Dec. 30, 2014  PITTSFIELD, Mass. — Hancock Shaker Village, a cluster of historic houses, barns and shops set here amid gardens and cow pastures, has long sought to preserve the culture and traditions of the Shakers, the small but influential religious sect that became as well known for its minimalist furniture as for its social tenets of egalitarianism and pacifism.  Since the 1960s visitors have come to this living history museum to see life as the Shakers experienced it, in structured and disciplined communities.  From a peak of approximately 5,000 in the mid-19th century, practicing Shakers now number just three at the last active settlement, in New Gloucester, Me.  The village here, among the largest of roughly a dozen sites in the Northeast that promote Shaker culture, is struggling financially.  Attendance is down by nearly a third compared with a decade ago, to about 50,000 visitors a year.  Donations and government support have also dwindled.  The annual budget, never particularly robust, has been cut by a quarter, to $1.6 million.  The village ceased to function as an active Shaker residence in 1960 and, thanks to the determination of local residents, soon became a museum.  General interest in the Shakers reached a peak in the 1980s and early 1990s in the long wake of the American bicentennial, with several high-profile exhibitions and a spotlight on Shaker artifacts, thanks partly to celebrity collectors like Oprah Winfrey.  There is a sense of cautious optimism about the future.  Several other small but notable developments feed the sense of a resurging interest in the Shakers:  a new exhibition at the New York State Museum in Albany (through March 6, 2016); a show at the Farnsworth Art Museum in Rockland, Me. (through March 8); a glossy book, “The Shakers:  From Mount Lebanon to the World” (Rizzoli); and a well-received production by the Wooster Group, “Early Shaker Spirituals,” that returns to New York in April.  Other Shaker sites have managed to reinvent themselves:  Canterbury Shaker Village in New Hampshire opened a culinary arts school on its site in late 2013, while Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill in Harrodsburg, Ky., has found a degree of stability as a tourist getaway, merging history and hospitality.  “You have to turn the village into a business to be self-sustaining,” Daniel Cain, the Hancock Shaker Village’s new board chairman, said.  “In the words of the Shakers, we have to be enterprising.”  In that vein, the village is exploring collaborations with like-minded organizations, including a Shaker site at Mount Lebanon, N.Y., just a few miles down the road.  The village also received a grant to study the feasibility of a merger with the Berkshire Museum in Pittsfield, Mass., and talks are underway.  Brian Schaefer   See pictures at http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/31/arts/a-shaker-village-finds-enterprise-is-not-so-simple.html?src=recg

Jan. 1, 2015  An ancient, two-sided amulet uncovered in Cyprus contains a 59-letter Greek inscription that reads the same backward as it does forward.  Archaeologists discovered the amulet, which is roughly 1,500 years old, at the ancient city of Nea Paphos in southwest Cyprus.  One side of the amulet has several images, including a bandaged mummy (likely representing the Egyptian god Osiris) lying on a boat and an image of Harpocrates, the god of silence, who is shown sitting on a stool while holding his right hand up to his lips.  Strangely, the amulet also displays a mythical dog-headed creature called a cynocephalus, which is shown holding a paw up to its lips, as if mimicking Harpocrates' gesture.  The amulet is about 1.4 inches by 1.6 inches (34.9 millimeters by 41.2 millimeters) in size.  The inscription translates as “Iahweh is the bearer of the secret name, the lion of Re secure in his shrine.” Although the translation doesn’t read as a palindrome, the original ancient Greek text does.  Owen Jarus  See picture at http://www.livescience.com/49239-ancient-amulet-palindrome-inscription.html

BIANNUAL, SEMIANNUAL AND BIENNIAL

We have a special word--biennial--that means “occurring every two years.”  The word biannual has only one meaning:  “occurring twice a year.”  Biannual is interchangeable with semiannual.   http://www.getitwriteonline.com/archive/051401bisemi.htm

Newly Playful, by Design--Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum Reopens by Holland Cotter   On Friday, Dec. 12, 1902, Andrew Carnegie moved into his just-finished home at 91st Street and Fifth Avenue, with his wife, Louise, and his 5-year-old daughter, Margaret, to whom he handed the key.  By the lights of Manhattan society, the house was in nowheresville, near a former shantytown with only a lemonade stand by way of local shopping.  From Day 1, the mansion was a must-see.  This wasn’t because it was beautiful — it’s like a bank vault, chunky and dark — but because it was technologically advanced, with full electricity and climate control, and because certain details — its elevator, its pipe organ, its exotic wood carving — set a standard in domestic luxe.  Carnegie lived there until his death in 1919; Louise until hers in 1946.  Margaret was married there but moved next door.  When she died in 1990, her childhood home had long since become headquarters for the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum.  Link to slide show with 13 photos at http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/12/arts/design/cooper-hewitt-smithsonian-design-museum-reopens.html?_r=0

Henri Matisse (1869-1954),  Paul Cézanne (1839-1906),  Edward Degas (1834-1917) and Édouard Manet (1832-1883) abandoned the law to become artists.  Link to Timeline of Art History (under Collection) and see Artwork of the Day at http://www.metmuseum.org/

Jan. 6, 2015    LOS ANGELES—Leah Ferrazzani launched Semolina Artisanal Pasta in October.  She said the business quickly exceeded her home kitchen’s capacity of about 250 pounds a week.  “In L.A., there are really people who get behind your food,” said Ms. Ferrazzani, who sells her pasta in one-pound bags for $10 each.  As tastes shift toward specialty, local and organic foods, more so-called “food startups” are entering the market.  According to PitchBook, a private financial database, close to $570 million in venture capital has been invested over the past five years in companies that produce food for consumption, or prepared foods, with the number of deals involving startup food makers growing to 36 in 2014 from 13 in 2011.  The National Association for the Specialty Food Trade says the sector hit a record $88.3 billion in sales in 2013, and continued to grow in 2014.  The association attributed the sector’s popularity to “growing concern” among consumers about sustainability and health, as well as increased interest in “small-batch production”—knowing where food is made and who made it.  Regulatory requirements have complicated the transition from selling goods at local retail shops to distributing them wholesale to large grocery chains.  Wholesale buyers have stricter health standards than local retailers, requiring significant upfront investment by producers.  Los Angeles County’s public health inspectors are now re-evaluating the rules.  Some state health codes have already changed in recent years to ease the startup process in the cottage food industry, or businesses that operate out of their home kitchens.  New legislation is what helped Semolina Artisanal Pasta first get off the ground, but the law restricts cottage food businesses to less than $50,000 a year in sales. Erica E. Phillips   http://www.wsj.com/articles/food-accelerators-and-the-10-bag-of-pasta-1420590268

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1241  January 9, 2015  

On this date in 1839, John Knowles Paine, American composer, was born.  

On this date in 1859, Carrie Chapman Catt, American activist, founded the League of Women Voters and International Alliance of Women.