Dear Friends,
I’ve always suspected that the timing of our calendar’s switch away from daylight savings time is a gift to young trick-or-treaters. The extra hour of darkness stretches through the Halloween season so that children can be out at “night” on the 31st, but still potentially return home by bedtime, even if all the pernicious sugar in their systems keeps them from sleeping.
My son Jukie and I take a long walk every afternoon before dining outdoors at a restaurant, and then returning home after nightfall, so I have been noticing all the ways that the cheerful neighborhoods we traverse in south Davis become dark and spooky at night.
“Tenebrous” is a favorite relevant word that is too obscure to use confidently in conversation. Nevertheless, the Italian equivalent, tenebroso, worked for Dante, who tells us in The Inferno that
Grandine grossa, acqua tinta e neve
per l’aere tenebroso si riversa;
pute la terra che questo riceve.
Longfellow translated these words thus:
Coarse hail, and water grey, and snow,
through the tenebrous air pour down amain;
the soil that receives them stinks.
Walking the streets of London in the early 1920s, T.S. Eliot also alluded to Dante to indicate the spiritual languor that he saw in the faces he encountered near the bank where he was a teller. Eliot’s own reading list led him to dolorous interpretations of his surroundings, manifesting in his poetry as patterns of shadows.
Davis is much different from London or Dante’s hell, but I’ve encountered shadowy streets and uncanny Halloween decorations that have reminded me of other works of literature that offered bright settings during the day and sites of shadowy secrets at night.
Walking past an older, shadowed Victorian house, I found myself thinking of how great writers use darkness to reveal hidden or unwelcome truths. In the novel Dracula, for instance, we are introduced to the beautiful British seaside town of Whitby, a church of which is described in a letter as “the nicest spot in Whitby, for it lies right over the town and has a full view of the harbour and all up and down the coast.”
After a nighttime shipwreck brings Dracula and his coffin to Whitby (the vampire enters England in the form of a huge hound), the dark nights and dark weather transform that same church: “The wind roared over the graves, and the old church seemed to rock on its foundations.”
This duality of light and shadow, and a easygoing town hiding deep secrets, is perhaps best seen in Harper Lee’s Maycomb, Alabama. We know the town in daylight with children roaming freely. But at night, especially when Jem and Scout walk home from the Halloween pageant, the quiet streets turn menacing, culminating in a surprising attack. Nighttime in Maycomb reveals the town’s latent racial and moral darkness.
While great writers have taught us to read darkness symbolically, as a literary critic, I can’t help but find similar resonance on our post-dinner walks. With some notable exceptions that have overshadowed the news in Davis in recent years, I still find Davis to be safe on autumn evenings. But around Halloween, spirits and shadows seem to haunt the streets.
Yesterday, as Jukie and I turned from a greenbelt path to a side street, the entire culdesac was illuminated with a Cimmerian red glow. Had someone overdone it with Halloween decorations?
No, instead the dusky street was illuminated with the red glow of the brake lights of a tow truck that, like a hearse, was preparing to escort away the formerly lifeless frame of an older model sedan. Dressed in black, an elderly woman signed a clipboard and then watched her car slowly escape her vision.
My non-verbal son and I walked on in silence before he started to intonate as he does sometimes, perhaps imitating the siren that he associated with the flashing lights of an emergency vehicle, in this case the spinning amber eyes of the tow truck that was fading into the gloom. I spend so much time wondering what he is thinking, reading his gestures and sounds like a literary critic or detective looking for clues.
Jukie’s vocalizations typically sound joyful – once a stranger said he sounded like he was warming up for an operatic aria – but on this evening, the lights and decorations on Davis streets putting us in the mind of Halloween, his plaintive keening sounded like a restless spirit that was searching abidingly for a place of rest.
October can be so gentle in Davis, and so it will be this evening. I hope you can join us for the unseasonably warm Pub Quiz. Come early to claim a coveted outdoor table, especially because we will have a bonus large party joining us at Sudwerk just before the pub quiz begins. I invite you to join the regulars and irregulars for a grand competition featuring 31 questions on a variety of topics you should know something about. There might be a larger crowd than usual, so come early. Today’s pub quiz is 969 words long, if we include the answers.
In addition to topics raised above and below, expect questions tonight on the following: world capitals, possibilities, sweet children, sisters, thrills, roses, devils, electrical currents, film attendance, Clint Eastwood, portability, home improvement, smart dogs, cauldrons, birds, hormones, tides, Facebook friends, wraps, resignations, outfits, favorite songwriters, yellow bags, closed rooms, Halloween films (sort of), surprises, skate culture, everlasting vacations, unwise hair anagrams, ranches, estates and fates, supernatural threats, fashionistas, communists, ghosts, American heroes, horses, typicality, hit songs, U.S. states, geography, current events, and Shakespeare.
For more Pub Quiz fun, please subscribe via Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/c/yourquizmaster.
Thanks to all the new players joining us at the live quizzes and to all the patrons who have been enjoying fresh Pub Quiz content. We have over 80 Patreon members now, including the new paid subscribers Kiera, Esther, James, Damian, Jim, and Meebles! I should write a question for Kiera. Thanks also to new subscribers Prescott, Bill and Diane, Tamara, Megan, Michael, Janet, Jasmine, Joey, Carly, The X-Ennial Falcons, and The Nevergiveruppers! Every week I check the Patreon to see if there is someone new to thank. Maybe next week it will be you! I also thank The Original Vincibles, Summer Brains, Still Here for the Shakesbeer, The Outside Agitators, John Poirier’s team Quizimodo, Gena Harper, the conversationally entertaining dinner companions and bakers of marvelous and healthy treats, The Mavens, whose players or substitutes keep attending, despite their ambitious travel schedules and the cost of the aforementioned avocado. I appreciate the Mavens’ kind words to me in the newspaper. Thanks in particular to my paid subscribers on Substack. Thanks to everyone who supports the Pub Quiz on Patreon. I would love to add your name or that of your team to the list of pub quiz boosters. Also, I sometimes remember to add an extra hint on Patreon. I appreciate your backing this pub quiz project of mine!
I also want to recognize those who visit my Substack the most often, including Luna, Jean, Ron, Myrna, and Maria, to whom I send sustained compassion.
Best,
Dr. Andy
Three questions from last week:
- Current Events – Names in the News. Sanae Takaichi was recently elected prime minister of Japan. What is the main difference between Takaichi and all previous Japanese prime ministers?
- Sports. What baseball player recently hit three mammoth homers and struck out 10 while pitching shutout ball into the seventh inning in a championship game?
- Shakespeare. Starting with the letter O, what is the name of the fairy king in A Midsummer Night’s Dream?