The 1855
classification of Bordeaux wines was created at the request of Napoleon III, to
be presented at the Exposition Universelle de Paris. Showcasing the very best French wines, the
classification ranked sixty top Bordeaux reds; fifty-nine from the Medoc and one from Graves. The original rankings still stand 160 years
later, with only one change; the promotion of Chateau Mouton Rothschild to
Premier Cru status in 1973. The
classification also picked out the fourteen finest sweet whites from Sauternes
and Barsac--listed separately in their own Sauternes Classification (1855). Although the
1855 Classification theoretically covered both the Medoc and Graves, only one
Graves wine (Haut-Brion) made it into the rankings. A stand-alone Graves Classification was not put together until 1959. https://www.wine-searcher.com/1855-classification
Eavan Boland, the
outstanding Irish poet and academic, died April 27, 2020. Boland, who was professor of English and
humanities and director of the creative writing programme at Stanford
University, broke the mould of Irish poetry--and drew new audiences to the
form--by making women’s experiences central to her poems. She was the author of more than 10 poetry
collections, an award-winning essay collection, prose writings and an anthology
of German women poets (Princeton, 2004).
Boland’s collections, In Her Own Image (1980), Nightfeed (1982), Outside
History (1990) and Domestic Violence (2007) explore historical and contemporary
female identity. Her collection, In a
Time of Violence (1994) which merged political and private realities, won the
Lannan Literary Award for Poetry and was shortlisted for the TS Eliot
prize. Her collection, Against Love
Poetry (2001), was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and her heartbreaking
poem about Ireland’s 1847 famine, Quarantine, was one of the 10 poems
shortlisted for RTÉ’s selection of Ireland’s favourite poems of the last 100
years. In Eavan Boland: Is It Still The Same, the 2018 RTÉ
documentary, she spoke about the “dull floating debate about what is the
legitimate subject matter” for poetry and how it is “easier to have a political
murder in an Irish poem than a washing machine”. Yet, Boland was adamant about not editing out
the everyday experiences of motherhood and family life but instead to weave
them into bigger truths of human fragilities, strengths and volatilities,
history and mythology. She was a
teaching poet who generously mentored new writers, encouraging them to put in
the hard work that creative writing required.
She also threw light on lesser-known historical and contemporary
poets. Her
latest collection of poetry, The Historians, will be published by WW Norton in
the US and by Carcanet for the UK and Irish market in autumn 2020.
Jigsaw puzzles are booming
in these stay-at-home days, with manufacturers and retailers across the country
reporting a surge in demand.
Ravensburger’s North America CEO, Filip Francke, described puzzle sales
soaring 370 percent year over year in the two-week period before an interview in early
April with CNBC. The company
is averaging 20 puzzles sold per minute in North America in 2020. Springbok, another popular puzzle
manufacturer, is bringing on additional employees to accommodate “an
unprecedented amount of orders due to the need for indoor activities,”
according to its website. It’s shipping stock 20 hours a day. Books-A-Million saw puzzles sales double
between February and March, and is expecting its sales in April to triple what
they were in 2019, according to Melanie Smith, senior director of
marketing. Jigsaw puzzles had been
around since the 1760s, when map-makers began pasting their maps on wood, then
dissecting them, not unlike the schoolroom puzzles that continue to challenge
students to correctly place each state in the United States. John Spilsbury is credited with the jigsaw
puzzle in 1767, specifically, according to Anne Williams, a jigsaw puzzle historian
who quite literally wrote the book on the history of the hobby. She summarized her research in an article
published online by Puzzle Warehouse.
Puzzles geared toward adults were more of a recent development, she
writes, developing in the 1900s and reaching the level of a bona fide craze by
1908. At that time, though, the
detail-oriented manner of their production ensured only the upper class could
afford to partake. They would drop in
cost by the 1930s, paving the way for puzzles to become the more widely
accessible hobby they are today. Nearly
half of adults in the United States puzzle at least once a year, according to a
study conducted by Ipsos on behalf of Ravensburger in 2018. Nearly one in five were puzzling over corners
and edges and middle pieces at least monthly.
Puzzles are expected to be a $643 million market in 2020, according to
Statista. And if their rising popularity on Instagram suggests
they were already on their way toward a contemporary resurgence, then the onset
of the pandemic seems to have secured their place. Nicki Gorny
https://www.toledoblade.com/a-e/living/2020/05/02/pandemic-puzzlers-hobby-surges-under-stay-at-home-orders/stories/20200503010
Rocks have long inspired
poets (refer to Burns' "O my Luve's
like a red, red rose" poem 2794): "Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear, And
the rocks melt wi' the sun". To the
present day poets are similarly inspired. Michael McKimm's Fossil Sunshine (2013) and "MAP, Poems after William Smith's Geological Map of
1815" (2015) showed how geological subject matter from
Geopoetry 2011 could inspire poets:
"...the poems here make Smith's map anew in moving and surprising
ways". The Jurassic Coast Poems (2017) by Sarah Acton, the Jurassic
resident poet, showed continued inspiration:
"We hear the red rock Speak in ripples". This gathering, to be held on National Poetry
Day (1 October 2020), is hosted by the Geological Society (in conjunction with
the Central Scotland Group), the Scottish Poetry Library and the Edinburgh
Geological Society and will bring together
poets and geoscientists to further encourage the rocks to speak. https://www.geolsoc.org.uk/geopoetry20
Essential workers include
mechanics and maintenance workers who keep our appliances running. At all times, they deserve our thanks.
It is difficult to
overstate the importance, in modern Western cuisine, of Marie-Antoine Carême, a
Frenchman many say was the first celebrity chef. Best known today for the spectacular sugar,
marzipan, and pastry sculptures he designed and built called pièces montées—which still exist in fine
dining, but are now more commonly made of chocolate—Carême's real legacy came
out of his systemization, rationalization, and professionalization
of French cuisine in
the early 1800s. "When we talk
about the systems of French cuisine, it goes back to Carême." French cuisine remains one of history's best
documented, and though names like Escoffier, Soyer, Point, Vergé, and Bocuse
are thrown around (and are indeed important in their own right), Carême was
haute cuisine's original maestro. He was
the first to distinguish this rich, meat-heavy, decorative, more
labor-intensive cuisine from regional French home cooking, and the first to
catalogue and organize it so it could be easily understood by future
generations. From a relative disarray of
recipes and techniques, he extrapolated four essential sauces, known as
"mother sauces," which formed the basis of and garnish for hundreds
of dishes. Over a century later Auguste
Escoffier would update and revise this system, but Carême gave Escoffier
something to build upon. Daniela
Galarza https://www.eater.com/2016/6/3/11847788/careme-chef-biography-history
Catherine de’ Medici was
Queen of France from 1547 until 1559 and Queen Mother from 1559 to 1589.
While she had a great influence over French politics for over 40 years, she is
also said to have had an influence over the revolution of French cooking during
that time as well. Catherine de Medici
is credited with introducing many food innovations to France. She’s said
to have taught the French how to eat with a fork, and introduced foods and
dishes such as artichokes, aspics, baby peas, broccoli, cakes, candied
vegetables, cream puffs, custards, ices, lettuce, milk-fed veal, melon seeds,
parsley, pasta, puff pastry, quenelles,
scallopine, sherbet,
spinach, sweetbreads,
truffles and zabaglione. She is reputed to have arrived in France with
her own personal cooks, pastry cooks, chefs, confectioners and
distillers. https://www.cooksinfo.com/catherine-de-medici See also The Illusive Story Of Catherine de’
Medici, A Gastronomic Myth by
Antonella Campanini at https://thenewgastronome.com/caterina-de-medici-a-gastronomic-myth/
and The True History of French Cooking:
The
Italian Myth of Catherine de Médicis Debunked by Francois at https://pistouandpastis.com/2013/07/the-true-history-of-french-cooking-the-italian-myth-of-catherine-de-medicis-debunked/ Enjoy beautiful illustrations.
LitHub Daily April 29, 2020 “Prison art practices resist the isolation,
exploitation, and dehumanization of carceral facilities.” Nicole R. Fleetwood on artists and
mass incarceration. | New York Review of Books “I became what I was: a body in recline.”
Ellen O'Connell Whittet on finding comfort in books when chronic pain curtailed her
dance career. | Lit Hub Yearning for
the hush of the stacks? Here are seven
gorgeous libraries you can explore from home. | Atlas Obscura
During another long, unprecedented event, World War II, book clubs
were essential for some Britons in staving off boredom. | The Epoch
Times As if you needed another reason to
move as far away as possible: a literary tour of New Zealand. Pedro Páramo, Goodnight
Moon, Optic Nerve, and more rapid-fire book recs from PEN/Faulkner Award-winner
Chloe Aridjis. | Book Marks
2020 Pulitzer Prize
winners and finalists https://www.pulitzer.org/prize-winners-by-year
Supermoon fans, take note.
This week is your last shot to bathe in
the glory of a full supermoon in 2020. The
morning of Thursday, May 7, marks the peak of the "super flower
moon." We've been on a run since
February of extra-large full moons known as "supermoons." The term "supermoon" can refer to
either a new or a full moon that happens at or near perigee syzygy, a mouthful
that means the moon is at the closest point to Earth along its orbit around our
planet. A supermoon appears subtly larger than a regular full moon. The "pink" moon of April was
the biggest of the year, but May's moon should be just as gorgeous. Thursday morning isn't your only shot at a
good show. "The moon will appear
full for about three days around this time, from Tuesday evening through Friday
morning," said NASA in a release. The easiest time to catch the view is around
sunset. Head outside and look in the
opposite direction of the sun to see the moonrise. If clouds foil your
plans or you're stuck inside, you can still tune in online for the Virtual Telescope Project's live feed of the moon rising over
the Rome skyline. The stream kicks off
at 11:30 a.m. PT on Thursday. The May
moon seems to have earned its "flower" nickname as an ode to spring
in the Northern Hemisphere. NASA said the moniker traces back to the
Maine Farmers Almanac in the 1930s.
You'll want to drink up the view while you can. The next full supermoon
won't come around until late April in 2021. Amanda Kooser https://www.cnet.com/news/dont-miss-the-last-full-supermoon-of-2020-a-super-flower-moon-on-may-7/
http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com Issue 2264
May 6, 2020
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