Halloween Amusements

For Halloween in 1994, my mom sewed me a Lamb Chop costume that pretty accurately mimicked the childhood puppet favorite, minus Shari Lewis’ hand and voice controlling my every move. The full-fleece body suit was cozy and, in my opinion, pretty funny. Needless to say, I looked and felt pretty good.

But to wear a Lamb Chop costume today for a college-aged woman is different; it would have to be a sexy or a dominatrix lamb because a costume without either of those qualities deems me both unattractive and homely, naturally. Since we live under an unyielding gaze that fools us into thinking that it’s wrong to do otherwise, some of us feel trapped in the cycle of animal ears and sex-ridden, unfunny and unspooky outfits that transform an ancient celebration into a glorified orgy, if you will.

In the attempt to grasp the blurred line between sexy and awesome, Halloween is now more overwhelming than anyone ever wanted, at least for some of us.

I’m not sure if the topic is incidental, or even amusing, especially on a broader level, but since it’s Halloween I thought I’d scare some readers into inspiration. Now, I’m not undermining the empowering sexiness that can come with a righteous Halloween costume. I’m all for being, feeling and living sexy.

But dressing hotly for anyone but you and for the wrong reasons only sustains the grip that society has on us, and it makes an appearance every Halloween. It’s one thing to dress as awesome Lara Croft and threaten people with a whip that you made yourself; it’s another thing to buy the “Naughty Little Red” costume from Party City that is made of felt and tissue paper for $49.99 and sits next to “Mile High Captain.”

See what I mean? Just don’t shop at Party City, for one thing. But the other thing is that there’s so much more to Halloween than those shitty costumes that allow us to be pornified, year after year. Book characters, puns, metaphors, TV role models: The list goes on, as does the potential for wittiness, humor and downright awesomeness.

While some of us are expected to wear petite onesies, football jerseys without pants, and ass-bearing miniskirts, I see Halloween as a chance for us to be anyone in the world, and the world is a lot to work with that goes beyond using yourself as something to sexify, only because you’re told to do so by places like Party City.

I encourage all of us to aim for hilarity over skimpy, scary over submissive and smart over stupid. All of those together make for a sexiness that carries itself past Halloween throughout the year – maybe you won’t even need a costume this time around.

Invasion of Privacy: Published illustrator Carly Fowler reflects upon studio art program

As a student pursuing a degree from a department that will soon cease to exist, senior Carly Fowler made sure to expand her art career as early as possible and is now an accomplished children's book illustrator. An art history and studio art double major, Fowler painted the illustrations for The Adventures of Patch the Puffin and Patch Puffin and the Hatchlings by Brigid O'Connor, the latter set to be released in November, when she will start work on the third piece of the series.

It started after Fowler contacted the storyboard artist for The Hobbit, who told her that all storyboard artists begin as illustrators. Since then, Fowler said, “The ball just keeps rolling.”

Fowler works with a storyboard script and collaborates with O'Connor to develop a vision for the story, with each page taking around six hours.

Patch's plot reflects its title: Patch and his playful animal friends find adventures on his island home. Fowler's watercolor techniques, which she developed during her time at Geneseo, beautifully display the story's oceanside scenes.

Previously Fowler only used charcoal as a medium, but she points to the well-rounded studio art program that has helped her to hone in on her personality as an artist that she rediscovers every day.

“It's taken four years for me to develop a style,” she said, jokingly adding, “I'm just now at the point where I don't want to burn everything that I make.”

Because the program asks that students try everything from photography to 3-D design, Fowler has a stronger sense of her goal as an artist than she did when she first began at Geneseo.

“I definitely identify as a contemporary artist because I work as a feminist and a surrealist, and I do a lot with gender equality,” she said. This semester, Fowler is working on a directed study; the subject of her work is her rabbit from home and how she can apply it to settings that can be a social commentary.

“If I'm not painting, drawing, creating or doodling something, I don't feel like a person anymore. For me, it's never been a choice,” she said. “If I don't do it, I don't feel right.”

Fowler creates masterpieces and strengthens her passion with the reminder that the studio art program will be gone in one year, something that she reflects upon often. When the school announced the cut during her freshman year, Fowler said that she was both confused and angry.

“That was chaotic, because I got here and they cut it. It was stressful,” she said, adding that many people told her to discontinue her degree. “They told me, 'Don't complete the major; you're not going to finish on time,' but I find that the more people tell me not to do something, the more I'm going to show them that I can.”

Within the art department, Fowler has grown close with instructors and students alike; she said that what upsets her most is the job losses that her instructors may incur in the spring.

“They all know so much,” she said. “And I've learned and grown and had this opportunity placed in my lap because of these people, and they're just going to be gone next year; that's just heartbreaking to me.”

Upon graduation, Fowler is hopeful to continue illustrating, adding that, “The great thing about being an illustrator is that you don't have to settle; you can be anywhere you want.”

Class Profile: Beth McCoy applies housing crisis to literature

When millions of individuals and families lost their homes with the crash of the American housing market, an opportunity arose to craft a lens through which to explore the narratives of the event as they pertain to slavery. Usually, we look first to economics, statistics and finance in the discourse surrounding the 2008 meltdown that resulted from heavy and fast lending of mortgages.

What Distinguished Teaching Professor of English Beth McCoy aims to do in ENGL 237: Voices and Perspectives: Housing Crisis is to dispel the notion that events like the crisis stand alone.

In a literary and cultural study of houses, homes and dwellings and the role they play in well-being, McCoy introduces the theories of Duke University's Ian Baucom and Yale University's Joseph Roach that explore the housing crisis and credit lending and how they date back to the Atlantic slave trade. McCoy then applies the theories to literature and art.

“It's one thing to say that these theorists say this, but what about an artist?” McCoy said. “It's kind of like cross-checking your facts. You want to see that if your story works out in one perspective, it works in the other.”

McCoy's course introduces students to both nonfiction that covers the crisis directly, including Michael Lewis' The Big Short, and fiction pieces that use the home as a central theme. The class just began reading Toni Morrison's A Mercy.

“We're looking at what the literature and film can tell us at a very human level because the students have been really great about observing that and a lot of the accounts of the housing crisis,” McCoy said. She added that much of what is missing in the modern reports of the crisis is “the accounts of the human toll and the affective toll of this big structural thing that happened.”

“You scratch the surface,” she said. “And you find that after the second scratch you reveal stuff that's grounded in slavery.”

In a class discussion of Morrison's novel of slavery in 17^th-century America, McCoy explores themes and motifs with students.

Junior Sean Neill was the first to note the use of the house as a symbol of class, race, religion and gender, as McCoy said that in books akin to Morrison's, “often people use [homes] to kind of shape their world.”

“What we try to do is look at the idea of home, what it means both economically and affectively. So what emotions and feelings do we put into it, but also how are homes in the novel very much reliant on slave labor and violence against women,” Neill said. “It's a more cyclical idea of history, of things resurfacing.”

Government shutdown: not just a Washington problem

The shutdown is in full force. Think you’re just a bystander to the temporary, yet pervasive, hollowing out of our public labor force? According to SUNY spokesperson David Doyle, “Higher education is not insulated from the effects of a government shutdown, and while we do not know the full extent of the impact on SUNY, the severity will largely depend on the duration.”

If this so-called shutdown is permanent – or at least longer than five days – there is the potential of things like federally funded work study jobs to halt. Raise your hand if you work in the College Union!

The lollygagging of Congress is something that affects all of us. We, as consumers, chose public institutions for our education, and those workers now out of work chose the public sector as their employer. Because of that, we all suffer at the hand of Congress, which is now a toddler-filled playground with one set of swings.

But shame on us for relying on something so obviously volatile, right? Down with the “non-essentials” that are the Environmental Protection Agency and national parks and those who expected to go to work on Oct. 1. I pity the fool who didn’t see this coming.

We all knew it from the beginning: The government is bloated. It is so obvious that they’re able to sustain this shutdown only because those people sitting at home, twiddling their thumbs – they’re unnecessary.

Let’s forget the work that they do and the income upon which they rely. Aren’t you glad that the men and women in Congress are taking their time to smooth out the glitches in this agreement, seemingly surprised that it came again, as it has and always will every year?

Did we forget that we’re on a fiscal year? Boehner, was it you who thought the deadline was Jan. 1?

The deadline thing is more understandable. As college students especially, we know what’s up. Trained to glisten our way through every argument with our instructors, our number one priority isn’t getting the job done in a thorough and timely manner – we like to beat around that bush until the last minute, ultimately costing others time and patience. They have college degrees up on the Hill – we’re all in on the secret.

But in all seriousness, this mismanagement is simply inappropriate. Just the threat to some public programs is frightening: Food and Drug Administration inspections, potentially the Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children, the Federal Housing Administration’s loans, disability applications – you would be surprised at how many agencies, duties and people are qualified as “non-essential.”

Whether you’re lefty, righty, moderate or all over the place, the last drop of your political efficacy definitely went down the drain this week. On the line are almost one million federal employees wondering when they will work next and cursing the life that a civil worker leads.

While we won’t ever be able to control the selfishness of our representatives, perhaps it’s at least time for a restructuring in the way that we handle and treat those people in our public workforce and those who benefit from its services. Here is a call for Non-Essentials Appreciation Day; a drink to all those 800,000 out there who are unsure of when they return to work, probably unsure of why they ever agreed to be a part of this dysfunctional machine that is the U.S. government. Cheers to you: You could probably use it the most anyway.

Invasion of Privacy: Romania native brings international history to Geneseo

Junior Alexandru Matusz spent his senior year of high school in Idaho after spending his entire youth in Romania and based his decision to come to Geneseo solely on the school's page on the College Board website. In his undergraduate search, Matusz wanted to see more of the East Coast for his college experience after being in Fruitland, Idaho. Matusz first came to Geneseo from 2007 until 2010; after taking a break at home in Romania, he is now back to complete his majors in international relations and history.

“I heard that New York has a better education system,” he said. “Geneseo was a totally new experience, like going into a new world.”

His host family in Idaho, he said, was like his own family, so Matusz's first semester was more emotionally challenging than expected.

“I was used to being with family, like mine in Romania is very caring and very friendly,” he said, adding that he struggled at first with living alone and balancing his studies and activities.

“One thing that's distinct about the Romanian education system is that, in the classes, you don't get separated,” he said. “Here, students go to classes, but in Romania, we have the same class with the same people all day long.”

But Matusz is sociable and open-minded, something that he attributes to his many travels over the years. The city where he was raised, Timisoara, is on the western edge of Romania, nicknamed “Little Vienna,” where he was surrounded by other countries, cultures and backgrounds. He said this location helped him develop into who he is today.

“It starts with diversity, and you get to know and understand people from different viewpoints like ethnic and religious,” he said. “I don't ever regret having the opportunity to travel.”

Timisoara “has a rich history of over 1,000 years, beginning with the Roman Empire, where I can trace my ancestries,” he added. The city was part of the anti-communist revolution in 1989, and out of all of the countries where communism fell, Romania was the only place where blood was shed. Matusz said it makes his hometown a “martyr city.”

When Matusz was one year old, he “lived a period of time that was a transition toward democracy and the integration of that.” Living in a city with such history is one of the reasons he pursued his major, and he hopes to continue into international law after he graduates.

“I like history because it's a study of the past and helps people not to repeat things. I like learning all about the past,” he said, adding that history helps him to “set a foundation for studying international relations.”

Through international law, he said, “you can see the world; you can meet different cultures.”

While Matusz has traveled the world, and pinpoints some of his favorite locations to be the forts and castles of Germany, the Valley of the Loire in France and his medieval favorites like Florence, Italy, he said, “I must say I like very much the 'Wild West.' I think that's the real American experience to be there.”

Incidental Amusements

Have you heard? Probably. Wegmans has free stuff during September. You know how they say that there ain’t no such thing as free lunch? This is literally free lunch. We walk out of the store with a box of double-stuffed “W-Os” like thieves in the night only to be told to come back next week for free frozen pizzas. Right on. I’ll see you there, cashier Ryan.

And those coupon booklets they have? Yeah, no one keeps track of those. Stock up now and go back every day for your free stuff. There’s no shame in cheating the system. Trust me: Wegmans expects it of us, as college students. If you’re really paranoid about going back for a second set of coupons, pick up a mask from the Spirit Halloween store, conveniently in the same plaza. What motivates Wegmans to give away its off-brand packaged goodies to savage kids who each end up with 18 bottles of mouthwash and six different flavors of cookies? From a business perspective, the company can’t actually expect kids to love these familiar products so much that eventually they come back for more to pay real money for them, right? From another business perspective, Wegmans can’t actually care about the well-being of its customers by offering free things, can it? We’re talking profit maximization here, not consumer welfare.

When we’re dealing with free food, the stakes are high. With only one week per item, you need to be quick and on your toes. I remember last year Wegmans actually ran out of the frozen pizzas by the fourth day of free pizza week. All hell broke loose when Wegmans had no backup plan; not even DiGiorno could save us.

It’s the drive of students that motivates Wegmans, really; by “drive” I mean the ability to find free things – especially food – and totally exploit them to the point at which it’s almost inappropriate.

Because we go to a state school and we know what’s expected of us, seek out your opportunities immediately and exhaust the shit out of them. Wegmans coupons are just another way to pin students against one another to see who can make the biggest fiend of themselves in the rush toward the end. You got seven boxes of cereal? Well, I have 21 stashed in my room. Do you want to see the storage space I rented? It’s filled with Greek yogurt.

Another competition unfolds. Just as with anything, we want to be the best and let everyone know that it’s true; it’s in our blood.

It’s sickening, what they do, really. They’re like the The Hunger Games, Wegmans coupons. The company knows we’re competitive and knows we’re greedy. By taking us in our most vulnerable state, as hungry recipients of free food, it makes a gimmick out of us. We’re the laughing stock, the village idiots - don’t you get it?

You should never go back. If you’re smart, you’ll avoid that wretched place like the plague. Shop at Wal-Mart instead. Trust me. From one student to another, there is nothing to see at Wegmans, especially not free food.

County-wide arts center provides grants, studio space

Historical preservation reveals itself in the New Deal Gallery at Livingston Arts in Mount Morris, N.Y., where art created during and funded by the 1930s Franklin D. Roosevelt administration is showcased.Opened in 2008, the New Deal Gallery houses paintings of the Great Depression that the Roosevelt administration backed to both decrease unemployment and to enrich the well-being of American society. It was during this time that the Livingston Arts building and those surrounding it served as the Mount Morris Tuberculosis Hospital and housed over 230 federally funded paintings. The gallery features large tranquil paintings that presumably brightened the rooms and hallways of the hospital that was home to both patients and physicians. With a focus on nature and still life and an extensive amount of flower vases, one can see that they enhanced the building interiors rather than served as focal points. According to Chris Norton, the nonprofit’s executive director, the New Deal marks the only time in American history that the federal government paid for art to be made. “There are a lot of artists that became famous and turned New York into a center of the art world in [the] ‘40s to ‘50s,” he said. “Before that, America was a backwater of the arts.” Livingston Arts reflects the Roosevelt administration’s mission today through its support for artists, schools and community programs in hopes of enriching the well-being of county residents. Founded first as a council in part by Distinguished Service Professor Emerita of Art Bertha Lederer, the organization now manages three galleries and hosts various events and programming. The community receives the most benefit from its artist grants, according to Liz Simmons, associate director of Livingston Arts. One is the Artists in Education grant that supports artists and organizations to work with public schools in Livingston County in engaging the students in artistic learning experiences. The Community Arts grant supports art programming like exhibitions, demonstrations, festivals and public installations with a result of a “higher sense of community, identity, and positive outlook on the role of art and culture for life in Livingston County,” according to its website.

Aside from its grants, Livingston Arts’ most recent demonstration of the organization’s historical preservation is seen in its Underground Arts center, where a refurbished basement is now a haven for artists and amateurs alike; the studio has a kiln and pottery wheels and is littered with crafty tools and supplies to enhance the potter’s experience. Classes focus on 3-D mediums and include clay, fiber arts and bookbinding “To me that’s really exciting because we talked about making this place a space where artists felt they could come and work,” Norton said. “That basement space gave them a place where they can be messy. I think that space really helps in the sense that it’s harder to do that at home.” Norton said he hopes to rekindle the relationship that was once very strong between the organization and the college. With the studio art major ending in 2014, he noted that opportunities exist for collaboration on the Geneseo campus to “explode the idea of Livingston County as a cultural center.” “It doesn’t matter where you are,” he said. “Everywhere in the planet that has people needs the arts.”

Invasion of Privacy: Cross-country bike tour peddles newfound lifestyle on Geneseo students

Eight weeks, two bikes and the fresh American trail were mostly what filled junior Holly Kandel and classmate Sarah Prieto’s summer. That and a lot of protein bars. The two set out to bike across America, from the Brooklyn Bridge in New York to the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, resting as necessary. With them they carried minimal clothing, a two-person tent, sleeping bags, bike maintenance tools and spare bike tires.

Kandel and Prieto biked through 11 states total; when they reached Utah, they faced a decision of continuing through what is called the Loneliest Road in America, or U.S. Route 50, or hopping on a bus that would take them straight to Los Angeles. With only two weeks left until they were scheduled to board a flight from San Francisco back to New York, the two decided to choose the latter.

“Nevada is all desert, very desolate and our maps told us there would be an 80-mile stretch without food or water,” Kandel said. “We were kind of done at that point.”

After biking for 60 miles every day this summer, Kandel said that she does “miss the freedom and spontaneity of the road, but I do appreciate the stability now and having my own bed.”

“Every day consisted of eating, sleeping, biking and writing in my journal; that was my whole summer and I was so happy,” Kandel said. “Things were simple.”

Things were simple but not always easy. After what Kandel called two “blissful” days through Pennsylvania, the two faced “massive hills and mountains” all the way. The first week was the most physically exhausting - she admitted that they did not train nearly hard enough - and after that, mental exhaustion ensued. Biking every day for 12 hours and waking up at 5 a.m. was emotionally draining, she said.

“Just knowing we had to wake up that early and knowing that even though each day we didn’t know exactly what we would be doing, we knew that we would just be biking all day,” she said. “It would get boring and it would be hard and tiring and we would get hot and dirty and uncomfortable and just really difficult living.”

She added that, honestly, “the best parts of the trip were when we weren’t biking. But I would never take it back.”

Exhaustion aside, throughout the journey, Kandel said that no matter where she went, the graciousness of people surprised her most. People bought them food, gave them lifts and asked questions about their journey. She said she was nervous about the trip and her safety, at first.

“We didn’t encounter one bad person, and as an individual, I feel more confident just going off anywhere,” she said. “As long as I’m careful and cautious, I feel confident enough that I can take care of myself and that people are generally good.”

Kandel said they especially grew accustomed to the generosity of the cycling community, noting that fellow cyclists would always stop to talk about cycling, traveling and life in general.

According to Kandel, the trip introduced her to a simple lifestyle that she aims to translate into her college life today: “I didn’t need anything except for food and shelter, so I realized that we create these unnecessary worries,” she said. “If everything is taken care of in terms of food and shelter, you’ll be OK.”

Kandel added that the trip pushed her to not overwork herself or spread herself too thin, only “doing things that I’m truly passionate about and maintaining that time to self-reflect and keeping that minimalist lifestyle.”u