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.