Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio A meditation on the fragility of life.
Hamlet says this in a graveyard as he looks at the skull of Yorick, a court jester he had known as a child, and grieves for him. From Shakespeare's Hamlet, 1602. Often misquoted for some reason as 'Alas poor Yorick, I knew him well'. http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/25500.html

Since its debut in 1868, The World Almanac and Book of Facts has become the best-selling American reference book of all time, with more than 82 million copies sold. his essential household and workplace desk reference is “the most useful reference book known to modern man,” according to the L.A. Times. Renowned New York Times crossword puzzle editor Will Shortz calls it his “#1 reference work for facts.” The 1932 World Almanac was buried in the cornerstone of the Supreme Court building in Washington, DC by Mrs. William Howard Taft on October 13, 1932. The 1938 World Almanac was buried in a 5,000 Year Time Capsule at the World Fair Grounds in New York, September 23, 1938. http://www.worldalmanac.com/world-almanac.aspx

Famous Ohioans: Hamilton and Gish
It is ironic that Margaret Hamilton (1902-1985) as the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz (1939) was so scary to children, because her first job was as a kindergarten teacher. She loved and doted upon children all her life. Until the day she died she had children recognizing her and coming up to her to ask why she was so mean to Dorothy. She became very concerned about the role's effect on children, and finally guested on "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" (1968) to explain that the Witch was just a character in the film, and not herself. She was the kindergarten teacher of five-year-old William Windom, until she threw him out for rambunctious behavior. Another of her students was Jim Backus. Gave her most noted recollection of her role in The Wizard of Oz (1939) by writing the Preface to the book "The Making of The Wizard of Oz" by Aljean Harmetz. Under her married name of Margaret Meserve, she served on the Beverly Hills Board of Education from 1948 to 1951. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0002121/bio

Lillian Gish was born Lillian Diana de Guiche on October 14, 1893, in Springfield, Ohio; her sister, Dorothy (1898–1968), was born in Dayton. All of the Gish women—Lillian, Dorothy, and their mother, Mary—were talented actors, but Lillian excelled both in front of the camera and behind it, with a career stretching from 1902, when she debuted at The Little Red School House in Rising Sun, Ohio, through 1988, when she made her 106th feature film, The Whales of August, at the age of ninety-two. Gish made her debut as the first female film director in 1920 with Remodeling Her Husband, starring her sister Dorothy. In 1922, Lillian Gish started making movies at MGM, where she gained the distinctive privilege of artistic control over her films. She made her first sound movie, One Romantic Night, in 1930. Shortly thereafter, she returned to the Broadway stage, where she spent most of the remainder of her career, returning periodically to do films. http://www.ohioana.org/features/profiles/lilliangish.pdf

Flutist FLOO-tist The word flutist was first recorded in 1603, and FLOO-tist has been and still is the only acceptable pronunciation for it. The variant flautist was adapted from the Italian flautista in 1860. The preferred pronunciation for flautist is FLAW-tist (FLAW- like flaw) The variant FLOW-tist (FLOW- rhyming with cow), which mimics the Italian pronunciation of -au, appears in current dictionaries but only the NBC Handbook (1984) prefers it. Unless you have some special reason for preferring Italian spellings and pronunciations, stick with the English flutist (FLOO-tist), which is both traditional and unaffected. http://www.pbs.org/speak/speech/beastly/#Flutist

James Galway says, "I am a flute player not a flautist. I don't have a flaut and I've never flauted." http://www.flute4all.com/articles/flutistflautist.html

Find 100 examples of suggested pronunciations from The Big Book Of Beastly Mispronunciations: The Complete Opinionated Guide For The Careful Speaker by Charles Harrington Elster at: http://www.pbs.org/speak/speech/beastly/
Chart of the original thirteen colonies including years of settlement and founders is at: http://americanhistory.about.com/library/charts/blcolonial13.htm

The Inn Crowd Vintage American Hotels Renovated: Past and Present, eight properties that are rooted in America's past but still have plenty of modern charm See a slideshow with before and after pictures at: http://www.cntraveler.com/features/2012/02/historic-hotels-america-renovated-boutique-new-york-california-colorado#slide=1

Here Greek and Roman find themselves Alive along these crowded shelves;
And Shakespeare treads again his stage, And Chaucer paints anew his age.
As if some Pantheon's marbles broke Their stony trance, and lived and spoke,
Life thrills along the alcoved hall, The lords of thought await our call!
from The Library by John Greenleaf Whittier, sung at the opening of the Haverhill Library, November 11, 1875 See whole poem at: http://myweb.northshore.edu/users/sherman/whittier/haverhill/ft_library.html

The Whittier Collection In 1887 the Whittier Club began to collect all known editions by the poet, as well as anything else relating to Whittier including books, photographs, manuscripts and broadsides. The club donated the articles to the library where they are properly maintained and protected. The collection is open to the public by appointment.
Haverhill Public Library 99 Main Street Haverhill, Massachusetts (978) 373-1586
Find information on The Whittier Trail and the Freeman Memorial Trail at: http://www.johngreenleafwhittier.com/pdf/Whittier_Brochure-WEB.pdf

Gastronaut is not a valid Scrabble word, but you can look up examples of its use at: http://www.wordnik.com/words/gastronaut

A Scene Grows in Brooklyn Brooklyn's Literary Landmarks Link to detailed lists of bookstores and bars in West Brooklyn, Park Slope Fort Greene and Williamsburg/Greenpoint at:
http://www.cntraveler.com/arts/2012/02/brooklyn-authors