Month: October 2017

The Cooper Hewitt Museum is located at 2 E 91st St, New York, NY 10128. I highly recommend stopping by to check it out if you’re ever near central park.

I heard about this museum about two summers ago and after seeing many popular Instagram posts from the museum, I decided to check it out with my friends. There are many different types of exhibits at this museum, you can find exhibits that regard fashion, architecture and structures, paintings, history, and the list goes on. What really makes the experience at this museum a bit better than other museums is that there are a lot of interactive and immersive activities present. To start off, once you get your ticket, they also provide you with a pen that u can use to save any piece of work that you want to remember and it goes onto your personal account. You can look back at these memories by checking in your code that you got with your ticket. The pens are also used to work the touch screen tables where you can make virtual objects. Of course you can’t keep these pens so they will have to be returned at the end of your visit.

What I was most excited about was visiting the immersion room. It was probably the coolest thing I’ve seen at a museum. In this room, it’s basically blank walls where you can project pre-made pictures or your own creation by drawing on the touch screen tables. It’s very free and you can basically draw anything. In my case my friends drew a banana and I was really satisfied with how the results came out. Another part of the museum that I liked was the garden outside. There are seats and benches and grass and even a ping pong table. Sadly you need to bring your own paddles and ball so we couldn’t play. There are also these spinning chairs that are really innovative and mind blowing. You can also buy these chairs for $721. (: I would definitely recommend coming when the weather is nice because the garden is a really great place to just relax and maybe take pictures or have a picnic.

When an email included a list of guests that would appear in the New Yorker Festival this year arrived at my inbox, I knew I was going.

Since the launch of the festival in 1999, the event has been attracting celebrity in all kinds of business — politics, art, entertainment alike. Plenty of familiar names: Larry David, Malcolm Gladwell, Marc Maron, and many more. New Yorker is one of the few magazines that has utilized live event, attracting major brands as sponsors, as main revenue source.

This year, many celerities were scheduled to make appearances: Preet Bharara, the Southern District Attorney of New York for 9 years until fired by President Trump; James Clapper Jr., the director of National Intelligence under President Obama from 2010-2017; Al Franken, the Juniro Senator from Minnesota, who was also in the original cast of Saturday Night Live.

The tickets were expectedly expensive, so I could only choose a select few events to attend. Starting with New Yorker staff writer Ariel Levy’s conversation with Seth Meyers, the host of Late Night with Seth Meyers on NBC. Having served as head writer of Saturday Night Live and the anchor of Weekend Update, a recurring segment since the beginning of the program in 1975, Meyers has proved himself to be an incredible entertainer on late-night television. During the conversation, Meyers explained the rationale as to why his program stood out comparing to other late-night talk shows.

Although being of a similar theme comparing to Stephen Colbert’s monologues and Samantha Bee’s Full Frontal, the segment “a Closer Look” dissects the daily news surrounding the political realm in a deeper fashion; “Jokes Seth Can’t Tell,” a segment that usually Meyers presents with Amber Ruffin, a female African American writer, and Jenny Hagel, a staff writer for Late Night who also happens to be homosexual, is among the one of the most innovative and comedic segments in late-night television. Diversity has always been a issue in show business, being the host of the show, bringing in writers of different ethnicities and races to make on-camera appearances just makes the show more refreshing than many other shows; Meyers’ program comprises many elements of political and social issues long before the presidential election last year, he expressed the need to change his tones when political figures within the administration, evidenced by his interview with Kellyanne Conway earlier this year. “It’s show business at the end of the day,” Meyers said. “You don’t want to distance yourself from the prominent figures in Washington. Although that interview (with Conway) definitely put off a lot of people in the administration.”

An hour later in the same theater, legendary comic Jerry Seinfeld had a conversation with New Yorker editor David Remnick. Different from many other comics nowadays, Seinfeld rarely curses in his performances on stage. He discussed the intensity he experienced when he and Larry David served as the executive producers of the show, including NBC frowned upon their innovative ideas, the intense writing involved in the process of creating each episodes, and the pressure to shoot a perfect finale.

Two of the events I attended in the festival were truly telling how difficult it could be in show business. Every person has different experience, but the same thing that everyone that made it in show business was that they wanted it hard enough.

It was difficult to find time to do anything else besides going to school and work but when the question of what museum would I visit for this blog post came up, the answer was clear. Of course I would make a visit to the MET! Now I must say, I did have doubts. The MoMA is right across the street, but it just didn’t feel right to write about any other museum given one post on this topic. After all, it was my essay on my love for the arts and the MET that earned me a spot into my dream college and served as a means to pay for the school I currently attend.

Of course I needed a photographer, so when I found out my mother had never been to the MET, I dragged her with me. And so it was decided. Before work on Friday, I would go to the MET.

Collection of photos taken at the museum:

One of my favorite exhibits was Cristobal de Villalpando’s collection of oil paintings.

 so beautiful!

 

oh.. and ran into a painter while roaming around.

Unfortunately, I had to speed through the museum this time around because I only had an hour before I had to clock in, but as always, it made my day a lot more enjoyable.

On my way back to the train station, I passed by the St. Ignatus Loyola school and saw so many adorable little elementary school kids during recess. GAHHH SO CUTEE~

Since I would not be able to go on break till 7/8, I figured I would grab lunch before starting work so I took my mother to Chipotle with me and she had it for the first time.

hehe She Loved it!! (:

Sleep deprived and not ready to work tomorrow morning, I look back on my day and I must say, going to the MET was totally worth it & for those of you who have never gone, I advise you, DO IT! You won’t regret it!

We went to the Museum at FIT as a group. Our journey started from Baruch College and we took a walk to the museum. As we arrived, the building seems relatively huge, so I thought that there will be a lot to see. We took pamphlets and entered the showcase. However, after we explored the museum, we found the exhibit rather small. There was a really cool dress that resembled a splash of liquid. At first I thought it was just an display of something people deemed as artistic, but when I came to realize that it was a dress, my views changed. It is unique and creative; the way the dress is structured and how it the idea of a splash was put into clothing. The material was shiny, so I assume that it is made of plastic.

The exhibits at the museum really demonstrated how much time and thought the designers put into those clothing. Their ideas were not limited, but were also inspired by the world around us.

Overall, the experience was nice, it was nice to spend some time with my fellow peers. We had a great trip and spent some time together for lunch.

This past Thursday, I went the Museum at FIT. I did not have any interest in going to a museum that Thursday. However, it was then brought to my attention that I had to fulfill a different category of activities to be done for this blog post. So, I decided to join everyone else and walk to the museum. The best part of this walk was having to haul my heavy bag of clothes and laptop for a mile. My favorite part of the museum were the benches I could sit on after carrying my bag for twenty minutes. Other than sitting, I did get a chance to glance around at the different clothing exhibits they had. The gallery we decided to look around in was the Fashion and Textile History Gallery. Here, they had clothing from all different time periods. One of the exhibits they had on display was the Force of Nature exhibition. For this exhibit, all the clothes were related to nature in some way. For example, one dress had feather patterns that were inspired by birds and another had very intricate floral patterns inspired by a specific type of flower. I personally do not have any interest in fashion but it was interesting to see how different designers all incorporated nature into their clothing designs. If it was not for class, this museum would not have been a place that I would have gone on my own. However, I did find a greater appreciation for these fashion designers when looking at all the dresses.

 

Today, me and my friends went to the Museum of Modern Art. As an interest, I started leaning painting since 7, so I really enjoy these art things. There are a lot of famous paintings and creative artifacts which really made me stand there for a while because I was trying to get the point of why the creator made these. And also there was an area that we can actually make something by ourself which I think is really fun because we can immediately create a structure or draw a abstract painting by that moment’s feeling. And sometimes that is how art is created.
I really enjoyed this “small trip”,not only got closer with my new college friends but also experienced a fantastic day. We might don’t understand what’s the point for them to made these artworks or even they look weird and meaningless, however, for the creator, they are just trying to find a way to express themselves.And this is really works on me, too. Sometimes I have no idea about what should I draw so I start with simple lines, random patterns, and whatever the color I see first, but finally, I always get a pretty satisfied work because by the process of not knowing, I gradually imagine how these lines and colors can form a complete picture. And I feel relax when I do things I like such as watercolor and sketching. Because I really need the time to give myself a break after a long busy day.

On October 12, I went to the Writing Center Workshop. The general topic was Using Sources Strategically. We learned about the different types of sources and broken up into specific types of sources and identifying them. This workshop was helpful because I am not very good at writing and I am also not used to using sources a lot. I do want to learn to write better and potentially make my writing and papers for school better. So the first step would probably to learn to use sources because in High School, I rarely used a variety of sources. Before attending the workshop, I only thought that there were mainly two sources, primary and secondary. But then we learned that there are more types of sources such as Background, Exhibit, Argument, and Method. Each have their own specific uses and effect. Prior to the workshop, generally, I would say that I used sources to give background information rather than for anything else. Now that I learned that sources can do other things like backup my own argument. This is going to help me get through my first year at college because I have two papers which will require me to look for resources online and to incorporate into my paper. And since I never practiced and learned to use the sources I gathered well, this workshop definitely made it clearer as to how I can use specific sources effectively. Also, this will help me overall throughout college because I will probably be writing papers frequently. Overall, this workshop gave me a lot of general knowledge about the different types of sources and how it is used.

On October 12th I went to the Museum of FIT (Fashion Institute of Technology). I decided to go visit mainly because I love fashion and it was also a walking distance from Baruch. Upon arriving I was surprised to see that there were only 3 rooms displaying the ongoing exhibit. Most of the clothing pieces depicted were related to nature hence the title of the exhibit “Force of Nature”. A lot of the hats were made of leaves and most of the dresses were either floral or animal based. The fashion of the clothing was nowhere near modern as it was all eccentric and unique. I found this pretty cool as I could envision some of the pieces being worn on a runway. I also got to see the works of some famous designers such as Gucci and Karl Lagerfeld.

Something I can take away from this exhibit is to think outside of the box. As simple as the statement sounds I think it makes a big point to be different. Even though most of the clothing pieces looked absurd and not wearable (in my opinion), the museum was still packed with people who wanted to see the clothing for themselves.

In terms of academics I think this museum proves that being different isn’t bad. In fact it brings a new and interesting side to things. In the future when I have to write a paper or do a project I want to take a different approach towards the topic. Overall this museum inspired me to be creative.