I'm looking forward to seeing The Hard Nut in class. After reading "Irony and Sincerity," I have high hopes for Mark Morris's production of the classic Nutcracker ballet. The reading addresses the meaning behind The Hard Nut and how Morris attempted to combine the classics with popular culture. Morris was an unconventional rebel artist, and I admire his thoughts and visions that put his play in motion. His beliefs and ideas about the "common human fate" are provocative.

 This past friday I went to visit the Museum of the City of New York. I learned about the history of public safety in New York as well as viewed photographs of different New York locations, focusing on nature in particular. One fact that I learned was in that 1904, there was a huge fire on a ship in which only 110 of 1331 people survived. This was due to the lack of crew being prepared for the event of a fire. Moreover, the lifejackets and life boats that were on board were so old, they could not properly do their function.

 Of the first woman's readings, I found the "bitten nipple" poem the most interesting. This was probably a result of it having such a violently unexpected plot. During the question and answer session, the artist explained that she got the idea to write such poem after having heard the experience from a peer. The story goes that a woman was gang raped by her boyfriend and friends and yet after such a traumatic experience, she continued to be with him. Shocked by this, the artist wrote a poem in which she poses questions on the values a woman stands by.

I would not call myself a close-minded person. I would not even call myself a fully conventional person (unlike the allusion I appear to be while in class). Art is a very complex subject. While I cannot even begin to grasp some concepts of art, other forms I love. The discussion of the various interpretations of Muller's play in class I have to admit left me very confused. I do not want to seem as if I hate this class. This is definitely not the case. However, discussions were there is no definite answer honestly frustrates me. As I stated before, I am not close-minded.

So yesterday I was soo excited to have found my camera (I haven't had it since the end of August and have been forced to use my camera phone for everything!). You can imagine the field day I had uploading the pictures onto the mac and playing around with the editing.