From information comes knowledge.  From knowledge comes wisdom. 

A gerund is a form of a verb that ends in -ing that is used as a noun.  It looks like a verb, but it acts like a noun.  For example, the word swimming is an example of a gerund.  We can use the word swimming in a sentence as a noun to refer to the act of moving around in water as in Swimming is fun.  When used in sentences, gerunds are treated as third person singular nouns (like he, she, and it).  https://www.thesaurus.com/e/grammar/whats-a-gerund/

“September Mushrooms” by Margaret Atwood   Some were bright red, some purple, some brown, some white, some lemon yellow.  Through the night they nudged, unfurling like moist fans, living sponges, like radar dishes, listening.  From Dearly by Margaret Atwood  Copyright © 2020 by O. W. Toad Ltd.  Excerpted by permission of Ecco, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.  Read entire poem at https://lithub.com/september-mushrooms/ 

Grandmother’s Famous Tomato Sauce Recipe:  The Actor on Memories of His Grandparent's House and His Inherited Love of Cooking by Stanley Tucci  Excerpted from Taste: My Life Through Food by Stanley Tucci.  Reprinted with permission of the publisher, Gallery Books.  Copyright © 2021 by Stanley Tucci.  https://lithub.com/stanley-tucci-shares-his-grandmothers-famous-tomato-sauce-recipe/ 

The peacock, also called peafowl, is any of three species of resplendent birds of the pheasant family, Phasianidae (order Galliformes).  Strictly, the male is a peacock, and the female is a peahen; both are peafowl.  Read more and see pictures at https://www.britannica.com/animal/peacock

The peacock butterfly, also known as the European peacock, is one of the larger butterflies having a wingspan of a little over two inches, with the females being slightly smaller.  They can be identified by their red wings, which have a characteristic black, blue, and yellow eyespot on the tips.  Even though the tops of their wings are bright and beautiful, the underside is a dark brown and black.  See picture at https://critterfacts.com/peacockbutterfly/?doing_wp_cron=1634906928.0145111083984375000000 See also https://treesforlife.org.uk/into-the-forest/trees-plants-animals/insects-2/peacock-butterfly/

“Off the cuff” is a colloquial phrase, dating back to at least the late 1930s, which first appeared in the US.  A speech (or similar locution) or performance in a play given ad lib, without formal preparation, is said to be “off the cuff” because it is as if the speaker had only had time to jot a few notes on their shirt cuff before ascending the podium or taking the stage.  According to lexicographer Christine Ammer (in her wonderful book “Have A Nice Day—No Problem!,” a dictionary of cliches), the phrase comes from the “alleged” practice of after-dinner speakers making notes on their shirt cuffs.  Although we use usually “off the cuff” to mean “completely extemporaneously, with no preparation,” the origin of phrase itself implies at least a little forethought.  http://www.word-detective.com/2013/03/off-the-cuff/ 

Déjà vu is the feeling that one has lived through the present situation before.  This is a French phrase translating literally to "already seen".  Jamais vu (from French, meaning "never seen") is any familiar situation which is not recognized by the observer.  Often described as the opposite of déjà vu, jamais vu involves a sense of eeriness and the observer's impression of seeing the situation for the first time despite rationally knowing that they have been in the situation before.  Jamais vu is more commonly explained as when a person momentarily does not recognize a word, person or place that they already know.  Jamais vu is sometimes associated with certain types of aphasia, amnesia, and epilepsy.  Theoretically, a jamais vu feeling in a sufferer of a delirious disorder or intoxication could result in a delirious explanation of it, such as in the Capgras delusion, in which the patient takes a known person for a false double or impostor.  The experience has also been named "vuja de" and "véjà du".  Presque vu (from French, meaning "almost seen") is the intense feeling of being on the very brink of a powerful epiphany, insight, or revelation, without actually achieving the revelation.  The feeling is often therefore associated with a frustrating, tantalizing sense of incompleteness or near-completeness.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C3%A9j%C3%A0_vu

FITZGERALD, Ga.—Mayor Jim Puckett hatched a plan three years ago to build the world’s tallest topiary, in the shape of a chicken, which he hoped would draw tourists to his struggling South Georgia city.  Now the project may never fly.  Mayor Puckett was soundly ousted in elections earlier this month with the bird and its cost a major campaign issue.  Cameron McWhirter  The Wall Street Journal  November 16, 2021 

We are a landscape of all we have seen. - Isamu Noguchi, sculptor and architect (17 Nov 1904-1988) 

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2457 November 17, 2021 

Monica Randall was born March 14, 1944, in Oyster Bay, NY.  She attended Fashion Institute of Technology, 1964, New York University, 1965, and C.W. Post College of Long Island University, 1966.  She is an author, photographer, lecturer, historic preservationist, and location scout.  She was president of Locations, Inc., 1968-80, and director of North Shore Preservation Society, beginning 1980.  Randall's photographs have been displayed at the Cooper-Hewitt Museum, New York, NY, and are in the permanent collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY.  She is a member of the International Platform Association and the Society for the Preservation of Long Island Antiquities.  Monica Randall is best known for her books that document the architectural heritage of Long Island's Gold Coast era.  She has also extensively researched the family histories of those who built some of the grandest homes on Long Island.  Additionally, Randall has turned her focus to some of the grand old homes of New York's Hudson River Valley.  Randall's interest in the great houses "isn't just a passion," according to Booklist's Michelle Kaske; "it has been a life's work."  Randall, who grew up on Long Island's North Shore, formed an early love for the mansions that even in the 1950s were becoming derelict and waiting for demolition.  As teenagers, she and her two sisters managed to get into some of these old houses before they were destroyed and were able to save some of the artifacts of a disappearing time.  Soon she began photographing these same estates and then started a business as a location finder for movies and advertising using these same locales as backdrop.  https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/educational-magazines/randall-monica-1944 

“There is a world of mystery along the Hudson River, where picturesque castles perch on tiny islands, and rainbows arch across the country’s most romantic river.  Here dark, sinister fortresses brood, as great clusters of dizzying towers, Gothic spires and battlemented walls molder on hilltops overlooking the wide river.  Through the middle portion of the Hudson Valley—the part that is located along the 150 miles between New York and Albany—one finds a spectacle of ruined buildings.”  Estherwood is a palace overlooking Dobbs Ferry.  James Jennings McComb built a modest house around which he built a massive octagonal library.  It dwarfed the structure, so he commissioned the grandest manor house ever constructed in the area.  Beechwood had a huge Palladian window that rose twenty feet at the center of an extremely large library.  The library takes up most of the south wing at the Ogden Hills Mansion.  Stanford White built Ferncliff, with ping-pong court, squash courts, and paneled library for John Jacob Astor.  William Astor had an octagonal library built at the base of a four-story tower in Rokeby.  Read much more and see pictures at Phantoms of the Hudson Valley by Monica Randall. 

Anoraks are hooded jackets created to withstand frigid climates.  

"Anorak" is a British slang term which refers to a person who has a very strong interest, perhaps obsessive, in niche subjects.  This interest may be unacknowledged or not understood by the general public.  The term is sometimes used synonymously with "geek" or "nerd", the Spanish term "friki", or the Japanese term "otaku", albeit referring to different niches.  Find many examples of use at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anorak_(slang) 

Lebanese rice is known as hashweh in Arabic.  That translates literally into “stuffing”.  This rice mixture is commonly used to stuff items (like filo pockets).  Hashweh in its simplest form is made of spiced rice and spiced ground meat.  Find recipe and pictures at https://everylittlecrumb.com/lebanese-rice-hashweh/  At Christmas or Thanksgiving, serve on top of mashed potatoes, or over hummus or with pita. 

A Common Reader:  Books for Readers with Imagination was an American mail-order book catalog, established in 1986 by James Mustich Jr., a bookseller, editor, and writer.  It was notable among general-interest book catalogs for its eclecticism, with large sections of each issue given over to obscure literary classics.  The catalog was named in honor of Virginia Woolf's two-volume collection of essays, entitled The Common Reader (1925) and The Second Common Reader (1932), which collected her lectures and writings about the nature of reading and how best to approach it.  A Common Reader's in-house publishing imprint, the Akadine Press, initiated in 1996, republished over 60 out-of-print books by authors such as Lillian Beckwith, Alice Thomas Ellis, Barbara Holland, Reynolds Price, and John Ciardi.  A Common Reader was published up to 17 times a year, with a readership in the tens of thousands.  Each edition listed an average of 700 books, accompanied by editorial write-ups.  At its peak, A Common Reader sold over 300,000 titles per year.  The business closed in January 2006, to the regret of many readers who appreciated its discerning finds and well-written précis.  The Wayback Machine has snapshots of the catalogue taken between 1999–2006.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Common_Reader 

Wilbur Addison Smith (1933–13 November 2021) was a Zambian-born South African novelist specialising in historical fiction about international involvement in Southern Africa across four centuries, seen from the viewpoints of both black and white families.  An accountant by training, he gained a film contract with his first published novel When the Lion Feeds.  This encouraged him to become a full-time writer, and he developed three long chronicles of the South African experience which all became best-sellers.  He acknowledged his publisher Charles Pick's advice to "write about what you know best", and his work takes in much authentic detail of the local hunting and mining way of life, along with the romance and conflict that goes with it.  As of 2014 his 35 published novels had sold more than 120 million copies, 24 million of them in Italy.  Read bibliography at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilbur_Smith 

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2456  November 15, 2021

The Mexican writer Amparo Dávila (1928–2020) is known for uncanny, nightmarish short stories full of strange visitations and sudden violence.  Born in 1928 in the Zacatecas region, Dávila moved to Mexico City in 1954 and became the secretary and protégée of the prominent writer Alfonso Reyes.  Though never prolific, she eventually won almost every major award in Mexico, and in 2015 the country’s first prize for fantastical fiction was named after her.  Very little of the food in Dávila’s stories sounds typically Mexican, and I contacted her translators to ask why.  It turned out that they had met Dávila before she died.  She entertained them at home and served agua de lima, a lemonade-like specialty she made from citrus fruit grown in her garden.  Matthew Gleeson, who lives in Oaxaca and cooks a lot himself, told me that the food in Dávila’s stories is nothing like the local dishes he knows “from pre-Hispanic foodways, which are still so prevalent and so deep and rich.”  Valerie Stivers  Read extensive article with pictures and recipes at https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2021/10/07/cooking-with-amparo-davila/   

USA State Flag Descriptions - All 50 States  https://www.allstarflags.com/facts/state-flag-descriptions/  

The first director of Missouri’s State Fruit Experiment Station, J. T. Stinson, introduced the saying "an apple a day keeps the doctor away".  The health benefits of eating fruit have since been incorporated in the FDA recommendations for a healthy diet.  Former director Paul Shepard, in a 1951 article on his research projects in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, foretold that "There's a good day coming when vineyards will garland the Ozark hills and wine flowing from the presses will bring wealth to the growers."  Marilyn Odneal  https://ag.missouristate.edu/statefruit/history/centennial-fes.htm   

Originally a “bill” was any piece of writing, especially a legal document (we still speak of bills being introduced into Congress in this sense).  More narrowly, it also came to mean a list such as a restaurant “bill of fare” (menu) or an advertisement listing attractions in a theatrical variety show such as might be posted on a “billboard.”  In nineteenth-century America, when producers found short acts to supplement the main attractions, nicely filling out an evening’s entertainment, they were said in a rhyming phrase to “fill the bill.”  People who associate bills principally with shipping invoices frequently transform this expression, meaning “to meet requirements or desires,” into “fit the bill.”  They are thinking of bills as if they were orders, lists of requirements.  It is both more logical and more traditional to say “fill the bill.”  https://brians.wsu.edu/2016/05/22/fit-the-bill-fill-the-bill/   

November 8, 2021  Sidesgiving by Tejal Rao  I write about my wholehearted love of vegetables once a week in The Veggie, New York Times Cooking’s vegetarian newsletter, so maybe it’s no surprise to learn that I wouldn’t miss the turkey at all.  It’s important to edit your menu thoughtfully, taking into account textures, colors and flavors.  And it’s always nice to have a touch of tang on the table, like a properly tart cranberry sauce.  Simple mashed potatoes and mixed roasted root vegetables with whole garlic cloves and sprigs of thyme are the anchors of my table, and they’re not going anywhere—ever.  But this year, I’m planning to make Deborah Madison’s sweet potatoes with miso-ginger dressing.  I’m drawn to the technique of steaming, then pan-frying, which yields tender insides and beautiful browned edges.  https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/11/08/dining/vegetarian-thanksgiving-side-dishes.html 

November 10, 2021  A memorial ceremony marking the 46th anniversary of the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald is a return to an in-person event at Split Rock Lighthouse, after last year’s ceremony and beacon-lighting were moved to an online-only event amid the pandemic.  The memorial observance at the historic lighthouse is held each Nov. 10, on the anniversary of the 1975 sinking of the freighter in a Lake Superior gale, with the loss of all 29 men aboard.  The Split Rock ceremony has been an annual tradition since 1985, the 10th anniversary of the wreck.  The "Mighty Fitz" would have passed several miles offshore from Split Rock on its final voyage.  The freighter left Superior, Wis., on Nov. 9, 1975, with a load of iron ore pellets, and made its way across Lake Superior as a November gale intensified.  The ship, its captain Ernest McSorley, and its crew spent hours battling wind and waves, making its way toward Whitefish Point.  On the evening of Nov. 10, McSorley radioed to the nearby freighter Arthur M. Anderson that the Fitzgerald was "holding our own."  Soon after, the Fitzgerald sank without giving a distress signal.  The loss of the ship and crew was memorialized by singer Gordon Lightfoot in the now-iconic song he released the following year.  And while the annual Nov. 10 ceremony is held on the anniversary of the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald, it also remembers those lost in other shipwrecks.  Andrew Krueger  See graphics at https://www.mprnews.org/story/2021/11/10/split-rock-ceremony-to-remember-edmund-fitzgerald-crew-on-46th-anniversary-of-wreck   

Louise Erdrich writes what she knows.  Her 18th novel, The Sentence (Harper), out November 9, 2021, is about a bookstore in Minneapolis haunted by a one-time customer; Erdrich owns Birchbark Books in Minneapolis, which features birch trees as part of the decor and a confessional-turned-forgiveness booth.  Her last novel, the Pulitzer-Prize-winning The Night Watchman (2020), about a man fighting the federal government seeking to move tribes off of their land, was also rooted in the familiar:  the life of her grandfather, who was the tribal chair at the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa.  Riza Cruz   Louise Erdrich share her most memorable reads at https://www.yahoo.com/now/louise-erdrich-hanya-yanagihara-beloved-150000662.html 

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2455  November 12, 2021

Ever wonder what mighty potion Vikings fortified themselves with as they crisscrossed the oceans?  Or what Aristotle was swigging from his goblet?  The answer lies with the humble honeybee—and the drink it has helped produce for millenia.  Possibly the ancestor of all alcoholic beverages, mead has enjoyed audiences across history, from humble working folk to soldiers and pirates and even royalty.  Made with honey, water, and yeast, rather than fruit, mead resides in its own category of alcoholic beverage.  Even the meads that are flavored with a variety of fruit are not considered wines.  Chinese pottery vessels dating from 7000 B.C.E. suggest evidence of mead fermentation that predates both wine and beer.  The first batch of mead was probably a chance discovery:  Early foragers likely drank the contents of a rainwater-flooded beehive that had fermented naturally with the help of airborne yeast.  Once knowledge of mead production was in place, it spread globally, and was popular with Vikings, Mayans, Egyptians, Greeks and Romans alike.  Amanda Marsteller   https://www.liquor.com/articles/10-facts-about-mead/ 

In mixed forests, each species accesses different sources of nutrients from the others, leading to higher yields overall.  And those thicker stems are made mostly of carbon.  Mixed forests are also often more resilient to disease by diluting populations of pests and pathogens, organisms that cause disease.  Darwin's prescient observation is tucked away in chapter four of his 1859 famous book On the Origin of the Species.  Studies of this "Darwin effect" have spawned vast ecological literature.  Rob MacKenzie, Professor of Atmospheric Science, University of Birmingham and Christine Foyer, Professor of Plant Sciences, University of Birmingham.  This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license.  Read the original article.  https://www.sciencealert.com/a-150-year-old-note-from-darwin-is-changing-how-we-plant-forests   

The original meaning of drop a dime is to secretly report a lawbreaker to the police, to snitch on a fellow criminal, to anonymously betray a criminal partner.  The term drop a dime first appeared in detective novels in the 1920s-1930s.  The idiom drop a dime conjures the image of someone putting a dime in a payphone to call the police and betray or “rat out” a criminal.  Informants used payphones because short phone calls could not be traced, especially without prior warning of the incoming phone call.  Even though payphones have passed out of usage, this meaning of the idiom does not seem to have waned.  Drop a dime is an American expression, related phrases are drops a dime, dropped a dime, dropping a dime.  Interestingly, the term drop a dime has also evolved into an American basketball term, dropping dimes, which means giving an assist on a play.  Also, the expression is increasingly seen in American football to mean to throw a pass accurately.  https://grammarist.com/idiom/drop-a-dime/ 

A car that's very maneuverable is said to turn on a dime (it can make sharp, precise turns).  One who says life turns on a dime may have in mind that events in a person's life can reverse themselves quickly.  https://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/41/messages/786.html

HOW TO MAKE SELF-RISING FLOUR  For each cup of flour, whisk together with 1 ½ teaspoons of baking powder and ¼ teaspoon of salt.  Make sure to whisk all of these ingredients together well so that the baking powder and salt are both evenly distributed within the flour.  Robyn Stone  https://addapinch.com/how-to-make-self-rising-flour/ 

argot (plural argots)  noun  A secret language or conventional slang peculiar to thieves, tramps and vagabonds.  Synonyms:  cant, jargon, slang  The specialized informal vocabulary and terminology used between people with special skill in a field, such as between doctors, mathematicians or hackers.  Synonym:  jargon  https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/argot

Argot (plural Argots)  noun  An inhabitant or resident of Argos.

Argos (plural Argoses)  noun  A city in the Peloponnese, Greece.  (Greek mythology) The dog of Odysseus in Homer's Odyssey.  A town in Indiana; named for the city in Greece.  A river in Murcia, Spain; flowing from Caravaca de la Cruz into the Segura at Calasparra.  (Greek mythology)  Alternative form of Argus (many-eyed servant of Hera)  https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Argos 

Pillow-Cat Books is the first animal themed bookshop in New York.  Located in the East Village, it is small, green, and filled with used, new, vintage and antique books of all types and in all languages.  We have books about art, photography, design, fashion, and literature—as well as comics and, of course, children’s favourites.  The only common denominator:  an animal or animal character must be present.  https://www.pillowcatbooks.com/pages/about-pillow-cat-books 

We opened a few weeks ago (in mid September 2021).  Once we are properly settled in, we will begin to host all kinds of events:  story time for children and animals, animal fancy dress contests, book clubs, signings and readings for and by humans and animals, among other things!  https://www.pillowcatbooks.com/pages/events-special-projects 

one-armed bandit (plural one-armed bandits)  (originally US, gambling) A gaming machine having a long arm-like handle at one side that a player pulls down to make reels spin; the player wins money or tokens when certain combinations of symbols line up on these reels.  Alternative form:  one-arm bandit   Hypernyms:   fruit machine, poker machine, pokie, pokie machine, slot machine https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/one-armed_bandit#English 

The American engineer Charles Fey, who invented the slot machine that made automatic payouts, died November 10, 1944.

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2454  November 10, 2021

“Each July, Lisbon Falls hosts the Maine Moxie Festival.  There are bands, fireworks, and a parade featuring—I swear this is true—Moxie floats and local beauty queens dressed in Moxie-colored tank bathing suits, which means an orange so bright it can cause retinal burns.”  “A watershed is an area of land, usually mountains or forests, that drains into a river.”  “When kids went out on that special fall night, carrying empty bags they hoped to bring back filled with sweet swag, their costumes always reflected the current craze.”  11/22/63, a novel by Stephen King 

Hot roasted peanuts!  Fresh popcorn!  Ice-cold Moxie!  You might have heard such a snack vendor's cry at a baseball game-if you attended it in 1924.  That was the heyday of the soft drink named Moxie, which some claim outsold Coca-Cola at the height of its popularity.  The beverage was a favorite of American writer E. B. White, who wrote, "Moxie contains gentian root, which is the path to the good life.  This was known in the second century before Christ and is a boon to me today."  By 1930, moxie had become a slang term for nerve and verve, perhaps because some people thought the drink was a tonic that could cure virtually any ill and bring vim back to even the most lethargic individual.  https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/moxie 

A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg

greige  (grayzh) 

noun:	1. A color between gray and beige.
	2. A fabric or yarn that has not undergone bleaching, dying, or other finishing processes.
adj.:	1. Of a gray-beige color.
	2. Unbleached, undyed, or unfinished.

For noun, adj. 1: A blend of gray + beige. Earliest documented use: 1927.
For noun, adj. 2: From French grège (raw, unfinished) influenced by gray/beige, from Italian greggio, probably from Latin gregius (plain, ordinary).  Earliest documented use:  1835.

zephyr  (ZEF-uhr)  noun  1.  A wind blowing from the west.  2.  A gentle breeze.  3.  A soft and light garment, fabric, or yarn.  4.  Anything having a soft, fine quality.  After Zephyrus, the god of the west wind in Greek mythology.  Earliest documented use:  before 1150.  

ritz  (rits)  noun:	Luxury, glamor, opulence, etc.  verb tr:
	1. To make a show of luxury or opulence.
	2. To behave haughtily toward someone; to snub.

 After César Ritz (1850-1918), a Swiss hotelier.  Earliest documented use:  1900.  César Ritz was known for his opulent hotels and was called “the hotelier of kings and the king of hoteliers”.  The word ritz is often used in the phrase “to put on the ritz” meaning to “make an ostentatious show”.  “In the film [Elysium], Earth’s rich live on a ritzed-out, ultra-technological satellite in orbit, and leave the poor to fight it out for resources back on the planet.”  Jacob Hersh; Countdown to the 3rd:  A Hair-Raising Scandal; The Daily Evergreen (Pullman, Washington); September 10, 2020.  “I didn’t ask to see you.  You sent for me.  I don’t mind your ritzing.”  Raymond Chandler; The Big Sleep; Knopf; 1939.
Feedback to A.Word.A.Day  
Felix culpa:  This makes me think of the playwright Jean Kerr quoting her mother:  “Sometimes I wish I would get a blessing that is not in disguise.”  Laura Burns, Galveston, Texas  
Felix culpa:  the cat ate my homework.  Joel Mabus, Portage, Michigan

Richard Armour must have been thinking about rheology when he wrote this little couplet (often mistakenly attributed to Ogden Nash):  Shake and shake the catsup bottle none will come and then a lot’ll. 
Nancy R Wilson, Petaluma, California

From:  Dennis Pasek  Subject:  rheology  Please note that ketchup is an example of what is known as a non-Newtonian fluid.  Its viscosity changes according to the shear forces applied to it.  What most people don’t seem to understand is that ketchup will flow easily if you gently tap on the *side* of the neck near the opening of a typical glass bottle, applying the force at a right angle to the desired flow direction.  This is not intuitive and has resulted in schemes like plastic squeeze bottles with flexible elastomer membranes to make delivery easier for unskilled users. 

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2453  November 9, 2021

Hunter Biden’s New York art debut, months in the making, is a hushed and intense affair.  Titled “The Journey Home,” the show includes 25 works on canvas, metal, and Japanese Yupo paper.  It may be one of the most talked-about and controversial art exhibitions in recent memory.  Concerns over conflicts of interest have reached the White House and the Capitol.  The artist—the 51-year-old son of U.S. President Joe Biden—has been criticized and ridiculed by the conservative media and former President Donald Trump.  His dealer, Georges Bergès, 42, has received death threats and the gallery was vandalized in July.  The show runs through November 15, 2021 and Hunter Biden is expected to attend towards the end.  Katya Kazakina  See graphics at https://news.artnet.com/market/hunter-biden-art-show-sneak-peek-2027731

Born William Frederick Cody in Iowa in 1846, he rose to international fame as a showman.  Cody left home around age 11 to become a cattle herder, and then joined the Pony Express as a rider in 1860.  His resume also includes stints with the Army as a private in the 7^th Kansas Calvary, and later as a scout.  But his legend really began to grow as his buffalo-hunting skills became renowned, earning him the nickname Buffalo Bill.  With the buzz about his exploits on the plains spreading—thanks to newspapers and dime novels, exaggerated as they may have been—Cody parlayed his status as a national folk hero into a show-business career.  Starting off as an actor in a stage production, Cody went on to create "Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show," a circus-like traveling outdoor spectacle.  Real-life ropers and wranglers joined the troupe, helping to popularize the term “cowboy” and serving as a forerunner to modern-day rodeos.  Performers like Annie Oakley and Sitting Bull also became household names as the show spanned 30 years in one form or another and made stops in more than 1,400 communities across North America and Europe.  https://www.colorado.com/articles/experience-legacy-buffalo-bill-colorado  See also https://www.uncovercolorado.com/museums/buffalo-bill-museum/

The Stone of Scone is an ancient symbol of Scottish sovereignty.  According to legend, the sandstone slab was used by the biblical figure Jacob as a pillow when he dreamed of a ladder reaching to heaven and then brought to Scotland by way of Egypt, Spain and Ireland.  The rock, also known as the Stone of Destiny, was used for centuries in the coronation ceremonies of Scottish monarchs.  Following his victory at the Battle of Dunbar in 1296, England’s King Edward I seized the stone from Scotland’s Scone Abbey and had it fitted into the base of a specially crafted wooden Coronation Chair on which English—and later British—monarchs have been crowned inside London’s Westminster Abbey ever since.  The Stone of Scone was secretly buried underneath the historic abbey for safekeeping during World War II, and a plan for locating it was sent to the Canadian prime minister.  German bombs never damaged the stone, but four University of Glasgow students who broke into Westminster Abbey on Christmas Eve in 1950 did.  The nearly 400-pound Stone of Scone split in two as the Scottish nationalists dislodged it from the Coronation Chair and brought it back to Scotland in the trunk of a car.  Four months after its disappearance, the repaired stone was discovered draped in a Scottish national flag on the high altar of the ruined Arbroath Abbey.  No charges were ever brought against the students, and the stone was returned to Westminster Abbey.  Seven hundred years after King Edward I removed the Stone of Scone from Scottish soil, British Prime Minister John Major unexpectedly announced its return, which occurred on November 15, 1996.  It now resides in Edinburgh Castle but will be made available for future coronation ceremonies at Westminster Abbey.  Christopher Klein  https://www.history.com/news/what-is-the-stone-of-scone 

A firth is a long, narrow indentation of the seacoast.  The Firth of Forth (near the Stone of Scone is the estuary (firth) of several Scottish rivers including the River Forth. 

 The origin of the word scone is obscure and may derive from different sources.  That is, the classic Scottish scone, the Dutch schoonbrood or "spoonbread" (very similar to the drop scone), and possibly other similarly-named quick breads may have made their way onto the British tea table, where their similar names merged into one.  Thus, scone may derive from the Middle Dutch schoonbrood (fine white bread), from schoon (pure, clean) and brood (bread), or it may derive from the Scots Gaelic term sgonn meaning a shapeless mass or large mouthful.  The Middle Low German term schöne meaning fine bread may also have played a role in the origination of this word. And, if the explanation put forward by Sheila MacNiven Cameron is true, the word may also be based on the town of Scone.  The difference in pronouncing scone is alluded to in a poem:  I asked the maid in dulcet tone To order me a buttered scone;  The silly girl has been and gone And ordered me a buttered scone.  The Oxford English Dictionary reports that the first mention of the word was in 1513.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scone 

Simple Scones  Copyright 2006 USA WEEKEND and columnist Pam Anderson  https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/79470/simple-scones/ 

What I Learned While Cataloguing an Entire Library of 19th-Century Schoolbooks by Kim Beil  November  4, 2021  This spring I started writing about every book in the library.  Not a large library, nor a public one.  Just a trunk full of 19th-century schoolbooks that my mother found in an old farmhouse in the 1960s.  There are pasteboard readers and parsers and dictionaries, a few arithmetic texts and leather-bound volumes on public speaking.  Nothing special, owned by no one famous.  My plan had been, at first, to photograph the books and then sell them on eBay.  I took the pictures, but couldn’t bear to sell the books.  Read more and see pictures at https://lithub.com/what-i-learned-while-cataloguing-an-entire-library-of-19th-century-schoolbooks/ 

In August 2021, filmmaker Eduardo Montes-Bradley spent two weeks deep in the Berkshires at Chesterwood, the former home of the sculptor Daniel Chester French and a National Trust Historic Site.  French may not be nearly as well-known as his crowning achievement—the monumental sculpture of our 16th president at the Lincoln Memorial.  During his artist residency, Montes-Bradley lived in one of French’s studios and prepared to make a documentary about the sculptor, for which Chesterwood is currently raising funds.  Amy Sutherland  https://savingplaces.org/stories/filmmaker-eduardo-montes-bradley-spotlights-the-lincoln-memorials-sculptor#.YYRd0WDMKUk 

November 3, 2021  Damon Galgut has won the Booker prize for his portrait of a white South African family navigating the end of apartheid.  The judges praised The Promise as “a spectacular demonstration of how the novel can make us see and think afresh”, and compared it to the work of William Faulkner and Virginia Woolf.  This is the first time Galgut will be walking away with the £50,000 prize, despite having been shortlisted twice before.  The Promise is his ninth novel, and his first in seven years.  He becomes the third South African to win the prestigious fiction prize, after JM Coetzee and Nadine Gordimer.  Alison Flood  https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/nov/03/damon-galgut-wins-booker-prize-the-promise 

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2452  November 8, 2021