Marilyn's Photos - World's Most Popular Food

 

I don't think of rice as the world's favourite food.  It isi the most eaten food consumed daily.  THe most favourite food in the world is none other than pizza.  I wondered which country loves it the most - it is Norway.  It consumes more pizza per capita than any other country.  Norwegians eat an average of 11 pizzas per year.  In kilograms, that's 11.4 for Norway, 9.6 for the U.S. and 8.9 for Canada. Itality comes fifth at 7.6 kg/cap. You can look at the world through the pizza lens.  It is at this website here. There are a lot of really bad pizza jokes. Maybe I've been looking at jokes for too many years now.  Here are the ones that did appeal to me: How do you get the guitarist off your front porch? Give him the 20 bucks for the pizza. If it took six kids five minutes to eat a whole pizza, how long would it take three kids to eat the pizza? No time, as the six kids already ate the pizza. A pizza walks into a bar, and orders a drink. The bartender says, "I'm sorry, but we don't serve food here." We're waiting to find out what the featured food will be at the CNE this year.  I wonder if there will be a strange pizza.  There has been deep-fried butter, deep-fried Oreos, deep-fried avocado. As for pizza, there has been deep-fried pizza, mac-and-cheese pizza, and poutine pizza.

This is a traditional Ontario street from more than a century ago.  The Victorian houses with flower-filled front yards, and even a child out front picking flowers.  Seems long ago and far away.   Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblogspot.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwell.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

Marilyn's Photos - Aug 12 2025 - Moriarty on Mortality

 

Moriarty is the villain in the Sherlock Holmes novels.  I've never met anyone with that surname, and it has always seemed fictional to me.   It is Irish from County Kerry.  It is an "Anglicized version of the Irish name  Ó Muircheartaigh, meaning "descendant of Muircheartach". The name Muircheartach is derived from the Gaelic words "muir" (sea) and "ceardach" (skilled), so the name can be interpreted as "skilled in the ways of the sea" or "sea navigator".  (I want you to know I pasted that in to get all the punctuation marks).  Arthur Conan Doyle thought that the name has a distinctive and exotic sound.  Wondering about this name, I found a website with the most famous people having this surname. They are listed in order of fame.  The website is HERE.   There is a "fame meter" below each person's name.  So I guess there are a few Moriartys around.  I got to thinking about this surname after listening to the CBC radio book podcast where the discussion centred on Liane Moriarty's book "Here One Moment." It has the curious plot of the passengers on a delayed plane being told how and when each would die by a mysterious woman.  The book is almost 500 pages so that is just the beginning plot line.   It is interesting how similar the words Moriarty and mortality seem to be.  Maybe they belong in a poem together.

Isn't this such a lovely picture - it is the church in Niagara-on-the-Lake.  I was checking out the War of 1812 tombstones one day.  I had taken a picture of the entrance, but it was a dull photo.  It seems to me it makes a very tranquil water colour.  The door is open, iinviting the visitor to contemplate mortality. Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblogspot.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwell.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

Marilyn's Photos - Aug 11 2025 - There's an Em Dash too many

 

In an article in the Globe and Mail this morning, I saw the word em dash for the first time.  It is a punctuation mark - a dash between words  to show a big pause in a sentence or to emphasize the end of a sentence.  It is named after being the length of an M. You can ask the AI overview on Google what the signs are that AI (ChatGPT) wrote something.  The tell-tale signs, giveaway signs, clear signs, surefire signs. Are there 5, 7, or 13 signs that ChatGPT was used to write something?  Now there's another one. The Globe and Mail today highlighted that one of the signs is too many  em dashes in sentences.  The article was about the impact of AI on changing writing style and grammar usage and what might happen over time. I had better catch up to what is currently the state of things in order to know where it is going. Here is the Punctuation Marks List Quotation Marks Apostrophe Hyphen Brackets Parentheses En Dash Em Dash Ellipsis Comma Colon Semicolon Exclamation Mark/Exclamation Point Question Mark Full Stop/Period And surprise!  Now I know what an En Dash is.  It indicates a range of numbers, 5-14, for example.  I don't remember being interested in grammar when I was young.  It seems quite fascinating now that it is under duress.

This was a real estate sign all peeling away.  This is an en dash - it was between the numbers and and 9.  Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblogspot.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwell.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

Marilyn's Photos - Aug 10 2025 - August Heat

 

It is a very hot day today - we spent a little while in Brian's Lilycrest Hybridizing field digging up some nice daylilies.  So I looked up the words "August Heat" and got  this synopsis of a short story, written in 1910 by W. F. Harvey: On a scorching August day, artist James Clarence Withencroft draws a sketch of a criminal in the dock immediately after the judge has given him a sentence. That evening, Withencroft goes for a walk and wanders into the workshop of a stonemason, Charles Atkinson. To his surprise, Atkinson exactly resembles the criminal in the sketch he is carrying in his pocket. Both men are shocked to discover that the model headstone Atkinson has just finished carving bears Withencroft's full name, his date of birth, and that very day as the date of his death. The two men are unnerved and agree that, for the sake of safety, Withencroft should stay at Atkinson's place until midnight has passed and the date changed. The story ends with Withencroft writing the day's events as Atkinson sharpens some tools: "It is after eleven now. I shall be gone in less than an hour. But the heat is stifling. It is enough to send a man mad." And that's the last line.  You can read the short story HERE. So far my hot August day is just a hot day.

I've visited a numerous cemeteries, looking for interesting headstones with carvings.  Here's one that seemed a bi unusual with the leaf obscuring the name.   Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblogspot.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwell.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

Marilyn's Photos - Aug 9 2025 - Gold Leaf Everywhere

 

I love gold leaf.  There was a period where I used it in baking and would put little flakes on cakes and soufflé dessert creations.  It became unavailable - even at Toronto's largest baking store which was located near me.  I have kept some sheets, and every once in a while decorate a birthday cake.   When I started water colours, I thought how wonderful it would be too be able to paint with gold, bronze and silver so I got some metal water colours.  They were OK, but I found out that the really beautiful gold in pictures was actual gold.  I had admired this Sleeping Bee and went to the artist site and she described a complicated and delicate process for applying the actual gold.

Here we are today with the White House being adorned in gold scrolls - just like the little Sleeping Bee picture.  Here's a picture of the "Old Days" with the Clinton/Biden blue rug and simple decor. This picture has been shown a lot - doesn't that look like trophies and couldn't there be a sleeping be int he scroll work at right? This picture has been shown a lot - doesn't that look like trophies and couldn't there be a sleeping be int he scroll work at right? There is so much attention to his decorating in the press that there are guides. This week's additions - so much gold that whatever the $600 billion about is dwarfed.  The Sun King arrives in the Oval Office.   Little did we know we had something in common with Donald Trump.  Here's my own version of shiny.   Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblogspot.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwell.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca