All Work and No Play - The Novel

When I researched our expression on all work and no play, the movie The Shining was retrieved - pages and pages of references.  There is extensive writing on this movie, considered in the top ten of greatest horror movies. The book that Jack was writing contained the one sentence (“All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy”) repeated over and over.  There isn't any evidence of the original remaining. Kubrick had each page individually typed.  "Kubrick realised the importance of the scene and how it would lack impact in foreign language versions of the film if explained via subtitles. He didn't just translate the original phrase however, but came up with different stacks of repeated sentences, many of which can be seen in the Stanley Kubrick Archive" These are at a site dedicated to the Shining that is run by the director of Toy Story 3 at this site HERE: Italian: Il mattino ha l’oro in bocca (The morning has gold in its mouth) (“He who wakes up early meets a golden day”) German: Was du heute kannst besorgen, das verschiebe nicht auf morgen  (Never put off until tomorrow what can be done today) Spanish: No por mucho madrugar amanece más temprano (No matter how early you get up, you can’t make the sun rise any sooner) (“Rising early will not make dawn sooner.”) French: Un Tiens vaut mieux que deux Tu l’auras (What you have is worth much more than what you will have) (“A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush”). In 2009, an 80 page book  All Work and No Play Makes Jack a Dull Boy by Jack Torrance was created and published.  The author is Phil Buehler, a  well-published photographer whose work focuses on modern ruins. This would make a 'novel' Christmas gift and has a purchase site HERE.   About the Book Jack Torrance's first novel, finally published after his untimely death at the Overlook Hotel. Dramatized in the Stephen King book, "The Shining," as well as the film by Stanley Kubrick. See the clip at www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dit-7hu1jKg " All Work and No Play Makes Jack a Dull Boy is nothing short of a complete rethinking of what a novel can and should be. It's true that, taken on its own, All Work is plotless. But like the best of Beckett, the lack of forward momentum is precisely the point. If it's nearly impossible to read, let us take a moment to consider how difficult it must have been to write. One is forced to consider the author, heroically pitting himself against the Sisyphusean sentence. It's that metatextual struggle of Man vs. Typewriter that gives this book its spellbinding power. Some will dismiss it as simplistic; that's like dismissing a Pollock canvas as mere splatters of paint." Matthew Belinkie Overthinkingit.com: 80 unique pages, the first lifted directly from the movie and then getting progressively crazier... (alternative plain text cover also available) Features & Details Category  Humor Size 5×8 in, 13×20 cm 80 Pages Publish Date Dec 22, 2008 Here I am pondering a book on All Work and No Play, and outside is the largest snowfall of the season, with light rain and snow on the charts for Grimsby today.  It is so dark out that I can't tell, so we'll wait to see our mixed precipitation. There are autumn leaves on the trees and the lawn, along with lots of snow, so we'll see what there is for pictures today.  These two pictures come from 2008 in Toronto.

Russia - a Nation of Humour!

Did you know there is a very long tradition of Russian Political jokes?  I find this out from Wikipedia.  The jokes start with Imperial Russia and conclude with Post-soviet Russia.  They are HERE.  A Bloomberg article with the best jokes is HERE. Bloomberg's article, as with Wikipedia, demonstrates that Russian humour about the way the country is run is an unbroken tradition from the czarist era to the present day.  The article's author, like me, finds that many of them aren't funny.  But there are some great jokes in the article.  Here is Reagan's joke. "The CIA-Reagan Soviet joke pipeline was no secret at the time. One from a list declassified in 2013 was a particular favorite — Reagan told it repeatedly, once adding he’d shared it with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and gotten a laugh from him. The CIA version goes like this: An American tells a Russian that the United States is so free he can stand in front of the White House and yell, “To hell with Ronald Reagan.” The Russian replies: “That’s nothing. I can stand in front of the Kremlin and yell, ‘To hell with Ronald Reagan,” too. Two more from Wikipedia: A Gulag joke: Three men are sitting in a cell in the (KGB headquarters) Dzerzhinsky Square. The first asks the second why he has been imprisoned, who replies, "Because I criticized Karl Radek." The first man responds, "But I am here because I spoke out in favor of Radek!" They turn to the third man who has been sitting quietly in the back, and ask him why he is in jail. He answers, "I'm Karl Radek." A Stalin joke: Stalin reads his report to the Party Congress. Suddenly someone sneezes. "Who sneezed?" Silence. "First row! On your feet! Shoot them!" They are shot, and he asks again, "Who sneezed, Comrades?" No answer. "Second row! On your feet! Shoot them!" They are shot too. "Well, who sneezed?" At last a sobbing cry resounds in the Congress Hall, "It was me! Me!" Stalin says, "Bless you, Comrade!" and resumes his speech. Our pictures today come from Moyer Road - this is the road that Vineland Estates Winery is located on.  This silver barked bush along the side of the road is very photogenic as it is.  It becomes the texture for an abstract pattern created in photoshop.

Exit Code Autumn Leaves

Our fall colour is on track according to Ontario Parks.  The little map with the peak viewing tells us most of the province is at peak colour. It is an impressive representation. You can find it at ontariopark.com/fallcolour HERE.  Here is the entry for Killbear Park: Killbear - Report Date : October 11, 2018 Dominant Colour : Yellow/Orange Colour Change : 80 - Leaf Fall : 20 Best viewing : Yellow and orange are dominant with occasional splashes of brilliant red set off nicely against the dark green of our pines. The best colours are along the Recreation Trail, the Lookout Point Trail and near beaver ponds. Killbear should reach peak colour over the next week, but lots of fall colour (mostly shades of yellow) will remain until the end of October. Killbear is open for camping and Day Use until Sunday October 28th. We're at the migration time here in Grimsby with the bird count taking place at ebird.org. It has a chart that shows the hotspots.  St. Catharines - Port Weller east pier has the highest species count at 249, with Beamer Conservation Area (that's us in Grimsby) at 227.  One of Dezi's favourite walking places is Happy Rolf's in St. Catharines and the count there is 92. In total, there are 100 locations identified with bird counts. Yesterday's visit was to Charles Daley Park to catch a bit of the locust colour before the wind takes most of it away.  Being on the shore, these trees don't get to show off for long. I was happy to catch the colour that was there.  The picture below is the interpretation from 2012.

The Yellow Milkmaid Syndrome

Who was milking on that fateful eighth day?  Was it a domestic servant or a young unmarried woman? Possibly a virgin. Possibly all of the above.  By the Victorian era, a maid was a domestic servant, and there were all types by then.  A milkmaid was a girl who milked cows - our maids may or may not have been milkmaids.  They were a-milking, though. Eight maids is a significant number with historical references:  a queen regnant (e.g. Queen Elizabeth) had the tradition of eight maids of honour.  A maid of honour was a maiden - unmarried, and usually young - commonly in their sixteenth year or older. However, when we move on to an expression about milkmaids, the implication is that they grew older than 16 by quite a bit - "as smooth as milkmaid's skin" means exceptionally smooth. Wikipedia says that "this phrase came about as a result of exposure to cowpox, which causes no serious symptoms, but does convey a partial immunity to the disfiguring (and often fatal) disease smallpox. Thus, milkmaids lacked the "pockmarked" complexion common to smallpox survivors. This observation led to the development of the first vaccine". What is the yellow milkmaid syndrome?  This is a reference to Johannes Vermeer's most famous painting - of a woman in a yellow dress pouring milk.  There are over 10,000 copies on the internet - mostly poor, yellowish reproductions. The colours do not represent the work accurately. "At the national level, for example in the UK, the higher education community has issued the Open Metadata Principles calling on metadata to be openly available for innovative re-use".  This is about open metadata in the cultural heritage sector -  a current issue and the organization dealing with it is known as Europeana. .So we look at our pictures today as two options to enter into the New Year - the portal to the golden landscape and the portal to the sea. Which will it be this year?

Decew

Decew House is the final destination of Laura Secord.  There is a new monument there.  It was designed by Douglas Cardinal and celebrates the First Nations peoples. Secord encountered First Nations warriors in nearby Decew's Field.  They escorted her the final kilometre to the British headquarters at Decew House.  The monument is located 5.3 km from the site of the Battle of Beaver Dams, which was fought and won almost entirely by Kanahwake Mohawk and other Native allies. About the monument: "The distinctive design of this compelling architectural sculpture is consistent with Douglas Cardinal’s designs elsewhere in North America, including the iconic Canadian Museum of History in Gatineau and First Nations University in Regina. Its flowing circular organic form is carved out of blocks of solid limestone, nested firmly in the surrounding landscape. The circle is a powerful symbol of welcoming, inclusion, and protection in Native cultures, and the curved walls of the monument are abstract symbols of Haudenosaunee longhouses that open to the East and West.  A central hearth, surrounded by seating, is represented by a translucent glowing glass sphere symbolizing the sun. The sphere was handcrafted by world-renowned master glassblower Angelo Rossi, a Niagara Falls, Ontario based artisan. Embedded in the walls of the monument are two graphic wampum belt symbols - the Hiawatha Wampum Belt, which expresses the Haudenosaunee Great Law of Peace, and the William Claus Pledge of the Crown Wampum Belt, which symbolizes the restoration of peaceful relations among Native allies and the British following the War of 1812. A pathway from the monument will lead to a circular garden planted with a single white pine tree – the symbolic Tree of Peace of the Iroquois nations. Three white cedars will also be planted onsite to honour the abiding strength and importance of First Nations women." Our first picture shows the foundations of the Decew House - this is all that remains today.

When is IV IIII?

Do you ever panic when you see the end of the movie scroll and you can't read the Roman Numerals?  Yesterday's clock tower in Kingston had Roman Numerals to mark the hours.   Names of monarchs and popes use what is called regnal numbers which are Roman Numerals  Generational suffixes - you could be John Smith VI Year of production of films - and was the story goes was started by the BBC News "in an attempt to disguise the age of films or television programmes" Hour marks on time pieces where the traditional IIII rather than IV is prevalent as in our picture yesterday Buildings - the year of construction  Page numbering of prefaces and introductions Book Volumes and chapter numbers Outlines that use numbers to show hierarchical relationships Occurrences of a recurring grand event - none other than the Olympic Games Then there are uses within specific disciplines - music, astronomy, chemistry, computing, theology, and so on.  It seems Roman Numerals show up in many places. So we might be presented with the issue of how to represent zero.  It does not have its own Roman numeral.  And fractions seem to be complicated.  The Romans used a duodecimal system for fractions.  And then what did they do for large numbers? The system Apostrophes was developed for these. So while the system declined, it has remained with us in quite a few small ways. Our Autumn pictures come from last year - there's little colour to see this year so far - the wind has swept many leaves away.  There was no show of colour as we drove down the road past Morningstar Mill at Decew Falls in St. Catharines.  Just down the road is Decew House where Laura Secord ended her 32 km walk from Queenston.

Neologistically Speaking

The software used to send out this photo of the day is Mailchimp.  It has a report that shows the click throughs and 1.5% clicked through to look at the neologisms yesterday.  I have reproduced below the famous Washington Post collection of Neologisms.    The Washington Post Neologism Competition Every year The Washington Post runs an annual competition in which the readers of the newspaper are asked to submit alternative meanings to existing words. The results are often extremely amusing.  1. Coffee (n.), the person upon whom one coughs. 2. Flabbergasted (adj.), appalled over how much weight you have gained. 3. Abdicate (v.), to give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach. 4. Esplanade (v.), to attempt an explanation while drunk. 5. Willy-nilly (adj.), impotent. 6. Negligent (adj.), describes a condition in which you absentmindedly answer the door in your nightgown. 7. Lymph (v.), to walk with a lisp. 8. Gargoyle (n.), olive-flavored mouthwash. 9. Flatulance (n.) emergency vehicle that picks you up after you are run over by a steamroller. 10. Balderdash (n.), a rapidly receding hairline. 11. Testicle (n.), a humorous question on an exam. 12. Rectitude (n.), the formal, dignified bearing adopted by proctologists. 13. Pokemon (n), a Rastafarian proctologist. 14. Oyster (n.), a person who sprinkles his conversation with Yiddishisms. 15. Frisbeetarianism (n.), The belief that when you die, your Soul flies up onto the roof and gets stuck there. 16. Circumvent (n.), an opening in the front of boxer shorts worn by Jewish men. One thinks of Autumn as being finished by Halloween, and that is typically the case.  I took this picture of Charles Daley Park's weeping willow on December 3rd.

I'll Take Mine Fried

I made it in time to capture the fiery foliage of the Cemetery Japanese Maple.  It is entwined around a headstone, which is not visible in these photos.  November is their month for vivid colour - as long as it doesn't get too windy.  That's always a dilemma here in Grimsby with the wind off the escarpment or the Lake. I planned to capture the large tree in front of one of our heritage homes and the leaves are gone - they dropped in one day.    And around the corner from me is the largest Japanese Maple I've seen in Niagara, with the glorious red colour on the tree and in the driveway. From the den garden website: "In Japan, maple trees are known as kaede (楓/"frog's hands"), as well as momiji (紅葉), which means both "become crimson leaves" and "baby's hands". Momiji is commonly used as the term for autumn foliage in general in Japanese, but it is also used as a term for maple trees. These names come from the appearance of the leaves, which resemble the hands of a baby or a frog. The scientific term for Japanese maples is Acer palmatum."   "In Japan's Osaka prefecture, the red and orange maple leaves are a sight to see during the fall. As is the case in the rest of Japan, people go out in droves to see the beautiful fall scenery. However, in Osaka, locals also go out in droves to collect the leaves and turn them into a deep-fried delicacy! Fried maple leaves are a very popular snack in Osaka, and apparently have been for at least a thousand years. The city of Minoh, located in the north part of the prefecture, is particularly famous for their fried leaves. The maple leaves are dipped and fried in tempura butter, which give them their unique taste. The secret of Minoh's success with fried leaves really isn't much of a secret at all. Chefs there usually store their leaves in barrels of salt for one year, which makes their leaves particularly tasty!"

Benjamin Franklin's Frugal Talk

Frugality has a great history in the United States.  Both Benjamin Franklin and Ralph Waldo Emerson extolled and promoted the 'simple life.' Quotes from Benjamin Franklin: 1. “A penny saved is a penny earned.” 2. “An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest.” 3. “Having been poor is no shame, being ashamed of it is.” 4. “He that is of the opinion money will do everything may well be suspected of doing everything for money.” 5. “Rather go to bed without dinner than to rise in debt.” - Benjamin Franklin Today's pictures are the sort of 'castle ruin' we have in Ontario - a barn silo standing alone in an abandoned field. This one is up on the escarpment.

Will We have Autumn Leaves?

In only 2 days we can start humming autumn songs like 'The Autumn Leaves'.   But what will the leaves look like after this summer drought?  I passed a favourite sumac stand along the South Service Road in St. Catharines and they are curling brown.  They aren't likely to turn to  glorious red, gold and yellow.  It seems that while many trees'  leaves stayed green during the drought, they are going brown and crispy now even though we're getting enough rain.   How about this headline on the Almanac site to join a live show of the season 'turning': Fall begins this Thursday September 22 with the autumnal equinox! Join us for a live show as we welcome in the new seasons – and learn all about the movement of the Sun.  Get details. There are still lots of flowers in the gardens - here's a pretty sunflower bud.

Take Cover - It's the Winter Cover Crop

I found this scene at the beginning of November this year up on the escarpment.  I was driving around looking for good bronze fall foliage landscape scenes.  Such an interesting contrast to see the end of autumn paired with spring.  I looked this up and think it is a canola cover crop. Its benefit:  "Grows fast; adds huge amount of humus". "Comments: Excellent catch crop after an early harvest. This cabbage relative sprouts and grows fast, produces large, nitrogen-rich leaves which crowd out weeds. Deep roots loosen tough clay soil. Matures in 8 to 10 weeks; large vegetative mass decays fast, makes a wealth of humus when turned under. Cover crops should be turned under several weeks before the area is planted with crops in order to allow sufficient decomposition."

Frosty Red Maples

There was a lot of frost early yesterday morning so I was able to get some Japanese Maple leaves in the grass.  They look like they are coated with sugar and could decorate a cake. Today is roast turkey, candied yams, giant balloons and American football.

Boston Ivy Days are Finishing

I have the leaf-retaining Red Maple out front.  It will be the last tree to lose its leaves and is still holding on to them. Last week I saw the last of the boston ivy.  I was fascinated by the wall at Vineland Research Station with the long leafless stems about 8 inches long.  They must have adapted to the light conditions and are able to reach out beyond the shade to catch the sun.  The more typical boston ivy habit is shown in the bottom two pictures with the brilliant golds and reds..