Simply 6 Minutes: My Favorites

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I’ve always loved sunflowers. They’re happy and cheerful, just like me. Well, whatever…

Vincent Van Gogh (his name is pronounced similar to “fan cough” in Dutch, by the way) painted them in one of his famous paintings, named (SURPRISE!) “Sunflowers.” He was a rather morose character; probably needed to go sit in a field of sunflowers for about three years.

Mary planted some sunflowers one year, and they grew like crazy. I think one was close to seven feet tall. Then, at the end of the summer, she told me to cut them down. Broke my heart, but they’re just annuals; they wouldn’t come back. I wish I had learned how to get the seeds out of the plant so I could plant more the following year, but this was in the days before the Internet (remember those?) and I didn’t know where to turn. I asked a friend of mine, who worked at a nursery, how to harvest the seeds. He said he didn’t know. Maybe he did and just didn’t feel like explaining it to me. Oh well…

The one little flower facing the camera reminds me of the Far Side cartoon where there are a huge waddle of penguins (that’s one collective noun; others are huddle, colony, and parade) standing around, and one pokes his head out and sings “I gotta be me! I gotta be me!”

Love that man’s voice…

Christine hosts Simply 6 Minutes every week.

Published by John Holton

Internet disc jockey, lover of old TV (especially the commercials), inveterate wise guy.

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19 thoughts on “Simply 6 Minutes: My Favorites”

  1. Pingback: The Southern Hemisphere Hoodie-Hoo Week That Was – The Sound of One Hand Typing

  4. The Far Side used to have me in stitches! I tried planting sunflowers many times and I just can’t seem to get them to grow! I tried starting them inside, outside, in the sun, in the half sun…I still have a ton of seeds but haven’t gotten around to trying them again. Maybe now with fall coming and the cooler weather I will have some luck. Nothing seems to grow in Florida summer heat.

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  7. John,

    I always wanted to plant a field of sunflowers. The closes I ever got was doing a row of them with the kids when they were small. There was a home in not too far from ours who’d have a nice display of sunflowers taking up a good portion of their yard every year. It amazed and made me happy every time we passed by. It seems when I was a kid, my daddy laid a sunflower on a piece of newspaper to dry for days. I imagine he plucked the seeds out after a time and planted the following summer. :)

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    1. Sunflower oil and sunflower seeds are hot commodities, and I would suppose there are farmers that have fields like the one in the picture. I’ll have to look up how to harvest the seeds…

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  8. Hi John – van Gogh was an amazing artist … fascinating character we’ve learnt a lot from and haa given us so much, But we can’t be anything but ourselves … I’m loving Sammy Davis’ clip – thank you … cheers Hilary

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    2. I love Gary Larson and I know that Penguin one well. I knew the song but never heard it in full. Sammy had a great voice coming from such such tiny body.
      We tried Sunflowers one year and they are bright but big. It did attract a lot of bees which I was happy about. I have no clue how to get the seeds either.
      I just watched a film with Willem Dafoe as Van Gogh. I believe he suffered from schizophrenia. It’s amazing how he only sold one painting and how everyone, except his brother, thought he was lousy. If you look at all his self-portraits you can see, from his brush strokes, when he is losing it.

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      1. Sammy knew how to sing. More importantly, he knew how to entertain. He was a beautiful man.

        Van Gogh never got to enjoy the fruits of his talent. It doesn’t surprise me that he was bipolar…

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