Mairlyn's Photos - Aug 24 2025 - Gina Lollobrigida vs Sophia Loren

 

Last night's Turner Classic Movie was Gina Lollobrigida's Buona Sera, Mrs. Campbell.   I remember seeing it at the movie theatre in 1968 or so when it came out. What a strange trio of male leads - Phil Silvers, Peter Lawford and Telly Savalas.  I mean that genuinely as they paled in comparison to the beautiful, glowing Gina.   She was called the most beautiful woman in the world at the time.  And that made me think of Sophia Loren, who was considered very beautiful.  There was a supposed feud between them on this theme.   If one were to search the archives carefully, there was lots of nasty insults supposedly tossed back and forth.  For example:  "Sophia Loren plays peasants.  I play ladies." This comparison of beauty seems to remain current - there are lots of reddit sorts of opinions on who was more beautiful. And that seems to be her legacy.  Not her photography and sculptures and photojournalism in the 1970s and beyond.  And she died in 2023 at 95, so a long life after movies. I decided to find out a bit more about her and whether her artistic life was being suppressed because of the glitz of the movies. Reading her obituary by the BBC, the legacy of celebrity beauty seems very understandable. She led a celebrity life of famous men courting her constantly.  This romance-filled life even had a strange wedding scandal.   "Disastrously, she met Javier Rigau y Rafols, a charming Spaniard who was 34 years younger. They announced their engagement in 2006 - but soon called it off, citing frenzied press attention. Rigau, however, went ahead with the wedding - allegedly using an imposter to play Lollobrigida. According to her account, she only discovered her marriage by chance when she found documents on the internet. She took legal action; Rigau produced witnesses. He insisted Lollobrigida had agreed to marry him by proxy using a power of attorney she had once granted.  She lost the ensuing court case, but the marriage was annulled in 2019 with the blessing of the Pope." And that was only one chapter of her busy romantic life.  I didn't find any great philosophical quotes as one does with Marilyn Monroe.  There are lots about men. Even in her photojournalism activities where she interviewed and photographed Castro, the quote is that she related to Castro as a man.   So after reading about her exotic and romance-filled life, maybe Gina Lollobrigida's legacy of being the most beautiful woman in the world is suitable.

I found this bit of tabloid history Gina and Elzabeth Taylor in the same dress at a gala event.   And below that?  A pretty little house in Buffalo - too bad about the Buffalo Garden Walk being in Buffalo.

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Marilyn's Photos - Nuts to You

 

TikTok-famous chocolates are in the news.  The ones with pistachios have been recalled over salmonella concerns.  Salmonella poisoning of pistachios can happen before, during or after harvest - there's lots of opportunity.  The articles give us the details, making this seem even worse.   The dilemma with pistachios is that they are dry and salmonella survives very well in dry foods.  When salmonella is incorporated into chocolate it can survive the stomach acid so relatively low doses can result in sickness. And then the shelf life of nuts is very long - stored up to two years. That means these infected pistachios could be out there for a while.  This is the Dubai chocolate craze where there are now shortages of pistachios - due to the millions and millions of active TikTok viewers.   The milk chocolate bar is filled with "silky" pistachio cream, earthy tahini and crunchy shards of knafeh pastry. The original Dubai chocolate was launched by Dubai-based FIX Dessert Chocolatier in 2022.  That's where the Dubai reference comes from.  It is Belgian or Swiss chocolate.  And what is knafeh?  It is shredded phyllo dough. It does sound yummy, don't you think?

This is the Trillium garden of the week.  It is around the corner from me, and is most enjoyable to drive past on a regular basis.   Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblogspot.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwell.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

Marilyn's Photos - June 7 2025 - Learning from Calculators

 

Our immediate past gives us insight into where AI is going with children's mental abilities.  I am thinking about is calculators. Calculators came into their own in the 1970s.  So by the early 1980s, I used a financial calculator in the MBA program  where probability calculations are a part of marketing strategies. I remember what a labour-saving tool it was.   Calculators became ubiquitous in the 1990s in classrooms.  There was doubt that students could maintain a high level of skill while relying on calculators to do basic arithmetic. That controversy still exists.  Articles say progress has not been made in integrating calculators with mental arithmetic.  Studies show that heavy reliance on calculators leads to declines in student mathematical skills.   So I went searching for more and found a edutopia article on using calculators to deepen students' engagement with math HERE. I found it engaging for me, too.   "PERCENTAGE In this lesson, I always begin by telling students that I’m going to give them several percentage problems as well as the answers. The first thing students wonder is why I would give them the answers. Aren’t they supposed to figure those out? Not in this case, I tell them: The goal is not to get the answer, but to figure out how the answer was gotten. The first problem we tackle is pretty simple: What is 50% of 24? The students can usually shout out “12!” before I finish writing the problem on the board. “Excellent!” I respond. “Now, how could you figure that out on a calculator?” At that moment, students grab a basic four-function calculator. I walk around and have students show me their methods, and I tell them that dividing 24 by 2 is not what I wanted. “But 50% is half,” they protest. “So you divide by 2.” “Certainly,” I say. “But we’re not always going to have something as nice as 50%, so we have to find a different way.” Exasperated, my students try to figure out what I want. After letting them engage in productive struggle, I guide them toward the idea that we can use the numbers 50 and 24 to reach 12. Soon, they’re getting ideas like multiplying the numbers, resulting in 1,200. “That’s kind of like 12,” someone will say. “But I have to get rid of these zeroes.” My students start figuring out that to reach the answer, we can multiply the percent by the whole number and then divide by 100. Some students even propose that you just turn one of the numbers into a decimal before multiplying (50 times 0.24 or 0.50 times 24). Others say that you put a decimal point into both numbers, but only one digit in each (5.0 times 2.4). Some suggest using the % button on the calculator, which would also turn their number on the screen into a decimal. I then have students provide conjectures about why all of these strategies work and what they have in common. Soon, my students are engaging in a mathematical discussion about relationships between decimals and percents, how the number 100 is inherent to all of the calculations, and how 50%, 0.50, and ½ are all the same thing. I continue the lesson with more complicated problems. Trying to solve something like 17.35% of 8.4 using paper and pencil is overwhelming—but with calculators, my students approach even seemingly scary problems like this with confidence, armed with the knowledge that the relationships remain constant regardless of the complexity of the numbers. Using ideas like percent-decimal equivalence—as well as efficient algorithms like “% × n ÷ 100”—my students develop, with the help of calculators, conceptual understanding and procedural fluency."   Isn't this a masterful sculpture on the landscape.  This is at the Week 1 winning Trillium garden in Grimsby.

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May 23 2025 - The Smallest Towns

 

A town in Newfoundland is known as  the "smallest town in Canada".  With only 4 people left, I wondered if that is the case.  How does a place with 4 people get to call itself a town.  There would be no mayor or councillors and where would the emergency services like fire and police be?   It has made the news everywhere as the last inhabitants are leaving.  The many repetitions of the article say nothing of that.  They talk about how Tilt Cove, Newfoundland has dwindled since the copper mine closed in 1967.   The nearest towns are Shoe Cove and Snooks Arm.  Shoe Cove is closest at 13 km and 16 minutes away.  There's a small grocery store in Shoe Cove and 10 minutes away from there is La Scie (population 820) with shopping. Are there other smallest towns around the planet?  The list comes up with Hum, Cratia with 30 inhabitants, as a widely recognized smallest town.  A town gate, cemetery, two churches and a restaurant.   Then there is Monowi, Nebraska - a town known for having a single resident. Next up is Mazar, Kansas with a population of five.   Who keeps the lights on and the water running?  I guess I am a big town and big city person - I can't fathom what services aren't likely available.

Here's a great :Longwood Garden scene at the entrance.  It is unlikely we'll get there this year, given the border issues. But one can enjoy the pictures of the past.

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Mar 8 2025 - 51st of Anything

 

I wonder this question about being 51st.   As a ranking, what if the U.S. is 51st at various things in the world?  You know, those economic and social surveys that show where the countries stand in comparison to each other - education, health, housing, and so on.  It would be ironic to find all the places where they rank 51st. But instead one retrieves all the 51st State stories.  How Canada would rank as the 51st state.  I think 51st has made its mark and will become a metaphor for a long time. So let's take a look at the things that have named themselves 51st. What are we competing with? The number 51 retrieves Chinese characters.   The 51News client is a mobile news client created by 51.com  Its goal is to provide Canadian Chinese users with a brand-new mobile reading experience.  There are a few more Chinese apps with 51 in the name.  51 is a lucky number, so a very popular name. In mathematics, fifty-one is a pentagonal number as well as a centred pentagonal number and an 18-gonal number.    Brings the Pentagon to mind, doesn't it? Another website is the51.com - "building the financial feminist economy.  Content and events, news and discounts, members-only networking opportunities.  this is a Canadian organization."  All the principal directors are listed with their resumes, but there doesn't seem to be a description on how the name originated. There doesn't appear to be any association with the Chinese-Canadian community.  And then the dark side of things - Area 51 Air Force base - this looks like a movie.  "Welcome to the future". We conclude with the mundane - take bus route number 51 - that's Leslie Northbound.  Wouldn't that be ironic for there to be a metaphorical Highway 51 - for Americans escaping north. Wouldn't it be great to be in Victoria at Butchart Gardens, counting the spring flowers in the Annual count.  Mind you, there's a severe weather warning for Salt Spring with an atmospheric river of rain coming.  Avalanche danger in B.C.  But for now, we can enjoy Butchart's brilliant summer display.

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Jan 07 2025 - The Ice Cube Trick

 

The ice cube trick, also known as the ice cube hack  - how many are there?   Burger: The recent on is to put an ice cube into a burger patty so that the patty stays moist while being barbecued.  And that's just the latest cooking use - reheat rice, remove fat from soups, clean blender blades...many more. Grounding:  This one is to calm a person down and reduce anxiety and panic - hold an ice cube or ice pack on the inside of the wrist or in one hand for 1 - 3 minutes. Power outages:  Keep an ice cube in a shot glass in your freezer to detect power outages. Double freezing:  to make ice last longer, double freeze them by taking the frozen cubes and put them into a freezer bag and freeze again. Wrinkles out of your laundry - throw a few ice cubes or a wet washcloth into the dryer with wrinkled clothes. Deodorize garbage disposal - pour ice into the sink and turn on the disposal then hot water. Remove furniture dents in carpet - Place ice cube where the dent is, leet it melt, blot up the wet spots and use the edge of a spoon to push the carpet fibres back into upright position. Remove chewing gum - Place ice on gum for 5 to 10 minutes - it will harden and loosen grip. Water your orchids - Place ice cubes in the plant pot to melt slowly. TikTok - ice cube trick for head on Bf (that's boy friend) it is HERE. This is for headache relief But once you are on TikTok there are dozens, maybe hundreds, and possibly thousands of ice cube tricks.  I don't want to find out how many.   And we haven't looked at science experiments with ice cubes.  Things like "How to pick up ice with a string experiment".   Or "how to melt ice cubes the fastest",  And what about setting ice on fire.  And we conclude with the Guinness Book of Records involving ice cubes.  What could it be?  Josef Koeberi stayed 2 hours 30 minutes and 57 seconds inside a custom-made glass box filled up to his shoulders with ice cubes.  There are ice cube eaters, ice cube holders, ice cubes in open mouths, and so on.

Here's Bodnant Garden in the spring quite a few years ago.  Good to see spring gardens as winter arrives.  It is just a few months away.

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May 17 2024 - Guinness and Gluttony

 

This isn't about beer and gluttony but about the Guinness Book of Records and gluttony.  Yesterday's topic of Red Lobster binge eaters isn't just any story, even though there are eye-popping numbers of how much people have consumed in there "endless shrimp meal". "I work at a Red Lobster in Southeast Missouri and two weeks ago had a man eat roughly 43 refills. That's  >430 shrimp and my manager said that the company still came out on top." "220 shrimp scampi is my personal record. The butter eventually gives you itis and they kick you out for sleeping in the booths..." There are lifetime/lifelong gluttons:  According to Wikipedia Donald Gorske has eaten 34,000 Big Macs in his lifetime -  he is  70 or 71. In 2003, Gorske ate 741 Big Macs, an average of 2.03 Big Macs daily.  Gorske commented in 2008 that his obsessive–compulsive disorder is what fuels his love of Big Macs.   So it is likely the case that people who are binge eaters have some disorder. I guess there must be two disorders involved - the other one is binge-bragging about wanting people they don't know to hear how much they ate.  You won't see any binge records in the Guinness Book of Records.  All that bragging on Reddit is where it begins and ends. Guinness no longer accepts records for gluttony. The story that is referenced is from 1983 when a 24-year-old woman arrived at a Liverpool emergency room with a popped out belly button as though she was pregnant.  But it was from eating what is likely the largest meal ever recorded - 19 pounds. The gigantic meal comprised 1 lb (453 g) of liver, 2 lb (907 g) of kidneys, 0.5 lb (226 g) of steak, two eggs, 1 lb (453 g) of cheese, two large slices of bread, 1 lb (453 g) of mushrooms, 2 lb (907 g) of carrots, one cauliflower, 10 peaches, four pears, two apples, four bananas, 2 lb (907 g) of plums, 2 lb (907 g) of grapes and two glasses of milk.  And from that vast volume - she died.  That would ruin the record book fun.  It wasn't until the 1990s that Guinness took consumption records out of circulation from the record and didn't allow them into the record. They switched the focus to speed eating. You can watch a dozen doughnuts or hot dogs pop down in a few seconds or watch Joey Chestnut eat 257 jelly doughnuts in six minutes. He is one of the great speed eaters. And those Endless Shrimp bingers -  I expect a lot more got sick and didn't get to write about the experience at all.   Here's a pretty garden structure at Chanticleer Gardens, near Philadelphia a few years ago.

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Feb 23 2024 - Trump Shoes in the News

 

This isn't really about Trump's "Never Surrender" gold sneakers. The Guardian: Sneakerheads on Trump's "Never Surrender" gold shoe:  tacky and very, very dumb  MSNBC News:  Trump hawks $399 golden sneakers after his $350 million fraud trial penalty  The Washington post:  Opinion Donald Trump sneakers cast a spell over you  The New York Times:  Those $399 Gold Trump Sneakers are about a lot more than shoes The Globe and Mail:  Donald Trump has zero qualifications for making an athletic shoe, but he does  I get the Globe and Mail and that's not the headline in the Globe.  Here it is:  "Trump's sneaker highlights how low sports attain has fallen."  This article is by Cathal Kelly. He quotes from the Guardian article with its opinions by sneaker aficionados.  But Cathal Kelly's own words are the quotable words.  Here's what he thinks the shoes look like - not stupid, no:   "They are a chastity belt strapped to your feet." It isn't Trump's shoes that worry him the most:  "Not so long ago, there were two types of people - those who did sports for a living, and those who watched them.  You knew the difference based on their manner of dress." Adults dressing up like a professional basketball player worries Kelly.   "Eventually, children wanted to dress like their sports heroes, in much the same way a kid might carry around a sword and shield.. this wasn't fashion.  It was make-believe.  How can you tell the difference?  A six-year-old with a sword and shield is charming.  A 34-year-old decked out like a medieval squire means you should dial 911." "Now here comes Trump, a guy that would be just as likely to wear sneakers outside the house as I would be to wear a live iguana." You can see from these snippets that Kelly is a fascinating and entertaining writer. And what is the lament of this article?  "...we can no longer deny the truth. As a culture, we look goofy". So can I conclude that the shoes are just the tip of the iceberg?

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Sep 4 2023 - Early Return

 

We return early from our trip to Denver, as Gerry got a bad cold/sinusitus, etc.  The rest of the trip was to be driving, so that wasn't very appealing.  We took Air Canada flights.  We were early at the airport and the flight destination on the sign was Vancouver.  That's the location where two planes had a little collision.  I can't imagine  being the pilot and explaining how one didn't see something the size of a jet.  "It was in my blind spot."  A piece of the wing fell off each plane, according to one of the passengers.   This is one of the busiest weekends for travel, so we were very lucky to travel on the Sunday rather than the holiday Monday.  The Denver airport was filled with people on the Labor Day weekend.  Canadians were filling the airport at the Toronto airport, but we were there for the Labour Day weekend.   Bing tells me that the busiest time at Denver is today at 11:00am.  There was a supervisor yesterday watching over the people at the departure gates.  He said today would be grid lock at the airport.  I thought it was busy yesterday.  I guess not flying for a few years has made me forget how congested airports are.   Pearson is Canada's busiest airport, with 35.6 million in 2022 - and that was recovering from COVID.  The report was that the volume was significantly up by August 2023 - 50% increase.   We would have seen at least a thousand or more people in passing yesterday.  On a daily basis it is in the range of 130,000 people travelling through.  That is hard to imagine.   What is interesting is looking through statistics on the airport - before, during and after COVID.  I wonder how they forecast volumes of people now and staff activities.  Looking at the retrievals, I expect it is messy and chaotic to work in that area now.  But no worries for us now that we are back home. Here's one of my favourite plants - an Ornamental Oregano "Kirigami".  This picture is from Denver in 2017 when we were there for the last convention. It was a delight to see it throughout the gardens this time during the visit to this extensive botanical garden.  One could call the flowers "hop-like".

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July 31 2023 - Confetti

 

had a thought of confetti ice cream.  All those pretty pastel dots in vanilla.  Seems wonderful.   Many cultures have tossed grains and sweets during special occasions dating from ancient times.  The adaption to paper came about through the centuries.   What does history tell us?  That Northern Italy had carnival parades where they threw objects at the crowd - mud balls, eggs, coins or fruit.   That seems  a tradition with its pros and cons. The tradition That seems to be the history in Italy - of sweet and sour - the nobles throwing candies and flowers and the lower-class people mocking them by throwing rotten eggs.   Our story takes a turn in 1875 in the province of Milan. It was one of the main hubs of silk manufacturing. Mangili, a businessman, begun collecting the small punched paper disks that were left as a byproduct from the production of the holed sheets used by the silkworm breeders as cage bedding, and selling them for profit. The new paper confetti was well received by the customers, being less harmful, funnier and cheaper than the alternatives, and their use quickly replaced previous customs in Milan and northern Italy. Today you can get a package of confetti in the shape of 2023 - black silver, multi-coloured. You can get a confetti printed home accessory or clothing item.  These are cheerful items.  There are confetti collectors and collections.  You can imagine there must be some huge confetti cannons shooting vast amounts of confetti at various celebrations, making records.   There was a recent news story of activists who disrupted Wimbledon by throwing confetti onto the grass.  There are a lot of Guinness World Records that when made/broken are celebrated with confetti all around. Could there be a self-referencing world record for this - Guinness World Records organization has the most confetti celebrations in the world.     It is another picket fence in the Grimsby garden day.

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July 30 2023 - Protecting Chickens From ...

 

Poor chickens.  They have their own wire mesh to protect them from so many predators.  And for what purpose?  So we can make them our prey.   What an interesting shape that hexagon is. In chemistry, molecules with fused carbocycles are compared to wire mesh.  In photonics, the wire mesh effect is the dominant pattern of low transmission paths between multi-fibre bundles in optical fibres used to couple multipliers to CCD sensors.  It is used for safety protection in machine tool designs.  It has been found to block or attenuate Wi-FI, cellular, and other radio frequency transmissions.  There is even a brain tumour with a fine wire-mesh capillary pattern.  It came about in 1844 with a wire mesh fabricating machine using the principles of fabric weaving machines. It was Charles Barnard who did this. From Redbrand:  "When our poultry netting is woven, each twist in the wire is paired with a reverse twist. As a result, the finished product will unroll flat, making the installation process easier. The mesh is very pliable, conforming to all types of terrain. Each roll is galvanized with a coat of rust resisting zinc. This will increase the lifespan of your fence and decrease the need for future maintenance." That takes us to the simpler visual world of chain-link.  It was the same Charles Barnard who produced the first chain link fencing by machine.  The manufacturing, though, is also complicated.  In an improved version of the weaving machine, it winds two wires around the blade at once to create a double helix. One of the spirals is woven through the last spiral that is already part of the fence.   That is  a bit hard to visualize, isn't it?  But it isn't hard to visualize the eternity of the longest chain link fence: The dingo-proof wire fence enclosing the main sheep areas of Australia is 1.8m 6ft high, plus 30cm 1ft underground and stretches for 5531km 3437miles. The Queensland state government discontinued full maintenance in 1982. Here's our most attractive picket fence in Grimsby - makes one think of times long gone. In fact, a North American Colonial era innovation.

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