Robert Stewart Whipple (1871–1953) was a businessman in the British scientific instrument trade, a collector of science books and scientific instruments, and an author on their history.  He amassed a unique collection of antique scientific instruments that he later donated to found the Whipple Museum of the History of Science in Cambridge in 1944.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Stewart_Whipple   

The Whipple Museum’s holdings are particularly strong in material dating from the 17th to the 19th centuries, especially objects produced by English instrument makers, although the collection contains objects dating from the medieval period to the present day.  Instruments of astronomy, navigation, surveying, drawing and calculating are well represented, as are sundials, mathematical instruments and early electrical apparatus.  The Museum forms part of the Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge.  The Department includes a working library with a large collection of early scientific books, some of which were given by Robert Whipple.  https://www.whipplemuseum.cam.ac.uk/about-us   

46 Books that Changed the World by April Snellings   If we’re going to name influential books, we might as well begin with the oldest dated printed tome. On May 11, 868 CE—nearly 600 years before Gutenberg ever considered printing a Bible—a man named Wang Jie commissioned the printing of The Diamond Sutra, a Mahāyāna Buddhist “wisdom” text presented as a conversation between Buddha and his disciple, Subhuti, in Chinese.  According to Susan Whitfield, then-director of the International Dunhuang Project at the British Library, “Printing was developed in China by the 8th century, and certainly by the 9th century, when this sutra was made, it was a refined art.”  The 6000-word, nearly 16.5-foot-long scroll was found in 1900 in a secret library along the Silk Road in China.  https://www.mentalfloss.com/posts/books-that-changed-the-world   

sutra (Sanskrit:  lit. 'string, thread') in Indian literary traditions refers to an aphorism or a collection of aphorisms in the form of a manual or, more broadly, a condensed manual or text.  Sutras are a genre of ancient and medieval Indian texts found in Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sutra   

A mantra (Pali:  manta) or mantram (Devanagari:  मन्त्रम्) is a sacred utterance, a numinous sound, a syllable, word or phonemes, or group of words in Sanskrit, Pali and other languages believed by practitioners to have religious, magical or spiritual powers.  Some mantras have a syntactic structure and literal meaning, while others do not.  The earliest mantras were composed in Vedic Sanskrit in India.  At its simplest, the word ॐ (Aum, Om) serves as a mantra, it is believed to be the first sound which was originated on earth.  Aum sound when produced creates a reverberation in the body which helps the body and mind to be calm.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mantra    

To some fanfare but little surprise, the last portrait ever painted by Gustav Klimt has sold for a record auction price in Europe, fetching £85.3m (with fees) at Sotheby's Modern and contemporary art evening sale in London on June 27, 2023.  Klimt's Dame mit Fächer (Lady with a Fan) (1917), executed the year before the artist's death, was the night's star lot and accounted for close to half of the Modern and contemporary evening auction's £199m total (with fees), which narrowly surpassed the upper end of its £155.5m to £197.5m pre-sale estimate (calculated without fees).  Kabir Jhala  https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2023/06/27/klimt-portrait-sothebys-most-expensive-work-auction-europe   

South Koreans became a year or two younger on June 28, 2023 as new laws that require using only the international method of counting age took effect, replacing the country's traditional method.  Under the age system most commonly used in South Koreans' everyday life, people are deemed to be a year old at birth and a year is added every Jan. 1.  The country has since the early 1960s used the international norm of calculating from zero at birth and adding a year on every birthday for medical and legal documents.  But many South Koreans continued to use the traditional method for everything else.  In December, 2022 South Korea passed laws to scrap the traditional method and fully adopt the international standard.  https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/south-koreans-become-year-or-two-younger-traditional-way-counting-age-scrapped-2023-06-28/ 

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com   Issue 2689  June 28, 2023 

To build the weekend home of their dreams on their property near Dillsboro, Ind., Jerry Kathman and Liz Grubow turned to unlikely collaborator:  a theater and opera-set designer.  The couple wanted their second home to be a dacha, in homage to Grubow’s Ukrainian and Russian roots.  They were inspired by the intricate dachas designed in Russia’s late imperial period, and more specifically, the abandoned dacha made famous in the 1965 film “Dr. Zhivago.”  They asked their friend, Cincinnati-based theater and stage designer Paul Shortt, to do the design.  It took three years to complete construction of the 4,000-square-foot, three-bedroom, four-bathroom house in 2022, at a cost of $2.9 million—with the help of architect Mark Gunther and local artisans.  “We wanted a place where we could bring 50 to 60 people to listen to music,” says Grubow, who is also chair of the board of trustees at the Cincinnati Opera.  Their primary home, an 1830s townhouse in Covington, Ky., is just across the river from Cincinnati’s downtown and is less than an hour’s drive away from the dacha in Indiana.  The Indiana property has been in their family since 1994, when Kathman paid $60,000 for 80 acres and a modest cabin, but it took more than two decades to make the final call to build.  By that time, the couple had acquired 120 more acres.  Their two children had grown up staying in the family cabin, which is now a separate, renovated guesthouse with an additional bedroom.  The modern home uses geothermal heat to create warmth under the poured-concrete flooring.  The couple also kept the interior décor modern, with a series of interior glass panels, understated furniture and dark stone.  Alina Dizik  https://www.mansionglobal.com/articles/what-is-a-dacha-doing-in-rural-indiana-66283486    

DASH stands for Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension.  The DASH diet is a healthy-eating plan designed to help prevent or treat high blood pressure, also called hypertension.  It also may help lower cholesterol linked to heart disease, called low density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol.  High blood pressure and high LDL cholesterol levels are two major risk factors for heart disease and stroke.  Foods in the DASH diet are rich in the minerals potassium, calcium and magnesium.  The DASH diet focuses on vegetables, fruits and whole grains.  It includes fat-free or low-fat dairy products, fish, poultry, beans and nuts.  The diet limits foods that are high in salt, also called sodium.  It also limits added sugar and saturated fat, such as in fatty meats and full-fat dairy products.  https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/nutrition-and-healthy-eating/in-depth/dash-diet/art-20048456#:~:text=The%20DASH%20diet%20focuses%20on,and%20full%2Dfat%20dairy%20products.   

A hex key (also, hex wrench, Allen key and Allen wrench or Inbus) is a simple driver for bolts or screws that have heads with internal hexagonal recesses (sockets).  Hex keys are formed from a single piece of hard hexagonal steel rod, having blunt ends that fit snugly into similarly-shaped screw sockets.  The rods are bent to 90º, forming two arms of unequal length resembling an "L".  The tool is usually held and twisted by its long arm, creating a relatively large torque at the tip of the short arm; it can also be held by its short arm to access screws in difficult-to-reach locations and to turn screws faster at the expense of torque.  Hex keys are designated with a socket size and are manufactured with tight tolerances.  As such, they are commonly sold in kits that include a variety of sizes.  Key length typically increases with size but not necessarily proportionally so.  Variants on this design have the short end inserted in a transverse handle, which may contain multiple keys of varying sizes that can be folded into the handle when not in use.  While often used in generic terms for "hex key", the "Allen" name is a registered trademark (circa 1910) of the Allen Manufacturing Company (now Apex Tool Group) of Hartford, Connecticut; regardless, "Allen key" and "Allen wrench" are often seen as generic trademarks.  See graphics at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hex_key    

Margery Williams was born in London on July 22, 1881, and died September 4, 1944, in New York City.   Though she published twenty-seven books, including five translations of works from French and Norwegian, and though she won the John Newbery Honor Medal for her novel Winterbound (1936) in 1937, she is primarily known today as the author of The Velveteen Rabbit.   Lisa Rowe Fraustino  https://lithub.com/more-than-a-childrens-story-the-velveteen-rabbit-at-100/   

Edvard Munch:  Trembling Earth (June 10, 2023–October 15, 2023) is the first exhibition in the United States to consider how the noted Norwegian artist Edvard Munch (1863–1944) employed nature to convey meaning in his art.  Munch is regarded primarily as a figure painter, and his most celebrated images (including The Scream) are connected to themes of love, anxiety, longing, and death.  Yet, landscape plays an essential role in a large portion of Munch’s work.  The exhibition is organized thematically to show how Munch used nature to convey human emotions and relationships, celebrate farming practice and garden cultivation, and explore the mysteries of the forest even as his Norwegian homeland faced industrialization.  Trembling Earth features over seventy-five objects, ranging from brilliantly hued landscapes and three stunning self-portraits, to an extensive selection of his innovative prints and drawings, including a lithograph of Munch's most celebrated work, The Scream.  The exhibition includes more than thirty works from the Munchmuseet’s world-renowned collection, major pieces from other museums in the USA and Europe, and nearly forty paintings and prints from private collections, many of which are rarely exhibited.  Find venues and dates at https://www.clarkart.edu/exhibition/detail/edvard-munch-trembling-earth

Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” (famously written in a single day) is published in The New Yorker (June 26, 1948) • Sylvia Beach hosts a dinner party so that F. Scott Fitzgerald can meet James Joyce (June 27, 1928) • Alice Liddell Hargreaves, the real-life inspiration for Lewis Carroll's Alice (in Wonderland), meets Peter Llewelyn Davies, the real-life inspiration for J.M. Barrie’s Peter (Pan), in a London bookshop.  (June 28, 1932) • The Globe Theater burns down during a performance of Henry VIII (June 29, 1613) • Arthur Miller's play All My Sons opens at the Coronet Theatre in New York; it will be his first Broadway success (June 29, 1947) • The first Harry Potter novel, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, is published in London (June 30, 1997) • Margaret Mitchell’s classic novel Gone with the Wind is published (June 30, 1936).  Literary Hub  June 25, 2023   

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2688  June 26, 2023 

bush league  adjective  "mean, petty, unprofessional," 1906, from baseball slang for the small-town baseball clubs below the minor league where talent was developed (by 1903), from bush (noun) in the adjectival slang sense of "rural, provincial," which originally was simple description, not a value judgment.  https://www.etymonline.com/word/bush%20league#:~:text=bush%20league%20(adj.),description%2C%20not%20a%20value%20judgment. 

A quick response (QR) code is a type of barcode that can be read easily by a digital device and which stores information as a series of pixels in a square-shaped grid.  QR codes are frequently used to track information about products in a supply chain and often used in marketing and advertising campaigns.  QR codes are considered an advancement from older, uni-dimensional barcodes, and were approved as an international standard in 2000 by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO).  Adam Hayes  https://www.investopedia.com/terms/q/quick-response-qr-code.asp  

Laurence Sterne (1713–1768) was an Anglo-Irish novelist and Anglican cleric who wrote the novels The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman and A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy, published sermons and memoirs, and indulged in local politics.  He grew up in a military family, travelling mainly in Ireland but briefly in England.  While Vicar of Sutton-on-the-Forest, Yorkshire, he married Elizabeth Lumley in 1741.  His ecclesiastical satire A Political Romance infuriated the church and was burnt.  With his new talent for writing, he published early volumes of his best-known novel, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman.  See pictures at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurence_Sterne  

The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, by Laurence Sterne   This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org.  https://www.gutenberg.org/files/39270/39270-h/39270-h.htm  

The word ‘torchio’ means press.  It is used to refer to both a pasta press and a wine press.  In the world of pasta, the torchio was first invented in 1600s.  Originally, it was a hand operated press used by both housewives and artisan pasta makers.  Eventually, a hydraulic press was invented and pasta making became industrialized.  Today pasta extrusion machines are also called ‘torchio’ in Italian.  Jacqui Debono  Link to recipes at https://www.the-pasta-project.com/torchio-pasta-maccheroni-al-torchio/  

Author John Lescroart is three-quarters Irish.  His last name is French.  It’s pronounced “less-kwah”.  John’s bestselling books are printed in 16 languages and published in more than 75 countries.  The author:  Music is a big part of my life, so much so that about five years ago I formed a record label, CrowArt Records.  The first project on CrowArt Records was a CD of original piano solos, the melodies written by me and performed by master pianist (regularly working at the Bel Air Hotel) Antonio Castillo de la Gala, entitled Date Night.  There are now several CDs available from CrowArt Records.  https://johnlescroart.com/meet-john/faq/#:~:text=It's%20pronounced%20%E2%80%9Cless%2Dkwah%E2%80%9D,was%20my%20father's%20last%20name.  

Drawings and diagrams that Leonardo da Vinci made in the 1400s and 1500s are now on display at a D.C. public library.  The free exhibit “Imagining the future - Leonardo da Vinci:  In the mind of an Italian genius” went on display at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library in downtown D.C. on June 21, 2023.  The exhibit includes 12 original drawings from da Vinci’s Codex Atlanticus collection.  This is the first time so many of these pieces have been on display in the United States, library officials said.  An exhibit called “Leonardo's Lab” is geared toward children and has hands-on activities.  The main exhibit will be on display through Aug. 20.  The children’s exhibit will show through Sept. 30.  Derrick Ward, News4 Reporter and Andrea Swalec   https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/da-vinci-drawings-on-display-at-dc-library-on-rare-us-visit/3371087/  

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2687  June 23, 2023 

April 3, 2023  Kelly Link is a writer whose work is easy to revere and difficult to explain.  She began her career by publishing stories in sci-fi and fantasy magazines in the mid-nineteen-nineties, just when the boundary between genre fiction and the literary mainstream was beginning to erode, and, in the years since, her work has served to speed that erosion along.  Thirty years into her career, she has received a formidable procession of prizes awarded to genre-fiction writers:  the Nebula Award, the Hugo Award, and the Bram Stoker Award, to name just a few.  More recently, she has begun to reap the accolades of the literary mainstream:  in 2016, her collection “Get in Trouble” was a Pulitzer Prize finalist, and in 2018 she received a MacArthur, for “pushing the boundaries of literary fiction in works that combine the surreal and fantastical with the concerns and emotional realism of contemporary life.”  Through it all, the essential qualities of her work have remained unchanged.  To those familiar with her writing, “Linkian” is as distinct an adjective as “Lynchian,” signifying a stylistic blend of ingenuousness and sophistication, bright flashes of humor alongside dark currents of unease, and a deep engagement with genre tropes that comes off as both sincere and subversive.  Kristen Roupenian  https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/04/03/white-cat-black-dog-kelly-link-book-review   

First recorded in print in 1914, blue streak probably has its origin in earlier expressions referring to a blue streak such as ‘quick as a blue streak.’  Among other speculations, it has been suggested that this expression was a version of “quick as a blue-tailed skink” which referred to a very fast moving lizard with a blue tail, which moved so fast all you saw was the blue streak of its tail.  A less fanciful explanation is that the expression refers to lighting, which sometimes appears as a blue streak in the sky.  Originally related expressions such as “like a blue streak” were used to describe anything that was very quick. https://www.idioms.online/talk-a-blue-streak/   

Simple side dishes: 

Combine can of black beans and can of corn. 

Pickle veggie or fruit in a solution of vinegar, water and sugar overnight.   

“Detritus” is borrowed directly from the Latin detritus (rubbing away).  It was originally a term in physical geography describing an action—the “wearing away or down by detrition, disintegration, decomposition,” the OED says.  Its first appearance in writing is from James Hutton’s Theory of the Earth (1795):  “Such materials as might come from the detritus of granite.”  But that usage has since become obsolete.   In the early 19th century, people began using “detritus” to mean the matter produced by the wearing away.  And by mid-century, “detritus” came to mean debris in general, or any kind of waste or disintegrated material.  https://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2012/07/detritus.html   

The Pearl Fryar Topiary Garden, in Bishopville, South Carolina, is a three-acre garden with a purpose.  Self-taught and armed with a hedge trimmer, Fryar worked for more than 20 years to create and maintain remarkable and dazzling topiaries from plants that were often salvaged from a local nursery.  Using a gas-powered hedge trimmer and salvaged plants, Pearl Fryar begins his topiary garden on 3 acres at his home.  After 12-hour shifts in his day job at a factory, this self-taught topiary artist would sometimes work through the night creating what would amount to more than 150 topiaries of extraordinary shapes and sizes.  https://www.gardenconservancy.org/preservation/pearl-fryar  Thank you, Muse reader!   

In the Northern Hemisphere, the June solstice (aka summer solstice) occurs when the Sun travels along its northernmost path in the sky.  This marks the astronomical start of summer in the northern half of the globe.  (In the Southern Hemisphere, it’s the opposite:  the June solstice marks the astronomical start of winter when the Sun is at its lowest point in the sky.)  The word “solstice” comes from the Latin solstitium—from sol (Sun) and stitium (still or stopped).  Due to Earth’s tilted axis, the Sun doesn’t rise and set at the same locations on the horizon each morning and evening; its rise and set positions move northward or southward in the sky as Earth travels around the Sun through the year.  After the solstice, the Sun appears to reverse course and head back in the opposite direction.  The motion referred to here is the apparent path of the Sun when one views its position in the sky at the same time each day, for example, at local noon.  Over the year, its path forms a sort of flattened figure eight, called an analemma.  Of course, the Sun itself is not moving (unless you consider its orbit around the Milky Way galaxy); instead, this change in position in the sky that we on Earth notice is caused by the tilt of Earth’s axis as it orbits the Sun, as well as Earth’s elliptical, rather than circular, orbit.  The June solstice occurs on Wednesday, June 21, 2023, at 10:58 A.M. EDT.  Catherine Boeckmann   https://www.almanac.com/content/first-day-summer-summer-solstice

Word of the day for June 21, 2023

Mummerset noun (humorous)  An imaginary rural county in the West Country of England.  (often theater) An invented English language dialect used by actors that mimics a stereotypical West Country rural accent.  The Glastonbury Festival, a festival of contemporary performing arts including cabaret, circus, comedy, dance, music, and theatre, begins in Pilton in Somerset, England.  June 21, 2023.  Wiktionary    

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2686  June 21, 2023 

The Great Black Swamp (also known simply as the Black Swamp) was a glacially fed wetland in northwest Ohio, sections of lower Michigan, and extreme northeast Indiana, that existed from the end of the Wisconsin glaciation until the late 19th century.  The area was about 25 miles (40 km) wide (north to south) and 100 miles (160 km) long, covering an estimated 1,500 square miles (4,000 km).  Gradually drained and settled in the second half of the 19th century, it is now highly productive farmland.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Black_Swamp   

The pica is a typographic unit of measure corresponding to approximately ¹⁄₆ of an inch, or from ¹⁄₆₈ to ¹⁄₇₃ of a foot.  One pica is further divided into 12 points.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pica_(typography)  Pica is also an eating disorder in which a person eats things not usually considered food.    

The Crooked Forest is a grove of oddly-shaped pine trees located in the village of Nowe Czarnowo near the town of Gryfino, West Pomerania, in north-western Poland.  It is a protected natural monument of Poland.  This grove of 400 pines was planted around 1930.  Each pine tree bends sharply to the north, just above ground level, then curves back upright after a sideways excursion of one to three meters (3–9 feet).  The curved pines are enclosed by a surrounding forest of straight pine trees.  It is generally believed that some form of human tool or technique was used to make the trees grow or bend this way, but the method has never been determined, and remains a mystery to this day.  See graphics at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crooked_Forest   

The term “Drum Horse” has been traditionally used in Britain to refer to heavy riding horses that are members of the Band of Life Guards regiment of the Household Cavalry, carrying large kettle drums and a fully equipped drummer through a large crowd during certain processions, exhibitions, or ceremonies of state.  The type of horses favored for this job has changed over the years, although the basic criteria of large size, strength, and even disposition remain same.  In the US, Drum horses as a breed are now redefined for use in driving and riding disciplines.  These are elegant horses combining the height and size of the Clydesdale and Shire with the color of the Gypsy Vanner.  See many pictures at https://www.horsebreedspictures.com/drum-horse.asp    

The Gypsy Vanner Horse is a beautiful breed envisioned by the Gypsies of Great Britain.  This horse was selectively bred for over half a century from a vision to create the perfect horse to pull the Gypsy caravan.  In 1996 the first Gypsy Vanner Horses came to North America and the Gypsy Vanner Horse Society was established as a registry for the breed.  At that time the breed did not have a name, and the name Gypsy Vanner Horse was chosen, because the breed was a Gypsy’s “vanner horse”, bred to pull the colorful caraVAN.  https://vanners.org/the-breed/ 

A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg

infodemic  (in-fuh/foh-DEM-ik) noun  A glut of mostly unreliable, rapidly spreading information relating to an event, crisis, disease, etc.  A blend of information + epidemic, coined by the author and columnist David J. Rothkopf in a Washington Post column about the SARS epidemic.  Earliest documented use:  2003.   

interrobang or interabang  (in-TER-uh-bang)  noun  A punctuation mark (‽) formed by a question mark (?) superimposed on an exclamation point (!).  Coined in the TYPEtalks Magazine in which the editor Martin K. Speckter (1915-1988), an advertising executive, selected the word interrobang from the suggestions sent by the readers.  From interrogation point (question mark) + bang (slang for exclamation point).  Earliest documented use:  1962. 

hibernal  (hy-BUHR-nuhl)  adjective  Of or relating to winter.  From Latin hibernus (wintry), from Latin hiems (winter).  Ultimately from the Indo-European root ghei- (winter), which is the ancestor of words such as hibernate, hibernaculum, hiemal, chimera, and the Himalayas, from Sanskrit him (snow) + alaya (abode).  Earliest documented use:  before 1626.   

The second head of chambers in the Rumpole stories was Samuel Ballard, known less than affectionally to Rumpole as “Soapy Sam” and/or “Bollard”.  Thank you, Muse reader!   

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2685  June 19, 2023 

A cobot, or collaborative robot, is a robot intended for direct human-robot interaction within a shared space, or where humans and robots are in close proximity.  Cobot applications contrast with traditional industrial robot applications in which robots are isolated from human contact.  Cobot safety may rely on lightweight construction materials, rounded edges, and inherent limitation of speed and force, or on sensors and software that ensure safe behavior. The International Federation of Robotics (IFR), a global industry association of robot manufacturers and national robot associations, recognizes two main groups of robots:  industrial robots used in automation in an industrial environment and service robots for domestic and professional use.  Service robots could be considered to be cobots as they are intended to work alongside humans.  Industrial robots have traditionally worked separately from humans behind fences or other protective barriers, but cobots remove that separation.  Cobots can have many uses, from information robots in public spaces (an example of service robots), logistics robots that transport materials within a building, to industrial robots that help automate unergonomic tasks such as helping people moving heavy parts, or machine feeding or assembly operations.  Cobots were invented in 1996 by J. Edward Colgate and Michael Peshkin, professors at Northwestern University. Their United States patent entitled, "Cobots" describes "an apparatus and method for direct physical interaction between a person and a general purpose manipulator controlled by a computer."  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobot#:~:text=A%20cobot%2C%20or%20collaborative%20robot,are%20isolated%20from%20human%20contact.   

In linguistics, the rebus principle is the use of existing symbols, such as pictograms, purely for their sounds regardless of their meaning, to represent new words.  Many ancient writing systems used what we now term 'the rebus principle' to represent abstract words, which otherwise would be hard to represent with pictograms.  An example that illustrates the Rebus principle is the representation of the sentence "I can see you" by using the pictographs of "eye—can—sea—ewe".  Some linguists believe that the Chinese developed their writing system according to the rebus principle, and Egyptian hieroglyphs sometimes used a similar system.  See graphics at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebus#:~:text=An%20example%20that%20illustrates%20the,sometimes%20used%20a%20similar%20system.   See also https://www.etymonline.com/word/rebus  Thank you, Muse reader!   

Gelett Burgess was a Bay Area humorist and writer of nonsense verse, famous-ish for his 1895 poem “Purple Cow,” which he published in his own magazine The Lark and which goes like this:   

I never saw a Purple Cow,
I never hope to see one;
But I can tell you, anyhow,
I’d rather see than be one.   

Fitting, perhaps, that it was this mind that invented the term “blurb”—in 1907 on a mock cover of his own book, Are You a Bromide?, which he presented at a dinner given by the American Booksellers’ Association on May 15, 1907.  Publisher’s blurbs, of course, had existed before then, but it was Burgess who put a name to them:  the name of Miss Belinda Blurb (whose image Burgess reportedly “lifted from a dental advertisement”).  Literary Hub  May 15, 2023  See also https://datebook.sfchronicle.com/books/a-history-of-the-blurb-every-authors-best-friend   

Blurb Your Enthusiasm, Louise Willder’s homage to the persuasive end of publishing, is studded with jewels– sales pitches raised to artistry.  Or to hilarity, as with the blurb for a campy German novel about Hitler’s return from the dead: ‘HE’S BACK.  AND HE’S FÜHRIOUS.’  A ‘tell-all’ of shameless promotion, this book examines all the paraphernalia designed to hook a reader:  title, subtitle, first sentence, jacket art, review quotes, flattering remarks from other authors, and so on.  But the star here is the in-house précis and plug known as the publisher’s blurb, usually found on the back cover or a jacket flap.  After twenty-five years in publishing, Willder figures she’s written more than five thousand.  (In the United States, a ‘blurb’ is a prepublication endorsement by a fellow author, otherwise known as a ‘puff’.)  https://literaryreview.co.uk/blowing-their-cover   

Samuel Wilberforce (1805–1873) was an English bishop in the Church of England, and the third son of William Wilberforce.  Known as "Soapy Sam", Wilberforce was one of the greatest public speakers of his day.  He is now best remembered for his opposition to Charles Darwin's theory of evolution at a debate in 1860.  Wilberforce appears, caricatured, in Anthony Trollope's novel The Warden (1855), where he is portrayed as the third child of the Archdeacon, Dr Grantly, who is named Samuel and nicknamed Soapy, and is engaging and ingratiating but not to be trusted.   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Wilberforce 

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2684  June 16, 2023 

A sock puppet is defined as a person whose actions are controlled by another.  It is a reference to the manipulation of a simple hand puppet made from a sock, and is often used to refer to alternative online identities or user accounts used for purposes of deception.  Online, it came to be used to refer to a false identity assumed by a member of an internet community who spoke to, or about, themselves while pretending to be another person.  The use of the term has expanded to now include other misleading uses of online identities, such as those created to praise, defend, or support a person or organization, to manipulate public opinion, or to circumvent restrictions, such as viewing a social media account that they are blocked from, suspension, or an outright ban from a website.  A significant difference between a pseudonym and a sock puppet is that the latter poses as a third party independent of the main account operator.  Sock puppets are unwelcome in many online communities and forums.  The practice of writing pseudonymous self-reviews began before the Internet.  Writers Walt Whitman and Anthony Burgess wrote pseudonymous reviews of their own books, as did Benjamin Franklin.  The Oxford English Dictionary defines the term without reference to the internet, as "a person whose actions are controlled by another; a minion" with a 2000 citation from U.S. News & World Report.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sock_puppet_account    

Believed to be pregnant with twins at the age of forty-five, Jane Todd Crawford is famous as the first woman to survive surgery to remove an ovarian cyst.  Crawford and her local doctors discovered something was amiss as her purported due date came and went without any sign of birth.  Dr. Ephraim McDowell  diagnosed Crawford with an ovarian tumor, a virtual death sentence in the early 19th century. He warned her that no similar tumor had ever been successfully removed and any attempt to do so would likely result in her death.  Yet, Crawford elected to risk the procedure rather than suffer a painful and lingering death from the tumor. McDowell would only perform the operation at his office in Danville.  Crawford rode the 60 miles from her Green County home to Danville and arrived on Christmas Day 1809.  Operating without anesthesia (not yet in use), McDowell worked for nearly half an hour to remove the growth, while Crawford reportedly sang hymns.  The surgery resulted in a 22.5 pound cyst being removed from Crawford.  She remained with McDowell for almost a month while recuperating and was able to ride home in January 1810.  She and her family soon moved from the state and they ultimately settled in Indiana, where Crawford is buried.  She lived another 32 years after the procedure and the successful surgery paved the way for future advances.  While McDowell is well-known as the “father of abdominal surgery,” Crawford’s role as its “mother” can be overshadowed.  Yet the courage to ride 60 miles across the Kentucky frontier to undergo an untried procedure, with your life as the stakes for the gamble, deserves its own commemoration.  Andrew Patrick  https://explorekyhistory.ky.gov/items/show/807   See also https://www.findagrave.com/cemetery/85548/johnson-cemetery#view-photo=151976067  Thank you, Muse reader! 

On June 14, 1777, the Continental Congress approved the design of a national flag.  Since 1916, when President Woodrow Wilson issued a presidential proclamation establishing a national Flag Day on June 14, Americans have commemorated the adoption of the Stars and Stripes in many ways–displaying the flag in the front of their homes, parades, and other patriotic observances. P rior to 1916, many localities and a few states had been celebrating the day for years.  Congressional legislation designating that date as the national Flag Day was signed into law by President Harry Truman in 1949; the legislation also called upon the president to issue a flag day proclamation every year.  According to legend, in 1776, George Washington commissioned Philadelphia seamstress Betsy Ross to create a flag for the new nation.  Scholars, however, credit the flag’s design to Francis Hopkinson, who also designed the Great Seal and first coin of the United States.  Even so, Ross most likely met Washington and certainly sewed early American flags in her family’s Philadelphia upholstery shop.  To date, there have been twenty-seven official versions of the flag, but the arrangement of the stars varied according to the flag-makers’ preferences until 1912 when President Taft standardized the then-new flag’s forty-eight stars into six rows of eight.  The forty-nine-star flag (1959-60), as well as the fifty-star flag, also have standardized star patterns.  The current version of the flag dates to July 4, 1960, after Hawaii became the fiftieth state on August 21, 1959.  https://www.loc.gov/item/today-in-history/june-14/   

50 U.S. state flags, plus the District of Columbia  Olivia Munson  https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2023/03/18/complete-us-state-flags-list/11025139002/   

List of national flags by design  Nepal has the only national flag that is not rectangular, being made with 5 sides.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_national_flags_by_design   

June 13, 2023  Literary Concertos:  A Reading List of Novels Inspired by Other Art Forms  Julia Fine Recommends Alexander Chee, Sara Sligar, Kazuo Ishiguro, and More  https://lithub.com/literary-concertos-a-reading-list-of-novels-inspired-by-other-art-forms/   

Cormac McCarthy, one of the great novelists of American literature, died June 13, 2023 at his home in Santa Fe, N.M.  He was 89.  McCarthy won the Pulitzer Prize in 2007 for his stunning, post-apocalyptic, father-son love story called The Road.  He wrote most compellingly about men, often young men, with prose both stark and lyrical.  There was a strong Southwestern sensibility to his work.  "McCarthy was, if not our greatest novelist, certainly our greatest stylist," says J.T. Barbarese, a professor of English and writing at Rutgers University.  "The obsession not only with the origins of evil, but also history.  And those two themes intersect again and again and again in McCarthy's writing."  Wade Goodwyn  https://www.npr.org/2023/06/13/598425063/cormac-mccarthy-dies-obituary    

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com   Issue 2683  June 14, 2023