Delicious.  Nutritious.  Makes you feel ambitious.  Find this radio jingle, among many others, at https://www.thisoldradioshow.com/OldRadioShows/OldRadioAds/VintageRadioAds.php

Ten Books That Shaped the American Character by Jonathan Yardley  https://www.americanheritage.com/ten-books-shaped-american-character#2 and https://www.americanheritage.com/ten-books-shaped-american-character#3 

Robert Bingham Downs (1903–1991) was an American author and librarian.  Downs was an advocate for intellectual freedom as well.  Downs spent the majority of his career working against, and voicing opposition to, literary censorship.  Downs authored many books and publications regarding the topics of censorship, and on the topics of responsible and efficient leadership in the library context.   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_B._Downs  

Books That Changed America, essays about twenty-five books which Robert B. Downs feels have had a profound effect on the nation's culture and conscience is available on the used book market or, perhaps through interlibrary loan.  Books in My Life by Robert B. Downs  The Center for the Book/Viewpoint Series No. 14.  https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED263586.pdf 

Twee  Overly quaint, dainty, cute or nice  adjective, noun or numeral (two)  From a childish pronunciation of sweet.  The Oxford English Dictionary records the first use in 1905 in Punch.  https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/twee 

Twee pop is a subgenre of indie pop that is thought to originate from the 1986 NME compilation C86.  Characterised by its simplicity and perceived innocence, some of its defining features are boy-girl harmonies, catchy melodies, and lyrics about love.  Cuddlecore is a movement that emerged as a consequence of twee pop that was briefly prominent in the mid-1990s.  This label described a style marked by harmony vocals and pop melodies atop a punk-style musical backing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twee_pop#:~:text=Twee%20pop%20is%20a%20subgenre,melodies%2C%20and%20lyrics%20about%20love. 

Twee’ for Two is a picture book series by Susie E. Caron.  

Twee for Two is a piece by Deep East Music.   

Canadians love their tiger tail ice cream.  Oddly enough, this retro favorite is almost impossible to find outside of the Great White North.  Tiger tail doesn’t call for rare ingredients foraged from the Canadian Rockies, nor is it intellectual property of the government.  It just doesn’t seem to appeal to anyone except Canadians.  A ribbon of black licorice swirled into an orange-flavored ice cream base gives this tiger its stripes.  The old-school flavor sold well in soda parlors from the 1950s to the 1970s, and many Canadians now consider it a childhood classic.  As curious as it may seem, kids (and nostalgic adults) are among the biggest fans of the citrus and black licorice combination.  https://www.atlasobscura.com/foods/tiger-tail-ice-cream-canada?utm_source=Gastro+Obscura+Weekly+E-mail&utm_campaign=57b4d63c47-GASTRO_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_07_17&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_2418498528-57b4d63c47-71793902&mc_cid=57b4d63c47&mc_eid=aef0869a63 

PARAPHRASES from the novel The Gathering by Anne Enright:   “jungle stew”—only vegetables; carrots were tiger meat and parsnips camel chews—served at the thin end of the month.  *  living the middle class dream but with avidity.    

Anne Enright was born in Dublin in 1962, where she now lives and works.  She has published three volumes of stories, one book of nonfiction, and five novels.  In 2015, she was named the inaugural Laureate for Irish Fiction.  Her novel The Gathering won the Man Booker Prize, and The Forgotten Waltz won the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction.  https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/52832.Anne_Enright 

'Don't buy a pig in a poke' might seem odd and archaic language.  It's true that the phrase is very old, but actually it can be taken quite literally and remains good advice.  The advice being given is 'don't buy a pig until you have seen it'.  This is enshrined in British commercial law as 'caveat emptor'--Latin for 'let the buyer beware'.  This remains the guiding principle of commerce in many countries and, in essence, supports the view that if you buy something you take responsibility to make sure it is what you intended to buy.  A poke is a sack or bag.  It has a French origin as 'poque' and, like several other French words, its diminutive is formed by adding 'ette' or 'et' - hence 'pocket' began life with the meaning 'small bag'.  Poke is still in use in several English-speaking countries, notably Scotland and the USA, and describes just the sort of bag that would be useful for carrying a piglet to market.  A pig that's in a poke might turn out to be no pig at all.  Many other European languages have a version of this phrase--most of them translating into English as a warning not to 'buy a cat in a bag'.  https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/a-pig-in-a-poke.html 

Just 45 miles north of Cheyenne, Wyoming, is the small town of Chugwater.  It would be hard to guess that this town of roughly 200 was the headquarters of the Swan Land and Cattle Company, once one of the largest cattle and sheep ranching operations in the United States.  In recent years, its notoriety comes from the Chugwater Chili Cookoff, an annual, competitive cookoff held every June.  Perhaps the best-kept secret is that the town is also home to the oldest operating soda fountain in Wyoming.  The soda fountain’s building can be traced back to 1914 and, in the time since, it’s housed a doctor’s office, pharmacy, diner, grocery store, veterinarian supply store, and liquor store.  https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/chugwater-soda-fountain?utm_source=Gastro+Obscura+Weekly+E-mail&utm_campaign=0f6379ce15-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_07_25&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_2418498528-0f6379ce15-71793902&mc_cid=0f6379ce15&mc_eid=aef0869a63 

Shirley Ann Grau, a Louisiana writer whose atmospheric, richly detailed works explored issues of race, gender and power, notably in the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel “The Keepers of the House,” died Aug. 3, 2020. She was 91.  In six novels and dozens of short stories, Ms. Grau examined the racial prejudice of White Southerners, the limited opportunities traditionally afforded to women and the inexorable pull of the past in places such as Louisiana, where she was born, and Alabama, where she spent much of her childhood.  Among book critics, Ms. Grau was perhaps most celebrated for her short stories—ghost stories, love stories, elegiac stories, nearly all of them lyrical and unsentimental—which evoked “the faint musty sweet odor of bourbon” or examined “the dusty-eyed old people who want to be left alone.”  Most of her work was set in the South, although Ms. Grau rolled her eyes at suggestions that she was a “Southern author” or a “Southern lady writer,” as journalists of the 1950s and ’60s sometimes called her.  “No novel is really a regional novel,” she said.  “A novel has to be set somewhere. … I would like once in my life to have something I write taken as fiction, not as Southern sociology.”  Ms. Grau was awarded the 1965 Pulitzer in fiction—she said she hung up on the prize committee member who called to announce the honor, thinking that a friend was playing a prank.  Harrison Smith  https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/shirley-ann-grau-a-quiet-force-in-southern-literature-dies-at-91/2020/08/04/3edb8dbc-d65b-11ea-930e-d88518c57dcc_story.html 

A THOUGHT FOR AUGUST 7  Those who believe without reason cannot be convinced by reason. - James Randi, magician and skeptic (b. 7 Aug 1928) 

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2239  August 7, 2020