Anthropodermic bibliopegy is the practice of binding books in human skin.  What Lawrence Thompson called "the most famous of all anthropodermic bindings" is exhibited at the Boston Athenaeum, titled The Highwayman: Narrative of the Life of James Allen alias George Walton.  It is by James Allen, who made his deathbed confession in prison in 1837 and asked for a copy bound in his own skin to be presented to a man he once tried to rob and admired for his bravery, and another one for his doctor.  An exhibition of fine bindings at the Grolier Club in 1903 included, in a section of 'Bindings in Curious Materials', three editions of Holbein's 'Dance of Death' in 19th century human skin bindings; two of these now belong to the John Hay Library at Brown University.  Other examples of the Dance of Death include an 1856 edition offered at auction by Leonard Smithers in 1895 and an 1842 edition from the personal library of Florin Abelès was offered at auction by Piasa of Paris in 2006.  The Newberry Library in Chicago owns an Arabic manuscript written in 1848, with a handwritten note that it is bound in human skin, though "it is the opinion of the conservation staff that the binding material is not human skin, but rather highly burnished goat".  This book is mentioned in the novel The Time Traveler's Wife, much of which is set in the Newberry.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropodermic_bibliopegy

Dr. Lawrence Sidney Thompson (1916–1986) worked at the University of Kentucky as the Director of Libraries and as a faculty member in the classics department.  He wrote extensively on the processes of printing and publication. Dr. Thompson also researched processes for cataloging materials, frequently corresponding with European colleagues.  He was director of the Margaret I. King Library at the University of Kentucky from 1948 to 1963.  He was the author of Human Skin, a paper on Anthropodermic bibliopegy.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_S._Thompson 

Two species of cypress reside within the Everglades, the bald cypress (Taxodium distichum) and the pond cypress (Taxodium ascendens).  These trees were harvested during the early to mid 1900s.  The durable wood from these cypress were used to make shingles, siding, cross ties, fenceposts, and picklebarrels.  Second growth cypress is what primarily remains visible today.  See many pictures at https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/southflorida/habitats/cypress-swamps/flora-fauna/

Sidewalk Stories is a 1989 American low-budget, nearly silent movie directed by and starring Charles Lane.  The film was shot in black and white and tells the story of a young African American man raising a small child after her father is murdered.  The film was televised by PBS as well as saw limited exposure on VHS and cable television in the 1990s.  In October 2014, Sidewalk Stories was released on DVD and Blu-ray courtesy of Kino Lorber.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidewalk_Stories  Disney offered Charles Lane the chance to do a remake with sound and color. They wanted Tom Hanks to star.  Hanks loved Sidewalk Stories (1989) but turned down the remake.  Lane did not want to make the remake at all.  Nicole Alysia (who played the small child) is Charles Lane's daughter in real life.  Charles Lane was inspired by Charles Chaplin's The Kid (1921) and J. Lee Thompson's Tiger Bay (1959).  Lane shot the film in two weeks on a $200,000 budget.  The main character, "The Artist" works in front of a banner to "Preserve the Greenwich Village Waterfront and Port".  Such activity was a real movement of the 1970s through early 2000s, where the long-abandoned cruise liner and shipping piers, and the surrounding terminals and land, was considered for a new highway system, which was later overruled for cost.  Later efforts included urban development in the form of office towers, or apartment buildings, which would enrich developers who would buy cheaply, develop and rent to the wealthy, pushing out the artists and other who had adopted the location for decades.  The Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation "Secured groundbreaking landmark designations honoring LGBT, African American, Women's, immigrant, and counter-cultural history, affordable housing developments, and modern architecture."  Due to these and other efforts, including Hudson River Park Trust, the area is preserved and rehabilitated as a series of parks:  Hudson River Park, Riverside Park, and The Battery, to benefit all New Yorkers.  https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0098325/trivia?ref_=tt_trv_trv  Charles Lane brightens when he talks about the silent film's original music, composed by Marc Marder and performed by a 33-piece orchestra.  He said in some ways he's prouder of Marder's music than his work on the film.  "Together, it's a wonderful marriage," he said of his collaboration with Marder.  https://www.syracuse.com/entertainment/2014/10/director_of_sidewalk_stories_to_discuss_his_silent_film_at_syracuse_internationa.html 

This best brined roast chicken recipe makes brining worth the effort.  It results in some of the most flavorful roasted chicken we’ve ever made.  The volume of kosher salt varies greatly from brand to brand due to the size of the crystals.  The two brands mentioned in the recipe, which are the two most widely available, will give you perfect results.  Don’t even think of using sea salt or table salt.  David Leite  Find recipe and pictures at https://leitesculinaria.com/227136/recipes-best-brined-roast-chicken.html 

High and dry, high and mighty, high as a kite, high comma, high horse, high jinks, high nelly, high old time, high on the hog, high profile, high relief, high society, high tea, highfalutin.  Find other uses of high at https://wordassociations.net/en/words-associated-with/High 

In 1995, El Paso author Robert Skimin suggested the idea of a book festival to Laura Bush.  Independently, Mary Margaret Farabee, who had already been working with friend Carolyn Osborn on a book festival concept, proposes her version of the idea to Bush.  A visit to the Southern Festival of Books in Tennessee had inspired Farabee and Osborn.  Farabee spent a year calling around the country to research the logistics of such a project.  In the end, Farabee and Bush joined forces to establish the fest, in part to deliver support to the state’s public library system, but also to honor Texas authors and to promote reading.  Nothing previous that happened in previous years could have prepared organizers, authors and audiences for an all-digital festival necessitated by a pandemic in 2020.  At least the Texas Book Festival organizers have had a number of months to plan for it.  Michael Barnes  See a timeline of the festival at https://www.austin360.com/entertainment/20201022/happy-anniversary-texas-book-festival-25-years-and-still-reading 

THOUGHT FOR DECEMBER 2  Science does correct itself and that's the reason why science is such a glorious thing for our species. - Nigel Calder, science writer (2 Dec 1931-2014) 

WORD OF THE DAY FOR DECEMBER 2  bit bucket (plural bit buckets) (computing)  noun (historical)  A container for holding chad (“small punched-out pieces of paper”) from paper tape or punch cards used with teleprinters, early computers, and other machines; a chad box. quotations ▼ (by extension, humorous, slang) The supposed place where bits (binary digits) go when they fall off the end of a register during a shift operation; the notional resting place of lost or missing digital information. quotations ▼  bit bucket (third-person singular simple present bit buckets, present participle bit bucketing, simple past and past participle bit bucketed)  verb  (transitive, computing, humorous, slang)  To delete.  Synonyms: black hole, byte bucket, memory hole  https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bit_bucket#English

Today is World Computer Literacy Day, which was launched by Indian company NIIT to encourage the development of computing skills, especially among women and children in India. 

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2292  December 2, 2020