Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,
Here’s the first sentence of this week’s newsletter: This week one of my Academic Technology Services colleagues came to guest-lecture on storyboarding in my “Writing Across Media” class. No one else gets to write a sentence such as that one. (I should ask you: What is the one sentence about your vocation or avocation that no one else can write?)
As I was helping my colleague to connect his laptop to the projector, he remarked that he had been reading my new book to his daughter. And then he added this key phrase: “Well, the stories.”
I knew immediately what he meant. My new book, titled Where’s Jukie?, is made up of my poems, and my wife Kate’s essays. And of course everyone loves the essays. In them Kate tells some of our favorite stories about challenges we have faced as a family, about the many things in the house that our curious boy Jukie has inadvertently destroyed, and about a mom’s heartfelt responses to parenting a child with special needs.
My poems explore some of the same topics, but often glancingly. They explore the topics of our book through presentations of seemingly disconnected tangents, as some poets do. Emily Dickinson presented the poet’s purpose this way:
Tell all the truth but tell it slant —
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth’s superb surprise
As Lightning to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind —
Reading this, I am left to ask this question: Should every lighting bolt be explained? The scientist might think so, helping us to become better informed on electrostatic discharges, but the poet might consider other approaches and topics, such as the anger of unworshipped Zeus, the agony of misfiring jumper cables, or the inchoate anger of a cloud with Tourette’s syndrome. Maybe a worthy new heroine is trying out the powers of Thor, to the dismay of certain Marvel fanboys.
As the next poet Laureate of Davis, I have to figure out how best to introduce or reintroduce poetry to the people of our city. Should I present and publicize only the highest-quality poetry, the canonical texts of verse, what Matthew Arnold calls “the best that has been thought and known in the world current everywhere”? Or should I present the best work of Davis poets, repeatedly handing the microphone, for example, to the gently curious Hannah Stein, to the heartening courage-teacher Francisco X. Alarcón, or to the deadpan and shocking Joe Wenderoth? And when, if at all, should I draw attention to my own poetry?
I look forward to coming up with provisional answers to questions such as these.
Speaking of questions and answers, tonight’s Pub Quiz will feature questions on Canadians, Adam Levine (now off the market, sadly), words with zeroes in them, Bob Seger, bikini bottoms (hello!), medical procedures, tough cars and trucks, people named Sandy and Ian, people born in 1952, chromosomes, people not named Brutus, developers of the inactivated, words that appear in this very newsletter, the temperature in Cleveland, Publishers Weekly, again with the mononyms, Taylor-made, the UC Davis Alumni Ski Team, Mourned Cows (sounds like anagrams), popular Republicans, people named Davis, Russia and its problems, Sheila Lee, poetry (see above), odd syntax in green, official portraits, the Ulster Journal of Archaeology, landlocked countries beloved by Jared Hippler. Pecs, names that are colors, defenders, claiming momentum, unfortunate names, and Shakespeare.
Inchoate Clouds and a Tree
I hope you can join us this week. Come early, for last week some of our favorite teams couldn’t be accommodated. It pays to arrive before your competitors.
Your Quizmaster
https://www.yourquizmaster.com
http://www.twitter.com/yourquizmaster
http://www.facebook.com/yourquizmaster
Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:
- Mottos and Slogans. What retail chain [with four letters in its name] that is responsible for 1% of the world’s entire commercial wood supply has used the commercial slogan “Change Begins at Home”?
- Internet Culture. Evidently Apple will be making its new iPhone screens from the third-hardest mineral on earth, a substance that starts with the letter S. Name it.
- Newspaper Headlines. After five years in captivity and six weeks of freedom, Sergeant Bergdahl is set to resume life as an Army soldier this week. What is Sergeant Bergdahl’s first name?
- Four for Four. As you may know, Lil Wayne is but 5’6” tall. Which of the following male celebrities, if any, is taller than Lil Wayne? Dustin Hoffman, Billy Joel, Ryan Seacrest, Usher.
- Pestilence. Acc. to the biblical Book of Exodus, and mentioned in the Quran, how many plagues were inflicted upon Egypt to persuade Pharaoh to release the ill-treated Israelites from slavery?