What's better, 18-month old Parmigiano Reggiano or 36-month old Parmigiano Reggiano Stravechhio?  The younger Parmigiano had a nutty flavor with somewhat of an acidic bite to it.  To me the flavor of the younger cheese was stronger than that of the older Parmigiano.  The younger cheese was sharper, as well.  The Stravecchio was more mellow in taste, but also much more complex at the same time.  The taste was fuller, and didn't have the same acidic bite that younger cheese had.  Both cheeses had the crunchy amino acid crystals, but the older cheese had much more.  I enjoyed the crystals as it made the texture more interesting.  The older cheese was also more crumbly and you could feel that in your mouth as you bit down on it.  I tried the cheeses by themselves and also with balsamic vinegar.  I had never tried cheese with vinegar before, and was pleasantly surprised by how well I like it.  I was also surprised that the younger cheese tasted much different than the older cheese with balsamic vinegar.  The younger cheese drizzled with balsamic vinegar had a fruity taste to it.  The older Parmigiano had a sweet taste with balsamic vinegar.  I liked the fruity taste of the younger cheese with balsamic vinegar more than I liked the sweet taste of the older cheese with balsamic vinegar.  Read more, link to recipes, sign up for newsletter, and see pictures at http://itscheese.com/reviews/parmigiano

The Hotel Pennsylvania is a hotel located at 401 Seventh Avenue (15 Penn Plaza) in Manhattan, across the street from Pennsylvania Station and Madison Square Garden in New York City.  The Hotel Pennsylvania was built by the Pennsylvania Railroad and operated by Ellsworth Statler.  It opened on January 25, 1919 and was designed by William Symmes Richardson of the firm of McKim, Mead & White, which also designed the original Pennsylvania Station located across the street.  Statler Hotels, which had managed the Pennsylvania since its construction, acquired the property outright from the Pennsylvania Railroad on June 30, 1948 and renamed it the Hotel Statler on January 1, 1949.  Following the sale of all 17 Statler hotels to Conrad Hilton in 1954, the hotel became the Statler Hilton.  It operated under this name until 1979, when Hilton sold the hotel to developer William Zeckendorf, Jr., for $24 million.  The hotel was renamed the New York Statler and was operated by Dunfey hotels, a division of Aer Lingus.  The hotel was sold again for $46 million in August 1983.  A 50% interest was bought by Abelco, an investment group consisting of developers Elie Hirschfeld, Abraham Hirschfeld, and Arthur G. Cohen, with the other 50% bought by the Penta Hotels chain, a joint-venture of British Airways, Lufthansa, and Swissair.  The new owners renamed the hotel the New York Penta and undertook a massive renovation.  In 1991, Penta's partners bought out the chain's stake in the hotel and returned it to its original name, Hotel Pennsylvania.  The hotel has the distinction of having the New York phone number in longest continuous use.  The number, Pennsylvania 6-5000 (212-736-5000), is the inspiration for the Jerry Gray composition of the same name (with lyrics later added by Carl Sigman).  The most popular version was performed by Glenn Miller, with the Andrews Sisters' version not far behind.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotel_Pennsylvania

"Walking With Giants" is a youtube channel where a regular sized person cooks food in a tiny kitchen (with tiny appliances that actually work) and makes adorable meals out of it that are so small they look like they were made for a hamster or a doll to eat.  Walking With Giants was created by a man named Jay who identifies himself as an artist.  He takes all the videos he makes seriously and you can see how talented he is based on the tiny details he puts into each video.  Link to seven videos at https://turbofuture.com/internet/Why-Do-People-Love-The-Youtube-Channel-Walking-With-Giants

January 1, 2018  “East of Vienna, the Orient begins,” the famous dictum of 19th century Austrian statesman Metternich has been associated by generations of writers with Bratislava, the Slovak capital 35 miles to the east.  Visiting in 1933, Patrick Leigh Fermor described an exotic mix of Slav, Hungarian, Jewish and German:  “A different cast had streamed on stage and the whole plot had changed.”  But 25 years ago, Bratislava found itself thrust into a new role as capital of newly independent Slovakia.  Since then it has carved its own niche in Central Europe, refusing to ape or be overshadowed by its neighbours, and shaking off its dour Communist-era reputation to rediscover a wealth of historic architecture and its enviable location on the Danube.  From the second half of the 18^th century, Bratislava developed as a musical centre, benefiting from its geographical location, its role as capital of Royal Hungary, and the patronage of noble families.  It was into this environment that composer Johann Nepomuk Hummel was born in 1778.  He was taught by Mozart and Haydn, became a friend of Beethoven, and was an important influence on Chopin.  He is primarily known for his piano works and his stirring trumpet concerto.   Hummel’s birthplace, a pretty ochre house off Klobucnicka Street, is preserved as a modest museum.  Andrew MacDowall  Link to 3:44 music video of Hummell's Rondo Trumpet Concerto in Eb at https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/jan/01/bratislava-spotlight-slovakia-25-years-capital

More than 130 years after construction first began, Barcelona’s towering Sagrada Familia cathedral is finally to get a building permit, the city council and the monument’s official blog said.  Cranes and scaffolding still flank the ornate spires of Spanish architect Antoni Gaudi’s most famous monument, which draws some 20 million visitors a year.  Stained-glass windows had to be installed at the last minute before a papal visit in 2010.  The basilica will pay city authorities 36 million euros ($41 million) to help fund Barcelona’s public transport system and to revamp nearby streets, ending a dispute over the building’s legality.  Isla Binnie  See pictures at  https://www.reuters.com/article/us-spain-culture-sagrada-familia/sagrada-familia-cathedral-gets-building-license-130-years-after-work-began-idUSKCN1MT285

Tarragon was made for chicken and mushrooms.  Its muted aniseed flavour is somehow both bold and gentle; the sponginess of the mushrooms just soaks up the tarragon and their earthiness marries with it beautifully.  The second wonder of this dish is its simplicity--just throw everything into the pan, place the chicken on top and roast.  See recipe for One-Pot Tarragon Chicken, Mushrooms and Rice by John Whaite at https://www.splendidtable.org/recipes/one-pot-tarragon-chicken-mushrooms-rice

maelstrom  noun   mael·strom | \ ˈmāl-strəm ,  -ˌsträm \  1:  a powerful often violent whirlpool sucking in objects within a given  2:  something resembling a maelstrom in turbulence   first known use of Maelstrom 1659, in the meaning defined at sense 1  History and Etymology for Maelstrom obsolete Dutch (now maalstroom), from malen to grind + strom stream

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/maelstrom  NOTE that the second syllable is strom, not storm.

Freight bicycles, carrier cycles, freight tricycles, cargo bikes, box bikes, or cycletrucks are human powered vehicles designed and constructed specifically for transporting loads.  Vehicle designs include a cargo area consisting of an open or enclosed box, a flat platform, or a wire basket, usually mounted over one or both wheels, low behind the front wheel, or between parallel wheels at either the front or rear of the vehicle.  The frame and drivetrain must be constructed to handle loads larger than those on an ordinary bicycle.  The first freight bicycles were used by tradesmen to deliver mail, bread and milk amongst other things.  Early freight bicycles were heavy-duty standard bicycles, with heavy carriers at front or rear, sometimes with a smaller front wheel to accommodate a large front carrier.  During the early part of the 20th century these were commonly used by tradesmen for local deliveries.  In the UK this style is still sometimes known as a butcher's bike or delibike, although the Post Office have by far the largest fleet.  With the domination of the internal combustion engine in the industrialized countries after World War II, freight bikes became less popular.  In the rest of the world, however, they continued to be manufactured and heavily used.  In the 1980s in Europe, and the 1990s in the US, ecologically-minded designers and small-scale manufacturers initiated a revival of the freight bike manufacturing sector.  Read more and see many graphics at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freight_bicycle

Authors! with Jose Antonio Vargas  Pulitzer Prize-Winning Journalist and Human Rights Activist (T) Oct. 30 | 7 p.m. | Kent Branch Library  3101 Collingwood Boulevard  Toledo, Ohio  Tickets: $25 (includes a copy of Dear America)  Jose Antonio Vargas won a Pulitzer Prize for his work with the Washington Post team covering the Virginia Tech shooting.  While at the Post, Vargas also covered the 2008 presidential election, the video game boom and the AIDS epidemic in Washington D.C., for which he received another Pulitzer Prize nomination.  In addition to his work with the Post, he has served as a journalist with the San Francisco Chronicle and the Huffington Post as technology and innovations editor.  For questions about TLCPL's Authors! series, call 419.259.5196.

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1974  October 23, 2018  296th day of the year

12 Authors Write About the Libraries They Love  Read heartwarming stories from authors including Barbara Kingsolver, Neil Gaiman, Amy Tan and Annie Proulx and see pictures at https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/books/review/public-libraries.html

The F. W. Woolworth Company (often referred to as Woolworth's or Woolworth) was a retail company and one of the original pioneers of the five-and-dime store.  It was arguably the most successful American and international five-and-dime business, setting trends and creating the modern retail model that stores follow worldwide today.  The first Woolworth store was opened by Frank Winfield Woolworth on February 22, 1878, as "Woolworth's Great Five Cent Store" in Utica, New York.  Though it initially appeared to be successful, the store soon failed.  When Woolworth searched for a new location, a friend suggested Lancaster, Pennsylvania.  Using the sign from the Utica store, Woolworth opened his first successful "Woolworth's Great Five Cent Store" on July 18, 1879, in Lancaster.  He brought his brother, Charles Sumner Woolworth, into the business.  The two Woolworth brothers pioneered and developed merchandising, direct purchasing, sales, and customer service practices commonly used today.   Despite its growing to be one of the largest retail chains in the world through most of the 20th century, increased competition led to its decline beginning in the 1980s, while its sporting goods division grew. The chain went out of business in July 1997, when the company decided to focus primarily on sporting goods and renamed itself Venator Group.  By 2001, the company focused exclusively on the sporting goods market, changing its name to the present Foot Locker, Inc., changing its ticker symbol from its familiar Z in 2003 to its present ticker (NYSE: FL).  Retail chains using the Woolworth name survive in Austria, Germany, Mexico and, until early 2009, the United Kingdom.  The similarly named Woolworths supermarkets in Australia and New Zealand are operated by Australia's largest retail company, Woolworths Limited, a separate company with no historical links to the F. W. Woolworth Company or Foot Locker, Inc.  However, Woolworths Limited did take their name from the original company, as it had not been registered or trademarked in Australia at the time.  Similarly, in South Africa, Woolworths Holdings Limited operates a Marks & Spencer-like store and uses the Woolworth name, but has never had any connection with the American company.  The property development company Woolworth Group in Cyprus began life as an offshoot of the British Woolworth's company, originally operating Woolworth's department stores in Cyprus.  In 2003, these stores were rebranded Debenhams, but the commercial property arm of the business retained the Woolworth's name.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F._W._Woolworth_Company

Mario Buatta, the interior decorator hailed for decades as the Prince of Chintz because of the cheerful flowered fabrics that were a signature element of his English country–style rooms, died in New York City on October 15, 2018 five days short of his 83rd birthday.  Born and raised in Staten Island, New York, a son of violinist and bandleader Phil Burton (née Felice Buatta, aka Felix Buatta, aka Phil Buatta) and a grandson of Italian immigrant craftsmen—one grandfather was a carpenter, the other was a plasterer—the future decorator grew up disenchanted with all things modern.  Mitchell Owens  Read extensive article and see pictures at https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/mario-buatta-prince-of-chintz-obituary

Anthea Bell, translator, born 10 May 1936; died 18 October 2018   In 1970 Anthea Bell found herself with the tricky task of translating Asterix in Britain.  The eighth adventure in the comic book series rested on a French view of the English that was not directly translatable, involving warm beer, rugby louts and tea.  A whole strand of humour rested on the English inability to tell tu from vous, while the bowler hat did not lend itself to fruity puns in quite the same way as the chapeau melon.  So Bell transported the story to a Wodehousian England “with much:  ‘I say, jolly good, old fellow, what!’”  And though she herself was never very satisfied with the result, René Goscinny, co-creator of Asterix, was overheard muttering to himself, “Ah, vieux fruit. I wish I’d thought of that one!”  It was not the first time that Bell had upstaged the creators of one of the world’s most famous comics.  It was she, working with the academic Derek Hockridge, who changed the name of Obelix’s small, evil-tempered dog from Idéfix to Dogmatix and who named the local druid Getafix, giving rise to decades of debate as to the precise nature of his herbs.  But her 35 Asterix translations culminating in Asterix and the Picts in 2013 were only a fraction of an oeuvre that ran into several hundreds of titles, and she was appointed OBE for services to literature and literary translation in 2010.  One reason for Bell’s prolific output was her ability to move fluidly between children’s and adult publishing.  On the children’s side, she reunited with Goscinny on his Le Petit Nicolas series, as well as translating books by Erich Kästner and the fairytales of Charles Perrault, the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen.  An early adopter of new technology, who regarded age as no barrier, she hit the bestseller charts again in the noughties with Cornelia Funke’s Inkheart trilogy.  She won the Mildred L Batchelder award, which recognises the year’s “most outstanding” children’s book translated into English and published in the US, seven times--more than anyone else--for her translations from German, French and Danish, the last of which languages she taught herself over a single Christmas.  Bell also translated Freud, Kafka and a polemic against world armament by the German statesman Willy Brandt.  Her longstanding love affair with German culture was rewarded, in 2015, with the Cross of Merit for her “invaluable contribution to furthering understanding between Germany and the UK”.  Claire Armitstead  https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/oct/18/anthea-bell-obituary

Authors and translators the Muser is grateful for

Camilla Läckberg  (born Jean Edith Camilla Läckberg Eriksson August 30, 1974)  Swedish writer of crime fiction, cookbooks and shildren's stories

Steven T. Murray (born October 7, 1943)  American translator of Swedish, German, Danish, and Norwegian who has worked under the pseudonyms Reg Keeland and McKinley Burnett 

Henning Mankell (1948–2015) Swedish crime fiction writer best known for the character Kurt Wallender which he created

Gregory Rabassa (1922–2016) was an American literary translator from Spanish and Portuguese to English who taught for many years at Columbia University and Queens College.

Gabriel José de la Concordia García Márquez (1927–2014) was a Colombian novelist, short-story writer, screenwriter and journalist.  García Márquez waited three years for Gregory Rabassa to schedule translating One Hundred Years of Solitude.  He later declared Rabassa's translation to be superior to the Spanish original.  See also https://lans.ua.ac.be/index.php/LANS-TTS/article/viewFile/135/77 and  http://funtranslations.com/

Crazy Rich Asians is a 2013 novel by Kevin Kwan.  Kwan stated that his intention in writing the novel was to "introduce a contemporary Asia to a North American audience".  He claimed the novel was loosely based on his own childhood in Singapore.  The novel became a bestseller and was followed by two sequels, China Rich Girlfriend in 2015 and Rich People Problems in 2017.  A film adaptation of the novel was released on August 15, 2018.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crazy_Rich_Asians   Crazy Rich Asians and its two sequels are all listed on the bestseller list of paperback fiction in the October 21, 2018 issue of the Toledo newspaper. 

After obtaining his first degree in creative writing from the University of Houston, Kevin Kwan moved to Manhattan to pursue a BFA at Parsons School of Design.  Kevin's early years in the city were spent working for Martha Stewart Living, Andy Warhol's Interview magazine, and M & Co, the legendary design firm founded by Tibor Kalman.  In 2000, Kevin established his own creative studio, where he specialized in producing high profile projects for clients such as the New York Times, the Museum of Modern Art, Rockwell Group, and TED.com.  Many unforgettable experiences followed, like creating the ultimate publishing tribute to Oprah Winfrey's groundbreaking television show, handling Elizabeth Taylor's fabled jewel collection while producing Elizabeth Taylor:  Love Affair with Jewelry, and serving as the visual consultant for the re-launch of the TED website, which exceeded a billion views in November 2012.  http://www.kevinkwanbooks.com/

Tibor Kalman was a renowned American graphic designer of Hungarian descent.  He is recognized for his position at Colors magazine as editor-in-chief.  He also authored numerous books on the subject.  His accomplishments were legend within the field and widely known outside as well.  Born on July 6, 1949 in Budapest, Hungary and later moved to United States with his family, attaining the residency in 1956.  His family escaped Hungary under dire circumstances which involved the Soviet invasion.  They permanently settled in Poughkeepsie, New York.  There he studied at the New York University, although he dropped out a year after, attending journalism classes.  During 70s he did a stint at a small New York City bookstore which would become one of the nation’s leading bookstores, Barnes & Noble.  Soon after, he was appointed the supervisor of bookstore’s in-house design department.  Subsequently, in collaboration with Carol Bokuniewicz and Liz Trovato, Kalman founded the design firm M & Co.  The studio managed the corporate work providing a diverse range of solutions to their clients.  The company dealt with various clients including the new wave group Talking Heads, Restaurant Florent in New York City’s Meatpacking District and the Limited Corporation.  The American Institute of Graphic Arts presented him with the highest honor of graphic art, AIGA Medal, in 1999.  http://www.famousgraphicdesigners.org/tibor-kalman

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1973  October 22, 2018  295th day of the year

Corvidae is a cosmopolitan family of oscine passerine birds that contains the crows, ravens, rooks, jackdaws, jays, magpies, treepies, choughs, and nutcrackers.  In common English, they are known as the crow family, or, more technically, corvids.  Over 120 species are described.  The genus Corvus, including the jackdaws, crows, rooks, and ravens, makes up over a third of the entire family.  Corvids display remarkable intelligence for animals of their size and are among the most intelligent birds thus far studied.  Specifically, members of the family have demonstrated self-awareness in [ potato test]]s (European magpies) and tool-making ability (e.g., crows and rooks), skills which until recently were thought to be possessed only by humans and a few other higher mammals.  Their total brain-to-body mass ratio is equal to that of non-human great apes and cetaceans, and only slightly lower than that of humans.  They are medium to large in size, with strong feet and bills, rictal bristles, and a single moult each year (most passerines moult twice).  Corvids are found worldwide except for the tip of South America and the polar ice caps.  The majority of the species are found in tropical South and Central America, southern Asia and Eurasia, with fewer than 10 species each in Africa and Australasia.  The genus Corvus has re-entered Australia in relatively recent geological prehistory, with five species and one subspecies there.  Several species of raven have reached oceanic islands, and some of these species are now highly threatened with extinction or have already gone extinct.   The smallest corvid is the dwarf jay (Aphelocoma nana), at 41 g (1.4 oz) and 21.5 cm (8.5 in).  The largest corvids are the common raven (Corvus corax) and the thick-billed raven (Corvus crassirostris), both of which regularly exceed 1,400 grams (3.1 pounds) and 65 cm (26 in).  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corvidae  See pictures and descriptions of the crow family at http://www.wildengland.com/crow-family/

EATING CROW  An article published in the Atlanta Constitution in 1888 claims that, towards the end of the war of 1812, an American went hunting and by accident crossed behind the British lines, where he shot a crow.  He was caught by a British officer, who, complimenting him on his fine shooting, persuaded him to hand over his gun.  This officer then levelled his gun and said that as a punishment the American must take a bite of the crow.  The American obeyed, but when the British officer returned his gun he took his revenge by making him eat the rest of the bird.  This is such an inventive novelisation of the phrase’s etymology that it seems a shame to point out that the original expression is not recorded until the 1850s, and that its original form was to eat boiled crow, whereas the story makes no mention of boiling the bird.  The British English equivalent is eating humble pie.  The original umbles were the innards of the deer:  the liver, heart, entrails and other second-class bits.  It was common practice in medieval times to serve a pie made of these parts of the animal to the servants and others who would be sitting at the lower tables in the lord’s hall.  Pepys mentions it in his diary for 8 July 1663:  “Mrs Turner came in and did bring us an Umble-pie hot out of her oven, extraordinarily good”.  However, it seems it was not until the nineteenth century that the expression humble pie appeared in the sense we now know, and some have reasoned that it did so as a deliberate play on words.  So the figurative sense of umble pie could have appeared at almost any time since the medieval period; indeed, so close is the association that it is surprising that the OED’s first citation dates only from 1830.  The phrase to eat dirt, first attested in the 1850s, expresses the same idea as to eat crow and to eat humble pie.  The oldest of them, and most probably the source of all the others, is to eat one’s words, which first appears in print in 1571 in one of John Calvin’s tracts.  The expression to eat one’s hat, expressing one’s complete confidence in the outcome being described dates in this form only from 1836, when it appeared in Charles Dickens’ Pickwick Papers:  “If I knew as little of life as that, I’d eat my hat and swallow the buckle whole”.  There were earlier expressions invoking one’s hat in support of some assertion:  by my hat (which turns up in Love’s Labour Lost), my hat to a halfpenny, and I’ll bet a hat, so it is possible that Dickens’ formation may draw on one or other of these and on the then newish eat humble pie.  To eat one’s heart out, in its sense of suffering extreme grief, is a vivid figurative description which also evokes the often intensely physical symptoms of worry.  It actually predates the English language, since it turns up in Homer’s Iliad (about 850 BC) and in writings by Pythagoras four hundred years later.  Some proverbial sayings have a very long history indeed.  http://www.worldwidewords.org/articles/eatcrow.htm

The correlation between the word ravenous and raven is simply happenstance.  While ravens do happen to be very hungry, the word raven or ‘ravin’ is of Germanic descent appearing around 800 AD.  The raven’s name comes from the Germanic root ‘khraben’ which is thought to have arisen as an imitation of the harsh, grating call of the raven itself.  On the other hand the word ravenous is of Latin descent originally.  ‘Ravenous’ is derived from the Old French word ‘ravineux’ (original meaning: ‘violent rush, robbery‘).  ‘Ravineux’ is derived from the Old French word ‘raviner’. ‘Raviner’ is derived from the Latin word ‘rapinare’.  ‘Rapinare’ is derived from ‘rapina’ (original meaning: robbery, plunder, booty).  ‘Rapina’ is derived from the Classical Latin word ‘rapere’ (original meaning: drag off; snatch; destroy).  ‘Rapere’ is derived from the Proto-Indo-European root I ‘*rep-‘  The verb form of ravenous is “to raven”.  It is quite proper to use the word in its verb form or in its present participle form ‘ravening’ which means “to search for or consume food voraciously.”  Link to corvid songs and corvid videos at http://corvidcorner.com/wordpress/category/are-the-words-ravenous-and-raven-related/

October 13, 2018  Mystery Of A Massive Library Fire Remains Unsolved After More Than 30 Years by Scott Simon   Susan Orlean's new book is like exploring the stacks of a library, where something unexpected and interesting can be discovered on every page.  The Library Book tells the story of the 1986 fire that damaged or destroyed more than one million books in Los Angeles' Central Library.  "The fire burned for seven hours," Orlean says.  "It reached temperatures of 2,500 degrees.  . . .  A lot of firefighters who I interviewed said it was by far the most challenging, frightening fire that they've ever confronted in their careers."  Orlean uses the loss and lore of that fire to tell the living, everyday story of a great civic institution that is becoming, in a digital age, perhaps even more vital.  She says the fire reminded her of the proverb that when a person dies, it's as if a library has burned to the ground.  "A host of memories and stories and anecdotes that we store in our minds disappears when someone dies," she says.  "It struck me as being a wonderful way of seeing why libraries feel like these big, collective brains—because they have the memories and stories of a whole culture inside them."  In addition to destroying and damaging books, the fire also claimed irreplaceable artifacts.  The library was home to manuals for every make and model of car starting with the Ford Model T, Orlean says, and to puppets from a long-gone puppet theater.  People see libraries as repositories for "the flotsam and jetsam of thinking and storytelling," she says.  The fire led to a seven-year closure of the Central Library which was devastating for the employees.  "Many of them suffered terrible anxiety and depression over the idea that they were no longer serving their patrons," Orlean says.  "The city hired a psychologist to meet with the librarians because they really were traumatized."  They were grieving not only the physical loss, but years and years of work.  Librarians carefully curate the materials in their departments, Orlean says:  "They build the collections from their own interests and knowledge.  . . .  Many of them are books that can't be found anymore.  So for these librarians it was absolutely devastating to see the books destroyed."   The Library Book isn't intended to solve the crime, but rather—to explore its story.  Orlean isn't certain that this decades-old mystery will ever be resolved.  Sign up for Books Newsletter from NPR at

https://www.npr.org/2018/10/13/656896695/mystery-of-a-massive-library-fire-remains-unsolved-after-more-than-30-years

Caroll Spinney has been a television mainstay since 1969, but his face has rarely made an appearance.  Disguised beneath a frock of bright yellow feathers and an orange bill, the “Sesame Street” puppeteer was the heart and soul behind Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch since the show’s premiere almost 50 years ago.  Now, at the age of 84, Spinney told the New York Times that he is retiring from “Sesame Street” after nearly half a century playing some of the show’s most iconic characters. On October 18, 2018, Spinney enters the “Sesame Street” studios in Astoria, Queens for the last time before leaving the roles behind forever.  Starting in 2015, he transitioned out of the Big Bird suit after developing a balance problem in the costume and has since been providing only voices for the character.  His final voice recordings will be used during the upcoming 50th anniversary in 2019 on HBO.  Taking over the roles of Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch are longtime puppeteers Matt Vogel, who plays Kermit the Frog, and Eric Jacobson, who plays Miss Piggy.  Nate Nickolai  https://variety.com/2018/tv/news/sesame-street-puppeteer-caroll-spinney-retires-big-bird-oscar-the-grouch-1202982844/

Nebraska released a new state slogan October 17, 2018:  “Nebraska.  Honestly, it’s not for everyone.”  The Nebraska Tourism Commission shared the campaign, which is set to debut in the spring, at a Nebraska City Conference.  State Tourism Director John Ricks told the Omaha World Herald that the Cornhusker State has consistently ranked as the “least likely state” tourists plan to visit, which means that his department has to think outside the box.  https://thehill.com/blogs/in-the-know/in-the-know/412063-nebraska-releases-new-slogan-honestly-its-not-for-everyone  See also https://www.kansascity.com/news/nation-world/national/article220207365.html

Todd Bol, the Wisconsin man who founded the Little Free Library, a nonprofit that began with a dollhouse-like box of free books in his front yard and ballooned into an international book-sharing and literacy project, died October 18, 2018 at the age of 62.  Bol designed and built the first Little Free Library at his home in Hudson in 2009 as a tribute to his mother, who was a teacher.  He put up a miniature version of a one-room schoolhouse on a post outside his home, filled it with books and invited neighbors to borrow them.  The boxes have since popped up across the U.S. and in more than 80 countries.  The whimsical boxes, placed mainly in front yards, parks and gardens, are designed to hold 20 to 100 books.  They invite passers-by to “take a book, share a book.”  Bol, a former international business consultant, soon found himself at the head of what became the Little Free Libraries organization.  There are now more than 75,000 registered Little Free Libraries worldwide.  https://www.gazettextra.com/todd-bol-founder-of-little-free-library-book-sharing-dies/article_3ed52d2f-5b09-5fdc-9eda-5ca47e28aec5.html

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1972  October 19, 2019  292nd day of the year

The Meal, Ready-to-Eat--commonly known as the MRE--is a self-contained, individual field ration in lightweight packaging bought by the U.S. Department of Defense for its service members for use in combat or other field conditions where organized food facilities are not available.  While MREs should be kept cool, they do not need to be refrigerated.  MREs replaced the canned MCI, or Meal, Combat, Individual rations, in 1981, and is the intended successor to the lighter LRP ration developed by the United States Army for Special Forces and Ranger patrol units in Vietnam.  MREs have also been distributed to civilians during natural disasters.   Read more and see graphics at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meal,_Ready-to-Eat  MREs are available to the general public from various sources on internet.

Wagyu  mass noun, often as modifier  Any of several breeds of Japanese cattle producing tender, marbled beef that typically contains a high percentage of saturated fat.  The beef obtained from Wagyu cattle.  Origin  Japanese, from wa ‘Japanese’ + gyu ‘cattle, beef’.  Pronunciation  Wagyu  /ˈwɑːɡjuː/  https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/wagyu  NOTE that Wagyu has various pronunciations, among them WAG-you and WOG-you.  See also 7 Japanese Foods You Didn’t Know You Were Pronouncing Wrong by Natsuko Mazany at https://spoonuniversity.com/lifestyle/7-japanese-foods-youve-been-pronouncing-wrong

February 8, 2018  Njideka Akunyili Crosby didn’t pick up a paintbrush until she was 16 years old and was taking a community college class in Philadelphia.  Now she’s 35 and is one of the biggest rising stars in the art world.  Last year she won a MacArthur Genius grant, her paintings sell for millions of dollars to private collectors and museums.  Large-scale reproductions of some of her paintings are now covering the walls of LA’s MOCA building, visible to drivers headed down Grand Avenue.  “Super Blue Omo” is one of the pieces that appears in the MOCA mural.  The title is actually based on a Nigerian commercial for laundry detergent, that Akunyili Crosby remembers from growing up in the 80s.  She described the jingle for “Super Blue Omo” as the soundtrack to her childhood, a song that every Nigerian will recognize.  In Nigeria at that time, most people didn’t have satellite television so there were only a handful of commercials.  “So I probably heard it every 30 minutes from six in the evening to ten at night,” she said.  In her piece, “Super Blue Omo,” her sister sits in a blue room (a reference to the commercial jingle) in front of a Nigerian tea set, inherited from the country’s time as a British colony.  All around her are prints of old family photographs from Akunyili Crosby’s childhood.  “The work is really asking,what is it to be an immigrant?  It is to straddle multiple places at once and carry differing histories with you at the same time.  So I’m trying to make works that speak to that and I’m trying to look at that in-between space.”  Akunyili Crosby’s mural will be up on the MOCA building through the end of 2018.  You can see more of her work at http://www.njidekaakunyili.com/  Gina Pollack   https://curious.kcrw.com/2018/02/njideka-akunyili-crosby-from-nigeria-to-la  The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) is located in Los Angeles.  http://www.virgini.moca.org/visit

The National Book Foundation has announced its 2018 5 Under 35 honorees.  The list is “a selection of debut fiction writers under the age of 25 whose work promises to leave a lasting impression on the literary landscape,” according to the organization.  Nominees are chosen by previous National Book Award winners, finalists and longlisted authors, or writers previously recognized by the 5 Under 35 program.  The 2018 5 Under 35 honorees are as follows:  Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, for his story collection Friday Black; Hannah Lillith Assadi, for her novel Sonora; Akwaeke Emezi, for the novel Freshwater; Lydia Kiesling, for the novel The Golden State; and Moriel Rothman-Zecher, for his novel Sadness Is a White Bird.  The honorees were chosen because of their handling of “issues of race, cultural identity, loyalty, displacement and more,” according to the NBF’s press release.  The honorees will be celebrated at an invitation-only ceremony on November 12, 2018.  They will also receive a $1,000 prize.  Justin Kamp  https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2018/09/national-book-award-releases-list-of-5-under-35-ho.html

Tahini (also tahina, Tehina, Ardeh ), is a condiment made from toasted ground hulled sesame.  Tahini is served as a dip on its own or as a major component of hummus, baba ghanoush, and halva.  Tahini is used in the cuisines of the Eastern Mediterranean, the Caucasus, and the Middle East, as well as parts of North Africa. It is also used in Chinese and Southeast Asian cuisine.  Tahini is a loanword from Arabic.  There is also a sweet spread made from it called Halawa Taḥīniyya, which roughly translates as sweet Tahini.  The word "tahini" appeared in English by the late 1930s.  Plain, unprocessed sesame paste with no added ingredients is sometimes known as raw tahini.   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tahini

See the Mesmerizing Pie Designs Instagram Is Obsessed With--Meet an amateur baker on the rise by Zoe Donaldson   Lauren Ko's exactingly patterned pies and tarts (often studded with motifs like dragon fruit trapezoids and kiwi triangles) belong with the cream of the crop—now she's been catapulted into confectionary stardom.  http://www.oprah.com/food/meet-lauren-ko-the-instagram-famous-pie-baker  See also https://www.lokokitchen.com/  Lauren Ko is a writer, artist, and self-taught baker with roots in San Diego.  She is currently based out of Seattle, WA. 

May 8, 2018  A highly acclaimed documentary about the Greek island of Patmos and the world-famous monastery of St. John the Theologian describes how the history of Patmos and of the Monastery, from the 1st century AD to the Roman era, Byzantium, Ottoman Empire and finally to modern Greece, shaped Western civilization.  It also highlights the fact that during Ottoman rule the Patmos monastery saved much of ancient Greek literature.  Texts of Aristotle, Plutarch, of the three tragic poets and other great ancient classics are today found in the monastery’s library and museum.  Tasos Kokkinidis  https://greece.greekreporter.com/2018/05/08/patmos-the-greek-island-of-revelation-features-in-new-film-video/

Museum and Library in Patmos  The Monastery of St. John the Evangelist along with the Cave of the Apocalypse, are World Heritage monuments by the educational, scientific and cultural organization of the United Nations, UNESCO (Year of membership 1999).  The Monastery of St. John the Evangelist, is the first monument that collaborated with the Google Art Project, so that Internet users can now admire more than 116 artifacts in digital form at https://artsandculture.google.com/partner/patmos-monastery   In the inner narthex of the monastery, visitors can admire the icon of St. John the Evangelist, donated by the emperor Alexios Komninos to Saint Christodoulos.  In the same area, there is a chapel of Virgin Mary with frescoes of the 12th century.  Last but not least, there is a rich library with more than 2,000 texts, 900 codes and 13,000 documents, associated with the history of the monastery and some of the first manuscripts of its founder, Saint Christodoulos.  https://www.patmosaktis.gr/en/location/patmos/sightseeing/159-museum-and-library-of-the-monastery#

Anna Burns won the prestigious Man Booker Prize for fiction October 16, 2018 for "Milkman," a vibrant, violent story about men, women, conflict and power set during Northern Ireland's years of Catholic-Protestant violence.  Burns is the first writer from Northern Ireland to win the 50,000-pound ($66,000) prize, which is open to English-language authors from around the world.  The 56-year-old Belfast-born novelist said she was "stunned" to have won.  Burns said her books took a long time to complete, and she has often struggled financially since her first novel, "No Bones," was released in 2001.  The writer said the germ of "Milkman" came to her in the image of a teenage girl walking down a street in a divided city while reading the novel "Ivanhoe."  https://www.mprnews.org/story/2018/10/16/anna-burns-wins-man-booker-prize-for-milkman

The volcanic eruption that destroyed the ancient Roman city of Pompeii probably took place two months later than previously thought, Italian officials said on October 16, 2018.  Historians have traditionally dated the disaster to Aug. 24 79 AD, but excavations on the vast site in southern Italy have unearthed a charcoal inscription written on a wall that includes a date which corresponds to Oct. 17.  The writing came from an area in a house that was apparently being renovated just before the nearby Mount Vesuvius erupted, burying Pompeii under a thick blanket of ash and rock.  “Being charcoal, fragile and evanescent, which could not last a long time, it is more than likely that it was written in October 79 AD,” said Massimo Osanna, head of the Pompeii site.  The Aug. 24 date derives from an account of the blast given by Pliny the Younger, who witnessed the eruption and wrote about it almost 30 years after the event in two letters to his friend, the Roman historian Tacitus.  However, previous excavations have uncovered a calcified branch bearing berries that normally only come out in autumn.  The discovery of some braziers over the years also suggested the disaster did not strike at the height of summer.  Osanna suggested the correct date might have been Oct. 24.  Giulia Segreti  See pictures at https://www.reuters.com/article/us-italy-pompeii/charcoal-inscription-points-to-date-change-for-pompeii-eruption-idUSKCN1MQ2CR

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1971  October 17, 2018  290th day of the year   

incognito (in disguise or under an assumed name) was traditionally pronounced in-KOG-ni-toh.  A newer standard is in-kog-NEE-toh.  The Oxford Dictionary of American Usage and Style by Bryan A. Garner

brusque (abrupt, terse) rhymes with dusk

Satek (Indiana winery) rhymes with attic

Capri (Italian island) CAH-pree by Italians, usually pronounced kuh-PREE by English speakers  For information on Capri and pictures, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capri

The 13th Amendment to the Constitution declared that "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."  Formally abolishing slavery in the United States, the 13th Amendment was passed by the Congress on January 31, 1865, and ratified by the states on December 6, 1865.  Link to primarty documents at https://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ourdocs/13thamendment.html

April 23, 2016  “Don Quijote de la Mancha is the second most translated book after the Bible” by Norma Saliba u Antonia Micallef  According to Spanish Professor Alfredo Moro, Spanish author Miguel de Cervantes is the most popular author in the world for his popular novel ‘Don Quijote de la Mancha’.  “He was the inventor of the modern novel.  His influence around the world was universal.  We are currently working on a project where we are assembling all the translations of Don Quijote in many languages all around the world and we have one language per chapter”, Prof. Alfredo Moro, who is Assistent Lecturer at the Cantabria Spanish University said.  Prof. Moro said that after only eight years of its publication, Don Quijote was being translated in other languages.  Cervantes, who had left a great impact on the Spanish language with the Don Quijote publication, was born on the 29th September 1547 and died on the 22 April 1616.  The Don Quijote literary work is the best of his works and is considered as the first modern European novel in the Western classic literature.  His works include the Novelas ejemplares (Exemplary Novels) in 1613, Viaje al Parnaso (Journey to Parnassus) in 1614, Ocho comedias y ocho entremeses and the second part of Don Quijote in 1615.  The last literary work of Cervantes was Los trabajos de Persiles y Sigismunda (The Works of Persiles and Sigismunda), published in 1617.   https://www.tvm.com.mt/en/news/don-quijote-de-la-mancha-is-the-second-most-translated-book-after-the-bible/

Don Quixote translations  In 1687, John Phillips, one of John Milton’s nephews and the author of an attack on Oliver Cromwell and Puritanism, translated Cervantes’ novel.  His critics, and they are plentiful, contend his work is barely an approximation.  Phillips didn’t use the Spanish original.  He based it, as was his custom in general, on a French translation by Filleau de Saint-Martin.  The effect is like drinking fresh water from a plastic bottle.  Unsurprisingly, Samuel Putnam, himself a translator of the novel, who in my estimation has produced one of the best English-language renditions, published in 1949, called it the worst English translation ever made of a famous novel.  Among the most famous renditions is that of Peter Anthony (aka Pierre Antoine) Motteux, published in 1700.  After the revocation of the Edict of Nantes sent French Protestants abroad, Motteux, a native of Rouen, moved to England, where he became editor of the Gentleman’s Journal.   By the end of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first, the quality standards of translation were notably higher.  The development of scholarship on literary matters, and the rise of translation as a legitimate, if poorly remunerated profession, raised the standards of quality.  The work of John Rutherford (2000), Edith Grossman (2003), and Tom Lathrop (2005) is proof of it.  https://www.neh.gov/humanities/2008/septemberoctober/feature/one-master-many-cervantes  After looking at the first few sentences of several translations of Don Quixote, the Muser selected the Samuel Putnam translation because it was "earthy" and not contrived.  With new translations out since I read the novel, I might try the Edith Grossman translation.

According to Martin Chilton, Culture Editor of The Telegraph (UK newspaper) Don Quixote is the most mispronounced literary name.  Don Quixote is the 17th-century character created by Miguel de Cervantes.  If you're one of the 44% of readers who have been been pronouncing the knight's name as "Don Quicks-Oat" then it's time to learn the correct way:  "Don-Key-Hoh-Tee".  Find a list of the ten most mispronounced literary characters at https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/what-to-read/don-quixote-top-mispronounced-literary-name/

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (1892–1973) was a major scholar of the English language, specialising in Old and Middle English.  Twice Professor of Anglo-Saxon (Old English) at the University of Oxford, he also wrote a number of stories, including most famously The Hobbit (1937) and The Lord of the Rings (1954–1955), which are set in a pre-historic era in an invented version of our world which he called by the Middle English name of Middle-earth.  The name “Tolkien” is pronounced Tol-keen with equal stress on both syllables.  David Doughan  https://www.tolkiensociety.org/author/biography/

The 27-year-old British novelist Daisy Johnson has become the youngest writer ever to be shortlisted for the Man Booker prize, with her novel Everything Under, about a troubled mother-daughter relationship that reimagines Greek myth in modern Britain.  It is one of six novels on a shortlist described by the chair of judges as reflecting the “dark times” we live in.   American novelists Rachel Kushner and Richard Powers were also nominated:  Kushner for The Mars Room, which takes on gender and class in a story of poverty and incarceration; and the National Book Award-winning Powers for The Overstory, about nine strangers trying to save a continent’s last few acres of virgin forest.  The shortlist is completed with Scottish poet Robin Robertson’s first novel The Long Take, told in verse about a D-Day veteran with post-traumatic stress disorder.  The winner will be announced on 16 October 2018 at a dinner in London’s Guildhall.  Alison Flood  https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/sep/20/man-booker-2018-shortlist-daisy-johnson-anna-burns-rachel-kushner-richard-powers-esi-edugyan-robin-robertson   The Man Booker Prize was established in 1969.  The winner receives £50,000 as well as the £2,500 awarded to each of the shortlisted authors.  Both the winner and the shortlisted authors are guaranteed a worldwide readership plus an increase in book sales.  https://themanbookerprize.com/fiction

October 12, 2018  Norman Rockwell's Vision of the Four Freedoms Left Some People Out.  These Artists Are Trying to Fill Those Gaps by Lily Rothman  Today, 75 years later, those four images—Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Worship, Freedom From Want, Freedom From Fear—remain some of history’s most iconic visual representations of the American idea.  But they were always more aspiration than reality.  One gap between Rockwell’s images and reality was obvious to artist Hank Willis Thomas and photographer Emily Shur.  Though the four original images contain a relatively large cast of characters—including specific representations of Protestantism, Catholicism and Judaism in the “Freedom of Worship” tableau—that group barely brushes against the depth of American diversity at the time, much less today.  In 2016, Thomas and co-founder Eric Gottesman launched a non-partisan organization they called For Freedoms, with the idea of helping artists get involved in civic issues.  Last year, Thomas recruited Shur, a friend, to help him finally bring its eponymous project to life—“to make a portrait of the America that we live in,” as Thomas puts it.  Photographer Wyatt Gallery also was also asked to help as a producer on the project.)  Over the course of two separate shoots, they invited friends, acquaintances and near-strangers to pose for photographic recreations of the original paintings.  Though they were worried nobody would show up, they say something “clicked” once people realized the import of the project, and the word began to spread.  All told, more than 100 participants came through the studio—including celebrities, such as the actor and activist Rosario Dawson, and people with personal connections to the freedoms, such as the Japanese-American filmmaker Robert A. Nakamura, who spent time as a child in an internment camp. Their varied cast included Native Americans, trans people, immigrants,  activists and many others, as they strove to find representatives of as many meanings of “American” as possible.  A select portfolio of Four Freedoms sets will form the backbone of a national billboard campaign that is part of For Freedoms’ 50 State Initiative, a national “creative collaboration,” launched in September, which aims to use public art, exhibitions and community meetings as platforms for civic life.  (The Norman Rockwell Museum is also holding its own commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the images, including a separate set of “reimaginings” of the images by contemporary artists.)  http://time.com/longform/four-freedoms/  Thank you, Muse reader!

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1970  October 16, 2018, 289th day of the year  Word of the Day  aquaponics  noun  A sustainable food production system that combines traditional aquaculture with hydroponics, with effluent from the water in which fish are reared being used as nutrition for plants.  Today is recognized by the United Nations as World Food Day to highlight the importance of food security and good nutrition, and the need for action.