And here is the Wannaskan Almanac for Word-Wednesday, November 6, 2019, the 45th Wednesday of the year, the 310th day of the year, with 55 days remaining.
Nordhem Lunch: Hot Beef
Earth/Moon Almanac for November 6, 2019
Sunrise: 7:18am; Sunset: 4:57pm; 3 minutes, 5 seconds less daylight today
Moonrise: 3:11pm; Moonset: 12:44am, waxing gibbous
Temperature Almanac for November 6, 2019
Average Record Today
High 39 61 23
Low 23 -10 10
November 6 Celebrations from National Day Calendar
Nordhem Lunch: Hot Beef
Earth/Moon Almanac for November 6, 2019
Sunrise: 7:18am; Sunset: 4:57pm; 3 minutes, 5 seconds less daylight today
Moonrise: 3:11pm; Moonset: 12:44am, waxing gibbous
Temperature Almanac for November 6, 2019
Average Record Today
High 39 61 23
Low 23 -10 10
November 6 Celebrations from National Day Calendar
- National Nachos Day
- Saxophone Day
- National Stress Awareness Day
- Zero-Tasking Day
November 6 Literary Riddle
Who wrote the following passage?
All these bold birds who fly out into the wide, widest open – it is true! At some point they will not be able to fly any farther and will squat down on some pylon or sparse crag – and very grateful for this miserable accommodation to boot! But who would want to conclude from this that there was no longer a vast and prodigious trajectory ahead of them, that they had flown as far and wide as one could fly! All our great mentors and precursors have finally come to a stop, and it is hardly the noblest and most graceful of gestures with which fatigue comes to a stop: it will also happen to you and me! Of what concern, however, is that to you and me! Other birds will fly farther.*
November 6 Pun
As I get older and remember all the people I’ve lost along the way, I think to myself, “Maybe being a tour guide was a poor choice for me.”
November 6 Notable Historic Events, Literary or Otherwise, from On This Day
- 1958 Wilber Snyder beats Verne Gagne in Omaha, to become NWA wrestling champ.
- 1854 John Philip Sousa.
- 1906 Francis Lederer, Czech actor.
- 1916 Ray Conniff.
Words-I-Looked-Up-This-Week Writer's Challenge
Make a single sentence (or poem) from the following words:
- convolvulus: a twining plant with trumpet-shaped flowers, some kinds of which (such as bindweed) are invasive weeds, while others, especially morning glories, are cultivated for their bright flowers.
- gormless: lacking intelligence: stupid.
- optative: relating to or denoting a mood of verbs in Greek and other languages, expressing a wish, equivalent to English expressions if only.
- peculation: to steal or take dishonestly (money, especially public funds, or property entrusted to one’s care); embezzle.
- rood: a crucifix, especially one positioned above the rood screen of a church or on a beam over the entrance to the chancel.
- secateurs: a pair of pruning clippers for use with one hand.
- sinicize: make Chinese in character or form.
- smarmy: ingratiating and wheedling in a way that is perceived as insincere or excessive.
- sortition: making a chance decision by using lots that are thrown or drawn.
- succubus: a female demon believed to have sexual intercourse with sleeping men.
November 6, 2019 Word-Wednesday Feature
Australian Words
Australians have developed a colorful collection of slang unique to their island continent. It's amazing how many such words apply to common circumstances here in Wannaska.
Chairman Joe took a sickie back in August, and that same arvo he went to meet WannaskaWriter for a barbie after a quick run to the bottle-O, arriving with his car chockers of Guinness. But Chairman Joe was late, and he found WannakaWriter sooking, overdressed in flanno to keep away the mossie. "Got the esky?" WannaskaWriter whinged. Chairman Joe replied in the affirmative by presenting his new stubbie holder and the car full of Guinness with a wink. WannaskaWriter grinned from ear to ear and replied, "That one's a fair dinkum ripper!"
- arvo: afternoon.
- barbie: barbeque.
- bogan: redneck, an uncultured person. A real bogan sports a flanno (flannel shirt).
- bottle-O: bottle shop, liquor store.
- chockers: very full.
- esky: cooler, insulated food and drink container.
- fair dinkum: true, real, genuine.
- mozzie: mosquito.
- ripper: really great
- sickie: sick day.
- slab: 24-pack of beer; not available for Guinness.
- sook: to sulk. If someone calls you a sook, it is because they think you are whinging.
- stubbie holder: koozie or cooler.
- whinge: whine
Jack Pine Savage and I had the extreme pleasure of attending a celebration of life for Joshua Tyler Mehmel Birchem last Sunday, and we were not alone. The yard was full of vehicles, with more vehicles stretching bumper-to-bumper out the long drive, and down Bankton Road for three-quarters of a mile in each direction. Memories were shared, prayers were said, and there was singing. The celebration ended with attendees singing one of Joshua's favorite songs: Waltzing Matilda, written in 1895 by Banjo Peterson. One's understanding of the importance of this song to Joshua really depends on knowing a bit of Australian slang, particularly the following words:
- billabong: a watering hole
- billy: a lightweight cooking pot in the form of a metal bucket.
- coolibah: a northern Australian gum tree that typically grows near watercourses and yields strong, hard timber.
- jumbuck: a sheep.
- matilda: one's personal belongings in a bundle.
- squatter: a landowner.
- swagman: also called a swaggie, sundowner or tussocker, was a transient laborer who traveled by foot from farm to farm carrying his/her/their bedroll.
- swag: a bedroll.
- tuckerbag: a storage bag used by travelers in the outback, typically a swagman or bushman, for carrying subsistence food. In its basic design a tucker bag is a pouch or bag with a single entry typically closed with a drawstring, made of leather or oilskin.
- waltzing: traveling on foot.
Wikipedia notes that there are no "official" lyrics to Waltzing Matilda, but here's the version that appeared in the program on Sunday:
Once a jolly swagman camped by a billabong
Under the shade of a coolibah tree,
And he sang as he watched and waited 'til his billy boiled,
"You'll come a-waltzing Matilda, with me."
Waltzing Matilda, waltzing Matilda,
You'll come a-waltzing Matilda, with me,
And he sang as he watched and waited 'til his billy boiled,
"You'll come a-waltzing Matilda, with me."
Down came a jumbuck to drink at that billabong,
Up jumped the swagman and grabbed him with glee,
And he sang as he shoved that jumbuck in his tuckerbag,
"You'll come a-waltzing Matilda, with me." (repeat)
Up rode the squatter, mounted on his thoroughbred;
Down came the troopers -- one, two, and three.
"With the jolly jumbuck that you've got in your tuckerbag,
You'll come a-waltzing Matilda, with me." (repeat)
Up jumped the swagman and sprang into the billabong;
"You'll never catch me alive!" said he.
And his ghost may be heard as you pass by that billabong:
"You'll come a-waltzing Matilda, with me." (repeat)
Like, the jolly swagman who drowned himself in a nearby billabong, Joshua took his own life. But no mere swagman, was Joshua. He was a gifted writer with a love of nature and of physics. In a letter to his family he talked about how he saw the universe:
"Stephen Hawking has proposed that black holes actually emit a small amount of particles, meaning that over long periods of time black holes will evaporate. Scientists have also theorized that protons, the very building block of matter as we know it, will eventually decay into subatomic particles. Assuming these two theories are true, the universe will be nothing but subatomic particles and ironically, for the dark era, light. This means that if you went to the right spot, and had a strong enough telescope, you could see the ghost of what was. In the beginning God said let there be light, and in the end, that's all that was left."
It began to snow gently during the pastor's eulogy about Joshua, and the snowflakes silently falling on the heads and shoulders of those gathered felt like Joshua's light descending on us all.
From A Year with Rilke, November 6 Entry
Jeremiah, from New Poems.
Once I was as yielding as early wheat,
but it pleased you, raging one,
to ignite the heart I offered you.
Now, like a lion’s, it is on fire.
What sort of mouth did you allot me,
back then when I arrived?
It was like a wound, which now is bleeding
one catastrophe after another.
Daily I resound with fresh horrors
that you, insatiable one, contrive,
and they do not destroy my mouth.
Even you lack the power to silence it now,
when those whom my people have crushed and scattered are finally lost.
Amidst the rubble, I would want
to keep on hearing the voice that has been mine,
from the beginning a howl.
Be better than yesterday,
learn a new word today,
try to stay out of trouble - at least until tomorrow,
and write when you have the time.
*Friedrich Nietzsche in Dawn.
ReplyDeleteI swear by the rood, this gal succubus,
I met riding South on a fast Greyhound bus.
She convolulused tight ‘round me, I could not escape.
I’ll admit I was gormless. I should have cried rape.
At the bus stop I bought her a meal sinicized.
The egg rolls were yummy, we shared four or five.
Then the smarm-boys in back, they started to churn.
By sortition they showed that they hoped for a turn.
“No peculation!” I yelled waving sharp secateurs.
And they left with my dream girl, the miserable curs.
In my optative moments this vision comes clear:
Had she stayed we’d be famous, like Sonny and Cher.
Rood: cross
Succubus: Demon dream girl
Convolulus: twining plant
Gormless: stupid
Sinicize: make like in China
Smarmy: over the top wheedling
Sortition: casting lots
Peculation: embezzlement
Secateurs: garden shears
Optative: coulda-shoulda-woulda
Crikey, ripper! Wet my daks on that one.
ReplyDeleteAs always, poetic kudos to the Chairman. And to WedChild, thanks for sharing our experiences at Josh's Life Celebration.
ReplyDeleteThat was a fine tribute to Joshua. I hope he's reached the light he wrote of.
ReplyDeleteI also enjoyed the Australian take on a Chairman Joe-Wannaska Writer confab. You did not use the word "slab," a 24-pack of beer, perhaps because it's not available for Guinness. Well, let me tell you of a CJ-WW Guinness moment from our checkered past. It occurred on an early spring evening on the outskirts of Des Moines. WW, his bride, and I had come to town for the funeral of WW's beloved oldest sister, which would take place the following day.
After our long day on the road, we were parched. So after settling Mrs. WW in the motel, WW and I started our search. It's funny how some parts of town will have a liquor store on every corner while in others you can drive for miles, feeling like you're in Saudi Arabia.
I fired up the GPS and began to navigate. When I glanced at WW, beads of sweat were standing out on his forehead and the steering wheel had taken on a funny shape in his grip. "This is a Very, Very Bad Part of Town," he said. WW grew up in Des Moines and should know. I grew up on the east coast and have never been able to find a real slum west of the Ohio River. The area we were driving in looked bucolic to me.
"We're getting out of here," WW said, Just then the GPS lit up. "No, wait, we're here," I said. Sure enough, there was a bunker-like building, with clientele coming and going. "I'm not going in there," he said. "I just saw a white guy, go in," I said. "We'll be fine" WW's thirst got the better of him and we walked through the reinforced door. Right here we beheld a display of Guinness slabs. The first and last I've ever seen. For us, it was like discovering the Ark of the Covenant in the desert. But we're no Indy Jones, and we got our delicate six packs of the Black Stuff and headed out the door. But WW's car was GONE!! Actually we had just forgotten where we parked. Everything was fine, and back at the motel we lifted a toast to the sister of WW, excellent woman that she was.