A tag cloud (word cloud, or weighted list in visual design) is a visual representation for text data, typically used to depict keyword metadata (tags) on websites, or to visualize free form text.  Tags are usually single words, and the importance of each tag is shown with font size or color.  This format is useful for quickly perceiving the most prominent terms and for locating a term alphabetically to determine its relative prominence.  When used as website navigation aids, the terms are hyperlinked to items associated with the tag.  See examples at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tag_cloud

Toledo Museum of Art  An exhibition of 21 elegant and colorful blown glass birds recently created by Lino Tagliapietra is programmed to celebrate the annual song bird migration through the marshes along the Southern shore of Lake Erie.  The chosen objects represent three recent series created by this master of Venetian glassblowing.  The exhibition will be on view in Gallery 2 in the Glass Pavilion until May 25.  It is scheduled in conjunction with the show In Fine Feather:  Birds, Art, and Science which opens April 25, 2014 in Gallery 18 of the Museum’s main building.  http://www.toledomuseum.org/exhibitions/lino-tagliapietra/

Sets for The Grand Budapest Hotel movie  The production team found a vacant building that housed a now defunct department store, known as Görlitz Warenhaus, and used the existing interior as a makeshift studio in eastern Germany on the border of Poland.  The department store was built in 1912; the grandiose lobby of the Grand Budapest fit perfectly inside the steel-framed building.  The design team added various touches to the Grand Budapest from archival photographs of eastern European hotels. The tile floors were an homage to the Grand Hotel Pupp and the coat check was inspired by Obecni dum, a Prague municipal building with lots of glass mosaics.  Mendl’s confectionary shop was filmed in a famous creamery in Dresden, founded by a farmer in 1892 and known as Pfunds Molkerie.  “Inside the shop is all handpainted tile,” said Stockhausen, “and it’s just overwhelmingly beautiful.”  The scenes for Checkpoint 19 were filmed at Zwickau Prison in Osterstein castle, which was used as a Nazi concentration camp and is now a nursing home.  During a climactic part of the movie, Deputy Kovacs, played by Jeff Goldblum, is chased around an art museum.  The museum featured in the film is a former palace and orangerie that was converted into an art museum, known locally as the Zwinger Museum in Dresden.  See pictures at http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2014/03/27/spoiler-alert-you-cant-really-stay-at-the-real-grand-budapest-hotel-but-we-can-tell-you-everything-about-it/

The plot of Wes Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel hinges on a single, much-discussed painting:  "Boy with Apple," a Renaissance masterpiece by the artist Johannes Van Hoytl the Younger.  In reality, "Boy with Apple" isn't a centuries-old masterpiece by a Czech painter.  It was created just two years ago by the English painter Michael Taylor. Fortunately, the real-life origin story of "Boy with Apple" is just as interesting as the one presented in The Grand Budapest Hotel.  To get the full story on "Boy with Apple," The Week reached out to Michael Taylor and Ed Munro, the boy who served as the model for the painting.  Scott Meslow  Read of their combined recollections plus see pictures at http://theweek.com/article/index/259203/the-untold-story-behind-the-grand-budapest-hotels-boy-with-apple  The coveted 'priceless' painting in Wes Anderson's film is actually a MacGuffin (also spelled McGuffin), a term coined by a screenwriter Alfred Hitchcock worked with named Angus MacPhail, according to Donald Spoto in The Art of Alfred Hitchcock:  Fifty Years of His Motion Pictures.  But the principle goes back at least as far as Rudyard Kipling, as Hitchcock explains in his June 8, 1972 appearance on the Dick Cavett Show.  “Guff  means a load of nonsense.  Link to McGuffin by Hitchcock, a 1:43 video, at  http://www.openculture.com/2013/07/alfred-hitchcock-explains-the-plot-device-he-called-the-macguffin.html

Brown Lentils - This is by far the most common variety of lentil, and probably the one that you see at your local grocery store.  They can range in color from khaki-brown to dark black, and generally have a mild earthy flavor.  They cook in about 20-30 minutes and hold their shape very well.  Green Lentils - These can be pale or mottled green-brown in color with a glossy exterior.  They have a robust, somewhat peppery flavor.  Green lentils generally take the longest to cook, upwards of 45 minutes, but they keep a firm texture even after cooking. This makes them ideal for salads and other side dishes. Red Lentils - With colors ranging from gold to orange to actual red, these are the sweetest and nuttiest of the lentils - to our mind, at least!  They're somewhere in the middle in terms of cooking time and are usually done in about 30 minutes. http://www.thekitchn.com/whats-the-difference-brown-gre-111139

Poets At Presidential Inaugurations  In 2013, during the second inauguration of Barack Obama was the poetry recital of Richard Blanco.  Blanco’s poem One Day referred to the work of his parents to give him the opportunities he has today, the tragedy of the Newton shootings and the land and the work that binds us as a nation.  Blanco was the fifth poet to give a reading at a presidential inauguration.  Each poet has given a description of the spirit of the nation of their time.  The first time that a poet gave a reading at an inauguration was Robert Frost at John F. Kennedy’s inauguration in 1961.  Frost had written a new poem for the event called Dedication, but he was unable to read it because the strong sunlight made it impossible for Frost to read the faintly typed manuscript that held his poem.  He recited instead a poem that he had memorized The Gift Outright.  Maya Angelou recited her poem On the Pulse of Morning at Bill Clinton’s first inauguration in 1993, while Miller Williams recited Of Hope and History at Clinton’s second inauguration.  Elizabeth Alexander read her poem Praise Song for the Day, Praise Song for Struggle at Barack Obama’s first inaugural in 2008.  Find the poems at http://angelolopez.wordpress.com/tag/miller-williams/

Many things are named after basil:  plants, animals, architecture, and more.  Basil, the aromatic herb of the mint family, is named so because it was used in royal preparations for medicine, bath, etc.  A large vein of the upper arm is called the basilic vein due to its supposed importance.  The basilisk lizard (and the legendary reptile) are named for their crown-like crest.  In ancient Rome, a basilica was a large public court building and the word began to be applied to churches of the same form.  http://wordsmith.org/words/basilic.html

Follow-up on rivers  Before the 15th century, the Red River and Mississippi River were separate rivers, more or less parallel.  Then, the Mississippi River turned west and a loop, later called Turnbull's Bend, formed.   It intercepted the Red River, which became a tributary of the Mississippi River and the Atchafalaya River was formed as a distributary of the Mississippi River.  http://www.atchafalaya.org/page.php?name=Rivers-Flood-Control

The chart of  major rivers in the United States from the U.S. Geological Survey at https://water.usgs.gov/edu/riversofworld.html  lists the length of the Atchafalaya River at 1,420 miles, but it is more like 137 miles long.

The 34th annual Los Angeles Times Book Prizes were awarded April 11, 2014 at USC's Bovard Auditorium. The winners in 10 categories are listed at http://www.latimes.com/books/jacketcopy/la-et-jc-winners-los-angeles-times-book-prizes-20140411,0,4418200.story#axzz2yfzHDdYo

What really makes the meals of Passover, which begins April 14, 2014 at sundown, different? It may not be what you think.  The simple answer is found in Exodus 13:6-7:  "For seven days you must eat matzos (unleavened bread).... No chametz or leaven (starter dough) should be seen anywhere in your territory."  But it's more complicated than that.  Often chametz is translated as leavening, yeast or fermented food, but Rabbi Gil Marks, the author of "Encyclopedia of Jewish Food," says that this is inaccurate.  Yeast is used in making wine, and cheese is a fermented food, yet both are permitted on Passover.  Pasta made from wheat is not a leavened food, but it is chametz.  The correct definition of chametz, writes Marks, is degradation — the result of "enzymes breaking down starch in the presence of water into complex sugars and simple sugars."

The Talmud specifies that five grains can become chametz when exposed to water.  These grains are suitable for making matzo, but any other use of them on Passover is forbidden.  In the past, the list was translated as wheat, barley, spelt, oats and rye.  Modern scholars have revised the translation because oats and rye were not grown in the Middle East in biblical times.  According to Marks, the grains on the list are einkorn, emmer, durum wheat and two kinds of barley.

Besides replacing the customary challah by a plate of matzos, there's another major difference in Passover meals.  Many foods used to prepare satisfying side dishes are excluded.  Faye Levy  Find reasons for restrictions at http://www.latimes.com/food/la-fo-passover-20140412,0,3079935.story#axzz2yg0CfaX9

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1135  April 14, 2014  On this date in 1935, "Black Sunday Storm" struck, the worst dust storm of the U.S. Dust Bowl.  In 1939, The Grapes of Wrath, by American author John Steinbeck was first published by the Viking Press.  In 1956, videotape was first demonstrated in Chicago.