Love, Death, and Travel Through Imagination (Part 1 of 2)

“A Simple Heart”, a short story written by French poet Gustave Flaubert, is considered one of the best stories he had written; it was given excellent reviews and was admirably received. What is intriguing about it though is the fact that the approach to this tragic tale is rather new and is different; you see the story through the eyes of a woman who would not attract you if you passed her on the street, whose life story is not striking or is a subject of controversy. The protagonist, the center of both the story and the events and who readers are invited to see the world from her perspective and through her eyes, is a poor illiterate and humble woman. Her world is simply all about routine and her life is filled with the most boring details. Like the title suggests, the tale is as “simple” as the woman that Falubert describes and chooses to tell the readers about. In all her simplicity, Felicite has a power that most men –and many women- might not have: the ability to love –receiving and giving love- no matter what life brings. Although Felicite suffers the loss of her loved ones throughout the play, she never stops loving. Her love even becomes centered on a parrot, her Loulou, to the extent that she adores him like a god and is extremely devoted to him. Flaubert writing a simple story about love and goodness is something unusual, because it’s not usually one of his themes. In this story many themes are presented, like the theme of death for instance (how the death of Loulou affects Felicite), love and the idea of travel through imagination as a way of escaping reality. These are themes that were used by many poets too; one of these poets is French poet Charles Baudelaire who is called “Father of Modern Criticism”. In my opinion, Baudelaire is one of the most gifted of the French poets. He wrote The Flowers of Evil, a piece which had a lot of Flaubert themes. But despite the fact that these themes were presented differently, they had common thoughts or a common subtle “tone” nonetheless. One of the most interesting commonalities in themes to me was the idea of travel/voyage through imagination to escape the world we live in (a.k.a. Reality).

The theme of Travel/Voyage in Baudelaire’s poems especially “Spleen and the Ideal” is an escape of a world full of pessimistic themes of eviction, perish, decay, sin, pretense and deception that is controlled by the Devil. Baudelaire says that humans either use fantasy and imagination as an escape from all this or are always trapped in the boredom of Modernity/Modern life. According to Baudelaire, Perfection is only present in erotic love, voyages (imagined) and beauty (that is often extracted/ created from evil or the ugly reality). Traveling with your imagination to a mythical world or an ideal universe of one’s own creation will make one reach ultimate happiness, comfort and total perfection which is the poet’s dream (in other words Eden, which means “an ideal harmony of being”). While the latter option seems to be a good one, it’s not real and it’s not even close to reality. “Spleen” symbolizes everything that one doesn’t like in this world like death, loneliness, despair, pain, crime, and physical or psychological illness. It also symbolizes Modernity (the city) invading nature and infecting it with routine and boredom (Ennui).

Baudelaire provides excellent images to accomplish his aim of creating an ideal world to the reader.

“And of an infinite pervasiveness.
Like myrrh, or musk, or amber, that excite
The ecstasies of sense, the soul’s delight” (Correspondences 12-13)

He creates an image that successfully stimulates and arouses the reader’s senses as well as images of lavishness, bliss, comfort and warmth that serves well the description of the “ideal”. The “ideal” is like an escape from the “spleen” and the boredom of cruel reality. It’s an escape from this reality through travel for an example. Travel through imagination is nothing but a fantasy, at the end it is an imagined state of living in an ideal world full of delight and bliss where loss, death and mortality do not exist. Creating a fantasy by imagination and living it urges one to lose the sense of mortality - which is arguably a very illogical escape (or temporary escape) from the fear of death (Spleen) that fills a lot of people. It is a virtual escape from the inevitable, one can say, and a pretence that life’s tragedies do not exist (like putting your head in the sand plus dreaming and fantasizing about what life should or could be as opposed to what it really is). Consequently, Travel shapes the plot in a way that unavoidably leads to a disappointing and sad spleen.

-TO BE CONTINUED NEXT WEEK-

Public Service Announcement: EFB's "Overcome Hunger" Campaign

Local Contact: 6 Nafoura St., Cairo, Moukatam.
Organization: EFB – Egyptian Food Bank
Contact Info: 16060, info@egyptianfoodbank.com, www.egyptianfoodbank.com

Heading: EFB’s “Overcome Hunger” Campaign.
Airdates(s): November 2009 – December 2009

40 seconds

SFX: (sound of plates and cutlery – dinner table being
cleared)

LADY 1: Wow! Look at the amount of food left! What are you
gonna do with it?

LADY 2: I was gonna throw it away.

LADY 1: Think of all the poor and hungry.

LADY 2: But what can we do? We can’t donate food, can we?

MUSIC: (Fade in Gypsy King’s “Lord Of the Dance”)

ANNC 1: You wanna know how you can help?

ANNC 2: The Egyptian Food Bank is the answer.
EE-EF-BEE.

ANNC 1: By your partnership with the EFB to overcome hunger in Egypt, you not only feed the needy, but also contribute to lessening crime rate and building a healthy society.

ANNC 2: And all this is one phone call away. You can send money or simply drop off food donations, any time, any day.

ANNC 1: For more details call 16-0-60

ANNC 2: Because it’s NOW more than ever that we need your help in this battle against hunger.

ANNC 1: Let’s make sure everyone in Egypt has enough to eat.

MUSIC: (ends)

World Vision Report: “Ultra-Orthodox Women Go to Work” (Radio Journal-Entry #2)

“Ultra-Orthodox Women Go to Work”
Length: 7 min.
Reporter: Daniel Estrin

Link: http://www.worldvisionreport.org/Stories/Week-of-October-10-2009/Ultra-Orthodox-Women-Go-to-Work

The feature is about ultra-orthodox Jews in Israel and their approach to unemployment and work in general. It talks about how unemployment to them was never a problem because they spend their time studying their religion instead of holding down jobs and how this is starting to change when some women decided to lead the way and enter the job market. Some men devote their life to religious study and they get paid for it but the pay is so small that it doesn’t support the family well. Some men started seeking part time jobs.

I find this story very interesting because it’s very thought provoking to know how different women think about this. It’s interesting to see women from their backgrounds breaking from their traditional role in the house and going into the job market. You get to know how different women feel about it. Most of them have no skills but they get to take special courses to prepare them. Any job they take has to be rabbi approved and has to have a women-only environment. Some women think that they have a responsibility to support the house by financing it while their husbands are focused on religious studies. They believe that this is how they support the house with respect. Some women think it’s satisfying to work and are proud that they are doing what they do.

Quality of sound was very good. The sound bites and nat sounds were very smooth and fit very well with the story. The use of nat sounds was very good. I liked the nat sound of people praying at the beginning, the sounds from the supermarket and the sounds of someone teaching. The sound bites were very informative. They were all of women talking about their personal thoughts and experience on working. I liked the sound bites of the American Israeli ultra-orthodox Jew, I though it created diversity. I also liked the photographer’s sound bite and found it very interesting and used well in the story.

Quality of the reporter’s voice was very good. The length of the newscast was perfect and it was enough to create a well-rounded story.

NPR & BBC Newscasts (Radio Journal-Entry #2)

NPR

Title: NPR Hourly News Sum

mary
Reporter: Paul Brown, from Washington.
Length: 4:45
Link: http://www.npr.org/?refresh=true
Then click on “Hourly News”.

The newscast started by a story about president Obama speaking at Texas ANM University in college station. Obama was speaking on the subject of community service. The second story was about Afghani officials investigating the alleged fraud during the recent presidential elections and how the results, which will soon be reached, will determine whether there will be a run off election or not. Reporter Jackie Northam has more details on the story. The third story was about the search of an F16 pilot in the South Carolina coast after two military jets collided and then there was a short report from Catherine Welsh on the situation. The fourth story was about how senate democrats are trying to put together a health care bill that merges a finance committee with a health committee version. It was followed by a sound bite of Finance committee chairman talking about how optimistic he is on the passing of the resulting bill. The fifth story was about a bombing in Pakistan where at least 11 were killed. The sixth story was about a woman accused of kidnapping and assaulting Elizabeth Smart. Reporter Howard Burgess had more on the investigation of whether the woman is mentally incompetent or not. The seventh story was about the treasury secretary is saying that government support system for the economy should be removed or else the recovery would be slow and in danger. The last story was the recent sudden increase of oil prices.

The overall newscast was interesting, it had news from different places on different subjects, it had political, economic, financial and social news. The quality of the sound was very good. There weren’t enough sound bites in the piece. I was expecting nat sound of police and chaos on the streets in the Afghani bombing story. The announcer voice was very good and he had good delivery although he stuttered once in the newscast.
The newscast wasn’t too long or too short although I expected to hear a little more on the story about the oil prices increasing.

BBC

Title: BBC News Summary
Reporter: Sue Montgomery
Length: 5 min.
Link:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/check/worldservice/meta/tx/summary5min?size=au&bgc=003399〈=en-ws&nbram=1&nbwm=1

The newscast started with a story about the United Nation’s human rights council voting to endorse a report into the Israeli offenses in Gaza, it accuses both Israel and Hamas of war crimes. Sound bite of a reporter providing more information on the matter, the council urges them to conduct credible investigations and suggests referring them both to international criminal court if they don’t. The second story was about the suicide car bomb attack in Pakistan. It was followed by a sound bite of reporter Ali Makbour reporting from Islamabad. The third story was about the French foreign ministry urging its citizens to leave a state in West Africa for security reasons. A reporter reporting from West Africa followed it. The fourth story was about a review of primary education in England that recommends that children start school at the age of 6 instead of 5. The story was followed by a story about one of the leading banks in America, Bank of America, losing around 1 billion dollars. It was followed by a sound bite of a reporter stating that the Bank’s chief executive will receive no pay or bonus for 2009 and that it was announced that he would retire at the end of December. The following story was about the governments of Southern Sudan and its works for independence. The last story was about the memorial museum at Auschwitz, the Nazi concentration camp, launching a page on the social networking site Facebook to help engage a younger generation of people and to discuss potentially controversial renovation works at Auschwitz.

This newscast was interesting. It covered a variety of news. I was interested in the last two stories the most and I was disappointed to see that they had no sound bites at all. The quality of the sound is very good although the level of the sound was a bit low. Use of sound bites was good for the stories that had them. The quality of the announcer’s voice was very good. She stuttered a couple of times in the newscast, which I think, is fine. The length of the newscast was fine. All stories had almost equal amount of time. For some reason the language itself of the script is a lot simpler than the language of NPR. I had difficulty understanding some of the language in the NPR stories.

Unethical and Offensive Print and T.V. Advertisements: Offensive Portrayal of Women

Advertising is a very powerful and influential medium therefore it plays an important and great role in shaping society's views of women by how it portrays them. Unfortunately, most of the images of women in advertisements are unjust to the nature of women, negative and misrepresentative of women and their roles in society. The audience is usually large and ranges from people concerned with the ad to families and young teens.

The women in advertisements and ads usually are in their mid twenties wearing provocative and revealing clothes. Some of those models in advertisements have a pose and facial expression that are daring and sexually explicit which will surely offend women because these women are not conservative dress-wise and even in emotional communication and relationships. Generally, when women are seen as sexual objects, they are treated as such in society (Women's Images in Magazine Advertisements: How Far Have They Come?).

The Gucci print Ad:



This ad is definitely offensive to women because it tries to show the women’s ‘‘place’’ in the world which is at a man’s feet as shown in the picture above. In this picture, the women is visibly distressed and is using her right hand to hold her dress down and cover herself, clearly leaving you wondering in a series of events what might have occurred right before this women ended up on the ground. This ad enters into the ties commonly made between sex and violence in fashion advertising. This ad is totally humiliating to women. It shows that they are inferior human being which totally harms human rights. This is not the portrayal we-women-want to see in ads because it shows that we live in a very shallow minded society that is full of stereotypes and misrepresentation. Women must be given their right to be fairly represented in all media sources.

The Maker’s Mark print Ad:



This ad is also an offensive ad to women because of the words in it. What is it
about selling alcohol that makes advertisers want to belittle and insult women...does it really make men feel more powerful? This ad simply says that alcohol is apparently better than women (great body and fine character). Moreover, it promotes something that is unhealthy; drinking alcohol is very harmful to people’s health. This is an ad that encourages people especially teenagers (due to the use of the word ‘girlfriend; which applies mostly to teenagers or young adults) to drink alcohol. This ad doesn’t serve the welfare of our teenagers and young adults and is insulting women and encouraging the idea that it’s normal to belittle women and that it is accepted.

Winston’s print Ad:



In this ad, Winston tries to convince young women how tough and cool they can be by smoking while waiting for a man, we hope the man arrives soon before lung cancer sets in. This ad underestimates women intelligence by convincing them of silly, unhealthy and immature things to do. This ad also promotes an unhealthy habit that would really and is affecting people (especially teenagers and young adults). Smoking cigarettes is very unhealthy and causes young cancer. The ad encourages young women to smoke because this is way, they will look tough and cool which is a very vague, untrue and immature idea.

Dooney and Bourke’s print ad:



“Dooney and Bourke has been running a series of print ad similar to this in the past 6 months” (reclaimyourculture.com). The female model in the ad is positioned in a vulnerable way as if she is being threatened, she is naked (so possibly sexually threatened) and totally helpless, she has a large red star on her eye; evoking the idea she has been a victim of violence. I believe there is no effective point or reason for making the model pose nude even if she is covered (she is not fully covered though). The point actually is not that the female model is nude but her pose in general and how you get the feeling that she is threatened. I don’t know the reason why they always want to promote the idea that women are insecure.

BMW’s print Ad:



This ad for BMW serves to objectify women and particularly to objectify sexual relationships between men and women. According to BMW "the ultimate attraction" is their fancy car, women are still an attraction, but just not "the ultimate attraction". The car has the most power in this ad, then the man, then the women. Showing that an object (car) has the greatest power is simply unethical and illogical. Clearly, having a magazine photo on a women's face as you are having sexual intercourse with her is demeaning and degrading.

There are a lot of offensive T.V. ads; they all show women as only ‘sex objects’ and nothing more. They dress in a very provocative way, and totally revealing clothes and use facial expressions that are sexually explicit. The ad usually concentrates on the woman more than the product it advertises. They include female models dancing and the model talking in a sexy and attractive tone. I consider the people who like these kinds of ads totally pathetic and very shallow. Using sex in ads is totally unethical and not needed at all. The ad could be as effective and maybe more if it is clean and respectful.


These are the ads we want to see. Positive ads that make women look good and don’t demean women. The first is for Eileen Fisher, "Women change the world everyday." This is a very positive message and is showing women wearing respectful comfortable-looking clothing.

The second ad is for Liz Claiborne, "Feel comfortable." Finally, this is the message we-women-want to hear from a clothing ad.

The outrageous advertisements I showed earlier are ineffective and unethical because they demean and dehumanize women by reinforcing the stereotype that a women's primary identity relates to her being a sex object, harm women's right and is greatly offensive. Negative portrayals of women could greatly affect people and might convince some men (by putting a spotlight on such images of women for a long time) that these portrayals are actually true or at least have some truth or background to them. Generally, when women are seen as sexual objects, they are treated as such in society. These advertisements definitely harm women's rights because it promotes gender inequality and is totally disrespectful of women (especially to women activists and feminists). Valuing women only for their appearance and dehumanizing them is against women's rights. It also reflects an 'oppressive' view of women's role in society because in spite of all women's achievements in the work field that places them on an equal stance with men, she is still seen as someone whose basic role is providing physical pleasures and an inferior human being. This offensive, insulting and disgusting portrayal of women is completely unethical and doesn't give them their full rights as human beings.

Women should stand for their rights and fight back because they are creative human beings who deserve to be portrayed and treated as such so as to gain back their dignity, pride and self esteem. The portrayal of women and girls in advertisements as sex objects is a common form of violence against women and girls. Our society is supposed to be an enlightened and humane society where everybody, especially women and girls, are treated with decency and respect.

Media watch and monitoring systems should be supported and authorized. It is sad that these offensive and insulting ads of women are out there in the open. We strongly urge those concerned in the advertising industry to take the necessary action to ensure that these advertisements are stopped immediately. The media should be encouraged to avoid presenting women as inferior beings and should present them as creative human beings as well refrain from exploiting them as sexual objects and commodities. It is also really unfair that women are left out and not given the opportunity to contribute so women should have increasing and progressive participation in decision making at all levels in the media.

A Tribute to a Phenomenal Set Designer, Eugene Lee

I am just about to finish a set designing project and looking back at the process brings a smile to my face. It was a truly rewarding process and I've had a lot of fun with it. There were so many exciting challenges that reminded me of why I love theatre and why I love set design. This post is a tribute to a phenomenal set designer whose approach to theatre and set design never fails to influence and inspire me.


When asked about what he enjoys the most in his work, he answers, “Nothing makes me happier than an impossible space and an impossible project”. Eugene Lee, son of Eugene and Betty Lee was born in Bertoit, Wisconsin in March 9th, 1933. He got married to Franne Newman, a costume and set designer who he frequently co-designed shows with. Franne’s projects as a set designer were always co-designed with her husband at the time, Eugene Lee. Lee got married again to Brooke and lives with her in his home in Providence with their two sons. Brooke works as a painter and also works as Lee’s manager. Lee grew in quite a theatrical family. His father was an actor and his mother took backstage jobs in community theatre so theatre really ran his blood. When Lee was young he used to make little things and play with them. His family taught him that if he wants to learn something, he would have to buy a book and learn it from there. The way he learnt things was through a “learning by the book” method. He would buy a lot of books and figures out how to make things work.


Lee attended Berloit Memorial High school. He has BFA degrees from the Art institute of Chicago and Carnegie Mellon University. He has an MFA from Yale Drama School and three honorary PH.Ds.. At yale, he studied alongside legendary set and lighting designer Donald Oenslager. Lee has been resident designer at Trinity Rep since 1967. He is the production designer for NBC’s “Saturday Night Live”. Other New York theatre work includes Alice in Wonderland, The Normal Heart, Agnes of God, Ragtime, Uncle Vanya, Ruby Sunrise & A Number.His most notable credits are The Homecoming, Snow Boat, The Hothouse,The Pirate Queen, Wicked, Seussical, Ragtime, The Bells, A Moon for the Misbegotten, Sweeney Todd, the musical & Candide.Lee is on the faculty of Brown, Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) and Carnegie Mellon.When asked about what he has gotten from teaching, he said:
“You end up adopting half the people you teach. It’s such a funny, hard business to get going in”. As for himself, the people he knew at Yale where the ones who started Chelsea and produced Slave Ship and Candide.


Lee won three Tony awards for Bernestein’s Candide (1974), Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd (1979) and Wicked (2004).Those three shows won him three Drama Desk Award for Outstanding set designs. His set design for shows like The Ruby Sunrise, Ragtime, The Hothouse & Alice in Wonderland got him nominations for several prestigious awards.
Lees style is very unique and several directors and producers referred to him as a genius. He first came to international attention when he designed Slave Ship and Candide at the Chelsea Theatre Central in Brooklyn. His work on the musical Candide at the Chelsea Theatre Center of Brooklyn and on Broadway are chronicled in great detail in Davi Napolean’s book, Chelsea on the Edge: The Adventures of an American Theatre. The book also describes his work on Slave Ship and other productions at the Chelsea. He worked with light designer Kenneth Posner both on Wicked & The Pirate Queen.
When Lee designs a set, he often redesigns the theatre, repositioning exits, lights booths, even walls to accommodate the play. His audience frequently find themselves inside, on top or under sets that are not fixed. The computer has been the standard tool for set designers to create sketches but Lee is old fashioned and begins his process with a pencil and a sketch pad. He likes to use real material. He uses real, rusty metal, not painted wood. He creates set doors and windows that actually open and close. He puts the audience close to the actors and makes their seating uncomfortable if it’s right for the production.
Lee is a very unique and quite daring style when designing certain shows. His style is nowhere near traditional. His sets are very different from any set one might see before. He once designed a play called “The Visit” which is set in a train station. The play was performed in a real Providence train station, with passengers moving around the audience getting in and out of trains. The audiences were seated on benches.


Lee designed a play called A Moon for the Misbegotten in 2000, He said that the director was very specific about the environment of the set. Lee had six different ideas for the show and they all developed into models. He showed the models to the director and the director shows his favorite. The ideas he was playing with were all about whether he should go with inside the house or in front. He had terrible trouble deciding where the moon and where the sky is. At the end they settled on a house on a hillside of rocks and dirt. Although he likes to use real materials for his shows, for the dirt in this play they used dirt skins, they are like a rug and they come in rolled up. They looked like dirt and after working on them for a while; they were able to make it look very close to dirt. About using real materials, he said:
“I prefer to build out of real things. There is some humanity to it, some kind of history to the planks”. Lee wanted to tilt the house so “it looks as though it’s falling down and has an ‘earthquaky’ feeling, with landscape blocks that look like stones, like skulls, like the dead”.


Lee designed The Homecoming in 2007, Lee’s set had an enormous hole in the wall that apparently has been there for quite a while and seems to bother none of the four male residents. He was able to design a dirty floor of a suitably shabby and cut-down, post-war living room set. “Eugene Lee's setting did what was expected of it to suggest a home without a woman's touch, including the large gape in the plaster board wall that the men have no intention of ever fixing” - Simon Saltzman, a drama critic, said of the set.



Lee designed The Bells; it is set in an inn in a forgotten land on the edge of nowhere, as described in the script. Lee embodies this by creating a world of abstract reality. His color palette consists of shades of blacks and whites. Everything is meant to appear dead. The only colors that emerge in the frozen wasteland are those of blood.
Lee designed the set for The Pirate Queen in 2007, he has designed an impressively architectural setting that bursts through the proscenium. He redefined the proscenium of the Hilton Theatre with pieces of a period sailing ship, creating a frame that leaves room onstage for battle scenes and the show’s elaborate step-dancing numbers.The proscenium of The Pirate Queen is a kind of Elizabethan theatre made up of pieces of sailing ships. At stage right and left are imposing masts painted to look like faux-marbl. “The stage house of the Elizabethan theatre is supported by two large columns—they’re kind of like masts,” says Lee.


Lee designed a play called Mauritius, the most interesting part about the set of Mauritius is Lee creating a ceiling with light bulbs hanging down.The set changes into different places very quickly by pulling sets (a living room & a diner) out of the wall. Lee’s most successful design was the set design for Candide in 1974. He co-designed the show with his first wife Franne Lee. Lee revamped the Broadway theatre (a proscenium house) into one large playing arena with the audience seated on benches and stools. Planked platforms and levels from various patterns throughout the house. The orchestra is shown in the background.


Also one of his most successful projects is Wicked, the Musical.. Lee created a set and visual style for the play based on both W. W. Denslow’s original illustration of Baum’s novels and Maguire’s concept of the story being told through a giant clock. He defined his vision by creating a series of moving panels of gears and cog wheels that became the central image for the set. The panels and the wheels seem in constant motion during transitions from one song and scene to the next, rolling and sliding along the floor in grooves hidden by clouds of smoke. Monkeys fly from a tangle of vines that frames the giant fantasy clock. The set was made of steel, and other basic materials, aluminum, fiberglass, plastic, fabric and natural vines that serve as launching pads for the flying monkeys. The show has lots of crazy effects that one wouldn’t imagine possible. A witch in a sparkling blue gown a bubble blowing pendulum and a green witch in a black hat flies a broomstick through smoke were one of the most interesting spectacles. For the green witch’s flying scene, Lee designed a telescoping arm that the audience never sees because smoke and many fabrics of cloth hide it. They didn’t use a harness so that the actress would have freedom to sing.

*** For more information on the last play I set designed (opens Oct. 8th), check its Facebook event here: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=127986933883&ref=mf

Looking forward to seeing you at the show!

Natural Sound

10 NAT sounds

To listen to the NAT sounds go to: http://www.mypodcast.com/members/podcast-rec.html?action=list&pc=75451
OR
Click on the title of this blog post.

Log:

1. Traffic/Cars honking their horns. (10 sec.)
0 -10 sec.

2. Cat meowing. (7 sec.)
10 sec. - 17 sec.

3. Drill. (14 sec.)
17 sec. - 31 sec.

4. Washing dishes. (12 sec.)
31 sec. - 43 sec.

5. Scene from movie (dialogue). (20 sec.)
43 sec. - 1 min. 4 sec.

6. Channeling through the radio. (21 sec.)
1 min. 4 sec. - 1 min. 25 sec.

7. Mobile alarm clock. (11 sec.)
1 min. 25 - 1 min. 36 sec.

8. Phones ringing. (14 sec.)
1 min. 36 sec. - 1 min. 50 sec.

9. Toilet flushing. (11 sec.)
1 min. 50 sec. - 2 min. 1 sec.

10. Music (part of a song). (19 sec.)
2 min. 1 sec - 2 min. 20 sec.