Tuesday, November 26, 2019


Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini (1883-1945) was an Italian journalist and politician, who rose to prominence in the first half of the 20th century as the head of the National Fascist Party as well as the Prime Minister of Italy.  Mussolini became the Prime Minister of Italy in 1922 and continued to rule the country till 1943, during which he turned the form of governance into a dictatorship.  Find quotes by Mussolini, including "All within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state." and
"We become strongest, I feel, when we have no friends upon whom to lean, or to look for moral guidance." at https://quotes.thefamouspeople.com/benito-mussolini-817.php

To mince has, since the 1500s, meant to make light of, specifically to use polite language when making a criticism.  Shakespeare used this this in Henry V:  I know no wayes to mince it in loue, but directly to say, I loue you.  and in Antony & Cleopatra:  Speake to me home, Mince not the generall tongue, name Cleopatra as she is call'd in Rome.  For the first use in print of 'mince words' we need to wait until the 19th century. Benjamin Disraeli, who was a novellist as well as a politician, used it in his 1826 story Vivian Grey:  Your Lordship’s heart is very warm in the cause of a party, which, for I will not mince my words, has betrayed you.  https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/to-mince-words.html  Copyright © Gary Martin, 2019

At the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond, there's a particularly interactive exhibition involving famous American realist artist Edward Hopper.  The special exhibit runs through February 23, 2020 and includes, for a lucky number of guests, an overnight in a Hopper painting.  "Western Motel," is the painting-turned-hotel room at the center of the months-long exhibition titled "Hopper Hotel Experience."  In total, the museum is showing 60 works of art by the artist, who's known for depicting American landscapes and --and often for capturing a certain loneliness or detachment one feels in a big, bustling city.  Other notable American artists, including John Singer Sargent, David Hockney and Berenice Abbott, also have works on display, but the centerpiece is undoubtedly the three-dimensional living space.  Travis Fullerton  Read more and see pictures at https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/hopper-room-museum-richmond-virginia/index.html

TEA FOR THREE:  Lady Bird, Pat & Betty by  Eric H. Weinberger and Elaine Bromka  Full-length Play  Comedy | Drama  Cast size:  1 to 3w.  What is it like for a woman when her husband becomes the president of the United States—and she is suddenly thrust into the spotlight?  This witty, sly and deeply moving script explores the hopes, fears and loves of Lady Bird Johnson, Pat Nixon and Betty Ford.  In three scenes taking place in the family quarters of the White House just prior to the end of living there as the wife of a president, each of the women confides alone to the audience.  Secrets are spilled about their early years, their husbands' rise to power, their romances with the men, their unique paths as wives in the White House, and their feelings about imminent retirement.  Each of the three portraits becomes intimate, by degrees, as the women wrestle with what Pat Nixon called "the hardest unpaid job in the world."  https://www.dramaticpublishing.com/browse/full-length-plays/tea-for-three-lady-bird-pat-betty

TEA FOR THREE  (2013)  A book in the Tea Shop Mysteries series by Laura Childs

TEA FOR THREE is "a small business in the Big Apple."  "You buy a tea.  We donate to the Canopy Project."  Luxury tea for every day.  Hand-blended in small batches.  https://www.facebook.com/teaforthreenyc/

 Little Women may have paid the bills, but Louisa May Alcott was far more passionate about her sensationalist thrillers.  Stephanie Sylverne has the story. | CrimeReads
Recent German theatrical adaptations of Anna Karenina and Don Quixote make the case that long literary works can, in fact, translate to the stage. | The New York Times 
 “I am in this room [semicolon] and so is my mother.”  Read Sarah Broom’s National Book Awards speech. | Vulture
A history of “the quietest room in San Francisco”—the Poetry Room at City Lights Bookstore. | SFGate   Lit Hub Daily  November 22, 2019

PULLMAN, Wash. —  November 23, 2019  The apple tree stands alone near the top of a steep hill, wind whipping through its branches as a perfect sunset paints its leaves a vibrant gold.  It has been there for more than a century, and there is no hint that the tree or its apples are anything out of the ordinary.  But this scraggly specimen produces the Arkansas Beauty, a so-called heritage fruit long believed to be extinct until amateur botanists in the Pacific Northwest tracked it down three years ago.  It’s one of 13 long-lost apple varieties rediscovered by a pair of retirees in the remote canyons, wind-swept fields and hidden ravines of what was once the Oregon Territory.  E.J. Brandt and David Benscoter, who together form the nonprofit Lost Apple Project, log countless hours and hundreds of miles in trucks, on all-terrain vehicles and on foot to find orchards planted by settlers as they pushed west more than a century ago.  The two are racing against time to preserve a slice of homesteader history:  The apple trees are old, and many are dying.  Others are being ripped out for more wheat fields or housing developments for a growing population.  “To me, this area is a goldmine,” said Brandt, who has found two lost varieties in the Idaho panhandle.  “I don’t want it lost in time.  I want to give back to the people so that they can enjoy what our forefathers did.”  Brandt and Benscoter scour old county fair records, newspaper clippings and nursery sales ledgers to figure out which varieties existed in the area.  Then they hunt them down, matching written records with old property maps, land deeds and sometimes the memories of the pioneers’ great-grandchildren.  They also get leads from people who live near old orchards.  The task is huge.  North America once had 17,000 named varieties of domesticated apples, but only about 4,000 remain.  The Lost Apple Project believes settlers planted a few hundred varieties in their corner of the Pacific Northwest alone.  The Homestead Act of 1862 gave 160 acres to families who would improve the land and pay a small fee, and these newcomers planted orchards with enough variety to get them through the long winter, with apples that ripened from early spring until the first frosts.  Then, as now, trees planted for eating apples were not raised from seeds; cuttings taken from existing trees were grafted onto a generic root stock and raised to maturity.  These cloned trees remove the genetic variation that often makes “wild” apples inedible—so-called “spitters.”  Gillian Flaccus  https://www.phillytrib.com/lifestyle/botanists-scour-aging-orchards-for-long-lost-apple-varieties/article_9b451d43-251c-539a-9cb4-bc6b336de4be.html

Today, wild turkeys are back with a vengeance.  Touted as a major restoration success story, the wild turkey began to be reintroduced to New England about half a century ago.  Suburbs now stretch in wide swaths of terrain that once supported forests and associated wildlife.  Turkeys have taken to life in the suburbs with such enthusiasm that they are now a wildlife management issue for the human residents who must share living space with them.  Emboldened problem turkeys chase and intimidate women and small children, as well as pets.  Whole flocks have gone rogue.  Gone are the turkey’s natural predators—lynxes, cougars and wolves—that had kept America’s premier game bird’s population in balance.  As Thoreau pointed out, nature is no longer perfect.  More than 170,000 wild turkeys now live in New England and they’re not always at peace with their human neighbors.  Bryan Stevens  https://www.heraldcourier.com/community/for-the-birds-success-of-wild-turkey-s-resurgence-leads/article_7a4feecc-7432-5003-bef4-029aa4f4ca93.html  Thank you, Muse reader!

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY  Ideologies separate us.  Dreams and anguish bring us together. - Eugene Ionesco, playwright (26 Nov 1909-1994)  

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2188  November 26, 2019 

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