Movieoke is a form of entertainment in which an amateur actor or actors perform along with a muted DVD in order to give voice to the character in the film.  The film is projected onto a screen behind the actor and onto an alternate monitor which provides subtitles and action cues.  Movieoke is a popular form of performative and interactive entertainment created by Anastasia Fite in New York City in 2003, and has since spread to other parts of the world.  The word stems from the English word "movie" and the Japanese word "karaoke", which itself stems from the word kara meaning "empty", and the English word "orchestra".  This term used to be slang for media where pre-recorded acting is substituted by a live performance.  The term movieoke can be interpreted as "virtual movie" because one can act along without the presence of a camera or crew.  The first cultural reference for Movieoke came from the 1993 film Arizona Dream starring Johnny Depp, Jerry Lewis and Vincent Gallo.  During a talent show scene one of the characters performs a version of Movieoke (though does not mention the word movieoke).  Vincent Gallo's character Paul Leger performs a step by step remake of the famous crop dusting scene from Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest as the film is projected over him on stage.  Slightly different from East Village Movieoke in that the sound of the film is still present, Gallo syncs with the actor's dialog on stage.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Movieoke

Participation in movies:  Buzz when "The Fly" starts its opening credits (I was in a movie theater when this happened) or get ideas for mimicry at The Rocky Horror Picture Show at http://www.rockyhorror.com/participation/  Speak along with recording in elevator at the Haunted Mansion in Disneyland or Walt Disney World.

The prospect of one’s own death is not exactly a topic for casual dinner conversation.  But a movement that encourages group discussion of this weighty subject is growing, and organizers are finding that local libraries are one place where they won’t be silenced.  Since the first gathering, named death café, was held in the US in Columbus, Ohio, in July 2012, the forums have spread across the nation.  And many are beginning to appear in libraries, according to Lizzy Miles, an organizer for DeathCafe.com.  Miles, who organized the Columbus death café, tells American Libraries that she was inspired by her experience as a hospice social worker and by the work of Jon Underwood, who began holding death cafés in the UK in 2011.  She also credits a story in The New York Times (“Death Be Not Decaffeinated: Over Cup, Groups Face Taboo,” June 16, 2013) with helping attract interest in the movement.  “When I tell people I work in hospice, they immediately start telling me their personal stories about death and dying,”  Miles says.  “It was sort of this recognition that people have a desire to talk [about death].”  Miles says the death café concept is intended to be educational and is held in a neutral location where there is no perception of impropriety.  Miles notes that hundreds of death cafés have been held across the country over the last couple of years and have popped up in libraries in Alaska, California, Colorado, Florida, Kansas, Michigan, New Hampshire, and Vermont.  “I think a library is a perfect place to hold a death café because libraries bring people together,” she says.  Librarians can  get involved by visiting DeathCafe.com to learn how to moderate the events.  Tim Inklebarger  http://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/2015/10/30/when-subject-is-death-library-death-cafes/

William Holmes McGuffey was a Miami University faculty member in 1836 when he compiled the first edition of the McGuffey Eclectic Reader at 410 East Spring Street in Oxford, Ohio.   Between 1836 and 1920 the Readers taught the expanding American public lessons in reading, spelling, and civic education by using memorable stories of honesty, hard work, thrift and personal respect.  His brother Alexander Hamilton McGuffey, who also lived here for a time, assisted later editions in the series.  After the Civil War, later editions of the Readers became the basic schoolbook in thirty-seven states.  By 1920 they had sold 122,000,000 copies, stimulating the growth of publishing houses in Cincinnati, New York, Philadelphia and Chicago, and reshaping the American public school curriculum.  Scholars have credited the Readers with a major role in shaping democratic values across the expanding nation, facilitating unprecedented access to public literacy, and influencing the socialization of generations of immigrants to the United States.  Today the Readers remain in print, and are often used in home schooling.   McGuffey lived in a frame house at the Spring Street site in 1828, and in 1833 removed that structure and built a brick home there in a Federal vernacular style common to aspiring and successful families in southwest Ohio.  McGuffey left Miami in 1836 for presidencies at Cincinnati College and Ohio University, and later lived the rest of his life at the University of Virginia as Professor of Moral Philosophy.  To mark the Miami Sesquicentennial in 1958 the University purchased the house from heirs of Miami Treasurer Wallace P. Roudebush (who owned and lived in the home after 1926), and secured an endowment from Mrs. Emma Gould Blocker to operate it as a museum.  The site was awarded National Historic Landmark status in 1966 by the United States Department of the Interior.  Since reopening to the public after renovation June 15, 2002, McGuffey Museum has been open six afternoons weekly and attracted 5,900 visitors from Ohio, 28 states and seven countries.  http://miamioh.edu/cca/_files/mcguffey/documents/mcguffey_brief_history.pdf  See also http://miamioh.edu/cca/mcguffey-museum/

The eighth edition of the Library Journal Index of Public Library Service, sponsored by Baker & Taylor’s Bibliostat.  The LJ Index is a measurement tool that compares U.S. public libraries with their spending peers based on four per capita output measures:  circulation, library visits, program attendance, and public Internet computer use.  Scores on the LJ Index are produced by measuring the relationships between each library’s statistics and the averages for its expenditure category.  This year, there are 261 Star Libraries, 54 of which were not Star Libraries last year.  In 2015, 7,663 U.S. public libraries —more than ever before—were scored on the LJ Index of Public Library Service.  The 2015 LJ Index—the basis for the Star ratings—is derived from data recently released by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) for FY13.  Eligible libraries are grouped by total operating expenditures and, within each of those groups, rated based on their differences from the means (or averages) of four per capita statistics: library visits, circulation, program attendance, and public Internet computer use.  Among libraries spending $30 million or more, there are two new three-Star winners:  Toledo–Lucas County Public Library and Indianapolis–Marion County Public Library.  Among libraries spending $10 million–$29.9 million, there are three new three-Star winners:  Birmingham Public Library, AL; Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh; and Stark County District Library, Canton, OH.  View the All Stars state by state at http://lj.libraryjournal.com/2015/11/managing-libraries/lj-index/class-of-2015/all-the-stars-2015-state-by-state

Fastest Roast Turkey by Sam Sifton  http://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1016948-fastest-roast-turkey  Squash and Celeriac Quinoa Stuffing by Tara Parker-Pope  http://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1017001-squash-and-celeriac-quinoa-stuffing  Hashed Brussels Sprouts With Lemon by Julia Moskin  http://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/453-hashed-brussels-sprouts-with-lemon

The athletic teams of Watersmeet High School in the western Upper Peninsula of Michigan, are known as the Nimrods. Their basketball team was the subject of a mini-series documentary about 10 years ago, entitled "Nimrod Nation."  It chronicled the team's efforts to duplicate the previous year's team's victory in the Michigan High Class D regional tournament.  Thank you, Muse reader!  Muser says:  Interesting on two points--use of the "mighty warrior" word--and how important sports documentaries are.  Of all documentaries we see, I think we remember the sports documentaries the best.  You might say they are heroic, and that's why we enjoy them.  Read about More than a Game, a 2008 documentary film that follows LeBron James and four of his teammates through the trials and tribulations of high school basketball in Akron, Ohio at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/More_than_a_Game

Happy Geography Awareness Week!  Recognizing that "too many young Americans are unable to make effective decisions, understand geo-spatial issues, or even recognize their impacts as global citizens," National Geographic created this annual observance to "raise awareness to this dangerous deficiency in American education."  Ben Carson's presidential campaign inadvertently underscored this point November 17, 2015, when it took to social media to share a map of the United States in which five New England states were placed in the wrong location.  Christopher Ingraham  See graphics at https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/11/18/ben-carsons-campaign-made-a-u-s-map-and-put-a-bunch-of-states-in-the-wrong-place/

“I have waited 15 years for this moment,” Ta-Nehisi Coates told an audience that was almost entirely on its feet November 18, 2015.  He could have been speaking about this moment on stage, accepting the prestigious National Book Award for non-fiction for “Between the World and Me,” a moving meditation on race written to his teenage son.  But he was really referring to this moment in America, when police violence against African Americans has become the subject of national demonstrations and debate.  Fifteen years ago, Coates’s friend and Howard University classmate Prince Jones was killed by a police officer who mistook him for a suspect in a gun theft.  Jones, who was unarmed, was shot 5 times in the back.  Adam  Johnson won the fiction award for his short story collection “Fortune Smiles.”  Short story collections don’t often win the NBA fiction prize.  But this is the second year in a row that one has received the big-ticket literary award (last year’s winner was Phil Klay’s “Redeployment.”)  Neal Shusterman brought his son with him to accept the award for young people’s literature for “Challenger Deep.”  The novel about a schizophrenic teenager was inspired by Shusterman’s son Brendan.  The poetry award went to Robin Coste Lewis for “Voyage of the Sable Venus,” a debut collection that examines race and identity across generations and millennia.  All four winners will receive $10,000.  Writers James Patterson and Don DeLillo were also recognized at the ceremony, Patterson for his philanthropic efforts and DeLillo for “distinguished contribution to American letters.”  Sarah Kaplan  https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/11/19/ta-nehisi-coates-adam-johnson-win-national-book-awards/

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1380  November 19, 2015  On this date in 1905,  Tommy Dorsey, American trombonist, composer and bandleader (The California Ramblers), was born.  On this date in 1919, Alan Young, English-Canadian actor, singer, and director, was born.