A Dark and Stormy Afternoon: Round 10
Posted by: Keir Graff
(Previously on Guiding Nerds.)
“This is exciting,” said someone who I will not humiliate by naming publicly. “It’s a photo finish.” As I mentioned, we’re nerds.
Category: Shakespeare’s Plays
Scene I Britain. The garden of Cymbeline’s palace. [Enter two Gentlemen]
FIRST GENTLEMAN. You do not meet a man but frowns: our bloods / No more obey the heavens than our courtiers / Still seem as does the king.
Ian, who had nailed the Chaucer, confessed that he hadn’t read all that much Shakespeare. As for myself, after having taken an intensive Shakespeare seminar in college, I was mildly distressed that I didn’t know this answer cold. Worse, Daniel was employing a little bit of gamesmanship: “I would never have gotten this,” he said, shaking his head at the answer printed on the card. But “Cymbeline” rang a bell, and, guessing that it might be one of the less-often staged plays, that’s exactly what I guessed. “But can’t we just guess ‘Shakespeare’?” asked Ian, helpfully.
“We should have a gentleman’s agreement,” said Ilene. “When the title is in the first line, we should draw a new card.”
In rebuttal, I played the U.S. Constitution card. Ilene shrugged.
Category: Short Stories
“The marvelous thing is that it’s painless,” he said. “That’s how you know when it starts.”
“Is it really?”
“Absolutely. I’m awfully sorry about the odor though. That must bother you.”
I want to say that Ilene guessed F. Scott Fitzgerald, but I don’t have all the guesses recorded in my notes. I’ll just say that, apparently, not everyone’s high-school anthology carried the same selection of short stories.
Score: The Winners 7, The Losers 7
Answers
A) Cymbeline, 1609, Shakespeare
B) “The Snows of Kilimanjaro,” by Ernest Hemingway, 1938
March 31st, 2009 at 3:19 pm
Author’s Note: On the off chance that you missed this part in the instructions, unless you are playing “Super Expert,” it is part of the clue to provide the year of the work. That helps a LOT with categories like Short Stories.
April 1st, 2009 at 10:26 am
I’m studying Shakespeare too, and I didn’t know. Even worse, my wife who goes on sites like baby gurgle…did. I am ashamed.
April 1st, 2009 at 11:12 am
I can’t believe we missed that. I blame Jake Melnick’s lighting.
April 1st, 2009 at 1:25 pm
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