Edible Gardens Go to the Ballpark by Maria Finn  San Francisco is not the first place to do this.  Groundskeepers at the San Diego’s Padres Petco Park planted edibles in 2012 behind the home team’s bullpen and the head chef uses the peppers in salsa and some of the other veggies for garnish.  But the garden at the AT&T Park is making more of a splash.  It may not be the first, but it’s the most ambitious to date.   Leafy greens and spindly herbs grow on aeroponic towers, a lightweight, water-wise alternative to planters.  This collaboration between The San Francisco Giants and their food service partner, Bon Appétit Management Company,with designs by  Blasen Landscape Architecture and EDG, are helping fans get more roughage into their game-day diet.  The produce will be used in the restaurants on-site, and to power-up Giants’ players with kale salads and smoothies.  See pictures at http://modernfarmer.com/2014/06/edible-gardens-go-ballpark/

Emerson Burkhart (1905-1969) was an American artist based in Columbus, Ohio.  In 1934, Burkhart received a commission from the WPA Federal Art Project for a mural over the auditorium at Central High School in Columbus.  The Federal Art Project intended to give artists like Burkhart employment during the Great Depression and provide art for non-federal government buildings.  Burkhart created a 13’ by 70’ mural, known as Music, featuring young women and men dancing and playing musical instruments.  Just four years later, in 1938, the principal ordered that the mural be painted over as “it was too sexy.”  Starting in 1999, over the course of six years, 1,000 art students from the Fort Hayes Metropolitan Education Center, under the supervision of art conservators, worked to remove the paint that once covered the mural.  After its restoration, the mural was installed at Greater Columbus Convention Center.  In 1938, Burkhart received his second commission from the WPA for ten life size murals at Stillman Hall on the Ohio State University campus and he was paid $1,209 for 13 months of work.  Each mural featured important historical figures like Walt Whitman and David Thoreau. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emerson_Burkhart

Pearl Zane Gray was born on January 31, 1872, in Zanesville, Ohio, a town founded by his mother's ancestors.  (The spelling of the Gray family name was changed to "Grey" sometime during the late 1890s.)  As a youth in Ohio, he developed interests in fishing, baseball and writing.  All three pursuits would later bring him acclaim.  Grey's baseball prowess led to a scholarship to the University of Pennsylvania's Dental Department.  He graduated in 1896 with a degree in dentistry, but chose to play amateur baseball for several seasons, practicing dentistry intermittently.  He established his own dental practice in New York City in 1898.  While residing in New York, he continued to play baseball. He loved to get away from the city, and began visiting Lackawaxen, Pennsylvania.  There he fished and enjoyed the outdoors as in his youth.  On one of these outings in 1900, Zane ("Doc") met 17-year-old Lina Elise Roth, or "Dolly" as he called her, while canoeing near the Delaware House, a grand boarding house on the river.  Dolly was a positive influence in Grey's struggle to become a successful writer.  Her encouragement and belief in his abilities led him to continue writing despite rejection by publishers.  Grey's first published article was "A Day on the Delaware," in Recreation magazine, May 1902.  In 1903, Grey wrote, illustrated and published his first novel, Betty Zane, with money from Dolly.  In 1905, Dolly became Zane's wife.  He left dentistry to pursue writing full-time and the couple settled into a farmhouse overlooking the junction of the Lackawaxen and Delaware rivers.  In 1906, they took a honeymoon trip to the Grand Canyon in Arizona, and to California - Grey's first trip west.  In 1907, Grey met Western conservationist Colonel J. C. "Buffalo" Jones at a meeting of the Campfire Club in New York City.  Using the last of his wife's inheritance, Grey accompanied Jones, as a writer and photographer, on a hunting expedition to the Grand Canyon.  This trip marked a turning point in Grey's career as it opened up new vistas in subject matter for his writing.  He wrote an account of this adventure, The Last of the Plainsmen, published by Outing Press in 1908.  In 1910, Harper & Brothers published The Heritage of the Desert, Zane Grey's first western novel and his first real success.  Next came Grey's most noted work, Riders of the Purple Sage, published in 1912.  By 1915, Grey had 15 books in print (frontier/baseball/juvenile adventure/western) along with many fishing and outdoor adventure articles and serialized stories.   Grey's success and wealth enabled him to travel the world in pursuit of his favorite sport - fishing.  Grey held over ten world records for large game fish.  He was the first person to catch a fish over 1,000 pounds on rod and reel (1,040- pound blue marlin in 1930, Tahiti).  His last recognized world-record catch, for a 618-pound silver marlin, was not surpassed until 1953.  Zane Grey died October 23, 1939, at the age of 67.  When Dolly died in 1957, the ashes of both were interred in a cemetery near their home in Lackawaxen, fulfilling their wish to rest together beside the Delaware River.  In 1945, six years after Zane Grey's death, his wife Dolly sold their Lackawaxen house to Helen James, daughter of Zane's long-time friend Alvah James.  In 1948, Helen opened the Zane Grey Inn, which she operated for twenty- five years.  Over the years, she collected memorabilia associated with Grey and discovered original artwork and other items of interest in her new home.  From 1973 until 1989, Helen and her husband, artist Albert H. Davis, operated the Zane Grey Museum to display the Grey memorabilia, photographs, and books in the rooms that served as Grey's office and study.  The museum was sold in 1989 to the National Park Service.  It was included in the Upper Delaware Scenic and Recreational River because of Zane Grey's association with the Delaware River and its effect upon the budding writer.  Today the museum is self guided with National Park Service rangers and volunteers available to answer questions and provide for sale a variety of Zane Grey books currently in print.  http://www.nps.gov/upde/historyculture/zanegrey.htm  The world of Zane Grey is also celebrated in Payson, Arizona http://paysonrimcountry.com/Western-Heritage/Zane-Grey-History and Norwich, Ohio http://consumer.discoverohio.com/searchdetails.aspx?detail=70919

Arian is a suffix forming personal nouns corresponding to Latin adjectives ending in -ārius or English adjectives or nouns ending in - ary.  It forms nouns noting a person who supports, advocates, or practices a doctrine, theory, or set of principles associated with the base word.  http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/-arian  Examples in long use:  librarian, veterinarian.  Examples of recent words:  cybrarian, flextarian.  Find words ending in arian at http://www.bestwordlist.com/f/a/5/wordsendingarian.htm

Meet The 2014 Winners Of The MacArthur 'Genius Grants'  One is becoming as well-known for her autobiographical work as she is for her test for what movies meet a gender-balance baseline.  Another directed one of the best-reviewed and most surreal documentaries of the past decade and has a follow-up on this year's film-festival circuit.  Another has been leading the fight for gay-marriage rights since 2004 in Massachusetts.  Alongside cartoonist Alison Bechdel, The Act of Killing director Joshua Oppenheimer and attorney Mary Bonauto, other 2014 MacArthur Award winners are exploring the subtleties of race via psychology and poetry, using math to model the human brain or define the limits of prime numbers, or providing physical, home and job security to some of the country's most at-risk populations.  See pictures and stories at http://www.npr.org/2014/09/17/349120236/meet-the-2014-winners-of-the-macarthur-genius-grants

This time of year there's little question Americans are pumped about pumpkin.  We gobble up about $300 million worth of pumpkin-flavored products annually, mostly from September through November.  Although few vegetables boast the same level of fandom, the craze doesn't always have nutrition experts smiling.  Starbucks recently was criticized because its famed Pumpkin Spice Latte doesn't contain actual pumpkin.  Nor do many of the other pumpkin-flavored products, including Nabisco's new Pumpkin Spice Oreos, set to hit shelves next week.  But, in most cases, the lack of pumpkin isn't the biggest health concern.  It's the sugar.  Nutrition expert Joyce Hanna, associate director of the Health Improvement Program at Stanford, points out that a 12-oz. Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte with nonfat milk and no whipped cream contains 37 grams of sugar.  That's a tad more than seven teaspoons.

Kathryn Roethel  http://www.sfgate.com/health/article/Pumpkin-is-healthful-but-flavored-products-can-be-5761175.php

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1192  September 17, 2014  On this date in 1630, the city of Boston, Massachusetts was founded.  On this date in 1776, the Presidio of San Francisco was founded in New Spain.