The Duns Scotus Library at Lourdes University in Sylvania, Ohio is named after a 13th century Franciscan scholar.  It has a collection of over 60,000 volumes.  Lourdes University is a member of the OPAL/OhioLINK, a consortium of universities sharing their library resources electronically.  Students are encouraged to use the library for individual study and quiet research.  Four study rooms are available and may be reserved by contacting the library.  Laptop computers are available for check out and can be used on campus.  The second floor of the library contains The Center for Nursing Scholarship.  Search books, journals and more by keyword, title and author.  Start your search now.  https://www.lourdes.edu/academics/library/  The Duns Scotus Library, completed in 1950, home to over 60,000 volumes and over 350 paintings and sculptures, is located on the Franciscan campus, 6832 Convent Blvd, Sylvania, Ohio. 

The terms libel and slander mean a false statement made by one person about another.  In libel, the statement is made in writing.  In slander, the statement is made verbally.  Libel and slander are types of defamation, meaning a statement that damages the reputation of a person or organization.  To qualify as libel or slander, the false statement must be hurtful and cause harm to the other party.  Marianne Bonner  https://www.thebalancesmb.com/defamation-libel-and-slander-462650  Slander has to be spoken.  Each of these words start with s which is a memory aid.

The Key West Literary Seminar is a writers' conference and festival held each January in Key West, Florida.  It draws an international audience for readings, panel discussions, and workshops.  The Seminar was founded in 1983 by David Kaufelt and his wife Lynn Kaufelt, as a program operated by the Council for Florida Libraries.  The inaugural event, known as the Key West Literary Tour and Seminar, consisted of readings, panel discussions, literary walking tours, and cocktail parties.  This basic format remains unchanged.  In its early years, the Seminar focused on the literary history of Key West, a small subtropical town which has been home to Ernest Hemingway, Elizabeth Bishop, Wallace Stevens, Robert Frost, and Tennessee Williams, among others.  Subsequent Seminars have been devoted to broader genres or literary themes.  In 1987, the Seminar incorporated as a 501(c) (3) tax-exempt corporation, run by a board of directors.  Many well-known authors have served on the Seminar's board of directors, including Judy Blume, Harry Mathews, James Gleick, William Wright, Richard Wilbur, and John Malcolm Brinnin.  An honorary board of directors has included popular singer Jimmy Buffett, former First Lady Barbara Bush, and writers Annie Dillard, Robert Stone, Alison Lurie, and Joy Williams.  The Seminar was formerly held at the Tennessee Williams Fine Arts Center at Florida Keys Community College on Stock Island.  Since 1993, events have been held on Duval Street at the San Carlos Institute, a historic building whose construction was partly funded by the Republic of Cuba during the 1920s.  The seminar begins each year with the John Hersey Memorial Address and features a series of receptions at notable Key West locations.  Through their website, the Seminar offers audio recordings of past events, biographies of past and forthcoming speakers, and information about Key West's literary history.  Find Key West Literary Seminar themes by year beginning in 1983 at

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

The prefix (proto-) means before, primary, first, primitive, or original. It is derived from the Greek prôtos meaning first.  Find examples at https://www.thoughtco.com/biology-prefixes-and-suffixes-proto-373789

True blue, meaning faithful and steadfast, comes from the color of a fabric manufactured in Coventry, England during the Middle Ages.  The cloth had a reputation for having a durable blue dye which resisted fading.  Blue ribbon originally referred to the ribbon worn below the left knee of a fourteenth-century British knight who had been admitted into the Most Noble Order of the Garter.  Read more and see graphics at https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2012/8/4/1116727/-Origins-of-English-Blue

Lydia Davis: Ten of My Recommendations for Good Writing Habits   Adapted from the essay “Thirty Recommendations for Good Writing Habits” in Essays One.  The following are just my personal pieces of advice.  They won’t be the same as someone else’s, and they may not fit your life or practice, but maybe you’ll pick up something useful.  Take notes regularly, observe, revise.  Find more ideas at https://lithub.com/lydia-davis-ten-of-my-recommendations-for-good-writing-habits/

Perhaps, in the far distant back of times, man in his need to somewhat quantify what he had collected to survive (animals or plants or fruits), needed to count, and his own fingers and toes became a good first instrument always available, so that easily got to 20 units.  Obviously a true digital devise, the abacus (plural abaci or abacuses) is a counting frame tool that was used in Europe, China, and Russia, centuries before the adoption of the written numeral system.  Its exact origin is unknown.  Today, it is more of a toy or a curiosity adorning perhaps a furniture in a living room.  Several eminent figures in science contributed to the creation or invention of the slide rule, including Galileo Galilei (1564–1642), condemned by the church of those times.  John Napier de Merchiston (1550–1617), a Scottish mathematician recognized for being the first in defining logarithms, produced the essential concept backing up the slide rule. Sir Isaac Newton (1643–1727) and other prominent scientists, such as Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777–1885), mathematician, physicist, and astronomer; James Watt (1736–1819), Scottish engineer; and Joseph Priestley (1733–1804), were part of the group, too.  Max Valentinuzzi  https://pulse.embs.org/may-2019/the-slide-rule/

mutograph  noun  A device for taking a series of photographs of successive positions of a moving object, the results being viewed by means of a mutoscope.  Origin:  Late 19th century; earliest use found in Scientific American.  From muto- + -graph  https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/mutograph

Indigenous people believe that volcanoes are living organisms, and with their help the earth communicates with us, showing us their approval (or vice versa).  It so happened that 15 June 2017 year, on the opening day of "Vulcanarium Volcanoes Museum in Kamchatka", several Kamchatka volcanoes revived at once.  At first Shiveluch threw the ash column at a height of 9000 meters, apparently giving his consent and taking a new volcano into his big family.  Following him, on the same day, he threw out the ashes of the Klyuchevskaya volcano, and the next day--the Nameless Volcano.  Two not indifferent, creative people, enthusiasts, lovers of Kamchatka--Samoilenko Sergey Borisovich and Alena Alexandrovna--made great efforts to do something similar and close to real volcanoes.  Sergey Borisovich--the founder of the Museum, was born and raised in Kamchatka.  There are two museums in Kamchatka that tell in detail about volcanoes:  KGBU Kamchatka Regional Joint Museum (Local History) and the Scientific Museum of the Institute of Volcanology and Seismology, Far Eastern Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences.  The Scientific Museum of the Institute of Volcanology and Seismology is a laboratory, a unit that holds a unique volcanological collection, invaluable to scientists, but which can share it only with a small number of people.  https://www.eastrussia.ru/en/material/vulkanarium-na-kamchatke/

WORD OF THE DAY for December 10  gylany  noun  A social system based on equality of women and men.  December 10 is Human Rights Day, recognized by the United Nations to emphasize the importance of human rights and to commemorate the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the first global enunciation of such rights, on this day in 1948.  Wiktionary

Merriam-Webster:  Non-binary pronoun 'they' is word of year   The US dictionary also recently added a new definition of "they", reflecting its use as a singular personal pronoun for non-binary people.  Searches for "they" on Merriam-Webster's website were 313% higher this year than they were in 2018.  https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-50735371

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2195  December 11, 2019 

SIGNPOST  

From:  Alec Charles  A couple of miles south of the town of Sandwich in Kent, England, there is a village by the name of Ham.  At a nearby road junction, a noted signpost indicates:  HAM SANDWICH.  I am not making this up!

From:  Dave Fragments  An Instance of the Fingerpost is an erudite 1997 historical mystery novel by Iain Pears set in 17th-century Europe.  It is a good novel, a satisfying read.  I still have the copy I bought in my library.  Four very different narrators recall a murder from their past and eventually the reader reaches a “fingerpost” that points to the solution.

Tana French (born 1973) is an American-Irish writer and theatrical actress, born in Vermont and long resident in Ireland.  Her debut novel In the Woods (2007), a psychological mystery, won the Edgar, Anthony, Macavity, and Barry awards for best first novel.  She lives in Dublin.  The British online newspaper, The Independent, has referred to her as the First Lady of Irish Crime, "who very quietly has become a huge international name among crime fiction readers."  French was enthralled by both acting and writing since her childhood days but eventually focused more on acting.  She trained as a professional actor at Trinity, and she works in theatre, film, and voiceover.  In her later 30s, her passion for writing was unexpectedly rekindled.  Her choice of genre stems from her profound interest in mystery and crime novels, which she grew up reading.  She began writing her debut novel in the months-long lulls between castings.   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tana_French

The Public Domain Review specializes in criticism as history, presenting readers with high-quality scans of artwork, archaic books, maps, hand-written journals, as well as early films and audio recordings and photographs—these little bits of ephemeral media that, in part due to the technological limitations of the era in which they were created, engender a real sense of wonder in modern viewers—and placing them in the context of their eras.  The board games of the 18th and 19th centuries, for example, weren’t just a way to pass the time because nobody had thought to invent the internet yet, they were interactive ideological tracts, morality tales, and educational tools, historical artifacts that over time have evolved into things like Monopoly and The Game of Life.  This old stuff is still with us, even if we don’t realize it!  “Celestiographs”—ostensible images of “a form of celestial light hitherto unrecorded”—were actually the results of a failed photography experiment by an amateur astronomer only make them more aesthetically pure and genuinely mystifying.  Drew Millard   https://theoutline.com/post/8208/the-public-domain-review-rockets-the-oddities-of-the-past-into-the-present?utm_source=TW&zr=2jujhnmu&zd=4&zi=6nrbhtcd

Floriography (language of flowers) is a means of cryptological communication through the use or arrangement of flowers.  Meaning has been attributed to flowers for thousands of years, and some form of floriography has been practiced in traditional cultures throughout Europe, Asia, and Africa.  Plants and flowers are used as symbols in the Hebrew Bible, particularly of love and lovers in the Song of Songs, as an emblem for the Israelite people and for the coming Messiah.  In Western culture, William Shakespeare ascribed emblematic meanings to flowers, especially in Hamlet, Prince of Denmark.  Interest in floriography soared in Victorian England and in the United States during the 19th century.  Gifts of blooms, plants, and specific floral arrangements were used to send a coded message to the recipient, allowing the sender to express feelings which could not be spoken aloud in Victorian society.  Armed with floral dictionaries, Victorians often exchanged small "talking bouquets", called nosegays or tussie-mussies, which could be worn or carried as a fashion accessory.  William Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Charlotte and Emily Bronte, and children's novelist Frances Hodgson Burnett, among others, used the language of flowers in their writings.  Shakespeare used the word "flower" more than 100 times in his plays and sonnets.  In Hamlet, Ophelia mentions and explains the symbolic meaning of pansies, rosemary, fennel, columbine, rue, daisy, and violets.  In The Winter's Tale, the princess Perdita wishes that she had violets, daffodils, and primroses to make garlands for her friends.  In A Midsummer Night's Dream, Oberon talks to his messenger Puck amidst a scene of wild flowers.  In J. K. Rowling's 1997 novel Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Professor Severus Snape uses the language of flowers to express regret and mourning for the death of Lily Potter, Harry Potter's mother, according to Pottermore.  Read more and see pictures at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_of_flowers

Earth laughs in flowers.  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)  Read more at https://www.bartleby.com/370/14.html

As of November 1st, 2019 MacMillan Publishing, one of the largest print publishers in the world, placed an 8-week embargo on libraries purchasing more than one copy of new release eBooks limiting an entire branch to loan out one eBook at a time to library patrons.  This coupled with the publishing community beginning to limit perpetual access to eBooks and audiobooks, in general, should serve as a warning for what is about to come with the continued siloing and commoditization of information.  A new reality favoring publishers and aggregators over creators and consumers closing in not only on the expressions of authors but the reportage of journalists, songs of artists, and the visions of filmmakers.  As much as I like my Netflix subscription and my son likes his Spotify subscription, I have to wonder what the future will bring when important news stories and creative expressions are fenced-in through subscription models and exclusive content deals priced out of reach of the average wage earner.  Is there any doubt the total cost of information consumption will rise as more information providers climb on board the gravy train of the subscription model?  Sound familiar?   So when a top-five international book publisher picks a fight with 138,000 librarians over an 8-week release window, one has to wonder if this is the canary in the coal mine warning of what is to come.  In an open letter to librarians, MacMillan publishing CEO John Sargent offered, “We believe the very rapid increase in the reading of borrowed e-books decreases the perceived economic value of a book,” and “To borrow a book in those days required transportation, returning the book, and paying those pesky fines when you forgot to get them back on time.  In today’s digital world there is no such friction in the market.”  extract of An Essay by J. Paul Duplantis  

https://emergentweb.org/2019/11/12/ebook-embargo-on-libraries-is-only-the-tip-of-the-iceberg/

Inimitable  adjective  too good be satisfactorily imitated by others; unique  ETYMOLOGY:  16c.  https://chambers.co.uk/search/?query=inimitable&title=21st

Caroll Edwin Spinney (December 26, 1933 – December 8, 2019) was an American puppeteer, cartoonist, author and speaker most famous for playing Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch on Sesame Street from its inception in 1969 until 2018.  Caroll Edwin Spinney was born in Waltham, Massachusetts, on December 26, 1933.  His mother, a native of Bolton, England, named him Caroll because he was born the day after Christmas.  He has been drawing and painting since he was a child.  He developed a love of puppeteering when he saw a performance of Three Little Kittens at the age of five.  This motivated him to purchase a monkey puppet from a rummage sale three years later and put on a puppet show utilizing the monkey and a plush snake.  The following Christmas, his mother gifted him with a Punch and Judy puppet theater.  He continued puppeteering throughout his childhood and adolescence and used his performances to raise money for college tuition.  Read more at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caroll_Spinney

WORD OF THE DAY  Prepositional phrase  out of kilter

(idiomatic) Askew, disturbed; not adjusted or working properly; out of order.  quotations ▼ Synonyms:  out of order  The term is often preceded by throw, as in “an impact can throw the adjustment out of kilter”.  Alternative form:  out of kelter  Related term:  off-kilter  https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/out_of_kilter#English

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2194  December 9, 2019

Dalmatian rub is the name given to that simple mixture of salt and pepper used by pit masters across Texas.  (Black and white, the coloring of a Dalmatian—get it?)  Link to recipes at https://barbecuebible.com/recipe/dalmatian-rub/

Tashkent, Uzbekistan’s capital, is home to one of the world’s most ornate subway systems.  Many of its 29 stations are elaborately decorated with mosaics and chandeliers, the artwork reflecting a range of themes—from the Soviet space program to elements of local history, industry and agriculture.  The Tashkent Metro, which opened in 1977, is one of only two subways in operation in Central Asia.  (The other is in Almaty, Kazakhstan.)  Trains run from 5 a.m. until midnight, and a single ride costs 1,400 som, or about 15 cents.  Photographs by Danielle Villasana  Text by Stephen Hiltner  https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/20/travel/tashkent-uzbekistan-subway.html

The history of tea dates back to ancient China, almost 5,000 years ago.  According to legend, in 2732 B.C. Emperor Shen Nung discovered tea when leaves from a wild tree blew into his pot of boiling water.  He was immediately interested in the pleasant scent of the resulting brew, and drank some.  Legend says the Emperor described a warm feeling as he drank the intriguing brew, as if the liquid was investigating every part of his body.  Shen Nung named the brew "ch'a", the Chinese character meaning to check or investigate.  In 200 B.C. a Han Dynasty Emperor ruled that when referring to tea, a special written character must be used illustrating wooden branches, grass, and a man between the two.  This written character, also pronounced "ch'a" symbolized the way tea brought humankind into balance with nature for the Chinese culture.  The popularity of tea in China continued to grow rapidly from the 4th through the 8th century.  No longer merely used for its medicinal properties, tea became valued for everyday pleasure and refreshment.  Tea plantations spread throughout China, tea merchants became rich, and expensive, elegant tea wares became the banner for the wealth and status of their owners.  The Chinese empire tightly controlled the preparation and cultivation of the crop.  It was even specified that only young women, presumably because of their purity, were to handle the tea leaves.  These young female handlers were not to eat garlic, onions, or strong spices in case the odor on their fingertips might contaminate the precious tea leaves.  Read much more at http://www.coffeeteawarehouse.com/tea-history.html

Cumbersome meaning, unwieldy, burdened, awkward comes from cumber + some – and cumber comes from a French word, which derives from Latin and means . . . cumbersome.  In looking this up I came across cumberworld, a seven hundred year old word for anything or anyone that encumbers the world without being useful . . . Cumberland is over a thousand years old--the name for that north-western area of the country, the area whatever it’ is called is much older, and now it is called Cumbria, an unpopular name.  The name Cumberland still exists as Cumberland sausages, HMS Cumberland , Cumberland County Cricket Club , the Cumberland Fell Runners Club, the Cumberland Athletics Club, The Cumberland News, the Cumberland Building Society and many more examples.  Cumberland has nothing at all to do with being unwieldy, and is not a Latin/French name, in fact it is much older--Cumbra land which came from ‘the region of the Cymry’.  This, you might be able to guess has to do with the country known by its English name of Wales, rather than its own correct name of Cymru.  Cucumber, by the way has nothing to do with either cumbersome of Cumberland--it’s another word of French origin, though, which in turn came from Latin--cucumis . . . Cummerbund is nothing to do with  English places, Welsh places, or salad vegetables--it comes from Persian via Hindi and means ‘loin band’… Lois Elsden  https://loiselsden.com/2018/08/28/cumbersome-cumberland-cucumbers-and-cummerbunds/

The most popular legend of coffee in Ethiopia usually goes something like this:  One day in a highland area near an Abyssinian monastery, a goat herder from Kaffa named Kaldi was herding his goats.  The goats began to jump around—almost dancing—and bleat loudly, which was strange behavior for his herd.  Kaldi found that a small shrub (or a cluster of shrubs, according to some legends) was the source of the excitement.  Deciding to try the bright red berries for himself, Kaldi also felt the coffee cherries' energizing effects.  Amazed at this discovery, the goat herder filled his pockets and rushed home to tell his wife.  Calling the find "heaven sent," she advised Kaldi to share the berries with the monks.  Kaldi did not receive the warmest of welcomes at the monastery.  One monk referred to his coffee beans as "the Devil's work" and tossed them into the fire.  According to the legend, the aroma that wafted up from the roasting beans caught the monks' attention.  After removing the beans from the fire and crushing them to extinguish the embers, they attempted to preserve them in a ewer filled with hot water.  Yemen also has a coffee origin myth (or two) as well as a well-founded stake in the beverage's actual history.  The first legend from Yemen is rather basic by comparison to the Kaldi myth.  However, in an interesting twist, it attributes the origin of coffee to Ethiopia:  The Yemenite Sufi mystic Ghothul Akbar Nooruddin Abu al-Hasan al-Shadhili was traveling through Ethiopia, presumably on spiritual matters.  He encountered some very energetic birds that had been eating the fruit of the bunn plant (known elsewhere as the coffee plant).  Weary from his journey, he decided to try these berries for himself and he found that they produced an energetic state in him as well.  The second coffee origin myth from Yemen claims that coffee originated in Yemen.  The story is centered around Sheikh Omar, a doctor-priest and a follower of Sheik Abou'l Hasan Schadheli from Mocha, Yemen, who was exiled to a desert cave close to the mountain of Ousab.  Lindsey Goodwin  https://www.thespruceeats.com/the-origin-of-coffee-765180

What’s the difference between a filler word and a filter word?  They overlap in function, but on average have two different effects on your prose.  Filler words take up space and expand things that don’t need to be expanded.  Filter words can also expand, but their negative power comes in another way.  Filter words serve to push your reader out of the story:  they get in between the reader and the action.  They run some aspect of the story—most often the emotional impact—through a verbal filter that takes away from what the author is trying to achieve.  That’s why they’re called “filter words.”  Christopher Daly   Find list of filter words at https://thebettereditor.wordpress.com/2019/11/06/filter-words/

Thomas Curson Hansard (1776–1833) was a London printer and publisher, who was the first official printer to the parliament at Westminster.  Hansard is the traditional name of the transcripts of Parliamentary Debates in Britain and many Commonwealth countries.  https://librivox.org/author/12225?primary_key=12225&search_category=author&search_page=1&search_form=get_results

What is caffeine?  Caffeine is a bitter substance that occurs naturally in more than 60 plants including:  Coffee beans, Tea leaves, Kola nuts, which are used to flavor soft drink colas, and Cacao pods, which are used to make chocolate products.  There is also synthetic caffeine, which is added to some medicines, foods, and drinks.  For example, some pain relievers, cold medicines, and over-the-counter medicines for alertness contain synthetic caffeine.  So do energy drinks and "energy-boosting" gums and snacks.  Most people consume caffeine from drinks.  The amounts of caffeine in different drinks can vary a lot, but it is generally:  an 8-ounce cup of coffee:  95-200 mg, a 12-ounce can of cola:  35-45 mg, an 8-ounce energy drink:  70-100 mg, an 8-ounce cup of tea:  14-60 mg.  What are caffeine's effects on the body?  Caffeine has many effects on your body's metabolism.  It stimulates your central nervous system, which can make you feel more awake and give you a boost of energy, Is a diuretic, meaning that it helps your body get rid of extra salt and water by urinating more; increases the release of acid in your stomach; sometimes leading to an upset stomach or heartburn; may interfere with the absorption of calcium in the body; and   increases your blood pressure.  Within one hour of eating or drinking caffeine, it reaches its peak level in your blood.  You may continue to feel the effects of caffeine for four to six hours.  https://medlineplus.gov/caffeine.html

A stroopwafel is two thin waffle cookies sandwiched together with caramel in the middle, it’s not fancy, just simple and delicious.  The idea is that you put one of these cookies on top of your hot tea cup or coffee mug and it heats the caramel filling on the inside and softens the cookie.  How good does that sound?   With or without warming them they’re delicious.  https://www.costcuisine.com/post/costco-original-stroopwafels-cookie-review

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY  I think that I shall never see / A poem lovely as a tree. - (Alfred) Joyce Kilmer, journalist and poet (6 Dec 1886-1918)

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2193  December 6, 2019 

In the weeds of a recent poll conducted by The Economist and YouGov, this word—impnoncoop—appears.  You’ll find the first instance in the report’s table of contents, page 2 of the file, then also on page 94.  This is not an error for "nincompoop!"  It is, instead, the poll-taker’s abbreviation for "impeachment non-cooperation", imp–non–coop (with coop pronounced as two syllables:  co-op).  This strikes me as a thing of accidental beauty for a couple of reasons.  First, because it’s a useful abbreviation.  In that sense, it not only cuts the phrase down from 25 characters to 10, and from nine syllables to four (or three, depending on how you choose to pronounce it), but it also stamps this very particular event with a very specific term which will probably never be used again.  This word is an anagram of nincompoop.  It uses precisely the same letters, only in a different order.  Christopher Daly  https://thebettereditor.wordpress.com/2019/12/03/impnoncoop/

December 2, 2019  We asked this year’s Center for Fiction First Novel Prize finalists about their earliest love affairs with reading.  Meet them all at the Finalist Reading and Fête on December 9 at The Center for Fiction.  Read titles, comments and see graphics at https://lithub.com/what-was-the-first-book-you-fell-in-love-with-4/

There are 31 states plus Washington D.C. that require a front license plate.  It's not just drivers who object to required front plates on cars, but also lawmakers in some states.  They argue that manufacturing and distributing front plates costs more than it's worth.  However, due to the fines levied on violations of the law, other lawmakers argue that the plates pay for themselves.  For example, in Denver, a particular toll road generates up to a third of its revenue by scanning front license plates.  States not requiring front plates often see a large number of toll violators due to unreadable rear plates.  The Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport in Arizona calculates parking fees with Automated License Plate Recognition.  But due to glare on the rear license plates, it is forced to determine fees on up to 15 percent of vehicles by hand rather than automatically.  Naturally, this requires more manpower and paying workers to go out and take down license plates.  Proponents of front plates argue that they make the public safer.  Two plates generally make it easier to find stolen cars, according to the police.  License Plate Reader systems are used by the police to identify stolen cars and cars whose owners have outstanding violations or arrest warrants.  The police use this technology by taking pictures of passing vehicles with a high-speed camera.  The reader identifies the plate numbers and checks them against a hot list.  LPR systems are able to read 10,000 plates in about eight hours.  If the LPR is only able to work with a rear plate, that number falls by half.  Another area where this applies is when victims or bystanders need to read the plate numbers of a vehicle leaving the scene of a crime or accident.  When only one plate is required, it makes it more difficult for the authorities and witnesses to correctly identify the plate.  Read more and find lists at https://www.autolist.com/guides/front-license-plate

This is my go-to method for creating perfect al dente spaghetti squash strands to use in vegetable sides and main dishes.  The exact timing will vary depending on the heat of your oven and the size of your squash.  Jeanine Donofrio  serves 2 to 4

https://www.loveandlemons.com/how-to-cook-spaghetti-squash/

English businessman Thomas Merton arrived in Massachusetts in 1624.  Within a few short years, Morton established his own unrecognized offshoot of the Plymouth Colony, in what is now the town of Quincy, Massachusetts (the birthplace of presidents John Adams and John Quincy Adams.  Published in 1637, his New English Canaan mounted a harsh and heretical critique of Puritan customs and power structures that went far beyond what most New English settlers could accept.  So they banned it—making it likely the first book explicitly banned in what is now the United States.  A first edition of Morton’s tell-all—which, among other things, compares the Puritan leadership to crustaceans—sold at auction at Christie’s for $60,000.  https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/americas-first-banned-book

A box camera is a simple type of camera, the most common form being a cardboard or plastic box with a lens in one end and film at the other.  They were sold in large numbers during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.  The lenses are often single element designs meniscus fixed focus lens, or in better quality box cameras a doublet lens with minimal (if any) possible adjustments to the aperture or shutter speeds.  Because of the inability to adjust focus, the small lens aperture and the low sensitivity of the sensitive materials available, these cameras work best in bright daylight scenes when subjects move little during the exposure.  Eventually, box cameras with photographic flash, shutter and aperture adjustment were introduced, allowing indoor photos. The KODAK camera introduced in 1888 was the first box camera to become widely adopted by the public and its design became the archetype for box camera designs introduced by many different manufacturers.  The use of flexible roll film meant that the cameras were light and portable and could be used without the encumbrance of tripods and the attendant difficulty of using glass photographic plates which were typical of professional cameras.  Before the introduction of the Kodak, photographers were responsible for making their own arrangements for the development and printing of their pictures.  The first Kodak came pre-loaded with film and the customer returned the camera to Kodak for processing and to be reloaded with film for the customer.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Box_camera

In English grammar, a sentence adverb is a word that modifies a sentence as a whole or an entire clause within a sentence.  Also known as a sentence adverbial or a disjunct.   Common sentence adverbs include actually, apparently, basically, briefly, certainly, clearly, conceivably, confidentially, curiously, evidently, fortunately, hopefully, however, ideally, incidentally, indeed, interestingly, ironically, naturally, predictably, presumably, regrettably, seriously, strangely, surprisingly, thankfully, theoretically, therefore, truthfully, ultimately, and wisely.  Richard Nordquist  https://www.thoughtco.com/sentence-adverb-1692084   Sentence adverbs are extraneous or filler words. 

What podiatrist treats a detective for flat feet?  Wonders if a patient with two right feet could be helped if only he had a patient with two left feet?  Dr. Henry Heckyl.  Read about a slapstick film at

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Heckyl_and_Mr._Hype  In the film, police drive pink cars.  A pink neon sign over their headquarters blinks POLICE  DON'T CALL US  WE'LL CALL YOU

The definition of "public benefits" is broad, and it includes such things as professional and occupational licenses, as well as a driver's license.  The exact documentation required varies by state.  The easiest way to prove your case is with a birth certificate issued by a United States government--city, county, state or possession such as Puerto Rico or the Virgin Islands.  If you were born a citizen but born overseas, you can show a U.S. Certificate of Birth Abroad or a Report of Birth Abroad of a U.S. Citizen.  The birth document should be either the original or a certified copy--photocopies won't do it.  A United States passport is another proof of legal presence.  In California, an expired passport is acceptable if someone applies for a real-estate license.  In Oregon, by contrast, someone applying for a driver's license can't use a passport that expired more than five years ago.  Passports from Puerto Rico, Guam and other U.S. possessions are also acceptable.  Oregon also allows tribal ID cards if the tribe is federally recognized and based in the state.  Fraser Sherman  Read more at https://smallbusiness.chron.com/list-acceptable-documents-establish-legal-presence-72324.html

Reflex vs. reflect   The confusion comes from the origin of this word from the Latin word ‘reflectere’ meaning bend back, a noun denoting reflection.  In British English, the word reflex is still (although rarely) used to denoted reflection (of light, thoughts, something bent backwards).  Reflex means an action done without any conscious thought or effort.  For example, if someone throws a ball at you, your quick ‘reflex’ is to catch or divert it so you don’t get hurt.  Thus, in the study of reflexes (reflexology), the hand, feet or head are called as ‘reflex points’ of the body.  https://www.grammar.com/reflex_vs_reflect

A story should have a beginning, a middle, and an end, but not necessarily in that order. - Jean-Luc Godard, film director (b. 3 Dec 1930)

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2192  December 4, 2019

The Invisible Man, 1933 film   The first time Claude Rains' daughter ever saw her father in a movie was in 1950, when he took her to a showing of 'The Invisible Man' in a small Pennsylvanian theater.  While the film was playing, Rains was telling his daughter all about how it was made.  The other theater patrons stopped watching the movie and instead listened to Rains' anecdotes.  In order to achieve the effect that Claude Rains wasn't there when his character took off the bandages, James Whale had Rains dressed completely in black velvet and filmed him in front of a black velvet background.  When screenwriter R.C. Sherriff came to Hollywood to write this film, he asked the staff at Universal for a copy of the H.G. Wells novel he was supposed to be adapting.  They didn't have one; all they had were 14 "treatments" done by previous writers on the project, including one set in Czarist Russia and another set on Mars.  Sherriff eventually found a copy of the novel in a secondhand bookstore, read it, thought it would make an excellent picture as it stood, and wrote a script that, unlike Universal's Dracula (1931) and Frankenstein (1931), was a closer adaptation of the book.  This was fortunate, in that Wells had negotiated script approval when he sold the rights.  Boris Karloff had been Universal's original choice for the role of the Invisible Man.  Said to have turned it down because he would not be seen on screen until the end, in reality a quarrel with director James Whale broke up their relationship, and the director decided he wanted someone with more of an "intellectual" voice than Karloff.  All of a sudden, his marked lisp had become an issue.  Whale selected Claude Rains after accidentally hearing Rains' screen test being played in another room--until this film, Rains had primarily been a stage actor.  Although he had appeared in one silent movie (Build Thy House (1920)), this was his first sound film.  Although he has the lead in the film and his character is onscreen for 95% of the film, Claude Rains never actually "appears" onscreen until the very last moment.  The basic framework of the story and the characters' names are largely the same as in H.G. Wells' novel, but there are several great differences, including:  The novel takes place in the 1890s; the film takes place in 1933.  In the novel, Griffin remains almost a completely mysterious person, with no fiancée or friends; in the film, he is engaged to a woman and has the support of her father and his associate.  In the novel, Griffin is already insane before he makes himself invisible; in the film, it is the invisibility drug that causes his madness.  In the novel, Kemp lives; in the film, Griffin kills him.  https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0024184/trivia?ref_=tt_trv_trv

Stuart Davis (1894–1964), was an early American modernist painter.  He was well known for his jazz-influenced, proto-pop art paintings of the 1940s and 1950s, bold, brash, and colorful, as well as his Ashcan School pictures in the early years of the 20th century.  With the belief that his work could influence the sociopolitical environment of America, Davis' political message was apparent in all of his pieces from the most abstract to the clearest.  By the 1930s, Davis was already a famous American painter, but that did not save him from feeling the negative effects of the Great Depression, which led to his being one of the first artists to apply for the Federal Art Project.  Stuart Davis was born in Philadelphia to Edward Wyatt Davis, art editor of The Philadelphia Press, and Helen Stuart Davis, sculptor.  Starting in 1909, Davis began his formal art training under Robert Henri, the leader of the Ashcan School, at the Robert Henri School of Art in New York under 1912. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuart_Davis_(painter)  See artworks by Stuart Davis at https://www.theartstory.org/artist/davis-stuart/artworks/

The skyline at night is so breathtaking and yet you could spend a whole lifetime in Manhattan and never see it.  Like a mouse in a maze.  *  Mrs. Christie doles out her little surprises at the carefully calibrated pace of a nanny dispensing sweets to the children in her care.  *  Rules of Civility, a novel by Amor Towles  The Appendix is "The Young George Washington's Rules of Civility & Decent Behavior in Campany and Conversation."  There are 101 rules, the first being Every Action done in Company ought to be with Some Sign of Respect, to those that are Present.  The 110th rule is Labour to keep alive in your Breast that Little Spark of Celestial Fire Called Conscience.

The phrase, “A house is a machine for living in,” rose to fame in the 1927 manifesto Vers Une Architecture (Towards An Architecture) by Le Corbusier.  Rather than suggesting we all live inside robots or printing presses, it actually expresses that houses are tools we use to live and we happen to live inside them:  A house is a machine for living in.  Baths, sun, hot-water, cold-water, warmth at will, conservation of food, hygiene, beauty in the sense of good proportion.  An armchair is a machine for sitting in and so on.  By this definition, a house is an efficient tool to help provide for the necessities of life and no more.  Decoration and extra frills are not necessary.  He continues:  A society lives primarily by bread, by the sun and by its essential comforts.  Everything remains to be done!  Immense task!  And it is so imperative, so urgent that the entire world is absorbed in this dominating necessity.  Machines will lead to a new order both of work and of leisure.  Corbusier argued that by living in efficient house-machines we can be more productive and more comfortable.  Greg Morse 

https://placeexploration.com/2015/10/28/a-house-is-a-machine-for-living-in/

Walker Evans is one of the leading photographers in the history of American documentary photography.  Born in St. Louis, Evans studied at Williams College and the Sorbonne in Paris.  He returned to the United States in 1928, and five years later, though self-taught in photography, was the subject of a solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, and had his photographs published in Hart Crane's The Bridge (1930) and in Lincoln Kirstein's Hound & Horn (1931).  Evans worked for the Farm Security Administration from 1935 to 1937, during which time he made many of the photographs for Walker Evans:  American Photographs, an exhibition and publication organized by the Museum of Modern Art in 1938.  In 1936 he took a leave from the FSA in order to document the living conditions of Alabama sharecropper families as part of a collaborative project with writer James Agee.  The results were published in 1941 as Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, with text by Agee and photographs by Evans.  Another of Evans's many photographic series was Many Are Called, comprised of images taken in the New York City subway system using a hidden camera between 1938 and 1945.  Evans received three Guggenheim Fellowships and was a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters.  Between 1943 and 1965, he worked as a staff photographer for Time and Fortune.  After retiring from professional photography in 1965, he taught graphic arts at Yale.  Later in his career he often photographed with the new Polaroid camera, which he used to depict street graffiti and various detritus of the contemporary world.  Lisa Hostetler  https://www.icp.org/browse/archive/constituents/walker-evans?all/all/all/all/0

A sanatorium is a facility where people with chronic illnesses or a need to convalesce are treated.  Sanatoriums were first established in the 1800s, mostly to treat tuberculosis.  The purposes of a sanatorium was to first, isolate the afflicted from the healthy population and second, afford the patient a healthy environment in which to heal.  Before the advent of antibiotics, tuberculosis was a scourge on the population.  Tuberculosis was also known as the Great White Plague because of the extreme paleness of people with the disease.  The only treatment available was fresh air, good food and the luxury to lie in bed and encourage the body to heal itself.  With the invention of antibiotics, the sanatorium has for the most part, gone by the wayside.  However, some older institutions still retain the name sanatorium.  The plural form of sanatorium may be rendered as either sanatoriums or sanatoria. A sanitarium is also a facility where people with chronic illnesses or a need to convalesce are treated.  The plural forms are sanitariums or sanitaria.  The terms sanatorium and sanitarium are interchangeable, however, sanitarium is primarily a North American word.  The difference between the words is their origin, though it is not much of a difference.  The word sanitorium is derived from the Late Latin word sanitorius, which means health-giving.  The word sanitarium is derived from the Latin word sanitas, which means health.  https://grammarist.com/usage/sanatorium-vs-sanatarium/

Though it might have you think otherwise, the epistolary Victorian monster novel Dracula is a detective story.  Written by Bram Stoker in 1897, it tells the story of six middle-class professionals who track down an out-of-touch Eastern-European vampire on his feeding frenzy throughout London.  Though its story is mostly well-known throughout the last century of pop culture via a host of watered-down adaptations, the (long) novel itself is a transcontinental, multi-generational, polyphonic, supernatural ensemble chase narrative built out of a collection of small documents.  https://crimereads.com/dracula-detective-novel/

Edna O’Brien has been awarded a £40,000 lifetime achievement prize regarded as a precursor to the Nobel, for having “moved mountains both politically and lyrically through her writing” in a career spanning almost 60 years.  The Irish author was presented with the £40,000 David Cohen prize at a ceremony in London on November 26, 2019.  Awarded every two years to a living writer for their entire body of work, the prize was founded by the late cultural philanthropist in 1993, in the hopes of starting an equivalent of the Nobel prize for UK and Irish authors.  Many recipients, including VS Naipaul, Doris Lessing and Harold Pinter, went on to become Nobel laureates.  Sian Cain  https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/nov/26/irish-novelist-edna-obrien-wins-lifetime-achievement-award-country-girls-david-cohen-prize-nobel?CMP=twt_books_b-gdnbooks

amaranth  noun  (dated, poetic)  An imaginary flower that does not wither.  Any of various herbs of the genus Amaranthus.  The characteristic purplish-red colour of the flowers or leaves of these plants.   (chemistry)  A red to purple azo dye used as a biological stain, and in some countries in cosmetics and as a food colouring.  (cooking)  The seed of these plants, used as a cereal.  See color and link to quotations at https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/amaranth#English

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2191  December 2, 2019