♥Scenes of a Latin Quarter, Rent, Opera Lecture♥

In “Scenes of a Latin Quarter”, there are obvious themes of poverty, unrequited love, and Bohemianism. Bohemianism refers to a societal movement of people who live with the arts in an unconventional way. In this story, the artists live in poverty and struggle to pay rent due to their careers, but still try to live optimistically. This is directly related to the Bohemian theme, because while art is not considered a “respectable career”, we all need art to live and relate to, which is why many artists are happy to create it.

Similarly to the artists in “Scenes of a Latin Quarter”, another group of artist friends is struggling to pay rent in NYC, and at the same time, are directly affected by the AIDS epidemic. Since Rent is a musical, it was easier for me to grasp than “Scenes of a Latin Quarter”, which I found quite dense at some points. But, both texts share the exact theme of Bohemianism and how it is used as a coping mechanism for different issues, which in this case was the AIDS epidemic, and for “Scenes of a Latin Quarter”, it was poverty and unrequited love.

Finally, I enjoyed how this connected to the Opera lecture. Not too long ago, I went to see Les Contes D’Hoffmann, which was my introduction to opera since I had never been exposed to it before. After learning about Bohemianism in opera, I have even more of an understanding of how opera came to be, and how works like Rent and “Scenes of a Latin Quarter” came to be as well. I argue that Bohemianism is still very evident in our society today, but a lot of it was popularized through these original pieces of work.

♥Background♥

Before getting the opportunity to chat with punk artist Rich Stremme, I reflected a bit on my punk background. Growing up, I lived with a culture to fear punks and anybody out of the ordinary. I, being out of the ordinary myself, was also afraid of not conforming to the norms of society. Since the beginning of my freshman year of high school, I realized I was more punk than I thought I was, and instead of fearing the misfits, I befriended them. This relates to the question I asked Stremme— how did you adapt to the stigmas surrounding punk culture?

♥What I Learned♥

Stremme’s response resonated with my experiences, where the general theme was that trying new things and doing what he loves mattered the most to him. With this in mind, I realized that punk rock is a protest. Punk individuals take a stand for what they love and embrace the parts of life that stray from the common, normalized trends that might be quite harmful at times. Punks take this stand especially when others or society pressures them to conform to common ideas in politics, fashion, or casual living. With these points in mind, I firmly believe that openly and happily being the black sheep is the freedom that the punk genre gives us, and it gives life more vibrancy. Punk art has made my life significantly better, and being able to listen in on a professional who actively participated in creating the type of art I love confirmed that this lifestyle is really about being passionate about who you are, and I believe that is the strongest and most peaceful societal protest against conformity.

♥ Introduction ♥

“The Woman Who Gave Birth To Rabbits” by Stephen Gracia is a perfect script to read just in time for Halloween. This play is gruesome, comedic, and a terrifying true story, but my favorite part is it is as true as the playwright who created this play. 

 ♥ Thoughts ♥

Initially, I thought this play was weird because there was simply no explanation for how Mary Toft birthed rabbits. At the Macaulay Building, we attended a play reading. I asked Stephen what inspired him to create this, and he revealed that similar to me, he was confused as to how Mary birthed rabbits. The more he researched, the more confused he got about how and why this happened. So, his approach was to put two people in a room and imagine the extent of how bizarre this situation would get if this story were to unfold before our very eyes. I find this process very interesting and wanted to know more about Stephen and his actors than the play. Some other ideas that were brought up that stuck with me are making art accessible and affordable, being able to put a reasonable price on the labor it took to create the art and the idea that art is no longer yours when you publicize it.

At that moment, I found myself having a brief moment of gratefulness. As a consumer, I take artists and musicians for granted despite aspiring to become one myself. Playwrights, authors, and musicians appear to be nothing more than names on a paper until you engage with them about their thoughts, ideas, and inspirations. Then the idea of “Does America honor their poets” came up, and I say we honor the work but not the poets. We experience and relate to the human aspects of the art, but we rarely experience the human aspects of the person who created the art. Naturally, many of us don’t realize how to separate the conversations we have with art from those we have with the artist (usually because we aren’t gifted with the opportunity to converse with the artist). How do we fix this? We pay attention to our artists. We support our artists. We need art to give meaning to our lives, but we can’t have art without artists, and artistry is a very noble occupation contrary to popular belief.

♥ Conclusion ♥

What was just a simple homework assignment, became an eye-opener to me. This experience at Macaulay is one of my favorite and most unique seminar trips and has opened my mind to new ideas about art, especially those who create it.

♥Introduction♥

I had the pleasure of attending Macaulay Honors College’s annual Night at the Museum event at the Brooklyn Museum. As a class, we focused on floors 3 and 5, which showcased Ancient Egyptian art, Native American art, and African American art. I am both Egyptian and Black, so finding artifacts I can relate to allowed me to learn things about myself and my culture that I did not know before.

♥Hair is Art♥

It is important to note that art is a conversation. You are having your very own discussions that are influenced by the art you see and how you react to it. For me, these exhibits involving hair spoke to me. Growing up, I was always ashamed of my kinky, frizzy, curly hair. I desperately wanted to have straight hair like my friends because their hair seemed “prettier” to everybody else and I did not know how to style my hair. Today, I am not ashamed to go to college with my hair in a protective style, and I am not ashamed to go to events with my curly hair out. Seeing these exhibitions spoke to me because hair that looks like mine is displayed as art in a museum. My hair is art. After feeling like I had ugly hair for so long, I can finally see myself in art as early as 2000 B.C.E.

Counting (Laura Simpson, 1991)

To me, this piece showed the beauty of counting. The beauty in aging. The beauty in a house after it’s built. The beauty in braiding hair. But this beauty comes with time, precision, and effort. While my hair takes more time to do than straight hair, the time and effort it takes tells a story about how I care for my hair, which makes it art.

Bound (Kehinde Wiley, 2014)

This statue was created to show that Black women are bound to their hair. Hair harbors connections to history, people, and family. The way we do our hair tells a story about the purpose we do it for. Braids, in this case, are a protective style. Yes, it protects our hair and scalp, but it protects us too. Rice and seeds used to be hidden in African braids to survive the Middle Passage. Braids are also used to identify which tribe or country you are from. These are some perfect examples to show why Black women are bound with hair.

Hairdressing Scene (c. 2008-1957 B.C.E.)

This scene shows me that not only was the presentation of hair important since the beginning of time, but Egyptians used to embrace curly and braided hair. Today, Egypt has become very Eurocentric in terms of beauty standards, so curly hair is straightened, protein and keratin treatments are on the rise, and being curly isn’t considered presentable. My vacation in Egypt was the start of my insecurity with my hair, and I straightened it every day. Representation influences how people view themselves, and it is important to include everybody for this reason. Prior to this museum trip, I did not realize that curly hair was embraced in Ancient Egypt, and it only makes me prouder to wear mine.

♥Conclusion♥

Representation influences how people view themselves, and it is important to include everybody so people are uplifted, knowledgeable, and comforted. In this museum, I felt very included and I walked out of it feeling happy that I could finally look at art and see myself in it. The conversations I’ve had with these exhibits about my hair have healed the part of me that was too worried I’d never find something to relate to, and I now understand the difference between looking at art and seeing it.

Our class took a trip to the Roundabout Theatre to see a preview of a play called “The Counter.” The play features a barista, Katie, and an old customer, Paul, who begin interacting beyond coffee. Paul asks to be friends with Katie, which strikes me because I don’t believe you can be friends with somebody you don’t know much about. I can imagine that Katie was surprised as well. Paul understands the idea that you cannot be friends without revealing deep secrets about each other, so he starts to reveal that he is an alcoholic, and he becomes categorized as somebody who is depressed. Katie begins to open up about leaving her home, and her ex(friend?) to run away from the life she had when she had a hysterectomy. Paul and Katie begin to clash, as they both have different opinions about Katie running away. I enjoy the irony in this because while they have different opinions, they are not so different themselves.

Later, Paul asks Katie to kill him and surprise him. This is not explicitly mentioned, but I interpret it as Paul trying to run away from his issues by ending it, while he condemns Katie for running away. Katie does not want to deal with people’s pity of her having a hysterectomy while Paul does not want to deal with everybody else’s pity of him taking care of his mother and brother until they passed away. At this point in the play, I started to tear up, I felt as if I could sympathize with the characters even though the play is fictional. After much more talking, Katie’s problems seemed to follow her into her new home, as her ex-friend (who knows about the hysterectomy and hurts her emotionally) found her address and is going to see her. Paul tells her she has to go and move elsewhere to protect her peace. From once disagreeing with each other to understanding each other with talks over the countertop,  the moral of this is you cannot make assumptions that everybody doesn’t understand how you feel. People will never understand the full extent of how you feel. But they may understand the principle of the situation. Had Paul and Katie not given each other a chance, we probably wouldn’t have been met with the resolution of Katie and Paul both attempting to protect their peace in the end.