JAY WALKING AND JAY DRIVING It has been said that people who take their
lives in their hands in the big city by crossing the street anywhere dodge
across in the pattern of a letter J—hence J-walking. Do
not believe this. The experts are sure
the jay is the bird, one of the American jays, presumably the common blue
jay. From around the last quarter of the
nineteenth century, jay had been a
slang term in North America for a stupid, gullible, ignorant, or provincial
person, a rustic, bumpkin or simpleton. I
would guess it refers to the noisy chattering of these conversational
birds. Jay was
an insulting term for a foolish chattering person back in the 1500s. Some evidence recently unearthed by Douglas
Wilson suggests jay walker was
an adaptation of various earlier expressions, especially jay driver.
Against “Jay” Driving. The city
attorney prepared and submitted an ordinance which provides that teams and
vehicles, including automobiles, keep on the right-hand side of the street when
they travel farther than a half block and providing further that they shall not
pass crossings at a speed faster than a walk.
Ogden Standard, Utah, 18 April 1906. Other newspaper examples from the same period
suggest that the prime characteristic of a jay driver was that he wandered
about all over the road, causing confusion among other drivers. It was explained in the Emporia Gazette of Kansas on 13 July 1911: “A jay driver is a species of the human race
who, when driving either a horse or an automobile, or riding a bicycle on the
streets, does not observe the rules of the road. It is the custom of the jay driver to drive
on the wrong side of the street.” In the
second decade of the twentieth century we begin to see references in US papers
to the new term jaywalkers, usually because city councils are passing
ordinances to stop pedestrians crossing the street anywhere they wanted
to. The earliest I know of is this: Kansas City used to consider itself a town of
jay walkers. That is another line in which
New York deserves the discredit of being at the front of the procession. A typical Manhattan [person] would be run
over and trampled on the sidewalk if he tried to walk on State street in
Chicago as he walks on Broadway, New York.
He has never heard of the prehistoric principle of keeping to the
right—he ambles all over the sidewalk. Washington Post, 7 May 1911. (Reprinted from the Kansas City Star.)
Numerous others turn up in newspapers in the following couple of
years: in Washington DC in March 1913,
in Fort Wayne, Indiana, in June that year (in a report which defines a
jaywalker as “an alleged human being who crosses the street at other points
than the regular crossings”) and in October in Lincoln, Nebraska.
http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-jay1.htm
Classic Matzo Ball Soup from Comfort in an Instant by our good
friend Melissa Clark. For the sake of
efficiency, Melissa lays out the game plan for an easy multicooker version of
the soup that may turn out a bit cloudy yet still delicious. However, for the purists, she explains how to
make the soup with a few extra steps so that it can be served with a
crystal-clear broth. Home-style or classical--either
way sounds like comfort to us. https://www.splendidtable.org/recipes/classic-matzo-ball-soup
Cat's eye may refer to: Cat's Eye (novel),
a 1988 novel by Margaret Atwood, Catseye (novel),
a 1961 science fiction novel by Andre Norton, Catseye
(comics), Sharon Smith, a character from Marvel Comics, or Cat's Eye (manga), a 1983 Japanese
manga about three cat burglar sisters. Find many other uses at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat%27s_eye
February 24, 2018 The
age of internet has exposed writers to new levels of examination, such as the
allegations that Emma Cline, author of the best-selling novel The Girls, took ideas for the book
from her ex-boyfriend’s emails, and the various claims that Guillermo del
Toro’s Oscar contender, The Shape of
Water, is based on a 1969 play, Let Me Hear You Whisper,
or has copied scenes from two French films, Amélie and Delicatessen--allegations
which Del Toro, or his representatives, have denied. “Foreign-Returned”, by Sadia Shepard, published in the
New Yorker , tells of a professional Pakistani couple working and socialising
in America. In an interview published online to accompany the story, Shepard
acknowledged the “great debt” her story owes to Mavis Gallant’s “The Ice Wagon Going Down the Street”, itself published in the New
Yorker in 1963, which tells of a professional Canadian couple working and
socialising in Switzerland. “Ice Wagon”
is a story she returned to “year after year”, Shepard said. In doing so she thought “this feels so
Pakistani” and was excited by the idea of applying its “universal” truth to “a
completely different context”. Not
different enough, according to a series of barbed Facebook posts by the novelist and critic Francine Prose. That “debt”, she wrote, “is a scene by scene,
plot-turn by plot-turn, gesture by gesture, line-of-dialogue
by line-of-dialogue copy--the only major difference being that the main
characters here are Pakistanis in Connecticut during the Trump era instead of
Canadians in post WW-II Geneva.” Prose,
a devotee of Gallant’s fiction, went on to lament that her work “is now so
unread” that Shepard could “claim to have written what’s essentially her story
and publish it in the New Yorker”.
Jeremy Gavron Read extensive article at https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/feb/24/straightjacket-originality-homage-plagiarism
Psychologist Barry Schwartz takes aim
at a central tenet of western societies:
freedom of choice. In Schwartz's estimation,
choice has made us not freer but more paralyzed, not happier but more
dissatisfied. https://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_on_the_paradox_of_choice?language=en TED Talk July 2005 19:33
See also Is
the famous ‘paradox of choice’ a myth? at
Finland is officially the
happiest country in the world for the second year in a row--and now the country wants to spread that
happiness by offering people the chance to visit for free. In line with the United Nations' World
Happiness report, which gave Finland the happiest country title, the country's
tourism arm Visit Finland launched the "Rent
a Finn" initiative. The
premise: People can book their own Finn,
one of eight Finnish people who will serve as "happiness guides"
aiming to share their connection to nature. Those interested can learn all
about the guides via short profiles and videos on the Rent a Finn website. To apply:
Tell the country about yourself in a short video, and talk about
your connection to nature and why you'd want to go to Finland. Fill out a form on the Rent a Finn website,
with the video included. Visit Finland
will reach out to the visitors they've chosen. The application is open now and people
have until April 14, 2019 to finish (Finnish?) up.
Those chosen for the
trip will visit the country for three days, and can go by themselves or with a
friend or their family. The exact dates
might vary by host. The trip is free,
including both travel and host accommodation expenses. Anywhere else you
travel after that in Finland won't be paid for. David Oliver https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/news/2019/03/21/finland-happiest-country-world-wants-people-visit-free/3231881002/
The usual systematic name for water is hydrogen oxide, though it is more commonly
just referred to as water. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/dihydrogen_monoxide#English March 22 is designated by the United Nations as World Water Day, which focuses on the
importance of fresh water and
the sustainable management of freshwater resources.
March 2019 is the fiftieth anniversary of
the novel Slaughterhouse-Five or The Children’s Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death by Kurt Vonnegut. https://bookstr.com/article/the-50th-anniversary-of-slaughterhouse-five-is-upon-us/
Lawrence Ferlinghetti—who will turn 100 March 24, 2019—has a lot to
celebrate. Once a standout poet of the Beat Generation, his bookstore has
become a popular landmark and the small press of the same name is still in
business after more than 60 years. His
1958 book of poetry A Coney Island of the Mind sold more than a
million copies. Ferlinghetti has always been an advocate for the
underdog, in part because of his own life story—and it's a tale right out of
Dickens. His father died shortly before
he was he was born, and his mother was committed to a mental hospital shortly
after. He was raised by an aunt, and
then by foster parents. His new
autobiographical novel, Little Boy, begins like this: "Little Boy was quite lost. He had no idea who he was or where he had come
from." Tom Vitale https://www.npr.org/2019/03/20/704903571/a-lost-little-boy-nears-100-poet-and-publisher-lawrence-ferlinghetti
NCAA bracket 2019: Printable March Madness bracket .PDF
http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com Issue 2068
March 22, 2019
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