Dec 2 2022 - Merry Christmas

 

It is everywhere "Merry Christmas".   "Why don't people wish you a Festive Christmas? And a Merry New Year?  In fact, why is Christmas merry when no other occasion seems to be?  After all, you probably don't wish people a Merry Birthday very often. You probably also don't hear many Merry Hanukkahs or Merry Ramadans either! What's the deal? Historians and linguists can't pinpoint for sure exactly why we tend to use Merry Christmas. The greeting dates back to at least 1534 in London, when it was written in a letter sent to Henry VIII's chief minister Thomas Cromwell from bishop John Fisher. Scholars also note the phrase was used in the 16th century English carol "We Wish You a Merry Christmas." That's from an article that explains the Christmas expression. A big milestone was Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. That was in 1843.  But still,  The Night Before Christmas by Clement C. Moore ends with  "A Happy Christmas to all and to all a good night." The article goes on to say that Happy Christmas tends to be used in Great Britain.   Merry is associated with boisterousness and intoxication, as in "making merry."  I remember that from Dicken's Christmas Carol, too. I find the expression  sounds as it means - cheerful and lively.  That's versus happy which wants more depth of feeling - contented, joyful, satisfaction and fulfillment.  That's a lot to ask of Christmas, to my mind.   Maybe it wasn't too much to ask for way back then.   I expect that was the hope of the christian churches during all those ages past.  The result would be that by having a celebratory context they could reiterate the events of the faith's foundation.  And the results would be increased commitment to the church.  Maybe even contentment with the church. In North America a poll asked Americans if they prefer Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays, it was almost an even split.  Of course, they were asked "when they go to a store, which greeting do they prefer?"  I guess North Americans will spend more time in department stores than in religious centres at Christmas.  I bet all first world countries do. We have ignored where the word Christmas comes from - because pretty well "Christ's mass" explains it. That was the 12th century.  Adding Merry to it brings out the celebration aspects to my mind. A display of heritage ornaments at the Centennial Greenhouse in Toronto.   Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblog.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwellart.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

Dec 11 2021 - Oxford has the word for 2021

 

Is choosing the word of the year a sizeable task?  Does it carry prestige for those involved?  Oxford English Dictionary's word of the year for 2021 is unsurprisingly "Vax".  I expect they did a google search and were done.   The BBC would consider this a prestigious activity as their headline in November was:  "Vax declared Oxford English Dictionary's word of the year."  I can hear the bells ringing at noon on November 1st, 2021.  The word is out!   The OED senior editor is Fiona McPerson and what was her official comment?  "Vax was an obvious choice as it has made the most striking impact."  I don't think it takes a senior editor to determine that vax was seldom used until 2021.   You likely know that tax comes from the Latin word vac, which means cow.  According to the OED, this is due to English physician and scientist Edward Jenner's pioneering work on vaccination against smallpox using cowpox - a mild infection that occurs in cows - in the late 1790s and early 1800s. The more interesting story is that the first anti-vaxxers through they would give birth to half-cow babies.  That was in the early 19th century when British people finally had access to the first vaccine in history, which was for smallpox. That was a deadly disease.  The anti-vaxxers went to great lengths:  the injection of cow material into a human body could cause a person to begin to resemble a cow, sprouting actual horns out of his head and hoofs in place of feet. And so on.  What won out then was mandatory vaccinations that lead to the massive drop in cases and deaths, without resulting in any cow-babies.  We don't know what will happen this time.  I guess the advice would be:  stay tuned. And the word of the year amongst other experts - Collins Dictionary's word of the year is NFT - non-fungible token.  Something that has caused a great stir, but not likely to lead to riots.    Distortion is the subject of our images today - decorations from the Fantasy of Trees to create some swirly abstracts.

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Dec 10 2021 - How Many Decorations

 

This year I had the task of buying ornaments for one of the trees at Fantasy of Trees.  The sponsor representative decorated the tree with what I'd purchased.   I hadn't done this before and realized I didn't know how many ornaments to buy or how much ribbon for a garland.  So off I went to the internet and got the expert advice. The advice turns out to be this: For a tree under 9 feet, it is typical to have 10 to 20 ornaments per foot.  So the six foot tree would have somewhere around 60 to 120 dangling ornaments and whatever things of interest you decide to decorate it with.  That's a lot of stuff!  These are trees on display in a festival, so it seems to me that more is better, and variety and novelty would be important. Artificial trees are complicated now - or perhaps diverse. There are more dimensions to account for than just height.  There's the circumference/shape - full, slim, pencil - from 48 inches down to 21 inches.  And then there's style of the evergreen - plastic tips in various evergreens, to single evergreen type. And the number of them to make a full-looking tree. And finally, there is the finishing - sparkled, cashmere, and flocked.  Cashmere is a light dusting of fake snow, and flocked as fully snow-covered. A decorated tree is a visual composition, and wants to be created according to visual art rules.  It wants to have garland or ribbon of some sort to create lines for the eye to follow to view the tree. There are horizontal patterns, vertical and diagonal.  The old days of popcorn strings are replaced with fancy ribbons and faux fur. Tinsel is now considered optional and that likely is due to the garland taking dominance. A tree wants a satisfying topper - sufficient to make the eye travel to the top and land there for a short time. There are far more approaches now than stars - tree toppers can be startling and fun. In addition, there should be  focal points in the visual pattern field.  These are larger items in the tree or perhaps signs with cute sayings.  They give the eye something to stop at and enjoy. Finally the bottom of the tree needs a skirt with substance so the skinny stand doesn't show.  There are decorative tree collars that completely hide the bottom of the tree.  These look something like elegant barrels beneath the tree.   My plaid theme meant that the Dollarama Store turned out to be my friend.  There were ornaments in the shapes of stars and covered in plaid.  There were Santas on sleighs wearing plaid, there were stockings by the fire in plaid, little winter boots, cute dogs, and elves.  Even oven mitts and towels for under the tree.  Everything under $4.00 and most things $2.00.   Tree skirts edged in plaid.   This is a telling story about our disposable society and the industrial production of goods. There's an 80% chance that the artificial Christmas trees were made in China in one region with 500 Christmas goods factories.   There's a long history of children's jokes about Christmas trees: How do Christmas trees get ready for a night out? They spruce up. Where do young trees learn to become Christmas trees? Elementree school. What was the Christmas tree’s favorite thing about Star Trek? The Captain’s log. What did the Jedi say to the Christmas tree? May the forest be with you.

Nov 30 2021 - We Never Count the Flowers

 

Have you thought about flowers on cakes?  Sylvia Weinstock, famous American cake master, died at 91 this week.  Ten foot tall wedding cakes.  Baker and cake-decorator are understatements here.  Her specialty was buttercream and stencilled patterns.  Sometimes there were thousands of hand-painted sugar flowers.  The repeated quote is:  "We never count the flowers on a cake. Rather, we add, and add, and add until it pleases the eye." The wedding cake for Joe Manganiello and Sofia Vergara's wedding was estimated at $50,000. That's US.  If you search for Sylvia Weinstock most famous wedding cake and look at the images, there is an amazing display of creativity and vibrant colours.   More like floral arrangements.  Who would guess a cake is beneath these flowers.    The world of extravagant wedding cakes is covered in this article HERE. There seems to be quite a few wedding cake makers who are sculptors of sugar.  She didn't make the largest wedding cake of all times.  That was chefs at Mohegan Sun Casino - 6.8 tons of cake in the US in 2004. These all remind me of the Christmas trees at the Fantasy of Trees. The trees are like confections, pleasing the eye. Here's Santa from a few years ago.  This year it was outside with distancing so not the best scenes.

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Nov 28 2021 - Getting to Know You

 

There were no classes in Greek when I went to school - not during school hours.  There was a boy in high school who took Greek after class - I don't recall what kind of offering this was.  He was a mot intellectual type and very pleased with such a distinctive undertaking.  That's why we all got a jolt of Greek letter education this week to find out the Omicron is a Greek letter. It follow Nu and Xi.  Xi is the first name of the Chinese president, so this would be weird - retrieving COVID and the Chinese President on a Google search.  And why not "nu"? - it is too easily confounded with "new".  Can you imagine the automatic spellcheck fixing that all the time?   But WHO says it is because the agency's best practices for naming diseases suggest avoiding "causing offence to any cultural, social, national, regional, professional or ethnic groups."   So I guess Delta airlines is not anything to worry about. We missed out on iota, as in not one iota - this expression comes from the Bible (Matthew 5:18): "For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished."   I see a this as a great Holiday gift and ornament on the tree this year - it could have circled variants "of concern".  It will be joined by the "Dog Pooping 2020" ornament made by a B.C. woman who can't keep up with demand.  I can't see putting that on the next tree anywhere near the cookies and cakes and donuts below.  This is one of the holiday trees in the Fantasy of Trees this year.

Dec 20 2020 - Christmas Covid Decorations

 

We've seen that COVID symbol for most of the year.   Here it its official illustration with key parts labelled. Who is the blue one? That's measles.  Very similar.

These were created by the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention to show structure. They reveal ultrastructural morphology exhibited by coronaviruses.  "Note the spikes that adorn the outer surface of the virus, which impart the look of a corona surrounding the virion, when viewed electron microscopically. In this view, the protein particles E, S, and M, also located on the outer surface of the particle, have all been labeled as well. A novel coronavirus, named Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), was identified as the cause of an outbreak of respiratory illness first detected in Wuhan, China in 2019. The illness caused by this virus has been named coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)." The COVID picture showed up everywhere.  Being a pandemic, it needed to be identifiable right away.  I looked through the CDC site's inventory of images of diseases.  If you want to check them out, here's the LINK.  And here's the full resource library of various images HERE. Did you consider getting a decoration for your tree based on virus decorations?  There's everything -  virus, masked Santa, toilet paper, first responder, hand sanitizer, zoom meeting, lysol wipes, quarantine baking, puppy love...  The article/pictures are HERE.  I liked this one below with most of the elements in one decoration.  I predict we will be putting these on the tree in years to come - it will stand up to the pickle and the spider web as enduring Christmas mythology.   Here are Millie's Christmas pictures.  I didn't take these - they were done at the dog training school in Beamsville.    Purchase at: FAA - marilyncornwellart.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

Jerusalem the Golden

Jerusalem the Golden is a Lutheran hymn, written in the mid 1800's.  The tune comes to my mind whenever Jerusalem is mentioned.  It has been in the news this past week.  I realized that Marshall McLuhan's global village is here and now.  Jerusalem is the centre of global village attention. I know little about the actual city.  I find out it is one of the oldest cities in the world, named Urusalima on Mesopotamian tablets - 2400 BCE.  It is a holy city in Judaism, Christianity and Islam.  King David and King Solomon, his son, ruled there.  It is the site of Abraham's sacrifice. Jesus was crucified there. Muhammad made his Night Journey there.  It is the home of many sites of seminal religious importance.  A tiny area within the larger Jerusalem, the Old City is a World Heritage Site also one considered in Danger by UNESCO.  It isn't the oldest city in the world to be continuously inhabited.  It has the special nexus of religions that distinguishes it and makes for a continuing source of contention and attention. Which city is the oldest? Damascus, Syria is the oldest with evidence of habitation dating back at least 11,000 years. Jericho, West Bank is the second oldest with fortifications unearthed dating back to 6800 BC - they confirm it is the earliest known walled city. Aleppo is the third oldest and the most devastated by the recent four-year battle. We get to Athens, Greece, the fourth oldest.  It has been continuously inhabited for at least 7,000 years.  The Acropolis was built in the 5th century BCE. Remember the Thracians his grade school history?  They settled Plovdiv, Bulgaria - it was a major city for the Romans - and is the sixth oldest.  Byblos is the seventh - and the English word for "bible" is derived from this ancient town's name. Jerusalem is listed as the 10th oldest.  There are two cities outside of the mideast and Europe that are on the ancient list - Luoyang, China and Varanasi, India. Our pictures show a little of our Christmas tradition of decorating the tree. What will be at the top of your Christmas tree this year? We see some of the creative displays at the Grimsby Fantasy of Trees this year.

Shopping for humans, designed by robots

My Redbubble site has 20% off everything with the BLKFRIDAY code. There are many products available now, including scarves, pillow cases, and even clocks, so take a look. If something isn't available in the product you want, send me an email and I'll update the image.  Redbubble has been developing new products at an incredible rate. Something I notice is that Black Friday has 'taken over the world'.  One of the British gardening blogs had a review of Black Friday deals for gardeners.  So of course I did a search on Black Friday Shopping around the world and found the Shopbot Black Friday site.  The banner at the top says - Shopping for humans.  Designed by Robots - and explains:  "It seems countries all over the world are getting ready for this year’s Black Friday shopping season, which means it could possibly be the largest event in the history of shopping."  Covered on the site are: France, Brazil, Canada, Asia, Pakistan, etc Our pictures today are on a simpler topic from earlier times.  It is Grimsby's Fantasy of Trees decorations day.  This is a festival celebrating Christmas trees sponsored and decorated by Grimsby businesses and individuals.  The trees are raffled, with the proceeds going to local charities.  I'm on the organizing committee and it has been an easy sell to get the 40 trees sponsored, and to get silent auction and raffle items.  Trees are decorated in themes - one of the highlights is the Historical Society theme of Grimsby restaurants from years gone by.

Solstice Lights

Decorations get prettier every year - this heritage house on Beamville's Main Street is an example of how wonderful the lights are. We can count on Lifehacker for telling us where to find the best Christmas Lights.  The Places to Visit in Each State for Incredible Christmas Lights showcases a picture of a decorated train and then lists the top 5 places to visit in the U.S. The Canadian search takes us to a Government of Canada website that says the Christmas Lights Across Canada program was launched in 1985 to highlight landmarks and sites along Confederation Boulevard and Parliament Hill, and has a guide to all the capitals to visit. The top display in Canada is listed as Niagara Falls, with Christmas Lights Across Canada (above), and then Toronto's downtown core.