Are the Young Man on Warehouse 13 and the Boy on the Honey Nuts Cheerios Commercial Brothers?

“I’ve been watching Warehouse 13 on television. On the last few shows there has been a young man who resembles the boy on the new Honey Nut Cheerios commercial.  Are they brothers?”  This is not the first time a patron has asked the staff of the Newton Falls Public Library about someone who has appeared on television.

We first needed to find the names of the actors.  Internet Movie Database, www.imdb.com, is a very useful source for questions pertaining to the movie and television industry.  The entry for Warehouse 13 had an entry for each of the episodes.  Season 4, Episode 19, July 1, 2013 All the Time in the World had photographs for all the actors.  Our patron identified Josh Blaylock, who played Nick Powell, as the actor for which she was looking.  The trivia given for him said that he was born and raised in Texas and has an older brother.  This made it unlikely that the actor in the Cheerios commercial was related, as he was much younger.

The commercial was not listed in this database, so we used a search engine to look for “Honey Nut Cheerios 2013 commercial.”  This led us to the additional words “reverse psychology” that we added to the original list.  We found it at ispot.tv.  The young actor is Griffin Gluck.  We returned to IMDB to find more about Griffin.  He is 10 years younger than Josh and is from Los Angeles, so they are not brothers.

What Does "White On Rice" Mean?

"I've heard the expression 'like white on rice,' but I'm not really sure if I'm correct in understanding what it means.  Can you find me the information?"  English has some very unusual phrases that the patrons and staff of the Newton Falls Public Library have found to be interesting.

Our search began in the library's reference collection.  On the cover of Cassell's Dictionary of Slang by Jonathon Green, which is, according to Evening Star Standard  reviewer Jonathan Meades says ". . . a terrific piece of work - learned, entertaining, funny , stimulating." It has 1312 pages of definitions, from  "a n. 1[20C](W.I./Guyn.) a general term for dislike. 2 [1940+] (US) used as euphemism for ARSE" to zweideener n. [late 19C] (Aus./N.Z.) a two-shilling (10p) piece." Our library staff was intrigued it. Some of the words have a great variety of meanings. For example, dog has 34 entries, and 56 definitions.  It was interesting to browse through the book and see that it includes slang from as far back as the 16th century up to modern day.  "Like white on rice," the expression, for which we were searching, came into common usage in 1980 and continues to be used today.  The origins of  the phrase is attributed to US Black.  It is defined as "very closely [rice is white itself]".

What Was the Last Name of Joseph Cotten's Character in the Radio Show "Suspense"?

The caller said, "Joseph Cotten was in the old radio show, Suspense.  His character's name was Wells Something. Can you find his last name?  The Newton Falls Public Library staff personally knows very little about old radio drama, and finds these pop culture questions interesting.

Using a search engine and the terms "Joseph Cotten old radio show Suspense", we found the website Radio of Yesteryear: Original Old Radio -Oldest Website of Old Time Radio Programs The Joseph Cotten Collection vol. 2. The site has a list of some of the programs in which he acted.  Our staff then searched for "Suspense" and the title of each radio show in which he performed. When we searched "Suspense The Day I Died" we discovered the website Escape and Suspense! Vintage Radio Broadcasts of Dangerous Adventure, Urban Legends, and Tales of Fear and Trembling. The site's article  stated that Cotten starred as Welles Gallaway, " a murderer who makes the mistake of asking his wife [Leslie] to hide him . . . The problem is Leslie, having once treated her so badly, can Welles trust her to help him?"

For patrons interested in radio shows, the shared Clevnet system has a selection of over 200 titles available to be borrowed, ranging from The 60 Greatest Old-time Radio Shows of the 20th Century to Youth: Stories from the Collection Lake Wobegon U.S.A.

What Were the Names of the Pair of Pianists Who Played the Song Exodus?

"I remember many years ago that there were a pair of pianists who played the song Exodus. Can you find me their names?"  Some of the more mature library staff also remembered the pair and that their initials were F & T, but nothing more.

The online search for the words "dual pianists played Exodus" brought immediate results. The Wikipedia article,  Ferrante & Teicher  gave us the names, as well as a link to their official website, www.ferranteandteicher.com.  The site noted that their careers spanned five decades, they performed in over 5,400 concerts attended by over 18 million people, recorded 150 original record albums, received 22 gold and platinum record awards and sold more than 90 million recordings.  The biographical information given at AllMusic.com, states that they met and began to perform together while students at Julliard (School of Music).

Also noted in the Wikipedia article was an interesting bit of trivia about the duo; in the 1950s the two students practiced in the home of Constance Neidhart Tallarico "pianist who studied at the Peabody Conservatory" and was grandmother of Aerosmith's Steven Tyler [Walk This Way: The Autobiography of Aerosmith by Aerosmith with Stephen Davis, pp. 19-20.]  A copy of this book, as well as CDs of the pair's music are available through the Clevnet shared catalog.

I Need a Chart of the Growing Periods of Tomatoes

“I need a chart of the growing periods of tomatoes. Can you help me?”  The Newton Falls Public Library staff understands the importance of this information to home gardeners, so they can determine the best selection of plants for our growing season.

We showed our patron Ortho's Complete Guide to Vegetables by Jacqueline Hériteau which has several pages of descriptions of various tomatoes with growing periods.  Our patron stated that he wanted a printed sheet, and would like us to look online for the information.

The website, Harvest to Table Plant Prepare Preserve has the article, How to Choose a Tomato for Your Garden by Steve Albert (February 28, 2009). The included chart has more than 100 tomatoes. The tomatoes are either early-harvest, main-crop, or late-season.  Albert also notes whether they are determinate (bushy) and indeterminate (vining) varieties, the days to maturity, and growing suggestions and use.  This was exactly the information our patron needed.

When his bumper crop of tomatoes comes in, the staff also recommended The Tomato Festival Cookbook: 150 recipes that make the most of your crop of lush, vine-ripened, sun-warmed, fat,juicy, ready-to-burst heirloom tomatoes by Lawrence Davis-Hollander and

Food in Jars: preserving in small batches year-round by Marisa McClellan. McClellan's book is excellent for beginners as it focuses on small batches that are easy projects for those unfamiliar with canning.

Why is Fido a Popular Name for a Dog?

"Why is Fido a popular name for a dog?  Where does it come from?"  Over the years, the Newton Falls Public Library staff has found that patrons are often interested in the origins of words.

We began our search with a selection of print materials including the Oxford English Dictionary and Cassell's Dictionary of Slang by John Green, and Pet Names by Jean E. Taggart.  In our shared Clevnet catalog we found the title Don't Call Me Rover!!: 5001 names to call your pet by Rita Blockton.  Since we do not currently have this book on our shelves and the patron did not wish to wait for it to come from another library, we continued our search online.  However, this title did intrigue our patron and he now wished to know about Rover as well.

The website english.stackexchange.com is a question and answer site for linguists, etymologists, and serious English language enthusiasts. They posted that a "stereotypical name for a dog is Fido, from the Latin for faithful."  The etymology for Rover, states that "Rover was a common name for a hunting dog in 1718" and the Oxford English Dictionary says it is "an animal which ranges over a wide area."

PetAdviser.com had the interesting article Old School Dog Names You Don’t Hear Anymore  by Jenna Rohrbacher (December 26, 2012), which examined the names Spot, Rover, Fido and Lady. Much of what Rohrbacher included was similar to other information that we found.  She did note that "Fido is possibly best known historically as President Abraham Lincoln’s trusty pet."

Are Residents of Puerto Rico Citizens of the United States of America?

"Are residents of Puerto Rico citizens of the United States of America?"  asked our caller.  The Newton Falls Public Library staff member was happy to begin the search for this patron's request.

Oxford Reference Online, one of the online databases available to library patrons through our shared Clevnet system, was one of the first places our staff member searched by using the words "Puerto Rico citizenship." One of the suggested links was for the online book The Oxford Companion to United States History  by Paul S. Boyer.  Boyer stated "the Jones Act (1917) . . . extended U.S. citizenship to Puerto Ricans . . . In 1950 the island won the right to draft and enact its own constitution. The constitution, which became law in 1952, established the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. . ."

Now informed that citizens of Puerto Rico are also citizens of the United States of America, our staff member was curious if there are other places outside of our fifty states where this also applied.  The website answers.usa.gov lists our territorial and associated state governments as America Samoa, Guam, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Midway Atoll, North Mariana Islands, Palau, Puerto Rico, and U.S. Virgin Islands. It also states that the House of  "Representatives has five Delegates(representing the District of Columbia, the Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa,and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands), and one Resident Commissioner (representing Puerto Rico)."  "You are a U.S. citizen if you have a birth certificate issued by a U.S. state or territory."