Author Archives: John Cutrone

Jun 20 2024
11 Comments
Midsummer, Solstice, St. John's Day, St. John's Eve

Glad Midsommar & a Grand Opening

So, here we are at the June solstice. The first day of summer in the Northern Hemisphere, and yet, by traditional reckoning of time, a time our ancestors called Midsummer. There is a certain loveliness to the logic in this viewpoint and this nomenclature, for daylight has been increasing on a daily basis since the December solstice, and now, as we reach Midsummer, the pendulum swings back again toward the other direction, and with this passing day, light will begin to decrease. And just as the days that follow the December solstice bring celebratory, magical days, so do the days that follow the June solstice––they’re just not widely honored here in the States, much to our loss. But just as Christmas Eve and Christmas Day follow the Midwinter solstice, so do St. John’s Eve and St. John’s Day follow the Midsummer solstice. Opposite spokes of the Wheel of the Year, designed intentionally to correspond with the Constant Rearrange that comes about naturally through the choreography between the sun and a planet Earth that is tilted 23.5 degrees.

This time around, the more-or-less precise solstice moment here in Lake Worth, which is in US Eastern Daylight Time, is  today, Thursday, June 20, at 4:50 PM. And me, I can only apologize for writing so infrequently lately, but all our energies have been focused on getting our new Convivio Bookworks shop. Friday is the grand opening! The Mayor (with her very large scissors, for cutting the ceremonial ribbon) and the Vice-Mayor and several City Commissioners have promised to be here. And since it’s Midsummer, we’ll have a letterpress Glad Midsommar card you can print yourself, and we’ll also teach you how to make a floral crown, and there will be a tasting event featuring many of our Scandinavian specialty foods and beverages. And, of course, great shopping, good music, nice people… I honestly can’t think of anything not to like. And we’ll help you celebrate a proper Midsummer, too.

After the Grand Opening, our plan is for open hours every Saturday from 11 AM to 4 PM. You may also contact us to shop or visit the place by appointment: We’re happy to do so!

JOIN US, PLEASE!
It’s a Midsummer celebration! Official ribbon cutting with City officials on Friday June 21 at 3:30 PM, and we’ll be open all that weekend (Friday June 21 from 3 to 8 PM, Saturday June 22 from 11 AM to 7 PM, and Sunday June 23 from 10 AM to 4 PM) with lots of Midsummer fun. The new shop is at 1110 North G Street, Suite D, Lake Worth Beach, FL 33460. From I-95, exit 10th Avenue North eastbound; make a left at the first traffic signal onto North A Street, then at the first stop sign, turn right onto 13th Avenue North. Cross the railroad tracks and turn right again onto North G Street. We’re a couple blocks down on your left side in a blue-roofed building. Plenty of street parking on G Street and there are a few spots in our little parking lot, too.

SHOP OUR SUMMER SALE… both online and in-store!
At our online catalog right now, you may use discount code BLOSSOM to save $10 on your $85 purchase, plus get free domestic shipping, too. That’s a total savings of $19.50. Spend less than $85 and our flat rate shipping fee of $9.50 applies. CLICK HERE to shop; you know we appreciate your support immensely. And yes, you may use that $10 discount when you visit us in the store, too!

 

Jun 04 2024
4 Comments
Book of Days Calendar, Midsummer, Summer

Summertime, or Your June Book of Days

It was in 1935 that Billie Holiday recorded a song with Teddy Wilson and his Orchestra; a song called “It’s too Hot for Words,” and though it is not the official State Song of my home state of Florida, I think perhaps it should be. And I think the sleeping woman in this iconic painting of summer understands this, too. The painting, called “Flaming June,” is by Frederic Lord Leighton.  The sun shimmering on the distant water, and its stillness, and the flush on the cheek of the sleeping woman in orange… all these things suggest that it was the very height of summer, perhaps Midsummer Day itself, when Frederic Lord Leighton painted this image in 1895. Whatever summer day it was obviously was too hot for words and, by the looks of things, too hot for pretty much anything.

And “Flaming June” is the cover star this month for your Convivio Book of Days calendar. The calendar for June is, as usual, a printable PDF. It is the month of St. Anthony of Padua’s Day on the 13th: a favorite saint of both my grandmothers and perhaps all Italian grandmothers, for that matter. And then comes Bloomsday, one of our favorite literary holidays, then Father’s Day and Juneteenth, the freedom celebration that is our newest national holiday. The solstice arrives this year on the 20th, and a few days later come the celebrations of Old Midsummer. Mostly ignored in this country, Midsummer will pass largely unnoticed. But these longest days of the year in the Northern Hemisphere are magical days, with daylight well into the evening hours. In Sweden and Germany and other places folks stay out well into those nights and there are songs to sing and dances to dance beneath a Midsommar pole and they will don flowers in their hair and laugh and love while here in the States we will just go to bed early and wake up early and go to work diligently and that is that.

Ah, but these lovely lengthy languid days are the polar opposite spoke in the Wheel of the Year to the celebrations of Midwinter, which we do celebrate most joyously. That is Christmas, when the days are short and the nights are long, and these summery days are the mirror to Christmas. Ages ago, the Church placed the birth of Christ at the Midwinter solstice and the birth of his cousin, St. John the Baptist, at the Midsummer solstice. This, for powerful symbolism: John is born at Midsummer, just as light begins to decrease. “He must increase, but I must decrease,” we read in John 3:30. Conversely, Christ is born at Midwinter, just as light begins to increase. Again, in John 8:12: “I am the light of the world.”

There are other traditional bits of magic in the air this time of year, too. While there is one school of thought that says William Shakespeare set his comedy A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Eve of May, there is another that places it at St. John’s Eve. That’s the school of thought I subscribe to. St. John’s Eve, on the 23rd of June, mirrors Christmas Eve in that Wheel of the Year, and we all know about the particular magic of that long night. So on the short night, too.

Do with all this what you may. Go to work if you must… but honor these magical days as best you can. This is what we do, and this, I think, is a very good approach.

COME SEE OUR NEW SHOP!
We’ll be open this Saturday, June 8, and next Saturday, June 15, for Father’s Day shopping (and any kind of shopping) from 11 AM to 4 PM, and, in fact, these are the hours we’ve decided to keep all year long. Unless otherwise noted, we’ll be open every Saturday from 11 to 4. We both work full time, so Saturday hours are the best we can do for now. We’ll also gladly open for you by appointment, should Saturdays not work for you. Just write us. The new shop is at 1110 North G Street, Suite D, Lake Worth Beach, FL 33460. From I-95, exit 10th Avenue North eastbound; make a left at the first traffic signal onto North A Street, then at the first stop sign, turn right onto 13th Avenue North. Cross the railroad tracks and turn right again onto North G Street. We’re a couple blocks down on your left side in a blue-roofed building. Plenty of street parking on G Street and there are a few spots in our little parking lot, too.

COME TO OUR GRAND OPENING!
It’s a Midsummer celebration! Official ribbon cutting with City officials on Friday June 21 at 3:30 PM, and we’ll be open all that weekend (Friday June 21 from 3 to 8 PM, Saturday June 22 from 11 AM to 7 PM, and Sunday June 23 from 10 AM to 4 PM) with lots of Midsummer fun: We’ll teach you how to make a floral crown; You can print your own letterpress printed Glad Midsommar card; Enjoy a free tasting event featuring many of our Scandinavian specialty foods, and, of course, there will be great shopping and good company. The new shop is at 1110 North G Street, Suite D, Lake Worth Beach, FL 33460. From I-95, exit 10th Avenue North eastbound; make a left at the first traffic signal onto North A Street, then at the first stop sign, turn right onto 13th Avenue North. Cross the railroad tracks and turn right again onto North G Street. We’re a couple blocks down on your left side in a blue-roofed building. Plenty of street parking on G Street and there are a few spots in our little parking lot, too.

SHOP OUR SUMMER DAY SALE!
At our online catalog right now, you may use discount code BLOSSOM to save $10 on your $85 purchase, plus get free domestic shipping, too. That’s a total savings of $19.50. Spend less than $85 and our flat rate shipping fee of $9.50 applies. CLICK HERE to shop; you know we appreciate your support immensely. And yes, you may use that $10 discount when you visit us in the store, too!

Image: “Flaming June” by Frederic Lord Leighton. Oil on canvas, 1895 [Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons]. Click on each image to make them larger!

 

 

May 06 2024
2 Comments
Book of Days Calendar, Pentecost, Whitsunday

Whitsun, or Your May Book of Days

Here’s your printable Convivio Book of Days calendar for May, finally! Our cover star this month is a sleepy seamstress on Whitsunday morning. She and I have a lot in common: neither of us gets enough sleep at night. If I was a seamstress, I’d be falling asleep in my work, too.

My grandmother was a seamstress and did piecework at home during the Great Depression, earning 35 cents for knitting a dozen woolen hats. Mom remembers her sewing blouses, too, during those lean years when Mom was a little girl. Grandma would sew the blouses on her sewing machine, a blouse and matching belt, and it was my mom’s job, together with her older sister, Anne, to turn the blouses right side out again when Grandma was done piecing them together. Years later, when I was a boy, Grandma made some of the shirts I wore. I wish I had them now. One of them was a pale green western style shirt (western as in American West) with pearl snap buttons and a print fabric of cowboy hats and covered wagons and horses. Another was a plaid flannel button up shirt (which no doubt set the course for the rest of my life –– someone at work once made a poster about a print we had available for purchase and it read as follows: Please inquire with anyone dressed in plaid or sporting a handlebar mustache; he was the one with the mustache, and me, I’m the one who almost always wears plaid).

Be that as it may, I imagine Grandma was sometimes a sleepy seamstress, too. She loved to stay up late into the night, which is probably the source of my own night owl tendencies. I love working in the quiet spell of night, as I am this very night. As for Whitsunday: it is another name for Pentecost, which this year comes on the 19th of May. With it, Eastertide will come to a close. It is a day that always brings to mind my friends at the Sabbathday Lake Shaker Community in Maine, for my first Whitsunday there was a very blustery one, one where the clothes on the line take on life as they billow in the breeze, and the talk at Sunday Meeting was all about Holy Spirit and Holy Ghost, about ghosts and gusts, and breath and inspiration, and all this was firing connexions through my head that took me back to Professoressa Myriam Swennan-Ruthenberg’s Italian class and the day she talked about the Italian word respiro (breath) and its root relation with ispirazione (inspiration) and I have never thought of inspiration, nor Pentecost or Whitsunday, the same since. I was dumbfounded by connexions, bowled over, and I love when that happens.

COME SEE OUR NEW SHOP!
And so it is May, well into it, and we are fast on the approach to summer. By traditional reckoning of time, in fact, summer has just begun with the month’s changing, and the next spoke on the Wheel of the Year will be midsummer, in June, around St. John’s Day. Our Grand Opening at the new Convivio Bookworks shop in Lake Worth Beach is set for that very time, so if you’re local, please mark your calendars. We’ll be celebrating on Friday June 21, Saturday June 22, and Sunday June 23. Times to be announced. It’s a magical time of the year and we will tap into that spirit as much as we can that weekend.

We’ll also be open this Saturday from 11 AM to 5 PM for last minute Mother’s Day shopping, or whatever sort of shopping you need to do. The new shop is at 1110 North G Street, Suite D, Lake Worth Beach, FL 33460. From I-95, exit 10th Avenue North eastbound; make a left at the first traffic signal onto North A Street, then at the first stop sign, turn right onto 13th Avenue North. Cross the railroad tracks and turn right again onto North G Street. We’re a couple blocks down on your left side in a blue-roofed building. Plenty of street parking on G Street and there are a few spots in our little parking lot, too.

SHOP OUR MOTHER’S DAY SALE!
Mamma loves a sale and at our online catalog right now, you may use discount code BLOSSOM to save $10 on your $85 purchase, plus get free domestic shipping, too. That’s a total savings of $19.50. Spend less than $85 and our flat rate shipping fee of $9.50 applies. CLICK HERE to shop; you know we appreciate your support immensely. And yes, you may use that $10 discount when you visit us in the store, too!

Image: “Syerske Pinsemorgen” or, in English, “Sewing, Whitsunday Morning” by Wenzel Tornøe. Oil on canvas, 1892 [Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons].

 

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