Answer to previous clue: “Night”
Regarding the subject of “embarrassing moments,” when it applies to yours truly here have been hundreds -- with doubtlessly many more to come. I still blush nevertheless when I think of EM #849, which occurred over a quarter of a century ago. The workplace was closing for the weekend, and I asked one of my colleagues if she had a heavy date scheduled for that evening. “Not tonight,” she replied. “My boyfriend works on Friday nights.” “Oh?” I said, “what is he, a bartender?” “No,” she answered, as her smile disappeared. “He’s a rabbi.”
I have sympathy for people who have to tweak the natural human circadian rhythm in order to work nights. Speaking of “night shifts,” I wonder from where the expression “lobster shift"came. What is it about lobsters that they are the marine version of night owls? Unlike nocturnal crustaceans, species of fish must be morning people,especially on “school” nights.
Some folks shine with the sun; others find their element when the stars come out – (and if you see a Hollywood star before noon, it’s more likely he or she is heading home rather than heading out.) Me, I'm not particular – I can sleep any time of the day or night. No Ambien necessary. Just prop me in a chair in front of a televised Atlanta Braves game, and I'm stacking up zzzz’s quicker than a Congressman at a health care committee meeting. Listen, when you get to be my age, you'll see the truth in the words of Yogi Berra:
“It Gets Late Early”
1. What’s the word for a painting of a night scene, or in music, an evening song?
2. In a 1955 movie, Robert Mitchum plays a menacing preacher. What’s the title of this, the only film ever directed by British actor Charles Laughton?
3. According to F. Scott Fitzgerald, “In the dark night of the soul, it’s always. . .”(what?)
4. Which playwright (1911-1983) wrote the 1961 drama, The Night of the Iguana?
5. Identify the title and the creator of these lines: “Day and night/Under the hide of me/There’s oh such a yearning, burning down deep inside of me.”
6. Broadcast between 1956 and 1984, what was one of television’s oldest daytime dramas?
7. Who wrote the most famous villanelle in English, “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night”?
8. Name the song from West Side Story which stops the show with its breathtaking four-part harmony and which shares its title with America’s oldest late night talk show.
9. Who was the Romantic poet who wrote “Ode to a Nightingale”?
10. Name the “visionary” title of a 1948 film noir or its more familiar theme song that became a jazz standard for Horace Silver, Sonny Stitt, and John Coltrane, as well as pop hits for Bobby Vee and for the Carpenters.
11. What is the informal name for the collection of stories featuring such fabulous creations as a flying carpet and a stone door which opens only with a secret magic word?
12. What is the Shakespearean play whose dramatis personae include a duke named Orsino, Sir Toby Belch, a Puritan named Malvolio, and Feste, a clown?
13. And finally-- since this is the World Wide Web where spelling apparently doesn't count-- which National Leaguer was the Most Valuable Player in the 1986 World Series?
Answers:
1. Nocturne
2. The Night of the Hunter
3. “three o’clock in the morning.”
4. Tennessee Williams
5. “Night and Day” by Cole Porter
6. The Edge of Night
7. Dylan Thomas (Score no points if you said “Bob Dylan”)
8. “Tonight”
9. Keats (Give yourself half-credit if you said “Shelley.” Who doesn't confuse those two guys?)
10. “The Night Has a Thousand Eyes.”
11. A Thousand and One Arabian Nights
12. Twelfth Night
13. NY Mets third baseman Ray Knight
Clue for next quiz topic:
Decades before James Cameron’s blockbuster, Titanic, Walter Lord (1917-2002) published his book about the tragedy, A Night to _______(What?)
