'Ambrosia' is a cultivar of apple originating in British Columbia, Canada in the early 1990s.  The original tree was first cultivated by the Mennell family of Similkameen Valley, British Columbia, who discovered it growing in their orchard.  The fruit is medium to large, weighing about 215 grams (0.474 lb), and has mostly red, glossy colouration, with yellow patches.  It has cream-coloured, firm meat with a sweet flavour reminiscent of pear and low acidity.  'Ambrosia' harvest is mid to late season.  Ambrosia is most common in British Columbia, where it was discovered, and is the third most-produced apple in the province.  It is also being produced in Ontario and Nova Scotia, as well as many other places around the world.  The patent provides additional background.  Parentage is suspected to be 'Starking Delicious' × 'Golden Delicious' because those apples existed in the orchard where the 'Ambrosia' was discovered growing.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambrosia_(apple)    

Quipu (also spelled khipu) are recording devices fashioned from strings historically used by a number of cultures in the region of Andean South America.  A quipu usually consisted of cotton or camelid fiber strings.  The Inca people used them for collecting data and keeping records, monitoring tax obligations, collecting census records, calendrical information, and for military organization.  The cords stored numeric and other values encoded as knots, often in a base ten positional system.  A quipu could have only a few or thousands of cords.  The configuration of the quipus has been "compared to string mops."  Archaeological evidence has also shown the use of finely carved wood as a supplemental, and perhaps sturdier, base to which the color-coded cords would be attached.  A relatively small number have survived.  Knotted strings unrelated to quipu have been used to record information by the ancient Chinese, Tibetans and Japanese.  Quipu is the Spanish spelling and the most common spelling in English.  Khipu is the word for "knot" in Cusco Quechua.  In most Quechua varieties, the term is kipu.   "Quipu" is a Quechua word meaning "knot" or "to knot".  The terms "quipu" and "khipu" are simply spelling variations on the same word.  "Quipu" is the traditional Spanish spelling, while "khipu" reflects the recent Quechuan and Aymaran spelling shift.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quipu   

One of Naum Gabo’s (Russian-American sculptor, designer, and architect) most important discoveries was that empty space could be used as an element of sculpture.  Constructing his sculptures from sets of interlocking components rather than carving or moulding them from inert mass allowed him to incorporate into poetry, and John Cage's incorporation of silence into music, in epitomizing a modern, secular concern with expressing what is unknown as well as what is known:  with void as well as form, or static elements which strongly suggested movement, Gabo's work stands at the forefront of a whole artistic tradition, Kinetic Art, which uses art to represent time as well as space.  Indeed, his Kinetic Construction of 1920 is often considered the first work of Kinetic Art.  From this point onwards, Gabo's work incorporated or suggested what he called space into his work more easily.  Gabo's use of space within sculpture stands alongside Stéphane Mallarmé's incorporation of page-space "kinetic rhythms", reminding the viewer of a quintessentially modern discovery first made by Albert Einstein, that time and space only exist in relation to each other.  https://www.theartstory.org/artist/gabo-naum/

derring-do  Action displaying heroic courage.  The term comes (in the late 16th century) from late Middle English dorryng do ‘daring to do’, used by Chaucer, and, in a passage by Lydgate based on Chaucer's work, misprinted in 16th-century editions as derrynge do; this was misinterpreted by Spenser to mean ‘manhood, chivalry’, and subsequently taken up and popularized by Sir Walter Scott.  https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803095712317   

One hundred thirty-two Guggenheim Fellowships were awarded in 1946. Sixty of these were awarded as part of the post-service program, which provided fellowships to otherwise qualified artists and scholars who were taken away from their studies due to the war.  The list includes:  Carson McCullers, Gian Carlo Menotti, Ansel Adams, Alice Elizabeth Kober, Alan Lomax, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. and James Alfred Van Allen.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Guggenheim_Fellowships_awarded_in_1946   

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com   Issue 2769  January 12, 2024