Cucumber Salad

Combine 1 tsp. soy sauce, 1 tbsp. white vinegar, 1 tbsp. sugar, 2 tsp. sesame seed oil, 1/4 tsp. Tabasco and 1/2 tsp. salt.  Add 2 medium cucumbers, peeled and diced.  Cover and chill.

A backhanded (or left-handed) compliment is an ambiguous statement that seems to be or is intended to be a compliment but is actually critical and could be seen as an insult; an insult disguised as praise.  When someone pays you a backhanded compliment, they are actually being condescending.  Since at least the late 1800's, the term 'backhanded' has been used figuratively to mean "oblique in meaning; indirect, devious, equivocal, ambiguous, or sarcastic.  The variant left-handed compliment comes from the use, dating from around 1600 of the word left-handed to mean "questionable" or "doubtful." (American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms).  This use, in turn, derived from the left long being associated with wrongness or evil.  The word sinister was the Latin word left or "one the left side" which became through Old French, our modern word sinister.  http://www.idioms.online/backhanded-compliment

In his 47 years at the Boston Athenaeum, Stanley Cushing has handled everything from a magnetic “Squid Book” to an autobiography bound in its author’s skin.  The Boston Athenaeum—a 211-year-old independent library in the center of Beacon Hill—is home to about 150,000 rare books.  Some are old, and some are brand new.  Some are huge, and some are tiny.  Some are made of lead, some are made of shredded army uniforms, and one is, famously, made of human skin.  Cushing began his career at the Athenaeum in 1970, right after he graduated from college.  He ended up staying for 47 years—“longer than anybody else in the last hundred years or so,” he says—working as a bookbinder and conservator, then as the Chief of the Conservation Department, and finally as the first-ever Curator of Rare Books.  While in this last position, he began the library’s artists’ books collection, and took the opportunity to  scoop up everything from bark cloth catalogs to anti-war tracts.  Cushing retired in late 2017 (he is now the Rare Books Curator Emeritus) but his legacy remains on the Athenaeum’s shelves, in the form of the many additions he has made to them.  The Athenaeum is an unusual library in that it doesn’t de-accession.  It doesn’t de-accession by use:  If you go into the stacks, and you see a book that hasn’t been used in a hundred years, it’s still waiting for you.  And we’re not going to get rid of it, because somebody intelligent bought it in the past, and we think someone intelligent will use it in the future.  When we run out of space, we have typically given whole collections to other institutions.  Our medical books, which we used to have a lot of, we gave to the Countway Library at Harvard.  We had an enormous collection of bound newspapers, which take up a huge amount of space.  We kept the ones that are of local interest, but we gave a great number of them to the American Antiquarian Society in Worcester, because they collect bound newspapers.  Cara Giaomo  Read extensive article with many pictures at http://lisnews.org/exit_interview_i_curated_rare_books_for_a_200yearold_library

                                         

Trail mix these days goes way beyond basic GORP (good old raisins and peanuts).  From sweet to savory, there are thousands of combinations to appeal to any palate or snack craving.  Combine any favorite (dry) ingredients and stash the mix in an airtight container in a cool, dry location to prevent spoilage, and you’re good to go.  Trail mix was invented (according to legend, in 1968 by Hadley Food Orchards) to be eaten while hiking or doing another strenuous activity.  It’s lightweight, portable, and full of energy-dense ingredients like dried fruit, nuts, and chocolate—perfect for trailside noshing.  For those same reasons, trail mix can pack a hefty caloric punch, especially when we mindlessly munch while sitting around at work or home.  Keep serving size to a quarter-cup or less to keep this yummy snack from sneaking into “dangerfood” territory.  Sophia Breene

Find 12 recipes for trail mix at https://greatist.com/health/21-healthier-trail-mix-ideas

Homeric   adjective   Resembling or relating to the epic poetry of Homer.  Of or pertaining to Greece during the Bronze Age, as described in Homer's works.  Fit to be immortalized in poetry by Homer; epic, heroic.  Wiktionary

April 15, 2018   Ray Bradbury won over generations of readers to science fiction with "Fahrenheit 451" and other works during a writing career that spanned much of the 20th century and produced a mountain of manuscripts, correspondence and memorabilia.  That sprawling collection, much of which Bradbury's family donated after his death in 2012 at age 91, is now entering a long-running preservation project at its home on the campus of Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis.  The Center for Ray Bradbury Studies , which is devoted to the study of the science fiction-fantasy author's works, won a $50,000 grant this month from the National Endowment for the Humanities to begin planning the giant archive's conservation.  "This is a national treasure and we have the great, good fortune to be able to preserve his legacy here for years to come," said Jonathan Eller, who befriended Bradbury in the 1980s and directs the center, which he co-founded in 2007.  Although Bradbury wrote his most famous titles in the mid-20th century, including "Fahrenheit 451," a novel about a dystopian future in which "firemen" hunt down and burn books to keep society in a state of ignorance, Eller said many of his works remain relevant because of their warnings about the misuse of technology and the importance of safeguarding the human imagination.  Bradbury's major works, including "The Martian Chronicles" and "The Illustrated Man," remain in print and HBO will next month air a version of "Fahrenheit" starring Michael Shannon, Michael B. Jordan and Sofia Boutella.  Meanwhile, the Bradbury center, which is near downtown Indianapolis and features a replica of the basement office in Los Angeles where the author wrote for decades, is preparing to delve into the collection he left behind for what's expected to be a yearslong preservation effort.  http://triblive.com/aande/books/13540146-74/trove-of-author-ray-bradburys-papers-set-for-preservation

April 15, 2018  Facebook gets some data on non-users from people on its network, such as when a user uploads email addresses of friends.  Other information comes from “cookies,” small files stored via a browser and used by Facebook and others to track people on the internet, sometimes to target them with ads.  “This kind of data collection is fundamental to how the internet works,” Facebook said in a statement to Reuters.  Asked if people could opt out, Facebook added, “There are basic things you can do to limit the use of this information for advertising, like using browser or device settings to delete cookies.  This would apply to other services beyond Facebook because, as mentioned, it is standard to how the internet works.”  Facebook often installs cookies on non-users’ browsers if they visit sites with Facebook “like” and “share” buttons, whether or not a person pushes a button.  Facebook said it uses browsing data to create analytics reports, including about traffic to a site.  The company said it does not use the data to target ads, except those inviting people to join Facebook.  David Ingram  Read more at  

 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-facebook-privacy-tracking/facebook-fuels-broad-privacy-debate-by-tracking-non-users-idUSKBN1HM0DR

The Hip-Hop Architecture Movement  Michael Ford and the Urban Arts Collective are forging a critique of Modernism, the style of architecture that birthed a new American culture by EMILY HOOPER  If challenged to list more than six African-American architects or designers, could you do it?  Of those you can name, how many of them changed the practice of architecture or shaped a community with a revolutionary approach  If Michael Ford isn’t on your list of black designers changing our industry, keep reading.  Ford, co-founder of the Urban Arts Collective and self-proclaimed hip-hop architect, was born and raised in Detroit.  Motown boasts architectural marvels by Daniel Burnham, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Marcel Breuer, and Isamu Noguchi; it has also groomed award-winning hip-hop artists including Eminem, Big Sean, and J Dilla.  But if you ask Ford, Detroit’s premier hip-hop artists—or those from any American city—didn’t hone their craft by spending time around groundbreaking architecture.  Their contributions to hip-hop culture, and the development of the cultural movement, were the results of deplorable physical conditions that moved its inhabitants to create a new art form in diametric response to their environment.  For Ford, and many other cultural scholars, hip-hop isn’t an isolated musical genre, a fashion style, or a variety of dance.  “Hip-hop is a culture curated mostly by African-American and Latino youth as a response to challenging economic, political, and physical environments,” Ford explains.  His thesis pairs these physical environments with Robert Moses’ inverted application of Le Corbusier’s principles for the City of Tomorrow.  Instead of glass prisms surrounded by green space for Paris, the Bronx got brick towers in-filled with concrete, divided by the Cross Bronx Expressway that siphoned residents from the island of Manhattan.  Those who could afford relocation—upper- and middle-class residents—fled the borough leaving the economically disenfranchised residents in isolation.  Moses’ implementation of displacement is what Ford calls “the worst remix in history.”  And so it is no coincidence that the Bronx is the widely agreed-upon birthplace of hip-hop.  Read much more and see pictures at http://www.architectmagazine.com/practice/the-hip-hop-architecture-movement_o

AIA Toledo and Toledo-Lucas County Public Library will collaborate a Hip Hop Architecture Camp in the main library's creativity lab July 9-14, 2018.  The camp is based on "4 Cs"--creativity, collaboration, communication and critical thinking. 

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1875  April 16, 2018  Word of the Day  sprachbund  noun A group of languages sharing a number of areal features (similar grammar, vocabulary, etc.) which are primarily due to language contact rather than cognation.  Russian linguist Nikolai Trubetzkoy, who coined the German word Sprachbund from which the English word is derived, was born on this day in 1890.  Wiktionary

The Woozle effect, also known as evidence by citation, or a woozle, occurs when frequent citation of previous publications that lack evidence misleads individuals, groups, and the public into thinking or believing there is evidence, and nonfacts become urban myths and factoids.   A Woozle is an imaginary character in the A. A. Milne book Winnie-the-Pooh, published in 1926.  In chapter three, "In which Pooh and Piglet Go Hunting and Nearly Catch a Woozle", Winnie-the-Pooh and Piglet start following tracks left in snow believing they are the tracks of a Woozle.  The tracks keep multiplying until Christopher Robin explains to them that they have been following their own tracks in circles around a tree.  Prior to the introduction of the specific term "Woozle effect", the underlying research phenomenon (and connection to the Woozle) dates back over 60 years.  Bevan (1953), writing about scientific methodology and research errors in the field of psychology, uses the term "scientific woozle hunters".  Wohlwill (1963) refers to a "hunt for the woozle" in social science research, and Stevens (1971) cautions readers about woozles in the study of a misquoted letter.  According to Richard J. Gelles, the term "woozle effect" was coined by Beverly Houghton in 1979.  Other researchers have attributed the term to Gelles (1980) and Gelles and Murray A. Straus (1988).  Gelles and Straus argue that the woozle effect describes a pattern of bias seen within social sciences and which is identified as leading to multiple errors in individual and public perception, academia, policy making and government.  A woozle is also a claim made about research which is not supported by original findings.  The creation of woozles is often linked to the changing of language from qualified ("it may", "it might", "it could") to absolute form ("it is") firming up language and introducing ideas and views not held by an original author or supported by evidence. 

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

The Birth of Brunch:  Where Did This Meal Come From Anyway? by Jesse Rhodes  As is the case with many culinary traditions, the origins are a bit hazy.  Some food historians think that the meal has its roots in England’s hunt breakfasts—lavish multi-course meals that featured a smorgasbord of goodies such as chicken livers, eggs, meats, bacon, fresh fruit and sweets.  Others posit that Sunday brunch derives from the practice of Catholics fasting before mass and then sitting down for a large midday meal.  And then there are those who look to New York’s abundance of dining spots when it comes to tracing the origins of classic brunch dishes from eggs Benedict to bagels and lox.  What does seem certain is that the word “brunch”—that playful blend of “breakfast” and “lunch”—first appeared in print in an 1895 Hunter’s Weekly article.  In “Brunch:  A Plea,” British author Guy Beringer suggested an alternative to the heavy, post-church Sunday meals in favor of lighter fare served late in the morning.  ″Brunch is cheerful, sociable and inciting,″ Beringer says. ″  It is talk-compelling.  It puts you in a good temper, it makes you satisfied with yourself and your fellow beings, it sweeps away the worries and cobwebs of the week.″  But wherever the initial spark of genius came from, the tradition definitely seems to have caught on in the United States in the 1930s, supposedly because Hollywood stars making transcontinental train trips frequently stopped off in Chicago to enjoy a late morning meal.  It was a meal championed by hotels since most restaurants were closed on Sundays and, with church attendance flagging after World War II, people were looking for a new social outlet that also let them sleep in a bit.  Restaurants soon hopped on the bandwagon and began offering the decadent spreads of food and signature morning cocktails, such as Bloody Marys, Bellinis and Mimosas.  https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/the-birth-of-brunch-where-did-this-meal-come-from-anyway-164187758/  See also  https://www.vappingo.com/word-blog/86-great-examples-of-portmanteau/

A sachet is a small, usually decorative, bag filled with aromatic ingredients.  Good things to stuff your sachet with include:  Lavender buds (dried), wood shavings (cedar is great),soap shavings (perfect for tossing in the washing, while a lavender stuffed one is perfect for the dryer!), potpourri, scent impregnated stuffing material (probably needs new scent after a time), dried herbs, and spices (make sure the fabric does not allow for the spices to leak through).  A combination of lavender and dried hops makes a good nighttime pillow to improve sleep.  https://www.wikihow.com/Make-Sachets  See also How To Make A Gifty Flower Sachet by Kitty and Jennifer O'Neil at http://runningwithsisters.com/how-to-make-a-scented-flower-sachet/

By George! is a mild oath or exclamation that had its beginnings in the late 1500s.  The word “George” here is a substitute for “God,” as are words like “golly,” “ginger,” “gosh,” “gum,” and so on in other similar euphemistic oaths.  In case you’d like to read more, we’ve had several items on the blog about such euphemisms, including a posting a few years back about “gol dang it,” “gosh darn it,” “dag nab it,” and others.  And, as we’ve written on the blog, you can add “For Pete’s sake!” to the list.)  You didn’t ask, but some readers may wonder who the Scott is in “Great Scott!”  This interjection, too, is a believed to be  euphemistic, the OED says, a mild form of “Great God!” that originated in mid-19th-century America.  But in this case, the “Scott” was probably real.  Evidence suggests, the OED says, that the name inserted into the oath was that of a revered American general, Winfield Scott.  As Oxford explains:  “Winfield Scott, Commanding General of the United States Army (1841-61) and Whig party presidential candidate (1852), was a popular national figure in the United States in the mid 19th cent., celebrated as a hero for his role in the Mexican-American War (1846-8).”  The first example of “Great Scott!” cited in the OED dates from an American journal published in 1856.  But this 1871 example, from John William de Forest’s novel  Overland, clearly shows the connection with General Scott:  “ ‘Great—Scott!’ he gasped in his stupefaction, using the name of the then commander-in-chief for an oath, as officers sometimes did in those days.”  Patricia T. O'Conner and Stewart Kellerman  https://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2012/01/by-george.html

Read five-page The Lottery at http://fullreads.com/literature/the-lottery/

When Shirley Jackson’s story “The Lottery” was first published, in the June 26, 1948, issue of The New Yorker magazine, many readers accepted “The Lottery” as truthful is less astonishing than it now seems, since at the time The New Yorker did not designate its stories as fact or fiction, and the “casuals,” or humorous essays, were generally understood as falling somewhere in between.  In a lecture Jackson often gave about the story’s creation and its aftermath, which was published posthumously under the title “Biography of a Story,” she said that of all the letters that came in that summer—they eventually numbered more than three hundred, by her count—only thirteen were kind, “and they were mostly from friends.”  The rest, she wrote with mordant humor, were dominated by three main themes:  “bewilderment, speculation, and plain old-fashioned abuse.”  Readers wanted to know where such lotteries were held, and whether they could go and watch; they threatened to cancel their New Yorker subscriptions; they declared the story a piece of trash.  If the letters “could be considered to give any accurate cross section of the reading public … I would stop writing now,” she concluded.  More than a hundred of these letters, which she kept in a giant scrapbook, are now in her archive at the Library of Congress.  There were indeed some cancelled subscriptions, as well as a fair share of name-calling—Jackson was said to be “perverted” and “gratuitously disagreeable,” with “incredibly bad taste.”  But the vast majority of the letter writers were not angry or abusive but simply confused.  “The Lottery” has been adapted for stage, television, opera, and ballet; it was even featured in an episode of “The Simpsons.”  By now it is so familiar that it is hard to remember how shocking it originally seemed:  “outrageous,” “gruesome,” or just “utterly pointless,” in the words of some of the readers who were moved to write.  Ruth Franklin  https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-lottery-letters 

11 Things You Probably Didn't Know About Shirley Jackson by Ruth Franklin  Ruth Franklin's Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life is a biography of the American author, taking readers inside the personal life of the enigmatic Jackson.  Franklin picks some of her favorite Jackson details.  If you went to high school in the United States in the 1950s or later, you probably read Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery,” one of the most anthologized short stories in American fiction.  Perhaps you’ve also read her spooky novel The Haunting of Hill House (or seen one of the two films made of it) or the mysterious We Have Always Lived in the Castle.  Read other details at https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/tip-sheet/article/71549-11-things-you-probably-didn-t-know-about-shirley-jackson.html

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1874  April 13, 2018  In 1952, the West Point Military Band celebrated that famous military academy’s Sesquicentennial by asking prominent composers to write celebratory works to mark the occasion.  Among those who responded with a new piece was the American composer Morton Gould, whose “West Point Symphony” received its premiere performance on today’s date in 1952, at a gala concert featuring the West Point Academy Band conducted by Francis E. Resta.  Of all the pieces written in honor of West Point’s Sesquicentennial in 1952, Gould’s Symphony is probably the best-known.  The score of the West Point Symphony calls for a “marching machine,” but on a classic 1959 recording under the late Frederick Fennell, the required sound was provided by the very real marching feet of 120 Eastman School of Music students.  Composers Datebook  West Point Symphony Eastman Wind Ensemble - Frederick Fennel, conductor  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvYSuesYVyg  20:27

PERIODS IN ENGLISH HISTORY

The Elizabethan era is the epoch in the Tudor period  during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558–1603).  Historians often depict it as the golden age in English history.  The symbol of Britannia (a female personification of Great Britain) was first used in 1572, and often thereafter, to mark the Elizabethan age as a renaissance that inspired national pride through classical ideals, international expansion, and naval triumph over the Spanish.

The Georgian era is a period from 1714 to c. 1830–37, named eponymously after kings George I, George II, George III and George IV.  The sub-period that is the Regency era is defined by the regency of George IV as Prince of Wales during the illness of his father George III.  The definition of the Georgian era is often extended to include the relatively short reign of William IV, which ended with his death in 1837.

The Victorian era is the period of Queen Victoria's reign, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901.  Its later half overlaps with the first part of the Belle Époque era of continental Europe. Defined according to sensibilities and political concerns, the period is sometimes considered to begin with the passage of the Reform Act 1832.  The period is characterised as one of relative peace among the great powers (as established by the Congress of Vienna), increased economic activity, "refined sensibilities" and national self-confidence for Great Britain.

The Edwardian era covers the brief reign of King Edward VII, 1901 to 1910, and is sometimes extended in both directions to capture long-term trends from the 1890s to the First World War.  Samuel Hynes described the Edwardian era as a "leisurely time when women wore picture hats and did not vote, when the rich were not ashamed to live conspicuously, and the sun really never set on the British flag'"  Wikipedia

Hapology, also known as syllabic syncope, is a sound change involving the loss of a syllable when it's next to a phonetically identical (or similar) syllable.  Haplology is a type of dissimilation.  Perhaps the best-known example is the reduction of Anglaland in Old English to England in Modern English.  The reverse process is known as dittology--the accidental or conventionalized repetition of a syllable.  (Dittology also means, more broadly, the double reading or interpretation of any text.)  The counterpart of haplology in writing is haplography--the accidental omission of a letter that should be repeated (such as mispell for misspell).  The term haplology (from the Greek, "simple, single") was coined by American linguist Maurice Bloomfield.  Example:  English humbly was humblely in Chaucer's time, pronounced with three syllables, but has been reduced to two syllables (only one l) in modern standard English.  Richard Nordquist  https://www.thoughtco.com/haplology-phonetics-term-4083268

Permanent  conquest of Britain began in AD 43.  By about AD 100 the northernmost army units in Britain lay along the Tyne–Solway isthmus.  The forts here were linked by a road, now known as the Stanegate, between Corbridge and Carlisle.  Hadrian came to Britain in AD 122 and, according to a biography written 200 years later, ‘put many things to right and was the first to build a wall 80 miles long from sea to sea to separate the barbarians from the Romans’.  The building of Hadrian’s Wall probably began that year, and took at least six years to complete.  The original plan was for a wall of stone or turf, with a guarded gate every mile and two observation towers in between, and fronted by a wide, deep ditch.  Before work was completed, 14 forts were added, followed by an earthwork known as the Vallum to the south.  The inscription on the Ilam pan, a 2nd-century souvenir of Hadrian’s Wall found in 2003, suggests that it was called the vallum Aelii, Aelius being Hadrian’s family name.  Hadrian’s death in AD 138 brought a new emperor to power.  The emperor Antoninus Pius abandoned Hadrian’s Wall and moved the frontier up to the Forth–Clyde isthmus, where he built a new wall, ‘this time of turf’– the Antonine Wall.  This had a short life of about 20 years before being abandoned in favour of a return to Hadrian’s Wall.  In the late 2nd or early 3rd century, many mile castles had their north gates narrowed so that they could only be used by pedestrian traffic, while a major repair to the Wall itself took place.  The forts on Hadrian’s Wall had a long life of nearly 300 years.  Many modifications took place, to the barrack blocks, the headquarters buildings and the commanders’ houses in particular.  Some forts became overcrowded with buildings; others acquired open spaces.  So far as we can determine, all continued to the end of Roman Britain, that is into the early 5th century.  The latest coins found on Hadrian’s Wall were minted in AD 403–6.  David Breeze  Read more and see wonderful pictures at http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/hadrians-wall/history/

Gray's Anatomy is an English-language textbook of human anatomy originally written by Henry Gray and illustrated by Henry Vandyke Carter.  Earlier editions were called Anatomy:  Descriptive and Surgical and Gray's Anatomy:  Descriptive and Applied, but the book's name is commonly shortened to, and later editions are titled, Gray's Anatomy.  The book is widely regarded as an extremely influential work on the subject, and has continued to be revised and republished from its initial publication in 1858 to the present day.  References in popular culture:  Early in the 1970 Tamil film Malathi, medical students Gemini Ganesan and B. Saroja Devi try to obtain the 28th edition of Gray's Anatomy from an old book shop.  In the 1991 movie The Addams Family Granny (Judith Malina) binge reads Gray's Anatomy while Gomez (Raul Julia) is playing with his train sets.  The 1996 Steven Soderbergh film Gray's Anatomy, featuring monologuist Spalding Gray, also takes its name from the title of the book, as does Gray's Anatomy:  Selected Writings, a 2009 book by British political philosopher John N. Gray.  In the 1998 Star Trek: Voyager episode "Message in a Bottle", the new Emergency Medical Hologram designed by Ensign Kim begins reciting the contents of Gray's Anatomy when activated, beginning with a description of the cell.  The American medical drama Grey's Anatomy (2005 –) takes its name from the textbook.  The name of Jim Leonard Jr.'s 2006 play Anatomy of Gray, which centers on a doctor visiting a small town in Indiana in 1880, takes its title as a play on Gray's Anatomy.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gray%27s_Anatomy

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word "pie"—defined as a baked dish topped with and sometimes also surrounded by pastry—may well derive from the Latin word pica, meaning magpie.  Magpies didn't actually acquire the prefix mag- until the 17th century.  Before that they were called simply "pies" or "pyes," the original Latin having been shortened and smoothed as it made its way through older versions of French and English.  These chattering pies first show up in English manuscripts in the 13th century, along with their close relatives crows, rooks and ravens.  But it's not long before the word pie starts to turn up with its edible meaning.  The dictionary references a Rogero Pyman selling pies in 1301.  And the cook who joined Geoffrey Chaucer's pilgrims headed for Canterbury, "koude rooste, and sethe, and broille, and frye,/ Maken mortreux, and wel bake a pye" in the Canterbury Tales.  One possibility is that this linguistic sleight of hand occurred because of the association between a magpie's characteristic black and white plumage, and the appearance of medieval pies.  The word pie quickly became an adjective describing things that had patches of black and white, like a friar's habit.  Later it came to denote birds, animals and people whose feathers or coats displayed contrasting patches of light and dark:  Think piebald horses, pied wagtails, and the Pied Piper of Hamlin.  The OED points out that early haggis recipes also call for an astonishing range of anatomical bits and pieces to be minced together with suet, oats and vegetables.  And the word haggis or haggesse turns out to be an alternative name for magpie.  The idea that the link between the two kinds of pies was the jumble of ingredients also seems to be borne out by the fact that by 1650 there are references to a "printer's pie" which describes what the OED calls, "A mass of type in confusion or mingled indiscriminately, such as results from the accidental breaking up of a form of type."  Alison Richards  https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2011/11/17/142460593/for-the-origins-of-pie-look-to-the-humble-magpie

Tenterhooks aren't connected with tents, nor are they the hooks used by butchers, as the common misspelling 'tenderhooks' might suggest.  A tenter is a wooden frame, often in the form of a line of fencing, used to hang woollen or linen cloth to prevent it from shrinking as it dries.  The tenterhooks are, not surprisingly, the hooks on the tenter used to hold the cloth in place.  Tenters are no longer everyday objects but a hundred years ago, in wool weaving areas like the North of England, they were a common sight on the land around the many woollen mills, called 'tenter-fields'.  It is easy to see how the figurative expression 'on tenterhooks', with its meaning of painful tension, derived from the 'tenting' or stretching of fabric.  The expression was originally 'on the tenters'.  The English West Country playwright John Ford was the first to record that expression in the play Broken Heart, 1633:  Passion, O, be contained. My very heart strings Are on the Tenters.  Towards the end of the century the more accurate 'on the tenterhooks' began to replace the earlier phrase.  This first example that I have found of it in print is in the 1690 edition of a periodical that was published annually between 1688 and 1693, The General History of Europe:  The mischief is, they will not meet again these two years, so that all business must hang upon the tenterhooks till then.  Copyright © Gary Martin, 2018  https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/on-tenterhooks.html

Marinated Radishes  Pour 1 tsp. salt and 1 tbsp. sugar into 1-quart glass jar.  Add 24 crisp radishes, cut about 1/16 of an inch apart and 2/3 of the way down.  Shake jar vigorously and marinate at room temperature at least 6 hours.  Pour off accumulated liquid before serving. 

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1873  April 11, 2018

Marilyn Pauline "Kim" Novak (born February 13, 1933) is a retired American film and television actress, currently engaged as a visual artist.  She began her film career in 1954 after signing with Columbia Pictures.  There, she became a successful actress, starring in a string of movies, among them the critically acclaimed Picnic (1955).  She later starred in such popular successes as The Man with the Golden Arm (1955) and Pal Joey (1957).  However, she is perhaps best known today for her performance as Madeline Elster/Judy Barton in Alfred Hitchcock's classic thriller Vertigo (1958) with James Stewart.  While stopping by Los Angeles, Novak was crowned "Miss Deepfreeze" by the refrigerator company.  While there, she and two other models stood in line to be extras in two RKO films:  The French Line (1954), starring Jane Russell and Son of Sinbad (filmed in 1953, not released until 1955).  It was here that she was discovered by an agent, who signed her to a long-term contract with Columbia Pictures.  From the beginning of her career, she wanted to be an original and not another stereotype.  Therefore, she fought with Columbia's chief, Harry Cohn, over the changing of her name.  He suggested the name "Kit Marlowe," arguing that "Nobody's gonna go see a girl with a Polack name!"  But she insisted on keeping her name, saying, "I'm Czech, but Polish, Czech, no matter, it's my name!"  The two sides eventually settled on the name "Kim Novak" as a compromise.  In 2013, she was recognized as the guest of honor by the Cannes Film Festival and attended the 2013 Festival where she introduced a new restored version of Vertigo.  In 2014, she appeared at the TCM Classic Film Festival where she unveiled her painting Vertigo / Vortex of Delusion commissioned by the TCM network as part of their 20th anniversary.   Novak also introduced a screening of her 1958 movie, Bell Book and Candle, during the Festival.  Also in 2014, Novak was invited by Cunard Line to be a speaker onboard during a New York-to-London cruise on RMS Queen Mary 2.  She introduced screenings of Vertigo and Bell, Book and Candle, and did a Q&A session with Hollywood expert Sue Cameron, who is also her manager.  That same year, Novak appeared with both of her art mentors, Harley Brown and Richard McKinley, for a solo show of her paintings at the Butler Institute of American Art.   

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

Once a decade Sight & Sound asks critics to select the Greatest Films of All Time.  The 2012 poll placed Vertigo at the top of the list.  See the list at http://www.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/sightandsoundpoll2012/critics

Quite literally, grammar used to be glamour.  The two words were variant spellings of a word meaning “learning.”  Our current “alluring charm” meaning of glamour derives from its medieval sense, “learning about magic.”  Whether or not you consider grammar glamorous, your early mastering of English in its astounding complexity is nonetheless your greatest intellectual accomplishment.  https://www.sfu.ca/continuing-studies/courses/scfc/2013/01/glamour-in-grammar.html

The origins of horseradish are obscure.  Native to Mediterranean lands, by the sixteenth century it was reported growing wild in Britain where it was referred to a “red cole”.  Horseradish is one of the bitter herbs, eaten during the Jewish Passover as a reminder of the bitterness of their enslavement by the Egyptians.  It has long been valued for its medicinal properties and is still popular with natural therapists to help relieve respiratory congestion.  Horseradish is a long, rough, tapering root, not unlike a parsnip, with rings, and tiny roots sprouting from the main root.  Horseradish is sold fresh, but is more often available grated.  Dried, flaked and powdered horseradish is also sold and this retains its pungency more fully than the grated form which is stored in vinegar.  The best fresh roots are thick and well grown; thin and insubstantial roots, apart from being hard to use, are inferior in pungency.  Read about preparation and storage at http://theepicentre.com/spice/horseradish/

           

How to Freeze Fresh Ground Horseradish by M.H. Dyer https://oureverydaylife.com/freeze-fresh-ground-horseradish-30950.html

Frozen Horseradish Sauce  https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/134170/frozen-horseradish-sauce/

Preserving Fresh Horseradish:  freezer or olive oil but please, not vinegar

http://whatsforsupper-juno.blogspot.com/2009/06/preserving-fresh-horseradish-freezer-or.html

"Catch and kill" is a phrase meaning a publisher purchases a story in order to bury it.

LIFE IS A CABERNET to Gregory Yadley, it's all about balance  Published in 2009 Florida Super Lawyers — June 2009 by G.K. Sharman   Legend has it that, back in the 1660s, Benedictine monk Dom Pérignon was the first to taste the bubbly beverage we now know as champagne.  Astonished, he exclaimed to his fellow monks, "Come quickly, I am drinking the stars!"  Three hundred years later, the region of Champagne and its head-spinning libation were no less a revelation for college student and future attorney Gregory Yadley.  Not only did he study in France, he was lucky enough to work at Ruinart, the oldest champagne house of them all.  It changed his life. Young Yadley loved everything about France, soaking up the savoir-vivre philosophy of life the way a baguette absorbs cream sauce.  Back in the U.S., he pleaded with his vacationing parents to bring back a particular bottle that Ruinart was saving for him ... neglecting to mention that it was a salmanazar, a single bottle that holds the equivalent of an entire case of wine.  Long empty, it stands in his office at Shumaker, Loop & Kendrick in downtown Tampa, where the senior partner chairs the corporate practice group, dealing with corporate law, securities and mergers and acquisitions.  Though he attended Dartmouth, an acknowledged party school, "I did not spend my freshman year drinking," he notes.  It was the academic year in Strasbourg that ignited his passion for wine and for France.  "There's no distance between art and life in Europe," he says, "or between gastronomy and wine."  https://www.superlawyers.com/florida/article/life-is-a-cabernet/948ba596-6ce7-4c04-b3b8-b341f07f4afe.html

100 All-Time Greatest Popular Science Books from Open Education Database  http://oedb.org/ilibrarian/100-all-time-greatest-popular-science-books/

More than a quarter--26 percent--of American adults admit to not having read even part of a book within the last year.  That's according to statistics coming out of the Pew Research Center.  If you're part of this group, know that science supports the idea that reading is good for you on several levels.  Reading fiction can help you be more open-minded and creative.  According to research conducted at the University of Toronto, study participants who read short story fiction experienced far less need for "cognitive closure" compared with counterparts who read non-fiction essays.  People who read books live longer.  That's according to Yale researchers who studied 3,635 people older than 50 and found that those who read books for 30 minutes daily lived an average of 23 months longer than non-readers or magazine readers.  Reading 50 books a year is something you can actually accomplish.  While about a book a week might sound daunting, it's probably doable by even the busiest of people.  Writer Stephanie Huston says her thinking that she didn't have enough time turned out to be a lame excuse.  Now that she has made a goal to read 50 books in a year, she says that she has traded wasted time on her phone for flipping pages in bed, on trains, during meal breaks and while waiting in line.  Two months into her challenge she reports having more peace, satisfaction, improved sleep while learning more than she thought possible.  Christina DesMarais  https://www.inc.com/christina-desmarais/why-reading-books-should-be-your-priority-according-to-science.html

           

Waterford by its very location on the southern seaboard has always been the first port of call for visitors to Ireland and it was no different with the Vikings, many centuries ago.  The name Waterford is thought to come from an Old Norse word Vedrarfjiordr, derived from either Fjord of the Rams, probably a reference to the export of sheep from the area, or more prosaically, from windy fjord.  We know a lot about the Vikings in Waterford from sources such as the annals and from more recent archaeological excavations at several sites in and near the city.  From this we can tell that they were soon to become significant players in the fate of local and national events.  Through alliance, intermarriage and trade their presence endured and made Waterford the renowned port-city it is today.  According to the evidence of Viking activity in the south east of Ireland in the Irish annals, the Vikings arrived in Waterford around 853, and a settlement was established here by Sitric from Norway.  http://www.battleofclontarf.net/viking-places-to-visit-in-waterford/viking-waterford/3538

In 1783, when Beethoven was publishing his first works and the world’s first hot air balloon launched in Paris, in Waterford City the Penrose brothers, George and William, petitioned Parliament for aid to establish the manufacture of flint glass in their Waterford Glass House.  They were successful and established an extensive glass manufactory in Waterford City on the 3rd October 1783.  By the following year the factory was in full swing and the Penroses made all kinds of useful and ornamental flint glass of “as fine a quality as any in Europe”.  They had gathered a large number of the best craftsmen, blowers, cutters and engravers, by which they could supply every article in the most elegant style.  It cost the Penroses £10,000 to build and equip the factory, which at first employed 50 to 70 workers.  Read much more and see graphics at https://www.waterfordvisitorcentre.com/content/history-waterford-crystal

Hungarian Nokedli (Dumplings)  Place large pot filled with salted water and bring to boil.  Combine eggs, salt, and water, beating well with whisk.  Add flour, a little at a time.  Add only enough flour to make a soft, sticky dough.  Let mixture rest for about 10 minutes.  Find the whole recipe at  http://www.geniuskitchen.com/recipe/hungarian-nokedli-dumplings-54823

"Nokedli are fluffy Hungarian egg noodle dumplings that are commonly used when making one of the country’s favorite dishes, Chicken Paprikash.  The dumplings are also often used in German cuisine where they are known as “spaetzle“ or “Spätzle.”  The primitive shape of these homemade Hungarian dumplings give an idea of how long they have been around (with origins dating back into the 17th century).  Since they are still commonly made now gives an indication of how good they taste!  My favorite way to make them to toast them in a little extra butter and then toss them with fresh herbs.  They can be used as a base for any dish where egg noodles would commonly be used (such as in soups or slow cooked meats in gravy) or eaten plain as a side dish."  https://www.venturists.net/hungarian-egg-noodle-dumplings-nokedli/ 

Authentic Hungarian Chicken Paprikash  Find recipe and link to other Hungarian recipes at https://www.venturists.net/chicken-paprikash/

By the 14th century, the Norman invasion of Ireland was struggling.  Too many Normans had "gone native" and assimilated into Irish life.  The remaining settlers had retreated to just four eastern counties:  Louth, Meath, Dublin, and Kildare.  These four "obedient shires" were the only part of Ireland still under the control of the English crown.  The king's perimeter was marked with wooden fence posts pounded into the Irish turf.  These were called "pales," from the Latin palus, meaning "stake."  Over the following centuries, the English settlement fortified its boundaries by turning the fenceline into an impressive barrier:  a ten-foot-deep ditch surrounded by eight-foot banks on each side and ringed by a thorny hedge.  These ramparts were never meant to be an impregnable wall, but they did provide a daunting obstacle to raiders stealing across the borders for English cattle.  Within the Pale ditch, settlers lived under the protection of the crown.  But once you passed "the Pale," you were outside the authority and safety of English law, and subject to all the savageries of rural Ireland.  "Beyond the pale" then became a colloquial phrase meaning "outside the limits of acceptable behavior or judgment."  The English made every attempt not to succumb to the culture "beyond the pale."  Settlers were forbidden to intermarry with the Irish, and it was illegal to speak Gaelic.  The woolen mantles worn by Irish peasants had to be exchanged for good English cloaks, and the "glib" was banned as well.  Glibs were the fashionable Irish hairstyle of the day: hair cropped very short up top and in the back, with long, fringe-y bangs around the face.  Ken Jennings   https://www.cntraveler.com/story/what-beyond-the-pale-actually-means

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1872  April 10, 2018