A staff writer for the New Yorker since 1986, Adam Gopnik was born in Philadelphia and raised in Montreal.  He received his B.A. in Art History from McGill University, before completing his graduate work at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University.  His first essay in The New Yorker, "Quattrocento Baseball" appeared in May of 1986 and he served as the magazine’s art critic from 1987 to 1995.  That year, he left New York to live and write in Paris, where he wrote the magazine’s “Paris Journal” for the next five years.  His expanded collection of his essays from Paris, Paris To the Moon, appeared in 2000, and was called by the New York Times “the finest book on France in recent years.”  While in Paris, he began work on an adventure novel, The King In The Window, which was published in 2005, and which the Journal of Fantasy & Science Fiction called “a spectacularly fine children’s novel . . . children’s literature of the highest order, which means literature of the highest order.”  He still often writes from Paris for the New Yorker, has edited the anthology Americans In Paris for the Library of America, and has written a number of introductions to new editions of works by Maupassant, Balzac, Proust, Victor Hugo and Alain-Fournier.  http://www.adamgopnik.com/bio

Quotes by Thomas Carlyle (1795 1881) British historian, satirical writer, essayist, translator, philosopher, mathematician, and teacher.  “May blessings be upon the head of Cadmus, the Phoenicians, or whoever it was that invented books.”  https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/48975-may-blessings-be-upon-the-head-of-cadmus-the-phoenicians  “What we become depends on what we read after all of the professors have finished with us.  The greatest university of all is a collection of books.”  “My books are friends that never fail me."  “A good book is the purest essence of a human soul.”  “The best effect of any book is that it excites the reader to self activity.”  https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/29951.Thomas_Carlyle

Red tape is an idiom that refers to excessive regulation or rigid conformity to formal rules that is considered redundant or bureaucratic and hinders or prevents action or decision-making.  It is usually applied to governments, corporations, and other large organizations.  Things often described as "red tape" include filling out paperwork, obtaining licenses, having multiple people or committees approve a decision and various low-level rules that make conducting one's affairs slower, more difficult, or both.  It is generally believed that the term originated with the Spanish administration of Charles V, King of Spain and Holy Roman Emperor, in the early 16th century, who started to use red tape in an effort to modernize the administration that was running his vast empire.  The red tape was used to bind the most important administrative dossiers that required immediate discussion by the Council of State, and separate them from issues that were treated in an ordinary administrative way, which were bound with ordinary string.   Although they were not governing such a vast territory as Charles V, this practice of using red tape to separate the important dossiers that had to be discussed was quickly copied by the other modern European monarchs to speed up their administrative machines.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_tape

purple crocodile (Dutch:  Paarse krokodil) originates from a 2005 television advertisement by the Dutch insurance company OHRA promoting their lack of red tape.  The purple crocodile has since become a metaphor for bureaucracy in the Netherlands.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_crocodile

Adam Hochschild (pronunciation Hoch as in spoke; schild as in build) is the author of ten books; Rebel Cinderella:  From Rags to Riches to Radical, the Epic Journey of Rose Pastor Stokes is his most recent.  Lessons from a Dark Time and Other Essays appeared in 2018, and  Spain in Our Hearts: Americans in the Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939, in 2016.  Of his earlier books, Bury the Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire’s Slaves won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the PEN USA Literary Award, the Gold Medal of the California Book Awards, and was a finalist for the National Book Award.  King Leopold’s Ghost:  A Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa and To End All Wars:  A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion, 1914-1918 were both finalists for the National Book Critics Circle Award.  https://journalism.berkeley.edu/person/adam_hochschild/  In the March 15, 2020 issue of The New York Times Book Review, historian Adam Hochschild describes his favorite childhood books as the “Freddy the Pig” series by Walter R. Brooks.  “ . . . in his First Animal Republic it was one animal, one vote—a great improvement over our Electoral College.”  See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freddy_the_Pig

Oosterwold is a green, agricultural area between Almere and Zeewolde.  Here, the area layout is entirely left to its own initiative.  This means that everyone can choose a lot in every location.  In addition to a clear number of rules, there are no restrictions regarding functions and lot sizes.  That is unique in the Netherlands.  Oosterwolders not only determine how their own home becomes.  They also deal with roads and paths, greenery, water and public space.  In addition, they all have to realize that, alone or with others.  Initiators in Oosterwold search everything themselves and then arrange everything that is needed.  No-one knows what Oosterwold looks like in the future.  That is determined by the own initiative.  See pictures at https://www.amsterdamwoont.nl/en/nieuwbouwlocatie/oosterwold-2/

All tequilas are mezcals, but not all mezcals are tequilas.  Tequila is a type of mezcal, much like how scotch and bourbon are types of whiskey.  According to spirits writer John McEvoy, mezcal is defined as any agave-based liquor.  This includes tequila, which is made in specific regions of Mexico and must be made from only blue agave (agave tequilana).  Mezcal can be made from more than 30 varieties of agave.  According to spirits writer Chris Tunstall, the most common varieties of agave used for mezcal are tobalá, tobaziche, tepeztate, arroqueño and espadín, which is the most common agave and accounts for up to 90% of mezcal.  Max Bonem  https://www.foodandwine.com/cocktails-spirits/differences-between-tequila-mezcal

Betsy Wyeth, longtime wife of acclaimed painter Andrew Wyeth (1917–2009), as well as his model, muse, and manager, died April 21, 2020 in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania after a period of declining health at the age of 98.  Born Betsy James, Wyeth met her husband in 1939, when she was 17, and they soon married.  She often modeled for him, but her involvement in his career went much deeper.  She suggested subjects for him and critiqued his work, and she became the manager who was responsible for the business success behind her husband’s artistic genius.  It was Betsy Wyeth who suggested the creation of the Brandywine River Museum of Art in Chadds Ford, which showcases Andrew Wyeth’s work as well as art created by his illustrator father, N.C. Wyeth, and the Wyeths’ painter son, Jamie Wyeth.  https://www.legacy.com/news/celebrity-deaths/betsy-wyeth-1921-2020-model-manager-and-wife-of-painter-andrew-wyeth/

In the mid-1960s, Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania—a rural community nestled in the historic Brandywine Valley—faced possible massive industrial development.  The impact would have dramatically changed the character and future of this area.  At the same time, and for decades thereafter, development proposed throughout the region, particularly in floodplain areas, threatened to devastate water supplies for numerous communities in southeastern Pennsylvania and northern Delaware, including the City of Wilmington.  Appreciating the need for rapid action, a group of local residents bought endangered land and founded the Brandywine Conservancy in 1967.  The first conservation easements, protecting more than five and one-half miles along the Brandywine, were granted in 1969.  Today, the Conservancy holds more than 483 conservation easements and has protected more than 64,500 acres from development in Chester and Delaware counties, Pennsylvania, and in New Castle County, Delaware.  The Conservancy is a leading local and national advocate for responsible land use, open space preservation and water protection.  The Conservancy focuses on integrating conservation with economic development through its Land Stewardship and Municipal Assistance programs, and works with individuals; state, county and municipal governments; and private organizations to permanently protect and conserve natural, cultural and scenic resources.  In 1971, the Conservancy opened the Brandywine River Museum of Art in the renovated Hoffman’s Mill, a former gristmill built in 1864 that was part of the Conservancy’s first preservation efforts.  The Museum has an international reputation for its unparalleled collection and its dedication to American art with primary emphasis on the art of the Brandywine region, American illustration, still life and landscape painting, and the work of the Wyeth family.  https://www.brandywine.org/brandywine/about/our-history  See also https://www.brandywine.org/museum

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY  For what is a poem but a hazardous attempt at self-understanding:  it is the deepest part of autobiography. - Robert Penn Warren, novelist and poet (24 Apr 1905-1989)

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2259  April 24, 2020