Word-Wednesday for November 23, 2022

And here is the Wannaskan Almanac with Word-Wednesday for November 23, 2022, the forty-seventh Wednesday of the year, the ninth Wednesday of fall, and the 327th day of the year, with 38 days remaining.

 
Wannaska Phenology Update for November 23, 2022
Aurora Activity
Our sun left the nadir of it’s eleven-year cycle in 2020, where sun spots now steadily increase in number along with solar flares. You know what this means? More Northern Lights! Interested phenologists can track the progress of solar activity by clicking here.

Our historians might be interested to learn that Aristotle and Seneca described remarkably complex personal visions of Northern Lights. From Greece and Rome? Indeed! Some solar cycles over history have been so intense that Northern Lights were quite vivid. Here’s Seneca’s description from his Natural Questions:

Like a crown encircling the inner part of the fiery sky, there is a recess like the open mouth of a cave… A stretch of the sky seems to have receded and, gaping open, displays flames deep down. These all come in many colors: some are a very intense red; some have a weak, pale flame; some have a bright light; some pulsate; some are a uniform yellow with no discharges or rays emerging… The sky is seen to burn, the glow of which is occasionally so high it may be seen amongst the stars themselves, sometimes so near the ground that it assumes the form of distant fire.

November 23 Fickle Pickle Wednesday Menu Special: Potato Dumpling


November 23 Nordhem Wednesday Lunch: Updated daily by 11:00am, usually.


Earth/Moon Almanac for November 23, 2022
Sunrise: 7:45am; Sunset: 4:36pm; 2 minutes, 37 seconds less daylight today
Moonrise: 7:28am; Moonset: 4:15pm, waning crescent, <1% illuminated.


Temperature Almanac for November 23, 2022
                Average            Record              Today
High             29                     46                    38
Low              12                    -23                    23


November 23 Celebrations from National Day Calendar

• National Cashew Day
• National Eat a Cranberry Day
• National Espresso Day
• National Jukebox Day
• Tie One On Day
• Fibonacci Day
• Feast Day of Columbanus

November 23 Word Riddle
What sounds like a sneeze and is made of leather?*


November 23 Word Pun
I cannot lie, I really like big bundts.


November 23 Walking into a Bar Grammar
Three intransitive verbs walk into a bar. They sit. They converse. They depart.


November 23 Roseau Times-Region Headline:
Winnipeg Clock Factory Goes Up in Blazes: Police Report Second Hand Smoke


November 23 Etymology Word of the Week
jealous
/ˈje-ləs/ adj., feeling or showing envy of someone or their achievements and advantages, from circa 1200, gelus, later jelus, "possessive and suspicious," originally in the context of sexuality or romance (in any context from late 14th century), from Old French jalos/gelos "keen, zealous; avaricious; jealous" (12th century, Modern French jaloux), from Late Latin zelosus, from zelus "zeal," from Greek zēlos, which sometimes meant "jealousy," but more often was used in a good sense ("emulation, rivalry, zeal"), from Proto-Indo-European root ya- "to seek, request, desire" (see zeal). In biblical language (early 13th century) "tolerating no unfaithfulness." Also in Middle English sometimes in the more positive sense, "fond, amorous, ardent" (c. 1300) and in the senses that now go with zealous, which is a later borrowing of the same word, from Latin.

Among the ways to express "jealous" in other tongues are Swedish svartsjuka, literally "black-sick," from phrase bara svarta strumpor "wear black stockings," [ask Teresa] also "be jealous." Danish skinsyg "jealous," literally "skin-sick," is from skind "hide, skin" said to be explained by Swedish dialectal expression fa skinn "receive a refusal in courtship."

In her Eros the Bittersweet, Anne Carson characterizes jealousy dynamically:

The jealous lover fears that his beloved prefers someone else, and resents any relationship between the beloved and another. This is an emotion concerned with placement and displacement. The jealous lover covets a particular place in the beloved’s affection and is full of anxiety that another will take it.

The early-fifteenth-century Italian dance style called the bassa danza,  is semidramatic and transparently expressive of various psychological relationships. One of these dances, actually called “Jealousy,” where three men and three women swirl in a sequence of partner changes, while one man continually takes the position of standing alone apart from the swirl. Jealousy is a dance in which everyone moves, for it is the /instability/ of the emotional situation that preys upon a jealous lover’s mind.

November 23 Historic Events, Literary or Otherwise, from On This Day

• 800 Charlemagne arrives in Rome to investigate the alleged crimes of Pope Leo III.
• 1644 Areopagitica, a pamphlet by John Milton decrying censorship, is published.
• 1654 French mathematician, scientist, and religious philosopher Blaise Pascal experiences an intense, mystical vision that marks him for life.
• 1848 Female Medical Educational Society forms in Boston.
• 1869 The clipper Cutty Sark is launched in Dumbarton, Scotland, one of the last clippers ever built and the only one still surviving.
• 1889 Debut of first jukebox in Palais Royale Saloon, San Francisco.
• 1897 Portable pencil sharpener patented by American inventor John Lee Love.
• 1937 John Steinbeck's play Of Mice & Sven premieres.

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

• 1719 Spranger Barry, Irish Shakespearean actor.
• 1876 Manuel de Falla, Spanish pianist and composer.
• 1883 Jose Clemente Orozco, Mexican mural painter.
• 1892 Otakar Švec, Czech sculptor.
• 1897 Nirad C. Chaudhuri, Indian writer.
• 1899 Norman Hunter, English children's writer.
• 1908 Nelson S. Bond, American science fiction writer.
• 1914 Wilson Tucker, American science fiction author.
• 1926 Christopher Logue, British poet.
• 1941 Derek Mahon, Irish poet.
• 1949 Gayl Jones, American novelist.
• 1955 Steven Brust [Karl Zoltan], Minnesotan science fiction author.
• 1965 Jennifer Michael Hecht, American poet.

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

• adminicle: /æd-ˈmɪ-nɪ-kəl/ n., something contributing to prove a point without itself being complete proof.
• bricolage: /ˈbri-kə-läZH/ n., (in art or literature) construction or creation from a diverse range of available things.
• campestral: /kam-ˈpe-strəl/ adj., of or relating to fields or open country; rural.
• extramission: /,ek-strə-ˈmi-SHən/ n., a sending out; an emission.
• megillah: /mə-ˈgi-lə/ n., a long involved story or account; an elaborate, complicated production or sequence of events; everything involved in what is under consideration : whole ball of wax.
• nimiety: /ni-ˈmī-ə-tē/ n., excess, redundancy.
• pogged: /pɔɡd/ adj., of a person: very full after eating; glutted, gorged, “stuffed”.
• ráiméis: /rɑ-ˈmeɪʃ/ n., Irish English, nonsensical talk; overblown or empty rhetoric; claptrap; a foolish or exaggerated song or story.
• scenius: /siːni.əs/ n., intelligence of a whole operation or group of people.
• umbrageous: / [ˌəm-ˈbrā-jəs/ adj., inclined to take offense easily; affording shade; spotted with shadows.

November 23, 2022 Word-Wednesday Feature
thankful
/ˈTHaNGk-fəl/ adj., pleased and relieved, expressing gratitude and relief, from the Old English þancful "satisfied, grateful," also "thoughtful, ingenious, clever;". It comes as no surprise that various forms of the word "relief" has made its way into the definition of thankful. We celebrate Thanksgiving Day as a time to appreciate gratitude for all that we have. But implicit in this gratitude lies two shadows: the narrow escape each of us might appreciate for today — giving thanks for certain of vicissitudes that we do not have; and the ways that difficult experiences teach us deep lessons. Here are some words of thankfulness that express the spectrum of having and not having:

A thankful heart is not only the greatest virtue, but the parent of all other virtues.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

We ought to give thanks for all fortune: if it is "good", because it is good, if "bad" because it works in us patience and humility.

C.S. Lewis

To be grateful for all life's blessings is the best condition for a happy life, but this is not all. For there is another kind of gratitude. the feeling that makes us thankful for suffering, for the hard and heavy things of life, for the deepening of our natures which perhaps only suffering can bring.

Thomas Mann

It is necessary to cultivate the habit of being grateful for every good thing that comes to you, and to give thanks continuously. And because all things have contributed to your advancement, you should include all things in your gratitude.

Wallace D. Wattles

All our discontents about what we want appeared to me to spring from the want of thankfulness for what we have.

Daniel Defoe, from Robinson Crusoe

For what I have received may the Lord make me truly thankful. And more truly for what I have not received.

Storm Jameson

God has two dwellings; one in heaven, and the other in a meek and thankful heart.

Isaac Walton

The thankful receiver bears a plentiful harvest.

Willam Blake

The man who forgets to be thankful has fallen asleep in life.

Robert Louis Stevenson

I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought; and gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.

G.K. Chesterton

Help, Thanks, Wow: The Three Essential Prayers.

Anne Lamott's 2012 book title

If the only prayer you say in your entire life is "Thank You", that would suffice.

Meister Eckhart

From A Year with Rilke, November 23 Entry
Friends, from Early Journals

Friends can only be compared to dance and music. You cannot approach them intentionally, but only out of some involuntary need.

Friends must be the ends and not the means. Otherwise they can get in the way.

The Quilting Bee
by  Grandma Moses

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 shoe.