COMIC STRIP HUMOR  The Invisible Man hates playing the game of Charades.  (Garfield) 

On November 18, 1985, a new comic strip appeared in 35 newspapers across the country.  It quickly became a hit.  Within a year, Bill Watterson’s Calvin & Hobbes was syndicated in 250 newspapers across the country; by 1995, when Watterson, still in his 30s, retired, it was appearing regularly in over 2,400.  Millions of fans were heartbroken, and over 25 years later, the strip has remained a cultural touchstone, despite the fact that Watterson has approved almost no merchandise or adaptations related to his work (and probably never will).  Literary Hub  November 14, 2021 

Garum is a fermented fish sauce which was used as a condiment in the cuisines of Phoenicia, ancient Greece, Rome, Carthage and later Byzantium.  Liquamen is a similar preparation, and at times they were synonymous.  Although garum enjoyed its greatest popularity in the Western Mediterranean and the Roman world, it was earlier used by the Greeks.  Like the modern fermented soy product soy sauce, fermented garum is a rich source of umami flavoring due to the presence of glutamates.  When mixed with wine (oenogarum, a popular Byzantine sauce), vinegar, black pepper, or oil, garum enhances the flavor of a wide variety of dishes, including boiled veal and steamed mussels, even pear-and-honey soufflé.  Diluted with water (hydrogarum) it was distributed to Roman legions.  Pliny remarked in his Natural History that it could be diluted to the colour of honey wine and drunk.  Read more and see graphics at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garum  The Benjamin L. Hooks Central Library is the largest facility in the Memphis Public Library and Information Center system.  Although opened in 2001, the history of Memphis Public began in the 1880s when the city received a $75,000 gift from the estate of merchant Frederick Cossitt to build a public library in honor of the city where he made his fortune.  A section of public land near the Mississippi River was donated by city government which agreed to provide operating expenses for the library.  With the promise of city funds, it was decided that the entire $75,000 would be used for construction of the library building.  As a result of this decision Architect L. B. Wheeler designed an elaborate Romanesque red sandstone building which opened on April 12, 1893.  Thousands of citizens attended the dedication ceremonies and toured the building but there was a problem.  City government did not have enough funds for books and other research materials so the people were treated only to a beautiful, but empty, library building.  Undaunted by this, the citizens of Memphis held fundraising events while the Cossitt family and financier Phillip R. Bohlen donated funds to purchase books.  As the library shelves were being stocked with books the board of directors hired Mell Nunnally to serve as the first director of Cossitt Library.  Serving until 1898, Nunnally oversaw the acquisition of the library’s book collection which expanded circulation to an average of 150 books per day.  https://www.tnla.org/page/336  See also How Memphis Created the Nation’s Most Innovative Public Library--you can play the ukulele, learn photography or record a song in a top-flight studio.  https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/memphis-created-nations-innovative-public-library-180978844/  The official state tree of Ohio, the Ohio buckeye’s name comes from the appearance of its seed, which resembles the eye of a buck deer.  The bitter seeds are poisonous to humans if consumed in large quantities, but not to wildlife including squirrels and deer.  This deciduous native tree is found primarily as a smaller understory tree in western Ohio but is scattered throughout eastern portions of the state, reaching up to 60 feet in height in the open.  See pictures on p. 32 of TREES OF OHIO field guide DIVISION OF WILDLIFE at https://ohiodnr.gov/static/documents/wildlife/backyard-wildlife/Pub%205509%20Trees%20of%20Ohio%20Field%20Guide.pdf Marsha’s Homemade Buckeyes can be purchased in retail establishments such as Cracker Barrel Old Country Stores, Kroger, Giant Eagle, Marc’s, Meijer, GFS Marketplace Stores, and many others.  “For over 30 years we have specialized in manufacturing Peanut Butter and Chocolate Candy Buckeyes.”  You can also order & pick up locally, purchase gift baskets containing Marsha’s Buckeyes, or have them shipped directly to you by ordering through our secure on-line store.  https://www.marshashomemadebuckeyes.com/  Recipe for Buckeyes  https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/food-network-kitchen/buckeyes-3363307 "Send In the Clowns" is a song written by Stephen Sondheim for the 1973 musical A Little Night Music, an adaptation of Ingmar Bergman's 1955 film Smiles of a Summer Night.  It is a ballad from Act Two, in which the character Desirée reflects on the ironies and disappointments of her life.  Among other things, she looks back on an affair years earlier with the lawyer Fredrik, who was deeply in love with her, but whose marriage proposals she had rejected. Meeting him after so long, she realizes she is in love with him and finally ready to marry him, but now it is he who rejects her.  Sondheim wrote the song specifically for Glynis Johns, who created the role of Desirée on Broadway.  It became Sondheim's most popular song after Frank Sinatra recorded it in 1973 and Judy Collins' version charted in 1975 and 1977.  Subsequently, numerous other artists recorded the song, and it has become a standard.  The "clowns" in the lyric does not specifically refer to circus clowns.  The sense is rather of jesters and fools.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Send_In_the_Clowns http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2462  November 29, 2021