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Seattle Metropolitans win Stanley Cup March 27,1917!

Seattle Metropolitans the first US Team to win the Stanley Cup! Okay, I am not the world’s biggest hockey fan.Living in the suburbs of Philly,I do follow the Flyers and a couple of years ago attended several games. However, I did not follow any hockey before 1967, when the Flyers entered the league,. In 1967 the NHL doubled in size adding six teams to the original six teams.So when saw that on March 27, 1912. The Seattle Metropolitans, of the Pacific Coast Hockey Association, defeated the Montreal Canadians and became the first U.S. hockey team to win the Stanley Cup. I said huh?? The Seattle Metropolitans? The Pacific Coast League of Canada and the Stanley Cup?? I needed to find out about this!! First came exploration of the Seattle Metropolitans– From Wikipedia….. The Seattle Metropolitans were a professional ice hockey team based in Seattle, Washington which played in the Pacific Coast Hockey Association from 1915 to 1924. They won the Stanley Cup in 1917, becoming the first American team to do so. They played their home games at the Seattle Ice Arena The Metropolitans were an expansion team in the PCHA, that joined the league in 1915! The team was stocked by raiding players from the 1914 Stanley Cup wining Toronto Blueshirts of the National Hockey Association (NHA)The Blueshirts’ players who moved to Seattle were Eddie Carpenter, Frank Foyston, Hap Holmes, Jack Walker and Cully Wilson. This core group of players made the Seattle team immediately competitive. Now what…

Nowruz – A New Day, A New Year!

Nowruz – The Beginning of a New Year in the Persian Calender! As I look out my window this morning, I am hopefully looking at the last gasp of winter! Three to five inches of snow is supposed to fall today, and be gone tomorrow, when temperatures climb into the 50s! I read this morning that today Iranians and other countries in areas surrounding Iran are celebrating Nowruz. Since I had no idea what Nowruz was I needed to find out! What I found out was that Nowruz in Persian means “The New Day” and is the name of the Iranian’Persian New Year! From Wikipedia: Nowruz marks the first day of spring or Equinox” and the beginning of the year in the Persian calendar. It is celebrated on the day of the astronomical Northward equinox, which usually occurs on March 21 or the previous/following day depending on where it is observed. The moment the sun crosses the celestial equator and equalizes night and day is calculated exactly every year and families gather together to observe the rituals. Nowruz is celebrated by people from diverse ethnic communities and religious backgrounds for thousands of years. It is a secular holiday for most celebrants that is enjoyed by people of several different faiths, but remains a holy day for Zoroastrians. It originated in Persia in one of the capitals of the Achaemenid empire in Persis (Fars) in Iran and is also celebrated by the cultural region that came under Iranian influence or…

Aldus Manutius – the Renaissance’s Leading Publisher

Aldus Manutius – Venice publisher who created the first pocket-sized books! This afternoon I saw this post in Twitter feed – A Tribute to the Printer Aldus Manutius, and the Roots of the Paperback.. The tribute is a new show in New York at the Grolier Club in Manhattan, “Aldus Manutius: A Legacy More Lasting Than Bronze,” The show brings together nearly 150 books from Aldine press founded by Manutius in Venice in 1494. The books are known as Aldines. So who is this Aldus Manutius and what does he have to do with paperback books. I think I need to find out about this….. At Wikipedia I read….. Aldus Pius Manutius (1449 – February 6, 1515), the Latinised name of Aldo Manuzio [ˈaldo maˈnuttsjo] was an Italian humanist who became a printer and publisher when he founded the Aldine Press at Venice. Sometimes he is called Aldus Manutius, the Elder to distinguish him from his grandson, Aldus Manutius, the Younger. His publishing legacy includes the distinctions of inventing italic type, establishing the modern use of the semicolon, developing the modern appearance of the comma, and introducing inexpensive books in small formats bound in vellum that were read much as modern paperbacks are…… ….Manutius wanted to create an octavo book format that gentlemen of leisure could easily transport in a pocket or a satchel, the long, narrow libri portatiles of his 1503 catalogue, forerunners of the modern pocket book.[10] Manutius’ edition of Virgil’s Opera (1501) was the first octavo volume that he…

Aldus Manutius – the Renaissance's Leading Publisher

Umami – um that's good!

Umami – The reason we love bacon?? This morning I was looking through The Costco Connection magazine, when I came across this article Uma-what? Umami is more familiar than you think. Since Uma-what? is actually what I think when I hear Umami. I read the article and then went to Wikipedia to find out more about Umami. Umami is a savory taste and is one of the five basic tastes, the others are sweet, sour, bitter and salt. Umami .translates as a “pleasant savory taste” which comes from the taste of glutamates and nucleotides. Th use of Glutamate has been around in cooking for a long time according to Wikipedia… Fermented fish sauces (garum), which are rich in glutamate, were used widely in ancient Rome,[15] fermented barley sauces (murri) rich in glutamate were used in medieval Byzantine and Arab cuisine,[16] and fermented fish sauces and soy sauces have histories going back to the 3rd century in China. In 1908 Umami was first “scientifically identified” in a professor of the Tokyo Imperial University Kikunae Ikeda,. Kikunae found that glutamate was responsible for the palatability of the broth from kombu seaweed. He noticed that the taste of kombu dashi was distinct from sweet, sour, bitter and salty and named it umami! Ever since umami’s existence was proposed by Kikunae scientists have debated whether umami was a basic taste. It wasn’t until 1985 that….. the term umami was recognized as the scientific term to describe the taste of glutamates and nucleotides at the first…

Philip Levine – An American Poet Laureate Passes…

Philip Levine – (January 10, 1928 – February 14, 2015) Poet of America’s Middle Class…. When I created Finding Out! I envisioned it as kinda’ my Trivia Crack.Spin the wheel, or surf the Internet and explore things that fall into the main categories of Trivial Pursuit, the arts, science, sports, history, entertainment, and geography all things that I love, Finding Out about! Today the wheel within my ADD addled brain spun and landed on the Arts….I have mentioned before when discussing Rod McKuen Baudelaire, that I am not a big fan of poetry, which is why I didn’t know who Philip Levine was when I saw his name among Wikipedia’s list of those who have recently passed away Philip Levine was not only and award-winning American poet, known for his poems about working-class Detroit, he was also appointed Poet Laureate of the United States for 2011–2012! Here are those awards that Philip Levine won…. 2013 Academy of American Poets Wallace Stevens Award 1995 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry – The Simple Truth (1994) 1991 National Book Award for Poetry and Los Angeles Times Book Prize – What Work Is 1987 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize from the Modern Poetry Association and the American Council for the Arts 1981 Levinson Prize from Poetry magazine 1980 Guggenheim Foundation fellowship 1980 National Book Award for Poetry – Ashes: Poems New and Old 1979 National Book Critics Circle Award – Ashes: Poems New and Old – 7 Years from Somewhere 1978 Harriet Monroe Memorial Prize from…

The Bookwheel , what a way to read!!

The Bookwheel invented by Agostino Ramelli in 1588! As I started browsing through Wikipedia this morning I came across a contraption invented by Italian military engineer Agostino Ramelli the bookwheel!! It was the perfect invention for all of those like us, who back in 1588 loved to read more than one book at a time! It’s just a tad bulkier than your Kindle!! Th bookwheel which is sometimes called a reading wheel is according to Wikipedia…. a type of rotating bookcase designed to allow one person to read a variety of heavy books in one location with ease. The books are rotated vertically similar to the motion of a water wheel, as opposed to rotating on a flat table surface. The design for the bookwheel originally appeared in a 16th-century illustration by Agostino Ramelli. Since then, Ramelli’s design has influenced other artists and engineers….. ….The bookwheel, in its most commonly seen form, was invented by, presented as one of the 195 designs in Le diverse et artificiose machine del Capitano Agostino Ramelli (The various and ingenious machines of Captain Agostino Ramelli).[1] To ensure that the books remained at a constant angle, Ramelli incorporated an epicyclic gearing arrangement, a complex device that had only previously been used in astronomical clocks. Ramelli’s design is unnecessarily elaborate, as he likely understood that gravity could have worked just as effectively (as it does with a Ferris wheel, invented centuries later), but the gearing system allowed him to display his mathematical prowess.[2] While other people would go…

Morning Explorations: Jainism

One of my favorite all-time songs is Buffy Saint-Marie’s “The Universal Soldier”. I love both Donovan and Buffy’s version and well anyone else who sings this song. The song speaks the truth about religion and war. Here are the opening verses of the song. He’s five foot-two, and he’s six feet-four, He fights with missiles and with spears. He’s all of thirty-one, and he’s only seventeen, Been a soldier for a thousand years. He’a a Catholic, a Hindu, an Atheist, a Jain, A Buddhist and a Baptist and a Jew. And he knows he shouldn’t kill, And he knows he always will, Kill you for me my friend and me for you. Now the reason that the “Universal Soldier” popped into my head today was that I was surfing around Wikipedia this morning and I went to the religion portal where I found an article about Jainism. As I started to read, I was fascinated by the tenets of this ancient religion. I knew I had to Find out more about Jainism. Mahavira (599 BCE–527 BCE[1]), also known as Vardhamana is widely regarded as the founder of Jainism, Actually, Mahavira was the twenty-fourth and last tirthankara of Jainism. A tirthankara is a person who has conquered samsara, the cycle of death and rebirth, and can provide a bridge for Jains to follow them from samsara to moksha (liberation). So Mahavira should be regarded as more of a reformer of Jainism. The first of the 24 Tīrthaṅkaras was R̥ṣabha or Ādinātha (Original Lord”), also known as the “Lord of Kesariya”)., About…

Imbolc – Let’s Celebrate the Arrival of Spring!!

Imbolc – Gaelic Festival Marking the Arrival of Spring (February 1 – 3) Back in 1968, Phil Ochs wrote these words about the Vietnam War, in what may be his most popular song “The War is Over” …… Silent soldiers on a silver screen Framed in fantasies and dragged in dream Unpaid actors of the mystery The mad director knows that freedom will not make you free And what’s this got to do with me I declare the war is over It’s over, it’s over (Complete song lyrics here – Video) Now we all know that the Vietnam War did not end in 1968 but rather went on tragically for another seven years before ending in 1975. I thought about these lyrics when I read before the latter part of the 20th century when many of its customs died the Gaelic Festival – Imbolc or Imbolg was celebrated on February 1st (or about halfway between the winter solstice and the spring equinox. Imbolc marked the beginning of spring! From Wikipedia :…..Historically, it was widely observed throughout Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man. It is one of the four Gaelic seasonal festivals—along with Beltane, Lughnasadh and Samhain[3]—and corresponds to the Welsh Gŵyl Fair y Canhwyllau. Christians observe it as the feast day of Saint Brigid, especially in Ireland. …..Historically, it was widely observed throughout Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man. It is one of the four Gaelic seasonal festivals—along with Beltane, Lughnasadh and Samhain[3]—and corresponds to the Welsh Gŵyl…