March 30 2024 - Famous Easter Joke(s)

 

Are there any famous Easter jokes?  Would it be in the Comedy Hall of Fame? There's a National Comedy Hall of Fame and a Canadian Comedy Hall of Fame.  There are a some jokes, but it isn't a library of the most famous jokes.  These are the two I'll include:  Seinfeld:  "Proof that we don't understand death is that we give dead people a pillow."  Bob Newhart: "I don't like country music, but I don't mean to denigrate those who do. And for those who like country music, denigrate means to 'put down." So back to Easter - historically, Easter was known for a tradition of laughter - risus paschals.  It was a medieval tradition where priests provoked the laughter of their congregations on Easter Day by telling crude jokes, making obscene gestures and putting on slapstick comedic performances.  That was stopped by the Pope in the 1600s.   Who would have guessed that Easter once had a lighter side.   I  have found the most famous Easter Joke: Three men died and are at the pearly gates of heaven. St. Peter tells them that they can enter the gates if they can answer one simple question. St. Peter asks the first man, "What is Easter?" He replies, "Oh, that's easy! It's the holiday in November when everyone gets together, eats turkey, and are thankful..." St. Peter shakes his head, and proceeds to ask the second man the same question, "What is Easter?"  The second one replies, "Easter is the holiday in December when we put up a nice tree, texchange presents, and celebrate the birth of Jesus." St. Peter looks at the second man, again shakes his head in disgust, and then peers over his glasses at the third man and asks, "What is Easter?" The third man smiles confidently and looks St. Peter in the eyes, "I know what Easter is. Easter is the Christian holiday that coincides with the Jewish celebration of Passover. Jesus was crucified on a cross and then buried in a nearby cave which was sealed off by a large boulder." St. Peter smiles broadly with delight.  Then the man continues, "Every year the boulder is moved aside so that Jesus can come out...and, if he sees his shadow, there will be six more weeks of winter." here's a nice abstract pansy.

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Mar 19 2023 - The Arrow of Time

 

The Arrow of Time is an compelling metaphor.  It describes the "one-way direction" of time.  It was only in 1927 that it was developed by Arthur Eddington.  It remains an unsolved general physics question.  The "one-way direction" means that that time is asymmetrical.  If time were symmetrical then a video of real events would seem as realistic whether played forwards or backwards.  Wikipedia tells me that physical processes at the microscopic level are believed to be either entirely or mostly time-symmetric: if the direction of time were to reverse, the theoretical statements that describe them would remain true. Yet at the macroscopic level it often appears that this is not the case: there is an obvious direction (or flow) of time. For me, the part that is fascinating is how each of us perceive time.  Our perception of time is as a continuous movement from the known past to the unknown future.   nd exceptions? This article from the BBC talks about people who have experienced time stopping - such experiences can be part of epilepsies or strokes. Another area that is under scrutiny is the experience of time seeming to stand still.  This most commonly happens with something like "a beautiful sunset, a mesmerizing song or a moving piece of artwork is able to fully captivate our attention. And for that brief period, time seems to stand still."   That's the presence of awe. According to Melanie Rudd, Kathleen Vohs and Jennifer Aaker in a huffiest.com article HERE, "there are two things needed for someone to have a true awe experience: perceptual vastness -- you need to perceive that you've encountered something vast in number, size, scope, complexity or social bearing -- and a need for accommodation. You need to feel that you have to revise or update the way you think about or understand the world. While anything you encounter in daily life can evoke a sense of awe by meeting these two requirements, it is often artistic, musical, natural and spiritual elements that elicit such responses." So then it would likely be awe that would explain Carl Sagan's and Brian Cox's mesmerizing presence in their documentaries.   Spring has started at Cole's Garden Centre - their poly house is full of a spring bloom display. Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblogspot.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwellart.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

Sep 24 2022 - Royal Trees in Canada

 

Pinterest included in its feed Laura Tarrish's Hunter|Gatherer tree sculpture,  The picture below got my attention.  Made from wire, paper machier, paint, fabric and various things we wouldn't normally associate with trees.   It led to Thomas Heatherwick, UK designer and his tree sculpture - the Tree of Trees outside Buckingham Palace in celebration of the Queen's  Platinum Jubilee.  “The sculpture seeks to put the importance of trees and nature at the heart of this historic milestone to celebrate Her Majesty, who has planted over 1,500 trees all over the world throughout the course of her 70-year reign”  After the celebration the 350 trees go to community groups and organizations.  The big tree project for the Jubilee was the Queen's Green Canopy - a living legacy with over 1 million trees, planted in her name across the nation from 2021 to 2022.   This makes sense when you think of all the trees she planted. And here in Canada? There must be more than a dozen trees planted by the Queen as she visited more than 20 times.  The best known is the oak tree she planted in 1951 in Queen Elizabeth Park in Vancouver. There's another in Jackson Park in Windsor, planted in 1953.  In 1973, the Toronto Star headline was: Queen Elizabeth wields a silver-plated shovel as she plants a silver maple tree in Ganaraska Conservation area at Cobourg today in commemoration of Conservation week.  In Rideau Hall, Ottawa, amongst the 120 ceremonial trees that have been planted by famous people, primarily heads of state, are 16 trees planted by the Windsors -  that's since 1939, five of them dedicated by Queen Elizabeth. A Daily Mail  article with some then and now pictures of trees the queen had planted over the decades - the article is HERE.  So while there are pictures of the Queen planting trees, there are not many articles.   This is likely a bit mundane for most people.   The highlights of these 22 tours do not generally dwell on trees - they include things like: 1970: Queen Elizabeth wears a pantsuit to protect against clouds of blackflies during a stop in the Northwest Territories. DDT had recently been banned. 1973: In an unusual event to celebrate Ontario Conservation Week, the Queen is tasked with releasing 100 bass into Grenadier Pond in Toronto’s High Park. 1976: On her first day in Halifax, the Queen is serenaded by more than 100 young ukulele players on a visit to the Nova Scotia Olympic Folk Show.

Pansy petal close-up today. Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblog.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwellart.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

March 25 - The Song is Ending

CBC interviewed REM band member Mike Mills on the weekend.  The hit End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine) came out in 1987 and became a satiric and defiant anthem.  So 30 years on, it has come back into the social consciousness and is being played again. What did I find most compelling in the interview?  He and Michael Stipe wrote the music first, then gave it to Peter Buck to write the lyrics, and this is what he came up with. They had no idea this music was going to say this much.   So while this song is about the 'ending', I started to wonder about how songs conclude.  What kind of endings are there? Some of the songs we were singing in the choir have a little 'hmm', 'ooh' or 'ahh' to signal the end, a sort of fade out.  And some come to a leaping big chord and just stop.  These are pretty fun to sing.  We're singing a sort of Celtic orientation/religious/inspirational set of songs. What comes to my mind on the thumping last chord songs? Oscar Peterson and his big endings.  I found this description of his version of West Side Story's Tonight (1962): "Tonight swings mightily right from the downbeat. Peterson twists the melody and trades lines with bassist Ray Brown as drummer Ed Thigpen lightly stabs and jostles the duo with his sympathetic brush work. And then there’s the big pay-off — chorus after chorus of burning swing, round after round of exuberantly shouted choruses, and finally, a stop-time ending." What are the most famous and enduring song endings? In our time, it is an easy answer: the Beatles ending for A Day in the Life.  "Following the second crescendo, the song ends with a sustained chord, played on several keyboards, that rings for over forty seconds. " This ending is considered to have made history and is the  #1  popular song endings.  For classical songs, the #1 ending is Aaron Copland's Symphony No. 3 – IV. I haven't looked at the most interesting song ending lyrics, or the songs with long endings.  There likely are more variants on endings - that's for another day.  We likely have lots ahead. Yesterday's weather was too cold for me to garden, so I created spring with some spring flower photo processing.

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May 22 - Please the Fans Finale

The Elevator mystery is unsolved after almost 300 episodes, but the ding of its arrival is a completion for the Big Bang Theory. Once that door opened, the series was allowed to complete.  I had not realized that the most enduring question is Penny's surname.  It remains a mystery.  The show seemed to have a traditional set of resolutions, the highlight being Sheldon finding grace.   I saw part of an episode of the Lucy Show a few weeks ago. The finale of The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour mirrored their real-life circumstances - Wikipedia says it wasn't intentional. In the show Lucy and Ricky were about to divorce and end the show. Edie Adams was the guest star and chose the song to sing without knowing the plot - "That's All".  It is considered prophetic. While the show's finale divorce didn't happen, their real-life divorce was final and they only reconciled many years later. Viewership of finales is very important. The BBT viewership 'grew' to 23.44 million viewers, up from the 18 million who watched it live.  This makes it the most watched non-sports series program of 2018-19.  But it falls far short of the most watched television series finales of all time: M*A*S*H // 1983. 105.9 million viewers Cheers // 1993. 80.4 million The Fugitive // 1967. 78 million Seinfeld // 1998. 76.3 million Friends // 2004. 52.5 Magnum, P.I. // 1988. 50.7 The Cosby Show // 1992. 44.4 All in the Family // 1979. 40.2 Family ties // 1989. 36.3  Home Improvement //1999. 35.5 million Can you imagine these numbers?  The M*A*S*H episode drew 77% of those watching televisions at the time. Only the 2010's Super Bowl XLIV had 106 million viewers. The Cheers episode was watched by between 80.4 million and 93.5 million, with the rise of cable television. We look at a Miltonia orchid today.  Also known as the Pansy Orchid.

Twelfth Night or What You Will

There are quite a few variations for this penultimate day of the Twelve Days.  Ladies dancing, ladies spinning, badgers baiting, lords a-leading, dancers a-dancing, lads a-louping, bulls a-beating.  Our Twelfth Night of Christmas is tomorrow.  It is "always on the evening of 5 January, but the Twelfth Day can either precede or follow the Twelfth Night according to which Christian tradition is followed. Twelfth Night is followed by the Feast of the Epiphany on 6 January. In some traditions, the first day of Epiphany (6 January) and the twelfth day of Christmas overlap". (source:  Wikipedia) So what about "Twelfth Night, or What You Will" - Shakespeare's play?  It is believed to have been written around 1601-02 as a Twelfth Night's entertainment for the close of the Christmas season. The first recorded performance was on 2 February 1602, at Candlemas, the formal end of Christmastide in the year's calendar.  A law student, John Manningham, who was studying in the Middle Temple in London, described the performance which took place in the hall of the Middle Temple.  The Middle Temple is a place with great  architectural history. The western part of "The Temple" was the headquarters of the Knights Templar until they dissolved in 1312.  There are many buildings in the four "Inns of Court" that are listed buildings. There has been damage over the centuries - fires, the Great Fire of London, and the Blitz. But the Halls' magnificent double-hammer beam roof remains along with the 29 foot oak High table. Sir Walter Raleigh and Sir Francis Drake have been known to dine in the Hall.  The buildings in the Temple itself are still held under the 1608 letters patent of James I.  The Middle Temple Hall where our performance took place was constructed between 1562 and 1572, and opened in 1576 by Queen Elizabeth I.  It was thought that Shakespeare himself was probably present for the first performance.  Our heroine in the play is Viola.  Violas and pansies are flowers that are closely related.  I've never considered how they are different.  I found this: If the flower has four petals pointing upward and only one pointing downward – you’re looking at a Pansy. If the flower has two petals pointing upward and three petals pointing downward – you’ve got a Viola.  These words, though, come from one of Shakespeare's other plays.