Since 1996, the Dublin Literary Award has honoured excellence in world literature.  Presented annually, the award is one of the most significant literature prizes in the world and unique in that the books are nominated by libraries from cities around the world.  The award is worth €100,000 for a single work of international fiction written or a work of fiction translated into English.  The 2023 winner is:  Katja Oskamp for Marzahn, Mon Amour.  https://dublinliteraryaward.ie/ 

May 25, 2023  Sardinian poet Nanni Falconi watched as translators zoomed in from Paris, Montreal, Iowa City and numerous parts of Italy for the multilingual kickoff of his new book of poems, Su Cantu de su Ciddicoa.  “You do not understand that my stubby hands also take care of the flocks of words, in the wild countryside of your consciences,” the former shepherd and award-winning poet had admonished in one of his poems, written in his native Sardinian language.  The global celebration of Falconi’s new collection, published by the Archivi del Sud Edizioni, served as a reminder of the island’s long-standing role as a wellspring of poetry that has transcended borders for centuries—actually, for millennia.   “The Sardes are almost all born poets,” Charles Dickens’ Household Words magazine declared in 1856.  The British magazine reminded readers that virtually every traveler noticed the deep-rooted place of poetry and song in the daily ways of the second-largest island in the Mediterranean, as if Sardinia was a floating island of narration.  Jeff Biggers  https://lithub.com/the-land-of-the-muses-how-sardinia-became-italys-island-of-poets

Teachers liked talented students because talented students made teachers look good while requiring no effort on the part of the teacher.  Potboiler, a novel by Jesse Kellerman   

A blivet, also known as an "impossible fork," is an optical illusion and an impossible object.  It appears to have three cylindrical prongs at one end which then mysteriously transform into two rectangular prongs at the other end.  Often, upon first glance, the blivet looks entirely possible, but upon closer inspection quickly becomes undecipherable.  Other impossible figures include the impossible cube or Penrose triangle, which also initially appear to be two dimensional representations of real objects.  On closer inspection, however, such figures are found to have parts drawn from incompatible perspectives.  The blivet is often used to amuse, entertain, and fascinate the viewer, revealing humankind's endless fascination with the creative and unusual.  The blivet is often cited as having various origins.  Many claim that it originated as an illustration on the cover of the March 1965 issue of Mad Magazine, from a contributor who claimed the illustration was original.  It was later discovered that the figure had been previously published in several aviation, engineering, and science-fiction periodicals during May and June of the previous year.  Also in 1964, D.H. Schuster published the figure in an article for the American Journal of Psychology, leading many to refer to the figure as a "Schuster Fork."  Some erroneously refer to artist M.C. Escher when discussing the origins of the blivet; this is most likely due to the fact that Escher is famous for works that contain similar optical illusions.  See picture at https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Blivet 

Fava beans and lima beans are not the same.  While they both come from the Fabaceae family, fava beans (broad beans) originated in Northern Africa, while lima beans (butter beans) originated in South America.  Note that while fava beans can be bought in the less mature green version, they eventually mature to a brown colored bean.  Dale Cudmore  https://vegfaqs.com/fava-beans-vs-lima-beans/   

The meteoric rise of ChatGPT is shaking up multiple industries–including law, as one attorney recently found out.  May 28, 2023  Roberto Mata sued Avianca airlines for injuries he says he sustained from a serving cart while on the airline in 2019, claiming negligence by an employee.  Steven Schwartz, an attorney with Levidow, Levidow & Oberman and licensed in New York for over three decades, handled Mata’s representation.  But at least six of the submitted cases by Schwartz as research for a brief “appear to be bogus judicial decisions with bogus quotes and bogus internal citations,” said Judge Kevin Castel of the Southern District of New York in an order.  The fake cases source?  ChatGPT.  https://www.toledoblade.com/business/technology/2023/05/28/lawyer-chatgpt-faces-sanctions-unprecedented-circumstance-court/stories/20230528162    

May 30, 2023 comic strip humor  “An apology is the superglue of life!”    https://www.gocomics.com/forbetterorforworse 

After you have exhausted what there is in business, politics, conviviality, and so on--have found that none of these finally satisfy, or permanently wear--what remains?  Nature remains. - Walt Whitman, poet (31 May 1819-1892)  

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2677  May 31, 2023  

Kudo is one of the most recent words created by back-formation from another word misunderstood as a plural.  Kudos was introduced into English in the 19th century; it was used in contexts where a reader unfamiliar with Greek could not be sure whether it was singular or plural.  By the 1920s it began to appear as a plural, and about 25 years later kudo began to appear.  https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/kudo   

In mathematics, a Möbius strip, Möbius band, or Möbius loop is a surface that can be formed by attaching the ends of a strip of paper together with a half-twist.  As a mathematical object, it was discovered by Johann Benedict Listing and August Ferdinand Möbius in 1858, but it had already appeared in Roman mosaics from the third century CE.  The Möbius strip is a non-orientable surface, meaning that within it one cannot consistently distinguish clockwise from counterclockwise turns.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%B6bius_strip   

Horatio Walpole, 4th Earl of Orford (1717–1797), better known as Horace Walpole, was an English writer, art historian, man of letters, antiquarian, and Whig politician.  His literary reputation rests on the first Gothic novel, The Castle of Otranto (1764), and his Letters, which are of significant social and political interest.  They have been published by Yale University Press in 48 volumes.  In 2017, a volume of Walpole's selected letters was published.  The youngest son of the first British Prime Minister, Sir Robert Walpole, 1st Earl of Orford, he became the 4th and last Earl of Orford of the second creation on his nephew's death in 1791.  Walpole's lasting architectural creation is Strawberry Hill, the home he built from 1749 onward in Twickenham, southwest of London, which at the time overlooked the Thames.  Here he revived the Gothic style many decades before his Victorian successors.  This fanciful neo-Gothic concoction began a new architectural trend.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horace_Walpole# 

Cotta noun  From Medieval Latin cotta (“clerical tunic”).  cotta (plural cottas)

A surplice, in England and America usually one shorter and less full than the ordinary surplice and with short sleeves, or sometimes none.  quotations ▼

A kind of coarse woolen blanket.

Cotta  noun  cotta (plural cottas)  Alternative form of katha (“unit of area”)

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cotta   

Mount Everest is Earth's highest mountain above sea level, located in the Himalayas along the China–Nepal border.  Its summit, at 8,848.86 m (29,031.7 ft) elevation, was first reached on 29 May 1953 by Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary.  The China–Nepal border runs across its summit point.  Its elevation (snow height) of 8,848.86 m (29,031 ft 8+¹⁄₂ in) was most recently established in 2020 by the Chinese and Nepali authorities.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Everest   

Three years after the Civil War ended, on May 5, 1868, the head of an organization of Union veterans — the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) — established Decoration Day as a time for the nation to decorate the graves of the war dead with flowers.  Maj. Gen. John A. Logan declared it should be May 30.  It is believed the date was chosen because flowers would be in bloom all over the country.  The first large observance was held that year at Arlington National Cemetery, across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C.  Approximately 25 places have been named in connection with the origin of Memorial Day, many of them in the South where most of the war dead were buried.  In 1966, Congress and President Lyndon Johnson declared Waterloo, N.Y., the “birthplace” of Memorial Day.  https://www.va.gov/opa/publications/celebrate/memday.pdf   

Memorial Day, as Decoration Day gradually came to be known, originally honored only those lost while fighting in the Civil War.  This changed after World War I, and the holiday evolved to commemorate American military personnel who died in all wars, including World War II, The Vietnam War, The Korean War and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  For decades, Memorial Day continued to be observed on May 30th, the date General Logan had selected for the first Decoration Day.  But in 1968, Congress passed the Uniform Monday Holiday Act, which established Memorial Day as the last Monday in May in order to create a three-day weekend for federal employees.  The change went into effect in 1971.  The same law also declared Memorial Day a federal holiday.  https://www.asomf.org/the-history-of-memorial-day/ 

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2676  May 29, 2023 

The Hollywood Sign is an American landmark and cultural icon overlooking Hollywood, Los Angeles, California.  Originally the Hollywoodland Sign, it is situated on Mount Lee, in the Beachwood Canyon area of the Santa Monica Mountains.  Spelling out the word “HOLLYWOOD” in 50-foot-tall (15.2 m) white uppercase letters and 450 feet (137.2 m) long, it was originally erected in 1923 as a temporary advertisement for a local real estate development, but due to increasing recognition the sign was left up, and replaced in 1978 with a more durable all-steel structure.  Among the best-known landmarks in both California and the United States, the sign makes frequent appearances in popular culture, particularly in establishing shots for films and television programs set in or around Hollywood.  Signs of similar style, but spelling different words, are frequently seen as parodies.  The Hollywood Chamber of Commerce holds trademark rights to the Hollywood Sign but only for certain uses.   Because of its widespread recognizability, the sign has been a frequent target of pranks and vandalism across the decades.  It has since undergone restoration, including the installation of a security system to deter mischief.  The sign is protected and promoted by the nonprofit "The Hollywood Sign Trust", while its site and the surrounding land are part of Griffith Park.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_Sign    

Licorice root/licorice/ liquorice/ sweet root/gan cao/gan zao/Chinese licorice is cultivated throughout Europe, Asia, and the Middle East.  It is used as a flavoring in candy, other foods, beverages, and tobacco products.  Many “licorice” products sold in the United States do not contain actual licorice.  Anise oil, which smells and tastes like licorice, is often used instead.  Licorice root has a long history of use, going back to ancient Assyrian, Egyptian, Chinese, and Indian cultures.  https://www.nccih.nih.gov/health/licorice-root#:~:text=Licorice%20root%20is%20cultivated%20throughout,licorice%2C%20is%20often%20used%20instead.   

As an adjective, the word just is widely and variously used to discuss lawfulness, fairness, and morality,

The use of just as an adverb—does ultimately emerge from those original “fair” adjective senses of the word.  As an adverb, just has many applications.  Just as we need to pay attention to our physical health, so we need to take care of our mental health.  But the passive-aggressive just—the one that is increasingly grating people’s ears through overuse in personal and professional requests—is specifically used as what some linguists refer to as a politeness marker.  Politeness markers are words and phrases meant to create cooperation, show deference, and well, avoid being mean and bossy while living in a society where we all have to get along but still need things from each other.  https://www.thesaurus.com/e/ways-to-say/words-to-use-instead-of-just/   

Korean Bulgogi Pork by Joanna Cismaru  Bulgogi, literally means “fire meat”.  It is a “gui” (meaning grilled dish) made of thin, marinated slices of beef or pork grilled on a barbecue or on a stove-top.  Commonly, the main ingredient is meat:  beef, pork, or chicken.  But occasionally the dish can include vegetables other vegetarian ingredients, making it pretty versatile.  Serve over noodles or rice, a salad of your choice, or serve in a lettuce wrap.  Cauliflower is a great alternative to rice--or creating noodles from zucchini--aka “zoodles“, peppers, mushrooms, and broccoli.  Find recipe at https://www.jocooks.com/recipes/bulgogi-pork/   

The Brooklyn Bridge connects Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn Heights.  Known for its stone arches, the Brooklyn Bridge supports six lanes of vehicles (no trucks) and a shared pedestrian and bicycle path.  As of 2018, an average of over 116,000 vehicles, 30,000 pedestrians and 3,000 cyclists travel over the Brooklyn Bridge each day.  See pictures at https://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/html/infrastructure/brooklyn-bridge.shtml 

The Brooklyn Bridge opened on May 24, 1883.  See also https://www.pbs.org/kenburns/brooklyn-bridge/ and https://www.loc.gov/item/today-in-history/june-12/

The River Café is a Michelin starred restaurant located on a former coffee barge in the East River under the Brooklyn Bridge.  It has offered its own ferry service from Wall Street.  Opened in 1977 by Michael O'Keeffe, who has also owned several other New York City restaurants, it was one of the first fine dining restaurants in the city to promote locally sourced and organic food, American cuisine, and high-end California wines.  Heavily damaged due to Hurricane Sandy in fall 2012, it reopened in February 2014.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_River_Caf%C3%A9_(Brooklyn) 

There is no remedy so easy as books, which if they do not give cheerfulness, at least restore quiet to the most troubled mind. - Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, author (26 May 1689-1762)   

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com   Issue 2675  May 26, 2023 

The Darién Gap is a geographic region in the Isthmus of Darien or Isthmus of Panama connecting the North and South American continents within Central America, consisting of a large watershed, forest, and mountains in Panama's Darién Province and the northern portion of Colombia's Chocó Department.  The "gap" is in the Pan-American Highway, of which 106 km (66 mi) between Yaviza, Panama, and Turbo, Colombia, has not been built.  Road-building through this area is expensive and detrimental to the environment.  The geography of the Darién Gap on the Colombian side is dominated primarily by the river delta of the Atrato River, which creates a flat marshland at least 80 km (50 mi) wide.  The Serranía del Baudó range extends along Colombia's Pacific coast and into Panama.  The Darién Gap is home to the Embera-Wounaan and Guna people and was also home to the Cueva people who became extinct by 1535, following the Spanish invasion of Panama.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dari%C3%A9n_Gap 

To skedaddle is to run away.  The word rose to prominence in American slang during the US Civil War, but it probably has roots in English dialectal speech. Those roots, however, are not quite certain.  Various Greek, Celtic, and Nordic etymologies have been proposed over the years, but with little to no evidence to support them.  Anatoly Liberman posits that it is a variant of the English dialect term scaddle—meaning wild, frisky, or to scare, frighten—with infix -da- added. And indeed, Francis Grose’s Provincial Glossary of 1787 has this entry:  Scaddle. That will not abide touching; spoken of young horses that fly out.  In Kent, scaddle means thievish, rapacious.  Dogs, apt to steal or snatch any thing that comes their way, are there said to be scaddle.  https://www.wordorigins.org/big-list-entries/skedaddle   

Invented in 1932, the Technicolor camera recorded on three separate negatives--red, blue and green--which were then combined to develop a full-color positive print.  The box encasing the camera, a "blimp," muffled the machine's sound during filming.  Danish-American inventor August Plahn built and patented a camera and projector that split motion picture images through three color lenses using 70mm film.  When the film, with three images printed across its width, was projected through the same colored filters, movies’ natural color was restored.  While Plahn had little success marketing his inventions, the Boston-based Technicolor Corporation effectively marketed their similar technology to become the industry standard.  https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nmah_759495#:~:text=Invented%20in%201932%2C%20the%20Technicolor,PHOTOS.   

“You can’t get the worship without the blame.”  Our Little Racket, a novel by Angelica Baker    

On May 23, 2023, the Institute of Museum and Library Services announced eight winners for the 2023 National Medal for Museum and Library Service.  The National Medal is the nation’s highest honor given to museums and libraries that demonstrate excellence in service to their communities. Since 1996, the award has honored 182 institutions that demonstrated extraordinary and innovative approaches to public service.

IMLS congratulates the winners for the 2023 National Medal for Museum and Library Service and thanks all those who applied.  This year’s winners are:

Libraries:

Kuskokwim Consortium Library (Bethel, AK)

LA County Library (Los Angeles, CA)

Long Branch Free Public Library (Long Branch, NJ)

Toledo Lucas County Public Library (Toledo, OH)

Museums:

Center of Science and Industry (COSI) (Columbus, OH)

Jim Gatchell Memorial Museum (Buffalo, WY)

Museum of Discovery and Science (Fort Lauderdale, FL)

Riverside Art Museum (Riverside, CA)

https://www.imls.gov/our-work/national-medals/2023-national-medal-museum-and-library-service 

 

The 2023 winner of the International Booker Prize is a unique spin on time travel. The novel Time Shelter by Georgi Gospodinov, with a translation by Angela Rodel, imagines the 'first clinic of the past,' in which Alzheimer's patients can visit different time periods of their lives on different floors.  Therapist Gaustine tells the narrator, a writer, "we'll create these clinics or sanatoriums in various countries.  The past is also a local thing.  There'll be houses from various years everywhere, little neighborhoods, one day we'll even have small cities, maybe even a whole country.  For patients with failing memories, Alzheimer's, dementia, whatever you want to call it.  For all of those who already are living solely in the present of their past."  In its review of Time Shelter, The Guardian wrote, "From communism to the Brexit referendum and conflict in Europe, this funny yet frightening Bulgarian novel explores the weaponisation of nostalgia."  Gospodinov's novel was chosen from a shortlist of six books from around the world.  Elizabeth Blair  https://www.npr.org/2023/05/23/1177737841/international-booker-prize-2023-time-shelter   

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2674  May 24, 2023 

The Benjamin Franklin Parkway is the spine of Philadelphia's Museum District.  Some of the city's most famous sights are here:  Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul; Swann Memorial Fountain; Parkway Central Library, the Family Court Building, the Franklin Institute, Moore College of Art and Design, the Academy of Natural Sciences, the Rodin Museum, Eakins Oval, the Barnes Foundation and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.  From its northern end, the Parkway provides access to Fairmount Park through Kelly Drive (formerly East River Drive), Martin Luther King Drive (formerly West River Drive), the Schuylkill River Trail, and the Schuylkill Expressway (I-76).  The Parkway also is an outdoor sculpture garden.  Works include:  The Thinker by Auguste Rodin; Gates of Hell also by Rodin; LOVE by Robert Indiana; The Ideal Scout by Robert Tait McKenzie; Three-Way Piece by Henry Moore; the three River figures in the Swann Memorial Fountain by Alexander Stirling Calder; Shakespeare Memorial also by Calder; The Monument to Six Million Jewish Martyrs by Nathan Rapoport at the Horwitz-Wasserman Holocaust Memorial Plaza; Joseph Leidy by Samuel Murray; Aero Memorial by Paul Manship; General Galusha Pennypacker by Charles Grafly and Albert Laessle; Jesus Breaking Bread by Walter Erlebacher, All Wars Colored Soldiers and Sailors Memorial by J. Otto Schweizer; Thaddeus Kosciuszko by Robert Aitken; Civil War Soldiers and Sailors Memorial by Hermon Atkins MacNeil; Kopernik by Dudley Vaill Talcott; Joan of Arc by Emmanuel Fremiet; Washington Monument by Rudolf Siemering; and the Rocky statue by A. Thomas Schomberg.  See also: National Register of Historic Places listings in Center City, Philadelphia  In a city famous for its urban planning, the Parkway represents one of the earliest examples of urban renewal in the United States.  The road was constructed to ease heavy industrial congestion in Center City and to restore Philadelphia's natural and artistic beauty, as part of the City Beautiful movement.  The vision for a grand parkway came from retail pioneer John Wanamaker.  Preliminary proposals for the Parkway had been produced and added to the City Plan by 1906, but the first comprehensive plan for the Parkway was commissioned in 1907 by the Fairmount Park Art Association (now the Association for Public Art).  The Association commissioned architects Horace Trumbauer, Clarence Zantzinger, and Paul Philippe Cret, who created a detailed parkway design that was formally added to the City Plan in 1909.  Construction on the Parkway did not begin until 1917, when French landscape architect Jacques Gréber submitted a revised plan to the Commissioners of Fairmount Park.  Gréber designed the Parkway in 1917 to emulate the Champs-Élysées in Paris, France.  The route was determined by an axis drawn from City Hall Tower to a fixed point on the hill that William Penn called "Fairmount", now the site of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.  The Parkway contains flags of countries from around the world.  The traffic rotary on the western end of the Parkway, at the foot of the Art Museum's Rocky Steps, is named Eakins Oval after Philadelphia painter Thomas Eakins.  The traffic lanes around Eakins Oval originally formed a regular oval; this pattern was modified in the early 1960s to its present elongated circular shape, with the truncated lanes serving as staging areas for various events.  See pictures at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Franklin_Parkway#  See also https://www.planning.org/greatplaces/streets/2013/benjaminfranklin.htm   

Behemoth noun  late 14c., huge biblical beast (Job xl.15), from Latin behemoth, from Hebrew b'hemoth, usually taken as plural of intensity of b'hemah "beast."  But the Hebrew word is perhaps a folk etymology of Egyptian pehemau, literally "water-ox," the name for the hippopotamus.  Used in modern English for any huge beast.  https://www.etymonline.com/word/behemoth   

Behemoth: Or the Game of God is a 2020 Mosotho action–mystery short film directed by Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese and co-produced by Hannah Stockmann. The film stars Tseko Monaheng as 'Preacher' in the lead role.  The film received critical reviews from critics and screened at several international film festivals.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behemoth:_Or_the_Game_of_God   

A fire sale is the sale of goods at extremely discounted prices.  The term originated in reference to the sale of goods at a heavy discount due to fire damage.  It may or may not be defined as a closeout, the final sale of goods to zero inventory.  They are said to occur in the financial markets when bidders who value assets highly are prevented from bidding on them, depressing the average selling price below what it otherwise would be.  This lowering of the price can cause even further issues because it may be inaccurately perceived as signalling negative information.  The term is adapted from reference to the sale of fire-damaged goods at reduced prices.  In Proceedings of the Fitchburg [Mass.] Historical Society and Papers Relating to the History of the Town Read by Some of the Members the following entry is found:  In December, 1856, the account of an extensive fire in the American House mentions the following occupants:  E. B. Gee, clothing; T. B. Choate, drugs; J. C. Tenney, boots and shoes; Maraton Upton, dry goods; and M. W. Hayward, groceries.  Maraton Upton removed his stock to No. 9 Rollstone block, and advertised "Extraordinary fire sale; customers are invited to call and examine goods which are still warm."  In professional sports, a fire sale occurs when a team trades many of its veteran players, especially expensive star players, to other teams for less expensive and usually younger players.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_sale   

Astor Library and Lenox Library merge to form the New York Public Library (May 24, 1895) • Thomas Mann begins writing Dr. Faustus (May 23, 1943) • Sarah Josepha Hale’s Poems for Our Children, which includes the origins of “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” is published (May 24, 1830) • Edith Wharton’s first published story, “Mrs. Manstey’s View” (which has serious quarantine vibes) is accepted by Scribner’s magazine (May 26, 1891) • F. Scott Fitzgerald’s short story “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” is published in Collier’s (May 27, 1922) • The first draft of Of Mice and Men is eaten by John Steinbeck’s dog (May 27, 1936)  Literary Hub   

The Convention on Biological Diversity was adopted on May 22, 1992.   

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2673  May 22, 2023