Some amazing bird photography...wow!

From The Epoch Times

More Alexander Calder

I think I may have posted about this before but you can't have too much Alexander Calder:) "Seattle Art Museum receives 48 Calder works and $10m from former Microsoft president and his wife The trove of works from Jon and Kim Shirley includes many mobiles and stabiles, and comes with a commitment to fund ongoing programming on the artist." I especially love the fish mobile.

Balloon Festival

This would be so much fun to see. From Nice News "For an epic view from above, below, and all angles, Albuquerque’s International Balloon Fiesta is a world-renowned ballooning event admired for its photogenic-meets-magical sights. Started in 1972, the event began with only 13 balloons in a shopping mall parking lot. Since then, the festival has grown to a nine-day event with 500 balloons at a 365-acre park, plus hundreds of thousands of visitors. "

So wonderful these elephants are being saved

I'll never forget snuggling up to an elephant when I was in Thailand. Of course,the poor elephant was part of the tourism industry. We used to go to zoos wherever we travelled in the world. We enjoyed seeing the animals and it was a break from the overcrowded tourist hot spots.I think differently about going to zoos now.

👍 0% fee. Donations are tax-deductible. HELP SUPPORT ELEPHANT NATURE PARK + THE 5000+ RESCUED ANIMALS IN THEIR CARE! Elephant Nature Park is a rehabilitation center in Northern Thailand providing sanctuary to over 5000+ residents including 120 elephants who have been rescued from lives of abuse within the tourism industry. The park also provides a natural environment for buffalo, dogs, cats, rabbits, pigs, horses, cows and many other animals. No one is turned away. WHY YOUR DONATION MATTERS: Elephant Rescues: It is very expensive to rescue an elephant. In addition to the cost of acquiring the elephant, there are also transportation and legal costs related to transfer of ownership for an elephant. These costs can, and often do, exceed $35,000. Land: Elephants require a lot of land to live as natural lives as possible. To continue rescuing old, abused, injured elephants, it is critical to acquire more land. When land is acquired, there are additional costs to build the infrastructure needed to support the elephants, caretakers, and volunteers. Operating Expenses: Elephant Nature Park operating expenses are generated from fees paid by visitors and volunteers who spend time at the park. However, these funds do not cover any extra expenses that inevitably arise on a regular basis. For example, when an elephant needs to be rescued, when an elephant requires additional veterinary care and medications, or when veterinary equipment is needed, the money required must be generated quickly from other sources. It costs $30 per day to feed 1 Elephant. No amount is too big or too small to have an impact. 100% of your donation is tax-deductible in the US.

Pirate lego...how cool is that!

What young boy isn't into pirates and lego? I see it costs 150 bucks...not so cool for parents.

Another great sunset

This time not from John but from Linda on their Alaska cruise. Leaving Ketchican

Northern Lights over Scotland

This would have been quite something to see.

Lunch at the University Golf Club again yesterday

I had the chicken wings and so did Jim. And then home to see the Blue Jays beat Tampa Bay.

Definitely looks good enough to eat

About the Artwork Theo Terry’s practice is informed by historical still-life painting, commercial photography, collage, and the aesthetics of digital processes. His work recontextualises materials and objects to navigate both pictorial concerns and those of wider society: wealth, labour, and consumption. Through the layering of various representational methods and bold framing techniques, apparent oppositions – between image and object, natural and artificial matter, depth and flatness, authenticity and mass production – play out within his composition. Combining a handmade aesthetic with a hyperreality of colour, scale, and tactility, Terry’s work suggests a latent potential in the objects which constitute our world.

Marilyn

I do hope they keep "Marilyn" in Palm Springs. It does seem like the perfect spot for her to be as I've said before. From "The Desert Sun"
A group that supports keeping Palm Springs’ iconic and controversial statue of Marilyn Monroe at its downtown location has launched a campaign to let voters weigh in. But legal questions remain, including whether such a vote would affect a pending lawsuit that could force the statue to be moved.

Six spectacular landmarks

Well, not surprised that Notre Dame de Paris is one of them. From "The Daily Passport"

https://dailypassport.com/spectacular-gothic-landmarks/

Coolest cars of the last 50 years

A few examples and more in the link. Needless to say we didn't own any of them.

From "Road and Track" https://www.roadandtrack.com/rankings/g44772006/coolest-cars-of-the-past-50-years/?utm_source=recommendedreads.com

Looking forward to this new Woody Allen

Wow...France and Woody Allen...what a great combo. "The American filmmaker's latest production is coming to cinemas across France from 27 September. With a tale of lovers set in the French capital, 87-year-old director Woody Allen is back with his fiftieth film Coup de Chance. Shot entirely in French, this highly anticipated drama premiered in Venice and stars French actress Lou de Laagence and follows a young woman who falls for her former high school friend after a chance encounter. The 87-year-old Academy Award-winning filmmaker travelled to Lyon in southeast France on Sunday for an exclusive preview at the Lumière Institute in Monplaisir. And he didn't shy away from his love of filming in Europe."

Leaves turning colour

We'll soon be in that time of year. I found this interesting. From CNN September 16, 2023 Did you know that the vibrant hues leaves turn in the fall are their actual colors? It's true — leaves that change color are naturally those orange, red and yellow shades, but during half of the year, those hues are overwhelmed by green chlorophyll. Colder, cloudier months mean less chlorophyll, which means the trees and flora can finally show their true colors. It's kind of poetic, isn't it? A lot of people see the changing colors of the season as a prelude to the barrenness of winter, but really it's a special show all its own — one full of unexpected, unique life.

20 of the world's most stunning libraries

And Vancouver makes the cut!

https://dailypassport.com/most-stunning-libraries/

Love this Picasso

From The Art Newspaper "The collection at Sotheby’s will be led by Femme à la montre (1932), Pablo Picasso’s portrait of his muse Marie-Thérèse Walter, painted just after his affair with the young woman became public. Landau purchased the painting in 1968, and it hung above the mantel in her New York home for years, according to Sotheby’s specialists. Femme à la montre is estimated to sell in excess of $120m."

Lunch at the University Golf Club Wed.

Chicken wings again for me. Jim had the fish tacos.

Winnie the Pooh

I loved reading Winnie the Pooh to Richard. Quite the price for this sketch.

From CNN: "A ‘forgotten’ Winnie the Pooh sketch sat in a drawer for years. Now it could be worth thousands Lianne Kolirin, CNN Published 11:52 AM EDT, Thu August 24, 2023 01 Winnie the Pooh sketch top Dominic Winter Auctioneers London CNN — An original black and white sketch of Winnie the Pooh and his good friend Piglet which languished for decades in a drawer is expected to fetch thousands when it goes under the hammer next month. According to Dominic Winter Auctioneers, which is handling the sale, the pen and ink drawing is the same as one of the final illustrations in A.A. Milne’s first book about Winnie the Pooh, published in 1926. The illustration that’s now heading to auction was drawn on thin white card, measuring 3.5 inches by 6.5 inches, and was signed and dated “E.H. Shepard 1958” in the lower right hand corner. Incredibly, the drawing was only discovered recently after British auctioneers were contacted to value the effects of Christopher Foyle, the grandson of William Foyle, who co-founded the British bookshop Foyles. It is now expected to fetch between £20,000 and £30,000 ($25,000 and $38,000). The picture, the same as the final drawing in the first Winnie the Pooh book, languished for years in a drawer."

Good on Paris!

OPINION / ANDREW MUELLER In wheel danger "E-scooters were always an answer to a question that presumably nobody had asked: “What would be an efficient way of making life for pedestrians miserable at best, dangerous at worst?” They have been a blight upon every city on which they have descended. In use, they are a nuisance and a menace. When stationary, they’re ugly and obstructive litter. By declaring a stop to this nonsense, Paris has set what will hopefully be a resonant example. City authorities have confirmed that they intend to abide by a yay or nay referendum on rented scooters held earlier this year, in which 90 per cent of an admittedly small turnout voted for their abolition. Operators Lime, Dott and Tier have until this Friday to get their 15,000 pestilential contraptions, known locally as trottinettes, off the boulevards. It has to be hoped that this is only a start – regrettably, it remains legal to ride privately owned e-scooters in Paris while Lime, Dott and Tier plan to deploy their machines to pester other French cities instead."

A lovely lunch with friends Sunday

It was great to see "the gang"...Linda, Cec, Dave, Carol, and Donna. We went to Pat Quinn's in Tsawwassen and we were pretty lucky with the traffic.

Storefronts in Paris

Susan K. sent me these. She knows I love anything to do with Paris. Artwork by Janice Macloud.

Saving the pink elephant

Can anyone pass this sign and not smile? I certainly couldn't. So glad to see it has been saved. From "The Desert Sun"

"One of the Coachella Valley’s most prominent landmarks along Highway 111 — the large pink elephant sign promoting a Rancho Mirage car wash — was designated as a historic resource by the city this week. The neon sign, which promotes the Rancho Super Car Wash with a pink elephant spraying water from its trunk, was installed in 1966 — seven years before the city incorporated. Its design by Beatrice Haverfield was based on similar car wash signs she made for a company in Seattle. With its designation as a historic resource, the car wash sign could still be altered or demolished, but any proposed changes would be subject to a more stringent review process at city hall. The city also has the right to relocate any historic property “as an alternative to granting the owner a demolition permit,” per Rancho Mirage municipal code."

Pizzafest

This sounds like fun but we were disappointed with the pizza we had in Italy.The crust was very thin. Jim was also disappointed with pasta in Italy as the portions were very small as it is eaten as a small pre-course.The portion was perfect for me as I can't seem to eat a lot of pasta.

"As the birthplace of pizza, Naples is a fitting location for Pizzafest — billed as the largest celebration of pizza in the world. The festival hosts more than a million people annually, who travel from across the globe to cook and eat the beloved dish. Throughout the 11-day festival each June, roughly 100,000 pizzas are cooked and consumed, averaging about 9,000 pizzas per day. Pizzafest brings together expert pizza makers in a competition of the best of the best, including the most recognized pizza chefs in Naples. Of course, pizza is served everywhere throughout the festival, and competitions involve crowd participation to vote on the best pizza. With its own dedicated space in the Naples Pizza Village, the festival also includes pizza-making workshops, entertainment programs, and live music. When the sun goes down, Pizzafest turns into a lively celebration, with guests singing, dancing, and eating throughout the night."

So glad to see Venice doing this

I think I've said before that Venice was being ruined by tourists and how sad that was.

"Day-trippers visiting Venice will soon have to pay a €5 admission fee to the city in a bid to stem rampant over-tourism. The scheme, to be implemented next spring, will be run on a trial basis, though the exact dates will be outlined after final council approval of the plan expected on 12 September. Ticket holders will need to download a QR code on their phone which may be checked by inspectors. Those exempt from paying the fee include children aged under 14, tourists staying overnight in hotels and Airbnb properties along with “residents in the municipality of Venice [and] students of any schools and universities located in the old city or in the smaller islands”, says a local authority statement. The city’s permanent citizens amount to around 49,000 people. “We set ourselves as a forerunner worldwide, aware of the urgency of finding a new balance between the rights of those who live, study or work in Venice and those who visit the city. This is why, at certain times and on certain days, innovative flow management is required, capable of putting a brake on day-to-day tourism,” says Simone Venturini, the councillor responsible for tourism, in a statement."

Moonwalkers

I could use a pair of these.

From CNN "The AI-powered, TikTok-famous "Moonwalkers" can be strapped onto your shoes to make you reach a top walking speed of 11 km/h. Imagine being able to make a quick grocery run or walk your dog as fast as if you were on a moving walkway. An American start-up, Shift Robotics, has invented a device designed to be strapped onto your own shoes to boost your walking speed by up to 250 per cent. That’s right, you could be walking at up to 11 km/h, about three times faster than you normally would. The "Moonwalkers" look like skates, but they’re not freewheeling - so that you don’t lose your balance."

Air mail writing paper

Susan K. sent me this. She knows I'm always looking for interesting things for my blog. Who knew this about air mail writing paper? from "Margret Puts Pen to Paper" "Classic air mail paper is blue and very thin. The thinness makes sense since paper is heavy (just pick up a box of regular copy paper) so it was designed to be as light as possible, keeping down the cost of shipping a letter by plane. The blue colour came about because of a rivalry between French and Dutch paper makers. Up until the 1720s, France was the leading European paper manufacturing county and strived to make the whitest paper possible. The paper making process was traditionally powered by water but the Dutch came up with a method using wind power. They began to dominate the fine paper industry much to the consternation of the French. The method the Dutch used involved adding a salt that left the paper slightly bluish. At a time of frequently counterfeited watermarks, this bluish tinge was considered a reliable sign of quality and fashionable people started to use blue paper for their personal correspondence. This preference for blue writing stationery continued well into the 20th century when sending letters by airplane became possible." And this reminded me of being fascinated by the British postal system that could deliver mail the next day anywhere in the UK. It seemed like magic to us in our early days travelling there.

Stunning examples of art deco

I'm always very attracted to all things "art deco". Click on the link for more. These images are from "Daily Passport"

https://dailypassport.com/stunning-art-deco-buildings/

Message in a bottle

I always find it fun to read about messages in a bottle being found. When I was a kid I sent many messages in bottles but never received a reply. The first one Richard sent got a reply. How weird is that? Not long after that happened there was a mail strike and Richard couldn't send his weekly letter to his grandparents who were on Gabriola Island at the time. We were living in Victoria. He suggested we send them a message in a bottle. I think he was about five or six at the time and wasn't really persueded by my explanation that messages in bottles arriving at their destination were not something that happened very often.

From CNN: "WILDWOOD, New Jersey (WPVI) -- It reads like a movie script: a woman writes a message in a bottle and sends it off to sea in Ireland. A New Jersey man and his family found the message while picking up trash on the beach in Wildwood. It took exactly 1,500 days, but on Friday morning, the message sender and the bottle finder finally found each other."

Lunch at Las Margaritas

Sitting in the sunshine yesterday and enjoying our usual favourites.

Paddington Bear

I'm glad to see Paddington make it on a stamp.

"It's nice having a bear (stamp) about the house." A set of special stamps are being issued to celebrate 65 years of Paddington Bear. The marmalade-loving Peruvian bear will feature on six postal stamps taken from Ivor Wood's cartoons, which were originally published in the London Evening News in the late 1970s as the character became a star of the small screen."

Billie Jean King

I think I remember this news story and being impressed that the world of tennis did this. But, 50 years ago? Just one more thing that makes me feel old :)

BY JAMES MARTINEZ Updated 9:28 PM PDT, August 28, 2023 Share NEW YORK (AP) — After a rousing tribute from former first lady Michelle Obama, Billie Jean King on Monday celebrated the 50th anniversary of the U.S. Open becoming the first sporting event to offer equal prize money to female and male competitors, promising never to stop fighting to maintain that hard-won progress. “While we celebrate today, our work is far from done,” King said in a speech to a packed Arthur Ashe Stadium crowd between night matches. Echoing a quote from Coretta Scott King, she said: “Struggle is a never-ending process. Freedom is never really won. You earn it and you win it in every generation.” Obama introduced the 79-year-old tennis legend by recalling how King, the U.S. Open champion in 1972, rallied her fellow women players to threaten a boycott of the next year’s tournament unless women got the same pay as men. It was announced that summer that the women’s champion’s paycheck would increase $15,000 so that both men’s and women’s champions would each receive $25,000.

Oxford University

I knew Oxford was old but I didn't realize it was this old.

From Interesting Facts "Oxford University is older than the Inca empire. While you might associate the development of modern universities with intellectual movements like the Renaissance or the Enlightenment, the first universities predate those major periods in history — not by years but by centuries. One of the oldest universities in the world is Oxford University, where teaching began back in 1096. That’s much older than Harvard (established in 1636) or Yale (1701), and it’s even older than some well-known Indigenous civilizations in the Americas, including the Incas, who lived in the Andean region of South America from around the 13th century CE to the mid-16th century. (Other groups and empires have occupied the Andes since at least 10,000 BCE.) The first universities were not like the sprawling campuses of today. Instead, they were more like guilds devoted to certain subjects or crafts. Slowly, the influence of these schools grew throughout the High Middle Ages (1000–1300), and many of them became hot spots during future intellectual movements. Meanwhile, as Europe was busy cementing the importance of its universities (and fighting in half-a-dozen Crusades), the Incas were building sprawling road networks and reliable postal systems — they even had highly skilled brain surgeons."

Eiffel designed the Statue of Liberty

This came up in "Interesting Facts" and I found it quite surprising that this doesn't seem to be well known. I certainly wasn't aware of it. "Even prior to the building of his namesake tower in Paris, Alexandre-Gustave Eiffel was already one of France's leading structural engineers in the 19th century. Thus, he was a natural choice for New York Harbor's Statue of Liberty, especially after the statue's original designer died unexpectedly. Thanks to Eiffel, the statue's interior boasts a more contemporary design. Eiffel came up with the idea of a central spine in the statue, which functions as a connector for the various asymmetrical metal girders that give the statue its shape. This innovative technique not only provides the framework for the statue but also creates a kind of suspension system that allows the monument to withstand winds and other harsh weather conditions."

Sunday dinner

A lovely evening with Jan and Myra and Donna. Thanks so much!

Cool art in Penn Station

There just can't be enough art in public places. From The Art Newspaper: "The future of Penn Station, Manhattan’s infamously dispiriting train hub beneath the Madison Square Garden arena, remains uncertain as politicians, real estate developers and community groups debate the merits of competing modernisation schemes. In the meantime, national rail company Amtrak is enlivening its spaces in the subterranean complex with new public art commissions and expanding its public art programme to other stations. Installations by New Jersey-based artists Shoshanna Weinberger and David Rios Ferreira, organised by curator Debra Simon under the Art at Amtrak initiative, were unveiled in early August and will remain on view until January 2024. Rios Ferreira’s Get Carried Away, You Have the Right (2023) spans four double-height columns, two friezes and a central mural in a large rotunda, melding ancient and futuristic imagery. Each of the columns features a towering, hybrid figure whose elements draw from Indigenous and pre-Hispanic traditions, as well as sources including comic books and imagery the artist found in Amtrak’s archives."

More interesting art

I'm always attracted to simplicity in art. Sally Michel Avery Dunes by the Sea $85,000

Cats

This photo came up on "Why you should have a cat". Some pretty nice looking cats here. Well, all cats look great in their own way.

These little guys are so cute

From The Daily Record: "An Edinburgh cafe where you can enjoy cake and coffee surrounded by chihuahuas looks perfect for the dog lovers out there. The Edinburgh Chihuahua Cafe is an interactive coffee shop where eight adorable small dogs roam freely among guests. Visitors can pet, cuddle, play with, and take photos with the Chihuahuas, or simply watch them while sipping on a loose leaf tea or hot chocolate. As Chihuahuas are a low-energy breed of dog, they can often be seen lying peacefully on guests' laps. However, they also frequently engage in games such as fetch or tug of war. Anyone bored of typical coffee spots and looking for something a bit different can currently book a trip for two to the Edinburgh Chihuahua Cafe for £40 through Virgin Experience Days."

Let's hope storm Hilary has done its worst

"The entire region was knocked off kilter by Tropical Storm Hilary. So it's only appropriate for the valley's airport — or at least the sign for it — to be a bit out of sorts, too. One of the major signs for Palm Springs International Airport, at Gene Autry Trail and Ramon Road, was slumped to one side Monday. Flooding had apparently shifted a large amount of the earth under the right side of its supports."

Flooding in Palm Springs

Wildfires in B.C. and flooding in Palm Springs. So sad to see these tragic events especially in places we know and love. We're usually hearing about wildfires in Palm Springs around this time. Just hope everybody we know is safe. And they had a 5.1 earthquake in the area.

Cats watching TV

Well, why not?