It’s hard to describe St. Louis’s City Museum to people who haven’t been there, but calling it a giant playground is a good place to start.  The 600,000 square foot building, formerly home to the International Shoe Factory, was purchased in 1995 by Bob Cassilly (who died last year while creating a new, similarly whimsical tourist attraction, Cementland).  The classically-trained sculptor set out to make a funhouse for young and old out of unique, reclaimed objects found within the city’s municipal borders.  Today, the museum accepts things from all over.  A giant praying mantis sculpture is on top of the building.  Erin McCarthy  See pictures, including a pipe organ, a ferris wheel and the largest pencil in the world at http://mentalfloss.com/article/13063/11-awesomely-unexpected-things-st-louis%E2%80%99s-city-museum  

How Americans Value Public Libraries in Their Communities by Kathryn Zickuhr, Lee Rainie, Kristen Purcell and Maeve Duggan   Some 90% of Americans ages 16 and older said that the closing of their local public library would have an impact on their community, with 63% saying it would have a “major” impact.  Asked about the personal impact of a public library closing, two-thirds (67%) of Americans said it would affect them and their families, including 29% who said it would have a major impact.  Read much more in the Pew Internet study released Dec. 11, 2013 at http://libraries.pewinternet.org/2013/12/11/libraries-in-communities/ 

Shakespeare’s play The Tempest is a story rich with magical characters.  The main character Prospero and his daughter Miranda have been living on a primitive island for some time.  The play is infused with illusion and magic.  Prospero has become a King on the island and is in control of Ariel, an airy spirit and Caliban a monster.  When a ship wreaks on the island, caused by the tempest, who was raised by Ariel by Prospero’s order, the action begins.  Susan Kingston  Read about parallels in the films Forbidden Planet (1956 science fiction) and Prospero's Books (1991) at http://www2.cedarcrest.edu/academic/eng/lfletcher/tempest/papers/SKingston.htm

Forbidden Planet was made inside MGM studios (except for a handful of shots) and used a 10,000 foot circular painting as a backdrop.  One oddity about Forbidden Planet is that the film we see today is more or less an unfinished rough cut.  What happened is that experimental composers Louis and Bebe Barron had been asked to supply the music for the film.  (They'd previously only scored a few avant-garde shorts.)  It would turn out to be a landmark score, utilizing only generated sounds (no conventional instruments like violins or pianos) and paved the way for both new forms of film scoring and for a more open approach to music.  But the studio was a bit uneasy about the eerie score so they arranged a sneak preview to see how audiences would react. The response was so positive that MGM decided to release the film as it was, not even letting the editor tighten up the pacing or rework some rough patches.  The producer/writer/special effects team of Allen Adler and Irving Block ran a popular optical effects company, working on numerous schlock films but also classics like The Night of the Hunter (1955).  They came up with the idea for something called Fatal Planet as a potential project for one of the B-movie studios.  Instead they pitched it to the high-rollers at MGM, a process that required the duo to act out the story, including an impersonation of the invisible monster, for the benefit of the investors.  To everybody's surprise, the studio decided to make this their first science fiction film and budgeted the film at $1 million, later expanding it to almost double that amount.  For the script they enlisted novelist Cyril Hume, a descendant of philosopher David Hume whose main claim to film was writing screenplays for the popular Tarzan series.  Luckily, Hume's script for Forbidden Planet brings unusual depth to what might have been yet another tacky science fiction film.  It also has its down side: MGM insisted Hume add several "humorous" scenes revolving around the ship's cook, Cookie (played by Earl Holliman).  It's Hollywood executive decisions like this that lead some viewers to agree with literary historian James Kincaid's famous essay, "Who Is Relieved by Comic Relief?"  Robby the Robot was such a hit that he was used again the following year for The Invisible Boy (1957) but then vanished from the screen until a cameo in 1984's Gremlins (where he reuses some dialogue from Forbidden Planet).  The 6-foot, 11-inch creation required a person inside to man the controls as well as some outside electronic manipulation, none of which kept Robby from occasionally toppling over.  http://www.tcm.com/this-month/article/18630%7C0/Forbidden-Planet.html

Return to the Forbidden Planet is a Jukebox musical by playwright Bob Carlton based on Shakespeare's The Tempest and the 1950s science fiction film Forbidden Planet .  Return to the Forbidden Planet started life with the Bubble Theatre Company as a production for open-air performance in a tent.  A revised version of the musical opened, indoors, at the Everyman Theatre in Liverpool in the mid-1980s.  It later moved to the Tricycle Theatre in London.  After some rework a final version opened the Cambridge Theatre in London's West End in September 1989.  It won the Olivier Award for Best New Musical for both 1989 and 1990.  The high energy show features a bevy of 1950s and 1960s rock and roll classics, performed on stage by the cast.  The campy sci-fi setting consists of silvered space suit costumes and space ship sets concealing keyboards and drums. The robot, Ariel, is performed by an actor on roller skates.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Return_to_the_Forbidden_Planet

Good reading
baseball fiction:  http://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/baseball-fiction 

math fiction:  http://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/math-fiction 
historical fiction  http://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/historical-fiction
military history:  books by Antony Beevor and Bruce Catton
history and literature:  anything by Helen Hooven Santmyer

Santmyer was born in 1895 and lived in Xenia, Ohio.  In addition to her career as a writer, she worked as an English professor, a dean of women, and a librarian.  She was 87 when her novel "And Ladies of the Club" was published as a Book of the Month, and passed away at the age of 90 in February of 1986.  She was inducted into the Ohio Women's Hall of Fame in 1996.  http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/92881.Helen_Hooven_Santmyer 

Paraphrase from Making Money by Terry Pratchett

The dark organ music appeared to be "Cantata and Fugue for Someone Who Has Trouble with the Pedals."  As the last note died, the player spun around.  "Sorry about that, I have two left feet sometimes."

The Biggest Pinocchios of 2013 by Glenn Kessler  http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/wp/2013/12/16/the-biggest-pinocchios-of-2013/?hpid=z3 

Harold Camping, a Christian radio evangelist whose brimstone-ridden sermons stoked an international media frenzy in 2011 after his Armageddon prophecies coursed through the Internet and social media, died Dec. 15 at his home in Alameda, Calif.  He was 92. That life on Earth continued after May 21, 2011, was a crushing disappointment to Mr. Camping, his legion of devout followers and millions of listeners on his Family Radio network.  He reportedly spent tens of millions of dollars to spread his doomsday message.  His May 21 prediction was plastered on more than 5,000 billboards across the country.  He had 100 million pamphlets  printed in 61 languages, including some that read, “The End of the World is Almost Here!”  After May 21 came and went, Mr. Camping emerged from his California home in the following days “flabbergasted.”  He called May 21 an “invisible Judgment Day” and said his calculations had been off by six months.  The real Armageddon, he said, would come on Oct. 21, 2011.  When that prediction did not come true, Mr. Camping retired from his radio work.  T. Rees Shapiro  http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/harold-camping-radio-evangelist-who-predicted-doomsday-dies-at-92/2012/05/16/gJQAlgpxAp_story.html?hpid=z4

Words associated with the right side are generally complimentary or have signified something desirable, but those pointing to the left are quite the opposite.  For example, even in modern times, everyone tries to get up on the "right" side of the bed and hopes to stay on the "right" side of one's boss; that is, if the person is in his/her "right" mind.  In Latin, the word for "right" is dexter, from which has come the English word dexterous or dextrous; meaning "skillful". An ambidextrous person should be even more skillful, since he is described as having two "right hands.  On the other hand, the Latin sinister is the left hand, that is, the wrong hand.  The French word for "left" is gauche (GOHSH), which indicates awkwardness or lack of social graces.  English also has favored the right over the left.  The word "right" developed from Old English riht, which meant "to lead straight; to guide; to rule."  Left evolved from Old English lyft, which meant "weak".  English prejudice against the left can be seen in such terms as "two left feet", meaning "awkward", and "left-handed compliment", which is not considered as a compliment. 

Excerpts from The Story Behind the Word by Morton S. Freeman;  iSi Press; Philadelphia; 1985; pages 228-229.  http://wordinfo.info/unit/3777/ip:2/il:D 

"Drop-dead gorgeous" seems to have been with us since just 1985.  A piece about Michelle Pfeiffer in Time in February used that term.  The phrase struck a chord and there are many references to it in newspapers and journals from very soon after that.  It didn't arrive out of the blue. The term "drop dead", meaning excellent had been around since at least 1962.  In The New York Herald-Tribune, January 1962, we have:  "Fashions from Florence not drop-dead.  For almost the first time in history Simonetta failed to deliver an absolutely drop-dead collection."  It got picked up as an intensifier for various things, as here from the Washington Post, July 1980:  "For drop dead chic food, Harborplace has a sushi and tempura bar."  The use of the word dead in English idioms is an example of how difficult a language it is to learn for non-native speakers. That's perhaps what could be expected from a language that has nine different ways to pronounce 'ough':  through - oo; though - o; thought - awt; tough - uff; plough - ow; thorough - uh; cough - off; hiccough - up; lough - ock.  Even supposing someone understood the word 'dead' (and there are at least 31 meanings for dead just as an adjective), that doesn't help in understanding idioms.  These rely on a knowledge of context that goes beyond the dictionary; for example, how is it that people who are "dead from the neck up" or "dead to the world", can be alive and well?  Why is a "dead shot" to be admired when a "dead loss" isn't?  Go into an English pub at closing time and you'll be asked, "are those drinks dead"?  You might even hear someone claiming to be "in dead earnest".  

http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/drop%20dead%20gorgeous.html 

The origins of the DeVilbiss Corporation date back to 1888 when Toledo, Ohio physician Dr. Allen DeVilbiss developed a spray atomizer to provide an easier way to apply medicines to patients' throats.  His invention was so successful that by 1890 he had retired from medical practice and established a company, DeVilbiss Manufacturing Company, to produce the atomizers in the old Lenk Winery on Toledo's north side.  There were other members of the family adept at invention, too, since Allen DeVilbiss' son, Allen, Jr. invented a springless, automatic scale in 1897, establishing the DeVilbiss Scale Company a few blocks from his father's company.  A couple of years later he sold the scale company, and the name was changed to Toledo Scale. Dr. DeVilbiss' other son, Thomas, also was active in product development and in 1907, the younger DeVilbiss, an inventor in his own right, experimented with the spray gun. Thomas was also credited with adding perfumizers to the company's product line.  By 1926 the company name changed to The DeVilbiss Company as their product lines continued to expand to include air compressors.  When Thomas DeVilbiss died in 1928, Allen DeVilbiss Gutchess, grandson of Dr. Allen DeVilbiss, succeeded him as president of the company.  Howard P. DeVilbiss, another third-generation member of the family, also joined the company at about this time.  During World War II the Company was involved in production of military products, including protective coatings for things ranging from helmets and planes to tanks.  Research and development also continued, with the design of hosing meant to withstand high temperatures to spray plastic on ship hulls to retard barnacle growth.  As the company moved into the post-war years it continued to expand and diversify.  The atomizer division began separate operation, moving to Somerset, Pennsylvania in 1951, where they expanded again in 1965.  In 1951 DeVilbiss also acquired Globe Products Company, of Cleveland, a manufacturer of spray gun tips.  In 1957 the company purchased the Newcomb-Detroit Company, a firm involved in the manufacture and installation of industrial finishing equipment, renaming it Newcomb-DeVilbiss.  In 1958 this acquisition was consolidated with another company, the Peters-Dalton Division of Detroit Harvester to form a new wholly owned subsidiary, DeVilbiss Metal Fabricators.  On January 1, 1970 the DeVilbiss Company was merged into Champion Spark Company.  Prior to 1969 Champion had acquired 85.6% of the outstanding DeVilbiss common shares.  Purchased by Illinois Tool Works in 1990, DeVilbiss continues to set the standard for spray finishing through its research and development, innovative product line, and commitment to customer service.  Other diversified aspects of the original company product line continue the DeVilbiss name with such companies as DeVilbiss Air Power Co., and DeVilbiss Health Care unit of Sunrise Medical.  http://www.bgsu.edu/colleges/library/cac/ms/page45387.html 

Watches in advertisements in the 1920s were usually set at 8:20.  Hamilton Watch Company clocked in at 10:10 at least far back as 1926.  Rolex used 10:10 in the early 1940s, and Timex appeared to have begun the transition in 1953.  Andrew Adam Newman

Read about the iPhone in commercials usually set at 9:42 at http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/28/business/media/28adco.html?_r=0

An American pastime was born on Dec. 21, 1913, when the New York World published the first “word cross,” created by journalist Arthur Wynne, in its Sunday Fun section. Can you solve the original puzzle?  Link to the original puzzle and answer at http://www.parade.com/240596/viannguyen/the-crossword-puzzle-turns-100-get-a-free-printable-copy-of-the-first-puzzle/ 

Thurl Arthur Ravenscroft (1914–2005) was an American voice actor and singer with a deep, booming voice.  For 53 years, he was best-known as the voice of Tony the Tiger in more than 500 television commercials for Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes.  Ravenscroft was also the vocalist of the song “You’re A Mean One, Mr. Grinch” in the Christmas television special based on the Dr. Seuss classic How the Grinch Stole Christmas!, although his name was accidentally left off of the credits, leading many to believe (erroneously) that the cartoon’s narrator, Boris Karloff, sang the song.  He also sang “No Dogs Allowed” in the Peanuts animated motion picture Snoopy Come Home.   http://www.last.fm/music/Thurl+Ravenscroft

When Thurl Ravenscroft was unintentionally uncredited in How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Theodore Geisel (Dr. Seuss) himself tried to rectify the issue by writing letters to various journalists explaining the oversight and asking if they mention the movie and song, that they give Ravenscroft proper credit.  He also called Ravenscroft and apologized for the mix up.  Over his 65 year career as a voice actor, Ravenscroft accumulated quite the portfolio besides the Tony the Tiger voice and singing in How the Grinch Stole Christmas.  He lent his vocal talents to such films as Dumbo, Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, Lady and the Tramp, Sleeping Beauty, 101 Dalmatians, The Sword in the Stone, Mary Poppins, The Jungle Book, Horton Hears a Who!, The Hobbit (cartoon), The Brave Little Toaster, and many, many more.  He also can be heard even today on numerous rides in Disney Land and Disney World, including the thePirates of the Caribbean, Tiki Room, and Haunted Mansion rides.  http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2012/12/the-guy-who-did-the-voice-for-tony-the-tiger-also-sang-youre-a-mean-one-mr-grinch/ 

The ten best books of 2013 selected by the editors of The New York Times Book Review http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/15/books/review/the-10-best-books-of-2013.html?src=me&ref=general

Ask John Cage in 1956, as the sculptor Richard Lippold did, to make a film and you take your chances.  The composer was adamantly, and with increasing daring, using elaborate chance processes to create all his work.  Still, Lippold, who was a close friend and neighbor of Cage, thought the composer would be just the person to edit a mass of footage shot during the three-year process of his making “The Sun,” a huge, geometric sculpture involving more than two miles of pure gold wire and now hanging in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.  But at one point Lippold became concerned about Cage’s unwavering nonjudgmental attitude toward his chance systems, the sculptor saying that he would really rather reserve the right not to use some frames of his work upside down, backward or overexposed.  Cage responded: “Oh Richard, you have a beautiful mind.  It’s time you got rid of it!”  That anecdote comes from a study of Cage and film by a young scholar, Richard Brown, who will introduce a newly discovered and restored copy of “The Sun, Variations Within a Sphere No. 10” -- or at least 14 of its original 20 minutes-- shown for the first time in the U.S. on Dec. 14, 2013 in the Billy Wilder Theater of the Hammer Museum.  Cage’s film will be part of a program by the Center for Visual Music call “New Restorations and Discoveries.”  The evening will include three early German animated films by Oskar Fischinger, whom Cage briefly assisted in Los Angeles in the 1930s, along with other historic gems.  Mark Swed   http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/culture/la-et-cm-the-sun-20131211,0,2977942.story#axzz2nTAkzuBh

We apply 'Oceania' historically to the vast insular zone stretching from the Hawaiian Islands in the north, to Indonesia in the west, coastal Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand in the south, and Easter Island in the east.  As originally conceived, Oceania embraced the Asian/Indian/Malay Archipelago or East Indies (the island of Borneo, modern Indonesia, Timor-Leste, Singapore, and the Philippines), New Guinea (modern Papua New Guinea and the Indonesian provinces of Papua and West Papua), New Holland (mainland Australia), Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania), New Zealand (Aotearoa), and the island groups of the Pacific Ocean (soon to be distributed between Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia).  The two centuries spanned by this volume comprise only a small, recent, mostly colonial fraction of the more or less immense length of human occupation of these places, estimated by archaeologists to range from as much as 65,000 years in Australia (and presumably earlier in Island Southeast Asia) to fewer than 800 years in Aotearoa.  In 1804, Edme Mentelle (1730-1815) and Conrad Malte-Brun (1775-1826) coined the name Océanique, 'Oceanica', as a more precise label for 'this fifth part of the world usually grouped under the generic name of Terres australes', or 'southern lands'.  The French term had pluralized Terra Australis incognita, the fifth continent of cartographic imagination since the early sixteenth  http://epress.anu.edu.au/foreign_bodies/mobile_devices/ar01s02.html

Tonga, officially the Kingdom of Tonga, is a Polynesian sovereign state and an archipelago comprising 176 islands with a surface area of about 750 square kilometres (290 sq mi) scattered over 700,000 square kilometres (270,000 sq mi) of the southern Pacific Ocean.  Fifty-two of these islands are inhabited by its 103,000 people.  Lengthwise, the kingdom stretches over a distance of about 800 kilometres (500 mi) in a north-south line located about a third of the distance from New Zealand to Hawaii.  It is surrounded by Fiji and Wallis and Futuna (France) to the northwest, Samoa to the northeast, Niue to the east, Kermadec (part of New Zealand) to the southwest, and New Caledonia (France) and Vanuatu to the west.  Tonga also became known as the Friendly Islands because of the congenial reception accorded to Captain James Cook on his first visit there in 1773.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonga

Sandwich Islands was the name given to the Hawaiian Islands by James Cook in the 1770s.

Sandwich Islands or Sandwich Island may also refer to:  South Sandwich Islands, an archipelago, named by James Cook, which is part of the British overseas territory of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands in the south Atlantic Ocean; Sandwich Island, a former name by James Cook of the uninhabited atoll Manuae in the Cook Islands in the South Pacific Ocean ; Sandwich Island, a former name by James Cook of Efate Island in The Republic of Vanuatu in the South Pacific Ocean.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandwich_Islands 

A tongue twister is a phrase, sentence or rhyme that presents difficulties when spoken because it contains similar sounds - Whistle for the thistle sifter, for example.  To get the full effect of a tongue twister you should try to repeat it several times, as quickly as possible, without stumbling or mispronouncing.  Tongue twisters have long been a popular form of wordplay, particularly for schoolchildren, but they also have a more serious side - being used in elocution teaching and in the treatment of some speech defects.  Find extensive list at http://thinks.com/words/tonguetwisters.htm

basketball  tongue twister  flagrant foul  http://www.breakthroughbasketball.com/basics/basics.html 

take the bitter with the sweet   Accept adversity as well as good fortune, as in Although he got the job, he hadn't counted on having to work with Matthew; he'll just have to take the bitter with the sweet.  This idiom uses bitter for "bad" and sweet for "good," a usage dating from the late 1300s.  It was first recorded in John Heywood's 1546 proverb collection.  For a synonym, see take the rough with the smooth.  http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/take+the+bitter+with+the+sweet 

The Hunger Games is set in North America near the capitol city Panem.  Panem is surrounded by twelve districts which specialize in the production of one or more goods.  Each year, the districts are forced to send one boy and one girl between the ages of 12 and 18 to participate in the Hunger Games.  During The Hunger Games the tributes are forced to fight to the death on television while the nation watches.  Katniss Everdeen is a 16 year old hunter.  She helps feed her mother and younger sister, Prim, by hunting outside the borders of their home in District 12.   Katniss’ younger sister was selected for the Hunger Games.  But Katniss stepped up and took her place.  Before the games begin, the tributes are well fed and treated like royalty.  During this Pre-Hunger Games time Katniss finds that her favorite meal served is the lamb stew with dried plums and wild rice.  Find recipe at http://paleospirit.com/2012/hunger-games-lamb-stew-with-dried-plums/   Before going to see The Hunger Games:  Catching Fire, a muse reader served the lamb stew mentioned in the trilogy.  "I served a goat cheese, honey and basil spread (before the first reaping Prim leaves Katniss "a perfect little goat cheese wrapped in basil leaves") and a chilled raspberry soup (described in Catching Fire as a "frothy pink soup dotted with raspberries").  I also bought a loaf of sourdough at a local bakery, since Peeta is the son of a baker."  Thanks, CMP.

Paraphrases from Broken* Harbor by Tana French

If you take someone down a peg, always give a way to climb back up.

Nosiness usually  beats wariness.

*Irish from breacadh for dawn or daybreak  http://www.irishdictionary.ie/dictionary 

'Bob's your uncle' is an archetypally English phrase and is so familiar here for it to have spawned jokey variants.  As 'take the Mickey' has an extended alternative 'extract the Michael',  'Bob's your uncle' is sometimes extended to 'Robert's your auntie's husband'.  'Bob's your uncle' is an exclamation that is used when 'everything is alright' and the simple means of obtaining the successful result is explained.  The expression also formed part of the lyrics of a song written by John P. Long, and published in 1931 - Follow Your Uncle Bob.  The lyrics include:  Bob's your uncle, Follow your Uncle Bob, He knows what to do, He'll look after you.  The song was sung and recorded by Florrie Forde, the celebrated music hall artiste of the early 20th century.  Find three possible stories of the phrase's origin at http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/bobs-your-uncle.html 

Eataly Chicago is dedicated to Ernest Miller Hemingway, who was born and raised just outside Chicago, in Oak Park, Illinois.  Between 1918 and 1954, Hemingway spent a considerable amount of time in Italy and "we like to think he would be happy here."    http://www.eataly.com/eataly-chicago/ 

There's no doubt the first week of Chicago's Eataly has been a success, with more than 200 people lining up on the first day.  This is the second Eataly location in the U.S.  The New York store opened in 2010 and made nearly $70 million in sales its first year.  The 63,000-square-foot mega-supermarket has 23 restaurants and more than 10,000 products on sale.  Apparently, Chicagoans love it so much that Eataly Chicago closed Dec. 9, 2013 because it ran out of food.  Megan Willett  http://www.businessinsider.com/chicagos-new-eataly-is-ran-out-of-food-2013-12 

from Jeopardy quiz show  A:  First State   Q:  What is Delaware?

Some Internet users use the idioms "face time", "meatspace" or "meat world", which contrast with the term "cyberspace".  "Meatspace" has appeared in the Financial Times and in science fiction literature.  Some early uses of the term include a post to the Usenet newsgroup austin.public-net in 1993 and an article in the Seattle Times about John Perry Barlow in 1995.   The term entered the Oxford English Dictionary in 2000.  The terms "meatspace" and "meat world" are apparently derived originally from the science fiction novel Neuromancer by William Gibson, published in 1984, which also coined the term "cyberspace."  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_life 

First monument for the first state  The First State National Monument, part of the National Park Service, was created in March, 2013 when President Obama signed a proclamation establishing such monuments in five states.  The White House says the sites “help tell the story of significant people and extraordinary events in American history, as well as protect unique natural resources for the benefit of all Americans.”  The First State National Monument in Delaware consists of the New Castle Courthouse Museum and The Green in New Castle, the Woodlawn Tract natural area north of Wilmington, and The Green in Dover.  http://www.udel.edu/udmessenger/vol21no4/stories/alumni-smith.html 

Gobsmacked combines the northern English and Scottish slang term gob, mouth, with the verb smack.  It suggests the speaker is utterly astonished or astounded.  It’s much stronger than just being surprised; it’s used for something that leaves you speechless, or otherwise stops you dead in your tracks.  Gobsmacked, like gob itself, comes from northern English and southern Scottish dialects.  One reason why it starts to appear in print in the 1980s is that it was used by the writers of gritty television series set in northern cities, such as Alan Bleasdale’s Boys from the Blackstuff, about five Liverpudlian tarmac layers, and Coronation Street, set in a fictional suburb of Manchester (Jeffrey Miller included it in his glossary Street Talk — The Language of Coronation Street in 1986).  It was taken up shortly afterwards by broadsheet newspapers such as The Times, the Sunday Times and the Independent as well as the Guardian and by politicians who used it to display their demotic credentials.  It has since travelled widely.  William Safire commented in The New York Times in 2004 that the “locution is sweeping the English world”. The success of the Scottish singer Susan Boyle in BBC television’s Britain’s Got Talent in 2009 led to a further boost, since she used it copiously in interviews.  It’s an obvious derivation of an existing term, since gob has been a dialect and slang term for the mouth for four hundred years (often in insulting phrases like shut your gob! to tell somebody to be quiet).  It possibly goes back to a Scottish Gaelic word meaning a beak or a mouth, which has also bequeathed us the verb to gob, meaning to spit.  Another form of the word is gab, from which we get gift of the gab.  http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-gob1.htm

Ultimate Block Party events in 2013:  three will be inaugural events.  Baltimore, which hosted a Block Party last fall, is revving up for a second celebration.   Thanks to these efforts, and several others about to launch, play has begun to get attention in the news.  The Christian Science Monitor interviewed UBP’s Susan Magsamen and Kathy Hirsh-Pasek for a story about the value of play in children’s lives.  UBP received prominent mention as a new way for families to relearn the once known, but now seemingly radical idea that play equals learning in childhood.  The Ultimate Block Party is also proud to announce the launch of a new Web portal highlighting the science of learning from our sister organization, the Learning Resource Network, or L-rn.  L-rn is an exciting, new, in-depth resource designed for families and educators to understand what prominent researchers in education, psychology, neuroscience, cognitive and behavioral science have been uncovering about how children learn.  L-rn is designed to provide this important science learning to adults involved in children’s lives to facilitate their intellect, curiosity, social and emotional learning, and development of new skills for 21st century learning.  Best of all, with activities and tools for engagement, L-rn gives parents, teachers, childcare providers, counselors and health professionals a platform to discuss what these innovations mean in kids’ lives.  http://www.ultimateblockparty.com/ 

Learning language is play on words  Find more on cognitive development, Ultimate Block Party, and get advice for parents at http://www.udel.edu/udmessenger/vol21no4/stories/alumni-zosh 

Origin of 'over the moon'  The source was included, as High Diddle Diddle, in the influential 16th century nursery rhyme collection, Mother Goose's Melody; or Sonnets from the Cradle, circa 1760:  High diddle diddle, The Cat and the Fiddle, The Cow jump'd over the Moon, The little dog laugh'd to see such Craft, And the Dish ran away with the Spoon.  As with most nursery rhymes, the first appearance in print may well post-date the first use by years, centuries even .  Whatever the origin may have been, the version passed down to us is quite probably nonsense and isn't easily interpreted.  What is clear is that the 'over the moon' line is a reference to excitement and energy.  That's evidenced by one of the earliest allusions to the phrase in print - Charles Molloy's The Coquet, or, The English Chevalier, 1718:  "Tis he! I know him now:  I shall jump over the Moon for Joy!"  http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/over-the-moon.html 

Art and Appetite: American Painting, Culture, and Cuisine runs at the Art Institute of Chicago through Jan. 27, 2014.  This exhibition brings together over 100 paintings, sculptures, and decorative arts from the 18th through the 20th century, along with a selection of period cookbooks, menus, trade cards, and posters, to explore the art and culture of food and examine the many meanings and interpretations of eating in America.   See slide show and link to more information including an online cookbook at http://www.artic.edu/exhibitions/art-and-appetite-american-painting-culture-and-cuisine 

Becoming the Fifth Branch, William A. Birdthistle; Illinois Institute of Technology – Chicago-Kent College of Law, M. Todd Henderson, University of Chicago – Law School. Cornell Law Review, Vol. 99, 2013 and University of Chicago Institute for Law & Economics Olin Research Paper No. 618. “Observers of our federal republic have long acknowledged that a fourth branch of government comprising administrative agencies has arisen to join the original three set forth in the Constitution.  In this Article, we focus our attention on the emergence of yet another branch comprising financial self-regulatory organizations (SROs).  In the late eighteenth century, long before the establishment of state and federal securities authorities, the financial industry created its own SROs.  These private institutions then coexisted with the public authorities for much of the past century in a complementary array of informal and formal policing mechanisms.  That equilibrium, however, appears to be growing increasingly imbalanced as financial SROs such as FINRA transform from “self-regulatory” into “quasi-governmental” organizations."

Eleanor Parker, best known for her role as the Baroness in The Sound of Music has died, aged 91.  The Oscar-nominated actress died at a medical facility close to her home in Palm Springs, California due to complications from pneumonia, reports The Hollywood Reporter.  Parker played Baroness Elsa Schraeder who wanted to send the Von Trapp children to boarding school.  The Sound of Music star was nominated three times for an Academy Award - for her roles in 1950's Caged, 1951's Detective Story and 1955's Interrupted Melody.  She acted opposite some of Hollywood's heavyweights like Frank Sinatra - in The Man With the Golden Arm - and Kirk Douglas - in Detective Story - and more than held her own.  In later years she starred in television shows like Murder She Wrote and Hawaii Five-O but her final credit came from the 1991 TV movie Dead on the Money.  Carl Greenwood  See picture and watch clip from Sound of Music at http://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrity-news/julie-andrews-love-rival-sound-2910746 

Ida Pollock, the author of more than 120 books,  died  on Dec. 3, 2013 in England at the age of 105.  Mrs. Pollock had her first stories published while she was in her teens and went on to write scores of books under almost a dozen pseudonyms.  Her output included some 70 “bodice-rippers” for romance publisher Mills & Boon, the British arm of Harlequin Enterprises.  After an adventurous early life that included a solo trip to Morocco while a teenager and work in London during the Blitz, Mrs. Pollock took up writing intensely to support her family after her husband went bankrupt in 1950.  Mrs. Pollock said her books were “full of hope and romance rather than sex” and always contained one crucial element:  “A happy ending is an absolute must.”  She also published a memoir, “Starlight.”  Her 124th and 125th novels, romances set in the Regency period, are due to be published next year.  Jill Lawless  http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/ida-pollock-british-romance-novelist-who-wrote-more-than-120-books-dies-at-105/2013/12/09/bf8bc1a8-60f5-11e3-8beb-3f9a9942850f_story.html

Best books of 2013 #1-10 from Publishers Weekly  http://best-books.publishersweekly.com/pw/best-books/2013/top-10 

Best Books of 2013 #1-25 from BookPage  http://www.bookpage.com/the-book-case/2013/12/02/best-books-of-2013-1-25/

The Best Children's Books of the Year, 2013 from Bankstreet College of Education   Link by age group at http://bankstreet.edu/center-childrens-literature/childrens-book-committee/best-books-year/best-books-year-2013/

 

Holiday Gift Ideas 2013  Guide to 100 best books for readers young and old from Milwaukee Journal Sentinel  http://www.jsonline.com/entertainment/books/holiday-gift-ideas-2013-guide-to-100-best-books-for-readers-233655871.html 

A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg

Terms that have their origins in cartoons or were popularized by them

curate's egg  (KYOOR-itz eg)  noun  Something having both good and bad parts. 

From a cartoon in Punch magazine (London, UK) in which a timid curate (a junior clergy member), when served a stale egg at a bishop's table, tries to assure his host that parts of the egg are edible.  Earliest documented use:  1905.
gerrymander (JER-i-MAN-duhr)  verb. tr.  To repartition an area in order to create electoral districts that give an unfair advantage to a political party.  noun   1.  An instance of gerrymandering.  2.  One or more electoral districts, widely differing in size or population, created as a result of gerrymandering.  A blend of Elbridge Gerry and salamander.  Massachusetts Governor Gerry's party rearranged the electoral district boundaries and someone fancied the newly redistricted Essex County resembled a salamander.  A cartoon showing the district in the shape of a salamander appeared in March 1812 issue of the Federalist newspaper.  Earliest documented use:  1812.
McCarthyism  (muh-KAHR-thee-iz-uhm)  noun  The practice of making unfounded accusations against someone.  After US senator Joseph McCarthy (1909-1957) known for making unsubstantiated claims accusing people of being Communists, spies, and disloyal.  Earliest documented use:  in 1950 in a cartoon by Herbert Block.
Rube Goldberg  (roob GOLD-buhrg)  adjective  Absurdly complex or impractical.  After cartoonist Rube Goldberg (1883-1970) who was known for his intricate drawings showing fantastically impractical contraptions to accomplish simple jobs.  Earliest documented use:  1928.  The British equivalent of the term is Heath Robinson.
blimp  (blimp)  noun  A pompous reactionary with out-of-date views.  After Colonel Blimp, a cartoon character created by David Low (1891-1963).  Blimp was a satirical look at the self-important and ultra-nationalistic attitudes of officials in the British army and government.  Earliest documented use:  1934.  

Feedback to A.Word.A.Day

From:  Derek Noonan  Subject:  Gerrymander

In Ireland the word tullymander is used to describe a failed attempt at gerrymandering. The word is a portmanteau of the surname of the responsible minister James Tully with your word of the day gerrymander.  This redrawing of constituencies was intended to secure the re-election of Tully's party, but instead backfired disastrously resulting in a landslide victory for their main opponents.

From:  Alex Novak  Subject:  Gerrymander

Coincidentally, last Saturday (Nov 23, 2013) was the 99th anniversary of Elbridge Gerry's death.  As it turned out, the stinging portmanteau of "gerrymander" did little to ruin his political career.  The year after his namesake was coined, Gerry was chosen to be the fifth vice president of the United States, under James Madison.

From:  Richard Stallman  Subject:  Rube Goldberg

A Swiss movie, Der Lauf Der Dinge, presents a real-life series of Rube Goldberg machines.  It is a tour de force, a fascinating movie with no characters real or imaginary.  

History of Prohibition in Washington State  Eighty years ago, the drinking light was on -- finally -- in Washington.  Prohibition had ended nationally.  Prohibition was proposed in 1854 when the first territorial Legislature met.  It failed.  After all, the territory had its share of trappers, miners and other hard livers. Besides, all the voters were men.  But the territory kept piling on laws: no sales to Native Americans, no sales to minors, no sales to native Hawaiians.  Booze sales were banned in 1879 in parts of Spokane and some other Eastern Washington counties, where legislators wanted the crews building the Northern Pacific Railroad to stay sober.  At City Hall, Seattle had Mayor George Cotterill, another supporter of prohibition.  He became mayor in 1912 and, before that, in the state Legislature helped push through a local-option law that voters would approve, according to Historylink.org.  The 1909 law let local communities adopt prohibition.  Some rural ones did.  In November 1914, voters passed Initiative 3, which banned the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages.  It took effect in 1916 and made Washington one of 33 states that banned booze before the 18th Amendment did so across the nation in 1919.  At midnight Dec. 31, 1915, the last dram of alcohol had to be drank in bars and restaurants.  But it was hardly the end of booze in the state.  Making and selling were illegal, but not drinking.  And not, it turned out, was ordering booze by mail.  Mail-order houses in Montana were at the ready to slake the thirsts of Washington drinkers, Historylink says.  "The law actually allowed an individual to import from outside the state as much as two quarts of hard booze or 12 quarts of high percentage beer each 29 days, but he had to get a permit from his county auditor in order to do so," a Historylink article states.  "The Spokane County auditor reported in 1917 that, in a county of only 44,000 registered voters, he had issued 34,000 permits."  The local history site also notes that pharmacies could provide you with your cocktail makings of choice.  "Drug stores, where prescription liquor could be obtained, boomed.  A 1985 master's thesis comparing the effects of prohibition on various West Coast cities states that 65 new drug stores opened in Seattle between January and March, 1916."  In November 1932, they overwhelming repealed all liquor laws except sales to minors.  The next year, national prohibition was repealed.  In the days before state liquor outlets, local drug stores invoked an old law that allowed them to sell booze and did so.  No prescription was required.  Since Congress had already approved the sale of beer before prohibition was repealed, Seattle already had had a chance to take a drink.  Scott Sunde 

http://www.seattlepi.com/local/article/80-years-ago-Prohibition-ended-5035629.php#page-1 

Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.
If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner.

If the United States of America or Britain is having elections, they don't ask for observers from Africa or from Asia.  But when we have elections, they want observers.

Let there be work, bread, water and salt for all.  Nelson Mandela (1918-2013)

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