Hey World, I'm in Maine. Thought You Should Know

The title pretty much says it all, save for the reason I'm in Maine.  I'm visiting more colleges.  Yay!

After driving up to ME from Harrison, NY (which is a bit of a drive), my dad and I hit Bates College for their 9:30 tour.  Bates doesn't do info sessions this time of year, which is just fine with me because at this point they're all starting to sound the same.  I liked Bates a lot.  It is warm (even thought I needed a real jacket in June) and friendly and welcoming and self-contained.  They really want you to be a part of their community.  They also offer really cool housing opportunities.  Almost all of it is cross sectional (Freshman through Seniors mixed together) and they offer the opportunity to live in proper houses with about 20-30 of your classmates; this gets a big thumbs up from me because it's nice to have friends of all ages.  They also have an unlimited dining plan and 64 different types of cereals of which they have 32 in rotation at any given time.  If you want to, you can eat all 64 different types of cereal in two weeks.  I also loved looking through their course catalogue.  One class in particular sticks out for me, but they all seemed really interesting.  The one in particular that I am just dying to take is one that combines Physics and Religious Studies to look at the origins of the universe.  Awesome or awesome?  I will end up double majoring because I'm interested in too many things and Bates really seems to encourage that.  The offer lots of interdisciplinary opportunities and they encourage you to combine in any three ways majors, minors, and what they call General Education Concentrations which is basically a minor lite.  These are all wonderful wonderful things that make me want to dance ridiculously with joy.  Also my tour guide - Jonathan, a theatre/rhetoric double major - hollered at me as I was walking back to my car "I really hope you come here".  And I do mean hollered; he basically yelled across a quad, which I think speaks to the inclusiveness of the campus.

On the flip side, about 25 minutes away in Brunswick, ME is Bowdoin college.  Some people talk about "the feeling" when they walk onto a campus of knowing they will go there.  I had that feeling in reverse at Bowdoin.  The people seem nice enough and it had actually warmed up by they time I got there but all in all the buildings gave me the feeling of being in a horror movie psych ward.  I had Zero interest in anything in the course catalogue - to be perfectly honest, everything in there read like a gender studies class and they only had one class on theatrical design which, in my book, is a bad sign - and the literature seemed cold and uninviting.  I'm sure it was just fine for Hawthorne, Chamberlain, and Longfellow but it is so not for me.  It gave me the feeling of wanting desperately to be a big university even though it wasn't.  I like my schools to be themselves and Bowdoin certainly was putting up a front.

So today was definitely a productive day.  Tomorrow I'll be visiting Colby and maybe, just maybe, making it down to Tufts in Massachusetts for a tour and info session.  That'll be a little tight and a little psychotic but why not try, right?

Los Lunes al Sol (Spoiler Alert)

The AP Spanish Language exam is difficult to study for, primarily because it's hard to pick up a language in a weekend.  The elements of the exam are designed to be a surprise, so it's not like you can pick up a list of vocab and study that.  Because of this, I have taken to watching movies in Spanish for lack of a better way of preparing.  One of those films was Fernando León de Aranoa's Los Lunes al Sol (Mondays in the Sun).  A cheerful movie it isn't, but it is a fascinating look at the lives of four men left unemployed by the closure of the shipyard in Vigo, Galicia.  Santa, José, Lino, Amador, Sergei and Reina all meet at a bar owned by their former colleague Rico after their ship building jobs are outsourced to Korea to discuss their various lives.  It is an ensemble piece, but Santa is the closest thing to a main character; he is the most superficially confident and the unofficial leader of the group.  His story is that he has a court case hanging over him regarding a lamp he broke in the protests over the closure of the ship yard.  The fine is 8,000 pesetas (yes, this movie was made before Spain went to the Euro) but to him, morally, it is worth much more.  He refuses to pay the fine on the grounds that the shipping company is charging him for being fired.  Ultimately, he does pay the fine; but proceeds to break the replacement lamp to make a statement about having been fired.  Lino is the only one of the group to consistently pursue work after being laid off, but he consistently pursues work for which he is not qualified and for which the other applicants are half his age.  He keeps hoping that he will be called back for one of the positions but he never is.  He alludes to one position that he could have had if his daughter had not been keeping the line busy, but - given his luck - that seems increasingly implausible.  Amador has degenerated into alcoholism after being abandoned by his wife; maintaining an increasingly transparent pretense that his wife will soon return from holiday.  He is fixated on turning the lights out and cryptically moralizes to his compatriots at the bar.  It is he that brings up the image of Siamese Twins: once one falls, both fall.  Ultimately, Amador falls under undisclosed circumstances from his apartment window (although it is very probable that he committed suicide).  Santa discovers him above the entry to his apartment bloc, whereupon the light over the entry goes out.  Sergei, the Russian, is the most delusional of the bunch; he claims his career as an astronaut was ended by cutbacks in the Soviet Space program.  José is to me the most interesting.  His wife is the one who brings home the paycheck and he grows increasingly moody as he feels more and more emasculated by his economic situation.  At one point the couple goes to ask for a personal loan, but it is his wife Ana that is the "active person" on the form, not José.  In a fit of anger, he snatches the form away from the banker and throws it away.  Ana too is stressed by the relationship.  She works long shifts at a tuna packing plant despite her legs which seem to be in constant pain and her boss makes advances.  It is suggested that she planed to run off with him, but stays when José comes home from Amador's funeral and she decides to stay more out of pity than love.  The friends get together to hijack a ferry boat to sprinkle Amador's ashes into the harbor, but characteristically the ashes go awry and Santa, José, and Lino are left stuck on the boat in the middle of the harbor.  


This movie moves at the languid pace of the siesta in which these men seem to be trapped.  They have fallen, and this movie takes a look at what that does to middle aged men who realistically have no prospects.  In one way or another, they all turn to dreams.  Amador embraces alcoholism and deluded philosophizing.  Lino keeps filling out applications for jobs for which he is wholly under-qualified.  Santa turns to women and dreaming of Australia (read escape). This movie came out in 2002, but it's so worth the watch.  Get thyself, reader, to Netflix to watch it!

Happiness is Overrated

I should probably preface this with the fact that I speak, at max, six sentences worth of Russian. I can read a little more, but by read I really mean that I know what words written in the cyrillic alphabet should sound like but have no idea what they mean.  All that said, I love Russian lit.  Because of that, I thought it might be a good idea to head in to Brooklyn for the Maly Drama Theater's production of Chekov's Three Sisters.  For those of you who clicked on the link to the company's website, you may have noticed that it is not in English.  I saw a rather quintessential production of the Three Sisters if only because I actually saw it in Russian.  There were English supertitles, but the actors were undeniably speaking Russian.


What was particularly interesting to me about the experience was the time difference of the audience's laughter.  The play is questionably worth seeing because it's incredibly depressing (even for Chekov) and a little pedantic (more on that later), but an interesting part of the experience was that the performance was supertitled.  Some projectionist had the thankless job of projecting the translation of the Russian words on screens on either side of the stage in time with the dialogue so that the non-Russian speakers in the audience could understand the action.  Now of course this is not a perfect solution; some of the lines were up a little too long, some were not up for long enough, some of the translations were a little questionable, and - most importantly - the audience reactions were not in sync.  The Russian speakers in the audience would, without fail, laugh/react first.  Which is interesting to say the least.  To me this begs an interesting linguistic question: can translation work?  Are "I love you" and "te quiero" analogous or does the one loose something in the translation into the other?  As I said before, I do not speak Russian, but I do get by in Spanish (at least I should given how long I've taken it) and I think the power of language is fascinating.  I strive to be able to read things in the original spanish because I don't want to loose meaning in the translation.  Of course I'd love to be able to read Chekov in the original Russian or Dumas in the original French, but I only have so much time in my day and I can't learn every language known to man.  So we must often be satisfied with the translation, imperfect though it may be.


Additionally, I was intrigued by Chekov's focus in this play on happiness.  Here's where the play gets a little pedantic.  The characters, trapped in a provincial, Russian garrison town, turn regularly to philosophy to pass the time.  More specifically, they talk of happiness and whether it is attainable.  Vershinin (I think, the fact that it wasn't in English made me loose track of the characters a little) repeats the mantra that happiness will only be possible in the future once they have built (literally.  Many of the characters are strong proponents of laboring to bring happiness to oneself.) the foundation for their descendants.  The repetitiveness of the discussions renders the play a bit pedantic, but it's still an interesting thought.  The argument (and it is a very specific one) centers on the idea that labor in this life will either bring you happiness or your descendants.  I'm not sure I agree with their methods for bringing happiness, but the general question is certainly an interesting one: is happiness possible to attain?


So, that's a lot to think about.  Comment away...

Who Are You, Jesus Christ?

Broadway is turning into a religious institution.  Currently playing are The Book of Mormon, Godspell, and (more central to the subject of this post) Jesus Christ Superstar.  I love Superstar.  It's probably one of my favorite musicals.  Not that I've ever seen it before, I just love the music, which is - as it turns out - the entire show.  Jesus Christ Superstar is part rock opera and all awesome.  If you get the chance, I strongly encourage you to listen to "Gethsemane" from the 1971 original Broadway Cast Recording; there's this one note that Jesus hits that will make your brain melt with amazement.  What's especially cool about this production is that the cast is almost entirely comprised of Canadian no-names.  The show came down from the Stratford Shakespeare Festival and it represents the festival very well.  The cast does a great job with their parts and, more importantly, you can hear every word.  Full disclosure, the actor who plays Judas has a solo album and I bought it.  His voice is amazing.  With regard to staging (and how can I go an entire blog post without talking about it?), I thought it was really well done.  A few things threw me off at first - most notably the Mad Max/Sontaran styled centurions and the fact that the set does at times seem to swallow the actors - but I really liked what I saw.  I do not know if there is a Tony Award for projection design, but the projection designer for this show deserves major recognition. "Trial & 39 Lashes" and "John 19:41" were both awe-inspiring.

But perhaps more interesting than the details of the show is the subject matter.  It is, after all, a musical about the last six days of the life of Jesus Christ... the man.  Not the son of God.  It's a very interesting proposition: what if Jesus was just a guy who had some nice things to say?  What if he wasn't the son of god?  It's not a new idea.  Thomas Jefferson took all the miracles out of the New Testament and published  The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth as a book of ethics. I think that we can mostly all agree that Jesus didn't say anything too crazy with regard to his ethics.  But you have to admit, he was also kind of morbid.  Toward the end he talked about his own death an awful lot.  In the words of Judas in the opening number: "You've begun to matter more than the things you say". To me, the story actually becomes more important if Jesus was just a guy.  A potentially delusional guy depending on whether or not he himself believed he was he son of god, but a guy none the less who was essentially lynched by the people of Judea for spreading kindness and equality.  Once you strip away the myth from the man, I my opinion, he becomes someone worth founding a religion upon...

Yes and No

It's awesome when you can drive twenty minutes between schools and go from one extreme on the spectrum of interest to the other.  It really makes you value the schools you're interested in that much more.

Since my school called a "snow day" (we haven't had any all year so we had a day to burn), my dad and I hit the road to two of the schools I'm interested in that are within driving distance: Haverford and Swarthmore in Pennsylvania.  In my opinion, they are as different as night and day.

Haverford says no.  It is incredibly difficult to double major according to the students there.  It is very difficult to find a study abroad opportunity outside of those the college has vetted (the college itself does not sponsor any abroad programs).  The students begrudgingly chain themselves to the library desks come finals week with dreams of being in Philadelphia since there is apparently not enough to keep students on campus.  If the college does not have a resource you are looking for, they will ship you off to one of the Quaker Consortium schools (Bryn Mawr, Swarthmore, and UPenn in that order of likelihood).  There are all kinds of things wrong with that.  If I wanted to go to Bryn Mawr, I would apply to Bryn Mawr; but I don't, so I won't.  I will apply to a school for the resources they offer, not for the connections to other colleges with those resources.  They are academically stringent without the resources to support it.  On the plus side, the campus is beautiful.  It's a nationally recognized arboretum.

But if you want a nationally recognized arboretum coupled with a positive experience, I would suggest you drive 20 minutes to Swarthmore College where the people say yes.  Yes, double major!  Yes, find the opportunities that best suit you!  Yes, willingly study because when you're a freshman you can have the department heads as your seminar teachers!  Yes, party on campus at events like Screw Your Roommate (set them up on a themed blind date where they have to find their complementary other based on costumes) or Pterodactyl Hunt (this is a thing)!  If Swarthmore does not have the resources you're looking for, they will bring them to you.  Sure students go off campus, but it's to visit the art museums in Philly to compliment an interest in art history or to go to Chester and help a struggling community.  Visiting Swarthmore makes you want to change the world.  Also, they have twice as many species of trees as students.  At Swarthmore, they do more than pay lip service to their Quaker roots; they embrace their students and want to nurture their interests across seemingly disparate departments.  They believe in activism and consensus decisions and sharing.

So, long story short, I loved Swarthmore; it was totally worth the visit.  Haverford? Not so much.

GATZ

Having just recovered from the theatrical experience of a lifetime, I figure I should try to explain just how truly cool The Elevator Repair Service's GATZ is.  Which might be a little futile, since tickets were sold out the day it came back to The Public Theater and it hardly needs more accolades, but I'll still make a go of it.

This is a theatrical endurance test.  My back still hurts from sitting in the Newman Theater's rather uncomfortable seats.  The audience sits down at 3 PM and the play is over at around 11 PM.  That includes two intermissions and a dinner break (I went to the B Bar & Grill, which was delicious), but that's still really freaking long.  But it is so worth it.  Set in an grimy, dingy office, the play begins with a man sitting down to his desk, discovering his computer isn't working, finding a copy of Fitzgerald's book, and beginning to read.  As he continues to read, the other people in his office begin to fall into place as the character from the novel.  As the play progresses, it seems that the text begins to take over and it becomes hard to tell who's in charge: the people populating the world of this office or Fitzgerald's meticulously chosen words.  Slowly but surely the evidence that this is an office is taken away, and by the time the narrator gets to the last chapter the files and computers that cluttered the desks have been whisked away, leaving Nick alone with the text.  Quite frankly, it's somewhat disturbing.  The light has faded to a blue gray, the sound design is gone (the technician/actor leaves after discharging his roles as various NYC people, Michalis, and the Lutheran Minister) and much of the furniture has been removed.  It's remarkably unsettling, but you can't take your eyes off the stage in much the same way that the people of the Ash Heaps are transfixed by the accident that kills Myrtle Wilson.  It is truly remarkable.  Only Fitzgerald's text remains.  And that is the only text involved in this production.  It is ostensibly a live action audiobook.  True, other things are said on stage, but they are not audible and gradually the tasks of the office stop intruding as everyone gets wrapped up in playing their parts.  The only complaint I might make about the productions regards Jordan, who takes her epithet "jaunty" very seriously which renders her performance somewhat robotic, but truly this production was remarkable.

Also, the actor who plays Nick has all 49,000 words of the text memorized.  It makes you want to cry out to the skies "What is this madness!?", right?

All the World's A Stage

I maintain that only Brits can do Shakespeare right.  This assertion was proved more right on Friday night when I made the trek down to Brooklyn to see Simon Callow in Being Shakespeare at BAM.  One-third one-man show, one-third Shakespeare survey, one-third lecture, this production is a fascinating look at who Shakespeare was in the context of his life and times using Jaques' famous "All the world's a stage" speech from As You Like It as frame work.  The text of the production was written by Jonathan Bate (preeminent biographer of Shakespeare) and the design and direction is the brain child of Tom Cairns.  The moment Callow steps on stage we are treated to a somewhat disheveled looking professor and guide through The Bard's life and words.  And it's not just the classics that everyone knows.  In addition to a fantastically realistic Falstaff, Romeo's "psychotic chum" Mercutio, the Rude Mechanicals from A Midsummer Night's Dream, and a weary Macbeth, we are introduced to some more obscure works.  Like a monologue from Sir Thomas Moore.  Don't worry, it's not part of the official cannon.  It's from one of his collaborations with other writers.  Which, as it turns out, is how he got his start.  Will Shakespeare rose from glove maker's son, to horse carriage valet for London theaters, to technician, to ensemble cast member, to script fixer, to author, to William Shakespeare.  It makes me unmeasurably happy that he was, at one point, a technician.  As he grew older, he continued to write his own plays, but also contributed a monologue or two to the works of others.  Hence, Sir Thomas Moore.  We are also introduced to what little William would have learned in school.  Which is to say Latin Grammar and Rhetoric.  Callow takes apart the "Friends, Romans, Countrymen..." speech to show the audience each rhetorical device employed by Shakespeare to convey his point.  It's super cool.  All in all, it was a fascinating look into the seven ages of William Shakespeare that I would recommend to anyone.