Author Archives: John Cutrone

Jul 01 2026
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Book of Days Calendar, Summer

The Dog Days, or Your Convivio Book of Days for July

In case you’ve not noticed: It’s hot out there. Here in Lake Worth, we were doing pretty well up until about three weeks ago, and suddenly it was full-on summer, and this is it: we know it’s here and it’s going nowhere for quite some time. And so we accept our lot. It is the price we pay each year for mild winters.

As July begins, so soon will the Dog Days of Summer. Sirius, the Dog Star, in the constellation Canis Major, is about to begin rising with the sun each day. This happens each year around the Third of July 3rd, and the sun occupies the same part of the sky as Sirius through the middle of August. This annual astronomical event happens to coincide with the hottest time of the year for many places in the Northern Hemisphere. Hence: the Dog Days of Summer, ruled by Sirius.

And for your Convivio Book of Days calendar for July this year, we’ve found a penny postcard from Germany, circa 1904, that celebrates Hundstage, which is German for “Dog Days.” This is not the only one we found! It seems to have been a thing, this fascination, in Germany, with Hundstage. Here’s another one, printed a year earlier, in 1903 (click all the images in this post to make them larger):

I’ve only been to Germany once, and it was during Hundstage, the Dog Days, and well… it was pretty warm. Warmer than Lake Worth? No. But where we have the modern convenience of climate control, in Germany (and Austria, and Switzerland, and Northern Italy), at least six years ago during our visit, we did not. Perhaps it is that total immersion in the weather that made Hundstage so fascinating to penny postcard producers at the turn of the 20th century.

Enjoy this month’s calendar! It is, as usual, our gift to you; a PDF that you may print and post to your bulletin board. You may also share it online; we’d love that.

This First of July brings not just the calendar but Canada Day, the national holiday of our neighbors above the 49th Parallel, and we will soon be celebrating, in three days’ time, our semiquincentennial here in the States. 250 years of the American experiment and the times are interesting, are they not? We get stars and stripes that day, plus fireworks that night (stars, perhaps, of a different sort). And on the Seventh of July comes Tanabata, the Star Festival of Japan, celebrating not the dog star Sirius but two other stars: Altair and Vega, two lovers separated forever by the Milky Way, save for one night each year: the seventh night of the seventh month. It is traditional, on Tanabata, to write wishes on strips of paper and then take them outdoors, and tie the wishes to the trees, where they may speak to the wind, and perhaps find their way to the universe to be granted.

 

NEW SUMMER WORKSHOPS
We have two new workshops posted to our website at the WORKSHOPS page! The first is a new Convivio Cookery workshop: Ricotta Gnocchi, set for Saturday August 15, 2026. (That’s my Grandma Assunta’s birthday and she would love that we are teaching you how to make homemade pasta that day!) We’ll teach you how to make a lighter gnocchi; our recipe skips the heavy potatoes and instead uses fresh ricotta: a delicious and much lighter alternative.

The second workshop, in September, is a writing workshop that I am definitely taking: True Stories Cleverly Told: Exploring Creative Nonfiction for Narrative, Essay, & Memoir with writer and literary agent Cricket Freeman, on Saturday September 19. Cricket is one of our favorite people in the literary world. You will learn a lot! The writing workshop is a full-day class that includes a delicious box lunch from one of our favorite local spots, Aioli in West Palm Beach. Class limit in each workshop is 8 people.

 

 

NOISE BRUNCH
Finally, we invite you to join us for something completely different: The 2nd Noise Brunch, on Sunday July 12, from 1 to 4 PM. The Noise Brunch is, in fact, not brunch, but it is an afternoon of experimental music and sound moving between silence and noise. I’m not sure exactly what that means, either. But I will be there to find out. We’re all for trying new things! The Noise Brunch is a free event at Convivio Bookworks. Come and go as you please during the event; you know we have limited seating. The shop will be open that Sunday, too, for eclectic (and most likely noisy) shopping.

 

 

Postcard images are public domain, courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

 

Jun 23 2026
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Midsummer, St. John's Day, St. John's Eve

It Seems to Me that Yet We Sleep, We Dream

The Midsummer Solstice has come and gone here in the Northern Hemisphere, early this past Sunday morning, and with it, the longest day. The sun reached its most northerly point –– a trick of our old Earth’s tilt on its axis. It appeared to stand still for a day or two at that point and now, as the days have passed since the solstice, things begin to shift the other way. Today, this 23rd of June, will bring 3 fewer minutes of sunlight to our town than the day before. This is the constant shift back and forth, the constant rearrange.

On Sunday afternoon, after one night and two days of making floral crowns to celebrate the solstice with folks this past weekend at Convivio Bookworks in Lake Worth, Seth and I closed up shop, cleaned the place up a bit, then got in the car and headed south to my old family home where we mowed the lawn beneath threatening skies and then ate the dinner my sister prepared, and a homemade lemon meringue pie. After dinner, we went to the TV and watched the 1999 Michael Hoffman film version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. It was very sweet and my mother’s first bit of Shakespeare (an amazing feat for someone who will turn 100 in October). I provided a few explanations at key moments to help keep her engaged and following along. It was my sister’s first bit of Shakespeare, too. They laughed at the funny parts and seemed to enjoy the movie. When it was done, Mom said, “That was different.” I’ll take that to mean she liked it ok.

It is one of my favorite movies; another of the movies I watch each year to mark the seasons. I make Seth watch it with me each St. John’s Eve or thereabouts, for this is where in the year Shakespeare set his play, and this year, I’m glad the family got to watch, too. I found it, as usual, warm and funny and mesmerizing and, this year, sitting next to Mom as the story unfolded, more touching than usual. I love these moments together.

And so the setting sun tonight will bring St. John’s Eve, and tomorrow, St. John’s Day. In the Round of the Year, we are at the polar opposite spoke from Christmas and Yuletide. And just as those celebrations follow the Midwinter Solstice by a few days, so happens here, too. The early Church placed the celebration of St. John the Baptist’s birth at Midsummer and the celebration of Christ’s birth at Midwinter. The metaphorical reasoning is powerful: St. John brings shortening days each year, and John himself tells us something to the effect of, “I must decrease so he may increase.” John prepares the way for Jesus. Six months later, we reach the opposite spoke in our wheel, and there we celebrate the birth of Christ, at the time of our darkest days, our longest nights… just as sunlight begins again its increase.

These are my favorite days and nights of summer. The season is long when you live in a place like the strange green land I call home: consistently hot and humid this time of year. The days, this past week, have been in the lower 90s, the nights, in the mid 80s. We typically have daily afternoon thunderstorms this time of year, but they’ve been inconsistent, and without them, the air does not cool down. We don’t get the extremes here that other places do: it’s extremely rare that we hit 100 degrees F. It is, however, the constant sameness that wears us down: the knowledge that it will never get below the upper 70s, even in the dead of night, not until October at best. But there is some magic to be found in a Florida summer, and this is the time we most seek it, and when we are often blessed to find it.

SHOP HAPPENINGS
We have a couple of new workshops that will soon be added to the WORKSHOPS page of our website. Not there yet, but will be in the next day or two, hopefully. The first is a new Convivio Cookery workshop: Ricotta Gnocchi, set for Saturday August 15, 2026. (That’s my Grandma Assunta’s birthday and she would love that we are teaching you how to make homemade pasta that day!) The second one is a writing workshop: “True Stories Cleverly Told” with writer and literary agent Cricket Freeman, on Saturday September 19. We’ll be exploring creative nonfiction for narrative and memoir in this full-day class that will include a box lunch. I’m looking forward to both workshops: teaching in the first and learning in the second!

 

Image: Even Pinocchio got a floral crown this past weekend at our Midsummer Solstice Market! Our niece Isabella fashioned one for him.

 

Jun 03 2026
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Book of Days Calendar, Juneteenth

We Must Live as Brothers: Your June Book of Days

It’s June and here is your printable Convivio Book of Days calendar for the month. For this month of solstice and midsummer night’s dreaming and several saints’ days and Father’s Day and Bloomsday, we’ve opted to focus on Juneteenth, with a picture of a mural in Washington, DC, that was painted for Juneteenth in 2020. It’s a quote from Martin Luther King, Jr.: We must live together as brothers, or perish together as fools.

My hunch is the mural is no longer there. But if I’m wrong, please do let me know. The mural was on the Miller & Chevalier Building on what was then called Black Lives Matter Plaza. The two-block long street mural with the huge yellow letters is gone, of course; it was removed a little over a year ago.

In 2021, a year after this mural was painted, Juneteenth became a federal national holiday. Opal Lee, a woman born just a few days after my own mother (both Ms. Lee and my mom will be 100 years old this October), fought hard most all her life to get Juneteenth, once little known outside of Texas, recognized as a federal holiday. I remember being shocked when I heard the news. I have been shocked in different ways in the past year and a half, and find myself feeling that way far more often than I like.

I don’t know how Ms. Opal Lee feels about the state of the country as she approaches her 100th birthday this year, but she knows, better than anyone, I’m sure, how the road that brought the respect of Juneteenth to us was never an easy one. Sadly, we’ve had progress toward respect for all, and then it’s been walked back. Our history is a troubled one, and healing and respect are not part of the current plan, it would seem. With Juneteenth, though, we get another shot at making things right.

SHOP HAPPENINGS
The shop will be open this Sunday, June 7, from 11 AM to 4 PM, during our next workshop: I’ll be teaching a Case Bound Journal bookbinding workshop that day, and there are currently 2 seats left (perhaps you and a friend should sign up!). Our next Convivio Cookery workshop is my favorite pasta, Mambricoli, the following Saturday, June 13 (5 seats left). And we’re making plans for our Midsummer Solstice Market… it’s planned for Friday June 19 through Sunday June 21. We’ll have some good Midsummer Magic in store for you!

We also have a Juneteenth card in stock!

 

 

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