5 healthy food gifts for the holidays Tea
blends, herbs and spices, soup jars, oil and vinegar sets, and kitchen tools
are suggested by Christey Brissette at https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/wellness/5-healthy-food-gifts-for-the-holidays/2017/11/27/cba9edba-c8a8-11e7-8321-481fd63f174d_story.html?utm_term=.ba9079b61c06
Chicarina soup
by Valerie Bertinelli https://www.splendidtable.org/recipes/chickarina-soup?utm_campaign=TST_WNK_20171115&utm_medium=email&utm_source=sfmc_Newsletter&utm_content=Weeknight%20Kitchen:%20Chickarina%20Soup
I have just finished
reading Collected Stories of Franz Kafka. I borrowed it from my local library--and if
your library doesn't own it--you can probably have them borrow it on
interlibraryloan. A few of the more
memorable stories are: The Metamorphosis
(Gregor woke to find himself transformed into a gigantic insect); A Report to
the Academy (an ape addresses a distinguished audience recounting how he
dragged himself out of his simian condition); Blumfeld, an Elderly Bachelor
(two small celluliod balls jump up and down side by side and pursue Blumfeld; A
Crossbreed [A Sport] (there is a curious animal, half kitten, half lamb); and
The Problem of Our Laws (it is an extremely painful thing to be ruled by laws
that one does not know). See Kafka the
Comedian by Paul Bentley at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/3638000/Kafka-the-comedian.html
and Metamorphosing Franz Kafka through comics, graphic novels and music by
David Zane Mairowitz at http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/radiotonic/metamorphosing-kafka/5620316
One of five children, David Hockney was born in 1937 into a
working-class family in Yorkshire, northern England, in the industrial city of
Bradford. His father, a conscientious
objector during the Second World War, "had a kind heart" remembers
Hockney. While adopting his father's
anti-war stance, Hockney remained resistant to ideologies and hierarchies. At 16, Hockney was admitted to the acclaimed
Bradford School of Art, where he studied traditional painting and life drawing
alongside Norman Stevens, David Oxtoby, and John Loker. Unlike most of his peers Hockney was working
class, and he worked tirelessly, especially in his life drawing classes,
recalling: "I was there from nine
in the morning till nine at night."
In 1957 he was called up for National Service, but as a conscientious
objector he served out his time as a hospital orderly. In 1959, Hockney went on to study at the
Royal College of Art in London and was taught by several well-known artists,
including Roger de Grey and Ceri Richards. In 2011 a poll of British art
students rated Hockney as the most influential artist of all time. His work has played a crucial role in
reviving the practice of figurative painting. Chuck
Close, Cecily Brown, and film
director Martin Scorsese (especially the aesthetics of Taxi Driver (1976))
are among the artists inspired by Hockney.
Hockney, still prolific, continues to reinvent himself, embracing contemporary
technology. His most recent series of
works was produced on an iPad. http://www.theartstory.org/artist-hockney-david.htm
July 9,
2017 To celebrate the 80th birthday of
British artist David Hockney, we’ve rounded up our favorite works created by the bespectacled
legend. Institutions worldwide are
fêting the artist, who has had a banner year:
The retrospective put on by the Tate
Britain was the most popular
ever at that museum. The show is now on
view at the Centre
Pompidou in Paris, and will finish
its run next year at New York’s Metropolitan
Museum of Art. In Hockney’s hometown of
Bradford, a new gallery was
dedicated to the artist on July
7. Caroline
Goldstein See 14 works of
David Hockney at https://news.artnet.com/art-world/david-hockney-80th-birthday-1017002
Hundreds of years ago people believed
that “abracadabra” was a magical spell. The exact origin of
the word is up for debate, but perhaps one of the oldest records we have of
“Abracadabra” being used is a snippet from a Roman sage named Serenus
Sammonicus in the 2nd century AD from his Liber Medicinalis.
It’s unlikely that Sammonicus came
up with the word on his own and it is thought to have been in use before
then. There are a couple of theories as
to where it might have ultimately come from.
First, it could have been derived from the equally magical word
“abraxas” whose letters, in Greek numerology, add up to 365—the number of days
in the year. It could be that early
sages thought this was a powerful word and somehow created “abracadabra” out of
it and turned it into a “cure.”
Alternatively, the word might be derived from the Hebrew words for
“father, son, and holy spirit”: “ab,
ben, and ruach hakodesh” respectively.
Perhaps more intuitively, it could be derived from and Aramaic phrase
“avra kadavra.” Emily Upton http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2013/11/origin-word-abracadabra/
In the summer of 2011, during the quieter days that followed hurricane
Irene, the writer Phyllis Rose headed to the New York
Society Library on the Upper East Side of the city in search of
a 1936 novel by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall. Hurricane had
been recommended by a friend who knew of her enthusiasm for the pair's earlier
adventure story, Mutiny on the Bounty, and with the newspapers
still carrying reports of the destruction caused by Irene, what better time to
read it? Once it was in her hand, however, her enthusiasm for it began to
trickle away. She had had enough of storms. The novel was duly returned to its space on
the shelf. The question was: what should she read instead? It goes without saying that she was spoilt
for choice. The New York Society
Library, founded in 1754 by a group of young men who believed its existence
would help the city prosper, is a gloriously well-stocked institution (its
reference room is open to all, but only members may take books home). George Washington borrowed books from it and
so, later, did Truman Capote and Willa Cather.
Its current home was built in 1917, with the result that it comes with
more than a hint of gilded-age splendour.
Rose considers this place of marble, murals and mahogany to be the
cheapest luxury in New York. Beside her
in the stacks was a shelf of other books by Nordhoff and Hall, rather a long
shelf, in fact, and looking around, she noticed lots of similarly extensive
runs of volumes by just one author. She
began to formulate a plan. What if she
was to pick, at random, a fiction shelf and read her way through its
contents? As she pondered this idea, she
felt a tug of excitement. In their
obscurity, these books might be dull, bad or even unreadable; they might, in
fact, be a total waste of her time. But
she also felt certain that, should she embark on such a scheme, she would find
herself on the readerly equivalent of virgin snow, for who else would have read
this precise sequence of novels? This
thought was intriguing. Such an
adventure might even be worth writing about.
(Rose, the author of the brilliant Parallel Lives, which
tells the story of five Victorian literary marriages, had not published a book
for more than a decade.) Choosing a
shelf, though, was tricky. How to avoid
ending up with a row of books by a single, prolific author? Her shelf, she decided, would have to
represent several writers, only one of whom could have more than five books to
his or her name (and she would commit herself to reading just three). It would need to contain a mixture of
contemporary and older works and one book had to be a classic she had always
wanted to read but had never got round to. Rachel Cooke Read extensive
article at https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/aug/16/phyllis-rose-the-shelf-library-book
The Illustrated Dust Jacket, 1920-1970 is the first study of book jacket design through
the prism of illustration. As the
'beautiful book' comes back into vogue, Martin Salisbury delves into the
history of the illustrated book jacket, tracing its development across the 20th
century through some of the most iconic, as well as many too long forgotten,
designs of the era. From the 1920s, as
the potential for the book's protective wrapping to be used for promotion and
enticement became clear, artists and illustrators on both side of the Atlantic
rose to the challenges posed by format and subject matter and applied their
talents to this particular art form. Martin
Salisbury has selected over 50 artists and illustrators who were active in the
period 1920-1970 in the UK and USA, including John Piper, Edward Bawden, John
Minton, Ben Shahn, Edward Arddizonne, Milton Glaser and Mervyn Peake, as well
as others such as Tove Jansson and Celestino Piatti, and discusses their life
and work. Katy Cowan See graphics
at https://www.creativeboom.com/resources/the-illustrated-dust-jacket-celebrates-the-history-of-the-book-jacket-design/
http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com Issue 1805
November 29, 2017 On this date in
1877, Thomas
Edison demonstrated his phonograph for
the first time. On this date in 1989, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s premiered a
“Utah Symphony” by the American composer John Duffy at Avery Fisher Hall in New
York City. Thought for Today If I
can do no more, let my name stand among those who are willing to bear ridicule
and reproach for the truth's sake, and so earn some right to rejoice when the
victory is won. - Louisa May Alcott, writer and reformist (29 Nov 1832-1888)
