text:
The Attic (a name which commemorates our first physical location) is, first and foremost, a site for the research students of the School of Museum Studies at the University of Leicester: a virtual community which aims to include all students, be they campus-based and full-time, or distance-learning and overseas. But we welcome contributions from students of museum studies - and allied subject areas - from outside the School and from around the world. Here you will find a lot of serious stuff, like exhibition and research seminar reviews, conference alerts and calls for papers, but there's also some 'fluff'; the things that inspire, distract and keep us going. After all, while we may be dead serious academic types, we're human too.
Friday, December 31, 2010
Happy New Year 2011
2010 was an eventful time for the Department - two members of the Attic completed their PhDs; we were joined by new Atticites; there were Museum Crawls and Competitions; and of course lots of funding, job, publication, and conference announcements.
Next year, we hope to bring you even more exciting stuff - the Curiouser and Curiouser conference will take place, Research Week promises to be an exciting event, and of course there are more reports from Brown Bags and other seminars. The Attic will also be partnering with The New History Lab for a special event, and we will probably be joined by even more museum studies PhD students next fall.
Why don't you use this space to let us know what features you enjoy and what you would like to see more of? Perhaps you are dying for a new layout, or have an idea for a new poll? Do you have any zany museum quotes to add to our header, or museum comics to share? Let us know, and we will try to accommodate your request.
Meanwhile, have a safe celebration and see you on the other side!
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Museums and the Web 2011
the international conference for culture and heritage online
April 6-9, 2011
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
==> MW2011 Program Online <==
The program for MW2011 [our tag!] is now available on the conference web site, featuring contributions of more than 165 people from 15 countries. See http://bit.ly/hTwMuy for details.
Our thanks to the International Program Committee -- http://bit.ly/ey9KxT -- for their peer-review of proposals, and to everyone who proposed for making that task so challenging.
==> Register Online <==
Registration for Museums and the Web 2011 is now open. Register online before December 31, 2010 for the best rates. See http://bit.ly/fkW7H1
Remember, pre-conference tours and workshops have limited enrollment, and are first-come first-served. Register early to ensure your choice.
==> Demonstration Proposals <==
It's not too late to participate in MW2011. The deadline for Demonstration proposals is December 31, 2010. For full details, and a link to the online proposal form, see http://bit.ly/g2GQKh
==> Scholarships <==
Several different scholarships are available to assist professionals from smaller institutions with attending Museums and the Web. See bit.ly/hhD4YH for details. Many scholarships have a December 31, 2010 deadline.
==> Need To Know More <==
Full details about MW2011 are on the conference Web site at http://bit.ly/euMMQa
See frequently asked questions -- and ask yours if it isn't answered -- at http://bit.ly/ib3WEh
You can also follow @museweb on Twitter and connect with MW on various social networking sites. See http://bit.ly/dXzG72 for details.
Email firstname.lastname@example.com with any questions.
We hope to see you in Philadelphia.
jennifer and David
- - - - - - - - - - -
Jennifer Trant and David Bearman
Co-Chairs: Museums and the Web 2011
MW2011 | April 6-9, 2011 | Philadelphia, PA | http://www.archimuse.com/mw2011/
produced by Archives & Museum Informatics | 158 Lee Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
email: email@example.com | phone +1 416 691 2516 | fax +1 416 352-6025
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Brown Bag 15th December - Queering the Museum
Brown Bag 15th December 2010
"Queering the Museum"
Matt Smith and Andy Horn
Clearly, there was something about this Brown Bag seminar which felt, well, right. I have to say that it was one of the best attended in quite some time, which given the time of year and the general grottiness of the weather in these parts, is really cheering. So thank you everyone, for attending, and I hope you got as much out of it as I did.
I think, however, the biggest thanks have to go to the organisers and presenters themselves. Marianna and Lisanne did a great job in bringing in two such affable and interesting presenters. Matt Smith, an artist and curator working mainly in ceramics, and Andy Horn, Exhibitions Manager at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery spoke to us, at times amusingly, and at others rather movingly, about their intervention project at BMAG, Queering the Museum. (Incidentally, both are former students here - it's nice to see what people go on to do!)
Running from 4th November this year, until 31st January next (so get in whilst you can!) this project, run in conjunction with SHOUT, brings out the stories which BMAG, along with many museums, doesn't usually tell. Though in this context the concentration is largely upon LGBTI culture, Matt stresses that 'queer' can be applied to people beyond this community. The stories of the non-normative, the unrepresented, those of us who at times feel excluded: these are the stories of the 'queer'.
Using his own original artworks alongside existing displays and juxtapositions of objects from the stores, Matt has intervened in the displays throughout the museum in a manner which is paradoxically both overt and subtle. His intentions, he explained, were to explore why museums find it difficult to represent queer culture, and examine ways in which they could do so, despite the frequent paucity of directly related materials. By examining a variety of themes, which included the questioning of museum protocols, the questioning of heterosexual representation, slang and popular culture, politics, and the idea of 'queer as a verb' Matt and BMAG have created an intervention which seems both challenging and positive.
As I haven't seen the intervention yet, though I intend to visit BMAG when I go home for the Yuletide break, I can't really comment on its' appearance in reality, however, I can certainly comment on the rationale behind it. Stemming from Gay Birmingham Remembered and the Proud History Exhibition at the Central Library in 2008 and 2006 respectively, the project from Andy's point of view was one which could tackle negative representations of LGBTI culture, which could provide a way of re-imagining the collections of BMAG, and which could allow this 19th century institution to represent the contemporary in a way which only it could, subtly, fairly, and powerfully.
But it was this very institutional nature which was of concern for both Andy and Matt. Though museums should be challenged to push the boundaries of what they represent, it can often be difficult, for various reasons, to do so. However, the endeavour is not a Quixotic one, for when you do succeed, as Andy pointed out, the ramifications can be immense, far more effective than the same kind of representation in contemporary art galleries, which are often so much more likely to challenge our expectations of material culture and its meaning. Because the museum 'queered' is a strange thing, at once comforting, and yet not what it was. Repositioning and unsettling the museum, an institution often perceived as so static, is a powerful statement, but a statement which is embedded in an environment of, it is to be hoped, trust and respect.
This is not to say that there were no concerns. The city council themselves were a worry for Andy, particularly with the programming of the exhibition occurring so close to the recent papal visit to the city. However, many of these barriers seem to have been overcome, and whilst the exhibition has received some negative comments, it appears that overall, the response has been very positive.
Much of this positivity turns on the fact that Andy knew how to work with people, for his colleagues at the museum seemed more than happy to help. Indeed, it seems that the very success of the project turned precisely upon this willing collaboration and trust. I have to applaud BMAG here, for being very open and trusting. Matt commented that he expected only to make a single piece of art, or perhaps a small display. What he was given, in the end, was the whole museum.
If the museum is a storyteller, it is important that they tell as many stories as they can. Whilst they cannot afford to simply present subjects as add ons, because they think they should, museums must work towards an openness in using the resources that they do have. And those resources are not just objects, but staff, artists, buildings, the public, and all of the manifold interpretations which these mixtures provoke. For objects are never singular in their meaning, they are not simple things. They are ambiguous, difficult to categorise, shifting and sometimes excluded. They are, or they can be, as queer as you like. And this is what makes them beautiful.
You'll have to wait a while for my review of the exhibition itself, I'm afraid, but hopefully, I shall be able to give you one fairly soon! That is, if the snow lets me get out of the house! In the meantime, I'll hopefully soon be putting up a recording of the presentation on Blackboard...so go and listen, if you can!
Sunday, December 19, 2010
Greetings from Berlin II
There are just seven hundred meters as the crow flies between the "Museum for Communication" and the "Martin-Gropius-Bau". Both museums opened in the end of the nineteenth century and the main characteristic of both buildings is a spectacular areaway. But whereas the Martin-Gropius-Bau presents international exhibitions of visual arts and cultural history, the Museum for Communication is dedicated to post history.
Two weeks ago I visited first the exhibition "WorldKnowledge" in the Martin-Gropius-Bau and then the exhibition "Rumors" in the Museum for Communication. "WorldKnowledge" celebrates 300 years of science in Berlin, "Rumors" deals with the phenomenon which is named in the title. And now, I close my eyes and see what I do remember…
In the first instance two different colors and atmospheres come to my mind. "WorldKnowledge": black and subdued, "Rumors": light green and gay.
I recollect the entrance situations: "Rumors" welcomed me with a picture of Fama, the rumor goddess, interpreted in a cool style by a modern designer. I can remember the dozens of eyeballs surrounding her, looking for new stories to tell. I still know that the text explained that Fama was not only meant to be responsible for rumors but also for a good reputation, which I found quite interesting.
"WorldKnowledge" began in the areaway where a colossal shelf is filled with circa 200 objects like skeletons, statues, apparatuses, fossils and so on. I can remember that I liked to look at the shelf, trying to discover connections between the diverse objects. I was impressed by the size of the shelf and mused about the miracles of the world. But I was not able to decipher the deeper meaning of the installation.
The objects in "WorldKnowledge" were exhibited in conventional show cases – and that is all I can recall about the design. No, not true, I remember that the second part of the exhibition, where different research methods like "experiment", "travel" or "interpret" were deployed, the main color was white and that multimedia was used. That is all. In my opinion simple design does not mean bad design. But in that case it goes along with my conclusion that I can remember out of the abundance of exhibits only two objects: two paper bags with the portraits of the Iranian shah and his wife who visited Berlin in 1967. Students demonstrated against the visit wearing such bags on the head. I am sure that I just can remember them because I asked myself, who on earth preserved these fragile objects.
Apart from that I remember show cases all over show cases filled with documents, books and other papers. And I remember names, famous names: Grimm, Herder, Schopenhauer, Einstein… But I cannot connect the names to certain objects nor could I tell in which context the men (yes: men!) were mentioned. And even though I read the department texts attentively and even took notes, I could not tell you what was so characteristic about 300 years of science in Berlin! I just remember that the Prussian Kings played an important role in developing science and founding research institutions – but which Frederick did what: I am sorry.
Thinking at the "Rumors"-exhibition the extraordinary design comes immediately to my mind. Objects – just partly exhibited in show cases – and labels hang in a chaotic frame of wooden slats. Standing in the exhibition I had to think of a forest, but now I would describe it as a net, where rumors get caught. I remember a lot of the exhibits and in every case I can recall "which story they told". Stuffed sea gulls were displayed to explain the origin of the word "mobbing", because animals sometimes attack predators. A lively tarantula illustrated an "Urban Legend" (a woman licked an envelope, her tongue swelled, a doctor cut the tip of the tongue and a parade of little spiders emerged… The woman was a friend of my aunt – I swear!) and a sweet china carriage embodied the escape of a countess who had to flee because of a buzz which was launched on purpose to harm her. Strolling around in the exhibition I was surprised about the different facets and variations of rumors, something I had not expected but found very convincing.
I remember two more insights: that every rumor needs someone to tell – and someone to listen, and that a rumor just comes alive if it is relevant for both persons. Moreover I learned how important facts and information are to stop a rumor. These insights were cemented by the multimedia units. At one computer station I could generate a rumor about my person just entering some facts about me. (I carefully looked that nobody could read the created rumor – it was really mean!) At another I had to decide as the mayor of one small town in Egypt how I could fight a rumor which threatened tourism.
I remember how much fun I had strolling around the exhibition "Rumors" and how curious I was to discover the next facet of that cultural phenomenon. And I remember how proud I was going through "WorldKnowledge", because all these famous men lived and did research in my home town and I felt connected to them, rooted in tradition. So, even though in my opinion the exhibition which I can remember more vividly two weeks after visiting is more successful, I had to admit, that in retrospect both achieved their goals. As I am convinced that the creators of "WorldKnowledge" would be perfectly content to know that they made me proud of being a Berliner…
Friday, December 17, 2010
CFP: Geographies of Collections
RGS-IBG Annual International Conference 2011
31 August to 2 September 2011 at the Royal Geographical Society and Imperial College in London
Session Title: Geographies of Collections
Research Group Affiliation: HGRG
Session Convenors: Caroline Cornish (Royal Holloway, University of London)
Philip Hatfield (Royal Holloway, University of London; British Library)
Collections of diverse types provide rich sources for geographical enquiry. The specific systems of organisation developed within them, along with their contexts of use, can variously form or inform the geographical imagination. The collection is also never static, whether it is aggregated as an archive, a library, a museum collection, a scientific dataset or a twenty-first century digital database. As a result, the knowledges and geographies developed within them are always ripe for re-imagination.
The theme of the 2011 RGS-IBG Conference - 'The Geographical Imagination', presents an opportunity to adopt what Rebecca Duclos has termed 'a cultural geography perspective' towards collections, and to reconsider their geographies at a time of intensified interest in this area. Popular events such as A History of the World in 100 Objects and the British Library Growing Knowledge exhibition show, from opposite sides of the spectrum, how interaction with myriad different collections is changing. This session therefore seeks to question how geographers working within this shifting landscape are engaging with the collection across a range of forms and materialities.
We would be pleased to receive submissions for papers from researchers engaged in a wide variety of 'collections' including fine art, natural history, cartographic, photographic, ethnographic, archaeological, and digital. We are particularly interested in papers which address the issues of place, space and imagination in the accumulation and deployment of collections, and in papers which have a historico-geographical focus. Topics might include:
Collections and imaginative geographies
The languages of collections
Materialities of collections
Spaces of collections
Colllections and networks
Collected objects and knowledge production
The fluidity of collections
Collections and agency
Instructions for Authors
Those interested in participating in the session should contact Caroline Cornish (firstname.lastname@example.com) AND Philip Hatfield (email@example.com). The deadline for submission of abstracts is 18 February 2011.
When submitting your paper please include the following information: 1) name 2) institutional affiliation 3) contact email, 4) title of proposed paper, 5) abstract (no more than 250 words) and 6) technical requirements (i.e., video, data projector, sound).
Museum Funnehs
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
CFP: Re-Imagining Materiality
Royal Geographic Society-Institute of British Geographers 2011 Annual
Conference, 31 Aug - 2 Sept 2011
Call For Papers: (Re)Imagining Materiality
Sponsored by the Social & Cultural Geography Research Group
The first decade of the 21st century has been marked by growing interest
in the material dimension of the social, and the role objects and
materials play in multiple areas of social interaction. The 'material
turn' has an implicit normative dimension at a time when the material
resources of the planet are under increasing stress, and when the
dependence of particular lifestyles on specific interactions with the
material world is becoming ever more apparent. Central to these
necessarily interrelated concerns are notions of resource use, the
production and consumption of materials and material goods, and their
multiple impacts in social, environmental and economic domains, including
the effects of the processes of 'wasting'. As knowledge of the potential
repercussions of these global challenges underlines the need for
significant shifts in the ways in which we resource, produce, consume and
interact with material goods, we are forced to question some of the
central concepts that underpin our relationship with material culture.
Questioning, indeed, reimagining these concepts – such as value,
materiality and waste – could be key to facilitating the move to living
more closely within our means.
In this session we invite papers that deal with concepts of materiality,
value and waste, their interlinkages, and their place(s) within the nexus
of current social, environmental and economic challenges. Papers might,
amongst other things, address:
• the nature and implications of the socio-culturally shaped definitions
of these concepts – how notions of 'value' might be understood to be
changing, for example;
• the interrelations between concepts of transience and durability, both
of material items and our relationships with them;
• the role of design in informing, enabling and constraining human-object
• relationships with particular materialities such as landscapes,
souvenirs, clothing etc.;
• the meanings and impacts associated with commodity chains and their
legacies, as well as other ways in which objects move, shifting the
definitions applied to them as they change context;
• cultures of production and consumption, including the notion of ethical
production/consumption, the meanings that individuals bring to these
processes, how these meanings emerge and how they determine subsequent
• particular conceptual and methodological approaches such as social
practice theory, actor-network theory, or commodity chain studies that
might illuminate these debates.
We invite contributions that open up the discussion of how rethinking and
reimagining value, waste, materiality, and other associated ideas in the
contexts of production and consumption geographies might in turn recast
our relations with the material world. Papers may present conceptual
ideas, recent empirical work or methodological approaches related to one
or more of these themes.
Abstracts of no more than 250 words should be sent to: Rebecca Collins,
UCL, firstname.lastname@example.com
Deadline for submission: Wednesday 9th February 2011
Sunday, December 12, 2010
Sharing Cultures 2011
Sharing Cultures 2011
Following the UNESCO Convention on Intangible Cultural Heritage, Sharing Cultures
2011 will welcome papers on:
- Oral traditions and expressions;
- Performing arts;
- Social practices;
- Traditional craftsmanship.
Under "Oral traditions and expressions" Authors may present research
work on language and communication, mainly if considered as means to
express or transmit intangible cultural heritage.
"Performing arts" will accommodate all contributions on music (instrumental and human voice), dance and theatre in their traditional, classical, ethnographic, or other forms.
The topic of "Social practices" will include all forms of social intercourse, corresponding to day-to-day life activities, rituals (religious or non-religious) and festive events that mark the way of life of a certain human group; under this topic gastronomy will also have
a place.
"Traditional craftsmanship" will gather contributions on various forms of material production, having in mind that all material culture has an intangible meaning and that the "know-how" is it-self intrinsically intangible.
CFP - Material Culture, Craft & Community: Negotiating Objects Across Time & Place
20-21 May 2011
University of Alberta
Material Culture Institute
This interdisciplinary conference will explore the varied expressions of craft – social, cultural and material – in past and present societies. Craft has a rich history and vibrant present-day practice, sustaining communities while negotiating cultures. Craft-made goods were and continue to be created for domestic or institutional use, for local or international markets; they express gender roles and cultural aspirations, sustaining economies. At the same time, craft practice defined and continues to define communities and groups, in the midst of global trade networks. Moreover, the flow of ideas, goods and peoples animate the making, circulation and meanings of craft goods. These issues will be addressed over the course of the conference.
Keynote Speaker:
Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, Harvard University
Confirmed Speakers:
Eiluned Edwards, London College of Fashion, UK
Edward S Cooke, Yale University
Janice Helland, Queen's University, Kingston
Laura Peers, Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford
Ruth Phillips, Carleton University, Ottawa
Conference Organizer: Beverly Lemire, Department of History & Classics and Department of Human Ecology, University of Alberta
Proposals should be sent to: email@example.com
Fourth International Conference on the Inclusive Museum
Fourth International Conference on the Inclusive Museum
29 June 2011 to 2 July 2011, Johannesburg, South Africa
Website: http://onmuseums.com/conference-2011
Contact Name: Emily Kasak
This conference invites museum and culture professionals, and interested scholars, to explore the current and future role of the museum in this era of tremendous global change.
Digital Media and its Applications in Cultural Heritage
Digital Media and its Applications in Cultural Heritage
Organized by
The Center for the Study of Architecture in the Arab Region, Jordan
Al-Turath Foundation, Saudi Arabia
In collaboration with
Queen Rania Institute of Tourism and Heritage, Hashemite University, Jordan
Over the past few years, a remarkable increase has occurred in the use of digital techniques for the documentation, management, and communication of cultural heritage. This has drastically transformed the way we capture, store, process, represent and disseminate information. The techniques employed have evolved from standard surveying and CAD tools and/or traditional photogrammetry into laser scanning virtual reality and fully automated video-based techniques. However, it is often argued that digital media tend to create and compile value-free content and thus are inefficient in capturing and communicating cultural and symbolic meanings. Digital media, as any other medium, tend to amplify or reduce the cultural phenomena as a result of their constraints and limitations. Thus the issue of using digital media for cultural heritage is by no means a simple one and must be examined from different angles. The aim of DMACH2011 is to explore the opportunities and challenges of using digital media in the research, preservation, management, interpretation, and representation of cultural heritage. Of particular interest for this year conference are issues related to interactive virtual reality, intelligent and wireless hand-held devices, high speed multi-media, and making virtual reality and augmented reality user-friendly and available resources for the general public.
The Visitor Studies Group AGM + Conference
The Visitor Studies Group
AGM + Conference
02/04/2011 - 10:10
02/04/2011 - 16:30
Audience research in an age of austerity: Ensuring continued support for the visitor voice
VSG AGM and Conference
Weston Theatre, Museum of London
Friday the 4th of February
10.10 am - 4.30pm
Is Audience Research a legitimate cut? In the face of severe cuts for the cultural sector difficult decisions have to be made about funding priorities, including core collections, opening hours and front-line staff. However, if the burden of the financial shrinkage falls too heavily on learning and research, is the quality of the visiting experience itself at risk? What does this mean for funding bids which increasingly demand evidence of impact and demonstrations of lessons learnt from previous projects and audience consultations? If insight into visitor expectations and experiences is cut, how can we effectively engage people with our collections and stories?
This one day conference will provide examples of how major projects have been turned around on small budgets, how audience research can be strategically embedded in the aims of an organisation and how smaller organisations keep audience research alive. We will hear first hand from DCMS what some of the issues facing us are.
Keynote speaker from the USA
Following the success of John Falk's visit last year, VSG is bringing in another leader in the field of audience research from the United States. Alan Friedman is the former Executive Director of the New York Hall of Science. Alan's dynamism and tenacity in building an organisation from something very small into one of the world's top institutions for informal learning during some difficult times will provide us with inspiration and valuable insight into how to cope with our own age of austerity.
Other speakers include David Fleming, Director - National Museums Liverpool, Adam Cooper, Head of Research - DCMS, Liz Neathy, Curator - Havering Museum and Jean Franczyk, Director of Learning - Science Museum.
Whether an experienced evaluator or new to the field, the discussion of some of these topical issues, and examples of how they are being addressed, should help you cope with the challenges you and your organisation are now facing.
Funding culture and the arts
Wednesday, 2nd March 2011
Guest of Honour: Colin Tweedy, Chief Executive, Arts & Business
This seminar will look at the options for funding art and culture in the UK, with the Government announcing a cut of 15% to the national budget for frontline arts in the Spending Review.
Delegates will assess potential new sources of funding, including corporate and private philanthropy, ways organisations can innovate to deliver more for less and the possible impact of reduced public investment on British culture in the future.
We are delighted that Moira Sinclair, Executive Director, London, Arts Council England and Colin Tweedy, Chief Executive, Arts & Business will be delivering keynote addresses at this seminar. Other confirmed speakers include: Meg Abdy, Director, Legacy Foresight; Ian Brown, Artistic Director & Joint Chief Executive, West Yorkshire Playhouse; Dr Stephen Deuchar, Director, The Art Fund; Chi-chi Ekweozor, Director, Real Fresh TV; Tim Jones, Executive Director, motiroti; Sandy Nairne, Director, National Portrait Gallery; John Nicholls, Managing Partner, Arts Quarter; Julia Payne, Director and Co-founder, The Hub; Mark Robinson, Managing Director, Thinking Practice and Liz Thompson, Director of Communications, Royal Shakespeare Company.
Alison McGovern MP has kindly agreed to chair this event.
IMLS to Hold Next 21st Century Skills Workshop at the Miami-Dade Public Library
IMLS to Hold Next 21st Century Skills Workshop at the Miami-Dade Public
IMLS's Making the Learning Connection Campaign Brings Together Leading
Local Institutions
Washington, DC-The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) has
announced that it will hold a workshop at the Miami-Dade Public Library
as part of a national campaign aimed at engaging museums, libraries, and
civic leaders in meeting the 21st century learning needs of their
communities. IMLS is co-hosting the event with the Miami-Dade Public
Library System and the Wolfsonian-Florida International University.
The national campaign, Making the Learning Connection, is intended to
assist communities as they build their capacity for helping individuals
of all ages acquire critical 21st century skills such as critical
thinking and problem solving, creativity and innovation, communication
and collaboration. The campaign includes a six-city workshop tour, a
national contest, new online tools and resources, and a series of
interactive webinars.
The six-city tour kicked off on June 21 at the Walters Art Museum in
Baltimore and continued with workshops at the Richland County Public
Library in Columbia, SC in August and the San Francisco Public Library
in San Francisco, CA in November. The tour provides an opportunity for
museum, library, and other community leaders to discuss the 21st century
learning landscape of their city and explore strategies for furthering
21st century learning goals.
"Libraries and museums are keenly focused on the challenges their
communities face and will create powerful foundations for implementing
and sustaining a community-wide vision for 21st century skills," said
Marsha L. Semmel, IMLS acting director. "At IMLS, we are pleased to
support institutions across the country that are focused on helping
learners of all ages acquire critical 21st century skills."
The Making the Learning Connection campaign is part of IMLS's continuing
initiative to engage libraries and museums, community stakeholders and
policymakers to meet the educational, economic, civic, and cultural
needs of communities. This campaign builds upon the release of Museums,
Libraries and 21st Century Skills
[http://www.imls.gov/pdf/21stCenturySkills.pdf](PDF, 2.0MB), which
provides an online self-assessment for libraries and museums to
encourage a strategic approach to 21st century learning and a report for
library and museum practitioners and policymakers.
Workshop participants leave each session with a better understanding of
the role museums and libraries play in the learning landscape.
Participants will also begin drafting a map that documents some of the
work currently being done in the community around 21st century skills.
In the coming months, IMLS will announce the other workshop tour stops,
dates for webinars, and contest details.
To learn more about 21st century skills, please listen to Semmel's
podcast [http://www.imls.gov/resources/podcasts_Aug10.shtm].
TX Association of Museums Educator's Committee Workshop
The TX Association of Museums Educator's Committee is hosting its annual workshop this January 24th in Austin. This year's focus will be on fundraising. It is a great bargain at $25 for members, $30 for non-members (for $35 you could become a member and join TAMEC!)
For more information or to register please go to http://tamec.blogspot.com/2010/12/workshop-registration-form-posted.html and download the registration form.
BM museum studies day
Museum studies day
Thursday 24 February, 11.00–15.30
BP Lecture Theatre, British Museum
£10, no concessions A behind-the-scenes insight into the running and organisation of the Museum.
10.30–11.00 Registration and coffee
11.00–11.30 Harvinder Bahra, Community Programmes Coordinator – Special Exhibitions Harvinder is responsible for increasing the engagement of local audiences who are under- represented in the Museum's current visitor profile. Harvinder provides an overview of the current Room 3 display, Sikh fortress turban and talks about the process of community consultation and the importance of involving the Sikh community with the display.
11.30–12.00 Stuart Frost, Head of Interpretation Stuart provides an overview of the work of the Interpretation team at the British Museum and the ways in which audience research informs exhibition development and the visitor experience. He focuses on the development of the Museum's current exhibition, Journey through the afterlife: ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead, as well as other recent projects.
12.00–12.30 Sarah Longair, Research manager, Getty East Africa Programme As part of the British Museum Africa Programme, which seeks to support colleagues in museums in Africa and build capacity in the heritage sector, a team has undertaken an in- depth scoping project to assess the training needs of museum professionals in East Africa. This presentation highlights some of the key findings and how they will be incorporated into a training programme across East Africa.
12.30–12.45 Panel Q&A and short introduction to Future Curators Programme
12.45–13.45 Lunch (not provided)
13.45–14.15 Faye Ellis, Digital Learning Programmes Manager The Samsung Digital Discovery Centre provides digital education activities for schools and families. More and more children are now equipped with the skills to use technology, and the Centre helps them engage with the Museum's collection through a familiar medium. Faye discusses the Centre's core range of programmes, as well as more experimental projects and partnerships.
14.15–14.45 Evan York, Senior Museum Assistant, Ancient Egypt and Sudan The Museum Assistant teams have a vital role within the departmental collections, in all aspects of its everyday work. They are responsible for looking after the collections to ensure their preservation and accessibility, within the Museum and on loan.
14.45–15.15 Catherine Eagleton, Curator of Modern Money Combining research, collections work, exhibitions, educational programmes and international partnerships, Money in Africa is a large project which grew from a small temporary exhibition at the Museum in 2005. Catherine talks about the project and the ways it enables people to engage with the Museum's collection, and also about the practicalities of funding and delivering collaborative and international projects.
15.15–15.30 Panel Q&A
Book through the British Museum Ticket Desk 020 7323 8181 www.britishmuseum.org
Programme subject to change.
Thursday, December 09, 2010
CFP: Material Networks
We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our
fellow men.
- Henry Melvill, Golden Lectures, 1855
A network, as a universal concept, is any interconnected system of people
and objects. Networks are a primary and innate function of all cultures,
promoting communication and exchanges of objects and ideas. Our vision of
the "material network" focuses on the objects and ideas of exchange, the
messages they convey, and their changing identities and associations across
diverse temporalities, geographies and cultures.
Topics may include but are not limited to:
* Patrimony
* The practice of collecting
* Coercion, occupation, and foreign missions
* War, looting, and spolia
* Correspondence and gift exchange
* Travel and trade
The conference will take place on May 6, 2011 at the Bard Graduate Center in
New York City. Students currently enrolled in a graduate program are invited
to submit an abstract not to exceed 500 words (eventually for a 20-minute
paper) as well as a current C.V. or
résumé in PDF format to email@example.com. Please send your
submission before Friday, February 4, 2011. Accepted speakers will be
notified via email by the end of February.
Bard Graduate Center | 18 West 86th Street | New York, NY 10024
The Museum of Everything
Sadly, as is generally the case in British art galleries, photography is not allowed (£1000 fine! warn signs in every room), so I will have to paint a picture with words.
The 'Museum' is tucked behind a public library, and from the front looks pretty unassuming. I passed through the very welcoming foyer, proudly sticking my Museum of Everything sticker onto my winter coat as I went. The exhibition takes place in a series of rooms, which follow one from to another in order, although there is nothing to stop visitors from going back into rooms they have already seen should they choose.
It starts off in a corridor with a small display case containing a pair of shoes allegedly owned by the famous nineteenth century dwarf General Tom Thumb. The rest of the corridor is made up of postcards, photographs and circus billings for various circus freaks and performers from times past - giants, human skeletons, siamese twins, bearded ladies and so on. This set the scene for the rest of the exhibition, both with the recurring theme of circuses, and the questions of what is art? and what is acceptable?
I won't describe every room, but dolls, shells, matchboxes, puppets, circus advertising posters and miniature fairground rides all had their place. I was particularly struck by the naive embroideries of Ted Wilcox, an ex-sericeman who learned to stitch while recovering from a war injury. His work includes a selection of pin-up girls with psychedelic backgrounds, and two wonderful and slightly wonky recreations of the scenes of Alice in Wonderland. There was something incredibly human and touching about this outsider art which is very different from the usual art gallery experience.
Finally, I reached the Walter Potter room. For those not in the know, Potter was a Victorian self-taught taxidermist who used the bodies of small animals (particularly kittens, puppies, rabbits, rats and squirrels) to recreate scenes from nursery rhymes and everyday life, which were then displayed in his Museum of Curiousities. Taxidermy is a distinctly weird artform at the best of times (I say that as a lover of natural history museums) and Potter's dioramas help remind us why. One scene depicts toads of all sizes playing games in a playground, like an amphibious Breugel recreation, while in another rats drink and play cards, and in third around ninety birds (somewhat ironically) mourn the death of Cock Robin. As with all taxidermy, the scenes are human constructs - creating images of our own interest from the skins of animals. As with much of Blake's collection, the discomfort we feel when we look at these pieces challenges us to think again about the meanings and values we place on our world.
What also struck me as I wandered through the various rooms was that almost anything can become mysterious and seem valuable when it is part of a collection. Shell-covered plastic owls are tat that many of us will have (rightly) passed over in seaside souvenir shops. But in a room where the walls and everything within them is covered in shells, these objects seem somehow more special. So maybe my final thought was to question museums themselves, and the strange human phenomenon that is collecting. I believe that for many museums, part of their job is to help people understand the world a little better. So maybe the MoE can be seen as a meta-museum, helping us museum folks to understand museums a little better too.
The exhibition ends on the 23rd December, so there isn't much time for intrepid curiousity hunters to see this one. However, this is Exhibition #3, so we can keep our fingers crossed that more exhibitions will tumble forth from their creative brows before too long.
Tuesday, December 07, 2010
CFP: Building Identity: the making of national museums and identity politics
Here is the URL for The Museum 2011 conference website which also includes the call for papers. The conference is entitled 'Building Identity: the making of national museums and identity politics' and is a partnership between the School of Museum Studies at the University of Leicester, the National Taipei University of Education, the Victoria and Albert Museum, London and the National Museum of History, Taipei. The conference will be held in Taipei 16th-18th November 2011 and the organizers would be extremely grateful if you could circulate this url as widely as possible so that they get a good response to the call for papers.
Calling All Social Media Types!
Come, have fun, if social media is your thing. And given that you're reading this blog, it may well be...
A one-day 'SkillsCamp'
funded by the AHRC
Learning Studio, School of Museum Studies,
Museum Studies Building, University of Leicester, LE1 7RF
10.00am-4.30pm, Thursday 9 December 2010
The aim of this event is to bring researchers, practitioners and trainers together to share experience and identify best practice of working with social media in research and heritage contexts. Through a series of activities (and use case scenarios) together we will explore the social Web as a research environment, as a data source and as an object of study.
The SkillsCamp has particular resonance for anyone working with digital media and cultural heritage ('digital heritage'), but will also be of relevance and use to any researchers using or studying social media.
Refreshments and lunch are provided.
**And we are pleased to announced that all travel and accommodation costs of all participants will be covered by the partnership**
To book your place at this SkillsCamp, simply contact Dr. Ross Parry (Academic Director, School of Museum Studies, University of Leicester) on firstname.lastname@example.com.
10.00-10.30 – arrival and coffee
10.30-11.00 – introductions – What's my relationship to social media and to cultural heritage?
11.00-12.00 – Mapping exercise - What are the researcher's challenges with social media? And what are the strategies that we are all developing to help us overcome these challenges?
12.00-12.45 – Lunch provided
12.45-1.45 - Use Case 1: The social Web as research environment.
My research profile and visibility in the social Web - how do I network and communicate my research? What do I put into the social Web?
1.45-2.45 - Use Case 2: The social Web as data resource.
What can we use from the social Web? What can the social Web give me as a researcher? How do I work ethically within social media?
2.45-3.00 Tea break
3.00-4.00 - Use Case 3: The social Web as subject
How do I study social media? What methodological tools and theoretical frameworks can I use to understand the social Web?
4.00-4.30 - Wrap-up
Over the last two years the Universities of Leicester, Newcastle, Glasgow and Manchester have been collaborating, with project partner The Collections Trust on the 'Digital Heritage Research Training Initiative'. This partnership, funded under the AHRC's Collaborative Research Training call, has allowed these institutions to design and produce a series of online research skills units (with accompanying teacher/supervisor/trainer notes) targeted at researchers working with digital media in heritage contexts.
Drawing upon the partnership's experience of producing distance learning materials, the eight units (each between 8,000-10,000 words, structured around a series of activities and discussions, and each representing around 14 hours of study time) cover subjects such as: 'Disseminating your research with digital media'; 'Harnessing the digital heritage community as a research tool'; 'Using social media in research'; 'Tools for evaluating museum websites'; and 'Finding and using heritage databases'.
In producing these research skills units, the aim of the initiative has been to bring together the expertise of these institutions to help meet the new skills requirements of a new generation of researchers working in the emergent areas of digital heritage.
In the New Year these units will be made available online (for free use) by the Collections Trust.
Friday, December 03, 2010
Caruso St John Announce Plans for Tate Britain
Given the interesting job they made of Nottingham Contemporary, I'm interested to see what they do to this veteran museum...
For More visit the Caruso St John Website...
A Little Section of News
Unknown Picassos Discovered in Paris
From the story...
"An extraordinary cache of hundreds of works by Pablo Picasso, painted during his most creative period and worth a conservative estimate of €60m (£50.5m), has been uncovered at the home of a retired French electrician.
The collection of 271 paintings, drawings, sketches and lithographs, many of which were previously unknown, dates from 1900 to 1932.
Among the works are nine cubist collages worth at least €40m, a painting from his celebrated blue period, drawings and models for some of his most important works and portraits of his first wife, the Russian ballerina Olga Khokhlova..."
Unveiling the Zayed National Museum
From the story
Foster + Partners have unveiled designs for a museum on Saadiyat Island in Abu Dhabi. The Zayed National Mueum will feature five lightweight steel towers resembling birds' wings, set within a landscaped mound with gallery spaces located at ground level...
Put it Down, Minister!
From the story
For any parent taking the children to a museum, it's a heart-stopping moment – inquisitive little fingers reach towards a priceless artefact and disaster seems inevitable.
So imagine the panic at the British Museum yesterday when a visitor tried on a 3,000-year-old Bronze Age bracelet which is so delicate that it should never be touched by an ungloved hand.
Embarrassingly, the culprit was Culture Minister Ed Vaizey, who blushed as he was told off like a naughty schoolboy by an official...
CFP - Southern Cultures
Our readers include scholars and students of food, film, folklore, history, labor, sociology, politics, literature, photography & art, music, women and gender studies, economics, environment, oral history, religion, sports, African American studies, American Indian Studies, and many other subjects under the umbrella of American Studies. We also offer complimentary CDs and DVDs to teachers and students for use in college classrooms.
All of our content from the last decade is available by subject at http://www.southerncultures.org/content/read/read_by_subject/
We also would like to encourage submissions from scholars and archivists around the world. For submission guidelines and more information, please visit www.SouthernCultures.org
Wednesday, December 01, 2010
DigCCurr Professional Institute Registration
Registration Now Open at:
May 15-20, 2011 & January 4-6, 2012 (One price for two sessions)
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Visit http://ils.unc.edu/digccurr/institute.html for more information.
The Institute consists of one five-day session in May 2011 and a two-day
follow-up session and a day-long symposium in January 2012. Each day of the
summer session will include lectures, discussion and hands-on "lab"
components. A course pack and a private, online discussion space will be
provided to supplement learning and application of the material. An opening
reception dinner on Sunday, break time snacks and coffee, and a dinner on
Thursday will also be included.
This institute is designed to foster skills, knowledge and
community-building among professionals responsible for the curation of
digital materials.
* Regular registration : $750
* Late registration (after April 15, 2010) : $800
* Summer Institute accommodations (includes 5 nights of a private room in a
4 room/2 bath dorm suite on the UNC campus, with kitchen, linens, and
internet access) : $250*
*We highly recommend that you choose the on-campus accommodations. This fee
covers accommodations for May 2011 only.
If you are a grant recipient working on a digital project, we recommend that
you check with your program officer to request approval to use available
grant funds to attend the institute.
Institute Instructors:
* From the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill: Dr. Cal Lee, Dr.
Richard Marciano, Dr. Helen Tibbo.
* Dr. Nancy McGovern, from the University of Michigan.
* Dr. Seamus Ross, from the University of Toronto.
* Dr. Manfred Thaller, from the University of Cologne.
* Dr. Carolyn Hank, McGill University.
Institute Components: (may still be subject to some revisions and
* Overview of digital curation definition, scope and main functions
* Where you see yourself in the digital curation landscape
* Digital curation program development
* Engendering Trust: Processes, Procedures and Forms of Evidence
* LAB - DRAMBORA in action
* Strategies for engaging data communities
* Characterizing, analyzing and evaluating the producer information
* Submission and transfer scenarios - push and pull (illustrative examples)
* Defining submission agreements and policies
* Strategies for writing policies that can be expressed as rules and rules
that can automatically executed
* LAB - Making requirements machine-actionable
* Importance of infrastructure independence
* Overview of digital preservation challenges and opportunities
* Managing in response to technological change
* Detaching Bits from their Physical Media: Considerations, Tools and
* LAB - Curation of Unidentified Files
* Returning to First Principles: Core Professional Principles to Drive
Digital Curation
* Characterization of digital objects
* LAB - Assessing File Format Robustness
* Access and use considerations
* Access and user interface examples
* How and why to conduct research on digital collection needs
* LAB - Analyzing server logs and developing strategies based on what you
* Overview and characterization of existing tools
* LAB - Evaluating set of software options to support a given digital
curation workflow
* Formulating your six-month action plan - task for each individual, with
instructors available to provide guidance
* Summary of action plans
* Clarifying roles and expectations for the next six months
January 4-6, 2012
Participants in the May event will return to Chapel Hill in Jan 2012 to
discuss their experiences in implementing what they have learned in their
own work environments. Participants will compare experiences, lessons
learned and strategies for continuing progress. Friday, January 6th will be
a public symposium, free to the Institute participants. (Accommodations for
January will be the responsibility of the attendee.)
Visit http://ils.unc.edu/digccurr/institute.html for more information.
For more information, contact Kaitlin Costello (firstname.lastname@example.com) for
Institute questions or Wakefield Harper (email@example.com) for payment
or registration questions.


text:
|Search Results (315 videos found)
|The Information Periscope Òl-steerÓ
Video demonstration from the 1998 CHI conference. This video demonstrates a prototype of the information periscope ÒI-steerÓ, which is designed for browsing video information in public spaces. I-steer has...
Genre: Educational
Keywords: CHI; dynamic Interaction; Spatial Navigational System; public space; mechanical design; interface design; product design
Duration: 00:04:51
Popularity (downloads): 565
|ACM CHI 2000 - Private and Public Spaces
The research area of Single Display Groupware (SDG) looks at how to best support multiple users collaborating around a single computer. One outstanding issue in SDG research concerns how to...
Genre: Educational
Keywords: CHI; computer supported cooperative; private information; public information; single display groupware (SDG); work (CSCW);
Duration: 00:07:03
Popularity (downloads): 353
|EBLIP4 Keynote JoseMarie Griffith
Genre: Educational
Keywords: Value of information; public libraries; economics of information; economic value of libraries;
Duration: 00:51:27
Popularity (downloads): 75
|Interview with Jose-Marie Griffiths
Genre: Educational
Keywords: Jose-Marie Griffiths; information industry; information and library schools; value of public libraries;
Duration: 00:23:08
Popularity (downloads): 11
|ACM CHI 1992 Issue 78 - Residental Information Services in a Broadband Public Switched Network
Genre: Educational
Keywords: CHI;
Duration: 00:06:20
Popularity (downloads): 428
|E-Windshield: a study of using
Video presentation from the 2002 CHI conference. The E-Windshield is a study in augmenting information with external knowledge as well as automobile relevant information. A prototype projection windshield is...
Genre: Educational
Keywords: CHI: visual display; interactive object; car; heads up display
Duration: 00:02:57
Popularity (downloads): 841
|The Notification Collage: Posting Information to Public and Personal Displays
Video Figure from CHI 2001 Paper. Author(s): Saul Greenberg & Michael Rounding
Genre: Educational
Keywords: CHI; awareness; informal interaction; media spaces; messaging.
Duration: 00:02:35
Popularity (downloads): 492
|Interview with Claudia Gollop
Genre: Educational
Keywords: Claudia Gollop; reference; public libraries; consumer health information; clinical librarians;
Duration: 00:28:54
Popularity (downloads): 12
|NASAWhy?Files - Public Damage
NASA Why? Files segment explaining power companies and what public damage is.
Genre: Educational
Keywords: NASA Why? Files; Power Company; Generator; Voltage; Power Plant; Electricity; Wires; Substations; Transformer; Kilowatt Hour; Utility; Underground Powerline; Public Damage;
Duration: 00:06:00
Popularity (downloads): 1617
|Take Pride in America, segment 03 of 7
Our public lands and waters are important to us in many ways
Genre: Documentary
Duration: 00:01:49
Popularity (downloads): 415

subset: commoncrawl


text:
I was still having random events that sent my Starship Tycoon loopy for me..... :oops:
I finally found a culprit on my comp....
A lil' talking clock app I wrote that annouces time using wavs from my kids, nieces & nephews... ( :wink: sentimental.....)
Main Statement........
"Declare Function sndPlaysound Lib "winmm" Alias "sndPlaySoundA" _
(ByVal soundfilename As String, ByVal Flags As Long) As Long"
I'm not listing the entire module...(it's easy to find in a websearch anyway..)...besides, that function is almost all there is to the wrapper's usage anyway.
I'm using it in synch mode to play wav snippetts to make up complete times & play musical alerts.
:? anyone got any ideas? :?
VB usage of winm.lib causes ST environment to go unstable?
Discussion of the space travel management game - Starship Tycoon
3 posts • Page 1 of 1
VB usage of winm.lib causes ST environment to go unstable?
Very funny Bones....
Scotty, please beam down Mr. Spock's Trousers!
Scotty, please beam down Mr. Spock's Trousers!
cliffski wrote:I use winmm within starship tycoon (using C++), for some timing related code. Maybe it conflicts?
I ran some tests and yeah....
Multiple simultaneous uses of that LIB from different processes are ......at best.....un-reliable. IT's more like a "legal" hack that MS doesn't/can't get rid of. If you're timing it with that... then that explains the moving starfield going in jerks when it's about to crash.
What about using an API like tick count that uses system time for your clock? The wavs normally start and retart so any instablilties work themselves out for sounds... Given that it was never intended for serious reliability, relying on it for timing could cause a heap of troubles.
:?: Could that be affecting your program when run thru the yahoo wrapper? (I don't know enough about that wrapper to more than ask.)
Very funny Bones....
Scotty, please beam down Mr. Spock's Trousers!
Scotty, please beam down Mr. Spock's Trousers!
3 posts • Page 1 of 1
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text:
Preparing for the ARE
AIA is here to help you on your path to licensure. One of the primary requirements for becoming a licensed architect is passing the Architect Registration Exam (ARE). The exam covers areas such as project and practice management, construction, and programming, preparing you for professional practice in the US.
AIA offers a variety of resources to assist you in passing the exam and getting that architect stamp you've been working for. Reach out to your local AIA chapter to find study groups, prep sessions, and study materials. Working alongside other AIA members can ease the sometimes daunting task of preparing for the exam.
And remember to take advantage of your 10 percent member discount at the AIA Store when you purchase study materials.
AIA ARE Prep: Powered by Black Spectacles
AIA has partnered with Black Spectacles to provide associates with an exclusive member-only discount on ARE prep video tutorials. Available as an annual or monthly subscription, AIA ARE Prep: Powered by Black Spectacles offers a new way for emerging professionals to prepare for the ARE. The video series includes:
- comprehensive content covering both ARE 4.0 and ARE 5.0 topics
- 100 hours of video
- built-in exam practice questions
- real-word extras including interviews with architects
- flexible subscription packages of one month, six months, or 12 months
- a 15 percent discount for current AIA associate members
AIA members: Get your 15 percent discount code (login required) >
Not an AIA member? Join today to get your discount.
Group subscriptions for firms, schools or local AIA chapters are also available.
AIA Contract Documents study resources
Below are two lists of AIA Contract Documents sample PDFs, available for ARE candidates to use in each of the settings described in the Construction Documents and Services division of the ARE.
Conventional Family Samples
- A101-2007, Standard Form of Agreement Between Owner and Contractor where the basis of payment is a Stipulated Sum
- A201-2007, General Conditions of the Contract for Construction
- A701-1997, Instructions to Bidders
- B101-2007, Standard Form of Agreement Between Owner and Architect
- C401-2007, Standard Form of Agreement Between Architect and Consultant
Contract Administration and Project Management Form Samples
Image credits


text:
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no joke
May 30 2001 at 4:25 PM
surprised (
no login
Response to
r u kidding?
i wonder why nobody's talking about it. i'm curious since i couldn't make it (out of town). is it because maybe the sound might not be "jazzy" enough? "deep' enough? or r&b enough? or maybe there might not be any opportunity for anybody...no brown-nosing, shout outs, or big ups or whatever it's called. that might explain the silence.
after all this is House site, right?
Respond to this message
I can assure you
- C hristian on May 30, 2001, 4:36 PM
Maybe it's because...
- Doug on May 30, 2001, 4:47 PM
- jackson on May 30, 2001, 6:11 PM
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text:
The San Francisco Chronicle published the following news item recently:
Dozens of undercover security men watched and photographed a crowd of about 300 Russian Orthodox members of Moscow's Church of the Resurrection yesterday during a brief address by the Rev. Billy Graham... On Saturday night, security forces had closed off the Moscow Baptist Church, barring reporters and some invited guests during Graham's sermon to about 1500 people there. Graham's sermon of less than 20 minutes dwelled on salvation and the need for people to know Jesus Christ.
That's intimidation. The Russian authorities are so threatened by the gospel, they have to watch and photograph those who want to hear it, in an effort to intimidate them.
We all face intimidation of one kind or another. After the first service this morning, a young woman told me she wanted to include in a college term paper how much Jesus meant to her in her life, but she was afraid of what her professor might say. We agreed that the Lord just might use her paper as the means by which her professor might come to know Him. We wrestle with all kinds of intimidation--social, personal, international, spiritual, etc. These are brought about by the spiritual warfare that Satan seeks to produce in our hearts. When we travel to Columbia for the prison ministry, we face intimidation because of travel regulations, prison regulations, etc. In our upcoming trip to the Far East, we will face various kinds of intimidation because of the powerful political and spiritual control of the Moslems in those areas. We even face intimidation in our own neighborhoods. Just when we feel we should share the gospel with our neighbors, the "intimidator" tells us they don't need to hear about it, so why bother?
The Christians in Asia Minor to whom the apostle Peter was writing his second letter in 64 A.D. faced the same pressures. In the letter, Peter set out to teach his readers how to live in a society that was totally opposed to the gospel message. They were aliens and strangers in that society, and as such, they should be aware that political, personal and spiritual suffering was part of God's plan of redemption. God would use that suffering which they were undergoing--and some of that suffering came down on them even when they were doing right--to call out a people from among the gentiles for His namesake. If we today could grasp that concept which Peter shared with the Christians of that first century, we too would be set free from anxiety about intimidation.
How should we respond to personal intimidation? According to Peter, writing in chapter 3 of his letter, we should, first,
Keep our minds on the will of God
And who is there to harm you if you should prove zealous for what is good? But even if you should suffer for the sake of righteousness, you are blessed. And do not fear their intimidation, and do not be troubled, but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence; and keep a good conscience so that in the thing in which you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame. For it is better, if God would will it so, that you suffer for doing what is right rather than for doing what is wrong.
Who is there to harm you? Peter is asking, "For the eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, and His ears attend to their prayer, but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil." The apostle had just earlier used this quote from Psalm 34 to ask these Christians who could harm them if they had a God whose eyes were on the righteous. God sees everything that is going on in the world--including all the injustice--so Peter asks, "Who is there to harm you?"
Further, God's "ears attend to their prayer." So who can harm you? Prayer is the key to life, the key that unlocks the curtain of time and space and enables us to talk to the God who controls the universe, the God who can work in and through apparently impossible circumstances, the God who will enable us by His power to cope with whatever situations we have to face. After the earlier service, I had a time of prayer with a man who was facing the most ridiculous and impossible circumstances. He had tried everything he knew but there was no way out of his dilemma, so we prayed that God would help him see who is there to harm him when intimidation comes to him. Who can harm you, Peter asks, when "the face of the Lord is against those who do evil." Yes, you may suffer unjustly, but Jesus said, "Do not fear those who kill the body, but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear him [Satan] who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell" (Matthew 10:28). In light of these three truths from Psalm 34, therefore, the apostle asks, "Who is there to harm you?"
Peter goes on to encourage Christians to develop their lifestyle in four different areas in the midst of personal intimidation. First, be zealous for good (verse 13). This word "zealous" would have been familiar to people in that day. The Zealots were fanatical Jewish patriots of the first century who pledged to liberate Israel from Roman domination by any and every means. They were willing to lose everything--position, money, family, everything--to accomplish that. They vowed to return evil for evil, insult for insult, threat for threat, abuse for abuse. But Christians, Peter says, are part of a counter-culture. They were to be zealous for good, not for tearing down the Roman Empire. Their lives were to be so filled with good, that people would be drawn to Jesus Christ. Christians are the light of the world, and by their good works God will be glorified. As they do good works, they will demonstrate that they have picked up the cross of Jesus and followed Him. In doing so, they will see the death of their own hopes and dreams and rights. That was the price tag they would have to pay. But make sure you are suffering for the sake of righteousness, Peter says, not as "a murderer, or thief, or evildoer, or a troublesome meddler; but if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not feel ashamed, but in that name let him glorify God" (1 Peter 4:15-16). Then you are blessed by God with power, joy, peace and righteousness.
In the midst of their godly zeal for what is good, non-Christians would seek to intimidate them. Responding to that, Peter says, secondly, "Do not fear their intimidation, and do not be troubled" (Isaiah 8:12). Here the apostle illustrates his point by pointing to the prophet Isaiah, who feared that King Ahaz would lead Judah into captivity by making alliances with Assyria after his father King Uzziah had turned the kingdom over to him. Following the death of Uzziah, God appeared to Isaiah and told him that he was the real King of Judah, that he was the King of kings, and that he should tell King Ahaz to not make alliances with Assyria, but to trust in Him. But the king rejected God's word and instead charged Isaiah with treason. Isaiah certainly felt intimidation, but God again appeared to him and said these words which Peter quotes in verse 14: "Do not fear their intimidation, and do not be troubled." So the apostle brings to the fore this great truth: God is in charge. Don't worry about what is happening in your life. God is God. God is Lord. God is in charge. Don't be intimidated and don't be troubled.
Thirdly, Peter says, "Sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts." By His resurrection, Jesus has demonstrated that He is Lord of lords and King of kings. He is over all creation; He is above and beyond the universe. Thus we need to turn our world and our lives over to Him and allow Him to be King of those also. We need to live a lifestyle that proclaims, "Not my will but thine be done." We must make Him Lord of our lives on a day-by-day basis, turning over to Him our hearts, our spirits--every area of our lives. For the rest of our lives He will be asking us, "Can I be Lord of your family, your finances, your sexual life?" He wants to be Lord because He created us to reflect His glory in mankind. If you agree to His Lordship, you will find yourself in places you never planned to be; you will find yourself talking to people you don't even know. So, Peter says, you must be "always ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you." "Defense" is a legal term that means "to be able to pick up where your opponent leaves off." In other words, be ready to share the hope that you have--that living hope. Know what you believe. That's why I appreciate people like Josh McDowell, Walter Martin, Paul Little and C.S. Lewis, who teach us how to think through questions about our faith.
Non-Christians are always asking what is the basis for the hope that we have. When Philip the evangelist met the Ethiopian eunuch in the desert, he was able to explain to him the meaning of Isaiah 53, which the Ethiopian was reading. At Pentecost, Peter preached the gospel message to thousands of people in the temple area and 3000 people came to know the Lord. He knew the Old Testament, and by the Spirit he was able to explain that Jesus was the Messiah. In the same way, Stephen in Acts 7, explained the history of the nation and the coming of the Messiah to the council of the Jews so that they "could not cope with his wisdom." That was what the apostle Paul's ministry was about--he was constantly appearing before kings and governors, before Jews and Gentiles, explaining that Jesus was the Messiah. Christians need to spend time in the Word of God so that they will understand the basis for their living hope. We are not whistling in the dark. We are not saying we believe in faith, we have a hope in hope, etc. We have facts, truth and reality on our side; thus we can always be ready to make a defense to anyone who asks.
My wife and I and another couple in the body at PBC have the joy of being involved in a Bible class with people who want to know more about Jesus and the Bible. Through that class we have seen the Lord bring some 10 people to faith in Him. One of the most fulfilling things about that study is the number of questions these people have about the Bible and about Jesus Christ. Today I just heard that a Jewish man wants to come to the class to hear some answers to questions he has about the Messiah. I felt a little intimidated when I heard that, because I know I'm going to have to study even more so that I will be able to answer his questions. Sometimes, of course, Christians will have to say, "I don't know the answer to your question, but I'll find out."
Peter goes on to say that Christians are to respond to questions about their faith with, first, "gentleness." We're not to act like the fictitious TV lawyer, Perry Mason, who wins every case by cross-examining and seeking to gain the upper hand in an argument. We are to respond with gentleness, which is strength under the control of the Holy Spirit. Those we are responding to are "dead in their trespasses and sins." They are not the enemy--Satan is; they are the victims. Further, Peter says, we are to respond with "reverence." We are to see that they are valuable and savable. Colossians 4:5-6 says so: "Conduct yourselves with wisdom toward outsiders, making the most of the opportunity. Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned, as it were, with salt, so that you may know how you should respond to each person."
Fourthly, Peter says, "Keep a good conscience." In other words, live in such a way that you won't have to keep looking behind you, hoping the wrong you have done won't catch up with you. Lead a life that is pure before the Lord. Confess your sins to God and live rightly with all your neighbors. I recently found out from my son that my neighbor didn't like where I placed my garbage cans on my property. One night last week I got up and moved them, because I didn't want anything to come between him and me--anything about my life that would cause a hindrance to the gospel.
Realize also that you will be slandered, but those who revile your good behavior may be put to shame. A great example of this truth occurred a few weeks ago when I married a young Christian couple who told me that 70 percent of the guests at the wedding would be non-Christians. I later heard that one guest said to his friend, "This is the weirdest wedding I've ever been to. I can't believe that Christians believe everything that guy is saying. They're really off-base." But his friend said to him, "Maybe we're the ones who are off-base." "Keep a good conscience," understanding that you'll be slandered, but in time God will take care of that
Peter continues, "For it is better, if God should will it so, that you suffer for doing what is right rather than for doing what is wrong." To summarize, it is clear from 2:11 through 3:17, that it was God's will that the Christian community in Asia Minor would suffer unjustly for His honor and glory. The key was not to focus on unjust suffering, but to focus on the salvation of the foolish, unreasonable men and women, the salvation of those who were slandering, those who were filled with malice, and those who sought to intimidate them. Christians were to walk in such a way that people like that would see God at work in them.
How should we respond to personal intimidation? Keep your minds on the will of God; be zealous for good; fear not; sanctify Christ as Lord; and keep a good conscience.
Secondly, Peter says,
Keep our faith in the Risen Lord
For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust in order that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit; in which also He went and made proclamation to the spirits now in prison, who once were disobedient, when the patience of God kept waiting in the days of Noah, during the construction of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through the water. And corresponding to that, baptism now saves you, not the removal of dirt from the flesh, but an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who is at the right hand of God, having gone into heaven, after angels and authorities and powers had been subjected to Him.
Ever since the fall, man has been in rebellion against God. Every child who has ever been born is born in such a state. That's his nature; he can't stop it. But God is not rebelling against man: "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever would believe in Him would not perish but have eternal life." Jesus was willing to die for man--"once for all, the just for the unjust." Sin is no longer the issue. God has opened up a way for man to return to Him: "God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them." That is why the gospel is such good news. Sin has been dealt with; all man has to do is accept the free gift of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. If man will by faith accept that, all his sins will be forgiven. I talked to a woman last week who was involved in adultery. When we prayed together, I saw the tears stream down her face as she realized that the sin of adultery was forgiven, as she accepted Jesus Christ as Lord of her life. That happened because she placed her faith in the One who had saved her.
Peter is telling the Christians in Asia Minor that Jesus suffered unjustly on their behalf so that He might bring them to God. In the same way, God would allow unjust suffering in their lives so that others might come to know Him, as Christ expressed Himself through that suffering. Don't focus on the suffering, in other words, rather focus on what God is doing through it. I was once involved in a head-on collision. As I was thrown out of my car, my hands skidding on the roadway trying to break my fall, my first thought was, "Now what are you doing, God? What does this have to do with eternity?" When you are facing unjust suffering, you have to ask God, "Who am I supposed to talk to? How can this situation reflect Your honor and glory? Will You give me the power to cope with this because it hurts?" Jesus allowed wicked men to put Him to death, but just when it looked like they had gotten rid of Him, He was "made alive in the spirit," and He entered His body of glory. So the good news is that Jesus was raised from the dead so all who place their faith in Him as Lord and Savior can be born again to a living hope.
In order to illustrate that they were not the first people to undergo suffering, Peter now takes his readers back to the story of Noah in the Old Testament. Noah, a righteous man, and his family lived in a wicked society. Noah was blameless; he walked with God and God used him as a preacher of righteousness for 120 years as he built the ark and warned of coming judgment. He was mocked and slandered by a disobedient people, but he was preserved when the righteous Judge allowed the flood to come. Verses 19 and 20 have been argued about by biblical scholars for the past 2000 years. Peter knew what he was talking about, but people have been confused over these verses ever since. Augustine in the 3rd century thought he knew what Peter meant here, but Luther in the 15th century confessed that he had no idea what the apostle meant. As I have indicated, scholars have spent their lives trying to figure out what these verses mean.
What I propose to do is tell you the three most common views, as to the meaning of verses 19 and 20. We find the background in Genesis 6:
Now it came about, when men began to multiply on the face of the land, and daughters were born to them, that the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful, and they took wives for themselves, whomever they chose. Then the Lord said, "My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, because he also is flesh; nevertheless his days shall be one hundred and twenty years." The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came unto the daughters of men, and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown. Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. And the Lord said, "I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, from man to animals to creeping things and to birds of the sky; for I am sorry that I have made them." But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.
The issue is this: did Jesus Christ (as verse 19 seems to say) go to hell between His death and His resurrection? If He did, who are these "spirits" whom He talked to? And if He did talk to them, what was His message?
Here is the first of the three most popular viewpoints. After Jesus died on the cross, He was placed in a tomb for three days. Before the resurrection of His body, His Spirit went to Hades--the place of the wicked dead from all the ages who are waiting for final judgment. There Jesus preached to the spirits of all those who for 120 years had rejected Noah's message on earth, and also those who had never heard it. That means we have a gospel of second chance. According to this view, Hades was the prison, the holding area for the spirits of those who were drowned in the flood; the message was the gospel of second chance. I personally disagree with that view.
The second viewpoint is more popular. After Jesus died physically on the cross, His body lay in the grave for three days. His Spirit went to Hades and preached the message of victory, demonstrated by His resurrection, to the spirits held there. Based on Genesis 6, this viewpoint holds that the spirits held there were the fallen sons of God--fallen angels--who came to earth in the days of Noah and cohabited with women to produce distorted humanity--giants--all of whom were killed in the flood (2 Peter 2:4, Jude 6). The message which Jesus preached was a victory song over Satan, sin, death, demons and powers. Those who hold this view support their argument from Ephesians 4:8-10, and 1 Peter 4:22. This is a very popular view of what these verses mean, one I grew up with.
So both of these views hold that Jesus went to Hades between His death and His resurrection. But does the scripture support that? In Peter's sermon on the Day of Pentecost, the apostle quoted Psalm 16, "...Thou wilt not abandon my soul to Hades..." (Acts 2:27). Those who hold either of the first two views say that Jesus did in fact go to Hades, but didn't stay there. Others hold that Jesus did not go to Hades at all, pointing to the verse I just quoted from Psalm 16. In Greek, the word abandon means "to desert or forsake," while in the Hebrew the word means "to lose or permit." Combining these two meanings, those who say that Christ never went to Hades hold that Jesus was saying, "You will not permit, forsake or leave My soul to Hades." For proof they offer what Jesus said to the thief on the cross after He had repented: "Today you will be with Me in paradise." Jesus never went to Hades, in other words. Those who hold that Jesus did go to Hades, however, respond by quoting Ephesians 4:8-9: "When He ascended on high He led captive a host of captives. 'Now this expression, 'He ascended,' what does it mean except that He also had descended into the lower parts of the earth?...)" Then Christ ascended to the Father as conqueror, and His train of captives from Hades included Satan, principalities and powers whom He had defeated and disarmed. To this, the other side would respond that to say that Jesus descended into the lower parts of the earth is to speak of Christ's incarnation, His humiliation at the cross, His burial in the grave ("lower parts of the earth") and His exaltation as the One who has universal authority and power.
All of this demonstrates that we just don't fully understand certain mysteries in the scriptures. I don't have any problem understanding 2 Peter 2:4 and Jude 6, which say that God has judged fallen angels. But I don't know what the first two views have to do with the context of 1 Peter; thus I have to agree with those who hold the third view. Here is what I think Peter is saying in these verses. The Christians to whom he was writing were suffering unjustly through a variety of distressing trials. "Where is the God of justice?" they cried out to God and to Peter. Why doesn't He step in and judge the wicked, mocking, unreasonable world all around us? Peter's answer to that question is to illustrate what God was doing by using the Old Testament story we have quoted. Wicked men put the just Man Jesus to death, but the Holy Spirit quickened Him and raised Him from the dead. That is the same Holy Spirit who was available through the prophets, talked about in 1:10-11, as well as the same Holy Spirit who spoke in and through Noah a message of hope and redemption to his generation--a message that was rejected. Then the patience of God wore out and the flood came because man refused to listen. Mankind, except for Noah and his family, was destroyed in the flood and their spirits held in prison to await the final judgment. Justice was served by a righteous God in God's terms and in God's time.
So Peter is telling these suffering Christians in Asia Minor, "Wait, rest. God is in charge. In His good time, He will judge those who are persecuting you." (How right Peter was! The great Roman Empire, the cause of so much unjust suffering, was later to be so thoroughly judged by this righteous God that it broke apart in 395 A.D.) Meanwhile, Christians were to continue to proclaim the good news by the power of the Holy Spirit. They were not to worry about the intimidators, the slanderers, and the threats. God would deal with all of that. They were to continue, like Noah, to preach the gospel. Christians were to keep their faith in the resurrected Lord, who suffered unjustly, but who was vindicated by the righteous Judge--the only One who could provide them with eternal security. That really was the issue for these Christians: how could they know that God would take care of them in the midst of threats and intimidation?
Now, Peter says in verse 21, "corresponding to that...." As the waters of judgment, which were held back 120 years while Noah preached righteousness, were finally released, Noah and his family who had placed their faith in God were placed by Him into the ark and saved from destruction. "Corresponding to that..." as the ark saved Noah and his family, so baptism saves you. How could baptism save them? It can't be due to the water, because that was what was destroying everybody; the ark was what saved Noah. It's "not the removal of dirt from the flesh [it's not water], but an appeal to God for a good conscience." A spiritual baptism, in other words, is what produces a good conscience before God.
This spiritual reality which Peter is talking about is discussed in Romans 6:3-7:
Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, in order that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, that our body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin; for he who has died is freed from sin.
That is the baptism that Peter is talking about. When Christians identify with Christ's death, burial and resurrection, they are spiritually placed into Christ as Noah was physically placed into the ark. Water baptism is simply an outward expression of an inward reality in which they were already resting. Once they were placed into Christ, they had an eternal, secure position in Him. So when pressures, slanders, malice and intimidation come upon Christians, they are to rest in the resurrected Jesus Christ.
How should we respond to personal intimidation? (1) Keep our minds on the will of God; be zealous for good; fear not; sanctify Christ as Lord; keep a good conscience; and (2) keep our faith on the risen Lord: He also suffered unjustly, but He has been resurrected as Lord of lords--the only One who can provide eternal security for us.
Are you really placing your faith in Jesus Christ? If you are troubled and intimidated, you are trusting in yourself. He wants to set us free from that and trust Him instead. In the midst of unjust suffering, He is calling out a people for His namesake. If you understand that, you will understand unjust suffering. Rest your case with the King of kings and Lord of lords whose face is against evil. No one can harm you.
Scripture quotations are taken from the NEW
1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995, 1996 by The Lockman
Foundation. Used by permission.
Catalog No. 3943
1 Peter 3:13-22
Tenth message
Ron R. Ritchie
October 21, 1984
Updated November 3, 2000
Copyright © 1984 Discovery Publishing, a ministry of Peninsula Bible Church. This data file is the sole property of Discovery Publishing, a ministry of Peninsula Bible Church. It may be copied only in its entirety for circulation freely without charge. All copies of this data file must contain the above copyright notice. This data file may not be copied in part, edited, revised, copied for resale or incorporated in any commercial publications, recordings, broadcasts, performances, displays or other products offered for sale, without the written permission of Discovery Publishing. Requests for permission should be made in writing and addressed to Discovery Publishing, 3505 Middlefield Rd. Palo Alto, CA. 94306-3695.


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UPDATE as of 5:41 p.m. The crash involved two vehicles about 5 p.m. Most patients were treated at the scene and two were taken to the hospital with non life-threatening injuries, according to East Pierce. Central Pierce Fire & Rescue and South King Fire & Rescue also responded. The Pierce County Sheriff's Department is investigating the crash.
INITIAL POST: A vehicle crash at West Valley Highway East and 24th Street East has injured seven people this evening, according to East Pierce Fire & Rescue.
Further details were not immediately available. Check back for updates.


text:
Review by pioneer2008
February, 19 2004
Pros: Maximum performance for all age levels.
Cons: Doesn't come with AC Adapter or AC Adapter Plug
Review by sipecannon
November, 28 2002
Pros: Excellent value and numerous features.
Cons: The manual.
Review by tbrigham
July, 10 2002
Pros: The size. (76 keys) and full 32 note polyphonic
Cons: One it has only a two song memory


text: The truth is that more people are struggling with cash flow issues in their finances than they do with their investment assets. The challenge is that we often blow our money in places where we don't even realize it is going out the back door. $20 here…$100 there…it can seem at times that we are nothing more than our own ATM machine. It's hard to define the difference between spending money and wasting money, but making quality decisions as the CEO of your family finances is paramount to having a successful personal financial picture. Here are five ways I see that people waste money. Buying Too Large A House – We can convince ourselves that buying a large home is a great idea because we expect long term growth of the value of our home. Remember that primary residence should never be considered an investment, but rather your home. The place you will raise your family or use a source ...Read More →


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: Music
**Official Strange Music Inc Thread**
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Join Date: Nov 2012
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I'm so stoked giving rep to priest up there just isn't enough. going to download it later tonight.
that new song with the video on MTV released earlier today just wasn't doing it for me though, I hope he has better hooks on the rest of the album.
the guy is probably my lyricist of choice at the moment, he just knows what he's talking about and has a flow that gets to me, no homo.
his one flaw, which is a pretty big one, is writing a chorus that pulls a song together. Geronimo and Runaway, maybe injury, are really the only two that have seemed perfect, unless he has somebody else do the hook.
I've always loved the hooks coming out of strange so I have high expectations for this one. Incredibly high.
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Orchestra Iowa – Star-Crossed Lovers
Timothy Hankewich, music director
Frank Oden, actor
PROKOFIEV Romeo and Juliet
TCHAIKOVSKY Romeo and Juliet
McINTYRE Drive By
ODEN Romeo and Juliet – A Beat Poem
BERNSTEIN Symphonic Dances from West Side Story
Orchestra Iowa combines romantic tragedies with exciting new works to create an electric program called Star-Crossed Lovers. Prokofiev's ballet Romeo and Juliet and Tchaikovsky's fantasy-overture of the same title will set the musical stage. You'll enjoy a modern take on the evening's theme with Drive By, by Iowa composer and Grinnell College faculty member Eric McIntyre. Actor and narrator Frank Oden will present a unique twist on the story of Romeo and Juliet by combining orchestral nuance with beat poetry. The program closes with Symphonic Dances from Bernstein's West Side Story.
This concert was recorded Feb. 9 and 10, 2013.


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We are indoor cats and this is our blog.... with Mindy, a grey tabby girl and with Mike a bi-color tabby who is the bigger of the two of us. In June of this year, 2016, sadly both Cookie and Moe left us and crossed the Rainbow Bridge. They and the ones who came before, exist in our hearts now and always. We continue our blogging stories and hope you will follow "Team Tabby" along.
Friday, December 9, 2011
Finally Friday
Have a GREAT weekend everyone!
PS - bonus pics
Late this afternoon, around 4:45 pm
Setting sun in the west
A quick turn around, pointing east, to see the rising moon
It was a beautiful day!!
12 comments:
- Brian said...
I love Christmas trees, but not as much as I love those pictures!
- Friday, December 09, 2011
- Mariodacat said...
We only has a fake one too, but it feels like a real tree when I hidey under it. Love napping under the tree too.
- Friday, December 09, 2011
- Fuzzy Tales said...
We've never seen a real tree, though angels Annie and Chumley have had at least one. But our city doesn't pick up the trees anymore, after the holiday, and the mom doesn't have a way to get a real one to the recycling centre. So an artificial one it is. But oh, today they have GORGEOUS fake ones. The mom saw two at Rona she'd love to have, pine ones. Stunning. Would have to be deeply discounted, though. LOL.
- Friday, December 09, 2011
- Cheysuli and gemini said...
Quite lovely shots. We too used to have real trees but Ichiro climbed in the fake one and hung out. I suspect it is good it was only fake...
- Friday, December 09, 2011
- Eric and Flynn said...
We have a fake one as well. We wish mum would hurry up and put it up.The sunset and moon photos are lovely.
- Friday, December 09, 2011
- Luxington said...
My pawents put up a fake one too, it was so confusing at first! And Mindy... that is an excellent picture of you cleaning your paw!!
- Friday, December 09, 2011
- The Island Cats said...
We have a fake tree too...right now, it's up, but there's no decorations on it. We're gonna help our mom decorate it tomorrow! Fun!!
- Friday, December 09, 2011
- Katnip Lounge said...
We'd be happy to get ANY tree! According to Mommy, 13 cats is too many for a tree. What a killjoy.
- Friday, December 09, 2011
- Cat said...
We are still debating whether to tree or not to tree...
- Saturday, December 10, 2011
- Prancer Pie said...
We remember how those real trees used to taste! We always "test" to make sure our tree is fake. It is. ::sigh::
- Saturday, December 10, 2011
- Christiane said...
Wonderful photos of you all. Such beautiful cats should again have a real tree that you may have even more fun. Maybe decorated with catnip ... a peaceful Christmas time, I wish you all.
- Saturday, December 10, 2011
- ABBY said...
The pictures today are fabulous!
Mom put up all of her small table top trees. It's just her and Dad so no big trees. Drats and we could climb in them if she would put them up.
- Saturday, December 10, 2011