Theater Day, day three of the Macaulay orientation, was interesting for me. In a way, I can say that I had mixed feelings. While I enjoyed the experience of “meeting an author”, and hearing what he had to say, I think I enjoyed the idea of it, more than I enjoyed it itself.
Maybe it was because I came in with expectations, and I felt that they were not met. I came in thinking I’d hear a lot from the author, and that the Q&A segment with him would give me a lot of insight about his life, his experiences, his thoughts and feelings. While I did enjoy what he had to say about enjoying NYC for everything it has to offer, and his idea of disconnecting from technology to better to help that, I had the feeling of wanting more. When he turned to the next part of his “speech” (I don’t think that’s quite the word to describe it) of reading an excerpt from his novel I remember thinking “that’s it?”. A few seconds later I alleviated that feeling by reminding myself that at at the Q&A “conversation” with him, I’d get to hear more. Unfortunately, I did not feel like I did. I don’t mean to critique, but I did not feel that the questions Foer was asked were relevant, or interesting to me as the audience. What’s more, I felt like he was being asked the same one question many times, with a small nuance in between each question. I turned to my friend sitting next to me multiple times during this session and he agreed with me. “He isn’t asking good questions”, he said.
The other point I want to address is the excerpt reading. While nkornbluth really enjoyed it, I was not moved. I’ve never really been moved by authors’ excerpt readings. I don’t see much of a point to them? If I read the book myself, why do I need it read to me? Some would say that it’s different when the author reads it out loud because you hear the tone of the book. I can see this applying to an author reading his picture book, or an action book author reading with the “special effects” the book is supposed to have. However, with such a novel as Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, I don’t see the necessity in this. When I read it, I did not read it with tone; it wasn’t an action novel. Foer himself, if I recall correctly, did not read it with a different tone either.
If we consider Foer’s reading as the “performance” part of the night, I would not consider it a performance. A performance to me is acting, singing, dancing, something beyond the scope of regular human speech or conversation. By this definition, neither did the “Q&A conversation session” count to me as a performance, or art really. Performance, to me, is a branch of art. Therefore, if the night did not count to me as a performance, it did not count as art either.
To me, art is a form of expression beyond regular human speech, interaction, and behavior. For me to consider a conversation as “art”, it would have to be extremely enhanced. Otherwise, we could consider almost anything art in this world, and I just don’t see the point in that. Why not reserve art as something special, something more than just regular. Would it touch us and influence us so much if it was “regular”?
