Marilyn's Photos - Apr 4 2026 - Last Call for Chocolate

 

This being the chocolate holiday of the year, news organizations of any sort are exposing the sad demise of chocolate bars into chocolate candy.  I remember when cheese got changed into  cheese food, and those thin slices showed up in the grocery store in the 1950s.  I remember knowing as a child that they didn't taste good.  This chocolate demise is attributed to chocolate crops in crises due to climate change. The price of chocolate spiked at an all-time high in 2024.  It is valued per tonne, so it was over US $12,000 a tonne in 2024, up 400% - $3,300 in 2023. The price has gone down through most of 2025, but the crises hasn't gone away.  Drought in West Africa and crop disease are the two factors that are here to stay. Seventy percent of the world's cocoa is grown in West Africa.    Reese's Peanut Butter Cups have changed so much that the Reese grandson now refuses to eat them - after having spent a lifetime consuming a butter cup a day. He is showcased in all of the articles on chocolate's flavour demise. It turns out that the Skylon Tower was financed by Reese's Chocolate owner C.Richard Reese, son of the original inventor.  There's the idea that the tower's observation deck was modelled to look like a peanut butter cup. Gerry and I worked at the /Skylon Tower in 1970. There was a Reese's connection with one of the relatives running the Canadian Gift Shop where I worked.  I remember that all the candy was stored in a locked wire cage in the storage room - and that there were a lot of Reese's Chocolate Cups on the shelves then.  It makes me think chocolate has been extraordinarily popular since forever. I found archival footage of Niagara Falls and the Skylon Tower from the 1970s HERE.    This Easter display at the Niagara Falls Floral Showcase Greenhouse is from 2011.  They have never had a display like this again.

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Marilyn's Photos - Apr 3 2026 - Word Salad

 

That is the reason I read the news online and in the newspaper every day.  There is much to keep up with.   Today's headline holds the expression "word salad" - it means a confused, incoherent mixture of random words and phrases that lack meaningful connection.  It was an accusation headline - someone knowingly committing word salad talk. The most recent accusations are pointed to American politicians.  Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are the two most quoted.  In the U.K. Boris Johnson was known for producing "complete word salad."  The British are very sensitive to political nonsense-speak and accuse Keir Starmer of the same.  Emmanuel Macron is known for long, philosophical, and complex sentence structures that are described as word salad - avoiding clear positioning during crises. Mostly, though, European leaders are accused or evasiveness.  The expression originated from German or French psychiatrists in the late 19th century who were describing incoherent, nonsensical speech associated with schizophrenia, dementia or brain injury.  It was a technical psychiatric term.   Today it is used to describe what is considered intentionally vague, incoherent, or nonsensical speech - and generally applies to politicians or public figures.   And why not have a word salad daily puzzle?  What makes it ironic is that it says it will keep your brain sharp and focused.  Or we could go for some word salad jokes each day - I guess maybe not every day when you look at this one - a Garfield Joke: "Why do they call it oven, when you of in the cold food of out hot eat the food?" And the explanation below the joke: Explain Bear:  Listen here, you bottom-tier thinker. This is a classic word-salad meme. It puns "oven" with "of in" and then descends into pure gibberish. You're probably still trying to find the verb in this sentence, but your brain is currently buffering. It's supposed to make no sense.   So what would a word salad picture look like? I came upon this - one of my grunge pictures. The shapes are known and familiar, and the placement has a nice elegance to it.  But then all around this order is a mess of scratches, peeling paint, and decay.  I think if we placed some letters/words in the circle, this would make an excellet word salad picture.  I'll get to work with a good quote.

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Marilyn's Photos - Apr 2 2026 - 3 Mona Lisas

 

We are berserk over the Mona Lisa. I think we could say The Mona Lisa. It is the most studied painting in the world. Thousands of experts have formally analyzed, studied and scientifically examined the painting over its 500-year history.  There's ongoing research into its chemical composition, the possible medial diagnosis of the subject, the psychological effect of her smile by Freud, and the perception of her smile on study participants.  Over 30,000 people view the painting every single day at the Louvre. That makes millions annually. So when I see a headline that there are 3 Mona Lisas with a YouTube video by Russell Lee explaining them is HERE I paid attention.  Given the video is an hour, I looked for some news articles to find out the story.   1. There's the Louvre Mona Lisa in Paris - it is the one that we all know. 2. The Prado Mona Lisa in Madrid, restored in 2012 and likely painted by a student in Leonardo's studio at the same time as the original.  It is painted from a slightly different angle, so some researchers suggest the two together form the first 3D/stereoscopic image in history. 3. The Isleworth Mona Lisa in a private collection, known as the Earlier Mona Lisa, depicts a younger looking Mona Lisa.  It is the most interesting of the two non-Louvre versions.  There's a lot of work going into the analysis of whether Leonardo painted some or most of it. The compelling attraction of this work to scientists is remarkable. One of the first descriptions of the work was in 1550, indicating its fascination to us. In 2004 and 2005 an international team of 39 specialists did a thorough scientific examination of the Mona Lisa. Over time, thousands of critics, historians and scholars have analyzed the subject, techniques, chemistry of the paint, and composition.  I think there isn't anything that hasn't been analyzed.   Here is the Prado and the Louvre Mona Lisas - the Prado was cleaned and it certainly has better colours than the aged and yellowing Louvre version.  And a cute beehive gazebo at Winterthur in mid-Spring.

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Marilyn's Photos - Apr 1 2026 - Look for the Joke!

 

It is April 1st.  A day of mischievous fun.  The results are in.  I know, everything happens so fast these days. IKEA X Chupa Chups - a meatball lollipop Babybel the cheese people have made a peelable cheese covered in chocolate. DASH X KitKat - Dash is a healthy drink brand and they have a new cherry-chocolate flavour Dyson - that vacuum and hair dryer brand has a styling aid for pets that makes them look like girls.  There must be better things for April Fool's Day than what I found above and HERE.   There are.   It is Traegar's MEAT-AI Grilling Glasses - it has a heads-up temperature and time display that is projected directly on your field of vision, with doneness detection, meat vision for correct cutting the slices, night vision to sear in the dark, and a "capture your cooks" to document your bbq moment.  Scrolling a bit, I found an excellent article that seemed funny as well. It is a description of  how a person uses ChatGPT to get his brain going again when he's been scrolling too much and using ChatGPT's agreeable responses too much. He has chosen the word potato to be an alert for ChatGPT to act as a "Hostile Critic" - and "point out three specific ways his argument could fail, two assumptions he's making without proof, and one counter-argument he hasn't addressed. Do not be polite: be precise."   The author says: it is a productivity powerhouse!  I vote for this one to be the April Fool's Joke today. I find this picture every so often in the archives. It was taken at Cannon Beach in Oregon.  It points to the Haystack Rock which is covered in birds, seals and puffins.

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Marilyn's Photos - Mar 31 2026 - Teen Slang

 

We like to have lists of slang words for various cultures/countries.  Even before social media there was a generational slang word system.  I guess it was mass media - TV and radio that set this off.   Is there any possibility of catching up?  How many slang words and expressions do we need to learn to understand a teen conversation.  Or do we need a Babel Fish to have a conversation with a young person today? I vote for a babel fish, based on surveying the expressions.  Here's the beginning of a short list:  21 — 9+10=21 is an incorrect answer to a math problem, which was first spoken online in a Vine video. 6 7 — This refers to a lyric in a song that's used in a video edit of American basketball player LaMelo Ball, who is 6'7". A mood — A relatable feeling or situation (often shortened to the single word, “mood”) And that’s on [something] — Used to indicate that you’ve just shared a truth that needs no further discussion ASL — Age/sex/location Ate that — Means you successfully did something; you pulled it off. Example: “I saw your prom pics on insta, you totally ate that look.” Aura points — A term used to determine how cool, or not, you are Aura farming —Doing activities to cultivate your aura Bae — Significant other or crush Basic — Someone who is viewed as boring or a conforming person Beige flag — A quality or characteristic of a significant other that is weird or off-putting, but not enough to reject them Bet — A response indicating agreement. Example: “Wanna go to the store?” “Bet.” it goes on and on HERE.   Take a look through the list.  I particularly enjoyed beige flag. But when I started to scroll the entire list, there I was skipping to the end - a simple truth that I am not impacted by learning or not learning this language. That's compared to the writers of articles on this topic - typically teachers, parents, and website contributors.  People make their living dealing with teenagers.   Here's a famous blue flower - Meconopsis Poppy or Himalayan Poppy.  This was at Longwood Gardens a few years ago - they grow it in the greenhouses as it has very particular requirements. Being a mountain flower, it wants cool, moist and shady conditions that they would have in an alpine woodland habitat. Rich, well-draining soil is key.

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Mairlyn's Photos - Mar 30 2026 - Musical

 

Musical notation has existed for 3,400 to 4,000 years.  The standard Western musical notation developed in Europe around 1,000 years ago.  And most of us took some form of musical notation training in public school.   Compare that to dance notation - it has existed for a shorter time - for 500 years or more. The earliest known attempts to record dance movements date to the late 15th century. Good thing Shakespeare wasn't a choreographer, or we would be pretty empty-handed in terms of documentation.  When we took dance lessens as children, there were no dance notes to take home to practice.  There was lots of music to take home to practice on the piano.  No wonder music lessons lasted a lot longer than dance lessons.  Here's an example of dance notation from Wikipedia.  La Cachucha, by Friedrich Albert Zorn using Zorn Notation.   I would guess the percent of the population that can read dance notation would be well under 1%.  For musical notation, it is only 5-12% of the population that can read music.  For word literacy, it is approximately 87% of the global population aged 15 or older can read and write.  It was 1 in 10 in 1820.   I got to thinking about notation systems yesterday.  I found an extended version of "Three Notes Walk into a Bar".  It seems to combine everything humorous about musical language and the written/spoken word.     C, E-flat, and G go into a bar. The bartender says, "Sorry, but we don't serve minors." So E-flat leaves, and C and G have an open fifth between them. After a few drinks, the fifth is diminished, and G is out flat. F comes in and tries to augment the situation, but is not sharp enough. D comes in and heads for the bathroom, saying, "Excuse me; I'll just be a second." Then A comes in, but the bartender is not convinced that this relative of C is not a minor. Then the bartender notices B-flat hiding at the end of the bar and says, "Get out! You're the seventh minor I've found in this bar tonight."  E-flat comes back the next night in a three-piece suit with nicely shined shoes. The bartender says, "You're looking sharp tonight. Come on in, this could be a major development." Sure enough, E-flat soon takes off his suit and everything else, and is au natural. Eventually C sobers up and realizes in horror that he's under a rest. C is brought to trial, found guilty of contributing to the diminution of a minor, and is sentenced to 10 years of D.S. without Coda at an upscale correctional facility. The conviction is overturned on appeal, however, and C is found innocent of any wrongdoing, even accidental, and that all accusations to the contrary are bassless. The bartender decides, however, that since he's only had tenor so patrons, the soprano out in the bathroom and everything has become alto much treble, he needs a rest and closes the bar." The Spring flowers are just starting to show at the pop-up stands.  I was able to get a flat of Muscari /Grape Hyacinth along Fourth Avenue on Saturday.  Such a beautiful blue. This picture is from a few years ago, when they first showed up.

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Marilyn's Photos - Mar 29 2026 - The Space Between

 

Do we pay attention to the spaces between?  The physical gap, distance or interval separating objects, words, or moments.  Is a musical note an object or a word?   The Japanese word for this is "Ma." It represents areas for potential growth, mindfulness, and calm amidst daily activity.   That is how I consider the end of March - it is a time between - winter has ended, but has Spring begun? Most people want Spring to start, so they are in anticipation and in that space between.   It makes me wonder how do people determine that Spring has begun.  There are three areas in nature: Migration - there are legions of Robins everywhere.  That certainly is a sign of Spring. Blooming flowers - there are snowdrops, crocuses, irises.  It likely is the daffodil that is  the defining flower of Spring.  So we are not at Spring yet. No Snow - daytime temperatures staying consistently in the no snow zone - not like yesterday's mini-blizzard for a few minutes. We're definitely pre-Spring when it comes to snow. We can get snow into April. It might only be a blizzard moment, but it weighs on the mind.  That widely varying temperature range keeps people from embracing the arrival of Spring.   The average snowfall in April in Centra Ontario is a discouraging chart to review.  While it says 2.1 inches/5.4 centimetres, we want assurance that the snowfall is happening at the beginning of April rather than the end. So here we are at the interval between, and a musical interpretation of difficult times.

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