We've gotten through spring cleaning here, and we're now in the "things have to be fixed" mode. So in the past two weeks we've had to bring people from outside into the house, or really the yard. We've lost a couple trees due to storms and we've realized that they weren't the only dead trees in the woods. Those had to come down, and our chainsaw is not up to that particular task, so we had to call in for tree service. A couple days later, I was replacing the filters for our well, and I discovered that the main valve had become stuck and was throttling down the water into the house to a trickle. After both cases I got to thinking about the problem of maintenance.
In both cases the tools available have been inadequate to the task at hand, and while I'm fully capable of performing ordinary maintenance, I can't change the main valve, or fell seven dead trees so they won't land on the house. I have to rely on someone else to get me over the things I can't do.
I think as we go on, this summer will require extraordinary maintenance, things that can't be done by the individual, just to keep the fabric of our section of quizzing together. We're looking at a fall where the circuit might not be able to organize itself in several sections of the world, or teams will lose continuity because there's no way to run school activities. We will have to rely on other people to help rebuild connections, and other people will have to rely on us. We are going to need to check in on our neighbors and rival programs just to make sure they have what they need to get restarted. So try to make a habit of checking in with not just your team, but the next team over.
Books I was going to give as prizes
As we got into lockdown, I found myself with a stack of books which were slated to go to an upcoming tournament, and now I’m stuck here with a stack of books which I am finding a new appreciation for. The first one in this box is Lectionary of Music by Nicolas Slonimsky. Sometimes when reading I realize that someone’s been using this for questions before. In Slonimsky’s Lectionary, I found myself finding clues I had heard in dozens of questions from years before. It seems like the forgotten key to every packet’s classical music questions, every anecdote upon which a bonus theme or an unusual tossup answer hangs.
Apologies if the rest of this seems a little rushed this week. I had to perform a little extraordinary maintenance earlier on the house wifi so Catie would have graph paper for her math assignment.
Stuff to Read
I should have been adding the Queens of Infamy series here long ago: Eleanor of Aquitaine
Stuff to Look At
The Popul Vuh, the creation epic of the Mayans, animated
The Articles I Learned from This Week
Verdi vs censorship I was expecting this to be about “Un ballo in maschera”
When she was looking up information about bread mold for a science class, she left this on my browser.
The Articles You Could Learn from This Week
Stuff to Get Straight in Your Head
The difference between spearmint and peppermint
Didn’t You Learn Anything From the Last Time?
1
On Christmas Day 1013, he was declared King of England, and ruled from Gainsborough in Lincolnshire for about six weeks.
A. Name this shortest-reigning king of England, a Dane who deposed his father Harald Bluetooth, and was deposed by his son Canute.
answer: Sweyn Forkbeard
B. When Sweyn overthrew this king of England, he earned a epithet which was a pun on his name which meant "well-advised"
answer: Aethelred II or Ethelred II or Ethelred the Unready
C. According to legend, the ghost of Edmund, king of this easternmost of the seven English kingdoms, slew Sweyn Forkbeard.
answer: East Anglia
2
Name these children's illustrators
A. With his 1967 Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? he developed his method of collaging painted paper to create images, most known today for his depiction of a larva with a voracious appetite.
answer: Eric Carle
B. After providing art for the Little Bear series of children's books, this author of In the Night Kitchen drew the story of Max's adventure among creatures.
answer: Maurice Sendak
C. Prior to illustration, this writer of The Cat in the Hat won an Oscar for Best Documentary Feature for remaking a film he made for the US Army.
answer: Theodore Seuss Geisel or Dr. Seuss
3
Answer the following about sauces in Spanish cuisine.
A. This key ingredient of salsa de tinta gives a fishy flavor to the poached onion, and a nearly black color to the sauce.
answer: squid ink
B. This sauce, attributed by the Spanish to a city in the Balearic Islands, can be described as aioli without the garlic.
answer: mayonnaise
C. This sauce made from poaching cod in garlic-infused oil gets its name from the sound of bubbles of gelatin and water breaking on the oil's surface.
answer: pil-pil
4
Though a census placed most of the population of this state in the lower half, politician Thomas Cuming engineered its early capital to be near Council Bluffs, Iowa.
A. Name this state whose first capital is now its largest city, Omaha.
answer: Nebraska
B. The outrage over the placement of the capital led to a movement for Nebraska's southern half to join this state. The confrontation over this ended due to the Civil War.
answer: Kansas
C. The issue was fixed after the Civil War by creating the new capital of Lincoln south of this river which passes by Kearney and Grand Island.
answer: Platte River
5
William Perkin's work to synthesize a treatment for malaria accidentally led to a revolution in industrial chemistry and fashion.
A. Name this first commercially viable synthetic dye, or the purplish color it colored fabrics.
answer: mauve or mauvine
B. Perkin's development of mauvine meant that he had failed to synthesize this compound found in cinchona bark.
answer: quinine
C. Perkin's synthesis of mauvine was a result of his treatment of this aromatic compound formed by adding an amino group to benzene.
answer: aniline or phenylamine or benzamine