Word-Wednesday for July 29, 2020

And here is the Wannaskan Almanac for Word-Wednesday, July 29, 2020, the 31st Wednesday of the year, the sixth Wednesday of summer, and the 211th day of the year, with 155 days remaining.


Wannaska Nature Update for July 29, 2020
Butterflies are everywhere!

Nordhem Lunch: Closed.
But here’s a delicious recipe for Rhubarb Cream Cheese Bars
CRUST:
    1 1/2 Cups flour
    1/2 cup sugar
    3/4 cup butter
RHUBARB LAYER:
    4 cups chopped rhubarb
    1 cup sugar
    4 tablespoons flour
CREAM CHEESE FILLING:
    1 1/2 (12-ounce) packages cream cheese
    3/4 cup sugar
    3 eggs
GLAZE:
    3/4 cup sour cream
    2 teaspoon vanilla

Combine crust ingredients spread into a 9x13-inch pan and bake at 375°F for 10 minutes.

Toss together ingredients for rhubarb layer and pour over crust. Bake for 15 minutes at 375°F.

Mix together cream cheese and sugar. Beat eggs in one at a time pour mixture over rhubarb and bake 25 minutes 375°F.

Mix glaze ingredients together and spread over bars as soon as they come out of the oven.


Earth/Moon Almanac for July 29, 2020
Sunrise: 5:53am; Sunset: 9:04pm; 2 minutes, 42 seconds less daylight today
Moonrise: 4:57pm; Moonset: 1:18am, waxing gibbous


Temperature Almanac for July 29, 2020
                Average             Record              Today
High             78                     99                     78
Low              57                     39                     54


July 29 Celebrations from National Day Calendar

• National Lipstick Day
• National Chicken Wing Day
• International Tiger Day
• Ólavsøka
• National Anthem Day
• National Thai Language Day
• National Lasagna Day

July 29 Word Riddle
What’s another name for curly fries?*


July 29 Pun

July 29 Notable Historic Events, Literary or Otherwise, from On This Day

• 1773 First schoolhouse west of Allegheny Mountains completed, Schoenbrunn, Ohio.
• 1786 First newspaper published west of Alleghenies, Pitts Gazette.
• 1836 Inauguration of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris.
• 1851 Annibale de Gasparis discovers asteroid 15 Eunomia.
• 1884 Society of Independent Artists founded in Paris by Albert Dubois-Pillet, Odilon Redon, Georges Seurat, and Paul Signac.
• 1928 Test footage first created for Walt Disney's Steamboat Willie with Mickey Mouse.
• 1954 Publication of Fellowship of the Ring, first volume of Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien.

July 29 Author/Artist/Character Birthdays, from On This Day

• 1590 Gilles Hayne, Flemish composer.
• 1605 Simon Dach, Prussian-German poet.
• 1646 Johann Theile, German composer.
• 1805 Alexis de Tocqueville, author of Democracy in America.
• 1857 Iacob Mureșianu, Romanian composer.
• 1883 Manuel Infante, Spanish composer/conductor.
• 1883 Porfirio Barba-Jacob, Colombian poet and writer.
• 1885 Theda Bara.
• 1900 Eyvind Johnson, Swedish novelist.
• 1905 Clara Bow, American silent screen actress.
• 1905 Stanley Kunitz, American poet.
• 1928 Bidzina Alexandrovich Kvernadze, Georgian composer.
• 1930 Paul Taylor, dancer/choreographer.

July 29 Word Fact
A single piece of confetti is called a confetto.


Words-I-Looked-Up-This-Week Writer's Challenge
Make a single sentence (or poem) from the following words: 

• ambagious: roundabout or circuitous; unnecessarily wordy or long-winded.
• bromidrosis: the emanation of noxiously foul-smelling sweat.
• coulrophobia: extreme or irrational fear of clowns.
• éclaircissement: exposition or elucidation of something that has been hitherto inexplicable.
• fatidic: of or related to prophecy.
• imprecation: a spoken curse.
• loin: the part of the body on both sides of the spine between the lowest (false) ribs and the hipbones. LITERARY: the region of the sexual organs, especially when regarded as the source of erotic or procreative power.
• muscose: of the nature of or resembling moss; mosslike.
• puppify: to make compliant and submissive; to fool.
• snool: a servile toady who submits tamely; a willing kow-tower.

July 29, 2020 Word-Wednesday Feature
Diegesis or Mimesis?
Some critics insist that the entire world of literature and poetry is based on one or a combination of seven basic storylines:

• Overcoming the Monster
• Rags to Riches
• The Quest
• Voyage and Return
• Rebirth
• Comedy
• Tragedy

Tolstoy boiled it all down to two: “All great literature is one of two stories; a man goes on a journey or a stranger comes to town.” In Tolstoy's world, one imagines the stranger could be either a man or a woman. Today Word-Wednesday explores two interesting words that reflect how a writer frames her story.

Diegesis /ˌdaɪəˈdʒiːsɪs/ from the Greek διήγησις from διηγεῖσθαι, "to narrate", is a style of fiction in which a narrator tells the story. The narrator may speak as a particular character, or may be the invisible narrator, or even the all-knowing narrator who speaks from "outside" in the form of commenting on the action or the characters. Catcher in the Rye, written by J. D. Salinger, as told by Holden Caufield, is a familiar example of diegetic literature.

Mimesis /mɪˈmiːsɪs, mə-, maɪ-, -əs/ from the Greek μίμησις from μιμεῖσθαι, "to imitate", from μῖμος "imitator, actor", carries a wide range of meanings which include imitation, receptivity, representation, mimicry, the act of expression, the act of resembling, and the presentation of the self, where the narrative is presented by means of action and speech in one of two forms. In behavioral mimesis, characters speak about or respond to scenarios in understandable ways - often in extended metaphor - such as Shakespeare's "All the world's a stage" mimesis from As You Like It. The other form of mimesis is vocal, where the author uses a particular accent or speech pattern appropriate for the character, such as WannaskaWriter's use of mimetic dialect in his Sven and Ula stories.

This gives me an excuse to talk about one of my favorite books that about which almost no one seems to know: Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature, by Erich Auerbach, a German philologist and comparative scholar and critic of literature, and a member of the philology faculty at the University of Marburg. For reasons of conscience, Auerbach vacated his position in 1935 with the rise of National Socialism. Exiled from Nazi Germany, he took up residence in Istanbul, Turkey. Known as one of the best studies of mimesis as a form of realism in western literature, Mimesis begins with comparison of the world from two perspectives: the world according to Homer's Odyssey and the world according to the Bible. Auerbach uses Mimesis to develop a unified theory of narrative representation spanning the entire history of Western literature. Amazingly, he includes the Modernist novels being written at the time Auerbach began his study. Why amazing?

What fascinates me most about Auerbach's work is his resources. Imagine a German Jew in a Muslim metropolis writing a representational history of Western literature with virtually no books. In Chapter 5 of East West Mimesis: Auerbach in Turkey, Kader Konuk describes the situation.

“UNFORTUNATELY, THERE WERE ALMOST NO BOOKS,” claimed Leo Spitzer, long after he had left Istanbul and established himself as a scholar in the United States. Asking the dean at Istanbul University about the shortage, the dean apparently replied, “We don’t bother with books. They burn.” Odd as the statement seems, Spitzer conceded that the dean may have had a point: the city was built atop a seismic fault, making for frequent cataclysms, the buildings were mostly of wood, and the fire department was hopelessly disorganized.

Auerbach wrote Mimesis in Istanbul from his memory of Western literature.


From A Year with Rilke, July 29 Entry
The Gazelle (Gazella Dorcas), from New Poems.

Enchanted one: how can the harmony of two
Latin words ever attain the rhythm
that ripples through you like a promise.
From your brow rise leaf and lyre.

And all that is you turns to metaphor
in love poems whose phrases light
as rose petals remain in the expression
of one who, after reading, closes her eyes

to see you: almost in flight,
borne away in leaps that cease their springing
only when you stand stock still to listen;

as when a woman bathing in a woodland stream
pauses suddenly, and the water
mirrors her quick-turned face.

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.

*rotatoes.