Daughters of Revolution is a satirical painting by American artist Grant Wood, who claimed that it was his only satire.  The painting depicts the founding fathers as cross-dressing members of the Daughters of the American Revolution standing in front of a recreation of Washington Crossing the Delaware.  In 1927, Wood was commissioned to create a stained glass window in the Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.  Unhappy with the quality of domestic glass sources, he used glass made in Germany.  The local chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution complained about the use of a German source for a World War I memorial and the window was not put into use until 1955.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daughters_of_Revolution   See all Grant Woods artwork sorted by year at http://www.wikiart.org/en/grant-wood/daughters-of-revolution-1932

Toll House Cookies were developed in Whitman, Massachusetts at the Toll House Restaurant in the 1930’s.  They are an original New England recipe.  “Their origin and development is really a story by itself.” (from Ruth Wakefield’s Toll House Tried and True Recipes, 1949)   Since Ruth was always in search of new recipes a comparison was made of the ingredients in the Toll House Cookies to other cookies recipes from the 1920’s and early 1930’s.  Not surprisingly Ruth’s cookies have some strong similarities to two different cookies recipes from the time period.  They are the German Chocolate Cookies published in the Boston Cooking School Cook Book from 1910 through 1933 (p. 641) and the Icebox Cookies first published in the Settlement Cook Book (Milwaukee, Wis.) starting in 1921 (p. 496) and later under the name Refrigerator Cookies in the  Boston Cooking School Cook Book (1933 ed., p. 638).  The Toll House Cookies recipe called for 2 bars of chocolate the same as the German Chocolate Cookies recipe.  The Toll House Cookies recipe called for half brown sugar and half granulated (white) sugar the same as the Icebox/Refrigerator Cookies recipe.  The Toll House Cookies recipe combined chocolate, brown sugar and chopped nuts the same as the German Chocolate Cookies recipe.  There are too many exact matches to be coincidental or accidental.  The German Chocolate Cookies recipe was the only recipe in the Boston Cooking School Cook Book that called for sweet chocolate.  All other recipes called for unsweetened chocolate.  This is a key factor as Ruth’s Toll House Cookie called for semi-sweet chocolate.  Semi-sweet chocolate can be eaten as is whereas unsweetened chocolate is bitter and is not eaten as is.  The Toll House Cookies recipe appears to be a combination of the German Chocolate Cookies and Icebox/Refrigerator Cookies.  The actual Toll House Cookies recipe altered the quantities of the ingredients slightly and ultimately developed a unique cookie that Ruth was able to successfully market under the Toll House name.  Find comparisons of recipes at http://www.newenglandrecipes.org/html/toll-house-cookies.html

Since the mid-nineteenth century, the Republic has been Plato’s most famous and widely read dialogue.  As in most other Platonic dialogues the main character is Socrates.  The dialogue explores two central questions.  The first question is “what is justice?”  Socrates addresses this question both in terms of political communities and in terms of the individual person or soul.  He does this to address the second and driving question of the dialogue: “is the just person happier than the unjust person?” or “what is the relation of justice to happiness?”  http://www.iep.utm.edu/republic/#SH1a  Read the Republic by Plato, written 360 B.C.E., translated by Benjamin Jowett at http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/republic.html  See also http://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/r/republic/about-platos-republic

To the manner born or to the manor born?  To begin at the beginning, the original phrase was definitely “to the manner born.”  It was coined, as many of our best idioms were, by William Shakespeare, in this case in Hamlet, Act I, Scene iv, when Hamlet observes of the drunken atmosphere at Elsinore, “But to my mind, though I am native here / And to the manner born, it is a custom / More honour’d in the breach than the observance.”  Though Hamlet was a prince, he was not referring to his noble birth when he spoke of “manner.”  He was saying that he had been born into an environment where such a “manner”—customs or behavior—was expected, and thus not surprising.  In the mid-19th century, however, a variant of “to the manner born” appeared.  “To the manor born,” meaning “born into, or naturally suited to, upper-class life,” substituted “manor” (the house on an estate; a mansion) as a symbol of an aristocratic lifestyle for “manner” meaning simply “customs or habits.”  It’s unclear whether this new form was the result of an error (“manner” and “manor” being pronounced identically by most English-speakers) or a deliberate pun by some obscure Victorian wit.  The rise of “manor” in place of “manner” set the stage, however, for a long-running battle over which is the “correct” form, and made “to the manor born” a favorite target of scorn for usage scolds. Complicating the question, however, is the fact that although the two phrases had, at their outset, substantially different meanings, “to the manner born” is rarely used today in its original sense of “born into certain habits or customs.”  On those increasingly rare occasions when it crops up, “to the manner born” is most often used synonymously with “to the manor born” to mean “suited to wealth” (probably because “manners” and “mannered behavior” are popularly associated with the wealthy).  So it appears that “to the manor born” has won and “to the manner born,” at least in its original sense, is headed for extinction.  http://www.word-detective.com/2011/10/to-the-manner-manor-born/

Paraphrases from the novel Four Below by Peter Helton  

Cruise ships are shopping malls afloat.  

A free pizza is a glittering prize.

Peter Helton is a German-born English author.  He divides his time between painting and writing.  Find a list of Helton's books at http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/453790.Peter_Helton

When you mean “for example,” use e.g.  It is an abbreviation for the Latin phrase exempli gratia.  When you mean “that is,” use “i.e.”  It is an abbreviation for the Latin phrase id est.  Either can be used to clarify a preceding statement, the first by example, the second by restating the idea more clearly or expanding upon it.  Because these uses are so similar, the two abbreviations are easily confused.  If you just stick with good old English “for example” and “that is” you won’t give anyone a chance to sneer at you.  http://public.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/e.g.html

In describing the system of wires that comprises the Internet, Neal Stephenson once compared the earth to a computer motherboard.  From telephone poles suspending bundles of cable to signs posted warning of buried fiber optic lines, we are surrounded by evidence that at a basic level, the Internet is really just a spaghetti-work of really long wires.  But what we see is just a small part of the physical makeup of the net.  The rest of it can be found in the coldest depths of the ocean.  

Find 10 things you might not know about the Internet’s system of undersea cables at http://mentalfloss.com/article/60150/10-facts-about-internets-undersea-cables

HAVANA The Teatro Nacional, a 2,056-seat theater on the Plaza de la Revolución, was sold out.  Two dozen photographers and videographers swarmed the aisles.  The Minnesota Orchestra’s concert here on May 15, 2015 was greeted not only as a rare chance to hear an orchestra from overseas, but as a symbol of the rapprochement between the United States and Cuba.  The concert, the first by a large United States orchestra here in more than 15 years, was greeted with several standing ovations – and huge cheers when the Minnesotans teamed up with the Cuban pianist Frank Fernández and two Cuban choirs to perform Beethoven’s “Choral Fantasy.”   Familiar to Minnesota audiences, or really any concert hall these days:  a cellphone went off during a quiet passage in the Funeral March in Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3, the “Eroica.”  The Minnesotans played an all-Beethoven program—not counting the sprightly Finnish polka that the orchestra’s music director, Osmo Vanska, who is from Finland, chose for an encore.  The “Eroica” was a nod to history:  the first time the orchestra played in Cuba, in 1929, when it was known as the Minneapolis Symphony, it closed its concert with the work.  Michael Cooper    http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/17/arts/music/minnesota-orchestra-in-groundbreaking-cuba-tour-sells-out-house.html

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1298  May 18, 2015  On this date in 1631, in Dorchester, Massachusetts, John Winthrop took the oath of office and became the first Governor of Massachusetts.  On this date in 1652, Rhode Island passed the first law in English-speaking North America making slavery illegal.

"Tin ear" is an idiom which originally meant was that someone was not able to appreciate music, was tone deaf, or was insensitive to differences in other kinds of sounds.  It was then extended to also mean that someone was insensitive to subtle differences in a particular discipline or subtleties in what he/she was told.  Oddly enough, an 1867 West Point scrapbook gives "hunkey boy with a tin ear" as slang meaning "a lucky fellow"--just about the opposite of every other use of the phrase.  The exact origin of the idiom is debatable.  Merriam Webster gives 1935 as the date of first citation without giving a source.  A.Word.A.Day simply stated that it was "from the idea of metal being incapable of sensation," but several readers wrote in to offer further ideas.  One said that the use of tin particularly had a connotation of low value (as in tin-pot/tin pot dictator, tin pan alley, tin god, or Tin Lizzie) compared to other metals.  Another reader offered the idea that ear trumpets for the hard of hearing had once been made of steel plated with tin to prevent rusting.  Find more information at http://everything2.com/title/tin+ear

Toshogu Shrine, Nikko by Varsha Vaswati   Toshogu shrine is the mausoleum of Tokugawa Ieyasu, the founder of the Tokugawa Shogunate, a dynasty that ruled Japan from 1603-1867, with its capital in Edo, current day Tokyo.  As per Ieyasu’s last instructions, this shrine was built posthumously in 1617 and later enlarged and reformed into the present day lavish structure by the third successive Shogun Iemitsu.  This Shinto shrine is a part of ‘Shrines and Temples of Nikko’, a UNESCO World Heritage site and 5 of its structures are categorized as the National Treasures of Japan.  A cobbled path leads up to the Shrine entrance marked by a granite stone Torii gate called the Ishidorri.  To its left stands the beautiful 5-storied pagoda representing the five elements of nature--air, water, earth, fire and wind.  This pagoda, donated by a feudal lord in 1650, was destroyed in fire in 1815 and later rebuilt in 1818.  Further ahead we came across the Omotemon and a walking trail flanked by stone lanterns, leading up to a wide open space right in front of the lavishly decorated Yomoeimon gate, also known as the Higurashimon or "Twilight Gate" as one can keep admiring its beauty from morning until twilight.  What caught our attention though were the carvings at the unpainted wooden  sacred stable right in front of the Yomoeimon.  There were 8 such carved panels depicting the ‘way of life’ through the “Three Wise Monkeys” or the ‘San Zaru’ - Kikazaru, Mizaru and Iwazaru, who respectively “hear no evil, see no evil and speak no evil”.  Till that day we (as everyone in India) had known them to be Mahatma Gandhi’s "Three Monkeys” depicting his popular sermon of  “Hear no evil, Speak no evil and See no evil”.  See picture of the three wise monkeys at http://en.japantravel.com/view/toshugu-shrine-nikko

Ham salad recipe adapted from Madison Restaurant, Toledo  Mix diced, cooked ham and diced red onions or shallots with mayonnaise.  Chill until serving time.

A color circle, based on red, yellow and blue, is traditional in the field of art.  Sir Isaac Newton developed the first circular diagram of colors in 1666.  Primary Colors:  Red, yellow and blue--all other colors are derived from these 3 hues.   Secondary Colors: Green, orange and purple are the colors formed by mixing the primary colors.  Tertiary Colors:  Yellow-orange, red-orange, red-purple, blue-purple, blue-green & yellow-green--these are the colors formed by mixing a primary and a secondary color.  That's why the hue is a two word name, such as blue-green, red-violet, and yellow-orange.  See beautiful graphics at http://www.colormatters.com/color-and-design/basic-color-theory  NOTE that some people define tertiary colors as being formed by mixing two secondary colors.

Six Common Dog Expressions and Their Origins by Renee Moen  Find information on dog days of summer, three dog night, it's raining cats and dogs, and other expressions at http://iheartdogs.com/6-common-dog-expressions-and-their-origins/

Ann B. Ross is the author of the Miss Julia series, with Book 17 appearing in 2015.  http://www.missjulia.com/  Frequently Asked Questions lists the Miss Julia novels and gives advice to writers in getting published at http://www.missjulia.com/faq.html  Borrow the book Miss Julia Stirs Up Trouble from the library and look up recipes such as Binkie's Fresh Peach Cobbler, p. 137 (Stir together 2 cups of fresh peaches (peeled and sliced) and 3/4 cup of sugar and let sit to form juice . . . ) and Miss Mattie's Deviled Crab, p. 172 (crabmeat, dry mustard, hard-boiled eggs, and Worcestershire sauce . . . ).  You will find a list of all recipes along with page numbers in the back of the book.

NYC libraries are engine of the city running out of fuel by Sabrina I. Pacifici on Apr 24, 2015   “The city’s libraries — the fusty old buildings, and a few spiffier modern ones, planted in all five boroughs — had 37 million visitors in the last fiscal year, said Angela Montefinise, a spokeswoman for the New York Public Library, which runs branches and research centers in Manhattan and the Bronx and on Staten Island.  The Brooklyn Public Library and the Queens Library have their own extensive systems . . . So the city’s libraries have more users than major professional sports, performing arts, museums, gardens and zoos — combined.

http://www.bespacific.com/nyc-libraries-are-engine-of-the-city-running-out-of-fuel/

Cite (verb) mention by name, summon, or give an example or proof

Site (noun) location  

Everyday (adjective. adverb) common, daily  

Every day (noun preceded by adjective) each day

SPOON BREAD  soft cornbread served with a spoon--it is also called egg bread or butter bread.  Find many recipes at http://www.cooks.com/rec/search/0,1-00,spoon_bread,FF.html

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1297  May 15, 2015  On this date in 1755, Laredo, Texas was established by the Spaniards.  On this date in 1776, the Virginia Convention instructed its Continental Congress delegation to propose a resolution of independence from Great Britain, paving the way for the United States Declaration of Independence.

The Toledo Museum of Art 2015

Play Time runs approximately Memorial Day weekend (May 22) through Labor Day (Sept. 6).  Works on view in the exhibition and experiences will change throughout June, July and August.  Some will even switch locations, like artist Kurt Perschke’s RedBall Project.  The name is literal:  Perschke has placed his massive, inflated red ball into unexpected spaces in cities across the globe.  Perschke will choose several locations around Toledo to place the RedBall Project during its 10-day display in August.  The Canaday Gallery will be filled with artist Toshiko Horiuchi MacAdam’s Harmonic Motion, a colorful, multi-sensory playground that allows children and adults to climb and play inside its hand-crocheted hanging nets.  Redmoon Theater, a Chicago-based troupe known for using larger-than-life contraptions and puppets to create performances bright with spectacle, will perform for the opening celebration on June 13.  Other works of art include Jillian Mayer’s Cloud Swing, a literal title for a dreamy work of art that involves actual swings facing a visually reproduced sky, allowing participants to feel as if they’re sailing through the clouds; Kim Harty’s Glass Mountain, which the glassblower will create with molten glass in front of a live audience; Stina Köhnke’s Animation, an exuberant wall installation of stuffed animals; and Edith Dekyndt’s Ground Control, a black ball filled with helium that moves in reaction to viewers in the gallery.  See pictures at http://www.toledomuseum.org/2015/03/18/public-invited-to-come-over-and-play-this-summer-at-toledo-museum-of-arts-play-time-interactive-exhibit/

Toys! Toys! Toys! May 22-Sept. 17, Community Gallery is a celebration of fun and nostalgia.  Whether it is a toy from a by-gone era, your favorite childhood toy, or a toy your child or grandchild clings to, toys are a big part of our overall memories and experiences.  

Square Eyes by Anna Mill and Luke Jones  http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2010/nov/05/cape-observer-graphic-short-story-prize

Square Eyes (British humor) eyes supposedly affected by excessive television viewing

Square Eyes  headlights on some trucks

The use of 'square' to mean honest and straightforward goes back to at least the 16th century; for example, in 1591, in Robert Greene's Defence of Conny Catching:  "For feare of trouble I was fain to try my good hap at square play."  Soon after that, Shakespeare used it in Anthony and Cleopatra, 1606:  "She's a most triumphant Lady, if report be square to her."  Early citations to square meal are from America, including this, the earliest print reference I have found--an advertisement for the Hope and Neptune restaurant, in the California newspaper The Mountain Democrat, November 1856:  "We can promise all who patronize us that they can always get a hearty welcome and 'square meal' at the 'Hope and Neptune.  Oyster, chicken and game suppers prepared at short notice."  Gary Martin  http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/square-meal.html

Crushed coriander seeds burst with a lemony aroma.  Golden turmeric smells like corn cakes.  Cardamom gives off a hint of bitterness.  And pulverized cumin seeds smell like moist, peppery earth.  Combine them, and you have the fragrant beginnings of curry.  But how does a nose, bombarded with odors that arrive in different amounts and combinations, consistently identify each aroma?  It turns out that it is simpler than many other neurobiological processes, and can essentially be broken down into a predictable mathematical pattern.  Odors arrive in small packets—tiny bouquets of molecules—that are inhaled.  Receptor cells inside the nose respond by producing a series of electrical spikes, which are communicated to the olfactory bulb in the brain, where the smell is decoded.  “It’s like Morse code,” said Upinder Bhalla, a professor of neurobiology at the National Centre for Biological Sciences in Bangalore, India, and lead supervisor of a recent study about the olfactory system that is the first to document the coding is linear.  “The pattern and spacing of the clicks make different letters.”  In this case, the pattern of the electrical spikes translates to specific smells.  But significantly, according to the study, which was published in the journal Nature Neuroscience, when the smell is repeated in the same dose, the pattern remains the same.  And when the odor varies in duration, the neurons’ electrical response changes proportionately.  Jo Craven McGinty  Read more at  

http://www.wsj.com/articles/scents-of-smell-rooted-in-math-1431079201

big league:  At the highest level; used as a noun ("You're in the big leagues now") or an adjective ("big-league lawyer").  The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) cites "big league" as specifically American Major League Baseball, and cites its first use in 1899; the non-baseball use appears in 1947.   bush league:  Amateur, unsophisticated, unprofessional.  From the baseball term for a second-rate baseball league and therefore its players.  OED cites its first baseball use as 1906, non-baseball in 1914.  

Find a list of common English-language idioms based on baseball at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_English-language_idioms_derived_from_baseball 

The term "bush league" has a literal meaning as well as an idiomatic meaning.  It originated as a term for minor league baseball, which is often played in rural towns that are sometimes referred to as "the sticks" or "the bush."  The term "bush league" has come to refer to anything that is considered amateurish in nature or of lesser quality, rather than being of the highest professional quality.  http://www.wisegeek.org/what-is-bush-league.htm

Stark naked  1520-30; stark + naked; replacing start-naked (start, Middle English; Old English steort tail; cognate with Dutch staart, Old High German sterz, Old Norse stertr)  http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/stark-naked

Stark, raving mad   The 'stark' here means 'to the fullest extent; entirely; quite'.  This was used as an intensifier to 'mad' in the original version of the phrase - 'stark mad'.  That version was in use by 1489 when John Skelton used it in The Death of the Earl of Northumberland:  "I say, ye comoners, why wer ye so stark mad?"  'Stark' and 'raving' are just intensifying adjectives so it is correct to add the comma after 'stark', although the phrase is often seen without it; for example, neither the 1999 Stark Raving Mad TV show or the 2002 film of the same name use the comma.  'Stark staring mad' was an earlier variant and this was first recorded in John Dryden's Persius Flaccus, 1693:  "Art thou of Bethlem's Noble College free?  Stark, staring mad."  By 'Bethlem's Noble College' Dryden was referring to the world's oldest psychiatric hospital The Bethlem Royal Hospital, London.  This has been known under several names since its foundation in the 13th century, most famously the colloquial name Bedlam.  Henry Fielding used 'stark raving mad' in The Intriguing Chambermaid, 1734 and that was probably the first usage of that version of the term.  http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/stark-raving-mad.html

"Stark raving" wine--usually a blend of red grapes--usually made in California

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1296  May 13, 2015  On this date in 1880, in Menlo Park, New Jersey, Thomas Edison performed the first test of his electric railway.  On this date in 1958, Ben Carlin became the first (and only) person to circumnavigate the world by amphibious vehicle, having travelled over 17,000 kilometres (11,000 mi) by sea and 62,000 kilometres (39,000 mi) by land during a ten-year journey.

The Tempest is a play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1610–11, and thought by many critics to be the last play that Shakespeare wrote alone.  It is set on a remote island, where Prospero, the rightful Duke of Milan, plots to restore his daughter Miranda to her rightful place using illusion and skilful manipulation.  He conjures up a storm, to lure his usurping brother Antonio and the complicit King Alonso of Naples to the island.  There, his machinations bring about the revelation of Antonio's lowly nature, the redemption of the King, and the marriage of Miranda to Alonso's son, Ferdinand.  The Tempest has more music than any other Shakespeare play.  Two settings of songs from The Tempest which may have been used in performances during Shakespeare's lifetime have survived.  These are "Full Fathom Five" and "Where The Bee Sucks There Suck I" in the 1659 publication Cheerful Ayres or Ballads, in which they are attributed to Robert Johnson, who regularly composed for the King's Men.  Versions of "Full Fathom Five" were recorded by Marianne Faithfull for Come My Way in 1965 and by Pete Seeger for Dangerous Songs!? in 1966.  The Decemberists' song "The Island:  Come and See/The Landlord's Daughter/You'll Not Feel The Drowning" is thought by many to be based on the story of Caliban and Miranda.  Michael Nyman's Ariel Songs are taken from his score for the film Prospero's Books.  Among those who wrote incidental music to The Tempest were Arthur Sullivan.  His graduation piece, completed in 1861, was a set of incidental music to "The Tempest".  Revised and expanded, it was performed at The Crystal Palace in 1862, a year after his return to London, and was an immediate sensation.  Ernest Chausson:  in 1888 he wrote incidental music for La tempête, a French translation by Maurice Bouchor.  This is believed to be the first orchestral work that made use of the celesta.  Jean Sibelius:  his 1926 incidental music was written for a lavish production at the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen.  At least forty-six operas or semi-operas based on The Tempest exist.  Frederic Reynolds produced an operatic version in 1821, with music by Sir Henry Bishop.  Choral settings of excerpts from The Tempest include Amy Beach's Come Unto These Yellow Sands (SSAA, from Three Shakespeare Songs), Matthew Harris' Full Fathom Five, I Shall No More to Sea, and Where the Bee Sucks (SATB, from Shakespeare Songs, Books I, V, VI), Ryan Kelly's The Tempest (SATB, a setting of the play's Scene I),Jaakko Mäntyjärvi's Full Fathom Five and A Scurvy Tune (SATB, from Four Shakespeare Songs and More Shakespeare Songs), Frank Martin's Songs of Ariel (SATB), Ralph Vaughan Williams' Full Fathom Five and The Cloud-capp'd Towers (SATB, from Three Shakespeare Songs), and David Willcocks' Full Fathom Five (SSA).  Orchestral works for concert presentation include Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's fantasy The Tempest (1873), Fibich's symphonic poem Bouře (1880), John Knowles Paine's symphonic poem The Tempest (1876), Benjamin Dale's overture (1902), Arthur Honegger's orchestral prelude (1923), and Egon Wellesz's Prosperos Beschwörungen (five works 1934–36).  Ballet sequences have been used in many performances of the play since Restoration times.  Stage musicals derived from The Tempest have been produced.  Find references to The Tempest in literature, art and film at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tempest

State-of- the-art was first called status of the art.

Stud poker was first called stud-horse poker.

Swiss chard was identified by a Swiss botanist and is a variety of Beta vulgaris.  The plant is also called silverbeet, Roman kale, and strawberry spinach.  A member of the goosefoot family,  other members are beets and spinach.  

http://www.webmd.com/diet/swiss-chard-9-healthy-facts 

Beet greens buzz  Grown in the Mediterranean region as far back as 2,000 B.C., beet cultivation spread to Babylonia in the eighth century, then to China around 850 A.D.  Within the botanical family, Chenopodiaceae , beet greens are factored alongside spinach, Swiss chard, quinoa, lamb's quarter, and a number of other wild plants, which means that beet greens can be placed in the “dark, leafy” category.  It’s best to use beet greens within two or three days after refrigeration.  Enjoy beet greens by themselves as a salad or with other leafy vegetables, or sauté them in a bit of olive oil or balsamic vinegar and salt for a delicious side dish.  If you find yourself with too many beet greens, don’t throw them away.  Freeze them and use for soup stock.

http://foodfacts.mercola.com/beet-greens.html

Ryan Hardy of Charlie Bird called scapece “perhaps the most genius of all Italian marinades.”  Like its Spanish cousin escabeche, scapece was originally designed for preserving fried fish.  “This combination of sweet and sour, garlic and mint makes zucchini or butternut squash shine even more brilliantly,” said Mr. Hardy.  “Use it with some whipped ricotta and toast.”  Recipe at  http://www.wsj.com/articles/scapece-recipe-1429799922  Recipe of Giada De Laurentiis instructs to marinate vegetables overnight and serve at room temperature with bread, fish or chicken.  http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/giada-de-laurentiis/zucchini-and-carrot-a-scapece-recipe2.html

Principal (noun, adjective) referring to someone or something which is highest in rank or importance, non-interest portion of a loan  Principle ( noun) law. tenet, or doctrine

Stationery(noun) paper that you use for writing letters or notes.  Stationary (adjective) not moving, fixed in one place, still

Compliment (noun, verb) kind or flattering remark.  Complement (noun, verb) full crew or a set-- they go well together

Nearsightedness (myopia) is a very common condition in which the light coming into the eye is not focused properly onto the retina, making it difficult to see objects far away.  The condition is usually caused by an elongation of the eyeball that occurs over time.  Farsightedness (hyperopia) is the opposite of myopia, and is usually caused by shortening of the eyeball.  Astigmatism is an imperfection of the cornea preventing part of it from focusing light onto the retina.  The result is a blurred area within an otherwise clear image.  This problem may occur along with either myopia or hyperopia.  These frequent conditions are termed "refractive errors."

http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/wilmer/conditions/nearsight.html

The National Audubon Society is designating Lake Erie’s western and central basins as two of Earth’s most significant ecosystems.  Gary Langham, the society's chief scientist, announced the decision at the May 8, 2015 kickoff for the Biggest Week in American Birding.  He told hundreds of birders at the Maumee Bay Lodge and Conference Center in Oregon, Ohio that the society’s board has voted to designate the islands and shoreline in those basins as “globally important bird areas” and plans to make a formal announcement soon.  The Biggest Week in American Birding, a 10-day birding festival from Lucas to Lorain counties, is expected to draw 80,000 binocular-toting visitors through May 17.   http://www.toledoblade.com/news/2015/05/09/Event-kicks-off-with-honor-for-habitat.html  See also http://www.mageemarsh.org/ and http://www.toledoblade.com/local/2015/05/10/A-birding-paradise%28copy%29.html

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1295  May 11, 2015  On this date in 868, a copy of the Diamond Sutra was printed in China, making it the oldest known dated printed book.  On this date in 1820,  HMS Beagle, the ship that would take Charles Darwin on his scientific voyage, was launched.

Paraphrases from Us Conductors, a novel by Sean Michaels  The vacuum tubes, were like wineglasses, like seashells, like emeralds.  The theremin's sound is a stranger to the earth--its voice that is not a voice neither paused nor took a breath. 

May 3, 2015  For people into the music scene in Canada, Sean Michaels needs little introduction. His music blog, Said the Gramophone, is considered one of the go-to blogs for music reviews of every genre.  So for those who know and appreciate his writing style, it came as no surprise when his first novel was published last year.  While music is a theme in Us Conductors, the instrument at the heart of the story is not all that well known.  It's the theremin, invented about 100 years ago by a Russian scientist, Lev Termen.  Us Conductors is a story about love, music and espionage and it won him the Giller prize last fall.  Read a portion of an  interview with Sean Michaels at http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/sean-michaels-us-conductors-author-talks-about-his-inspiration-1.3057575  Born in the former capital of Scotland (Stirling) in 1982, Sean Michaels grew up in Ottawa, Canada.  He has lived in Montreal since 2000.  His music blog, Said the Gramophone, launched in March 2003, and added songs in November of that year.  It was one of the world's first mp3blogs.

Leon Theremin playing his own instrument

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5qf9O6c20o  1:32  

Lev Sergeyevich Termen, or Leon Theremin in the United States, was a Russian and Soviet inventor, most famous for his invention of the theremin, one of the first electronic musical instruments and the first to be mass produced.  He also devised the interlace technique for improving the quality of a video signal, still widely used in video and television technology.  His listening device, "The Thing", hung for seven years in plain view in the United States Ambassador's Moscow office and enabled Soviet agents to eavesdrop on secret conversations.  It is considered a predecessor of RFID technology.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A9on_Theremin#United_States

On an April night in 1960, Guy Carawan stood before a group of black students in Raleigh, N.C., and sang a little-known folk song.  With that single stroke, he created an anthem that would echo into history, sung at the Selma-to-Montgomery marches of 1965, in apartheid-era South Africa, in international demonstrations in support of the Tiananmen Square protesters, at the dismantled Berlin Wall and beyond.  The song was “We Shall Overcome.”  Mr. Carawan, who died on May 2, 2015 at 87, did not write “We Shall Overcome,” nor did he claim to.  The now-familiar version of “We Shall Overcome” was forged by Mr. Carawan, Pete Seeger and others in the late 1950s, but its antecedents date to at least the 18th century.  The song’s present-day lyrics appear to have originated with “I’ll Overcome Some Day,” a hymn by a black Methodist minister, Charles Albert Tindley, that was published at the turn of the 20th century, though apparently to a different tune.  By the mid-1940s, Tindley’s words and the now-familiar melody had merged.  In 1945, the resulting song, known as “We Will Overcome,” was taken to the picket lines by striking tobacco workers in Charleston, S.C., who sang:  “We will overcome,/And we will win our rights someday.”    Margalit Fox  http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/08/us/guy-carawan-dies-at-87-taught-a-generation-to-overcome-in-song.html

The various fish that come under the banner ‘hake’ are deep-sea members of the cod family and are popular throughout Europe and America.  Hake is quite a mild fish, with a white flaky texture and a flavour that is more subtle than that of cod.  In France, hake is called ‘saumon blanc’ (which translates as 'white salmon') while in the United States it’s known as ling or whiting (what is known as whiting in Europe is a different, less tasty fish).  Link to recipes at http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/hake

What if printed books went by ebook rules?  by Dennis Baron   I love ebooks.  Despite their unimaginative page design, monotonous fonts, curious approach to hyphenation, and clunky annotation utilities, they’re convenient and easy on my aging eyes.  But I wish they didn’t come wrapped in legalese.  Whenever I read a book on my iPad, for example, I have tacitly agreed to the 15,000-word statement of terms and conditions for the iTunes store.  It’s written by lawyers in language so dense and tedious it seems designed not to be read, except by other lawyers, and that’s odd, since these Terms of Service agreements (TOS) concern the use of books that are designed to be read.  But that’s OK, because Apple, the source of iBooks, and Amazon, with its similar Kindle Store, are not really publishers, not really booksellers, they’re "content providers" who function as third-party agents.  And these agents seem to think that ebooks are not really books:  Apple insists on calling them, not iBooks, but “iBooks Store Products,” and Amazon calls them, not Kindle books, but “Kindle Content.”  Read more at https://illinois.edu/blog/view/25

CLARIFICATION  The May 6, 2015 Muse said that L'allée Des Alyscamps was the big seller at Sotheby's Impressionist and modern art sale on May 5, 2015, bringing $US66.3 million ($83.2 million).   The number in parentheses refers to Australian dollars.  See the original New York Times article:  The sale, the first major auction of the spring season brought in a total of $368 million for Sotheby’s, making it the second-highest sale of Impressionist and modern art in the auction house’s history.  Last November, Sotheby’s took in $422 million from such a sale.  Bidders walked off with 50 of the 64 lots offered.  The rest were left unsold.  For the van Gogh, the work had last sold for $12 million in 2003.  The highest price paid for a van Gogh at auction was the $82.5 million paid in 1990 for his “Portrait of Dr. Gachet.”  See picture of L'allée Des Alyscamps at http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/06/arts/design/van-gogh-painting-is-star-during-sothebys-auction.html  The auction was held in New York.  See also http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/2015/impressionist-modern-art-evening-sale-n09340.html

Nestled in the Pennsylvania countryside, on and around the bucolic campus of Lehigh University, the Bethlehem Bach Festival, under the artistic direction of conductor Greg Funfgeld, is in its 108th season and going strong.  The Bach Choir of Bethlehem’s 100 volunteer singers perform the music of Johann Sebastian Bach and that of his sons and contemporaries with exceptional devotion.  Flanked by concerts of related vocal and instrumental works, Bach’s Mass in B-minor has been the centerpiece of the annual festival since 1900, when the complete work was presented here, for the first time in the U.S.  The festival is a compact affair spread over the weekends of May 1 and 2, and May 8 and 9, 2015.  Barrymore Laurence Scherer  http://www.wsj.com/articles/bethlehem-bach-festival-review-honoring-a-musical-master-1430949335

STORY OF A TOLEDO PHOTOGRAPHER:  Marty Reichenthal  Reichenthal was born in Rock Island, IL, and his relationship with Toledo began around age two or three.  “I was unceremoniously dropped here against my will to spend summers with relatives,” he said.  It was during one of those summers that his uncle, a local dentist, gave him a camera.  Marty was nine years old, and became fascinated with the device’s focus mechanism and shutter speeds.  Predictably, the veteran photographer hates the Photoshop culture.  He remarked, “Nothing is shooting today.  It’s really more of an additive technique.  Look at National Geographic.  They still do real pictures.”  Counting Irving Penn, Gordon Parks, Richard Avedon, and W. Eugene Smith as influences, Reichenthal still shoots photographs of friends and of his surroundings, most of which he keeps to himself.  He still vastly prefers black and white, though he likes the control of adding color. 

http://www.toledocitypaper.com/April-Issue-2-2015/Marty-Reichenthal/#Arts & Entertainment

STORY OF A TOLEDO POET AND WRITER:  Joel Lipman  Joel Lipman is Toledo’s first poet laureate.  A former creative writing instructor—he taught for 37 years at the University of Toledo—Lipman’s work has been published extensively in the small press community.  He has edited independent and university press books, and has made an impressive career of the written word.  Many writers just begin writing.  Some generate text and transfer it from one medium to the next, before arriving at a final product.   “When I write poems, I revise extensively,” he says.  “I jot rough notes in a notebook, work in pen or pencil, and then enter the text on my Apple and work out lineation and concrete composition on the machine.” This is the first in an ongoing series that explores regional writers’ work
and workspace.  http://www.toledocitypaper.com/May-Issue-1-2015/The-right-to-write/#Arts & Entertainment

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1294  May 8, 2015  On this date in 1745, Carl Stamitz, German violinist and composer was born.  On this date in 1829, Louis Moreau Gottschalk, American pianist and composer, was born.

The American Civil War:  Through Artists’ Eyes  through July 5, 2015, The Toledo Museum of Art, Galleries 28 &29  See a myriopticon, stereoscopes, and hear music of the time such Farewell to the Star Spangled Banner and the Star Spangled Banner with Brilliant Variations.

THE MYRIOPTICON

The deadliest war in American history helped spark the career of one of the most important game makers in the United States.  Milton Bradley, a Springfield, Massachusetts, draftsman, print-maker, and designer, entered the game industry just before the Civil War with his popular The Checkered Game of Life.  After the war broke out, he produced several card and trivia games for children as well as portable versions of checkers and other games for soldiers.  In 1866 he created The Myriopticon:  A Historical Panorama of the Rebellion.  Panoramas had been popular in the United States since the late eighteenth-century, when artists and promoters began offering travelogues to the Holy Land or down the Mississippi through a series of paintings on a canvas hundreds of feet long and several yards high that slowly scrolled from one reel to another.  The Civil War inspired northern and southern entrepreneurs to create panoramas with patriotic, technical-sounding names for exhibition to audiences throughout the Union and Confederacy.  Northerners could see the “Grand Panorama of the War,” the “Polyrama of the War,” “Norton’s Great Panorama of Recent Battles,” the “Diorama and Polopticomarama of the War,” “The Mirror of the Rebellion,” and “A Cosmorama of Battles of the Civil War.” Southerners could view Burton’s “Southern Moving Dioramic Panorama,” “The Grand Panopticon Magicale of the War and Automaton Dramatique,” and Lee Mallory’s “Pantechnoptemon.”  A number of proprietors updated their exhibitions with additional battle scenes as the war progressed.  Most panoramas included a spoken narration, while many were accompanied by music.  The score to Stanley & Conant’s “Polemorama” featured “the Rattle of Musketry—the Booming of Cannon, mingled with the tumultuous noise of the deadly conflict.”  Life-sized or scale models of soldiers and ships stood or lay before the moving pictures, theatrical explosions and smoke raised the excitement level, and the strategic use of front- and back-lighting could change scenes from night to day or from peaceful reveries to violent confrontations before the audience’s eyes.  Panoramas were just one part of the war culture that emerged throughout the United States and Confederacy.  A Massachusetts boy named Willie Kingsbury created his own by coloring illustrations from Harper’s Weekly and pasting them together.  As he rolled the series of war scenes from one wooden spool to another, he narrated the events they portrayed to young neighbors and cousins.  Although it did not appear until after the war was over, the Myriopticon was part of this integration of childhood and war. 

http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/hcy/summary/v002/2.1.marten.html

THE STEREOSCOPE

Oliver Wendell Holmes was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts on August 29, 1809.  He graduated from Harvard University at the age of 20, at which time he began writing poetry.  He switched his professional focus from law to medicine, and embarked upon a career as a professor and researcher at the medical schools of Harvard and Dartmouth. In 1840,  Dr. Holmes married Amelia Lee Jackson, a Massachusetts Supreme Court Justice. The couple would later have two sons and a daughter, with their eldest son, Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. becoming an influential Associate Justice on the U.S. Supreme Court.   Dr. Holmes maintained that photography was a transformative instrument that combined past memory with an appearance of contemporary social reality.  Intrigued by Professor Charles Wheatstone's invention of the stereoscope (also known as the English stereoscope), Dr. Holmes decided to construct his own variation in 1859.  He discussed the trials and tribulations of developing the hand or American stereoscope in his 1859 essay, "The Stereoscope and the Stereograph."  Dr. Holmes explained that he sought to create a simple device that could produce complex results.  The stereoscope needed two lenses and a supporting frame.  He also inserted slots to hold the stereographs in place, and added a grooved, dovetailed stand.  http://historiccamera.com/cgi-bin/librarium2/pm.cgi?action=app_display&app=datasheet&app_id=2590

SEVENTEEN PROGRAMS accompany the exhibit including lectures, films, reenactments and music.  Find the schedule at http://www.toledomuseum.org/exhibitions/americancivilwar/

The word batik originates from the Javanese tik and means to dot.  To make a batik, selected areas of the cloth are blocked out by brushing or drawing hot wax over them, and the cloth is then dyed.  The parts covered in wax resist the dye and remain the original colour.  This process of waxing and dyeing can be repeated to create more elaborate and colourful designs.  After the final dyeing the wax is removed and the cloth is ready for wearing or showing.  http://www.batikguild.org.uk/whatisbatik.asp  

Batik is a pure-Java library that can be used to render, generate, and manipulate SVG graphics.  (SVG is an XML markup language for describing two-dimensional vector graphics.)  IBM supported the project and then donated the code to the Apache Software Foundation, where other companies and teams decided to join efforts.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batik_%28software%29

Paraphrase from Pleading Guilty, a novel by Scott Turow  He regarded agreement as a failure of his obligation to exercise critical intelligence--instead there is probing question, sly jest, a suggested alternative--a way for him to put an ax to your tree.  Excerpt of the Guardian's 2002 interview with Scott Turow   Q.  Is the Kindle County of your books Chicago?   A.  I got situated in Kindle County by accident because when I started writing Presumed Innocent I was writing about Boston.  Eight years later so much of Chicago had infiltrated this Boston-sized city that I had a kind of imaginary place so I renamed it Kindle County.  Q.  Is there a theme linking your books?  A.  All my novels are about the ambiguities that lie beneath the sharp edges of the law.  http://www.theguardian.com/books/2002/nov/24/crime.saulbellow

"Rabbit rabbit rabbit" is one variant of a common British superstition which states that a person should say or repeat the word "rabbit" or "rabbits", or "white rabbits", or some combination of these elements, out loud upon waking on the first day of the month, because doing so will ensure good luck for the duration of that month.  Chapter 1 of the Trixie Belden story The Mystery of the Emeralds (1962) is titled “Rabbit! Rabbit!” and discusses the tradition:  Trixie Belden awoke slowly, with the sound of a summer rain beating against her window.  She half-opened her eyes, stretched her arms above her head, and then, catching sight of a large sign tied to the foot of her bed, yelled out, “Rabbit! Rabbit!”  She bounced out of bed and ran out of her room and down the hall. “I’ve finally done it!” she cried . . .  Today it has spread to many English-speaking countries and in the United States the tradition is particularly found in northern New England although, like all folklore, determining its exact area of distribution is difficult.  The superstition may be related to the broader belief in the rabbit or hare being a "lucky" animal, as exhibited in the practice of carrying a rabbit's foot for luck.  

During the mid-1990s, U.S. children's cable channel Nickelodeon helped popularize the superstition in the United States as part of its "Nick Days", where during commercial breaks it would show an ad about the significance of the current date, whether it be an actual holiday, a largely-uncelebrated unofficial holiday, or a made-up day if nothing else is going on that specific day.  (The latter would be identified as a "Nickelodeon holiday".)  Nickelodeon would promote the last day of each month as "Rabbit Rabbit Day" and to remind kids to say it the next day, unless the last day of that specific month was an actual holiday, such as Halloween and New Year's Eve.  This practice stopped by the late 1990s.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbit_rabbit_rabbit  Thank you, Muse reader!

Van Gogh stars at Sotheby's big impressionist and modernist auction by Robin Pogrebin   On Nov. 1, 1888, Vincent van Gogh set up his easel in an ancient Roman necropolis in Arles, France, and painted an avenue of stone sarcophagi lined by towering poplars aflame with the colours of autumn.  Known as L'allée Des Alyscamps, it was the big seller at Sotheby's Impressionist and modern art evening sale on May 5, 2015, bringing $US66.3 million ($83.2 million) – when it had been expected to fetch $US40 million – as five bidders competed for a prize that ultimately went to an Asian private collector.  http://www.afr.com/lifestyle/arts-and-entertainment/art/van-gogh-stars-at-sothebys-big-impressionist-and-modernist-auction-20150506-ggvmyn

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1293  May 6, 2015  On this date in 1889, the Eiffel Tower was officially opened to the public at the Universal Exposition in Paris.  On this date in 1935, Executive Order 7034 created the Works Progress Administration.