Who was right about fashion and wrong about women?

Karl Lagerfeld, known world-wide for fashion design has died.  I had a fine wool suit with silk ribbon trim around the lapels designed by Chanel. That was before Lagerfeld took over the design in 1983. The suit was elegant, feminine and on sale at a deep discount. Otherwise, it would have been worn by someone else.   With social media, there is a swirl of coverage of his life in words and pictures.  Vogue has a stylish obituary with 40 of its own pictures through the decades of his career - famous celebrities and models photographed by famous photographers.  HERE.   Search on his name and look at the hundreds of consistent and constant image pictures - the high white collars, black jackets, black jeans and always the white pony tale and glasses.  The fingerless gloves are a curiosity that he always wore.  Included in the pictures is a Karl Lagerfeld Barbie Doll (for the adult collector) that is dressed in his iconic outfit. Look up Karl Lagerfeld quotes. Harper's Bazaar chose 9 quotes - and the first three are hilarious: 1. “Sweatpants are a sign of defeat. You lost control of your life so you bought some sweatpants.” 2. "Trendy is the last stage before tacky." 3. “I remember a designer who said that intelligent women don’t wear her dresses. Obviously, she went bankrupt.” These are often repeated: "I am very much down to Earth. Just not this earth." "When I was four I asked my mother for a valet for my birthday." "A diet is the only game where you win while you're losing." But Lagerfeld's pouting mouth and dark glasses revealed the nasty side of his persona.  It isn't a surprise that one can retrieve a long list of cutting, controversial and cruel quotes.  He was called misogynistic and fat phobic many times by many famous celebrities responding to his "epic one-liners."  One obituary headline says it:  "Chanel's Karl Lagerfeld was right about fashion and wrong about women". We're looking at abstracts of the urban environment today.

There's a Paradox

What about Paradoxes?  Paradoxes have been a central part of philosophical thinking for centuries.  For example, Achilles and the Tortoise comes from the 5th century BC.  I went to Mentalfloss.com and browsed through the best-known paradoxes.  I chose the discussion on the Raven Paradox for today.  At buzzfeed.com  they're presented with cartoons, so are quite fun. THE RAVEN PARADOX Also known as Hempel’s Paradox, for the German logician who proposed it in the mid-1940s, the Raven Paradox begins with the apparently straightforward and entirely true statement that “all ravens are black.” This is matched by a “logically contrapositive” (i.e. negative and contradictory) statement that “everything that is not black is not a raven”—which, despite seeming like a fairly unnecessary point to make, is also true given that we know “all ravens are black.” Hempel argues that whenever we see a black raven, this provides evidence to support the first statement. But by extension, whenever we see anything that is not black, like an apple, this too must be taken as evidence supporting the second statement—after all, an apple is not black, and nor is it a raven. The paradox here is that Hempel has apparently proved that seeing an apple provides us with evidence, no matter how unrelated it may seem, that ravens are black. It’s the equivalent of saying that you live in New York is evidence that you don’t live in L.A., or that saying you are 30 years old is evidence that you are not 29. Just how much information can one statement actually imply anyway? Here is Wikipedia's summary of the Raven paradox:  Raven paradox: (or Hempel's Ravens): Observing a green apple increases the likelihood of all ravens being black. I was in Toronto yesterday, and found this reflective material on the side of the umbra store near Queen Street West.  I had thought I might find some pink water reflections, but this material created prism/rainbow reflections. The first picture shows the photo without adjustments, and the next few show the finished result, with the pavement turned to black.

Surfacing Attention

It is an abstract picture day, with bright colours to counteract the weather.  We have another snow warning for this week, let us hope for the conclusion of winter weather. On the topic of temperature scales, our fact for the day is about the Celsius scale - it comes from one of those funny and weird fact sites and is confirmed in the wikipedia entry.   - At a glance, the Celsius scale makes more sense than the Fahrenheit scale for temperature measuring. But its creator, Anders Celsius, was an oddball scientist. When he first developed his scale, he made freezing 100 degrees and boiling 0 degrees, or upside down. No one dared point this out to him, so fellow scientists waited until Celsius died to change the scale.

And What about Crīstesmæsse?

In first year university, our English course included works written in Old English.  It was a double duty activity - translating the text of basically another language, and then learning to interpret the intended text.  You may ask in a skeptical way:  How difficult was it to read, reallyt?  I saw the Old English version of the word Christmas and here it is: Crīstesmæsse, meaning "Christ's Mass". So in case you didn't have the first year English course experience, here are 10 Old English words to learn during the Cristesmaesse season. These are from Mark Forsyth's The Horologicon: A Day’s Jaunt Through the Lost Words of the English Language. 1. UHTCEARE “There is a single Old English word meaning ‘lying awake before dawn and worrying.’ Uhtceare is not a well-known word even by Old English standards, which were pretty damn low. In fact, there is only one recorded instance of it actually being used." 2. EXPERGEFACTOR "An expergefactor is anything that wakes you up. This may simply be your alarm clock, in which case it is time to hit the snooze button. But it may be a dustman or a milkman or a delivery van, in which case it is time to lean out of your window and shriek: 'Damn you all, you expergefactors!' This ought to keep them quiet until one of them has at least found a good dictionary."   3. AND 4. PANTOFLE AND STADDLE “Once your toes are snugly pantofled, you can stagger off to the bathroom, pausing only to look at the little depression that you have left in your bed, the dip where you have been lying all night. This is known as a staddle.” 5. GRUBBLING "It’s time to check whether you’ve got your keys and your phone and your purse or wallet. This is done by grubbling in your pockets. Grubbling is like groping, except less organised. It is a verb that usually refers to pockets, but can also be used for feeling around in desk drawers that are filled with nicknacks and whatnot." 6. MUGWUMP “Mugwump is a derogatory word for somebody in charge who affects to be above petty squabbles and factions. So when your boss tries to make peace at the meeting table like an impartial angel, he is being a mugwump.” 7. RAWGABBIT "A rawgabbit, just in case you were wondering, is somebody who speaks in strictest confidence about a subject of which they know nothing. A rawgabbit is the person who pulls you aside and reveals in a careful whisper that the head of Compliance is having an affair with the new recruit in IT, which you know to be utterly untrue because the head of Compliance is having an affair with you, and the new recruit in IT hasn’t started yet." 8. VINOMADEFIED “Once you are properly vinomadefied all sorts of intriguing things start to happen. Vinomadefied, by the way, does not mean ‘made mad by wine,’ but merely ‘dampened by it.’” 9. LANSPRESADO "A lanspresado is (according to a 1736 dictionary of thieves’ slang): 'He that comes into Company with but Two-pence in his Pocket.' Lanspresados are everywhere. They have usually forgotten their wallets or can’t find a cashpoint or some intensely complicated thing has happened with their rent, which means that they’re skint till Thursday." 10. VOMITORIUM “A vomitorium is not a room in which ancient Romans would throw up halfway through a banquet in order to make room for the next course. That’s a myth. A vomitorium is simply a passage by which you can exit a building, usually a theatre.” A version of this story originally appeared in mental_floss magazine.

Lavaland in St. Catharines

Today's images come from downtown St. Catharines.  These are a storefront window that has wear and tear on its window coverings.  The brilliant red made me think of lava - and so Lavaland came up as a title. Looking up Lavaland to check on the name brought forth a diverse group with lava lands all over the world - particularly the new world.  There is a Lavaland in Hawaii where there are tours of the active volcano.  There is a 's a Lavaland Elementary School in Albuquerque, NM. Alternately, one can go to the Lavaland RV Park in NM with the 'new platinum pull through' (ask about our new 135 ft long spaces). The one with the best pictures is 'Lost in Lava Land: The Church that Rose from the Ashes':http://www.messynessychic.com/2014/05/27/lost-in-lava-land-the-church-that-rose-from-the-ashes/ - located in Mexico.

Rust Never Sleeps

A search on the term 'rust' brings up a website that explains Rust is an Early Access survival game on Steam, created by Facepunch Studios.  "The only aim of Rust is to survive.  To do this you will need to overcome struggles such as hunger, third and cold.  Build a fire.  Build a shelter..." It seems fitting to call a survival game Rust. I stopped at Floyd Elzinga's studio last week and got some pictures of new rust on the metal sheets that were lying on the ground.  He has a fire pit pinecone - that's the second photo of old rust.  It shows the different patinas in new and old rust.  Rust seems to always survive is one form or another.

The Beginning of Urban Explorations

Photography began for me in 2007, with an SLR lens, a Ryerson course, and a passion.  As I look through the Lightroom database from 2008 on, there are thousands of pictures of flowers and gardens and street scenes, too.  

All of a sudden, in 2009, I decided to check out the back alley of Bloor along to Dundas, to see what I could find.  In 2014 there's a condo at the corner on the right.  But the alley way remains painted with 

murals.

I created my first abstract from this urban grunge.  For me, the calling is to do more than 'capture' what is exactly there. It is to find abstract beauty within it and to bring out something more than what is there before you.