“Virtual restaurants” are attached to real-life restaurants but make different cuisines specifically for the delivery apps.  “Ghost kitchens” have no retail presence and essentially serve as a meal preparation hub for delivery orders.  New York Times August 14, 2019 



THE STUFF DAYDREAMS ARE MADE OF  If I could go back in time, I would like to meet my great-grandfather, Henry Clay Derrick.  His papers telling of his stay in Egypt as an army engineer are in the Library of Congress.  After reviewing them and reading transcripts, I learned why he and other Confederate veterans spent time there.  It was because they couldn't find employment in the U.S. and needed to support their families. 



Forbidden Planet is a 1956 American science fiction film, produced by Nicholas Nayfack, directed by Fred M. Wilcox, that stars Walter Pidgeon, Anne Francis, and Leslie Nielsen.  Shot in Eastmancolor and CinemaScope, it is considered one of the great science fiction films of the 1950s, a precursor of contemporary science fiction cinema.  The characters and isolated setting have been compared to those in William Shakespeare's The Tempest, and the plot contains certain analogues to the play.  Forbidden Planet  was the first science fiction film to depict humans traveling in a faster-than-light starship of their own creation.  It was also the first to be set entirely on another planet in interstellar space, far away from Earth.  The Robby the Robot character is one of the first film robots that was more than just a mechanical "tin can" on legs; Robby displays a distinct personality and is an integral supporting character in the film.  Outside science fiction, the film was groundbreaking as the first of any genre to use an entirely electronic musical score, courtesy of Bebe and Louis Barron.  Forbidden Planet's effects team was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects at the 29th Academy Awards.  In 2013, the picture was entered into the Library of Congress' National Film Registry, being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".  The costumes worn by Anne Francis were designed by Helen Rose.  Her miniskirts were the first ever seen in a Hollywood film (not counting those seen in 1937's On the Avenue), and resulted in Forbidden Planet being banned in Spain; it was not shown there until 1967.  Other costumes were designed by Walter Plunkett.  A n Australian radio adaptation using the original electronic music and noted local actors was broadcast in June 1959 on The Caltex Radio Theatre.  In Stephen King's The Tommyknockers, Altair-4 is frequently referenced as the home planet of the titular alien presence.  In the authorized biography of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, Roddenberry notes that Forbidden Planet "was one of [his] inspirations for Star Trek".  Elements of the Doctor Who serial Planet of Evil were consciously based on the 1956 film.  Forbidden Planet and star Anne Francis are named alongside ten other classic science fiction films in the opening song "Science Fiction Double Feature" in the stage musical The Rocky Horror Show and its subsequent film adaptation.  The British musical Return to the Forbidden Planet was inspired by and loosely based on the MGM film, and won the Olivier Award for best musical of 1989/90.   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forbidden_Planet



-gress-, root  -gress- comes from Latin, where it has the meaning "step; move.''  It is related to -grad-.  This meaning is found in such words as:  aggression, congress, digress, egress, ingress, progress, regress, transgress.  https://www.wordreference.com/definition/-gress-



What is the place of art in a culture of inattention?  Recent visitors to the Louvre report that tourists can now spend only a minute in front of the Mona Lisa before being asked to move on.  Much of that time, for some of them, is spent taking photographs not even of the painting but of themselves with the painting in the background.  One view is that we have democratised tourism and gallery-going so much that we have made it effectively impossible to appreciate what we’ve travelled to see.  In this oversubscribed society, experience becomes a commodity like any other.  There are queues to climb Everest as well as to see famous paintings.  Leisure, thus conceived, is hard labour, and returning to work becomes a well-earned break from the ordeal.  What gets lost in this industrialised haste is the quality of looking.  Consider an extreme example, the late philosopher Richard Wollheim.  When he visited the Louvre he could spent as much as four hours sitting before a painting.  The first hour, he claimed, was necessary for misperceptions to be eliminated.  It was only then that the picture would begin to disclose itself.  This seems unthinkable today, but it is still possible to organise.  Even in the busiest museums there are many rooms and many pictures worth hours of contemplation which the crowds largely ignore.  Sometimes the largest throngs are partly the products of bad management and crowd control; the Mona Lisa is such a hurried experience today partly because the museum is being reorganised, so it is in a temporary room.  The Uffizi in Florence, another site of cultural pilgrimage, has cut its entry queues down to seven minutes by clever management.  https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/aug/25/the-guardian-view-on-museum-culture-take-your-time



Four of the Great Lakes—Erie, Huron, Ontario and Superior—are split between the U.S. and Canada.  (Lake Michigan is entirely in the U.S.)  Until 2017, American boaters did indeed need to be concerned about venturing into foreign waters and getting into trouble with customs authorities.  But that anxiety was eased with a Canadian law that allows boaters from the U.S. to cross the watery border freely unless they anchor there, contact another vessel, land in Canada, etc.  This harmonizes with American law.  https://parade.com/906843/marilynvossavant/who-owns-the-great-lakes/



White Cucumber varieties  The White Wonder, otherwise known as Albino, Ivory King, Jack Frost, Landreths White Slicing or the long white is an heirloom variety introduced in 1893.  White wonder cucumbers are perfect in salads or for pickling, marinating or simply eating raw.  Tired of boring old green cucumbers?   Some fans report that small white cucumbers can taste sweeter, while others report a more sour or bitter flavour when it comes to the larger white cucumbers.  But as with all fruit and vegetables it's always best to try before cooking, to balance any acididity or bitterness.  A post shared by Edith and Herbert   If you enjoy Japanese flavours try this "sunomo" salad with cucumber, ginger rice wine vinegar, salt and sugar, another great way to celebrate this ghostly beauty.  Find the recipe here.  Holly Cole  https://www.finedininglovers.com/article/white-cucumbers-how-eat-these-white-wonders



White Cucumber Gazpacho Recipe provided by RecipeTips  https://www.recipetips.com/recipe-cards/t--2728/white-cucumber-gazpacho.asp  serves 10, takes 30 minutes, has chicken broth and yogurt in it



The Poetry Foundation and Poetry magazine are pleased to announce the five recipients of the 2019 Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowships:  Franny Choi, Jane Huffman, José Olivarez, Justin Phillip Reed, and Michael Wasson.  Among the largest awards offered to young poets in the United States, the $25,800 prize is intended to encourage the further study and writing of poetry and is open to all U.S. poets between 21 and 31 years of age.  Established in 1989 by Ruth Lilly, the Ruth Lilly Poetry Fellowship program has dramatically expanded since its inception.  Until 1995, university writing programs nationwide each nominated one student poet for a single fellowship; from 1996 until 2007, two fellowships were awarded.  In 2008, the competition was opened to all U.S. poets between 21 and 31 years of age, and the number of fellowships increased to five, totaling $75,000.  In 2013, the Poetry Foundation received a generous gift from the Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Memorial Fund to create the Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowships, which increased the fellowship amount from $15,000 to $25,800.  Find list of all winners starting in 1989 at https://www.poetryfoundation.org/foundation/prizes-fellowship



WORD OF THE DAY  xerocracy noun   (informal) Political influence achieved by copying and distributing leaflets and similar material.  Wiktionary



http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1246  August 30. 2019 

La Serenissima  (Italian) is a name for the Republic of Venice.  Serenissima Res Publica Poloniae  (Latin) is the official Latin name of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.  Find use of name in other ways, including art, entertainment, and sports at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serenissima



In the politics of the United States, dark money refers to political spending by nonprofit organizations—for example, 501(c)(4) (social welfare) 501(c)(5) (unions) and 501(c)(6) (trade association) groups—that are not required to disclose their donors.  Such organizations can receive unlimited donations from corporations, individuals and unions.  In this way, their donors can spend funds to influence elections, without voters knowing where the money came from.  Dark money first entered politics with Buckley v. Valeo (1976) when the United States Supreme Court laid out Eight Magic Words that define the difference between electioneering and issue advocacy.  The term was first used by the Sunlight Foundation to describe undisclosed funds that were used during the United States 2010 mid-term election.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_money  Dark Money may also refer to a 2016 non-fiction book by Jane Mayer and a 2018 documentary by Kimberly Reed.



Cianfotta  Some Neapolitans say this dish is simplified French ratatouille, while others contend that ratatouille is complicated cianfotta.  Either way, this stew is a tender medley of seasonal summer produce.  While cooking cianfotta, as it’s known in the local dialect (ciambotta in Italian), you want everything to sort of steam in its own juices; you’ll need to control the heat so you don’t need to add any water.  In the end, the vegetables should be very soft and almost falling apart and the flavors should all be beautifully married.  Katie Parla https://www.splendidtable.org/recipes/cianfotta-neapolitan-style-ratatouille  serves 4-6



Alexander McCall Smith has a light-hearted take on the bleak world of Scandinavian crime fiction.  The first novel in a new series, The Department of Sensitive Crimes introduces readers to Ulf Varg, a Swedish detective who prefers a night in with his dog to an all-night bender.  Set in Malmö, the book follows Varg and his colleagues as they investigate a series of strange events including a market trader stabbed in the back of the knee, which is about as violent as it gets.  McCall Smith, whose long running series The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency brought him global success, has described his unique approach to the Scandi-noir genre as “Scandi-blanc”.  As well as his new Scandi-blanc series, summer 2019 will also see the publication of The Second Worst Restaurant In France, the second book in another series starring food writer Paul Stuart.  “I suffer from this serial novelism condition,” McCall Smith explains.  “The symptoms are that you write serial novels, there’s no known cure, and then you die.  That’s the way it works.”  Chris Green  https://inews.co.uk/culture/alexander-mccall-smith-department-of-sensitive-crimes/



Disposing of plastic  When recycling plastic bottles, remove cap (some charities collect them) and snip away the ring around the bottle top.  Snip apart plastic six-pack holders before discarding.



Cristallo is a glass which is totally clear (like rock crystal), without the slight yellow or greenish color originating from iron oxide impurities.  This effect is achieved through small additions of manganese oxide.  Often Cristallo has a low lime content which makes it prone to glass corrosion (otherwise known as glass disease).  The invention of Cristallo glass is attributed to Angelo Barovier around 1450.  In addition to common glass making materials manganese, quartz pebbles, and alume catino, a particularly suitable form of soda ash, are used in the making of cristallo glass.  Rather than using common sand, crushed quartz pebbles were used instead.  The quartz pebbles had to be free of yellow and black veins and also had to be able to produce sparks when struck with steel.  If the quartz pebbles passed the selection process then the pebbles were heated to the point where the stones began to glow and then placed into cold water.  Then the pebbles were crushed and ground.  The typical flux was used in the production of cristallo was called alume catino.  Alume catino was derived from the ash of the salsola soda and salsola kali bushes that grew in the Levantine coastal region.  It was found to contain high and constant amounts of sodium and calcium carbonates, necessary to make workable and chemically stable glass.  The ash of the plants was then carefully sieved and then placed into water to be gently boiled with constant mixing.  Then the ashen mixture was placed into shallow pans to be dried.  Once dried the alume catino would repeat the boiling and drying process until all of the salt was extracted from the ashes.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cristallo


People had used naturally occurring glass, especially obsidian (the volcanic glass) before they learned how to make glass.  Obsidian was used for production of knives, arrowheads, jewelry and money.  The ancient Roman historian Pliny suggested that Phoenician merchants had made the first glass in the region of Syria around 5000 BC.  But according to the archaeological evidence, the first man made glass was in Eastern Mesopotamia and Egypt around 3500 BC and the first glass vessels were made about 1500 BC in Egypt and Mesopotamia.  For the next 300 years, the glass industry was increased rapidly and then declined.  In Mesopotamia it was revived in the 700 BC and in Egypt in the 500’s BC.  For the next 500 years, Egypt, Syria and the other countries along the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea were centers for glass manufacturing.  The first glass factory in the United States was built in Jamestown, Virginia in 1608.  In the early 1800’s, there was a great demand for window glass which was called crown glass.  In the 1820s, the age of blowing individual bottles, glasses and flasks was ended by the invention of a hand-operated machine.  In the 1870s, the first semi-automatic bottle machine was introduced.  After 1890, glass use, development and manufacture began to increase rapidly.  Machinery has been developed for precise, continuous manufacture of a host of products.  In 1902, Irving W. Colburn invented the sheet glass drawing machine which made possible the mass production of window glass.  In 1904, the American engineer Michael Owens patented automatic bottle blowing machine.  In 1959 new revolutionary float glass production was introduced by Sir Alastair Pilkington by which 90% of flat glass is still manufactured today.  Link to other articles on the history of glass at http://www.historyofglass.com/



On August 19, 2019, umbrellas tumbled from north to south and lifeguards cleared beaches in Delaware's Rehoboth Beach region as a storm like a "pop-up hurricane" approached and a shelf cloud appeared.  According to a story from the Weather Channel, a shelf cloud is the boundary between a downdraft and updraft of a thunderstorm or line of thunderstorms.  The story explains the shelf cloud forms as rain-chilled air descends in a thunderstorm's downdraft, while warmer, more moist air is lifted at the leading edge, or gust front, of this rain-cooled air.  When this warm, moist air condenses, the shelf cloud is formed.  The Weather Channel story says there’s an abrupt shift in wind direction and increased wind speed as the shelf cloud's leading edge passes.  Once it passes, there may be clouds with a wavy appearance, called asperitas, showing the turbulent wave-like motions behind the gust front.  The passage of the shelf cloud, the article says, is followed within minutes by heavy rain or hail.  Chris Flood   See pictures at https://www.capegazette.com/article/crazy-weather-brings-awe-inspiring-pictures-video/187175



Indonesia announced August 26, 2019 that it will be relocating its capital from Jakarta, which is slowly sinking into the sea.  The new capital city will be in the East Kalimantan province on Borneo island, President Joko Widodo said at a news conference in Jakarta’s presidential palace, according to The Associated Press.  “We couldn’t continue to allow the burden on Jakarta and Java island to increase in terms of population density,” he said.  “Economic disparities between Java and elsewhere would also increase.”  The transition is expected to take a decade, and CNN Indonesia said the total cost could be $34 billion.  Jakarta is a huge metropolis built on swampy land, and it has been sinking for decades.  Rising sea levels caused by climate change are adding to the problem.  So is the continued extraction of groundwater, the rising population and congestion.  About 10 million people live in Jakarta, with 30 million in the area.  Chris Mills Rodrigo  https://thehill.com/policy/international/458882-indonesia-announces-location-of-new-capital-as-jakarta-sinks-into-sea



http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2145  August 28, 2019

Lupini/lupin/turmus beans are high in protein (40%), and fiber (40%).  So every 100 grams of cooked lupini beans, contain around 40 grams of protein.  These beans aid in resorting and building cells, tissue and muscle in the human body.  As lupin beans are high in fiber, they are able to lower the cholesterol in the body and clean the blood vessels.  So they’re also good for the heart.  And finally, these beans are packed with antioxidants and can help prevent inflammation.  There are 2 kinds of dried turmus beans, there’s a bitter variety that takes longer to prepare as it needs to be soaked for several days in water, and water needs to be changed every few hours or at least every day.  Then the beans need to be cooked, and if they’re still bitter then they need to be soaked again in water.  The other kind of lupin beans is sweet, these beans are not literally sweet but they’re not bitter either (the variety is just called sweet).  They can be prepared quickly, by just soaking them in water for a few hours, then they’re cooked for 30 minutes or until they’re sort of soft and yellow in color.  The beans are also used in making lupini flour, and even tofu!  In the Middle East, you will see many street vendors selling these lovely beans that are perfectly cooked, then seasoned with cumin, salt and lots of lemon juice.  Many people cook beans at home in the Middle East.  They are also usually paired with beer (like bar nuts) as they make a great snack.  The beans are first soaked in water, and then cooked in boiling water until they’re soft enough to eat.  Ground cumin is a very important ingredient, as lupini beans can cause bloating to some people and ground cumin can prevent the bloating.  After the turmus is cooked, add lemon juice.  Then sprinkle with ground cumin and salt.  The beans are eaten cold and are stored in the fridge in an airtight container for up to 3 days.  Diana Alshakhanbeh  Find recipe and pictures at https://littlesunnykitchen.com/lupini-beans/



Jenny Wingfield is an American screenwriter and novelist.  Born in Fountain Hill, Arkansas, Wingfield spent much of her childhood in Louisiana, where her father was a preacher.  She attended Southern State College (now Southern Arkansas University) in Magnolia, and after graduating taught languages for several years.  Her screenwriting credits have included the films The Man in the Moon and The Outsider, as well as Hallmark Hall of Fame's A Dog Named Christmas, which was the winner of the 2010 Genesis Award.  Her debut novel, The Homecoming of Samuel Lake was published in 2011.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jenny_Wingfield  Read a BookPage interview with Jenny Wingfield by Eliza Borné at https://bookpage.com/interviews/8714-jenny-wingfield-fiction#.XSzlSuhKjCA



Whippersnapper is a word that goes back hundreds of years.  It is a closed compound word, which is a word composed of two separate words that were used together so often that they eventually became melded into one word.  A whippersnapper is a young person who is presumptuous, a young person who is overconfident.  The term whippersnapper is derived from the terms snipper-snapper and whip-snapper.  A whip-snapper was a seventeenth-century term for a young man with nothing better to do than to hang about idly snapping a whip.  Whippersnapper is one of those rare terms that has a somewhat literal origin.  Today, the term is usually used in an archaic sense or as a slightly humorous term.  According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the correct spelling is as one word, whippersnapper, though it is occasionally seen in its hyphenated form, whipper-snapper. 

https://grammarist.com/usage/whippersnapper/



scintilla (plural scintillae or scintillas)  noun  A small spark or flash. quotations ▼  A small or trace amount. quotations ▼  Related terms  scintilla juris  scintillate  scintillation  scintillator  stencil  tinsel  https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/scintilla



Community Supported Agriculture consists of a community of individuals who pledge support to a farm operation so that the farmland becomes, either legally or spiritually, the community's farm, with the growers and consumers providing mutual support and sharing the risks and benefits of food production.  In a traditional CSA model, members share the risks and benefits of food production with the farmer.  Members buy a share of the farm’s production before each growing season.  In return, they receive regular distributions of the farm’s bounty throughout the season.  The farmer receives advance working capital, gains financial security, earns better crop prices, and benefits from the direct marketing plan.  Find local food and CSAs near you at https://www.nal.usda.gov/afsic/community-supported-agriculture  In Toledo, there is Shared Legacy Farms.  SLF is certified organic with the State of Ohio.  They have various distribution locations, and you pick up your weekly bin at the Toledo Farmers Market.  They also sell organic produce to non-members at the market on Saturdays.  Thank you, Muse reader! 



The ancient Egyptian deity Amun, worshipped by the Greeks as Ammon, had a temple and a statue, the gift of Pindar (d. 443 BC), at Thebes, and another at Sparta, the inhabitants of which, as Pausanias says,  consulted the oracle of Ammon in Libya from early times more than the other Greeks.  At Aphytis, Chalcidice, Amun was worshipped, from the time of Lysander (d. 395 BC), as zealously as in Ammonium.  Pindar the poet honored the god with a hymn.  Such was its reputation among the Classical Greeks that Alexander the Great journeyed there after the battle of Issus and during his occupation of Egypt, where he was declared "the son of Amun" by the oracle.  Alexander thereafter considered himself divine.  Even during this occupation, Amun, identified by these Greeks as a form of Zeus, continued to be the principal local deity of Thebes.  Several words derive from Amun via the Greek form, Ammon, such as ammonia and ammonite.  The Romans called the ammonium chloride they collected from deposits near the Temple of Jupiter-Amun in ancient Libya sal ammoniacus (salt of Amun) because of proximity to the nearby temple.  Ammonia, as well as being the chemical, is a genus name in the foraminifera.  Both these foraminiferans (shelled Protozoa) and ammonites (extinct shelled cephalopods) bear spiral shells resembling a ram's, and Ammon's, horns.  The regions of the hippocampus in the brain are called the cornu ammonis--literally "Amun's Horns", due to the horned appearance of the dark and light bands of cellular layers.  See graphics at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amun


The word sycophant has its origin in the legal system of Classical Athens.  Most legal cases of the time were brought by private litigants as there was no police force and only a limited number of officially appointed public prosecutors.  By the fifth century BC this practice had given rise to abuse by "sycophants":  litigants who brought unjustified prosecutions.  In modern English, the meaning of the word has shifted to that of an "insincere flatterer" (see sycophancy), used to refer to someone practicing sycophancy (i.e. obedient flattery).  The word "sycophant" entered the English and French languages in the mid-16th century, and originally had the same meaning in English and French (sycophante) as in Greek, a false accuser.  Today, in Greek and French it retains the original meaning.  The meaning in English has changed over time, however, and came to mean an insincere flatterer.  The common thread in the older and current meanings is that the sycophant is in both instances portrayed as a kind of parasite, speaking falsely and insincerely in the accusation or the flattery for gain.  The Greek plays often combined in one single character the elements of the parasite and the sycophant, and the natural similarities of the two closely related types led to the shift in the meaning of the word.  The sycophant in both meanings can also be viewed as two sides of the same coin: the same person currying one's favor by insincere flattery is also spreading false tales and accusations behind one's back.  In Renaissance English, the word was used in both senses and meanings, that of the Greek informer, and the current sense of a "flattering parasite", with both being cast as enemies—not only of those they wrong, but also of the person or state that they ostensibly serve.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sycophant



Amazon.com Inc’s (AMZN.O) Audible was sued by some of the top U.S. publishers for copyright infringement on August 23, 2019, aiming to block a planned rollout of a feature called ‘Audible Captions’ that shows the text on screen as a book is narrated.  The lawsuit was filed by seven members of the Association of American Publishers (AAP), including HarperCollins Publishers, Penguin Random House, Hachette Book Group, Simon & Schuster, and Macmillan Publishers.  “Essentially Audible wants to provide the text as well as the sound of books without the authorization of copyright holders, despite only having the right to sell audiobooks,” AAP said in a statement.  The lawsuit was filed in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.  reporting by Ayanti Bera in Bengaluru; editing by Anil D'Silva  https://www.reuters.com/article/us-amazon-com-lawsuit-idUSKCN1VD1ZY



http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2144  August 26, 2019 

The Shavian alphabet is named after George Bernard Shaw and was devised by Kingsley Read.  Shaw saw use of the Latin alphabet for writing English as a great waste of time, energy and paper, so in his will he stipulated that a competition should be held to create a new writing system for English and made provision for a prize of £500.  The competition took place in 1958 and Kingsley Read's system was chosen as the winner out of the 467 entries.  Shaw's will also stipulated that his play Androcles and the Lion should be printed in the winning alphabet.  Few other texts were printed and the alphabet, which became known as Shavian, was never seriously considered as an alternative for writing English.  Notable features:  There are three types of letters--tall, deep and short.  Tall letters are the equivalent of ascenders in the Latin alphabet (e.g. b, d, f, h), deep letters are the equivalent of descenders (e.g. p, g, j, y) and short letters are all the same height, like the letters a, c, e and i.  Consonant letters come in pairs, with the tall one representing an unvoiced consonant and the deep one representing a voiced consonant.  The letters for l, r, m and n are the exceptions to this pattern.  Vowel letters are all, with only one exception, short.  Some come in pairs, others don't.  There are no capital letters, although a 'namer dot' is used to mark proper names.  See Shavian alphabet at https://www.omniglot.com/writing/shavian.htm  See Alice's Adventures in Wonderland printed in the Shavian/Shaw alphabet at https://www.evertype.com/books/alice-en-Shaw.html



 . . . Heaven must be a place where the library is open twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.  No . . . eight days a week.  The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, a mystery by Alan Bradley published in 2009.  Set in the English countryside in 1950



Bernard Courtois, a French chemist, accidentally discovered iodine in 1811 during the Napoleonic Wars.  Courtois was helping his father manufacture saltpeter—an important component in gunpowder that was in heavy demand at the time.  Initially, he had been using wood ash as the source of potassium nitrate needed to make the saltpeter.  However, due to a wood ash shortage, he began using seaweed instead.  In order to isolate the sodium and potassium extracts from the seaweed, Courtois would burn the seaweed and wash the ash with water.  Then, sulfuric acid was added to eliminate the leftover waste.  After adding a little too much sulfuric acid one time, Courtois noticed a cloud of violet gas.  He then discovered that the vapor would condense into deep violet crystals on cold surfaces.  At the time, Courtois did not realize he had discovered iodine, but he suspected it might be a new element.  He gave some samples to other scientists to continue the research who eventually confirmed that it was indeed a new element.  It was given the name iode (from the Greek ioeidēs, meaning "violet colored") by French chemist Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac.  Although Courtois wasn't the one to name it, he was still later acknowledged as the first person to isolate iodine.  In 1831 he received the Montyon Prize from the Royal Academy of Sciences for his work, but unfortunately, he never gained any financial benefit from his discovery.  Traci Pedersen  Read more and see graphics at https://www.livescience.com/37441-iodine.html



A caterwaul is a yowl, shriek, or loud cry.  While a caterwaul can be made by a person, it's more likely the wailing sound that a distressed or fighting animal makes.  To make this sound is to caterwaul—it's both a noun and verb.  Cats are, in fact, the animal best known to caterwaul, and the word is believed to come from the German katerwaulen, "cry like a cat," or possibly the Middle Dutch cater, "tomcat," and Middle English waul, "yowl."  https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/caterwaul



It's a bird!  It's a rabbit!   A video of a black animal getting a nice scratch is spreading quickly around the internet as people take sides in yet another great debate.  Daniel Quintana, a scientist at the University of Oslo in Norway, is responsible for all this--he found the video on an image-sharing website on August  18, 2019 and tweeted it, saying, "Rabbits love getting stroked on their nose."  Since then, it's blown up-- all because Quintana played on a famous optical illusion wherein a rabbit looks like a bird, and a bird looks like a rabbit.  His video alone has been viewed millions of times.  But here's the thing:  CNN has in fact verified that not only does the video show a bird, it's specifically an African White-necked Raven named Mischief.  He belongs to the World Bird Sanctuary in Valley Park, Missouri, and is 18 years old.  The video Quintana posted was taken, at some point, from Paige Davis, Curator of Bird Training at the sanctuary.  Davis told CNN that Mischief is actually already quite famous, especially for his talking.  "He has gone viral several times with millions of views," she said.  Here's that original clip.  Mischief flies, talks, paints, and much more, she explained, calling him "a very talented bird."  Leah Asmelash and Brian Ries  Link to video at https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/21/us/bird-rabbit-tweet-trnd/index.html



TOLEDO MUSEUM OF ART EXHIBITS

Global Conversations:  Contemporary World Art in Dialogue  March 9, 2019-March 8, 2020, Levis Gallery  The exhibit features dozens of contemporary works of art that encompass a broad range of media and geographic regions.  Presented together, these works will offer visitors the chance to explore the many powerful ways that artists are considering the state of the world in the 21st century as they engage with today’s issues of urgency--identity, migration and the digital revolution are amongst the rich topics brought forth for exploration.  

“Everything Is Rhythm”:  Mid-Century Art & Music  April 6, 2019-Nov. 3, 2019, New Media Gallery  The exhibit features a multisensory display focused on an exploration of the relationship between art and music.

Life is a Highway:  Art and American Car Culture  June 15, 2019-Sept. 15, 2019, Canaday Gallery  Featuring more than 100 works from the Toledo Museum of Art’s own collection, as well as both private and public loans, this exhibition will chart the rise of automobility as a visual icon of American identity.

https://www.toledomuseum.org/about/news/current-and-upcoming-2019-exhibitions



August 22, 2019  If you didn’t see this Instagram privacy hoax in your social media feeds, perhaps it came to your attention after U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry published it on his account.  Perry’s post has since been deleted.  The post, which Yahoo reports also duped actors like Julia Roberts and Rob Lowe, says that Instagram has a new rule "where they can use your photos."  "Don’t forget Deadline today!!!" it goes on.  "It can be used in court cases in litigation against you.  Everything you’ve ever posted becomes public from today.  Even messages that have been deleted or the photos not allowed . . . I do not give Instagram or any entities associated with Instagram permission to use my pictures, information, messages or posts, both past and future.  With this statement, I give notice to Instagram it is strictly forbidden to disclose, copy, distribute, or take any other action against me based on this profile and/or its contents . . . All members must post a note like this."  This post even wound up on Facebook, where it was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed.  Poynter’s teen fact-checking project MediaWise debunked the post on Aug. 21, noting that the claim dates back to 2012 when Facebook, Instagram’s parent company, updated its privacy policy.  In statements to Yahoo and Time, Instagram spokesperson Stephanie Otway said "there’s no truth to this post."  In 2016, Facebook addressed a nearly identical post that used "Facebook" instead of "Instagram."  "You may have seen a post telling you to copy and paste a notice to retain control over things you share on Facebook," a member of the company’s help team wrote.  "Don’t believe it.  You own your content and can control how it is shared through your privacy settings."  Ciara O'Rourke  https://www.politifact.com/facebook-fact-checks/statements/2019/aug/22/viral-image/dont-fall-instagram-hoax/



A THOUGHT FOR TODAY  It matters not how strait the gate, / How charged with punishments the scroll, / I am the master of my fate: / I am the captain of my soul. - William Ernest Henley, poet, critic, and editor (23 Aug 1849-1903)  Read the poem Invictus with the words "how strait the gate" at https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/51642/invictus



WORD OF THE DAY  LIMN  verb  From Middle English limnen, limyne, lymm, lymn, lymne (“to illuminate (a manuscript)”), a variant of luminen (“to illuminate (a manuscript)”), short form of enluminen (“to shed light on, illuminate; to enlighten; to make bright or clear; to give colour to; to illuminate (a manuscript); to depict, describe; to adorn or embellish with figures of speech or poetry; to make famous, glorious, or illustrious”), from Old French enluminer (“to brighten, light up; to give colour to; to illuminate (a manuscript)”), from Latin illūminō (“to brighten, light up; to adorn; to make conspicuous”), from il- (a variant of in- (prefix meaning ‘in, inside’)) + lūminō (“to brighten, illuminate; to reveal”) (from lūmen (“light; (poetic) brightness”) (from Proto-Indo-European *lewk- (“bright; to shine; to see”)) + -ō (suffix forming regular first-conjugation verbs)).  (third-person singular simple present limns, present participle limning, simple past and past participle limned)  (transitive, also figuratively) To draw or paint; to delineate. quotations ▼  Synonym: depict (transitive, obsolete) To illuminate, as a manuscript; to decorate with gold or some other bright colour. quotations ▼ Synonym:  enlimn (to illuminate (a manuscript))

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/limn#English



http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2143  August 23, 2019

Inspired by aspiration, curiosity and passion for the beauty of the world, in the early 1930s three Palm Beach women set out to create something extraordinary.  An announcement signed by Mrs. Maud Howe Elliott, Mrs. Lorenzo E. Woodhouse and Mrs. Frederick Johnson stated that a group of citizens had decided to form an organization to promote the appreciation of art, music, drama and literature.  Mrs. Elliott was a Pulitzer Prize winning author who already had found success cultivating the appreciation of the arts in 1912 as a founding member of the Newport Artists Society.  She, along with Mrs. Woodhouse and Mrs. Johnson (who were well-known artists in their own right), began the task of recruiting others to their cause, now known as The Society of the Four Arts.  To heed Mrs. Elliott’s cry for a home for the Four Arts, funds were soon raised to buy the land and erect a building (the present library) on Four Arts Plaza.  Maurice Fatio and his architectural firm of Treanor and Fatio donated their services, creating a beautiful Mediterranean revival-style building with gracious archways, galleries with high ceilings and authentic pecky cypress details.  The Four Arts Library established a completely separate children’s department and hired a professional children’s librarian in 1956.  The Children’s Library later moved across the street to its present location in the Rovensky Administration Building.  In 1997 the library received a generous donation from Gioconda and Joseph King, and the name of the library was changed to recognize this splendid gift.  In 2018, after eight decades, the beloved library received a dramatic restoration that enhanced the experience for all visitors to come.  To see the restoration process, we invite you to visit the visit the Restoration Photo Archive.  Today, the Four Arts King Library flourishes with more than 75,000 books, audiobooks, DVDs and periodicals.  A touch-screen tablet is available to help visitors browse the collection of digital books and media.  Frequent book discussions, play readings and author talks attract standing-room-only crowds, and innovative teen programming is bringing in a new generation of library patrons.  https://www.fourarts.org/history-of-the-king-library/



Black treacle is a thick, dark, sugar syrup containing cane molasses to create a somewhat bitter flavor.  It's made with the uncrystallized syrup that remains after sugar is refined.  Though it's similar to pure molasses, black treacle isn't as bitter; however, blackstrap molasses is quite similar in flavor.  Golden syrup is also a type of treacle, though it's light in color, sweeter, and often substituted with corn syrup in recipes.  Before the 17th century, treacle was used in medicine rather than as a sweetener.  It was thought to be an antidote for poison and snakebites, among other ailments.  Treacle is often mentioned in the "Harry Potter" novels, as treacle tart is one of Harry's favorite puddings and sweets.  However, older Disney fans might recall treacle tarts being used to lure children by the child catcher in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.  Through pop culture, treacle was exposed to a worldwide audience, many who had never heard of the sweet sticky syrup.  Elaine Lemm  https://www.thespruceeats.com/what-is-black-treacle-435422  See also 76 treacle recipes at https://cookpad.com/us/search/treacle and THE LITTLE LIBRARY CAFÉ--

food inspired by literature from Kate Young at http://thelittlelibrarycafe.com/blog/2016/5/19/treacle-tart-again-harry-potter-and-the-philosophers-stone



The origin of the lemon has not yet been determined, although science suggests it may be northwestern India, where they have been cultivated for more than 2,500 years.  Arab traders brought the lemons to the Middle East and Africa sometime after 100 C.E.  It is believed to have been introduced into southern Italy around 200 C.E.; and was being cultivated in Egypt and in Sumer, the southern portion of Mesopotamia a few centuries later.  At first, lemons were not widely cultivated as food:  It was largely an ornamental plant (as were tomatoes), until about the 10th century.  The Arabs introduced the lemon into Spain in the 11th century, and by 1150, the lemon was widely cultivated in the Mediterranean.  Crusaders returning from Palestine brought it to the rest of Europe.  The lemon came into full culinary use in Europe in the 15th century; the first major cultivation in Europe began in Genoa.  Lemons came to the New World in 1493, when Christopher Columbus brought lemon seeds to Hispaniola.  Spanish conquest spread the lemon throughout the New World, where it was still used mainly used as an ornamental plant, and for medicine.  Lemons were grown in California by 1751; and in the 1800s in Florida, they began to be used in cooking and flavoring.  The name “lemon” first appeared around 1350–1400, from the Middle English word limon.  Limon is an Old French word, indicating that the lemon entered England via France.  The Old French derives from the Italian limone, which dates back to the Arabic laymun or limun, from the Persian word limun.  http://www.thenibble.com/reviews/main/fruits/lemon-types.asp  See also Lemons/Limes at http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=27



A bunch of 24 Ruby Roman grapes sold for $11,000 at a Japanese auction on July 9, 2019, NHK World Japan News reported.  Takashi Hosokawa, who manages a chain of hot spring hotels on the northern cost of Honshu island, was the winning bidder who set the record for the most expensive single bunch of grapes ever sold.  “It is a great honor to be able to be able to own Ruby Romans from Ishikawa prefecture in the first year of Japan’s new era of Reiwa,” Hosokawa told NHK World Japan News.  “We are going to treat our customers with these grapes at our hotel.”  This variety is grown and sold exclusively in the Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan, where it was cultivated over the course of 14 years before it entered the market in 2008 at just over $900.  The “dream grape,” as described by the Ruby Roman Club, is a bright red that is about the size of a ping-pong ball.  They are prized for their juiciness and sweetness, but low acidity.  Only a select number are sold each year—only about 26,000 will hit the market this year—to keep up the demand, CNN reported.  Exotic and expensive fruit—which can be cultivated to be a different color (like $40 white strawberries) or shape (like $200 square watermelons) than usual—is a popular luxury product in Japan, where pieces are often given as gifts for bosses or other special recipients.  And an $11,000 bunch of grapes isn’t even the most expensive of the, well, bunch.  Nicole Lyn Pesce  https://www.marketwatch.com/story/these-japanese-grapes-sold-for-11000-and-thats-not-even-the-most-expensive-fruit-ever-2019-07-10



Conan O’Brien never planned on becoming the darling of the podcasting world.  “It’s not the natural career step,” he says.  “I have a talk show, and it felt like maybe you do the podcast in order to get on TV.  But when my staff approached me about it, I kind of thought what the heck?  What do we have to lose?”  Despite its star’s initial reservations, “Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend,” an interview program in which the late-night comic engages in free-form chats with everyone from “Barry” creator Bill Hader to historian and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Robert Caro, has become the breakout hit of the audio season.  It commands more than 1 million downloads an episode—blockbuster numbers for a podcast—and has inspired O’Brien and his team to create a spinoff show with sidekick Andy Richter, as well as scripted podcasts such as “Frontier Tween,” a satire of prairie life, and “Smartr,” a startup-culture sendup.  “Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend,” the show that started it all when it launched November 2018 on Stitcher’s Earwolf comedy network, recently signed a mid-seven-figure deal with podcasting network Midroll that will keep it going for two more seasons.  Perhaps more important, it has also enabled the television host to connect with fans who may have cut the cable cord or tuned out of his TBS show “Conan” in favor of streaming programming.  O’Brien’s not the only big name looking to connect with audiences through earbuds.  A confluence of A-list talent is trying to create the next downloadable smash.  At the same time, a medium once seen as more of a hobby than a vocation has been professionalized as it’s grown more profitable.  There’s been a creative explosion around podcasting, but in terms of the business opportunities, we’re still in the early stages,” says Jacob Weisberg, who co-founded podcasting company Pushkin Industries in 2018 with The New Yorker writer Malcolm Gladwell.  Right now, this brave new world of audio is mostly filled with as-yet-unrealized potential.  However, a swelling listener base and the accelerating migration of major advertising dollars to the platform have led to an influx of investors and technology companies.  It’s easy to see what excites them.  After all, the number of weekly podcast listeners has more than doubled in the past five years, from 28 million in 2015 to 62 million in 2019, according to a study by Edison Research and Triton Digital.  Brent Lang and Todd Spangler  https://variety.com/2019/digital/features/podcast-boom-conan-o-brien-gimlet-spotify-luminary-1203306477/



http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1242  August 21, 2019