dog days of summer

hydrangea.jpg

I always wondered where the expression dog days of summer came from. It made me think of overheated dogs panting with their mouths open and tongues lolling. I do feel rather like a hot dog these days.

In the summer, Sirius, the “dog star,” rises and sets with the sun. During late July Sirius is in conjunction with the sun, and the ancients believed that its heat added to the heat of the sun, creating a stretch of hot and sultry weather. They named this period of time, from 20 days before the conjunction to 20 days after, “dog days” after the dog star.
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Art is a simple tool for fine-tuning our experience of being alive. I like what Ismo Santala writes in his article Art: Advances in Acuteness via wood s lot.

Noting the author’s Finnish name, my curiosity sent me googling. Ismo Santala has published reviews of literature, comics, music, film and interviews but the only biographical information I could find was at the scriptorium:
Ismo Santala was born whilst Jacques Tati celebrated his final birthday, and is currently studying English Philology at the University of Tampere, Finland.

August 9, 2005 in Being an Artist, Finland, Estonia & Finno-Ugric by Marja-Leena