Polka Dots

What makes Polka Dots the subject of satire and derision? Baffoons in cartoons are portrayed wearing  polka-dot boxer briefs.  Men should perhaps wear a small repeating polka dot on a tie, particularly a bow tie in black with white dots.  That's what Sir Winston Churchill and his father Lord Randolph Churchill were pictured wearing.  A Polka dot pattern today is seen on children's clothing, toys, furniture, folksy products - but not considered a fashion pattern in our current design context. Polka dots were a design craze in the 19th century.  They gained popularity then because machines started to make fabric and the evenly-spaced dots could be created with machines. The oldtimey.com site tells me that in Medieval Europe, the pattern represented disease and impurity. They also say that in Non-Western cultures, dots are viewed as symbols of male virility and magic.  There's a rite of passage in which a young man, painted in white dots, knocks persistently on a polka-dotted door until it opens. In women's fashion, polka dots have a history dating back to the 1800s. Godey's Lady's book was the first magazine to sport a spotted fabric in print - that was 1857.  It was in reference to a scarf - it was embroidered in rows of round polka dots. From the 1920s to the 1940s, polka dots made their way into popular fashion clothing as well as house accessories.  Minnie Mouse was dressed in a red and white polka dot dress and hair bow.  Popularity continued in the 1950s when Dior created an elegant black dress with white dots, and 1960s fashion continued to play with the design. Today we've relegated polka dots to the context of fun and play.  Sometimes white-on-black dots appear in more formal clothing. That happened at the Golden Globes with Zoe Kravitz in a polka-dotted off-the shoulder Saint Laurent gown.  You should see some of the dresses HERE.  They range from gorgeous to scary. To see the picture history in famous polka dot outfits (including Frank Sinatra in a polka-dot shirt and Marilyn Monroe in her polka dot bikini) click this link HERE.  My own inventory of images contains few tagged with "dot".  This little cactus, though, is perfect.

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Jan 11 2020 - This Year has Numbers

2020 is an interesting year in numbers.  I went looking for combinations that will be interesting - like Feb 2nd 2020 will be 02 02 2020 and you could have time in there to be 02:02 02 02 2020 or 20:20 02 02 2020 with the twenty-four hour clock.  These are the weekend repeating dates. Sunday, February 2nd (02/02/2020) Saturday, April 4th (04/04/2020) Saturday, June 6th (06/06/2020) Saturday, August 8th (08/08/2020) Saturday, October 10th (10/10/2020) Saturday, December 12th (12/12/2020) The weekend repeating dates are listed because one seems to retrieve best wedding dates in 2020. The Guardian came to the rescue with this headline: Did you solve it? 2020 in numbers.   The article is here.  I've extracted two of the questions.  To get the answer for 3.1) you will want to visit the link as a few are presented. 2) Imagine 2020 is not a year but a rugby score, as I’ve scrawled below. This score spells out a word. Can you work out which one? Solution Wipe a tear from your eye. The word is ONION. Rotate the score by 90 degrees anticlockwise and you’ll see. The next question: 3.1) Fill in the blanks in the following ‘countdown’ equation so it makes arithmetical sense: 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 = 2020 You are allowed to use any of the basic mathematical operations, +, –, x, ÷, and as many brackets as you like. An answer might look something like (10 – 9 + 8) x (7 – 6 – 5)/(4 + 3 + 2 + 1) = 2020, but not this one since the equation is incorrect. To see a lot more in numbers for 2020 by mathematician Inder J. Taneja, go HERE.  The introduction says this short work brings representations of 2020 in different situations.  These representations are of crazy-type, running numbers, single digit, single letter... Then there is a revised version.  It is HERE.  It contains the addition of this:

Desert Garden Planting Combinations

I was lucky to be in Pasadena, CA last month and got to see several beautiful desert gardens.  I thought I'd kick off the series on the gardens with some close-up combination plantings.  

In the Huntington Garden:

In the J.P. Getty Museum:

In the Huntington Garden:

In the Huntington Garden:

A Little More Christmas

Allan Gardens is no ordinary garden. It is situated in the heart of Toronto and is more than 150 years old. The garden and the main part of the property was donated by George William Allan, a one-time Mayor of Toronto and long-time Senator.

The park, one of the city's oldest (since 1858), is bounded by Jarvis Street on the west, Sherbourne Street on the east, Carlton Street on the north and Gerrard Street East on the south in Toronto's Garden District. In the centre of the park is a Victorian conservatory known as the Palm House, built in 1909 to replace the pavilion burned in 1902. Rare tropical plants from all over the globe are nurtured inside. Admission is free. 

The trees in the park represent the northern tip of the Carolinian forest with species such as black cherry, American beech, red oak, sugar maple and sassafras. Most are over one hundred years old. The park is home to three varieties of squirrel, the gray, the black, and, unique to this park, the red tailed black squirrel. The park is also home to the city's largest flock of pigeons, a roving peregrine falcon and a statue of Robert Burns. The University of Toronto greenhouse (1931) was moved to the site.