- Ed Grimley.
04 22 25 / ' Asymmetric architecture makes me mental I must say ' by worth yyz
© worth yyz, all rights reserved.
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- Ed Grimley.
I've been posting "Last book, next book" photos on Instagram for the last few years, but because of changes to the algorithm in the last year or two, I think my wife is basically the only person who sees most of my posts nowadays. Thankfully, Flickr isn't cursed with an algorithm whereby you must use the app addictively in order for anyone to see your posts. So I'll post it here.
When Life Nearly Died is about the Permian mass extinction. I was inspired to read it as it was one of the recommended books in Steve Brusatte's book The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs, which I read in March. I enjoyed learning about the Permian; an era of Earth's history that the general public has never heard of and is vastly overshadowed by the Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous due to their dominance by charismatic dinosaurs, but does ring a bell for people like me who are a bit more science-oriented.
It's mind-boggling to read about the lengths of time in which Earth's history unfolded. The Permian mass extinction happened about 252 million years ago. Million! How does a human even conceptualize that amount of time? Let's explore a very crude representation, going up by a factor of ten (I think):
-Two years; that's easy. I bet you can remember a lot of the last two years. The last two years for me have been dominated by raising my daughter from barely-verbal infant to energetic toddler.
-25 years; that's at least a quarter of your life, and if nothing else you can recall the change in your appearance, interests, and relationships over that time. 25 years ago, I was a teenager in Grade 9, still living in Newfoundland. 9/11 was still over a year away.
-252 years; that spans a lot of changes in the history of your nation, and most of your compatriots are familiar with key events during those last 252 years, even if you've only been alive for some of them.
-2,525 years; now we're talking ancient civilizations that lived on the same land as we do, but who lived entirely different lifestyles and spoke different languages.
-25,250 years; this is the Paleolithic Era and I don't know anything about it (hopefully I will once I read The Rise and Reign of the Mammals!)
-252,000 years; this is around the time homo sapiens originated.
-2,520,000 years; the genus we belong to (homo) appears. Note that it took two million years for homo sapiens to evolve after the genus homo appeared!
-25,200,000 years; this is when the first deer appeared. So deer showed up 25 million years before humans did.
-252,000,000 years; the Permian mass extinction, in which lots of fairly large animals went extinct and paved the way for dinosaurs to evolve, another several million years into the Triassic.
Is your mind blown yet?
Logically, the next step would then be to read another of Steve Brusatte's books; this one about the evolution of mammals.
On another note, today marks 21 years since I moved to Ontario.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prehistory#:~:text=baskets%2C%20and....
The 1909 Toronto Central Reference Library, built with a two-hundred and sixty dollar grant from Andrew Carnegie and designed by Toronto architect Alfred Chapman.
The building now serves as the University of Toronto St. George Campus; Koffler Student Service Centre and bookstore
The ONLY place in Yorkville where items are available without charge.
Project 365 = Day 73 = 14 Mar 2025
Day 1169 (Since 1 Jan 2022)
© 2025 Jeff Stewart. All rights reserved.
Success! I have figured out how to edit the EXIF data of a film photo, so that you can see what camera I used to take this picture, rather than the machine the lab used to develop it!
* * * * *
I foolishly didn't make use of libraries until I borrowed my first library book (at least since university) in October of 2023. It was a book about FDNY Chief Joseph Pfeifer, who was the first fire chief on the scene of the WTC on 9/11.
I didn't borrow another library book until May of 2024, but now I'm kind of hooked. Why? Part of it is the rhythm of needing to finish a book in the three weeks they give you, which makes the book a higher priority for my downtime. Part of it is the challenge of putting another book on hold so that it's ready around the same time I expect to finish the current book.
But the biggest advantages are a) I no longer have to accumulate as many books to lug around every time I move, and b) It saves a lot of money. I saved about $200 in 2024 by only reading books I borrowed or already owned.
So if you like to read books and are looking for ways to save a little money, borrowing books from the library is a good way to do it. Thankfully, Toronto has 100 locations, so it's easy.
The Long Branch location was built (its current building) in 1954, and has over 34,000 books, which is unbelievable because it's not huge inside, although if this includes magazines or other smaller items, that would make sense. But what's cool about it is that even for one of the smaller branches (its collection size is ranked 78th out of 100), there is still a vast amount of information there.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toronto_Public_Library
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IMG_000665170025ap
The sculptor/sculptress of this detail over the entrance of the 1955 Long Branch Library has been lost to time. It may well be the work of Elford Bradley Cox (1914-2003) but is officially unattributed.
The 1913 Post Office / Station ' G ' now the Toronto Public Librarie's Queen / Saulter Branch.
© 2025 Jeff Stewart. All rights reserved.
Project 365 = Day 29 = 29 Jan 2025
Day 1125 (Since 1 Jan 2022)
© 2025 Jeff Stewart. All rights reserved.
Toronto Public Library
www.torontopubliclibrary.ca/about-the-library/library-his...
Toronto Public Library's Runnymede Branch, opened in 1929 and a stunning design by Toronto architect John M. Lyle (1872-1945).
...are the names of the bronze griffin sculptures guarding the entrance of the lillian h. smith branch of the toronto public library. edgar is named after the benefactor of the osbourne collection of early children's books and judith for the merril collection of science fiction, speculation and fantasy, both collections are kept in this branch.
