★ THE STANDING WEDNESDAY APOSTOLATE · est. 2002 · subscriptions closed forever ★

A Fan Page for an Ordinary Wednesday

Being the complete transcript of a long telephone call placed, on the afternoon of a Wednesday, to a party who answered only in static — together with apparatus, glossary, membership roll, and a form letter you are encouraged to fill out and (locally, harmlessly) send.

Vol. VII · No. 41 Edited by M. Brouwer Printed at the Kitchen Table

Preface from the Editor (M.B.)

What follows is the complete and very lightly edited transcript of one telephone conversation, recorded on a household answering device of doubtful provenance, between the present author1 and a second party whose participation, owing either to equipment failure or to temperamental reticence, registered exclusively as broadband acoustic noise. The call was placed shortly after lunch on a Wednesday of no particular distinction.2

This document is offered, with appropriate humility, as the founding artifact of a small society — really more of a tendency3 — devoted to the appreciation of the regular, working, midweek Wednesday: that which is neither holiday, eve, nor anniversary; that which is merely here. There are no dues. There is, however, a form letter (see overleaf4), which we encourage you to complete and mail by pressing the button at its foot and then walking away from the screen.

If at any point the transcript appears to lapse into static, please understand that the static is the other half of the conversation, and is doing the work it was assigned.5

The Call · Reel 1 of 3

★ Reel 01 ★ placed 4:47 PM, Wed. run length 12:08
ME
Yes — hello. Hello. I called yesterday, too. I'd like, if it's alright, to keep talking about it. The Wednesday, I mean.6 Not yesterday — yesterday was a Tuesday and is no concern of yours. I want to talk about the Wednesday after that, which is to say, today.
LINE
ssshhhhhhhhhhhh — — — sshhhhhhh — hhhhhhhhhhhhhh — — — shhhhhhhhhhhhhh
ME
It is 4:47 in the afternoon. The light in the kitchen is the color of a manila envelope. I am — please bear with me — entering my fourteenth consecutive year of admiring this hour, in this room, on this particular day of the week, and I find I am no closer to articulating what it is I admire, only that there is more of it to admire than there was last week.7
LINE
sshhh — — hhhhhhhhhhhh — — — — sssshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh — — hhhhhh
ME
I will take your silence as agreement. I have been taking it that way for some time.
· · · · · · · · ·
ME
The position of Wednesday in the week is, structurally, the most exposed. Sunday and Saturday share a wall with the weekend, which is to say with civilian timeciv. time; Monday and Friday are valves, each pressurized by the day adjacent; Tuesday is consoled by its anticipation of, and Thursday by its participation in, the slow stretch toward release. Wednesday is the apex of the arch. Wednesday holds up the week the way a keystone holds up an arch: invisibly, and without complaint, and only because the other stones have agreed not to fall.8
LINE
— — — — sshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh — — — — — — hhhhh — — sshhhhhhhhh
ME
Yes. That is also how I feel about it.
A scrap of paper, white on white, in which the word MONDAY has been cut. We are not interested in Monday. We include this only to demonstrate the cut.

Fig. A. — "Monday, cut out." Provenance unknown.
Wednesday is the day that has not yet been cut out of anything.

"There are six days in the week that mean something, and there is Wednesday, which merely is. To love Wednesday is to love the world without an argument for loving it." — attrib. M. Brouwer, marginalia, 2007

The Call · Reel 2 of 3

★ Reel 02 ★ resumed 5:14 PM run length 19:41
ME
I'd like, if I may, to talk about the etymology9. The English Wednesday, as I am sure you know, is a contraction of Wōdnesdæg, the day of Woden, who in turn corresponds to the Norse Óðinn, the wandering god of wisdom, poetry, and the long view. Mercredi in French; mercoledì in Italian: the day of Mercury, messenger and merchant. The Romance languages took the messenger; the Germanic languages took the wanderer. We get the wanderer.10
LINE
— — — sshhhhhhhhhhhhh — — — hhhhhhhhh — sshhhhhhhhhhh — —
ME
I think this is important because — and please correct me, I welcome it — Wednesday is the only day of the working week named for a god who is famously not at home. Woden is on the road. Woden is, in fact, looking for something he has already lost. To inhabit a Wednesday is to inhabit a day named for an absence; this is, I believe, why Wednesdays so often feel like the floor is slightly too low for the room.11
LINE
hhhhhhhhhhhhhhh — — — — sshhh — — — — — — sshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
ME
Quite. The Quakers, you may recallcf. 1652, refused the day-names entirely, calling Wednesday Fourth Day, on the principle that one should not pay rent to a god one does not believe in. I find this admirable, and I have been trying — without success — to feel about the Fourth Day what I feel about Wednesday. It is not the same thing. The number is honest but it is not habitable.12
· · · · · · · · ·
ME
A short list, while we have the line: things that are particularly themselves on a Wednesday. The grocery store between 2 and 4 PM. A library when the children's program has just let out. A bench in any small park that gets sun after lunch. The interior of a public bus going the unfashionable direction. The waiting room of any office that does not deal in emergencies. A laundromat whose front window has been replaced and whose new glass has not yet acquired the film of its predecessor.13
LINE
— sshhhhhhhhhh — — — hhhhhhhhhhhh — — sshhhh — — — — — hhhhh
ME
I knew you would understand the laundromat.

A Short Glossary, for the Apostolate

Hump-day Heresy
The vulgar position that Wednesday is to be endured, surmounted, or otherwise gotten through. The Apostolate rejects this on its face. A keystone is not gotten through; it is leaned upon.
Manila Hour
That stretch between 3:40 and 4:55 PM in the late winter when domestic light, ambient noise, and a certain spiritual flatness combine to make any indoor surface appear to be a returned envelope. Wednesdays are richest in Manila Hours; Saturdays produce none.14
Wōden's Errand
Any small, unmemorable, low-stakes outing performed on a Wednesday afternoon — a return, a deposit, a refilling of a prescription — which the participant, midway through, recognizes as the most important thing they will do that week. Compare: Mercury's Errand, in which the participant, midway, becomes the message.
The Apex Yawn
The involuntary mid-week yawn, typically occurring 14 to 18 minutes after lunch on the day in question, in which the body acknowledges that it is now as far from the previous weekend as it is from the next. The Apostolate considers this a sacrament.
Brouwer's Threshold
The point in a given Wednesday at which one ceases to expect anything further of it and is, accordingly, finally able to enjoy it. Falls, in the editor's own life, at approximately 4:47 PM, though regional variation has been reported.15
Fourth Day Quietism
The discipline, after George Fox, of referring to Wednesday only by its number. Found by the Apostolate to be ethically sound but emotionally chilly. Recommended for accountants, archivists, and the recently betrayed.

The Membership Roll (Excerpt)

A partial roll of the standing membership, as of last Wednesday's count. The Apostolate has no dues, no meetings, and no minutes; it does, however, keep a roll, because it likes to.16

★ Mira H. since 2003 · joined "on a Wednesday I do not remember the date of." Bakes bread on Wednesday mornings, never on weekends.
★ J. Doblinger since 2006 · keeps a one-line journal entry per Wednesday only. Has, to date, 1,041 lines.
★ The Estate of L. Quill since 1998 · posthumous; bequeathed a small calendar and the windows of a house in Vermont.
★ R. Mendez-Aoki since 2011 · writes letters every Wednesday to people who have already received enough of them.
★ K. Olbrich since 2009 · drives the long way home on Wednesdays as a matter of principle. Will not say what the principle is.
★ M. Brouwer (ed.) since 2002 · founder. Places a long telephone call every Wednesday afternoon to a line that does not answer in words.
★ "Anonymous" since 1989 · joined retroactively. Does not know about the Apostolate.
★ The Crook Co. Library Reading Room since 2014 · institutional. Best between 2:10 and 3:55 PM, Wednesdays.
★ (your name here) since today, if you like. Fill out the form on the next page; the roll will update by morning, or not, depending on weather.
A sign in some other town, which appears to enumerate the days of the week with adjectives. The sign is for some other purpose; we have nothing to do with it. We include it because Wednesday is conspicuously absent from the sign, which is, of course, the point we have been making for nine pages.

Fig. B. — "What the sign in the other town does not say."
Wednesday is, characteristically, not on the list.

A Standing Letter to Wednesday

FORM A-7 / WED · rev. 2008 fill, fold, file mentally

To the Day In Question,

I, , of , write to you on this, your day, to declare myself a standing admirer.

I noticed you first at the age of approximately , in the form of , and I have not stopped noticing you since.

I admire most about you that you are .

I make, in your honor, the following small standing pledge: that on the next Wednesday, at approximately , I will , without telling anyone I have done so.

I remain, as ever, your standing admirer and a member in poor standing of the Apostolate.

Yours, in the middle of the week,
—

RECEIVED Your letter has been mailed, in the sense that you have said it out loud to nobody.
Standing pledges on file (this device):

The Call · Reel 3 of 3

★ Reel 03 ★ final 5:36 PM run length 6:22
ME
I should let you go. I should let myself go, more accurately. The kitchen has begun to dim and I will need, eventually, to switch on the overhead, and I find I am unwilling to break the manila spell I described — described badly, I think — at the beginning of this call.17
LINE
— sshhhhhhhh — — — hhhhhhhhhhh — — — — — sshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh —
ME
A last thought: I am not, strictly, a believer. I am not asking you to be one either. The thing I am asking — and I will only ask once, then we can hang up — is for permission to keep doing this. To make, of an unremarkable Wednesday afternoon, a small recurring ritual the contents of which I cannot quite name, performed in the company of a line that does not say anything back. To love a day for what it is and not for what it brings. To keep a fan page open18 for a thing that has no merch, no anniversary, no hashtag, no holiday.
LINE
hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh — — sshhhhhhhh — — — — — — hhhhhhhhh — sshhh
ME
Thank you. That is more than I expected.
· · · · · · · · ·
ME
I will hang up now. I will call you next Wednesday. Please continue, in the meantime, to be the day that you are, in the way that you are. That is, of course, the only thing being asked of you. It is the only thing being asked of any of us.
LINE

sshhhhhhhhhh — — — hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh — — — — sshhh — — — hhhhhhhhh — — — sshhhhhhhhhh — — — hhhhhhhhhhh — — — — — — sshhhhh — — — — hhhhhhhhhhhhh — — — — — sshhh — hhhhhhhhh — — — — sshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh — — — — — — — — — — — hhhhhhhhh — — — — sshh — — — — — hhhhhhhhhhh — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

[ END OF REEL ]

Apparatus & Footnotes

  1. The present author is M. Brouwer (b. 1971), founder of the Apostolate; an indifferent baker, a serviceable letter-writer, and the household's nominal answerer of telephones.
  2. A Wednesday of no particular distinction. The Apostolate considers distinction a contaminant in the study of midweek days. Birthdays, anniversaries, and federal holidays have been excluded by design.
  3. For prior usage of tendency in this loose Apostolic sense, see Brouwer, "On Belonging Without Joining," Threshold Quarterly, Fall 2004, pp. 11–14.
  4. Overleaf, on a single-page web document, is a courtly affectation. We have retained it. jump to letter
  5. The work assigned to static, per the Editor's working theory, is to demonstrate that one can be in the company of another for a full hour without exchanging a single word of intelligible language and still — provably — be in company. This is not a small claim.
  6. The Wednesday. Definite article used here in the sense it appears in the weather or the news: a category understood by all parties to be ongoing, recurrent, and never not happening.
  7. cf. Doblinger, J., One-Line Wednesday Journals 2006–2024, in which the line for 14 April 2010 reads, in its entirety: "more of it today than yesterday and that is the only thing."
  8. The arch metaphor is not original to the Apostolate; it appears in a marginal note by an unknown reader in a 19th-century copy of a parish ledger held by the Crook Co. Library, q.v.
  9. The etymology. We acknowledge that the philosophical move of grounding affection for a thing in the history of its name is widely understood to be cheating. We do it anyway.
  10. The Russian среда (sreda) carries the further, lovely sense of middle, the same root that gives us среди — "among." A day named for being among. We have no improvement to offer.
  11. A version of this observation is attempted, less successfully, in Brouwer, "On the Disposition of Wednesdays Toward Furniture," Threshold Quarterly, Winter 2009, pp. 4–9.
  12. The Quaker week-day system was adopted in 1652 and persisted in formal Society of Friends correspondence well into the 20th century. The Editor's grandmother, raised in such a household, referred to Wednesdays as Fourth Day until the end of her life, by which point everyone else in the family had stopped knowing what she meant.
  13. A longer list has been compiled and is available, in principle, on request; in practice it lives in a drawer in the editor's kitchen and is not generally retrievable.
  14. Saturdays produce none. Saturday light is too occupied to be Manila. Saturday light has plans.
  15. A reader in Antofagasta, Chile, reports their personal Brouwer's Threshold to fall reliably at 6:11 PM local; a reader in Reykjavík reports an annual average too distorted by the latitude to compute.
  16. Because it likes to. No further justification has been offered and none will be.
  17. The manila spell. See "Manila Hour," above.
  18. Fan page. Used here in its mid-2000s sense: a small, freely-made, slightly embarrassing public document devoted, without irony and without ambition, to the long appreciation of an object that asked for none.