Fall

Today is the first day of fall and it’s bright and sunny in San Francisco.   It usually doesn’t feel fall-like until about November.  But this year we started with a front moving through and a big blast of rain yesterday.  Unusually early for us, but reminding us that even Northern California can sometimes conform to the calendar.  Above are two pieces from the 2011 Project — Nor’Easter (we don’t have those in California, but the sky looked a lot like that yesterday) and Listopad one of my favorite pieces from the 2011 Project.

November 5, 2011 – Listopad

When you learn a few foreign language, one of the things that will happen is that you end up with a set of favorite” words. This is a very subjective list of a handful of words that, for some reason, sound really amusing to you, and only you. For example I have a Swedish friend who used to find the English words mushroom and mashed potatoes hilarious. It’s a personal thing.

Listopad is one of my favorite words in the Polish Language. It’s the name for the month of November and literally translates as “leaf fall.” It is also the name for November in Czech. In Croatian, Listopad is the name for October (the leaves must fall earlier in Croatia). November, the eleventh month derives its name from the Latin novem (nine)– but it is no longer the ninth month. We might consider changing November to Listopad — it’s about falling leaves and reminds one a bit of the sound of the rain that start falling this month too.