Shaker cooks considered lemons an important part of a healthy diet, even though they were expensive and elusive.  This Shaker Lemon and Sage Pie speaks to the pure flavor of lemon and making use of every bit of the fruit.  Find recipe for one 9-inch double crust pie at https://www.splendidtable.org/recipes/shaker-lemon-and-sage-pie

What’s the difference between magnanimity and generosity?  There is overlap in meaning but magnanimity tends to include a liberality of spirit and outlook--going, in a concessionary manner, far beyond what is required by law, custom or morals, whereas generosity seems to concern giving more/openly.  https://forum.wordreference.com/threads/magnanimity-generosity.2722667/

Panzanella with Hearty Greens, Honey-Roasted Squash, and Pear is from Chicago chef Paul Kahan’s book, Cooking for Good Times .  Paul reinvigorates bread salads for us when he reminds us that they are not just for the summer months with ripe tomatoes.  Instead, the concept works year-round.  In this recipe he combines good-quality stale bread with roasted butternut squash, sliced pear, wintry sturdy greens, Parmigiano cheese, and dresses it all with apple cider vinaigrette.  6 servings  https://www.splendidtable.org/recipes/panzanella-with-hearty-greens-honey-roasted-squash-and-pear

Since 1959, land surveyors and other geospatial professionals have had two standards to measure the length of a foot—the U.S. survey foot and the international foot.  Both have been supported by NOAA’s National Geodetic Survey and the National Institute of Standards and Technology.  And they’re not exactly equal.  The difference between the two measurements is very small and barely noticeable in everyday use and is a function of their relationship to the standard meter.  A U.S. survey foot is expressed as a fraction—1200/3937 meters—while an international foot is expressed as a decimal, exactly 0.3048 meters.  That’s a difference of only one one-hundredth of a foot per mile.  But when you begin to measure or use coordinates that span hundreds or thousands of miles, that minor difference can reach a few to several feet.  In such cases, accidentally confusing the two types of feet can severely impact the precise coordinates and measurements used in engineering, surveying, mapping, agriculture, and other industries that depend on accurate positions.  That’s why NIST and NOAA are retiring the U.S. survey foot, and standardizing on the international foot.  And the modernization of the National Spatial Reference System, a precise coordinate system that defines latitude, longitude, height, scale, gravity, shoreline, and orientation throughout the U.S. in 2022, is the perfect time to move the U.S. toward a single, uniform definition of the foot.  https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/geodesy/international-foot.html

skinflint  noun  "miser, one who makes use of contemptible economy to keep money," 1700, slang; literally "kind of person who would skin a flint to save or gain something," from skin (v.) + flint.  Flay-flint in same sense is from 1670s.  Among the 18c. slang terms for a miserly person was nipcheese (1785, originally "a ship's purser").  https://www.etymonline.com/word/skinflint

FLINT AS EPONYM  All Gummed Up is a 1947 film directed by Jules White and starring American slapstick comedy team The Three Stooges (Moe Howard, Larry Fine and Shemp Howard).  It is the 103rd short film released by Columbia Pictures in starring the comedians, who released 190 short films for the studio between 1934 and 1959.  The Stooges operate a local drugstore whose landlord, the cantankerous Amos Flint (Emil Sitka), informs them their lease is about to expire.  All Gummed Up was filmed from April 23–24, 1947.  All Gummed Up was remade in 1953 as Bubble Trouble, using ample recycled footage from the original.  Ironically, the remake is considered to have a better story flow than the original.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Gummed_Up

Eponym is a name/ noun formed after a person.  For instance, the Elizabethan age pertains to Queen Elizabeth I of England. Elizabethan is an eponym.  The earliest recorded eponym dates back to the second millennium B.C, when the Assyrians named each year after a royal official appointed that year.  Similarly, fifth-century Athens is known as The Age of Pericles, named after its most famous statesman.  Numerous verbs have also been derived from historical figures with their names linked with their ideas/innovations.  The words boycott, chauvinist, quisling, and sandwich originate from personal names (Charles Boycott, Nicholas Chauvin, Major Vidkun Quisling and John Montagu, fourth Earl of Sandwich).  Roopa Banerjee  https://www.educationworld.in/in-the-name-of-eponyms/

Elsie Quarterman (1910-2014) was the first woman to serve as an academic department chair at Vanderbilt University.  She is best known for her work on the ecology of Tennessee cedar glades, a habitat that occurs when limestone bedrock is at or near the ground’s surface.  These areas feature very shallow soil or exposed bedrock, rendering trees unable to grow.  The “cedar” in the name comes from the abundance of eastern red cedar that grows on the margins of the glades or in cracks in the bedrock where roots gain a foothold.  Quarterman is credited with rediscovering in 1969 the native Tennessee coneflower, Echinacea tennesseensis, a plant only found in Middle Tennessee cedar glades and thought to be extinct.  It became the first plant endemic to Tennessee to be protected by the Endangered Species Act, and thanks to her efforts to establish more populations within the cedar glades, was removed from the endangered species list in August 2011.  Today, Echinacea tennesseensis can be found in Tennessee’s Davidson, Wilson and Rutherford counties.  In 1998, the 185-acre forest near LaVergne, Tennessee, where Quarterman conducted much of her research was named the Elsie Quarterman Cedar Glade State Natural Area in her honor.  Kara Furlong 

https://news.vanderbilt.edu/2014/06/12/elsie-quarterman/

The words don and doff date from the 14th century, and are examples of contractions of words/phrases becoming recognised words in their own right.  Don is short for do (put) on, while doff is short for do (take) off.  Both words were commonly used for a couple of hundred years to describe putting on or taking off any item of clothing or attire (not just hats).  For example people spoke about donning and doffing coats, capes, gloves, etc.  After going out of fashion in the 16th century, they came back into popular use in the 17th century as a result of Walter Scott using them in his novels.  https://www.quora.com/What-is-meant-by-don-and-doff-How-did-these-terms-originate

The Faurschou Foundation (148 Green St. in Brooklyn) hosts its opening exhibition, “The Red Bean Grows in the South.”  Read the NY Times’s take on the new gallery for more information.  The show runs December 15, 2019–April 11, 2020, and is free and open to the public.  The Faurschou Foundation was started in 2011 by Jens Faurschou, “a Danish collector, art advisor, and philanthropist,” with locations in Copenhagen, Venice, and Beijing.  See pictures at https://greenpointers.com/2019/12/13/faurschou-foundation-opens-with-the-red-bean-grows-in-the-south-exhibition-sunday-12-15/

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2198  December 18, 2019 

“William” is the nickname of a faience hippopotamus statuette from the Middle Kingdom of Egypt, now in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, where it serves as an informal mascot of the museum.  Found in a shaft associated with the Upper Egyptian tomb chapel of "The Steward, Senbi", in what is now Meir, William dates from c. 1961 BC–c. 1878 BC during the reigns of Senusret I and Senusret II.  This small figurine in Egyptian faience, a clay-less material, has become popular not only for his endearing appearance but also because his defining characteristics illustrate many of the most salient facets of craft production in ancient Egypt during this time.

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

A desire path (often referred to as desire line in transportation planning, and also known as a game trail, social trail, herd path, cow path, elephant path, goat track, pig trail, use trail or bootleg trail) is a path created as a consequence of erosion caused by human or animal foot-fall traffic.  The path usually represents the shortest or most easily navigated route between an origin and destination.  Width and erosion severity can be indicators of how much traffic a path receives.  Desire paths emerge as shortcuts where constructed ways take a circuitous route, have gaps, or are non-existent.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desire_path  Thank you, Muse reader! 

People have lived on Malta for thousands of years, as evidenced by large stone temples and carved stone reliefs with intricate designs.  Around the 8^th century BC, the Phoenicians settled on the island and brought advances such as metallurgy and writing.  The Phoenicians established their main city of Maleth on a large plateau in the middle of the island.  They considered the location a place of refuge since it was naturally defensible.  In fact, the ancient name for the island is derived from Phoenician Melita, which means, “refuge.”  By about the 6^th century BC, Malta had come under the control of the Phoenicians from Carthage.  However, due to the spread of Hellenism around the Mediterranean and Malta’s proximity to the Aegean region, Greek influence was found alongside Phoenician.  Then, in 218 BC, during the Second Punic War, Malta surrendered to the Romans and Malta became part of the Roman province of Sicily.  During the Roman period, the name of this main city in the center of the island was Latinized to Melite, and it was considered the capital of the Maltese Islands.  Today, the two towns of Mdina and Rabat cover the ancient city.  Mdina is considered one of the best-preserved examples of a walled medieval city in all of Europe.  Randall Niles  https://drivethruhistoryadventures.com/melita-the-place-of-refuge/  See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melita

From Elizabeth Karmel:  I bought a whole acorn squash and placed it in the oven without any prep, other than heating the oven to 400 degrees.  I didn’t wash or cut it—just removed the paper sticker from the outside and placed it on the middle rack of the oven.  I put foil under the squash to catch any drippings.  And then I walked away for a little more than an hour.  When I opened the oven door and checked on the squash, it was still intact but no longer hard.  When I pressed on the outside shell, it felt softer, like an almost ripe pear.  I turned off the heat and closed the oven door.  I let the squash cool in the residual heat of the oven for another hour, but generally, 20 minutes works just as well.  Depending on the size of your squash, you may need to cook it more or less, but it is almost impossible to overcook.  If a paring knife can be inserted easily into the center of the squash, it is done.  I carefully removed the squash to a cutting board.  With a long serrated (bread) knife, I sliced the squash through the middle with ease.  The truth is that I could have used almost any knife because it was cooked through and the skin was no longer tough.  I scooped out the seeds with a spoon and discarded them.  Then I scooped the silky, steaming squash into a bowl.  I added a bit of salt and dried sage and a healthy knob of butter, and mashed it with a fork.  It was one of the best “mashed anythings” I had ever eaten! 

https://www.salemnews.com/news/lifestyles/how-to-tame-that-intimidating-winter-squash/article_47990a4a-c5db-5226-8743-dae8ce6db740.html

Skoolies or Schoolies  School buses that have been converted into mobile living spaces.  Skoolies are a natural extension of the tiny house craze.  Buses are not only easier and safer to drive than an RV, they provide a jump-start on the conversion process with frame, roof, and floor already in place.  May also refer to people who live in them.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_recreational_vehicles  Thank you, Muse reader! 

The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens announced on December 12, 2019 that it is establishing the Shapiro Center for American History and Culture at The Huntington, thanks to a generous gift from L. Dennis and Susan R. Shapiro.  Along with financial support, the Shapiros are donating their collection of some 340 rare items focused primarily on American presidential administrations from the 18th to the early 20th centuries.  The gift includes an endowment for innovative programming and the long-term care and growth of The Huntington's early-American collections of rare books and manuscripts.  The Shapiro Collection is particularly rich in correspondence by John Adams and his son John Quincy Adams, including dozens of Adams-related documents and letters penned by the second and sixth presidents, father and son.  Importantly, the gift will fund a biennial book prize, the first to be offered by The Huntington, for a first scholarly monograph in American history and culture.  The Shapiro Prize will focus on books that make exceptional use of primary source materials, especially documentary collections.  The inaugural prize, which will carry with it a $10,000 cash award, is targeted for 2021.  The Huntington is located at 1151 Oxford Road, San Marino, CA, 12 miles from downtown Los Angeles.  It is open to the public Wednesday through Monday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.  Closed Tuesdays. Information:  626-405-2100 or huntington.org.  https://www.huntington.org/news/huntington-receives-endowment-gift-shapiro-center

SuperReal is a destination immersive multimedia art experiment that adds a layer of reality to the real world.  Using cutting-edge visual effects and pixel-precise projection mapping technology, SuperReal sends visitors on an immersive journey through large-scale, 360-degree multidimensional realms that blur the boundaries between real and virtual.  Approximately 45 minutes  customerservice@superrealnyc.com  347-835-2489  Find prices at https://www.superrealnyc.com/#superreal   SuperReal is located at 25 Broadway in Manhattan.  See also https://www.timeout.com/new-york-kids/things-to-do/superreal  Thank you, Muse reader!

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY  Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. - Philip K. Dick, science fiction writer (16 Dec 1928-1982)

On December 16, 1901, English writer Beatrix Potter privately published 250 copies of The Tale of Peter Rabbit  after several publishers' rejections. 

          

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2197  December 16, 2019 

The Panama Hotel opened in August of 1910, a five-story brick building of single-occupancy rooms for laborers built at 605 South Main Street in Seattle’s International District, which was then known as the city’s nihonmachi—Japan Town (literally translated to “Japanese street”).  Designed by Seattle’s first architect of Japanese ancestry, Sabro Ozasa, with the intention of housing Japanese laborers who lived and worked in the area, its ground-level businesses included a laundry, a tailor, a dentist, a bookstore, a billiards room, and a sushi restaurant.  It also catered to fisherman en route or returning from Alaska.  Ozasa was a graduate of the University of Washington and built several other commercial buildings in the neighborhood, such as the local branch of the now-defunct Yokohama Specie Bank, which was demolished to make way for Hing Hay Park in 1975.  The Panama Hotel also provided a full-service traditional Japanese-style sento or public bathhouse, which is still intact in the building’s basement to this day—and is the only surviving such bathhouse in the United States.  Because most homes didn’t have private bathing facilities, the Hashidate-Yu, as this sento was named, provided an important resource for families in the area, with a separate bath for men and another for women and children.  It also served as a place for social gatherings—a kind of community center.  The sento is unusually well preserved today, to a high degree of integrity.  Takashi Hori was the owner of the Panama Hotel in 1942, when, just months after Pearl Harbor was bombed, some 120,000 of the West Coast’s Japanese and Japanese-American residents were given weeks or sometimes days to pack before they were sent to internment camps, per President Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066.  Limits were severe on what they were allowed to take with them.  As Seattle’s Nikkei—immigrants from Japan and their descendants—were forced to leave their entire lives behind, many approached Hori and asked if they could keep their important possessions in the basement of his hotel, and he agreed.  Soon, the space was filled with these people’s steamer trunks.  Hori himself was incarcerated later the same year at the Minidoka Relocation Center in Idaho until the war ended in 1945, when he returned to Seattle to continue operating his hotel—with more than 50 trunks still stored in the basement.  (An acquaintance of Hori’s had kept an eye on the property in his absence.)  Some Nikkei came back for their belongings.  Others never did.  Hori made several attempts to try to locate their owners, to varying degrees of success.  The building was designated a National Historic Landmark in 2006 and declared a National Treasure by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, a distinction that only 60 sites in the United States can boast.  Read more and see pictures at https://seattle.curbed.com/2018/4/30/17303288/panama-hotel-seattle-history-preservation  See also 5 facts about Seattle's Panama Hotel by Michelle Li at https://www.king5.com/article/news/local/5-facts-about-seattles-panama-hotel/281-be201af5-a0d2-42e5-952d-b965ae524f32

Term used in art conservation:  Inherent vice, also known as inherent fault, is the tendency in an object or material to deteriorate or self-destruct because of its intrinsic "internal characteristics," including weak construction, "poor quality or unstable materials," and "incompatibility of different materials" within an object.  This weakness or defect may lead to natural deterioration or make an object more susceptible to external agents of deterioration.  A material may naturally break down chemically over time, organic materials may be susceptible to pests and mold, and different materials within an object may have "dissimilar rates of expansion and contraction" that can lead to damage.  https://www.conservation-wiki.com/wiki/Inherent_vice  Thank you, Muse reader!

Egg-and-dart is a repetitive design that today is most often found on molding (e.g., crown molding) or trim.  The pattern is characterized by a repetition of oval shapes, like an egg split lengthwise, with various non-curved patterns, like "darts," repeated between the egg pattern.  In three-dimensional sculpting of wood or stone, the pattern is in bas-relief, but the pattern can also be found in two-dimensional painting and stencil.  The curved and non-curved pattern has been pleasing to the eye for centuries.  It is often found in ancient Greek and Roman architecture and, so, is considered a Classical design element.  Other Names for Egg and Dart (with and without hyphens):  egg and anchor, egg and arrow, egg and tongue, and echinus.  Jackie Craven  https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-egg-and-dart-design-177272

Timothy Irving Frederick Findley was born in Toronto, Ontario, on October 30, 1930.  Findley’s health was poor throughout his childhood; his attendance and interest in school was erratic, and he did not finish grade ten.  He subsequently studied dance and then turned to acting.  He joined the original acting ensemble of the Stratford Festival in 1953, where he met and worked alongside Alec Guinness.  He accepted Guinness’s offer to sponsor his attendance at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London.  In London he befriended Ruth Gordon and playwright Thornton Wilder while acting in Wilder’s The Matchmaker in 1954.  He published his first short story, "About Effie," in The Tamarack Review in 1956 (reprinted in Dinner Along the Amazon [1984]), and began to consider a career in writing under the encouragement of his friends Gordon and Wilder.  Through 1956 he toured North America and Europe in minor acting roles, and after living in Los Angeles, California, in 1957, he returned to Canada in 1958.  He wrote for the CBC television adaptation of Mazo de la Roche’s The Whiteoaks of Jalna (1971-72) and for Pierre Berton’s The National Dream (1974), the latter for which he won a 1975 ACTRA award for scriptwriting with his partner William Whitehead.  In 1974 he became the first playwright in residence at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa.  His first two novels—The Last of the Crazy People (1967) and The Butterfly Plague (1969)—were published outside of Canada; his third novel, The Wars (1977), won the 1977 Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction.  He published eight more novels, three short-story collections, and two memoirs (not including the posthumous Journeyman [2003]), in addition to numerous pieces in periodicals.  Findley was active in the Canadian writing community—he helped found the Writers' Union of Canada in 1973 and served as its chair from 1977 to 1978.  He was president of the English-Canadian chapter of P.E.N. International (1986-87), and in 2002 the Writer’s Trust of Canada named an award after him (for male fiction writers in mid-career).  He died in Provence on June 20, 2002.  In addition to the ACTRA for The National Dream and Governor General’s Award for The Wars, Findley won the 1985 CAA Award for Fiction for Not Wanted on the Voyage (1984), Ontario’s 1988 Trillium Book Award for Stones (1988), the Mystery Writers of America’s 1989 Edgar award for best paperback original for The Telling of Lies (1986), the 1991 CAA Award for Non-fiction for Inside Memory (1990), the 1994 CAA Award for Drama and 1996 Floyd S. Chalmers Award for The Stillborn Lover (1993), and the 2000 Governor General’s Award for Drama for Elizabeth Rex (2000).  He was a member of the Order of Ontario (1991), an officer of the Order of Canada (1986) and a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (France, 1996).  His name was added to Canada’s Walk of Fame in 2002.  Findley is considered a postmodern writer, because his work tampers with traditionally conceived notions of history and genre.  http://canadian-writers.athabascau.ca/english/writers/tfindley/tfindley.php

Ten lovely Scottish locations that inspired the settings of well-known novels  https://www.scotsman.com/news/people/10-stunning-scottish-literary-locations-from-famous-novels-1-5046201?page=2

Illusion is used as a noun which means an instance of a wrong or misinterpreted perception of a sensory experience.  The word delusion is used as a noun which means an idiosyncratic belief or impression maintained despite being contradicted by reality or rational argument, typically as a symptom of mental disorder.  https://www.grammar.com/illusion_vs._delusion

31 literary icons of Greenwich Village posted by Andrew Berman  2019 marks the 50th anniversary of the designation of the Greenwich Village Historic District.  One of Manhattan’s oldest and largest landmark districts, it’s a treasure trove of history, culture, and architecture.  A few literary lions mentioned are:  James Baldwin, Margaret Wise Brown, William S. Burroughs, Willa Cather, Robert Frost, Khalil Gibran, Edgar Allan Poe and Maurice Sendak.  See pictures and link to:  17 legendary musicians who called Greenwich Village home, 11 landmarks of immigration in Greenwich Village, and 13 places in Greenwich Village where the course of history was changed at

https://www.6sqft.com/31-literary-icons-of-greenwich-village/

December 11, 2019   Portrait of a Lady by Viennese artist Gustav Klimt was stolen on 22 February 1997 from the Ricci-Oddi modern art gallery in Piacenza, northern Italy.  There seemed little prospect of the masterpiece, valued at €60m (£50m; $66m), ever being found.  That was until a worker clearing ivy from the wall of the gallery where it was stolen stumbled on a metal panel.  Behind it lay a recess, within which was a black bag containing what appeared to be the missing painting.  Checks are still being carried out on the recovered work, which has been handed to police.  But gallery director Massimo Ferrari is confident the original has been found, because it has the same stamps and sealing wax on the back of the painting.  What was extraordinary about Portrait of a Lady was that, 10 months before it was stolen, art student Claudia Maga spotted that it had been painted over another Klimt painting, Portrait of a Young Lady, which had not been seen since 1912.  She managed to prove her theory by persuading the Piacenza gallery's former director to have it X-rayed.  The original painting was of a young girl from Vienna who had died. Klimt had painted over the portrait when the girl died suddenly, to forget the pain of her death.  See pictures at https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-50743143

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY The walls of books around me, dense with the past, formed a kind of insulation against the present world and its disasters. - Ross Macdonald, novelist (13 Dec 1915-1983)

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2196  December 13, 2019  

The Duns Scotus Library at Lourdes University in Sylvania, Ohio is named after a 13th century Franciscan scholar.  It has a collection of over 60,000 volumes.  Lourdes University is a member of the OPAL/OhioLINK, a consortium of universities sharing their library resources electronically.  Students are encouraged to use the library for individual study and quiet research.  Four study rooms are available and may be reserved by contacting the library.  Laptop computers are available for check out and can be used on campus.  The second floor of the library contains The Center for Nursing Scholarship.  Search books, journals and more by keyword, title and author.  Start your search now.  https://www.lourdes.edu/academics/library/  The Duns Scotus Library, completed in 1950, home to over 60,000 volumes and over 350 paintings and sculptures, is located on the Franciscan campus, 6832 Convent Blvd, Sylvania, Ohio. 

The terms libel and slander mean a false statement made by one person about another.  In libel, the statement is made in writing.  In slander, the statement is made verbally.  Libel and slander are types of defamation, meaning a statement that damages the reputation of a person or organization.  To qualify as libel or slander, the false statement must be hurtful and cause harm to the other party.  Marianne Bonner  https://www.thebalancesmb.com/defamation-libel-and-slander-462650  Slander has to be spoken.  Each of these words start with s which is a memory aid.

The Key West Literary Seminar is a writers' conference and festival held each January in Key West, Florida.  It draws an international audience for readings, panel discussions, and workshops.  The Seminar was founded in 1983 by David Kaufelt and his wife Lynn Kaufelt, as a program operated by the Council for Florida Libraries.  The inaugural event, known as the Key West Literary Tour and Seminar, consisted of readings, panel discussions, literary walking tours, and cocktail parties.  This basic format remains unchanged.  In its early years, the Seminar focused on the literary history of Key West, a small subtropical town which has been home to Ernest Hemingway, Elizabeth Bishop, Wallace Stevens, Robert Frost, and Tennessee Williams, among others.  Subsequent Seminars have been devoted to broader genres or literary themes.  In 1987, the Seminar incorporated as a 501(c) (3) tax-exempt corporation, run by a board of directors.  Many well-known authors have served on the Seminar's board of directors, including Judy Blume, Harry Mathews, James Gleick, William Wright, Richard Wilbur, and John Malcolm Brinnin.  An honorary board of directors has included popular singer Jimmy Buffett, former First Lady Barbara Bush, and writers Annie Dillard, Robert Stone, Alison Lurie, and Joy Williams.  The Seminar was formerly held at the Tennessee Williams Fine Arts Center at Florida Keys Community College on Stock Island.  Since 1993, events have been held on Duval Street at the San Carlos Institute, a historic building whose construction was partly funded by the Republic of Cuba during the 1920s.  The seminar begins each year with the John Hersey Memorial Address and features a series of receptions at notable Key West locations.  Through their website, the Seminar offers audio recordings of past events, biographies of past and forthcoming speakers, and information about Key West's literary history.  Find Key West Literary Seminar themes by year beginning in 1983 at

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

The prefix (proto-) means before, primary, first, primitive, or original. It is derived from the Greek prôtos meaning first.  Find examples at https://www.thoughtco.com/biology-prefixes-and-suffixes-proto-373789

True blue, meaning faithful and steadfast, comes from the color of a fabric manufactured in Coventry, England during the Middle Ages.  The cloth had a reputation for having a durable blue dye which resisted fading.  Blue ribbon originally referred to the ribbon worn below the left knee of a fourteenth-century British knight who had been admitted into the Most Noble Order of the Garter.  Read more and see graphics at https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2012/8/4/1116727/-Origins-of-English-Blue

Lydia Davis: Ten of My Recommendations for Good Writing Habits   Adapted from the essay “Thirty Recommendations for Good Writing Habits” in Essays One.  The following are just my personal pieces of advice.  They won’t be the same as someone else’s, and they may not fit your life or practice, but maybe you’ll pick up something useful.  Take notes regularly, observe, revise.  Find more ideas at https://lithub.com/lydia-davis-ten-of-my-recommendations-for-good-writing-habits/

Perhaps, in the far distant back of times, man in his need to somewhat quantify what he had collected to survive (animals or plants or fruits), needed to count, and his own fingers and toes became a good first instrument always available, so that easily got to 20 units.  Obviously a true digital devise, the abacus (plural abaci or abacuses) is a counting frame tool that was used in Europe, China, and Russia, centuries before the adoption of the written numeral system.  Its exact origin is unknown.  Today, it is more of a toy or a curiosity adorning perhaps a furniture in a living room.  Several eminent figures in science contributed to the creation or invention of the slide rule, including Galileo Galilei (1564–1642), condemned by the church of those times.  John Napier de Merchiston (1550–1617), a Scottish mathematician recognized for being the first in defining logarithms, produced the essential concept backing up the slide rule. Sir Isaac Newton (1643–1727) and other prominent scientists, such as Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777–1885), mathematician, physicist, and astronomer; James Watt (1736–1819), Scottish engineer; and Joseph Priestley (1733–1804), were part of the group, too.  Max Valentinuzzi  https://pulse.embs.org/may-2019/the-slide-rule/

mutograph  noun  A device for taking a series of photographs of successive positions of a moving object, the results being viewed by means of a mutoscope.  Origin:  Late 19th century; earliest use found in Scientific American.  From muto- + -graph  https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/mutograph

Indigenous people believe that volcanoes are living organisms, and with their help the earth communicates with us, showing us their approval (or vice versa).  It so happened that 15 June 2017 year, on the opening day of "Vulcanarium Volcanoes Museum in Kamchatka", several Kamchatka volcanoes revived at once.  At first Shiveluch threw the ash column at a height of 9000 meters, apparently giving his consent and taking a new volcano into his big family.  Following him, on the same day, he threw out the ashes of the Klyuchevskaya volcano, and the next day--the Nameless Volcano.  Two not indifferent, creative people, enthusiasts, lovers of Kamchatka--Samoilenko Sergey Borisovich and Alena Alexandrovna--made great efforts to do something similar and close to real volcanoes.  Sergey Borisovich--the founder of the Museum, was born and raised in Kamchatka.  There are two museums in Kamchatka that tell in detail about volcanoes:  KGBU Kamchatka Regional Joint Museum (Local History) and the Scientific Museum of the Institute of Volcanology and Seismology, Far Eastern Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences.  The Scientific Museum of the Institute of Volcanology and Seismology is a laboratory, a unit that holds a unique volcanological collection, invaluable to scientists, but which can share it only with a small number of people.  https://www.eastrussia.ru/en/material/vulkanarium-na-kamchatke/

WORD OF THE DAY for December 10  gylany  noun  A social system based on equality of women and men.  December 10 is Human Rights Day, recognized by the United Nations to emphasize the importance of human rights and to commemorate the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the first global enunciation of such rights, on this day in 1948.  Wiktionary

Merriam-Webster:  Non-binary pronoun 'they' is word of year   The US dictionary also recently added a new definition of "they", reflecting its use as a singular personal pronoun for non-binary people.  Searches for "they" on Merriam-Webster's website were 313% higher this year than they were in 2018.  https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-50735371

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2195  December 11, 2019 

SIGNPOST  

From:  Alec Charles  A couple of miles south of the town of Sandwich in Kent, England, there is a village by the name of Ham.  At a nearby road junction, a noted signpost indicates:  HAM SANDWICH.  I am not making this up!

From:  Dave Fragments  An Instance of the Fingerpost is an erudite 1997 historical mystery novel by Iain Pears set in 17th-century Europe.  It is a good novel, a satisfying read.  I still have the copy I bought in my library.  Four very different narrators recall a murder from their past and eventually the reader reaches a “fingerpost” that points to the solution.

Tana French (born 1973) is an American-Irish writer and theatrical actress, born in Vermont and long resident in Ireland.  Her debut novel In the Woods (2007), a psychological mystery, won the Edgar, Anthony, Macavity, and Barry awards for best first novel.  She lives in Dublin.  The British online newspaper, The Independent, has referred to her as the First Lady of Irish Crime, "who very quietly has become a huge international name among crime fiction readers."  French was enthralled by both acting and writing since her childhood days but eventually focused more on acting.  She trained as a professional actor at Trinity, and she works in theatre, film, and voiceover.  In her later 30s, her passion for writing was unexpectedly rekindled.  Her choice of genre stems from her profound interest in mystery and crime novels, which she grew up reading.  She began writing her debut novel in the months-long lulls between castings.   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tana_French

The Public Domain Review specializes in criticism as history, presenting readers with high-quality scans of artwork, archaic books, maps, hand-written journals, as well as early films and audio recordings and photographs—these little bits of ephemeral media that, in part due to the technological limitations of the era in which they were created, engender a real sense of wonder in modern viewers—and placing them in the context of their eras.  The board games of the 18th and 19th centuries, for example, weren’t just a way to pass the time because nobody had thought to invent the internet yet, they were interactive ideological tracts, morality tales, and educational tools, historical artifacts that over time have evolved into things like Monopoly and The Game of Life.  This old stuff is still with us, even if we don’t realize it!  “Celestiographs”—ostensible images of “a form of celestial light hitherto unrecorded”—were actually the results of a failed photography experiment by an amateur astronomer only make them more aesthetically pure and genuinely mystifying.  Drew Millard   https://theoutline.com/post/8208/the-public-domain-review-rockets-the-oddities-of-the-past-into-the-present?utm_source=TW&zr=2jujhnmu&zd=4&zi=6nrbhtcd

Floriography (language of flowers) is a means of cryptological communication through the use or arrangement of flowers.  Meaning has been attributed to flowers for thousands of years, and some form of floriography has been practiced in traditional cultures throughout Europe, Asia, and Africa.  Plants and flowers are used as symbols in the Hebrew Bible, particularly of love and lovers in the Song of Songs, as an emblem for the Israelite people and for the coming Messiah.  In Western culture, William Shakespeare ascribed emblematic meanings to flowers, especially in Hamlet, Prince of Denmark.  Interest in floriography soared in Victorian England and in the United States during the 19th century.  Gifts of blooms, plants, and specific floral arrangements were used to send a coded message to the recipient, allowing the sender to express feelings which could not be spoken aloud in Victorian society.  Armed with floral dictionaries, Victorians often exchanged small "talking bouquets", called nosegays or tussie-mussies, which could be worn or carried as a fashion accessory.  William Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Charlotte and Emily Bronte, and children's novelist Frances Hodgson Burnett, among others, used the language of flowers in their writings.  Shakespeare used the word "flower" more than 100 times in his plays and sonnets.  In Hamlet, Ophelia mentions and explains the symbolic meaning of pansies, rosemary, fennel, columbine, rue, daisy, and violets.  In The Winter's Tale, the princess Perdita wishes that she had violets, daffodils, and primroses to make garlands for her friends.  In A Midsummer Night's Dream, Oberon talks to his messenger Puck amidst a scene of wild flowers.  In J. K. Rowling's 1997 novel Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Professor Severus Snape uses the language of flowers to express regret and mourning for the death of Lily Potter, Harry Potter's mother, according to Pottermore.  Read more and see pictures at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_of_flowers

Earth laughs in flowers.  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)  Read more at https://www.bartleby.com/370/14.html

As of November 1st, 2019 MacMillan Publishing, one of the largest print publishers in the world, placed an 8-week embargo on libraries purchasing more than one copy of new release eBooks limiting an entire branch to loan out one eBook at a time to library patrons.  This coupled with the publishing community beginning to limit perpetual access to eBooks and audiobooks, in general, should serve as a warning for what is about to come with the continued siloing and commoditization of information.  A new reality favoring publishers and aggregators over creators and consumers closing in not only on the expressions of authors but the reportage of journalists, songs of artists, and the visions of filmmakers.  As much as I like my Netflix subscription and my son likes his Spotify subscription, I have to wonder what the future will bring when important news stories and creative expressions are fenced-in through subscription models and exclusive content deals priced out of reach of the average wage earner.  Is there any doubt the total cost of information consumption will rise as more information providers climb on board the gravy train of the subscription model?  Sound familiar?   So when a top-five international book publisher picks a fight with 138,000 librarians over an 8-week release window, one has to wonder if this is the canary in the coal mine warning of what is to come.  In an open letter to librarians, MacMillan publishing CEO John Sargent offered, “We believe the very rapid increase in the reading of borrowed e-books decreases the perceived economic value of a book,” and “To borrow a book in those days required transportation, returning the book, and paying those pesky fines when you forgot to get them back on time.  In today’s digital world there is no such friction in the market.”  extract of An Essay by J. Paul Duplantis  

https://emergentweb.org/2019/11/12/ebook-embargo-on-libraries-is-only-the-tip-of-the-iceberg/

Inimitable  adjective  too good be satisfactorily imitated by others; unique  ETYMOLOGY:  16c.  https://chambers.co.uk/search/?query=inimitable&title=21st

Caroll Edwin Spinney (December 26, 1933 – December 8, 2019) was an American puppeteer, cartoonist, author and speaker most famous for playing Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch on Sesame Street from its inception in 1969 until 2018.  Caroll Edwin Spinney was born in Waltham, Massachusetts, on December 26, 1933.  His mother, a native of Bolton, England, named him Caroll because he was born the day after Christmas.  He has been drawing and painting since he was a child.  He developed a love of puppeteering when he saw a performance of Three Little Kittens at the age of five.  This motivated him to purchase a monkey puppet from a rummage sale three years later and put on a puppet show utilizing the monkey and a plush snake.  The following Christmas, his mother gifted him with a Punch and Judy puppet theater.  He continued puppeteering throughout his childhood and adolescence and used his performances to raise money for college tuition.  Read more at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caroll_Spinney

WORD OF THE DAY  Prepositional phrase  out of kilter

(idiomatic) Askew, disturbed; not adjusted or working properly; out of order.  quotations ▼ Synonyms:  out of order  The term is often preceded by throw, as in “an impact can throw the adjustment out of kilter”.  Alternative form:  out of kelter  Related term:  off-kilter  https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/out_of_kilter#English

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2194  December 9, 2019

Dalmatian rub is the name given to that simple mixture of salt and pepper used by pit masters across Texas.  (Black and white, the coloring of a Dalmatian—get it?)  Link to recipes at https://barbecuebible.com/recipe/dalmatian-rub/

Tashkent, Uzbekistan’s capital, is home to one of the world’s most ornate subway systems.  Many of its 29 stations are elaborately decorated with mosaics and chandeliers, the artwork reflecting a range of themes—from the Soviet space program to elements of local history, industry and agriculture.  The Tashkent Metro, which opened in 1977, is one of only two subways in operation in Central Asia.  (The other is in Almaty, Kazakhstan.)  Trains run from 5 a.m. until midnight, and a single ride costs 1,400 som, or about 15 cents.  Photographs by Danielle Villasana  Text by Stephen Hiltner  https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/20/travel/tashkent-uzbekistan-subway.html

The history of tea dates back to ancient China, almost 5,000 years ago.  According to legend, in 2732 B.C. Emperor Shen Nung discovered tea when leaves from a wild tree blew into his pot of boiling water.  He was immediately interested in the pleasant scent of the resulting brew, and drank some.  Legend says the Emperor described a warm feeling as he drank the intriguing brew, as if the liquid was investigating every part of his body.  Shen Nung named the brew "ch'a", the Chinese character meaning to check or investigate.  In 200 B.C. a Han Dynasty Emperor ruled that when referring to tea, a special written character must be used illustrating wooden branches, grass, and a man between the two.  This written character, also pronounced "ch'a" symbolized the way tea brought humankind into balance with nature for the Chinese culture.  The popularity of tea in China continued to grow rapidly from the 4th through the 8th century.  No longer merely used for its medicinal properties, tea became valued for everyday pleasure and refreshment.  Tea plantations spread throughout China, tea merchants became rich, and expensive, elegant tea wares became the banner for the wealth and status of their owners.  The Chinese empire tightly controlled the preparation and cultivation of the crop.  It was even specified that only young women, presumably because of their purity, were to handle the tea leaves.  These young female handlers were not to eat garlic, onions, or strong spices in case the odor on their fingertips might contaminate the precious tea leaves.  Read much more at http://www.coffeeteawarehouse.com/tea-history.html

Cumbersome meaning, unwieldy, burdened, awkward comes from cumber + some – and cumber comes from a French word, which derives from Latin and means . . . cumbersome.  In looking this up I came across cumberworld, a seven hundred year old word for anything or anyone that encumbers the world without being useful . . . Cumberland is over a thousand years old--the name for that north-western area of the country, the area whatever it’ is called is much older, and now it is called Cumbria, an unpopular name.  The name Cumberland still exists as Cumberland sausages, HMS Cumberland , Cumberland County Cricket Club , the Cumberland Fell Runners Club, the Cumberland Athletics Club, The Cumberland News, the Cumberland Building Society and many more examples.  Cumberland has nothing at all to do with being unwieldy, and is not a Latin/French name, in fact it is much older--Cumbra land which came from ‘the region of the Cymry’.  This, you might be able to guess has to do with the country known by its English name of Wales, rather than its own correct name of Cymru.  Cucumber, by the way has nothing to do with either cumbersome of Cumberland--it’s another word of French origin, though, which in turn came from Latin--cucumis . . . Cummerbund is nothing to do with  English places, Welsh places, or salad vegetables--it comes from Persian via Hindi and means ‘loin band’… Lois Elsden  https://loiselsden.com/2018/08/28/cumbersome-cumberland-cucumbers-and-cummerbunds/

The most popular legend of coffee in Ethiopia usually goes something like this:  One day in a highland area near an Abyssinian monastery, a goat herder from Kaffa named Kaldi was herding his goats.  The goats began to jump around—almost dancing—and bleat loudly, which was strange behavior for his herd.  Kaldi found that a small shrub (or a cluster of shrubs, according to some legends) was the source of the excitement.  Deciding to try the bright red berries for himself, Kaldi also felt the coffee cherries' energizing effects.  Amazed at this discovery, the goat herder filled his pockets and rushed home to tell his wife.  Calling the find "heaven sent," she advised Kaldi to share the berries with the monks.  Kaldi did not receive the warmest of welcomes at the monastery.  One monk referred to his coffee beans as "the Devil's work" and tossed them into the fire.  According to the legend, the aroma that wafted up from the roasting beans caught the monks' attention.  After removing the beans from the fire and crushing them to extinguish the embers, they attempted to preserve them in a ewer filled with hot water.  Yemen also has a coffee origin myth (or two) as well as a well-founded stake in the beverage's actual history.  The first legend from Yemen is rather basic by comparison to the Kaldi myth.  However, in an interesting twist, it attributes the origin of coffee to Ethiopia:  The Yemenite Sufi mystic Ghothul Akbar Nooruddin Abu al-Hasan al-Shadhili was traveling through Ethiopia, presumably on spiritual matters.  He encountered some very energetic birds that had been eating the fruit of the bunn plant (known elsewhere as the coffee plant).  Weary from his journey, he decided to try these berries for himself and he found that they produced an energetic state in him as well.  The second coffee origin myth from Yemen claims that coffee originated in Yemen.  The story is centered around Sheikh Omar, a doctor-priest and a follower of Sheik Abou'l Hasan Schadheli from Mocha, Yemen, who was exiled to a desert cave close to the mountain of Ousab.  Lindsey Goodwin  https://www.thespruceeats.com/the-origin-of-coffee-765180

What’s the difference between a filler word and a filter word?  They overlap in function, but on average have two different effects on your prose.  Filler words take up space and expand things that don’t need to be expanded.  Filter words can also expand, but their negative power comes in another way.  Filter words serve to push your reader out of the story:  they get in between the reader and the action.  They run some aspect of the story—most often the emotional impact—through a verbal filter that takes away from what the author is trying to achieve.  That’s why they’re called “filter words.”  Christopher Daly   Find list of filter words at https://thebettereditor.wordpress.com/2019/11/06/filter-words/

Thomas Curson Hansard (1776–1833) was a London printer and publisher, who was the first official printer to the parliament at Westminster.  Hansard is the traditional name of the transcripts of Parliamentary Debates in Britain and many Commonwealth countries.  https://librivox.org/author/12225?primary_key=12225&search_category=author&search_page=1&search_form=get_results

What is caffeine?  Caffeine is a bitter substance that occurs naturally in more than 60 plants including:  Coffee beans, Tea leaves, Kola nuts, which are used to flavor soft drink colas, and Cacao pods, which are used to make chocolate products.  There is also synthetic caffeine, which is added to some medicines, foods, and drinks.  For example, some pain relievers, cold medicines, and over-the-counter medicines for alertness contain synthetic caffeine.  So do energy drinks and "energy-boosting" gums and snacks.  Most people consume caffeine from drinks.  The amounts of caffeine in different drinks can vary a lot, but it is generally:  an 8-ounce cup of coffee:  95-200 mg, a 12-ounce can of cola:  35-45 mg, an 8-ounce energy drink:  70-100 mg, an 8-ounce cup of tea:  14-60 mg.  What are caffeine's effects on the body?  Caffeine has many effects on your body's metabolism.  It stimulates your central nervous system, which can make you feel more awake and give you a boost of energy, Is a diuretic, meaning that it helps your body get rid of extra salt and water by urinating more; increases the release of acid in your stomach; sometimes leading to an upset stomach or heartburn; may interfere with the absorption of calcium in the body; and   increases your blood pressure.  Within one hour of eating or drinking caffeine, it reaches its peak level in your blood.  You may continue to feel the effects of caffeine for four to six hours.  https://medlineplus.gov/caffeine.html

A stroopwafel is two thin waffle cookies sandwiched together with caramel in the middle, it’s not fancy, just simple and delicious.  The idea is that you put one of these cookies on top of your hot tea cup or coffee mug and it heats the caramel filling on the inside and softens the cookie.  How good does that sound?   With or without warming them they’re delicious.  https://www.costcuisine.com/post/costco-original-stroopwafels-cookie-review

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY  I think that I shall never see / A poem lovely as a tree. - (Alfred) Joyce Kilmer, journalist and poet (6 Dec 1886-1918)

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2193  December 6, 2019