Hodgepodge has come to mean any mixture of things that are not really meant to go together, but it originally referred to a soup of all sorts of ill-suited ingredients jumbled together in a pot.  In other words, it is a soup that you just threw together with whatever you had on hand, whether the ingredients were harmonious or not.  Dating back to the 14th century, there is an earlier form of hodgepodge, hotchpotch, that is still used in Britain, and this is a form of the Middle English hotchpot, which before that was hochepot.  The origin of hodgepodge is ultimately French, however.  The Middle English Hochepot derived from the same word in French, and was formed from the verb hocher, meaning “to shake,” and pot which meant the same thing in French as it does in English:  a large, deep pan for cooking.  So, the word referred to a stew with a whole bunch of different ingredients all “shaken” together in a pot.  https://culinarylore.com/food-history:origin-of-hodgepodge/   

Kitchen scrap gardening is the ultimate in recycling.  It’s environmentally friendly, can save on grocery bills, and it’s a fun, hands-on science lesson for young children.  Find a list of 12 vegetables you can regrow from scraps including green onions and celery at https://www.farmersalmanac.com/regrow-vegetables-from-kitchen-scraps-24373   See also https://www.epa.gov/recycle/preventing-wasted-food-home   

Love doesn't just sit there, like a stone, it has to be made, like bread; remade all the time, made new. - Ursula K. Le Guin, author (21 Oct 1929-2018)   

Humans are the storytelling animal, and we’ve spent centuries using our powers to scare each other senseless.  It’s no secret that horror novels boomed in popularity over the last half of the 20th century, only to fall off readers’ radars in the late 1990s and ’00s.  That dip in popularity lasted until the housing market collapsed in 2008.  Shortly thereafter, zombies staggered their way to the top of the entertainment food chain, revivifying the horror genre.  https://bookriot.com/scariest-books-of-all-time/   

George Saunders’ Liberation Day, Barbara Kingsolver’s Demon Copperhead, and Paul Newman’s The Extraordinary Life of an Ordinary Man all feature among the Best Reviewed Books of the Week for October 21, 2022 at   https://bookmarks.reviews/the-best-reviewed-books-of-the-week-10-21-2022/ 

15 October 2022, was International Archaeology Day which was established by the Archaeological Institute of America to celebrate archaeology and its contributions to society.   

Diwali, also spelled Divali, one of the major religious festivals in Hinduism, Jainism, and Sikhism, lasting for five days from the 13th day of the dark half of the lunar month Ashvina to the second day of the light half of the lunar month Karttika.  The name is derived from the Sanskrit term dipavali, meaning “row of lights.”  The festival generally symbolizes the victory of light over darkness.  The third day of Diwali is celebrated on Monday, October 24, 2022.  During the festival, diyas are lit and placed in rows along the parapets of temples and houses and set adrift on rivers and streams.  Homes are decorated, and floors inside and out are covered with rangoli, consisting of elaborate designs made of coloured rice, sand, or flower petals.  The doors and windows of houses are kept open in the hope that Lakshmi will find her way inside and bless the residents with wealth and success.  Diwali is generally a time for visiting, exchanging gifts, wearing new clothes, feasting, feeding the poor, and setting off fireworks (though such displays have been restricted to limit noise and other environmental pollution).  Gambling, especially in the form of card games, is encouraged as a way of ensuring good luck in the coming year and in remembrance of the games of dice played by Shiva and Parvati on Mount Kailasa or similar contests between Radha and Krishna.  Ritually, in honour of Lakshmi, the female player always wins.  https://www.britannica.com/topic/Diwali-Hindu-festival   

THIS WEEK IN LITERARY HISTORY  Maxim Gorky’s Children of the Sun, which was written in prison during the Russian Revolution, premieres (October 24, 1905)  • Raymond Chandler begins work on his final novel (October 24, 1958)  • The first sound film adaptation of a Shakespeare play (The Taming of the Shrew, starring Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks) is released in the United States (October 26, 1929)  • Jonathan Swift publishes the succinctly titled Gulliver’s Travels, or Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World.  In Four Parts.  By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of Several Ships (October 28, 1726)  • Samuel Beckett’s monologue Krapp’s Last Tape is performed for the first time at the Royal Court Theatre in London (October 28, 1958)  • Boris Pasternak rejects his Nobel Prize (October 29, 1958)  Literary Hub  October 23, 2022   

You have to hold your audience in writing to the very end--much more than in talking, when people have to be polite and listen to you. -  Brenda Ueland, writer (24 Oct 1891-1985)  See also Lady of the Lake:  Writer Brenda Ueland and the story she never shared by Alice Kaplan at https://theamericanscholar.org/lady-of-the-lake/   

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2581  October 24, 2022

October 4, 2022  The National Book Foundation announced their finalists for the 2022 National Book Awards in five categories:  Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, Translated Literature, and Young People’s Literature.  Five winners will be selected from the twenty-five finalists and announced on Wednesday, November 16th at the 73rd National Book Awards Ceremony, which will be held in person once more in New York City.  Each finalist will receive $1,000 and a bronze medal; each winner will receive $10,000 and a bronze medal and statue.  (In the Translated Literature category, the prizes will be split between author and translator.)  https://lithub.com/here-are-the-2022-national-book-award-finalists/   

October 19, 2022 Wizard of Id by Parker and Hart comic strip:  Witch on a broom with caption “I love a girl who can drive a stick.”  https://www.gocomics.com/wizardofid/2022/10/19?comments=visible#comments   

The Barbizon school of painters were part of an art movement towards Realism in art, which arose in the context of the dominant Romantic Movement of the time.  The Barbizon school was active roughly from 1830 through 1870.  It takes its name from the village of Barbizon, France, on the edge of the Forest of Fontainebleau, where many of the artists gathered.  Most of their works were landscape painting, but several of them also painted landscapes with farmworkers, and genre scenes of village life.  Some of the most prominent features of this school are its tonal qualities, color, loose brushwork, and softness of form.  The leaders of the Barbizon school were:  Théodore Rousseau, Charles-François Daubigny, Jules Dupré, Constant Troyon, Charles Jacque, and Narcisse Virgilio Díaz.  Jean-François Millet lived in Barbizon from 1849, but his interest in figures with a landscape backdrop sets him rather apart from the others.  Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot was the earliest on the scene, first painting in the forest in 1829, but British art historian Harold Osborne suggested that "his work has a poetic and literary quality which sets him somewhat apart".  Other artists associated with the school, often pupils of the main group, include:  Henri Harpignies, Albert Charpin, François-Louis Français, and Émile van Marcke.  Many of the artists were also printmakers, mostly in etching but the group also provided the bulk of the artists using the semiphotographic cliché verre technique.  The French etching revival began with the school, in the 1850s.  See graphics at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbizon_school   

The Barbizon (known since 2005 as Barbizon 63), is a building located at 140 East 63rd Street on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.  It was for many decades a female-only residential hotel for young women who came to New York City for professional opportunities, but still wanted a "safe retreat" that felt like the family home.  The Barbizon was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1982, and was designated a city landmark by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission in 2012.  The Barbizon was built in 1927, incorporating a blend of Italian Renaissance, Late Gothic Revival, and Islamic decorative elements.  It is a 23-story steel frame building encased in concrete and faced in salmon-colored brick with limestone and terra cotta decorative elements.  For most of its existence, it operated as a residential hotel for women, with no men allowed above the ground floor, and strict dress and conduct rules were enforced.  The hotel became a more standard hotel when it began admitting men as guests in 1981.  In 2002, a $40 million renovation was completed and the name was changed to The Melrose Hotel.  In 2005 the hotel closed and the building was gutted and rebuilt for condominium use and renamed Barbizon 63.  See famous guests and residents at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbizon_63  

Taras Bulba is a romanticized historical novella set in the first half of the 17th century, written by Nikolai Gogol (1809-1852).  It features elderly Zaporozhian Cossack Taras Bulba and his sons Andriy and Ostap.  The sons study at the Kiev Academy and then return home, whereupon the three men set out on a journey to the Zaporizhian Sich (the Zaporizhian Cossack headquarters, located in southern Ukraine) where they join other Cossacks and go to war against Poland.  The story was initially published in 1835 as part of the Mirgorod collection of short stories, but a much expanded version appeared in 1842 with some differences in the storyline.  The character of Taras Bulba, the main hero of this novel, is a composite of several historical personalities. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taras_Bulba   

Jinx, a type of curse placed on a person, or a person afflicted with a similar curse, and also a slang term used when two people say the same thing at the same time

Jinks (rapper), a Danish rapper, also known as Ankerstjerne

Jinks, Kentucky

Jinks Island, an island in the Biscoe Islands

Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines, a 1975 opera by Jack Beeson

Jinks, an animated orange cat on Pixie and Dixie and Mr. Jinks, a regular segment of the television series The Huckleberry Hound Show  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jinks 

Hijinks means playful, mischievous, or rowdy activity.  It is also spelled high jinks.  Both spellings of the word are used with a plural verb.  Hijinks usually imply a combination of fun and mischief.  Activities that are called hijinks are often silly and mischievous and they may be rowdy, but they’re usually not harmful.  They include things like minor pranks or the kinds of activities done during a happily unrestrained celebration.  Sometimes, the term refers to a series of silly or chaotic events or interactions.  Hijinks are sometimes used in a more negative way to refer to mischief or wrongdoing that’s absurd or incompetent.  https://www.dictionary.com/browse/hijinks   

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2580  October 21, 2022

Vowels are the souls of consonants.  And a consonant without a vowel is a body without a soul.  So says Spinoza in his Hebrew Grammar (Compendium grammatices linguæ hebrææ), as published posthumously in 1677.  At least, that's sort of what he says.  The tricky part is that he's writing about Hebrew, where the traditional orthography normally represents consonants and not vowels.  Filed by Mark Liberman https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=37468 

“Venice is like a canary in a coal mine,” said Sergio Fagherazzi, a coastal geomorphologist at Boston University, who also grew up in the northern Italian city.  “It’s possible to apply the same concept in the U.S., and it’s very relevant now for any low-lying area.”  As climate change causes sea levels in Venice—and across the planet—to steadily inch higher, scientists say catastrophic floods could become more severe and more frequent, with some parts of the city being inundated on a daily basis.  Some flooding is common during the so-called astronomical high tide, when Earth, the moon and the sun are aligned and the gravitational attraction among these celestial bodies generate strong tidal forces.  But rising sea levels are making catastrophic events more regular.  Since the record-setting 1966 flood, sea levels in Venice have risen more than 5 inches.  And according to a recent report from the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change, sea levels around the world could rise by 1 meter, or more than 3 feet, by the end of the century.  https://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/venice-s-devastating-floods-are-canary-coal-mine-coastal-cities-n1084031  See also https://www.c40knowledgehub.org/s/article/Cities100-Venice-is-taking-an-ecosystem-service-approach-to-flood-protection?language=en_US   

Flavor of Poland premiered on American Public Television / PBS in January 2020, with episodes and recipes narrated by Aleksandra August on the CREATE channel. https://flavorofpoland.com/   

Edith Nesbit (married name Edith Bland; 1858–1924) was an English writer and poet, who published her books for children as E. Nesbit.  Nesbit's first published works were poems.  She was under 20 in March 1878, when the monthly magazine Good Words printed her poem "Under the Trees".   In all she published about 40 books for children, including novels, storybooks and picture books.  She also published almost as many books jointly with others.  Nesbit's biographer, Julia Briggs, names her "the first modern writer for children", who "helped to reverse the great tradition of children's literature inaugurated by Lewis Carroll, George MacDonald and Kenneth Grahame, in turning away from their secondary worlds to the tough truths to be won from encounters with things-as-they-are, previously the province of adult novels".  Briggs also credits Nesbit with inventing the children's adventure story.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._Nesbit   

Raymond Mathewson Hood (1881–1934) was an American architect who worked in the Neo-Gothic and Art Deco styles.  He is best known for his designs of the Tribune Tower, American Radiator Building, and Rockefeller Center.  Through a short yet highly successful career, Hood exerted an outsized influence on twentieth century architecture.  Raymond Mathewson Hood was born in Pawtucket, Rhode Island on March 29, 1881, to John Parmenter Hood and Vella Mathewson.  John Hood was the owner of J.N. Polsey & Co., a crate and box manufacturing company.  The family lived at 107 Cottage Street in a house designed by John Hood and local architect Albert H. Humes.  In a 1931 profile of Hood in The New Yorker, writer Allene Talmey described the Hood home as "the ugliest place in town."  In 1893, the Hood family visited the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, an experience that may have sparked Hood's interest in architecture.  In 2020, The David Winton Bell Gallery at Brown University, Hood's alma mater, held an online exhibition titled "Raymond Hood and the American Skyscraper."  The exhibition focused on a selection of Hood's built and unbuilt skyscrapers, and included about 70 of his architectural drawings, photographs, models, and books.  See graphics at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_Hood   

kuspuk (plural kuspuks) (Alaska)  noun  (originally)  An Alaska Native (traditionally Yup'ik) garment worn on the upper body as an overshirt on top of a parka (“long jacket with a hood”).  A lightweight parka-like garment with a hood and a large front pocket worn by Alaska Native people of all sexes, either as an overshirt or as a shirt.  See pictures at https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/kuspuk#English  October 18 is Alaska Day, which marks the formal transfer of the Territory of Alaska from the  Russian Empire to the United States in 1867.   

Sri Lankan writer Shehan Karunatilaka won the Booker Prize on October 17, 2022 for his second novel "The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida," about a dead war photographer on a mission in the afterlife.  Karunatilaka received a trophy from Queen Consort Camilla at the English language literary award's first in-person ceremony since 2019.  He also gets a £50,000 ($56,810) prize.  https://www.cnn.com/style/article/booker-prize-2022-winner-karunatilaka-sri-lanka-hnk/index.html   

come in from the cold (third-person singular simple present comes in from the cold, present participle coming in from the cold, simple past came in from the cold, past participle come in from the cold) (intransitive, idiomatic)  verb  (espionage) Of a spy: to return home after having gone undercover in enemy territory.  quotations ▼  (by extension) To gain widespread acceptance in a group or society, especially where there was not any before.  Long an outsider in Western politics, Portugal came in from the cold after the 1974 Carnation Revolution.   

The British author John le Carré, whose novel The Spy Who Came in from the Cold popularized the term, was born on October 19, 1931.  Next year, 2023, is the 60th anniversary of the novel’s first publication.   

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2579  October 19, 2022

Millet is a whole grain that looks like a tiny kernel of corn.  It’s actually a seed that comes from plants in the grass family called Poaceae.  It’s gluten-free and an excellent substitute for couscous or bulgur wheat.  Millet is fairly high in protein (1 cup cooked millet has 6 grams protein).  It’s also a good source of various vitamins and minerals, like calcium, phosphorus and magnesium.  Millet comes in many different varieties, but your local grocery store most likely sells yellow proso millet.  It has a slightly nutty flavor and makes for an easy side dish.  It also works as a hearty breakfast cereal with milk and honey or sugar, much like oatmeal.  For a fluffy, light millet, use 1 part dried millet to 2 parts water.  The instructions on your package of millet may differ from ours, but we’ve found this ratio works best for us.  Toast the millet in a dry pan first.  Stir it over medium heat for a few minutes until fragrant.  This helps to bring out its nutty flavor.  Add the water, olive oil and salt and simmer 17 to 20 minutes.  Bring the water to a boil, then reduce to a simmer and cover the pot.  Cook until all the water has been absorbed.  Sonja Overhiser  https://www.acouplecooks.com/millet/   

melos  French mélo-, from Ancient Greek μέλος (mélos, “limb, musical phrase, melody, song”).  Prefix melo- music  Derived terms   Italian terms prefixed with melo- (music)   Italian terms prefixed with melo- (limb)  https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/melo- 

The melo- part of melodrama comes from the Greek melos, which also gives us the word melody, and a melodrama was originally a stage play that had an orchestral accompaniment and was interspersed with songs.  Historically, melodramas dealt with romantic or sensational topics.  These days, though, the melody has gone from the melodrama.  Modern melodramas don't necessarily have any music; they deal with stereotypical characters and exaggerated conflicts and emotions.   https://www.cliffsnotes.com/cliffsnotes/subjects/literature/what-is-melodrama   

From:  Barbara Fix  Subject:  Groundhog Day 
Years ago Danny Rubin, writer of the movie Groundhog Day, joined the audience on Zoom in an event.  He was asked whether he had ever contemplated a sequel to the movie.  After a pause, he said sure, the question had come to him, but the decision would be to call it Groundhog Day #2 and just show the original movie.  AWADmail Issue 1052

A Petoskey stone is a rock and a fossil, often pebble-shaped, that is composed of a fossilized rugose coral, Hexagonaria percarinata.  Such stones were formed as a result of glaciation, in which sheets of ice plucked stones from the bedrock, grinding off their rough edges and depositing them in the northwestern (and some in the northeastern) portion of Michigan's lower peninsula.  In those same areas of Michigan, complete fossilized coral colony heads can be found in the source rocks for the Petoskey stones.  Petoskey stones are found in the Gravel Point Formation of the Traverse Group.  They are fragments of a coral reef that was originally deposited during the Devonian period.  When dry, the stone resembles ordinary limestone but when wet or polished using lapidary techniques, the distinctive mottled pattern of the six-sided coral fossils emerges.  It is sometimes made into decorative objects, such as gemstones.  Other forms of fossilized coral are also found in the same location.  In 1965, it was named the state stone of Michigan.  The stone was named for an Ottawa chief, Chief Pet-O-Sega, son of a French fur trader and Ottawa mother.  The city of Petoskey, Michigan, is also named after him, and is the center of the area where the stones are found. The stones are commonly found on beaches and in sand dunes.  On September 23, 2015, it was reported that a 93-pound Petoskey stone was removed from the shallow waters of Lake Michigan, near the village of Northport, Michigan.  In December 2015, the Michigan Department of Natural Resources confiscated the stone under a state law that disallows removing more than 25 pounds (11 kg) of materials from state lands.  It was announced in October 2017 that the stone would be placed on permanent display at the Outdoor Adventure Center, east of downtown Detroit near the Detroit River.  See graphics at  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petoskey_stone  See also https://www.michigan.org/article/trip-idea/where-find-petoskey-stones-michigan  Thank you, Muse reader!   

Morris Hirshfield Rediscovered  September 23, 2022–January 29, 2023  The recognition Hirshfield enjoyed from individuals such as Marcel Duchamp and Andre Breton is brought to life in a room dedicated to First Papers of Surrealism.  Like Hirshfield, artists including Kay Sage, William Baziotes, and Yves Tanguy were featured in the 1942 exhibition, and their works will be displayed at American Folk Art Museum alongside Hirshfield’s Girl with Pigeons.  Hirshfield’s career as a tailor maker will be represented by reproductions of the technical drawings that accompanied his patents for shoes, slippers, and “foot appliances.”  His slipper designs were variously adorned with pompoms, rosettes, buckles, tassels, or figure eights and speak to the originality and ornamental design that would find full expression in Hirshfield’s later paintings. In recognition of this important facet of Hirshfield’s life, contemporary artist Liz Blahd has fabricated boudoir slippers to the specifications of Hirshfield’s patented designs of the 1920s and 14 will be on view in the galleries.  See pictures at  https://folkartmuseum.org/exhibitions/morris-hirshfield-rediscovered/  American Folk Art Museum  2 Lincoln Square  Columbus Avenue at West 66th Street  New York  212. 595. 9533  info@folkartmuseum.org  Admission is always free.   

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2578  October 17, 2022