Library celebrates 175 years 

In 1838, abolitionist and author Frederick Douglass escaped from slavery.  That same year, Charles Dickens published The Life and Adventures of Nickolas Nickelby; Edgar Allan Poe published his only novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket; and The American Frugal Housewife came to print, containing tips for preserving food, cleaning, and creating home remedies on the homestead.  The year 1838 also marked the beginning of the Toledo-Lucas County Public Library system.  TLCPL will be celebrating its 175th anniversary starting in mid-April, with the public kickoff on Sunday, April 14, 2013 and culminating the evening of September 7 with a gala dinner, featuring Pulitzer Prize-winning Author David McCullough.  

Seven Outdated Grammar Rules

1.  Never split an infinitive.
2.  Active verbs are always better than passive verbs.
3.  Never start a sentence with a conjunction (and, or, but).
4.  Never start a sentence with there are or there is.
5.  Never end a sentence with a preposition.
6.  Always use more than instead of over with numbers.
7.  Data is plural, so the verb must always be plural.
Find explanations and examples at:  http://www.ecoscribe.com/freestuff/sevenrules.htm

In 2000, Nathalie Miebach was studying both astronomy and basket weaving at the Harvard Extension School in Cambridge, Massachusetts.  She was constantly lugging her shears and clamps with her into the room where she’d study projections of stars and nebulas on the wall.  Understanding the science of space could be tricky, she found.  “What was so frustrating to me, as a very kinesthetic learner, is that astronomy is so incredibly fascinating, but there’s nothing really tactile about it,” says Miebach.  “You can’t go out and touch a star.”  Soon, something in the budding artist clicked.  Her solution?  Turn space data into visual art, so that she and other learners like her could grasp it.  Miebach’s final project for her basket weaving class was a sculpture based on the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram, a well-known astronomy scatter plot measuring stars’ luminosities against their surface temperatures.  Temperature readings travel downward from left to right, and the wider the diameter of the star, the higher the luminosity.  The graph is used to track stars as they evolve, showing how they move along the diagram as shifts in their structure cause changes in temperature, size and luminosity.  The artist has taken this same approach with her latest project:  translating scientific data into musical scores.  When Miebach relocated from the coast of Maine to Omaha and then Boston in 2006, she realized the cityscape influenced weather dramatically, and not in the same way that the shoreline did.  “In an urban environment, you have infrastructure, you have heat bubbles that hover over cities, you have the lack of vegetation, and all these create very localized fluctuations in weather data that the weather instruments are very sensitive in picking up,” she says.  Miebach found that she could not accurately express in her basket weaving the subtle fluctuations in weather that cities foster.  Instead, she began experimenting with musical notation as a medium, which she says provided the flexibility she needed in artistically representing weather data at the street level.  See many pictures at:  http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/artscience/2013/03/transforming-raw-scientific-data-into-sculpture-and-song/   

Chicago’s northern suburbs are home to tens of thousands of Assyrians, Aramaic-speaking Christians driven from their Middle Eastern homelands by persecution and war.  Aramaic, a Semitic language related to Hebrew and Arabic, was the common tongue of the entire Middle East when the Middle East was the crossroads of the world.  People used it for commerce and government across territory stretching from Egypt and the Holy Land to India and China.  The number of Aramaic speakers alive today is difficult to calculate.  Though some estimates set the figure as high as a half-million, that number is misleading.  Because of its ancient lineage, lack of standardization and the isolation of speakers from one another, the modern tongue, known as Neo-Aramaic, has more than 100 dialects, most with no written analogue.  Many dialects are already extinct, and others are down to their last one or two speakers.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/ideas-innovations/How-to-Save-a-Dying-Language-187947061.html?c=y&page=1   

In July of 1852, a 32-year-old novelist named Herman Melville had high hopes for his new novel, Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, despite the book’s mixed reviews and tepid sales.  That month he took a steamer to Nantucket for his first visit to the Massachusetts island, home port of his novel’s mythic protagonist, Captain Ahab, and his ship, the Pequod.  Like a tourist, Melville met local dignitaries, dined out and took in the sights of the village he had previously only imagined.  And on his last day on Nantucket he met the broken-down 60-year-old man who had captained the Essex, the ship that had been attacked and sunk by a sperm whale in an 1820 incident that had inspired Melville’s novel.  Captain George Pollard Jr. was just 29 years old when the Essex went down, and he survived and returned to Nantucket to captain a second whaling ship, Two Brothers.  But when that ship wrecked on a coral reef two years later, the captain was marked as unlucky at sea—a “Jonah”—and no owner would trust a ship to him again.  Pollard lived out his remaining years on land, as the village night watchman.  Read Captain Pollard's story at:  http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/history/2013/03/the-true-life-horror-that-inspired-moby-dick/

Restored Grant boyhood home to be rededicated April 6, 2013  Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's parents, Jesse and Hanna Grant, built the original portion of the home in 1823, when they moved to Georgetown, Ohio from Point Pleasant, Ohio, where Grant had been born the year before.  A large kitchen was added the following year.  About 1829, they built a new two-story home in front of, and attached to, the 1823 house.  While growing up there, Grant -- born Hiram Ulysses Grant -- went to school, worked in his father's tannery and spent hour upon hour in his favorite pastime:  working with horses.  Grant lived in the house in Georgetown with his parents and four siblings until 1839 when he left to attend West Point.  It was at West Point that, through a bureaucratic error, his name was listed as Ulysses Simpson Grant.  Georgetown's nationally-known wildlife artist, John Ruthven, and his late wife Judy, who was an active preservationist, bought the Grant Boyhood Home in 1977 to ensure its preservation.  The Ruthvens restored and furnished the house, with one room dedicated to Grant memorabilia.  It has been open to the public since 1982, when it was named a National Historic Landmark, the highest designation awarded to historic properties in the United States by the federal government (all National Historic Landmarks are also listed on the National Register of Historic Places).  In 2002, the Ruthvens donated the Grant Boyhood Home to the State of Ohio, which placed it under the auspices of the Ohio Historical Society.  Also in Georgetown is the Grant Schoolhouse.  http://ohsweb.ohiohistory.org/enews/042612e.shtml

U.S. Grant timelines  http://presidentusgrant.com/

A roasted egg is a traditional part of the Seder on Passover called the Beitzah.  Traditionally these eggs were cooked by being buried overnight in the embers of a fire.  These eggs have a deep, savory, roasted caramel flavor.  They’re way easy to prepare, and there are many ways to do so, including boiling the egg first, or roasting it over a grill.  I’m giving you a method from Paula Wolfert, author of Mediterranean Clay Pot Cooking.

8 whole eggs, at room temperature 

Preheat your oven to 225.  Place the eggs in warm water while preheating the oven.  When the oven is ready, remove the eggs from the water and set them directly in the oven’s middle rack.  Bake for 4-5 hours.  The eggs turn a rich, caramel color.  For a variety of shades, remove a few eggs at a time starting at the 4 hour mark.  Remove the eggs and let cool for a few minutes.  Gently roll and press the eggs to crackle the shells.  Place them into a bowl of cold water for at least five minutes.  Slip off the shells and arrange on a plate.  Serve with condiments of your choosing.  Tom Herndon 

http://www.hippkitchen.com/recipes/scrambled-just-the-start

 

There is a bit of controversy as to when the ice cream soda first appeared, apparently in the 1870s, and who gets credit for it.  However, there’s no dispute that the bevy of lovely ladies enjoying drinks at a soda fountain by artist Clarence F. Underwood appeared on the cover of The Saturday Evening Post on July 27, 1912.  Under the cuter-than-the-law-should allow category, a small boy and girl at the soda fountain on the June 6, 1936, cover face a predicament:  He can’t find his money.  Look at his face, and tell us you don’t want to pinch his cheek.  Rockwell’s teenage soda jerk seems much more interested in the female customers than in serving up ice cream, but definitely more interested in the ice cream than the girl is the black and white dog intently watching the melting ice cream illustrated by Ellen Pyle on the August 12, 1922 cover.  Cover artists were apparently fond of melting ice cream, as we see in two covers:  Rockwell’s boy of July 13, 1940, and Stevan Dohanos’ girl with two hands full of cones on the July 29, 1944 cover.  See pictures of ten Saturday Evening Post covers at:  http://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2009/07/04/art-entertainment/art-and-artists/ice-cream-soda-fountain-covers.html

Ice cream, one of the most spectacularly successful of all the foods based on dairy products, has a comparatively short history.  The first ice creams, in the sense of an iced and flavoured confection made from full milk or cream, are thought to have been made in Italy and then in France in the 17th century, and to have been diffused from the French court to other European countries.  However, although the French did make some ice creams from an early date, they were more interested in water ices.  The first recorded English use of the term ice cream (also given as iced cream) was by Ashmole (1672), recording among dishes served at the Feast of St George at Windsor in May 167I ‘One Plate of Ice Cream’.  The first published English recipe was by Mrs Mary Eales (1718).  Read much more at:  http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2012/07/i-scream-you-scream/

We all know the words. “I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream!”  Well, we know that much, at least.  The song was actually recorded in 1929 by a group called “Waring’s Pennsylvanians.”  As the name implies, the band was from Pennsylvania (the founder and leader attended Penn State) and included as many as 12 members.  In the video below (this is a real treat for ice cream fans), you can hear the ode to ice cream in its entirety.  The “frog-voiced drummer,” so called in this article on the band, became popular after this song was released and was known to play melodies on his teeth!  For those who want to sing along, the complete lyrics can be found here.  http://icecreamjournal.turkeyhill.com/index.php/2010/12/13/the-history-of-the-i-scream-you-scream-song/

Majorca or Mallorca  It is claimed locally that Christopher Columbus was born in Felanitx, Mallorca and named the first island he discovered San Salvador after the hill in his native land.  Other claims to fame in the area are wine and "green pearls"--capers.

Time Out Mallorca & Menorca: And Menorca By Time Out, p. 193

Minorca or Menorca from Latin: Insula Minor, later Minorica "minor island") is one of the Balearic Islands located in the Mediterranean Sea belonging to Spain.  Its name derives from its size, contrasting it with nearby Majorca.  The island is known for its collection of megalithic stone monuments:  navetes, taules and talaiots, which speak of a very early prehistoric human activity.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minorca

Sept. 13, 2010  Earthquake lightning by Philip Duncan

I have to admit, I've never heard of this before - but Earthquake Lights, or "Lightning", is a well documented phenomena.  When I was in the big Christchurch quake two Saturday's ago I noticed three or four brilliant blue flashes that lit up the sky (but didn't light up the city itself, as normal lightning would do).  My first instinct was that it was power transformers exploding.  However on reflection I realised the lights were simply too bright and lit up too much of the night sky.  I had a few comments posted here and at WeatherWatch about the lights being caused by the quake itself.  So I decided to find out - I called GNS (Geological and Nuclear Sciences) in Wellington.  Dr Martin Reyners was the Seismologist I spoke to and he indeed confirmed that what I saw was most likely a direct result of the earth shifting.  Oddly, they hadn't had any other eyewitness reports.  However I'm now starting to hear via my Twitter account that others saw it too.  I suppose most people didn't have a 7th floor view of Christchurch at the time the quake struck so I was in a prime viewing position.  Dr Reyners says with shallow quakes this has been widely documented.  http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10673092

A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg

polylemma  (pol-ee-LEM-uh) noun
A choice involving multiple undesirable options.
From Greek poly- (many) + dilemma, from lemma (proposition).  Earliest documented use:  1856.  
palimpsest  (PAL-imp-sest) noun
1.  A writing surface such as a parchment that has been reused after partially or completely erasing the original text.
2. Something reused but still showing traces of its earlier form.
From Greek palimpsestos, from palin (again) + psestos + (scraped). Earliest documented use:  1661
nineteenth hole  (NYN-TEENTH hol)  noun
The clubhouse or another place, such as a bar or a restaurant, where golfers gather after playing a round.  A standard round of golf has eighteen holes, so the next stop after the game, a bar or a restaurant, is called the nineteenth hole.  A similar term is the fifth quarter in (American) football. Earliest documented use:  1901.
bromide  (BRO-myd)  noun

1.  A tired or meaningless remark.  2.  A tiresome or boring person.

From bromine, from Greek bromos (stench).  Earliest documented use:  1836.   In earlier times, potassium bromide used to be taken as a sedative.  So any statement that was intended to be soothing ("Don't worry, everything will be OK.") acquired the name bromide.  Eventually any commonplace or tired remark and anyone uttering such remarks came to be known as a bromide.
The term was popularized in the title of Gelett Burgess's 1906 book "Are You a Bromide?"  It was to promote this book that Burgess coined the term "blurb".

Feedback to A.Word.A.Day

nineteenth hole  Ah, but modern golf course design is not only slowing down the game, and scaring off new players, it is also damaging this fine old expression.  More and more really top end clubs include a 19th hole, to settle bets, when contestants finish the normal round tied.  I have personally seen one, and have heard of another half-dozen -- including one 14-hole which is a very odd, one family, golf course, where a "round" is the original 13 holes, and the 14/19th was added for the purpose described above.  Plus, a few courses have added an extra hole, which allows one hole to be taken entirely out of rotation for serious refurbishment.  All that said, I expect 19th hole will keep the meaning described, except at the very few venues described above.   

The Wikipedia reference desk works like a library reference desk . You can leave a question at the reference desk and Wikipedia volunteers work to help you find the information you need.  Before asking a question, please try using the search boxes at right to search Wikipedia as a whole or the Reference Desk archives.  You can often find the answer you're looking for more quickly with a search than by waiting for a response.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reference_desk 

Have a taste of Toledo delivered to your door, learn the Polish word of the week--and link to recipes at:  http://www.stanleysmarket.com/ 

The Library of Congress presents the National Jukebox, which makes historical sound recordings available to the public free of charge.  The Jukebox includes recordings from the extraordinary collections of the Library of Congress Packard Campus for Audio Visual Conservation and other contributing libraries and archives.  See links at upper left for more information at:  http://www.loc.gov/jukebox/

The U.S. Supreme Court has declared that copyright law does not extend to prohibiting the resale of books bought overseas.   

KIRTSAENG, DBA BLUECHRISTINE99 v. JOHN WILEY & SONS, INC.

CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT  No. 11–697.  Argued October 29, 2012—Decided March 19, 2013
Link to case at:  http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/20/business/supreme-court-eases-sale-of-certain-products-abroad.html?_r=0  See also:   http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-copyright-kirtsaeng-supreme-court-20130320,0,780431.story

Signaling horns

The abeng is the horn of an animal or a wind musical instrument, which is blown to produce a variety of sounds, and is used for communication.  http://www.anngel.com/ACIJ/history-abeng.htm
A foghorn or fog signal or fog bell is a device that uses sound to warn vehicles of hazards or boats of the presence of other vehicles in foggy conditions.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foghorn

Simple and old fashioned

cambric tea  a hot drink of water, milk, sugar, and often a small amount of tea
first known use:  1859  http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cambric%20tea  NOTE that the variation I grew up with was half tea and half milk.
bread and butter, hard-boiled eggs
milk toast, a breakfast food consisting of toasted bread in warm milk, typically with sugar and butter.  Salt, pepper, paprika, cinnamon, cocoa, raisins and other ingredients may be added.  In the New England region of the US, milk toast refers to toast that has been dipped in a milk-based white sauce.  Milk toast was a popular food throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries, especially for young children and for the ailing, for whom the food was thought to be soothing and easy to digest  See variations from various countries at:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milk_toast

Heritage Recipes "sharing old fashioned recipes and traditions"  http://www.heritagerecipes.com/

Opera, like great litigation, involves powerful storytelling, which evokes a variety of audience emotions.  U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg spoke about her love of both mediums at the ABA Annual Meeting in Chicago Aug. 2-5, 2012, in a CLE program titled, "Arias of Law: The Rule of Law at Work in Opera and the Supreme Court."  The panel, moderated by Chicago lawyer Craig Martin and sponsored by the ABA Section of Litigation, also included U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli and Anthony Freud, general director of Chicago's Lyric Opera.  Afterward, Ginsburg sat down with the ABA Journal to chat about operas she listens to at work, music she recommends to law clerks and operas featuring legal dramas. She also talks about the time she was serenaded by Plácido Domingo.  Stephanie Francis Ward  See video of the interview and the serenade by Domingo at:  http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/justice_ginsburg_talks_about_arias_and_the_law/  See also:  http://www.npr.org/blogs/deceptivecadence/2012/08/07/158382779/is-there-a-lawyer-in-the-opera-house 

The books of Dr. Seuss, the pen name of Theodor Geisel, depend on what Donald Pease, a professor of English literature at Dartmouth, refers to in his biography of Geisel as “plausible nonsense.”  “Children will grant you any premise, but after that—you’ve got to stay on the same key,” Geisel told one interviewer.  “What I have tried to do is use implausible facts to create a plausible world.”  Justice Clarence Thomas said that back in Savannah in 1955, listening to librarians reading from Dr. Seuss gave him an affinity for learning.  Read opinions on how his books may relate to current events including two cases under Supreme Court consideration at: 

The New Yorker  Mar. 18, 2013  p. 22-23   

Five engineers who helped create the Internet were on Mar. 18 awarded a $1.5 million prize which British organisers hope will come to be seen as equivalent to a Nobel prize for engineering.  Robert Kahn, Vinton Cerf and Marc Andreessen of the United States will share the first ever £1 million (1.2 million euro) Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering with Louis Pouzin of France and Tim Berners-Lee of Britain.  "The emergence of the Internet and the web involved many teams of people all over the world," said Alec Broers, chair of the judging panel.  "However, these five visionary engineers, never before honoured together as a group, led the key developments that shaped the Internet and web as a coherent system and brought them into public use."  Britain's Queen Elizabeth II, who gives her name to the prize, will present the award to the winners in a formal ceremony in London in June.  Organisers said Kahn, Cerf and Pouzin had made "seminal" contributions to the design and protocols that make up the fundamental architecture of the Internet.  Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web, the information-sharing system built on top of the Internet which allows us to use it in the way we do today.  Andreessen, meanwhile, created the first widely-used web browser, Mosaic. 

http://gadgets.ndtv.com/internet/news/internet-creators-kahn-cerf-andreessen-pouzin-berners-lee-share-15-million-engineering-prize-344387

Robocalls starting with words such as "The FBI reports a home invasion every 60 seconds" or "The FBI is reporting that there are a rising number of home-invasion robberies" are being received around the country.  You may file a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission if you received an unwanted call after your number was on the National Registry for 31 days.  You may also file a complaint if you received a call that used a recorded message instead of a live person (whether or not your number was on the Registry).  Even if your number is registered, charities, political organizations, and telephone surveyors may continue to call you.  Companies with which you do business may also continue to call, unless you have asked them to stop calling you.  If you have asked them to stop calling, please keep a record of the date you made the request and include that information in the comment section of any complaint you submit against that company.    https://complaints.donotcall.gov/complaint/complaintcheck.aspx?panel=2 

Mar. 18, 2013  You can explore some of the most famous mountains on Earth, including Aconcagua (South America), Kilimanjaro (Africa), Mount Elbrus (Europe) and Everest Base Camp (Asia) on Google Maps.  These mountains belong to the group of peaks known as the Seven Summits—the highest mountain on each of the seven continents.  http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2013/03/explore-everest-kilimanjaro-and-more.html

The Toledo Museum of Art's 2013 “The Art of Writing” Poetry Contest invites you to submit an original poem inspired by a work of art in the Museum’s collection.  Submissions are due March 28, 2013.  This spring the Museum will host a showcase of notable entries and a reception for writers and their guests.  Cash and membership prizes are awarded.   Register in one of four ways at:  http://www.toledomuseum.org/learn/writingcontest/   

Q:  What was the life expectancy of a 65-year-old in 1940 when Social Security began sending benefit checks?  What's the life expectancy of a 65-year-old today?
A:  On Jan. 31, 1940, Ida May Fuller, 65, of Brattleboro, Vt., was issued the first check, for $22.54, under the Social Security Act of 1935.  Then, she could expect to live another 14.7 years, and a man at 65 could expect to live another 12.7 years.  Now, at 65, a woman can expect another 20.9 years, and a man can expect another 18.9 years.  "Increases in life expectancy are a factor in the long-range financing of Social Security," the government says.  "But other factors, such as the sheer size of the baby boom generation, and the relative proportion of workers to beneficiaries, are larger determinants of Social Security's future financial condition." -- Social Security Administration.   http://www.thecourier.com/Opinion/columns/2013/Feb/JU/ar_JU_022513.asp?d=022513,2013,Feb,25&c=c_13   

The vocal folds, also known popularly as vocal cords, are composed of twin infoldings of mucous membrane stretched horizontally across the larynx.  They vibrate, modulating the flow of air being expelled from the lungs during phonation.  Another name for the airway at the level of the vocal cords is the glottis, and the opening between the cords is called the glottic chink.  The size of the glottic chink is important in respiration and phonation.  Open during inhalation, closed when holding one's breath, and held apart just a tiny bit for speech or singing; the folds are controlled via the vagus nerve.  They are white because of scant blood circulation.  The folds vibrate when they are closed to obstruct the airflow through the glottis, the space between the folds: they are forced open by increased air pressure in the lungs, and closed again as the air rushes past the folds, lowering the pressure (Bernoulli's principle).  A person's voice pitch is determined by the resonant frequency of the vocal folds.  http://www.sciencedaily.com/articles/v/vocal_folds.htm

 

phonation   Etymology:  Gk, phone, sound; L, atio, process

the production of speech sounds through the vibration of the vocal folds of the larynx
Mosby's Medical Dictionary, 8th edition  © 2009 Elsevier
http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/phonation

Established in 1996, the Barnes & Noble Writers for Writers Awards celebrate authors who have given generously to other writers or to the broader literary community.  Nominations are solicited from past winners, other prominent writers, members of the publishing community, and Poets & Writers' Board and staff.  These nominations are reviewed and winners selected by a committee comprised of current and past members of the Board of Directors.  Title of the award has been given to Barnes & Noble in appreciation of their extraordinary support of Poets & Writers.  Recipients of the 2013 Writers for Writers Award are Steve Berry, Rigoberto González, and Judith Kelman. The awards will be presented at Poets & Writers’ annual dinner, In Celebration of Writers, on Monday, March 18, 2013 in New York City.  Find biographies of current winners, and see list of winners from 1996-2012 at:  http://www.pw.org/about-us/writers_writers_award_and_editors_award

History is the story of who we are.  It is writings, images, art, and memorabilia, much of which is donated to museums and archives.  However, of the more than 1.7 billion rare and unique books, periodicals, and scrapbooks currently in collections, at least 16%, 270,000,000, are endangered because of poor conservation. Of the 21,000,000 paintings, sculptures, and decorative art now in those collections, 26%, 5,500,000, are threatened.  What if these rarities are not preserved?  Quite simply, links to our past will be irretrievably broken.  If you have or know of a historical project that needs attention, Steve and Elizabeth Berry are here to help.  Contact them at historymatters@steveberry.org.  http://www.steveberry.org/berry-history.htm

Established in 2008, Visible Ink offers patients at Memorial Sloan-Kettering the opportunity to work individually with an experienced writer, editor, or teacher on a writing project of their choice, which need not be disease related.  The program is free of charge and open to all interested inpatients and outpatients, regardless of their writing level or experience.  To date, more than 500 patients have enrolled and 35 writers, editors, teachers, and graduate writing students have signed on as volunteers.  Visible Ink promotes self-expression, stress reduction, personal growth, and individual success for participants who have experienced a serious illness.  Patients benefit from the opportunity to tell their stories in a positive, supportive framework.  Visible Ink participants have produced more than 15,000 pages of written work, including novels, short stories, blogs, personal experience essays, journals, letters, poems, stage scripts and screenplays, song lyrics, and articles.    Each year, Visible Ink participants are invited to submit up to two written works from which a committee selects pieces to be published in our anthology and included in our staged reading.  The anthology is distributed at the staged reading.  Copies of the anthology are also sold in Memorial Sloan-Kettering gift shops.  For more information on the anthology and staged reading please contact: 

Judith Kelman  Visible Ink Founder & Team Leader  Judith.kelman@gmail.com  212-535-3985

Greg Kachejian Artistic Director & Administrator  Kachejig@mskcc.org  212-639-7579
http://www.mskcc.org/cancer-care/counseling-support/writing-visible-ink

Scarlett O'Hara, born Katie Scarlett O' Hara (credited as Scarlett Hamilton - Kennedy - Butler), is the protagonist in Margaret Mitchell's 1936 novel Gone with the Wind and in the later film of the same name.  Scarlett was born in 1845.  She also is the main character in the 1970 musical Scarlett and the 1991 book Scarlett, a sequel to Gone with the Wind that was written by Alexandra Ripley and adapted for a television mini-series in 1994.  During early drafts of the original novel, Mitchell referred to her heroine as "Pansy", and did not decide on the name "Scarlett" until just before the novel went to print.  In the 1939 film version of Gone with the Wind, Scarlett O'Hara is similar to the character in the original novel, but there are some noticeable differences.  In the book, Scarlett gives birth to three children:  Wade Hampton Hamilton, Ella Lorena Kennedy, and Eugenie Victoria "Bonnie Blue" Butler.  In the film version, only Bonnie is featured.  In the sequel book, Scarlett, she has another daughter with Rhett, Katie Colum O'Hara more commonly known as "Cat".  Scarlett is by far the most developed character in Gone with the Wind.  She stands out because she is strong and saves her family but is incredibly selfish and petty at the same time.  She challenges nineteenth-century society's gender roles repeatedly, running a store and two lumber mills at one point.  Scarlett is in some ways the least stereotypically feminine of women (in other ways the most), and the more traditional Melanie Wilkes is in many ways her foil. But Scarlett survives the war, several marriages, the birth of children, and even a miscarriage.  Melanie, on the other hand, struggles with fragile health and a shy nature.  Without Melanie Wilkes, Scarlett might simply be seen as harsh and "over the top," but beside Melanie, Scarlett presents a fresher, deeper female characterization; she lives a complicated life during a difficult period of history.  Some of Scarlett's lines from Gone with the Wind, like "Fiddle-dee-dee!," "Tomorrow is another day," "Great balls of fire!" and "I'll never go hungry again!", have become modern catchphrases.  http://gonewiththewind.wikia.com/wiki/Scarlett_O'Hara  NOTE that a home in my family was one of the homes considered for Tara, but it was not chosen.

potato 

1560s, from Spanish patata, from Carib (Haiti) batata "sweet potato."  Sweet potatoes were first to be introduced to Europe; in cultivation in Spain by mid-16c.; in Virginia by 1648.  Early 16c. Portuguese traders carried the crop to all their shipping ports and the sweet potato was quickly adopted from Africa to India and Java.  The name later (1590s) was extended to the common white potato, from Peru, which was at first (mistakenly) called Virginia potato, or, because at first it was of minor importance compared to the sweet potato, bastard potato.  Spanish invaders in Peru began to use white potatoes as cheap food for sailors 1530s.  The first potato from South America reached Pope Paul III in 1540; grown in France at first as an ornamental plant.   According to popular tradition, introduced to Ireland 1565 by John Hawkins.  Brought to England from Colombia by Sir Thomas Herriot, 1586.  The French is pomme de terre, literally "earth-apple;" a Swedish dialectal word for "potato" is jordpäron, literally "earth-pear."  Colloquial pronunciation tater is attested in print from 1759.  To drop (something) like a hot potato is from 1846.  Children's counting-out rhyme that begins one potato, two potato first recorded 1885 in Canada.   http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=potato

The word "tomato" may refer to the plant (Solanum lycopersicum) or the edible, typically red, fruit that it bears.  Having originated in America, the tomato was spread around the world following the Spanish colonization of the Americas, and its many varieties are now widely grown, often in greenhouses in cooler climates.  The tomato is consumed in diverse ways, including raw, as an ingredient in many dishes and sauces, and in drinks.  While it is botanically a fruit, it is considered a vegetable for culinary purposes (as well as by the United States Supreme Court, see Nix v. Hedden), which has caused some confusion.  The fruit is rich in lycopene, which may have beneficial health effects.  The tomato belongs to the nightshade family.  The plants typically grow to 1–3 meters (3–10 ft) in height and have a weak stem that often sprawls over the ground and vines over other plants. It is a perennial in its native habitat, although often grown outdoors in temperate climates as an annual.  The scientific species epithet lycopersicum means "wolf peach", and comes from German werewolf myths.  These said that deadly nightshade was used to summon werewolves, so the tomato's similar, but much larger, fruit was called the "wolf peach" when it arrived in Europe.  The Aztecs called the fruit xitomatl (pronounced [ʃiːˈtomatɬ]), meaning plump thing with a navel.  Other Mesoamerican peoples, including the Nahuas, took the name as tomatl, from which most western European languages derived their names for "tomato".  However, the Italian word, pomodoro (from pomo d'oro  "apple of gold") was borrowed into Polish, and via Russian, into several other languages.  Similarly, the now rare German term Paradeisapfel (for "apple of paradise") is still heard in the form paradeiser in the Bavarian and Austrian dialects, and was borrowed into modern Hungarian, Slovenian and Serbian.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomato

 

·         Libbey Inc., headquartered in Toledo, recently donated 2,000 pieces of glassware to the Toledo   Zoo's catering department. 

·         Wild Walkabout (Australia comes to your zoo):  May 24-September 2
·         Aboriginal art (over 100 works by aboriginal Australian artists) at Toledo Museum of Art: 
April 14-July 18
·         An estimated 3/4 of the world's population relies mainly on plants and plant extracts for health care.  In the U.S., about 40% of all prescribed medicines contain chemicals derived from plants.  Only about 2% of the estimated 250,000 species of plants have been examined for possible use in the manufacture of medicines.
Safari, the official magazine of the Toledo Zoo, vol. 22, no. 1, Spring 2013

With a $1.5 million gift to New York's Center for Jewish History, Amy Goldman Fowler is proving the adage "like mother, like daughter."  The donation, made from the Lillian Goldman Charitable Trust, is to establish a reference services division that complements the Center for Jewish History's established Lillian Goldman Reading Room.    "Lillian had a deep commitment to Jewish history, to libraries and archives, to the preservation and transmission of knowledge.  So do I," explains Dr. Goldman Fowler, 58 years old, and a resident of Manhattan and Rhinebeck, N.Y.  The Center for Jewish History is the home of the library and research collections of the American Jewish Historical Society, American Sephardi Federation, Leo Baeck Institute, Yeshiva University Museum and YIVO Institute for Jewish Research.  The center's resources include 500,000 volumes and 100 million archival documents that span some 600 years of history.  The center opened in 2000.  In making named gifts in her mother's honor, Dr. Goldman Fowler says that there isn't a lot of guesswork in what types of charities to support as she and her mother were "generally on the same wavelength" when it came to worthy causes. Mutual interests include libraries, reproductive health and public television.  "It's all about access and education," explains Dr. Goldman Fowler.  One other area of interest shared by mother and daughter is gardening.  Although she's a clinical psychologist by trade, Dr. Goldman Fowler has for decades devoted her time to gardening and advocating for the preservation of heirloom varieties of fruits and vegetables.  Lillian Goldman loved tomatoes and roses, and Dr. Goldman Fowler has a passion for vegetables, too, as well as a small rose garden.  To honor this shared interest, Dr. Goldman Fowler supports public gardens, too.  The Lillian and Amy Goldman Stone Mill at the New York Botanical Garden opened in 2010 and there is a fountain at the garden named for Lillian Goldman.  "She appreciated beauty wherever it could be found," says Dr. Goldman Fowler of her mother.  Melanie Grayce West  http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324048904578320603006606108.html?mod=djemITP_hgsp 

Mar. 13, 2013  Packed into Bexley, Ohio's 2.5 square miles are more maples, oaks and pines than there are people.  The leafy cover is so thick along some city streets that a woman once told the city council she walked a block in a rainstorm without feeling a single drop.  “We’re very proud of our trees and our landscape and our forestry,” said resident Ginny Salamy.  “ And we just want the city of Columbus ... and also the United States to know about it.”  So Salamy is leading an effort to have the city — the entirety of Bexley — declared an arboretum.  The designation typically is attached to a plot of land dedicated to trees, but Salamy said Bexley fits the criteria for Level 2 accreditation established by the Morton Register of Arboreta, an Illinois-based arboretum accreditation program:  It has more than 100 kinds of woody plants, an organizational plan for the arboretum, staff and volunteer support, public access and educational programs.  If Bexley gains accreditation, it would be a first.  Nicole Cavender, the vice president of science and conservation at the Morton Arboretum, which coordinates the register, said no city in the country had applied to be an arboretum, though a city in Colorado has expressed interest.  Salamy, the chairwoman of the Bexley Arboretum Committee, submitted the city’s paperwork yesterday.  http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2013/03/13/tree-loving-bexley-asks-to-be-declared-an-arboretum.html 

Philip Milton Roth (born March 19, 1933) is an American novelist.  See his biography, lists of books and awards at:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Roth

As a way of commemorating Philip Roth’s 80th birthday, the Newark Preservation and Landmarks committee is offering a $35 bus tour called “Philip Roth’s Newark.”  Visitors will get a tour of “places recalled in Mr. Roth’s books” such as Washington Park, the Essex County Courthouse and “various spots in the Weequahic neighborhood where Mr. Roth was born and raised.” 

Related posts:

Will the Real Philip Roth Please Stand Up?
J.M. Coetzee on Philip Roth
Roth v. Roth v. Roth
Philip Roth v. Wikipedia Philip Roth Disses Fiction  
http://www.themillions.com/2013/03/philip-roths-newark.html

The Ohio River is 981 miles long, starting at the confluence of the Allegheny and the Monongahela Rivers in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and ending in Cairo, Illinois, where it flows into the Mississippi River.  The Ohio River flows through or borders six states:  Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia.  In addition, water from parts of New York, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee and Alabama drain into tributaries that empty into the Ohio.  The Ohio River is the source of drinking water for more than three million people.  Over 25 million people, almost 10% of the US population, live in the Ohio River Basin. 

http://www.ohioriverfdn.org/education/ohio_river_facts/index.html

Pas de deux is a dance for two.  http://www.abt.org/education/dictionary/index.html

Paso Doble, meaning double step in Spanish is a ballroom dance for couples set to Spanish march music that is reminiscent of a bullfight in the heart of Spain.  The dance is lively and dramatic, with long sweeping steps and aggressive movements.  The tempo is brisk and measured but not fast, being about one beat per second.  What truly makes this dance is the energy one puts into it and the level of dancing skill.  The Paso Doble as we know it today was invented in Southern France, and Pierre Lavelle made it popular with the upper crust of Paris in the 1930s.  Although the French copied the Spanish music and movements, they named the steps in French.   http://www.zimbio.com/AMC+Matador/articles/Xh0oiOGEnAK/History+Paso+Doble+Dance

Gnocchi 

Tips for mixing cooked potatoes and flour--pick your flavor, pick your sauce--find recipe at:  http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/02/21/magazine/gnocchi-of-a-different-color.html?hpw

Jamaica is one of the three islands in the Northern Caribbean forming the Greater Antilles.  It is the largest English-speaking country in the Caribbean Sea, stretching 146 miles from east to west.  Jamaica is well placed on the world’s major shipping and airline routes.  The country’s name is derived from an Arawak (aboriginal Indian) word “Xaymaca”, meaning “land of wood and water”.  And so it is.  With waterfalls, and springs, rivers and streams flowing from the forest-clad mountains to the fertile plains, Jamaica has one of the richest and most varied landscapes in the region.  The center of the island is mostly mountainous and heavily wooded, spotted occasionally with small mining towns and villages.  And, of course, there's the famous Cockpit Country in the Northwest region, an eerie terrain of conical hills and deep sinkholes.  The central mountain range, dominated by the 7,402-foot Blue Mountain, divides the south coast of the island from the north and extends from Half Moon Bay to Portland.  This great variety of terrain and climate allows virtually everything to grow here.  Visitors can step into a country market and see a vast array of tropical fruits and vegetables with such unfamiliar names as callaloo, dasheen, soursop, breadfruit, cho-cho, ackee and Otaheite apple.  Jamaica's main exports (other than tourism) are sugar, citrus fruits, bananas, spices, bauxite and world-famous Blue Mountain coffee.   http://www.jam.paho.org/JAMAICAGEN/aboutjamaica.htm

 If you’ve ever tried Korean food, you probably know kimchi. The pungent pickled vegetable dish—often served at mealtime with a steaming bowl of rice—has an age-old reputation in Korea for boosting longevity.  Developed as a way to preserve perishables over the harsh winter months, kimchi was traditionally stored in earthenware jars and buried underground.   Although a number of veggies, including radish, bok choy, cucumber, and turnip, can be used to make kimchi, napa cabbage is usually the star of the show.  “Napa cabbage leaves soak up flavors particularly well,” says Debbie Lee, chef and author of Seoultown Kitchen:  Korean Pub Grub to Share with Family and Friends.  A good kimchi tastes equal parts sweet, salty, sour, and spicy, she notes:  “The longer the vegetables ferment, the more pronounced the flavor.”  Recipe for a mildly spiced kimchi at:  http://mydigimag.rrd.com/article/Healing+Foods++/987779/0/article.html

Mar. 12, 2013  The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released a list of U.S. metropolitan areas with the most Energy Star certified buildings in 2012, highlighting how owners and managers of commercial buildings across the country are taking action on climate change while delivering real financial savings to the bottom line.  “Through their partnership with EPA, the owners and managers of Energy Star certified buildings are helping reduce greenhouse gas emissions while saving on utility bills,” said EPA Acting Administrator Bob Perciasepe.  “With Energy Star, cities across America are helping achieve President Obama’s goal to cut in half the energy wasted by our businesses over the next 20 years.”  In 2012, more than 20,000 Energy Star certified buildings across America helped save more than $2.7 billion in annual utility bills while preventing greenhouse gas emissions equal to emissions from the annual electricity use of more than two million homes.  Read more and link to list of top cities at:  http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpress.nsf/0c0affede4f840bc8525781f00436213/effc10b58e7b1c2785257b2c00578c0d!OpenDocument 

Mar. 12, 2013  In Washington, D.C.'s Adams Morgan neighborhood, there is a gaping sinkhole in the middle of a bustling sidewalk.  The sinkhole is about a yard (meter) square, as deep as 10 feet and sits a few miles from the White House.  Metropolitan Police were dispatched to the sinkhole site, and local residents said the problem might be due to a new sewer that had just been installed.  "If that is the case, it would be typical of this kind of sinkhole collapse," said Jim Kaufmann, a research physical scientist at the U.S. Geological Survey.  Sinkholes are not uncommon, Kaufman said, because about 20 percent of the United States sits atop what is known as karst terrain, regions where rock below the surface can be naturally dissolved by groundwater.  Hot areas for sinkholes are Florida, Texas, Alabama, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee and Pennsylvania.  http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/12/us-usa-sinkhole-washington-idUSBRE92B17F20130312

March 13 is the 72nd day of the year (73rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar.  There are 293 days remaining until the end of the year.  Events:

1639 – Harvard College is named for clergyman John Harvard.
1781 – William Herschel discovers Uranus.
1845 – Felix Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto receives its première performance in Leipzig with Ferdinand David as soloist.
1862 – American Civil War: The U.S. federal government forbids all Union army officers to return fugitive slaves, thus effectively annulling the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 and setting the stage for the Emancipation Proclamation.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_13