According to Wikipedia:

Daniel Hess of West Union, Iowa, USA invented a vacuum cleaner in 1860. Calling it a carpet sweeper instead of a vacuum cleaner, his machine did, in fact, have a rotating brush like a traditional vacuum cleaner, which also possessed an elaborate bellows mechanism on top of the body to generate suction of dust and dirt. Hess received a patent (U.S. No. 29.077) for his invention of the vacuum cleaner on July 10, 1860.

What is dust made of?

From answerbag.com:

Actually, there are three main components of dust: first, dead skin cells, second, the dried feces and dessicated corpses of dust mites (lovely thought, eh? When people develop a house-dust allergy, this is usually the component they are reacting to), and the last component by volume is tiny fibers shed by clothing -- cotton is bad for this, and jeans are the worst. This is for ordinary house dust. (Incidentally, dust mites are not generally visible, except with a microscope; they are 200-300 microns long, they eat dead skin cells and live in bedding, carpets and soft furnishings. Always. Trust me on this, anything a year old or more has a good population of them.)

In the case of a new basement, on the other hand, the primary component of dust is likely to be the obvious: concrete. Elsewhere in a brand-new house plaster and plasterboard both "shed" copiously over the first few weeks.

And outdoor dust is fine particles of soil and stone dust (composition dependent on location and prevailing winds), with a hefty component of pollen and other plant material.

So it does depend on where you are.

From madsci.org:

If you take a few fingers full out of your vacuum cleaner, put it in a plastic bag, and bring it to school, you can look at a glob under a microscope at various powers and see all kinds of really nasty looking things in there. You'll need to pull the blobs apart to differentiate some of the more twisted items - but it's totally hideous.

From answers.yahoo.com:

Question: Some hippie was rambling about how we are all just reanimated star dust and I am wondering if this is true. I like the idea. It's nice to think that the molecules in my body used to be a star. I would like to better understand this concept. Is it based on fact or just the musings of a hippie?

Best Answer - Chosen by Voters:

Pretty much. The hydrogen atoms in you were made when the universe began, but all other atoms were manufactured by stars. The only elements that weren't made in stars are hydrogen, helium and a little bit of lithium.

A small room above a bay window. A single bed, a table and chair, and a sink. I could manage something larger, with more conveniences, but I could never match the view.

Under the bed, surrounded by dustballs, a vacuum. The dustballs have come to the vacuum because that is where they ended up, not to attack it or take it captive.

It is a strange sight -- made stranger for the blood rushing to my head.

//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

My work is finished. My poet is dead.
-- Vladimir Nabakov, Pale Fire

Today's New York Times Book Review takes criticism as its theme ("Why Criticism Matters"). Though I have yet to look at all its contents, I did notice an excerpt from Mary McCarthy's June 4, 1962 New Republic review of Nabakov's Pale Fire (1962), a book that was definitely on my mind when writing American Whiskey Bar (1997).

Here is what Mary McCarthy said of Pale Fire:

"When the separate parts are assembled, according to the manufacturer's directions, and fitted together with the help of clues and cross-references, which must be hunted down as in a paper chase, a novel on several levels is revealed, and these 'levels' are not the customary 'levels of meaning' of modern criticism but planes in a fictive space, rather like those houses of memory in medieval mnemonic science, where words facts and numbers were stored till wanted in various rooms and attics, or like the House of astrology into which the heavens are divided."

So a favorable review, as they say, but one still reliant on metaphor, a device that a later modernism (more open to conflict than function) still struggles to live without.

Writer–broadcaster Ross Porter reviews James Kaplan’s Frank: The Voice (Toronto: Doubleday, 2010) in today’s Globe and Mail. Below is an excerpt from both the review and the book:

It was also while working with Dorsey that he developed an approach to singing that he continued for the rest of his career. He would take a piece of paper with just the lyric to a song, with no music. As Sinatra explained, “At that point I’m looking at a poem. I’m trying to understand the point of view of the person behind the words. I want to understand his emotions. Then I start speaking, not singing the words, so I can experiment and get the right inflections. When I get with the orchestra, I sing the words without a microphone at first, so I can adjust the way I’ve been practicing to the arrangement. I’m looking to fit the emotion behind the song that I’ve come up with to the music. Then it all comes together. You sing the song.”