And here is the COVID-19 edition of Wannaskan Almanac for Word-Wednesday, March 25, 2020, the 13th Wednesday of the year, the 85th day of the year, with 281 days remaining, but only 7 days until April 1st.
Nordhem Lunch: Hot Turkey Plate
Nordhem Lunch: Hot Turkey Plate
Days without a positive COVID-19 test for Wannaska Almanac contributing authors: 26,663
Earth/Moon Almanac for March 25, 2020
Sunrise: 7:155am; Sunset: 7:44pm; 3 minutes, 36 seconds more daylight today
Moonrise: 8:12am; Moonset: 9:07pm, waxing crescent
Temperature Almanac for March 25, 2020
Average Record Today
High 39 64 34
Low 19 -20 14
March 25 Celebrations from National Day Calendar
- National Lobster Newburg Day
- National Medal of Honor Day
- National Tolkien Reading Day
- National Little Red Wagon Day
- Manatee Appreciation Day
- National Ag Day
- International Waffle Day
March 25 Word Riddle
My number, definite and known, is ten times ten, told ten times o'er; Though half of me is one alone, and half exceeds all count and score.*
March 25 Pun
Due to the self-imposed Word-Wednesday quarantine, we will only be telling inside jokes:
Our neighbor recently ran out of toilet paper and now has to wipe with lettuce leaves. He told us it was just the tip of the iceberg.
March 25 Notable Historic Events, Literary or Otherwise, from On This Day
- 1811 Percy Bysshe Shelley is expelled from the University of Oxford for his publication of the pamphlet The Necessity of Atheism.
- 1955 United States Customs seizes copies of Allen Ginsberg's poem Howl as obscene.
- 1960 D.H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover ruled not obscene by New York court.
- 1867 Arturo Toscanini.
- 1879 Otakar Zich, Czech composer.
- 1881 Béla Bartok.
- 1925 Flannery O'Connor.
- 1942 Aretha Franklin.
- 1947 Elton John.
- 2184 Pavel Andreivich Chekov, Leningrad, USSR, USS Enterprise.
March 25 Wannaskan Almanac Quarantune Playlist
- Get Back, The Beatles
- Don’t Stand So Close to Me, The Police
- Live and Let Die, Paul McCartney
- Leave Me Alone, Michael Jackson
- Cant’ Touch This, M.C. Hammer
- I Will Survive, Gloria Gaynor
- You Take My Breath Away, Freddie Mercury
- I’m Not Dead, Pink
- I Wanna Be Sedated, The Ramones
- All By Myself, Eric Carmen
- Staying Alive, Bee Gees
- Walk On By, Dionne Warwick
- In My Room, The Beach Boys
- I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry, Hank Williams
- Toxic, Brittany Spears
- Creeping Death, Metallica
- In The Air Tonight, Phil Collins
- I Want a New Drug, Huey Lewis and The News
- Bad Medicine, Bon Jovi
- Take a Walk On The Wild Side, Lou Reed
- Hands To Myself, Selena Gomez
- Another One Bites The Dust, Queen
- From A Distance, Bette Midler
- Stairway To Heaven, Led Zepplin
- Corona Hold Your Hand, Mr. Hot CoCo
Words-I-Looked-Up-This-Week Writer's Challenge
Make a single sentence (or poem) from the following words:
- blatherskite: a person who talks foolishly at length.
- chorine: a chorus girl.
- discommode: to bother or cause trouble or inconvenience to someone.
- fleadh cheoil: a festival of Irish or Celtic music, dancing, and culture.
- intaglio: a design incised or engraved into a material.
- kairos: a propitious moment for decision or action.
- monoxylous: working with, or made out of a single trunk or piece of timber.
- oneirocriticism: the art or practice of interpreting dreams.
- perdition: a state of eternal punishment and damnation into which a sinful and unpenitent person passes after death.
- ramageous: high-spirited; boisterously or violently uncontrollable; of an animal; wild, untamed, violent; in rut.
March 25, 2020 Word-Wednesday Feature
Viral Words (Words with Multiple Definitions)
The Second Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, published 1989, contains more than 600,000 words. The Third Edition is not due until 2037. For Word-Wednesday trivia buffs, this edition of the OED specifies separate definitions for many words, where the following ten words hold the current definitions record holders:
set - 430
run - 396
go - 368
take - 343
stand - 334
get - 289
turn - 288
put - 268
fall - 264
strike - 250
The first ten definitions for the word run are as follows:
1. move at a speed faster than a walk, never having both or all the feet on the ground at the same time.
2. pass or cause to pass quickly or smoothly in a particular direction.
3. (with reference to a liquid) flow or cause to flow.
4. extend or cause to extend in a particular direction.
5. (of a bus, train, ferry, or other form of transportation) make a regular journey on a particular route.
6. be in charge of; manage.
7. be in or cause to be in operation; function or cause to function.
8. continue or be valid or operative for a particular period of time.
9. be a candidate in a political election.
10. publish or be published in a newspaper or magazine.
Writer’s challenge, extra credit: make a single sentence (or poem) from any ten different versions or word form of the word run, using the least possible number of words to do so.
From A Year with Rilke, March 25 Entry
Annunciation (I), from Book of Images.
(The angel speaks)
It’s not that you are closer to God than we;
We are all far from God.
But your hands seem to me
so wonderfully blessed,
made ready as no other woman’s.
They are almost radiant.
I am the day, I am the dew.
You, though, are the tree.
I am tired now, I have traveled a long way.
Forgive me, but I have forgotten
what He, enthroned in gold like the sun,
wanted me to tell you, quiet one.
All that space made me dizzy.
But I am just the beginning.
You, though, are the tree.
Wash your hands better than yesterday,
don't touch your face today,
try to stay well - at least until tomorrow,
and write when you have the time.
*thousands.
ReplyDelete“riverrun, past Eve and Adams,” runs
The first line of “Finn’s Wake”
I read as I run, my posters to take,
To the printer, I sez,
Cause I’m running for Prez.
But my passage is blocked by a non-running train.
“Who’s running this chooch? Could it be Mr. Wayne?”
This train once ran daily, any hour you choose.
An up-to-date schedule ran each day in the news.
Ran my eye down the tracks that run to the South,
I hear Mr. Wayne running his mouth.
“It’s all too demanding, I’ve run out of puns,
“So it’s ‘back to Howth Castle and Enviruns’”
ReplyDeleteThe road to perdition leads through the pub.
I should pass it by but there’s always a rub:
I love the fleadh cheoil there, it’s mostly ramageous.
And to chat up the chorines, stout makes me courageous.
To this one lass I said “I’m not some bum hypocritical,
“But I saw you last night in my dreams oneirocritical.”
“You’re sweet,” she then said. “But the kairos is hot.
“It’s time that you shat or got off the pot.”
Like a blatherskite fool I ran to the biffy.
‘Twas the manoxylous type, really quite spiffy.
Where I sit discommodo as I carve this long ditty.
My intaglio job though should come out real pretty.
Perdition: damnation
Fleadh cheoil: Irish music, dance, fun
Ramageous: noise from a fleadh cheoil
Chorine: girl in a fleadh cheoil
Oneirocriticism: interpreting of dreams
Kairos: moment for decision
Blatherskite: much talk; little sense
Manoxylous: made from a single timber
Discommoded: not very comfy
Intaglio: design engraved into a material
Working my way backwards and ashamed of my tardiness in reading "Almanac" posts lo these past few weeks. I have excuses, but won't burden you with them. Well . . . maybe one: I'm riding herd on a particularly wily bunch of beta readers for my latest, forthcoming book. That said, Mr.Wed Word, where do you get your material? To wit, this time your list of current-news songs. Brilliant! Plagiarized? Either way, fun! As for the Chairman's pram - do I detect an odor of Ulysses, aka James Joyce? JP Savage
ReplyDelete