The scuppernong is a large variety of muscadine (Vitis rotundifolia), a species of grape native to the Southern United States.  It is usually a greenish or bronze color and is similar in appearance and texture to a white grape, but rounder and larger and first known as the 'big white grape'.  The grape is commonly known as the "scuplin" in some areas of the Deep South.  It is also known as the "scufalum", "scupanon", "scupadine", "scuppernine", "scupnun", or "scufadine" in some parts of the South.  The scuppernong is the state fruit of North Carolina.   The name comes from the Scuppernong River in North Carolina mainly along the coastal plain.  It was first mentioned as a "white grape" in a written logbook by the Florentine explorer Giovanni de Verrazzano while exploring the Cape Fear River Valley in 1524.  He wrote " . . . Many vines growing naturally there . . . ".   Sir Walter Raleigh's explorers, the captains Philip Amadas and Arthur Barlowe, wrote in 1584 that North Carolina's coast was " . . . so full of grapes as the very beating and surge of the sea overflowed them . . . in all the world, the like abundance is not to be found."  He may have been referring to Sargasso seaweed from coral reefs, which can be seen washed up on shore after a major storm off the NC coast.  The seaweed has berrylike gas-filled bladders looking much like grapes to keep the fronds afloat.  However, in 1585, Governor Ralph Lane, when describing North Carolina to Raleigh, stated that "We have discovered the main to be the goodliest soil under the cope of heaven, so abounding with sweet trees that bring rich and pleasant, grapes of such greatness, yet wild, as France, Spain, nor Italy hath no greater . . . ".  It was first cultivated during the 17th century, particularly in Tyrell County, North Carolina.  Isaac Alexander found it while hunting along the banks of a stream feeding into Scuppernong Lake in 1755; it is mentioned in the North Carolina official state toast.  The name itself traces back to the Algonquian word ascopo meaning "sweet bay tree".   Scuppernong is a piece for piano in three movements by John Wesley Work III.  Scuppernongs are mentioned in chapters 5 and 22 of To Kill a Mockingbird.  See pictures at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scuppernong 

The word algorithm sounds hi-tech, but in fact it’s very old:  imported into English, via French and Latin, from the name of the ninth-century Arab mathematician al-Khwarizmi.  Originally algorithm simply meant what is now called the “Arabic” system of numbers (including zero).  Only later did it acquire the more specific sense in mathematics of a procedure or set of rules: a writer in 1811 called for an algorithm for establishing theorems.  To this day, algorithm is still just a fancy name for a set of rules.  In finance, especially, the word is often shortened to “algo”, which via “algae” evokes a sense of inexorable biological growth.  But perhaps if we thought of algorithms as mere humdrum flowcharts, drawn up by humans, we’d be better able to see where responsibility really lies if, or when, they go wrong.  Steven Poole  https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/sep/20/from-arabic-to-algae-like-ai-the-alarming-rise-of-the-algorithm- 

Music for Chameleons (1980) is a collection of short fiction and non-fiction by Truman Capote.  Capote's first collection of new material in fourteen years, Music for Chameleons spent sixteen weeks on the New York Times bestseller list, unprecedented for a collection of short works.  The book is divided into three sections. Part one, titled "Music for Chameleons", includes the short story after which the section and book are named, as well as five other stories ("Mr. Jones", "A Lamp in a Window", "Mojave", "Hospitality" and "Dazzle").  Part two, the core of the book, consists of a single piece: "Handcarved Coffins", ostensibly a "nonfiction account of an American crime" that suggests certain parallels with his best-known work, the difference being that Capote did not include himself as a character in the narrative when he wrote In Cold Blood.  In the third section, "Conversational Portraits", Capote recalls his encounters with Pearl Bailey, Bobby Beausoleil, Willa Cather, Marilyn Monroe and others.  These seven essays are titled "A Day's Work", "Hello, Stranger", "Hidden Gardens", "Derring-Do", "Then It All Came Down", "A Beautiful Child" and "Nocturnal Turnings."  "A Day's Work" was Capote's account of a shift he spent with a New York day maid, an idea his friend Slim Keith recalled him having before he set out to work on In Cold Blood.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_for_Ch

"Music for Chameleons" is a 1982 single by Gary Numan from his album, I, Assassin.  The song peaked at number 19 on the UK Singles Chart.  The song was composed during Numan's round-the-world trip in a light aircraft, which he undertook together with another pilot.  Numan states in his autobiography that he kept singing it to himself so much that it got on the nerves of his co-pilot.  The song is highly unusual in using fretless bass as the main melody instrument.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_for_Chameleons_(song) 

The Mosquito Coast, also known as the Miskito Coast and the Miskito Kingdom, historically included the kingdom's fluctuating area along the eastern coast of present-day Nicaragua and Honduras.  It formed part of the Western Caribbean Zone.  It was named after the local Miskito Amerindians and was long dominated by British interests.  The Mosquito Coast was incorporated into Nicaragua in November 1894; however, in 1960, the northern part was granted to Honduras by the International Court of Justice.  Read more and see graphics at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosquito_Coast 

The Mosquito Coast is an American drama television series developed by Neil Cross and Tom Bissell based on the novel of the same name by Paul Theroux published in 1981.  It also loosely adapted from the 1986 film which starred Harrison Ford.  It premiered on Apple TV+ on April 30, 2021.   The series stars Justin Theroux, nephew of Paul, and Melissa George in lead roles, with Logan Polish and Gabriel Bateman rounding out the main cast.  Justin Theroux also serves as executive producer of the series, along with Rupert Wyatt who directed the first two episodes.  The first season of the series consists of seven episodes and concluded on June 4, 2021.  In June 2021, the series was renewed for a second season.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mosquito_Coast_(TV_series) 

The phrase "knowledge is power" is often attributed to Francis Bacon, from his Meditationes Sacrae (1597).  Thomas Jefferson used the phrase in his correspondence on at least four occasions, each time in connection with the establishment of a state university in Virginia.  https://www.monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/knowledge-power-quotation   

A ["Knowledge is power" magnet] search on Google July 28, 2021 brought up 7,530,000 results.  I have a magnet from The New York Public Library with these words and an outline of a lion’s head.  Thank you, Muse reader!  

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2397  July 30, 2001

Perhaps Freud's single most enduring and important idea was that the human psyche (personality) has more than one aspect.  Freud's personality theory (1923) saw the psyche structured into three parts:  the id, ego and superego, all developing at different stages in our lives.  These are systems, not parts of the brain, or in any way physical.  McLeod, S. A. (2019, September 25).  Find extensive descriptions of the three parts of the psyche at Id, ego and superego.  Simply Psychology. https://www.simplypsychology.org/psyche.html 

‘As dead as a doornail' has been in use since at least the 14th century.  There's a reference to it in print in 1350, a translation by William Langland of the French poem Guillaume de Palerne:  "For but ich haue bote of mi bale I am ded as dorenayl."  Langland also used the expression in the much more famous poem The vision of William concerning Piers Plowman, 1370-90:  Fey withouten fait is febelore þen nouȝt, And ded as a dore-nayl.  [Faith without works is feebler than nothing, and dead as a doornail.]   The expression was in widespread colloquial use in England by the 16th century, when Shakespeare gave these lines to the rebel leader Jack Cade in King Henry VI, Part 2, 1592:  Look on me well:  I have eat no meat these five days; yet, come thou and thy five men, and if I do not leave you all as dead as a doornail, I pray God I may never eat grass more.  Medieval doors, with nails which can't be reused, are the source of the expression.  There are several 'as dead as . . . ' idioms, amongst the most notable examples being 'as dead as a dodo' and 'as dead as mutton'.  Doornails are the large-headed studs that were used in earlier times for strength and more recently as decoration.  The practice was to hammer the nail through and then bend the protruding end over to secure it.  This process, similar to riveting, was called clenching.  This may be the source of the 'deadness', as such a nail would be unusable afterwards.  https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/as-dead-as-a-doornail.html   

A QR code (abbreviated from Quick Response code) is a type of matrix barcode (or two-dimensional barcode) invented in 1994 by the Japanese automotive company Denso Wave.  A barcode is a machine-readable optical label that contains information about the item to which it is attached.  In practice, QR codes often contain data for a locator, identifier, or tracker that points to a website or application.  A QR code uses four standardized encoding modes (numeric, alphanumeric, byte/binary, and kanji) to store data efficiently; extensions may also be used.  The Quick Response system became popular outside the automotive industry due to its fast readability and greater storage capacity compared to standard UPC barcodes.  Applications include product tracking, item identification, time tracking, document management, and general marketing.  A QR code consists of black squares arranged in a square grid on a white background, which can be read by an imaging device such as a camera, and processed using Reed–Solomon error correction until the image can be appropriately interpreted.  The required data is then extracted from patterns that are present in both horizontal and vertical components of the image.  See graphics at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QR_code 

Like other plants, Venus' Flytraps gather nutrients from gases in the air and nutrients in the soil.  However, they live in poor soil and are healthier if they get nutrients from insects.  Carnivorous plants live all over the world but the Venus Flytrap is native to select boggy areas in North and South Carolina.  Because of people's fascination with these plants, they collected many of them and they became endangered.  Venus' Flytraps today are grown in greenhouses.  The leaves of Venus' Flytrap open wide and on them are short, stiff hairs called trigger or sensitive hairs.  When anything touches these hairs enough to bend them, the two lobes of the leaves snap shut trapping whatever is inside.  The trap will shut in less than a second.  The trap doesn't close all of the way at first.  It is thought that it stays open for a few seconds in order to allow very small insects to escape because they wouldn't provide enough food.  If the object isn't food, e.g., a stone, or a nut, the trap will reopen in about twelve hours and 'spit' it out.  See pictures at https://botany.org/home/resources/the-mysterious-venus-flytrap.html   

Little Shop of Horrors is a horror comedy rock musical with music by Alan Menken and lyrics and a book by Howard Ashman.  The story follows a hapless florist shop worker who raises a plant that feeds on human blood and flesh.  The musical is loosely based on the low-budget 1960 black comedy film The Little Shop of Horrors.  The music, composed by Menken in the style of early 1960s rock and roll, doo-wop and early Motown, includes several well-known tunes, including the title song, "Skid Row (Downtown)", "Somewhere That's Green", and "Suddenly, Seymour".  The musical premiered Off-Off-Broadway in 1982 before moving to the Orpheum Theatre Off-Broadway, where it had a five-year run.  It later received numerous productions in the U.S. and abroad, and a subsequent Broadway production. Because of its small cast, it has become popular with community theatre, school and other amateur groups.  The musical was also made into a 1986 film of the same name, directed by Frank Oz.  See synopsis and list of musical numbers at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Shop_of_Horrors_(musical)  See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Little_Shop_of_Horrors 

August 20, 2020  In 1837, Charles Dickens moved into a narrow terraced house north of Central London. 48 Doughty Street was the novelist’s home for only 2½ years, but they were productive ones-–he wrote Oliver Twist and Nicholas Nickleby there.  Today, the building is a museum dedicated to the author and his work.  The house has been restored to how it might have looked when Dickens lived; his well-worn desk takes pride of place in the study, and the dining room is laid out as if for a supper party.  Dan Stewart  https://money.yahoo.com/veep-creator-armando-iannucci-says-102807565.html

From:  Andrew Pressburger  Although bolshevik means majority and menshevik minority, a reversal of meaning occurred at the congress of the Russian Social Democratic Party in 1903.
From:  Stephen Tolkin  In mostly British cooking usage, blitz also means to whip or puree.  Nigella Lawson uses this word almost exclusively for those activities.
From:  Norman Rabek  Then there is always the slang usage “blitzed” meaning the effect of way too much alcohol.  Usually used with a form of “get” or “am”.  AWADmailIssue 990 

Euphemism is a euphemism for lying. - Bobbie Gentry, singer and songwriter (b. 27 Jul 1944) 

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2396  July 28, 2021

The best known health benefit of rooibos tea (pronounced ‘roy boss’) is that it is naturally caffeine-free.  Traditional black or green tea is made from the camelia sinensis plant which contains caffeine.  However, rooibos comes from the aspalathus linearis shrub, part of the pea and bean family, and has absolutely no caffeine in its genetic make-up.  This means that unlike decaffeinated black tea, it does not have to undergo any chemical processing to have caffeine removed.  Because rooibos has a full and rich taste, it can take milk, and therefore it makes a delicious alternative to black tea.  https://ticktocktea.com/blogs/ticktock-blog/rooibos-redbush-tea-benefits  See also https://time.com/3724505/healthy-recipes-healthiest-foods/ and https://time.com/4121973/the-50-new-healthiest-foods-of-all-time-with-recipes/ 

Marie-Helene Bertino on using humor to connect with readers.  June 16, 2021  During virtual readings last year, I was asked a few times how I incorporate humor into my writing.  While good alone, dark chocolate is perhaps most deliciously a delivery system for peanut butter.  When paired, chocolate and peanut butter become greater than the sum of their parts, forming a third entity, let’s call it a key--that unlocks a door to more profound flavors.  In the above relationship, if you replace dark chocolate with humor, peanut butter for The Thing, and flavors for Emotional Truths, it explains the access I feel being funny can grant.  Humor can make a reader relax.  This disorientation is valuable.  Once they feel at home, the reader is vulnerable.  Whatever the writer does next lands harder.  The reader might find the cozy room they’re sitting in is actually a lightning field.  Literary Hub’s The Craft of Writing 

WOULDN'T TOUCH IT WITH A TEN-FOOT POLE   "This expression may have been suggested by the 10-foot poles that river boatmen used to pole their boars along in shallow water.  In the sense of not wanting to get involved or having strong distaste for something, the words aren't recorded until the late 19th century."  From Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins by Robert Hendrickson (Facts on File, New York, 1997).  Another reference has an earlier appearance of the phrase "I WOULDN'T TOUCH IT WITH A TEN-FOOT POLE" -- It's a dangerous or disagreeable, and I intend to avoid it.  The 'ten-foot pole' is not an item ready to hand, and neither is the 'barge pole' which figure in similar expression.  Still, they both serve as figures of speech, and so did 'tongs.'  With 'tongs' (spelled 'tongues') the expression was known by 1639, when John Clarke included it in his 'Paroemiologia Anglo-Latino':  'Not to be handled with a paire of tongues.'  Then 'ten-foot pole' was in used in the expression by 1758, the 'barge pole' by 1877."  From The Dictionary of Cliches by James Rogers (Ballantine Books, New York, 1985).  https://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/12/messages/29.html 

The "Great Moon Hoax" refers to a series of six articles that were published in The Sun, a New York newspaper, beginning on August 25, 1835, about the supposed discovery of life and even civilization on the Moon.  The discoveries were falsely attributed to Sir John Herschel, one of the best-known astronomers of that time.  The story was advertised on August 21, 1835, as an upcoming feature allegedly reprinted from The Edinburgh Courant.  The first in a series of six was published four days later on August 25.  The articles described animals on the Moon, including bison, goats, unicorns, bipedal tail-less beavers and bat-like winged humanoids ("Vespertilio-homo") who built temples.  There were trees, oceans and beaches.  These discoveries were supposedly made with "an immense telescope of an entirely new principle".  The author of the narrative was ostensibly Dr. Andrew Grant, the travelling companion and amanuensis of Sir John Herschel, but Grant was fictitious.  Authorship of the article has been attributed to Richard Adams Locke (1800–1871), a reporter who, in August 1835, was working for The Sun.  Locke publicly admitted to being the author in 1840, in a letter to the weekly paper New World.  The hoax, as well as Poe's "Hans Pfaall", are mentioned by characters in Jules Verne's From the Earth to the Moon.  Nate DiMeo's historical podcast The Memory Palace dedicated an episode to the Great Moon Hoax entitled "The Moon in the Sun".  See graphics at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Moon_Hoax 

Tempest in a teapot (American English), or storm in a teacup (British English), is an idiom meaning a small event that has been exaggerated out of proportion.  There are also lesser known or earlier variants, such as tempest in a teacup, storm in a cream bowl, tempest in a glass of water, storm in a wash-hand basin, and storm in a glass of water.  Cicero, in the first century BC, in his De Legibus, used a similar phrase in Latin, possibly the precursor to the modern expressions, "Excitabat enim fluctus in simpulo ut dicitur Gratidius", translated:  "For Gratidius raised a tempest in a ladle, as the saying is".  Then in the early third century AD, Athenaeus, in the Deipnosophistae, has Dorion ridiculing the description of a tempest in the Nautilus of Timotheus by saying that he had seen a more formidable storm in a boiling saucepan.  The phrase also appeared in its French form "une tempête dans un verre d'eau" (a tempest in a glass of water), to refer to the popular uprising in the Republic of Geneva near the end of the eighteenth century.  One of the earliest occurrences in print of the modern version is in 1815, where Britain's Lord Chancellor Thurlow, sometime during his tenure of 1783–1792, is quoted as referring to a popular uprising on the Isle of Man as a "tempest in a teapot".  Also Lord North, Prime Minister of Great Britain, is credited for popularizing this phrase as characterizing the outbreak of American colonists against the tax on tea.  This sentiment was then satirized in Carl Guttenberg's 1778 engraving of the Tea-Tax Tempest, where Father Time flashes a magic lantern picture of an exploding teapot to America on the left and Britannia on the right, with British and American forces advancing towards the teapot.  Just a little later, in 1825, in the Scottish journal Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, a critical review of poets Hogg and Campbell also included the phrase "tempest in a teapot".  The first recorded instance of the British English version, "storm in teacup", occurs in Catherine Sinclair's Modern Accomplishments in 1838.  There are several instances though of earlier British use of the similar phrase "storm in a wash-hand basin".  See similar phrases in other languages at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempest_in_a_teapot  See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Make_a_mountain_out_of_a_molehill   

"Makes the Whole World Kin" is a short story written by O. Henry (a pen name for William Sydney Porter), published in 1911.  In 1962, Leonid Gaidai made a feature-length film Strictly Business, made up of three short stories based on O. Henry.  The second segment was "Makes the Whole World Kin".  In 2009, Sanzhar Sultanov adapted the screenplay into a modern-day version of Makes the Whole World Kin.  In William Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida, Act III, Scene iii - Ulysses, speaking to Achilles says that "One Touch of Nature Makes the Whole World Kin".  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Makes_the_Whole_World_Kin   

babbitt  noun  (countable and uncountable, plural babbitts)

Short for babbitt metal, Babbitt metal (“a soft white alloy of variable composition (for example, nine parts of tin to one of copper, or fifty parts of tin to five of antimony and one of copper) used in bearings to diminish friction”).  quotations ▼

Synonyms:  (rare) Babbitt's metal, bearing metal

Alternative forms babbit (nonstandard)

babbitt  verb  (third-person singular simple present babbitts, present participle babbitting, simple past and past participle babbitted)

(transitive) To line (something) with babbitt metal to reduce friction.  quotations ▼  Alternative form  babbit (nonstandard)

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

 The American inventor Isaac Babbitt, after whom the alloy is named, was born July 26, 1799.   

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2395  July 26, 2021

By age 45, most of us will need glasses at least for reading.  That’s because our eyes’ ability to accommodate—to change focus to see objects at different distances—degrades with age.  In young eyes, the eyeball’s crystalline lens changes shape easily, allowing this accommodation.  But as we get older, this lens stiffens.  Objects in close range suddenly look blurry.  Researchers at the University of Utah have developed “smart glasses” with liquid lenses that can automatically adjust their focus.  “The major advantage of these smart eyeglasses is that once a person puts them on, the objects in front of the person always show clear, no matter at what distance the object is,” says Carlos Mastrangelo, the electrical and computer engineering professor who led the research along with doctoral student Nazmul Hasan.  Regular prescription glasses, Mastrangelo explains, don’t fix the eyes’ accommodation problems.  They simply shift the range of what’s in focus rather than expanding it.  So if you put on a pair of reading glasses, the once-blurry page a foot from your eyes will be clear, but objects on the other side of the room will suddenly be blurry.  The reverse is true of people who need glasses only for seeing far distances.  The new smart glasses consist of lenses made of glycerin, a thick clear liquid, enclosed in flexible membranes.  The membranes can be mechanically moved back and forth, changing the curvature of the glycerin lens.  The lenses are set in frames containing a distance meter on the bridge, which measures the distance from the wearer’s face to nearby objects using infrared light.  The meter then sends a signal to adjust the curve of the lens.  This adjustment can happen quickly, letting the user focus from one object to another in 14 milliseconds.  Emily Matchar  https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/these-smart-glasses-adjust-your-vision-automatically-180962078/  Thank you, Muse reader!  

The phrase “two heads are better than one” was first sighted in the Bible in a chapter, Ecclesiastes, 4:9, published in 1535, where it is stated as; “Therefore, two are better than one” with the addition of the possibility that they may yield good profit.  Later, the same notion John Heywood’s popular book, “A Dialogue” about English proverbs, put into words in almost the same way.  The book was published in 1546, where it is stated as; “Some heades haue taken two headis better then one. But ten heads without wit, I wene as good none.”  Find examples of use at https://literarydevices.net/two-heads-are-better-than-one/ 

formid-  (Latin:  formido, "terror"; causing fear, terrible; to dread, to fear)  See uses as adjective, adverb and noun at https://wordinfo.info/unit/3971 

Introduced into England by Dutch Huguenot immigrants in the third quarter of the sixteenth-century, baize is a loosely woven woollen cloth, not to be confused with felt--a randomly matted fabric made from wool or, for hats etc., from the fur of rabbits and beavers.  A baize-covered door denoted the boundary beyond which the house’s family and guests were expected not to stray.  During the seventeenth- and eighteenth-centuries baize was commonly used for dust covers to protect furniture.  The Board of Green Cloth was a committee of the Royal Household which derived its name from the green baize tablecloth that covered the table at which the committee members sat.  Baize was also extensively employed for lining carom (billiards) tables, card tables and instrument and gun cases etc.  Flour paste (wheat or rye flour gently cooked in water, cooled and diluted to a creamy consistency) was--and still is--the preferred adhesive for laying baize onto card tables and for lining boxes etc.  Jack Plane   See graphics at https://pegsandtails.wordpress.com/2012/02/11/baize-and-bayes/  Hops, heresies, bays, and beer Came into England all in one year.  17th century English ditty Heresies refers to the Protestant Reformation, while bays is the Elizabethan spelling for baize. 

To put in one’s two cents (worth) means to give one’s opinion even when it is not asked for.  Two cents, when used alone, means simply opinion, especially an unwanted one.  To put in one’s two cents has a connotation of humbleness, as one is putting in their opinion ‘for whatever it is worth.’  Two cents, here, implies that one’s opinion may not be worth very much, but one is offering it anyway.  This idiom has been used since the late 1800s.  It comes from the much 15th-century British use of twopence or tuppence to mean ‘of little or no value; unimportant’ which gave rise to the idioms for two cents and like two cents.  Two bits, which meant 25 cents, was also used in a similar way.  A similar idiom in English is for what it’s worth or for whatever it’s worth.  https://www.idioms.online/put-in-ones-two-cents-worth/ 

The summer of 1816 was not like any summer people could remember.  Snow fell in New England.  Gloomy, cold rains fell throughout Europe.  It was cold and stormy and dark--not at all like typical summer weather.  Consequently, 1816 became known in Europe and North America as “The Year Without a Summer.”  Why was the summer of 1816 so different?  Why was there so little warmth and sunshine in Europe and North America?  The answer could be found on the other side of the planet--at Indonesia’s Mount Tambora.  On April 5, 1815, Mount Tambora, a volcano, started to rumble with activity.  Over the following four months the volcano exploded--the largest volcanic explosion in recorded history.  Many people close to the volcano lost their lives in the event.  Mount Tambora ejected so much ash and aerosols into the atmosphere that the sky darkened and the Sun was blocked from view.   The large particles spewed by the volcano fell to the ground nearby, covering towns with enough ash to collapse homes.  There are reports that several feet of ash was floating on the ocean surface in the region. Ships had to plow through it to get from place to place.  https://scied.ucar.edu/learning-zone/how-climate-works/mount-tambora-and-year-without-summer  University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) manages the National Center for Atmospheric Research on behalf of the National Science Foundation.  https://www.ucar.edu/ 

The discovery of the remains of a Roman road and dock submerged in the Venice lagoon could prove there were permanent human settlements in the area centuries before Venice was founded, researchers say.  The structures, which were up to 2.7 metres tall and 52.7 metres long, were aligned in a north-easterly direction for about 1,140 metres. They are believed to have formed part of a system of roads in the Veneto region that may have been used by people to travel between the present-day city of Chioggia and the ancient city of Altinum. Previously gathered data shows that the road is located on a sandy ridge that was above sea level during the Roman era.  Venice is believed to have been formally founded on 25 March AD421, and marked its 1,600th anniversary in 2021.  Angela Giuffrida  https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/23/ancient-roman-road-and-dock-discovered-in-venice-lagoon 

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2394  July 23, 2021 

Q.  What agencies fall under the Department of Justice?  A.  Find a list of over 50 agencies at https://www.justice.gov/agencies/list 

The phrase 'Put your nose out of joint' is quite old and was used by Barnaby Rich in His Farewell to Militarie Profession, 1581:  "It could bee no other then his owne manne, that has thrust his nose so farre out of ioynte."  https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/296600.html  The nose of a person doesn’t have a joint. 

Originally created in Mexico but popularized in the American Southwest, Frito Pies (not actually pies) are comfort food perfection.  Picture this:  a freshly opened bag of Fritos smothered in spicy beef chili, cheddar cheese, and some bright, crunchy onions and jalapeños.  Lena Abraham   https://www.delish.com/cooking/recipe-ideas/a28914527/frito-pie-recipe/ 

"Great Spirit, grant that I may not criticize my neighbor until I have walked a mile in his moccasins."  Native American proverb. 

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571-1610) was an Italian artist active in Rome, Naples, Malta and Sicily between 1593 and 1610.  He is commonly placed in the Baroque school, of which he is considered the first great representative.  In his own lifetime Caravaggio was considered enigmatic, fascinating, rebellious and dangerous.  He burst upon the Rome art scene in 1600, and thereafter never lacked for commissions or patrons, yet he handled his success atrociously.  An early published notice on him, dating from 1604 and describing his lifestyle some three years previously, tells how "after a fortnight's work he will swagger about for a month or two with a sword at his side and a servant following him, from one ball-court to the next, ever ready to engage in a fight or an argument, so that it is most awkward to get along with him."  In 1606 he killed a young man in a brawl and fled from Rome with a price on his head.  In Malta in 1608 he was involved in another brawl, and yet another in Naples in 1609, possibly a deliberate attempt on his life by unidentified enemies.  By the next year, after a relatively brief career, he was dead.  See graphics at https://www.caravaggio-foundation.org/ 

The word ‘blatant’ was invented in Spenser’s epic poem The Faerie Queene.  Spenser coined the word ‘blatant’ when he came up with the fictional many-tongued creature, the Blatant beast, in his epic poem.  Despite running to over 1,000 pages, The Faerie Queene was left unfinished.  Spenser died suddenly in 1599, and left his great work only partially completed--he’s written only six of the projected twelve books, so he never got round to writing the entire second half of the poem.  According to one theory, the phrase ‘going for a song’ originated in a reference to Spenser’s most famous poem.  The story, recounted by Thomas Fuller in his Worthies of England (1662), goes that Queen Elizabeth I was so pleased with The Faerie Queene that she commanded that Spenser be paid £100 for his trouble.  The Lord High Treasurer, Lord Burghley, upon hearing that such a huge sum was going to be given for a mere poem, exclaimed,  ‘What?  All this for a song?’  The meaning of the phrase became distorted (indeed, inverted) until it came to refer to something valuable that was going cheap – though this theory remains speculative.  https://interestingliterature.com/2017/03/five-fascinating-facts-about-edmund-spenser/

A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg

mouse potato  (MAUS puh-tay-to)  noun  Someone who lives a sedentary life, spending large amounts of leisure time playing computer games, surfing the net, streaming videos, etc.

rat race (RAT rays)  noun  A repetitive competitive activity, such as the modern working life in which one constantly struggles to attain wealth, status, etc.  From rat, from Old English raet (rat) + race, from Old Norse ras (race).  Earliest documented use:  1937.  The term started out as a literal racing of rats (earliest use 1783).  Then it was used as military slang (1931) to refer to planes or ships chasing each other or racing.  Eventually the term evolved into its current sense.  In French, a popular expression métro, boulot, dodo (commute, work, sleep) refers to the daily grind.  Also see, sisyphean.

clicktivism  (KLIK-ti-viz-uhm)  noun  The use of the Internet to signal support for a cause.  A blend of click, as in a mouse click + activism.  Earliest documented use:  2006.

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From:  Phyllis Charnyllis  Remember Helen Gurley Brown, creature/editor of Cosmopolitan magazine?  She passed almost 10 years ago at the age of 90.  She also took “mousey” to another level by coining “mouseburger”!  See this 1982 The New York Times article.  AWADmail Issue 991 

Growing up in a bilingual family meant that nothing ever had to suffer in translation.  When it came to language, we had the best of both worlds.  From babyhood on up I hear two languages flowing in and out of each other as smoothly as two streams converging.  The Best of Both Worlds, a short story by Carrie Young 

Gluten is a family of proteins found in grains, including wheat, rye, spelt, and barley.  Of the gluten-containing grains, wheat is by far the most common.  The two main proteins in gluten are glutenin and gliadin.  Gliadin is responsible for most of the adverse health effects of gluten.  When flour mixes with water, the gluten proteins form a sticky network that has a glue-like consistency.  This glue-like property makes the dough elastic and gives bread the ability to rise during baking.  It also provides a chewy, satisfying texture.  Interestingly, the name gluten derives from this glue-like property of wet dough.  Find list of gluten-free foods at https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/318606#_noHeaderPrefixedContent 

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2393  July 21, 2021