SpongeBob Comics was a comic book series based on the animated TV show SpongeBob SquarePants, published by United Plankton Pictures and distributed by Bongo Comics.  It was initially published every two months in the United States beginning in February 2011 and was published monthly from June 2012 to October 2018.  Originally, Stephen Hillenburg authored an educational comic book in 1989, called The Intertidal Zone, while he worked as a teacher of marine science at the Ocean Institute in Dana Point, California.  This comic book depicted ocean life through anthropomorphic sea creatures, as the character of Bob the Sponge, a natural sponge with sunglasses who would become the first prototype of SpongeBob SquarePants.  The universe of the SpongeBob SquarePants series is therefore directly inspired by The Intertidal Zone.  Following the launch of the SpongeBob SquarePants television series in 1999, Nickelodeon Magazine regularly published in its issues numerous comic stories from the series' universe.  In 2009, the first comics book compilation of SpongeBob SquarePants comics, Comic Crazy! was published, featuring various comic stories published in Nickelodeon Magazine.  A second volume is published a year later.  American distributor Tokyopop also adapted several episodes of the series into cine-manga comics.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpongeBob_Comics   

David Lewman is a children’s book author who has written more than 65 books starring SpongeBob SquarePants, Jimmy Neutron, the Fairly Odd Parents, G.I. Joe, the Wild Thornberrys, and other popular characters.  His works include Batter Up!, Drop the Beat!, and The Knight Before Christmas.  View titles by David Lewman at https://prhinternationalsales.com/author/?authorid=185116   

Some people might associate Lake Erie with long vacation days on the beach, stunning sunsets, and “lake monster” Bessie, but fishermen see it as a treasure trove.  While there are many fish species to choose from, Walleye fishing on Lake Erie is phenomenal.  There are many reasons walleye is the absolute favorite catch on Lake Erie.  These big-eyed apex predators fight like no other freshwater species, and they’ve got the teeth to prove it.  There are millions of them in the lake, and a good number of them are trophy specimens.  Average walleye weigh from 3–7 pounds, but you could easily stumble upon 10–12 lb lunkers.  To get their attention, threadfin shad is a good choice since it’s their favorite food.  These clear-eyed fellas also can’t resist alewives, emerald shiners, or smelt.  The key, however, is in the presentation.  Walleye see very well, even in dark and murky waters–hence the name and the affectionate nickname ‘Eyes.’  The choice of technique and tackle is just as important as what’s on the hook.  Present your offering in the part of the water column where your prey lives or slightly above it.  These fish are ready to swim up to get their food, but they won’t bother going lower, to colder waters.  This species doesn’t shy away from tucking into other fish, especially yellow perch.    Their teeth are so strong that they can even tear into another walleye if need be.  In short, they’re apex predators through and through.  Written by Andriana   Read extensive article with pictures at https://fishingbooker.com/blog/walleye-fishing-lake-erie/   

The defense readiness condition (DEFCON) is an alert state used by the United States Armed Forces.  The DEFCON system was developed by the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) and unified and specified combatant commands.  It prescribes five graduated levels of readiness (or states of alert) for the U.S. military.  It increases in severity from DEFCON 5 (least severe) to DEFCON 1 (most severe) to match varying military situations, with DEFCON 1 signalling the outbreak of nuclear warfare.  Over DEFCONs are a subsystem of a series of Alert Conditions, or LERTCONs, which also include Emergency Conditions (EMERGCONs.)  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DEFCON   

What is the origin of the phrase church key when referring to a bottle opener?  Apparently bottles, especially beer bottles, were once opened with heavy, cast iron openers that resembled the same type of key used to open church doors in Europe.  The name stuck even for today’s modern openers.  https://www.almanac.com/fact/what-is-the-origin-of-the-phrase-3  Thank you, Muse reader!   

Author and illustrator Mo Willems has been awarded the American Library Association’s Caldecott Honor three times for his picture book illustration.  Additionally, he is the recipient of two Theodor Geisel Medals and five Geisel Honors for his Elephant & Piggie early readers.  Mo began his career as a writer and animator on Sesame Street, where he garnered six Emmy Awards.  His work has been exhibited around the world, including solo retrospectives at the High Museum in Atlanta and the New-York Historical Society.  Over the last decade, Mo has written three musical theater works based on his books, two of which were commissioned and toured by the Kennedy Center.  His papers reside at Yale University’s Beinecke Library.  https://www.kennedy-center.org/education/mo-willems/   

November 14, 2022  For the past month, in honor of its 125th birthday, the Brooklyn Public Library has been counting down its 125 most-borrowed books of all time, and today, Gothamist released the top five.  Overall, the list is as eclectic as you might expect for an enormous urban library system.  There are plenty of standard high school required reading titles (The Great Gatsby, Lord of the Flies, and To Kill a Mockingbird all cracked the top 20), and there’s also a surprising (to me, at least) number of manga titles.  The majority of the places are held by children’s books.  Dr. Seuss books take up 17 places, and every Harry Potter book except the final one are on there (plus Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them).  Eric Carle, Ezra Jack Keats, and Mo Willems all appear multiple times, and though Maurice Sendak only features once, he makes it count:  Where the Wild Things Are is number one on the list.  Here are the top five books:  1. Maurice Sendak, Where the Wild Things Are; 2. Ezra Jack Keats, The Snowy Day; 3. Dr. Seuss, The Cat in the Hat; 4. Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol; and 5. PD Eastman, Are You My Mother? You can browse the whole list here.  And happy birthday to the Brooklyn Public Library!  Jessie Gaynor  https://lithub.com/here-are-the-brooklyn-public-librarys-most-borrowed-books-of-all-time/   

http://librariansmuse/blogspot.com  Issue 2592  November 16, 2022

Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) was an American fantasy and horror author who rejected being categorized as a science fiction author, claiming that his work was based on the fantastical and unreal.  His best known novel is Fahrenheit 451, a dystopian study of future American society in which critical thought is outlawed.  He is also remembered for several other popular works, including The Martian Chronicles and Something Wicked This Way Comes.  Bradbury won the Pulitzer in 2007, and is one of the most celebrated authors of the 21st century.  Author Ray Douglas Bradbury was born on August 22, 1920, in Waukegan, Illinois, to Leonard Spaulding Bradbury, a lineman for power and telephone utilities, and Ester Moberg Bradbury, a Swedish immigrant.  Bradbury enjoyed a relatively idyllic childhood in Waukegan, which he later incorporated into several semi-autobiographical novels and short stories.  As a child, he was a huge fan of magicians, and a voracious reader of adventure and fantasy fiction—especially L. Frank Baum, Jules Verne and Edgar Rice Burroughs.  Bradbury decided to become a writer at about age 12 or 13.  He later said that he made the decision in hopes of emulating his heroes, and to "live forever" through his fiction.  Bradbury's family moved to Los Angeles, California in 1934.  As a teenager, he participated in his school's drama club and occasionally befriended Hollywood celebrities.  His first official pay as a writer came for contributing a joke to George Burns' Burns & Allen Show.  After graduation from high school in 1938, Bradbury couldn't afford to go to college, so he went to the local library instead.  "Libraries raised me," he later said.  "I believe in libraries because most students don't have any money.  When I graduated from high school, it was during the Depression, and we had no money.  I couldn't go to college, so I went to the library three days a week for 10 years."  https://www.biography.com/writer/ray-bradbury   

Ray Bradbury’s writing life was sparked by an encounter with a carnival magician, Mr. Electrico, in 1932.  At the end of Electrico’s performance, he reached out to the twelve-year-old Bradbury, touched him with his energy-charged sword, and commanded, “Live Forever!”  Bradbury later said,” I decided that was the greatest idea I had ever heard.  I started writing every day.  I never stopped.”   https://raybradbury.com/13-things/   

November 7, 2022  Shelf Talkers is a series at Lit Hub where booksellers from independent bookstores around the country share their favorite reads of the moment.  Here are recommendations from the staff at Gramercy Books, a bookstore in Bexley, Ohio.  https://lithub.com/shelf-talkers-what-the-booksellers-are-reading-at-gramercy-books/ 

When it comes to reading, most people can identify a book (often one they read in adolescence) that changed the way they think.  Stephen King has cited William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, which he encountered when he was twelve years old.  He described it as, “The first book with hands—strong ones that reached out of the pages and seized me by the throat.”  We don’t even have to take his word for it.  Elements of Lord of the Flies permeate King’s books, which reveal the innate potential in kids for both good and evil.  When we say that something changes the brain, there are two ways that a change might manifest.  The first is a transient alteration.  The majority of psychological experiments are designed around this phenomenon.  These transient changes are relatively easy to detect.  You define a control condition and then present the subject with a stimulus that is designed to evoke a particular response.  The experimenter assumes that once the stimulus is gone, the response will return to its baseline.  The response could be anything measurable.  It could be a keypress on a keyboard, or it could be a physiological response like a change in heart rate, skin conductance, or brain response as measured with fMRI.  These types of experiments are efficient.  Trials can be repeated over and over until the experimenter acquires enough data for analysis.  The second type of alteration is a long-lasting change, but these are more difficult to measure.  When it comes to the brain, transient alterations represent ephemeral change, and most neuroscientists interpret them in terms of momentary information processing rather than lasting change.  The visual cortex, for example, responds to changes in the visual field, but these are not thought to persist.  Once a stimulus is gone, so is the brain response.  Gregory Berns  https://lithub.com/how-do-the-books-we-read-change-our-brains/   

For only the 13th time in 120 years, France’s oldest and most celebrated literary award the Prix Goncourt was won by a woman on November 3, 2022.  The prize is worth just €10 but guarantees renown and massive book sales.  Most winners prefer to frame rather than cash their Goncourt cheque.  Brigitte Giraud, 56, a French writer of novels and short stories was declared winner with Vivre Vite (Live Fast) after the jury voted 14 times.  After a final vote ended in stalemate, the president of the Goncourt Academy cast a deciding vote, choosing Giraud over her closest rival Giuliano da Empoli.  Vivre Vite is a short autobiographical story in which Giraud recounts the chain of events leading to the death of her husband Claude in a motorbike accident in 1999, leaving her with a young son and a recently signed contract to buy a new family home.  Kim Willsher  https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/nov/03/brigitte-giraud-becomes-13th-woman-to-win-prix-goncourt-vivre-vite?   

The oldest relationship between humans and ancient trees naturally occurs in Africa.  The continent’s longest-lived tree is the largest, too.  Amazingly wide for its height, a mature baobab appears otherworldly.  Leafless for most the year—an energy conservation strategy—its branches resemble roots marooned in the sky.  According to traditional stories, the original baobab was planted upside down as punishment by gods, heroes, or hyenas.  The “upside-down tree” also goes by “elephant tree.”  The connection between Africa’s greatest megaflora and megafauna goes beyond size.  The calloused bark of a baobab is elephantine in color and texture.  Botanists speak of pachycauls (thick-stemmed plants) as a cognate of pachyderms (thick-skinned mammals).  Moreover, bush elephants consume the bark.  In the dry season, tusked males gouge the trunks, peel away strips, and chew their fibrous trophies.  Baobabs heal over wounds that would kill other trees.  They are among nature’s apex regenerators.  Their wood contains a high percentage of living cells, and a high percentage of water—up to 80 percent.  Jared Farmer  https://lithub.com/meet-natures-apex-regenerator-the-mighty-baobab-tree/

Kurt Vonnegut Jr. was born November 11, 1922 in Indianapolis, Indiana.  He published his first novel, Player Piano, some 30 years later, and in the decades after that, proceeded to become one of this country’s most beloved and influential writers.  Celebrate the centennial of his birth with a few of favorite Vonnegut-ian reads at https://lithub.com/how-to-celebrate-100-years-of-kurt-vonnegut/   

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2591  November 14, 2022

Some states observe more than one time zone:  Alaska  Arizona  Florida  Idaho  Indiana  Kansas  Kentucky  Nebraska  Nevada  North Dakota  Oregon  South Dakota  Tennessee  Texas  For details, see https://www.worldtimeserver.com/learn/which-us-states-have-more-than-one-time-zone/   

David Hockney doesn’t struggle to innovate and redefine painting.  Instead, he just keeps doing his thing, using new tools.  He always willingly adopted new technologies.  Smartphones and tablets are no different.  He started working on an iPhone in 2009 and soon after that, he also started using an iPad.  David Hockney is British, but he spent a huge part of his life in Los Angeles.  In 2005 however, he moved to his country of origin for a couple of years, settling at Yorkshire, near the place he was born.  After some dramatic events in his life, he returned to L.A. nearly a decade later.  Before he did though, he painted some landscapes, including an absolutely massive piece, composed of 50 canvases.  Piotr Policht  See graphics at https://www.dailyartmagazine.com/david-hockney-old-master-painting-on-an-iphone/   

The Overton Window is a model for understanding how ideas in society change over time and influence politics.  The core concept is that politicians are limited in what policy ideas they can support—they generally only pursue policies that are widely accepted throughout society as legitimate policy options.  These policies lie inside the Overton Window.  Other policy ideas exist, but politicians risk losing popular support if they champion these ideas.  These policies lie outside the Overton Window.  But the Overton Window can both shift and expand, either increasing or shrinking the number of ideas politicians can support without unduly risking their electoral support.  Sometimes politicians can move the Overton Window themselves by courageously endorsing a policy lying outside the window, but this is rare.  More often, the window moves based on a much more complex and dynamic phenomenon, one that is not easily controlled from on high:  the slow evolution of societal values and norms.  The Overton Window was developed in the mid-1990s by the late Joseph P. Overton, who was senior vice president of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy at the time of his death in 2003.  https://www.mackinac.org/OvertonWindow   

The Mackinac Center for Public Policy is a nonprofit research and educational institute that advances the principles of free markets and limited government.  https://www.mackinac.org/   

People deploy the word juggernaut to describe anyone or anything that seems unstoppable, powerful, dominant.  The Golden State Warriors basketball team is a juggernaut.  National Economic Council director Gary Cohn is a “policymaking juggernaut.”  Online retailer Amazon is also a juggernaut.  Tennis player Roger Federer is a juggernaut at Wimbledon.  In Marvel Comics there is a supervillain named Juggernaut that possess seemingly infinite strength and invincibility.  The word, with its double hard g’s in the middle and the same final syllable as “astronaut,” is fun to say and connotes an individual bigger than our world.  This makes sense because the word “juggernaut” is the product of the collision between two forces, an encounter between two worlds:  the English-speaking West and India.  “Juggernaut” is the Anglicized name for the Hindu god Jagannath, the “Lord of the Universe.”  Jagannath, a form of the god Vishnu, presides over a massive temple in Puri, India alongside his brother Balabhadra and sister Subhadra.  The most famous ritual at the Puri temple is the Rath Yatra.  During the Rath Yatra the wooden forms of the gods are ceremonially placed on large towering carts, or chariots, and pulled through the streets of Puri by devotees.  “Juggernaut” entered the English language in the early nineteenth century as colonial Britons in India encountered Jagannath and his chariot and tried to make sense of what they were seeing.  Michael J. Altman  https://blog.oup.com/2017/08/origins-juggernaut-jagannath/   

DuBose Heyward, in full Edwin Dubose Heyward, (1885—1940), American novelist, dramatist, and poet whose first novel, Porgy (1925), was the basis for a highly successful play, an opera, and a motion picture.  Heyward first wrote poems:  Carolina Chansons (1922), a joint publication with Hervey Allen; Skylines and Horizons (1924); and Jasbo Brown and Selected Poems (1931).  Porgy was set in Catfish Row, a Charleston tenement street.  His other novels include Angel (1926), Peter Ashley (1932), and Star-Spangled Virgin (1939).  In 1927 Heyward and his wife Dorothy dramatized Porgy.  In 1935 the opera Porgy and Bess was produced with libretto and words by Heyward and Ira Gershwin and music by George Gershwin.  A motion-picture version appeared in 1959.  His other plays include Brass Ankle (1931), about miscegenation, and Mamba’s Daughters, also dramatized by Heyward and his wife from the novel (1929).  J.E. Luebering.  https://www.britannica.com/biography/DuBose-Heyward 

Persillade is a French parsley sauce used to season a variety of foods.  The pesto like mixture of parsley, finely chopped with garlic, oil and acid such as vinegar or lemon juice has always been used in French cuisine.  Most often it is associated with oysters or snails.  Often times other aromatic herbs such as chives or mint are added to the sauce.  The name comes from the French word persil which means parsley.  The correct pronunciation for persillade is per-si-yad.  Milena Perrine  https://www.craftbeering.com/persillade-sauce-recipe-parsley/   

http://librariansmuseblogspot.com  Issue 2590  November 11, 2022

 “For a Dollar and a Dream:  State Lotteries in Modern America,” by the historian Jonathan D. Cohen points to a peculiar contradiction:  on the one hand, the lottery is vastly less profitable than its proponents make it out to be, a deception that has come at the expense of public coffers and public services.  On the other hand, it is so popular that it is both extremely lucrative for the private companies that make and sell tickets and financially crippling for its most dedicated players.  One in two American adults buys a lottery ticket at least once a year, one in four buys one at least once a month, and the most avid players buy them at rates that might shock you.  At my local store, some customers snap up entire rolls—at a minimum, three hundred dollars’ worth of tickets—and others show up in the morning, play until they win something, then come back in the evening and do it again.  All of this, repeated every day at grocery stores and liquor stores and mini-marts across the country, renders the lottery a ninety-one-billion-dollar business.  “Americans spend more on lottery tickets every year than on cigarettes, coffee, or smartphones,” Cohen writes, “and they spend more on lottery tickets annually than on video streaming services, concert tickets, books, and movie tickets combined.”  Lotteries are an ancient pastime.  They were common in the Roman Empire—Nero was a fan of them; make of that what you will—and are attested to throughout the Bible, where the casting of lots is used for everything from selecting the next king of Israel to choosing who will get to keep Jesus’ garments after the Crucifixion.  In many of these early instances, they were deployed either as a kind of party game—during Roman Saturnalias, tickets were distributed free to guests, some of whom won extravagant prizes—or as a means of divining God’s will.  Often, though, lotteries were organized to raise money for public works.  The earliest known version of keno dates to the Han dynasty and is said to have helped pay for the Great Wall of China.  Two centuries later, Caesar Augustus started a lottery to subsidize repairs for the city of Rome.  Kathryn Schulz  https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/10/24/what-weve-lost-playing-the-lottery?   

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver, first published October 18, 2022  Set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, this is the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father's good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival.  In a plot that never pauses for breath, relayed in his own unsparing voice, he braves the modern perils of foster care, child labor, derelict schools, athletic success, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses.  Through all of it, he reckons with his own invisibility in a popular culture where even the superheroes have abandoned rural people in favor of cities.  Many generations ago, Charles Dickens wrote David Copperfield from his experience as a survivor of institutional poverty and its damages to children in his society.  Those problems have yet to be solved in ours.  Dickens is not a prerequisite for readers of this novel, but he provided its inspiration.  In transposing a Victorian epic novel to the contemporary American South, Barbara Kingsolver enlists Dickens' anger and compassion, and above all, his faith in the transformative powers of a good story.  Demon Copperhead speaks for a new generation of lost boys, and all those born into beautiful, cursed places they can't imagine leaving behind.  https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60194162-demon-copperhead

One of the coolest forms of eco friendly vegan leather comes from mushrooms.  What’s the only thing that may smell better than coffee leather?  Wine leather, of course!  This list includes paper, cork, and apples at 15 ECO FRIENDLY VEGAN LEATHER ALTERNATIVES by Chere Di Boscio  at https://eluxemagazine.com/fashion/5-truly-eco-friendly-vegan-leathers/   

“Dagnabbit,” along with the English words “bear” and “wolf,” are creations of a terrified populace, scared of beings visible and not.  These words are called, among linguists, taboo deformations.  The predominant theory is that this name came from a simple description, meaning “the brown one.”  In Slavic languages, the descriptions got even better:  the Russian word for bear is medved, which means “honey eater.”  These names weren’t done to be cute; they were created out of fear.  It’s worth noting that not everyone was that scared of bears.  Some languages allowed the true name of the bear to evolve in a normal fashion with minor changes; the Greek name was arktos, the Latin ursos.  Today in French, it’s ours, and in Spanish it’s oso.  Dan Nosowitz  https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/what-does-dagnabbit-mean#   

The Maya Codex of Mexico (MCM) is a Maya screenfold codex manuscript of a pre-Columbian type.  Long known as the Grolier Codex or Sáenz Codex, in 2018 it was officially renamed the Códice Maya de México (CMM) by the National Institute of Anthropology and History of Mexico.  It is one of only four known extant Maya codices, and the only one that still resides in the Americas.  The MCM first appeared in a private collection in the 1960s and was shown at "The Maya Scribe and His World", an exhibition held at the Grolier Club in New York City in 1971, hence its former name.  An almanac that charts the movements of the planet Venus, it originally consisted of twenty pages; the first eight and the last two are now missing.  The greatest height of any of the surviving page fragments is 19 centimeters (7.5 in) of folio 8, and the average page width is 12.5 centimeters (4.9 in).  The red frame lines at the bottom of pages four through eight indicates that the dimensions were once substantially taller, and that the scribe prepared a space for text under the figure on each page.  Accordingly, the manuscript would once have measured 250 centimeters (98.4 in), roughly the size of the Dresden Codex.  Its authenticity was disputed at the time of its discovery, but has been upheld by multiple studies.  In 2018, a team of scientists coordinated by the National Institute for Anthropology and History demonstrated conclusively that the document dates to the period between 1021 and 1154 CE.  The Mexican studies confirm that it is the oldest surviving codex from Mexico and the oldest book of the Americas.  See graphics at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_Codex_of_Mexico   

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2589  November 9, 2022

 greenhorn (n.)  mid-15c., "horn of an animal recently killed," also "young horned animal," from green (adj.) in sense of "new, fresh, recent" + horn (n.).  Applied to new soldiers from c. 1650; extended to any inexperienced person by 1680s.

green (adj.)  Old English grene, Northumbrian groene "green, of the color of living plants," in reference to plants, "growing, living, vigorous," also figurative, of a plant, "freshly cut," of wood, "unseasoned" earlier groeni, from Proto-Germanic *grōni- (source also of Old Saxon grani, Old Frisian grene, Old Norse grænn, Danish grøn, Dutch groen, Old High German gruoni, German grün), from PIE root *ghre- "grow" (see grass), through sense of "color of growing plants."  From c. 1200 as "covered with grass or foliage."  From early 14c. of fruit or vegetables, "unripe, immature;" and of persons, "of tender age, youthful, immature, inexperienced;" hence "gullible, immature with regard to judgment" (c. 1600).  From mid-13c. in reference to the skin or complexion of one sick.

Green cheese originally was that which is new or fresh (late 14c.), later with reference to coloring; for the story told to children that the moon is made of it, see cheese.  Green light in figurative sense of "permission" is from 1937 (green and red as signals on railways first attested 1883, as nighttime substitutes for semaphore flags).  Green thumb for "natural for gardening" is by 1938.  Green beret originally "British commando" is from 1949.  Greenroom (also green room) "room for actors when not on stage" is from 1701; presumably a once-well-known one was painted green.  The color of environmentalism since 1971.

horn (n.)  Old English horn "horn of an animal; projection, pinnacle," also "wind instrument" (originally one made from animal horns), from Proto-Germanic *hurni- (source also of German Horn, Dutch horen, Old Frisian horn, Gothic haurn), from PIE root *ker- (1) "horn; head."  Late 14c. as "one of the tips of the crescent moon."  The name was retained for a class of musical instruments that developed from the hunting horn; the French horn is the true representative of the class.  Of dilemmas from 1540s; of automobile warning signals from 1901.  https://www.etymonline.com/word/greenhorn   

John Michael Crichton (1942–2008) was an American author and filmmaker.  His books have sold over 200 million copies worldwide, and over a dozen have been adapted into films.  His literary works heavily feature technology and are usually within the science fiction, techno-thriller, and medical fiction genres.  His novels often explore technology and failures of human interaction with it, especially resulting in catastrophes with biotechnology.  Many of his novels have medical or scientific underpinnings, reflecting his medical training and scientific background.  Crichton received an M.D. from Harvard Medical School in 1969 but did not practice medicine, choosing to focus on his writing instead.  Initially writing under a pseudonym, he eventually wrote 26 novels, including:  The Andromeda Strain (1969), The Terminal Man (1972), The Great Train Robbery (1975), Congo (1980), Sphere (1987), Jurassic Park (1990), Rising Sun (1992), Disclosure (1994), The Lost World (1995), Airframe (1996), Timeline (1999), Prey (2002), State of Fear (2004), and Next (2006).  Several novels, in various states of completion, were published after his death in 2008.  Crichton was also involved in the film and television industry.  In 1973, he wrote and directed Westworld, the first film to utilize 2D computer-generated imagery.  He also directed:  Coma (1978), The First Great Train Robbery (1978), Looker (1981), and Runaway (1984).  He was the creator of the television series ER (1994–2009), and several of his novels were adapted into films, most notably the Jurassic Park franchise.  Crichton used pseudonyms, such as Michael Douglas, John Lange, Jeffery Hudson (17^th century dwarf and a reference to Crichton’s own height of 6’9”).    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Crichton  See also https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?p=LitRC&u=googlescholar&id=GALE|H1200011627&v=2.1&it=r&sid=bookmark-LitRC&asid=efc19179   

When “hogwash” showed up in the mid-1500s, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, it meant “kitchen refuse and scraps (esp. in liquid form) used as food for pigs.”  The earliest OED example is from Jacob’s Well, an anonymous Middle English sermon cycle, written around 1450, in which the human soul is likened to a foul well in need of cleansing.  In the early 1600s, Oxford says, “hogwash” took on the sense of a “liquid for drinking that is of very poor quality, as cheap beer, wine, etc.”  In the late 1800s, the word took on the modern meaning of “nonsense; esp. worthless, ridiculous, or nonsensical ideas, discourse, or writing.”  “Claptrap” originated in the early 1700s as theatrical jargon for a “trick or device to catch applause; an expression designed to elicit applause,” the OED says.  By the early 1800s, “claptrap” was being used to mean catchy language or cheap, showy sentiment, as in this OED citation, which we’ve also expanded, from Byron’s satirical poem Don Juan (Canto II, 1819):  “I hate all mystery, and that air / Of clap-trap, which your recent poets prize.”  And by the late 1800s, the word had acquired its modern meaning of nonsense.  https://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2018/06/hogwash-claptrap.html 

The tomb of Tutankhamun was discovered on 4 November 1922 in the Valley of the Kings, Egypt.  It was the first known largely intact royal burial from Ancient Egypt.  Wiktionary 

Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower. - Albert Camus, writer and philosopher (7 Nov 1913-1960) 

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2588  November 7, 2022

 

A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg 

shrinkflation  (shringk-FLAY-shuhn)  noun  The practice of reducing the size of products while selling at the same price.  A blend of shrink + inflation.  Earliest documented use:  2013.

selectorate  (si-LEK-tuhr-it)  noun  A smaller group of people, as opposed to the general population, involved in picking a person, especially for a political position.

A blend of select + electorate.  Both from Latin legere (to choose).  Earliest documented use:  1967.

Sloane Ranger  (slohn RAYN-juhr)  noun  A young, fashionable, upper-class person  A blend of Sloane Square (in Chelsea, London) + Lone Ranger, coined by the writer Peter York in Harpers & Queen magazine.  Earliest documented use:  1975.  The magazine writer Peter York coined this term and later co-wrote the book The Official Sloane Ranger Handbook.  Originally the term applied to a young woman, but now can be used for anyone.  The term is sometimes shortened to simply Sloane.

Copernican  (koh/kuh-PUHR-ni-kuhn)  adjective  1.  Very important; radically different; paradigm shifting.  2.  Relating to Copernicus or his theory that the earth rotates on its axis and revolves around the sun.  After the astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543) whose heliocentric views were considered revolutionary in a world that believed in the geocentric model.  Earliest documented use:  1667.    

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From:  Martin E Cobern  In college, my friends used to joke (at least I think they were joking) that there was an alternative model of the universe.  In the Cobernican Theory, the universe revolved around me!  I still use Cobernicus as a screen name. 

From:  John C Bender  I’ve seen Copernican used also in science writing referring to the assumption that our position in view of the cosmos isn’t particularly special.  AWADmailIssue 1059

From:  Emily Baldwin   A perfect story on shrinkflation is the class-action suit filed against McCormick & Company for nonfunctional slack-fill in their pepper containers.  There’s a Planet Money podcast episode about it.  [Settled for $2.5 million.]
From:  John Kilmarx   Subject:  Shrinkflation - Phyletic, Gooey, and Otherwise 
Here’s a classic little essay (pdf) on econo-evolutionary trends by Stephen Jay Gould (yes, that one!) in the classic (and very odd) book Junk Food from 1980. 
From:  Andrew Pressburger  An example of shrinkflation is in the first chapter of Orwell’s dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four.  After the chocolate ration is reduced from 30 grams per week to 20, the Ministry of Truth puts out the claim that it has been increased to 20 grams (its supposed previous level is not stated).  AWADmail Issue 1060 

Tiers of cheese are center stage in many still lifes from the opening decades of the seventeenth century.  Still lifes from this period typically depict domestic fare, the components of a simple meal, and are known as ontbijtje (breakfast pieces).  Bread and cheese, maybe an artichoke or a herring, a tankard of beer.  All very egalitarian.  Le Ventre de Paris (The Belly of Paris)  Émile Zola:  The novel is set in Les Halles, the central food market that was demolished in 1971 and replaced by a Westfield mall.  “It was the Camembert they could smell.  This cheese, with its gamy odour, had overpowered the milder smells of the marolles and the limbourg; its power was remarkable.  A poet’s hope:  to be, like some valley cheese, local, but prized elsewhere.”  W.H. Auden had been living in the Big Apple for years when he penned “A poet’s hope:  to be, like some valley cheese, local, but prized elsewhere.”   T.S. Eliot dubbed Wensleydale the Mozart of cheese.  For George Orwell it was outclassed only by Stilton.  Who invented cheese?  Without refrigeration milk soon spoils.  At some point millennia ago herders worked out how to convert their milk into cheese, a more stable source of nourishment.  The cheeses that evolved in various locations—the Mediterranean, the Middle East, Europe and elsewhere—were shaped by the physical and cultural characteristics of their particular environments.  Adding flavorings to cheese is a very old practice--herbs, peppercorns, spices, even weeds.  Noëlle Janaczewska  https://lithub.com/on-the-culinary-and-artistic-history-of-cheese

Stilton is an English cheese, produced in two varieties:  Blue, which has Penicillium roqueforti added to generate a characteristic smell and taste, and White, which does not.  Both have been granted the status of a protected designation of origin (PDO) by the European Commission, requiring that only such cheese produced in the three counties of Derbyshire, Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire may be called Stilton.  The cheese takes its name from the village of Stilton, now in Cambridgeshire, where it has long been sold.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stilton_cheese

Stilton is a village and civil parish in Cambridgeshire, England, about 12 miles (19 km) north of Huntingdon in Huntingdonshire, which is a non-metropolitan district of Cambridgeshire as well as a historic county of England.  See graphics at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stilton 

“Every moment is precious”  Dracula Daily:  November 2, 2022  You can see more details, read past issues, and more at DraculaDaily.com.

When you gather 4,434 cheeses from 42 countries in one room to find out which is best, there's inevitably a sense of excitement in the air.  There is, of course, inevitably also a very, very powerful smell.  That heady and almost intoxicating mix of ripening dairy produce and friendly competition was swirling around a conference center in the United Kingdom on Nov. 2, 2022 as 250 international judges sniffed, prodded and chomped their way along tables groaning with cheese to decide which should take the crown at the 2022 edition of the 34^th World Cheese Awards.  This year's winner, a Gruyère from Switzerland, was eventually chosen by a panel of top judges.  Barry Neild https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/worlds-best-cheese-awards-2022-wales/index.html

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2587  November 4, 2022