Macaulay Seminar One at Brooklyn College

In the past week I visited the Matilda Musical on Broadway with a couple of friends. As I sat in the middle section, I took note of the proficient actors/actresses. I focused on the plot of the story and listened to the sounds of the music as the actors sang aloud. I recognized that there was much more to the Broadway show then the plot and the music. This Broadway show can absolutely fall into the category of art.

As my friends were enjoying the plot and the music, I began to look around. I took note of the audience who ranged from ages 5 to about 60. I noticed the set up- the stage was centered and the seats circled the stage. I recognized the luminous lights fixated on the actors. The set up and introduction of new scenes were oblivious and the production and design was phenomenal.

The Broadway show was indeed art. The set up, the makeup on the actresses, the clothing on the performers, the lights, the stage, the acting, the movements, and the music make the Broadway show an exceptional piece of art. I truly enjoyed the show and was amazed at the thought that almost everything can fit in the category of art!

Every Sunday for the past few months,  I took some friends of mine from Israel t go see amazing tourist sites in the city. Two Sundays ago, I took them to the Natural History Museum. Now, I know I might get a lot of angry comments if I say, but I have never in life been to the Natural History Museum, so this would be an amazing trip for me as well. Now, being that there was a marathon going on near the museum, it was slightly difficult to get it and we ended up getting to the museum pretty late and we couldn’t go through all the art pieces and natural artifacts that there was. However, we did get to see the North American mammals exhibit, the sea life exhibit and the Dinosaur exhibit. These exhibits were amazing and breath- taking!!!

The North  American mammals looked as though they were real animals who were ready to pounce on you if the glass was not in the way. Also, I didn’t just realized these fake mammals were art, but the setting and the background in each show glass was also art. For example, in the glass of the Cougar Mountain Lion, the mammal was standing majestically on a fake rock overlooking the Grand Canyon. The painting in the background had so much depth and color, that it really looked like the Grand Canyon! It was all just amazing.

In the aquarium-like exhibit, the first thing that crossed my eye was the MASSIVE MASSIVE whale that is hooked to the ceiling of the big hall. The 94 foot long Blue Whale was a huge piece of art in this exhibit. The reason why they place the blue whale in the center of the room overlooking the tourists is because it’s supposed to remind us that this whale is going extinct and we have to keep our responsibilities towards the environment in order to keep a comfortable habitat for the whale to live in. This is an example interpretive art.

The last exhibit we went to was the Dinosaur exhibit, which took up the whole 4th floor. The floor was full of artifacts, bones and…more bones. That exhibit taught me a lot about dinosaurs and their evolution. I learnt that most dinosaur were herbivores and that the Tyrannosaurus Rex did NOT have puny arms.

All in all, the trip was a great experience and I really really hope to go again and see the whole museum!

595,996,800,000,000,000,000,000,000

An unimaginable number. And yet, that’s the approximate amount of molecules that I currently have in my body.

I also know that broccoli is 4% carbohydrates, 5% fat, 3% protein, and 91% water, while an elephant is 2% carbohydrates, 7% fat, 21% protein, and 68% water. A bacteria is 5% carbohydrates, 3% fat, 16% protein, and 70% water. Comparatively, a human has 1% carbohydrates, 17% fat, 16% protein, and 61% water. Fascinating. The rockets in the Rocket Park made you feel as if you were right next to a NASA rocket launching.

I had seen some of the exhibits at the NY Hall of Science once before, but I decided to attend the museum again for a very different purpose this time: To view the Science Inspires Art: The Cosmos exhibit. The images, exhibits, and the colors simply took my breath away. I had always been fascinated by what lay beyond our world, and have previously competed in the Astronomy category of the National Science Olympiad on my high school team, so having that background knowledge really enhanced my experience, if I was able to recognize a certain astronomical object in an exhibit.

Furthermore, I viewed the photographs of the 2013 annual Nikon Small World Photomicrography Competition winners and will include a few of them below. I had a few favorites in this exhibit. The first is a picture of Barbilophozia sp. (a leafy liverwort, byrophyte plant) and cyanobacteria under 50x magnification (the first picture), which received 8th place and was taken by Magdalena Turzanska of the Institute of Experimental Biology, Department of Plant Developmental Biology in the University of Wroclaw, Poland, using the epi-autofluorescence under UV light, z-stack reconstruction technique. The

The second picture is the Macrobrachium shrimp (ghost shrimp) eye under 140x magnification, and was taken by Vitoria Tobias Santos, of Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, using stereomicroscopy and received 11th place.

The next one received 9th place and is by Mark A. Sanders, of the University of Minnesota, USA, and it pictures an insect wrapped in spider web at 85x magnification, using Confocal, Autofluorescence, and Image Stacking techniques. The last picture received 7th place, and is by Dr. Jan Michels, of the Institute of Zoology, Functional Morphology and Biomechanics, Germany, and pictures the adhesive pad on a foreleg of a ladybird beetle (Coccinella septempunctata) at 20x magnification using Confocal Autofluorescence.

The photograph that placed first is a very impressive work of art, pictured below. It was taken by Wim van Egmond, of the Micropolitan Museum in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Pictured is a marine diatom, the chaetoceros debilis, which is a colonial plankton organism, magnified to 250x using Differential Interference Contrast and Image Stacking. Diatoms are one of the vital oxygen producers on earth and are a fundamental link in our food chains. The photograph was definitely impressive, with its contrasting bright yellow and dark blue colors, as well as the shadows throughout. The stacking technique used allowed the audience to view the diatom in a 3-dimensional scope.

I read “The Phantom of the Opera,” by Gaston Leroux, prior to attending the Broadway show, simply because I have a habit of reading a play, novel, or script prior to attending a performance or a movie, in some cases. I watched the movie a few days after the show, and only because my friend asked me what I did that weekend, I replied that I had seen the Phantom of the Opera, and she questioned, “the movie or the Broadway show?”

However, neither the novel or nor the movie compared to the Broadway show in the Majestic Theatre. There’s a reason that the Phantom of the Opera is the longest-running show in Broadway history (besides that of the very long, around-the-block lines). 🙂 Usually, I enjoy the novel more than the corresponding production, and, although the novel was very enjoyable to read, I have a special place in my heart for music and musicals such as this show.

Admittedly, I did wonder how the infamous crashing of the chandelier would be staged, and I was very happy that I wasn’t sitting in the Orchestra section of the theatre…

Furthermore, I wondered how the boat scene would be staged, considering the fact that the stage was a dry surface without water, and I found the boat effects, as well as the effects that had been designed for the stairs, to be impressively realistic.

The scenery and costumes were impeccably produced. The singing was beautiful, the acting was amazing, and the instrumental accompaniment was graceful and phenomenal. While the Phantom of the Opera was the angel of music, the actress that played Christine had the voice of an angel. The music was so amazing that I had chills throughout the whole production. I was completely mesmerized and immersed in the show and the plot line, so much so that when the show was over and the curtain closed, I didn’t want to leave. I will definitely enjoy viewing the Phantom of the Opera a few more times in my lifetime because I think it is a timeless production of art.

No, it’s not what you’re thinking: I didn’t visit one of the branches of the international company that retails Spanish clothing and accessories. 🙂

Zara is a “pop” singer of ethnic Kurdish background and is widely popular in countries in Europe and Asia. Usually, as with all pop singers, Zara’s songs are upbeat and lively, engaging people of the younger generations. However, on this tour, Zara focused primarily on songs of various time periods, cultures, and backgrounds. During the performance, Zara sang in English, Russian, Spanish, Italian, French, and Armenian and her repertoire included traditional songs, classical pieces, modern songs, and old-fashioned romances/ballads.

Zara sang many songs throughout the night, including Lara Fabian’s song, titled “Adagio,” as well as symbolic World War II songs and even “Une Histoire d’Amour.” The musicians accompanying her were incredible, as well as the dancers were during some of the waltzes.

And, while all of the songs were very enjoyable to listen to, one of the songs Zara sang that night was unlike any other. Dle Yaman, or “Դլե յաման”, (the first video below) is the song that caused the audience, regardless of nationality or origin, as a whole to be entirely unmoving and remain transfixed, whether on Zara or within the emotions that the song brought about. Originally, this Armenian song was a love song written a very long time ago, with the words accompanied by a duduk, which is a traditional woodwind instrument indigenous to Armenia. However, Dle Yaman has become one of the most common symbols and laments of the Armenian genocide.

Although I couldn’t find actual videos from her concert on November 3rd,2013, the following are a few examples of the arrangements that she sang during her performance:

Start the following video at 0:44 to view Zara sing.

Zara’s genuine emotions infused every song that she sang, her humble manner when accepting bouquets of flowers was definitely a rare encounter among celebrities of her caliber, and her happiness while singing encores definitely added to my enjoyment of the performance.