The First American Novel

Picture from The Library of Congress

The Power of Sympathy; or, The Triumph of Nature by William Hill Brown is considered by many to be the first American novel. It was published in Boston, Massachusetts, on January 21, 1789, by Isaiah Thomas. The novel is written in epistolary form and is based on actual events; however, it is classified as a work of fiction. The novel is meant to promote moral rectitude, mainly among women, and reflect the danger of yielding to sexual temptations and the rewards of abstinence.

William Hill Brown was born in Boston, Massachusetts, in November of 1765. At the age of 24, Brown published The Power of Sympathy anonymously. There were several ideas as to the author of this novel, but Brown's niece confirmed that he was definitely the author in 1894. Brown also used the pseudonym "Columbus" for many of his other writings, which were published in the Massachusetts Magazine and the Journal. In 1792, Brown moved south to Murfreesboro, North Carolina, to study law. In August of 1793, malaria struck the area and Brown fell ill. He passed away September 2, 1793, at the age of 27. His literary career was carried on by his aunt (the half-sister of his father's second wife), Catharine Byles.

There has been much debate as to whether or not The Power of Sympathy was actually the first American novel. What do you think?

Doe, A Deer

On August 13, 1942, Walt Disney released his fifth full length picture, Bambi. Bambi was one of those movies I could recite from memory; I watched it that much. I definitely cried with every viewing. (Come on. You know you did, too.) Here are a few fun facts I bet you didn't know about Bambi and deer:

All About Percy

William Alexander Percy was born on this day, May 14, in 1885 in Greenville, Mississippi. Perhaps most well-known nowadays for his memoir, Lanterns on the Levee, he led a rich and varied life.

• His father was LeRoy Percy, a U.S. Senator from Mississippi and a hunting buddy of Teddy Roosevelt.
  
• Percy went to Harvard Law School and practiced law in Greenville, but he also spent much of his time writing poetry. He produced four volumes of poetry before writing his memoir.
  
• During World War I, he was awarded the Croix de Guerre and bronze and silver stars.
  
• Percy was appointed as the head of the Washington County Relief Committee during the Great Flood of 1927. To learn more about the flood, we highly recommend Rising Tide by John M. Barry.
  
• When their parents died, he became the guardian of his cousins Walker, LeRoy, and Phinizy Percy. Walker Percy, another great Mississippi author, actually began his friendship with future author Shelby Foote in Greenville.
• He even wrote a hymn that was adopted by the Episcopal Hymnal 1982. Hymn number 661 by Percy starts with the words: They cast their nets in Galilee just off the hills of brown...
  
• The public library in Greenville is called the William Alexander Percy Library.
  
• William Alexander Percy passed away January 21, 1942 in Greenville, Mississippi.

If you would like to read William Alexander Percy's poetry or to find out more about his life, stop by the Mississippi Library Commission or your local public library!

http://www.washington.lib.ms.us/greenville_writers_exhibit.htm
http://www.olemiss.edu/mwp/dir/percy_william_alexander/index.html
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/biography/flood-leroy/
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/biography/flood-will/

On Runcible Spoons and Owls and Pussy-Cats

The Owl and the Pussy-Cat was one of my favorite poems growing up. I have always been a cat lover, and the sweet and lyrical courtship between the pussy cat and the owl warms my heart to this day. One can't help falling in love in time to the jaunty words:

The Owl and the Pussy-cat went to sea

   In a beautiful pea-green boat

And:

Pussy said to the Owl, "You elegant fowl!

   How charmingly sweet you sing!

It was first published in 1871 in a collection called Nonsense Songs, Stories, Botany, and Alphabets. If you have never read the poem in it's entirety, you can do so here. It's quite a treat!

Edward Lear, the poem's author, was born on this day, May 12, in 1812 in Holloway, England. Here are a few nuggets about Lear and The Owl and the Pussy-Cat:

• Lear was the twentieth of twenty-one children.
• He was an epileptic.
• As an adult, Lear was a prolific letter-writer, sometimes writing as many as 35 friends before breakfast.
• Lear loved to coin new words and phrases. He first used the term runcible spoon in The Owl and the Pussy-Cat. It is now defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as a kind of fork, curved like a spoon and typically having three broad prongs, one of which has a sharp edge. (Does this sound like a spork to anyone else? It's not quite how I dreamed a runcible spoon would look.)
• Beatrix Potter wrote a prequel to The Owl and the Pussy-Cat called The Tale of Little Pig Robinson in which Piggy-wig travels to the Land where the Bong-Tree grows. It was published in 1930.

 Be sure to check out more on Edward Lear and his poetry at your local library!

De Jong, Mary. "Edward Lear." Critical Survey Of Poetry, Second Revised Edition (2002): 1-5. Literary Reference Center. Web. 12 May 2015.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Edward_Lear_The_Owl_and_the_Pussy_Cat_1.jpg
"runcible, adj." OED Online. Oxford University Press, March 2015. Web. 12 May 2015.

Cicada Call

Have you been hearing a strange vibrating sound lately? Perhaps you've run across some bugs that seem a little alien? Our neighborhood cat has been incredibly intrigued by the recent visitors, although actually catching one would be way too much work for him. Periodical cicadas are out in Mississippi again and they are a wonder to see. (And to hear!)

According to the Mississippi State University Extension Service, "there are only three broods of 13-year cicadas in the world and Mississippi is the only state where all three broods occur." They are notable for their black bodies, orange tinted wings, and red beady eyes. These guys have spent the thirteen years of their lives underground, feasting on tree roots, and only appear above ground to molt, mate, and die. The loud humming noise we all hear is the males calling to the females. MSU says that in an ideal environment, there could be over one million cicadas in one acre. No wonder they're so loud!

If you're a B-horror movie fan, we recommend watching The Beast Within while the cicada songs are in full swing. The movie was actually filmed in Bolton, Jackson, and Raymond, Mississippi, and it features a rampaging cicada-man-beast. It was based on the book The Beast Within by Edward Levy. Unfortunately, there are no rampaging cicada-man-beasts in the book.

Check out the MSU Extension Service for more detailed information on cicadas. We hope you enjoy this cicada season. If the noise gets to be too much, maybe we can all invest in some earplugs.

How Will You Welcome 2015?

New Year's Eve and New Year's Day celebrations and customs vary across the world. While we in Mississippi are feasting on black-eyed peas and cabbage, take a gander at what festivities others across the world are enjoying:

The German custom of Bleigießen, or lead pouring, is known in English as molybdomancy, "a form of divination by observing the behavior of molten lead" (OED). To participate, a person melts a tiny blob of lead by holding it in a spoon over a candle or other small flame. After pouring the lead into a bowl of water, the shape is "interpreted" with various patterns portending certain events and changes. It reminds me of the time Harry Potter's Divination Class read tea leaves; I believe it has about the same accuracy rate. For instance, a lead blob that comes out looking like an apple signifies that your trust will be broken. Moon shaped blob? You'll be honored soon. Germans can buy Bleigießen sets which include the spoon, lead blobs, and interpretations. You can check out more meanings here.

Bleigießen set

 
In Spain, there is the tradition of las doce uvas de la suerte, or the twelve lucky grapes. One dozen of a particular variety of Spanish green grape is eaten as the clock strikes, ringing in the New Year. One grape per gong is hurriedly munched, but all twelve grapes must be consumed to guarantee a lucky new year. You can read more about this fun custom here.

12 lucky grapes

Ded Moroz, or Grandfather Frost, is a Russian New Year's figure who came into even greater prominence during the country's Communist years. He visits children and hands out gifts like Santa Claus; he even looks quite a bit like Old Saint Nick.

Grandfather Frost and his helper, Snow Maiden

Ded Moroz even has GLONASS tracking so that children can watch his flight to distribute presents, just like Santa uses NORAD. Check out more about that here.

Craving even more fun New Year's customs? Check out this entry from a few years back. The staff at the Mississippi Library Commission hope that you have a fantastic 2015! Happy New Year!

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d4/Bleigiessen-Vorgang.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7e/Ded_moroz_belarus_1.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7a/Uvas_de_la_suerte_2012.jpg
New year's day (Russia). (2010). In Holidays, festivals, and celebrations of the world dictionary. Retrieved from http://search.credoreference.com/content/entry/hfcwd/new_year_s_day_russia/0
New year's eve (Spain). (2010). In Holidays, festivals, and celebrations of the world dictionary. Retrieved from http://search.credoreference.com/content/entry/hfcwd/new_year_s_eve_spain/0
Silvester. (2007). In Collins german dictionary. Retrieved from http://search.credoreference.com/content/entry/collinsgerman/silvester/1

Coffee-holics Rejoice

As caffeine lovers, we were delighted to discover that today is National Coffee Day. It seems that despite the early hour when we usually imbibe the world's most flavorful drink, we've managed to come up with quite a few names for it. According to the Oxford English Dictionary and The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang, here are just a few other names for coffee:

For Mississippi coffee lovers, we've found a fun trivia nugget for you! The town of Hot Coffee, Mississippi was apparently named after--you guessed it--everyone's favorite morning beverage. There are two slightly different stories as to who gave the town its name:

According to Hometown, Mississippi, the town:

was supposedly formed in 1870 when E. L. Craft built a lunch counter to serve the people who traveled the road to market. The people did their marketing either in Mobile or Ellisville, so Craft built his lunch counter on the road which served both places. The Craft Lunch Counter specialized in the making of good coffee and became famous for miles around (as) the place to get real good hot coffee. The settlement finally took the name Hot Coffee and a big coffee pot was erected as a sign to let travelers know they had reached the place. 124

Mississippi: The WPA Guide to the Magnolia State has a different account:

According to James Street, immediately after the War between the States, J. J. Davis of Shiloh swapped a sabre for a sick horse, swapped the horse for a wagon, swapped the wagon for another horse, and after a week of such swapping found himself with enough cash to start a store. He gathered his possessions and came here, building a store by the old Taylorsville-Williamsburg Road. He hung a coffee pot over his door, and served hot coffee that was both hot and good, made of pure spring water and New Orleans beans. He used molasses drippings for sugar and the customer could have either long or short sweetening; he refused to serve cream, saying it ruined the taste. Politicians from Taylorsville and Williamsburg patronized the store, serving coffee to their constituents and anyone else who happened to be around. Travelers coming by on their way from Mobile to Jackson drank Mr. Davis's coffee while eating the food they brought with them. Old Mr. Davis died in 1880... 499

No cream? No matter. We invite you to drop by the Mississippi Library Commission, with coffee, if you so choose. Pick up a book and a coffee-scented bookmark and have a caffeinated day!
 







Brieger, James. Hometown, Mississippi. 1980. Print.
Federal Writers' Project of the Works Progress Administration. Mississippi: The WPA Guide to the Magnolia State. Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 2009. Print.

Happy birthday, Mr. Kossuth!

My dad is in the market for a new dog. A Vizsla puppy, to be exact. Because Vizslas are a Hungarian dog breed, he's been brainstorming on traditional, Hungarian names for his pet. During a recent conversation about his pet name ideas I learned that the town where my dad grew up is named after a very famous Hungarian. That town is Kossuth, MS and today is their namesake's birthday!

Kossuth, Mississippi is a small town located in Alcorn County right outside of Corinth. The community was first established in 1847 and was called New Hope. In 1852 the name was officially changed to Kossuth in honor of Louis (or Lajos) Kossuth. Here's a little about Louis from The History of Alcorn County by the Alcorn County Historical Association: "Kossuth was a Hungarian patriot who was exiled for the stand he took in regard to Vienna's intervention in Hungary. Mr. Kossuth, a man of inestimateable [sic] character, visited Mississippi and was much admired by the community. Colonel Polk and Major Wallace, the postmaster, wrote to the United States Post Office Department requesting that the name be changed. The change was made April 23, 1853."

The town didn't forget about Kossuth even 100 years after the name change! According to The History of Alcorn County, a stamp was released in Kossuth's honor on his birthday in 1958 and the official release was held in Kossuth! "In 1958, a Mr. Dunch from Milltown, New Jersey, along with a Mr. Gayer, a Hungarian refugee, came to visit the town of Kossuth. Their visit was in connection with a new stamp commemorating the Hungarian patriot Louis Kossuth, for whom the town was named. This stamp was released in the town of Kossuth on September 19, 1958. To promote relations between the two countries, Mr. Gayer's sister, postmaster of a small town in Hungary behind the Iron Curtain, sent a miniature flag of Hungary and a book on the life Louis Kossuth. She also sent many pictures of the buildings and homes as well as street scenes of Hungary to Kossuth."

Kossuth, MS isn't the only place named for the great Hungarian. There's a Kossuth County in Iowa. There's also bust of Kossuth in the United States Capitol. According to the American Hungarian Foundation, Kossuth's bust is one of the only two busts in the Capitol honoring non-Americans! You can read more about the bust here. 

Happy Birthday, Louis!

Alcorn County Historical Association (1983). The History of Alcorn County Mississippi. p. 91-92
Original photo here. Birthday rendering by me, the blogger.

D-Day: Books about the Beginning of the End of WWII

June 6 was forever seared into America's memory as D-Day in 1944. On that day seventy years ago, over 150,000 Allied troops landed on Normandy's beach to battle the Axis powers. The attack, known officially as Operation Overlord (referring to the land battle) and Operation Neptune (the naval part of the attack), led to an eventual Allied victory in Europe less than a year later. D-Day's cost was high; over 9,000 men were injured or killed that day. Putting an end to tyranny, though, was worth the price.

D-Day was immortalized in the highly acclaimed miniseries Band of Brothers and popular movies such as The Longest Day and Saving Private Ryan. Some great books have been written about D-Day as well. For instance, did you know that the miniseries Band of Brothers is based on Stephen Ambrose's book of the same name? The Mississippi Library Commission has copies in both regular and large print of this book about E Company, a group of men who, like many others, trained and bonded together, and fought together, and even died together. It's an absorbing read and adds even more detail that the miniseries missed.

D-Day: The Battle for Normandy by Antony Beevor is another fascinating book about this epic part of Word War II. This book is filled with maps, which we absolutely love, and gives more details of the battle from perspectives other than just America's side. Drop by MLC and pick this one up in large print for an in-depth look at June 6, 1944.

Looking for less action and more intrigue? Agent Garbo: The Brilliant, Eccentric Secret Agent Who Tricked Hitler and Saved D-Day by Stephen Talty is the book for you. It tells the story of Juan Pujol, a farmer, who became a double agent working for the Allies and deceiving the Germans. His deception was supreme: he convinced the Germans that an attack was aimed at Calais, hundreds of miles away from the Allies' landing point in Normandy. Stop by MLC to check this book out in regular print.

Mull this over on your way to check out your books: the D in D-Day may actually stand for Day. During World War I, the U.S. Army used the designations H-Hour and D-Day to indicate upcoming classified operations. Whatever the name of the day, we suggest commemorating those who fell in battle with one of these books or the many others we have to offer on World War II and D-Day.

http://www.army.mil/d-day/
http://www.cnn.com/2014/06/05/opinion/opinion-d-day-myth-reality/
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/dday/sfeature/sf_info.html

What's In A (Mississippi) Name?

Mississippi, like any other state, has towns named for a grab-bag of things: last names (McComb was named for a Colonel H.S. McComb, President of the New Orleans, Jackson, and Great Northern Railroad), other towns (Kilmichael was named for Kilmichael, Ireland), Native American names (Pascagoula means bread eater or bread people), and a various other odds and ends.


Here are a few of our favorites:

Bogue Chitto, in Lincoln County, is a Choctaw phrase meaning "big creek" (307).

Veto, in Franklin County, asked its citizens to submit name ideas when it applied for a post office. The postal authorities nixed all the names its citizens suggested and named it Veto (143).

Mahrud, in Humphrey's County, was settled by a man named T.F. Durham. He named the town after himself, but spelled it backwards (195).

Deovolente, also in Humphrey;s County, was an African-American settlement established in 1865. It means "God willing" in Latin (194).

Tallaloosa, in Marshall County, is a Native American name meaning "black rock" (336).

Buttahatchie, in Monroe Coumty, is also a Native American name. It means "river which comes from the hills" (339). I think that's downright poetic.

Locopolis, in Tallahatchie County, was a combination of two root words, loco, meaning "place", and polis, meaning "city"(467). Apparently, it was a fine place for a city.

Bovina, in Warren County, was named by a pair of comedian settlers, Cowan and Bullen (507). Get it?

Brozville, in Holmes County, was named for its first settler, Zoo Broy. Apparently the hand-written request for Broyville was a bit too messy for the short-sighted postal officials (185).

D'Lo, in Simpson County, is a shortened version of the French De Leau. It seems that the French named the Strong River this, meaning "deep water" (439).

Want to know where your town got its name? We'd be happy to oblige! Drop us a line in the comments and we'll try to track it down.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mississippi_90.jpg
Brieger, James. Hometown, Mississippi. 1980. Print.

Book of the Day: The Drunken Botanist

The Book of the Day, The Drunken Botanist: The Plants That Create The World's Great Drinks by Amy Stewart, happens to be one of our new books (and graces our New Books display)! If the whimsical cover and title doesn't grab your attention, we're sure the contents will. This book contains little to well-known facts about various alcoholic drinks and the many syrups, infusions, garnishes, etc., that go in them. And if that wasn't enough, they include drink recipes!
Neat facts in this books include....

Lorikeet

• Drunken Lorikeets! - Eucalyptus nectar is their normal food source, but these Australian parrots become intoxicated when they consume it after it has been fermented on the tree. This causes them to be unable to fly, stumble, and become vulnerable to predators. Luckily, "bird rescue organizations routinely take in drunken lorikeets and help them sober up" (Stewart 246).
• Waspy figs? - While figs can be distilled or infused, for example, in vodka, it's their waspy origins that stuck out to us. According to this book, around 11,000 BC figs had to "be pollinated by a wasp in order to set seed and reproduce, but the wasp lays her eggs inside that fruitlike structure and often dies inside" (270). So what happened when you picked it and opened it up? You'd find bits of wasp corpses. Today's figs have longer flowers that doesn't require the wasp to go inside the actual fruit. Some figs today don't even need to be pollinated at all.
• Not the snails! - The book describes an "interesting" recipe following a much more normal one from the year 1737. The recipe from that era "called for boiling snails with milk, brandy, figs, and spices" (271) and was offered "to people with consumption" (271). Drink up!

This book is sure to delight if you love nuggets of information mixed with your cocktails. So come on by and check it out!

Stewart, Amy. The Drunken Botanist: The Plants That Create The World's Great Drinks. Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill; Chapel Hill, NC 2013. Print
Image: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Swainson%27s_Lorikeet.jpg

Where Is Thumbkin?

I remember singing a song when I was little that was all about phalanges. The song didn't actually use the word phalanges--a pity, too, as it's such a delightful word--but much fun was had by all singing about each individual finger. (You can see the words here.) Here is some more fun with fingers:

• The thumb was called the thuma in Old English (Finger). As a freshman in high school, I remember being highly amused by the meaning of thumb biting in Romeo and Juliet. When Mr. Baugh explained that scene with "No, sir, I do not bite my thumb at you, sir, but I bite my thumb, sir," I think the whole class was impressed with Shakespeare's raunchy writing (and ready to read more!)
  
  
• The index finger was called the towcher in Old English, and the toucher in Middle English because, well, you know, you touch things with it. The Anglo-Saxons called it the scite or shooting finger (Finger).
  
  

• In Old English, the middle finger was called long-man, just like in the nursery song (Finger).
• The ring finger was called lec-man in Old English. Lec referred to leeches, so if you're thinking of old-timey medicine (Old English old-timey medicine) it is obviously the "medical" finger. The "Old English" weren't the only ones to label the fourth finger as medical. The Romans called the fourth finger digitus annularis, or literally, the ring finger. The Anglo-Saxons called it the gold-finger (No, not Auric Goldfinger!) This nomenclature influences us to this day. We wear our wedding rings on the fourth finger because the ancients believed that a nerve ran from that finger to our hearts. They also "used it for stirring mixtures under the notion that it would give instant warning to the heart if it came into contact with anything noxious" (Finger).
  
  
  
• The Anglo-Saxons called our smallest finger the ear finger because, naturally, it's the one people use to scratch inside their ears (Finger). I've always called it my pinky, and it turns out that the Scots use the word pinky (or pinkie, if you prefer) to describe anything tiny. According to The Encyclopedia of Superstitions, "a crooked little finger is often considered a sign that the person will die rich, but this wealth is likely to have been made in a dubious way."

I hope I get to enjoy my dubiously made money some before I die!

Finger. (2012). In Brewer's dictionary of phrase and fable. Retrieved from http://search.credoreference.com/content/entry/brewerphrase/finger/0
Pinkie. Oxford English Dictionary. 2nd ed. 1989. Print.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Finger-gun.jpg
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Our_rings!.jpg
Webster, Richard. The Encyclopedia of Superstitions. Woodbury, MN: Llewellyn Publications, 2008. Print.

3.14 Nuggets About Pie

Many years ago, my former in-laws, sweethearts though they were, trapped me in their mini-van for four hours so that I could experience the wonders of Pie Town, New Mexico. All I have to say about that four-hour road trip nearly twenty years later is this: Y'all, there was no pie. (I learned later that, in order to find pie, you have to show up in September.) In the hopes of making your Pi Day experience more pie-like, and to make up for decided lack of pie in my life, I give you 3.14 nuggets about pie:

1. I remember reading about Stargazy Pie in some book or other way back when. This delightfully macabre dish, which hails from Cornwall, England, consists of "pilchards baked in a pie with their heads poking through the crust" (Star). Now, for some reason, I always thought a pilchard was a type of bird, so I have always pictured either little bald bird heads (eek!) or still-feathered bird heads wafting bird feathers all in my pie (much worse!) Imagine my relief when I took the time to do some research and found that pilchards are, in fact, sardines:

Stargazy Pie,
with each pilchard gazing toward the stars

In my mind, this is much better than, say, mockingbird pie or bluebird pie. The unique arrangement of this pie allows the oil of the fish to drain back to the crust, making it more moist and delicious (greatbritishkitchen).

2. Have you ever heard someone refer to eating humble pie? I mean the turn of phrase, here, not the British rock band. It seems that this phrase used to mean something different than its current meaning, which is "to act submissively while admitting an error". Once upon a time, the word numbles started appearing in the English language. Numbles are all the yummy bits of meat from an animal carcass: the entrails, the heart, the liver, etc... The word gradually became umble, and then humble, where it began to pick up the "humble pie" connotation we all know.

Another kind of Humble Pie

3.  The Transcendentalist writer and poet Ralph Waldo Emerson was a huge fan of pie. According to Oliver Wendell Holmes, "Emerson's mode of living was very simple: coffee in the morning, tea in the evening... but always pie at breakfast" (Holmes 362). Once, he was preparing to eat his morning meal with some acquaintances and offered them each in turn a large wedge of pie. When each one declined, Emerson said, in complete frustration, "But, Mr. So-and-so, what is pie for?" (Holmes 269). I'm with you, Emereson. Pie for breakfast each morning does sound divine.

Ralph Waldo Emerson,
Pie Lover

.14 Not to be outdone, Jane Austen was also a pie devotee. The British author once wrote, "Good apple pies are a considerable part of our domestic happiness." (Schulz 13).

I'm quite hungry now, after all this talk of pie, and I wasn't lucky enough to have pie for breakfast. Pie for lunch sounds divine as well!

Holmes, Oliver Wendell. American Men of Letters: Ralph Waldo Emerson. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1886. eBook.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Baked_stargazy_pie.jpg
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Humble_Pie_1974.JPG
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:RWEmerson2.jpg
http://www.greatbritishkitchen.co.uk/recipebook/index.php?option=com_rapidrecipe&page=viewrecipe&recipe_id=1015
Star. (2012). In Brewer's dictionary of phrase and fable. Retrieved from http://search.credoreference.com/content/entry/brewerphrase/star/0
Schulz, Phillip Stephen. As American as Apple Pie. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster, 1990. Print.
Soukhanov, Anne, ed. Word Mysteries and Histories: From Quiche to Humble Pie. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1986. Print.
 

Jacks: You've Got To Be Nimble

Jacks

A few days ago, someone asked if the old-fashioned jacks with which we played as children were still being made and sold. "You remember those, right? We used to play with them back in the day." Oh, yes, we most definitely remember them, and yes, jacks are still around. In fact, it's pretty amazing how long the game of jacks has been around. Some claim that the Roman god Hermes invented the game. He liked to play a few rounds with his half-brother/mentor Apollo (Bloomsbury).

Jacks has had several different names over the years. Some have called it knucklestones, doing so because jacks originally came from sheep knuckles and other various small bones. Checkstones and jackstones were two other popular names; checkstones is a similar game played with small pebbles, or checks (Collins).

Some of the best things about the game of Jacks, in our opinion, are its complete versatility and ease of play. It can be played by one person or a group. To play, one follows these simple steps:

• Scatter the jacks
• Throw the ball in the air
• Pick up one jack with the same hand
• Catch the ball with the same hand after it has bounced once
• Repeat until all the jacks have been picked up
• Graduate to a new round by picking up the jacks in groups of twos, then threes, etc... (Diagram)

We checked www.amazon.com and found a plethora of jacks for sale. They're also available at many toy stores and drugstores. Have fun playing, and enjoy your blast to the past!

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Childrens_Museum_of_Indianapolis_-_Jacks.jpg 
Hermes. (1996). In Bloomsbury dictionary of myth. Retrieved from http://search.credoreference.com/content/entry/bloommyth/hermes/0
Jacks. (2000). In Collins english dictionary. Retrieved from http://search.credoreference.com/content/entry/hcengdict/jacks/0
The Diagram Group. Family Fun and Games. New York: Sterling Publishing Company, 1992. Print.

Seeing Is Reading

Remember learning how to read? Cast your memory back to first grade: sounding out letters and forming them into words--C+A+T = CAT.  It was thrilling when everything slid into place. Reading now, as an adult, turns out to be a completely different experience. We don't read from left to right (or right to left, depending on the language). According to one of our new books, Weird-O-Pedia: The Ultimate Book of Surprising, Strange, and Incredibly Bizarre Facts About (Supposedly) Ordinary Things, we read letters in "short chunks simultaneously." The author states:

In tests where subjects were shown words quickly, then asked what they had seen, they had just as much trouble identifying the first letter of the word as the last. When they were given more time, readers became more accurate on all the letters, leading researchers to conclude that the letters were processed simultaneously" (111). 

Although this makes sense, I'd never thought about it like this before! Weird-O-Pedia, a devotion to nuggets of information, has quirky and fun information on all sorts of ordinary topics like sweat (women sweat less readily than men, 84) to airplanes (boarding planes at random actually goes faster than boarding in groups from back to front, 133) to sneezes...

Which brings me to one of my favorite nuggets in the book: Have you ever had the overwhelming urge to sneeze after you've glanced at the sun? (I have!) Enterprising scientists have studied the phenomenon and given it a name. It's called Autosomal Cholinergic Helio-Opthalmic Outburst. Bless you!

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Compartiendo_un_libro.jpg 
Palmer, Alex. Weird-O-Pedia: The Ultimate Book of Surprising, Strange, and Incredibly Bizarre Facts About (Supposedly) Ordinary Things. New York, NY: Skyhorse Publishing, 2012. Print.

And The Winner Is...

I've been pawing through a book I found hidden in the stacks a few days ago. The title makes it sound like the most lascivious and licentious book ever written - Simon's Book of World Sexual Records - but it's actually filled with fascinating facts. Here are a few!

Inverbervie Graveyard

Simon bestowed the award of Most Bizarre Love Charm to an old Irish legend. In order to make this fetching amulet, a young girl was to visit a graveyard and find a corpse buried for nine days. Then, this crafty lady needed to "cut from the body a narrow strip of skin extending from the top of the head down to the extremity of one foot." Have you ever seen someone peel a peach or an apple in one continuous strip? It's kind of hard to do! "They then tried to knot the length of dead skin round the arm or leg of a sleeping lover and to remove it before he awoke" (86). So in ancient Ireland, your choices were a dead skin strip or flirting. You know, whichever you found to be an easier, more appealing task.

Symbol for The New York Society
for the Suppression of Vice

The Most Vigorous Prude Award went to Anthony Comstock.
His group, the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice, helped usher in (between 1873 and 1882) "700 arrests, 333 sentences of imprisonment totalling 155 years and 13 days, fines totalling $65,256, and the seizure of 27,856 lb. of obscene books and 64,836 articles for immoral use, of rubber, etc" (180). I just wonder how many books would equal the weight of 27,856 pounds.

Fanny Hill
by John Cleland

Simon judged that The Most Famous Erotic Novel (before Shades of Grey, of course) was

Fanny Hill or Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure. The author, Henry Cleland sold it for 20 guineas in 1749. The bookseller who bought it is said to have made £ 10,000 for the story of a young, innocent girl who falls into a life of prostitution. The book has been censored and banned worldwide (357).


Last, but certainly not least, is The Society in Which the Human Kiss is Least Practiced. The Thonga people (aka Tsonga) in extreme southeast Africa do not practice mouth-to-mouth kissing. Apparently, upon seeing this type of kiss for the first time, someone remarked, "Look at them-they eat each other's saliva and dirt" (107).

A book can hold so much more than its title or subject matter promises to its reader. Take a chance--open a book!

Simons, G. L. Simon's Book of World Sexual Records. New York: Bell Publishing Company, 1975. Print.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AInverbervie_Graveyard.jpg 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:NewYorkSocietyForTheSuppressionOfVice.jpg
http://www.penguin.com.au/products/9780140432497/fanny-hill-or-memoirs-woman-pleasure