Word-Wednesday for December 8, 2021

And here is the Wannaskan Almanac with Word-Wednesday, December 8, 2021, the 49th Wednesday of the year, the twelfth Wednesday of fall, and the 342nd day of the year, with 23 days remaining.


Wannaska Nature Update for December 8, 2021
Wannaska dogs look forward to warming weather!

Nordhem Lunch: Closed today through Friday, but open Saturday and Sunday.


December 8 Far Away Places Words

Earth/Moon Almanac for December 8, 2021
Sunrise: 8:05am; Sunset: 4:28pm; 1 minutes, 10 seconds less daylight today
Moonrise: 12:22pm; Moonset: 9:30pm, waxing crescent, 27% illuminated.


Temperature Almanac for December 8, 2021
                Average            Record              Today
High             21                     44                     17
Low               5                    -39                     17


December 8 Celebrations from National Day Calendar

• National Brownie Day
• Pretend To Be A Time Traveler Day

December 8 Word Riddle
What to you get when you combine a Christmas tree with an iPad?*


December 8 Cheese Word Pun
♫♪ Sweet dreams are made of cheese
♫♪ Who am I do diss a brie?
♫♪ I cheddar the world and feta cheese
♫♪ Everybody’s looking for Stilton.


December 8 Etymology Word of the Week
How does a fart sound in different European languages?

December 8 Notable Historic Events, Literary or Otherwise, from On This Day

• 1609 Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan opens its reading room, second public library in Europe.
• 1813 Ludwig van Beethoven's 7th Symphony in A, premieres in Vienna with Beethoven conducting.
• 1915 John McCrae's poem "In Flanders Fields" appears anonymously in Punch magazine.
• 1982 Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez receives the Nobel Prize for Literature.

December 8 Author/Artist/Character Birthdays, from On This Day

• 65 BC Quintus Horatius Flaccus, aka, Horace, Roman Republican poet.
• 1715 John Althuysen, Frisian vicar and poet.
• 1731 František Xaver Dušek, Czech composer.
• 1832 Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson, Norwegian author of Pa Guds Veje and Nobel laureate 1903.
• 1861 Aristide Maillol, French painter and sculptor.
• 1865 Jean Sibelius, Finnish composer.
• 1881 Padraic Colum, Irish novelist and poet.
• 1886 Diego Rivera, Mexican painter.
• 1890 Bohuslav Martinů, Czech, composer.
• 1894 James Thurber, American humorist.
• 1894 E. C. Segar, Popeye cartoonist.
• 1906 Richard Llewellyn, Welsh author of How Green Was My Valley.
• 1909 Cleo Brown, American jazz pianist.
• 1913 Delmore Schwartz, American poet, short story writer and critic.
• 1925 Sammy Davis Jr.
• 1939 James Galway, Irish classical flutist.
• 1945 John Banville, Irish novelist and journalist.
• 1966 Sinéad O'Connor, Irish singer-songwriter.

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

• bibulous: /ˈbib-yə-ləs/ adj., excessively fond of drinking alcohol.
• carmine: /ˈkär-mīn/ n., a vivid crimson color.
• frigorific: /frig-uh-‘rif-ik/ adj., causing or producing cold.
• goetic: /gō-‘e-tik/ adj., of or related to black magic or witchcraft in which the assistance of evil spirits is invoked.
• hiraeth: /ˈhir-īTH/ n., deep longing for something, especially one’s home.
• lour: /ˈlau̇(-ə)r/ v. int., to look sullen; to be or become dark, gloomy, and threatening.
• mocktail: /ˈmɑkˌteɪl/ n., a blended non-alcoholic drink consisting of a mixture of fruit juices.
• pulchritudinous: /puhl-kri-TYOOD-n-uhs/ adj., having great physical beauty; comely; Americanism from “pulchritude” from Latin “pulchritūdin-” from Latin “pulchritudino” (beauty).
• puffery: exaggerated or false praise.
• schoenobatist: /SHO-en-ahb-uh-tist/ n., a tightrope walker; a person who walks along a tightrope for the purpose of entertaining people.
• templum: /ˈt̪ɛm-plum/ n., an open space for augural observation; open, clear, broad space.

December 8, 2021 Word-Wednesday Feature
Today, Word-Wednesday celebrates the birthday and the words of James Thurber, born in Columbus, Ohio in 1894. Shot in the eye with an arrow while playing a game of William Tell with his brothers, he was unable to participate in sports and physical activities. Thurber compensated by concentrating on reading, writing, and drawing.

In 1927, after working for two years at the New York Evening Post, Thurber joined Harold Ross's new magazine, The New Yorker, as a writer, illustrator, and cartoonist. Over time, Thurber's work helped establish the sophisticated style and tone of the magazine. Thurber went on to become one of the best-known humorists of the twentieth century, writing such popular books as My Life and Hard Times (1933) and creating one of literary history's most unforgettable characters in The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, a 1939 short story, which opens with these words:

"We're going through!" The commander's voice was like thin ice breaking. He wore his full-dress uniform, with the heavily braided white cap pulled down rakishly over one cold gray eye.

Never at a loss for words, here are a few Thurber gems:

I always begin at the left with the opening word of the sentence and read toward the right and I recommend this method.

The wit makes fun of other persons; the satirist makes fun of the world; the humorist makes fun of himself.

With sixty staring me in the face, I have developed inflammation of the sentence structure and definite hardening of the paragraphs.

A false or misunderstood word may create as much disaster as a sudden thoughtless act.

I don't believe the writer should know too much where he's going. If he does, he runs into old man blueprint or old man propaganda.

There is something about a poet which leads us to believe that he died, in many cases, as long as 20 years before his birth.

Writers of comedy have outlook, whereas writers of tragedy have, according to them, insight.

Some American [Wannaskan] writers who have known each other for years have never met in the daytime or when both were sober.

If I have any beliefs about immortality, it is that certain dogs I have known will go to heaven, and very, very few persons.

The dog has got more fun out of Man than Man has got out of the dog, for the clearly demonstrable reason that Man is the more laughable of the two animals.

I myself have known some profoundly thoughtful dogs.

The dog has seldom been successful in pulling man up to its level of sagacity, but man has frequently dragged the dog down to his.

Dogs are obsessed with being happy.
Thurber dogs pic

There is no exception to the rule that every rule has an exception.

Discussion in America means dissent.

Americans want to go to heaven without dying.

Lately, I have been wondering if there is time left for daydreaming in this 21st-century world of constant communication.

It is better to know some of the questions than all of the answers.

Beautiful things don't ask for attention.

Love is the strange bewilderment that overtakes one person on account of another person.

There is no safety in numbers, or in anything else.

Hundreds of hysterical persons must confuse these phenomena with messages from the beyond and take their glory to the bishop rather than the eye doctor.

Boys are beyond the range of anybody's sure understanding, at least when they are between the ages of 18 months and 90 years.

Women are wiser than men because they know less and understand more.

Men are more interesting than women, but women are more fascinating.

I think that maybe if women and children were in charge we would get somewhere.


From A Year with Rilke, December 8 Entry
Like a Flower I Knew, from Sonnets to Orpheus, I, 25

 
It’s you, dear Vera, I would remember now,
like a flower I knew before I could name it.
I would show you to the gods,
you vanished one, you unforgotten cry.

Dancer before all else, you hesitated,
paused, as if your youth could be cast in bronze.
Bringing grief and a strange attention,
your music changed the heart.

Then the illness came. Shadows gathered,
a darkness in the blood,
cutting short your springtime.

And, as if your dancing
were a knocking at the door,
it opened, and you entered.

Crouching Woman by August Rodin

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.

*a pineapple.