Jan 6 2023 - Uninvited!

 

Who hasn't been invited to King Charles III coronation?  His own son, Prince Harry.  Prince Harry is whining about this on the BBC News.  That news came before the failure of the U.S. Congress to elect its speaker.  On the PBS News, the Speaker story came before the Prince Harry story.    The Speaker and Prince have something in common - succession.  The U.S. Speaker is in the line of succession for president – raising questions about what happens if there’s no one in the position that’s second in line for the presidency after the vice president.  If there's no one in the position, there are no Congress activities, no salaries paid, no committees meeting, no legislation, no investigations.  That seems worrisome, but strangely interesting to me. The Prince Harry story about how he feels poorly treated and gives so many details and circumstances to "justify his case".   This from the Hollywood Reporter on the press:  "The front pages of Friday morning editions of U.K. newspapers were also dominated with coverage of the Netflix series. In typically unrestrained fashion, the Sussexes’ bête noire The Daily Mail invoked the late Queen Elizabeth II by splashing its front page with two unflattering pictures of the couple and the headline, “Palace Anger at ‘Assault on Queen’s Legacy.'” Citing palace insiders, the paper’s royal editor claims that the Sussexes “want to bring down the monarchy.”  That has been followed by many headlines concerned about Succession, asking this question: Can Harry be removed?   The answer is that he can be removed with an Act of Parliament.  The proposal is being made by Bob Seely, a Conservative member of Parliament:   “As well as trashing his family and monetizing his misery for public consumption, [Prince Harry] is also attacking some important institutions in this country,” Isn't this eerily similar to the U.S. battle for the Speaker position?  It seems that the U.S. and Britain are in for a rough ride for a while. Here's one of Buffalo's signature houses on the Buffalo Garden Walk.   Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblog.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwellart.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

July 23 2022 - Musical Conspiracies

 

Yes - it is true.  There are musical conspiracies and hoaxes in the 20th century.  We abound in conspiracies and hoaxes, so why wouldn't there be musical ones.   We all are familiar with the most famous hoax of them all - Paul is Dead.  What are the others?   The other really big one is Elvis Lives!  I hadn't realized there was a conspiracy that the Beatles, the Stones and Bob Dylan formed a secret supergroup "In October 1969, rock critic Greil Marcus wrote (under a false name) an album review for the magazine Rolling Stone. Credited to “The Masked Marauders”, this record was apparently a studio jam featuring John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Bob Dylan and Mick Jagger and released anonymously because the artists were all under contract to different labels. It was all hogwash, of course and a spoof of the bloated “supergroups” of the time. This didn’t stop the editors of the mag from hiring musicians to actually record the songs and release them as an album." There are other "conspiracies" but they seem lame - clones, who wrote what song, who did or didn't play on their albums and so on. Before our time of popular culture with radio and newsprint abounding,  musical conspiracies were uncommon.  I went to Wikipedia - a great source - and found  a lack of conspiracy theories relating to music.  I guess there are so many others, that the musical ones are less significant. In fact, there are so many conspiracies, that Wikipedia  lists them by subject area - e.g medicine, science and technology, sports.  There is no entry for music.  There is an entry for fandom, celebrity relationships and shipping (that's where fans believe fictional characters or real-life celebrities are in a relationship).   Paul is dead seemed silly at the time to me, along with Elvis Lives.  There is such strange stuff out there as part of the every-day.  I wonder how many people could possibly believe these two hoaxes.   A  2014 article from NPR says that 50 percent of Americans believe in at least one conspiracy theory.   I stay with my own theory - that musical conspiracies are the stuff of fluff! This house is unusual in its architecture. I will be missing the Buffalo Garden Walk next weekend, like many people on this side of the border. Here's the famous Harry Potter house/garden.  It is one of the favourite gardens.

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Feb 6 2021 - Two Pairs and Get One Free

 

And in a bound, a pair of Bernie's Mittens are free if you buy two pair - and on sale!  Go to the Jen Ellis website HERE.  It is jenellis.co rather than .com  Oh oh...Right away this doesn't look right.   If she's having a Vermont Teddy Bear company making the mittens, then "Fully Authentic Made by Jen Ellis"  would be incorrect.  vermontteddybear.com is going to be the maker. So it isn't actually Jen Ellis - it is nasmas.com  and also appears as Tysica on some pages. This is "The Home of Plush Toys" with a mailing address listed as Express Lane, Casper, Wyoming.  No such street shows up on the google map - not the company, the address - nothing. Reddit was on to this scam before February with this post HERE on Fake Bernie Sanders mittens scammers.  Scroll down through the post and it is full of demented postings - I've warned you...   So I get my accelerated education on scamming: I hadn't realized how many scammers there are in online shopping.  An Australian government website at https://www.scamwatch.gov.au/types-of-scams/buying-or-selling/online-shopping-scams.  explains this.  One can find out the top 10 Canadian Scams, or look at the Little Black Book of Scams which lists all the varieties out there. I reformulated the search and found vtdigger.org i-dentifying the scam sites of  Bernie Sanders mittens. Here's the article on the scams HERE.  There just seem to be so many. I am amazed at where the trail leads some days.  All I wanted was an update on the total $ raised for charity and I find out that according to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre, fake cottage rentals, puppy sales, online loan fraud and a host of other scams have cost Canadians at least $37,447,790 by October 2020.   A project I am working on right now is an explanation of the criteria for judging front yard gardens.   People have asked for comparisons of excellent gardens and lesser ones.  But whose gardens can you use for the "poor" gardens?  That is a delicate and difficult area.   So I'm looking through Buffalo Garden Walk front yards to get the comparison images.  It is always fun to find the outstanding examples - like this one - a wonderful focal point on a Summer district cottage front door. It is beautifully framed by symmetrical pots of red coleus plants, matching the red flowers in the basket on the door. Purchase at: FAA - marilyncornwellart.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

Done Duplicating

Our method of duplicating things has changed a number of times in the last 40 years. For our every day world of paper, duplicating machines such as Gestetner machines were the economical copiers we first saw in the school office along with the carbon paper copier - known as spirit duplicators.  I haven't seen carbon paper for decades.  It is still produced and used today for things like copying patterns onto fabric. I don't remember the beginning of photocopying.  They came into use in 1959.  My experience was during University, copying textbook sections or literary articles. I do remember word processing.  We were able to use word processing programs on the IBM and DEC mainframe computers in the late 1970s. And then in the early 1980s as I worked on my MBA, we were able to produce our thesis on an early personal computer. So we've experienced some distinct methods of duplicating words on paper.   Our picture today is a favourite front door in Buffalo in the Summer Street district.  I take the same picture each year as I greatly admire the flowers on the door.  Our first picture is 2019 and the second one is 2018.

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July 31st Last Day of Summer - really?

It seems true, doesn't it, that July 31st is the last day of summer.  We know that August will bring "Back to School" ad campaigns.  We are eternally going back to school regardless of our ages. So August has become an in-between month.  In the gardening realm, there aren't any garden tours.  Most garden societies don't have an August meeting.  Most of the garden centres have reduced stock and hours. The general state of things can be seen in the August celebrations:  sandwich month foot health month national catfish month romance awareness month national water quality month I found a 'get ready for kindergarten month'. What was notable in August each year was the arrival of the Eaton's Catalogue.  Janet and I would look at every page and decide on our favourite items amongst the products available.  Well, we didn't exactly look at every page.  We looked at all the ones related to house, home and apparel. This had no relationship to purchasing. Things were not often purchased from the catalogue, only rarely.  And definitely not by us.  But it became a consumer's bible, training us from an early age to discern between product design, features and price.  That now seems like a lot of training in making simple choices and decisions. I took this picture while visiting with the Buffalo Walk front porch gardener in yesterday's picture.  She was as surprised as I was to see this.

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Buffalo Garden Walk

The 25th anniversary of the Buffalo Garden Walk was this past weekend.  More than 400 gardens are now on the self-guided, free walking tour in Buffalo.  It is a city of splendid Victorian architecture with Frederick Law Olmsted-designed parks.   Even in its first year in 1993 there were 29 gardens.  In 2019, Park Meadow and Parkside neighbourhoods joined the Walk to reach the over-400 mark.  This year's highlight is a book about the gardens.  Buffalo Style Gardens is authored by Sally Cunningham and Jim Charlier.  Sally is a garden writer and broadcaster. Jim is one of the main Buffalo Garden Walk ambassadors.  He is the owner of the Harry Potter themed garden - a memorable house and garden.   He claims that he does not love his tool shed more than his daughter.  This year I got to see the Buffalo and Erie Conservatory.  It is a massive structure designed by Lord & Burnham.  It is considered one of their greatest accomplishments. Our pictures show the diversity of Buffalo's garden architecture and style.  The great dome of the conservatory is followed by one of the Summer Street cottage gardens.

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Need a Coupon?

Is it ever national coupon day?  Coupons take up a whole month - September. When did coupons start? In 1887, it was Coca-Cola who first got customers hooked on coupons. In 2011 311 billion coupons were distributed and 3.5 billion were redeemed. Food accounts for 65.7% of the coupons.  One site told me that every American could get more than 1,000 coupons a year.  That's more than the Roman Catholic Saints.  We'd be purchasing like mad - using almost 3 a day. Social media has brought couponing to new levels - with 40% of young adults trading and swapping coupons on social media.  Here's a pictorial history of coupons:   Let's enjoy some summer whether on Summer Street in Buffalo - here are two of the houses in the Buffalo Garden Walk.  I call the pink house - The Bubble House.  This cottage district named Little Summer was developed by Lydia Cox in the 1870's.  The street is closed to traffic and the tens of thousands of garden visitors take over.

New this Christmas!

New This Christmas! Is there something new this Christmas?  We who are older seem to have seen everything Christmas. So what could be new this year? It's right in front of us:  this is a Trump Christmas! What's different about a Trump Christmas? By Tara McKelvey BBC White House Reporter "It was a warm day at the White House with the scent of roses in the air and it hardly felt like Christmas.  Yet the holiday season was in full swing - a week earlier than many of his predecessors chose to begin.  Trump likes to do things differently, though.  In that spirit, here are five ways that his Christmas is unique." 1. It started before Thanksgiving This year the tree arrived early - three days before Thanksgiving - apparently because of the president's travel plans.  2. No more 'Happy Holidays' During the presidential campaign, Trump would tell his supporters that people would soon be saying "Merry Christmas" again, instead of "happy holidays", which he has derided as politically correct. 3. A special present for the people  It's not the kind of gift you'll find under the tree. Tax cuts don't come covered in wrapping paper. The president has described his proposed tax cuts as "a great, big, beautiful Christmas present" for Americans. 4. No pet photos He's the first president in more than a century without a pet - so no cute pictures of a first dog, marking another departure from tradition.  5. 'Bah, humbug' for the media Under previous administrations, the president held a press conference in the briefing room in December. Trump's not likely to do that.  One administration aide told me that she thinks it's beneath him to appear in the briefing room. Instead the president talks to reporters on the south lawn, in the Oval Office or on Air Force One, places where he seems to feel comfortable. Besides that, he's invited a smaller number of reporters to the White House to celebrate the holidays.  The party invitations have gone out, but a CNN spokesperson said they weren't going to attend because of "the president's continued attacks on freedom of the press and CNN". That suits people who work for the president just fine. Our picture today comes from the Buffalo Garden Walk this year - it is here to distract us from our Trump Christmas - a festive Flamingo display in one front garden.