Carl Linnaeus (1707–1778), also known after his ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné, was a Swedish botanist, zoologist, taxonomist, and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the modern system of naming organisms.  He is known as the "father of modern taxonomy".  Many of his writings were in Latin; his name is rendered in Latin as Carolus Linnæus and, after his 1761 ennoblement, as Carolus a Linné.  He lived abroad between 1735 and 1738, where he studied and also published the first edition of his Systema Naturae in the Netherlands.  He then returned to Sweden where he became professor of medicine and botany at Uppsala.  In the 1740s, he was sent on several journeys through Sweden to find and classify plants and animals.  In the 1750s and 1760s, he continued to collect and classify animals, plants, and minerals, while publishing several volumes.  He was one of the most acclaimed scientists in Europe at the time of his death.  Philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau sent him the message:  "Tell him I know no greater man on Earth."  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe wrote:  "With the exception of Shakespeare and Spinoza, I know no one among the no longer living who has influenced me more strongly."  Swedish author August Strindberg wrote: "Linnaeus was in reality a poet who happened to become a naturalist."  Linnaeus has been called Princeps botanicorum (Prince of Botanists) and "The Pliny of the North".  He is also considered one of the founders of modern ecology.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Linnaeus   

October 7, 2021  Exclusive rights to the late Sue Grafton’s popular alphabet book series featuring private investigator Kinsey Millhone—A is for Alibi and so on—have sold to A+E Studios.  Now, the studio can develop the entirety of the series for television.  Steve Humphrey, Grafton’s husband, will serve as executive producer.  Interestingly, when Grafton was alive, she was resolute that her alphabet book series never receive a screen adaptation; she had worked in Hollywood for a decade and a half adapting books into TV movies, and saw how an author’s original vision could be distorted.  Said Grafton in a 1997 interview in January Magazine:  “I will never sell [Kinsey] to Hollywood.  And, I have made my children promise not to sell her.  We’ve taken a blood oath, and if they do so I will come back from the grave:  which they know I can do.  They’re going to have to pass the word to my grandchildren:  we do not sell out our grandma.  I just will not let them touch [Kinsey].  I’ve trashed other writers, I’m not gonna let them have a crack at me.”  Walker Caplan   https://lithub.com/sue-graftons-alphabet-series-will-be-a-tv-show-despite-her-familys-blood-oath-not-to-adapt-it/ 

"Going to hell in a handbasket", "going to hell in a handcart", "going to hell in a handbag", "go to hell in a bucket", "sending something to hell in a handbasket" and "something being like hell in a handbasket" are variations on an allegorical locution of unclear origin, which describes a situation headed for disaster inescapably or precipitately.  Various versions of the phrase have appeared in the title of several published works and other media:

To Hell in a Handbag is the title of a 2016 comic play by Helen Norton and Jonathan White.  To Hell in a Handbasket is the name of humorist H. Allen Smith's 1962 autobiography.  Hell in a Handbasket was the title of a 1988 Star Trek comic book.  Hell in a Handbasket is the title of a 2006 book (ISBN 1585424587) by American cartoonist Tom Tomorrow, who authors the cartoon strip This Modern World.  "Hell in a Bucket" is a song off of the Grateful Dead's 1987 album In the Dark.  Hell in a Handbasket is a song from Voltaire's Ooky Spooky album.  Hell in a Handbasket is the title of a 2011 Meat Loaf album.  The phrase appears as part of the lyrics to country singer Doug Seegers' 2014 song Going Down to the River.  To Hell in a Handcart (2001) is a dystopian novel by English journalist Richard Littlejohn.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_hell_in_a_handbasket   

Ötzi the Iceman is a glacier mummy from the Copper Age, who, thanks to extraordinary circumstances, has been preserved down to the present day.  Little by little, he has imparted genuine stores of knowledge.  He was discovered accidentally by hikers in 1991, together with his clothing and equipment, on the Schnalstal/Val Senales Valley glacier and has been the subject of intensive research ever since.  Over 5300 years ago, Ötzi was crossing Tisenjoch/Giogo di Tisa in the Schnalstal/Val Senales Valley, South Tyrol, where he was murdered and preserved naturally in the ice.  He is therefore older than the Egyptian pyramids and Stonehenge and the result of a series of highly improbable coincidences.  Ötzi lived during the Copper Age, a period of the late Neolithic.  He was still using stone tools but owned an innovative and very valuable copper axe.  The skill of extracting and processing metal had recently arrived in Europe from Asia Minor. The advent of copper marked the beginning of the Bronze Age.  Ötzi and his artefacts have been exhibited at the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology in Bolzano, Italy since 1998.  The mummy is stored in a specially devised cold cell and can be viewed through a small window. Ötzi’s numerous pieces of equipment and clothing have been painstakingly restored.  Visitors have been amazed by the skills of Stone Age people.  The mummy was dubbed Ötzi by the Austrian journalist Karl Wendl, who was looking for a catchy name.  The name refers to the discovery site in the Ötztal Valley Alps.  https://www.iceman.it/en/the-iceman/ 

September 19, 2023  A woman was strolling through the Savers store in Manchester, N.H., about six years ago.  A painting caught her eye:  two women, one a stern elder and the other a maiden.  She decided to buy it—either for $4 or $4.99, depending on the source.  Some things about the painting apparently raised her curiosity, and she posted it on Facebook.  Someone who knew a lot more about art than our bargain hunter saw the post.  And one thing led to another.  On September 19, 2023, that painting of the two women sold for $191,000 at auction by Bonhams Skinner.  It has been identified as Ramona, a long-lost frontispiece illustration that was part of a four-work set by N.C. Wyeth, a premier 20th-century illustrator and father of the artist Andrew Wyeth.  Rita Giordano  See graphic at https://www.inquirer.com/arts/nc-wyeth-artist-ramona-brandywine-thrift-store-20230919.html  

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2721  September 20, 2023