Word-Wednesday for January 25, 2023

And here is the Wannaskan Almanac with Word-Wednesday for January 25, 2023, the fourth Wednesday of the year, the sixth Wednesday of winter, and the 25th day of the year, with 340 days remaining.

 
Wannaska Phenology Update for January 25, 2023
Large Snowflakes and Crystals

In addition to hoarfrost and rime, Wannaska has also been experiencing an abundance of very large snowflakes and snow crystals with some snowfalls this winter. As Dr. Kenneth Libbrecht of Caltech notes in his book The Snowflake, the word "snowflake" is a general term that can refer to a single ice crystal, a small cluster of them, or a large aggregation that forms when crystals “collide and stick in midair, falling to earth in a flimsy puffball.”

The difference in size comes down to how cold the temperatures are when it's snowing. Individual snow crystals are small, but sometimes they stick together and create much larger snowflakes. These larger aggregates occur when temperatures are near freezing (32 degrees), which melts some of the snow crystals and causes them to become sticky.

As the snow crystals fall, they collide with other snow crystals, causing them to grow in size and appear as larger snowflakes once they get closer to the ground. Light winds also help in the formation of larger snowflakes since stronger winds can break them apart as they fall.
 
The largest snow crystal ever photographed measures 10.0 mm (0.4 inches) from tip to tip.

January 25 Fickle Pickle Wednesday Menu Special: Potato Dumpling


January 25 Nordhem Wednesday Lunch: Updated daily by 11:00am, usually.


Earth/Moon Almanac for January 25, 2023
Sunrise: 8:03am; Sunset: 5:09pm; 2 minutes, 43 seconds more daylight today
Moonrise: 10:21am; Moonset: 10:25pm, waxing crescent, 22% illuminated.


Temperature Almanac for January 25, 2023
                Average            Record              Today
High             13                     43                     11
Low             -9                    -43                   -8
 

A great day for chores.

Silo Solo
by Joyce Sutphen

My father climbs into the silo.
He has come, rung by rung,
up the wooden trail that scales
that tall belly of cement.

It's winter, twenty below zero,
He can hear the wind overhead.
The silage beneath his boots
is so frozen it has no smell.

My father takes up a pick-ax
and chops away a layer of silage.
He works neatly, counter-clockwise
under a yellow light,

then lifts the chunks with a pitchfork
and throws them down the chute.
They break as they fall
and rattle far below.

His breath comes out in clouds,
his fingers begin to ache, but
he skims off another layer
where the frost is forming

and begins to sing, "You are my
sunshine, my only sunshine."

January 25 Celebrations from National Day Calendar

• National Florida Day
• Library Shelfie Day
• National Opposite Day
• National Irish Coffee Day
• Burns Supper
  

A Red, Red Rose
By Robert Burns

O my Luve is like a red, red rose
   That’s newly sprung in June;
O my Luve is like the melody
   That’s sweetly played in tune.

So fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
   So deep in luve am I;
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
   Till a’ the seas gang dry.

Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear,
   And the rocks melt wi’ the sun;
I will love thee still, my dear,
   While the sands o’ life shall run.

And fare thee weel, my only luve!
   And fare thee weel awhile!
And I will come again, my luve,
   Though it were ten thousand mile.

January 25 Word Riddle
What did the snowman sing to the snowwoman?*


January 25 Word Pun

January 25 Walking into a Bar Grammar
A mixed metaphor walks into a bar, seeing the handwriting on the wall but hoping to nip it in the bud.


January 25 Etymology Word of the Week
sanctuary
/ˈsaNGk-(t)SHə-ˌwer-ē/ n., a place of refuge or safety, from early 14th century, seintuarie, sentwary, etc., "consecrated place, building set apart for holy worship; holy or sacred object," from Anglo-French sentuarie, Old French saintuaire "sacred relic, holy thing; reliquary, sanctuary," from Late Latin sanctuarium "a sacred place, shrine" (especially the Hebrew Holy of Holies in the temple in Jerusalem; see sanctum), also "a private room;" in Medieval Latin also "a church, cemetery; right of asylum," from Latin sanctus "holy" (see saint (n.)).

Since the time of Constantine and by medieval Church law, fugitives or debtors enjoyed immunity from arrest and ordinary operations of the law in certain churches, hence its use by mid-14th century of churches or other holy places with a view to their inviolability. The transferred sense of "immunity from punishment by virtue of having taken refuge in a church or similar building" is by early 15th century, also of the right to such. (Exceptions were made in England in cases of treason and sacrilege.)

The general (non-ecclesiastical) sense of "place of refuge or protection" is attested from 1560s; as "land set aside for wild plants or animals to breed and live" it is recorded by 1879 in reference to the American bison.

January 25 Historic Events, Literary or Otherwise, from On This Day

• 1858 Felix Mendelssohn's Wedding March first played, at wedding of Queen Victoria's daughter Princess Victoria.
• 1890 Journalist Nellie Bly beats the fictitious journey of Jules Verne's Phileas Fogg around the world by 8 days (72 days).
• 1904 John Millington Synge's play Riders to the Sea premieres in Dublin.
• 1921 Karel Čapek's play R.U.R. premieres in Prague, introduces the word "robot".
• 1990 The Burns' Day windstorm storm hits northwestern Europe.

January 25 Author/Artist/Character Birthdays, from On This Day

• 1759 Robert Burns, Scottish poet, author of Auld Lang Syne.
• 1806 Daniel Maclise, Irish painter.
• 1851 Arne Garborg, Norwegian writer & playwright.
• 1874 W. Somerset Maugham, British novelist & poet.
• 1882 Virginia Woolf, British author.
• 1885 Kitahara Hakushū, Japanese poet & children's writer.
• 1923 Eva Zeller, German poet & novelist.
• 1931 Paavo Haavikko, Finnish poet.
• 1938 Etta James [Jamesetta Hawkins], American singer.
• 1938 Leiji Matsumoto, Japanese creator of anime.
• 1950 Gloria Naylor, American author.
• 1953 The Honky Tonk Man [Wayne Farris], American professional wrestler.
• 1954  Jana Krausová, Czech artist.
• 1978 Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukrainian actor (Servant of the People), comedian, and President of Ukraine.

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

• affray: /ə-ˈfrā/ n., an instance of fighting in a public place that disturbs the peace.
• dithyrambic: /ˌdi-thi-ˈram-bik/ adj., of, relating to, or of the nature of an impassioned oration; wildly irregular in form; wildly enthusiastic.
• indite: /in-ˈdīt/ v., make up, compose; to give literary or formal expression to; to put down in writing.
• jodhpurs: /ˈjäd-pərz/ n., full-length trousers, worn for horseback riding, that are close-fitting below the knee and have reinforced patches on the inside of the leg.
• natant: /ˈnā-tnt/ adj., swimming or floating.
• pro hac vice: /ˌprō ˌhak ˈvī-sē/ adv., for or on this occasion only.
• sitzmark: /ˈsits-ˌmärk/ n., an impression made in the snow by a skier falling backward.
• sklent: /sklent/ v., to move or lie on a slant; to deviate from a straight course; to deviate from the truth; lie.
• tulle: /tōōl/ n., a soft, fine silk, cotton, or nylon material like net, used for making veils and dresses.
• verklempt: /fər-ˈklemt/ adj., overcome with joy.

January 25, 2023 Word-Wednesday Feature
tenderness
/ˈten-dər-nəs/ n., gentleness and kindness; sensitivity to pain; from tender, "soft, easily injured," early 13th century, from Old French tendre "soft, delicate; young" (11th century), from Latin tenerem (nominative tener) "soft, delicate; of tender age, youthful," from a derivative of Proto-Indo-European root ten- "to stretch, with derivatives meaning "something stretched, a string; hence "thin," hence "weak" or "young." Compare Sanskrit tarunah "young, tender," Greek teren "tender, delicate," Armenian t'arm "young, fresh, green."
Meaning "kind, affectionate, loving" first recorded early 14th century.
Meaning "having the delicacy of youth, immature" is attested in English from early 14th century. Tender-hearted first recorded 1530s.

We here at Word-Wednesday headquarters have an abiding fondness for authors who happen to be Polish women, specifically poet Wisława Szymborska and psychologist-turned-poet and novelist Olga Tokarczuk, the best writer you've never hear of. Both won the Nobel prize for literature — Szymborska in 1996, and Tokarczuk in 2018. Both often write from a perspective like Tolstoy, which Tokarczuk characterizes like this:

I also dream of a new kind of narrator — a “fourth-person” one, who is not merely a grammatical construct of course, but who manages to encompass the perspective of each of the characters, as well as having the capacity to step beyond the horizon of each of them, who sees more and has a wider view, and who is able to ignore time. Oh yes, I think this narrator’s existence is possible.

One of the ways that these two authors accomplish the fourth-person perspective is through their treatment of time — past and future considerations flowing into the narrative moments they write about. Both achieve this writing perspective through enormous tenderness, which they use to see the world, and to see their relationship to their reader, where tenderness means of not privileging any particular perspective. Here's a sample of Wisława Szymborska's multiperspectival tenderness:

Nothing Twice
Wisława Szymborska

Nothing can ever happen twice.
In consequence, the sorry fact is
that we arrive here improvised
and leave without the chance to practice.

Even if there is no one dumber,
if you're the planet's biggest dunce,
you can't repeat the class in summer:
this course is only offered once.

No day copies yesterday,
no two nights will teach what bliss is
in precisely the same way,
with precisely the same kisses.

One day, perhaps some idle tongue
mentions your name by accident:
I feel as if a rose were flung
into the room, all hue and scent.

The next day, though you're here with me,
I can't help looking at the clock:
A rose? A rose? What could that be?
Is it a flower or a rock?

Why do we treat the fleeting day
with so much needless fear and sorrow?
It's in its nature not to stay:
Today is always gone tomorrow.

With smiles and kisses, we prefer
to seek accord beneath our star,
although we're different (we concur)
just as two drops of water are.

Olga Tokarczuk's fiction long ago eclipsed her poetry, so for a sample of her writing, her Nobel acceptance speech has many tasty morsels.

I have never been particularly excited about any straight distinction between fiction and non-fiction, unless we understand such a distinction to be declarative and discretionary. In a sea of many definitions of fiction, the one I like the best is also the oldest, and it comes from Aristotle. Fiction is always a kind of truth.

We are all — people, plants, animals, and objects — immersed in a single space, which is ruled by the laws of physics. This common space has its shape, and within it the laws of physics sculpt an infinite number of forms that are incessantly linked to one another. Our cardiovascular system is like the system of a river basin, the structure of a leaf is like a human transport system, the motion of the galaxies is like the whirl of water flowing down our washbasins. Societies develop in a similar way to colonies of bacteria. The micro and macro scale show an endless system of similarities.

Our speech, thinking and creativity are not something abstract, removed from the world, but a continuation on another level of its endless processes of transformation. Literature is one of the few spheres that try to keep us close to the hard facts of the world, because by its very nature it is always psychological, because it focuses on the internal reasoning and motives of the characters, reveals their otherwise inaccessible experience to another person, or simply provokes the reader into a psychological interpretation of their conduct. Only literature is capable of letting us go deep into the life of another being, understand their reasons, share their emotions and experience their fate.

Tenderness is the art of personifying, of sharing feelings, and thus endlessly discovering similarities. Creating stories means constantly bringing things to life, giving an existence to all the tiny pieces of the world that are represented by human experiences, the situations people have endured and their memories. Tenderness personalizes everything to which it relates, making it possible to give it a voice, to give it the space and the time to come into existence, and to be expressed.

Tenderness is the most modest form of love. It is the kind of love that does not appear in the scriptures or the gospels, no one swears by it, no one cites it. It has no special emblems or symbols, nor does it lead to crime, or prompt envy. It appears wherever we take a close and careful look at another being, at something that is not our “self.”

Tenderness is spontaneous and disinterested; it goes far beyond empathetic fellow feeling. Instead it is the conscious, though perhaps slightly melancholy, common sharing of fate. Tenderness is deep emotional concern about another being, its fragility, its unique nature, and its lack of immunity to suffering and the effects of time. Tenderness perceives the bonds that connect us, the similarities and sameness between us. It is a way of looking that shows the world as being alive, living, interconnected, cooperating with, and codependent on itself.

Literature is built on tenderness toward any being other than ourselves.

Here's how she applies this tenderness in the opening section of her novel, Flights:

HERE I AM

I’m а few years old. I’m sitting on the window sill, surrounded by strewn toys and toppled-over block towers and dolls with bulging eyes. It’s dark in the house, and the air in the rooms slowly cools, dims. There’s no one else here; they’ve left, they’re gone, though you can still hear their voices dying down, that shuffling, the echoes of their footsteps, some distant laughter. Out the window the courtyard is empty. Darkness spreads softly from the sky, settling on everything like black dew.

The worst part is the stillness, visible, dense – а chilly dusk and the sodium-vapour lamps’ frail light already mired in darkness just а few feet from its source.

Nothing happens – the march of darkness halts at the door to the house, and all the clamour of fading falls silent, makes а thick skin like on hot milk cooling. The contours of the buildings against the backdrop of the sky stretch out into infinity, slowly lose their sharp angles, corners, edges. The dimming light takes the air with it – there’s nothing left to breathe. Now the dark soaks into my skin. Sounds have curled up inside themselves, withdrawn their snail’s eyes; the orchestra of the world has departed, vanishing into the park.

That evening is the limit of the world, and I’ve just happened upon it, by accident, while playing, not in search of anything. I’ve discovered it because I was left unsupervised for а bit. I’ve clearly found myself in а trap now, and I can’t get out. I’m а few years old, I’m sitting on the windowsill, and I’m looking out onto the chilled courtyard. The lights in the school’s kitchen are extinguished; everyone has left. All the doors are closed, hatches down, blinds lowered. I’d like to leave, but there’s nowhere to go. My own presence is the only thing with а distinct outline now, an outline that quivers and undulates, and in so doing, hurts. And all of а sudden I know there’s nothing anyone can do now, here I am.

One can only wonder how the legacy of being stretched by falling into the middle of two brutal world wars has shaped the tenderness and vision of these Polish woman.


From A Year with Rilke, January 25 Entry
The Beauty of You from Book of Hours II, 34

In deep nights I dig for you like treasure.
For all I have seen
that clutters the surface of my world
is poor and paltry substitute
for the beauty of you
that has not yet happened...

Eternal Springtime
by Auguste 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.







*♫♪I only have ice for you.♫♪