Dec 10 2024 - Winingest One of Us All

 

The Fantasy of Trees finished on Sunday and the raffle draws were done on Monday.  As part of the team, there is lots of careful work - making sure all the tickets are out of the holder, stirring them up, a second person picking one ticket, the auditor watches to ensure no looking at numbers. The auditor receives the ticket, then gives the ticket to the caller - my role - who calls out the number, then the look-up person who makes a match in the lottery record book, the win recorder, the runner who takes the information to the telephone callers, who make the call - You've won! It's a lot, isn't it?  I didn't win anything.  I had lots of help putting tickets into trees and items- by various children of people I know who promised to take away the toys or chocolate decorations.   Such excellent odds of winning something, too.  So it got me thinking about Frank Selak, who we've read about before - he's listed as the luckiest man in the world.  Actually he is known as the luckiest and unluckiest together.  "Frano Selak, a Croatian man, miraculously cheated death seven times before eventually winning the lottery. Frane Selak, of Croatia, has a reputation as the world's luckiest man. Frane Selak, an elderly Croatian man, is known around the world for being the luckiest man alive." HERE's the full Wikipedia entry.   Note that none of his depictions of life and death events are verified. But he did win the lottery at 73, so that with his strange saga of death events has elevated him to the luckiest/unluckiest person in the world.  But really, we just looking at raffles and lotteries.  But the stories here are about people who hacked the system, beat the system or one that big powerball lottery in California - the one that is over $1 billion. "The largest gathering of lottery millionaires is 110 and was achieved by The National Lottery (UK), in London, UK, on 7 October 2015."   My guess is that Frank stays in the retrievals because of the novel story of life and death and lottery win.  Tracking multiple winners would likely make the gambling and lottery world jittery.  Gambling is considered a problem behaviour in humans.  Cheating and hacking the system seems to come with it and would be something we simple lottery players don't want to find out. The Fantasy of Trees takes place at the Grimsby Museum each year. This is the Museum entrance with Santa - taken a few years ago.

Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblogspot.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwell.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

Dec 21 2023 - Shortest Day is here

 

Dark, darker, darkest.  Tonight at 10:27pm.  How is it the shortest day when the occurrence is marked at night?  Solstice is when the North Pole is tilted furthest away from the Sun.  And that seems to be the precise moment of greatest distance.  So I guess they go backwards and decide it is the shortest day.  Have we always done this as a calculation?  Or maybe there were observations in the past  The shortest amount of daylight doesn't explain why it is so dark in the day?  Typically, the reference to dark days refers to short days.   Our dark December days may be explained by the angle of the earth, but probably it has to do with weather patterns and cloud cover.  January 2023 was the darkest January on record in Southern Ontario. It was an "eastern flow" that caused that situation.  The Great Lakes contribute to the problem - being largely open and unfrozen, the provide moisture to help cloud development.  In comparison, the North Pole hasn't had sunlight or even twilight since early October.  And it will continue until early March. How did we get to deciding that Santa and Superman should have to live in the North Pole? Because we decided that.  It didn't come as some enlightenment from a bolt of starlight in the Heavens.  Is it because they are both faster than the speed of light?  They both wear red, both fly and so both should live in the North Pole.  Could they be one person? One silly Quora entry says that Mrs. Clause made Superman's suit and that it's essential the same design inside out.  Another Reddit entry says how much the person loves how Superman still believes in Santa.  Another entry is Biblically headlined: Superman 1.26: Let It Go.   So here's to the shortest day, it can only get longer from here.

One of Flexify's swirly patterns on an oak leaf sitting on coloured lights in the ice. Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblogspot.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwell.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

Dec 5 2023 - The New Concorde or is it Concorde II

 

The Concorde was a highlight in air travel.  I know someone who took the last flight and considered it one of his life experiences.  This was a very special aircraft.  Only 14 of the French - U.K. Concorde aircraft went into service starting in 1973 with its first passenger service in 1976. It was a technological masterpiece.  It was fraught with high maintenance costs.  Everything about it was expensive.  It had a catastrophic air crash in 2000, and was retired in 2003.   You can imagine what has been going on to create a new version.  The original Concorde costs of development were never recouped and there had been no intention to.  So how would NASA be given the budget to develop a replacement?  Got me.  Yet, here's the news just announced at the end of November: "NASA is developing a quiet supersonic jet in order to replace the dreams of the Concorde with one that is significantly less deafening to the people down below. The supersonic passenger plane, called the X-59 aims to fly faster than the speed of sound, at almost twice as fast as the Concorde. Engineers are aiming to reduce the sound of the typical sonic boom to a ‘sonic thump’. The aircraft is the centerpiece of NASA’s Quesst mission, through which NASA will fly the X-59 over several to-be-selected U.S. communities and gather data about people’s perceptions of the sound it makes." Is it Concorde II or the New Concorde? Here are Santa and Mrs. Santa who visited the Museum for the Fantasy of Trees.

Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblogspot.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwell.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

Nov 27 2022 - Writing to Santa

 

How is it possible to write to Santa?  Children don't learn recursive writing anymore.   Do they pop off an email? Of course they do.  What is Santa's email address?  Which one would you like?  Here's one  listed as santa@officialsantaemail.com,  Or you can go online to Elfontheshelf.com/kids and choose the activities tae and then click on write to Santa and this will pop up.   Wait!  You can email Santa at email santa.com and up pops the Naught or Nice List with Cassie K. in Calgary, Maya O. in Sydney and so on.  And the joke of the day?  What kind of money do they use in the North pole?  Cold cash! More opportunities abound.  In Canada you can email to www.canadapost.ca/santascorner. Would you be tempted to cover the bases and write to Santa via as many different emails as possible?  Would you ask for different presents with each email or the same one multiple times?  Which strategy would you go for?   Yesterday, I put most of my raffle tickets into the ladder tree, hoping I will win the vintage ladder and can use it as a garden feature. Santa visited Grimsby yesterday.  Here's a collage of our memories of Santa at the Fantasy of trees over the last few years.   Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblog.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwellart.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

Dec 29 2921 - Shaking Off Santa...At Least for a Year!

 

Santa is such a delightful visual icon.  The white curly hair and beard, rosy cheeks, beautiful elves and fur "suit"... always so charming.  But the keeping of lists for naught and nice is a nasty underside to this soft, warm cozy visual experience.   These are 'substitute' or 'stand-in' words of naughty for bad, sinful, evil, and nice for good, ethical, virtuous. Such a moral framework within the guise of candies, cookies and presents.  No wonder philosophers have looked at Santa carefully and wondered about what moral framework was used or invented to guide him.  CBC took a look at philosophical frameworks to explain how describe how the framework might work.  Consequentialist? Deontologist?  Virtue ethicist? I've summarized the interview that can be found in full HERE. Santa as a consequentialist - The Total Score Consequentialism determines whether an action is good or bad based on the consequences of that action. This is also known as modern utilitarianism. Jeremy Bentham an 18th-century English philosopher is the founder of this philosophy.  It is an addition and subtraction framework with a final score of right vs wrong.  "If you, as a kid, are constantly doing things that cause harm to other people and cause them to be in pain, that seems bad. And we might intuitively understand why Santa would judge you as naughty in that case,"  Bentham created  a way of assigning a numerical value to an action — by considering questions like: How much pleasure or pain might your action cause? For how long? How many people are you going to affect? "You add up all the pleasure and you add up all the pain and you take the pain away from the pleasure. And if your action results in more pleasure overall for more people, this is a moral thing and you were nice, not naughty." There are a few issues with consequentialism.  "You might be pretty moral overall," said Fellows. "So that's one problem ... For example, what if a child is generally kind to many people and does favours for them, but keeps a frog in a jar at home to torture it?  Consequentialism also doesn't take a person's intentions into account. For example, a child who wraps the family cat in blankets to make it cozy may think they're doing a good thing, even if they're actually causing harm. Santa as a deontologist - The Stickler or One Strike and You're Out! One school of ethical thought that does account for intentions is deontology, best represented by Immanuel Kant, an 18th-century German philosopher and one of the central thinkers of the Enlightenment. "He said that you must always try and follow your duty, and your moral duty is to follow what's called the categorical imperative."  His concept is categorical because it applies in all places at all times, and it's imperative because you must follow it without exception. "Whereas we thought of Santa with Bentham as being like Santa the Mathematician, Santa for Kant would be maybe Santa the Stickler, because Kant says you have to follow this rule."  "In other words, allowing other people the freedom to make their own choices," said Fellows. "And maybe they choose to help me achieve my goal, and that's great. But I also have to [show] respect if they choose not to help me." For example, if a parent asks their child if they ate all their brussel sprouts before they're allowed to have dessert, a child who lies would not be respecting their parent's' rational autonomy.  "They're manipulating their parents into trying to get the ice cream. So they're not telling all the truth and they're not giving the parent a free choice."  On the other hand, a child who admits to their parents that they gave their vegetables away to the dog would be acting morally. But when it comes to making it on the nice list, there's a twist. For Kant, the only way to be truly moral is to follow the categorical imperative because you've chosen it as the right thing to do, and not because you're trying to get a reward out of it like a Christmas present. "If you are only following the categorical imperative because you want the treats and you don't want the coal, then you aren't doing it properly either. You've already failed. In fact, you need to take Santa out of the equation and not worry about his approval at all." So with Kant, it could be "one strike and you're out!" Santa as a virtue ethicist - The Soul Observer - Improbable Decisions for a Four-year-old If Santa the consequentialist only cares about the end results of your actions, and Santa the deontologist only cares whether you're respecting other people's rational autonomy, then Santa the virtue ethicist only cares about looking into your soul to see if you're trying to be good. Virtue ethics, a branch of philosophy that goes all the way back to Aristotle, is concerned with individual moral aspiration.  "Rather than focusing on this specific situation and what should I do in this specific situation, virtue ethics asks: Overall, over the course of my lifetime, what kind of person should I try to be?"  According to Aristotle, to become virtuous people, we have to identify the virtuous course of action. For him, virtues can be found at the midpoint of two extremes, what he calls a "golden mean." For example, if your little brother draws a not-so-pretty finger painting, and proudly shows it off to you, do you lie and say it looks great, or do you tell the truth, which could hurt his feelings?  "Truthfulness is at the golden mean. It is at a midpoint, but it's a midpoint between deception — that is, lying, which is a vice of deficiency — and what Aristotle calls kind of a boastfulness or a hard truth… truths that hurt people."  "Part of achieving the golden mean of truthfulness would be learning when to tell the truth, how to tell the truth, and when it might be best to keep silent." Virtue ethicists like Aristotle also acknowledge that while people may aim for the golden mean, they're bound to make mistakes, and that's OK. "The real point of virtue ethics is that morality is a skill that you have to practise until it becomes second nature. And when it becomes second nature, you actually remake yourself into a moral person."  "So in some ways I like virtue ethics because it is a very positive theory. No matter how naughty or how bad you are, you can work to make things better, to make yourself better."  Under an Aristotelian model, Santa would be an observer, watching what you did over the course of a year. He would ask: What habits did you acquire? How did you practise the skill of morality?  "The reward is that you will actually be a happier, better, more well-rounded person, and that you will have less regrets at the end of your days."   "So you will kind of give yourself the present. You won't need Santa."   Let's all explain that one to a four-year-old.  What moral habits did a four-year-old learn besides name some colours, count, remember parts of a story, draw a person with 2 to 4 body parts, use scissors, and so on. I rest my case on Santa - at least for another year. That's likely why he only comes around once a year.  There's too much to explain, too much "Santa's watching" threats to invoke and then moderate, keep score on how things are going with motivation and so on.    As we come to the conclusion of 2021, we look ahead to 2022.  We hope for a better year ahead.  Can we pass through the keyhole of the pandemic and climate change urgency in one year?

Purchase at: FAA - marilyncornwellart.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

Dec 28 2021 - Santas Existence

 

To be or not to be - that is the question.  Did Shakespeare have to deal with the existence of Santa? Seeing as the story "stretches all the way back to the 3rd century", one might think he too had the dilemma of deciding how to represent Santa to his children.  But I doubt it. I also doubt my parents had a philosophical discussion on Santa's to be or not to be.  Things were simpler then - less sophisticated education, more engagement with pleasure and fun wherever it could be had, particularly the consumerism that got hold of the 20th century. And of course, simpler parenting methods - physical rewards and punishments to train behaviours.  The migration of Santa into naughty vs nice was unlikely to be thought about then.   Think of naughty and nice as a conversation starter for Santa in Malls or at events...who would have considered where this might go?   Think of this:  if the Wright Brothers had foreseen that the airplane would have caused more casualties in war rather than the elimination of war itself, they would not have invented the airplane.  So here we are today- I found this 21st Century example of the Santa to be or not to be question.  This is a Toronto Star article on the philosophical meaning of Santa Claus HERE. "My son had a play date to the zoo in December and his friend’s mother called and said there will be reindeer at the zoo. “Reindeer will prompt a discussion of Santa and since your son doesn’t believe in Santa and my son does I don’t want my son to be skeptical, so I don’t think your son should come along.” I thought, “That is weird,” because she seemed to be sacrificing a relationship with someone who is real, my son Ari, with someone who isn’t real, Santa. Then I began to think: how do I know Santa isn’t real? Just because I haven’t seen him? I haven’t seen that Israeli model Bar Refaeli but I know she exists. And that is the start of a deep dive into an examination of Santa from a philosophical viewpoint.   No worries - he pulls up quickly with this conclusion:  "We need to have things in our lives, certain things. Maybe Santa is one of those ways to teach children about gifts. You tell the kids there is a magical evening when Santa comes down the chimney and it allows them to participate in gift-giving."   Our existential questions in pictoral form today.

Purchase at: FAA - marilyncornwellart.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

Dec 8 2021 - Who is that Mrs. Claus?

 

Yesterday I was worried that Santa is fat.  Should I worry that Mrs. Claus has no first name.  Sh's known as Mrs. Santa Claus. Her job is to make cookies with the elves. That seems a bit redundant given how many cookies Santa eats on Christmas Eve?  It has been calculated at 40 billion calories. Since 1889, Mrs. Claus has been traditionally depicted in media as a  heavy-set, (looks fat in some pictures to me), kindly-appearing, white-haired elderly woman.  Like a "granny doll". How is it that she's "heavy set" while Santa is fat?  She is usually depicted wearing a fur dress of red with white fur trim.  `````````````````` She's usually baking cookies somewhere in the background of the Santa Claus mythos. She sometimes seen in the factory and assists in toy production and oversees Santa's elves. If she is depicted in her youth, the surprise is that is on occasion shown to have had red hair.  The answer to how old is Mrs. Claus is: "There's a long story behind it, but the short answer is that Mrs. Claus is just 1,139 years old." That seems a strange answer, but then someone paid some money to have their email santa.com website at the top of the list.  Santa is slightly older on that website. Here's a hilarious question that pops up on Google:  Does Mrs. Claus have a life of her own?  What department of redundancy department question for someone without a first name.  On the other hand, she does have a birthday.  It is reported to be Christmas Day.  Santa's is reported to be March 15th.   Here they are at the 2019 Fantasy of Trees.   Our first picture today is my reflection in a metal wall piece by Floyd Elzinga, and the second is the abstract version created in Flaming Pear's Flexifly.  It looks like a Christmas image to me - swirly fun.

Purchase at: FAA - marilyncornwellart.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

Dec 7 2021 - How Fat is Santa?

 

What about Santa and how fat he is?  Google wants to look up "how far is Santa Monica" and "how far is Santa".  That's because this is something we don't think about - but lots of people have written about this. From the time "A Visit From St. Nicholas" was written in 1823, Santa has been described as chubby and plump, with a round little belly that shook when he laughed "like a bowl full of jelly."  Coca-Cola took this to extremes and made Santa just plain fat.  Supposedly this is "part of the charm".  And besides Coca-Cola, who else to blame? Trust Hollywood.  One article reported that it used to have a set of numbers – waist circumference, face shape, beard length – that Santas were supposed to adhere to.  Coca-Cola’s Santa, whom many in America try to emulate, is very round: round face, round nose, round stomach. Around the world, the legendary giver comes in all shapes and sizes. The Santa imitated in Europe is a thinner man with more squared-off features. Roy Pickler is a professional Santa who dropped 88 pounds.  He's covered in CNN health HERE. He was in the television contest "The Biggest Loser".  He is quoted as saying: “The world is going to have to change their acceptance of what Santa looks like,” Pickler said. “Santa is a role model, and kids don’t want to have a role model that’s fat.” There is an update for our North American Santa. He has lost 25 pounds over the last 20 years.  Compared to Roy Pickler, Santa has 50 pounds to go.  I wouldn't call Roy skinny from the pictures, either.   It is entertaining to search for fat Santa - the photo stock companies have lots of versions - "full length body size profile side view of handsome fat overweight cheerful Santa".   And maybe we can't be too choosy in 2021 - there is a shortage of Santas due to COVID.  In one article it says that of the 8,000 Santas in the company's database, 355 have died in 2021 with COVID being the cause for the vast majority.  Really!  That's what the article says HERE.  Here's the latest in the Up Against the Wall Series.   The background is the Bathurst Street Chess board in the park complete with graffiti.  The colours are wonderful and look regal - like an archeological dig where core samples of urban life are revealed.

Purchase at: FAA - marilyncornwellart.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

Nov 30 2021 - We Never Count the Flowers

 

Have you thought about flowers on cakes?  Sylvia Weinstock, famous American cake master, died at 91 this week.  Ten foot tall wedding cakes.  Baker and cake-decorator are understatements here.  Her specialty was buttercream and stencilled patterns.  Sometimes there were thousands of hand-painted sugar flowers.  The repeated quote is:  "We never count the flowers on a cake. Rather, we add, and add, and add until it pleases the eye." The wedding cake for Joe Manganiello and Sofia Vergara's wedding was estimated at $50,000. That's US.  If you search for Sylvia Weinstock most famous wedding cake and look at the images, there is an amazing display of creativity and vibrant colours.   More like floral arrangements.  Who would guess a cake is beneath these flowers.    The world of extravagant wedding cakes is covered in this article HERE. There seems to be quite a few wedding cake makers who are sculptors of sugar.  She didn't make the largest wedding cake of all times.  That was chefs at Mohegan Sun Casino - 6.8 tons of cake in the US in 2004. These all remind me of the Christmas trees at the Fantasy of Trees. The trees are like confections, pleasing the eye. Here's Santa from a few years ago.  This year it was outside with distancing so not the best scenes.

Purchase at: FAA - marilyncornwellart.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

Dec 25 2020 - Fauci saysSanta's a go

 

Last year we wondered how many gifts Santa delivered.  This year we wondered if Santa should be delivering gifts.  We could have a COVID headline - Superspreader Santa delivers disease at super speed, along with a few billion gifts. But don't worry.  Dr. Anthony Fauci, now our most trusted doctor in North America,  indicated Santa was "good to go". He announced on Sesame Street that he personally traveled to the North Pole and gave him the COVID-19 vaccine:  "I measured his level of immunity and he is good to go."  I am always focused on this question of how fast and how many gifts. Here's the NORAD site with answers for me:   How Fast Does Santa’s Sleigh Go?  Santa has A LOT of work to do on Christmas Eve. This is why we are able to spot him out practicing throughout the year. So, how fast does his sleigh go when Santa has to get to more than 90 million homes on one night? It goes faster than the speed of light! The elves know all of the math, because they are responsible for helping to keep Santa’s sleigh up and running. According to the elf team in charge, his top speeds are 650 miles per second—which is 3,000 times the speed of sound! Luckily, our state-of-the-art live map is able to capture Santa’s super-fast speeds. This way you can get live updates on where he is, no matter how fast he is moving.  On this topic from the Irish Times:  "In a nutshell, quantum mechanics allows objects – including Santa, Rudolph and co – to be in many places simultaneously. That is the key ingredient, which allows for his extraordinarily efficient delivery on Christmas Eve."   Isn't this a wonderful image for a hopeful Christmas day and New Year's! This is the seahorse in the pond at the Winterthur Museum in Pennsylvania. Purchase at: FAA - marilyncornwellart.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca