THREE GIGANTIC STATUES  June 13, 2011  President Alan Garcia of Peru said it was his dream to raise a statue on the Pacific coast similar to the one atop Rio de Janeiro in Brazil.  The 121-foot-tall “Christ of the Pacific” statue was unveiled on a hilltop overlooking the city of Lima, Peru on June 29, the Solemnity of Sts. Peter and Paul.   http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/massive-christ-of-the-pacific-statue-to-be-unveiled-in-peru/

  January 5, 2016  A gargantuan gold-painted statue of Communist China's founding father Mao Zedong has been erected in open countryside at a cost of 3 million yuan ($460,000), reports said.  The statue towers some 37 metres (121 feet) over empty fields in the central province of Henan and shows the man who ruled China with an iron grip for nearly three decades seated in thoughtful repose, his hands crossed. https://www.pri.org/stories/2016-01-05/capitalists-china-erected-120-foot-gold-statue-communist-chairman-mao

The Statue of Ahimsa is located at Mangi-Tungi, near Nashik in the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is the tallest Jain statue in the World. The statue depicts the first Jain Tirthankara, Rishabhanatha.  The statue is "108 feet tall(121 feet including pedestal)".  The statue has been carved out of the Mangi-Tungi hills, which are considered to be sacred by the Jains.  This statue holds the Guinness world record for the tallest Jain Idol.  The construction of the statue started in 2002 under guidance of Chief Secretary Dr. Pannalalji Papdiwal and was completed on 24 January 2016.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statue_of_Ahimsa

QUOTES from What You Break, Gus Murphy series #2, a novel by Reed Farrel Coleman  " . . . when presented with a preponderance of hard evidence that refuted a popular myth, people will almost always choose to continue believing the myth."  "There's a kind of perverse comfort in group blame."  "For a Long Islander, going to the mall was like going to Mass." 

Feb. 17, 2002  A new indoor shopping mall anywhere was still a big deal in 1969, and the Smith Haven Mall was one of the nation's biggest when it opened on a 102-acre former potato patch in this eastern Long Island village.  The developer was the N. K. Winston Corporation.  And an executive there, Leonard Holzer, happened to be married to one Jane Holzer--better known, then and forevermore, as Baby Jane Holzer, the socialite-acolyte of Andy Warhol, lion-maned star of his underground films, fixture at his Factory.  Ms. Holzer, whom Tom Wolfe had immortalized as the ''Girl of the Year'' in 1964, prevailed upon her husband to set aside $350,000 in the mall's budget to commission sculptures and paintings by eight artists, including Larry Rivers, Jim Dine and Robert Grosvenor.  The centerpiece was to be a standing mobile by Alexander Calder.  ''My grandfather wanted to make a fountain,'' said Alexander S. C. Rower, director of the Calder Foundation and grandson of the artist, who died in 1976.  ''But she had the idea of a classical, expected Calder mobile.  She didn't want a fountain, she wanted a Calder.  She became very frustrated.''  Baby Jane got her way. Ms. Holzer, on a visit to Calder's studio in France, pointed to a small piece and asked that it be the model for a much larger one.  Calder obliged.  And the resulting work--a tall, curved, pointed tripod base, at the tip of which balances an arm, from one end of which dangle triangles and disks--was installed in a pool in the central crossing of the X-shaped, one-story mall.  The brightly painted sheet-metal sculpture on three spindly legs soared nearly 26 feet toward the skylight.  Calder called it ''Janey Waney.''  Like one of Warhol's happenings, however, the mall-as-museum concept didn't last.  It is unclear where or when the rest of Ms. Holzer's commissions went, but the Calder was removed from the central pool in 1972, according to Newsday, its moving parts packed away and soon lost.  For years afterward, the base of the Calder sat outside in the parking lot, badly bent, its paint peeling.  Like the mall itself, the Calder deteriorated until 1986, when a new owner finally got around to renovating the property.  Some detective work turned up the plans for the sculpture.  Then, at a black-tie gala marking the mall's face-lift, a rebuilt Janey Waney was unveiled at the center of a spanking new food court.  The sculpture was auctioned off in 2002 by Sotheby's for $1,765,750.  David M. Halbfinger  http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/17/nyregion/our-towns-a-genuine-calder-was-here-at-the-mall-psst-what-s-a-calder.html  

Nov. 20, 2104  After stays at two venues in the Netherlands, Alexander Calder’s 1969 monumental outdoor sculpture Janey Waney was reinstalled in Gramercy Park.  The 26-foot-tall standing mobile was previously on view at the Maastricht-based European Fine Arts Fair in March.  In June, it travelled to the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, where it was exhibited as part of a show of monumental Calder sculptures.  http://www.artnews.com/2014/11/20/calder-sculpture-returns-to-gramercy-park/

In Toledo, Ohio, Ascar, a colorful 20-foot Calder stabile stood inside the Franklin Park Mall for many years.  It was sold by Pace Auctioneers in 1995.  Find a list of Alexander Calder public works at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Alexander_Calder_public_works

The St Cuthbert Gospel, also known as the Stonyhurst Gospel or the St Cuthbert Gospel of St John, is an early 8th-century pocket gospel book, written in Latin.  Its finely decorated leather binding is the earliest known Western bookbinding to survive, and both the 94 vellum folios and the binding are in outstanding condition for a book of this age.  With a page size of only 138 by 92 millimetres (5.4 in × 3.6 in), the St Cuthbert Gospel is one of the smallest surviving Anglo-Saxon manuscripts.  The essentially undecorated text is the Gospel of John in Latin, written in a script that has been regarded as a model of elegant simplicity.  The book takes its name from Saint Cuthbert of Lindisfarne, North East England, in whose tomb it was placed, probably a few years after his death in 687.  It was probably a gift from Monkwearmouth–Jarrow Abbey, where it was written, intended to be placed in St Cuthbert's coffin in the few decades after this was placed behind the altar at Lindisfarne in 698.  It presumably remained in the coffin through its long travels after 875, forced by Viking invasions, ending at Durham Cathedral.  The book was found inside the coffin and removed in 1104 when the burial was once again moved within the cathedral.  It was kept there with other relics, and important visitors were able to wear the book in a leather bag around their necks.  It is thought that after the Dissolution of the Monasteries in England by Henry VIII between 1536 and 1541, the book passed to collectors.  It was eventually given to Stonyhurst College, the Jesuit school in Lancashire.  From 1979 it was on long-term loan from the British province of the Jesuit order to the British Library, catalogued as Loan 74.  On 14 July 2011 the British Library launched a fundraising campaign to buy the book for £9 million, and on 17 April 2012 announced that the purchase had been completed and the book was now British Library Additional MS 89000.  The library plans to display the Gospel for equal amounts of time in London and Durham.  They describe the manuscript as "the earliest surviving intact European book and one of the world's most significant books".  The Cuthbert Gospel returned to Durham to feature in exhibitions in 2013 and 2014.  In 2017 it was "resting" off display, but it will be in British Library's Anglo-Saxon exhibition in autumn 2018. Read much more and see pictures at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Cuthbert_Gospel

quotidian  adjective or noun  daily, customary, ordinary  Find origin of quotidian and link to synonyms at http://www.dictionary.com/browse/quotidian

Authors! Authors! presents Ron Chernow  May 31, 2017, 7:00-8:30 p.m.  Stranahan Theater   Ron Chernow's best-selling books include The House of Morgan, winner of the National Book Award; Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award; Washington: A Life, which received the Pulitzer Prize for Biography; and Alexander Hamilton, nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award--which inspired and was adapted into the cultural phenomenon and award-winning Broadway musical Hamilton.  Chernow has served as president of PEN American Center, has received six honorary doctoral degrees, and was awarded the 2015 National Humanities Medal.  Tickets are $10 for adults/$8 for students, and are available at any Toledo-Lucas County Public Library location or online by visiting the Library's website:  https://www.eventbrite.com/e/authors-authors-ron-chernow-tickets-27833294132

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1711  May 19, 2017  On this date in 1795, Johns Hopkins, American businessman and philanthropist, was born.  On this date in 1861, Nellie Melba, Australian soprano and actress, was born.