ALEXANDER L. PASTERNACK ’05

In his four years at Harvard, Alex L. Pasternack ’05, who is also a Crimson Arts editor, has ranged farther in the arts world than just about anyone else. The run-down of his activities here gives the impression that if he has a single goal, it has been to stretch and test his creative abilities in every conceivable forum.

But Pasternack is the first to admit that he’s no virtuoso, at least not in all of his disparate activites, which includes playwriting, acting, music, poetry, literary criticism, dance, drawing, performance art, and freestyle rap, as well as a number of unclassifiable artistic hijinks.

”I’m hardly talented,” he says. “I’m really a generalist, an amateur.”

The modesty belies a confident charm: Pasternack is a pale and lanky guy and exudes the kind of disaffected cool that tags him as a hipster. In conversation, however, he is warm and friendly, if a bit distracted. His eyes, like his words, tend to wander with restless attention.

Pasternack began his Harvard theatrical career in a production of Anton Chekhov’s “Three Sisters.” There, Pasternack made connections that would eventually inspire him to write two plays. The first, “The Rehearsal,” which, Pasternack says, was “still being written” ten minutes before its first performance, is the story of a bumbling theater group putting on a play.

The second, “The Apartment of Homeland Reality,” debuted this semester in the Adams Pool Theater and told the story of a family on a reality TV show; the set included a camera, which projected the show’s “live broadcast” onto a television alongside the on-stage action.

He’s also been a leader of three different campus bands: The Elegant Touch; the bizarre Information Wrecknology, which debuted at Arts First last year and which Pasternack describes as a “selectric hip-rok band that came back from the future to destroy your computer;” and his newest project, “The Motivational Speakers.”

Despite the unfailingly kooky nature of his projects, Pasternack is serious about breaking down the barriers in Harvard’s art world. Last year, he founded Present!, an “ob-literary” magazine-turned-art-collective which Pasternack calls a “life band.” While they do produce a magazine—the premier issue was released last year and there will be a second release this month—the bulk of their activity involves staging “happenings” on campus.

One such happening was “the Cube.” The group built a 12-foot cubical frame, covered it with red-and-blue fabric, and marched it down Mass. Ave. blaring music from boom boxes. The many-legged cube then wandered the Yard before stopping in front of the Science Center, where members ordered a dozen pizzas and invited passers-by to come hang out inside the mobile party room.

At this year’s Arts First, Present! will be showcasing something called a “wonder cabinet” in the Adams Art Space.

Before Present!, Pasternack was no stranger to artistic groups at Harvard; he was a poetry editor for the Advocate, as well as a Crimson Arts editor. While he is quick to mention his respect for the many talented artists in organizations like the Advocate and the Signet, he often calls for a less “stuffy” attitude among the Harvard art community.

”A lot of the artists at Harvard,” he says, “are incredibly open-minded and talented, but I think that the mechanisms that exist can sometimes be kind of closed.”

In the end, Pasternack reiterates that he is simply an “amateur” and a “collaborator.”

His modesty belies a deeper passion. If everybody had Pasternack’s artistic bravery and creativity, the world would be a very confusing, but much more interesting, place to live.