Photography with Joe

 Flowers in Edwards Gardens Toronto  🌼 Front + Middle (Bright Orange) Marigolds (Tagetes) The bold, round, orange flowers with ruffled petals are classic marigolds. They thrive in sun and are often used in rock gardens. 💜 Front + Middle (Small Purple Balls) Gomphrena / Globe Amaranth (Gomphrena globosa) Those cute little purple pom-pom flowers are globe amaranth. They stay upright and add great contrast to marigolds. 🟩 Middle Layer (Bright Chartreuse Groundcover) Likely Sedum (stonecrop) , possibly Sedum ‘Lemon Coral’ This is the neon yellow-green, soft-looking, mounded plant. A common filler for sun-loving rock gardens. 🌸 Back Layer (Pink and Hot Magenta Flowers) Looks like Impatiens or New Guinea Impatiens They have broad petals and saturated colors, often used for shade or partial sun beds. 💜 Back Right (Purple Clustered Blooms) Most likely Angelonia (Angelonia angustifolia) Upright spikes with many small purple flowers — often called “summer snapdragon....

☕ Two Cups at 1:01 PM: A Study of Ten Photographic Worlds and the Maximum Risk for Humanity By Edmundo There are moments that appear insignificant until you look at them long enough. Take two Starbucks cups — one marked Edmundo , one Maria — sitting in soft afternoon light. A cappuccino and a caramel macchiato as the last remaining evidence that two people existed in the same place at the same time. Most people would scroll past it. But photographers — the good ones — would stop. And what they see in that single frame depends entirely on the world they believe in. This is a journey through ten photographers , ten ways of seeing, and one simple question: What does a tiny moment like this say about the maximum risk for humanity? 1. Saul Leiter — The Poetry of the Unnoticed Leiter would say the beauty lies in the soft blur, the quiet window light, the gentle way the world washes into abstraction. Edmundo Scholz’s photo fits his gospel: The small things matter because they...

 Here’s a detailed overview of the two agencies Krysten Ritter worked with early in her modeling career: Elite Model Management Founded: 1972, by John Casablancas and Alain Kittler. Headquarters: New York City, USA. Global Reach: Operates in over 30 countries with offices in major fashion capitals like Paris, Milan, London, and Tokyo. Notable Models Represented: Cindy Crawford, Naomi Campbell, Gisele Bündchen, Claudia Schiffer. Specialty: High-fashion runway, editorial, and commercial modeling. Known for discovering fresh faces and launching global careers. Approach: Elite has a reputation for cultivating top-tier supermodels and connecting them with luxury brands and international campaigns. Krysten’s Connection: Signed as a teenager, this was her entry into professional modeling and allowed her to work internationally, including in Tokyo and Paris. Wilhelmina Models Founded: 1967, by Dutch model Wilhelmina Cooper. Headquarters: New York C...

. Nina Agdal: Glamour, Gold, and the Curated Life of Love Life does not randomly hand out glamour and milestones — it is orchestrated, curated, and, in some cases, strategically engineered. For Nina Agdal, 2025 has been a pinnacle year: a daughter named Esmé, a three-day “rock’n’roll” wedding at Villa d’Este, and a public persona that radiates spontaneity and freedom (Faurote, 2025). Yet beneath the shimmer of couture gowns, thunderstorm-forced indoor dinners, and 275 carefully selected guests lies a pattern that Haute Living never names — the deliberate alignment with men of extraordinary wealth. Throughout her career, Agdal has gravitated exclusively toward men whose bank accounts allow her lifestyle to flourish. In 2013, she was romantically linked to Adam Levine, Maroon 5’s frontman, whose net worth exceeds $120 million (Forbes, 2024). The relationship was brief, but it placed her squarely in the orbit of extreme celebrity wealth early in her adult life. Later that year, she da...

  CLASSIFIED DOSSIER – EYES ONLY AGENT FILE:  CODE DESIGNATION: Agent Northstar CLEARANCE LEVEL: 00 Diplomatic 🔷 IDENTITY PROFILE Name:   Cover Role: Deputy High Commissioner of Canada to India Nationality: Canadian Languages: English, French, Hindi (conversational) Known Affiliations: Global Affairs Canada, High Commission of Canada in India 🔷 FIELD OPERATIONS Operation Codename: SAFE RIDE MERA PRIDE Mission Type: Civic Safety Initiative / Public Diplomacy Operational Theater: New Delhi, India Objective: To enhance women’s safety and accessibility in public transport systems through partnership, public awareness, and targeted community engagement. Results: Successful coordination between Canadian and Indian civic authorities. Campaign highlighted in Tatsat Chronicle , Times of India , and India Today . Publicly credited with improving discourse around gender safety and mobility. Strengthened Canada’s reputation for promoting gende...

 When news broke that Baek Se-hee , author of I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki , had died at 35, much of the world reacted with the same stunned tenderness her book once inspired. Baek had given voice to depression in a way that felt both local and universal—rooted in South Korea’s fraught relationship with mental health, yet resonant far beyond. Her act of organ donation saved five lives, blurring the boundary between despair and final generosity. Reading the BBC’s report of her death (BBC News, 2025), I found myself revived by old questions: When does death become a moral statement? How do cultures differ in reading a person’s final gesture? And is it ever possible to die on one’s own terms without losing the dignity that the act itself claims? These questions echo through Western philosophy and Eastern ethics alike. In what follows, I trace six intertwined lines of thinking—from the Greeks to Christianity, from samurai ritual to modern East Asia—each illustrating ho...

When news broke that Baek Se-hee , author of I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki , had died at 35, much of the world reacted with the same stunned tenderness her book once inspired. Baek had given voice to depression in a way that felt both local and global—rooted in South Korea’s raw honesty about pain yet resonant far beyond. Her organ donation saved five lives, a final act that blurred the line between despair and selfless offering. Or so I heard, as I never read the book. However, I lived in Asia and this issue is an old one ever present.  Reading the BBC’s report on her death (BBC News, 2025), I was struck not only by the grief but by the quiet moral differences that ripple through cultures when confronting suicide. In the West, shaped by centuries of Christian theology and Stoic restraint, death by one’s own hand is still shadowed by taboo—a breach of moral law or natural duty. In parts of Asia, however, death on one’s own terms can signify something entirely diffe...

  The Tragedy of the Almost-Famous: Completing Campbell’s Circle In every story of ascent, there is a pattern — what Joseph Campbell called the hero’s journey . It begins with the call to adventure, moves through trial and transformation, and ends with a return — the sharing of the “elixir,” the gift of what was learned. Most people understand this as a spiritual or moral process, but it applies just as powerfully to fame. The almost-famous, however, rarely finish the circle. They accept the call — they venture into performance, film, television, social media. They even achieve moments of recognition: a brief flash of applause, a viral clip, a minor award. But they stop there, suspended between the known and the unknown. They treat those fragments of fame as accidents rather than artifacts — isolated triumphs rather than the chapters of a continuing myth. True mythic fame is self-created narrative . The mythic figure knows that attention alone is transient; what endures is coher...

It seems you have to go quite far forward in time before the concept of the Mongols as a “warrior race” really appears. For hundreds of years, biology and culture were treated as clearly separate, even in relatively unenlightened eras. There are some general references in popular works, but in most cases “race” referred to cultural traits, since “race” and ethnic heritage were once synonymous. For example, The Queenslander (Brisbane), 19 June 1897, described: “Casan was a born soldier, … and, like all his race, could endure hunger, thirst, fatigue, and cold.” Here we see a Victorian/colonial newspaper retelling a Mongol/Tartar biography in explicitly racialized terms — “like all his race” — a clear shift toward the modern biological sense of race. It’s only by the late 19th century, in the era of racial science and Social Darwinism, that “race” is reframed as biological destiny. That is the world of the Queenslander line above: still leaning on cultural stereotypes of steppe en...

  Fish Sticks (6 pieces, ~120g) Essence & Sympoum: Crisp, golden exoskeleton yielding to tender, flaky fish within. The crunch announces tactile satisfaction; the warm interior reassures the palate. Slightly oily, slightly salty, each bite whispers indulgence while fortifying the body. Protein-rich, it grounds the diner in a corporeal contentment; selenium and vitamin B12 evoke cellular vigilance, vitamin D whispers bone and immune fortitude. Nutritional Profile: Calories: 250–300 kcal Protein: 12–15 g Fat: 12–15 g Carbs: 20–25 g Sodium: 500–700 mg Micronutrients: Selenium, Vitamin B12, Vitamin D Deficiency Consequences: Protein: Muscle wasting, fatigue, weakened immunity Selenium: Oxidative stress, thyroid dysfunction Vitamin B12: Anemia, neuropathy, cognitive fog Vitamin D: Weak bones, immune susceptibility Therapeutic Effects: Protein: Muscle maintenance, repair, satiety Selenium: Antioxidant defense, thyroid support Vitamin B1...

John Oliver, on his HBO show, featured a topic that connects indirectly to my life. Although we've never met, John Oliver and I were both involved—unwittingly—in what I consider the worst film we ever worked on: The Love Guru. I still have the loveguru2008@yahoo.com email as a soverneir -its release date. We didn’t have personal contact, and I hadn’t heard of him at the time, but since The Love Guru marked the peak of my behind-the-scenes fame, it’s likely he heard of me before he left Toronto. Regardless, Olivers show recently discussed a strange auction. I initially thought the episode was new—airing in 2025—but later found out it was a repeat from 2015. So, it's all old news. The focus was on a jockstrap worn by Russell Crowe during the filming of Cinderella Man. (Back in 2003 I saw Crowe in said jock strap daily for over four months of filming chaos.) Oliver’s show apparently bought the jockstrap and donated it to one of the last surviving Blockbuster stores in Alaska. L...

YetiCon Attendance History: A Look at the Growth of Canada’s Mountain Convention YetiCon has evolved into one of Canada’s most unique fan conventions, blending traditional con programming with outdoor adventures at Blue Mountain Resort. Below is an updated chart with estimated attendance numbers for each year of YetiCon’s history. While exact figures may vary, these estimates reflect the general growth trend and available data. YetiCon # Year Notable Facts Estimated Attendance 1st 2014 Inaugural event at Blue Mountain Resort, introducing a unique blend of indoor and outdoor activities. ~500 2nd 2015 Built on early success with more activities and increased interest. ~700 3rd 2016 Expanded programming with more interactive outdoor events. ~900 4th 2017 Included cosplay contests, adventure sports, a...

When Interviews Meant Discovery by Ed Scholz with Ai Corrections "Interviews used to be a rough map into unknown territory.:" I said today in shock. You didn’t know what would be uncovered—neither did the artist. That was the magic. Two people in conversation, not just exchanging information, but exploring something. Listening. Reacting. Changing course midstream because a better question had just appeared. Today, to my surprise, I found out things have changed more than I realized. One of my clients had an interview lined up—and it was by email. The questions were sent. The answers were typed. That was it. No conversation, no voice, no real-time exchange. Just a text-based transaction. I sat there wondering if this was normal now—and apparently, it is. What we’ve lost is the moment after the moment—the one where someone says something surprising and you lean in: “Can you say more about that?” Those are the moments that can’t be scripted. They only happen live, when both s...

  -------------------------------------------------------------------------- ERICA, PIXEL QUEEN Watashi no Nihongo wa subete abekobe de gozaimasu. Taihen go-shinsetsu ni shite itadaki, makoto ni osoreirimasu. Kokoro yori fukaku kansha mōshiagemōrimasu. 「我々は美を求めて彷徨するのではない。美の中に沈潜していくのだ。」 “Wareware wa bi o motomete hōkō suru no de wa nai. Bi no naka ni chinzen shite iku no da.” New Photo of the day. @faesu_ Erica the artist, RPG video game maker, half Japanase fluent in ENglish and Japanse. Thought polymath was a polyamourus! Somniforious she is not! Busy in the Sun of Edward Gardens Gavey, workign with phone, lapton and harddrive on her hobby, the making of RPG. She worked as a background artist for the Star Trek show "Below Decks" she it was a real treat to meat her. She loves a varity of music, and enjoys Japanese puns.  Watashi no Nihongo wa subete abekobe de gozaimasu. Taihen go-shinsetsu ni shite itadaki, makoto ni osoreirimasu. Kokoro yori fukaku kansha mōshiagemōrimasu. ...

  Appendix: English — The Language of Lazy People and Shortcuts English didn’t get famous for its precision. It’s the language of shortcuts, snappy phrases, and colorful idioms that let people say a lot with just a few words. Why say “water causes wetness” when you can just say “water is wet” and be done with it? That’s efficiency at its finest! English inherited a ton of fancy grammar rules from Latin, French, and Germanic languages—but instead of keeping all those complicated verb endings and case markers, English tossed a lot of them out the window. Who has time for that? English loves shortcuts so much, it gave us gems like: “Gonna”  instead of “going to.” Because why bother with the full phrase when you can just squish it? “Wanna”  instead of “want to.” Sounds cooler, feels easier. “OK”  — a mysterious abbreviation that took over the world because it’s short, simple, and anyone can say it. “Hang on”  — literally telling someone to “hang” while you figure th...

  Tegan Basista – Superstar on Wheels 💊💉✨ Tegan Basista leaves North York General like it’s a red carpet, not a hospital hallway. Hospital policy says wheelchair, but her glow says Factory Superstar. Exploratory surgery? Just another backstage pass to the inside of the human body. She smiled. The nurse smiled. The fluorescent lights hummed in approval. This was medicine as image, bravery as brand, and a rare day when the system wasn’t broken. A perfect little coscomi fluck™ in Canadian healthcare. Smile for the Polaroid, Tegan — you're in the gallery now. 🩺❤️🖼️ #BasistaAsIcon #15MinutesOnWard3 #GreatguyTV, #Scholx, #Scholz, #NorthYorkGeneral, #CitizenCanada, #WarholHealth, #CanadianPopCare In the soft hospital light, Tegan’s gentle smile holds the world still. There is strength in vulnerability, beauty in healing’s quiet moments. She teaches us that every step, every smile, is a victory — a story of light in  https://joe-average123.blogspot.com/2025/06/tegan-basista-supers...

 Wednesday, June 4th, 2025 Today I waved the white flag and surrendered to the Passport Portal from Hell. What began as a simple quest—renew passport online—quickly became an Olympic event in absurdity, where the hurdles are invisible, constantly shifting, and multiply the longer you stare at the screen. First, there’s the labyrinth of “official-looking” websites, most of which seem designed to test your patience, not provide information. After dodging scams and decoys, I finally landed on what appeared to be the actual government site—congratulations, me!—only to discover that access is doled out like it’s front-row tickets to a Taylor Swift concert. Limited slots. No warning. Line opens at 7:00 a.m. sharp.  At 7:10 a.m., I logged in like a naïve optimist. Too late. The line was full. Apparently, if you're not already logged in by 7:00:00.01 a.m. you may as well be dead to the system. Still, I pressed on, because hope is the last thing to die. After several mornings of digita...

  Lost in Leningrad: 1985 — Among My First Espionage-Adjacent Moments I was just a kid, lost in a country I barely understood — which, come to think of it, was a lot like being at home, only with more concrete and fewer Tim Hortons. That day in March 1985, I had been wandering the endless halls of the Hermitage Museum, a place so stuffed with fancy paintings and dusty old trinkets that it might have been designed just to make you forget where you were. Somewhere between admiring a portrait of some long-dead noble who looked as bored as I was, I lost track of my group—the other kids, my teacher—all vanished like Soviet transparency. When I finally stumbled outside, blinking against the bleak Leningrad sky, the tour bus was gone. Poof. Like a magician’s rabbit, except the rabbit was me, and the magician was an entire surveillance state apparently too busy to notice. The USSR was famous for spies. Our guide had warned us we were likely trailed by KGB agents disguised as tourists, ...