April 13 2020 - Haircuts

The thing we took for granted just one step behind toilet paper:  hair cuts. There are many pictures of strange and unusual haircuts, and the advice that would have helped if received before the activity was undertaken: 1. Don't cut hair too short 2. Someone else needs to do the back 3. Let the hair on the top of your head stay long 4. Watch out for your ears 5. Don't wear a sweater Australia has reversed a decision to limit hairdressing appointments to 30 minutes following a backlash.  That was on March 26th.  I wanted to know what happened after that, but the press has gone silent on this story. In South Africa, a hairdresser was charged with attempted murder after defying a doctor's order to self-quarantine. Last week, the B.C. daily COVID-19 briefing had the province's top doctors 'apologizing' to her hairdresser after giving herself a home hairdo.   There are Instagram Live and Facebook Live classes for haircutting online.  Here's a schedule of what's offered in the next two weeks: Thursday, April 16 at 2 p.m. EST – Decisions = Destinations with Richard Mannah (Instagram) Monday, April 20 at 2 p.m. EST – Crescent Method with Larisa Love (Facebook) Thursday, April 23 at 2 p.m. EST – Holistic Success with Richard Mannah (Instagram) I wondered what a crescent method might be.  The seriousness of hair comes across with the April 23rd session title 'holistic'. Our image today is another  hosta colouring activity.

Read past POTD's at my Blog: http://www.blog.marilyncornwell.com Purchase at: FAA - marilyncornwellart.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

Birds have feathers

Birds are outside singing beautifully, and warm with their feathers.  Most primates have fur or something that keeps them warm (e.g. fat).  And we are alone among the 5,000 or so mammals in that we are naked. We were made humorously aware of our sensitivity to nakedness when we saw the Cirque de Machine this week.  They are an acrobatic troupe from Quebec.  One of their routines had the 4 acrobats standing naked behind towels.  They exchanged and folded them and did amazing things, keeping us in suspense,  yet always keeping them covered.   Scientists have a few reasons why humans became less and less hairy in six million years.  The latest theory is that fur was shed to get rid of external parasites. The advertisement of bare skin says "no fleas, lice or ticks on me!'.  Earlier theories had to do with not needing fur as we were more aquatic (like whales) and not needing fur as we lived in hot areas.   One theory, outlined in the independent.co.uk said it was to keep our brains cooler. And when did humans lose their fur? We distinguish it as fur, as we are covered in hair - about 5 million follicles on our body.  The theory on that was developed based on needing dark skin in Africa.  So as humans lost their fur, they needed the gene MC1R to keep their skin darker. In a few generations this version of the gene would have made a clean sweep through the population.  Based on the number of these 'silent mutations' in Africa, they calculated that the last sweep occurred 1.2 million years ago, when the human population consisted of a mere 14,000 breeding individuals.  This is a very interesting Scientific American article HERE.   And when did we move on to wear clothes?  Supposedly the evidence comes from the evolution of lice, who evolved from head lice to clothing lice around 170,000 years ago.   Here's the website for our fun acrobatic troupe where you can see a short video HERE with a momentary segment from the towel act.

Roadside Wonders

Hi everyone,

I was out driving around for the Grimsby Garden Club Trillium Competition.  This wonderful scene was waiting for me on a street on the Lake.  There's a perfect colour match in the garden with the bench, and a complementary garden display between.  

If turquoise is more flamboyant than your decor can handle, eBay had an orange 'Turbinator' available.