Issue12 by Generation Magazine

GENERATION MAGAZINE

An alternative voice since 1984 An SBI publication 04012014 Vol. 31 Issue: 12 ubgeneration.com

Heights

THE

V-DAY AT UB 2014 AND SBI HEALTH EDUCATION PRESENT:

THE VAGINA MONOLOGUES

RAISING AWARENESS TO PREVENT VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN & GIRLS.

Friday April 18th at 7:00 pm Saturday April 19th at 2:00 pm Saturday April 19th at 7:00 pm Norton 112 - North Campus

sbihealtheducation.org Twitter: @SBIHealthEd Facebook.com/SBIhealthed

Table of Contents

05 EIC Letter 07 Agenda Hit or Bullshit What’s on our Playlist 08 DIY: Trash to Handmade Cards 09 He Said, She Said BUFFALOVE 10 Extreme Hallway Makeover 11 UB Gettin Dirty FEATURE 14 Collaboration in the Heights PULSE 16 Your Choice 17 MH370: Off the Grid ARTS 18 Submissions 19 Submissions 20 Exhibit X 21 Reading After Bedtime PARTING SHOTS 22 Writing Under the Influence This is Not the Cold War

Cover designed by Emily Butler and Babita Persaud. Photos taken by Keighley Farrell. Photo source from all credits goes to respective photographer. modmyi.com(7), penandpaper.co.in(11) Generation Magazine is owned by Sub-Board I, Inc., the student service corporation at the State University of New York at Buffalo. The Sub-Board I, Inc. Board of Directors grants editorial autonomy to the editorial board of Generation. Sub-Board I, Inc. (the publisher) provides funding through mandatory student activity fees and is in no way responsible for the editorial content, editorial structure or editorial policy of the magazine. Editorial and business offices for Generation are located in Suite 315 in the Student Union on North Campus. The telephoane numbers are (716) 645-6131 or (716) 645-2674 (FAX). Address mail c/o Room 315 Student Union University at Buffalo, Amherst, NY 14260. Submissions to Generation Magazine should be e-mailed to ubgeneration@gmail.com by 1p.m. Tuesday, a week before each issue’s publication. This publication and its contents are the property of the students of the State University of New York at Buffalo 2011 by Generation Magazine, all rights reserved. The first 10 copies of Generation Magazine are free. Each additional copy must be approved by the editor in chief. Requests for reprints should be directed to the editor in chief. Generation Magazine neither endorses nor takes responsibility for any claims made by our advertisers. Press run 5,000. ≠≠≠

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Editor’s Letter

Dear Readers,

One thing I have realized since taking over at Generation, is that things never slow down. There are always new staff members to work with, interviews to conduct, meetings to plan and tough decisions to make. It is starting to become difficult to find the time to actually sit down and write for the magazine between all the planning and the whole “full time student” thing. Despite this, I think we are really starting to get into a groove. We are reaching out to the UB community, on campus and off in order to cover interesting topics for all of you. Here are some of the highlights of what we have been working on this issue. While we had our spring “break,” instead of sunning in a southern city, I used the time to catch up on work and hold a very special

interview that has been in the works for a long time. This week our feature focuses on the positive initiatives taking place in the University Heights Area. Check out pages 14 and 15 to learn more about the current University Heights Collaborative projects and how you can become involved and take ownership of your status as student and community member. Our color page also highlights the artwork that students have already helped to create to beautify the Heights! Also, make sure to check out the extended arts section this issue. We have been receiving an increased number of submissions and we want to showcase our talented readers. Keep it coming!

STAFF 2014 Editor in Chief Angelina Bruno Managing Editor Audrey Foppes Creative Director Emily Butler Assistant Creative Director Babita Persaud Photo Editor Keighley Farrell Web Editor Guyin Yu Copy Editor Sushmita Sircar Associate Editors Laura Borschel Jori Breslawski Adam Johnson Circulation Director Matt Benevento Business Manager Nick Robin Ad Manager Andrew Kim

My interview with some of the UHC Board members, from left to right, Aaron Krolikowski, President Mickey Vertino, and Vice President Ray Reichert.

Contributing Staff Rachel Sawyer Emma Fusco 05

t T I i H ullsh B

Tongues- Paws Air Balloon- Lily Allen Talk Dirty to Me- Jason Derulo Waiting for the Night- Armin Van Buuren We Might be Dead by Tomorrow- Soko

HIT

Up Down- T-Pain ft. B.o.B

While that blizzard certainly sucked, I did get to see a PT Cruiser do a full 360 and not hit anybody, so that’s a positive. Drive safe, kids!

T I H S L

BUL I am incredibly angry with Vladimir Putin. No, not about

the Crimea thing, I mean something much more important. WHY WON’T HE WEAR A SHIRT??

T I H

Lorde Trumps the Westboro Baptist Church. After hearing that the Westboro Baptist Church would be picketing at her next concert, Lorde instructed fans to wear rainbow and try to give the picketers a kiss.

Paranoid- Ty Dolla $ign ft. B.o.B That’s Why They Call it The Blues- Elton John Michelle- The Beatles White Room-Cream

AGENDA

T I H S ULL

Word on the street is that Christopher Nolan’s Inception was based on Britney Spears’ song Stronger...the evidence being that both the soundtrack and the 00’s hit use the same foghorn sound effect. In reality, the foreboding “da-da” sound used throughout the movie is a slowed down segment of Edith Piaf’s song, “Non, je ne Regrette Rien”, the song that the characters use to warn each other when it is time to wake up. I know, mind-blown.

April 1st:

Happy Birthday Apple!

Sure, April Fool’s Day is fun and all, but April 1 is also the 38th birthday of our future overlords Apple (unless Google wins the great tech war of 2029, of course). Happy Birthday Apple! 07

DIY Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

Article By: Angelina Bruno

Turn your Dorm Room trash into Beautiful Handmade Cards

orm life is full of good times, including bonding with neighbors and roommates that can lead to lifelong friendships. But what happens when you find out last minute it is your BFF roomie’s birthday and you, terrible person that you are, have not gotten that wonderful person a card! Now, you have a few options; your first, trekking it all the way to CVS to buy an overpriced card with the picture of a kitten on it. This really doesn’t seem worth the trouble given that it will most likely be blizzard-ing outside. Even if the weather somehow magically happens to be nice, angry geese will be on the prowl guarding their nest eggs, not a pretty sight. Time to take a look at option number two; maybe you can make up a design quick on your computer and print it out with Lockwood’s color printer! Only, that would also require leaving your room, and let’s not forget the disaster that might ensue if there is some sort of glitch backing up the print queue for hours. The whole idea of printing out a black and white birthday card on a dorm printer sounds far too circa 2002 anyway. Option three is your last hope; you must create your own heartfelt handmade card in order to prove your worth as a friend, and as a person. Stick with me and I’ll show you the way! Dorm rooms and apartments may seem like they have all the amenities of home, but not necessarily when it comes to craft supplies. Lucky for you, you have no farther to look than your trash can, or rather, your recycling bin! Here are a few simple supplies you can use to make this beautiful card. Everyone has a cardboard snack box lying around from a care package. Couple that with some conveniently colored notepaper from the UB printers, free newspapers all over campus (old

issues of course), granola or candy bar wrappers and you have all the supplies you need. First, you will use the cardboard as your base for the card to make it nice and sturdy. The brown color serves as a nice rustic backdrop. Your other items will add color and shine. The yellow note paper makes a great border for the shiny silver on the inside of the wrapper, just clean it with a wet wipe and you are good to go! Next, you will want to personalize the image for the front of the card. If you are good at drawing, draw one of their favorite things. If you are not quite so talented, or pressed for time, search anything your recipient likes as a coloring page on Google images. I’m serious, there are outlines of literally any image you could want that are easily traceable on a laptop screen. Use this same technique for any images you would like to incorporate in the card design. The inside of the card will have the logo or brand of your favorite snack plastered across it so here is where you have to get really creative. Use a glue stick to cover the logo with newsprint. Try to pick a nice and light piece to use, or turn the print sideways so it will not be readable. The best method for gluing each layer of the card together is to make a big glue x on the smaller piece and then place it accordingly on the larger. You can touch up and glue the corners down after you have reached the desired placement. Finish it off with a heartfelt message and you are good to go! Mine contains an inscription for my mother’s belated birthday, but yours might contain an ode to your roommate BFF for life! This project is simple and easy to complete under pressure and your friend, boyfriend, professor, mother or anyone is guaranteed to love it!

d i a S e H he Said S to even

chel

e Articl

My boyfriend always plays pranks on me and I want to get him back this year. What would be a good prank to get him back?

Try pulling the old cheating routine but with the added twist of getting his father involved. When your boyfriend comes home one night pretend to be having a romantic dinner with him. This will definitely not blow up in your face.

You should shave your head and pretend to be a lesbian and hook up with his ex girlfriend. He will be shocked and you’ll actually be able to get off for once so it’s a win win. I had a bunch of work due over spring break, but I didn’t do any of it, what should I do?

Lie. Just lie about it. Make up some BS about your nonexistent dog or your grandma who has already been dead for five years. The truth hurts so do yourself and your professors a favor.

You should do what I do and lie about familial illness and death. At this point my grandmother has died 4 times and my other “immediate” family members who have died have been cats, luckily they all have human names so it works.

By :

Bors Laura

n tt Be d Ma

Pranks, Produce, and Payback

I just got back from spring break and it’s still winter in this darn place, does it ever end?

use. Shampoo, toothpaste, soap, lightly drizzle it on their kosher salt and matza, and even inject it into their celery.

Stop being such a whiney baby, it’s not even that cold out. I have been wearing shorts and flip flops to class since the end of February. Man up brah!

I hear UB is opening a new Vegetarian in Cooke and I’m really excited about it. Do you think vegetarianism is going to become a thing on campus now?

HS SS

Hell yes it’s cold outside and you’re going to want to stay bundled up for the next month or so. The only people you’ll see wearing shorts and flip flops are lame str8 guys trying to prove their str8ness. I started a prank war with my roommate and it’s getting out of control, how do I raise the white flag and surrender?

Surrender! That’s not how you properly end a prank war. The only way to conclude this the right way is to commit a series of the most foul and horrible pranks ever in order to force your roommate’s unconditional surrender. Try incorporating hidden speakers that loop horrible music as well as live geese into your pranks for maximum effectiveness.

Well since your roommate is probably Jewish so I suggest putting bacon grease in every product that they

Dear God I hope not! What I am hoping for is that all of the weird radiation and chemical dusts from the experiments in Cooke find their way into the food and cause all of the vegetarians to evolve some guts and eat meat.

… What. No. Do you realize that your lifestyle offends me? As long as I’m around it won’t. I fully intend on eating a nice juicy cheeseburger in front of you and laughing. What did you guys do over spring break?

I took the time to get ahead on all of my schoolwork. I finished my essays early and preemptively completed all of the exercises in my Spanish book. No I’m sorry those are lies. The truth is I got really drunk and replayed the entire Mass Effect series. At least I’ll do well on my Intergalactic diplomacy exam.

I drank. Played 35+ hours of Skyrim. Watched some porn. Didn’t do any homework. Drank some more. Talked to some women. Spring is coming (hopefully) and I suffer from really bad allergies. My doctor has been unable to help me and I am desperate for any advice to alleviate my suffering. Do you know any non-traditional remedies?

Oddly enough it all depends on your ethnicity. If you are Irish try inhaling potato spores. If you are German take the left over water from boiling spetzle and apply it topically to the irritated areas. If you are a proper American grind up dried apples into a powder and sprinkle it into your TV’s vents as you watch Country Music Television. Stereotypes exist for a reason.

You’re in luck; my great grandma passed down a secret cure all recipe for springtime allergies. Purchase a gas mask from any military surplus store and wear it when you are outside. Don’t worry about looking silly, as this is a trend that comes from Europe, where all the best fashion comes from.

Send your questions to ubgeneration@gmail.com!

PULSE BUFFALOVE ARTS

Article By: Emma Fusco

Extreme Hallway Makeover: Lockwood Edition

otice anything different while walking by Lockwood and the Cybrary lately? There has been some painting going on, and for good reason. UB has come to the realization that the support beams in the hallway have been drab to look at these past few years. As a student myself, I would say that is quite the understatement. To fix this problem some students from the Visual Studies Department came up with a proposal for change. Chase Conatser, Vasilios Markousis, Kirsten Ritchie, Huy Pham and Kendall Spaulding’s idea is one that will resonate with current students, and will delight generations to come. The once boring columns that support the slanted ceiling, will be painted with riddles that current and future UB students will be able to solve. Not only will these riddles speak to the passerby, they will also speak to the student at a more personal level. After decoding each letter, putting the letters together, then solving the riddle, each student will have more than enough time throughout their 4 years to answer the entirety of the question. Though the original plans called for a different color palette, the general idea has remained. Originally,

the colors were supposed to have a gradient effect to them. Walking toward the library from Clemens, the color would lighten as the viewer passed under the columns. This was intended to create an illusion of lengthening the room, playing on and enhancing the passerby’s perspective. Though subtle changes have occurred, the same idea of the heightening of perspective remains. While walking toward baldy, we see yellow, yet when we walk toward Clemens, we see red. The blue color that connects the two is a softer tone that further enhances the walker’s perspective of their surroundings. While the new colors are already a vast improvement, the typeface that has yet to be added is the really exciting part. Students wrote two 7-line riddles that will be placed on the columns using vinyl cut outs. While walking toward the baldy walkway, the person walking will experience one riddle and when walking back from the opposite direction toward Clemens, they will experience the other. Seeing as the words of these riddles can only be deciphered after the passerby’s serious contemplation we cannot give it away! What we can say about the answers

is that they both pertain heavily to students and UB community members. To further enhance the viewers’ experience, the letters will have to be decoded in order to read the riddle. Both pathways have two different fonts, further defining the two separate riddles and experiences. One font resembles the numbers at the bottom of a check, but with a much deeper meaning. The other font resembles flowers and different flower petals (though some people have suggested that they resemble bikinis, ink blot tests, or ancient writing). Regardless of their appearance, these fonts were made solely for this purpose by a group of our fellow UB students, which is pretty cool. The entirety of the project is quite overwhelming to the senses—it has so many layers to it. Between the different colors, different fonts, and the riddle itself, it is no wonder that they made the task of solving these riddles so difficult; it will be a puzzle for students for years to come. Check out the opening celebration on April 22nd!

PULSE BUFFALOVE ARTS Article By: Rachel Sawyer

“Although it’s not a necessity for leading a happy life, being a part of your community is very rewarding. UB has many opportunities for those who want to participate in community service.”

ommunity service is something that makes us all feel warm and tingly inside. Being able to contribute to the well-being of the area we live in should give us a sense of pride and accomplishment. I know it makes me happy! Participating in UB Getting’ Dirty fulfilled my need to help my community. I signed up with my UB Improv club without knowing anything about the event. I thought, “what harm could it do to participate? I’m sure they won’t require us to do anything morally challenging.” And I was right (at least I think I was. My morals were not called into question, but that’s just me!). Everyone participating met in Harriman Hall on south campus to get a free t-shirt, gloves, and trash bags. Teams then ventured out to wipe clean the filth that covered the streets of University Heights. My team covered two streets, and some teams covered even more. When we were done, we threw out our trash and celebrated by eating pizza (I’m sure most people washed their hands before eating. I hope). Free pizza is always a good incentive for people to finish their job and come back. Thumbs up to whoever thought to provide food. It was great seeing different clubs come together to help the community. After everyone was back from cleaning up, the clubs mingled and new acquaintances were made. I’m sure my improv group got a few people to download Charades on their phones. As a community member of the University Heights area, I can say that I am grateful for the cleanup services provided by UB Gettin’ Dirty. It was however not the smartest idea to make the cleanup on a Saturday morning for a couple of reasons. First, I’m sure a good chunk of the people that signed up failed to make it either from a hangover or the extra effort of getting out of bed on a Saturday morning. Second, I felt that the wonderful job everyone did cleaning up the streets was a rather moot point. As I’m sure many know, the Heights is host to many house parties. When do these parties usually happen? On Friday and Saturday nights.

Cleaning the streets on a Saturday morning was not the best plan because that very night, the streets would be littered with beer cans and a high heel or two. It would have been a more long term investment had it been on Sunday morning, so at least the streets would not be harassed by drunkards until the next weekend. The fact that I live in the area might have been a contributing factor to why I participated. I understand why many people didn’t show up, because many students live on North Campus. I would feel less inclined to clean up streets that I never walk down. That being said, I think that it is a great idea to volunteer in places you have never been. Most people plan to attend UB for at least four years, so why not get to know the city you live in and clean it at the same time? It also shows people that the Heights isn’t as scary as many make it out to be. And for some, cleaning up the streets might be the first time seeing University Heights in the daylight! I have lived in the Heights since fall semester, and I have never been scared for my life. Like living anywhere, all it takes is sense and sensibility to live in an area that is not super safe. There are a lot of cool stores and restaurants that UB people are missing out on because they never come to south campus! A quick (free!) shuttle can take you to yummy eateries like Amy’s and Lake Effect as well as awesome local stores like Talking Leaves Bookstore. So if you didn’t make it for the community service event, you should still check out the stuff around south campus. Although it’s not a necessity for leading a happy life, being a part of your community is very rewarding. UB has many opportunities for those who want to participate in community service. If you want to get involved, it is very easy! Check out UB Cares at buffalo.edu/ubcares to look into specific things that sound interesting to you. Many clubs participate in community service events, so don’t be shy! Join a club! 11

Photos by keighley farrell

University Heights tool library

COLLABORATION

IN THE HEIGHTS

Article By : Angelina Bruno

“For 10 dollars a year, members gain access to the selection of over 600 tools the library has to offer from shovels and rakes to hammers and power drills.”

The University Heights is a shared living space. Students, homeowners, renters—they are all neighbors with different viewpoints, but who also share common goals. The University Heights Collaborative is an organization that exists to maintain and enhance the quality of life in the Heights neighborhood. By opening up a dialogue, they are able to facilitate the organization and implementation of many grassroots initiatives, bringing these shared goals into focus for all community members. Every project needs leaders, and there are many enthusiastic players involved in the Collaborative. I sat down with some of the community leaders who have helped to set these plans in motion; Mickey Vertino, Collaborative President; Ray Reichert, Vice President; and board members, Darren Cotton, Jacob Jordan, and Aaron Krolikowski, to learn more about the projects and initiatives taking place in the Heights. The University Heights Tool Library, located at 5 W. Northrup Place, serves as a base for the many positive initiatives taking place in the area. While others have attempted similar projects in the past, this library has survived in the new environment that community leaders are fostering—an environment of cooperation and support. “Darren Cotton is the guy who founded the Tool Library,” said Aaron Krolikowski, Manager of the Tool Library. Both Aaron and Darren, Executive Director of the Library, are UB alumni, they even sang in the Buffalo Chips together. “He started it in May of 2011 and that was funded with a grant from the city of Buffalo. Our former council woman Bonnie Russell took a risk on it.” Initially, it did seem like a risk, the first year they only had about 20 members and 3 shovels and 2 rakes on the wall. This May the library will have been open for 3 years, and now boasts a membership of 293 area residents.

16 14

“The Membership comes from across the region,” said Aaron. “But most people are centered in or around University Heights. So Kenmore, Parkside, Bailey,

Kensington, and all those surrounding neighborhoods, they’re renters, homeowners, students, long time residents. You have to be 18, so it goes from 18 to probably 80s.” For 10 dollars a year, members gain access to the selection of over 600 tools the library has to offer from shovels and rakes to hammers and power drills. All the proper safety equipment for tool use, such as goggles and gloves, are also provided. Like the other 40-50 Tool Libraries across the country, UHTL promotes a sustainable lifestyle. “You are sharing resources across a wide variety of people. So those 300 members, if they all use the power drill, without the tool library they’d all have to buy their own power tools,” said Aaron. “The idea is you can live a simpler more sustainable life by having resources like the tool library.” The tools are also used for improving the landscape and homes in the neighborhood by the members of many different block clubs, school organizations and other groups, and the UHC provides a way of uniting these groups towards goals for the common good. “One of the biggest challenges that any neighborhood will face, is that everybody has their own vision of how they want the world to look. The UHC provides a really nice forum for all those different viewpoints to take place,” Aaron said. The Collaboration has taken on many major projects, which have been able to not only pick up momentum, but thrive. “The UHC gets everybody on the same page,” said Aaron. “And then the tool library does stuff,” Darren added. I personally heard Aaron and Darren speak about the Tool Library last year during an honors seminar class. A few months ago in class, Professor Barbara Bono mentioned a volunteer opportunity coming up over the weekend involving the Tool Library and the Academies. I decided to head over to the Heights to lend a hand.

The day was spent pulling weeds, cleaning trash and helping to clear debris off of the abandoned rail berm along Linear Park, the abandoned city park in the back of the heights neighborhood. This was not only a great stress relieving experience—I now realize why people garden—but an eye opening experience. We learned from the leaders on site about the plans for the area including the Rails to Trails initiative. “What I had seen back home was these projects come in and take the abandoned rail core that hadn’t been used or relevant since the 50s or 60s and turn them into these fantastic green spaces,” said Jacob Jordan, a native of the Hudson Valley. He moved to Buffalo and together he and a couple other students who recognized the easily accessible flat terrain and strong bike culture in Buffalo founded Queen City Rails to Trails.

“Getting involved with the University Heights Tool Library was a no brainer, after seeing all the great work they’ve been doing around the community on their Facebook page I knew that this would be a great opportunity...”

“We put out a couple online surveys to all the block club email lists,” Jacob said. “We actually weren’t expecting the kind of feedback we got. We were using the free aspect of survey monkey and I guess you are only allowed 100 responses. We blew through that immediately.” A few well-developed surveys and 1400 signatures later, they could prove to the city that public opinion was overwhelmingly in favor of the project. Through the Collaborative and with the resources of the Tool Library, the grassroots movement was set in motion. “Through the tools that we have here and organizing the volunteers and honestly just sweat equity, we were able to tear out all the overgrowth that had come down off the rail berm,” Jacob said. “If you were to look at pictures of it two years ago compared to what it looks like now, we took back so much of the park that we almost have twice the actual area to use.” As the UHC leaders discuss the efforts they have made in the area, it is easy to see that they are excited and proud of their work—and they should be. They cleared out massive amounts of debris, brought multiple truckloads to the pick up site each week, and made the once overgrown crime breeding ground into a safe and beautiful community space. This further helped to prove to the city that the project was worth supporting. The community was following through on their end and the city needed to put up the matching funds on theirs. After much negotiation and compromise, the city is going through with the project. The Collaborative has also worked with Retree Western New York for the past two years to plant 100-200 trees around the neighborhood, but now they are thinking bigger.

“The goal is to plant 1000 trees within the next two years. Our first planting which we’re prepping for is 250 trees in November so Fall of this year,” said Aaron. “This is a project that is completely community driven, we’re coming together, we’re bringing the stakeholders together and we’re saying we want to do this. We’re not going to ask the city to do it for us; we’re not going to ask UB to do it for us. We’ll ask all these different entities to be partners with us and to be part of this big group, this community effort to plant the trees.” How can we as students help? By helping with cleanup efforts, planting trees and checking out other events. The UHC holds all kinds, including Light the Heights, SA’s UB Gettin’ Dirty, and painting beautiful murals over areas that had been covered heavily in graffiti in the past. One UB student, Alana Barricks, shares her experience, “Getting involved with the University Heights Tool Library was a no brainer, after seeing all the great work they’ve been doing around the community on their Facebook page I knew that this would be a great opportunity,” Alana said. “My friend, Minahil Khan, was working with UHTL through the Honors College and she told me about the opportunity to have my artwork displayed, but more importantly, that I would be cleaning up the neighborhood’s trashy vandalism with more artistic graffiti. Getting off campus is something important that UB students tend to forget about. We become so complacent staying here on our cozy little Amherst block but forget about all the culture that Buffalo has around the city—which is why I made one of my paintings a tribute to the Queen City” The Tool Library contains a space that will be a cultural hub for the community. Artists already come every fourth Friday of the month to display and sell their wares. They pay 50 dollars for use of the space and there are other similarly interested groups as well. The library, currently surviving mainly on grants, is looking ways to become self-sustaining. They plan to have coffee and Wi-Fi access in this space, a place to come work on homework or open up a dialogue about what’s going on in the neighborhood. It will also serve as a performance space, for music and readings. The UHC is an organization on the rise, ready to help out and foster good relationships with the entire community: residents, renters and students. They want to hear student voices, to know what you are looking for in this shared space. It’s not just a row of party houses, but a community. We as students can not only help out with these initiatives, but also begin to think of one another as neighbors and friends. They believe in this cause and we should too. With a little cooperation, we can all help to develop and maintain our city as a clean, beautiful and respected space.

PULSE FFALOVE ARTS

Article By: Jori Breslawski

YOUR CHOICE:

Change or Lose Our World as We Know It I

find that whenever I bring up the impending world crisis, people tend to write it off. My worry is met with, “Oh, that would never happen in America,” or by laughter and being told that I worry too much. And I understand that years ago, the collapse of the U.S. was something only discussed by cynics and conspiracy theorists. However, over the past couple of years, I’ve seen the idea move from the far periphery of public discussion to the center. Economists, ecologists, and politicians alike are all coming to the same conclusion: we are heading down a very bad path. It’s easier on the mind to remain in denial— sometimes I wish I could. But denying the existence of the issue will only make us more unprepared for when all the predictions come true. It’s crucial that we arm ourselves with as much knowledge as we can about this very real threat to life as we know it, and understand that it is becoming a more and more accepted theory of the direction in which the world is going. A recent study funded by NASA concluded that global industrial civilization could be on the verge of collapse, within the next few decades. The study was led by applied mathematician, Safa Motesharrei, who worked alongside a team of natural and social scientists. The reasons for this collapse are rooted in unsustainable resource exploitation and increasingly unequal wealth distribution. In an attempt to help those in denial understand, the study uses compelling historical data, which shows the repeated cycle of the rise and collapse of empires throughout history. There are two key social features that act as a common denominator in every one of these collapses, features that can be seen in our world today: “the stretching of resources due to the strain placed on the ecological carrying capacity”, and “the economic stratification of society into Elites (rich) and Masses (poor commoners).” And for those of you who are picturing the “Elites” as the top 1% in America, you’re wrong. Living in a “first world” country, we are all Elites, and the economic stratification is between us and the rest of the world.

how social and environmental factors (Elites, Commoners, nature and wealth) interact with each other. The equation did not give the researchers pretty outcomes, and in the scenarios in which the variables most closely mirror our society, the humans “doomed themselves through the overuse of resources exacerbated by economic stratification.” In its investigation of previous civilizations that ended in collapse, the model identified the most salient interrelated factors that explain civilizational decline—population, climate, water, agriculture, and energy—factors that we can look to in order to determine the risk of collapse in our world today. The researchers modelled a number of different scenarios, and found that collapse is extremely difficult to avoid. In the first of these scenarios, civilization “appears to be on a sustainable path for quite a long time, but even using an optimal depletion rate and starting with a very small number of Elites, the Elites eventually consume too much, resulting in a famine among Commoners that eventually causes the collapse of society. It is important to note that this Type-L collapse is due to an inequalityinduced famine that causes a loss of workers, rather than a collapse of Nature.” In this and in other scenarios, the wealth of the Elites buffers them from the initial detrimental effects of the environmental collapse until much later than the commoners, allowing them to remain oblivious to the impending catastrophe. The study warns, “While some members of society might raise the alarm that the system is moving towards an impending collapse and therefore advocate structural changes to society in order to avoid it, Elites and their supporters, who opposed making these changes, could point to the long sustainable trajectory ‘so far’ in support of doing nothing.”

The study offers a wake-up call to governments, from a highly credible source. However, the alarm should not only be sounded throughout the bureaucracy; we also need to take responsibility for So the social side of the equation looks eerily familiar—what about the direction in which the world is heading. The study should serve the resource side? Just like our present day situation, clues to the as a wake-up call to corporations, businesses, and consumers that collapse of civilizations include climatic change and increasingly rare “business as usual” cannot be sustained. We can either change sources of water and energy. The study uses a new cross-disciplinary now and possibly avert the crisis, or lose our world forever. It’s your model called Human and Nature Dynamics (HANDY), which explores choice. Get educated. 16

PULSE BUFFALOVE ARTS

Article By: Audrey Foppes

n a world of cell phones, satellites, GPS, and Google Maps, the possibility of disconnection seems impossible. Every inch of the world appears to have been tracked and mapped, and the compilation of that extensive information is, we assume, only a click away. But the truth, the terrifying truth for a world so desperately dependent on the near perfect accuracy and apparently endless abilities of electronic devices, is that technological information is not exhaustive, nor is it as perfect as we would like to believe. Hollywood has long played off the fears of our fiercely connected society, producing countless movies that predict the horrors of a technological apocalypse—no phones, no GPS, and a human population left completely and utterly detached. Many of us return safely from the theaters to our cybernetic lives, leaving the fear and anxiety of isolation behind us in the ephemeral experience of fiction. However, the horrible reality of technological imperfection has shaken the world in the wake of the disappearance of flight MH370. Since the sudden and mysterious disappearance, the media world-wide have been frantically assembling what shreds of information exist in a desperate search for answers. The 239 passengers aboard the plane were predominantly Chinese and Malaysian, but citizens from the US, Canada, Iran, Indonesia, Taiwan, Australia, New Zealand, France, Ukraine, Russia, and the Netherlands were also on board, making this disappearance an international crisis. Thus far, news sources have been able to collect the following information: On Friday, March 7, the Boeing 777 aircraft

Off the MH370

GRID

from Malaysia Airlines, departed from the Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Malaysia at 4:41 and was scheduled to arrive in Beijing six hours later. Malaysia Airlines, however, reports that the plane lost contact less than an hour after takeoff, but the airline did not receive a distress signal or message of any kind. About an hour after losing contact, the plane sent its last ACARS transmission—a communication between the computers on the plane and the computers on the ground. Shortly after that, those communications were silenced completely. Furthermore, the expected transmission for check-in was not sent. Not long after that, just as the plane crossed over from Malaysian air traffic control into Vietnamese airspace (over the South China Sea) the plane’s transponder, which allows the plane’s position to be tracked with radar on the ground, was shut down. After that, the Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam reported that the plane did not check in with air traffic control in Ho Chi Min City as scheduled. Seven hours after communication between the plane and air traffic control was lost, a satellite over the Indian Ocean detected data from the plane, which suggested that the aircraft is in one of two flight corridors, one to the north-west of its last known position, between Thailand and Kazakhstan, and one to the south east, between Indonesia and the southern Indian Ocean. This information was not disclosed to the public until a week after the plane’s initial disappearance. This delay in communication, in addition to the sheer lack of concrete knowledge about the event, has left

families desperate and furious to know the fate of their relatives aboard the plane. In the wake of the emotional strain, many Chinese families have begun to accuse the Malaysian government of deliberately hiding information about the missing flight. China has repeatedly demanded that Malaysia do a “better job” of searching for the missing Chinese passengers. Indeed, the situation has become so desperate that hundreds of relatives of the missing Chinese passengers threatened on Tuesday, March 18 to go on a hunger strike until the Malaysian government discloses “the truth.” Although Malaysian and Australian authorities have been largely coordinating the reconnaissance mission, 25 countries are now helping to search for the missing flight, offering the services of sea and aircrafts, satellite information, and countless reconnaissance teams. Despite the growing size of the rescue effort, the sheer expanse of the area to be searched is discouraging to many experts, who admit that it is unlikely, even with such an extensive effort, that the plane will be recovered. With so many authorities involved in the search, it seems unlikely that anyone is “hiding” information, despite the protests of the Chinese families. Yet, although their hunger strike may seem irrational, their distress is understandable. A missing family member has never been anything less than a crisis, but for a society accustomed to one-click answers, the idea that we do not know where the plane ended up is simply incomprehensible, and we find ourselves in the waking terror of an age-old catastrophe, despite our 21st century gadgets that are supposed to have all the answers.

Article By : Kelly Schucker

onster

y heart is sinking and the room is fading into black. A deep, somber, intense black. My heart pounds faster, louder. But the sound cannot negate the deafening silence. This must be what death feels like. I am bleeding internally. My veins are filled, overfilled. Bloated. They are beginning to leak. The blood spurts from my tattered arteries, saturating my organs and my muscles in this lake of gore. The rich blood presses beneath my membrane’s surface. My skin is purpling. I am bruising from the pressure. I fear explosion. Like a volcano, thick lava will excrete from my pores, simmering hot, and my brain will overheat and begin to melt, and the smoke will sting my eyes a beautiful bloodshot red. The blood is suppressed and flowing within my damaged veins. It pulsates within my ears. It is deafening loud. I can’t breathe. The blood cells rush through the hurricane inside of me. I hear my heart beat. But not through my ears. My heart screams into my temporal lobes. Yes, ‘tis indeed death that takes me now. Oh, heavenly liberation! Take me away, my angels. Silence. Blank. White. Blindingly pure white. Emptiness, like the Suicide Watch padded room within the asylum. Emptiness. Nothing exists. Things have disappeared on me. Ugh. Again. The hollowness is agonizing. It is physically detrimental—the excruciating and absolute absence of all: sound, color, objects, life, even death. I collapse to the nonexistent floor. I am writhing in pain. At least, I think that is what I am experiencing. I can’t tell. I cannot see my arms, or the legs or fingers that I believe once belonged to me. I can’t see myself. I can’t feel myself. But I feel the pain of this freshly amputated body. Omnipotent phantom limbs haunt me.

FALOVE ARTS

Perhaps I have stopped existing once again. This ugly world has such illogical reasoning. It is an oxymoron, an ironic inconsistency: to end existence. Is such a thing possible? Isn’t existence like matter; it can change but cannot be created or destroyed? And it makes me want to cry. I don’t make sense anymore, and I know it. I am sorry. Flashes of red. Splashes of gorgeous velveteen roses. Bloody splotches stain my eyes. Blood blood blood is all I can see. All I can think about it. It is the color of lust. It is the color of love when it is dying. Blood red bleed brilliant red bloody gory internal bleeding blood blood blood. I hate this state of mind—this manic-depressive state is so uncomfortable, so damned exhausting. It is as grotesque as this body; as disgusting as the physical manifestation of my soul. Oh, how acutely I desire to demolish the slimy flesh that masks my body. I want to slice through my pale skin until all of me has been stained a lovely, brilliant red. I want to look like lust and dead love. The pain, I crave, is my sole hunger. I yearn for the agony and blood and slaughtered cells. I cannot articulate why. It may be chemical. No one knows because no one cares because it doesn’t mean a fucking thing. But the hunger grows, a thing of its own. A living breathing thing, a being, monstrous and strong-bodied and strong-willed. It carries me. It overpowers me. I am a weak little girl and when I fight the animal I can’t breathe or see or feel or think unless all things are centralized on the omnipotent monster.

It kills me again and again. And I like it.

BUFFALOVE ARTS

What it means to

Write

Eat. To stay hungry Eat. Because I am hungry Eat. Because I am hunger Eat. Because I am bored

Poem By : Noel Shafi

Eat. It taste so good Eat. Because it’s fun

that form battalions made of letters but these are solemn cries not words

solemn cries not language these are kisses from an ink-filled syringe injecting blotted shadows that pinch light ... with meaning these are the orthographic cure for the untreated page these are symbols of noise, descendants of art in caves these are the vessels that men use, to call upon god in praise! these are what the hand unveil with the falling of the sword and these are the only weapons afforded to the poor.

Eat. Because I need to live

Eat

Eat. Because I want to live Eat. Because I am thirsty Eat. Off tables that are dirty Eat. When I’m uncomfortable Eat. When I’m comfortable Eat. When I am alone Eat. When everyone’s in my home

till your

Ate

Eat. While I watch Fish get ate in the sea Eat. While what’s on my plate Is looking up at me What I ate as a child I no longer eat as a man Ate with future mothers Cradling life in their hands Ate. Because I was told What I eat will become gold Ate. Because I was sold Two green beans That were balls of mold Eye Poem By : Alexander Pennington

write in jet black tears

Eat. Because I have no one

Ate. Whatever FATE Happened to drop by my door So I ate a lot with the rich And very little with the poor Ate. while I pondered What it is I’m hungry for Then I got eight And finally I’m hungry no more.

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Exhibit X Hosts Victor LaValle Article By : Adam Johnson

ictor LaValle is a soft-spoken man. It’s almost off-putting. Having read his latest novel, The Devil in Silver (2012), I came to the reading at Hallwalls expecting… well, I’m not sure what I was expecting. In The Devil in Silver, LaValle paraded forth the horror that is the American Mental Health Care

System, a structure so caught up in its own mechanics, a bison-headed devil man physically assaulting other patients is less worrisome than digitizing the mental institution’s records. People are dehumanized, all forms of independence are seen as rebellion, and drugs keep the patients pliant until they leave or die forgotten. Not necessarily what you would expect from a quiet Columbia University professor. The reading at Hallwalls was not from The Devil in Silver, but instead a short story entitled “I Left My Heart in Skaftafell.” The story was published last year, but LaValle read a revised version (which according to the audience members who had read the story, was quite different from the original). The narrative was a fictionalized account of the author’s trip to Iceland after a breakup, exploring ideas of loneliness, fear and identity. What made this story stand out from the standard fictionalized “finding yourself in another country” travelogue was an ever-present troll that followed the narrator throughout his travels, always threatening to eat him up if given the chance. One could argue that such a being fits quite nicely into LaValle’s world, the physical incarnation of the many abstract fears that dwell within us all. To embody something abstract is to make it easier to understand. A troll can be examined and questioned. A bison-man can be wrestled to the ground. Perhaps this is what LaValle meant when talking of writing as “self-preservation.” Bring your problems into the light, and work them out with your words. Of course, it helps if you can do this with a good sense of humor. LaValle’s writing is downright hilarious. In the Q & A afterwards, he remarked on his love for British comedy, especially for the absurdist wit of Monty Python, Ricky Gervais and Benny Hill. Such humor, downplayed and exceedingly dry, plays great when combined with horror elements. It draws forth the internal absurdity of the horror and makes fear that much easier to comprehend.

Article By : Emma Fusco

ave you ever read a book and had a couple points where you stopped and wondered, “What in the world was this author thinking?” Exhibit X allows you to ask these questions of the author. Exhibit X is a facultyrun program here at SUNY Buffalo that gives well-recognized fiction authors the

chance to connect with their readers and later, give a reading of their work. Run by Professors Christina Milletti and Dimitri Anastasopoulos, Exhibit X last hosted Victor LaValle on March 6. Victor LaValle is a cutting-edge author, who is also a professor at Columbia University. Given the very relaxed and intimate atmosphere, LaValle told us a little bit about what his life was like growing up in New York City, and mostly what it was like to actually become a writer of fiction novels. With most of his audience being students and aspiring novelists, we all wanted to know just how he did it. Now, being a successful and well-established writer, his demeanor in answering these questions was not stereotypical. Writers are very often thought of as pretentious or pompous, but that was by no means Victor LaValle. He is a very kind and humble man, willing to expose his life story in order to give inspiration to young, aspiring novelists. Though he is a very talented novelist, he showed a side that was just like any normal guy who grew up in Queens and likes Ricky Gervais. Being very humble and understanding how difficult it is to be a college kid who’s an aspiring author, he was very personable and gave us a special peek into what it was truly like to become a successful author. Being very real and somewhat sarcastic, he told us about the first story he ever wrote. He then went on to tell us the plot and what it was like to write it and we all looked at him with the same facial expression: confusion. His first story (at least as he explained it) wasn’t terribly good. But then, he emphasized what happened after that. Though he claimed his story was awful and a sort-off spinoff of another publication, he made the point that it was his first work, and that all first works are never an author’s best work. Victor LaValle was the first reader of the Exhibit X spring series. Exhibit X will be showcasing three more fiction authors this semester. Amanda Michalopoulou will be here April 10, while Martin Nakell and Rebecca Goodman will be hosted on April 21. Both events will include a soirée before the reading.

Reading Past

Bedtime (and the Age of Seven)

Article By: Sushmita Sircar

ince I finally got around to reading The Fault in Our Stars a few weeks ago, I thought at first that I wanted to write about Young Adult fiction. As I was reading the book, however, I couldn’t help but like the protagonists and their declarations of literary taste despite impending death and all the trivialities of lives threatened by cancer. In other words, I empathized with the book and the random spouting of modernist poetry by the characters despite not really being part of the target audience for which the book was written. Then this past week, I was at a bookstore, browsing through the children’s books section trying to find something for a friend’s son. Of course, gift giving is, in part, always an excuse to meander through aisles of things that I would like to buy for myself. (Especially when the search takes place in book stores.) The children’s books section proved to be a good place to reminisce about the books I read while growing up. First of all, one of the biggest differences that struck me (with a sense of horror and utter disbelief) when I came to the US was the fact that no one had read the same books I had growing up. I hadn’t ever really read Dr. Seuss either. While I was at the bookstore, I flipped through them, and I have to say that I wasn’t particularly enamored. Their style seemed too flippant—cheery and gimmicky. Perhaps this has to do with not having read them when I was five, but I just couldn’t understand their appeal. I wandered off then into Where the Wild Things Are. But seriously, where are they? Certainly not within the facile story of a child dreaming for the five-odd minutes it took me to rifle through the pages. Again, its appeal is lost on me. I realize, of course, that I am not at quite the right age in life to be reading these books for the first time. But I also know that I can go back and read the books I did—Enid Blyton and Richmal Crompton—and easily spend a few hours with them. I think this is because children’s literature is conceived differently by some authors, at least based on the books that are read most. I read somewhere—long enough ago that I’ve probably distorted it, but with enough agreement to retain its essence— that what passes for children’s literature is all too often adults writing stories

BUFFALOVE ARTS

with children as protagonists. But good stories don’t necessarily have to be about children, or assume a simplified, overly optimistic view of the world. They do, I think, have to actually tell a story that sustains the reader’s interest—even when that reader is 21 or older. What I ended up buying for my friend was Richard Scarry’s Mr. Frumble’s Worst Day Ever and Michael Bond’s Paddington Bear. Both are books that I recall having and flipping through countless times with pleasure. Neither are about children, either. The first is set in an alternate world populated by animals, and the other has a talking bear that is adopted by a family after being found in Paddington station. Even at the level of the page, these two books have a lot going on— almost every inch of the page is covered with illustrations, writing or characters’ exclamations, a striking difference from some of the earlier books I mentioned, which often had only one sentence per page, leaving the rest mystifyingly blank. Both books recount a series of mishaps, are wonderfully illustrated enough to have sustained my interest even when the words were over my head and were, quite frankly, adorable. Another series by Enid Blyton that I loved featured Noddy, a wooden toy doll. Noddy runs away from his creator, the toymaker, then gets busy settling down in Toyland, making friends with Big Ears the brownie, and driving his taxi to earn a living. While it has inspired cartoons, nothing quite compares to the original books, especially the oldest ones my father passed along, etched in black and white. Now that I compare these books, what strikes me is the very real exploration of the world that they attempt. Scarry is famous especially for his Busytown series, such as What Do People Do All Day. Although about anthropomorphized animals, it is obviously an attempt to explain real facts about the adult world. Noddy faces trial in front of a jury, has to contend with earning a living, and learns to make friends from scratch. Even though what I like about these books when I reread them is the escape they offer from the everyday hassles of “real” life, they do a very good job of addressing those very problems. That makes them relevant beyond any one particular age group (or is that just me justifying my summer reading list?)

Parting Shots Article By: Johan Matteus

n the last issue of Generation, a portion of our writers composed their articles while under the influence of alcohol. This practice is part of an annual tradition at the magazine and is generally featured around St Patrick’s Day. This year I decided I too was going to write a drunk article and set out to get extremely intoxicated that weekend. My findings may come as a surprise to some, but I can now definitively state that it is never a smart idea to drink and draft. After a failed attempt at getting drunk enough that Friday, I decided I had to up my game the next day and continuously take shots until I felt I was sufficiently inebriated. Unfortunately, I was

Writing Under the Influence never quite able to locate the sweet spot where I was drunk enough to write with no inhibitions and still have the capacity to stay seated at my computer. For all my prep work, I ended up barely churning out a few hundred words of uninspired, tedious nonsense.

For my next test I decided to try LSD. It worked for people like Aldous Huxley and Hunter S. Thompson so I figured I couldn’t go wrong. Nine hours later I had managed to listen to my entire music collection and draw some delightful cartoons on a notepad.

Though my experiment with alcohol failed, it did little to diminish my fascination with the concept of writing in an altered state of mind. I read about famous writers and artists using substances to alter their consciousness, as well as heard friends talk about doing drugs before writing papers or doing school work. My mission was clear: to test different drugs and see what the effects were on my skills as a writer. Never having done drugs before, I decided to start off with the least powerful substances and work my way up to the heavy hitters. More than once I have overheard people talking about getting “super baked and writing amazing essays.” I can tell you right now that getting high and doing school work is a less than fantastic idea. The experience started with me staring at my blank word document for 20-40 minutes, while eating an entire tray of Chips Ahoy! and ended with me re-playing Mass Effect 3 for the fifth time.

For my next trial I elected to go with a drug that has proven results in the business world (in movies). Lawyers, stockbrokers, and other elite professionals seem to love and thrive on cocaine (in movies). After I cleaned my entire apartment and walked my dog for three hours, I still had enough energy to go out for happy hour and last call. Unfortunately I totally forgot about my experiment and neglected to do any writing.

This is not the Cold War

fter years of being that annoying country on the United Nations’ Security Council, Russia has once more returned to its comfy position as “America’s Next Top Nuclear Target!” With its hostile takeover of a mostly-useless strip of land on the Black Sea, the Russian Federation, under the perpetually-shirtless Vladimir Putin, is here to tear shit up. Grab your “I’m With Joe McCarthy” T-shirt, dust off your fallout shelter and get ready for World War III, because the Cold War is back baby! Or not. Despite the countless wet dreams of foreign policy hawks (I’m looking at your saggy head John McCain), the Russian Federation is not the Soviet Union and Vladimir Putin is not Josef Stalin. Russia is a mere specter of what it once was. If not for its stockpile of leftover nuclear missiles, Russia would be a middling world power whose highly corrupt governmental and financial systems barely hold together a patchwork of different ethnic, religious and linguistic groups. What we are seeing in Ukraine today is not a return to Cold War politics but a highly-charged game

My final conclusion is that we should ultimately abstain from drugs, as they inhibit our ability to competently do our work and stay focused on a task. Unless of course you are doing drugs recreationally, in which case I have discovered that drugs are really kick-ass!

Article By: Adam Johnson of international dick-swinging. Putin is a man currently facing a serious crisis of identity. His hypernationalism and his propensity for shirtless horsebackriding/tiger hunting suggest a desperate need to return to a time when Russia (and the Russian Man) was strong, influential and frightening. In a world where masculinity is ‘threatened’ by democracy, homosexuals and all-girl punk rock bands, why not invade a weaker country? It’s a return to the good old days of the Concert of Europe, flying zeppelins and curly moustaches; a time when politics was simpler and power was measured by the amount of territory one could claim on a map. Globalization was in the distant future and bicycling was the hip new fad. Understanding modern Russia as having a serious crisis of masculinity helps the rest of the world to understand the best way to approach it. Responding to Russian dick-swinging with Western (American) dick-swinging will only lead to a lot of swinging penises and the possibility of somebody getting whacked in the face. The calls to send weapons or even troops to the Ukraine would only validate Russia more in its feeling of righteous victimization. Worse, it

raises the possibility of a major power war that would do a lot of damage for no real reason. The best way to win a dick-swinging contest is to be mature enough not to enter one in the first place. Putin is the equivalent of the dad who buys a Ferrari to assuage his mid-life crisis: sure it’s nice and all but the hidden costs of owning a sports car (or a small patch of land that needs to import a large amount of its energy and freshwater resources) will come to bite you in the ass. Add on sanctions that disrupt highly lucrative energy exports and that Ferrari looks like a shit sandwich. Give it time and tensions will ebb. After all, it’s 2014, not 1949.

April

Across

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