Outside of Cincinnati, Cincinnati-style chili is known as “that weird cinnamon chili on spaghetti.”  But around Cincinnati, it’s a way of life.  There are well over 200 joints, called chili parlors, serving the stuff.  Its legitimacy as chili is not up for debate.  If chili can be green or white, why can’t it have cinnamon and allspice and be served over spaghetti?  Cincinnati Chili  Prep 10 mins  Cook 3 hrs 30 mins  Total time 3 hrs 40 mins  Servings 8  Find recipe at https://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/cincinnati_chili/   

Phial and vial are different forms of what is essentially the same word, referring to a small container for holding liquids.  Both came to English in the 14th century from the same source—the French fiole, which in turn has roots in Latin—and both have appeared regularly ever since.  Some people differentiate them in various ways—for instance, that phials are larger than vials, or that vials are for medical liquids and phials for other things—but these are not consistently borne out in general usage.  In the U.S., phial is almost nonexistent in this century, after being nearly as common as vial as recently as a century ago.  In 21st-century British writing, meanwhile, vial became the preferred form only a few decades ago.  https://grammarist.com/usage/phial-vial-vile/   

Dawali (Palestinian Stuffed Grape Leaves) by Reem Kassis   A complete one-pot meal as festive as it is delicious.  Prep 60 mins  Cook 90 mins  Total 2 hrs 30 mins  6 to 8 servings  Leftovers can be refrigerated up to 4 days.  To reheat, place grape leaves in a pan, add some leftover cooking liquid or water, cover, and simmer until piping hot.  https://www.seriouseats.com/dawali-recipe-6503524   

raffish (adjective)  "disreputable, vulgar," 1795, from raff "people," usually of a lower sort (1670s), probably from rif and raf (mid-14c.) "everyone, everything, one and all," from Middle English raf, raffe "one and all, everybody"

riffraff (noun)  also riff-raff, late 15c., "persons of disreputable character or low degree," from earlier rif and raf (Anglo-French rif et raf) "one and all, everybody; every scrap, everything," also "sweepings, refuse, things of small value" (mid-14c.), from Old French rif et raf, from rifler "to spoil, strip" (see rifle (v.)). Second element from raffler "carry off," related to rafle "plundering," or from raffer "to snatch, to sweep together" (see raffle (noun)); the word presumably made more for suggestive half-rhyming alliteration than for sense.  The meaning "refuse, scum, or rabble of a community" is by 1540s.  In 15c. collections of terms of association, a group of young men or boys was a raffle of knaves.

raft (noun 2)  "large miscellaneous collection," by 1830, said to be a variant of raff "heap, large amount," a dialectal survival from Middle English raf (compare raffish, riffraff), with form and sense associated with raft (noun 1).  But this use of the word emerged early in U.S., where raft (n.1) had meant "large floating mass or accumulation of fallen trees, logs, etc." by 1718.  https://www.etymonline.com/word/raffish   

Simple yet satisfying, chicken paprikash is a Hungarian recipe made with chicken browned in butter and cooked with onions and paprika, then finished with a little sour cream mixed in.  Serve over dumplings or noodles.  Elise Bauer  total time: 50 minutes  Find recipe for 4 to 6 servings at https://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/chicken_paprikash/   

The Green River area in Sweetwater County (Wyoming) is known as the "Trona Capital of the World."  So, what is trona?  It is a naturally-occurring mineral that is chemically known as sodium sesquicarbonate.  Trona is the raw material which is refined into soda ash.  Soda ash, in turn, is used to make glass, paper products, laundry detergents, and many other products.  It also is used in the manufacturing of other chemicals, such as sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) and sodium phosphates (detergents).  Ancient Egyptians first used soda ash over 5,000 years ago.  They recovered the chemical from dry lake-bed deposits or manufactured it by burning seaweed and other marine plants.  This crude product was used to make glass ornaments and vessels.  The Romans also used it for baking bread, making glass, and as medicine.  The trona in Sweetwater County was created by an ancient body of water which became known as Lake Gosiute.  In the course of geologic time, the lake shrunk.  With the loss of outflows, high amount of alkaline (salt brine) began to evaporate, depositing the beds of trona.  It is reported that Southwestern Wyoming contains the world's largest known bed of trona.  The current trona industry had its beginning in Sweetwater County in 1938 during oil and gas explorations.  The first mine shaft was excavated in 1946.  Since that initial discovery, several mines and processing plants have been operating in the area, along with a baking soda plant.  https://www.cityofgreenriver.org/246/The-Trona-Industry-in-Sweetwater-County   Thank you, Muse reader!   

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com   Issue 2719  September 15, 2023 

 The Lincoln Hunters is a 1958 novel by Wilson Tucker.  The novel, set in the year 2578, details the story of a historian from the oppressive society of that year, who travels back in time to record Abraham Lincoln's Lost Speech of May 19, 1856 in Bloomington, Illinois.  

The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles  https://www.amortowles.com/the-lincoln-highway-about-the-book/  

The Lincoln Highway--Main Street across America, tenth anniversary edition 2009  Author Drake Hokanson revisits the Lincoln Highway and finds it changed—much for the better—since the original publication of this book.  Most notably, he calls attention to the reinvigorated Lincoln Highway Association and its efforts to preserve what is left of the old road.  Hokanson finds more and more tourists traveling the road—not only Americans but foreigners as well—by car, bus, and motorcycle on journeys not to any particular destination, but simply to see America. 

The Lincoln Highway was the first transcontinental road for automobiles in the United States, dedicated in 1913.  It winds its way over 3,000 miles between New York City and San Francisco.  https://www.lincolnhighwayassoc.org/

More than halfway across the universe, an enormous blue star nicknamed Icarus is the farthest individual star ever seen.  Normally, it would be much too faint to view, even with the world’s largest telescopes.  But through a quirk of nature that tremendously amplifies the star’s feeble glow, astronomers using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope were able to pinpoint this faraway star and set a new distance record.  They also used Icarus to test one theory of dark matter, and to probe the make-up of a foreground galaxy cluster.  The star, harbored in a very distant spiral galaxy, is so far away that its light has taken 9 billion years to reach Earth.  It appears to us as it did when the universe was about 30 percent of its current age.  https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2018/hubble-uncovers-the-farthest-star-ever-seen  Thank you, Muse reader!   

Sept. 7, 2023  Cornelius Eady, Toi Derricotte and Kimiko Hahn are among 2023’s winners of awards from the Poetry Foundation, which announced some of the poetry world’s most lucrative prizes.  Hahn, a faculty member of Queens College in New York City whose books include “The Unbearable Heart” and “Earshot,” won the $100,000 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize for lifetime achievement.  Lilly was an heir to pharmaceutical tycoon Eli Lilly who in 2002 heir to pharmaceutical tycoon Eli Lilly who in 2002 bequeathed $100 million to Poetry magazine.  The Poetry Foundation was established the following year.  https://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory/kimiko-hahn-wins-100000-award-poetry-foundation-lifetime-102996491   

CORRECTION  The correct website for Lloyd Wright-commissioned house (with pictures) is https://www.mansionglobal.com/articles/inside-a-landmark-l-a-house-by-frank-lloyd-wrights-son-4598c30c  Thank you, Muse reader!

A Van Gogh painting stolen from a Dutch museum in March 2020 is back in safe hands after a three-and-a-half-year quest to recover it.  Dutch art detective Arthur Brand said he had been handed the 139-year-old painting in a pillow and an Ikea bag by a man who came to his front door.  "I did this in complete co-ordination with Dutch police and we knew this guy wasn't involved in the theft," he said.  In 2021, a career criminal was jailed for eight years over the incident.  But by then the painting, worth several million euros, had already changed hands.  The Parsonage Garden at Nuenen in Spring was initially stolen from the Dutch town of Laren, to the south-east of Amsterdam.  The thief smashed through two glass doors at the Singer museum with a sledgehammer, at the start of the coronavirus lockdown.  It had been on loan from a museum in the north-eastern city of Groningen which has hailed the work's recovery as "wonderful news".  The French-born thief, 59-year-old Nils M, who lived a short distance away from Laren, was convicted of stealing the work as well as a Frans Hals painting a few months later from a museum in Leerdam, near Utrecht.  His DNA was found at both crime scenes.  According to communications intercepted by police, the Van Gogh painting from 1884, also known as Spring Garden, had been acquired by a crime group intending to use it in exchange for shorter jail terms.  Paul Kirby  https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-66785150  

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2718  September 13, 2023

Reading is important.  Books are important.  Librarians are important.  Children’s fiction is the most important fiction of all.  The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman  

In literary criticism, a Bildungsroman is a literary genre that focuses on the psychological and moral growth of the protagonist from childhood to adulthood (coming of age), in which character change is important.   The term comes from the German words Bildung ("education", alternatively "forming") and Roman ("novel").  The term was coined in 1819 by philologist Johann Karl Simon Morgenstern in his university lectures, and was later famously reprised by Wilhelm Dilthey, who legitimized it in 1870 and popularized it in 1905.  The genre is further characterized by a number of formal, topical, and thematic features.  The term coming-of-age novel is sometimes used interchangeably with bildungsroman, but its use is usually wider and less technical.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bildungsroman 

A roman à clef is a novel in which real people, places, or events appear with fictitious names or details, blurring the line between fiction and nonfiction.  Roman à clef is a French term that translates to “novel with a key.”  The first roman à clef novel was written in the seventeenth century by French author Madeleine de Scudery.  Roman à clef novels are loosely fictionalized novels based on real-world events that have been a popular form for famous writers for centuries. The definition of roman à clef is a novel that takes some of its premise and characters from real life while fictionalizing certain details and identities. Romans à clef are often presented as fiction with the understanding that many readers will be able to recognize the identities of real people veiled as fictional characters.  Literary techniques like satire and allegory are often used in romans à clef.  The genre has been popular since its creation in the seventeenth century.  Find six titles of famous romans à clef at https://www.masterclass.com/articles/what-is-a-roman-a-clef 

A great rugelach recipe has been made in some form for centuries, having evolved from Eastern European pastries.  Over time, two different styles emerged.  The first was a labor-intensive cookie with a laminated yeasted dough (similar to a croissant).  The second was a simpler, faster version made with cream cheese. (This is the version you’re most likely to find in American Jewish kitchens and delis because it originated here in the 1950s.)  Some rugelach are rolled into a crescent shape, while others are formed into long rolls and then sliced—these are the latter.  This version comes from former Gourmet food editor Melissa Roberts-Matar.  It was inspired by her great-great-grandmother, who owned a small hotel in the Catskills, and is made with a cream cheese–based rugelach dough that’s swirled with raspberry or apricot jam, nuts, sugar, and ground cinnamon.  Total time:  9 hours 45 minutes (includes chilling dough)  https://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/rugelach-cookies  

Odds and ends is a plural noun that has existed in English since the mid-1700s with origins as far back as the 14th century.  Odds and ends refer to miscellaneous small items, remnants, and unused objects of no particular value.  It has the same meaning as “bits and bobs” or “bits and pieces” and refers to a random assortment of unimportant pieces or small things.  Any miscellaneous collection of little value. The expression is sometimes used to refer to chores as well.  https://www.idioms.online/odds-and-ends/ See also https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/odds_and_ends  

The Henry O. Bollman Residence, completed in 1922, was the second independent commission of Lloyd Wright, architect Frank Lloyd Wright’s son and collaborator on his father’s iconic Hollyhock House in Los Angeles.  The estate in Hollywood has been on the cover of Architectural Digest twice under a previous owner and is designated a Los Angeles Cultural Monument.  Distinguished by patterned pre-cast concrete blocks and Mesoamerican massing, the house, which has been sensitively updated, remains pretty much just as Wright designed it a century ago. Nancy A. Ruhling  See pictures at https://www.mansionglobal.com/articles/inside-a-landmark-l-a-house-by-frank-lloyd-wrights-son

By a joint resolution approved December 18, 2001 (Public Law 107-89), the Congress has designated September 11 of each year as “Patriot Day,” and by Public Law 111-13, approved April 21, 2009, the Congress has requested the observance of September 11 as an annually recognized “National Day of Service and Remembrance.”  https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2023/09/08/a-proclamation-on-patriot-day-and-national-day-of-service-and-remembrance-2023/  

http//librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2717  September 11, 2023

In the eighteenth century, a European could know the world in great detail without ever leaving his homeland.  Or he could, at least, if he got into the right industry.  So it was with Albertus Seba, a Dutch pharmacist who opened up shop in Amsterdam just as the eighteenth century began.  Given the city’s prominence as a hub of international trade, which in those days was mostly conducted over water, Seba could acquire from the crew members of arriving ships all manner of plant and animal specimens from distant lands.  In this manner he amassed a veritable private museum of the natural world.  The “cabinets of curiosities” Seba put together—as collectors of wonders did in those days—ranked among the largest on the continent.  But when he died in 1736, his magnificent collection did not survive him.  He’d already sold much of it twenty years earlier to Peter the Great, who used it as the basis for Russia’s first museum, the Kunstkammer in St. Petersburg.  This four-volume set of books constituted an attempt to catalog the variety of living things on Earth, a formidable endeavor that Seba was nevertheless well-placed to undertake, rendering each one in engravings made lifelike by their depth of color and detail.  The lavish production of the Thesaurus (more recently replicated in the condensed form of Taschen’s Cabinet of Natural Curiosities) presented a host of challenges both physical and economic.  But there was also the intellectual problem of how exactly, to organize all its textual and visual information.  As originally published, it groups its specimens by physical similarities, in a manner vaguely similar to the much more influential system published by Swedish scientist Carl Linnaeus in 1735.  See graphics at https://www.openculture.com/2021/12/albertus-sebas-cabinet-of-natural-curiosities.html#google_vignette   

A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg

presenteeism  (prez-uhn-TEE-iz-uhm)  noun  The practice of being present at work when it’s unnecessary or counterproductive.  Coined as a counterpart to absenteeism.  Ultimately from the Indo-European root es- (to be), which also gave us yes.  Earliest documented use:  1931. 

philomuse   (FIL-oh-myooz)  noun  A poetry lover  From Greek philo- (love) + Muse (any of nine goddesses in Greek mythology who presided over arts and sciences).  Earliest documented use:  1654.   

From  Bob Freeman  Subject:  secundan 
In Through the Looking Glass the White Queen offers Alice employment with the perk “jam every other day”.  Sadly, that means that there is jam available yesterday and tomorrow, but never today.  So, whenever it is today, there is no jam!  One of many little bits of fun Lewis Carroll played with logic statements and double entendres.

diaeresis or dieresis  (dy-ER-uh-sis)  noun
1.  The separation of two adjacent vowel sounds.
2.  The mark ¨ placed over a vowel to indicate that it’s pronounced as a separate syllable, for example, in naïve or Brontë.
3.  A break in a line of verse when the end of a word coincides with the end of the metric foot.

From Latin diaeresis, from Greek diairesis (division), from diairein (to divide), from dia- (apart) + hairein (take).  Earliest documented use:  1656.

Q.  Why did the vowel wear a diaeresis to the NYC party?
A.  It didn’t want to blend in!
Especially when the party was thrown by The New Yorker.  The diaeresis is a favorite of the magazine.  Read more about it:  The Curse of the Diaeresis.  The umlaut looks the same as the diaeresis but functions differently.  The umlaut changes the pronunciation of the underlying vowel as opposed to indicating separate pronunciation.  

Elizabeth Mavor’s A Green Equinox was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1973, today it’s a conspicuous unknown compared to the novels it was up against:  Beryl Bainbridge’s The Dressmaker, Iris Murdoch’s The Black Prince, and that year’s winner, J. G. Farrell’s The Siege of Krishnapur.  Fifty years after it was first published, A Green Equinox is being rereleased September, 2023 by McNally Editions in the US and as a Virago Modern Classic in the UK.  Lucy Scholes   https://lithub.com/the-booker-revisited-on-loves-many-manifestations-in-a-green-equinox/   

When an antiques enthusiast purchased a painting that appeared to bear the signature of N.C. Wyeth at a thrift store in 2017, she joked that the $4 item might actually be a real work by the prolific Maine artist and patriarch of the Wyeth family of painters.  Her joke was no laughing matter, and the painting is now estimated to fetch as much as $250,000 at auction in September, 2023.  According to specialists at Bonhams Skinner auction house, the seller unknowingly purchased the work at a Savers thrift store in Manchester, New Hampshire, while searching for frames to reuse.  The Wyeth painting had been stashed against a wall along with mostly damaged posters and prints, according to the auction house.  Carlie Porterfield  See graphics at https://www.cnn.com/style/nc-wyeth-ramona-thrift-store-tan/index.html    

Reader feedback:  DIGITAL WATERMARK

Interesting story and will be easily defeated after a little by those who are serious about creating false images.  As a note . . . with the move from typewriters to computers and electronic printers, forensic folk (police, FBI, etc.) lost the ability to trace a typed letter to a single typewriter based on certain defects in the characters, etc.  So the enforcement community worked with printer manufacturers to place the serial number of each ink jet printer on every single piece of paper printed.  This can be read if you have the right tools.  Electronic document files themselves have their own integrated identifiers usually referred to as “metadata.   

The Italian artist Michelangelo’s statue of David was unveiled on this day in 1504 outside the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence.  It was moved to its current location in the Galleria dell’Accademia 150 years ago in 1873.  Wiktionary

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2716  September 8, 2023 

James William Buffett (December 25, 1946–September 1, 2023) was an American singer-songwriter,^] musician, author, and businessman.  He was best known for his music, which often portrays an "island escapism" lifestyle.  Together with his Coral Reefer Band, Buffett recorded hit songs including "Margaritaville" (ranked 234th on the Recording Industry Association of America's list of "Songs of the Century") and "Come Monday".  He has a devoted base of fans known as "Parrotheads".  Aside from his career in music, Buffett was also a bestselling author and was involved in two restaurant chains named after two of his best-known songs; he owned the Margaritaville Cafe restaurant chain and co-developed the now defunct Cheeseburger in Paradise restaurant chain.  Buffett was one of the world's richest musicians, with a net worth of $1 billion as of 2023.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Buffett 

Jimmy Buffett, musical ‘mayor of Margaritaville,’ dies at 76  The singer-songwriter sold 20 million records from his greatest hit, “Margaritaville,” created a lifestyle brand of tropical breezes, frozen cocktails and laid-back escapism.  Washington Post  September 2, 2023    

Pooh and Piglet Original Drawing Discovered in Cellar Drawer  See an original drawing of the final book illustration of Pooh and Piglet in the Hundred Acre Wood from A.A. Milne's first book about Pooh, Winnie-the-Pooh (1926).  The original initialled pen and ink drawing from 1925 that was reproduced in the first edition of the book was sold by Bonham’s, New York, for $220,000 (13 December 2022).  That one is arguably the most important Winnie-the-pooh drawing in existence.  This later and virtually identical signed pen and ink drawing of the same scene is dated 1958 and in 2023, was discovered in the collection of the late Christopher Foyle of Beeleigh Abbey, near Maldon in Essex.  Christopher was the grandson of William Foyle, co-founder of the famous London bookshop with his brother Gilbert.  William was a great bibliophile and amassed a huge library, famously sold by Christie’s in 2001 for £12.6 million, after the death of his daughter Christina.  Christopher was Christina’s nephew and he was able to buy a lot of the books before they went to auction, as well as adding to the collection in the same beautiful library room at Beeleigh Abbey over the next 20 years.  Far from being proudly displayed on a library wall, this drawing was stumbled across by Christopher’s widow Cathy, hiding in a cheap frame, wrapped in a tea towel at the back of a cellar drawer, where it seems to have languished for decades.  The drawing is not dedicated to anyone but seems likely to have been done for a specific person or event.  Perhaps it was drawn in connection with one of Christina Foyle’s famous Literary Lunches which hundreds of authors and celebrities attended over many decades.  Shepard would draw in pencil before going over the drawing in india ink and then rubbing out the pencil.  There are traces of pencil still visible in this drawing showing that it was done with the same love and care as any of his original Pooh drawings.  The drawing, estimated at £20,000-30,000, will be included with 400 other lots of magnificent books, manuscripts, documents and pictures from the Foyle Library, the earliest dating back to the 13th century.  The taped frame and tea towel the picture was found in will be available to the successful bidder.  Online catalogues for Part I will be on the website from Friday 8 September, 2023 and in print from 11 September.  Printed catalogues for both parts can be had for:  £30 (UK), £40 (Europe), £60 (Rest of World).  https://www.dominicwinter.co.uk/news-item/pooh-and-piglet-original-drawing-discovered-in-cellar-drawer/?pc=69   

Established in 1936, The Mint Museum in Charlotte, North Carolina is a museum of international art and design.  With two locations—Mint Museum Randolph in the heart of Eastover, and Mint Museum Uptown at Levine Center for the Arts—the Mint boasts one of the largest collections in the Southeast and is committed to engaging and inspiring members of the global community.  Find more information including exhibitions showings and planning your visit at https://www.mintmuseum.org/about/#timeline   

In an effort to help prevent the spread of misinformation, Google in late August 2023 unveiled an invisible, permanent watermark on images that will identify them as computer-generated.  The technology, called SynthID, embeds the watermark directly into images created by Imagen, one of Google’s latest text-to-image generators.  The AI-generated label remains regardless of modifications like added filters or altered colors.  The SynthID tool can also scan incoming images and identify the likelihood they were made by Imagen by scanning for the watermark with three levels of certainty:  detected, not detected, and possibly detected.  Jennifer Korn  https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/30/tech/google-ai-images-watermark/index.html   

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com   Issue 2715  September 6, 2023 

When it comes to gastronomic adventures in the US, few cities can beat the charm of New York City.  From savouring mutton chops at Keens Steakhouse to picking up a few bagels from Sadelle’s in Soho, we can write you a whole list of must-have experiences in this city that never sleeps.  But if it’s seafood that you crave, NYC has a new destination that is in a location you would hardly think of associating with fine-dining.  Take the stairs at 34th Street Herald Square subway in Manhattan and you’ll enter Nōksu, a new, Korean-influenced space that is expected to open to patrons in September.  Nōksu will open on September 23, 2023 in a New York subway station.  At Nōksu a 12-seat tasting counter will offer a 15-course menu featuring finned fish, shellfish, and game crafted by chef Dae Kim, who has experience of working at Michelin-star restaurant Per Se and Silver Apricot in New York.  For $225 per person, a 15-course menu at Nōksu will mesmerise you with Korean fare like Hawaiin red prawn, smoked quail with puffed duck feet, and mountain yam with saffron and perilla.  Diners will be given a keycode on the day of their reservation to enter the restaurant.  The restaurant in itself seems to have a muted colour palette; the subway entrance to the restaurant is a solid black door, inside which Korean ink-and-wash paintings have inspired the black and white colour scheme that runs through the space.  The restaurant is also accessible from Broadway where it is based on the lower level of the Martinique New York hotel.  https://indianexpress.com/article/et-al-express-curated/a-new-york-subway-station-is-now-home-to-the-citys-newest-fine-dining-spot-8914389/

Portmeirion is a tourist village in Gwynedd (historically in Merionethshire), North Wales.  It was designed and built by Sir Clough Williams-Ellis between 1925 and 1975 in the style of an Italian village, and is now owned by a charitable trust.  Portmeirion has served as the location for numerous films and television shows, most famously as "The Village" in the 1960s television show The Prisoner.  In 1966–1967, Patrick McGoohan returned to Portmeirion to film exteriors for The Prisoner, a surreal spy drama in which Portmeirion played a starring role as "The Village", in which McGoohan's retired intelligence agent, known only as "Number 6", was incarcerated and interrogated, albeit in pleasant surroundings.  At Williams-Ellis' request, Portmeirion was not identified on screen as the filming location until the credits of the final episode of the series, and indeed, Williams-Ellis stated that the levy of an entrance fee was a deliberate ploy to prevent the Village from being spoilt by overcrowding.  The show, broadcast on ITV in the UK during the winter of 1967-68 and CBS in the US in the summer of 1968, became a cult classic, and fans continue to visit Portmeirion, which hosts annual Prisoner fan conventions.  The building that was used as the lead character's home in the series was used as a Prisoner-themed souvenir shop.  Many of the locations used in The Prisoner are virtually unchanged after more than 50 years, and a large outdoor chess board was installed in 2016 in homage to its appearance in series.  Because of its Prisoner connection, Portmeirion has been used as the filming location for a number of homages to the series, ranging from comedy skits to an episode of the BBC documentary series The Celts, which recreated scenes from The Prisoner.  Television series and films have shot exterior scenes at Portmeirion, often depicting the village as an exotic European location.  These include the 1960 Danger Man episode "View from the Villa" starring Patrick McGoohan and the 1976 four-episode Doctor Who story titled The Masque of Mandragora set in Renaissance Italy.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portmeirion   

Portmeirion is a British pottery company based in Stoke-on-Trent, England.  They specialise in earthenware tableware.  Portmeirion Pottery began in 1960 when pottery designer Susan Williams-Ellis (daughter of Sir Clough Williams-Ellis, who created the Italian-style Portmeirion Village in North Wales) and her husband, Euan Cooper-Willis, took over a small pottery-decorating company in Stoke-on-Trent called A. E. Gray Ltd, also known as Gray's Pottery.  Susan Williams-Ellis had been working with A.E. Gray for some years, commissioning designs to sell at the gift shop in Portmeirion Village, the items bearing the backstamp "Gray's Pottery Portmeirionware".  In 1961, the couple purchased a second pottery company, Kirkhams Ltd, that had the capacity to manufacture pottery, and not only decorate it.  These two businesses were combined and Portmeirion Potteries Ltd was born.  Susan Williams-Ellis' early Portmeirion designs included Malachite (1960), Moss Agate (1961) and Talisman (1962).  In 1963, she created the popular design Totem, an abstract pattern based on primitive forms coupled with a cylindrical shape.  She later created Magic City (1966) and Magic Garden (1970), but arguably Portmeirion's most recognised design is the Botanic Garden range, decorated with a variety of floral illustrations adapted from Thomas Green's Universal or-Botanical, Medical and Agricultural Dictionary (1817), and looking back to a tradition begun by the Chelsea porcelain factory's "botanical" designs of the 1750s.  It was launched in 1972 and, with new designs added periodically, is still made today, the most successful ceramics series of botanical subjects.  More recent designs have included Sophie Conran's Crazy Daisy and Dawn Chorus.  In 2019, the Victoria and Albert Museum mounted an exhibition of Portmeirion pottery.   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portmeirion_Pottery    

http:/librariansmuse.blogspot.com   Issue 2714  September 1, 2023 

Pork Chops Supreme  (pork, hot catsup, honey and lemon)  Find recipe at https://www.midwestliving.com/recipe/meat/easy-pork-chops-supreme/  Chicken may be substituted. 

As a successful Indianapolis attorney, Benjamin Harrison purchased a double lot on the west side of North Delaware Street in May 1868.  In 1874, he and his wife Caroline began construction of their 16-room Italianate style house, carriage house, brick drive and landscaping.  The cost was $24,008.59.  Harrison kept a detailed journal during the construction.  Except for the periods 1881 to 1887 when Harrison was in the U.S. Senate and 1889 to 1893, the presidential years.  Benjamin, Caroline and their two children Russell and Mary lived in the Delaware Street home.  After his presidency in 1893, Harrison returned to Indianapolis a widower.  Caroline died in the White House in 1892. Harrison made several changes to the Delaware Street home including the addition of an English-Regency front porch, electricity and updated plumbing.  In 1896, Harrison married his wife’s niece, Mary Lord Dimmick.  He and Mary had a daughter named Elizabeth in 1897.  Harrison died in the home on March 13, 1901.  After Harrison’s death, Mary and Elizabeth lived in the home until 1913 when they moved to New York. rom 1913 to 1937, the house was rented to various families and eventually became a rooming house.  In March of 1937, the Arthur Jordan Foundation purchased the house and furniture.  The Arthur Jordan Foundation used the home as a dormitory for the female students in the Jordan Conservatory of Music housed in a readapted home on a south adjoining lot.  The purchase of the home included a provision that the home would also be considered a memorial for Harrison.  In 1951, the music school moved to Butler University where it continues to be known as Jordan College.  As per their agreement with Mrs. Harrison, the Arthur Jordan Foundation Trustees opened the home to the public.  In 1964, the United States Department of Interior named the home a National Historic Landmark.  In 1966, the Jordan Foundation created the President Benjamin Harrison Foundation to maintain and operate the home in accordance with the statement of purpose.  And in 2003, the museum earned accreditation by the American Association of Museums (AAM).  In 2010, the Board of Directors changed the name of the Foundation to the Benjamin Harrison Presidential Site.  The President’s home is part of The Old Northside Neighborhood.  The boundaries of this community are 16th Street on the North; Pennsylvania Street on the West; Interstate I-65 on the South; and Bellefontaine Street on the East.  From the time Harrison purchased the empty lot in 1868 until the last room was painted in 1875, his Northside home had cost $29,000.  With H. Brandt as the architect and Petrie and Cummings as excavators, the 10,000 square-foot-home, complete with 16 rooms, three stories and a basement, was finished in one year.  Two-feet-thick Indiana limestone made up the basement and 380,550 bricks completed the home.  The finest French plate windows were installed along with three conveniences not enjoyed by most Victorians:  running water (in the kitchen, washroom and second-floor bathroom), a coal-fed furnace, 23 working gaslight fixtures and 12-foot ceilings.  See images at https://bhpsite.org/learn/the-house/  

July 9, 2021  A sandcastle in Denmark has entered into Guinness World Records for being the tallest sandcastle in the world.  The triangular-shaped sandcastle has been built in the town of Blokhus in Denmark.  It stands at a height of 21.16 metres (69.4 feet).  This new structure is 3.5m taller than the previous record held by sandcastle measuring 17.66 m in Germany in 2019.  Dutch creator, Wilfred Stijger, was assisted by 30 of the world’s best sand sculptors.  The structure is built in the shape of a triangle to avoid collapsing like many others have.  https://currentaffairs.adda247.com/worlds-tallest-sandcastle-constructed-in-denmark/ 

Guinness World Records, known from its inception in 1955 until 1999 as The Guinness Book of Records and in previous United States editions as The Guinness Book of World Records, is a British reference book published annually, listing world records both of human achievements and the extremes of the natural world.  The brainchild of Sir Hugh Beaver, the book was co-founded by twin brothers Norris and Ross McWhirter in Fleet Street, London, in August 1955.  The international franchise has extended beyond print to include television series and museums.  The popularity of the franchise has resulted in Guinness World Records becoming the primary international source for cataloguing and verification of a huge number of world records.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guinness_World_Records  

ca​hoot  plural cahoots  informal  PARTNERSHIP, LEAGUE—usually used in plural—usually used in phrase like in cahoots to describe people or groups working together or making plans together in secret.    Cahoot is used almost exclusively in the phrase "in cahoots," which means "in an alliance or partnership."  In most contexts, it describes the conspiring activity of people up to no good.  (There's also the rare idiom go cahoots, meaning "to enter into a partnership," as in "they went cahoots on a new restaurant.")  "Cahoot" may derive from French cahute, meaning "cabin" or "hut," suggesting the notion of two or more people hidden away working together in secret. "Cahute" is believed to have been formed through the combination of two other words for cabins and huts, "cabane" and "hutte."  https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cahoot#  

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2713  August 30, 2023