal. To put it more simply, I think that anything that is a true expression of feeling is art.
