Word-Wednesday for July 5, 2023

And here is the Wannaskan Almanac with Word-Wednesday for July 5, 2023, the twenty-seventh Wednesday of the year, the third Wednesday of summer, and the one-hundred eighty-sixth day of the year, with one-hundred seventy-nine days remaining.

 
Wannaska Phenology Update for July 5, 2023
Berry Update
While there are some blueberries already ripening on the vine, this appears to be a better year for the wild red raspberry, Rubus idaeus, which has blossomed and is now fruiting prodigiously compared to most years out here in the forest near Hayes Lake.

The already-ripe blueberries are very tart, and the rose hips are coming along nicely. The first batch of robin chicks are fledging, and the whip-poor-wills are singing early each morning.

Where to look for interesting astronomical events in the next few days:

July 5 Fickle Pickle Wednesday Menu Special: Potato Dumpling


July 5 Nordhem Wednesday Lunch: Updated daily by 11:00am, usually.


Earth/Moon Almanac for July 5, 2023
Sunrise: 5:27am; Sunset: 9:29pm; 1 minutes, 12 seconds less daylight today
Moonrise: 11:43pm; Moonset: 7:43am, waning gibbous, 94% illuminated.


Temperature Almanac for July 5, 2023
                Average            Record              Today
High             76                   100                    68
Low              55                     42                    47

Summer Morning
by Charles Simic

I love to stay in bed
All morning,
Covers thrown off, naked,
Eyes closed, listening.
Outside they are opening
Their primers
In the little school
Of the cornfield.
There’s a smell of damp hay,
Of horses, laziness,
Summer sky and eternal life.
I know all the dark places
Where the sun hasn’t reached yet,
Where the last cricket
Has just hushed; anthills
Where it sounds like it’s raining,
Slumbering spiders spinning wedding dresses.
I pass over the farmhouses
Where the little mouths open to suck,
Barnyards where a man, naked to the waist,
Washes his face and shoulders with a hose,
Where the dishes begin to rattle in the kitchen.
The good tree with its voice
Of a mountain stream
Knows my steps.
It, too, hushes.
I stop and listen:
Somewhere close by
A stone cracks a knuckle,
Another turns over in its sleep.
I hear a butterfly stirring
Inside a caterpillar.
I hear the dust talking
Of last night’s storm.
Farther ahead, someone
Even more silent
Passes over the grass
Without bending it.
And all of a sudden
In the midst of that quiet,
It seems possible
To live simply on this earth.

July 5 Celebrations from National Day Calendar

• National Hawaii Day
• National Bikini Day
• National Graham Cracker Day
• National Apple Turnover Day
• National Workaholics Day

July 5 Word Riddle
What’s the difference between Dubai and Abu Dhabi?*


July 5 Word Pun
Sven’s waterbed became much bouncier after he filled it with spring water.


July 5 The Devil’s Dictionary Word-Pram
MACROBIAN, n. One forgotten of the gods and living to a great age. History is abundantly supplied with examples, from Methuselah to Old Parr, but some notable instances of longevity are less well known. A Calabrian peasant named Coloni, born in 1753, lived so long that he had what he considered a glimpse of the dawn of universal peace. Scanavius relates that he knew an archbishop who was so old that he could remember a time when he did not deserve hanging. In 1566 a linen draper of Bristol, England, declared that he had lived five hundred years, and that in all that time he had never told a lie. There are instances of longevity (macrobiosis) in our own country. Senator Chauncey Depew is old enough to know better. The editor of The American, a newspaper in New York City, has a memory that goes back to the time when he was a rascal, but not to the fact. The President of the United States was born so long ago that many of the friends of his youth have risen to high political and military preferment without the assistance of personal merit. The verses following were written by a macrobian:

When I was young the world was fair
     And amiable and sunny.
A brightness was in all the air,
     In all the waters, honey.
     The jokes were fine and funny,
The statesmen honest in their views,
     And in their lives, as well,
And when you heard a bit of news
     ’Twas true enough to tell.
Men were not ranting, shouting, reeking,
Nor women “generally speaking.”

The Summer then was long indeed:
     It lasted one whole season!
The sparkling Winter gave no heed
     When ordered by Unreason
     To bring the early peas on.
Now, where the dickens is the sense
     In calling that a year
Which does no more than just commence
     Before the end is near?
When I was young the year extended
From month to month until it ended.

I know not why the world has changed
     To something dark and dreary,
And everything is now arranged
     To make a fellow weary.
     The Weather Man— I fear he
Has much to do with it, for, sure,
     The air is not the same:
It chokes you when it is impure,
     When pure it makes you lame.
With windows closed you are asthmatic;
Open, neuralgic or sciatic.

Well, I suppose this new regime
     Of dun degeneration
Seems eviler than it would seem
     To a better observation,
     And has for compensation
Some blessings in a deep disguise
     Which mortal sight has failed
To pierce, although to angels’ eyes
     They’re visible unveiled.
If Age is such a boon, good land!
He’s costumed by a master hand!

                                                    Venable Strigg


July 5 Etymology Word of the Week

July 5 Historic Events, Literary or Otherwise, from On This Day

• 1687 Isaac Newton's great work Principia published by Royal Society in England.
• 1715 Ottoman troops storm citadel of Acrocorinth in the Peloponnese, massacring a large part of the population and selling the rest into slavery. Inspires Lord Byron's poem, "The Siege of Corinth".
• 1852 Frederick Douglass, fugitive slave, delivers his "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?" speech to the Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society in Rochester.
• 1937 SPAM®, the luncheon meat is first introduced into the market by the Hormel Foods Corporation.
• 1942 Ian Fleming graduates from a training school for spies in Canada.
• 1951 Dr William Shockley invents the junction transistor.
• 1965 Greek-American soprano Maria Callas makes her final opera stage appearance in the title role of Giacomo Puccini's Tosca.

July 5 Author/Artist/Character Birthdays, from On This Day

• 1654 Antonio Maria Pacchioni, Italian Baroque composer.
• 1775 William Crotch, English composer.
• 1847 Agnes Zimmermann, German composer.
• 1868 William Henry Singer, American painter.
• 1878 Joseph Holbrooke, English pianist, conductor, and composer of Three Blind Mice.
• 1879 Wanda Landowska, Polish-French harpsichordist.
• 1880 Jan Kubelik, Czech composer.
• 1885 André Lhote, French painter.
• 1889 Jean Cocteau, French poet, filmmaker and painter.
• 1891 Tin Ujević, Croatian poet.
• 1899 Marcel Achard, French playwright.
• 1901 Sergey Vladimirovich Obraztsov, Soviet puppet master.
• 1902 Frank Waters, American writer.
• 1930 Yutaka Makino, Japanese composer.
• 1937 Brooke Hayward, American author.
• 1940 Chuck Close, American painter and photographer.
• 1940 James Herbert Brennan, Irish author.
• 1941 Barbara Frischmuth, Austrian writer.
• 1943 (Jaime) "Robbie" Robertson, Canadian-Native American singer-songwriter and rock guitarist.
• 1955 Sebastian Barry, Irish author.
• 1958 Meredith Ann Pierce, American science fiction author.
• 1958 William "Bill" Watterson, American cartoonist of Calvin and Hobbes.
• 1996 Dolly the Sheep, first mammal to be cloned from an adult cell, born in Scotland.

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

• alligate: /'al-i-geyt/ v., to attach; to bind.
• crêpehanger: /KRAYP-hang-uhr/ n., a pessimist who only sees the gloomy side of things; a killjoy; a party pooper; a stick-in-the-mud; a wet blanket; one who always takes a dour view.
• esperance: / [e-sp(ə-)rən(t)s/  n.,  hope; expectation.
• hob: /ˈhäb/ n., mischief, trouble; a projection at the back or side of a fireplace on which something may be kept warm.
• knavigation: /NEYV-uh-gey-shuhn/ n., a knavish yarn; a tall tale; a fraudulent statement.
• melos: /‘mel-ɑs/ n., the succession of musical tones constituting a melody.
• olykoek: /ˈäl-ə-ˌku̇k/ n., doughnut.
• propolis: / ˈprä-pə-ləs/ n., a brownish resinous material of waxy consistency collected by bees from the buds of trees and used as a cement in repairing and maintaining the hive.
• sooky: /ˈsʊ-ki/ adj., lacking in courage; timid; weak. Also: soft-hearted; sentimental.
• yestreen: /ye-ˈstrēn/ n., last evening or night.

July 5, 2023 Word-Wednesday Feature
Summer Vocabulary Words
With summer fully upon us, and COVID mostly behind us, we find ourselves socializing more frequently — with all the attendant blessings and curses that come with close proximity to friends and family. Here are a few words for understanding and narrating your summertime close encounters:

• anedged: /a-ˈnejid/ adj., of teeth: set on edge; acutely irritated or discomforted.
• antipathize: /an-ti-pə-thīz/ v., to feel or show antipathy.
• calefaction: /ka-lə-'fak-shən/ n., the state of being warmed.
• cicatrizant: /ˌsik-ə-ˈtrīz-ᵊnt/ adj., promoting the healing of a wound or the formation of a scar.
• disobligation: /dis-ˌä-blə-ˈgā-shən/ n., an act that purposely inconveniences or offends; affront.
• emporté: /ɑ̃-pɔʀ-te/ adj., bad-tempered; fiery.
• evagation: /ˌē-və-ˈgā-shən/ n., a wandering of the mind.
• father-waur: /ˈfä-t͟hər wär/ adj., worse than one's father.
• forplaint: /fōr-ˈplānt? adj., wearied with complaining.
• homodox: /ˈhō-mō-ˌdäks/ adj., having the same opinion.
• imparadise: /im-ˈper-ə-ˌdīs/ v., enrapture.
• inaffable: /in-ˈa-fə-bəl/ adj., reserved in social discourse.
• jocoserious: /ˌdʒəʊ-kəʊ-ˈsɪə-rɪ-əs/ adj., mixing humour and seriousness.
• leucocholy: /ˈlük-ə-ˌkä-lē/ n., a state of feeling that accompanies preoccupation with trivial and insipid diversions.
• logomachist: /lōˈ-gäm-ə-kə̇st/ n., one given to dispute over or about words.
• lowery: /ˈlau̇-(ə-)rē/ adj., gloomy.  
• mussitate: /ˈmʌs-ɪ-ˌteit/ v., to murmur or mutter.
• natation: /nā-ˈtā-shən/ n., the action or art of swimming.
• unclubbable: /ˌən-ˈklə-bə-bəl/ adj., unsociable.

For readers who write, pick some of your favorites, and write a squib.
 

From A Year with Rilke, July 5 Entry
Gold, from Sonnets to Orpheus II, 19

Gold leads a pampered life, protected by banks,
on intimate terms with the best people.
The homeless beggar is no more than a lost coin
fallen behind the bookcase or in the dustpile under the bed.

In the finest shops, money is right at home,
loving to parade itself in flowers, silk and furs.
He, the silent one, stands outside this display.
Money, near him, stops breathing.

How does his outstretched hand ever close at night?
Fate, each morning, picks it up again,
holds it out there, naked and raw.

In order to grasp what his life is like,
to see it and cherish it, you would need a song,
a song only a god could bear to hear.

The Clenched Hand
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.


*The people of Dubai don’t like the Flintstones, but the people of Abu Dhabi do.