Bay Area Art Work

Red Rover

2008-05-30T23:33:00.000-07:00

Diane Frank’s description of the dance event “Red Rover” sounded so interesting that I knew I had to go. Not only did it exceed my expectations, it was probably one of my favorite art performances I have ever seen. The dance consisted of five different dance groups who performed a site-specific dance. The audience walked from site to site led by the “Rovers”—Stanford students who were dressed in white with some sort of red highlight—bandanas, sashes, etc. Not only were the dances unique, visually stimulating, and physically impressive, but the way in which the performance was conducted had artistic and conceptual significance.

First, the way in which the Rovers led the audience was artistic—they had to run ahead and direct the audience with their body, using the environment around them as props. For example, if they encountered a tree on the way, they would wrap their body around it while pointing with, for instance, their leg. If there was a curb, they would lie down as a barrier while constructing an artistic position on the ground with their body. Some were quite impressive—doing handstands along the way, using the Quad pillars as support, or holding an arabesque position on cement blocks for long periods of time. One interesting aspect I noted was that on the walk to the second location, we walked through a rather industrial construction site on campus where we wound in and out of metal fencing and construction plastic. This had meaning for me as it was so different from a formal dance performance in which one enters a fancy venue, dressed nicely, to watch the performance. Not only were we walking from place to place, but we were walking through ordinary settings. The Rovers did not choose to lead us through an area that was not cluttered with construction, but rather took the normal path despite the somewhat informal surroundings. To add to this informality, the walking caused each member to arrive at the scene at different times, so each member did not see the same thing. In fact, some would miss the beginning—there were no formal start/stop points for the performance. All of these characteristics played on the natural aspect of art—that everything can be viewed as part of the dance. In a way, all the ground we covered was part of the performance—the walk itself was a dance—we were being led to go certain places along a path that had some goal.

It will be hard to describe all of the dances in such a short space, so I will note on how many of them used the environments around them for their stage, for I think this is one of the main things Red Rover was trading on. The first piece began with various pairs spread along a courtyard, with one of the members of each pair standing on a polished stone “bench”—already using the environment as props. As the dance progressed, each member began to run down a grassy hill and dance around the trees—grasping and groping them as they circled around. Then, the Rovers led us to a place where we could see the next piece of the dance more clearly, because the dancers began to frolic down the hill (the change in elevation not allowing us to see their further steps from our original position). The dancers proceeded to enter a shallow pool/fountain and continued the dance in the water. This was one of the most interesting parts of the whole dance as the use of space was incredible. Not only were the dancers in water but the source of the sound was as well—there were three artists using bottles, barrels, coins, and other tools to make water sounds which were then amplified and distorted. It reminded me of Professor Applebaum’s sound system performance. I also enjoyed the fact that not only did the environment affect the dancers, but the dancers in turn affected the environment—creating ripples in the water, and making water prints on the stone as they stepped out of the water.

The second performance was affected by the wind and the sun. There were petals forming a spiral that the dancers ran through, yet which were blown by the wind, blurring the spiral’s lines. The setting sun also shone through an opening between two parts of the building, so the performance had its own natural lighting. The fourth performance used the actual functional aspects of buildings as an aspect of their dance. The focus of their performance was that “the brain is the body” and “the body is the brain”—the writing on their shirts and also the subject of their chants. Ironically, the dance was performed in the main section between the Law Library and Meyer Library. The dancers even used books as props for their dance. In each case, the environment was used for its props and setting. The fact that the Rovers also used props around them and the dances themselves were not on stage but in various parts of campus showed that anything can be used as art and the environment around us can be our stage.

The Golden Gate Bridge

2008-05-29T09:55:00.000-07:00

An architectural marvel, the Golden Gate Bridge has been one of San Francisco’s key features for more than 75 years. The fascinating landmark spans almost two miles across the San Francisco bay and stands 746 feet tall above the water. Tourists flock from all over the world to witness this masterpiece because seeing a structure in a picture and then seeing it in reality are two completely different experiences.
The most astonishing aspect of the Golden Gate Bridge is that it has but two vertical supports, leaving most of the bridge suspended between them. Because of this, the bridge appears as a physical impossibility due to the restrictions of gravity. However, the design of this bridge allows it to be incredibly stable while retaining its splendor. This gives the structure an extremely perplexing quality, as if it were constructed by God himself and thus too perfect to understand.
In terms of the aesthetics of the design, the structure is organized using the horizontal axis onto which the road falls as a datum. The two towers comprise the vertical axis. As a whole, the bridge is very symmetrical, as the towers are equidistant from the center, but even smaller parts of the bridge have symmetric properties. For example, along both sides of the base of the bridge, there is a repeating pattern of right triangles. This motif can also be found just below the horizontal axis on the supporting towers. Here, the triangular pattern has been transformed so that instead of two triangles sharing a hypotenuse and thereby forming a square, the right angles point inward and the hypotenuses form the outside of the square.
The idea of contrast is also ever present in this magnificent structure. The two cables that run over the top of the towers and are secured at either end form a giant parabola in the middle of the bridge. Symmetry comes into play again since the two cables run parallel to each other. This implies complete perfection; from a side view, the bridge is just as symmetric as it is from an aerial view. Under the cables, there are poles that vary in length for support. These poles draw attention to the vertical axis, consequently forcing the viewer to contemplate the space beneath the bridge that is not directly supported. Another instance of contrast can be found in the towers, which contain spaces shaped like rounded rectangles. The rounded shapes break up the linear focus of the rest of the bridge and add variety to the design.
The Golden Gate Bridge is as awe-inspiring as it is confusing; the design in incredible, yes, but the real feat lies in its functionality and durability. As a symbol, this bridge establishes San Francisco as a majestic city and beckons outsiders to become part of it. If such a grandiose and seemingly architecturally impossible structure can stand in the San Francisco Bay, then who’s to say that their dreams will not be fulfilled in the city?

Photographs

2008-05-29T09:51:00.000-07:00

Revolving Around Red Rover

2008-05-29T08:53:00.000-07:00

This evening I participated in “Red Rover,” a traveling dance performance on the Stanford campus, and it was one of the best artistic experiences of my life. I wandered around campus with the audience, but behind my Nikon’s lens, creating a different experience for myself, one that revolved around a swirl of color, movement, and sound, rather than intricate thematic details.

When I woke up this morning I was dismayed by (what appeared to be) rain clouds, however, by this evening the sky had cleared and was simply speckled with white clouds. As students, I feel that we often take for granted how beautiful and architecturally diverse our campus is, and “Red Rover” took advantage of this diverse beauty. There were a total of five dances, and student guide dancers led the audience across campus. These guide dancers were dressed in white and pranced around campus, perching themselves on columns, climbing on gates, and creating human chains to hold back traffic. They slithered between the audience and the dancers and heightened the sense of connection between the two groups.

One of my favorite dances took place on the pavement between Meyer and the Law School. Six women in red shirts danced up and down the road chanting things such as “my body is meant to be here,” throwing books upon the ground, and smothering themselves with red paint. The dancers opened bottles of “blood,” finger painted their bodies red, and left handprints upon the ground. Their movements were deliberate and the dance illustrated the women’s power over their bodies. By this time in the evening, the sun had almost set and large flashlights illuminated the dancers. Because I was photographing the event, I was fascinated by the flashlight ringlets patterns on the dancers.

The final dance, which took place inside of the red fountain near Green Library, was my favorite. There was only one couple in this dance and they glided in and out of the fountain’s boundaries, climbing up and down the stone stairs that surround the fountain. Visually, it was stunning. They were cloaked in white clothes that seemed to drip off of their bodies; they were surrounded by red, and illuminated by the fountain lights below. This dance focused the audience’s attention to the interactions between the two dancers’ bodies: the power construct between them continually shifted as they switched positions.

I said at the beginning that I “participated” in “Red Rover” this evening, and while I had no official role in the piece, I still feel as though I participated in it… just by being in the audience. The dance was trading on the dancers’ interaction with their surroundings, which includes the audience. The surroundings also includes the sunset, and while the dance can be repeated, the sunset and the ambiance will never be exactly the same. Each dance was unique and the dancers employed not only their bodies, but also rose petals, flags, clothes, books, paints, flowers, and musical instruments such as gongs. It would have been easy for these dances to become over the top, but their balance between virtuosity and nature created a performance of understated beauty and sensuality.

The Golden Gate Bridge

2008-05-29T03:19:00.001-07:00

The Golden Gate Bridge has been an icon of the San Francisco skyline since May 28th, 1937, when it was opened to vehicular traffic after four arduous years of construction. Today marks its 71st anniversary of its opening. Looking at this gargantuan structure, not only do I marvel at the sheer size, intricacy, and brilliance of its architectural features, but also, I’m awestruck by the shocking—even unexpected—beauty of this design. When looking at the bridge, some may initially see a highly functional system of parts that has come together to form an orderly and efficient whole—then they may begin to note the aesthetic features. Others will initially become so enveloped in the aesthetic qualities, that the mechanics of this giant’s construction will be a secondary, and minor concern. For me it was the second; first I viewed The Golden Gate Bridge as I would a sculpture, and only when my eyes shifted to the vehicles zipping across and the boats cruising under the five-lane bridge did I begin to think of its success in terms of functionality. The bridge’s duality, in terms of function and aesthetic appeal, has made it one of San Francisco’s main tourist attractions.

When I visited the bridge last weekend, there was enough sunlight to bring out some of its most striking design features. The Golden Gate Bridge captures and reflects sunlight as though it were a prism. At times it is unclear what color the paint on the metal structure actually is. I have been to this site many times, in many different types of weather, and viewed the bridge from almost every imaginable angle. In this respect, I have come to comprehend the intricacies of The Golden Gate Bridge, and have come to understand it as more than just a famous, flat silhouette in the San Francisco skyline. Against the backdrop off a spotless blue sky, it seems more rust-colored, while in the fog, the tops of the towers appear whispy and pink, almost getting lost, reminding me of a smudged image on a chalkboard. When lit up by the moon, headlights, and the manmade floodlights at its base, the bridge appears to be bounding out of the night sky; it is pale and luminescent as though the light is actually radiating from the surface of the structure itself, not just bouncing off of it from another source. In all cases, when the vertical ribbing catches light, it looks delicate, thin, and even frail, like thread or dental floss, but the fact is, they are rigid cables, supporting tons and tons of weight, ensuring the stability of the bridge.

In terms of the structural aesthetics, I feel as though the bridge was designed with an Art Deco theme in mind. Not only does the bridge’s bright red color suggest this theme, but so do some of the shapes we find in its design. The vertical ribbing, the two towers and the horizontal line created by the base gives us four distinct triangles divided into dozens and dozens of cross-sections. This pattern-like feel, as well as symmetry can be likened to much of the Art Deco themed architecture found in this part of the country. Importantly, not only does this symmetrical triangular pattern mimic a style that we have seem emanated time and time again for aesthetic appeal, but these patterns are what have made the bridge a strong, dependable resource for commuters, and a world-renowned engineering success.

There is an aspect of effortlessness, as well as simplicity in the design of The Golden Gate Bridge. Standing in the hills of San Francisco, looking out on the bridge, I tried to squint my eyes and imagine that it was made of something entirely different from concrete and metal. From such a distance, I started to envision the towers as tree branches, and the cables as silk webbing made by a tent caterpillar. The same type of duality is present in a caterpillar tent, as in the design of the bridge; we are at a crossroads of aesthetic appeal and functionality. As a comparison to the bridge, the design of one of these caterpillar tents must be durable enough to last for months, and to protect the caterpillars that will eventually emerge.

The longer I looked at the bridge, the more I became enthralled by the cables. I felt the sense that each cable attached to the bridge was delicate in nature, probably somewhat pliable. The long cables running from column to column seemed to be sort of draped slackly over the towers—this gave me the image of a clothesline hanging between two trees. When juxtaposed with the rigidity of the five-lane base and the two gargantuan towers, the cables seemed bendable and relaxed. Not only was this an intriguing design feature in terms of aesthetic quality, but the malleability of the cables is also an engineering decision that has served The Golden Gate Bridge well during periods of high winds, and seismic activity. Thus, there is no question in my mind that this bridge exemplifies the perfect balance between function and aesthetic appeal.

Red Rover

2008-05-28T23:20:00.000-07:00

Today, I attended the end of a dance performance called Red Rover. The dance piece presented five individual pieces spread throughout campus. Because the title was “Red Rover”, the color red was vibrantly infused into each location or the dancers themselves.
Though I was not able to view the entire performance, I was able to view many of Nadia’s records from the performance, which were outstanding. She managed to create compositions that captured the dancers at the height of their movement and with the full brilliance of the scene; color and contrast. One dance took place in the Clark Center. To the viewer of the performance, the dancers were framed by the red arches of the Clark Center, which lie parallel to the ground. It was surreal to see the arches in the context of dance, where I was more familiar with them in the days when I worked at a lab in the Clark Center. In the center of the Clark Center, there is a large circle. The dancers had lined the circle with rose petals, spiraling them inwards. The contrast of the bright red petals against the concrete seemed to breathe life into an otherwise barren structure. The actual dance consisted of four dancers; two couples. They wound around the spiral carefully, not disturbing any of the petals as they spiraled in and out holding hands. As the dance moved onwards, their care of the spiral lessened and their motions became more dramatic. The spiral fell into disarray. To me, it reminded me of a mandala painting; of the impermanence of beauty, and how even that impermanence can be beautiful. The disorderly arrangement of the petals did not take away from the bright life they brought to the Clark Center.

As the dancers moved from location to location, there were guides that pointed the way. Dressed in all white with a striking red bandana in their hair or on their arm, the guides either stood as still as statues, hunched in varying positions on the walkway, or stood in a dramatic dance pose pointing the way to the next performance. One impressive piece involved them waving red ribbon streamers down through the main quad.

The final piece was set in the red fountain in front of Green Library. I was able to speak to one of the dancers about the composition and choreography behind the dance. The two dancers were dressed in all white and moved gracefully about the arch of the red fountain. There was a little table inside the water curtains of the fountain that the dancers would occasionally stand on to perform. They wound around each other delicately, and played on the contrast between standing outside the red arch, and in the center of the fountain. They also took the opportunity to stand directly underneath the curtain, taking full advantage of all of the space. The reflection of the light from the fountain on them made them appear ethereal. They were playing on two dimensions of red: the conception of red as the color of passion, and its conception as the color of rage. When the choreographer decided to create this dance, she thought about what red meant to her. She found a poem that described red as a dichotomous color, a color of oppositions. She brought the poem in for the dancers and asked them to choreograph something for themselves as if it would be an individual piece, and took elements from it to use in the final choreography. Working with the conception of red as a dichotomy, she decided to represent this in the space she was using. The movement of the dancers between the outside of the fountain to the ‘nucleus’ of the fountain was very deliberate. I did not notice this myself because I did not notice the changes in poses between outside the fountain and inside, but I did notice their delicate use of the space. When I looked at the images Nadia took, it did seem that when they were moving into the center of the fountain, it symbolized a deepening of intensity. Proximity itself was enough to induce that feeling of intensity.

Furthermore, according to the dancer, the dance was intended to symbolize the contrast between the two emotional elements of red. The choreographer wanted to show how movement would change based on feeling; for example, the difference between movement in passion, and movement in fear. The movement in fear was especially communicative to me, as the dancer would hunch over and place her hands between her knees and look to the side. It was an upwards fetal position, and when it was being explained to me, I could name the feeling based on her pose before she named it herself. It was incredible to me that emotion could be that clearly articulated through dance pose and body language.

Red Rover was a feast for the eyes in action and in stills; and a feast for the mind. It gave me quite a lot to think about, and a greater appreciation of the work and concept that goes into creating a story or presentation of ideas through dance. It is more than creating something beautiful; these choreographers created pieces with real weight and meaning, and they pay very close attention to visual presentation, aesthetics of the surroundings, and the nuances of the space they are working with. I have never thought so much after a dance performance, and I am inspired to try to create a dance choreography at some point (after much more training and practice!).

Tamarine Lunch Review

2008-05-27T15:03:00.001-07:00

On Monday, May 19, Nadia, Ellora, Yaa, Becca, and I dined at Tamarine, a Vietnamese cuisine in Palo Alto. When I arrived, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. I had never been to a Vietnamese restaurant. There were a few businessmen scattered here and there, the lighting was slightly dimmed; the ambiance of the room felt maroon, the color of the tablecloths. As I took in my surroundings, I got the impression that Tamarine was trading on a more formal, less traditional approach to Vietnamese food, for the place seemed to value an upscale, high class, clean appearance over a deep-rooted cultural experience. Instead of garnishing the walls with Vietnamese art, a separate room was formed to showcase art from Vietnam. Likewise, the food dishes had to be ordered separately—the salad, the rice, stews, and main dishes were all a la carte. It seems that Tamarine aimed to present both Vietnamese culture—through art and food—and their entrees all separately, giving the customers autonomy to mix and match various elements of food and art in a unique manner, so that a variety of experiences are possible.

The first dish I ordered was the Ginger Chicken Salad: chicken, cabbage, cashews, mint, and ginger dressing. Overall, the salad had a sweet, but subtle flavor, contrasted by the sharp (compared to round), rhombus-shaped plate on which it was presented. The chicken was particularly soft, but gave off a slightly bitter aftertaste. The dressing was lightly drizzled atop the salad, providing the perfect balance among ingredients, such that none dominated the other. The ingredients were relatively isolated from each other in the form of layers in the salad; in this sense Tamarine succeeding in keeping its elements separate, left for the customer to mix them.

Next I ordered the Coconut Rice. This dish came in a banana leaf bowl set atop a weave basket, the most elegant of the three dishes I ordered. The rice was isolated from the rest of the food, enclosed and sheltered. The banana leaf dimmed the lighting deep inside the bowl, emitting a green hue within the dish. I found that the rice, moist and soft, topped with shaved coconut, tasted best in its own rather than mixed with other dishes. While atypical of rice dishes, the self-sufficiency of the rice was due to its creamy rather than plain flavor. In this case, I felt encouraged not to mix the rice with the rest of the dishes, though I still had the option of mixing them.

The main dish I ordered was the Mango Tilapia, but with chicken instead of tilapia. This dish was disappointing. The first two had set up high expectations, and when I took my first bite of this stew-like dish, I was overwhelmed by the tang of the sauce and the savory aspect of the chicken and mango. Instead, I was expecting something sweet; my experience with mangos in restaurants has been that they are always sweet. This turned out even more disappointing when I found that the dish did not mix well with the coconut rice; the sauce was too overpowering. Unaccustomed to eating stews without some type of balancing dish such as rice, I felt abandoned by the restaurant, left with a dish too thick to be a soup and too strong to be eaten on its own.

Though Tamarine succeeded in presenting its customers with separate dishes, lending to more possible combinations and autonomy of choice, my personal experience with the food was one of failure; the dishes did not mix well, and the main entrée was unappealing. However, I would return to the restaurant again—but only for the coconut rice, a pearl amongst pebbles.

~Dominique Y.

Rain, Rain

2008-05-26T23:17:00.000-07:00

I love rain, and I love you music. So, you can probably imagine how much I love the absolute genius that is Paul DeMarinis’s RainDance. After we saw the prototype in his studio, I actually went home and marked my calendar for when it would be up on Santana Row, and on Memorial Day, I had the distinct pleasure of Rain Dancing under Paul DeMarinis’s incredible creation.

We got to Santana Row at about 3 in the afternoon. Parking was a nightmare, and we were wondering how in the world we were going to be able to find this one exhibit in the midst of all of the hullabaloo that is Santana Row. Well, I looked up and there it was: RainDance. So, I’m still not quite sure how this thing works, but from what I can gather from the, now many, times that I have used it, Paul has created a metal structure that emits two thin streams of water. Whoever is using it must have an umbrella. When the water hits the umbrella sounds are emitted. The look of RainDance has changed since our time with DeMarinis. One of the things that struck me first was the color change. There were four structures and each one was painted a different bright color: blue, red, green, yellow. Each umbrella was clear and very deep, which is to say the umbrella could cover all of your head. This, I found, gave a more surround sound experience. The walkway was elevated on wood that was covered with green turf. The whole exhibit was bright and engaging. If I hadn’t come expressly to see it, I probably would have stopped anyway just to see what all those colors and sounds were about.

It was incredibly busy when we arrived. Kid after kid after kid was walking through holding their huge umbrella’s over their 2,3,4, foot frames. Those umbrellas really swallowed them up, and I found that I couldn’t hear the music. I wondered if it was broken, but I waited my turn, rather impatiently. Becca went before I did, and as soon as she stepped underneath the streams of water a song BLARED out. It took me by surprise because I could hear nothing when the little children went through before me, but I think that because Becca is so tall and more of the umbrella was out, people standing by could hear the music. It was an interesting new element to the exhibit that I wasn’t aware of before.

The kids were taking an annoyingly long time, but finally, I grabbed an umbrella and went through. Each of the different streams played a different song, and I took my time, trying to soak it all up. Finally, when I finished I kept my umbrella and went through another time. Yes, I was that annoying child that I just talked about, the one who takes two turns and is really slow, and pushes the other kid down to get to the umbrellas…okay, so I didn’t do that last thing, but I can’t say I wasn’t tempted!

I think one of the best things about RainDance is that it is so relatable, and freaking awesome, for kids of all ages. There were kids who could barely hold up their umbrellas, senior citizens, who also could barely hold up their umbrellas, there was even a young teenage couple who went through together, just minutes after they had grossly been making out in front of all the innocent children. It’s just so universally fun, and I can’t imagine it ever getting old for anyone.

Another Juno viewing...

2008-05-26T22:59:00.000-07:00

The critical and popular success of the 2007 film Juno directed by Jason Reitman has much to do with the audience’s connection with and sympathy for the eponymous character. Judging from the box office numbers and Academy Award reception, one should have no issue guessing that most people saw both Juno and Juno extremely positively. However, as often as moviegoers laud the film, critics have disparaged it for the lack of the realism and believability displayed in the character of Juno. Those who are a part of the latter group usually say that they dislike the film because they found it hard to connect with such a fictitious personality. Says one IMDB reviewer, “The main character is just annoying, and like the film, too contrived. You can't empathize with her as she isn't believable, it's just another attempt to be alternative.” Therefore, I believe that this film trades on the strength of the main character and to adjudicate the success of this film as a piece of art, I should examine how the filmmakers crafted Juno to reach this goal.

It is understandably a difficult task to judge how a whole film portrays its main character. Therefore, in this blog entry, I attempt to tackle this hurdle by focusing on some of the opening scenes. This is especially pertinent when considering Juno because the sole function of the introductory scenes is to show the world the quirkiness and wit of Juno.

The very first scene of the film opens to a silenced shot of Ellen Page standing on a lawn, facing a recliner chair while drinking from a gallon of orange juice. The shot in its bizarre content (e.g. the out-of-place living room chair and the odd choice in drink) and dreamlike composition is reminiscent of a surrealistic painting. The camera cuts to a close-up of her slightly pained, slightly apathetic expression as the wind blows over her hair. Enter Juno’s voice-over monologue, “It started with a chair.” Immediately, the viewer understands this movie is all about Juno and her uniqueness. Reitman successfully captures this sentiment by putting the subjectivity of Juno’s character front-and-center. We view the world through Juno’s eyes, and the director does not try to hide it. As stated above, this becomes apparent within the first few minutes of the film. After the opening scene, we follow Juno slowly walking around to the grocery store in a small town while the soundtrack totes the very quirky Barry Louis Polisar’s “All I Want is You.” The music almost perfectly exudes from Juno’s aura. Another instance of this comes right after Juno receives a positive pregnancy test for the third time. As she walks home in the dim evening light (which cleverly reflects Juno’s mood), the camera follows her closely from behind. All we can see is her upper torso and the back of her head covered by a big red hoodie. From her perspective we view her drudgingly walk past a group of runners who shoot her quick glances. With this very artful mise-en-scene, Reitman ensures that the world revolves around his main character. As the film goes on, it becomes apparent that as a viewer, you are invested in Juno, whether you like it or not.

From instances such as these, I think the film is very successful in projecting the viewer into the inner territory of Juno’s character. The combination of this and standard narrative techniques such as pathos and ethos allows the audience to sympathize with Juno and her unfortunate situation and at the same time admire her witty, idiosyncratic personality. The filmmakers did everything they could to boldly and artfully present a dynamic and thoroughly explored character. Therefore, whether one comes out of the viewing hating Juno or loving her seems entirely contingent on his or her subjectivities rather than the art itself. Personally—if that has any worth—I was in the “love it” contingency.

RainDance @ Santana Row

2008-05-26T20:30:00.000-07:00

Even though Memorial Day was bright and sunny, shoppers at Santana Row had their umbrellas in hand. That’s because they were enjoying the music of Paul DeMarinis’s water creation, RainDance. RainDance uses variations in water streams to create sound. As the water hits the umbrella, the participant can hear a melody created by the falling water. When I first spotted the exhibit, I immediately recognized Paul’s invention from when I first viewed it at his studio, however, there were some aesthetic alterations. Instead of basic metal, the contraption was now painted in bright yellows and greens, making it appear very lively and fun. Additionally, a bright green turf walkway was installed underneath of the waterspouts to recycle the water. The piece was very vibrant, and caught my eye instantly from a far. Even though I had already experienced the awesomeness of RainDance, I couldn’t wait to try it again.

I couldn’t wait to grab an umbrella and walk underneath the musical water, but I was forced to wait by a line of other interested shoppers. As I waited my turn to receive one of the clear umbrellas, I observed all of the other participants. I was so amazed by what a variety of people were enjoying Paul’s creation. I watched a boy of maybe 6 walk under the water and exclaim with a huge grin, “THIS IS FREAKY!” I saw an elderly woman walk behind a young teenage couple, all in awe of the musical water. Each and every person walked off of the platform with a smile on his or her face, both confused and delighted at the same time. When it was finally my turn, I grabbed the umbrella and ducked under the streams of water. Each of the different stations offered a cute melody, and even though I already knew what to expect, I was so enchanted by the music.

I think a huge part of the appeal of Paul’s exhibit is the mystery of it. Most people don’t know or care about the mechanics of this technical piece. They enjoy being bewildered by the music making water that falls over their heads. There is a distinct joy in experiencing something “unexplainable”, and for many shoppers at Santana Row this joy was abundant. Although RainDance can definitely be commended for its complexity and ingenuity, it is the awe that the little melodies invoke that makes the piece so memorable. From young to old, people were genuinely delighted by Paul’s invention and I think that made the piece very successful.

San Jose Museum of Art: Love Disorder 2008

2008-05-26T18:07:00.000-07:00

I have heard of interactive art, but he sensed my every movement. I was looking in the face of art, itself.

Just when I had found comfort in on-campus art interactions, my art education took me to the San Jose Museum of Art. Last weekend, I had the opportunity to literally experience Bruce Charlesworth’s Love Disorder 2008. Love Disorder 2008 is predicated on this visual-audio composition in order to induce psychological disturbance in its viewers.

From the piece’s location in relation to other art exhibits to the interior design of the exhibit’s space, Love Disorder 2008 draws on several artistic elements to engender the piece’s theme of “disorder.” I realized the seclusion of the room where the piece lurked. One could have easily overlooked the doorway, leading into the room, for the doorway was hidden between hanging art forms and other doorways, in which projecting images attracted people inside. On the other hand, art admirers could see only this rather dull red wall if or when they passed the doorway to Charlesworth’s work. The bright spotlight that shined on the wall enlivened the dull red paint. The isolated location and the bright lighting of this room contrasted with the surrounding social, dark movie rooms. I wondered about the museum’s antisocial arrangement of this space, so I was drawn to the red wall.

I walked into the room to be greeted by a pair of piercing blue eyes. The dark, grave pupils belonged to a wrinkly old face that I could not seem to shake. His stare paralyzed me, commanding my attention to the point that I forgot that the face was a mere image on a projector screen. The rapid movement of his eyes prompted my discomfort and my deviation from mental order, so to speak.

Somewhat spellbound by the menacing face, I drew closer to the deceptive head shot. After moments of silent scrutiny, he opened his mouth: “Come closer.” As if he read my mind, he continues: “I know what you are thinking.” These formidable statements alerted me that something was not quite right. Once I was a few steps into the room, away from the doorway, I had entered his unstable world. The bright lighting near the door occupied little space in the rather dim room. The initial lighting was a ploy to invite curiosity, but the bare red walls entrapped me in what was now a dim, bloody-walled asylum.

From then on, the elderly face began his emotional tantrum. First, he yelled as if I was encroaching on his personal space, “Get back!” Then, like any curious mind would do, I challenged him by invading his space even more. Then came his threats: “I’ll set your house on fire!” Once I realized that he could not hurt me, his threats did not deter me but rather encouraged me to come within a few feet of the screen. The once terrifying eyes cringed into a fit of fear and surrender. Before I fully came out of my trance, the last words that I heard were: “I can’t breathe!”

Love Disorder 2008 was effective in provoking people because the old face served to disturb people’s emotional states. Furthermore, in addition to the projector, built-in motion sensors signaled the old man’s responses to my physical proximity. According to his mood swings, the old man was a victim of his isolation and a slave to his own thoughts. Since he was trapped by his own thoughts, he tried to lure people into his world of mental disorder.

Lunching at Tamarine

2008-05-20T10:32:00.001-07:00

Yaa, Becca, Dominique, Nadia, and I had a good lunch at Tamarine on Monday, in a room with wood colors and beautiful artwork lining the walls. The artwork brightened the room by focusing on single colors and weaving varieties through them with different shaded patterns and geometries within the panels of a single color.
I was extremely disappointed with the service, because the waiter consistently forgot every order I made, which surprisingly, interfered with my enjoyment of the meal. It was very interesting how much that influenced my sense of how well the meal was prepared, since the two are entirely unrelated, but it made me more critical on the whole.
I enjoyed some of Becca’s Wakame salad, which was a light collection of seaweeds drizzled with a citrus lime vinaigrette. It was incredibly refreshing, and the different textures of the seaweeds were interesting to explore by taste. In addition, the seaweed was laid on a bed of salad, and that contrast was also intriguing—alternating between the smoothened taste of citrus flavored spinach, and the chewy crunch of green seaweed.
I had the shrimp cupcakes, which were floured cakes fried and filled with shrimp and shrimp powder. It seemed that they only thing they had to trade on were the delicious aroma and flavor that comes from being fried—otherwise they were boring and surprisingly bland. The shrimp cakes had to be flavored by dipping them in a sweet vinegar chili dipping sauce, to enhance a sense of contrast—unfortunately, the cakes could not stand very well on their own, which I was disappointed with.
I also had a mango tilapia, which was to be panfried and glazed with a mango salsa. The pan frying did not reach through to the fish, and so it tasted like a fried layer covering a grilled piece of tilapia. In addition, the mango salsa tasted too much like sweet and sour chicken sauce. The combination of the two was very disparate—it felt like a grilled fish had been thrown in to the salsa without any melding of the flavors. At Tamarine, I find that they play on the combinations of two different and unusual flavors, but in this dish, there was no successful melding of the two in a convincing way. The attraction of the contrast is the process of convincing the taster that the two disparate ingredients do in fact taste delicious together. This was not achieved.
When I compared my meal at Tamarine to a meal I had at Three Seasons the night before, a similar restaurant that I had been to before, I was very surprised. I had similar dishes at both, but somehow the flavors were more well integrated at the Three Seasons. Their mango fish was a pan fried fish that was infused with the taste of “buttery friedness” and had a simple accent of greenish mango, lemon, and chili sauce that set it off. In addition, it was fried very lightly, but well enough that it didn’t feel like my arteries would be clogged, but the flavor and texture had infused through to the entire fish. Had I to choose between Tamarine and Three Seasons, though I have been a relatively regular customer at Tamarine, I would now switch to dining at the Three Seasons.

San Jose Museum of Art

2008-05-20T09:45:00.001-07:00

I walked up close to the wall hoping to find a written blurb on the odd, wire-crazy piece displayed on three large tables that I was having trouble interpreting. I began to read the museum’s guidance as to what I was actually viewing when I began to read something about small, mechanical dispensers and propaganda leaflets. I looked back at the installation and wasn’t able to see this at all, thinking I must not be as artistically sophisticated for the museum as I needed to be, when I looked up. Plastic dispensers. I was reading the description of the wrong piece—a piece I did not even know existed! Mounted on two pedestals more than five feet above my head were these two, small, clear “machines” that had pamphlets stuck in them. Szyhalski’s work entitled “If/Then” was one of the most interesting pieces I viewed at the San Jose Museum of Art on Sunday, May 18 because of its interactivity with the viewer and its harsh and deliberate social commentary.

“If/Then” was a work of art that used these plastic “machines” to dispense the propaganda leaflets periodically throughout the day, with the leaflet then floating down through the museum space to the ground. The most interesting part of the piece was the line I read at the bottom of the plaque on the wall that stated the museum goers could pick up the leaflets and keep them at their own will. A leaflet never dropped while I attended the museum, but I found this to be such an interesting and effective idea. A piece that I didn’t even know existed, as if it was almost hiding up above me near the ceiling, could disseminate such a strong message with just a museum attendee wondering what that little piece of paper was doing on the ground. With just two small little plastic boxes and a simple mechanical structure, messages and themes of the US and Coalition Forces in the Gulf War and Iraq were produced. I stumbled upon this piece on accident, as was its intention, for propaganda messages try to hide from us, and realizations of reality come in odd and subtle ways like “If/Then” did for me. I thought the piece’s subtlety made it that much more impacting when I discovered it.

There were two more pieces of art that I found efficacious and powerful for the same reasons as “If/Then”—one for its interactivity with the viewer and one for its subtle social message that becomes revealed with further understanding. “Love Disorder” by Bruce Charlesworth was a piece I again stumbled on by walking into a room and experiencing a large projected video character who was talking “to” me. The character was speaking in short phrases, some of which displayed anger, sadness, affection, and other emotions. However, as I walked closer, the character began to say things regarding my proximity to him and how I was getting too close. As I began to back away, he would either tell me to go on and leave, or to come back. He was aware of my motion throughout the space! The fact that I could “interact” with this video character made the piece so potent as I began to become connected to this person due to his display of intense emotions. Not only was this piece literally “in your face,” but its idea was as well as I began to see the effectiveness of interactivity to connect the viewer to the piece and involve you in such a way that you would never expect. This piece literally played with my emotions, as I believe would be the case if I were to stumble upon a propaganda pamphlet on the floor of the museum!

“Tantalum Memorial” by Harwood, Wright, and Yokokoji used another technique to “touch me.” It produced a subtle, but overpowering social message through use of a simple, mechanical idea much like “If/Then.” It showed a series of Strowger switches that are the inner-workings of phones. Every so often, this “sculpture” would move and click and display the relay of messages behind phone communication. Upon reading its description, I was curious as to why this was a “memorial,” and discovered that the metal tantalum essential for mobile phones has caused many deaths in the Congo due to wars over the mining of this material. I would never imagine the clicking of these metal machines was used to reveal the Congolese strife and warfare, and in this way it hit me hard upon realization. With this message, I began to think of the triviality of our obsession with cell phones and the complete unawareness of the destruction occurring behind the workings of the cell phone. In addition, I began to think about the concept of our ability for constant communication when perhaps the Congolese people have no way of communicating their unknown and shocking situation. These three works of art used different, but completely effective, techniques to reach the viewer and promote their messages.

Fleet Street Blasts Off

2008-05-20T09:44:00.000-07:00

Looking as sharp as ever in their tuxedoes and red bow ties, Fleet Street delivered yet another hilarious performance during their spring show titled “Fleet Street Conquers the Moon” on Sunday, May 11th.
At first, I was certainly skeptical of how well the performers would pull off this theme of conquering the moon, because in all honesty, it seemed far too lame for even Fleet Street to make funny. I was instantly proved wrong when I picked up a program, which was cleverly designed to mimic the safety instruction pamphlets you would find in an airplane. However, this was obviously no ordinary program, for not only did it list the songs in the show, but it also depicted various situations in which passengers on the space shuttle may (or may not) find themselves. For example, on a typical airplane safety card, you would find pictures of an airplane crashing into water or on land. In the program, there were similar pictures, captioned “On a bad day, we might crash like this.” Then, in an adjacent picture with the caption, “On a good day, we might crash like this,” the airplane is plummeting into a sea of marshmallows with a rainbow and smiling sun in the background. Quite simply, the program made sense in the context of the show, but it doesn’t make sense in and of itself. All of the safety instructions are completely random, which is extremely appropriate since Fleet Street often relies on haphazardness to create humor.
I also particularly enjoyed the detail given to the set. In the first half of the show while Fleet Street prepared the audience for “takeoff,” a cardboard moon could be seen hanging from stage right. Immediately following intermission (during which the journey to the moon took place), the moon on stage right was replaced with a cardboard earth and various paper maché rocks were strewn across the stage. Was it a little cheesy and over-the-top? Well, yes, but what more can we say of Fleet Street?
Whereas the visual aspects of the performance were quite entertaining (minus a few technical difficulties), the audience really attended this concert to hear music, and Fleet Street delivered. Famous for their quirky antics juxtaposed with their humorous pieces, the singers performed six new songs, which is quite impressive since all of them are original. Fleet Street further enhances the hilarity of the lyrics with purposely overstated choreography. At times, I felt like it was slightly annoying to have to focus both on the lyrics of the song and the choreography, but in general, the group did a decent job of not detracting too much from the words.
What I found most interesting about the performance was that about three songs were not original and did not rely on humor as a means of impressing the audience. Although the audience may have been less receptive during these songs, as they were expecting something hilarious yet were denied, I thought that the inclusion of more serious pieces was a very bold and smart decision. In my opinion, every time Fleet Street sings a more serious song, they take a huge risk since they are known for being comedic. Thus, while singing a song such as “Ruby Baby,” the group can only rely on their vocal talent, thereby purely showcasing their synchronousness and tone quality. As a member of the Stanford a cappella community, I can honestly say that Fleet Street is one of the most musically sound groups on campus, and I feel like that shows during their less ridiculous songs.
Another entertaining part of the show was the extremely random skits in between songs. A couple of them had to do with being on the moon (one involving a Fleet Streeter in a creepy alien costume) but most of them had absolutely nothing to do with anything. Usually, a skit followed one of the more subdued songs to keep the mood light and funny, which I found to be a clever and effective tactic. In addition to enhancing Fleet Street’s already solid reputation as a hysterical group of guys, the skits also demonstrated their acting skills. The guys were extremely funny and did a great job of keeping character throughout the roars of laughter from the audience.
Even in dealing with the sound difficulties that hindered the showing of their various videos between songs and skits, Fleet Street performed with class and style, as per usual. Knowing that they write their own skits and most of their music, maintain a professional demeanor during performances and still manage to sound phenomenal, it is obvious that Fleet Street has tremendously talented members. The show was very well-produced and extremely entertaining. Even if a cappella music is not necessarily a favorite of yours, I would highly suggest attending a Fleet Street performance--they’re fantastic, they’re funny, and they always dress to impress.

Tasting Tamarine

2008-05-20T09:42:00.000-07:00

This afternoon I went out for lunch and dessert on University Avenue. Yaa, Becca, Ellora, Dominique and I decided to try Tamarine, a Vietnamese restaurant. It is a relatively expensive restaurant, most likely targeting middle aged business people (at least during weekday lunches). The décor is subtle but elegant, in a feng shui sort of way. The restaurant is separated into two sections: the first is larger and has a bar; the second is long and skinny, making for a more social atmosphere. The walls are a subdued green, the rooms are separated by a deep green curtain (which was open while we dined), and the chairs and plates are a light green. The bar has tall, sophisticated, brown chairs, and there is a long bar-like table in the larger room with the same tall chairs, creating a variety of seating options. Bright paintings, mostly orange and red, made by local Vietnamese artists adorn the walls. Bamboo motifs decorate the area above the bar, vases of flowers are scattered throughout the room, and flies buzz through the air, adding (or detracting, depending on your viewpoint) to the natural feeling.

I have sampled Vietnamese cuisine a few times before this afternoon, however, I am most accustomed to pho, or Vietnamese soup. Today I ordered the “Papaya Salad” and “Coconut Rice.” When I ordered the salad, I envisioned fresh, orange papayas with green leaves and dried beef. However, I received a surprise. The papaya was grated green papaya, which tastes nothing like the papaya I am accustomed to. I did not like the taste or texture of the papaya, which was bitter, stringy, and dry, but I did like the hints of basil in the dish and the dried beef. My second dish, the coconut rice, was delicious. The rice was wrapped within a bowl made of banana leaves, which sat in a small wicker basket. The shape of the banana leaf bowl was reminiscent of a volcano and flakes of toasted coconut overflowed from the top of the bowl. Coconut flakes were also sprinkled throughout the rice, and the bottom of the rice dish was pleasantly buttery.

Ironically, the dish that I enjoyed the most was not my own. I absolutely loved Becca’s “Wakame Salad,” which surprised me because I have never before like seaweed or tofu. When the waiter (who messed up three of our orders) brought the salad to our table, I was immediately drawn to its multiple layers and various colors. When I began to eat it, I realized that these layers appealed not only to my visual senses but to my taste buds as well. The tomatoes were soft, the avocados smooth, cucumbers crunchy, the tofu light, the spinach crispy, and the seaweed alive. The salad dressing was a blend of sesame seeds, olive oil, limejuice, and a Japanese citrus called yuzu. The salad reminded me of an Italian appetizer I have had before with cucumbers, avocados, tomatoes, cheese, olive oil and lemon juice. While the “Wakame Salad” is composed of a more unexpected combination of ingredients, it still managed to harmonize beautifully.

Tamarine’s menu explains that their dishes are small and are meant to be shared among dinners, as the dining experience should be communal. I rarely eat Vietnamese food and I enjoyed being able to sample my friends’ courses. The act of sharing food fosters a sense of community among whomever is eating. This community feeling and subtle ambiance makes Tamarine a perfect destination for business lunches, which explains why the majority of the cliental were businessmen and women. However, the sophisticated feel and good food also make the restaurant a destination for a wider audience.

One by one...

2008-05-20T08:18:00.000-07:00

To be perfectly honest, I always felt like Talisman was a little high and mighty. Now, don't get me wrong, I know some singers for Talisman, and they aren't pretentious in the least, but every time I saw them perform, as Fleet Street alluded to in their own spring concert, it seemed like they thought they could end the world's problems, enormous, centuries-old problems, by singing about them. What really blew me away about their concert this past weekend? I think they might be right.

Vocally tight and balanced, Talisman exhibited a breadth of material I had not seen in their other shows. Ranging from African tribal music to Chinese lullabies to American rap, their set list was impressively varied and showed a lot of technical skill and music sense that isn't necessarily obvious when they only sing a couple of very similar songs at a dorm show. On the other hand, the show also demonstrated how strongly the group favors certain voices within itself, showcasing the same soloists (including the musical director several times) when a little more equitable distribution would have been in order and not gone unnoticed.

But I think all this was to be expected; we expected quality music from one of the preeminent campus vocal groups, we expected more breadth in a longer show, we even expected something to be not quite right--in this case the solos--from a group composed almost entirely of human beings. Yet what I at least did not expect was the power of their stories and of their community. Hearing about songs they learned while overseas and the experiences they had there, seeing the way they talked about their travels with such confidence and honesty, and knowing that they are still simply students like us--taking classes, going to parties, and writing papers--was so inspiring. Seeing that they, and thusly we, can make such a difference, even just twenty some people, is really empowering.

And to cap off their already stunning performance, they just pushed me over the edge with their final number. One by One is what I would call Talisman's trademark number, and one with which I was slowly becoming fed up. But at the end of the show, putting it off until the last number, they began to call up all the Talisman alumni in the audience and began to song. Bolstered by dozens of other voices, the sound took over Dinkelspiel Auditorium, washing over the audience in rich waves of tonal ecstasy. Hyperbolic? Perhaps, but accurate to some extent of the short-term effects of the number. I left literally speechless, stunned by the power of their voices and with a new sense of respect for the impact of the human voice.

Talisman

2008-05-20T03:29:00.000-07:00

It was not what I had expected at all. Before last Friday night, the word “Talisman” made me think only of spirituals, hymns and prayers. I walked into the concert expecting to see an hour and a half of rich and soulful vocals—that thick, syrupy sound that a gospel choir in a gargantuan church seems produce effortlessly. What I experienced did not meet my expectations, but surprised me in a very powerful way. This element of surprise, along with the spiritual nature of the program worked synergistically to create an intense emotional experience for me. Surprise came in many different forms; while I expected to see a group of about twenty people standing in a horseshoe formation, singing spirituals in four part (SATB) harmony, what I witnessed was a combination of dramatic lyrical interpretation, readings of literary passages and storytelling woven into their musical program, thus creating a sort of patchwork quilt of performance artistry, not only pleasing to the ear, but to the eye as well. I was particularly shocked to see rappers from Palo Alto perform alongside these 23 singers. In quite a different way, I was blown away by a performance piece which began with a mass muddle of voices and opinions clashing, then a startling period of silence, punctuated by the start of 23 voices singing together. I can say, without hesitation, that Talisman presented a wealth of talent, creativity, experimental expression, and variety in their performance, which did not meet my expectations, but surpassed them.

The rich hum of the larger than usual alto and bass sections reverberated with a soothing timbre underneath the virtuosic, acrobatic or sometimes frenetic vocals, which appeared in some melodic lines. Overall, Talisman blended so well, that they often sounded as one, polyphonic voice. This voice, at different times, seemed to take the form of a mother telling her child a bedtime story, a man begging for basic human rights, a child asking a question about the direction of life, or any number of imaginable characters.

It seemed as though every piece either managed to tell a story of human struggle in the face of crisis, or was alive with human celebration of life, love, culture, family, identity, and miracles. There appeared to be a strong connectedness between the singers and the music; every person on stage was immersed in the culture, community, and sentimentality represented by each vignette. Talisman’s attention to presentation contributed to their ability to tell a story each time as well. Several stylistic elements of the program struck me as quite original, in particular the way in which these 23 singers physically aligned themselves prior to, as well as during vocalization. Not only did these formations contribute to the mood and visual aesthetic appeal of the piece as a whole, but it was clear that these formations were trading on sound quality as well.

Additionally, it was clear that the singers understood, in this context, that the body was not just a medium of vocal expression, standing on stage limp, along for the ride so-to-speak; it was there in order to convey certain sentiments to the audience, that otherwise could have gotten lost. In my experience of watching the swaying of gospel choirs, and even the pop-and-lock dance moves of Justin Timberlake to “Sexy Back”, I have discovered that the sight of bodies moving to music through space and time can create tension in one’s own body. This innate urge to respond to an aural stimulus with physical movement is just one part of what makes us human. During all parts of the show, I felt, in my body, the urge to move, in order to release this built up emotional tension. This is not to say that I was in any sense “dancing in the aisles”, which has always seemed to me a preposterous thing to cite in a review. All I wish to say here is that I picked up on some of the singers’ more subtle physical cues, which helped me to follow, and feel at the most basic level what those on stage must have been feeling.

While the phrase “text painting” refers to the process of making the score of a song match its literal meaning. When I was watching Talisman perform, I thought of a new phrase: “dance painting”. However, it doesn’t quite work in the same exact fashion as “text painting”, for it is clear that it was the music, and not the physical movements, which came first. One of the best examples of this “dance painting” was during a song with a wide dynamic range. As the music got louder, the performers would swing and sway faster, maintaining good posture and looking straight ahead. However, as the music got quieter, the lower to the ground the singers seemed to become. This reminded me of one of my favorite scenes in cinematic history—The dance to “SHOUT” in “Animal House”, in which every single person at the fraternity party finds themselves literally lying on the ground at the ultimate dynamic valley in the song. This, while it may seem out of context, provides a good example of what I mean by “dance painting”. Each member of Talisman seemed to understand how constant physical augmentation of the shape of one’s body has the ability to change the aesthetic appeal of the song, and even more successfully provoke emotions in audience members. Singing is a full body exercise, so changing the way your body is situated on stage, or even moving while singing has effects on the sound of the music as well.

Therefore, I found that in terms of sound-quality and emotional impact on the audience, both the physical movements of the individuals, as well as the group movements contributed in a very positive way.

Finally, I would like to revisit the idea of connectedness. Each member of Talisman appeared to be connected, not only to the lyrics, music and other artistic elements of the songs they were performing, but also seemed to be very connected to one another. One of the most moving experiences in this entire show was the final song, in which Talisman Alumni were invited on stage. More than sixty people flooded the stage, but shockingly the sound quality didn’t seem to change, nor did the previous sense of emotion or connectedness that I alluded to before. No. This group’s alumni blended in as though they had been rehearsing with the current members for years. My eyes scanned the faces of each person on the stage; each one represented something different in terms of culture, heritage, and perhaps even values and beliefs, but they were all brought together by one thing… the music they love.

Trendy

2008-05-20T01:10:00.000-07:00

Earlier today I had the lovely pleasure of dining with Becca, Nadia, Ellora, and Dominique at Tamarine, in Palo Alto. Before I knew anything about the restaurant, I would go up to friends and ask them what kind of food they thought would be served at a “trendy” restaurant in Palo Alto. I had many answers but my favorite was “sandwiches and arugula…maybe cheese, but definitely arugula.” It turns out Tamarine is a Vietnamese restaurant that boasts of its specialization in a “family dining experience.”( I tried to look up the word Tamarine in the dictionary, but it kept coming back to tamarin: a South American marmoset, therefore, I assume the word is most likely in Vietnamese.)

Lunch got off to a great start. I had a glass of water. I’ve found that it is incredibly difficult to mess up a glass of water, although some have tried. A few minutes later we ordered. We all decided to get different things so that we could be in keeping with Tamarine’s policy of family dining. Tamarine makes small plate entrées only, specifically for this purpose. As we waited for our food I looked around some. Tamarine is indeed a very “trendy” restaurant. The table at which we were seated was a very modern style, half booth/half seat table in a pretty seafoam green. The other tables were in keeping with the modern theme and a color scheme of wood (wood isn’t a color…), green, black and white. The restaurant also doubles as an art gallery, so I got to look at some of the painting that were hanging around in the main room.

Then my food arrived! I love food so I was unspeakable excited to eat. The first things they brought out were our appetizer choices of which I tasted the shrimp spring rolls, wakame salad, and the papaya salad. I really enjoyed my spring rolls. My mother makes spring rolls from scratch so I was expecting a thin layer of dough stuffed with deliciousness and then deep fried. I’ve come to see that as the definition of spring rolls, but this was entirely different. I stared at it curiously for a moment because I highly doubted that it had seen a deep fryer (to my complete disappointment)! The layer of dough on the outside was incredibly light tasting and white in color. I’m not sure what if was, but Wellington is as close as I can come to describing it. Inside it there was shrimp, pork, lettuce, and mint, but all I could taste was the lettuce and mint and the Hoisin sauce I was dipping it in. It was like eating a mint wrapped in lettuce and dough dipped in a sweet sauce.

The next thing I tried was the wakame salad. This salad contains seaweed, tofu, and avocado in a yuzu-lime vinaigrette. It is described on the menu as “a light and refreshing salad” and indeed it was just that. I am accustomed to seaweed in sushi form, so this was a new experience for me. I have to admit I couldn’t actually taste anything. If you asked me today what seaweed tasted like I would say, “um…light?” I’ve decided a seaweed salad is more of a feeling than a taste. It says, “I’m sophisticated and hip and the kind of person who orders dressing on the side and eats froyo with fresh fruit and sips lattes and…” The other salad I had was the papaya salad and that too could be described as light and refreshing. The unripened papaya was sliced incredibly thin and paired with beef and basil. It was good, but I still finished eating it feeling as though I’d eaten nothing at all. We actually began a discussion on iron chef because of our appetizers because it felt like this is what someone would make if given green papaya to cook with.

I finished with my entrée of kurubatu pork prime rib in a spicey tomato sauce. It was not spicy at all, but I was certainly happy to get to the meat after all the lightness. It was very delicious! Over all I had a very good, light, dining experience, and with all that trendiness flying around we figured why not stop at red mango for some fro-yo? Amazing! All I needed was a small Yorkshire terrior on a leash lightly jogging ahead of me as I balanced my new painting from Tamarine.

San Jose Museum of Art

2008-05-20T00:46:00.000-07:00

On Sunday, Darius, Dan, Katie and I visited the San Jose Museum of Art. The first piece we approached was a set of three metronomes, altered and set to hypnotic voices by Paul DeMarinis (a Stanford artist). Shortly thereafter, I entered a room about the size of our classroom and saw three different videos projected onto three different walls. Each video captured the same scene from a different perspective (in both angle, magnification, and time period). The scene, called “Fashionably Late for the Relationship,” was comprised of a traffic island in Manhattan, occupied by a makeshift bedroom. Inside the bedroom, a hybrid bed-couch, an upholstered chair, an antique-looking wooden desk, an oval shaped mirror, several lamps and a number of hanging dresses were surrounded on four sides by pavement, bordered beneath by an oriental rug and above by a pole-supported white pavilion tent. An actress, Lián Amaris Sifuentes, treated the space as one would treat a bedroom: she slept there, put on makeup inside, changed clothes within a small, closet-like space, and was gone for most of the day. One stationary camera showed an empty daytime bedroom; another followed the actress with a close-up perspective of her nighttime preparations; the third was also stationary, set at nighttime, and showed the actress sometimes sleeping, sometimes preparing, and sometimes missing. All three projections were sped up to sixty-times real time.

At first I was drawn to the daytime camera, primarily by the way passing cars would zoom through at a blur until the light turned red, then pause, and then zoom forward again. This process combined a visual pleasure with a time-bending twist. Observing Manhattan at a sped-up rate, I was able to see how many cars passed through, what kinds of cars they were, how often passerby crossed that street, how often cars cut off other cars at that intersection, how often pedestrians cut off cars at the intersection, how often cars inch up at the light (rather than remaining stationary for the duration), in just a few minutes: data that would take hours of standing idly on the street in real time to compile. I was nearly compelled to conduct a statistics-sociology experiment on patience in Manhattan while in the room. (Though I turned to another camera angle instead.)

A close-up view of Sifuentes’s preparations brought a new dimension to the piece. From certain angles, I could barely detect that her bedroom was set in the middle of traffic; in these moments, her application of makeup and adjustment of clothing seemed to be nothing particularly unique. At angles that captured the surrounding streets, however, I saw both her present and her future--both her preparations and what she was preparing for, both the first part of her night and the second. Were she in a typical bedroom, she would descend to the rushing street soon enough; by way of the artist’s creation, however, there was no delay. In this sense, the artist was comparing public and private space, tranquility with transition, the deliberate with the hasty. Why do we transform from peaceful creatures into anxious ones as we cross through the doorway? Why don’t we treat the space of all like the space all our own?

Upon exiting the room, I noticed another film playing on a much smaller screen. Putting on the attached headphones, I realized that the film was “Dazed and Confused,” a 1993 movie I’ve enjoyed many times before. In this version, however, the actors’ voices were dubbed over by the voices of Indian workers to whom American jobs have been outsourced. In a superficial sense, the result was humorous: foreign accents contrasted sharply with the slang-laden vocabulary of obviously-American teenagers. After watching for a few minutes, I noticed that the piece’s blurb asked the viewer to consider the “themes of outsourcing American identity”--a comment that I found altogether unhelpful and a bit bothersome. While the dubbing certainly altered the film--greetings and profanity were especially surprising to hear through the new voices (“Wuss goin’ on” became “What is going on?” and so forth)--the piece was never convincing enough that I became immersed in the new version. In other words, the knowledge that the original voices had been dubbed over was always in the front of my mind, and as a result, I never worried about “losing” the original to the new or the old voices “becoming” the new voices. I never felt any concerns about the outsourcing of American identity. I did enjoy realizing how essential our slang is to the way we relate to each other: the characters in the new version certainly lost some of the intimacy that they shared in the original.

Madison and Fifth: Visual Feast

2008-05-20T00:40:00.000-07:00

I really need to get out more. Since when has it been appealing for food to flaunt a mysterious darkness?

A few weeks ago, a couple of my friends and I had the opportunity to stop for lunch at Italian restaurant Madison and Fifth. During the car ride into the city, my friend from New York informed us of the eatery’s smooth New York style. Far from the ideal college city, Palo Alto offers upscale establishments that cater more to its affluent residents rather than its nearby Stanford community of penny-pinching college students. Because of Palo Alto’s expensive taste, I expected that the food would either taste great for a terribly high price or that the food would look attractive, taste horribly, and feast on my funds.

The large open entrance assuaged my financial worries. We did not enter through a single door but rather through a wide space where a radiant smile of a woman in a bright reddish orange dress welcomed us. In addition to the restaurant’s open space design, the semi-formal attire of the hostess made me feel as though the restaurant came alive at night. Furthermore, as we followed the woman in the vibrant dress, I saw my reflection staring right back at me in the mirrors above the tables and booth seats. The fact that the mirrors lined the wall seemed a bit obnoxious and unnecessary, for they made me hyperconscious of my inelegant sagging pants and t-shirt. The eyes of others in the reflections reassured me that we did not quite fit in among the business skirts and slacks. Essentially, the mirrors prompted insecurity. Because the wall with the mirrors faced the bar, the mirrors reflected drawings of people dancing on the wall above the bar. The drawings should have continued around the large room, yet the mirrors interrupted the flow of the sketches. Shelved bottles of wines surrounded the customers, reinforcing my previous notions of the restaurant’s fitting nightlife personality. I mention the appearance of the restaurant to set the scene as well as to illustrate how the visual experience influenced my first impressions and expectations.

The outlandish interior decoration did not quite deter me from eating the food. I ordered the Linguine al Sapore di Mare, which was a basic seafood platter of pasta and an assortment of steamed sea creatures. The dish contained shrimp, mussels, calamari, and clams. Contrast in coloration and texture as well as the dish’s overall layout of ingredients demanded culinary praise. The pasta became my immediate focal point of the dish due its dull black color and central location on the plate. The black pasta and the glistening black exterior of the mussels and clams gave the dish this mysterious darkness. Moreover, the softness of the pasta contrasted with the hardness of the shelled sea animals. Because of their location on the edges of the plate, I felt as though the four clams and mussels were guarding the pasta from intruders. Also, the barrier of mollusks acted as some sort of datum that brought organization to the layout of the dish. Once a person recognized the element of contrast, they could also see the subtle contrast of color between the dark food and the white rhombus-shaped plate. If the chef had invested this much time to make my food pretty, so to speak, I knew that the taste had to be decent or better.

In a sense, the visual attractiveness of the food earned more appreciation than the actual taste. Everything tasted normal, for the pasta slithered smoothly down my throat and the shrimp and calamari did not demand too many chumps before swallowing. I appreciated how the off-white calamari and the light orange shrimp were hidden within the pasta in order to maintain the dark uniformity of the dish. Also, to return to my earlier points on the restaurant’s layout and nightlife personality, I am sure the experience would have been different if we had went at night. For instance, the lighting in the restaurant would have been dimmer in order to accentuate the lighting above tables. The emphasized table lighting would then force people to focus on their food more than the somewhat distracting decor. Similar to a job interview, presentation was everything, for it prepared me for the delicious content. Although the meal cost nearly twenty bucks, I discovered that a feast for the stomach can and should also be a feast for the eyes.

Trendy Eats: Lunch @ Tamarine

2008-05-19T17:21:00.000-07:00

In my town, When I came to Stanford from Mansfield, Ohio I moved from one farm to another. "The Farm" here in Palo Alto however is completely different from the farms I was accustom to. Instead of fields of corn and soy beans, the primary crop of this farm seems to be the human mind. There are also many other differences between my small hometown and the ritzy Palo Alto. One of the biggest differences is the cuisine. Where I come from, Applebee's and Outback Steak House are considered high class eatin'. Restaurants are for eating and are all, for the most part, generic. Here in California, however, people seem to be obsessed with trendiness. From FroYo hot spots to Whole Foods, everyone gravitates towards what I call fashion food: food that is popular or in style if you will. Being seen eating at these stylish eateries is more important than the actual taste of the food.

A few of my classmates and I traveled to one of these trendy restaurants on Monday to grab a bite of lunch. Tamarine, on University Avenue, describes their cuisine as "contemporary Vietnamese" and offers a variety of small plate entrees on their menu. As soon as we entered, the vibe of the decorations was very modern. Silver and green straight-back chairs stood around sleek black tables, and even though it was midday, the room was dimly lit. Contrasting with the chic interior, loud hip hop music was playing over the sound system. "Hm.. odd. Must be trendy," I thought to myself.

For lunch I started with the Wakame Salad, a seaweed salad with avocado, tomato, and tofu. I really enjoy traditional Japanese Seaweed Salad and so I decided to give this version a whirl. It was definitely different, but light and refreshing. It came plated very delicately on a small dish which was aesthetically pleasing. The dressing was very sparingly used which was also a plus. My only complaint about the salad was that the seaweed was very slimy and soft. I prefer a much more crunchy seaweed so I was a little displeased. Visually the salad was an A, taste-wise I give it a B-.

For the main entree I had a dish called Kurobuta Pork Prime Rib with a side of coconut rice. The rice was spectacular. It came wrapped in a banana leaf in a small bowl which was simple yet elegant. I was really happy that the coconut flavor was distinct but not overwhelming. I was worried that it would taste to much like a dessert by its description, but it was worked well as a side item. I didn't feel the same way about the Pork Prime Rib. The flavor was completely bland and the meat itself was mostly gristle and very hard to chew. By the end of the meal I found myself just wanting more coconut rice instead of finishing the pork.

Overall Tamarine was trading on being trendy, hip, cool etc. and by these standards I think they achieved their goal. The artwork on the walls, other decorations, furniture and ambiance were all mellow and had a good vibe. However, when it comes down to it, a restaurant needs to trade on the quality and desirability of their cuisine. For such high prices and poor service (the waiter twice forgot to bring items that we ordered) , Tamarine's food did not live up to my expectations. It is not stylish chairs or trendy music that brings me back to my favorite restaurants, it's the assurance that I'll enjoy a good, quality meal.

San Jose Museum of Art

2008-05-19T14:13:00.000-07:00

This week I am reviewing a piece from the I Laughed Till I Cried exhibit at the San Jose Museum of Art. The overall theme of the exhibit was technology, globalization, and their consequences. I found this to be extremely befitting for the SJMA being that it is located in the heart of the Silicon Valley, a geographical symbol for technology and innovation. The specific piece that I was drawn to was Tawian-born artist Shih Chieh Huang’s “Twilight Zone,” which had its own darkened corner separate from the other pieces in the exhibit. At first it was difficult to understand what was going on and what the art was supposed to be. After careful examination, however, I was delighted at the intricacies of both the piece itself and the messages it broadcasts.

The piece consists of a collection of both household and commercial products synthesized in such a way to resemble odd futuristic creatures. There were two snail like creatures hanging from the ceiling at the entrance, three pig-like creatures also hanging from the ceiling, and many small ones on the floor which were made up of two highlighters as feet and shopping bags as the torso. Every single “creature” was periodically lit up by flashing blue, white, green, or red LED’s. Also, each creature had different arrangements of periodically inflating and deflating shopping bags. Small electronic fans in the inside of the bag powered the bags inflating and deflating mechanisms. This was a very interesting artistic choice in that the flashing LEDs and the inflating bags seem to suggest a certain type of dynamic liveliness to the creatures. Furthermore, the creatures beeped (due to alarm clock radios built in to their bodies or other little noisy electronic gadgets) and moved around the room. The three pig-like creatures also had a monitor displaying a video of blinking human-like eyes except significantly animated and distorted. It is also important to note that the electronics that powered these constructions were in no way meant to be strategically hidden from the audience, as other art frequently does with their electronics. Rather, the electronics are put in the focus of the piece. All the wires, chargers, and adapters symbolically represented body parts (e.g. the wires as veins, adaptors as eyes) and were highlighted by the artist in this way.

This piece was essentially the amalgamation of uninteresting consumer products that govern and dominate our modern existence, such as household appliances, lights, computer parts, water tubes, and cheap motorized toys. As the description in the museum noted, the creatures resemble a futuristic ecosystem of strange evolutionary adaptations that have arisen from our own present-day lifeless technology. In many ways, this was a critique of our modern society and our reliance on technology, electronics, and consumer products (such as shopping bags). For example, the LED’s were so prominent it reminded me of a miniaturized and exaggerated Tokyo. By stripping these objects of their meaning and transforming them into this somewhat frightening environment, Shih Chieh Huang cautions us to think about the negative consequences of globalization and technology.

Sensing My Way Through the Exploratorium

2008-05-13T09:54:00.000-07:00

On Sunday afternoon I visited The Exploratorium, a children’s science museum in San Francisco. I visited the museum throughout my childhood and more recently for my senior prom, however, I had never before approached it as a work of art. And when I did, I was surprised to discover art where I least expected it.

I spent the majority of my time on Sunday at the “Mind: The Science, Art, and Experience of our Inner Lives.” It is an interactive exhibit on our minds and senses. One of the exhibits that I found most interesting was “Center of Attention.” It is a black booth that you enter (one person at a time) with a microphone and four stage lights directed towards you. A bellowing voice addresses the “audience,” telling them to welcome their guest speaker and loud applause bursts through speakers. You are then directed to say “hello” into the microphone. When I was in the booth, I knew that the audience that I was about to address was fake, but my heart still began to beat faster as I said “hello” into the microphone. To my dismay, the audience responded with a loud “BOOOOO!!!” I consciously told myself that “this audience is not real and is not actually reflecting upon quality of your ‘hello,’” however, I still felt disheartened. I was then instructed to say something else, and upon saying “you guys made me sad,” the audience cheered and I became happy. I spoke into the microphone again and children’s voices began laughing and jeering at me. This time memories of being teased in elementary school floated to my mind and I was overwhelmed with sadness. The audience then laughed as though they were laughing with me and I felt proud. I was shocked to discover the intensity of the emotions that this little black booth brought to me. If I had simply read a plaque in a museum stating that people’s emotions will react to generic computer-generated sounds, I would not have believed it. The people who designed the black booth, along with its lighting and sound, were creative and had to find an aesthetic balance for the exhibit. In other words, they needed to replicate the experience of being in front of an audience well enough so that a viewer would subconsciously believe it enough to react, and that process of design is a form of art.

Another exhibit that captured my attention was a series of Paul Eckman’s photographs from New Guinea. I was not struck by the quality of the photographs, but rather by their message. Paul Eckman traveled to a remote tribe in New Guinea in the 1960s and took photographs of the people’s facial expressions to demonstrate that human facial expressions are universal. For example, people in all cultures raise their eyebrows while greeting others. The Exploratorium has a corresponding interactive exhibit to go along with these photographs, “Polite Smile, Delight Smile.” It has twelve photographs of people (Western and from the 21^st century), with two photographs of each person. A flap covers one of the photographs of each person. You are supposed to decide whether the revealed photograph depicts their true smile or their social smile before you lift the flap to see their other photograph. “Polite Smile, Delight Smile,” demonstrated Eckman’s discovery that true smiles activate the orbit of muscles around one’s eyes; this is the trick to detect whether someone is genuinely smiling or if their smiled is posed. This interested me as an artist because it is essential to understand these subtle human mores while painting or photographing a person. However, these exhibits have greater meaning when viewed in the context of the museum. Paul Eckman’s photographs most likely appeal to an older audience, keeping adults entertained, while “Polite Smile, Delight Smile,” provides a hands on component that brings science to life for children. The museum is trading upon its ability to teach children science in a fun and informative way, while also keeping adults interested.

After learning about my senses in the “Mind” exhibit, I went to the Tactile Dome and learned what it was like to rely solely upon my sense of touch. The Tactile Dome is a dome in the middle of the Exploratorium. It is a completely dark maze that you experience only by touch and communication with one other partner. I had never been to the Tactile Dome before and blindly wandering through tunnels, feeling things like cowboy boots and chains, being claustrophobic and trying to figure whether or not I could stand at certain parts of the maze, scared me. I was unable to see the maze, as it was completely dark, but it wrapped around itself and took us on journeys climbing up and sliding down in the dome. It is definitely a work of art, one that appealed to my sense of touch, a sense I often take for granted. The “Mind” exhibit is a new addition to the Exploratorium and the decision to put it near the Tactile Dome was ingenious because one first learns about their senses and then experiences what it is like to rely on just one in the dome.

The exhibits in the Exploratorium encourage people of all ages to learn about science while having fun. Each exhibit is carefully crafted to be visually appealing so that people will want to approach it, to be easily understood, and to be durable, and each is its own work of art. Additionally, the entire museum is a work of art. The columns in the entry way, which appear normal on first glance, are actually shaped to form people, the strips of light on the walls form images if you train your eye to read them, and the visible wiring and structural support on the ceiling are deliberate elements of the architecture, revealing how the building works and operating as each of the exhibits in the museum.

Exploratorium and Fleet Street Spring Show

2008-05-13T09:45:00.000-07:00

I went to the Exploratorium in San Francisco this last weekend, and explored the various ways that they combine portray science in an artistic way. There were several exhibits that were very appealing in their design and presentation.
One was a grand piano suspended from the ceiling by a few cables. Below it lay a series of red concentric circles that formed a bulls eye. Each ring had a different line of text that increased in perceived anxiety level as I moved towards the center. On the outside was typed “I’m not afraid”, and in the inner circles I remember seeing, “I just shouldn’t take that kind of a risk.” As I moved in towards the piano, I couldn’t help thinking about how large it was and how it was squarely above my head. A rush of thoughts wrap around the viewer; a single strike of fate and that piano could fall squarely on my head—it just isn’t wise to stand here. The piano was specifically hung in a portion of the building that had high ceilings and large windows so that one could see it hanging from the second floor. In addition, the piano wasn’t parallel to the ground—it had a slight tilt to the left, so that as I approached it, I could see the keys slowly disappear out of sight. The tilt made each step towards the center of the bullseye seem less sudden and made the gradual shifts in mentality that were typed underneath my feet more real.

I also saw a set of mannequins on the second floor that were wearing clothes designed in all sorts of media and technology. One was wrapped in newspapers, the others used recycled materials, semiconductor technology, solar panel material, and one even was a series of photographs that gathered together to frame a television set holding the same picture on it. The point of the exhibit was to create a “second skin”, or “clothing in digital and analog formats”. I don’t believe that any people would walk around wearing the outfits that were created, but they were truly beautiful. Looking at them, it was hard to believe that they were made out of newspaper and recycled material; when I crossed my eyes, they looked like flowing, natural fabric. The materials flattered the mannequins in a completely unpredictable manner. One gorgeous dress was made completely out of Snickers Bars wrappers. It presented an interpretation of objects that we would normally consider trash or ugly as having the potential to be synthesized into beauty.

The same evening, I attended Fleet Street’s Spring Show. Fleet Street is a talented, all male a capella group at Stanford. Their performances are a delightful alternation between hilarious skits and equally amusing songs. They often compose and arrange many of their own works. Classic favorites include “The Masochism Tango” and “Everyone Pees in the Shower”.

One of my favorite Fleet Street songs from this show was “Metrosexual”. This song takes an old style of singing: call and repeat, and updates it. “Metrosexual” is about a young man who loves Clay Aiken and appreciates pair of tight jeans and a good manicure—playing on clear examples of what ‘metrosexual’ would mean. The song is incredible not only because of the quality of the melody but also the lyrics. In the beginning, the last three words of the main singer are repeated word for word. However, on the second verse, one line ends along the lines of “jeans that fit just right” and the chorus backs up with “tight-ass jeans”. The violation of expectation continues through the rest of the song: when the main singer makes a comment about shaving, the backup singers follow with “Razor Burn”!. The audience usually succumbs to laughter when the backup singers retort back with these clever lines.
However, the whole performance wasn’t all silliness—Fleet Street also sang “Ruby” and a Dave Brubeck piece without a change in quality of performance. Fleet Street’s main charm is that it is able to poke fun at others and at itself through its skits and songs, but it also has the talent to back it up. They set up various expectations and proceed to break them without restraint, whether through humor or through serious singing. Even when they are making a joke, they will set up what you think the joke is and then break into the true punchline. Fleet Street put on an excellent show yesterday, as usual

Thaiphoon

2008-05-13T08:53:00.000-07:00

Most days, when going to a restaurant, one encompasses not only food in his evaluation, but also service, atmosphere, cleanliness, wait-time, etc. And all these considerations are entirely valid when examining a restaurant, because a restaurant is composed of all these things. But today, I want to discuss the art of food, and thus I will be sticking entirely to the dishes themselves; a mono a mono, head-to-head, sudden-death showdown between the chef and me.

As a student at Stanford, going off campus for a meal is a rare treat, so anything, really—other than dining-hall fare—is a step up. So, when I got to Thaiphoon (let’s not even get into the name) I decided I was going to splurge a little bit.

To begin, I ordered some chicken fried egg rolls. For me, egg rolls say a lot because they are so common to Asian cuisine that if you don’t do them well, it’s not a great sign. And, to be honest, these weren’t the best egg rolls I’d ever head. Not crunchy enough on the outside and two hard on the inside, it seemed like the “simple” egg rolls weren’t getting the attention they deserved. Additionally, the spicing was alright but I could definitely have used a little more flavor in the food itself that I think was bled out due to poor cooking techniques.

After that, I received my entrée, beef with bamboo shoot. I’m not going to lie, I mostly ordered it because it came with bamboo, which I thought was awesome. But in the end it turned out o be a really great decision. The beef was cooked just right, a little too much (as per my request), and the spicing was toned down a little from the egg rolls, focusing on accentuating the taste of the beef itself, not drowning it. The bamboo too, which I felt was something of a gimmick, was in fact a really interesting and valuable addition. Firstly, it added a taste with which I was unfamiliar; I didn’t love it, but it was cool to get to try it. And secondly, it contributed a really neat aesthetic to the whole dish, which was otherwise rather boring and unappetizing.

Lastly, I got some fried banana with homemade coconut ice cream that I thought was just delicious. After the poorly executed egg rolls, it was nice to have the banana be really expertly cooked, and the ice cream was delicious, with a little less sweetness than most store-bought kinds and a little more flavor. It was a little heavy after all the food I’d already had, but I think that was more my bad choice for the moment than a reflection on the chef.

At the end of the meal, I was very pleased. The meal wasn’t the greatest I’d ever had, but it was really good and certain components especially shined. As I said, I fear that they may be prioritizing too much and losing some dishes by the wayside, but nothing was anywhere near inedible and most was quite delicious; I would wholeheartedly recommend it!

Madison and Fifth

2008-05-13T02:59:00.000-07:00

On Sunday I ate lunch with Katie, Darius and Dan at Madison and Fifth, an Italian restaurant on Palo Alto’s University Avenue, a short drive from campus. Before we had even entered the restaurant, I was pleased by the clearly deliberate effort its managers had made to make the restaurant inviting: barring a few wooden supports, the front of the restaurant was entirely open to the sidewalk, with chairs and tables both in front of and behind the line where one could imagine a wall’s presence. In a sense, we were in the restaurant before we were inside the restaurant, and due to the pleasant weather, those eating just outside the building’s walls were clearly enjoying their surroundings.

Inside, the walls were covered from eye-level and above with mirrors, creating a feeling of ample space--a characteristic that worked in concert with the restaurant’s open front to make the establishment feel much larger than its narrow (and certainly pricey) lot would typically allow.

The most impressive parts of our meal, from my perspective, were our two appetizers: Caprese, a dish that combined mozzarella, tomato and basil with several seasonings, and sauteed calamari. In both cases (and throughout the rest of our meal), presentation was highly important to those preparing the food. The Caprese dish was organized in triangular fashion, with evenly spaced slices of tomato symmetrically adorned by olive oil and dollops of pesto. The calamari was colorful, even substantially decorative; the purple squid and chunks of green avocado and red tomato were oddly reminiscent of the multi-colored hanging lamps and various mural-style paintings around the room. While the buildings fundamentals--its floor, its chairs, its basic paint, its plates--were rather plain, there seemed to be touches of color, dashes of energy spread frequently throughout, both on the walls and in the air (in the case of the paintings and lamps)--and even in the food. While the calamari was a buffet of colors on a plain white plate, the main-course Penne Strascicate was served on a sparkling white hybrid plate-bowl. In the center, there was a deepening which contained the penne, but extending outward from the actual food, to an unusual extent, was a plate shaped disk, a sort of purifying border between the food and the complications of the table. The penne itself had a surprising vibrancy of color as well, but in this case--unfortunately--the attractiveness of the food surpassed its tastiness: the penne resulted rather bland, and disappointingly soft, even mushy. The calamari, on the other hand, matched its own attractiveness with a pleasant combination of flavors and textures, as did the Caprese.

As is the case with any restaurant, Madison and Fifth’s goal was to attract and please its customers. Its particular method traded on the notions of variety and vibrancy: in food, in decoration, and in setting (both indoors and outdoors, along a much-traveled avenue). Though Italian restaurants, like other restaurants that pertain to specific types of cuisine, mustn’t necessarily trade on variety (certain menu options are predictably expected and provided), Madison and Fifth seemed to be attempting to move beyond the label of Italian restaurant. Apart from the menu, Italian references could hardly be discovered. Situated in a trendy location, the restaurant tries to call out to those in the mood for any food. It called out to us with its paintings, open-air design, and colorful atmosphere, so we might say that even before the meal began, this work of art had already achieved some success.

Spice

2008-05-13T02:17:00.000-07:00

From the street, it looked quaint. A few people wearing jeans sat out in front of the restaurant on the sidewalk patio, sipping cups of water while perusing menus. On the wall behind them was an enchanting fountain. Thaiphoon was a quiet little nook tucked away, finding refuge from the buzzing, flashing, ever-changing world of University Avenue on an ill-lit side street. Why, I asked myself, would anyone choose to venture from the alluring, attractive line-up of dependable options that make up University Avenue? What would it take to pull someone away from such an array of flashy stores and restaurants? Driven by a curiosity and by hunger, I pulled on the door—it was heavy as though there was suction behind it. Then I stepped into an incredibly complete atmosphere, which was intended to set the stage for the rich cuisine we would soon be eating. The ambience was welcoming and friendly. Given the relatively quiet outward appearance of Thaiphoon, the unique and somewhat lurid atmosphere, replete with a wide array of stunning and authentic east-Asian décor, took me a bit by surprise. The decorations and the silverware were all imported from Thailand, and included green bamboo, a gold-framed mirror, a golden Buddha relief, and gold and green hand-made tablecloths, napkins and plates to compliment those embellishments. Every part of the décor matched subtly, creating a comfortable, controlled setting. Although there was a slightly more formal ambience, the way the restaurant was set up made me feel as though I was walking into someone’s home. The slightly utilitarian thick plastic covering on the tables gave me the feeling that I was at my Grandma’s house. In comparison to one of the flashy, upscale franchises on University like the Cheesecake Factory, the service in Thaiphoon was intimate and the atmosphere was relaxed.

All of this framed the penultimate portion of my experience at Thaiphoon: the sampling of fine cuisine. A waiter quickly presented us with menus and eagerly filled our glasses with ice water. As my eyes scanned the menu I felt lucky in a sense; had I not been a vegetarian I would have probably been too overwhelmed to pick an entrée. There were ninety-seven items. Looking at the menu, I also couldn’t help noticing the reasonable prices. Everything I was considering was within the range of seven to ten dollars. The short blurbs describing each of the dishes made them sound lavish, rich, and appetizing. Even the ones I couldn’t eat sounded so elaborate and exotic that I wished I could try them. Some of the most intriguing ingredients I saw listed were peanut curry sauce, Panang curry, pineapple, mango, sweet basil, and cashew nut. If I could try anything on the menu, without dietary restriction, it would be the “Roasted Duck Curry: Duck simmered in red curry, tomatoes, eggplant, pineapple, and sweet basil”. This is a combination of tastes I have never before seen married in a single dish.

The restaurant wished to make sure that Americans, who are not used to the amount of spice typically found in a Thai dish, would not be alarmed by the tear-wrenching, hiccup-causing doses of chili and curry powder they put in their plates. So, next to every description of an entrée, they made sure to rank each as either mild, medium or hot. I stupidly neglected to heed warning. I somehow, in fact, ordered the only thing on the vegetarian menu that was rated “hot”—judging by their ranking system, apparently what I ordered was spicier than “Eggplant in Spicy Sauce,” which they called “medium”. The entrée I ended up ordering was called, “Veggie and Tofu with Thai Basil: Mixed vegetables and Tofu sautéed with chili pepper, garlic and Thai basil”. Growing up in a household that ate Indian food on every special occasion instead of roasted turkey, spiral ham, or London broil, I have come to enjoy some of the spiciest foods in this world. Having said this, not even my background as a spicy food connoisseur was enough to prepare for the three-alarm fire that was about to go off in my mouth.

It all looked so welcoming. Our dishes were served family style in the true Thai fashion so that we could sample a bit of everything. I took a heaping spoonful of sticky rice from the communal bowl and slapped it onto my plate, then scooped a large portion of sautéed vegetables and tofu onto my plate. Somewhat ravenously, I took the first bite of my own dish. At first, my taste-buds were quite pleased with the sensation of warm, delicious basil and curry flavor mingled with the natural blandness of the tofu and the rice, but within a matter of seconds it had all turned to an aching, stinging pain that I could not alleviate. I gave it a minute, shoveling more and more food into my mouth, thinking that somehow the numbing, aching sensation would subside, or that I’d get used to it enough to be able to taste the food—the way one’s body might adjust to frigid cold ocean temperatures after a few minutes. I began to think of it as somewhat of a challenge that I could handle, having been through the ringer many times with spicy foods. There was also the issue of embarrassment. Sooner or later, people would start to notice the sparing nature with which I was eating my dish. An additional worry that struck me was that, in that moment was that I was quite blind. My eyes had welled up with tears I groped for a full glass of water that was on the table, but somehow it seemed that the more I drank the worse the pain got. After the fourth bite I was coughing and hiccupping—it was painful to continue on. For the rest of the meal, I made sure to balance out every serving of the dish with ten times more rice to make it palatable. By this time though, I had already marred the culinary experience; I could barely taste the food.

So, was it the intention of the cook to make me experience the biting pain of highly spiced food? No. My experience of this Thai dish would certainly have been much different if I, indeed, had been a Thai native. My unfortunate disregard for the word “hot” next to that item on the menu led me into an uncomfortable experience which is what the restaurant owners were trying to avoid when they wrote “hot”. All of the build-up, and the anticipation created by the ambience, ended in an intolerably spicy dish.

Blasting Off: Fleet Street Conquers the Moon

2008-05-13T01:35:00.000-07:00

A group of men, dressed in tuxes complete with red bow ties might not sound like the liveliest group you’ve ever seen, however, Stanford’s very own Fleet Street Singers might quit possibly be the liveliest, dare I say CRAZIEST, group of young men I have encountered. On Sunday night, Fleet Street presented their annual spring concert. This year the show was entitled “Fleet Street Conquers the Moon”. Complete with hilarious video clips and skits, these a cappella singer’s transformed Dinkelspiel auditorium into a space ship, blasting the audience into outer space.

Fleet Street truly dedicated their show to the theme, involving every aspect of the audience’s experience around outer space. As soon as I walked in the door, a girl dressed as a flight attendant stood before me, ready to take my ticket. “Enjoy your flight,” she said as she ushered me through the door. As I found my seat, I found the show’s program disguised as a flight safety manual. Along with the set list and member names were ridiculous pictures with nonsensical instructions on what to do “in case of an emergency”. Fleet Street left no detail unattended. The comedy began before they even graced the stage. I couldn’t wait for the show to begin.

The show began with a video skit projected on the stage. The two Fleet Street members in the skit mimicked a flight safety video, and explained to the audience that we were participating in the newest Bing Overseas Program…to the moon. The audience roared with laughter. Finally, the rowdy group galloped onto the stage with contagious energy.
Fleet Street sang a number of songs, some of which were funny parodies of popular songs, most of which were in some way comedic. While it was clear the audience enjoyed their performances for their hilarity, I was somewhat disappointed with the vocal aspect of their songs. One particular number was meant as a serious piece instead of being comical. Without the comedy to fall back on, the group’s vocal performance was unimpressive. It felt like the audience didn’t know how to react to Fleet Street when they weren’t trying to be funny, creating an uncomfortable atmosphere. I think it was pretty apparent that Fleet Street’s spring show was trading on its comedy, leaving vocals to take the back seat. In the end, it definitely paid off for them to put their energy into the theme and comedy of the performance because the audience loved it. People laughed until it hurt at these sixteen, off the wall Stanford boys, and I think that is exactly what The Stanford Fleet Street Singers intended.

2008-05-13T01:34:00.000-07:00

I’ll admit, I was a little bit surprised when I learned that Thaiphoon served Thai, as I thought that would be far too obvious, but as I would soon find out, subtlety is definitely not the goal of this downtown Palo Alto restaurant.

Before I delve into the experience of the food, I would like to comment on the overall atmosphere of the restaurant. The venue is not very large in size, which provides for a more intimate dining experience and emphasizes the cuisine as uniquely Thai rather than an approximation by a restaurant chain. To create the illusion of space, the restaurant has glass windows in the front, which also allow people inside to enjoy the Buddha fountain outside. I am by no means an expert on any kind of architecture or interior design particular to Thailand, but I did notice many motifs of Buddhism and Eastern Asian architecture present, both of which have heavily influenced the culture in Thailand. In general, I felt as though the restaurant provided some cultural insight into Thailand without being overbearing or distracting to the patrons.

Waiting for my food, I had only a very weak idea of what exactly I to expect; I suppose I assumed that the food would be similar to Chinese cuisine but I was quite pleasantly surprised to find that it wasn’t. While reading the menu, I noticed that a lot of the food included chili powder or something else that gave the food a distinct spicy taste. I found this quite interesting, so I ordered the Pad Thai noodles and chicken dish, which was prepared with chili powder, broccoli, green onions, bean sprouts and peanuts. This intriguing combination of ingredients was sure to yield a memorable dish, although I’ll admit to being a bit skeptical about actually liking it.

In actuality, I loved my food. My dish was impeccably prepared, all ingredients sautéed an pan-fried to perfection. What struck me the most about this food was the chili powder and how it added a powerful yet not overwhelming additional flavor. I could definitely detect hints of the food preparation methods used in India. After this experience, I researched Thai cuisine and found that the food is famous for balancing the taste elements of spicy, sweet, sour, salty and bitter. In my opinion, this makes a lot of sense in the context of the culture of Thailand, particularly Buddhism, which is fundamentally concerned with balance in one’s life. In the future, I plan to further investigate the culture of Thailand in order to more fully understand the role of food in that country.

Although I am hardly qualified to pass judgments on what is “good” in terms of Thai cuisine, as I have had very few experiences with it in my lifetime, I would strongly recommend Thaiphoon to anyone who is interested in Thai or simply enjoys trying new types of food, as the menu provides quite a variety. The subtlety of the cultural architecture and design of the restaurant are just enough to create an atmosphere which allows customers to focus on their experience of the food.

Conquering the Moon

2008-05-13T01:14:00.000-07:00

Fleet Street Conquers the Moon. While that is quite a statement, I truly believe Stanford’s funniest all male a cappella group took it on with a large amount of gusto.
The show, for me, began with the tickets. Fleet Street created the tickets to look like airline tickets in keeping with their theme of flying to the moon. In addition to the intricately fashioned tickets, the ushers who tore tickets for the show were dressed as stewards and stewardesses making the flight simulation even more dramatic. I entered, casually took a seat in the back of the packed Dink Auditorium, grabbed the program that looked like a safety manual taped to the back of the seat in front of me, and prepared for lift off.

Lift off…? Lift off? Lift off…oh yes, the show began a few minutes late, a fashionable ten minutes. I chose to think of it as when you’re waiting patiently on an airplane with your seatbelt on, and you’ve already turned off your phone so you feel trapped and you can’t text your friends back home, and the stewardess comes around and gives you one of her looks, and your plane leaves much after boarding time…Fleet Street’s tardiness was much better than this. I also had my phone on.

They began the show with a video made to look like one of the security videos you see on international flights, only it was much, much funnier. In fact, all of Fleet Street’s videos were incredibly amusing. My favorite moment was in a later clip. In security pamphlets it always says that when the oxygen mask drops down, put yours on first before assisting others. Well, Fleet Street simulated this scenario in their video, having one person put on his masks and watch as the “child” next to him gasped for breath. As I write this, I realize that that doesn’t sound funny at all, but it was. I think it had more to do with the fact that I’ve thought that line to be ridiculous before because naturally a mother would help her child before herself, and Fleet Street definitely captured this “ridiculousness” in their video. The videos and skits kept me laughing.

They kept me laughing, but Fleet Street is supposed to be more than just funny actors and video makers, right? They’re supposed to be singers as well. I heard a number of songs, six of them new selections as the publicity fliers boasted and all of them were good, some of them were funny and some of them I wondered about. This isn’t to say that they were bad, it’s just that when a song didn’t make me laugh, I would be outraged. I would think, “what is this?!” but I wasn’t wanting them to entertain me better. I just wanted them to entertain me differently. This made me think about the big question of our course: what is the artist trading on? It occurred to me that Fleet Street trades on making people laugh, and thus, when I buy a funny ticket, from a funny stewardess, in a funn(il)y decorated room, I expect the rest of my experience to be funny. I don’t know if that is fair to the Fleet Street singers because they are singers. They have a great blend and are definitely in keeping with classic a cappella conventions. They write and arrange their own music. They focus on their pitch. They have solid and interesting harmonies but somewhere their music gets lost in the shuffle of their funny. So when I hear a song that has all of these musical components but the topic isn’t designed to make me laugh, I am thrown off balance, at least for a little while. I realize now that Fleet Street deserves to be critiqued as singers too.

Fleet Street gave a fabulous performance. I clapped, and screamed, and laughed…and laughed some more, but I think one of the better things that I got out of that night was rethinking or questioning what I thought I knew about art or the artists. What are they trading on, but also, what do I expect them to be trading on? In the end Fleet Street conquered the moon as well as my assumptions about what it should mean to be a Fleet Street singer.

San Francisco Exploratorium

2008-05-12T23:30:00.000-07:00

Upon visiting the Exploratorium in San Francisco this past Sunday, I was pleased to find that, as a college student, the exhibits were just as—if not more—interesting than they had been in sixth grade when I had last visited. As a hands-on science museum, the Exploratorium attracted people of all ages, from toddlers to the elderly. With regard to the broad targeted audience, the Exploratorium succeeded in capturing the interest and attention of all.

From the perspective of a college student, I saw that many of the exhibits were relevant to the psychology class I took last quarter: Introduction to Cognition and the Brain. There was an exhibit that used a Skin Conductance Response (SCR) test. I had learned that SCR is used to measure the level of emotional arousal and excitement of a person, but I had never seen it, let alone used it. I was fascinated to watch the graph fluctuate once I placed my fingers in the device and thought about either relaxing or exciting situations. There were also exhibits on change blindness (the fact that we fail to notice both trivial and substantial changes in our environment, depending on where we focus our attention) and metamers (when we perceive colors to be lighter or darker than they really are depending on the background of the image). Through its content, then, the Exploratorium sufficiently attracted those from academia, putting scientific concepts and theories into practice and hands-on demonstration.

From the perspective of a child, the Exploratorium seemed equally as exciting. The concepts behind the exhibits may have been a little challenging (for example, how a SCR works), but the effects of each concept were clear and simple. Kids would see a grey square turn black when placed next to a white square, and gape in awe. They played with giant bubbles and looked in wonder at the colorful presentations of each exhibit. For those a little older, the captions for each exhibit were engaging, concise, and in large font, expressing any complex scientific observations in a simple way. Though the content of exhibits did capture the attention of the children, the artistic presentation of the information sustained their attention.

One exhibit engaged children and teens alike: the Tactile Dome. This was a multi-story, completely dark labyrinth-like room in which pairs would grope their way around through tunnels and down slides, without their eyes. This exhibit allowed teens to revisit their childhood by entering an obstacle course, while simultaneously experiencing how dependent we are on our eyes. The tactile component of the exhibit also appealed to children’s natural instinct to perceive the world with their hands.

Lastly, there was one exhibit that appealed to all, young and old: the photo display characterizing the universality of emotion. This display featured a collection of photos from various cultures distinct from American culture. These faces were genuine and intense, and made the same facial expressions Americans would for each particular emotion, showing that basic emotions are consistent across cultures. Whether taken as an artistic gallery, a scientific documentary, or simply a means of peering straight into the heart of unknown cultures, this exhibit had something to offer to all ages.

As a whole, the Exploratorium succeeded in probing the natural wonder in us all—young or old, science- or humanities-oriented. This is because the museum explored more than just science; it explored what it means to be a human in a complex, unknown world full of questions. The Exploratorium could thus be taken as an metaphorical ode to the universal, human condition: curiosity.

~Dominique Y.

2008-05-12T16:37:00.000-07:00

For this week’s art interaction, I went out to lunch at Madison & Fifth, an indoor-outdoor restaurant on Palo Alto’s University Avenue. I would classify the cuisine as Americanized Italian, offering large selections of pastas, pizzas, and other traditional Italian food items such as raw beef Carpaccio, Veal Parmigiano, mushroom Risotto, etc. Specifically, the restaurant boasts to be a New York City Italian restaurant, meaning that they serve Italian food as they do in restaurants in New York. Hailing from New York City myself, I can vouch for the authenticity of Madison & Fifth’s claim. It is also interesting to note that the restaurant’s name is a reference to two New York City avenues. The ironic implication here is that no such intersection as “Madison and Fifth” actually exists in New York. The two avenues only “intersect” figuratively in Palo Alto, of all places.

In terms of the restaurant space, the interior was filled with trendy modern architecture and furniture. The bar featured a huge countertop made of grey granite. Murals of urban imagery covered the walls. In general, I felt it more fitting as a dinner-spot with low lighting than as a space for lunch in the bright afternoon. However, if the restaurant’s layout aimed to give a city type feel, I think it succeeded especially with the granite and the murals.

As a group we ordered Sautéed Calamari and Insalata Caprese as starters and then Pizza Margherita, Chicken Milanese, Penne alla Vodka, Penne Strascicate, and Linguine con Calamari. The two dishes I will focus in this review will be the Insalata Caprese and Penne alla Vodka, as those are the items specifically I ordered. In choosing what to get off the diverse menu, I decided to take an almost cliché route: the tomato and mozzarella appetizer and the penne main course. I did this in order to evaluate and compare Madison & Fifth’s interpretation of these standard Italian dishes to the same dishes I have had many times, especially at Italian restaurants in New York.

The Caprese Salad diverged greatly from my expectations of the classic tomato and mozzarella starter. Instead of the usual circular stacks of slices of red tomato, mozzarella cheese, and basil, the tomatoes and cheese were assorted in the shape of a fat cross in the center of the dish. A few leaves of basil were placed at the center of the cross. Instead of just having red tomato slices, this salad had wedges of both red and yellow tomatoes. However, the wedges seemed a bit odd and impractical, as it was harder to combine the different ingredients into one balanced bite than with the usual circular stacks. Also, in addition to the normal seasonings of olive oil, salt, and pepper, there were some other significant ingredients and flavors presented in this dish. On the outer parts of the plate, there were four dollops of pesto, two black olives, and two strange unidentifiable pickles/olives. These latter two vegetables (which I had never seen or tasted before) were also an odd choice in the dish as they had an extremely sour, harsh flavor that overpowered the lightness of the tomato and mozzarella. However, overall, I did appreciate the presentation of this dish. I liked having to create and pick and choose from the many different flavors offered to me. In many ways, I felt power in deciding how to eat the dish rather than being told how I should be eating it. The variety and the untraditional ingredients definitely put a nice twist on a dish I am quite familiar with.

I had the opposite experience with the Penne main course. Instead of an unsorted mix of very distinct flavors, the Penne was presented neatly in a single conglomeration in the center of a big white bowl. There was not nearly as much as a “feast for the eyes,” as there was with the very colorful Insalata Caprese. However, in terms of taste and flavoring the Penne was brilliant. The vodka sauce was pleasantly subtle and light. With my experience with many Penne alla Vodka dishes in the past, the sauce turns out to be overbearingly either cheesy or alcoholic; however, this one was perfectly balanced. The pasta itself was cooked well and had a very fine texture. The bits of bacon added also a nice subtle flavor that wasn’t overwhelming.

In comparison to the salad, I felt like there was little choice in how to eat the pasta dish. Whereas I felt the Insalata Caprese was trading on having distinct, sparse tastes with each bite being completely different than the one before, the Penne was trading on being a satisfactory whole with equal and exact flavors in each bite. I didn’t prefer either type of dish to the other, and what I most appreciated was that Madison & Fifth had the foresight to offer both. All in all, I was very impressed with this restaurant’s cuisine and can say it does indeed resemble some of New York’s better Italian restaurants in both feel and food.

Hewlett/Packard

2008-05-06T09:55:00.000-07:00

Today I visited a pair of buildings called the William R. Hewlett Teaching Center and the David Packard Electrical Engineering Building. The two buildings are situated on either side of a red-brick patio, but rather than directly facing each other, they face out (at about 45 degrees) toward an observer approaching the center of the patio, nameplates clearly visible. The relationship between the two buildings extends beyond their proximity and their shared patio, however: while the Hewlett building protrudes over the patio in a semicircular fashion, the Packard building is recessed, as though a portion similar in size and shape to the protrusion of the Hewlett building (though straight-lined) had been carved out of its interior. As a result, one can imagine a sort of fit between the buildings (think Pangaea)--and it seems reasonable to assume that this characteristic was implemented intentionally to represent the meshing of the minds of Hewlett and Packard in the realm of their company and technological explorations. Further emphasis is placed on the recess of the Packard building by the semicircular raising of the patio just in front of it (which corresponds to the Hewlett building), and by the glass that composes the majority of the building’s front wall--as though a close-up observer were already inside the building, as he would be, were the recess not carved out.

Aside from the glass, the exterior of the Packard building, like the exterior of the Hewlett building, is made of a silvery, metallic material reminiscent of computer hardware--which relates obviously to the careers of computer engineers Hewlett and Packard. While the Hewlett building appears perfectly semicircular from afar, upon closer viewing one discovers that the building’s curve is actually comprised of several flat sections (which are more reminiscent of hardware than curves are). One could argue that the transition from a close-up flatness to a distant curve corresponds to the transition from the mechanics of engineering to the beauty of what engineering accomplishes--and while this interpretation may seem stretched, the building’s design was certainly deliberate, and at the very least sought an interchangeability between the straight and the curved, the ordered and the elegant.

The Engineering Quad

2008-05-06T09:27:00.000-07:00

The Stanford University Engineering Quadrangle on campus, west of the Main Quad, is quite an impressive space, both structurally and artistically. Examining only the David Packard Electrical Engineering Building and the William Hewlett Teaching Center, I saw two distinctly designed buildings, but a similarity in their themes and motifs. While solely looking at the exterior, their outside gave hints of the goings-on inside, and while oddly not symmetric nor balanced, many datum ran through both buildings that pulled them together and gave them equal rhythm.

When standing in the “front” of the William Hewlett Teaching Center (if one is standing in the center of the quad near the fountain), I noticed the odd shape of the building first and foremost. While the outer walls of a building are usually straight and slanted inwards, the exterior to this building was actually straight and then slanting outwards to form a kind of overhang. I feel like the oddness of this exterior is exactly what the building is trading on—one simply doesn’t see buildings where the base is smaller than the top and the walls come out towards you. Having this quality that is quite apparent at first glance catches your attention and makes you look twice at this building. Also, the circular shape of this part of the building offsets the harsh outward angles and gives it a softer feel. Ironically, while it almost seems like the outer walls push you away from it, it actually draws you in as it is so novel. Adding to the peculiarity of the building, the structure completely changes as you start walking to the right or left. You see that the circular front does not continue in the back, and the building becomes angular with straight edges.

The David Packard Electrical Engineering building’s design is quite different from the Hewlett building. It is all angular, consisting of many rectangular and triangular shapes to comprise a multi-surfaced façade and geometrical structure. The building looks like it was built in pieces and put together like a puzzle that does not fit. These buildings are anything but symmetric and there are multiple vertical and horizontal axes (the surface is not flat in either direction—the walls or the rooftop). The odd angular shapes and multi-surfaced walls make these buildings distinct. The buildings are made to look inventive and interesting—exactly the theme of what is inside the buildings. This is the engineering quad, and what better way to display this with these uniquely structured buildings.

I see the different materials of the buildings themselves as a datum for each building. There are three materials that are common in both and that are mixed throughout each structure—a sandstone-looking tan material, a gray, reflective metal, and glass. The circular, outward-slanting front of the Hewlett building consists of the gray metal. It seems to be composed of only this material until walking around back and seeing elements of the tan in certain blocks. The glass is then included in the large doors and the windows that protrude from the circular façade. The different materials were the first thing I noticed about the Packard building. I looked at the building in three parts, simply divided by its materials. The middle of the building (where the entrance is located) is composed of the metal. The cut-out rectangular structure of this is then continued to the right, but is then composed of the tan material. Then, jutting out on the left is a triangular-shaped glass component of the building which is distinctive as one can look in and see a large portion of the interior of the building, including the stairs and some rooms. While there are sections of different materials in each building, each portion is composed of even, same-sized squares. This provides a datum as each structure itself is so different and varied, but the recurring square theme holds the same for each part.

While the buildings are separated by a large patio space, they are on the same horizontal axis—neither one is raised higher than the other. In this way, the buildings do complement each other. While the same materials tie the buildings together, their structural shapes offset each other in a way that is pleasing. The circular exterior of the Hewlett building, while smooth, is still coming outward and almost “pushing you away” while the Packard building forms an inward angle and gives an inviting feel. These two buildings almost seem that if there were no patio between them, they would fit together and could become one whole building. Even the glass portion of the Packard building alludes to this as viewing some of the interior makes it seem as though this once-whole building was “cut” in half.

Suicides, Shmuicides

2008-05-06T08:53:00.001-07:00

I thought I was going to like it. It was very original and ambitious, trying to elucidate, more or less, the reasons one commits suicide, but I think that may have been the problem. Also, it might just be that the author is wrong.

To begin, Suicides, by Guy de Maupassant, tells the story of M. X----, a 57 year old man who takes his own life in a “mysterious” set of circumstances. He then goes on to explain that the “mystery” takes place when there is no impetus or final straw; we assume financial troubles or broken marriages are to blame, when sometimes it is merely “the slow succession of the little vexations of life.” And he’s right, we do assume that he killed himself because his wife left him for another man, or because her business went bankrupt, but mostly because they happened immediately to these persons’ deaths.

Beyond that, however, I do not disagree with him. Surely there must be some people whose suicides are merely the result of an ongoing list of grievances, which finally becomes too much to bear, however I think M. X---- fails to show the true weight of these individuals’ plight. Plagued by monotony and “bad digestion,” M. X---- dies, like many men according to Maupassant, while “we search in vain to discover some great sorrow in their lives.”

To be fair, I cannot say with any certainty what the author hoped to accomplish. Perhaps he’s turning his own suicidal sentiments into a piece of art in order to deal with them, or maybe he’s trying to discourage suicide by making it seem silly or stupid. Whatever his goal, what I find the piece does is trivialize the suffering and depression that drives people to suicide.

Yes, there are, most likely, some individuals who have no reason more than a great boredom with repetition and a fear of travel to end their lives, and do so. But most, I would say, deal with terminal illness or intractable pain, depression and mental illness, and seriously traumatic, life-altering events, and this piece—which I think is not even particularly well-written given its lack of flow and awkward transitioning between background narration and M. X----‘s note—does not even acknowledge these others with anything other than a comment to the effect that we assume these factors and are wrong.

Ultimately, I may be wrong to critique a work on its truth, but I think when the innate untruths could potentially have an effect on the reader, especially the dramatic effects it could have on someone who would be enticed to read a story entitled Suicides, I have justifiable cause.

(To read the story yourself, go to http://www.classicreader.com/read.php/bookid.1134/sec.1/.)

Charity Fashion Show

2008-05-06T03:22:00.000-07:00

Charity was the name of the game in this Saturday’s annual fashion show event at Stanford to support “Doctors Without Borders.” The purpose of the show, which was appropriately titled “Fashion Without Borders” was to raise money for this charity by displaying several student designs on student models. Personally, I thought this was a great idea since I feel that fashion design is a medium of expression that is seldom visible on campus, although I didn’t particularly see the theme manifested in any of the collections.

Following the enthusiastic introduction by two announcers, the lights dimmed and a steady bass beat could be heard. After all the male models wheeled in the female models on hand trolleys and wheelbarrows like mannequins, everyone burst into a choreographed hip-hop number to Kanye West’s “Stronger.” The dance looked fairly polished; all the models wore some combination of black, white and silver, unifying them yet still enabling them to maintain their individuality. Perfectly complimented by the black runway and black backdrops designed to not detract from any of the fashions, the models continued dancing to Britney Spears’ “Gimme More.”

After the enthusiastic and energy-charged opening dance scene, the presentation of collections began. All of the designs were impressive, but I was most struck by the works of designers Karen Lum and Lorick.
Karen Lum’s collection of designs were casual yet completely chic and classy. Her pieces focused on creating shapes that work with the body and the clothing. For example, she included many dresses with bulging hems and cinched waistlines to demonstrate a dramatic contrast between the top and bottom of the dress. Additionally, the use of patterns in Lum’s clothing was very appropriate in the context of the collection. Adhering to the simplistically classic look, the designer opted to mix bold, bright colors in block rather than mixing patterns. In fact, Lum only used patterned fabric for a couple dresses, and even then, the pattern was broken up by a neutral yet bold belt at the waist. I really enjoyed seeing Karen Lum’s designs in the show because they put a modern twist on a classic look.

The other collection that was of particular interest to me was that of designer Lorick. This designer seemed to favor yellows, blacks and blues in her pieces, which I found to be a novel color scheme. I tend to think of bumble bees when I see black and yellow paired together, but this designer did an excellent job of avoiding such an association of colors with her strategic, non-alternating combination of the two colors. Creating a waist was definitely the central focus of this collection; the shapes were a little less form fitting than the clothing in Karen Lum’s designs, but nevertheless, the waist was always accentuated, creating a look that was flattering without being overly curve-hugging. Lorick’s clothing was somewhat less practical than Lum’s; I could definitely see Lorick’s high waisted trousers with gold decorative buttons and strapless jumpsuits in an issue of Vogue or on a runway during Fashion Week, but not so much on a normal person. Still, Lorick’s designs were gorgeous and definitely quite fashionable.

Each of these collections seemed to have their own specific theme and did not really conform or contribute to the general theme of the show, which was “Fashion Without Borders.” Karen Lum, who had the more functional designs, in my opinion, focused on shapes and Lorick’s concentration was on creating a definitive waistline. In retrospect, the show did include some other student groups which had different cultural focuses. Arabesque, the Middle Eastern dance group, performed intermittently and two representatives from Students Promoting Ethnic and Cultural Kinship (SPEACK) spoke about their purpose. Personally, I believe that the title of the show was selected because it was a somewhat clever alteration of the charity’s name and didn’t really have the intention of creating a theme to which the collections should adhere. In site of that, the show was very entertaining and apparently successful in raising money for “Doctors Without Borders,” judging by the high attendance rate.

Student designers and models alike joined forces to raise money for a worthy cause through their love of fashion. Although I was slightly confused by the theme of the show, the featured designers were obviously incredibly talented and the models put a lot of work into the show. Fashion is often overlooked as a serious medium of expression, so I was delighted to see a showcase of student designs while supporting a great cause. I would say the event was quite successful since all the proceeds benefitted the charity and, as we all know Tyra Banks would say, the show was “fierce.”

Charity Fashion Show

2008-05-06T02:59:00.000-07:00

The Charity Fashion Show at Stanford was orchestrated as a fundraising effort for Doctors Without Borders. It presented fashion items by a host of designers including some student designers, and the models were selected from the Stanford community in an audition process.
Though I was only able to attend a portion of the show due to its late start, the presentation and the designs present were impressive. The show opened with a dance by the models in designer apparel that were different interpretations of black, grey and white. The color palette of the entire stage was the same, but each outfit had its own angle on the color. One model wore a white t-shirt with a black jumpsuit style pant, in high black heels—while another model wore a pinstriped black and silver suit. Other models wore different versions of the little black dress that despite their similar color and theme stood out from each other.
As the models entered the portion of the show that showcased specific designers, I was able to take a closer look at the remakes of the little black dress. One really surprised me since at first look, I was underwhelmed. Created by Karen Lum, it seemed to be a stereotypical little black dress, very plain. However, as the model walked down the runway, I had an opportunity to see the backline. It was slanted at the back, with a unique crisscrossing of straps that branched across the back in a angular, geometrical pattern. Unfortunately the model’s hair was down and that element was not clearly visible—though it was the portion of the dress that distinguished it from other black dresses.
Lum also had another play on the black dress that involved additions of different belts around the waist. It brought attention towards the center of the body and towards the width of the waist. The belts were fairly ornate. While I appreciated them, I felt it did not violate my expectations of the little black dress enough to get very excited.
However, her final number was spectacular. It looked as though she had taken a simple white cloth and spattered paint all over it. Alone, it would not have been that impressive. However, she gave shape and form to the dress and made it a piece of wearable artwork. Not only was it wearable, it was flattering to the model, wrapping around in the most appealing way possible. It felt like an expression of artistic freedom—to paint a piece of cloth in a way that appeared flippant and whimsical, and then to mold it into a beautiful dress. It was a freeing piece of work for me.

I was able to stay to see a collection by Lorick, which also worked by taking conventional notions of what dresses are supposed to look like and playing with it. There were a pair of outfits that on first sight looked like dresses, but as the model walked down the runway, it was easy to tell that what looked like a dress was in fact a set of pants belted at the waist that was wrapped in such a way to look like a dress. One of my other favorite outfits she created was a blue dress that had unusual seaming. Normally, one would expect dresses to be pleated uniformly on all sides if they are to be pleated at all. However, this one was not pleated in the front, it was only pleated and gathered into the back, which gave it a unique feeling—of something not quite right but beautiful that caught my attention and kept me staring. One of her final numbers was a play on the layering that many people do with their clothes—it was an orange dress that was a little too wide to stand on its own, with a little black tanktop built into the middle. It was not layered so that the dress covered the edges of the tanktop—instead, there was blank spaces of skin between the two parts of the dress. At first, I didn’t enjoy how it looked, since it felt unfinished. However, after a while it grew on me because the angles between the tank top and the dress were so unusual. In addition, it brought attention to parts of the models skin that would usually be overlooked.
In my neuroscience classes I have learned that the most effective way to bring joy or excitement is to set up expectations and then proceed to violate them. Though I knew this already, I was pleased to find that it applies to fashion as well.

SUICIDES -- GUY DE MAUPASSANT

2008-05-06T02:58:00.000-07:00

When reading a short story, listening to music, watching a play, movie or a dance, one experiences art through a time continuum. However, when viewing a painting, or another form of visual art, one’s entire experience of said work is condensed into a matter of seconds. Though each is produced by the artist over a particular span of time, the presentation of each type of art differs markedly: One is revealed to the audience instantaneously, in a holistic fashion, and while its meaning may not be evident at first, one knows it must be already in view, while the other slowly unwinds to uncover the intended meaning of the artist. I am of the opinion that the finest writers are those who have the ability to capture a moment and freeze it in time the way a painter, photographer or sculptor does. Yes, I admit the impossibility of the human mind to read a page of words instantaneously, but, just as an analogy, I present to you my hypothesis; Guy de Maupassant’s piece, “Suicides” is successful in moving its readers because, it, like a painting or a sculpture zeroes in on a realistic and emotionally charged moment in the protagonist’s life, condensing and harnessing this loaded subject with concise and direct prose. Therefore, although the medium through which the reader experiences this work of art cannot instantaneously transmit the entire story, Guy de Maupassant does achieves what seems impossible working in the genre of the short story; when reading “Suicides”, the reader is left with a single and powerful feeling of loss, despair, fear, and hopelessness, such that it feels as though all emotions are being delivered in a cohesive package, to be experienced all at once.

Particularly fascinating is the way in which Maupassant eases his reader into the subject’s innermost thoughts. What begins as a letter to an acquaintance soon becomes a segment of a newspaper article (depicting suicides as anonymous, nameless, and largely mysterious— a quite general, superficial overview of suicides), which then turns into a more specific tale of a man who couldn’t stand the daily grind of life, feeling perhaps as though all of his senses had betrayed him, or were attacking him, making life unpleasant. We discover everything we know about this suicidal person through his suicide note, which, in turn includes notes within itself. In this sense, I felt as though Guy de Maupassant was peeling back layers of a metaphorical onion throughout his story, in order to unveil the most intimate thoughts of his protagonist. He leaves the readers with a snapshot image of a man lying in a pool of blood in his abandoned apartment, revolver in hand, note on the table, drawer opened, photographs and other memorabilia strewn across the table, blinds cracked: The ultimate scene—A condensed snapshot of a nameless life.

I would like to note that, while it seems somewhat presumptuous to classify an artist’s work as autobiographical, I do not think it is a stretch to say that Maupassant’s ability to speak from the perspective of a suicidal man is aided by his own personal struggle with suicide. In his twenties, Maupassant contracted syphilis, which caused a degenerative mental disorder, and ultimately drove him insane. Later, he tried to kill himself by slitting his own throat, but failed, only to die the following year. Though I never find it fair when people try to align the artist’s life with the artwork itself, forcing the two together, I feel I hear what could only be Maupassant’s own rage and frustration speaking through these lines: “Only Taking these old pledges of former love in both my hands, I covered them with furious caresses, and in my soul, torn by these memories, I saw them each again at the hour of surrender; and I suffered a torture more cruel than all the tortures invented in all the fables about hell.”

While reading this story, I immediately came to realize that I was reading a single translation of the piece. Translations are generally very difficult to analyze; when reading a translation, it may be unclear to the reader if the translator has interpreted some other meaning than what the original artist intended. Thus, whether or not the intention of the artist has been left intact through the translation process remains in question. Take, for example, the issue of onomatopoeias, or alliteration; how would a French to English translator keep these important artistic elements in the newly translated piece? Additionally, what becomes even more problematic is that there are words found in French that have no straightforward translation in English, as well as linguistic elements that have more than one possible translation, and therefore must be left up to the translator to interpret. So, as I read, I asked myself, is it really Guy de Maupassant’s work I am reading, or is this the fine work of a translator who has delicately made several artistic choices to convey the meaning of the original piece as accurately as possible? Has the meaning of Maupassant’s work been obscured in the process? As a supplement to the story written in English, I read the original text in French. While I am not by any means a native speaker of French, I have taken French classes for about ten years of my life, and feel very comfortable reading French texts.

There is something poetic about the French text that seems to be lost in the translated English edition. Not only is the fluidity of the original text lost in translation, but also, some hidden meaning (metaphorical in nature) may be lost as well. One portion of this text, which detailed the importance of good digestion to one’s wellbeing, seemed a touch forced, or even out of place. I have a theory as to why this discontinuity occurred, and it has to do with the difference in grammatical structure between the French version and the English version. What is important here is that the word digestion is feminine in French; whether or not Maupassant intended his reader to think of digestion as a feminine character is debatable, but in English, the femininity of the word completely fails to come through: "For good digestion is everything in life. It gives the inspiration to the artist, amorous desires to young people, clear ideas to thinkers, the joy of life to everybody, and it also allows one to eat heartily (which is one of the greatest pleasures)… Perhaps I would not kill myself, if my digestion had been good this evening.” Whereas in the French version, the first two sentences of that same passage made it seem to me that he was comparing the attainment of good digestion to the attainment of a lover, and thus, without this lover, he can no longer go on, he can only be pessimistic: “Car une bonne digestion est tout dans la vie. C'est elle qui donne l'inspiration à l'artiste, les désirs amoureux aux jeunes gens, des idées claires aux penseurs, la joie de vivre à tout le monde, et elle permet de manger beaucoup (ce qui est encore le plus grand bonheur)... Je ne me tuerais peut-être pas si j'avais bien digéré ce soir.”—consider that, while reading this text in French, one can read the statement, “C’est elle qui donne l’inspiration à artiste…” and think of “elle” not as “digestion”, but as a woman—a strange thought, and whether or not this was the intention of Maupassant is unclear, but something rather interesting to ponder.

Flicks: Juno Review

2008-05-05T23:25:00.000-07:00

After months in the theaters, Juno finally hit the big screen of Cubberly Auditorium a few weeks ago, where older newbies came to see what all the hype was about and young fans returned to see the comedy for their second and third times. Juno is a comedy about a sassy sixteen-year-old girl by the name of Juno, played by Ellen Page, who must deal with her unexpected pregnancy. In this review, I would like to praise the movie for its character design, dialogue, and element of variation. Also, because the movie is primarily made for the theaters, the movie-watching experience differs from the visual experience at home, where people control the DVD player. With any movie in the theaters, there is this transient comprehension on part of the audience that forces moviemakers to create a coherent and engaging motion picture to compensate for the fact that viewers don’t have the ability to stop and analyze each scene in detail.

The familiar faces in this movie prepare us for a great comedy. The audience expects certain material from certain faces on screen. When the audience saw “Dwight” from NBC show The Office staring down from the cash register at Juno, people knew what type of outlandish, hilarious things to expect from his mouth. And the audience guessed right, for he was the heckling cashier who ridicules Juno for her positive pregnancy tests. Also, Juno’s baby’s father is played by Michael Cera, yes, the awkward, nerdy protagonist from comedy, Superbad. And yes, he still is the awkward kid in Juno. Physically funny, Cera is that skinny nerd that no one sees as sexually attractive or active. Essentially, people can relate to this character in their high school experiences, thus making Cera’s character as the unanticipated teenage father that much more entertaining. The movie makes great use of these characters by keeping them off screen. In the movie, “Dwight” or Rainn Wilson provides great laughs only in the movie’s opening scenes. Furthermore, the writers portray Cera as this innocent school kid, detached from Juno’s whole baby situation, which suggests Juno’s independence. Cera shares a few scenes with Page, yet his absence throughout the movie makes his presence in the movie’s romantic end more meaningful when Juno and Paulie Bleeker (Cera’s character) reconcile after Juno’s delivery. The casting choice reinforced the comical essence of the film.

Furthermore, the movie’s dialogue stirs the ongoing laughter in the audience. The lines in the movie are memorable because they are well written and cleverly inserted in the conversations between characters. Juno brings the laughs to most of the dialogues with her witty punchlines and funny celebrity references. For instance, while talking to the adoptive parents, Juno claims that the Chinese shoot babies out of t-shirt guns, like the ones that mascots use at basketball games. Furthermore, the timing of jokes is implacable, for they keep the dialogue between characters engaging and the plot progressive. In fact, the real comedy lies in the exchange of insults between characters. Juno gets into an argument with her stepmother, and Juno has the last word with an intelligent insult that helps the audience leave the scene with comfort. The jokes seem to leave serious moments resolved in a comfortable way. The comical material does not necessarily take away from the sobriety of teenage pregnancy. This lighthearted depiction of such a situation makes the movie more appealing because people understand that things rarely play out this way.

Contrast and variation are constituents of a good film. Variation is apparent because the writers weave jokes in serious moments. If the movie were oversaturated with jokes and had no moments of solemnity, Juno would be predictable and boring. Moreover, the overanxious adoptive mother, played by Jennifer Garner, contrasts with the laid-back teenage spirit of Juno. Garner’s character seriously wants to be mother, so she pursues the matter, even at the expense of her marriage. Furthermore, contrast is apparent when one recognizes the difference in socioeconomic status. Juno comes from a middle class family while Garner’s character lives in the costly houses on the other side of town. The difference between the two socioeconomic groups is made evidence by the lighting. For instance, the scenes are so much brighter when Juno is at the house of the adoptive parents, whereas when she’s at home, the lighting is very dim. During scenes in the house of the adoptive parents, the bright light suggests elegance and hope. The lighting also acts as foreshadow, for the audience grows suspicious when Juno is alone with the adoptive father dancing in a dim room. In this scene, the audience learns that the adoptive father wants to divorce his wife and leave the baby. Also, the bright lighting is symbolic in the delivery room, where the audience sees Juno give birth. The movie ends on a nice summer day with Juno and Bleeker, playing guitar on the porch in the sunlight.

Wanna Be on Top?

2008-05-05T23:03:00.000-07:00

On Saturday May 3, Stanford put on its annual Charity Fashion Show. This year’s show was to benefit Médecin Sans Frontière, or Doctors Without Borders. SPEACK (Students Promoting Ethnic and Cultural Kinship) hosted the Charity Fashion Show. With these things in mind, I knew that I was in store for much more than an upbeat display of haute couture.
The show started over thirty minutes late. Obviously the irony of being fashionably late comes to mind, but I must admit, for me, thirty minutes is way past the line of being “cute.” The room was packed! I could hardly find a seat, and when I did I realized that I could barely see over the heads of those in front of me. Thank goodness models are much taller than I am! In classic, contemporary fashion shows, there is a strict set-up to which one must adhere. The runway comes straight down the middle with chairs facing each of the three exposed sides. The coordinators of the show matched the high-fashion runway set up to a T, equipped with lights, cameras, and with the added bonus of screens to show various visual mediums.
The show started with a video of each of the work that went behind the show coupled with individual shots of each model, striking a pose of course. The whole time I had an incredibly tempting urge to sing, “Wanna be on top?” the theme song to America’s Next Top Model. The CFS did not try to hide that it was emulating this concept, and I think it did this on purpose. I immediately felt the surge of adrenaline and excitement that I feel when watching the popular reality show, and I believe the coordinators were counting on the audiences’ familiarity with ANTM in order to gain credibility from the beginning. It also allowed the hosts to make a cheesy joke about The Charity Fashion Show being a competition, and cheesy jokes are always nice, right?
The first part of the show was actually my favorite part of the show. The male models wheeled out the female models on clothes racks, carried them, and rolled them along as though they were store mannequins. The women were incredible at looking fake, and it definitely added a level of showmanship and originality that I found refreshing. After this, all the models began to dance. I think the coordinators were trading on the idea that the dance would shake things up and make the set the show apart from what we conceive as a fashion show. I think it did that. The dancing was enthusiastic, and sultry, and all good fashion adjectives; I’m just not sure that it was necessary.
I think that what naturally set the show apart was its message, namely that of charity and that of ethnic and cultural kinship. The spokespeople of SPEACK came out to talk about other events that they had done and why they feel it is important to sponsor the show, and a sophomore came up to speak about her art project in the lobby. The project highlighted recreated photos of various acts of intolerance performed on campus and asks us to think about whether we actually are a diverse, integrated community. The CFS used it wide audience and large draw in order to engage us in an important thought process about our community, while simultaneously supporting a great organization. Although the clothes, the dancing, the strutting, were all fabulous and delicately done, I think the most important thing was what they emphasized the most, the charity.

Hewlett and Packard Buildings

2008-05-05T22:20:00.000-07:00

In the spirit of our survey on architecture, this week I am reviewing two of the most interesting buildings on the Stanford campus--the William R. Hewlett Teaching Center and the David Packard Electrical Engineering Building. Funded by a $77.4 million donation by Stanford alumni and entrepreneurial giants Hewlett and Packard in 1994, these two buildings are our campus' center for studying science and engineering.

What is most striking upon first viewing these buildings is the difference in the materials that comprise them compared to the rest of the Spanish-style red tile roofing and yellow stone that dominate the neighboring Main Quadrangle. Instead, the Hewlett and Packard buildings are mostly made out of glass, metal, and a gray brick. This reflects a difference in the functions of these buildings compared to most of the Quad's buildings. Whereas most humanities and "soft" types of classes are taught in the Quad, the engineering, math, and "hard" science types of classes are taught in the Hewlett and Packard buildings. The glass and metal, particularly compared to the softer stones of the Main Quad, reflect this distinction.

These buildings actively interact with their surrounding Nature in a way that symbolizes the process of humans' conducting science. Unlike the buildings in the Quad, which seem to exist separately from the surroundings, the Hewlett and Packard Buildings engage in conversation with their environment. This can be seen in the choice of building materials. For example, the metal on both buildings' facades is very noticeably reflective of sunlight, while the glass completely is penetrated by it. Juxtaposed next to each other, these two materials imply a back and forth interaction with Nature. Also, the presence of very large trees blocking the facade of the Helwett building suggest that neither man (symbolized by building) nor Nature (symbolyized by the trees) has priority over the other--they simply coexist. In addition, when viewing the inside of these buildings, you can see the metal as being a mirror reflecting what's inside the building, and the glass as giving you access to what's outside. This evokes the concept that science is occupied both with our inner selves and how we exist in the outer Nature.

This abstract theme of Science is one that is very present in the architectural design of the area and is perhaps the most significant motif that is worth noting here. In addition to the materials, the shapes of the buildings reflect this very same ideal. Whereas the Quad's buildings are very traditional in their non-fragmented, contiguous, and rectilinear bases and roofs, the Hewlett and Packard buildings are more reminiscent of the postmodern tradition of Deconstructivism. The Packard building features a huge triangular prism made up of windows of glass that protrudes from the rest of the rectangular building. The Hewlett building, on the other hand, features a stadium-like circular shield of metal on the facade that resembles a futuristic space ship. This, however, is only found in the front of the building and quickly disintegrates into more traditional rectilinear bases. I also noted an interesting transformation between the building's stories: only the southwest corner differs in geometrical structure between the first and second floors (see the picture above of the floor plan). In general, these hard lines, shapes, and in-your-face geometrical figures (as contrasted with the softness of the Quad's architecture) again reflect a type of mathematical and scientific form that fits perfectly with function.

In short, I was struck by how the architects consciously manifested the idea that these are uniquely science buildings in their structure, style, and material choice.

Charity Fashion Show

2008-05-05T19:42:00.001-07:00

On Saturday, May 3, I attended Stanford’s Charity Fashion Show, which raised money for non-profit organizations devoted to diversity. The $5 fee seemed minute compared to the large task the coordinators set out to accomplish, but when I entered the runway room, I was surprised to find an overcrowded audience, patiently waiting for the show to begin. I found a seat and joined the eager faces in anticipation of my first fashion show. Thirty minutes later, the show finally began; fashionably late, perhaps?

The fashion show began with overtones of America’s Next Top Model, playing on the modeling stereotypes among many teenagers. A video clip featured a behind-the-scenes look at the effort the models put into the show and concluded with brief cuts to each model striking a pose as the audience cheered the on-screen models. I assume this stereotypical introduction was designed to arouse excitement and energy among the crowd. The show could’ve started off with a video clip about the purpose of the fashion show, tracing diversity issues in the community at large. However, the decision to screen the models indicated that the show was to be one of high spirits and enthusiasm, rather than one of gravity. Thus, the goal of the talent show was set from the very beginning: to inspire, impress, and entertain the audience, while reminding them of—though not strictly focusing on—the cause for the show: diversity issues. With this regard, the Charity Fashion Show generally succeeded, though at times the pacing of the show was uneven.

The next part of the show also succeeded in catching the attention and energy of the audience. Models were wheeled onto the stage, frozen into place like dolls. They were then positioned in creative poses, once again imitating America’s Next Top Model. The models then broke into a synchronized dance, and though it was made clear that the models were not all dancers, the spirit of the performance proved successful, conjuring excitement among the crowd. The rest of the show then alternated between runway displays of various designers and speakers from diversity clubs on campus.

The speakers in between the fashion runs were clear and articulate, but not concise. Though each speech only ran for several minutes, the breaks in between the runs were disruptive and too dull when contrasted with the energy in the runs. Some speakers read off their note cards; others spoke in a bit of a monotone. The intention of the speeches was justified; this was not a formal fashion show, but a charity fashion show, after all. However, I feel that the pace of the show and the flow could have been maintained by clumping the speakers together into a section right before and after intermission, or by screening brief video clips that conveyed the same message to the audience with fewer words, in a more compelling way. Though the speeches were not ideally placed and practiced, they conveyed the message that this was a charity fashion show successfully.

On the other hand, the model runs were extremely engaging and left the audience enthused. They were fast-paced—leaving the audience only about thirty seconds’ worth of admiration for each outfit—and rather professional. I was thoroughly impressed by the Stanford student-models’ ability to master the “model runway walk,” maintaining a composed facial expression and hip-swinging, graceful walk. The models kept their eyes on the camera and flaunted the artwork they wore: a veil and gloves, a paint-splattered dress, a jumpsuit. There was hair-flipping and pivot-turning galore. Each model and the style of each designer was uniquely glamorous—which appeared to be the theme—and successfully impressed the audience. By the time I left, I was left with a stronger sense of fashion, respect for the models, and overall awe.

~Dominique Y.

Why'd He Do It?

2008-05-05T15:25:00.000-07:00

Why do seemingly happy people take their own lives? What kind of hidden trouble in a person's life drives them to such an extreme end? Guy de Maupassant addresses these questions in his short story Suicides. Suicides, written during the 19th century, paints the picture of a man's life through his suicide letter. The short story attempts to portray the culmination of troubles a person can secretly carry, revealing the "mystery" of a suicide without cause.

The suicide letter in the story combines plain language with moment of vivid imagery to convey to the reader the emotional state of the author. The author first validates to future readers that this list of reasons for his suicide is for himself and not for whoever eventually reads it. He writes that he needs to validate the "fatal necessity" of his decision to kill himself. He goes on to list all of his numerous reasons for suicide. While some reasons are abstract and emotional (feelings of loneliness, life's monotony,) some of the reasons seem ridiculous. At one point the author blames poor digestion for his decision to kill himself and even goes as far to say that if his digestion had been good that day that he might not have made the same decision. Although this reason seems ridiculous to readers, I think Maupassant was genius in his decision to add minuscule troubles to the list of life troubles. By doing so Maupassant creates a real character in his story. Rather then using only flowery, ideological language, Maupassant uses concrete, everyday problems to humanize his character. I began to look at suicide as an unavoidable outcome rather than a radical act.

As the man continues to write, his letter takes the shape of a coherent list of events that are all leading up to his suicide. None of them are extremely sorrowful. He doesn't mention lost love, financial woes, or any other event that would be considered by society as "cause" for suicide. His final description involves going through old letters and remembering all the people he has ever known. He then stumbles upon the final letter he will read which is a letter he wrote to his mother when he was 7. He flashes back at childhood and then back to the present. All of his angst is magnified and he ends his letter with "My revolver is here, on the table. I am loading it . . . . Never reread your old letters!"

Maupassant creates a suicide note that ends with such a random piece of advice and this really confused me. But I think Maupassant is trying to convey the frivolity of finding reason or cause for suicide. The man thinks that reading an old letter pushed him to suicide, but I don't think this is what Maupassant wanted readers to believe. I think that he wanted to undo the belief that people kill themselves because they have one great sorrow, and show how individuals can be pushed to suicide by their own logic. This short story left me feeling a bit empty. I felt like the story was cut short. I wanted to know more about this man, what other people thought of him, and whether his letter was reality or just his version of it. But I guess when someone takes their life, these questions often go unanswered.

"Juno" Review

2008-04-22T20:40:00.000-07:00

All the hype about the indie movie Juno, not to mention its Oscar nomination for Best Picture, was the reason Cubberley Auditorium was completely packed, both floors, on Sunday night at Flix. Perhaps some attendees were going to see this cultish movie a second time, but I assume many went because they didn’t know about it when it was in theaters and have been influenced by all the appraisals and recognitions. I am part of the latter. Watching the Oscars a while back, I was curious what this movie about teen pregnancy, oddly mixed in with thrillers like No Country for Old Men and others, was all about.

The second it started, the indie music started playing, so characteristic of these kinds of films, and I knew what movie it was going to be immediately—like Garden State, where the soundtrack makes the movie in my opinion. It gave the movie a sweet and lighthearted feel, while also separating those who don’t listen to indie, giving it a cult-like quality. The soundtrack included songs from bands like “Belle and Sebastian” and “The Moldy Peaches,” the latter characterized by simple, homemade sounds with unmusically-trained teenagers who sing innocent lyrics void of any music albeit a loose acoustic guitar. I feel like this gave Juno its flavor and accentuated the bizarre teenage story and almost innocent situation.

Along with the soundtrack came the cinematography—close-ups, quick cuts, and odd angles all gave this movie a quirky feel, and again, an indie quality. I also saw the cinematography as a representation of Juno and her situation. Juno continually is shown from different angles; sometimes looking upward, as a mature and responsible individual; other times downwards as an innocent and naïve child. This type of description perfectly characterizes “June bug,” an intelligent high school junior, but one who has “gotten herself” in a difficult situation. Juno’s character continually struggles between her mature mind and her teenage emotions. The cinematography in Juno delineates these characteristics in the girl herself.

One thing that bothered me about the movie was while the actress Ellen Page was extremely lauded for her portrayal of Juno, I feel like her character (and maybe this is due to the script and not her acting), was somewhat unrealistic. Her remarks seemed awfully witty and snappy for a sixteen year-old, and her cynical, blasé view on the whole situation seemed unlike that of a teenage girl. However, maybe this is one of the points the movie is trying to make. It makes the teenage girl seem intelligent and oddly mature despite many movies these days, like Mean Girls, that portray teenage girls as overly emotional, ditsy, or dumb. Even still, I enjoyed Paulie Bleeker’s character, played by Michael Cera, more as I saw it as more realistic and comical. His ultimate innocence and child-like focus upon running and tic-tacs depict the true level at which Juno is at emotionally, and create a believable (and conveniently non factor) accomplice in the creation of her child.

Overall, what I think this movie is trading on is the uniqueness and quirkiness, something that was produced by the soundtrack, cinematography, and script, but was also brought forth with the plot. It showed a quirky girl, a quirky guy, and their quirky relationship, as Juno says in the end, “We’re unlike other couples—we reproduce and then fall in love”—quite a quirky couple indeed. Overall, while I was annoyed with some characteristics of Juno that I thought were unrealistic, I thoroughly enjoyed the movie and thought it was successful in its unique appeal and goodhearted feel.

Thoroughly Modern Millie and the American Dream

2008-04-22T09:31:00.000-07:00

When I went to see a production of Thoroughly Modern Millie last week on the Stanford campus, the first thing I noticed was the Egyptian gold arch that frames the stage. For me, the Egyptian arch embodies the main themes of the show: our culture’s obsession with the “American dream” and the collision of the old with the new.

The main character, Millie Dillmount, is a small town girl from Kansas who moves to New York in search of adventure. When we first meet Millie, she is lost on a New York street; somebody has stolen her purse, she does not know where to go, she lost her shoe, and nobody will to stop and help her. Until she sticks her foot out and trips Jimmy, that is. Jimmy is a New Yorker and harshly informs Millie that she will never make it in New York City. He proceeds to give her the address of a hotel where she can stay for the night and insists that she wire home for a railroad ticket. From this point on, the audience empathizes with Millie and wants her to succeed in the “land of opportunity.”

We discover that Millie wants to find a job in which she can marry her boss to become rich. She declares that the modern woman is above love and that she plans to take charge of her destiny. Ironically, Ms. Dorothy, an innocent young woman from LA, who wants the exact opposite, becomes her best friend. During their first interaction at the hotel, they both declare that they want to change their social class and discover how “the other half lives.” This fascination with class and money and its connection to the realization of the American dream is a reoccurring theme throughout the play.

For weeks Millie is unsuccessful in her search for a job and the hotel manager, Mrs. Meers, threatens to kick her out. We feel sorry for Millie and when the phone rings with a potential job offer, we hold our breath. But she is not hired. Later, she walks into an insurance office and receives an interview with the boss, Mr. Trevor Glaydon. Mr. Glaydon shoves a piece of paper into her hands and tells her to transcribe his words. He bursts into song and as an audience we become scared because we do not think that Millie will be able to keep up with him. The suspense rises as Millie appears to be distracted by Mr. Glaydon’s appearance. However, she transcribes his speech perfectly and we are relived for her. Then the tension rises again; Mr. Glaydon asks Millie to type up his letter in less than two minutes. Millie appears scared and we fear that she won’t be able to do it. The secretaries of the insurance office burst into a quick song and dance, intensifying the tension, but Millie, to our delight, succeeds, and finally receives a job.

At the beginning of the show, Millie is confident that marrying rich will ensure her lifelong happiness. She is told by many people to follow her heart, but she shrugs off their advice, believing that money is more important. There is an obvious connection between Millie and Jimmy, the man she tripped at the beginning of the show, and as an audience we want them to be together. In the end, Millie realizes that love is more important than money and admits her love to Jimmy. We then realize, along with Millie, that Jimmy is a rich man and has been in disguise all along. The moral of the story seems to be that when you follow your heart with enthusiasm you will achieve happiness and the American dream. But I think that the show also contains a darker message.

Mrs. Meers, the evil hotel manger, kidnaps the hotel guests and sells them into prostitution in Asia. She represents the corruption that comes along with the American dream and our obsession with money and power. As an audience we know that Mrs. Meers is guilty and recognize the careless clues she leaves, but the hotel guests remain painfully clueless of her actions (until the very end of the show) as they are too consumed in the glitz and glam of NYC. I think that it is a warning to the American public to question where they are living, specifically their government and its actions. The show opened in 1967, a year filled with anti-Vietnam war protests and mistrust of the government. What I see as the main message of Thoroughly Modern Millie is that anyone can achieve the American dream, but that we must be aware that its foundations are not always as flawless as they appear.

Design Unbound

2008-04-22T09:21:00.000-07:00

Design unbound: when I heard the title of this exhibition, I can’t say I had a very clear picture of what I was about to experience. I entered expecting machinery, but what I saw were unique, compelling pieces of artwork.
In general, the exhibit was very calming and provided for as personal of an experience as one was willing to have. The space itself was very open and it didn’t seem like the artwork was too crowded. All of the pieces on display were fantastic for a multitude of reasons, but I want to focus on three that I found particularly interesting.
The first piece that sparked my interest was a photographic collage entitled “Outcrop.” The artist (Carissa Carter) chose to arrange the four oblong canvases into a square with an open middle. I’m not entirely sure why this was the case, but I liked the arrangement because it emphasized the continuity of the various frames. For me, the most perplexing feature of this work was the subject: shoes. The photographs are of large shoes, small shoes, designer shoes, generic shoes, red, black, orange, blue, clean, dirty shoes. Each canvas focused on a particular attribute of the various shoes; one was a close-up of the laces, another showed the various sizes of the shoes, a third depicted the soles and the last focused on the dirt and wear on the shoes. I thought this piece was very representational of humanity in a distinct manner. Instead of blatantly depicting various members of different societies, the artist chose to show their shoes, which tell stories of where they’ve been. Each section represents a particular aspect of a person. The soles of the shoes show where he’s been, the size depicts his physical attributes, the shoelaces represent his internal composition and the dirt displays what he’s done. What I most appreciated about this piece was that it could be as simple or complex as I wanted it to. At face value, it’s an aesthetically pleasing arrangement of photographs but on a deeper level, I found a meaningful metaphor.
Next, I particularly enjoyed a sculpture entitled “Musical Landscape” by Emilie Fetscher. I first noticed the artist; she has several other pieces of work in the exhibition, all of which were completely different. This one in particular caught my attention because it looked like a three-dimensional representation of several electrocardiograms placed in front of each other. As it turns out, the sculpture represented the different frequencies of a musical composition. I was immediately impressed, for something that complicated and specific had to require an intense time commitment and extreme dedication. The connection between the sculpture and the image of an electric monitoring of the heart made me feel like the piece was suggesting that music is life, a philosophy with which I strongly agree. The colors the artist chose to use for the sculpture reflected this idea, as they were all blissful shades of blue and green. Additionally, I think the sculpture also represented how closely related music and the humanities in general are related to science and mathematics. Without the title, this piece of artwork could easily be interpreted some sort of statistical three-dimensional graph. Interestingly, it is just that: a graph of the frequencies that correspond to a song. Due to the strong implied messages derived from its form, I found myself happily mesmerized by this sculpture.
The final piece featured in Design Unbound I want to discuss was one that utterly confounded me. The title of the work was “Visceral Light Tunnel” and the artist is Ed Browka. Literally, this creation was a box in which one can place his head and experience colors, one at a time. The idea is so simple, yet so effective. Laying in the tunnel, I was able to forget about my stressful day in order to just be. “Lay back and let the color engulf you,” says the tag line under the title, appropriately. Since my head was inside this box, the only thing I could see was the one particular color, so I had to allow it to engulf me. As the color changed from a bright cyan to a tranquil lime green then to an inviting magenta, I felt progressively more relaxed just focusing on one color at a time. None of the colors were abrasive or over-saturated, which allows the person experiencing them to remain calm. This was undoubtedly my favorite feature of the exhibition; I never could have imagined what a powerful effect simple colors could have on my state of mind.
As a whole, Design Unbound was an excellent experience which incorporated an array of art forms. For me, the pieces I discussed were most interesting, but all of the art was genuinely impressive. I am certain that anyone could easily appreciate these creations and from them, derive their own interpretations.

All of Me Review

2008-04-22T09:18:00.001-07:00

The “All of Me” event on April 14 was an up-close and personal look into the life of Queer Trans-Entity, Black Boricua performance artist and poet Ignacio Rivera. Sure, the prefix trans may evoke thoughts of sex change and cross-dressing,but as Rivera explains, trans can also imply nonconformity to traditional gender roles. Who wants to be incarcerated by social constructs, whether it is how to be lady-like or the clothes are on your back. I know personally that being a person of color is hard at times, but being a transsexual person of color, I suppose, is as tough as it gets. In addition to a genuine personality, Rivera’s work as aperformance artist and poet brings this uncommon minority perspective, which she cleverly weaves into her work.

Likesome sort of living, breathing artwork in progress, Rivera expressed herself in every way possible, from hir attire to hir pronouns. Before me, stood a stranger in a lumberjack shirt with a red undershirt peeking out at the neck and some jeans draped over a pair of Converse sneakers. Nice suit, I thought, but the faded red undershirt t-shirt said it all: “Don’t hide your pride.” This was a deliberate rhetorical move and personal statement by the artist that set up the event’s underlying theme.Before going into her performance, Rivera opened with a little bio that included the resounding rebel declaration, “Fuck the gender binary.” The audience responded with empathetic head nods, for we realized the statement’s truth as well as the artist’s authenticity. In general, people respond well to a genuine personality and so are more inclined to listen. Consequently,Rivera’s informal attire and speech instilled a sense of comfort in the room, making the performance intimate and engaging.

Every word and corresponding gesture had a purpose in her expression of self. In sober poems and comical skits, Rivera not only snubs social constructs such as gender assignment, but ze also celebrates hir trans-sexuality and Latino heritage. Not confined togender roles or any space at that, Rivera showed no fear, as ze became poetryin motion, leaving the podium to come within feet of her audience. With each poem, the audience learned how Rivera came to terms with hir unique individuality. Titles of poems included “Rediscovering Me” and “Brown Realities,” in which Rivera discussed hir construction of self in the face of a critically destructive society. The poems and skits had much substance due to the fact that they were based on experience. Rivera explained how ze was molested as a child and how ze was a sex worker. Furthermore, the use of he and she pronouns throughout her poetry illustrated Rivera’s identity crisis. Ze recently began using the gender-neutral pronoun and possessive adjective ze and hir, respectively because of their ambiguity. People do not know what to expect when they hear or see these words. Questions such as “What does that mean?” or “So, does she look like a man or woman?” pop up, thus compelling people to come and see for themselves. Also, the Latino influence emerged as Spanish danced off Rivera’s tongue in a mouthful of English. The Spanglish patois provided phonetic contrast, which broke the monotony of English sounds.

Sometimes,the recitation was stop-and-go or fluid, thus this delivery gave each poem rhythm. Rivera changed pitches to convey the changing emotion of the described moment in the poem as well as the sentimental value of the piece. She even made profanity poetic in her pornographic verses about masturbation. A raw personality, Rivera accentuated the profanity in her poems, so phrases such as“ethical slut,” fucking faggot,” and “masturbation” resounded to provoke lewd images. The verses were laced with sincerity, which once again, opened our ears and minds.

EnCounter Culture

2008-04-22T09:17:00.000-07:00

On Sunday the 20th of May, I went to EnCounterCulture in Kresge Auditorium. It was a series of dance performances by groups at Stanford as well as the Boys and Girls Club of the Peninsula. I choose to focus on the Boys and Girls Club of the Peninsula, the Stanford Steppers, and Jam Pac’d, since these were the groups that I felt conveyed their message and style most effectively, and I had to miss DV8’s performance due to a scheduling conflict.

The Boys and Girls Club was a group of four middleschoolers who danced to Soulja Boy as well as several other hiphop songs. For their age, their technical ability was impressive. The main highlights about hiphop that I have picked up are the importance of synchrony, and of sudden, rhythmic and complicated movements that match well with the beat of the song. These girls were well synchronized and matched the beat of the music with movements that were also fluid—which was an unusual combination. In addition, they made the stories written into the songs come alive. One of the songs they danced to was about a girl who was the center of attention, and three of the girls fell back to reveal the girl of attention, who then proceeded to effectively grab our attention with dance movements that matched her character. The quality I enjoyed most about this dance performance was how natural and yet how technical it was. The dance did not feel performative, it felt like hip hop that I might see within a community having fun—and yet it did not look amateur-ish.

Jam Pac’d was an incredible performance as well. The dancers in Jam Pac’d wore face paint that resembled masquerade masks or skeleton masks. Their eyes played a huge role in the development of the piece. Facial expressions were often fixed, and they had a fixed, fierce stare most of the time. Their movements matched the beat in a jerky fashion, imitating the patterns of a robot and a mime. They were very convincing, often to the point where I would forget that there were people on stage. They also played on humor, catching the audience at odd moments and acting out portions of the song in a comical way.

The best act of the night that I saw was the Stanford Steppers. The Stanford Steppers create music through their bodies—by clapping, slapping, stomping, and beating bottles together. The rhythms that they can create are outstanding. It made me want to leap up and dance. The amazing part for me was that they were creating this music without the assistance of any instruments.
The main plot of the performance was that one of my freshmen, Annie Scalmanini, was an Oompa Loompa recruit. The other Oompa Loompas were testing her, for her worthiness to join the troupe. They would shout calls and then announce the step routine that was about to start with a beginning sequence of steps. Then the entire group would proceed, winding it until it became more and more elaborate, rhythmically. They used elaborate arm movements and leg movements to perform the sound effects, some that seemed impossible to complete in time, which would leave the audience holding their breath and then sighing in awe when it was completed. In essence, while creating their own music, they also danced to their own music, in a way that was exciting and gripping. They played on technicality, creating intricate rhythms that the audience would never expect the human body to create, and also on humor, by breaking up the performative sequences with funny scripts and dance-offs between groups inside the Steppers. Their performance was outstanding for all of those reasons.

Thoroughly Modern Millie

2008-04-22T08:21:00.000-07:00

When I walked into the Ram’s Head production, “Thoroughly Modern Millie” on Friday night, I had no idea what was in store for me, other than that I was about to see a musical about a girl named Millie, which was supposedly set in the 1920’s in NYC. Thus, I had expected to see stage full of flappers in colorful fringe, dancing in a line to lots of big band music. What I found was something similar to that—the plot cheesy, a cliché tale of romance in the big city, and was almost superfluous, like fluff that settled between the aesthetic aspects of the performance. It clearly wasn’t the intention of the play write to create a thick and complicated plot, as there was already a lot that needed to come together in the first place to make the play comprehensible to the average audience member. People who attend musicals come for a variety of reasons, but commonly, the audience is comprised of those who appreciate music—those want to experience something more than just words and actions. A musical is an emotional experience, or, dare I say journey. The intention of this piece, as I understood it, was to take the audience into this girl’s world. In this sense it was a success. Throughout this journey, the music served as the emotional bookends, and the spoken word as the fluff in between.

The dancing, singing, staging, lighting, costuming, and orchestration were all so technically well executed individually that each could have been taken by itself as an aesthetically pleasing morsel. Though what was most impressive was the way each element meshed together with its counterparts. Every so often, I became conscious of the musicians in the pit. Having played in a musical before, I understand that the musicians in the pit are supposed to play so smoothly that they are practically inconspicuous, even going unnoticed by some members of the audience. In general, everything blended so well I barely noticed those individuals in the pit. In fact, as I said before, the general continuity of the musical was quite remarkable. Choices that the original playwright made contributed to the play’s clean structure and continuous captivation of the audience was the strategic use of the theme reprise.

As I stated before, there were so many elements that needed to work in concert to ensure the continuity of the play—the playwright wrote in several stylistic elements to tie the work together. Things like the main reprise, and the rotation through different scene sets, not spending too much time in one place, helped to keep the audience engaged and to ensure that the overall message of the two hour play was understood. Meanwhile, there were several artistic choices made by the producers, directors, sound crew, lighting crew, the cast, the musicians, and others on set that seemed to contribute to the overall coherence, ambiance and circular feeling—sort of ebb and flow—of the production. Often, I was so intrigued by all of the different things occurring before me, that I was almost overwhelmed (in fact at some points, almost TOO overwhelmed to follow the plot line). I likened my confusion to the feeling I used to get while watching the advertisements during the Super Bowl. What I mean is that, while most of these ads are really entertaining, and quite well put-together, some of their messages seem to get buried beneath all that excitement and cleverness, so that just about half the ads I see I can remember their general structure, but not the actual product. But, as I mentioned, if the intention of the piece was to get the audience emotionally engaged, it succeeded in that.

Each and every character seemed to buy into his or her role; the on-stage reactions between characters seemed genuine, as if they had been fabricated in real time, not dreamed up by the artist in the distant past.

Diablo Cody?

2008-04-22T08:07:00.000-07:00

When you read a book, it's easy to understand that it is the author whose responsible for what you see; the author (with some exceptions) created the concept, wrote the book, and advanced his or her own message. In a movie on the other hand, this task becomes decidedly more difficult. With directors, producers, actors, screenplay writers, composers, designers, and editors all working on the same project and contributing their own elements of content and creativity, it it almost impossible to say ultimately which individual's movie it is. That said, after having seen the adorably comedic and uproariously heartfelt Juno this past weekend, I have few doubts that the final product we see is largely due to the clever and touching dialogue of Hollywood-newbie, Diablo Cody.

Before I had seen the film, I will admit I was a little wary. Though nominated as one of the best pictures of the year at the Oscars, I couldn't shake the apprehension I felt at the J.K. Rowling-esque, I-wrote-the-script-on-napkins-while-I-was-working-as-a-stripper, screenplay. And then it happened; Diablo Cody won an Academy Award. So, months later, it finally gets to FLiCKS and I decide to bite the bullet, probably the best decision of the quarter.

The story, at its core, is about the trials and tribulations of teen pregnancy for the title character and the lessons she learns along the way. The great thing about this movie, though, is the daring and fearless topics it addresses. Most obviously, Juno, a sixteen year old girl, gets pregnant, but there are so many more: single parenthood, divorce and remarriage, adultery, minor-adult relationships, et al. However, even beyond its thematic novelty, the messages it sends are also very different from what we see elsewhere. Along the lines of Knocked Up, this seemingly depressing beginning is later revealed to be an incredible gift for Vanessa, the perfect mother who is unable to have children. Along the same lines, what at first we expect to be the wicked step-mother after all the Cinderella paradigms we've encountered, turns out to be a charming and caring, if caustic, supporter who never crosses the line of replacing Juno's mother but who doesn't hesitate to do everything she can to help her; the somewhat rural father you fear is going to throw Juno out of the house instead does his best to protect her; the cheerleader is Juno's best friend; Juno and Beeker, the father of her baby, live happily ever after. Too cutesy, right? Wrong. It is only now, as I right, that it even occurred to me how nicely this all worked out because of the eloquence and candor of the script and the excellence of its delivery.

The almost too witty screenplay, filled with hilariously clever allusions to pop culture, literature, and history, is really allowed to shine because of its wonderful performance. Led by Ellen Page, whose deadpan delivery kept the audience laughing over and over, the cast could not be more perfectly in tune with their roles. From Michael Cera as the honest, speaks-his-mind, adolescent boy to Jennifer Garner as the workaholic mom-to-be to Rainn Wilson in the cameo as the overly nosy shopkeeper, every perfect line is expertly delivered, in a testament to the cast's skill as well as the simultaneous reality of the emotions of the characters and the surrealism that must be incorporated to bring a movie from life to the silver screen.

At the end of the day, maybe Diablo Cody just had a great scheme for being rich, but I don't think so. Her story is so honest and touching, it's simply brimming with the truth of the interesting life this woman must of led and the good she allows herself to see in others. The tender way she handles such brash themes leaves the audience in the pal of her hand, left with no choice but to love her characters and therefore accept her themes: single parenting is possible, and maybe even preferable sometimes; true love happens, even at sixteen; divorce can sometimes lead to a better life; pregnancy is not the end of the world etc., and for that reason, this movie is most definitely the best movie I saw from 2007.

enCounter Culture

2008-04-22T03:15:00.000-07:00

This week I attended enCounter Culture, called a “showcase of hip-hop dance” by the program’s host, and on the whole I was disappointed. But since I believe the scope of this entry is too small to incorporate a discussion of every performance--there were eight--I will focus my response on two groups that struck me as (somewhat) representative of the show in general.

Armageddon Crew was a duo comprised of two male breakdancers, one that was clearly accomplished and another that appeared a little less skilled--but still skilled. Talent wasn’t lacking in their performance, but the two dancers did fall short of the goals articulated in their pre-show description: “Beware! There is no limit to Armageddon Crew’s dance style. Movement is just a means...Armageddon is the end.” Did the dancers go beyond their means--movement--and accomplish something further--an end? (Before their performance I would have assumed that “Armageddon” meant some sort of meaningful climax that would draw the dance together or make a statement or establish a purpose (beyond movement) or at least make the crowd go silent for a moment.) The duo, however, redefined even the term Armageddon, though not in the way that I suspect they wished to. Their Armageddon was simply another dance move--the superior breakdancer spun on his side rather than on his head--added to a list of tricks that indubitably reflected skill and practice, but were nothing more than tricks that reflected skill and practice. The moves seemed to be lined up one after another with no transition other than a walk back across the stage; with no progression other than a monotonous, random change of which limb became the axis-of-spin. This performance’s lack of coherence earned its participants plenty of hearty clapping, but very little awe, and definitely no Armageddon.

dv8, the final group of performers, revealed another combination of solid talent but little achievement. While their musical selections were fantastic, this accomplishment detracted from their performance as much as it contributed: Dan and I found ourselves distracted by the music from the dancing itself. Moreover, the dancers did not use the music to accomplish a higher goal--a splendid visualization of the music, or an intense correspondence from sound to movement. Rather, they danced merely to the tempo of the music, with sometimes impressive bends, twists and changes of position, but didn’t move beyond the music’s tempo to its more sophisticated qualities. One could say that they danced to the music, but not with it.

These two performances lacked an intangible quality that I can best call “concept.” While the components were there, I was left wondering how such talent could be put to better use, or infused with more creativity. On the other hand--these concerns are nothing a few new and intriguing members can’t fix.

enCounter Culture

2008-04-21T22:33:00.000-07:00

On Sunday night I had the distinct pleasure of going to see a collection of Stanford dancers in dv8’s enCounter Culture. The groups were dancing under the umbrella of urban/hip hop style but individually they ranged from break-dancers, to straight hip hop, to step.
This was the first dance show I have been able to attend at Stanford, so the experience was very exciting for me. The show began with the Troposomatic Break-dance Crew. The program explained them as “a high-energy dance group that performs with unmatched style, creativity, and flare.” I must say the energy was incredibly low and the style was easily matched by the other break-dance crew. Unlike many of the other groups that would perform, Troposomatic did not include a theatrical element in their performance, but rather focused on the dancing. Unfortunately, sometimes they seemed a bit too focused on the dancing, in that they seemed to be counting very strictly, their bodies were not in sync with one anothers, and they seemed to lack an awareness of the amount of space that they had, both with each other and with the stage. Many times during a flip or a twist, I was absolutely positive that one of them would fall of the stage. Although individually the dancers each brought in a unique energy, together they seemed to have a hard time understanding each other’s energy.
The pace and energy began picking up after the first act. CSAG (Consortium of Small Asian Girls) was very good, and yes, I did look up the word “consortium” when I returned home because I wasn’t sure that it fit; it does. The group was very together they used the entire stage without making me want to call an ambulance, and they had great outfits.
The show continued with some very nice performances. A middle school guest group came in and showed up some of the seasoned college dancers. Alliance Streetdance used an interesting theme of mannequins and robotic motions, coupled with a medley of current hip-hop hits. I wasn’t always sure that the music matched the theme, like when Flo-Rida’s Low came on I was fairly certain that they were using it more for the audience connection to the popular song rather than to maintain the integrity of their motions. Perhaps it is also that I was just tired of the song, seeing as how every group before this had used it in their medleys of current hip-hop hits. I thought Jam Pac’d was the most well performed of all urban/hip-hop groups. They had beautiful face paint and theatrical presence. It was clear that the dance was telling a love story of two of the dancers. They were aware of each other of their space and their piece was, to me, as eloquent as an Ezra Pound poem. The audience favorite was hands down Armageddon Crew. This group of break-dancers only had two dancers. They worked very well together and told a martial arts infused story, that was incredibly compelling, however cheesy. The two understood each others’ bodies and were just plain talented. It was ridiculously cool to see someone spin on his head or hop around on his head.
I think the dance groups that came out really showed how much hard work they’ve put in all year and just created a show that was very alluring and engaging for an audience to watch. I’m not quite convinced that I “enCountered culture” but it was definitely a very good experience!

enCounter Culture

2008-04-21T21:06:00.000-07:00

On Sunday night, a collection of Stanford’s finest urban dance groups assembled to display their talents in a show entitled enCounter Culture. Although all of the dance troops were described as being “urban dancers” each group showcased it’s own specialty of urban dance. From steppers to break dancers, the dance groups aimed to wow audience with complicated choreography and impressive rhythmic movement of the human body.

Although the show definitely gained energy as it moved forward, I was skeptical as I watched the first act. The opening group, composed of three male break-dancers, was unsynchronized in dancing style, movement, and attitude. Throughout the routine, the dancers had a hard time executing their movements together, which caused an unsettling view for the audience. While each dancer was obviously talented, their own personal dancing styles were so different that the performance often resembled three solo acts rather than a group number. Additionally, their different attitudes on stage created a disjointed piece for the audience. While one dancer danced with goofy facials and comedic timing, the other two danced more seriously. I appreciated their enthusiasm and personal talent, but as a group they left much to be desired.

The low energy after the first performance was quickly boosted by the next group of dancers. As CSAG (Consortium of Small Asian Girls) took the stage, it was apparent by the raging applause they received that they already had a dedicated fan base. CSAG, as their name implies, is a group of petite Asian girls who specialize in modern Hip Hop dance. The instant the music started, the girls impressed with their highly synchronized routine. Each girl was able to isolate her movements while maintaining the uninhibited motion that hip hop dance requires. It was clear they had extensively rehearsed their piece. CSAG kept the energy high by continually changing formations and occasionally showcasing each girl individually for a few 8 counts. A medley of recent radio hip-hop songs seemed to excite the audience, keeping them engaged with the dancers. Their gimmick of being small and Asian was cute, but their talent was definitely their most noticeable attribute.

The subsequent acts were all very impressive and respectable. Alliance, a co-ed group of hip hop dancers entertained with a dance piece that revolved around a mannequin/robot theme. The Stanford Steppers continued with an odd yet entertaining theme of oompa loompas. However, by the end of the night it was clear that one duo had stolen the show. A pair of break-dancers who called themselves Armageddon, combined break-dancing with martial arts to create a spectacular performance. As their piece began, the two dancers walked down the aisles of the auditorium, mimicking a boxer’s entrance into an arena. As soon as they hit the stage my jaw was on the floor. Each dancer ‘s technique was completely amazing and their presence together onstage was electrifying. At one point in the number, one of the dancers popped up and down on one hand (yes, I said just ONE hand) for a good 15 seconds. The addition of the martial arts elements gave the duo a fresh twist on traditional break-dancing. As they hit their final pose the crowd went nuts, and I even allowed my reserved self to let out a little “woo!” of amusement.

Overall I think the show did a great job of entertaining an audience who was hungry for some good urban dance. The entire show was cohesive but each group brought their own flare to the stage. Although there was some disparity in the level at which each group performed, I don’t think that it detracted from my overall appreciation of the show. I think enCounter Culture did an amazing job of sharing urban dance with the Stanford community, and succeeded in sparking a larger interest in dancing. I know I left the auditorium thinking, “I need to start dancing more!” Whether me dancing more is a good thing or bad thing is yet to be determined.

FLICKS Review: Juno

2008-04-21T17:36:00.000-07:00

On Sunday night, April 20, I attended the Stanford FLICKS screening of “Juno.” Unaware of what genre or quality movie I was about to see (I only knew it involved a pregnancy), I was pleasantly surprised to find a comedy—and with well-thought out, witty humor, not the brainless kind many other recent movies have featured. Every several minutes the audience roared with laughter, evidence to the success of this comic teenage tale.

--warning: plot spoiler—

Juno is the name of the main character, a sixteen year-old girl in high school who finds out she is pregnant from the onset of the movie. After consulting with her friend, Juno agrees to get an abortion, but later backs out of her decision when she gets irritated by the environment in Women Now (the abortion clinic) while sitting in the waiting room (though she really backs out due to guilt). Juno decides instead to give her baby up for adoption to a couple, Vanessa and Mark, that appears perfect (though nobody is fooled). Throughout the arrangement, Juno gets to know Mark and finds out they share a love for music and horror movies. Meanwhile, Juno’s relationship with Paulie, her best friend and the father of her baby, complicates. When Mark suddenly tells Juno he plans to divorce Vanessa, Juno’s idealistic vision of love and Vanessa’s hope of being a mother come crashing down. However, since Hollywood needs its happy ending, Juno agrees to still give her baby to Vanessa, and in the end Juno falls in love with Paulie.

The plot structure is somewhat traditional, but it still had some unexpected turns and twists. Though it was evident from the beginning that Mark and Vanessa had no chemistry, their divorce was unforeseen. It was also surprising to find that the divorce didn’t interfere with the adoption, and, in a sense, I didn’t expect Juno and Paulie to get together in the end.

There’s a fair amount of foreshadowing along the way, though it ended up being misleading. From Juno and Mark’s first connection when they “jam” on the guitar together in Mark’s room, it becomes evident that they have the potential to ignite some kind of romance, even with their age difference. This foreshadowing is confirmed when Juno and Mark start spending a lot of time together when Vanessa is not home, especially when they start to slow dance to Mark’s high school prom song. Up to the moment before Mark confessed his plans for his divorce, I was convinced Juno and Mark were going to kiss and either end up together or cut off their romance before it ruins both their lives (a similar situation to that in “Spanglish”). When this did not happen and no romantic aspect to the relationship was acknowledged, I was thoroughly disappointed. Even more, Mark’s situation was never resolved in the story; after Mark and Vanessa divorced Mark’s character was dropped, leaving the audience unsatisfied.

Though there were some aspects of the plot I found engaging in themselves, “Juno” would have been a poor movie if not for its comic value. This is where the success lay. There were countless hilarious one-liners scattered throughout the movie, as well as some intrinsic humor and irony in the storyline. For example, a cheerleader talking to an elder teacher she fancied remarked something like “You like Woody Allen? I do too!” Juno exclaimed that in China they “give away babies like free ipods.” And when Juno told Paulie she loved him because he’s the coolest person she’s ever met and he doesn’t even have to try, Paulie responded, “I try really hard, actually.” Overall, “Juno” could be rated two thumbs up for humor, and half a thumb up for plot. But since it’s trading mostly on its humor, Juno is definitely a great catch. And the song at the end will stay in your head for at least a week, rendering the movie (or at least the song) unforgettable.

-Dominique Y

enCounter Culture

2008-04-20T21:26:00.000-07:00

For this art review, I went to go see "enCounter Culture 2008" a showcase of student hip hop dance groups presented by Stanford's premiere group dv8 at Kresge Hall on Sunday night. In total there were 8 different groups all with distinct styles and all labeled under the umbrella title "hip hop dance." For me, this was a pretty different experience than my normal interactions with art, as I am not only ignorant about hip hop but about dance in general. Therefore, you might say that my criticism suffers from difficulties contingent to a more knowledgeable vocabulary in these styles of art. That said, I did enjoy some performances and appreciated what I thought they were trying to do. On the other hand, there were many times were I felt lost at what I was supposed to be watching.

For example, there were a few groups who tried to incorporate some theatrical elements to the dance performance, namely the Stanford Steppers (aka The Bomb Squad), Armageddon Crew, and Dv8. The Steppers attempted to depict a storyline about Oompa Loompas (as reflected in their costume, song choice, and intermittent dialogue) and specifically about a new recruit who is trying to prove herself to the Oompa Loompa group. To me, I wasn't sure why they even needed to do this or why they would choose this specific theme. I understand that offering some theatrical elements like dialogue and acting keeps the performances interesting, but this theme was very underdeveloped and seemed quite unnecessary. However, it is important to note that the Steppers' actual performance was pretty remarkable and entertaining. They are a very talented group who "stepped" (stomping, clapping, and slapping parts of the body to create percussive beats) very much in sync. I was also impressed with how they created rhythms with their steps that undoubtedly reflected some of the melody lines they were singing earlier in the dance (like the Oompa Loompa theme from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory).

As for the other groups, I had a similar experience with dv8's performance, in which at a few seemingly random parts of their performance they decided on choreographing scenes depicting physical abuse. Perhaps, there were other more subtle ways they tried to reflect this motif in their movements, but for me it was hard to pick up on. The Armageddon Crew, however, were pretty successful in their theatrical choices, in my opinion. As a duo of break dancers, they dressed up their performance as a type of martial arts duel/boxing match in which the two performers competed with their moves. Though this is a bit cliche of a theme, it worked well as a complement to the art form of break dancing.

One of my favorite performances was Jam Pac'd, which featured the best and most intricate costumes (faces painted white, and variations of black and white clothing among the dancers), an original soundtrack (less mainstream hip hop with more musicality and interesting rhythms). They didn't seem to imply any distinct themes with their performance/choreography but the sheer beauty of their appearance and sounds made me forget that I was watching humans dance, and instead appreciated the surface aesthetics of the performance.

Design Unbound

2008-04-15T08:57:00.000-07:00

This afternoon, I visited the Design Unbound exhibition at Stanford University to take a thirty-minute reading break. To my surprise, I ended up spending an hour and a half in the one room exhibit! The room is filled with eclectic design pieces created by graduate students in the arts and design programs. Many of the pieces are students’ personal statements and therefore reflect their broad interests. The exhibit displays everything from a water catching umbrella, to salt and peppershakers on wheels, to videos, and furniture. What separates this design exhibit from many others I have seen is that it is not just about seeing objects but rather about interacting with them.

When you first walk into the room there is a “color box” on your left and this creation is one of my favorite pieces in the exhibit. It is a plastic box with a cubical hole through the side of it. The viewer is supposed to lie down on the ground and stick their head and shoulders inside of this box. Color radiates through the plastic and you are surrounded by an ever-changing progression of color. You become enveloped by color and realize the power that certain colors such as red and sky blue can have over your emotions. Even if you close your eyes the color penetrates your eyelids and you remain engulfed. It is a meditative experience and I recommend that people try it to see how it affects them.

Another one of my favorite pieces is a short movie entitled “Presidential Candidates.” A slideshow displays the most used words in the top 5 hit billboard hits of each presidential period from 1953 until 2003. For example, President Bush’s reign was characterized by words such as love, wanna, and crazy, and Beyonce’s “Crazy” played in the background. The movie appealed to me because it stimulated me on multiple levels, the first of which was visually. The word love remained constant throughout the piece (as it remained one of the most common words in popular songs) but many of the others changed. Each time the words would fade away and give way to those of a new time period, there would be overlapping words and it was like a game to figure out which ones reappeared. It stimulated me intellectually as I connected the words with the president and attempted to recall the history of each time period. Finally, it appealed to me because of the music. Each slide and corresponding song lasted for only a matter of seconds and I raced to try and recognize the songs. After watching the clip once, I stayed and watched it again because I wasn’t able to experience all of its layers the first time I saw it.

The “Morphology Chandelier” by Simon Weiss caught my eye, as it is not only innovative but also professional. It is a modern chandelier composed of acrylic petals rather than crystals. When a button is pressed, the petals move upwards and allow light to diffuse throughout the room. I was impressed by the quality of the piece; it looked as though I could have bought it straight off the shelf at a design store.

However, not all of the pieces had this level of sophistication. For example, I was intrigued by the function of “Versatile Sofa Table” but not by its form. “Versatile Sofa Table” is a foam pad covered with wooden tiles on one side and felt circles on the other. When it is rolled up with the wooden tiles facing upward, it becomes a table. However, when the pad is lying flat on the wooden tiles, it becomes a bed. It is “for people with big hearts that live in small spaces.” The bed cover is decorated with yellow, orange, and red felt circles that are sewn together like lily pads floating in water. The edges of each felt circle awkwardly stick up a few inches off of the bed. The bed does not appear inviting to lie down on because of this felt cover and also because of its irregular rectangular shape. Therefore, in my opinion, this sofa table succeeds as a table but fails as a bed because it is not visually appealing or inviting.

I was frustrated that a few of the pieces in the exhibit were not functioning. For example the “Visceral Lights Tubes” had burned out and the “Musical Landscape” and “Parallelogram Harp Playing- Bar Code Bench” could not be used. However, overall, the exhibition was fantastic. Each of the pieces had its own purpose, but they all shared one thing in common: that they combine function and form. There is one piece that I believe embodies the spirit of the rest of the exhibit and that is David Ngo’s personal statement “Extra Ordinary.” In this video, David is in a black room with a seemingly empty suitcase. Inside of it, he discovers a metal tool that looks like a wand. He whirls it in the air and searches the room until he finds a metal piece that the wand hooks into. As he rotates the wand, balloons fly out of the suitcase and magical music accompanies them. At the end of the video, he descends into the suitcase and waves goodbye to his audience. The statement of his work is that ordinary things, such as suitcases, can be extraordinary. I felt that this message extended to the entire Design Unbound exhibit as I saw ordinary things— color, words, a chandelier, and a sofa bed—in new and extraordinary ways.

"Thoroughly Modern Millie" Review

2008-04-15T08:38:00.001-07:00

Catchy choruses, flashy costumes, and a fantastic set were all things going for “Thoroughly Modern Millie,” the musical I saw in Stanford’s Memorial Auditorium on Saturday, April 12. In addition, the orchestra was wonderful and played the score with precision and enthusiasm. However, there were many aspects of this Ram’s Head production that made me stop and find this performance less than perfect.

The opening act, in which the main character Millie Dillmount sings her first song, was sung with a blasé attitude, as if the character herself did not believe what she was saying. The girl’s voice was amazing, and she hit each note perfectly; however, her motions on the stage were minimal and constrained. I also saw this characteristic in the ensemble as they were doing their main dance pieces; for example, when they join Millie in this first scene, or perhaps the typewriter scene in which they all tap dance. But indeed, I’d like to stop here and mention that these performers have probably never tap danced in their lives and I’m guessing just learned so for this production, but the least they could do is put an excited and engaging look on their face. Now, for a performance that is supposed to have a kind of silly, predictable and noncomplex plotline, which this musical was definitely made to have, it is understandable for the lack of storyline to be so. However, the focus of the musical should then have been to entertain and trade on the catchy songs and flashy dances. So while the songs were very catchy and sung well, the dances seemed to be boring and without character. There was one girl who stood out to me (she was wearing a curly blonde wig and had a teal green dress in the first scene) who seemed to be playing her part wonderfully, getting into the part and really exaggerating her movements on stage, as such a performer in a musical should do. However, this was not the case with the whole cast.

Another aspect that bothered me during the performance at first was the part of the two hotel helpers who were from Hong Kong. I thought their accent and them singing songs in another language was very distracting and it seemed as though the whole play was a joke. My thoughts were shared by the audience as people shifted uncomfortably and didn’t know whether they should laugh. I was very confused and felt it drew away from the focus of the musical. However, I discovered throughout the play that this aspect was supposed to be a little quirky. With Ram’s Head being a student led and directed production, I saw the humor of the college student as it played through these roles. I found that the musical, in fact, traded on this, and that it was a necessary aspect to the purpose of the play. It gave comic relief and after a while, the audience felt more comfortable laughing at these parts. The culmination of this occurred even after the play was over as the never-before-seen mother of the two boys came out after the bows, and everyone laughed at their reunion. This instilled in me one of the focuses of the musical that was to not be entirely serious and completely professional, but to welcome a little college humor as it was put on and directed by Stanford students themselves.

"Thoroughly Modern Millie"

2008-04-15T02:54:00.000-07:00

Vivid sets, upbeat musical numbers and extreme talent were a few of the many entertaining aspects of the Stanford Ram’s Head Theatrical Society’s presentation of “Thoroughly Modern Millie,” which I attended this past Saturday. Although the story line was slightly generic (although fairly interesting to me, as I have never seen this musical before), what really impressed me was the visual spectacle of it all, which perfectly complimented the music and choreography.
In my opinion, most musicals fall into a sort of “feel-good” genre, which aims to present a conflict and then resolve it in a comprehensible, engaging way, leaving the audience with a sense of felicitous resolution. The goal of the musical is not necessarily to be the most elaborate in terms of plot; rather, it is to entertain the audience. I believe the Ram’s Head Society chose to put on this musical as opposed to any other because the story is simple, allowing for appropriately extravagant costumes and choreography, yet the message is potent; when looking for true love, one should use the heart rather than the eyes.
In terms of visual elements, the costumes heavily contributed to the overall continuity and symbolism of the play. Dorothy, a sweet California girl, always appeared onstage in some sort of flowing, pastel colored dress, which emphasized her innocence and inexperience with the city of New York. In fact, during one scene where she, Millie and some of the other girls are enjoying a night on the town, all of the girls have on flashy, scandalous dresses while Dorothy is dressed in a conservative white gown. Additionally, Millie’s costumes represented her transformation from simple Kansas girl to fiery, New York woman. In the opening scene, she dons a plain, uninteresting dress but as she becomes more acclimated to the big city, she frequently sports short, modern dresses that demand attention.
Another huge visual aspect was the lighting in the scenes and how it created a mood. In general, the lights were used to denote the passage of time, using darker filters for night and brighter, orange-based filters for dawn. My favorite usage of light had to be the scene in which Millie and her friends land themselves in jail. The way the light filtered through the smoke onstage created the illusion of bars, which I found to be extremely clever and well done.
The lighting also contrasted well with the sets in the musical. Two staircases which eventually combined to form one with an elevator in the middle made up the main scene, along with a New York City skyline in the background. The skyline particularly interested me because the colors seemed to fit the era quite well. As the story takes place in the 1920’s, at the beginning of the age of jazz, the set designers used shades of purple, pink and turquoise with gold embellishments to create a modern atmosphere. The set was very appropriate and captured the fresh excitement of NYC in the Roaring Twenties.
Although the technical elements of the musical obviously enhanced it, the musical numbers gave life to the show. Just by watching these students act, I knew they all had to be crazy talented, but I was utterly bewitched when I heard them sing and saw them dance. I particularly enjoyed the actor who played Jimmy; he had an incredible stage presence and obviously possessed an impressive control over his voice. Millie was also fun to listen to because she had a very clear distinction between her chest voice and head voice; she would sing the sweet, quiet parts in her upper register and the loud, belting, showy parts in her lower register. The dance sequences were quite extravagant, but, considering the time period during which the musical takes place, I felt like they were appropriately exaggerated. The choreography was so ridiculous at times, that it made the show that much more fun to watch. For instance, during a scene in the office (where Millie works as a stenographer), the secretaries all perform a tap dance while Millie is trying to type a memo as quickly as she can. The sound of the taps and the rhythm they conform to mimics that of a typewriter, which I found quite amusing.
Personally, I thoroughly enjoyed this production simply because it was so over-the-top that I couldn’t help adoring it. There are several times when the characters intentionally break out into song and dance in the cheesiest manner, adding to the overall lightheartedness of the musical. I acknowledge that I am very partial to musicals, but I really felt like this one had something different to offer, almost as if it were a caricature of itself. I was also rather impressed by the vocal talent of the ensemble cast. Every number was completely on point and the orchestra also did a fantastic job with the score. This play was extremely well put together and I would highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys talented performers and the occasional romantic comedy.

Sweet Designs

2008-04-15T02:06:00.000-07:00

When I went to the graduate design show last weekend, I was for some reason expecting to find the most conventional types of paintings, sculptures and drawings. What I found there was astoundingly more elaborate and creative than I’d ever imagined it would be.

The first thing that struck me upon walking into the exhibit was this seemingly simple white box. Its outward appearance was deceiving. When I put my head inside the box to view the rest of the artist’s work, there was a chromatic sequence of solid color following a rainbow progression. The lighting was pure, as though it was emanating from a light OF that color, as opposed to a white light with a filter of that color superimposed over it; the box’s whole inner world was red, yellow, orange, etc, fluctuating seamlessly through the whole rainbow from one hue to another. There also appeared to be a sound component to this work, though perhaps unintentional—it was hard for me to tell whether or not this low humming in the background was intentionally placed there in order to sooth the audience, or whether it was just a result of the light show itself. Thus, if the intent of the artist was to create a soothing experience, in contrast to an otherwise somewhat harsh, bold lighting scheme, then I would argue that the artist succeeded in creating a calming ambience. Without the low hum, close to the noise a TV makes while muted, or the ambient noise that feels close to the sound a white noise machine, the silence would probably have made the work seem somewhat threatening.

It seems then, that the artist who created this white box of colors intended to induce relaxation or even meditation of the viewer—this was achieved through the smooth and seamless progression of pure lighting, and a slight background noise.

The next work that demanded my attention was the model of Chernobyl, which showed the radioactivity on different parts of the mountain. The mountain itself was made of a clear glass, or plastic-like substance, varying in opacity. Emanating up from below the crags was a bright light, intended (as the write-up in front of the exhibit exclaimed) to show which part of the mountain was most radioactive after the explosion—the brighter the light, the more radioactive the area OR, it could be inverted so that the brighter the light, the less radioactive the area. The intent of this piece, judging by the serious tone of the disclaimer by the artist, is to create a visually pleasing, but very structured, planned and organized work of art set in a jarring historical context. This piece successfully demonstrated how history and art can be fused together to create an aesthetic and sentimental appeal.

Finally, I found the map of an artist’s daily travels, rituals, and routines, and appeared to be a highly experimental piece. Every day for a month, she plotted where she went; the really important places were drawn bigger, such that this map was clearly in NO WAY to scale. Typically, a line denoted her path. Considering that this tracking went on every day for a month, it is no surprise that her paths overlapped and were eventually superimposed over one another. The pattern that resulted from this looked kind of like a ring of dark lines, emanating out from the center of the page like ripples. Thus, the darker, more cluttered portions of the page showed the viewer where she had spent the most time over the course of the month. Perhaps the intention of the artist was to stir up questions. As an audience, did she expect us to be completely enthralled with her everyday routines? Probably not. More likely, the expectation was that the viewer would be attracted to the creativity of the concept, and consequently explore how it manifests itself in the form and aesthetic quality of the piece.

Thoroughly Modern Millie Review

2008-04-15T01:59:00.000-07:00

Everyone has seen his or her fair share of Disney movies as a child and maybe even as a young adult. Everyone remembers and probably appreciates the corny jokes, the melodramatic soundtrack, and the trademark sing-along performances of the characters in these films. With those fond childhood memories on mental reserved, a young audience brought an array of expectations and preconceived biases to theThoroughly Modern Millie musical. Unfortunately, the musical fell victim to viewer’s lore by confirming people’s prejudices and suppositions.

Similar to a Disney production, the musical displayed no narrative complexity. I doubt that the straightforward plot serenaded any minds in the audience, for they were baby-fed by the musical dialogue. Set in the 1920s, lead character, Millie Dillmount, is an eager young woman from Kansas, who has hopes of hitting it big in New York City. Her initial plan to marry a wealthy employer is dashed, yet she gradually falls in love with a passing New York pedestrian. While the cliché love story is at work, Millie must also confront evil and unveil her landlord’s organization of white slavery.

The plot of Thoroughly Modern Millie came second to the music and dance. The sight of legs kickin’ and big hair flailin’ all over the place excited the crowd. In addition, the use of the whole stage kept the audience involved rather than distracting the audience. The live orchestration was close to perfection, giving the whole musical experience more authenticity and engagement. However, the musical became pretty predictable due to the soundtrack, for the musical alternated consistently with high and low emotional moments. For instance, the tones of the singers were either high to indicate cheerfulness or low to illustrate wickedness. Essentially, the sounds of resounding horns and heavy percussions cued either the audience’s sympathy for Millie or disdain for the slave-holding antagonist.

The fact that the play was predictable and prosaically simple, coupled with its durational length, created mental unrest in the audience. I mean the part of the auditorium where I was seated lit up with the lights of cell phones of impatient, pseudo-A.D.D. teenagers. As a participant in this offstage lightshow, I attributed my insolence or momentary disinterest to the musical’s predictable nature. A little suspense or more concision would have been more engaging, for the audience would have been compelled to concentrate on the storyline and to inoculate imagination when appropriate.

Furthermore, the individual performances by the main character were unnatural and sometimes too static during the up-tempo arrangements. Over the course of the musical,singers tend to grow tired doing number after number, yet the leading actress opened the show with an up-tempo routine that was undermined by what seemed to be a lackluster effort. She seemed to be going through the motions, thus the performances lacked conviction as well as an actor’s unique signature. However, the performances from the supporting cast earned a memory in the minds of the audience, for the simple fact of character immersion. Some actors and actresses really got into character. I knew a few of the actors personally and from other performances,yet I could not ascribe any of their real characteristics to their stage roles.They really loss themselves in the character. Specifically, the actresses who played the antagonist and the celebrity entertainer in the musical not only boasted big beautiful voices that reverberated through the auditorium but also engaged their whole bodies in alluring body movements to enhance their sets.

Thoroughly Modern Millie seemed so over-the-top and cliché in its themes and musical composition that I felt as though I was watching a parody or farce. In a general sense, the musical achieved a basic goal of entertainment, even if crowd interest was short-lived.

Design Unbound-Carrisa Carters' Outcrop

2008-04-15T01:56:00.002-07:00

“25 pairs of shoes in polyester resin, accompanied by annotated stratographic section/enlarged thin sections.” This brief personal statement is all that artist Carrisa Carters offers as insight into her piece Outcrop.

Outcrop can be commended on many levels, especially for its familiar subject matter, photographical frame of vision, texture, and overall arrangement. These elements complement one another to produce visual contrast as well as illustrate an over-arching theme of journey.

A common subject matter can engage an audience, for the sight of an everyday household item sometimes evokes a sense of comfort and familiarity. Sometimes, pieces of art are predicated on abstractions, which may scare or disinterest viewers, especially those with low art IQs or inexperience. However, this was not the case in the simple yet telling collage of Outcrop. Initially, the words Morrell, Vans, and Reef caught my eye, for these are popular brands of foot apparel. People tend to appeal to things that they can identify with, especially a commodity such as shoes; this propensity works in favor of this piece. Many people know that Morrell shoes are for hiking and backpacking,whereas Vans are associated with causal dress or skateboarders. Lastly, many people in California sport the Reef flip-flops. These brands and types of shoes are definitely prevalent on the Stanford campus, thus the artist knows her audience. A viewer might think that these shoes reveal something about the artist.Keep in mind, there are multiple images of these shoe products, so her choice to select these brands or types of shoes is deliberate.

Next,the artist strategically manipulates viewers’ frame of vision to evince the piece’s theme of journey. The artist zoomed in on many of her photographs in order to draw the audience’s attention to certain parts of shoes. Consequently,people can see only parts of the shoe such as the shoelaces, the cloth or leather upper part of the shoe, the shoe tongues, the logo tag, the sole, the rubber outsoles or shoe bottoms, and the toe thongs of flip-flops. The people can understand the theme from these small windows of vision when they see the shoes’ wear-and-tear and their dull fading colors. These shoes are no longer new and inexperienced, so to speak, but they are old and worn. Essentially, the shoes have been through some things. Furthermore, I believe that seeing the whole shoe would be distracting whereas the small frame of vision forces the viewer to concentrate and to contemplate the artist’s intentions.

Returning to the content of the artwork, I attribute the piece’s texture to its shots of shoe bottoms. Though the collage is made up of four thin plastic panels, the textures within the images give Outcrop a third dimension. The rough, rugged shoe bottoms contrasts with the smooth upper part of the shoes, the part that secures the foot. The bottom is the dirty part of the shoe that everyone disregards, while the top part of the shoe is the main attraction. In fact, the images show gum and dirt stuck to the bottom of the shoes. Also, the visual experience incites a sense of touch, for one knows how the bottom of a shoe would feel if it the shoe were present. This stimulation of tactile senses makes the piece more engaging. As the outsoles become worn down from continuous use and time, the rubber ridges and bumps onthe bottoms of the shoe become smooth, once again illustrating journey.

The arrangement of the four modular panels in a square finally solidifies the theme. If viewers start on the left side of the square, they will see the upper parts of the shoe from a bird’s eye view. As their eyes move from panel to panel, around the rectangular collage, they will notice how the images display different angles of the shoe. And as we move around the collage, viewers seemore side angles of the shoes until they meet the dirty rugged bottom of the shoes. In the middle of the four-panel square arrangement, there is an open space of wall, which gives the eyes a relief from what could be seen as a busy collection of pictures. Among somewhat daunting abstract works of art, Outcrop not only demonstrates the theme of journey but also gives the Design Unbound art exhibit balance between the recognizable and the very abstract.

grown-up toys

2008-04-15T01:56:00.001-07:00

I recently attended the graduate design show at the T.W. Art Gallery and had the time of my life. Through sheer coincidence, I happen to know several of the graduate students in product design and have spent a little time in “the Loft” as it is known, and I was totally amped to see their final work, but I was totally unprepared for the incredible variety and quality of the work. What struck me most, other than the beauty of the pieces, was their seemingly unified purpose: the public exhibition of the concrete realizations of artistic whims. Perhaps you are thinking, but Max, you pretentious snob, what can you possibly mean? Allow me to explain.

Some artists, like Hollywood actors, directors, screenwriters, etc., aim to entertain; others, like George Orwell or Betty Friedan, encourage you to think and decide for yourself; these students, on the other hand, sought neither of these ends, I believe. Instead, it seemed as if they tried simply to bring to life an idea or a vision that would otherwise have remained just a dream. For example, the bronze bike followed by the veritable circus of knife-jugglers, clowns et al. This fanciful contraption, nominally meant to brighten one’s day, must in reality be incredibly impractical, but potentially functional. Although I did not actually ride the bike, I didn’t have to. Just by seeing the bike, in all its ridiculous glory, I was granted a glimpse into the mind of another and it cheered me up without even having to set foot on the pedal. Similarly, I was enchanted by the film of the guy who pulls balloons out of the suitcase. Plot-less, devoid of character development, and entirely without theme or moral, it remains a fascinating work, minimalistic in its execution of the depiction of a magical suitcase and its supernatural properties. Contradictory? A little. Finally, I was impressed with, albeit confused by, the plastic representation of music that the description explained had been the artist’s fantasy since her youth. The highly detailed and color-coded structures take an immensely innovative approach to traditional conceptions of both visual art and music, taking a temporally changing, polyphonically complex, and invisible piece and turning it into a static, still complex, yet visible construction.

You may think I have been unduly laudatory of these artists’ works, and you would have a point. Their purpose, as I see it, is rather less than challenging and thus one would not be unfounded in criticizing them for their lack of ambition, however I would disagree. True, these pieces may not have a pragmatic or even an academic objective, yet in simply being created they have achieved much more than many of their equally fantastic fellows and this feat is valiant in and of itself.

The Phantom of Liberty

2008-04-15T01:10:00.000-07:00

Luis Buñuel’s The Phantom of Liberty was an exercise in absurdity. While every moment was far from typical, I’ll present a moment that captures fairly well the film’s uniqueness and general irony: a man and a woman sit in an investigator’s office, explaining to the investigator that their daughter has gone missing. Their daughter sits next to them, however, and when the investigator asks what the daughter looks like, the parents point to her so that the investigator might get a physical description. He then fills out a missing person form, checking her eye color, height and weight in the process, and then concludes by saying to the parents, “I’m glad you brought her. It helps.”

The film presents a great number of these short encounters, and strays from character to character frequently. It lacks any sort of coherent narrative or plot, and any extensive character development. Thematic elements, on the other hand, recur frequently. Before attempting to draw these elements into any sort of coherent picture--which may be an impossible task in itself--I will try to address some of them individually.

Throughout the film, Buñuel directly and indirectly approaches the subject of customs, or societal norms. At one point, a group of people sit around a table speaking amiably with each other; their seats, however, are open toilets, and they sit with pants lowered and dresses raised. The content of their conversation is the amount of feces humanity excretes each day. When a young girl complains that she is hungry, an older woman scolds her for speaking inappropriately. At one point, a man asks quietly for the dining room, and then eats by himself in a cramped space. Buñuel seems to be implying that the customs society has established over time are arbitrary: that the bathroom isn’t inherently foul, but is because we’ve made it so; in a sense, he proves this by demonstrating a group of content people conversing from toilet seats. At another point, he has a woman play the piano wearing nothing but stockings, while she holds an ordinary conversation with her brother. He hopes to undermine the perversion of what we consider perverse, or, more broadly, to help us take a second look at societal constraints, and shed them if we want to. While the shape of society affects us, we also play a role in shaping it.

This idea is a part of the film’s larger notion of liberty, and our misconceptions of it. By failing to realize the restrictions placed on us by society’s conventions--conventions that can extend to our conceptions of work, education, ways of arranging the day and the week and the year, place, family structure--we end up believing ourselves to be much more free than we are. In one part of the film, a sniper who kills at least thirty people is brought to court and sentenced to death. Upon announcement of the verdict, his handcuffs are removed and he leaves the court with a facial expression of contentment, shaking hands and signing autographs as he walks outside. On one view, Buñuel might be equating death with freedom, or liberty: as soon as the man is required to die, he appears to be unrestricted by anything at all, perhaps because he is no longer subject to society’s conventions.

Buñuel seems concerned with the idea of mischief, with both a mention of foxes by a group of men driving a military tank and a several-second stationary shot of a stuffed fox, and a mention of mischief by a priest. In addition, numerous students at a police academy behave mischievously. Because mischief, in one sense, is simply disregard for conventions, and action with that ideal in mind, it seems likely that Buñuel would hold it in high regard.

Even in its structure and overall concept, the film objects to societal conventions: without a plot, without developed characters, with seemingly meaningless, chance transitions between characters and narrative threads, and with its closing thirty seconds occupied by a close-up shot of an emu’s head, the film seems to be shouting with objections to any sort of outside standard. All in all, Buñuel makes a powerful objection to the blindness that prevents us from realizing that we can live our lives differently than we do--a blindness as severe as being unable to see our own child.

Who am I?

2008-04-14T23:45:00.001-07:00

Art
Consciousness
Life

These were the first three words of the e-mail I received prompting me to go see Ignacio Rivera perform on Monday night. I thought, “Wow! I love art, and consciousness, and life…but what is this going to be about?” Reading further along the page, I found these words: black-boricua, trans-entity, multi-gender, queer, pretty-boi, mother, poet. I was startled to realize that out of all these descriptions I could only understand three of the words. In fact, when trying to explain to friends what I was going to see, I found myself blundering. “Um, I’m going to see an artist, um a poet, really, do performances…like trans-gender, um, spoken word…” I realized that what had hooked me in, the words art, consciousness, and life, didn’t really do a good job of contextualizing the art, but then I went to this show and realized the art was right there, somewhere in those places I was having trouble articulating. Ignacio’s work is essentially about changing our need to contextualize people, how they live, what they do, who they are.

Ignacio Rivera started with a lesson. She said trans is “an umbrella term encompassing anyone who shifts, changes, alters, or fucks with gender in anyway.” As she put it, there are distinct differences in meaning between the words female and male and the words man and woman. Rivera’s pronouns of choice are “ze” and “they,” so out of respect, I will try to remember to refer to “them” as “ze” from now on.

The title of the performance was All of Me: performances, skits, and readings by Ignacio Rivera. Their first poem was entitled “Redefining Me.” In it, ze kept repeating the line “Who am I?” which was interesting because, honestly, I was wondering that myself. It soon became obvious that this question was the driving force of her work. The poem dealt with ze as a woman who identifies as a man, but it also dealt with their heritage as a Puerto Rican American growing up in New York. My favorite line was “What the fuck is English as a second language, when I’m not allowed to speak Spanish first.”

My favorite of their selection was when ze did a poem about their daughter. Rivera opened up to us and told us that when ze was younger their sister had sexually harassed them. Rivera then told us about the fear ze had after having a daughter that perhaps there was something in ze that could do that to their daughter. Ze wouldn’t let their daughter spend the night at other’s houses. Their daughter had to wear shorts under all of her skirts. The poem captured that fear so fully that I was near tears. I cannot imagine, but through Rivera’s poetry I can start to piece things together. Art. Consciousness. Life.

All of their performances were incredibly multilayered. Ze would sing, put on costumes and act, move around, define terms. Before the show I thought, “how much can you really do with spoken word poetry, you know, other than read it?” but ze’s work was so involving and poignant that it made me see that there could be more. Ze made me extremely uncomfortable. Ze cursed a lot more than I’m used to, talked about sex more openly than I’m used to, but ze also did a fabulous job of letting us into their life with poems about their time as a “dancer/sex worker” in Hawaii, their daughter, and their history as a victim of sexual assault. Ze seemed to be trading on the power words have to establish, if only fleetingly, moments of empathy and compassion. Their goal was to educate their audience, make us a little bit more aware of the social injustice and homophobia that exists all around us. So that even though I cringed every time ze said “pussy” or “dyke,” by the end I was nodding and thinking, “Yeah, fuck the gender binary…”

The Phantom of Liberty

2008-04-14T23:31:00.000-07:00

This week I am reviewing the film screening for Luis Buñuel's 1974 surrealist film The Phantom of Liberty (Le Fantôme de la liberté), which took place Monday night at Annenberg Auditorium. Buñuel's film is (purposefully) hard to describe, but if I had to do it in one sentence I would say that it depicts a series of unrelated episodes that are loosely connected by chance rather than any sense of a strong narrative structure. For example, one scene depicts a professor leaving a bed and breakfast motel to go teach a philosophy/legal class to a group of police academy officers, which then transitions to two of those police officers pulling a man over for speeding, which in turn transitions to a story about this man and his medical issues, etc. Characters are abandoned as quickly as they are introduced, and so forth. Therefore, because of this structure, it is impossible for the viewer to form any opinions that traditional film review calls for, such as those about character and thematic development.

Going into this viewing, I had many expectations and probably misguided preconceived notions of what a surrealist work of art is supposed to be. Previously to me, surrealism entailed the use of strange juxtapositions and incomprehensible imagery in order to convey a somewhat existentialist meaninglessness of life. I felt that the "meaning" behind surrealist works were that they were supposed have no meaning. However, I had a profoundly different experience watching The Phantom of Liberty. Firstly, it is important to note that the film had a great handle on humor, irony, and absurdity. One episode that conveys this well is when two parents are informed by a school headmistress that their daughter is missing because she cannot be found anywhere around the school. However, it turns out the daughter was in class where she was supposed to be the whole time. She even responds to her name when the attendance is called. Furthermore, the daughter also accompanies the parents to the police station to help file a missing person's report, and she even helps the sergeant fill in information like her age, eye color, and height.

More importantly though, when trying to understand this film on a broader level, there seems to be a greater trend than mere humor or absurdity. With every episode, Buñuel seems to be poking fun and critiquing modern society, specifically the world occupied by the bourgeoisie class. Indeed, every single one of our societal institutions is attacked somehow: religion, medicine, police, legal, family, parenting, love and sex, education, etc. It is quite remarkable that this is the case, and I could literally list every episode that is relevant, but for the best of everyone's sake, I'll just mention the most poignant ones. For instance, in the sequences that take place at the aforementioned bed and breakfast motel, a group of Catholic monks offer to help pray for one of the female guest's sick father. When the monks assure the woman that their prayer has helped the sick in the past, the woman asks if it actually cured the sickness and the monks humorously respond, "No, but they felt a little bit better." After this, they get on their knees in ritual, light candles in front of a crucifix, and utter many Latin and French prayers for a short while until Buñuel jarringly transitions into a scene where the monks and the woman are seen rowdily playing poker, betting, drinking, and smoking cigarettes. Clearly, the director is presenting satire directed towards the Catholic church and religion in general.

In another completely unrelated scene, a dinner party is shown taking place among a few couples and the host couple's daughter. Here, the dinner party acts as a symbol for middle/upper class stuffiness and self-righteousness. They engage in typical intelligent discussions, talking about things like theater and art, traveling through Spain, and political issues like population control. However, the satirical twist Buñuel offers here is that instead of sitting and eating at a dinner table, they all sit on toilettes instead of seats with their pants undone. Then instead of going for a bathroom break, each individual has to shamefully get up from the "dinner table" to go to a separate private room to eat and drink. This role reversal, while humorous, also attacks the bourgeoisie self-importance and supposed sophistication by equating their lifestyle literally with "piss and shit."

The point I took from all these episodic attacks on our society was that surrealism or at least this particular Buñuel film (which was actually made a good fifty years after the birth of surrealism), has a very clear message to send: we are bound to societal conventions that at the heart of it are arbitrary and only restricting. We shouldn't view life as a story to be told (as the Hollywood narratives have it), but rather we should look at it as a sequence of randomness and absurdity in order to liberate us from our restrictive conventions and customs. This film therefore is mainly a revolutionary statement and it is fitting that it ends depicting a riot of people shouting "Down with liberty!" What is important to note though, is that the power of this work and the surrealist movement in general is not that it tells us this message directly as in an essay/argumentative format but rather it does so artistically. This is why Buñuel makes his audience sit through a 100 minutes of crazy imagery and instead of ending by showing the people rioting shouting his message directly, it rather shows a closeup of a spinning emu's head with the noise of the riot in the background. He makes sure to keep his film absurd, hard to navigate, and more concerned with free association and unconscious message delivery rather than deliberate, thought-out messaging. Because of all of this, I felt--to use terms we are quite familiar with--this film featured a great combination of consonance and dissonance, both giving the audience a graspable message and shocking it at the same time.

"All of Me": Performance, Skits and Readings by Ignacio Rivera

2008-04-14T22:54:00.001-07:00

Ignacio Rivera’s performance was a series of short poems and skits. He portrayed many characters that he had experienced during his life, and highlighted a few that he wrote about based on the time he spent in Hawaii as an entertainer and sex worker.
Rivera, a “Queer-Trans-Entity, and Black Boricua performance artist,” is also an activist and the founder of a non profit dedicated to spreading economic justice as a form of gender and sexual liberation.

The main drive of the poetry was to challenge preconceptions about gender and sexuality. As a member of the trans-community and an activist, Ignacio used he/she pronouns interchangeably, often substituting in they or “ze” so that there would be no gender identification. The skits were meant to be portrayals of certain people in his life, whose names he had changed. He acted as Nena-Chucho (a trans woman), her mother, and her good friend.

Ignacio’s acting was superb. He was able to switch fluidly from character to character, often changing just a garment. He began with a “guyish” button down shirt as his main attire for the evening, but then switched into a dress when playing the mother figure, and into a pink hooded sweatshirt. He also played the ‘trans character’, by changing into high heels. By being able to switch clothes and convincingly act as characters of different genders and sexualities, he really forced questioning of what gender really means, and of what sexuality really means. In that sense, the performance was extremely effective, since the audience had to question how one person could convincingly play so many different parts, almost to the extent of morphing into each one of them. Even by changing clothes, he convincingly looked more feminine or more masculine, challenging our concepts of what that really means.

The poetry, I felt, was intended to capture the idea of humanity and love. Many of his poems were very explicit, but also communicated deep feelings of love and longing, that were very natural. He spoke of a story where he was in the bathroom with another girl and they were exploring sex and sexuality, and at one point, the girl got up and urinated standing up. Ignacio was so amazed that he decided to try himself, and was found by his mother and spanked very hard, and told “Girls Sit.” He finished the poem and told us, “See, even then, how powerful it is to be told what a specific gender is expected to do.”

In another one of his poems, he spoke about how he had a roommate who was a beautiful woman, and she talked about how she wanted to build her house a certain way, and they would lie together and build castles in the sky, and he would lie next to her and love her in his mind. While the image of that would be confusing to a lot of people, since it is hard to conceptualize what gender Ignacio is, and many people have preconceived notions of what gender really means, I was struck by how natural and communicative the poem was, and how the protagonist could be genderless and it wouldn’t matter—the sentiment it communicated was still based in love and longing. I felt the performance effectively challenged notions of what gender means, through visuals as well as through the written and performed word.

The Poetry of Ignacio Rivera

2008-04-14T22:47:00.000-07:00

On Monday night some classmates and I experienced the deeply personal and emotion driven poetry of Ignacio Rivera as part of Herstory month. As Ignacio walked to the front of the Tresidder Oak Room, she offered the handful of audience members some insight into her life and her poetry. She first explained that she identifies as trans-gender and that although she has female anatomy, she has a strong disconnect with her physical body. Ignacio explained that neither "he" nor "she" is a correct label and prefers, at the moment, to be referred to as "ze" or "they". Her collection of poetry entitled "All of Me" was dedicated to topics such as race, women, identity, poverty and other subjects she felt were integral to her life.

She opened with a poem entitled Rediscovering Me. Standing calmly behind a plain black music stand, one hand in her pocket, she began to speak with a voice that commanded my attention. In the poem she recalled a time in her life when she felt she really had no idea who she was both racially and sexually. Her flowing river of words were a mix of English and Spanish, conveying her trouble finding her place in a white washed world while staying true to her Black and Hispanic background. She constantly repeated, "Who am I? Who am I?” At times her flow became fast and frantic, mirroring the racing thoughts she once felt and was now attempting to convey. Her language was graphic and uncensored to say the least, but not unnecessarily so. Although some may have considered her word choices offensive or crude, I felt an overwhelming honesty in her poetry. She felt no need to censor any of her thoughts, giving her poems a unique rawness that I have never encountered.

Between each poem, Ignacio gave short anecdotes about her life that were meant to introduce the next poem. These short 30-second stories about her life were completely shocking. She is a survivor of sexual abuse, of incest, and of the welfare system. She's been called a fag, a dyke, and every other ugly word you can think of. She's fought against gender norms and societal expectations all of her life and is still able to stand proud and share her experiences with a room of strangers. And even through all this, she did not preach about how we need to change our mindsets or ourselves. It was not her goal to force the importance of acceptance and tolerance. Ignacio's goal was to expose a part of her life, to share her experiences in a very honest way, and to leave the audience to do what they wished with her words.

I think Ignacio was very successful in affecting the audience in her intended way. In all honesty, a lot of her poetry made me extremely uncomfortable for reasons I have yet to completely understand. But I believe that a lot of Ignacio’s aim was in fact to make people uneasy because with discomfort comes reassessment, and further contemplation on the topics she discussed. The power of her words was in their sincerity. No matter if the audience loved or hated her, at the end of the day she was 100% real and that cannot be argued.

Rodin Sculpture Garden: "Fallen Caryatid," "Martyr," and "Orpheus"

2008-04-12T22:13:00.000-07:00

Upon observing the Rodin Sculpture Garden beside the Cantor Arts Center, I notice that these sculptures have really lived. Their facial expressions, their contorted bodies tell stories of pain and despair, of failure and suffering. The sculptures are bare, exposing themselves shamelessly to the harsh critics of the world, uncomprehending children, and curious admirers alike. These figures age, yet they are constant and unchanging; time can rust their color, but not the delicate folds and creases of their bodies. The Sculpture Garden is truly a meditation on emotion and the human soul.

In Fallen Caryatid, Rodin portrays a woman who has fallen under the weight of a bowl-like figure, which she carries over her shoulder. She stands in a crouched position, withdrawn but bare. Her back is curved inwards, mimicking the introverted nature of her expression. Her eyes are closed; she has one breast exposed (the other is welded to her leg), a single eye to observe the world around her. This sculpture is solitary, but carries a hint of remorse; it is as if a faint cloud of darkness hovers over her world. The woman is dealing with failure, having withdrawn from her duty as a column to a building, or caryatid. Rather than bearing a look of distraught, she wears a pensive expression, one that points to a deeper source of melancholy coming from within. Upon recognizing this inner darkness, a pang of sympathy resonates within me when I observe this woman.

Similarly, Rodin’s Martyr causes me to recognize the dark and futile within myself, the world, and the sculpture. Consisting of a woman lying down with her body contorted in pain, Martyr is a tribute to the universality of suffering. This woman is evidently experiencing great torment; one of her hands is fisted, concentrating the suffering in a single point. The woman is exposed and vulnerable; one arm is extended backwards, asking for help, and yet all anyone can do is watch her suffer. She must carry this burden as the Fallen Caryatid carries her bowl-figure. Observing Martyr gives me a feeling of helplessness. I realize my and others’ suffering is inevitable and out of my control; I can reach out for help but will receive none. Martyr is an ode to tragedy; the sculpture itself is hollow, like the human spirit and hope itself.

But I cannot wallow endlessly in this pool of pity and sorrow Rodin creates in these female sculptures; I must turn to the pool of Rodin’s male sculptures, namely, Orpheus. For Orpheus, his tragedy is already known: his love Eurydice has died, and when he goes to the underworld to retrieve her, he is told she may return to the earth as long as he walks in front of her and doesn’t look back. Unfortunately, he forgets and looks back, and Eurydice is gone forever. Orpheus then is left in despair to sing his mournful songs. In Rodin’s rendition, Orpheus is lunging forward and reaching upward as if he is calling Eurydice. His fingers point down towards the underworld and his face wears a tormented expression. In observing Orpheus, I am led to feel the deep sorrow of personal failure, the kind that results from individual responsibility. I wholly empathize with Orpheus, and the detail of his face sing to me of his melancholy.

It seems that, in these sculptures, Rodin is trading on sympathy, on evoking powerful emotions through body positions and angles. And in this regard he completely succeeds, for his work is emotionally despairing and overwhelming. His sculptures tell the universal story of human tragedy, of the pain and suffering inevitable in a single life. When we “read” this story, the strings of our heart bend in such a way as to mimic the bend of the sculptures’ bodies. The empathy we share for the portrayed distress of the sculptures summons the dissonant within us, causing us to reflect upon our own lives and redeem ourselves before we, too, become destined to live eternally in despair.

-Dominique Y

Rodin's Sculpture Garden and the Burghers of Calais

2008-04-08T09:57:00.000-07:00

This weekend, Katie, Dominique, and I met at the steps of the Thomas Welton Art Gallery, hoping to see the Design Unbound exhibit. To our dismay, it was closed. After a fruitless search on the Stanford event calendar, we decided to visit Auguste Rodin’s sculpture garden instead. I focused on his sculptures of women, specifically Fallen Caryatid With Urn, Fallen Caryatid With Stone, Eve, Martyr, and two sculptures entitled Meditation. Later that day, I stopped in the Quad to take a closer look at Rodin’s Burghers of Calais, sculptures that I pass daily. To my surprise, Rodin’s style of the Burghers is quite different of that of his sculptures outside of the Cantor Center. I wondered why the sculptures had such distinct styles and what it means about Stanford University that we choose to display Rodin’s Burhgers of Calais in the center of our Quad.

Whenever I visit the Cantor Arts Center garden, I feel as though I have been picked up from Palo Alto and transported to a European garden. Stanford has the second largest collection of Rodin’s in the world—and this garden was made to display them. On a Sunday afternoon, one can find children prancing around the sculptures (as their parents attempt to give them lessons on art history), curious students, and even a woman attempting to take portraits of her dogs in front of The Gates of Hell. The sculptures are speckled with yellow pollen and decorated with spider webs. Everything appears happy and while Rodin’s sculptures of women may look beautiful on first glance, they seem to have a deeper, darker meaning.

Fallen Caryatid With Urn and Fallen Caryatid With Stone are both sculptures of women, crouched in similar positions, with an urn and stone (respectively), on their heads and shoulders. The women’s bodies are closed: their legs and arms are crossed, and their hands hide their faces. Caryatid’s are female structures that take the place of pillars or columns in architectural structures. The stone and urn weigh both women down and it appears that they are hiding in contorted stances because they have been weighted down by society.

The two sculptures entitled Meditation are also two women that are in similar stances. They are both standing with their heads titled downwards and to their side, their shoulders are oddly tilted, their legs are crossed, and their left knee is bend slightly upwards as though it is protecting them. The first Meditation appears purposely unfinished. The sculpture has no knee, no arms, and has jagged lines, reminiscent of Cubism, along its stomach.

While Rodin’s Caryatids and Meditations are presented in vulnerable positions, the woman of Martyr was vulnerable, and has been attacked. Her body lies upon the ground, her fist extends outwards and is clenched tightly, and her head has fallen backwards. Only part of her body is displayed: about a third of it looks as though it has been spliced off and the rest of her body has been wrapped around a stone pedestal. All of these sculptures of women are full of emotion. They may not look entirely natural, as they are composed of expressive textures and lines that are not natural to the human body but they are beautiful pieces of artwork that deserve to represent the Cantor Arts Center.

Rodin’s Burghers of Calais, which, as previously mentioned, are an integral component of the Stanford Quad, are very different from Rodin’s sculptures of women. They are smooth, polished, proud, and prominent. Each of the six men is represented as a powerful individual: he is not composed of unnatural textures, he is not hiding, and he does not look weighted down by society, despite the fact that he is about to die. Rather, each of the individuals is proud: his head is directed upwards, his eyes are open and confronting the world, his body takes up space, and he looks like a true man. Rodin was commissioned to create these sculptures in honor of six heroes of the One Hundred Years War. The men sacrificed their lives to save their city, Calais, and the message of piece (according to its plaque) is that “ordinary people can perform heroic deeds.”

After examining two of Rodin’s styles, I cannot arbitrarily decide which style I think is better, but rather I can now say that I understand why they are where they are on campus. Rodin’s sculptures of women are expressive, beautiful, and artistic and represent our Cantor Center. But the Burghers were chosen to be a part of the main Quad because of their individualism, outlook, and message that “ordinary people can perform heroic deeds.”

Ockham's Razor at Battle of the Bands

2008-04-08T09:43:00.000-07:00

The “battle of the bands” is one of the most exciting parts of the rock music tradition. In addition to this event’s energized air of competition, the battle of the bands is a particularly fun event in that it provides a unique viewing experience with rock music that emphasizes a band’s ability to put on a captivating live show. As opposed to a regular live performance, or even a recorded album for that matter, in which the emphasis is specifically on the music, a performance in a battle of the bands concentrates additionally on the band’s ability to put on a rockin performance and please the crowd.

Last Saturday night, Phi Kappa Psi House at Stanford University hosted a battle of the bands at which a campus band called “Ockham’s Razor” performed a particularly solid show. They played an energetic set of original songs and covers This is my assessment of the night’s performance:

The band’s music is not anything particularly special. They play a indie rock style of music with some hints of Billy Joel piano lines and a good use of varied song structure, dynamics, and ambiance. Their first original song wavered from powerful anthemic choruses to cool, almost loungy bridges; their second relied heavily on a crescendo chorus which was a bit weak at the climax but still contained some strong, rocking energy.

The highlight of the show from the crowd’s perspective, though, was clearly the audacious covers of Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean” and Kanye West’s “Stronger,” as was indicated by the deafening cheers at the recognizable opening segments of each song. The band covered the songs pretty well, and these songs gave their set an unconventional feel in comparison to the standard rock music in the rest of their set.

So in terms of winning the crowd’s favor, Ockham’s Razor did a great job at putting on a great battle of the bands performance. Nevertheless, the band did a not so great job at presenting the audience with a picture of the band’s individual sound or identity, especially where their covers were concerned. They practically played the songs exactly as they had been recorded (or at least as close as possible), which is a bad move when trying to stand out or formulate an identity in the minds of the audience at a battle of the bands. For all practical purposes, Ockham’s Razor may be better known to the audience as the band that played Michael Jackson and Kanye West instead of Ockham’s Razor itself, which is the totally opposite of what should happen at a good battle of the bands performance. A good example of a band making a cover song its own is Prince’s Super Bowl performance (which can be found on dailymotion.com).

Ockham’s Razor’s performance went pretty well last Saturday. Other than their failure to create a real cohesive picture of their band’s identity, their solid original songs, creative ideas about covers, energetic stage presence, and throngs of cheering fans contributed to a notable battle of the bands show. I don’t know who ended up winning the battle of the bands, but I do know that any other band playing would have had to do a lot to take my vote from such a strong performance by Ockham’s Razor.

Rodin Sculpture Garden

2008-04-08T09:20:00.000-07:00

Containing the largest public concentration of Rodin’s bronze sculptures in the world is something many Stanford students do not appreciate, or yet, even are aware of. Walking in front of the quad, one can catch a taste of the amazing collection of Auguste Rodin’s work here at Stanford. I had seen these works before, passing in front of the quad or walking to the oval. This aspect is always included in campus tours and I can often see a clump of tourists from feet away taking pictures. Ordinarily, I saw these sculptures as a mere decoration, and even a piece of art that was insignificant and belittled by the awe-inspiring beauty of Memorial Church’s façade framed by the quad’s front arches. I decided to look deeper and truly analyze Rodin’s unique sculptures that are displayed more as an exhibit outside of the Cantor Art Museum.

The first two sculptures I looked at were very similar, which was further demonstrated by their titles, "Fallen Caryatid with Urn" and "Fallen Caryatid with Stone." There were many things that caught my attention with these pieces—the peaceful, pensive look on the woman’s face, the folds of the cloth covering the lower half of her body, and the portrayal of struggle displayed by the body almost collapsing under this seemingly heavy object. When looking at these aspects, I began to notice that the face was nondescript and the hair simple, while the tensing of the muscles and angles of the body seemed to pop out at me. When getting home, I actually looked up the word “caryatid” as I didn’t know what it meant and discovered it is a term used to describe a stone carving of a female figure that is used as a pillar to support the entablature of a Greek building. This definition represented the basis for what I felt Rodin’s worked represented—support, strength, balance.

As I walked through the garden, I was able to see these ideals in every work. "Orpheus" also had an object with which his body was upholding. The body was able to support this by balance, with the left hip down and left foot forward, balanced with the right arm reaching up away from the body. This sort of balance for strength to hold these objects I could also see in works without external objects, but that displayed balance in the positioning of the body. Rodin’s "Claude Lorrain" is a very different sculpture, very stoic and almost memorial-like, yet showed equality and balance through the body. The man’s left leg and and right arm are bent, with his right leg and head turned to the left. There is an odd symmetry here that leads to a pleasing and balanced sculpture in which pleasure comes from seeing these opposite sides of the body mirroring each other. My classmate who viewed the sculptures with me described the bodies as “crossed,” and without a picture, this idea is hard to describe, but one which I feel is a good explanation of the what I saw in each sculpture. The legs and arms are twisted and crossed in ways that support each other. The body is supple and almost contorted, but in this I see stability and equality across the body. For example, in "Meditation," the crossed left leg comes across the body as the figure’s right hip is out and up. Both arms are crossed, yet one is high with the elbow in the air, and one is low with the elbow bent and pointing down.

Rodin’s sculpted bodies are pleasing, and what I think makes their position and display so appealing is the equality reached by opposition, like having a sculpture with one bent leg and one straight leg, which can be seen in practically each sculpture. Rodin’s famous "Three Shades" shows this one bent leg in three men, furthering the balance across the body with all of them reaching one arm forward and pulling the opposite bent arm back. The heads are turned in the opposite way each body is turned. One can even look more closely and notice the fingers of the sculptures. Their hands are all pointing with their index finger in the outstretched arm; however, the opposite hand has the index finger in and touching the thumb. Even Rodin’s sculpture "Prayer," which has no appendages to display this “crossing of the body,” still has an angle in the body with an arched back and bent knees.

While the first sculptures I looked at required the body’s position to have strength and stability as there was an external object involved, the later sculptures I saw displayed this same strength and stability in the body through a balance across the body achieved by opposing bends and mirroring contortions.

Urban Nights Dance Fusion

2008-04-08T02:10:00.000-07:00

When I walked into the Urban Nights Dance Fusion show last Saturday night, I was anticipating an exciting night of immersion in an eclectic array of modern dance, though it was not clear to me what the nature of the performance would be. Would there be a unifying theme to this collection of dances, or would it be more patchwork, hodgepodge, disjointed? The prospect of successfully combining the more traditional Cardinal Ballet with hip-hop, tap, swing, and other genres seemed very exciting to me, as a member of the audience who was most interested in seeing how these genres overlap, interconnect, and feed off of one another.

Overall, I was very impressed with the precision and grace involved in the Cardinal Ballet, and found myself most intrigued by the tap performance, as it was something I had never had the pleasure to see before; the intricacy of the rhythms was astounding. At times it appeared as though the dancer wasn't moving her feet very fast at all, but still, these incredible rhythms would sound. I can only imagine the amount of discipline it takes to make such an art look as effortless as they did.

Upon entry into the theater, I was supplied with a program, which listed each dance group and its theme (or title). Throughout the show, I tried to determine if there was a logical progression in the program; was it organized by theme, genre, skill level? By the end o the program I still wasn't sure. My best guess was that they put the groups in order of their anticipated appeal to the audience, culminating in, what i would consider to be a true fusion of genres in "Black Parade". In this final number, several of the dance troops collaborated, utilizing their own unique styles in concert with one another, perhaps so as to show that, though each individual troop had its own style, they were all unified by their main goal: Expression through movement.

Flipping through the program, I also attempted to see if the respective titles of each performance were related to one another in any way. As far as I could tell, these titles were created independently by each individual troop, such that there didn't seem to be any correspondence between them. For example, many were self-titled (titled after the name of the group--Basmati Raas), some titled by the name of the musical number (Mack the Knife), and the rest of the titles were not apparently unified by any particular theme (Lo Que Es, The Shim Sham, Mongolian Chopsticks, etc.). It was like walking into an exhibit in an art gallery titled simply "ART": All genres, no historical time frame, no particular showcase of one artist's work. In this case I had walked into a performance of expression through movement titled simply, "DANCE".

The groups who performed were Cardinal Ballet, Alliance, Basmati Raas, bent Spoon, DV8, Los Salseros, Stanford Chinese Dance, Swingtime, TapTH@T, Troposmatic, and urban Styles; at first it was difficult for me to see how these many and varied genres would fit snugly into one cohesive program. One of the main questions on my mind was what exactly does a "Dance Fusion" entail? Fusion--I thought to myself--doesn't that mean a blend of things? What they advertised on the front of the program was a "fusion"... for me, the connotations of that word reflected fluidity, smoothness, and ultimate cohesiveness. My reflection on the show, however, was that the transition were forced, and the segments jammed together; the performances felt less fused and cohesive than they felt slapped up against one another. Thus, in my opinion, the word "fusion" didn't represent what actually occurred, though this is subject to argument-- one could say easily make the point that fusion simply meant the incorporation of many different styles and means of expression. I had expected the entire show to feature numbers like the final "Black Parade" collaboration. Thus, the expectation I had, as member of the audience, which had been cued by my interpretation of the title of the show, simply didn't match up with what i now presume the creators of the show had intended: A more divided approach, in which each dance group had their own miniature show within the larger show. In this sense, I suppose "fusion" was not intended to literally mean a number of genres smoothly blended together, but a collection, and subsequent juxtaposition of different styles--more or less a way for a large number of dance groups on campus to showcase their talents to a large audience.

Urban Nights Dance Fusion 2008 Review

2008-04-08T01:05:00.000-07:00

On Saturday, April 5, 2008, I had the great opportunity to attend Urban Nights Dance Fusion 2008. Stanford’s Cardinal Ballet Company organized the wonderful event, which celebrated an assortment of dance styles. Whether it was the intense tiptoeing of ballerinas or the smooth knock of tap dancers, the choreography articulated compelling volumes of emotion and thrill to the audience. Over the years, my unfamiliarity with the arts has prevented me from fully understanding and appreciating the complexities and diversity of the arts. Nonetheless, Saturday’s show, in all of its controlled vehemence, stirred a rather unpronounced part of me.

Though the ballet performances were the most captivating, personally speaking, I will say that the other dance styles gave a refreshing flavor to the overall show. For instance, the group of swingers exploded on the stage with their energetic performance, which included flipping and dangling dance partners in air. Also, in a hot salsa routine, two partners showcased impressive individual moves while convening to produce a rhythmic fluidity of twirls and hip-twisting. In both cases, the difficulty and flashiness of the dance routines demanded wide eyes and hanging jaws, for any art form is based on transcendence and uniqueness.

I really felt myself extending beyond my artistic comfort zone when the show opened with these graceful bodies flying across the stage. Watching a ballet concert, I felt as though I was partaking in a “cultured” occasion, which I usually associated with upper-class people. Because of my working class background, my family and I had more urgent matters on our mind than ballet concerts. Sitting among classmates, I realized how privileged I am to be at an institution like Stanford, where I can see professionally done shows for free. Otherwise, without my friends, I would have felt out-of-placed, and a feeling of exclusion would have ruined the experience.

What distinguishes dance from any other art form, from my inadequate experience and observation, is that the intricacy and talent is expressed through strong body language in the form of elaborate steps and gestures. In fact, the use of every body part made the movements of the ballerinas that much more powerful. Arms were outreached in the air as if praying to a divine being and pivoted spins turned a dancer into a stable whirlwind. With a soft soundtrack to compliment the choreography, the ballerinas used agile pounces and kicks as outlets of their emotion, which in turn I translated as inspiration. Because every single move had a purpose and every dancer moved deliberately in and out of sync with one another, there emerged this world on stage that was conducive to consonance and dissonance. Sometimes, it appeared as though dancers were acting alone randomly, but in the grand scheme of things, the choreography seemed to be taming disorder for a greater effect. Once again, the recurrence of this choreographic choice to seem chaotic but orderly at times and crowd approval reiterated the fact that every move had a particular function. The coupling of concord and conflict effectively provoked a burning passion for dance within me. My inexperience with the arts made the show even more outstanding, for I did not know what to expect but enlightenment.

Talk about dancing with the stars...

2008-04-08T00:14:00.000-07:00

This past Saturday night I attended Dance Fusion and was blown away by the variety and talent of the student dance groups at Stanford which truly exemplify the diversity upon which glorious Stanford prides itself. Unfortunately, I think the incredible variety in companies at Stanford ultimately limits their ability to present their work. According to an inside source, relations with the dance department itself are tense and thus resources and venues are hard to come by, leading to this, somewhat haphazard, amalgam of groups, all stuck together in an effort to pull together an audience no individual group could muster. Yet, inevitably, I think this causes for a clash of expectations and intentions that led to a wide range of responses to the show.

In all fairness, I think the general audience, myself included, recognized that the show was extremely well-performed, and many were especially pleased by Black Parade, the final number which combined several of the groups in one act. On the other hand, I think the rest of the show lacked this crowd-pleasing element, despite its skillful performance.

For better or for worse, I think the goal of each of the individual groups was to present a number or several numbers which best represented and showcased their style of dance, leading to a dozen distinct sections. Meanwhile, the audience was, for the most part I imagine, in search of something specific and was instead greeted by this wide array. For some, this was likely a pleasant spread; for others, I imagine this was a little disappointing. To draw an analogy, it was as if you decided to go and see a Hugh-Grant-mindless-romantic-comedy and instead got 6 minutes of a Stephen King adaptation, followed by ten minutes of a Michael Moore doc, followed by a 2 minute Disney animated short, with only four minutes of delightfully cliche romcom dialogue stuck in the middle.

Ultimately, I don't blame the performers or the audience: I think it was fair for the performers to want to perform their own work without having to adapt it to fit into some more generalized mold, but it was also fair for the audience to want to see a ballet or a modern dance show and not a little bit of each with a whole bunch of other stuff too. In the end, maybe it was even an effective strategy, because now I'm inspired to seek out a performance by each individual group.

Urban Nights Dance Fusion Review

2008-04-08T00:06:00.000-07:00

When people usually attend dance performances, they are detached to a certain extent; that is, they have no relation to the dancers or the company. These people are able to admire the performances from a relatively objective point of view, (hopefully) evaluating the dances on the basis of their intrinsic value. However, when a Stanford student attends a Stanford dance performance, the evaluation of the performance becomes inseparable from the student’s subjective experiences at Stanford. This was the case when I attended Stanford’s Urban Nights Dance Fusion on Saturday night, April 5.

Overall, I was stunned—partially by the quality of some of the dances, but mostly by the realization that these were my peers performing; peers with problem sets due this week and essays to write after the show. I recognized some of the dancers as my acquaintances from Roble, or from previous classes I had taken. I had no idea these people were in dance groups on campus; nor did I know they possessed such talent and passion. General astonishment aside, however, I found it in me to offer at least some critique of my peers’ performances.

Discounting any potential dance recruiters in the audience, it appeared that the primary goal of UNDF was to entertain, and entertain it did. Opening with Fleet Street and Cardinal Ballet, UNDF had the audience engaged from the start. When Fleet Street broke from the traditional Stanford Hymn into rap, the audience immediately broke out into laughter. The first performance after Intermission (Voulez-Vous Danser Avec Moi) featured a dance similar to that in Center Stage when two women dance-fight over a man; likewise, it had the audience laughing and utterly focused on the performance so as to silence any post-intermission distractions. The music for the performances were fitting and engaging in themselves; I found myself looking up the lyrics to James Blunt’s “I Really Want You” and Citizen Cope’s “Let the Drummer Kick” after the show, only to find the songs were listed in the program. The costumes were memorable and well-coordinated. Furthermore, the overall event only lasted two hours with each performance taking about 5 minutes so that attention was held and maintained, making UNDF a success with regard to the entertainment/engagement factor.

That said, the performances were far from perfect. Many of the dances (such as Four by Six) were not synchronized among the individual dancers, leaving me an unsatisfied feeling similar to that when watching an orchestra performance where the individual bows are moving in arbitrary directions. Some of the Basmati Raas dancers were stickless by the end of their performance, though this did not hinder their enthusiasm. I also found the costumes of Mongolian Chopsticks a bit revolting, considering I initially confused them with alien costumes. Still, my complaints are few.

Something I admired most from the dancers was the passion. It felt like they were having more fun performing than the audience was watching them (which was great already, thus placing the dancers high on the fun spectrum). This made the event less formal, for instead of the nonchalance expected in many dance performances, the audience was met with bare, nakedly euphoric—however unprofessional—faces. The passion of the dancers was particularly apparent in Swingtime’s two performances, Mack the Knife and Dancing Fool, in which all the dancers were singing along to the songs and smiling incessantly. The energy in many of the performances was undeniable, particularly in Alliance’s Fuego and dv8’s Go Hard or Go Home, the two hip-hop performances.

By far the most impressive of the performances was the closing one, The Black Parade, which included a medley of all the dancers. The choreography was innovative, featuring a roundtable-like formation of background dancers walking in single file in a large oval that stretched from the stage to the front of the first row of seats. The Stanford Chinese Dance group whipped out their red ribbons, painting beautiful patterns in the air. Kathryn Kilner’s (I believe that is her name; correct me if I am wrong) pirouettes were flawless, punctuating the roundtable and wowing the audience. Lastly, the coordination of choreography amongst all the groups sent out a commentary on the performance as a whole, integrating all the separate dances and leaving the audience with a single, synergistic, impression of Stanford dance—one of appreciation and admiration.

~Dominique Youkhehpaz

Occam's Razor at Battle of the Bands

2008-04-07T21:59:00.000-07:00

Occam’s Razor, a band led by Fagan Harris and Pra Chandrasoma--two Stanford juniors--played at Phi Kappa Psi on Saturday night as part of that fraternity’s Battle of the Bands event. The band opened with a high-energy jam that inspired both dancing and persistent yelling. The song was especially memorable for the second part of its chorus, during which two singers belted, “Well I could be--,” in simultaneity with a guitar riff, followed by a high-tension pause, then “So much more,” followed by prominent guitar soloing. The alternation of full-power vocals and moments of silence was supremely effective in exciting the audience. The rest of the song possessed a calmer feel, including the repetition of “Baby, bay-bay” in the first part of the chorus. With this song, the band seemed to be trading particularly on a strong build-up (of both melodic tension and audience participation), and they were successful in this respect.

The band’s next original song (fourth on the set-list), called “Solution Lovefix,” traded on conveying guy-girl difficulties; in particular, it tried to express the angst of a guy reluctantly dealing with (and occasionally accepting) a persistent girl’s advances. The accompanying music seemed to match the undulations of the lyrics: first, the male character is standoffish, then he gives in a little, then he finds the willpower to harden himself, then he relinquishes a bit, and so forth. In parallel, the music would pick up speed and energy and then quiet down, in a similarly patterned form. Though the background did shift to match the energy of the singing, the rising and falling of the instrumentals (in terms of energy and tone) seemed to short-match the rising and falling of the lyrics (in terms of content). While one could assert that the pattern became a bit “too repetitive,” it’s likely that the band intended it to be that way, as a reflection of the monotony in male-female relations. The choppy guitar strumming throughout the song corresponded nicely to the back-and-forth motion and uncertainty of the piece’s themes.

Between those two original pieces, the band covered two songs: “Stronger,” by Kanye West, and “Billie Jean,” by Michael Jackson. During “Stronger,” Chandrasoma rapped, while Harris played the Daft Punk-created accompaniment on guitar. The objectives of performing this piece seemed to be two-fold: to excite the audience with a song that they could recognize and sing along to, and to impress the audience with a rendition of the song that would exceed its expectations (despite lacking much of the electronic equipment used in the original version). Occam’s Razor certainly achieved the first goal: the crowd’s movement and volume jumped substantially as the song began. The band met their second goal as well, though not quite as aptly as they met their first. Chandrasoma’s rapping was clear and on-beat, but lacked the emphasis listeners are used to hearing from West. Keeping in mind that Chandrasoma had been singing just a few minutes earlier, however, we might consider his rapping more than competent. After all, the band may have been pursuing a third goal: to reflect crossover potential. This potential certainly revealed itself in Harris’s accompaniment. His guitar playing achieved a sound shockingly similar to that of Daft Punk, yet differed noticeably and interestingly, with a less-ample, sharper sound. The audience reacted with corresponding glee.

Overall, Occam’s Razor accomplished what seemed to be their primary objectives: they established themselves as a versatile and memorable rock band, with inclusions of rap, electronica, violin-soloing, covers and original songs. And through their energy and track selection, they provided the audience with a fun, exhausting performance.

Battle of the Bands (04/05)

2008-04-07T13:12:00.000-07:00

The art event I attended with Tom Berry and William Payne was the 18th Annual Battle of the Bands, which took place at the fraternity Phi Kappa Psi on Stanford campus Saturday night. Specifically, we watched a set of four songs by the Stanford indie rock student band known as Occam's Razor. The instrumentation consisted of two guitars which switched between playing rhythm and lead parts, a bass, keyboards, drums, and a violin. The keyboardist handled the lead vocals and one of the guitarists added harmony and backups.

The band opened with an up-tempo original song of theirs. Next, they covered the Kanye West song "Stronger" and Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean." Finally, they closed with another original song of theirs. What first struck me about this performance was the song ordering, which at any concert is a crucial aspect of connecting and engaging with the audience. By opening up with the up-tempo original song of theirs, they were able to introduce themselves and their sound to the audience. The song itself was pretty accessible with a catchy chorus and traditional pop lyrics ("Baby! Baby! I could give you -- so much more"). What impressed me right off the bat was that the band was able to have the audience dancing to and even singing along to a song most everyone there had never heard before. That said, using the opening song as a basic palette warm-up, the band was able to amplify their connection with the audience by playing clear crowd-pleasers in "Stronger" and "Billie Jean." While it is not a novel idea for a rock band to play a rap song in a concert setting, Occam's Razor pulled off "Stronger" quite convincingly. The lead guitarist handled the crucial part of the backing track (which in fact is a sample of a Daft Punk song) using the proper effects (e.g. distortion, phaser, delay) to nail the sound of the record. The drums and bass also did a good job of providing a pounding beat and strong backbone for the rap.

Familiarity of the performance to the record is the quality that most audience members appreciate in a live band playing a cover tune. However, in order to make a significant impact on the audience's ears, a band has to also offer some contrast/dissonance to the original tune. In other words, to quote the commonly cited-expression, the band has to make the song "their own." Otherwise, the performance becomes stale and predictable. After all, why not just listen to the record or go see the original performers if it's going to sound exactly the same? Judging this band's performance, they did quite a good job of keeping the music fresh and original. First off, having a violinist in the group adds some distinct tones and melody lines that the other rock instruments didn't really provide. Although again not a novel idea to have a violinist in a rock band, it is still nevertheless appreciable for its uniqueness. Furthermore, having the rock vocalist deliver rap vocals is a stretch, but he pulled it off with his own brand of idiosyncrasies and tremendous stage charisma.

The end of "Stronger" was very much the climax of the set. "Billie Jean" offered a nice contrast to the other two songs in almost every category (genre, tone, tempo, lyrical styles, and song structure). Among other things, it featured the bass in the spotlight, rather than the guitars. However, upon finishing the "Billie Jean," it was a minor letdown for the band to play a slower-tempo, less catchy, original piece for their closing song. The connection and chemistry that the band had built by playing a mixture of original songs and covers was slightly compromised at this point. This tune featured much less energy from both the audience and the band. As a closer, it didn't really end the show on a high note that they should have left us with.

Overall, however, the performance was quite solid and the band demonstrated their talent in both their instruments and stage performance. Clearly, they are very experienced.

-Daniel Gratch