And here is the Wannaskan Almanac for Wednesday, August 1, 2018, brought to you by the Lake of the Woods Artists Retreat. Come out to Laketrails Base Camp on Oak Island for a weekend of rest, relaxation, and art, September 6-9, 2018. Register here.
August 1 is the 213 day of the year, with 152 days remaining until the end of the year, and 243 days remaining until April Fools Day, so hump it!
August 1 is the 213 day of the year, with 152 days remaining until the end of the year, and 243 days remaining until April Fools Day, so hump it!
Earth/Moon Almanac for August 1, 2018
Sunrise: 5:57am; Sunset: 9:03pm
Moonrise: 11:25pm; Moonset: 10:43am, waning gibbous
Temperature Almanac for August 1, 2018
Average Record Today
High 79 96 68
Low 56 39 42
August 1 Celebrations from National Day Calendar
National Girlfriends Day
National Raspberry Cream Pie Day
National Minority Donor Awareness Day
Respect for Parents Day
August 1 Pun and Riddle
People who cannot distinguish between etymology and entomology bug me in ways that I cannot put into words.
Why does the Norwegian Navy have bar codes on the side of their ships?*
August 1 Notable historic events, literary or otherwise, from On This Day
August 1 author/artist birthdays, from On This Day
Words I looked up this week: acedia, bourgade, camarilla, discandy, privet, szlachta, squalid
Today's edition of Wannaskan Almanac begins a new month with an entirely new artistic venture: Writer Community Contribution Story. Here's how it works. I'll begin a neverending story called, Wannaska World in this edition of the Wednesday Wannaskan Almanac. Our story will develop each week based on comments contributed by readers. Also, whenever so inspired, any Wannaska Almanac contributor may use her/his day to write a new installment of Wannaska World. You can count on a new Wannaska World installment each Wednesday, incorporating reader comments from the previous Wednesday or installments from other contributors. In other words, all Wannaska Almanac readers can shape the story line of Wannaska World, as it develops.
Wannaska World, 2018.08.01
Once upon a midnight in the land of Wannaska, a boy of 12 very old-feeling years dangled his legs from the open door of his tree house built high above the ground. Otto sat in a moment between the two worst days of his life, having just lost his lifelong friend - also 12, or 84 - depending on how you count dog years. Otto stared up into a moonless, star-filled sky filled with memories of Wink. Twelve years of memories cannot be contained by the 12-year-old mind, especially because those Wink memories were grounded in joy - except for the last one. Just before he left, right in the moment of saving Otto's life, Wink and Otto eyes locked and said everything to each other. Then everything ended; but more on that later.
Otto had passed the two hours before midnight stringing together a long chain of wishes, but the wish-chain became so long with so many wishes that the midnight-wish snapped under the weight. Otto fell inside out, and just then - in that moment before the one day could become the next - the stars all vanished as an immense, deafening silence climbed out of the ground and noiselessly sat right down on the ground over Otto's tree, spreading dark cheeks from horizon to horizon across the midsummer countryside. In that tiny, thin rift between those cheeks of dark emptiness sitting over and around his world, Otto heard two sounds - the bark of a dog and the voice of a girl.
From A Year with Rilke, August 1 entry
I Come Home, from The Book of Hours, I, 50
I come home from the soaring
in which I lost myself.
I was song, and the refrain which is God
is still roaring in my ears.
Now I am still
and plain:
no more words.
Be better than yesterday, learn a new word today, and to stay out of trouble - at least until tomorrow.
*So that when they come back to port they can Scandinavian.
Sunrise: 5:57am; Sunset: 9:03pm
Moonrise: 11:25pm; Moonset: 10:43am, waning gibbous
Temperature Almanac for August 1, 2018
Average Record Today
High 79 96 68
Low 56 39 42
August 1 Celebrations from National Day Calendar
National Girlfriends Day
National Raspberry Cream Pie Day
National Minority Donor Awareness Day
Respect for Parents Day
August 1 Pun and Riddle
People who cannot distinguish between etymology and entomology bug me in ways that I cannot put into words.
Why does the Norwegian Navy have bar codes on the side of their ships?*
August 1 Notable historic events, literary or otherwise, from On This Day
- 1780 Sweden declares neutrality
- 1785 Caroline Herschel becomes 1st woman to discover a comet
- 1834 Slavery abolished throughout the British Empire - Slavery Abolition Act 1833 comes into effect
- 1838 Apprenticeship system abolished in most of the British Empire. Former slaves no longer indentured to former owners.
- 1840 Labourer slaves in most of the British Empire are emancipated.
- 1941 The first Jeep is produced.
- 1944 Anne Frank's last diary entry; 3 days later she is arrested.
- 1953 California introduces sales tax (for education)
- 1972 First article exposing Watergate scandal by Bernstein and Woodward in the The Washington Post
August 1 author/artist birthdays, from On This Day
- 1819 Herman Melville
- 1848 František Kmoch, Czech composer and conductor
- 1929 Ann Calvello, American roller derby queen
- 1942 Jerry Garcia
Words I looked up this week: acedia, bourgade, camarilla, discandy, privet, szlachta, squalid
Today's edition of Wannaskan Almanac begins a new month with an entirely new artistic venture: Writer Community Contribution Story. Here's how it works. I'll begin a neverending story called, Wannaska World in this edition of the Wednesday Wannaskan Almanac. Our story will develop each week based on comments contributed by readers. Also, whenever so inspired, any Wannaska Almanac contributor may use her/his day to write a new installment of Wannaska World. You can count on a new Wannaska World installment each Wednesday, incorporating reader comments from the previous Wednesday or installments from other contributors. In other words, all Wannaska Almanac readers can shape the story line of Wannaska World, as it develops.
Wannaska World, 2018.08.01
Once upon a midnight in the land of Wannaska, a boy of 12 very old-feeling years dangled his legs from the open door of his tree house built high above the ground. Otto sat in a moment between the two worst days of his life, having just lost his lifelong friend - also 12, or 84 - depending on how you count dog years. Otto stared up into a moonless, star-filled sky filled with memories of Wink. Twelve years of memories cannot be contained by the 12-year-old mind, especially because those Wink memories were grounded in joy - except for the last one. Just before he left, right in the moment of saving Otto's life, Wink and Otto eyes locked and said everything to each other. Then everything ended; but more on that later.
Otto had passed the two hours before midnight stringing together a long chain of wishes, but the wish-chain became so long with so many wishes that the midnight-wish snapped under the weight. Otto fell inside out, and just then - in that moment before the one day could become the next - the stars all vanished as an immense, deafening silence climbed out of the ground and noiselessly sat right down on the ground over Otto's tree, spreading dark cheeks from horizon to horizon across the midsummer countryside. In that tiny, thin rift between those cheeks of dark emptiness sitting over and around his world, Otto heard two sounds - the bark of a dog and the voice of a girl.
From A Year with Rilke, August 1 entry
I Come Home, from The Book of Hours, I, 50
I come home from the soaring
in which I lost myself.
I was song, and the refrain which is God
is still roaring in my ears.
Now I am still
and plain:
no more words.
Be better than yesterday, learn a new word today, and to stay out of trouble - at least until tomorrow.
*So that when they come back to port they can Scandinavian.
Love the new artistic adventure, and will definitely contribute to it. Naturally, the death of the canine friend touched me deeply. I appreciate how you gave the facts of the situation but did not dip into the maudlin or drippy sentimental. Just the facts, Woe.
ReplyDeleteThe way you end the entry gives us writers plenty of leeway to continue the narrative (finely written on your part, I might add). I can't make up my mind whether Otto should a) be attracted to the girl's voice, or as with most 12 year old boys, cringe away from it. The "bark of a dog" could also go in many directions -- deeper sorrow for Wink, a lightening of Otto's grief, the beginning of Otto's search for the barking dog (the ghost of Wink?) which Otto sorely wants, somehow, to be Wink returned to him.
The treehouse location works well for Wannaska. At least we know Otto doesn't live in a highrise, probably. I want to know more details about the tree house.
As I percolate on all this, I just may find my way to a partial contribution.
Way to go, Woe! Good Boy! Here's a treat!
Otto snuggled deep into the edgy comfort of all the old worn out dirty magazines his mother told him he shouldn't look at that he had squirreled away in his tree house, thinking of when he and Wink used to hunt rats down along the railroad tracks in Wannaska.
ReplyDeleteThey'd get up early on Saturday mornings and sneak out of the house before anyone was truly awake. Otto would have to carry Wink because of the click-click noise her claws made on the linoleum that would be sure to wake Otto's mom who always slept with one ear and one eye open for anything amiss in her house, even though Otto's dad, a man's man, slept in his own little bed opposite her ready to spring out of it at a moment's notice. Otto's dad was more than one woman's hero. But more on that later.
Closing the door silently, Wink and Otto would steal from the house and, giving it a wide berth (because of his mom's bionic hearing abilities), they would slip under the backyard fence, being careful not to tear Otto's clothes nor gouge out one of Wink's eyes, into the dead end alley, whose shallow ruts were impregnated with layers of coal cinders thrown there over the back fences of the other neighbors for many years, and make their way four doors down (i.e., four houses) to the Winnipeg, Wannaska, & Warroad Rail Road tracks, where, on either side of it for miles, lived t'ousands of monsterous rats that fed on the stuff that fell out of passing boxcars whether it was engine block leakage from crushed salvaged cars on their way to Winnipeg, or eelpout juice oozing out from the towering titilating tons of dead eelpouts dredged up under duress from the far-flung fathoms of the Lake of The Woods by the commercial eelpout fishing industry in Warroad, or the clippings from strange foul-smelling floor sweepings that were bagged and baled every night then loaded up through the overhead door of the Wannaska Convenience store along the river's edge by the railroad trestle.
Wink knew what was up.