Clarice Lispector (1920-1977) was not a pseudonym.  Tall, bewitching, with green, almond-shaped eyes and a guttural voice, she was one of the symbols of modern Brazil, along with Pelé, the musician Caetano Veloso, the architect Oscar Niemeyer and Copacabana.  She lived on her own in Leme, a quiet enclave bordered with flame trees, a writer more gossiped about than read, with a reputation as an eccentric genius--known as “the great witch of Brazilian literature”.  I was a boy living on the next beach when, in June 1968, Lispector marched with other leading intellectuals against the dictatorship.  But although I grew up to be a sucker for Latin American literature, I never came across her books, largely because, in the words of one of her editors, “publishers avoided her like the plague”.  Even her closest friend admitted:  “Nobody sought out Clarice.  There was little discussion of her work.  In Brazil today, Lispector’s Egyptian-cat face is on postage stamps and adverts for luxury condos, and her books are sold on the underground.  Now rediscovered, she is routinely touted as a female Kafka, as the most important woman writing in Portuguese in the 20th century, as someone who looked like Marlene Dietrich and wrote like Virginia Woolf, and so on.  Penguin Classics have caught the Lispector bug, issuing five of her novels--with puffs from writers such as Colm Tóibín, Jonathan Franzen and Orhan Pamuk--and a worshipful but fascinating biography by her most indefatigable champion Benjamin Moser.  Nicholas Shakespeare    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/10607727/Clarice-Lispector-Morbidly-insensitive.html

LeBron James is forming a production partnership with Time Warner Inc.’s Warner Bros. Entertainment that spans movies, television and digital content.  The deal pairs the world’s No. 1 basketball star with the largest television and movie studio, based in Burbank, Calif.  For Mr. James, the agreement will provide him with a home to build on his entertainment aspirations and the backing of a media giant with global reach.  Joe Flint  

See extensive article with pictures at http://www.wsj.com/articles/lebron-james-takes-shot-with-warner-bros-1437588271

Campbell Soup Co. said cost cuts are yielding better profits and that it plans to remove artificial ingredients from products and to come out with more organic foods, as it contends with what it called a seismic shift in what Americans eat.  The maker of soups, Pepperidge Farm snacks and V8 juices on July 22, 2015 said the food industry is being revolutionized by changing demographics and a widespread shift in what people want to eat.  It said it plans to eliminate artificial colors and flavors in nearly all its North American food by August 2018 as part of an effort to regain the trust of skeptical consumers.  Annie Gasparro  http://www.wsj.com/articles/campbell-lifts-2015-earnings-forecast-1437569551

While staring at a painting by artist Titus Kaphar at the Yale Art Gallery, a man named Benjamin Vesper experienced a psychotic break and attacked one of the figures in the painting.  Vesper was arrested and subsequently admitted to the Connecticut Valley Hospital where his full identity and background remained a mystery.  During the course of his sessions with a psychologist, Vesper began to reveal details about himself and his family’s troubled history.  Vesper remained secretive about the letters and documents he wrote to Kaphar.  In 2008, Vesper wandered off the hospital grounds, and was found squatting in a 19th century house that he insisted belonged to his family.  In fact, the original Vesper home had burned down in the early 1900s.  It seems Mr. Vesper needed such a space to return to, in order to engage with his own memory.  It was this event that inspired “The Vesper Project” installation.  This exhibition includes art works inspired by the patient’s frequent correspondence with Kaphar.  

Read more and see many pictures at http://tituskaphar.com/portfolio/the-vesper-project/  NOTE that The Vesper Project by Titus Kaphar is on display at the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati May 15 through October 11, 2015.

Titus Kaphar was born in 1976 in Kalamazoo, Michigan.  He currently lives and works between New York and Connecticut, USA.  His artworks interact with the history of art by approriating its styles and mediums.  Kaphar cuts, bends, sculpts and mixes the work of Classic and Renaissance painters, creating formal games and new tales between fiction and quotation.  http://tituskaphar.com/

Agincourt was a battle fought in northern France in 1415, between the French and the English under King Henry V.  Though there were many more French soldiers, the English won and were then in a strong position to take much of France.  Agincourt is especially remembered because it forms an important part of Shakespeare's play Henry V.  Link to pronunciation of Agincourt at http://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/us/definition/english/agincourt

I recently had beluga lentils with salmon at Metropole Restaurant in Cincinnati.  Find a description of many varieties of lentils including beluga at http://www.foodsubs.com/Lentils.html  

Metropole is in 21C Museum Hotel which also is holding a co-curated exhibition in its lobby of art by Albano Afonso with more Afonso art on the 4th floor galleries of the Contemporary Arts Center.  See http://www.21cmuseumhotels.com/cincinnati/museum/exhibits/self-portrait-light/ and http://www.cincinnati.com/story/entertainment/arts/2015/03/13/new-joint-exhibit-us-debut-brazilian-artist/70279848/

Chicago’s worst disaster to date was the capsizing of the SS Eastland on July 24, 1915.   People drowned just a few feet from the loading ramp or below decks when the heavily-overloaded pleasure boat spilled to one side.  The Eastland was built in 1903 for the Michigan Steamship Company and was officially launched on May 6^th.   The total death toll was 844 people.  Eight hundred and forty-one were passengers, two were from the crew, and one was a crew member of the Petoskey who died in the rescue effort.  Although the Titanic, which sank three years before in 1912, had a higher total death toll of 1,523, the Titanic actually had a lower death toll of passengers than the Eastland as crew deaths from the Titanic totaled 694.  Salvaging the Eastland was not an easy task.  While raising the ship, difficulties were encountered in getting it to float as so much water needed to be pumped out of the hull.  The ship was finally refloated on August 14^th.  The Eastland was acquired by the Illinois Naval Reserve four years later, after several modifications which enabled the ship to serve safely as a training vessel.  The ship, re-named the USS Wilmette, served for several years until it was decommissioned in 1945.  The ship was then sold for scrap, and by early 1947, the ship was completely disassembled for parts and metal.  http://www.ghostresearch.org/sites/eastland.html 

See also http://www.eastlandmemorial.org/wilmette.shtml and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Eastland

SS means Steam Ship.  Find a list of the main ship prefixes used for naval and merchant vessels at http://www.marineinsight.com/marine/marine-news/headline/what-are-ship-prefixes-for-naval-and-merchant-vessels/ 

The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the 1930s.  The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations; however, in most countries it started in 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s.   It was the longest, deepest, and most widespread depression of the 20th century.  Worldwide GDP fell by 15% from 1929 to 1932.  The depression originated in the United States, after the fall in stock prices that began around September 4, 1929, and became worldwide news with the stock market crash of October 29, 1929 (known as Black Tuesday).  The Great Depression had devastating effects in countries rich and poor.  Personal income, tax revenue, profits and prices dropped, while international trade plunged by more than 50%.  Unemployment in the U.S. rose to 25%, and in some countries rose as high as 33%.  Some economies started to recover by the mid-1930s.  In many countries, the negative effects of the Great Depression lasted until the beginning of World War II.  The Great Depression has been the subject of much writing, as authors have sought to evaluate an era that caused financial as well as emotional trauma.  Perhaps the most noteworthy and famous novel written on the subject is The Grapes of Wrath, published in 1939 and written by John Steinbeck, who was awarded both the Nobel Prize for literature and the Pulitzer Prize for the work.  The novel focuses on a poor family of sharecroppers who are forced from their home as drought, economic hardship, and changes in the agricultural industry occur during the Great Depression.  Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men is another important novella about a journey during the Great Depression.  Additionally, Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird is set during the Great Depression.  Margaret Atwood's Booker prize-winning The Blind Assassin is likewise set in the Great Depression, centering on a privileged socialite's love affair with a Marxist revolutionary.  The era spurred the resurgence of social realism, practiced by many who started their writing careers on relief programs, especially the Federal Writers' Project in the U.S.  Read much more and see graphics including the well-known "Migrant Mother" at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Depression

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1329  July 29, 2015   On this date in 1932, troops dispersed the last of the "Bonus Army" of World War I veterans in Washington. DC.  On this date in 1948, after a hiatus of 12 years caused by World War II, the first Summer Olympics to be held since the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, opened in London.