Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,
What an exciting time of change we are experiencing. The new and returning UC Davis students have arrived, Davis Enterprise columnist Bob Dunning is heading to the east coast to cover the current Pope’s first ever visit to the United States, and this Wednesday is the Autumn Equinox.
Some people face Autumn with regret for the lost summer. The musician Nick Cave once said, “If you look around, complacency is the great disease of your autumn years, and I work hard to prevent that.” Similarly, the poet Robert Browning once said that, “Autumn wins you best by this its mute appeal to sympathy for its decay.”
I myself prefer the attitude of the Paul Laurence Dunbar, who at Pub Quiz we recently discovered authored “Sympathy,” the poem that begins with these recognizable lines:
I know what the caged bird feels, alas!
When the sun is bright on the upland slopes;
When the wind stirs soft through the springing grass,
And the river flows like a stream of glass;
When the first bird sings and the first bud opes,
And the faint perfume from its chalice steals—
I know what the caged bird feels!
I favor the far less well-known Dunbar poem celebrates the Autumn of temperate Davis rather than, say, the mountainous and rainy Lake District of northwest England, a poem titled “Merry Autumn.” Here it is, in its entirety:
Merry Autumn by Paul Laurence Dunbar
It’s all a farce, — these tales they tell
About the breezes sighing,
And moans astir o’er field and dell,
Because the year is dying.
Such principles are most absurd, —
I care not who first taught ’em;
There’s nothing known to beast or bird
To make a solemn autumn.
In solemn times, when grief holds sway
With countenance distressing,
You’ll note the more of black and gray
Will then be used in dressing.
Now purple tints are all around;
The sky is blue and mellow;
And e’en the grasses turn the ground
From modest green to yellow.
The seed burrs all with laughter crack
On featherweed and jimson;
And leaves that should be dressed in black
Are all decked out in crimson.
A butterfly goes winging by;
A singing bird comes after;
And Nature, all from earth to sky,
Is bubbling o’er with laughter.
The ripples wimple on the rills,
Like sparkling little lasses;
The sunlight runs along the hills,
And laughs among the grasses.
The earth is just so full of fun
It really can’t contain it;
And streams of mirth so freely run
The heavens seem to rain it.
Don’t talk to me of solemn days
In autumn’s time of splendor,
Because the sun shows fewer rays,
And these grow slant and slender.
Why, it’s the climax of the year,—
The highest time of living!—
Till naturally its bursting cheer
Just melts into thanksgiving.
It will be a while before our days melt into thanksgiving. Today students moving into the dorms will do a different sort of melting. Perhaps they will join us tonight as we all cool off with a refreshing beverage and the company of good friends at the Pub Quiz. See you then.
And were you expecting hints for tonight’s quiz? Tonight on the Pub Quiz expect questions about female standouts, criminal masterminds, China and Costa Rica, alliterative names, representing war, UC Davis competing with the Ivies, hairs, Donald Trump, Canadians in show business, competitive sports, the three layers, horses, the Aggies, winners and losers, Ernest Hemingway, reservoirs, 1970 studies on Rhesus monkeys, memories of Austria, lovely places, notable visitors, kingpins, democratic push-back, men and women (five questions), biographies, insoles made of wheat, Marvel comics, record-breakers, the arts and such, space travel, science, and Shakespeare.
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Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:
- Mottos and Slogans. “Must-see TV” referred to shows on what TV network?
- Internet Culture. What company has the largest market share in the streaming media box industry, accounting for 34% of all streaming devices sold in the United States in 2014?
- Gargoyles. Grotesque beasts perched on the sides of old buildings should technically only be called gargoyles if they perform what function?
- Glenn Close. Oscar nominated actress Glenn Close plays Nova Prime in what 2014 film?
- Great Americans. Who was born in 1786 in Tennessee and died March 6, 1836 in San Antonio, Texas?
P.S. Happy birthday today to Bobby Nord, the New Hampshire musician and philosopher who inspires autumnal merriment wherever he goes.
P.P.S. If you attend the 50% off sale at Logos Books on 2nd Street today, consider purchasing something fancy that could be given away as swag at a future pub quiz. At some point swag-winners will tire of going home with my Bruce Willis DVDs.