Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,
When Time Magazine published an article last week about the bicycle-friendliest cities in America, of course Davis was on the list. Just about a quarter of our residents commute by bicycle, more than any other American city. Other cities like Chicago and Washington DC have recently installed new bike lanes, while Portland has been bike-friendly for years.
This image shows bicyclists peddling alongside the Taedong River across from the Juche Tower in Pyongyang, North Korea. The setting looks not too different from my teenage bike rides alongside the Reflecting Pool on the Mall in Washington DC. The river looks about as broad as the Potomac, a famous waterway that separated the towpaths where I would bike for hours with my dad, and the Commonwealth of Virginia across the way.
Bicycling has been a source of joy for me for more than 40 years, just as I hope it is a source of satisfaction in Pyongyang, where there are far fewer options, especially options for displays of what my friend Wrye Sententia would call “cognitive liberty.” Of course, Mark Twain reminds us (perhaps apocryphally) that “The man who doesn’t read good books has no advantage over the man who can’t read them.” Could it also be said of bicycles, that the person who rides no bike in Davis has no advantage over those who own no bikes, or who don’t live in Davis?
Perhaps something similar could even be said about those of us who frequent our beloved Irish Pub. As Ray Oldenburg might remark, people who never attend their local café, family pub or other “third place” have no advantage over people who lack such advantages in their hometowns. We must support such places, I think, lest our future grandchildren be left to meet their friends only at the mall or the parking lot of every city’s Walmart.
And for the record, although I bike commute every day, I prefer to drive our Prius to the Irish Pub on Monday nights. We like to make sure that everyone from our circle of friends gets home safely after Monday night revels. As someone who moves from wine or a Moscow Mule to mineral water by halftime of the Quiz, I’m the best qualified to be a designated driver. I hope you also plan for such contingencies when traveling home from the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz.
Tonight’s Pub Quiz will feature questions on comedy, literacy, royalty, preferences, foolish displays, long poems, the science behind the Beatles “little darlings,” diminution, that which was gladly abandoned in 1949, blonde actresses, world religions, staple foods, the Holy Grail, well-paid ghostwriters, extant cash, daily scientific measurements, literary wrestling, enshrined fame, personification, paying the rent, drummers, commentary on marriage, televised familiarity, philistinism, lonely gaps, ball categories, baseball, musical rumors, name the state, runners with vowels, frauds, corner stores, popular music, and Shakespeare.
Congratulations to rock and roll drummer and sentence algebra inventor Brad Henderson and his lovely girlfriend Sharon Campbell Knox, a couple of local authors who met each other at one of my Pub Quizzes, and who this week celebrate six years together. I don’t expect drummer Brad to join us tonight, but I’ve included one question especially for him.
UC Davis has a few weeks of school, yet, but many other smart people are done with school for the year, and they need the intellectual stimulation of Pub Quiz. Expect a crowd tonight.
Your Quizmaster
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Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:
- Mottos and Slogans. What insurance and financial services company has used the slogans “Own a Piece of the Rock” and “Strength of Gibraltar”?
- Newspaper Headlines. What plural M word completes this recent important news headline? “Marvel Confirms Scarlet Witch And Quicksilver Are No Longer BLANKS.”
- World War II. Exactly how many years did ago this week did the Allies declare victory in Europe?
- Four for Four. Which of the following people with M nicknames were adversaries of Batman? The Mad Hatter, The Man-Bat, Metallo, Mr. Freeze.
- Buddy Comedies. What is the title of the Reese Witherspoon and Sofia Vergara buddy comedy that opened this weekend and that was not helped by critics, one of whom dubbed it “not in any way worth watching”?
P.S. Award-winning poet Greg Glazner and his band will be playing and sharing poetry this coming Thursday night. When Glazner is not teaching literature and writing classes at UC Davis, he is playing a mean and bluesy guitar at gigs throughout California. See Poetry in Davis for details, or just join us at the Natsoulas Gallery at 8.
Greg Glazner with Guitar