"Hoity-toity" comes from our penchant for creating rhyming phrases such as "loosey-goosey" or "helter-skelter," and in this case its base is "hoit," an obsolete 16th century verb whose meaning is "to play the fool" or "to indulge in riotous and noisy mirth."  ("Hoity-toity" was more commonly used to describe those who engaged in thoughtlessly silly or frivolous behavior before it became more of a synonym for "pretentious.")  https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/hoity-toity/  Thank you Muse reader!   

Journalist-turned-novelist Ernest Hemingway was known for his clean, restrained writing style.  Which makes it conceivable that he's the author of the most famous six-word short story of all time.  The story goes that Hemingway wrote the gut-punching line "For Sale, Baby Shoes, Never Worn" to win a bet against his writer friends.  But there's no evidence that such a bet ever took place, and it's likely that one of the best-known works attributed to Hemingway has nothing to do with the author at all.  According to Open Culture, the urban legend sets Hemingway in a hotel (usually the Algonquin, but the location varies) some time in the 1920s.  He was allegedly having lunch with a group of writer pals when he bet them he could write a story with a full narrative in just six words.  After his friends put their money down, Hemingway jotted down a few words on a napkin and passed it around the table.  Though brief, the other writers couldn't deny that "Baby Shoes" was indeed a full story.  Chances are this story actually originated years after Hemingway's 1961 death.  It first appeared in print in the 1991 book Get Published! Get Produced!:  A Literary Agent’s Tips on How to Sell Your Writing by agent Peter Miller.  When recounting the anecdote, Miller wrote that he first heard the tale from an unnamed newspaper syndicator in 1974.  The story spread from there and its original source only became murkier.  A retelling of the tale was included in the one-man biographical Hemingway play Papa in 1996, and then in a Reader's Digest essay in 1998.  https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/595402/ernest-hemingway-did-not-write-six-word-baby-shoes-story   

Snopes, formerly known as the Urban Legends Reference Pages, is a fact-checking website.  It has been described as a "well-regarded reference for sorting out myths and rumors" on the Internet.  The site has also been seen as a source for both validating and debunking urban legends and similar stories in American popular culture.  In 1994, David and Barbara Mikkelson created an urban folklore web site that would become Snopes.com.  On August 13, 2021, BuzzFeed News published an investigation by reporter Dean Sterling Jones that showed David Mikkelson had used plagiarized material from different news sources in 54 articles between 2015 and 2019 in an effort to increase website traffic.  Mikkelson also published plagiarized material under a pseudonym, "Jeff Zarronandia".  The BuzzFeed inquiry prompted Snopes to launch an internal review of Mikkelson's articles and to retract 60 of them the day the Buzzfeed story appeared.  Mikkelson admitted to committing "multiple serious copyright violations" and apologized for "serious lapses in judgment."  He was suspended from editorial duties during the investigation, but remains an officer and stakeholder in the company.  On September 16, 2022, David Mikkelson stepped down as CEO and was succeeded by shareholder and board member Chris Richmond.  Richmond and fellow shareholder Drew Schoentrup together acquired 100% of the company, ending the ownership dispute which began in 2017.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snopes   

July 21 Events:

356 BC – The Temple of Artemis in Ephesus, one of the Seven Wonders of the World, is destroyed by arson.

1861 – American Civil War:  First Battle of Bull Run:  At Manassas Junction, Virginia, the first major battle of the war begins and ends in a victory for the Confederate army.

1925 – Scopes Trial:  In Dayton, Tennessee, high school biology teacher John T. Scopes is found guilty of teaching human evolution in class and fined $100.

1949 – The United States Senate ratifies the North Atlantic Treaty.

1954 – First Indochina War:  The Geneva Conference partitions Vietnam into North Vietnam and South Vietnam.  

1970 – After 11 years of construction, the Aswan High Dam in Egypt is completed.

2010 – President Barack Obama signs the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_21   

Former President Barack Obama has shared his playlist of his current favorite songs for Summer 2023.  His latest picks include SZA’s SOS track “Snooze,” “Not Strong Enough” by Boygenius, and Janelle Monáe‘s “Only Have Eyes 42,” as well as cuts by Bob Dylan, Ice Spice and Nicki Minaj, Aretha Franklin, Jorja Smith, Kelela, Leonard Cohen, and more.  “Like I do every year, here are some songs I’ve been listening to this summer—a mix of old and new,” Obama tweeted along with his selections.  “Look forward to hearing what I’ve missed.”  See the full playlist at https://pitchfork.com/news/barack-obama-shares-2023-summer-playlist-sza-boygenius-janelle-monae-bob-dylan-and-more/   

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2699  July 21, 2023 

Julius Robert Oppenheimer (1904–1967) was an American theoretical physicist and director of the Los Alamos Laboratory during World War II.  He is often credited as the "father of the atomic bomb" for his role in organizing the Manhattan Project, the research and development undertaking that created the first nuclear weapons.  Born to German Jewish immigrants in New York City, Oppenheimer earned a bachelor's degree in chemistry from Harvard University in 1925 and a PhD in physics from the University of Göttingen in Germany in 1927.  After research at other institutions, he joined the physics department at the University of California, Berkeley, where he became a full professor in 1936.  See extensive article at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Robert_Oppenheimer  

The Alaska community coastal town of Cordova lives and breathes fishing.  Every July, through this family-friendly festival, local nonprofits and loads of volunteers come together to raise awareness of the region's rich resources and raise funds to support art opportunities with 2 days of live music, a wild food sampler, running events and kids activities.  There’s also an artisan craft fair and lots of fun for all ages at Cordova’s beautiful Mt. Eyak Ski Area.  Each day will offer hours of live music, highlighting local musicians such as Keys on Fire, Repeat Offenders and also featuring guest artists from Seward, Blackwater Railroad Company.  https://salmonjam.org/music/  

Birds fill the air of the island over the summer months.  Puffins put on miraculous displays at dawn and at dusk, but they are active all day long, bringing fish to their chicks waiting in the burrows pocketed all along the steep slopes. There are over five thousand of them.  Little heads peek out from burrow openings from early June as the chicks wait for the parents to bring food.  The adults repeatedly sweep out to sea, dive sixty feet or more, and rise into the sky again with beaks filled with shimmering fish.  Over the months of June and July the young are reared, and by early August the burrows are all deserted.  In 1991, two ornithologists arrived on the Skelligs to reestablish an annual census of nesting birds on the island.  Over the course of a weekend, they plotted sections of nesting areas on a master map, in order to indicate as many nests and resident adults as they could.  For long—and in some places still—fresh and preserved puffin meat has been eaten in the Faroes, Iceland, Scandinavia, Scotland, and Ireland.  Coastal monastic middens hold puffin bones.  And there are nineteenth-century accounts of men climbing precariously down the cliffs along the west coast of Ireland, hunting for fattened puffin chicks.  Thousands of creatures are always returning to home in on the tiniest of targets, on their specific burrows and ledges on Skellig Michael, a spike eight miles at sea; they move upon a map that is alive and changing, a shifting range of flight.  Excerpted from the book RETURNING LIGHT: Thirty Years on the Island of Skellig Michael by Robert L. Harris.  Copyright © 2023  https://lithub.com/a-paradise-of-birds-the-puffins-of-the-remote-island-of-skellig-michael/  

Tom Schweyer (1937-2023), who oversaw libraries in the Lucas County jail and other correctional facilities during a nearly 30-year career with the Toledo Lucas County Public Library system, died July 5, 2023 in Bay City, Mich.  He was 85.  His appointment as corrections librarian in 1977 coincided with an order by U.S. District Court Judge Don J. Young that Lucas County commissioners provide library services to inmates.  The library system also received a federal grant to offer services at the then-new Lucas County jail, the Toledo House of Corrections–known as the "workhouse"–in Whitehouse, and the Child Study Institute downtown, which held juvenile inmates.  "He always understood that people make mistakes," Mrs. Stacy said.  "He wanted to make the best of their experience.  He just believed in the good of people."  He tried to fulfill inmate requests, whether music or popular literature or law books.  With art supplies he provided, one inmate painted a mural on the wall of a clipper ship, its sails unfurled.   He worked four days a week at the jail, and also had duties at the Maumee branch, aboard the bookmobile, and he delivered books to nursing homes.  Lowell Thomas Schweyer was named for a well-known broadcaster, adventurer, and newsreel narrator of the era.  https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/toledoblade/name/tom-schweyer-obituary?id=52469909  Some of the inmates, when informed they could have one call, asked for the phone number of librarian Tom Schweyer.  

July 18, 2023  Dozens of feral rabbits are driving some residents of a Florida neighborhood hopping mad after the furry creatures that were let loose are taking over the streets and are multiplying like–rabbits.  In the suburbs of Fort Lauderdale, there’s a new “invasive species” to contend with in a state all too familiar with the destructive habits of non-native animals.  These include Burmese pythons and the iguanas that can voraciously consume their way to local wildlife dominance, as well as lionfish and giant African snails.  The rabbits of Jenada Isles, an 81-home community in Wilton Manors on the outskirts of the south Florida city are also voracious, apparently, when it comes to chewing on outdoor wiring and similar unwelcome targets, as well as the food fed to them by locals trying to deal with the small-scale invasion.  The estimated 60 to 100 rabbits are descendants of a group a backyard breeder illegally let loose when she moved away two years ago and they are lionhead rabbits, named after the furry flowing mane around their heads.  https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jul/18/florida-neighborhood-hopping-lionhead-rabbits-invasion  

July 19 is the 200th day of the year (201st in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar; 165 days remain until the end of the year.  1701 – Representatives of the Iroquois Confederacy sign the Nanfan Treaty, ceding a large territory north of the Ohio River to England.  1845 – Great New York City Fire of 1845:  The last great fire to affect Manhattan begins early in the morning and is subdued that afternoon.  The fire kills four firefighters and 26 civilians and destroys 345 buildings.  1848 – Women's rights:  A two-day Women's Rights Convention opens in Seneca Falls, New York.  1863 – American Civil War:  Morgan's Raid:  At Buffington Island in Ohio, Confederate General John Hunt Morgan's raid into the north is mostly thwarted when a large group of his men are captured while trying to escape across the Ohio River.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_19  

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2698  July 19, 2023 

In total size Lake Erie is the 12th largest freshwater lake in the entire world.    Because of Lake Erie's relative shallow depth, the water temperature changes faster than any of the other Great Lakes.  That means in the spring, Lake Erie becomes an ideal fishing destination because of the large runs of walleye and perch.  In the winter, well we all know what winter is like along Lake Erie:  it is cold and snowy.  In fact, Cleveland is one of the snowiest places in the lower 48. But, did you know that because the lake freezes so quickly, it actually has a moderating effect on our climate?  That little climatological detail means that the land along the southern shore of Lake Erie have been given their very own varietal zone that is ideal for growing grapes and not just any grapes, but grapes that make excellent wines.  Because of the unique climate, ice wines are also a highly prized product of the area.  http://touringohio.com/lake-erie.html    

In this crowd-pleasing dinner, grilled shrimp is served alongside potatoes and corn with melted butter flavored with Old Bay seasoning, crushed garlic, and lemons.  Serves 8  https://www.marthastewart.com/1078506/grilled-shrimp-boil   

The Mütter Museum of The College of Physicians of Philadelphia began as a donation from American surgeon Thomas Dent Mütter, MD (1811-1859), who was determined to improve and reform medical education.  Dr. Mütter stipulated that by accepting his donation of 1,700 objects and $30,000, the College must hire a curator, maintain and expand the collection, fund annual lectures, and erect a fireproof building to house the collection.  The first building to house the Museum was completed in 1863 and was located on Locust and 13th Streets.  When The College of Physicians built its current home at 19 South 22nd Street in 1909, the Museum relocated with its original cases.  Since Dr. Mütter’s donation, the Museum collection has grown to include more than 25,000 objects.  Find location and hours at https://muttermuseum.org/about/overview   

Creamy, nutty egusi soup is a staple in homes and bukas, or street food stalls, across Nigeria and in many parts of West Africa.  The soup takes its name from egusi, or agushi―the seeds that both thicken and flavor it.  Egusi soup typically features meat (such as beef, smoked poultry, goat, cow skin, and offal) and seafood (smoked dried fish or stockfish), as well as awara (Nigerian tofu), mushrooms, and greens.  Ozoz Sokoh  Find recipe serving six at https://www.seriouseats.com/nigerian-egusi-soup-5271598   

balderdash  noun  1590s, of obscure origin despite much 19c. conjecture; in early use "a jumbled mix of liquors" (milk and beer, beer and wine, etc.); by 1670s as "senseless jumble of words."  Perhaps from dash and the first element perhaps cognate with Danish balder "noise, clatter".  "But the word may be merely one of the numerous popular formations of no definite elements, so freely made in the Elizabethan period" [Century Dictionary].  https://www.etymonline.com/word/balderdash  Thank you, Muse reader!    

Farro is a general Italian term for wheat.  This includes the ancient wheat varieties of Spelt, Einkorn, and Emmer wheat with origins that can be traced back to the Fertile Crescent (Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and Palestine).  In the food world, if you order farro, you could be getting any variation on those three ancient grains:  from a whole grain kernel to something that has been pearled.  When cooked, the kernel almost pops open and releases starch.  This makes a perfect ingredient for dishes like risotto (often called farrotto when using the farro grain) where you want the ancient grain to soften over time and create a creamy dish.  https://www.bobsredmill.com/blog/healthy-living/what-is-it-wednesday-farro/   

Robert Oppenheimer was born to Jewish parents affiliated with the Ethical Culture movement, in which he would receive his schooling.  At Harvard, he was drawn to the Hindu philosophical classics—seemingly more interested in these than even physics.  In his thirties, on the faculty at Berkeley, his curiosity deepened.  He studied Sanskrit weekly with a Sanskrit professor.  It was here that he was first introduced to the Gita, which he thought “quite marvelous”; later he would call it “the most beautiful philosophical song existing in any known tongue.”  He kept his worn version close at hand by his desk, and often gave copies to friends.  Even late in life, he listed the Gita, along with another Sanskrit classic and Eliot’s The Waste Land—itself inspired by an Upanishad—among the ten books that most shaped his life.   Alok A. Khorana  https://lithub.com/how-j-robert-oppenheimer-was-influenced-by-the-bhagavad-gita   

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2697  July 17,  2023 

June 12, 2023  Southwest Research Institute’s Christopher Glein, a planetary scientist and geochemist at the San Antonio-based institute, has been studying Saturn’s tiny moon Enceledus for 15 years.  Glein has already been part of a team that used the Webb telescope in the first round of research projects given coveted access to the instrument.  The largest and most powerful space telescope developed, the Webb telescope was launched into space in December 2021.  Saturn has 146 moons, 62 of which were discovered in 2023.  The moons range in size from larger than the planet Mercury—the massive Titan—to as small as a sports arena.  Enceladus is just 314 miles across—small enough to fit within the length of the United Kingdom.  Saturn’s moons differ greatly in their composition, from icy giants with subsurface oceans to small, heavily cratered rocky worlds.  Titan and Enceladus are the only two moons viewed as having the chemistry to possibly host life, with Enceladus being more favorable.  Enceladus’ water plume holds an intriguing chemical clue.  “We call it Cold Faithful—like Old Faithful,” the famous geyser in Yellowstone Park, Glein said.  “This plume is basically giving us free samples of Enceladus’ ocean, which can allow us to study its chemistry.”  What is known today about Enceladus is mostly from NASA’s Cassini mission, Glein said.  The Cassini spacecraft, launched in 1997, spent 20 years in space—13 of them exploring Saturn.  When Cassini’s fuel supply was spent, it was directed to plunge into Saturn’s atmosphere on Sept. 15, 2017.  It continued sending data until it vaporized, according to NASA.  Cassini first started collecting data on Enceladus and its largest south pole geyser—Cold Faithful—in 2005, Glein said. The spacecraft proved that Enceladus is an extremely active moon that hides a global ocean of salty liquid water beneath its crust.  The jets of icy particles it spews into space from cracks in that crust are laced with simple organic chemicals.  Some of that water falls back to Enceladus, while some of it escapes, forming one of Saturn’s vast rings.  Lindsey Carnett  https://sanantonioreport.org/southwest-research-institute-james-webb-space-telescope-saturn-moon/ 

Cassini–Huygens, commonly called Cassini, was a space-research mission by NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Italian Space Agency (ASI) to send a space probe to study the planet Saturn and its system, including its rings and natural satellites.  The Flagship-class robotic spacecraft comprised both NASA's Cassini space probe and ESA's Huygens lander, which landed on Saturn's largest moon, Titan.  Cassini was the fourth space probe to visit Saturn and the first to enter its orbit, where it stayed from 2004 to 2017.  The two craft took their names from the astronomers Giovanni Cassini and Christiaan Huygens.  Launched aboard a Titan IVB/Centaur on October 15, 1997, Cassini was active in space for nearly 20 years, with 13 years spent orbiting Saturn and studying the planet and its system after entering orbit on July 1, 2004.  The voyage to Saturn included flybys of Venus (April 1998 and July 1999), Earth (August 1999), the asteroid 2685 Masursky, and Jupiter (December 2000).  The mission ended on September 15, 2017, when Cassini's trajectory took it into Saturn's upper atmosphere and it burned up in order to prevent any risk of contaminating Saturn's moons, which might have offered habitable environments to stowaway terrestrial microbes on the spacecraft.  The mission was successful beyond expectations–NASA's Planetary Science Division Director, Jim Green, described Cassini-Huygens as a "mission of firsts" that has revolutionized human understanding of the Saturn system, including its moons and rings, and our understanding of where life might be found in the Solar System.  Cassini's planners originally scheduled a mission of four years, from June 2004 to May 2008.  The mission was extended for another two years until September 2010, branded the Cassini Equinox Mission. The mission was extended a second and final time with the Cassini Solstice Mission, lasting another seven years until September 15, 2017, on which date Cassini was de-orbited to burn up in Saturn's upper atmosphere.   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassini%E2%80%93Huygens 

Christiaan Huygens, Lord of Zeelhem, FRS (1629–1695) was a Dutch mathematician, physicist, engineer, astronomer, and inventor who is regarded as a key figure in the Scientific Revolution.  In physics, Huygens made seminal contributions to optics and mechanics, while as an astronomer he studied the rings of Saturn and discovered its largest moon, Titan.  As an engineer and inventor, he improved the design of telescopes and invented the pendulum clock.  In 1657, inspired by earlier research into pendulums as regulating mechanisms, Huygens invented the pendulum clock, which was a breakthrough in timekeeping and became the most accurate timekeeper for almost 300 years until the 1930s. The pendulum clock was much more accurate than the existing verge and foliot clocks and was immediately popular, quickly spreading over Europe. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christiaan_Huygens#Biography   

bastille  The noun is derived from Middle English bastile, bastel (“fortification for attack mounted on a barge or wheels; projecting part of a fortification, bastion, turret; fortified encampment of a besieging army; structure carrying armed men on an elephant’s back; (figuratively) refuge, shelter; protector”) [and other forms], from Anglo-Norman bastile, bastille, Middle French bastille, and Old French baastel, basstel (“fortification; fortified tower; temporary fortification constructed for attack or defence; (small) castle or fortress”) (modern French bastille; compare Medieval Latin bastīle), from bastide (“fortification; fortress”) with the ending modified after nouns ending in -ille (from Latin -īle (suffix forming place names)).  Sense 2.1 (“jail or prison, especially one regarded as mistreating its prisoners”) is from the Bastille in Paris, France.  Known in full as the Bastille Saint-Antoine, it was a former fortress used as a prison by the French monarchy in the 17th and 18th centuries.  The Bastille was stormed by a crowd on 14 July 1789 at the start of the French Revolution and later demolished, becoming an important symbol for the French Republican movement.  Sense 2.2 (“workhouse”) was possibly popularized by the English politician William Cobbett (1763–1835) who opposed the Poor Law Amendment Act 1834 (4 & 5 William IV, chapter 76; often called the “New Poor Law”).  This Act made relief or welfare for poor people only available through workhouses, and ensured that the working conditions were harsh so that only the truly destitute would apply for relief.  The verb is derived from the noun.  https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bastille#Verb 

July 14 is Bastille Day, the national day of France which commemorates the storming of the Bastille—a key event in the French Revolution—that took place on this day in 1789, and celebrates the unity of the nation.  

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2696  July 14, 2023  

Grey Gardens is a 1975 American documentary film by Albert and David Maysles. The film depicts the everyday lives of two reclusive, upper-class women, a mother and daughter both named Edith Beale, who lived in poverty at Grey Gardens, a derelict mansion at 3 West End Road in the wealthy Georgica Pond neighborhood of East Hampton, New York.  Ellen Hovde and Muffie Meyer also directed, and Susan Froemke was the associate producer.  The film's editors are credited as Hovde (who also edited Gimme Shelter and Salesman), Meyer and Froemke.  In 2010, the film was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the United States National Film Registry as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant", and in the 2014 Sight and Sound poll film critics voted Grey Gardens the tenth-best documentary film of all time.  In November 2012, it topped the list of 100 greatest documentary films of all time by PBS through public voting.  Edith Ewing Bouvier Beale (1895–1977), known as "Big Edie", and her daughter Edith Bouvier Beale (1917–2002), known as "Little Edie", were the aunt and the first cousin, respectively, of former US First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.  The two women lived together at the Grey Gardens estate for decades with limited funds in increasing squalor and isolation.  The house was called Grey Gardens because of the color of the dunes, the concrete garden walls, and the sea mist.   Throughout the fall of 1971 and into 1972, their living conditions—their house was infested by fleas, inhabited by numerous cats and raccoons, deprived of running water, and filled with garbage and decay—were exposed as the result of an article in the National Enquirer and a cover story in New York Magazine after a series of inspections (which the Beales called "raids") by the Suffolk County Health Department.  With the Beale women facing eviction and the razing of their house, in the summer of 1972 Jacqueline Onassis and her sister Lee Radziwill provided the necessary funds to stabilize and repair the dilapidated house so that it would meet village codes.  Albert and David Maysles became interested in their story and received permission to film a documentary about the women, which was released in 1976 to wide critical acclaim.  Their direct cinema technique left the women to tell their own stories. Jerry Torre, the teenage handyman shown in the documentary (nicknamed "The Marble Faun" by "Little Edie"), was sought by the filmmakers for years afterward, and was found by chance in 2005 driving a New York City taxicab.  A 2011 documentary, The Marble Faun of Grey Gardens by Jason Hay and Steve Pelizza, showed that he was then a sculptor at the Art Students League of New York.  In 2006, Maysles made available previously unreleased footage for a special two-disc edition for the Criterion Collection.  It included a new feature titled The Beales of Grey Gardens, which also received a limited theatrical release.  Previously lost footage shot in 1972, using 16mm film, featuring Lee Radziwill visiting with the Beales, was released in 2017 as That Summer.  The documentary, and the women's story, were adapted as a full-length musical, Grey Gardens, with book by Doug Wright, music by Scott Frankel and lyrics by Michael Korie. Starring Christine Ebersole and Mary Louise Wilson, the show premiered at Playwrights Horizons in New York City in February 2006.  The musical re-opened on Broadway in November 2006 at the Walter Kerr Theatre, and was included in more than 25 "Best of 2006" lists in newspapers and magazines.  The Broadway production closed on July 29, 2007.  It was the first musical on Broadway ever to be adapted from a documentary.  Grey Gardens, an HBO film, stars Jessica Lange and Drew Barrymore as the Edies, with Jeanne Tripplehorn as Jacqueline Kennedy, and Daniel Baldwin as Julius Krug.  Directed and co-written (with Patricia Rozema) by filmmaker Michael Sucsy, filming began on October 22, 2007, in Toronto.  It flashes back and forth between Little Edie's life as a young woman and the actual filming/premiere of the 1975 documentary.  First aired on HBO on April 18, 2009, the film won six Primetime Emmys and two Golden Globes.   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_Gardens   Ellen Hovde, Grey Gardens documentarian, died at 97 on July 10, 2023.   

rigmarole  noun  "a long, rambling discourse; incoherent harangue," 1736, apparently from an altered, Kentish colloquial survival of ragman roll "long list, roster, or catalogue" (c. 1500).  The origins of this are in Middle English rageman "document recording accusations or offenses," also "an accuser" (late 13c.).  For this, Middle English Compendium compares Old Norse rogs-maðr "a slanderer," from older *vrogs-mannr.  With folk-etymology alterations along the way.  By late 14c. rageman was the name of a game involving a long roll of verses, each descriptive of personal character or appearance.  In Anglo-French c. 1300 Ragemon le bon, "Ragemon the good," is the heading on one set of verses, suggesting a characterization.  The sense was transferred to "foolish activity or commotion" generally by 1939.  https://www.etymonline.com/word/rigmarole  Thank you, Muse reader!    

Milan Kundera, the Czech writer who became one of the 20th century’s most influential novelists, but spent much of his life in seclusion rarely engaging with the public, died on July 11, 2023 at the age of 94.  Kundera is among the world’s most translated authors.  He spent the rest of his life in exile in Paris, becoming a French citizen in 1981.  It was in Paris that Kundera’s literary career truly blossomed, with the publication of his three most acclaimed works, “The Book of Laughter and Forgetting,” “The Unbearable Lightness of Being” and “Immortality.”  He scrutinized translations of his work and banned all adaptation of his books following the 1988 film based on “The Unbearable Lightness of Being.”  Kundera served as a consultant on the movie, starring Daniel Day-Lewis and Juliette Binoche, but later said the picture had little in common with the spirit of the book.  During the late 1960s his first novel, “The Joke,” was published. “Immortality” was the last novel he wrote in his native Czech language before switching to French–a move that underlined Kundera’s complicated relationship with his homeland following his exile.  He returned rarely and when he did, he traveled incognito, booking into hotels under a pseudonym.  While his Czech citizenship was restored in 2019, he was by then a French author whose home was in France.  Ivana Kottasová  https://www.cnn.com/style/article/milan-kundera-obituary-intl/index.html    

Everything you've learned in school as "obvious" becomes less and less obvious as you begin to study the universe.  For example, there are no solids in the universe. There's not even a suggestion of a solid.  There are no absolute continuums.  There are no surfaces.  There are no straight lines.  R. Buckminster Fuller, engineer, designer, and architect (12 July 1895-1983)  A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg   

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2695  July 12, 2023