Author of the well-respected book, Who She Was: My Search for My Mother’s Life, Samuel Freedman discussed the process behind his research and the makings of his mother’s biography during one of my classes. Freedman was very honest when responding to questions asked of him, and was open with information concerning his personal life. As a student, I was amazed at his ability to uncover information about an obscure past. As a reader, I was amazed at his ability to articulate details that might have otherwise been overshadowed.

Freedman is a professor at Columbia University, an author of many award winning books, and a popular columnist for the New York Times – quite the résumé. Who She Was was one of his most recent works, and it’s essentially a biography of his mother’s life, a life that he did not get to know very well. After his mother passed away, Freedman journeyed to discover the history that gave birth to his mother’s character, a journey that took him to a foreign country, and called for the revisiting of old friends. I applaud Freedman for the effort and the time he put forth in his venture, which produced a book that captured the essence of his mother very well. His method of researching was something he tried to convey to us that day, and I was very much influenced by his work in producing a Who She Was piece of my own.

Freedman uses many sources to build his mother’s past: old photographs, immigration records, interviews. Freedman was very attentive to the details of old photographs he had, and was able to piece together subtle information. For example, he deduced that it was Rosh Hashanah in a series of photographs because of the date and the clothing worn by the people in them. Also, with only past records and documents in hand, he created the environment that his mother grew up in – Samuel Freedman is a man who knows how to extract information from a variety of sources.

Freedman’s tribute to his mother is both moving and revealing. Many people can relate to his mother’s story one way or another, as an immigrant or as a parent, and many others can appreciate the story of a mother tied to her childhood fantasies while trying to make something of her life.

Going through Susan Meiselas’s work at the International Center of Photography (ICP) was truly breathtaking. Never before have I been exposed to such “in your face” photography. I was taken back with one of her works, her Carnival Strippers project, but Meiselas’s other piece about the political revolutions down in Central America did more than tell a story, her photos put the viewer in the story.

Susan Meiselas is a very well educated woman, having earned her masters degree in visual education at Harvard University. Her first major work which essentially introduced her to the world, was her Carnival Strippers project mentioned before. In this project, she focused on the lives of strippers at fairs across the New England area. Her work offered a new vantage point of strippers, making it out to be something revolutionary. Meiselas was both straight forward and not withholding with her photography style – she is up close and personal. This style of hers carried over to her future works as well. In her documentary of Kurdistan, Meiselas took pictures of burning cars, deeply dug graves riddled with bodies, and a slew of other revealing photographs. Meiselas covered the Nicaraguan insurrection as well. Not only did she do photo-journalism, she helped direct two films that were integral to her journalistic agenda, “Living at Risk: The Story of a Nicaraguan Family” and “Pictures from a Revolution.”

Susan Meiselas is known throughout the world, having had exhibitions in countries as far as Japan and France. She is also the recipient of many honoraries, such as the Engelman Award from the Institute of Contemporary Art. Meiselas helped shed light on various global issues, and as a freelance photographer for the prestigious Magnum, she continues to do so.

Ben and Frances Richey

Awhile back, I attended a reading hosted by the Sidney Harman Writer-in-Residence program, featuring Frances Richey. She introduced herself as a yoga teacher and poet, a nice coupling of professions. When she revealed that she worked in the corporate world for two decades, I was taken back. When she revealed that she wrote a book of poems for her son on duty at Iraq, and after reading a selection, I almost doubled over – in front of me that night was a mother with a passionate heart, and a poet who definitely knew how to write.

Richey had first started to write poetry when she began volunteering at a hospital in New York City. At the time, she was a single mother raising a son, Ben. She gave us a highlight of their lives together – their differing political viewpoints, their differing social viewpoints, all the way up to when he graduated from the military academy West Point, and was sent on duty to Iraq. His absence introduced a void in her life that Richey decided to fill with yoga teaching and poetry. Her latest collection, The Warrior, is dedicated to her son, and is filled with pages of powerful stories all pertaining to her experiences with Ben and on occasion, her family.

Richey has won several prestigious awards for her poetry, and much of her work has been showcased in popular publications. She composed poetry for her experiences as a hospital volunteer, something she shared with the audience that night as well. A highlight that I would like to touch upon, is how mother and child eventually learned to overcome all of their differences – it was a very heartwarming ending to the story. Her son is still serving, having done two tours of Iraq already, and Richey continues to write and hope for his safety.

Scene from "Waltz with Bashir"

WOOF! WOOF! And the dogs race towards you screaming; the men are quietly debating what happened during their time as Lebanon War soldiers. BANGBANGBANG! And the mortars are roaring while the guns spew death; the men are quietly debating what happened. I look at the screen and a spastic storyteller comes to mind. This erratic movie caught me entirely off guard with its different spasms of sound and visuals.

This Waltz follows the path of a Lebanon war vet trying to recover his memories of the war many years later. The war vet is actually the director, Ali Folman, himself. Scenes are animated in this production, and it adds a certain depth to it that cannot be obtained otherwise. You could do things in an animated movie that would be quite out of place in a real life movie 0 the “waltz” for which this movie is named comes to mind. There is something peculiar about watching a soldier dodge bullets and shotting enemies all while dancing. Shoot. Dance. Dodge. Shoot. Dodge. Dance.

The refugee massacre that shocked the world decades ago again makes an appearance that shakes up the atmosphere. The streets are paved in red. The walls are paved in red. My eyes are paved in red. Bashir withholds nothing from the war or from the audience. However, in the midst of telling a solemn war story, Folman opts to introduce some indecency. Watching an animated plumber have sex with a client is not my cup of tea.

Blocky animation and mesmerizing music coupled with an intriguing war story gives Bashir a good edge over other contemporary documentaries.

Francine Prose

When a writer like Francine Prose comes along, you might just ask yourself, “What the heck did I learn in school?” In her recently released title, “Reading Like A Writer”, Prose probes the mind to re-teach the art of writing and reading – Prose and prose go quite well together.

“The only thing I can do is write; I have no other skills” – Francine Prose in a nutshell. At a young age, the would-be writer was fascinated with reading and with words in general. Not a single book at her local library was forgiven. She confessed during a recitation that she was never successful with any job, albeit those concerned with the processing of words. Prose worked for many magazine companies growing up, all the while punching out award recipient titles. Prose writes many children’s books as well as many literary articles.

Words to her are like paints to Da Vinci, really. Many of her titles feature stories painted with words. She detests a lack of detail and eloquence in writing, making a point of it in “Reading Like A Writer” even. As such, it is very possible to place one of her books in a VHS player, just like the cassette, to watch a visual presentation.

Francine Prose currently lives in New York City, and resides as the president of PEN American Center. She occasionally takes trips out into her country house. Despite having two children, Prose continues to write magnificent titles. She writes whenever, wherever, however.

Vincent's collage

When I envisioned the two words “Cultural Encounters,” what came to mind was the metaphor often used to describe America – the melting pot of all cultures. What better way to represent a country than its flag? I took a more direct method in going about replicating this melting pot; I wove together the American flag using tidbits of other cultures throughout the world, resulting in a flag, while unique in its design, is very much the flag that I grew up to love, that is, the United States of America.

Originally, I was going to attempt the flag replication using different ethnic foods, but I abandoned that idea because I thought basing the spirit of America solely on food would not have been the best representation. Instead, I opted to use a variety of different cultural components: national flags, common everyday clothing, and cultural foods, anything that identified with a specific culture. In addition, I wanted to throw in some element of the Olympics as a reference to the global unity of cultures, hence the Olympics logo in the bottom right. There is also a poem written by Karen Lynn Vidra which I decided to throw in the mix because the last line particularly jumped out at me: “the world, as one, will win.”

I asked for some feedback from my peers, and none seemed to recognize my collage as the American flag. I associate this to the fact that my “stripes” are not all horizontal. The seven vertical “stripes” was an idea I ultimately used because having them go horizontally would’ve made them appear very much distorted. Furthermore, the large space in the bottom right is the final thirteenth “stripe,” an idea that none of my peers recognized.

I tried to stay true to America’s red, white and blue, in that I used components that were color specific to the original flag – red for red, white for white, blue for blue. While the collage might first appear as a rainbow-turned flag, each piece of culture will eventually show off its distinctions. However, it is those exact distinctions that help draw us together. It’s like making soup, we have all these different ingredients that contribute to an overall taste, and if we miss one ingredient, we don’t have the same soup; if we miss one culture, we don’t have the same America.

Dr. Atomic

What a dud. If you are going to watch Dr. Atomic, do so because you have an interest in the Manhattan Project; do not watch Dr. Atomic because you had the notion that the visuals were going to blow you away. Yes, certain theatre visual aids were eye opening, like the portrait based cubicle set, but the ending was far too disappointing to justify the hype that is built up leading to the A-bomb explosion.

I can not identify Dr. Atomic’s saving grace, mostly because it has none. The libretto put me to sleep – I missed a quarter of the first act. I am not belittling the history behind the libretto, don’t misunderstand me, but the appeal this piece put forth was inadequate. Much of Oppenheimer’s private life was dragged on. Not until the end of the second act did my interest perk up – it was A-bomb testing time. Even then, the libretto held no fascination to me. A sincere interest in the Project will be your caffeine for the evening.

In addition, much of the singing was very flat. My ears did not agree with John Adam’s vision. His compilation spanned the course of three hours – it was three hours of singing that went all over the place; there was no drama in the music, no “umph” whatsoever. Sound effects were supposed to make up for the three hours, and that too, fell short. My ears were hit at the end with a tremendously loud hum that I associated with the atomic bomb. And that was it. I expected something more from the explosion, like a real explosion for example. Loud humming thrown in with a flash consisted of the A-bomb. What a dud, really.

Being able to hear exactly what the singers were saying while sitting in the back is no easy feat; enunciation was surperb, the singing was not. Going to the opera because of great enunciation is not a good reason unfortunately.

The man in action

From the Big Apple emerges one Jeff Mermelstein, a street photographer whose work is generally associated with photo journalism. He is a photographer who has evolved through the ages so to speak – from black and white to color, from manual to auto focus. After studying at the International Center of Photography, Mermelstein has moved on to work for wideknown companies like the New Yorker, the New York Times, and Life Magazine. He also took pictures for advertising purposes for companies like Hewlett Packard, and electronics giant Samsung.

He was a guest speaker at one of my classes the other day, and during the course of a hour and fifteen minutes, he showed us his amazing work – you don’t get to see a man fitting a book the size of an encyclopedia in his mouth everyday. What’s unbelievable about his photos is that none of them are manipulated by a computer. Mermelstein said that he enjoyed taking pictures as they were; he wanted to capture the “soulfulness of pictures.” Perhaps he meant when a photo underwent computer manipulation, it lost some of its realism, some of this intricate quality that gave it life. He manipulated photos in the sense that he employed certain techniques that allowed him to change the depth of field in a photo, or the perception of an object. He is able to change the sharpness of a picture, highlighting the object of interest in the foreground, and dimming everything else – a favorite as seen in many of his samples.

When asked how he approached pedestrians about taking their pictures, he told us that the least interaction was the best interaction – you come and you go. A point of interest he revealed was the increasing paranoia parents had of letting their childrens’ photographs be taken. Mermelstein had his share of encounters that resulted in the film from his camera being ripped out. Although a big man, Mermelstein told us explicitly that he was a pacifist at heart, and did not do anything that could endanger anyone.

Taking photograph after photograph might seem tedious to some, but that is how Mermelstein likes it. “I would shoot anything and everything, then pull from it.” From an entire roll of film, this photographer might use five photos for publication purposes.

In Conflict

If emotion had color, the stage would’ve looked like a rainbow throughout the show; the audience would’ve been a sea of all different hues. Director Douglas Wager turns Yvonne Latty’s book of inteviews with Iraq War vets into something that truly touches the heart.

The on stage production does not vary from its textual counterpart, but Wager throws in some tidbits of what I would like to call, war movie scenes. March! Salute! Wheel the armchair around the stage! These were fine additions to a even finer story. Latty finds and interviews members of the National Guard, the Navy, and the Army; each member speak of their experiences over on the other side of the Atlantic. Most suffer from postwar trauma. The actors on stage protray each and every soldier with flawless ability, from facial expressions to tone of voice. The details, things like “chopping the legs off” of wheelchair bound soldiers, and the movie clips meant to support the stage play invigorate and highlight the pangs of the story being told. The story in itself is not Disney material – there is no happily ever after ending. The interviewees elaborate on the stories we read or hear about how soldiers lose their limbs, their lives, and even their souls over in Iraq.

The night I was there, in a talkback offered at the end of the play, Yvonne mentioned how she tried to keep balance in the book in terms of how each soldier felt about the war. Am I pro-Iraq? Was I pro-Iraq? Very intimate questions in the time of war, especially for the soldiers. Despite this effort, the play comes off very strongly as anti-war. The things you see and hear on stage have no choice but to rob you of all your support for the war (assuming you had some to start with) – the baby crushed by a squad of tanks makes it so.

The hammer missed the nail a bit on this one. Irena’s Vow does showcase a solid performance, but the portrayal of the characters as featured in the original play script is far from perfect. If you are the type of person who reads the book before watching the production, you might find yourself staring at an unfamiliar Irena, or maybe a new variant of the Major.

This play focuses on Irena, a woman who lives through World War II in German occupied Poland. The story is very intricate – there are plenty of subtleties that keep the mind awake and interested. Irena must risk her own life to save that of twelve others; she hides twelve Jews in the house of one of Germany’s most important army officials. While the script presented the reader with bits of dark realistic humor, the transition to stage turned that foreboding “comedy” into something more light and negligible. I must have chuckled quite a bit throughout the course of the play – something I really wouldn’t want to do when it comes to the Holocaust. Reading the manuscript gave me goosebumps, and not the good kind. The change in atmosphere this “Irena blooper” presents strays too far from the feelings invoked while reading the original manuscipt.

Putting the intentions of the author aside, what we get from four time Tony Award nominee Tovah Feldsuh is a heartfelt performance that keeps the heart aching for more. The story of Irena Opdyke is truly brought to life on stage. Alongside a decent supporting cast, Irena’s Vow delivers the story, but falls short in portraying the characters.