Play in the City 2013

Three months ago, with excitement and a little bit worry, I, an international student from China, came to the United States for the first time. Everything around was new for me, especially, the language environment. At the beginning, when I had to speak English all the time during my daily life, I felt awkward and tired. Even worse, I faced difficulties of various sorts in writing— sometimes, I faced culture collisions; sometimes, I misunderstand the meaning of words; sometimes, I clearly knew what I want to express, but when I started to type, I was trapped and even had no idea about how to build up my words into a shapely essay. Luckily, I joined Esem "Play in the City"this semester. Although it was not easy for me to read so many reading materials and write my essays every week, I, indeed, have to thank for those experiences because I learnt many precious skills of writing from them.

During this semester, we had at least seven trips to Philadelphia, which were all interesting and exciting. We explore the meaning of new definition we learnt in the readings in class; we visited museums; we watched plays; we took photos; and we absorbed knowledge and thinking a lot when we played and enjoyed ourselves.

Unconsciously, three months have passed. These days, I practiced reading and writing to developed my skills of using my second language, which is like that I piled up my experiences as bricks to build up a skyscraper—more bricks I built, higher I reach, and further I overlook. Thus, I will never stop my steps to collect the “bricks”, which build up my second language and bring me to a wider horizon of my new life.

Sorry! Accidentally deleted this while finishing up!

When I first walked into Play in the City, I was a decent high school-level essay writer. Over the course of the semester, I learned more. I picked up more tools, things like ‘lenses’ and ‘the believing game’ for my writing toolbox, and these are tools that I expect to be very useful over the years. I discovered new terms and theories with which to interact with the world around me, different types of play and luck, that may or may not affect my writing in the future, but gives me different ways to think about my experiences: I consider that even more valuable to come away from a class with. In the end, I believe that I have improved in a few ways in my writing over the semester: I think about my essays differently, and in doing so I write them differently: I think about things like lens and how best to frame the point I want to make, what best proves my point or what point best discusses what I want to examine. I recognize, however, that I still have a lot to learn: my essays are not always as focused as they would ideally be, and they often have an overabundance of one punctuation mark or another. I thank this course further for that, because it not only taught me, but gave me an idea where to go next.

I enjoyed participating in class: the readings, while sometimes difficult, were usually interesting, even fascinating: sometimes this because of the idea of what if I took their advice and followed it through in the world, like what happened with Flannigan's "Critical Play". Sometimes it was because the essay sparked a moment of 'wait a moment, you mean I'm not the only one who does that?', as with Sontag's "Against Interpretation". The conversations were interesting, too: I usually learned something new, whether about a person, a topic, an idea. It was always exciting to see what someone would say next, whether or not I agreed with them, whether or not they or I were the only person in the room who disagreed with the class.

I think that overall, in the classroom I assumed the role of the prod, and often the devil's advocate: I often nudged people, poking at their ideas from one direct or another until they could fend me off, and leaving them with a stronger idea for it. When I was not asking questions about other people's ideas, I often asked them about my own. One of the reasons I love playing devil's advocate is that you can not play the role if you are unwilling or unable to poke holes in your own beliefs. I think of it almost as the cynic's version of the believing game: you may or may not believe for what you are arguing at the beginning, but if you play your cards right, everyone, including yourself, will be convinced by the end. Outside the classroom, I tended to serve as one of three things: I was the tag along, the conversation partner, or the crew director. On one or two occasions, I would up going on a trip with two classmates who were good friends with each other. This left me third wheeling, unable to join the conversations and not asked to do so. Sometimes I was with a bunch of friends or acquaintances that, although perfectly nice, could not be bothered to plan ahead. On these occasions I served as crew director, making sure everyone was where they needed to be when they needed to be there. Finally, my favorite situation was when I was traveling with people who I knew, liked, and who could get where they needed to without direction. In those situations, I was a conversation partner, and it was lovely. I think, however, that I learned from all of these roles: these are useful life skills, and the tips and tricks I learned this year will be useful next time I need to arrange a group of people, or to not step in and take over.

I do not know who I learned the most from: that was the lovely thing about this class, we all learned from each other simultaneously. Nor, for that matter, do i know who I was most helpful to: there were some students I barely interacted with, and some I developed good friendships with, but there was no single person I recognized spending a lot of time helping, or who spent very long helping me. That said, I found the class work, the class discussions, very helpful: I loved the point of view exercise after the trip to the Eastern State Penitentiary, because it was very interesting to see everyone's opinions so clearly written. I liked the concept behind the small groups of classmates responding to our writing as well, although I did not find those as helpful as I would like. I learned a lot during the class discussions, and I think that those helped me the most.

Overall, I am very glad that I took this course, and pleased that I can walk away from this new semester with all of this in my new toolbox.

How We Learn

In my elementary school, we had a day devoted to diagnostic testing.  They had tests to determine what level of different classes we should be in.  Tests that could show whether we were left-brained or right-brained.  And they had tests that would determine what type of learner we are.  I was determined to be a visual-kinesthetic learner with a strong preference toward logic and mathematics; I needed to be shown something and to do something with my hands and could solve problems more easily than many of my classmates.

This classification has lasted my entire life.  I still learn best when I can see or touch what it is I am learning about and numbers and science still make much more sense to me than symbols and metaphors.  This does not mean that I cannot learn through sounds or that I cannot understand the deeper meanings of certain things, it just means that I must work harder at it.  

Different assignments in Play in the City allowed me to see these differences and recognize why some did not work for me.  

When we were reading NW I struggled to believe what Zadie Smith said.  I took all of her words at the dictionary definition because I never knew what was meant to have a deeper meaning and what was not.  I wrote a paper on how Smith was wrong.

“Though seemingly realistic, Zadie Smith’s NW is loaded with inaccuracies.”

“In addition to the flawed character depictions, Smith also included many inaccuracies with geographical concepts.”

I could not accept her descriptions as anything but the settings of a story she wanted to tell.  Her Willesden does not match the Willesden in the data and, in my head, she was wrong because of it.  It was like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole, it would not work.  I was frustrated because I could not connect to a place where I want to live, England.

When we started to discuss deep play I finally saw what the problem was.  Every time I classified something as “deep play” I was interacting with some thing.  It was never an idea or an activity, it was objects.  The moment in the Titanic exhibit when “the young girl’s shoes before me were suddenly filled and a young man from third class was standing next to me.  I could feel all of these people with me even though I was completely alone,” I was interacting with the artifacts from a disaster.  Or when I was in the Barnes Foundation and “I [saw] the street in France where this hung.  High above the street over the door to the locksmith’s shop, alerting people to its presence.  It goes unnoticed,”  I was connecting to a giant key.  They were objects right in front of me.  I could look at them from all angles and read the descriptions. 

I wondered when I was looking at the locksmith sign “Why do I only have these feelings with artifacts?” but I now realize that it is because of the way I think and learn.  Objects make sense to me because, like numbers, they are constant.  The young girl’s shoes have looked as they do now for more than one hundred years and the sign for a locksmith has looked more or less the same since it was created in the 1800s.  But Willesden, or depictions thereof, changes.  I can not get a good idea of what the area is like because it is constantly changing and I need stasis.

Our first trip into the city, to experience “The Quiet Volume”, was another moment when I could tell that I was missing something.  “The Quiet Volume” was interesting but it did not make me think about the world around me that differently.  One of our last trips, to Eastern State Penitentiary, affected me much more.  Both experiences involved listening to a person speaking directly into my ears, something that, as a visual-kinesthetic learner, is not particularly useful, and both involved observing my surroundings.  So why was walking through Eastern State was a much more moving experience for me?  

Touch.

Yes, during “The Quiet Volume” I had to touch the books and the table and turn pages, but at Eastern State, all of the touches were deeper.  I touched a wall where a guard once leaned.  I sat on the floor of a cell where a prisoner once paced.  I was walking in history, touching it and feeling it, as opposed to sitting in a library with someone whispering in my ear.  

The Titanic exhibit, the key and Eastern State, though very different, each provided me with something tangible.  They were all things.  Physical objects that take up space and can be seen from different vantage points.  They are unchanging and touchable.  I can interact with them.

It is not that I cannot understand that Smith’s novel presents one person’s view of Willesden or that “The Quiet Volume” makes people notice sounds around them.  It is just that I do not think that way.  I understand things through sight and feeling, numbers and logic not sound or symbols.  I need the experiences and sights not the stories and pictures.

            When thinking of critical and deep play, I always come back to the mosaics created by Isaiah Zagar, and the playfully creative impact they have had on the world. They redefined mosaics, and have fabricated one of the most creative outlets of street art. All along South Street his mosaics glimmer in the sunlight, illuminating the numerous fragmented mirrors, reflecting light all around. Words written forwards, sideways, backwards, with many of them relaying powerful messages. The art that Zagar has dedicated his life to is as playful to the onlooker as it is to the creator.

            Although I cannot make assumptions on Zagar’s experiences in creating the mosaics, I would hope that through the years of his creations he has had moments of deep play. Explained by Diane Ackerman, “In rare moments of deep play, we can lay aside our sense of self, shed time's continuum, ignore pain, and sit quietly in the absolute present, watching the world's ordinary miracles.” When looking at some of the mosaics that Zagar has created, his passion and playfulness is unmistakable, and allows the viewer to have the same playful and deep experience when viewing his life’s work.

            The nature of a mosaic is chaotic and fragmented, but somehow they all work together to create a piece of art that evokes emotions that are original to each and every viewer. Mosaics are abstract in that they are open to every person to create their own interpretations, and I love that everyone who was in the Gardens with me was each having a unique and original experience, although we all occupied the same space. This is the magic of the Gardens; they allow each person to play individually within the playground of art and broken pieces.

            Although the Magic Gardens was only the second trip into Philadelphia, this visit to the city was to the most impactful and playful to me, and was my initial look into the world of critical and deep play. I remember walking through the gardens, overwhelmed by the grand quantity of fragmented trash, ceramics, mirrors, and colors that interacted with one another to create a chaotic whole. The art created by Zagar is boundless and distinct from any form of traditional art in that it can be contained to one singular piece of broken ceramic, and can likewise expand to fill a 360-degree space. Each mosaic able to tell its own story, and induce different emotions in its observers, creating a playground from the youngest child to the oldest intellectual.

            In looking at the Magic Gardens as a result of critical play we can see the inherent non-linearity that Mary Flanagan describes in “Critical Play,” Zagar creates no set patterns or rules to his art, but rather lets it develop as he works, letting it create itself, allowing for change. The playfulness that is present in his work is an effect of his casual creations that are not meant for critical interpretation. Zagar is “making for making’s sake,” as Flanagan describes critical play artists, and this allows the viewers to experience the mosaics with the same playfulness in which they were created.

            I would not go as far to define my experiences viewing Isaiah Zagar’s work as “deeply playful,” but I could see how a deeply playful experience could be derived from his work. It encourages its viewers to think, but not criticize. We accept the art for what it is, and move on to thinking about the emotions this art makes us feel, and the messages it is telling us, whether through words or through images that Zagar has created. This door to an endless variety of thought leads me to believe that at least one person has had a deeply playful experience in the gardens, even if they do not realize it.

            The power of Zagar’s work is in its playfulness. Although the art is created through a unique skill, I would not categorize it as art that contains the same meticulous details of a realist painting. This is what makes it special though– it is free and open to more creation. The beauty of his work is that it is unbounded and appears in the oddest of places, always bringing a smile to my face when I see them pop up around a street corner. This playfulness is what makes Zagar’s mosaics special. As I travelled within Philadelphia for the remainder of the trips I always found myself playing in new and unique ways, but whenever I look back, I always regard my trip to the Magic Gardens as the most special. It made me think and taught me how to play meaningfully, impacting me in such a way that I hope to execute the same powerful playfulness in my life.

This is a little bittersweet, honestly. I know I probably don’t seem like the type who would get emotional about things, and typically, I’m not, but I’m sad that this is the last paper I get to write for this class. I want to take a breath, even though I just started. It’s a strange feeling. We’re not coming back on Tuesday this time so we can all do our best to figure out what the twenty pages of reading we did actually meant.  How am I supposed to explain my issues with Deep Play to my mother? She’s not going to understand. I need fourteen other people to argue with me about it.

I definitely think I’m a different person from the one that started this class. I don’t honestly know if I’m AnotherAbby anymore—yes, when we started class, I thought that was clever and hilarious. There were even more Abbys around me than I was used to, and I already used the name as a gmail account, so it seemed to fit. But, I feel like I’m more than that now. This class sort of bionic (wo)man’d me. We can rebuild her. We have the technology. Coming out of the first writing conference, I was shaken. I’d never gone through something like that before, where someone I respected pointed out to me that yes, I was an okay writer, but I wasn’t going far enough with it. My concepts weren’t great. I hit a good idea near the end of the essay, but I hadn’t gone anywhere with it. And, the scariest part to me was that it wasn’t something I’d half-assed and knew was going to come with criticism. No, I’d actually tried to write that paper. I knew it wasn’t my best work, but it wasn’t until the writing conference that I knew just what I would need to do to succeed: Start over.

So I took the technology of Serendip and I rebuilt myself.

I don’t mean that in metaphysical kind of way. I mean that I had to entirely rethink how I went about my writing process. At first, it was alien to me. I can’t use the format I learned in high school to write papers, with five paragraphs of assertion/evidence/commentary, but I also can’t just talk about my day? Then what’s left?

That was what I tried to work with. What was left. And, from there, I started writing the way I thought was right for the class. That process was messy, and took a lot of trial and error, and I’m still not entirely sure that I’ve worked out how to write the way I think I should, but I think I’m getting there.

The discussion was probably my favorite part of class. I honestly just like hearing people talk, and this was a perfect platform for that, because no one was talking for the sake of hearing their own voice. When we spoke, we had to back whatever we were saying up with our reasoning, whether it be an opinion we hold thanks to a unique experience or an idea that grew out of one of the readings. Personally, I liked when my opinion changed over the course of a class. I guess I was playing the believing game before I even knew what it was, which is probably one of the best concepts I’ll be taking away from this class. I may be a cynic, but in spite of an maybe even because of that, I find that trying to believe wholeheartedly in ideas that are not my own is the best method I can use to see where someone else is coming from.  

With that tool at my disposal, I’m not sure where the edges of my learning are now. If I can convince myself that anything someone tells me is right and try to see the world as it would be with that “anything” as one of its components, then I don’t think my learning has edges. I can keep going. If I can see a new world for each and every idea I’m told. I can synthesize what that means, and if I like that world and that idea, I can try to make it happen.

Although, I definitely still have learning edges in subjects outside of what we’ve covered. I know where my edges lie in calculus. That’s kind of the point of calculus.

I’m glad I was placed in this ESem. I know the others couldn’t have given me the same experience, and, as corny as this sounds, I feel like this class was where I needed to be. It helped my writing skills, my discussion skills, taught me reading strategies, and introduced me to Bryn Mawr. It really grew me from AnotherAbby into Abby. And I don’t care if they need to ask me which one I am.

There is something defiant about Isaiah Zagar’s mosaics. Cities are built for efficiency, functionality, but not necessarily beauty. Yet, around South Street, a glimmer of light in the gap between two buildings could mean a mosaic of mirrors and color. Upon closer investigation, a pedestrian could find his or herself in a different Zagar’s art is a street intervention, playfully ignoring Philadelphia’s figurative and literal grids to bring subversiveness and spontaneity to its streets. 

Isaiah Zagar doesn’t always plan ahead where his next mosaic will be, what it will look like, or where he will get his materials. Many of his mosaics spill across alleyways and onto the back walls of houses, creeping along fence lines as if they’re no longer in the artist’s control. The mosaics fill cracks in alleys with seemingly random words and images. Looking at a map of Zagar’s mosaics is not like looking at a map of a typical art gallery. The mosaics make no distinctive pattern and many do not even appear on the map. In the magic gardens, the route you take is not restricted to a single path. Zagar’s art defies the city’s nearly symmetrical grid pattern in its meandering nature. The art is there “to disrupt the everyday actions in the city” by giving people a chance to think for themselves about what it could mean (Flanagan 14).

Zagar’s mosaics are also intentional. They are deliberate, obsessive acts of subversiveness. Because of the repeating patterns, colors, words, and images, it seems as though Zagar is pointing out certain things to his audience, pushing us to think about the words and images and why he is showing them to us.  Using materials like old glass bottles, discarded bicycle wheels, and ceramic plates, materials usually thought of as trash, Zagar redefines what art can be. Hands of all shapes and sizes are prevalent throughout the magic gardens and all of his mosaics, his hands, hands used to create. And from the walls and the ground, eyes of many colors stare in different directions, eyes looking at art from many points of view. Zagar encourages his audience to consider the way society sees art. On one of the walls in the magic gardens, “Philadelphia is the center of the art world” was spelled out with broken pieces of tile. I would usually think of the center of the art world as a museum somewhere in Europe full of historical paintings, but Zagar’s quote undermined that notion, which had been pushed on me by what other people consider important. Philadelphia is the center of Zagar’s art world. I agree with Flanagan that there is a “particular potency in subversive acts through participatory play” (Flanagan 173). Zagar’s work is made to be shared with the neighborhood. By being intentional about putting his art in public places, Zagar allows the public to play and participate in his art and be influenced by his questions about society. A street intervention, like Zagar’s mosaics, is intentional and bold.  

My experience in the Magic Gardens was that it was an almost separate world from the street, a street intervention. It was colorful and full of light that had been filtered through green glass bottles, but the mirrors reflected back buildings on either side, cars driving down the street, the sidewalk, and the viewer of the mosaics. I experienced Zagar’s art as a subversive act, because by bringing me into the mosaics, Zagar encouraged me to think of my own relation to the rest of the pieces. I thought about my relationship to all the material things I’ve discarded as I saw similar items incorporated into art. Perhaps this was unintended on Zagar’s part, and maybe no one else in the magic gardens had similar thoughts, but part of what makes a street intervention a street intervention is that it gives its viewers freedom to decide what they want to make of it. It also intervenes in their thinking, and gives them the chance to consider what the artist is trying to ask through the art. Because street interventions are subversive and expressions of ideas, I consider them to be artful as well.

Like Dove Bradshaw and her fire hose, Isaiah Zagar has claimed South Street as his art. He has disrupted it from the grid of the rest of the city using fragments of tile, trash, and mirrors, and he shares it with the people who allow themselves to become a part of the mosaic. 

When I think of a city, the first thing that comes to mind is skyscrapers and well-dressed businessmen, subways and taxis, Starbucks and a distinct lack of greenery. Cupertino is certainly not a traditional city. But it is a city, an important one. What it lacks in tradition it makes up for in innovation.

Cupertino has none of the elements of a traditional city. We don’t have skyscrapers (in my opinion, an excellent decision given our proclivity for earthquakes). Most of our employers are tech companies, and many employees tend to dress towards the causal end of the business-casual spectrum. Our only public transport is the bus, but most people have their own cars and embrace the California Roll whole-heartedly (in which people don’t stop for stop signs but rather roll slowly through them). And while people do love their Starbucks, they love their Pearl Milk Tea (PMT) even more.

I come from the home of Apple, yes. But I come from much more than that. When I think of Cupertino, I think of sidewalks appearing and disappearing as you walk to school, because half the homes are still small homes from the 60s and the other half are McMansions built within the last 10 years. You can’t walk through Cupertino without hearing at least three languages that are different from your own. Cupertino is the library with fountains outside that kids run through in the summer. Cupertino is Panera filled with students. Cupertino is Mystery Spot bumper stickers. Cupertino is Asian markets and 4.0s and a really terrible football team. We’re a city full of people who were born to be San Francisco Giants fans, and no one can tell us otherwise.

Cupertino is where my friends will naturally switch accents depending on whether they’re talking to their mother or their friends. It is where you have many “aunties,” as we call our friends’ moms. It is where the most popular club on campus is the Bhangra team and where the high school includes a Bollywood number in their spring play set in Cupertino. It is where it is impossible to only have friends of one race. Cupertino is warm. It is sunny. It is closer to the beach than to the mountains, but you could still get to either easily. It is safe. It is a bubble. But it is cracking.

Cupertino is where there has been a bomb threat and a shooting in one year. Cupertino is where people have started to really pay attention to the outside world. Cupertino is where students have started taking charge of their education. Cupertino is changing. It has to. The Cupertino I know was born out of change and must continue to change if it hopes to stay alive.

Because Cupertino is so centered around technology, it works its way into every facet of our lives. People move quickly. The focus in school is on math and science. The majority of the population always has the newest Apple product. The wifi is exceptionally fast. We live close enough to San Francisco that we can visit whenever we want to. And far enough away that we never want to (except for Giants games, as stated above).

Cupertino is different. We have to be, it’s what keeps us ahead of the competition. We’re a city of intellectuals –– but if we want something to happen, we can do it ourselves. And at the end of the day, that’s what we’re proud of: being able to make something out of nothing, and being able to share that with the world. Well, that and the beaches.

 I always regarded the mosaic as fragmented and broken. It is said that“the earliest theory of art… proposed that art was mimesis, imitation of reality.” Thus, whenever I saw the mosaic, I just directly interpret its broken nature as a reflection of our fragmented world, where is collaged by separated people, various emotions and different thoughts. But I forget how magic its connection power is. In other world, I tend to see mosaic as a broken world, but in fact, mosaic itself is a complete art with whole image and expression.

    I think the reason is that I’m distracted by the “form” of art. Mosaic is magic because it challenges the way we used to value the art- “whether we conceive of the work of art on the model of a picture or on the model of a statement, content still comes first.” Mosaic is a kind of special art that attracting people first by its form. Moreover, it is the form of mosaic that still causes the interpretation.

    When I first visited the magic garden, I thought it’s an artwork, which is collaged by separated parts. People tend to value the mosaic as a broken world. When standing in front of the mosaic, most of my classmates and I see the broken glasses, wheels and bottles. I found mosaic interesting because it is “subversive”. Different from the original art such as paintings hanging on the wall of a museum, it breaks the rule. Thus, mosaic is a kind of critical play-which is defined by Flanagan as “to create or occupy play environments and activities that represent one or more questions about aspects of human life.” It challenges the traditional form of art. 

    But is it all- a subversive form of art is what mosaic is special about? In other word, recall the experience in magic garden, what we have seen? The broken brick, the mirror that reflects our own image in the art and the separated letters on the wall is not mosaic. We are interpreting the deep and elusive meaning behind the form of mosaic. So what we have seen is not the art itself, but what it is made of and why the artist wants to create this kind of art. We focus on the background and the stories of the art- “wishing to replace it by something else.” What I interpreted in front of the mosaic is that Isaiah Zagar uses the mirror because he wants to encourage people to involve in this broken world, and to some extent, our own world is collaged by separated pieces. I naturally manage the mosaic by pushing my own idea on the art- after all, I become satisfied with my interpretation, acting like an intimate with mosaic who understands all about it.

    However, “what matters is the pure, untranslatable, sensuous immediacy of some images.” So mosaic is not only a broken world, more importantly, itself is a complete art. We used to value the art through interpretation-“ a conscious act of the mind which illustrate a certain code… plucking the elements from the whole work.” Thus, what we saw is the detail we especially pay attention to analyze. Without any interpretation and just see the image of mosaic, it is a man, a woman, a dog or a smiling face. The first impression people think about mosaic is that it’s separated, but why can’t we say that it’s only a whole art with portrait of people. Just like we are so get used to the idea of critiquing game-how the mosaic critically challenge the traditional art, we forget to believe the mosaic is still a whole thing, still an art.

    Maybe it is the time “to recover our senses. We must to see more, to hear more, to feel more.” So imagine a mosaic is a whole piece of art and do not focus on how it is made, what can we see? It is the sky, the running dog and talking people. Mosaic makes much more sense to us when we see from a full view. In other words, using separated pieces to create art is the method and form Zagar uses but not the mosaic itself. “ In order to understand the esthetic in its ultimate and approved forms, one must begin with it in the raw (Dewey)”. From my point of view, the raw of the mosaic is what really is about and what image is on it. People are so easily obsessed in analyzing and interpreting. Same for the viewer of the paintings in the museum, people tend to analyze the technique artist used when creating and how he expressed a sense of gloom in a portrait when he was not in good health or had no inspiration. But all these transitions are not the pure art itself but the interpretation from viewer.

    The mosaics maximize and substantiate the effect of people’s interpretation when viewing art. The distraction of interpretation even prevents people from appreciating what the pure image of mosaic. In other words, it is undeniable that most of the time, what we are doing when appreciating the mosaic is focusing on the broken aspect of the art. It is quite possible that when we talk about the mosaic we have seen, we don’t even know what is it about and what image is collaged. We are not viewing art but thinking. In order to analyze, people can’t see the art, just like kill the goose laying the golden eggs.

    The loss of pure appreciation and interaction with arts in returns of interpretation is not what Barnes want either. He doesn’t want people just see the interests and novelty of mosaics’ forms. The most important aspect of mosaic is the direct image and how it is related to the environment, to the wall and to other arts as a whole.

    For a real viewer of art, mosaic is complete, not fragmented. It’s a connection, not a separation. Maybe that’s why the mosaic is special- not because of the broken aspects but because it can connect pieces as a whole. Like all arts, mosaic is magic and powerful not because of the separated piece of information, but because of its interaction with and implications to the whole environment in general. 

       Before my trip to the Old City, I thought it was the spectator that made the picture. But this recent experience helped me realize that it was not that simple. It is not only the audience makes the picture, but also the performer, the creator and the artwork. These elements together make the "participants", who are actively engaged in the art or playful activities and jointly infuse dynamics and diversity into the work. The art is not complete without either the artist or spectators. A work engenders its true meanings with its participants. This also corresponds to Sontag's article on Against Interpretation. We should learn to "see more, to hear more, to feel more".

    This point was perfectly illustrated in my trip this weekend. On our way back, we ran into a piece of mosaic by Isaiah Zagar in an area that was not fairly close to the Magic Garden. Even if we were rushing for the train, we still stopped there for a while to take a clearer look. Located at the entrance inside an art school, the mosaic was still a shining piece for all of us. Because we had participated in Isaiah's artwork, had tried to find the beauty in every corner of his Magic Garden, and had quietly had a wonderful "conversation" with him through the shimmering art pieces. We were amazed at coming across his mosaic, but the women who sit outside the entrance looked at us strangely and wondered why seeing a colored wall made us so happy. Those women were merely spectators, unlike us. We engaged in Isaiah's work, therefore we were able to fully appreciate this amazing serendipity and understand the importance of this piece. Our joy was not due to the content of this piece of art, but because of feel the form and true self of it.

    However, it was a different case when we went into a used book store, The Book Trader. The huge amounts of books that were stacked on the ten-foot tall bookshelves overwhelmed us. Walking in the extremely narrow corridor between the bookshelves, we were dumbfounded by the diversity and quantities of the books. On the second floor, I found some people quite excited in their "treasure hunt". There were also a few of others sit quietly, completely indulged in their own reading. Their movements added liveliness to this kingdom of books. And I, as an observer, enjoyed watching them actively "performing". These two groups of people are true participants, making this place an art for us spectators.

    This point was introduced by Flanagan in her book Critical Play. She mentioned that Allan Kaprow, an Fluxus artist, involved "participants" rather than merely "spectators" in his performance art 18 Happenings in Six Parts. "Happenings", another title for performance art in New York, were planned but unscripted, unrepeatable and unique events that were performed by non-actors who had no intention to make the events theatrical. Actively engaged participants rather than passively observers were his goal in this project. He often insisted that there should be no spectators in his performance and that only active participants should be part of a "Happening". "Happening" emphasized the significance of active participation, which corresponded with my point of view here.

    This could be further explained in my experience in the Franklin Fountain, a unique ice cream store. Workers in the store all dressed up in costumes of the old times. And the decoration and rules here were also ancient and charming. Menus were carved into the wood wall and the store only accepted cash. Entering another world, we embraced this fascinating little piece of art as we walked in the narrow space, trying to get our ice cream. Every day, different, unrepeatable events happen here. They welcome all kinds of customers who appreciate their art gestures. But their art has meanings only if people came to participate and have conversation with them. Their art only makes sense with the admirers.

       In Kaprow's point of view of how art should be considered, my experience when encountering the mosaic by Isaiah Zagar those engrossed readers at the Book Trader meet insistence that only active participants should be in his performance. As for Sontag, viewing and feeling art in my coincidence of seeing Isaiah's another work  meets her theory to "not to find the maximum amount of content in a work of art". On the last example of the Franklin Fountain, probably neither of Kaprow and Sontag will agree that my reaction is the way they think one should experience art.

    However, in my perspective, the artist, the performers and the audience working together create a better version of the art. An art won't be an art without any of these elements. Spectators are not the only co-creator with the artist. It's the "participants" that make the picture. And all of these examples fall into my category of the art experience.

“Everything that’s difficult you should be able to laugh about.”-Louis CK

“Yeah, my finals had me laughing. Laughing until I had no tears left to laugh with.”-Abby ACK

.           Play and humor are two concepts that go together hand-in-hand. Levels of humor easily find parallels in the levels of play: simple, critical, and deep.

Simple play is the first step in the spectrum of play. In terms of humor, simple play to the least thought provoking forms of humor. The jokes are funny, but this humor is not characterized by biting satire and sublime revelation. It’s not "lesser”, in the sense that it should come secondary to the other forms of humor, but it is the only genre that includes fart jokes. I can’t say I’ve ever heard a fart that made me reevaluate my beliefs and the truths of the universe. I have never, and will never, use flatulent humor as the lens through which I view the world. However, farts are just a small part of humor in simple play.

Simple play humor is the baseline upon which other forms of humor grow. It is the bare essential elements of comedy, rather than the concepts that can sustain a story. Take, for example, the Monty Python sketch The Funniest Joke in the World.

The beginning of the sketch is simple. A man writes the funniest joke in the world, and then dies of laughter. Then, his mother reads the same joke, and dies of laughter, all the while being narrated by a very official and matter-of-fact sounding voice. The joke even kills a police officer, who courageously ventures into the house to retrieve the joke and prevent further humor-related deaths. The first two and a half minutes of this sketch are funny because of their incongruities, but do not extend beyond simple play. It is funny that a joke can kill people, because we know jokes cannot do that, and it’s funny that something that’s clearly ridiculous would be taken so seriously. However, the rest of the sketch transitions into the story of how the military tried their best to weaponize the joke in order the help them win World War Two. That shift takes the sketch from a nice little example of simple play to a satirical piece of critical play. The first two and a half minutes could stand alone as a sketch that would be remembered as silly and moderately funny, but the addition of story through satire is what takes the sketch to the next level, in terms of humor, and sustains the sketch for another seven minutes or so, through the way it aims to provoke thought in the viewer.

Critical play probably encompasses most professionally created humor. If simple play is jokes, then critical play is concepts.  A joke a child tells its parents seldom gets into critical play; however, every episode of “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” lives there. Critical plays aims to be more than a joke: it wants to be a subversive concept, a satirical story, or a statement that makes people laugh, but then forces them to think in order to truly understand it. And, in order to achieve that, critical play relies on deep-rooted truths as the foundation of its story.

A close friend and spinoff of “The Daily Show”, “The Colbert Report”, has mastered the technique of deadpan satire in encouraging critical play. The host, Stephen Colbert, presents each news story as if everything he says and every point he makes is a truth he wholeheartedly believes, even when what he says is obviously ridiculous, as opposed to Stewart’s style of openly pointing out the hypocrisy in whatever news story he’s dissecting. Colbert’s style relies more on the viewer’s ability to play critically than Stewart’s does. Where Stewart spoonfeeds, Colbert implies.

The Colbert Report, 12/10/13

This style of critical humor encourages viewers to look within themselves and their societies to figure out why the jokes are funny. Yes, the joke is good. But what about the meaning of the joke? Critical play, when used correctly in humor, should unsettle the viewer. In this clip, Colbert seems to advocate the stagnation of the middle class and the Brave New World-esque appeasement of Americans through television and luxury time. The point is not for the viewer to agree with what he’s saying: it’s the opposite. Colbert is trying to get people to question what they’re laughing about, because, although he himself is saying things satirically, these is danger in those who believe the points he’s ridiculing. It also goes even deeper, to the point where the presentation style is forcing the viewer not just to question Colbert, but to question other serious news outlets as well. Colbert presents his satirical material in the same manner as serious newscasters, making statements and calling them facts, even though what he says is obviously ridiculous. However, his style encourages people to approach “serious” news with the same critical eye they take to his work.

This leads into the concept of deep play in humor, the toughest level of play to explain in this context. When simple play and critical play are the joke and the concept, respectively, deep play deals more with the reaction humor garners from its audience. In Clifford Geertz’s Notes on a Balinese Cockfight, the act of deep play is the betting system in place around cockfights, one that transcends all social status and reason in order to profit bragging rights, if nothing else, from the fowl battle. So, in humor, deep play is all about the audience’s ability to play the Believing Game with what the comedian or show is presenting. In order for a person to deep play with humor, they need to believe that what’s happening is true. The viewer needs to believe that yes, there is a capuchin monkey named Annie’s Boobs living in the air ducts of Greendale Community College, in order to be able to play deeply with the NBC show “Community”. It’s nigh on impossible to play deeply in humor when one won’t suspend disbelief, however briefly. 

However, it’s not just the suspension of disbelief that allows people to play deeply with comedy. It also requires the humor to speak to who the viewer is as a person: their background, their preferences, their job, etc.. It is necessary be able to connect with the joke in order to play deeply with it, and that connection will come out of the viewer’s experiences in life.

Diane Ackerman, another writer on the subject of deep play, describes it as a more metaphysical way to experience life, one that happens outside any system of being. Ackerman’s definition, while lofty and difficult to grasp, does fit within Geertz’s definition in regards to deep play in humor. To play deeply with humor is to accept the incongruities, then connect and empathize with the message. Humor that invokes deep play will make someone laugh as easily as it will make him or her cry, no matter how ridiculous the situation.

Now, maybe, I think I could have experienced deep play. 

Before this semester, I never have thought I could learn so many different kinds of plays. Simple play, critical play and deep play, every play has its special meaning and make the word ‘play’ complicated in my mind. In the final essay, I want to come back and re-write one of my works about critical play.

Critical play is the first strange definition of play that I attached. Artists use this kind of play to express their special ideas to the public. This definition seems to be abstract but the real trip to Philly helps me a lot to understand it. When I enter into Chinatown, I suddenly know, the total place is a critical play. For me, it remind me of something familiar when I stay in China. The words, the people, the language and the names of food make me excited. However, I find the language, although is a kind of accents in China, I cannot understand. The food is not orthodox, and buildings keep the style of that in 80s in China. They are different from my real life in my hometown. The Chinatown is a critical play that is played by people in Chinatown. They want to create a familiar environment but failed because many of them even never come to China. They follow the rhythm of their predecessors. Their impressions for China, sometimes is the China in old stories. The Chinatown is the critical play for me and it is different from the real China in my mind.

The Chinatown is not only a critical play for China; it is also a critical play for Philly. Philly is a classic city of America style. The buildings, the people are so different from those in Chinatown. I speak English in Philly but I speak Chinese in Chinatown. The desserts in Chinatown are Xiao long bao, Shao mai, Nai huang bao and so on, but the desserts in Philly are different kind of cakes. The players in Chinatown show a really diverse life style to Philly. When I sit in ‘TeaDo’, drinking a cup of bubble tea and comparing quietly Philly and Chinatown, I notice a special and interesting phenomenon: in Philly, it is common to see homeless people walking around, but in Chinatown, I seldom see them. Why it happens? I go to Chinatown every week, and only at the last time, I saw some homeless people sleeping near a door.

I will explain the reason in two aspects. First, the Chinatown is not an ideal place for homeless people. The Chinatown is so small that it cannot provide the space for them. On the main street of Chinatown stand shops that sell food, vegetables and fruits. The street is narrow and is full of people most time. The owners of shops will be angry if the homeless people stay in front of their gates because customers do not want to see homeless people when they are eating or drinking. So, the owners will try to disperse homeless people. Also, if the homeless people stay in the street all the day, it is inconvenient for passerby who wants to buy goods in Chinatown. In winter, it is very cold outside and homeless people cannot find suitable place in Chinatown, but they will feel comfortable in warm septa station nearby. To the homeless people in Philly, they won’t choose Chinatown to stay because of the environment. Then, what about the Chinese homeless people? This is the second aspect. The existence of Chinese homeless people is stopped by Chinese people in Chinatown. The first migration from China built Chinatown in Philly. Actually those people have to pass the inspections by United States Customs to keep their ability to live in United States. They stay in the Chinatown and their descendants continue to live there, following their parent’s footsteps. To those who cannot live in Philly, they will choose to come back to China. Maybe there are some people cannot come back and become homeless people, Chinatown also have a small hospice for them. The hospice is built by people in Chinatown. In Chinese culture, staying in street shame those homeless people, so once they find some place to stay, they will not wander in street. So, because homeless people in Philly refuse to stay in Chinatown and local Chinese homeless people are rare and do not stay in street, it is seldom for me to see homeless people in Chinatown.   

     Since reading Ackerman’s “Deep Play” article, I’ve keep an eye out for it in my day to day experiences and have tried to use it as a lens on assigned trips to Philadelphia.  Searching for such an intense and heavily emotion based sense has proved difficult, however, and it’s become even clearer that “deep play” is entirely natural and in the moment.  A hunt for deep play is not fruitful as it involves overanalyzing and planning.  As I open my sketchbook, paint a canvas, or begin a sculpture, I find myself incredibly focused and elated.  I suppose it shouldn’t come as a shock to me that I’ve been experiencing deep play when doing what I love most.  Art has always been a large part of my life and is therapeutic along with enjoyable.

            Ackerman defines “deep play” a number of different ways and uses words such as “freedom”, “thrill” “whole”, and “sacred”.  She states “there are times during deep play when one feels invincible, immortal, an ideal version of oneself”.  When practicing art, I feel as though all problems and worries melt away and the only thing that matters is the piece at hand.  It is remarkably fulfilling and I can feel myself “in the zone” where I am so thoroughly focused.  Deep play is an experience where one gains an extraordinary amount from an event.  It may be an extreme understanding or happiness or simply where “one finds clarity” and an “acceptance of self”.

            One word used when defining the many faceted “deep play” is realization.  I haven’t made many outlines when writing essays this year yet I’ve noticed that when typing ideas and concepts spill out.  Deep play in writing is realization.  After writing, the author should have a greater grasp on the topic at hand.  Not through research but rather through a self-discovery with words eventually falling into place.  Writing and thinking freely allows for this to happen naturally. 

            Writing with extreme concentration is also an important key to deep play. Full immersion when writing can also lead to a therapeutic experience, which can be component to deep play.  When I was a child, I religiously wrote in my diary, which served as deep play writing for me.  I documented my day-to-day experiences and thoughts and because of this was able to make many self-realizations and discoveries about myself. 

            When writing essays for this class, I have found that I’ve practiced “deep play” in some aspects.  I usually succeed in gathering my thoughts together and grasping a new concept or conclusion.  The ideas don’t always naturally flow out however, and I feel I could have utilized deep play more in my last essay on Eastern State Penitentiary.  Rather than spending such a great portion of the essay focusing on facts, I could have shared more opinionated thoughts or even written it from the point of view of a prisoner, reformer, or guard.  Deep play both in writing, life, and art should be something that comes organically with little thinking involved.  It should allow you to take risks, push the envelope, and be fully engulfed in the moment.

Deep in The Heart of Texas -Syllabus

As you walk into this class, you all hold knowledge as to what a city is, a town of significant size. But what and who really make the city? This class will focus mainly on perception and interpretation as we venture through Houston and explore several aspects of what makes Houston, deep in the heart of Texas. As a class, we will analyze what terms like diversity, culture, immigration, and relationships mean to us individually through our experiences of Houston. And with each trip we will discuss how each place manages to keep Houston growing and strong.

Our class is a total of twelve and will take a total of seven trips into the city. Each will be different and will focus on a new aspect of Houston. There will be a van that will take us to each of our destinations. Your trips all paid for thanks to The Brown Foundation. Caminen con esperanza!

Discovery Green

Parks are structured to fit people’s needs. Parks close to schools and family orientated neighborhoods, if not all, most, have a playground for children to enjoy.  Whereas in a part of the city where there’s more commuting and far more exposed, the welcoming factor tends to wane and the importance of appearance is far more critical. 

Discovery Green Park challenges Houston as a city and its citizens. It has a dog-friendly area for man and their bestfriend, a small library with literature’s best collections for when it gets a little too hot outside, a small lake to canoe through, free yoga classes every Saturday morning, and much more. And the thing is, it’s all located in the heart of downtown. Discovery Green is a push for individuals to think of downtown of not only as a busy city hustle, but also as an enjoyable and welcoming part of the city that incorporates both work and play.

This is a great first trip into the city, because not only will you walk around downtown and explore the skyscrapers and the business formal part of the city, but also play by letting yourself go and have a good time in the park all within the same space, Houston’s Downtown.

Flea Market

Chapters are meant to divide parts of books so that each has something different to express, but ultimately all the chapters together make a whole book. We all live through distinct chapters in our lives, but in the end each experience in every chapter play into effect of who we are. Our life experiences are mosaics in the making, the people we surround ourselves with, the experiences, they all make a whole of fragments.

For your second trip, you’ll be walking through one of Houston’s Flea Markets, Cole’s Antique Village. It originally began as a small air conditioned shop filled with antiques to sell, but little by little more people came along and started to sell things of their own, old or new. What started of as a small shop with only 10 tables has now turned into a Flea Market of about 1,300 tables.

It’s taking the shopping experience to another level. You’ll find all sorts of vendors selling each different things like religious sculptures to the new working diets. You’ll see a lot of bargaining and culture interaction. Each table holds a different selling item unique to the vendor. You’ll observe how all the vendors come together and make a whole of their businesses to provide an overwhelming shopping experience quite different than any other you’d have before.

Houston Arboretum

Our third trip will focus more on a different intake of Houston as a city. So far we’ve explored the inner loop part of Houston. The inner loop part of Houston is known to be the cosmopolitan style of life. Keep in mind, Houston is a large city, in fact the fourth largest in the country. While outside the loop each district stands alone to cater to the type of individuals living in those designated districts also known as wards in Houston.

Once you walk through the Houston Arboretum, it might seem like you’ve stepped into a bubble within the city in which you find yourself in the outdoors. Houston has an experience for each type of person and they do a good job of preserving Houston’s prairies and other nature qualities while at the same time sharing space to grow Houston as a developed city.

You’ll walk with a notebook and pen through the nature trails and explore the park for about an hour. Your cellphones and watches will be taken away while you’re out and about in order for you to really experience the Houston Arboretum without any technological distractions. In a way, like the Houston Arboretum, you’ll be making your own bubble.

Rothko Chapel/ Montrose Neighborhood

You’re on to your 4th venture into the city and by now you’ve started to form your own ideas of Houston as a city. You’re starting to put all the perceptions together and coming up with something clever, but you can’t just yet. You’re forgetting to interpret Houston through a different lens. Perceptions allow us to analyze and interpret but why not step out and try seeing things through a different lens, perspective every once in while…

On your 4th venture through the city, you’ll visit the Rothko Chapel, which is located in one of Houston’s most liberal neighborhoods, The Montrose Area. The Montrose area is a home to many communities and it’s known to be the leader in Houston’s growth process as a welcoming and accepting city to diverse groups. Walk around and look at it all through the lens of a certain individual who would feel more comfortable in the Montrose area rather than in the heart of the city.

As for the Rothko Chapel, come in and perceive it with the same lens. The Rothko Chapel is a place of meditation for all types of beliefs opened everyday for everyone. The mural canvases by Mark Rothko are set up on the walls of the chapel to create a peaceful environment “The mission of the Rothko Chapel is to inspire people to action through art and contemplation, to nurture reverence for the highest aspirations of humanity, and to provide a forum for global concerns ” as found in their About Chapel section. 

Gulfton Neighborhood

Ya’ll have explored within and out of the loop of Houston, but have you become part of people’s loops? The fifth trip is about really immersing yourself with the culture and challenging your comfort level to step out and interact with diversity.

We will start by walking in the Fiesta Mart Supermarket. We will spend an hour walking around and look into what’s available for the customers. What types of customers are walking in? How is this supermarket any different from any other supermarket? Within the hour of walking around the Supermarket, you have to meet and have a conversation with two people. They can either work there or shop there, but you have to try and become part of the loop.

The Gulfton community is home to many immigrants in Houston. It’s often referred as The Ellis Island of Current Time. It’s a community that welcomes diversity to connect globally but also locally. You’ll drive down the streets and it’s filled with several little shops and rich delicious food where you’ll find no where else in the city as genuine as in the Gulfton community.

Fotofest

The Journey is almost to an end! How would you express your experiences thus far without words? What if you lost the ability to speak? How would you then share with the class your journey?

Art is an important form of expression and it presents itself in many forms. Whether it is through musical beats and rhythm, paintings, graffiti, or even photographs. Art is not only expressive, but also personal. On your 6th journey, I’d like you to forget your perceptions on museums. You’ll be headed to Fotofest, “a combination of museum-quality art with important social and aesthetic ideas, ” as About Fotofest expresses.

You’ll explore the concept of Literacy through Photography and use it to express your experiences of Houston.

Restaurant Hunt

Congratulations! You’ve explored outside and inside the loop! You’ve challenged yourself and immersed yourself with different communities and explored the importance of relationships within them. What is a city? I’d hope you’d answer more than a significant population size and skyscrapers.

For your last trip, you’ll be exploring different restaurants in Houston all within different parts of the city. You’ll break into groups of four and there will be a total of three groups going to three different restaurants. Houston is big on the food scene and with so many cultures immersed in one large city, there’s a lot to try. 

• Pappa’s Bar-B-Q Restaurant
  • In 1967, two greek brothers opened the first Pappa’s Restaurant and now there’s currently eight different Pappa’s Restaurants all in Houston.
• Tel-Wink Restaurant
• Two Chicago citizens opened a successful restaurant in southeast Houston, despite the area, it’s been successful with friendly service.
• The Flying Saucer
• Oldest pie shop in Houston
• Family owned and operated and every pie is made from scratch, they never sell frozen pies.

Works Cited

"History of Discovery Green." - Discovery Green, Houston, Texas. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Dec. 2013. <http://www.discoverygreen.com/history-of-discovery-green>.

Gregoire, Carolyn. "Best City Parks In The U.S.: 10 Relaxing Green Spaces For A Little Urban Zen." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 3 May 2013. Web. 17 Dec. 2013. <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/03/best-city-parks-in-the-us_n_3210323.html>.

"Best Thrift Stores & Flea Markets In Houston « CBS Houston." CBS Houston. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Dec. 2013. <http://houston.cbslocal.com/top-lists/best-thrift-stores-flea-markets-in-houston/>.

"Home." Cole's Antique Village. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Dec. 2013. <http://www.colesantiquevillage.com/>.

"Montrose, Houston." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 12 Jan. 2013. Web. 18 Dec. 2013. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montrose,_Houston>.

"The Rothko Chapel will be closed on August 15 and August 16 for building maintenance.." Rothko Chapel. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Dec. 2013. <http://www.rothkochapel.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3&Itemid=31>.

"Gulfton, Houston." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 18 Dec. 2013. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulfton,_Hou

"Fiesta Mart." Foursquare. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Dec. 2013. <https://foursquare.com/v/fiesta-mart/4c113757ce57c9282e2383d2>.

"Houston Museum District Association."Houston Museum District. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Dec. 2013. <http://houstonmuseumdistrict.org/>.

"ABOUT FOTOFEST." FotoFest. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Dec. 2013. <http://www.fotofest.org/about.htm>.

"Pappas Restaurants." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 12 May 2013. Web. 18 Dec. 2013. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pappas_Restaurants>.

""WELCOME HOME!"." Tel-Wink Restaurant & Grill. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Dec. 2013. <http://telwink.com/>.

"About the Flying Saucer Pie Company."Flying Saucer Pie Company Fresh Homemade Pies in Houston Texas RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Dec. 2013. <http://flyingsaucerpieshop.com/>.

I played with Frost. It was October. If only I had learnt from Ray Bradbury that October was a grotesque Country where you should only step foot if you are looking to be assaulted by the skeletons your mind shoved in a closet on purpose in the first place. It was October, silly.

I opened the closet, and out walked Robert. He brushed off the Frost from his shoulders; it must have been cold and dusty behind the Doors. Or he was tired of being cold. He walked out. And I stepped into his Home Burial.

I fell deep. The door was wide open and I fell damn deep. I told myself all I had to do was pull apart the words and reconstruct them into a window. So I sat on the narrow, creaky staircase and listened attentively to Frost and his wife. But slowly – I found – slowly, I was listening to myself. And I had the same voice as his wife.

I was accusing. I was hurt. I was pushing away. I was losing. I was missing. Home Burial. 

There wasn’t a way to pick out my own words, care about his, and try to assemble a window which might cast light on our conflict. What we needed to was to smash open the windows we already had, and get some fresh air.

I was overwhelmed as I fell deeper and deeper into Frost’s Home. Or was Frost just pulling out some things that already existed deep in the back of my closet?

Lay them on the table. Let me hear you say what you already know about them, but use a different voice so you can hear yourself do the talking. 

Frost played with me more than I was capable of resisting. So I played back.

I wrote that,

There is nothing more beautiful

“There is nothing more beautiful than a dying rose,” she murmured.

“There’s you,” he tried.

“There is no need,” she neared herself to him, “for redundancy.”

“You needn’t constantly bring those flowers,” she whined. “You needn’t constantly make me watch them die.” 
“But you don’t see me kill them. I just bring you what is freshly dead by other hands.”

“You needn’t,” she retreated, “remind me of rotting carcasses.”

She’d only kept the bouquets for show. For showing the real petals she kept would be too grotesque a scene for a light-hearted, happy-fingered flower-picker.

“Let’s hold hands,” she twitched. “And skip through a pumpkin patch.”

And so they did.

And so they very much did.

They skipped through orangey meat and leafy tentacles,

and through the stringy, fleshy seeds—

all the while the crows would sneer at her,

or at them both?

“There is nothing,” she recited. “There is nothing.”

“There is only nothing.”

“You needn’t constantly run,” he tried to catch her breath before catching his own.

“You need only to—”

“Nothing. There is only nothing,” she panted. She panted.

“But, where? Where is this nothing you see?”

“Always becoming, in all its beauty, nothing. And me only just less beautiful.”
And so she very much was.

I wrote back.

And in doing so, many catching-of-breaths later, I was introduced to Instructions.

A new voice Instructed me in a constructed chamber. I took Neil’s voice and decorated it with my own harmonies. Then I inhaled deeply and submerged myself in an ambient ocean.

There, below, I met December’s Frost. December was generous with strawberries. Who would have thought? Hearts can be well-hidden, he smiled affectionately in response to my musing.

Have I truly left October?

I’ve walked down a different path and through a different door into a different home. Oh, sorry? Make a home, or rest, I hear. A home? How?

Walk through the house, take nothing.

I’ve just been sitting here, on the steps, listening to them. Don’t worry, I won’t take anything. (But I am slightly offended. I am not a thief, after all. It’s not my house, but I can make a home here, I hope? To make a home. Do I take or do I give.) 

If it cries to you that it hurts, if you can, ease its pain.

So, to give, I take it, is the correct response.

And again: She may ask for something. Give it to her.

I remember the previous home. The previous Burial. She – I – was asking, but there was nobody to give it to her – me – because it was already taken before. That kind of loss, I – she – know, cannot be given no matter how she – I – pleads. 

The woman is older now, so much older. And I have done nothing to help her.

Pick strawberries, the Frost of December is offering as advice in wintry whispers. Pick strawberries.

Pick strawberries.

I know I’ve written and sung about strawberries before,

“Spotted not seen, among all the green,
I'm saying that you've got to mean it.
Despite any screen for colors serene,
Delirious meaning you've seen it.

Stepping and splattering, slurring your screeches,
I'm stumbling into sympathetic beaches.
Suppressed into a sea of sandy-haired seduction;
Got to find you, 'cause I'm slipping on fuzzy yellow peaches.

But it's so sweet in my mouth, the taste of singing those sugary love songs,
And it's so sweet licking your tears of joy,
And it's so unbearably sweet to dance on the street in the raining strawberries.
I wouldn't wanna lose one, no I wouldn't wanna lose a strawberry like you,”

But we must have lost something because we are asking to be given.

Trust ghosts. Trust those who you have helped to help you.

There is so much space in this ghostly ocean of words and imagination. There is so much space you can’t see the end. You can’t hear the end.

The ghosts make me think that home is an end because it was the beginning. They make me think that comfort and familiarity is an end because it was the beginning. I make me think that a broken home is an ended home and must be buried outside from the home. And then what?

I wouldn’t wanna lose a strawberry like you. Losing is the worst.

I would think hearing my own voice to be comforting, but it is not. I hear myself in an ambient ocean behind a foreign voice. If I put others’ words in my mouth, like strawberries, am I tasting the strawberry? Or am I expressing the taste of the strawberry? Or am I the strawberry?

You are what you eat.

If I put my words in others’ mouths, are they still my words? Am I hearing myself? Am I listening to myself? Or only my words? Am I my words? Are my words me? 

You are what you - I - say.

Inspiring poems: 

Robert Frost, “Home Burial.”

Neil Gaiman, “Instructions.”

[sound file link in e-mail]

I think the idea of "against interpretation" is fetched. Even she's trying to ask people not to interprete art, I feel like interpretation has to happen in the interaction with art. If you don't have any knowledge or experience of art, you would not even be willing to come to an art piece and spend time with it. And it's not like if you stop thinking, you would have a better approach with art. Many paintings have their own stories, without interpretation, the original story would be lost. I don't believe there could be any bare appreciation of art with no interpretation.

Sontag: believing game

Yes, people focus on their analyzation/interpretation of art far more than the emotional impact of the art. In the English classes I have been in, people are spending more time trying to manipulate texts in certain ways to prove an interpretation they hold. Yet, this is not a direct reading or a respectful one. It ignores the original work, and it distances people from it. People feel as if the interpretation of a work actually surpasses the work itself.

I would go to the Free Library and pick up books off of the shelves and read one to two sentences from each of them. Perhaps the lack of context would help me separate interpretation of a text from the text itself. Maybe the words themselves will impact me more than the meaning that might surround the words (this wouldn't be the other words on the page, but my own separate thoughts about words that is derived from context). Maybe in this way I could actually test the believing game and submit myself to it so that I could better understand the benefits of Sontag's argument.

In the excerpt we read from Susan Sontag's "Against Interpretation," Sontag threw out many strong opinions about why interpretation is bad. Saying things like "Interpretation...violates art" and explaining that interpretation lets us forget our initial emotions. From this reading, I've generated a true/false question:

Does trying to find meaning in art strip the work of its otherwise emotion-rendering power? 

I rather enjoyed Sontag’s essay; her argument was an interesting one, a point of view that I had thought in passing but never considered in depth. That said, I found her somewhat frustrating, simply because while her argument is all well and good, she offers no practical advice for how to put it into action. Particularly among traditionally educated people and in the North American school system, students are taught little else but how to interpret everything they see. It is incredibly rare for me to look at anything and not start automatically dissecting it for ‘deeper meaning’, and on those rare occasions I experience a piece without analyzing it, its purity remains unsullied for the length of time for me to realize what I’ve experienced before I go back to the begin and analyze it then. What seemed to me to be one of the interesting parts of her argument, and the part that she least touched on, is how to incorporate her ideas into practical use. How does one use this ‘vocabulary of form’ she discusses, without making comparisons of some sort? How can one discuss anything without comparisons? And how, among a group of people taught to interpret, taught to make connections that are not inherent to the piece, how can one make comparisons without connections, and through those interpretation?

I played a believing game with Sontag's essay as I read it. I've had similar thoughts occasionally--why can't we just appreciate something for its beauty or complexity without digging too much into it? Often, these thoughts were directed at "digging too deep" into literature for a class. After having done some more analysis of art in this class, as well as compiled such a big analysis toolbox, I've decided that interpretation can be really useful and can help me learn a lot about the art, artist, or even something else. Even if it's completely innacurate, the interpretation itself is a next way to interact with a piece. I agree with Sontag to an extent, though. Interpretation used as a tool too often leaves less space for pure appreciation of art.

In her essay, Sontag is strongly against the contemporary way of interpreting the art, which is to focus on its content and its meaning. I feel like this way is a modern trend -- to find meanings behind the art. It poses a lot of pressure on people who are appreciating the art, because they're expected to find some kind of "significance". My experience when I was writing my Barnes essay is a good example. Although we were asked to write a descriptive rather than a analytical paper, I still felt the need to include a "discovery" or conclusion on the piece of art in the end of my essay. Sometimes we try so hard to achieve the things we feel that we have to achieve, but in the meantime, we are missing the point. We should look at art for what it is, instead of attempting to impose a meaning that makes sense but we don't truly relate to.

Sontag proposes that we should emphasize on the sensuous form of the art, which reminds me of my trip to the Magic Garden. I didn't interpret anything when I was surrounded by the amazing mosaics, but rather let everything in. All I did was seeing, hearing, and feeling. I was a free person at the moment.

In all honesty, I feel as if Susan Sontag is being a little bit dramatic. While it would be nice and and more pure for us to not interpret art, I don't agree that it indicates dissatisfaction, and I also don't think that it's possible for us to NOT interpret art. When I'm looking at a piece of art, at first I just take in the colors, shape, and medium. After that, I try to think about what the artist was thinking of when he/she painted it, therefore attempting to interpreting it. Also, as an art history major, I have to interpret art. Interpreting art doesn't violate or desecrate it in any way; I feel as if interpreting art is another way of appreciating and understanding art. Seeing art, hearing art, and feeling art is interpreting the art.

With Susan Sontag’s essay, I feel like one of the only “tools” that I can use, and certainly the only tool she would have me use, is the believing game. I am listening to every word she says without pushing back, poking holes, and pointing out the flaws in her argument, and I am going to do my best to see what she has to say by believing her.

The line that most affected me in this piece was: “Real art has the capacity to make us nervous”. I think that that, more than anything else, is the strongest argument she makes against interpretation. Trying to quantify art as a collection of logical pieces carefully put together to make a picture denies art the simple ability “to be”. Interpretation stifles the emotional response to a painting, and thus, real art makes us nervous because it gives us an emotional reaction, which we are not used to. The act of interpretation of art is like the person in the horror movie who breaks everything down step-by-step, saying “Oh you can totally see the wires on that thrown machete”,  “That blood is just corn syrup and red food dye—it’s so fake”, or “The murderer is clearly the creepy janitor whose son died there years before”. They’re the people who need to rationalize and dissect every part of the horror movie in order to protect themselves from getting scared, like how we’re less scared of the mighty Wizard of Oz after we start paying attention to the man behind the curtain. The fear of the floating head is exciting, and frightening—the little man from Kansas moving levers is not. That need to inject reason into every situation leads to the rejection of the emotional response in favor of the safer, intellectual route, which leads to a denial of what Sontag describes as the true experience of art—one that is confusing and possibly scary, but worthwhile.

I suppose I could do many activities with Sontag’s ideas in mind. She would probably want me to go to an art gallery and cry at the sheer majesty, frankly. Which I definitely could do, and maybe have my first experience with Deep Play. She probably would also be in favor of me writing a posthumous letter to Barnes about all the ways in which he was wrong about art interpretation, although that’s less of a trip and more of an activity.

I think the best activity, however, would be to go into the city and made a piece of art. Draw a building. Make a sculpture. Take photos. Make art, connect with it, and think about how it could absurdly be interpreted. It would be best to sit in the city, pay attention to what’s happening in the present as opposed to what’s going to happen next, and more or less try to capture the soul of the city in a piece of art.

The experience Sontag strongly promotes in her essay of one without judgment or over explanation is one I had in our “Magic Gardens” visit.  I had few expectations and knew little about the garden prior to the visit and did not feel the need to interpret but rather simply naturally experience and enjoy it.  For a self-assigned trip, I would seek out a similar place like Shofuso Japanese House and Gardens.  From the pictures I’ve seen online, the gardens look like a perfect place to relax and reflect without the need to analyze.  

What bothers me is that Sontag's essay is written as if we – or, rather, I since I am the one reading this essay... Okay. Start again. What bothers me about this essay is that it is written as if I, along with the other readers, were all audience and no artist. As if audience and artist were two separate groups of people and neither took part in the activity of the other. As if creation-and-production and observation-and-interpretation existed independently in separate bodies of people.

So here I am just refusing the binary of audience versus artist, in Sontag's accusatory rant to the audience about not giving art the full attention it deserves because the audience simply jumps to interpretation, skipping appreciation for the elements that compose the artwork. First of all, that’s a silly thing about which to get upset. I’m a musician and countless times I’ve performed many of my own songs, lyrics, melodies, piano solos, etc. I’ve received comments and remarks from people, and I don’t know if it’s a wide range of responses, but here are a few: “I just wanna marry your voice,” “You have a really sexy voice,” “I didn’t know you could sing!” “I’m so impressed,” “Wow, you’re so good,” and other ultimately useless nonsense. I used to get upset that all my feedback was about my voice and my singing. Or just the fact that I could sing. Or that people liked it. Where was the attention to my lyrics? My poetry? My story? My words? Where was someone who wanted to make sense and make a story out of what I just sang to them? Instead, I was getting impressions of pleasure and enjoyment as a result of my performance.

I now know that my lyrics aren’t very accessible for interpretation. That’s for a few reasons. I’m not particularly articulate when I sing and I also have really convoluted imagery in my lyrics that usually don’t even make sense to me until I sit down and dissect them to form some sort of interpretation. That interpretation then becomes the message for my song. The message is what I believe myself to be projecting.

I want to move people with my music, and I know that I have to put the work into my songs to make that happen, rather than sit around and pout that people don’t appreciate my music. That’s useless. If I want something, I’m going to have to work to get it, and not be upset and make absurd demands. If people want to interpret, they’re going to interpret. If people want to enjoy, they’re going to enjoy. If not, that’s life!

And this is coming from someone who is both audience and artist. I enjoy dissecting some art and figuring out what it’s about; other art, I’ll allow it to make an impression on me; and other art, I’ll ignore or pass, because I personally don’t feel a reason to spend time with it.

 Not all art is successful. And that success really depends on the interaction between the artist and the audience. But then you have to remember that many members of the audience are artists and all artists are members of some audience.

I understand this essay isn’t organised at all right now, and I’m just rambling about ideas coming to my head, but there’s one thing I want to bring in. Remixes of songs.

I currently listen to a lot of electronic music, dubstep, glitch-hop, trap, and a lot of tracks in these genres use samples from or are remixes of other songs. Right as I write this I’m listening to a remix of a Doors song, and the track’s genre is called ghetto-funk, which is this glitchy, funky, and really energetic genre. I love it. I love remixes and I especially love glitchiness in vocal samples. I recently made a track (https://soundcloud.com/fenceless/good-night) after listening to a Doors song (not the same one) and I played around a lot with making it glitchy using my own vocal samples. It’s all a cappella and has a lot of filters and effects and distortion and all that jazz, and my point basically is that I love this style of music making. Processing, reprocessing, cutting up, dissecting and reconstructing. Much like making mosaics. Then breaking them and making them again.

So, back to remixing. Artists and musicians who make remixes are, in my opinion, the perfect example of artist and audience in one. And not just any audience, but a highly attentive audience. A remix-er has to break down the original track into its several elements and then take those elements and construct a new track from them. A successful remix can have many dimensions: 1. Highlighting successful and characteristic elements of the original track, 2. Bringing to light (‘light’) elements that aren’t prominent in the original and effectively creating a new perspective or point of focus when going back to the original, 3. Expressing the remix-er’s own individual style and ‘voice’ in the remix track, 4. Adding or recreating the track to produce a new platform for interpretation.

Here’s the thing. An audience is selective. An audience has free will. And audience can do whatever the hell it wants to a piece of art. That all depends on what the artist evokes from the audience. A remix-er can choose to remix one song, ignore the next, interpret another, and straight up cover the next. Honestly there shouldn’t be any direction into dealing with anything in art. We all have free will. If the artist has a problem with what the audience is doing or not doing in response to their art, then please, be my guest, they can make use of their free will and do something about it.

(This is long enough already, but I could also go into the market and industry for art, photography, and music. And economically how the industry needs an audience to react in order to function. But I’m not going to go into developing those thoughts now.)

It seems that Sontag's point was that we should experience things for what they are. She doesn't want us the try and pull content from them, but rather to hear, see, and feel. This relates to the tool of writing organically following what you are curious about. By ignoring how the content might be "meant" to be interpreted we can instead look at what seems important to us and from there we can write about that, as it appears to us.

My assignment for Play in the City II would be to go view a work of art, or a performance, or listen to a live piece of music or a book reading and write a stream of consciousness. There would be no analytical goal, you should just write what you are thinking, feeling, seeing, hearing as it happens. From there you can follow what you are curious about and examine it more closely in your essay. This follows the idea that we talked about in class that we should use Sontag's practice to experience, but our tools to analyze and write.

By midnight Wednesday, post a response to Sontag's essay,
by using one of tools from the "toolbox" we made visible on the board.

Also, imagine: you have been registered for an independent study, "Play in the City II."
Your first assignment is Sontag's essay. What excursion-or-activity will you assign yourself,
to put this theory into action? Please bring this plan to class with you.

Yes Amy, I am taking a photo of you! 么么哒