Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,
Happy Patriots’ Day! When I was a Bostonian, I relished having a Monday off in late April. My friends and I would either watch the Boston Marathon runners go by from one of our dormrooms, or head out to the sideline of the race to cheer on the finishers. I have heard that the cheering was particularly loud this year. I suspect that if I were running the race this time, I still would not have crossed the finish line as this newsletter goes to print.
I probably should have joined a running group when I lived in Boston, for I would have benefited from the inspiration provided by regular runners. As the Stoic philosopher Epictetus said, “The key is to keep company only with people who uplift you, whose presence calls forth your best.” I tended to run solo: along and across the Charles River to Cambridge, home to the great bookstores; along Commonwealth Avenue and then Newberry Street to end up at the Boston Common and Gardens which I had once learned about in childhood picture books; and sometimes out in some randomly chosen direction through neighborhoods that I sometimes revisit in my dreams. Alan Sillitoe explored this sort of determination to cover ground as a solo runner in his most famous book, The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner. He wrote: “You should think about nobody and go your own way, not on a course marked out for you by people holding mugs of water and bottles of iodine in case you fall and cut yourself so that they can pick you up – even if you want to stay where you are – and get you moving again.”
In Davis, of course, most of us bicycle instead of run, and we most often bike for transportation rather than for freedom-seeking exercise. I wonder to what extent the City of Davis took a hit during the aftermath of Lance Armstrong’s duplicity, his betrayal of all those who cheered him on. Had he been a legitimate champion, our US Bicycling Hall of Fame would have had Armstrong appearing in vivid and perpetual exhibits, much like those Smithsonian Institution exhibits devoted to Captain America in the most recent Marvel film. By contrast, Armstrong’s accomplishments are obscured by the largest possible asterisk.
Willy Nelson recently came to Davis to perform at the Mondavi Center, causing some Davisites to revive the apocryphal remark supposedly shared by Nelson when the Armstrong scandal broke: “I think it is just terrible and disgusting how everyone has treated Lance Armstrong, especially after what he achieved, winning seven Tour de France races while on drugs. When I was on drugs, I couldn’t even find my bike.” Willie and Lance were friends, so who knows if the musician really said such a thing. Either way, the story is worth a chuckle. I just hope that however you venture to de Vere’s Irish Pub this evening, you will do so safely.
Tonight’s Pub Quiz will feature questions on Kill Bill, metal nuts, CEOs, civic holidays, perseverance and energy, newspaper headlines, things that are hastily sealed, acreage, buffalo milk (I know, again), wingmen, coaches, names in the news, American novelists, cops and their rotating partners, rumblings, medieval physiology, wandering popes, Star Wars, 129 countries, Amazon, American heroes and patriots, animation, familiar tunes, alliterative titles, real estate, publishers and polynomials, happy employees, odorlessness, running, lyrics of isolation, repeated names, India and Shakespeare.
Thanks to all of you who came to my book party on Saturday. We filled every chair in the John Natsoulas Gallery with about 120 people, and feel very lucky to be living in the City of Davis. Copies of Where’s Jukie are available at The Avid Reader in Davis.
I hope you will join us this evening for the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz!
Your Quizmaster
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Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:
- Mottos and Slogans. What energy corporation promises “Gasoline with Techron”?
- Internet Culture. What video game is set in municipalities such as Vice City, Liberty City, and San Andreas?
- Pop Culture – Music. What Canadian rock band was the second best-selling foreign act in the U.S. of the 2000s, behind The Beatles?
- Four for Four. Which of the following former world leaders, if any, were former mayors? Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Jimmy Carter, Nicolas Sarcozy, Margaret Thatcher.
- Name the Year. Tiger won his first Masters, Harry Potter was first published in the UK, and Ellen DeGeneres outed herself all in the same year. With a one-year margin, name the year.