The Luniferous Gazette #23: Anadem!

Let's Play with Various Assorted Crowns

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I interrupt the Gazette’s normal pontification pattern for a little epeolatry, which is the worship of words. In particular, the singular appreciation of a word I—

Even if I never heard it uttered aloud by modern tongue, surely in all my 4+ decades, I’ve encountered this word on a page at least once before . . . right? I’m an English Major, so it can’t be the first time on planet Earth that I read this shiny strand of letters, and thought—

Mmm, what a scrumptious syllabic truffle. 

“Anadem” was Dictionary.com’s word of the day on May 1st, 2025. A noun of Greek origin, this word is associated with ornamental headbands, like “a wreath or garland of flowers worn on the head” (Dictionary.com). I’ve wanted to devote an entire issue just to this word for a while now, but I wasn’t sure how to ink it until today. 

When I read this word, I felt like I’d found a long-lost synonymic sister to “Tiara,” “Diadem,” and “Coronet.” I collected sparkly word sets when I was younger, and discovering this fourth form of ornamental headwear was like a sudden meet-and-greet with a missing quadruplet princess! The dazzle is real. 
                 
My sisters and I were homeschooled for much of our education, and for several of those years, our mother would assign us twenty-five new words per week from our trusty Webster’s Dictionary. We were required to look their definitions up, write the words down three times, and use them in a sentence. 

“Anadem” deserves the full royal treatment, so why don’t we get fancy and try it out in a poem:

Petal Potential

I don’t think I have a soul exactly,
but perhaps a cerebral anadem 
woven from flower-bursts 
of thought twinkling 
in my brain. 

One day, I must lay this ephemeral 
wreath at the edge of all I am,
return my sparkling electron
cloud to the universe, 
but until that day 

I shall braid garlands of cosmic 
glitter and gossamer-grown
dreams into ink. 

There, now the word is properly emblazoned upon my neural matter forever. And if you’re wondering why you followed this thread of nonsensical musings, you’re far too late. Now you’ll never forget the meaning of “anadem,” either, and perhaps might even feel tempted to drop it into casual conversation.  

For anadem is an underappreciated circlet of syllables and well deserves its spotlight among various assorted crowns.  

*Six pearls were sacrificed in the making of this picture. 

A Sequin for Your Thoughts 

Have you ever wondered what the difference is between a tiara, diadem, and coronet?

A diadem is a full-blown circle that rests on the forehead, a tiara is a half-circle crown that sits higher up on the head, and a coronet, well, its definition made me chuckle when I looked it up. It’s a wee bit smaller and less ornate in design, as this demure headpiece is reserved for lesser royalty who aren’t cleared to flaunt a regular-sized crown. 

Regardless of their distinguishing differences, just like their linguistic sibling anadem, I believe all three make fabulous names for cats, unicorns, space palaces, and the odd human.  

*If you want to know more about royal crowns, I highly recommend checking out Moon Honey’s Ancient History Jewelry Stories. This professional goldsmith does a “Tiara Tuesday” special that is always full of fascinating historical insights on the evolution of crowns. For example, she explored the fashion precedent set by people who dared to wear their tiaras upside down. 

I hope you enjoyed this amateur foray into epeolatry! Expect more in the future. I can’t say when or what word will next be placed on the altar of appreciation, but coy syllables are always waiting in the margins for us to notice their bright wink and scribble. 

Sources:

“Anadem.” Word of the Day. Dictionary.com.
<https://www.dictionary.com/e/word-of-the-day/anadem-2025-05-01/>

“Crown, Tiara, or a Coronet? How to Tell the Difference Between the Three.” Town and Country Mag.com. <https://www.townandcountrymag.com/style/fashion-trends/a43085809/crown-tiara-coronet-difference/>

“Difference between Tiara, Diadem, and Crown.” Adastrajewlery.com.
<https://adastrajewelry.com/blog/difference-between-tiara-diadem-and-crown?srsltid=AfmBOorcLkTsLc3rYC4BzF5cmR8Ll-lm4LBfvkbTwzQtf7Xs_Zm4sxw8>

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The Luniferous Gazette #22: Hello, Hattie! I lost you for awhile . . .

A Review of Hattie and the Wild Waves by Barnara Cooney

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I still have my childhood copy of Hattie and the Wild Waves by Barbara Cooney. It’s wrinkled, the spine is peeling, and the pages are starting to tear loose from their bindings. Yet the pressed treasure within is still as vibrant as the first day I opened the paperback book, and my eyes drank in the deepest dreams that travel across time through the lives of mother and daughter.

Cooney is one of my favorite illustrators of such splendiferous books as Roxaboxen and Miss Rumphius. Her lines are soft and gentle, yet filled with intricate details in every nook and cranny. Hattie and the Wild Waves is a tribute to her mother, Mae Bossert Cooney, and takes us on her journey to becoming an artist. 

The story opens with Hattie and her brother, Vollie, and sister, Pfiffi, discussing what they wish to achieve when they grow up. Pfiffi wishes to become the most beautiful of brides while Vollie wants to follow in his father’s steps in the family’s woodworking business. As for Hattie, her heart is set on painting, and her thoughts filled with “the moon in the sky and the wind in the trees and the wild waves of the ocean.” 

Hattie is so entranced by “picture-making,” that even falling sick cannot stop her. In fact, these interludes give her the perfect opportunity “to make pictures from morning until night, interrupted only by bowls of milk toast and broth.” I particularly love this passage, because it reminds me that even when health issues flare or anxiety tangles one’s brain into knots, it’s not truly the end. Dreams are stubborn little things, after all, and spring back in the most unexpected of ways. 

Cooney’s illustrations bring all the keenest moments of Hattie’s life into focus. From the bow of the family’s yacht, The Coronet, where salty breezes take “all the curl out of her hair,” and overflow Hattie's mind with fresh ideas for artwork, to her summer haven, Far Rockaway, a house beside the ocean. Here, Hattie’s solitary walks on the beach with only her tiny black dog fill her with boundless questions as she takes in the variable toss of stormy sky and sea spray.  

“‘Oh, Ebbie,’ she would say, picking up the little dog, ‘what are the wild waves saying?’” 

This same question follows us all through life as the clamor of our heart tosses our own deepest unnamed wishes like star foam. Hattie doesn’t get an answer right away, and her young heart must set such questions aside when her beloved Far Rockaway is later sold. 

The reader follows Hattie through many homes in the story, from “the red-brick house on Bushwick Avenue,” to the grand castle-like estate “The Oaks” in Long Island. Through every season of change, her little paint box and Ebbie go with her. It doesn’t matter if she can’t play piano beautifully like her mother, or stitch elegant needlework like her sister. For Hattie’s true passion lies in capturing black swans gliding across a pond on her canvas. 

Eventually, the three siblings grow up, and Hattie’s sister marries in a grand ceremony while her brother travels for work on family business. Only Hattie remains with her parents in a towering hotel that has a sweeping view of the East River and New York City. Sometimes, Hattie can paint the Statue of Liberty or even the shimmer of the ocean. However, more frequently she must relinquish the brush as she finds herself caught up in daily social demands. 

In our own lives, there are times where we must drop the dream, as well—but not forever. No, our little whisper will aria anew when we least expect it. One night, while attending the opera, Hattie hears a woman sing so soulfully from the depths of her heart, that she can’t deny her own feelings anymore.

She can’t waver one second longer: “The time had come, she realized, for her to paint her heart out.” 

The next day, Hattie enrolls in an art institute and then takes a trolley to Coney Island to meet her dear old friend, the ocean. The attractions are mostly shut down as the weather is fiercely inhospitable and “spitting snow.” Yet a paper scrap from a fortune-telling booth and the wild, breaking waves both echo the truth that she’s known, all along:

“You will make beautiful, beautiful pictures.”

To this, Hattie finally acknowledges, “Oh, yes, I shall.”

I love the word “shall.” It’s stronger than just a wish, for it means “to express what is inevitable.” And Hattie, in all her glorious will, is inevitable. 

Yet the older and more worn I get by time, the easier it is to forget what my own wild waves are saying. Rereading Barbara Cooney’s lovely illustrated homage to her mother reminds me that even if you drop a dream, the waves will return it. Maybe they’ll tumble it around like sea glass first, but when we’re ready to receive it again, the dream will return with new gloss.  

A few post-review thoughts . . . 

If I hadn’t joined Substack, I probably wouldn’t be writing this little review of Hattie and the Wild Waves. Why not? I simply wouldn’t feel a compelling drive to do so, and would be content with a quiet, unexpressed fondness for my favorite children’s book. 

But I made the motto of The Luniferous Gazette “Weird. Weekly. Wondrous.” It certainly makes for a pretentious boast, or a tall challenge to ink from the deepest parts of my soul, heart—whatever one calls a lost repository of stray wishes these days. 

I must confess that I was a bit downcast last week when I read multiple Substack posts warning about how this platform is changing and supposedly becoming more like other social media platforms; inundated with an overabundance of notes, writers, and influencers, etc. 

Hi! Bless my sparklestars, I guess I must include myself among that paltry throng of newcomers. 

When my husband urged me to consider joining Substack after reading how it was a platform geared specifically towards writers, I didn’t realize that I was a part of a mass influx of people this year. But I’m happy to be here regardless of whether the Almighty Algorithm notices me or not. It never has before, so I presume we shall continue mutually ignoring each other. 

My personal opinion? Ignore the doom stats and allow yourself the freedom to have fun playing in this digital playground, whatever that means for you.  

I don’t know of any other social media platform that offers so many multimodal ways to communicate for free. Now, I’m contemplating turning into a podcast princess and recording some of my novels just for the joy of it next year. While other platforms feel more like pretty folders for random thoughts, organizing ink dreams on Substack reminds me of opening my Trapper Keeper in sixth grade: a deluxe delight!

And now I can include my childhood book friend, Hattie. I would love to know more about yours.  

 

Princess photobombs the book spotlight.

 

Sources:

Cooney, Barbara. Hattie and the Wild Waves. Scholastic Inc. 1992. 

“Shall.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/shall. Accessed 12 Nov. 2025.

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The Luniferous Gazette #21: Grammie, Tag Sale Queen of Quiet Legend

Sequin or Sapphire, a Sparkle is a Sparkle

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My writing group has been urging me to ink an issue on my secondhand treasure hunts, but I can’t really do that before first talking about who inspired them: my grammie, Nancy Anne, a tag sale queen who scoured yard sales on the East Coast for decades. 

I grew up on the West Coast and didn’t know what a “tag sale” (yard/garage sale) was until I moved to Connecticut and would travel up to New York to visit her. The first time I asked if I could accompany her on a tag sale run, she warned me that she got up early, so I’d better be prepared to hit the road. 

Tag sales meant serious business for her. She’d underline sale announcements in newspapers, plot the fastest routes between stops with her trusty car map (she had no GPS then), and be out the door at the crack of dawn. Sometimes, we'd venture as far as Saratoga Springs for the fancy tag sales. I must confess that rummaging through random boxes, shelves and crates for treasure on a strict schedule made the hunt even more thrilling!

She’d also check out stores that were closing, which is how she ended up acquiring this fabulous tiara for me: 

So you want to be a princess? Trust in Grammie, dear. She had a Maine accent, so that term of endearment sounded more like an airy “dia” as she would drop the “r.” 

All my memories of my grandmother are filled with queenly gleam. She always wore sweaters and fluttery skirts embroidered in beads, sequins, faux jewels and pearls. I can’t think of her without a trace of fairy glitter on the heart. She could find anything, just like a real fairy godmother.

Sometimes, the items we wanted to bring home had unexpected proportions and required ingenuity to fit into our vehicle. I’m still not sure how Grammie managed to expertly wedge a sturdy pink steel Canadian bike that I paid only 5 bucks for into the back of her small, cube-shaped car that was already full of granddaughters. Secondhand magic, I suppose! 

Of course, the best part of the experience was at the end, when Grammie would say with a twinkle in her eye, “Now don’t tell Grampa.” Then she’d take my sisters and I out for a secret ice cream run.

I was talking to one of my sisters yesterday about how our grandmother really didn’t care if something was expensive or popular, she just bought any sparkly thing that caught her eye that she thought someone would like. So sometimes I might end up with a pretty pink plastic heart necklace . . . and one time, a 14k gold chain she undoubtedly acquired at a random tag sale. 

This lavender gem came with that epic chain. I have no idea what it is, or if it once had another life as a beloved ring that was later twisted into a memorial pendant.  

 

 

I’m not sure what the tiny scrawls etched into the metal in the back mean, either. These unknowables intrigue me and are part of the excitement of secondhand gifts. I love wondering about the hidden history behind this mystery pendant and imagining its past.     

For Grammie, sequin or Linde star sapphire—a sparkle is a sparkle. 

My sister B noted that Grammie was the same way in how she interacted with other people. Social standing, appearance, employment status, education, none of that mattered to her, because she treated everyone with equal kindness and dignity. 

Furthermore, I must note that Santa Claus had nothing on her gift system. She had boxes in her basement lined up on wooden shelves with her family members’ names written on each one. All year, she’d slowly fill it with bounty until birthdays and Christmas rolled around. 

And if you ever told her that you liked something, you’d better be prepared to receive it for the rest of your days. I once told her that I liked cameos, and she gave me so many of them over the years in pendant, brooch, and pin form that I could fill a vase. I eventually started giving many of them to my oldest “fairy goddaughter,” and now she apparently loves cameos, too. Thus, my grammie’s legacy of sparkle-giving lives on!

When I was at college, my roommates were always excited when she would mail me a box, because it was inevitably filled not only with loot, but also homemade treats to share. Grammie was always thinking of others and how to bring them just a little bit of happiness.   

I believe the very last tag sale run I embarked on with my grammie was in 2013, shortly before I got married and moved overseas for a while. I paid just 10 cents for this lovely little vintage figurine of a porcelain girl in a pink dress. She’s a bit faded by time, but utterly perfect in the happy silhouette she casts—just like my glamorous grammie. 

Unfortunately, my grandmother’s health would begin a slow decline, and she’d eventually pass away. But every time I make an unexpected thrift score or discover a hidden treasure at a tag sale, I know she’d be proud and cheering me on. Grammie was a huge believer in angels and accumulated over 200 hundred figurines over the course of her life. Personally, I don’t have any firm belief in heaven, but I make an exception for my beloved grammie. 

I like to imagine that she has unlocked a new level in the afterlife: Nancy Anne, Patron Angel of Tag Sales and Thrifty Finds! 

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