The Brooklyn Academy of Music’s new production Les Ecailles de la Memoire, or “The Scales of Memory,” elucidates the complicated issues of memory, love, culture among the people of the African Diaspora. It is an intercontinental production involving the Compagnie Jant-Bi from Senegal and Brooklyn’s Urban Bush Women. The mixture of dance style, language, and shared history give Les Ecailles de la Memoire its flavor; however, the desperation to develop a narrative and characters takes away from the magnificent performance.
As the Senegalese men leap into the air like firecrackers, arms and legs akimbo, one realizes that these are not amateurs. Both the Bush Women and the Compagnie Jant-Bi see every movement through to absolute fruition – their broad and powerful style demands the viewer’s attention. Unfortunately, the gusto with which the performance opened does not linger throughout the entire show.
After the first thirty minutes more importance is placed on character development and storyline than on the actual dancing. In an attempt to illustrate the journey from Africa to the West, the performers begin slowing down their movements and softening their technique, thus resulting in highly interpretive, conceptual dance. References to labor and slavery, such as the clanking of shackles or marching in sync, are littered throughout the production, and although they are occasionally affecting, they fall short of poignancy due to the lack of concrete character development. The audience is aware that there are seven men and seven women; however, the distinction of individual personae is never established, and the dancers are never elevated above anything other than performers.
Ultimately, Les Ecailles de la Memoire committed an amateur offense that soiled the entire production. If the dancers had been given full reign to demonstrate their magnificent capability, undoubtedly a standing ovation would be in store. Instead, the audience saunters out of the theater, freshly awaken, proclaiming, “I’m certain there was a narrative to that! I guess I’m far too prosaic to get it.”

Author, New York Times columnist, and dedicated son Mr. Sam Freedman appeared at Baruch College last week for a talk back about his historical biography Who She Was. The book is a factual rendering of his mother’s life: raw, unpretentious, and heartbreaking.
She grew up in the South Bronx’s Jewish ghetto, and lived a very hard life. She was obliged to support her family from a very young age, and only found solace in her friends and lovers. Her greatest aspiration was to attend college; however, her family’s demand to help defray the cost of living excluded this from her future. Freedman writes of this as his mother’s catharsis, after which all seems to deteriorate.
He calls it a form of penance, by which he can repent for many years of misunderstanding. Like many young people, Freedman saw his mother as a burden. Her final visit to his college dorm was a mere annoyance to him as he tried to forget his “degenerate and dissident mother.” Decades after her death he sought to recompense through his book.
“These things may wax and wane,” he said, “[but] there’s nothing time bound to the 1930’s and this book.” The truth is Who She Was is a universal biography about the struggles of “growing up in an impoverished household” and dealing with the sins of our fathers (or mothers, in this case.) Frequently Freedman would cite his mother’s “zest for life,” her improvident philandering with the catholic boy Charlie. His unidealization and unwavering candor when writing Who She Was set it apart from other biographical books.
It is almost impossible not to connect with Freedman’s account. Any reader, Jewish or Hindu, rich or poor, male or female, can find some semblance of recognition in his book.

Love, betrothal, and childbirth were extremely important in renaissance Italy. For men, the taking of a wife was most often an affair predetermined by familial obligation or societal convenience. For woman, marriage was a coming of age (at a very young age,) and one’s inauguration as a caretaker and child bearer. This ritualistic matrimony, often void of sexual attraction, was inculcated by the Catholic Church and considered to be the most important event in a woman’s life. The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s new exhibit Art and Love in Renaissance Italy is a paradox in a sense; the historic marriage of man and woman, loveless and obligatory in nature, was the topic of some of the most handsome works of art in history.
The collection boats approximately 150 pieces from as early as the year 1400. Included are marital paintings, tea sets, birthing plates, and countless gifts given to newly weds. Often these depict the bride and groom standing together, having just been married, and surrounded by Renaissance symbols of hope. Often the couple will have a dog, a symbol of fidelity, or the woman will be painted pregnant to show her fertility. In one painting by Lorenzo Lotto cupid urinates on a reclining Venus to represent fecundity and love. Paintings that illustrate mythical subjects were often used to decorate a wealthy couple’s camera.
Another popular style of painting for the same purpose was the diptych portrait. In most instances, the husband and wife face each other, exposing their profiles to the viewer. This is an allusion to the Ancient Caesars. Whenever a new Caesar would take power, his profile would be minted on the currency. Distinguished Renaissance couples sought to announce their social prominence by having their portraits drawn in the same fashion. The MET exhibit enjoys many of these paintings.
It also breaks ground. Probably one of the most enticing pieces in the whole exhibit is Fra Fillipo Lippi’s Portrait of a Woman and Man at a Casement. The painting is entirely unique in that it transforms the traditionally separate style of diptych portraiture into the single image. The woman, who is adorned with jewelry and furs, stands sideways as she looks out the window. Meanwhile, the man (her husband) looks through the window; however, their gaze does not meet. This painting has engendered much criticism for Lippi’s intrepidity in rejecting the diptych and also for the bride apparent apathy. It seems that this painting expresses the general feeling toward marriage during the Renaissance: instead of love there is insouciance.

The dawn of a new millennium, the advent of sophisticated technology, and my family’s coincidental relocation to Seattle, WA were all possible factors that contributed to my mother’s pivotal change in careers. I remember as a child I would awaken to the sound of her tinkering with a computer, and I would fume over my expulsion from her study. She had to go back to school for computer science, and by the time I was ten she was working for large corporations. In my mind she had always occupied a place on the rising tides of technology, and I rarely asked about her enigmatic history as a book editor for Knopf and Pantheon. I have come to realize, however, that her time spent at Knopf shaped the woman I know as my mother. She was just a Midwesterner straight out of New York University, naïve to the inexorable madness of the city, yet she was always loyal to her own moral probity. This is my effort to articulate her story.At all major publishers there were, and still are, two distinct types employees: the “old” and the “new.” These seemingly forthright labels were deceiving; the “old” were in fact also new, but with many more connections and funds. The “old” worked in tandem with top publishers, met authors of unimaginable prestige and recognition, and had a proclivity for a supercilious tone when speaking with the “new.” Laura Mack, unfortunately, found herself thrown in with the latter group of workers within the first few months of her employment at Knopf-Pantheon. While the “old” were adroit at avoiding all forms of exertion, Laura adhered to the tacit obligation of the “new,” and often spent hours reading through countless pages of manuscripts. These undesirable documents were affectionately named “the slush pile.”
She would routinely peruse the drafts, which were mostly young adult, picture books, or light literature. After reading a page or two, consulting the ending, and discerning that nothing is “extraordinary,” she would perfunctorily write a brief but polite letter informing the author of his or her rejection.

To the distinguished author of this book,
We at Knopf-Pantheon Books for Young Readers (a division of Randomhouse publishers) regret to inform you that we are unable to publish your book at this time. We urge you to continue in your pursuit and wish you the best.
Sincerely,
Laura Mack

There was one instance of cursoriness, however, that enlightened Laura Mack to the puzzling nature of book publishing. As is custom when working with “the slush,” Laura had already “read” five or six manuscripts and written five or six little letters. Without breaking suit, she read the seventh and sent out her final correspondence before lunch. Within five days she was called to her superior’s office and told that she had rejected a manuscript by one of the authors already signed with Knopf. “The author is extremely offended,” said her boss. “Have you not become acquainted with ‘the list’ after all this time?” “The list,” Laura knew, was the complete index of all the authors already published under her company’s name. She also was aware that she had not fully memorized it.

“I’m afraid for my job,” she told her coworke.
“Don’t worry,” she said, “I know you wouldn’t have rejected it if it was anything worth saving.”
“It certainly was not!”
“You should let him know, and incase he does let you go, Knopf will have one less egregious children’s book under its name.”

So she did. And after much “handholding and coddling” the agency decided to reject the manuscript, against the author’s fervent remonstration. Laura continued at the firm and learned from her mistakes.
Granted, the quality of writing in “the slush” remained excruciatingly ordinary, Laura began to recognize her own power in discovering that which was not common. After two years of virtually uninterrupted monotony, she stumbled upon a children’s book that was funny. Funny in the sense that it had a sarcastic swagger and dealt with the profound tale of a young boy wishing to “dump” his annoying little brother. “Authors of children’s books often forget that their target readers are generally above the age of eighteen months and have already conceptualized plain but apparent evils such as the malevolence of one’s younger sibling.” Laura knew that she enjoyed the book, but she was dubious of other’s opinions. However, having acquired confidence from her last encounter, she presented the book as a “keeper” and was pleasantly surprised with her superior’s concurrence. She would later come to see that author publish many novels, all imbued with the unconventional wit she had discovered herself.

While Laura’s ten-year perseverance in book publishing did not dissuade her from changing careers, it engendered a proclivity for “telling it how it is.” People often say that success is only achieved by working within the system, and that a few years of monotony is a small sacrifice for prestige and recognition. My mother has taught me that there is no such thing as a small sacrifice, and that courage is a valuable virtue. Whether in an avant-garde children’s book, or a precocious “new” employee, taking risks is the only way to achieve success, and that is something I hope to one day exemplify for my children to see.

My collage project entitled “Eastern Cherub” focuses on religious ideology from different cultures. I chose to represent Occidental spirituality through a cherub because it is the epitome of innocence and devoutness in Christianity. The cherub, adorned with bells and a cross, sits inside a black ring. In Chinese mysticism, the ring represents heaven because it is seemingly unbounded and borderless. In contrast, the square symbolizes the mortal, earthly world of the “unenlightened.” Often temples were built on this principal; a square gate would surround the greater structure, and the innermost core would consist of a smaller, circular shrine. I wanted to recreate this formation by depicting the view from above – a circle within a square.
Outside of the circle, yet within the confines of the outer square perimeter, I included shards of mirror to reflect the viewer’s own image – a reminder that we are not enlightened and are therefore excluded from the heavenly circle. The number of shards is also significant. The Chinese considered nine to be the number nearest to heaven, and many of the ancient temples have this incorporated into their architecture (nine stairs leading to the shrine, nine doorways in the gate, etc.) I therefore chose to use nine shards of mirror to illustrate the proximity to heaven, as we are just outside the circle.
My main objective was to contrast the iconography in the Christian religion and in ancient Chinese mysticism. While the cherub, cross, and bells are all clearly identifiable and accessible symbols, the Asian numerology is less intelligible to Westerners. By literally placing a symbol of Christian holiness inside of a symbol of Eastern heavenliness, I wanted to demonstrate the connection between all spirituality: the search for salvation.

Businesswoman turned poet, Frances Richey read from her second poetry compilation, “The Warrior” at the Macaulay center last week. Through boxy glasses Richey recited her poems, which concern her son’s deployment to Iraq. Tremendously poignant and obviously very personal, Richey’s poems deal with the bond between mother and son, the “letting go” of a loved one, and the realization that we all lead independent lives. Sound familiar? We all have probably experienced such introspection while reminiscing over dusty old photographs usually tucked away deep in the upstairs closet. In truth, Richey’s poems lack the innovative nuances that make contemporary poetry interesting and compelling.
Having altered careers relatively late in life, Richey was lucky to receive workshop training for her poetry. The imagery and figurative language in her poems show the toil behind them. Each sentence seems to have the perfect amount of adjectives, and the setting always seems to be a universal American pastoral. She tells us how she feels about the war and about her son. There is little left up to the imagination. One cannot help but speculate if the poems would be more captivating if Richey had stepped out of the boundaries of formulaic poetics.
In the same way, the lack of variation of subject might be of concern to those readers who are not mothers with sons in the Iraq war. Although it is apparent that Richey’s poems are deeply imbued with emotion, it is difficult for readers whose paths have not coincidentally converged on ones similar to hers to relate to the poems and think anything other than, “this is well-sculpted verse.” However, Richey definitely has a target audience. “My poems are accessible,” she says, “some people like it, some people don’t.” She encourages readers who find themselves lost during these warring times to read her poems and understand the connectedness of it all – for almost every soldier in the war there is a mother, wife, or daughter waiting back home. In the words of Frances Richey, “everybody has their own music,” and if yours is Mozart then you will surely enjoy “The Warriors.”

Matt Sax’s one-man hip-hop musical made its way to Time Square’s own Duke theatre, bringing with it all the torments of a suburban childhood. “Clay” recounts a teenager’s struggle to cope with his parent’s tumultuous divorce and his mother’s eventual suicide. The Westchester youth eventually finds solace in – where else? – the mean backstreets of Brooklyn. He delineates his life story in quaintly rhymed verse, and the production is set up in a way that the audience witnesses Clay’s great debut just as the curtains are about to close. Although Matt Sax is undeniably talented, “Clay” falls short of living up to its new Broadway home.
One-man performances tend to be slightly awkward, and “Clay” is no different. As the audience looks on incredulously, Sax shifts from one character to another by a mere change in facial contortion and voice pitch. This results in choppy, ungainly transitions and leaves little room for adequate character development. The audience is never given a chance to understand why his mother killed herself, or why his father is so wicked. We are also left without insight as to what Clay found in rap that allowed him to speak about his innermost secrets. Without anything to which the audience can relate, “Clay” becomes a tedious confessional.
The story is also far from original, and even farther from reality. The premise of a Westchester teen meeting Brooklyn’s rough alleyways is a twenty-first century cliché. Furthermore, the eschewal of his own heritage and embodiment of one that is not his own do not invite sympathy, rather obvious labels such as “Wangster” or “White Boy.” Eight-year-old Clay’s role as the prominent decision-maker in his parent’s divorce is also entirely unbelievable. On the other hand, the story might have been better received if his personal lexicon had not been needlessly littered with profanity.

The Susan Meiselas exhibit at the International Center for Photography is eye opening. Not only is Meiselas a master of visual composition, but she also uses her photographs to document the strife all around the world, in Nicaragua, in Kurdistan, and even in America. In all three of her sets she examines the notion of nationalism under oppressive regimes, while also looking closer at the individual’s identity.
In the collection of photographs entitled “Nicaragua” one can see how Meiselas uses the power of the photograph to illicit a reaction from viewers. One shot captures a bucolic hillside in the center of which rests a bare human spinal bone – a scene so gruesome it is difficult to contemplate the reality of the image. Others show street-side conflagrations and peasants sorting through ashes. Meiselas uses to her advantage the innate quality of the photograph to be factual and true, and by depicting real suffering and strife she unleashes the floodgates of human rights much like her predecessors Lewis Hine and Walker Evans.
In the same way, Meiselas uses photography to document the persecution of the Kurdish people in Iraq, an ethnic cleansing under Sadam Hussein’s rule that received relatively little publicity. Most images are simple family portraits; the Kurdish people were not allowed to take photographs and the plain, matter-of-fact representation of their rich culture is extremely emotive. Starring straight into the lens are old mothers aged far beyond their years with folk headdresses and very few teeth, yet Meiselas gives them a certain dignity, a saintly glow. In addition, Meiselas includes pictures of Kurdish people holding images of relatives, an obvious offense against the prohibition of photography. The risks these people took were great, however, they still chose to preserve the Kurdish legacy through photography.
Meiselas’s final and perhaps most complex set of photographs is “Carnival Strippers,” nestled in the back reaches of the ICP’s basement floor. This series documents the “Girls Show” of New England at the height of the women’s movement in America. Steadfast in her proclivity for journalistic photography, Meiselas captures women who are both “endangered by and controlling their environment while being supported by a community of other women.” Meiselas also includes a voice-over of the original interviews she conducted with the show girls. They speak of their disdain for their customers, their aspirations to “get real jobs,” and most importantly the dissimilarity of their identity onstage and backstage. This duality of character and the concept of the “show” is something Meiselas illustrates in her photographs. She does not depict the girls as sexual entities; instead, she shows them as real women inherently bound by friendship to one another. Meiselas’s portrayal of her subjects unadorned and virtually unaffected by modern “acceptable” society promotes her photographs from mere documentary to artistic expressions. She manufactures art out of what is already there – the purest, most visceral human emotions.

My street photography project is centered on a cultural encounter I personally experienced when I moved from Manhattan to Bushwick, Brooklyn. Bushwick has a particular duality about it; there is a rugged, industrial ambience as well as a palpable artistic presence. This conflict within the neighborhood, the constant juxtaposition of art and industry, inspired me to shoot there. I looked to unify the series of photographs by portraying the above-mentioned conflict in its purest, most literal sense. In many pictures I have divided the composition of the shot into two different parts, one showcasing an artistic mural and another capturing the ramshackle houses and uncared for sidewalks. In others, I simply show how art encroaches upon dilapidated buildings and street corners, which illustrates the dynamic of the neighborhood.
To coalesce my series of photographs, I kept within a certain color range. My images are predominately red, blue, or white. While I was shooting, I didn’t intentionally seek out these specific colors, but as I was editing and assembling my final pictures I realized a trend. Much of the neighborhood is grey and drab, however several buildings are red brick. It seemed that the street artists whose work I was photographing preferred to decorate these red brick buildings. Also, as I edited my images and saturated the color, the grey that is characteristic of Bushwick turned into a subtle cyan blue. The white found in certain shots is derived purely from the cloudy sky or the white brick backdrop of a single building that I shot. Ironically, these are the three colors of the American flag.
In addition, many of the pictures have implicit vertical lines running through the center. This is meant to subtly remind the viewer of the conflict between art and industry by creating a visual separation between the right-hand side and left-hand side of the photograph. In the same way, certain pictures show a direct juxtaposition of poverty and art. For instance, in an alleyway I shot a picture of a ransacked car positioned in front of a red wall covered in airbrush painting. It was difficult to take this shot because the alleyway was very small, and for quite a while I was unable to situate my camera in a way that would capture both the car and the artwork. I was finally able to accomplish this by standing on a small trashcan and zooming all the way out. I had many similar difficulties wherein trucks or vans would block the artwork that I sought to photograph. I had to wait many hours for the trucks to move so I could capture the image.
After I had finished shooting, I reviewed my work and found nothing to my liking. The graffiti that had looked so vibrant did not seem to translate to my digital photographs. I realized that the only method by which I could salvage my pictures was to enhance them via Photoshop, although this is unorthodox among photographers like Jeff Mermelstein who believe in “realism of the photograph.” Nevertheless, I enhanced the color and applied a technique called “tilt-shift.” By creating a mask over the image and then applying a gradient blur, I achieved the effect of depth of perception. I applied this to many of the photographs in the set, but it is most apparent in “The Toy Car.” A tilt-shift can occasionally make the objects in the image seem miniaturized; hence the name, “The Toy Car.” By making the pictures look like toy models I hoped to capture the dreamlike atmosphere of Bushwick. I also think that the depth of my photographs, although unnatural, is important as symbol of the undiscovered complexity within the neighborhood.
However, some of my photos are unedited. I shot many pictures of signs and posters that have a very strong message. The neighborhood is not closely supervised, so almost anyone can post anything they like. As I was reviewing my photos I found several signs that were peculiar. In particular, I had shot one sign that was posted on the side of a factory garage; it read “STOCK CRASH IMMINENT.” It seemed odd that a warning about the stock market should surface in Bushwick, where not many residents are stockholders. I then realized that the sign had not been put up by the permanent residents, but by the transient artists who had created many of the graffiti murals. This is germane to my theme of art in contrast with industry because the artist’s economical warning posted on the outside of the factory has absolutely no influence on the workers inside. I think that this is the chief challenge facing Bushwick in the future.

Street photographer Jeff Mermelstein arrived at Baruch College last Thursday to generously share with us several collections of his work. His main objective, he explained, is to photograph the world’s gritty under-netting – that which makes America American. He has found the prime examples of this realism in the streets of New York City.

In his most famous series “Sidewalk,” he photographs the oddities of street life. Outrageous hairdos and unusual striped socks are not uncommon. At times, his pictures seem too outrageous to be authentic; however, none of them are edited. He uses a Lyca M6 to capture the full un-cropped image. “Pimples are good,” he said, laughing jovially.
In fact, Mermelstein celebrates in his photographs pimples, obesity, and fashion mishaps, all things society deems ugly. He has the rare ability to shoot unappealing people in such a way that the picture comes out beautiful even though the viewer is still aware of the ugliness within it. He does this through the “M&M candy-like seduction” of color; heavily saturated yellows, blues, and reds make his photos rich and vibrant. He also achieves beauty through composition. Many of his images show unacquainted strangers performing similar actions in unison. For instance, in his series “Sidewalk”, he often shoots several people crossing at an intersection all with their eyes closed, or all yawning. This is germane to the humorous nature of Mermelstein’s photographs. Similarly, most of his pictures have a joie de vivre. Especially in his set “Summer,” people are shown really enjoying life. Perhaps part of his mission as an American street photographer is to convey a collective happiness among people.
Also, through vivacious color and uncoordinated action, his photographs all have a serendipitous quality that corresponds to Mermelstein’s hunt for the “perfect shot.” He carries his camera around his neck as if it were a cross, and sets out on the streets of New York without a plan or vision. One can’t help but marvel at the amazing things he finds.