In the original 10 month Roman calendar, August was the sixth month and was originally named Sextilis.  In 8 BC it was renamed in honor of Augustus, the founder and first emperor of the Roman Empire.  Find day, week and month celebrations for August at http://www.nationaldaycalendar.com/august-overview/

AEROBIC, ANAEROBIC, ISOTONIC, ISOMETRIC   Aerobic exercise is muscle movement that uses oxygen to burn both carbohydrates and fats to produce energy, while anaerobic exercise is muscle movement that does not require oxygen and only burns carbohydrates to produce energy.  In practice, aerobic exercise means activities such as walking, bicycling or swimming that temporarily increase your heart rate and respiration.  Aerobic exercise (also known as cardiovascular exercise) builds your endurance.  Anaerobic exercise typically means activities such as weightlifting and push-ups and sit-ups, which builds muscle and physical strength through short bursts of strenuous activity.  An ideal exercise program should include both aerobic and anaerobic exercise.  Isotonic and isometric are both types of exercises people can do during strength training.  Isotonic exercise occurs when, faced with resistance it can overcome, a muscle contracts and temporarily shortens, thereby moving the attached joint.  A set of bench presses or chin-ups are examples of isotonic exercise.  By contrast, isometric exercise occurs when the muscle contracts against a fixed resistance, so no muscle shortening or joint movement occurs.  Examples include pushing against a wall or trying to a lift a weight that's too heavy to budge.  Isotonic exercise builds muscle strength and endurance without overtaxing your cardiovascular system, so it's usually the foundation of a strength training program.  Isometric exercise quickly builds muscle strength, but it should be done with caution (or avoided altogether) because it's stressful on your heart and circulatory system.  http://www.health.harvard.edu/newsletter_article/Glossary-of-exercise-terms

A misericord (sometimes named mercy seat, like the Biblical object) is a small wooden structure formed on the underside of a folding seat in a church which, when the seat is folded up, is intended to act as a shelf to support a person in a partially standing position during long periods of prayer.  See pictures at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misericord

The Northern California Earthquake, April 18, 1906   At 5:12 AM local time, on April 18, 1906, a foreshock occurred with sufficient force to be felt widely throughout the San Francisco Bay area.  The great earthquake broke loose some 20 to 25 seconds later, with an epicenter in the Pacific Ocean just 2 miles west of San Francisco.  Within 30 seconds of the start of the main rupture, very strong shaking had swept throughout the entire San Francisco Bay Area, and lasted some 45 to 60 seconds.  The earthquake was felt from southern Oregon to south of Los Angeles and inland as far as central Nevada, an area of approximately 200,000 square miles.  The 1906 earthquake ruptured the northernmost 296 miles of the San Andreas Fault between San Juan Bautista and Cape Mendocino.  Seismologists have estimated the average speed of the 1906 rupture along the San Andreas Fault to the north of the epicenter to be 8,300 mi/hour, and 6,300 mi/hour to the south.  http://earthquake.usgs.gov/regional/nca/virtualtour/earthquake.php  See images at http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-110th-anniversary-san-francisco-earthquake-pictures-20160413-htmlstory.html and read eyewitness accounts at http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/sfeq.htm

mot•ley  adjective, noun  1.  exhibiting great diversity of elements; heterogeneous.  2.  being of different colors combined; parti-colored.  3. wearing a parti-colored garment:  a motley fool. noun  4.  a combination of different colors.  

5.  the parti-colored garment of a jester.  6. a heterogeneous assemblage.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/motley

Since at least the 14th century, 'motley' (with a variety of spellings) has been the name of a type of cloth made from two or more colours and, in later years, the name of clothing made from such cloth.  There are several citings of motley in the late 14th century, including this from the Prologue of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales:  "A marchant was there ... In motlee, and hye on hors he sat."  From the 17th century onward, any miscellaneous ragbag of undisciplined ne'er-do-wells might find themselves described as a 'motley crowd', 'motley herd', 'motley assembly' etc. Added to this list, but with no especial significance came 'motley crew'.  It may be that this was in reference to the crews of sailing ships, with the 'motley' being used to distinguish between an assortment of types, as distinct from a crew of disciplined and uniformed sailors.  With the associations of a 'motley crew' with indiscipline and garish costume, what better name for a heavy rock band?  Mötley Crüe formed in 1981 and adopted the name.  In the fashion of the time, like contemporaries Siouxsie & the Banshees and Enuff Z'nuff, they indulged in a deliberate misspelling.  http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/motley-crew.html

See Jester with a Lute (also called Buffoon with a Lute) by Franz Hals wearing a motley costume at http://www.louvre.fr/en/oeuvre-notices/buffoon-lute

On Front Street, Digging Through Time by Harry Kyriakodis  Excerpted from Philadelphia’s Lost Waterfront (The History Press, 2011)   Front Street’s initial name was “Delaware Front Street” and it was called that well into the 1800s.  (A Schuylkill Front Street began at the eastern edge of that river; it wound up as Twenty-second Street.)  Front Street takes the place of what could or should be “First Street” in Philadelphia, just as Broad Street takes the place of “Fourteenth Street.”  Laid out atop the Delaware River’s western embankment, Front Street hugged the river north and south of Philadelphia and became the town’s principal thoroughfare during and after the colonial period.  Delaware Front Street was first a residential street, with commanding houses owned by the wealthiest early settlers facing the river from its western side.  This pattern gave way almost immediately to a crowded labyrinth of boardinghouses, workshops, and warehouses. “Front street was the former great street for all kinds of goods by wholesale,” John Fanning Watson wrote in his Annals of Philadelphia and Pennsylvania.    All this activity stemmed from Front Street being part of the King’s Highway, a road that followed an old Indian trail along the Delaware River’s west bank from New Castle, Delaware, to the falls of the Delaware at Trenton, New Jersey.  The Provincial Council of Pennsylvania ordered construction of Front Street, the first major highway in Pennsylvania, in 1686.  The King’s Highway reached New York City via central New Jersey by 1756, thus creating the key colonial link between Philadelphia and New York.  It later became the first direct stagecoach route between the two cities, reducing travel time between them to three days.  The King’s Highway would eventually extend north and south along the East Coast through several states.  It still exists as US Route 13, closely following its original configuration and paralleling Interstate 95.  http://hiddencityphila.org/2012/10/on-front-street-digging-through-time/  Harry Kyriakodis, author of Philadelphia's Lost Waterfront (2011), Northern Liberties:  The Story of a Philadelphia River Ward (2012), and The Benjamin Franklin Parkway (2014), regularly gives walking tours and presentations on unique yet unappreciated parts of the city.  A founding/certified member of the Association of Philadelphia Tour Guides, he is a graduate of La Salle University and Temple University School of Law, and was once an officer in the U.S. Army Field Artillery.  He has collected what is likely the largest private collection of books about the City of Brotherly Love: over 2700 titles new and old.

Hidden Treasure in Old City Philadelphia by Eddie Lau   In cities like Boston, New York, and Baltimore, it is not difficult to find examples of eighteenth century rowhouses in the older residential sections.  But, only one block in Philadelphia can claim to be the “oldest continuously inhabited street in America,” where generations of working-class Americans have lived for over 300 years.  The Alley, which runs with cobbled simplicity from Front and Second Street between Arch and Race, is only six feet wide and is well worn from curb to curb.  It started out as a simple cart path connecting the heart of this colonial city at Second and High (now Market) streets with the growing western Philadelphia County towns of Germantown, East Fall, and Manayunk.  With no contractor’s blueprints guiding them to a patterned uniformity, the alley grew as each colonist built his home according to his taste, and subject to his needs.  The fine colonial doorways, doors with brass knobs and knockers, and the odd, small-panned windows with shutters and turnbuckles—all these little elements of architecture reflected the British and Continental houses the settlers had left behind.  Read more and see pictures at http://pabook2.libraries.psu.edu/palitmap/Elfreth.html

" . . . regarding Obama’s pending Presidential Library coming to Jackson Park.  I myself was interested in this park and the Museum of Science and Industry after reading “Devil in the White City,” which details the true story of a serial killer during the time of the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition along with many interesting details on bringing the exposition to fruition.  It also details Frederick Law Olmstead’s challenges in turning the Jackson Park area from an undesirable sight into a beautiful park.  I highly recommend this book if you have not read it, along with any others by its author, Erik Larson."  Thank you, Muse reader!

July 28, 2016  Syria's secret library by Mike Thomson   When a place has been besieged for years and hunger stalks the streets, you might have thought people would have little interest in books.  But enthusiasts have stocked an underground library in Syria with volumes rescued from bombed buildings--and users dodge shells and bullets to reach it.  "We saw that it was vital to create a new library so that we could continue our education.  We put it in the basement to help stop it being destroyed by shells and bombs like so many other buildings here," says Anas Ahmad, a former civil engineering student who was one of the founders.  The siege of Darayya by government and pro-Assad forces began nearly four years ago.  Since then Anas and other volunteers, many of them also former students whose studies were brought to a halt by the war, have collected more than 14,000 books on just about every subject imaginable.  "I've read some books by French writers but I like Hamlet the best," says Abdulbaset Alahmar, another former student in his mid-20s.  "Shakespeare's style of writing is simply beautiful.  He describes every single detail so vividly that it's like I'm in a cinema watching a film in front of me.  To be honest I became so obsessed with Hamlet that I began reading it at work.  In the end I had to tell myself to stop!"  But, I ask him, in a besieged town that has only had access to two aid convoys in nearly four years, wouldn't it make more sense for the library enthusiasts to spend their time looking for food rather than books?  "I believe the brain is like a muscle.  And reading has definitely made mine stronger.  My enlightened brain has now fed my soul too," he replies.  "In a sense the library gave me back my life.  It's helped me to meet others more mature than me, people who I can discuss issues with and learn things from.  I would say that just like the body needs food, the soul needs books."  Read much more and see pictures at http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-36893303

Actress Gloria DeHaven, who starred in several hit MGM musicals and was a child star in Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times, died July 30, 2016 at the age of 91.  DeHaven made her screen debut in 1936 and later appeared alongside Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly.  Her film and TV career spanned seven decades.  http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-36939646

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1505  August 1, 2016  On this date in 1498, Christopher Columbus became the first European to visit what is now Venezuela.  On this date in 1818, Maria Mitchell, American astronomer and academic, was born.  On this date in 1819, Herman Melville, American novelist, short story writer, and poet, was born.