Palm trees aren’t native to Arizona, but they grow in Phoenix, and in a neighborhood called Mountgrove, regal palms soar like nowhere else in the city.  Thick-trunked, lavish silvery-green fronds floating in the desert breeze, they lean skyward above sleepy roads, green yards, and rooftops in vaguely military formation.  In all, some 300 palms stand.  They are date palms, and not just any date palm.  This small suburban stretch is the nearly exclusive home of the Black Sphinx, a world-class date found only in Phoenix and grown largely by residents, many surprised to learn their yards contain a hidden gem of Arizona agriculture.  “It’s one of those very soft dates that has just a wonderful flavor,” says Jim Montgomery, a date enthusiast who keeps palms and sells fruit just east of the city, including the Black Sphinx, his most popular varietal.  This neighborhood is the only neighborhood that grows Black Sphinx,” Erica Schlather, a home date grower says.  Though date palms can fruit for 150 years, most do for 40 to 50.  The Black Sphinx palms of Arcadia have already outlived these averages.  They won’t be around forever, though their offshoots will produce offshoots, and the bygone orchard’s progeny may survive.  For now, residents enjoy the continued bounty.  “We have a block party every year,” Schlather says.  “A lot of people in the neighborhood like to make date bread and cookies.”  Chris Malloy  Read much more and see pictures at https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/what-is-most-delicious-date

HUNAN DUMPLINGS  prep:  45 minutes  cook:  5 minutes  Hunan Dumplings are meat filled wontons generously covered in a sweet and spicy peanut butter sauce.  A favorite in Quebec, they'll no doubt win your heart!  posted by Sonia  Find recipe at https://thehealthyfoodie.com/hunan-dumplings/

One of the best-loved toys of all time, the Rubik’s Cube has puzzled and entertained people of all ages around the world.  The device that became popular with the masses in the 1980s was created a decade earlier by Hungarian designer Erno Rubik.  Born in Budapest in 1944, his father was an engineer and glider designer; his mother was a writer and artist.  Rubik pursued sculpture for a time before studying and earning a degree in architecture in 1967.  Shortly thereafter he became a teacher in the interior design department at the Academy of Applied Arts and Crafts in Budapest.  With his students, Rubik regularly used physical models and materials to teach concepts in construction and design.  His interest in three-dimensional objects played a large part in his creation of the Rubik’s Cube.  He had originally thought of putting a three-column cube together as a challenge to himself to see if he could find a way of moving individual parts without each of them losing their connection to the whole.  The stumper was the interior structure of the cube.  Rubik was reportedly inspired to use rounded elements for the center core of the cube one day in 1974 while he was noticing the smooth, polished, rounded stones by the banks of the Danube River.  Before long Rubik had completed a prototype with cylindrical parts connected to each cube component that gave the desired effect.  (One can see his design today by taking a Rubik’s Cube apart.)  Each of the faces of the cube would be one solid color at the start.  With a few turns the colors would become mismatched.  With 26 square components and 54 outer surfaces, the number of possible alignments is in the multi-millions.  But there is only one “perfect” alignment.  The game was an instant hit with Rubik’s students.  He patented the device in 1975, calling it the “Magic Cube,” and brought it to the Hungarian toy marketplace in 1977.  It should be noted that at least two other inventors had patented similar cube designs around that time unbeknownst to Rubik, though theirs employed different mechanisms for holding the cubes together.  Rubik’s cube was the one noticed in 1978 by Hungarian Tibor Laczi, who brought the device to the Nuremberg toy fair and had soon secured an order for one million of them from a British company, Ideal Toy.  That’s when the name of the toy was changed to the “Rubik’s Cube,” and the West first became familiar with the puzzle.  https://lemelson.mit.edu/resources/erno-rubik 

Ernő Rubik has listed several individuals who, as he has said, "exerted a great influence over me through their work."  These include Leonardo da Vinci, whom Rubik regards as the Renaissance man; Michelangelo, whom he respects as a polymath, painter, and sculptor; and artist M.C. Escher, who drew impossible constructions and grappled with explorations of infinity.  As regards to philosophers and writers, Rubik admires Voltaire, Stendhal, Thomas Mann, Jean-Paul Sartre, Hungarian poet Attila József, Jules Verne, and Isaac Asimov.  In the field of architecture, Rubik is an admirer of Frank Lloyd Wright and Le Corbusier.  Rubik admits to being a lifelong bibliophile and has stated, "Books offered me the possibility of gaining knowledge of the World, Nature and People."  Rubik has stated that he has a special interest in science fiction.  Rubik is fond of outdoor activities such as walking through nature, playing sports, and sailing on Lake Balaton.  Rubik is also an avid gardener and has stated that "collecting succulents is my favourite pastime."  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ern%C5%91_Rubik 

Salt is easy to overlook today, but before refrigeration, it was essential for preserving food and curing leather, not to mention that a minimum amount of salt is necessary for a healthy diet.  Union officials realized early in the war that salt was the key to feeding soldiers and civilians in the South.  As soon as southerners built their own facilities to make salt, they became military targets.  In the 1800s, most American salt production took place in the North.  Millions of years ago, an inland sea near Syracuse, New York, gradually filled in with sediment, leaving behind massive salt deposits and brine springs.  In 1862 alone, the Onondaga salt works turned these deposits into nine million bushels of salt.  Workers pumped water from the salty springs, and boiled and sun-dried it.  (Even today, a Central New York specialty consists of potatoes boiled in powerfully salty water, a remnant of when salt workers cooked their lunches in the salt brine.)  On the other hand, the South depended on imported salt, much of which was used as ballast when foreign ships came for Southern cotton.  Anne Ewbank  https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/civil-war-salt 

What did the tree say to autumn?  Leaf me alone.  What did one autumn leaf say to another?  I'm falling for you.  How do you fix a broken pumpkin?  With a pumpkin patch. Why are trees very forgiving? Because in the Fall they "Let It Go" and in the Spring they "turn over a new leaf".  What's the ratio of a pumpkin's circumference to its diameter?  Pumpkin Pi.  What do you give to a pumpkin who is trying to quit smoking?  A pumpkin patch!  How do leaves get from place to place?  With autumn-mobiles.  What did a tree fighting with autumn say?  That's it, I'm leaving.  What do you call a tree that doubts autumn?  Disbe-leaf.  What is a tree's least favorite month?  Sep-timber!  http://www.jokes4us.com/miscellaneousjokes/weatherjokes/falljokes.html 

House of Horrors by Agnes Peirron  In 1897, the French playwright and chien de commissaire*, Oscar Metenier, bought a theater at the end of the impasse Chaptal, a cul-de-sac in Paris' Pigalle district, in which to produce his controversial naturalist plays.  The smallest theater in Paris, it was also the most atypical.  Two large angels hung above the orchestra and the theater's neogothic wood paneling; and the boxes, with their iron railings, looked like confessionals (the building had, in fact, once been a chapel).  The Theatre du Grand-Guignol--which means literally the "big puppet show"--took its name from the popular French puppet character Guignol, whose original incarnation was as an outspoken social commentator--a spokesperson for the canuts, or silk workers, of Lyon.  Early Guignol puppet shows were frequently censored by Napoleon III's police force.  * "Commissioner's dog":  the French term for a police employee who spends the last moments with prisoners sentenced to death.  Read more, see pictures, and link to resources at http://www.grandguignol.com/history.htm 

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2278  October 30, 2020