How J.K. Rowling Plotted Harry Potter with a Hand-Drawn Spreadsheet by Colin Marshall   At the height of the Harry Potter novels’ popularity, I asked a number of people why those books in particular enjoyed such a devoted readership.  Everyone gave almost the same answer: that author J.K. Rowling “tells a good story.”  The response at once clarified everything and nothing; of course a “good story” can draw a large, enthusiastic (and, at that time, impatient) readership, but what does it take to actually tell a good story?   See a scrap of a piece of lined paper containing part of the handwritten plot spreadsheet she used to write the fifth Harry Potter novel, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix at http://www.openculture.com/2014/07/j-k-rowling-plotted-harry-potter-with-a-hand-drawn-spreadsheet.html

If "Mark Twain Said It," He Probably Didn't by Mark Peters  

Sept. 27, 2009   That Mark Twain was something else, wasn't he?  He said so many memorable things, like "If you don't like the weather in New England, just wait a few minutes" and "Golf is a good walk spoiled."  What a writer, what a guy.  Unfortunately--even though Twain is the great American humorist--he didn't say either of those things.  Twain is what scholar Fred Shapiro calls a "quote magnet," someone who receives credit for sayings and proverbs that never passed their lips or pens.  Also called "Churchillian drift" by Nigel Rees, quote magnetism is a common phenomenon that infects everything from student papers to political speeches, and respected books of quotations aren't immune.  As quote experts Rees and Shapiro have shown, "So-and-so said" are some of the least trustworthy words in the language.  I interviewed Fred Shapiro, librarian and lecturer at Yale Law School and editor of The Yale Book of Quotations by phone, and he said that while Churchill may be a top quote magnet in England, there's no doubt the top American is Mark Twain.  For example, Shapiro found the New England weather quote in print 10 years before the earliest attribution to Twain; the golf quote appeared 35 years before.  Shapiro advises skepticism regarding all Twain-isms:  "If you just assume that any quote from Twain is apocryphal, you won't be wrong very often."  In America, Shapiro said that "people associated with folksiness" such as Twain, Benjamin Franklin, Abraham Lincoln, and Yogi Berra are the big quote magnets.  Another folksy fellow is George W. Bush, who often gets credit for the supposed Bushism "strategery,"  which was actually coined by Bush impersonator Will Ferrell on Saturday Night Live.  Similarly, the Sarah Palin one-liner "I can see Russia from my house" is a Tiny Fey-ism, not a Palinism.  There are many ways a quotation can be disapproved, as Shapiro and his research assistants learned during the six years it took to compile the Yale Book of Quotations.  Shapiro said, "There's a tendency to improve quotes."  That improvement works in a few ways:  If I cite Mark Twain instead of my cousin Billy, the quote is improved and my own case bolstered.  Wording gets revised, too.  For example, Shakespeare's "Alas, poor Yorick, I knew him" is oft-misquoted as "Alas, poor Yorick, I knew him well," which Shapiro notes is "better than the original."  Shapiro says that quotes are made more concise and memorable, and archaic words may be replaced.  http://magazine.good.is/articles/if-mark-twain-said-it-he-probably-didnt

The Werner projection is a pseudoconic equal-area map projection sometimes called the Stab-Werner or Stabius-Werner projection.  Like other heart-shaped projections, it is also categorized as cordiform.  Stab-Werner refers to two originators:  Johannes Werner (1466–1528), a parish priest in Nuremberg, refined and promoted this projection that had been developed earlier by Johannes Stabius (Stab) of Vienna around 1500.  The projection is a limiting form of the Bonne projection, having its standard parallel at one of the poles (90°N/S).  Distances along each parallel and along the central meridian are correct, as are all distances from the north pole.    Link to a list of map projections and see two beautiful graphics at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Werner_projection

Costco Wholesale Corp., acknowledging its split with American Express Co., said on Feb. 13, 2015 that it is close to reaching a deal with a new credit card company for exclusive rights to serve the giant retailer's customers.  Costco should be in a position to announce the new partner "probably sooner rather than later," said spokesman Bob Nelson, raising the possibility that could happen as early as next week.  The company, based in Issaquah, Wash., east of Seattle, has been talking with several credit card firms for some time in anticipation of a break with AmEx, Nelson said.  Last fall, Costco ended its partnership with AmEx in Canada, choosing instead a Capital One MasterCard.  American Express customers spend an average of $142.82 per transaction versus $90.44 for MasterCard, $84.67 for Visa and $63.91 for Discover Financial Services, according to Jim Sinegal, a senior analyst for Morningstar Inc.  For AmEx, the strategy had the double benefit of generating high fee income while keeping credit risk down.  Even today, about 80% of the company's revenue comes from swiping the cards and only 20% from interest income on pending balances, Sinegal said.  AmEx also was an early mover in the rewards business, offering exclusive perks with airlines and hotels, and in the partnership business, such as with Costco.  The partnership had allowed AmEx to expand its distribution to Costco's relatively affluent members, and Costco got access to AmEx's high spenders.  And the retailer's heft gave it the ability to demand lower swipe fees than smaller merchants paid to AmEx.  Dean Starkman and E. Scott Reckard  

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-costco-amex-20150214-story.html

Featured in the New York Times, the "Modern Love" column runs essays every week about love, loss, desire and the human condition.  Filled with people's personal stories that are both vulnerably honest and edifying, the column has its own cult readership and is probably one of the most valued columns running today.  Here are eight "Modern Love" columns to read this week including "To Fall in Love With Anyone, Do This" an essay by Mandy Len Catron telling the story of how she  asked her date 36 questions from a 1997 psychology experiment to see if she could create the special intimacy often associated with love.  http://www.techtimes.com/articles/31866/20150210/the-8-best-modern-love-columns-to-read-this-valentine-s-day.htm

Philip Levine revealed the poetry in the lives working people, and especially the people and places of his youth — in the auto factories and working class homes of urban Detroit.  In a career that spanned six decades, he was a United States Poet Laureate, and winner of two National Book Awards and a Pulitzer Prize.  He died Feb. 14, 2015 in Fresno, Calif.  He was 87.  In 2004, at the age of 76, Levine said his biggest literary influence was the New Jersey poet, William Carlos Williams.  "He seemed able in his best poetry — to find poetry almost anywhere, anywhere," Levine said.   "And that was the big lesson I got from him:  Don't scorn your life just because it's not dramatic, or it's impoverished, or it looks dull, or it's workaday.  Don't scorn it.  It is where poetry is taking place if you've got the sensitivity to see it, if your eyes are open."  Tom Vitale  

See examples of Levine's poetry at http://www.npr.org/2015/02/15/384096472/philip-levine-who-found-poetry-on-detroits-assembly-lines-dies-at-87

Feb. 16, 2015  Conan O'Brien spent the weekend in Cuba.  He is now the first U.S. late-night host to film on mainland Cuba since the embargo began in 1962.  (Brian Williams, David Muir and Scott Pelley have all broadcast from there in recent months.)  The last time a late-night American show visited the country was in 1959, when Jack Paar of the Tonight Show interviewed Fidel Castro, a move that earned him some criticism at the time, notes Deadline.  The episode, which promises to offer a glimpse into the daily life of Cubans, will air on March 4 at 11 p.m. ET/PT on TBS.  http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/tv/2015/02/16/conan-films-in-cuba-first-late-night-host/23485345/

Happy Presidents Day (with no apostrophe--according to the Associated Press Stylebook.)  Only about 35 percent of workers get a paid day off for Presidents Day, according to the Bloomberg BNA's Holiday Practices Survey.  George Washington died in 1799, and the next year his birthday became an annual day of remembrance.  It merged into Presidents Day to include Lincoln and to be observed on the third Monday in February, beginning in the 1960s. As far as the federal government is concerned, it's still just known as Washington's birthday.  Al Lewis  http://www.bizjournals.com/southflorida/feature/5-things/2015/02/5-things-to-know-about-presidents-day.html?page=all

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1257  February 16, 2015  On this date in 1923, Howard Carter unsealed the burial chamber of Pharaoh Tutankhamun.  

On this date in 1937, Wallace H. Carothers received a United States patent for nylon.