Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

I got to introduce the bike-commuting advocate Paul Dorn to my Silicon Valley Journalism students this morning, and thus was unavailable to compose thoughtful insights on important topics by my regular due date of 10:30 on a Monday morning. As a result, today’s newsletter contains mostly hints. Next week I may talk more about transportation concerns.

Tonight’s Pub Quiz will address the following topics: the ante-chambers of a queen, bad occupation choices, sports numbers that are divisible by three, industrial banks, realty stats, biopics and many other films, killer apps, Kali, invertebrates, light, African names, feeling free, spheres, moderately great Americans who appear in bad films, quickenings, sleep deprivation, characters named Julie, South America, Pacific rim films in which flowers are braided into the hair of lead actors, measurements, indirect Halloween, golden arrows, scary books, one-word titles, big films, October 27, food and “drink,” things mapped by Ptolemy, world capitals, the Cold War, Swedish culture, football, and Shakespeare.

Happy Halloween! Tonight, in celebration of the holiday, I shall wear black.

Your Quizmaster

https://www.yourquizmaster.com

http://www.twitter.com/yourquizmaster

http://www.facebook.com/yourquizmaster

yourquizmaster@gmail.com

Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:

1. Newspaper Headlines.  Facebook and Apple have established new policies in which they will pay for female employees to freeze their WHAT?

1. World History. In what city was Archduke Ferdinand assassinated in 1914?

1. Pop Culture – Music. What Lorde song has recently been banned from radio play in San Francisco?

1. Four for Four. Which of the following A-List celebrities, if any, has ever been married? Johnny Depp, Cameron Diaz, Jack Nicholson, Oprah Winfrey.

1. Science.   Up until the early part of what decade did most astronomers think that all of the stars in the universe were contained inside of the Milky Way? Was it the 1620s, 1720s, 1820s, or 1920s?

P.S. Thanks to all Pub Quiz participants who stay until the end of the evening’s entertainment to discover who has won. The winners and the staff appreciate your patience.

Dear Friends of the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz,

We were lucky to have the internationally acclaimed poet and playwright James Ragan visit Davis this past week, performing at the John Natsoulas Gallery and on the UC Davis campus. Ragan impresses audiences with his stories, with the many movie-stars and heads of state with whom he has worked and performed, and the quality of his poetry, much of which he has memorized.

One of my favorites of the poems Ragan keeps in his head is titled “Rilke on the Conveyor Belt at Los Angeles International” (found at the website of the journal Rattapallax):

RILKE ON THE CONVEYOR BELT

AT LOS ANGELES INTERNATIONAL

A rick of pages, it falls hardly noticed

into motion, and down the track, unspined,

it cycles time between a rucksack and laundry.

A book no thicker than a wallet or a comb,

it is the unworthy carry-on, newly bought,

colliding with a carpetbag and steamer

on the unlikely navigation into being

where it’s not. Each passenger has watched it

circle more than once, a bold intrusion

into the archipelago of things familiar.

There is no fixed point of concentration,

no laughter, no elation when the eyes dissect

the slow descent of baggage into orbit

as if in taking up an armstrap, each handler

slews a body to the spars of his shoulder.

Had Rilke himself fallen, unbound,

lying in united state, he would have passed

unnoticed by the baggage check or porter

who fail to think it odd or such a pity

to tag him at the lost and found.

How many miles had his words trespassed,

how many cities, alive, unread

among so many ports of authority, a gold leaf

of art so grand in the pall of memory

it gives the mind encouragement to survive.

Unless, unsung like a soldier’s duffel, duty bound,

fear spreads its tarp along the spine of language.

Creation can end this way, abrupt and final,

like travel to the ends of the world

with no intent, or vision, but destination.

(from LUSIONS, Grove/Atlantic)

I hope you are making time in your life for great performances.

Tonight’s pub quiz will feature questions on U.S. Presidents, the Dalai Lama, football, early film pioneers, nearly defunct companies that start with the letter S, illuminated readings, California companies, A-List celebrities such as Johnny Depp, the cities where famous events took place, mountains, star-gazing though the centuries, meditation, sports that surround, Star Wars, people who have appeared on Seinfeld, British poets with whom you are familiar, political parties, prime numbers, Hamlet’s ethic, knights, big arrivals, the Boston Consulting Group, John Lescroart’s original fiction to be performed by a talented Sacramento actor Saturday night at the Pence Gallery, genetics, South American, and the topics of a few questions that I haven’t written yet, including the Shakespeare question.

If you bring a new person or a new team to the Pub Quiz tonight, which I encourage, make sure to introduce me to the newcomers. See you tonight!

Your Quizmaster

https://www.yourquizmaster.com

http://www.twitter.com/yourquizmaster

http://www.facebook.com/yourquizmaster

yourquizmaster@gmail.com

Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:

1. Mottos and Slogans.         Starting with the letter P, what Japanese company founded in 1955 uses the slogan “Ideas for Life”?

1. Internet Culture. What successful American international commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington has revealed plans to open its first ever brick and mortar store in New York City?

1. Newspaper Headlines.  According to the ranking firm Interbrand, what is the world’s most valuable brand?

1. Four for Four.    According to the most recent polling, which of the following Republican governors, if any, has greater than 50% approval rating by voters in his state? Chris Christie, Bobby Jindal, Rick Perry, Scott Walker. If for some reason you don’t know which US State one of these governors is from, that would be embarrassing.

5. Oscar-Winners. What do the following Oscar-winning actresses have in common? Julie Andrews, Jennifer Hudson, Lupita Nyong’o, Anna Paquin, Barbra Streisand. We know it is not country of origin, for Lupita Nyong’o was born in Mexico.

P.S. What are your Halloween costume plans this year?

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

Thinking back, I believe now that my family and I were the troublemakers in my Washington, D.C. neighborhood. During the 1970s, my mom would throw parties (salons, really) that were exclusively attended by women, sometimes too many women to fit in our Glover Park row house. I bet they didn’t make too much noise, but I’m sure some of the neighbors were scratching their heads.

My brother Oliver and I often did explore the joy of volume when we later encountered rock and roll. At a yard sale I picked up a large drum with a taut serpentine spring across its surface. We discovered that if one were to sufficiently increase the volume on the hi-fi while playing Queen’s “Another One Bites the Dust,” the spring on the drum would vibrate sympathetically with the deep bass of the song, providing “live” percussive accompaniment. You can imagine how much the neighbors appreciated this auditory experiment.

Oliver and I played a lot of Frisbee back then, throwing the disk back and forth to each other in the front yard. Our front yard was only about 15’ by 20’, so we would take advantage of the yards of the adjoining homes. One time we realized that we could listen to our favorite records while playing Frisbee merely by moving the huge speakers of our record player to the front door and the front window. One of our elderly neighbors, who I haven’t thought of in a long time, and who has probably been dead for 25 years, dropped by to talk to us about the volume of our music, inquiring whether or not we were hard of hearing. I think he once worked for the Central Intelligence Agency.

The Shambhala Buddhist Lama Sakyong Mipham once said that “Like gravity, karma is so basic we often don’t even notice it.” I found myself reflecting on karma this morning when deciding what to do about our neighbor’s dog. Perhaps our neighbor, too, is hard of hearing, for after she lets her dog out at 10 PM, 1 AM, or, most mornings, 6 AM, she seems not to hear the incessant barking that has fractured our sleep. That dog has a message that can be easily hard over the collective message of I-80, built along the same road that Mark Twain took to visit San Francisco, or the subtler message of the crickets, who perhaps are celebrating that all the frogs have disappeared. I sometimes wonder if that dog is the insistent reincarnated soul of that elderly neighbor who seeks to remind me of my childhood appreciation of the deep bass, the sympathetic drum, and the speakers in the windows of our home on Tunlaw Road.

Tonight’s Pub Quiz will feature questions about fathers and sons, Japanese companies, bricks and mortar, Republican governors, Oscar-winners (including one born in Mexico), women who are not Taylor Swift, football on television, wrestling, missing systems, POTUS, stingers, times and places to wear jeans, two unusual words (so bring your linguist), musicians, “yule lines” for Santa, tabloid rumors, that which binds and limits, martial arts, best-selling memoirs, rich white dudes, African countries, organic chemistry, big prizes, awful diseases, Greek cities, Las Vegas, IT workers, and Shakespeare.

Do join us tonight for the fun.

Your Quizmaster

https://www.yourquizmaster.com

http://www.twitter.com/yourquizmaster

http://www.facebook.com/yourquizmaster

yourquizmaster@gmail.com

Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:

1. Mottos and Slogans.   What product used this tagline? “Image is nothing. Thirst is everything. Obey your thirst.”

1. Internet Culture. Yesterday was the anniversary of the death of Steve Jobs. How many years?

1. California. After LA and San Diego, what is the third most-populous city in California?

1. Four for Four. Which of the following states, if any, are home to the closest 2014 midterm Senate races (with less than a 4% spread)? Colorado, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Michigan.

1. Sports.   The number of medals that Michael Phelps has won is also the same as the following: the sixth discrete semiprime number, the atomic number of titanium, the retired jersey numbers of Jim Palmer, Clyde Drexler, and Emmit Smith, the number of yards in a chain, and the name of a song on Taylor Swift’s album Red.

P.S. James Ragan reads Thursday night at 9 at the John Natsoulas Gallery, and you should come. James Ragan is an internationally recognized poet, playwright, and essayist. Translated into 12 languages, he has authored 8 books of poetry including The Hunger Wall and The World Shouldering I.  He has read for six heads of state and in 1985, was one of 4 poets including Seamus Heaney, Bob Dylan and Robert Bly, invited to perform at the First International Poetry Festival in Moscow.  Honors include three Fulbright Professorships, two Honorary Doctorates, the Emerson Poetry Prize, 8 Pushcart Prize nominations, a Poetry Society of America Citation, and the Swan Foundation Humanitarian Award.  Ragan’s plays have been staged in the U.S, Russia, Greece, and China. He has worked on staff during the making of The Godfather and in production on The Deer Hunter, The Border and recently, The House. He is the subject of a documentary, “Flowers and Roots,” based on his life in the arts (Arina Films, 2014). For 25 years he directed the Professional Writing Program at the University of Southern California.

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

The fall quarter has finally begun for me, for I’ve just finished teaching my first writing class: “Topics in Journalism: Silicon Valley and Internet Culture.” In some ways, I’ve been in training to teach this class since I first started hosting “Dr. Andy’s Poetry and Technology Hour” on KDVS back in the year 2000.

Sometimes I envy people who work just the one job. I’ve been a journalist for the entirety of this century, but I’ve also been a university faculty member, an ed-tech administrator, an arts and poetry activist, a published author, a marrying minister and, of course, a quizmaster. Just this past Thursday, one of the members of one of our most regular teams, The Mavens, said that she had trouble recognizing me in my multicolored Poetry Night shirt rather than the authoritative black I wear Monday nights. With all these jobs, I sometimes feel like the speaker of the Talking Heads song “Life During Wartime,” who says,

We dress like students, we dress like housewives,

or in a suit and a tie.

I changed my hairstyle so many times now,

I don’t know what I look like!

As Whitman says, “I am large, I contain multitudes.” I wish for simpler lives for my students. How great to focus on the one occupation, say, being a journalist, and spend a lifetime moving towards expertise, and then to mastery! The dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov knew that the benefits of this sort of mastery can come with the sort of obsessive focus from which everyone in the audience benefits. Baryshnikov said, “No matter what I try to do or explore, my Kirov training, my expertise, and my background call me to return to dancing after all, because that’s my real vocation, and I have to serve it.”

That said, Baryshnikov has also been nominated for an Academy Award and a Golden Globe for his acting. I guess sometimes the focus he brings to one vocation can translate to another.

Tonight’s Pub Quiz will feature questions on food and drink, because one of the Fairfield School moms keeps demanding it. Expect also questions about that which must be obeyed, incendiaries, contemporary captains of industry, unemployment, favorite US states, North of LA, the iPhone 6, the Periodic Table, American patriots, French words, exes, tire production, solo praise, baseball, noses, darkness, sustaining books, coagulation, platinum songs, the Mediterranean Sea, potatoes, Pilgrims, ice, weariness, poetry, Formula One drama, going hungry, grizzled leaders, curious cases, alliterative names in movies, Paris, snakes, that which is rich and fantastic, A-listers, graphic novels, words that begin with E, metals, and Shakespeare.

The Mavens won’t be joining us tonight, regrettably, so there might be room in the packed pub for your team if you arrive by 6:30 for tonight’s edition of the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz!

See you tonight.

Your Quizmaster

https://www.yourquizmaster.com

http://www.twitter.com/yourquizmaster

http://www.facebook.com/yourquizmaster

yourquizmaster@gmail.com

Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:

1. Internet Culture. Yesterday CNET ran with a headline that read “Meet BLANK, the social network that wants to be the anti-Facebook.” Fill in the blank.

1. U.S. Geography. The only location in the U.S. where four states meet, what are the four states that touch “Four Corners” in the southwest?

1. Space Travel. What was the name of the lunar module used on the Apollo 11 moon landing mission?

1. Four for Four. Which of the following prominent men, if any, was the son of a mother or father born in Syria? F. Murray Abraham, Mahatma Gandhi, Steve Jobs, Freddie Mercury.

1. Pop Culture – Music. Two artists have simultaneously occupied the top three positions of Billboard’s Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. One is 50 Cent. What is the mononym of the other?

P.S. This coming Saturday at noon at the David Public Library my wife Kate and I will be speaking on a panel about raising kids with special needs. And then the next day, Sunday the 12^th at 1 PM, I will be reading new poetry at the Davis Cemetery’s Celebration of Life. I am opening for Grateful Dead keyboardist Bob Bralove. I hope to see you at one of these events!

P.P.S. Also expect film questions tonight.

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

September is almost over, and with it for me an extended season of officiated weddings. This morning a new bride thanked me for bringing a little bit of Davis to her wedding in Sacramento this past weekend. As an Aggie alum, she meant this as a compliment, but we might wonder what it means to bring a bit of Davis to another location, and how comfortable others are with this importing of 95616.

Last night my wife Kate and I were discussing the inevitable culture shock that any of us would feel when visiting another part of the country, or another part of the world. During visits this past summer, some of Kate’s Chicago friends accused her of being too slender, for example, while we know that, because of concerning family health history, Kate’s focus is entirely on health and fitness. In my experience, here in Davis we support each other’s best health choices with frequent talk about nutrition and exercise.

We sometimes find ourselves in times and places in our lives where it is difficult to make healthy choices. In some parts of the country, and in some parts of California, the food choices are so limited (or the television advertising so pervasive) that people grab the default prepackaged foods that can stay “fresh” a long time on the store shelf. By contrast, here in Davis we generally appreciate and choose the fresh foods we can find at the farmers market, the Davis Food Co-op, and in our salads at de Vere’s Irish Pub. Likewise, while in some cities people spend a lot of time complaining about lengthy commutes and expensive parking, here in Davis our Mayor Pro-Tem Robb Davis gives public speeches about how and why he decided to give up the family car. And I think we lead the nation in the percentage of our residents who commute by bicycle.

I would guess that most people who live in Mobile, Alabama or Fairbanks, Alaska hope that their value system – one that reflects local interests and influences – will spread to other parts of the country, and be adopted by people who quickly admit the wisdom of the conversion. We certainly feel that way here, with the hopes that all of us will make healthy choices about sustainability (and, for that matter, about conflict resolution and respect for diversity). I’m sure some people wonder whether our own organic, non-smoking and often gluten-free Weltanschauung is rooted in generosity, or just our own Davis brand of provincialism. Our summer vacations are over, but perhaps we could all benefit from additional travel opportunities in 2014.

Tonight’s Pub Quiz will feature questions about British history, muscles (two questions), CNET, Syria, US states, space travel, Mononyms, athletes with incredible discipline, Nobel Laureates, wits, speed, unusual words that start with the letter T, mayors, fictional names that are anagrams of one another, thicknesses, putting the children first, geniuses, controversial books, Oscar-winners, short titles, dead favorites, nine-letter places I have not yet visited, jazz musicians, funny nicknames, prominent living Americans, and Shakespeare. Regrettably, the Quiz will not include any mention of the word Weltanschauung.

I don’t know if you have noticed, but the UC Davis students have returned, and their parents are visiting. Consequently, I encourage you to come early to tonight’s Pub Quiz in order to secure a table. See you then!

Your Quizmaster

https://www.yourquizmaster.com

http://www.twitter.com/yourquizmaster

http://www.facebook.com/yourquizmaster

yourquizmaster@gmail.com

Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:

1. Internet Culture. According to the Wall Street Journal, how many new iPhones did Apple sell this past weekend? Was it closest to 100,000, one million, ten million, or 100 million? Most teams answered this question correctly.

1. Famous Ships. The ship that took Charles Darwin on his famous research trip in the 1830s was the HMS WHAT? Shouldn’t everyone know this?

1. That Crazy Rand Paul. Rand Paul recently said in a speech that he would like to eliminate all executive orders by all U.S. Presidents ever in the history of our nation. What does your host, Dr. Andy, feel to be the most important of our nation’s executive orders so far? Not everyone answered this correctly, but I think everyone agreed with my opinion. A curve-ball question.

1. Four for Four.    Which of the following stars of the film The Hunger Games, if any, were born in Kentucky? Woody Harrelson, Josh Hutcherson, Jennifer Lawrence, Stanley Tucci. People like me to ask Hunger Games and Harry Potter questions.

1. Science.   What seven-letter adjective do we use for the waves caused by an earthquake?       I liked the incorrect answer “Tsunami” for this question. Clever, but wrong.

P.S. On this coming Thursday evening, Poetry Night will feature the work of two Davisites: Julia Levine and Denise Lichtig. Both are talented writers, and both are well known in Davis for reasons outside of (or in addition to) their poetry. I hope you will join us Thursday at 8 at the John Natsoulas Gallery.

1. Mottos and Slogans.    According to the advertising slogan, “There are some things money can’t buy. For everything else, there’s WHAT?”

2. Internet Culture. What company confirmed it’ll acquire the studio that created the hit “sandbox” game Minecraft for $2.5 billion?

3. French Words. The most common French word for “bread shop” or “bakery” start with what letter?

4. Four for Four.  Which of the following were parents to three children? Hamlet Sr., King Lear, Prospero, Shakespeare himself.

5. Pop Culture – Music. The biggest hit for American dance duo Reel 2 Real was a 1993 reggae fusion Eurodance number that became the theme song for the Madagascar animated films. In the song, the speaker repeatedly proclaims that he likes to do something. According to the song’s title, what does he like to do?

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

One of my favorite faculty members at UC Davis is an art history professor named Hegnar Watenpaugh. She and I met with a couple of her colleagues this morning to talk about the sustained and sustaining importance of art and art history to Art History majors at UC Davis, and too many other undergraduates. The conversation was so enjoyable and so lengthy, that I barely have had time today to share with you the hints for tonight’s Pub Quiz.

I added a Picasso question in honor of my friend Hegnar. Expect also questions about money, bread, sandboxes, four, Eurodance, and young NBA stars. Expect also questions about grandiloquence, food measurements, nitrogen, drama, and champagne. Many people like reggae, if they give it a chance. And everyone appreciates inspiring quotations, even skeptical hipsters who mock them. Tonight you will find questions about elderly bigots, Flying, Thomas Edison, and presidents of the United States. Every month is poetry month for me, but tonight we will also talk about theater, British politics, faraway national parks, and moose. If you have been listening to National Public Radio this week, and reading all of the most sophisticated magazines, journals, and blogs, I’m sure that you will do well on tonight’s pub quiz. I have not yet written the Shakespeare question.

See you tonight!

Your Quizmaster

https://www.yourquizmaster.com

http://www.twitter.com/yourquizmaster

http://www.facebook.com/yourquizmaster

yourquizmaster@gmail.com

Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:

1. Newspaper Headlines.  As you may have heard, fire has broken out on Colossus roller coaster at Six Flags Magic Mountain, destroying part of the roller coaster at its crest. North of Los Angeles, what V city is home to the still smoldering ride?

1. Police Officers. Inspector Abbeline, a real-life policeman who has been played by Michael Caine, Johnny Depp, and Hugo Weaving, most famously tried to catch a man named Aaron Kosminski. By what name is Kosminski better known?

1. Four for Four.    Which of the following, if any, are among the top four most popular boy names in the United States? James, John, Matthew, William.

1. Pop Culture – Music. Brothers Guy and Howard Lawrence are the lead singers behind the English electronic music duo who had a hit with the song “Latch.” Please disclose to me their name.

1. Science.   What R word do we use for the hydrocarbon secretion of many plants, particularly coniferous trees?

P.S. Poetry Night takes place this coming Thursday. I hope you can join us at the John Natsoulas Gallery at 8!

Madame X by John Singer Sargent

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

I spent my weekend making new friends and celebrating the wedding of one of my favorite couples.

Imagine standing in an outdoors clearing, called “the chapel” by the longtime attendees of a camp in the Napa Hills. The wedding Officiant directs those congregated to behold the trees, the topography, the wildlife, the stream that they had just passed over, and the many sounds of the birds and insects around them. The sensory data of such a place could easily overwhelm until we realize our great advantage of being in such a holy place on a Saturday: we don’t need to make sense of it. How marvelous to behold such natural wonders with the sensibilities of the child or the poet: totally unhurried, and blissfully disconnected from our phones and other screens.

Such a place is wondrous in part because of the unusual stillness of the place. We spend most of our lives rushing about. The bride and groom, for example, are two of the most accomplished people I know, and their gaits are as quick as their intellects. My wife Kate often remarks to me how impressively fast they walk, as if their enthusiasm for the sports they love drives their momentum. He on his skis, and she on her bicycle, they are lovers of speed. The poet Dante said “The wisest are the most annoyed at the loss of time,” and certainly this bride and groom waste no time. Wise people indeed.

A clearing gives one a moment to pause and reflect. The importance of a clearing is found in the contrast with what is found around it. We spend most of our lives walking though challenging terrain, crashing through the underbrush, becoming more accomplished and more impressive. Our resumes and our LinkedIn profiles grow and grow. Sometimes I find it a wonder that we have time to meet each other at all.

The bride and groom are much beloved, and the story of the birth of their relationship is well known to those who have gathered. Soon after they met (or re-met), he was leaving for a London visit to give some talks and enjoy some theatre. She asked for details: flight numbers and itineraries. Such bravery and confidence! Soon his departure date became their departure date. Ambitious, curious, and joyful: they have found adventure together.

And now in this magical clearing, they are, as Stevie Wonder would say, “Happier than the Morning Sun.” To each half of this lucky and esteemed couple, I say, you have met your match. I am honored to be one of many who applaud that union.

Tonight’s Pub Quiz will feature questions on the following topics: Joan Rivers, unusual sports, faraway republics, appliances, cruising in the slow lane, James and John, the right track, Hugo Weaving, Forbes’ obsession with salaries, coniferous gifts, Saskatchewan farmers, public mistakes, Elton John, women who walk in beauty, England, biological ubiquity, Russia, measurements in kilometers, Seth Rogen, bird books, Czechs, alphabetical athletes, Benjamin Disraeli, De Vere Ancestors, wordy fears of conservative politicians, openings, Hank Williams, the accused, California, poetry, and Shakespeare.

We had a couple open tables last week because of the September 1 transitions in Davis. I hope you will come fill those seats tonight!

Your Quizmaster

https://www.yourquizmaster.com

http://www.twitter.com/yourquizmaster

http://www.facebook.com/yourquizmaster

yourquizmaster@gmail.com

Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:

1. Mottos and Slogans.    What magazine’s motto is a phrase that in Davis might be considered an insult: “The Capitalist Tool”?  

2. Internet Culture. Apple’s planned introduction of a wearable product would mark Apple’s first entry into a new device category since the introduction of WHAT?

3. Newspaper Headlines. President Obama told Vanity Fair in 2012 that he only wore blue or grey suits so that he would not waste any of his decision-making energy. Nevertheless, last week at his “we have no strategy” press conference, the President wore a suit of a different color. I am thinking of only one color that is the correct answer. Name the color.

4. Four for Four.   Bartenders are some of my favorite laborers, so let’s remember them on Labor Day. Which of the following rum cocktails, if any, have been designated as “IBA Official Cocktails” by the International Bartenders Association? Brass Monkey, Cuba Libre, Mojito, Sundowner.

5. Headphones. In 2012, what company’s U.S. market share was 64% for headphones priced higher than $100?   

P.S. Henry Renau will be our featured poet on September 18th. henry 7. reneau, jr. attended UC, Davis double-majoring in English and African/African-American Studies. He has been published in more than a 120 journals and anthologies, among them, Nameless Magazine; Mandala Literary Journal; The Chaffey Review; Rufous City Review; Black Arts Quarterly; The View From Here; Empirical Magazine; FOLLY Magazine: Entering: Davis Poetry Book Project Anthology; Tule Review; BlazeVOX; Suisun Valley Review; Tidal Basin Review; and Storm Cycle, 2013 Best of Anthology from Kind of a Hurricane Press. He was the winner of, and received an Honorable Mention, in the SN&R Student Poetry Contest for 2008. He was the 2nd place winner of an Academy of American Poets Prize (Celeste Turner Wright Poetry Prize, 2008), and placed 3rd in the 2009 Annual Jack Kerouac Poetry Contest. His upcoming poetry collection, freedomland blues (Transcendent Zero Press, 2014) will be released in September of 2014. He also has an upcoming e-book, physiography of the fittest (Kind of a Hurricane Press, 2014), to be released in November of 2014. Additionally, he has also self-published a chapbook entitled 13hirteen Levels of Resistance, and is currently working on a book of connected short stories.

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

This coming weekend I get to officiate the wedding of a couple that I met through the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz. Having spent time at many meals and a few poetry readings since, I am beyond excited and honored to play a part in this joyous event this coming weekend. What’s more, the Davis couple in question are both musical and artsy, so there will be many performances and arts and crafts tables at this days-long event. Even Kate will be joining me this weekend, the first wedding of mine she will have attended, at least since our own.

On Labor Day 22 years ago Kate and I concluded our own days-long celebration of friends and family in Hinsdale, Illinois. A gentle mist began to fall upon our closest friends and family at our outdoor event right after we finished (obviously we didn’t get married in California), and at the indoor reception we dined heartily on Middle Eastern food before heading upstairs to the dance floor. On the second floor, we all danced so exuberantly that the DJ had to elevate the record player (!) to compensate for the juddering.

A recent unscientific poll of the members of my household revealed that very few people know the verb “To judder.” Therefore, you shouldn’t expect it to appear on tonight’s Pub Quiz. That wouldn’t be fair.

Speaking of the earth moving, I will be performing a poem before the City Council tomorrow evening at 6:30 and using metaphors stolen from Facebook responses to our recent earthquake. Immediately before or after that performed poem, I will be elevated to the position of Poet Laureate of Davis. There will be refreshments at this event, and you are invited to the City Council chambers to join us. You are not obligated to stay for the rest of the proceedings, though the Public Comments are often entertaining.

Tonight’s Pub Quiz will feature questions about capitalists, new device entries, decision-making energy, brass monkeys, market share, injection molded plastic, laboring in soft soil, dudes named William, short sports memories, indeterminism, transporting products (out), rhetorical repetitions, figurative oysters, movies, basketball, new brides, islands, popular books, swimming mammals, geometry, art history, noblemen, U.S. states, children’s books, Ellie Awards, holiday films, “it” boys, puffier postmen (such as Newman), football, pop music, torches, traveling France, contingencies, federated states, and Shakespeare. Sometimes something happens on a Monday afternoon that necessitates a substituted Pub Quiz question, and on a topic not anticipated by the above clues. Be advised.

Labor Day marks a change in the Pub Quiz season. Whether you are exhausted from moving, eager to start a new year at school or work, or managing other sorts of transitions, I hope you will still join us tonight at the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz! As you know, it’s often advisable for you and your team to arrive by 6 PM if you want to claim a favorite table.

Your Quizmaster

https://www.yourquizmaster.com

http://www.twitter.com/yourquizmaster

http://www.facebook.com/yourquizmaster

yourquizmaster@gmail.com

Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:

1. Common Words. The most common English word that begins and ends with the Y has nine letters total. Name it.   

1. Robin Williams. Robin Williams played Teddy Roosevelt in the Night at the Museum movies, including one to be released in 2015. What 20th century US President did he play in the film Lee Daniels’ The Butler?

1. Pop Culture – Music. The hammers inside a piano are typically padded with what monosyllabic material?

1. Sports.   Manny Pacquiao is a boxer and politician from what country?

1. Science.   Butterhead, crisphead, leaf, oil, summerhead, and stem are cultivars of what?

One of my favorite wedding invitations