What kinds of refrigerants can be used in my home air conditioner?  It depends on the age of your unit.  If you have a home air conditioner that was manufactured before January 1, 2010, it probably uses a refrigerant called hydrochlorofluorocarbon (HCFC)-22 (also known as R-22).  Because HCFC-22 depletes the Earth’s protective ozone layer, EPA regulations are gradually reducing the production and use of this refrigerant.  In fact, manufacturers can no longer make new air conditioners that use HCFC-22.  However, HCFC-22 can still be used to service existing air conditioners.  How can I find out what kind of refrigerant my home air conditioner contains?  The refrigerant used in your home air conditioner is typically listed on the unit’s nameplate.   For central air conditioners, the nameplate is usually on the outdoor condenser.  If there is no nameplate, check your owner's manual or contact the person or company that sold or services your air conditioner.  If you know the manufacturer and model number, you could also call the manufacturer or check its website.  As of January 1, 2010, EPA has prohibited the manufacture and installation of new HCFC-22 appliances. So, you can no longer purchase a central air-conditioning unit that uses HCFC-22.  However, you can continue to service your existing HCFC-22 system.  You can also purchase a “self-contained” system (typically, a window unit) if is second-hand and/or was produced prior to 2010.  Keep in mind that supplies of HCFC-22 are expected to become more limited in the years ahead as this refrigerant is phased out of production.  Are refrigerants available for home air conditioners that do not harm the ozone layer?  Yes, a number of ozone-friendly refrigerants are available and widely used today.  The most common alternative is R-410A, which is known by trade names such as GENETRON AZ-20^®, SUVA 410A^®, Forane^® 410A, and Puron^®.  While R-410A is not ozone-depleting, it does contribute to climate change and should be handled appropriately.  EPA maintains a full list of acceptable substitutes for household and light commercial air-conditioning.

Will I have to stop using HCFC-22 in my home air conditioner?  No.  You will not have to stop using HCFC-22, and you will not have to replace existing equipment just to switch to a new refrigerant.  The switch to ozone-friendly refrigerants is occurring gradually to allow consumers time to replace air conditioners on a normal schedule.  But, supplies of HCFC-22 will be more limited and more expensive in the years ahead as the refrigerant is phased out of production.  Starting in 2020, new HCFC-22 can no longer be produced, so consumers will need to rely on reclaimed and previously-produced quantities to service any home air-conditioning systems still operating after that date.  https://www.epa.gov/ods-phaseout/homeowners-and-consumers-frequently-asked-questions



July 23, 2019  The release of the new version of The Lion King is reigniting a debate over whether the classic Disney story was copied from a Japanese manga series created decades earlier.  In a trending Twitter moment, side-by-side comparisons of The Lion King and Kimba the White Lion, a Japanese manga from the 1960s created by Osamu Tezuka, played out with startling similarities.  Tezuka, who also created the iconic series Astro Boy, passed away in 1989 and was regarded one of Japan’s most beloved and well-known artists.  Kimba the White Lion was based off of Tezuka’s earlier 1950 manga, Jungle Emperor.  It was first played for U.S. audiences in 1966, and continued to be shown through to the 80’s according to the Hollywood Reporter.  The basic stories of both The Lion King and Kimba the White Lion share similar tenets.  Both are set as ‘coming-of-age’ parables centered around young lion cubs, both of whom lose their father.  While Kimba the White Lion focuses on man’s encroachment on nature, and therefore includes human characters, The Lion King is an all-animal cast and is set around an internal power struggle within the ruling pride of lions.  However, fans of Kimba the White Lion were quick to point out the similarities in characters, concept art and scenes between the two films, going as far to allege that Disney lifted their designs directly from Tezuka’s work, which predates The Lion King by decades.  A lot of the anger directed at Disney online has to do with their insistence that The Lion King was their studio’s first “fully original” story, from inception to its 1994 release.  It’s not the first time that The Lion King has been criticized for “stealing.”  Madhavi Sunder, a law professor at Georgetown Law and an intellectual property specialist, wrote about The Lion King controversy in her 2012 book ‘From Goods to a Good Life:  Intellectual Property and Global Justice.’  Sunder touches on the lawsuit brought forward by the family of Solomon Linda, the South African musician who composed the hit ‘The Lion Sleeps Tonight,’ and “received virtually nothing” until a journalist from Rolling Stone uncovered the truth in 2000 and exposed “the sordid history of exploitation of Lindas’s copyright.”  She goes on to describe the so-called ‘Kimba versus Simba’ debate, calling the similarities “abundant,” with one of her major points being a comparison of the characters.  “Nearly every animal character in Kimba the White Lion has an analogue in the Lion King,” Sunder writes.  “In both versions a baboon serves as an old sage, the henchmen for the evil lion are hyenas, and the hero lion’s adviser is a parrot.”  Christy Somos  https://www.ctvnews.ca/entertainment/did-disney-steal-the-lion-king-from-something-written-decades-earlier-1.4520555



Farewell Richard Macksey, legendary polymath and “the jewel in the Hopkins crown” (1931-2019) by Cynthia Haven  Dick Macksey died July 22, 2019, three days shy of his 88th birthday.  I have written about him in several blogposts, notably:  “Western Civilization Cannot Do Without Him” here, “An Autographed Copy of Canterbury Tales?  I Believe Him” here, and “He Lived on Three Hours of Sleep and Pipe Smoke” here.  He is at the heart of my Evolution of Desire chapter about the renowned 1966 Baltimore conference that brought Jacques Derrida, Jacques Lacan, and French thought to America--it’s included in its entirety in Quarterly Conversation here.  His legacy will live on in his unimaginably comprehensive personal library of 70,000 volumes.  Among the many treasures:  a signed copy of Proust‘s Swann’s Way, first editions of Faulkner, Hemingway, Wharton.  Dick Macksey’s library was featured in Robaroundbooks’s “Bookshelf of the Week” here.  In the combox, one former student, Bill Benzon, chimed in with a memory of his own:  “I was a student of Macksey’s back in the 1960s and was in that library shortly after it was constructed (out of a garage).  It wasn’t so cluttered then, but the shelves were full.  Macksey was a film buff and would have people over to his place regularly to discuss films.  He lived a couple blocks away from campus so it was easy to see a film on campus and then go over to Macksey’s for the discussion.”  
http://bookhaven.stanford.edu/2019/07/farewell-richard-macksey-legendary-polymath-and-the-jewel-in-the-hopkins-crown-1931-2019/



5 DELICIOUS NOVELS CENTERED AROUND FOOD TO DEVOUR IMMEDIATELY  OLIVIA PÁEZ  https://bookriot.com/2019/07/27/novels-centered-around-food/



THE BEST BOOKS YOU’VE NEVER HEARD OF, JULY 2019 DANIKA ELLIS 

https://bookriot.com/2019/07/26/the-best-books-youve-never-heard-of-july-2019/



Benjamin Joseph Manaly Novak (born July 31, 1979) is an American actor, writer, comedian, producer and director.  Novak was one of the writers and executive producers of The Office (2005–2013), in which he also played Ryan Howard.  Novak was born in Newton, Massachusetts.  His parents are Linda (née Manaly) and author William Novak.  His father co-edited The Big Book of Jewish Humor, and has ghostwritten memoirs for Nancy Reagan, Lee Iacocca, Magic Johnson, and others; his parents also established a Jewish matchmaking service.  Novak has two younger brothers, Jesse, a composer, and Lev.  He attended Solomon Schechter Day School of Greater Boston for elementary school and middle school.  He attended Newton South High School with future The Office costar John Krasinski, and they graduated in 1997.  Novak graduated from Harvard University in 2001, where he was a member of the Harvard Lampoon and the Hasty Pudding Club.  He majored in English and Spanish literature, and wrote his honors thesis on the films of Shakespeare's Hamlet.  Aside from the Lampoon, he occasionally staged and performed in a variety show called The B.J. Show with fellow Harvard student B. J. Averell.   

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B._J._Novak



http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2131  July 31, 2019 

James Graham Ballard (1930–2009) was an English novelist, short story writer, and essayist who first became associated with the New Wave of science fiction for his post-apocalyptic novels such as The Wind from Nowhere (1961) and The Drowned World (1962).  In the late 1960s, he produced a variety of experimental short stories (or "condensed novels"), such as those collected in the controversial The Atrocity Exhibition (1970).  In the mid 1970s, Ballard published several novels, among them the highly controversial Crash (1973), a story about symphorophilia and car crash fetishism, and High-Rise (1975), a depiction of a luxury apartment building's descent into violent chaos.  While much of Ballard's fiction would prove thematically and stylistically provocative, he became best known for his relatively conventional war novel, Empire of the Sun (1984), a semi-autobiographical account of a young British boy's experiences in Shanghai during Japanese occupation.  Described by The Guardian as "the best British novel about the Second World War", the story was adapted into a 1987 film by Steven Spielberg starring Christian Bale.  In the following decades until his death in 2009, Ballard's work shifted toward the form of the traditional crime novel.  Several of his earlier works have been adapted into films, including David Cronenberg's controversial 1996 adaptation of Crash and Ben Wheatley's 2015 adaptation of High-Rise.  The literary distinctiveness of Ballard's fiction has given rise to the adjective "Ballardian", defined by the Collins English Dictionary as "resembling or suggestive of the conditions described in J. G. Ballard's novels and stories, especially dystopian modernity, bleak man-made landscapes and the psychological effects of technological, social or environmental developments".  Ballard has had a notable influence on popular music, where his work has been used as a basis for lyrical imagery, particularly amongst British post-punk and industrial groups.  Examples include albums such as Metamatic by John Foxx, various songs by Joy Division (most famously "Atrocity Exhibition" from Closer), "High Rise" by Hawkwind, "Miss the Girl" by The Creatures (based on Crash), "Down in the Park" by Gary Numan, "Chrome Injury" by The Church, "Drowned World" by Madonna, "Warm Leatherette" by The Normal and Atrocity Exhibition by Danny Brown.  Songwriters Trevor Horn and Bruce Woolley credit Ballard's story "The Sound-Sweep" with inspiring The Buggles' hit "Video Killed the Radio Star", and the Buggles' second album included a song entitled "Vermillion Sands."  The 1978 post-punk band Comsat Angels took their name from one of Ballard's short stories.  An early instrumental track by British electronic music group The Human League "4JG" bears Ballard's initials as a homage to the author (intended as a response to "2HB" by Roxy Music).  The Manic Street Preachers include a sample from an interview with Ballard in their song "Mausoleum".  Klaxons named their debut album Myths of the Near Future after one of Ballard's short story collections.  The Sound of Animals Fighting took the name of the song "The Heraldic Beak of the Manufacturer's Medallion" from Crash.  The song "Terminal Beach" by the American band Yacht is a tribute to his short story collection that goes by the same name.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._G._Ballard



I ordered The Complete Stories of J.G. Ballard from my public library and received the American edition with two new stories at the end.  See list of titles at https://library.villanova.edu/Find/Record/1230016/TOC  My favorites tales are:  Prima Belladonna, Billennium, The Singing Statues, Deep End, The Subliminal Man, The Greatest Television Show on Earth, The Smile, and The Dying Fall.



farrago  noun  Borrowed from Latin farrāgō (“mixed fodder; mixture, hodgepodge”), from far (“spelt (a kind of wheat), coarse meal, grits”) (English farro).  A collection containing a confused variety of miscellaneous things. quotations ▼ Synonyms:  hodgepodge, hotchpotch, melange, mingle-mangle, mishmash, oddments, odds and ends, omnium-gatherum, ragbag  https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/farrago



Politics and the English Language by George Orwell  One can often be in doubt about the effect of a word or a phrase, and one needs rules that one can rely on when instinct fails.  I think the following rules will cover most cases:  (i) Never use a metaphor, simile or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.  (ii) Never use a long word where a short one will do.  (iii) If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.  (iv) Never use the passive where you can use the active.  (v) Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.  (vi) Break any of these rules sooner than say anything barbarous.  Read the 13-page document at http://public-library.uk/ebooks/72/30.pdf



The noun davit is derived from Middle English and Old French daviot, which is a diminutive of David, thus it means:  little David; maybe because those small cranes can handle a much bigger lifeboat.  (nautical)  A spar formerly used on board of ships, as a crane to hoist the flukes of the anchor to the top of the bow, without injuring the sides of the ship.  (nautical, construction)  A crane, often working in pairs and usually made of steel, used to lower things over an edge of a long drop off, such as lowering a maintenance trapeze down a building or launching a lifeboat over the side of a ship.  https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/davit



Officials said the trees must go—and the fight was on.  Grandmothers and teenagers of Lambeth, Ontario, mounted guard, boys swarmed in the branches and the author, a professor at the University of Western Ontario, was jailed.  The bizarre battle failed—but officialdom lost the war.  EARLE BEATTIE:  I SUPPOSE THAT the fate of a couple of dozen maples on Talbot Road North in the Ontario village of Lambeth is less than apocalyptic.  But not to me it isn’t.  After all, I went to jail trying to save those trees (only a few hours, but it could have been fourteen years).  And although in the end we didn't save the trees, we did accumulate, the hard way, some information that could help other sane people who are trying to stem the insane epidemic of tree-cutting, public and private, now being perpetrated in the name of “progress.''  The whole thing started in the spring of 1964 when the Lambeth village clerk came around to tell us that Talbot Road North was to become a four-block, $42,000 superhighway.  Actually it was a highway-designer’s nightmare:  a sixty-six-foot road allowance for two blocks along our semi-urban street, which bloated out to an eighty-six-foot right-of-way for another two blocks of rural residence to the village limits.  There it ended abruptly opposite a cornfield in open farmland country and narrowed back to the twenty-two-foot width of an old asphalt road. The clerk explained that the trees in front of our house, a handsome row of fifty-year-old maples, would have to be cut down to make way for the widening.  Several of the home-owners protested and I telephoned the county engineer, Boyd Arnold, and lodged our objections.  He replied that we should be happy to get the wider road.  We had lost the “battle of the maples” and it seemed the war was over.  But a curious and ironic circumstance was to snatch partial victory from defeat.  One of the residents, Homer Hart, who had been absent all summer, returned in time to uncover an old survey marker on his lawn, which dated back to 1916.  It showed that the wooden stakes the county engineer had driven along our frontage to mark the extent of the street widening were actually encroaching on our properties by four feet.  All of us began digging operations immediately and uncovered half a dozen similar markers which lined up with Hart's, some dating back to 1913.  Reinforced by this discovery, we took up new positions on the monument line and defied the authorities to cross it.  Incredibly enough, the county had not bothered to secure a proper survey for the road-widening, but had casually measured out thirty feet from the centre of the old asphalt road, plunked their stakes down on our property—and cut the trees down.  It turned out that the road had not been built in the centre of the road allowance, and thus it was not a valid measuring point.  Read the rest of the story at http://archive.macleans.ca/article/1965/1/2/the-villagers-who-went-to-war-for-their-trees  Link to The Lambeth Children O song by Malvina Reynolds at https://www.riseupandsing.org/songs/lambeth-children



http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2130  July 29, 2019

A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg  Neil Armstrong stepped onto the lunar surface on July 21, 1969.  We’ll see words that have their origin in the moon.

superlunary  (soo-puhr-LOON-uh-ree)  adjective  1.  Situated beyond the moon.  2.  Celestial; exalted.  From Latin superlunaris, from super- (above) + luna (moon).  Earliest documented use:  1614.  The opposite is sublunary.

meniscus  (mi-NIS-kuhs)  noun  1.  The curved surface of a column of liquid.  2.  Something having a crescent-shape.  3.  A lens that is concave on one side and convex on the other.  4.  A thin cartilage disk between bones in a joint, such as in a knee or wrist.  From Latin, from Greek meniskos (crescent), diminutive of mene (moon).  Earliest documented use:  1686.

moonstruck  (MOON-struhk)  adjective  1.In a dreamy state.  2.  Romantically dazed.  3.  From the belief that a person behaving erratically was under the influence of the moon.  From moon + struck, past participle of strike, from Old English strican.  Earliest documented use:  1674.

lunule  (LOON-yool)  noun  1.  The crescent-shaped whitish area at the base of the fingernail.  2.  Any crescent-shaped mark, object, etc.  From French lunule, From Latin lunula, diminutive of luna (moon).  Earliest documented use:  1737.  Also known as lunula.

Feedback to A.Word.A.Day

From:  Bob Creutz  Chinese mooncakes are a delicacy.  Common at one of the most important Chinese festivals (Autumn Festival).  Often given as gifts.  Mooncake from the television series Final Space is one of the most powerful forces in the universe.  I also think it is enjoyable to simply say the word mooncake.  Mooncake.

From:  Scott A Long  Just a heads up we landed on the moon on July 20th not the 21st.  I know this because it is my birthday and I’m named after Neil.  Hmm . . .  so, the Washington Post got it wrong then?  I have the original article from the Post framed saying Neil stepped on the moon at 10:58 pm on the 20th.  Well, sometimes two people can differ and both can be right.  The earthly borders and time zones don’t mean much in outer space.  When we rise above those boundaries, we use Coordinated Universal Time (UTC).  UTC is not really a time zone, but a time standard.  It’s five hours ahead of New York, and for practical purposes, it’s synonymous with GMT.  So, in UTC, we landed on the moon on July 20 and stepped out onto the lunar surface on July 21.
Happy Birthday! - Anu Garg

From:  Norman Holler  As a soft addition this week’s matters of the moon theme, I’d like to offer this little story.  Starting in the late 80s, I’d often place myself in Big Sur, California, for months at a time, often between late Autumn and early Spring.  My lovely long-time companion would, because of work circumstances, remain in the Yukon.  We would do occasional phone calls, but as a full moon approached, we would set ourselves up for a special date possibility to “meet on the moon”.  In that, we would arrange a time to call, or at least hold each other in our thoughts, as we looked at the full moon together, knowing that the other was there in spirit, albeit 24 degrees of latitude apart.  We wouldn’t always get clear skies together, but when we did, we knew that we were having a sweet spot shared experience.  Ahh, ain’t love grand?  BTW, my mate and I did the start of our story with our “first walk” along the Yukon River, on a blue moon, May 1988.  No visible moon on that late light night in The North.  The idea is free to the world, and I invite you all to use it as you wish.  PS:  As a jazzy little moonbeam lift to your day, I offer Moondance by Van Morrison.

From:  Jered L. Hock   Great words.  And one must not forget lunette:  a crescent or half-moon shape (rounded at the top and straight horizontal at the bottom).  The term is typically applied to a window.  I know because I was involved in raising funds to relead and restore the stained glass of three lunettes in a 120-year-old building, at a pretty penny.
From:  Neal Sanders  The moon has also been taking “bullets” for us for the past couple of billion years.  90% of those craters you see would have been for Earth had the moon not stepped in the way.  And, the ones on the dark side of the moon--many of them of enormous size--have been formed since the moon achieved synchronous rotation a billion years ago.



Helen Sword, author of Stylish Academic Writing, says that nouns when formed with other parts of speech are called nominalizations.  Sounds fancy, but you see them all the time, particularly in this crazy Internet world where grammar and "dictionary status" are often played fast and loose.  Sword writes:  Take an adjective (implacable) or a verb (calibrate) or even another noun (crony) and add a suffix like ity, tion or ism.  You’ve created a new noun:   implacability, calibration, cronyism.  Sometimes we make them up—Brooklynification, Disneyfication, blogism—but many versions of these are well established and dictionary-approved.  They are hiding in our midst!  (Gentrification, corporatism, politicization, and so on).  As evidence of the horror and widespread destruction they wreak, and also because it's just catchier than nominalization, itself a nominalization, Sword refers to such words as zombie nouns.  Jen Doll   https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2012/07/zombie-words-are-coming-your-brains/325522/



BURIED VERBS AND ZOMBIE NOUNS  Concise writing avoids buried verbs and "zombie" nouns.  Buried verbs are those that are needlessly converted to wordy noun expressions.  This happens when verbs such as acquire, establish, and develop are made into nouns such as acquisition, establishment, and development.  Such nouns often end in -tion, -ment, and -ance.  See examples at https://www.cengage.com/bcomm/guffey/newsletter/archives/2012-08/12086.html



Jean-Jacques Megel-Nuber’s first drawing of his imagined bookstore on wheels had little in common with its final design.  “It looked like the cabins in a Christmas market," says Megel-Nuber, who is from the Alsace region of eastern France, known for its festive seasonal markets.  He had originally thought about opening a brick-and-mortar bookshop but decided he wanted one that could travel to French country towns whose bookstores have often closed.  He also wanted a space where he could live during his travels.  The tiny house also had to be constructed to support a stock of around 3,000 books, weighing some 1,300 pounds.  To counter the library's weight, most of the bookshelves line the wall opposite a large metal structure surrounding the entrance.  He takes books down from upper shelves while traveling to lower the vehicle's center of gravity.  Emma Jacobs  https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/tiny-traveling-french-bookstore  Thank you, Muse reader!



http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2129  July 26, 2019

A pedestrian crossing (primarily British English) or crosswalk (American English) is a place designated for pedestrians to cross a road, street or avenue.  Pelican crosswalks are designed to keep pedestrians together where they can be seen by motorists, and where they can cross most safely across the flow of vehicular traffic.  In Europe, the Zebra crossing is a common kind of crossing facility.  The wording pedestrian crossing is used in some international treaties on road traffic and road signs, such as the Vienna Convention on Road Traffic and the Vienna Convention on Road Signs and Signals.  Marked pedestrian crossings are often found at intersections, but may also be at other points on busy roads that would otherwise be too unsafe to cross without assistance due to vehicle numbers, speed or road widths.  They are also commonly installed where large numbers of pedestrians are attempting to cross (such as in shopping areas) or where vulnerable road users (such as school children) regularly cross.  Rules govern usage of the pedestrian crossings to ensure safety; for example, in some areas, the pedestrian must be more than halfway across the crosswalk before the driver proceeds.  Signalised pedestrian crossings clearly separate when each type of traffic (pedestrians or road vehicles) can use the crossing.  Unsignalised crossings generally assist pedestrians, and usually prioritise pedestrians, depending on the locality.  What appears to be just pedestrian crossings can also be created largely as a traffic calming technique, especially when combined with other features like pedestrian priority, refuge islands, or raised surfaces.  Pedestrian crossings already existed more than 2000 years ago, as can be seen in the ruins of Pompeii.  Blocks raised on the road allowed pedestrians to cross the street without having to step onto the road itself which doubled up as Pompeii's drainage and sewage disposal system.  The spaces between the blocks allowed horse-drawn carts to pass along the road.  See many graphics at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedestrian_crossing



The year 2010 was the year of the famous Polish composer and pianist Frederic Chopin.  Chopin dominated Warsaw.  Chopin concerts, Chopin posters, Chopin benches, Chopin gadgets, Chopin murals.  Everything Chopin.  There were contests for young designers to create the most interesting ‘chopinities’ and to make classical music cool again.  Two girls, Klaudia and Helena, studying design at the Warsaw Academy of arts, designed the Chopin crosswalk.  It was received with delight by Warsaw and Varsovians alike, and (after many battles with the Ministry of Infrastructure of course . . . ) two such cross-walks were painted on one of Warsaw’s main streets, Emilii Plater.

https://www.spottedbylocals.com/warsaw/piano-cross-walk/



The Graphics Interchange Format (GIF) is a bitmap image format that was developed by a team at the online services provider CompuServe led by American computer scientist Steve Wilhite on June 15, 1987.  It has since come into widespread usage on the World Wide Web due to its wide support and portability between many applications and operating systems.  The format supports up to 8 bits per pixel for each image, allowing a single image to reference its own palette of up to 256 different colors chosen from the 24-bit RGB color space.  It also supports animations and allows a separate palette of up to 256 colors for each frame.  These palette limitations make GIF less suitable for reproducing color photographs and other images with color gradients, but it is well-suited for simpler images such as graphics or logos with solid areas of color.  See graphics at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GIF



A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg  A bidet is, literally, a pony (from French).  An easel is, literally, an ass (from Dutch ezel).  Horses have served us for thousands of years, but today you’re more likely to own a four-wheeled 100-horsepower horseless carriage (also known as a car) than a four-legged 1-horsepower version (also known as a horse).  Given their long association with humans, horses continue to lurk around in our language.  If you are called Philip, you are, literally speaking, a horse lover, from Greek philo- (love) + hippos (horse).  A hippopotamus is, literally, a river horse, from Greek potamos (river).  A walrus is, literally, a horse whale, from Old Norse hrosshvalr (horse whale).  Hippocampus, a part of the brain, is named so because its cross-section looks like a sea-horse, from Greek kampos (sea monster).
hippodrome  (HIP-uh-drohm)  noun:  A stadium for horse races, chariot races, horse shows, etc.  verb tr:  To manipulate or prearrange the outcome of a contest.  From Greek hippos (horse) + dromos (running).  Ultimately from the Indo-European root ekwo- (horse), which also gave us equestrian and equitant.  Earliest documented use:  1549.



When in Rome, there’s one pasta dish that you MUST try.  It’s a bucket list food!  It’s heaven on a plate.  It’s creamy, unforgettable bliss!  It’s Cacio e Pepe!  Cacio e Pepe is seriously so . . . damn . . . good that it has been prepared for centuries in Rome, Italy, where it was originally created.  Cacio e Pepe is perfectly delicious in its incredible simplicity:  Pasta, Pecorino Romano cheese, and freshly cracked black pepper . . . period.  The name literally means ‘cheese and pepper”.  Just a few high-quality ingredients and technique . . . that’s what Cacio e Pepe is all about!  When preparing the dish, you use some of the hot water from the pasta pot that the pasta was cooking in.  The sauce ‘creams’ by the starch in the hot water working like a gentle glue that ultimately thickens up the recipe.  The cheese also melts from the hot pasta.  So it’s not really a sauce, but rather it’s a creamy, silky smooth cheese coating on the pasta noodles.  Add in the strong, earthy essence of freshly cracked black pepper, and a delicious contrast in flavors results.  If possible, crack some fresh black peppercorns in a pepper grinder or a coffee bean grinder.  You’ll love the fresh aroma added to the dish that’s almost intoxicating!  Link to other recipes from Roz, pasta chef and taster at https://www.italianbellavita.com/2018/06/cacio-e-pepe-a-classic-traditional-roman-pasta-dish/



In military speak, the fifth domain of warfare is cyberspace.  Unlike the others--land, air, sea and outer space--cyberspace is made by humans and can be altered by them, too.  NPR's Ari Shapiro talks with former U.S. counterterrorism coordinator Richard Clarke about his new book, The Fifth Domain, co-written with Robert Knake.  https://www.npr.org/2019/07/16/742386872/a-look-at-the-vulnerabilities-and-capabilities-of-american-cybersecurity



The original Mary Poppins (released in 1964, set in 1910 London) was entirely filmed at the Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, California.  Mary Poppins Returned was filmed at Shepperton Studios in Surrey, England.  The external shots were filmed around London in March 2017.  The film is a sequel to the original, but set a couple of decades later in the 1930s depression-era London.  Michael and Jane Banks are now grown up, with Michael struggling with a personal loss and is suffering some financial hardship.  Just in time Mary Poppins re-enters their lives to help them see the joy and wonder life still has to offer.  Number 17 Cherry Tree Lane has hardly changed at all and the Admiral still lives in the house next door and still likes to fire his cannon.  The films are based on P.L. Travers’ books and there were eight books in total means there is plenty of material to work from.  Some of the bike riding was filmed outside Buckingham Palace.  The external shots of Michael’s bank were the actual real Bank of England which is on Threadneedle Street in the centre of London.  The streets around the Bank of England were transformed back to the 1930s for filming and also Blossom Street and Fleur de Lis Street in East London were also used.  posted by C Clayton  https://britmovietours.com/mary-poppins/where-was-mary-poppins-filmed/



Justice John Paul Stevens was brought into the Great Hall of the Supreme Court building on July 22, 2019 to lie in repose, with his successor, Justice Elena Kagan, saying that his memory “will be a blessing in this court, which he served so well for so long.”  “It will be a blessing in the lives of all the people whom he personally touched,” Kagan added.  “And it will be a blessing in the wider world, which has been made far better for his efforts.”  He served on the court from his appointment by President Gerald Ford in 1975 to succeed Douglas until his retirement in 2010 under President Barack Obama.  Justice Stevens’ casket was taken up the steps of the Supreme Court building by a Supreme Court police force honor guard, accompanied by honorary pallbearers, as a retinue of some 80 former Stevens law clerks lined the steps.  Justice Stevens’ surviving daughters, Elizabeth Sesemann and Susan Mullen, led some 30 family members, with nearly every male member of the group, including grandchildren and young great-grandchildren, wearing bow ties in honor of the justice, who favored such neckwear.  Kagan, who succeeded Stevens, said the justice was proud to have taken the seat once filled by Justice Louis Brandeis.  And just as Stevens considered Brandeis a hero, she considers Stevens a hero.  After the ceremony, Stevens clerks took turns standing watch over the casket, along with members of the police honor guard.  Mark Walsh  https://www.scotusblog.com/2019/07/a-supreme-court-ceremony-for-justice-stevens-a-modest-and-humble-man/  In 2011, Stevens published a memoir entitled Five Chiefs: A Supreme Court Memoir, which detailed his legal career during the tenure of five of the Supreme Court's chief justices.  In 2014, Stevens published Six Amendments: How and Why We Should Change the Constitution, where he proposed that six amendments should be added to the U.S. Constitution to address political gerrymandering, anti-commandeering, campaign finance reform, capital punishment, gun violence, and sovereign immunity.  In 2019, at age 99 and shortly before his death, Stevens published The Making of a Justice: Reflections on My First 94 Years.   

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Paul_Stevens#Books



http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2128  July 24, 2019

Nicola Pisano (also called Niccolò Pisano, Nicola de Apulia or Nicola Pisanus; c. 1220/1225–c. 1284) was an Italian sculptor whose work is noted for its classical Roman sculptural style.  Pisano is sometimes considered to be the founder of modern sculpture.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicola_Pisano



The history of the Sevillano style of decorative ceramics begins with Francesco Niculoso, an Italian painter of majolica who, in 1498, settled in Seville.  At this time--at the end of the Middle Ages--Seville was a major center of ceramic production and was rooted in the Hispano-Muslim tradition.  At the beginning of the 16th century, it was “emigre potters from northern Italy [ . . . who] introduced the MAIOLICA technique to Spain, France and Flanders, whence it spread to Portugal, Holland (where it was known as Delft) and finally England.  By the end of the [15th] century Italian potters had established a long tradition of painted images of great variety, executed in bright polychromatic schemes on single tiles, having absorbed many technical influences from Spain [ . . . such as the lustre technique].”  Francesco Niculoso was called Niculoso Pisano because he was from Pisa.  Niculoso lived in Seville for about thirty years and died in 1529.  He introduced the flat surface tile.  Niculoso is also “attributed with introducing the ‘paleta de gran fuego’--[ . . . pottery painted with a large fire palette, the technical definition of Renaissance Italian majolica]--technique of polychrome ceramic manufacture to Spain, which allowed for a fine, artistic and detailed painted [tile] to be produced.  [ . . . He introduced] the concept of a ceramic painting which reproduced entire pictures by means of a composition of ceramic tiles.  Michael Padwee  See many pictures at https://tilesinnewyork.blogspot.com/2017/12/



Kedgeree is considered a traditional British food though, in fact, it originated in India.  With curry and rice, eggs, and smoked fish, it is easy to see the Indian influence running through it.  Kedgeree began its life as khichari, a dish of rice and lentils in India.  It slowly transformed into the current dish during the time of the British Raj with those returning from their time in the sub-continent bringing it with them.  Elaine Lemm  Find recipe at https://www.thespruceeats.com/super-easy-kedgeree-recipe-435296



Nonetheless, nevertheless, and notwithstanding are all compound words.  This means that you can break the word up into separate words.  By doing so, you can find clues to the distinctions, however slight, between the three words.  Compare the words none the less with never the less.  If used as a pronoun, none means not one, no one, or not any.  Applied as an adverb, it means not at all.  In either case, the word signifies a physical or metaphysical thing.  Never is an adverb which negates time.  Nonetheless should be applied to something which is measurably quantifiable.  posted by Gary  Find example sentences at https://blogs.transparent.com/english/nonetheless-nevertheless-notwithstanding/



The Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards, commonly shortened to the Eisner Awards, are prizes given for creative achievement in American comic books, sometimes referred to as the comics industry's equivalent of the Academy Awards.  They are named in honor of the pioneering writer and artist Will Eisner, who was a regular participant in the award ceremony until his death in 2005,The Eisner Awards include the Comic Industry's Hall of Fame.  The nominations in each category are generated by a five- to six-member jury, then voted on by comic book professionals and presented at the annual San Diego Comic-Con held in July, usually on Friday night.  The jury often consists of at least one comics retailer, one librarian (since 2005), and one academic researcher, among other comics experts.  The Eisner Awards and Harvey Awards were first conferred in 1988, both created in response to the discontinuation of the Kirby Awards in 1987.  Dave Olbrich started the award non-profit organization.  There was no Eisner Award ceremony, or awards distributed, in 1990, due to widespread balloting mix-ups.  The Eisner Award ceremony has been held at the San Diego Comic Con every year since 1991.  In 2006, it was announced that the archives of the Eisner Awards would be housed at the James Branch Cabell Library of Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond.  Find winners at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eisner_Award



Hannah Szenes (often anglicized as Hannah Senesh or Chanah Senesh (1921-1944) was a poet and a Special Operations Executive (SOE) member.  She was one of 37 Jewish SOE recruits from Mandate Palestine parachuted by the British into Yugoslavia during the Second World War to assist anti-Nazi forces and ultimately in the rescue of Hungarian Jews about to be deported to the German death camp at Auschwitz.   Szenes was born to an assimilated Jewish family in Hungary.  Her father, Béla, a journalist and playwright, died when Hannah was six years old.  She continued to live with her mother, Kathrine, and her brother, György.  She enrolled in a Protestant private school for girls that also accepted Catholic and Jewish pupils; most of those of the Jewish faith had to pay three times the amount Catholics paid.  However, Szenes only had to pay twice the regular tuition because she was considered a "Gifted Student".  This, along with the realization that the situation of the Jews in Hungary was becoming precarious, prompted Szenes to embrace Zionism, and she joined Maccabea, a Hungarian Zionist students organization.  The Legend of Hannah Senesh, a play about Szenes authored by Aaron Megged, was produced and directed by Laurence Merrick at the Princess Theatre in Los Angeles in 1964.  Szenes was played by Joan Huntington.  Hanna's War, a film about Szenes's life directed by Menahem Golan, was released in 1988.  Szenes was portrayed by Maruschka Detmers.  Blessed is the Match:  The Life and Death of Hannah Senesh, directed by Roberta Grossman, is a documentary film that recounts the events of Hannah's life.  It was released in 2008.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannah_Szenes



Aquaponics refers to any system that combines conventional aquaculture (raising aquatic animals such as snails, fish, crayfish or prawns in tanks) with hydroponics (cultivating plants in water) in a symbiotic environment.  In normal aquaculture, excretions from the animals being raised can accumulate in the water, increasing toxicity.  In an aquaponic system, water from an aquaculture system is fed to a hydroponic system where the by-products are broken down by nitrifying bacteria initially into nitrites and subsequently into nitrates that are utilized by the plants as nutrients.  Then, the water is recirculated back to the aquaculture system.  As existing hydroponic and aquaculture farming techniques form the basis for all aquaponic systems, the size, complexity, and types of foods grown in an aquaponic system can vary as much as any system found in either distinct farming discipline.  Aquaponics consists of two main parts, with the aquaculture part for raising aquatic animals and the hydroponics part for growing plants.  Read more and see graphics at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquaponics  Balance Farms, an aquaponic operation with restaurant opened in downtown Toledo in May, 2019. 



César Pelli (October 12, 1926–July 19, 2019) was an Argentine–American architect who designed some of the world's tallest buildings and other major urban landmarks.  Some of his most notable contributions included the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur and the World Financial Center in New York City.  The American Institute of Architects named him one of the ten most influential living American architects in 1991 and awarded him the AIA Gold Medal in 1995.  In 2008, the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat presented him with The Lynn S. Beedle Lifetime Achievement Award.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%C3%A9sar_Pelli  The World Financial Center at Battery Park City in Mahattan is now called Brookfield Place.  Find a list of Pelli's major works plus graphics at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_works_by_C%C3%A9sar_Pelli



A THOUGHT FOR TODAY  Give me your tired, your poor, / Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, / The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. / Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, / I lift my lamp beside the golden door! - Emma Lazarus, poet and playwright (22 Jul 1849-1887) [from a poem written to raise funds for building the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty]



http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2127  July 22, 2019