Auntie's Quiz O' the Week

[Virgil]

On the education quiz I got only five: 4, 5, 7, 9, 11.

On the harvest quiz I did very well getting ten correct: 1, 2, 3 ,4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11. One of my best.

[AuntShecky]

Thank you q for taking the quiz, and Virgil thanks for going back and taking the one you missed. Great job, everybody!

[AuntShecky]

We can point to climate change as the culprit behind the droughts that turn southern California into a tinderbox and the rains that are inundating Georgia. We can blame global warming for the fact that the ice caps on the top and bottom of our planet are melting faster than the heart of a teeny-bopper at a Jonas Brothers concert. If the earth were a manic-depressive (and had a good health insurance plan), and it were cured with some prescription medicine, then we could say: ” ‘Bye, polar disorder!” Nope. Sadly, global warming only goes one way - up.

Fortunately, on a daily basis the spiky temperature graph is merely a seasonal thing. In my neck o’ the woods, autumn is a season of contrasts. The morning temperatures can dip down into the forties and thirties, which the afternoon sun may boost way up into the seventies. That’s why it’s so difficult this time of year to decide what to wear – and why so many kids leave their jackets on the schoolbus.

Thus, the topic for this week: each of the question and/or answer involves the words high and low. So before everybody starts giving me heat, and/or – to paraphrase Sholom Aleichem – I get such a chilly reception that the room catches a cold -let’s go to the quiz:

High and/or Low

1. “Mary,” the sweetheart of many of Robert Burns’s poems, hailed from which scenic region of Scotland?

2. When one itches for some insider information, possibly of a shady and disreputable nature, he might say, “Give me the ----“ (what?)

3. In Lost Horizon, a novel by James Hilton and a film by Frank Capra, the natives of a land high in the Himalayas never seem to age. What is the name of this mythical place?

4. Customarily served in the British Isles during the late afternoon or early evening and usually consisting of a substantial warm dish, bread and butter, and the hot beverage mentioned in its name, what is the two-word term for the meal that often forms the setting for many a scene on Masterpiece Theatre?

5. Alfred Noyes (1880-1958) deliberately defied the trend toward modernism by writing poetry the old-fashioned way, with traditional forms such as ballads. His most famous work is about a robber targeting travelers and contains the line: “The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor.” What is its title?

6. What is the title of Maxim Gorky’s most famous novel (1902)about a group of society’s outcasts and destitute souls who try to cling to their illusions while inhabiting a fleabag hotel?

7. What is the colloquial expression for a supercilious, overly-cultured individual or an adjective describing cultural phenomena or entertainment requiring a certain measure of intellectual vigor? The word is often used pejoratively as a substitute for “snobbish” or “highfalutin’ .”

8. What is the collective term for the European lands such as Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg whose geographic locations are near sea level?

9. Name the Texas native (1921-1995) who wrote “literary” mysteries such as Strangers on a Train as well as a series of novels featuring the high-living villain, Mr. Ripley.

10. Various branches of a highly-respected New England family can boast of the astronomer who discovered the erstwhile planet Pluto and three poets: James Russell (1819 -1891), Amy (1874-1925), and Robert(1917-1977.) What is the surname of these Boston Brahmins (no relation, methinks, to Mike, the equally-worthy, current third baseman for the Red Sox.)

11. Name the musical composer (1901-1988) who was lyricist’s Alan Jay Lerner’s partner for the creation of such hits as Camelot, Paint Your Wagon, and Brigadoon.

12. According to the English Book of Common Prayer, who or what is described as being “a little lower than the angels?”

13. And finally, name the title of the traditional spiritual in which one would hear the line, “Coming for’ to carry me home.”


Answers
1. Highlands
2. Lowdown
3. Shangri-La
4. High tea
5. “The Highwayman”
6. The Lower Depths
7. Highbrow
8. The Low Countries
9. Patricia Highsmith
10. Lowell
11. Frederick “Fritz” Loewe
12. Man
13. “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot”

Sources: Same as last time!

[DickZ]

Thanks for another great quiz, Auntie. I'm feeling pretty low because I only got numbers 3, 5, 10, 11, and 13 right. And I didn't even need to use your helpful clue for number 10.

But I'll get over this low feeling before high noon today.

[AuntShecky]

Gee, Dick, I was worried about whether the q. about "The Highwayman" was too obscure, so it makes me feel good that you got that one.
Hope you were just making a joke about feeling "low" and that you hit a high note soon.

[DickZ]

Gee, Dick, I was worried about whether the q. about "The Highwayman" was too obscure, so it makes me feel good that you got that one.
Hope you were just making a joke about feeling "low" and that you hit a high note soon.

I can't be positive because it happened so very long ago, but I think The Highwayman was the first poem I encountered in high school. I've remembered it ever since.

[AuntShecky]

I can't be positive because it happened so very long ago, but I think The Highwayman was the first poem I encountered in high school. I've remembered it ever since.

Me,too! It was in 9th grade, and the teacher used that poem to illustrate a metaphor.

[AuntShecky]

When they're not warning us that we're mere moments away from succumbing to West Nile/Monkey Pox/Swine Flu, national news anchors are thundering about The Storm of the Century, even though the present century has only been here for less than a decade. The network broadcasters intone their doomsday prophecies in utter seriousness, as if any viewer foolish enough to ignore the reports would do so at his or her peril. Local “News Center 3, 5, 7 (or whatever number)” follow their big brothers’ leads, but it’s best to take whatever they say with a grain of rock salt.

A case in point: on Sunday morning, October 4, 1987, inhabitants of upstate New York and western New England woke up to the sounds of sharp, snapping noises. The view from many windows revealed the same scene: bent and broken tree branches, still laden with a full complement of leaves, which hadn't even begun to change color yet, let alone fall to the ground. Streets and roads were crisscrossed with downed telephone wires and power lines. But most startling of all is that everything was covered with snow, from 6.5 to 20 inches deep, depending on the regional altitude. Schools and businesses closed, and some residents were without power for more than two weeks, but the worst aspect of this snow “Emergency” was that the storm had been a complete “surprise.” Folks were shoveling and plowing their way out of what the local weather reports had called “partly cloudy.”

A few decades before that Blizzard of ‘87, when I was a little girl, we were the last family on the block to get a television set. Back then the local “weatherman” (not the more pretentious “meteorologist”) showed us what kind of weather to expect with little cardboard cut-outs of a sun, a cloud, an open umbrella and other cartoon figures. I don't want to rain on anybody’s parade, but that low-tech forecast was far more accurate than today’s millions of dollars worth of satellite photos and Doppler radar.

All of this precipitates this week’s topic -- weather. So before this interminable snow job makes everyone storm out of here, I'd better give the forecast:

Cloudy, with a Chance of a Quiz

1. What is the title of the last play Shakespeare wrote? Its title is an old-fashioned word for a storm.

2. Socrates and his philosophical colleagues were satirized (some say unfairly) in a comedy by Aristophanes circa 423 BC. What was the “lofty” one-word title of this play?

3. According to American poet Carl Sandburg, what is the weather phenomenon that “comes in on little cat feet”?

4. The sea voyage back to Ithaca suffered another serious setback when his all-too-curious crewmen let loose the contents of a leather bag, which Aeolus had given to Odysseus with the strict instructions that it was not to be opened. Who was Aeolus?

5. W. Somerset Maugham’s tale about Miss Sadie Thompson and her seduction by a missionary in the South Seas spawned several theatrical and movie versions under which single weather word?

6. What’s the title of a renowned poem by Shelley, who enlightened posterity with this note about how it was conceived “on a day when that tempestuous wind, whose temperature is at once mild and animating, was collecting the vapors which pour down the autumn rains. They began as I foresaw at sunset with a violent tempest of hail and rain, attended by . . .magnificent thunder and lightning.”

7. Early in his illustrious career this Canadian-born American novelist (1915-2005) wrote Henderson The Rain King. Who was this writer who in 1976 won the Nobel Prize for Literature?

8. Name the chief character in Jules Verne’s Around the World in Eighty Days.

9. The action of his 1963 novel, Cat’s Cradle, zeroes in on “Ice-9,” a substance which has the potency to turn the entire world into a frozen graveyard. Who was the American novelist (1922-2007) who specialized in science-fiction satire?

10. Name the British poet (1808-1892) who was so inspired by Arthurian legends that he created stirring lines, such as this one describing “Avilion” (Avalon) as a place “Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow/nor ever wind blows loudly.”

11. Some homeowners who recently found themselves “under water” with their mortgages most likely wouldn't find consolation in the fact that a fictional amphibian actually owns a country estate. What is this 1908 book by Kenneth Grahame whose characters include Toad of Toad Hall?

12. Who wrote Gravity’s Rainbow , a 1973 tour de force about a suicidal missile race in the post WWII world?

13. And finally, what’s the title of the Irving Berlin standard that contains the lyrics “Never saw the sun shinin’ so bright/never saw things goin’ so right”?



Answers
1. The Tempest
2. The Clouds
(Half credit if you said “cloudcuckooland,” which appears in another Aristophanes play, The Birds.)
3. The Fog
4. Greek god of the winds
5. Rain
6. “Ode to the West Wind”
7. Saul Bellow
8. Phileas Fogg
9. Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
10. Tennyson
11. The Wind in the Willows
12. Thomas Pynchon
13. “Blue Skies”

[DickZ]

Thanks, Auntie, for another great quiz. I got numbers 1, 3, 5, 8, 11, and 13. I enjoyed reading The Wind and the Willows as an adult, and I think that I got a lot more out of it than I would have as a child.

[PabloQ]

For the education quiz a measly 7 (+7 for the rest of the Ivy League), nabbing 1, 2, 4, 8,9, 11, and 13. Charlie Brown is my idol.

For the Children of the Corn quiz, an 8 -- hitting the mark on 1, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 11, and 12.

[Virgil]

On the high/low quiz I only got four: 2, 8, 10, 12.

On the weather quiz I got an eight: 1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 9, 10, 12.

[AuntShecky]

Thanks everyone, for taking our little quiz.

[AuntShecky]

Mid-October reminds us of a world-changing discovery by an Italian explorer hired by a husband-and-wife team of entrepreneurs ruling Spain. Imagine that --the first instance of “outsourcing” goes back to ‘92 – 1492.

Columbus wasn’t really the first one to discover the new world. The idea that the honor belongs to Leif Ericsson of the Vikings hasn’t really stuck– sort of like Brett Favre’s retirement. It’s also false that Columbus found a totally uninhabited land. He set ashore on a island already populated with folks he erroneously dubbed “Indians,” who reportedly told him, “No parade for you until you show us your green card.”

In our contemporary elementary schools, lessons about early explorers aren’t as prominent as they once were. That’s why if you ask a kid, he’ll tell you that Columbus was the guy behind the “Harry Potter” and “Home Alone” movie franchises. Nina, Pinta, Santa Maria? An R&B girl group from the sixties. And don’t even go near the phrase “land ho!”

So before my ship sails off the edge of the flat earth, let’s explore this week’s topic, which has to do with Italy, Spain, and a little country that often maxes out its limit on its Discover card, and is late making payments on the Visa.

"Diss"-cover This!

1. What is the geographical setting for such Shakespearean plays as Coriolanus, Julius Caesar, and (partially) Antony and Cleopatra?

2. What is the title of Thomas Kyd’s 1584 revenge drama rife with political intrigue, murder, suicide, and mayhem?

3. Name the 1988 Eddie Murphy vehicle in which the comedian portrays a prince who travels across the Atlantic in search of a bride.

4. It’s believed that Geoffrey Chaucer borrowed the structure for his Canterbury Tales from an Italian literary work dating from the year 1351. What is the title of Boccaccio’s opus, which stems from ten tales told by each of ten travelers trying to escape the Black Death?

5. Set in Spain during a time of religious persecution, “The Grand Inquisitor” is often published separately from the lengthier work in which it first appeared. What is the title of that larger masterpiece by Dostoevski, which is also the last novel that he ever wrote?

6. What is the title, derived from a line in The Tempest, of the 1932 novel by Aldous Huxley which predicts a future dystopia?

7. What is the beautiful (though somewhat damp) city that forms the setting for a novel by Thomas Mann, The Aspern Papers by Henry James, and several plays by William Shakespeare?

8. Using pre-existing source material, Mozart composed an 1789 opera about a character, Figaro, who is lively, romantic, and an expert in things sartorial. The same character shows up in a later opera under a different title. What is Rossini’s 1816 opera called?

9. By the seventeenth century, scientists and artists had begun to accept the fact that the world was not flat and that other lands lay beyond the vast ocean. One holy sonnet begins “At the round earth’s imagined corners” and another love elegy contains this line describing the speaker’s beloved: “O my America! My new-found land!” Name the metaphysical poet (1572-1631) who composed those lines.

10. What is the title of the 1908 E.M. Forster novel whose action centers around a young tourist who is not 100% satisfied with her accommodations in Italy?

11. Before becoming one of the first fatalities in the Spanish Civil War, he had produced such poems and plays as “Lament for the Death of a Bullfighter,” The House of Bernardo Alba, and Poeta en Nueva York. Who was this author (1898-1936), the best-known modern poet and playwright in Spain?

12. A suburban husband abandons both job and family in hopes of a rosier life with one of his daughter’s classmates in this 1999 movie which captured five Academy Awards. What is it?

13. And finally, in which Lerner and Loewe musical would you heard the phrase, “The rain in Spain stays mainly on the plain?”


Answers
1. Rome
2. The Spanish Tragedy
3. Coming to America
4. The Decameron
5. The Brothers Karamazov
6. Brave New World
7. Venice
8. The Barber of Seville
9. John Donne
10. A Room With a View
11. Frederico Garcia Lorca
12. American Beauty
13. My Fair Lady

[DickZ]

Thanks, Auntie. I got numbers 1, 3, 4, 8, 10, and 13. I should have gotten 7 as well, but didn’t pay enough attention to your clue.

[PabloQ]

I get so far behind on these and I'm not sure how. In summary:
Nine correct on High/Low - 1, 2, 4, 5 (what a flyer on the guess on this one), 7, 8, 10,11 and 13.
Nine on the Weather Report and I'm still kicking myself for missing the Sandberg question - 1, 2, 4, 7, 8, 9 (better have this one correct), 10, 11, 12
Ten on the Columbus Day - 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 12, and 13. I'll admit to the flying guess on the Dostoyevsky question.