Dec 10 2024 - Winingest One of Us All

 

The Fantasy of Trees finished on Sunday and the raffle draws were done on Monday.  As part of the team, there is lots of careful work - making sure all the tickets are out of the holder, stirring them up, a second person picking one ticket, the auditor watches to ensure no looking at numbers. The auditor receives the ticket, then gives the ticket to the caller - my role - who calls out the number, then the look-up person who makes a match in the lottery record book, the win recorder, the runner who takes the information to the telephone callers, who make the call - You've won! It's a lot, isn't it?  I didn't win anything.  I had lots of help putting tickets into trees and items- by various children of people I know who promised to take away the toys or chocolate decorations.   Such excellent odds of winning something, too.  So it got me thinking about Frank Selak, who we've read about before - he's listed as the luckiest man in the world.  Actually he is known as the luckiest and unluckiest together.  "Frano Selak, a Croatian man, miraculously cheated death seven times before eventually winning the lottery. Frane Selak, of Croatia, has a reputation as the world's luckiest man. Frane Selak, an elderly Croatian man, is known around the world for being the luckiest man alive." HERE's the full Wikipedia entry.   Note that none of his depictions of life and death events are verified. But he did win the lottery at 73, so that with his strange saga of death events has elevated him to the luckiest/unluckiest person in the world.  But really, we just looking at raffles and lotteries.  But the stories here are about people who hacked the system, beat the system or one that big powerball lottery in California - the one that is over $1 billion. "The largest gathering of lottery millionaires is 110 and was achieved by The National Lottery (UK), in London, UK, on 7 October 2015."   My guess is that Frank stays in the retrievals because of the novel story of life and death and lottery win.  Tracking multiple winners would likely make the gambling and lottery world jittery.  Gambling is considered a problem behaviour in humans.  Cheating and hacking the system seems to come with it and would be something we simple lottery players don't want to find out. The Fantasy of Trees takes place at the Grimsby Museum each year. This is the Museum entrance with Santa - taken a few years ago.

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Apr 26 2024 - Grimsby UK

 

There are a few towns of Grimsby -  Grimsby Ontario,  Grimsby ILlinois Little Grimsby, England Great Grimsby, UK New Grimsby, and Old Grimsby, on the island of Trresco, England  It is Great Grimsby that Grimsby ON is often compared to.  It seems to have had a name change. "Between 1918 and 1983 it was known simply as Grimsby; following the 2023 Periodic Review of Westminster constituencies, the seat will be subject to boundary changes which will incorporate the neighbouring town of Cleethorpes. As a consequence, it will be renamed Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes, to be first contested at the next general election." We might want to experience their upcoming sunny weekend with temperatures of 9 degrees C.  The Grimsby UK news features a son being banned from contacting his mother after he attacked her, a Grimsby man, 35, dying of cancer, and a strange news item: a sexual attack on a corpse at the Grimsby Hospital mortuary.  Then back to the mundane with a two-piece dress from Marks and Spencer being showcased. In comparison Grimsby, ON has a Saturday weather forecast of 10 degrees C with 90% chance of rain.  The Casablanca Beach Park project is three-quarters finished, the Beamsville cannabis shop robbery investigation continues, at least 8 homes were broken into in 1 night in Grimsby and Beamsville, and there will be a  joint police, MTO campaign to focus on Niagara vehicle inspections.  That's because trucks have been bypassing the Vineland station inspection.   Isn't this a great Niagara orchard image - with theold-fashioned ladder.  This is from a few years ago, so these trees aren't blooming yet.  There was frost last night and it is on the roofs of the houses, so there will be concern overwhether there was damage overnight to the blossoms.

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Apr 18 2024 - Tiny Homes

 

No new houses in Grimsby are small.  There's a new development on Main Street East and the houses are monsters, according to my thinking.  What do you see when you look at this? Probably 3,000 sq ft.   They seem to be a long time in the making.  I wonder when everything will be completed. What I pass each day does not resemble this picture - all the houses are tight against each other and right up to the sidewalk.  No gracious front lawns and gardens will appear. Now let's head over to Fredericton, N.B. where a tiny home village has been in the news.  There will be 99 tiny homes.  This has been masterminded by Marcel Lebrun who has created a charity to develop the community.   Comparing the pictures, it looks like at least a 3 to 1 ratio in terms of lot usage.   I wonder what it is about Ontario builders and residents that we are not given to reducing our house size. Can you imagine what it would take to start thinking in terms of tiny homes?  There is one Ontario example of tiny home communities - it is in St. Thomas-Elgin.  This is similar to New Brunswick's project.  Both are charity-based projects building community services.  Let's hope there will be more of these projects.  A tiny tree is our picture today.

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Feb 2 2024 - Roses

 

I went to a gallery opening yesterday - it was an art show at the Museum kicking off Black History Month.  The artist is black - a graphic designer and the show on Artificial intelligence generated images.   Sean is young, so his young friends were there - all from the arts community along with his family and relatives. There were lots of young black people present. I didn't look like Grimsby with a retired population - it made me think of when we lived in Toronto where the population is diverse and multicultural.  Grimsby doesn't have much diversity. Grimsby's most recent wave of immigration is post-war with the arrival of the Dutch so there is a substantial population of tall, slender, European descendants.  The Grimsby distinction to me is how tall they are. I was reminded of how filtered our experience of the everyday is.  Without us realizing it or thinking about it.    So I went to check on what we look like: "Males make up 48.6% of the population, while females account for 51.4%. Locals over 65 years old represent the largest age group in Grimsby (6,165 individuals), followed by those aged under 14 (4,680 people). The population density in Grimsby is 2595% higher than Ontario The median age in Grimsby is 7% higher than Ontario In Grimsby 1.68% of the population is South Asian In Grimsby 1.08% of the population is Black In Grimsby 0.66% of the population is Chinese When I looked at that density number, I can tell you it will be well over 3000% soon as we densify every bit of land.  Cole's - once a garden centre of plants will become a 7 storey condo filling the space.  That alone can push us past the 3000% mark.  Of course, the comparison is with all of Ontario and there's a lot of empty space in the North - that is empty of population.  What about this roses collage to advertise the garden club's speaker in February.  Aren't roses a delight!

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Jan 27 2024 - Tunnel Vision vs Tunnel Style

 

We know what tunnel vision is.  How did tunnel style get its name and what is it, anyway? GQ knows what it is and that means men's fashion.  They say that the best place to see "buzzy designer" clothes is in the maze-like underbelly of your local sports arena.  It is the pre-game and post-game strut of NBA players.  Some players work with luxury brands and others have their own brands or work with stylists to create unique designs.  There's the"plug" for clothes - a person who sources and sells merchandise to players. “If you’re on the road and have somebody pull up with thousands of clothes, and you can pick whatever you want, that’s very efficient,” said Kuzma.  And these are not sweat pants and t-shirts.  These are strange and compelling outfits that won't be seen outside the tunnel on the street. So we find this place of athletics and fashion - the stuff of celebrity coverage.  It seems like a high-pressure place to be for NBA players.   Tunnel vision?  we thought it meant a visual impairment or a mental limitation didn't we?  But you can buy vintage clothes from the 60s, 70s, and so on from this independent sweatshop-free company.   Other than these two fashion stories, tunnel as a topic is about boring machines and underground projects.  Elon Musk has a tunnel company named The Boring Company.   It is a SpaceX subsidiary.  There have been numerous project completed and then there are numerous criticisms of his claims for faster and cheaper and then whether there are safety features in the constructed projects. Musk's conception was that tunnels would be a better version of ground transportation systems.  He was wanting to fix Los Angeles traffic.

So our first image of tunnel style is 2019 and our second image is 2023.  Do we see a difference?  Love those fuzzy shoes that match the fuzzy jacket.` And today's image is our photographer's cottage in Grimsb Beach - what a contrast with the tunnel style above. Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblogspot.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwell.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

Nov 2 2023 - What Colour is this House?

 

I was at Grimsby's drive through banking machine yesterday.  It faces towards Main Street.  I was looking at the back of the tiny building beside the brand new bank building.  It is the size of a shed, and is now a take-out pizza place.  What got my attention is that the building is very interesting colours.  The window trim is a deep ocean blue, and the walls look to me to be a pinky beige.  I think it could be called a flesh colour.  It seemed like an unusual combination.  But then the building is a strange thing.  If we go back in time, 24 Main Street East has been home to many things to be sold - coal products, an electrician's, real estate office and and insurance broker.   How different these two pictures seem.  The first shows a characteristic building of the 1920s and beyond - probably in the 1950s given the air conditioner.  The roof line and building seem balanced and in proportion, along with the window and door. The second picture?  It shows roof signage that transforms the building into past-its-prime neglected shed with a patched on store front.   You can see the deep ocean blue trim.  The back of the store has the pinky beige/flesh tone colour. But that's not the real story at this spot on Main Street East. It is what  will happen by 2026 in this location.  Across the street will be 21 Main Street East where Unit 106 is offered for sale at $1,249,900.  Could you ever have guessed?

Here's a cute house further down Main Street East    Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblogspot.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwell.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

Sep 15 2023 - Dos and Don'ts - Deadnaming

 

New words and phrases - Deadnaming.  This is the act of "referring to a transgender or non-binary person by a name they used prior to transitioning, such as their birth name." Deadnaming may be unintentional, or a deliberate attempt to deny, mock or invalidate a person's gender identity.  This a a delicate area - intentional and unintentional.  The article references published authors who have transitioned and their former name appears in bibliographic records.  Long will live bibliographic data. Along with this is the expression "Lavender linguistics".  This was advanced by William Leap in the 1990s and refers to the everyday language practices in LGBT communities. There is a LGBT lexicon known as Polari.  It is associated with actors, circus and fairground showmen, professional wrestlers, merchant navy sailors, criminals, sex workers and now the gay subculture.  Wikipedia has a Glossary of the terms HERE.  I seem to be travelling down roads that go off into all kinds detours of linguistic and social norms.  TheNew York Times Advice Column on the weekend had the question over who gets to keep the clone dog when the couple is splitting up.  They have the older dog who was cloned and the puppy clone.  The advice was to keep the dogs together.  There were other options provided for sharing the dogs. The question also revolved around who paid for the cloning and how that played into the decision.  Are you ready?  The cloning cost $50,000.    Then on the opposite page was the weddings showcase - where people who have recently gotten married cover their ornate, extravagant, ludicrously crazy stories of falling in love, getting engaged, and having weddings.  It was the story of two transgender bixsexual men who got together that got my attention.  So complicated to me to be both transgender and bixsexual.   Here's a love story in Grimsby Beach, with Olive Oil adorning a tool shed.

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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 29 2023 - History Will Judge Us

 

Such a quote - it comes from the top news item on Bing about Kate Middleton requiring the insertion of "some recollections may vary" into their statement on the accusation by Harry of racist questions over their baby to be.   Do we rewrite past facts into different historical stories?  Are facts of history reported incorrectly at the time?  Are there egregious acts or false reports of events at the time that need correcting? That seems the case for the Pandemic where many heads of state made false assertions over its risk level. I was looking for a notion of history filtering and reviewing things in the past to come up with a balanced view in the present.  But that's not what I found.  I found Time Magazine's article.  It takes on the notion of doing the right thing at the right time as "being on the right side of history" - not hoping that the future will come up with a vindication.  One area this applies to is Trump where there was a "consolation attitude" that historians in the future would look back and judge him an abysmal president.  The notion is that "history will do justice."    The Times' article is scathing in its opposition to leaving things as they are and they'll all work out.  It gives a long list of such behaviours by heads of state/countries.  It outlines how this was a foundational element of "history" in the recent past. Here's a small excerpt: "But modern history is strewn with harmful acts justified as serving some higher historical purpose. Everything from luxury to war to slavery itself has been rationalized as a “necessary evil” with a part to play in history’s divinely guided unfolding. For example, the British knowingly resigned themselves to imperialism’s destructive effects precisely out of faith in its providential role. “It is by its…unintended influence that the British power metamorphoses and dissolves the ideas and societal forms underneath it,” explained the historian and jurist Henry Maine after the British brutally crushed an Indian rebellion in 1857. “Nor is there any expedient by which it can escape the duty of rebuilding upon its own principles that which it unwillingly destroys.” A damning example is Winston Churchill who took the view that history led to a preordained future: “I do not admit…that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia…by the fact that a stronger race…has come in and taken their place,” he insisted in 1937." That is shocking, isn't it?  It seems to me that we've been trained and taught that history is written because it gives a more balanced view of past events.  That "history" is a justification for current behaviours - this is worrisome in the moral realm. I had no sense of this aspect of the formalisms of history - of some preordained evolutionary tale directed by a god above.  Progress towards whatever that is in the future justifies anything and everything. There are many more fun things to write about each day. It does seem that the Kate Middleton story has a significance.  "History will judge them."  What evolutionary path does she think that the Royal Family is on to avoid the ethical accountability of the racist remarks in the here and now?   Most curious indeed.  Here's the Time article - it is written by Priya Satia, author of Time's Monster:  How History Makes History.

This is the neighbour's garden diagonally across the street - another beautiful garden in Grimsby. Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblogspot.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwell.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

July 28 2023 - Just Call Me Sprague

 

Where would the name Sprague originate?  I saw it in the Business Section of the Globe in Corporate announcements.  What is noticeable is that it is the person's first name.   It means alert, lively, sprightly vivacious.   Sprague Name Meaning. English: from northern Middle English Spragge, either a personal name or a byname meaning 'lively', a metathesized and voiced form of Spark 1."  So maybe his nickname is Sparky.  He looks like he could be a Sparky. Another site says that it is English - Devon and a nickname from Milddle English Sprag, a variant of spark.  Other people with this first name?  Sprague Cleghorn, former NHL hockey player and Sprague Grayden, American actress born 1980.   There are many Sprague surname entries and there is one place in Canada with the name Sprague, Manitoba.   There's a website that seems to have information about various associated characteristics of people based on their first name.  Here is Sprague's entry:   Your most likely vocation: teacher, philosopher, educator, religious zealot, scientist, minister, instructor, writer, producer of luxury and beauty goods, manager of restaurant, irrigationist, horticulturist, zoologist, shipping magnate. Lucky colors: All varieties of blue except the very bright blues Lucky gem(s): Emerald, turquoise Lucky day(s): Sunday, Monday, and Friday Lucky botanicals: Verbena, dog rose, violets, walnuts, all types of beans, apricot, almonds It even describes people who are friends and enemies by their names.  Now that's a bit strange.  Besides, who knows people with the first name Oxford, Hellene, Jaciej, Jenice, Kahn, Andor, Whitney or Jerree. I guess that Sprague Richardson's grandmother was Muriel Sprague Richardson who made history as the first female company CEO in Canada.  Here's her bio HERE.   A family with a great history.

There are some beautiful gardens in Grimsby and this is a favourite.  Perfection in a very small space.   Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblogspot.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwell.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

July 27 2023 - How Hot is the Ocean?

 

There's a lovely Jazz standard by Irving Berlin.  How deep is the ocean?  How high is the sky? Diana Krall interprets it perfectly.  I hadn’t thought of it turning into How Hot is the Ocean? But there is the headline today.   “Ocean temperatures around South Florida hit hot-tub levels”. I seem to have a sense of how things would go with the temperature rising.  Or perhaps a fantasy sense - that ’s because I remember a Rod Serling Twilight Zone episode where the temperature was so high that an egg could be fried on the sidewalk and the paint melted on a painting. The episode was The Midnight Sun. This is the opening narration - and doesn’t it come to life with Rod’s voice in one’s imagination: The word that Mrs. Bronson is unable to put into the hot, still, sodden air is 'doomed,' because the people you've just seen have been handed a death sentence. One month ago, the Earth suddenly changed its elliptical orbit and in doing so began to follow a path which gradually, moment by moment, day by day, took it closer to the sun. And all of man's little devices to stir up the air are now no longer luxuries—they happen to be pitiful and panicky keys to survival. The time is five minutes to twelve, midnight. There is no more darkness. The place is New York City and this is the eve of the end, because even at midnight it's high noon, the hottest day in history, and you're about to spend it in the Twilight Zone. And how does this segment end? The scene cuts to the same apartment at night with heavy snow outside the windows. The thermometer reads −10 °F (−23 °C). Norma, who has been bedridden with a high fever, is being cared for by a doctor and Mrs. Bronson. The Earth moving closer to the sun is revealed to be only a fever dream, while in reality the Earth is moving away from the sun, and the world's inhabitants are actually freezing to death. Read the plot and story HERE.

Here is another favourite front yard/garden for me.  Bold shapes and colours make it seem very modern and stylish.  Or perhaps it fits a notion of 1960s modern for me.  Same time frame as Twilight Zone.   Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblogspot.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwell.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

July 25 2023 - Slippery Slope of Gardens

 

I am coming to the end of the main part of Trillium judging.  This is where front gardens in a town or city are nominated as the best gardens.  Then judges come around and score them based on a set of garden design criteria.  The result is that a number of gardens receive awards for the best gardens that year.   This has been a program in Grimsby for many years.  The idea started in St. Catharines in the 1980s.  Hamilton is renowned for its Trillium Program - three levels of judging with three levels of winners, and a final grand winner each year.  It includes the surrounding areas and garden clubs.  Hamilton is a garden city - it has the big Hamilton Garden Walk each - a free event with home owners putting their gardens into the schedule listing so people can come and visit.  I like taking pictures of the gardens.  I've been out at 6:00am each morning when the light is idea, and taking pictures of the top 40 or so gardens.  That's a lot of pictures. It is coming to the close, though, and then the final results will be published online and in the newspapers.   This year, the public can become directly involved. There will be 5 top gardens for people to choose their favourite.  It is an online poll, run by the town of Grimsby.  We are looking forward to finding out how much engagement there is for garden voting. So perhaps a little more photography today as the light is perfect.  Sun is the enemy of the garden photographer.

Here’s a Grimsby garden - on Livingston near Casablanca - so the main street of Grimsby.  Look at the topiary designs throughout. And then another completely different garden on the escarpment of Park Road - a naturalistic setting in the woods.   Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblogspot.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwell.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca