Big Fish? More Like No Fish PLEASE by Vanessa Hsiao

There’s a reason why some musical are not on Broadway anymore. On March 18, 2015, I saw Big Fish by Speakeasy Theater Company at Wimberly Theater. If you are a parent taking children in grade school to a musical, this is perfect. If that’s not you, I do not recommend this musical. Period. But really though, Big Fish was not entertaining and became more of a joke to the audience.

Edward Bloom tells these crazy, exaggerated, irrational stories to his son, Will whom on the opposite hand, is more realistic. As Edward gets closer to death, Will gets curious and discovers the truth behind his father’s bizarre stories. Though this storyline sounds kind of interesting, it got boring real fast. It felt that the whole production was trying so hard to be funny, metaphoric, and original. The actors singing and acting skills was not the issue, it was storyline and production that made it go downhill. First, act 1 was so long that I just wanted to get out of my seat and could not focus on the show. Act 2 had the same number of songs but it was more condense and had less dialogue but more singing. By the end of the show, it felt like a joke. It was not funny, entertaining, and everyone understood the metaphoric meaning at the beginning of the musical.

This musical felt too forced and became uninteresting. With act 1 being too long, it did not help the audience to be awake and engaged. If you want to see a long, boring, cheesy musical, this would be the best musical you will ever see.

 

 

High Expectations Gone Wrong by Vanessa Hsiao

A restaurant with perfect service, unique atmosphere, and delicious sounding dishes, what could go wrong? The restaurant was underground and had a funky and bohemian feel to the place. The service from the moment I stepped into the restaurant until I walked out of the restaurant was friendly, enthusiastic, and energetic. The menu was simple but difficult to read by the small bolded font with not much space between each item. The restaurant was expensive but the price range is expected from a nice, semi-formal restaurant.

I ordered the short rib farmhouse cheddar & fontina grilled cheese. I love grilled cheese and short rib and was intrigued by the combination. The plate was plain and was served with cucumbers and coleslaw. The grilled cheese was quite big and overly filled with the short rib. The bread of the first half was nicely grilled. The cheese was perfectly melted in the sandwich and tasted good. However, I did not enjoy the grilled cheese with the short rib. The combination tasted quite weird and felt like I had put two completely different dishes in my mouth at once. It didn’t exactly belong together. The short rib was decent but it tasted more like pulled pork. By the time I reached for the second piece, the bread had become soggy and cold. I disliked the consistency and the combination just did not work for me. I ended up eating the short rib alone, however I could not even eat the second piece because of the bread.

The people I went to Beehive with ordered burgers, salads, and steaks and were very satisfied with it. It might have just been that one dish that did not exactly work and definitely left a negative note for me.

Idiotic Fascination by Vanessa Hsiao

"It’s much more than a contemporary art museum!” I explained to my brother on the phone with anger. I was totally ready to defend the museum. I was talking about the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, or Mass MoCA in North Adams, MA. I visited on March 16, 2015 and was especially drawn to Lee Boroson’s Plastic Fantastic.

Boroson’s work at Mass MoCA contains four components: Moisture Content, Deep Current, Uplift, and Subterranean Set. At the Deep Current, a machine on the ceiling released white plastic balls that fall straight down within the restrain of a net. The balls fall into a brown square box with a slanted bottom and a little opening in which the balls go in to. The balls then go through a metal pipe that goes up to the machine on the ceiling. The machine closes up the hole after the balls are released. This cycle happens about every three minutes. Though this piece of work silly and idiotic, it is actually fascinating. The white balls falling actually reminisce a waterfall. The theme of this collection is plastic but yet, it shows a different representation of nature.

The MASS MoCA is a great museum with interactive and unique art. MASS MoCA is definitely worth going if you’re interested in seeing more than an oil painting on a canvas, and Lee Boroson’s work is a good representation of that.

Provoking Photographs by Vanessa Hsiao

Oh my gosh! That was the thought I had when I saw Gordon Parks work in his exhibition, Back to Fort Scott. I paid my second visit to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston on March 10, 2015.

Parks is an African American photographer who at that time, worked for Life magazine.  In 1950, Parks returned to his hometown Fort Scott, Kansas to take a series of photographs of his classmates to create “Back to Fort Scott”.

In one of his photographs, Parks photographed his friend Mazel Morgan and her husband Willie Hubbard in their hotel room in Chicago’s all black Bronzeville neighborhood. Morgan relaxed and slumped in a chair next to a window and looks out the window at a blank brick wall. Hubbard lying down on a bed next to Morgan’s chair and smoking a cigarette while staring at the ceiling. The photograph was definitely beautiful and told a story and all those components a skilled photographer knows but that wasn’t what caught my attention.

The description of this photograph talks about the journey of Morgan and Hubbard. The last sentence struck me. It explains that the couple wasn’t exactly financially stable. But then the description ends with “ When Parks prepared to depart, Willie pulled a loaded .45 on him and demanded all of his money, which he quickly handed over.” (Parks, Museum of Fine Arts)

Many of Parks’ work send the readers with either positive or negative messages. Whatever the message is, whether you take it from the photograph itself or the description, it is worth seeing, thinking, and discussing about.

 

Cultures On a Plate by Vanessa Hsiao

          I’m definitely a foodie and when I went to the Montien restaurant on Stuart Street in Boston, I got really excited. Montien serves food from Thai to Japanese to Chinese.

I ordered the Chicken Panang Curry with rice noodles instead of white rice. It had green and red peppers, onions, basil, chicken, and lime leaves in a rich coconut milk curry sauce. The sauce complemented each vegetable along with the chicken well. Though the sauce was rich, it never got gross or sickening. The rice noodles went well with the sauce as well. The dish was a large serving and was presented beautifully on the plate. Overall, I was really satisfied with the dish and basically ate the entire serving.

The service was good and the food came fast. If you love Thai, Chinese, or Japanese cuisine, or are willing to try something exotic and unique, Montien is your place.

 

 

Not A Typical Story by Vanessa Hsiao

A modern museum, what’s there to expect? Probably just some good paintings, I thought. But the Peabody Essex Museum was nothing near that typical modern museum. I paid a visit to the museum in Salem, Massachusetts on March 10, 2015. As much as I joined my visit there, it sure was overwhelming.

The first floor featured the Yin Yu Tang, a home in China that was shipped and rebuilt at PEM. Generations of the Huang family lived in the house from 1644-1911. The house gives a culture experience and displays the amazing Chinese architecture. The house gives a sense of Chinese lifestyle as well as the Chinese art. If you want to experience Asian culture without flying halfway across the world, I would say this is a good place to start.

Personally, I was really intrigued by the Storyteller special exhibition, being a lover of photography. The Storyteller exhibition is open from March 7 to June 21, presenting photographs by Duane Michals who is now in his eighties. His photographs were mainly black and white with a few exceptions. However, the colors gave simplicity to his work and it helped, of course, tell the story of every individual piece. His work was often displayed in some kind of sequence, like a row or square. The pieces were put in those sequences with the intentions to benefit the timeline of each story. Though many pieces stood alone and told a story themselves. Parts of his exhibition had a theme. Some themes were desire, portraits, play, and mortality. Looking at those specific works, they didn’t exactly scream out the theme but the theme definitely guides the audience to understand each story. He used a variety of skills to tell each story. He incorporated colors in very few but those weren’t taken in color. The colors seemed to be painted or drawn on over the photographs. Michals plays with exposures and shutter speeds to convey each story. Many of his work can be interpreted as symbolic and metaphoric.

The PEM is not just a typical modern museum. It features many exciting and rare exhibitions that define the opposite of typical.  To say at last, the museum is a lot. The museum holds a lot of exhibitions and works that requires time and patience. The PEM is definitely worth the trip if you want to experience a variation of art but make sure you give yourself enough time to enjoy it. 

Beautiful Painted Portrait with Terrible Music by Vanessa Hsiao

      Why is that there? What is that? Who is that? When was that created? Those were only some of the questions I had during my experience at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. Gardner opened the museum in 1903 after a fast and detailed construction. When Gardner passed away in 1924, she requested that the pieces in her museum not be moved or adjusted. To this day, the museum has not been changed since Gardner’s death.

     The Gardner museum is connected to a modern museum where an in and out concert was held. The modern museum included a gift shop, a café, and a library/lounge. Walking from the modern museum into the Gardner Museum was like traveling through time, from simple glass and metal stairs to old tiles and stones. The museum surrounds a beautiful courtyard with several different types of plants and flowers, a fountain, a grand staircase from the second floor, and a mosaic flooring work in the middle of the courtyard.

     On the third floor, there is a portrait of Gardner herself in the Gothic room. The room itself was very dark and had a medieval feel with stained glass windows shining limited light in. John S. Sargent, who had also done some other work in the museum painted the portrait. In the portrait, Gardner wears a low cut black dress with a strand of pearls from her neck to her skinny waist. Gardner placed her hands interlocking in the front of her with her mouth open and eyes and body facing forward. The portrait portrays Gardner as a youthful, educated, and confident woman. Though the portrait is obviously composed, the position of Gardner’s body presents her as a calm, collective, and strong woman.

     The modern museum also features an in and out concert most days in the afternoon. During my time there, I decided to check it out. The theater astonished me when I first quietly walked in. The rich red seats are placed perfectly in four levels that surround the center. There was glass that went in front of the seats and around the center that created a very modern look as well as the simple delicate lighting hanging by wires in the theatre. In the center of the first floor there was a pianist and flutist. The pianist had very expressive facial movement as he was playing two pianos, one being a grand. Though the theater was beautiful and the pianist and flutist were amazing, the music was quiet boring. Composed by Morton Feldman, the tempo was quite slow and minimum. There were often pauses and only a few notes before the next pause. It was interesting but it quickly got repetitive and uninteresting. I definitely recommend checking out the concert when you are there but there is no guarantee of enjoyment.

         Overall, the Gardner Museum was an amazing experience with great pieces from many time periods and each room with a different feel. The Gothic Room was certainly the most interesting to me and I would recommend checking it out if you go. The in and out concert is worth checking out just to see the theatre and feel the room but don’t expect to hear the best composed music. I definitely recommend the Isabella Gardner Museum, as it holds some of the most timeless and great pieces in European history.