Charles Ephraim Burchfield (1893-1967) was an American painter, best known for his watercolor landscapes.  Burchfield was born April 9, 1893, in Ashtabula Harbor, Ohio.  Five years later, his family moved to Salem, Ohio, where he graduated from high school as class valedictorian in 1911.  He attended the Cleveland School of Art from 1912-1916 and studied with Henry G. Keller, Frank N. Wilcox, and William J. Eastman.  In 1921, Burchfield moved to Buffalo, New York, to work as a designer for the prominent wallpaper company, M.H. Birge & Sons Company.  Best known for his romantic, often fantastic depictions of nature, watercolorist Burchfield developed a unique style of watercolor painting that reflected distinctly American subjects and his profound respect for nature.  The Burchfield Penney Art Center at SUNY Buffalo State features the largest public collection of works by Burchfield.  Within the intertwined galleries of the museum, you will find an ever-changing display of his paintings and sketches, a recreation of his studio, the Charles E. Burchfield Rotunda (specifically designed to highlight his seasonal works), and even references to Burchfield in the building's architecture.  According to Burchfield's friend and colleague Edward Hopper, "The work of Charles Burchfield is most decidedly founded, not on art, but on life, and the life that he knows and loves best."  President Lyndon B. Johnson eulogized the artist in a letter dated November 14, 1967.  President Johnson wrote "He [Burchfield] was artist to America."  https://www.burchfieldpenney.org/collection/charles-e-burchfield/

Good cheese shops and some grocery stores will offer a few types of feta, differentiated by origin, milk type, and packaging technique.  Sheep's milk fetas (the classic option) tend to be sharpest, while goat's and cow's milk versions are milder.  At the end of the day, though, the most important thing to look for when buying feta is how it's packaged.  You should always buy feta in brine.  By "feta in brine," we mean the stuff that comes packed in a plastic container full of liquid—in this case, salt water—as opposed to the pre-crumbled or vacuum-sealed varieties.  Not only does the brine intensify flavor, elongate feta's life span, and improve its creamy texture, but it's useful as a secondary ingredient.  You can use that brine to marinate chicken, thin out whipped feta dips, build flavor in broths and braising liquids, and cook grains and beans.  It's a buy-one-thing-get-another-thing-free type of situation, and like feta, it rules.  Alex Delany  https://www.bonappetit.com/test-kitchen/primers/article/feta-guide

Roasted feta with grapes and olives  Break the block of feta up into four irregular pieces, then nestle them among the grapes and olives.  Drizzle with olive oil, then bake, 20 to 25 minutes, until the grapes are softened and the feta is browned in spots.  Serve right away with crusty bread. 

https://www.washingtonpost.com › recipes › roasted-feta-grapes-and-olives 

From ‘difficult’ works to Instapoetry, Erica Wagner picks the most important book trends of the past decade.  When people set down their devices, they look for beautiful books:  publishers are recognising they are willing to pay for something special.  Consider Visual Editions, launched in 2010:  I first came across their work when I saw the second book they produced, Tree of Codes by the American author Jonathan Safran Foer.  Tree of Codes is an extraordinary book:  the text is adapted from the Polish writer Bruno Schultz’s Street of Crocodiles:  the pages are die-cut, some of Schultz’s words carefully removed to create Foer’s tale.  Beautifully printed in red and black, it is both art object and literary text:  a wonder to hold and to read.  More traditional publishers have recognised that readers want to feel part of something special:  in 2015, Faber & Faber began to produce special editions for ‘Faber Members’:  their first production a specially bound copy of Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Buried Giant.  A couple of years later, Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris’s sumptuous volume The Lost Words, which celebrates the natural world in words and images, became a quiet sensation, with spontaneous crowdfunding campaigns springing up to get the book into regional schools.  http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20191210-how-reading-has-changed-in-the-2010s

The Real ID Act of 2005, Pub.L. 109–13, 119 Stat. 302, enacted May 11, 2005, is an Act of Congress that modifies U.S. federal law pertaining to security, authentication, and issuance procedure standards for driver's licenses and identity documents, as well as various immigration issues pertaining to terrorism.  The law sets forth requirements for state driver's licenses and ID cards to be accepted by the federal government for "official purposes", as defined by the Secretary of the United States Department of Homeland Security.  The Secretary of Homeland Security has defined "official purposes" as boarding commercially operated airline flights, and entering federal buildings and nuclear power plants, although the law gives the Secretary unlimited authority to require a "federal identification" for any other purposes.  The Real ID Act implements the following:  Title II of the act establishes new federal standards for state-issued driver's licenses and non-driver identification cards.  Changing visa limits for temporary workers, nurses, and Australian citizens.  Funding some reports and pilot projects related to border security.  Introducing rules covering "delivery bonds" (similar to bail, but for aliens who have been released pending hearings).  Updating and tightening laws on application for asylum and deportation of aliens for terrorism.  Waiving laws that interfere with construction of physical barriers at the borders.  Starting October 1, 2020, every air traveler will need a REAL ID-compliant license or another acceptable form of identification (such as a US Passport, U.S. Passport Card, U.S. military card, or DHS trusted traveler card, e.g. NEXUS, SENTRI, etc.) for domestic air travel.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_ID_Act

The REAL ID Act establishes minimum security standards for license issuance and production and prohibits federal agencies from accepting for certain purposes driver’s licenses and identification cards from states not meeting the Act’s minimum standards.  The purposes covered by the Act are:  accessing federal facilities, entering nuclear power plants, and, boarding federally regulated commercial aircraft.  Link to more information at https://www.dhs.gov/real-id

mien • \MEEN\ • noun. 1 : air or bearing especially as expressive of attitude or personality : demeanor  2 : appearance, aspect.  https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/mien

The Iu Mien language is the language spoken by the Iu Mien people in China (where they are considered a constituent group of the Yao peoples), Laos, Vietnam, Thailand and, more recently, the United States in diaspora.  Like other Hmong-Mien languages, it is tonal and monosyllabic.  Read extensive article at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iu_Mien_language

Word of the Day   Q.E.D.  phrase  (mathematics, dated)  Initialism of quod erat demonstrandum (“what had to be proved; what was to be demonstrated”): placed at the end of a mathematical proof to show that the theorem under discussion is proved. (by extension Used to indicate that an argument or proposition is proved by the existence of some fact or scenario. Q.E.D. noun  Some fact or scenario that proves an argument or proposition; a justification.  January 24 is marked by the United Nations as the International Day of Education to recognize the importance of recognize the importance of ensuring equitable and inclusive education at all levels so that people may acquire the knowledge and skills needed to participate fully in society and contribute towards sustainable development.  Wiktionary

January 23, 2020  In the night sky, the constellation Orion is most well-known for his belt, a row of three luminous stars.  For the last few months, though, astronomers around the world have been particularly interested in his right shoulder, the home of a star called Betelgeuse, one of the brightest stars in the sky.  Betelgeuse—which, yes, is pronounced like Beetlejuice—has been dimming more than it ever had before.  Astronomers have long known that Betelgeuse is aging and, like many old stars, is bound to explode sooner or later.  Could this mystery dimming mean that a supernova might be imminent?  The view would be mind-boggling, day or night.  The Orion constellation can be seen from nearly everywhere on Earth, which means nearly everyone could see the exploding star.  It would easily cut through the artificial-light pollution that prevents 80 percent of the world—and a staggering 99 percent of the United States and Europe—from experiencing a clear view of the night sky.  While a Betelgeuse supernova would eventually fade, its mark on the planet would remain, and not just within the ether of the internet.  When stars explode, they release a cascade of newly forged elements into space.  These elements glide across the universe inside particles of dust, settling on whatever they encounter.  Astronomers have detected this stardust all over Earth, inside mud on the ocean floor and snow in Antarctica.  It is these explosions and the cosmic droplets they unleashed that helped give rise, over eons, to other stars, planets, and, in our case, life.  Marina Koren  https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2020/01/betelgeuse-supernova/605251/

THOUGHT FOR TODAY  There are two ways of spreading light:  to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it. - Edith Wharton, novelist (24 Jan 1861-1937)

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2215  January 24, 2020