A dome (from Latin:  domus) is an architectural element that resembles the hollow upper half of a sphere.  The precise definition has been a matter of controversy.  There are also a wide variety of forms and specialized terms to describe them.  A dome can rest upon a rotunda or drum, and can be supported by columns or piers that transition to the dome through squinches or pendentives.  A lantern may cover an oculus and may itself have another dome.  Domes have a long architectural lineage that extends back into prehistory and they have been constructed from mud, stone, wood, brick, concrete, metal, glass, and plastic over the centuries.  The symbolism associated with domes includes mortuary, celestial, and governmental traditions that have likewise developed over time.  Because domes are concave from below, they can reflect sound and create echoes.  A dome may have a "whispering gallery" at its base that at certain places transmits distinct sound to other distant places in the gallery.  The half-domes over the apses of Byzantine churches helped to project the chants of the clergy.  Although this can compliment music, it may make speech less intelligible, leading Francesco Giorgi in 1535 to recommend vaulted ceilings for the choir areas of a church, but a flat ceiling filled with as many coffers as possible for where preaching would occur.  Cavities in the form of jars built into the inner surface of a dome may serve to compensate for this interference by diffusing sound in all directions, eliminating echoes while creating a "divine effect in the atmosphere of worship."  This technique was written about by Vitruvius in his Ten Books on Architecture, which describes bronze and earthenware resonators.  The material, shape, contents, and placement of these cavity resonators determine the effect they have:  reinforcing certain frequencies or absorbing them.  Find pictures,  history and a description of twelve different domes at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dome

A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg

kenning  (KEN-ing)  noun  A figurative, usually compound, expression used to describe something.  For example, whale road for an ocean and oar steed for a ship.  From Old Norse kenna (to know). Ultimately from the Indo-European root gno- (to know), which is also the source of know, recognize, acquaint, ignore, diagnosis, notice, normal, prosopagnosia, gnomon, anagnorisis, and agnosia. 

mot juste  (mo ZHOOST)   noun  The right word.   From French mot juste (right word).  A related term is bon mot.

holophrasm  (HOL-uh-fraz-um)  noun  1.  A one-word sentence, for example, “Go.”  2.  A complex idea conveyed in a single word, for example, “Howdy” for “How do you do?”  From Greek holos (whole) + phrasis (speech).

antonomasia  (an-toh-noh-MAY-zhuh) noun  1.  The use of an epithet or title for a proper name, for example, the Bard for Shakespeare.  2.  The use of the name of a person known for a particular quality to describe others, such as calling someone brainy as Einstein.  Also known as eponym.  From Latin, from Greek antonomazein (to name differently), from anti- (instead of) + onoma (name).

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From:  Susan Gawarecki  Subject:  Kenning  A word for which I have had an unfilled need!  T.E. Lawrence, in his epic Seven Pillars of Wisdom, invented a great many kennings in the form of hyphenated words (torrent-beds, coffee-hospitality, brain-leisure) that are his shorthand for descriptive phrases.

From:  Laura Moorhouse Kenna   Subject:  kenning  When my son was three he saw a groundhog and exclaimed, “Look! A grass beaver!”  We still call them that.  Although “groundhog” itself is a kenning, I suppose, as well as another name for groundhogs: whistlepig.

From:  Marlice Van Zandt  Subject:  kenning  Llamas were referred to as “ships of the Andes” and “camels of the clouds” for their use as beasts of burden.

From:  Inderjit Kalsi  Subject:  Kennings  Sand dunes gently undulating ‘camel canal’.

From:  Mike Wagner  Subject:  holophrasm  My Chinese friend always comments on our American holophrasm, “Jeet?” for, “Did you eat?”  He says learning “American” was certainly interesting! 

The first documentation about the flora in the Colosseum area dates back to 1643.  Domenico Panaroli made the first catalogue of its plants.  684 species have been identified there.  In 1871 there were some attempts to eradicate the vegetation, because there were serious concerns, the flora could damage the monument.  242 species have been identified today, and 200 of the species first identified by Panaroli, still remain in the area.  http://www.colosseum.net/listingview.php?listingID=16  See also Rooted in the past:  the plants that flourish in ruins by Christopher Woodward at http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/66319312-0559-11e5-8612-00144feabdc0.html

Eagle, Wisconsin  The area received its name when, in 1836, Thomas Sugden, John Coats and Mr. Garton came to a prairie and saw a huge bald headed eagle soaring overhead.  The first claim was made by A. R. Hinkley but the first permanent settlers were Ebenezer Thomas and wife, who erected a house in 1836.  Before the end of that year, the first mill in the town of Eagle was built in Eagleville.  When the southern branch of the Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad came through the town in 1851, the village of Eagle Centre was created, leading to the eventual decline of other villages in the township.  With the passing of time, the village name evolved to Eagle.  By 1880, the village was considered the third ranking community in Waukesha County in terms of commercial importance.  It could boast of two dry goods houses, two hardware stores, two clothing and tailoring establishments, a butcher shop, grocer, harness shop, milliners, salons, and a grain elevator and warehouse.  Eagle was nearly renamed Diamond City in the mid-1800’s when it became known that a diamond had been discovered here in 1876.  While digging a well at the summit of what is today called Diamond Hill, workers found a yellow pebble, which was eventually identified as one of the largest glacial diamonds ever found in the United States.  The diamond ended up at New York’s American Museum of Natural History.  In 1964, it was stolen along with several other gems, including the Star of India sapphire.  Never recovered, the Eagle Diamond was likely cut and fenced.  

http://eaglehistoricalsociety.org/?page_id=277

Brian Friel, who wrote plays whose distinctive blend of melancholy and humor won international acclaim, died on October 2, 2015.  He was 86 and lived in County Donegal, Ireland.  Vincent Canby, then The New York Times’s Sunday theater critic, spoke for many when he wrote in 1996 that Mr. Friel had long been recognized as Ireland’s greatest living dramatist, having “dazzled us with plays that speak in a language of unequaled poetic beauty and intensity.”  These ranged from “Philadelphia, Here I Come!” which concerned an emotionally divided young Irishman on the point of emigrating to America and was nominated for best play at the 1966 Tony Awards, to “Dancing at Lughnasa,” about a family living in genteel poverty in the 1930s, which won the same award in 1992.  Along with much of Mr. Friel’s work, both plays were set in Ballybeg, an imaginary Donegal village much like Muff, where the dramatist and his family first lived after moving permanently from Londonderry, also called Derry, in British-ruled Ulster to the Irish Republic in 1969.  He said he felt a kinship with 19th-century Russian writers, explaining that this might be because “the characters in the plays behave as if their old certainties were as sustaining as ever, even though they know that their society is in meltdown,” and “they seem to expect their problems will disappear if they talk about them—endlessly.”  Many of Mr. Friel’s characters shared those qualities, though they never seemed “endless.”  Rather, they spoke in ways, always lively and sometimes poetic, that reflected one of their author’s prime missions, which was to help restore to Irish English the uniqueness that he thought years of Anglo-English domination had taken from it.  Indeed, Mr. Friel’s principal objection to standard translations of the Russians was that characters usually sounded “as English as Elgar.”  Accordingly, the language in his versions of Chekhov and of Turgenev—he translated “A Month in the Country” and dramatized “Fathers and Sons”—had a lilt and lyricism that owed more to Donegal than to Oxford or London.  Benedict Nightingale  http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/03/theater/brian-friel-irish-playwright-dies.html  Find a list of Brian Friel's works including Lovers:  Winners and Losers (1967) and awards including New York Drama Critics Circle award for best foreign play – Molly Sweeney (1995) at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Friel

Eye contact is a part of conversation.  Zits comic strip  October 3, 2015  http://www.thecomicstrips.com/subject/The-Eye+Contact-Comic-Strips-by-Zits.php

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1357  October 5, 2015  On this date in 1889, Teresa de la Parra, French-Venezuelan author, was born.  

On this date in 1902, Larry Fine, American actor and singer, was born.

Word of the Day:  hinterland noun  The land immediately next to, and inland from, a coast.  The rural territory surrounding an urban area, especially a port.  A remote or undeveloped area, a backwater.  (figuratively)  That which is unknown or unexplored about someone.

(figuratively)  Anything vague or ill-defined, especially one that is ill understood.

Pantone Inc. is a corporation headquartered in Carlstadt, New Jersey.  The company is best known for its Pantone Matching System (PMS), a proprietary color space used in a variety of industries, primarily printing, though sometimes in the manufacture of colored paint, fabric, and plastics.  In October 2007, X-Rite Inc., a supplier of color measurement instruments and software, purchased Pantone Inc. for $180 million.  Read more and see "colors of the year" from 2000 (Cerulean) to 2015 (Marsala) at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantone

The Graphics Interchange Format (better known by its acronym GIF is a bitmap image format that was introduced by CompuServe in 1987 and has since come into widespread usage on the World Wide Web due to its wide support and portability.  The format supports up to 8 bits per pixel for each image, allowing a single image to reference its own palette of up to 256 different colors chosen from the 24-bit RGB color space.  It also supports animations and allows a separate palette of up to 256 colors for each frame.  These palette limitations make the GIF format less suitable for reproducing color photographs and other images with continuous color, but it is well-suited for simpler images such as graphics or logos with solid areas of color.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GIF  See also GIF - graphic interchange format by Vangie Beal at    http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/G/GIF.html

"Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor."--Truman Capote (born in New Orleans in 1924 as Truman Streckfus Persons)  Capote died in 1984 at the age of fifty-nine, having apparently made no progress on what some thought would be his greatest work, Answered Prayers--which was published posthumously in its unfinished state.  https://www.bookbrowse.com/quotes/detail/index.cfm/quote_number/209/failure-is-the-condiment-that-gives-success-its-flavor

Robert James "Bobby" Fischer (1943–2008) was an American World Chess Champion.  At age 13 Fischer won a "brilliancy" that became known as The Game of the Century.  Starting at age 14, Fischer played in eight United States Championships, winning each by at least a one-point margin.  At age 15, Fischer became both the youngest grandmaster up to that time and the youngest candidate for the World Championship.  At age 20, Fischer won the 1963–64 U.S. Championship with 11/11, the only perfect score in the history of the tournament.  Fischer's My 60 Memorable Games (1969) remains a revered work in chess literature.  In 1970 and 1971, Fischer "dominated his contemporaries to an extent never seen before or since".  During that period he won the 1970 Interzonal Tournament by a record 3½-point margin and won 20 consecutive games, including two unprecedented 6–0 sweeps in the Candidates Matches.  In July 1971, he became the first official World Chess Federation (FIDE) number-one-ranked player, spending 54 total months at number one.  In 1972, he captured the World Chess Championship from Boris Spassky of the USSR in a match held in Reykjavík, Iceland, publicized as a Cold War confrontation which attracted more worldwide interest than any chess championship before or since.  In 1975, Fischer refused to defend his title when an agreement could not be reached with FIDE over one of the conditions for the match.  Afterward, Fischer became a recluse, disappearing from the public eye until 1992, when he won an unofficial rematch against Spassky.  It was held in Yugoslavia, which was under a United Nations embargo at the time.  His participation led to a conflict with the U.S. government, which sought income tax on Fischer's match winnings, and ultimately issued a warrant for his arrest.  In the 1990s, Fischer patented a modified chess timing system which added a time increment after each move, now a standard practice in top tournament and match play, and created a new variant of chess called Fischer Random Chess or Chess960.  During the 1990s and early 2000s, Fischer lived in Hungary, Germany, the Philippines, Japan, and Iceland, and made increasingly anti-American and anti-semitic remarks on various radio stations.  Possibly as a result, his U.S. passport was revoked.   Fischer, unaware of his passport's revocation, traveled to Japan, where he was arrested by Japanese authorities  and detained for over eight months (in 2004 and 2005) under threat of deportation.  In March 2005, Iceland granted Fischer full citizenship, leading Japanese authorities to release him from prison.  Fischer flew to Iceland, where he lived until his death on January 17, 2008.  References in popular culture:  The musical Chess, with lyrics by Tim Rice and music by Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson, tells the story of two chess champions, referred to only as "The American" and "The Russian".  The musical is loosely based on the 1972 World Championship match between Fischer and Spassky.  During the 1972 Fischer–Spassky match, the Soviet bard Vladimir Vysotsky wrote an ironic two-song cycle "Honor of the Chess Crown".  The first song is about a rank-and-file Soviet worker's preparation for the match with Fischer; the second is about the game.  Many expressions from the songs have become catchphrases in Russian culture.   The 1993 film Searching for Bobby Fischer uses Fischer's name in the title, even though the film is about the life of chess prodigy Joshua Waitzkin.  Outside of the United States, it was released as Innocent Moves.  The title refers to the search for Fischer's successor after his disappearance from competitive chess.  The author feels that his son could be that successor.  Fischer never saw the film and complained bitterly that it was an invasion of his privacy by using his name without his permission.  Fischer never received any compensation from the film, calling it "a monumental swindle".  The 2015 film Pawn Sacrifice tells the story of Fischer's attempts to defeat Russian Boris Spassky and become the World Champion.  The film is directed by Edward Zwick and stars Tobey Maguire as Fischer.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobby_Fischer

Boris Vasilyevich Spassky was born on January 30, 1937, in Leningrad, Russia, and displayed his chess genius at an early age.  Forced to flee the city during the Nazi invasion of 1942, he learned to play chess while riding a train.  At the age of 10, he beat World Champion Mikhail Botvinnik in an exhibition.  He attained the rank of International Grandmaster in 1955, and was the World Chess Champion from 1969 until his loss to American Bobby Fischer in 1972.  In 1992, he lost a highly publicized rematch against the reclusive Fischer in Yugoslavia, which was then subject to United Nations trade sanctions.  Fischer had already been in trouble for tax evasion; after his arrest in 2004, Spassky wrote a letter on his friend's behalf to U.S. President George W. Bush, stating, "Bobby and myself committed the same crime.  Put sanctions against me also.  Arrest me.  And put me in the same cell with Bobby Fischer.  And give us a chess set."  http://www.biography.com/people/boris-vasilyevich-spassky-9489899

Local Chess Players Weigh In On Fischer-Spassky Match And ‘Pawn Sacrifice’

http://artery.wbur.org/2015/09/29/pawn-sacrifice

Game 6:  Fischer vs Spassky - 1972 World Chess Championship

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2WlFD2rbRk  14:46 

According to the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, U.S. paper currency is made up of 75% cotton and 25% linen.  There are three-fourths of a pound of cotton in each pound of dollar bills.  There are 454 bills in a pound of currency.  See a table comparing value of cotton and value of currency printed at https://www.cotton.org/pubs/cottoncounts/cotton-currency.cfm

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1356  October 2, 2015  On this date in 1889, in Colorado, Nicholas Creede struck it rich in silver during the last great silver boom of the American Old West.  On this date in 1925, John Logie Baird performed the first test of a working television system.

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From:  Ellen Blackstone  Subject:  Silence  Soon silence will have passed into legend.  Man has turned his back on silence.  Day after day he invents machines and devices that increase noise and distract humanity from the essence of life, contemplation, meditation. Tooting, howling, screeching, booming, crashing, whistling, grinding, and trilling bolster his ego.--Jean Arp, artist and poet (16 Sep 1887-1948)  This quotation reminded me of recordist Gordon Hempton’s search for “one square inch of silence”--not actual silence of course, but the absence of manmade sounds--in the Hoh Rain Forest in western Washington State.  Here’s Gordon’s recording, as found on BirdNote.

From:  David Fischer  Subject:  capriole  “Capriole” has several special meanings in the world of early music, all more or less related to leaping.  Thoinot Arbeau’s “Orchesographie” is the most significant discussion of dance steps and music before 1600.  In this work, Capriol is the student who wishes to improve his social skills by learning dancing.  A capriole was also the leap occurring at the end of every six-step pattern in the galliard.  The Capriol Suite is a beautiful modern setting of several renaissance dances by Peter Warlock.

From:  Jeff Balch  Subject:  Cervantes/Shakespeare anachronicity  In the previous issue of AWADmail, Jack Miles wrote, “It may be of interest to note that both Miguel de Cervantes and William Shakespeare died on the same day, April 23, 1616.”  Cervantes and Shakespeare did not die on the same day.  Shakespeare died a week and half later.  While Spain had adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1582, England remained behind the times, sticking with the Julian calendar until 1752.  When Shakespeare died on April 23, 1616 in England, it was May 3rd in Spain, and Cervantes was long gone.

Graphic artist Kenneth Larsen kicked off 2014 with a fun new original “Dallas” illustration.  In a comic-style piece, Larsen revisits Pam Ewing’s magic shower stall, and keeps the dream alive with a tongue-in-cheek spin on the infamous Dream Season cliffhanger.  Larsen’s sharp-witted twist on “Dallas’s” most controversial season-ender continues a tradition of parodies of Leonard Katzman & Co.’s crazy plan to bring a dead-and-buried Bobby Ewing back to freshly lathered life in the “Dallas” season 9 finale.  The outrageous writing stunt has been fodder for numerous television and pop culture parodies over the last 25 years.  Most famously, in 1990, when Bob Newhart’s second hit sitcom “Newhart” was signing off CBS, Bob Newhart brilliantly made its final punchline a mashup homage to both his earlier hit sitcom, “The Bob Newhart Show” and “Dallas.”  Bob Newhart recounts that his real life wife Ginnie proposed the idea to Newhart at a holiday party several years before the show’s end.  Suzanne Pleshette jumped at the chance to be in on the joke when the time came.  Read about Family Guy with live-action cameos by Victoria Principal and Patrick Duffy reprising their roles at Bobby and Pam Ewing (1999); TNT "Shower" Campaign  a parody ad campaign for its revival of the 80’s soap.  TNT and Grey New York developed an ad campaign based around the original series’ controversial shower scene to reveal the cast of the new series (2012); and Breaking Bad alternate ending (2013).  See graphics and link to a couple of videos at http://dallasdivasderby.com/blog/2014/01/kenneth-larsen-keeps-the-dream-alive/

The term jack- o’-lantern was first applied not to pumpkins, but people.  As far back as 1663, the term meant a man with a lantern, or a night watchman.  Just a decade or so later, it began to be used to refer to the mysterious lights sometimes seen at night over bogs, swamps, and marshes.  These ghost lights—variously called  jack-o’-lanterns, hinkypunks, hobby lanterns, corpse candles, fairy lights, will-o'-the-wisps, and fool's fire—are created when gases from decomposing plant matter ignite when they come in contact with electricity or heat or as they oxidize.  For centuries before there was this scientific explanation, people told stories to explain the mysterious lights.  In Ireland, dating as far back as the 1500s, those stories often revolved around a guy named Jack.  As the story goes, Stingy Jack, often described as a blacksmith, invited the Devil to join him for a drink.  Stingy Jack didn't want to pay for the drinks from his own pocket, and convinced the Devil to turn himself into a coin that could be used to settle the tab.  The Devil did so, but Jack skipped out on the bill and kept the Devil-coin in his pocket with a silver cross so the Devil couldn’t shift back to his original form.  Jack eventually let the Devil loose, but made him promise that he wouldn’t seek revenge on Jack, and wouldn’t claim his soul when he died.  The legend immigrated with Irish laborers to the New World and collided with another Old World tradition and a New World crop.  Making vegetable lanterns was a tradition of the British Isles, and carved-out turnips, beets, and potatoes were stuffed with coal, wood embers, or candles as impromptu lanterns to celebrate the fall harvest.  As a prank, kids would sometimes wander off the road with a glowing veggie and trick their friends and travelers into thinking they were Stingy Jack or another lost soul.  In America, pumpkins were easy enough to come by and good for carving, and got absorbed both into the carved lantern tradition and the associated prank.  Over time, kids refined the prank and began carving crude faces into the pumpkins to kick up the fright factor and make the lanterns look like a disembodied heads.  By the mid-1800s, Stingy Jack’s nickname was applied to the prank pumpkin lanterns that echoed his own lamp, and the pumpkin jack-o’-lantern got its name. 

http://mentalfloss.com/article/12865/what%E2%80%99s-origin-jack-o%E2%80%99-lanterns

Berkman Center Launches New Internet Data Dashboard   Dashboard debuts at World Economic Forum meeting in Geneva   September 28, 2015  Cambridge, MA—The Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University is pleased to announce the launch of the Internet Monitor dashboard, a freely accessible tool that aims to improve information for policymakers, researchers, advocates, and user communities working to shape the future of the Internet by helping them understand trends in Internet health and activity through data analysis and visualization.  “Over three billion people around the globe use the Internet—for communication, for education, for livelihood,” said Urs Gasser, Executive Director of the Berkman Center.  “As the Internet becomes a vital part of more and more people’s lives and as we shape its future, we need both data and analysis to help understand how it’s working.  The Internet Monitor dashboard brings this data and analysis together in an easily shareable way.”  The dashboard lets users customize a collection of data visualization widgets—some offering real-time data—about Internet access and infrastructure, online content controls, and digital activity.  Users can create multiple collections that enable easy comparisons across countries and data sources, and are quick to configure, edit, and share.  In addition to creating their own collections, visitors to the dashboard will be able to view a selection of featured collections based on topics such as online media and network traffic around the world.  Read more and see graphics at https://cyber.law.harvard.edu/node/99141

Everyone you know will be able to rate you on the terrifying ‘Yelp for people’—whether you want them to or not by Cailin Dewey   The most surprising thing about Peeple—basically Yelp, but for humans—may be the fact that no one has yet had the gall to launch something like it.  When the app does launch, probably in late November, you will be able to assign reviews and one- to five-star ratings to everyone you know:  your exes, your co-workers, the old guy who lives next door.  You can’t opt out—once someone puts your name in the Peeple system, it’s there unless you violate the site’s terms of service.  Users can “report anything they deem inaccurate” to the site.  https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2015/09/30/everyone-you-know-will-be-able-to-rate-you-on-the-terrifying-yelp-for-people-whether-you-want-them-to-or-not/

Jennifer Ries and her husband were traveling to the airport for an international trip when she decided she should charge her e-cigarette battery.  After plugging the device into the car's charger, liquid started dripping from the battery, she said.  The car filled with a smell like nail polish remover.  Then, with a loud bang, the battery exploded.  Flames shot out, catching Ries' dress and seat on fire.  On September 30, 2015, a Riverside County Superior Court jury awarded her nearly $1.9 million in a lawsuit she brought against the electronic cigarette's distributor, VapCigs; its wholesaler, Cartons 2 Go; and the Corona store where she bought it, Tobacco Expo.  Her product liability lawsuit alleged that the businesses in the supply chain were "involved in the distribution of a product that failed to conform to any kind of reasonable safety expectation—battery chargers should not explode—and failed to warn about known dangers."  Ries' attorney, Gregory L. Bentley, said he believed the case was the first e-cigarette explosion lawsuit to be tried in the United States.  Bentley said that despite huge sales, the fledgling e-cigarette industry is largely unregulated, with few safeguards for consumer protection.  Electronic cigarettes have been available for sale in the United States since 2007, and constitute a multibillion-dollar industry, with more than 2.5 million users, according to a 2014 report on e-cigarette fires and explosions by the U.S. Fire Administration.  The report included an analysis of 25 e-cigarette fires since 2009, based on media reports.  Of those, 20 of the fires were caused when the device's battery was being charged, the report said. Ries' case was included in the report.  The Fire Administration said e-cigarettes often use lithium-ion batteries that include flammable liquid electrolytes that can explode when they overheat, such as when they receive too much voltage while charging.  Many e-cigarettes have USB ports for connecting the device to power adapters provided by the manufacturer.  But the "ordinary USB port charging connections" allow users to plug them in to other adapters or USB ports—which can provide varied voltages and electric current.  If the battery receives too much current, it can explode, the report said.  Hailey Branson-Potts  http://www.latimes.com/local/crime/la-me-ecigarette-burns-verdict-20151001-story.html

  

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1355  October 1, 2015  On this date in 1880, John Philip Sousa became leader of the United States Marine Band.  On this date in 1908, Ford put the Model T car on the market at a price of US$825.

Looking Backward:  2000–1887 is a utopian science fiction novel by Edward Bellamy, a journalist and writer from Chicopee Falls, Massachusetts; it was first published in 1888.  It was the third-largest bestseller of its time, after Uncle Tom's Cabin and Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ.  In the United States alone, over 162 "Bellamy Clubs" sprang up to discuss and propagate the book's ideas.  Owing to its commitment to the nationalization of private property, this political movement came to be known as Nationalism, not to be confused with the political concept of nationalism.  The novel also inspired several utopian communities.  The success of Looking Backward provoked a spate of sequels, parodies, satires, dystopian, and 'anti-utopian' responses.  The result was a "battle of the books" that lasted through the rest of the 19th century and into the 20th.  See a partial list of  responses at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Looking_Backward

Julian West, the narrator of Looking Backward, was born into an aristocratic family in the late nineteenth century.  The gap between the rich and poor was vast and seemingly impossible to remedy through any means.  Julian, a sufferer of insomnia, had secretly built an underground sleeping chamber to shield himself from street noises.  He also enlisted the aid of Doctor Pillsbury, a skilled mesmerist, who never failed to leave Julian in a deep sleep.  The night before Pillsbury left Boston for a new job in New Orleans, Julian enlisted his help one last time.  After Pillsbury left, Julian's home was destroyed by a fire; Julian was protected by his underground chamber.  Over one hundred years later, Julian's secret chamber is discovered by Doctor Leete, who was preparing the site for the construction of a new laboratory.  Julian has not aged a day because he has been in a state of suspended animation.  http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/lookingbackward/summary.html

One of the richest writing competitions in the UK, the Bridport Prize is open to all nationalities aged 16 years and over.  The poem and short story categories each have a first prize of £5,000, second prize £1,000 and third prize £500.  An additional 10 supplementary prizes (for each category) of £50 each are awarded.  A new category for flash fiction with a prize of £1,000 was launched in 2010.  There is a second prize of £500, 3rd prize of £250 and 3 supplementary prizes of £50.  In 2014 the Peggy Chapman-Andrews first novel award, named after the Prize’s founder, was launched.  The first prize is £1,000 plus a up to a year’s mentoring from The Literary Consultancy.  A runner-up prize of £500 is also offered.   The Dorset Award is a prize specifically for Dorset writers.  Thanks to the sponsorship of The Book Shop of Bridport, £100 is awarded to the highest placed Dorset writer in the Bridport Prize each year.  Link to biographies of the 2015 Bridport Prize judges at https://www.bridportprize.org.uk/

Square meal is an expression synonymous with a proper or substantial meal.  It originated from the square platters that were used to serve meals aboard ships.  See many other nautical sayings including take down a peg, shake a leg, shape up, and show your true colors at http://see-the-sea.org/nautical/naut-body.htm

Before the RMS Titanic plunged into the icy waters of the North Atlantic, passengers aboard the storied passenger ship may have feasted on corned beef, potted shrimp and dumplings, according to an unusual artifact from the doomed ship—a lunch menu dated April 14, 1912, the day before the tragic sinking.  The menu, along with several other items from the Titanic's final days afloat, will be put up for auction September 30. 2015 in New York City.  The crumpled menu is expected to sell for at least $50,000, according to Lion Heart Autographs, the online auction house handling the sale.  First-class passenger Abraham Lincoln Salomon salvaged the creased and tattered carte du jour, which was tucked inside his pocket when the ship went down on April 15, 1912.  Elizabeth Palermo  Read more and see graphics at http://www.livescience.com/52036-titanic-lunch-menu-auction.html

The simplest way to toast a lot of nuts is in a medium oven (325° to 375°F).  Spread them in a single layer on a baking sheet with a rim (to keep wayward nuts from diving off the edge).  If the nuts don't fit in a single layer, use two pans.  Stay close by, and give the nuts a stir every few minutes.  The nuts will be ready in 5 to 10 minutes; small nuts like pistachios will toast much faster than a batch of big Brazil nuts.  You'll know they're done when they're lightly browned and that comforting, nutty smell fills the air.  Cut one or two in half; they should be an even pale brown throughout.  To toast just a handful of nuts, use a dry skillet over medium heat.  The skillet method is faster since you won't have to wait for the oven to heat up, but it also demands more attentiveness.  You'll need to shake and stir pretty constantly to avoid dark or burnt spots.  A toaster oven is also convenient for small amounts.  Molly Stevens  http://www.finecooking.com/articles/how-to/toast-nuts.aspx

Harvard Law School Library has two main call number systems, Library of Congress (LC) and Moody.  http://guides.library.harvard.edu/law/findabook

It’s All Enumerative:  Reconsidering Library of Congress Classification in U.S. Law Libraries by Kristen M. Hallows   Ms. Hallows investigates the widespread use of the Library of Congress Classification system in U.S. law libraries and the difficulties it can present in some circumstances.  To address these problems, she proposes that smaller law libraries that do not participate in a bibliographic utility may benefit from an in-house classification scheme.  Read a history of classification for legal materials and find material on Harvard and University of Chicago in LAW LIBRARY JOURNAL Vol. 106:1 [2014-5] pp. 85-99 or at http://www.aallnet.org/mm/Publications/llj/LLJ-Archives/Vol-106/no-1/2014-5.pdf

September 29, 2015  A tap dancer who has spent her life demanding respect for an overlooked art form.  A writer at the center of the national conversation about race.  A sociologist who lived in a trailer park to study evictions.  They are among the 24 winners of this year's "genius grants," each to receive $625,000 over five years to spend any way he or she wants, no strings attached, thanks to the Chicago-based John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.  Each of them found out in recent weeks through a phone call out of the blue.  Don Babwim  Find list of winners and their stories at http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2015/0929/Who-are-this-year-s-MacArthur-genius-grant-winners

Phil Patton, a prolific writer on design and technology who saw the deeper cultural messages in subjects as varied as the interstate highway system, Air Jordan sneakers, tire treads and Mountain Dew’s Mega Mouth Slam Can, died on September 22, 2015 in Wayne, N.J.  He was 63.  Mr. Patton’s keen eye for objects and their hidden significance made him a highly sought-after contributor for a host of magazines, including Art in America, Esquire, Smithsonian, Architectural Digest and Wired.  For many years he wrote on design for the Home section of The New York Times, where he originated the Public Eye column in the late 1990s, and The New York Times Magazine.  In recent years he contributed to the paper’s Automobile section and wrote for its Wheels blog.  Although best known for his writing on product design, especially the design of cars, Mr. Patton could turn almost anything to account.  His first book, “Razzle-Dazzle: The Curious Marriage of Television and Professional Football” (1984), described the way television affected the style of play and the business of the N.F.L.  An abiding fascination with cars and highways led to “Open Road:  A Celebration of the American Highway” (1986), and in “Made in U.S.A.:  The Secret Histories of the Things That Made America” (1992), he examined common objects with the eye of a connoisseur and the mind of a cultural critic.  William Grimes  http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/24/business/phil-patton-scrutinizer-of-the-mundane-is-dead-at-63.html

First Book provides new books to children in need, addressing one of the most important factors affecting literacy--access to books.   First Book has distributed more than 130 million free and low cost books in thousands of communities.  First Book now has offices in the U.S. and Canada.  The books are all brand new, age- and language-appropriate.  They are distributed to children in the hardest-to-reach communities nationwide; selected by the educators working most closely with them; and provided directly from over 90 major children's publishers.  More than 35,000 programs across the country receive books from First Book, including: soup kitchens and homeless shelters, local preschool and after-school programs, Title I schools, Head Start centers and Boys & Girls Clubs.  If you know of an organization in your community that could benefit from First Book's resources, please encourage them to register with First Book.  The process is free and takes only minutes:  www.firstbook.org/register.  http://www.firstbook.org/first-book-story/faq   Pharrell Williams has partnered with First Book, to donate up to 50,000 books based on his hit song "Happy" to children in low-income families.

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1354  September 30, 2015  On this date in 1852, Charles Villiers Stanford, Irish composer, conductor, and educator, was born.  On this date in 1897, Gaspar Cassadó, Spanish cellist and composer, was born.

Either I am very shallow or I have great resilience.  Whichever it may be, cheesecake restores me.  The Alpine Advocate (Emma Lord Mystery, #1) by Mary Daheim  

http://www.goodreads.com/user_status/book/1062842.The_Alpine_Advocate

The Firelands or Sufferers' Lands tract was located at the western end of the Connecticut Western Reserve in what is now Ohio.  It took the name "Fire Lands" because the resale of this land was intended as financial restitution for residents of the Connecticut towns of Danbury, Fairfield, Greenwich, Groton, New Haven, New London, Norwalk, and Ridgefield.  Their homes had been burned in 1779 and 1781 by British forces during the American Revolutionary War. " Fire Lands" was later spelled as one word, 'Firelands'.  In 1792 the Connecticut legislature set aside 500,000 acres (2,000 km²), at the western end of the "Western Reserve" for the Connecticut "Sufferers".  The area consisted of nearly all of the present-day Huron and Erie counties, as well as Danbury Township (Marblehead Peninsula) and much of Catawba Island Township now in Ottawa County; and Ruggles Township now in Ashland County.  Almost none of the original "Sufferers" ever settled in the Firelands, because land speculators purchased all of the original claims for re-sale.

See graphics at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firelands

A row of books is more than a compendium of information.  It’s a map of all the places your mind has been, a group of friends standing silently by to comfort you.  The Executor by Jesse Kellerman   http://www.reads88.com/executor?page=0%252525252C49,36

Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift is not really a children’s book, but it has been seen as a children’s story right from the start:  little people, big people, talking horses.  It was first published in 1726.  The book, which made fun of the political scene and certain prominent people in England, was published anonymously and was a great success.  In each of the three stories in this book, the hero, Lemuel Gulliver, embarks on a voyage, but, as in the Voyages of Sinbad the Sailor on which the stories may in part have been based, some calamity befalls him.  First, Gulliver arrives in Lilliput, where he finds himself a giant, held prisoner by tiny men.  The second land he visits is called Brobdingnag, a land of giants.  Gulliver is now a tiny person.  Gulliver finally ends up in the land of the Houyhnhnms, peaceful horses who have created a perfect society, except for the presence of monkey-like Yahoos.  Although Gulliver looks like a well-kempt Yahoo, he wants to be a Houyhnhnm.  Finally, he has to leave because he does not fit into this society.  http://www.penguinreaders.com/pdf/downloads/pr/teachers-notes/9781405878418.pdf

BIG EYES is a 2014 film starring Amy Adams, Christoph Waltz, Krysten Ritter, and Jason Schwartzman.  It is based on American painter Margaret Keane and her husband Walter Keane.  Margaret Hawkins met Walter Keane at an outdoor art fair in San Francisco in the spring of 1955.  Discussing her big-eyed paintings in a 2014 interview, Margaret Keane said:  "Those sad children were really my own deep feelings that I couldn't express in any other way."  "I was actually putting my own feelings into that child I was painting."  In the movie, Amy Adams character reasons that she paints the eyes big because the "eyes are the windows to the soul," a sentiment that the real Margaret Keane has echoed herself.  "Children do have big eyes," says Margaret.  "When I'm doing a portrait, the eyes are the most expressive part of the face.  And they just got bigger and bigger and bigger."  When Margaret Keane discovered Walter was taking credit for her paintings that he was selling at The Hungry i beatnik club, they were two years into their marriage and had been happy until that point.  Margaret says that Walter told her, "We need the money.  People are more likely to buy a painting if they think they're talking to the artist.  People don't want to think I can't paint and need to have my wife paint.  People already think I painted the big eyes and if I suddenly say it was you, it'll be confusing and people will start suing us."  The popularity of the big-eye paintings soared when the Keanes started to mass produce the images for sale as posters, on postcards, china plates, refrigerator magnets, etc., making the art affordable to the masses.  It was also available at mainstream locations like supermarkets and gas stations.  A 1965 LIFE Magazine story called the paintings "the most popular art now being produced in the free world."  Margaret revealed the truth during an October 1970 interview with a San Francisco radio talk show.  This was more than five years after she and Walter had separated.  She intended to discuss her art show at the Cory Art Gallery in San Francisco, but she ended up coming clean after the host began to ask about her ex-husband Walter.  The real Margaret Keane has a cameo in the Big Eyes movie.  "I'm a little old lady sitting on a park bench," says Margaret.  Find what was true and what was false in the movie and link to interviews at http://www.historyvshollywood.com/reelfaces/big-eyes/

Librarian of Congress James H. Billington announced that he will retire Sept. 30, 2015, three months earlier than scheduled.  Billington, 86, announced in June that he would retire at the end of the year.  The 13th librarian of Congress, he was appointed by President Ronald Reagan in 1987.  Billington’s abrupt departure comes weeks after the library experienced widespread computer failures that shut down the U.S. Copyright Office’s online registration system for more than a week and interrupted some electronic services of the National Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped.  In March, a congressional watchdog agency issued a scathing report about the technological problems at the Library of Congress that blamed the executive leadership for wasting millions of taxpayer dollars.  David Mao, the deputy librarian of Congress who has been part of the leadership team since January, will serve as acting librarian until a presidential appointment is made.  David Rubenstein, chairman of the library’s James Madison Council, praised Billington for launching the National Book Festival and other programs.  “Jim Billington is the Librarian of Congress, but in my view he is the Librarian of the United States.  He has done a great service for our country,” Rubenstein said in a statement.  Founded in 1800, the Library of Congress is a $630 million operation with 3,200 employees that serves as the research arm of Congress, provides Congress legal advice and runs the Copyright Office, a major contributor to the world’s digital economy.  Peggy McGlone  https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/museums/librarian-of-congress-james-h-billington-to-retire-sept-30/2015/09/25/f92d13ca-63b0-11e5-8e9e-dce8a2a2a679_story.html

Daniel Thompson, who five decades ago automated the arcane art of bagel making, a development—seen variously as saving grace and sacrilege—that has sent billions of mass-produced bagels raining down on the American heartland, died on September 3, 2015 in Rancho Mirage, Calif.  He was 94.  A California math teacher turned inventor, Mr. Thompson was a shaper of postwar suburban culture in more than one respect:  He also created the first wheeled, folding Ping-Pong table, a fixture of American basements from the mid-20th century onward.  But it was for the bagel machine that Mr. Thompson remained best known. The invention changed the American diet, ushering in the welter of packaged bagels—notably Lender’s—now found in supermarkets nationwide, and making the bagel a staple of fast-food outlets.   Abraham Thomas Thompson was born on Jan. 16, 1921, in Winnipeg, Canada, where his father had established a bakery.  When he was a few weeks old, to memorialize a cousin who had recently died, his parents changed his name to Daniel.  The family moved to Los Angeles when Daniel was a baby.  Like his father before him, Mr. Thompson was a tinkerer.  In 1953, he received United States patent No. 2,645,539 for his “Folding Table, Tennis Table, or the Like.”  Though the table did not make him wealthy, his family said, it did give him the wherewithal to attain the grail his father had long sought: an automated bagel maker.  In 1961, Mr. Thompson and his wife, Ada, established the Thompson Bagel Machine Manufacturing Corporation.  Two years later, Lender’s, which had been making bagels in New Haven since the 1920s, leased the first Thompson machine.  Where a traditional bagel baker could produce about 120 bagels in an hour, Mr. Thompson’s machine let a single unskilled worker turn out 400.  This allowed Lender’s to make bagels in immense quantities and sell them, bagged and frozen, in supermarkets.  Lender’s, which still uses Thompson machines, is today among the largest makers of bagels in the United States, producing 750 million a year.  Margalit Fox  See pictures at http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/22/business/daniel-thompson-whose-bagel-machine-altered-the-american-diet-dies-at-94.html?_r=0

September 28, 2015  A large swathe of the planet was treated to a rare lunar event on Sunday night and early Monday morning when a so-called "supermoon" coincided with a lunar eclipse.  Neither of these astronomical events are particularly rare in their own right, but their coincidence hasn't happened since 1982 and won't happen again until 2033.  Ian O'Neill  See a collection of photos from around the world at http://news.discovery.com/space/astronomy/stunning-supermoon-eclipse-wowed-the-world-photos-150928.htm

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1353  September 28, 2015  On this date in 1928, Sir Alexander Fleming noticed a bacteria-killing mold growing in his laboratory, discovering what later became known as penicillin.  On this date in 1951, CBS made the first color televisions available for sale to the general public, but the product was discontinued less than a month later.  Word of the Day:  pleonasm  noun  (uncountable, rhetoric)  Redundancy in wording.  (countable)  A phrase involving pleonasm, that is, a phrase in which one or more words are redundant as their meaning is expressed elsewhere in the phrase.