A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg

kinesics (kuh/ky-NEE-siks/ziks)  noun  The study of body movements, such as gestures or facial expressions, as a form of communication.  Coined by the anthropologist Ray Birdwhistell (1918-1994).  From Greek kinesis (motion), from kinein (to move).  Earliest documented use:  1952.

googol  (GOO-gol, -guhl)  noun  A number equivalent to 1 followed by 100 zeros (10¹⁰⁰).  Coined by Milton Sirotta, nine-year-old nephew of the mathematician Edward Kasner.  Earliest documented use:  1940.

inscape  (IN-skayp)  noun  The unique essence of a personal, place, or thing, especially as expressed in a work of art such as a poem.  Coined by the poet and priest Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889) who, in turn, was inspired by the philosopher Duns Scotus (c. 1266-1308).  Earliest documented use:  1868.

blurb (bluhrb)  noun  A short description of a creative work, such as a book, film, etc. used for promotional purposes.  verb tr.  To write a brief description of a creative work.  Coined by Gelett Burgess (1866-1951) for promoting his book Are You a Bromide?.  The dust jacket of this book featured a Miss Belinda Blurb singing its praises.  Earliest documented use:  1914.

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From:  Oliver Fletcher   Subject:  googol  Googol is infamous in the UK as being the winning answer^* to the question “A number one followed by one hundred zeroes is known by what name?” on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? where Army Major Charles Ingram climbed his way to the top £1 million prize in 2001 with the help of his wife and a friend/accomplice who also happened to be a contestant in the opening “Fastest Finger First” round.  Ingram slowly read the possible answers aloud then waited for confirmation by way of a discreet cough or two from his accomplice or wife in the audience when the correct answer was read out.  Even host Chris Tarrant was in disbelief when Ingram suggested he knew the answer to certain questions then expressed different logic and changed his mind before confirming the correct answer fifteen times.  Ingram and his wife Diana thought they had pulled off the audacious heist but the production company suspended payout after another contestant and at least one crew member raised suspicion.  The case went to court and all three individuals involved were found guilty of “procuring the execution of a valuable security by deception”.  There is a fascinating book by a Daily Mail investigative journalist, Bad Show: The Quiz, The Cough, The Millionaire Major.  ^*the three other possible answers provided were “Megatron”, “Gigabit” and “Nonomole.”
From:  Andrew Pressburger  Subject:  Inscape  The Renaissance sculptor/painter/poet Michelangelo Buonarotti claimed that the statue was already present in the marble, all he did was to chisel away the extraneous surface.

History of vinegar  Around 5000 BC the Babylonians were using the fruit of the date palm to make wine and vinegar to be used as food and a preservative or pickling agent.  Vinegar residues were found in urns from ancient Egypt and have been traced to 3000 BC.  In ancient Rome different types of vinegar were made from wine, dates, figs and other fruits and placed in bowls for the dunking of bread.  In ancient Greece, around 400 BC, Hippocrates, who is considered the father of modern medicine, prescribed apple cider vinegar mixed with honey for a variety of ailments, including coughs and colds.  Throughout history the antiseptic nature of vinegar has been used to clean and disinfect the wounds of soldiers and; therefore, speed up wound healing.  Apple cider vinegar was used to this effect during the American Civil War and as late as World War I.  Read more and see graphics at http://www.enzyme-facts.com/vinegar-history.html  See also http://www.madehow.com/Volume-7/Vinegar.html

Chicken with Vinegar and Onions (Poulet au Vinaigre) by Molly Stevens   In my experience, a poultry sauté is one of the most overlooked techniques in French cooking.  It’s easier than pan-frying and more elegant than a stew.  A sauté refers to dredging a cut-up bird (usually a small chicken) in flour before cooking it in a deep skillet with either butter or olive oil and very little, if any, added liquid.  As the chicken cooks, it simmers in its own juices mingled with the fat, creating a very concentrated, rich sauce.  Most cooks add some aromatics (onions, leeks, or shallots) and a bit of wine or vinegar to balance the richness.  Leave the lid of the skillet slightly ajar to let some steam escape during cooking.  This concentrates the liquid for a more intense sauce, and it also ensures that the liquid doesn’t boil or simmer too hard, which would overcook the chicken.  Find recipe serving four to six at https://www.finecooking.com/recipe/chicken-with-vinegar-and-onions-poulet-au-vinaigre

hobnob  verb  (intransitive, obsolete, rare)  To have or have not; to give or take.  (intransitive, obsolete)  To toast one another by touching glasses.  (intransitive)  To drink together.  (intransitive)  To associate with in a friendly manner, often with those of a higher class or status.  Wiktionary

Authors the Muser is grateful for: 

George Eliot  (1819–1880; alternatively "Mary Ann" Evans or "Marian" Evans)

Miguel de Cervantes  (1547-1616; in full Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra)

Helen Hooven Santmyer  (1895–1986)

Margaret Atwood  (born 1939)

Jasper Fforde  (born 1961)

Eudora Alice Welty (1909-2001)

Herman Melville  (1819-1891)

Flannery O'Connor  (1925-1964  full name Mary Flannery O'Connor)

Ray Bradbury  (1920-2012)

Tracy Kidder  (born 1945)

Quirky tradition at Wimbledon  Suddenly "Miss Williams" has become "Mrs. Williams" in the words of chair umpires--a small change that has led to bigger-picture questions about whether the All England Club is too old-fashioned.  Only the women at the grass-court Grand Slam are addressed with a title before their names to reflect their marital status.  In other words, when a chair umpire announces that Serena has won a game, it's, "Game, Mrs. Williams."  For her sister Venus, it's, "Game, Miss Williams."  And for Roger Federer, it's simply:  "Game, Federer."  There are no such marriage lists for the men.  https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/sport/tennis/serena-williams-marital-status-shines-spotlight-quirky-wimbledon-tradition

World Cup 2018  Semi-finals  Tues July 10: France vs Belgium  Weds July 11: Croatia vs England  Sat July 14: Third place play-off:  Losers of two semi-finals  World Cup 2018 final  Sun July 15: World Cup final

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-cup/2018/07/08/world-cup-2018-tv-coverage-watch-semi-finals-final-live-bbc/

Stephen John Ditko, artist, born 2 November 1927; died c29 June 2018   Steve Ditko, who has died aged 90, was the artist who brought Spider-Man and Doctor Strange to life, one of the three crucial creators of the Marvel explosion that redefined comic books in the 1960s.  The trio–Ditko, the writer Stan Lee and the artist Jack Kirby–created and refined the iconic characters who moved from featuring in 12-cent comics to dominating film screens in productions costing hundreds of millions of dollars.  Like Kirby’s, Ditko’s work was stylised, but where Kirby’s square-jawed characters’ power exploded through the panels, Ditko’s characters stretched through them, their faces almost cartoonishly expressive.  He was the perfect artist to combine the grace of Spider-Man with the nerdish insecurity of his alter ego, the teenager Peter Parker.  Spider-Man was Lee’s idea and he first gave it to Kirby to develop.  Unhappy with the result, he passed it on to Ditko, who came up with the costume, powers and back-story.  He was an immediate hit when he debuted in Amazing Fantasy 15 in 1962.   Doctor Strange came along the following year.  Ditko’s conception of Stephen Strange, the surgeon whose hands are crippled in a car crash, and who, seeking a cure, becomes “the Master of the Mystic Arts”, led to a character whose greatest battles were fought on a spiritual plane while his human body reposed back in our world.  Villains were mind-bending, such as the Dread Dormammu, whose head and hands were flames, or Eternity, whose silhouette figure encompassed all universes, and who starred in an unprecedented 17-issue story arc that culminated with Strange and Dormammu joining forces.  Michael Carlson  Read more and see graphics at https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jul/08/steve-ditko-obituary

Michael Ondaatje's "The English Patient" was named the greatest-ever winner of the Man Booker Prize at an event July 8, 2018 celebrating five decades of the prestigious literary award.  The Canadian writer's tale of love and conflict during World War II was awarded the Golden Man Booker Prize for fiction after winning a public vote.  "The English Patient" won the Booker in 1992 and was made into a 1996 movie starring Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche that won nine Academy Awards.  Founded in 1969, the Man Booker prize was originally open to British, Irish and Commonwealth writers, but eligibility was expanded in 2014 to all English-language novelists.  Jill Lawless    https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/movies/2018/07/08/english-patient-voted-best-man-booker-prize-winner/766604002/

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1916  July 9, 2018 

Scholar and novelist Hernan Diaz was born in Argentina, grew up in Sweden, and spent most of his life in the United States.  To some degree, he says, he has a foreign accent in every language he speaks.  Diaz shares his humble opinion on accent discrimination and “the hospitality at the heart of every language.”  Something in my Spanish makes taxi drivers in Buenos Aires ask me where I’m from.  In Swedish, my accent is very slight, but I have the vocabulary of a 12-year-old.  In my early 20s, I lived in London for a couple of years, which left its mark.  But the fact is, I got English almost as a gift, through Swedish.  And there is still a Scandinavian lilt in there.  Does my accent need correcting?  I don’t think so.  An accent is the echo of one language or tone in another.  I, for one, enjoy these ghostly presences of something strange in a familiar environment.  They are a reminder of the fact that language doesn’t belong to anyone, not even to its native speakers.  Read full transcript and link to 3:19 video at https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/we-stigmatize-accents-but-language-belongs-to-everyone

Beer styles can be named for many things, including the place of origin (pilsner, Dortmunder), the appearance (pale ale, witbier) or strength (barley wine, tripel).  How then did the amber lagers—which are known as Vienna, märzen and Oktoberfest—come to be named after a city, a month and a festival, respectively?  Each has its own history.  The amber lagers share a history that comes full circle in the end. Märzen produced Vienna, Vienna produced Oktoberfest.  Over a period of several centuries, brewers discovered that beers could be brewed in spring, stored in alpine caves through the summer and until the weather cooled, emerging for consumption in the fall.  Some brews following this procedure became known as märzen or March beers after the month in which most were brewed.  Around the beginning of the 19th century, a great friendship developed between two distinguished members of the brewing industry.  The Viennese brewer, Anton Dreher, and Gabriel Sedlmayr II of the Spaten brewery in Munich studied and traveled together.  They took keen interest in the innovations of the day and applied them to their own brewing practices.  Dreher was quite interested in developing a pale malt of his own.  He eventually produced one with a unique character, known as Vienna malt.  This was the base for his distinctive brews.  His malt, together with techniques he learned from the Sedlmayrs, produced the first beer in what could be called the Vienna style, a sparkling-clear, amber lagerbier, in 1841.  At the same time that Dreher was developing his Vienna beers, the Sedlmayrs were back at the Spaten brewery in Munich crafting and refining their stylistic contribution to the beer world.  We know it today as Munich dunkel.  In 1871 Gabriel’s brother, Josef, brewed a pilot batch of amber beer that was unlike anything else that could be sampled in the city.  He named it Ur-Märzen (original märzen), following the old method of brewing in March and storing cold for consumption in the fall.  When, at the Oktoberfest celebration of 1872, the supply of the regular beer ran out, Sedlmayr came to the rescue with his märzenbier. It again was so popular that it became a regular beer of the Oktoberfest celebration.  Eventually, many märzen beers added the designation “Oktoberfest” to the name.  There are three different names for these similar beers, but they are really just two distinct styles, with märzen and Oktoberfest being interchangeable or set together, as in märzen/Oktoberfest.  Märzen/Oktoberfest beers have a lusty, rich character that is definitely balanced toward the malt.  Gentle hop rates allow the Munich-style malts to shine through in the märzen/Oktoberfest.  In general, Viennas are slightly weaker, a little drier and have a noticeable hop character that leaves the beer well-balanced with a slightly spicy character.  American breweries produce an excellent range of märzen/Oktoberfest beers, with some examples showing a spicy, hopped-up Vienna profile.  Some are simply be called “amber” or “amber lager,” and may be more commonly found in the Midwest with its German ancestry.  The influence of Austria and Germany can still be found in many Mexican beers.  Negra Modelo and Dos Equis are such examples, and they can’t be beat for washing down spicy food.  http://allaboutbeer.com/beer_style/amber-lagers/

Humpty Dumpty is a character in an English nursery rhyme, probably originally a riddle and one of the best known in the English-speaking world.  He is typically portrayed as a personified egg, though he is not explicitly described as such.  The first recorded versions of the rhyme date from late eighteenth-century England and the tune from 1870 in James William Elliott's National Nursery Rhymes and Nursery Songs.  Its origins are obscure and several theories have been advanced to suggest original meanings.  The character of Humpty Dumpty was popularised in the United States by actor George L. Fox (1825–77).  As a character and literary allusion, he has appeared or been referred to in a large number of works of literature and popular culture, particularly Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass (1872), in which he was described as an egg.  The rhyme is listed in the Roud Folk Song Index as No. 13026.  According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the term "humpty dumpty" referred to a drink of brandy boiled with ale in the seventeenth century.  The riddle probably exploited, for misdirection, the fact that "humpty dumpty" was also eighteenth-century reduplicative slang for a short and clumsy person.  The riddle may depend upon the assumption that a clumsy person falling off a wall might not be irreparably damaged, whereas an egg would be.  The rhyme is no longer posed as a riddle, since the answer is now so well known.  Similar riddles have been recorded by folklorists in other languages, such as "Boule Boule" in French, "Lille Trille" in Swedish and Norwegian, and "Runtzelken-Puntzelken" or "Humpelken-Pumpelken" in different parts of Germany—although none is as widely known as Humpty Dumpty is in English.  Humpty appears in Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass (1872), where he discusses semantics and pragmatics with Alice.  "When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less."  "The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."  "The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master—that's all."  Alice was too much puzzled to say anything, so after a minute Humpty Dumpty began again.  "They've a temper, some of them—particularly verbs, they're the proudest—adjectives you can do anything with, but not verbs—however, I can manage the whole lot!  Impenetrability!  That's what I say!"  Read more and see graphics at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humpty_Dumpty

Eric Carle is acclaimed and beloved as the creator of brilliantly illustrated and innovatively designed picture books for very young children.  His best-known work, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, has eaten its way into the hearts of literally millions of children all over the world and has been translated into 62 languages and sold over 46 million copies.  Since the Caterpillar was published in 1969, Eric Carle has illustrated more than seventy books, many best sellers, most of which he also wrote, and more than 145 million copies of his books have sold around the world.  Born in Syracuse, New York, in 1929, Eric Carle moved with his parents to Germany when he was six years old; he was educated there, and graduated from the prestigious art school, the Akademie der bildenden Künste, in Stuttgart.  But his dream was always to return to America, the land of his happiest childhood memories.  So, in 1952, with a fine portfolio in hand and forty dollars in his pocket, he arrived in New York.  Soon he found a job as a graphic designer in the promotion department of The New York Times.  Later, he was the art director of an advertising agency for many years.  One day, respected educator and author, Bill Martin Jr, called to ask Carle to illustrate a story he had written.  Martin’s eye had been caught by a striking picture of a red lobster that Carle had created for an advertisement. Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? was the result of their collaboration.  It is still a favorite with children everywhere.  This was the beginning of Eric Carle’s true career.  Soon Carle was writing his own stories, too.  His first wholly original book was 1,2,3 to the Zoo, followed soon afterward by the celebrated classic, The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

Somehow, the United States Postal Service (USPS) couldn’t tell the difference between the two, and printed the wrong Lady Liberty on billions of stamps in 2010—the one outside of the New York--New York Hotel and Casino in Sin City, not the one on Liberty Island in New York Harbor.  A stamp collector noticed the difference in 2011, and even after it became clear that the USPS did not have permission from the artist who made the statue, the postal service simply shrugged it off and kept printing.  USPS “still loves the stamp design and would have selected this photograph anyway,” it stated in a 2011 email.  However, the artist who made the Vegas sculpture, Robert S. Davidson, did not love the USPS using an image of his work without obtaining permission and sued for copyright infringement in 2017.  On June 29, 2018, Davidson emerged victorious from the suit and will now receive $3.5 million, plus interest, as compensation.  https://www.artsy.net/news/artsy-editorial-usps-owes-35-million-artist-las-vegass-statue-liberty-printing-work-10-billion-stamps

A Capitol Fourth 2018 video  Music begins at 2:53 with Pentatonix.  Jimmy Buffet performs with others in music from Escape to Margaritaville and joins the Beach Boys (along with host John Stamos) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5HNFhzNdnI  1:30:57 

WORLD CUP 2018

Quarter-final

Friday 6 July  France vs Uruguay - Nizhny Novgorod, 3pm (Match 57)

Brazil vs Belgium - Sochi, 7pm (Match 58)

Saturday 7 July  Sweden vs England - Samara, 3pm (Match 59)

Russia vs Croatia - Kazan, 7pm (Match 60)

Tuesday 10 July  Winner match 57 vs Winner match 58 - St Petersburg, 7pm (Match 61)

Wednesday 11 July  Winner match 59 vs Winner match 60 - Moscow (Luzhniki), 7pm (Match 62)

Third place play-off

Saturday 14 July Loser match 61 vs Loser match 62 - St Petersburg, 3pm

World Cup 2018 final

Sunday 15 July Moscow (Luzhniki), 4pm

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-cup/2018/07/06/world-cup-2018-fixtures-quarter-semi-finals-results-far/

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1915  July 6, 2018 

ERNIE BARNES “AMERICA’S EL GRECO”–1984 & 2004 SPORT ARTIST OF THE YEAR  “Throughout my five seasons in the arena of professional football, I remained at the deepest level of my being—an artist.” ~ Ernie Barnes  Ernest Eugene Barnes Jr. was born in Durham, North Carolina on July 15, 1938.  Barnes’ mother initiated his exposure to world culture by taking Ernie to the house where she worked as a domestic to meet her employer, Frank Fuller Jr., a wealthy attorney.  In Fuller’s study, Barnes was introduced to fine art.  I enjoyed this room of polished, mahogany walls with leather chairs, shelves of leather-bound books and the sound of classical music.”  Fuller recognized Barnes’ affinity for art and would tell him “about the various schools of art, his favorite painters, the museums he visited and other things my mind couldn’t quite comprehend at the age of seven.”  By the first grade, Barnes had been exposed to the masterpieces of Toulouse-Lautrec, Delacroix, Rubens, and Michelangelo.   As he continued to search for emotional truths in his sport paintings, Barnes “began distorting and elongating the proportions, trying to relate what it felt like within the context of a certain movement,” resulting in the characteristic elongation and disproportionate space in what came to be known as Neo-Mannerism.  Read much more, see graphics, and a map showing the United States Sports Academy in Daphne, Alabama at http://www.asama.org/awards-of-sport/medallion-series/sport-artist-of-the-year/ernie-barnes/ 

An exhibition running through March 3, 2019 at the North Carolina Museum of History in Durham showcases many unpublished Ernie Barnes original paintings, as well as artifacts from his life.  After five seasons as a professional football player, he retired at age 27 to pursue art.  In his prolific body of work, Barnes chronicled his personal experiences with football, music, dance, love, sports, education, church, and the South.  Widely-known as the real painter of the artwork in the groundbreaking African-American sitcom Good Times, Barnes' style has been widely imitated.  It is best exemplified by his iconic Sugar Shack dance scene that appeared on a Marvin Gaye album cover and in the closing credits of Good Times.  This painting, "The Sugar Shack," was inspired by an actual dance at the Durham Armory.  https://www.ncmuseumofhistory.org/ernie-barnes

The term “hospice” (from the same linguistic root as “hospitality”) can be traced back to medieval times when it referred to a place of shelter and rest for weary or ill travelers on a long journey.  The name was first applied to specialized care for dying patients by physician Dame Cicely Saunders, who began her work with the terminally ill in 1948 and eventually went on to create the first modern hospice in 1967—St. Christopher’s Hospice—in a residential suburb of London.  Saunders introduced the idea of specialized care for the dying to the United States during a 1963 visit with Yale University.  Her lecture, given to medical students, nurses, social workers, and chaplains about the concept of holistic hospice care, included photos of terminally ill cancer patients and their families, showing the dramatic differences before and after the symptom control care.  See timeline at https://www.nhpco.org/history-hospice-care

In 2016, there were only two bank heists in all of Sweden, compared with 110 eight years earlier.  Why the steep plunge?  The country’s bent on going cashless.  In 1661, Sweden became the first European country to print banknotes; several centuries later, it might become the first country to get rid of them.  Card readers and mobile-payment apps are now used even in situations that were once reserved for dog-eared bills and pocket change, like donating in church.  Buses in Sweden don’t accept cash.  Neither do many street vendors.  Though the government is still printing Sweden’s national currency, the krona, two-thirds of Swedes say they feel that they could live without bills and coins.  According to the Riksbank, Sweden’s central bank, cold hard kronor accounted for barely 2 percent of the value of all payments made in Sweden in 2015.  The bank projects that “cash will stick around until the 2030s,” but not necessarily longer.  Already, fewer than half of Swedish banks keep any on hand.  Sweden also has the lowest rate of ATM withdrawals as a percentage of GDP in the world, at a measly 2.5 percent.  As Sweden’s supply of banknotes continues to dwindle, criminals have shown new enthusiasm for the endangered-species black market, previously cornered by reptile wranglers and orchid thieves.  Crimes involving protected species recently reached their highest level in a decade.  A single great gray owl—known as the “phantom of the north”—now goes for 1 million kronor (about $120,000) on the dark web.  Crimes against people—assault, robbery, fraud—are also on the rise.  The Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention found that in 2016, 15.6 percent of the country’s citizens fell prey to at least one such offense—the highest rate since the council launched its annual crime survey, 10 years before.  According to The Guardian, electronic fraud is increasing at an especially rapid clip in Sweden, more than doubling in the past decade.  Internet scams are especially popular with thieves and range from humdrum phishing expeditions (using emails to obtain valuable information like banking passwords) to more novel and clandestine hustles like “cryptojacking” (undetected use of computing power to mine virtual currencies).  James Graham  The Atlantic  June 2018  https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/06/stealing-owls/559136/  Thank you, Muse reader! 

What is the origin of the name of the number puzzle "sudoku"?  The characters mean "number" (sū) and "single" (doku).  It is pronounced like "sue dock".  However, the word "sudoku" is not in common use for these puzzles in Japan, and the word sūdoku is actually an invention.  https://www.sljfaq.org/afaq/sudoku.html  See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudoku

The Spice Islands (Malaku, or the Moluccas) are a small group of islands to the north-east of Indonesia, between Celebes and New Guinea.  They include Halmahera (the largest), Seram, Buru, Ambon, Ternate, and Tidore and the Aru and Kai island groups.  They were known for being the largest producers of mace, nutmeg, cloves and pepper in the world.  There was a thriving trade in spices and other goods in the Far East for centuries before European vessels arrived in the Indian Ocean in 1498.  Spices were bought with Chinese silks, Indian cottons, Arabian coffee and African ivory.  Spices had been available in Europe throughout the Middle Ages but the prices were very high because they had to be shipped expensively overland through the hands of many traders.  Each trader made a profit and by the time the spices arrived in Venice (the chief point of trade contact between Europe and the East) they were often worth 1000% more than the original price paid for them in the Spice Islands.  https://www.rmg.co.uk/discover/explore/spice-islands

The Toledo Mud Hens are a minor league baseball team located in Toledo, Ohio.  The Mud Hens play in the International League, and are affiliated with the major league baseball team the Detroit Tigers, based approximately 50 miles to the north of Toledo.  The current team is one of several professional clubs that have existed in Toledo since 1883.  The name "Mud Hens" was first used in 1896, after the team was bought by Charles Strobel.  One of the two parks where the team played that year, Bay View Park, was adjacent to marshland which was inhabited by American Coots, also known as marsh hens or mud hens, from which the team adopted their name.  Toledo was without organized baseball for nine seasons (1956–64).  That was the city's longest stretch without professional ball since the 1880s.  Toledo is a special place to baseball historians due to its early (failed) attempt to break the color/race barrier in the game. The Toledo Blue Stockings operated during 1883–1885, including an entry in 1884 with the then-major American Association.  In the 1880s, before the major leagues stabilized, it was not unusual for a minor league team to be "promoted" to major league level for awhile.  The 1884 club was the only major league team with black players (Moses Fleetwood Walker and his brother, Welday Walker) prior to Jackie Robinson's appearance with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947.  The refusal of prominent baseball figure Cap Anson to play the Toledo team, in an exhibition game with his Chicago White Stockings, accelerated the drawing of the color line.  Several minor league teams in Toledo lasted for short durations late in the 1880s and during the 1890s.  The team also returned to the AA in 1890, as the Toledo Maumees (some sources say their nickname was the Black Pirates).  That was one of several short-lived nicknames, including, the White Stockings.  It was in 1896 that the team acquired the nicknames "Swamp Angels" and "Mud Hens" due to the ballpark's proximity to marshlands and waterfowl.  "Mud Hens" gained popularity and has stuck with most of the Toledo teams ever since.  When the American Association revived as a minor league in 1902, the Mud Hens joined as a charter member.  The team had been playing at Armory Park since 1897.  With the success and stability of the Association, a better ballpark was built. Swayne Field opened in June 1909, and would be the Mud Hens primary home through the 1955 season.  Swayne Field remains the longest-lasting venue of any of the Toledo teams.  The Mud Hens temporarily relocated to Cleveland during 1914 through 1915, to help the Cleveland Indians counter any territorial threat by the Federal League by ensuring that League Park would have a game every day.  Another team was placed in Toledo in 1914 for the South-Michigan League.  The "Soumichers" or "Little Mud Hens" drew poorly and took to the road for the second half of 1914.  There was no team in 1915.  The Fed disbanded after that year, and when the team returned from Cleveland to Toledo in 1916, they had acquired a new nickname, the "Iron Men".  The name "Mud Hens" was restored in 1919.  http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Toledo_Mud_Hens

Peanut Butter Logs recipe by Nyteglori  1/2 cup honey or 1/2 cup molasses, 1/2 cup peanut butter, 1 cup powdered milk   Mix ingredients together with your hands, adding enough milk powder to form a stiff but not crumbly dough.  This may be more or less than a cup depending upon how thin your peanut butter and honey are.  Optional ingredients can be kneaded in as well.  Shape into logs about 2-3 inches long and 1 inch in diameter.  Roll in powdered milk, confectioner's sugar or coconut.  http://www.geniuskitchen.com/recipe/peanut-butter-logs-275035

The words Lebronimoes and Lebronaliers have been around since at least 2014.  See entertaining article at https://sprinklesmellott.wordpress.com/  A Muse reader suggests LAbron after LeBron James signed with the Los Angeles Lakers.

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1914  July 5, 2018 

The Taj Mahal is located on the right bank of the Yamuna River in a vast Mughal garden that encompasses nearly 17 hectares, in the Agra District in Uttar Pradesh.  It was built by Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan in memory of his wife Mumtaz Mahal with construction starting in 1632 AD and completed in 1648 AD, with the mosque, the guest house and the main gateway on the south, the outer courtyard and its cloisters were added subsequently and completed in 1653 AD.  For its construction, masons, stone-cutters, inlayers, carvers, painters, calligraphers, dome builders and other artisans were requisitioned from the whole of the empire and also from the Central Asia and Iran.  Ustad-Ahmad Lahori was the main architect of the Taj Mahal.  The uniqueness of Taj Mahal lies in some truly remarkable innovations carried out by the horticulture planners and architects of Shah Jahan.  One such genius planning is the placing of tomb at one end of the quadripartite garden rather than in the exact centre, which added rich depth and perspective to the distant view of the monument.  It is also, one of the best examples of raised tomb variety.  The tomb is further raised on a square platform with the four sides of the octagonal base of the minarets extended beyond the square at the corners.  The top of the platform is reached through a lateral flight of steps provided in the centre of the southern side.  The ground plan of the Taj Mahal is in perfect balance of composition, the octagonal tomb chamber in the centre, encompassed by the portal halls and the four corner rooms.  The plan is repeated on the upper floor.  The exterior of the tomb is square in plan, with chamfered corners.  The large double storied domed chamber, which houses the cenotaphs of Mumtaz Mahal and Shah Jahan, is a perfect octagon in plan. The exquisite octagonal marble lattice screen encircling both cenotaphs is highly polished and richly decorated with inlay work.  The borders of the frames are inlaid with precious stones representing flowers.  The cenotaph of Mumtaz Mahal is in perfect centre of the tomb chamber, placed on a rectangular platform decorated with inlaid flower plant motifs.  The cenotaph of Shah Jahan is greater than Mumtaz Mahal and installed more than thirty years later by the side of the latter on its west.  The upper cenotaphs are only illusory and the real graves are in the lower tomb chamber (crypt), a practice adopted in the imperial Mughal tombs.  The four free-standing minarets at the corners of the platform added a hitherto unknown dimension to the Mughal architecture.  The four minarets provide not only a kind of spatial reference to the monument but also give a three dimensional effect to the edifice.  The main gate is flanked on the north front by double arcade galleries.  The garden in front of the galleries is subdivided into four quarters by two main walk-ways and each quarters in turn subdivided by the narrower cross-axial walkways, on the Timurid-Persian scheme of the walled in garden.  The mosque and the guest house in the Taj Mahal complex are built of red sandstone in contrast to the marble tomb in the centre.  Both the buildings have a large platform over the terrace at their front.  Both the mosque and the guest house are the identical structures.  They have an oblong massive prayer hall consist of three vaulted bays arranged in a row with central dominant portal.  The management of Taj Mahal complex is carried out by the Archaeological Survey of India and the legal protection of the monument and the control over the regulated area around the monument is through the various legislative and regulatory frameworks that have been established, including the Ancient Monument and Archaeological Sites and Remains Act 1958 and Rules 1959 Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains (Amendment and Validation); which is adequate to the overall administration of the property and buffer areas.  Additional supplementary laws ensure the protection of the property in terms of development in the surroundings.  An area of 10,400 sq km around the Taj Mahal is defined to protect the monument from pollution.  The Supreme Court of India in December, 1996, delivered a ruling banning use of coal/coke in industries located in the Taj Trapezium Zone (TTZ) and switching over to natural gas or relocating them outside the TTZ.  The TTZ comprises of 40 protected monuments including three World Heritage Sites--Taj Mahal, Agra Fort and Fatehpur Sikri.  https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/252  See also https://www.wonders-of-the-world.net/Taj-Mahal/Construction-of-the-Taj-Mahal.php

Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis (1875–1911) was a Lithuanian painter, composer and writer.  Čiurlionis contributed to symbolism and art nouveau, and was representative of the fin de siècle epoch.  He has been considered one of the pioneers of abstract art in Europe.  During his short life he composed about 400 pieces of music and created about 300 paintings, as well as many literary works and poems.  The majority of his paintings are housed in the M. K. Čiurlionis National Art Museum in Kaunas, Lithuania.  His works have had a profound influence on modern Lithuanian culture.  See lists of paintings and compositions and many graphics at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikalojus_Konstantinas_%C4%8Ciurlionis

Mikalojus Čiurlionis  Two Nocturnes (VL 183 & VL 178) performed by Hayk Melikyan, piano  Recorded in Cafesjian Center for the Arts, 2014  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWHLyJWdgsE  7:42  Mikalojus Čiurlionis (I) Cycles  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LU2ecBbpK4A  13:08  See artwork as you listen.

The origins of the DeVilbiss Corporation date back to 1888 when Toledo, Ohio physician Dr. Allen DeVilbiss developed a spray atomizer to provide an easier way to apply medicines to patients' throats.  His invention was so successful that by 1890 he had retired from medical practice and established a company, DeVilbiss Manufacturing Company, to produce the atomizers in the old Lenk Winery on Toledo's north side.  There were other members of the family adept at invention, too, since Allen DeVilbiss' son, Allen, Jr. invented a springless, automatic scale in 1897, establishing the DeVilbiss Scale Company a few blocks from his father's company.  A couple of years later he sold the scale company, and the name was changed to Toledo Scale.  Dr. DeVilbiss' other son, Thomas, also was active in product development and in 1907, the younger DeVilbiss, an inventor in his own right, experimented with the spray gun.  Thomas was also credited with adding perfumizers to the company's product line.  The booklet, "DeVilbiss Through the Years," indicated that the 1920s saw the real boom of the company as the company developed exhaust booths to control paint-saturated air as they expanded into the automobile industry.  Mass production was beginning to evolve at this time and Thomas DeVilbiss' spray gun technology proved to be a revolutionary addition to the paint and lacquer coating applications on the furniture and automotive finishing assembly line.  Spraying the lacquer reduced drying time to hours instead of weeks and the spraying of paint replaced hand brushing, helping to create new jobs and increase productivity in manufacturing.  By 1926 the company name changed to The DeVilbiss Company as their product lines continued to expand to include air compressors.  When Thomas DeVilbiss died in 1928, Allen DeVilbiss Gutchess, grandson of Dr. Allen DeVilbiss, succeeded him as president of the company.  Howard P. DeVilbiss, another third-generation member of the family, also joined the company at about this time.  During World War II the Company was involved in production of military products, including protective coatings for things ranging from helmets and planes to tanks.  Research and development also continued, with the design of hosing meant to withstand high temperatures to spray plastic on ship hulls to retard barnacle growth.  In 1944 Howard P. DeVilbiss, son of Thomas A. DeVilbiss, became president of the company, with Allen DeVilbiss Gutchess as Chairman of the Board.  As the company moved into the post-war years it continued to expand and diversify.  The atomizer division began separate operation, moving to Somerset, Pennsylvania in 1951, where they expanded again in 1965.  In 1951 DeVilbiss also acquired Globe Products Company, of Cleveland, a manufacturer of spray gun tips.  In 1957 the company purchased the Newcomb-Detroit Company, a firm involved in the manufacture and installation of industrial finishing equipment, renaming it Newcomb-DeVilbiss.  In 1958 this acquisition was consolidated with another company, the Peters-Dalton Division of Detroit Harvester to form a new wholly owned subsidiary, DeVilbiss Metal Fabricators.  This subsidiary became a division of the company in 1960 and by 1966 it was operating a new plant near the Detroit Metropolitan Airport.  On January 1, 1970 the DeVilbiss Company was merged into Champion Spark Company.  Read more at https://lib.bgsu.edu/finding_aids/items/show/149

“Bullies have no power without fear.”  Tim Robbins

June 1, 2018   Ethan Sonneborn has a website, a comprehensive policy platform, and a spot on the 2018 Democratic gubernatorial primary ballot in Vermont.  He also just turned 14 last week.  Sonneborn, a Democrat, announced his candidacy last summer after he discovered that Vermont is one of just two states (the other being Kansas) that has no age requirement on running for governor.  Hoping to win the votes of actual adults, Sonneborn passed his campaign’s first test of legitimacy this week.  The eighth grader’s campaign announced they had successfully filed to get on the primary ballot.  As governor, the Bristol resident, who currently attends Mt. Abraham Union Middle/High School, says he would “give tax benefits to small businesses, introduce a worker’s bill of rights, advocate for a higher minimum wage, and propose a bipartisan job creation plan to the legislature.”  Sonneborn is an advocate for the “Medicare for All” health care plan proposed by Sen. Bernie Sanders, his home-state senator.  On the environment, he supports a tax on carbon emissions, the statewide commitment by Vermont to uphold the standards of the Paris climate agreement, and renewable energy incentives.  Amid the recent youth-led movement for stricter gun laws, Sonneborn has also spoken out in favor of such reforms, even in Vermont where hunting culture runs deep.  Sonneborn applauded the sweeping gun safety bill signed into law in April by Republican Gov. Phil Scott, but called for further action.  Nik DeCosta-Klipa  https://www.boston.com/news/politics/2018/06/01/ethan-sonneborn-vermont

If Cinderella Were a Vegetable, She'd Be a Watermelon Radish  by Kelli Foster   Watermelon radishes are an heirloom variety of daikon radishes and originated in China, where they are called shinrimei.  They're a root vegetable and member of the Brassica family, which also includes arugula, broccoli, and cabbage.  The watermelon radish doesn't actually taste like watermelon.  Instead, the flesh, which is green around the exterior with a deep pink to bright red center, bears quite a resemblance to its namesake.  Watermelon radishes are larger than regular radishes and can range from the size of a golfball to that of a softball.  They're firm and crisp with a mild taste that's a blend of slightly peppery and slightly sweet.  These pretty radishes aren't all show—they're also really delicious and versatile!  Watermelon radishes can be eaten raw, pickled, or cooked.  They can be braised or roasted like a turnip, or mashed like a rutabaga, though I prefer them raw since they lose their bright hue when cooked.  Link to recipes at https://www.thekitchn.com/if-cinderella-were-a-vegetable-she-would-be-a-watermelon-radish-ingredient-intelligence-106793  Thank you, Muse reader!

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1913  July 3, 2018   Thought for Today  “Many a book is like a key to unknown chambers within the castle of one’s own self.” - Franz Kafka  (July 3, 1883-June 3, 1924)  Word of the Day  mythos  noun  Anything transmitted by word of mouth, such as a fable, legend, narrative, story, or tale (especially a poetic tale).  A story or set of stories relevant to or having a significant truth or meaning for a particular culture, religion, society, other group; a myth, a mythology.  A set of assumptions or beliefs about something.  A recurring theme; a motif.  Wiktionary

Charles Darrow patented Monopoly in 1935, but he didn’t invent the game.  It is a variation of “the Landlord’s Game” patented by Lizzie Magie in 1904.  Lizzie Magie is the inventor of the rule-set and concept of the game that became Monopoly (this is proved by patents and other records).  Charles Darrow is responsible for some key aspects of the modern version of Monopoly.  Darrow self-marketed the game, patented it, and then sold it to Parker Brothers.

http://factmyth.com/factoids/monopoly-was-invented-by-charles-darrow/

Johnston McCulley, a popular pulp fiction writer of the 1920-40's, was born on February 21, 1883 in Ottowa, Illinois.  He worked as a police reporter for The Police Gazette and as an Army Public Affairs Officer during World War I.  A history buff, McCulley began his prolific writing career for the pulp magazines, moving into novels and later, screenplays.  His stories ranged from crime thrillers to action heroes in Spanish California.  McCulley is most remembered for creating Senor Zorro, the fox, fought for justice behind a mask and masqueraded as the Spanish caballero, Don Diego Vega.  Zorro's dual identity featured opposing personalities.  Zorro was the fearless action hero riding at night to avenge injustice, while the languid Diego read poetry.  Zorro first appeared in All Story Weekly, as The Curse of Capistrano in five weekly installments beginning Aug. 9, 1919.  Silent film star Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., made McCulley's Curse into the screen classic The Mark of Zorro in 1920, setting the fox on a path of cinematic history that complimented his life in print.  McCulley died on Nov. 23, 1958, just as the popularity of his creation reached a frenzied peak with Guy Williams starring in Walt Disney's weekly television show, Zorro.  https://www.vintagelibrary.com/pulpfiction/authors/Johnston-McCulley.php

What’s incredibly crunchy, low-carb, nutritious, and a fantastic vehicle for hummus or vegetable dip?  Sugar Snap Peas!  Despite their name, they’re a refreshing, healthy versatile choice for people with (or without) diabetes.  Each one-cup serving has two grams of fiber, approximately five grams of carbohydrate, more than half the daily recommended amount of Vitamin C, plus B-complex vitamins and niacin.  The entire pea is edible, too--no need for shucking.  See suggested methods for preparation at https://asweetlife.org/7-ways-to-eat-sugar-snap-peas/

Iain Sinclair FRSL (born 11 June 1943) is a Welsh writer and filmmaker.  His early work was mostly poetry, much of it published by his own small press, Albion Village Press.  He was (and remains) closely connected with the British avant garde poetry scene of the 1960s and 1970s--authors such as Edward Dorn, J. H. Prynne, Douglas Oliver, Peter Ackroyd and Brian Catling are often quoted in his work and even turn up in fictionalized form as characters; later on, taking over from John Muckle, Sinclair edited the Paladin Poetry Series and, in 1996, the Picador anthology Conductors of Chaos.  His early books Lud Heat (1975) and Suicide Bridge (1979) were a mixture of essay, fiction and poetry; they were followed by White Chappell, Scarlet Tracings (1987), a novel juxtaposing the tale of a disreputable band of bookdealers on the hunt for a priceless copy of Arthur Conan Doyle's A Study in Scarlet and the Jack the Ripper murders (here attributed to the physician William Gull).  Sinclair was for some time perhaps best known for the novel Downriver (1991), which won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the 1992 Encore Award.  It envisages the UK under the rule of the Widow, a grotesque version of Margaret Thatcher as viewed by her harshest critics, who supposedly establishes a one party state in a fifth term.  Radon Daughters formed the third part of a trilogy with White Chappell, Scarlet Tracings and Downriver. In an interview with This Week in Science, William Gibson said that Sinclair was his favourite author.  See bibliography and filmography at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iain_Sinclair

Iain Sinclair (born 7 October 1976 in Scotland) is a Scottish former Scotland A international rugby union player who played for Glasgow Warriors at the Flanker position.  He played 6 matches for Glasgow in the Heineken Cup in 1997-98 season.  Sinclair also played in the Scottish Inter-District Championship of the 1997-98 season for Glasgow against Edinburgh Rugby.  Glasgow won the match 36-20.  In 1997, Sinclair played in the Scottish Thistles, a Scotland Development XV which toured New Zealand.  For the 1998-99 season onwards, Sinclair played for Edinburgh Rugby.  He played a further 10 times in the Heineken Cup for Edinburgh between 1998 and 2001.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iain_Sinclair_(rugby_union)

On July 3, 2018 one of this country's most recognizable landmarks will be reintroduced to the world with a new name, a new museum and a substantial redesign of its urban landscape.  A half century after Eero Saarinen's Gateway Arch was inaugurated in 1968, it has been reconnected to the city of St. Louis, with a sleek underground entrance facing the city, an expanded and redesigned visitor center and museum, a cleaner landscape and an elevated and more elegant waterfront along the Mississippi River.  An old parking garage has been removed and a parklike pedestrian platform over Interstate 44 allows visitors from downtown St. Louis to visit the city's most popular attraction without having to brave traffic lanes.  But it is the new name that encapsulates the larger cultural changes to the National Park Service site, which has been give a $380 million renovation and redesign.  What was once known as the Jefferson National Expansion Park has been recast as the Gateway Arch National Park.  The arch grounds now flow seamlessly into the plaza that fronts the courthouse and lead visitors to the sunken, glass-walled entrance to the museum.  Before the design changes, there was nothing to indicate that the arch park had anything in it other than an arch, and visitors encountered the underground museum as a sideshow to the main attraction, which was a ride in the cramped and clanking elevator cars that deliver people to the observation room atop the 630-foot tall structure.  Now, visitors are greeted by a semicircular and embracing entrance, from which they descend into the museum via a large, open atrium with a terrazzo map of North America on the mezzanine floor, showing the main migration routes during the era of westward expansion.  Giant video screens project images of buffalo running, and wagon trains moving through a backdrop of mountains and open range.  The new exhibitions, created by Haley Sharpe Design, are more substantial, extending the story of westward migration back to the colonial days of St. Louis, and grappling with the fundamental questions posed by the historical narrative.  Phillip Kennicott  Read more at http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/midwest/ct-50-years-st-louis-arch-name-expansion-20180626-story.html

By age sixteen, Washington had copied out by hand, 110 Rules of Civility & Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation.  They are based on a set of rules composed by French Jesuits in 1595.  Presumably they were copied out as part of an exercise in penmanship assigned by young Washington's schoolmaster.  Today many, if not all of these rules, sound a little fussy if not downright silly.  It would be easy to dismiss them as outdated and appropriate to a time of powdered wigs and quills, but they reflect a focus that is increasingly difficult to find. The rules have in common a focus on other people rather than the narrow focus of our own self-interests that we find so prevalent today.  Richard Brookhiser, in his book on Washington wrote that "all modern manners in the western world were originally aristocratic.  Courtesy meant behavior appropriate to a court; chivalry comes from chevalier--a knight.  Read the rules at http://www.foundationsmag.com/civility.html

Finlandia, Op. 26, is a tone poem by the Finnish composer Jean Sibelius.  It was written in 1899 and revised in 1900.  The piece was composed for the Press Celebrations of 1899, a covert protest against increasing censorship from the Russian Empire, and was the last of seven pieces performed as an accompaniment to a tableau depicting episodes from Finnish history.  The premiere was on 2 July 1900 in Helsinki with the Helsinki Philharmonic Society conducted by Robert Kajanus.  A typical performance takes between 7½ and 9 minutes.  In order to avoid Russian censorship, Finlandia had to be performed under alternative names at various musical concerts.  Titles under which the piece masqueraded were numerous—famous examples include Happy Feelings at the awakening of Finnish Spring, and A Scandinavian Choral March.  Often incorrectly cited as a traditional folk melody, the Hymn section is of Sibelius's own creation.  Although he initially composed it for orchestra, in 1900 Sibelius arranged the work for solo piano.  Sibelius later reworked the Finlandia Hymn into a stand-alone piece.  This hymn, with words written in 1941 by Veikko Antero Koskenniemi, is one of the most important national songs of Finland.  With different words, it is also sung as a Christian hymn (Be Still, My Soul, Hail, Festal Day, in Italian evangelical churches:  Veglia al mattino), and was the national anthem of the short-lived African state of Biafra (Land of the Rising Sun).  In Wales the tune is used for Lewis Valentine's patriotic hymn Gweddi Dros Gymru (A Prayer for Wales) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finlandia

America Has a 1.39 Billion-Pound Cheese Surplus.  How Did That Happen? by Emily Petsco   America is drowning in American cheese—and cheddar, Swiss, and other varieties, too.  The country’s cheese surplus just hit 1.39 billion pounds, or as Vox puts it, enough to "arm" every man, woman, and child in the U.S. with 4.6 pounds apiece.  In 2014, dairy farmers started scaling up their operations in response to high demand for powdered milk from China’s growing middle class.  When China’s economy started to slow a couple years later, American dairy producers were left with too many cows and too much milk.  On top of that, the European Union made it more difficult for U.S. cheese producers to do business there.  By 2016, the U.S. had 1.2 billion pounds of extra cheese on its hands, and since then, stockpiles have only grown.  The problem is compounded by the fact that greater surpluses of milk and cheese tend to be seen in the summer, when demand is lower, and high-yielding cows (a product of genetic improvements) produce more milk in the springtime.  In the past, the Department of Agriculture has bailed out dairy producers by buying up millions of dollars of excess cheese and distributing it to food banks.  Whether the department is once again willing to drop that much cheddar remains to be seen.  http://mentalfloss.com/article/549724/america-has-139-billion-pound-cheese-surplus-how-did-happen

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1912  July 2, 2018