More tears are shed over answered prayers than unanswered ones.  First attributed to Saint Teresa of Avila (Teresa de Jesús) (1515–1582), born Teresa de Cepeda y Ahumada by Truman Capote in "Go Ahead and Ask Me Anything.' (And So She Did):  An Interview with Truman Capote" by Gloria Steinem, in McCall's magazine (November 1967), as the source of the title of a novel he was working on called Answered Prayers.  Likely a variant of “I remember having read somewhere, in some strange book, that when the gods wish to punish us they answer our prayers,” a quip found in act 2 of Oscar Wilde's play An Ideal Husband.  https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Teresa_of_%C3%81vila

The first three groups of sounds in English—plosives, fricatives, and affricates are collectively referred to as obstruents (because they obstruct the airway).  Each of these sounds involve some type of halting or obstructing the flow of air.  Obstruents always occur as voiced and voiceless pairs, with two sounds being produced identically from a mechanical standpoint (which articulators do what), but with the only difference between them being the use of the vocal cords.  In contrast, the final three types of sounds involve redirection of the air exiting the body without halting or obstructing its flow.  These sounds are called sonorants.  The word sonorant is a combination of sonorous (having strong resonant sound) and consonant.  The name sonorant refers to the fact that these sounds reverberate or echo off the vocal organs with the breath exiting freely through either the nose or mouth (versus obstruents where the air is constricted or obstructed so that it cannot flow freely).  In English, sonorants are always voiced, but often occur in more than one form depending on how they are combined with other sounds.  There are three categories of sonorants—nasals, liquids, and glides.  Read more at https://calleteach.wordpress.com/2010/01/10/sounds-of-english-nasals-liquids-glides/

Lope de Vega, one of the most prolific Spanish authors, spent most of his long life in Madrid.  He wrote approximately 3000 sonnets, 3 novels, 4 novellas, 9 epics, 3 didactic poems, and several hundred comedies.  Lope is only second to Cervantes regarding his importance during the Golden Age of Spanish literature, and he's most famous for modernizing the theatre of the 17th century and ridding it from the strict Aristotelian structure.  This new theatre genre was called "new comedy" or "Spanish comedy".  https://www.classicspanishbooks.com/16th-cent-baroque-lope-works.html  See also https://www.europeana.eu/en/blog/lope-de-vega-never-short-of-a-drama

The proverbial phrase 'To err is human' is often heard in its fuller form 'To err is human; to forgive, divine.'  This makes sense of the notion that the originator, the English poet Alexander Pope, was trying to convey.  In the poem An Essay on Criticism, Part II, 1711, Pope explains that, while anyone can make a mistake, we should aspire to do as God does, that is, show mercy and forgive sinners:  Ah ne'er so dire a Thirst of Glory boast, Nor in the Critick let the Man be lost!  Good-Nature and Good-Sense must ever join; To err is Humane; to Forgive, Divine.  Note that Pope's original wording uses the word 'humane' rather than, as it is now usually spelled, 'human'.  This wasn't a spelling mistake, nor have we misunderstood the poet's meaning, just that 'humane' was the accepted spelling of 'human' in the early 18th century.  https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/to-err-is-human.html 

George Rhoads (January 27, 1926–July 9, 2021) was a contemporary American painter, sculptor, and origami master.  He was best known for his whimsical audiokinetic sculptures in airports, science museums, shopping malls, children’s hospitals, and other public places throughout the world.  Rhoads attended the University of Chicago with the goal of studying physics and mathematics.  After earning enough credits to complete his associate degree, Rhoads began taking design and drawing classes at Chicago’s Art Institute.  Two years later he left Chicago and moved to New York City to become a painter.  His work focused on portraits and impressionistic cityscapes, but he was not critically or financially successful.  In 1952, Rhoads moved to Paris to continue painting.  It was there that he met American origami expert Gershon Legman who introduced him to the art of origami and the work of Akira Yoshizawa.  This meeting sparked Rhoads’ interest and he began practicing origami and inventing new folds.  His most notable contribution to the field became known as the Blintzed Bird Base, now a standard origami fold used for creating an animal with four legs, two ears, and a tail from a single sheet of paper.  See graphics and list of selected public works at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Rhoads 

On May 1, 1931, President Herbert Hoover officially dedicated New York City’s Empire State Building, pressing a button from the White House that turned on the building’s lights.  Hoover’s gesture, of course, was symbolic; while the president remained in Washington, D.C., someone else flicked the switches in New York.  The idea for the Empire State Building is said to have been born of a competition between Walter Chrysler of the Chrysler Corporation and John Jakob Raskob of General Motors, to see who could erect the taller building.  Chrysler had already begun work on the famous Chrysler Building, the gleaming 1,046-foot skyscraper in midtown Manhattan.  Not to be bested, Raskob assembled a group of well-known investors, including former New York Governor Alfred E. Smith.  The group chose the architecture firm Shreve, Lamb and Harmon Associates to design the building.  The Art-Deco plans, said to have been based in large part on the look of a pencil, were also builder-friendly:  The entire building went up in just over a year, under budget (at $40 million) and well ahead of schedule.  During certain periods of building, the frame grew an astonishing four-and-a-half stories a week.  Link to Ten Surprising Facts about the Empire State Building at https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/empire-state-building-dedicated 

A filibuster is a parliamentary procedure where one or more members of a legislature debate over a proposed piece of legislation to delay or entirely prevent a decision being made on the proposal.  It is sometimes referred to as "talking a bill to death" or "talking out a bill" and is characterized as a form of obstruction in a legislature or other decision-making body.  This form of political obstruction reaches as far back as Ancient Roman times and could also be referred to synonymously with political stonewalling.  Due to the often extreme length of time required for a successful filibuster, many speakers stray off-topic after exhausting the original subject matter.  US Senators have, for example, read through laws from different states and recited past speeches and recipes.  The ultimate source for filibuster is certainly 16th century Dutch vribuyter (now vrijbuiter) 'robber', 'pirate', 'plunderer', from vribuyt 'plunder' (16th c.), from vrij 'free' + buyt 'booty', 'loot'.  However, the intermediate history is complicated, because several languages have influenced each other reciprocally.  Intermediate links may be English freebooter (1598), a loan translation of the Dutch equivalent, and flibutor (1587):  with an -r- altered in an -l- that may have been the result of dissimilation, typical for liquid consonants.  This alteration may have occurred in English, or first in a foreign language before it entered English.  Find a list of the 14 state legislatures that have a filibuster at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filibuster 

“ . . .  No longer, dog-in-manger-like can you retain possession . . . ”   See notation of the song Filibustering at http://sniff.numachi.com/pages/tiFILBUSTR;ttFILBUSTR.html 

Roberto Calasso, a towering figure in European publishing as the driving force behind an esteemed Milan-based publisher, as well as an inquisitive and prolific author himself, has died at 80.  Italian news media, quoting his publishing house Adelphi, said Calasso died July 29, 2021 in Milan.  Directing Adelphi since 1971 and being its chairman since 1999, Calasso adhered to the philosophy choosing books to publish not on how they might sell but on whether they had something important to say. Frances D’Emilio  https://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/celebrities/article253147168.html 

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2399  August 4, 2021