If you’re ever in a bakeshop on Chicago’s South Side, you’ll probably see a towering confection that stacks three cakes into one glorious treat.  Welcome to the world of Atomic Cake, where layers of banana melt into fluffy custard, tangy reverberations of strawberry are cut short by deep, rich chocolate, and everything is shrouded in a blanket of whipped cream.  To build this gargantuan delight, bakers are tasked with whipping up three different cake bases—banana, yellow, and chocolate—then layering fillings and fruit throughout.  After packing in the likes of Bavarian cream custard, fresh bananas, and glazed strawberries, the pastry chef tops each cake with a layer of fudge and a slathering of whipped cream (or, occasionally, buttercream).  South Side bakeries have been selling the cake since the 1950s.  Generations of South-siders think of milestones and rites of passage, particularly birthdays, as cause for the treat.  You won’t see kids enjoying a slice after school, because bakeries don’t sell the behemoth creation a la carte.  If someone wants an Atomic Cake, they’re buying the whole thing.  https://www.atlasobscura.com/foods/atomic-cake-chicago

The popularity of Quilling/Paper-rolling/Paper-scrolling/Filigree/Mosaic has fluctuated.  Work of high quality was achieved by French and Italian nuns in the 16th and 17th centuries; genteel ladies in the Stuart period; ladies of leisure in the Georgian and Regency periods--and it is currently enjoying a modern revival.  It also spread to North America with the settlers.  Those of us who quill today find we have something in common with Elizabeth, daughter of George III, Joseph Bramah (the famous locksmith), Mrs Delany (pioneer of other paperwork and friend of Jonathan Swift), Jane Austen (who mentions it in her novel 'Sense and Sensibility') and the Bronte sisters:  quite a distinguished gathering of enthusiasts!  Nuns on the continent decorated reliquaries and holy pictures, adding gilding and much ornamentation.  The ecclesiastical connection was maintained when the art spread to England with the development of paper, though vellum and parchment were also used.  Poorer churches produced religious pictures with rolled decoration.  When gilded or silvered, it was difficult to distinguish it from real gold or silver filigree work.  http://quilling-guild.weebly.com/the-history-of-quilling.html 

There's a popular misconception that librarians as a profession are conservative.  Not politically conservative, but literally conservative—wanting to keep old stuff.  Actually, nothing could be further from the truth—we are often on the cutting edge of using new technologies, and always looking for the most efficient, up-to-date way to help our patrons.  Thomas J. Watson Library, for example, paid for the Museum's first T1 line to bring the internet into the building, and our Lita Annenberg Hazen and Joseph H. Hazen Center for Electronic Resources, founded in 1997, was the first dedicated electronic resources center in an art museum.  When I started working in Watson Library in 2003, there were still remnants of the old world.  Dot matrix printers, green-screen interfaces for our ILS (Integrated Library System, the back end of the online catalogue).  We still had a card catalogue as well, although it had not been added to since 1990.  As we continued to modernize, many of the artifacts were being discarded, as they were no longer useful.  Former Watson Librarians Erika Hauser and Dan Lipcan and I decided we should preserve some of this material culture, and the Museum of Obsolete Library Science (MOLISCI) was born.  John Lindaman, Manager of Technical Services, Thomas J. Watson Library  Read more and see pictures at https://www.metmuseum.org/blogs/in-circulation/2020/molisci  Thank you, Muse reader!            

The Thomas J. Watson Library of Business & Economics at Columbia University holds a contemporary collection of over 400,000 books and over 1,000 journal titles.  Special focus is placed on the topics of accounting, business economics, business history, management of organizations, management science, operations management, corporate and international finance, international economics, corporate relations, security analysis, marketing, money and financial markets, and labor.  Find location and hours at https://library.columbia.edu/libraries/business/about.html 

Steph Curry’s book club is a partnership with Literati, and it costs $20 a month.  For that price you get a copy of that month’s book (hardcover), and access to an online discussion that Curry moderates.  October in 2020 was the first month of the book club, and Curry chose the book The Other Wes Moore:  One Name, Two Fates, by Wes Moore.  November’s selection will be A Most Beautiful Thing:  The True Story of America’s First All-Black High School Rowing Team, by Arshay Cooper.  On October 19, 2020, The Washington Post published a great interview with Curry about the book club, in which he talked a lot about what he hoped to achieve.   https://www.goldenstateofmind.com/2020/10/19/21524026/steph-curry-warriors-book-club-andre-iguodala

With Gregory Maguire’s new novel, A Wild Winter Swan, we’re back in the land of Grimm and Andersen, where boys might turn into swans, leaving brave, resourceful girls with little choice but to save them.  Molly Templeton  https://www.tor.com/2020/10/08/book-reviews-gregory-maguire-a-wild-winter-swan/  The Muser first encountered Maguire’s book Wicked, first in The Wicked Years series, ducking into an Ann Arbor bookstore to escape the rain in 1995. 

On October 19, 2020, Dutton announced that it had acquired “What’s Next:  A Citizen’s Guide to The West Wing,” organized by actors Melissa Fitzgerald and Mary McCormack, with the participation of Martin Sheen, Bradley Whitford, Allison Janney and series creator Aaron Sorkin among others.  “What’s Next” will combine memories of the NBC program, which ran from 1999-2006, with “a powerful case for competent and empathetic leadership, and for hope and optimism in what lies ahead,” according to Dutton, which has not set a release date.  Hillel Italie  https://www.seattletimes.com/entertainment/the-west-wing-cast-reunites-again-this-time-for-a-book/

Wild milkweed adorns the roadsides and fields in Maywood, Nebraska and the surrounding area, but it’s more than a pretty plant, or as some may think, a pesky weed.  Milkweed promises extra income for those who are willing to pick its pods when the time is right.  Local resident, Annette Wood, is spearheading the first Community Conservation wild milkweed collection effort in the area for Sustainable Monarch, a nonprofit in North Platte.  “I was looking for a fundraiser for our daughter’s sophomore class when Debbie approached me about the Community Conservation program through her nonprofit.”  “Instead of pushing cookie dough or other items for people to buy, we have whole families getting out into Nature and picking milkweed pods.  We found two monarch caterpillars yesterday, so we are learning about the environment and the monarch’s migration.”  “Monarch butterflies need milkweed, the caterpillar’s sole food source, along their migration route from Mexico to Canada” said Debbie Dekleva, founder of Sustainable Monarch.  “The loss of habitat across the United States has created a need for local milkweed seed to restore the landscapes.  We help communities work with Nature and make money at the same time.”  https://www.mccookgazette.com/story/2836466.html  See also https://roanoke.com/archive/how-toxic-is-milkweed/article_231b6226-546d-11e4-89ed-001a4bcf6878.html  Thank you, Muse reader!

A missing painting in an epic series by Jacob Lawrence has been located and will be reunited with others in a travelling exhibition that is now on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the institution announced October 21, 2020.  The work in tempera on panel is one of 30 in the original series, Struggle:  From the History of the American People (1954-56), which depicts watershed events dating in the early decades of the republic.  The Met says that five of the 30 had been lost to history, and two of those were recorded only by their titles rather than with images, including the one that was just rediscovered.  A recent visitor to the Met's exhibition who knew that an artwork by Lawrence had been in a neighbour's collection for years suspected that the painting might belong to the Struggle series and urged the owners to contact the museum, the institution says.  The owners wish to remain anonymous, it adds.  The newly discovered painting, titled There are combustibles in every State, which a spark might set fire to. —Washington, 26 December 1786, depicts Shays' Rebellion, an armed uprising by farmers in Massachusetts that helped to spur the writing of the US Constitution and moves to bolster federal power.  In slashing forms in blue, black, yellow and sienna, it depicts opposing forces with bayonets.  Nancy Kenney

https://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/missing-for-60-years-a-jacob-lawrence-painting-surfaces-in-response-to-a-met-exhibition  See a picture of The Library (1960), depicting a few black figures reading books that reference African artwork.  Anna Diamond  Read more and see pictures of This is Harlem (1943) and Bar and Grill (1941) at https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/why-works-visionary-artist-jacob-lawrence-still-resonate-century-after-his-birth-180964706/

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2275  October 23, 2020