Holiday Ideas from the BSC Alumni Association

Season's Greetings and best wishes for a wonderful holiday season!! I hope that your holiday preparations are coming along alright!! Speaking of the holiday season, I wanted to let you know about a special holiday promotion that the Buffalo State Alumni Association is offering to help you out with your holiday shopping needs (see below - in italics)!!!

Holiday Gift Idea!

Are you searching for a holiday gift item or stocking stuffer? The Buffalo State Alumni Association would like to help you out by offering a discounted rate on Delta Sonic Super Kiss Car Wash tickets! For only $10.00 (a $3.00 savings off the retail price, along with no sales tax), you can purchase a Super Kiss ticket (good for 1 Super Kiss Car or Truck Wash including “Tires Hand Dressed” and a “5-Day Guarantee Wash Again Free”).

Support the Buffalo State Alumni Association and give someone a nice holiday gift at the same time! Gift boxes are available as well! Cash, check (made out to BSCAA), and credit card (Visa and Mastercard) payments are accepted. To purchase a ticket, stop by the Alumni Office (Cleveland Hall 305) or give us a call at 878-6001 to charge by phone.

Thanks, in advance, for your support and take care! Please feel free to spread the word and pass this promotion along to others!!!

You're also welcome to designate the proceeds ($2.00) of your ticket to one of the following chapters (see below), so considering that you're all affiliated with alumni chapters, this could be a very good way to raise some additional funds for your chapter:

Art Education

Career and Technical Education

Communication

**Creative Connections**

Criminal Justice

Education

Educational Opportunity Program

Football

Health & Wellness

International

Leaders of Color

McNair Scholars Program

Medical Alumni Society

Men’s Hockey

Men’s Soccer

Psi Phi Beta Fraternity

Rugby

Sigma Phi Epsilon Fraternity

Silas L. Boyd Memorial A Cappella Alumni Choir

Student Personnel Administration

United Students Government

WBNY

Whispering Pines Camp Board

Women’s Soccer

Tau Kappa Epsilon Fraternity

Take care and Happy Holidays to all of you!!!
Stay in touch and thanks for your continued support of the Buffalo State Alumni Association!!

Happy Holidays

Just playing around with the newly improved Blogger... so far, so good!

Regarding CPSI 2007

Hello to all the Wondering Creatives,

CPSI is scheduled for June 24th to 29th, 2007.

CEF has not confirmed the location because while we planned to return to Loyola, and would like to, we are in on-going negotiations with the University. A significant contributing factor being that our contact left Loyola in August and her replacement started November 1st.

We have a back-up venue, that is not located in Illinois. Ideally, we would like to return to Chicago but are not sure that will happen. As frustrating as it is for all concerned who attend and present at CPSI, it is even more frustrating as the organizers.

So please help spread the word the CPSI 2007 is planned for the last full week in June, and know that as soon as things are settled we will let you know.

Warm regards,
Victoria Cliche

To all the Things that go Bump in the Night

Because you never know who.. or what.. is reading

Hope your Halloween was suitably creepy and candy filled
:)

x posted at What is the Porpoise of Existance

Returning to Creativity

I've pretty much been leaving this blog alone lately.. it's been just about two months since I've posted on it. Not that I've got nothing to say, because my LiveJournal has been active, I just haven't felt like spending the time. That blog has always been about fun so maintaining it is usually easier.

But I felt a bit inspired and that is due to this link a friend sent me. It's 30 second movies, acted out by bunnies! I have not watched all of them, but I do reccomend Bunny "Night of the Living Dead" and "Brokeback Mountain".

I have no idea how active this blog is going to be. I don't want to discontinue because I've always felt as though I need a forum in case I feel like writing something awesomely intelligent, but right now bunny movies are about all I'm interested in at the moment. Not that that's a bad thing, I happen to think the bunny movies are one of the most creative things I've come across in a long time. They're also hilarious which never hurts.

What I'm not going to do, however, is enage in political debate. My last post here was a step into the area of politics because it was something I felt strongly about and felt the need to blog about it. I'm not responding to the comment that was left, because I do not feel that this is the appropriate forum for that. I do not want this to turn into a politcal blog at all because there are other blogs designed specifically for that purpose. However it is my blog, so I can write about whatever I want as the mood strikes me. That being said, I'm not deleting the comment because I feel that everyone is entitled to their opinion, weather or not I agree, which in this case I do not. So as far as I'm concerned my foray into politics is over. At least for now.

So that's where I'm at. We'll take things as they come and then go from there.

Whoo Hoo!

I'm going to step into politics for a bit to congratulate Ned Lamont in his victory over Lieberman in CT.

And a note to the Senators and other Democrats in NY and around the country.. I'm sure my reader will help pass along the message: Do the right thing and pay attention to what happened here. We're tired of the war, which never should have happened in the first place, and we're tired of the current political climate which seems bent on eliminating the civil rights of everyone. Fight back. Or plan a career change, because those who don't will not remain in office much longer. And someone talk to Joe and explain to him what it means to lose gracefully. His current posturing is appaling.

That's it for the politics for now. I usually don't bother because the subject is covered so well, and so completely elsewhere, but this time it was important.

My other favorite story..

Is this one, where a guard dog accidentally ate Elvis Presley's teddy bear. Go ahead, read it for yourself!

I'm just glad it's an interesting news day. On a day like this it's much to hot to do much of anything except blog..

I want to move to Scotland..

The polititians there have much more interesting scandals than our do. Read the article from Yahoo News here. Our elected officials have tax and money type things going on, but it seems as though there hasn't been a sex scandal, at least an interesting one, since Clinton left office.

My favorite part of this story is where he fired his legal team and decided to defend himself. By putting his wife on the stand:

Gail Sheridan, 42, gave a passionate defense of her husband and said she would have killed him and dumped his body in Glasgow's river Clyde if she believed the allegations.

"You would be in the Clyde with a piece of concrete tied round you and I would be in court for your murder," she said.

Gail Sheridan also said McGuire had obviously never had sex with her husband because, if she had, she would have mentioned his hairy body in her kiss-and-tell revelations.

"You are like a monkey, so anybody rolling an ice cube around your body would end up with a hairball ..." she told her husband across the packed court room. "There is more hair on your body than there is on your head."

It dosen't get much better than that..

ah HA!!!

(Picture downloaded from Boing Boing)


I always suspected those damned cartoon cats were evil...

Blogging

I've been wondering lately why I don't update very often. It's not like I have nothing to say, because I do. I've even got a file of interesting articles I've been meaning to write about but haven't. And I can rant about my love/hate relationship with Yahoo indefinately.. Love the email because it works well, hate the groups because it dosen't and IM isn't working tonight which pisses me off, etc. But this page hasn't had a fresh entry in months, even though I've commented on other blogs, and I've been kind of wondering why. It's not as though I'm scrambling for free time or anything.

But that could be a big part of it. I'm spending a lot of time these days working on my resume and trying to not get down on myself because it's taking fucking forever to find steady work. If I were up to my eyeballs the momentum would carry into regular blogging. That's probably why I'm not art blogging anymore as well... I'm just not allowing myself the space to just sit and read and be thoughtful about things that aren't directly related to my job hunt. (I'm aware that I need to let up a bit on The Hunt... If I let myself become obsessive about it, which I'm totally capable of becoming, I'll just drive myself nuts and the search will end up taking longer than it needs to.)

Then I went to my LiveJournal and noticed that I post there at least once a week.

Maybe it's because I know who I'm "speaking" to. The people on my LJ friends list are folks I've been speaking to for a few years now from the Buffy groups on Yahoo. (Which is where my love/hate relationship with the forum began.) And the LJ is something I've always done just for fun. This blog was meant to be a means for me to keep up with my writing. Ironic that I really don't write on it very much.. in many ways it's become another vehicle for advertising for my alumni activities.

I'm keeping both, but I have to think about what I want this blog to be. I had been thinking that I should scrap this one because I really don't use it, but I'm reluctant to do that because I'm sort of attached. We'll see. If nothing else it's a second forum for me to just say what's on my mind...

Being Polite

While I was cursing Yahoo for being totally unable to log into anything over there, YIM, mail, etc., I came across this article about the most polite major city in the whole wide world. Wouldn't you know that NYC won hands down!!

Some people will be surprised at this, but I'm not. I didn't realize just how polite NYers are until I moved away from there some years ago. People talk to their neighbors, they look out for each other, all that sort of thing. The study in the article looked at opening doors, helping to pick up something dropped and salespeople saying thank you to customers. I suppose what does NYC in in terms of image is the fast pace. If you're not accustomed to that, it can come across as being blown off or brusqueness. But in my experience, once the local person becomes aware that they are dealing with a visitor, they will try to help out. There's also the tendency to being direct and straightforward in conversation, which can come across as rudeness. Think about it though, would you rather be told the bald truth, as they see it, or have someone lead you down the garden path? If you have no time for me, tell me so I can move on. anything else is passive agressive and no one wants that.

But that's not to say that people elsewhere are jerks, and my time living upstate has been hellish or whatever. Because that's not the case at all, I'm just saying that NYC has a tendency to be labled as rude and that is just not so. What does surprise me is that Toronto came in a distant third (behind Zurich.) I would have expected TO to be a lot higher than that because I have yet to meet a rude Canadian. I'm also surprised that no other major US city made even the top 20.. Yes, it's a world-wide poll, but you'd think that at least ONE other would get mentioned... Particularly those cities in regions frequently thought of as politeness personified. I suppose this is an area where one would have to dig into the research criteria and all that sort of thing. I also wonder if it really is a level playing field to have this be a world wide study and not take into considerations cultural differences and social norms.

Anyway, this was nice to see. And blogging about it certainly distracted me from my frustration at not being able to login to my Yahoo email.....

Upstate

I've lived in upstate NY for a little over 15 years now and for the most part I really like it. Beautiful country, nice people, and not that far away from home. My original purpose for moving here was school. Obviously I haven't been "in school" for 15 years, there were two when I lived in Northern Kentucky after undergrad, and when I moved back in 1998 I worked until I figured out my next move. Now that I've finished with school, I'm looking at my options.

My first choice, obviously, to me anyway, is to stay here. I've been here for most of my adult life and it's become home. And I really like where I live and the people I've surrounded myself with. But it's a bit frustrating because of the local job market. My first thought was that this is a Buffalo issue.. It's no news flash that the population here has been dwindling for years. But then I came across this article in the NYTimes. Seems that upstate in general is dwindling and it's due to a disappointing job market.

It's not that there are no jobs at all, but rather the kinds of jobs. I'm nearly 40 and have no desire to work in a call center or cashier. I've got student loans and all that sort of thing and I'm really tired of being poor. Which is what those jobs mean: you have a paycheck that barely covers living expenses and get treated like crap to boot. Jobs like that are perfect for kids just starting out, but not when you are trying to build a life for yourself.

It's not that I have a problem with moving to another part of the country, my job hunt is nationwide. What bothers me is that my hand seems to be forced. I don't particulary want to bounce around between four part time jobs. I want health insurance and a saving plan.

I suppose I'm jut frustrated. 15 years is a long time in a region. I hope I can stay here, but it's not looking good.

Painting like Pollock

I came across this website recently, that lets you paint like Pollock. Kind of. It lets you make digital, fairly random splatters and clicking the mouse will change colors. It's pretty cool and a fun way to pass time.

Thanks to way2busymom for the link!

Go visit this website!

There are a couple of reasons why I'm reccomending visiting dohiyimir. Firstly, there's some really great photograhy and promoting artists is something I need to do more of as this is sort of an art blog. When I feel like writing about art anyway, which I don't always but that's not the point. There's also great articles and a smattering of politics.

But mostly I'm linking because this blog's creator is a friend of my brother's. I'm not going to get into the recent nastiness that my family has been subjected to, suffice it to say that I'm spitting nails here. Anyway, the flip side to all this is that it is in circumstaces like this when you find out who your friends are. And NTodd, among others, has been a good friend. So it's my way of saying thank you.

(note: Blogger seems to be squirrly at the moment, so an addition to the blogroll has to wait.)

Movies about art

I have to admit it. I really enjoyed the book: "The DaVinci Code" and am looking forward to the movie. But not so much for the plot, which I found fun, but that's about it.

It's because of the art. This is a book about PAINTING. Yeah, there's the whole theology part and that sort of thing, and while I enjoy a good conspiracy theory as much as the next person, it's not, for me, what makes the book and movie so COOl. It's about ART!!!!!

According to the movie's press, they were able to shoot in the LOUVRE! No one does that! I remember reading the book and the thing that struck me about the whole thing was that I can't remember ever seeing art in this sort of context before. When are art historians cast as big heroes? I had the urge the entire time to review my Renaissance notes from undergrad and thinking that as an art teacher how cool is this to have a pop-culture link back to my subject? Imagine the cool projects on symbolism and representation that can come from this?

So that's why I'm going to see the movie. It's about ART and it's set in the LOUVRE. All controversy aside, I think this is the coolest thing EVER!!

Munch

I recently had the time to go back and read the NY Times articles that I've been saving and came across this one regarding the fate of the thieves who made off with Munch's "The Scream" and "Madonna" a few years ago.

Art theft is something I've never really understood. Particularly pieces as famous as these. I mean, what can they possibly DO with them? Hold them for ransom? Keep them in a private vault and never look at them? It's not as if the coast will ever be clear enough to sell them. Maybe it's one of those power trip kinds of things: "I have something special and I'm not telling where it is. So there. And YOU can't look at it, even though it's really cool."

I'm certainly upset that the paintings are missing. Munch is one of the big influential artists for me, and visiting the Munch Museum in Oslo is one of my dream trips. Not that I'm not grateful that the thieves were caught and prosecuted, because I am. But thefts of this sort are cruel. Art needs to be seen, not hidden away, and certainly not damaged.

Here's hoping the paintings are returned unharmed.

Shakes head with a sigh

I heard about this on the radio this afternoon while I was on my way home, and I checked it out because it seemed WAY too silly to be true. I should have known better.

Yes, it looks like the movie "Legally Blonde" is on it's way to becoming a Broadway musical. Just click here to see for yourself. Go ahead. I dare you. No, I'm not putting up any pictures. The whole idea sickens me.

Why must every silly idea be implemented?

Expert to Expert, 2006

Save the Dates! Expert-to-Expert Monday, May 8th to Wednesday, May 10th. Click here for more information, including registration forms and workshop info!

Looking forward to seeing you in May!

Actually it looks like it's going to be a really good conference this year. And I'm not just saying that because I'm one of the presenters. Dr. Basadur's work is very interesting and I'm looking forward to hearing him speak. There's also a lot of variety in the workshops offered, which is always a really good thing: Creativity in the arts, which believe it or not is not as well researched as you might think, Creativity in business, new research... There's something for everyone. Seems as though informal networking is being built in to the conference structure which I really like. These things are great reunion opportunities as well as a way to make new friends and it's nice to see the organizing committee responding to that.

This will be my third E2E experience, first time presenting, and I'm really looking forward to it. Creative Connections is also going to be doing a bit of fundraising, so if you're in the Buff State neighborhood, drop by to say hi and maybe buy a cupcake. :D

Musical!!

There's a new musical opening in Toronto: "The Lord of the Rings". Yeah. Someone made a musical stage production of this. AND it's my understanding that they compressed all three books into one. (Because it's based on the books, and not the movies.) I haven't seen this, and read only the one review in the NYTimes, which I deleted before I remembered that I wanted to link to it. But anyway according to the review it's really long and kind of confusing. Because it's a complex plot and compressing it into a three hour musical dosen't seem like nearly enough time, unless theater-goers are given Cliff-notes or something. Even the movies ended up leaving a lot out, and there were three of those. But they did keep the cool things like the Ents in it, so if you want to see dancing trees, then here's your chance. (The image, by the way, is the result of a Google Image Search, and I don't remember what website I pulled it from.)

Interesting Official Website though.. the intro is only kind of annoying but it plays well even if you have dial-up, which I do.

What's really cool is that the parodies have begun. Last night's Conan O'Brien had a parody sketch complete with a Gollum strip-tease which was hilarious. (I couldn't find images of the sketch, so the link is to the show's page.)

Color me skeptical, but is this really a good idea? Is this what the world was crying out for? Part of me really wants to see this.. another is horrifed at the thought.

At least it's not boring...

Wasn't Aware of a Problem!

I saw this on the 6:00 news tonight, then went to the NYTimes for confirmation. Seems that Barbie and Ken broke up a couple of years ago. She dumped him for an Austrailian srufer named Blaine. The picture on the right near is of the interloper. And they wonder why the sales of the dolls are going down: Barbie and BLAINE? Please. It's Barbie andKEN. Always has been, always will be.

Unless it was all an excuse to give Ken a makeover. As dolls go, he hasn't really moved with the times. But still. BLAINE?

Anyway, there is to be a new Ken and I wasn't even aware that there was a problem with the old one. And I don't care what the new Ken looks like, either. Although I am glad they've updated him a bit. By the way, I'm not posting a pic of the new Ken. If you want to see it, click on the article link. They've got a picture and a description of Ken's lifestyle changes. Seems he's no longer a surfer, but a cutting-edge guy who looks cool, cooks, and is in touch with his feelings. Personally, I think that's a lot to expect from a doll.

When I was a kid I had a Malibu Ken. He came with a bathing suit and towel, so he was ready for fun on the beach. And my extra outfit for Ken, because sometimes he and Barbie would go out, was a pale blue leisure suit. It was the '70's and Ken was very stylish. Or as stylish as you can get with plastic hair. That's him up there on the right. I couldn't find any pictures of the leisure suit.

Anyway, I'm glad Barbie and Ken have decided to work things out.

UPDATE: The layout I originally set didn't quite publish properly. Anyway, the 1970's Malibu Ken is the one with the bitchin tan. The one with the bad rug is that Blaine.

The Science of Art, or the Art of Science

Seems as though Einstein saw parallels, at least according to this article in last Tuesday's NY Times. The article discusses Einstein's love of the music of Mozart, and how it impacted his research.

This really isn't new. I'm not going to dig out my grad school reading as to creative process, or creative personality, but suffice it to say that there is a lot on the common personality traits of innovative creative geniuses, such as Einstein and Mozart. Ironically,while there is a lot of research about personality and process, art tends to get taken for granted in a lot of the creativity literature.. and film really isn't there at all. Interesting, that. (And I'm going to say now that I'm aware that this is a bit of a rambling brain dump.. I woke up at an ungodly hour of the "morning" and felt the need to blog anyway.)

Anyway, the article got me thinking about my experiences in undergrad as a painting major. What that meant was I spent an enormous amount of time in the studio and not really participating in campus events unless they were specific to art. It tends to be isolating because students in the other majors simply don't get the time commitment and you get percieved as being anti-social or whatever. Except for the science majors. They weren't seen a lot on campus either, but the science building was the only one besides the art building where there were ALWAYS students working and the science students were the only ones besides the art students who would get upset when you couldn't get into the building at 3am to work.

One of the coolest thing in my grad work was seeing that I was percieving something that turns out to be pretty true in the research: artists (all kinds) and scientists have a lot in common. Actually any "creative" person is going to be like that with the dedication and occaisional tunnel-vision when you're "on to something". (Read "Flow" by Csikszentmihalyi, he discusses this really well and he actually "get's" the artists in a way a lot of other creativity researchers don't.) But I've always gotten along with scientists.. the researchers anyway.

This is the end of my rambling essay on I'm not really sure what... Except that the article is really interesting and it's getting me thinking about getting a doctorate again...

An Interesting Observation

This afternoon I was Googleing images of the NYC skyline for a collage I'm making. Basically what I was looking for was the typical view from Jersey that everyone thinks of when they think of the NYC skyline. You know the one, it has most of Manhattan included.

So I was looking at the thumbnails and there were some really great images there.. Including the one taken from under the Brooklyn Bridge that is in the intro to "Friends". (I didn't want to use that one because the angle of the bridge would get in the way of what I'm trying to accomplish in the collage.) But I noticed something that I thought was irritating at the time, but I now find kind of interesting. Nearly all inclusive skyline images include the World Trade Center. There were more than a few of those horrible images from 9/11 (I still refuse to look at those by the way.. I'd prefer to either look at the crater or remember them as they were.)

I suppose it's kind of normal, I mean, those skyline shots with the Towers are awesome. But there's not a lot of the new skyline. Maybe it's still too recent. Or maybe people are waiting for the new building to come. I have to admit that I still expect to see the Towers when I'm in the area.. Not seeing anything there is kind of disturbing.

But as I work on the collage tomorrow I'm going to have to really think about weather or not I'm going to use any of the NYC images that I did download. It's not that they are bad images.. the one I've got up here is a darned good one and it's making me wish I remembered the source besides Google. If I don't include images of NYC it's because it dosen't look the way it's supposed to yet.

ACA National Conference, 2006

A note from Barry Silverberg of the ACA

American Creativity Association International Conference 2006

Wednesday, March 22 - Saturday, March 25

Pre-Conference Institutes on Monday, March 20 & Tuesday, March 21

At Hilton Austin Airport in Austin, Texas

Our Annual International Conference is all fleshed out. Aside from the inevitable last minute changes, what you see on our Conference site at www.amcreativityassoc.org/2006Conf.htm is what you will get – and the pickings are plentiful, as are the opportunities to share information, meet new people, and find collaborators for your ideas and ventures.

For the full force of what the 50+ person strong Conference planning team has put together, you need to visit the web site. And if you have not yet registered, or registered and not yet made your hotel arrangements, we urge you to do that AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. Making your travel arrangements now will allow you to get far better rates than if you wait until the last minute.

CREATIVE PEOPLE OF ACA REGISTER NOW .. ALL YOU HAVE TO LOSE IS PAYING HIGHER FEES LATER!

So what do we have in store for you?

• More than 70 top-notch keynote and Conference sessions over 3.5 days;
• Pre-Conference Institutes on TRIZ, Creative Utilization of Technology, and a significantly discounted two-day DeBono Creativity Course;
• A focus throughout on creative use of technology starting with the “thumb drives” we hope to provide every participant – containing presenter biographical and presentation information and other “stuff”; that will also allow you to upload and download information at the Conference at one of the public PCs that will be available for participants’ use – not quite, but close to, a paperless conference;
• Podcasts of keynotes and selected sessions;
• Opportunities for Conference participants to have hands-on time to discover the creative joy and value of setting up your own websites and other communication channels;
• Specially designated Conference time set-aside to allow for and foster individual and group collaborations/ networking/ sharing of ideas and enthusiasm;
• And of course there is all the usual stuff of a Conference … and much more that you’ll read about on the Conference website ….

We are offering a Special Discounted Team Registration for three employees from the same entity for $1500 (A $2685 value - $1185 savings). The details and additional discounted options are at www.amcreativityassoc.org/2006Conf-team.htm . CHECK IT OUT!