Feb 17 2025 - The Snow Storm Finishes

 

The winter storm finished, and so has its place in all the news feeds. This file is no longer being updated is the news now.   The last update from the Toronto Star was 7:00pm with TTC Streecar delays after tracks were blocked with vehicles.  Which one?  Of course - the 504 King - it had no service near Roncesvalles at Queen Street West.  Even the TTC stopped subway service along the subway lines yesterday.   CTV has an update or two today - there's still no subway service between Bloor-Yonge and Eglinton stations.  With the storm in Niagara concluding yesterday, the weather news has turned to Niagara Falls with them assuring visitors that the streets will be plowed.  However, just popped up for Niagara Falls is a forecast of more flurries later today.  And as I look outside with the sun shinning, there is snow in the sky.  Looking at the radar, these are the "streamers" - lake-effect snow in narrow bands coming off of Lake Huron.  It is very pretty to look at.  Millie is  a bit confused with the snow in the back yard being higher than she is.   To keep us entertained, there's a story of a "Cake Bandit" - an opossum in Nebraska that has eaten an entire Costco cake and  had to be hospitalized.  I guess the owner had put it outside on the back porch. The opossum helped herself - I would assume the problem was that it was chocolate and being from Costco, was probably the size of a small children's swimming pool.   There are lots of Reddit entries on what are the dimensions of Costco's bar cakes and how much does a Costco chocolate mousse cake weigh - one answer claimed it was almost 5 pounds.  That's probably the size of the opossum. You can find out every massive Costco dessert, ranked by size.  That's at the Eat This, Not That site HERE.   You can even take a look at the Chocolate Mousse cake.  Enjoy.

Wish Gerry Happy Birthday today!   Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblogspot.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwell.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

Feb 22 2024 - Happy Birthday to the Happy Birthday Song

Happy Birthday.  Such a happy, simple, heart-felt song.  I thought that looking into its history would reveal its own birthday.  Not at all.  Such a happy song has such dispute and discord in its own history. I would have thought this was a song from England in the 1700s.  The Happy Birthday song isn't that old.  It was composed in 1893 by Patty Hill and her sister Mildred.  They had created a book for children and "Good Morning to All" was the first song that teachers would sing each day to welcome their students.   The story goes that ten years after publishing that book, the Hill sisters were invited to a neighbour's party and they changed the words to "Happy Birthday to You".  This first appeared in print in 1912, but none of the printings had credits or copyright notices.  it appears that while the song is attributed to Patty Hill and Mildred Hill, it is always listed with a (disputed) note.   The song was copyrighted in 1935 by the Summy Company crediting authors Preston Ware Orem and Mrs. R. R. Forman.  There was a lot of activity around the copyright in 1988 when Warner/Chappell Music purchased the rights for US $25 million. Their claim was that the copyright would not expire until 2030.  The Supreme Court ruled on a different case, specially mentioning "Happy birthday" in a dissenting opinion.   Getting to the bottom of the start was an American law professor who extensively researched the song and its various published forms, and concluded it was not longer under copyright.   In attempts to keep the copyright, there were attempts to discredit Patty and her sister writing Good Morning to All.    Lawsuits went on and on and it was declared in 2015 that the song was not copyright - just a specific arrangement was copyright. So the song is in the public domain.  We can imagine that money caused all this activity.  Being the most sung song in the world would mean a lot of money was at stake.  In 2008,  Warner was collecting royalties of around $2 million a year.   And what about the parody versions: Happy birthday to you You live in a zoo You look like a monkey And act like one too And what became of Patty and Mildred?  Their experimental kindergarten school and the sisters were honoured at the Chicago World's Fair in 1893.  Patty was awarded an honorary doctorate degree in 1929. Mildred was the melody composer and a musicologist who wrote under the pen name Johann Tonsor.  They were posthumously inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame on June 12, 1996.

Who would guess that Happy Birthday is more like a roller coaster journey than a sunshine happy day. Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblogspot.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwell.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

Sep 9 2021 - Birthdays and Anniversaries

 

This is the day of most birthdays in the planet.  So Happy Birthday wishes go out to many people today.   It could be millions of people! I wish my google searches were international and not North American focused today - that's a google challenge.  This is a very unhappy U.S. day of the anniversary of 9/11.  This event took almost 3,000 lives - which is not a huge number when it comes to catastrophes.  Compare that to Hurricane Katrina where almost 2,000 lives were lost, but that event pales in comparison.  9/11 has turned into the most catastrophic occasion in U.S. history in my lifetime.  The intensity of the event can be seen in the news that they are still pursuing and revealing the identifies of those killed - this is fresh news.  The search for bodies in Louisiana's Katrina was called off well before all of the bodies were recovered.   What a stark contrast is the reaction to nature's destruction compared to the destruction caused by radical Osama Bin Laden, motivated by  "naive beliefs" (according to the Britannica Encyclopedia).  Perhaps the sense of horror was made more severe by the nature of the event and the live coverage - the twin towers being hit and exploding.  Remember that being shown over and over?   It was concentrated, focused and intense.   It caused its own explosion of rage in the U.S. political-military leadership that cost an estimated $8 trillion, along with new levels of discrimination, racial profiling, and hate crimes in the U.S.  It is a sorry legacy that lives alongside the many poignant stories of loss of loved ones in the catastrophe.  So today is a solemn day with everyone remembering where they were and when they say the twin tower crash coverage, and then many observances in the U.S. over this event that changed its history and character. These pretty lilies come from the Lilycrest Gardens field - huge blooms, gorgeously scented.  They our this month's Happy Birthday card.

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Aug 17 2021 - Nostalgic Bobby Darrin

 

PBS is a master of music nostalgia for its fund-raising campaigns.  From 1999 to 2018 they have presented  music nostalgia fund-raisers that were produced by TJ Lubinsky.  There have been over 30 national television specials from PBS.  He must be a busy person.  He's produced lots of shows - The Very Best of the Ed Sullivan Show and even episodes of Dr. Who for the US market.   TJ Lubinsky's facebook page lists all his "former" jobs.  He has a sense of humour, as they include these: Former Waiting Staff and soda jerk at Irv's Flamingo Diner Former Soda jerk at Days Ice Cream & Bon Bons Former I worked counter #2 at The Jetty Joint aka "The Sand Bar" 2nd Ave Stand Last night's show was Folk Rewind.  What stood out? Bobby Darin was included and the clip - either late 1960s or early 1970s in a Las Vegas tuxedo singing his well-known hit "If I were a Carpenter".   He also wrote "Simple Song of Freedom."  Sadly, he died of heart failure at 37 years of age in 1973. What is Bobby Darin's strange fact? "His real mother was Nina Cassotto, the woman he grew up believing was his sister. Nina had gotten pregnant as an unwed teenager, and she and Polly(her mother)  decided that it would be better if Polly assumed the role of mother. While he later learned the truth about his mother, Darin never discovered who his father really was." We've given Olive Oyl the post-card treatment today.  Happy Birthday to Deb Osborne!

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Nov 15 2020 - Who Looks Like Famous Villains?

 

How does one get to be a Villain (with a capital V)?  One is in a film, novel, or play - one is a character whose evil actions or motives are important to the plot.   There seem to be a lot of variations - the false donor, beast, authority figure, traitor, and so on. There are real life villains:  Nero, Adolf Hitler, Saddam Hussein, and Osama bin Laden are listed. But the deeds of real life villains are unspeakable and shouldn't be covered first thing in the morning.  The deeds of fictional villains are interesting in the plot of the novel. Disney has a lot of villains - and there are  artists who reimagine Disney Villains in various ways - look no further than bored panda villains.  How would Disney Villains decorate their bedrooms, what would they look like as children, what if they were creepier, and so on.  Here's the article on people who look like cartoon characters - that is, 25 real life Disney Characters.  The first few are excellent.     Here's a November Birthday card.

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Two Days a Year

The scenario is that you live two days a year every year, as in a "Ground Hog Day" x 2.  Which two days would they be? I expect lots of people would say their Birthday and Christmas.  Considering this is Gerry's Birthday - wish him a Full Steam Ahead Birthday Wish! Now choosing our birthday and Christmas - that's for us North Americans. Would it be normal in China to choose Chinese New Year?  Maybe it depends which zodiac year you are born in. This year it is the year of the Dog.  Congratulations Dezi - this year is named after you! Your zodiac year is considered unlucky.  It's seen as a hurdle you have to jump over. The way to protect yourself from evil spirits and bad fortune is to wear red underwear every day for the entire year.   You can look up your zodiac animal on the chart HERE. Or to find out if it is your year, check if your age is a multiple of 12. The zodiac cycle repeats every 12 years. What if you have more than two days that are your favourite days?  Winnie the Pooh certainly had this perspective on the question:  "What day is it?"  asked Pooh. "It's today", squeaked Piglet. "My favourite day", said Pooh.

Canada Blooms - Inspirations of Spring

Canada Blooms was so inspirational last week.  The perennial greenhouse was a delight of flowers, grasses, and fern leaves unfolding.  I took my favourite images and have made a set of greeting cards.  Here they are: