>In the entertainment industry body image is an issue that many actresses are hyper aware of. The woman in this film explain the body image issues and eating disorders obstacles while working in a field that is constantly pitting them against one another.
In a secluded corner of Prospect Park, Tzvi Levine, a 22-year-old resident of Kensington, Brooklyn, ground some weed, made a joint, took a puff, and began strumming his guitar while improvising a song. The sinking-sun shone golden on his clean-shaven face, the trees cast long shadows, and Levine’s Nike sneakers tapped to a beat. He looks like an average Brooklynite: jeans, a white t-shirt, Buddy Holly-glasses frames. He sat on a fallen tree trunk crossed diagonally over poison ivy and rotting foliage. A plastic shopping bag beside him contained a cucumber and iceberg lettuce. Levine often brings raw foods with him to enjoy their “pureness”, and occasionally, he’d take a bite. Perched next to him, Yoni Krakauer, Levine’s friend of only a year, removed his kippah before reaching for a smoke. The two meet here to unwind. There are no rules to follow, and they can speak freely. Levine notes that it’s a place where he can feel in-touch with nature.
During the day, Levine spends time with his nine siblings in his parents’ Jewish Orthodox home: he sings on the couch, plays games, or reads books when they return from school. He currently has no day job, and is largely supported by his parents by means of food and housing.
At night, Levine is a hip-hop performer, attending open mics in Brooklyn, making connections, and hoping to gain popularity as a white artist in a predominantly black community that created hip hop as a reaction to oppression from white people.
Levine was raised Orthodox, but decided to forgo his religion after being expelled from his mesivta, or Jewish high school, at the end of 12th grade for poor attendance. “I didn’t like authority there,” said Levine. “I hated the way that the rabbis had power and I hated the way that they knew more than you. There were ten-hour school days and at one point we slept in dorms.”
As Levine grew up, he encountered a disconnect between the strict laws of Orthodoxy and his own interests. Levine had grown up in a musical family, and had taken interest in non-Jewish music that he heard away from school and his home. “When I was in 9th or 10th grade, I felt repressed from the school and the class I was in because they forbid us to listen to non-Jewish music, even if it was “clean,’” Levine said. During this time, Levine discovered hip hop music. “A friend of mine put Not Afraid, an Eminem song, on my iPod Nano,” said Levine. “He found some way to not make it show up unless you searched for it.”
Not Afraid was the catalyst to Levine’s interest in hip hop. He became interested in the technicalities of rhyming to rhythms and spent time trying to compose his own similar work. As his interest in the non-Jewish world increased, Levine spent less time attending classes, and thinking more about life outside Judaism.
After leaving school and choosing not to continue the path to yeshiva, Levine’s parents became increasingly unhappy, ultimately banning him from their home. Levine was sent to live with his grandparents in the neighborhood, picking up a telemarketing job after being encouraged by his grandfather. Levine has no current intention to attend college. He has held a series of part-time jobs since leaving school, but is currently unemployed.
Living in the basement of his grandparents’ house gave Levine the freedom he lacked in his own home. “That’s when I was able to do whatever I wanted,” said Levine. “I really got into hip hop then because I was free to listen to non-Jewish music. I also started watching porn and smoking weed.” Growing up in an Orthodox community, Levine sheltered from the outside world. “I grew up without a TV or movies, and no non-Jewish music whatsoever,” said Levine. “All of these rules would have stayed with me forever, but I just stopped following them.”
Levine would sneak out the back door at night, unknown to his grandparents, but made sure to be home for Shabbos each week, putting on a kippah before entering his home.
Levine’s telemarketing job allowed him to save money to buy recording equipment. After being allowed to move home over a year later, Levine took over the empty garage in his backyard. He began to create his own music inspired by the hip hop he had listened to. “I made a song, and it was like a white-boy knockoff of Eminem,” he said. “It was about being different.” Songwriting and performing was easy for Levine. “I grew up singing, and I taught myself to play guitar,” he said.
After posting the song to an online hip hop forum, Levine was contacted to attend an open mic. He continued to write songs inspired by artists like Kendrick Lamar and MF Doom, often with explicit lyrics that contrasted the tenets of his upbringing.
Levine chose to tell his father about his interest in hip hop, but not to his siblings. “I told my dad that I could write rap really well,” said Levine. “But he just asked what my back up plan was going to be.” After showing his father the music he had written, he started to take his son more seriously.
Levine’s father, who recently graduated from NYU’s Silver School of Social Work, has been supportive of his music and non-Jewish interests. “I think my dad is sort of proud of me as a hip hop artist in certain ways: he’d show non-Jewish people what I’m doing,” Levine said. “He even brought me into his class once to lecture about weed.”
Levine’s mother takes a more hands-off approach to her son’s diversion from Orthodoxy. “My mom doesn’t say much about what she thinks of me because she’d rather not learn about what I’m up to,” Levine said. “She’s going to get hurt by what I say or what I do with my life because she’s afraid.”
After establishing himself back at home, Levine started to attend open mics in Bedford Stuyvesant or East New York. He became enamored with the community. “I was able to meet a lot of people who encouraged me and gave me connections,” Levine said. But even as he tries to be an optimist about his experience, he’s also had trouble fitting in. At a hip hop party in East New York, a woman took the stage to criticize Levine for being white. “She singled me out and started talking about me saying that I was coming there to take their culture,” Levine said.
“Most people who don’t like me aren’t interested in seeing me as a person, but then they realize I’m respectful, and that I grew up in Brooklyn just like them,” Levine said. “I’ve had a lot of bad experiences, but the good ones outweigh them.”
Levine has found an expanding group of people who accept him and hope to help him gain recognition within Brooklyn’s hip hop community, but when he returns home to Kensington, he is happy to blend into the crowd. “Kensington and Borough Park are like Manhattan,” said Levine. “It’s so diverse there, and nobody cares who you are. Sometimes if I want a favor, I’ll make it known that I’m Jewish by saying something in Yiddish. Otherwise, everyone minds their own business.” Even Levine’s siblings have become used to him. “My baby sister just thinks that I sleep all day,” he said. “When I’m not at home spending time with my family, they don’t question where I am.”
Living a double-life between hip hop and family life has helped Levine evolve his musical style. “My music doesn’t usually discuss being Jewish, but the sincerity in which I sing is reflective of my upbringing,” said Levine. Levine realized that hip hop could include more than rap: he heard performers sing at open mics and soon adapted that style to fit his own voice.
At a Bedford Stuyvesant open mic that Levine hadn’t attended before, he approached the crowd with a song that predominantly relied on vocals and chorus, rather than rap. At the end of his song, Levine was accompanied by a loud ovation.
Moments like these encourage Levine to continue writing and performing. “It’s a life direction, not a money-making career,” said Levine. “I don’t see it taking me anywhere, but if it does, I’d love to get enough recognition to allow me to work with Kendrick Lamar or Anderson Paak. I enjoy collaboration because I want other people’s influences. It’s about community.”
At Prospect Park the following day, Levine brought a cucumber to enjoy alongside music and weed. Krakauer, who has known Levine for only a year sat beside him. Krakauer isn’t a fan of hip hop, but still supports Levine. “He has beautiful melodies and chord progressions, so I wonder why Tzvi even raps at all,” Krakauer said, suggesting that Levine’s talents lie in the “jam-sessions” he and Krakauer engage in. Levine plays guitar, and the two of them sing together.
“It’s very difficult for me to figure out how hip hop and Judaism mix because I don’t see it very clearly,” Levine said. So, Levine uses this time to find contentment and reason in a segmented life. Despite no longer being a practicing Jew, Levine remains spiritual on his own terms. “My spirituality is happiness, and from playing guitar,” Levine said. “It’s contentment from being grateful for everything you have.” For Levine, happiness comes from enjoying the things around him in their most natural state: nature, raw food, air. “I don’t connect to a specific god anymore,” he said. “The world is perfectly made for us to live in.”
When Levine returns home, he sleeps on the bottom bunk of a room shared by three of his siblings. He drapes a blanket from the rim of the top bunk, creating a closed-off space for him to relax. “This is the only private space I have in my home,” said Levine. He has no plans to move out of his parents’ house, and has no intention of quitting hip hop anytime soon. “I’m a very simple person,” said Levine. “I sleep and eat at home, so I don’t need much money.”
Unintentionally prophesied in the early 2000s by the likes of American rapper Eminem in his song “Stan,” stan culture and its growing prolificacy have become immensely widespread in recent years, enough so that Beyoncé’s dedicated fanbase, the Beyhive, were parodied on Saturday Night Live in 2014 and the term “stan” was entered into the lexicon of the Oxford English Dictionary earlier this year.
Despite the subculture’s prevalence online and in burgeoning youth cultures that cannot separate themselves from the internet’s omnipresence, most news media is lacking in its coverage of stan culture, and what limited coverage there is pertaining to it can be disparaging, with articles often noting the extreme extents to which some stans express their devotion to a celebrity they idolize.
The severity of sensationalism pertaining to stans this year alone has ranged from the harmless reporting of stans, sometimes deemed as superfans, waiting hours in line for a Lady Gaga concert in Miami to a celebrity gossip blog reporting on Taylor Swift’s legion of stans, dubbed Swifties, commenting rat and mouse emojis on Kim Kardashian’s Instagram posts to an article reporting on the aggressive nature some stans direct towards their own idols on Twitter.
Nolan Feeney, a music editor for Entertainment Weekly, reported on stans for the entertainment magazine, going so far as to interact with some on the social media platform, Twitter, and the online pop culture forum and stan mecca, ATRL. “I think a lot of articles about stans have been very sensational and focused on how they’re ‘crazy’ or ‘rabid,’” he said, “But I just knew there was more to it than that.”
The coverage of stans is made even worse by how the current definition of the term “stan” has been propagated by the Oxford English Dictionary as “[a]n overzealous or obsessive fan of a particular celebrity.”
Such an interpretation of stans and their prevailing culture in the contemporary world seems to bear some form of negative connotation with being a stan; as if to be a stan is to be Eminem’s “Stan,” i.e. someone who repeatedly and violently strives for acknowledgement from their favorite celebrity to a point where the obsessed fan would harm themselves or others for the attention of a celebrity.
Among those who consider themselves stans of a celebrity, there is a sense of a different perspective within stan communities of what it means to be a stan. Anthony Davis, 20, has been stanning Nicki Minaj since sixth grade, and finds the media’s portrayal of stans to be exaggerated yet sees truth in the culture’s obsessive tendencies.
“I feel like a stan is just engrossed in who they [celebrities] are as a person and everything,” Davis says as he scrolls through a seemingly endless Twitter feed on his phone teeming with images of and tweets in reference to the Queens rapper he devoutly follows.
Krista Burton, 20, is a Swiftie who has a different reasoning for what comprises a stan while also distinguishing her feelings as a stan from that of a fan.
“You can be a fan of a specific artist and not really place an emotional development in them,” she says. “But since Taylor Swift has been a huge part of my life and present throughout the journey, I don’t think the word ‘fan’ is strong enough to decide how I feel.”
However, Burton does recognize that there is a detrimental aspect to stans in this subculture of what some may regard as extreme fanaticism. “I think for a lot of people it can be really unhealthy,” she says. “I know Swifties who are always on their phone watching Taylor’s movements.”
“Like, they know when she’s online and they just start reposting their content to get noticed,” Burton continues. “It really gets unhealthy, obsessive, and stalker-ish.”
Regardless of Davis or Burton’s perceptions on what a stan is, it is certain that articles on the topic of stan culture are very few this year despite “stan” entering into the vernaculars of numerous teens and young adults, as well as of Nicki Minaj in her verse on Katy Perry’s song “Swish Swish” and of news outlets like Buzzfeed that tend to market themselves towards younger segments of the population.
A quick search of the term “stan” on Buzzfeed’s website yields more than 40 articles and listicles that relate to the word in some manner. A decent portion of these search results are in reference to comic book writer Stan Lee and actor Sebastian Stan.
Interestingly, however, the website seems to have overhauled its use of the word “stan” in over 25 pieces within the past two months alone. Of these pieces related to the term “stan” in Buzzfeed’s search results, only a few analyze the impact and psychology of the stan, with one analysis focusing on the media’s negative spin of fan and stan culture in pop music throughout time. The rest mostly use the term “stan” as if it were any other verb akin to “love” or “admire,” which provides a positive spin for a currently underrepresented and misrepresented culture in the news.
As much as Buzzfeed has begun overdosing much of its content with themes related to stan culture, even going so far as to have an entire week dedicated to stans this year, it seems to be the only non-specialized news outlet bringing it any form of considerable press coverage.
However, what content Buzzfeed does publish in relation to stans may not be enough to spur a movement like the fervor of groupies in the 60s, but it is comparatively more in quantity and, in some regard, quality; that is, if those other outlets are even publishing anything at all concerning an ever present subculture that has become less underground and more airborne nowadays thanks to the prevalence of the internet and social media making stanning more accessible to those with a Wi-Fi, broadband, or cellular connection.
What little media coverage stans do receive, Davis does not believe it is generally positive. “I think that the media portrayal is kind of skewed negatively, but I’m not sure if it’s always intentional,” he says. “The things that are worth talking about sometimes are the things other people outside of stan culture notice or when it gets extreme.”
Feeney believes the size of stan culture partially contributes its misrepresentation. “Part of [it] is just that stan culture is so big,” he says. “There are all kinds of stans and all kinds of stan communities and all sorts of ways to be a stan.”
Thomas Fortune, 21, stans multi-platinum solo artist, Beyoncé, and agrees that the media seems to represent the most extreme stans that “drag” and “come for” people mostly on the web. “It’s this unfiltered kind of anger and a celebrity as an excuse to come for people slash [sic] insult people,” says Fortune in his formal explanation of the two stan jargons mentioned.
Apart from the sensationalism of stan culture through the reporting on its most extreme proponents, the media representation of stan culture could be the result of a lack of journalists like Feeney who are well versed in contemporary pop and internet culture, or of a lack of being online where stan culture abounds in its natural habitats of social media comment sections and message boards on pop culture forums.
To improve on both the negative and lack of coverage of stan culture, Feeney suggests improving upon the coverage of pop music, which he believes is integral to stan culture considering how musicians tend to have greater and more represented stans in the media.
“I think you can’t really have serious, legit reporting and criticism about stan culture until after you have serious, legit reporting and criticism about pop music,” he says. “So I think as that trend continues or that type of pop coverage becomes more commonplace, coverage about stan culture will grow, too.”
Burton believes stan culture shares a direct relationship with the internet, and that it may receive better reception once both it and internet access mature. “I think stan culture is just beginning,” she says. “The more connected the world gets, the more intense stan culture will get.”
Whatever the trend may be for the coverage of stans, there are signs that it truly is in its beginning stages as Burton suggests, and that it is starting to receive fairer and wider coverage. Just this year, The New York Times culture reporter, Joe Coscarelli, highlighted the relationship between Taylor Swift and her Swifties, and how their strong relationship has emboldened Swifties to prevent leaks and preserve their matriarch’s good image.
Only time will tell whether the media reception of stans improves. All that is known is that these digital upgrades of now outdated groupies will continue subsisting off of Wi-Fi connections to feed their borderline obsessions of the idols they cherish. The internet is their sandbox and social media their pails and buckets which are rapidly forging virtual communities and societies that may soon rival those of the real world.
Major streets are blocked off. The subway is packed. Sidewalks are crowded and Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger” blares from multiple directions, the bass turned up so earth-shatteringly loud that it can be heard through the Nassau Station underground. Despite all the commotion, the atmosphere in Greenpoint is not one of stress. It seems that today, on the morning of the 2017 TCS New York City Marathon, New Yorkers do not mind the disruption to the city’s sights and sounds.
At the corner of Manhattan Avenue and Greenpoint Avenue, spectators crowd along the street to see runners prepare to cross the Pulaski Bridge, marking the halfway point of the race. Neighborhood residents and international travelers alike bring the enthusiasm, practically dangling off fire escapes to wave posters and handing out free bananas by the bunch on the sidelines. There is a slight drizzle in the air, but that doesn’t deter the bands set up every few blocks playing covers of 80’s rock songs.
Christina, a resident of the neighborhood, came to the bustling intersection to cheer on three of her friends. “I’m two for three so far. I missed one,” she says, her neon pink poster rolled up below her arm. She has watched the race here four times now, though she claims she would never want to run it herself. Still, she loves the energy that the race brings to her area. “I think it’s really inspirational, and the camaraderie is great.”
While some only have to go out on their balconies or sit on their porches to see the race, others have to plan their trips months or even years in advance. Sharon, a woman in her mid forties, came all the way from South Africa with her husband to cheer him on in his first marathon. She stands on the sideline with a friend waving a full-size South African flag. She has never visited the city before this week, but her husband’s decision was more about timing than location. “Basically, it was in a year’s time from when the decision was made, and that’s enough time to train,” she says with a shrug.
A sight that brings a smile to the faces of nearly every runner that passes is a man in a full cow costume leaning over the sideline barrier, furiously rattling a cowbell and screaming cheers. Brian, who is from Seattle, is donning the outfit to cheer on his girlfriend and her sister, and chose the location because it’s nearby their Airbnb room. His favorite part of the race so far is the reactions of runners when they see total strangers cheering them on. “You can call anybody’s name here,” he says, then proves his point by screaming, “LET’S GO, MARY!” at a passing runner in a pink t-shirt with her name printed across the front.
With the advent of music streaming, catalogs of music have been made more accessible to a greater number of people in the United States, and it is slowly contributing itself to independence in our tastes and most successful songs.
To gauge the extent of streaming this year, there have been over 184 billion on-demand audio streams reported from music streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music since the beginning of 2017, a 62% increase from the same time in 2016, according to Nielsen.
This news comes after it was reported that on-demand audio streaming’s share of music consumption reached 38%, and had surpassed those of digital sales in 2016. It is highly probable that streaming’s share could rise even further by year’s end given Nielsen’s 2017 mid-year findings.
Russ Crupnick, managing partner at music market research firm MusicWatch, details one reason why the streaming phenomenon has rapidly taken place in recent years. “It wasn’t always convenient to play vinyls, cassettes, or CDs,” he says. “Streaming is more convenient because it works with all kinds of different devices with access to 30-40 million songs. The amount of variety is limitless!”
With greater access to these multi-million song libraries, it is evident that less people would be willing to pay for one album on a digital store like iTunes when they could essentially have access to that same album and millions more with streaming memberships for a similar price.
As streaming continues to provide music more directly to the consumer, its dominance rises with each passing year since 2013 when digital track sales suffered a 5.7% decline that year, according to Billboard.
Now in its phoenix moment, the music industry celebrates 2017 as the year that saw Ed Sheeran break numerous Spotify records, and R&B/Hip Hop become the genre with the highest share of streaming distribution among Nielsen’s recognized genres.
This year also made clear of the industry’s shift to promote artists with generally high streaming numbers and audiences associated with them, with seemingly unconventional crossover collaborations transcending geography, language and culture.
From The Weeknd and Daft Punk to Luis Fonsi, Daddy Yankee and Justin Bieber to Ed Sheeran and Beyoncé, Billboard’s chart topping singles this year showcased an array of diverse artists and genre bending in today’s pop music world.
The novelty of streaming has since become beneficial to a recovering music industry which seems to be less at the discretion of record labels and more of its own consumers.
The Butterfly Conservatory at the American Museum of Natural History in New York is now open for its 20th season. This year, organizers’ plans for the conservatory were disrupted by hurricanes.
The Butterfly Conservatory features species from Costa Rica, Thailand, Malaysia, Ecuador, Kenya, Australia and Florida that fly freely around visitors in the museum’s 1,200-square-foot vivarium, according to a news release. The vivarium is kept at around 80 degrees and is filled with tropical plants to recreate a tropical environment within the museum.
In past years the tropical plants came from Florida. This year, though, the plants were sourced from the New York City area after hurricanes destroyed many of the plants originally planned for the vivarium, said Daniel Jacobs, a volunteer who has been working at the conservatory for the past 18 years. “We had to scramble to put it together,” he said.
Jacobs said the type of plant is important for the health of the butterflies. “We were very careful when we acquired these to get the proper host plants for the butterflies,” Jacobs said. Still, because the plants are not from Florida, Jacobs said the butterflies would need to be carefully monitored to ensure they are compatible with the plants.
Jennifer Birdie, a higher education worker who recently moved to New York City from Coconut Creek, Fla. – known as the “Butterfly Capital of the World” – said she came to the museum specifically to see the butterflies. “I think part of it is nostalgia from back home,” she said.
Birdie said after living in New York City for three weeks, it was refreshing to see the nature and wildlife in the vivarium. “We take it for granted where I just came from. You walk down the street and there’s butterflies everywhere.”
“I think this is a good educational opportunity for kids, but also for adults,” she said.
Visitors to the conservatory can watch butterflies emerge from chrysalises inside the vivarium, and displays outside the vivarium educate visitors about different butterfly species, efforts to protect butterfly habitats and the ways butterflies help researchers study ecosystems.
Nick Krachler, a Cornell University doctorate student from Austria, visiting New York City for the weekend, said he appreciated conservatory volunteers’ willingness to teach visitors about the butterflies. Referring to one of the volunteers he said, “She had a piece of orange, and there was a butterfly sitting on it, and she showed us the butterfly closer and told us a bit about it.” He said he enjoyed being able to walk freely among the butterflies, and added that butterflies had landed on his shirt.
The Butterfly Conservatory, open now through May 28, has been visited by millions of children and adults in its time at the museum, according to the news release.
Explaining why he thought the conservatory was such an attraction, Jacobs said, “In the middle of winter, this is an oasis. Where in the city are you going to find a tropical environment at 82 degrees?”
As he stepped onto the gym floor in a brown t-shirt, Coban Lookchaomaesaitong would not look like a five-time Muay Thai world champion to most. A broad smile creased his tanned features every other instant as he patiently instructed a beginner class about kicks. You could pass him in a downtown bodega and not notice him, let alone be threatened by him.
Then, Coban decided the class needed a demonstration. He positioned his 5-foot 4-inch frame in front of a heavy bag, and unleashed a cracking left roundhouse kick that echoed like a gunshot around the room. It became apparent how he had earned his fighting nickname “The Cruncher.”
As a fighter, Coban was a trailblazer, traveling around the world to fight foreigners at a time when most Thai fighters did not venture outside of Thailand. As a trainer, he is the first and only Thai world champion to open a Muay Thai gym in New York City, offering a cultural immersion in the art that extends past learning how to kick, punch, and knee.
Nestled under a diner on 38th Street and 5th Avenue, there is a basement matted from wall to wall, with heavy bags hanging from the ceiling and a boxing ring in the corner. This is Coban’s Muay Thai Camp, the school Coban founded in 2011. Coban said he founded his school on traditional principles, and he aims to educate his students on the entire culture of Muay Thai. He said that most gyms in the United States only teach the fighting aspects of Muay Thai, and neglect the cultural aspects.
“I show them everything. Technique, how to respect, how to be humble. Not be big-head, more humble. Take care who the weaker. This is basic,” Coban said, lounging in the gym’s rest area. On the mats, fighters sparred while traditional Thai trumpets blared in the background. “In class I have wai kru, traditional dance. Other gym, no. Just fight.” Wai khru is the traditional dance Muay Thai fighters perform to pay respects to their teachers.
Indeed, despite his own talent in the physical art, Coban said he considers the traditions of Muay Thai just as important, in part due to his own initiation to the art. Born under the name Banlu Anwiset on Aug. 4, 1966, in a small Thai city called Buriram, he said he started fighting after watching Muay Thai fights at a Buddhist temple fair. He said he still does Muay Thai demonstrations at the Buddhist temple in Queens every Songkran, the Thai new year.
Coban said he eventually moved from fighting in the countryside temple fairs to the big stadiums in Bangkok like the famed Lumpinee Stadium. He considers the first time he won the Lumpinee lightweight championship, with a fourth-round knockout, as the proudest moment of his career. He then began traveling to fight in other countries. He said other Thai fighters had fought outside of Thailand before, but none had done so as often as he. He said his fights in locations like the Netherlands, France, Australia, and the United States, against the kickboxing greats from those countries, helped spread the popularity of Muay Thai.
Coban said he moved to the U.S. in 1994, after it became hard to find fights in Thailand due to promoters thinking he was too old. He first lived in North Hollywood, California, before moving to New York. He said he moved to the U.S. for the chance at a better life. He said most Thai fighters have trouble finding jobs after retirement, and he wanted to escape that.
“I don’t know what I do if I not move here. Maybe, be some trainer somewhere, or be some farmer. I don’t know,” Coban said, referring to how it would have been hard to make money after his retirement. “If no money, no happy life in Thailand.”
In New York, Coban said he is not interested in breeding world champions, saying that there is too much drama involved.
“I don’t want to train like a fighter. I want to train like students, who want to learn in class,” Coban said. He said he was more interested in building a family-like atmosphere. Adding to the welcoming atmosphere of the school are Coban’s three dogs that he often brings in with him. With one of the dogs lazing at his feet, Coban said that his favorite part of running the school is when his students improve.
“When I teach students, when they improve, they get better. I feel very good,” Coban said with yet another smile, before heading back out onto the mat to conduct another class.
My grandfather and I like to sit on the patio. When I lived back in Costa Rica, we did so every Sunday. He enjoys reading “La Nación,” a conservative Costa Rican newspaper, while I would take “Revista Dominical,” a weekly supplement about culture.
The silence was serene and every so often we would comment on the news of the week. “They’ve stolen a lot of money,” he would say routinely. I would agree, and the quiet, peaceful, satisfactory reading goes on.
The afternoon’s sun would fall and the wind from outside would progressively chill our faces. Around that time, my grandmother tends to join us outside. She hands my grandfather a sweater, and sits down beside us, contemplative. Looking toward the pool and the large looming wall behind it, where a great backyard used to be.
Fernando Cruz and Ana Rosa Lizano ran into some money troubles back in early years of this century. Those tumultuous times are forgotten now, gossip is no longer whispered in phone conversations between sketchy and irrelevant members of the non-nuclear family. Yet, the large looming wall continues to be a symbol of tougher times, of not getting too decadent with opulence. A remainder of an earlier epoch, of their old Miami apartment, of luxurious Mercedes Benz cars, of buying their own house in the affluent Escazú neighborhood.
But that is too recent when recounting my grandfather’s story. It begins in a small Costa Rican town called Grecia. His mother fathered a lot of children, many whom she abandoned. The fact that his own father didn’t recognize him didn’t help.
As a young boy, many nights were spent sleeping on strangers’ porches. He couldn’t get further than the second grade. He had to work to feed himself. He sold gum on the streets. Every once in a while, one of his uncles acknowledged him, when he was feeling up to it.
I’m convinced my grandfather’s positive attitude towards life was the key to his success. To this day, he looks back on his life with pride. He recalls anecdotes with a sense of nostalgia that I find surreal. “When I was about fifteen, I got a job washing car tires,” he said and continued, “In the old times, people got that service at gas stations. It was like something everybody did. I would throw buckets of water at the ties. I was pretty good! The richest people in the country would come to get their tires washed.”
Later on, my grandfather managed to get a truck driver gig. He did endless commutes around the country, transporting wood. We seldom talk about that time, probably because the sheer monotony of it doesn’t lend itself to much storytelling.
Afterwards, he became friends with the owners FACO, a profitable Costa Rican car agency. They gave him a job not because of his professional background, but because of his stupendous social skills with clients. My grandfather is a charm. He’s funny, he has a great personality, and he drinks. His health doesn’t allow him for more than one occasional whisky now, but before, social drinking was a nightly custom.
Eventually he became one of the company’s main executives. My heart breaks when I think about a boy, from Grecia, all white-skin, blond, and green-eyed. He barely looks Costa Rican. He’s sleeping on a porch. He’s working mundane jobs to survive. He can’t continue his education. At the blink of an eye, the shift of the cosmos, and he’s a car agency executive.
Suddenly, he has enough money to start his own car agency. He creates NASA from scratch, traveling around the world, making deals with Ford. He introduces their brand to Costa Rica. Trips to Tokyo are now customary. My grandmother still conserves a beautiful kimono from that time.
Somewhere along the way, my grandfather met my grandmother. She’s originally from Alajuela. Both of her parents were teachers, and she became an educator herself.
My grandfather arrived very late to his own wedding. Only two people in the world know the story behind it: the friend that drove him to the ceremony and himself. Whenever we arrive at that topic, he whispers to me, “One day, you’ll be the third,” and he continues, “It’s such an incredible story, truly unbelievable. It could be made into a movie.” He has me whining and begging in a second. “But I want to know now,” I say and continue, “You always say the same thing. When will you tell me the story?”
“Someday,” he says.
When I first inquired to my grandmother about it, she shrugged her shoulders. “I almost thought he had left me at the altar,” she said and continued, “He’s always been mischievous. I wouldn’t believe a word about some sort of incredible story.”
“But I do,” I said and continued, “He said it was movie-material.”
“He probably just took too much time getting ready,” she said and continued, “You know your grandfather, when he gets ready, he’s worse than a woman going to a party.”
I can attest to that from personal experience. We are always late to dinners and parties and other events because of his calm approach to time. “We’ll get there, don’t worry about it,” he says. He flashes me the gentlest smile.
My mother says he only shares that look with me. He used to share it with her, but stopped a few decades ago. They drifted apart, but that’s a story for another time.
My grandmother’s screams echo through their home. “Fernando! We should have left thirty minutes ago,” she says. He ignores her when she’s being too pushy.
I spared a glance at my mother, who lights a cigarette, “Oh, Dad, I can’t believe Mom hasn’t get used to him by now,” she says.
My mother says my grandfather used to be very intense. Very angry. He used to be known as Macho Tigre, which translates to blond tiger. I’ve never seen him live up to that nickname.
He doesn’t scream as he used to anymore. At least that’s what my aunt says. My grandmother disagrees. “Your grandfather still conserves that spark,” she says.
My mother says the last time she saw him truly angry was when they had to build the big looming wall. Bills were adding up. My grandfather had to sell his own company: reckless spending of money by someone who recently acquired it. That sort of lifestyle doesn’t last forever.
I think his face carries the remains of a life lived. Each wrinkle is a struggle, a trip, a work, a client, a car, a drink. Many of them are drinks. He gained a lot of money; he lost it. The apartment in Miami is gone, so is the large backyard. Their home property used to be twice its size. Now, the large looming wall bisects it.
My grandmother stares at that wall a lot. My grandfather sits in front of it with sort of easiness I cannot comprehend. It’s very much like his current approach to life.
“I’m happy now,” he says and continues, “I have a beautiful family. Your mother, your aunt, you. Your two little cousins. Your grandmother. I keep my home. You’re getting a great education. I cannot ask for any more.”
I’m humbled by such statements. My eyes get watery, but I don’t want him to notice. Suddenly, he stands up from his chair in the patio. He looks at both my grandmother and me. “Who’s up for a game night?” he asks and continues, “Let’s even bet money…I’m going to go get some quarters.”
By Ismail Ibrahim
On Wednesday, February 1st the Muslim Students Association held a rally on the Kimmel steps to show solidarity for students affected by the travel ban, as well as those who oppose the president’s proposal to build a wall along the Mexican border. The student association brought in a diverse group of speakers, including some personally affected by the ban and some who grew up along the Mexican-American border and are opposed to the wall.
The president of the Muslim Students Association, Afraz Khan, spoke last, leading the rally in a dua asking God for strength in these trying times. I spoke to Afraz after the prayer service, and he told me that the goal of the rally was “not only to raise awareness on campus, but also to reinvigorate a spirit in people to make sure they keep pushing forward. The spirit of compassion and the spirit of empathy.” After the speeches in Kimmel, the Muslim students completed their obligatory Isha’a prayer under Washington Square Arch, which Afraz told me was “a way for Muslims themselves to unapologetically display their identity.”
A hat worn by one of the rally attendees that reads “love” in Arabic
The ban has deeply affected members of the NYU community. Khalad abu Tawas, an eighteen-year-old Palestinian-American student said that he believes “the recent news is indicative to me that the nation is making a shift towards something negative and dangerous and could jeopardize not only the Muslim community but every minority community in the States.”
