never-ending gallery

[LisaLCFan]

...oh no, what's going to happen with those beautiful little chickadees who sing their sweet little songs - poor things!...

Happily, chickadees are far more reslient than humans, and are able to survive outside even in -40 temperatures. Luckily for them, it snowed just before this cold-snap (before that, there was atypically almost no snow here), for one of the survival techniques employed by chickadees is to burrow under the snow to stay warm. Here is an article with more details on how those beautiful little birds get through frigid winter weather -- they really are remarkable little creatures!

https://naturealberta.ca/weathering-win ... hickadees/

[Geoffrey]

LisaLCFan wrote:
>Here is an article with more details on how those beautiful little birds get through frigid winter weather -- they really are remarkable little creatures!

i read it. amazing how they survive, how they remember where they hide food for when they'll need it. we are not allowed to hang food for birds on our balconies, but i have a friend in the countryside who makes little wooden bird houses and nails them to trees in the woods near his home - and in the winter regularly puts food on the landing platforms. it makes me feel rather helpless. i hope the weather soon gets better.
this is a video i just watched: https://youtu.be/RPeFayGr9ZU?si=A_w5BHmwcx3H_w1W

[its4inthemorning]

Lisa, your thermometer must be broken. Hold a lighter underneath it for a while, that should fix it.

Geoffrey, your weather forecast is downright scary, be careful not to step into a you-know-what.

4

[LisaLCFan]

Lisa, your thermometer must be broken. Hold a lighter underneath it for a while, that should fix it...

I wish! (Are you being serious? I can't tell.). No, it really was -38 that day (in the middle of the city) -- it was even colder in the outlying areas, -46, apparently. I do live near the North Pole (or at least, it feels like it sometimes!). It has warmed up to a balmy -28 right now (not counting wind chill).

[B4real]

Speaking of the weather, this coincidentally landed in my inbox this morning.
https://montreal.ctvnews.ca/whiteout-co ... -1.6725532

It's been so hot and humid here for weeks - love this cool look of Leonard
"But you stand there so nice, in your blizzard of ice,
oh please let me come into the storm".
~ One Of Us Cannot Be Wrong



The St. Laurent Boulevard Leonard Cohen mural in the middle of a snowstorm in Montreal.
(Daniel J. Rowe/CTV News)

[its4inthemorning]

Bev, great linkage of the photo to Leonard's lyrics! Also, it reminded me of how nice a place Montreal is to visit...but not in the winter, I enjoy winter less and less each year.

And Lisa, I try to avoid being serious whenever an opportunity presents itself. I cannot fathom minus 38, I'm not crazy about plus 38 either. Persevere!

4

[Geoffrey]

hello everybody. yesterday was so lovely, such deep snow. i love mondays, so good when the shopping centre is open again, that's why i hate sundays. i went into a big pet shop looking for bird seeds and the lady showed me where they keep stuff like that. i bought three different types, what you can hang onto trees, one with nuts in it, one with some big black and white sunflower seeds in it and a big round ball of white flour(?) with lots of different goodies in it that the lady said sparrows enjoy so much. on the way home i stopped at my daughter's house and we hung two of the items up onto the branches of a plum tree in her garden and the other thingamejig outside her back door, high up so that cats can't catch our little feathered friends. when i got home i was sad because i wished i was allowed to hang food for the birds on my balcony. the woman who is in charge of the buildings here said it's against the rules, but then i thought to myself fuck you, you cow - and i hung up a big piece of christmas bread with raisins outside my kitchen window.

that obscure photo of leonard in the bad weather on the side of that montreal building i liked a lot. there is nothing like that where i live, so i made my own obscure image. pictures that are not ordinary are usually less boring to look at, although with my pictures that might not be the case. anyway, it kept me quiet for a little while.

i keep looking out my kitchen window. the sparrows have not come to peck at the christmas bread yet. maybe it takes a while for them to realise it's there. i can't see any flying about either, they all seem to have disappeared.

[LisaLCFan]

Regarding David Bowie's eyes, despite the fact that they did, in some photographs and images, appear to be two different colours (which is a condition called heterochromia), that is not the case. Both of Bowie's eyes were the same colour of blue, but one of his eyes had a permanently enlarged pupil (resulting from a childhood injury to his eye) -- a condition called anisocoria. Sometimes, due to lighting conditions, camera flash (red-eye), etc, the thin bit of iris visible in Bowie's damaged eye would, by optical illusion, appear to be a different, darker colour (green or even brown) compared the lighter and brighter blue iris in his normal eye.

For a long time, I thought that Bowie had heterochromia, due to various photos, videos, etc., as well as lacking access to information that would dispel that rumour. Bowie himself -- being a rather eccentric person -- likely enjoyed the fact that his eyes often appeared to be two different colours, although he would set the record straight when asked about it.

[Geoffrey]

hei lisa. thank you for this; you are quite amazing. i had read something about this a while back, but the details did not stay with me. i think this unusual eye condition may have enhanced his image of being a 'starman'. you may have heard that he was hit in his left eye with a lollipop while performing. it went straight into his eye but fortunately didn't do any permanent damage. i remember it so well because it happened in norway and was on the front page of several newspapers. wishing you a great weekend, and hoping the outside temperature with you has climbed somewhat.
https://www.factfiend.com/time-david-bo ... -lollipop/
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
two guys inside the enormous shopping centre near my hometown.

[LisaLCFan]

...you may have heard that [Bowie] was hit in his left eye with a lollipop while performing. it went straight into his eye...

Ouch, that looks painful! What are the chances of that happening? Glad he was not injured, and that the crowd enjoyed many more songs!

Thank you for the good wishes: it is considerably less cold here now, but still rather unpleasantly chilly, thus no enjoyable outdoor activities just yet.

A pleasant weekend to you, and everyone! Cheers!

[Geoffrey]

LisaLCFan wrote:
>A pleasant weekend to you, and everyone!
--------------------------------------
thanks. i have had a lovely weekend. on saturday afternoon several hours with friends at 'dråpe ålesund kaffehus'. we stayed enjoying wonderful conversation until it closed at 6pm. then i came home and binge-watched all ten episodes of 'fargo' season five.

sunday was a day of lesser quality, just small excursions here and there, and then tidying up data files. i picked up a trojan (malware) so had to backdate my machine to a restore point. it took forever, and when it was completed the operative system was gone, so couldn't search for anything. eventually i managed to download, re-install and configure chrome.

it's always fun finding solutions to computer problems; one learns so much each time.

from 3 years ago. inspired by 'toccata & fugues' - musical masterpiece

[Geoffrey]

martin luther king wrote:
>whatever you do, you have to keep moving forward!

guys with phones staring at me

Dear world. I think we should have peace. Why don't we have it? I would like it today - so would my wife. John Lennon and many others.

[Geoffrey]

[Geoffrey]

happy weekend, everyone - stay healthy

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
UPDATE
in case anyone is wondering, nothing has happened - will be back later. just enjoying a stressless lifestyle, meeting friends, making food, watching movies, reading literature, following the news, doing jigsaws, etc.

meanwhile, news has reached me that the 'fevers of the mind' project is publishing another in their series of stuff inspired by cohen. i have not full info on all the backnumber details, but know that leonard cohen has featured several times. last month a re-issue of the dylan-inspired booklet was advertised. the editor, david o'nan, has been given permission to use any pictures he wants. he is doing a good job in promoting writers who otherwise might not appear in print, and as it's unlikely he is getting rich from this enterprise i do not accept payment from him. anyone submitting work for inclusion should write to: Ava Lanchetoo feversofthemind@gmail.com
i will put a link at the bottom, but not all of the issues are shown, perhaps because they no longer are in print.

stay well, dear friends. you don't emerge from the shadows very often, but that's all right - you know that messages always receive a response. catch you later
-g

https://www.amazon.com/Fevers-Mind-Poet ... B0C6P9QS3J

[LisaLCFan]

...stay well, dear friends. you don't emerge from the shadows very often...

I am staying well, thank you! I haven't posted any home-made pictures for a while, and so I have emerged from the shadows to do so. Yesterday, I was thinking about the little chickadee friends I met last year, who so bravely perched on my fingers, some of whom posed for photos (I posted one of the photos a few months ago), and so I made a drawing of three of the chickadees from my photos, sans my fingers.

For those interested in the wonders of Northern wildlife, while chickadees have to find ways to stay warm during our horribly cold winters (as discussed previously), the wood frog, one of the chickadee's fellow woodland creatures in these parts, takes a different approach:  wood frogs actually freeze nearly solid in the winter -- their external parts, skin, soft tissues, etc. become completely frozen. Ice forms around their organs and cells, but their organs and cells themselves, as well as their blood, remain thawed due to high levels of glucose that acts like a sort of antifreeze. Their hearts even stop while they are in this frozen phase, and they do not breathe. If one were to find a wood frog outside during extreme cold, it would appear to be a frozen solid inanimate object.  Once spring arrives and the temps warm up, the frogs thaw out, somehow their hearts start beating again (although scientists haven't figured out how their hearts restart), and in no time at all, they are once again hopping around the forest floor!  Now, that is amazing!  (Below is a link to one of many articles about the wood frog's winter survival techniques.)

https://www.nps.gov/gaar/learn/nature/w ... page-2.htm