Derived from the German schmierkäse (“to smear” and “cheese”), smearcase simply meant cottage cheese to a 19th-century American.  Milkmen sold it.  Families mixed it with cream to create the product that paved the way for modern cream cheese.  In the Pennsylvania Amish community, smearcase is still a term for cottage cheese.  But in Baltimore, smearcase is the name of a rare, custardy cheesecake.  Once home to a large population of German immigrants, Baltimore still features a handful of long-standing grocery stores and bakeries that sell this distinct, local sweet.  To make a traditional smearcase, bakers prepare yeasted crust, then add a custardy, cheesy filling.  After baking, they finish it off with a sprinkle of cinnamon.  Compared to standard American cheesecake, smearcase tastes lighter and less sugary, with a more cake-like crust.  https://www.atlasobscura.com/foods/smearcase-cake-baltimore 

Sine nomine (abbreviated s.n.) is a Latin expression, meaning "without a name".  It is most commonly used in the contexts of publishing and bibliographical listings such as library catalogs, to signify that the publisher (or distributor, etc.) of a listed work is unknown, or not printed or specified on the work.  It is to be compared with sine loco (s.l.), "without a place", used where the place of publication of a work is unknown or unspecified.  While it may sometimes be used to disclose unknown authorship, this is more commonly indicated as anon. or similar.  The phrase and its abbreviation have been deprecated in Anglophone cataloging with the adoption of the Resource Description and Access standard, which instead prescribes the unabbreviated English phrase "publisher not identified" (or "distributor not identified", etc.).  Sine loco is likewise replaced by "place of publication not identified".   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sine_nomine 

The Course of Empire is a series of five paintings created by Thomas Cole in the years 1833–1836.  It is notable in part for reflecting popular American sentiments of the times, when many saw pastoralism as the ideal phase of human civilization, fearing that empire would lead to gluttony and inevitable decay.  The theme of cycles is one that Cole returned to frequently, such as in his The Voyage of Life series.  The Course of Empire comprises the following works: The Course of Empire – The Savage State; The Arcadian or Pastoral State; The Consummation of Empire; Destruction; and Desolation.  All the paintings are oil on canvas, and all are 39.5 inches by 63.5 inches (100 cm by 161 cm) except The Consummation of Empire which is 51″ by 76″ (130 cm by 193 cm).  The series of paintings depicts the growth and fall of an imaginary city, situated on the lower end of a river valley, near its meeting with a bay of the sea.  The valley is distinctly identifiable in each of the paintings, in part because of an unusual landmark:  a large boulder is situated atop a crag overlooking the valley.  Some critics believe this is meant to contrast the immutability of the earth with the transience of man.  A direct source of literary inspiration for The Course of Empire paintings is Byron's Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1812–18).  Cole quoted lines from Canto IV in his newspaper advertisements for the series:  First freedom and then Glory–when that fails, Wealth, vice, corruption . . .  Cole designed these paintings to be displayed prominently in the picture gallery on the third floor of the mansion of his patron, Luman Reed, at 13 Greenwich Street, New York City.  The series was acquired by The New-York Historical Society in 1858 as a gift of the New-York Gallery of Fine Arts.  See descriptions and graphics at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Course_of_Empire_(paintings) 

International Women's Day (IWD) is celebrated on 8 March around the world.  It is a focal point in the movement for women's rights.  After the Socialist Party of America organized a Women's Day in New York City on February 28, 1909, German delegates Clara Zetkin, Käte Duncker, Paula Thiede and others proposed at the 1910 International Socialist Woman's Conference that "a special Women's Day" be organized annually.  After women gained suffrage in Soviet Russia in 1917, March 8 became a national holiday there.  The day was then predominantly celebrated by the socialist movement and communist countries until it was adopted by the feminist movement in about 1967.  The United Nations began celebrating the day in 1977.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Women%27s_Day 

January 15, 2021  When Trisha Costello bought the Talkeetna Roadhouse 25 years ago, she was given three things:  the deed, a set of keys, and a sourdough starter that the previous owner said dated back to 1902.  The year-round population of Talkeetna, Alaska, hovers around 900 people, but in a normal year, Costello’s crew churns out hundreds of pounds of dense sourdough hotcakes per day, each dappled with a cosmos of mixed berries or chocolate chips and hanging over the side of the plate.  They’re enormous, and enormously popular, with tourists, with locals, and especially with climbers, who often stop by for a meal before starting their summit attempts of Denali, the highest mountain peak in North America.  Due to coronavirus, and the fact that Talkeetna Roadhouse serves family-style meals at banquet tables, Costello opted to close the restaurant until the majority of the country is vaccinated.  But it remains open to overnight lodgers, and if you ask, Costello will give you a to-go cup of the historic starter to use at home, provided you make her one promise:  You’ll do everything you can to keep it and its history alive.  Bailey Berg  https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/what-is-sourdough-alaska 

Battles of grammar, for the most part, play out in English classrooms and in the pages of style guides.  Rarely do arguments over split infinitives and Oxford commas venture beyond the walls of academia.  But one linguistic phenomenon lands in the limelight every so often, and it’s a word you know well:  the pronoun “they”—along with its derivatives “them” and “their”.  In 2015, the American Dialect Society even named it word of the year.  Many critics remain uneasy with singular “they,” and plenty of prescriptivists—those who uphold traditional and formalized language rules, rather than how people actually use language currently—condemn it as ungrammatical or ambiguous.  But that hasn’t stopped its ascent.  Cody Cottier  https://www.discovermagazine.com/mind/people-have-used-they-them-as-singular-pronouns-for-hundreds-of-years 

THE LIFE AND WILD TIMES OF O. HENRY by Annika Barranti Klein  Jan 7, 2021   Known for his charming stories with surprise endings, including “The Gift of the Magi” and “The Last Leaf,” it should be no surprise that O. Henry’s life had some twists of its own life.  Read extensive article at https://bookriot.com/who-was-o-henry/ 

In 1974, F. W. Winterbotham published a book called The Ultra Secret.  He revealed British details that were classified as “ultra secret”, which was the British government’s highest level of secrecy even above “most secret”.  The public came to know that 30 years earlier there had been an incredible codebreaking effort at a site in Buckinghamshire called Bletchley Park.  The work carried out at the Park has since been estimated to have shortened the war by 2–4 years and saved millions of lives.  There are countless soldiers, pilots, and sailors who we know were certainly saved by the codebreaking performed in the middle of England during World War II.  At the height of the codebreaking activities, there were around 10,000 people working at Bletchley Park.  What has only become evident in more recent years is that the majority of the workers were women sworn to secrecy.  Jennifer Harrison  This is the fifth article in a series about amazing women in tech history.  The first featured Margaret Hamilton, the software engineer who helped land us on the moon.  The second featured Grace Hopper, a programming pioneer and first woman to be a US Navy Admiral.  The third featured the ENIAC programmers, who were pioneers ignored by history.  The fourth featured Katherine Johnson, the mathematician who guided men to the moon.  Read extensive article and see pictures at   https://geneticjen.medium.com/women-in-tech-history-bletchley-park-49f69f1a1510  See also https://bletchleypark.org.uk/our-story/bletchley-park-people/who-were-the-codebreakers 

A word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanging; it is the skin of living thought and changes from day to day as does the air around us. - Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., US Supreme Court Justice (8 Mar 1841-1935)

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2335  March 8, 2021