carousal, carousel, carrousel  noun  From the verb carouse, the noun carousal refers to a drinking party or spree.  A carousel is a revolving structure or device, such as a merry-go-round, baggage platform or photographic slide carrier.  Note that carrousel is a variant spelling.  https://www.btb.termiumplus.gc.ca/tpv2guides/guides/wrtps/index-eng.html?lang=eng&lettr=indx_catlog_c&page=98EjUN2_Wb9Q.html



There is a long tradition of rose water being used in medicine, including in Iran and other parts of the Middle East, as far back as the 7th century.  There is also evidence of North American Indian tribes using it to treat ailments.  Rose water can usually be used without any side effects.  Rose water contains numerous, powerful antioxidants.  Recent research has found that it can help relax the central nervous system.  Due to its soothing and anti-inflammatory effect, rose water can be taken to treat a sore throat.  Furthermore, a study has shown that it can act as a relaxant on the muscles in the throat.  Research has shown that rose water has antidepressant and anti-anxiety properties.  It is believed to induce sleep and to have a hypnotic effect similar to that of the pharmaceutical drug diazepam.  Tom Seymour  https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/320216.php  The Muser has a recipe for a cake calling for rosewater as one of the ingredients.



Gad zooks (God's hooks)  Gad was a common term used to avoid speaking the name of God--an example of a minced oath.  That taboo, although still influential amongst the devout, is now much weaker and the use of gad has diminished as a consequence.  In the 17th century we would have had a choice of such 'gad' words--gadsbobs, gadsbodikins, gadsbud, gadsbudlikins, gadslid, gadsniggers, gadsnigs, gadsnouns, gadsokers, gadsookers, gadsprecious, gadswookers, gadswoons--gad pretty much anything you like.  These share a format with many reduplications--many of which also take an existing word and add a secondary made-up word for emphasis.  The only gad . . . form to have survived is gadzooks.  That is still used but it has gone the same way as prithee and odd's bodkins, that is, stagey allusions to history that are wheeled out for comic effect--Gadzooks Mrs Miggins, bring me more veal pies.  https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/146125.html


A little-known short story by John Steinbeck has been published for the first time in English, 65 years after it first emerged in a French daily in Paris.  “The Amiable Fleas” was published in July 1954 in “Le Figaro” and is one of 17 articles and short stories Steinbeck wrote as part of his “An American in Paris” series.  While Steinbeck’s estate was aware of the short story’s existence, it is available to read in English for the first time by literary quarterly The Strand Magazine July 31, 2019.  Alison Thoet  Read more at https://www.pbs.org/newshour/arts/a-rediscovered-john-steinbeck-short-story-is-a-comical-tale-of-a-chef-and-his-cat



Muse feedback:  Your piece on the littoral zone bought to mind Harvard professor John Stilgoe's book Alongshore (Yale, 1994) which is a philosophical/historical/geographical reflection on the ephemeral geography of the shore.  From the book's description:  "Drawing on sources as diverse as Thoreau and Kate Chopin, agricultural newspapers and the Hardy Boys, and always emphasizing his own hikes and small-boat passages along the coast, Stilgoe provides a guidebook for anyone intrigued by the seacoast, 'the last place in which adult Americans walk barefoot.'  He describes guzzles (configurations of sand), gunkholes (unfrequented harbors), and loomings (optical phenomena on the horizon).  He explains why watchtowers stand guard all along the Atlantic coast; why wharves are perennially decaying; the different ways that pirates have been perceived through the centuries; and why local women of the shore towns wear bikinis."  Stilgoe specializes in observation and understudied areas of landscape such as areas behind shopping centers and abandoned railroad right-of-ways.  A professor of Visual and Environmental Studies at Harvard since 1977, he describes himself as “the kind of person who wanders around noticing things.”  https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2015/4/2/scrutiny-john-stilgoe/  See also https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2015/4/2/scrutiny-john-stilgoe/  Thank you, Muse reader!



Billie Burke was born Mary William Ethelbert Appleton Burke on August 7, 1885 in Washington, D.C.  Her father was the internationally famous clown, Billy Burke, and she would spend most of her early years touring Europe before the family settled in London.  In 1903, she appeared on the stage as an actress and came to America in 1907 to star opposite John Drew in "My Wife".  A red-haired beauty, she became the toast of Broadway and married promoter Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. in April 1914.  Billie was signed in 1915 to make the film Peggy (1916).  Of the next 15 films that she made, she would make 14 in New York.  In between films, she would return to the stage which was her first love.  Her last films were released in 1921 and she went into semi-retirement until their fortune was wiped out in 1929.  Billie would return to films to support herself and her husband. Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. would die, a broken man, in 1932.  It was in the comedy drama Dinner at Eight (1933) that Billie would find the character that she would play the rest of her career.  It is the hapless, feather-brained lady with the unmistakably high voice who would be more interested in little details than what was at hand.  Beginning in 1937, she starred in the "Topper" series of films (Topper (1937), Topper Takes a Trip (1938) and Topper Returns (1941)) for producer Hal Roach in which she played Mrs. Topper with her usual fluffy performance.  But for most of the people who were raised on television, she will always be remembered as Glinda, the Good Witch in The Wizard of Oz (1939).  She continued to make films though out the 1940s and started another series with Father of the Bride (1950) and the follow-up Father's Little Dividend (1951).  A real trouper, she next went to television with the television series Doc Corkle (1952).  The series was canceled after three weeks due to poor writing.  By 1953, her career was slowing down and she would only make three more movies in 1959 and 1960.  The best remembered one would be John Ford's Western Sergeant Rutledge (1960).  Billie Burke retired for good and lived in Los Angeles, California, where she died at age 85 May 14, 1970.  - IMDb Mini Biography By: Tony Fontana < tony.fontana@spacebbs.com>  https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000992/bio?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm

Nobel laureate Toni Morrison, a pioneer of modern American literature who wrote about race and the pursuit of freedom in transcendent prose, died August 5, 2019 after a brief illness, her family said through publisher Alfred A. Knopf.  The Wall Street Journal  August 7, 2019 



Word of the Day  calabash (plural calabashes)  A tree (known as the calabash tree; Crescentia cujete) native to Central and South America, the West Indies, and southern Florida, bearing large, round fruit used to make containers (sense 3); the fruit of this tree. quotations ▼ The bottle gourd (calabash vine, Lagenaria siceraria), believed to have originated in Africa, which is grown for its fruit that are used as a vegetable and to make containers (sense 3); the fruit of this plant. quotations ▼ A container made from the mature, dried shell of the fruit of one of the above plants; also, a similarly shaped container made from some other material. quotations ▼ A calabash and its contents; as much as fills such a container. quotations ▼ (music)  A musical instrument, most commonly a drum or rattle, made from a calabash fruit.  https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/calabash#English



http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2134  August 7, 2019