A View From the Bridge

Sometimes, I really miss Brooklyn. I lived there for a little over a year, and sometimes there is nothing I want more than to people-watch in Prospect Park, wander Brighton Beach, eat falafels in the Slope while ambling by the brownstones, read a book on the promenade, visit with the guys at the corner-store, hear Eye of the Storm screaming by on their firetruck, and most of all get Thai food and curl up with a quilt with my cousin and watch Mad Men. I even sometimes miss the guy who played the guitar on the street by our place who would always serenade us, yelling about how our beauty was like the stars in the sky, the meth addicts loitering in front of our place with their stories (we lived next door to a methadone clinic), and the shenanigans that transpired on the buses. And sometimes I do not miss it at all--the compressed feeling, like sardines in a can, that you get when you are surrounded by people ALL THE TIME, the noise, the poverty that is always around you and that you can't ignore (and shouldn't, actually), the grumpiness, and how packed the subways are at rush hour.

Tonight, I went and saw A View From the Bridge, which is what prompted these Brooklyn musings. I was not that excited about this opera going in, for two major reasons:

1. I am a snob and am not that fond of modern and/or English-language operas. This one was first written and performed in 1999, so it was quite new, and I had doubts. Things just don't *sound* as good in English. Which is biased, because if you were fluent in Italian, more traditional opera dialogue would be just as dumb, but in English it just seems so banal. "Eddie, what are you doing?" "You can never have her", etc. Of course, my favorite duet from The Marriage of Figaro is about two women writing a letter, but it's different because I don't *really* know what they are saying. Modern operas try really hard to be dissonant sometimes, too, so it's not something I'd want to listen to for fun.

2. A View From the Bridge was originally an Arthur Miller play, which was adapted into an opera. I can't handle Arthur Miller. I cry every time. We had to read The Crucible and Death of a Salesman in high school, and if that wasn't bad enough, in my sophomore year in college, I took an intro to sociology class with mandatory movies every Sunday night [most work I'd done up to that point, worst grade I ever got in college. One of the most important, wonderful classes I've every taken], and we had to watch Death of a Salesman. With Dustin Hoffman in it. I cried, WAY too much. (because how many Willy Loman's do you know, people who defer and defer the American Dream until it's too late? It's heartbreaking.) ANYWAY, I swore that I was not dealing with Miller again, but got tricked into this opera.

And I have to now eat my words, because it was stupendous. Yes, the music was not my favorite. Yes, I will never be a huge cheerleader for modern operas, but I have never witnessed a musical, play, or opera, that was as suspenseful as this one was. I didn't know the plot beforehand, which helped a lot. It was all crazy and Sicilian, with incest (not sure if that's as explicit in the play), and kiss of death and spitting, and having to defend your honor. Very mob-heavy, depressing yet interesting. As someone who find displays of machismo completely unattractive (in fact, the exact opposite of the men I usually am interested in), for some reason I have an odd fascination with the mob. It was a very good adaptation of the play, and some of the music was actually really good--an aria about New York, and the very dramatic crowd scene, in particular. It was sad that the theater was so empty--it's homecoming weekend and Halloween weekend, so that might help explain it, but I think people often don't want to give modern opera a chance. This opera opened my eyes to how good modern opera can be, so I'd definitely encourage people to check them out when they can!

A View From the Bridge is set in Red Hook, Brooklyn, where I don't think you can actually see the Brooklyn Bridge (slight problem with the title!) but still. Red Hook is an enigma. You can't get there by subway, so you have to take the bus. It's full of trendy-ish coffee places and dilapidated warehouses. It's the site of the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel, and the only place in Brooklyn where you can see the Statue of Liberty head on. I worked in Red Hook for about six weeks, doing arguably the weirdest job I've ever had. I was scanning 1950's military plans from France, as well as preparing documents from doctors offices to get them ready to be scanned. So basically, I spent 8 hours a day at $10 an hour taking staples out of things and listening to NPR. One of my friends referred to this as my "Bartleby the Scrivener phase" and she was so not wrong. I also re-designed their website for a few days, and wrote copy for the owner's father's business, which was in personalizing things like golf-balls and leather satchels. Totally weird.

The best part about working in Red Hook was that there was a great grocery store across from my warehouse, so I would go over there and get a pecan roll to have after my lunch. I was working there through May and June, so it was just becoming warm, and I would go sit on the dock, my back on the warm brick building, eat my roll and look at Lady Liberty. At the end of the day, I'd take the bus to Borough Hall, and walk through downtown to my subway stop, passing the street vendors with their used books and wooden bracelets, the Bubble Man--who used bubble wands the size of my face to blow giant bubbles, the nurses and businesspeople, the deli where I used to grab a bagel sometimes, and the musicians outside Borough Hall. I miss that, sometimes.

Best song about Red Hook (I think) is Joey, by Bob Dylan, about Crazy Joe Gallo, mobster and murder-victim. The mob-culture of honor and respect is central to A View From the Bridge, and I think it was central to Red Hook at one time, too. Dylan's song ends after Joey has been shot down in Little Italy, and summarizes a lot of these themes well:

The sun turned cold over President Street and the town of Brooklyn mourned
They said a mass in the old church near the house where he was born
And someday if God’s in heaven overlookin’ His preserve
I know the men that shot him down will get what they deserve

Joey, Joey
King of the streets, child of clay
Joey, Joey
What made them want to come and blow you away?

This Post Is Not Exciting

...but then again, neither am I!

Have been getting some flack from my family lately for having boring updates (they are not wrong) but I also just don't have that much to talk about that is amazingly gripping. So that's why I'm posting right now, even though I have nothing amazingly gripping to tell you. I had a nice day. A fullfilling day. Here's what it was:

--taught my classes in the museum today, while wearing boots with a 3 inch heel. I'm not a heels person. I was bequeathed these boots when a friend moved to Texas and decided not to take them, and they were too cute to be tossed. And, surprisingly comfortable! They allow me to pretend I am tall, and made lovely clacking noises on the wood floors of the museum.

--my students were actually pretty invested in doing visual analysis and I think they had fun. I cracked some Harry Potter jokes and they laughed. They asked tons of questions about adoration of the magi scenes (that's what we were looking at) and actually came up with some theories about a still life and it made me feel like I was actually TEACHING them something. I'm so glad we have the resources to see works in person, it really does make things more exciting. Yes, the works aren't amazing, but I could relate brushwork back to van der Weyden and van Eyck and they GOT the connections. And when we're outside such a strict classroom setting, I feel like I can let some of my generally nerdy-goofy personality out, and bond a little bit, which seemed to happen. Also, two random guys sort of hung out at the back of my class and when we were moving galleries I told them that it wasn't a tour, and that they were welcome to hang out with us but they shouldn't feel obligated, and they said, "oh ok! we just thought you were interesting." Huh.

--met with my advisor, who was supportive about my list of possible PhD schools and basically told me I was on point with everything I needed to be doing, which was very nice. And while I love everyone who has told me over the years about the likelihood of me getting a job (hint: not statistically likely!) or of how hard graduate school is, I am getting just the tiniest bit tired of hearing that. It's true, I know it's true. I can stand not to think about that right now, though. He said none of those things today, and didn't try to talk me out of pursuing a PhD, which was what I needed to hear.

--got an inter-library loan book, all in Italian, and I could read parts of it! It's about 16th century convertite houses in Venice (houses built to hold reformed prostitutes). This probably sounds pretty boring, but I was so stoked.

--came home, discovered that Inspector Lewis (aka the best, most stylish, emotionally wrenching, and funny British detective show around) was available on Netflix, and watched an episode from the comfort of my bed. SUCH a good show. SUCH a good way to spend the late Friday afternoon.

--got dinner at a Mexican restaurant (enchiladas with tomatillo salsa, rice, large-ish margarita) with a few friends and ended up staying for three hours, talking and catching up. We so often revert to art history-related shop-talk that it's nice to not do that for a few hours. Also, Shields and Brooks were on TV in the restaurant and I admitted my never-ending love for both of them and got totally mocked (for good reason--feel free to mock me too). But they're so good! I like watching them talk with Jim Lehrer and be SENSIBLE about things, it makes me feel so much better about politics.

--now I'm back in bed, listening to the Firebird Suite (MMM) getting ready to do a little reading (oh, Friday night! oh, theory! sad) and then go to bed--have pumpkin bread and pumpkin carving related plans for tomorrow, and couldn't be happier about that.

Night!

Art of the Week: 17th Century Dutch

As many of you know, I am an Italianist. Probably always will be. That does not mean, however, that I don't love Northern European art almost as much, because I do! If someone forced me upon pain of death to pick a favorite artist, it would certainly have to be Vermeer. I've recently been realizing how much I like Northern art, especially from the 17th century, because I am a TA for a professor who does 16th Northern (Flemish, I think), and so does the other TA, so they have been slowly working on me. And mocking my Italian ways. For example: we take turns designing lesson plans for sections, and then meeting once a week to discuss them. I keep putting in Italians. So this week:

Professor: [mock dismissive sigh, upon seeing the Pesaro Altarpiece that I'd chosen to start with] what's WITH you and all these Italians?

Me: I have to get them in somewhere.

Professor: I talk about them in class! We did the Sistene Ceiling...last week.

Me: You don't pick any Italians that I like!! [he cracked up]

Later on we decided to keep the Pesaro (as well we should, it's MAGNIFICENT, though he made me cut the Gentileschi) because as he stated, "The Pesaro is a great work of art, not *just* for an Italian, but for art history in general." I think my response was probably, "gee, thanks a lot."

There are a lot of amazing aspects of Northern Art that I sort of knew about but not really, which is why having to sit in on this Art 102 class is so helpful. The fabrics, for one thing. The textural attention to detail, which promotes prolonged looking, means that you have to spend time with these works, to figure them out, to get to know them. My classes get to visit the museum tomorrow, and one of the works we'll be looking at is a Flemish Adoration of the Magi. Two friends and I spent 1/2 an hour in front of it yesterday, just staring at the jewels on the Magis gifts, the gold weave in the cloth, and the lines in peoples hands. (And getting yelled at for being too close. Whoops!)

So here are some works that I've encountered in class or lectures in the past few days. I'm not going to talk too much about them, because if they could be explained by words they wouldn't have been painted. Also, I totally recommend that you check out the Rijksmuseum's website--amazing high resolution photographs of works.

It's a grey day, we're under a wind advisory, and it's been raining straight since Monday. I have cramps, and am cuddled up under a blanket--one major perk about grad school is that if you do not have class on certain days (and Thursdays I don't) you can do a lot of work from the comfort of your bed, in sweatpants. And pretend you are in Belgium, where according to my professor you can "eat leek soup that is about a pound of butter and a pound of cream for every three leeks, and waffles that are dripping with goodness and are the size of your face." Works for me. (And the art ain't half bad, either!)

Vermeer, The Milkmaid (or The Kitchen Maid) c. 1658

I encourage you to open a larger view and look at the milk. And the bread. And the buttons on her bodice. Also, Vermeer painted nail holes in walls, to show where nails had been and then removed. If that doesn't scream "prolonged looking," I don't know what does.

Vermeer, The Love Letter, c. 1669-70
The wall on the left has creepy stains on it. I just went to a lecture on this painting. If you look at it sideways, like as if you were approaching it from an oblique angle, the perspective changes in cool ways.

Judith Leyster, Self-Portrait, 1630ish.
I know this is one of her best known works, but I wrote about it last year, and love it. Her flower paintings are spectacular, as are her human scenes, although those are sometimes a mixed bag. (If peoples cheeks are too ruddy, it annoys me.)
Frans Hals, The Laughing Cavalier, 1624.
We spent some time on this in 102 this week. Is he really laughing? Or is he really just kind of sceptically smirking at us? If you look at the details of his brocaded sleeve (gosh, so gorgeous) you can see little swords and bees. So maybe, he is acknowledging that life is hard, but it is more pricks (beestings) than kicks (like, being stabbed). And that once we acknowledge that, like the Epicureans, we can LIVE. Because it's what we've got, and we might as well live with what we have. (This argument is for anyone who thinks portraiture is just a pretty picture of a pretty person. Although, the lace in this one is so stunning, that I find myself focusing on that.) Frans Hals cheeks are also sometimes TOO ruddy. Am I too picky?

Samuel van Hoogstraten, View of an Interior (or The Slippers), 1654-1662
This is another work which I saw recently discussed in terms of Dutch perspectival inventions. It's a view into another room, and probably would have hung in a hall, giving more dimensions to the hall itself, too. van Hoogstraten is also known for his work with perspective boxes, so there seems to be something about that here too.
Rembrandt van Rijn, Self-Portrait, 1665-69.
There are entire books about Rembrandt's self-portraits (with good reason!!) and they are probably my favorites of his works, although I do love most of his paintings. Especially this one. He's so frank in his gaze that it makes me sad, the aging artist who grew up in front of his viewers (there are something like 76 known self-portraits that he completed). The circles behind him may represent his artistic skill, the ability to draw a free-hand circle, even at an advanced age. I can't draw a free-hand circle now.

Pieter Claesz, Still-Life with Herring, 1636.
Couldn't end without a still-life! And there are so many more. We looked at this in class. Herring = aphrodisiac. Fun fact.

Rewards (and FOOD)

I finished grading my students first papers! (which were a mixed bag, in case you were curious). I was able to do all 50 of them in 4 days, but those 4 days were not overly fun, and involved me going to bed at 2 last night, getting up at 7, and grading until 11 this morning. BUT, they are done, and I celebrated this afternoon by going for a long walk in the crisp fall air, getting a few shirts and a pair of yoga pants at the mall, treating myself to new bodywash (nectarine and ginger! Dove, mmm), and going to Bloomingfoods. There are 3 Bloomingfoods, which is the co-op grocery store, here. I don't go there enough to justify belonging to the co-op, but one of my friends does, so I just use her number (which means she'll get more discounts eventually).

Bloomingfoods is an amazing place, with some phenomenal people watching--it's a fun mix of very, very hippie-types, trendy 20-somethings, and professors. It's also very organic, health-conscious, and therefore usually quite out of my budget. But today was one of their tent sales, where they erect a huge white tent in the parking lot and put all of their overstocked goods out there at really good prices. It's a mad house, especially right when it opens, but it had calmed down a bit by the time I got there. So what did I acquire?
--sweet potato and apple chips
--organic white cheddar popcorn
--pitted dates
--3 honeycrisp apples (I am really, really picky about apples, being from upstate NY and being snobby about apples. Bloomingfoods is one of the few places in town that carries apples that I really like, probably because they are locally grown.)
--German sparkling apple cider
--2 liters of sweet tea
--organic cranberry pecan cookies
--a bar of milk chocolate with lime
--a bar of dark chocolate with chilies
--an Asian pear
--fresh mozzarella
--2 avocados
Cost: $21.

Now, I did indeed just list you my grocery list, most of which was impulse buys, but there you are. Tonight, two of my friends are coming over for dinner--one is making lentil loaf (aka, vegetarian meatloaf), the other is making a grape salad, and I'm making tomato, basil and mozzarella salad, and taking some leftover rice crispies, pouring melted chocolate over it, and sprinkling it with sea salt. We're going to do homework--and really, the best way to do homework is with friends and food. Yesterday I taught for 3 hours, then graded, then went to two lectures back to back (both of which were phenomenally good, on viewing 17th century Dutch art and Iranian posters from the Revolution), and then went out to dinner with three friends, where we all acted very silly. I think probably because most of us had been on campus for 11 hours by that point, and had had to be "academic" all day, so we just sat around giggling about nothing. It was wonderful. Friends and food--those are the rewards I need.

And most importantly, HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!!

Floundering

I'm here, I really am. And will have fun blog posts coming up soonsoonsoon, I promise--Jon Stewart, and Hair (the American Tribal Love-Rock Musical), and food news and reviews (especially pertaining to corn and other vegetarian delights), and so much more! But for now, bear with me--I'm floundering, mostly in a pile of papers I have yet to grade, research I have not completed (or started), PhD applications that I really need to give some thought (and money) to, and all of the emails and cards from family and friends that I need--and want!!--to respond to. I have so much to do that I realized today that I am not sure I will be able to go home for Thanksgiving, and that would make me indescribably sad.

In spite of school-related crazy, I'm still really happy here, rest assured. One of my best friends from college was here this weekend, and we had a really great time. She's awesome. We ate a lot and drank much cider and football-ed and I re-messed up my ankle but it seems to have healed itself (fingers crossed) and she got to meet my friends here. It was wonderful to see her. I've been getting to school by 8, eating my breakfast in the dark, and trying to stay on top of work, but it is not working out that well. I'm barely keeping up with grading and planning for my students, and have made no progress on *my* work, which is starting to freak me out a bit. Everyone told me grad school would be like this, and it finally is. And that's ok, I just have to figure out my schedule, cut out 90% of the fun things that I do, and keep calm and carry on.

I heard an anecdote once about a German academic from the 18th century (I think) and was rumored to have been crushed by the books in his library. I heard this anecdote from my undergrad advisor, because I told her I was worried about her bookshelves collapsing on her--if you saw her bookshelves, you would understand this fear. So I don't know if it is true, but in any case, it is an acceptable analogy for many academics. I'm not to the crushing point yet, although the books are lookin' a little wobbly. But if I do get buried by them, at least I'll have something to read.

So bear with me. Send me scholarly vibes, and I'll be writing very soon--I have NO social plans this weekend for the first time since August and am actually rather delighted about it, so there may be some blogging coming your way!

Thus Do They All

I saw Così fan tutte [Thus do they all, or, Women are like that] two days ago. It's one of my favorite operas, not so much because of the plot, but more because of the sheer gorgeousness of the music--that Mozart knew what he was doing. I love any of the three Mozart-da Ponte collaborations, but in comparison to the others, the plot of Così is pretty sexist, and is actually rather thin. There is really not much action, although there is the usual requisite amount of cross-dressing, which is always a fun time.

Basically, it goes like this: two officers, Ferrando and Guglielmo, are bet by their older (and wiser?) friend, Don Alfonso, that their fiancés are fickle, like all women, and would not be faithful to them if left to their own devices. The men reluctantly agree to try and scheme their fiancés to see if they will be unfaithful, so they go with Don Alfonso and tell the women, Dorabella and Fiordiligi (side note: is that not the greatest name ever??) that they have been called to war. Then, they double back, dressed as Albanians, and seduce the opposite one's fiancé, who, of course, succumbs. For what it's worth, Fiordiligi has a bit more moral fiber than her sister (and also some great arias), but eventually they both "cheat" on their fiancés, who are also cheating on THEM, if you think about it. At the end, the men reveal themselves, after a lot of clothes swapping and scheming from Don Alfonso and the tricksy maid Despina, who steals the show. They ultimately forgive each other, of course, and they go back to their original partners. Although--I think they should have stayed with the people they switched for. Actually, our production ended rather ambiguously, as they moved back to their original couplings, but seemed conflicted about it. It was an oddly uncomedic ending for an oddly comic work.

As I said, I'm not wild about the plot, but the music is so good that I don't really care. Listen here and here and here and here!! IU, as usual, did a wonderful job. I went with two friends, after a lovely Vietnamese meal. The Despina our night was fantastic, as was Ferrando in particular, although the entire cast was great. They updated the set to late 19th century Florida, and it worked quite well--it wasn't a drastic enough change to totally modify the mood of the opera as a whole. I cracked up inopportunely twice, the first time because one line was about "mustaches being feathers of love," which made us giggle, and the second because Dorabella was kissing Guglielmo, and my friend jabbed me in the ribs with her elbow and hissed "hussy," which also made me laugh. It is a funny opera in general though! Any downsides? The woman behind me coughed on my hair for the entire overture, and the plot made me think about something that I didn't really want to think about: my sexism.

I think the general sexism of this opera was more nagging this time because I have found myself being rather sexist lately, which is something that I am usually not. (Because being a feminist means that you think the sexes are equal, not that women are better than men.) Mostly this stems from the fact that my friends have not been having good luck with men lately. My general relationship prospectives are usually so non-existent that I don't really count in this, but there have been some really stupid moves made by some of the men that I interact with, especially in the way that some of my friends have been treated. So I have been finding myself dismissing all males in their mid-20s off-hand as egotistical, poisonous, and self-centered, or slackers who are looking for a meal ticket, or workaholic grad students who are too busy and/or dismissive to deal with their feelings (or lack thereof). This generalization is not fair. Some of my friends are in lovely relationships, and I have nothing to personally complain about. At the same time though, my gut reaction is to write off men my age as unreliable, fickle, and changeable, which is EXACTLY what Don Alfonso argued about women.

Not all men are fickle, and not all women are either. Perhaps that is the overall message to take from Così fan tutte. We're all just people, no better than each other, trying to pick our way through dating minefields, schoolwork, bills, and hormones, to find out about each other. Thus do we all. And best of luck to us.

To quote Regina Spektor, in her excellent song Ghost of Corporate Future:

"And people are just people,
They shouldn't make you nervous.
The world is everlasting,
It's coming and it's going.
If you don't toss your plastic,
The streets won't be so plastic.
And if you kiss somebody,
Then both of you'll get practice.

The world is everlasting
Put dirtballs in your pocket,
Put dirtballs in your pocket,
And take off both your shoes.
'Cause people are just people,
People are just people,
People are just people like you."