In his running days, Louis Zamperini was the most famous racing mammal aside from Seabiscuit, which is how author Laura Hillenbrand learned about him to begin with.  Zamperini was frequently mentioned on the sports pages along with the horse she was profiling:  his juvenile delinquent childhood, the redemption he found in running, the bitterness he felt when he returned from war and the soothing balm of forgiveness.  His celebrated story had already been the subject of three books.  When Hillenbrand phoned him, he couldn't imagine there was anything to add.  The book, Unbroken, is 400 pages long.  Hillenbrand interviewed Zamperini 75 times.  She also spoke with his family, friends and former comrades, many of whom died before she could finish the work.  Hillenbrand and Zamperini never met face to face.  Journalists have liked pointing out the irony of Hillenbrand's work:  A woman for whom walking around the block constitutes a marathon writes about the finest specimens of physical endurance.  It's not irony, she says.  It's escape.  "I'm looking for a way out of here.  I can't have it physically, so I'm going to have it intellectually.  It was a beautiful thing to ride Seabiscuit in my imagination.  And it's just fantastic to be there alongside Louie as he's breaking the NCAA mile record.  People at these vigorous moments in their lives--it's my way of living vicariously."  When "Seabiscuit" became a bestseller, the book was a rejoinder to anyone who had ever associated her chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) with laziness.  In the carefully calibrated world of Laura Hillenbrand, every reaction has an equal and opposite reaction.  On one day, she might agree to an interview but skip a shower.  Energy is finite, and she typically has enough for one activity a day.  She will not see her books in Barnes & Noble.  She will not move into a bigger house; too much more space would be overwhelming.  People ask, sometimes, whether she would consider writing a book about CFS.  She doesn't plan on it.  She already knows what that life is like.  Monica Hesse  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/28/AR2010112803533.html

The Hollywood sign was first erected in 1923 and originally read "HOLLYWOODLAND".  Its purpose was to advertise the name of a new housing development in the hills above the Hollywood district of Chinatown in Los Angeles.  Since 1986, visitors from around the world have become well acquainted with the Dollywood entertainment park.  The attraction traces its roots back to 1961 when Rebel Railroad first opened on the site.  The word Bollywood is a pun on Hollywood, with the B coming from Bombay, India (now known as Mumbai).  The word was coined in the 1970s by the writer of a magazine gossip column, though there is disagreement as to which journalist was the first to use it.  Wood is possibly the most common part of a street name in the U.S.  A 2011-2013 atlas of Lucas County, Ohio (with a few entries from nearby Wood and Monroe Counties) lists under the letter W 64 streets beginning with wood and 17 streets ending with wood. 

Geographical designations  After a map of Europe's "blue banana" in 1989 became popular, other spatial names cropped up:  just two are red octopus and green grape.  As of this writing, an Internet search brings up five hits using the three names.  The search for "blue banana" Europe brings 166,000 results.  Other types of corridors or regions that come to mind deal with political manuevering caused by gerrymandering--and transportation systems like beltways and highways.  In world economics we have the acronym BRICS standing for the influential countries of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa.   

What Does the Hathitrust Decision Mean For Libraries? by Jonathan Band  July 27, 2014  The library community welcomed the decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in Authors Guild v. HathiTrust, __ F. 3d __, 2014 WL 2576342 (2nd Cir. 2014).  The  decision has implications for libraries that go far beyond the specific facts of the case.  This paper offers some preliminary thoughts on what these implications may be.  The broadest implication of decision arises out of a footnote.  Ever since the adoption of the library exceptions in 17 U.S.C. § 108, rights holders have argued that section 108 limits the availability of fair use to libraries, notwithstanding the savings clause in section 108(f)(4) that states explicitly that "nothing in this section in any way affects the right of fair use as provided by section 107."  In this litigation, the Authors Guild repeatedly argued that section 108 restricted fair use.  Judge Baer rejected this argument in the district court, and the Second Circuit rejected it again in footnote 4.  Citing the savings clause, the Second Circuit stated that "we do not construe § 108 as foreclosing our analysis of the Libraries' activities under fair use...." HathiTrust at *4, n. 4.  Thus, the decision holds unambiguously that libraries may take full advantage of the fair use right.  The decision also demonstrates how the fair use right applies in the context of a specific library activity:  mass digitization.  The decision clearly indicates that the acts of a library digitizing the works in its collection, and the library's storage of the resulting digital files, are fair uses under section 107 of the Copyright Act.  The decision, however, provides less certainty concerning the permissible access to those digital files.  The only form of full-text access it addresses directly is access by the disabled.  To be sure, this is an incredibly important result for these individuals.  But the court provides little specific guidance concerning the permissibility of other forms of access.  Read article at http://www.llrx.com/features/hathitrust.htm  See Opinion 12-4547-cv, Authors Guild v. HathiTrust; June 10, 2014; United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit at http://www.scribd.com/doc/228980956/Opinion-Authors-Guild-v-HathiTrust-June-10-2014-United-States-Court-of-Appeals-For-the-Second-Circuit

Chicago Cubs won the longest game (by time) in team history in the early hours of July 30, 2014.  The game took six hours, 27 minutes.  It surpassed the previous record of six hours, 10 minutes that it took the Cubs and Dodgers to play 21 innings on Aug. 17-18, 1982.   John Baker pitched a scoreless 16th inning and scored the winning run to highlight a 4-3 victory over the Colorado Rockies.  Mark Gonzales  http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/baseball/cubs/ct-cubs-rockies-game-spt-0730-20140730,0,3873306.story

Poet Frank Bidart, cultural critic James Wolcott and playwright David Rabe are among the winners of PEN Literary Awards announced July 30, 2014 in New York.  The prizes from the PEN American Center, founded in 1922, also include a number of fellowships and grants totaling almost $150,000.  Ron Charles  Read much more at http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/style-blog/wp/2014/07/30/winners-of-the-2014-pen-literary-awards/?tid=hpModule_5fb4f58a-8a7a-11e2-98d9-3012c1cd8d1e&hpid=z11

EMOJI  It started with a smiley face here and there, a sequence of pictograph red hearts when friends would send baby pictures or a string of blown kisses to say good night.  Eventually I was replacing words with characters, adding a series of flexing biceps to the encouraging “you can do it!” text.  Then one day I spent a full 10 minutes obsessing over the perfect way to say “I’m a writer. I don’t do math” in a message to my accountant:  [Girl symbol] (meaning me) + [Pen and paper] (writer) + [calculator] (math) = “?!?!?”   By finding said emoji, putting them in sequence and spacing them out, I could have typed the statement 17 times.  Mid-composition, I got a phone call from a source I had been waiting to talk to.  I pressed ignore.  Jessica Bennett  http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/27/fashion/emoji-have-won-the-battle-of-words.html?ref=fashion

Buffalo mozzarella or Mozzarella di Bufala in Italian is a mozzarella made from the milk of domestic water buffalo.  It has been observed that those cheeses made from buffalo milk are higher in calcium, protein and lower in cholesterol than cow's milk.  Buffalo mozzarella is a fresh, soft, semi-elastic textured cheese belonging to "pasta filata" family.  The process of making pasta filata cheese includes heating the curd to a point where it can be stretched and formed into various shapes.  http://www.cheese.com/mozzarella-di-bufala/

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1178  August 1, 2014  On this date in 1291, the Old Swiss Confederacy was formed with the signature of the Federal Charter.  On this date in 1498, Christopher Columbus became the first European to visit what is now Venezuela.