Earliest known use of ‘nincompoop’ is from 1680--and apparently used in 1694 by Thomas d’Urfey in the Comical History of Don Quixote.  Rapscallion seems to be a purely linguistic adaptation from ‘rascallion’, from French ‘rascaille’ (a very low-order of French soldier), translated into English rascal, and all from ‘rash’ meaning impetuous.  A rapscallion, of course, is a rogue and a scalawag, familiar from movies about gambling and riverboats.  For scalawag, the Online Etymology Dictionary says the following:  “disreputable fellow,” 1848, American English, originally in trade union jargon, of uncertain origin, perhaps an alteration of Scottish scallag “farm servant, rustic” (by influence of wag “habitual joker”).  An early recorded sense was “undersized or worthless animal” (1854), which suggests an alteration of Scalloway, one of the Shetland Islands, in reference to little Shetland ponies.  In U.S. history, used from 1862 of anti-Confederate native white Southerners.”  Scalawag and rapscallion are both associated with the American South, and therefore their reference to disreputable types was firmly grounded in the political.  Nincompoops, however, are politically neutral.  https://aneardepthexperience.wordpress.com/2013/01/20/nincompoops-rapscallions-and-scalawags/

“The feds stay at those three-hundred-dollar-a-night resort places with the big golf courses.  I went out with some FBI agents and knocked the ball in all eighteen holes.  It wasn’t hard, but once you’ve done it, I don’t know why you’d want to do it again.”  The First Eagle, thirteenth crime fiction novel in the Joe Leaphorn/Jim Chee Navajo Tribal Police series by Tony Hillerman

gaslight  noun  (Britain, historical)  A lamp which operates by burning piped illuminating gas.  The light produced by the burning gas in such a lamp. 

gaslight  verb  (transitive)  To manipulate (someone) psychologically such that they question their own memory, perception, and sanity, thereby evoking in them cognitive dissonance and low self-esteem.  The stage play Gas Light by the English playwright and novelist Patrick Hamilton, from which the verb is derived, premiered in London on December 5, 1938.  In its 1940 and 1944 film adaptations, a husband attempts to convince his wife and others that she is insane by manipulating small elements of their environment.  https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/gaslight#English

The Broad Breasted White is commercially the most widely used breed of domesticated turkey.  These birds have shorter breast bones and larger breasts, sometimes rendering them unable to breed without human assistance (typically via artificial insemination).  They produce more breast meat and their pin feathers are less visible when the carcass is dressed due to their white color.  These properties have made the breed popular in commercial turkey production but enthusiasts of slow food argue that the development of this breed and the methods in commercial turkey production have come at a cost of less flavor.  These birds are grown in large, fully automated grow-out barns, which may house as many as 10,000 birds.  Average birds are typically 38-40 lbs.  Because of their size, they are flightless.  Breasted Whites have a very high percentage of their eggs hatch, which makes turkey eggs as a food item a rare delicacy.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broad_Breasted_White_turkey 

Kwame Dawes Assumes Stewardship of “American Life in Poetry” Column by BRITTLE PAPER  January 06, 2021   Kwame Dawes will be running the renowned “American Life in Poetry” newspaper column from January 2021 onward.  The “American Life in Poetry” column is a free weekly column that was started by Ted Kooser, the thirteenth Poet Laureate of the United States, in 2005.  The column features a poem by a contemporary American poet along with a brief introduction to the poem.  https://brittlepaper.com/2021/01/kwame-dawes-assumes-stewardship-of-american-life-in-poetry-column/ 

Though Americans often think of cornbread and corn pudding as original Southern specialties, getting corn onto colonial tables was not as easy as pumpkin pie.  In the beginning, European prejudice labeled corn as a “heathan graine” unfit for consumption.  But it wasn’t long before the settlers were forced to put aside their judgments of Native Americans’ diets, as they could not afford to ignore the benefits of the easy-growing, nutritious crop.  First they integrated the grain into feed for their livestock, but by the 18th century, corn pudding and other corn preparations graced even the tables of the upper class.  https://www.atlasobscura.com/foods/corn-knives

To make Roast Beef Debris, a chuck roast is braised and slow cooked in a garlic-flavored liquid until it gets fall-apart tender.  A portion of the cooking liquid is boiled down until it thickens and its flavor intensifies.  Then it serves as gravy for the meat.  Good on bread for sandwich or poured over potatoes or rice.  https://spicysouthernkitchen.com/roast-beef-debris/

The 15-minute city is defined by its ability to provide access to all human needs by walking or bicycling for a quarter hour or less.  Transit should be provided within the 15-minute city, but cannot accurately define its scale.  The 15-minute city is gaining significant traction politically and in planning circles, but what does it mean?  Definitions vary, and there is so much slack in the concept—depending on what transportation modes are included—that even conventional suburban sprawl might qualify under some circumstances.  See also https://www.15minutecity.com/about and https://www.ft.com/content/c1a53744-90d5-4560-9e3f-17ce06aba69a and https://www.fastcompany.com/90563920/this-map-tells-you-if-you-live-in-a-15-minute-city  Thank you, Muse reader!  The Muser lives in a “15-minute neighborhood.”

February 26 birthdays

1564 – Christopher Marlowe, English playwright, poet and translator (d. 1593)

1802 – Victor Hugo, French author, poet, and playwright (d. 1885)

1808 – Nathan Kelley, American architect, designed the Ohio Statehouse (d. 1871)

1829 – Levi Strauss, German-American fashion designer, founded Levi Strauss & Co. (d. 1902)

1879 – Frank Bridge, English viola player and composer (d. 1941)

1932 – Johnny Cash, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and actor (d. 2003)  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/February_26 

The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved--loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves. - Victor Hugo, novelist and dramatist (26 Feb 1802-1885) 

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2331  February 26, 2021

Voles are small brown rodents about the size and shape of a mouse.  They have small ears and a short tail.  Voles are common in yards.  They eat grasses and roots and leave trails.  We usually observe their small surface tunnels winding through lawns right after snow melt.  Moles are also small rodents; they have small eyes, concealed ears, and front feet designed for digging.  Unlike voles, moles are mostly predatory, eating earthworms, grubs, and other soil-dwelling arthropods.  Moles have deep below-ground tunnels as well as surface tunnels.  Entrances to mole tunnels may have mounds of excavated soil, often called molehills, near them.  https://blog-yard-garden-news.extension.umn.edu/2020/06/tunnels-and-holes-from-moles-and-voles.html 

Every year on April 14, the nori farmers of Japan travel to Uto City to celebrate the Mother of the Sea.  They assemble by a memorial that overlooks the Ariake Sea, an enormous, fertile bay speckled with the emerald-green grids of seaweed farms.  The mother they honor is no celestial figure spun from myth or memory, but rather an unpaid botanist from Manchester.  Though she lived halfway across the world, Kathleen Drew-Baker played a monumental role in saving Japan’s multi-billion dollar nori industry.  Nori, the Japanese name for the species of red seaweed known as Porphyra, is used ubiquitously in sushi.  Shimmering, crinkly sheets of processed Porphyra are what encircle sushi rolls and cradle onigiri.  Sabrina Imbler  Read much more and see pictures at https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/what-is-nori 

IMPLY:  to suggest indirectly what you really think about something (positive or negative opinion). 

INFER:  to form an opinion or decide that something is true based on the information you have. 

INSINUATE:  to suggest indirectly that something negative is true.  Anastasia Koltai  https://www.myenglishteacher.eu/blog/difference-between-infer-imply-and-insinuate/ 

Proudly sported every St. David’s Day on 1st March and at every international rugby match, the leek is now widely recognised as the national symbol of Wales.  The true origins are now perhaps lost in myth and legend; however the history can certainly be traced back at least seven hundred years.  During Elizabethan times, Shakespeare refers to the custom of wearing a leek as an “ancient tradition”, and his character Henry V tells Fluellen that he is wearing a leek “for I am Welsh, you know, good countryman.”  Earlier still in the fourteenth century, it is known that the feared Welsh archers adopted the green and white colours of the leek for their uniforms, perhaps at the Battle of Crecy.  Earlier than this however, myth and legend begin to intertwine.  According to one legend recorded by the English poet Michael Drayton in the early 1600’s, the leek was associated with St. David the Patron Saint of Wales who died in 589 AD.  It is possible that the poet made up the story; however it tells how St. David ordered his soldiers to wear the leek on their helmets in a battle against the hated pagan Saxon invaders of Britain.  The battle itself is also said to have taken place in a field full of leeks.  It is indeed likely that the Welsh association with the leek predates St. David by hundreds and possibly thousands of years, to an age when people worshipped trees, plants and other such aspects of Mother Nature.  The Druids were not only the Priests, Doctors, Poets and Minstrels of ancient Celtia, they were also the teachers who retained the sacred knowledge of ancient times.  It is in such times that the leek’s reputation as a medicine to cure a variety of illnesses would have been most appreciated and perhaps even revered.  It was highly regarded as a cure for the common cold, alleviating the pains of childbirth and was a tasty, healthy ingredient in cawl, the traditional Welsh broth.  It could seemingly offer protection against wounds in battle or against being struck by lightning, and was also a means of foretelling the future and for keeping away evil spirits.  Ben Johnson  https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofWales/The-Leek-National-emblem-of-the-Welsh/

 Traditional Welsh Cawl Stew  Cawl is a stew made from bacon, Welsh lamb or beef, cabbage, and leeks, although using cheaper cuts of meat is also traditional.  Welsh recipes for cawl vary from region to region, even season to season.  Time:  about 3 hours  Servings:  4  Elaine Lemm  https://www.thespruceeats.com/welsh-cawl-recipe-435581 

Renee Gladman (born 1971) is a poet, novelist, essayist, and artist.  She has published prose works including the Ravicka series of novels and the crime novel, Morelia; the poetry collection, Calamities; and a monograph of drawings, Prose Architectures.  Gladman is a graduate of Vassar College (BA, 1993), and studied poetics at the New College of California (MA, 2006).  She taught creative writing for many years at Brown University, served as a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard, and was a 2016 Image Text fellow at Ithaca College.  Her writing is associated with the New Narrative movement, characterized by writing that "tests the potential of the sentence with map-making precision and curiosity."  In 2016 she was awarded a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grant to Artists, which supported the publication of Prose Architectures.  As a publisher, Gladman has been responsible for the zine Clamour (1996-1999), the Leroy Chapbook series (1999-2003), and the Leon Works press, a perfect bound series of books for experimental prose (2005–present).  Gladman's Ravicka series, four interrelated fictional books taking place in the author's invented country of Ravicka, has been compared to the fiction of Samuel Beckett, Anne Carson, and Julio Cortázar.  Zack Friedman of BOMB has characterized the Ravicka series as “social science fiction,” a label that Gladman herself prefers:  “I definitely would prefer social science fiction to science fiction, as I really didn’t intend these books to ask deep questions about technology or bioengineering or inter-galaxy relations.  Instead, they wonder about city living, architecture, language and communication, desire, and community—the same things I wonder about in my own life.  For me, it needs to stay on this side of reality . . . and it needs to be pushing for physical space in this world.”   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renee_Gladman 

February 22, 2021  A tiny message hidden in Edvard Munch's famous painting "The Scream" was written by the artist himself, a new investigation of the work has found, finally resolving one of modern art's most enduring mysteries.  The message "Can only have been painted by a madman," scrawled and barely visible in the top left-hand corner of the painting, has been the subject of debate for decades and was widely believed to have been an act of vandalism by a viewer of the piece.  But extensive research by the National Museum of Norway has revealed that Munch wrote the phrase himself.  The Expressionist masterpiece is one of the most celebrated works of modern times, heralded as a timeless depiction of human anxiety.  The subject's anguished face has become so familiar that it was recently given its own emoji.  Curators used infrared technology to analyze the message, which was added on top of the finished painting, comparing it with Munch's notes and letters and studying events around the time of the work's first public showing.  Rob Picheta  https://www.cnn.com/style/article/edvard-munch-the-scream-inscription-scli-intl/index.html 

Come, live in my heart and pay no rent. - Samuel Lover, songwriter, composer, novelist, and artist (24 Feb 1797-1868)  Samuel Lover (24 February 1797–1868), also known as "Ben Trovato" ("well invented"), was an Irish songwriter, composer, novelist, and a painter of portraits, chiefly miniatures.  He was the grandfather of Victor Herbert.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Lover 

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2330  February 24, 2021 

In mid-19th-century France, a single marshmallow was a confectionary miracle to be savored.  Made from the sap of the mallow plant, whipped egg whites, water, and sugar syrup, each one was individually formed.  This sticky and time-consuming task was near-impossible to reproduce at home.  So marshmallows were correspondingly expensive, dainty treats.  But in 1895, Joseph Demerath of Rochester, New York, managed to disrupt the time-consuming tradition and bring marshmallows to the masses.  Within 30 years, Americans would be turning them into mayonnaise (!), salads, and the famous sweet potato casserole.  Instead of costly mallow gum, Demerath used gelatin.  With this recipe and the recently invented whirling steam marshmallow machine, he could make mass quantities of white fluff quickly and easily.  The Rochester Marshmallow Works inspired fleets of copycats and, by 1900, the confections were everywhere.  Natasha Frost   https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/marshmallows-sweet-potato-casserole-how-thanksgiving  See also https://www.rochestersubway.com/topics/2015/10/marshmallows-and-rochester/ 

What Countries Are Transcontinental?  Russia spans across the northern portion of Eurasia.  It is considered both a country of Europe, and a country of Asia.  Turkey is also a country of Europe and Asia. Traditionally, Turkey has been viewed as a crossroads between the two continents.  Egypt is considered a country of Africa only, but they do have land that spans into the Middle East (Asia) via the Sinai Peninsula.  France has many overseas regions that are considered integral parts of the country.  Among them are French Guiana, in South America, Guadeloupe and Martinique in the Caribbean (North America), and Mayotte and Réunion in the Indian Ocean (Africa).  The majority of Indonesia is in Asia, but the country does have two provinces on the Island of New Guinea, which is part of Oceania.  All 50 U.S. states are in North America, except for one.  Hawaii, which is located way out there in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, is typically considered part of Oceania.  There is no one, definitive border between Europe and Asia, for example--different sources will draw it at different points.   Find Border Dependent Transcontinental Countries and Countries with Overseas Territories on Different Continents at https://www.sporcle.com/blog/2019/03/what-countries-are-transcontinental/  See also https://familypedia.wikia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_spanning_more_than_one_continent

Inverted punctuation such as upside-down question marks or exclamation points are found in the languages of Spain and Latin American Spanish.  This punctuation marks the beginning of interrogative or exclamatory sentences or clauses and is mirrored at the end with standard punctuation.  While the standard punctuation is printed along the baseline of a sentence, inverted punctuation marks such as the upside down question mark descend below the line.  Inverted punctuation is especially critical in Spanish since the syntax of the language means that both statements and questions or exclamations could have the same wording.  https://blog.rosettastone.com/whats-up-with-the-upside-down-question-mark/  See also https://fsymbols.com/upside-down-question/ and https://www.thoughtco.com/upside-down-punctuation-in-spanish-3080317

Desperation, like necessity, was the mother of invention. * In the 1850s and 1860s, Central Park and then Prospect Park were both designed by Olmsted and Vaux.  Brooklyn was a separate city from New York.  In 1898, Manhattan and a small piece of the Bronx joined forces with Brooklyn, at that time, the third-largest city in America.  * Central Park . . . the magnificent green playground of the island of Manhattan * Death Angel, a novel by Linda Fairstein  

Also known as yaupon, cassina is a close relative of the popular South American holly-based tea, yerba maté.  Both dark brown drinks have an herbaceous, complex flavor and a mild, jitter-less buzz.  And yet, yerba maté has survived, and thrived, while cassina has faded into obscurity.  After seeing Native Americans sipping yaupon throughout the American South, some colonists started drinking the beverage and even exported it to Europe.  Though the holly-based brew disappeared from Americans’ teacups in the years after the Civil War, a small group of farmers currently grow and sell yaupon in the plant’s native habitat, which stretches from Virginia to the Gulf Coast of Texas.  Several cafes in cities such as Austin, Texas, and Asheville, North Carolina, have even started featuring it on their menus.  https://www.atlasobscura.com/foods/yaupon-cassina-tea 

George Catlett Marshall Jr. (1880–1959) was an American soldier and statesman.  He rose through the United States Army to become Chief of Staff under presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman, then served as Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense under Truman.  Winston Churchill lauded Marshall as the "organizer of victory" for his leadership of the Allied victory in World War II.  Roosevelt passed over Marshall as allied commander in the invasion of France in favor of Dwight D. Eisenhower.  As Secretary of State, Marshall advocated a significant U.S. economic and political commitment to post-war European recovery, including the Marshall Plan that bore his name. In recognition of this work, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1953.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Marshall 

Earl Warren (1891–1974) was an American politician and jurist who served as Governor of California from 1943 to 1953 and Chief Justice of the United States from 1953 to 1969.  The "Warren Court" presided over a major shift in American constitutional jurisprudence, which has been recognized by many as a "Constitutional Revolution" in the liberal direction, with Warren writing the majority opinions in landmark cases such as Brown v. Board of Education (1954), Reynolds v. Sims (1964), Miranda v. Arizona (1966) and Loving v. Virginia (1967).  Warren also led the Warren Commission, a presidential commission that investigated the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy.  He is the last Chief Justice to have served in an elected office before entering the Supreme Court, and is generally considered to be one of the most influential Supreme Court justices and political leaders in the history of the United States.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earl_Warren 

The artist who sculpted “Charging Bull,” the bronze statue in New York which became a symbol of Wall Street, died in Vittoria, Sicily on February 19, 2021 at age 80.  The sculptor lived in New York for more than 40 years.  He arrived in 1973 and opened an art studio in the city’s SoHo neighborhood.  With the help of a truck and crane, Di Modica installed the bronze bull sculpture in New York’s financial district without permission on the night of Dec. 16, 1989.  The artist reportedly spent $350,000 of his money to create the 3.5-ton bronze beast that came to symbolize the resilience of the U.S. economy after a 1987 stock market crash.  He said he conceived of the bull sculpture as “a joke, a provocation.  Instead, it became a cursedly serious thing,” destined to be one of New York’s more visited monuments.  See pictures at https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/wall-street-charging-bull-sculptor-arturo-di-modica-dies-80-n1258446

February 21 to 28, 2021 is CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) Week.  You purchase an advance share in a local farm, and then receive portions of their bounty through the summer.  See an example of a CSA newsletter that includes recipes at http://greenedgegardens.blogspot.com/2013/01/week-4-newsletter-winter-2013.html 

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2329  February 22, 2021

On a brick archway between the Central Park Zoo and Tisch Children's Zoo stands the whimsical George Delacorte Musical Clock.  It was dedicated in 1965 and named for its donor, George T. Delacorte.  The philanthropist behind many of the children’s attractions in Central Park, Delacorte was also a fan of the medieval mechanical clocks found in European squares.  The band’s repertoire stays fresh and seasonally appropriate year-round; from late March through early June, visitors may hear springtime melodies like “April Showers” and “Younger than Springtime.”  During the holidays, “Winter Wonderland” and “Jingle Bells,” among other festive tunes, ring out from the beloved clock.  Visit the NYC Park’s website for the full playlist.  See pictures and map at https://www.centralparknyc.org/locations/delacorte-clock 

THX 1138 is a 1971 American social science fiction film directed by George Lucas in his feature film directorial debut.  It is set in a dystopian future in which the populace is controlled through android police and mandatory use of drugs that suppress emotions.  Produced by Francis Ford Coppola and written by Lucas and Walter Murch, it stars Robert Duvall and Donald Pleasence.  THX 1138 was developed from Lucas's student film Electronic Labyrinth:  THX 1138 4EB, which he made in 1967 while attending the USC School of Cinematic Arts.  The feature film was produced in a joint venture between Warner Bros. and American Zoetrope.  A novelization by Ben Bova was published in 1971.  The film received mixed reviews from critics and failed to find box-office success on initial release; however, the film has subsequently received critical acclaim and gained a cult following, particularly in the aftermath of Lucas' success with Star Wars in 1977.  A director's cut prepared by Lucas was released in 2004.  Filming began on September 22, 1969.  The schedule was between 35 and 40 days, completing in November 1969.  Lucas filmed THX 1138 in Techniscope.  Most locations for filming were in the San Francisco area, including the unfinished tunnels of the Bay Area Rapid Transit subway system, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the Marin County Civic Center in San Rafael designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, the Lawrence Hall of Science in Berkeley, the San Francisco International Airport, and at a remote manipulator for a hot cell.  Studio sequences were shot at stages in Los Angeles, including a white stage 100 by 150 feet (30 by 46 m) for the "white limbo" sequences.  Lucas used entirely natural light.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/THX_1138 

Johns Hopkins (1795–1873) was an American entrepreneur, investor, abolitionist and philanthropist of 19th-century Baltimore, Maryland.  His bequests founded numerous institutions bearing his name, most notably Johns Hopkins Hospital, and Johns Hopkins University (including its academic divisions such as Johns Hopkins School of Nursing, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Johns Hopkins Carey Business School, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies).  His first name was inherited from his grandfather Johns Hopkins, who received his first name when his mother Margaret Johns married Gerard Hopkins.  Johns Hopkins is described as being an "abolitionist before the word was even invented", having been represented as such both prior to the Civil War period, as well as during the Civil War and Reconstruction Era.  In 1973, Johns Hopkins was cited prominently in the Pulitzer Prize-winning book The Americans:  The Democratic Experience by Daniel Boorstin, former head of the Library of Congress.  From November 14, 1975, to September 6, 1976, a portrait of Hopkins was displayed at the National Portrait Gallery in an exhibit on the democratization of America based on Boorstin's book.  In 1989, the United States Postal Service issued a $1 postage stamp in Johns Hopkins' honor, as part of the Great Americans series.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johns_Hopkins 

Donald Edwin Westlake (1933–2008) was an American writer, with more than a hundred novels and non-fiction books to his credit.  He specialized in crime fiction, especially comic capers, with an occasional foray into science fiction and other genres.  Westlake is perhaps best-remembered for creating two professional criminal characters who each starred in a long-running series:  the relentless, hard-boiled Parker (published under the pen name Richard Stark), and John Dortmunder, who featured in a more humorous series.  He was a three-time Edgar Award winner, and alongside Joe Gores and William L. DeAndrea was one of few writers to win Edgars in three different categories (1968, Best Novel, God Save the Mark; 1990, Best Short Story, "Too Many Crooks"; 1991, Best Motion Picture Screenplay, The Grifters).  In 1993, the Mystery Writers of America named Westlake a Grand Master, the highest honor bestowed by the society.  Find a list of Donald Westlake’s pseudonyms and his works at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_E._Westlake

Aber and Inver are common elements in place-names of Celtic origin.  Both mean "confluence of waters" or "river mouth".   Because Celtic languages place the generic element of a compound (what kind of thing it is) before the specific element (which one it is), the elements aber and inver normally appear at the beginning of a place name, the opposite of the English (Germanic) pattern.  Contrast:  Inverness (mouth of the river Ness) and Eyemouth (mouth of the river Eye).  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aber_and_Inver_(placename_elements) 

Inveraray Castle is a country house near Inveraray in the county of Argyll, in western Scotland, on the shore of Loch Fyne, Scotland’s longest sea loch.  It is one of the earliest examples of Gothic Revival architecture.  It has been the seat of the Dukes of Argyll, chiefs of Clan Campbell, since the 18th century.  The 2012 Christmas episode of Downton Abbey was partly filmed here; the castle portraying the fictional "Duneagle Castle".  Inveraray Castle also featured in a series on Scottish castles made by American broadcaster PBS.  See pictures at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inveraray_Castle

"The Campbells Are Coming" is a Scottish song associated with Clan Campbell.  The tune, a traditional Scottish air, is similar to "The Town of Inveraray" ("I was at a wedding in the town of Inveraray / Most wretched of weddings, with nothing but shellfish . . . "  The song is commonly attributed to Robert Burns, like many Scottish songs which are actually traditional or of unknown origin.  Burns did write a version with some different verses, which he published in the Scots Musical Museum, a collection of Scottish folk songs (and some new songs) published between 1787 and 1803.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Campbells_Are_Coming 

Architecture is inhabited sculpture. - Constantin Brancusi, sculptor (19 Feb 1876-1957) 

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2328  February 19, 2021