Sep 8 2021 - September Project ...for Forty Years

 

September is often the month we start projects.  Here's a project I missed out on - a yearly picture of something over my lifetime.  Oh well.  We can look at other people's versions - today we have  a yearly picture of siblings over four decades.  It is a distinct one, done by a professional photographer, so the images are compelling.   From the  NY Times article covering the story:  "Nicholas Nixon was visiting his wife’s family when, “on a whim,” he said, he asked her and her three sisters if he could take their picture. It was summer 1975, and a black-and-white photograph of four young women — elbows casually attenuated, in summer shirts and pants, standing pale and luminous against a velvety background of trees and lawn — was the result. A year later, at the graduation of one of the sisters, while readying a shot of them, he suggested they line up in the same order. After he saw the image, he asked them if they might do it every year. “They seemed O.K. with it,” he said; thus began a project that has spanned almost his whole career. The series, which has been shown around the world over the past four decades, will be on view at the Museum of Modern Art, coinciding with the museum’s publication of the book “The Brown Sisters: Forty Years” in November." An update in 2021 shows Nicholas Nixon being interviewed about the story HERE.  The identify of the four sisters was not revealed for forty years.  Although, it would likely have been easy to figure out.   You can look at the pictures easily - there are many articles with the 40 pictures shown - there's a YouTube video that has the progression in 4 minutes. It is HERE.  It is a bit strange but as the photographer took such a similar picture each year with each person in the same position, it morphs extremely well.  Another version shows the full pictures in progression - it is HERE. At the end, you will find YouTube's endless versions of 25, 20, etc years of family photos.  It makes me realize this is a popular project.  Watching the progression of the passing of a lifetime, that September Song comes to mind, doesn't it? I hear Jimmy Durante's version.   And seeing the pictures, you can understand why Nixon's is so well known - such expressions he has captured. This is a lily in the Lilycrest Gardens field - such pretty colours and a nice progression of the blooms across the picture.

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Aug 26 2021 - Cat Named Dog

 

Do you remember the 1966 song "Walking my Cat named Dog?" It likely came into my mind with the folk song fund-raiser on PBS. It seems to go with The Rooftop Singers "Walk Right In":  Walk right in, sit right down Daddy, let your mind roll on Walk right in, sit right down Daddy, let your mind roll on Everybody's talkin' 'bout a new way of walkin' Do you want to lose your mind? Walk right in, sit right down Daddy, let your mind roll on The Cat Dog song was written and sung by Norma Tanenga. Norma was a songwriter, singer, and artist.  She was connected to Dusty Springfield musically and romantically. Their romantic relationship was stressful and their professional relationship went poorly for her with a number of her collaborations uncredited.   Dusty Springfield was extremely well known as a top 1960s British pop star.  It turns out that in 1981 she had a romantic relationship with Carole Pope.  Who would guess that?  Gay relationships of any kind were taboo in the 1960s and 1970s.  Britain's press pried into everything and turned it ugly.  So her stardom waned after she revealed she was gay in 1970. Norma's Cat Dog lyrics seemed to be free-spirited and humorous.  Would you call them a bit rebellious or defiant?  Here's the start of the song: "I'm walkin' all around the town Singin' all the people down Talkin' around, talkin' around Me and my cat named Dog Are walkin' high against the fog Singin' the sun, singin' the sun" It concludes with  "That's where I'm at" Such an expression of the social state of things in the 1960s.  Almost "stream of unconscious" lyrics.  The naming of cats and dogs is very complicated today - you can look through and go shopping for any number of most popular dog names.  Would you guess that Lucy is the second most popular female dog name?   Could you name your cat "Dog"? That seems unlikely today - relegated to a novelty song title now. This is the best colour display in the Lilycrest field this summer.

Aug 2 2021 - When sports isn't fun

 

It is weird to me is that there is no time limit on sports events.  I found an article on all the longest occurring sports events. There's a tennis match that took 11 hours covering 3 days. A baseball game in 1981 started at 7 pm and continued until 4 am and it wasn't finished. That game was stopped and started back up in two months and had 32 innings. In the Olympics, the notable record is for the longest wrestling match in the history of the games. It took more than 11 hours.  Alfred Asikainen vs. Martin Klein (1912) is considered one of the most epic of sporting battles. It had a political sub-plot: Estonian wrestler Martin Klein (who had decided to represent Russia) met Finland's Alfred Asikainen at the 1912 Stockholm Olympics. Despite Russia having dominion over Finland, the Finnish were allowed to fly their own flag, much to the chagrin of the Russians.  When the two wrestlers met in the semi-finals, neither wanted to let their respective motherlands down. Their 11 hour and 40 minute duel was almost inevitable. In the end it was the Russian who came out on top.  Klein was so exhausted he couldn't fight in the final the next day, automatically handing the gold medal to a Swedish wrestler. Asikainen, on the other hand, returned home a nationalist hero. Today we have an interpretive lily picture - the lilies have mostly finished blooming in the field. The tomatoes take over our attention now.

June 24 2021 - In a Nutshell

 

You can find a lot "in a nutshell."  But mostly history. It started with Roman writer Pliny's description of Homer's Iliad being copied in so tiny a hand that it could fit in a nutshell. That is such a wonderful image, isn't it? Kurzgesagt is German for "in a nutshell" and it is a German animation and design studio started in 2013.  I was attracted to the more literal translation of the name:  "shortly said."  The company has explained many things in 10 minutes or so - things like The origin of consciousness, Wormholes, How to build a Dyson Sphere.    These are termed explainer videos. They did extremely well explaining the Coronavirus in 2020. Without YouTube, where would this all be? YouTube has made some many things possible. What is the top youtube channel?  One place says T-Series with 185 million subscribers, another says PewDiePie with 102 million. (PewDiePie is Felix Arvid Ulf Kjellberg, Swedish comedian).  The rankings are by Series or Personalities.  They are all in the multi-millions.  Imagine writing something and it goes out to 185 million people.  Wouldn't that involve a lot of replies and comments, requests for brand representation, and other things like this?   I guess so as there are lots of YouTube videos on the day in the life of a YouTuber, so I expect I could find this out - the videos listed say things like "10 key moments in this video" or "7 key moments in this video", and so on.   I am a YouTube viewer with Millie. She likes to watch cat and dog videos, and responds particularly well to other Cavaliers talking.   It is Martagon lily season - these are small down-facing lilies - many on a tall stem - maybe 3 feet tall.

Mar 5 2020 - Incredible? The Mona Lisa

What is incredible these days?  Is it different than in previous times?  Incredible means something that is impossible to believe.  I expect we have so much captured in photos that a great deal of what happens today is credible rather than incredible.   But something that caught my attention was the Louvre re-opening.  The New York Times says it isn't providing guards in the Mona Lisa room to keep order. Thousands visit every day.  The measure is to protect guards, but leaves the public to decide for themselves. I realized that I find our fixation on the Mona Lisa an incredible thing. I was shocked to see in when I visited the Louvre.  Dark, dingy, small.  I was dismayed to see this famous painting.  But wait!  Here's the introduction in the Britannica HERE that speaks to my wondering about this painting's elevated status: "Five centuries after Leonardo da Vinci painted the Mona Lisa (1503–19), the portrait hangs behind bulletproof glass within the Louvre Museum and draws thousands of jostling spectators each day. It is the most famous painting in the world, and yet, when viewers manage to see the artwork up close, they are likely to be baffled by the small subdued portrait of an ordinary woman. She’s dressed modestly in a translucent veil, dark robes, and no jewelry. Much has been said about her smile and gaze, but viewers still might wonder what all the fuss is about. Along with the mysteries of the sitter’s identity and her enigmatic look, the reason for the work’s popularity is one of its many conundrums. Although many theories have attempted to pinpoint one reason for the art piece’s celebrity, the most compelling arguments insist that there is no one explanation. The Mona Lisa’s fame is the result of many chance circumstances combined with the painting’s inherent appeal."   And then the article goes on to outline all the interesting circumstances over the centuries that makes it famous. Another article outlines 7 mysteries that make the work mysterious - it is HERE. The part that fascinates me is da Vinci's relationship with his work: "Leonardo da Vinci worked on the painting for four years, and possibly at intervals after that. He always took it with him when he travelled, and he never signed or dated it." That seems to find incredible for me - Leonardo Da Vinci's passion and fixation for this painting lives on through us.  I found myself an artist to follow the other day on Redbubble.  Love the yellow lily they chose.  Here's a collage.

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Lighting the Christmas Tree

Wondering about the interesting news of 2019, a "Noel" retitled "Noeel" Christmas story popped up:     "An electric eel in Chattanooga, Tenn., is sparking a little holiday cheer.  Every time Miguel Wattson the electric eel releases a jolt of electricity, a festively-decorated Christmas tree next to his tank at the Tennessee Aquarium flickers and glows.  "There is a sensor directly in his exhibit that picks up when he produces electricity," Aquarist Kimberly Hurt, who cares for the electric eel, tells NPR.  The aquarium had already connected the sensor to a soundboard and a light board to correspond with Wattson's bursts, says Hurt. "It'll light up the board. It also does make some noise so people can hear when he's producing electricity." So it wasn't a huge leap to also have Wattson's sensors connected to a Christmas tree, for a seasonal spin on the display." More on the story and video footage of the electric eel here. Brian's lily field faces a farm house and garage. I got to wondering what it might look like with a scenic view - facing west to mountains.  Here's an interpretation.

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Joking Around August

August is 3rd from the bottom of least favourite months.  Can you imagine not liking a month that can have extra weekends? August 2014 had 5 Fridays, 5 Saturdays and 5 Sundays. The Chinese call it 'Silver pockets full'.  The myth goes that this only happens every 823 years, but it is closer to every 11 years.  Chinese and many Asian cultures believe that this is the month to be grateful and appreciate the abundance you have while sharing what you have with others. this opens your pockets to receive more - thus the idea of pockets full of silver. At the other end of the spectrum, this comes from funny-jokes.com: This month's winner of loser of the month has to go to Mr Trevor Doyle who apparently fell asleep on the bus that was returning him to his open prison near Arklow, in the south of Ireland.  He became concerned that the bus would get him to the prison too late and he would miss the deadline for the end of his weekend release.  What did he do - he stole a car to get him back in time reports Jon Henley in the Guardian Diary. I think these two retrievals highlight August's reputation. These are the results of a search for "august jokes."   Here's Lilium Lancifolium. It isn't native to North America, but is long-lived and enduring.  Like peonies and lilacs, these were planted in farm garden and remained for decades. These are the ones with the little black bulbils up the stems.

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Breakthrough Listening

Mysterious radio signals are from outer space, say scientists.  These short bursts are bright flashes of radio waves and last for only a few milliseconds.  They've been happening since 2007, and there's one that has a repeating nature - it is FRB 121102. The FRB is an acronym for fast radio bursts.  They are coming from a distant dwarf galaxy.   The Breakthrough Listen initiative began observing FRB121102 in August 2017, and have come to the conclusion:  "As far as the FRB121102 goes, I don't think there is any slight possibility that [the pulses] are from an extraterrestrial intelligence," Vishal Gajjar, a scientist with Breakthrough Listen, said yesterday (Jan. 10) during a news conference at the 231st meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Washington, D.C." Another investigation is 'Oumuamua - our first interstellar visitor.  It is an asteroid with a weird, elongated shape. It may be 400 meters long.  It was first detected in mid-October.  "A search for signals that may be of artificial origin has begun, but despite the impressive computational power of the Breakthrough Listen computing cluster at Green Bank, the large data volumes mean that this will take some time to complete," Breakthrough Listen representatives said in the same statement. Who is Breakthrough Listen?  The search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI)  got a $100 million boost in July 2015 when investor Yuri Milner and physicist Stephen Hawking announced the initiative called Breakthrough Listen. There is a lot of news and information on the space.com website. It shows Astronomer Frank Drake's equation to estimate the number of intelligent, communicating civilizations currently living in the galaxy. N: The total number of communicating technological civilizations in the galaxy equals R: Formation rate of life-friendly stars, times fp: Fraction of those stars with planets, times ne: Average number of life-friendly planets per solar system, times fl: Fraction of those planets where life evolves, times fi: Fraction of those planets where intelligence evolves, times fc: Fraction of those planets where interstellar-communication-worthy civilizations evolve, times Lc: Length of time those civilizations remain detectable from Earth The current estimate of the number of communicating technological civilizations in this galaxy is between 2 civilizations and 280 million civilizations. You can check out more at space.com

Superhero News

Our Canadian Poster yesterday made me think of comics.  And by chance Superhero News came up today.  It is mostly Batman comic book movie news from around the web. It synopsized 12 or so upcoming comics on  January 10, 2018.  There are so many of them and so much Batman News.  Saturday May 5th is Free Comic Book Day in Canada.  It is an annual promotional effort by the industry to bring new readers into independent comic books stores. This year the comic listed is Avengers:  Infinity War. Here's one of the entries from Superhero News online:   Batman Beyond Vol. 2: Rise of the Demon – The Batman of the future is back. Emerging from the rubble of the cataclysm that nearly destroyed the Earth, Terry McGinnis has returned to Gotham City and reclaimed the mantle of the Bat. He’s fended off some of his deadliest foes to do it. But he’s about to face an unexpected enemy—an opponent more patient, and more powerful, than any he’s ever known. When the League of Assassins launches an all-out assault on Gotham, Terry must travel to Tibet in his experimental Batsuit. There, he’ll stop at nothing to rescue his captured mentor Bruce Wayne and take the fight to their leader—Ra’s al Ghul himself. But when he finally gets his audience with the Demon’s Head, he’s in for the shock of a lifetime. Can Terry defeat this shadowy figure and free Bruce Wayne from his nemesis? Or will this all-out war—and the twisted technology of his biomechanical Batsuit—drive him into a darkness he can never escape? Discover the answer in BATMAN BEYOND VOL. 2: RISE OF THE DEMON, from the creative team of Dan Jurgens and Bernard Chang. It’s BATMAN BEYOND and Ra’s al Ghul as you’ve never seen them before! Collects BATMAN BEYOND #6-12! Holidays for today include Houseplant Appreciation Day, National Bittersweet Chocolate Day, Peculiar People Day, and National Cut Your Energy Costs Day. Today's image is a beautiful snow-white lily from Brian's Lilycrest Garden hybridizing field.

The Oldest Joke

There are so many traditions this time of year - including Christmas crackers with their tired old jokes.  This got me thinking about old jokes and I wondered what is the oldest joke.  Of course there's an answer available in a flash.  The oldest joke was recorded around 1900 BC and is a lowbrow Sumerian toilet joke.  Here it is: 'Something which has never occurred since time immemorial; a young woman did not fart in her husband's lap' A 1600 BC gag about a pharaoh, said to be King Snofru, comes second -- “How do you entertain a bored pharaoh? You sail a boatload of young women dressed only in fishing nets down the Nile and urge the pharaoh to go catch a fish.” These two oldest jokes are ok.  However, I refrain from spreading any more ancient jokes given how crude they are.  And then they aren't very funny.  Just as well, then, that Christmas cracker jokes are only old and not ancient.  Christmas crackers  were first made in Victorian times in the early 1850's.  A London confectioner invented them when he added a motto to his sugared almond bonbons.  These were sold wrapped in a twisted paper package - and he got the idea of adding a 'bang'. This turned out to be a hit and a successful business.   The paper crown was added by his sons in the early 1900s. By the end of the 1930's love poems were replaced by jokes or limericks.  And so our tired old jokes probably come from the vaudeville era of jokes.  I found a few more Christmas jokes from the U.K.  The brussels sprouts joke was voted the funniest joke last year in Britain.  How will Christmas dinner be different after Brexit? No Brussels. What do workers at Sports Direct get for Christmas dinner? About 5 minutes. What do you get if you cross Donald Trump with a Christmas Carol? O Comb Over Ye Faithful.

Lilies by Name

I have two for-purchase sites.  The first is Redbubble.  This site has group functionality for showcasing images on the site.  I host 3 groups: All Glorious Lilies, All Glorious Gardens and Surfaces and Textures. As a host, I curate weekly features of member images, and run challenges on an on-going basis based on themes. When I took over the All Glorious Lilies Group, its scope was limited to Lilium lilies. However, most photographers and artists are not flower experts and all kinds of flowers were being submitted.  To the submitters they looked like lilies or people called them lilies.  These would include day lilies for example.  As the images were very beautiful, I looked for ways to define the scope so they could be included.  The Lily family is named Liliaceae.  I found that it used to be a large and diverse scope of plants - everything from lilium to allium (onions), irises, etc.  But that's all changed with genetic testing and it is now a very small family of plants.  So I decided to make the scope everything in the Liliaceae family and anything with lily in the common name. The list was started and grew and grew. Here's the current Handy List of Lilies.  There are over 16,000 views of this list. I looked up the Matthew verse on '"lilies of the field" to see how this related to the group. Wikipedia says scholars consider the autumn crocus, scarlet poppy and Turk’s cap lily (a lilium) to be candidates, also narcissus, gladiolus and iris. And then, wikipedia tells us the verse could also just mean flowers in general and that lily could be a word referring or any showy variety. So this is the working motto for the group. Elusive and inclusive in its reference to Lilies – a fitting verse for a group which has a clear, and yet meandering scope -  All Glorious Lilies.

A Birthday Today - February 11 2015

A Special Birthday Today

Today in History I did a search on what happened today in history.  An excellent find - it is Thomas Alva Edison's birthday - born in 1847. The Rockefeller Center in New York commemorated the 75th anniversary of Thomas Edison's first light bulb by lighting a 75,000-watt light bulb in 1954.   If you are in or near Fort Myers, Florida today - go to the Edison & Ford Winter Estates and you will get in free to celebrate his birthday.  The month of February has a series of Edison birthday activities and celebrations, including the Edison Festival of Lights. Do you wonder about the middle name of Alva? A google search brings a number of answers, and the most prevalent story is that its meaning is 'white', related to Latin Albin. It is a popular girl's name in Sweden.

That Elusive Blue in Flowers

What makes blue so beautiful... This is what I think of as a traditional, species lily.  It it a tall plant for the garden.  It has the traditional orange colour with dark spots, the pendant flowers with recurved petals and the delicate hanging, suspended stamens.  This stem in the picture is a Ontario Regional Lily Society show winner from a few years ago, so it is perfection as this lily goes.  I think it is a Lilium Pardalinum.   This is the second in the series on Blue Lilies, the elusive colour that is missing in the genes of lilies.

Lily Season Full Out

It's lily season at Lilycrest Gardens with the fields in full bloom.  Here are a few images from the field:

And here are some of the show winners at the Ontario Regional Lily Society Lily Show at Royal Botanical Gardens on the July 7th and 8th weekend.