Walt Whitman walked about in his America, noticing and noting down.   Famously containing multitudes.  Famously willing even to contradict himself.  Including minute details of ornithological observation and the sky studded with stars.  Occupations and classes of people.  Men, women, children.  Words:  cymballine, quoits, simulacrum, gamut, Paphian, agonistic, melange, trottoirs, coreopsis, interstices, mulleins, chyle, riant, autochthons . . . Whitman's words, more than 13,000 different ones, by some estimates.  And many discourses.  He was familiar with contemporary thought about electricity and atoms, with the theology of Elias Hicks, with the historical theory of Thomas Carlyle.  And then there was music.  The poems use more than two hundred different musical terms and mention more than two dozen different instruments.  In Whitman's youthful journalism and in the memoirs of old age, music appears often, music of all kinds.  Whitman wrote an editorial urging the regular study of music in American schools.  He proposed an American opera using three (or more) banjos in the orchestra and including arias accompanied only by the banjo.  He told a friend that more of his poems than he could remember had been inspired by music, heard in the streets, in the theater, or in private.  In defending his poetry against accusations of formlessness, he claimed to construct his poems in the manner of Italian opera.  "Nobody could write in my way unless he had the melody singing in his ears . . . in the older pieces I always had a tune before I began to write."  And in the poem "I Hear America Singing," he celebrated the music welling up all around him.  https://www.loc.gov/item/ihas.200152679/

I hear America singing | Whitman, Walt 1819-1892  Billy Collins, former United States Poet Laureate, reads Walt Whitman's poem I hear America singing.  https://www.loc.gov/item/ihas.100010968/

Roasting sweet potato and apples with a little sherry vinegar and tossing them with farro, dried cherries and roasted cashews makes for a hearty cold-weather dish.  Michael Sceifo  Find recipe serving six at https://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/farro-vinegar-glazed-sweet-potato-and-apples  The farro salad can be refrigerated overnight.  Stir in cashews and parsley just before serving at room temperature.

We cannot direct the wind, but we can adjust the sails.  Who said this?  In 1859 the well-known spiritualist Cora L. V. Hatch delivered a lecture at the Cooper Institute while in a trance as reported in “The Cleveland Plain Dealer”.  Hatch employed a version of the expression:  You could not prevent a thunderstorm, but you could use the electricity; you could not direct the wind, but you could trim your sail so as to propel your vessel as you pleased, no matter which way the wind blew.  Read similar quotes attributed to various sources from 1832 through 2012 at https://quoteinvestigator.com/2017/06/25/adjust-sails/

The strength of each member is our team.  There is no 'I' in 'team'.  *  Everyone should have what they consider to be an adventure, no matter how small.  There is opportunity everywhere  *  Four Mums in a Boat, story of four friends and their boat, Rose, as they rowed across the Atlantic Ocean, 2017

This inspirational team of wonder women--known collectively as the Yorkshire Rows--spent 68 hard days rowing 3,000 miles across the Atlantic from the Canary Island La Gomera to Antigua as part of the Talisker Whisky Challenge--billed as the toughest rowing race on earth--and have rowed their way into the history books as the oldest female crew to cross an ocean.  The awesome foursome also raised--and are continuing to raise--thousands along the way for Yorkshire Air Ambulance and Maggie's, a cancer support centre in Leeds.  https://www.yorkshirelife.co.uk/people/how-the-yorkshire-rows-transatlantic-journey-earned-them-a-place-in-the-record-books-1-4469354

RBG AS MINIFIG  Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is stepping out in a new role as a gavel-wielding minifigure in "The Lego Movie 2:  The Second Part."  Lego Ginsburg, in her Supreme Court robe naturally, will be shown in the new trailer spot released Sunday for the "Lego Movie" sequel coming to screens February 8, 2019.   Her new role has Lego perks.  Ginsburg will become an official "Lego Movie 2" figurine.  There will be a real Ruth Bader Ginsburg toy that boys and girls can play with.  It will come with a gavel.  Bryan Alexander  https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/movies/2019/01/19/ruth-bader-ginsburg-minifig-a-lego-movie-2/2624798002/

Photos:  Last total lunar eclipse of the decade glows red around the world by Brian Lada and Renee Duff  Includes eye-catching picture at Philadelphia City Hall  https://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/photos-last-total-lunar-eclipse-of-the-decade-glows-red-around-the-world/70007207

Martin Luther King Day is a federal holiday celebrated on the third Monday of January.  Some educational establishments mark the day by teaching their pupils or students about the work of Martin Luther King and the struggle against racial segregation and racism.  In recent years, federal legislation has encouraged Americans to give some of their time on this day as volunteers in citizen action groups.  Martin Luther King Day, also known as Martin Luther King’s birthday and Martin Luther King Jr Day, is combined with other days in different states.  For example, it is combined with Civil Rights Day in Arizona and New Hampshire, while it is observed together with Human Rights Day in Idaho.  It is also a day that is combined with Robert E. Lee’s birthday in some states.  The day is known as Wyoming Equality Day in the state of Wyoming.  See picture of "The Stone of Hope"memorial by sculptor Lei Yixin at https://www.timeanddate.com/holidays/us/martin-luther-king-day

THOUGHT FOR TODAY  Walking is also an ambulation of mind. - Gretel Ehrlich, novelist, poet, and essayist (b. 21 Jan 1946)

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  January 21, 2019  Issue 2025