After two exciting days of orientation, Wednesday provided a calmer atmosphere for the end of our introduction to Macaulay. After such formalities as a speech from the dean, an overview of our respective campuses, and a club fair, we sat down for the main event of the night: a reading and question-answer session with Jonathan Safran Foer.

He read a short story originally from his book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. This may have been my favorite part of the night. When I read the story in the book for the first time, I loved it. It was the perfect example of an urban bedtime story. Classic children’s stories about princesses locked in towers are outdated. Thomas Schell’s story of the sixth borough had the perfect mix of reality and fantasy to relate to the modern Manhattan kid. Even I, an 18 year old, found myself transported into the story: cheering on the long jump champion, amazed at the flickering lights of the fireflies, and talking to my friends through tin cans on string.

Hearing Safran Foer read the story just added to my total infatuation with it. His voice was hushed, in a way that made you want to lean in closer to hear just a little better. He remained constant in tone, but not monotonous. His pace was slow enough to be calming, but fast enough to keep you interested. If you didn’t feel the draw of the story when you read it, you certainly felt it in the room with over 500 silent college students listening to a fairy tale.

But the question “Did this qualify as art?” is still a difficult one. What is art anyway? In response to a similar question on that night, Jonathan Safran Foer responded that art is something produced with the intention of being art. While that is beautiful conceptually, I doubt an art museum is going to hang up a macaroni picture frame, although it was certainly thought of as art by its 7-year-old creator. So I turned to my very handy Mac dashboard dictionary. It defined art as “the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination…producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power.”

With a definition handy, we can run that night through a checklist:

• The expression of human creative skill and imagination? Check. [The story is extremely imaginative and original.]
• Appreciated for its emotional power? Check. [At least for me, the reading was extremely powerful. I felt the emotion from my seat in the middle of the auditorium.]
• And for the idealists: Was it created with the intention of being art? Check. [Of course I suppose we’d really have to ask Jonathan Safran Foer this question, but from his comments that night, I feel this is a safe assumption.]

           However the rest of the night didn’t exactly follow suit. The question-answer session seemed extremely repetitive to me and didn’t give me much insight on the art of Safran Foer. We got to hear a bit about his past and his objections with Macs, but not much was mentioned about any of his books until students were allowed to ask questions. Even then, he very quickly went off topic. It was rather disappointing. 

So while I did enjoy parts of the night, I think there were better ways to have an orientation focusing on the arts.

Greetings everyone! Honestly, this has been my first experience of meeting an author in person. I’ve never had the opportunity to witness an author discuss his own work in my presence and it was a new feeling for me. After hearing the author speak for a while about his book and listening to the answers he gave to the questions posed by my fellow Macaulay classmates, I felt that Mr. Foer was a very interesting and unique individual. Genuinely, I wasn’t highly impressed by the performance he gave on stage and found the answers he gave to people’s questions rather odd. I was expecting something very profound or inspirational to be said by Mr. Foer, but nothing of that sort took place. When I was reading his book, I actually found it quite entertaining and amusing, and could relate to it. I was hoping that Mr. Foer’s personality would be similar to the way he expressed himself through the way he writes. However, I was wrong and what I noticed was when someone asked Mr. Foer a question, he went off topic and talked about something different. Personally, I believe that he wrote a wonderful book, but his personality didn’t seem to reflect the emotions revealed in much of his writings. In addition, I thought an author would demonstrate much pride and joy in his writing, but Mr. Foer didn’t seem to manifest any of these sentiments. In fact, when questions were posed to him by the host, I observed that the answers he gave deviated from what was supposed to be answered. Overall, I did enjoy the Arts Seminar day because of meeting several new people and being exposed to a different kind of environment, but the author’s performance turned me down a little due to his nonchalant and aloof attitude. I do not believe that this performance would be worthy enough as being classified as art, since the author stated that art did not play an essential role in the writing of his book “Incredibly Loud and Extremely Close.” In fact, Mr. Foer himself said that he enjoyed writing as much as he did any other subject and there was no particular reason for him to write this book; it was just an idea that came to him. The word “art,” in my opinion, means a manner in which a person can express his or her emotions either through symbols, writing, and drawing. Basically, art is a way someone can relate to nature or other important aspects of life. Also, for me art is creativity, a chance to let your emotions burst out onto paper, a crucial agent of communication, and is the appreciation of beauty. Truly, I wished the author would have been more vivacious and energetic. Unfortunately, this was not the case and I hope that my next meeting with an author would be somewhat more engaging, and for that matter, more profound in the interpretations of his or her writing. In conclusion, I sincerely appreciate the many books Mr. Foer has written and just hope that he displays more affection towards his accomplishments.

Talking about the Arts Day orientation, although it didn’t seem to be as impressive as the other two orientations, it gave me a relatively new understanding about arts.

When we talk about art, we should really understand what the word “art” means to us. The way to gain a better understanding of art is to ask ourselves what and how we qualify something as art. In another words, we should define the word “art” in our own way. We should listen to ourselves truthfully about what art is in order to appreciate art. I personally have a very broad definition for art. Besides the traditional art form such as dance, music, visual arts, and literature, there are many other elements around me that I consider as art. For example, people’s dialogue, either formal or informal, is an important art form to me. I qualify something as art if they can enlighten my mind, and increase my awareness about the beauty around me. Because of that, I do not qualify some of the so-called “contemporary art” as art. I simply view them as part of the culture, and not all parts of the culture are qualified as art.

I consider the evening event with Jonathan Safran Foer a combination of two different forms of language art. One is the traditional art form—literature. The other one is my self-defined art form—oral expression. At the beginning and the end of the event, Foer briefly discussed about his novel Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close. It was enjoyable to hear how the author of the novel interprets his own work, since it can help the readers to understand the novel more deeply. Furthermore, the discussion of the literary work was an artistic way to undercover the arts within the novel, because Foer tried to use the best words to convey the ideas of his novel so the readers can appreciate the arts through his oral and written words.

However, I think the interview itself took a more significant role as art throughout the event. First, the content of the interview was about art. Foer has shared with us his definition of art. He believed that there should not be a clear border between different forms of art. I agree with Foer’s point of view because many times a piece of art work can fit into many different categories of art. For example, calligraphy can be a piece of visual arts and a piece of literary work. The way calligraphers structured the words can create visual appreciation to the viewers, and calligraphers’ word choice in a piece of calligraphy can usually it into a piece of literary work. Speaking of word choice, I once again bring up this point because in my opinion, it is a very important art form. There are many words that we can use to express the same ideas, but different words can have totally different effects on the expression. Therefore, the words that both the interviewer and Foer chose to use had added some artistic elements into interview process.

The Arts Day event is considered an art for me in that it has enlightened my mind in how to define different art forms. It also gave me a new understanding of what art really is in my life. But more importantly, through Foer’s interview, I have learned the beauty of word choice. Although I didn’t apply what I learned in the event into this blog entry very well, I would continue to sharpen this skill in the future.

Orientations are always meant to be a fun day intended to introduce you to something (club, camp, college, etc.) but in a fun and entertaining way. The Macaulay orientation week was no different. The first day at Governor’s Island was a great way to meet various Macaulay students across campuses and Tech day was amazing cause well…we got our laptops ^_^. Arts day however, was the day I was most curious and interested in when we first heard about the orientation. Frankly, I was very disappointed with what we had for our “Arts Day.”

In the prompt you ask us to give you our impressions of the theater day performance but there wasn’t any performance. Although I am very passionate about writing and see it as an art form I don’t consider an interview with a writer – who doesn’t really speak about the book – a performance. Other than the twenty or so minutes he spent reading an excerpt from Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close Jonathon Safran Foer spent very little time talking about the book. The interview was more about him, his personal life and endeavors. I will give Mr. Foer a break however, because I did find some of his points on technology and art interesting and some I even agreed with.

Yet, overall I would say the night and the interview barely grasped the theme of art that Macaulay has tried to instill within us all. The amazing thing about art is it has such an enormous scope that so many different things fall under its umbrella. Music, writing, drawing, sculpting, photography, these are all various mediums of art and the list goes on.

In my opinion there are also two sides to the coin of art, there is the practical sense of art that you yourself perform and engage in for self-expression and then there is the art that you observe and admire, forms that speak to you. For instance, I am absolutely terrible at drawing, even when I’m tracing the picture comes out terrible. But when I see my talented friends draw something for their class I’m usually just staring at it the whole period thinking ‘Woahhhhh.’ So I would consider drawing and the like as the art that I observe. However, I love photography and capturing moments/memories through my camera or phone.

Thus, even though I consider Foer an artist and writing as a beautiful art form I think the night failed to fill us up with art. The point of the Cultural Passport, this class and a major part of Macaulay is for us to fill ourselves with the culture and art that can be found in NYC. Moreover, we’re meant to experiment new things, go to exhibits and shows that we’ve never been to before. These ideas are what I believe Arts Day represent and I don’t think the interview with Foer really grasped those concepts.

Theater and live performance is pastime that has been a part of our culture for thousands of years.  Live performance is one of the many different art forms that incorporates many smaller art forms within it such as acting and speech. Different kinds of artistic expression such as these have been used for aesthetic pleasure but unfortunately, are coming to a decline.

Although the use of theater is still prolific in artistic areas such as New York, the use of theater is sadly dwindling due to advanced technology. With the introduction of internet and television, live performances are becoming obsolete. Nowadays, people would rather not take the one hour train ride to the concert hall and instead just open up Internet Explorer on their Macbook Pro’s and watch a movie or some pre-recorded show.  The doctrine of human nature says that we do whatever which is more convenient to us, hence we have all these technological devices such as the television and computers. It’s no mistake that we are currently in the “Digital Age” because of the simple things we do, from doing your homework, watching your favorite television show (The Apprentice for sure), or even reading a book. We usually do all these while looking at a computer or telephone screen with thousands of meaningless colored pixels flying around.

As the popularity of live performances decreases, the importance of these events increases.  It is a crucial part of our culture that we preserve this unique art form before technology completely takes over. In one hundred years from now, there might not be anymore Broadway shows to go to or music concerts from musicians. Theater is so important for our society today despite its waning popularity because it gives not only growth, but also character and culture to a society.  Who really wants to be a part of a uniform society with no diversity? Television and the Internet have completely revolutionized the way we conduct our lives but it is not what you do which qualifies as true art—but by the means you do it in.  Live performances can only truly be appreciated if they are viewed as beautiful works of art where performers devote themselves to fulfill our aesthetic needs right in front of us.

I am a victim myself to this widespread disease we call the “Digital Age” because I, unfortunately, have almost never attended an organized live performance at my own will. The performers dedicate themselves to us so we should acknowledge their work more. Next time we should actually spare some of our time from our busy lives to appreciate the dance performance we see as we are transferring to another train or that one person who sits at the corner of the train station with his guitar singing to make a living.  I know what it feels like to have a big crowd around you appreciating the show you just put on for them because I have been in a performers shoe and have put on a show for many people. There’s nothing like the feeling of sublimity you get either from performing or when you see something that transcends beyond anything you’ve ever seen before.

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.

As a lover of theater, I am always psyched to see any kind of performance-whether it be a straightforward play, musical, or concert. However, I can hardly count the encounter with Jonathan Safran Foer on the last day of orientation a performance of any sort; I believe that the title of Arts Day for August Twenty Fourth was a bit of a misrepresentation for what actually went on.

First, let me explain what I mean by Art. The technical definition as provided by Oxford Dictionaries is the works produced by human creativity and skill, but I don’t completely agree with this stuffy definition. I believe that it misses the entire point of what art really is. To me, art is anything with the capacity to inspire passion deep within a person, to move them in a way that they never knew they could be moved. Art can come in so many forms, a good novel, a sculpture, a chord progression, or even a well designed article of clothing. It doesn’t matter what it is, all that matters is that it makes a person feel something they didn’t before, it stirs up emotions inside them that previously had sat idle.

So yes, the written word is as much an art form as a portrait or melodic tune, that being said Jonathan Safran Foer is indeed an artist. His books are his own masterpieces, so I naturally assumed that Mr. Foer would share his ideas, his inspirations, his writing process and other tricks of his trade. I was actually looking forward to what he had to say because I always dreamed of one day publishing a novel of my own, it has been a dream of mine since I was little. So one would understand why I was a bit disappointed when Mr. Foer shared very little insights and instead opted to give his own rather cynical remarks on the changing society of New York City and the world. As a matter of fact, it seems that Mr. Foer, despite being an artist himself, had any reverence for the arts or even considered himself an artist. His entire viewpoint on his own writing was shallow and almost disconcerting. This is not to say that I didn’t enjoy the hour and a half or so spent in the presence of Mr. Foer, but I didn’t enjoy it for any artistic purposes whatsoever. I drew most of my entertainment from the man’s off the cuff remarks and sarcastic comments. He certainly was an interesting man to hold a conversation with, but his conversation hardly roused any emotion within me. As far as the “performance” aspect is concerned, I hardly believe that Mr. Foer’s rather dry reading of his own work counts as a performance on any level. Perhaps if he had actually made an attempt to perform the reading instead of simply reading the words printed on the page, a piece of art could have been created right on that stage. Unfortunately, his reading just didn’t make the cut for me.

In my humble opinion, if the school was going to be so bold as to entitle a day of orientation “Arts Day”, they should have devoted at least some time to the Arts. Being located in Manhattan, there was a million and one things that could have been done to fulfill this title – the number of art gallery’s in Manhattan is almost staggering. Or perhaps a real performance could have been given right in Hunter College’s Auditorium, one that invoked a sense of awe in the audience and captured their attention with a little more force that Mr. Foer’s reading. All in all, the day was an enjoyable experience and a good end to our three day orientation,but it was- by no stretch of the imagination- an exhibition of the arts.

Looking over the schedule for the Arts Day during and prior to my attendance, I began to wonder why the whole event was considered to be a day for the arts. I guess if you viewed an interview of a best-selling author about his views on art as an artistic performance, you’d say that the name perfectly fits the occasion. However, that’s not the case for me. Such a title to me would imply either the celebration of art, or exposure to engaging art pieces, or a combination of both. Arts day was neither, but of course that claim is debatable depending on one’s tastes and definitions.

For me, art is a representation of one’s creativity and thought. Art is also a medium that expresses feelings on a grand scale. Musical art for example, can pierce through people’s emotions, eliciting feelings of anger, happiness, sadness, bewilderment, and pretty much any emotion you can think of purely through auditory means.  If any piece of work, intended or not, can bring forth emotions from anyone, then it can be art. However, since the dawn of time, everyone’s had their own opinion as to what anything is, and I respect that. Ergo, we will all agree or disagree on whether certain things are artistic or not.

I didn’t expect much of the arts day. To be perfectly honest, I dreaded having to stay for the interview, not because I thought it would be boring- okay maybe just a little- but because it was getting late and I actually haven’t finished reading the book that was to be discussed.  Despite my feelings, I stayed- unlike others who i caught sneaking away- and much to my surprise, I found the interview to be quite entertaining. A large part of my surprise was due to the whole interview turning into a one sided discussion, on Jonathan Safran Foer’s part, about his “interesting” views on technology, writing, being an author in New York, and his rise to fame. The interviewee seemed stunned, hearing answers he didn’t really expect, and finding himself getting questioned instead. I found this to be quite humorous. However, on an artistic level, this “performance” had very little artistic value, unless of course it was planned. In that case I’d treat this piece as an artistically humorous play, but I’ll safely assume that this was not the case.

Aside from the humor I found, I thought the content had substance. Despite Jonathan Safran Foer sounding like a self-centered, pompous writer, much of what he said provided insight into not only his character, but particular views as well. He discussed his idea of art, how reading is changed by the advent of new technology, and an interesting view on writing that caught my attention. Foer expressed that he never outlines or plans his works, rather he just writes to expose feelings he couldn’t really express. I found myself agreeing with his view of writing as it appealed to my mindset. I’m not the type to really outline or plan heavily, most of my actions are, as one could call it, gut feelings. Then I realized that this guy is a best selling author, with multiple acclaimed novels. How is that even possible? I mean then one could argue that with my mindset, how I could ever achieve success, but I have my boundaries. I plan out big projects, and important papers. There’s no way that someone can handle such large tasks without much planning, save a few rare occasions. I could believe he’s either an insanely talented writer gifted by the gods, or that he’s just lying to us, and I’d be talking for most of the crowd by selecting the latter. Not many people become world renown best sellers by just looking at a paper and scribbling away without much thought. Perhaps his feelings are just that powerful. Nevertheless, I wouldn’t be able to tell.

Overall, I had a great experience. I enjoyed the company of many of my peers and made some great friends. The interview went better than I expected and I enjoyed listening to Foer’s responses. However I just think a little more art could be involved in a day titled “Arts Day.”

Although the Macaulay Orientation as a whole was enjoyable and exciting, I felt the last day of orientation did not live up to expectations. The third and final day of orientation was intended to be centered on the arts, and in my eyes that goal was not met. I’m not going to lie, I had an amazing time conversing with my fellow Macaulay Honors students across all the campuses and meeting the students that would attend Queens College under the Honors program as well, but was that really the main purpose of having the third day of orientation?

Art, the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power (the definition provided by the Oxford American Dictionary). During the third day of orientation I neither expressed nor experienced any sort of application of human creativity or imagination, except during lunch when I heard the music club play guitar and my new friends tell me hilarious, clever jokes. Oh and don’t forget the wonderful lunches that were prepared for us; respectfully I consider any sort of food to be a culinary art. Overall, I’m sorry but arts day had little to no art. I know this was the first year the orientation was changed, but someone needs to drastically alter the course of that day. If I may suggest, maybe you could hold the orientation at a museum for the arts. The Whitney and Metropolitan are both phenomenal museums that I highly suggest going to in order to satisfy your hunger for the arts. Even watching a movie would suffice. Acting, filming, editing, make-up, there are numerous aspects that go into creating a movie that all correlate to art. So please reconsider having another arts day without actually displaying any art.

When I heard Jonathan Safran Foer was attending our orientation I was excited to find out some of the reasons behind the writing styles, themes, characterization, and other literary techniques he utilized in his world renowned, bestseller Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. Yet I was sadly disappointed. Despite the excerpt he chose to read aloud for the incoming class of 2015, Foer spoke little to nothing about his novel. Instead I felt like I was receiving a lecture on the life of Foer and his pompous, self-centered personality. I know it sounds harsh, but throughout the question and answer session Foer rarely answered a question because he was preoccupied with giving an autobiography of his life or preaching one of his strongly opinionated views. My first impression established after reading Foer’s book prior to the interview and the Foer I had established after the interview were two completely different people. A witty, humorous individual was expected in my mind but instead we got Jonathan Safran Foer. I felt Foer’s interview held nothing related to arts except for the fact that he is an author. Aspiring writers in the audience have my sympathy if they believed they were going to receive sound advice on how to advance their careers and follow the path to success in the literary world from Foer. Although I negatively criticized Foer’s interview and personality, I am a hypocrite. After sitting through his terrible interview I actually waited 40 minutes on line to get an autograph and politely thank him for the time he spent with us.

Arts Day was fun, but not for the reasons intended. If anyone of authority reads this blog, please don’t take it as an insult. Utilize this criticism to improve upon a day that has plenty of potential to be something great.