Author: Sabrina Derkach

What an Italian experience at La Bohème! Sure was regretting years of Spanish whilst sitting in Lincoln Center squinting at the stage and the subtitles. The opera, set in 19th-century Paris, beautifully captures the struggles and passions of young, starving, broke artists. The absolutely magnificent live donkey and horse on stage were delightful surprises, adding a unique charm to the performance that I will never forget.

Rent, a musical inspired by the same stories La Bohème is based on, attempts to modernize this classic story, placing it in the gritty landscape of contemporary New York City. While it portrays the trials of artists grappling with love and loss, I didn’t feel a complete connection between the musical and the opera. If I hadn’t known the source material, I wouldn’t have assumed they came from the same origins. Especially given the emphasis on tuberculosis in the opera vs the focus on HIV. Plus the fact that Mimi Márquez nearly dies, but survives, compared to the opera in which Mimi actually does die.

Moreover, I wish Francine had a more prominent role in the opera rather than being merged with Mimi. Her character adds depth to the narrative, and it’s a shame to see it overshadowed. In the end, both works remind me of the short stories written long before these works, but they do have some key changes that give the artist their freedom to announce their “complete involvement in creating” a new loosely inspired work of art.

What an interesting man… His passion for tattooing is remarkable. During the entire Zoom call, you could just feel the sense that he truly enjoyed what he does.

His retellings of past tattoo requests that his boss denied were most definitely intriguing yet highly illegal today. Knowing allegations surrounding the “group for motorcycle enthusiasts,” I wasn’t surprised to hear about the ultimatum given to the man who got it tattooed without ever being a part of the gang. The more surprising part to me was actually the fact that some random dude one day said, “You know what would make me look badass, this winged-satanic-skull tattoo!” The permanence of tattoos should guide people to think and research their ideas before getting them tattooed. Clearly, some people just either don’t care or are just plain stupid.

After hearing that he does not collect a lot of money when compared to others in his field, I was also not surprised to hear that he lives with his grandmother. I can appreciate the idea behind not accepting payment for art, but also, money is what makes the world go round. I think he would be better off sticking purely to his music and hiring someone to make his online presence more prominent.

Coming from Staten Island, I definitely wish the museum had more to offer. I think cost wise it would have been more entertaining to have a set amount of time on the two floors, security following us to each floor, rather than just closing off the other floor.

The experience was quite nice overall, seeing all the other Macaulay kids across the campuses. I was able to meet new people, as well as see the people I previously met at the orientation days. I wish there was more events that brought together all the freshman class, unfortunately very unlikely.

The artworks on display were interesting to say the least. There was an assortment of meaningful, political, artistic, and beautiful art. Whilst some were…questionable, they all had some sort of meaning as to why they were painted. At least thats what the museums walls said, but how true can all those really be. I mean who really asked Louis Rémy Mignot about his painting Niagara in 1866. Crazy to think that every piece of artwork has some rich history and deep meaning, yet who really gets to decide that if the actual artist was dead hundreds of years prior.

That’s what I will never understand about museums, why can a painting not be exactly what it is. Mignot’s waterfall could just be a pretty memory of his that he painted for quick cash. Deciding meanings on artworks that were created by someone else seems inherently wrong. Especially once it gets spread across millions of platforms all sharing one random persons thought on this painting. Artwork does not exactly need any detailed explanation, yet museums always have one. It takes away peoples ability to connect in their own ways with these paintings.

That is mainly why my favorite part of this experience was walking through the glass shelves filled with items. They focused on the dates, not even giving the items a brief description. It helps the visitor understand the talent and ingenuity that must have been part of the creation, without assigning an unrelated deeper meaning.

Honorable mention; The doors by Christian Marclay. The never ending constantly looping film of decades of films cut and pieced together to create a collage of people jumping through time shown by doors. Being created in 2022, It was surprising not to see any new films. Although it never clarifies which films were used, most were in black and white whilst even the ones in color were at the latest from the 2000’s.

Never thought I would be in the splash zone in a NYC theater, perhaps a water park but a theater? I will never forgive the pair directly to my left announcing that before the performance. Especially not his elaboration in regards to a previous experience and the way he described it… I hope he wasn’t too disappointed when none of the sweat from any dancers landed in our direction.

Starting the afternoon strong with an accordion player, a spy game, and the strong desire to go home to my warm fuzzy pets, the trip to the Joyce theater was rather pleasant. Avoiding the rain on the way there was rather nice and sneaking into the train station felt most definitely wrong.

The performances were quite impressive, I loved the first groups outfits especially. The dance itself was entertaining and whilst not the best in regards to their performances, it was a good start for my experience. Emily especially was extremely wonderful in both dance sessions one and two. The male lead in the second set was also very talented, his performance through dance as well as his facial expressions was very entertaining. Although I was a bit worried every time he spun that I would get splashed, Diana and I were spared for this moment.

The third and fourth dance were performed beautifully, technically advanced and entertaining. I did wish their costumes were more; the plain colored spandex was a tad bit boring compared to the first groups large tutus. Although I wish their costumes were more, it did not take away anything from their dance. It was like I could not take my eyes away from watching them; especially once finding certain dancers to focus on based on their usual stage positions and presence.

Overall, I really enjoyed this experience and I hope we have more opportunities to visit theaters and performances similar to this trip. Maybe next time Accordion man will agree to follow us around and back, I did begin to miss his background noise once returning to the ferry terminal. The Italian show tunes lady was quite interesting… her loud music being interrupted throughout by her telling people where they can put tips and or where to follow her online. I was relieved once the gates opened and we could leave. And finally, my kitties and pups were very excited for me to return home and immediately take a nap like I was an 80 year old grandpa, all taking different spots on my bed and face whilst still finding ways to kick me.

First off, if anyone ever even SUGGESTS driving into the city, They are severely wrong. I shall never complain about a commute on New Yorks public transportation again. Going to this art fair on a Sunday morning seemed reasonable enough, tell me why every driver in Manhattan was in their car and not knowing how to DRIVE. Taxi cabs just stop, for no reason AT ALL, people rush into intersections and screw everyone else, and don’t even get me started on the nerve of damn pedestrians and bicyclists. Also parking?? Not a chance dude. My families car is a larger SUV, so the normal parking garage fees are now tripled because “Its an oversized vehicle”. If you have to park it in a spot anyway, why does the size of the vehicle matter, it’s not like it’s a giant bus. Ridiculous I say

On to the fair itself, The ticket price alone made this the unaffordable art fair. The “lovely” security guard at the door decided that there was no student discount… thanks dude. $40 later…and a very full elevator ride… we make it to the fourth floor. My mother and I were handed maps of everything. I won’t even lie, I didn’t understand a second of that map. I kept turning the paper around hoping it would make sense but in the end we just kept heading towards the right. Also, I feel like I kept running into the exact same people every step I took, which the amount of uncomfortable eye contact I had with these people is just ridiculous.

The art itself now… What was I even looking at dude? I feel like so many pieces focused on bright colors of shapes, that they all blended together and without looking at the few photos I took, It was all a blur. Some were pretty looking… but who would ever pay that much money for a piece of fabric that looks like a child ate paint, puked it onto the canvas, and rolled around in it. The amount of thousand dollar price tags was so crazy, and the sold signs. I aspire to be as rich as random New Yorkers so I can buy ugly expensive art to show off to my other rich New Yorkers friends.

There was one memorable piece that I thought about on the traffic filled ride home. Ross Bonfanti, what I would do to see what goes through this mans head. A vintage stuffed teddy bear, walking other really old dog stuffies. I thought it was rather cute, but after googling him… why is there so many dead bears?? Why are they made of cement… why does one have nails sticking out of it everywhere? I am utterly terrified to see what is on this mans mind.

Overall, I would say it was most definitely not worth my time, money, or effort, but I now have a favorite artist who creates lovely concrete stuffed animals.

Starting off my day bright and early, waking up to feed kittens and taking a long commute to the Metropolitan Museum. When I told my mother about this assignment, She was very interested in attending the MET with me purely because her art history class in the 1900’s had a similar task. I personally have never been, farthest museum I’ve ever been to was the museum of natural history and that was like ages ago. (P.S. The kitties did not wish to attend such outing, having a strong preference of staying in MY BED whilst I had to leave)

Taking the bright orange Staten Island Ferry into Manhattan, riding the 4 train and speed walking up to this huge historic white building. Spending I think $30 per person to get in, technically free for me cause of my lovely mother, The first thing that really drew my attention was purely the beautiful architecture. My mom informed me that it was a victorian gothic style from the 1800’s. Following my guide through this museum, she led me to her favorite section; the European paintings. The first one to catch my eye was George Seurat’s A Sunday on La Grande Jatte. I really liked seeing the dogs in that painting. My mom said something about the brushstrokes being different than his usual style, making each paint stroke a dab of paint which blends into one work of art from afar.

After wandering aimlessly through this huge building, my other most memorable work of arts is a pair of Vases. Designed by Albert-Ernest Carrier-Belleuse, they are these two large vases with swan figures perched on top. At first, I only saw the first vase, the deep midnight blue one. Upon further notice, I saw the second matching vase, this teal and brown version. It was memorable purely because it reminded me of my brother and I, being fraternal twins and all. The differences in colors, or in our case personalities, but with the same supports of the swans and the main swan perched atop reminded me of how different yet the same my brother really are. Not only that, the vases also were stunning in their own ways, the blue matching my favorite color and the teal browns matching my brother’s stink yet mixed personality.

After leaving the museum and commuting back home, my mom pulled out her old photos from when she went to the MET 30 years before. Ironically, the ones I picked as my favorites were also ones she chose to focus on for her art history class. Attached, are my poorly taken Canon edition of these famous works of art in contrast to my mothers edition from 1998, See if you can spot the difference.

Plus a picture of my newest kitties, Mars and Comet looking at the camera and Astro about to attack mars