On June 1, 2016 Bordeaux opened its newest museum, a one-of-a-kind institution devoted to the French city’s most popular export:  wine.  Aptly dubbed La Cité du Vin, the $92 million, 144,000-square-foot complex is a premier destination for learning about, tasting, drinking, and buying wine.  While Bordeaux’s vineyards date from Roman times, nearly 2,000 years ago, La Cité du Vin has been in the works since 2008.  The museum’s endowment fund followed in 2011, and construction began in 2013.  The shimmering, curvaceous structure, which took 80,000 hours and more than 1,000 tons of steel to build, is the brainchild of Parisian firm XTU and English museum design firm Casson Mann.  Its bowing shape was inspired by the swirl of wine in a glass and the coils of a grapevine.  Stephanie Strasnick  https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/wine-museum-bordeaux-france



Lucy Mangan (born 1974) is a British journalist and author.  She is a columnist, features writer and TV critic for The Guardian.  Her writing revolves around feminism.  Mangan writes a regular column, TV reviews and occasional features at The Guardian.  Her book My Family and other Disasters (2009) is a collection of her newspaper columns.  She has also written books about her childhood and her wedding.  Mangan has a regular column for Stylist magazine and has been a judge for the BookTrust Roald Dahl Funny Prize.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucy_Mangan#cite_note-12



The Book Cover Creative Process:  Bookworm by Lucy Mangan  See gorgeous graphics by Laura Barrett at https://medium.com/@laurabarrettuk/the-book-cover-creative-process-bookworm-by-lucy-mangan-80661e246fe6



Yeah, devious minds think alike.  *  ‘We’re a peace-loving people, we love peace.’  I guess that’s why we spend more on our military than the rest of the world combined, why we have over seven hundred overseas military bases in a hundred and thirty countries, and why we’ve been at war pretty much continuously since we were just a bunch of colonies.  *  People will eagerly twist facts into wholly unrecognizable shapes to fit them into existing suppositions.  The Last Assassin by Barry Eisler 



The Gothic Quarter (Catalan:  Barri Gòtic/El Gòtic, Spanish:  Barrio Gótico) is the centre of the old city of Barcelona.  It stretches from La Rambla to Via Laietana, and from the Mediterranean seafront to the Ronda de Sant Pere.  It is a part of Ciutat Vella district.  The quarter encompasses the oldest parts of the city of Barcelona, and includes the remains of the city's Roman wall and several notable medieval landmarks.  The Barri Gòtic retains a labyrinthine street plan, with many small streets opening out into squares.  Most of the quarter is closed to regular traffic although open to service vehicles and taxis.  Despite its name, a number of landmark Gothic buildings in the neighborhood do not date to the Middle Ages.  Rather, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the quarter was completely transformed from a sombre neighborhood to a tourist attraction through a massive restoration project, timed to be completed for the 1929 International Exhibition.  This allowed the city and the surrounding region of Catalonia to portray itself in a positive light to the world's media.  Further restoration of existing buildings and the creation of brand new neo-Gothic structures continued as late as the 1960s.  See many pictures at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gothic_Quarter,_Barcelona



The names of John Lloyd Stephens and Frederick Catherwood are forever linked to the Maya and Mayan studies as the two great explorers who documented the ruins from Copan in the south to Chichen Itza in the north.   Frederick Catherwood was born 27 February 1799 in north London and, by his twenties, was already well known as an architect, artist and traveler.  He had already published his drawings of structures in Egypt, Palestine, Asia Minor, and Greece and, in 1833, was the first westerner to survey and draw the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem.  The two men met in London in 1836 where Catherwood's panorama `The Ruins of Jerusalem' was on display.  Both men were interested in exploring the region so vividly depicted in the published accounts of Mesoamerica by earlier explorers like Antonio del Rio and Juan Galindo and the drawings of Mayan sites by Jean-Frederic Maximilien, Comte de Waldek.  They agreed to travel together to the region at the first opportunity.  Stephens was famous enough as a world traveler and writer to have President Van Buren appoint him Ambassador to Central America from the United States and he and Catherwood left New York for British Honduras (modern day Belize) on 3 October 1839.  Catherwood used a device called the camera lucida which would project the image from the lens onto paper so that the artist could draw it more accurately.  It is because of the use of this device that Catherwood's depictions of the Mayan sites are so precise right down to the intricate scroll work and inscriptions on the buildings.  They mapped, surveyed, drew and wrote about 44 distinct Maya sites all of which have become national treasures and, some, world famous attractions.  Joshua J. Mark  Read more and see graphics at https://www.ancient.eu/article/419/early-explorers-of-the-maya-civilization-john-lloy/



Rose water is a popular ingredient in Middle Eastern cooking.  Unfortunately, it is not a commonly used ingredient in Western cooking, so it may be difficult to find for some people.  First, try health food stores or natural grocers.  People use rose water in at-home facials, and these stores are usually reliable suppliers.  Try Trader Joe's, Whole Foods, and other local stores that are similar to these.  Try your supermarket.  Rose water is usually stocked in the ethnic food section.  If you can't find it, ask your store manager.  The store might carry it but have it shelved in an odd location.  If your store doesn't stock it, ask that the staff considers offering it.  Ordering online is also an easy way to get rose water.  Saad Fayed  https://www.thespruceeats.com/where-to-buy-rose-water-2355850



Simplicity is king in this make-ahead, fresh-tasting pizza sauce.  Just four ingredients go into the food processor:  garlic, canned tomatoes, olive oil, and salt.  Use this recipe in our Classic Margherita Pizza or Skillet Pizza Diavola.  Martha Stewart Living, May 2018  https://www.marthastewart.com/1528963/no-cook-pizza-sauce  May be frozen up to three months. 



In Amazon’s Bookstore, Orwell Gets a Rewrite by David Streitfeld   In George Orwell’s “1984,” the classics of literature are rewritten into Newspeak, a revision and reduction of the language meant to make bad thoughts literally unthinkable.  “It’s a beautiful thing, the destruction of words,” one true believer exults.  Now some of the writer’s own words are getting reworked in Amazon’s vast virtual bookstore, a place where copyright laws hold remarkably little sway.  Orwell’s reputation may be secure, but his sentences are not.  Over the last few weeks I got a close-up view of this process when I bought a dozen fake and illegitimate Orwell books from Amazon.  Some of them were printed in India, where the writer is in the public domain, and sold to me in the United States, where he is under copyright.  Others were straightforward counterfeits, like the edition of his memoir “Down and Out in Paris and London” that was edited for high school students.  The author’s estate said it did not give permission for the book, printed by Amazon’s self-publishing subsidiary.  Some counterfeiters are going as far as to claim Orwell’s classics as their own property, copyrighting them with their own names.  One reader discovered, to his surprise, that his new copy of “1984” had passages that were “worded slightly different.” Another offered photographic proof that her edition was near gibberish.  A third said the word “faces” was replaced in his copy with “feces.”  Getting Orwell books that skip a chunk of pages seemed to be a routine experience.  Even the titles changed. One edition of “Animal Farm:  A Fairy Story” referred to itself on the back cover as “Animals Farm:  A Fair Story.”  The preface referred to another great Orwell work, “Homage to Catalonia,” as “Homepage to Catalonia.”  The Authors Guild said that in the last two years, the number of piracy and counterfeiting issues referred to its legal department has increased tenfold. Counterfeit editions are a blow against the authority of the book and accelerate a dangerous trend toward misinformation.  Read much more and see pictures at https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/19/technology/amazon-orwell-1984.html



http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue  1241  August 20, 2019

Is chocolate vegan?  If you are somewhat of a smart talker, one simple response to this is, "Sure! Chocolate comes from beans!"  Which is of course, true.  Chocolate comes from the pod of the cocoa tree, making it, of course, vegan.  Having got your sarcasm out of the way, you'll probably want to manage to come up with a serious response.  Chocolate itself comes from a plant, making it vegan, yes, but in the process of going from the tree to the grocery store, a variety of additives are added, including sugar and milk or milk fat.  A good quality chocolate, however, will have a higher chocolate content, pure ingredients, and no additives.  The ingredients will be simple:  cocoa, cocoa butter, sugar, and occasionally lecithin, and sometimes vanilla.  And that's it.  A high-quality chocolate actually has quite a few nutritional benefits, believe it or not.  A few producers have also started making "milk" chocolates from non-dairy milk substitutes such as almond milk or rice milk.  Whole Foods and other specialty grocers should carry a few of these.  Jolinda Hackett  https://www.thespruceeats.com/is-chocolate-vegan-3377738



The first country to be described as a "banana republic," albeit in a roundabout way, was Honduras, writes T.W. for The Economist, which traditionally does not publish full bylines.  In 1904, American writer O. Henry wrote “The Admiral,” a short story published in his book Cabbages and Kings.  It’s set in Anchuria,  a fictional ‘small, maritime banana republic,’ that T.W. writes was clearly based on Honduras, where Henry was at the time.  Huge companies like United Fruit moved in and built infrastructure in exchange for land.  With close ties to a country’s railways and ports came ties to government.  In Honduras, Zemurray was deeply involved in politics, as he had been since the Zemurray-Hubbard Steam Ship Company first started working in the country in 1903.  Zemurray's company Cuyamel even supplied weapons to the 1911 coup that brought in a more Cuyamel-friendly president, T.W. writes.  After fighting United Fruit for years, Cuyamel was bought by the rival for $32 million.  But it was just the start for Zemurray, who became the largest shareholder in the company.  In 1932, as the company struggled, Zemurray became its head.  “In the end, he would live in the grandest house in New Orleans, the mansion on St. Charles that is now the official residence of the Tulane president,” writes Rich Cohen in an excerpt from his book on Zemurray published by Slate.  “He continued to wield tremendous influence into the mid-’50s, a powerful old man who threatened, cajoled, explained, a mysterious Citizen Kane-like figure to the people in his city.”  When Zemurray died in 1961, he writes, The New York Times described him as “The Fish That Swallowed the Whale.”  Kat Eschner  https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/where-we-got-term-banana-republic-180961813/



Deep in Honduras is La Mosquitia, an area about thirty-two thousand square miles, a land of rainforests, swamps, lagoons, rivers and mountains.  Early maps labeled it Portal del Infierno or Gates of Hell.  It gets over ten feet of rain a year, and 80% of cocaine from South America destined for the United States mostly comes through the region.  In 1980, UNESCO named the area the Rio Plátano Biosphere Reserve and, two years later, named the rainforest a World Heritage site.  The Lost City of the Monkey God:  A True Story by Douglas Preston



Prunus cerasifera is a species of plum known by the common names cherry plum and myrobalan plum.  It is native to Southeast Europe and Western Asia, and is naturalised in the British Islesand scattered locations in North America.  Cultivated cherry plums can have fruits, foliage, and flowers in any of several colours.  Some varieties have sweet fruits that can be eaten fresh, while others are sour and better for making jam.  Cherry plums are a key ingredient in Georgian cuisine where they are used to produce tkemali sauce, as well as a number of popular dishes, such as kharcho soup and chakapuli stew.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherry_plum   



Ross Collins was born in Glasgow, Scotland quite a while ago.  Glasgow School of Art gave him a first in Illustration when he graduated in 1994.  In the same year he won the MacMillan Children's Book Prize for his first book 'The Sea Hole'.  Ross spent a few years in London drawing things for publishers who were convinced that he knew what he was doing.  He then returned to Scotland where he has illustrated over 100 books and written a dozen or so.  http://www.rosscollins.net/whothisguy.php  Meet Ross Collins (extract from an interview)  Who has been the biggest influence on your work?  Lots of people--but I do keep coming back to Calvin & Hobbes.  Bill Watterston is a wee gem in a sea of boulders.  BookPage  August 2019 



Tracy Chevalier was born in 1962 and grew up in the US.  She studied English at Oberlin College, Ohio and moved to England in 1984, where she has since lived.  She worked as a Reference Book editor until 1993, after which she studied for an MA in Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia.  While she was studying, she began her first novel, The Virgin Blue, which was published in 1997, and was later republished.  This was followed by further novels:  Girl With A Pearl Earring (1999); Falling Angels (2001); The Lady and the Unicorn (2003); Burning Bright (2007), a novel about William Blake; and Remarkable Creatures (2009).  Tracy Chevalier's most recent novel is The Last Runaway (2013), about an English Quaker who emigrates to Ohio in the 19th Century. 

https://literature.britishcouncil.org/writer/tracy-chevalier



rigmarole  In medieval times, there was a game called ragman, which seems to have been like consequences but with predefined statements.  It used a rolled-up scroll containing descriptions of characters, each with a string attached.  Players selected a string at random, the scroll was then unrolled and the associated passage read out, to the hilarity of all present.  There are also some suspicions that the same system was used for a gambling game.  The origin of the name for the game is obscure:  the oldest form was rageman, said as three syllables, and this suggests it may have been French in origin—a character called Rageman the Good appeared in some French verses of about 1290.  Others think it might have come from rag in the sense of tatters, used as a name for a devil (as in ragamuffin, originally a demon).  The name was transferred to various English statutes at the end of the thirteenth century, which were written on scrolls.  With the seals and ribbons of their signers sticking out, these reminded people of the scroll used in the game.  The most famous such document was the one in 1291 in which the Scottish nobility and gentry subscribed allegiance to Edward I before John Balliol took the Scots throne.  It seems the terms ragman and ragman roll passed into the language as a description of a long and rambling discourse, no doubt from the disconnected nature of documents like the rolls of allegiance.  It later seems to have fallen out of use; it reappeared in the eighteenth century in various spellings, such as riggmon-rowle, but it eventually settled down as rigmarole, in the process losing any clear connection with the older term.  http://www.worldwidewords.org/weirdwords/ww-rig1.htm



Storyteller Paule Marshall, Brooklyn-born daughter of Barbadian immigrants, died August 12, 2019.  Illustrator Charles Santore, whose works are in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Brandywine River Museum of Art, and the Free Library of Philadelphia died August 11, 2019. 



A THOUGHT FOR TODAY  The door of a bigoted mind opens outwards so that the only result of the pressure of facts upon it is to close it more snugly. - Ogden Nash, poet (19 Aug 1902-1971)



WORD OF THE DAY  Palladian adjective  (Greek mythology, rare)  Of or relating to Pallas, an epithet of Athena, the goddess of wisdom.

(by extension, rare)  Of or relating to knowledge, study, or wisdom. [...]

(architecture)  In the style of the Italian neoclassical architect Andrea Palladio.  Palladian noun 

(architecture)  An architect who designs buildings in the Palladian style.

(architecture)  A building or an architectural element (for example, a window) designed in the Palladian style.  The Italian architect Andrea Palladio, who is widely considered to be one of the most influential people in the history of architecture, died on August 19, 1580. 



http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1240  August 19, 2019

George Gustav Heye (1874–1957) was a collector of Native American artifacts.  George graduated from Columbia College (now Columbia University) in 1896 with a degree in electrical engineering.  While superintending railroad construction in Kingman, Arizona in 1897, he acquired a Navajo deerskin shirt, as his first artifact.  He acquired individual items until 1903, then he began collecting material in larger numbers.  In 1915, Heye worked with Frederick W. Hodge and George H. Pepper on the Nacoochee Mound in White County Georgia.  The work was done through the Heye Foundation, the Museum of the American Indian, and the Bureau of American Ethnology, and was some of the most complete work of the time including numerous photographs.  In 1918, Heye and his colleagues published a report entitled The Nacoochee Mound In Georgia.  He accumulated the largest private collection of Native American objects in the world.  The collection was initially stored in Heye’s Madison Avenue apartment in New York City, and later in a rented room.  By 1908, he was referring to the collection as "The Heye Museum", and he was soon lending materials for exhibit at what later became the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology in Philadelphia.  In 1916, he purchased from J. E. Standley of Ye Olde Curiosity Shop the collection of Alaskan Native artifacts that had won the gold medal for ethnological collections at the 1909 Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition.  Eventually, the Heye collection was moved to the Heye Foundation’s Museum of the American Indian at 155th Street and Broadway, which broke ground in May 1916.  In 1919, he established the journal Indian Notes and Monographs.  The museum opened to the public in 1922, and closed in 1994, when the Smithsonian Institution opened the Heye Center of the National Museum of the American Indian in the former Custom House in lower Manhattan.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Gustav_Heye



Sitting at the foot of the Wiechquaekeck Trail, an old Algonquin trade route (aka Broadway), the American Indian Museum’s New York location shares the Washington, D.C., location’s incredible collection and its commitment to celebrating the diverse history and contemporary voices of Native peoples throughout the western hemisphere.  https://www.si.edu/museums/american-indian-museum-heye-center



Before the 1800s bananas were rare in the United States, as well as Europe.  A sudden interest in the banana was sparked when Jules Verne in his 1873 novel Around the World in 80 Days called it "as healthy as bread and as succulent as cream."  Banana:  A Global History by Lorna Piatti-Farnell



Humor . . . is emotional chaos remembered in tranquillity.  James Thurber (1894–1961) New York Post, Feb. 29, 1960  Thurber was referring to William Wordsworth (1770-1850) 'poetry . . . takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity'  Lyrical Ballads preface  See The Oxford Dictionary of American Quotations, p. 327 and https://www.enotes.com/topics/william-wordsworth-and-samuel-taylor-coleridge



James Thurber suffered a serious eye injury at the age of seven caused by an arrow during a game of William Tell.  As an adult, sympathetic opthalmia took over his other eye making him totally blind.  At East High School, Thurber blossomed and was class president.  At OSU, he wrote for the school newspaper, edited the Sundial, and was a play-and songwriter for The Strollers dramatic club.  In 1927, after a few years of reporting at the Columbus Dispatch, he earned his first column "Credos and Curios," commentary, parody, observations and humor.  With the encouragement of E.B. White, he submitted cartoons and spot illustrations to The New Yorker before blindness set in.  Thurber published almost 30 books, pieces for various magazines, and short stories, the two of the most anthologized pieces of modern fiction:  "The Catbird Seat" and "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty."  Thurber stands as the first modern American author whose reputation became that of a writer of short stories.  Russell Baker



Rich Koz (born March 12, 1952) is an American actor and broadcaster best known as horror-movie host Svengoolie.  Out of costume, he is also the host of the syndicated The Three Stooges Stooge-a-Palooza program.  Koz got his start in broadcasting at WMTH-FM, the high school radio station at Maine East in Park Ridge, Illinois.  While Koz was at Northwestern University, he sent the original Svengoolie, Jerry G. Bishop, material for the horror-movie program.  Bishop subsequently invited Koz on to the show.  When the show was cancelled in 1973, Bishop and Koz worked together doing mornings on WMAQ radio in Chicago, and Koz worked with radio legend Dick Orkin on commercials and syndicated features, including "ChickenMan Returns for the Last Time Again."  When Bishop left for San Diego in 1978, he gave Koz permission to create a show known as Son of Svengoolie, now simply known as Svengoolie.  (The character is often known simply as "Sven.")  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rich_Koz  See also R.I.P. Svengoolie:  The Baron of Berwyn at http://www.ravenousmonster.com/featured-article/rip-svengoolie-baron-berwyn/ and OPENING UP THE DUNGEON DOOR ON SVENGOOLIE: FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS at https://svengoolie.com/faq



With a population of about 56,000, Greenland is a self-ruling part of the Kingdom of Denmark, and while its government decides on most domestic matters, foreign and security policy is handled by Copenhagen.  It has vast natural resources across its 811,000 square miles.  Greenland relies on $591 million of subsidies from Denmark annually, which make up about 60% of its annual budget, according to U.S. and Danish government statistics.  Though Greenland is technically part of North America, it is culturally and politically linked to Europe.  Following World War II, the U.S. under President Harry Truman developed a geopolitical interest in Greenland and in 1946 offered to buy it from Denmark for $100 million.  But Denmark refused to sell.  And that was the second failed attempt—the State Department had also launched an inquiry into buying Greenland and Iceland in 1867.  At a dinner with associates in spring of 2018, Donald Trump said someone had told him at a roundtable that Denmark was having financial trouble over its assistance to Greenland, and suggested that he should consider buying the island, according to one of the people.  “What do you guys think about that?” he asked the room, the person said.  “Do you think it would work?”  The person described the question less as a serious inquiry than as a joke.  Vivian Salama, Rebecca Ballhaus, Andrew Restuccia and Michael C. Bender  https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-eyes-a-new-real-estate-purchase-greenland-11565904223



Here are Barack Obama’s recommended books for summer 2019 reading:   “The collected works of Toni Morrison”, “The Nickel Boys” by Colson Whitehead, “Exhalation,” a short story by Ted Chiang,  “Wolf Hall” by Hilary Mantel, “Men Without Women,” a short story collection by Haruki Murakami, “American Spy” by Lauren Wilkinson,  “The Shallows” by Nicholas Carr, “Lab Girl” by Hope Jahren, “Inland” by Téa Obreht, “How to Read the Air” by Dinaw Mengestu, and  “Maid” by Stephanie Land

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/15/books-on-barack-obamas-2019-summer-reading-list.html



Everybody in the world of children’s literature seemed to know Lee Bennett Hopkins, the renowned Cape Coral poet and Florida Hall of Famer who died August 8, 2019 at age 81.  His many friends included famous authors such as Judy Blume, Shel Silverstein, Lloyd Alexander, R.L. Stine and even the late Dr. Seuss (Hopkins called him “Ted’).  In 2017, Hopkins became the first Cape Coral resident to get inducted into the Florida Artists Hall of Fame—and only the second from Lee County.  "Lee Bennett Hopkins is one of the most famous poetry anthologists in the world," Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner told The News-Press in 2017.  "His works are celebrated for their global appeal, the ability to reflect universal childhood experiences, and respect for cultural differences."  Their friendship eventually led to Hopkins donating thousands of books to Lee County Schools libraries and classrooms, and often talking to students at the schools.  There’s even a poetry corner dedicated to him at Ida S. Baker High School.  Hopkins had compiled more children's poetry anthologies than anyone else in U.S. history—more than 120 titles in all.  Those books appear in classrooms and public libraries across the country.  He was even listed in Guinness World Records as “the world's most prolific anthologist of poetry for children."  Born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, Hopkins was the oldest of three children raised by a single mother in the projects of Newark, New Jersey. Following in the footsteps of his favorite junior-high teacher, Hopkins became a teacher, himself.  Charles Runnells  Read much more and see pictures at

https://www.news-press.com/story/entertainment/2019/08/08/renowned-cape-coral-poet-lee-bennett-hopkins-dies-age-81/1953614001/



http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2139  August 16, 2019

The Raven is one of Edgar Allen Poe’s most impressive works, a long narrative poem centered on a talking raven that makes a nocturnal visit to a distraught lover, who is mourning the death of his beloved Lenore.  Noted for its seamless weaving of popular myth, folk tales, classical imagery, and the supernatural, the poem remains a widely acclaimed and popular classic.  However, Poe’s raven has a little known and significant literary heritage.  Historians and literary critics have long speculated that the talking bird in his famous poem was actually inspired by Charles Dickens’ own pet raven, Grip.  This real-life raven was responsible for spawning not one, but two literary greats, as he was also the basis for the bird depicted in Dickens’ own novel, Barnaby Rudge.  Dickens was fascinated by Grip, and resolved to include him in his next novel.  In 1841, he published Barnaby Rudge, and indeed, the title character was constantly accompanied by a talking pet raven, which was far more intelligent than the man himself.  Dickens widely acknowledged that the character was based on his own bird, which had unfortunately died shortly before the publication of the novel.  Dickens was deeply saddened by Grip’s death, and continued to acquire birds; first an eagle, and then two more ravens in succession, both also named Grip.  The third Grip had an even more distinctive and domineering character than the first, and was even able to keep the family dog, a bullmastiff named Turk, under control.  Turk would sit patiently as Grip helped himself to all of the best pieces of meat from the dog’s dinner plate.  According to the BBC, it was around this time that Dickens and Poe became acquainted.  Poe had written an approving review of Barnaby Rudge, and the two arranged to meet when Dickens and his wife were on tour in the United States.  Reportedly, Poe saw a picture of Grip that Dickens carried with him, and was delighted to learn that the bird he had admired in Barnaby Rudge was based on a real-life animal.  Shortly after, Poe composed his most notable work, a narrative poem with an imperious raven at its heart.  The main character, a love-struck and sorrowful young man, is struck by the visitation of a raven, whose croaking refrain, “Nevermore,” simply adds to his grief.  Although Poe never stated it explicitly, it is widely thought that The Raven is based on Dickens’ bird.  In 1848 the writer James Russell Lowell wrote, “Here comes Poe with his raven, like Barnaby Rudge / Three-fifths of him genius, two fifths sheer fudge.”  Poe’s sad and untimely death just one year later cemented his legacy, and The Raven remains his best-known and most-loved work.  Helen Flatley  Read more and see graphics at https://www.thevintagenews.com/2018/11/02/raven/



The Train is a 1964 American war film directed by John Frankenheimer.  Its screenplay—written by Franklin Coen, Frank Davis, and Walter Bernstein—is loosely based on the non-fiction book Le front de l'art by Rose Valland, who documented the works of art placed in storage that had been looted by the Germans from museums and private art collections.  The film stars Burt Lancaster, Paul Scofield and Jeanne Moreau.  Set in August 1944, it sets French Resistance-member Paul Labiche (Lancaster) against German Colonel Franz von Waldheim (Scofield), who is attempting to move stolen art masterpieces by train to Germany.  Inspiration for the scenes of the train's interception came from the real-life events surrounding train No. 40,044 as it was seized and examined by Lt. Alexandre Rosenberg of the Free French forces outside Paris.  The Train is based on the factual 1961 book Le front de l'art by Rose Valland, the art historian at the Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume, who documented the works of art placed in storage there that had been looted by the Germans from museums and private art collections throughout France and were being sorted for shipment to Germany in World War II.  In contrast to the action and drama depicted in the film, the shipment of art that the Germans were attempting to take out of Paris on August 1, 1944, was held up by the French Resistance with an endless barrage of paperwork and red tape and made it no farther than a railyard a few miles outside Paris.  Upon his soldiers opening the wagon doors he viewed many plundered pieces of art that had once been displayed in the home of his father, Parisian art dealer Paul Rosenberg, one of the world's major Modern art dealers.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Train_(1965_film)



Children's stories bless us twice.  The first time they are read to us.  The second time, we read them to a child.  See Short Stories by Collection and Author at https://americanliterature.com/short-stories



The Harry S. Truman Library, the first Presidential Library to be created under the provisions of the 1955 Presidential Libraries Act, was established to preserve the papers, books, and other historical materials relating to former President Harry S. Truman and to make them available to the people in a place suitable for exhibit and research.  The Library building, which cost $1,750,000, was built by the Harry S. Truman Library Inc., a private corporation, with funds donated by more than 17,000 individuals and organizations from all parts of the country.  The building and Mr. Truman's Presidential papers were transferred to the Government at a dedication ceremony held on July 6, 1957, and attended by Government officials of both parties.  Chief Justice Earl Warren delivered the principal address.  The Library, located in Independence, Missouri, President Truman's hometown, crowns a knoll facing U.S. Highway 24 on land donated by the City of Independence.  In 1968 and 1980 additions to the building were completed at a cost of $310,000 and $2,800,000, respectively.  The present Library building, which is a one-story full basement structure, is roughly circular in configuration.  The total floor space is about 100,000 square feet.  The building contains stack areas for the storage of manuscripts, books, and audiovisual materials, a research room, staff offices, an auditorium, conference and seminar rooms and museum exhibit and storage areas.  President and Mrs. Truman are buried in the courtyard, as are their only child, Margaret Truman Daniel, and her husband, Clifton Daniel.  The core of the Library's research holdings and the principal reason for its existence is its collection of the papers of Harry S. Truman.  These papers consist principally of the White House files for the Truman administration.  They also include papers that document Mr. Truman's life and careers as farmer, soldier, businessman, local politician, U.S. Senator, Vice President and former President.  Since the Library opened it has engaged in an ambitious acquisitions program.  Presently, in addition to the Truman papers, the Library has in its custody more than 450 manuscript collections of individuals who were associated with Mr. Truman at some point during his career in an official or personal capacity.  The Library also has a small quantity of Truman-related Federal records among its holdings.  The largest segment consists of the records of Presidential commissions and committees appointed by President Truman during his administration.

https://www.trumanlibrary.gov/about/history  The library closed for renovations in July 2019.



'Put paid to' probably derives from the practice of book-keepers of writing or stamping "Paid" on bills when the paperwork for a sale was completed.  An early citation comes from the Winnipeg newspaper The Manitoba Morning Free Press, October 1905.  https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/put-paid-to.html



August 12, 2019  Macmillan Publishers recently announced a lending model that dramatically cuts eBook borrowing.  A library may purchase just one digital copy of a Macmillan title within two months after its release to make available for the public.  This embargo means fewer opportunities for readers interested in the electronic format, and longer wait lists with certain Macmillan eBooks.  Each library system, regardless of size and city, faces the same imposing limit.  A federal study from the Institute of Museum and Library Services found public libraries nationally offer more than 391 million eBooks.  But digital licensing rights strike a contrast with traditional printed items, in which libraries take sole ownership.  Electronically formatted books cannot be resold at branch sales or transferred to another library for borrowing.  Library leaders, who want to buy more digital copies, instead meet unnecessary caps imposed by publishers.

http://www.toledolibrary.org/blog/macmillan-publishers-further-restricts-ebook-access-for-libraries



The majestic marble lions that have guarded the New York Public Library’s Schwartzman Building for more than 100 years are getting a much-needed facelift.  The two lions that flank the library building’s Fifth Avenue entrance, dubbed Patience and Fortitude by Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia during the Great Depression, will receive a $250,000 cleaning and restoration over nine-week beginning the week of September 2, 2019.  “The lions have earned some time at the spa,” said New York Public Library President Anthony Marx.  “As great stewards of this building, it is critical that we maintain the lions and ensure that they are strong to inspire everyone for generations to come.”  Patience is on the south side of the library entrance and Fortitude is located on the north.  Each were carved in the Piccirilli Brothers’ Bronx studio and have watched over the Beaux-Arts landmarked library since 1911.  Made of porous Tennessee pink marble, the lions must be restored every seven to ten years because of the toll taken from the elements, traffic exhaust, and adventurous visitors who scale the stone felines.  Caroline Spivack  https://ny.curbed.com/2019/8/12/20801885/new-york-public-library-lions-250k-restoration



http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2138  August 14, 2019 

One aspect of the chocolate-and-vanilla divide that has seldom been disputed is the question of provenance.  But over the last year two new studies have radically rejiggered the origin stories of both.  On the chocolate front, the earliest chemical evidence of cacao use has been pushed about 1,400 years further into the past and about 2,000 miles south.  For vanilla’s part, researchers now believe that the beans were not only used by humans more than two millennia earlier than previously thought, but an entire ocean away.  These findings are just a couple of the latest examples of how archaeologists, geneticists and cultural anthropologists are rewriting history through the study of food.  The earliest use of vanilla has long been attributed to the Totonac community in what is now the Mexican state of Veracruz.  They gathered the fragrant seedpods from orchids that grew wild in the forests.  Much later, they domesticated the vines, which can take up to five years to mature.  Each flower must be pollinated the one day that it blooms or else the stem bears no fruit.  Based on a sample from a ceramic jar, it has been believed that the history of chocolate began with the Mokaya, sedentary villagers who occupied the Soconusco region of Mexico’s Pacific coast.  Around 1900 B.C., the Mokayas began to consume Theobroma cacao, a plant that thrives in the upper reaches of the Amazon.  There followed a succession of Mesoamerican societies—Olmec, Toltec, Maya, Aztec—that found ways to exploit the bean, which was variously used as a monetary unit, a measuring unit and a meal.  It wasn’t until 1847 that the English company J. S. Fry & Sons of Bristol produced the first solid chocolate bar offered to the general public.  Turns out that our love affair with chocolate predates the Mokaya.  New research indicates that cacao was originally used in the humid forests of the upper Amazon basin, where the tree is at its most genetically diverse.  Investigators looked at jars and shards of pottery from Santa Ana-La Florida, an archaeological site in Ecuador once inhabited by the Mayo-Chinchipe people, and detected signs of chocolate tippling from as long as 5,300 years ago.  Franz Lidz  https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/delicious-ancient-history-chocolate-vanilla-180972551/



Crowder peas, also called field peas or Southern peas, are related to black-eyed peas and are part of the family of cowpeas.  They got their name because they are closely crowded together in their pods.  These “peas” are actually beans that originated in Africa.  They were brought to America and grown in the South starting back in the 1600s.  Find recipe for crowder peas with tomatoes and green onions serving 4 as a side, 2 as a main course at https://www.familyfoodonthetable.com/crowder-peas-with-tomatoes-and-green-onions/  Total time to prep and cook:  30 minutes  posted by Kathryn 



One of the first Directors of the House of Wisdom in Bagdad in the early 9th Century was an outstanding Persian mathematician called Muhammad Al-Khwarizmi.  He oversaw the translation of the major Greek and Indian mathematical and astronomy works (including those of Brahmagupta) into Arabic, and produced original work which had a lasting influence on the advance of Muslim and (after his works spread to Europe through Latin translations in the 12th Century) later European mathematics.  The word “algorithm” is derived from the Latinization of his name, and the word "algebra" is derived from the Latinization of "al-jabr", part of the title of his most famous book, in which he introduced the fundamental algebraic methods and techniques for solving equations.  Perhaps his most important contribution to mathematics was his strong advocacy of the Hindu numerical system, which Al-Khwarizmi recognized as having the power and efficiency needed to revolutionize Islamic and Western mathematics.  The Hindu numerals 1-9 and 0--which have since become known as Hindu-Arabic numerals--were soon adopted by the entire Islamic world.  Later, with translations of Al-Khwarizmi’s work into Latin by Adelard of Bath and others in the 12th Century, and with the influence of Fibonacci’s “Liber Abaci” they would be adopted throughout Europe as well.  https://www.storyofmathematics.com/islamic_alkhwarizmi.html



LEGAL ENGLISH—HOW IT DEVELOPED AND WHY IT IS NOT APPROPRIATE FOR INTERNATIONAL COMMERCIAL CONTRACTS by Barbara J. Beveridge

The common law, as we know it, began to develop after the Norman Conquest of England in 1066.  With the end of tribal rule, matters which had always been handled by local courts, slowly began to be handled by the King's court.  The King's court evolved over time into a bench of professional justices who were not lawyers but rather royal officials from the civil service who were selected because of their particular learning—they had some training in Canon law and often Roman law.  These justices appeared periodically in all the counties around England. It was this moving about the country by these justices that was pivotal as it began the process whereby the custom of the King's court eventually became the common law of England, in other words, the law common to all of England.  The Words Themselves What we know today as legal English did not begin its life as English alone, but rather was predominantly French and Latin, considered to be the languages of learning.  As positions in government, law, religion, and military affairs were held and influenced by those of the educated and upper classes, some argue this is the reason French terminology predominated in these areas.  Latin was the preferred language for writing.  For two centuries it monopolized the language of the statutes, however by the 14th century French dominated the statutes.  It was not until the end of the 1591 century (following the introduction of the printing press in 1476 and the acceptance of the London Standard as the standard form of written English) that statutes began to be printed in English.  Why legal English is not appropriate in international commercial contracts  What ultimately happens then is that there are a lot of outdated and unnecessary words and phrases in our common law contracts.  For contracts which are used domestically this is not such a problem because we know which words not to concern ourselves with, such as 'deliver'. However the transferring of all of this excess verbiage into international contracts only creates confusion and error as translators and non-common law lawyers are not privy to this knowledge of which words to ignore, nor do they have the same understanding of these convoluted sentences.  Read much more at file:///C:/Users/JOHNES~1/AppData/Local/Temp/Legal%20English%20-%20How%20it%20Developed-1.pdf  This paper was first published in The Development of Legal Language, papers from a Symposium on Legal Linguistics, Rovaniemi, Finland, September 13-15, 2000, Ed. Heikki E.S. Mattila, Pub. Kauppakaari, Finland   15 pages  Thank you, Muse reader!



J. D. Salinger's books will soon be available to read digitally," Little, Brown and Company said in a tweet August 11, 2019.  The author's son, Matt Salinger, wants to make the books more accessible to a younger generation of readers and for those with disabilities that prevent them from reading printed material, according to The Times, which interviewed the younger Salinger.  Matt Salinger told The Times he is planning to release decades worth of his father's unpublished writing, a project that may take up to seven years.  J. D. Salinger wrote four book-length works from 1951 to 1963, according to the publisher's website:  "Nine Stories," Franny and Zooey," and "Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour - An Introduction," as well as "The Catcher in the Rye."  Theresa Waldrop  https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/11/us/catcher-in-the-rye-salinger-digital-ebook-trnd/index.html



August 10, 2019  About a decade ago libraries across the world faced a dilemma.  Their vital functions—to supply books and access to information for the public—were being replaced by Amazon, e-books and public Wi-Fi.  To fight for their survival, said Loida Garcia-Febo, president of the American Library Association, libraries tried to determine what other role they could play.  “They invented these amazing new initiatives that are finally launching now,” she said.  It took them this long to raise money and build them.  Libraries are certainly having a moment.  In the past few years dozens of new high-profile libraries have opened close to home and across the world.  To attract visitors from home and abroad, many libraries have advanced, even quirky amenities.  They have rooftop gardens, public parks, verandas, play spaces, teen centers, movie theaters, gaming rooms, art galleries, restaurants and more.  Alyson Krueger  See pictures and read descriptions of beautiful libraries at https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/10/travel/libraries-are-the-tourist-attractions.html



Jack Black and Jack White finally team up to record a song as Jack Gray by Rachel Yang  Link to video at https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/jack-black-jack-white-finally-053146448.html



A THOUGHT FOR TODAY  It has always seemed strange to me that in our endless discussions about education so little stress is laid on the pleasure of becoming an educated person, the enormous interest it adds to life.  To be able to be caught up into the world of thought--that is to be educated. - Edith Hamilton, educator and writer (12 Aug 1867-1963)



WORD OF THE DAY  sericulture  noun  The rearing of silkworms for the production of silk.  Queen Sirikit, the queen mother of Thailand after whom the Queen Sirikit Department of Sericulture is named, was born on August 12, 1932.  Her birthday is celebrated as a public holiday and also observed as National Mother’s Day in Thailand.



http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2137  August 12, 2019