Word-Wednesday for September 22, 2021

And here is the Wannaskan Almanac for Word-Wednesday, September 22, 2021, the 38th Wednesday of the year, the fall equinox and first Wednesday of fall, and the 265th day of the year, with 100 days remaining.


Wannaska Nature Update for September 22, 2021
Mushrooms are getting very large with the recent rains.

Nordhem Lunch: Closed.


Earth/Moon Almanac for September 22, 2021
Sunrise: 7:11am; Sunset: 7:22pm; 3 minutes, 33 seconds less daylight today
Moonrise: 8:24pm; Moonset: 8:46am, waning gibbous, 98% illuminated.


Temperature Almanac for September 22, 2021
                Average            Record              Today
High             63                     84                     74
Low               41                     22                     52


September 22 Celebrations from National Day Calendar

• National Online Recovery Day
• American Business Women’s Day
• Car Free Day
• Dear Diary Day
• National Centenarian’s Day
• Elephant Appreciation Day
• National Girls’ Night
• Hobbit Day
• National Ice Cream Cone Day
• National Legwear Day
• National White Chocolate Day

September 22 Word Riddle
What subject to witches like best?*


September 22 Word Pun
esplanade: /ˈes-pləˌ-näd/ v., to attempt an explanation while intoxicated.


September 22 Etymology Word of the Week
equinox: /ˈē-kwəˌ-näks/ n., c. 1400, "point at which the sun crosses the earth's equator, making day and night of equal length everywhere," from Old French equinoce (12c.) or directly from Medieval Latin equinoxium "equality of night (and day)," from Latin aequinoctium, usually in plural, dies aequinoctii "the equinoxes," from aequus "equal" (see equal (adj.)) + nox (genitive noctis) "night" (see night). The Old English translation was efnniht. Related: Equinoctial.

September 22 Notable Historic Events, Literary or Otherwise, from On This Day

• 1598 Playwright and poet Ben Jonson is indicted for manslaughter as the result of a duel.
• 1665 Moliere's comedic play L'amour Medecin premieres for King Louis XIV at Versailles.
• 1773 Benjamin Franklin publishes a hoax letter, "An Edict by the King of Prussia", in the Public Advertiser, criticizing Britain's colonial policies in the American colonies.
• 1851 City of Des Moines, Iowa incorporated as Fort Des Moines.
• 1966 Edward Albee's play, Delicate Balance, premieres.

September 22 Author/Artist/Character Birthdays, from On This Day

• 1290 Bilbo Baggins.
• 1368 Frodo Baggins.
• 1788 Theodore Hook, English author, famous practical joker and recipient of the world's first postcard.
• 1880 Christabel Pankhurst, English suffragist, daughter of Emmeline Pankhurst.
• 1895 Babette Deutsch, American poet.
• 1910 Klement Slavicky, Czech composer.
• 1918 Archibald James Potter, Irish composer.
• 1957 Nick Cave.

September 22, 2021 Song of Myself
Verse 47 of 52
I am the teacher of athletes,
He that by me spreads a wider breast than my own proves the width of my own,
He most honors my style who learns under it to destroy the teacher.

The boy I love, the same becomes a man not through derived power, but in his own right,
Wicked rather than virtuous out of conformity or fear,
Fond of his sweetheart, relishing well his steak,
Unrequited love or a slight cutting him worse than sharp steel cuts,
First-rate to ride, to fight, to hit the bull’s eye, to sail a skiff, to sing a song or play on the banjo,
Preferring scars and the beard and faces pitted with small-pox over all latherers,
And those well-tann’d to those that keep out of the sun.

I teach straying from me, yet who can stray from me?
I follow you whoever you are from the present hour,
My words itch at your ears till you understand them.

I do not say these things for a dollar or to fill up the time while I wait for a boat,
(It is you talking just as much as myself, I act as the tongue of you,
Tied in your mouth, in mine it begins to be loosen’d.)

I swear I will never again mention love or death inside a house,
And I swear I will never translate myself at all, only to him or her who privately stays with me in the open air.

If you would understand me go to the heights or water-shore,
The nearest gnat is an explanation, and a drop or motion of waves a key,
The maul, the oar, the hand-saw, second my words.

No shutter’d room or school can commune with me,
But roughs and little children better than they.

The young mechanic is closest to me, he knows me well,
The woodman that takes his axe and jug with him shall take me with him all day,
The farm-boy ploughing in the field feels good at the sound of my voice,
In vessels that sail my words sail, I go with fishermen and seamen and love them.

The soldier camp’d or upon the march is mine,
On the night ere the pending battle many seek me, and I do not fail them,
On that solemn night (it may be their last) those that know me seek me.

My face rubs to the hunter’s face when he lies down alone in his blanket,
The driver thinking of me does not mind the jolt of his wagon,
The young mother and old mother comprehend me,
The girl and the wife rest the needle a moment and forget where they are,
They and all would resume what I have told them.


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

• brassica: /ˈbras-ə-kə/ n., a plant of a genus that includes cabbage, turnip, Brussels sprout, and mustard.
• cachinnate: /KAK-uh-neyt/ v., to laugh very loudly, hard, or convulsively.
• dichroism: /ˈdī-krō-ˌi-zəm/ n., the property of some crystals and solutions of absorbing one of two plane-polarized components of transmitted light more strongly than the other.
• ecbolic: /ek-ˈbäl-ik/ adj., inducing contractions of the uterus leading to expulsion of a fetus.
• faffle: /‘fa-fəl/ v., to stammer.
• kangling:  /‘kang-gling/ Tibetan, རྐང་གླིང།. n.,  literally translated as “leg  flute”, is the Tibetan] name for a  trumpet or horn made out of a human  thighbone used in  various Chöd rituals as well as funerals performed by a chöpa.
• majuscule: /ˈma-jəsˌ-kyo͞ol/ n., large lettering, either capital or uncial, in which all the letters are the same height; a large letter.
• oniomania: /OH-nee-oh-MAHY-nee-yah/ n., an obsessive or uncontrollable urge to buy things; an abnormal impulse for buying things.
• rhathymia: /rha-THY-mia/ n., the state of being carefree; light-heartedness; from Greek, from “rhathymos” (lighthearted, easy-tempered, carefree) from “rha” (easy, ready) + “thymos” (spirit, mind, courage)
• snurl or snirl: /snurl/ v., to turn up one’s nose in scorn; to curl up, twist, snarl, wrinkle.

September 22, 2021 Word-Wednesday Feature
Twilight
/ˈtwīˌlīt/ n., the soft glowing light from the sky when the sun is below the horizon, caused by the refraction and scattering of the sun's rays from the atmosphere; a period or state of obscurity, ambiguity, or gradual decline, from Old English twi- "two" + light. Two lights, indeed, on this day of the autumn equinox where the time of light and dark are equal, where twilight lands smack, dab in between. Light is the domain of the left hemisphere and the thinker; dark is the domain of the right hemisphere and the artist. Twilight is that in-between place where both need to work together in balance, or as Rod Serling famously describes it: "You are about to enter another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land of imagination. Next stop, the Twilight Zone."

The left hemisphere contributes by breaking the twilight period down into numerical pieces:
Civil Twilight: begins in the morning, or ends in the evening, when the geometric center of the sun is 6 degrees below the horizon, as when the geometric center of the sun is 6 degrees below the horizon, and ends at sunrise.  Evening civil twilight begins at sunset, and ends when the geometric center of the sun is 6 degrees below the horizon.  Under these conditions absent fog or other restrictions, the brightest stars and planets can be seen, the horizon and terrestrial objects can be discerned, and in many cases, artificial lighting is not needed.

Nautical Twilight: begins in the morning, or ends in the evening, when the geometric center of the sun is 12 degrees below the horizon.  In general, the term nautical twilight refers to sailors being able to take reliable readings via well known stars because the horizon is still visible, even under moonless conditions.  Absent fog or other restrictions, outlines of terrestrial objects may still be discernible, but detailed outdoor activities are likely curtailed without artificial illumination.

Astronomical Twilight: begins in the morning, or ends in the evening, when the geometric center of the sun is 18 degrees below the horizon.  In astronomical twilight, sky illumination is so faint that most casual observers would regard the sky as fully dark, especially under urban or suburban light pollution.  Under astronomical twilight, the horizon is not discernible and moderately faint stars or planets can be observed with the naked eye under a non light polluted sky.  But to test the limits of naked eye observations, the sun needs to be more than 18 degrees below the horizon.  Point light sources such as stars and planets can be readily studied by astronomers under astronomical twilight.  But diffuse light sources such as galaxies, nebula, and globular clusters need to be observed under a totally dark sky, again when the sun is more than 18 degrees below the horizon.

Since the left hemisphere is in charge of setting the rules, all twilight zones have been officially placed in the dark category.

The right hemisphere contributes by using metaphor and other embodied forms of representation such as landscape, facial expressions, and the five senses to discover how twilight feels. Here are three examples of the right hemisphere approach:

Sonnet 73: That time of year thou mayst in me behold
That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou see'st the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire,
Consum'd with that which it was nourish'd by.
This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

William Shakespeare

The Tide Rises the Tide Falls
The tide rises, the tide falls,
The twilight darkens, the curlew calls;
Along the sea-sands damp and brown
The traveller hastens toward the town,
  And the tide rises, the tide falls.
 
Darkness settles on roofs and walls,
But the sea, the sea in the darkness calls;
The little waves, with their soft, white hands,
Efface the footprints in the sands,
  And the tide rises, the tide falls.
 
The morning breaks; the steeds in their stalls
Stamp and neigh, as the hostler calls;
The day returns, but nevermore
Returns the traveller to the shore,
  And the tide rises, the tide falls.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Morning Twilight
Reveille was sounding on barrack-squares,
and the wind of dawn blew on lighted stairs.
It was the hour when a swarm of evil visions
torments swarthy adolescents, when pillows hum:
when, a bloodshot eye, throbbing and quivering,
the lamp makes a reddened stain on the morning:
when the soul, by dull sour body, bowed down,
enacts the struggle between lamp and dawn.
Like a tearful face that the breeze wipes dry,
the air’s filled with the frisson of things that fly,
and man is tired of writing, woman with loving.
The chimneys, here and there, began smoking.
The women of pleasure, with their bleary eyes,
and gaping mouths, were sleeping stupefied:
poor old women, with chilled and meagre breasts,
blew the embers, then fingers, roused from rest.
It was the hour, when frozen, with money scarcer,
the pains of women in childbirth grew fiercer:
and like a sob cut short by a surge of blood
a cock-crow far away broke through the fog:
a sea of mist bathed the buildings, dying men,
in the depths of the workhouse, groaned again
emitting their death-rattles in ragged breaths.
Debauchees, tired by their efforts, headed for rest.
Shivering dawn in a robe of pink and green
made her way slowly along the deserted Seine,
and sombre Paris, eyes rubbed and watering,
groped for its tools, an old man, labouring.

Charles Baudelaire

From A Year with Rilke, September 22 Entry
The Portal (III), from New Poems

These forms loom tall, hearts restrained,
poised in eternity.
Here and there from the folds of a robe—
a gesture emerges, as formal as they,

and, arrested before completion, still is there,
overtaken by the centuries. Behold their equilibrium
as they gaze out from the arches of stone
into a world they do not see.

They have not negated this world of turmoil
that bends and shakes
and still manages to hold them.

For its shapes, like acrobats,
only twist and contort themselves
so the pole on their forehead does not fall.


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.



*spelling