And here is the Wannaskan Almanac with Word-Wednesday for July 10, 2024, the twenty-eighth Wednesday of the year, the third Wednesday of summer, the second Wednesday of June, and the one-hundred-ninety-second day of the year, with one-hundred seventy-four days remaining.
Wannaska Phenology Update for July 10, 2024
Blueberry Update
If you like them tart, and can tolerate a small harvest, let the picking begin! There are a few edible fruits available from some Vaccinium angustifolium plants in Wannaska forests. While you’ll struggle (mostly with the insects) to gather enough for a pie, there’s plenty to be had for blueberry muffins.
Saveur Blueberry Muffin Recipe
Ingredients:
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 Tbsp. baking powder
1⁄2 tsp. kosher salt
1 cup fresh blueberries
1 cup plus 1 Tbsp. sugar, divided
3⁄4 cups whole milk
12 tbsp. unsalted butter, melted
3 large eggs
1 tbsp. finely grated lemon zest
Instructions:
Step 1
Preheat the oven to 375°F. Line a 12-cup muffin tin with
paper liners and set aside.
Step 2
In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and
salt. Gently toss in the blueberries. In a medium bowl,
whisk together 1 cup sugar, the milk, butter, eggs, and lemon
zest to combine, then pour the liquids into the flour
mixture, and stir until just combined.
Step 3
Divide the batter evenly among muffin cups and sprinkle with
the remaining sugar. Bake until golden brown, 18-24
minutes.
Spot the Space Station:
- Time: Wednesday, July 10 12:36 AM, Visible: 7 minutes, Max Height: 58°, Appears: 10° above W, Disappears: 10° above ENE
- Time: Wednesday, July10 2:13 AM, Visible: 7 minutes, Max Height: 57°, Appears: 10° above WNW, Disappears: 10° above E
- Time: Wednesday, July 10 3:50 AM, Visible: 7 minutes, Max Height: 50°, Appears: 10° above WNW, Disappears: 10° above SE
- Time: Wednesday, July 10 11:48 PM, Visible: 7 minutes, Max Height: 70°, Appears: 10° above W, Disappears: 10° above ENE
July 10 Fickle Pickle Wednesday Menu Special: Potato Dumpling
July 10 Nordhem Wednesday Lunch: Updated daily, occasionally.
Earth/Moon Almanac for July 10, 2024
Sunrise: 5:32am; Sunset: 9:26pm; 1 minute, 38 seconds less daylight today
Moonrise: 10:27am; Moonset: 11:55pm, waxing crescent, 23% illuminated.
Temperature Almanac for July 10, 2024
Average Record Today
High 77 96 84
Low 55 41 62
Blueberries
by Mary Oliver
I’m living in a warm place now, where you can purchase fresh blueberries all year long. Labor free. From various countries in South America. They’re as sweet as any, and compared with the berries I used to pick in the fields outside Provincetown, they’re enormous. But berries are berries. They don’t speak any language I can’t understand. Neither do I find ticks or small spiders crawling among them. So, generally speaking, I’m very satisfied.
There are limits, however. What they
don’t have is the field. The field they
belonged to and through the years I
began to feel I belonged to. Well,
there’s life, and then there’s later.
Maybe it’s myself that I miss. The
field, and the sparrow singing at the
edge of the woods. And the doe that one
morning came upon me unaware, all
tense and gorgeous. She stamped her hoof
as you would to any intruder. Then gave
me a long look, as if to say, Okay, you
stay in your patch, I’ll stay in mine.
Which is what we did. Try packing that
up, South America.
July 10 Celebrations from National Day Calendar
- Chronic Disease Day
- National Piña Colada Day
- National Kitten Day
- Don’t Step on a Bee Day
- National Clerihew Day
The Spanish people think Cervantes
Equal to half a dozen Dantes;
An opinion resented most bitterly
By the people of Italy.
G.K. Chesterton
July 10 Word Pun
July 10 Word Riddle
Why did the coach put the frog in center field?*
July 10 The Devil’s Dictionary Word-Pram
BEHAVIOR, n. Conduct, as determined, not by principle, but by breeding. The word seems to be somewhat loosely used in Dr. Jamrach Holobom's translation of the following lines in the Dies Iræ:
Recordare, Jesu pie,
Quod sum causa tuæ viæ.
Ne me perdas illa die.
Pray remember, sacred Savior,
Whose the thoughtless hand that gave your
Death-blow. Pardon such behavior.
July 10 Etymology Word of the Week
July
/jəˈlī/ n., the seventh month of the year, in the northern hemisphere usually considered the second month of summer, from circa 1050, Iulius, from Anglo-French julie, Old French Juil, Jule (Modern French uses a diminutive, Juillet) and directly from Latin Iulius "fifth month of the Roman calendar" (which began its year in March), renamed after his death and deification in honor of Gaius Julius Caesar, who was born in this month. In republican Rome it had been Quintilis, literally "fifth." Compare August. Accented on the first syllable in English until the 18th century; "the modern Eng. pronunciation is abnormal and unexplained" [OED]. Replaced Old English liða se æfterra "later mildness," from liðe "mild."
July 10 Historic Events, Literary or Otherwise, from On This Day
- 552 Origin of Armenian calendar.
- 988 The city of Dublin is founded on the banks of the river Liffey.
- 1040 Lady Godiva rides naked on horseback through Coventry.
- 1598 Spanish theater plays Moros y Los Cristianos in Rio Grande.
- 1796 Carl Friedrich Gauss discovers that every positive integer is representable as a sum of at most three triangular numbers.
- 1873 French poet Paul Verlaine (29) in a drunken, jealous rage, wounds protégé Arthur Rimbaud (18) with pistol, and gets sentenced to 2 years in jail.
- 1890 Wyoming becomes 44th state of US (first state with female suffrage).
- 1917 Emma Goldman imprisoned for obstructing draft.
- 2023 Fourteenth century document by a civil servant asking for time off identified as only known handwriting by Geoffrey Chaucer, the "Father of English Literature".
July 10 Author/Artist/Character Birthdays, from On This Day
- 1697 François Hanot, French composer.
- 1759 Sophia Maria Westenholz (née Fritscher), German composer.
- 1779 Alois Basil Nikolaus Tomasini, Italian composer.
- 1793 William Maginn, Irish author.
- 1808 Solomon Northup, American abolitionist and author.
- 1835 Henryk Wieniawski, Polish composer.
- 1856 Nikola Tesla, Serbian-American physicist.
- 1858 Karl Flodin, Finnish composer.
- 1871 Marcel Proust, French novelist.
- 1874 Sergey Konenkov, Russian sculptor.
- 1875 Edmund Clerihew Bentley, British writer.
- 1888 Giorgio De Chirico, Italian painter.
- 1899 Noble Sissle, American jazz composer, singer, lyricist and playwright.
- 1900 Paul Vincent Carroll, Irish playwright.
- 1902 Günther Weisenborn, German writer.
- 1903 John Wyndham, American science fiction author.
- 1904 Iša Krejčí, Czech composer.
- 1913 Salvador Espriu, Spanish poet.
- 1917 Reg Smythe, English cartoonist.
- 1921 Revaz Il'yich Lagidze, Georgian composer.
- 1923 Jean Kerr, Irish-American novelist.
- 1928 Bernard Buffet, French painter.
- 1931 Julian May, American science fiction author.
- 1931 Alice Munro, Canadian author.
- 1932 Jürgen Becker, German writer.
- 1939 Mavis Staples, American gospel singer.
- 1947 Arlo Guthrie, American singer, songwriter.
- 1949 David M. Kiely, Irish author.
- 1967 Margaret Ó hÓgartaigh, Irish author.
Words-I-Looked-Up-This-Week Writer's Challenge
Write a story or pram from the following words:
- arroyo: /ə-ROI-(y)ō/ n., a steep-sided gully formed by the action of fast-flowing water in an arid or semi-arid region, found chiefly in the southwestern US.
- calotte: /kə-LÄT/ n. skullcap; zucchetto.
- dinkum: /DING-kəm/ n., AUSTRALIAN (of an article or person) genuine, honest, true.
- funiliform: /fyoo-NIL-uh-form/ adj., resembling a rope or a cord.
- fyke: /fīk/ n., a bag net for catching fish.
- nacreous: /NĀ-krē-əs/ adj., possessing the qualities of, consisting of, or abounding in nacre - mother-of-pearl; iridescent.
- niddick: /NID-ik/ n., WELSH, the nape of the neck.
- nidorosity: /nī-də-RÄ-sə-tē/ n., belching which brings forth an unpleasant taste or odor.
- whet: /(h)wet/ v., sharpen the blade of (a tool or weapon); n., a thing that stimulates appetite or desire.
- wobbulator: /WAH-byuh-lay-duhr/ n., a device for producing a signal whose frequency varies continuously between two limits.
July 10, 2024 Word-Wednesday Feature
Tom Swifties, Part Three
In our ongoing study of word-play, Word-Wednesday has gathered another set of Tom Swifties from our previous offerings. For those new to Wannaskan Almanac, a Tom Swifty is a phrase in which a quoted sentence is linked by a pun to the manner in which it is attributed, originating with the author Victor Appleton, who added adverbs to specify how characters spoke in his series of Tom Swifty adventure books. Some of Appleton's originals include the following:
- "I hate this pizza,” he said crustily.
- “I am an artist,” she said easily.
- “Take the prisoner downstairs,” said the judge condescendingly.
- “I am Venus de Milo,” she said disarmingly.
- “Oh, dear, I’ve dropped my toothpaste,” she said, crestfallen.
Book titles are another form of the Tom Swifty, which we feature today:
How to Write Big Books, by Warren Peace
The Lion Attacked, by Claude Yarmoff
The Art of Archery, by Beau N. Arrow
Songs for Children, by Barbara Blacksheep
Irish Heart Surgery, by Angie O'Plasty
Desert Crossing, by I. Rhoda Camel
School Truancy, by Marcus Absent
I Was a Cloakroom Attendant, by Mahatma Coate
I Lost My Balance, by Eileen Dover and Phil Down
Positive Reinforcement, by Wade Ago
Shhh!, by Danille Soloud
The Philippine Post Office, by Imelda Letter
Stop Arguing, by Xavier Breath
From A Year with Rilke, July 10 Entry
Tanagra, from New Prams
A small piece of earth, burned,
as if burned by the sun's fire.
The touch of a girl's hand
seems somehow still upon it.
Feel how it remained there,
not longing for anything other,
just resting into itself
like fingers on a chin.
We take up this figure, then that,
turning them in the light.
We can almost understand
how they managed to survive.
We need only smile
and accept more fully
what it offers to our eyes.
Tanagra Antiquities
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.
*She was good at catching flies.
Three Scots-Irish patriots, resting on their shovels for a moment, discuss the on-going siege of the Star Fort 'Ninety-Six’ within the watershed of the Saluda River in South Carolina:
ReplyDeletehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ninety_Six_National_Historic_Site
"Genrul Greene, da bastard, sent us ‘ere to tunnel under da 'Star Fort,' a fookin' eight-pointed monstrosity smack on top of the Cherokee Trail, now why’d dey do dat?” Achmootie drawled, spewing nidorositic t’baccy breath from his brown-stained lips, and sweeping a long string of sputum away as though it was just a pesky fly.
"Yah, said Macklelland, lifting his shovel to whet it with a suitable flat-faced rock. “You’d a thunk deyed put a secret entrunce in ‘er when dey built da ting back in 1770 sumthin, but noooo. So ‘ere we ar diggin’ dese ‘ere two tunnels under ‘er, one up to put da powder in an’ one back to git da ‘ell outa da way, iffn we’re lucky.”
He shook himself like a dog after a roll in the dirt, and swiped repeatedly at his niddick to clean it of debris. From under his coat, he pulled a nacreous fyke, of all things. Taking a pinch of chewing tobacco from it, he offered it to the two other men, of which both eagerly accepted. ”Um, dinkum!” They exclaimed simultaneously.
Semple, pushing up his funiliform knitted calotte that had sunk all the way to his eyebrows with his rigorous shoveling efforts, said “Oh weed be ‘lucky,' dey need effree man dey got. But iss sorta wurthles in my opinion, jus’ goin’ ta git more of us kilt — an’ dose po’ black men, spessuly dose men black as night dey were, dem fookin’ Tories, forced ‘em to gather up buckets of water from da arroyo hereabouts an take back to da fort afta dark. Why youd a thunk theyd dug a well first an’ bilt da fort ‘rount it — but dats too much thinkin’ fer sum folks, geesus, too much thinkin’ …
Achmootie, ever a thinking man, prophesized, "I'll bet dem fookin' Brits use a wobbulator dis time too.”
When Semple and Mackelland looked bewildered, Achmootie explained. “Its a leather thong stretcht from a lance stuck into da ground outside da redoubt to a drum that makes vibrations in the eart'. Listnun to da drum skin, the fookin’ Loyalists know when to shoot at da tunnelers and keep em trapt dere like fookin’ woodchucks."
A classic WannaskaWriter saga, right down to the dialect! This reader could feel the three grimy Scots-Irishmen grubbing away in the humid heat of South Carolina swamps. Since this is Word-Wednesday, there's another newer theory about the etymology of the toponym, Ninety Six. It just so happens that the most common frequency generated by the British wobbulators in 1775 was 96 hertz.
Delete
ReplyDeleteClerihews in Honor of Four Birthdays
Tracy, detective, his first name is Dick
Pushed his calotte down onto his niddick
Chased the villain to a dead end arroyo
Fair dinkum he's gotten his boyo
Tesla, Nikola, took a long funiliform
Tied Edison, inventor, first name is Tom
But Tom wriggled free and Tesla said Yike!
He'd been wrapped, dinkum fair, in a fyke
A nacreous pallor had Proust
On the world all his memories he's loosed
Taste's not whetted by this French-fried monstrosity
All that's left is a madeleine nidorosity
Arlo Guthrie had an icon for dad
Big shoes to be filled by the lad
He won't eat a pickle or be agitator
He just rides on his big wobbulator
Calotte: a skullcap
Niddick: the nape of the neck
Arroyo: a steep-sided gully
Dinkum: a true thing
Funiliform: resembling a cord
Fyke: a bag net
Nacreous: mother-of-pearl
Whet: to sharpen
Niderosity: belching that leaves a bad taste
Wobbulator: a machine whose noise varies
Unca'
ReplyDeleteBecause the river ran through our town,
he had a boat.
And because he hated the cold,
when he fished
he wore that old brown calotte
his mother knitted
for him
in the thirties.
He worked with his hands, too.
I’d find him out on his backstoop
running that nacreous-handled knife
he’d brought home from the war
across the special stone
used just for whetting.
I watched him mend his fyke
with funiliform cords
he’d twist from the frayed ends
of old clotheslines.
He had a sixth-grader sense of humor,
and we all laughed
over his use of funny words.
Because of him
I learned to grab my cat from the niddick,
told my friends that cowboys galloped alongside the arroyo,
and knew the proper word for a be-hind
was a french one he laughed and said was derriere.
Well, excuse my nidorosity! he’d say
after a good belch after dinner.
Looks like it’s time I left
to check on my wobbulator.
That was a word that topped his favorites.
I never knew what it was,
but I knew he was a radioman
with a collection of funny glass tubes
he’d bring home from his job at Philco.
My uncle wasn’t a man’s man
and was too shy to ask out women,
but because the river ran through our town,
and because he had a boat
and because his love for us was dinkum true.
He’d take us fishing.