Cush-cush/Couche-couche/Cosh-cosh  This simple cornbread dish was once the everyday supper for Cajuns.  Served with milk, figs or cane syrup and even chopped pork cracklings.  Find recipe at https://www.realcajunrecipes.com/recipe/cosh-cosh-or-cush-cush-or-couche-couche/

The Healey Guest House, or "Cocoon House" in Sarasota, Florida was designed by Ralph S. Twitchell and partner Paul Rudolph in 1948.  The structure was built as a guest house for a member of the Twitchell family. The architects had formed a partnership several years earlier drawing upon each other's abilities and interests.  Ralph Spencer Twitchell had worked in Sarasota since the 1920's when he served as office supervisor for Dwight James Baum.  That office completed work on Sarasota's best known Mediterranean Revival buildings including the Ca 'd Zan, The El Vernona Hotel (later known as John Ringling Towers), the El Vernona Apartments (now known as Belle Haven Apartments), the Sarasota Times Building and the Sarasota County Courthouse.  The basis for much of Twitchell's work, including after his association with Paul Rudolph, was in the use of innovational materials, successfully addressing Sarasota's climate, bringing the outdoors indoors, simplicity of design, and custom treatments for each client's needs.  While those elements were not the sole property of Twitchell, an atmosphere of inspired architecture prevailed in Sarasota spanning the 1950's and 1960's, which has become known in architectural circles as the Sarasota School of Architecture.  The Cocoon House was selected in 1953 by the New York Museum of Modern Art as one of the 19 examples of houses built since World War II as a pioneer design foreshadowing the future.  The structure has been the subject of considerable study, appearing in most of the major architectural periodicals of the time.  Today the structure is a regular topic in architecture school curricula.  See picture at http://www.sarasotahistoryalive.com/history/buildings/cocoon-house  See also https://savingplaces.org/stories/paul-rudolphs-cocoon-house-emerges-newly-restored#.XFoec1VKiUk

The Jerome Robbins Dance Division of The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts provides information and multimedia documents about dance—old and new—to the dance community and the general public.  On average, over 12,000 people a year study oral histories, manuscripts, photographs, original designs, engravings, books, programs, reviews, and other materials in the world's most comprehensive dance library.  The Division actively documents dance works, using experienced professional videographers, and initiates oral history interviews with artists.  Its study collection ranges from anthropologist Claire Holt's photographs of Javanese ritual to the letters and choreographic notes of modern dance pioneer Doris Humphrey.  Recent additions include the Rudolf Nureyev Collection, the Jerome Robbins Collection, and the Merce Cunningham Dance Foundation Collection.  In the fall of 2001, the Library for the Performing Arts returned to a newly renovated building in Lincoln Center. www.nypl.org  Learn more in Jerome Robbins Dance Division of The New York Public Library, an essay by Imogen Sara Smith.  http://danceheritage.org/nypl.html

A Velocity of Being:  Letters to a Young Reader, a collection of original letters to the children of today and tomorrow about why we read and what books do for the human spirit, is composed by 121 of the most interesting and inspiring humans in our world:  Jane Goodall, Yo-Yo Ma, Jacqueline Woodson, Ursula K. Le Guin, Mary Oliver, Neil Gaiman, Amanda Palmer, Rebecca Solnit, Elizabeth Gilbert, Shonda Rhimes, Alain de Botton, James Gleick, Anne Lamott, Diane Ackerman, Judy Blume, Eve Ensler, David Byrne, Sylvia Earle, Richard Branson, Daniel Handler, Marina Abramović, Regina Spektor, Elizabeth Alexander, Adam Gopnik, Debbie Millman, Dani Shapiro, Tim Ferriss, Ann Patchett, a 98-year-old Holocaust survivor, Italy’s first woman in space, and many more immensely accomplished and large-hearted artists, writers, scientists, philosophers, entrepreneurs, musicians, and adventurers whose character has been shaped by a life of reading.  Read more, see graphics, and sign up for newsletter at https://www.brainpickings.org/2018/11/20/a-velocity-of-being-letters-to-a-young-reader/  Thank you, Muse reader!

Phishing is the act of committing fraud by posing as a legitimate and often widely-known company or brand.  People buy up domains that are closely related in spelling to a real domain and duplicate the actual brand’s website.  Then they go about capturing information for the purpose of identity theft.  Spoofing is the act of forging an email heading so that it appears it came from someone else.  This is common among fraudsters who want to install keyloggers on victims’ computers.  They hope to obtain bank account information and passwords.  Ghosting is a term for breaking up with someone by cutting of contact with them completely.  The person ghosting ignores any attempts of further contact.  Catfishing is the act of luring someone into a perceived (or real) relationship via an online persona that doesn’t exist.  https://www.bark.us/blog/phishing-spoofing-ghosting-catfishing/

A Revitalized Historic Farm Thrives in One of Boston’s Oldest Neighborhoods by Amy Sutherland   In 2013, a Boston city crew bushwhacked its way across a mostly vacant, overgrown lot in the densely residential neighborhood of Mattapan.  The site had been neglected for at least a few years, and it showed.  Trees, brambles, and vines threatened to tumble over the surrounding graffiti-covered fence.  Some neighbors had taken to dumping their trash over the chain link.  A shingled old house stood amid the thicket, its second-floor windows open to the weather and intruders.  For two weeks, crew members cleared out trash and cut back the jungle.  They filled six dumpsters.  Finally, they got a good look at the house and carriage house (which became known as “the barn”).  One of the city’s few 18th-century farmsteads was still standing.  Five years later, thanks to a $3.8 million restoration project spearheaded by nonprofit Historic Boston Inc. (HBI), not only have the historic house and barn been saved, but rows of vegetables grow where once only weeds did.  The Fowler Clark Epstein Farm, named for its three major owners over its 200-plus-year history, saw its first harvest in decades in summer 2018.  One of the oldest existing farms in Boston is once again in operation.  When more than 500 people showed up for the grand opening in late June of 2018, the farm looked like a farm for the first time in more than a century.  Over the summer and fall, the institute’s trainees could be spotted each morning weeding their way down the rows of vegetables, which grew taller by the day.  In September, 2018 the farm hosted its first wedding.  On Friday afternoons through October, people came to the farmers market to buy the well-priced produce and to see for themselves how the former eyesore has been transformed.  Read extensive article and see many pictures at https://savingplaces.org/stories/a-revitalized-historic-farm-thrives-in-one-of-bostons-oldest-neighborhoods#.XFoel1VKiUk

The inventor of the World Wide Web, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, has published an open letter to mark the 30th anniversary of the day—March 12, 1989—when he submitted his original proposal for an information management system that went on to underpin the birth of online services.  The proposal, dubbed “vague but exciting” by his boss at the time, married hypertext with Internet TCP and domain name system ideas.  Berners-Lee also had to design and build a web browser and put together the first web server.  The first website was put up a couple of years later, running on a NeXT computer at CERN, where Berners-Lee had worked.  In recent years, Berners-Lee has made a series of public interventions, warning especially about corporate capture of the online sphere.  He’s also working on new decentralization technologies to try to break the grip of dominant digital walled gardens.  The academic turned entrepreneur certainly cannot be accused of shying away from the societal challenges his invention now poses.  But his anniversary letter urges people not to give up on the web. “If we give up on building a better web now, then the web will not have failed us. We will have failed the web,” he suggests.  The letter, which can be read in full here on the Web Foundation’s site, boils the problem of web misuse into three distinct categories:  Deliberate, malicious intent, such as state-sponsored hacking and attacks, criminal behaviour, and online harassment.  System design that creates perverse incentives where user value is sacrificed, such as ad-based revenue models that commercially reward clickbait and the viral spread of misinformation.  Unintended negative consequences of benevolent design, such as the outraged and polarised tone and quality of online discourse.  Natasha Lomas  https://techcrunch.com/2019/03/12/marking-30-years-of-the-web-tim-berners-lee-calls-for-a-joint-fight-against-disinformation/

Pi Day is an annual celebration of the mathematical constant π (pi).  Pi Day is observed on March 14 (3/14 in the month/day format) since 3, 1, and 4 are the first three significant digits of π.  In 2009, the United States House of Representatives supported the designation of Pi Day.  Pi Approximation Day is observed on July 22 (22/7 in the day/month format), since the fraction ​²²⁄₇ is a common approximation of π, which is accurate to two decimal places and dates from Archimedes.  Two Pi Day, also known as Tau Day, is lightly observed on June 28 (6/28 in the month/day format).  In 1998, the earliest known official or large-scale celebration of Pi Day was organized by Larry Shaw at the San Francisco Exploratorium, where Shaw worked as a physicist, with staff and public marching around one of its circular spaces, then consuming fruit pies.  The Exploratorium continues to hold Pi Day celebrations.  See graphics at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pi_Day

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2062  March 13, 2019