Word-Wednesday for June 23, 2021

And here is the Wannaskan Almanac for Word-Wednesday, June 23, 2021, the 25th Wednesday of the year, the first Wednesday of summer, and the 174th day of the year, with 191 days remaining.


Wannaska Nature Update for June 23, 2021
The Great Tomato Comeback

Vespers
In your extended absence, you permit me
use of earth, anticipating
some return on investment. I must report
failure in my assignment, principally
regarding the tomato plants.
I think I should not be encouraged to grow
tomatoes. Or, if I am, you should withhold
the heavy rains, the cold nights that come
so often here, while other regions get
twelve weeks of summer. All this
belongs to you: on the other hand,
I planted the seeds, I watched the first shoots
like wings tearing the soil, and it was my heart
broken by the blight, the black spot so quickly
multiplying in the rows. I doubt
you have a heart, in our understanding of
that term. You who do not discriminate
between the dead and the living, who are, in consequence,
immune to foreshadowing, you may not know
how much terror we bear, the spotted leaf,
the red leaves of the maple falling
even in August, in early darkness: I am responsible
for these vines.

Louise Glück

Nordhem Lunch: Closed.


Earth/Moon Almanac for June 23, 2021
Sunrise: 5:21am; Sunset: 9:31pm; 9 seconds less daylight today
Moonrise: 7:26pm; Moonset: 3:31am, waxing gibbous, 89% illuminated.


Temperature Almanac for June 23, 2021
                Average            Record              Today
High             75                     93                     89
Low              54                     34                     55


June 23 Celebrations from National Day Calendar

• National Detroit-Style Pizza Day
• National Hydration Day
• National Pink Day
• National Pecan Sandies Day
• Let It Go Day

June 23 Word Riddle
What kind of melons always have weddings?*


June 23 Pun
Yesterday I spotted an albino Dalmatian.  As a dog lover, it was the least I could do.


June 23 Notable Historic Events, Literary or Otherwise, from On This Day

• 1819 First editions of The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. by Washington Irving released, featuring story Rip Van Winkle.
• 1888 Frederick Douglass is first African-American to be nominated for US Vice President.
• 1944 Thomas Mann becomes a US citizen.
• 1949 First twelve women graduate from Harvard Medical School.

June 23 Author/Artist/Character Birthdays, from On This Day

• 1810 Franziska "Fanny" Elssler, Austrian ballerina.
• 1891 Vladislav Vančura, Czech author.
• 1912 Alan Turing.
• 1957 Frances McDormand.

June 23, 2021 Song of Myself
Verse 34 of 52
Now I tell what I knew in Texas in my early youth,
(I tell not the fall of Alamo,
Not one escaped to tell the fall of Alamo,
The hundred and fifty are dumb yet at Alamo,)
’Tis the tale of the murder in cold blood of four hundred and twelve young men.

Retreating they had form’d in a hollow square with their baggage for breastworks,
Nine hundred lives out of the surrounding enemy’s, nine times their number, was the price they took in advance,
Their colonel was wounded and their ammunition gone,
They treated for an honorable capitulation, receiv’d writing and seal, gave up their arms and march’d back prisoners of war.

They were the glory of the race of rangers,
Matchless with horse, rifle, song, supper, courtship,
Large, turbulent, generous, handsome, proud, and affectionate,
Bearded, sunburnt, drest in the free costume of hunters,
Not a single one over thirty years of age.

The second First-day morning they were brought out in squads and massacred, it was beautiful early summer,
The work commenced about five o’clock and was over by eight.

None obey’d the command to kneel,
Some made a mad and helpless rush, some stood stark and straight,
A few fell at once, shot in the temple or heart, the living and dead lay together,
The maim’d and mangled dug in the dirt, the new-comers saw them there,
Some half-kill’d attempted to crawl away,
These were despatch’d with bayonets or batter’d with the blunts of muskets,
A youth not seventeen years old seiz’d his assassin till two more came to release him,
The three were all torn and cover’d with the boy’s blood.

At eleven o’clock began the burning of the bodies;
That is the tale of the murder of the four hundred and twelve young men.


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

• aleatory: /‘ˈā-lē-ə,-ˌtô-rē/ adj., depending on the throw of a dice or on chance; random; relating to or denoting music or other forms of art involving elements of random choice (sometimes using statistical or computer techniques) during their composition, production, or performance
• basorexia: /BEYS-oh-REK-see-uh/ n., an overwhelming urge, impulse, or desire to kiss.
• espalier: /əsˈ-‘pal-yər/ n., a fruit tree or ornamental shrub whose branches are trained to grow flat against a wall, supported on a lattice or a framework of stakes.
• gamine: /ɡga-‘ˈmēn/ adj., (of a young woman) attractively boyish.
• intersectionality: /ˌ,in-(t)ər-sek-SHəˈ-‘nal-ə-dē/ n., the interconnected nature of social categorizations such as race, class, and gender as they apply to a given individual or group, regarded as creating overlapping and interdependent systems of discrimination or disadvantage.
• invraisemble: /ε ̃-vʀ εsɑ ̃-‘bla-bl̥/ adj., improbable.
• pluviosity: /ˌ,plu-viˈɑ-‘a-sə-di/ n., the quality of being rainy or of bringing rain; rainfall.
• snog: /snäɡg/ v., kiss and caress amorously.
• twill: /twil/ n., a fabric so woven as to have a surface of diagonal parallel ridges.
• vincula: /ˈviNG-kyə-la/ n., horizontal line drawn over a group of terms in a mathematical expression to indicate that they are to be operated on as a single entity by the preceding or following operator.
• wainright: /ˈwān-rīt/ n., a wagon-builder.

June 23, 2021 Word-Wednesday Feature
Creating Word Meanings
Authors use words to create new meaning; some authors create meanings from old words; some authors do both. It’s all a matter of personal scope and range with regard to creativity.  All those little letters and words sit in the context of one another on an empty space, and voila! Meaning.

In case you’re interested, there is a new creative venue for word-buffs who see depth in old, used up words. It’s called HipDict, and it’s on Instagram, where you can get a taste of it here. Much like the world-famous Squib, HipDict definitions are personal observations with respect to the intersectionalities between our world and our words. Some definition entries are single words (whatever), other entries are phrases (I’ll try my best to make it). The Word-Wednesday staff took a vote on the following favorites:

awkward: adj., that moment when you realize that no one is listening, so you slowly stop talking.

best friend: n., the people you can get mad at only for a short period of time because you have important stuff to tell them.

calories: n., tiny creatures that live in your closet and sew your clothes a little bit tighter every night.

English: n., a language that lurks in dark alleys, beats up other languages, and rifles through their pockets for spare vocabulary.

feet: n., a devise used for finding LEGOS in the dark.

immature: adj., a word used by boring people to describe fun people.

Irish Handcuffs: n., when a person is carrying an alcoholic beverage in each hand at the same time.

irony: n., drawing trees on paper.

laziness: n., risking to drop everything you carry rather than walking the same distance twice.

pets: n., the only members of your family that you actually like. [especially the dogs]

poor: adj, when you have too much month at the end of your money.

single: n., a man who makes jokes about women in the kitchen.

study: v., the act of texting, eating, and watching TV with an open textbook nearby.

synonym: n., a word used in place of one you cannot spell.

teacher: n., a person who helps you solve problems you’d never have without them. [especially in middle school]

tomorrow: n., the best time to do everything you planned to do today.


From A Year with Rilke, June 23 Entry
David Sings Before Saul (I), from New Poems

My king, hear how my fingers on the strings
open distances we can travel through.
Stars careen around us
and we find we are falling like the rain.
Earth blooms where this rain has fallen.

Girls you still remember are blooming too.
They are women now, and they draw me.
Young boys wait by the still closed door.
Slender and tense, they hold their breath.

Oh, might my playing restore it all to you!
But my music reels drunkenly.
It’s those nights of yours, those nights—
my singing moves me to imagine
the exhausted forms when you had done with them.

I can accompany your memories
because I feel them. But on which strings
can I pluck for you the dark groans of your lust?



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.


*cantaloupe