Mairlyn's Photos - Nov 11 2026 - Wreaths are Round

 

All those wreaths I've made - likely more than 200.  And I don't know anything about why they are usually round.  I think of Olive and Laurel wreaths around the heads of Romans.  Etruscans also used ivy, oak, myrtle, wheat and vines.  They were crowns there. Romans wore golden wreaths as crowns.   But how did we get to putting them on doors and things like that?  Think Christmas and Epiphany as the Christian celebrations. They were on walls or doors or in windows.  They could be put up in gardens, fields and pastures for protection and blessing.   And the symbolism of wreaths as funerals and war memorials -  that too started in Ancient Greece to represent a circle of eternal life. The evergreen wreath represented the victory of the eternal spirit over death. So the Poppy Wreath I made with the green background would be in this tradition.  But for Remembrance Day, the black one seems better.  It was purchased by a lovely couple who volunteer at Nelles Manor and he puts up a wreath for every occasion - this one goes up for a few days each year. Read past POTD's at my Blog: http://blog.marilyncornwell.com Purchase at: FAA - marilyncornwell.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.com

Marilyn's Photos - Nov 10 2026 - Big Moon Little Moon

 

I should know more about naming space things.  How did the small asteroid temporarily rotating around our planet until December get its name - 2026 QQ8.  Easy enough to guess the first part of the name - year of discovery.  Then the first letter indicates the half-month of discovery.  So Q equals the second half of August.  And then the second letter is the sequential order of discovery within the half-month.  So it was the eighth asteroid catalogued. If there are more than 25 objects found in the half-month, a numerical subscript is added to show how many times the 25-letter alphabet has cycled.  Notice the alphabet used is 25 letters. This system skips the letter I (i) to avoid visual confusion with the number 1 or Roman numeral I - doesn't that make you wonder about PhDs skills.  OK they have many languages to consider.  This system was developed by the International Astronomical Union.  And I find out that historically the letter J was skipped instead of I for similar typographical and linguistic reasons. So our near-Earth asteroid is 1 to 2 metres across and has mini-moon status.  It has been in Earth's gravity since April and was discovered in August.  It had to be confirmed as a natural space rock rather than space junk.  After it finishes its orbit with us it will "drift back" into an independent path around the Sun.  The general public is allowed to provide name suggestions for newly-discovered planets - that started in 2013.  Ivan Semeniuk wrote a Globe and Mail article earlier this year about this - an asteroid was officially named after him.  Asteroid (20045) Semeniuk. His decades of work in public science education and space journalism were the reasons that the name was approved.   Big moon with little stars.  This was a wreath at last year's Fantasy of Trees. Read past POTD's at my Blog: http://blog.marilyncornwell.com Purchase at: FAA - marilyncornwell.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.com

Mairlyn's Photos - Nov 9 2026 - That Forever Cruise

 

I am curious about the relentless continuation of articles on the "Forever Cruise" that ran aground, and dumped all the passengers in Cambodia. It is now 2 weeks of articles every day. The ship is aptly named the Odyssey, and it was supposed to cruise around the world in 1,300 days.  The cost was hundreds of thousands of dollars.  The story came out at the end of October.  And then this weekend the story came out that passengers were told at 6:00am to get off the ship by 2:00pm.   All the articles interview various  passengers  who "sold their homes" - and are now aghast with what to do. Here are some of the headlines. They signed up for a 'forever' cruise.  Their dream ran aground... The cursed cruise:  how the dream of never-ending luxury at sea became a nightmare They sold everything to live on a cruise ship. Now... "Forever cruise" passengers unpack "lifetime deal" gone wrong They paid thousands for a cruise that hasn't sailed Abandon ship! 200 'cruise for life' passengers stranded I figure there are a few things that keep the story going.  The headlines are great - that's the first.  Then the floating retirement fantasy gets full coverage with the quotes of residents outlining how much money they poured in at the beginning and then getting squeezed with "cash calls" over things like the skyrocketing cost of fuel.  Then the numbers illustrate the dollar impact of the War in Iran.  The impact comes sharply into focus with monthly fees going from $1,800 to between $6,00 and $8,000.  A refresh comes this week over the news of the sudden evacuation in an industrial Cambodian town, so the hard-luck and homeless story comes out. And this also leads into comparison articles about the other millionaire cruise ships such as The World where the ship can be described in all its luxuries, and the lives of the "truly" rich are outlines - those millionaires with multiple residences who will not be joining the now homeless in Cambodia at any time.  This hits all the buttons of getting reader reaction, such as: "Should have known better" and "how  naive", followed by "I knew it" when learning about the ship owners financial "mishandling." And we have a name for deriving pleasure from another's misfortune.  Because that's what I think makes this a continuing story.  It is Schedenfreude and comes for us all in this current internet age -  popping up over and over...long past its best before date. Maybe this picture works for the story.  Dialogue goes:   Let's feed the crocodiles...Oops. Who knew they can jump 10 feet in the air looking for a mouse and the hand that feeds them. Or we can hope for a happy sunset... Read past POTD's at my Blog: http://blog.marilyncornwell.com Purchase at: FAA - marilyncornwell.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.com

Marilyn's Photos - Nov 8 2026 - They Say it is a Watcy

 

The Weekend Globe and Mail had multiple page ads for Van Cleefs and Arpel, the luxury jewellery company and one of the images was a "watch" and I could not find any hour markings or hands to travel the hours.  It is completely beautiful and the Globe ads were much more appealing than this image from its website.  Can you see anything related to time here? You might notice the price is $377,000. AI can be useful as it gave the explanation for how to tell time below. The VanCleef website says nothing.   ...the time is shown through a unique mechanical blooming system:  Minutes: Displayed via a rotating lateral window / scale located on the side of the watch case.  Hours: Displayed on the dial by counting the number of open flowers. At the top of each hour, the previously open flowers close and a new combination opens to indicate the current hour. This is a splendid discovery.  What an art form - all described and pictured beautifully HERE.  I liked the dirty hands and fingernails holding the pieces being crafted.  Everything in miniature with tiny paint brushes, too. The article in the link above is to an object, a table clock named Butterfly in Flight - 2,070 hours of jewelry work and 1,400 hours for the movement construction and assembly.  Is it first the ice and then the snow, or will the snow come first followed by the ice? We are in Snowvember... Read past POTD's at my Blog: http://blog.marilyncornwell.com Purchase at: FAA - marilyncornwell.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.com

Marilyn's Photos - Nov 7 2026 - The Winter Coat

 

It is soon, isn't it - the WINTER COAT will come out. Other people have gotten their coats out.  There have been days this week when I outside in summer weather to me wearing a top and no coat and other people had parkas on.  I know that the weather will catch up to me but for now it is avoidance of what's coming tactics. Today's coats seem completely different from the coats of 60 and more years ago.  Back then they were heavy wool with heavy pleated shiny satin linings.  I was young, so I don't really remember if they were warm or not.  I expect they were so heavy that we sweated from the work effort of carrying them around on our shoulders.   Typically coats could weigh up to 10 pounds if they were long.   Even when we got feather down coats they weighed around 3 pounds if you got a longer parka or a blizzard coat.  That is an amazing improvement, though.  Jump to where we are today - down coats (and non-feather alternatives) weighing less than a pound - between 300 to 500 grams.  There are now nano-coatings directly to feathers that result in "hydrophobic down."  That development came in the 2010s.  These seem like scientific miracles. The coats of past were put together by sewing the inner and outer fabric layers - but every stitch makes a needle hole and that means wind can leak in.  Remember how the down used to escape?  Now they use laser-welding, gluing and other techniques.   And the linings are made of something completely different.  Do you remember when we got that space-age blanket for the emergency kit?  Those space-age metallics are used in the internal linings.  I guess that explains why we sit out in the winter in those cute igloos at wineries overlooking the Lake.  So now we can say that we have smart winter coats.  I wonder when AI will get embedded in my coat and will start to do my thinking for me.   Here's my draft of the Lotus Leaves and Koi.  This is a watercolour background that I soaked in water and scrubbed to get those scratch lines and diffuse colours.  The Koi and Lotus Leaves were drawn in Photoshop. They are separate images so I can now start to experiment with different colourings, placement and scale. Read past POTD's at my Blog: http://blog.marilyncornwell.com Purchase at: FAA - marilyncornwell.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.com

Marilyn's Photos - Nov 6 2026 - Counting to Trillion

 

I was counting from 1 by adding zeros.  1...10...100... 1000... 10000... 100000... 1000000.... 10000000.  I was doing it in my head visually.  So I thought I would do it on virtual paper today.  Don't those zeros start to jam together?  They need the commas don't they?   When we go from 1 to 10 it is very easy - just an increase of 9.  Like glasses in the cupboard, or forks in the drawer. These are everyday small quantities. Even 1 million is ok - 1000000 or 1,000,000. Lottery win that would get you half a house in Toronto. But look at 1 billion - 1000000000 or 1,000,000,000 and then 1 trillion 1000000000000 or 1,000,000,000,000.  It starts to visually curve to me - like the earth.  The comparison is made in time so we can get a sense of the scale of it: 1 second vs. 10 seconds: Just a few heartbeats apart. 1 million seconds: About 12 days. 1 billion seconds: About 31.7 years. 1 trillion seconds: Over 31,700 years (going back to the last Ice Age).  It says that our human brains evolved to track physical, linear amounts - fruit on a tree or animals in a field - which is why our intuition breaks down when faced with the exponential leaps of large numbers.   There are even huger numbers that scientists work with - think quadrillion or the distance of a light-year.  My focus is  the billions and trillions becoming common numbers, which is what is happening with our government spending and individual worth of the ultra-wealthy.   Here's my point:  how many people making $100,000 a year would it take to reach $1 trillion.  It would take 10 million people.  I got to thinking about the level of disparity in society - with the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer.  I guess it came into sharp focus during the mid-term American elections.   Take our Elon Musk trillionaire with 10 million people's worth of income/money and then the 989 billionaires that Forbes says there are in the U.S. They would account for 9,890,000 people at $100,000  if each billionaire was worth only $1 billion each.  We're now at almost 20 million people.  Could that be some sort of disparity metric? Anyway, these are such big numbers that I think I'll go back to counting spoons and forks in the drawers. This popped up and made me laugh - we need some humour around the time change, don't we? I would like to be counting the forks in this kitchen.  This is at Pearl Morissette.  Read past POTD's at my Blog: http://blog.marilyncornwell.com Purchase at: FAA - marilyncornwell.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.com

Marilyn's Photos - Nov 5 2026 - Strong Words

 

Strong words have been going around over the U.S. elections.  There's particular glee in using these words in the press.  It seems to start with the "Blue wave" which sweeps, rolls over, and covers the U.S.  The definition of "Shellacking" is: a complete, lopsided defeat and is used predominantly in sports and politics. Then there's thumping and disaster. And theres "Crushing midterm rebuke" vs "massive rebuke. " And we wouldn't want to let "Trumped" not be told.  Don't forget "rout."  And the party who loses?  They "suffer" a defeat of some kind.  It could be stunning, or landslide.  There are personal attack strong words:  "Lame Donald Duck" and  "Trump dumped." Then there are the more literary references. The Independent 's headline says the result "delivers a direct strike against the administration's military escalations in Iran." There are references to Bruce Springsteen with "Reborn in the U.S.A."  In media coverage and political analysis strong words count - they get attention and readers start to read.  That most common verb this time?  "Flip" - rather than changing seats.  You can feel the physicality of flip, can't you? And then the thumping and shellacking vs switching sides.  What a difference between everyday language and political and media language.  That's because weak words are considered fillers and strong words are vivid and "punchy" (interesting using a strong word to describe a strong word).  In everyday language here's the comparison that is given: weak:  very good vs strong:  excellent, superb weak: very bad vs strong: terrible, atrocious Up pops up Larry Bell's 12 Powerful Words - they are designed to help students understand test questions, close achievement gaps and boost their academic performance.  They are: trace, analyze, infer, evaluate, formulate, describe, support, explain, summarize, compare, contrast, predict. When we look at the strong vs weak words, it is as though we are writing a novel and need to use vivid language.  When we look at the powerful words, these are the words of investigation and fact-finding. We will move on to that step next in the headlines.  The analysis, the evaluations, the descriptions, explanations, and so on, and finally the predictions for the next two years. Here's my version of wave of blue - the Meconopsis Himalayan Poppy display at Longwood a few years ago.   Read past POTD's at my Blog: http://blog.marilyncornwell.com Purchase at: FAA - marilyncornwell.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.com