The Marx Brothers were an American family comedy act that was successful in vaudeville, on Broadway, and in motion pictures from 1905 to 1949.  Five of the Marx Brothers' thirteen feature films were selected by the American Film Institute (AFI) as among the top 100 comedy films, with two of them, Duck Soup (1933) and A Night at the Opera (1935), in the top fifteen.  They are widely considered by critics, scholars and fans to be among the greatest and most influential comedians of the 20th century.  The brothers were included in AFI's 100 Years . . . 100 Stars list of the 25 greatest male stars of Classical Hollywood cinema, the only performers to be included collectively.  The brothers are almost universally known by their stage names:  Chico, Harpo, Groucho, Gummo, and Zeppo.  There was a sixth brother, the firstborn, named Manfred (Mannie), who died in infancy; Zeppo was given the middle name Manfred in his memory.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marx_Brothers

October 13-22, 2023  The Parke County Covered Bridge Festival™.  For all things fall, visit Indiana’s largest festival, The Covered Bridge Festival.  This 10 day festival always starts on the 2nd Friday in October.  The Parke County Covered Bridge Festival–showcases the county’s 31 historic covered bridges and features authentic arts and crafts, fantastic food, and beautiful fall foliage.  See pictures and link to more information at https://www.coveredbridges.com/covered-bridge-festival    

Psyche comes from the Greek psykhe, which means “the soul, mind, spirit, or invisible animating entity which occupies the physical body.”  That about sums the way we understand the word today.  People have their own individual psyches of course, but you often hear the word used to describe the similar mind set or thought process of a group of people, such as "the American psyche."  https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/psyche   

The Kentucky coffeetree is a unique tree with large, woody pods and very large leaves made up of smaller leaflets.  With its bold form, contorted branching, unique bark and decorative clusters of large pods rattling in the wind, Kentucky coffeetree is an exceptional winter ornamental.  Leaves emerge in late spring a striking pink-bronze color.  As the beautiful, large airy leaves mature they become dark bluish-green above.  The light, airy shade (semi-shade) of this tree makes gardening under it possible.  This tree's yellow fall color contrasts nicely with the clusters of dark, maturing pods.  The Kentucky coffeetree belongs to the pea or legume family.  Although widely distributed, this tree is a rare forest tree and occurs in scattered populations.  The national champion Kentucky coffeetree, 97 feet tall, is in Maryland.  At one time the Kentucky coffeetree was the designated state tree.  It occurs throughout Kentucky, but is most common in open woods in the Bluegrass.  The common name comes from the seeds being used by pioneers as a coffee substitute.  The Kentucky champion tree is in West Liberty in Morgan County and is 90 feet tall.  It is one of the largest Kentucky coffeetrees in the USA. https://www.uky.edu/hort/Kentucky-Coffeetree   

Ignatius J. Reilly is the hero of John Kennedy Toole's tragicomic tale, A Confederacy of Dunces published in 1980.  This 30-year-old medievalist lives at home with his mother in New Orleans, pens his magnum opus on Big Chief writing pads he keeps hidden under his bed, and relays to anyone who will listen the traumatic experience he once had on a Greyhound Scenicruiser bound for Baton Rouge.  ("Speeding along in that bus was like hurtling into the abyss.")  But Ignatius's quiet life of tyrannizing his mother and writing his endless comparative history screeches to a halt when he is almost arrested by the overeager Patrolman Mancuso--who mistakes him for a vagrant--and then involved in a car accident with his tipsy mother behind the wheel.  One thing leads to another, and before he knows it, Ignatius is out pounding the pavement in search of a job.  Over the next several hundred pages, our hero stumbles from one adventure to the next.  His stint as a hotdog vendor is less than successful, and he soon turns his employers at the Levy Pants Company on their heads.  The many subplots that weave through A Confederacy of Dunces are as complicated as anything you'll find in a Dickens novel, and just as beautifully tied together in the end.  Ignatius--selfish, domineering, and deluded, tragic and comic and larger than life--who carries the story.  He is a modern-day Quixote beset by giants of the modern age. https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/310612  Winner of The Pulitzer Prize   

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2669  May 12, 2023