“Virtual restaurants” are attached to real-life restaurants but make different cuisines specifically for the delivery apps.  “Ghost kitchens” have no retail presence and essentially serve as a meal preparation hub for delivery orders.  New York Times August 14, 2019 



THE STUFF DAYDREAMS ARE MADE OF  If I could go back in time, I would like to meet my great-grandfather, Henry Clay Derrick.  His papers telling of his stay in Egypt as an army engineer are in the Library of Congress.  After reviewing them and reading transcripts, I learned why he and other Confederate veterans spent time there.  It was because they couldn't find employment in the U.S. and needed to support their families. 



Forbidden Planet is a 1956 American science fiction film, produced by Nicholas Nayfack, directed by Fred M. Wilcox, that stars Walter Pidgeon, Anne Francis, and Leslie Nielsen.  Shot in Eastmancolor and CinemaScope, it is considered one of the great science fiction films of the 1950s, a precursor of contemporary science fiction cinema.  The characters and isolated setting have been compared to those in William Shakespeare's The Tempest, and the plot contains certain analogues to the play.  Forbidden Planet  was the first science fiction film to depict humans traveling in a faster-than-light starship of their own creation.  It was also the first to be set entirely on another planet in interstellar space, far away from Earth.  The Robby the Robot character is one of the first film robots that was more than just a mechanical "tin can" on legs; Robby displays a distinct personality and is an integral supporting character in the film.  Outside science fiction, the film was groundbreaking as the first of any genre to use an entirely electronic musical score, courtesy of Bebe and Louis Barron.  Forbidden Planet's effects team was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects at the 29th Academy Awards.  In 2013, the picture was entered into the Library of Congress' National Film Registry, being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".  The costumes worn by Anne Francis were designed by Helen Rose.  Her miniskirts were the first ever seen in a Hollywood film (not counting those seen in 1937's On the Avenue), and resulted in Forbidden Planet being banned in Spain; it was not shown there until 1967.  Other costumes were designed by Walter Plunkett.  A n Australian radio adaptation using the original electronic music and noted local actors was broadcast in June 1959 on The Caltex Radio Theatre.  In Stephen King's The Tommyknockers, Altair-4 is frequently referenced as the home planet of the titular alien presence.  In the authorized biography of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, Roddenberry notes that Forbidden Planet "was one of [his] inspirations for Star Trek".  Elements of the Doctor Who serial Planet of Evil were consciously based on the 1956 film.  Forbidden Planet and star Anne Francis are named alongside ten other classic science fiction films in the opening song "Science Fiction Double Feature" in the stage musical The Rocky Horror Show and its subsequent film adaptation.  The British musical Return to the Forbidden Planet was inspired by and loosely based on the MGM film, and won the Olivier Award for best musical of 1989/90.   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forbidden_Planet



-gress-, root  -gress- comes from Latin, where it has the meaning "step; move.''  It is related to -grad-.  This meaning is found in such words as:  aggression, congress, digress, egress, ingress, progress, regress, transgress.  https://www.wordreference.com/definition/-gress-



What is the place of art in a culture of inattention?  Recent visitors to the Louvre report that tourists can now spend only a minute in front of the Mona Lisa before being asked to move on.  Much of that time, for some of them, is spent taking photographs not even of the painting but of themselves with the painting in the background.  One view is that we have democratised tourism and gallery-going so much that we have made it effectively impossible to appreciate what we’ve travelled to see.  In this oversubscribed society, experience becomes a commodity like any other.  There are queues to climb Everest as well as to see famous paintings.  Leisure, thus conceived, is hard labour, and returning to work becomes a well-earned break from the ordeal.  What gets lost in this industrialised haste is the quality of looking.  Consider an extreme example, the late philosopher Richard Wollheim.  When he visited the Louvre he could spent as much as four hours sitting before a painting.  The first hour, he claimed, was necessary for misperceptions to be eliminated.  It was only then that the picture would begin to disclose itself.  This seems unthinkable today, but it is still possible to organise.  Even in the busiest museums there are many rooms and many pictures worth hours of contemplation which the crowds largely ignore.  Sometimes the largest throngs are partly the products of bad management and crowd control; the Mona Lisa is such a hurried experience today partly because the museum is being reorganised, so it is in a temporary room.  The Uffizi in Florence, another site of cultural pilgrimage, has cut its entry queues down to seven minutes by clever management.  https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/aug/25/the-guardian-view-on-museum-culture-take-your-time



Four of the Great Lakes—Erie, Huron, Ontario and Superior—are split between the U.S. and Canada.  (Lake Michigan is entirely in the U.S.)  Until 2017, American boaters did indeed need to be concerned about venturing into foreign waters and getting into trouble with customs authorities.  But that anxiety was eased with a Canadian law that allows boaters from the U.S. to cross the watery border freely unless they anchor there, contact another vessel, land in Canada, etc.  This harmonizes with American law.  https://parade.com/906843/marilynvossavant/who-owns-the-great-lakes/



White Cucumber varieties  The White Wonder, otherwise known as Albino, Ivory King, Jack Frost, Landreths White Slicing or the long white is an heirloom variety introduced in 1893.  White wonder cucumbers are perfect in salads or for pickling, marinating or simply eating raw.  Tired of boring old green cucumbers?   Some fans report that small white cucumbers can taste sweeter, while others report a more sour or bitter flavour when it comes to the larger white cucumbers.  But as with all fruit and vegetables it's always best to try before cooking, to balance any acididity or bitterness.  A post shared by Edith and Herbert   If you enjoy Japanese flavours try this "sunomo" salad with cucumber, ginger rice wine vinegar, salt and sugar, another great way to celebrate this ghostly beauty.  Find the recipe here.  Holly Cole  https://www.finedininglovers.com/article/white-cucumbers-how-eat-these-white-wonders



White Cucumber Gazpacho Recipe provided by RecipeTips  https://www.recipetips.com/recipe-cards/t--2728/white-cucumber-gazpacho.asp  serves 10, takes 30 minutes, has chicken broth and yogurt in it



The Poetry Foundation and Poetry magazine are pleased to announce the five recipients of the 2019 Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowships:  Franny Choi, Jane Huffman, José Olivarez, Justin Phillip Reed, and Michael Wasson.  Among the largest awards offered to young poets in the United States, the $25,800 prize is intended to encourage the further study and writing of poetry and is open to all U.S. poets between 21 and 31 years of age.  Established in 1989 by Ruth Lilly, the Ruth Lilly Poetry Fellowship program has dramatically expanded since its inception.  Until 1995, university writing programs nationwide each nominated one student poet for a single fellowship; from 1996 until 2007, two fellowships were awarded.  In 2008, the competition was opened to all U.S. poets between 21 and 31 years of age, and the number of fellowships increased to five, totaling $75,000.  In 2013, the Poetry Foundation received a generous gift from the Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Memorial Fund to create the Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowships, which increased the fellowship amount from $15,000 to $25,800.  Find list of all winners starting in 1989 at https://www.poetryfoundation.org/foundation/prizes-fellowship



WORD OF THE DAY  xerocracy noun   (informal) Political influence achieved by copying and distributing leaflets and similar material.  Wiktionary



http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1246  August 30. 2019