The lights go down and the performer stands alone, center stage, with one spotlight. His shirt reads in bold letters, ‘The Truth’. Taking a breath he begins to speak. But it’s not just casual speaking, he’s rapping, reciting poetry. The lights change behind him as the mood does. Whenever the story takes a turn, the lights dim down, to one solo light, his voice going with it. It pulls you in, begs you to listen. This isn’t just a story, it’s the journey of one man’s walk through life.

            A Sucker Emcee is written and performed by Craig ‘muMs’ Grant, with music by DJ Rich Medina. It infuses poetry and rapping by Grant as he narrates his life from growing up in the Bronx, to being apart of the HBO series Oz. I felt the performance was great on many levels, it was never boring, you were kept interested every second. The social messages that Grant conveyed through his poetry were very meaningful. Also, the music in my opinion just made it so much better than it would have been with just him rapping.

Grant’s story wasn’t overly emotional or happy; in fact it was a roller coaster of emotions. I liked this because it was a more realistic take on life then I think people are used to. In media and books characters either go through problems only to come up to a happy ending or suffer to the end. It was refreshing to hear his ups and downs and what he learned from them. He also spoke about growing up in the Bronx, the birth of hip-hop, drug dealing, and rampant gang violence. For me it was interesting to hear about his childhood, and the way the environment around him shaped who he was. More specifically the big influence music had on him. As someone who finds music crucial to their daily life, I understood what he meant when he said whenever he felt lost he would just listen to music and be ok. Another thing I loved was having Rich on the stage providing music throughout the show. It was a great way to lighten the mood after a dark moment or just provide backdrop. By using this it felt like watching a TV show, the transitions and emotions were told through the rap and the music.

Grant constantly repeated this one line throughout the performance about fear and not letting it stop him. I found this worth listening to because as a college student, I find myself restricted by certain fears I have about my future. What he tries to say though is that we shouldn’t let that stop us, and that the only way to conquer our fears is to face them head on. I feel that was the point of his story. He didn’t have some set point in his mind that he was going to have this one career for the rest of his life, live in a house, in a nice town or anything. He simply just lived his life from one point to the next. Sure at times it was hard, but that’s just the truth about life.

Overall A Sucker Emcee is a performance to go see because it is a truly realistic tale of a journey through life. I believe the show appeals to everyone because we can either relate to or understand what Grant has gone through, the choices he made to get to where he is. The show is entertaining, inspiring, and at times uplifting. It leaves you with the feeling of letting go of your fears, facing them, and moving on.

Uptown New York, the New York I don’t belong in. I don’t mean it in a really bad way but when I hear uptown, my mind immediately goes to a picture of the Upper East Side. Fancy apartment buildings, a doorman standing watch, or a celebrity walking their dog. I remember waiting to take the train downtown with a friend once and looking at the map of Manhattan. Looking at street numbers like 81^st and 92^nd and wondering what it’d be like to go there. Yet even with the prospect of such adventure exciting me, the idea made me nervous. I felt I would get in trouble there because I did not belong. That’s because for me Uptown New York City is a place only for the wealthy to live a life of luxury and ease.

The opening scene of Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Blake Edwards where Audrey Hepburn’s character Holly Golightly stops outside the jewelry store, calmly drinking coffee and eating a danish is an image that displays this perfectly. That’s because it speaks so much about the way she lives. First of all, we need to talk about her amazing outfit. I imagine that the only time I would need to wear Givenchy were if I had to meet the Queen of England. The way that she is dressed in Italian satin, wearing the sparkling necklace, and Manhattan glasses shows that she lives to a certain standard. She’s wearing this just to get breakfast and take a walk. For many of us, jeans and a t-shirt do just as well.

Her behavior and environment also says something about her lifestyle. It’s early in the morning and she’s just relaxing, drinking coffee and window shopping. It’s very quiet and peaceful, she’s taking her time. New York City is very famous for its images of crowded streets, people rushing to get to work, people rushing to get home. They do this because they all have things to do. There’s always something to be done, somewhere they need to go, and a hurry to be on time. Yet for Holly it’s very different. She is in no rush to get to a 9 to 5 job or take a train somewhere because she doesn’t have to.

This image for me was the first to come into my mind when thinking of ‘uptown’, wealthy New York. That’s because it shows the obvious difference between the kinds of people that live in the city. For wealthy New Yorkers there is time to walk, eat, and meet with friends. Whenever they go out they wear fancy dresses and jewelry because they can afford to. For middle class New Yorkers we live in a very hectic environment. Constantly on the move to get to places we need to be and get things done. Rarely do we have the time to take a moment and relax because we have responsibilities.

Who knows if I’ll ever take that adventure to 81^st street or how it’ll go. Either way I’ll have the notion that I’m in the New York of the wealthy. Where the people are happy and living a life of simplicity and luxury.

In today’s society there is a distinct separation between the social classes. Those of the upper class are depicted as wealthy, distinguished, well-groomed individuals. Those who find themselves in the lower class are shown as poor, unkempt, and inferior. This separation is only reinforced with portrayals in movies and television and has been done so since visual media has been about.

In My Fair Lady starring Audrey Hepburn and Rex Harrison for example, Audrey’s character Eliza is the loud, rude flower girl with a Cockney accent. You know she is poor just from looking at her drab, dark clothing and the dirt on her face.

Harrison’s character Professor Higgins on the other hand is a wealthy man as seen from his neatly pressed pants to his clear, eloquent voice. The media also has a way of showing that those in the lower class need to be reformed because they are so inferior, they must be taught to work to improve their lives. With My Fair Lady this can be seen by Harrison’s attempts to teach Eliza to be a proper lady so she can fit in with high society. The film also depicts the upper class as something lower class people should strive to, Eliza for example takes no offense to Harrison’s proposal to teach her, and in fact she wants it.

The media also reinforces the idea that the upper class is made of shallow, ruthless, and lowly human beings. Many writers and directors have been proving the saying that ‘all that is gold does not glitter’. This is easily shown in Oliver Stone’s 1987 film, Wall Street starring Charlie Sheen and Michael Douglas. Sheen’s character Bud is a stockbroker who dreams of being rich and powerful like Douglas’ character Gordon Gecko. By working with Gecko, Bud abandons his morals and commits corporate espionage, using insider secrets to earn millions on the stock market. At the end of the film, Bud regains his morals but ends up in jail for insider trading.

One of the film’s most iconic scenes is when Bud gets his new Upper East Side penthouse renovated. Workers are seen painting moldings to make them look like marble, plaster made to look like brick to add class to the room. It shows how the upper class lives in this calm façade of happiness and superiority. Bud’s upscale apartment is a façade and his expensive suits a far cry from his humble blue-collar beginnings. Yet one can’t help but wonder as to this scene’s deeper meaning. Does showing the apartment as fake show that Bud was never truly an upper classman? That being truly apart of the ‘1 percent’ is something that is simply unattainable?

This can be seen not only in movies and TV but in novels as well. One classic example of this would be F. Scoot Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. The main character Jay Gatsby is a very rich man living in Long Island where even though he is wealthy, he does not fit in with those around him. He is considered different because his wealth was not inherited but rather earned. Gatsby has no royal relatives or rich parents and is therefore excluded from being truly apart of the upper class.

The media plays a very important role in determining class structures in society. That is because they present them to us in a way that makes us favor one over the other. In some cases being an upper classman is something people admire and strive to be apart of. On the other hand it is seen as many character’s downfalls as they are drawn into worlds of greed and excess. These portrayals greatly affect class structures because they influence our opinions of them. In a way, filmmakers and writers are inadvertently telling us what to feel about class. The reality is there are so many different perspectives of social structure that it’s hard to tell which is really true.

What is art? Art is an outlet for the artists to express emotions that otherwise would have been held inside. Art is a method of depicting social injustices and making a call to right the wrongs that plague our society. Art is a form of using ones creativity to make something that can entertain or evoke emotion in others. In very simple terms, art is ambiguous. There are so many different ways to interpret what exactly the true meaning of art is.

For me, art is all of these things and more, you simply just can’t put a label on it. As alleyawharton (another Macaulay blogger)said, “…you know art when you see it.” This is a very true statement because people are so different from each other. We interpret things in a different manner and therefore feel and consider them differently. For example, one person may consider graffiti to be an act of vandalism on public property. However, someone else may consider this to be street art, the artist is using spray paint to create something meaningful.

Museums play a big role in determining what society is supposed to call art. It’s the social media of the art world. By going to museums people learn to look at things for certain similar qualities and are made to think just cause its in a museum it is art. I know because sometimes I look at museum paintings and can’t help but wonder what makes it so special? What is it about art that critics and artists alike feel so mystified by its beauty and hidden meaning?

I also feel that in a way museums influence public opinion as to what should be called art. That because those paintings and artifacts look a certain way, that it is to be considered true art, while things that are different are not. For example, Vincent van Gogh, an artist who lived in the 19^th century and whose works are worldly known today. One can’t go through an art museum, or an art class without hearing his name mentioned. However, when he was alive, van Gogh’s paintings hardly sold. People didn’t like his artwork because it was so different from the impressionistic style of paintings popular in the 1800s.

The point I’m trying to make here (trust me, there is one) is that art can be whatever you want it to be. A photograph of a mother holding her child, a painting of sunflowers in a vase, even a painting of 32 Campbell’s soup cans can be art. The thing one should remember is to keep an open mind. Because in reality, art is all around us, we just need to take a moment and consider it.