Arne Emil Jacobsen, Hon. FAIA  (1902–1971) was a Danish architect and furniture designer.  He is remembered for his contribution to architectural functionalism and for the worldwide success he enjoyed with simple well-designed chairs.  After a spell as an apprentice mason, Jacobsen was admitted to the Architecture School at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts where from 1924 to 1927 he studied under Kay Fisker and Kaj Gottlob, both leading architects and designers.  Still a student, in 1925 Jacobsen participated in the Paris Art Deco fair, Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes, where he won a silver medal for a chair design.  On that trip, he was struck by the pioneering aesthetic of Le Corbusier's L'Esprit Nouveau pavilion.  Before leaving the Academy, Jacobsen also travelled to Germany, where he became acquainted with the rationalist architecture of Mies van der Rohe and Walter Gropius.  Their work influenced his early designs including his graduation project, an art gallery, which won him a gold medal.  After completing architecture school, he first worked at city architect Poul Holsøe's architectural practice.  In 1929, in collaboration with Flemming Lassen, he won a Danish Architect's Association competition for designing the "House of the Future" which was built full scale at the subsequent exhibition in Copenhagen's Forum.  It was a spiral-shaped, flat-roofed house in glass and concrete, incorporating a private garage, a boathouse and a helicopter pad.  Other striking features were windows that rolled down like car windows, a conveyor tube for the mail and a kitchen stocked with ready-made meals.  A Dodge Cabriolet Coupé was parked in the garage, there was a Chris Craft in the boathouse and an Autogyro on the roof.  Jacobsen immediately became recognised as an ultra-modern architect.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arne_Jacobsen   

1. “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” 2. “Do one thing every day that scares you.”  3. “Do what you feel in your heart to be right–for you’ll be criticized anyway.” 4. “The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.” See more quotes by Eleanor Roosevelt at https://bellagracemagazine.com/blog/17-eleanor-roosevelt-quotes-to-live-by/  

 difference engine is an automatic mechanical calculator designed to tabulate polynomial functions.  It was designed in the 1820s, and was first created by Charles Babbage.  The name difference engine is derived from the method of divided differences, a way to interpolate or tabulate functions by using a small set of polynomial co-efficients.  Some of the most common mathematical functions used in engineering, science and navigation, are built from logarithmic and trigonometric functions, which can be approximated by polynomials, so a difference engine can compute many useful tables.  The notion of a mechanical calculator for mathematical functions can be traced back to the Antikythera mechanism of the 2nd century BC, while early modern examples are attributed to Pascal and Leibniz in the 17th century.  In 1784 J. H. Müller, an engineer in the Hessian army, devised and built an adding machine and described the basic principles of a difference machine in a book published in 1786 (the first written reference to a difference machine is dated to 1784), but he was unable to obtain funding to progress with the idea.  See graphics at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Difference_engine   

The term to "cut a rug" first started to emerge as a slang term for dancing in the 1920s.  Use of the phrase persisted well into the 1940s, although the popularity of the term has since faded.  An author writing in vintage vernacular might describe her characters cutting a rug to transport the reader back to the era in which the book is supposed to be set.  Among small sectors of urban communities, this slang term experienced a brief resurgence in the late 1990s.  Like most slang, the origins of "cut a rug" as a synonym for dancing are disputed.  Some theorists believe that this term might have been used to describe dancers who moved so well and so regularly that they would have worn out a carpet.  In some regions, a particularly skilled dancer is said to "cut a mean rug," a nod to the notable abilities of said dancer.  Carpets are known to show extensive wear with small slits which could resemble cuts, and the link between heavy dancing and wearing out the floors seems obvious.  Other theorists have suggested that the term is related to rugs in the sense of taking them up or moving them.  When a spontaneous dance party arises, rugs and furniture are usually moved out of the way to facilitate dancing. Rugs could also be removed in the long term to create a dance space, as would have been common in the 1920s, when Prohibition caused many social clubs to go underground into private homes.  While the rugs might not have been literally cut, they could have been moved to safekeeping to avoid damage from dancing.  In the 1910-40 era houses had a main room- a parlor, (from the French:  talking room), and there was a wood floor.  To prevent dust, scratches, scuffing and extra cleaning, rugs were used like a rug in front of each chair or rocker, or sofa.  When there was a big party, to prevent slipping or tripping on the rugs, and in honor of the important guests, one or 2 or 3 or all or the main big rug was removed or cut to dance on the wood floor.  Mary McMahon https://www.languagehumanities.org/what-does-it-mean-to-cut-a-rug.htm   

August Gaul (1869-1922) was a German sculptor and expressionism artist, born in Großauheim (now part of Hanau).  Produced in Frankfurt, Germany for the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis, August Gaul's "Durana" bronze eagle features hundreds of hand-forged bronze feathers and was the centerpiece of one of the many German exhibits at the fair.  When the fair closed the statue weighing 2,500 pounds was purchased by John Wanamaker of Philadelphia for $10,000.  The eagle was re-installed centrally in the Grand Court of what has become known as America's first department store, Wanamaker's.   The Eagle quickly became the store's unofficial mascot and grew in iconic popular social context with the Philadelphian and suburban catchphrase "Meet me at the Eagle".  When suburban branches of John Wanamaker's department stores opened in the 1950s and ’60s, the company installed various eagle statues in each one.  The eagle sculpture still resides at the same location under ownership of Macy's and is an integral element of this store becoming the flagship within the chain.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_Gaul  See also https://artandarchitecture-sf.com/wanamaker-an-organ-and-an-eagle.html   

The real index of civilization is when people are kinder than they need to be. - Louis de Bernieres, novelist (b. 8 Dec 1954)   

21 Easy No-Bake Cookie Recipes To Give Your Oven a Break by Nitya Rao https://www.thepioneerwoman.com/food-cooking/meals-menus/g46043549/no-bake-cookies/   

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2754  December 8, 2023