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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Elevated Parks on the Rise  The “High Line effect,” as some have termed it, has captured the imagination of citizens and policy makers alike in recent years; elevated parks have become trendy new public spaces.  Although the concept is not new, many elevated parks are now being constructed or considered across the country.  The case studies examined in this 47-page document prepared by Eric Brooks, Jamie Genevie and Alex Gonski include: ● Bridge of Flowers (Shelburne Falls, MA) ● Walnut Street Bridge (Chattanooga, TN) ● The High Line (New York, NY) ● Bloomingdale Trail (Chicago, IL) ● Reading Viaduct (Philadelphia, PA) ● Providence River Pedestrian Bridge (Providence, RI) is found at http://bridgepark.org/sites/default/files/Virginia%20Tech%20Elevated%20Parks%20on%20the%20Rise%20-%2011th%20Street%20Bridge%20Park.pdf

The American Sign Museum in Cincinnati, Ohio, preserves, archives, and displays a collection of signs.  The museum also displays the equipment utilized in the design and manufacture of signs.  Tod Swormstedt began working on the museum in 1999.  It opened to the public in 2005.  Swormstedt's family owns the signage industry trade journal Signs of the Times, which has been published since 1906.  Swormstedt's grandfather, H.C. Menefee, was the first editor of the publication, and purchased it for himself in 1911.  Swormstedt had been working at the journal for over twenty years before becoming inspired to start a sign museum in 1999.  His family provided $1 million for the project, and figures from the signage industry gave donations of their own.  The museum was founded as a nonprofit corporation.  Swormstedt considered building the museum in Los Angeles, St. Louis, Memphis, and other sites, but eventually settled on Cincinnati, the base of operations for Signs of the Times.  Over 200 signs and other objects are on display at the museum, and over 3,800 items are cataloged.  Many signs owned by the museum were too large to fit the original exhibit space.  To better accommodate the collection, the museum began purchasing a 42,000-square-foot (3,900 m²) property in Camp Washington, Cincinnati in 2007.  The new location is part of the Oesterlein Machine Company-Fashion Frocks, Inc. Complex, a National Register of Historic Places building.  The museum opened in its new home in June, 2012, and the new building displays about 500 signs and artifacts many of which are on a faux streetscape in a town called "Signville".  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Sign_Museum  

See also http://www.americansignmuseum.org/

Alex Grecian (born Alexander Douglas Grecian on August 6, 1969) is an American author of short fiction, novels, comic books, and graphic novels.  His notable works include the comic book series Proof and the novels in the Scotland Yard's Murder Squad:  The Yard, The Black Country, The Devil's Workshop, The Harvest Man, and The Blue Girl.  As a child and a teenager, Grecian read the works of C. S. Lewis, Charles Dickens, Lewis Carroll, and Edgar Allan Poe.  He later became a fan of crime fiction, reading the works of authors as diverse as Graham Greene, Donald E. Westlake, Ross Macdonald, and John D. MacDonald.  Other influences include John Irving, Kurt Vonnegut, Michael Chabon, and Stephen King.  Find bibliography and a list of selected awards and honors at  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Grecian

Rolling Pin Bakehouse offers homemade baked goods that you can order by phone or through a contact form.  Orders are picked up by appointment at a roadside stand located at 14401 Winters Road, Roanoke, Indiana between Fort Wayne and Huntington.  Their sugar cream pie was featured in a nationwide PBS documentary aired on August 25, 2015 titled “A Few Good Pie Places”.  Find map at http://www.rollingpinbakehouse.com/  Link to a history of the pie at http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/10/dining/republican-senate-lunch-tradition-draws-on-the-flavors-of-home.html   Find recipes for sugar cream pie at  http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2012/05/hoosier-sugar-cream-pie-recipe.html and http://www.midwestliving.com/recipe/pies/indiana-sugar-cream-pie/

The Winds of Provence, the region of southeast France along the Mediterranean from the Alps to the mouth of the Rhone River, are an important feature of Provençal life, and each one has a traditional local name, in the Provençal language.  The most famous Provençal winds are:  the Mistral, a cold dry north or northwest wind, which blows down through the Rhone Valley to the Mediterranean, and can reach speeds of ninety kilometers an hour; the Levant, a very humid east wind, which brings moisture from the eastern Mediterranean; the Tramontane, a strong, cold and dry north wind, similar to the Mistral, which blows from the Massif Central mountains toward the Mediterranean to the west of the Rhone; the Marin, a strong, wet and cloudy south wind, which blows in from the Gulf of Lion; and the Sirocco, a southeast wind coming from the Sahara desert in Africa, can reach hurricane force, and brings either reddish dust or heavy rains.  The winds of Provence, particularly the Mistral, have long had an influence on the architecture of Provence.  The mas traditionally faces southeast, with its back to the Mistral, and many Provençal churches have open iron grill bell towers, which allow the Mistral wind to pass through.  Traditional compass roses in Provence have the names of the winds by the points of the compass.  See an illustration, which shows Midi, or the South, at the top at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winds_of_Provence

A mas is a traditional farmhouse found in the Provence and Midi regions of France, as well as in Catalonia where it is also named masia (in Catalan) or masía (in Spanish).  A mas was a largely self-sufficient economic unit, which could produce its own fruit, vegetables, grain, milk, meat and even silkworms.  It was constructed of local stone, with the kitchen and room for animals on the ground floor, and bedrooms, storage places for food and often a room for raising silkworms on the upper floor.  Not every farmhouse in Provence is a mas.  A mas was distinct from the other traditional kind of house in Provence, the bastide, which was the home of a wealthy family.  The mas of Provence and Catalonia always faces to the south to offer protection against the mistral wind coming from the north.  And because of the mistral, there are no windows facing north, while on all the other sides, windows are narrow to protect against the heat of summer and the cold of winter.  A mas is almost always rectangular, with two sloping roofs.  In Catalonia, the tenant of a mas is called a masover, as different from the real landowner.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mas_(Provençal_farmhouse)

Autumn in Denali Park by Alan Taylor   Summers in Alaska’s Denali National Park and Preserve are short seasons, followed by even shorter autumns, then long, cold winters.  Located just 250 miles south of the Arctic Circle, the park is home to more than 200 species of animals, all now in the midst of preparation for the coming snows.  The autumn colors in this subarctic wilderness burst to life in September, as yellow leaves of birch and aspen trees dot the forests, and shrubs and grasses give a rusty shade to mountain slopes.  

See beautiful pictures at http://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2015/09/autumn-in-denali-park/405445/

September 22, 2015  If you've already read the entirety of the Harry Potter series, watched the films multiple times, and still find yourself craving more magic, you're in luck.  Pottermore, J.K. Rowling's website devoted to all things Potter just got a complete make-over, complete with a new features section where fans will find everything from insights from Hagrid to how to make wands.  Rowling also released a short history of the Potter family tree, titled "The Potter Family."  Dating back to the 12th century, it's sure to satisfy even the most loyal Potterhead.  Madison Malone Kircher  Read more and see pictures at http://www.techinsider.io/jk-rowling-releases-new-harry-potter-details-2015-9

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1352  September 25, 2015  On this date in 1789, Congress passed twelve amendments to the United States Constitution:  The Congressional Apportionment Amendment (which was never ratified), the Congressional Compensation Amendment, and the ten that are known as the Bill of Rights.  On this date in 1906, in the presence of the king and before a great crowd, Leonardo Torres y Quevedo successfully demonstrated the invention of the Telekino in the port of Bilbao, guiding a boat from the shore, in what is considered the birth of the remote control.  

Sept. 20, 2015  BRUSSELS—Mayonnaise here is a sauce celebre, so important that a 60-year-old royal decree governs what goes in it.  But the mayo edict is getting a dressing down these days from Belgian food producers, who fear slipping behind in Europe’s cutthroat condiment market.  Nicholas Courant, a spokesman for Belgian food producers’ association Fevia, is part of a strengthening movement to “create a level playing field for mayonnaise” by loosening standards and lowering costs for local producers.  That idea isn’t going down well with chefs, consumer groups and smaller producers who warn against diluting the royally approved recipe:  Belgian mayonnaise must contain at least 80% fat and 7.5% egg yolk.  European rivals are permitted to sell mayo with a mere 70% fat and 5% egg yolk.  “It’s like comparing a chicken raised by a farmer with a factory hen,” says Philippe Lartigue, head chef at the Brasseries Georges, a prestigious restaurant in Brussels.  “Qualitatively, it’s not at all the same thing.”  In a nation riven with linguistic and cultural fault-lines, such foodstuffs as beer, chocolate and waffles have a strong grip on the Belgian psyche.  Nearly every town square from the Flemish North Sea coast to the mountainous French-speaking south has a shack serving potato fries with a dollop of mayo.  Belgian dance-pop star Stromae paid homage to mayonnaise in his 2013 hit “Moules Frites.”  Antiausterity activists last December launched a messy fries-and-mayo attack on Prime Minister Charles Michel.  With national sales exceeding €1.1 billion ($1.2 billion) a year, according to Mr. Courant, only a handful of nations consume more mayo per head than Belgium.  Conflict has marked mayonnaise from the start.  The Oxford English Dictionary traces its origins to an assault on the Spanish island of Minorca in 1756, when French forces, led by the Duc de Richelieu, seized the Port of Mahon.  For the victory party, according to legend, the duke’s chef wanted to make a sauce with cream and eggs.  Finding no cream, he substituted olive oil.  Voilà, “Sauce Mahonnaise” was born.  Another story traces the condiment to the town of Bayonne in southwest France—hence “sauce bayonnaise.”  The Larousse Gastronomique, France’s culinary encyclopedia, indicates that mayonnaise is derived from the old French word “moyeu,” meaning egg yolk.  Some Spaniards, however, claim the French copied their recipe.  Unilever, the maker of U.S. mayo market leader Hellmann’s, last year filed a lawsuit against Hampton Creek Foods Inc., a San Francisco startup, for implying its “Just Mayo” product was mayonnaise even though it substituted Canadian yellow peas for eggs.  The U.S. also has its standards, dating from 1977:  Mayonnaise must contain egg yolk and at least 65% vegetable oil.  Unilever dropped its lawsuit in December after tens of thousands of people signed a petition calling on the company to stop what they called bullying of the startup.  Tom Fairless  http://www.wsj.com/articles/in-belgium-mayonnaise-makers-want-a-new-recipe-1442787350

A human tooth dating to around 565,000 years ago has been found by a 16-year-old volunteer in France.  The tooth was found at Arago cave near the village of Tautavel, one of the world's most important prehistoric sites; it has been under excavation for about 50 years.  The owner of the tooth--a very worn lower incisor--lived during a cold and dry period, according to scientists.  They hunted horses, reindeer, bison and rhinoceros.  "A large adult tooth--we can't say if it was from a male or female--was found during excavations of soil we know to be between 550,000 and 580,000 years old, because we used different dating methods," paleoanthropologist Amelie Viallet told the AFP news agency.  "This is a major discovery because we have very few human fossils from this period in Europe," she said.  Volunteer Camille, 16, was working with another young archaeologist when she found the tooth July 23, 2015.  http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-33690713  See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tautavel_Man

COPYRIGHT  A California federal judge ruled September 22, 2015 that “Happy Birthday to You” does not belong to the mega music corporation that has long claimed it.  Instead, the world’s most popular song belongs to, well, the world.  The ruling brings to an end an intense two-year legal standoff between a handful of independent filmmakers and massive company Warner Music.  It also throws into doubt as much as $50 million in licensing fees collected by the music giant over the past 27 years, raising the possibility of a class-action lawsuit to come.  The decision by U.S. District Judge George H. King delighted the plaintiffs, who portrayed their lawsuit as a David-versus-Goliath battle over the so-called “birthday song.”  “‘Happy Birthday’ is finally free after 80 years,” Randall Newman, an attorney for the plaintiffs, told the Los Angeles Times.  “Finally, the charade is over.  It’s unbelievable.”  Warner/Chappell, the publishing arm of Warner Music, told the newspaper that the company is “looking at the court’s lengthy opinion and considering our options.”  The ruling could have a much broader impact than money from licensing fees or even movie scenes, however.   Instead, it could allow businesses of all type—from TV shows to Broadway plays to greeting cards to your local restaurant—to use “Happy Birthday” without fear of a lawsuit.  “Happy Birthday to You” has been claimed by Warner since 1988, when the company bought its copyright.  That meant that anyone wanting to use the song for commercial purposes—such as in a film, Broadway play or on television—would have to pay at least $1,500.  Lots of people did.  Warner/Chappell makes an estimated $5,000 per day, or $2 million per year, licensing the rights to the song.  (Donaldson, the entertainment attorney, said that number is low.  “I think when they dig into it, it’s going to be a lot more than $2 million per year,” he told The Washington Post.)   In 2013, however, a group of filmmakers sued Warner/Chappell, arguing that the company didn’t actually own the song and, therefore, couldn’t charge people to use it.  For two years, and in several federal courts, both sides have dropped documentary bombs on the other.  Most recently, Jennifer Nelson, a former X-Games biker turned filmmaker who is not only a plaintiff in the case but is also making a documentary about the song and the legal battle, unearthed “a proverbial smoking-gun” that “proves conclusively that there is no copyright to the Happy Birthday lyrics.”  The “proof”:  a 1922 songbook containing “Happy Birthday” but no copyright, a finding that, Nelson and her attorneys argued, undermined Warner/Chappell’s claim to ownership.  Michael E. Miller

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/09/23/happy-birthday-to-all-of-us-judge-gives-world-a-gift-says-song-belongs-to-everyone/  Robert Brauneis, a George Washington University law professor who has extensively researched the copyright history of the song, says the ruling does not explicitly place "Happy Birthday To You" in the public domain.  http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-happy-birthday-song-lawsuit-decision-20150922-story.html  See also http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/09/judge-warners-2m-happy-birthday-copyright-is-bogus/

COPYRIGHT  A federal appeals court has found that two famous versions of the Batmobile were protected under the copyright for the original Batman comic strip held by DC Comics.  DC Comics, a unit of Time Warner’s Warner Bros. Entertainment that owns the copyright to the original Batman comic book series, had sued a San Diego area man who was selling full-sized replicas of the Batmobile—some for as much as $90,000 each—as depicted in both the 1966 television series “Batman” starring Adam West and the 1989 movie “Batman” featuring Michael Keaton.  “Holy copyright law, Batman!” wrote Judge Sandra Ikuta in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in the September 23, 2015 opinion, which found that the Batmobile was a “sufficiently distinctive” character to the original Batman comic book series.  “Since his first comic book appearance in 1939, the Caped Crusader has protected Gotham City from villains with the help of his sidekick Robin the Boy Wonder, his utility belt, and of course, the Batmobile,” Ikuta wrote.  “Here, DC retained its copyright in the Batmobile character even though its appearance in the 1966 and 1989 productions did not directly copy any comic book depiction.”  Amanda Bronstad  http://www.nationallawjournal.com/home/id=1202738032636/Holy-Copyright-Batmobile-Protected-Against-Replica-Seller?mcode=1202617074964&curindex=1&slreturn=20150824082555

"As Batman so sagely told Robin, 'In our well-ordered society, protection of private property is essential,'" 9th Circuit Judge Sandra Ikuta wrote for a unanimous three judge panel.  The case in the 9th Circuit is DC Comics vs. Towle, 13-55484.  Dan Levine  http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/09/23/usa-batman-ruling-idUSL1N11T1JF20150923

Jack Larson, best know for his role as reporter Jimmy Olsen on the first Superman TV show, died September 20, 2015 at his home in Brentwood, Calif.  He was 87.  Larson played George Reeves’ (Clark Kent/Superman) wide-eyed coworker at The Daily Planet—a role he tried, in vain, to escape throughout his career—on “Adventures of Superman” in the 1950s.  Larson appeared on “Superman” for six seasons, beginning in 1951.  The series came to a close following Reeves’ sudden death in 1959.  Larson was also a playwright; his works include 1966’s “The Candied House,” based on “Hansel and Gretel”; “Cherry, Larry, Sandy, Doris, Jean, Paul,” a comedy about being gay; 1968’s “Chuck”; and 1998’s “The Astronaut’s Tale.” Larson wrote librettos for operas, such as Virgil Thomson’s “Lord Byron.”  He produced several films written and/or directed by his longtime partner, James Bridges, who he met on the set of Ethel Barrymore’s final film, “Johnny Trouble,” in 1957. Larson produced “The Baby Maker” (1970), “Mike’s Murder” (1984) and “Perfect” (1985), among Bridges’ other movies, through their production company.  Larson also appeared in the 1991 series “Superboy” as “Old Jimmy Olsen” (an older version of Justin Whalin’s character), in an episode of ABC’s “Lois & Clark:  The New Adventures of Superman” and Bryan Singer’s “Superman Returns” in 2006.  Maane Khatchatourian 

http://variety.com/2015/tv/news/jack-larson-dead-superman-jimmy-olsen-1201598572/

Get Fuzzy is an American comic strip written and drawn by Darby Conley.  The strip features the adventures of Boston advertising executive Rob Wilco and his two anthropomorphic pets, a dog named Satchel Pooch and a cat called Bucky Katt.  Get Fuzzy has been published by United Feature Syndicate since September 6, 1999.  Get Fuzzy often eschews the traditional "setup-punchline" format of most funnies, instead building on absurd dialog between characters.  The unusual title of the strip comes from a concert poster that Darby Conley once created for his brother's band, the Fuzzy Sprouts.  "Life's too short to be cool," the poster read, "Get Fuzzy."  In 2011, Get Fuzzy began to incorporate more and more reprinted strips into its daily rotation.  Initially, these would alternate from week to week with a new strip.  Eventually, the reruns became more frequent and by the beginning of 2013 (perhaps earlier), the daily Get Fuzzy strips consisted entirely of strips from previous years.  The lack of new content has caused a significant decline in the popularity of Get Fuzzy, and in some cases reader feedback polls have been conducted as to whether or not to keep the strip.  One of these was conducted by The Washington Post in October 2013; the paper cited the reruns as the reason for the strip's lack of support and announced that they would be dropping it from the paper.  The Seattle Times, which stopped carrying Get Fuzzy on March 3, 2014, said their reasoning was "because the creator is no longer producing new installments."  The Sunday editions of Get Fuzzy, incidentally, have been largely unaffected by this and new installments have continued to appear on a regular basis, much in the same vein of how Bill Amend's FoxTrot does.  The difference is that Amend made a conscious decision and an announcement that he would be making the move, while neither Universal Uclick or Darby Conley have ever made an official statement on the status of Get Fuzzy.  In addition, Conley has never explained his reasoning for no longer drawing daily strips.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Get_Fuzzy

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1351  September 24, 2015  On this date in 1896, F. Scott Fitzgerald, American novelist and short story writer, was born.  On this date in 1957, Camp Nou, the largest stadium in Europe, is opened in Barcelona.

Wiktionary

yeasayer or yea-sayer  noun  One whose attitude is positive, optimistic, confidently affirmative.

(pejorative) One who habitually agrees uncritically.  Origin: 1915–1920, after naysayer, from yea + say +‎ -er, equivalent to yeasay +‎ -er.  First recorded use:  1920. 

The Iowa State University Department of Entomology hosts the Insect Fear Film Festival at Foellinger Auditorium for its 32nd year in September 2015.  The festival shows insect fear films and feature other activities, summoning interactions between attendees and insects.  The three-decade-long festival was originally just an idea that hatched when May Berenbaum was a graduate student at Cornell University.  “I was walking on campus when I saw a sign that the Asian-American Student Association was showing ‘Godzilla,’” Berenbaum said.  “If the Asian-Americans can have a sense of humor about their film identity, why can’t entomologists?”  Berenbaum established a serious reputation before pitching the comical idea to her department at the University.  But by 1984, it became a reality.  “They loved it,” Berenbaum said with a laugh.  Now, the festival has sprouted and spread to institutions and communities across the world.  http://www.dailyillini.com/article/2015/02/insect-fear-film-festival-celebrates-bugging-out

A Library Writes Its Own Story  A California library becomes a living legend. by Deborah Fallows   The public library in Redlands, California is much more than a steward of books and information.  It is an exemplar of the history of the town and a living legend of its spirit of generosity, a hallmark of Redlands since its first days.  Redlands, longtime a citrus town and at the edge of the sloping foothills of the San Bernardino Mountains, was founded in 1881 by Frank Brown, a Yale-educated civil engineer and Edward Judson, a former Wall Street broker, who donated more than 10,000 trees to help settle the town in its earliest days.  One of the first things you notice today, if you take a break from the I-10 between L.A. and Palm Springs to exit at Redlands, are the tall, elegant Washingtonia palms lining the broad streets of century-old Victorian, Colonials, and California Craftsman houses.  Even before the town was incorporated in 1888, its residents had built a YMCA.  And they soon began angling for a public library.  Alfred Smiley, a Quaker and founding partner with his brothers of the historic Mohonk Mountain House in New Paltz, New York, who spent his winters in Redlands was a prime promoter of the library.  This was just the beginning. Alfred Smiley huddled with his twin brother, Albert, about taking the library to the next step--giving it a proper building and a beautiful setting.  Albert quietly borrowed money, bought up surrounding land, and commissioned a wonderful Moorish Revival building by architect T.R. Griffith, which was noticed across the state.  The town renamed the library in honor of Albert, the A.K. Smiley Public Library (AKSPL).  The library stands today as a national historic landmark.  And the story gets even better.  In 1910, Andrew Carnegie himself came to town to visit the library and celebrate his good friend Albert’s 82nd birthday.  Carnegie was in his heyday of building more than 2500 libraries across the U.S.  and Europe at that time, 142 of them in California alone.  Here are the affectionate, admiring, and even puckish remarks he delivered in Redlands during his visit:  This is the first time it has ever been my privilege to sign my name in the visitor’s book of a library which I had not founded, it gives me the greatest pleasure, the more so, as it is the gift of my dear and honored friend, Mr. Smiley.  Before giving libraries I waited until I had this useless dross that men call money, because it is useless until it is put to some good use, and he could not wait.  His love for the cause impelled him to give and he actually borrowed money – borrowed the money, I say, to build this magnificent structure.  Perhaps the piece de resistance of the Smiley Library is the Heritage Room, begun 44 years ago by the then archivist and later library director  Larry Burgess.  (Most of the library history recorded here came from conversations with Burgess and his writing).  The holdings range from the historic to the humble: Andrew Carnegie’s collection of books on Indians of California and Southwest presented to Albert Smiley at his birthday celebration.  All the issues of Sunset magazine.  A comprehensive, publicly accessible collection of books on the history of Southern California.  The first 1836 tiny schoolbook printed in California for early settlers, just 3x4 inches in size.  Drawings from architect Leon Armantrout of many of the new and old buildings in town.  Post-war color slides.  Works of Dean Cornwell, a prominent illustrator and muralist from the early 20th century.  Portraiture of Redlanders by local photographer Elmer Kingham from most of the 20th century.  Some 2000 Southern California citrus labels.  Maps of Redlands and California from the 1850s and newspapers from the 1880s.  An oral history collection.  And a lot of personal memorabilia and curiosities that the library generously receives.  Stop by your local library.  Support your local library.  Read more and see pictures at http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2015/08/a-library-writes-its-own-story/401438/?utm_source=SFTwitter

One Master, Many Cervantes  Don Quixote in translation by Ilan Stavans  HUMANITIES, September/October 2008 | Volume 29, Number 5 (excerpt)   Don Quixote de la Mancha is a book for all seasons: esteemed, even venerated by millions, but, maddening in its length and contradictions, a constant target of attacks.  As the narrator repeatedly tells us, what we’re reading isn’t the original but a translation of a manuscript by an Arab historian, Cide Hamete Benengeli.  In addition, Don Quixote, during a visit to a printer in Barcelona in chapter LXII of the second part, says to Sancho Panza that “translating from one language to another, unless it is from Greek or Latin, the queens of all languages, is like looking at Flemish tapestries from the wrong side, for although the figures are visible, they are covered by threads that obscure them, and cannot be seen with the smoothness and color of the right side.”  Then, also in the second part of Cervantes’ novel, the protagonists, Don Quixote and his squire, react to villagers who have read the first part, and, similarly, are furious when they find out that an impostor—an author by the pseudonym of Alonso Fernández de Avellaneda, a mysterious Aragonese author who was an admirer of Lope de Vega, a famous playwright and rival of Cervantes—published, in 1614, an apocryphal second part that diminishes the quality of Cervantes’ effort.  In other words, the characters in the book are perfectly aware of their nature as literary creations available only—for better or worse—in translation.  I’ve counted eighteen different complete English versions, although some might exist under the radar.  No other classic has been revamped as often into Shakespeare’s tongue, and, yes, as atrociously.  For a long time, the translation I liked the most was by Samuel Putnam, who was educated at the University of Chicago and the Sorbonne.  He wrote, among other books, Paris Was Our Mistress: Memoirs of a Lost and Found Generation and was the father of the American philosopher Hilary Whitehall Putnam.  Penguin brought out Putnam’s version.  By the end of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first, the quality standards of translation were notably higher.  The work of John Rutherford (2000), Edith Grossman (2003), and Tom Lathrop (2005) is proof of it.  Given the assortment of interpretations, it isn’t advisable to suggest that a single English translation of Don Quixote is the best.  I prefer to compare them—that is, to keep them all at my side.  I believe the true spirit of Cervantes’ novel is to be found not by subtraction but by addition.  http://www.neh.gov/humanities/2008/septemberoctober/feature/one-master-many-cervantes

Baking with the flours of grains such as rye and buckwheat has gained popularity recently.  It isn’t just a healthier alternative to white flour, but also can lend a new dimension to your cakes and cookies.  "I’ve been really excited about what I can get out of it flavor-wise," says Claire Ptak, an American pastry chef who owns Violet Cakes, a bakery in London’s Hackney neighborhood.  "The key is to not look at it as just a substitution but to look at the grain itself to see what flavor profile it has."  Whole-grain rye, for example, is a favorite of Ms. Ptak, whose fourth book—"The Violet Bakery Cookbook"—launches in September 2015 in the U.S.  "I love to eat rye bread.  It has such a strong flavor," says Ms. Ptak, who notes that it’s important to pair it with ingredients that are as robustly flavored.  "I love doing a chocolate and rye brownie with a really dark chocolate," Ms. Ptak adds.  "There’s a lot of texture in there and it works well in the chewy context of a brownie.  Chocolate and rye work really well together."  Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan  Read about other flours and see recipe for Rye Chocolate Brownies at

http://www.wsj.com/articles/a-bakers-secret-ingredients-many-flours-1442420279

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1350  September 23, 2015  On this date in 1905, Norway and Sweden signed the "Karlstad treaty", peacefully dissolving the Union between the two countries.  On this date in 1909, The Phantom of the Opera (original title:  Le Fantôme de l'Opéra), a novel by French writer Gaston Leroux, was first published as a serialization in Le Gaulois.