Calvin and Hobbes is a daily American comic strip created by cartoonist Bill Watterson that was syndicated from November 18, 1985, to December 31, 1995.  Commonly described as "the last great newspaper comic", Calvin and Hobbes has enjoyed broad and enduring popularity, influence, and academic and philosophical interest.  Calvin and Hobbes follows the humorous antics of the title characters:  Calvin, a precocious, mischievous, and adventurous six-year-old boy; and Hobbes, his sardonic stuffed tiger.  Set in the suburban United States of the 1980s and 1990s, the strip depicts Calvin's frequent flights of fancy and friendship with Hobbes.  It also examines Calvin's relationships with his long-suffering parents and with his classmates, especially his neighbor Susie Derkins.  Hobbes's dual nature is a defining motif for the strip:  to Calvin, Hobbes is a living anthropomorphic tiger, while all the other characters seem to see Hobbes as an inanimate stuffed toy—though Watterson has not clarified exactly how Hobbes is perceived by others.  Though the series does not frequently mention specific political figures or ongoing events, it does explore broad issues like environmentalism, public education, and philosophical quandaries.  At the height of its popularity, Calvin and Hobbes was featured in over 2,400 newspapers worldwide.   In 2010, reruns of the strip appeared in more than 50 countries, and nearly 45 million copies of the Calvin and Hobbes books had been sold worldwide.  "I thought it was perhaps too 'adult,' too literate.  When my then-8-year-old son remarked, 'This is the Doonesbury for kids!'  I suspected we had something unusual on our hands."  —Lee Salem, Watterson's editor at Universal, recalling his reaction after seeing Watterson's first submission.  Calvin and Hobbes was conceived when Bill Watterson, while working in an advertising job he detested, began devoting his spare time to developing a newspaper comic for potential syndication.  He explored various strip ideas but all were rejected by the syndicates.  United Feature Syndicate finally responded positively to one strip called The Doghouse, which featured a side character (the main character's little brother) who had a stuffed tiger.  United identified these characters as the strongest and encouraged Watterson to develop them as the center of their own strip. Though United Feature ultimately rejected the new strip as lacking in marketing potential, Universal Press Syndicate took it up.   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvin_and_Hobbes   

January 31, 2024  Jeffrey Brown:  Author Rebecca Yarros had been writing and publishing for 10 years, but had no idea what would ensue when she turned to a story that mixes dragons and magic with romance.  Now she and her books are everywhere, alongside authors like Sarah J. Maas, Jennifer Armentrout and others who create romance dramas in the midst of epic, fantastical worlds, romance and fantasy, now a full-blown subgenre with its own name, romantasy.  Rebecca Yarros:  It's basically fantasy with—written in a romance vein, right?  I just think it speaks in whole to women, and then it also brings men in, because men love dragons, I'm finding out.  Read more of the interview at https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/popular-new-literary-genre-mixes-romance-and-fantasy  

Historic Building in New York’s Upper West Side to Become New Permanent Home for Aperture   Opening summer 2024, the new space will become a hub for public engagement and collaboration with flexible spaces for programming and re-imagined office and production areas. Two floors, encompassing 10,000 square feet of the 1886 building, will be repurposed as a hub for collaboration and convening, and a site for public engagement with Aperture’s quarterly magazine, books, and prints.  Marking its 70^th anniversary this year, Aperture has been located for nearly two decades in a fourth-floor space in Chelsea, where the organization has mounted exhibitions and public programs; published Aperture magazine and countless acclaimed photobooks; and hosted its bookstore and limited-edition print program.  See picture at https://aperture.org/editorial/historic-building-in-new-yorks-upper-west-side-to-become-new-permanent-home-for-aperture/   

The redcurrant or red currant (Ribes rubrum) is a member of the genus Ribes in the gooseberry family.  It is native to western Europe.  The species is widely cultivated and has escaped into the wild in many regions.  Ribes rubrum is a deciduous shrub normally growing to 1–1.5 metres (3+¹⁄₂–5 feet) tall, occasionally 2 m (7 ft), with five-lobed leaves arranged spirally on the stems.  In France, the highly rarefied and hand-made Bar-le-duc or "Lorraine jelly" is a spreadable preparation traditionally made from white currants or alternatively redcurrants.  In Scandinavia and Schleswig-Holstein, it is often used in fruit soups and summer puddings.  In Germany it is also used in combination with custard or meringue as a filling for tarts.  In Linz, Austria, it is the most commonly used filling for the Linzer torte.  It can be enjoyed in its fresh state without the addition of sugar.  In German-speaking areas, syrup or nectar derived from the redcurrant is added to soda water and enjoyed as a refreshing drink named Johannisbeerschorle. It is so named because the redcurrants (Johannisbeeren, "John's berry" in German) are said to ripen first on St. John's Day, also known as Midsummer Day, June 24.  In Russia, redcurrants are ubiquitous and used in jams, preserves, compotes and desserts.  It is also used to make kissel, a sweet healthy drink made from fresh berries or fruits (such as red currants, cherries, cranberries).  The leaves have many uses in traditional medicine, such as making an infusion with black tea.  Also the plants were cultivated in Russian monastery gardens in the 11th century.  See pictures at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redcurrant    

Activism is the rent I pay for living on the planet. - Alice Walker, author (b. 9 Feb 1944)  

featherless biped (plural featherless bipeds)  noun  (idiomatic, chiefly humorous)  A human being. Synonym:  (chiefly humorous)  naked ape  Used throughout the history of western philosophy as an example of an unsatisfactory definition of the term human being.  From featherless +‎ biped, from the dialogue The Statesman by Plato (427–347 B.C.E.):  [I say, then, that we ought at that time to have divided walking animals immediately into biped and quadruped, then seeing that the human race falls into the same division with the feathered creatures and no others, we must again divide the biped class into featherless and feathered.  https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/featherless_biped#English  The English biologist, geologist, and naturalist Charles Darwin, best known for his contributions towards the science of evolution, was born on February 12, 215 years ago in 1809. 

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2782  February 12, 2024