The Shakers, an 18th-century Protestant sect founded in England, wasted nothing.  Members were taught to “Shaker your plate,” or finish every last crumb.  Made from whole lemons, rinds and all, Shaker lemon pie is a perfect example of just how frugal and resourceful their cooking gets.  When early American Shakers settled in Ohio, they grew and raised almost everything they consumed.  One crop they couldn’t grow?  Lemons.  As such, they purchased or traded for the fruit, and cooks stretched the valued ingredient as far as possible.  Sometime in the 19th century, they first developed the tangy pie filling using nothing but paper-thin slices of lemon, eggs, and sugar.  Home bakers still make the pie today.  Tasters describe modern renditions as having a sweet, tangy filling and buttery, crisp crust.  Bakers still use every part of the lemon, but there’s nothing miserly about the flavor.  Saveur provides a recipe for Shaker lemon pie.  https://www.atlasobscura.com/foods/shaker-lemon-pie-ohio-lemon-pie 

To be on your last legs be nearing the end of your strength or usefulness.  This idiom usually refers to people, but can also refer to machinery, etc.  It may sometimes refer to inanimate objects such as items of clothing.  In regards to people, the expression usually means to be so exhausted, old, or ill that one is near to collapsing.  In use since at least the 1800’s, the idiom most likely derived from horses or beasts of burden, which, when overworked or too old, may still be able to stand and move around but can no longer perform work or carry a rider.  https://www.idioms.online/on-your-last-legs/ 

"Break a leg" is a typical English idiom used in theatre to wish a performer "good luck".  An ironic or non-literal saying of uncertain origin (a dead metaphor), "break a leg" is commonly said to actors and musicians before they go on stage to perform, likely first used in this context in the United States in the 1930s or possibly 1920s, originally documented without specifically theatrical associations.  The expression probably reflects a superstition (perhaps a theatrical superstition) in which directly wishing a person "good luck" would be considered bad luck, therefore an alternative way of wishing luck was developed.  The expression is sometimes used outside the theatre as superstitions and customs travel through other professions and then into common use.  Urbane Irish nationalist Robert Wilson Lynd published an article, "A Defence of Superstition", in the 1 October 1921 edition of the New Statesman, a British liberal political and cultural magazine, regarding the theatre as the second-most superstitious institution in England, after horse racing.  In horse racing, Lynd asserted, to wish a man luck is considered unlucky, so "You should say something insulting such as, 'May you break your leg!'"  Mostly commonly favored as a credible theory by etymologists and other scholars, the term was possibly adapted from the similar German phrase Hals- und Beinbruch, literally "neck and leg(bone) break", itself borrowed from Yiddish:  הצלחה און ברכה‎, romanized:  hatsloche un broche, lit. 'success and blessing', Hebrew:  hatzlacha u-bracha, because of its similar pronunciation.  For example, the autobiography of Manfred von Richthofen records pilots of the German air force during the First World War as using the phrase Hals- und Beinbruch to ironically wish each other luck and safety before a flight. The German-language term continues to mean "good luck" but is still not specific to the theatre.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Break_a_leg  Break a leg is a well-known idiom in theatre which means "good luck".  It may also refer to:  Break a Leg (web series), an American comedy web series; "Break a Leg" (song); or Break a Leg (film), a 2005 film featuring Sandra Oh.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Break_a_leg_(disambiguation)   

Under the pen name Selena Montgomery, politician, lawyer and activist Stacey Yvonne Abrams (born December 9, 1973) is the award-winning author of several romantic suspense novels.  According to Abrams, she has sold more than 100,000 copies of her novels.  She wrote her first novel during her third year at Yale Law School and published her most recent book in 2009.  Montgomery won both the Reviewer's Choice Award and the Reader's Favorite Award from Romance In Color for Best New Author, and was featured as a Rising Star.  Abrams has published articles on public policy, taxation, and nonprofit organizations.  She is the author of Minority Leader:  How to Lead from the Outside and Make Real Change, published by Henry Holt & Co. in April 2018. Abrams is also the author of Our Time Is Now: Power, Purpose, and the Fight for a Fair America, published by Henry Holt & Co. in June 2020.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stacey_Abrams 

July 22, 2020  Every two to six days, a Seattle Public Library staffer—from bookshelvers to librarians and everyone in between—will dial up the library's Lit Line and make a recording of a poem or short story or an article from the libraries newspaper archives.  It's also all available in Spanish.  Anyone can call in and listen.  The Lit Line (206-386-4656) isn't necessarily a newfangled idea, SPL librarian Robin Rousu told me.  It's pretty old.  Rousu has been a librarian with SPL for 15 years.  She used to run the Dial-a-Story program where kids were encouraged to call a number to get a story read to them.  That program was built around the idea of landlines.  So, naturally, it's since faded from relevance.  But, the infrastructure and the idea were perfect for the COVID-19 era.  All SPL branches closed their doors back in March.  Everything shifted online.  All employees were remote.  That had never happened before, Rousu said.  While they were adapting, Rousu, who is the supervisor for mobile library services, wondered how seniors and people without internet access were going to access what the library had to offer.  In Washington, 735,000 people don't have an internet connection.  In Seattle, around 14 percent of residents lack home internet.  Libraries used to be a hub for these groups to get online.  Currently, the state is putting around 600 drive-in wifi hotspots around the state.  Around half will be at Washington state libraries.  While it's no solution for the internet access problem, with the Lit Line, SPL has expanded who can access their services by pivoting back to what Rousu called "interesting, ephemeral analog audio content."  Basically, SPL has commandeered the City of Seattle's voicemail system for two-to-five-minute morsels of literature, poetry, and Seattle history.  There are limitations, of course.  The content has to be under five minutes long and there's no way to save old stories.  Recording a Lit Line story is basically the same as recording an outgoing voicemail message and each new one will erase the old story (maybe a dedicated or bored citizen could make recordings of each story so we can make a mixtape zine of audio recordings, Rousu joked).  On top of that, SPL can only use fair use content—anything that doesn't have a copyright.  All SPL branches closed their doors back in March. Everything shifted online. All employees were remote.  That had never happened before, Rousu said.  While they were adapting, Rousu, who is the supervisor for mobile library services, wondered how seniors and people without internet access were going to access what the library had to offer.  Nathalie Graham  https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2020/07/22/44139355/seattle-public-librarians-just-want-to-read-you-stories   

WORD OF THE DAY FOR NOVEMBER 13  fantasia noun  (music, also figurative)  A form of instrumental composition with a free structure and improvisational characteristics; specifically, one combining a number of well-known musical pieces.  (chiefly art, by extension)  Any work which is unstructured or comprises other works of different genres or styles.  A traditional festival of the Berbers of the Maghreb (in northwest Africa) featuring exhibitions of horsemanship. The Walt Disney animated film Fantasia premiered November 13, 1940.  https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/fantasia#English

A THOUGHT FOR NOVEMBER 13  It is perhaps a more fortunate destiny to have a taste for collecting shells than to be born a millionaire. - Robert Louis Stevenson, novelist, essayist, and poet (13 Nov 1850-1894) 

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2284  November 13, 2020