How to be the Ravenmaster by
John Owen Theobald ‘If the ravens leave the Tower, the kingdom of Britain
will fall . . . ' An ominous legend, and one that requires a full time
caretaker for the birds--in this case, the grandly titled Ravenmaster at
the Tower
of London. Today Chris Skaife
proudly holds this job. You have to be a
Yeoman Warder, a position which requires a minimum of 22 years in the military,
an exemplary record, and the rank of warrant officer or above. But the birds themselves cast the deciding vote. When the previous Ravenmaster, Derrick Coyle,
saw that Chris was fascinated with the ravens, he decided to test their
chemistry by putting Chris in the cages with them. Chris was deemed suitable by those most
discerning judges. He studied under Derrick
for five years before taking over the job.
Chris now looks after the seven ravens at the Tower (six by Royal Decree
and one spare): Harris (Male), Merlina
(Female), Munin (Female), Rocky (Male), Gripp (Male), Jubilee (Male), and the
sisters Erin and Hugine. Most are quite
young--Munin is the oldest, at 21 years old.
The ravens come from breeders in Somerset, but two are wild--Merlina,
from South Wales, and Munin, from North Uist in Scotland. Chris tries to keep them all as wild as
possible, giving them free rein around the grounds. New open-air cages have recently been
erected, at Chris’s insistence. Where does the legend come from? It arose during WWII, likely as a response to
the horrors of the Blitz. The first recorded reference to the legend
dates to this period, and the first Ravenmaster was installed in the 1950s. (Chris is only the 6th person to hold the
title.) See pictures at https://www.historic-uk.com/CultureUK/How-to-be-the-Ravenmaster/
Chicken Bouillabaisse by Martha Rose Shulman
8-10 servings This is a wonderful do-ahead chicken
dish. Look for free-range, humanely
raised chicken; you can now find free-range chicken already cut up and
skinned. When I tested this recipe, I
bought one package of thighs, one of drumsticks and one of breasts (which I cut
in half). I had 16 pieces of chicken,
enough for eight very generous servings.
Marinate the chicken the day before you make this dish, and make it at
least one day ahead through step 3 so that you can easily skim off the chicken
fat. And if you want to make it for a
smaller group, just halve the quantities.
Featured in: Do Ahead Dishes For Holiday Crowds. https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1012946-chicken-bouillabaisse
Many of us spend a good deal of our time staring at
screens from laptops, computers,
smartphones, gaming systems and television.
This can put a lot of strain on our eyes and cause eye fatigue. When using your screens give your eyes a
break. Use the 20-20-20 rule. Every 2 minutes, take
a 20-second
break and focus your eyes on something at least 20 feet away.
https://opto.ca/health-library/the-20-20-20-rule Eye relaxation: Close your eyes, then open and blink
rapidly. Slowly, move your eyes in
circles or lines--vertical, horizontal, on the slant.
The 10 Most Prominent Writers’
Workshops in America
Delicata
squash is a winter
squash with cream-coloured cylindrical
fruits striped in green or orange. As its name suggests, it has
characteristically a delicate rind (or skin).
It is also known as peanut
squash, Bohemian squash,
or sweet potato squash. See pictures at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delicata_squash Find ten delicata squash recipes at https://www.allrecipes.com/recipes/16676/fruits-and-vegetables/vegetables/squash/winter-squash/delicata-squash/
It was well after dark on a Saturday night in January
1963 when the Don Shirley Trio took the stage in Manitowoc, Wisconsin. The program of
show tunes, jazz and classical music, the local paper reported, was “brilliant
and exciting and warmly received by the large crowd.” But its famed leader and pianist, Don
Shirley, who was black, knew his welcome was conditional. A hateful sign stood at Manitowoc’s city
limits: “N-----, don’t let the sun go
down on you in our town.” When the trio
set out on another tour later that year, Shirley hired a white driver, a
gregarious Italian-American bouncer known as Tony Lip, to handle problems that
might arise in the “sundown towns” of the North and the Jim Crow-era
South. “My father said it was almost on
a daily basis they would get stopped, because a white man was driving a black
man,” recalls Lip’s son Nick Vallelonga, who has turned their journey into Green
Book, a 2018 film garnering Oscar buzz. Vallelonga was 5 years old when his father
headed out on the road with the pianist. After they returned more than a year later,
the men lived their separate lives—Shirley played to acclaim in Europe and Lip
became an actor—but they remained friends. As a child Vallelonga visited Shirley in his
studio in Manhattan and heard stories about their trip. “That’s an unbelievable movie,” he remembers
thinking. “I’m gonna make it one day.” In his 20s, Vallelonga, an actor and
occasional screenwriter, interviewed his father and Shirley about how these two
men from starkly different backgrounds navigated the racism they encountered. But Shirley stipulated that he didn’t want the
story told until after his death. Both
men passed away in 2013, and those conversations, along with letters Lip wrote
his wife, form the basis of Green Book,
which stars Mahershala Ali as Shirley and Viggo Mortensen as Lip. The title is a reference to The
Negro Motorist Green Book, a travel guide for African-Americans
published from 1936 to 1967 that promised “vacation without aggravation.” Making the film more than half a century
after the events it depicts hasn’t muted its powerful message about overcoming
prejudice. Lip “was a product of his
times. Italians lived with Italians. The Irish lived with the Irish. African-Americans lived with
African-Americans,” Vallelonga says. The
trip “opened my father’s eyes . . . and then changed how he treated
people.” Anna Diamond https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/true-story-green-book-movie-180970728/
Dreidel is Yiddish for
"spinning top." A dreidel is a pointed, four-sided
top which can be made to spin on its pointed base. Dreidels are normally made of
plastic or wood, though there are silver or glass "designer dreidels" available on the
market, usually intended for display purposes.
It is customary to play dreidel games
on the holiday of Chanukah. Players take turns spinning the
dreidel. Having the dreidel fall on each
Hebrew letter results in a different action.
Land on “nun” (נ) and nothing happens.
Land on “gimmel” (ג) and you get to take the whole pot. Land on “hay” (ה) and you take half of the
pot. Land on “shin” (ש) and you must
give a predetermined amount back into the kitty. Whenever the kitty is emptied, every player
must contribute a set amount. Any player
that cannot contribute after landing on a “shin” or after a fellow player lands
on a “gimmel” loses.
https://www.chabad.org/holidays/chanukah/article_cdo/aid/603267/jewish/What-Is-a-Dreidel-Sevivon.htm How to pronounce dreidel https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/dreidel
or https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dreidel
or https://forvo.com/word/dreidel/
Dreidel Song Hear music
with lyrics by
https://www.chabad.org/multimedia/media_cdo/aid/797123/jewish/Dreidel-Song.htm
and the original 1927 recording of "I Have a Little Dreidel" at http://www.knkx.org/post/dreidel-dreidel-dreidel-seattle-connection-worlds-best-known-hanukkah-song
Daniel Radcliffe and
the Art of the Fact-Check Researching
his role in “The Lifespan of a Fact,” the actor embeds in The New Yorker’s
fact-checking department. by Michael Schulman
Fact: the actor Daniel Radcliffe is
currently starring in the Broadway show “The Lifespan of a Fact,” as a magazine
fact checker with an aviation inspector’s zeal for accuracy. The play is drawn from a real-life skirmish: in 2005, Jim Fingal, an intern at The
Believer, was tasked with fact-checking an essay by John D’Agata (played
by Bobby Cannavale), about a teen suicide in Las Vegas. D’Agata had more of a watercolorist’s approach
to the truth. When Fingal tried to
correct his claim that Las Vegas had thirty-four licensed strip clubs—a source
indicated that it was thirty-one—D’Agata said that he liked the “rhythm” of
thirty-four. Their epistolary tussle was
expanded into a book in
2012. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/10/15/daniel-radcliffe-and-the-art-of-the-fact-check
The University of Washington marching band was unable
to make the Apple Cup game at
Washington State when one of its charter buses crashed en
route. But Washington State's band
made sure the Husky Marching Band had a presence by playing Washington's fight
song, Bow Down to Washington, before
the rivalry game on November 23, 2018. The bus,
with 56 people aboard, rolled onto its side in bad weather November 22, 2018
while heading east on Interstate 90 toward Pullman, and 47 were taken to the
hospital for evaluation, according to the school. None of the injuries
was life-threatening, but the school decided to not continue with the trip to
allow the students to recover. That's
when the Washington State band stepped up. It began learning the fight song after hearing
about the accident and performed it during pregame. Mike Brehm
Link to videos at https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/ncaaf/pac12/2018/11/23/washington-state-marching-band-plays-huskies-fight-song-bus-crash/2098179002/
http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com November 26, 2018 Issue 1992
330th day of the year
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