BITS & PIECES OF A MISPLACED LIFE

BASEBALL, LA TRIVIATA #36, 2 poems

If you’re playing baseball  and thinking about managing, you’re crazy. You’d be better off thinking about being an owner.

 Casey Stengel

There are plenty of Hank Aarons…in spring training.

   Bobby Cox

We have Three big leagues now. There’s the American, the National, and there’s Ted Williams.

Mickey Harries  (Red Sox Pitcher in 1946)

Catching a fly ball is a pleasure but knowing what to do with it after you catch it is a business.

Tommy Henrich

When you’re hitting .175, whatever you say doesn’t make much sense.

      Reggie Jackson

**

—

When the one great scorer comes to mark against your name, it’s not whether you won or lost but how many paid to see the game.

Peter Bavasi

He gets to the ball quicker than Cinderella’s sisters.

Dave Campbell (ESPN sportscaster) on  Roberto Alomar

**

CASTING NEWS:

Howard’s End starring Timothy Bottoms

*******

LA TRIVIATA #36

NOTE TO THE READER

All right, I know that more than a few of the questions in the various La Triviata quizzes  are unfair and often impossible for many readers, to answer. But the point of a quiz is not to test intelligence or even cultural and verbal awareness. Not by a long shot. The point is to have fun, to pass some time pleasantly while picking up tidbits of useful and useless information. I hope it’s a good party game or a good quiz to share with a friend or two. Actually I hope it is just a good quiz. And sometimes a useful one. If you get 6 correct you are doing very good. If you get 9 or more correct you are in the Genius

Category.

—LJP

1. If you are a deltiologist, you do not collect facts about deltas.  What do you collect?

2.

All things have I seen in the days of my vanity: there is a just man that perisheth in his righteousness, and there is a wicked man that prolongeth his life in his wickedness. Be not righteousness over much…Why shouldest thou destroy thyself? … For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.

Is one of the epigraphs to Acts of Faith by Philip Caputo  (New York: Vintage Books, 2006)

What book of The Bible is the quotation from?

          3. Más a Tierra (Closer to Land), is the second  largest of the Juan Fernández Islands,. In 1966 its name was changed to Robinson Crusoe Island.  What country governs the island? Who wrote the novel Robinson Crusoe?

 4. If there are 11 players on each side on the field in a football game, how many players on  each side on the field in Lacrosse?

5. If you are fortunate enough to receive a Pritzker Prize, awarded annually since 1979,

what is your profession?

    A. Architect

    B.  Chemist

    C.  Fabric Designer

     D Journalist

6.  How many fireplaces  are there in the White House?

    A. 8

    B. 14

   C. 21

   D. 28

7.  Who was the Queen of England whose final words, delivered upon the scaffold, said, referring to her neck: “It is very small, very

small” ?

9. If a person is awarded the Caldecott Medal, he or she would be:

     A) a chef

     B) a writer./illustrator

     C)  a swimmer/diver

     D)  a painter

10.  According to Guinness  World Records,

the siphonophore Praya dubia is the longest animal in the world. It is a variety of  what

kind of animal?

     A) jellyfish

     B) snake

     C) eel

‘    D) sea worm

10  What two-time  Olympic Gold Medal winner in the Decathalon served four terms

              in the United States House of Representatives

              representing the northern San Joaquin Valley

              of California?

11. Toward the conclusion of this film-maker’s memoir  Apropos of Nothing, he writes:

 “I’m 84; my life is almost half over. At my age, I’m playing with house money. Not believing in a hereafter, I can’t see any practical difference if people remember me as a film director or a

pedophile or at all. All that I ask is my ashes be scattered close to a pharmacy.”

Who is he?

12. What does the acronym ASPCA stand for?

13. The very popular song “Moon River” was  first sung by Audrey Hepburn in

what 1961 movie? Who wrote the lyrics? Who composed the music?

14. Heterochromia  is a sometimes found in humans, but more often seen in cats and dogs.

What do you have if you have heterochromia?

  A. Color blindness

  B. Seeing mostly in black & white

  C. Eyes of two different colors

  D. One eye near-sighted, the other far-sighted

15. What noted Bishop of Hippo in his youth declared  “De mihi casitatem et continentian , sed noli modo.’ (“Give me chastity and continency –but not yet!”)?

16. If you see a Moomin what are you seeing?

17.The poplar song “That ‘ll be The Day,”written by Buddy Holly and sung by The Beatles was inspired by a line

spoken by John Wayne in what western movie?

A) The Searchers

B) Stagecoach

C) Red River

D) Cheyenne Autumn

18. United States Presidents Franklin Roosevel, Harry Truman, and Dwight D.

Eisenhower all claimed that they saw

the ghost of what historic figure haunting the White House?

19. In 2019 astronomy was in the news when

 what important part of the universe was photographed for the first time?

     A. A singularity event

     B.  The subatomic particle known as a Charm

   C.   A Black Hole

   D.  Water on Saturn

20. What great movie did the American Film Academy choose as The Greatest American Western of All-Time?

ANSWERS

1 Postcards

2. Ecclesiastes

3. Chile; Daniel Defoe.

4. Ten

5. A (Architect). The Pritzker Architecture Prize is awarded annually “to honor a living architect or architects whose built work demonstrates a combination of those qualities of talent, vision and commitment, which has produced consistent and significant contributions to humanity and the built environment through the art of architecture”.^[

6. 28 fireplaces.

7. Anne Boleyn

8.  (B)
The Caldecott Medal was named in honor of nineteenth-century English illustrator Randolph Caldecott. It is awarded annually by the Association for Library Service to Children, a division of the American Library Association, to the artist of the most distinguished American picture book for children.

9) (A) Jellyfish. It measures about 160 feet.

10. Bob Matthias. He and his wife also portrayed themselves in the biopic of his life?

11. Woody Allen

12. American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals^® 

 ^{13. Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Johnny Mercer provided} the lyrics; Henry Mancini the music.

The song won the Academy Award for Best Original Song.

14. C. Eyes of two different colors

15. St. Augustine (354-430)

16. A Moomin is a cartoon character created by Tove Johnson. It is a cuddly standing white hippo-like creature.

17. (A) The Searchers (1956)

                 18.  Abraham Lincoln

19.  A Black Hole

20. The Searchers, directed by John Ford and starring John Wayne

**

**

SLIDING DOWN THE BANNISTER
OF HUMAN THOUGHT

 
Damn these splinters!
They are so difficult
To get out.
 
 **


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SELF KNOWLEDGE
 
Why are we are so interested
In that baggage of heartbreak
With ripped pockets
We carry around with us?
Shouldn't  souls of others
Stir us to action?
Remember Gary Cooper
Walking the streets of High Noon?
Am I like him? Are you?
 
12 yrs old, & I was
Waiting for my parents
To get off from work.
I paid 25¢ to see
A good cowboy movie.
Missing the politics,,
High Noon, in 1950s slang,
Blew me away.
Who was I then,
Sitting by myself,
All alone in the dark,
Waiting for my parents
To drive me home.
 
 
Among motion picture archives,
Who are you? the Caterpillar,
As played by Ned Sparks,
Asks a very polite Alice.
Did Gary Cooper & Sparks
Become what we see on the screen?
Caterpillars become butterflies,
Sparks become fires.
Whom do we become
When we turn our attentions to,
Let us say, Handel,
His Concerto No. II in B-Flat Major,
With its fourth movement
In 3/8ths time.
Must we sit on the couch & ask,
"Just where do I fit in all this,
What does it have to do with me?”
O myself, myself,
Do not forsake me, O my darling.
 
 
Louis Phillips