Hodgepodge has come to mean any mixture of things that are not really meant to go together, but it originally referred to a soup of all sorts of ill-suited ingredients jumbled together in a pot.  In other words, it is a soup that you just threw together with whatever you had on hand, whether the ingredients were harmonious or not.  Dating back to the 14th century, there is an earlier form of hodgepodge, hotchpotch, that is still used in Britain, and this is a form of the Middle English hotchpot, which before that was hochepot.  The origin of hodgepodge is ultimately French, however.  The Middle English Hochepot derived from the same word in French, and was formed from the verb hocher, meaning “to shake,” and pot which meant the same thing in French as it does in English:  a large, deep pan for cooking.  So, the word referred to a stew with a whole bunch of different ingredients all “shaken” together in a pot.  https://culinarylore.com/food-history:origin-of-hodgepodge/   

Kitchen scrap gardening is the ultimate in recycling.  It’s environmentally friendly, can save on grocery bills, and it’s a fun, hands-on science lesson for young children.  Find a list of 12 vegetables you can regrow from scraps including green onions and celery at https://www.farmersalmanac.com/regrow-vegetables-from-kitchen-scraps-24373   See also https://www.epa.gov/recycle/preventing-wasted-food-home   

Love doesn't just sit there, like a stone, it has to be made, like bread; remade all the time, made new. - Ursula K. Le Guin, author (21 Oct 1929-2018)   

Humans are the storytelling animal, and we’ve spent centuries using our powers to scare each other senseless.  It’s no secret that horror novels boomed in popularity over the last half of the 20th century, only to fall off readers’ radars in the late 1990s and ’00s.  That dip in popularity lasted until the housing market collapsed in 2008.  Shortly thereafter, zombies staggered their way to the top of the entertainment food chain, revivifying the horror genre.  https://bookriot.com/scariest-books-of-all-time/   

George Saunders’ Liberation Day, Barbara Kingsolver’s Demon Copperhead, and Paul Newman’s The Extraordinary Life of an Ordinary Man all feature among the Best Reviewed Books of the Week for October 21, 2022 at   https://bookmarks.reviews/the-best-reviewed-books-of-the-week-10-21-2022/ 

15 October 2022, was International Archaeology Day which was established by the Archaeological Institute of America to celebrate archaeology and its contributions to society.   

Diwali, also spelled Divali, one of the major religious festivals in Hinduism, Jainism, and Sikhism, lasting for five days from the 13th day of the dark half of the lunar month Ashvina to the second day of the light half of the lunar month Karttika.  The name is derived from the Sanskrit term dipavali, meaning “row of lights.”  The festival generally symbolizes the victory of light over darkness.  The third day of Diwali is celebrated on Monday, October 24, 2022.  During the festival, diyas are lit and placed in rows along the parapets of temples and houses and set adrift on rivers and streams.  Homes are decorated, and floors inside and out are covered with rangoli, consisting of elaborate designs made of coloured rice, sand, or flower petals.  The doors and windows of houses are kept open in the hope that Lakshmi will find her way inside and bless the residents with wealth and success.  Diwali is generally a time for visiting, exchanging gifts, wearing new clothes, feasting, feeding the poor, and setting off fireworks (though such displays have been restricted to limit noise and other environmental pollution).  Gambling, especially in the form of card games, is encouraged as a way of ensuring good luck in the coming year and in remembrance of the games of dice played by Shiva and Parvati on Mount Kailasa or similar contests between Radha and Krishna.  Ritually, in honour of Lakshmi, the female player always wins.  https://www.britannica.com/topic/Diwali-Hindu-festival   

THIS WEEK IN LITERARY HISTORY  Maxim Gorky’s Children of the Sun, which was written in prison during the Russian Revolution, premieres (October 24, 1905)  • Raymond Chandler begins work on his final novel (October 24, 1958)  • The first sound film adaptation of a Shakespeare play (The Taming of the Shrew, starring Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks) is released in the United States (October 26, 1929)  • Jonathan Swift publishes the succinctly titled Gulliver’s Travels, or Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World.  In Four Parts.  By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of Several Ships (October 28, 1726)  • Samuel Beckett’s monologue Krapp’s Last Tape is performed for the first time at the Royal Court Theatre in London (October 28, 1958)  • Boris Pasternak rejects his Nobel Prize (October 29, 1958)  Literary Hub  October 23, 2022   

You have to hold your audience in writing to the very end--much more than in talking, when people have to be polite and listen to you. -  Brenda Ueland, writer (24 Oct 1891-1985)  See also Lady of the Lake:  Writer Brenda Ueland and the story she never shared by Alice Kaplan at https://theamericanscholar.org/lady-of-the-lake/   

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2581  October 24, 2022