The Awakening, a novel by Kate Chopin, is set in the late nineteenth century on Grand Isle, off the coast of Louisiana; on the island Chênière Caminada across the bay from Grand Isle (the island was destroyed in an 1893 hurricane); and in the city of New Orleans.  Readers and scholars have been discussing the novel’s themes for a hundred years, and their views vary widely.  Early critics condemned the book for its amoral treatment of adultery, and some readers today share that view.  But from the 1960s on, most scholars and readers in the USA and many other nations have come to think of Kate Chopin as “the first woman writer in her country to accept passion as a legitimate subject for serious, outspoken fiction,” to cite the words of Per Seyersted, and they see Chopin as one of America’s essential authors.  The novel was begun in 1897 and completed on January 21, 1898.  Kate Chopin’s original title was A Solitary Soul.  It was published as The Awakening by Herbert S. Stone & Company in Chicago on April 22, 1899.

http://www.katechopin.org/the-awakening/  Find quotes by author, poet and novelist Kate Chopin (born Katherine O'Flaherty in 1851, died in 1904) at http://thinkexist.com/quotes/kate_chopin/

US ZIP codes are a type of postal code used within the United States to help the United States Postal Service (USPS) route mail more efficiently.  Some still refer to ZIP codes as US postal codes.  The term ZIP stands for Zone Improvement Plan.  The basic 5-digit format was first introduced in 1963 and later extended to add an additional 4 digits after a dash to form a ZIP+4 code.  The additional 4 digits help USPS more precisely group mail for delivery.  Though ZIP codes were originally developed for USPS, many other shipping companies such as United Parcel Service (UPS), Federal Express (FedEx), DHL, and others make use of ZIP codes for sorting packages and calculating the time and cost of shipping a package (the shipping rate).  Types of Zip Codes:  Unique/single high volume address (ex. 20505 for the CIA in Washington, DC); PO Box only (ex. 22313 for the PO Boxes of Alexandria, VA); Military; and Standard (all other ZIP codes)  http://www.unitedstateszipcodes.org/  The World Trade Center had its own zip code of 10048.  It will not be assigned to 1 World Trade Center and other buildings planned for the World Trade Center site, which will use the ZIP code 10007.

PG Tips (pronounced pee-gee tips) is a brand of tea in the United Kingdom, manufactured by Unilever UK.  In the 1930s Brooke Bond launched PG Tips in the UK tea market under the name Pre-Gest-Tee.  The name implied that the tea could be drunk prior to eating food, as a digestive aid.  Grocers and salesmen abbreviated it to PG.  After the Second World War, labelling regulations ruled out describing tea as aiding digestion—a property that had been attributed to tea—and by 1950/1 the PG name was adopted.  The company added "Tips" referring to the fact that only the tips (the top two leaves and bud) of the tea plants are used in the blend.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PG_Tips  See also http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/shortcuts/2015/mar/16/pg-tips-reduced-tea-bags-price-same

Ford Field is a multi-purpose indoor stadium located in downtown Detroit, owned by the Detroit/Wayne County Stadium Authority.  It is primarily used for American football as the home field of the Detroit Lions of the National Football League (NFL) as well as the annual Quick Lane Bowl college football bowl game.  The regular seating capacity is approximately 65,000, though it is expandable up to 70,000 for football and 80,000 for basketball.  The naming rights were purchased by the Ford Motor Company at $40 million over 20 years; the Ford family holds acontrolling interest in the company, and a member of the Ford family has controlled the Lions franchise since 1963.  Ford Field was originally planned to be an outdoor stadium, simultaneously with Comerica Park, which opened in April 2000, as part of a public project to replace Tiger Stadium and the Pontiac Silverdome.  Ford Field was constructed after Comerica Park, opening in 2002.  It cost an estimated $430 million to build, financed largely through private money, public money, and the sale of the naming rights.  The stadium's design incorporates a six-story former Hudson's warehouse, which was constructed in the 1920s.   Hammes Company, a real estate development company in Middleton, Wisconsin, developed the new stadium, as well as the warehouse.  The presence of the warehouse allows for a seating arrangement that was unique among professional American football stadiums at the time of Ford Field's opening.  The majority of suites at Ford Field are located in the Hudson Warehouse along the stadium's southern sideline, as are the lounges that serve the premium club seats on that side of the field.  The bulk of the grandstand seats are located along the northern sideline and both endlines, with gaps in the stadium's upper half at the southwest and southeast corners.  The upper deck on the stadium's northern sideline also contains one level of suites and a smaller section of club seating.  A similar design was implemented at the renovated Soldier Field, albeit with the use of a new structure (as opposed to an existing building) to house four levels of suites.  Unlike most indoor stadiums, Ford Field allows a large amount of natural light to reach the FieldTurf field, thanks to immense skylights and large glass windows at the open corners.  The windows along the ceiling are frosted to mimic the automotive factories that are prevalent in Metro Detroit.  The southwest corner provides the seating bowl and concourse with sunlight year-round and also offers fans a view of downtown Detroit.  To prevent the stadium from becoming an overly imposing presence in the Detroit skyline, the playing field and lower bowl (100 level) were set below street level, similar to the design at adjacent Comerica Park.  Ford Field is one of ten venues in the NFL that has end zones in the east and the west (the others being Qualcomm Stadium, Arrowhead Stadium, AT&T Stadium, Sun Life Stadium, Ralph Wilson Stadium, M&T Bank Stadium, TCF Bank Stadium, the Georgia Dome, and FirstEnergy Stadium.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Field  See also http://www.detroitlions.com/ford-field/facts-history.html

The Big Short:  Inside the Doomsday Machine is a non-fiction book by Michael Lewis about the build-up of the housing and credit bubble during the 2000s.  The book was released on March 15, 2010, by W. W. Norton & Company.  It spent 28 weeks on The New York Times best-seller list.  The Big Short describes several of the key players in the creation of the credit default swap market that sought to bet against the collateralized debt obligation (CDO) bubble and thus ended up profiting from the financial crisis of 2007–10.  The book also highlights the eccentric nature of the type of person who bets against the market or goes against the grain.   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Big_Short   Review of The Big Short:  Inside the Doomsday Machine   Michael Lewis possesses the rare storyteller’s ability to make virtually any subject both lucid and compelling.  In his book, “Boomerang,” he actually makes topics like European sovereign debt, the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank not only comprehensible but also fascinating.  Combining his easy familiarity with finance and the talents of a travel writer, Mr. Lewis sets off in these pages to give the reader a guided tour through some of the disparate places hard hit by the fiscal tsunami of 2008, like Greece, Iceland and Ireland, tracing how very different people for very different reasons gorged on the cheap credit available in the prelude to that disaster.  The book—based on articles Mr. Lewis wrote for Vanity Fair magazine—is a companion piece of sorts to "The Big Short:  Inside the Doomsday Machine."  In “Boomerang” Mr. Lewis captures the utter folly and madness that spread across both sides of the Atlantic during the last decade, as individuals, institutions and entire nations mindlessly embraced instant gratification over long-term planning, the too good to be true over common sense.  http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/27/books/boomerang-by-michael-lewis-review.html  See also http://www.newnewjournalism.com/bio.php?last_name=lewis

4 New Elements Are Added To The Periodic Table by Bill Chappell   For now, they're known by working names, like ununseptium and ununtrium—two of the four new chemical elements whose discovery has been officially verified.  The elements with atomic numbers 113, 115, 117 and 118 will get permanent names soon, according to the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry.  With the discoveries now confirmed, "The 7th period of the periodic table of elements is complete," according to the IUPAC.  The additions come nearly five years after elements 114 (flerovium, or Fl) and element 116 (livermorium or Lv) were added to the table.  The elements' temporary names stem from their spot on the periodic table—for instance, ununseptium has 117 protons.  Each of the discovering teams have now been asked to submit names for the new elements.  http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/01/04/461904077/4-new-elements-are-added-to-the-periodic-table

Pierre Boulez, the French composer and conductor who was a dominant figure in classical music for over half a century, died January 5, 2016 at his home in Baden-Baden, Germany.  He was 90.  A defining moment came when he heard a broadcast of Stravinsky’s “Song of the Nightingale” conducted by Ernest Ansermet; it was a work to which he often returned throughout his conducting career. Against the wishes of his father, who wanted him to study engineering, he went to Paris in 1942 and enrolled at the Conservatoire.  In 1944-45, he took a harmony class taught by Olivier Messiaen, whose impact on him was decisive.  Messiaen’s teaching went far beyond traditional harmony to embrace new music that was outlawed both by the stagnant Conservatoire of that period and by the German occupying forces:  the music of Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Bartok and Webern.  Messiaen also introduced his students to medieval music and the music of Asia and Africa.  Mr. Boulez belonged to an extraordinary generation of European composers who, while still in their 20s, came to the forefront during the decade or so after World War II.  They wanted to change music radically, and Mr. Boulez took a leading role.  His “Marteau Sans Maître” (“Hammer Without a Master”) was one of this group’s first major achievements, and it remains a central work of modern music.  It was his reputation as an avant-garde composer and as a crusader for new music that prompted his unexpected appointment as music director of the New York Philharmonic, succeeding Leonard Bernstein.  After the initial shock at his arrival, there was hope that he might, as many said at the time, bring the orchestra into the 20th century and appeal to younger audiences.  But his programming often met with hostility in New York, and he left quietly six years later.  http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/07/arts/music/pierre-boulez-french-composer-dies-90.html?_r=0

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1404  January 6, 2016  On this date in 1838, Alfred Vail demonstrated a telegraph system using dots and dashes (forerunner of Morse code).  On this date in 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt delivered his Four Freedoms speech in the State of the Union address.