This was honestly the best performance we had probably gone to all year. It was an amazing trip to end on, and I loved how close up to the stage we were. Watching the different actors do the play was amazing, being able to see all the emotion the put in made the performance so believable.

The story behind it was such a shock too, this was the only performance we had seen where we basically didn’t know what would happen and it was an amazing surprise. At this time and age, the LGBT community is grown and more accepted so it was interesting to look at a performance placed in a time where it was strange to be part of the community and resulted in you being outcasted. The whole plot behind the story helped to put on an amazing show so that you wanted to stay awake to watch. The ending I feel could have used more closure since we never knew how the son and family ended up. The fact that most of the crowd was people from a generation who probably grew up looking down on those who are now considered LGBT was interesting, since they most likely knew some context to how the show would end up, and truly wanted to see a performance with something that some people today still seem to look down upon.

In the end just going to that amazing performance was an amazing last trip to see art, aside from our finals, and it was incredibly enjoyable. I really loved being able to be in this Macaulay seminar semester with all of you guys, and I hope we can all enjoy what our later seminars hold for us.

Going to Carnegie hall to listen to classical music was great. It was amazing to be able to close my eyes and listen to a performance and not have to use my other senses, however being able to look and see all the individual musicians use their bodies as they played their instruments was an amazing feeling. I really enjoyed hearing the four seasons part of the performance since I felt it provided the most emotions with the piece. It was intense to hear the women in the yellow dress(forgot her name) and the (base or cello) player performing together since it was amazing how they would build on one another’s instrument. I guess the only part that was not so enjoyable was when the harpsichord was playing solo, since people would cough and it was at such a low volume you could not really enjoy the music that was being performed.

Overall I really liked being able to go to Carnegie hall and listen to classical music since it was such an amazing and wonderful experience.

Going to Columbia to see an exhibit about comic books sounded like so much fun. Honestly I think comics are interesting to look at, not that I read them I do like DC and Marvel movies, and learning about Characters in comics. However the exhibit was not exactly how I expected it to be.

I had expected the exhibit to be rather large, which it was, but a third of the exhibit was placed into a narrow hallway. I thought that we would be able to learn about things in comics history. After going to class the next day, I did rethink the way the tour was given and how she would constantly question us. Most tours are given that way when they try to involve the people in the tour into a discussion.

I did enjoy looking at all old art pieces shown to us. I guess looking at different aspects of comics was interesting, like the company letters, draft comics, and cosplay. I probably would have enjoyed the comic archive if we were allowed to just walk around the area and look at all the different things for ourselves.

Honestly I found the five boro food talk to be interesting in a confusing way. I had hoped that the panel would be discussing and explaining the history of certain jewish foods, but listening to the panel talk, and not knowing much about jewish food, I got lost listening to the panel talk. Although it was enjoyable to be in a small panel room and sit so close to the people talking, not really knowing so much about the history was not so enjoyable. After going to class and hearing what other’s who were jewish had to say about the talk, it made it seem that the panel was not very good at talking about jewish food. The panel did seem too focused on the discussion on gefilte fish, zabar’s, and bagels and was unable to bring enough of a focus onto other topics. I probably would have liked the talk more if the talk didn’t assume everyone knew jewish food to start with, although in their defense most of the people who went were indeed jewish, the discussion should have been a more, in general discussion, instead of putting such a narrow focus on the large diversity found in jewish food.

I guess in the end I came to the talk expecting it to go one way, but was disappointed since I left the talk not knowing about much more jewish food then I had started with.

1. What type of exhibit would you have wanted us to see, other than the Gary Winogrand?

2. What is your favorite form of art? (music, performance, etc.)

Going to Lincoln Center in order to watch Carmen was really Cool. Although it was scary not knowing where Mr.Ugoretz was, finally getting into the beautiful theatre was just an amazing feeling. Being so high up from the stage it did bother me, since I had a hard time seeing any of the performers and being able to distinguish one performer from the other. I tried my best during some performances just to try to see who was singing. I really thought that the fact that you couldn’t see the translations from other people’s screens, who were on your side, was cool, but you were able to read off the screen in front of you.

Watching the performance I was amazed by the singers. I mean although it would have been nice to hear the singing a little bit louder, the fact that those singers were able to project their voices so far up was amazing. I really liked all the singing that went on since for the most part the singing when along with the way the performers were acting and it was an amazing show when you combined the two. I honestly feel that the length of the opera wasn’t so bad since according to a friend of mine “most hindi movies are 3-5 hours” so the fact that our performance was three hours wasn’t so bad. Honestly I think that if the performance were longer it would still be a good show, since many people seem to enjoy the theatre partly due to the environment and the experience they have being able to just be engulfed by the show.

Overall I did really like going to carmen. I probably will wanna go see some other operas later in the future, such as ones done by Mozart.

The three performances done on Thursday night were all so different, but all equally enjoyable in different ways.

I had never been to Lincoln Center before (I think, unless that is where my brother’s graduation was held… I can’t remember) so I was excited to be able to watch a ballet performance there. I honestly came to Lincoln center expecting to just see the stereotypical girly performance, but I was pleasantly surprised with something very different.

The first performance was one that I did enjoy, but probably not as much as some people. I do not know the techniques behind ballet, so when I was watching the dancers perform, I could only be in awe at how impressive their body’s moved and not so much how they would angle and carry out their movements.

The second performance had a very nice story line to go with all the dancing. It was enjoyable to see the two females and males inter-mingle with one another with their dancing. It was a very nice way to show how much the people wanted one another, even though it was as if they would only be able to see the other from afar.

The last performance was honestly so hilarious. I mean come on, watching those sailors fight one another for those girls was funny. The solo performances that they had put on were also so amazing, and I was shocked by the split that the sailor did. This may have been my favorite performance of the night. However all three were fun to watch.

There isn’t much to say about the memorials that others haven’t already stated. The 9/11 memorial was very moving like what most others already said, while the Vietnam memorial was small and abandoned. Looking at the two memorials and after the discussion we had in class the following friday i began to think back to my english class from high school.

My teacher use to talk about memory’s and how things existed. Such as to the extent that we exist. Seeing the differences between the 9/11 and Vietnam memorial it relates to the discussion my class use to have. The 9/11 memorial is a very tragic thing that occurred a little over a decade ago, while the war in Vietnam happened much longer ago. Slowly however the extent to which the two are remembered is different. Not many people now a day experienced or remember the Vietnam war, but many people remember 9/11. I honestly didn’t know new york had a Vietnam memorial and I had never gone to the 9/11 one. One day in the near future people will not remember experiencing what occurred during the Vietnam war, and in the further future, people will not remember first hand experiences of 9/11.

One day the only thing that will remain will the the documented experiences of 9/11 and Vietnam and no one will know first hand what had actually occurred. Then the highly guarded 9/11 we visited on tuesday will end up looking similar to Vietnam where people seem to be around not very much by choice.

I just noticed my post is very negative so i should add a positive aspect. I did enjoy the memorial very much with how everything in Manhattan was drowned out by the fall of the water. There was a certain amount of peace in just listening to water fall and not have to deal with cars and people around you. Even with the emptiness of the Vietnam memorial, it was made more positive since all of us students were there looking at it, rather than being alone to see it.

Okay so disclaimer ahead of time.

I find this song/music video to be beautiful due to the history i have with it. It is very beautiful in a comedic way, not so much in an emotionally moving sense. If you listen to this song on it’s own it however does sound beautiful (even though it is just repeating) but watching this video will also make you laugh, or feel creeped out…

Also this is an opera type piece so don’t listen to it if you don’t like it. I also forgot what the lyrics mean, but it has something to do with fire and ice… something along those lines… It’s in italian so maybe someone will know.

So I had originally gone to the Met last week to see Garry Winogrand’s exhibit, but I forgot to post about it. So I’ll just go on about how the day that I went was. Last Friday when I had gone, I arrived to the Met before it had even been opened, so I when i had entered the Met, it was basically completely empty. I had forgot Garry’s name so i just went around the museum looking for the 900’s exhibits because I only remembered his exhibit numbers.

When I entered into his exhibit, I was pleased by how all his photographs were displayed. Nothing in his exhibit popped out at you. I don’t mean that in a bad way, since all of Garry’s black and white pictures should all be equally presented to you. The exhibit made it easy to be able to look at all the pictures one by one without another one catching your eyes too much and making you focus onto it.

I do like Garry’s style of taking pictures. There was a lot of variety to them, nothing was type categorized, such as pictures of zoo animals, beach scenes, riots, and others kinds. Garry had those pictures which differed drastically from one another. I really liked the picture, “Hard Hat Rally”, it showed a lot of violence and chaos, but in a way that makes the picture seem so authentic. Garry didn’t try to hid any of the distress in the people’s faces. He made the picture to represent what was really going on and he didn’t try to hide any of the struggle. I saw one of Garry’s quotes on the wall, “The world isn’t tidy; it’s a mess. I don’t try to make it neat.” and that quote is exactly represented in that picture of the hard hat rally. Since his photos are so authentic I really did enjoy looking at all of his pictures.

I’m not trying to say that I only liked the violent pictures, but that one picture did really stand out since Garry had a quote to back it up with. His photo of the what looked to be a family with human parents and chimp children was also nicely taken. Since it is suppose to show a parent’s love and a child’s trust, that photo was very touching in a way.

I guess to sum up the exhibit, all of Garry’s works were really nice to look at. I honestly liked some more than others, however it was still amazing to be able to take a glimpse at the world from a very honest camera point of view.