A beautiful setting sun placed in a sky filled with pink, blue, orange, and yellow in a beautiful mixture seems pretty atypical for a Brooklyn sky. However, this is the view that I have the pleasure of seeing everyday outside of my dorm room window. A few weeks before we were requested to take a picture of the city for our class, I began to notice how remarkably beautiful the sky looks when the sun is setting outside my window. As I was doing my work, I would notice that my room was getting a bit dim, but before turning one of the lights on, I would look out the window and witness one of the most beautiful sunsets I have ever seen. The sky had suddenly become a gradation of blue, yellow, orange, and pink as the sun disappeared behind the houses and trees. When we were told about our picture-taking assignment, I knew I had to capture this moment.
Two months later, I had the pleasure of seeing my photo in a very creative exhibit at the Macaulay building. The fact that our classmates could view our creativity and get a little taste of what we were seeing at a particular moment in time is a very nice idea. It was a way of sharing a little piece of ourselves with each other. We were pushed even further with our creativity when we did the assignment that went along with this particular common event. My group chose to do the option that involved the creation of a story- the name of which escapes me now. Surprisingly, all of our stories made sense and were actually pretty well written. One criticism that I do have of the event is that I would have preferred a little more interaction with students from other campuses. I came with two of my friends from Brooklyn College and, therefore, worked with them. Since this was a Macaulay Commons Event, I would have liked to have had the opportunity to interact more with my classmates from other campuses.

Unfortunately, I must say that this was my least favorite event that we attended for this course. I just did not see the point in going to see people read articles out of a magazine that I could have picked up myself. The fact that I could have done this without the hassle and cost of traveling to the city just lessened my ability to appreciate the event. Since I am not a “foodie” some of the experience of the event was lost on me. I did not know many of the famous people who read to us, and I did not understand some of the jokes. Putting all of this aside, however, I did enjoy the articles that were read to me. They were very interesting and were not what I expected to come from a food magazine. Usually, food magazines have simple, easy to do recipes, restaurant reviews, and a few articles on culinary experiences. The Lucky Peach seems to be a very interesting perspective on the making and experience of food. Like the editors said, it also does not limit what recipes it includes based on level of difficulty. It has very unique themes, such as the apocalypse theme, and has articles that show the deeper meaning behind the experience of eating or dining. This was a very good marketing technique for the magazine because it really made me want to pick up a copy and read it! Although, I could have drawn all of this information from reading the magazine, I might not have known that this magazine existed if I had not gone to this event. However, if I were to really give an article my full attention, I would prefer to read it myself. I have different levels of comprehension when something is read to me and when I read something myself. When something is read to me, I might not be paying attention the entire time, and if I do not understand something, it might not always be possible for me to ask the reader to repeat the phrase several times. However, the person reading the passage might read it with a better interpretation than I would. When I read something to myself, I tend to comprehend things better. I can see how the words and punctuation are arranged in the sentence and I can reread a confusing phrase as many times as I wish. I can also annotate in the margins concerning things that I enjoy or dislike, which I would love to do with a physical copy of The Lucky Peach.

For a few years, my brother and I have been fans of a band called Il Divo. However, to say that Il Divo is simply a band is a colossal understatement. Il Divo consists of four men who have the most angelic and perfect voices you will ever have the pleasure of listening to, whether it be on recording or live. The band sings operatic pop in many different languages. They do covers of songs and original songs with only some of the choruses in English. Luckily for me, I was able to hear these angels sing live on November 8th. My brother had gotten tickets for my birthday to their concert at the Marquis Theatre. The concert was part of the tour for their new album titled, “A Musical Affair.” This album was comprised entirely of Broadway show tunes, which, needless to say, was perfect for me. The combination of hearing Il Divo sing and hearing them sing Broadway songs was absolutely incredible. They also had guest singer, Heather Headley, who is featured on the album. Her voice is absolutely incredible and she has starred in many Broadway productions, such as The Lion King. I got chills after every single song they sang. This concert was very different from the other concerts I’ve been too. People dressed up and sat in a theatre with chairs made of red velvet, whereas in other concerts, I was standing in a crowd of young people jumping up and down and screaming. Another thing that really intrigued me about the concert was the fact that the members of the band strongly discouraged people from using their cell phones to take pictures or videos. One of the members would even gesture for someone to put their phone away from the stage. The singers really wanted the audience to enjoy the performance and not be caught up in taking pictures and videos. Often times, we do not realize how focused we are on capturing every minute of a concert, and we miss out on actually experiencing the concert.

Although this was not my first round table reading of a play, it was the first time I was not a part of the round table reading I attended. Upon reading “Mohammed’s Radio” I was immediately interested in the story and the many weighty topics that it tries to address. I was even more interested in seeing how the actors would interpret the characters and in seeing the characters come to life before my eyes. One thing that surprised me about the reading was that the story was acted out even more than I thought it would be. I expected all of the actors to be sitting at a panel in front of me and read from the script with emotion and skill. However, this reading had a little more theatricality in it than I expected. The actors entered and exited when they were supposed to and even changed their posture and gestures to match what they were saying. I expected the physical aspect of acting to be more for a stage production and not really included in the reading of a play. I was also surprised to learn that the character of Little Joe had much more significance to the play than I originally thought he had. During the Q&A after the reading, the writer explained that Little Joe embodied the hope of the play and was the only character that had not been tainted by the neighborhood and had a chance of “escaping.” It was also interesting to see Little Joe portrayed by a college freshman. When asked the question of whether Kelly’s conversion to Islam was genuine, the writer combined the ideas that we suggested in class on Tuesday. He said that yes, it was an escape, but after finding this very convenient escape, Kelly really was starting to find spiritual connection and faith with the ideas of Islam. She just needed to continue in her journey on finding out what Islam is really like.
I was really pleased to find out that a lot of the people who worked on and acted in the play are current Brooklyn College students and alumni! In fact, I knew the actor who portrayed Little Joe, who is a freshman in the BFA program.