Feb 14 2021 - Valentine!

 

I like it when the frequently asked questions pop up for a search: What is the real meaning of Valentine's Day?  Isn't that a wonderful question?  Will we find a a deep, spiritual reason for celebrating the sacred heart that now is represented with red roses, hearts and chocolates? There typically is a religious component to the history of holidays. The normal scenario is that the Roman Catholic Church solved pagan rituals by 'converting' them to something useable in church events.  And so it was with Valentine's Day.  A festival of fertility and love got mashed up with two  martyrs named Valentine - both executed early on in the ADs.  How they got to be involved in Valentine's Day is a discussion of whether it was an accidental association or done on purpose.  Valentine's Day has everything in it to enjoy - food, flowers and good wishes.  So it would be a popular topic for searching, wouldn't it? The World Cup looks like it is the  #1 trend.  The fact is that sports topics are the top searches  - everywhere around the globe.   Thinking along the sports line, I took a look at the U.S. searches yesterday - it was Valentine's Day vs Trump - with Valentine's Day at 2 million and Trump at 1 million google searches.  So Valentine's Day wins!  There are roses, hearts and chocolates for all.   More Ringling Circus miniature characters with Valentine's wishes today. Purchase at: FAA - marilyncornwellart.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

Feb 13 2021 - 61 Metrics for ?

 

Welfare got associated with government "hand-outs" - assumed to not be a good thing. Let's take New Zealand's version of welfare. New Zealand's "wellbeing budget" - outlined how new budget funds will go to the most serious causes - mental health, child poverty and family violence.  That was in 2019.  It is quite remarkable that New Zealand had changed how it spends on new things/projects.  There are 61 indicators tracking everything from loneliness to trust in government institutions.  So what about a government concerned about happiness?  There are a few - Bhutan is the most notable. The articles about Bhutan describe the paradox of happiness.  "This paradox asserts that, when individuals or groups actively pursue happiness as the singular ultimate goal, the inescapable result is, ironically, increased unhappiness. While this paradox may at first seem puzzling, evidence of its validity is easy to see, particularly in western culture."  The article goes on to say that western economic models conflate happiness with materialism and wealth. Studies repeatedly show there isn't greater happiness with greater wealth.  There was opposition to the NZ approach in 2019 according to the NY Times review of the 2019 change.  The Western world consensus is that it is the key government responsibility to look out for overall economic success.  The historical things like protecting from invading armies, maintaining social order, protecting from natural disasters and similar crises, facilitating transportation across the geographic expanse and other key public services - seem lesser, don't they? So back to happiness. We'll have to wait till after COVID-19 to see NZ results.  Ih the meantime, are there happiness jokes that aren't sarcastic?  I found these jokes (related and unrelated) very satisfying:  My boss told me to have a good day. So I went home. My teacher gave us an assignment and one of the questions was "What do you want to be when you grow up?" I answered “Happy”. The teacher said I didn’t understand the test, I said to her that she didn’t understand life. Two dogs are walking along a street. They are passed by a third dog driving a lorry load of logs. One turns to the other and says: “He started fetching a stick and built up the business from there.” Two nuns were driving through a Transylvanian forest when the road was blocked by a fearsome looking vampire. “What do we do now?” the passenger asked. “Get out and show him your Cross,” said the nun in the driver's seat. So the nun on the passenger side stepped out onto the road, wagged her finger and exclaimed: “Get out of our way, you stupid vampire.”

Pursuing happiness may be an unanswerable activity.  Here's a favourite image from Toronto's St. Clair area quite a few years ago.  And then the wonderful Ringling Circus miniature layout with its crazy clowns.

Feb 14 2020 - Chocolate Day is Here!

There are lots of countries who don't celebrate Valentine's Day.  Practicing Muslims consider the concept against Islamic Law.  The Islamic authorities created the religious ruling of fatwa, banning celebrations of Valentine's day. So that would be Malaysia, Indonesia, Iran, India, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia.  I had no idea - living in the "Western World" is bubblesome. Given that chocolate has a reputation as a love food, it isn't unusual it is part of Valentine's Day.  Marie Antoinette brought her personal chocolate maker to Versailles.  Known as the official Chocolate Maker to the Queen, he created such recipes as “chocolate mixed with orchid bulb for strength, chocolate with orange blossom to calm the nerves, or chocolate with sweet almond milk to aid the digestion.” Chocolate producers were creative: Richard Cadbury  marketed his chocolate with Cupids and rosebuds on heart-shaped boxes.  The boxes were used to keep mementos such as love letters. And the Hershey "kisses" were supposedly named for the smooching noise the chocolate made as it was manufactured.  These facts come from the Smithsonian so there's some confidence in the facts - silly as smooching production noises seem. The biggest spenders on Valentine's Day?  Supposedly Singapore.  And the biggest Valentine's box of chocolates? On 2 April 2008, confectionery retailer Thorntons and prop-maker Russell Beck Studio created a box of chocolates that towered 5.04 m (16 ft 6 in) tall. It weighed 1,690 kg (3,725 lb). From the Collection of hearts on my Redbubble site...

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Feb 13 2020 - The Shape of a Heart

Who would guess it?  The seed of a plant is considered the origin of the heart shape used to depict the human sense of love and romantic emotion. It was known as silphion, laserwort, laser, and used as a seasoning, perfume, aphrodisiac, and medicine.  It was used as a contraceptive by ancient Greeks and Romans.  It was critical to the Cyrenian (Libya today) economy, and their coins bore a picture of the plant.  Its seed/fruit was what we today call 'heart-shaped".   This is an extinct plant, so there are numerous theories as to how it became extinct since it was so important to the economies of countries at the time.  Then we speed ahead to the 1250s with the first depiction of a heart shape, presented by a kneeling lover who offers his heart to a lady. It is similar to a pine cone and is upside down. Researchers assume it is a heart. While much earlier Aristotle described it in ancient texts with three chambers and a dent in the middle, it was Middle Ages scientists who went about translating this visually.   The heart symbol became widespread in medieval art. It was in the 14th century that the heart was turned 'right-side up'. And then it gains traction everywhere.  It is easy to trace with trade - it reaches Japan between 1543 and 1614.  A samurai helmet dated 1630 has hearts on it. Today, the traditions are many and interwoven in our society completely. Take our scientific approach to things as demonstrated by Wikipedia.  It shows us an animation of a cardioid generated by a rolling circle.  It is one of a number of "parametrisations of approximately heart-shaped curves."  It is fascinating - take a look at the bottom the entry HERE.  Today's images - what else?  Hearts.

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Feb 9 - Parentese with Dezi the Dog

I find that the way I 'talk' to Dezi the dog - high pitched, exaggerating words, and 'patronizing tone' is known as Parentese.  It is proven to increase baby vocabulary significantly.  A CBC radio interview told me this yesterday. The Guardian article is perfect so HERE it is. It is as good as all the jokes I can find.  This is the opening excerpt: Name: Parentese. Age: Popular since the mid-80s. Sounds like: A bit like you’re being patronised. I don’t like being patronised. Oh yes you do. Yes you do. Yes you do, my little sweetheart. What on earth are you doing? I’m talking parentese to you. And by the look of it it’s working. Yes it is. Yes it is. OK, let’s track back a little. What is parentese? I’m glad you asked. It’s a method of communicating with babies that utilises vowel hyperarticulation, pitch modification, slow speech rate and simplified wording. That didn’t help. OK. You know the way you talk to a baby? It’s that. Goo goo ga ga? No, that’s baby talk - when you don’t use any words and just make strange, cutesy noises instead. Baby talk is useless. Talk baby talk to a baby and you are just going to end up with a baby who talks baby talk. But talk parentese to a baby and you are going to end up with a baby with a colossal vocabulary." The CBC reporter interviewed the University of Washington researcher referenced in the article.   Here are the instructions: "Over-enunciate in a high-pitched sing-song voice, repeating words with a happy tone. “Hellooooooo bayyyyybe, doooo youuuu want a baaaaaanaaaaanaaaa? Oooooh, niiiiiiiice baaaaaanaaaaanaaaa.” The font used here is Comic Sans MS -  I heard the originator of this font interviewed on the CBC a little earlier than the parentese story. I'll report on that wonderful interview tomorrow.  Our Valentine theme is accompanied today with railroad images of the layout of Sam Furukawa in Seattle. We visited it in 2006.  He's a dedicated railroad modeller who comes to all the conventions.  What a great view from his house.

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Susan Sontag and a Valentine

"Beethoven never married, but in his early forties he feel deeply in love with a mysterious woman who remains known as “immortal beloved” — the eternally enchanting term of endearment by which the great composer addressed her in his letters. Her true identity has spurred entire books, but historians currently believe she was Antonie Brentano — a Viennese aristocrat married to a Frankfurt businessman. Beethoven’s missives to this “immortal beloved,” which include the only known love letter of his to use the informal German du for “you” rather than the formal Sie, were found among his personal effects; they were never mailed — a beautiful and tragic testament to the fact that their affair, like all affairs, was both bedeviled and vitalized by the awareness that the two lovers could never fully have each other." The paragraphs above was written by Maria Popova, who was referencing the book "The 50 Greatest Love Letters of All Time" edited by David H. Lowenherz.  The fifty authors and recipients are listed HERE.   All famous writers or historical figures.    Maria Popova is interesting.  Going through her blog brainpickings.org, I find a special post.  It is Susan Sontag on Love:  Illustrated Diary Excerpts.  What Maria did was to sieve through Sontag's journals for her most poignant, most private meditations on love.  These were published in As Consciousness Is Harnessed to Flesh: Journals and Notebooks, 1964 - 1980. Then Maria had artist Wendy MacNaughton hand-letter and illustrate them exclusively for Brain Pickings as a poster.  This became so popular that numerous editions were printed and published.   It is HERE.  Wendy MacNaughton's collaborated with Maria a lot and her work is shown with the articles HERE. But head over to her website and see a compelling display of her drawings  - wendymacnaughton.com. Our Valentine Day images come from the Ringling Circus in Sarasota.

A Saint a Day

St. Valentine.  I began to wonder. How many saints are there in the world?  During the church's first 1,000 years, saints were proclaimed by popular demand.  Some estimates say the number exceeds 10,000.   So there's a multiple of saints for each day of the year -  27.4.  That's a lot of saints, so it is no surprise that the process got formalized with rules - one of them was they had to be 'canonized' first.  There are 810 of these saints.  So that makes 2.2 per day of the year.  The Catholic church has canonized around 3,000 people. We'd be up to 8.2 a day if every canonized person became a saint.   Do other religions have saints?  Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam have saints.  Islam particularly had a strong tradition of veneration of saints up until the twentieth century.  Other Christian religions have practices that are variations of the Roman Catholic version, or respond to what the Roman Catholic church did.  The Latter-day Saints regard saints as "all those who have entered into the Christian covenant of the baptism."  That makes all members of this church saints.  But the Roman Catholics seem to have the most prolific number of saints and practices surrounding them.  By the first half of the Middle Ages, every day of the year had at least one saint who was commemorated on that date.  To deal with this increase, some saints were moved to alternate days or completely removed. By developing levels of saints - the highest order of saint is martyrs, and ranking feast days in categories by their importance, saints got arranged into calendar days.   Who is the most important saint in the Roman Catholic church?  One site says it is Joseph - the patron saint and protector of the Catholic Church. This is according to Biographyonline.net.  The next is Mary Magdalene, and then St. Paul.  Other indications are that Blessed Virgin Mary is the most important saint.  (Mary seems to be absent from the most famous people list.)   So where does St. Valentine fit in? He doesn't fit into the calendar.  He remains a saint of the church but was removed from the General Roman Calendar in 1969 because of the "lack of reliable information about him". I didn't realize he has a few roles.  He is the patron saint of lovers, but also epileptics and beekeepers.   Here's a scene on the Sundance Layout - day and then night.

Valentine's on my Flag!

Is there a heart symbol on the keyboard?  How would I place a heart in the text here?  On my MAC one presses control, command and space keys and up comes the character chart in a pop-up window.  There are many symbols available - this is the first time I've looked at them.  So our Valentine's Day is celebrated with these keyboard curiosities: Here are  'frequently used' symbols of hearts: 💑 👨‍❤️‍👨 💔 💓 ♥︎ ♥️ 💟 💕 👩‍❤️‍👩   Here are some 'smileys and people' images with hearts with distinctions of man to man, woman to woman, etc: 💑 👩‍❤️‍👩 👨‍❤️‍👨 👨‍❤️‍💋‍👨  These are some of the 'symbols' with hearts: ❤️💛💙💔💕💓💖💟 This is in the 'symbols' for playing cards: ♥️ This is from the 'pictographs' symbols: ♥︎ I don't see the flag of Friesland  (a Dutch province)  in the flag symbol list - it has diagonal blue and white strips with red hearts - except the names of the hearts are seeblatts representing the seven regions along the coast.   I wonder what else has hearts in unlikely places.  I found thingiverse.com with all kinds of 'things' made in the shape of hearts via 3D printing using the MakerBot Desktop 3D printer.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Today is the Chocolate Day!  Somehow over the centuries, the Feast of Saint Valentine has evolved into a chocolate festival.  Whenever I look up a notable day, its history is sourced in religious events and commemorations.  So today, we find that numerous early Christian martyrs were named Valentine.  The first link of St. Valentine's Day with romantic love is associated with Geoffrey Chaucer:  For this was on seynt Volantynys day Whan euery bryd comyth there to chese his make.   ["For this was on St. Valentine's Day, when every bird cometh there to choose his mate."] - for those of you who did not take first year English in University, or have forgotten, like me. Chocolate has been associated with Valentine's since the 1900's and Diamonds came along in the later part of the 1900's as a Valentine's Day gift. So today is a day of greetings and gift giving. Enjoy!  View this email in your browser

Happy Valentine's Day

Today is the Chocolate Day!  Somehow over the centuries, the Feast of Saint Valentine has evolved into a chocolate festival.  Whenever I look up a notable day, its history is sourced in religious events and commemorations.  So today, we find that numerous early Christian martyrs were named Valentine.  The first link of St. Valentine's Day with romantic love is associated with Geoffrey Chaucer:  For this was on seynt Volantynys day Whan euery bryd comyth there to chese his make.   ["For this was on St. Valentine's Day, when every bird cometh there to choose his mate."] - for those of you who did not take first year English in University, or have forgotten, like me. Chocolate has been associated with Valentine's since the 1900's and Diamonds came along in the later part of the 1900's as a Valentine's Day gift. So today is a day of greetings and gift giving. Enjoy!  Facebook Twitter Website

Valentine's Day with Odile Fleurs

The Valentine's Heart

Odile Fleurs  This floral petal heart is from around 2010.  I took pictures of one of Odile's flower petal cards.  Then software filters were applied to make three variations.  I like the last one - the filter is called Turner Impressions. Do you wonder about the origin of the heart shape that we see here? I started a search and all the answers came back with body parts - female, male, etc. They don't make much sense as it is hard to see the visual connection.  This is the one that seemed logical (and appealed to my botanical leanings). According to Dr. Armin Dietz, a cardiologist and a man who's apparently written a book touching on this subject, The ivy leaf portrayed by prehistoric potters of long-forgotten cultures evolved into the red playing-card heart. This botanic symbol found in ancient Greek and Roman art - primarily in vase painting - represented both physical and, above all, eternal love, withstanding death. The final transformation of the green heart-shaped leaf into the red playing-card heart took place in medieval writings, predominantly in the central-european literature of courtly love. During the Middle Ages and early modern times, when medicine had a scholastic character, this symbol was used even by anatomists to portray the heart. The worldwide circulation of the heart symbol through art, playing-cards and above all, however, through religious worship, has made the heart, besides the cross, into the probably most popular non-geometric symbol and into cardiology's emblem. He also notes, Interestingly, in Buddhism the playing-card heart also developed - independently of the western metamorphosis - from the fig tree (the bodhi tree) into the symbol not of love, but of enlightenment. It was under such a tree that the ascetic Gautama found liberating enlightenment through years of meditation and became the Buddha. His website (which contains excerpts from his book) traces the evolution of the heart symbol through the ages. The ivy leaf theory is also noted in some detail here. In conclusion, the heart symbol appears to be less gynaecological and more botanical in origin.