Jan 1 2021 - Recess Please

 

Recess and dismissal arrived in my mental inbox.  A recess is a period in which a group of people are temporarily dismissed from their duties.  It is interesting that this term about a group of people would have been used for children.  And that recess is common in two areas:  primary school and parliament/government breaks.  There is much written about the need for small children to have breaks or recesses - playtime, social time, physical activity.  The results of studies show that "The best way to improve children's performance in the classroom may be to take them out of it." But there is very little written about adults having recess.  A coffee break is the closest thing - and that wasn't playtime.  A bit of minor exercise. Maybe we were supposed to have recess at lunch.  But lunch turned into eating at one's desk as the decades rolled on.  Lots of work and little play during our day. My observation of adult "play" is that it is comprised of rigid sports games and social activities.  Everything has a lot of rules.  Adults reveal in difficult and harsh activities.  Lots of combat and competition. Consider this: there is no Olympic moment for swinging on a swing or sliding down a slide.   Imagine skipping.  These are not action-packed, combative and competitive activities that make for adult worlds records.  We laugh these off as simple and silly.  As an example, even my dog Millie can slide down a slide. I became aware of the fun of childrens'play activities in the high intensity interval training class at my Y.  It includes rope skipping, medicine ball throwing and rope ladder hopscotching.  I realized I hadn't done any of these things since I was a child.  They are fun to do. When and how did we stop... It may be that we rejuvenate recess for adults ass we make our way through the Pandemic.   Things like Red rover, hide-and-seek, musical chairs, leap frog, kickball, dodgeball, Simon says.  That would be an excellent New Year's Resolution: More play, less work to keep Jack on track. Between Sea and Sky - this is the seahorse at the Winterthur Pond in poised in that magic space between water and sky.

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

June 7 - Humour in the Bulletin

There are hundreds of thousands of churches and millions of church goers.  With services are every week stretching far into the past, the Church Bulletin Humour collected over the years is abundant:

1. Bertha Belch, a missionary from Africa, will be speaking tonight at Calvary Methodist. Come hear Bertha Belch all the way from Africa.
2. The Rev. Merriwether spoke briefly, much to the delight of the audience.
3. Applications are now being accepted for 2 year-old nursery workers.
4. The pastor will preach his farewell message, after which the choir will sing, “Break Forth Into Joy.”
5. Next Sunday Mrs. Vinson will be soloist for the morning service. The pastor will then speak on “It’s a Terrible Experience.”
6. The eighth-graders will be presenting Shakespeare’s Hamlet in the church basement on Friday at 7 p.m. The congregation is invited to attend this tragedy.
7. At the evening service tonight, the sermon topic will be “What is Hell?”. Come early and listen to our choir practice.
8. Ushers will eat latecomers.

If you would like to see funny church signs go to this website HERE.  It also has funny church bulletin bloopers.

This year's sea horse at Winterthur is a midnight scene.

The Answer is Spike Milligan

I keep finding more jokes.  I've included one that brings a number of jokes together into a  light-hearted narrative.  I do that because I pursued the question of the funniest joke and found the answer.  There are many headlines claiming the top 10, or top 20, or top 50 funniest jokes.  How do I know they are? I track down the answer - there is a person who has investigated the funniest joke.  The Wikipedia entry for the World's funniest joke identifies university researcher, Richard Wiseman's experiment to find the funniest joke.  His website LaughLab was created for people to rate and submit jokes and it now showcases his research, books, tv appearances, etc. Where does the winning joke come from? The winning joke is based on a 1951 Goon Show sketch by Spike Milligan. Wiseman is quoted: "It is very rare to be able to track down the origin of any joke but this is an exception," said Prof Wiseman. "There is some very rare footage from 1951 showing the Goons in their first TV appearance. Just by chance I saw it on a documentary and saw a version of the very same joke." The material would have been written by Spike Milligan and the script reads: Michael Bentine: I just came in and found him lying on the carpet there. Peter Sellers: Oh, is he dead? Bentine: I think so. Sellers: Hadn't you better make sure? Bentine: All right. Just a minute. Sound of two gun shots. Bentine: He's dead. Prof Wiseman contacted Milligan's daughter, Sile, and she is as certain as she can be that he would have written the gag. She said she was "delighted that dad wrote the world's funniest joke". Prof Wiseman said: "I think what is interesting here is that a joke from the 1950s still works, and how it has transformed over time from a cosy sitting room to hunters in New Jersey." He added: "Spike Milligan was clearly into surreal humour. The sort of people who like his stuff will be people with a high tolerance for ambiguity because the sketches don't really have a sense of closure." The winning joke is: Two hunters are out in the woods when one of them collapses. He doesn't seem to be breathing and his eyes are glazed. The other guy whips out his phone and calls the emergency services. He gasps, "My friend is dead! What can I do?" The operator says, "Calm down. I can help. First, let's make sure he's dead." There is a silence; then a gun shot is heard. Back on the phone, the guy says, "OK, now what?" If you would like to receive your own 2017 calendar, let me know and I will email it to you directly.

Resolutions

This is the day when we wish each other all the best for the new year ahead.  

It is the day when improvement goals are set in our North American culture.  New Year's Resolutions are a secular tradition, but an ancient one. The Babylonians made promises to return borrowed objects and pay their debts. There seems to be lots of advice from everyone including Harvard economists on the best goals and how to achieve them.  This is followed by all sorts of studies that show that things don't actually turn out.

May your goals and dreams for 2015 all be fulfilled.