New York - had fun @ here!

So our New York time is going to the logical end. We are going back to Abu Dhabi tomorrow night.

New York and Modernity class is almost over, one activity left – Top of the Rock!

But what I want to say is that this class and these 3 weeks of intensive course were very interesting in sense of gaining experience and knowledge at the same time. Sometimes I think now that I might know about the history of New York even more than a random native New Yorker.

During these 3 weeks of our study I learned about New York City a lot and also I learned how it was and is connected to modernity of itself from the inside and outside views. Looking at its modernity from the inside I can say that development of the city was very fast and great in case of developing in a short periods of time. From outside I can see its modernity in comparison with other cities, which also seem to be modern. For example brand new city with everything new in it as Abu Dhabi and old city as Kazan with more than 1000 years of history. New York with its 300 years of history is lying somewhere between these two cities in a historical development. Abu Dhabi and Kazan are the cities which represent another kind of modernity than New York’s. New York developed way faster than Kazan and in a short period of time is way further in development. We can’t say that about Abu Dhabi because it is really very young (~40 years) and developing very fast with all those skyscrapers and technologies available. But who knows what will happen in the next 50 years?.. That’s why modernity of New York is different from Abu Dhabi’s.

Modernity of New York city is expressed in arts, architecture and city planning. Kazan’s modernity is represented in a way of life in such an old city – everything is up-to-date and modern: behavior of people, business strategies, and politics. I can’t say that about New York just because it always was like that starting from the very beginning – new kind of life, speed of life – and it is not something special anymore, at list now.

TNYI

The New York Idea, off-Broadway play. It is a story about divorcing and marriage. Mostly about marriage between two divorced couples. Why is it called “The New York Idea”? Well, they called it that way because of idea of remarriage.

In my opinion the play itself was really fascinating. The main point was that it was a comedy, even if I didn’t feel so while reading. Those jokes were really smooth and funny, but unfortunately without seeing a play it is really hard to see and understand them as jokes. But anyways it was fun.

Actors perfectly fit their play characters what made the play to be watched on one breath. 

I liked it!(=

P.S. I liked Cynthia, I mean the actor – she was really pretty and beautiful!

AMERICAN IDIOT - day 8

American idiot… who is that? I don’t know who exactly that guy is, but I can tell that it is the album of Green Day… and it is the musical play on Broadway, which I saw yesterday.

You may ask what I think about that. Well, I am absolutely EXCITED about the play. Show was good, actors really good, story is funny and music is incredible! Storyline was about a year from a life of a young guy and what he has experiences in that year – it wasn’t easy time, his friend has gone to serve in army, another friend has had a baby-born, his girlfriend has left him because he became an addict… but he has fought it and in the end won. His friend has returned from the army without left leg, another’s friend girlfriend left him and took the baby with her… Actors ended with the song “The time of your life” – they all were playing guitars and it was great, I haven’t seen so much playing guitars at the same time.

How is it connected to the course that we are learning? Honestly, I don’t really know how is it exactly connected, because it wasn’t in course’s schedule and we’ve (whole New York group) on that play just for fun. But definitely we may connect it to the New York and Modernity, because it was the play that was not like general play – it was rock musical made up with songs of Green Day – so by that director of American idiot made it really modern!

I LIKED IT!

Old story of the city

“Kazan is preparing for the demolition of a number of monuments - architectural structures of the republican and federal levels. Buildings age from 200 to 300 years under the protection of the law may be destroyed very soon. "NG" (Nezavisimaya Gazeta – Independent Newspaper) has received such information from a source in the government of Tatarstan. Monuments that are being prepared for the destruction are located in the center of Kazan, where land is very expensive. Land freed after demolition is going to be used for building new facilities”, part of an article from a newspaper of 2^nd of December 2010.

This is whole true. Kazan is being torn down, especially in the center of the city. It used to be composed of many architectural monuments approximately 20 years ago, and now they are being destroyed. The reason is that those old buildings are owned by private persons and they suppose to look after those buildings, but usually they say that there is not enough funding or resources to look after or to reconstruct. Those people start to do appropriate actions but then stop in the middle of a process because of “not enough funding”. After what government of Republic decides that building is not a monument anymore because of decrepitude of it. After what building is being destroyed.

People of Kazan think that those buildings have to be reconstructed and restorated for future uses and generations, for saving them as historical monuments of the city with a 1000 year history which are making the face of the city.

For example there is a building – the oldest civilian two-storey house made of stone in the middle of XVII century which used to be a tea serving fabric and was a monument till nowadays – is going to be demolished  because it is staying near a new road which has to be build before Kazan Universiade of 2013 and area under that building is planned to be used as parking.

MoMA

Museum of Modern Art, shortly MoMA. We’ve been there yesterday and it was awesome. Being surrounded by abstraction and modernism is really new for me.

Everything what we’ve seen was modern, I think. I don’t know another word to call it. And it was more modern than Whitney museum.

For example a cup and a spoon covered with fur – what is it? It is not just a simple cup, you can’t drink from it. It is a piece of art; I would say an abstract piece of art. Why did artist made it, who knows… He made it because he felt like doing it, for his own purposes and reasons. He inserted some meaning into it, but what was that? Some of us will understand one way, some of us in another. Abstraction experts will interpret in absolutely different way, but I think no one will completely understand true meaning of it, which was putted by author.

Or another one, which really agitated my mind was sculpture of a head with zipped eyes, they were closed. What author wanted to say by this? In my opinion he tried to say that there is no matter how free and powerful you are there will exist things that you’ll never know about and learn about. But this is my opinion. Another one will represent it differently.

This is the main topic of abstraction, modern abstraction – to make things remind you about something and you will insert the meaning yourself.

La Voice del Opera

To hear something is really great ability for everybody. We hear and listen to different things: sounds, noises… music.

Music – what is it? Combination of notes, 12 of them… Not too much, but how much different music has already been composed and played and how much is going to be written and played. Unbelievable. Is it only the combination of notes? What about the voice? When voice is added to the music it becomes something really different as new piece of art.

Can music be modern as paintings or architecture? I think it can, voice and words help to create modernity in music. (But this is not the only way to do that – you can actually play with style of music and create something modern).

Music, words, song… OPERA – one of the forms of voice together with music. (Classic one, usually presented with classical music compositions).

We actually heard one just on this Saturday and it was great. “La Fanciulla del West” by Puccini. It was a play about life in a little town in California (why? Play was in Spanish) and event that happened there (about girl who fell in love with a thief). But I want to say about the music of this opera (actually about the voice because it seemed more interesting to me than music itself).

Voice of opera – as I felt, it didn’t go with scene of the play, but…. But it was needed for this play. Especially opera voice style. As I said in my previous posts – modern is something that blows your mind but in normal way.  You don’t expect the voice to be flowing in different directions during the play, it doesn’t fit that way, but with combination of differences you can create really amazing thigns. Voice was supposed to be there, in the play, to make it modern, because Puccini was creating a modern style ‘thing’, what was great in my opinion and breathtaking piece (it was 3 hours long, but we didn’t feel the time).

                                                                                                                                 

Dialogue after a hard day

- What was interesting yesterday? - asked me my mind 

- Fieldtrip to Whitney Museum of American Art - answerd I to myself.

- Really? Tell me something about it, please - asked it again.

- Well, I met Russian guard there and we talked a little bit... 

- Are you kidding me? Really? How was it? - it was keeping asking.

- Wait, I am not going to talk about this - answerd I and swithced the topic...

- I saw an interesting piece of art there (actually they were all interesting and all pieces of art). I will talk about the film, "Shadow" by Slater Bradley and Ed Lachman, which is presented there.

- Film's construction is very interesting. It begins with sounds of steps and man with his dog walking towards us in a desert. Without any voice… in the beginning. And you don’t expect the voice to come into the film for the whole scene, but it does.  

We hear the voice of that guy after he accidentally finds little girl in the middle of the desert (not actually in a desert, there were an abandoned house and van – she was in a van). She scared him and he said couple of words to her. Wait, girl, what is she doing in the desert, alone ? I have no idea, but this is impressive as voice. Guy left her there. And you think voice is over and nothing strange will happen. Ha-ha! Very strange thing happens later in the film – this guy finds a guitar from nowhere and plays a song and sings – then continues to walk.

Then, what you really don’t expect, girl comes into the scene again by following that guy – and guy's voice again.

Film ends as it began – with sounds of walking away man, but into the dark and with light on his hand (without dog – where is the dog???)

- What an interesting piece, but is this a modern moove, museum is aout modern art? - asked it again after a bit of sielence.

- Yes, I think so – it is something that blows your mind but in normal way (not as surrealism or abstractionism), and you can feel that something is missing there, something that you want to add or fix after what it will become realistic - but this is not a goal of the video - it's modern! - said I and realized that I have been talking to my mind. It's ok, happens to everybody =)

Sub, sub, sub, SUBWAY!

Ok. Second day of class is gone to the history, so I can talk about it a little bit. 

New York City, New York and Modernism, New York and Modernity. Visible in everything here, especially in a subway system.  

What is a subway in my understanding? It is an underground transportation system. But being from Russia I would like to call it metro, not subway (we usually call it this way, and sometimes we call it underground (but this is more common for Moscow).

In Russia it is deep. Here it is not, what is very interesting because NYC is one of the rare cities which have superficial subway system.  

NYC’s subway has very interesting system comparing it to my city’s metro. It has local and express (skipping some of the stations) trains running at the same time.

“You can use it (and usually people do it this way) if you are in hurry and need to reach some place really fast,” – said Cyrus Patell when we were staying in a station and waiting for the express train which  was suppose to take us to the Borough Hall station. (MTA (Metropolitan Transit Authority) museum is located there)

MTA museum. It was fun! It is about New York’s subway and its development history. (it is mostly about the subway, but also it has other transportation “things” exposition)

We have seen different subway cars (In Russia we don’t have so much different subway cars). It was fun.

Finally, if you want to know something more, read other posts in a theme because I think they will write about similar things, or close to it (we all had the same experience yesterday). If they won’t mention subway read them anyway, because they will tell you something interesting.

Between first and second class

        First class in New York... ever! If you want to know what is the class name, it is "New York And Modernity". Well from the name you can see that we will be studying modernity related to NYC. It is something that blows my mind actually because after I saw NYC for the first time I realized that I need to study it, to learn about the city. This course is something that will throw us into historical development of the city, what is really exciting.

        We have readings for this class,  3 books plus handouts. For todays class we have had reading assifgnment from two if them plus poems in handouts. I would like to share with reading from the book, because I think that it is something you would like to know. Books name "New York Modern: The Arts and the City" by William B. Scott and Peter M. Rutkoff. It is really interesting, suggest you to rad if you wnat to something more about New York.

        The book begins with throwing us into the end of XIX century and shows moments of life of that period of time. It talks about different "innovations" in the city and how the city started to change. The most interesting thing is that at that point New York didn't have universities, musiems, different schools as other big famous cities like London and Paris and still was growing and developing in fastest rate (it was about 1,5 million people big). Of course it couldn't continue forever and city started to develop its arts and study sites. "Gilded Age New York became the center of the American art"(Scott and Rutkoff 3). Its role was unusually high. American art was developing with the city and it was a success. American renaissance - they called it his way - was developing and taking more and more places in the city wat was a step to development of the city. Different parts of the NYC developed at that time, but especially Manhattan. Arts opened ways to many other trends related to arts like architecture or urban planning. Modernity began.

         So the end of XIX century in New York was indicated by the emergence of new trends what was logically expectable with the rate of growing and developing of the city.

I wish I wrote more about the topic but unfortunately I am running out of time. See you later =)

First Image of New York in my head

        This is my first time I am in New York City. This is even first time I am in the United States of America.
 
        What was I expecting New York City to be like, to look like? When I just arrived here I was thinking that I will arrive somewhere closer to the high buildings. But as I understood the airport is somwhere on the edge of the city, or somewhere there. Actually it was logically expectable because airport suppose to be outside the city  just like everywhere.
 
        At the same time I was thinking that New York City is composed only of great structures but everything is in normal size here, just like at home. Surprisingly for me I saw some buildings that look just like buildings at home. But the most surprising thing was that I thought NYC had much more snow than it has now.
  
        You will ask now, why am I here? Well, I came to study in New York University NYC for three weeks. Actually I am a student of New York University Abu Dhabi located in the capital of United Arab Emirates wich is Abu Dhabi. I am a freshman in college and every single experience is new for me. My first experience of Abu Dhabi was very interesting because I started to learn new culture and to be a part of new culture. I think the same will happen with New York City - new culture, new people - new experience.
 
         New York City is something new for me, something I have never experienced before. I want to epxress myself like we say in Russia: "Etot gorod navsegda ostavit neizgladimiy sled v dushe", what is translated as: "This city will leave indelible spot in my soul forever" what actually means that this city is going to change the way I think, the way I am, simply my life forever.