Elizabeth Strout was born in Portland, Maine, and grew up in small towns in Maine and New Hampshire.  From a young age she was drawn to writing things down, keeping notebooks that recorded the details of her days.  She was also drawn to books, and spent hours of her youth in the local library lingering among the stacks of fiction.  During the summer months of her childhood she played outdoors, either with her brother, or, more often, alone, and this is where she developed her deep and abiding love of the physical world:  the seaweed covered rocks along the coast of Maine, and the woods of New Hampshire with its hidden wildflowers.  During her adolescent years, Strout continued writing avidly, having conceived of herself as a writer from early on.  She read biographies of writers, and was already studying--on her own--the way American writers, in particular, told their stories.  Poetry was something she read and memorized; by the age of sixteen was sending out stories to magazines.  Her first story was published when she was twenty-six.  https://www.elizabethstrout.com/about 

'At one fell swoop' is one of those phrases that we may have picked up early in our learning of the language and probably worked out its meaning from the context in which we heard it, without any clear understanding of what each word meant.  We use the word fell in a variety of ways:  to chop, as in fell a tree; a moorland or mountain, like those in the northern UK; the past tense of fall, as in 'he fell over'.  None of those seems to make sense in this phrase and indeed the 'fell' here is none of those.  It's an old word, in use by the 13th century, that's now fallen out of use other than in this phrase, and is the common root of the term 'felon'.  The Oxford English Dictionary defines 'fell' as meaning 'fierce, savage; cruel, ruthless; dreadful, terrible', which is pretty unambiguous.  Shakespeare either coined the phrase, or gave it circulation, in Macbeth, 1605.  https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/at-one-fell-swoop.html 

McCarthyism is a term describing the intense anti-communist suspicion in the United States in a period that lasted roughly from the late 1940s to the late 1950s.  This period is also referred to as the Second Red Scare, and coincided with increased fears about communist influence on American institutions and espionage by Soviet agents.  Originally coined to criticize the actions of U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy, "McCarthyism" later took on a more general meaning, not necessarily referring to the conduct of Joseph McCarthy alone.  https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/McCarthyism 

Easy Parmesan Risotto courtesy of Ina Garten  serves 4-6  Bake in oven rather than stirring on your stovetop.  https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/easy-parmesan-risotto-recipe-2172312  Thank you, Muse reader!  

Joyeux Noël (''Merry Christmas'') is a 2005 epic war drama film based on the Christmas truce of December 1914, depicted through the eyes of French, Scottish, and German soldiers.  It was written and directed by Christian Carion, and screened out of competition at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival. The film, which includes one of the last appearances of Ian Richardson before his death, was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the 78th Academy Awards.  It is a fictionalised account of an actual event that took place in December 1914, when Wilhelm, German Crown Prince, sent the lead singer of the Berlin Imperial Opera company on a solo visit to the front line.  Singing by the tenor, Walter Kirchhoff, to the 120th and 124th Württemberg regiments led French soldiers in their trenches to stand up and applaud.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joyeux_No%C3%ABl  Thank you, Muse reader! 

The Last of Sheila is a 1973 American neo noir mystery film directed by Herbert Ross and written by Anthony Perkins and Stephen Sondheim.  It starred Richard Benjamin, Dyan Cannon, James Coburn, Joan Hackett, James Mason, Ian McShane, and Raquel Welch.  The film was released to positive reviews, and has garnered a cult following over time.  Rian Johnson credited the film as an inspiration for Knives Out.  Perkins and Sondheim's script was later novelized by Alexander Edwards.  The original music score was composed by Billy Goldenberg.  The song "Friends", sung by Bette Midler, can be heard during the final scene of the film and the end credits.  Perkins and Sondheim won the 1974 Edgar Award for Best Motion Picture from the Mystery Writers of America.  They went on to try to collaborate together again two more times, on The Chorus Girl Murder Case and Crime and Variations, but the projects were ultimately unrealized.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_of_Sheila 

Complete National Film Registry Listing starting with the 2021 titles announced by the Library of Congress  Sort films by title, year of release, and year inducted into the Registry by using the up and down arrows at the top of each column.  Brief descriptions and expanded essays are available for many Registry titles.  https://www.loc.gov/programs/national-film-preservation-board/film-registry/complete-national-film-registry-listing/

Tax preparation company H&R Block Inc on December 16, 2021 sued payment company Block Inc, previously called Square Inc, saying the new name infringed its trademarks.  Block's chief executive, Twitter Inc co-founder Jack Dorsey, announced the name change earlier this month as the company looked to expand beyond its payment service into new areas, including blockchain.  In a complaint filed in Kansas City, Missouri, federal court, however, H&R Block accused the company of "stealing Block's name in order to co-opt the reputation and goodwill that Block has earned through decades of hard work.   Brendan Pierson  https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/h-r-block-sues-block-161808092.html 

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2470  December 17, 2021

The legal age is also known as the age of legal majority.  This is the age at which a person gains the legal status of an adult.  The legal age is set by state law and can differ from state to state.  However, almost all states set the base legal age as 18 years old.  This is the age at which a person gains control over their own actions and affairs and becomes responsible for the decisions they make.  Those past the age of legal majority are usually tried as adults when charged with crimes.  Once this age is reached, any existing parental, guardian, and child support obligations are considered terminated.  However, minors may obtain the status of legal adulthood before reaching the legal age of majority if they are granted a court order for emancipation, or if they meet statutorily defined exceptions such as getting married as a minor or obtaining certain educational degrees.  Once a person reaches the legal age of their state, they may enter into legally enforceable agreements.  Minors do not have the legal capacity to enter into a binding contract.  However, an agreement made while a person was a minor may be expressly or impliedly ratified once they reach the age of legal majority so that the agreement becomes valid and binding.  The age of legal majority is separate from legal age of license.  A legal age of license is the minimum age a person must reach in order to legally to participate in certain activities, such as drinking alcohol, voting, or driving.  Legal ages of license vary by the activity and the jurisdiction, and can, but do not have to, match the age of legal majority.  https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/legal_age 

The Galactic Empire is an interstellar empire featured in Isaac Asimov's Robot, Galactic Empire, and Foundation series.  The Empire is spread across the Milky Way galaxy and consists of almost 25 million planets settled exclusively by humans.  For over 12 millennia the seat of imperial authority was located on the ecumenopolis of Trantor, whose population exceeded 40 billion, until it was sacked in the year 12,328.  The official symbol of the empire is the Spaceship-and-Sun.  Cleon II was the last Emperor to hold significant authority.  The fall of the empire, modelled on the fall of the Roman Empire, is the subject of many of Asimov's novels.  Asimov created the fictional Galactic Empire in the early 1940s based upon the Roman Empire, as a proposal to John W. Campbell, after reading Edward Gibbon's The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire when he was working at the Philadelphia Navy Yard with Robert Heinlein.  The concept evolved through short stories and novellas in Astounding Science Fiction magazine during the 1940s, culminating in the publication of the Foundation stories as a trilogy of books in the early 1950s.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galactic_Empire_(Isaac_Asimov) 

Foundation is an American science fiction streaming television series created by David S. Goyer and Josh Friedman for Apple TV+, based on the Foundation series of stories by Isaac Asimov.  It features an ensemble cast led by Jared Harris and Lee Pace.  Foundation premiered on September 24, 2021.  The series has received a generally positive critical response.  In October 2021, the series was renewed for a second season.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundation_(TV_series) 

The Foundation TV series introduces viewers to the Jump Drive, Isaac Asimov's way of traveling across the galaxy--and here's how it compares to Star Trek and Star Wars.   Foundation was a major influence on Star Wars--viewers will note the similar ideas of a Galactic Empire, as well as stormtrooper-like armor--and it certainly seems to have inspired George Lucas' version of hyperspace.  There, ships jump to hyperspace by traveling faster than light, building up sufficient momentum to break through to a higher dimension.  The key difference is that, in Star Wars, different classes of hyperdrive allow ships to travel through hyperspace at different speeds, whereas Asimov's hyperspace jumps are instantaneous.  Both franchises seem to take the view that hyperspace is disrupted by gravity masses in the real world; in Star Wars this leads to the existence of hyperspace lanes (a major concept in the current Star Wars: The High Republic transmedia initiative), while Asimov imagines a spaceship making multiple (near-instant) Jumps in order to navigate.  Of course, Star Trek's Warp Drive takes a very different approach.  In Star Trek, a matter/antimatter collision--controlled by the mineral dilithium--generates a phenomenal amount of power, allowing a starship to move faster than light.  Even Gene Roddenberry was still influenced by Asimov, though, as can be seen in the fact he originally called the warp drive the "hyperdrive" in the pilot.  All science fiction roads really do lead back Isaac Asimov and the Foundation.  Thomas Bacon  https://screenrant.com/foundation-jump-drive-star-trek-star-wars-comparison/ 

BIBLIBURRO PROGRAM DELIVERS READING MATERIALS TO CHILDREN IN COLUMBIA   Biblioburro started out with just seventy books, all of them Luis Soriano’s own, and only one donkey.  He quickly added a second donkey, affixing wooden bookcases to both of their saddles for ease of transport, and named the two animals Alfa and Beto (alfabeto, alphabet in Spanish).  He started extending and diversifying each day’s route to reach more children in the area.  When Colombian national radio broadcaster Juan Gossaín got wind of the Biblioburro story in 2003 and shared it with his listeners, book donations from around the world started pouring in—today, Luis boasts a collection of more than 7,000 titles.  There is now a network of nearly 20 Biblioburro traveling libraries, each operating separately throughout the Magdalena Department.  In 2000, after his first three years with Alfa and Beto, Luis was able to open La Gloria’s first primary school and permanent public library, now filled with computers and flat-screen televisions, and piled high with books from around the world.  Then he founded a second school, in an outlying village, and a third, and a fourth.  Biblioburro itself has become a department-wide program, planning to roll out two new initiatives, Biblioburro Digital (bringing laptops, tablets, and other technologies to children in rural areas) and Biblioburro Very Well (a Biblioburro that teaches children English).   Jordan Salama  https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/biblioburro-colombia 

An architect-designer in southern Finland has returned to a frozen lake with a snow shovel to draw a large animal on the ice for the sixth year in a row, creating an artwork that he hopes will “make people happy and encourage them to go out to hike in a beautiful nature.”  On December 4, 2021, Pasi Widgren drew a fox that measures about 90 meters (295 feet) from on Lake Pitkajarvi, north of Helsinki.  In previous years, he used a shovel to sketch a bear and an owl, always using the same lake as his canvas.  Widgren has drawn animals on local lakes every winter since 2016 near his home in a village not far from Lahti, a town of 120,000.  The drawings disappear when more snow falls or when the ice melts.  Jan M. Olsen  https://apnews.com/article/europe-arts-and-entertainment-environment-and-nature-lakes-denmark-67767afe046c2c4c567d7c24082007ad

 http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2469  December 15, 2021 

Professor William Sanderson, or Bill as he likes to be known, wades into the shallows of the Dornoch Firth as the sun breaks over the ragged skyline of the Scottish Highlands, turning the waters gold.  Something in the water catches his eye and he stoops to pick it up.  "This is a European native oyster," he explains.  "They used to be very abundant in this site thousands of years ago right up to the 1800s."  The shell in his hand is flatter and rounder than the faster growing Pacific oysters common in European restaurants today.  It is also very rare, having been fished almost to extinction in British waters during the Industrial Revolution.  Professor Sanderson wades into the shallows of the Dornoch Firth as the sun breaks over the ragged skyline of the Scottish Highlands, turning the waters gold.  Something in the water catches his eye and he stoops to pick it up.  "This is a European native oyster," he explains.  "They used to be very abundant in this site thousands of years ago right up to the 1800s."  The shell in his hand is flatter and rounder than the faster growing Pacific oysters common in European restaurants today.  It is also very rare, having been fished almost to extinction in British waters during the Industrial Revolution.  The popularity of the European oyster was its downfall.  Since the 19th century, native oyster populations have declined by 95% in the UK.  But there is a glimmer of hope for the indigenous oysters of the UK.  Beneath these waters is a marine rewilding project that has transformed the Dornoch Firth, a narrow strip of water off the northeast coast of Scotland.  The Dornoch Environmental Enhancement Project, or DEEP, began in 2014 and has to date seen the successful reintroduction of 20,000 European oysters on the firth's bed.  The aim is to increase that number to a self-sustaining population of 4 million by 2025.  The project is the result of an unlikely partnership.  On the banks of the Dornoch sit the old buildings of the Glenmorangie Distillery, a Scotch whisky maker which has called the firth its home for over 170 years.  "They were expanding their warehouses and the business was booming, and they wanted to know how to reduce the environmental footprint and improve their surroundings," Sanderson recounts.  "Traditionally, we have discharged waste into the firth," says Edward Thom, the distillery manager. "What we now do is remove 97% of the waste product prior to it being discharged.  The remaining 3% is then cleaned by the oyster beds that we're currently planting as part of the DEEP project."  The DEEP project is just one of 19 now up and running around Europe, and the first to rebuild an oyster habitat that had been completely destroyed.  Ed Scott-Clarke  https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/08/uk/oysters-dornoch-firth-scotland-glenmorangie-c2e-spc-intl/index.html 

The Hays Code was the informal name for The Motion Picture Production Code, adopted in 1930 but not seriously enforced until 1934.  The Code was a set of rules governing American filmmaking that shaped—and in many ways stifled—American cinema for over three decades.  It also happened to completely overlap with The Golden Age of Hollywood.  The Pre-Code Era of Hollywood cinema stretched from around 1928 to 1933, and the contrast between films made before and after the Hays Code was enacted shows the impact censorship had on American cinema.  Films like Howard Hawks' Scarface (1932) were far more brazen and upfront about Damn, It Feels Good to Be a Gangster!, lacking the Do Not Do This Cool Thing tacked-on correctives seen in films like Angels with Dirty Faces (though even during this era, with Hawks' film, the studio added scenes and changed the title to Scarface:  The Shame of the Nation to appease local censorship boards).  The landscape was also less politically correct, as actors and actresses played all kinds of roles.  Lots of pre-Code films have a surprisingly feminist slant; working women are even regarded with sympathy and affection.  https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/UsefulNotes/TheHaysCode  The Hays Code was abandoned in 1968. 

The pygmy rabbit (Brachylagus idahoensis) is a rabbit species native to the United States.  It is also the only native rabbit species in North America to dig its own burrow.  The pygmy rabbit differs significantly from species within either the Lepus (hare) or Sylvilagus (cottontail) genera and is generally considered to be within the monotypic genus Brachylagus.  One isolated population, the Columbia Basin pygmy rabbit, is listed as an endangered species by the U.S. Federal government, though the International Union for Conservation of Nature lists the species as lower risk.  The pygmy rabbit is the world's smallest leporid, with adults weighing between 375 and 500 grams (0.827 and 1.102 lb), and having a body length between 23.5 and 29.5 centimeters (9.3 and 11.6 in); females are slightly larger than males.  The pygmy rabbit is distinguishable from other leporids by its small size, short ears, gray color, small hind legs, and lack of white fuzzy fur.  The range of the pygmy rabbit includes most of the Great Basin and some of the adjacent intermountain areas of western North America.  Pygmy rabbits are found in southwestern Montana from the extreme southwest corner near the Idaho border north to Dillon and Bannack in Beaverhead County.  Distribution continues west to southern Idaho and southern Oregon and south to northern Utah, northern Nevada, and eastern California.  Isolated populations occur in east-central Washington and Wyoming.  The elevational range of pygmy rabbits in Nevada extends from 1,370–2,135 meters (4,495–7,005 ft) and in California from 1,520–1,615 meters (4,987–5,299 ft).  The last male purebred Columbia Basin pygmy rabbit, found only in the Columbia Basin of Washington state, died March 30, 2006, at the Oregon Zoo in Portland.  The last purebred female died in 2008.  A crossbreeding program conducted by the Oregon Zoo, Washington State University and Northwest Trek is attempting to preserve the genetic line by breeding surviving females with the Idaho pygmy rabbit.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pygmy_rabbit 

 Anne Rice, the novelist whose lush, best-selling gothic tales, including “Interview With a Vampire,” reinvented the blood-drinking immortals as tragic antiheroes, died December 11, 2021.  She was 80.  Rice's 1976 novel “Interview With the Vampire" was later adapted, with a script by Rice, into the 1994 movie directed by Neil Jordan and starring Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt.  It's also set to be adapted again in an upcoming TV series on AMC and AMC+ set to premiere next year.  “Interview With the Vampire,” in which reporter Daniel Molloy interviews Louis de Pointe du Lac, was Rice's first novel but over the next five decades, she would write more than 30 books and sell more than 150 million copies worldwide.  Thirteen of those were part of the “Vampire Chronicles" begun with her 1976 debut.  “I wrote novels about people who are shut out life for various reasons," Rice wrote in her 2008 memoir “Called Out of Darkness:  A Spiritual Confession.”  “This became a great theme of my novels—how one suffers as an outcast, how one is shut out of various levels of meaning and, ultimately, out of human life itself."  Born Howard Allen Frances O’Brien in 1941, she was raised in New Orleans, where many of her novels were set.  Jake Coyle  https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/anne-rice-author-gothic-novels-084231735.html 

 http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2468  December 13, 2021

Kolbász is a Hungarian sausage.  Smoked sausages may contain bacon, ground pork, beef, boar or lamb, paprika, salt, garlic, black pepper, allspice, white pepper, caraway, nutmeg, zest, marjoram, cayenne pepper, sugar, white wine or cognac.  The meat is coarsely ground and salted.  If garlic is added, it is mashed in water to produce a slurry and added to the meat along with spices.  The sausage is then stuffed into natural c asings in 1-foot links.  This traditionally took place outside on the fall day when a pig was slaughtered. The sausage is then hung overnight to allow the flavors to meld and some of the grease to drip out.  It is now ready to be used fresh and unsmoked.  Fresh sausages may have additional ingredients like liver, mushroom, bread, rice, lemon juice, eggs, cream or milk.  The unsmoked sausages are typically roasted with sauerkraut or red or green cabbage, and served with mashed potatoes.  The best known and most popular versions are:  "Csabai" - sausage.  The Csabai kolbász is made in the town Békéscsaba.  There are several variations in size and type, but it is a spicy sausage with a lot of paprika.  "Gyulai" - sausage is a different sausage, using different spices.  It is named after the Hungarian town of Gyula.  At the World Exhibition of Food in Brussel 1935, the Gyulai Kolbász was awarded a gold diploma.  The sausage may be cut into thin slices and eaten alone or with bread.  They are also added to many Hungarian dishes including Lecsó and Potato/Egg Casserole (Rakott Krumpli).  "Debreceni Sausage" is usually unsmoked or more mildly smoked, with a strong paprika flavour and used for cooking.  Link to recipe at https://recipes.fandom.com/wiki/Kolb%C3%A1sz 

Walt Whitman and Abraham Lincoln never met, but Whitman, an American poet, greatly admired Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States, and was deeply affected upon his assassination, writing several poems as elegies—notably "Hush'd Be the Camps To-Day", "O Captain! My Captain!", "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd", and "This Dust Was Once the Man"—and giving a series of lectures on Lincoln.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Featured_topics/Walt_Whitman_and_Abraham_Lincoln

Traditionally, fried rice was a dish that people cooked to repurpose uneaten rice from the night before.  That’s why most fried rice recipes call for day-old rice.  If you don’t have leftover rice on hand, cook a batch of rice and spread it over plates or a large baking sheet to cool.  Let the rice dry out for an hour or two.  Freshly cooked rice has too much moisture, so it’s not ideal for fried rice.  Lisa Lin  https://healthynibblesandbits.com/kimchi-fried-rice/

Gars are members of the family Lepisosteidae which are the only surviving members of Ginglymodi, an ancient holosteian group of ray-finned fish which first appeared during the Triassic, over 240 million years ago.  Gars comprise seven living species of fish in two genera that inhabit fresh, brackish, and occasionally marine waters of eastern North America, Central America and Cuba in the Caribbean, though extinct members of the family were more widespread.  Gars have elongated bodies that are heavily armored with ganoid scales, and fronted by similarly elongated jaws filled with long, sharp teeth.  Gars are sometimes referred to as "garpike", but are not closely related to pike, which are in the fish family Esocidae.  All of the gars are relatively large fish, but the alligator gar (Atractosteus spatula) is the largest--the alligator gar often grows to a length of over 2 m (6.5 ft) and a weight of over 45 kg (100 lb), and specimens of up to 3 m (9.8 ft) in length have been reported.  Unusually, their vascularised swim bladders can function as lungs, and most gars surface periodically to take a gulp of air.  Gar flesh is edible and the hard skin and scales of gars are used by humans, but gar eggs are highly toxic.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gar  See also https://thefisheriesblog.com/2016/09/06/the-7-wonderful-gar-of-the-world/ 

Bursary awards are part of the Canadian and United Kingdom financial aid programs.  Bursary awards are not repaid, and are used to provide certain students with money to cover gaps between the amount of financial aid a student needs to attend the school and any available government assistance that they are eligible for.  https://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/bursary-award.asp 

Sclerocarya birrea (Anacardiaceae) is a popular African wild tree distributed in many African countries where the leaves, stem bark, root and fruits are used in food and traditional medicine; the fruit is rich in ascorbic acid.  The fruit juice contains sesquiterpene hydrocarbon which are terpenes found in plants that are reported to have bacteriostatic properties.  The fruit contains a hard brown seed.  The seed encloses a soft white kernel rich in oil and protein.  The oil contains oleic, palmitic, myristic, and stearic acids; the kernel protein contains amino acids with a predominance of glutamic acid and arginine.  Abdalbasit Mariod and Siddig Abdelwahab  https://www.researchgate.net/publication/241736737_Sclerocarya_birrea_Marula_An_African_Tree_of_Nutritional_and_Medicinal_Uses_A_Review 

Today is Human Rights Day, which is recognized by the United Nations to emphasize the importance of human rights and to commemorate the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the first global enunciation of such rights, on December 10, 1948.  Wiktionary  

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2467  December 10, 2021

Lon Chaney was born April 1, 1883 in Colorado Springs, Colorado.  He was the son of deaf mute parents, Frank and Emma Chaney, and he learned from childhood to communicate through pantomime, sign language and facial expression.  In 1901, he went on the road as an actor in a play that he co-wrote with his brother titled “The Little Tycoon.”  After limited success, the company was sold and Lon continued on with the new owner.  By 1918 with over a hundred film credits for Universal, he asked for a raise and was refused.  Shortly thereafter, he left the studio to become a freelance actor.  In 1919, Lon received critical acclaim for his role in George Loane Tuckers “The Miracle Man” portraying “The Frog,” a con man who pretends to be crippled and is miraculously healed.  Lon often suffered to achieve the character he was portraying.  In 1920, for “The Penalty,” he had his legs bound tightly behind him in a harness, inserting his knees into leather stumps devised as artificial legs with his feet bound at the thighs.  This was a very painful ordeal that would cut circulation to his legs resulting in broken blood vessels.  For “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” in 1923 he devised a hump and harness reportedly weighing in excess of 50 pounds, twisting his torso to feel the pain of Quasimodo.  He delivered an outstanding performance earning him worldwide fame.  In 1924, Lon starred in Metro-Goldwyn’s “He Who Gets Slapped” a circus melodrama voted one of the best films of the year.  The success of this movie led to a series of contracts with MGM Studios for the next five years.  In 1925, Lon created the makeup that secured him into film immortality with his portrayal as “Erik,” the tortured opera ghost in “The Phantom of the Opera.”  In 1930 he made his one and only talking film, a remake of 1925 “The Unholy Three.”  He played Echo, a crook ventriloquist and used five different voices in the movie, thus proving he could make the transition from silent films to the talkies.  https://lonchaney.com/lon-chaney/  Lon Chaney Sr. was known as "The Man of 1,000 Faces."  

Famous as the Wolfman, Lon Chaney, Jr. (1906-1973), excelled as a character actor for five decades.  Born Creighton Tull Chaney on February 10, 1906, in Oklahoma City, Chaney entered the world three months prematurely.  The tale of his birth is as astounding as some of his "B" motion pictures.  Reportedly, young Creighton was not breathing when he was born, and his famous father, Lon Chaney, plunged the baby into nearby Belle Isle Lake to resuscitate the lifeless baby.  Creighton Chaney took up acting after his father's death in 1930.  In 1935 he changed his name to capitalize on his father's success.  Chaney, Jr., had small parts in movies until producer Hal Roach and director Lewis Milestone cast him as Lennie in the 1939 version of Of Mice and Men.  The next year Universal signed him to a contract.  He acted in over 170 films and earned his reputation as a star in low-budget horror films.  He also had early success as a character actor in mainstream cinema.  His most notable film, The Wolfman (1941), began his horror career, in which he played all of the big four creatures, the Wolfman, Dracula, Frankenstein, and the Mummy.  Chaney, Jr., can still be seen on late-night television in movies such as Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948), The Mummy's Tomb (1942), Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman (1943), and House of Dracula (1945).  As a non-horror actor his best-known role came as the marshal in High Noon (1952).  Other notable movies were The Defiant Ones (1958), The Indian Fighter (1955), The Boy From Oklahoma (1954, with Will Rogers, Jr.), My Favorite Brunette (1947), and Springfield Rifle (1952).  https://www.okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry.php?entry=CH004 

The potato is a member of the Solanaceae (nightshade) family, which includes tomato, pepper, eggplant, petunia and tobacco.  The enlarged, edible, underground storage portion of the potato plant is called a “tuber”.  The tuber develops from underground stems called stolons.  Potatoes are the number one non‐grain food crop in the world.  In the United States, over 1 million acres are planted each year for commercial production.  Potatoes can grow in harsh climates and many potato varieties can be produced in 90 days or less on small parcels of land.  Potatoes are native to the Andean region of South America.  European explorers introduced the potato to Europe in 1536 but it did not arrive in the United States until 1719 when Irish immigrants brought the potato with them to the New World.  Kelly A. Zarka, Donna C. Kells, David S. Douches and C. Robin Buell Michigan State University  https://www.canr.msu.edu/uploads/files/growingpotatoes.pdf

A gimbal is a pivoted support that permits rotation of an object about an axis.  A set of three gimbals, one mounted on the other with orthogonal pivot axes, may be used to allow an object mounted on the innermost gimbal to remain independent of the rotation of its support.  For example, on a ship, the gyroscopes, shipboard compasses, stoves, and even drink holders typically use gimbals to keep them upright with respect to the horizon despite the ship's pitching and rolling.  The gimbal suspension used for mounting compasses and the like is sometimes called a Cardan suspension after Italian mathematician and physicist Gerolamo Cardano (1501–1576) who described it in detail.  However, Cardano did not invent the gimbal, nor did he claim to.  The device has been known since antiquity, first described in the 3rd c. BC by Philo of Byzantium, although some modern authors support the view that it may not have a single identifiable inventor.  See many graphics at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimbal 

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2466  December 8, 2021

The complete loss of smell is called anosmia (an-OHZ-me-uh).  Without your sense of smell, food tastes different, you can't smell the scent of a flower, and you could find yourself in a dangerous situation, unknowingly.  For example, without the ability to detect odors, you wouldn't smell a gas leak, smoke from a fire, or sour milk.  A person's sense of smell is driven by certain processes.  First, a molecule released from a substance (such as fragrance from a flower) must stimulate special nerve cells (called olfactory cells) found high up in the nose.  These nerve cells then send information to the brain, where the specific smell is identified.  Anything that interferes with these processes, such as nasal congestion, nasal blockage, or damage to the nerve cells themselves, can lead to loss of smell.  Hedy Marks  Find explanation of causes, symptoms, diagnosis  and treatments at https://www.webmd.com/brain/anosmia-loss-of-smell 

Knickerbocker  As an adjective, Knickerbocker refers to people or objects from Manhattan (New York City, before 1898).  Other uses:  Knickerbocker Holiday, a 1938 musical by Kurt Weill and Maxwell Anderson, The Knick, an American television drama series at the Knickerbocker Hospital, The Knickerbocker Buckaroo, a 1919 American silent film starring Douglas Fairbanks, The Knickerbockers, a "one hit wonder" American pop/rock music group best remembered for their 1965 hit "Lies", "Knickerbocker", a 2008 song by Fujiya & Miyagi, "Hey, Mr. Knickerbocker", a children's song about a man who likes to "boppity-bop", popularized on the children's television show Barney & Friends, The Knickerbocker or New-York Monthly Magazine (1833–1865), a literary magazine founded by Charles Fenno Hoffman, and The Knickerbocker Gang, a series of books for children by Austrian writer Thomas Brezina, and a TV series based on the books.  Find uses of knickerbocker in sports, buildings, sports and other ways at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knickerbocker 

Spumoni is a Neapolitan specialty with layers of three different colored and flavored ice cream.  Chocolate, pistachio and cherry are a popular combination.  Other flavors can be used, with nuts and candied fruit added to the layers.  Originally, in the days before ice cream, spumoni was sherbet blended with a large amount of Italian meringue (cooked, beaten egg white sweetened with hot sugar syrup); the name comes from the Italian word for for foam, spuma.  Find instructions for making spumoni and other ice creams at https://www.thenibble.com/reviews/main/desserts/ice-cream-definitions-s.asp 

Frank J. Zamboni (1901-1988) invented the ice-resurfacing machine that bears his name to this day.  Working in California, Zamboni and his brothers were partners in an enterprise that made and sold block ice.  As the block ice industry declined due to mobile refrigeration, the Zamboni brothers instead used their ice making knowledge to create an indoor ice rink called Iceland in 1940.  The ice rink proved so successful that keeping the ice smooth was a labor-intensive job, requiring a crew of five people to work for an hour and a half.  The crew was required to scrape the top surface of the ice, sweep away the shavings, wash down the surface, mop it clean, and spray a final coat of water.  By 1949, Zamboni created a prototype of his ice-resurfacing machine that could complete the work in fifteen minutes.  Mass production of the machines began in 1954, and they received international exposure when used at the 1960 Winter Olympics in Squaw Valley, California. Zamboni's machines quickly became indispensable at ice rinks everywhere.  https://www.invent.org/inductees/frank-j-zamboni 

A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg

autonym  (O-tuh-nim)  noun  1.  A person’s own name, as distinguished from a pseudonym.  2.  A work published under the real name of the author.  From Greek auto- (self) + -onym (name).  Earliest documented use:  1854.

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From:  Sam Long   I thought autonym would be the name given to a car.  A well-known example is Mrs Merdle, the name D.L. Sayers’ detective hero Lord Peter Wimsey gave to his (1927) Daimler four-seater.  Another is Ian Fleming’s Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.  A third is Christine, a 1974 Plymouth Fury in a Stephen King novel of the same name. 

paradise noun   late Old English, "the garden of Eden," from Old French paradis "paradise, garden of Eden" (11c.), from Late Latin paradisus "a park, an orchard; the garden of Eden, the abode of the blessed," from Greek paradeisos "a park; paradise, the garden of Eden," from an Iranian source similar to Avestan pairidaeza "enclosure, park".   https://www.etymonline.com/word/paradise 

The great and noble surname Parker is English.  Borne by the Earls of Morley and Macclesfield; the Barons of Boringdon and Monteagle, and having more than sixty Coats of Arms, it is ultimately of French occupational origins.  It described an official in charge of the extensive hunting parks of a king or wealthy landowner.  The derivation is from the words "parchier" or "parquier" meaning "park- keeper".  The surname was first recorded in England in the latter half of the 11th century following the 1066 Norman Invasion, and as such was one of the very earliest surnames on record.  Only five percent of the entries in the great Domesday Book of 1086 show people having surnames, and this is one of them.  https://www.surnamedb.com/Surname/Parker

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2465  December 6, 2021