Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,
Last night we sat down as a family to watch The Wizard of Oz, with all three of the children seeing it for the first time. My wife Kate and I had forgotten much of the Kansas part of the film, while the Technicolor sections remained vivid and familiar, perhaps because of the repeated playing of the soundtrack in my Washington DC home. The Wizard of Oz continues to be important to generations of young people, and remains the most watched film of all time, because of its implied commentary on the magic of filmmaking, and by extension, of the imagination. The scene of Dorothy stepping through the doorway, from sepia Kansas farmhouse to the rainbow-hued sculpted gardens of Munchkinland, reminds us that film and other arts can stir us to wonder, to curiosity, and to our own brave acts of creativity.
Filmgoers in America and elsewhere needed a cinematic never-land to escape to, for just a week after the release of the film, Germany invaded Poland, initiating World War II. Four years after the release of the film, Bob Hope introduced Judy Garland so she could sing “Over the Rainbow” for American troops fighting in World War II. The song had become an American anthem, where the eventual stability of post-war life stateside had become the “somewhere” of the song’s refrain, rather than the film’s earlier focus on escaping Kansas.
Music and other arts can sustain us during trying times, including during international conflict. Churchill is purported to have been a fan of the arts. It was once suggested to Winston Churchill that he cut funding to the arts to pay for Britain’s war, to which he responded “Then what would we be fighting for?” Sadly, no one could find a precise source for this popular quotation which has been pasted as a meme on a thousand Facebook walls. We do know that French Canadian author Gabrielle Roy said, “Could we ever know each other in the slightest without the arts?” The source? The back of every Canadian $20 bill. Do Britain and Canada know something about the arts that we have not embraced in the U.S., home to Judy Garland, Jackson Pollock, and Jazz?
We have used our homespun creativity to remember those who have given their lives so that we might freely debate such topics. Since the Civil War, we have chosen a Monday in the spring to celebrate our war dead by decorating their tombstones with the plethora of available flowers, another example of Americans using creativity and artistry to brighten all of our lives, even during an otherwise somber occasion. Happy Memorial Day to you and your families. Let’s remember that today’s holiday was earned.
Some of the aforementioned topics will come up on today’s and future pub quizzes. Expect also questions on English kings, thrilling finishes, mansions, Nobel prizes, Emily Dickinson, poisons, unexpected tallies, European destinations, GDP in Euros, Kurt Russell, familiar books, linguistics, Captains, serving requests, beer, rainbow varieties, a hero’s broader worth, purposeful flowers, courage, general command, public enemies, squash cultivars, London real estate, video games, imagined destinations, and Shakespeare.
See you this evening!
Your Quizmaster
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Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:
- Film. The Breath of God, The Word of God and The Path of God are the names of the three tests that what recognizable cinematic hero had to pass to reach the Holy Grail?
- Irish Culture. Are potatoes the 1st, second, third, or fourth world’s largest food crop?
- Countries of the World. According to a 2010 survey from the Pew Research Center’s Religion & Public Life Project, 80% of the people in Burma practice what religion?
- Standing Armies. Starting with the letter C, and about 4400 kilometers from Los Angeles, what country permanently abolished its army in 1949, becoming the first of only a few sovereign nations without a standing army?
- Science. How long does it take sunlight to reach the Earth? Is it closest to 8 seconds, 80 seconds, 8 minutes, or 80 minutes?
P.S. This summer I hope to launch a service that would allow Pub Quiz enthusiasts to subscribe to our weekly quiz. Do you know non-Davisites who might be interested in such an opportunity?
P.P.S. “Valor grows by daring, fear by holding back.” Publilius Syrus