Traditional Iconoclast

Weights Faces

Posted on 21 May 2022 by Isabel Gibson

Dismay. That’s the only way to read these oddly panda-like faces.

Who would be so cruel as to toss aside this entire mysterious cohort (Are they siblings? Colleagues? A volleyball team?) without, apparently, a second thought?

Posted in Laughing Frequently, Photos of Faces | Tagged Pareidolia | 6 Comments

I sometimes make videos that pair music clips with photos. It’s amazingly hard to do well: to edit the visual changes to align with the auditory ones, even when the photos are just, you know, standing there.

Once I accidentally picked music for a video of a squirrel where the squirrel jumping coincided with a change in the rhythm of the music. Woot! (Check out Video Memory of the Week, off to the right.)

Maybe that experience is why I’m so impressed with mash-ups that combine clips from old musicals — you know, where people are doing anything but just standing there — with a soundtrack that they weren’t dancing to. Here are two great ones.

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Posted in Appreciating Deeply, New Perspectives | Tagged Miscellany, Musicians, Professionals | 15 Comments

Hold My Beer and Farewell Best Beloved

Posted on 20 May 2022 by Isabel Gibson

Victoria Day is a Canadian statutory holiday celebrated on the Monday preceding May 25 in every province and territory. It honours Queen Victoria’s birthday.

Doulton Fountain, Glasgow

Every province? Really? Quebecers celebrate Victoria Day?

In Quebec this holiday is called “National Patriotes (sic) Day”
(Journée nationale des patriotes or Fête des Patriotes).

Yeah, no. “National Patriots’ Day” is not what Quebecers call the day that they celebrate Queen Victoria’s birthday.

National Patriots’ Day (Journée nationale des patriotes) is a commemoration of the Lower Canada Rebellion of 1837. This holiday is celebrated on the same day as Victoria Day. (emphasis added)

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Posted in Laughing Frequently, Through History, Through the Calendar | Tagged History, Word Play | 6 Comments

In Case You Were Wondering

Posted on 08 May 2022 by Isabel Gibson

#12 – What is the most embarrassing thing
your mother or father ever did to you?

Here’s a resource I wish I’d had earlier: 20 Questions to Ask Your Mother.

#17 – What’s a rule you secretly love to break?

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Posted in Feeling Clearly, Mortality | Tagged Family | 14 Comments

Going in Style

Posted on 07 May 2022 by Isabel Gibson

So, what was the biggest event this past week?

May the 4th (be with you) Day?

Cinco de mayo?

Dutch Liberation Day, also on cinco de mayo?

Your results may vary, but the biggest event in our household was none of these: It was testing positive for COVID-19.

And so we have passed the week: sleeping, head-aching, coughing, wince-swallowing, sneezing, lethargizing, turning up our noses at food, dragging ourselves out of bed and back into it, lying awake in a state of general crumminess and completely justified self-pity, collapsing into chairs after two full minutes of standing, whew, and enduring wakefulness in periods supposed to be for knitting up the ravelled sleeve of care. Not that COVID cares. Or has sleeves.

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Posted in Feeling Clearly, Through History | Tagged Attitudes, History | 12 Comments

Foot / Shape

Posted on 30 April 2022 by Isabel Gibson

Now there’s an idea I wish I’d thought of: Shoes that are foot shape(d).

Inside cover of box holding recent footwear purchase

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Posted in Laughing Frequently | Tagged Business, Word Play | 12 Comments

The Heck

Posted on 29 April 2022 by Isabel Gibson

Movement in the tangle of branches behind the feeder catches my eye: a tuft of head feathers is my first clue that something is different. The crest is almost cardinal-like, but the colour is all wrong. In lieu of binoculars, I grab my camera to get a better look. What the heck?

As the bird comes into reluctant focus, I get it: a waxwing. And, as usual, not just one but a bevy of these beauties. A small flock, forsooth.

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Posted in Appreciating Deeply, Laughing Frequently | Tagged Birds | 10 Comments

Spinus tristis

Posted on 28 April 2022 by Isabel Gibson

Spinus tristis. It sounds like a sad backbone, doesn’t it? But no.

The American goldfinch (Spinus tristis) is a small North American bird in the finch family. It is migratory, ranging from mid-Alberta to North Carolina during the breeding season, and from just south of the Canada–United States border to Mexico during the winter. – Wikipedia

Some sites offer more description.

Adult males in spring and early summer are bright yellow with black forehead, black wings with white markings, and white patches both above and beneath the tail. Adult females are duller yellow beneath, olive above. Winter birds are drab, unstreaked brown, with blackish wings and two pale wingbars.

Some offer more enthusiasm.

This handsome little finch, the state bird of New Jersey, Iowa, and Washington, is welcome and common at feeders, where it takes primarily sunflower and nyjer.

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Posted in Appreciating Deeply, Photos of Flora | Tagged Birds, Weather | 2 Comments

More Scenes of Ireland

Posted on 23 April 2022 by Isabel Gibson

Sometimes my travel photos lend themselves to a narrative. Sometimes not.

The landscapes here are from a sunny and briskly windy day spent along the north end of the Wild Atlantic Way, which we saw in part on our trip to Ireland four years ago (here and here).

The Wild Atlantic Way, 1600 miles (2600 km) in length, is one of the longest defined coastal routes in the world. It winds its way all along the Irish west coast from the Inishowen Peninsula in the north down to the picturesque town of Kinsale, County Cork, in the south.

The other shots are from a misting morning in Letterkenny, our last on this trip.