Echoes, reverberations and other then-inexplicable auditory illusions may have inspired mankind's earliest artists, according to Steven Waller, a researcher at Rock Art Acoustics in La Mesa, California.  Waller's work spans the globe, from paleo-art in North America to stone circles in the United Kingdom.  In 2012, he reported a startling acoustical discovery about Stonehenge, the famed stone circle in Wiltshire, England.  The stones in Stonehenge create acoustical dead spots, Waller found, very similar to acoustical dead spots created when two pipers stand in a field and play a note simultaneously.  The interference of sound waves creates spots in the field where the noise cancels out.  Stone circles like Stonehenge are also known as "piper's stones," Waller pointed out, and they are the center of a myth about magical pipers playing for a circle of dancing maidens, all of whom turned to stone at the sound of the music.  It's that mythology that leads Waller to believe that Stonehenge may have been built to mimic an acoustical illusion.  Myth and sound collide at other sites, as well.  European cave art is dominated by pictures of herds of bison, stags and other large mammals, Waller said.  In Eurasia, these animals are also associated with thunder gods, because the sound of hundreds of hoofs was thunderous.  Thus, Waller argues, it's no coincidence these animals are painted in caves where the echoes reverberate so much that a few sounds quickly escalate into a thunderous roar.  His measurements bear this out:  He has found that cave areas with a higher level of reverberation are more likely to be decorated with art.  Stephanie Pappas  http://www.livescience.com/48493-sound-illusions-inspired-prehistoric-cave-art.html

The History of KCBS, the World’s First Broadcasting Station
The Bay Area’s only all news radio station, KCBS started out as the hobby of scientist and inventor Charles Herrold.  Giving birth to the world’s first radio station, Herrold and his engineering students began broadcasting regularly-scheduled programming in 1909 on a 14-watt transmitter in San Jose.  Originally, the station simply identified itself as “This is San Jose Calling.”  When radio licenses were issued in 1921, “Doc” Herrold was assigned the call letters of KQW.  The station kept those call letters until CBS purchased it in 1949, broadcasting as KCBS at 740 AM on the dial.  News radio was born in 1968, when KCBS became the first all news station in Northern California.  It was then and continues to be one of the top-rated radio stations in the Bay Area, serving more than a million Bay Area listeners each week.  In October 2008, KCBS began simulcasting its all news programming on the FM dial at 106.9.  KCBS was also one of the first Bay Area stations to broadcast in HD digital sound.  http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/station/kcbs/

American inventor and electrical engineer, Lee De Forest (1873-1961)  is credited for inventing the Audion, a vacuum tube that takes moderately weak electrical signals and amplifies them.  The device helped AT&T establish coast-to-coast phone service, and it was also used in everything from radios to televisions to the first computers.  De Forest was highly creative and active, but many times did not see the potential of his inventions or grasp their theoretical implications.  While working on improving wireless telegraph equipment, he modified the vacuum tube invented by John Ambrose Fleming and designed the Audion (a vacuum tube containing some gas) in 1906.  It was a triode, including a filament and a plate, like regular vacuum tubes, but also a grid between the filament and plate.  This reinforced the current through the tube, amplifying weak telegraph and even radio signals.  De Forest thought the gas was an essential part of the system; however in 1912 others showed that a triode in a complete vacuum would function much better.  In 1913 the United States Attorney General sued De Forest for deceit on behalf of his shareholders, stating that his declaration of rebirth was an “absurd” promise (he was later acquitted).  In 1916 the American inventor made two triumphs:  the first radio advertisement (for his own products) and the first presidential election reported by radio.  http://www.famousscientists.org/lee-de-forest/

James Watt  (1736-1819)  James Watt is famous for improving the design of the steam engine.  Watt's steam engine became the main energy source in Britain's Industrial Revolution.  He invented the term "horsepower" and has a unit of power named after him - the Watt.

http://www.planet-science.com/categories/over-11s/science-celebrities/2011/04/james-watt-1736---1819.aspx

Cottonopolis  Manchester, U.K. in 1800 was a town covered by a canopy of smoke pouring from tall chimneys.  Fifty steam-powered cotton mills dominated the skyline.  They were the skyscrapers of their day.  The town that people nicknamed Cottonopolis was taking shape.  Two hundred years later, no working mills remain.  A new skyline has emerged.  Manchester remained the hub of the world cotton goods market until the Royal Exchange closed in 1968.  Some firms adapted by turning to synthetic fibres, such as polyester and fibreglass.  Today, Manchester is still a city shaped by cotton.  Converted mills and warehouses have found new life as offices, hotels and flats, alongside new high-rise buildings.

http://www.mosi.org.uk/explore-mosi/explore-revolution-manchester/revolution-manchester-themes/cottonopolis.aspx

Flect and flex are root-words from the Latin, flectere, to bend.  Find a list including flexible, deflect and reflect at http://www.english-for-students.com/flex.html

The heroine of “Find Me I’m Yours,” a new novel by Hillary Carlip, is a quirky young woman named Mags who works at an online bridal magazine and is searching for love in Los Angeles.  But the story also has another, less obvious protagonist:  Sweet’N Low, the artificial sweetener.  Sweet’N Low appears several times in the 356-page story, in subtle and not-so-subtle ways.  In one scene, Mags, a Sweet’N Low devotee, shows off her nails, which she has painted to resemble the product’s pink packets.  In another, she gets teased by a co-worker for putting Sweet’N Low in her coffee.  “Hellooo, isn’t it bad for you?” the friend asks.  Mags replies that she has researched the claims online and found studies showing that the product is safe:  “They fed lab rats twenty-five hundred packets of Sweet’N Low a day ... And still the F.D.A. or E.P.A., or whatevs agency, couldn’t connect the dots from any kind of cancer in humans to my party in a packet.”  The scene was brought to you by the Cumberland Packing Corporation, the Brooklyn-based company that makes Sweet’N Low. Cumberland Packing invested about $1.3 million in “Find Me I’m Yours.”  Product placement in a novel might strike some as unseemly.  But “Find Me, I’m Yours” is not like most novels.  It’s an e-book, a series of websites and web TV shows, and a vehicle for content sponsored by companies.  And if it succeeds, it could usher in a new business model for publishers, one that blurs the lines between art and commerce in ways that are routine in TV shows and movies but rare in books.  Alexandra Alter  http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/03/business/media/e-book-mingles-love-and-product-placement.html?_r=2

November 23, 2014  Ever since it opened in 1933, a 70-story limestone skyscraper has towered over mid-Manhattan as a symbol of global capitalism and of a prolific American family that remains synonymous with prodigious wealth.  The family patriarch, John D. Rockefeller, was America’s first billionaire, and it was his son, John Jr., who dauntlessly broke ground for 30 Rockefeller Plaza in the midst of the Great Depression.  Through it all, into what is now the seventh generation, the Rockefellers’ vast financial and personal empire has been managed by as many as 200 employees from a lofty command post adorned with priceless Impressionist and Modern artwork.  But in 2000, the Rockefellers sold off 30 Rock and nine other landmark Rockefeller Center office buildings in the 22-acre Art Deco complex to Jerry I. Speyer and the Lester Crown family of Chicago, though they retained their presence in the building by keeping one floor as a rented space.  About 44 staff members will work for the Rockefellers when they move to a 19,000-square-foot space at 1 Rockefeller Plaza around the middle of next year.  Rockefeller & Company, which manages the investments of the Rockefellers and other wealthy families, has opened shop separately at 10 Rockefeller Plaza.  “We decided to start again at 1 Rock,” David Jr. said.  “This is the first time this generation has gotten to say what their needs are.”  He will move into an office in the 34-story building that faces the skating rink.  Sam Roberts  http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/24/nyregion/why-are-rockefellers-moving-from-30-rock-we-got-a-deal.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=second-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1223  November 26, 2014  On this date in 1789, a national Thanksgiving Day was observed in the United States as recommended by George Washington and approved by Congress.  On this date in 1863,  Abraham Lincoln proclaimed November 26 as a national Thanksgiving Day, to be celebrated annually on the final Thursday of November.  (Since 1941, it has been on the fourth Thursday.)

Exaggerating with numbers

eight days a week--Beatles song and a movie

turn it up to eleven--Spinal Tap movie

110 percent (effort)--motivational talk

25/8--pun on 24/7 (also non-stop, restless; also a song by Mary J. Blige)

"Graphic novel" is a term gaining acceptance that is used to describe bound narratives that tell a story through sequential art with or without text.  These may have been conceived originally as novel-length works or be compilations of previously serialized stories.  Find a guide to research including awards, publishers, journals, collections, museums and exhibitions, conventions and conferences, blogs, news, and discussion sites at

http://library.columbia.edu/subject-guides/graphic_novels.html  See also http://www.slj.com/category/books-media/graphic-novels/ and http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/libraries/article/57093-how-graphic-novels-became-the-hottest-section-in-the-library.html

Who Was Betty Crocker? by Tori Avey   Before Betty Crocker was synonymous with boxed cake mix and canned frosting, she was a “kitchen confidante,” a maternal and guiding presence in kitchens across America.  She was the “Dear Abby” of cooking, a woman people could trust with their most frustrating kitchen woes.  Surprising, then, that Betty Crocker isn’t actually a real person.  She is the brainchild of an advertising campaign developed by the Washburn-Crosby Company, a flour milling company started in the late 1800’s that eventually became General Mills.  Gold Medal Flour, a product of Washburn-Crosby, helped to kick-start Betty’s career.  She was “born” in 1921, when an ad for Gold Medal Flour was placed in the Saturday Evening Post.  The ad featured a puzzle of a quaint main street scene.  Contestants were encouraged to complete the puzzle and send it in for the prize of a pincushion in the shape of a sack of Gold Medal Flour.  The response was overwhelming; around 30,000 completed puzzles flooded the Washburn-Crosby offices.  Many of the completed puzzles were accompanied by letters filled with baking questions and concerns, something the Washburn-Crosby Company hadn’t anticipated.  Read an extensive history and find images from 1936, 1955, 1965, 1969, 1972, 1980, 1986 and 1996.  For her 75th anniversary in 1996, painter John Stuart Ingle gave her an olive skin tone that could belong to a wide range of ethnicities.  Ingle created this version of Betty by digitally morphing photographs of 75 women that General Mills felt embodied “the characteristics of Betty Crocker.”  Betty Crocker’s first namesake grocery item was a soup mix, which became available in 1941.  Her famous cake mix appeared on store shelves in 1947, and the bestselling Betty Crocker’s Picture Cook Book was published in 1950.  It is still being sold today, millions of copies later, under the title The Betty Crocker Cookbook. http://www.pbs.org/food/the-history-kitchen/who-was-betty-crocker/

Banter means light, witty talk with good-natured teasing or arguing; chatter means quick, extensive, and/or aimless talk; patter means quick or monotonous speech, as in delivering a humorous speech.  Find a list of 75 Synonyms for “Talk” by Mark Nichol at http://www.dailywritingtips.com/75-synonyms-for-talk/  Search Daily Writing Tips and link to categories and popular articles at http://www.dailywritingtips.com/about/

The Stories Behind Hollywood Studio Logos by Alex Santoso  Find pictures of various versions and learn the stories behind DreamWorks SKG:  Boy on the Moon, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM):  Leo The Lion, 20th Century Fox:  The Searchlight Logo, Paramount:  The Majestic Mountain, Warner Bros.:  The WB Shield and Columbia Pictures:  The Torch Lady at http://www.neatorama.com/2008/12/03/the-story-behind-hollywood-studio-logos/

Lady Justice was originally known as the goddess Themis. In Greek Themis means ‘order’.  Her other interchangeable names are Justicia or Justice.  She is also associated with the goddesses Astraea, Dike, Eirene, Eunomia, Fortuna, Tyche, and Ma’at.  http://sculptorsdominion.org/UserFiles/File/08LadyJusticePressCOPY.pdf

The purpose of ma'at (law/justice/truth) among the Kemet (Kmt Khemet) people of ancient Upper and Lower Egypt was to divert chaos (Isfet).   See graphics at http://maatlaws.blogspot.com/  

Download royalty free scales of justice images at http://www.123rf.com/stock-photo/scales_of_justice.html

How Paperbacks Helped the U.S. Win World War II  by Jennifer Maloney  “A decade after the Nazis’ 1933 book burnings, the U.S. War Department and the publishing industry did the opposite, printing 120 million miniature, lightweight paperbacks for U.S. troops to carry in their pockets across Europe, North Africa and the Pacific.  The books were Armed Services Editions, printed by a coalition of publishers with funding from the government and shipped by the Army and Navy.  The largest of them were only three-quarters of an inch thick—thin enough to fit in the pocket of a soldier’s pants.  Soldiers read them on transport ships, in camps and in foxholes.  Wounded and waiting for medics, men turned to them on Omaha Beach, propped against the base of the cliffs.  Others were buried with a book tucked in a pocket.  “When Books Went to War:  The Stories That Helped Us Win World War II” by Molly Guptill Manning tells the story of the Armed Services Editions.  To be published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt on December 2, 2014, the book reveals how the special editions sparked correspondence between soldiers and authors, lifted “The Great Gatsby” from obscurity, and created a new audience of readers back home.  The program was conceived by a group of publishers, including Doubleday, Random House and W. W. Norton.  In 1942 they formed the Council on Books in Wartime to explore how books could serve the nation during the war.  Ultimately, the program transformed the publishing industry.  “It basically provided the foundation for the mass-market paperback,” said Michael Hackenberg, a bookseller and historian.  It also turned a generation of young men into lifelong readers.”  http://www.bespacific.com/wsj-paperbacks-helped-u-s-win-world-war-ii/

A parade (also called march or marchpast) is a procession of people, usually organized along a street, often in costume, and often accompanied by marching bands, floats or sometimes large balloons.  Parades are held for a wide range of reasons, but are usually celebrations of some kind.  In Britain the term parade is usually reserved for either military parades or other occasions where participants march in formation; for celebratory occasions the word procession is more usual.  The longest parade in the world is the Hanover Schützenfest that takes place in Hanover every year during the Schützenfest.  The parade is 12 kilometres long with more than 12,000 participants from all over the world, among them more than 100 bands and around 70 floats and carriages.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parade  See also http://www.germany.travel/en/events/events/schuetzenfest-fair-in-hannover-203.html

Boston has hosted its annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade, the nation’s longest-running public parade, since 1737.  The second oldest annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade is held in New York City, which had its first St. Patrick’s Day Parade in 1762 (fourteen years before the Declaration of Independence.), and Philadelphia, which had its first in 1771.  http://www.ibtimes.com/st-patricks-day-parade-2014-top-10-largest-parades-schedules-route-maps-new-york-boston-chicago-more

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1222   November 25, 2014  On this date in 1874, the United States Greenback Party was established as a political party consisting primarily of farmers affected by the Panic of 1873.  On this date in 1915, Albert Einstein presented the field equations of general relativity to the Prussian Academy of Sciences.

Chalk is formed from lime mud, which accumulates on the sea floor in the right conditions.  This is then transformed into rock by geological processes:  as more sediment builds up on top, and as the sea floor subsides, the lime mud is subjected to heat and pressure which removes the water and compacts the sediment into rock.  If chalk is subject to further heat and pressure it becomes marble.  The lime mud is formed from the microscopic skeletons of plankton, which rain down on the sea floor from the sunlit waters above.  The Coccolithophores are the most important group of chalk forming plankton.  Each miniscule individual has a spherical skeleton called a cocosphere, formed from a number of calcareous discs called coccoliths.  After death, most coccospheres and coccoliths collapse into their constituent parts.  Most chalks formed during the Cretaceous period, between 100 and 60 million years ago, and chalks of this age can be found around the world.  The Cretaceous chalks record a period when global temperatures and sea levels were exceptionally high.  This coincided with the break up of the supercontinent Pangea, which broke apart to form the continents of today.  Chalks formed in the sea-ways of the flooded Cretaceous continents.  Chalk is white because it is formed from the colourless skeletons of marine plankton.  Roy Shepherd  Read more and see pictures at http://www.discoveringfossils.co.uk/chalk_formation_fossils.htm

ersatz  adj.  made or used as a substitute, typically an inferior one; not real or genuine

erstwhile  adj.  former  adv.  formerly

The Oxford Dictionary of Difficult Words  2004

Situated between the coastlines of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales, in the middle of the Irish Sea, you’ll find the Isle of Man.  The island is 52 kilometres long and 22 kilometres wide (32 miles by 14 miles).  It’s home to about 80,000 people.  The island has a 10,000 year history with a strong Celtic and Viking past.  It is governed by its own parliamentary assembly – Tynwald – the oldest continuous parliament in the world.  The national symbol of the Isle of Man is the three legs and its motto:  whichever way you throw it, it will stand, could be seen as a symbol of Manx independence and resilience.  http://www.manxnationalheritage.im/explore-the-island/about-the-isle-of-man/  Manx Gaelic is one of six Celtic languages, the others being Irish, Scots Gaelic, Welsh, Breton and Cornish.  Learn a few words of Manx at http://www.manxnationalheritage.im/explore-the-island/about-the-isle-of-man/manx-language/

Adults turn to children’s books by Rebecca Eckler   A well-known politician who has made scathing headlines for months, received a children’s picture book, Everything I Need To Know I Learned From a Little Golden Book, from a good friend.  The book, drawn from the Golden Book series that was launched in 1942, is about finding contentment in the simplest things (“Be a hugger!”  “Get some exercise!”).  That evening, the politician sent a thank-you email, mentioning that the same day, another friend had emailed saying that a “great thing to do in times such as these is to find a childhood book and read it.  So I’m reading my Little Golden Book.”  The politician isn’t alone.  Barbara Miller, a therapist and social worker, recommends that adults turn to children’s books.  “There are lessons and hope in kids books, unlike self-help books, where adults can find holes in the words.”  For her clients who are grieving, she suggests a children’s book, The Mountain That Loved a Bird by Alice McLerran, a gentle tale of friendship, devotion and hope.  Barb Wiseberg, co-founder of Give One Book, a children’s book bank, says her favourite children’s book is Hippos Go Berserk! by Sandra Boynton.  It was also her son’s favourite baby book.  Fast-forward 12 years.  “We are planni ng his bar mitzvah, and I keep a copy with all my notes, to keep perspective on how time flies.”  Erica Ehm, founder of YummyMummyClub.ca, sees a similar reminder in one of her favourite children’s books.  She says she always turns to Love You Forever.  “Sometimes life just punches you in the face.  This book just reminds me, point blank, to live in the moment.”  The simple truths, it seems, bear repeating.  http://www.macleans.ca/society/life/oh-the-places-well-go-2/  The Muser:  One of my favorite courses in library school was Children's Literature.  We read three children's books a week, and to this day I can remember most of them.  I often borrow juvenile books from the public library, and--on occasion--buy them.  Two I recommend are:  The Librarian Who Measured the Earth by Kathryn Lasky and Oh, the Places You'll Go! by Dr. Seuss. 

What’s the Difference Between “O” and “Oh”? by Arika Okrent   O say can you see … that this line begins with an “O” and not an “Oh”?  “O” may seem like just an old fashioned way to write “Oh,” but it actually has a slightly different meaning.  Consider some other famous O’s:  O Captain, my captain, O Pioneers, O Come All Ye Faithful, O Canada, O Brother Where Art Thou, O ye of little faith, O Christmas Tree.  These are all examples of what’s known as the vocative O—it indicates that someone or something is being directly addressed.  When you say “O Christmas tree” the “O” means you are talking right to the Christmas tree.  The rest of the song bears this out.  (Your branches are lovely!  You’re always wearing that dress of green!)  Same for “O Canada” and pretty much any anthem.  The words to your school song probably go something like “O [alma mater], your campus is beautiful, and we think you’re great.”  “Oh” has a wider range.  It can indicate pain, surprise, disappointment, or really any emotional state.  While “oh, man!” could mean a number of things, “O man!” means “hey, you there … you man over there.”  The convention now is that while “oh” can be lower case, and is usually followed by a comma, “O” is always uppercase and without a comma.  But there hasn’t always been a strict separation between the two forms.  “Oh” and “O” were used interchangeably for a long time.  http://mentalfloss.com/article/56582/whats-difference-between-o-and-oh

Link to stories of famous trials in world history from Socrates (399 B.C.) to Saddam Hussein (2006) at http://www.crf-usa.org/research-links/famous-trials.html

Inside a gray office building in Brussels, Ioannis Ikonomou's workload is marked in different colors on his computer screen.  The 49-year-old Greek translator manages the work himself, which in the next two weeks alone includes two long texts from German and French into Greek.  It's a little boring, he says in perfect German, "but it's my contribution to Europe."  More exciting are three special requests:  The EU Commission urgently needs translations of confidential documents from Hebrew, Chinese and Azerbaijani.  Very few of the EU's 2,500 translators can handle that. Ikonomou is the best of them all.  He speaks 32 languages virtually fluently, including a pair of dead languages.  What his brain has managed to achieve is perhaps unique on the planet.  How can a human being learn so many languages?  As he sips his green tea, he says his career developed out of curiosity.  "That's a keyword for my life."  Ikonomou speaks 21 of the total of 24 official EU languages.  "I forgot my Lithuanian, and I didn't have time for Gaelic or Maltese."  He understands not only modern languages, but also various old ones — Latin, of course, but also Old English, Mayan, Old Irish and Old Iranian.  Ikonomou wrote his Harvard dissertation on a text by the prophet Zarathustra written in Avestan, a form of Old Iranian.  "Language is like love," he says.  "When you really fall in love with someone you also want to know their whole story, meet their parents, visit their old schools.  A language is not just the present for me but also the past."  "Chinese is my favorite language," he says.  "It's completely different, the Mount Everest for Europeans."  He’s been to China a few times, and learned more of the language each time.  http://www.worldcrunch.com/culture-society/hyper-polyglot-greek-translator-speaks-32-languages/ioannis-ikonomou-eu-commission-languages-translation/c3s17017/#.VGEwFPnF98E

The National Do Not Call Registry gives you an opportunity to limit the telemarketing calls you receive.  Once you register your phone number, telemarketers covered by the National Do Not Call Registry have up to 31 days from the date you register to stop calling you.

The National Do Not Call Registry is managed by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the nation’s consumer protection agency.  It is enforced by the FTC, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), and state law enforcement officials.  

How long does my phone number stay registered?  Telephone numbers on the registry will only be removed when they are disconnected and reassigned, or when the consumer chooses to remove a number from the registry.  Find much more information at http://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0108-national-do-not-call-registry

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1221   November 24, 2014  On this date in 1642, Abel Tasman became the first European to discover the island Van Diemen's Land (later renamed Tasmania).  

On this date in 1859, Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species.

Dog Story #1--newspaper using slanted information  

The Toledo Blade has labeled a dog story a controversy, and has retold it 12 times in 12 days as of this writing, each time only giving one point of view. 

Dog Story #2--call to action based on misinformation 

A woman entered a courthouse to find out when the “dog case” was being held so she could demonstrate against it.  The clerk said they didn't have a dog case.  The woman replied that someone on Facebook told her about it and ask that she demonstrate.  The clerk again stated they had no dog case.  After the woman left, the clerk remarked that they did have a "cat case."

DogStory #3--asking the wrong question

In the Pink Panther Strikes Again, Peter Sellers, as Inspector Clouseau, is standing at the front desk of a hotel and sees a dog lying by the front door.  In an exaggerated French accent, he asks the clerk, "Does your dog bite?"  The man answers, "No."  Walking toward the door, Clouseau bends down to pet the dog; it growls and then bites him.  Aghast, he exclaims, "I thought that you said your dog does not bite!"  The man responds, "Oui, monsieur, but that is not my dog."

Obviously, Inspector Clouseau did not ask the right question.  Cheri A. Toledo  http://www.isetl.org/ijtlhe/pdf/ijtlhe85.pdf  See Peter Sellers as Clouseau, "Does your dog bite"? in 1:26 video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ui442IDw16o

The word ‘meanwhile’ is an adverb.  It means ‘at the same time’.  It is usually used at the beginning of the sentence and has a comma after it.  The word ‘meantime’ is a noun.  It is actually the noun of the adverb ‘meanwhile’.  It is usually used in a phrase like ‘in the meantime’ or ‘for the meantime’.  The word ‘while’ is very similar to ‘meanwhile’ but it is usually a conjunction.  http://www.englishspark.com/difference-between-meanwhile-meantime/

Tun Tavern was a tavern and brewery in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, which served as a founding or early meeting place for a number of notable groups.  It is traditionally regarded as the site where what would become the United States Marine Corps held its first recruitment drive during the American Revolution.  It is also regarded as one of the "birthplaces of Masonic teachings in America."   The tavern was erected in 1686 at the intersection of King (later called Water) Street and Tun Alley by settler Joshua Carpenter.  Tun Tavern was named for the Old English word "tun", meaning a barrel or keg of beer.  In the 1740s, a restaurant, "Peggy Mullan's Red Hot Beef Steak Club", was added to the tavern.  Tun Tavern burned down in 1781, near the end of the American Revolution.  Its location is occupied by Interstate 95, where it passes along Penn's Landing.  Tun Alley once existed between Walnut and Chestnut Streets east of Front Street.  A commemorative marker on the east side of Front Street indicates the site, across from Sansom Walk.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tun_Tavern

Steven Berlin Johnson (born June 6, 1968) is an American popular science author and media theorist.  Johnson grew up in Washington, D.C., where he attended St. Albans School.  He completed his undergraduate degree at Brown University, where he studied semiotics, a part of the school's modern culture and media department.  He also has a graduate degree from Columbia University in English literature.  Johnson is the author of eight books on the intersection of science, technology, and personal experience.  He has co-created three influential web sites:  the pioneering online magazine FEED, the Webby Award-winning community site, Plastic.com, and most recently the hyperlocal media site outside.in.  A contributing editor to Wired, he writes regularly for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times, and many other periodicals. Johnson also serves on the advisory boards of a number of Internet-related companies, including Medium, Atavist, Meetup.com, Betaworks, and Patch.com.  See links to Johnson's official website, TED talks and interviews at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Johnson_(author)  Johnson wrote up a few thoughts about the relationship between the book How We Got to Now and the show at a new site, How We Get To Next.  http://www.howwegettonext.com/

A chapbook is "a small book or pamphlet containing poems, ballads, stories, or religious tracts."  The term is still used today to refer to short, inexpensive booklets.  Chapbooks were small, cheaply produced books, most often octavo or duodecimo printings of twenty-four pages, sold without a cover.  Chapbooks were so called because they were sold by peddlers known as chapmen.  Chap comes from the Old English for trade, so a chapman was literally a dealer who sold books.  Chapmen would carry boxes containing the conveniently sized editions, either in town on street corners, or traveling through the countryside.  They typically sold their wares for twopence or threepence, and stocked a large variety of titles.  Chapmen traveled through England as early as the 1570s.  Chapbooks followed broadsides as early print products for people of lesser means and learning than the wealthy.  Broadsides represented print for the semi-literate:  two of the main forms were ballads and pictures, neither of which depended heavily on reading.  People who heard the songs might repeat them in alehouses or inns, relying on memory.  In this way the songs could change into new songs which would later be transcribed, or devolve into a meaningless jumble of words.  Broadsides containing large woodcuts were also popular.  Even those who could not read at all could make use of these broadsides by hanging them on the wall.  The one line or so of text could be remembered or inferred from the picture.  At this early stage of print, text was not static.  Works moved back and forth between oral and print forms.  The story Guy of Warwick  originated in the Middle Ages, when it was sung as a heroic ballad.  Sometime between 1200 and 1400 it was written as a manuscript.  The story was printed in the first decades of the 1500s for a gentry audience.  In the late 1500s, the story was abridged into a broadside ballad, and was once again heard in song form.  In the late 1600s, it was turned back into book form in twenty-four page chapbooks, and conditions at that point were allowing more people access to these inexpensive books. 

http://web.mit.edu/21h.418/www/nhausman/chap1.html  See also all versions of Guy of Warwick at http://middleenglishromance.org.uk/mer/26

READER FEEDBACK to story on Fulton Center, a new $1.4 billion transit hub giving New York riders an easier way to connect between eleven subway lines and a piece of art unto itself.  Nearly 1,000 reflective panels gives a dramatic look up into the sky.   

Even I didn’t know the Fulton Center was revealed this week!  I used to work right there (222 Broadway, corner of Fulton & Broadway).  That’s where I was on 9/11, and things must look very different with the new transportation center.  Before it was a veritable rabbit warren underground, with many subway lines all tangled in proximity.

Snowmageddon, Snowpocalypse and Snowzilla are portmanteaus of the word "snow" with either "Armageddon", "Apocalypse" and "Godzilla" respectively.  Snowmageddon and Snowpocalypse seem to have first been published in the popular press in Canada during January 2009, and was also used in January 2010 by The Guardian reporter Charlie Brooker on January 16, 2010 in order to describe heavy snowfall across the United Kingdom during the preceding days.  The Washington Post ran an online poll asking for reader feedback prior to the First North American blizzard of 2010 on February 4, 2010, and several blogs, including the Washington Post '​s own blog, followed that up by using either "Snowmageddon" and or "Snowpocalypse" before, during, and after the storm hit.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowmageddon  A Google search for snowmageddon on November 21, 2014 produced 512,000 results.

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1220  November 21, 2014  On this date in 1694, François-Marie Arouet, known as Voltaire, was born in Paris.  His work included plays, poems, novels, essays, and historical and scientific works.  On this date in 1835, Hetty Green, American businesswoman and financier was born in New Bedford, Massachussets.  Her nickname was "The Witch of Wall Street."

The Randolph Caldecott Medal annually recognizes the preceding year's "most distinguished American picture book for children", beginning with 1937 publications.  It is awarded to the illustrator by the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC), a division of the American Library Association (ALA).  The award is named for Randolph Caldecott, a nineteenth-century English illustrator.  Rene Paul Chambellan designed the Medal in 1937.  The obverse scene is derived from Randolph Caldecott's front cover illustration for The Diverting History of John Gilpin (Routledge, 1878, an edition of the 1782 poem by William Cowper), which depicts Gilpin astride a runaway horse.  The reverse is based on "Four and twenty blackbirds bak'd in a pie", one of Caldecott's illustrations for the nursery rhyme "Sing a Song of Sixpence".  Beside the Caldecott Medal, the committee awards a variable number of citations to worthy runners-up, called the Caldecott Honors or Caldecott Honor Books.  Recently there are two to four annual Honors.  The Honor Books must be a subset of the runners-up on the final ballot, either the leading runners-up on that ballot or the leaders on one further ballot that excludes the winner.  See Caldecott medal winners and runners-up from 1938 at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caldecott_Medal  

See illustrations by Randolph Caldecott at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randolph_Caldecott and http://www.randolphcaldecott.org.uk/works.htm 

Find online books by Randolph Caldecott (1846-1886) at http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/lookupname?key=Caldecott%2C%20Randolph%2C%201846-1886

RANDOLPH CALDECOTT:  THE MAN WHO COULD NOT STOP DRAWING by Leonard S. Marcus   In 1861, Caldecott sold his first drawing to the Illustrated London News.  In 1878, he published his first two picture books, The House That Jack Built and The Diverting History of John Gilpin.  In 1883, he drew his only book populated entirely by animals in human dress, A Frog He Would A-Wooing Go.  In 1884, Rupert Potter bought two illustrations from the frog book.  The collector's daughter, Beatrix (creator of Peter Rabbit and other picture book characters in human dress) enjoyed them and studied them.  In 1938, the first Caldecott Medal was presented by the American Library Association to Dorothy P. Lathrop.

Randolph Caldecott:  the music video performed by the Effin' G's.  See Caldecott medal winning books in an amusing 2:56 video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMIjWQQavcY

The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, New York celebrates in 75th anniversary in 2014.  Link to information including ABNER (American Baseball Network for Electronic Research), the online library catalog, at http://baseballhall.org/

The Recorded Media Collection of The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum contains approximately 14,000 hours of moving images and sound recordings in a wide variety of formats that date from a 1908 Edison Cylinder recording of Take Me Out To The Ball Game.  The archive includes 78 rpm radio discs, phonograph records, 8mm home movies, reel-to-reel tapes, films, videotapes, along with compact and digital video discs.  Recorded on these diverse media are interviews and oral histories; radio and television broadcasts; play-by-play and other commentary; feature, documentary and animated films; popular songs and other music; and Hall of Fame events.  Researchers may gain access to this archive during a research visit to the Giamatti Research Center.  Requests should be filed in advance of your visit, preferably when making a research appointment.  Two weeks advance notice is preferred, and initial inquiries may be directed to:  Email: research@baseballhall.org
Telephone:  607-547-0330 or 0335.  For researchers unable to visit the Giamatti Research Center, inquiries regarding rights and reproductions issues may be directed to Jim Gates, Library Director:  Email:  jgates@baseballhall.org  Telephone:  607-547-0311  Fax:  607-547-4094  US Mail:  Jim Gates, Librarian National Baseball Hall of Fame 25 Main Street Cooperstown, NY 13326  http://baseballhall.org/node/492  See Cooperstown Chatter, official blog of The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum at http://community.baseballhall.org/chatter/

Conjunctive Adverbs  An adverb is a part of speech that modifies a verb, adverb, adjectives, clauses, and sentences, anything but a noun.  Many adverbs end in -ly, although not all of them.  A conjunction is a part of speech that connects phrases and clauses.  Therefore, a conjunctive adverb is a type of adverb that joins together two clauses. These clauses are usually independent clauses, otherwise known as complete sentences.  To correctly punctuate a conjunctive adverb, a writer will use a semicolon or period at the end of the first independent clause.  The conjunctive adverb is then used followed by a comma and the next independent clause.  Example:  I will not be attending the show. Therefore, I have extra tickets for anyone that can use them.  Find list of conjunctive adverbs at http://grammar.yourdictionary.com/parts-of-speech/adverbs/list-of-conjunctive-adverbs.html

This month, several thousand aspiring authors are attempting to write a novel in 30 days.  They are taking part in an annual event known asNaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month, in the hope that the time pressure will spur them on.  For a small community of computer programmers, though, NaNoWriMo has a lighthearted sister competition:   National Novel Generating Month, the goal of which is to teach a computer to write a novel for you.  However, finished NaNoGenMo projects are unlikely to trouble Booker judges.  They include a version of Moby-Dick in which the words have been swapped for meows of the same length (immortal opening line: Meow me Meeeeow); another version in which a few key words have been swapped out for emoji; and a novel made up of unconnected excerpts from an online database of teenage girls’ accounts of their dreams.  “I don’t think anyone’s really taking it seriously,” says Mark Riedl, an associate professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology.  Riedl and his colleagues are not taking part, but they are among the many computer scientists working on far more sophisticated digital storytellers.  For the past two years, they have been tinkering with a program called Scheherazade, which learns how to describe tasks by analysing crowd-sourced human accounts, and then attempts to produce plausible short stories about, say, going to the movies or a restaurant.  At its best, Scheherazade writes fairly convincing vignettes:  “You entered the movie theater ... You find the seats as indicated on your movie ticket ... You sat comfortably in your seats.”  But it’s prone to telltale errors.  “For Scheherazade, a successful story is one in which people will read the story and recognise the activity and not find too many obvious errors,” says Riedl.  Novels require more than that, of course.  Part of the challenge is teaching a computer not merely to describe, but to imagine.  This is the goal of the What-If Machine (Whim) project, a venture involving teams at five universities across Europe.  Like Scheherazade, the Whim, as the program is affectionately known, seeks to understand what is possible by analysing vast databases of human prose.  It then inverts or twists what it has learned to produce a new idea that could serve as the premise of a story.  Tom Meltzer  http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/nov/11/can-computers-write-fiction-artificial-intelligence

November 12, 2014  Earlier this week, New Yorkers got their first look at Fulton Center, a new $1.4 billion transit hub that New York magazine describes as "a sort of Grand Central for downtown."  Aside from giving riders an easier way to connect between eleven subway lines, it's also a piece of art unto itself.  The oculus and spiraled dome that architecturally define the project is called "Sky Reflector-Net".  Assembled with nearly 1,000 reflective panels, it gives users a dramatic look up into the sky as they pass through the facility.  It's one of the most ambitious artistic additions to the transit system since the advent of the MTA's nearly 30-year-old station art program.  Coinciding with the opening of Fulton Center is the release of a new book this week that catalogs the entire system's art collection:  New York's Underground Art Museum, by Sandra Bloodworth and William Ayres (Monacelli Press).  The book itself is an update of Along the Way, written by the same authors back in 2006.  Since then, nearly 100 more works have been installed, putting the transit system's permanent collection at 250 pieces.  Launched in 1985, MTA Arts & Design (originally known as "Arts for Transit and Urban Design") has helped the city and its subway ditch their reputations for being dirty and crime-ridden.  Setting aside one percent of the capital budget for every new station or renovation, over the years the MTA has invited over 100 individual artists, from Roy Liechtenstein to Xenobia Bailey, to liven up commutes along the subway system, Long Island Rail Road, and Metro-North Railroad.  Mark Byrnes  See pictures at http://www.citylab.com/design/2014/11/inside-new-york-citys-underground-art-museum/382647/

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1219  November 19, 2014  On this date in  1493, Christopher Columbus went ashore on an island he first saw the day before, naming it San Juan Bautista (later renamed Puerto Rico).  On this date in 1794, the United States and the Kingdom of Great Britain signed Jay's Treaty, which attempted to resolve some of the lingering problems left over from the American Revolutionary War.

The Internet Public Library (IPL, ipl2) is a non-profit, largely student-run website at Drexel University.  Visitors can ask a reference question.  Volunteer librarians and graduate students in library and information science form collections and answer questions.  The IPL opened on March 17, 1995.  The IPL originated at the University of Michigan’s School of Information.  Michigan SI students almost exclusively generated its content.  They also managed the Ask a Question reference service.  Since January 1, 2007 the "IPL Consortium", a group of 15 colleges still including the University of Michigan, has run the IPL.  Drexel University's College of Computing and Informatics hosts the site.  With a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, Drexel intends to additionally use it as a "'technological training center' for digital librarians".  IPL2, the new face of the Internet Public Library, results from a merger with the Librarians' Internet Index, previously managed by the Califa Library group.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Public_Library  According to Joseph Janes, writing in the November/December 2014 issue of American Libraries Magazine, IPL will no longer be supported at the end of this year.

The Cat and the Canary (1927) is an American silent horror film adaptation of John Willard's 1922 black comedy play of the same name.  Directed by German Expressionist filmmaker Paul Leni, the film stars Laura La Plante as Annabelle West, Forrest Stanley as Charles "Charlie" Wilder, and Creighton Hale as Paul Jones.  The plot revolves around the death of Cyrus West, who is Annabelle, Charlie, and Paul's uncle, and the reading of his will 20 years later.  Annabelle inherits her uncle's fortune, but when she and her family spend the night in his haunted mansion they are stalked by a mysterious figure.  Meanwhile, a lunatic known as "the Cat" escapes from an asylum and hides in the mansion.  The film is part of a genre of comedy horror films inspired by 1920s Broadway stage plays.  Paul Leni's adaptation of Willard's play blended expressionism with humor, a style Leni was notable for and critics recognized as unique.  Leni's style of directing made The Cat and the Canary influential in the "old dark house" genre of films popular from the 1930s through the 1950s.  The Cat and the Canary is the product of early 20th century German expressionism.  According to art historian Joan Weinstein, expressionism is a loosely defined term that includes the art styles of Die Brücke and Der Blaue Reiter, cubism, futurism, and abstraction.  The key element that connects these styles is the concern for the expression of inner feelings over verisimilitude to nature.  Film historian Richard Peterson notes that "German cinema became famous for stories of psychological horror and for uncanny moods generated through lighting, set design and camera angles. "  Such filmmaking techniques drew on expressionist themes. Influential examples of German expressionist film include Robert Wiene's The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) about a deranged doctor and Paul Leni's Waxworks (1925) about a wax figure display at a fair.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cat_and_the_Canary_(1927_film) 

Spain, under duress, handed over full sovereignty of Gibraltar to the British under the terms of the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht.  Simón Bolívar (Simón José Antonio de la Santísima Trinidad Bolívar y Palacios) who died in 1830, had been for a time President of Bolivia, Colombia, Peru, and  Venezuela.  Basque is the longest surviving language in all of Europe with no apparent link to any Indo-European language.  The Fund by H.T. Narea

At one time Europe and North Africa were linked by land bridges at Gibraltar and there was a free flow of animals and people passing from one continent to the other.  The two are now separated by a channel stretching east-west for some 60 km (38 miles) and extending from the southern tip of the Iberian peninsula to North Africa.  Its width varies from 24 km (15 miles) to 40 km (25 m.) at its western end.  Archaeological evidence suggests that Stone Age tribes lived in Gibraltar caves, but the earliest recorded history points to the Greek settlement of Calpe ('ship').  The current name resulted in the 8th-century when the Berber general, Tariq ibn Ziyad, established a military camp here and from this natural fortress, he seized modern Spain and Portugal and established Iberia's hybrid culture.  The limestone boulder gebel (rock) combined with his name, Tariq became Gebel Tariq which was shortened to Gibraltar.  Myth-makers say the pillars were created by Hercules when he carried out the tenth of his twelve labours:  to capture the cattle of Geryones, a monster with three heads and three bodies.  In order to effect the capture, Hercules tossed two great rocks about:  the first became Gibraltar; the second became Ceuta in Morocco.  These two promontories, Cape and Abya to the Greeks, are the twin Pillars of Hercules, natural sentries guarding the passageway between the Mediterranean Sea and the open Atlantic.  The pillars marked the edge of the known world, the limits of civilization, "the end of voyaging," according to Euripides, who wrote "the Ruler of Ocean no longer permits mariners to travel on the purple sea."  In the 2nd century B.C., Polybius wrote that the channel was seldom used owing "to the scantiness of our knowledge of the outer ocean."  The Greeks named it the Stream of Ocean that encircled the earth at the centre of which they were privileged to live.  Mediterranean means "middle of the earth."   The Strait of Gibraltar is also known as the Straits of Gibraltar.  There are 8 miles (13 km) of ocean separating Europe from Africa at the strait's narrowest point.  The strait depth ranges between 300 and 900 meters.  On the northern side of the strait is Spain and Gibraltar; on the southern side is Morocco and Ceuta, a Spanish exclave in North Africa.  Read more and see many pictures at http://www.travellinghistorian.com/gibral.html

Pillars of Hercules is the ancient name given to the promontories that flank the entrance to the Straits of Gibraltar.  They are Gibraltar in Europe and Monte Hacho in Ceuta in Africa.  The Jebel Musa, west of Ceuta, is sometimes considered one of the Pillars.  The Pillars appear as supporters of the coat of arms of Spain.  The motto Plus Ultra (Latin for further beyond) indicates the desire to see the Pillars as an entrance to the rest of the world rather than as a gate to the Mediterranean Sea.  It was not until Columbus discovered America in 1492 that it became Plus Ultra, before this point it said Non Plus Ultra.  The reason for this was that until then the navigation outside of the pillars had been limited to coastline navigation.  It wasn't until Columbus' discovery that seafaring technology proved to be ripe enough for sailors to venture "safely" into the open ocean.  See graphics at http://www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/Mythology/PillarsOfHercules.html

PROMONTORY

1  a:  a high point of land or rock projecting into a body of water  b:  a prominent mass of land overlooking or projecting into a lowland  2:  a bodily prominence  Example of PROMONTORY:  Cape May is Delaware Bay's largest promontory.  Origin of PROMONTORY Latin promunturium, promonturium; probably akin to prominēre to jut forth — more at prominent  First known use:  1548

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

Three institutions are united under one roof when the Harvard Art Museums reopens on November 16, 2014 after a six-year building project.  The Renzo Piano-designed scheme on the edge of the Harvard campus doubles the museums’ combined square footage, increasing gallery space by 40%.   Read story by Julia Halperin and see pictures at http://www.theartnewspaper.com/articles/At-Harvard-three-become-one/36129

The Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art in North Adams, MA, known for daring installations that can stretch as long as a football field will announce November 17, 2014 a group of long-term projects with some of the country’s most prominent living artists, including Laurie Anderson, James Turrell and Jenny Holzer, as well as a partnership with the late abstract expressionist Robert Rauschenberg’s foundation.  When the $60 million project goes online in 2017, Mass MoCA will be the largest contemporary art museum in the country, with more than 250,000 square feet of gallery space.  It will also be one of the most eclectic, a campus that features everything from rock and bluegrass festivals to dance premieres and a building devoted to the conceptual artist Sol LeWitt.  Geoff Edgers  Read more and see pictures at http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/mass-moca-to-become-countrys-largest-contemporary-art-museum/2014/11/15/fba7c816-6c0d-11e4-a31c-77759fc1eacc_story.html?hpid=z13

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1218  November 17, 2014  On this date in 1777, the Articles of Confederation were submitted to the states for ratification.  On this date in 1800, Congress held its first session in Washington, D.C.