Janet Gaynor was born Laura Augusta Gainor (some sources stated Gainer) in Germantown, Philadelphia.  Nicknamed "Lolly" as a child, she was the younger of two daughters born to Laura (Buhl) and Frank De Witt Gainor.  Frank Gainor worked as a theatrical painter and paperhanger.  When Gaynor was a toddler, her father began teaching her how to sing, dance, and perform acrobatics.  As a child in Philadelphia, she began acting in school plays.  After her parents divorced in 1914, Gaynor, her sister, and her mother moved to Chicago.  Shortly thereafter, her mother married electrician Harry C. Jones.  The family later moved to San Francisco.  After graduating from San Francisco Polytechnic High School in 1923, Gaynor spent the winter in Melbourne, Florida, where she did stage work.  Upon returning to San Francisco, Gaynor, her mother, and stepfather moved to Los Angeles, where she could pursue an acting career.  She was initially hesitant to do so and enrolled at Hollywood Secretarial School.  She supported herself by working in a shoe store and later as a theatre usher.  Her mother and stepfather continued to encourage her to become an actress and she began making the rounds to the studios (accompanied by her stepfather) to find film work.  In 1929, at 23 years old, Gaynor won the first Academy Award for Best Actress.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janet_Gaynor   

Attack of the Killer Tomatoes is a 1978 American parody film produced by J. Stephen Peace and John DeBello, and directed by John DeBello based upon an original idea by Costa Dillon.  The film stars David Miller, George Wilson, Sharon Taylor, and Jack Riley.  The screenplay was written by Dillon, Peace, and DeBello. The film spoofs B movies and was made on a budget of less than $100,000.  The story involves tomatoes becoming sentient by unknown means and revolting against humanity.  Critical reception of Attack of the Killer Tomatoes was mostly negative.  The box office success of the film led to three sequels, all co-written by the same three writers and directed by DeBello.  Find adaptations, parodies, and spin-offs at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_of_the_Killer_Tomatoes    

Snow Beauties by Wilson A. Bentley  What magic is there in the rule of six that compels the snowflake to conform so rigidly to its laws?  Here is a gem bestrewn realm of nature possessing the charm of mystery, of the unknown, sure richly to reward the investigator.  For something over a quarter of a century I have been studying it and the work has proved to be wonderfully fascinating, for each favorable snowfall, during all these years has brought things that were new and beautiful to my hand.  I have never yet found a time when I could entertain an idea of relinquishing it.  The clouds, and the tiny liquid particles - water dust- of which they consist, play no part in true snow crystal formation. They coalesce only to form the amorphous - granular - varieties of the snow, or to coat true, mature crystals with granular material.  The true crystals, forming the bulk of the snowfall, are formed directly from the almost infinitely small and invisible molecules of water in solution within the air, and floating between the vastly larger cloud particles.  Most of the crystals are, of course, imperfect, made so especially during thick and heavy snowfalls, largely as a result of crowding and bunching during development, or to fracturing due to violent winds.  In general, the western quadrants of wide spread storms furnish the majority of the more perfect tabular shapes.  As a rule low clouds, if relatively warm, tend to produce the more rapidly growing open branching forms, and the inter mediate and upper clouds, if relatively much colder, the more solid, close columnar and tabular forms.  They form with in a very thin gaseous solvent, the air, and this allows the molecules of water an unexampled freedom of motion and adjustment while arranging themselves in crystal form.  Each of the six parts or segments of the crystals, while in process of growth, increases simultaneously outward, yet each one usually grows independently and by itself.  So each of the six parts may, for all practical purposes, be considered as being a separate crystal by itself, and the whole as being an aggregate of growing crystals.  https://snowflakebentley.com/snow-beauties  Thank you, Muse reader!   

Caulerpa lentillifera or sea grape is a species of ulvophyte green algae from coastal regions in the Asia-Pacific.  This seaweed is one of the favored species of edible Caulerpa due to its soft and succulent texture.  It is traditionally eaten in the cuisines of Southeast Asia, Oceania, and East Asia.  It was first commercially cultivated in the Philippines in the 1950s, followed by Japan in 1968.  Both countries remain the top consumers of C. lentillifera.  Its cultivation has since spread to other countries, including Vietnam, Taiwan, and China. C. lentillifera, along with C. racemosa, are also known as sea grapes or green caviar in English.   It is a siphonous macroalgae, meaning it is a giant single cell with multiple nuclei, and can grow to 30 cm in length.  Instead of leaves, the algae has bubbles that burst in the mouth, releasing an umami taste.  See pictures at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caulerpa_lentillifera   

These recipes call themselves the “best” chilis: 

https://www.spendwithpennies.com/the-best-chili-recipe/

https://sugarspunrun.com/best-chili-recipe/

https://www.thekitchn.com/chili-recipe-23610703   

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2901  January 31, 2025

 

According to National Day Calendar, Jan. 22 is the day set aside to celebrate blonde brownies.  The difference between blonde brownies and regular brownies is substituting brown sugar for cocoa and anything else you want to add, such as white chocolate or toffee.  And according to National Day Calendar, the dessert was invented in Upper Sandusky, Ohio.  https://www.wtol.com/article/news/break-out-the-brownie-pans-its-national-blonde-brownie-day/512-5dae3be2-e139-4d63-b14a-faeead7d4db9   

In probability theory, the birthday problem asks for the probability that, in a set of n randomly chosen people, at least two will share the same birthday. The birthday paradox refers to the counterintuitive fact that only 23 people are needed for that probability to exceed 50%.  The birthday paradox is a veridical paradox:  it seems wrong at first glance but is, in fact, true.  While it may seem surprising that only 23 individuals are required to reach a 50% probability of a shared birthday, this result is made more intuitive by considering that the birthday comparisons will be made between every possible pair of individuals.  With 23 individuals, there are ⁠23 × 22/2⁠ = 253 pairs to consider, more than half the number of days in a year.  Real-world applications for the birthday problem include a cryptographic attack called the birthday attack, which uses this probabilistic model to reduce the complexity of finding a collision for a hash function, as well as calculating the approximate risk of a hash collision existing within the hashes of a given size of population.  The problem is generally attributed to Harold Davenport in about 1927, though he did not publish it at the time.  Davenport did not claim to be its discoverer "because he could not believe that it had not been stated earlier".  The first publication of a version of the birthday problem was by Richard von Mises in 1939.   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birthday_problem# 

Oliver George Hutchinson (1891–1944) was a Northern Irish businessman who played a key role in popularising John Logie Baird's invention of television.  Hutchinson had met Baird while both were apprentices at the Argyll Motor Works in Glasgow.  During the First World War, he served as an officer in the Army Cyclist Corps and Tank Corps.  After the war Hutchinson developed several successful businesses in London, including one selling soap.  After meeting Baird by chance he agreed to support his work on the first television system. Hutchinson provided funds and publicised the operation, and even appeared as the subject of the first public demonstration of the technology in 1926.  Hutchinson was later joint managing director of the Baird Television Development Company and presented a documentary in New York when the first trans-Atlantic broadcast was made in 1928.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Hutchinson    

The Buffalo Bills have never won a Super Bowl.  Meanwhile, their AFC Championship Game opponent, the Kansas City Chiefs, have an opportunity to become the first NFL team to win three consecutive Super Bowls.  The Washington Commanders haven't won a Super Bowl since the 1991 season.  Their NFC Championship Game opponent, the Philadelphia Eagles, have only won one Super Bowl, but they could win a second championship in eight seasons.  One of those four teams will win Super Bowl LIX, which is set for Feb. 9, 2025 in New Orleans.  https://www.bleacherreport.com/articles/10152238-super-bowl-2025-final-predictions-odds-before-afc-nfc-championship-bracket-games    

The first new moon of the lunar calendar falls on January 29 in 2025, kicking off the 15-day Spring Festival.  Celebrations vary depending on the country or region, but there are a few common traditions.  Incredibly complex, the Chinese zodiac calendar is best described as a 12-year cycle represented by 12 animals, in this order:  Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Goat, Monkey, Rooster, Dog and Pig.  Your personal zodiac animal sign is determined by your year of birth, meaning 2025 will welcome plenty of baby Snakes.  Children born in the last lunar calendar year were Dragons, while those born on or after the Lunar New Year in 2026 will be Horses, and so on.  There are countless folktales attached to Lunar New Year, but the myth of Nian stands out as one of the most fun.  According to the legend, every Lunar New Year’s Eve this ferocious underwater beast with sharp teeth and horns would crawl onto the land and attack a nearby village.  On one such occasion as the villagers rushed into hiding, a mysterious old man showed up and insisted on sticking around despite warnings of impending doom.  To the villagers’ surprise, the old man and the village survived utterly unscathed.  The man claimed to have scared Nian away by hanging red banners on his door, lighting firecrackers and donning red clothing.  This is why wearing the fiery color, along with hanging banners and lighting firecrackers or fireworks, are Lunar New Year traditions, all of which are still followed today.  Some of the prep work isn’t quite as enjoyable.  Many believe that a big cleanup should take place at home on the 28th day of the last lunar month, which falls on January 27, 2025.  The aim is to rid your home of any bad luck that’s accumulated over the past year.  Some believers won’t even sweep or take out the trash for the first five days of the new year, fearing they will wash away all that fresh good luck.  On a related note, many say you shouldn’t wash or cut your hair on the first day of the new year either.  https://www.cnn.com/travel/chinese-lunar-new-year-2025-guide-intl-hnk/index.html    

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2899  January 27, 2025

Ralph Waldo Emerson, the 19th century American essayist and poet, said “We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.”  In 1991 a report from the U.S. Council on Environmental Quality ascribed the saying to the famous Native American Chief Seattle and suggested that the words were quite old.  Many people have used the phrase, and we can’t be sure where it comes from.  https://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/01/22/borrow-earth/    

The birthday paradox, also known as the birthday problem, states that in a random group of 23 people, there is about a 50 percent chance that two people have the same birthday.  Is this really true? There are multiple reasons why this seems like a paradox.  One is that when in a room with 22 other people, if a person compares his or her birthday with the birthdays of the other people it would make for only 22 comparisons—only 22 chances for people to share the same birthday.  But when all 23 birthdays are compared against each other, it makes for much more than 22 comparisons.  How much more?  Well, the first person has 22 comparisons to make, but the second person was already compared to the first person, so there are only 21 comparisons to make.  https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/bring-science-home-probability-birthday-paradox/  Thank you, Muse reader.   

Cape Cod cats they have no tails  They lost them all in sou’east gales.  (excerpt)  An American Sailor's Treasury by Frank Shay (1991)   

Grandma Gatewood's Walk:  The Inspiring Story of the Woman Who Saved the Appalachian Trail by Ben Montgomery

Emma Gatewood told her family she was going on a walk and left her small Ohio hometown with a change of clothes and less than two hundred dollars.  The next anybody heard from her, this genteel, farm-reared, 67-year-old great-grandmother had walked 800 miles along the 2,050-mile Appalachian Trail.  And in September 1955, having survived a rattlesnake strike, two hurricanes, and a run-in with gangsters from Harlem, she stood atop Maine’s Mount Katahdin.  There she sang the first verse of “America, the Beautiful” and proclaimed, “I said I’ll do it, and I’ve done it.”  Grandma Gatewood, as the reporters called her, became the first woman to hike the entire Appalachian Trail alone, as well as the first person—man or woman—to walk it twice and three times.  Gatewood became a hiking celebrity and appeared on TV and in the pages of Sports Illustrated.  The public attention she brought to the little-known footpath was unprecedented.  Her vocal criticism of the lousy, difficult stretches led to bolstered maintenance, and very likely saved the trail from extinction.  https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18527222-grandma-gatewood-s-walk    

The National Archives is brimming with historical documents written in cursive, including some that date back more than 200 years.  But these texts can be difficult to read and understand— particularly for Americans who never learned cursive in school.  That’s why the National Archives is looking for volunteers who can help transcribe and organize its many handwritten records: The goal of the Citizen Archivist program is to help “unlock history” by making digital documents more accessible, according to the project’s website.  Every year, the National Archives digitizes tens of millions of records.  The agency uses artificial intelligence and a technology known as optical character recognition to extract text from historical documents.  But these methods don’t always work, and they aren’t always accurate.  That’s where human volunteers come in.  By transcribing digital pages, volunteers make it easier for scholars, genealogists and curious history buffs to find and read historical documents.  Though cursive instruction was once standard, today’s educators and lawmakers are divided:  Should schools emphasize penmanship or keyboard skills?  But even as laptops, tablets and other devices become more ubiquitous, cursive is making a comeback.  More than 20 states now require schools to teach cursive, according to Education Week’s Brooke Schultz.  In California, a law mandating cursive instruction took effect in January 2024.  https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/can-you-read-this-cursive-handwriting-the-national-archives-wants-your-help-180985833/  Thank you, Muse reader!    

The Ohio State University Marching Band come with a signature moment in each game they play—the script "Ohio" formed by the band members on the field.  And you can't Form "Ohio" without someone to dot the "i."  That honor goes to two sousaphone players each game.  "There is no better tradition in college marching band, I think, than the script Ohio," said Christopher Hoch, the director of The Ohio State University Marching and Athletic Bands.  "Dotting the 'i' has been an honor in this band since 1936, and it's something that the sousaphone players, they come here to do that."  Mike Sterling,  a graduate of Twinsburg High School decided to pick up the horn in fifth grade, he hoped to one day play for The Ohio State University and be selected to dot the "i' at least once.  Sterling lived up to the challenges, and in 2024 against Notre Dame, he got to dot the 'i' for the very first time.  Sterling’s first time was against the Fighting Irish, and his last will be, too.  https://www.news5cleveland.com/sports/college-sports/osu/twinsburg-grad-dotting-i-for-ohio-state-university-marching-band-during-national-championship-game    

Satirical cartoonist, playwright and screenwriter Jules Feiffer has died at the age of  95. He was the illustrator of the children's classic "The Phantom Tollbooth."  Some artists draw every line as if they know just where it will end. Jules Feiffer never did.  Not for him the delicate feathering, diligent crosshatching or obsessive pointillism of the neurotically controlling craftsman.  His lines unfurled across the page like banners of the subconscious, zooming forward, doubling back and propelling the reader's gaze (and even, you had to suspect, his own) in directions nobody could have anticipated.   It wasn't just on the page that he hurled himself so intrepidly into the unknown.  In life, too, he continually aimed for unseen horizons.  When he died Jan. 17, 2025 of congestive heart failure at his home in Richfield Springs, N.Y., he left an abundant legacy across a range of artistic media. The history of graphic art, literature, film and the theater bear the imprint of his ever-distinctive, ever-wayward pen.  Over the years, he received other journalism awards:  a special George Polk Memorial Award, a Newspaper Guild Page One Award, an Overseas Press Club Award.  In 1995 he was elected into the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and 2004 saw him inducted into the Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards' Hall of Fame.  He wrote an animated short film, Munro, which won a 1961 Oscar.  https://www.npr.org/2025/01/21/839273361/jules-feiffer-dead 

http://librarianmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2898   January 22, 2025 

Ben Montgomery grew up in Oklahoma and wanted to be a farmer before he got into journalism at Arkansas Tech University, where he played defensive back for the football team, the Wonder Boys.  He worked for the Courier in Russellville, Ark., the Standard-Times in San Angelo, Texas, the Times Herald-Record in New York's Hudson River Valley and the Tampa Tribune before joining the Tampa Bay Times in 2006.  In 2010, he was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in local reporting and won the Dart Award and Casey Medal for a series called "For Their Own Good," about abuse at Florida's oldest reform school.  https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7279925.Ben_Montgomery   

Snippets from the novel Grandma Gatewood’s Walk by Ben Montgomery

Her little sack weighed seventeen pounds.   In 1948, Earl V. Shaffer became the first person to hike the A.T. in a single trip.   Emma walked for 146 days, averaged 17 miles a day, and lost 24 pounds of weight.    The Ohio Senate passed a resolution in her memory noting that Emma Gatewood was a founder of the Buckeye Trail.   

Water is wet   Fire is hot   I’m me   And you’re not.  Joseph Rosen    

If you lived in Birmingham back in 1901, the chances are life would have been pretty good.  It was the fourth largest city in the U.K. at the time (behind London, Manchester and Liverpool) and a magnet for people looking for economic opportunity.  The ‘City of a Thousand Trades’ was a workshop full of small, highly skilled firms producing a huge range of products.  As a result, levels of enterprise were high and unemployment was low.  https://www.centreforcities.org/blog/what-happened-to-the-city-of-a-thousand-trades-birmingham-from-1901-to-today/   

Chess is at the core of the new Toledo Museum of Art exhibit Strategic Interplay:  African Art and Imagery in Black and White, now running through Feb. 23, 2025.  Featuring 63 historical artifacts, the exhibit explores how African art is connected to the game of chess by using symbolism and patterning to express “leadership, authority, and cultural identity.  The exhibit is separated into three sections, all of which explore a different facet of African art and chess.   

What:  Strategic Interplay: African Art and Imagery in Black and White

When:  through Feb. 23

Where: Toledo Museum of Art, 2445 Monroe St., Toledo

Cost:  Free

Information: toledomuseum.org    

Visitors to the free exhibit are first greeted by the “Openings and Interplays” section, which includes several historical artifacts including carved wooden sculptures and ornate masks set up adjacent to chess sets (including a chess set that museum visitors can learn to play the game on).  The second part of the exhibit, “Modernist Gambits,” highlights the European avant-garde movement and how artists like Constantin Brancusi, Man Ray, and Marcel Duchamp drew inspiration from African artwork and chess iconography in their artworks.  Pieces in this section of the exhibit include Man Ray’s The Knight’s Tour and Brancusi’s Bronze Head of Black Woman.  A recently added piece from the museum’s permanent collection is part of the “Modernist Gambits” section, A Baga Nimba shoulder mask from Guinea said senior manager of interpretation and African art curator Lanisa Kitchiner.  Kitchiner explained that Pablo Picasso was inspired by such masks in making his distinctive figure paintings and drawings.  https://www.toledoblade.com/a-e/art/2024/11/09/checkmate-chess-is-at-core-of-new-tma-african-art-exhibit/stories/20241109015   Thank you, Muse reader!    

Benjamin Franklin (January 17, 1706 [O.S. January 6, 1705–April 17, 1790) was an American polymath:  a writer, scientist, inventor, statesman, diplomat, printer, publisher and political philosopher.  Among the most influential intellectuals of his time, Franklin was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States; a drafter and signer of the Declaration of Independence; and the first postmaster general. Franklin became a successful newspaper editor and printer in Philadelphia, the leading city in the colonies, publishing The Pennsylvania Gazette at age 23.   He became wealthy publishing this and Poor Richard's Almanack, which he wrote under the pseudonym "Richard Saunders"  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Franklin    

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com   Issue 2897  January 17, 2025

 

Verb 

turn (the) tables (third-person singular simple present turns the tables, present participle turning the tables, simple past and past participle turned the tables)

(idiomatic) To reverse a situation, so that the advantage has shifted to the party which was previously disadvantaged.  quotations ▼  https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/turn_the_tables   

Burl Ives - The Doughnut Song

Well, I walked round the corner
and I walked round the block,
and I walked right into a bakery shop.

I picked up a doughnut
and I wiped off the grease,
and I handed the lady a five cent piece.

Well, she looked at the nickel
and she looked at me,
and she said "Hey mister, you can plainly see.

There's a hole in the nickel,
there's a hole right through."
Said I, "There's a hole in the doughnut too!
Thanks for the doughnut, good-bye!"  https://www.streetdirectory.com/lyricadvisor/song/ulwwp/the_doughnut_song/

A child need not be very clever to learn that ‘Later, dear” means “Never”.  Ogden Nash

The aerie in the sky with extra-large windows is on the 94th floor of the iconic supertall on Park Avenue that was designed by architect Rafael Viñoly and completed in 2015.  Located on Park Avenue between East 57th and 56th streets, 432 Park Avenue is a 96-six story luxury condo tower that is one of the tallest residential buildings in the Western Hemisphere.  “In the beginning in this building, the high floors above 90 or 91 were full-floor apartments,” said listing agent Carrie Chiang, of Corcoran.  “The developer decided that half-floor units were easier to sell, so they took five or six of the full-floor units off the market and reconfigured the square footage to make it 4,000 each, which is the same as downstairs.”  https://www.mansionglobal.com/articles/condo-on-the-96th-floor-of-iconic-supertall-432-park-avenue-catches-views-across-new-york-city-d4d5dc6e?mod=hp_minor_pos28 

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2896  January 13, 2025

 

 

When you see me sitting quietly, Like a sack left on the shelf,
Don’t think I need your chattering.  I’m listening to myself . . .
When my bones are stiff and aching, And my feet won’t climb the stair,
I will only ask one favor:  Don’t bring me no rocking chair.
When you see me walking, stumbling, Don’t study and get it wrong.
‘Cause tired don’t mean lazy  And every goodbye ain’t gone.
I’m the same person I was back then,  A little less hair, a little less chin,
A lot less lungs and much less wind.  But ain’t I lucky I can still breathe in.      

Maya Angelou (born April 4, 1928 as Marguerite Johnson)   

Holger Henrik Herholdt Drachmann (9 October 1846–14 January 1908) was a Danish poet, dramatist and painter.  He was a member of the Skagen artistic colony and became a figure of the Scandinavian Modern Breakthrough Movement.  Owing to the early death of his mother, he was left much to his own devices and developed a fondness for semi-poetical performances, organising his companions in heroic games, in which he himself took such roles as those of Royal Danish Naval heroes Peder Tordenskjold and Niels Juel.   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holger_Drachmann   

The Flatiron Building, originally the Fuller Building, is a 22-story, 285-foot-tall (86.9 m) steel-framed triangular building at 175 Fifth Avenue in the Flatiron District neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City.  Designed by Daniel Burnham and Frederick P. Dinkelberg, and sometimes called, in its early days, "Burnham's Folly", it was opened in 1902.  The building sits on a triangular block formed by Fifth Avenue, Broadway, and East 22nd Street—where the building's 87-foot (27 m) back end is located—with East 23rd Street grazing the triangle's northern (uptown) peak.  The name "Flatiron" derives from its triangular shape, which recalls that of a cast-iron clothes iron.  The Flatiron Building was developed as the headquarters of construction firm Fuller Company, which acquired the site from the Newhouse family in May 1901.  Construction proceeded rapidly, and the building opened on October 1, 1902.  Originally 20 floors, a "cowcatcher" retail space (a low attached building so called for its resemblance to the device on rail locomotives) and penthouse were added shortly after the building's opening.  The Fuller Company sold the building in 1925 to an investment syndicate.  The Equitable Life Assurance Society took over the building after a foreclosure auction in 1933 and sold it to another syndicate in 1945.  Helmsley-Spear managed the building for much of the late 20th century, renovating it several times.  The Newmark Group started managing the building in 1997.  Ownership was divided among several companies, which started renovating the building again in 2019.  Jacob Garlick agreed to acquire the Flatiron Building at an auction in early 2023, but failed to pay the required deposit, and three of the four existing ownership groups took over the building.  In October 2023, the building's owners announced that it would be converted to residential condominiums; the project is planned to be complete by 2026.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flatiron_Building 

Abraham Cowley (born 1618, London—died 1667, Chertsey, Eng.) was a poet and essayist who wrote poetry of a fanciful, decorous nature.  He also adapted the Pindaric ode to English verse.  https://www.britannica.com/art/Metaphysical-poets 

Cowley quote:  Build yourself a book-nest to forget the world without.    

Concrete poetry is an arrangement of linguistic elements in which the typographical effect is more important in conveying meaning than verbal significance.  It is sometimes referred to as visual poetry, a term that has now developed a distinct meaning of its own.  Concrete poetry relates more to the visual than to the verbal arts although there is a considerable overlap in the kind of product to which it refers.  Historically, however, concrete poetry has developed from a long tradition of shaped or patterned poems in which the words are arranged in such a way as to depict their subject.  Though the term 'concrete poetry' is modern, the idea of using letter arrangements to enhance the meaning of a poem is old.  Such shaped poetry was popular in Greek Alexandria during the 3rd and 2nd centuries BCE, although only the handful which were collected together in the Greek Anthology now survive.  Examples include poems by Simmias of Rhodes in the shape of an egg, wings and a hatchet, as well as Theocritus' pan-pipes.  The post-Classical revival of shaped poetry seems to begin with the Gerechtigkeitsspirale (spiral of justice), a relief carving of a poem at the pilgrimage church of St. Valentin, Kiedrich.  The text is carved in the form of a spiral on the front of one of the church pews and created in 1510 by master carpenter Erhart Falckener.  But the heyday of the revival of shaped poetry came in the Baroque period when poets, in the words of Jeremy Adler, "did away with the more-or-less arbitrary appearance of the text, turned the incidental fact of writing into an essential facet of composition, and thereby . . . created a union of poetry with the visual arts".  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concrete_poetry    

Anatole France (born François-Anatole Thibault; 1844-1924) was a French poet, journalist, and novelist with several best-sellers.  Ironic and skeptical, he was considered in his day the ideal French man of letters.  He was a member of the Académie Française, and won the 1921 Nobel Prize in Literature "in recognition of his brilliant literary achievements, characterized as they are by a nobility of style, a profound human sympathy, grace, and a true Gallic temperament".  France is also widely believed to be the model for narrator Marcel's literary idol Bergotte in Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatole_France#   Anatole France quote:  “Never lend books, for no one ever returns them; the only books I have in my library are books that other folks have lent me.”    

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2896