Everything You Need to Know About George R.R. Martin’s Nightflyers by Natalie Zutter  George R.R. Martin writes in the “Oldies But Goodies” section of his official website, “ . . .  I had been a professional writer for twenty-five years when A Game of Thrones was published in 1996.”  Before he set sail for Westeros, before he had even begun constructing the intricate history of ASOIAF, Martin was exploring the far reaches of space writing sci-fi/horror hybrids in another self-created universe known as the “Thousand Worlds.”  In this GRRM-verse exists Nightflyers, a “haunted spaceship” novella that is being resurrected as a television series on Syfy.   forty years ago, Nightflyers has existed in many forms:  novella, expanded novella, movie, and now a TV show that will turn a story into an ongoing series.   Nightflyers, as well as the Hugo and Nebula-winning novelette Sandkings, was the direct result of a writer being told he couldn’t do something: “  [T]he inspiration for both of those stories,” Martin explained, “was a statement I read somewhere by a critic, to the effect that SF and horror was opposites, and fundamentally incompatible.  As a lifelong fan of both, that assertion struck me as nonsense, so I set out to prove it wrong by blending the two genres together.  Worked out pretty well for me.”  The original version, clocking in at 23,000 words, was published in Analog Science Fiction and Fact in 1980.  The next year, Martin expanded the novella to 30,000 words so that it could be included in Dell’s Binary Star series, which pairs two works in one book; Nightflyers joined Vernor Vinge’s cyberpunk novella True Names.  The later Nightflyers, which was also published in Bluejay Books’ 1985 collection, is Martin’s preferred version.  In 1981, Nightflyers was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novella.  While it did not win the Hugo, it did win the Locus Award (for Best Novella) and the 1983 Seiun Award in Japan (for foreign short fiction).  Read extensive article with pictures at

 https://www.tor.com/2018/03/27/everything-you-need-to-know-about-george-r-r-martins-nightflyers/

How to Talk to People, According to Terry Gross  The NPR host offers 8 spicy tips for having better conversations.  “Tell me about yourself,” a.k.a the only icebreaker you’ll ever need.  The beauty in opening with “tell me about yourself” is that it allows you to start a conversation without the fear that you’re going to inadvertently make someone uncomfortable or self-conscious.  Posing a broad question lets people lead you to who they are.  As an interviewer, Ms. Gross’s goal is to find out how her subject became who they are; as a conversationalist, make that goal your own.  A good conversationalist is somebody who is fun to talk to,” she said.  Ms. Gross, it’s worth noting, is very funny.  If you can’t be funny, being mentally organized, reasonably concise and energetic will go a long way in impressing people.  Jolie Kerr  Read more at https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/17/style/self-care/terry-gross-conversation-advice.html   See also The Would-Be Lyricist:  In conversation with NPR's Terry Gross at https://www.comnetwork.org/insights/terrygross/

Silent Night might be one of the sweetest Christmas carols there is, but following the trail of the man who wrote it exactly 200 years ago involves an unexpectedly macabre twist.  "The skull is embedded behind there," says guide Sepp Greimel, pointing at a nativity scene over the altar of the chapel we're stood in.  The skull, mercifully not visible, belongs to Josef Mohr, Catholic priest and joint composer of the Christmas carol that has been translated from its original "Stille Nacht" into more languages than there are countries in the United Nations.  Its final resting place, the small Austrian town of Oberndorf bei Salzburg, is aptly named for his most famous verse:  the Silent Night chapel.  From the top of a nearby levee, the river Salzach can be seen making a large U-bend only a few hundred yards from the chapel.  Beyond it, the picturesque town of Laufen lies over the border in Germany.  They had both prospered from the river trade in salt, especially since a large boulder in the bend, known as Nocken, forced barges to stop here, unload and reload.  The Salzach was the blessing of the two towns, but also, thanks to frequent floods, their curse--hence the levee.  "There was a terrible flood here in 1899," Greimel says, his voice trembling as if he'd experienced it himself.  "It destroyed the old Oberndorf center.  "The villagers then decided to build a new church 600 yards to the south, on higher ground."  It was an earlier flood that was responsible for "Silent Night."  For the full story, it's time to go back to the beginning.  The Oberndorf museum at the old parsonage opposite the Silent Night chapel picks up the story with its exhibits focusing on that Christmas Eve, 1818.  The church organist at the time was Franz Xaver Gruber, a schoolteacher only five years older than Mohr, who worked in the village of Arnsdorf three miles north.  As floodwaters from the Salzach had been regularly inundating Oberndorf--including the church of St Nicholas--water damage had left the organ in need of a visit from the tuner.  To provide alternative music, Mohr picked up a poem he'd written and asked Gruber to put it to music for guitar and two voices.  Gruber knocked it out in an afternoon.  Although Gruber had a portrait painted during his rather successful lifetime, there was no image left of Mohr, who died young.  To create a likeness, a sculptor, Josef Muehlbacher, had Mohr's skull exhumed from his grave in the village of Wagrein, the priest's last posting.  All the portraits we have of him, including those in the Silent Night chapel, are Muehlbacher's imagined impressions.  For whatever reasons, the skull never found its way back to Wagrein, and is interred behind the nativity scene in the Silent Night chapel meaning, somewhat ironically, that his remains have not been left to sleep in heavenly peace.  John Malathronas  https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/silent-night-salzburg/index.html  Thank you, Muse reader!

In 1859, John Freeman Young, second Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Florida, published the English translation of Silent Night that is most frequently sung today.  The common melody we know today differs slightly from Gruber's original (particularly in the final strain) which was an up tempo, dance-like tune in 6/8 time versus the slow, melodic lullaby version generally sung today.  The original manuscript has been lost; however, a manuscript in Mohr's handwriting which has been dated by researchers as ca. 1820, was discovered in 1995.  The melody of "Stille Nacht" bears resemblance to aspects of Austrian folk music and yodelling showing the influence of the musical tradition of Gruber's rural roots.  Another popular story claims that, once performed, the carol was promptly forgotten until an organ repairman found the manuscript in 1825 and revived it.  The manuscript by Mohr dated 1820 and the fact that Gruber published various arrangements of the carol throughout his lifetime would seem to discount this story as another romantic legend.  Mohr's manuscript is kept at the Museum Carolino Augusteum in Salzburg.  See graphics at http://unforgettablechristmasmusic.blogspot.com/2012/02/history-of-song-silent-night.html

NEWS IN BRIEF  New York Motorists Vote To Shift Wreaths That Have Infuriated Them For Years  The Holland Tunnel connects lower Manhattan with Jersey City, N.J.  For decades, the decorations that adorn this landmark tunnel during the holiday season have been driving some commuters nuts.  https://www.npr.org/2018/12/17/677504185/new-york-motorists-vote-to-shift-wreaths-that-have-infuriated-them-for-years  Connecticut-based internet service provider Charter Spectrum has been ordered to pay customers $62 million in a fraud settlement after the state attorney general found it had misled customers by advertising internet speeds it couldn’t deliver.  According to a December 18, 2018 announcement, it’s the largest consumer refund from an ISP in US history.  The total consumer fraud settlement is $174.2 million, the rest of which will come in the form of premium channels and streaming services.  Individuals will receive between $75 and $150 each.  https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/nepmj7/ny-state-residents-will-get-dollar625-million-in-settlement-for-terrible-broadband  A petition accusing Disney of "colonialism and robbery" for trademarking a phrase used in the film The Lion King has attracted more than 30,000 signatures.  "Hakuna matata" means "no problem" or "no worries" in the Swahili language, which is spoken across East Africa.  Disney first applied to trademark the catchphrase in 1994--the same year it released The Lion King animation.  https://www.bbc.com/news/world-46605515  A Kentucky radio station has decided to show its support for the newly controversial song “Baby, It’s Cold Outside,” by playing it on repeat for two hours.  https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/radio-station-supports-baby-cold-outside-playing-repeat-two-hours-straight-220515962.html   This year's winter solstice is special, as it falls on the night of December’s Full Cold Moon, December 21, 2018.  Although the moon will not peak until the following night, December 22, for most people around the world, a near full moon will be visible for many nights during this time period. The last time these events coincided was 2010, and according to The Farmer's Almanac, the next time a full moon will actually peak during a winter solstice won’t be until 2094.  https://people.com/home/winter-solstice-2018/

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  December 19, 2018  Issue 2007  353rd day of the year

Lots of the cornmeal we now have in our pantries is industrial-milled, yellow, fine-grained and missing in corn taste, not like the coarser, white and, sure, sweeter stuff that was once frequent.  Small producers resembling Anson Mills focus on that heritage kind of cornmeal, which is why cooks who use it can get away with a basic sugar-free corn bread.  A fast and simple recipe comes from cookbook writer Elinor Klivans.  The cooled corn bread could be tightly wrapped in plastic or saved in an hermetic container at room temperature for as much as a day.  Reheat, lined with aluminum foil, in a 275-degree oven for about 15 minutes, or till warmed by means of.  For long-term storage, tightly wrap in plastic, place in a zip-top bag and freeze for as much as a number of months.  Find recipe at Tailored from Quick Breads: 50 Recipes for Straightforward, Scrumptious Bread by Elinor Klivans (Chronicle Books, 2010).  https://www.pressmask.com/2018/11/21/corn-bread-is-a-divisive-topic-this-recipe-just-might-bring-us-a-little-closer-together-the-denver-post/

Dear Quote Investigator:  The prominent American literary figure Henry James apparently crafted an expression with a three-fold repetition of the phrase “be kind”.  The influential children’s television personality Fred Rogers has been credited with a similar statement.  Would you please explore this topic?

Quote Investigator:  A landmark biography of Henry James provides substantive evidence that he did construct this saying.  There is also evidence that Fred Rogers employed an instance of this remark; however, Rogers credited James.  Henry James died in 1916, and in 1953 Leon Edel released the first installment of his monumental five volume biography of James.  The final book titled “Henry James:  The Master:  1901-1916” appeared in 1972.  In February 1972 the Chicago Tribune published an evaluation of the fifth biographical volume.  The reviewer reprinted the remark ascribed to Henry James but also highlighted the complexity of the author’s behavior:  James’s kindness was limited in only one respect.  Concerning the fiction produced by even the dearest of his friends he was the all-out professional; when people sent him their novels he assumed they did not want banal compliments in place of criticism.  The reviewer asserted that the harsh critical words directed at H. G. Wells by James eventually led to the rupture of their friendship and a counterattack.  Wells published a novel titled “Boon” which caricatured Henry James.  The two famously feuded about the purpose and nature of literature and the arts.  https://quoteinvestigator.com/2018/09/21/kind/

45-Minute Roast Turkey  In 2002, Mark Bittman published this revolutionary approach to roasting the Thanksgiving turkey, which allows you to cut the cooking time of the average turkey by about 75 percent while still presenting an attractive bird.  Simply cut out the backbone—or ask your butcher to do it for you—and spread the bird out flat before roasting, a technique known as spatchcocking that is commonly used with chickens.  Roasted at 450 degrees, a 10-pound bird will be done in about 45 minutes.  Really.  It will also be more evenly browned (all of the skin is exposed to the heat), more evenly cooked, and moister than birds cooked conventionally.  https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/543-45-minute-roast-turkey

Crisp-Skinned Spatchcocked (Butterflied) Roast Turkey With Gravy Recipe  J. KENJI LÓPEZ-ALT  Spatchcocking is a method of removing the turkey's backbone to flatten its body prior to putting in the oven.  This flatter shape ensures that the meat cooks more evenly and more quickly, allowing the legs to reach a safe temperature without overcooking the breast.  The result is hands-down the easiest, most reliable route to a juicy, moist turkey with incredibly crisp skin.  12-14 pound turkey serves 10-12  https://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2012/11/butterfiled-roast-turkey-with-gravy-recipe.html

Butterflied Turkey with Herb Glaze and Chardonnay Gravy  https://www.williams-sonoma.com/recipe/butterflied-turkey-with-herb-glaze-and-chardonnay-gravy.html

An allusion is a quick indirect mention of something.  Illusions are tricks. Your eye can be fooled by an optical illusion, and Dorothy and the gang get to the bottom of the Wizard's illusion and discover he's just a regular guy.  A delusion is a belief in something despite the fact that it's completely untrue. 

https://www.vocabulary.com/articles/chooseyourwords/allusion-illusion-delusion/

Life in Paradise:  Do you know where it is?  I really do live, legally and physically, in Paradise, Nevada by Steve Fey   The United States Census calls Paradise Township a Census Designated Place (CDP).  That means that you can look up the population, demographics, and even a map of Paradise, Nevada on the Census Bureau Web Site.  Paradise Township became the largest unincorporated town in the United States in 1950.  The reason they made Paradise Township was because the mayor of Las Vegas was pressing for annexation of the Las Vegas Strip.  This was not in the interests of the owners of the newly thriving businesses along the Las Vegas Strip, so those owners, some of whom were mob connected, managed to get a law passed in Nevada forbidding a city from annexing an unincorporated town.  Then all they had to do was form a new township and Las Vegas could forget about annexing the Las Vegas Strip.  The stratagem worked, so that, ironically, very little of what most tourists come to Las Vegas to see is actually in the City of Las Vegas.  https://living-las-vegas.com/2010/02/where-is-paradise/

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  December 18, 2018  Issue 2006  352nd day of the year

Horace Fletcher (1849-1919), nicknamed "The Great Masticator," was a well known and influential food and health faddist in early 20th century North America.  As a man of virtually limitless energy, Fletcher became a world traveler, millionaire businessman, amateur painter, speaker, and author, and self-taught nutritionist who perfected and fanatically distributed his doctrine of "Fletcherism," for 24 years (from 1895 to 1919).  This dogma taught that all food must be deliberately masticated and not swallowed until it turned to liquid.  Fletcher believed that prolonged chewing precluded overeating, led to better systemic and dental health, helped to reduce food intake, and consequently, conserved money.  People were cautioned not to eat except when they were "good and hungry," and to avoid dining when they were angry or worried.  They were also told that they could eat any food that they wanted, as long as they chewed it until the "food swallowed itself."  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9693596  See also Chew, Chew, Chew! by DEBORAH FRANKLIN at  https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2009/07/chew_chew_chew.html

How to Make Parched Corn  Americans spend millions of dollars on pricey power bars, but Native Americans and the early pioneers already knew how to make an easy nutritious snack.  Parched corn was staple of early Americans and today it is the perfect pick-me-up for any outdoor activity.  Follow directions to whip up a batch of the original American energy food at https://www.ehow.com/how_2100129_make-parched-corn.html  See also Parched Corn and Rye Coffee:  Eating as a Civil War Soldier by JENNIFER BILLOCK 

at https://www.seriouseats.com/2015/03/civil-war-history-food-what-soldiers-ate.html

helter-skelter  In chaotic and disorderly haste.  Also the name of an English fairground attraction with a spiral slide.  The term long pre-dates the fairground ride and has been used to mean disorderly haste or confusion since at least the 16th century.  Thomas Nashe used it that way in his 'Four letters confuted', 1592:  "Helter skelter, feare no colours, course him, trounce him."  ('To confute' is, or rather was, as it has been used only rarely since the 17th century, 'to render futile', 'to prove an argument to be false'.) Helter-skelter has been in common use in England for the past 400 years and has been known in the USA since the 1820s.  Neither helter nor skelter had any meaning in themselves.  Like many word pairs of this sort (called rhyming reduplications), they only exist as part of the pair--although skelter was used alone later, but only as a shortened form of helter-skelter.  Read more at https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/helter-skelter.html

Christmas Stories  (over 100 stories, books, poems, and carols)  includes short descriptions and graphics  https://americanliterature.com/christmas

"CHRISTMAS COMET" COMETH  You can expect a ghostly green blob to grow brighter in the sky near Orion in the coming days, as Comet 46P/Wirtanen makes it closest approach to the Earth in 20 years.  Shining just bright enough to be glimpsed with the naked eye, this fuzzy visitor of ice and rock will be easily visible through late December 2018.  NASA has even sponsored an observing campaign (led by the University of Maryland) to track the comet with professional and amateur astronomical groups.  The comet will make its closest approach on Sunday (December 16), flying by just 7,199,427 miles from our planet.  That's about 30 times the distance to the moon.  It sounds far away, but in celestial terms, this is a close flyby—among the 10 closest cometary approaches since 1950, according to Space.com skywatching columnist Joe Rao.  Wirtanen is one of three comets that astronomer Carl Wirtanen discovered in 1948.  It makes flybys of Earth every 5.4 years, cycling in a short orbit that makes it a part of the Jupiter-class family of comets.  These constant swings by the sun come with a cost.  Wirtanen is largely made up of ices, and with the comet's repeated passes by our star, that ice has bled off over the eons—eliminating any hope of a bright tail caused by lots of material released at once.  Also, Wirtanen has a small nucleus.  The Hubble Space Telescope examined Wirtanen in 1996 and found a tiny core of only seven-tenths of a mile,  one of the smallest cometary nuclei we know of.  Elizabeth Howell  Read more and see pictures at https://www.space.com/42751-see-comet-46p-wirtanen-earth-flyby-december-2018.html

EASY CRANBERRY SAUCE - MICROWAVE  Recipe by Kittencalrecipezazz at https://www.geniuskitchen.com/recipe/easy-cranberry-sauce-microwave-73874  I had this last night at a buffet, and it is very good--beautiful too.  A note from the hostess:  "Mine = 1 cup of sugar.  I used plain water, but the recipe does allow orange juice substitution.  I have done both.  I did not use any orange rind.  It can be microwaved (8 min approx) or brought to a boil covered on the stove top.  I recommend using a pan larger than you think it looks like you should need because it wants to really bubble up.  If it boils over it is an incredible sticky mess for clean up.  I have another recipe from a long ago trip to Napa that calls for zinfandel or pinot noir.  I've done it a few times but prefer the simplicity of the original 3 ingredient recipe we had Sunday."

TRIVIA  The Times of London reports Rocco, an African grey parrot, has been using Amazon Alexa to shop online while his owner was away.  https://www.wfla.com/news/viral-news/sneaky-parrot-uses-amazon-alexa-to-shop-while-owner-is-away/1662596515  The Largest Known Diamond in North America Has Been Found Below Canada's Arctic

https://www.sciencealert.com/north-america-s-largest-known-diamond-has-been-unearthed-in-the-canadian-arctic  Bankrupt Sears to pay $25.3 million in bonuses to executives

https://www.ajc.com/news/national/bankrupt-sears-pay-million-bonuses-executives/ynm2Dcmd08rbztrBDB8DPP/  Kiwibot delivery robot catches fire after 'human error'

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-46593190

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  December 17, 2018  Issue 2005  351st day of the year

Negotiation and Mediation Concepts and Terminology  by John Wade   Negative intimacy is the psychological state of enjoying the conflict (colloquially, a "conflict junkie" or "resentnik").  Someone who is negatively intimate will undermine settlement, and continue the conflict at almost any cost.  It gives him/her a meaning to life.  Find other mediation terms at https://www.mediate.com/articles/bondV2sept99.cfm  Resentnik has been used at least since 1994.

The English suffix -nik is of Slavic origin.  It approximately corresponds to the suffix "-er" and nearly always denotes an agent noun (that is, it describes a person related to the thing, state, habit, or action described by the word to which the suffix is attached).  In the cases where a native English language coinage may occur, the "-nik"-word often bears an ironic connotation.  The suffix existed in English in a dormant state for a long time, in borrowed terms.  An example is raskolnik, recorded by the Oxford English Dictionary as known since 1723.  There have been two main waves of the introduction of this suffix into English language.  The first was driven by Yinglish words contributed by Yiddish speakers from Eastern Europe.  The second surge was observed after the launch of the first Sputnik satellite by the Soviet Union on October 4, 1957.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/-nik

Utopia (Libellus vere aureus, nec minus salutaris quam festivus, de optimo rei publicae statu deque nova insula Utopia) is a work of fiction and socio-political satire by Thomas More (1478–1535) published in 1516 in Latin.  The book is a frame narrative primarily depicting a fictional island society and its religious, social and political customs.  The original name was even longer:  Libellus vere aureus, nec minus salutaris quam festivus, de optimo rei publicae statu deque nova insula Utopia.  This translates, "A truly golden little book, no less beneficial than entertaining, of a republic's best state and of the new island Utopia".  "Utopia" is derived from the Greek prefix "ou-" (οὐ), meaning "not", and topos (τόπος), "place", with the suffix -iā (-ία) that is typical of toponyms; hence the name literally means "nowhere", emphasizing its fictionality.  In early modern English, Utopia was spelled "Utopie", which is today rendered Utopy in some editions.  A common misunderstanding has that "Utopia" is derived from eu- (eὐ), "good", and "topos", such that it would literally translate as "good place".  In English, Utopia is pronounced exactly as Eutopia (the latter word, in Greek Εὐτοπία [Eutopiā], meaning “good place,” contains the prefix εὐ- [eu-], "good", with which the οὐ of Utopia has come to be confused in the English pronunciation).  This is something that More himself addresses in an addendum to his book Wherfore not Utopie, but rather rightely my name is Eutopie, a place of felicitie.  Read more and see graphics at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utopia_(book)

Quinine  The original antimalarial agent, quinine took its name from the Peruvian Indian word "kina" meaning "bark of the tree" referring to the cinchona tree.  From this tree, quinine was first obtained  The Peruvian Indians called it "the fever tree."  Quinine, a large and complex molecule, is the most important alkaloid found in cinchona bark.  Until World War I, it was the only effective treatment for malaria.  In fact, quinine was the first chemical compound to be successfully used to treat an infectious disease.  Quinine was isolated in crystalline form in 1820 by J.B. Caventou and P.J. Pelletier.  In one of the classical achievements of synthetic organic chemistry, R.B. Woodward and W. Doering first made synthetic quinine in 1944.  Quinine acts by interfering with the growth and reproduction of the Plasmodium, the malarial parasite that lives within the victim's red blood cells.  Quinine causes the parasites to disappear from the blood and the symptoms of the disease are thereby alleviated.  However, when quinine treatment ends, many patients relapse.  They suffer another attack of malaria due to the failure of quinine to kill the malarial parasites in cells of the body other than the red blood cells.  These parasites persist and, after a time, they reinvade the red blood cells and precipitate the relapse.  Since quinine does not permanently cure malaria, better drugs were sought.  A number were discovered that replaced quinine during and after World War II.  Some of these drugs (such as chloroquine and chloroguanide) are more effective than quinine in suppressing the growth of the blood forms of the malarial parasite.  Others (such as primaquine and pyrimethamine) act upon both the blood and tissue phases of the parasite, producing a complete cure and preventing a relapse.  Quinine has been used outside of malaria as a remedy for fever and pain and to treat and prevent leg cramps.  Prolonged administration of quinine may produce toxic symptoms such as deafness, disturbances in vision, skin rashes, and digestive upsets.  https://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=5178

Sleep, a meditative eight-hour contemporary classical symphony, is performed overnight while the audience is tucked in and preferably sleeping.  That’s right, Max Richter actually wants people to sleep through his concert.  Sleep was released in 2015 as a set of eight albums alongside a condensed From Sleep standalone album.  Despite being an enormous feat to pull off, Richter chooses to perform the full eight-hour version, and intersperses occasional Sleep performances with those for his latest album, Three Worlds:  Music from Woolf Works, which comprises his composition for Royal Ballet choreographer Wayne McGregor’s lauded Woolf Works.  Richter, who was born in West Germany but grew up in England, is also building a fine resume in film and TV score work.  Recent works include his music for Hostiles, starring Christian Bale; the Matthew McConaughey-starring White Boy Rick; and for Mary Queen of Scots, which stars Saoirse Ronan and Margot Robbie.  These pieces join his hauntingly beautiful soundtrack to HBO’s The Leftovers.  https://www.sxsw.com/world/profile/2018/exploring-science-sleep-max-richter/

This might very well be the ultimate lullaby.  Right at the start of the 2018 SXSW Music Festival, Max Richter's eight-hour composition Sleep was performed overnight to an audience tucked into 150 beds.  The audience slept, dreamed and sometimes snored through this trance-inducing experience.  Link to 11:51 video at https://www.npr.org/2018/03/17/589337022/south-x-lullaby-max-richter

Will tonic water prevent nighttime leg cramps?  Q.  It's been suggested that drinking 2 to 3 ounces of tonic water before bedtime can prevent leg cramps at night.  Is that true?  A.  Tonic water—and the quinine it contains—have been promoted for preventing leg cramps for decades despite the lack of evidence that they are effective.  Quinine is FDA-approved only for treating malaria and is sold with a warning against using it to treat leg cramps or muscle pain, because it increases the risk of bleeding and heart rhythm disturbances.  Tonic water contains no more than 83 mg of quinine per liter—a much lower concentration than the 500 to 1,000 mg in the therapeutic dose of quinine tablets.  Drinking a few ounces of tonic water shouldn't be harmful, but it isn't likely to prevent your leg cramps.  There are a few other things you can do, however.  Because cramps are often caused by dehydration, make sure to get enough fluids.  But avoid caffeinated and alcoholic beverages, which are dehydrating.  (Don't mix gin with that tonic!)  Stretching during the day or before bed may also help prevent them.  Once a cramp starts, getting out of bed and standing on the affected leg may abort it.  Using ice or heat and gently massaging the affected muscle may provide some relief.  Hope Ricciotti, M.D., and Hye-Chun Hur, M.D., M.P.H. Editors in Chief, Harvard Women's Health Watch

https://www.health.harvard.edu/bone-and-muscle-health/will-tonic-water-prevent-nighttime-leg-cramps

We set out to create a vibrant pearl barley salad with a balance of sweetness, tang, and nuttiness.  First, we had to find a consistent cooking method for the barley.  We turned to what we call the “pasta method,” in which we simply boil the grains until tender.  Inspired by the flavors of Egypt, we incorporated toasty pistachios, tangy pomegranate molasses, and bright cilantro, all balanced by warm spices and golden raisins.  Salty feta cheese, pungent scallions, and pomegranate seeds adorned the dish for a colorful composed salad with dynamic flavors and textures.  Find recipe at https://thecookscook.com/recipes/egyptian-barley-salad/  Thank you, Muse reader!

How to Open a Pesky Pistachio Nut by TechShopJim   Grab a discarded pistachio nut shell half, and stick the top of the small end into the partially-opened pistachio.  With the shell top inserted into the crack, twist the shell half like you would turn a screwdriver.  Clockwise or counterclockwise directions both work.  As you twist, the shell will separate with a loud report as if by magic.  https://www.instructables.com/id/How-To-Open-a-Pesky-Pistachio-Nut/  A small screwdriver works just as well if not better in opening pistachios.

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  December 14, 2018  Issue 2004   348th day of the year

The Ig Nobel Prize is a parody of the Nobel Prize awarded every autumn to celebrate ten unusual or trivial achievements in scientific research.  Since 1991, the Ig Nobel Prizes have been awarded to "honor achievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think."  The name of the award is a pun on the word ignoble, which means "characterized by baseness, lowness, or meanness," and is satirical social criticism that identifies "absurd" research, although, occasionally, such research has succeeded in yielding useful knowledge.  Organized by the scientific humor magazine, the Annals of Improbable Research (AIR), the Ig Nobel Prizes are presented by Nobel laureates in a ceremony at the Sanders Theater, Harvard University, and are followed by the winners’ public lectures at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.  The Ig Nobels were created in 1991 by Marc Abrahams, editor and co-founder of the Annals of Improbable Research, editor-in-chief of the Journal of Irreproducible Results and master of ceremonies at all subsequent awards ceremonies.  Awards were presented at that time for discoveries "that cannot, or should not, be reproduced".  Ten prizes are awarded each year in many categories, including the Nobel Prize categories of physics, chemistry, physiology/medicine, literature, and peace, but also other categories such as public health, engineering, biology, and interdisciplinary research.  The Ig Nobel Prizes recognize genuine achievements, with the exception of three prizes awarded in the first year to fictitious scientists Josiah S. Carberry, Paul DeFanti, and Thomas Kyle.  In 2010, Sir Andre Geim, who had been awarded an Ig Nobel Prize in 2000 for levitating a frog by magnetism, was awarded a Nobel Prize in physics in 2010, for his work with graphene.  He thereby became the first (and only) individual to have received both a Nobel and an Ig Nobel.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ig_Nobel_Prize

Who organizes the Ig Nobel Prizes? — The Ig Nobel Prizes are organized by the magazine Annals of Improbable Research.  The ceremony is co-sponsored by the Harvard-Radcliffe Society of Physics Studentsand the Harvard-Radcliffe Science Fiction Association.  Who has won this prize? — Ten Ig Nobel prizes have been awarded each year since 1991.  The winners page contains a complete list. 

How do I find out about past years? — The Ig Archive page collects details, videos, and links from past ceremonies.  Can I nominate someone for an Ig Nobel prize?— Of course!  For details on how the nomination process works, please read here.  https://www.improbable.com/ig/ 

Confessions of a Wasteful Scientist | David Hu | TEDxEmory  Dr. David Hu is a mechanical engineer who studies the interactions of animals with water.  His team has discovered how dogs shake dry, how insects walk on water, and how eyelashes protect the eyes from drying.  Originally from Rockville, Maryland, he earned degrees in mathematics and mechanical engineering from M.I.T., and is now Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Biology and Adjunct Professor of Physics at Georgia Tech.  He is a recipient of the National Science Foundation CAREER award for young scientists, the Ig Nobel Prize in Physics, and the Pineapple Science Prize (the Ig Nobel of China).  He serves on the editorial board of Nature Scientific Reports and The Journal of Experimental Biology.  His work has been featured in The Economist, The New York Times, Saturday Night Live, and Highlights for Children.  He has defended basic research in a Scientific American article, Confessions of a Wasteful Scientist.  He lives with his wife Jia and children Harry and Heidi in Atlanta, Georgia.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7FYw8Bd964  18:46

THE CLOCK WITH NO FIVE, a true story recounted by Martha Esbin  The little boy loved to sit in front of the grandfather's clock.  It chimed every fifteen minutes, and when he heard a signalling click that the chime was about to play, he was so excited.  So she got him a small alarm clock, wrapped it in pretty paper and placed it under the Christmas tree.  But the alarm rang, so she unwrapped it, planning to stop the ringing.  At that point, a very observant person said "Do you see something odd about this clock?"  I didn't, but he pointed out there was no five.  She took it back the store and said "Do you see something odd about this clock?"  The clerks didn't.  She point out the lack of a five and said she'd like to trade the clock for one with a five.  But not one of the matching clocks in the store had a five. 

Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood On The Music Of 'Phantom Thread'  Lots of kids dream of growing up to be rock stars.  Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood was no different—though his interest was less in the glory and more in the intricacies of craft.  "I was obsessed with bands," the British multi-instrumentalist says, "and would always listen to my favorite records wondering, 'How do you write that kind of music?' more than, 'How do you play guitar solos?'  It was all about how you arrange music."  As it turned out, he's learned to do both (in one of the world's biggest rock bands, no less).  But beyond his many years with Radiohead, in the past decade Greenwood has quietly made a name for himself as a composer, most notably of scores for the films of Paul Thomas Anderson.  Phantom Thread starring Daniel Day-Lewis is set in 1950s London.  How did you think about the place in conjunction with the sound?  It's strange, 'cause lots of British music in the '50s is quite twee.  And if there's anything this film isn't— or at least the lead character, Reynolds Woodcock, he's not twee in any way.  So instead, we started thinking about what music he would listen to, and that kind of led me to things that are little more austere.  Also, I'm a big fan of all of these really over-the-top baroque recordings from that era, where they didn't care at all about what was authentic, and so they would have enormous romantic orchestras playing Bach and Vivaldi and stuff, and it sounds glorious.  It's not how they do it anymore.  Rachel Martin  Read the rest of the interview and link to 3:53 video at https://www.npr.org/2018/02/26/588397390/radioheads-jonny-greenwood-on-the-music-of-phantom-thread

Directing Daniel Day-Lewis:  ‘I know.  I’ve killed off the world’s greatest actor’  Paul Thomas Anderson on directing Daniel Day-Lewis in his final film, Phantom Thread by Tara Brady   In 2017,  Daniel Day-Lewis announced that his role in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Phantom Thread would be his last.  The film stars Day-Lewis as a freakishly fussy 1950s dressmaker.  This is Daniel Day-Lewis after all, an artist that comes with his own mythology.  Industry lore tells us he remained in his wheelchair on the set of My Left Foot, learned Czech for The Unbearable Lightness of Being, sparred for 18 months for The Boxer, slept in an abandoned prison during the shoot of In the Name of the Father, and who, by staying in flimsy period costume, caught pneumonia while making Gangs of New York.  For the purposes of Phantom Thread, the 60-year-old actor consulted Cassie Davies-Strodder, the former curator of fashion and textiles at the Victoria and Albert Museum, in London, and apprenticed (for months) under Marc Happel, the costumier at the New York City Ballet.  In preparation for Phantom Thread, Anderson honed in on Christian Dior, Lucien Freud, Charles James and the 20th-century Spanish couturier Cristobal Balenciaga.  Working alongside the veteran costume designer Mark Bridges, everyone involved in the production read The Master of Us All:  Balenciaga, His Workrooms, His World.  The tone of the film flirts with the supernatural by way of George Cukor’s Gaslight (1944) and Alfred Hitchcock’s Rebecca (1940), was an undiscovered country for Anderson.  https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/film/directing-daniel-day-lewis-i-know-i-ve-killed-off-the-world-s-greatest-actor-1.3365845

Daniel Day-Lewis  Awards  showing all 143 wins and 92 nominations  https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000358/awards  As of this writing, Day-Lewis is the only male actor in history to have three wins in the lead actor category.

"Figgy pudding" is a seemingly misinformed synonym for “plum pudding,” a British Christmas favorite.  In fact, figgy pudding or Christmas pudding has a long, delicious history.  The dish that eventually evolved into plum pudding originally contained preserved, sweetened meat “pyes” and boiled “pottage” (that is, vegetables) and was enjoyed in Britain as early as Roman times.  By Elizabeth I’s day, prunes had come into vogue, “and their name became a portmanteau label for all dried fruits.”  As plums became synonymous with fruit, plum dishes with and without meat became party food.  Steamed plum puddings soon became much-anticipated Christmas treats that required plenty of patience.  By the 19th century, cooks traditionally gave their plum puddings at least a month to develop their signature spicy flavors.  Charles Dickens managed to almost single handedly revive old Christmas traditions with his 1843 book A Christmas Carol, which celebrated a nostalgic holiday of redemption and love.  One of the traditions he upheld was that of the now-iconic Christmas pudding.  In a long passage, he shows Mrs. Cratchit steaming and preparing the pudding for her excited family:  Suppose it should not be done enough! Suppose it should break in turning out! . . . All sorts of horrors were supposed . . . In half a minute Mrs. Cratchit entered—flushed, but smiling proudly—with the pudding, like a speckled cannon-ball, so hard and firm, blazing in half of half-a-quartern of ignited brandy, and bedight with Christmas holly stuck into the top.  Maybe Mrs. Cratchit used this 1837 recipe (on page 112 of The Housekeeper's Book) at  https://books.google.com/books?id=QAEqAAAAYAAJ&dq=%22christmas%20pudding%22&pg=PA112#v=onepage&q=%22christmas%20pudding%22&f=false which features bread crumbs, flour, suet, sugar, currants, raisins, candied citron, orange peel, lemon peel, nutmeg, cinnamon, ginger, brandy, white wine and eggs.  “We Wish You a Merry Christmas”  It’s not entirely certain where the carol that contains the famous reference to a figgy pudding comes from.  In 1939, a composer named Arthur Warrell received a copyright for the carol “A Merry Christmas,” but acknowledged that it was an arrangement of a traditional English song.  The carol is thought to date from the 16th or 17th century, when carolers demanded refreshments like figgy pudding to keep them going throughout the chilly English nights.  https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/brief-history-figgy-pudding-180957600/

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  December 12, 2018  Issue 2003  346th day of the year

The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency is a series of novels by Alexander McCall Smith set in Botswana and featuring the character Mma Precious Ramotswe.  The series is named for the first novel, published in 1998.  Eighteen novels have been published in the series between 1998 and 2017.  Mma Precious Ramotswe is the main character in this series.  The country of Botswana is in a sense a character as well, as it is a crucial aspect of how the stories flow.  Mma Ramotswe starts up her detective agency when she is 34 years old, using the inheritance from her father to move to the capital city Gaborone to buy a house for herself and find an office for her new business.  She feels a detective needs to know about people more than anything, to solve problems for them.  The novels are as much about the adventures and foibles of different characters as they are about solving mysteries.  Each book in the series follows from the previous book.  In 2004, sales in English exceeded five million, and the series has been translated to other languages.  The novels have been adapted for radio by the author and for television.  In 2004, the year of the sixth novel's publication, Alexander McCall Smith won the Author of the Year award at the British Book Awards  and the Crime Writers Association Dagger in the Library award, both for the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_No._1_Ladies%27_Detective_Agency

R. Alexander "Sandy" McCall Smith, CBE, FRSE (born 24 August 1948), is a British-Zimbabwean writer and Emeritus Professor of Medical Law at the University of Edinburgh.  In the late 20th century, McCall Smith became a respected expert on medical law and bioethics and served on British and international committees concerned with these issues.  He has since become internationally known as a writer of fiction, with sales of English-language versions exceeding 40 million by 2010 and translations into 46 languages.  He is most widely known as the creator of The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agencyseries.  "McCall" is not a middle name:  his two-part surname is "McCall Smith".  Alexander McCall Smith was born in Bulawayo in 1948 in the British colony of Southern Rhodesia (present-day Zimbabwe), the youngest of four children.  His father worked as a public prosecutor in Bulawayo.  McCall Smith was educated at the Christian Brothers College in Bulawayo before moving to Scotland at age 17 to study law at the University of Edinburgh, where he earned his PhD in law.  He soon taught at Queen's University Belfast, and while teaching there he entered a literary competition:  one a children's book and the other a novel for adults.  He won in the children's category.  He returned to southern Africa in 1981 to help co-found the law school and teach law at the University of Botswana.  While there, he co-wrote The Criminal Law of Botswana (1992).  He settled in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1984.  He and his wife Elizabeth, a physician, bought a Victorian mansion that they renovated and restored, raising their two daughters Lucy and Emily, who attended the independent St George's School for Girls in the city.  An amateur bassoonist, he co-founded The Really Terrible Orchestra.  He has helped to found Botswana's first centre for opera training, the Number 1 Ladies' Opera House, for whom he wrote the libretto of their first production, a version of Macbeth set among a troop of baboons in the Okavango Delta.  See extensive bibliography at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_McCall_Smith

African dance rattle capsules from Cameroon to Madagascar, from Somalia to Mozambique:  Plaiting a symmetric, nonahedral shape by Paulus Gerdes  See 15-page document with many graphics at http://www.mi.sanu.ac.rs/vismath/gerdesnovember2012/nonahedral.pdf

Authentic traditional dance filmed in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve in Botswana, in 2007.  The particular dance carried on uninterruptedly for more than an hour, with the dancer entering a deep trance.  It was filmed unplanned and unrehearsed, with only a standard hunting spotlight for lighting.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfRq9cCd33E  2:01

The pomegranate (Punica garantum), from the Middle French pome garnete, which means, “seeded apple,” is the fruit of a shrubby tree believed to have originated in Persia (modern-day Iran).  One of the world’s oldest cultivated fruits (it was domesticated as many as 5,000 years ago and grew wild long before that), the pomegranate has a long history in the arid and semi-arid regions from the Mediterranean east through Asia.  The pomegranate has been mentioned in biblical tales, and some debate exists regarding whether it was a pomegranate, not an apple, that enticed Eve in the Garden of Eden.  The fruit received mention in the writings of Homer, as well as in Greek mythology:  It was a pomegranate that tempted Persephone while in the underworld with Hades.  Many cultures consider it to be a symbol of fertility, health and prosperity.  The round fruit, which has a spiky, flared crown, can be as small as an orange or as large as a grapefruit, depending on variety.  Pomegranates have shiny, leathery skin, which can be anything from deep brick red to yellow.  The beautiful whole fruits are often used as decorations.  Inside, the fruit consists of around 800 crunchy seeds surrounded by juice sacs (these are called arils), which are suspended in membranes.  Arils may be vivid ruby red, pale pink or even white, depending on the particular variety of pomegranate.  The many varieties of the fruit differ in terms of sweetness and juice-to-seed ratio.  Some can be extremely astringent or even sour; seedless and soft-seeded varieties exist as well.  Alissa Dicker  Pomegranate Primer Page 2:  A Pomegranate Overview   Link to other pages at   http://www.thenibble.com/reviews/main/beverages/juices/pomegranate-juice2.asp

10 THINGS TO DO WITH POMEGRANATE MOLASSES by Yasmin Khan 

http://yasminkhanstories.com/10-things-pomegranate-molasses/

Persian Molasses Crinkles  Learn how to make pomegranate molasses or buy it at a store featuring Middle Eastern foods.  Recipe for the drop cookies is at http://www.startribune.com/persian-molasses-crinkles/70459947/

Molasses Crinkles by Elaine Khosrova  https://www.finecooking.com/recipe/molasses-crinkles  You can substitute pomegranate molasses.

Language is fluid.  Words are often shortened.  They can acquire new meanings.  Sometimes words are dropped--on occasion I say public for public library.  I've read uniform meaning policeman and suit meaning lawyer in novels.  Sometimes words even mean the opposite after a while--aweful mean full of awe and was a good word--then it became awful, not a good word.

From the medicine cabinet to the bar, bitters have a long history of curing ailments and flavoring drinks.  Though they may seem mysterious, bitters are simply bitter and aromatic herbs and spices infused or tinctured in spirits.  Read more and see pictures at https://www.thekitchn.com/how-to-make-homemade-bitters-cooking-lessons-from-the-kitchn-197883

Bitters are to cocktails as salt and spices are to foods.  They add complexity, highlighting existing flavors and introducing new ones.  But what else can you do with that bottle of boozy extract sitting on your shelf?  Apparently, a whole lot.  In Angostura’s home country, Trinidad and Tobago, bitters are added to all sorts of dishes, including breads, soups, and marinades.  Find seven recipes including a  winter squash version from David Baudek of The Kerryman Bar & Restaurant in Chicago at https://vinepair.com/articles/how-to-use-bitters-cooking/

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  December 11, 2018  Issue 2002  345th day of the year