Jan 24 2024 - Mouse in the House

 

The latest viral video is a mouse working its way through the mess in a man's shed in Wales.  It looks like a case of tidying up, so is hilarious. Especially since it happens every night.  Don't you wonder why there's a camera in the man-shed?  Isn't that a bit unusual - it is a night-vision camera.  It turns out he's a wildlife photographer so decided to look into this.  Lucky us and 3.45 million more people.  Here's the link:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLDPzQ42kws But wait, the next video is a diver playing with an octopus.  This is cute too.  That has 15.3 million views.   This is titled Elora and Egbert's amazing friendship.  Here's the instagram link:  https://www.instagram.com/elora.explora/ Just these two short clips explain how people watch things endlessly - these are really cute.

I had liked the horizon on an angle in comparison to other images where it is straight across.  I am not so sure when I see it here.  I do like the sunflower field, though, so full of energy. Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblogspot.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwell.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

Aug 1 2023 - Most

 

How many is most?  Most of the time, most people, the most iconic photographs, the most...pick a topic and you can find a headline that starts with this word. The greatest in amount, quantity or degree. It is a determiner, a pronoun and an adverb.  It forms a superlative -  "the most important event of my life".   And what percentage is considered most?  Quora commenters weigh in on this one:   "While “most” literally just means more than half, it is best used to mean something like 60% to 90%. Below 60% you should consider terms like “more than half” or “a small majority”. Above 90% you get in the territory of “almost all” or “a large majority”. Of course, this depends on context." But most isn't really a percentage word, is it?  Not anymore, it seems.  Looking at the headlines, it is a boasting word, a bragging term.  At the least it is a comparative based on opinion and draws our attention to it.   That's why I think we are so attracted to headlines with most in them.  There aren't any movies, songs, or websites named "Most".  There is a city in the Czech Republic, but none in the US or Canada.  Don't expect to find it recommended as a baby name. By itself, it doesn't have much to say. A search on the single word - most - reveals a lot about us it comes up with:  most beautiful women, most attractive men, most expensive cars and most beautiful places in the world.  There are lots of other mosts, but these are the top ones. Here's an iconic flower of summer - the sunflower.

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Sep 1 2022 - Diana Always With Us

 

Diana is buried on an island in a lake on Althorp's grounds.  That's the princess's childhood home.  People remember where they were when they heard the news.  This year on the 25th anniversary of her death, there are even more tributes.  Blooms and pictures of Lady Diana adorned the gold-leaf-covered Flame of Liberty in Paris which has become her unofficial memorial. She is said to be the most photographed woman by the press in history, so we are left with unending pictures of her from 25 years ago. Remembering Diana in pictures is very easy to do, especially with the spectacular wardrobe.   At the opposite end of things, when I looked up who is the most photographed man in the world, the first listing says Donald Trump - with 463,574 images on Getty alone.  Next is Pope John Paul II.   What a contrast they both provide to the beauty and grace of Diana.   What does the Guinness Book of Records have on file for most photographed people.  Supposedly it is the pop group TVXQ.   This extract below is reported from a few sources. It  doesn't actually come from the official site.  I thought you'd enjoy it anyway: "Idol group TVXQ put its name on the Guinness World Record Book for the second time. The super hot quintet was listed in the world record book as the most photographed celebrity in the world. From the day of their debut to March 19, 2009, the five members are estimated to have been photographed about 500 million times in magazines, albums jackets, and commercials, etc. The total figure includes individual photos as well as group pictures. " The answer to that claim: "Extremely unlikely.  That would mean that they would be having 175,000 pictures taken of them every day of the year for each of the 8 years since they started.  Probably including cell phone snaps in concerts and such ... which many other bands would exceed many times."

Beautiful sunflowers on the Grimsby market 10 years ago.  We return to Main Street today after being at the Peach King Centre during the pandemic.   Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblog.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwellart.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

Aug 22 2022 - Casting Lots by Random Numbers

 

We humans are not very good at making random numbers.  We need something other than us to decide this.  I remember having to generate random numbers for some database testing, and I couldn't do it from my head.  They ended up in patterns. We figured out some external method. It got me thinking about the purpose of dice - those little random number generators on a cube.  I think of dice as gambling devices more than mathematical instruments.  So I looked it up, and both are the historical case.  The mathematical instrument historically is often known as casting lots.  That's mostly divination - asking for knowledge of the future or something unknown.  In the past this was significant as humans thought that there were a lot of gods/God overseeing human things and we should get their guidance. That's why the Bible's Old Testament is full of references to casting lots.  My favourite is that a guilty party is found by lot.  Remember Jonah and the whale - he was chosen by lot.  Land was divided up  by casting lots - so the numbers generated weren't random - they were "God's will" as to who got what.  That wouldn't be so pleasing for everyone.   Some ordinary things were decided by lots - who got which guard duties.  But what about the Book of Esther in which Haman casts lots to decide the date on which to exterminate the Jews. That's the Old Testament is a harsh and cruel world. The New Testament is different. That's where love is meant to conquer all and prayer is the vehicle for answers.  The 2 references  to casting lots - to divide up Jesus' clothing and for choosing Judas successor in the apostles group.   That last one is Divination  -  reverted to after Christ died - “Lord, you know everyone’s heart.  Show us which of these two you have chosen".   Other than those two, there don't seem to be any references to Jesus teachings/preachings on the practice of casting lots. Should we make decisions today by casting lots or throwing the dice?  I think most of us think that's a silly question rather than an unusual one. There isn't a dominant worry about "God's will" and subsequent wrath of being doomed to hell fire.  Turn left or turn right - flip a coin.  We like to make meaning when it comes to things.  We like to turn right or left for a reason.

There are lots of flower crops in Niagara - in the greenhouses and in the fields.  This one is on Fourth Avenue towards Jordan.  I think this must actually be a sunflower seed crop - if it were a flower crop these would be gone by now - harvested before the blooms were this far out. Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblog.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwellart.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

Sep 22 2020 - At War With Flu

 

Surges, spikes, flattening lines - that's our language with COVID.  We've had a lot of metaphors this spring and summer - mostly war metaphors.  So I went looking for the others:  The evil trickster - "The corona viruses therefore need some clever tricks to survive." and "While not technically alive, there's an evil genius to viruses that never ceases to amaze me". A bullet train - Andrew Cuomo "The infection forecaster said to me, 'We were looking at a freight train coming across the country.' "We're now looking at a bullet train." Flattening the curve - here are the variations on the theme take the heat out of transmission breaking chains of infection – or better “BREAK THE CHAIN“ controlled burn starving the virus of fuel slow it in its tracks and push it back (Leo Varadkar) Boris Johnson: send the coronavirus packing and: remove the invisibility cloak from the invisible virus through testing and: turn the tide keeping the lid on  Hockey time - FAUCI: "It’s the old metaphor – the Wayne Gretzky approach. You know, you skate not to where the puck is but to where the puck is going to be. If we don’t do very serious mitigation now, what’s going to happen is that we’re going to be weeks behind, and the horse is going to be out of the barn.” Trump's first description of the  Pandemic:  "It's just like a regular flu" and then he moved on to war imagery "an invisible enemy".  In opening up - "the people of our country should think themselves as warriors." So it isn't surprising to find that the virus has a brand personality. It is the subject of an academic research paper by George Rossolatos: Ontological Metaphors We Get Sick By:  a Brand Storytelling Approach to the COVID19 Pandemic. Transformations and consequences in society due to covid-19 pandemic. I was shocked to see Sumacs in St. Catharines yesterday that were orange and red, as I await Grimsby's Autumn colours.  Here's a nostalgic picture of the Grimsby Farmer's Market when it was on Main Street.

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