Word-Wednesday for August 19, 2020

And here is the Wannaskan Almanac for Word-Wednesday, August 19, 2020, the 34th Wednesday of the year, the ninth Wednesday of summer, and the 232nd day of the year, with 134 days remaining.


Wannaska Nature Update for August 19, 2020
Chipmunks are already packing for the winter.

Nordhem Lunch: Closed.

Word-Wednesday Stay-at-Home Recipe

Lemon Cake Mix Cookies
Bursting with fresh lemon flavor!

Ingredients

• 15.25 ounce box lemon cake mix
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 2 large eggs
• 1 lemon, zested and juiced
• 1/4 cup powdered sugar

Instructions

• Preheat oven to 350°F. Line a baking sheet with a silicone mat or parchment paper and set aside.
• Combine the cake mix, oil and eggs in a large bowl. 
• Add in 1 Tablespoon of fresh lemon juice and 1 Tablespoon of lemon zest.
• Stir together until combined. If you have the time, refrigerate the dough for 15-20 minutes (it will make it a little easier to work with, since it is sticky).
• Using a medium scoop or spoon, scoop the dough onto the prepared baking mat. Then roll dough balls into the powdered sugar.
• Bake for 9-11 minutes, or until the cookies are set. You don’t want them to brown. Allow to cool on the pan for a couple minutes and then transfer to a cooling rack.

Earth/Moon Almanac for August 19, 2020
Sunrise: 6:22am; Sunset: 8:30pm; 3 minutes, 18 seconds less daylight today
Moonrise: 6:42am; Moonset: 9:19pm, waxing crescent


Temperature Almanac for August 19, 2020
                Average              Record              Today
High             76                      94                     86
Low              53                      36                     64


August 19 Celebrations from National Day Calendar

• International Bow Day
• National Aviation Day
• National Soft Ice Cream Day

August 19 Word Riddle
In schools I'm met with every day;
Transposed you've stories fraught with wonder;
Again transposed, I'm small, you'll say;
and again, you'll learn to rob and plunder.

What word fits the first clue, and when rearranged, fits the others?*


August 19 Pun
My neighbor said he slipped on my gravel, but it was his own dumb asphalt.


August 19 Notable Historic Events, Literary or Otherwise, from On This Day

• 1399 King Richard II of England surrenders to his cousin Henry. [Shakespeare makes it a play in 1595]
• 1839 Details of Louis Daguerre's 1st practical photographic process are released in Paris.
• 1897 First electric taxis drive in London.
• 1918 Irving Berlin's musical Yip Yip Yaphank premieres in New York City. [No documented performance at Malung School]

August 19 Author/Artist/Character Birthdays, from On This Day

• 1621 Gerbrand van den Eeckhout, Dutch painter.
• 1631 John Dryden, English poet.
• 1785 Seth Thomas, American manufacturer and pioneer in the mass production of clocks.
• 1871 Orville Wright.
• 1899 Franz C. Schmelkes, Czech chemist.
• 1902 Ogden Nash.
• 1915 Ring Lardner Jr.
• 1921 Gene Roddenberry.
• 1971 First appearance of Mr. Aloysius Snuffleupagus, eternally 4-year-old Sesame Street character.

August 19 Aphorism
Altissima quaeque flumina minimo sono labi.
(Still waters run deep.)


Words-I-Looked-Up-This-Week Writer's Challenge
Editor’s Note: A Wannaskan neighbor with no computer and only a dumb-phone recently submitted a hand-written comment that the words on the Word-Wednesday Writer’s Challenge list are often “big”. To atone for any past bias, this week’s list features words of no more than two syllables.

Make a single sentence (or poem) from the following words:

• aroint: imp., begone.
• bosk: a thicket of bushes; a small wood.
• crizzle: n., a roughened surface; i.v., to become rough or crumpled.
• flirk: to flip, throw, or toss suddenly.
• hoodoo: a column or pinnacle of weathered rock.
• jibbons: spring onions.
• naff: v., go away.
• perdure: to continue to exist.
• quisling: a traitor who collaborates with an enemy force occupying their country [not to be confused with quizling: a nickname for college students studying journalism or public relations].
• squab: a young domestic pigeon.

August 19, 2020 Word-Wednesday Feature
Frederic Ogden Nash, an American poet of light verse was born on this day in 1902. As he died on May 19, 1971, so there is little doubt that Chairman Joe is Mr. Nash’s reincarnation despite the similarities in their verse styles. Born to a New York businessman, Nash remembers realizing his rhyming vocation as a 6-year-old. After stints as street car advertisement writer and as an editor for The New Yorker magazine, Nash published his first collection of poems, Hard Lines in 1931. When he wasn’t writing poems, Nash wrote lyrics for Broadway musicals, lectured in colleges and universities, and became a radio comedy personality.

It’s not just about the birthday here at Word-Wednesday. Word-Wednesday features Nash and his work today because he played with words like Einstein played with elemental particles…like Rachmaninoff played with piano keys…like WannaskaWriter plays with farm implements and ladders. The following poems are by Ogden Nash.

Requiem
There was a young belle of Natchez
Whose garments were always in patchez.
When comment arose
On the state of her clothes,
She drawled, When Ah itchez, Ah scratchez!
[see: shiviness]

Or perhaps you might like:

The Pizza
Look at itsy-bitsy Mitzi!
See her figure slim and ritzy!
She eats a
Pizza!
Greedy Mitzi!
She no longer itsy-bitsy!

As Wannaskan Almanac is a family blog...

First Child ... Second Child

FIRST
Be it a girl, or one of the boys,
It is scarlet all over its avoirdupois,
It is red, it is boiled; could the obstetrician
Have possibly been a lobstertrician?
His degrees and credentials were hunky-dory,
But how's for an infantile inventory?
Here's the prodigy, here's the miracle!
Whether its head is oval or spherical,
You rejoice to find it has only one,
Having dreaded a two-headed daughter or son;
Here's the phenomenon all complete,
It's got two hands, it's got two feet,
Only natural, but pleasing, because
For months you have dreamed of flippers or claws.
Furthermore, it is fully equipped:
Fingers and toes with nails are tipped;
It's even got eyes, and a mouth clear cut;
When the mouth comes open the eyes go shut,
When the eyes go shut, the breath is loosed
And the presence of lungs can be deduced.
Let the rockets flash and the cannon thunder,
This child is a marvel, a matchless wonder.
A staggering child, a child astounding,
Dazzling, diaperless, dumbfounding,
Stupendous, miraculous, unsurpassed,
A child to stagger and flabbergast,
Bright as a button, sharp as a thorn,
And the only perfect one ever born.

SECOND
Arrived this evening at half-past nine.
Everybody is doing fine.
Is it a boy, or quite the reverse?
You can call in the morning and ask the nurse.
[birth order matters]

Last, but not least, Nash was probably most famous for his short poems, especially those about animals. The brevity and humor of these poems is remarkably similar to Wannaskan Almanac’s own Sunday Squibs. Here are a few favorites:

The Squab
Toward a better world I contribute my modest smidgin;
I eat the squab, lest it become a pigeon.

The Rhinocerous
The rhino is a homely beast,
For human eyes he’s not a feast.
Farwell, farewell, you old rhinoceros,
I’ll stare at something less prepoceros.

The Shrimp
A shrimp who sought his lady shrimp
Could catch no glimpse
Not even a glimp.
At times, translucence
Is rather a nuisance.

The Jellyfish
Who wants my jellyfish?
I’m not sellyfish!

The Cat
The trouble with a kitten is THAT
Eventually it becomes a CAT.

The Dog
The truth I do not stretch or shove
When I state that the dog is full of love.
I’ve also found, by actual test,
A wet dog is the lovingest.

And yes, Ogden Nash’s short humorous poems became known as “squabs”.

Hoodoo that voodoo
That we like so well?

I say the Squibler,
You say the Squabler,
I say Imbibbler,
You say Og Nobbler,
Chair Joe-Joe,
Hsan Neg Go,
HOT COCO
Hrubabo
Let's all say, “Mazeltov!”


From A Year with Rilke, August 19 Entry
Erect No Gravestone, from Sonnets to Orpheus I, V.

Erect no gravestone. Just let the rose
bloom every year for him.
For this is Orpheus: metamorphosis
into one thing, then another.

We need not search for the other names.
It is Orpheus in the singing, once and for all time.
He comes and goes. Is it not enough
that sometimes he outlasts a bowl of roses?

Oh, if you could understand—he has no choice but to disappear,
even should he long to stay. As his song
exceeds the present moment,

so is he already gone where we cannot follow.
The lyre’s strings do not hold back his hands.
It is in moving farther on that he obeys.

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.

*slate/tales/least/steal.