One of
the oldest libraries in Europe is the Bodleian Library at England's Oxford University. Opened in 1602, it incorporates the older
Duke Humfrey's Library from the 15th century.
In those days, libraries were placed above classrooms for maximum
sunlight and minimum moisture. Books
were considered so precious that many were actually chained to a desk. Many of Europe's oldest universities have
equally fascinating libraries, such as the architecturally glorious Wren Library at
Cambridge's Trinity College, the grand Baroque King João's Library at
Coimbra Univeristy in central Portugal, and the library at Dublin's Trinity
College, which holds the magnificent Book of Kells. The library at Strahov Monastery in Prague is filled
with books from the 10th through 17th centuries, shelved under elaborately
frescoed ceilings that celebrate philosophy, theology, and the quest for
knowledge. As the Age of Enlightenment took hold, the Church struggled to
maintain its social and political power.
Books that contained challenging ideas—by thinkers like Nicolaus
Copernicus, Jan Hus, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau—were placed in a gilded, locked
case. Only the abbot had the key, and
you needed his blessing to open it.
Pondering these treasured volumes from our Information Age perspective,
I'm reminded of the importance of free access to information. Not far to the south is the massive Melk
Abbey, gleaming on its hilltop over the Wachau Valley, just up the
Danube from Vienna. My favorite part of
a visit here is its elegant library—another
remainder from when monasteries served as crucial storehouses of
knowledge. Rick Steves Read more at https://www.luxurytraveladvisor.com/europe/visiting-europe-s-great-libraries
The Original McDonald's French Fry The beef
fat–fried version that first made waves is now extinct, but many who remember
the original aren’t pleased with the update.
“Everything about it was a mistake,” Malcolm Gladwell said in an
interview on House of Carbs. * When Noah
Sheidlower was 12 years old, his father handed him a menu from an empanada
restaurant in Queens, New York. Sheidlower, now a rising sophomore at Columbia
University, still has that menu, and approximately 5,999 more along with it.
* Located on
the shores of Lake Erie, Crystal Beach Amusement Park hosted fairgoers from
both sides of the Canadian-American border from 1888 through 1989. Though the park has closed its doors, local
love for some of its signature concessions has endured, especially for the
sugar waffle. Link to these
stories and more at https://mailchi.mp/atlasobscura/the-cherokee-chefs-bringing-back-north-americas-lost-cuisine-258110?e=aef0869a63
While the claim that
Thomas Jefferson introduced ice cream to the United States is demonstrably
false, he can be credited with the first known recipe recorded by an
American. Jefferson also likely helped
to popularize ice cream in this country when he served it at the President’s
House in Washington. One of only ten
recipes surviving in Thomas Jefferson’s hand, the recipe for ice cream most
likely dates to his time in France.
Although Jefferson himself did not note the source, Jefferson’s
granddaughter Virginia recorded
a virtually identical recipe sometime later in the 19th century and attributed it to “Petit,”
indicating that Adrien Petit,
Jefferson’s French butler, was the original source of this recipe. Ice cream recipes appear in French cookbooks
starting in the late 17th century,
and in English-language cookbooks in the early 18th century. Hannah Glasse’s popular Art of Cookery (1751 edition) contained a recipe
for ice cream. There are accounts of ice
cream being served in the American colonies as early as 1744. Read more and find the recipe—and a picture
of a recipe for ice cream in Thomas Jefferson’s hand from the Library of
Congress--at https://www.monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/ice-cream Thank you, Muse reader!
Cerberus, in Greek mythology, is the monstrous watchdog of the underworld. He was usually said to have three heads,
though the poet Hesiod (flourished
7th century BCE)
said he had 50. Heads of snakes grew
from his back, and he had a serpent’s tail.
He devoured anyone who tried to escape the kingdom of Hades, the lord of the underworld, and he refused entrance
to living humans, though the mythic hero Orpheus gained passage by charming him with music. One of the labours of the warrior Heracles was
to bring Cerberus up to the land of the living; after succeeding, he returned
the creature to Hades. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Cerberus
On July 15, 2020 get ready
to meet the King of Dreams and of the members of his powerful, but unusual
family. The wait will finally be over
for The Sandman when US
audio entertainment producer Audible releases the first instalment of a
multi-part audio adaptation of British author Neil Gaiman’s classic DC comic
series. This instalment adapts the first
three volumes of The Sandman,
namely Preludes and Nocturnes, The Doll’s
House and Dream Country. The
original run of Gaiman's comic book series The
Sandman ran for 75 issues from January 1989 to March 1996. The Sandman has been critically
acclaimed, and hailed by the Los Angeles
Times magazine as "the greatest epic in the history of
comic books". It tells the story of
Morpheus, the immortal king of dreams and stories, and his interactions with
characters from myths, real-life history and fiction. Terence Toh
https://www.thestar.com.my/lifestyle/culture/2020/07/13/dreams-come-true-039the-sandman039-audio-drama-series-arrives-july-15
Midsummer corn is so
tender, crisp, and sweet that the best way to eat it is raw. Kelli Foster
Find five ways to gobble up summer corn without turning on the heat at
July 10,
2020 Inspired by Giovanni Boccaccio’s
“The Decameron,” a 14th-century collection of tales told by a group of 10
characters taking shelter in an Italian villa during the Black Plague, this
weekend’s special issue of the magazine features stories from Margaret Atwood,
David Mitchell, Téa Obreht, Karen Russell, Tommy Orange, Yiyun Li and others. The so-called Decameron Project is the first
time in the magazine’s modern history that an entire issue is devoted to new
fiction. The magazine published all 29
stories it received, 22 of which are included in the print edition. What
was intended as a balm for readers was therapeutic for many of the writers,
too. “Creatively engaging with some of
my anxieties about what was happening was so good for me,” said Mona Awad, who
wrote “A Blue Sky Like This” for the project. “I wrote a piece that is psychologically a bit
of a horror story,” she said. “I think
that actually saved my brain a little bit.”
The authors wrote while quarantining in their homes across the country
(Oakland, Miami, Portland) and the globe (Mexico, Ireland, Mozambique, Israel).
The stories grapple with fear, loss,
sickness and uncertainty, but also with kindness, connection and humor. Back-to-back, they knit a record of the shared
experiences that can transcend circumstances to unite us. Lauren McCarthy https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/10/insider/magazine-decameron-fiction-issue.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage§ion=Reader%20Center
Mellon and Yale Law
School’s Justice Collaboratory announced on June 30, 2020 a new initiative to
distribute a curated 500-book collection to 1,000 medium and maximum security
prisons, including at least one juvenile detention center, across every state
in the United States over the next three and a half years. The Mellon Foundation’s $5.25 million grant
will fund the Million Book Project, hosted at Yale Law School’s Justice
Collaboratory, which aims to transform the role of literature and libraries in
the lives of people in prison. This
marks the first major grant since the announcement of the Foundation’s new
strategic plan to increase philanthropic efforts for the arts and humanities
through a distinct lens of social justice. The Million Book Project,
conceptualized by poet and legal scholar Reginald Dwayne Betts and brought to
life through a joint partnership with Yale Law School’s Justice Collaboratory
and support from the Mellon Foundation, will have two objectives: extending access to books--including poetry,
literature, history, and social thought--across the prison system and creating
opportunities for incarcerated people to interact with authors and the literary
community. https://mellon.org/news-blog/articles/million-book-project-provide-libraries-curated-books-1000-prison-facilities-across-united-states/
The Rosetta Stone is a granodiorite stele inscribed
with three versions of a decree issued
in Memphis, Egypt in
196 BC during the Ptolemaic dynasty on
behalf of King Ptolemy V Epiphanes.
The top and middle texts are in Ancient Egyptian using hieroglyphic and Demotic scripts
respectively, while the bottom is in Ancient Greek. The decree has only minor differences between
the three versions, making the Rosetta Stone key to deciphering
Egyptian hieroglyphs. The
stone was carved during the Hellenistic period and
is believed to have originally been displayed within a temple, possibly at
nearby Sais . It was
probably moved in late antiquity or during the Mameluk period,
and was eventually used as building material in the construction of Fort Julien near the town of Rashid (Rosetta) in the Nile Delta. It was discovered there by French
soldier Pierre-François
Bouchard during the Napoleonic campaign
in Egypt. It was the first
Ancient Egyptian bilingual text recovered in modern times, and it aroused
widespread public interest with its potential to decipher this previously
untranslated hieroglyphic script. Lithographic
copies and plaster casts began circulating among European museums and scholars.
The British defeated the French and took
the stone to London under the Capitulation
of Alexandria in 1801. It
has been on public display at the British Museum almost continuously since
1802 and is the most visited object there.
Study of the decree was already underway when the first full translation
of the Greek text was published in 1803. Jean-François
Champollion announced the transliteration of the Egyptian
scripts in Paris in 1822; it took longer still before scholars were able to
read Ancient Egyptian inscriptions and literature confidently. Three other fragmentary copies of the same
decree were discovered later, and several similar Egyptian bilingual or
trilingual inscriptions are now known, including three slightly earlier Ptolemaic decrees: the Decree of Alexandria in 243 BC, the Decree of Canopus in 238 BC, and
the Memphis
decree of Ptolemy IV, c. 218 BC. The Rosetta Stone is no longer unique, but it
was the essential key to the modern understanding of ancient Egyptian
literature and civilisation. The
term Rosetta Stone is now used to refer to the essential clue
to a new field of knowledge. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosetta_Stone The Rosetta Stone was discovered on July 15, 1799.
Travelwaits.com, a top
travel website, named the Cincinnati-based ice cream shop among its "15 Tastiest Ice Cream Shops In The U.S." Graeter's comes in at No. 3 on the list. Founded in
1870, Graeter's Ice Cream is a Cincinnati institution, with 50 retail locations
across the Midwest. https://www.wlwt.com/article/graeters-named-among-best-ice-cream-spots-in-the-nation/33309996
http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com Issue 2299
July 15, 2020
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