When it came to reading the book “Scenes of a Latin Quarter”, I didn’t like it. The story used the old English language, and I typically don’t enjoy reading things like that. I also didn’t enjoy the movie “Rent” as I don’t typically enjoy musicals. Same thing goes for the Opera lecture. Although it was cool learning about the history, I am not a big fan of them.

A similarity I found between “Scenes of a Latin Quarter”, “Rent”, and even some of the artists we learn about, like Patti Smith in “Just Kids” is that the artists struggle economically. The artists in “Scenes from a Latin Quarter”struggle to pay their rent, the artists in “Rent” struggle to survive in New York City with their lack of money, and Patti Smith in “Just Kids” starts off homeless when she arrives in New York City. Another similarity between “Scenes of a Latin Quarter” and “Rent” is the theme of love and friendship. The characters in both the book and the movie help each other to overcome their struggles. In “Rent”, they help overcome financial struggles, isolation, and fear of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. In “Scenes of a Latin Quarter”, they help overcome financial struggles and romantic conflicts. Overall, both stories had similarities and even had a common theme with what other artists dealt with outside of these two stories.

From the Opera lecture, I liked the operas that only relied on the piano for the instrumentals. I like classical music since I’ve been playing them throughout my life on the piano, and overall the operas sounded really nice. I was even amazed that Amanda Zory Hick had an example of herself doing an opera to show to us, she is really talented! One more thing I liked was the Oppenheimer opera she showed. I already knew the context since I watched the movie on release, which made the opera more understandable.

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