“Stars jammed the sky.”  “The moon was nearly full, and the high desert air was so clear that light silvered every detail of the landscape.”  Blasphemy, Book 2 in the Wyman Ford series by Douglas Preston 

Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart (CAPTCHA) is an interactive feature added to web forms to distinguish whether a human or automated agent is using the form.  Typically, it requires entering text corresponding to a distorted image or a sound stream.  https://csrc.nist.gov/glossary/term/Completely_Automated_Public_Turing_test_to_tell_Computers_and_Humans_Apart 

Beef short ribs are a prized cut for slow cooking.  Cooking them slowly breaks down the tough connective tissues and the meat becomes fall apart tender.  And because they are beautifully marbled with fat, they are more succulent and juicy than other slow cooking cuts of beef such as chuck and brisket.  My favourite method is to braise using the oven because you get extra flavour from the beef and surface of the sauce caramelising in the oven, even though it’s cooked covered the whole time.  Recipe posted by Nagi at https://www.recipetineats.com/braised-beef-short-ribs-in-red-wine-sauce/ 

Cádiz, the province and city on Spain’s southwestern edge, is an underdog—and I’m among the many travelers who have spent years overlooking it.  I know Andalusia, the southern region it is part of, well.   People have been living in Cádiz for more than 3,000 years, making it one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in Europe:  Traces of the Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Romans and North African Muslims, who once ruled these lands can all be found on a short walk through the old town.  Today, those who are from that part of the city, say, facetiously, that they are from “Cádiz, Cádiz, Cádiz”—the original city of Cádiz, in the city of Cádiz, in the province of Cádiz.  (Those who live in the new part of town, along the 2.5-mile Cortadura Beach, are referred to as “Bedouins” for having traveled into the “desert” to settle down.)  Sebastian Modek   See pictures at https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/03/travel/cadiz-an-underrated-corner-of-spain.html 

A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg

What’s common among a spa, mocha coffee, and capri pants?  All three are toponyms, words derived from place names.  The word spa is coined after Spa, a resort town in Belgium.  The mocha coffee is named after Mocha, a port city in Yemen, a trading center for coffee.  And capris got their name from Capri, an Italian island, where they were popularized.  Such words are known as toponyms, from Greek topos (place).

yahoo  noun:  YAH-hoo, interjection:  ya-HOO)

noun:  A person who is boorish, loud, disruptive, etc.
interjection:  Expressing excitement, delight, or triumph.

For noun:  After Yahoos, a race of brutish creatures in Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels. Earliest documented use:  1751.
For interjection:  Apparently of echoic origin.  Earliest documented use: 1976.

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From:  Wilson Fowlie  Subject:  Virtual travel   Funny how language changes.  Before this past year, the sentence “We can travel virtually any time” would almost certainly have meant “We can travel at virtually any time,” whereas now it means “We can travel virtually at any time”.

From:  Helen Pringle  Subject: Travel  “There is no frigate like a book To take us lands away . . . ” - Emily Dickinson

From:  David Ryder  Subject:  Lilliput  On his travels in Ireland, Swift would have spent time in County Westmeath where he got the name Lilliput.  A village beside a beautiful lake.  There is an adventure park there today, named like the Japanese Park, Lilliput Adventure Park. 

From: Jean Marshall   Subject:  Lilliputians in England  The word lilliput reminds me of a delightful children’s novel Mistress Masham’s Repose by T.H. White.  A 10-year-old girl on a crumbling estate in England discovers some Lilliputians living in a neglected garden who were brought back by Gulliver but escaped.

From:  Caroline Rackley  Subject:  Laputa  Check out the modern film by Hayao Miyazaki, Laputa: Castle in the Sky.  Masterful and highly entertaining.

From:  Rob Hardy   Subject:  Laputan  My favorite use of this word is in the film Dr. Strangelove, where Major Kong (Slim Pickens), the bomber pilot commander, declares, “Primary target, the ICBM complex at Laputa.” 

From:  Michael Rothschild  Subject:  yahoo  For many years we owned a travel agency, Gulliver’s Travels, in Madison, WI.  Our slogan was “Where all our clients are giants.”  Inside the office, though, we added that some were yahoos. 
From:  Rebecca Andre   Subject:  A pandemic word I created  A word I made up during the pandemic.  I was fortunate enough to get vaccinated early on and proudly referred to myself as a vaccinati (as in “literati”, etc.).  AWADmailIssue 975   

literati = intellectuals, those who love, read and comment on literature

glitterati = wealthy, chic, famous, fashionable celebrities

vaccinati = vaccinated people 

The Capitol Steps are an American political-satire group which has been performing since 1981.   Most of the Capitol Steps' material parodies well-known contemporary songs, usually introduced with a short skit.  The songs are interspersed with other routines, including a spoonerism routine ("Lirty Dies") near the end of each performance with innuendoes about recent scandals.  They have released over 40 albums, primarily song parodies.  Originally consisting of congressional staffers who performed around Washington, D.C., the troupe is now primarily made up of professional actors and singers.  The Capitol Steps have performed on PBS, public radio and in small- and medium-size venues around the United States.  On January 13, 2021 The Capitol Steps announced via Twitter that they would be shutting down after 39 years of performing.  The shutdown is due to the loss of revenue as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.  They released several albums during the Obama administration, including Mock the Vote, How to Succeed in Congress without Really Lying, Fiscal Shades of Gray, Take the Money and Run for President, Desperate Housemembers, Liberal Shop of Horrors, and Obama Mia.  They released Orange Is the New Barack in 2017.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitol_Steps

Upon an island hard to reach, the East Beast sits upon his beach.  Upon the west beach sits the West Beast.  Each beach beast thinks he's the best beast.  Which beast is best? . . . Well, I thought at first that the East was best and the West was worst.  Then I looked again from the west to the east and I liked the beast on the east beach least.  Theodor Seuss Geisel  https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/west-beast-east-beast/ 

Jet lag is a drag:  west is best, east is a beast.  https://thistourlife.com/jet-lag/ 

West is best; East is beast by Paul Barclay on Big Ideas  What do you know about European history?  Oxford historian Norman Davies says that’s all tainted by stereotypes and a narrow focus on only Western Europe.  The title of his lecture says it all:  West is best, East is beast.  But in fact, it’s really what went on in East Europe that has changed the world.  https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/bigideas/west-is-best3b-east-is-beast/5350148 

East side is a beast—west is best.  Mr. Mayor TV show  January 2021           

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2336  March 10, 2021

Derived from the German schmierkäse (“to smear” and “cheese”), smearcase simply meant cottage cheese to a 19th-century American.  Milkmen sold it.  Families mixed it with cream to create the product that paved the way for modern cream cheese.  In the Pennsylvania Amish community, smearcase is still a term for cottage cheese.  But in Baltimore, smearcase is the name of a rare, custardy cheesecake.  Once home to a large population of German immigrants, Baltimore still features a handful of long-standing grocery stores and bakeries that sell this distinct, local sweet.  To make a traditional smearcase, bakers prepare yeasted crust, then add a custardy, cheesy filling.  After baking, they finish it off with a sprinkle of cinnamon.  Compared to standard American cheesecake, smearcase tastes lighter and less sugary, with a more cake-like crust.  https://www.atlasobscura.com/foods/smearcase-cake-baltimore 

Sine nomine (abbreviated s.n.) is a Latin expression, meaning "without a name".  It is most commonly used in the contexts of publishing and bibliographical listings such as library catalogs, to signify that the publisher (or distributor, etc.) of a listed work is unknown, or not printed or specified on the work.  It is to be compared with sine loco (s.l.), "without a place", used where the place of publication of a work is unknown or unspecified.  While it may sometimes be used to disclose unknown authorship, this is more commonly indicated as anon. or similar.  The phrase and its abbreviation have been deprecated in Anglophone cataloging with the adoption of the Resource Description and Access standard, which instead prescribes the unabbreviated English phrase "publisher not identified" (or "distributor not identified", etc.).  Sine loco is likewise replaced by "place of publication not identified".   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sine_nomine 

The Course of Empire is a series of five paintings created by Thomas Cole in the years 1833–1836.  It is notable in part for reflecting popular American sentiments of the times, when many saw pastoralism as the ideal phase of human civilization, fearing that empire would lead to gluttony and inevitable decay.  The theme of cycles is one that Cole returned to frequently, such as in his The Voyage of Life series.  The Course of Empire comprises the following works: The Course of Empire – The Savage State; The Arcadian or Pastoral State; The Consummation of Empire; Destruction; and Desolation.  All the paintings are oil on canvas, and all are 39.5 inches by 63.5 inches (100 cm by 161 cm) except The Consummation of Empire which is 51″ by 76″ (130 cm by 193 cm).  The series of paintings depicts the growth and fall of an imaginary city, situated on the lower end of a river valley, near its meeting with a bay of the sea.  The valley is distinctly identifiable in each of the paintings, in part because of an unusual landmark:  a large boulder is situated atop a crag overlooking the valley.  Some critics believe this is meant to contrast the immutability of the earth with the transience of man.  A direct source of literary inspiration for The Course of Empire paintings is Byron's Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1812–18).  Cole quoted lines from Canto IV in his newspaper advertisements for the series:  First freedom and then Glory–when that fails, Wealth, vice, corruption . . .  Cole designed these paintings to be displayed prominently in the picture gallery on the third floor of the mansion of his patron, Luman Reed, at 13 Greenwich Street, New York City.  The series was acquired by The New-York Historical Society in 1858 as a gift of the New-York Gallery of Fine Arts.  See descriptions and graphics at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Course_of_Empire_(paintings) 

International Women's Day (IWD) is celebrated on 8 March around the world.  It is a focal point in the movement for women's rights.  After the Socialist Party of America organized a Women's Day in New York City on February 28, 1909, German delegates Clara Zetkin, Käte Duncker, Paula Thiede and others proposed at the 1910 International Socialist Woman's Conference that "a special Women's Day" be organized annually.  After women gained suffrage in Soviet Russia in 1917, March 8 became a national holiday there.  The day was then predominantly celebrated by the socialist movement and communist countries until it was adopted by the feminist movement in about 1967.  The United Nations began celebrating the day in 1977.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Women%27s_Day 

January 15, 2021  When Trisha Costello bought the Talkeetna Roadhouse 25 years ago, she was given three things:  the deed, a set of keys, and a sourdough starter that the previous owner said dated back to 1902.  The year-round population of Talkeetna, Alaska, hovers around 900 people, but in a normal year, Costello’s crew churns out hundreds of pounds of dense sourdough hotcakes per day, each dappled with a cosmos of mixed berries or chocolate chips and hanging over the side of the plate.  They’re enormous, and enormously popular, with tourists, with locals, and especially with climbers, who often stop by for a meal before starting their summit attempts of Denali, the highest mountain peak in North America.  Due to coronavirus, and the fact that Talkeetna Roadhouse serves family-style meals at banquet tables, Costello opted to close the restaurant until the majority of the country is vaccinated.  But it remains open to overnight lodgers, and if you ask, Costello will give you a to-go cup of the historic starter to use at home, provided you make her one promise:  You’ll do everything you can to keep it and its history alive.  Bailey Berg  https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/what-is-sourdough-alaska 

Battles of grammar, for the most part, play out in English classrooms and in the pages of style guides.  Rarely do arguments over split infinitives and Oxford commas venture beyond the walls of academia.  But one linguistic phenomenon lands in the limelight every so often, and it’s a word you know well:  the pronoun “they”—along with its derivatives “them” and “their”.  In 2015, the American Dialect Society even named it word of the year.  Many critics remain uneasy with singular “they,” and plenty of prescriptivists—those who uphold traditional and formalized language rules, rather than how people actually use language currently—condemn it as ungrammatical or ambiguous.  But that hasn’t stopped its ascent.  Cody Cottier  https://www.discovermagazine.com/mind/people-have-used-they-them-as-singular-pronouns-for-hundreds-of-years 

THE LIFE AND WILD TIMES OF O. HENRY by Annika Barranti Klein  Jan 7, 2021   Known for his charming stories with surprise endings, including “The Gift of the Magi” and “The Last Leaf,” it should be no surprise that O. Henry’s life had some twists of its own life.  Read extensive article at https://bookriot.com/who-was-o-henry/ 

In 1974, F. W. Winterbotham published a book called The Ultra Secret.  He revealed British details that were classified as “ultra secret”, which was the British government’s highest level of secrecy even above “most secret”.  The public came to know that 30 years earlier there had been an incredible codebreaking effort at a site in Buckinghamshire called Bletchley Park.  The work carried out at the Park has since been estimated to have shortened the war by 2–4 years and saved millions of lives.  There are countless soldiers, pilots, and sailors who we know were certainly saved by the codebreaking performed in the middle of England during World War II.  At the height of the codebreaking activities, there were around 10,000 people working at Bletchley Park.  What has only become evident in more recent years is that the majority of the workers were women sworn to secrecy.  Jennifer Harrison  This is the fifth article in a series about amazing women in tech history.  The first featured Margaret Hamilton, the software engineer who helped land us on the moon.  The second featured Grace Hopper, a programming pioneer and first woman to be a US Navy Admiral.  The third featured the ENIAC programmers, who were pioneers ignored by history.  The fourth featured Katherine Johnson, the mathematician who guided men to the moon.  Read extensive article and see pictures at   https://geneticjen.medium.com/women-in-tech-history-bletchley-park-49f69f1a1510  See also https://bletchleypark.org.uk/our-story/bletchley-park-people/who-were-the-codebreakers 

A word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanging; it is the skin of living thought and changes from day to day as does the air around us. - Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., US Supreme Court Justice (8 Mar 1841-1935)

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2335  March 8, 2021

HELLO

interjection  (used to express a greeting, answer a telephone, or attract attention.)  (an exclamation of surprise, wonder, elation, etc.)  (used derisively to question the comprehension, intelligence, or common sense of the person being addressed):  You're gonna go out with him?  Hello!

noun, plural hel·los.  the call “hello” (used as an expression of greeting):  She gave me a warm hello.

verb (used without object), hel·loed, hel·lo·ing.  to say “hello”; to cry or shout:  I helloed, but no one answered.  https://www.dictionary.com/browse/hello

Residents of Blace, a small town in Serbia, are so thankful to plums that in 2012, the town erected a statue in their honor.  The town unveiled Spomenik Šljivi, “Monument to Plum” by Dragan Drobnjak, during their annual “Plum Day” festival.  Many residents of the Toplica region work with plums, making jam, juice, compote, or Rakija fruit brandy, the most popular alcoholic drink in Serbia.  Along with the statue, the festival every year gathers plum lovers to the area, with concerts, a fair, and many educational lectures about fruit growing.  https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/spomenik-sljivi

A hospitalist is a licensed physician who practices in a hospital and treats an array of conditions.  These doctors work to treat patients staying in the hospital due to a variety of illnesses and injuries.  The term “hospitalist” is actually relatively new, first coined in 1996.  The need for hospitalists emerged from increasingly complex hospital patient cases.  These cases needed dedicated physicians, rather than clinicians also managing ambulatory care and other clinical obligations.  Hospitalists emerged from this gap in the medical workforce, and this specialized area of medicine was born.   https://www.sgu.edu/blog/medical/what-is-a-hospitalist/

Driving through the tiny town of Arcadia, Oklahoma, just a half-hour north of Oklahoma City, no passenger can miss the sign for Pops.  Nestled along Route 66, the roadside restaurant and gas station sells around 700 kinds of soda, arranged by color.  Out front, a 66-foot-tall soda bottle statue provides a tip-off regarding what’s in store for customers.  At night, LEDs illuminate the structure, turning it into a beacon of light that harkens back to the days when this legendary route was dotted with neon.  Travelers who find themselves drawn in by the splendid display will discover more than just pop inside.  Waitresses bustle around in its diner, complete with an old-fashioned soda fountain.  Though patrons are welcome to order a proper meal, the diner’s claim to fame is their root beer bread pudding. Pops makes a steaming slice of not-too-sweet, yeasty pudding studded with plump raisins, then douses the creation in house-made root beer and white chocolate sauces.  https://www.atlasobscura.com/foods/root-beer-bread-pudding  If you’re lucky enough to have it, you can use Triple XXX root beer from Indiana. 

fuddle  transitive verb  Confuse or stupefy (someone), especially with alcohol.  Go on a drinking bout.  noun  A state of confusion or intoxication.  archaic  A drinking bout.  Late 16th century (in the sense ‘go on a drinking bout’):  of unknown origin.  https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/fuddle   A Very Fuddles Christmas is a 2013 picture book about a pampered cat named Fuddles by author and illustrator Frans Vischer.     

The coinage law of 1873 made no provision for the standard silver dollar.  During the lapse in coinage of this denomination, the gold dollar became the unit coin, and the trade dollar was used for commercial transactions with the Orient.  Resumption of coinage of silver dollars was authorized by the Bland-Allison Act of February 28,1878.  The weight (412-1/2 grains) and fineness (.900) were to conform with the Act of January 18, 1837.  George T. Morgan designed the new dollar.  Morgan was a former pupil of William Wyon's from the Royal Mint in London.  Morgan's monogram appears on the obverse at the truncation of Lady Liberty's neck at the last tress.  It also appears on the reverse on the left hand loop of the ribbon.  Coinage of the silver dollar was suspended after 1904 because of low demand and lack of bullion supply.  Under provisions of the Pitman Act of 1918, 270 million silver dollars were melted.  Coinage of the silver dollar was resumed in 1921.  The Morgan design, with some refinements, was used until the new Peace design was adopted later in the year.  https://www.collectons.com/shop/cat/1042/index/0/American-Coins-by-Date-US-Dollar-Coins-Morgan-Silver-Dollars-1878-1921  See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgan_dollar  Thank you, Muse reader! 

The lull between seating and ordering and receiving your first course does not have to be a time of awkward chatter or desultory phone scrolling at a restaurant.  Different restaurants and companies are approaching expectation in various ways, tapping into alternative senses. When Heston Blumenthal launched the animated sweetshop into the reservation process at The Fat Duck, some people were concerned it was overdone.  However, it appears Heston was ahead of the curve.  The video that arrived via an emailed link to each guest a month before their reservation was littered with markers that they would come across at The Fat Duck.  Not only did Heston invest in the animation element, but as a sensory experience, he was keen to focus on the scent that was used at The Fat Duck.  La Petite Chef began as a demo to explore the possibilities of 3D Projection Mapping in smaller and more intimate settings.  Following the smallest chef on his adventures around the plate and around the world is a great way to entertain and interact with guests as well as exhibit unusual ingredients and techniques used.  Link to 6:20 video at https://www.kamilasitwell.co.uk/blog/2017/11/13/the-theatre-of-dining  Thank you, Muse reader! 

March 4, 2021  A lost poem by Vladimir Nabokov, written from the perspective of Superman as he laments the impossibility of having children with Lois Lane, has been published for the first time.  The Man of To-morrow’s Lament appears in this week’s Times Literary Supplement.  In it, Nabokov, whose son loved the Superman comics, writes in the voice of the Man of Steel.  He imagines the hero walking through a city park with Lois, forced to wear his glasses because “otherwise, / when I caress her with my super-eyes, / her lungs and liver are too plainly seen / throbbing”.  Nabokov sent the poem, which contains allusions to Hamlet, to the poetry editor of the New Yorker in June 1942, just a few years after he had arrived in the US from occupied France.  But the author of Lolita, which would be published 13 years later, was rejected.  The New Yorker’s poetry editor Charles Pearce told him that “most of us appear to feel that many of our readers wouldn’t quite get it”.  Alison Flood  https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/mar/04/vladimir-nabokovs-superman-poem-published-for-the-first-time 

The Constitution of the United States came into force on March 4, 1789.

 http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2334  March 5, 2021 

FEEDBACK to A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg  

From:  Nalini Sankaranarayanan  The first time I read the word bounder was in high school, reading a story Bounder and the Captain.  It was a novel experience for me to read an anti-hero--a lazy, scheming, transparently lying school boy with grandiose ideas of self importance, the bounder--being the focus of the story apart from being the butt of the joke.  Billy Bunter was a bounder indeed and now I wonder how many cliches and stereotypes we lapped up as children!

From:  Marge Simon  Charles Dickens is known for uniquely fitting character’s names and Bounderby came immediately to mind as a main character in Hard Times.  He’s the irritable old cad in the story, depicted as a self-asserted capitalist, and a coarse, vain, self-interested hypocrite.  https://wordsmith.org/awad/awadmail966.html 

William Carlos Williams (1883–1963) is famously known for coining the term:  “No ideas but in things.”  This one line from the 1927 version of his poem, Paterson, became a mantra for poetry in the early 20th century.  It changed the look and feel of poetry, possibly more than any other single idea in the past hundred years.  It was not original, however, as this essay hopes to show.  His statement was a summary of the poetry trends at that time.  https://triggerfishcriticalreview.com/historical-view-of-wcwilliams-no-ideas-but-in-things-by-ed-wickliffe/ 

Paterson is an epic poem by American poet William Carlos Williams published, in five volumes, from 1946 to 1958.  The origin of the poem was an eighty-five line long poem written in 1926, after Williams had read and been influenced by James Joyce's novel Ulysses.  As he continued writing lyric poetry, Williams spent increasing amounts of time on Paterson, honing his approach to it both in terms of style and structure.  While The Cantos of Ezra Pound and The Bridge by Hart Crane could be considered partial models, Williams was intent on a documentary method that differed from both these works, one that would mirror "the resemblance between the mind of modern man and the city."  While Williams might or might not have said so himself, commentators such as Christoper Beach and Margaret Lloyd have called Paterson his response to T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land and Pound's Cantos.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paterson_(poem) 

A hot pot, also known as soup-food or steamboat, is a cooking method that originates from Mongolia, prepared with a simmering pot of soup stock at the dining table, containing a variety of East Asian foodstuffs and ingredients.  Flavored broth is kept simmering, raw ingredients are placed into the pot and are cooked in a manner similar to fondue (hot pots usually use a water-based soup, while fondues use cooking oil).  Hot pots may be prepared and eaten either at home or in a restaurant.  Since it is considered as a main dish, it can be enjoyed without other separate courses like rice or noodles.  The cooked food is often eaten with a dipping sauce for additional flavoring.  Typical hot pot ingredients include thinly sliced meat, leaf vegetables, mushrooms, vermicelli, sliced potatoes, bean products, egg dumplings, tofu, and seafood.  Raw ingredients are pre-sliced into thin sections that will cook quickly and consistently in the simmering broth, which is maintained at a gentle boiling temperature.  Most raw foods can be cooked in a hot pot, although they may have different cooking times, and must be immersed in the soup and then removed accordingly.  Archaeological evidence shows that the earliest hot pots appeared around the Zhou dynasty.  The tripods of Zhou dynasty may be the earliest prototypes of the hot pot.  Diners among the nobility each had a personal pot made of bronze, and called ran lu.  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_pot  Thank you, Muse reader!  

Gress-, root. -gress- comes from Latin, where it has the meaning "step;
move.''  It is related to -grad-.  https://www.wordreference.com/definition/-gress-   

Gress (Scottish Gaelic:  Griais), a hamlet on the Isle of Lewis in Scotland, is adjacent to the larger village of Back.  Gress is within the parish of Stornoway.  Between 1919 and 1921, Gress--along with nearby Coll and Tong--as the scene of several land raids.   See graphics and link to surname Gress at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gress 

How Many of the 100 Most Famous Passages in Literature Can You Identify? by Emily Temple  Test yourself at https://lithub.com/how-many-of-the-100-most-famous-passages-in-literature-can-you-identify/  Emily Temple is the managing editor at Lit Hub.  Her first novel, The Lightness, was published by William Morrow/HarperCollins in June 2020.   

Notorious RBG:  The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg  February 24–August 29, 2021 at Maltz museum of Jewish Heritage in Beachwood, Ohio  Open during regular hours; Included with general admission  Wednesday - Sunday: 10am-5pm  Link to information on tickets at http://www.maltzmuseum.org/exhibitions/current-exhibitions/  As part of an ongoing outreach effort to connect visitors to the Maltz Museum during the pandemic, virtual visitors can explore Notorious RBG online.  Approximately 60 minutes in length, virtual attendees will enjoy a webinar style narrated exploration of key objects and artifacts followed by a docent-led Q&A.  Virtual tours will be offered on the first and third Tuesday of each month at 2 p.m.  The cost is $10 per person and free for Maltz Museum members.   

The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) on January 20, 2021 launched the Donald J. Trump Presidential Library website, which provides information on archived White House websites and social media accounts, as well as information on access to the records of the Trump Administration.  The Trump Library will be part of the National Archives’ Presidential Libraries system, which, under the Presidential Libraries Act, established a system of privately constructed and federally maintained Presidential Libraries, going back to President Hoover’s administration.  NARA’s Presidential Libraries promote understanding of the Presidency and the American experience.  They preserve and provide access to historical materials, support research, and create interactive programs and exhibits that educate and inspire.   Regardless of whether a former President decides to build and donate an archival research facility and museum to NARA under the Presidential Libraries Act, the National Archives maintains the collection of Presidential records created by the Presidential administration as a Presidential Library.  The Trump Library will be the fifteenth Presidential Library operated by the National Archives.  https://www.archives.gov/press/press-releases/2021/press-donald-j-trump-presidential-library   

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2333  March 3, 2021  

Gaston Louis Alfred Leroux (1868-1927) was a French journalist and author of detective stories.  He is known to English readers as the author of The Phantom of the Opera (Le Fantôme de l'Opéra) (1911).  Leroux's novel, The Mystery of the Yellow Room (1908) is considered the premier "locked room mystery" of all time, in which the criminal disappears from a locked room, and the reader is pressed to solve the mystery by reviewing precise diagrams, floorplans and minute details provided by Leroux.  Agatha Christie admired Leroux's work, particularly his ability to engage readers' intellect and challenge them to solve seemingly unsolvable crimes.  Leroux was born in Paris in 1868, studied law, inherited millions of francs and spent all his money until nearly bankrupt by 1890.  He became a court reporter and theater critic, then an international correspondent who covered the 1905 Russian Revolution.  He investigated the former Paris Opera, which later housed the Paris Ballet, where prisoners of the Paris Commune were held in its basement.  No doubt, inspiration for the setting of his most famous work.  He left journalism and formed his own film company in 1919, where he adapted much of his work into film.  https://americanliterature.com/author/gaston-leroux 

Penny dreadfuls were cheap popular serial literature produced during the nineteenth century in the United Kingdom.  The pejorative term is roughly interchangeable with penny horrible, penny awful, and penny blood.  The term typically referred to a story published in weekly parts, each costing one penny.  The fictional Sweeney Todd, the subject of both a successful musical by Stephen Sondheim and a feature film by Tim Burton, also first appeared in an 1846/1847 penny dreadful titled The String of Pearls: A Romance by James Malcolm Rymer and Thomas Peckett Prest.  The penny dreadfuls inspired the British comics that began to emerge in the 1870s.  Describing penny dreadfuls as "a 19th-century British publishing phenomenon", the BBC adds, their "very disposability (the booklets’ bargain cover price meant they were printed on exceptionally flimsy paper) has made surviving examples a rarity, despite their immense popularity at the time."  Some items that have been named after this topic include a song called "Penny Dreadfuls" by Animal Collective, the Irish literary magazine The Penny Dreadful, and Penny Dreadful, a Showtime horror television series set in Victorian England.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penny_dreadful 

Fava beans are one of the oldest domesticated food legumes.  References to favas occur in both the Talmud and the Mishna, indicating they have been part of the Middle Eastern diet since at least since the 4th century.  Tova Dickstein from Neot Kedumim Biblical Land Preserve in Israel once told me that fava beans were likely a main protein sources for the ancient Israelites.  In fact, the ancient method for cooking fava beans is discussed in the Talmud.  The dried beans were immersed in a pot of water, sealed, then buried beneath hot coals so they could slowly cook.  Dried fava beans, when cooked and peeled, have a texture similar to cooked chickpeas but slightly softer.  Unlike fresh fava beans, dried can be enjoyed year-round.  They are more economical than canned beans, and when you soak and cook them they do not contain unnecessary additives like sodium (plus you don’t have to worry about potentially toxic BPA can linings).  Most forms of fava beans need to be peeled before eating, unless they have already been prepped (which is sometimes the case with canned and cold packed beans).  It’s a time-consuming process, but not difficult at all.  Tori Avey  Read more at https://toriavey.com/how-to/fava-beans-how-to-cook-soak-peel-freeze/ 

Martin "Marty" Cooper (born December 26, 1928) is an American engineer.  He is a pioneer in the wireless communications industry, especially in radio spectrum management, with eleven patents in the field.  While at Motorola in the 1970s, Cooper invented the first handheld cellular mobile phone (distinct from the car phone) in 1973 and led the team that developed it and brought it to market in 1983. He is considered the "father of the (handheld) cell phone"and is also cited as the first person in history to make a handheld cellular phone call in public.  Cooper is co-founder of numerous communications companies with his wife and business partner Arlene Harris.  He is co-founder and current Chairman of Dyna LLC, in Del Mar, California.  Cooper also sits on committees supporting the U.S. Federal Communications Commission and the United States Department of Commerce.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Cooper_(inventor)  See also https://www.marconisociety.org/fellow-bio/martin-cooper/ 

A boiled dinner takes tougher cuts of meat, or stewing chickens, and simmers them in a pot of water with vegetables.  A boiled dinner differs from a stew in two ways.  In a stew, all the pieces are cut down into bite-sized pieces that will fit on an eating spoon, and the broth is thickened and served with them. In a boiled dinner, the pieces in it all are larger, and the broth is not served.  The meat used can range from corned beef, beef brisket, pork shoulder, a ham bone with some meat on it, or a chicken.  Whatever meat is used, it’s used whole, in one piece, as you would for pot roast.  The low, slow cooking temperature of the simmering water tenderizes the meat.  The vegetables should be added after meat is cooked.  Before adding the vegetables, skim any fat off the top of the water.  The vegetables used might include cabbage, carrots, onions, parsnips, potatoes and turnips, but never any smaller ones such as peas or kernels of corn.  If carrots are used, they are used in large chunks, rather than diced.  The vegetables are simmered until just tender. In the pot, they will absorb the flavour of each other and the meat.  Root vegetables in particular become very mellow and sweet-tasting in a boiled dinner.  When the dinner is ready to serve, the vegetables are left in the pot to stay hot while the meat is removed, placed on a platter, and carved.  You then use a slotted spoon to remove the vegetables, leaving the broth behind in the pot, and arrange the vegetables on the platter around the meat.  The dinner is then served from the platter onto plates, and eaten with a knife and fork.  Boiled Dinners were very popular in Ireland, Scotland and on the eastern coast of North America from New England up to Nova Scotia.  In New England, salt cod was sometimes used in place of meat.  In Vermont, it is flavoured with bay leaves and garlic; neither flavouring is used in Maine.  In addition to being a low-cost, wholesome meal, Boiled Dinners were very convenient—they only needed one pot and one burner, not to mention just one plate per person to serve them on.  https://www.cooksinfo.com/boiled-dinners 

The London Beer Flood was an accident at Meux & Co's Horse Shoe Brewery, London, on 17 October 1814.  It took place when one of the 22-foot-tall (6.7 m) wooden vats of fermenting porter burst.  The pressure of the escaping liquid dislodged the valve of another vessel and destroyed several large barrels:  between 128,000 and 323,000 imperial gallons (580,000–1,470,000 l; 154,000–388,000 US gal) of beer were released in total.  The resulting wave of porter destroyed the back wall of the brewery and swept into an area of slum-dwellings known as the St Giles rookery.  The brewery was nearly bankrupted by the event; it avoided collapse after a rebate from HM Excise on the lost beer.  The brewing industry gradually stopped using large wooden vats after the accident.  The brewery moved in 1921, and the Dominion Theatre is now where the brewery used to stand.  Meux & Co went into liquidation in 1961.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Beer_Flood 

On February 27, 2021, Saturday Night Live dreams up a Fauci-hosted game show where contestants vie for the vaccine.  Link to video at https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2021/02/28/snl-dreams-up-fauci-hosted-game-show-where-contestants-vie-vaccine/ 

March 1 is the 60th day of the year (61st in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar.  305 days remain until the end of the year. Events:  1692 – Sarah Good, Sarah Osborne and Tituba are brought before local magistrates in Salem Village, Massachusetts, beginning what would become known as the Salem witch trials.  1781 – The Articles of Confederation goes into effect in the United States.  1790 – The first United States census is authorized.  Births:  1810 – Frédéric Chopin, Polish pianist and composer (d. 1849)  1921 – Richard Wilbur, American poet, translator, and essayist (d. 2017)  1927 – Harry Belafonte, American singer-songwriter and actor  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_1 

What is the opposite of two? A lonely me, a lonely you. - Richard Wilbur (1 Mar 1921-2017)

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2332  March 1, 2021