ONE-MINUTE MEAL  Spread tortilla or pita with butter, peanut butter, mayonnaise or tahini paste.  Press thinly sliced bananas and cucumbers on the spread.  Roll up and eat.

Like so many quotations from Shakespeare, “it’s Greek to me” has entered everyday speech.  To say that something is “Greek to you” means that something written or spoken is incomprehensible, either because you lack the information to understand, or because the speaker or writer has failed to express the idea clearly.  A spin-off of Shakespeare’s quotation is the graphic design term greeking.  An example of greeking known to anyone who has ever browsed WordPress themes or looked through a computer manual is lorem ipsum.  This block of nonsense Latin derives from an essay by–appropriately enough–Cicero.  Designers have good reason to use greeking.  Comprehensible copy used to illustrate graphic design is distracting.  A client will start reading the copy and be annoyed if it stops mid-sentence.  The use of a greeking text ensures that attention remains focused on the design.  Messed-up Latin seems to be the most usual form of greeking, but other languages, including Greek, are used.  https://www.dailywritingtips.com/it%E2%80%99s-greeking-to-me/  See also https://itsallgreektoanna.wordpress.com/2016/05/28/its-all-chinese-to-me/ and https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/its-all-greek-to-me

Philadelphia’s City Hall is the world’s largest masonry building made of brick, white marble, limestone and granite.  This historic structure leaves visitors lingering in awe.  Humans have had more than a century to acclimate to skyscrapers, and while this is a tall building indeed, stretching up to 548 ft. above the pavement, tens of thousands of people from all over the world stand on that pavement annually just to take in the building’s immense scale.  It’s curious to think it got its start in the middle of the 19th century, before the first cannons were shot in America’s Civil War.  Philadelphia was an industrial center and textile capital, the country’s second largest city and one of its wealthiest.   Architect John McArthur Jr. won a competition to design it.  His plans took up an entire city block, aiming to give Philly claim to the world’s tallest building.  The colossal square construction of brick, marble, and granite was arranged around a central public courtyard, which citizens could enter easily from four monumental arched portals.  It bore mansard roofs, ornately sculpted columns, tiered dormers, and long windows that gave the illusion its six floors were only three.  These were characteristic of the French Second Empire style, then very fashionable.   The building did not receive the fanfare McArthur had expected.  The Eiffel Tower and Washington Monument, both recently finished before City Hall’s 1901 completion date, denied the architect a claim to fame.  Little fanfare in the dubious eight-year claim of being the world’s tallest occupied building when in 1909, even that title went to another building, the Metropolitan Life Building.  City Hall at least held the title of Philly’s tallest until 1987.  Words:  Nichole L. Reber  Photos:  Bruce Starrenburg  See extensive articles with many photographs at

https://www.masonrymagazine.com/blog/2018/03/29/american-treasure-philadelphia-city-hall-words-nichole-l-reber-photos-bruce-starrenburg/

The first recorded use of jalopy is about 1925–26 in the US, which is where it originated.  The truth is, dictionary makers have not the slightest idea where jalopy comes from.  It was spelled all sorts of ways when it first appeared, a sure sign that oral transmission came first.  Yiddish is a candidate with shlappe, a term for an old horse that actually derives from Polish.  A French origin has also been asserted, from chaloupe, a kind of skiff, though why the name should have come ashore in the process of changing languages is not explained.   A lovely theory has it that the word comes from an Italian-American pronunciation of jelly apple. The story goes that a jell ’oppy was one of the decrepit old carts from which Italian immigrants sold this delicacy during the early part of the twentieth century.  Others argue that it has a link with the Mexican town of Jalapa, where old vehicles were sent to rest and recuperate.  Actually, a Spanish origin seems likely, but galapago, a tortoise, may be a more plausible suggestion, as a description of the slowness of beat-up old bangers.   We have to leave it as one of life’s mysteries. © 1996-Michael Quinion  http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-jal1.htm

Carlos Ruiz Zafón (born 25 September 1964) is a Spanish novelist.  Ruiz Zafón's first novel, El Príncipe de la Niebla 1993 (The Prince of Mist, published in English in 2010), earned the Edebé literary prize for young adult fiction.  He is also the author of three additional young adult novels, El palacio de la medianoche (1994), Las luces de septiembre (1995) and Marina (1999).  In 2001 he published his first adult novel La sombra del viento (The Shadow of the Wind), a Gothic mystery that involves Daniel Sempere's quest to track down the man responsible for destroying every book written by author Julian Carax.  The novel has sold millions of copies worldwide and more than a million copies in the UK alone.  Since its publication, La sombra del viento has garnered critical acclaim around the world and has won many international awards.  Ruiz Zafón's next novel, El juego del ángel, was published in April 2008. The English edition, The Angel's Game, is translated by Lucia Graves.  It is a prequel to The Shadow of the Wind, also set in Barcelona, but during the 1920s and 1930s.  It follows (and is narrated by) David Martín, a young writer who is approached by a mysterious figure to write a book.  Ruiz Zafón intends it to be included in a four book series along with The Shadow of the Wind.  The next book in the cycle, El prisionero del cielo, appeared in 2011, which returns to The Shadow of the Wind's Daniel Sempere and his travel back to the 1940s to resolve a buried secret.  The novel was published in English in July 2012 as The Prisoner of Heaven.  The Labyrinth of Spirits (original title:  El laberinto de los espíritus) is the fourth and final book in the Cemetery of Forgotten Books series.  The novel was initially released on 17 November 2016 in Spain and Latin America by Spanish publisher Planeta.  HarperCollins published the English translation by Lucia Graves, which was released on September 18, 2018.  Carlos Ruiz Zafón's works have been published in 45 countries and have been translated into more than 40 different languages.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Ruiz_Zaf%C3%B3n

Pizza dough uses 100 percent standard wheat flour, often ground to 00 fineness.  Pinsa, on the other hand, is much more flexible.  In addition to standard wheat flour, a grain like spelt is typically used.  It has also become common for soy and rice flour to find their way into the dough.  This flexibility stems from scarcity.  When people baked pinsa in the old days, the y shaped dough with whatever they had.  Another difference:  shape.  Pinsa tends to be stretched into oblong, lengthened ovals.  Fermentation time, too, can set pinsa and pizza apart.  Pizza dough can ferment for anywhere from a few hours to a few days.  Modern Pinsa makers tend toward longer fermentations, often two days or more.  Chris Malloy  https://www.realsimple.com/food-recipes/recipe-collections-favorites/popular-ingredients/pinsa

Boomerang child  noun  (originally US, informal)  Synonym of boomerang kid (“a young adult who has moved back into the parental home after a period of independence”)  Wiktionary

Kodak Black has always managed to come in the clutch for kids in his hometown experiencing troubling times, and the coronavirus pandemic is no different.  Kodak's lawyer Bradford Cohen told TMZ on Narch 19, 2020 that the imprisoned artist is planning to donate 625 books to children at Broward County Schools in Florida in an effort to soften the impact on the kids' education.  Kodak's goal is to assist first through fifth-grade students to meet state standards in reading even while they are at home.  Along with the books, each student will reportedly also include supplies and notebooks.  In total, the Painting Pictures artist reportedly threw down $5,000 to make the donation happen.  With Broward County schools being closed until further notice, Kodak's team is working to deliver the books directly to their homes.  https://www.xxlmag.com/news/2020/03/kodak-black-donate-books-coronavirus-relief/

March 23, 2020  Author Ann Patchett joins Jeffrey Brown to offer book recommendations for this strange time.  There are a lot of books that I just don't want people to miss.  And I would start off with Louise Erdrich's wonderful, wonderful book "The Night Watchman."  This is my very favorite of her books.  It's a novel based on her grandfather's story about helping Native American people hold onto their land.  Lily King's "Writers and Lovers" is wonderful and calming and romantic.  "The Story of More" by Hope Jahren, which is a book about climate change that is calm and kind of lays it out in a way that makes us feel more manageable.  My favorite Kate DiCamillo is "The Magician's Elephant."   Novelist Yiyun Li has started a "War and Peace" book club online.  It's at A Public Space.  You read 12 pages a day of "War and Peace" in a whole community of readers.  And the next thing you know, you have read the book and the pandemic is over and you have read "War and Peace," which is terrific.  Another thing that would be really fun to do, if you have some time, read "David Copperfield."  It's my very favorite Dickens, but read it with "The Goldfinch" by Donna Tartt, and see all the parallels between Dickens and Donna Tartt.  https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/author-ann-patchett-on-what-to-read-while-staying-home

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2245  March 24, 2020