Word-Wednesday for August 16, 2023

And here is the Wannaskan Almanac with Word-Wednesday for August 16, 2023, the thirty-third Wednesday of the year, the ninth Wednesday of summer, and the two-hundred twenty-eighth day of the year, with one-hundred thirty-seven days remaining.

 
Wannaska Phenology Update for August 16, 2023
Sweet Corn Season!

Zea mays convar. saccharata var. rugosa, also known as sugar corn and pole corn, results from a naturally occurring recessive mutation in the genes, which control conversion of sugar to starch inside the endosperm [/ˈen-dō-ˌspərm/ n., the part of a seed which acts as a food store for the developing plant embryo, usually containing starch with protein and other nutrients] of the corn kernel.

Sweet corn is picked when still immature (the milk stage) and prepared and eaten as a vegetable, rather than field corn, which is harvested when the kernels are dry and mature (dent stage). Since the process of maturation involves converting sugar to starch, sweet corn stores poorly and must be eaten fresh, canned, or frozen, before the kernels become tough and starchy. Sweet corn is one of the six major types of corn, the others being: dent corn, flint corn, pod corn, popcorn, and flour corn.

August 16 Fickle Pickle Wednesday Menu Special: Potato Dumpling


August 16 Nordhem Wednesday Lunch: Updated daily by 11:00am, usually.


Earth/Moon Almanac for August 16, 2023
Sunrise: 6:18am; Sunset: 8:39pm; 3 minutes, 14 seconds less daylight today
Moonrise: 6:11am; Moonset: 9:12pm, new moon, 0% illuminated.

Moths
By Jennifer O'Grady

Adrift in the liberating, late light
of August, delicate, frivolous,
they make their way to my front porch
and flutter near the glassed-in bulb,
translucent as a thought suddenly
wondered aloud, illumining the air
that's thick with honeysuckle and dusk.
You and I are doing our best
at conversation, keeping it light, steering clear
of what we'd like to say.
You leave, and the night becomes
cluttered with moths, some tattered,
their dumbly curious filaments
startling against my cheek. How quickly,
instinctively, I brush them away.
Dazed, they cling to the outer darkness
like pale reminders of ourselves.
Others seem to want so desperately
to get inside. Months later, I'll find
the woolens, snug in their resting places,
full of missing pieces.

Temperature Almanac for August 16, 2023
                Average            Record              Today
High             76                     94                    77
Low              52                     35                    56


August 16 Celebrations from National Day Calendar

• National Rum Day
• National Airborne Day
• National Roller Coaster Day
• National Tell a Joke Day
• Gozan no Okuribi Day

August 16 Word Riddle
Why did the lifeguard kick the elephants out of the pool?*


August 16 Word Pun
The adjective for metal is metallic, but not so for iron, which is ironic.


August 16 The Devil’s Dictionary Word-Pram
ART, n. This word has no definition. Its origin is related as follows by the ingenious Father Gassalasca Jape, S.J.

    One day a wag—what would the wretch be at?—
    Shifted a letter of the cipher RAT,
    And said it was a god's name! Straight arose
    Fantastic priests and postulants (with shows,
    And mysteries, and mummeries, and hymns,
    And disputations dire that lamed their limbs)
    To serve his temple and maintain the fires,
    Expound the law, manipulate the wires.
    Amazed, the populace that rites attend,
    Believe whate'er they cannot comprehend,
    And, inly edified to learn that two
    Half-hairs joined so and so (as Art can do)
    Have sweeter values and a grace more fit
    Than Nature's hairs that never have been split,
    Bring cates and wines for sacrificial feasts,
    And sell their garments to support the priests.


August 16 Etymology Word of the Week
idiot
/ˈi-dē-ət/ n., a foolish or stupid person, from early 14 century, "person so mentally deficient as to be incapable of ordinary reasoning;" also in Middle English "simple man, uneducated person, layman" (late 14th century), from Old French idiote "uneducated or ignorant person" (12th century), from Latin idiota "ordinary person, layman; outsider," in Late Latin "uneducated or ignorant person," from Greek idiotes "layman, person lacking professional skill" (opposed to writer, soldier, skilled workman), literally "private person" (as opposed to one taking part in public affairs), used patronizingly for "ignorant person," from idios "one's own" (see idiom).

In plural, the Greek word could mean "one's own countrymen." In old English law, one who has been without reasoning or understanding from birth, as distinguished from a lunatic, who became that way. Idiot box "television set" is from 1959; idiot light "dashboard warning signal" is attested from 1961. Idiot savant attested by 1870.


August 16 Historic Events, Literary or Otherwise, from On This Day

• 1501 Michelangelo awarded the contract to create his statue of David at Florence Cathedral.
• 1880 The French state commissions sculptor Auguste Rodin for a large sculpted doorway "The Gates of Hell" for the proposed Musée des Arts Décoratifs.

August 16 Author/Artist/Character Birthdays, from On This Day

• 1557 Agostino Carracci, Italian artist.
• 1637 Emilie Juliane of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt, German poet.
• 1645 Jean de La Bruyère, French writer.
• 1815 Joseph Robinson, Irish composer.
• 1816 Joseph Robinson, Irish singer, organist and composer.
• 1858 Arthur Achleitner, German writer.
• 1860 Jules Laforgue, French poet.
• 1865 Jón Friðfinnsson, Icelandic-Canadian composer.
• 1867 Antonio Nobre, Portuguese poet.
• 1882 Helen Zelezny-Scholz, Czech sculptor.
• 1884 Hugo Gernsback, Luxembourg-born American science fiction writer.   
• 1892 Otto Messmer, American cartoonist of Felix the Cat.
• 1895 Albert Cohen, Greek-born Swiss novelist.
• 1902 Georgette Heyer, English novelist.
• 1902 Adolf Strauss. Czech composer.
• 1908 William Maxwell, American novelist.
• 1922 Louis Lomax, African-American author.
• 1923 Millôr Fernandes, Brazilian writer and playwright.
• 1934 Diana Wynne Jones, British science fiction author.

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

• ambage: /ˈam-bij/ n., ambiguity, circumlocution. usually used in plural; indirect way or proceeding.
• buttery: /ˈbə-tə-rē/  n., a storeroom for liquors.
• cucurbitaceous: /kju-ˌkɜːr-bɪ-ˈtei-ʃəs/ adj., belonging to the Cucurbitaceae, the gourd family of plants.
• dagnabbit: /ˌdæɡ-ˈnæb-ɪt/ exclam., darn it.
• fantysheeny: /fæn-(t)iˈ-ʃi-ni/adj., showy, fancy, or ostentatious.
• gaberlunzie: /ˌgab-ər-ˈlən-zi/ n., Scottish, beggar, mendicant; a wandering ne’er-do-well.
• machaeromancy: /mäk-ˈer-ə-ˌman(t)-sē/ n., divination by means of knives or swords.
• perquisite: /ˈpər-kwə-zət/ n., a privilege, gain, or profit incidental to regular salary or wages; gratuity or tip; something held or claimed as an exclusive right or possession.
• qualm: /ˈkwäm/ n., the sound of the cry of a raven.
• sigogglin: /ˌsaɪ-ˈɡɑ-ɡlɪn/    adj., diagonally or on a slant; askew, obliquely, sideways.

August 16, 2023 Word-Wednesday Feature
art
/ˈärt/ n., the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power, from early 13th century, "skill as a result of learning or practice," from Old French art (10th century), from Latin artem (nominative ars) "work of art; practical skill; a business, craft," from Proto-Indo-European ar(ə)-ti- (source also of Sanskrit rtih "manner, mode;" Greek artizein "to prepare"), suffixed form of root ar- "to fit together." Etymologically akin to Latin arma "weapons".

Wannaskan Almanac is the direct descendant of THE RAVEN: Northwest Minnesota’s Original Art, History & Humor Journal. Whether we write or employ a medium other than words, our art attempts to capture something important about the human experience by addressing an essence. Neither reality nor an attempt to reproduce reality, art accentuates or stylizes reality according to the whims of the artist. Art has seldom been characterized as essential to human survival, but art enhances the quality of our lives, and art draws us together. This week, Word-Wednesday presents some words about art by those who know it best:

The essence of all art is to have pleasure in giving pleasure.

Mikhail Baryshnikov

The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.

Will Durant

Art is the signature of man.

G. K. Chesterton

Art is to beauty what honor is to honesty.

Winston Churchill

Art, as far as it is able, follows nature, as a pupil imitates his master. Thus your art must be, as it were, God’s grandchild.

Dante Alighieri

Art is not the possession of the few who are recognized writers, painters, musicians; it is the authentic expression of any and all individuality.

John Dewey   

Art is man added to nature.

Francis Bacon

All art is a kind of confession, more or less oblique.

James Baldwin

Take a quart of nature, boil it down to a pint, and the residue is art.

Austin O'Malley

Art is the stored honey of the human soul.

Theodore Dreiser

If the real world is orange juice, then art is like orange juice concentrate.

Martin Mull

What is art but Nature concentrated?

Honoré de Balzac

Art is an infinitely precious good, a draught both refreshing and cheering which restores the stomach and the mind to the natural equilibrium of the ideal.

Charles Baudelaire

Life isn’t a support-system for art. It’s the other way around.

Stephen King

We have art in order not to die of the truth.

Friedrich Nietzsche

We all know that Art is not truth. Art is a lie that makes us realize truth.

Pablo Picasso

Art is a form of catharsis.

Dorothy Parker

Art is our chief means of breaking bread with the dead.

W. H. Auden

Were I called on to define, very briefly, the term "Art," I should call it ‘the reproduction of what the Senses perceive in Nature through the veil of the soul.

Edgar Allen Poe

The primary benefit of practicing any art, whether well or badly, is that it enables one's soul to grow.

Kurt Vonnegut

Life beats down and crushes the soul, and art reminds you that you have one.

Stella Adler

Art and Religion are, then, two roads by which men escape from circumstance to ecstasy.

Clive Bell

Art has something to do with the achievement of stillness in the midst of chaos. A stillness that characterizes prayer, too.

Saul Bellow

Art is a collaboration between God and the artist, and the less the artist does the better.

André Gide

I believe in art that conceals art.

Rita Mae Brown

What is art,
But life upon the larger scale.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Religion and art spring from the same root and are close kin. Economics and art are strangers.

Willa Cather

I think of Art, at its most significant, as a DEW line, a Distant Early Warning system, that can always be relied on to tell the old culture what is beginning to happen to it.

Marshall McLuhan

Do not imagine that Art is something which is designed to give gentle uplift and self-confidence.

Julian Barnes, in Flaubert’s Parrot

Art is a jealous mistress.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

No one should drive a hard bargain with an artist.

Ludwig Van Beethoven

Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.

Thomas Merton

Creativity is allowing oneself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.

Scott Adams

At the center of everything we call “the arts,” and children call “play,” is something which seems somehow alive.

Lynda Barry

To make us feel small in the right way is a function of art.

E. M. Forster

From A Year with Rilke, August 16 Entry
The Man Watching (I), from Book of Images

How small is what we wrestle with,
and what wrestles with us, how immense.

If we could overcome, as things are,
in a great storm,
we would grow vast and need no names.

Wheat Fields with Crows
by  Vincent van Gogh

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.



*Because they couldn’t keep their trunks up.