The Combating Social Isolation Edition of the Bistro 33 Pub Quiz Newsletter
Dear Friends of the Bistro 33 Pub Quiz,
If you didn’t respond to my earlier reminder to confirm that you would like to stay on this mailing list, then this will be the last newsletter that you will receive that is chock full of hints about an upcoming iteration of the Bistro 33 Pub Quiz. If you have confirmed as much via the Aweber link, then you are all set. You'll have one more chance to confirm via next week's newsletter. Many of our old and favorite friends have been graduating to other cities this summer, so I hope you will recruit some new friends to join us at Bistro 33 Monday Nights. For instance, right now we have a bunch of tables open, and I would glad to see you and your team seated at one of them. If you bring five or more newbies, count on me to spring for the sweet potato fries – just let me know.
It’s a lot easier in 2010 to do Pub Quiz research than when I was a Pub Quiz regular a decade ago. Faraway friends and relatives send me question ideas, my RSS reader collects topical and substantive details from the day’s news and from history, and a variety of iPhone aps present me possible new topics any time that I care to check. As you might have read, this past week Netflix started streaming movies to iPhones, as well, making it easier for me to review certain scenes for favorite and memorable movie quotations. This new opportunity to stream content though one’s smart-phone represents a continuation of the trend of personalized media; we have moved from movie theaters to television sets to laptop computers to watch movies, and now we can enjoy, on the smallest possible screen, our favorite cinematic offerings in any location and at all times. At UC Davis, for instance, faculty who teach film classes in many cases will no longer need to hold screenings of assigned films or even make them available in a media library, for every student at UCD has access to a computer, and most of them carry around smart-phones as well. A movie theater in every pocket!
Of course, as you might have read me being quoted in today’s Sacramento Bee (http://www.sacbee.com/2010/08/30/2991705/netflixs-iphone-app-adds-another.html), there are potential dark sides of this move to ubiquitous connectedness to streaming video. With these advancements in personal tech and media, we face greater dangers of isolation and the further fragmentation of cultural consumerism. We can almost imagine a scenario whereby a married couple will sit in bed before going to sleep each watching their separate streamed Netflix movie using headphones, and never having to converse once. Gone is the age when we would fight over TV remotes. Now, instead, we can all remain in our separate corners. That is, unless we still seek out communities and camaraderie along with our entertainment, as so many of us choose to do Monday evenings at the Bistro 33 Pub Quiz. Almost nobody shares a high five after watching a movie on an iPod or even earning a high score on a video game. But we, we get to share them every week, even if it’s a quotation (what film do you think is most quotable – Animal House?) from a one inch by one inch movie that has us so excited.
This week Pub Quiz participants will get excited about questions about Malta, asking directions, ultimate luxury goods, butterflies, cheap food, three birds, insects, energetic particles and waves, the midwest, five-letter adjectives beginning with the letter S, pop music, religion, song and dance men, tallest mountains, hives, flight patterns, the shoulder of Orion, miracles and castles, members of the House of Lords, famous sequels, New Orleans, China, Jack Kevorkian, Newton, the name of a rose, and unions that begat Presidents.
I hope you can join us tonight at 8 for the Bistro 33 Pub Quiz!
Your Quizmaster
P.S. Danny Romero will be performing his poetry at Bistro 33 Wednesday, September 1st at 8pm. You should join us! Read below, or visit http://www.poetryindavis.com for more information.
Danny Romero was born and raised in Los Angeles. He has degrees from University of California, Berkeley and Temple University in Philadelphia, where he taught writing for many years. He currently teaches at Sacramento City College. Romero’s poetry and short fiction have been published in literary journals throughout the country, such as Bilingual Review, Colorado Review, Drumvoices Revue, Paterson Literary Review, Pembroke Magazine, Permafrost and Solo. His work can also be found in a number of anthologies, including West of the West: Imagining California (1989), Pieces of the Heart: New Chicano Fiction (1993), Under the Fifth Sun: Latino Literature from California (2003), Latinos in Lotusland: An Anthology of Contemporary Southern California Literature (2008) and Pow Wow: Charting the Faultlines in the American Experience – Short Fiction from Then to Now (2009). He is the author of the novel Calle 10 (1996) and two chapbooks of poetry. A poetry collection is forthcoming from Bilingual Press. He lives with his son in Sacramento, California.
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