Life's better when you're reading a great book.  

Tanglewood Tales for Boys and Girls (1853) is a book by American author Nathaniel Hawthorne, a sequel to A Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys.  It is a re-writing of well-known Greek myths in a volume for children.  The book includes the myths of:

Theseus and the Minotaur (Chapter: "The Minotaur")

Antaeus and the Pygmies (Chapter: "The Pygmies")

Dragon's Teeth (Chapter: "The Dragon's Teeth")

Circe's Palace (Chapter: "Circe's Palace")

Proserpina, Ceres, Pluto, and the Pomegranate Seed (Chapter: "The Pomegranate Seed")

Jason and the Golden Fleece (Chapter: "The Golden Fleece")

In the introduction, Hawthorne writes about a visit from his young friend Eustace Bright, who requested a sequel to A Wonder-Book, which impelled him to write the Tales.  Hawthorne wrote the first book while renting a small cottage in the Berkshires, a vacation area for industrialists during the Gilded Age.  The owner of the cottage, a railroad baron, renamed the cottage "Tanglewood" in honor of the book written there.  Later, a nearby mansion was renamed Tanglewood, where outdoor classical concerts were held, which became a Berkshire summer tradition. Ironically, Hawthorne hated living in the Berkshires. The Tanglewood neighborhood of Houston was named after the book.  It reportedly inspired the name of the thickly wooded Tanglewood Island in the state of Washington.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanglewood_Tales   

In 1876, more than 10 million people journeyed to Philadelphia’s Fairmount Park for the nation’s Centennial Exposition.  Today, the expanse remains a refuge from the bustling city, keeping quiet natural landscapes within close reach of all residents and visitors.  With more than 2,000 acres of rolling hills, gentle trails, relaxing waterfront and shaded woodlands, Fairmount Park keeps a wealth of natural landscapes in East and West sections of the park, divided by the Schuylkill River.  https://www.visitphilly.com/things-to-do/attractions/fairmount-park/    

Stuart Warren Cramer (1868-1940) was an American engineer, inventor, and contractor, who gained prominence after designing and building near 150 cotton mills in the southern United States.  He was the founder of Cramerton and became involved in the nascent air conditioning industry, as well as being a founding partner in Duke Power.  He was born in Thomasville, North Carolina to Mary Jane Thomas Cramer and John Thomas, a furniture manufacturer.  He graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1888 after studying naval engineering.  Cramer chose to resign from the Navy to study in the School of Mines at Columbia University in 1888–1889.  He found employment with the U.S. Mint in Charlotte, where he worked for four years.  After that he worked for Daniel A. Tompkins, an engineer and industrialist, for two years, and then went into business for himself designing and equipping cotton mills in the South.  In a May 1906 speech in Asheville, North Carolina, before the American Cotton Manufacturers Association, Cramer coined the term air conditioning.  Cramer's connection to air conditioning originated from his work in the textile industry.  Over the course of his career he acquired more than 60 patents for the humidity control and ventilating equipment he developed for cotton mills across the South.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuart_W._Cramer   

Trick-or-treating is a traditional Halloween custom for children and adults in some countries.  During the evening of Halloween, on October 31, people in costumes travel from house to house, asking for treats with the phrase "trick or treat".  The "treat" is some form of confectionery, usually candy/sweets, although in some cultures money is given instead.  The "trick" refers to a threat, usually idle, to perform mischief on the resident(s) or their property if no treat is given.  Some people signal that they are willing to hand out treats by putting up Halloween decorations outside their doors; houses may also leave their porch lights on as a universal indicator that they have candy; some simply leave treats available on their porches for the children to take freely, on the honor system.  The history of trick-or-treating traces back to Scotland and Ireland, where the tradition of guising, going house to house at Halloween and putting on a small performance to be rewarded with food or treats, goes back at least as far as the 16th century, as does the tradition of people wearing costumes at Halloween.  There are many accounts from 19th-century Scotland and Ireland of people going house to house in costume at Halloween, reciting verses in exchange for food, and sometimes warning of misfortune if they were not welcomed.  In North America, the earliest known occurrence of guising–children going from house to house for food or money while disguised in costume–is from 1911, when children were recorded as having done this in the province of Ontario, Canada.  The interjection "trick or treat!" was then first recorded in the same Canadian province of Ontario in 1917.  While going house to house in costume has long been popular among the Scots and Irish, it is only in the 2000s that saying "trick or treat" has become common in Scotland and Ireland.  Prior to this, children in Ireland would commonly say "help the Halloween party" at the doors of homeowners.  The activity is prevalent in the Anglospheric countries of the United Kingdom, Ireland, the United States, Canada, and Australia.  It also has extended into Mexico.  In northwestern and central Mexico, the practice is called calaverita (Spanish diminutive for calavera, "skull" in English), and instead of "trick or treat", the children ask, "¿Me da mi calaverita?"  ("[Can you] give me my little skull?"), where a calaverita is a small skull made of sugar or chocolate.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trick-or-treating 

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com   Issue 2738  October 30, 2023 

Be Useful — Arnold Schwarzenegger (born 1947) 

The noun “kith” refers to your friends and acquaintances, and “kin” is used to describe your family or relatives.  So, if you’re talking about your close circle of friends, you would use “kith.”  But, if you’re talking about your relatives, you’d use the word “kin.”  It’s as simple as that!  Kith = friends  Kin = family  https://grammarist.com/usage/kith-and-kin/    

 “Selfishness can be a virtue.  Selfishness is essential to survival, and without survival we cannot protect those whom we love more than ourselves.”  — Duke Ellington  (1899–1974)   

Edward Kennedy Ellington was raised by two talented, musical parents in a middle-class neighborhood of Washington, D.C.  At the age of seven, he began studying piano and earned the nickname "Duke" for his gentlemanly ways. Inspired by his job as a soda jerk, he wrote his first composition, "Soda Fountain Rag," at the age of 15.  Despite being awarded an art scholarship to the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York, Ellington followed his passion for ragtime and began to play professionally at age 17.  In the 1920s, Ellington performed in Broadway nightclubs as the bandleader of a sextet, a group which in time grew to a 10-piece ensemble.  Ellington sought out musicians with unique playing styles, such as Bubber Miley, who used a plunger to make the "wa-wa" sound, and Joe Nanton, who gave the world his trombone "growl."  https://www.biography.com/musicians/duke-ellington   

Most food historians believe salt water taffy was invented in the early 1880s.  The story begins with a gentleman named John Ross Edmiston.  The owner of a small boardwalk postcard shop in Atlantic City, Edmiston hired a man named David Bradley to sell taffy alongside his wares.  While Edmiston eventually fired Bradley, he kept the popular candy in his shop.  One night, an ocean swell flooded his boardwalk shop.  In the morning, Edmiston discovered all the taffy had been soaked in salty sea foam.  During his cleanup, a young girl came into the store asking if he still had some taffy for sale.  Jokingly, Bradley said that he had some “saltwater taffy.”  The little girl purchased the taffy and took it back to the beach to share with her friends.  Her mother heard the name and instantly loved it, and thus the name “salt water taffy” was born.  Recipes for salt water taffy vary; none contain actual salt water (and especially not ocean water!).  However, both water and salt are usually added at some point during the production process, so the name still fits.  https://www.taffytown.com/blogs/our-taffy-blog/the-history-of-salt-water-taffy  See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taffy_(candy)   

The most distinct aspects of Alphabet City are the street names, which from west to east are Avenues A, B, C, and D.  These are the only Manhattan streets named after single letters, and the reason for that dates back to 1811 when the city created the grid system that we know today.  Lettered avenues were meant for every avenue east of 1st Avenue, and these avenues used to be much longer.  However, roads to the south were renamed below Houston Street, and Stuyvesant Town cut off the streets to the north after World War II.  Alphabet City was rapidly developed once the Commissioners Plan of 1811 was enacted.  The sudden growth meant that Alphabet City became very wealthy, very fast.  However, as expansions continued north, the affluent residents went north with it.  This left the area open to immigrant populations, especially those of Ireland, Austria, and Germany.  In fact, the area was so popular with German immigrants that Alphabet City and the surrounding area became known as Little Germany.  Some of the first public housing projects in the United States were built in Alphabet City in 1935.  This attracted even more immigrant communities, especially from Puerto Rico.  The ’50s and ’60s were quiet in Alphabet city when writers, poets, and other artists flocked to the area.  Built in 1849, The Charlie Parker Residence is the former home of Jazz Saxophonist, Charlie “Bird” Parker.  The gothic wonder received protected landmark status in 1999, and it’s not just because of the architecture.  The building’s namesake was instrumental to jazz, even creating the genre known as bebop.  Parker lived in the house when he was at the height of his fame.  The home is so popular that a jazz festival is held in Tompkins Square Park across from the building.  Russell Poole  https://www.citysignal.com/alphabet-city-manhattan-neighborhood-guide/   Alphabet City is a 1984 American crime film directed by Amos Poe.  Alphabet City, 1996 Caldecott Honor book by Stephen T. Johnson, is a wordless book.    

“If you can’t verify, then you can’t vilify.”  Murder Season, third book in the Lena Gamble series by Robert Ellis    

October 27 is World Day for Audiovisual Heritage, which was established by UNESCO to raise awareness about the significance and preservation risks of recorded audio and audiovisual materials.  It commemorates the adoption of the Recommendation for the Safeguarding and Preservation of Moving Images by UNESCO on this day in 1980.   

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  2737  October 27, 2023 

 

Humans cannot easily digest oat hulls, so groats are the rawest form of oats that can be eaten.  They are whole oats with the stalks/hulls removed, usually by a mechanized process, that leaves just the main portion of the oat kernel, called the groat.  Groats can be eaten cooked or raw (often soaked in milk or water), or further ground down (yes, even easily at home) into other forms that are used in common foods.   “Meal” is a term that refers to coarsely ground seeds.  They are very similar to steel cut oats, and often referred to as Scottish oatmeal.  Around 70% of the world’s oats are used as livestock feed for poultry, cattle, sheep, and horses.  The other 30% are eaten daily by humans as a delicious and hearty food that is known to help lower cholesterol.  Oats in general do not need to be cooked before eating, and taste and texture preferences afford many options.  

Steel Cut Oats

These are oat groats that have been cut into smaller pieces by steel blades.  The smaller pieces expose more of the oat groat surface area, so it makes them a little quicker to cook, and have a different texture than whole groats.  Steel cut oats (also called Irish oats), like oat groats, are digested more slowly than other oat forms (such as rolled and instant), so they provide a smoother nutrition intake and leave one feeling full longer. 

Whole Grain Oats

The rawest form of oat, this grows in the fields and is harvested.  It is usually used for livestock feed in this form as the stalks can be eaten as hay, and the hulls (with the oat kernels inside) are easily digestible by farm animals. 

Rolled Oats

Likely the most common form of oat on store shelves, rolled oats are groats that have been steamed (to soften them up), and rolled flat.  With the additional processing step of steaming, rolled oats begin to lose some nutritional value.  Since they are flat, rolled oats cook faster than steel cut oats, and have a different texture.  While cooking raw oats can take anywhere from 3-10 minutes, for those who prefer instant oat satisfaction, there are instant oats available.  They have been pre-cooked, steamed, and rolled flat.  Add liquid (usually hot water), stir, and they’re ready to eat.  With the additional processing steps of pre-cooking, steaming, and rolling, instant oats begin to lose some nutritional value.  https://www.livinghealthywealthywise.com/oat-groats/   See also https://theforkedspoon.com/what-are-groats/  Thank you, Muse reader!   

"The best lines come out of real life.  You catch one, you shine a light on it and you put it in the right situation.”  That's how Howie Cohen, now an exec at the Phelps agency in Los Angeles, came up with some winning campaigns during the 1960s for Wells Rich Greene while working on the Miles Laboratories account.  There, his original designation as "backup to the backup" creative on the Alka-Seltzer business led to the side-splitting but relatable "Try it, you'll like it" and "I can't believe I ate the whole thing.”   https://adage.com/videos/i-cant-believe-i-ate-the-whole-thing/29  Thank you, Muse reader!   

Jan Mankes (1889–1920) was a Dutch painter.  He produced around 200 paintings, 100 drawings and 50 prints before dying of tuberculosis at the age of 30.  His restrained, detailed work ranged from self-portraits to landscapes and studies of birds and animals.  His work is now exhibited in his native Netherlands in the Museum Arnhem, Museum Belvédère and Museum MORE.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Mankes  See also https://vsemart.com/dutch-painter-jan-mankes/    

Touch is an important part of choosing fresh figs.  The figs should look plump and appealing, but they should also feel firm and full and yield to a light touch.  Figs that feel very soft are likely to be mushy inside.  You should also pay attention to the aroma.  Ripe figs at their prime will smell sweet and fragrant, whereas figs that have started to spoil may smell sour.  It's also important to avoid dry or cracked figs because this will translate to dry-tasting figs and none of that delicious jammy interior that makes the fruit so special.  Choose figs that look robust and hold their shape, as this is a good indicator that the texture will be what you expect out of an in-season fig.  Common Fig Varieties:  Black Mission, Brown Turkey, Calimyrna, Kadota, and Adriatic.  The shelf life of freshly picked figs is about seven days.  They need air circulation; arrange them in a single layer without their sides touching in a container lined with paper towels.  They fare best in the fridge.  Check them daily, and discard any that have turned bad.  Stacey Lastoe   https://www.southernliving.com/how-to-store-figs-7551157#:~:text=Place%20the%20figs%20in%20a,too%20long%20to%20enjoy%20them!   

Award-winning, versatile, and prolific children’s author Eve Bunting died on October 1, 2023 in Santa Cruz, Calif.  She was 94.  She was born on December 1928 in Maghera, a small town in County Derry, Northern Ireland, to parents Sloan and Mary Bolton.  The Boltons ran the busy and well-respected local post office/shop selling produce and grocery items.  Through their shop, the family also provided a lending library for the town, filled with books and poetry.  Eve’s parents often asked her to recite poems and biblical verses, a practice that helped her develop a facility with language, rhythm, and rhyme that served her well throughout her life as both a writer and a public speaker.   https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/childrens/childrens-industry-news/article/93379-obituary-eve-bunting.html   

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2736  October 25, 2023

 

Parker Brothers was founded by George Swinnerton Parker.  Parker's philosophy deviated from the prevalent theme of board game design; he believed that games should be played for enjoyment and did not need to emphasize morals and values.  He created his first game, called Banking, in 1883 when he was 16. Banking is a game in which players borrow money from the bank and try to generate wealth by guessing how well they could do.  The game includes 160 cards which foretell their failure or success.  The game was so popular among family and friends that his brother, Charles Parker, urged him to publish it.  George approached two Boston publishers with the idea, but was unsuccessful.  Not discouraged, he spent $40 to publish 500 sets of Banking.  He eventually sold all but twelve copies, making a profit of $100.  Parker founded his game company, initially called the George S. Parker Company, in his hometown of Salem, Massachusetts in 1883.  When George's brother Charles joined the business in 1888, the company's name was changed to its more familiar form.  In 1898 a third brother, Edward H. Parker, joined the company.  For many years, George designed most of the games himself, and wrote all the rules.  Many games were based on important events of the day:  Klondike was based on the Klondike Gold Rush, and War in Cuba was based on the impending Spanish–American War.  The game industry was growing, and the company was becoming very profitable.  In 1906, Parker Brothers published the game Rook and it became the bestselling game in the country.  During the Great Depression, a time when many companies went out of business, Parker Brothers released a new board game called Monopoly.  Although the company had originally rejected the game in 1934, they decided to publish it the next year.  It was a success, and the company had difficulty keeping up with demand.  The company continued to grow throughout the next several decades, producing games including Cluedo (released as Clue in North America), Risk, and Sorry!

Parker Brothers marketed its first jigsaw puzzle in 1887.  Parker also produced children's puzzles, as well as the Climax, Jig-A-Jig, Jig Wood, and Paramount lines.  According to Jigsaw Puzzles:  An Illustrated History and Price Guide, by Anne D. Williams, Parker Bros. closed the Pastime line in the 1950s and their die-cut puzzles were phased out in the late 1970s.  Even after George Parker's death, the company remained family-owned until 1968 when General Mills purchased the company.  After this, Parker Brothers produced the first Nerf ball.  The company began to produce electronic versions of their popular board games in the late 1970s and early 1980s.  In early 1983, Parker Brothers spent US$15 million establishing a book publishing branch; their first titles featured the American Greetings franchises, Care Bears and Strawberry Shortcake.  The branch published twelve titles by February 1984; sales of these books totaled 3.5 million units. Parker Brothers also operated a record label around the same time; one of its releases, based on Coleco's Cabbage Patch Kids and involving Tom and Stephen Chapin titled Cabbage Patch Dreams, was certified Gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in July 1984.  In 1985, General Mills merged the company with their subsidiary Kenner; this new company, Kenner Parker Toys Inc., was acquired by Tonka in 1987.  In 1988, Parker Brothers struck a deal with Martindale/Gilden Productions to develop television game shows, such as Boggle. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parker_Brothers 

Monopoly is a multiplayer economics-themed board game.  In the game, players roll two dice to move around the game board, buying and trading properties and developing them with houses and hotels.  layers collect rent from their opponents and aim to drive them into bankruptcy.  Money can also be gained or lost through Chance and Community Chest cards and tax squares.  Players receive a salary every time they pass "Go" and can end up in jail, from which they cannot move until they have met one of three conditions.  House rules, hundreds of different editions, many spin-offs, and related media exist.  Monopoly has become a part of international popular culture, having been licensed locally in more than 103 countries and printed in more than 37 languages.  As of 2015, it was estimated that the game had sold 275 million copies worldwide.  The original game was based on locations in Atlantic City, New Jersey.  The history of Monopoly can be traced back to 1903, when American anti-monopolist Lizzie Magie created a game that she hoped would explain the single-tax theory of Henry George.  It was intended as an educational tool, to illustrate the negative aspects of concentrating land in private monopolies.  She took out a patent in 1904.   Her game, The Landlord's Game, was self-published, beginning in 1906.  Magie created two sets of rules:  an anti-monopolist set in which all were rewarded when wealth was created, and a monopolist set in which the goal was to create monopolies and crush opponents.  Several variant board games, based on her concept, were developed from 1906 through the 1930s; they involved both the process of buying land for its development, and the sale of any undeveloped property.  Cardboard houses were added, and rents increased as they were added to a property.  Magie patented the game again in 1923. According to an advertisement placed in The Christian Science Monitor, Charles Todd of Philadelphia recalled the day in 1932 when his childhood friend Esther Jones and her husband, Charles Darrow, came to their house for dinner. After the meal, the Todds introduced Darrow to The Landlord's Game, which they then played several times.  The game was entirely new to Darrow, and he asked the Todds for a written set of the rules.  After that night, Darrow went on to utilize this, and distribute the game himself as Monopoly.  The Parker Brothers bought the game's copyrights from Darrow.  When the company learned Darrow was not the sole inventor of the game, it bought the rights to Magie's patent for $500.  Parker Brothers began marketing the game on November 5, 1935.  Cartoonist F. O. Alexander contributed the design.  U.S. patent number US 2026082 A was issued to Charles Darrow on December 31, 1935, for the game board design and was assigned to Parker Brothers Inc.  The original version of the game in this format was based on the streets of Atlantic City, New Jersey.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_(game)   

The Three Laws of Robotics (often shortened to The Three Laws or Asimov's Laws) are a set of rules devised by science fiction author Isaac Asimov, which were to be followed by robots in several of his stories.  The rules were introduced in his 1942 short story "Runaround" (included in the 1950 collection I, Robot), although similar restrictions had been implied in earlier stories.  The Three Laws, presented to be from the fictional "Handbook of Robotics, 56th Edition, 2058 A.D.", are:  The First Law:  A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.  The Second Law:  A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.  The Third Law:  A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Laws_of_Robotics Thank you, Muse reader! 

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2735  October 23, 2023

‘To err is human; to forgive, divine’.  The source and origin for this quotation is Alexander Pope (1688-1744), one of the leading neoclassical or Augustan poets of the first half of the eighteenth century.  Neoclassical poetry was marked by its sense of order and reason:  Augustan poets recalled the days of the Roman emperor Augustus, under whose rule poetry and the arts had flourished.  https://interestingliterature.com/2023/04/to-err-is-human-to-forgive-divine-meaning-origin/  Thank you, Muse reader!   

Prosper Mérimée (1803–1870) was a French writer in the movement of Romanticism, and one of the pioneers of the novella, a short novel or long short story.  He was also a noted archaeologist and historian, and an important figure in the history of architectural preservation.  He is best known for his novella Carmen, which became the basis of Bizet's opera Carmen.  He learned Russian, a language for which he had great affection, and translated the work of several important Russian writers, including Pushkin and Gogol, into French.  From 1830 until 1860 he was the inspector of French historical monuments, and was responsible for the protection of many historic sites, including the medieval citadel of Carcassonne and the restoration of the façade of the cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris.  Along with the writer George Sand, he discovered the series of tapestries called The Lady and the Unicorn, and arranged for their preservation.  He was instrumental in the creation of Musée national du Moyen Âge in Paris, where the tapestries now are displayed.  The official database of French monuments, the Base Mérimée, bears his name.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosper_M%C3%A9rim%C3%A9e   

From:  Mary Bristow  Subject:  hallux  I recently saw a close-up picture of a bare foot of the Statue of Liberty, with the second toe longer than the first.  Apparently this was a trait the ancient Greeks thought beautiful.  AWADmail Issue 1111   

Jackfruit is a large tropical fruit native to Asia.  Canned jackfruit comes in a brine or syrup solution; rinse before using.  The texture is similar to shredded pork, which is why it’s a popular meat alternative.  Southern Living  June-July 2023   See 30+ Easy Jackfruit Recipes The Whole Family Will Love  July 7, 2023 by Mira M. at https://thegreenloot.com/vegan-jackfruit-recipes/   

"I, Robot" is a science fiction short story by Eando Binder (nom de plume for Earl and Otto Binder), part of a series about a robot named Adam Link.  It was published in the January 1939 issue of Amazing Stories.  The story is about a robot's confession.  Some weeks earlier, its builder, Dr. Charles Link, built it in the basement.  Link teaches his robot to walk, talk and behave civilly.  Link's housekeeper sees the robot just enough to be horrified by it, but his dog is totally loyal to it.  The robot is fully educated in a few weeks, Link then names it Adam Link, and it professes a desire to serve any human master who will have it.  Soon afterwards, a heavy object falls on Dr. Link by accident and kills him.  His housekeeper instantly assumes that the robot has murdered Dr. Link, and calls in armed men to hunt it down and destroy it.  They do not succeed; in fact, they provoke the robot to retaliate, both by refusing to listen to it and by accidentally killing Dr. Link's dog.  Back at the house, the robot finds a copy of Frankenstein, which Dr. Link had carefully hidden from the robot, and finally somewhat understands the prejudice against it.  In the end the robot decides that it simply is not worth killing several people just to get a hearing, writes its confession, and prepares to turn itself off.  Isaac Asimov was heavily influenced by the Binder short story.  In his introduction to the story in Isaac Asimov Presents the Great SF Stories (1979), Asimov wrote:  It certainly caught my attention.  Two months after I read it, I began 'Robbie', about a sympathetic robot, and that was the start of my positronic robot series.  Eleven years later, when nine of my robot stories were collected into a book, the publisher named the collection I, Robot over my objections.  My book is now the more famous, but Otto's story was there first.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I,_Robot_(short_story)     

October 17, 2023  A 21-year-old computer scientist named Luke Farritor just became the first person in nearly 2,000 years to read words from a papyrus scroll that was buried under more than 60 feet of volcanic ash after the disastrous eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 CE.  Farritor used a machine learning program to pinpoint the Greek word for “purple” in one of the hundreds of carbonized scrolls that were unearthed in Herculaneum, a town that was obliterated by the eruption along with its more famous neighbor, Pompeii.  The scrolls were found in 1752 during excavations of an ancient villa in Herculaneum that may have belonged to Julius Caesar’s father-in-law.  Excavators at that time quickly realized that the singed and fragile works disintegrated when they were unrolled, and so left most of them bound in their original form.  Farritor, who is enrolled at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, has earned the first award ever issued as part of the Vesuvius Challenge, a competition that aims to dole out $1,000,000 in prize money to participants who can use AI, machine learning, and computer vision to identify letters and words in these unread scrolls.  Becky Ferreira  https://www.vice.com/en/contributor/becky-ferreira   

http:///librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2734  October 20, 2023 

Tucked away on Main Street in Andover is the current home for not only the oldest bookstore in Massachusetts but also the oldest bookstore in the United States.  Established in 1809, the same year Abraham Lincoln, Charles Darwin and Edgar Allan Poe were all born, the Andover Bookstore has gone through different owners and been housed in a couple of different locations over the centuries.  Almost a quarter of the way into the 21st century, the store name, with shelves and shelves of books, still stands.  General manager Sarah Klock said the bookstore’s origins go back to when it was located at Philips Academy and used as a publishing house.  The location moved over the years as its ownership changed, eventually landing in the current location that was once the home of a town doctor.  The parlor of that English Tudor-style home built in 1811 now serves as the first room customers walk in when they visit the bookstore.  Ryan Manicini  Literary Hub  October 3, 2023   

John Hanson (1721–1783) was an American Founding Father, merchant, and politician from Maryland during the Revolutionary Era.  Hanson's grandfather, also named John, came to Charles County, Maryland, as an indentured servant around 1661.  In 1779, Hanson was elected as a delegate to the Continental Congress after serving in a variety of roles for the Patriot cause in Maryland.  He signed the Articles of Confederation in 1781 after Maryland joined the other states in ratifying them.  In November 1781, he was elected as the first President of the Confederation Congress (sometimes styled President of the United States in Congress assembled), following ratification of the articles.  Hanson's career in public service began in 1750, when he was appointed sheriff of Charles County.  In 1757, he was elected to represent Charles County in the lower house of the Maryland General Assembly, where he served for twelve years, sitting on many important committees.  Maryland was a proprietary colony, and Hanson aligned himself with the "popular" or "country" party, which opposed any expansion of the power of the proprietary governors at the expense of the popularly elected lower house.  He was a leading opponent of the 1765 Stamp Act, chairing the committee that drafted the instructions for Maryland's delegates to the Stamp Act Congress. In protest of the Townshend Acts, in 1769 Hanson was one of the signers of a non-importation resolution that boycotted British imports until the acts were repealed. When Hanson was elected to Congress, Maryland was holding up the ratification of the Articles of Confederation.  The state, which did not have any claims on western land, refused to ratify the Articles until the other states had ceded their western land claims.  When the other states finally did so, the Maryland legislature decided in January 1781 to ratify the Articles.  When Congress received notice of this, Hanson joined Daniel Carroll in signing the Articles of Confederation on behalf of Maryland on March 1, 1781.  With Maryland's endorsement, the Articles officially went into effect.   In 1782, Hanson proclaimed on behalf of the Continental Congress for a day of "Solemn Thanksgiving".  The Articles of Confederation stipulated that presidents of Congress serve one-year terms, and Hanson became the first to do so.  Contrary to the claims of some of his later advocates, however, he was not the first president to serve under the Articles nor the first to be elected under the Articles.  When the Articles went into effect in March 1781, Congress did not bother to elect a new president; instead, Samuel Huntington continued serving a term that had already exceeded a year.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hanson  Thank you, Muse reader!   

Aruba, officially the Country of Aruba, is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands physically located in the mid-south of the Caribbean Sea, about 29 kilometres (18 mi) north of the Venezuela peninsula of Paraguaná and 80 kilometres (50 mi) northwest of Curaçao.  It measures 32 kilometres (20 mi) long from its northwestern to its southeastern end and 10 kilometres (6 mi) across at its widest point.  Together with Bonaire and Curaçao, Aruba forms a group referred to as the ABC islands.  Collectively, these and the other three Dutch substantial islands in the Caribbean are often called the Dutch Caribbean, of which Aruba has about one-third of the population.  In 1986, it became a constituent country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands, and acquired the formal name the Country of Aruba.  Aruba is one of the four countries that form the Kingdom of the Netherlands, along with the Netherlands, Curaçao, and Sint Maarten; the citizens of these countries are all Dutch nationals.  Unlike much of the Caribbean region, Aruba has a dry climate and an arid, cactus-strewn landscape.  The relatively warm and sunny weather, and the climate allow for related tourism activities all year round.  Its area is 179 km² (69.1 sq mi) and it is quite densely populated, with 108,166 inhabitants per the 2020 census.  The name Aruba most likely came from the Caquetío Oruba which means "well situated island", seeing as it was the Caquetío who were present on the island when it was first set foot upon by Alonso de Ojeda.  Between 1529 and the signing of the Treaty of Westphalia (1648), the name "Isla de Oruba" was used for the island by the Spanish.  After the signing, the island was ceded to the Dutch and gradually its name changed to Aruba.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aruba

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2733  October 18, 2023