Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,
August is vacation month for many, the last chance for most local children, or the parents of those children, to travel before the fall semester begins. Me, I’ve just returned from Mount Shasta, a weekend trip with the family to spend time with some old friends who own a second home there. Remote, quiet, and unhurried, the area where they spend the summer seemed impressively close to the stars. I was reminded of a poem by my favorite Jesuit priest, Gerard Manley Hopkins:
The Starlight Night
Look at the stars! look, look up at the skies!
O look at all the fire-folk sitting in the air!
The bright boroughs, the circle-citadels there!
Down in dim woods the diamond delves! the elves’-eyes!
The grey lawns cold where gold, where quickgold lies!
Wind-beat whitebeam! airy abeles set on a flare!
Flake-doves sent floating forth at a farmyard scare!—
Ah well! it is all a purchase, all is a prize.
Buy then! bid then!—What?—Prayer, patience, aims, vows.
Look, look: a May-mess, like on orchard boughs!
Look! March-bloom, like on mealed-with-yellow sallows!
These are indeed the barn; withindoors house
The shocks. This piece-bright paling shuts the spouse
Christ home, Christ and his mother and all his hallows.
All those exclamation points indicate the poem’s sublime tone, as if the speaker can’t quite fathom the numinous overwhelm of the celestial lightshow, the “wind-beat whitebeam.” Perhaps we need poetry to help us imagine the infinite entertainment provided to receptive viewers and listeners. Were all our senses more finely tuned, more responsive, before the era of television, radio, or even mimeograph? Who needs the internet when you could instead watch “airy abeles (also known as white poplar trees) set on a flare”?
If you are going to be in town tonight, I hope you will join us and others from your bright boroughs for the faux-intellectual pursuit that itself can provide some raucous respite from your job, your commute, and those many other responsibilities. Tonight’s Pub Quiz will feature questions on electronics, Google+ (do you have your account yet, or did you stop joining social networks at about three?), our limping economy, Beatles songs, northern cities, Thomas Edison, California palindromes, those hip-hop and/or rap songs that you would most enjoy singing in a crowded, a lousy job, Superbowls, indulgence, kindness, groundwater, country music stars (x2), comedy-drama on television, color theory, two anagrams, uncorked bait, superhero movies (because I cannot resist), scars, scorpions, ancient urban skyscrapers, Africa, Mountain Dew, poetry, cologne, and the kings of Shakespeare. Today at lunch my wife and daughter got about a third of the questions right – they thought one of the country music questions was too easy. I wonder what you will think.
At this hour we have a few tables left, so call in to see if you can claim one. And thanks for the shout-out on Twitter from @Yasmine730, joining us for the last time tonight. Expect some bonus sweet potato fries, Yasmine, symbol of largesse at everyone’s favorite.
Your Quizmaster
https://www.yourquizmaster.com
http://www.twitter.com/yourquizmaster
http://www.facebook.com/yourquizmaster
Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:
1. Mottos and Slogans. What company’s slogan is “Number One in Tennis”?
2. Internet Culture. As has been announced often in the news over the last few days, Apple Computer evidently has more money in the bank than WHAT? Hint: the correct answer is an anagram for the common phrase EARTHY SUTURES.
3. Newspaper Headlines. What 51 year-old candidate for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination, the only one to have served in the administrations of four United States presidents, is also the only one to buck the Tea Party by announcing his support for the debt deal announced yesterday in Washington?
4. Four for Four. Which of the following characters from the Harry Potter books, if any, spent time in the wizards’ prison known as Azkaban? Sirius Black, Barty Crouch, Jr., Igor Karkaroff, Bellatrix Lestrange.
5. Greek Mythology. What legendary King of Ithaca was husband to Penelope and father to Telemachus?
Friends of the Pub Quiz, and those curious about all the fun and fuss associated with the Pub Quiz, should come to de Vere’s Irish Pub in Davis (217 E Street), the highly esteemed pub and restaurant that fills up every night because of the superb quality of food, drink and company that can be found there. The de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz takes place every Monday at 7pm, though players are encouraged to arrive early to claim a table. As always, find out more about the Pub Quiz by visiting https://www.yourquizmaster.com. For more on de Vere’s Irish Pub, visit http://deverespub.com/.