Ruby was an Asian elephant (1973-1998) who lived at the Phoenix Zoo.  When her trainers observed her making marks in the dirt with sticks they decided to give her paint and brushes and teach her how to paint.  And paint she did.  Her canvases were shown around the world.  She was called “the biggest figure in Southwest art” by an Arizona art critic.  The money from Ruby’s artwork helped to pay for elephant conservation and breeding work.  Her trainers also used Ruby’s painting as a way of doing research to find out whether or not elephants can see in color.  Lee-Sean Huang  http://leesean.net/sketches-of-ruby-the-painting-pachyderm-of-the-phoenix-zoo/  Ruby:  the Painting Pachyderm of the Phoenix Zoo by Dick George is available for purchase or on loan from a public library. 

The surname Paniagua was first found in the mountainous regions of the ancient kingdom of Leon during the Middle Ages.  The surname descends from Spanish and Portuguese ancestry and appears to be derived from a nickname.  It was most likely a form of "Pan y agua," which means literally "bread and water."  This nickname would have been applied to the medieval beggars or travelers who went from town to town, asking for bread and water at various monasteries and manors in exchange for laborious work.  Find a list of notable people with the name at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paniagua 

Famed American photographer Ansel Adams co-founded the Center for Creative Photography in 1975.  His was one of five inaugural archives, and it remains a cornerstone of the Center’s fine art and archival collections.  Adams’s career spans seven decades and a wide range of subject matter, including portraits, still lifes, architecture, and the landscapes for which he is most famous.  Viewers often associate his lifelong environmentalism and advocacy for America’s wilderness places with his dramatic, panoramic photographs that celebrate the redemptive potential of the natural world.  Many of his best-known images were made in the American West, including a large group of works made in Yosemite Valley.  Adams first learned about photography and the Sierra Nevada Mountains as a child, on family vacation.  His love for the medium and the place grew in tandem, and after his initial 1916 visit, Adams visited Yosemite annually.  The Ansel Adams Archive at the Center for Creative Photography includes more than 2,500 fine prints, along with correspondence, interviews, unpublished writings, memorabilia, publications, negatives, transparencies, work prints, photographic equipment, and files documenting his commercial projects, exhibitions, affiliation with the Sierra Club and Friends of Photography.  Link to online gallery, list of photographs and see graphics at https://ccp.arizona.edu/artists/ansel-adams  The Center for Creative Photography is housed in Tucson at the University of Arizona.  

Organ meats like hearts are some of the most underrated cuts available, notes cookbook author and "The New York Times" columnist Mark Bittman.  A February 1993 article in "The Independent" supports this fact, noting that lamb heart is inexpensive, economical and easy to prepare.  It is also rich in protein and essential vitamins and minerals like vitamin B-12, iron, copper, selenium, zinc and riboflavin.  Use a low-fat method like broiling to prepare lamb heart and consume it only occasionally and in moderation, especially if you have high cholesterol or heart disease, as a 3-ounce serving of cooked lamb heart is high in saturated fat and cholesterol.  Michelle Kerns  https://www.livestrong.com/article/476840-how-to-cook-lamb-heart/  See also Don’t Go Breakin’ My Lamb Heart Recipe  http://www.cavegirlcuisine.com/recipes/dont-go-breakin-my-lamb-heart-recipe/ 

gallivant  It’s a fine word, which hints of galloping about in frolicsome high spirits.  The Oxford English Dictionary’s definition, written in an earlier age, suggests it means “to gad about in a showy fashion”.  Its origin in an old and obsolete German word gadling for a vagabond points to its disreputable nature.  Gallivanting is much like gadding about, though ideally you should adopt a more ostentatious or indiscreet demeanour.  Its antecedents are rather less clear:  the experts wave vaguely in the direction of gallant, meaning a dashing man of fashion, a fine gentleman, or a man who pays special attention to women.  That’s from the Old French galant, from galer, to make merry.  https://www.worldwidewords.org/weirdwords/ww-gal5.htm 

Pashtun, also spelled Pushtun or Pakhtun, Hindustani Pathan, Persian Afghan, are Pashto-speaking people residing primarily in the region that lies between the Hindu Kush in northeastern Afghanistan and the northern stretch of the Indus River in Pakistan.  They constitute the majority of the population of Afghanistan and bore the exclusive name of Afghan before that name came to denote any native of the present land area of Afghanistan.  The origins of the Pashtun are unclear.  Pashtun tradition asserts that they are descended from Afghana, grandson of King Saul of Israel, though most scholars believe it more likely that they arose from an intermingling of ancient Aryans from the north or west with subsequent invaders.  Several Pashtun tribes are known to have moved from Afghanistan to Pakistan between the 13th and 16th centuries.  Each tribe, consisting of kinsmen who trace descent in the male bloodline from a common tribal ancestor, is divided into clans, subclans, and patriarchal families.  Tribal genealogies establish rights of succession and inheritance and the right to use tribal lands and to speak in tribal council.  https://www.britannica.com/topic/Pashtun 

A pencil is an implement for writing or drawing, constructed of a narrow, solid pigment core in a protective casing that prevents the core from being broken and/or marking the user's hand.  Pencils create marks by physical abrasion, leaving a trail of solid core material that adheres to a sheet of paper or other surface.  They are distinct from pens, which dispense liquid or gel ink onto the marked surface.  Most pencil cores are made of graphite powder mixed with a clay binder.  Graphite pencils (traditionally known as "lead pencils") produce grey or black marks that are easily erased, but otherwise resistant to moisture, most chemicals, ultraviolet radiation and natural aging.  Other types of pencil cores, such as those of charcoal, are mainly used for drawing and sketching.  Coloured pencils are sometimes used by teachers or editors to correct submitted texts, but are typically regarded as art supplies—especially those with waxy core binders that tend to smear when erasers are applied to them.  Grease pencils have a softer, crayon-like waxy core that can leave marks on smooth surfaces such as glass or porcelain.  The most common pencil casing is thin wood, usually hexagonal in section but sometimes cylindrical or triangular, permanently bonded to the core.  Casings may be of other materials, such as plastic or paper.  To use the pencil, the casing must be carved or peeled off to expose the working end of the core as a sharp point.   Mechanical pencils have more elaborate casings which are not bonded to the core; instead, they support separate, mobile pigment cores that can be extended or retracted through the casing's tip as needed.  These casings can be reloaded with new cores (usually graphite) as the previous ones are exhausted.  As a technique for drawing, the closest predecessor to the pencil was silverpoint until in 1565 (some sources say as early as 1500), a large deposit of graphite was discovered on the approach to Grey Knotts from the hamlet of Seathwaite in Borrowdale parish, Cumbria, England.  This particular deposit of graphite was extremely pure and solid, and it could easily be sawn into sticks.  It remains the only large-scale deposit of graphite ever found in this solid form.  Chemistry was in its infancy and the substance was thought to be a form of lead.  Consequently, it was called plumbago (Latin for "lead ore"). Because the pencil core is still referred to as "lead", or "a lead", many people have the misconception that the graphite in the pencil is lead, and the black core of pencils is still referred to as lead, even though it never contained the element lead.  On 30 March 1858, Hymen Lipman received the first patent for attaching an eraser to the end of a pencil.  In 1862, Lipman sold his patent to Joseph Reckendorfer for $100,000, who went on to sue pencil manufacturer Faber-Castell for infringement.  In 1875, the Supreme Court of the US ruled against Reckendorfer declaring the patent invalid.  Read much more and see graphics at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pencil 

The Battle to Invent the Automatic Rice Cooker by Anne Ewbank  July 31, 2020  The biggest names in Japanese technology vied to bring them to market.  https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/rice-cooker-history 

Weck may refer to:  de Weck, a Swiss patrician family from Fribourg, Beef on weck, a roast beef sandwich on a kummelweck roll, WECK, a radio station (1230 AM, 102.9 FM, 100.5 FM) in metro Buffalo, New York, Kummelweck, a salty roll similar to a Kaiser roll commonly shortened to “weck", or Weck jar, a German company popular for its glass jars.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weck 

Roast Beef on Weck  https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/bobby-flay/roast-beef-on-weck-recipe-1939888   Recipe courtesy of Bobby Flay  

Convince a small child to wear a mask:  ‘We wear masks and stay six feet apart because we don’t want to spread our germs to others who may not be as healthy.  We wear our masks because we want to help everyone, not just ourselves.’” (Superhero-style masks help reinforce that thinking.)  Thank you, Muse reader! 

Authentic dueled with Tiz the Law in the final turn and upset the heavy favorite to win the 146th Kentucky Derby on September 5, 2020 at Churchill Downs.  Ridden by John Velazquez, Authentic led from start to finish and won by 1¼ lengths, giving trainer Bob Baffert his record-tying sixth Derby champion.  Authentic covered 1¼ mile in 2:00.61, the seventh-fastest time ever in the Derby, and paid $18.80 to win.  He is the first wire-to-wire Derby winner since 2002, when War Emblem won for Baffert.  https://www.espn.com/horse-racing/story/_/id/29819783/authentic-stuns-tiz-law-win-kentucky-derby 

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2254  September 8, 2020