After walking through the MoMA I looked through all the pictures that I took and decided that the one that was my favorite was “Young Man in a Gray Sweater” by Diego Rivera. This is a painting using the style of Cubism with oil on canvas from 1914. Cubism is a form of art that was part of the era of Modernism that consists of jagged lines and geometrical shapes to create abstract images in the way that the artist envisions them. These paintings are created with the intent for unique observations of what the image is supposed to be from each individual viewer. This painting is particularly interesting because it looks as if there are two different half-faces in one. It appears as if there is one half of the face looking forward and the other side was looking to the left when you are up close. However when you look from afar it looks somewhat like one man with his hands crossed. Rivera used multiple perspective points and fracturing forms. My initial reaction to the painting proves the point behind the style of Cubism. Additionally, there are two spots in the painting that have stripes of color of the left side that seem quite randomly placed that I personally think make the painting more confusing. I don’t know whether they actually serve a purpose other than confusion but it does seem to fit the . The color palate of this painting is dull and does not really show much emotion which may be portraying the artists emotion at the time of the paintings creation. I wonder if changing the colors to brighter ones would change my perspective on this work of art.

Its Tuesday, he was supposed to be out the door by 8:45 but was running late. Exhausted from a late night of work. The elevator is taking forever because everyone is on their way to work. Finally he got to ground floor. Where is the bus going? It was supposed to wait for him. Had to go back up to the apartment because he forgot his computer charger. Finally, the journey to school begins. Why is it so loud? Why is the construction going on this early in the morning? The workers said they’d be finished with the project by now why is it not finished? The Citibike’s are all gone except for one that is out of order. Is it worth waiting at the bus for the next one to arrive? Its way to bright out after just awaking an hour ago. Annoyed at the idea of tardiness. Is it worth getting an iced coffee and extend the journey? Rob was also in the coffee shop. He was happy to see me because we just hung out the night before and were in good spirits. He said he was late for class as well. We were in the same class so we discussed the work we had completed at home. Exhausted and delirious. The cars are roaring by as if they are escaping something in the other direction. Finally he got inside the school but was abruptly stopped by the poor technology of the turnstiles. After 6 swipes, he was granted access. The rest of the way, from the escalators to the classroom, was smooth.

In Sigmund Freud’s essay “Family Romances”, he discusses the interesting psychological relationship between a child and their parents. The lines “For a small child his parents are at first the only authority and the source of all belief. The child’s most intense and most momentous wish during these early years is to be like his parents (that is, the parent of his own sex) and to be big like his father and mother.” were quite interesting to me in the sense that freud is basically saying that parents are the 1 and only factor that comes to the development of a child in both thought and behavioral aspects of their life. In addition, Freud mentions how, depending on sex, the child hopes to be like the parent of their own sex, and later wants to push them away during maturity, and then stays attached to the other parent of the opposite sex.

Freud mentions that even though the child sees so highly of his parents before puberty, after puberty their outlook on life and his parents change. He writes “the child’s imagination becomes engaged in the task of getting free from the parents of whom he now has a low opinion and of replacing them by others”. This is interesting because at this point, a child is older and seeking individuality and seeks identity through creating conflict with the parents they ones idolized in every way. I believe that to truly have individuality, you must create conflict, minor is acceptable, against your makers (parents) because without showing your own beliefs and your own identity that differs from those you’ve been with your entire life, you will just sink in to the background and not obtain individuality.

I believe that listening to M. NourbeSe Philip read the poem “Discourse on the Logic of Language” helps a great deal when it comes to getting a further understanding of the power of the poem but also the life narrative from Fredrick Douglass. This is because she reads it with such power and heart and I really was able to channel this and understand the power given off by Fredrick Douglass. Something I found interesting after experiencing both works was how much “Discourse on the Logic of Language” and “Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglass” are intertwined. One case where I believe this to be true is in the poem,  “mother tongue” and “father tongue” are used quite often as well as when it is written that it was believed white men had larger brains than both women and people of color so they were viewed as superior. The “mother tongue” in the narrative was forbidden to be taught and known by the slaves because they would be able to come together and revolt and then the “father tongue” was english because that is what the slaves were taught from their father or their slave masters at birth so they would 1. not be able to collude as easily against their owners but also so it would be easier to receive orders while at the plantations. I really appreciated listening to her read the poem because the emotion she put into reading that allowed me to see the narrative from a whole different emotional perspective.

After watching the two separate Frankenstein clips, I was clear to me that they both took a very dramatic path on portraying the events of bringing the monster to life. If you were to compare the difference between Mary Shelley’s novel and the movie clips, one thing would be an obvious difference, the drama. This seems to be a very usual path that a director takes when making a movie based on the book. I believe this to be because they are tailoring to a way different audience than the original author was. In this case, Shelley wrote this novel in 1818 when there was not such thing as a movie or a movie theatre and people would read books and create their own images in their head based on what they are reading. Due to cultural changes and social preferences and perceptions, the movies must contain more action/drama to keep the interest of a viewer who is sitting at the movie for hours on end. To compare the movies as two separate works on the same media platform, the one from 1994 was a lot more intense and dramatic than the one from 1931. This also has to do with the difference in audience preferences in the way that people of a more modern time want their movies to be. If you notice in the more modern version, there is visible differences in technological and medical ideas that are used as well as when the monster became alive, Dr. Frankenstein was alone and the music was blasting and he was screaming at the top of his lungs, whereas in the older film it was more of a calmer atmosphere except for Dr. Frankenstein was screaming in excitement.

I thought that part 4 of Descartes’ writing “Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting one’s Reason and Seeking Truth in the Sciences” was quite interesting. In particular I believed that his breakdown and analysis of his quote “I am thinking, therefore I exist” was quite stimulating to the mind in a way that it is a method of thinking that I do not usually pursue. The way that I could further expand on this saying would be that because you are having thoughts you are a living being and are analyzing your surroundings, therefore you are existing. In addition it is basically saying that if you are not thinking or do not have thoughts about your existence then you are not living (existing). It is essentially your thoughts that keep you thinking that you exist in society. If you did not have any thought on things going on in your life, did they even happen?, were you even there?, or is it something that is just made up in your nonexistence. Descartes uses the word “nothingness” to describe where his thoughts potentially could come from. This would be an example of nonexistence. As stated earlier, if you can not pinpoint your thoughts as coming from a real thing in life, are you existing? One more thing that I wanted to bring up before finishing this post was how Descartes talks about peoples inability to believe things that they can not see with their own eyes. He uses god as an example. Many people in this world do not believe in God because God is not existing. He says that senses are the only thing that makes people believe and understand their existence. I find this quite interesting because as I was reading this, I tried to think of other things that have a trend of societal disbelief and all I could think of were things that people have never seen, smelled, heard, tasted, or felt.

After reading the poem “Song of Myself” by Walt Whitman, I re-read it to find one particular line that spoke to me and was most relatable to my commute to Baruch College. The line that I chose was “I accept Reality and dare not question it”. I chose this specific line because New York City is a very diverse place with all types of people with diverse personalities and lifestyles.  On my way to Baruch everyday, I walk by so many different people. These people consist of construction workers (lots of them), street performers, maintenance workers, and other pedestrians whether they are tourists or native New Yorkers enjoying the day.

This line “I accept Reality and dare not question it” spoke to the way that I believe all people in New York City, and most do, act when they are walking down the street. If you were to take the commute that I take every day, you would notice that everyone, no matter whats going on around them, are minding their own business. This is something that I believe holds true to everywhere in the city. Whether there is a group of kids dancing in the subway to try and earn some money or people fighting on the sidewalk, it always appears that nobody reacts to these events as if they are living in their own bubble. The word “Reality” is the commute I take and the commutes that other people take on their way to work or school, and “dare not question it” symbolizes the imaginary bubble that people place themselves in when they are just trying to get where they need to be.