Althaea officinalis, or marsh-mallow, is a perennial species indigenous to Europe, Western Asia, and North Africa, which is used in herbalism and as an ornamental plant.  A confection made from the root since ancient Egyptian times evolved into  today's marshmallow treat, but most modern marshmallow treats no longer contain any marsh-mallow root.  The name of the genus comes from the Greek ἄλθειν (althein), meaning "to heal."  Marshmallow was traditionally used as relief for irritation of mucous membranes, including use as a gargle for mouth and throat ulcers and gastric ulcers.  In Russia, the root syrup is sold without a prescription by pharmacies, with intent to treat minor respiratory ailments.  The flowers and young leaves can be eaten, and are often added to salads or are boiled and fried.  The root extract (halawa extract) is sometimes used as flavoring in the making of a Middle Eastern snack called halva.  The later French version of the recipe, called pâte de guimauve (or guimauve for short), included an egg white meringue and was often flavored with rose water.  Pâte de guimauve more closely resembles contemporary commercially available marshmallows, which no longer contain Althaea officinalis.  See pictures at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Althaea_officinalis

Arthur (1863-1907) and Sylvia (1866-1910) Llewelyn Davies had five sons:  George (1893-1915), John, or 'Jack' (1894-1959), Peter (1897-1960), Michael (1900-1921) and Nicholas, or Nico' (1903-1980).  The boys were brought up in the Paddington and Notting Hill districts of London, and, one day in 1897, whilst out walking in Kensington Gardens with their nanny, Mary Hodgson (1876-1962), George and Jack met with and were befriended by the author J. M. Barrie (1860-1937), who would become an integral part of their lives, and they of his.  They would come to know him affectionately as "Uncle Jim."  The Llewelyn Davies family would become the inspiration for the Darling family and the Lost Boys in Barrie's Peter Pan; and Peter Llewelyn Davies, unwittingly, given he was a baby at the time, would lend his name to the play's central protagonist; although the actual character of Peter Pan was an amalgam of the personality traits of all five brothers, or as Barrie put it, "I made Peter by rubbing the five (boys) together, as savages with two sticks to produce a flame.  That is all Peter is--the spark I got from (the boys)."  The family's nurse, Mary Hodgson, was also included in the play as the character Nana, the dog/housekeeper, hired by Mr and Mrs Darling to look after the children.  The character of Peter Pan was inspired by Barrie's older brother, David, who was drowned in an ice-skating accident in their native Scotland, two days short of his fourteenth birthday.  An intriguing bit of trivia is that it was Barrie's naming of the Darlings daughter as "Wendy" that led to that name becoming a popular name for girls in the first sixty years of the 20th century.  The name was inspired by Margaret Henley, the daughter of the poet W. E. Henley (1849-1903), who had been a great friend of Barrie's when he had lived in Edinburgh.  Little Margaret idolized Barrie and used to refer to him as "my Fwendy Wendy"--the latter part of which Barrie later bestowed upon his heroine in Peter Pan.  https://www.london-walking-tours.co.uk/secret-london/llewelyn-davies-boys-grave.htm

The forms loath, loathe, and loathed are not interchangeable.  The word loath is an adjective.  It’s from Old English lað which meant “hostile, repulsive.”  It’s related to German Leid (sorrow) and French laid (ugly).  Its most frequent modern usage is in the expression “to be loath to do something,” in which the meaning is not much stronger than “reluctant.”  The word loathe is a verb.  It’s from Old English laðian which had the meaning “to hate, to be disgusted with.”  The modern meaning is about the same:  “to feel strong aversion for; have extreme disgust at.”  A variant spelling of the adjective loath is loth.  The th in the adjective has the unvoiced sound heard in thin.  Maeve Maddox  https://www.dailywritingtips.com/loath-and-loathe/

Bok choy, also known as pak choy or pok choi, is a type of Chinese cabbage, that has smooth, wide, flat leaf blades at one end with the other end forming a cluster similar to that of celery.  May be eaten cooked or raw.  Find recipes at https://theforkedspoon.com/bok-choy-recipe/ and https://www.inspiredtaste.net/34160/lemon-garlic-bok-choy-recipe/

James Ambrose Cutting patented the ambrotype process in 1854.  Ambrotypes were most popular in the mid-1850s to mid-1860s.  Cartes de visite and other paper print photographs, easily available in multiple copies, replaced them.  An ambrotype is comprised of an underexposed glass negative placed against a dark background.  The dark backing material creates a positive image.  Photographers often applied pigments to the surface of the plate to add color, often tinting cheeks and lips red and adding gold highlights to jewelry, buttons, and belt buckles.  Ambrotypes were sold in either cases or ornate frames to provide an attractive product and also to protect the negative with a cover glass and brass mat.  

View all ambrotypes in the Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Online Catalog:  Ambrotypes

Tintypes, originally known as ferrotypes or melainotypes, were invented in the 1850s and continued to be produced into the 20th century.  The photographic emulsion was applied directly to a thin sheet of iron coated with a dark lacquer or enamel, which produced a unique positive image.  Like the ambrotype, tintypes were often hand-colored.  Customers purchased cases, frames, or paper envelopes to protect and display their images.  Tintypes and ambrotypes found in cases and frames can be difficult to identify.  A magnet will be attracted to the iron support, but if a sheet of metal is used behind an ambrotype, one could be fooled into thinking that the image is a tintype.  

View all tintypes in the Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Online Catalog:  tintypes  https://www.loc.gov/collections/liljenquist-civil-war-photographs/articles-and-essays/ambrotypes-and-tintypes/

Lancelot Brown (c. 1715–16-1783), more commonly known with the byname Capability Brown, was an English landscape architect.  He is remembered as "the last of the great English 18th-century artists to be accorded his due" and "England's greatest gardener".  He designed over 170 parks, many of which still endure.  He was nicknamed "Capability" because he would tell his clients that their property had "capability" for improvement.  His influence was so great that the contributions to the English garden made by his predecessors Charles Bridgeman and William Kent are often overlooked.  It is estimated that Brown was responsible for over 170 gardens surrounding the finest country houses and estates in Britain.  His work still endures at Belvoir Castle, Croome Court (where he also designed the house), Blenheim Palace, Warwick Castle, Harewood House, Highclere Castle, Appuldurcombe House, Milton Abbey (and nearby Milton Abbas village), and in traces at Kew Gardens and many other locations.  His style of smooth undulating grass, which would run straight to the house, clumps, belts and scattering of trees and his serpentine lakes formed by invisibly damming small rivers, were a new style within the English landscape, a "gardenless" form of landscape gardening, which swept away almost all the remnants of previous formally patterned styles.  More than 30 of the gardens are open to the public.  See pictures and find a partial list of Lancelot Brown’s gardens at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capability_Brown

“Laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies, but let wasps and hornets break through.”  Jonathan Swift (1667-1745)  Find quotes on justice at http://library.law.harvard.edu/justicequotes/explore-the-room/north-2/

Irish Slang:  Top 80 most used expressions  List includes Bucketing down, Cod/Codding ya, Holy Joe, Holy show, and The Pale.  https://www.irelandbeforeyoudie.com/irish-slang-top-80-most-used-expressions/

Find a list of English-language terms of venery (venery being an archaic word for hunting), comprising terms from a tradition that arose in the Late Middle Ages, at least partly from the Book of Saint Albans of 1486, a historic list of "company terms".  The collective terms include:  mews of capons, parcel of hogs, and a snug of koalas.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_terms_of_venery,_by_animal

Daylight saving time in the United States is the practice of setting the clock forward by one hour during the warmer part of the year, so that evenings have more daylight and mornings have less.  Most areas of the United States and Canada observe daylight saving time (DST), the exceptions being Arizona (except for the Navajo, who do observe daylight saving time on tribal lands), Hawaii,  and the overseas territories of American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the United States Virgin Islands.  The Uniform Time Act of 1966 established the system of uniform Daylight Saving Time throughout the US.  In the U.S., daylight saving time starts on the second Sunday in March and ends on the first Sunday in November, with the time changes taking place at 2:00 a.m. local time.  With a mnemonic word play referring to seasons, clocks "spring forward, fall back"—that is, in springtime the clocks are moved forward from 2:00 a.m. to 3:00 a.m. and in fall they are moved back from 2:00 a.m. to 1:00 a.m.  Daylight saving time lasts for a total of 34 weeks (238 days) every year, about 65% of the entire year.  By 1962, the transportation industry found the lack of consistency confusing enough to push for federal regulation.  The result was the Uniform Time Act of 1966 (P.L. 89-387).  Beginning in 1967, the act mandated standard time within the established time zones and provided for advanced time:  Clocks would be advanced one hour beginning at 2:00 a.m. on the last Sunday in April and turned back one hour at 2:00 a.m. on the last Sunday in October.  States were allowed to exempt themselves from DST as long as the entire state did so.  If a state chose to observe DST, the time changes were required to begin and end on the established dates.  In 1967, Arizona and Michigan became the first states to exempt themselves from DST (Michigan would begin observing DST in 1972).   In 1972, the act was amended (P.L. 92-267), allowing those states split between time zones to exempt either the entire state or that part of the state lying within a different time zone.  The newly created Department of Transportation (DOT) was given power to enforce the law.  As of 2014, the following states and territories are not observing DST:  Arizona, Hawaii, American Samoa, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands.   

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daylight_saving_time_in_the_United_States

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2236  March 6, 2020

The earliest recorded use of the alliterative phrase making a mountain out of a molehill dates from 1548.  The word for the animal involved was less than two hundred years old by then.  Previous to that the mole had been known by its Old English name wand, which had slowly changed to want.  A molehill was known as a wantitump, a word that continued in dialect use for centuries more.  The former name of want was then replaced by mold(e)warp (meaning earth-thrower), a shortened version of which (molle) began to appear in the later 14th century  and the word molehill in the first half of the 15th century.   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Make_a_mountain_out_of_a_molehill

On October 21, 1833 a baby boy was born to a family in Stockholm, Sweden who was to become a famous scientist, inventor, businessman and founder of the Nobel Prizes.  His father was Immanuel Nobel and his mother was Andriette Ahlsell Nobel.  They named their son Alfred.  At the age of 17, Alfred could speak and write in Swedish, Russian, French, English and German.  Alfred was most interested in literature, chemistry and physics.  His father was not pleased with Alfred’s interest in poetry.  He decided to send the young man abroad to study and become a chemical engineer.  In Paris, Alfred worked in the private laboratory of Professor T. J. Pelouze, a famous chemist.  There he met a young Italian chemist, Ascanio Sobrero.  Three years earlier, Sobrero had invented nitroglycerine, a highly explosive liquid.  It was considered too dangerous to be of practical use.  Alfred became very interested in nitroglycerine and how it could be used in construction work.  In 1864, he was able to start mass production of nitroglycerine but he did not stop experimenting with different additives to make the production much safer.  Alfred found, through his experiments, that mixing nitroglycerine with a fine sand called kieselguhr would turn the liquid into paste which could be shaped into rods.  These rods could then be inserted into drilling holes.  The invention was made in 1866.  Alfred got a patent or legal right of ownership on this material the next year.  He named it “dynamite.”  He also invented a detonator or blasting cap which could be set off by lighting a fuse.  Alfred died in San Remo, Italy on December 10, 1896.  In his last will and testament, he wrote that much of his fortune was to be used to give prizes to those who have done their best for humanity in the field of physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature and peace.  Not everybody was pleased with this.  His will was opposed by his relatives and questioned by authorities in various countries.  It took four years for his executors to convince all parties to follow Alfred’s wishes.  In 1901, the first Nobel Prizes in Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine and Literature were first awarded in Stockholm, Sweden and the Peace Prize in Kristiania (now Oslo), Norway.  https://www.nobelprize.org/alfred-nobel/alfred-nobels-life-and-work/  Alfred Nobel held 355 different patents, dynamite being the most famous.  The synthetic element nobelium was named after him.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Nobel

Alice Pleasance Liddell (1852–1934) was the little girl who inspired Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass.  Alice’s connection with the New Forest began in 1880 after she married wealthy Reginald Hargreaves, who had inherited the Cuffnells country estate near Lyndhurst.  Alice became a society heiress and was the first president of Emery Down Women’s Institute.  She is said to have found being the original storybook Alice something of a burden.  Alice was four years old when the author, whose real name was Charles Dodgson, became a close family friend.  His fantastic stories were made up to entertain young Alice and her sisters on a boat outing and formed the basis for Alice’s Adventures Under Ground, the first draft of the Alice stories, which went on to become the most popular children’s books in England.  Alice struggled with the cost of maintaining Cuffnells and was forced to sell some of her Alice memorabilia, including the manuscript of Alice’s Adventures Under Ground given to her by Dodgson so many years ago.  It fetched the huge sum of £15,400 at auction--almost four times the reserve price.  She went to America in 1932 to attend celebrations marking the centenary of Dodgson’s birth.  She was exhausted by the letters she received afterwards from Alice fans and by press intrusion, and died two years later.  Cuffnells was requisitioned during World War II and never returned to its former glory.  It was demolished in the early 1950s.  See pictures at https://www.newforestnpa.gov.uk/discover/history-culture/famous-forest-folk/alice-liddell-alice-wonderland-inspiration/  Read about fictional accounts of Liddell’s life at http://poeforward.blogspot.com/2010/03/alice-pleasance-liddell.html  Alice Liddell was the fourth child and second daughter of the Dean from the Christ Church College in Oxford, Henry George Liddell, and Lorina Liddell.  ‘Liddell’ is pronounced to rhyme with ‘fiddle’.  We know this thanks to a couplet, which was composed in Carroll’s day by the students at Oxford.  It went as followed:  “I am the Dean and this is Mrs. Liddell.  She plays the first, and I the second fiddle.” http://www.alice-in-wonderland.net/resources/background/alice-liddell/

My sister hoarded information the way squirrels hoarded nuts.  Not useful information, either . . .  Alice I Have Been, a novel by Melanie Benjamin about Alice Liddell 

A Colorado native, Jim Budish studied sculpture at the Art Students League of Denver and at the Loveland Academy of Fine Arts.  He also participated in ISC (International Sculpture Center) workshops at the Art Institute of Chicago.  Jim began his career sculpting representational figurative works.  He realized in time however, that it was neither his desire nor ambition for his life’s work to be creating “photographs in bronze”.  Rather, he decided that he wanted to be able to create his own new and unique direction in representing the human form and the forms of the multitude of special creatures that surround us.  With each piece, he explores the attitude and emotion of his subject and attempts to capture the “joie de vivre” that he feels is lurking somewhere inside us all.  Jim Budish is currently one of the most popular sculptors in the United States.  In addition to his success at sculpture shows, Jim does charity work by donating his art for auctions that benefit the less fortunate.  His work can be found in numerous collections in the U.S., Canada, Europe, Hong Kong, and Japan.  See pictures at  http://smithklein.com/project/jim-budish/  A Muse reader working in Manhattan has two Jim Budish pieces in the covered area between her building and the one next door.

Maria Semple is the author of the novels Today Will Be Different (2016), Where’d You Go, Bernadette (2012) and This One is Mine (2008), all published by Little, Brown and Co.  Before writing fiction, she wrote for the TV shows 90210, Mad About You, Arrested Development and others.  Where’d You Go, Bernadette, an international bestseller, has been translated into 30 languages.  It spent over a year on the New York Times bestseller list and made over a dozen year-end best lists.  It was short-listed for the Women’s Prize and received the Alex Award from the American Library Association.  Today Will Be Different was an instant international bestseller and was featured on the cover of the New York Times book review.  It, too, made over a dozen year-end best lists.  Maria spent her early years traveling around Europe with her bohemian parents, but that ended abruptly when her father, Lorenzo Semple, Jr., finished a pilot for Batman while living in Torremolinos, Spain.  He airmailed it in, they shot it, and the family moved to LA.  After the Batman TV series and feature, Lorenzo went on to write a bunch of movies.  Once he was established, the family moved to Aspen, Colorado.  Maria attended boarding school at Choate Rosemary and college at Barnard, where she majored in English.  She moved to LA shortly after graduating Barnard and wrote screenplays which never got made, and TV shows which did.  In 2008 Maria, George Meyer and their little daughter moved to Seattle just because.  It was a difficult adjustment for Maria, which became the basis for Where’d You Go, Bernadette.  The novel came out in 2012 and became an instant bestseller.  https://www.mariasemple.com/about-me/

I AM SILENTLY CORRECTING YOUR GRAMMAR--seen on tote bag for sale in a shop in Great Barrington, Massachusetts

With more than 40 years of professional experience, Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara, partners and co-founders of Dublin-based Grafton Architects, are the first women to be jointly awarded the architecture’s highest honor, the Pritzker Prize.  Romullo Baratto  Find 20 facts and curiosities about Yvonne Farrell, Shelley McNamara, and Grafton Architects at https://www.archdaily.com/934782/who-are-grafton-architects-20-things-to-know-about-the-2020-pritzker-laureates

Swapping kisses for elbow bumps.  The bizarre ways that coronavirus is changing etiquette   With concerned citizens steering clear of handshakes, people around the world are getting creative with their meet and greets.  Dr. Sylvie Briand, the World Health Organization's director of pandemics, has endorsed a range of greetings as an alternative to the handshake, including bumping elbows, waving and bowing with palms together in the Thai "wai."  Meanwhile, videos have surfaced from Iran and Lebanon of friends tapping their feet to greet one another.  People should use an "open palmed gesture rather than a closed palm gesture . . .  especially if you're greeting lots of people at a networking event or conference," Etiquette coach William Hanson said, adding that making eye contact should also be a priority.  Amy Woodyatt  See pictures of handshake alternatives at https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/03/world/coronavirus-etiquette-intl-scli/index.html

 

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2235  March 4, 2020 

Béarnaise sauce is a sauce made of clarified butter emulsified in egg yolks and white wine vinegar and flavored with herbs.  It is considered to be a "child" of the mother Hollandaise sauce, one of the five mother sauces in the French haute cuisine repertoire.  The difference is only in the flavoring:  Béarnaise uses shallot, chervil, peppercorns, and tarragon in a reduction of vinegar and wine, while Hollandaise is more stripped down, using a reduction of lemon juice or white wine. The sauce was accidentally invented by the chef Jean-Louis Françoise-Collinet, the accidental inventor of puffed potatoes (pommes de terre soufflées), and served at the 1836 opening of Le Pavillon Henri IV, a restaurant at Saint-Germain-en-Laye, not far from Paris.  This assumption is supported by the fact that the restaurant was in the former residence of Henry IV of France, a gourmet himself, who was from Béarn, a former province now in the department of Pyrénées-Atlantiques in southwestern France.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%C3%A9arnaise_sauce

Names talk.  Every baby name choice speaks of parents’ values and dreams.  Every personal name tells a miniature story of culture and identity.  And naming patterns, across time and around the world, speak even louder.  They’re a candid window on society: a fossil record of culture.  Namerology.com is the home for name enthusiasts, and anyone with a naming question that they’d like answered with an analytical mindset and a positive attitude.  Namerology founder Laura Wattenberg is the author of the Baby Name Wizard books and the original founder of BabyNameWizard.com.  Her research-based approach to names, and groundbreaking tools like the NameVoyager grapher and MatchMaker name finder, have helped change the way the world views baby names.  Namerology, founded in March 2019, is still in its infancy.  It will grow to include new tools and new ways of exploring names.  https://namerology.com/about/  See also “Naming a Kid for a Fictional Character Is High Stakes; the Jolenes and Daeneryses of the world have some baggage to contend with” by Julie Beck at

https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2020/01/baby-names-fiction-are-high-stakes/605650/

Mathematics illuminates the patterns that shape the world around us.  Visit the National Museum of Mathematics and discover a side of math you’ve never seen before.  The Museum is located at 11 East 26th Street in Manhattan and is open from 10:00 am to 5:00 pm, seven days a week, 364 days a year (MoMath is closed on Thanksgiving Day).  MoMath closes early the first Wednesday of every month, at 2:30 pm.  https://momath.org/visit/  Explore the connection between math and music; discover how a bicycle with square wheels rides smoothly over a rough surface; ponder why a pentagon-shaped bathroom sink is more efficient than a square one; and play with algorithms that make lights change color when you move your body.  You might even discover the mathematics of language, such as iambic pentameter, the math-structured pattern of much of our favorite poetry, including rap.  Which means there is a strong math connection to the hit Broadway show Hamilton.  Opened in 2012, this museum, also known as MoMath, surprisingly is the only museum in North America dedicated to math.  https://www.nyconthecheap.com/2015/08/best-nyc-museums-momath/  This description of MoMath is excerpted from the article “The Best NYC Museums You Never Heard Of” written by NYC on the Cheap editor Evelyn Kanter, published in the May/June 2015 issue of AAA World.

Jonathan Pryce was born on June 1, 1947 in Holywell, Wales.  He is a two-time Tony and two-time Olivier Award-winning actor of the stage and a Golden Globe and two-time Emmy-nominated screen actor.  He is perhaps best known for his TV role as The High Sparrow in HBO’s hit series “Game of Thrones,” as Cardinal Wolsey on the BBC/PBS series “Wolf Hall,” for his film roles in the likes of “Glengarry Glen Ross,” “Evita,” “Tomorrow Never Dies,” “The Wife,” and Disney’s “Pirates of the Caribbean” franchise, and for originating the role of The Engineer in Miss Saigon in London’s West End and on Broadway.  In his early years, John Price (his birth name) attended Holywell Grammar School in Wales and would eventually begin training to be a teacher at Edge Hill College in Lancashire, England.  After appearing in a college production, his tutor applied to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art on his behalf and he was awarded a scholarship.  He changed his professional name to Jonathan Pryce to become a member of Equity (as the name John Price was already taken) and began his professional career on the British stage, working at the Everyman Theatre Liverpool Company (where he would ultimately become Artistic Director), as well as the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Nottingham Playhouse.

https://www.newyorktheatreguide.com/actor-profile/jonathan-pryce

In 2019, Fraunces Tavern the oldest standing structure in Manhattan, celebrated its 300th birthday.  Built by the De Lancey family in 1719, 54 Pearl Street has been a private residence, hotel, and one of the most important taverns of the Revolutionary War.  The island of Manhattan was originally inhabited by the Lenape people.  This matrilineal tribe-like society occupied the lower Hudson River Valley and the Delaware Valley.  The Lenape were skilled hunters but maintained an agricultural society, planting mostly beans, squash, and corn.  The first contact with Europeans was in 1524 when Florentine explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano (1485-1528), in the service of the King Francis I of France, explored North America.  The canoeing Lenape encountered Verrazzano’s ship, La Dauphine, in Lower New York Bay.  While investigating the Bay, Verrazzano documented what he believed to be a lake, which was actually the entrance to the Hudson River.  In 1609, English explorer Henry Hudson (1560s/70s), was sailing for the Dutch East India Company,  looking for easterly passage to Asia and spent ten days ascending the River that now bears his name.  His voyage was used to establish Dutch claims to the region.  In 1625, New Amsterdam on Manhattan Island became the capital of New Netherland.  The trading Hudson did with the Lenape people would be the start of the prosperous fur trade that existed well into the 1800s.  Fraunces Tavern® Museum | Women of the Revolutionary War  Special Guided Tour (every Saturday and Sunday in March at 1:00pm  Explore the incredible, often overlooked stories of women who played a pivotal role in the Revolution, including patriotic women fighting for independence, loyalist women fighting to suppress the rebellion, and African American and Native American women whose future and security were caught in the cross fire.  https://www.frauncestavernmuseum.org/  The Fraunces Tavern Museum was established in 1907.  Samuel Fraunces was born around 1722.  He is first documented in New York City in 1755 when he registered with the City as a “freeman” and “innholder.” Fraunces Tavern® Museum | 54 Pearl Street, 2nd Floor New York, NY 10004 | 212-425-1778  Monday-Friday 12:00-5:00pm | Saturday & Sunday 11:00am-5:00pm  https://www.frauncestavernmuseum.org/history

Jason Segel's Dispatches From Elsewhere Is Based On a Secretive Real-World Adventure Game by Gabrielle Bruney   Ten years ago, thousands took to the streets of San Francisco as part of an immersive alternate reality game.  Now, it's the basis for a new AMC series.  But AMC’s new show, Dispatches From Elsewhere, doesn’t sound like one of them.  It tells the story of four very different strangers, played by Sally Field, André Benjamin, newcomer Eve Lindley, and showrunner Jason Segel, who are all thrown together via a secret scavenger hunt-like game.  In this world, the Jejune Institute, a sort of love child of the DHARMA Initiative and the Church of Scientology, promises to expand human potential through its astounding technological advances, like a camera that can take pictures of the past.  Opposing Jejune and its mysterious leader, Octavio Coleman, Esq. (played by Richard E. Grant), is the Elsewhere Society, an Occupy-style outsider movement.  The show’s characters are drawn into the world of these dueling and deeply strange organizations, both of which are on the hunt for long-missing young woman named Eva.  In 2008, flyers very like the ones Peter notices in Dispatches’ premier began popping up around San Francisco.  Whether they advertised a “personal human force field” or a “memory to media center” able to “render moving video images from your active memory,” all directed readers to call the Jejune Institute‘s telephone number or visit its website.  Those who did were given instructions to visit an office building, where they were inducted into the game via a video featuring a man who claimed to be Jejune founder Octavio Coleman.  From there, participants embarked on a treasure-hunt like adventure that brought them deep into the story.  It was all part of an elaborate alternate reality adventure called Games of Nonchalance, which was created by Oakland-based artist Jeff Hull.  In the 2013 documentary about the project, The Institute, co-producer Uriah Finley, described it as, “a game that you play by going out into the city and doing things, and as you do that you become part of the story that is unfolding.”  Hull said that he wanted the project to encourage “spontaneity and play into our civic spaces.”  To pull off the complicated endeavor, its creators recruited actors and also involved regular people and businesses, and hid clues in everyday objects like street signs, bricks, and pay phones.  Before the game ended its three-year run in 2011, more than 7,000 people participated.  https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/tv/a31159284/jason-segel-dispatches-from-elsewhere-jejune-institute-true-story-game/  Principal photography for the series commenced in the Philadelphia, Upper Darby Township, Pennsylvania area in July 2019, with filming also expected to take place in Radnor Township, Delaware County, Pennsylvania.  Some scenes were shot in the tunnels under Girard College.   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dispatches_from_Elsewhere

Beginning March 12-20, all households will begin receiving official Census Bureau mail with detailed information on how to respond to the 2020 Census.  Every person living in the U.S. is required to complete the census--which can be done by phone, email, traditional mail or in person.  Toledo-Lucas County Public Library

census noun  1610s, in reference to registration and taxation in Roman history, from Latin census "the enrollment of the names and property assessments of all Roman citizens," originally past participle of censere "to assess" (see censor ).  The modern use of census as "official enumeration of the inhabitants of a country or state, with details" begins in the U.S. (1790), and Revolutionary France (1791).  Property for taxation was the primary purpose in Rome, hence Latin census also was used for "one's wealth, one's worth, wealthiness."  https://www.etymonline.com/word/census

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2234  March 3, 2020 

The R. W. Lindholm Service Station is a service station designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and located in Cloquet, Minnesota.  Built in 1958 and still in use, it is the only station built to a Wright design during his lifetime.  It was originally part of Wright's utopian Broadacre City plan and is one of the few designs from that plan that was actually implemented.  The building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.  Wright had designed station owner Ray Lindholm's house in 1952 and, knowing Lindholm worked in the oil business, presented him with a proposal to design the gas station envisioned as part of Broadacre City.  Lindholm seized the opportunity to beautify gas station design, and Wright completed his design in 1956.  The station ultimately cost $20,000--roughly four times the cost of the average filling station at the time.  Its construction was only a partial success for Wright, as his vision of the gas station as a social center never took hold.  However, Phillips 66 incorporated several of the gas station's design elements, particularly the triangular cantilevered canopy, in later gas stations.  The station was added to the National Register of Historic Places on September 11, 1985, for its architectural significance.  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._W._Lindholm_Service_Station  Cloquet's R.W. Lindholm Service Station, more commonly known as the Frank Lloyd Wright Gas Station, was sold to Broadacre, LLC of Minneapolis on March 18, 2018 for $250,000.  https://www.duluthnewstribune.com/business/real-estate/4712112-Cloquets-Frank-Lloyd-Wright-gas-station-sold-after-60-years-in-family

As a rule of thumb, good questions:  Ask ‘what, when, where, who’ to gather fact and context.  Ask ‘how do you’ to uncover processes and flows.  Ask ‘how might we’ to investigate opportunities.  Ask ‘why’ to find underlying reasons and motivations.  Have purpose.  Are neutral and free of bias.  Are interesting, short, and can be answered.  Chris How  Link to articles on good questions at https://medium.com/@chris_162/part-1-what-makes-a-good-question-477ddd4e64e3

Simon Rich (born June 5, 1984) is an American humorist, novelist, and screenwriter.  He has published two novels and three collections of humor pieces, several of which appeared in The New Yorker.  His novels and short stories have been translated into over a dozen languages.  Rich was one of the youngest writers ever hired on Saturday Night Live, and served as a staff writer for Pixar.  After graduating from Harvard, Rich wrote for Saturday Night Live for four years where the staff was nominated for the Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing in a Variety, Music or Comedy Series in 2008, 2009, and 2010 and won the Writers Guild of America Award for Comedy/Variety Series in 2009 and 2010.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Rich

encumber  transitive verb  1: WEIGH DOWN, BURDEN  2: to impede or hamper the function or activity of : HINDER negotiations  3: to burden with a legal claim (such as a mortgage)

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/encumber  See also

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/encumber

The expression “to care (or give) a fig” dates back to the early 1600s, and “to give (or care) a hoot” has been around since before World War I.  Both nouns—“fig” and “hoot”—have long been used figuratively for something small and unimportant, according to the Oxford English Dictionary.  So something that’s “not worth a fig (or a hoot),” or something that you “don’t care a fig (or a hoot) about,” is worthless or contemptible.  The noun “fig”—sometimes “a fig’s end”—was recorded in the sense of something unimportant as early as the mid-1400s.  https://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2013/11/figs-and-hoots.html

Not Worth a Fig is a 2009 Turkish drama film written and directed by Selda Çiçek based on a true story about a woman unhappily married to her late sister's husband.  The film, which went on nationwide release on November 6, 2009, was selected for the 16th London Turkish Film Festival.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_Worth_a_Fig

Celebrated on March 14, National Pi Day not only commemorates a very special number, but also celebrates the birthday of the great scientist and mathematician Albert Einstein.  Pi was first calculated by Archimedes of Syracuse (287–212 BC), one of the greatest mathematicians of the ancient world.  National Pi Day has become a day to celebrate numbers and math, and celebrations are held across the country in honor of this very special number.  These days, all of the numerical fun is sometimes accompanied by delicious food items such as pizza pie, fruit pie, and even pot pies!  Pi (π) is the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter—and amazingly for all circles of any size, Pi will be always be the same.  Pi is an "irrational number," meaning its exact value is completely unknowable.  Scientists have calculated billions of digits starting with 3.14159265358979323, but no recognizable pattern ever emerges.  If you are a nerd that likes pies this holiday is pretty much the best combination of the most interesting things in life:  pie and mathematics.  And of course that means that in order to celebrate abstract mathematical items that are somewhat irrational the obvious solution is to incorporate pie into the holiday.  Pi is one of the things that links math back to real world uses.  Because Pi is linked to circles it is also linked to cycles, things like calculating waves, ebb and flow, the oceans tides, electromagnetic waves and much more.  In addition many natural world phenomena can be calculated with pi—like the shape of rivers, the disc of the sun, the spiral of DNA and even the pupil of the eye.  https://nationaltoday.com/national-pi-day/

When the U.S. passport was redesigned in 2007, a biometric chip was added.  Images were added.  Ostensibly to cut down on counterfeits, the dark images have made some stamps difficult to read.  Quotes were also added at the top of each page.  In a 52-page passport, this included 25 patriotic quotes relating to the United States.  Author Matthew is an avid traveler who travels more than 200,000 miles each year by air.  Read the 25 quotes at https://liveandletsfly.boardingarea.com/2018/07/04/us-passport-quotes/

February 27, 2020 (1) A former deputy solicitor general who served under eight presidents, Lawrence Wallace, has died at age 88.  Wallace argued more cases in the U.S. Supreme Court than any other lawyer in the modern era.  Wallace is known for risking his career over a footnote in which he noted that he personally disagreed with the Reagan administration’s position in a tax exemption case.  The brief he signed, despite his noted disagreement, argued that the IRS could not revoke tax-exempt status for private universities that discriminate.   (The Washington Post via How Appealing) (2) U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has written more opinions than any of her colleagues in argued cases so far this term.  Ginsburg has written three majority opinions and three dissents in 11 argued cases. (Law360)  Debra Cassens Weiss  https://www.abajournal.com/news/article/afternoon-briefs-doj-lawyer-who-wrote-risky-footnote-dies-chip-gaines-of-hgtv-wins-suit-dismissal

COLORFUL PROSE  *  joined  the chrome-surge (driving in Los Angeles)  *  flash of ocular Morse code  *  a low hum, deep and constant as a Gregorian chant:  freeway dirge  *  Time Bomb, #5 in the Alex Delaware series by Jonathan Kellerman   See Alex Delaware series order at https://www.fictiondb.com/author/jonathan-kellerman~series~alex-delaware~2024.htm

March is Women’s History Month   Born in a well-to-do farmer family in the backward Mali community, Savitribai Phule was married off to 13-year-old Jyotirao Phule at the tender age of nine in-keeping with the tradition at the time of marrying off girls before they hit puberty.  Jyotirao sent his wife to get trained at a school and she passed with flying colours along with Fatima Sheikh.  Jyotirao had studied the Hindu scriptures and come to the conclusion that all humans were equal.  He realized that education was the one tool that if provided to all humans, would get rid of all social inequalities.  In 1848, the emancipated husband and wife finally established India’s first school for girls in Vishrambag Wada, Pune.  Only nine girls enrolled all from different castes.  Later on, the number rose to 25.  While Savitribai became the headmistress, she taught alongside her fellow trainee Fatima Sheikh and Jyotirao’s emancipated aunt Sagunabai.  The first woman teacher and the first female educationist of India was also the first female poetess.  Her two books of poetry 'Kavya Phule' (1934) and 'Bavan Kashi Subodh Ratnakar' (1982) continue to inspire us today with their questions on caste and gender.  'Kavya Phule' was published when Savitribai was just 23.  She also wrote a poem entitled 'Go, Get Education' which encouraged people to free themselves from oppression by educating themselves.   Roshni Chakrabarty  https://www.indiatoday.in/education-today/gk-current-affairs/story/how-savitribai-phule-india-s-first-female-teacher-dealt-with-abusers-hell-bent-on-preventing-her-from-educating-girls-1633725-2020-01-03

Each March, the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics celebrates National Nutrition Month®.  As part of their campaign, they invite the public to focus on the importance of making informed food choices and developing sound eating and physical activity habits.  National Nutrition Month 2020 is themed “Eat Right, Bite by Bite” and the overall message is that quality nutrition isn’t restrictive, but that small changes to diet can have a cumulative effect on health over time.  https://nutrition.org/national-nutrition-month-2020/

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2233  March 2, 2020