Author Archives: Angela

What Would McDonald’s Do?

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Last Wednesday, I attended the Becker-Rose Café featuring David Just, Gnel Gabrielyan and Adam Brumberg from the Cornell Food & Brand Lab. It was interesting to just listen about all of the different research that has been done in terms of what sorts of choices we make about food. While some things seemed obvious, like don’t go grocery shopping while hungry, I didn’t know that the type of food you ate before shopping also made a difference. Apparently, if you eat junk food right before, you will be more inclined to make unhealthy choices while shopping. Another part of grocery shopping I hadn’t considered was that it is actually in the interest of the store to sell more healthy options of their produce because it has a short shelf-life and it costs a little more. I would have never thought that a few green arrows on the ground pointing towards produce could affect consumption habits.

At one point, someone asked if the wealth of research being done on consumption choices could be used for evil, and of course, the answer was yes. But it really made me think. At one point, one of the speakers said that sometimes they’ll ask themselves, what would McDonald’s do? They talked about how effective McDonald’s was at helping guide better food choices, like providing apple slices in happy meals, and also some more dubious things, like reintroducing the McRib over and over again. I sat there thinking about other initiatives McDonald’s is good at, and not so good at, pushing. While salads are available as part of multiple healthier options, most people don’t go to McDonald’s for salads. While research would suggest that only one healthy menu item would deter people from buying it over many unhealthy choices, it seems like brains behind McDonald’s still haven’t overcome the strange stigma of going to McDonald’s and just ordering salad. Another interesting fast food fact that was shared was that people on diets who end up eating unhealthily can make even worse decisions than the average non-dieting consumer, because if they are going to take a cheat day, they might as well make the most of it.

Near the end of the talk, I found it interesting to hear that most people felt full when they finished their plate, and that’s one reason why plate size effects how much you consume. Perhaps it’s because I didn’t grow up eating from plates, but I never felt like finishing what I could physically see as mine meant anything to me feeling full. We refilled our bowls at home until we felt physically satisfied with the amount of food we ate, and while it was customary to finish the food you got for yourself, that was never the indication of being full. Perhaps this is a different between those who typically use plates to eat served food and those who don’t, or perhaps I’m just imposing my personal experience onto an overly-broad generalization with no actual basis.

Slippery Slope

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When I read the description of the movie, I assumed it was going to be set in the 90s and wasn’t too sure how I would like it, but it was good movie. The whole story focuses on Malcom, a geekier character from a bad neighborhood and school who wants to get into Harvard. Overall, the beginning of the film did a good job of showing just how much he didn’t fit in with his community. From the way he got special treatment from the security guard at school to the decision of dealing with the bloods beating someone up or the drug dealers while just trying to go home from school.

While Malcom is portrayed as an atypical male lead with his high-top fade, I was glad that his group of other outsider friends was not too weird. Some movies like to over exaggerate what makes certain characters outsiders, but I thought these characters were authentic and just trying to deal with their lives as normally as possible.

Despite the friends being pretty normal, Malcom was still portrayed as a socially awkward nerd. To be fair, I thought that there was good comedic timing, but having a nerdy high school guy who is sexually frustrated and has a hard time not focusing on girls is really played out. Also, while it’s sort of expected that the nerdy guy gets the girl in the end for being himself, it wouldn’t hurt for a nerdy coming of age story not to involve overcoming a romantic hurdle.

What I find interesting is how Malcom and his friends dealt with the situation they were put in. I thought about what I would do if somehow I was suddenly entangled with drugs and having a college interviewer know about it. While I understand it would have been a boring movie if he just dumped them and that was the end of it, the story line was a bit far-fetched.

That’s not to say I didn’t appreciate the twist; I actually thought it was a really good one. From the beginning of the movie, the term slippery slope is introduced, and I assumed it was foreshadowing what was going to happen. Instead, Malcom has everything he wants to happen planned out. I think the buildup to the reveal worked well, because as someone who wants to get into Harvard, he clearly doesn’t want to get into trouble, but he takes it a step further to use his situation to actually help himself get in.

One thing that still seems strange to me is his college essay. It ended with something to the effect of: Why do I want to go to Harvard? If I were white, would you even have to ask me? While it made some of the audience ooh, I’m still not sure what it was supposed to convey. Don’t a lot of people from varied backgrounds want to go to Harvard? Why is it strange to think that a black teen from a community filled with gang and drug violence would want to rise above it through higher education? I may be missing the bigger point of bringing race into this particular question, but it just didn’t seem as powerful to me as it did to others watching. Yes, race and social economic status affects higher educational prospects, but the way this was presented didn’t feel like the mic-drop it wanted it to be.

Nevertheless, I thought it was a good movie overall. Though it played into some old tropes, it was well-paced both in comedy and in plot. I’m not sure how I feel about its portrayal of racial issues, but I do think that having more movies with more diverse casts in modern American settings does help all people of color by encouraging discussion.

Get thee to a showing of this performance

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Last Thursday, I had a great time watching the filming of Hamlet from the National Theatre in London. I never actually read or watched Hamlet before this, despite having read Macbeth three times throughout middle and high school. Nevertheless, I was going into this knowing very little about Hamlet. I knew about the “to be or not to be” soliloquy and had a vague understanding that The Lion King was Hamlet-esque, but I really enjoyed the performance because it was super engaging, especially because I did not know exactly what was going to happen. I found myself rooting for Hamlet, though I knew he was going to die, because it is, after all, a Shakespearean tragedy. I didn’t realize how often Hamlet gets referenced by other things, as I was often surprised by famous lines that I never knew were attributed to Hamlet. I definitely want to go through and actually read the play to catch more nuances, but I do think watching Shakespeare is more enjoyable than just reading it. I think if anyone doesn’t understand the appeal of Shakespeare, they should find a chance to watch this performance.

One thing I was really impressed by was the staging. It was amazing. The play opened with the small space in front of a backdrop, and I was shocked by how big it was once the scene changed. The front area looked like a normal sized stage, but the back part was a pitched hallway. I’m not sure how steep the incline was, but seeing the actors running up it seemed like hard work, and when Ophelia walked to the back and into the bright light in the distance, it looked pretty steep. Also, the stage effects for the closing of the scene right before intermission were awesome. Like actually awe inspiring. I wasn’t sure exactly what was being blown around, but I did wonder about how they were going to clean up all of it during the intermission. Turns out, they didn’t have to. It created the perfect outdoor setting for the later scenes. I really liked how they used the set very smartly throughout the entire show.

At first, I was confused by the costuming because of the mixture of more period appropriate pieces and plaid with hipster glasses, but it didn’t seem to detract from the performance. Actually, when Hamlet came out with a David Bowie t-shirt, it oddly fit the really well. I wasn’t too fond of Ophelia’s clothing, but being one of the only major female roles, perhaps it was just too different from the rest of the costumes to make sense to me. I’m not sure how it was originally written, but seeing Benedict Cumberbatch in a toy soldier outfit marching and playing in a kid’s castle was great.

Another thing I appreciated was the camerawork. I was afraid that it was going to be a stationary taping of the whole stage, which some theaters do, but the camera changes added to the performance. Focusing in on certain character’s actions and reactions helped direct the audience to exactly what was supposed to be featured. Also, it probably was a better point of view than it would have been from a live audience perspective because certain isolated scenes could be zoomed in on so the characters didn’t seem too small, which I would imagine they might on such a big stage.

I do enjoy reading Shakespeare, but I think watching it provides a better experience, because they were written to be played. Going into it without having read the play, I was really excited by certain parts, but I would definitely watch this version again after reading it to try and catch different parts that may have gone over my head.

Factology of the situation

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Last Monday, I got the opportunity to see a screening of the documentary Rubble Kings. Before the film started, Mayor Svante Myrick dedicated October 26th in Ithaca to honor Afrika Bambaataa who has made global cultural contributions as well as his donations to Cornell’s Library Hip Hop Collection. I didn’t even know we had one, but I’m sure tour guides will point out that Cornell now houses one of the largest collections of historical hip hop music.

The documentary itself revealed lots of information I had no prior exposure to. Before, when I thought of gangs in New York, I thought of Leonarda DiCaprio and Daniel Day-Lewis in the 19th century. This documentary started off by explaining the gang situation in the 20th century and how apathy for people living in especially the Bronx led to gang rule of the area. It was crazy to hear about so many different gangs. It would seem like if there were that many, you couldn’t really go anywhere too far from your front door without getting beat up because of the name you wore on your back. What was interesting that I also didn’t know was that there typically weren’t Puerto Ricans and Black people in the same gang.

The style of the documentary was unique. When prior gang members talked about stories that were undocumented, comic-styled depictions were interlaced. Speaking of documentation, I was very surprised by the amount of documentation there was of gang activity. In one scene, a gang was beating up someone from another gang and the camera was just a few yards away from the violence, held steadily. There were also videos of the gangs messing with rubble and initiating new members. It really made me wonder why they were doing this. Why were they filming their gang activity?

Another seemingly odd thing they did was make music. The Ghetto Brothers made an album and I realized just how much they were being ignored by the rest of society. The gangs were clearly dominant in the area and were well known among their own community that the leaders of one could release a music album. I would think this would be a perfect lead for police looking into gang activity, but they clearly didn’t bother to deal with the neighborhoods. Also, it was interesting to think about how they could afford to do all of this. It seems like they spent all of their time fighting against each other, that I don’t know how they could afford their jean jackets and recording equipment. While the film showed a lot, I still have unanswered questions.

The Ghetto Brothers became focused on peace and community activism; so after their peace counselor was killed, they gathered a meeting to put an end to the gang violence, because it had gone too far. Quickly, the gangs shed their borders and people across the Bronx intermingled and hip hop was born. It was interesting to see how the death of one, clearly influential community figure, changed the culture of an area. The gang-riddled areas just became a place of shared creativity and a new culture was created.

After the documentary, there was a panel open to audience questions.

RubbleKings

The panelists were Shan Nicolson, the director, Lorraine Montenegro, of United Bronx Parents, Luvelle Brown, the Ithaca District superintendent, and Afrika Bambaataa. The panel really brought out the different personalities of the panelists. The director was clearly interested in the film’s content, talking about how he personally came to learn about the origins of hip hop. Lorraine was clearly a strong female who had accomplished much to help the lives of many. She had worked with many kids from the ghetto and was always a believer that “there ain’t nothing you can’t do.” The superintendent seemed like an odd choice for a panelist, but he brought his own experiences growing up in rural Virginia and compared them to similarities with gang violence in the documentary. He also made some jokes after reassuring the audience that his statements were in no way a reflection of Ithaca’s schools. Afrika Bambaataa was also a very interesting speaker. He talked multiple times about his strong belief in factology – about the real facts behind everything. I vaguely remember him saying (correct me if I’m wrong) that saying Columbus discovered America would be like if he walked into your house and said that he discovered it. He was clearly a man who thought long and hard about many different aspects of our world, and I’m glad Cornell invited him to be a visiting scholar.

Overall, factology was the point of the documentary – to get an important story out there. I’m sure many of us learned about the Harlem Renaissance and its cultural significance, but hip hop culture seems to be not as relevant or worthy of scholar study, despite its rich and interesting history. The director said that there was still more to be told, and I would definitely be interested in learning more about a story I didn’t know about more than a week ago.

Yardwork at GIAC

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I wanted to participate in Into the Streets last year, but something happened (I can’t remember what exactly) and I ended up not doing it. This year, I signed up to join the Rose House group and the experience was nice. It ended up not taking as much time as was anticipated (because we were just that good). After rain started sprinkling as we waited for taxis to take us to GIAC, it cleared up and turned out to be a pretty nice day to work outside.

We joined a few people from Bethe House who had already begun cleaning the yard. There were only a few rakes for all the leaves, so most of us began to pull out weeds. The only problem was, we weren’t really sure what counted as weeds. There were these brown stick-y things that sort of looked dead. At first, we were hesitant to pull them out, but they ended up going into the bags of yard debris. There were other plants that were entangled into the bushes beside the building, but it was hard to distinguish those and the ivy climbing up the brick exterior. The instructions for cleanup weren’t too clear, so we just tried our best, seeing as most of us had no real gardening experience.

Once most of the big weeds were out, I moved on to helping clean the leaves. Since there was a rake shortage, a group of us started pushing the leaves into piles with our feet. It actually worked pretty well, as the ground was still pretty dry, and leaf cleanup picked up from there. As we quickly filled up the bags provided, we decided to clean up the strip between the sidewalk and the road as well. There was still a section outside of the building we did not rake, but I guess they didn’t expect us to clean as much we did because they didn’t have enough bags for all the leaves.

We were only there for a couple of hours (not the 10AM-4PM time commitment I was expecting). Then we went inside to learn more about exactly what GIAC was and what we were actually helping.  We learned that GIAC is a unique community center funded partly by the city of Ithaca but also is a 501c3. They provide programming for students in the area including tutoring, specific STEM skill development, and historically programs that Cornell students have organized. We also learned that the exterior of the building isn’t always taken care of because of the limited hours they work and the amount of cleaning they have to do to keep up with the amount of people who use the inside of the building. So even though they had overestimated how much time we would spend on yardwork, it was much needed care.

Overall, it was fun to go out into Ithaca and help out with something I normally don’t do. After cleaning up the outside of the building, the goodness was validated by the thoughts of helping with the upkeep of a place that benefited the overall Ithaca community.

An amazing performance

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The first thing I have to say is that this production was amazing. Not only was the play written really well, the actors gave a great performance. There ended up being several unused tickets from Rose which was a real shame because it was a fantastic.

This was my first time at the Kitchen Theater and I was pretty surprised by the whole experience. It was a small theater with a ground level performance area and limited seating on three sides surrounding the stage, making every seat a pretty good seat. Outside the stage area, people gathered before the show where there was food and wine being served.

Before the play began, one of the theater’s workers came out to introduce it and talked about the Kitchen Theater. The play was written pretty recently and has had numerous productions. She mentioned how it was clear that the playwright made bold decisions. She also asked who had been its patrons for the past 25 years, and there were several people who raised their hands. She then asked who was visiting for the first time, and even more people raised their hands. When she asked one person why he had come for the first time, he said that it because his wife told him he had to. I promise I have a point in telling this.

Spoilers Ahead

As the play started, I was surprised at the quality of the production. The rain and its sounds from outside the window and the amount of detail in the set (which I guess is pretty necessary when the theater is so intimate), was great. The play started off with MLK settling into his room and calling for some coffee. A little bit later, Camae comes in with some coffee and a newspaper to cover herself from the rain. MLK is clearly intrigued by her and they start talking about the civil rights movement and his speeches. It felt sort of weird seeing MLK flirting with the maid, especially because he had just called home to talk with his wife and say good night to his daughter.

The portrayal of this American hero as a human who smokes, drinks, and possibly cheats was very jarring. At times, it was sort of uncomfortable to watch. As they talk, the rain keeps coming down and whenever lightning and thunder occur, MLK is super sensitive to it, causing the audience to worry about his health. As Camae pushes his buttons about how marching is not effective enough, MLK starts to break a little. He talks about Larry Payne, a sixteen year-old innocent boy shot by the police. What broke my heart was the fact that 50 years later, the same thing is still happening. The language sounded so familiar and resonant, but this happened during civil rights movement, something we tend to think of as in the past and as history, but stories of racial police crimes happening is still (perhaps more) prevalent today.

Camae is still not satisfied with his pacifist ways of fighting the system and decides to emulate him and give a speech on what she would say if she had the influence of MLK. It sounded amazing, but it made me think about why we trust effective speakers. This was an actor performing words written for a character she is portraying, but it still felt genuine and real. When politicians make rousing speeches and the like, why are we inclined to rally and support them. I just found myself thinking about all the people who are particularly good public speakers and how I always feel dubious when someone is so clean when speaking confidently. To me, sometimes it just doesn’t feel genuine, perhaps because it feels too rehearsed.

Afterwards, they talk some more about violence versus peace and end up talking about heaven. Clearly from his background, MLK wants reassurance that God is pleased with his work, and Camae insists that she is happy and is “in like” with him. As the next lightning strikes and MLK grabs his heart in response to thunder, she freaks out. Camae tries to calm him down but starts calling him Michael. At first, I was confused because I had always thought, he’s a Jr., his name isn’t Michael, did the actor make a mistake? MLK suddenly gets enraged because only a handful of people knew about his Christian name and becomes convinced that she’s a spy sent to seduce him and starts to look around the room for wires and starts to push her out the door.

When he opens the door, snow falls onstage and is in awe that it’s snowing in April. “It snow sometimes in the spring here” was great comic relief, especially for an Ithaca audience, during such an intense struggle. MLK returns to freaking out thinking that he’s seeing things and that she’s drugged him and to finally shut him up, she reveals that she’s an angel. ! Plot twist!

She says that she was sent to take him to heaven. You’d think he might start freaking out again. But instead he’s curious about God (who is apparently a black woman more beautiful than you can imagine) and the circumstances of his death. When she reveals that it’s going to happen tomorrow, then he starts to properly freak out. He frantically tries to work on his speech because he doesn’t feel like he’s done enough, that he hasn’t finished what he set out to do. He tries to negotiate his way into having more time on earth and a frustrated Camae gives in and calls God on her cellphone. MLK speaks to God (we only hear his side) and states his case, and God hangs up on him. MLK gets sassy and Camae hits him with a pillow and starts a pillow fight which ends with a strange tickle fight and as it stops, he starts to break down.

He asks why he was given this task and that he’s just a man. He tries to call home to say goodbye to his wife and daughter one last time, but they don’t pick up because it’s late. As he recounts getting her flowers before he travels in the hopes that they won’t die before he returns, he remarks on how this time, he bought fake flowers, so they could last her forever. At this point, looking around at the audience, a bunch of people were wiping their tears, including myself. There were couples clinging to each other and the man at the beginning who came only because his wife told him he had to was fighting to keep his composure, but really couldn’t.

As he asks more about how he will die, he makes sure to ask about the future. About how the civil rights movement will proceed after he’s gone. The backdrop opens to a projector with names and events of the future (our past). MLK climbs up some steps and reaches for the light. “The baton passes on,” she says repeatedly, ending with Obama. As he continues to look into the light, he is amazed at what utopia the future could be. As he is finishing, he walks to the balcony of the hotel room and Camae comes in to take his hand and the play closes.

 

Overall, it was an amazing performance. The play was the perfect mix of comedic and tragic.  The subject matter was provocative and the dialogue was eerily relevant. I would definitely recommend everyone see the play or at the very least read the script.

 

Mountaintop

A standing ovation for the actors

War is fuzzy

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Last Wednesday, Professor Ohlins lead a discussion during the Becker-Rose Café about international criminal law with a very current focus. I was surprised by how interactive the talk was, especially because he jumped straight into questions. The discussion started off with talking about the hospital attack. I do like to take the time to read newspapers online, but sometimes I read the headline and assume that I know the gist of the situation. Turns out, knowing that Doctors Without Borders was clearly unhappy about the situation barely grazes the surface of the issues with the event. As people mentioned what should be considered war crimes, it was interesting to think about the fact that we even have to define war crimes and that war itself is not illegal. It was also interesting to hear him talk about collateral damage, as at one point, when he mentioned a small military target with a large number of affected civilians not being worth it, I immediately thought about the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He talked about how the ICC tends to not deal with cases of collateral damage because there is too much grey area.

I had never really thought about how war criminals were charged. Perhaps I had just assumed that they were brought in front of the UN like how a President is brought in front of the Senate for impeachment. Apparently, the judicial body is separate from the UN and has existed for less than two decades. I hadn’t heard much about the International Criminal Court and I know a lot less about the Middle East than I probably should, but I was surprised to hear about their arrest warrants. The UN had suggested that al-Bashir be tried for genocide and the ICC had put out an arrest warrant for him. South Africa, a signatory to the founding of the ICC, was obligated by the ICC to arrest al-Bashir if possible. Somehow, al-Bashir was invited to South Africa, and when people started to mention the idea of arresting him, the South African government flew him out without arresting him. This is where it gets fuzzy. If the South African government claims that they didn’t arrest him because of diplomatic immunity, they shouldn’t have rushed him out of the country, but they did. Also, it seems like having an international war criminal arrest warrant should have a higher priority than the fact that he’s a visiting dignitary.

Someone asked Professor Ohlins what he thought about Putin and whether or not he should be classified as a war criminal, and that’s an interesting topic because of the history of Putin’s power and his relations with other world leaders. While there is also a lot of grey area about what Putin has been pushing for in Ukraine and Syria and whether or not international war crimes are being broken, Professor Ohlins mentioned the example of the Malaysian airplane which got struck down over Ukraine, and how that incident could be tied to Putin based on the resources that contributed to the event.

Someone else asked a question about the US’s tendency to intervene in conflicts that might not be of particular American interest. This is a question I’ve thought about a lot because the US is strange when it comes to which conflicts it wants to get involved in. Professor Ohlins mentioned that the typical European thinking is to not get involved, which I tend to agree more with. However, he talked about the need for humanitarian intervention. While this sounds like a good idea, it can also seem quite hypocritical at times for the US to get involved in certain conflicts. I would have liked a bit more discussion on the topic, because it seemed like the person who posed the question wanted to address the problems with intervention rather than simply the moral high-ground of wanting to help others.

Overall, I learned a lot more about current issues in international criminal law than I thought I would. I enjoyed the discussion style of the talk because it worked well with the topic, because at the end of the day, there is a lot of grey area when it comes to war and fuzziness when dealing with the aftermath.

Underground Tunnels

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Last Saturday, I spent part of my afternoon on the Behind the Scenes of Rose House tour. I wasn’t sure what to expect (I was sort of hoping to see inside the quill and dagger society, but no dice). Anyway, I was surprised about how much I learned about Cornell. Before starting the tour, Professor Blalock spent some time giving us a brief history about Ezra Cornell. While I knew that he didn’t come for much and I had heard “heathens on the hill” before, I didn’t really know that much. Turns out, Ezra started out in life fairly poor and didn’t have more than a third grade education. After working many jobs, he acquired wealth later in life after the telegraph became widespread. He then used his new wealth and influence to help others get something he never could: an education. I didn’t realize just how radical the idea of higher education for something other than theology was. Yes, Cornell is the youngest member of the Ivy League, but it was the most progressive from its beginnings, allowing any person, any study.

We then walked over to Noyes, which I actually hadn’t visited in a while. It was definitely unexpected because it’s not a part of Rose House, but I was definitely interested in the fact that on certain Tuesdays, you can get free food and massages there.

Next, we stopped at Baker Flagpole and Professor Blalock talked about the often photographed archway between Lyon and McFaddin. We then went inside Lyon to see the war memorial, which was very peaceful and beautifully decorated. It was disappointing to hear that it now has to be locked up because of previous disrespectful incidents. It was definitely humbling seeing the names of Cornellians who died in war.

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After we spent some time absorbing the room, Professor Blalock told us to start heading over to the dining room in Becker. I remember vaguely hearing about the tunnel connecting Becker and Rose, but was never quite sure where it was. We went through the tunnel and into the loading dock before making our way towards Rose Main. Just when we thought the tunnel was a pretty quiet and private area, we heard Professor Blalock’s dog Pepper barking from upstairs. While it’s nice to not have delivery trucks driving through all of West Campus, I found myself thinking selfishly: wouldn’t it have been great if Cornell spent some of that money building West Campus into building underground tunnels for students to use in between buildings?

How much we don’t know

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No, this isn’t a reference to prelim season which is once again upon us. This is from the Becker-Rose Café talk with Professor Cheyfitz. I knew that the topic was going to be about American Indians, but I wasn’t sure exactly what was going to be discussed, but I was glad I went. Professor Cheyfitz was engaging not only because of the content, but because of his clear passion about the subject.

He took questions from the audience and responded really well, whether it be with statistics that he knew off the top of his head, or with personal anecdotes. What struck me the most was the legality involved in reservations, whether it be the lack of prosecution, or their sovereignty (or lack thereof) in the eyes of the American government. He brought up the cases of Wuster v. Georgia and Cherokee vs. Georgia, which I remember learning about briefly in high school. When he said the oxymoronic “domestic dependent nation” in the decision, I remembered reading about the ruling, but not much else. I didn’t know about the struggles of the Marshall court in relation to the president at the time, or about anything more than just the outcome of the case. Even so, at least I had heard something about it before.

There was a good bit that I didn’t know. When Professor Cheyfitz asked if anyone was exposed to such topics in school, most people didn’t raise their hands, supporting his statements of how much we don’t know. He talked about how one of the main issues American Indians are facing is the public’s lack of knowledge.  When someone asked what was currently being done legislatively to help them, he said that there hasn’t been anything recent, that many people just don’t know.

Another piece of information that I learned about was that Cornell is actually on traditional Cayuga land. Professor Cheyfitz mentioned that there have been efforts for the University to acknowledge that the land this university is on was land of the Cayuga nation initially, but they don’t. He talked about how important he felt about knowing and understanding where we are, and I completely agree. A week ago, I had no idea that Cayuga Lake wasn’t just an arbitrary name with interesting syllables. I had no idea that the Cayuga were a people. It seems sort of obvious that the land that we are on didn’t initially belong to the US, but we don’t think too much about it.

I left the talk thinking about how much we as a society don’t know and how much I, as an individual, don’t know. Professor Cheyfitz’s talk definitely made me more interested in learning more about the Indians of upstate New York. He mentioned that many nations had websites about their culture and history, so I’m looking forward to reading through them at a later time. Professor Cheyfitz also suggested a book called The Round House if anyone is interested (though mostly, I am leaving the title here for my own reference).

So you’re all waiting for Godot?

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My knowledge of Waiting for Godot before watching this production was limited to its brief titular reference in the television show Bunheads (which is the title of this blog post). I expected someone to wait for someone or something named Godot. Needless to say, I was going into the theater pretty ignorant about the play.

Initially, I was surprised by the cast in the playbill. I was expecting more actors, because I wasn’t sure how engaging the same five characters could be for a whole play. In some ways, I was right. The play started off pretty dry with Didi and Gogo talking to each other like it’s any normal day. This went on for a while and it definitely became harder to remain interested in their conversation. This being said, there were definitely moments of comic relief that made the play enjoyable. When Pozzo entered the stage, the play definitely became more exciting. Finally, there was someone else entering the conversation; however, as comedic as the characters Pozzo and Lucky were, they were also quite tragic. The fifth character, the boy, was a little unsettling to me, because it seemed to me like perhaps he wasn’t real because he seemed out of place and only appeared briefly in sort of angelic-like clothing.

I found myself trying to analyze the English supertitles as they went along and thought about what it might be like to just read the play. I thought back to plays that I’ve read versus plays that I’ve seen, and there is definitely a difference. Plays are meant to be performed, and I think you can gain a lot more insight and clarity about the characters and their interactions if you see them performed rather than just reading the dialogue. Especially with a piece like Waiting for Godot, in which very little plot development actually happens and most of what is said is seemingly nonsense, I tend get tired of reading the material quickly.

I was hesitant about the English supertitles going into the play, because I had never attended a performance with them before. Perhaps differing from the experiences of others, I paid a lot of attention to the spoken Yiddish. It turned out to be more Germanic than I had anticipated and I found myself picking up on some words and phrases that sounded very German and comparing what their German definitions were with the English supertitles. It was also interesting to hear the actors’ different speaking styles. In the beginning, Gogo and Didi’s conversation was quite redundant as they repeated each other and asked the same questions over and over again. The actors, however, used slightly different vowel sounds and emphasized certain syllables differently even when repeating what the other had said, perhaps due to different ways Yiddish is spoken in different communities. When Pozzo and Lucky joined, they too brought their own way of speaking Yiddish.

Going back to my point about comic relief, I personally found it a little frustrating that they didn’t had readable supertitles for Lucky’s soliloquy. Basically, he started “thinking” on and on and talked about a bunch of different things, and the supertitles scrolled quickly through the giant chunk of text to indicate how drawn out the soliloquy was. During this, Didi broke the fourth wall, pulling extension cords apart and waving at the tech people to stop the rant. While this was very entertaining, I wanted to know what he was talking about. I know that if I was given the giant chunk of text to read on my own, I would probably get bored and skip over it; however, the actor portraying Lucky was so engaging that I wanted to know what he said. There were a few words here and there that I picked up on, for example he was saying something about the earth and the air and the earth and the air, but I at the speed he was talking at and with my extremely minimal level of somewhat understanding, I couldn’t tell what he was saying.

Overall, I was pleased with the experience. I went in not knowing what to expect of the Yiddish and the supertitles, but ended up paying a lot of attention to it to the actors’ speech. I had very little knowledge about what the play was about, and came out at least knowing the premise of it, but perhaps not its purpose. So to answer the title, while I felt like I was waiting for Godot at times, my experience was much more enjoyable than a simple wait.