I thought reading Scenes from a Latin Quarter was alright. My favorite chapter was chapter 1. This chapter showed how easy it is to make connections and friends. In chapter 1, Schaunard was basically evicted from his home. He went to a place to eat where he met Colline and Rodolphe, and they basically instantly became friends. Later, Schaunard and his new friends went back to his room, which was already occupied by a new tenant, Marcel. Schaunard and his friends basically invited Marcel to the group, and they quickly became friends.

Rent was alright. I could connect it to Scenes of a Latin Quarter, as they were both talking about artists who struggle with money. The artists in Rent were living through the AIDS epidemic.

I did not like the opera. I personally do not listen to music, nor do I have opinions on it, but I personally do not like classical music. My mom used to play classical music in the car, so that’s why I do not enjoy it. Since I do not like classical music or music of that sort, it made the opera not very enjoyable.

When I was listening to Rich talk about his life, I thought it was very interesting. He was explaining to us how when he moved it was hard to find people with the same interests as him. He also said how punk rock had a negative connotation to it, and whenever he found a person who liked what he did, they connected. He was also explaining how he made a lot of bands with friends and how he tried to get himself into events so that more people could hear him and his band. This was very interesting to me because I would never have expected a teenager to try so hard, like Rich did, to get into these events. Like he explained, he would call multiple times a month to try to get into shows. This was surprising to me because most people would give up after a couple of rejections. I also liked his viewpoint that you should let everyone enjoy their time at an event because you never know what they might do next. It was basically him saying it was the band’s responsibility to make sure people don’t do anything bad because of them. He then later explained that one person at one of his events actually killed someone after getting kicked out of the event. In general, I thought the Zoom call with Rich was interesting, and it helped open my eyes to a bit of the rock world.

When I entered the Macaulay building to watch the play, we were informed that one of the actors was running late and we would be waiting for them. During this time, me and some of my friends went to the lounge and were conversing and playing games with each other. After some time passed, we were finally invited to go listen to the play. What I liked about the play was the emotions. When I was reading the play to myself, everything felt kind of monotone and boring, while when the actors were reading the script, it actually felt like they were experiencing true emotions. One part I found funny was the screams. Although they were screams of pain, they caught me off guard, and since I was not expecting it, I laughed a little. I also saw the actors laughing a little too. One thing I liked about the playwright was that he allowed his play to be changed by his actors. He obviously wanted his script to be the basis, but he let the actors make little changes as they saw fit. This made the play a little different compared to what I read. All in all, I liked seeing the script being read because it was interesting and an experience.

During my trip to the museum, where me and Jackson were viewing the art together, I found two pieces of art that really stood out to me.

The first piece of art that stood out to me was A View of the Two Lakes and Mountain House, Catskills Mountains, Morning by Thomas Cole. Me and Jackson both liked this painting because we felt like we were on the journey with the man standing in the middle. It was almost like we were seeing the scenery through the eyes of the man, and we could almost see the landscape in front of us because of the amount of detail to it.

 

The second piece of art that stood out to me was Before the Storm by Richard Mayhew. This painting stood out to me for one reason in particular. It stood out to me because when I looked at it, I got nostalgia. To me in particular, it almost looks like you are looking at the trees through a window during a storm. The blurry view you get from the painting is made because of the amount of rain going down on the window, thus making the landscape outside almost blurry-like.

In conclusion, I liked my trip to the museum, and I actually found art that stood out to me, making my trip enjoyable.

 

I started my experience at Snug Harbor by waiting for some friends to get there. After we grouped up, we entered the building and decided that we wanted to paint. We chose to do oil painting mostly because we learned about it earlier in class. We had a teacher that taught us the basics of oil painting, and she even told us how she started her journey into painting. She showed us some of her works, and we realized that she was very skilled in her work. After she showed us some examples, she set up some tables with different items we could draw. Niko and I decided to choose some tomatoes that were outside of a box. Being that this was my first time drawing, I have to say I was not very good at it, but with the help of our teacher, I managed to successfully paint my first artwork. 

As you can see, this is not the most perfect piece, but it’s not the worst considering it is my first time painting. What I learned from my experience is that painting is fun with a group. I also learned that when you finish a painting, you feel a sense of accomplishment, even though the work does not have to be that good.

In conclusion, my experience at the Art Lab was good, and I would prefer drawing over looking at art in museums because I like actually painting myself rather than looking at someone else’s art.

I first started my trip for The Counter like many others, going on the ferry; it was not a long trip, and it was bearable because there were people to talk to. I later took the train and walked a bit, later arriving at my destination, the Roundabout Theatre. It was not the biggest theater I’ve been to, but there was a different type of set there. The set for The Counter was small, but it had everything it needed. My expectations for this play were not high, but that is because I don’t typically like theaters, and I do not like plays in general.

After watching the play, I could only say a couple things about it. I liked the small cast; it made it easier to learn the characters and their own struggles, and it made everything less confusing. I like how The Counter portrays that everyone has their own struggles and that even though not every struggle is the same, people can still bond over them. Katie, a barista, had problems with a man and decided to move away to live a better life, in her opinion. Paul, a retired firefighter, did not want to live anymore and wanted to be killed in surprise by poison. Paul, after going to Katie’s cafe for a while, asked to be friends with Katie, and she obliged. After becoming friends, they later shared some secrets together, those being the ones I stated before. I liked how they talked their problems out and learned more about each other. I liked most of the play except two different parts. The first part was when Paul was explaining his affair with Peg, a married woman, to Katie. Katie was explaining how she saw a synergy between them, and she seemed like she did not see anything wrong with the affair. The second part I did not like was the ending. The ending was just an abrupt stop that leaves the viewer guessing what will happen next. In my opinion, if you make a play, finish it with a real ending that you created; do not just leave your viewers guessing.

In conclusion, I think The Counter was not a bad play; it just had two moments that I did not particularly like. Besides that, I think it showcases how different people have their own problems pretty well.

On Saturday I visited a museum, the Rubin Museum of Art. This was the first time I went to a museum in the past 3-4 years, and I went with a group of friends. It all started with the commute to the museum. The commute was not the best, and it did take time to get there, especially because someone came late to the ferry and made us miss the first one (Brendan). When we finally got to Manhattan after an hour, we took a train to Rubin, and during that train ride we saw some strange things that confirmed that we were in New York. Besides that, I enjoyed socializing with friends during the commute. When we got to Rubin we paid for our tickets and went up a lot of stairs getting tired before we even started our viewing of the museum. After we finished looking at the museum, we all found something that stuck out to us. For me, there were 3 pieces in particular. Those 3 being: The Vast Bhutan, Muted Expressions, and The Gongs.

The Vast Bhutan:

This piece stuck out to me for three main reasons. Those being that it was very big, colorful, and that it was made out of Bhutanese prayer flags. These Bhutanese prayer flags were found on the floor or in other places and were taken and made into this art piece. This art piece spans the whole museum, going from the top floor to the main floor. This piece has 5 mad horses in it, each a different color. The five colors being: yellow, green, white, blue, and red. Each color symbolized a different thing. Yellow symbolizes wisdom and earth, green symbolizes equanimity and water, white symbolizes purity and air, blue symbolizes endurance and space, and lastly, red symbolizes compassion and fire. The horses are called mad horses because they symbolize the negative effects the flags have on the environment, even though they are meant for protection. These horses are the Lungta, and they carry the prayers from earth to the heavenly realm.

The Gongs:

This piece stood out to me because of the physical aspect and that the person themselves gets to interact with the art piece. The point of this peace is so that you channel all your anger into the gong and then you hit it lightly. This hit puts all your anger into the gong, which you lower into some water. This makes the water absorb your anger, and it starts to shake. Later the water becomes still again, and this is supposed to symbolize that your anger has dissipated. There were multiple different gongs, each a different size, and each made different noises. I interacted with this art piece but felt nothing. That is because during the time of me hitting the gong, I had no anger to channel into it, thus making me feel nothing.

Muted Expressions:

This piece stood out to me for a single reason. That reason is because of the meaning behind this artwork. This is called Muted Expressions, and it was made by Tsherin Sherpa. This piece was made after the 2015 earthquake in Nepal that killed over 9,000 people and injured over 20,000. One part of this piece that stood out to me was that there were two hands in that artwork that were barely touching each other. This is supposed to symbolize a man and a woman’s last touch before they got separated due to the earthquake (I got told this by a worker in the Rubin Museum). This just added to the meaning of this art piece to me. This is why the artwork left a standing impression on me.

 

These are the three pieces of art that stuck out to me in the Rubin Museum.