Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,
Happy New Year to you and your families. I hope you enjoyed what little holiday and new year’s respite you could. The Wednesday appearance of the two major year-end holidays left many of us wondering when we should take our breaks from work. What can be done with (or over) a five-day weekend?
In my family, we have a tradition of visiting snowcapped peaks over the holiday break. Last year we ventured to Mount Shasta with some close friends, while this past week my wife’s mother and our bulldog joined us for a few days and nights at Lake Tahoe. Both trips resulted in a doctor’s visit for me. Have I grown too used to the uniform horizontalness of Davis?
Sometimes we read of celebrities who never quite recover from a fall at home. Others, like Charles Rosher, the first great Hollywood cinematographer, and crusader Henry II of Champagne, died outright from a fall. These were some of the names that were not running through my head as I regained consciousness after a bad fall on the ice. Instead, I heard these helpful words: “Do you want me to get Mommy?” I must have said yes.
I was brought to the emergency room of the Barton Memorial Hospital, where I was treated especially well. Kate might have been remembering another fall that did not turn out so well, that of inexperienced skier Natasha Richardson. I was more sanguine about my experience, for I could easily answer the admitting nurse’s questions about where I was and what the day’s date was. Kate remarked later that a Quizmaster should expect harder questions if they are to test his relative mental acuity. I’m glad I wasn’t asked about Henry II of Champagne. I’m also grateful for health insurance, and for the thick wool cap I was wearing during the mishap.
On the way home to Davis, it was suggested that I figure out how to work the word “concussion” into the title of my weekly newsletter. I prefer the phrase “dying fall” made popular by Shakespeare,
If music be the food of love, play on;
Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die.
That strain again! it had a dying fall:
O, it came o’er my ear like the sweet sound,
That breathes upon a bank of violets,
Stealing and giving odour!
And by Eliot,
For I have known them all already, known them all:
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume?
I’m sure you can name the sources for these lines. If not, bring an English major to the Pub Quiz tonight, as well as someone who could speak authoritatively on the following subjects: slide rules, insults, people who are “marked,” recognizable colors, live and dead stars, blood, people with good luck, the NSA, London, faeries, anime, sequels, Honey, symphonies, people named Pike, rock bands, browsing the web, tallying votes, Emmy-winning actors, Disney, dads, people named Phillip, 2013, clinicians, Nashville, televised competitions, nights, making news, the U.S. Constitution, 2013, Brits, famous married couples, R.F. Foster on talking about faeries with guns and the occult on YouTube, baseball and football, primates, people who make good choices with their money, and Shakespeare.
Welcome to the new subscribers to this newsletter! See you tonight.
Your Quizmaster
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Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:
- US States. It turns out that South Carolina, Kansas, and Indiana don’t have the most restrictive abortion laws in the US. They are tied for third. Neither does Utah, in second place. Which state has the most restrictive abortion laws in the country? It’s not Texas.
- The EU. What is also the most widely spoken first language in the European Union?
- Sports. The FIU men’s basketball team failed to finish 2013 on a happy note, losing to the Georgetown Hoyas 92-57 on the Saturday before Christmas. What do the letters FIU stand for?
- Texas. The second most-populous city in Texas has more people in it than Dallas. Name the city.
- Another Music Question. What English singer and lyricist rose to prominence in the 1980s as the voice of the band The Smiths?
Lucky Wool Cap!