The Arts in New York City

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After the Snap Shot of NYC event, I headed over to the Rockefeller Plaza to get a glance at the famous Rockefeller Christmas tree. Every year, New York City makes a spectacle of the annual Christmas tree lighting. I never understood it. It was just a Christmas tree, but when I got there it was surrounded by a large mass of people gathering to take pictures with it. I had imagined it to be enormous, but it was really enormous. While looking around, I started to notice that the tree was a part of Rockefeller Plaza. It wasn’t just there for decoration or for Christmas, it gave the place a whole new feeling. I was amazed at how beautiful the tree was, brightly lit in the night sky. It is truly a marvelous structure that should be enjoyed and admired for what it represents. It is a piece of New York history and tradition. I consider it to be one of New York’s greatest annual exhibits for the public to enjoy and everyone should take a look at it when they have the chance.

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Waiting for the Arts of Japan guide tour, I wondered if I would find anything of interest. The Arts of Japan section of the MET was located within the Chinese gallery. One exhibit that stood out was located in a small hallway towards the end of the tour. There were many woodblock paintings, by Toshusai Sharaku, lined the small golden walls. The pieces were created by tracing a pattern onto a woodblock and then carving out a relief, slathering with ink and imprinted onto a sheet of paper. The pieces capture the naturalness of human emotion. Many of the faces are distorted and unflattering in order to create expressions, emotions and realism on psychological levels. Sharaku used actual actors from a traditional Japanese theater to portray these characters. I found these images to be very interesting and I liked how they expressed the many feelings that the humans can portray. There are many sides to humans that are not pretty and it is hard to hide that. I like the way Sharaku portrayed these images all together to show the many expressions side by side.

On an unexpected trip to the Museum of Natural History, I found myself wondering if I would find anything of interest. I am not a huge fan of history. As I wandered through the museum floors searching for something to grab my attention, I stumbled upon a dark room where many people were gathered. I had remembered this exact room on my many trips to the Museum of Natural History with my classmates. This time, however, the room seemed different. I had begun to appreciate in a different way. Instead of just viewing the piece, I felt like I was a part of it. (more…)

Listening to the rumbling of the 7 train, I was suddenly hit by a loud and intrusive noise. No, it was not the mumbling of the conductor over the loud speaker. This noise was far more excruciating. I turned to my left and standing there holding an accordion was a short, Hispanic man in a sombrero. This performance was unlike other subway performances that I have heard throughout my daily musings on the train. I am usually amused and pleased with the playing styles of subway performers but this guy was horrible. The only knowledge I had of the accordion was how it sounded when Steve Urkel played it, but after listening to Joseph Petric’s performance on the accordion, I realized that the sounds that are produced by accordions are rather pleasing to the ear. The accordion sounds played by the person on the 7 train were not pleasing to the ear and I could not understand a word he said. He sang and spoke in Spanish and everyone seemed to ignore him. I didn’t mind the fact that he sang in Spanish. Actually, his singing was more like screeching and shouting. I just did not enjoy his performance. He walked up and down the cart, but no money was placed in the sombrero. This didn’t seem to faze him. He calmly put the sombrero back on his hat, picked up his accordion, waited for the train to stop and moved on to the next cart. There was never a finer moment where I was glad to only hear the rumbling of the train and the mumbling of the train conductor.

Is science art? That is the question I asked myself as I made my first trip to The New York Hall of Science. I ventured into a large space filled with excited adolescents amused by things I had already learned in high school. However, as I ventured on, I found myself to be enamored by the illusions of what I was seeing in front of me. Were my eyes playing tricks on me? The Hall of Science allowed me to create extraordinary things out of ordinary objects. (more…)

When I walked out of The Met, I couldn’t help but notice that everyone was gathered around the staircase in one corner. There were two people addressing the crowd. It didn’t look like anything special but everyone was captivated by their presence. Watching their performance gave me the feeling of watching aspiring actors. They clearly practiced their routine many times before taking it to the street. Their words and movement flowed as if they were totally in sync with each other. They were jumping from place to place and involving the audience. They were prepared to adapt to anything that was thrown their way. They planned out their dialogue, yet played it like the words were just coming to them. They pumped up their performance (jumping over a line of people) but always held back until people donated more money. People paid because they wanted to know what would happen next. They wanted to see what these two had prepared for them. These two are no Elvis and Costello, but they managed to capture the audience as well as accomplish their goal…make some money while entertaining. I credit them for managing to grab the attention of hundreds of people by sharing their simple, yet artistic performance/persuasion. They may be aspiring actors/performers but they managed to get people to pay to watch them perform.

It was a Friday afternoon and what better than to spend the day at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Well, not exactly. Growing up in New York, I had been to the Met a countless number of times. Every year, I would go as a part of a class trip and when I was younger, I was extremely excited. But having gone year after year to the same place, the Met lost its exquisite feel. I would find myself bored. I would walk pass each painting and spend at most a minute on, not understanding how all these people surrounding the painting were mesmerized by it. Were we looking at the same thing? (more…)