Elevated Parks on the Rise  The “High Line effect,” as some have termed it, has captured the imagination of citizens and policy makers alike in recent years; elevated parks have become trendy new public spaces.  Although the concept is not new, many elevated parks are now being constructed or considered across the country.  The case studies examined in this 47-page document prepared by Eric Brooks, Jamie Genevie and Alex Gonski include: ● Bridge of Flowers (Shelburne Falls, MA) ● Walnut Street Bridge (Chattanooga, TN) ● The High Line (New York, NY) ● Bloomingdale Trail (Chicago, IL) ● Reading Viaduct (Philadelphia, PA) ● Providence River Pedestrian Bridge (Providence, RI) is found at http://bridgepark.org/sites/default/files/Virginia%20Tech%20Elevated%20Parks%20on%20the%20Rise%20-%2011th%20Street%20Bridge%20Park.pdf

The American Sign Museum in Cincinnati, Ohio, preserves, archives, and displays a collection of signs.  The museum also displays the equipment utilized in the design and manufacture of signs.  Tod Swormstedt began working on the museum in 1999.  It opened to the public in 2005.  Swormstedt's family owns the signage industry trade journal Signs of the Times, which has been published since 1906.  Swormstedt's grandfather, H.C. Menefee, was the first editor of the publication, and purchased it for himself in 1911.  Swormstedt had been working at the journal for over twenty years before becoming inspired to start a sign museum in 1999.  His family provided $1 million for the project, and figures from the signage industry gave donations of their own.  The museum was founded as a nonprofit corporation.  Swormstedt considered building the museum in Los Angeles, St. Louis, Memphis, and other sites, but eventually settled on Cincinnati, the base of operations for Signs of the Times.  Over 200 signs and other objects are on display at the museum, and over 3,800 items are cataloged.  Many signs owned by the museum were too large to fit the original exhibit space.  To better accommodate the collection, the museum began purchasing a 42,000-square-foot (3,900 m²) property in Camp Washington, Cincinnati in 2007.  The new location is part of the Oesterlein Machine Company-Fashion Frocks, Inc. Complex, a National Register of Historic Places building.  The museum opened in its new home in June, 2012, and the new building displays about 500 signs and artifacts many of which are on a faux streetscape in a town called "Signville".  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Sign_Museum  

See also http://www.americansignmuseum.org/

Alex Grecian (born Alexander Douglas Grecian on August 6, 1969) is an American author of short fiction, novels, comic books, and graphic novels.  His notable works include the comic book series Proof and the novels in the Scotland Yard's Murder Squad:  The Yard, The Black Country, The Devil's Workshop, The Harvest Man, and The Blue Girl.  As a child and a teenager, Grecian read the works of C. S. Lewis, Charles Dickens, Lewis Carroll, and Edgar Allan Poe.  He later became a fan of crime fiction, reading the works of authors as diverse as Graham Greene, Donald E. Westlake, Ross Macdonald, and John D. MacDonald.  Other influences include John Irving, Kurt Vonnegut, Michael Chabon, and Stephen King.  Find bibliography and a list of selected awards and honors at  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Grecian

Rolling Pin Bakehouse offers homemade baked goods that you can order by phone or through a contact form.  Orders are picked up by appointment at a roadside stand located at 14401 Winters Road, Roanoke, Indiana between Fort Wayne and Huntington.  Their sugar cream pie was featured in a nationwide PBS documentary aired on August 25, 2015 titled “A Few Good Pie Places”.  Find map at http://www.rollingpinbakehouse.com/  Link to a history of the pie at http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/10/dining/republican-senate-lunch-tradition-draws-on-the-flavors-of-home.html   Find recipes for sugar cream pie at  http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2012/05/hoosier-sugar-cream-pie-recipe.html and http://www.midwestliving.com/recipe/pies/indiana-sugar-cream-pie/

The Winds of Provence, the region of southeast France along the Mediterranean from the Alps to the mouth of the Rhone River, are an important feature of Provençal life, and each one has a traditional local name, in the Provençal language.  The most famous Provençal winds are:  the Mistral, a cold dry north or northwest wind, which blows down through the Rhone Valley to the Mediterranean, and can reach speeds of ninety kilometers an hour; the Levant, a very humid east wind, which brings moisture from the eastern Mediterranean; the Tramontane, a strong, cold and dry north wind, similar to the Mistral, which blows from the Massif Central mountains toward the Mediterranean to the west of the Rhone; the Marin, a strong, wet and cloudy south wind, which blows in from the Gulf of Lion; and the Sirocco, a southeast wind coming from the Sahara desert in Africa, can reach hurricane force, and brings either reddish dust or heavy rains.  The winds of Provence, particularly the Mistral, have long had an influence on the architecture of Provence.  The mas traditionally faces southeast, with its back to the Mistral, and many Provençal churches have open iron grill bell towers, which allow the Mistral wind to pass through.  Traditional compass roses in Provence have the names of the winds by the points of the compass.  See an illustration, which shows Midi, or the South, at the top at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winds_of_Provence

A mas is a traditional farmhouse found in the Provence and Midi regions of France, as well as in Catalonia where it is also named masia (in Catalan) or masía (in Spanish).  A mas was a largely self-sufficient economic unit, which could produce its own fruit, vegetables, grain, milk, meat and even silkworms.  It was constructed of local stone, with the kitchen and room for animals on the ground floor, and bedrooms, storage places for food and often a room for raising silkworms on the upper floor.  Not every farmhouse in Provence is a mas.  A mas was distinct from the other traditional kind of house in Provence, the bastide, which was the home of a wealthy family.  The mas of Provence and Catalonia always faces to the south to offer protection against the mistral wind coming from the north.  And because of the mistral, there are no windows facing north, while on all the other sides, windows are narrow to protect against the heat of summer and the cold of winter.  A mas is almost always rectangular, with two sloping roofs.  In Catalonia, the tenant of a mas is called a masover, as different from the real landowner.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mas_(Provençal_farmhouse)

Autumn in Denali Park by Alan Taylor   Summers in Alaska’s Denali National Park and Preserve are short seasons, followed by even shorter autumns, then long, cold winters.  Located just 250 miles south of the Arctic Circle, the park is home to more than 200 species of animals, all now in the midst of preparation for the coming snows.  The autumn colors in this subarctic wilderness burst to life in September, as yellow leaves of birch and aspen trees dot the forests, and shrubs and grasses give a rusty shade to mountain slopes.  

See beautiful pictures at http://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2015/09/autumn-in-denali-park/405445/

September 22, 2015  If you've already read the entirety of the Harry Potter series, watched the films multiple times, and still find yourself craving more magic, you're in luck.  Pottermore, J.K. Rowling's website devoted to all things Potter just got a complete make-over, complete with a new features section where fans will find everything from insights from Hagrid to how to make wands.  Rowling also released a short history of the Potter family tree, titled "The Potter Family."  Dating back to the 12th century, it's sure to satisfy even the most loyal Potterhead.  Madison Malone Kircher  Read more and see pictures at http://www.techinsider.io/jk-rowling-releases-new-harry-potter-details-2015-9

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1352  September 25, 2015  On this date in 1789, Congress passed twelve amendments to the United States Constitution:  The Congressional Apportionment Amendment (which was never ratified), the Congressional Compensation Amendment, and the ten that are known as the Bill of Rights.  On this date in 1906, in the presence of the king and before a great crowd, Leonardo Torres y Quevedo successfully demonstrated the invention of the Telekino in the port of Bilbao, guiding a boat from the shore, in what is considered the birth of the remote control.  

Sept. 20, 2015  BRUSSELS—Mayonnaise here is a sauce celebre, so important that a 60-year-old royal decree governs what goes in it.  But the mayo edict is getting a dressing down these days from Belgian food producers, who fear slipping behind in Europe’s cutthroat condiment market.  Nicholas Courant, a spokesman for Belgian food producers’ association Fevia, is part of a strengthening movement to “create a level playing field for mayonnaise” by loosening standards and lowering costs for local producers.  That idea isn’t going down well with chefs, consumer groups and smaller producers who warn against diluting the royally approved recipe:  Belgian mayonnaise must contain at least 80% fat and 7.5% egg yolk.  European rivals are permitted to sell mayo with a mere 70% fat and 5% egg yolk.  “It’s like comparing a chicken raised by a farmer with a factory hen,” says Philippe Lartigue, head chef at the Brasseries Georges, a prestigious restaurant in Brussels.  “Qualitatively, it’s not at all the same thing.”  In a nation riven with linguistic and cultural fault-lines, such foodstuffs as beer, chocolate and waffles have a strong grip on the Belgian psyche.  Nearly every town square from the Flemish North Sea coast to the mountainous French-speaking south has a shack serving potato fries with a dollop of mayo.  Belgian dance-pop star Stromae paid homage to mayonnaise in his 2013 hit “Moules Frites.”  Antiausterity activists last December launched a messy fries-and-mayo attack on Prime Minister Charles Michel.  With national sales exceeding €1.1 billion ($1.2 billion) a year, according to Mr. Courant, only a handful of nations consume more mayo per head than Belgium.  Conflict has marked mayonnaise from the start.  The Oxford English Dictionary traces its origins to an assault on the Spanish island of Minorca in 1756, when French forces, led by the Duc de Richelieu, seized the Port of Mahon.  For the victory party, according to legend, the duke’s chef wanted to make a sauce with cream and eggs.  Finding no cream, he substituted olive oil.  Voilà, “Sauce Mahonnaise” was born.  Another story traces the condiment to the town of Bayonne in southwest France—hence “sauce bayonnaise.”  The Larousse Gastronomique, France’s culinary encyclopedia, indicates that mayonnaise is derived from the old French word “moyeu,” meaning egg yolk.  Some Spaniards, however, claim the French copied their recipe.  Unilever, the maker of U.S. mayo market leader Hellmann’s, last year filed a lawsuit against Hampton Creek Foods Inc., a San Francisco startup, for implying its “Just Mayo” product was mayonnaise even though it substituted Canadian yellow peas for eggs.  The U.S. also has its standards, dating from 1977:  Mayonnaise must contain egg yolk and at least 65% vegetable oil.  Unilever dropped its lawsuit in December after tens of thousands of people signed a petition calling on the company to stop what they called bullying of the startup.  Tom Fairless  http://www.wsj.com/articles/in-belgium-mayonnaise-makers-want-a-new-recipe-1442787350

A human tooth dating to around 565,000 years ago has been found by a 16-year-old volunteer in France.  The tooth was found at Arago cave near the village of Tautavel, one of the world's most important prehistoric sites; it has been under excavation for about 50 years.  The owner of the tooth--a very worn lower incisor--lived during a cold and dry period, according to scientists.  They hunted horses, reindeer, bison and rhinoceros.  "A large adult tooth--we can't say if it was from a male or female--was found during excavations of soil we know to be between 550,000 and 580,000 years old, because we used different dating methods," paleoanthropologist Amelie Viallet told the AFP news agency.  "This is a major discovery because we have very few human fossils from this period in Europe," she said.  Volunteer Camille, 16, was working with another young archaeologist when she found the tooth July 23, 2015.  http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-33690713  See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tautavel_Man

COPYRIGHT  A California federal judge ruled September 22, 2015 that “Happy Birthday to You” does not belong to the mega music corporation that has long claimed it.  Instead, the world’s most popular song belongs to, well, the world.  The ruling brings to an end an intense two-year legal standoff between a handful of independent filmmakers and massive company Warner Music.  It also throws into doubt as much as $50 million in licensing fees collected by the music giant over the past 27 years, raising the possibility of a class-action lawsuit to come.  The decision by U.S. District Judge George H. King delighted the plaintiffs, who portrayed their lawsuit as a David-versus-Goliath battle over the so-called “birthday song.”  “‘Happy Birthday’ is finally free after 80 years,” Randall Newman, an attorney for the plaintiffs, told the Los Angeles Times.  “Finally, the charade is over.  It’s unbelievable.”  Warner/Chappell, the publishing arm of Warner Music, told the newspaper that the company is “looking at the court’s lengthy opinion and considering our options.”  The ruling could have a much broader impact than money from licensing fees or even movie scenes, however.   Instead, it could allow businesses of all type—from TV shows to Broadway plays to greeting cards to your local restaurant—to use “Happy Birthday” without fear of a lawsuit.  “Happy Birthday to You” has been claimed by Warner since 1988, when the company bought its copyright.  That meant that anyone wanting to use the song for commercial purposes—such as in a film, Broadway play or on television—would have to pay at least $1,500.  Lots of people did.  Warner/Chappell makes an estimated $5,000 per day, or $2 million per year, licensing the rights to the song.  (Donaldson, the entertainment attorney, said that number is low.  “I think when they dig into it, it’s going to be a lot more than $2 million per year,” he told The Washington Post.)   In 2013, however, a group of filmmakers sued Warner/Chappell, arguing that the company didn’t actually own the song and, therefore, couldn’t charge people to use it.  For two years, and in several federal courts, both sides have dropped documentary bombs on the other.  Most recently, Jennifer Nelson, a former X-Games biker turned filmmaker who is not only a plaintiff in the case but is also making a documentary about the song and the legal battle, unearthed “a proverbial smoking-gun” that “proves conclusively that there is no copyright to the Happy Birthday lyrics.”  The “proof”:  a 1922 songbook containing “Happy Birthday” but no copyright, a finding that, Nelson and her attorneys argued, undermined Warner/Chappell’s claim to ownership.  Michael E. Miller

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/09/23/happy-birthday-to-all-of-us-judge-gives-world-a-gift-says-song-belongs-to-everyone/  Robert Brauneis, a George Washington University law professor who has extensively researched the copyright history of the song, says the ruling does not explicitly place "Happy Birthday To You" in the public domain.  http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-happy-birthday-song-lawsuit-decision-20150922-story.html  See also http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/09/judge-warners-2m-happy-birthday-copyright-is-bogus/

COPYRIGHT  A federal appeals court has found that two famous versions of the Batmobile were protected under the copyright for the original Batman comic strip held by DC Comics.  DC Comics, a unit of Time Warner’s Warner Bros. Entertainment that owns the copyright to the original Batman comic book series, had sued a San Diego area man who was selling full-sized replicas of the Batmobile—some for as much as $90,000 each—as depicted in both the 1966 television series “Batman” starring Adam West and the 1989 movie “Batman” featuring Michael Keaton.  “Holy copyright law, Batman!” wrote Judge Sandra Ikuta in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in the September 23, 2015 opinion, which found that the Batmobile was a “sufficiently distinctive” character to the original Batman comic book series.  “Since his first comic book appearance in 1939, the Caped Crusader has protected Gotham City from villains with the help of his sidekick Robin the Boy Wonder, his utility belt, and of course, the Batmobile,” Ikuta wrote.  “Here, DC retained its copyright in the Batmobile character even though its appearance in the 1966 and 1989 productions did not directly copy any comic book depiction.”  Amanda Bronstad  http://www.nationallawjournal.com/home/id=1202738032636/Holy-Copyright-Batmobile-Protected-Against-Replica-Seller?mcode=1202617074964&curindex=1&slreturn=20150824082555

"As Batman so sagely told Robin, 'In our well-ordered society, protection of private property is essential,'" 9th Circuit Judge Sandra Ikuta wrote for a unanimous three judge panel.  The case in the 9th Circuit is DC Comics vs. Towle, 13-55484.  Dan Levine  http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/09/23/usa-batman-ruling-idUSL1N11T1JF20150923

Jack Larson, best know for his role as reporter Jimmy Olsen on the first Superman TV show, died September 20, 2015 at his home in Brentwood, Calif.  He was 87.  Larson played George Reeves’ (Clark Kent/Superman) wide-eyed coworker at The Daily Planet—a role he tried, in vain, to escape throughout his career—on “Adventures of Superman” in the 1950s.  Larson appeared on “Superman” for six seasons, beginning in 1951.  The series came to a close following Reeves’ sudden death in 1959.  Larson was also a playwright; his works include 1966’s “The Candied House,” based on “Hansel and Gretel”; “Cherry, Larry, Sandy, Doris, Jean, Paul,” a comedy about being gay; 1968’s “Chuck”; and 1998’s “The Astronaut’s Tale.” Larson wrote librettos for operas, such as Virgil Thomson’s “Lord Byron.”  He produced several films written and/or directed by his longtime partner, James Bridges, who he met on the set of Ethel Barrymore’s final film, “Johnny Trouble,” in 1957. Larson produced “The Baby Maker” (1970), “Mike’s Murder” (1984) and “Perfect” (1985), among Bridges’ other movies, through their production company.  Larson also appeared in the 1991 series “Superboy” as “Old Jimmy Olsen” (an older version of Justin Whalin’s character), in an episode of ABC’s “Lois & Clark:  The New Adventures of Superman” and Bryan Singer’s “Superman Returns” in 2006.  Maane Khatchatourian 

http://variety.com/2015/tv/news/jack-larson-dead-superman-jimmy-olsen-1201598572/

Get Fuzzy is an American comic strip written and drawn by Darby Conley.  The strip features the adventures of Boston advertising executive Rob Wilco and his two anthropomorphic pets, a dog named Satchel Pooch and a cat called Bucky Katt.  Get Fuzzy has been published by United Feature Syndicate since September 6, 1999.  Get Fuzzy often eschews the traditional "setup-punchline" format of most funnies, instead building on absurd dialog between characters.  The unusual title of the strip comes from a concert poster that Darby Conley once created for his brother's band, the Fuzzy Sprouts.  "Life's too short to be cool," the poster read, "Get Fuzzy."  In 2011, Get Fuzzy began to incorporate more and more reprinted strips into its daily rotation.  Initially, these would alternate from week to week with a new strip.  Eventually, the reruns became more frequent and by the beginning of 2013 (perhaps earlier), the daily Get Fuzzy strips consisted entirely of strips from previous years.  The lack of new content has caused a significant decline in the popularity of Get Fuzzy, and in some cases reader feedback polls have been conducted as to whether or not to keep the strip.  One of these was conducted by The Washington Post in October 2013; the paper cited the reruns as the reason for the strip's lack of support and announced that they would be dropping it from the paper.  The Seattle Times, which stopped carrying Get Fuzzy on March 3, 2014, said their reasoning was "because the creator is no longer producing new installments."  The Sunday editions of Get Fuzzy, incidentally, have been largely unaffected by this and new installments have continued to appear on a regular basis, much in the same vein of how Bill Amend's FoxTrot does.  The difference is that Amend made a conscious decision and an announcement that he would be making the move, while neither Universal Uclick or Darby Conley have ever made an official statement on the status of Get Fuzzy.  In addition, Conley has never explained his reasoning for no longer drawing daily strips.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Get_Fuzzy

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1351  September 24, 2015  On this date in 1896, F. Scott Fitzgerald, American novelist and short story writer, was born.  On this date in 1957, Camp Nou, the largest stadium in Europe, is opened in Barcelona.

Wiktionary

yeasayer or yea-sayer  noun  One whose attitude is positive, optimistic, confidently affirmative.

(pejorative) One who habitually agrees uncritically.  Origin: 1915–1920, after naysayer, from yea + say +‎ -er, equivalent to yeasay +‎ -er.  First recorded use:  1920. 

The Iowa State University Department of Entomology hosts the Insect Fear Film Festival at Foellinger Auditorium for its 32nd year in September 2015.  The festival shows insect fear films and feature other activities, summoning interactions between attendees and insects.  The three-decade-long festival was originally just an idea that hatched when May Berenbaum was a graduate student at Cornell University.  “I was walking on campus when I saw a sign that the Asian-American Student Association was showing ‘Godzilla,’” Berenbaum said.  “If the Asian-Americans can have a sense of humor about their film identity, why can’t entomologists?”  Berenbaum established a serious reputation before pitching the comical idea to her department at the University.  But by 1984, it became a reality.  “They loved it,” Berenbaum said with a laugh.  Now, the festival has sprouted and spread to institutions and communities across the world.  http://www.dailyillini.com/article/2015/02/insect-fear-film-festival-celebrates-bugging-out

A Library Writes Its Own Story  A California library becomes a living legend. by Deborah Fallows   The public library in Redlands, California is much more than a steward of books and information.  It is an exemplar of the history of the town and a living legend of its spirit of generosity, a hallmark of Redlands since its first days.  Redlands, longtime a citrus town and at the edge of the sloping foothills of the San Bernardino Mountains, was founded in 1881 by Frank Brown, a Yale-educated civil engineer and Edward Judson, a former Wall Street broker, who donated more than 10,000 trees to help settle the town in its earliest days.  One of the first things you notice today, if you take a break from the I-10 between L.A. and Palm Springs to exit at Redlands, are the tall, elegant Washingtonia palms lining the broad streets of century-old Victorian, Colonials, and California Craftsman houses.  Even before the town was incorporated in 1888, its residents had built a YMCA.  And they soon began angling for a public library.  Alfred Smiley, a Quaker and founding partner with his brothers of the historic Mohonk Mountain House in New Paltz, New York, who spent his winters in Redlands was a prime promoter of the library.  This was just the beginning. Alfred Smiley huddled with his twin brother, Albert, about taking the library to the next step--giving it a proper building and a beautiful setting.  Albert quietly borrowed money, bought up surrounding land, and commissioned a wonderful Moorish Revival building by architect T.R. Griffith, which was noticed across the state.  The town renamed the library in honor of Albert, the A.K. Smiley Public Library (AKSPL).  The library stands today as a national historic landmark.  And the story gets even better.  In 1910, Andrew Carnegie himself came to town to visit the library and celebrate his good friend Albert’s 82nd birthday.  Carnegie was in his heyday of building more than 2500 libraries across the U.S.  and Europe at that time, 142 of them in California alone.  Here are the affectionate, admiring, and even puckish remarks he delivered in Redlands during his visit:  This is the first time it has ever been my privilege to sign my name in the visitor’s book of a library which I had not founded, it gives me the greatest pleasure, the more so, as it is the gift of my dear and honored friend, Mr. Smiley.  Before giving libraries I waited until I had this useless dross that men call money, because it is useless until it is put to some good use, and he could not wait.  His love for the cause impelled him to give and he actually borrowed money – borrowed the money, I say, to build this magnificent structure.  Perhaps the piece de resistance of the Smiley Library is the Heritage Room, begun 44 years ago by the then archivist and later library director  Larry Burgess.  (Most of the library history recorded here came from conversations with Burgess and his writing).  The holdings range from the historic to the humble: Andrew Carnegie’s collection of books on Indians of California and Southwest presented to Albert Smiley at his birthday celebration.  All the issues of Sunset magazine.  A comprehensive, publicly accessible collection of books on the history of Southern California.  The first 1836 tiny schoolbook printed in California for early settlers, just 3x4 inches in size.  Drawings from architect Leon Armantrout of many of the new and old buildings in town.  Post-war color slides.  Works of Dean Cornwell, a prominent illustrator and muralist from the early 20th century.  Portraiture of Redlanders by local photographer Elmer Kingham from most of the 20th century.  Some 2000 Southern California citrus labels.  Maps of Redlands and California from the 1850s and newspapers from the 1880s.  An oral history collection.  And a lot of personal memorabilia and curiosities that the library generously receives.  Stop by your local library.  Support your local library.  Read more and see pictures at http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2015/08/a-library-writes-its-own-story/401438/?utm_source=SFTwitter

One Master, Many Cervantes  Don Quixote in translation by Ilan Stavans  HUMANITIES, September/October 2008 | Volume 29, Number 5 (excerpt)   Don Quixote de la Mancha is a book for all seasons: esteemed, even venerated by millions, but, maddening in its length and contradictions, a constant target of attacks.  As the narrator repeatedly tells us, what we’re reading isn’t the original but a translation of a manuscript by an Arab historian, Cide Hamete Benengeli.  In addition, Don Quixote, during a visit to a printer in Barcelona in chapter LXII of the second part, says to Sancho Panza that “translating from one language to another, unless it is from Greek or Latin, the queens of all languages, is like looking at Flemish tapestries from the wrong side, for although the figures are visible, they are covered by threads that obscure them, and cannot be seen with the smoothness and color of the right side.”  Then, also in the second part of Cervantes’ novel, the protagonists, Don Quixote and his squire, react to villagers who have read the first part, and, similarly, are furious when they find out that an impostor—an author by the pseudonym of Alonso Fernández de Avellaneda, a mysterious Aragonese author who was an admirer of Lope de Vega, a famous playwright and rival of Cervantes—published, in 1614, an apocryphal second part that diminishes the quality of Cervantes’ effort.  In other words, the characters in the book are perfectly aware of their nature as literary creations available only—for better or worse—in translation.  I’ve counted eighteen different complete English versions, although some might exist under the radar.  No other classic has been revamped as often into Shakespeare’s tongue, and, yes, as atrociously.  For a long time, the translation I liked the most was by Samuel Putnam, who was educated at the University of Chicago and the Sorbonne.  He wrote, among other books, Paris Was Our Mistress: Memoirs of a Lost and Found Generation and was the father of the American philosopher Hilary Whitehall Putnam.  Penguin brought out Putnam’s version.  By the end of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first, the quality standards of translation were notably higher.  The work of John Rutherford (2000), Edith Grossman (2003), and Tom Lathrop (2005) is proof of it.  Given the assortment of interpretations, it isn’t advisable to suggest that a single English translation of Don Quixote is the best.  I prefer to compare them—that is, to keep them all at my side.  I believe the true spirit of Cervantes’ novel is to be found not by subtraction but by addition.  http://www.neh.gov/humanities/2008/septemberoctober/feature/one-master-many-cervantes

Baking with the flours of grains such as rye and buckwheat has gained popularity recently.  It isn’t just a healthier alternative to white flour, but also can lend a new dimension to your cakes and cookies.  "I’ve been really excited about what I can get out of it flavor-wise," says Claire Ptak, an American pastry chef who owns Violet Cakes, a bakery in London’s Hackney neighborhood.  "The key is to not look at it as just a substitution but to look at the grain itself to see what flavor profile it has."  Whole-grain rye, for example, is a favorite of Ms. Ptak, whose fourth book—"The Violet Bakery Cookbook"—launches in September 2015 in the U.S.  "I love to eat rye bread.  It has such a strong flavor," says Ms. Ptak, who notes that it’s important to pair it with ingredients that are as robustly flavored.  "I love doing a chocolate and rye brownie with a really dark chocolate," Ms. Ptak adds.  "There’s a lot of texture in there and it works well in the chewy context of a brownie.  Chocolate and rye work really well together."  Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan  Read about other flours and see recipe for Rye Chocolate Brownies at

http://www.wsj.com/articles/a-bakers-secret-ingredients-many-flours-1442420279

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1350  September 23, 2015  On this date in 1905, Norway and Sweden signed the "Karlstad treaty", peacefully dissolving the Union between the two countries.  On this date in 1909, The Phantom of the Opera (original title:  Le Fantôme de l'Opéra), a novel by French writer Gaston Leroux, was first published as a serialization in Le Gaulois.

According to legend, the film statue, Oscar, got its name because it looked like somebody's uncle.  Tony, the theater's highest award, is an abbreviation of Antoinette Perry.  Here's how Emmy got her name.  Emmy history goes back to the first ceremony.  The TV Academy's constitution empowers it to "recognize outstanding achievement in the television industry be conferring annual awards of merit as an incentive for achievement within the industry..."  In 1948, Charles Brown, then president of the young organization, named a committee to select award winners for the year.  He also asked for suggestions on a symbol and what it should be called.  Some thought "Iconoscope" (for large orthicon tube) would be an impressive title, but it was pointed that it would be shortened for "Ike," a name reserved for Dwight Eisenhower.  Another television favorite was "Tilly" (for television).  But in the end, Emmy, a derivative for Immy (a nickname for the image orthicon tube) was chosen. The name was suggested by pioneer television engineer, Harry Lubcke (president of the Academy in 1949-50).

http://www.capitalemmys.tv/emmys/how-emmy%C2%AE-got-her-name

THREE DAYS IN SPAIN  September 2015:   We began with a guided tour of Barcelona, and then took our own walking tours to markets, churches and museums.  A special night started with a tapas dinner (including Crema Catalana) followed by a flamenco show at Tablao Cordobes.  See http://www.tablaocordobes.es/en  See also http://www.tablaocordobes.es/en/tablao-flamenco-barcelona/flamenco  and Flamenco at Tablao Cordobés, Las Ramblas, Barcelona

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9AkHtAS7No  5:04  The particular show (partly improvisational) we watched is different than in the video.  There was a playful interaction between entreating singers, disdainful dancers, and calm guitarists playing in their upper registers.  Dancers provided percussion with foot stamps, snaps, taps, claps and castanets.  Singers also supplied plenty of clapping. 

History of Flamenco  http://www.classicalguitarmidi.com/history/flamenco.html

Crema Catalana or Catalan Cream is the Catalan name and version of the French dessert, crème brulée.  It is also called Crema de Sant Josep, or St. Joseph’s cream.  Find recipe at http://spanishfood.about.com/od/dessertssweets/r/cremacatalanar.htm

Barcelona Cooking Class with Marta:  Catalan Paella

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yak2jGi5pb4  7:58

Barcelona-Style Rice recipe courtesy of Tyler Florence  http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/tyler-florence/barcelona-style-rice-recipe.html

Barcelona is the capital of the autonomous region of Catalonia, the most northeasterly corner of Spain bordering France.  The region has four provinces:  Barcelona, Girona, Lleida and Tarragona.  Modernism was born in Barcelona, and its best known proponent is Antoni Gaudí.  Gaudí s Parque Güell, Palacio Güell, Casa Milà, La Sagrada Familia, and La Pedrera are tourist attractions.  Painters Salvador Dali and Joan Miro were born in Barcelona, and Pablo Picasso spent his formative years here.  In the first millenium B.C. the lands around Barcelona were settled by the agrarian Laeitani, while other parts of Catalonia were colonised by Iberians.  Carthaginians from New Carthage in southern Spain named Barcelona after Hamil Barca, father of Hannibal who led his army of elephants from Catalonia over the Pyrenees and Alps to attack Rome.  In reprisal, Romans began the subjugation of the whole Iberian peninsula, wiping out the Cathaginians as well as the Laeitani.  When the Roman Empire collapsed, the Visigoths based in Toulouse moved in to fill the vacuum.  The Catalan language has been outlawed more than once.  Today it is spoken by about eight million people including in Andorra and the Balearic Islands.  Barcelona & Catalonia  DK Eyewitness Travel

Seven properties built by the architect Antoni Gaudí (1852–1926) in or near Barcelona  http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/320

Casa Milà, popularly known as ‘La Pedrera’ (the stone quarry), an ironic allusion to the resemblance of its façade to an open quarry, was constructed between 1906 and 1912 by Antoni Gaudí.  For its uniqueness, artistic and heritage value have received major recognition and in 1984 was inscribed on UNESCO World Heritage List, for its exceptional universal value.  Nowadays it is the headquarters of Catalunya-La Pedrera Foundation and houses a cultural centre that is a reference point in Barcelona for the range of activities it organises and the different spaces for exhibitions and other public uses it contains.

https://www.lapedrera.com/en/what-is-casa-mila  See also http://www.barcelona-tourist-guide.com/en/albums-en/gaudi-pedrera/

Bullfighting was banned in the Spanish autonomous community of Catalonia by a vote of the Catalan Parliament in July 2010.  The ban came into effect on 1 January 2012.  The last bullfight in the region took place in Barcelona in September 2011.  The ban, which ended a centuries-old tradition in the region, was supported by animal rights activists but opposed by some, who saw it as motivated by political nationalism rather than animal welfare.  There is a movement to revoke the ban in the Spanish congress, citing the value of bullfighting as "cultural heritage."  The proposal is backed by the majority of parliamentarians.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ban_on_bullfighting_in_Catalonia

For more than 50 years, Adrian Frutiger made the world legible.  A type designer who died on Sept. 10, 2015 in his native Switzerland, Mr. Frutiger created some of the most widely used fonts of the 20th century, seen daily in airports, on street signs and in subway stations around the world.  Mr. Frutiger, whose career spanned the era of hot lead and the age of silicon, created some 40 fonts, a vast number for one lifetime.  Praised for an elegant readability that belied their rigorous engineering, his typefaces over the years have graced signs in the Paris Métro and many international airports, and on Swiss highways and some London streets.  His best-known fonts include Univers, employed throughout the design of the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, and Frutiger, ubiquitous on airport signage, including that of John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York and Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris.  Perhaps Mr. Frutiger’s most ubiquitous typeface is also the least obtrusive:  OCR-B, the optical-character font he designed in 1968, adopted five years later as the world standard.  Margalit Fox  Read much more and see pictures at http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/20/arts/design/adrian-frutiger-dies-at-87-his-type-designs-show-you-the-way.html?_r=0

"#BalancingAct", by Toledoan Calvin Babich, was installed September 15, 2015 at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum in Grand Rapids, MI as part of ArtPrize 2015.  See a video at https://www.facebook.com/CalvinBabichBalancingActArtPrize2015/videos/vb.926754697346919/985632831459105/?type=2&theater  ArtPrize Seven is an art competition that has more than 1,500 works of art at over 160 venues covering three square miles in Grand Rapids.  The event runs September 23-October 11, 2015.  http://www.artprize.org/

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1349  September 21, 2015  On this date in 1937, J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit was published.  On this date in 1964, Malta gained independence from the United Kingdom.

PARAPHRASES from Fall on Your Knees, a novel by actor and playwright Ann-Marie Macdonald   Bagpipes are drowning out the pain--this is what bagpipes are designed to do.  The bagpipes do people's keening for them.  She had a little zizz (catnap).  Memory plays tricks--memory is another word for story--nothing is more unreliable.  Her smile is a mile wide, fingers snapping, palms percussing.  They say that the body of water stretching east of Manhattan is the ocean, but when I look straight up at the buildings, I see a granite ocean.  See also http://annmariemacdonald.com/biography/

Use fresh or dried fruits with meats, salads, pancakes, bread, muffins, desserts, baked beans, tapenade, peanut butter sandwiches, cereal, or yogurt.

Tapenade is a Provençal dish consisting of puréed or finely chopped olives, capers, anchovies and olive oil.  Its name comes from the Provençal word for capers, tapenas.  It is a popular food in the south of France, where it is generally eaten as an hors d'œuvre, spread on bread.  Sometimes it is also used to stuff poultry for a main course.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tapenade

Recommended by Muse reader:  Novel Interiors:  Living in Enchanted Rooms Inspired by Literature by Lisa Borgnes Giramonti   I borrowed this book from the public library and found quotes next to some of my favorite pictures.  “The hall at Charbury was the most lived-in room of the house.  You came into it through the narrow lobby where the hats and coats and walking-sticks were."  Monica Dickens  MARIANA.   " ... and as he passed over the bridge, he looked with the old deep-rooted affection at the respectable red brick house, which always seemed cheerful and inviting ... "  George Eliot  THE MILL ON THE FLOSS   "I'm so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers. ... Look at these maple branches.  Don't they give you a thrill—several thrills?  I'm going to decorate my room with them."  L.M. Montgomrty  ANNE OF GREEN GABLES

Jill Churchill (born Janice Young Brooks January 11, 1943 in Kansas City, Missouri) is an American author, winner of the Agatha and Macavity Awards for her first Jane Jeffrey novel and featured in Great Women Mystery Writers (2007).  In addition to writing under the names of Jill Churchill and Janice Young Brooks, she has written under the names of Amanda Singer and Valerie Vayle.  Titles in the Jane Jeffry series are puns on literary works; for instance, The Class Menagerie, From Here to Paternity and War and Peas.  Titles in the Grace and Favor series are names of songs, including Anything Goes, In the Still of the Night and Someone to Watch Over Me.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jill_Churchill

SIX DAYS IN FRANCE  September 2015:   We saw olives and grapes being harvested, toured a goat farm, olive factory, salt flats and museum, markets and towns, Roman ruins, and drove by vineyards and a truffle farm in a cart driven by two horses.  We glided down the Canal du Midi, learning about and tasting wines of the region. We stayed at Domaine La Véronique, an inn on a one-acre site near the village of Puisserguier in the Languedoc-Roussillon region in southern France.  Many plantings on the grounds include pomegranate, olive, prickly pear, fig, lemon, almond and kumkuat.  Our chef provided three excellent meals a day, and on one morning went foraging nearby bringing back wild herbs, rose hips and hawberries.  Weather was so fine we ate outside most of the time, sometimes under fig trees with the ripe fruit showering our table as we sat.  Once we spotted a hoopoe near our picnic site.  A favorite lunch meal was cassoulet, a specialty of the region.  Cassoulet is a bean stew with meat.  Legend has it that an authentic cassoulet has white beans from Lavelanet, is cooked in pure water of Castelnaudary in a casserole made of clay from the village of Issel over fire of wood from the Black Mountain.

Puisserguier is a mediaeval village built as a circulade around its castle.  Brother Clement de Puisserguier gave his name to a tasty variety of mandarin oranges we now know as Clementines.   See before and after pictures of Domaine La Véronique at http://www.domainelaveronique.com/history/

The hoopoe (Upupa epops, "hudhud") is a colourful bird found across Afro-Eurasia, notable for its distinctive "crown" of feathers.  It is the only extant species in the family Upupidae.  Like the Latin name upupa, the English name is an onomatopoeic form which imitates the cry of the bird.  See picture of the hoopoe at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoopoe

Crataegus is commonly called hawthorn, thornapple, May-tree, whitethorn,or hawberry, is a large genus of shrubs and trees in the family Rosaceae, native to temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere in Europe, Asia and North America.  The name haw, originally an Old English term for hedge, applies to the fruit.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crataegus

Castelnaudary is a market town, and the capital of the territory of Lauragais.  The town is located 50 km southeast of Toulouse, about midway along the route from that city to the Mediterranean.  This route has been used since at least Roman times, and today carries road, motorway (A61), rail and canal links.  Castelnaudary is the main port of the Canal du Midi to which it owed a period of prosperity in the 17th century when agricultural and manufactured produce became easier to export.  The name Castelnaudary comes from the Occitan Castèlnòu d'Arri, in Latin Castellum Novum Arri, or Arrius' new castle.  Read much more and see pictures at  http://www.catharcastles.info/castelnaudary.php

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1348  September 18, 2015  On this date in 1502, Christopher Columbus landed at Honduras on his fourth, and final, voyage.  On this date in 1998, the nonprofit organization Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers  (ICANN) was formed.

We just returned from a vacation with family in the north of Spain (Barcelona) and the south of France (Languedoc).  When I get my thoughts in order, I'll sprinkle the Muse with news of places we saw and things we did.  For now, let me whet your appetite with what I wrote after our first trip to France in 2005:

CANAL TRIOLET

The Midi Canal in the south of France

By tree-studded banks wends its way.

Ducks and dragonflies do a dance.

The Midi Canal in the south of France

Spellbound travelers see a green expanse

As La Tortue glides smoothly each day.

The Midi Canal in the south of France

By tree-studded banks wends its way.

The triolet (pronounced tree-o-lay) originated in France in the 13th century.  The triolet is a verse form of eight lines with this rhyme scheme:

A
B
a  Rhymes with 1st line
A  Identical to 1st line
a  Rhymes with 1st line
b  Rhymes with 2nd line
A  Identical to 1st line
B  Identical to 2nd line

Canal du Midi, built in France in the 17th century, stretches from the city of Toulouse to the Basin of Thau on the Mediterranean.  45,000 trees were planted after its completion to hold the land along the canal banks.  It originally connected with the Garonne River in Toulouse, which connects with the Gironde River in Bordeaux, completing a boat route between the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean much shorter than through the Straits of Gibraltar.  The Garonne is sometimes not navigable due to weather conditions, so a second canal paralleling the Garonne was built in the mid-19th century, connected to the Midi and the Gironde. 

La Tortue is an 1895 coal barge built in Holland that was converted to offer cruises on Canal du Midi.

terrier  noun  A small dog of a breed originally used for turning out foxes and other burrowing animals from their lairs.  Late Middle English: from Old French (chien) terrier 'earth (dog)', from medieval Latin terrarius, from Latin terra 'earth'.

terrier  noun  historical  1.  A register of the lands belonging to a landowner, originally including a list of tenants, their holdings, and the rents paid, later consisting of a description of the acreage and boundaries of the property.  1.1 An inventory of property or goods.  Late 15th century:  from Old French terrier, from medieval Latin terrarius (liber) '(book) of land', from Latin terra 'earth'.  http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/terrier

territory  1 a :  a geographic area belonging to or under the jurisdiction of a governmental authority  b :  an administrative subdivision of a country  c :  a part of the United States not included within any state but organized with a separate legislature  d :  a geographic area (as a colonial possession) dependent on an external government but having some degree of autonomy  2 a :  an indeterminate geographic area  b :  a field of knowledge or interest  3 a :  an assigned area; especially :  one in which a sales representative or distributor operates  b :  an area often including a nesting or denning site and a variable foraging range that is occupied and defended by an animal or group of animals  Middle English, from Latin territorium, literally, land around a town, from terra land  

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/territory

A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg

tellurian  (te-LOOR-ee-uhn)  adjective:  Relating to or inhabiting Earth.  noun:  An inhabitant of Earth.  From Latin tellus (earth). Tellus,  also known as Terra, was the goddess of the earth in Roman mythology.  Earliest documented use:  1846.

Paul Pry  (paul pry)  noun  An excessively inquisitive person.  From a character in the comedic play Paul Pry by John Poole (1786-1872).  Earliest documented use:  1826.

boycott  (BOI-kot)  verb tr.: To protest by refusing to buy a product or to deal with a person, organization, nation, etc.  noun:  The practice or an instance of this.  After Charles C. Boycott (1832-1897), an English land agent in Ireland, who was ostracized for refusing to lower rents during a time of poor harvest.  Earliest documented use:  1880.

fribble   (FRIB-uhl)  verb intr.:  To act in a wasteful or frivolous manner.  verb tr.:  To fritter away.  noun:  A wasteful or frivolous person or thing.  Of uncertain origin.  Perhaps an alteration of frivol (to behave frivolously), from Latin frivolus (worthless).  Earliest documented use:  1610.

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1347  September 16, 2015  On this date in 1620, Pilgrims set sail from England on the Mayflower.  On this date in 1966, the Metropolitan Opera House opened at Lincoln Center in New York City with the world premiere of Samuel Barber's opera Antony and Cleopatra.