A Dalai Lama moment

Dancing cellphones from 1953

                            Note. They looked different then. But they danced.

Enos in LA

  

 

 

 

  

 

Avocado bravado

                  I may never make these, but I love to watch.

Assorted meaningless nonsense with a Canada 150 logo slapped on it

Assorted meaningless nonsense with a Canada 150 logo slapped on it

— Canada 150 shoe lights


— Canada 150 certified jive power bank


— World’s most inconvenient cutting board







“I love the feeling of grass on my feet, but I live in a parking lot.” The Great Canadian Gift Company

— Canada 150 dog bag dispenser


— Canada 150 anti-slip car mat


— Red-and-white tulips that are actually orange—


--- World’s tiniest phone cleaner

— Canada 150 tactical flashlight with multiple features


— Canada 150 novelty grass flip flops


— Terrifying sock monkey


— “Yes, I’m gonna be this guy” air hammock


— And many more!

Goose dance: an animation

The Canadian Flag: a few rejected designs

These are just a few of the thousands of proposed designs for the Canadian flag. They actually had a contest, folks, and the winner (one of those "why didn't I think of that?" designs) was made official in February of 1965. 

Only in Canada.

"I AM CANADIAN!": Log Driver's Waltz

                      Happy birthday, Canada!

I love my country: Canada turns 150!

Today Canada turns 150, and though I couldn't get into it at all for the longest time, today I suddenly feel myself almost overcome with emotion. I trawled YouTube to find a decent version of O Canada, and unexpectedly (though why was it so unexpected, at this time in our history?) found ZILLIONS of versions, most of them not very good. A very well-known animated one that used to be shown when TV stations signed off for the night seemed like the obvious choice, but it just didn't work for me. There were some very abstract ones that misfired, very sentimental ones, and many that just weren't sentimental enough. When I began to watch this one, I realized I was crying. I wasn't expecting this at all. Something to do with the images that are so bang-on, and the choir that does not sing in words, but only sings "Ahhhhhhhhhh. . ."

Some say the Canadian identity formed as a sort of allergic reaction to the U. S., and there may be some truth in that. It's hard to love our neighbor right now, and I have to say I hate the things that they're doing, which cannot help but affect us. We feel crushed by that great elephant the first Trudeau talked about. But the fact that we're on our second Trudeau seems strange and miraculous to me. I remember when Justin Trudeau was born on Christmas day (which seemed significant for some reason), and everyone in my family went around snidely singing, "For unto us a child is born. . . " from Handel's Messiah. The next line of it, which no one sang, is, "And the government shall be upon his shoulders." It did cross my mind, back then, that some day it might be true.

More weird things are happening now. I compared notes with my husband the other day: "Are you having flashbacks from Expo '67?" To my surprise, he said yes. All sorts of stuff from the Centennial year is coming back to me now, most of it pretty cheesy, even hideous, but we thought it was wonderful then. Man and His World. The Geodesic Dome. The Monorail. The Canadian Pavilion. The Musical Ride.

And La Ronde, with rides that would probably seem pretty tame today. Going down the Flume ride and getting soaked, and going down the Flume ride again and getting more soaked. And again, until the sky opened up in a huge thunderstorm and made "soaked" seem redundant. I remember I was wearing a white cowboy hat that literally melted under the rain.

But it was all so exhilarating. Hell! A world's fair, for US! Canada was an incredible 100 years old, and for once we were going to fling down our usual reserve and CELEBRATE! I cannot post the Bobby Gimby song "Ca-na-da" (one little, two little, three Canadians) because when I listened to it again I felt nauseated, but back then we couldn't get enough of it. It quickly became the theme song of the Centennial.

Then there were all the patriotic songs we sang in school, pulled out of somewhere, then put away and never sung again. (I could not find good versions of Land of the Silver Birch or Something to Sing About, or I would have posted them.) 

It's a junk drawer, like most events you haven't even looked at in, oh, 50 years or so. My brother Arthur is all caught up in it. We were close then, he was 18 and I was 13, and I had no way of knowing he wouldn't live a normal life, or a normal span. He was funny and weird and he didn't last long, sort of like Expo.

There was a song called A Place to Stand which could get to me, all about "Ontari-ari-ario" where I grew up. Mostly it was sung in the usual cheesy way, but sometimes it was used on CBC as a sort of animated filler, and it had no singing, just a couple of violins. It used to knock me right over.

I want to make something, to DO something about the 150th, not just sit here posting videos and rambling. I want to make something move, but not in the ridiculous way that I make a goose or a moose or a ham loaf move. It's really too bad I have no artistic ability, can't draw or paint to save my life, for it might be a comfort to me now that I seem to have reached the end of my creativity.

I was trying to figure out what that horrific Habitat structure reminded me of (and unless I am mistaken, it's still standing and people still live in it in Montreal). It's that godawful UFO pod village in Taiwain:

I had one more thought in this ramble. This isn't done much any more - it's an old-school Canadian kind of thing, to wonder who the "greatest Canadian" is - I mean of all time, and invariably it's some stodgy old white guy with lots of money. Perhaps a Prime Minister from the early 1900s.

I have a candidate, for the simple reason that his influence echoes on in the most potent, living-and-breathing way, and will go on that way for untold generations.

Northern Dancer wins the Queen's Plate by 7 1/2 lengths, 1964.

A car with kaleidoscope eyes

Newspaper taxis appear on the shore,
Waiting to take you away.

Our miracle duck has found a mate!

Bosley, the magpie duck/mallard hybrid of Como Lake, has had an interesting summer. We almost always see this handsome, friendly guy dabbling along the shore or waddling around, fat as a goose. But then he disappeared for weeks, and we were very worried. Finally we saw him frantically running towards the lake, a mallard drake in hot pursuit. We were a bit shocked, but thought, well, maybe Bosley is a Boslina. Another time, we saw him chilling in the reeds with what looked like the same drake. What was going on?

Then the other day, an amazing development: Bosley appears with a completely different duck, which also looks like a hybrid. She (for it must be a she) is white with creamy-tan markings, a cocoa-brown head and neck, and a white ring where a mallard's neck-ring would be. She has the ruffly wing-feathers and tail-curlicue of a magpie duck, and her long bill, very strangely, is green.

Trust Bosley to pick a true exotic. I don't know if these two will produce young, but I hope so. Oddly enough, a lone male mallard is still hanging around with them, and I can't tell if it's the same one as before.

A threesome? What can it mean?

Irish eyes, Spanish heart

Stone, when warm, will hold the heat. As will it hold the cold. When musicians such as these play in a hall with stone walls, the result is incredible resonance and warmth, along with a certain brio. The sound waves bounce off the walls at different lengths, colliding with each other in all sorts of interesting ways. The sound is both robust and tender.

The story of this piece - there isn't one, really, except that every once in a while I think of a prancing Arabian horse (every day of my life, in fact, since I am a frustrated horsewoman who never sees horses up close), and this piece comes into my head. What piece? I wasn't even sure of the composer, let alone the name of the piece. But today I had to find out.

I sat there saying to myself, listen, you will never find it, because the only search term you have is "Spanish flute music". That covers several zillion pieces, probably. But then I began to dip into YouTube, and almost immediately found a flute compilation album of French and Spanish pieces. The video only featured a tiny snippet of each piece, but - by God, there it was!

Then I had to find the web site with information on the album, and then - . Anyway, it turned out to be a very, very familiar piece by Jacques Ibert (who was called by one waggish English musicologist "Jackie Bear"). And I listened to quite a few versions before lighting up when I heard this. 

These guys, they get right inside the music, they understand it. It isn't just those gorgeous walls. The dynamics on the flute are so subtle, so passionate, it makes other versions fall flat. And he has that very rare plush, fat tone, like Rampal.

I still see a crazily prancing horse like I did in my girlhood. The Black Stallion of my dreams. This piece is his theme song.

BLOGGER'S ADDEN-DUMB. It's late at night, and I shouldn't be doing this. There was a rumor in our family, one of those things that likely has no veracity to it at all, that we had Spanish blood which went back many generations. Maybe even as far back as the Spanish Armada. That was approximately six zillion years ago, so one molecule of blood would have to stretch pretty far. The Spanish line came through my father, a blue-eyed blonde who had a weird brown fleck in one eye. My green-eyed mother produced two sons with black hair and brown eyes. That never made sense to me.

My father's father was the deuce, the domino, the artless dodger of the family, the rogue, the renegade, and likely just a raving drunk. When I read Angela's Ashes, I thought of him, appearing and disappearing, joining the army, bringing home lavish presents only to disappear again. My Dad told me his job was to hold up the wall of the pub, and for many years, I literally believed this.

My Dad passed on a white-blonde gene that couldn't have come from anywhere else, since I have two Scandinavian-looking grandkids (whose mother is dark brunette - isn't nature grand?). And yet, and yet. My Dad's father was dark, swarthy, brown-eyed, reportedly violent. 

Every once in a while it comes into my head to get one of those DNA tests, to see once and for all if I have any Spanish blood. Meantime, my other two grandkids, dark-haired and brown-eyed, DO have Spanish blood. Their great-grandmother was born in Spain. How can they be Spanish, if I am not?

Duckling challenge!

I think this is one of the best videos I've taken. Seven ducklings were faced with an impossible challenge, but somehow managed to brave it and win. 

This has been a tremendous year for ducklings and goslings, and new batches/hatches are still appearing. Many of the goslings are now plug-ugly, in that awkward middling stage, looking like plucked chickens on stilts. You can see where the Ugly Duckling story came from, for swan cygnets are probably much the same, with a lumpy, ungainly, protracted adolescence. 

Swans may look pretty, but their temperaments are quite ugly, worse than the Canada goose with its haughty stares, stiff necks and hisses. Give me the humble duck any time. Ducks always seem to be smiling, and it's rare to find a mean one anywhere. Mother ducks will drive off threats fiercely, but their constant maternal murmuring keeps the babies within their radar. Had I been raised by a duck (or a cat, for that matter - cats make tender and attentive mothers), things might have turned out very differently for me.

The original black stallion

Adopted chicks: Hen Solo broods a batch

Hen Solo, the broody hen of Bondi, had no fertilized eggs; her neighbor did. Thus a broodless hen warmed an adopted batch, and they hatched! We've been following the saga in installments on Facebook. These videos were taken by my childhood friend Nancy Tapley, who is blessed enough to live among the horses and the wildlife in beautiful Bondi Village, paradise of my youth.

Flying egg: the car from space

Schlörwagen
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Schlörwagen in 1939

Schlörwagen from the front

The Schlörwagen (nicknamed "Egg" or "Pillbug") was a prototype aerodynamic rear-engine passenger vehicle developed by Karl Schlör (1911–1997) and presented to the public in 1939.

Schlör, an engineer for Krauss Maffei of Munich, proposed an ultra-low drag coefficient body as early as 1936. Under Schlör's supervision at the AVA (an Aerodynamic testing institute in Göttingen) a model was built. Subsequent wind tunnel tests yielded a drag coefficient of only 0.113, incredible then and still extremely impressive today. For a functioning model, a Mercedes-Benz 170H chassis, one of their few rear-engine designs, was used. The aluminum body was built by the Ludewig Brothers of Essen. Subsequent tests of the motorized model showed a slightly higher but still impressive drag coefficient of 0.186.  A year later it was unveiled to the public at the 1939 Berlin Auto Show. The project was shelved with the onset of World War II and mass production was never realized. In 1942, the prototype was fitted with a captured soviet propeller engine. The whereabouts of the sole functioning model remain unknown.

BLOGGER'S LAMENT. Would that they had found this thing! I have no idea how they would ever fit this little pillbug, which looks as if you could pick it up with one hand, with a "captured Soviet propeller engine", or what happened to it after that. Did they end up with a flying egg/pillbug/two-door Schlor, or just one big splat?

This was the only photo I found which presumably illustrates the hybrid, but as usual there is no information with it.

I also found a couple of photos of grey men in grey hats looking at the (mostly-grey) car. Things were pretty grey, back then.

Human slingshot

Don't chew the tinfoil

This is kind of a crap animation, but I thought I'd put it up here anyway. Hey, it's better than anything YOU can do, isn't it? Have you ever animated a ham and pineapple loaf late at night? I thought not. But if you have, please send it to me and I will post it for full credit.

It's unclear whether or not the ham loaf is eating the tin foil, or throwing it up, or both. It's hard to animate tin foil.

And hey - I have just one more question to ask. WHERE'S THE GARLIC BREAD???

Cars Of The Future from 1948

Three plug-ugly cars which never got beyond the prototype stage. The first one, a 1948 Davis Divan, looks like a cross between a bedroom slipper and a steam iron. It might also pass as a Bob Clampett cartoon character. Supposedly it could hold four people across, or two people from 2017 in a tight pinch. I saw someone on YouTube (Jay Leno - see video below - I found it finally) try to drive a reconstruction, and he complained it kept tipping over.

The second one is oh, oh, my God, just horrible to contemplate, as lumpy as the Elephant Man, an airstream trailer with a horrible disease. I guess it sort of looks like someone's idea of a futuristic rocket, but it somehow does not get off the ground. 

The third one commits the sin of being merely dull. It's a kind of '40s  race-car-type-thing, but why the wheels are encased like that puzzles me. Wouldn't that make them more susceptible to damage? 

There were hundreds of "futuristic" designs like these, and in many cases the designers found backers, pocketed the money, then got out of town fast. 

The grass is smiling at you

Public signs, though useful, are often irritating. Their air of authority and power to order us around and control our movements is a little scary. God knows where we are actually going if we follow them. Seeing these public imperatives twisted and mangled is delicious, especially in Chinglish where the mistranslations are so extreme.

There are so many hundreds of them around that I decided to narrow it down to a category. Food was just too weird: complex and culturally-specific menus are impossible to translate. A lot of signs had inadvertent naughty words in them (and I restrained myself until that last one, which was just too good not to include). I found a few weird and even lovely signs about "keep off the grass", but there weren't quite enough of them, so I expanded the category to Parks and Recreation, outdoor activities that simply demand lots and lots of rules. 

Thus we are told there is a "go aheand smorking" section, that we should "be careful drowning", that we should watch out for falling people, and always "care for life. Do not fun."

I will not tell you what you should do in that last one.