Satin Weave is one of three basic weave structures that have been in use since ancient times.  Satin weaves have a smooth, lustrous surface and possess the best draping qualities out of all the weave structures. The pattern of a satin weave is similar to a twill, but the floats (yarns that go over multiple warp or filling yarns before they dip under the surface) are very long-covering up to eleven other yarns.  Satin must be woven on a loom with at least six (and more commonly eight) harnesses.  Instead of having diagonal lines, the floats are usually staggered to make the surface look as smooth and seamless as possible.  This property is enhanced by packing the floats very close together.  Until the invention of manufactured fibers, satin fabrics were generally expensive to produce because they required large quantities of silk or very fine cotton yarns.  (With yarns any thicker, the floats would be so long that the cloth would be too fragile to wear.)  In the mythology surrounding silk weaving, the original source of the name for satin has been lost.  One suggestion is that is comes from the ancient Chinese port of Zaytoun.  Another is that satin was "called sztun until the Renaissance; then the Italian silk manufacturers changed the term to saeta to imply hair or bristle, a term which can be applied to fabrics of this type since they show a hairline and glossy surface" (American Fabrics, p. 198).  Satin weaving was invented in China more than two thousand years ago.  Although elaborate textiles such as brocade (a figured satin produced on a draw loom) were expensive and in many cases restricted to the upper classes, the cultivation of silk was widespread.  Limited amounts of silk fabric were exported to the West as early as the time of ancient Greece, but satin was not produced in Europe until the Middle Ages.  The scarcity of silk restricted the use of this material to the church, nobility, and upper classes.  Heather Marie Akou  http://fashion-history.lovetoknow.com/fabrics-fibers/satin-weave

Satin Island, a novel by Tom McCarthy, has a first-person narrator, known as U.  Read comprehensive review at http://numerocinqmagazine.com/2015/03/02/a-choir-of-pages-review-of-tom-mccarthys-satin-island-frank-richardson/

A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg

performative   (puhr-FOR-muh-tiv)   adjective  Relating to a statement that functions as an action by the fact of its being uttered.  Some examples of performative utterances are I promise, I apologize, I bet, I resign, etc.  By saying I promise a person actually performs the act of promising.  From Old French parfournir, from par (through) + fournir (to furnish).  Earliest documented use:  1922.

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From:  Ron Davis  Subject:  performative  My favorite word in any language is the Hungarian word “tegezlek”, which means “I address you in a grammatically familiar manner.”  Besides being performative, it packs a lot of meaning into one word, and it expresses a concept we don’t even have in English.  In another level of self-referentiality, I am very happy to have learned the word “performative”, and to have this opportunity to use it for the first time.

Joseph Hillstrom King (born June 4, 1972), better known by the pen name Joe Hill, is an American author and comic book writer.  He has published three novels—Heart-Shaped Box, Horns and NOS4A2—and a collection of short stories titled 20th Century Ghosts.  He is also the author of the comic book series Locke & Key.  Hill's parents are authors Stephen and Tabitha King.  Hill chose to use an abbreviated form of his given name (a reference to executed labor leader Joe Hill, for whom he was named) in 1997, out of a desire to succeed based solely on his own merits rather than as the son of Stephen King.  After achieving a degree of independent success, Hill publicly confirmed his identity in 2007 after an article the previous year in Variety broke his cover.  He was born in Hermon, Maine, and grew up in Bangor, Maine.  His younger brother Owen is also a writer.  At age 9, Hill appeared in the 1982 film Creepshow, directed by George A. Romero, which co-starred and was written by his father.  Joe Hill is a past recipient of the Ray Bradbury Fellowship.  He has also received the William L. Crawford award for best new fantasy writer in 2006, the A. E. Coppard Long Fiction Prize in 1999 for "Better Than Home" and the 2006 World Fantasy Award for Best Novella for "Voluntary Committal".  His stories have appeared in a variety of magazines, such as Subterranean Magazine, Postscripts and The High Plains Literary Review, and in many anthologies, including The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror (ed. Stephen Jones) and The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror (ed.) Ellen Datlow, Kelly Link & Gavin Grant).  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Hill_%28writer%29

The first time Grigory Kessel held the ancient manuscript, its animal-hide pages more than 1,000 years old, it seemed oddly familiar.  A language scholar at Philipps University in Marburg, Germany, Dr. Kessel was sitting in the library of the manuscript’s owner, a wealthy collector of rare scientific material in Baltimore.  At that moment, Dr. Kessel realized that just three weeks earlier, in a library at Harvard University, he had seen a single orphaned page that was too similar to these pages to be coincidence.  The manuscript he held contained a translation of an ancient, influential medical text by Galen of Pergamon, a Greco-Roman physician and philosopher who died in 200 A.D.  It was missing pages and Dr. Kessel was suddenly convinced one of them was in Boston.  Dr. Kessel’s realization in February 2013 marked the beginning of a global hunt for the other lost leaves, a search that culminated in May with the digitization of the final rediscovered page in Paris.  Scholars are just beginning to pore over the text, the oldest known copy of Galen’s “On the Mixtures and Powers of Simple Drugs.”  It may well provide new insights into medicine’s roots and into the spread of this new science across the ancient world.  “On so many levels it’s important,” said Peter Pormann, a Graeco-Arabic expert at the University of Manchester who now leads a study of the text.  The manuscript held by Dr. Kessel that day was a palimpsest:  older text covered up by newer writing.  It was a common practice centuries ago, a medieval form of recycling.  In this case, 11th-century Syrian scribes had scraped away Galen’s medical text and had overwritten hymns on the parchment.  The hymn book itself is of interest, but for now it is the original text, all but invisible to the naked eye and known as the undertext, that has captured the imagination of scholars.  Mark Schrope  Read more and see pictures at http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/02/science/medicines-hidden-roots-in-an-ancient-manuscript.html

When Caroll Spinney was a kid, he showed an interest in puppets, and was teased in school about it.  His father was a stern man with a bad temper, but his mother encouraged Spinney's interest and actually built a puppet theatre for him.  As Caroll Spinney reminisces in the wonderful documentary, "I Am Big Bird," "She didn't realize she was giving me my career."  "I Am Big Bird" documents Caroll Spinney's forty-plus years playing the big yellow bird (and the greasy grouch Oscar in the trash can--maybe one of the best dual roles in history) on "Sesame Street".  Spinney walks us through what is involved in playing Big Bird.  He is inside the huge Big Bird suit, and his right arm is lifted up into Big Bird's head to make the mouth move.  With his pinky finger, he manipulates Big Bird's eyelids and eyeballs with a little lever up in the head.  Spinney's left arm is down in Big Bird's left arm, and the right arm is attached by a triangle of invisible fishing wire, so it moves in response on its own.  Spinney cannot see out of the suit, so strapped to his torso is a tiny monitor showing him the outer world (only in reverse).  And taped in front of his eyes, on the interior of the suit, is the script, with his lines circled meticulously.  Sheila O'Malley   http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/i-am-big-bird-the-caroll-spinney-story-2015  See also:  http://www.carollspinney.com/

June 19, 2015  The Korean math prodigy at one of the nation’s top high schools received letters from Harvard professors, encouraging her to bring her brilliant abilities to Cambridge next fall instead of accepting her admission to Stanford University on the opposite coast.  As the student struggled to decide between five-figure scholarship promises from both schools, she received a novel offer:  She could spend two years at each elite school as part of an arrangement just for her.  The exciting dual-enrollment opportunity garnered star-struck coverage from Korean media outlets, which dubbed her the “Genius Girl.”  But none of it was true.  The baffling hoax has stunned Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Fairfax County, the top-ranked magnet program known as an intellectual proving ground for science wunderkinder, technology gurus, engineering buffs and math wizards — many of whom earn their way to the nation’s most prestigious colleges.

The senior’s tale of academic conquest of admission into what turned out to be a bogus program apparently was designed to impress her parents, peers and teachers as part of the annual cutthroat competition for the relatively tiny number of spots at the nation’s top schools.  The faked admission story went much further than most teen fantasies:  It made its way to the international media.  T. Rees Shapiro  http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/harvard-stanford-admissions-hoax-becomes-international-scandal/2015/06/18/4abac970-156a-11e5-89f3-61410da94eb1_story.html

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1314  June 22, 2015  

On this date in 1942, the Pledge of Allegiance was formally adopted by Congress.  

On this date in 1944, Franklin D. Roosevelt signed into law the Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, commonly known as the G.I. Bill.