Word-Wednesday June 13, 2018

And here is the Wannaskan Almanac for Word-Wednesday, June 13, 2018, brought to you by the Roseau Postal Service: Rain or shine, sleet or snow, our postal carriers go, go, go! Your privacy is also our concern; what happens on the route, stays on the route.

June 13 is the 164 day of the year, with 201 days remaining until the end of the year, and 293 days remaining until April Fools Day.

Earth/Moon Almanac for June 13, 2018
Sunrise: 5:20am; Sunset: 9:28pm
Moonrise: 5:30am; Moonset: 9:18pm, waning crescent

Temperature Almanac for June 13, 2018
           Average    Record   Today
High       72            92          79
Low        49            32          56

June 13 Celebrations
National Random Acts of Light Day
National Kitchen Klutzes of America Day
National Sewing Machine Day
National Weed Your Garden Day

June 13 Riddle
What did the boy ghost say to the girl ghost?*

June 13 Notable historic events, literary or otherwise
1774 Rhode Island becomes first colony to prohibit importation of slaves
1866 US House of representatives passes 14th Amendment
1920 US Post Office says children cannot not be sent by parcel post
1948 Babe Ruth's final farewell at Yankee Stadium

Mailing babies prohibited

June 13 author/artist birthday
1752 Fanny Burney, England, author, Camille, Evelina
1865 William Butler Yeats, Irish poet, Wild Swans at Coole
1893 Dorothy Leigh Sayers, English novelist, 9 Taylors

Words I looked up this week: manuduction, resarciate, selvedge, vocative

Today's edition of Wannaskan Almanac Word-Wednesday explores a writer's wordly options for non-ordinary characters - individuals that cannot otherwise be affirmed in the world of concrete five-sense experiences - which I'll lump under the term, "legendary" for this discussion.

The genres that artistically deploy legendary characters include religious, mythic, fable, science fiction/fantasy, suspense/horror, squibling, and Wannaskan Almanac Tuesday humor.

Here's a short list of some more "common" legendary character categories:
Angels, Demons, Elves, Fairies, Genies, Ghosts, Giants, Gnomes, Goblins, Holiday-Inspired (Easter Bunny and Santa Claus), Human-Animal Hybrids (Centaurs and Mermaids), Magicians, Monsters, Pencerians, Pixies, Super-Heroes, Trolls, Vampires, Witches, Wizards, Zombies, where an exhaustive listing may be found here.

Though the existence of these characters defy scientific confirmation, their presence perennially  and universally occurs in all corners and cultures of the world, but crafting successful characters it not easy. The author of a work featuring a legendary character must portray the impossible as believable.

Fortunately, your local pediatrician can provide some assistance with this craft based on common features of cognitive development that predispose readers to willingly engage in cooperative gullibility. Human beings are born with the complementary cognitive capacities for "object permanence" and "kind-identity". Our capacity for object permanence suggests that legendary characters with the talent for conjuring objects into or out of existence are harder to sell than characters with talents such as teleportation or shape-shifting. Our capacity for kind-identity makes it harder for a reader to accept a radical, permanent transformation of form from person to frog - hence the tendency to use temporary transformation cycles, e.g., prince/frog/prince, to promote character development and tidy narrative chiasmus.

As discussed in her November 16, 2017 New Yorker article, "Fantastic Beasts and How to Rank Them", Kathryn Schulz notes the research of MIT scholars Tomer Ullman and John McCoy, two cognitive scientists who have studied the plausibility of magical spell and supernatural power variations. Study subjects consistently prefer magical spells that adhere to "more fundamental principles of intuitive physics", e.g., it's easier to believe in levitating a frog than a cow, and it's easier to levitate a frog up 2 feet than up 200 feet.

J.K. Rowling has demonstrated the importance of creatively naming and categorizing legendary characters,  which does seem like at least half the fun of writing such works. Watch out for those Boggarts!

With all due respect to Thor, Palmville Township merits its own officially recognized legendary creature, so please nominate your candidate.

From A Year with Rilke, June 13 entry:
The Bowl of Roses (1) from New Poems

You have seen explosions of anger, seen how two boys
wrestle themselves into a single know of hatred,
writhing on the ground like an animal assailed
by a swarm of bees. You have seen actors portray
paroxysms of rage, and maddened horses
beyond control, eyes rolling out of their heads,
teeth bared as if their very skull were shaking loose.

But now you know how thins are forgotten.
For here before you stands a bowl of roses:
unforgettable, complete in itself,
a fullness of being:
self offering without surrender, sheer presence
becoming what we truly are.

Be more legendary than yesterday, learn a new word today, and don't misuse your magical powers - at least until tomorrow.

*You're so boo-tiful!