Creativity

It's almost a parent's dream -- being able to let the kids color on a surface without endangering the walls or furniture.  Griffin Technologies and Crayola are releasing a lightweight marker-like stylus called the Crayola Light Marker that translates a young artist's creativity from hand to iPad.  The battery-powered color wand has a glowing tip and doesn't even require contact with the virtual page. (Again, the dream of the anal-retentive parent!) It's all virtual. The iPad's front-facing camera interprets the motions being drawn in the air and showcases them on the screen.  FULL COVERAGE: CES 2013 "We take pride in developing new and exciting technology for young artists ," said Mark Rowan, president of Griffin Technology, in a statement.

A Spring Street office building completed in 1915 has been purchased by a developer who plans to improve it as gentrification sweeps gradually through downtown Los Angeles' formerly depressed historic financial district. The Corporation Building, at 724 S. Spring St., was acquired by Izek Shomof, one of the most active developers of aging properties in the city's historic core. Shomof said he plans to renovate the 13-story tower and rent office space to creative firms. Terms of the sale by Spring & Main Property were not disclosed, but real estate experts familiar with the neighborhood valued the deal at about $10 million.

Some ideas that seem so simple unleash waves of creativity that expand in exquisitely complex ways. One such musical brainstorm is to offer a new body of work as notated sheet music, as Los Angeles songwriter Beck Hansen has done. His new work, "Song Reader," consists of 20 new pieces that the artist hasn't recorded. Rather, he teamed with the book publisher McSweeney's to unveil the songs in notated form. It is designed as a folio, and the hope is that the individually illustrated songbooks included within will inspire other musicians to interpret the written music and then share it. It was, describes writer Jody Rosen in the liner notes, "an experiment in ventriloquism": Provide the melodic and lyrical dialogue, but leave the aesthetic voice to strangers, who would head to parlors both real and virtual to perform the results.

Before iPads, smart phones and even computers, there was the page: a tangible place to jot down thoughts, work out ideas, write a novel, love letter, thesis or equation. "Pages," an exhibition at the Williamson Gallery at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, focuses on the simple piece of refined pulp as a place for formal and finished ideas and a space for creativity. "It's a way of celebrating the page as our human external memory of choice for the last two millennial," said co-curator and gallery director Stephen Nowlin.

You're handed a glass of a familiar holiday drink, and a deliciously unfamiliar aroma greets you: toasted coconut with hints of Tahitian vanilla, cinnamon and Jamaican allspice. You raise the glass to your lips and are surprised by the satiny texture -- nearly thick enough for a spoon but souffle-like. The flavor is rich and harmonious -- warm, caramel notes of dark Jamaican rum playfully flirting with the slight sweetness of coconut milk. It's the perfect tropical eggnog for a brisk holiday evening.

I'm flipping a coin. Pick heads or tails. OK, now which did you pick and why? Actually, never mind. It doesn't matter. Because unlike with college admission employees around the country, how I view your answer won't affect if you get into a university or not. But for students applying to places like the University of Chicago, it's a new reality. Garrett Brinker, an admissions official for the University of Chicago, told the Los Angeles Times in Wednesday's story that questions like “So where is Waldo, really?

"So where is Waldo, really?" That's not the kind of question most high school seniors expect to find on their college admission applications. But it is one of the essay options that applicants to the University of Chicago face this year in their quest for a coveted freshman berth. It is the kind of mind-stretching, offbeat or downright freaky essay question that is becoming more common these days as colleges and universities seek to pierce the fog of students' traditional self-aggrandizing essays detailing their accomplishments and hardships.

Go take a hike - it's good for your brain. So says a new study that supports something called Attention Restoration Theory , which holds that exposure to nature can replenish our cognitive reserves when they are worn out by overuse. And if you live a modern urban or suburban life, your cognitive reserves are surely depleted: A typical teenager spends more than 7.5 hours per day juggling a computer, cellphone, TV and other media, and the number is surely higher for a typical adult, according to the study: “Our modern society is filled with sudden events (sirens, horns, ringing phones, alarms, televisions, etc.)

Company payrolls in the broadly construed “creative economy” of Los Angeles and Orange counties rose 2.7% during 2011, while the number of jobs grew 1%, according to an annual report issued this month by Otis College of Art and Design. The report also examines public arts instruction, finding that Los Angeles County schools from kindergarten to 12th grade have been gaining arts faculty and reaching more students, while Orange County has had  declines. Compiled from government data by the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation, the Otis Report on the Creative Economy of the Los Angeles Region covers a wide range of job descriptions in 10 creative industries.