Mairlyn's Photos - June 13 2026 - CN Tower

 

It is Doors Open Weekend and Toronto has included a guided tour of the inside of the CN Tower.  It is sold out, so we won't get to look up into the 300 metre hollow interior in person. We can get the tour in this CBC article HERE. Here's a trailer for the documentary The Tower that Built a City HERE.  And here are pictures from the construction. It was declared one of the Modern World Seven Wonders in 1995. It seems to me the wonders are the feats that have been accomplished.  Stuntman  Dar Robinson jumped off the CN Tower twice - in 1979 and 1980, first using a parachute and second time using a wire decelerator.  Then there was Dan Goodwin who used his hands and feet to climb the outside of the tower twice on the same day. When the glass floor was installed in 1994 we could all have the experience of being 342 metres from the ground. It is great to have it on the horizon across the lake - it is easy to know where Toronto is along the shoreline. Happy views of the CN Tower.

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Marilyn's Photos - June 12 2026 - Losing One's Marbles

 

Louise Arbour became Canada's Governor-General this week.  No one has commented on her age as inappropriate for the role while noting that she is the oldest person appointment to the position. I assume that it might be due to her speech being articulate and inspiring, calling on Canadians to learn from diversity, to be cautious about AI, and to be vigilant to remaining a mature democracy.   I particularly notice her age of 79 and how alert and energetic she is compared to us average mid-olders. There seem to be lots of conversations about losing cognition at our age.  That leads into seeing the recent headline in which one article says "Trump has gone full marble."  That really got my attention.  What a catchy phrase! And what is this expression "losing one's marbles?"  The expression is believed to have originated from the game of marbles, where losing one's marbles would symbolize a loss of mental clarity or sanity.   From the mid 19th century marbles was used to refer to personal effects and goods.  So winning and losing one's marbles in that respect was associated with worldly goods. During the late 19th century, losing one's marbles began to be used to mean getting frustrated or angry.  This translated to losing one's mind evolved and it by the beginning of the 20th century, loss of sanity won out.  Here's one theory that has no proof: It has been suggested that the ‘losing one’s mind’ meaning derives from the Elgin Marbles. These are the collection of sculptures, some from the Parthenon Frieze, which were taken from Athens by Lord Elgin in 1806. The supposition is that the expression derives from the loss of the artworks by the Greeks, or their subsequent loss at sea when the ship that was transporting them sank.  There are 3 explanations of the phrase "to go full marble"  - the first is to cover an entire space in marble stone - that's a home decor expression.  The second is high-stakes - to go for all the marbles.  The third is to go full [X] - a popular linguistic template used to describe plunging 100% into a specific state of mind.   Isn't this a great example of a marbles metaphor.

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Marilyn's Photos - June 11 2026 - How High the Heels

 

Very high heels are popular again.  That is despite guidance on how to calculate your ideal heel height.   1. Measure the total length of your foot from heel to toe in centimetres 2. Divid foot length by 7 cm 3. Get your ideal heel height While the average heel height for women's footwear is 3 inches or 7.6 cm, there's something in the stratosphere called "sky-high" heels.  They are 5+ inches and easily are in the range of 6 to 9 inches.  An image search on Google gives so many pictures to marvel at.  Who would guess some of these are shoes?  If there were no legs showing, we might not know what the item is.  There are versions with high heels and platform souls at the front.  This makes them less steep.    Don't think this is only for women, as men's sky=-high heels have been around for a while.  I guess the difference is that they aren't marketed to regular men, but to rock bands, sports figures and fringe dressers. They are promoted as being a tool for inclusive gender expression.   The proliferation of pictures and videos on social media mean everything's possible.  The number one selling shoe in the world is the Nike Air Force 1 - it actively promotes its sales numbers compared to other brands.  It seems to be a pleasant and comfortable looking shoe.  You can get an Air Force 1 with heels, though. I guess I am thinking of high heels because it is high school graduation time.  I went to a few graduations for Rotary, and got to take pictures of the footwear that the girls wore.  The shoes were the highlight of their outfits.

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Marilyn's Photos - June 10 2026 - Convert that building

 

How are some people covered by the media more than others?  The specific example that keeps appearing in the Bing feed is Jim Pattison. He seems to be a popular figure on the internet with his "story," the "secrets of success", how to build a $16B empire, and so on.  Add to that, he's 96 years old and still working every day. All the pictures of him show a big smile.  Maybe it is because he made the news in January when his Virginia warehouse was going purchased by the U.S. government to be turned into an Immigration and Customs Enforcement "processing facility."  There was an uproar and the sale was canceled.   Wouldn't that be a strange experience to sell your house and then find it is has been turned into some sort of detention centre?  His warehouse was over 500,000 square feet. Our houses are under 2,000 square feet.  We could expect a bed and breakfast, vacation rental, maybe an art gallery, or personal service business like hair salon replacing Gerry's railroad.  Here in Grimsby, around the corner, the house was torn down and more hospice space is being built in its place.  We mostly do the reverse - we take factories, schools and churches and turn them into homes.  One can find some jails and prisons that have been converted into residential housing.  This is called "prison flipping" where mostly historic heritage buildings are  conversion targets. Our famous Kingston Penitentiary has some surplus land being considered for residential development.  The Chatham Jail and Courthouse has been slated for conversion into private apartments. That's it for us. I don't see this as a trend. I think the conversion of these buildings into tourist attractions where tours are given and the historic events of past crimes and criminals are revealed. That's what they did with the old Kingston Penitentiary.  Here's one of the buildings - pretty limestone in a 19th century Neoclassical style.  The interior had nice colours, too.

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Marilyn's Photos - June 8 & 9 2026 Singing

 

This is yesterday's post - and it didn't seem to get out of the queue so here it is today. There's an article about the oldest verified instrument - a sort of flute made of bone and ivory.  My guess, though, is that the oldest instrument would be the human voice singing - us. Singing likely predates spoken language.  It is a physical capacity for pitch control.  And we had this up to a  million years ago.  Singing looks like a complicated skill right away.  I wondered what it means when they talk about the neurological and physical architecture to sing.  The neurological architecture integrates language processing in the left hemisphere and pitch/melody control in the right hemisphere, utilizing both dorsal and ventral pathways to connect auditory perception with vocal motor execution. I had no idea that something seemingly simple, is not.   Another summary says that singing demands coordination across the prefrontal cortex (planning, decision-making), temporal lobes (auditory processing) hippocampus (memory and cerebellum (motor control).  That sounds even more involved. The brain likes singing - it triggers the release of "feel-good" brain chemicals endorphins and serotonin and lowers stress hormones.  It is a light aerobic workout as well.  In terms of medical therapeutics it can help restore lost speech for conditions like Aphasia, Parkinson's, Demential and Alzheimer's and for Autism.  It is a recovery technique for breathing and lung issues. There are so many health and therapeutic benefits that I wonder if music is more popular than sports.  Music has high engagement - over 90% of people listen to music every day so scores high on engagement, accessibility and the global scale. It is more passive than sports, which has strong, energetic emotions and participants and fans dedicating active time and attention to games.   There's some common ground - in the last 30 years music concerts have taken on the characteristics of sports games - high prices of tickets and vast crowds watching a live event in a stadium like the soon to be with us FIFA World Cup.   Think of the size of audiences:  the FIFA World Cup will be at BMO Field, currently rebranded as Toronto Stadium and holds almost 50,000 people.  That's considered intimate.  I guess so, given the largest stadium in the world in North Korea can hold between 114,000 and 150,000 people, depending on the event. At FIFA 2026, the largest event will be at the Dallas Stadium which holds 94,000 people.  There have been numbers like this for choirs singing in a single venue or stadium.  The largest choir was 121,400 people in a venue in India - I wonder what they sang.   This is the Skydome stadium which holds almost 40,000 people.

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