The Toledo Museum of Art 2015

Play Time runs approximately Memorial Day weekend (May 22) through Labor Day (Sept. 6).  Works on view in the exhibition and experiences will change throughout June, July and August.  Some will even switch locations, like artist Kurt Perschke’s RedBall Project.  The name is literal:  Perschke has placed his massive, inflated red ball into unexpected spaces in cities across the globe.  Perschke will choose several locations around Toledo to place the RedBall Project during its 10-day display in August.  The Canaday Gallery will be filled with artist Toshiko Horiuchi MacAdam’s Harmonic Motion, a colorful, multi-sensory playground that allows children and adults to climb and play inside its hand-crocheted hanging nets.  Redmoon Theater, a Chicago-based troupe known for using larger-than-life contraptions and puppets to create performances bright with spectacle, will perform for the opening celebration on June 13.  Other works of art include Jillian Mayer’s Cloud Swing, a literal title for a dreamy work of art that involves actual swings facing a visually reproduced sky, allowing participants to feel as if they’re sailing through the clouds; Kim Harty’s Glass Mountain, which the glassblower will create with molten glass in front of a live audience; Stina Köhnke’s Animation, an exuberant wall installation of stuffed animals; and Edith Dekyndt’s Ground Control, a black ball filled with helium that moves in reaction to viewers in the gallery.  See pictures at http://www.toledomuseum.org/2015/03/18/public-invited-to-come-over-and-play-this-summer-at-toledo-museum-of-arts-play-time-interactive-exhibit/

Toys! Toys! Toys! May 22-Sept. 17, Community Gallery is a celebration of fun and nostalgia.  Whether it is a toy from a by-gone era, your favorite childhood toy, or a toy your child or grandchild clings to, toys are a big part of our overall memories and experiences.  

Square Eyes by Anna Mill and Luke Jones  http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2010/nov/05/cape-observer-graphic-short-story-prize

Square Eyes (British humor) eyes supposedly affected by excessive television viewing

Square Eyes  headlights on some trucks

The use of 'square' to mean honest and straightforward goes back to at least the 16th century; for example, in 1591, in Robert Greene's Defence of Conny Catching:  "For feare of trouble I was fain to try my good hap at square play."  Soon after that, Shakespeare used it in Anthony and Cleopatra, 1606:  "She's a most triumphant Lady, if report be square to her."  Early citations to square meal are from America, including this, the earliest print reference I have found--an advertisement for the Hope and Neptune restaurant, in the California newspaper The Mountain Democrat, November 1856:  "We can promise all who patronize us that they can always get a hearty welcome and 'square meal' at the 'Hope and Neptune.  Oyster, chicken and game suppers prepared at short notice."  Gary Martin  http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/square-meal.html

Crushed coriander seeds burst with a lemony aroma.  Golden turmeric smells like corn cakes.  Cardamom gives off a hint of bitterness.  And pulverized cumin seeds smell like moist, peppery earth.  Combine them, and you have the fragrant beginnings of curry.  But how does a nose, bombarded with odors that arrive in different amounts and combinations, consistently identify each aroma?  It turns out that it is simpler than many other neurobiological processes, and can essentially be broken down into a predictable mathematical pattern.  Odors arrive in small packets—tiny bouquets of molecules—that are inhaled.  Receptor cells inside the nose respond by producing a series of electrical spikes, which are communicated to the olfactory bulb in the brain, where the smell is decoded.  “It’s like Morse code,” said Upinder Bhalla, a professor of neurobiology at the National Centre for Biological Sciences in Bangalore, India, and lead supervisor of a recent study about the olfactory system that is the first to document the coding is linear.  “The pattern and spacing of the clicks make different letters.”  In this case, the pattern of the electrical spikes translates to specific smells.  But significantly, according to the study, which was published in the journal Nature Neuroscience, when the smell is repeated in the same dose, the pattern remains the same.  And when the odor varies in duration, the neurons’ electrical response changes proportionately.  Jo Craven McGinty  Read more at  

http://www.wsj.com/articles/scents-of-smell-rooted-in-math-1431079201

big league:  At the highest level; used as a noun ("You're in the big leagues now") or an adjective ("big-league lawyer").  The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) cites "big league" as specifically American Major League Baseball, and cites its first use in 1899; the non-baseball use appears in 1947.   bush league:  Amateur, unsophisticated, unprofessional.  From the baseball term for a second-rate baseball league and therefore its players.  OED cites its first baseball use as 1906, non-baseball in 1914.  

Find a list of common English-language idioms based on baseball at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_English-language_idioms_derived_from_baseball 

The term "bush league" has a literal meaning as well as an idiomatic meaning.  It originated as a term for minor league baseball, which is often played in rural towns that are sometimes referred to as "the sticks" or "the bush."  The term "bush league" has come to refer to anything that is considered amateurish in nature or of lesser quality, rather than being of the highest professional quality.  http://www.wisegeek.org/what-is-bush-league.htm

Stark naked  1520-30; stark + naked; replacing start-naked (start, Middle English; Old English steort tail; cognate with Dutch staart, Old High German sterz, Old Norse stertr)  http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/stark-naked

Stark, raving mad   The 'stark' here means 'to the fullest extent; entirely; quite'.  This was used as an intensifier to 'mad' in the original version of the phrase - 'stark mad'.  That version was in use by 1489 when John Skelton used it in The Death of the Earl of Northumberland:  "I say, ye comoners, why wer ye so stark mad?"  'Stark' and 'raving' are just intensifying adjectives so it is correct to add the comma after 'stark', although the phrase is often seen without it; for example, neither the 1999 Stark Raving Mad TV show or the 2002 film of the same name use the comma.  'Stark staring mad' was an earlier variant and this was first recorded in John Dryden's Persius Flaccus, 1693:  "Art thou of Bethlem's Noble College free?  Stark, staring mad."  By 'Bethlem's Noble College' Dryden was referring to the world's oldest psychiatric hospital The Bethlem Royal Hospital, London.  This has been known under several names since its foundation in the 13th century, most famously the colloquial name Bedlam.  Henry Fielding used 'stark raving mad' in The Intriguing Chambermaid, 1734 and that was probably the first usage of that version of the term.  http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/stark-raving-mad.html

"Stark raving" wine--usually a blend of red grapes--usually made in California

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1296  May 13, 2015  On this date in 1880, in Menlo Park, New Jersey, Thomas Edison performed the first test of his electric railway.  On this date in 1958, Ben Carlin became the first (and only) person to circumnavigate the world by amphibious vehicle, having travelled over 17,000 kilometres (11,000 mi) by sea and 62,000 kilometres (39,000 mi) by land during a ten-year journey.