And here is the Wannaskan Almanac with Word-Wednesday for December 13, 2023, the fiftieth Wednesday of the year, the twelfth Wednesday of fall, and the three-hundred forty-seventh day of the year, with eighteen days remaining.
Wannaska Phenology Update for December 13, 2023
Looking up, tomorrow is the peak of the Geminid meteor showers. Under our still dark Wannaskan skies, you might see up to 120 meteors per hour. The Geminids are a prolific recurrent meteor shower caused by the object 3200 Phaethon, which is thought to be a Palladian asteroid with a "rock comet" orbit. The Geminids and the Quadrantids are the only major meteor showers not originating from a comet. The meteors from this shower are slow moving, can be seen in December, usually peaking around December 4–16, with the date of highest intensity being the morning of December 14.
As we continue to approach the solar maximum, watch for auroras next Monday, Tuesday, and Friday.
December 13 Fickle Pickle Wednesday Menu Special: Potato Dumpling
December 13 Nordhem Wednesday Lunch: Updated daily by 11:00am, usually.
Earth/Moon Almanac for December 13, 2023
Sunrise: 8:09am; Sunset: 4:27pm; 46 seconds less daylight today
Moonrise: 9:27am; Moonset: 4:40pm, new moon, 0% illuminated.
Winter Trees
by William Carlos Williams
All the complicated details
of the attiring and
the disattiring are completed!
A liquid moon
moves gently among
the long branches.
Thus having prepared their buds
against a sure winter
the wise trees
stand sleeping in the cold.
Temperature Almanac for December 13, 2023
Average Record Today
High 20 44 31
Low 2 -37 28
December 13 Celebrations from National Day Calendar
- National Guard Birthday
- National Violin Day
- National Cocoa Day
- National Day of the Horse
- Pick a Pathologist Day
December 13 Word Riddle
What’s the best tool for cutting an ocean in half?*
December 13 Word Pun
As a young man, Sven vas arrested for stealing a kitchen utensil. It vas a visk he vas villing to take.
December 13 The Devil’s Dictionary Word-Pram
UNDERSTANDING, n., a cerebral secretion that enables one having it to know a house from a horse by the roof on the house. Its nature and laws have been exhaustively expounded by Locke, who rode a house, and Kant, who lived in a horse.
His understanding was so keen
That all things which he'd felt, heard, seen,
He could interpret without fail
If he was in or out of jail.
He wrote at Inspiration's call
Deep disquisitions on them all,
Then, pent at last in an asylum,
Performed the service to compile 'em.
So great a writer, all men swore,
They never had not read before.
—Jorrock Wormley
December 13 Etymology Word of the Week
narration
/ne-ˈrā-SH(ə)n/ n., the action or process of narrating a story, from early 15th century, narracioun, "act of telling a story or recounting in order the particulars of some action, occurrence, or affair," also "that which is narrated or recounted, a story, an account of events," from Old French narracion "account, statement, a relating, recounting, narrating, narrative tale," and directly from Latin narrationem (nominative narratio) "a relating, narrative," noun of action from past-participle stem of narrare "to tell, relate, recount, explain," literally "to make acquainted with," from gnarus "knowing," from Proto-Indo-European gne-ro-, suffixed form of root gno- "to know."
Lao Tse said we can know nothing
This seems nuts
Montaigne wondered what we could know
He didn't curse the dark
But lit a beacon in his tower
Sergeant Shultz said " I know nuttink!"
But we recognize this as mere facetiae
As a lad, a dumb bunny,
I was too ignorant to be scared by my ignorance
When I felt a lack, my first step
Was to build a personal storehouse of knowledge
It contained but rags, yet even rags can comfort
No, I must strike out into the boonies
Perhaps to find the empty tomb where lies the Holy Grail
—Chairman Joe
December 13 Historic Events, Literary or Otherwise, from On This Day
- 1668 Jean Racine's tragic play Britannicus premieres.
- 1742 William IV Prince of Orange tests his mothers potatoes.
- 1759 First music store in America opens. (Philadelphia)
- 1928 George Gershwin's An American In Paris symphonic poem premieres.
December 13 Author/Artist/Character Birthdays, from On This Day
- 1585 William Drummond of Hawthornden, Scottish poet.
- 1740 Franz Xaver Schnitzer, German composer.
- 1797 Heinrich Heine, German poet and lyricist for Schubert and Liszt.
- 1798 James Henry, Irish poet.
- 1810 Clark Mills, American sculptor.
- 1828 John Savage, Irish poet, journalist and author.
- 1838 Marie-Alexis Castillon de Saint-Victor, French composer.
- 1850 Iver Holter, Norwegian conductor.
- 1858 Jakab Gyula Major, Czech pianist and composer.
- 1871 Emily Carr, Canadian painter.
- 1877 Mykola Leontovych, Ukrainian composer.
- 1890 Marc Connelly, American playwright.
- 1906 Ingemar Liljefors, Swedish composer.
- 1906 Laurens Jan van der Post, South African-born writer.
- 1911 Kenneth Patchen, American poet and novelist.
- 1927 James Wright, American poet.
- 1949 R. A. MacAvoy, American science fiction author.
Words-I-Looked-Up-This-Week Writer's Challenge
Write a story or pram from the following words:
- aprosexia: /ā-prä-ˈsek-sē-ə/ n., abnormal inability to sustain attention.
- ballicatter: /bæ-lɪ-ˈkæt-ər/ n., ice that forms around docks or airplanes or rigid elements of cabotage.
- canorous: /kə-ˈnô-rəs/ adj., (of song or speech) melodious or resonant.
- dumose: /ˈdju-məʊz/ adj., filled with bushes; having a bushlike manner of growing.
- eutrapely: /ju-ˈtræ-pə-lɪ/ n., wit and ease in conversation.
- morgenmuffel: /ˈmɔr-ɡən-mʊ-fəl/ n., someone who is in a bad mood in the morning and does not like to wake up early; a morning grouch; not a morning type of person.
- papple: /PAP-uhl/ v., to boil; to bubble; to emit a sound like that of boiling liquid or fast-flowing water.
- rosselled: /RAW-suhld/ adj., of an apple: overripe; decayed.
- stouch: /stowsh/ n., a violent blow or beating; a fight; a brawl; (in later use) a public disagreement or legal battle.
- ventoseness: /vehn-TOHS-nes/ n., windiness; flatulence.
December 13, 2023 Word-Wednesday Feature
Gravity's Rainbow Final Book Report
Readers looking to improve their vocabularies will enjoy Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow, the 1973 U.S. National Book Award winner for fiction, as previously reported in an earlier Word-Wednesday post. Though Pynchon was born and raised in New York City, he joined the Navy and apparently became familiar with the Midwest. Two of his many main characters hail from Albert Lea, Minnesota, and from Kenosha, Wisconsin, but none are identified from Wannaska, Pencer, Grygla, Gatzke, or other nearby towns. For those familiar with the culinary hot spots of Thief River Falls, Gravity's Rainbow features a dining club with a host named Putzi. Any Hard Book Club looking for their next read can't go wrong with Gravity's Rainbow.
Before moving on to the world of Hindi English in Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses, here are a few more family-friendly vocabulary words from Gravity's Rainbow:
- droshky: /ˈdrôSH-kē/ n., a low four-wheeled open carriage of a kind formerly used in Russia.
- hexesszüchtigung: /hˈek-ˌses-'zhü-ti-gəŋ/ n., German, witchcraft.
- idiolalia: /ˌid-ē-ō-ˈlā-lē-ə/ n., a condition in which words are so poorly articulated that speech is either unintelligible or appears to be a made-up language; idioglossia.
- soup, from Yiddish kreplekh, plural of krepel, from German dialect Kräppel "fritter".
- merkin: /ˈmərkə̇n/ n., an artificial covering of hair for the pubic area.
- polder: /ˈpōl-dər/ n., a piece of low-lying land reclaimed from the sea or a river and protected by dikes, especially in the Netherlands.
From A Year with Rilke, December 13 Entry
All Will Come Again Into Its Strength, from Book of Hours II, 25
All will come again into its strength:
the fields undivided, the waters undammed,
the trees towering and the walls built low.
And in the valleys, people as strong
and varied as the land.
And no churches where God
is imprisoned and lamented
like a trapped and wounded animal.
