Dog Days of Summer
Two in the afternoon and the town was drowsy. Men and dogs lay prostrate in the shadow of the arcades lining the plaza; women and children slept behind closed shutters in the thick-walled secrecy of houses built like ancient fortresses. A magician could have cast a spell, so heavy was the slumber that overcame all living creatures. For a few hours of sweaty stupor people dared dream that the hammering heat had released its grip on the land and the rains had come to wash away the dust of the dry season.
Okay, I’m cheating, this was not inspired by the stupefying tripple-digit heat that’s slamming Texas these days. It’s the beginning of one of the first stories I got published. After poking around, I couldn’t find the issue of the print magazine anywhere, which means I might try to give the story another lease on life.
Taking a new look at it might help me get out of the creative slump I find myself in right now. The stifling heat has something to do with it. Very low energy. Staring at a screen and hitting a keyboard are less sweaty activities than digging trenches or pouring concrete, still, the white skies and sticky air put lead in my step and typing fingers. That and the soap opera at my now ex-book publisher. Weather and circumstances conspire to bring my productivity to an all-time low.
Out of curiosity, I went to look at what extreme heat and the resultant sluggishness had to do with dogs. Dog days of summer … Pondering, why dogs? Sloths would be a natural, or slinking lizards.
It turns out the expression goes back a long way. And it has nothing to do with panting pooches. It’s connected to Sirius rising (Ancient Greek seírios, meaning “scorching”, that’s a tell). Sirius is also known as the “Dog Star”, in the Canis Major constellation, so called because it follows Orion the Hunter through the sky. Sirius rises between early July and September, so the heat is a bit ahead of the calendar this year.
Sirius-the-Dog has left traces in multiple languages: for example the word canicule in French means heat wave, and there you have it, the “canine” showing up.
Then there’s what the Greek astrologists said about this time of the year: heat, drought, sudden thunderstorms, lethargy, fever, mad dogs, and bad luck. Feels familiar? No wonder I’m having a hard time cranking up a story.
Now let’s be clear, bright Sirius has absolutely no effect on our weather and temperature. It’s very unfair to blame it for anything, especially mad dogs. And yes that’s where Dog Day Afternoon (1975) gets its title from. The story takes place on a hot, stifling August day.
“Dog Days are approaching; you must, therefore, make both hay and haste while the Sun shines, for when old Sirius takes command of the weather, he is such an unsteady, crazy dog, there is no dependence upon him.”
–The Old Farmer’s Almanac, 1817
You can always rely on the Almanac to make things clear.
Summer heat is also associated with the Silly Season. That’s the time for ludicrous news, when the flow of worthwhile reporting slows down and anything goes. Slap that copy out there! One could argue that silly season lasts all year long, a consequence of the 24-hour news cycle. In Spain, they use the expression serpiente de verano – summer snake – a direct reference to the Loch Ness monster that slithers into news headlines at that time of the year.
I’ve been straying away from dogs, so I’ll close with a bit of fun from Noel Coward’s Mad Dogs and Englishmen (1931). Joe Cocker and Leon Russell used the same title, but here’s clever Noel’s take:
Where the python romps
There is peace from twelve till two.
Even caribous
Lie around and snooze;
For there's nothing else to do.
In Bengal
To move at all
Is seldom, if ever done.
But mad dogs and Englishmen
Go out in the midday sun
I must have been unconsciously inspired by it when I wrote the beginning of the story quoted above. It takes place on the island of Java, where at noon, everybody, sensibly, dozes off. Except the heroine, Suzanne, a young English woman (eh, Noel!). Here’s what comes next:
Suzanne stumbled forward, as if reaching for an invisible finish line. Her cotton shirt stuck to her skin, soaked at the waist and between her shoulder blades. She felt the sweat running between her breasts and the burning on the back of her neck. She had to cross the plaza, she didn't have the strength to step over the sleeping men.
What do you think, should I spend some time with Suzanne, tweak her story, punch at it once more? Follow Florence and the Machine’s lead and declare in defiance that Dog Days are Over?