Dear Friends,
Today, for the first time, I listened to Beethoven’s Tenth Symphony.
You probably haven’t heard of this symphony. Nor had I until I started casting about for an archives-related topic to explore.
There are only nine symphonies by Beethoven, you might say, just as a baseball game has only nine innings and a pregnancy only nine months.
Of course, we know these limits don’t always hold. Baseball fans know that in 2016, the Chicago Cubs ended their 108-year World Series championship drought with a dramatic 10-inning victory over the Cleveland Indians. This moment secured their first title since 1908 and is one of the most historic games in baseball history. This was also the only televised sporting event that my wife Kate has ever watched, outside the Olympics.
And if pregnancies lasted only nine months, we might be celebrating my daughter Geneva’s birthday today, instead of waiting until November 7th. She would not be enticed to come out to play back in the late 1990s, just as today she sometimes has trouble waking up from a Sunday afternoon nap.
Scholars knew that notes about Beethoven’s Tenth were found among the Maestro’s records. Fragmentary sketches gave scholars hope that the work could be completed, even hundreds of years after composition had begun.
Beethoven’s later-years secretary, the violinist Karl Holz, had taken some notes after hearing the first movement being played, and these notes corroborated the approach to assembling the symphony by British musicologist Barry Cooper, editor of the Beethoven Compendium.
In 2019, the third and fourth movements of the symphony were reconstructed (extrapolated) by artificial intelligence. Beethoven X: The AI Project premiered on October, 2021.
We writing professors have learned to be suspicious of generative AI, but as I write these paragraphs, I’ve been pleased in this case with what AI has generated. I’m no music professor, but I can hear echoes of the genius of Beethoven’s recognizable works in the different movements of “new” music that I’ve heard today.
I also recognize that such compositions would not be possible but for the archives and archivists who gather, safeguard, organize, catalogue, and make available to scholars and sometimes even laypeople such as myself the physical (or digital) works by artistic masters or important historical figures whose work has come to matter to so many of us.
In the Archives and Special Collections at Shields Library one can find 41.2 linear feet of recordings and transcripts from the “Oral History Office.” One can also find there the papers of two men who I know (or knew) a bit: Gary Snyder and Wayne Thiebaud. There you can also find the papers of Isao Fujimoto, who was a good friend. All of us who appreciate the Davis Food Co-op or the Davis Farmers Market owe Isao our thanks.
The National Archives is celebrating American Archives Month throughout October, so tonight at the Pub Quiz you can expect a few questions about archives and libraries. It’s an appropriate topic if you consider how much time you spend in the dusty archives of your own brain’s library every time I ask you an obscure question about Beethoven’s symphonies or Roman emperors.
Please plan to partake in the Pub Quiz festivities on this pleasant evening at Sudwerk in Davis. Bring your team to the beautiful outdoor patio where we have room for almost everyone. The temperatures are joyfully dropping, and the jollity will be unfiltered. As Albert Schweitzer said, “Happiness is the only thing that multiplies when you share it.” I encourage you to come early to snag a table. We filled the restaurant and patio last week, and I expect that we will continue to do so throughout the school year and beyond. Also, tonight I plan to move the quiz along quickly — the entire quiz is only 908 words long! Do you ever notice that the pub quiz word count changes every week? Sometimes I make extra work for myself.
In addition to topics raised above, tonight’s pub quiz will feature questions on hammers, diamonds, Harvard University, umbrellas, Greek and Roman colors, British monarchs, special family moments, Spider-Man, southern history, scriptures, writing habits, multiclassers, mermaids, cliff faces and such, Ws. groupings of birds, ownership questions, island chains, horses, mealtimes with strangers, roses, Italian attractions, conversions, random audits, People Magazine, Buddhism, unusual fish, chicken strategies, strong winds, fantasy settings, mountains, kilometers, current events, books and authors, and Shakespeare.
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. Thanks especially to new subscribers Janet, Jasmine, Joey, Carly, and The Nevergiveruppers! Every week I check the Patreon to see if there is someone new to thank, such as Sophie. I also thank The Original Vincibles, Summer Brains, The Outside Agitators, John Poirier’s team Quizimodo, Gena Harper, the conversationally entertaining dinner companions The Mavens who keep attending, despite their ambitious travel schedules, and others who support the Pub Quiz on Patreon. I would love to add your name or that of your team to the list of supporters. I appreciate your backing this pub quiz project of mine!
Best,
Dr. Andy
P.S. Here are three questions from last week’s quiz:
- Books and Authors. Sharing a name with the sixth-largest metropolitan area in the Southern United States, which Virginia Woolf novel is a fictional biography of an English nobleman who changes sex and lives for several centuries?
- Film. Which “Terrifier” movie topped the box office this past weekend: Terrifier, Terrifier 2, or Terrifier 3?
- Youth Culture. What might be a three-letter synonym for “cap” in the slang phrase “no cap”?