"I get the news I need from the weather report.  I can gather all the news I need from the weather report." The Only Living Boy in New York, composed and sung by Paul Simon in1969   Some get all the news they need from newspapers, sports stories, social media, news aggregations, blogs, other people, radio or TV. 

Feathers are some of the strongest and lightest structures formed of living tissue.  When fluffed up, they act as insulation.  When pressed tightly, they expel excess heat. * Birds of prey can store large amounts of food, and survive fine to seven days without eating. * Owls can hear sounds ten times faster than humans. * Birds of prey can scan the ground or water from hundreds, sometimes thousands of feet in the air, pinpointing their target with precision. * Falcons are the world's fastest animals. * Skyward, a novel by Mary Alice Monroe

Silhouettes of Birds of Prey in Flight  http://fauconeduc.biz/documents/BOPSilhouettes_FEweb12.pdf

The word silhouette, in French and English, originally referred to cut-out profile portraits in black paper, resembling a shadow of the sitter.  Etienne de Silhouette was born in Limoges in 1709.  He was to rise to the rank of contrôleur général des finances at the court of King Louis by the age of fifty.  Attempting to get state finances into better shape, he advocated cutting spending, getting rid of loopholes that allowed rich state officials to avoid paying tax, and imposing a touch of austerity on the lavish spending of the royal court.  This last proposal in particular didn’t go down too well, and he was booted out of office, retiring from public life to live on his country estate for the rest of his days.  Silhouette’s attempted reforms led his enemies to call him a skinflint, and his name was soon associated with meanness and frugality.  Apparently, breeches without money-pockets were known as ‘culottes à la Silhouette’ at the time.  It’s been claimed that this is the reason Silhouette gave his name to the shadow-portraits, either because they were a ‘portrait-on-the-cheap’, or because they thinned people down to a shadow of themselves.  That may just be part of the general slander Silhouette suffered after his short-lived stint in control of the nation’s purse strings.  Other accounts suggest he was a genuine enthusiast for shadow-portraits, and would sit guests to his home in front of a blank canvas, before using a special lamp to project their shadow onto it for him to draw around.  Either way, whether he was an enthusiast for the craft or a victim of some very roundabout insult, it’s unlikely that Silhouette was the inventor of the technique.  For starters, shadow puppets have been in use in south-east Asia for at least a thousand years.  https://bookshelf.mml.ox.ac.uk/2015/09/23/great-french-lives-etienne-de-silhouette/  See also Silhouettes and Figure Ground Illusions at https://drydenart.weebly.com/fugleblog/silhouettes-and-figure-ground-illusions

List of Optical Illusions  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_optical_illusions

Binocular Single Vision may be defined as the state of simultaneous vision, which is achieved by the coordinated use of both eyes, so that separate and slightly dissimilar images arising in each eye are appreciated as a single image by the process of fusion.  Thus binocular vision implies fusion, the blending of sight from the two eyes to form a single percept.  http://webeye.ophth.uiowa.edu/eyeforum/tutorials/bhola-binocularvision.htm

For my Easy Chicken Korma I give traditional whole spice substitutions, use almond butter instead of soaking and puréeing the nuts, and use chopped, boneless chicken.  The sauce is amazing and is perfect served over rice.  For those new to the term, Korma is an Indian dish consisting of meat or vegetables that are braised with yogurt or cream and spices to produce a thick sauce.  Kevin O'Leary   Find the easy recipe at https://keviniscooking.com/easy-chicken-korma/  See also Chicken Korma recipe by Swasthi at https://www.indianhealthyrecipes.com/chicken-korma-recipe/

'Hither and yon' is an old English expression meaning 'here and there' or 'to and fro'.  There have been several alternative ways of expressing the phrase, depending on where and when the speaker lived.  'Hither' was first used in Old English in the 8th century, in the form 'hyder' or hider', which later morphed into 'hether' in the 17th century, 'hither' in the mid 1700s and finally 'here' today.  Francis Grose was the first to record 'hither' in its current spelling, in A provincial glossary:  with a collection of local proverbs, and popular superstitions, 1787, citing it to be colloquial northern English:  Hither and yon, here and there, backwards and forwards.  Grose was an indefatigable lexicographer and his glossary and other works are a boon to etymologists.  He was amongst the first to record numerous expressions that are now part of our language, including:  Yellow belly, Down in the dumps, Before you could say Jack Robinson, Old hat, and Peeping Tom.  https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/hither-and-yon.html

Follow-up to French Prime Minister François Fillon declaring that the title mademoiselle (Miss) will no longer be included on any government forms or documents.  The story recounts an anniversary of the declaration on or about February 22, 2012.

Follow-up to Norwegian Lefse  Lefse is like something in the taco-crepe-nan sort of thing.  The good taste mostly comes from the spread used.  Kringla is a figure 8 dough (many) laid out on a baking tray.  One of its principle ingredients is buttermilk so it has that flavor.  Not flaky, not sweet.  Kumla is a Norwegan dumpling made with fine ground potato and flour (paste?).  The taste largely comes from the smoked ham hock broth that the Kumla are boiled in.  Lots of butter is used while eating them.

Follow-up to Barbara Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible having  five narrators.  Rashomon is a film version of a story told by different narrators at trial.  A classic!  See it today.  It will make you forever skeptical of "eyewitness" testimony.  Everyone puts a self-serving spin on what he "saw."  The same story is told in court by four individuals. Thank you, Muse readers!

Winners at the 91st Academy Awards included Alfonso Cuarón’s Netflix drama Roma, the Bradley Cooper-Lady Gaga musical A Star is Born and Green Book, which stars Viggo Mortensen and Mahershala Ali.  The former led with 10 alongside Yorgos Lanthimos’s The Favourite, with Adam McKay’s political satire Vice following close behind with eight.  Jacob Stolworthy  Find complete list of winners at https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/news/oscars-winners-list-full-2019-roma-bohemian-rhapsody-green-book-the-favourite-a8795181.html

Historically, the City of Angels has always been the city of dreams, the great majority revolving around the silver screen.  The motion picture industry was largely responsible for Los Angeles's founding, so it has always seemed odd that this industry town has never had a museum dedicated to cinema.  That is until now:  Under the creative eye of Renzo Piano, the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, devoted to both the art and science of moviemaking, is currently being built and is slated to open in late 2019.  The work of the Pritzker Prize winner, along with executive architect Gensler, will be housed in the 1939 May Company Building at the intersection of Wilshire and Fairfax, with renovation and expansion a part of the scheme.  When completed, the six-floor museum will encompass 300,000 square feet with permanent and temporary exhibition galleries, an education studio, and two theaters.  Its jewel in the crown is a spherical addition capped by a glass dome offering panoramic views of the Hollywood Hills.  Edie Cohen  Read more and see many pictures at https://www.interiordesign.net/articles/15804-renzo-piano-designed-academy-museum-of-motion-pictures-to-make-la-debut-in-late-2019/  See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_works_by_Renzo_Piano

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY  The pain passes but the beauty remains. - Pierre-Auguste Renoir, artist [responding to Matisse on why he painted in spite of his painful arthritis] (25 Feb 1841-1919)

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2050  February 25, 2019