Spreading like molten peanut brittle, a playful clinker brick wall ties a rear garden to a newly built Greene & Greene-style home.  When you start with an organic concept like a not-so-big bungalow, sometimes the house and garden must evolve to meet your needs.  That was the case for a Pennsylvania family of five in Bucks County.  When the designer/developer Bela Rossman showed them examples of the residential work of Arts & Crafts architects Charles and Henry Greene, the owners were intrigued.  A visit to Pasadena followed, including a tour of the Gamble House, with its iconic stained-glass triptych entry.  Clinker bricks are delightful accidents from the kiln. Irregular and lumpy, often luridly colored in shades of terra cotta, brown, purple, and black, these one-of-a-kind bricks were a favorite masonry detail of Pasadena architects Charles and Henry Greene.  Combined with smooth river rock in a blend sometimes called rubble mix, they gave an organic presence to Arts & Crafts porch piers, chimneys, and fireplaces in California and beyond.  Once considered trash, clinkers are now treasure.  While some salvage dealers offer vintage clinkers, at least one company is manufacturing new ones using the same methods that produced the originals.  The clinkers made by Gavin Historical Brick, for instance, are fired in ancient coal-fired beehive kilns for three weeks at a high, steady temperature.  Mary Ellen Polson  See wonderful  pictures at https://artsandcraftshomes.com/exteriors/follow-clinker-brick-road



Edmond Dantès is a title character and the protagonist of Alexandre Dumas, père's 1844 adventure novel The Count of Monte Cristo.  Within the story's narrative, Dantès is an intelligent, honest and loving man who turns bitter and vengeful after he is framed for a crime he did not commit.  When Dantès finds himself free and enormously wealthy, he takes it upon himself to reward those who have helped him in his plight and punish those responsible for his years of suffering.  James O'Neill, father of playwright Eugene, performed the title role over 6,000 times during his career.  Edmond Dantès has been portrayed on film many times by actors such as George Michael Dolenz, Sr., Robert Donat, Jean Marais, Louis Jourdan, Gérard Depardieu, Richard Chamberlain, and Jim Caviezel.  Dantès has also been portrayed on stage, including in a musical adaptation of the novel.  In the Japanese animated television series Gankutsuou: The Count of Monte Cristo, he is voiced by Jōji Nakata in the Japanese version and by Jamieson Price in the English dub.  There are also at least three adaptations into television soap operas, the last of which being the 2006 Mexican series Montecristo.  In 2011, ABC debuted the television drama Revenge, billed as a loose adaptation of Dumas' The Count of Monte Cristo.  In it, the character of Dantès is envisioned as a female protagonist by the name of Emily Thorne (portrayed by actress Emily VanCamp).  The story of Dantès's imprisonment in the Château d'If was likely inspired by the imprisonment of General Thomas-Alexandre Dumas (Alexandre Dumas, père's own father) in a dungeon fortress in Taranto, Italy, in 1799–1801.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmond_Dant%C3%A8s



Alexandre Dumas, père, (born July 24, 1802, Villers-Cotterêts, Aisne, France—died December 5, 1870, Puys, near Dieppe), one of the most prolific and most popular French authors of the 19th century.  Without ever attaining indisputable literary merit, Dumas succeeded in gaining a great reputation first as a dramatist and then as a historical novelist, especially for such works as The Count of Monte Cristo and The Three Musketeers.  His memoirs, which, with a mixture of candour, mendacity, and boastfulness, recount the events of his extraordinary life, also provide a unique insight into French literary life during the Romantic period.  He was the father (père) of the dramatist and novelist Alexandre Dumas, called Dumas fils.  The unfinished manuscript of a long-lost novel, Le Chevalier de Sainte-Hermine (The Last Cavalier), was discovered in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris in the late 1980s and first published in 2005.  https://www.britannica.com/biography/Alexandre-Dumas-pere



The Herzog August Library (German: Herzog August Bibliothek — "HAB"), in Wolfenbüttel, Lower Saxony, known also as Bibliotheca Augusta, is a library of international importance for its collection from the Middle Ages and early modern Europe.  The library was founded by Julius, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg in 1572.  In the 17th century it was the largest library north of the Alps.  The library was named after Duke Augustus (1579–1666), who greatly enlarged the collection, which was kept at Wolfenbüttel.  Armies passed by, back and forth, over the centuries, but the collection was well protected.  It was so highly regarded that generals placed the library under special protection, and the library is one of the oldest in the world to have never suffered loss to its collection.  In 2006 the library housed around 11,500 manuscripts and 900,000 books, of which 350,000 were printed between the 15th to 18th centuries.  Of these, 3,500 are incunabula, 75,000 are from the sixteenth century, 150,000 are from the seventeenth century, and 120,000 are from the eighteenth century.  See also http://www.hab.de/en/home/library/collections/rare-books.html and https://www.dw.com/en/worlds-most-expensive-book-makes-rare-appearance/a-2338420  Wolfenbüttel  is the only place where Jaggermeister (a digestif made with 56 herbs and spices at a strength of 35% alcohol by volume) https://www.jagermeister.com/en-US/ is made--mostly sold on college campuses in the USA.  Thank you, Muse reader! 



The Supreme Court on June 26, 2019 struck down a Tennessee law that requires individuals to live in the state for two years before obtaining a retail license to sell alcohol, a ruling that could give a boost to a large chain of liquor retailers in Tennessee and other states. 

The 7-2 ruling is a loss for the Tennessee Wine & Spirit Retailers Association, a trade group of in state retailers, that argued that the law was legal under the 21st Amendment that bolstered a state's authority to regulate alcohol.  But critics, including a national chain, said the law amounted to discrimination against out-of-state residents in violation of principles of the commerce clause.  "Because Tennessee's 2 year residency requirement for retail license applicants blatantly favors the State's residents and has little relationship to public health and safety, it is unconstitutional," Justice Samuel Alito wrote in the majority opinion.  Thirty-four States and the District of Columbia supported Tennessee and argued it was "vital" for states to have the authority to regulate the sale of alcohol because they realize that "excessive alcohol consumption poses great risks to local health and safety and that the liquor market is uniquely susceptible to infiltration by criminal elements."  Some 20 states have laws similar to Tennessee.  Ariane de Vogue and Kate Sullivan  https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/26/politics/supreme-court-tennessee-liquor-license/index.html



Mediterranean venue Mirazur has taken the number one spot at the World's 50 Best Restaurant Awards in Singapore--an event considered the Oscars of the fine dining world.   A new rule introduced this year rendered previous winners of the top award from being eligible for the list, so the one guarantee of the evening was that there would be a new star at the top of the pile.  The fundamental change excluded New York's Eleven Madison Park, The French Laundry in California, The Fat Duck near London and last year's winner, Osteria Francescana from Modena in Italy.  These restaurants will instead enter a 'Best of the Best' program.  The hotly tipped Noma, eligible for the top spot due to its new Copenhagen location, only made it to second place despite the buzz around what is perhaps the world's most famous restaurant.  Western Europe ruled the podium, with Spanish restaurant Asador Etxebarri--where all dishes, even dessert, are flame-grilled--taking third place.  Bangkok's Gaggan, which has topped the Asia's 50 Best Restaurants list a record four times, took fourth place and, naturally, the Best Restaurant in Asia award.  Maureen O'Hare  Read more and find full list of the top 50 restaurants at https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/worlds-50-best-restaurants-2019/index.html



Twitter Inc (TWTR.N) said on June 27, 2019 it would identify and deemphasize tweets that broke its rules but came from important sources, such as politicians, in order to strike a balance between free expression and accountability.  “We’ll now clearly label any tweets which violate our terms of service but decide to keep up due to public interest,” Twitter Chief Executive Jack Dorsey said.  If flagged, the notice would cover the offending tweet and require a user to click on a link to view it.  Twitter said the new rules would apply to politicians and government officials with more than 100,000 followers.  https://www.reuters.com/article/us-twitter-feature/twitter-to-put-notice-on-politician-tweets-that-break-its-rules-idUSKCN1TS2JX



The Supreme Court will not end extreme partisan gerrymandering.  In a 5-4 decision along ideological lines, the court ruled June 27, 2019 that partisan gerrymandering of congressional districts cannot be limited by federal courts.  Chief Justice John Roberts authored the majority opinion, writing that “what the appellees and dissent seek is an unprecedented expansion of judicial power.”  Despite the ruling, reformers have a few other avenues still open to them, which Roberts himself acknowledged.  The first is ballot initiatives, passed by a state’s voters, that give the power of redistricting to independent commissions.  Eight states currently use such commissions to draw both their state legislative and congressional maps. However, ballot initiatives or referenda are available to voters in only 26 states, largely west of the Mississippi.  Another option is to pass laws limiting gerrymandering. That’s an uphill climb, though.  State legislative action is rare, and congressional action on the national level is highly unlikely in the nearterm.  A final avenue is for reformers to bring complaints in state courts, based on state constitutions.  This model was first successful in Pennsylvania in 2018, when the state Supreme Court threw out Pennsylvania’s congressional map as an unlawful partisan gerrymander and ordered a redraw.  Galen Druke  
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/partisan-gerrymandering-isnt-the-supreme-courts-problem-anymore/



http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2117  June 28, 2019