Mar 11 2020 - Square Foot Living

One of my experiences every day when I research a topic is to find out how much is already been investigated and written about it.   I saw this little living space in the NY Times morning news.   The article is about the impacts of the coronavirus causing people to work remotely from home. This is the illustration - it reminds me of the 1950s kitchen sets we played with.  Pinterest has pages for "Living in 100 Square Feet".  The only difference is that the bed is on a second level that one reaches via a ladder staircase.  These are endearingly named "My Tiny House."  And you likely know about tiny house reality series.   Articles written about tiny houses typically start: "High tech couples gives up high life to live in tiny space...and loving it." According to the engineering toolbox, the average person needs about 100 - 400 square feet of space in an apartment to feel comfortable.  They have square footage for all kinds of rooms - dental centres, churches, banks.  Residential is 200 - 600 square feet per person.  So tiny living is about reducing that in half or more. Can we shrink our living spaces rather than enlarging them as we've been doing?  Is this also a viable approach to our affordable housing crisis and to homeless housing? Seattle is a city that has built tiny houses villages and has experience in the area for a few years.  They opened their 11th village in February 2019.  I went looking for Canada's version:  and it turns out that Hamilton, Kingston and Keewatin have tiny house community initiatives.  Cute as a button in the pictures, but only three of them.  This seems to indicate this isn't a movement, more a promotional experiment. Today's picture is Witch hazel blooming in the snow.  It may seem funny to look forward to a forecast of rain.  Maybe that's the mystique of March.

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Mar 3 2020 - The Moneyless Man

The Moneyless Man hit the news in 2010.  He is Mark Boyle, the founder of Freeconomy Community and the author of The Moneyless Man.  In an update in 2015,  he says it was to be a one-year experiment in ecological living.  It is said he started this on Buy Nothing Day, November 28th. At the end of the first year, he found himself "more content, healthier, and at peace".  He has gone on to lead many initiatives in this area. He is known as an activist and writer.  German Heidemarie Schwermer decided in her early 50s to leave her job as a psychotherapist and live money-free.  This has been documented in the film "Living Without Money."  She too decided to live one year without money.  "I only wanted to try to do an experiment and in that year, I noticed a new life," she said. "I didn't want to go back to the old life." "Her schedule is pretty strict. After a week, she's off to somewhere new, usually running the lecture circuit at speaking engagements around Europe and lately helping to promote her documentary. The only payment she accepts, however, is enough to cover her train fare. "I'm always thinking how I could make things better for life in the world," she says. "I am something like a peace pilgrim. I go from house to house sharing my philosophy." You can go to moneyless.org HERE. for all kinds of topics. The website is a social and experimental online project by Robino and Guaka about money and the disposal of that.  There's a motto on the site: Less is more Nothing is better Today's Series is Water.

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No Disappointmint

A few weeks ago, CBC radio had an interview with Sean Carroll, a theoretical physicist. His topic was scientists not actually understanding quantum mechanics.  They know how to work with it and have achievements based on it.  But actually understanding it has been elusive.   I looked him up and was attracted to the title of his bookend in particular, the word spacetime.  What about this expression - how long has spacetime been around? It was proposed by mathematician Hermann Minkowski in 1908 as a way to reformulate Albert Einstein's special theory of relativity (1905).   This is serious writing.  You don't retrieve Amazon products with the term spacetime unless you add the term Amazon.  How refreshing.  You retrieve university course curriculum, definitions and articles explaining it.  Lots of explanations.  Along the way, I found The Unemployed Philosophers Guild.  It says that it has thoughtful gifts for thinking people.   Einstein Relativity Mints. "In Albert Einstein's Theory of Relativity, he describes gravity as a geometric property of space and time, commonly referred to as spacetime. This is not to be confused with dining, which is a combination of meals and time, commonly known as mealtime. Now, lunchtime and dinnertime can sometimes have an adverse impact on one's breath, making it difficult to have a goodtime and leading to a lot of alonetime. And that’s where Einstein's Relatively Strong Mints come in. After mealtime, snacktime, or anytime, eat one or two of these tasty mints and your breath will be fresh in notime. Before you know it, you'll be having a goodtime and looking forward to bedtime." The Philosophers Guild has many varieties of mints - such as  Experimints, Trumpzilla Mints, Atone Mints, Bob Ross Happy Little Mints, Batman Mint, Edgar Allan Poe's Tell Tale Mints, Trump Embarrassmints, Retiremints, and Impeachmints.   You can enjoy the mints page of the website HERE.  I checked out Frequently Asked Questions to find out more and this question is answered:  "Are all the mints really the same? How could they be? Most are peppermint flavored, but obviously the Empowermint is different from the Impeachmint." Here are a few images to be added to the Koi collection.

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Countdown to Christmas

We had Black Friday for two days, and now we're into Cyber Monday.  These two pictures are motion blur images of scenery along the route to Longwood a few years ago.  For me they match the hyper-reality of the retail bombardment that launches Christmas for us now.

Once at Longwood, there's a splendour of Christmas that is magical and makes us want to savour its spirit for as long as we can.

Here are two of the weird and whacky, splendid and entertaining creations.  This first one is made of parsley!

This second one is made of Spanish moss and tropical succulent hens and chicks draping its long branches.  

Longwood knows how to create Christmas - and there sill be more to see this month.

Koi, The Living Art

Today's theme is Koi, the Living Art.  Here is a selection of images taken over the last few years.

Koi, The Living Art

These are more images in the Series - "Koi, The Living Art".  These were taken at the Royal Botanical Gardens in Burlington, Ontario.