In 1872 Erewhon: or, Over the Range, a satirical utopian novel by the English writer Samuel Butler (1835-1902) was published anonymously in London.  A notable aspect of this satire on aspects of Victorian society, expanded from letters that Butler originally published in the New Zealand newspaper, The Press, was that Erewhonians believed that machines were potentially dangerous and that Erewhonian society had undergone a revolution that destroyed most mechanical inventions.  In the section of Butler's satire called "The Book of the Machines" Butler appears to have imagined the possiblity of machine consciousness, or artificial consciousness, and that machines could replicate themselves.   http://www.historyofinformation.com/detail.php?entryid=3850  See also https://history-computer.com/Dreamers/Butler.html

Samuel Butler (1612-1680)  All the inventions that the world contains, Were not by reason first found out, nor brains; But pass for theirs who had the luck to light Upon them by mistake or oversight. http://www.tbm100.org/Lib/But351.pdf

Declaring, Defining, Dividing Space:  A Conversation with Richard Serra by Jonathan Peyser (brief extract)  Words of Ralph Serra:  I was in Kyoto maybe 35 years ago, at the beginning of the ’70s.  Looking at the temple gardens I found that they reveal themselves only by walking—nothing really happens without movement, which becomes the very basis of perception.  Being in Kyoto was very different from being in Florence and looking at Piero della Francesca.  Renaissance space is constructed by centralizing the focus.  In the temple gardens of Kyoto the field is open, and your participation, observation, and concentration are based on movement, looking is inseparable from walking.  The essential difference is not only the protracted time of looking, but the fact that you, your relationship to the objects perceived, become the subject of perception.  Once I began to understand that this was a different kind of experience defined by an essentially different relation of viewer to object—in that you, the viewer, are the subject relating to an object in time and space—it shifted the focus for me.  It sounds like a small thing, but I think it was primary for my development.  I came back and built a piece for the Pulitzers (Pulitzer Piece, 1971) that extended over three or four acres and was based on walking and looking in relation to a shifting horizon.  That development in my work would not have occurred if I had not been in Kyoto.  https://www.sculpture.org/documents/scmag02/oct02/serra/serra.shtml

Vassar Miller was born in Houston in 1924, the daughter of a prominent architect.  She began writing as a child, composing on a typewriter due to the cerebral palsy which affected her speech and movement.  She attended the University of Houston, receiving her B.A. and M.A. in English.  In 1956, Miller published her first volume of poetry, Adam's Footprint.  Her poems, most of which dealt with either her strong religious faith or her experiences as a person with a disability, were widely praised for their rigorous formality, clarity, and emotional impact.  In 1961 Miller was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for her collection Wage War on Silence.  Over the course of a literary career which spanned almost forty years, Miller published ten volumes of poetry in all.  An outspoken advocate for the rights and dignity of the handicapped, Miller also edited a collection of poetry and short stories about persons with disabilities titled Despite This Flesh.  Miller received many awards and accolades for her poetry in her home state.  Three of her books won the annual poetry prize of the Texas Institute of Letters.  In 1982 and 1988 Miller was named Poet Laureate of Texas, and in 1997 she was named to the Texas Women's Hall of Fame by the Governor's Commission for Women.  Vassar Miller died in 1998.  Find list of major works and description of the Vassar Miller Papers and access to the papers in Special Collections at the University of Houston at https://legacy.lib.utexas.edu/taro/uhsc/00022/hsc-00022.html

Friend by Paek Namnyong (Columbia University Press, 2020) was first published in 1988 in North Korea where it became a bestseller and a television series that was eventually cancelled.  Thirty years later, Friend has become the first state-sanctioned North Korean novel to be published in English, translated by Immanuel Kim.  It is, most surprisingly, a novel about love, marriage, and divorce.  Almost all fiction available today from North Korea was written by defectors or dissidents.  Paek Namnyong is neither.  A household name in North Korea, he worked first in a steel factory for ten years before enrolling at Kim Il Sung University to study literature.  Paek Namnyong became part of the elite group of writers known as the April 15th Literary Production Unit.  This group is devoted to writing the mythic biographies of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il.  Esther Kim  https://lithub.com/the-first-state-approved-north-korean-novel-in-english/

Thomas Shadwell was a 17^th century English poet and playwright.  His efforts as a writer earned him the coveted title of Poet Laureate in 1689 and he was also appointed historiographer royal.  Shadwell’s comic plays included The Sullen Lovers, or the Impertinents, produced in 1688, and this mirrored works by Ben Jonson and Molière.  There were many others--virtually one every year, in fact.  His output totalled some eighteen plays including a pastoral piece called The Royal Shepherdess, produced in 1669.  His poetry, perhaps in contrast to some of the more stinging lines found in some of his plays, was often written in a light, lyrical tone.  One piece was set to music and the song is still sung by children and choirs to this day.  It is called Nymphs and Shepherds.  On becoming poet laureate, Shadwell introduced the concept of New Year and birthday odes.  He did not have long to enjoy this appointment though.  Thomas Shadwell died at Chelsea on the 19^th November 1692, aged 50.  https://mypoeticside.com/poets/thomas-shadwell-poems

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost is one of the most-quoted poems of the 20^th century.  It has 16 lines.  Its hypnotic quality may be caused by its steady drum-like pulse and also the rhyming of lines 1, 2 and 4; 3, 5, 6, and 8; 7, 9, 10, and 12; and 11 through 16.  Read the poem at https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/42891/stopping-by-woods-on-a-snowy-evening  As of 2019, you are able reproduce the Robert Frost poem Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening without fear of copyright infringement. 

June 8, 2020  More than 2,500 rare manuscripts and books from the Islamic world covering a period of more than a thousand years are to be made freely available online.  The National Library of Israel (NLI) in Jerusalem is digitising its world-class collection of items in Arabic, Persian, and Turkish, dating from the ninth to the 20th centuries, including spectacularly beautiful Qur’ans and literary works decorated with gold leaf and lapis lazuli.  The NLI’s treasures include an exquisite Iranian copy of Gift to the Noble (Tuhfat al-Ahrar), created barely three years after the completion of a 1484 collection of verse on religious and moral themes by the great Persian mystical poet Nur al-Din Jami.  Dalya Alberge  https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jun/08/2500-rare-islamic-texts-go-online-free

A tiny statuette of a bird carved from burnt bone about 13,500 years ago reveals the origins of Chinese art, embodying a style different from prehistoric three-dimensional artwork by people in other parts of the world, researchers said on June 10, 2020.  The figurine, found at a site called Lingjing in Henan Province in central China, depicts a standing bird on a pedestal and was crafted using stone tools employing four sculpting methods--abrasion, gouging, scraping and incision, the researchers said.  It is the oldest-known three-dimensional art from China and all of East Asia by 8,500 years, although there are primitive abstract engravings on bone and stone and personal ornaments made of animal teeth and shells predating it.  Will Dunham  https://www.reuters.com/article/us-science-statuette/tiny-13500-year-old-bird-statuette-shows-origins-of-chinese-art-idUSKBN23H2ZI

A THOUGHT FOR JUNE 12  How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world. - Anne Frank, Holocaust diarist (12 Jun 1929-1945)

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2284  June 12, 2020