In anticipation of the opening of two new Manhattan locations, Uniqlo, a popular Japanese retailer, has launched the Uniqlo High Line Rink and Pop Up, located at The Lot at Tenth Avenue and West 30th Street. Open daily through September 26, the rink charges moderate admission and rental prices and offers stunning visuals of the High Line. The space also features benches sculpted from original High Line beams and the Uniqlo Cube, a makeshift store that sells tees, cashmeres, and more. The High Line Rink and Pop Up is a must-see for any Uniqlo fan, casual skater, or fun-loving New Yorker.

The first museum I looked for on my cultural passport was the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.  I’ve been in there once my junior year, but I went as far as the ticket counter.  While I was in there, I felt a sense of enormity, like this was something big.  Since then, I’ve told myself I wanted to go, but like most New Yorkers I put it off since it’s right her in NY.  However, now that it’s on my cultural passport I’m definitely going to go the next time I have a long weekend or break and many times after that.

Coming up in mid-October is the Intervals exhibition by Nicola Lopez.  When I’ve seen the Guggenheim on television I was more enticed by the sculptures.  I remember one time there were cars hanging around and I think this started my fascination with the Guggenheim.  These “sculptural collage environment” pieces interest me and I want to see Intervals: Nicola Lopez when it appears this October.

One thing that has become a must see in New York is the broadway play The Book of Mormon. It was written by the creators of South Park Trey Parker and Matt Stone. Considering that South Park is highly controversial and usually makes fun of everything many people thought the show would be inappropriate. The show is about two Mormon missionaries who travel to a small village in Uganda that is run by a brutal warlord and they try to spread the Mormon faith and way of life. When the the show started previewing and reviews came out, the reviews were amazing and the show was surprisingly not that offensive, David Rooney of the Hollywood Reporter said  “Religious zealots are not going to roll up, but the show has a comic field day with Mormonism while. simultaneously acknowledging — maybe even respecting — the right of everyone to follow any faith they choose. Or invent.” The show premiered in March 2011 and did so well that getting tickets is still very difficult and show awarded nine Tony Awards. The play became a must see for anyone who like comedy as well as broadway.

Calling all Americans to come visit the Ellis Island Immigration Museum, where many of our ancestors had their first steps to a start of a better future. Over 12 million immigrants passed through the doors of Ellis Island between 1892 and 1954, hoping to achieve the “American dream.” As they entered America, the first thing they would glance upon was the Statue of Liberty, which is a “symbol of freedom and democracy.” This is what America is all about, having the opportunity to not only make a better life for yourself, but for your family as well. As human beings we have the responsibility to retrace our past and to recognize how it is that we got to where we are today. So come join me as we celebrate our country’s history and the building of a better future. For more information please visit http://www.nps.gov/elis/index.htm. Ellis Island is only accessible by state cruises, which leave from the Castle Clinton National Monument in Battery Park in New York and the Museum at Liberty State Park in Jersey City, NJ. Liberty and Ellis Island are open Daily.The first ferry departs the mainland at 9 a.m. and the last ferry leaves at 3:30 p.m.The final ferries of the day departing from Ellis Island will leave at 5:15 p.m.

Broadway at Night, taken by Alvin Langdon Coburn in 1910

The Met is one of my all-time favorite art museums and they have a couple of cool exhibitions there right now. One that stuck out to me was the Night Vision: Photography After Dark, which is there until September 18th. Whenever we take photos at night, it comes out too bright because of the flash, or too dark because of no flash, or too weirdly colored because of the night mode. It’d like to see how these established photographers tackled that challenge.

One of the featured photographers, Alfred Stieglitz, is considered to be one of the first photographers to photograph at night. This exhibition features night photos from the late 1890’s to now. It’d be cool to see this timeline of photos and compare them to see how the camera has evolved.

This fall some of the hottest hip hop artists are coming to the New York City area. Superstars Jay-Z and Kanye West are bringing their Watch The Throne tour to the Izod Center in East Rutherford, NJ on Saturday, November 5th and Sunday, November 6th at 7:30 PM. This event promises to be worthwhile. Jay-Z and Kanye West will play some of their newest material and will most likely bring other artists to perform with them as well. This concert will definitely blow the roof off of the Izod center.

If you are not a fan of mainstream hip hop then you should go see Mac Miller perform in New York City as part of his Blue Slide Park tour. Mac has a show at Irving Plaza on Thursday, September 22nd at 7:00 PM and then comes back to the city for a show on Friday, December 2nd at 8:00 PM at the Best Buy Theater. Mac Miller is one of the top young artist in the game so this promises to be a good show.

The arts invoke countless emotions in the audiences and an art review’s “raison d’être”  is to elicit those emotions from the readers even when they were not presented at the performance. A concert’s review does exactly the same purpose, except that experiencing music is something so abstract as the music itself and that the music reviewer’s mission becomes a thousand times harder. Trinity Church Calls; Composersrespond by Steve Smith and A Tighter, Lighter, Smaller Mahler by Allan Kozinn offer different styles of reviewing along with their pros and cons.

In his article, Steve Smith talks about the arduous task of contemporary composers competing with their ancient predecessors Bach, Brahms, Mahler in commemorating the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attack. Although giving certain applause to the ancient composers in the opening paragraph, Steve Smith signifies the many performances by contemporary artists given to the Trinity Church for their commemorating concert, one of which was ultimately chosen by it, Moran’s “Trinity requiem.” Asides from the occasional drops of musical jargon into the review, Steve goes right into the details of the performance and the emotion each reveals with unswerving manner. “Crashing” organ chords resonates the sounds of the planes crashing into the Twin Towers; gentle “dissonances” and “nervous” repetition of the chorus reanimate the scene in which the whole world was watching the event with unanimous prayers and hopes for the victims; the organ dropped out after offertory based on Pachelbel’s Canon, leaving only the cello playing elicits from the readers grief, redemption, diminishment, and loss as if we were there again, shocked at the debris that is left after the attack. In short, Steve Smith’s expert musical perception and compelling vocabulary express the grief that was the purpose of the performance.

Allan Kozinn’s review tackles a different event that is more professionally involved, the centenary commemoration of the premier of Mahler’s “Das Lied von der Erde.” The Orchestra of St.Luke celebrated this occasion by performing the reduced version of “Das Lied” by Schoenberg and Riehn. Allan elaborates the immediate effect of moving from Mahler’s full score to Schoenberg and Reihn’s trimmed version, lauding its “benefits as obvious as the compromise.” Furthermore, he compliments the orchestra for having managed the best of their ability to handle the transition. Allan seldom brings out out small setbacks of the performance objectively and helps underscore the success of the performance, like in this critic: “Granted, certain strands are eliminated, or slipped into one of the two keyboard parts. But the essence is here, and it works.” He uses strong, opinionated language and adjectives such as “understandably,””obvious,””freshly,””hefty,””strong,” throughout the review to convey the voice of a true music critic. “Street” terms like “under the hood” and “tight” are used twice to induce a comic relief in the overall heavy and professional review.

As the arts can bring out countless interpretations, so do the style of reviews varies accordingly. Steve Smith and Alan Kozinn handle different topics in their reviews yet their opinions as art critics both strive to excite in the readers the emotions that they had felt while attending those performances and to help them participate in such events in the future in order to truly experience them by themselves.

Many writers and journalists have different styles of writing and use those styles in order to capture the attention of their readers. However, what determines whether or not a journalist is effective is the way he/she is able to implement his/her respective style in order to attract readers. Some reviewers or journalist are more effective at accomplishing this then others and that’s what separates them as the elite.

In his review, A Play That Will Not Come to Dust While It’s a Troupe’s Lucky Charm, Ben Brantley reviews the play Cymbeline and begins by giving a couple of details as to the plot of the play. He gives the reader a glimpse of the play without giving away the entire play, because if that was the case why would one want to see a play if he/she already knows what will occur. He uses many descriptive words and phrases, such as “credibly portraying incredible feats of derring-do” and “bringing elaborate battle scenes to life,” to give the reader a sense of what to expect while watching the play. By doing so he is able to establish an emotional relationship with the reader and connect to him/her in a more effective manner. He then goes on to give us some details about the set of the play and the cast that starred in it. Brantley ends his review by offering his personal opinion on the piece and by noting some aspects of the play he really enjoyed. He comments that the actors didn’t goof around and that they were able to portray the piece in a way that “the play itself really was the thing.” In my opinion, Brantley wrote an excellent review on the play and not only described its plot, but was also able to establish a connection with his readers.

Neil Genzlinger, discusses the play “Temporal Powers” in his review, A Couple’s Big Break That’s Not So Lucky. He was able to draw me in by beginning his review with a question, however, as I continued reading I realized that he was not as effective as Ben Brantley. Genzlinger starts off by bringing up another play performed by the same company and gives a comparison between the two. He then goes on to summarize the play without lending his opinion as to how he felt while watching the play. Genzlinger failed to establish a connection with his audience and ruined the entire play for the people who were interested in seeing it. He finally ends off by offering his opinion on the piece, but it is too late. By summarizing the play he has lost the attention of the reader and has established his review as an ineffective one.

As you can see, the technique a writer decides to use is very important and can establish him/her as a great journalist or one who is unsuccessful. Reviewers must pay careful attention to the style and methods that they choose to use because it can either lead to their success or their downfall.

A reviewer’s job is to inform us about the positive as well as the negatives of the thing they are reviewing. In the example of a video game review they must tell us why we should buy the game as well as what the problem is. I read a review for Shadow Cities by Seth Schiesel and one for NCAA 12 by Lang Whitaker. I thought that Schiesel’s did a much better job of reviewing his game.

Whitaker started his review off with a story about his gameplay that left me very confused while i was reading. I actually had to pause to see if I was reading the right thing. When he finished his whole story he didn’t even explain what feature of the game he was talking about. He went on to just list a bunch of features of the game that I could have found by going to the games website. However the biggest problem I had with Whitaker’s review was that he never said anything negative about the game. I have played many video games in my life and know that none of them are perfect, Whitaker however failed to mention any specific problems with the game.

Schiesel on the other hand did a great job of explaining what the game was. He explained exactly what was going on and what your objectives were going to be. He talks about how the game is really the first of it’s kind. Schiesel also does his due diligence and explains to us some of the faults of the game. He gives you some reasons to be cautious about buying the game but then reminds you that the problems he described are things that will probably be fixed and even if not are not good enough reasons to stop you from buying the game.

When reading a review for a video game I would like to know that i am getting an unbiased opinion of the game from people who just love to play video games like me. While reading Whitacker’s review of NCAA 12 I felt like i was just reading a promo for the game. On the other hand when I read Schiesel’s review of Shadow Cities I felt like if I bought the game i could know what to expect both the bad and the good and thats what makes a good review.

In the article “‘Sleep No More,’ but Move Nonstop,” Gia Kourlas writes a strong review of the play “Sleep No More.” The article opens with a brief description of the play that explains how much movement is involved. This description gives the reader a good understanding of what the play is about and what the audience experiences watching it. The article goes on to include quotes from people involved in the play then respond to the ideas proposed in the quotes, giving the reader a second opinion with more information. This method makes the article seem valid and thoughtful, making it a strong review.

Ben Brantley reviews “Cymbeline” in a way that is not as strong in “Simply Shakespeare, No Tangled Web.” He begins his article with a reference to “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark” that jokes about the problems faced by both plays. This beginning fails to properly introduce the play that Brantley is actually reviewing. Throughout the rest of the review, Brantley describes the play in a way that feels too positive. He doesn’t discuss any negative aspects of the play. Instead, he points out things that may seem to be bad but either explains why he actually liked them or doesn’t explain them at all. For example, he writes that “despite the doubling, tripling and quadrupling of roles, I have never seen a “Cymbeline” as easy to follow as this one.” The topic of actors with multiple roles is one that he does not talk about very much. He touches on it slightly more before this quote, simply describing the situation, but he never talks about possible negative impacts of it. Instead, he simply shakes of the idea with the quote, saying that it is not an issue. Brantley’s writing style and method make his review seem as if it is not very serious and lacks any negativity, something that is very important in a review.