Charles Darwin to Toni Morrison, Jeremy DeSilva Looks at Our Need to Move  Charles Darwin was an introvert.  Granted, he spent almost five years traveling the world on the Beagle recording observations that produced some of the most important scientific insights ever made.  But he was in his twenties then, embarking on a privileged 19th-century naturalist’s version of backpacking around Europe during a gap year.  After returning home in 1836, he never again stepped foot outside the British Isles.  He avoided conferences, parties, and large gatherings.  They made him anxious and exacerbated an illness that plagued much of his adult life.  Instead, he passed his days at Down House, his quiet home almost twenty miles southeast of London, doing most of his writing in the study.  He occasionally entertained a visitor or two but preferred to correspond with the world by letter.  He installed a mirror in his study so he could glance up from his work to see the mailman coming up the road—the 19th-century version of hitting the refresh button on email.  Darwin’s best thinking, however, was not done in his study.  It was done outside, on a lowercase d–shaped path on the edge of his property.  Darwin called it the Sandwalk.  Today, it is known as Darwin’s thinking path.  https://lithub.com/on-the-link-between-great-thinking-and-obsessive-walking/ 

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz  is an American children's novel written by author L. Frank Baum and illustrated by W.W. Denslow, originally published by the George M. Hill Company in May 1900.  It has since seen several reprints, most often under the title The Wizard of Oz, which is the title of the popular 1902 Broadway musical adaptation as well as the iconic 1939 live-action film.  The story chronicles the adventures of a young farm girl named Dorothy Gale in the magical Land of Oz after she and her pet dog Toto are swept away from their home in Kansas by a cyclone.  The book is one of the best-known stories in American literature and has been widely translated.  The Library of Congress has declared it "America's greatest and best-loved homegrown fairytale."  Its groundbreaking success, and that of the Broadway musical adapted from the novel led Baum to write thirteen additional Oz books that serve as official sequels to the first story.  In January 1901, George M. Hill Company completed printing the first edition, a total of 10,000 copies, which quickly sold out.  It had sold three million copies by the time it entered the public domain in 1956.  Jocelyn Burdick, former Democratic U.S. Senator from North Dakota and daughter of Baum's niece, Magdalenda (Carpenter) Birch, has reported that her mother was likely the inspiration for Dorothy.  Baum spent "considerable time at the Сarpenter homestead [...] and became very attached to Magdalena."  Burdick has reported many similarities between her mother's homestead and the farm of Uncle Henry and Aunt Em.  Another story, which is better documented, is that the character was named after Baum's niece, who was also named Dorothy.  She died in Bloomington, Illinois at the age of 5 months.  She is buried at Evergreen Cemetery (Bloomington, Illinois).  Her gravestone has a statue of the character Dorothy placed next to it.  Local legend has it that Oz, also known as the Emerald City, was inspired by a prominent castle-like building in the community of Castle Park near Holland, Michigan, where Baum lived during the summer.  The yellow brick road was derived from a road at that time paved by yellow bricks, located in Peekskill, New York, where Baum attended the Peekskill Military Academy.  Baum scholars often refer to the 1893 Chicago World's Fair (the "White City") as an inspiration for the Emerald City.  Other legends suggest that the inspiration came from the Hotel Del Coronado near San Diego, California.  Baum was a frequent guest at the hotel and had written several of the Oz books there.  In a 1903 interview with The Publishers' Weekly, Baum said that the name "OZ" came from his file cabinet labeled "O–Z".  Some critics have suggested that Baum may have been inspired by Australia, a relatively new country at the time of the book's original publication.  Australia is often colloquially spelled or referred to as "Oz".  Furthermore, in Ozma of Oz (1907), Dorothy gets back to Oz as the result of a storm at sea while she and Uncle Henry are traveling by ship to Australia.  Like Australia, Oz is an island continent somewhere to the west of California with inhabited regions bordering on a great desert.  One might imagine that Baum intended Oz to be Australia, or perhaps a magical land in the center of the great Australian desert.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wonderful_Wizard_of_Oz 

"A tube, a car, a revolving fan!  Little more is required!"  Such was the proclamation made by Alfred Ely Beach in 1870 when considering how to efficiently transport New York City's burgeoning legion of commuters.  Beach was describing the components necessary to move people from point A to point B by putting them in underground tubes propelled by means of air pressure generated by huge fans.  Writing in Scientific American in 1849, Beach first proposed a horse-drawn subway to run under Broadway in Manhattan.  At the 1867 American Institute Fair, held at the Fourteenth Street Armory, Beach unveiled his findings in the form of a laminated wooden tube, six feet in diameter and one hundred feet in length, that could accommodate a car holding ten persons.  The car would in turn be shot through the tube by means of a fan making two hundred revolutions per minute.  Beach's real intention at the Fair was to generate excitement over his proposed cure for New York City's desperately strained transportation system:  a pneumatic subway capable of zipping passengers to various destinations beneath the metropolis.  In February, 1870, one year after the surreptitious construction project began, Alfred Ely Beach revealed his secret to a dumbfounded public.  Clean, quiet, brightly lit, and smooth riding, its station equipped with a grand piano, chandeliers and a goldfish-stocked fountain, Beach's subway created a sensation in New York.  In its first year of operation 400,000 visitors paid twenty-five cents to enjoy the block-long ride between Warren Street and Murray Street, and back again.  Beach responded to the public's adoration of his brainchild by submitting a bill to the New York State Legislature to extend his line all the way uptown to Central Park--a distance of some five miles.  https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/nyunderground-secret-subway/ 

Gavin MacLeod, a sitcom veteran who played seaman “Happy” Haines on “McHale’s Navy,” Murray on “Mary Tyler Moore” and the very different, vaguely patrician Captain Stubing on “The Love Boat,” died May 29, 2021 at the age of 90.  MacLeod played a relatively minor character on ABC hit “McHale’s Navy,” starring Ernest Borgnine, but as newswriter Murray Slaughter, he was certainly one of the stars of “Mary Tyler Moore,” appearing in every one of the classic comedy’s 168 episodes during its 1970-77 run on CBS.  Murray was married to Marie (Joyce Bulifant) but was in love with Moore’s Mary Richards.  His desk was right next to Mary’s in the WJM newsroom, so MacLeod was frequently in the shot during the sitcom, and Murray, like all the other characters, was richly developed—a hallmark of MTM shows.  Carmel Dagan  https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/gavin-macleod-love-boat-captain-185739159.html 

Victor Hugo’s funeral procession in May 1885 was attended by some two million people.  This show of art and archival documents at the Panthéon--the site of the writer’s tomb--considers the importance of the event in the history of the Third Republic, which had been founded only 15 years before.  The display explores the writer’s life and the key themes in his work, and includes his own drawings; it runs until 26 September 2021. Find out more from the Panthéon’s website.  https://www.apollo-magazine.com/victor-hugo-liberty-at-the-pantheon/ 

Victor Hugo is France’s most published author to date, while internationally, he is known for his novels The Hunchback of Notre-Dame and Les Misérables, both set in Paris.  The enduring box-office success of Les Mis, both at the theatre and recently on the big screen, would not have displeased the man who, unabashed, had his furniture emblazoned with the self-created motto, Ego Hugo!  Hugo’s funeral, on May 31 1885, was the biggest ever organised in France, surpassing those of monarchs, attended by two million people.  Thirza Vallois  Read much more at https://www.francetoday.com/archives/the_paris_of_victor_hugo/ 

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2371  May 31, 2021

The Joys of the Italian Short Story by Jhumpa Lahiri  Language is the substance of literature, but language also locks it up again, confining it to silence and obscurity.  Translation, in the end, is the key.  Read extensive article at https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2019/09/10/the-joys-of-the-italian-short-story/ 

Green eggs and ham:  add peas, chives, parsley or asparagus to your egg dish.  

Sneaker collecting is the acquisition and trading of sneakers as a hobby.  It is often manifested by the use and collection of shoes made for particular sports, particularly basketball and skateboarding.  A person involved in sneaker collecting is sometimes called a sneakerhead.  The birth of sneaker collecting, subsequently creating the sneakerhead culture in the United States came in the 1980s and can be attributed to two major sources:  basketball, specifically the emergence of Michael Jordan and his eponymous Air Jordan line of shoes released in 1985, and the growth of hip hop music.  The boom of signature basketball shoes during this era provided the sheer variety necessary for a collecting subculture, while the hip-hop movement gave the sneakers their street credibility as status symbols.  The sneakerhead culture emerged in the United Kingdom and the Czech Republic during the early 2010s.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sneaker_collecting 

After enjoying centuries of being enjoyed by the English, cucumbers suddenly picked up a reputation as being poisonous in the 18th century.  As Dr. Johnson so eloquently demonstrated in his dictionary entry for the plant, they were seen as little better than trash, and picked up the alternate name of "cowcumber" around the same time, since they were only fit for animal fodder.  Samuel Pepys, writing on August 22, 1663 reported the alarming news that a guy named Tom Newburne was "dead of eating cowcumbers," and that he'd heard of another person dying of similar causes just the other day.  Two years earlier, however, Pepys had spoken glowingly of the little pickled cousin of the loathed cowcumber, noting that he opened a glass of "Girkins"—"which are rare things"—that had been a present from a sea captain buddy.  That word came straight from the pickle-happy Dutch, who might have picked up a word that sounded something like "gherkin" from the Slavs.  Had the name been invented at the time, Pepys might have also spoken fondly of the pickle-friendly Kirby, but he was a few centuries early.  The now-familiar term for a smallish cucumber was actually developed by a guy named Norval E. Kirby in 1920, whose cukes were a little stumpier than the National Pickling Cucumber that took over the market in the '30s.  Sam Dean  https://www.bonappetit.com/test-kitchen/ingredients/article/the-etymology-of-the-cucumber 

Paper bags are useful in microwave ovens.  Place food in one bag and fold end over.  Slip into second bag.  No spattering.  Source:  Microwave, a complete guide to everyday meals 

Misir Wot, spicy red lentil stew, is a staple at the Ethiopian table.  Lentils are the heart of many African dishes and amongst the country’s key exports.  After berber spice and lentils, the flavors in this dish come from onion, garlic, ginger, and tomato paste.  That is it.  So easy to make.  Posted by Analida  Find recipe and link to others at https://ethnicspoon.com/misir-wot-ethiopian-red-lentil-stew/ 

Use strips of aluminum foil as mulch.  The foil reflects light which repels many insects. *  For houseplants that need lots of light, place on windowsill lined with aluminum foil. * Add bread crumbs to salad if you put too much mayonnaise in the mix. * Cool water you used for boiling eggs, and water your houseplants with the liquid. * If your homemade soup is too salty, add a peeled, raw potato to absorb the excess salt.  Discard the potato. * Tenderize meat by marinating or cooking it in tea. * Add a couple of tablespoons of vinegar to water when boiling eggs, to prevent cracking.  Source:  Uncommon Uses for Common Household Products  

Shrimp Cocktail cooked in Court Bouillon https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/food-network-kitchen/shrimp-cocktail-recipe2-1942120  Thank you, Muse reader! 

Eric Carle died on May 23, 2021 at his summer studio in Northampton, Massachusetts.  He was 91 years old.  Eric Carle's picture books were often about insects.  Spiders, lady bugs, crickets and of course, that famous caterpillar, all as colorful and friendly as Carle himself.  The Very Hungry Caterpillar—probably Carle's best-known work—came out in 1969 and became one of the bestselling children's books of all time.  Neda Ulaby  https://www.npr.org/2021/05/26/970974320/eric-carle-creator-of-the-very-hungry-caterpillar-has-died 

Milton V. Peterson, one of the Washington area’s most successful real estate developers and the politically savvy creator of the sprawling National Harbor retail-hotel-casino complex in Oxon Hill, Md., died May 26, 2021 at his home in Fairfax County, Va.  He was 85.  In 2020, Mr. Peterson’s company estimated that he had built more than 26,000 residential properties and approximately 234 million square feet of commercial space.  Control of the Peterson Companies passed to his two sons in the 1990s, but into his 80s, Mr. Peterson continued to actively participate in the firm’s operation.  His 20-year effort to build National Harbor—and his eight-year fight to include a casino there—caused often acrimonious environmental and political controversy.  But through Mr. Peterson’s deep pockets and patience, and with help from Prince George’s County and Maryland politicians he had cultivated with campaign contributions, the project was fully developed by 2016.  The complex, which sits beside the Potomac River just south of the Capital Beltway, now encompasses 350 acres and more than 8 million square feet of space.  Millions of people visit, live or work there during an average year.  Bob Levey  https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/milt-peterson-dead/2021/05/26/5a18f7f4-b64e-11ea-a8da-693df3d7674a_story.html 

In 1950, a glass-walled house spent a few months in Manhattan.  Skyscrapers loomed over its flat roof while it was on exhibit in the Museum of Modern Art’s garden.  The installation, designed by the architect Gregory Ain and co-sponsored with Woman’s Home Companion magazine, was meant to inspire creativity on a budget for residential subdivisions.  According to the museum’s brochure, a system of movable walls “conveys an illusion of spaciousness” in the two-bedroom building.  But once the attraction was shuttered and dismantled, its fate fell into obscurity.  It seemed to have disappeared.  It’s now nestled in Croton-on-Hudson, N.Y.  The property’s 2.7 acres are lush with unusual trees, such as Japanese snowbell and weeping huckleberry.  “If it doesn’t give me a flower, it can’t come here,” owner Mary Kelly said.  Neoclassical stone statues, vintage subway signs and metal filigree benches are scattered around the grounds.  Eve M. Kahn  Read extensive article and see many pictures at https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/27/arts/design/gregory-ain-moma-house.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage&section=Art%20and%20Design 

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2370  May 28, 2021

 The expression “a lick and a promise” is at least 200 years old.  The Oxford English Dictionary says one meaning of the word is “a slight and hasty wash.”  The dictionary’s earliest recorded use of “a lick and a promise” is from Walter White’s travel book All Round the Wrekin (1860):  “We only gives the cheap ones a lick and a promise.” (The Wrekin is a hill in Shropshire, England.)  However, the word sleuth Barry Popik has found almost half a dozen earlier examples of “a lick and a promise.”  Here’s the earliest, from the December 1811 issue of The Critical Review, a journal founded by Tobias Smollett:  “The Prince Regent comes in for a blessing, too, but as one of the Serio-Comico-Clerico’s nurses, who are so fond of over-feeding little babies, would say, it is but a lick and a promise.”  The “lick” in the expression was originally used by itself, to mean “a dab of paint” or the like, “a hasty tidying up,” or “a casual amount of work,” the OED says.  The earliest example in writing of this sense of “lick,” Oxford says, comes from James Maidment’s A Packet of Pestilent Pasquils (circa 1648), a collection of Scottish literary oddities:  “We’ll mark them with a lick of tarre.”  https://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2012/10/a-lick-and-a-promise.html 

Skin is the body’s largest organ and can comprise 15 percent of a person’s total weight.  As you breathe, most of the air is going in and out of one nostril.  Every few hours, the workload shifts to the other nostril.  Blood makes up about 8 percent of your total body weight.  The human nose can detect about 1 trillion smells.  https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/570937/facts-about-the-human-body 

DEVIL IS IN THE DETAILS - The Random House Dictionary of Popular Proverbs and Sayings by Gregory Y. Titelman (Random House, New York, 1996) shows this phrase as a variation of "God is in the details - Whatever one does should be done thoroughly; details are important.  The saying is generally attributed to Gustave Flaubert (1821-80), who is often quoted as saying, 'Le bon Dieu est dans le detail' (God is in the details).  Other attributions include Michelangelo, the architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and the art historian Aby Warburg.  'The Devil is in the details' is a variant of the proverb, referring to a catch hidden in the details.  'Governing is in the details'' and 'The truth, if it exists, is in the details' are recent variants.  Listed as an anonymous saying in the sixteenth edition of Barlett's 'Familiar Quotations,' edited by Justin Kaplan  https://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/24/messages/694.html

Schoolhouse Rock! is an American interstitial programming series of animated musical educational short films (and later, videos) that aired during the Saturday morning children's programming block on the U.S. television network ABC.  Themes included grammar, science, economics, history, mathematics, and civics.  The series' original run lasted from 1973 to 1984; it was later revived with both old and new episodes airing from 1993 to 1996.  Additional episodes were produced in 2009 for direct-to-video release.  A musical theatre adaptation of the show, titled Schoolhouse Rock Live!, premiered in 1993.  It featured a collaboration between artists Scott Ferguson, Kyle Hall, George Keating, Lynn Ahrens, Bob Dorough, Dave Frishberg, and Kathy Mandry, utilizing some of the most famous songs of Newall and Yohe.  A follow-up production entitled Schoolhouse Rock Live, Too, written by the same team as Schoolhouse Rock Live!, premiered in Chicago in 2000.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schoolhouse_Rock!

 

Basque cuisine refers to the cuisine Basque Country and includes meats and fish grilled over hot coals, marmitako and lamb stews, cod, Tolosa bean dishes, paprikas from Lekeitio, pintxos (Basque tapas), Idiazabal sheep's cheese, txakoli (sparkling white-wine), and Basque cider.  A basquaise is a type of dish prepared in the style of Basque cuisine that often includes tomatoes and sweet or hot red peppers.  Basque cuisine is influenced by the abundance of produce from the sea on one side and the fertile Ebro valley on the other.  The great mountainous nature of the Basque Country has led to a difference between coastal cuisine dominated by fish and seafood, and inland cuisine with fresh and cured meats, many vegetables and legumes, and freshwater fish and salt cod.  The French and Spanish influence is strong also, with a noted difference between the cuisine of either side of the modern border; even Basque dishes and products such as txakoli from the South, or Gâteau Basque (Biskotx) and Jambon de Bayonne from the North, are rarely seen on the other side.  Basques have also been quick to absorb new ingredients and techniques from new settlers and from their own trade and exploration links.  Jews expelled from Spain and Portugal created a chocolate and confectionery industry in Bayonne still well-known today, and part of a wider confectionery and pastry tradition across the Basque Country.  Basques embraced the potato and the capsicum, used in hams, sausages and recipes, with pepper festivals around the area, notably Ezpeleta and Puente la Reina.  Olive oil is more commonly used than vegetable oil in Basque cooking.  Cuisine and the kitchen are at the heart of Basque culture, and there is a Museum of Gastronomy in Llodio.  One of the staple cookbooks for traditional Basque dishes was initially published in 1933.  "La cocina de Nicolasa" (the Kitchen of Nicolasa) by Nicolasa Pradera has gone into 20 editions.  See graphics at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basque_cuisine 

“In Clue, there is a candlestick among the possible murder weapons but, surprisingly, not a butler among the suspects.”  “Being older and wiser doesn’t help the ego.”  Lost, a novel by Michael Robotham 

The full moon on Wednesday, May 26, 2021 will be something to behold, as the only total lunar eclipse of 2021 arrives together with the year's biggest "supermoon."  Skywatchers in much of the world will have a chance to see a slightly larger-than-average full moon temporarily appear red during the so-called "Super Flower Blood Moon."  But for those in parts of the world where the eclipse isn't visible—or where clouds foil the view—there will be several free webcasts showing live views of the eclipse online.  During the Super Flower Blood Moon, the full moon of May (known as the Flower Moon) will pass through Earth's shadow, causing it to appear red.  This is why total lunar eclipses are commonly called "blood moons."  At around the same time, the moon will reach perigee, or the closest point to Earth in its current orbit.  This will make it appear slightly bigger than an average full moon, making it a "supermoon," too.   https://www.space.com/super-flower-blood-moon-2021-webcasts 

How to photograph the super blood moon with your camera or phone by Dave Stevenson and Mark Wilson  https://www.techradar.com/how-to/how-to-photograph-the-super-blood-moon-with-your-camera-or-phone  

When Ali Ahmed rented a storefront on Brooklyn’s Atlantic Avenue in  December, 2020, he wasn’t sure what he’d do with it—the veteran restaurateur was simply snagging a bargain from among the retail strip’s many vacancies.  “It was too good of a deal,” he says.  A few weeks later, someone smashed into his parked BMW and left a note:  “Sorry I hit your car.  Call me and we’ll figure it out.”  The author turned out to be a Brooklyn bookstore owner.  The two got to talking and a new concept was born.  The result?  A combination book store and American comfort-food restaurant.  Opened in March, A Novel Kitchen has a bustling brunch business and sells several thousand dollars in used books and vinyl records every week, says Mr. Ahmed.  This Frankenstein enterprise is hardly the only unusual storefront concept to launch in New York City this spring.  “Grand opening” and “coming soon” signs are appearing all over town.  Anne Kadet  The Wall Street Journal  May 25, 2021 

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2369  May 26, 2021

According to research, 65 percent of the elements of dreams are associated with your experiences while awake.  If you’ve got job stress, your dreams might take place at work or involve your co-workers.  If you just went on a date, your dream might be full of romance, or on the flip side, heartbreak, if you’re having anxiety about dating someone new.  A “standard” dream will vary depending on the individual.  Some features of dreams:  Most dreams are predominantly visual, meaning that images are at the forefront of dreams, rather than other senses like smell or touch.  While most people dream in color, some dreams are entirely in black and white.  https://www.healthline.com/health/types-of-dreams#nightmares 

Dreams are a universal human experience that can be described as a state of consciousness characterized by sensory, cognitive and emotional occurrences during sleep.  https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/284378#what-are-dreams 

George L. Kline translated more of Nobel laureate Joseph Brodsky’s poems than any other single person, with the exception of Brodsky himself.  He described himself to me as “Brodsky’s first serious translator.”  Bryn Mawr’s Milton C. Nahm Professor of Philosophy was a modest and retiring man, but on occasion he could be as forthright and adamant as Brodsky himself.  In a 1994 letter, the Slavic scholar wrote:  “Akhmatova discovered Brodsky for Russia, but I discovered him for the West.”  And in 1987, “I was the first in the West to recognize him as a major poet, and the first to translate his work in extenso.”  It was all true.  He was, moreover, one of the few translators who was a fluent Russian speaker.  Read extensive article by Cynthia L. Haven at https://lithub.com/translating-brodsky-on-the-undeniable-legacy-of-george-l-kline/ 

“There are worse crimes than burning books.  One of them is not reading them.”  Joseph Brodsky 1940–96, Russian-born American poet at Library of Congress press conference, Washington, 17 May 1991 on his becoming poet laureate of the United States  https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780191826719.001.0001/q-oro-ed4-00017260 

Picadillo is one of the great dishes of the Cuban diaspora:  a soft, fragrant stew of ground beef and tomatoes, with raisins added for sweetness and olives for salt.  Versions of it exist across the Caribbean and into Latin America.  This one combines ground beef with intensely seasoned dried Spanish chorizo in a sofrito of onions, garlic and tomatoes, and scents it with red-wine vinegar, cinnamon and cumin, along with bay leaves and pinches of ground cloves and nutmeg.  For the olives you may experiment with fancy and plain, but rigorous testing here suggests the use of pimento-stuffed green olives is the best practice.  A scattering of capers would be welcome as well.  Featured in The Ultimate Cuban Comfort Food: Picadillo.  Sam Sifton  Find six-serving recipe at https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1016814-picadillo 

Through the years, Carmen Sandiego has been more elusive than even the master of disguise, Waldo of Where's Waldo.  The fictional character was the star of the PBS television show, Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego, which premiered in September of 1991.  The series even inspired a computer game of the same name.  Players on both the show and the game used their geography and problem-solving skills to help track down the international thief, Carmen.  The woman behind Carmen Sandiego is Janine LaManna.  Appearing as the evasive and stealthy Carmen on PBS was LaManna's break-out role.  She wasn't upset that she was never credited for playing the character, and remembers her time on the television set fondly.  https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2016/08/120360/carmen-sandiego-character-mystery-solved 

Isaac Asimov was enthralled with her and wrote her a limerick.  Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan wrote in their introduction to “Comet” (1985) that “one of the most pleasant experiences in writing this book” was meeting her.  Numerous other science writers acknowledged their debts to her in forewords to their books.  Ruth Freitag, a reference librarian at the Library of Congress for nearly a half-century, was unknown to the general public.  But she was, in more ways than one, a librarian to the stars.  Known for her encyclopedic knowledge of resources in science and technology, Ms. Freitag (pronounced FRY-tog) was sought out by the leading interpreters of the galaxy.  She developed a particular expertise in astronomy early in her career.  Ruth Steinmuller Freitag was born in Lancaster on June 8, 1924.  Her father, Albert, an immigrant from Germany, was a purchasing agent for a Lancaster lock company.  Her mother, Lina (Steinmuller) Freitag, his third wife, was a homemaker and an expert seamstress.  Ruth’s love of libraries—and history—manifested itself early.  In 1941, when she was in high school and won a trip to Washington, according to a front-page article in The Lancaster New Era, she “almost persuaded the chaperones to let her spend the evening in the Library of Congress rather than the theater.”  Ms. Freitag earned a master’s degree in library science from the University of Southern California in 1959.  The Library of Congress recruited her that year as part of its elite program for outstanding graduates of library schools.  After six months of training, she joined the library as a full-time employee and stayed until she retired in 2006 at 82.  Katharine Q. Seelye  Read Isaac Asimov’s limerick to Ruth Freitag at https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/21/books/ruth-freitag-dead.html?smid=tw-nytimesscience&smtyp=cur 

Yuan Longping, a Chinese scientist who developed higher-yield rice varieties that helped feed people around the world, died May 22, 2021 at a hospital in the southern city of Changsha, the Xinhua News agency reported.  He was 90.  Yuan spent his life researching rice and was a household name in China, known by the nickname “Father of Hybrid Rice.”  Worldwide, a fifth of all rice now comes from species created by hybrid rice following Yuan’s breakthrough discoveries, according to the website of the World Food Prize, which he won in 2004.  Large crowds honored the scientist by marching past the hospital in Hunan province where he died, local media reported, calling out phrases such as: “Grandpa Yuan, have a good journey!”  It was in the 1970s when Yuan achieved the breakthroughs that would make him a household name.  He developed a hybrid strain of rice that recorded an annual yield 20% higher than existing varieties—meaning it could feed an extra 70 million people a year, according to Xinhua.  Huizhong Wu  https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/chinas-yuan-longping-father-of-hybrid-rice-dies-at-91/2021/05/22/ed13a29c-baf9-11eb-bc4a-62849cf6cca9_story.html 

May 24, 2021  Bob Dylan:  80 things you may not know about him on his 80th birthday by Paul Glynn  https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-56716269 

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2368  May 24, 2021  

The Anxiety of Influence:  On the Few Books I Was Able to Read While Writing My Own by Marcia Butler  Like most authors, I’ve been a voracious reader most of my life.  But when I’m writing the first draft of a novel, I’m careful about what, and how much, I read.  Its influence I fear—that I’ll lose my voice, my thumbprint.  This worry about porosity dates back to my career as a professional oboist.  When I performed the Mozart Oboe Concerto, for example, I avoided listening to other oboists so as to not get muddled with someone else’s interpretation.  While following this instinct, the few books that I do read almost always show me something specific—at times, pivotal—for my work in progress.  By now, this has occurred enough times that I’ve come to expect it.  I’d like to think it’s a form of grace—almost like a higher power is curating, bringing specific books to me.  https://lithub.com/the-anxiety-of-influence-on-the-few-books-i-was-able-to-read-while-writing-my-own/ 

5 Books to Read if You Loved Where’d You Go, Bernadette:  Cheer Up, Mr. Widdicombe by Evan James; The Bookish Life of Nina Hill by Abbi Waxman; Small Admissions by Amy Poeppe; Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman; and A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman.  Sienna Farris  Read description of stories at https://getliterary.com/books-to-read-if-you-loved-whered-you-go-bernadette/ 

There is much controversy over who invented the first ice cream cone.  Both paper and metal cones were used in France, England, and Germany before the 19th century.  Before the invention of the cone, ice cream was either licked out of a small glass (a penny lick, penny cone, penny sucker, or licking glasses) or taken away wrapped in paper which was called a “hokey pokey.”  During the 1770s, ice cream was referred to as iced puddings or ice cream puddings.  The cones used were referred to as wafers.  During this period, wafers were considered as “stomach settlers” and were served at the end to the meal to calm digestion.  They eventually became luxurious treats and were an important element of the dessert course.  When rolled into “funnels” or “cornucopias,” they could be filled with all sorts of fruit pastes, creams, and iced puddings.  Stories from the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, informally known as the St. Louis World's Fair, in 1904:  The first version, and said to be the official version by the International Association of Ice Cream Manufacturers (IAICM), credits pastry maker, Ernest Hamwi, with coming to the aid of Arnold Fomachou, a teenage ice cream vendor, by rolling the ice cream in crisp wafers that he called a Zalabia (a wafer-thin, waffle-like confection sprinkled with sugar).  It is also claimed by the family of Nick Kabbaz, an Syrian immigrant, that he and his brother, Albert, were the originators of the cone.  The Kabbaz brothers may have worked for Ernest Hamwi in his booth at the Fair and came up with the idea of folding cakes to insert ice cream in and also the idea of making them in the cone shape.  Abe Doumar (1881-1947) also claimed to have invented the ice cream cone in a very similar way at the Fair.  The story is that sixteen-year-old Abe, a recently arrived Syria immigrant, was met at the dock by a recruiter.  He was given unique items to vend at the St. Louis Fair (paperweights filled with water purportedly from the River Jordan).  One evening while talking to one of the waffle concessionaires, he suggested that he could turn his penny waffle into a 10-cent cone if he added ice cream.  He then bought a waffle and rolled it into a cone, to which he added ice cream from a neighboring stall.  In one fell scoop, he invented what he called “a kind of Syrian ice cream sandwich.”  When the Fair closed, Abe was given one of the waffle irons to take home.  In North Bergen, N.J., Abe worked out a cone oven (a four-iron machine) and had a foundry make it.   He then set up business at Coney Island, New Jersey, with three partners in 1905.  The first of his many ice cream cone stands at Coney Island.  A Turkish native, David Avayou, who had owned several ice cream shops in Atlantic City, New Jersey, claimed that he started selling edible cones at the St. Louis Fair.  He claimed that he had first seen cones in France, where ice cream was eaten from paper or metal cones, and had applied the idea in edible form at the Fair.   According to another story, Charles Robert Menches and his brother Frank of St. Louis, Missouri, ran ice cream concessions at fairs and events across the Midwest.  The family of the brothers claim they came up with the ice cream cone at the 1904 World’s Fair when a lady friend, who for daintier eating, took one layer of a baked waffle and rolled it into a cone around the ice cream.  They had the idea to wrap a warm waffle around a fid (a cone-shaped splicing tool for tent ropes).  The waffle cooled and held its shape to provide an edible handle for eating ice cream.  The brothers are also credited with the invention of candy-coated peanuts and popcorn that was sold under the name “Gee Whiz,” today known as Cracker Jacks.  https://whatscookingamerica.net/History/IceCream/IceCreamCone.htm 

When guavas ripen, they go from dark green to a lighter yellow-green color.  You’ll want to choose one of the yellowish ones and make sure that it’s free of blemishes or bruises.  Sometimes ripe guavas will also have a touch of pink color to them.  A ripe guava will be soft and give under your fingers when you lightly squeeze it.  You can also tell a guava is ripe by the aroma.  You should be able to smell the fruit’s musky, sweet scent without even having to put it up to your nose.  You can buy hard, green guavas and allow them to ripen at room temperature.  Placing them in a paper bag with a banana or apple will allow them to ripen faster.  Emily Johnson  https://www.epicurious.com/ingredients/how-to-eat-guava-in-smoothies-salads-desserts-article  The most frequently eaten species, and the one often simply referred to as "the guava", is the apple guava (Psidium guajava).  See pictures at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guava

My recommendation for a happy book is anything by Laurie Colwin.  Though Colwin died in 1992 at 48, her books have never gone out of print.  A regular contributor to the New Yorker and Gourmet among other magazines, she wrote five novels, three short-story collections and two nonfiction works centered on food and eating.  Set against the backdrop of Manhattan during the last quarter of the 20th century, Colwin’s work is populated with middle- to upper-class couples and their contemporaries whose professions are but window dressing; their true occupations are eating, wandering, longing and questioning the conditions of modernity.  Lauren LeBlanc  https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/books/story/2021-03-25/escape-2021s-sourdough-hellscape-with-laurie-colwin-delightful-reissued-books 

May 19, 2021  In a story fit for Hollywood, the remains of a submerged Italian village have been revealed for the first time in over seven decades.  The village was found at the bottom of Lake Resia, a 2.5-square-mile artificial lake nestled near the borders of Austria and Switzerland.  The lake had been a popular tourist and hiking destination, both in summer and winter months, as seasonal freezing allowed for visitors to venture out onto it.  With a dramatic 14th-century steeple emerging from its turquoise waters, the setting had inspired a book and a Netflix series.  Nick Mafi  See pictures at https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/lost-italian-village-emerges-after-decades-under-water

Little Island, the park that has been rising in the Hudson River designed by Thomas Heatherwick and Signe Nielson of the landscape architecture firm MNLA, opens May 21, 2021.  The island is located at 13th Street at the boundary between the Meatpacking District and Chelsea.  Little Island’s fascinating engineering, led by Arup, enables the park to rise on 280 organically-shaped concrete piloti on top of which sit 132 concrete “tulips.”  The piloti mix in with the pilings of the former piers, which were retained as much as possible.  With 350 species of flowers, trees and shrubs, the lush park has a lawn space known as “The Glade,” a 687-seat amphitheater (known as “The Amph”), and the provision of food and beverage vendors along a central plaza that contains seating.  Little Island is built atop the remains of Pier 54 and Pier 55, which once served the glorious Cunard steamship lines.  Cunard has a connection with almost all the major ships that came to or departed from New York City, some with unfortunate ends.  The RMS Lusitania left here in 1915, to be sunk by a German torpedo close to its destination.  The Titanic was supposed to dock at neighboring Pier 59 but never made it, but the RMS Carpathia which rescued survivors did dock at Pier 54.  Little Island will be open from 6 AM to 1 AM, although there will be timed tickets issued between 12 PM and 8 AM.  You can reserve these tickets on LittleIsland.org on in person at the park entrance.  Michelle Young   See pictures at https://untappedcities.com/2021/05/20/little-island-open-first-look/ 

May 21 is the World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development or Diversity Day, which is recognized by the United Nations to highlight the value of cultural diversity and the need for people to live together in harmony.  Wikipedia 

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2367  May 21, 2021