Showing posts with label curves. Show all posts
Showing posts with label curves. Show all posts

Friday, October 2, 2020

Oct 2 2020 - Ladies and Gentlemen, Everyone

 

"Ladies and Gentlemen"  - what might come next? This is a salutation to an audience of some sort.  It started off as gentlemen and gentlewomen - that was around 1586 to 1591.

This was an expression of flattery - implying the audience is of higher social status. Gentlemen referred to a man (in the 1500s) who didn't have to work for a living - particularly doing labour.  They would therefore be of a higher social standing.  A gentlewoman had standing in their own right, so the expression became ladies - who were the 'wife of' someone, and also someone of noble birth or background.   

The twentieth century demolished all of the notions of the term ladies with the waves of feminism, impacting culture and politics.  Lady became a pejorative term, and re-emerged in subversive representations in names like Lady Gaga. The same is true of gentleman.  It too has been destabilized as an expression of superior standing in society.

An expression that came into popularity was 'The Guy'.  It comes from the Latin Guido, made famous in Britain by Guy Fawkes.  Did you know that the celebration of Bonfire Night in the UK included clothed effigies of straw named 'guys' who are thrown into the bonfire?  This is supposedly still done today (well there still re bonfires). The term guy became associated with shabby dress or strange appearance, and was meant to ridicule or insult.  By the 20th century it became a casual term.  It still had gender associations, so with the waves of feminism, it has been cast off having failed to make gender-neutral replacement.

Hence the term 'everyone'.  General, inclusive, vague of sexuality.  Now we ask is is "Hello everyone" or is it "Hello to everyone" or could we use "Hello everybody".  That's our public address question today.

There are expressions with 'everyone' in them like everyone and his uncle.  Are there jokes about everyone and his uncle? No.   Instead I found jokes that everyonelaugh at. There's a guy in this one.

A preacher dies, and when he gets to Heaven, he sees a New York cab driver who is wearing a better robe and staff. He says to an angel, "I don't get it. I devoted my whole life to my congregation."

The angel says, "We reward results. Did your congregation always pay attention when you gave a sermon?"

The preacher says, "Once in a while someone fell asleep."

The angel says, "Right. And when people rode in this guy's taxi, they not only stayed awake, but they usually prayed!"


Isn't this an amazing picture?  It is the ceiling of the above-ground walkway between the Eaton's Centre and The Bay/Simpsons. I took this picture in Toronto in January when I checked out Eataly.  
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Monday, September 30, 2019

Eugene and Delilah

The name Eugene and the the field of eugenics trace from the same origin - Greek - to be 'well-born'.  This seems like a vintage name to me.

Baby-naming trends remain somewhat stable: Liam and Emma continue to be the most popular names.  Noah, William, James and Oliver and then Olivia, Ava, Isabella and Sophia.

But "vintage" names are moving up. Arthur has jumped back into popular names after almost 100 years since it was last listed.  There's Calvin,  Emerson, Amos, Edgar, Chester, Tucker for boys.

What about Ada?  It started a comeback in 2018. Then there's 
Delilah, Ayla, Zoe, Margot and Felicity.

Supposedly researchers had found that names influence the choice of profession, where we live, whom we marry, grades achieved, and so on.  The original study took place in 1948 and was widely repeated, always finding that unusual names were more likely to have 'flunked' out of Harvard or to have exhibited signs of psychological neurosis, and so on.  

But the link between names and longevity, career choice and success, geographic and marriage preferences, and academic achievement has been questioned and disproven.  What has been proven is that names 'signal' things - like ethnicity, wealth, and country of origin and give a sense of economic status.  And then the receiver treats the person as such.  


So the likely question parents should ask is:  What signals does this name send and what does it imply?    That would be useful for parents who name their daughter Delilah.

Today's images are of driftwood on the beach in Salt Spring Island.
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Wednesday, January 25, 2017

Harry Potter Party Time

At yesterday's Grimsby Festival of Arts meeting, we were in agreement that Harry Potter activities would be popular with the children.

I found the pottermore.com site and then the harrypotter-games.net - these are big, commercial sites.  So I moved on to the trivia and quiz sites.

Finally I checked out Harry Potter Party Supplies and Harry Potter party games.  There are 31 ways to throw the ultimate Harry Potter Birthday Party according  buzzfeed.com - a fun article.

Are there Harry Potter jokes? There are lots of Harry Potter jokes:

On a scale from one to ten, how obsessed with Harry Potter are you?
About nine and three quarters.

Why did Professor Snape stand in the middle of the road?
So you'll never know which side he's on.

What do you call a Hufflepuff with one brain cell?
Gifted.
What do you call a Hufflepuff with two brain cells?
Pregnant.

How many Muggles does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
One. It is the only thing they are good for.

source: http://www.jokes4us.com/celebrityjokes/harrypotterjokes.html

(We could start on Lord of the Rings jokes:
What do you call a hobbit party?
A little get together. )

 
Today's pictures are colour interpretations of tree bark and come from the landscape of Pasadena.  I wanted to create a sense of precious stones and metals. 

Thursday, January 7, 2016

The Universality of Curves

It is Ukrainian Christmas today.  With many Ukrainians in Niagara and Ontario, there's a tradition for the rest of us to leave our Christmas trees up for this date.  Ours came down earlier, due to the activities of Baxter the cat.  He started to consider the tree something to take down himself, perhaps a desire to get into the cat Christmas videos.  

Our pictures today focus on curves.  As I take pictures of urban decay, I find that the shapes, patterns and lines of wear and tear are the same as those in nature's own processes.  The first picture is wear and tear  on a billboard sign.  The plastic material wears away in arcs and curves.  The second picture is ice, with some abstract filters applied to create the extreme colours.  It too has formed in arcs and curves.

I found this explanation for the puddle freezing into ice:

"The shallowness of this puddle suggests that it rapidly froze; only a thin water layer remained below the puddle. Then the fast-falling temperatures likely caused the ice to contract, which produced the cracking. Continued cooling widened the cracks. The ring pattern shows that the main direction of the stress force was radial, but the scalloped pattern along the rings shows that some stress varied with angle around the center. The small amount of water that didn't freeze rose into the cracks due to the hydrostatic pressure of the ice above and capillary action. Water in the rings then froze and expanded, and as it did it widened the rings and also directed the remaining small amount of liquid to the top of the ice. The slight bulges on the bottom of the rings were remnants of its last contact with the deepest water. In other words, the unfrozen water at the bottom of the puddle was, in essence, pushed and suctioned into the cracks." from Douglas Stith's website
 

Monday, October 5, 2015

It's Black and White

This was a sign outside a store in Niagara-on-the-Lake, and I looked for it this year, but the store has changed and the sign is gone.  It made for wonderful abstracts with its distinct black and white curves and circles.

Saturday, August 16, 2014

Glass Curves


We were in Kingston Ontario this week and visited a glass gallery.  The frosted glass was perfect for photography - no reflections to deal with and the colours and shapes of the glass were wonderful.










Thursday, June 26, 2014

Abstracts in the City - the AGO Staircase


I climbed the staircase in the AGO for the first time.  I can imagine that this is the first of many times.  There is a lot to see in the curves, lines, textures and details.  There will be interesting differences with the change in light and time of day.  

It is great to have a city like Toronto to be able to explore in.



Monday, February 17, 2014

Marvelling the Mushroom Series

Hi everyone,
Here are a few more images in the Marvelling the Mushroom Series.  These are macro images of the underside gills of mushrooms.  They reveal the rich patterns and textures in nature's micro landscapes.






Thursday, October 25, 2012

Abstracts in Black and White

Such interesting experiences to find black and white in this colourful world.  The first image is a close-up of the Triad sculpture on Front Street in Toronto, and the second is a wall at the Seattle Aquarium.  







Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Snow Cliffs of Toronto

St. Thomas street is home to the WIndsor Arms Hotel and to outstanding condominiums of great expense.  This abstract is created from the marble wall along the side of one of the condos.  Each panel is carved by a separate artisan, and the wall assembled in a long row.  This is winter's view.