Corman’s Campy, Culty The Little Shop of Horrors:  The Inspiration for the Off-Broadway Musical Was One of the Cheapest Hollywood Films Ever Made by Adam Abraham   Vincent Price called Roger Corman “dead serious, humorless.”  Screenwriter Charles Byron Griffith suggested a “man-eating plant” for a screenplay.  Griffith entitled his new script “The Passionate People Eater”—a variation on “The Purple People Eater,” a 1958 novelty song by Sheb Wooley.  In the song, a creature from another world descends to the earth and proclaims, “I want to get a job in a rock ’n’ roll band.”  So the song blends a monster movie and rock music:  a potent combination.  He shot with two cameras simultaneously to get more coverage in less time.  The actors were engaged for one week; they rehearsed for three days and shot for two.  The total cost:  less than $30,000.  Retitled The Little Shop of Horrors, the film opened at the Pix Theatre, in Hollywood.  Nicholson attended, and there was a strong reaction, at least to his scene:  “They laughed so hard I could barely hear the dialogue.”  A tagline on The Little Shop poster is adapted from a song in Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Mikado, appended by musical notation:  “the flowers that kill in the Spring / TRA-LA.” So The Little Shop of Horrors, a horror-comedy, appears to be a musical.  Two decades later, Howard Ashman remembered the story about the man-eating plant.  Ashman reimagined Corman’s nasty little thriller as an Off-Broadway show, with music by Alan Menken.  Audiences have been singing “Little Shop of Horrors” ever since.  Adapted from ATTACK OF THE MONSTER MUSICAL:  A Cultural History of Little Shop of Horrors by Adam Abraham.  Copyright © 2022   https://lithub.com/behind-the-scenes-of-roger-cormans-campy-culty-the-little-shop-of-horrors/ 

Marcello Vincenzo Domenico Mastroianni (1924–1996) was an Italian film actor, regarded as one of his country's most iconic male performers of the 20th century.  He played leading roles for many of Italy's top directors in a career spanning 147 films between 1939 and 1997, and garnered many international honors including 2 BAFTA Awards, 2 Best Actor awards at the Venice and Cannes film festivals, 2 Golden Globes, and 3 Academy Award nominations.  During World War II, after the division into Axis and Allied Italy, he was interned in a loosely guarded German prison camp, from which he escaped to hide in Venice.  Mastroianni made his screen debut as an uncredited extra in Marionette (1939) when he was fourteen, and made intermittent minor film appearances until landing his first big role in Atto d'accusa (1951).  Within a decade he became a major international celebrity, starring in Big Deal on Madonna Street (1958); and in Federico Fellini's La Dolce Vita (1960) playing a disillusioned and self-loathing tabloid columnist who spends his days and nights exploring Rome's decadent high society.  Mastroianni followed La Dolce Vita with another signature role, that of a film director who, amidst self-doubt and troubled love affairs, finds himself in a creative block while making a film in Fellini's 8½ (1963).   He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor three times:  for Divorce Italian Style, A Special Day and Dark Eyes.  Mastroianni, Dean Stockwell and Jack Lemmon are the only actors to have been twice awarded the Best Actor at the Cannes Film Festival.  Mastroianni won it in 1970 for The Pizza Triangle and in 1987 for Dark Eyes.  Mastroianni starred alongside his daughter, Chiara Mastroianni, in Raúl Ruiz's Three Lives and Only One Death in 1996.   For this performance he won the Silver Wave Award at the Ft. Lauderdale International Film Festival.  His final film, Voyage to the Beginning of the World (1997), was released posthumously.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcello_Mastroianni   

'Two cents worth':  An individual's opinion.  'My two cents' worth' (or 'two bits' worth') implies that, in order to express and opinion, a small charge is levied. This could well be a simple notional charge and not related to any actual payment.  It has been suggested that 'two cents' was the minimum wager required of a new player in order to enter poker games.  There's no documentary evidence to support that idea.  The US version of the phrase is pre-dated by the British 'two-penneth' and there's little reason to believe 'two cents' worth' to be anything other than a US translation of that.  The card-playing origin of the phrase could just as well apply to the British version but, without evidence, that's merely speculation.  The earliest example I can find of the US-variant phrase in print is from the Olean Evening Times, March 1926.  That includes an item by Allene Sumner, headed My Two cents' worth.  https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/393950.html  Copyright © Gary Martin   

Zun is a type of bronze wine vessel used by Shang-dynasty (c. 1600–1046 BCE) aristocrats during ritual ceremonies to honor their ancestors.  This owl-shaped zun is divided into two sections:  the removable owl’s-head lid and the bird’s hollow body. Vessels shaped like animals constitute virtually the only bronze sculpture known from the Shang period.  Besides this owl, vessels in the form of buffalo, boars, rhinoceroses, elephants, and rams have also survived.  See Nun wine vessel in the shape of an owl, 13th-12th century BCE at https://www.jigidi.com/solve/7z4ef01z/zun-wine-vessel-in-the-shape-of-an-owl-13th-12th-century-bce/   

Get up on the wrong side of the bed and wake up on the wrong side of the bed are idioms with ancient roots.  To get up on the wrong side of the bed means to start the day in a grumpy mood and remain that way for the entire day.  An alternative rendering of the phrase is wake up on the wrong side of the bed.  The generally accepted origin of the phrases get up on the wrong side of the bed and wake up on the wrong side of the bed is ancient Rome, where superstition was rampant.  Ancient philosophers equated the right side of anything as the positive side, and the left side of anything as the sinister or negative side.  The story says that Romans always exited the bed on the right side in order to start the day in contact with positive forces.  If one rose on the left side of the bed, he started the day in contact with negative forces.  The earliest citation in the Oxford English Dictionary of the idioms get up on the wrong side of the bed and wake up on the wrong side of the bed is from 1801.  https://grammarist.com/idiom/get-up-on-the-wrong-side-of-the-bed-and-wake-up-on-the-wrong-side-of-the-bed/  2022 © Grammarist 

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com   Issue 2571  September 30, 2022 

There are two kinds of travelers. There is the kind who goes to see what there is to see, and the kind who has an image in his head and goes out to accomplish it.  The first visitor has an easier time, but I think the second visitor sees more.  Paris to the Moon  Adam Gopnik    

Tall poppy  (TAWL pop-ee)  noun   Someone conspicuously successful, especially one likely to attract hostility.  From tall, from Old English getæl (quick, prompt) + poppy, from Old English popæg/popig.  Earliest documented use:  1858.  The word poppy has been used for a prominent person for a long time.  The earliest example in the OED is from a 1641, a use by John Milton.  Making it “tall poppy” is just a little inflation (or elongation).

rose-colored  (ROZ-kuhl-uhrd)  adjective  1.  Optimistic or cheerful, especially naively or to an unrealistic degree.  Often used in the form “to see through rose-colored glasses”.  2.  Of a bright pink or red color.  From Latin rosa (rose), from Greek rhodon (rose).  Yes, a rhododendron is a rose tree, literally speaking.  Earliest documented use:  1526.  A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg

From:  David Walker  Subject:  tall poppy  I was born in Colorado and raised in Nebraska, cowboy country.  You mentioned, “. . . too big for their boots” as a synonym for tall poppy.  I’ve always liked the western cowboy phrase, “All hat, no cattle.”

From:  Peggy Bilbro  Subject:  tall poppy  Here in the south we have the expression tall cotton.  If someone is doing really well, or has gotten a promotion, or has the opportunity to hang out with important people, they are said to be in tall cotton.  It is an expression of admiration and appreciation and maybe just a little envy for the other person’s good fortune.  AWADmail Issue 1054 

From:  Frank L. Chance  Subject:  rose-colored glasses 
Art history buffs will resonate with this term and be reminded of the works of Claude Gelee, known as Claude Lorrain.  This 17th-century painter produced landscapes so glowingly idealized that eventually Claude glass(es) were sold so the real world could also come across in the gentle tones of his pictures. 
From:  Lee Entrekin  Subject:  rose-colored glasses 
This topic reminded me of the classic country song by John Conlee:  video (3 min.)  lyrics.  AWADmail Issue 1053 

third rail  (thurd rayl)  noun  1.  A topic believed to be too controversial or charged to discuss.  2.  A rail that runs near a railroad track to supply high-voltage power to an electric train.  From third, from transposition of Old English thridda + rail, from Old French raille.  Earliest documented use:  1903 (figurative), 1867 (literal).  “They call Disney the third rail of politics in Florida.”  The Washington Post  2022.  A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg  

The Forest Agency of Japan began promoting forest bathing, or shinrin-yoku, in the 1980s as a response to the stresses of urban living and long work hours.  This nature-oriented mindfulness practice, which is rooted in the traditional Japanese reverence for the natural world, has since become popular all over the world, bringing joy and improved mental and physical health to millions of people.  https://apm.activecommunities.com/montgomerycounty/Activity_Search/66561

A portmanteau is a word that is formed by combining two different terms to create a new entity.  Through blending the sounds and meanings of two existing words, a portmanteau creates a new expression that is a linguistic blend of the two individual terms.  For example breathalyzer is the portmanteau word formed from combining breath and analyzer, while blog is derived from the source words web and log.  The term portmanteau was first used by Humpty Dumpty in Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass.  https://www.vappingo.com/word-blog/86-great-examples-of-portmanteau/  Interestingly, the word portmanteau itself is also a blend of two different words:  porter (to carry) and manteau (a cloak).

Bibliopole is derived from Latin bibliopōla (“bookseller”), from Ancient Greek βῐβλῐοπώλης (bibliopṓlēs, “bookseller”), from βῐβλῐ́ον (biblíon), βυβλίον (bublíon, “book; letter; tablet; strip of papyrus; writing”) (from βῠ́βλος (búblos, “papyrus plant; writings on papyrus; book”), from Βῠ́βλος (Búblos, “city of Byblos”), a source of papyrus) + -πώλης (-pṓlēs, suffix denoting a retailer, shop owner, etc.) (from πωλέω (pōléō, “to sell”)). From bibliopole (“bookseller”) +‎ -poly (suffix denoting sellers in a market).  Noun  bibliopoly (uncountable)  (literary) Bookselling. quotations ▼ Synonyms: (rare) bibliopolism, (archaic) bibliopolery  https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bibliopoly#English

September 28 is the International Day for Universal Access to Information, which is recognized by the United Nations to emphasize the importance of public access to information. 

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2570  September 28, 2022

In Margaret Wise Brown’s children’s book, Goodnight Moon, a little bunny says goodnight to all the objects in its great green bedroom before falling peacefully to sleep.  It’s pretty much the ultimate in plotlessness, which has not historically detracted from its appeal.  Published in 1947 and illustrated by Clement Hurd, it has become a widely beloved American bedtime story.  Not coincidentally, it has also been parodied many, many times.  Emily Temple  Find 17 parodies plus graphics at https://lithub.com/almost-all-the-goodnight-moon-parodies-ranked/ 

Clement Gazzam Hurd (1908–1988) was an American artist.  He is known for illustrations of children's picture books, especially collaborations with writer Margaret Wise Brown including Goodnight Moon (1947) and The Runaway Bunny (1942).  He was educated at St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire, then studied architecture at Yale University and painting with Fernand Léger in Paris.  Hurd returned to New York in 1933 to work as a commercial artist.  There Margaret Wise Brown was an editor at W. R. Scott, as well as a writer of picture book texts.  On seeing two of his paintings, she asked him if he would consider illustrating children's books.  She wrote a text herself, for what became Bumble Bugs and Elephants (1938)—"perhaps the first modern board book for babies."  Hurd's next collaboration with Brown, The Runaway Bunny, has been in print continuously since its 1942 publication.  Their next book, Goodnight Moon (1947), is considered classic children's literature in North America; by 1990, the total number of copies sold was more than 4 million.  In 2007, the National Education Association listed Goodnight Moon as one of its "Teachers' Top 100 Books for Children".  In 2012 it was ranked number four among the "Top 100 Picture Books" in a survey published by School Library Journal.  Hurd also illustrated over fifty books written by his wife Edith Thacher Hurd (a friend of Brown's) as well as a children's book written by Gertrude Stein, The World Is Round.  Hurd wrote and illustrated the book Run, Run, Run.  His son Thacher Hurd is also a children's book author and illustrator, and referred in an interview to the "wonderful aura of creativity" surrounding his father and the Vermont farm that was their home.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clement_Hurd 

Bridget Louise Riley CH CBE (born 24 April 1931) is an English painter known for her op art paintings.  She lives and works in London, Cornwall and the Vaucluse in France.  At the beginning of World War II, her father, a member of the Territorial Army, was mobilised, and Riley, together with her mother and sister Sally, moved to a cottage in Cornwall.  The cottage, not far from the sea near Padstow, was shared with an aunt who was a former student at Goldsmiths' College, London.  Primary education came in the form of irregular talks and lectures by non-qualified or retired teachers.  She attended Cheltenham Ladies' College (1946–1948) and then studied art at Goldsmiths' College (1949–52), and later at the Royal College of Art (1952–55).   She eventually joined the J. Walter Thompson advertising agency, as an illustrator, where she worked part-time until 1962.  The Whitechapel Gallery exhibition of Jackson Pollock in the winter of 1958 had an impact on her.  Her early work was figurative and semi-impressionist. Between 1958 and 1959, her work at the advertising agency showed her adoption of a style of painting based on the pointillist technique.  Around 1960, she began to develop her signature Op Art style consisting of black and white geometric patterns that explore the dynamism of sight and produce a disorienting effect on the eye and produces movement and colour.  See graphics at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridget_Riley  

Tips for making the bets overnight oats:  Make inside of a jar or a mason jar (with measurement lines on the side). This way you can measure, mix, chill, carry and eat the overnight oats all in one convenient container.  Use plain old fashioned rolled oats, not quick oats.  Quick oats will get too soggy when soaked with milk.  And do not use steel cut oats because they won’t soften enough to eat just with milk unfortunately.  Warm it up if you prefer warm oats in the morning.  Although overnight oatmeal is typically served cold, you can definitely eat them warm.  Just place them in the microwave for one minute and be sure to use a microwave-safe jar.  Make a bunch for the week.  Because overnight oats typically stay good in the fridge for up to 5 days, try making a batch on Sunday and having it on hand in the fridge for the whole week.  Be careful if you’re adding fruit beforehand because they will typically not remain fresh for more than a couple days.  Yymna Jawad  https://feelgoodfoodie.net/recipe/overnight-oats/ 

Hilary Mantel, the British author who twice won the Booker Prize, died at the age of 70 on September 22, 2022.  It wasn't until the publication of her 10th novel, "Wolf Hall," in 2009 that Mantel became a household name.  Set in Tudor England and centered on the life and times of statesman and chief minister to Henry VIII Thomas Cromwell, "Wolf Hall" won the 2009 Booker Prize.  In 2020, eight years after the publication of "Bring up the Bodies," the much-anticipated final part in the "Wolf Hall" trilogy, "The Mirror and the Light," was published.  Lianne Kolirin and Leah Dolan  https://www.cnn.com/style/article/hilary-mantel-dies-scli-gbr-intl/index.html

timeserver  (TYM-suhr-vuhr)  noun  1.  One who makes little effort at work, such as while waiting to retire or find another job.  2.  One who changes views to conform to prevailing circumstances.  3.A computer that transmits precise time information on a network.  From time, from Old English tima (time) + server, from Latin servire (to serve), from servus (slave).  Earliest documented use:  1566.  NOTES:  Imagine a time when a human did the job of giving correct time (what a computer does now).  In this job, instead of being a conscientious worker, this person was lackadaisical.  What would you call them?  A timeserver in more ways than one.  A timeserver timeserver.  A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg

Half of the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important.  They don't mean to do harm but the harm does not interest them. -T.S. Eliot, poet (26 Sep 1888-1965)  

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2569 September 26, 2022

Pekin Noodle Parlor (built 1909) is one of the oldest known continuously operating Chinese restaurants in the United States, located in Butte, Montana.  The restaurant was founded in its current location in 1911 by Hum Yow and Tam Kwong Yee. Along with the Wah Chong Tai Company mercantile building (1891) and the Mai Wah Noodle Parlor (1909), the Pekin Noodle Parlor represents one of the last surviving properties from the original Chinatown neighborhood in the Butte–Anaconda Historic District.  Patrons enter the second floor restaurant from the ground floor on South Main Street, walking up a flight of stairs to a door on the left.  The door opens into a hallway with salmon-orange colored beadboard partitions separating 17 eating rooms and booths on either side with privacy curtains for each room.  The dining tables and chairs in each room date back to 1916.  The central hallway is lined with Chinese lanterns hanging from the ceiling.  The original design, for the first 50 years, was based on a light lime green color scheme with dark green velveteen curtains.  It was repainted to its current orange color after the owner read an article in Bon Appetit magazine that said "salmon color whets people's appetites".  The first level was at one point an herbal shop and the sub-level hosted illegal gaming.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pekin_Noodle_Parlor   

July 18, 2022  The Library of Congress will install an oculus--a circular glass window that will allow all visitors to see the dome from a new orientation center below the Main Reading Room.  For the researcher seeking insight, information and inspiration in the Main Reading Room, the experience will change very little.  Librarians will be available to assist researchers.  Staff will still deliver and distribute books and other research materials for use there.  Access to digital resources will continue.  The circular desk at the center of the room will remain.  Only the cabinet enclosing a central staircase and book elevator at the center of the room, which has been modified and updated several times since 1897, will be removed to make way for the oculus.  Meanwhile, the new orientation center will occupy the space previously used as the control room.  The historic functions of the control room, where books arrived for delivery to the Main Reading Room via the book elevator (which replaced the original dumbwaiter), have evolved many times since 1897 when the Library opened.  All of these new experiences are possible thanks to generous investments from Congress and from generous private sector donations.  David Rubenstein, the chairman of the Library’s James Madison Council and co-executive chairman of The Carlyle Group, has pledged $10 million to support the visitor experience project, and other private sector donors will also support it.  Congress has expressed enthusiastic support and has appropriated $40 million to fund it.  The planning, design and construction of a project of this scope is significant.  If current efforts remain on track, we look forward to welcoming our first visitors to experience some of the new elements included in the Visitor Engagement Master Plan in 2023 when the Treasures Gallery opens.  April Slayton  https://blogs.loc.gov/loc/2022/07/a-new-vision-for-an-inspiring-location/   

5 Words That People Say Aren’t Real—But Are  Irregardless has been used (mistakenly) in place of regardless since the early 1900s and has now been admitted into dictionaries.  Believe it or not, conversate is an actual word–and it’s been around for over 200 years. Brittany Gibson  Find more examples at https://www.rd.com/article/words-that-arent-words/   

In 1924, during Hollywood’s first golden age, 14 American bison arrived on Santa Catalina Island, 22 miles off the coast of Los Angeles.  The animals were to appear in two movies being filmed on the island, The Vanishing American and The Thundering Herd, both adapted from Zane Grey novels.  Alas, the animals didn’t make it into the former, and we don’t know if they played a part in the latter—the footage vanished long ago.  But the bison remained, and some of their progeny finally made it to the big screen, in Stanley Kramer’s 1971 Bless the Beasts & Children.  Descendants of the founding beasts still have star power­, helping attract hundreds of thousands of visitors every year, but perhaps their most salient role over the decades is to bedevil conservationists.  ­Today, the herd presents benefits and challenges for local ecology.  Visitors take bison tours, enjoy bison burgers (made from mainland meat) and quaff “buffalo milk” cocktails (featuring Kahlúa, vodka, half-and-half, crème de cacao and crème de banana—and no bison milk).  Such tourism helps fund the nonprofit Catalina Island Conservancy (CIC), which controls 88 percent of the island and works to restore and protect native flora.  At its peak, in the 1980s, the herd numbered 550, but concerns about the animals’ health and ecological impact led the CIC to ship bison off the island regularly.  A 2003 study found the bison were still disturbing native flora:  Their shaggy coats carry plants that were imported, such as fennel, to places they wouldn’t otherwise reach, disrupting endemic species like St. Catherine’s lace.  The study also found the bison were smaller and less fertile than their mainland counterparts, partly from persistent drought.  Katya Cengel  https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/uneasy-future-catalina-island-wild-bison-180980559/   

equinox (plural equinoxes or (rare) equinoctes)  noun  One of the two occasions in the year when the length of the day and night are equal, which occurs when the apparent path of the Sun (the ecliptic) intersects with the equatorial plane of the Earth; this happens on a day between March 19 and 21 (spring in the Northern Hemisphere, and autumn in the Southern Hemisphere), and on another day between September 21 and 24 (autumn in the Northern Hemisphere, and spring in the Southern Hemisphere); hence, the exact time when the intersection occurs.  quotations ▼synonym ▲ Synonym:  (rare) evennight  (also figuratively)  The circumstance of a twenty-four hour time period having the day and night of equal length. quotations ▼ (astronomy) One of the two points in space where the apparent path of the Sun intersects with the equatorial plane of the Earth.  (obsolete)  (rare) A gale (“very strong wind”) once thought to occur more frequently around the time of an equinox (sense 1), now known to be a misconception; an equinoctial gale. quotations ▼ (astronomy)  A celestial equator (“great circle on the celestial sphere, coincident with the plane of the Earth's equator (the equatorial plane)”); also, the Earth's equator. Quotations  ▼synonym ▲  Synonym:  (obsolete) equinoctial line  https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/equinox#English   The September equinox takes place on September 23,  2022 according to UTC. 

http://librarianmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2568  September 23, 2022

Istria derived its name from the ancient Illyrian tribe of the Histri and was subdued by Rome in 177 BC after two wars.  Under the emperor Augustus most of the peninsula became part of Italy.  Slavic peoples began settling there in the 7th century AD.  It was successively under the control of diverse Mediterranean powers until 1797, when the peninsula came under the rule of Austria, which developed Trieste as a port.  After World War I, Italy forcibly seized the peninsula from Austria in 1919 and afterward tried to Italianize the population.  But, following Italy’s defeat in World War II, Yugoslavia occupied most of Istria in 1947.  The peninsula’s northwestern section, around Trieste, was finally divided between Italy and Yugoslavia in 1954 after decades of diplomatic wrangling and periodic political crises.  Istria quietly became part of Croatia and Slovenia in 1991 when those states became independent nations.  https://www.britannica.com/place/Istria   

Raphael Tuck’s The Toy Army:  Book, Toy, Ephemera . . . ?  Posted on February 8, 2011 by Jeff Barton   It’s easy to assume that there’s a clear, if perhaps only implicit, dividing line between books, toys, and ephemera.  While we may not necessarily know how to define each of these categories, we tend to think we “know them when we see them.”  Books are something we read, toys are something we (mostly by children) play with, and ephemera are things we expect to linger only fleetingly after serving an immediate purpose.  Yet many children’s books call this distinction into question–they often contain reading matter, items to play with (which sometimes pop up or even detach from the text block or book itself), and material not meant to last very long, especially once a child makes use of it.  One such item is The Toy Army, issued by Raphael Tuck & Sons between 1907 and 1910, as part of Father Tuck’s “Panorama” Series.  Measuring a mere 12 cm. in height, this small booklet-format publication is barely taller than a miniature book.  It features a bright, chromolithographed upper wrapper, featuring two toy soldier figures (note the base on the guardsman), strongly reminiscent of lead figures manufactured in England’s William Britain Company at the time, with the outlines of the figures embossed to heighten the effect.  On the reverse of the wrapper is a set of detailed assembly instructions, “How to Make Each Figure Stand Separately and Form Innumerable Tableaux.”   See graphics at https://blogs.princeton.edu/cotsen/tag/father-tucks-panorama-series/   

Primrose path  This phrase was coined by Shakespeare, in Hamlet, 1602.  It is evidently a simple allusion to a path strewn with flowers.  Shakespeare later used 'the primrose way', which has the same meaning, in Macbeth.  This variant is hardly ever used now.  https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/289325.html   

White Apples  https://www.jigidi.com/jigsaw-puzzle/82upxczy/white-apples-growing-in-australia/   

Black Diamond Apples  https://www.jigidi.com/jigsaw-puzzle/3brrysv4/black-diamond-apple-from-nyingchi-tibet/   

Pot-au-feu ("pot on the fire") is a French beef stew.  According to chef Raymond Blanc, pot-au-feu is "the quintessence of French family cuisine; it is the most celebrated dish in France and considered a national dish.  It honours the tables of the rich and poor alike."  It is a typical dish served in winter.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pot-au-feu   

Classic Pot-au-Feu serves 6-8  https://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/classic-pot-au-feu  

Brad Pitt has publicly debuted his first works of art at the Sara Hildén Art Museum in Tampere, Finland, alongside works by the  Australian singer-songwriter-musician Nick Cave and the artist Thomas Houseago for the exhibition We (until 15 January, 2023).  Among the nine works by Pitt on show are a house-shaped structure moulded in clear silicon and shot with bullets, and his first ever sculpture, House A Go Go (2017):  a 46cm-tall miniature house made out of tree bark, crudely held together with tape.  See photos at https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2022/09/19/brad-pitt-debuts-his-sculptures-in-finland   

Word of the Day for September 21, 2022

cheeselet (plural cheeselets)  (chiefly Malta) A small, usually roundish lump of cheese; a baby cheese; specifically, a particular type made with sheep's milk in Malta. quotations ▼

(US, archaic) A baked dish of bread and cheese covered with a mixture of eggs and milk.   https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cheeselet#English

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2567  September 21, 2022