Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum will present the first monographic exhibition in more than 50 years on designer and weaver Dorothy Liebes (1897–1972).  Among the most influential designers of the 20th century, Liebes shaped American tastes in areas from interiors and transportation to industrial design, fashion and film.  On view July 7, 2023 through Feb. 4, 2024, “A Dark, A Light, A Bright:  The Designs of Dorothy Liebes” will feature more than 125 works, including textiles, textile samples, fashion, furniture, documents and photographs.  Organized in five sections, “A Dark, A Light, A Bright” opens with an introduction to Liebes and important early works, including the prize-winning Schiaparelli panel for the 1937 Paris Exposition and objects related to the 1939 Golden Gate Exposition where Liebes formulated and articulated her vision for the role of handcraft in modern design.  A five-minute documentary film, along with a wall graphic that maps key projects and professional achievements, illustrates the broad range of her collaborative work.  The next section, The Modern Interior, will feature examples of the handwoven fabrics that made Liebes a sought-after collaborator by architects and interior designers.  Drapery panels such as a gold and leather design for Adrian’s famed Hollywood salon and a 1947 looped fringe panel for Duke’s Shangri-la showcase Liebes’ distinctive approach to color, texture and reflectivity.   Films that featured her glamorous textiles, like the Barbara Stanwyck nightclub noir Eastside, Westside (1947), effectively demonstrate the close interaction between textiles, movement and light.  In The Liebes Look, projects like the First Class Observation Lounge aboard the SS United States and American Airlines flagship 747 reveal her business acumen in combining handwoven and power-loomed fabrics to create dramatic—and highly visible—public spaces within budget.  The exhibition will also examine Liebes’ contributions to interiors such as the Persian Room at the Plaza Hotel, the Marco Polo Club at the Waldorf Astoria and the Usonian Exhibition House, which were widely publicized at the time, but later subsumed under the names of the male architects who headlined the projects (Dreyfuss, Deskey and Wright, respectively).  Examples of her collaborations with fashion designers Clare Potter and Cashin will be featured throughout the exhibition to explore the cross-fertilization of fashion and interior design.   https://www.si.edu/newsdesk/releases/cooper-hewitt-present-monographic-exhibition-designer-and-weaver-dorothy-liebes   

Horn & Hardart was a food services company in the United States noted for operating the first food service automats in Philadelphia, New York City, and Baltimore.   Philadelphia's Joseph Horn (1861–1941) and German-born, New Orleans-raised Frank Hardart (1850–1918) opened their first restaurant together in Philadelphia, on December 22, 1888.  The small, 11-by-17-foot (3.4 m × 5.2 m) lunchroom at 39 South Thirteenth Street had no tables, only a counter with 15 stools.  The location had housed the print shop of Dunlap & Claypoole, printers to the American Congress and George Washington.  By introducing Philadelphia to New Orleans-style coffee, which Hardart promoted as their "gilt-edge" brew, they made their tiny luncheonette a local attraction.  News of the coffee spread, and the business flourished.  They incorporated as the Horn & Hardart Baking Company in 1898.  At its peak the company operated in excess of 100 restaurants, as well as a popular chain of retail outlets.  The lack of a succession plan, changing demographics, the rapid rise of fast food chains, and poor strategic decisions from the early 1960s on were too much to overcome and the last restaurant was closed in 1991.  Concerto for Horn and Hardart is a classical music parody written by Peter Schickele, one of many which he attributes to the fictional composer P.D.Q. Bach.  The song Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend by Leo Robin and Jule Styne mentions the Automat in its lyrics.  Jack Benny held a promotional, black-tie party to launch his television show The Jack Benny Program on October 29, 1950, at the New York City Automat.  Playing on his reputation as a cheapskate, Benny greeted his guests at the door and handed each one a roll of nickels so they could get what they wanted to eat.  Films:  That Touch of Mink (1962), comedy with Cary Grant, Doris Day, and Gig Young who visit the Automat in New York City; The Automat (2021), documentary by Lisa Hurwitz about the chain featuring Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner, Colin Powell, Ruth Bader Ginsberg.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horn_%26_Hardart#Literature   

America runs on lettuce by Aaron Timms  May 2023  In Manhattan, from Chopt and Sweetgreen to fresh&co, Just Salad, and Avocaderia, the lines remain long, the add-ons plentiful.  If anything the salad appears to have emerged from the pandemic stronger than ever, a dominant culinary form for a nation freshly reminded of the shifting environmental and health risks that a leafy diet can help repel.  Despite dire warnings, the people of New York are still fiends for leaves.  Despite the bias in favor of meat, vegetables were still an important component of the early modern diet:  contemporary English observers listed leeks, melons, pumpkins, gourds, radishes, parsnips, carrots, cabbages, navews, and turnips as some of the many that were consumed.  Leaving Chopt, I pass a rival salad chain.  Written across its window are the words, EAT WITH PURPOSE.  The Chicago restaurant R.J. Grunts claims to have invented the salad bar—or at the very least, introduced it to America—in the early 1970s.  https://thebaffler.com/outbursts/everywhere-in-salad-chains-timms  Eat with purpose, and gusto.  Thank you, Muse reader!   

navew (plural navews)  noun  A kind of small turnip, a variety of Brassica campestris.  https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/navew   

R.J. Grunts is the original Lettuce Entertain You located in Lincoln Park just steps from the Chicago zoo.  We cater to the neurotic compensation of eating including the tastiest burgers in town and hand-spun shakes and malts.  The lifestyle of the 1970s is still exuded.  https://www.rjgruntschicago.com/   

Lincoln Park Zoo, also known as Lincoln Park Zoological Gardens, is a 35-acre (14 ha) zoo in Lincoln Park, Chicago.  The zoo was founded in 1868, making it the fourth oldest zoo in North America.  It is also one of a few free admission zoos in all of North America.  The zoo was founded in 1868, when the Lincoln Park Commissioners were given a gift of two pairs of swans by Central Park's Board of Commissioners in New York City.  See pictures of the Lincoln Park Zoo at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln_Park_Zoo   

No one has ever become poor by giving. - Anne Frank, Holocaust diarist (12 Jun 1929-1945)   

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2682  June 12, 2023 

 Proverb  success has many fathers, failure is an orphan  Many people will seek credit for success, but few will accept responsibility for failure.  https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/success_has_many_fathers,_failure_is_an_orphan   

War with the Newts by Karel Čapek, published in 1936, is a dystopian novel where huge population of newts grows and lives under the sea.  When the book opens, Captain Jan Van Toch is a sailor who does trade in the Indonesian waters and he barely makes ends meet.  One day, he hears about Devil’s Island, a place that the locals avoid because it’s populated by devils.  Van Toch goes there anyway and discovers that the so-called devils are actually salamanders.  If he trades knives with them, they can fish oysters and help him find pearls.  Van Toch likes the newts and strikes an agreement with them:  he provides knives to help them fend off their enemies, they fish oysters for his pearl business.  Van Toch goes into business with G.H. Bondy, a tradesman who accepts this weird pearls/salamander business.  Van Toch handles the newts on the field, GH Bondy manages the pearl trade back in Europe.  It’s mutually beneficial.  Progressively, the territory of the newts expands, humans discover that they can learn how to speak and how to use tools.  https://bookaroundthecorner.com/2020/12/26/war-with-the-newts-by-karel-capek-still-relevant-alas/   

Karel Čapek (1855-1938) was a critic, playwright, and novelist who wrote science fiction before it was officially a genre.  He is known for several novels and plays including, War with the Newts that was published in 1936 and the play R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots) in January 1921.  This particular play introduced the word “robot” for the first time.  An asteroid discovered by Lubos Kohoutek in 1931 was named after Čapek.  https://history-computer.com/karel-capek-complete-biography/   

Henry Rutgers was born on October 7, 1745, in New York City.  He was a Revolutionary War hero and philanthropist.  Rutgers served as a Queen’s College trustee, and his critical endowment provided much-needed financial stability for the school during a period of great uncertainty.  In 1825, Queen’s College was renamed Rutgers College in honor of its benefactor.  Rutgers passed away on February 17, 1830, at the age of 84.  Thanks to Henry Rutgers’ enduring educational legacy, we are now known as Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey.  To learn more about Henry Rutgers, read "Benevolent Patriot: Henry Rutgers, 1745–1830" by David J. Fowler, former project historian with Special Collections and University Archives at Rutgers University Libraries.  https://www.libraries.rutgers.edu/news/happy-birthday-henry-rutgers  

In the 17th century, a good spice rub was the ultimate display of wealth.  Back then, people would risk their lives for a sack of cloves.  See peacock pie recipe published in 1612 and pictures at https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2016/01/01/461504972/episode-674-we-cooked-peacock  

Still Life with Peacock Pie, 1627  See picture of a large―more than four feet across―and magnificent banquet piece by Pieter Claesz (1596/97–1660) at The National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.  A sumptuous feast is set with some of the most extravagant foods available in the Netherlands in the early 17th century.  A large peacock pie is festooned with the fowl’s own feathers and gullet—a true delicacy marking only the most special occasions—plus a pink rose placed in its beak.  Find directions and hours at https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.132271.html  Admission is always free.    

Dolly Parton has partnered with Gov. Gavin Newsom to bring her free books program to children across all 58 counties of California.  As part of the partnership June 6, 2023 Parton’s Imagination Library will provide California children younger than 5 with a free book—available in English and Spanish—every month.  Imagination Library currently serves 30 California counties.  The newly unveiled expansion is expected to serve the entire state by 2028.  ALEXANDRA DEL ROSARIO  LA Times  June 7, 2023  

1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare by James Shapiro, is the winner of the Baillie Gifford Prize’s 25th Anniversary Winner of Winners award.  The Baillie Gifford Prize rewards excellence in non-fiction writing, bringing the best in intelligent reflection on the world to new readers.  It covers all non-fiction in the areas of current affairs, history, politics, science, sport, travel, biography, autobiography and the arts.  https://www.thebailliegiffordprize.co.uk/

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2681  June 9, 2023  

A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg  

Palladian  (puh-LAY-dee-uhn)  adjective  1.  Wise or learned.  2.  Relating to wisdom, knowledge, or learning.  3.  Of or relating to the classical architectural style of Andrea Palladio.

For 1 & 2:  After Athena (also known as Pallas Athena), a goddess of wisdom in Greek mythology.  Her name has also resulted in other words such as palladium and athenaeum.  Earliest documented use:  1562.
For 3:  After Andrea Palladio (1508-1580), Venetian architect.  Earliest documented use:  1731.  

Piccadilly Circus  (pik-uh-dil-ee SUHR-kuhs)  noun:  A place that is very busy, crowded, or noisy.   

After Piccadilly Circus, a busy area in London where several roads meet.  The area has tourist attractions, entertainment, shopping, and large illuminated ads.  A circus here means a traffic roundabout, but what about Piccadilly?  It’s named after a tailor who made a fortune selling piccadill/pickadill, a lace collar popular in the 16th and 17th centuries. 

Feedback to A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg  
From:  Sam Long  Subject:  palladian 
Palladium is a common name for large theaters or arenas, because they are (supposed to be) devoted to art and wisdom.  The well-known movie theater and concert hall by that name in New York (opened 1927, torn down 1998) on S. 14th St in Manhattan, seated 3,400.  There is a song (“Just in Time”) in the 1950s Broadway musical Bells Are Ringing, in which the heroine, Ella, sings a little couplet referring to it:

This act could play the Palladium,
Or even the Yankee Stadium!  
Palladium Hall, a student dormitory of New York University, now occupies the site.  There is a much newer Palladium theater, an event venue, in New York City’s Times Square; it seats over 2,000, and opened under that name in 2005.  The London Palladium, a theatre in London, UK, is owned by composer Andrew Lloyd Webber. 

From:  Jan Breemer  Subject:  baloney detection  The word reminded me of the Baloney Detection Kit once described in the Scientific American Nov/Dec 2001 by Michael Shermer. 
From:  Alta Haywood  Subject:  baloney drop  Lebanon, PA, where bologna is made, has a baloney drop (video, 24 sec.) on New Year’s Eve.  I believe there’s also a pickle drop in Dillsburg.  We’ve seen a taco drop in AZ as well. 
From:  Charles O’Reilly  Subject:  Piccadilly Circus  Railroad buffs cringe at the mention of Grand Central Station.  Trains coming into New York from the north utilize Grand Central Terminal, so named because multiple lines terminate there.  No trains pass through, as they might at, say, Pennsylvania Station a little over a mile away.  But the railroad called a predecessor depot (in use for about ten years) Grand Central Station, and there has long been a post office location known as Grand Central Station, named for its proximity to the rail terminal.  Between the name of the old station and frequent media references to the post office in the era prior to the introduction of ZIP codes, the alternate name has stuck in the public consciousness.

From:  Thomas Brennan  Subject:  Piccadilly Circus  In your example of busy places, picky New Yorkers will point out that Grand Central Station is the name of the mid-town post office while Grand Central Terminal is the name of the railroad station.  This nuance was employed as a trick question by Spike Lee, a quintessential New Yorker, in Inside Man, a detective film that featured the “picky” natives of New York City.  

The original posset, which dates back to the Middle Ages and was even referenced in Shakespeare’s Macbeth, was a sweet drink akin to eggnog.  Milk or cream, sugar, and spices were spiked with booze and topped with gruel, which formed a thick layer over the drink.  Somewhere in the late 19th century, the term posset became synonymous with a syllabub, a dessert of sweet cream curdled with acid, which is what it’s thought of today.  Alexis deBoschnek  Find recipe taking ten minutes and serving four at https://www.thekitchn.com/lemon-posset-recipe-23520125    

June 6 is UN Russian Language Day, one of six such days established by UNESCO to celebrate multilingualism and cultural diversity and to promote the equal use of its working languages.  The Russian novelist and poet Alexander Pushkin, regarded as the father of modern Russian literature, was born June 6, 1799.  Wiktionary   

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2680  June 7, 2023  

A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg  

Palladian  (puh-LAY-dee-uhn)  adjective  1. Wise or learned.  2.  Relating to wisdom, knowledge, or learning.  3. Of or relating to the classical architectural style of Andrea Palladio.

For 1 & 2:  After Athena (also known as Pallas Athena), a goddess of wisdom in Greek mythology.  Her name has also resulted in other words such as palladium and athenaeum.  Earliest documented use:  1562.
For 3: After Andrea Palladio (1508-1580), Venetian architect.  Earliest documented use:  1731.  

Piccadilly Circus  (pik-uh-dil-ee SUHR-kuhs)  noun:  A place that is very busy, crowded, or noisy.  After Piccadilly Circus, a busy area in London where several roads meet.  The area has tourist attractions, entertainment, shopping, and large illuminated ads.  A circus here means a traffic roundabout, but what about Piccadilly?  It’s named after a tailor who made a fortune selling piccadill/pickadill, a lace collar popular in the 16th and 17th centuries. 

Feedback to A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg  
From:  Sam Long  Subject:  palladian 
Palladium is a common name for large theaters or arenas, because they are (supposed to be) devoted to art and wisdom.  The well-known movie theater and concert hall by that name in New York (opened 1927, torn down 1998) on S. 14th St in Manhattan, seated 3,400.  There is a song (“Just in Time”) in the 1950s Broadway musical Bells Are Ringing, in which the heroine, Ella, sings a little couplet referring to it:

This act could play the Palladium,
Or even the Yankee Stadium!  

Palladium Hall, a student dormitory of New York University, now occupies the site.  There is a much newer Palladium theater, an event venue, in New York City’s Times Square; it seats over 2,000, and opened under that name in 2005.  The London Palladium, a theatre in London, UK, is owned by composer Andrew Lloyd Webber. 

From:  Jan Breemer  Subject:  baloney detection  The word reminded me of the Baloney Detection Kit once described in the Scientific American Nov/Dec 2001 by Michael Shermer. 
From:  Alta Haywood  Subject:  baloney drop  Lebanon, PA, where bologna is made, has a baloney drop (video, 24 sec.) on New Year’s Eve.  I believe there’s also a pickle drop in Dillsburg.  We’ve seen a taco drop in AZ as well. 
From:  Charles O’Reilly  Subject:  Piccadilly Circus  Railroad buffs cringe at the mention of Grand Central Station.  Trains coming into New York from the north utilize Grand Central Terminal, so named because multiple lines terminate there. No trains pass through, as they might at, say, Pennsylvania Station a little over a mile away.  But the railroad called a predecessor depot (in use for about ten years) Grand Central Station, and there has long been a post office location known as Grand Central Station, named for its proximity to the rail terminal.  Between the name of the old station and frequent media references to the post office in the era prior to the introduction of ZIP codes, the alternate name has stuck in the public consciousness.

From:  Thomas Brennan  Subject:  Piccadilly Circus  In your example of busy places, picky New Yorkers will point out that Grand Central Station is the name of the mid-town post office while Grand Central Terminal is the name of the railroad station.  This nuance was employed as a trick question by Spike Lee, a quintessential New Yorker, in Inside Man, a detective film that featured the “picky” natives of New York City.    

The original posset, which dates back to the Middle Ages and was even referenced in Shakespeare’s Macbeth, was a sweet drink akin to eggnog.  Milk or cream, sugar, and spices were spiked with booze and topped with gruel, which formed a thick layer over the drink.  Somewhere in the late 19th century, the term posset became synonymous with a syllabub, a dessert of sweet cream curdled with acid, which is what it’s thought of today.  Alexis deBoschnek  Find recipe taking ten minutes and serving four at https://www.thekitchn.com/lemon-posset-recipe-23520125   

June 6 is UN Russian Language Day, one of six such days established by UNESCO to celebrate multilingualism and cultural diversity and to promote the equal use of its working languages.  The Russian novelist and poet Alexander Pushkin, regarded as the father of modern Russian literature, was born June 6, 1799.  Wiktionary   

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2680  June 7, 2023 

Golden age  noun  the most flourishing period in the history of a nation, literature, etc.  *  Classical Mythology  the first and best of the four ages of humankind; an era of peace and innocence that finally yielded to the silver age.  (usually initial capital letters)  *  a period in Latin literature, 70 b.c. to a.d. 14, in which Cicero, Catullus, Horace, Vergil, Ovid, and others wrote; the first phase of Classical Latin.  *  the period in life after middle age, traditionally characterized by wisdom, contentment, and useful leisure.  *  the age at which a person normally retires.  https://www.dictionary.com/browse/golden-age 

Timbuktu is landlocked in the Sahara, and poor, but it’s a power house in art, architecture, and literature.  It’s located in the heart of Mali, in West Africa, and known for its rich cultural heritage, including ancient manuscripts that hold the history of Islam in West and North Africa.  Timbuktu is Mali West Africa’s cradle of knowledge.  In the 15th century, Timbuktu was known as the “city of gold,” a name born of the fact that much of the gold produced in mines of the Mali Empire moved by camel caravan through Timbuktu and across the desert to North Africa and Europe.  Timbuktu lay across the trans-Saharan trade routes between the Taoudenni salt mines deep in the Sahara and gold mines South of the Sahara. Crafts and textile industries also flourished in the city, including dozens of skilled tailors.  Timbuktu’s winding streets became known for the mud limestone architecture and ornate wooden doorways made by Moor craftsmen centuries ago.  The streets and doorways are still there and gold remains one of Mali’s most important exports.  El Hadj Djitteye  See pictures at https://medium.com/@elhadjdjitteye/the-golden-age-of-timbuktu-b4daecce33f0

In United States history, the Gilded Age was an era extending roughly from 1877 to 1896, which was sandwiched between the Reconstruction era and the Progressive Era.  It was a time of rapid economic growth, especially in the Northern and Western United States.  As American wages grew much higher than those in Europe, especially for skilled workers, and industrialization demanded an ever-increasing unskilled labor force, the period saw an influx of millions of European immigrants.  The rapid expansion of industrialization led to real wage growth of 60% between 1860 and 1890, and spread across the ever-increasing labor force.  The average annual wage per industrial worker (including men, women, and children) rose from $380 in 1880, to $564 in 1890, a gain of 48%.  Conversely, the Gilded Age was also an era of abject poverty and inequality, as millions of immigrants—many from impoverished regions—poured into the United States, and the high concentration of wealth became more visible and contentious.  Railroads were the major growth industry, with the factory system, mining, and finance increasing in importance.  Immigration from Europe, and the Eastern United States, led to the rapid growth of the West, based on farming, ranching, and mining.  Labor unions became increasingly important in the rapidly growing industrial cities.  Two major nationwide depressions—the Panic of 1873 and the Panic of 1893—interrupted growth and caused social and political upheavals.  Some well-known painters of the Gilded Age include:  Jules Breton, Winslow Homer, Thomas Eakins, William Merritt Chase, John Singer Sargent, Mary Cassatt, James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Childe Hassam, John Henry Twachtman, and Maurice Prendergast.  The New York art world took a major turn during the Gilded Age, seeing an outgrowth of exhibitions and the establishment of major auction houses with a focus on American art.  The Gilded Age was pivotal in establishing the New York art world in the international art market.  See pictures at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilded_Age   

Alfred A. Knopf will publish Until August, the final (as far as we know) novel written by Nobel Prize–winning writer Gabriel García Márquez before his death in 2014, in 2024.  After years of rumors that there was an “an entire literary masterpiece, never seen by the public” locked away, Arc of the Covenant-style, inside the bowels of the writer’s archive at the University of Texas, it was confirmed last month by Penguin Random House that an unpublished Gabriel García Márquez novel not only exists, but will be on shelves across Latin America in 2024.  We can now add the shelves of North America (and most of the rest of the world) to that publication window, as Reagan Arthur, Knopf executive v-p and publisher, has acquired North American rights from the Carmen Balcells Literary Agency in Barcelona.  The book will be translated from the Spanish by Anne McLean and published by Knopf as part of a simultaneous global release in 2024.  Dan Sheehan  https://lithub.com/knopf-will-publish-gabriel-garcia-marquezs-final-novel/

News first week in June:  The first Pulitzer Prizes are awarded in four categories:  biography, history, editorial writing, and reporting (June 4, 1917) • 22-year-old Carson McCullers’s debut novel, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, is published (June 4, 1940) • Blessent mon cœur d’une langueur monotone—the second line of gun-toting love fiend Paul Verlaine’s 1866 poem “Chanson d’automne”—is broadcast over BBC Radio by the Allies as a coded message to the French Resistance (June 5, 1944) • The first English translation of Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables is published in New York • George Orwell’s 1984 is published (June 8, 1949) • The Philadelphia Spelling Book becomes the first book ever copyrighted in the United States (June 9, 1790) Literary Hub June 4, 2023

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2769  June 5, 2023  

Deus Ex Machina is Latin for “God from the machine,” and the device has been around since the time of Greek theater.  The ancient  playwright Euripides popularized the technique.  His tragedies placed characters in these confounding situations; they strove to resolve their conflicts only to be saved from defeat at the last moment by an early form of special effect.  This plot device has been used ever since by writers struggling to find an ending to their story.  You might have seen it in William Golding’s novel Lord of the Flies about children stranded on an island who are rescued by a naval officer who happens to be passing the island.  Charles Dickens used it in Oliver Twist, Tolkien did too in Lord of the Rings.  Even Shakespeare was known to rely on the technique from time to time.  John Larison   https://liberalarts.oregonstate.edu/wlf/what-deus-ex-machina

Deus Ex Machina pronunciation:  dey-uhs eks-mah-kuh-nuh  https://poemanalysis.com/literary-devic   

Supernumerary  adjective 

1 a: exceeding the usual, stated, or prescribed number  b: not enumerated among the regular components of a group and especially of a military organization

2: exceeding what is necessary, required, or desired

3: more numerous

Supernumerary noun  plural  supernumeraries

1: a supernumerary person or thing

2: an actor employed to play a walk-on   

Supernumerary starts off with the Latin prefix super-, "above".  You may have heard of someone being born with supernumerary teeth, supernumerary fingers, or supernumerary toes.  A supernumerary rainbow may show up as a faint line—red, green, or purple—just touching the main colored arc.  Supernumerary is also a noun:  A supernumerary is usually someone in a crowd scene onstage, otherwise known as an "extra" or a "spear-carrier".  https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/supernumerary   

On June 1, 1974 – In an informal article in a medical journal, Henry Heimlich introduced the concept of abdominal thrusts, commonly known as the Heimlich maneuver, to treat choking victims.   

Near the end of 2021, Jessica Callahan was living in Columbus, Ohio working as a social science researcher and wondering if there was a better way to support herself.  Her friends Julie Ross and Austin Carter had similar thoughts and a similar solution:  Open a bookstore.  “I think a lot of people re-evaluated what was important to them during the lockdown and we realized the place we were always happy to be at was a bookstore,” says the 30-year-old Ms. Callahan, who with Ms. Ross and Ms. Carter last year founded the Pocket Books Shop in Lancaster, Pa., close to Carter’s hometown.  The roughly 1,000-square-foot store is located on the main floor of a Queen Anne style house where Ms. Callahan and Ms. Ross live upstairs.  “We looked at our lives and thought, ‘Why not?’  Nothing else felt guaranteed anymore so why not just try to be happy," she added.  “We’re not getting rich from this, but we’re able to pay our bills and pay ourselves.”  The new direction of the Pocket Books owners helped lead to another year of growth for independent sellers, with membership in the American Booksellers Association reaching its highest levels in more than 20 years.  The ABA added 173 members in 2022, and now has 2,185 bookstore businesses and 2,599 locations.  https://www.toledoblade.com/business/retail/2023/05/27/independent-bookselling-expanded-2022-nationwide/stories/20230527005   

June 1, 2023  The Whitney Museum of American Art has agreed to sell its iconic Breuer Building on Madison Avenue to Sotheby’s, marking a tectonic change of guard in the art world.  The price wasn’t disclosed, but people familiar with the deal said it was just north of $100 million.  The news marks the end of an era and the beginning of another.  Designed by Modernist master Marcel Breuer and completed in 1966, the landmark had been the Whitney’s home until its move to the Meatpacking District in 2015.  Since then it’s been occupied by the Metropolitan Museum of Art and, currently, by the Frick Collection, which has a lease that runs until August 2024.  Katya Kazakina  https://news.artnet.com/art-world/sothebys-has-inked-a-deal-to-buy-the-whitney-museums-iconic-breuer-building-for-approximately-100-million-2313175   

Spaghetti  The noun is borrowed from Italian spaghetti, the plural of spaghetto (“dish of spaghetti; (rare) strand of spaghetti”), from spago (“cord, string, twine; thread”) + -etto (diminutive suffix).   Spago is derived from Latin spagus (“twine”), probably from Ancient Greek σφάκος (sphákos, “apple sage (Salvia pomifera)”), probably from Pre-Greek .  The verb is derived from the noun.  https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/spaghetti#English   

June 2 is Festa della Repubblica or Republic Day, Italy’s national day.   

http://librariansmuseblogspot.com  Issue 2678  June 2, 2023