Can a Ticklebox Have Fuzzywogs?  Now We May Never Know  by Douglas Belkin   After 55 years, 60,000 words and at least $25 million in research grants, the Dictionary of American Regional English has rung the knell, sugared off, finished out the row.  The small tribe of lexicographers ran out of cash even as U.S. regional lingo continues to thrive.   Launched by University of Wisconsin English Professor Frederic Cassidy in 1962, it aimed to capture the nation's regional words, pronunciation and syntax.  The web version ($49 a year for individuals and $5,000 for institutions) will continue to operate and occasionally be updated by volunteer editors.  The Wall Street Journal  November 7, 2017

After helping customers bypass dining rooms, food delivery company DoorDash is giving chefs the option to do the same with delivery-only “virtual” restaurants run out of its new commissary in Silicon Valley.  Bay Area restaurateur Ben Seabury, who wanted to test the delivery-only concept as well as demand for his upscale “The Star” pizzeria concept in San Jose, California, was first to sign up.  He took one of the four kitchens in DoorDash’s new 2,000-square-food commissary that opened earlier this month.  “The landscape of dining in America is changing,” said Seabury, whose portfolio includes six traditional restaurants that are on pace to do $18 million in sales this year.  Delivery accounts for about 20 percent of his overall restaurant business.  David Chang’s growing Momofuku restaurant group in September, 2017 opened a Manhattan storefront for its delivery-only restaurant Ando.  That move came after the announcement that Maple, a Chang-backed meal delivery service, was shutting down.  Chicago’s ASAP Poke runs its delivery-only restaurant from the kitchen of a sushi restaurant that is also owned by the Lettuce Entertain You restaurant group.  Privately held Green Summit Group operates virtual restaurants, including Butcher Block and Leafage, in New York and Chicago.  Lisa Baertlein  https://www.reuters.com/article/us-doordash-restaurants-commissary/doordash-opens-silicon-valley-home-for-virtual-restaurants-idUSKBN1CZ2GQ

Sculptor Enrique Alférez’s life spanned almost the entire twentieth century, much of it spent creating art works in Louisiana.  He was born on May 4, 1901, in San Miguel de Mezquital, Zacatecas, Mexico, and died in New Orleans on September 13, 1999.  His father, Longinos Alférez, was a European-trained artist who sculpted religious icons for churches and private chapels.  By the time he was eight years old, Enrique assisted in his father’s workshop . The family later moved to the larger town of Durango, Mexico, where Enrique attempted to run away from home.  When caught, at age twelve he was forced to serve in Pancho Villa’s army as a mapmaker during the Mexican Revolution.  After ten years in the revolutionary forces, he escaped and worked his way to El Paso, Texas.  With his background of apprenticing in his father’s workshop, Enrique decided to pursue a career in art.  He worked his way north and in 1924 enrolled at the Art Institute of Chicago, where he studied under Lorado Taft, the famed sculptor, writer, and teacher.  In 1928, while still in Chicago, he created twenty-four wood reliefs at the city’s Palmolive Building skyscraper.  In 1929 he arrived in New Orleans while on his way to the Yucatan region of Mexico.  He was so taken by the French Quarter and its art community that he stayed.  He received a few commissions, including one to carve statues for the façade and interior of the Church of the Holy Name of Mary in New Orleans’s Algiers neighborhood.  He also met Franz Blom, director of Tulane University’s Middle American Research Institute, who invited Alférez to join him on an expedition to Mexico to make a plaster cast of the façade of the nunnery buildings in the Mayan ruins at Uxmal in the Yucatan.  Alférez remained in New Orleans, where he became a leading figure in the local art community.  He received a number of commissions, taught at the Arts and Crafts Club in the French Quarter, and directed the sculpture program for artists employed by Works Progress Administration (WPA) during the 1930s.  Alférez played a major role in the WPA’s public art initiatives.   He worked with the architectural firm of Weiss, Dreyfous and Seiferth, which designed the new Louisiana capitol in Baton Rouge, completed in March 1932.  He worked with the firm on several WPA projects including Charity Hospital in New Orleans, and two large fountains, Pop Fountain in New Orleans’ City Park, and another at the entrance to New Orleans Lakefront Airport titled “Fountain of the Four Winds.”  The latter caused quite a stir at the time.  WPA and New Orleans city officials objected to the well-endowed male figure in the sculpture and ordered Alférez to chisel off the male genitalia.  He refused and threatened to shoot anyone who tried to do it.  Fortunately, the statue, in all its glory, was saved by the intercession of Lyle Saxon, head of the WPA writers project, and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt.  Alférez also created a number of sculptures for City Park, primarily for the park’s botanical gardens, along with benches, bas-relief work on bridges, and figures for the gate at Tad Gormley Stadium.  He also created works for Audubon Park, the Louisiana State University Medical School, and Touro Infirmary, both in New Orleans.  During World War II, he served for a brief time with the Mexican Army and later joined the U.S. Army Transport Service.  After the war, he divided his time between New York and Mexico, designing furniture and women’s fashion accessories.  He also spent several years touring Europe, especially Paris and Italy, studying Italian Renaissance art.  He returned to New Orleans in the early 1950s.  In 1951, he caused another controversy for a commissioned sculpture, “The Family,” that was to stand in front of the new New Orleans Municipal Court building on the corner of North Rampart and St. Louis streets.  It stood only three days, but was quickly removed when a priest from a nearby church complained of the statues’ nudity.  The city sold the work to a private collector.  http://www.knowlouisiana.org/entry/enrique-alfrez

November 14, 2017  Humans have been fermenting wine and storing them in jugs as early as 6,000 B.C.  Researchers have found chemical evidence showing that wine has 8,000-year-old roots, pushing the age of the popular fermented drink 600 to 1,000 years older than the previous oldest estimates.  In a new study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, ancient wine expert Patrick McGovern, from the University of Pennsylvania Museum, and colleagues conducted an analysis of pottery jars that were found in two very old archaeological sites in the Eurasian country of Georgia.  The massive jars date back to the early Neolithic period.  The ancient people of Georgia may have stored 300 liters of wine in the massive jars measuring about three feet tall with small clay bumps that are clustered around the rim.  The researchers said that the decorations possibly represent grapes.  One of the ancient jars also feature a design of what appears like a celebration of wine:  dancing people under a trellis grapevine.  The oldest of the jars was dated at about 8,000 years old, which makes it the earliest artifact showing humans consuming juice from the Eurasian grapes.  Allan Adamson  http://www.techtimes.com/articles/215434/20171114/worlds-oldest-wine-ancient-jars-in-georgia-hold-evidence-of-8000-year-old-winemaking.htm  Beer and fermented fruit and syrup drinks are probably older than wine.

The American Bar Association was invited to review judicial nominees starting in 1953, and every president except Trump and George W. Bush has sought pre-nomination screening of the potential candidates.  The ABA reviews judicial nominees after they are nominated because of a decision made by the Trump administration.  DEBRA CASSENS WEISS  http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/white_house_reportedly_mulls_asking_judicial_nominees_to_refuse_interviews_

Statement from FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, M.D.  November 14, 2017   Kratom is a plant that grows naturally in Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. I t has gained popularity in the U.S., with some marketers touting it as a “safe” treatment with broad healing properties.  Evidence shows that kratom has similar effects to narcotics like opioids, and carries similar risks of abuse, addiction and in some cases, death.  There is no reliable evidence to support the use of kratom as a treatment for opioid use disorder.  Patients addicted to opioids are using kratom without dependable instructions for use and more importantly, without consultation with a licensed health care provider about the product’s dangers, potential side effects or interactions with other drugs.  There’s clear data on the increasing harms associated with kratom. Calls to U.S. poison control centers regarding kratom have increased 10-fold from 2010 to 2015, with hundreds of calls made each year.  The FDA is aware of reports of 36 deaths associated with the use of kratom-containing products.  There have been reports of kratom being laced with other opioids like hydrocodone.  The use of kratom is also associated with serious side effects like seizures, liver damage and withdrawal symptoms.  Read more at https://www.fda.gov/NewsEvents/Newsroom/PressAnnouncements/ucm584970.htm

On November 15, 1974, Dmitri Shostakovich’s final string quartet, his Fifteenth, was given its premiere performance by the Taneyev Quartet.  Composers Datebook

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1799  November 15, 2017  On this date in 1806, Lieutenant Zebulon Pike saw a distant mountain peak while near the Colorado foothills of the Rocky Mountains.  (It was later named Pikes Peak.)  On this date in 1920, the first assembly of the League of Nations was held in Geneva, Switzerland.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/November_15