Located in the southwest corner of Lanzarote in the Canary Islands is a hidden gem that has been wrought from Mother Nature’s innards, yet looks descended directly from outer space:  Timanfaya National Park.  The park is habitat to several rare plant species, which led UNESCO to declare it a World Biosphere Reserve.  Most famously, the park’s Fire Mountains rose to prominence during a peak in the area’s volcanic activity between 1730 and 1736, when over 100 volcanoes covering more than fifty square-kilometers erupted on the island, devastating local villages.  The last recorded eruption occurred in 1824, and only one active volcano remains on the island, from which the park draws its name.  Taken as a whole, the park totals nearly twenty square-miles demonstrating extreme surface temperatures, within the range of 400°C and 600°C just a few meters below the surface.  All of these features made it an ideal proving ground for extra-terrestrial projects.  NASA identified these special qualities early on, and showed pictures of Timanfaya when training astronauts for their Apollo 17 expedition to the moon.  https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/timanfaya-national-park 

Carmine, also called cochineal (for the insect from which it is extracted), cochineal extract, crimson lake or carmine lake, natural red 4, C.I. 75470, or E120, is a pigment of a bright-red color obtained from the aluminium complex derived from carminic acid.  It is also a general term for a particularly deep-red color.  The English word "carmine" is derived from the French word carmin (12th century), from Medieval Latin carminium, from Persian قرمز qirmiz ("crimson"), which itself derives from Middle Persian carmir ("red, crimson").  The pigment is produced from carminic acid, which is extracted from some scale insects such as the cochineal scale and certain Porphyrophora species (Armenian cochineal and Polish cochineal).  Carmine is a colorant used in the manufacture of artificial flowers, paints, crimson ink, rouge and other cosmetics, and some medications.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carmine 

Very Different Writers, Uncanny Commonalities:  On Lee Child and Heidi James, article by Heather Martin   It wasn’t just that they were the only two people I’d heard use the phrase “gussied up.”  It wasn’t that they both wrote books that kept you turning the pages right to the end and then wish you hadn’t got there.  It wasn’t their imperious command of the opening sentence, or their acute evocation of time and place.  It ran deeper than that, and resonated more profoundly.  It was something profoundly human.  On the face of it the differences were more obvious than the similarities.  He eschewed the semicolon in his fictional writing, whereas she used it freely; his mantra was to track a single point of view moving strictly forward through time, an aesthetic seamlessly enacted in the relentless forward motion of his billion-dollar brand protagonist, whereas she moved back and forth and round-and-round switching point of view and voice according to need and desire; he was more austere; she was more extravagant, more lush, more figurative—it was a different kind of risk and a different kind of poetry.  Broadly speaking, both Child and James write for the same reason they read books growing up:  escape.  Escape from an external to an internal reality, from restlessness and dissatisfaction, from adults who didn’t want them or wanted them for the wrong reasons, from people and places they both loved and hated, that both defined and constrained them, that not only made them what they were but also what they transformed themselves into.  Heidi’s characters suffer from a sense of “unbelonging”; in creating Reacher, Lee, who as a “lost and lonely boy from Birmingham” felt like a changeling in the Grant family, sought to explore the experience of alienation.  Both had haunted their local libraries; their families were too poor to buy books, and even had they been able to afford them, could not conceivably have catered to that insatiable hunger.  Read extensive article at https://lithub.com/very-different-writers-uncanny-commonalities-on-lee-child-and-heidi-james/

 

A phrase with a rather obscure origin is "gussied up," meaning "extensively dressed-up and made-up, often to excess."  One theory traces this phrase, which first emerged in the U.S. about 1950, to "gusset," a triangular piece of fabric sewn into the seam of a garment to improve its fit.  Because this doodad was often planted in expensive dresses, someone wearing fancy clothing was said to be "gussied up."  Other linguists attribute the phrase to "gussie" (short for "Augustus"), which appeared in early twentieth-century Australia as a slang term for a dandy, a type of man who enjoyed dressing up.  A third theory focuses on the American tennis player Gertrude Augusta Moran, who earned the nickname "Gorgeous Gussy" when she sported frilly lace panties at the 1949 Wimbledon tournament.  The fact that "gussy up" first appeared in print in 1952 seems to shore up the "Gorgeous Gussy" theory.  But some linguists claim the term was common in speech by the early 1940s, so it's not quite name, set, match.  Rob Kyff  https://www.creators.com/read/rob-kyff-word-guy/11/16/gussy-up-for-a-walk-on-the-shoreline 

Is there really a national coin shortage?  First--as the Federal Reserve wants you to know--the problem is not a lack of coins.  The Fed said it's producing enough of them, minting 14.8 billion pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters, 50-cent pieces and dollar coins in 2020, a 24% increase from the 11.9 billion coins produced in 2019.  nstead, the Fed says, the problem is that businesses and banks around the country are having a hard time getting that metal currency.  Due to the pandemic the coins are collecting dust when they should be continually circulating through the economy.  In nonpandemic years, transactions at retail stores, vending machines, payment kiosks and banks would be enough to keep coins flowing.  The US Mint said in 2019 retail and other financial transactions accounted for 83% of the flow of coins in circulation; just the remaining 17% came from newly minted coins.  When the country shut down last year, the share of credit card payments for the first time eclipsed cash payments, the Fed said, as we held onto to bills and coins instead of spending them.  The Federal Reserve is concerned enough about the coin supply problem that it's convened a U.S. Coin Task Force to look for ways to get coins moving.  To start, the task force encourages individuals to start spending their coins, pay with exact change, deposit spare coins at a financial institution and redeem coins at a coin kiosk or recycler. https://www.cnet.com/personal-finance/your-money/got-any-change-heres-the-scoop-on-the-national-coin-shortage/ 

August 17, 2021  During his 19-year career as a cornerback for the Washington Football Team, Darrell Green could eat pretty much anything he wanted and hardly lose a step.  He dined on burgers and fries, and shakes and pies, and still won all four of the National Football League’s Fastest Man competitions that he ran in.  Drafted by Washington in 1983, Green was 22, just shy of 5-foot-9, and weighed 173 pounds.  When he retired in 2002, at age 42, he weighed 189, having gained only 16 pounds.  But in retirement, he was no longer motivated to do Olympic-level workouts twice a day.  The fat in that fast-food diet that he used to burn off so easily began clinging to his waistline.  “I wasn’t doing anything, and suddenly I’m weighing 193, then 195,” Green said.  Green, now 61, had begun eating more plant-based whole foods three years ago.  He’s now down to 187, with a goal of 181.  “I just like being lighter, able to move easier,” he said.  Green had lasted nearly two decades in a league where the average career is just 3.3 years.  Known by teammates as the “Ageless Wonder,” he’d secured a reputation as one of the best cornerbacks in NFL history.  Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady, who won his seventh Super Bowl ring this year at age 43, also eats a mostly vegan, low-carb diet.  Courtland Milloy  https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/darrell-green-football-healthy-eating/2021/08/17/4429d48e-ff60-11eb-ba7e-2cf966e88e93_story.html 

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2406  August 18, 2021