Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

Who will be the third?

That was the question asked of me by a friend after we realized that Lauren Bacall had died the day after Robin Williams. The “rule of threes” applies to celebrity obituaries, we have been told, and so when two movie stars die in quick succession, we look for the third. Ed McMahon died in June of 2009, and then two days later we lost Michael Jackson and Farah Fawcett. Some conjected that the three appeared on the Tonight Show on the same day, but it turns out that that the two guest appeared a day apart, and Doc Severinsen was the guest announcer. We can be sure that the three encountered each other separately.

I remember looking through some old photographs after the death of my father, and seeing my dad on stage at some sort of awards ceremony in the 1970s with the late Andy Warhol and the late (columnist) Art Buchwald. These moments when iconic figures appear together remind us that we don’t often recognize the magic of synchronicity, or perhaps lucky happenstance. Amazingly, all the cast members of The Empire Strikes Back that I had met in 1980 – 34 years ago! – are still alive, and at least five of them will appear in the new Star Wars movie that is being filmed now (for the record, Alec Guinness did not do press for the Star Wars films, and Anthony Daniels was sick the day that I was walking around the Kennedy Center collecting autographs from Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Dave Prowse, and the like).

Still, a week after the death of Robin Williams, whose comedic energy and genius informed the lives of so many people born in the 60s, 70s, and 80s, we are left with the question: who is the third?

To many, the question is silly. I was shocked and saddened by the death of Robin Williams – on my radio show I spent 30 minutes discussing the meaning of his life and work with my own personal John Keating, jazz critic Will Layman – but when we consider the history of our nation, many say the more important death was that of Michael Brown, the African American teenager who had been shot six times by a Ferguson (Missouri) police officer, despite eyewitnesses reporting that Brown was unarmed and had his hands up in the air. His last words were “I don’t have a gun –stop shooting!”

Earlier this month a 22 year-old named John Crawford was talking to his mom on his cell phone while walking through the toy aisle at WalMart. Evidently another shopper had seen the young African American man picking out a toy gun, and had become alarmed. His last words, spoken to the police, were “it’s not real.”

Although no police were involved, we remember well what happened in Sanford, Florida two years ago. Some believe that 17 year-old Trayvon Martin’s last words were “What are you following me for?”

The 1955 kidnapping and murder of 14 year-old Emmett Till by men who, protected against “double jeopardy,” later admitted their crimes, helped to spark the Civil Rights movement.

What will the death of Michael Brown spark, beyond unrest and distrust in Ferguson, Missouri? We will have to see. Whether or not observers of the “Rule of Three” recognize Brown as the third notable person to have died last week, we can all be prompted to consider how we see the importance and function of celebrity in our culture. Although they can be entertaining, I doubt that weekly trivia contests help us value the important over the faddish.

Are you holding out for a hero? If one man has won over the community of Ferguson, it is Missouri Highway Patrol Captain Ron Johnson. Here’s what he said to a packed Greater Grace Church on Sunday:

“We all oughta be thanking the Browns for Michael, because Michael’s going to make it better for our sons, so they can be better black men, better for our daughters so they can be better black women. Better for me so I can be a better black father, and you know they’re gonna make our mamas even better than they are today.”

The people of Ferguson need to hear such encouraging words, but time will tell if Ron Johnson and other Missouri and government leaders can restore the peace, justice and freedom from police mistreatment that all of us deserve.

Tonight’s Pub Quiz will feature questions about celebrities and other amusing diversions. They will include Irish students, Fifes, hits that mattered, living legends, young adult literature, chromosomes, supervillains with German nicknames, fresh water, proposals, islands, runners and more runners, Mark Twain quotations, Kurt Weill and other composers, public radio, people named Davis, Billy the Kid, Anthony Tommasini, thigh crawlers, African American heroes, old shows, Czechs, words that start with the letter C (such as compromise), free states, shrubs, coffee, the City of Davis, movie theatres, dogs, social networking, and self-referential commercial slogans.

This coming Thursday is Poetry Night in Davis. Read below for details.

See you tonight in the packed auditorium known as de Vere’s Irish Pub, Davis!

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 F, what 2005 book has the following tagline (subtitle): “A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything”?

1. Internet Culture. Which of the following is the fastest-growing demographic on Twitter? 15-25, 35-45, or 55-65.

1. Newspaper Headlines. For which film did the late actor and comedian Robin Williams win an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor?

1. Four for Four.  You know what the four largest US states are when measured by square miles of land, but which of the following, if any, are among the 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th largest? Arizona, Montana, New Mexico, Oregon.

1. Young Actors. Named one of TIME magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in The World in 2010, what 28 year-old started his acting career by playing Cedric Diggory in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire?   

P.S. This coming Thursday at 8 the Bakersfield poet Marit MacArthur will be reading at the John Natsoulas Gallery. Opening for her will be the Davis poet Mischa Erickson.

Marit MacArthur, Associate Professor of English at CSU Bakersfield, earned her MFA in poetry at Warren Wilson College in 2013. Her poems, reviews and translations from the Polish have appeared in Southwest Review, American Poetry Review, World Literature Today, Verse, The Yale Review, Contemporary Poetry Review, Poetry International, ZYZZYVA, Peregrine, Airplane Reading. In 2013 she won the Elizabeth Matchett Stover Award from Southwest Review. Her first manuscript of poems, Things to Do in Bakersfield in August, which won a grant from the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund, is making the rounds seeking a publisher.

The open mic will start at 8, and the de Vere’s Irish Pub after-party at 10. Join us for any or all!

Coming in Threes

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

Vacation for me means I get to choose my work. A painter must paint, and a musician must fill her home with glorious sounds. I get to write poems. To practice such activities is the job and the pleasure of the artist. My literary agent Michael Larsen has often quoted the advice that editor John Dodds used to share with writers: “If anything can stop you from becoming a writer, let it. If nothing can stop you, do it and you’ll make it.”

If you have a day job (or several), as I do, then the artistic work has to be snuck into the schedule, or the artist must give up something else, such as sleep or sanity. Do you know the “Pick Two Dynamic”? This is the advice given to the overachiever who needs to make some tough decisions about priorities. For instance, the college student is told this: “Good Grades, Enough Sleep, Social Life – Pick Two.” The cynical poster for the film Friends with Kids offered three checkboxes with the words “Love,” “Happiness,” and “Kids” next to them, along with the directive “Pick two.” For products and services, you usually get to pick “cheap,” “fast,” or “good,” but not all three.

This morning I’ve been writing a long poem rather than finishing this newsletter on time. My muse is gone, and thus my muse is with me all the time. If indeed absence makes the heart grow fonder, then I have sought to represent my fond heart in poems, some of which I rashly text to Kate the moment I finish them. And then the editing begins, as I create something that I hope someday would warrant a print appearance, rather than a merely a Facebook post.

So as I am on “vacation,” this is how my hours pass: doing work. “Nothing is really work unless you would rather be doing something else,” or so said J.M. Barrie, and really I would not rather be doing anything more right now than writing poems to Kate and spending time with my patient and wordless boy Jukie. Of course, tomorrow all this poetic productivity will end and the storytelling will begin as Jukie and I head off to the airport to retrieve the rest of the family.

Meanwhile, Kate has seen tonight’s Pub Quiz. She identified the unusual word, but had to rack her brain (which I don’t advise) when answering the questions about film directors. Expect also questions about hidden sides, Twitter, art galleries, rogue economists, big states, cities that are almost as big as Fort Worth, Harry Potter, American singers whom I had never heard of, the sport of cricket (your welcome), autographs, the French, two presidents, stability, script ROI, short stage names, third dashes, famous directors who are not named Hitchcock or Kurosawa, calling birds, world leaders, Europe, Madison Square Garden serenades, astrophysics, sibling Sarah, Sumo wrestlers, running shoes, equestrian needs, online demographics, African American literature, and Shakespeare.

The Pub was filled last Monday. Let’s fill it again 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.    “Because you’re worth it” is an advertising slogan of what company?

1. Internet Culture. What body of water is also a sequence of data elements made available over time?

1. The Golden Gate Bridge. The Golden Gate Bridge has been declared one of the Wonders of the Modern World by the American Society of Civil Engineers. What category of bridge is it?

1. Pop Culture – Music. The theme song for the CBS TV series Joan of Arcadia is a version of the 1995 hit “One of Us” in which we are repeatedly asked “What if God were one of us?” This song was the biggest hit by what female performer?

1. Sports.   With a $115 million dollar contract about to be signed, QB Andy Dalton is officially the face of what NFL franchise?

P.S. August is National Eye Exam Month. I very much appreciate the service I have received at Helmus Optometry on 2^nd Street here in Davis, and I am not just saying that because Joann Helmus sometimes participates in the Pub Quiz (though she should join us more often).

Pick Two (and fill in the corners)

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

Many people don’t know that the Steinbeck book title Of Mice and Men comes from a phrase coined by the 18^th century Scottish poet Robert Burns. The relevant late stanza of Burns’ poem “To a Mouse” requires a bit of translation:

But Mousie, thou art no thy-lane,

In proving foresight may be vain

The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men,

Gang aft agley,

An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,

For promis’d joy!

When Burns uses the compound word “thy-lane” to mean “on your own,” he identifies with the mouse whose winter nest has just been unexpectedly upturned by the speaker’s plow.

The simpler our needs, like those of the mouse, Burns suggests, the easier it is for us to recover from unexpected challenges. When we seek to exert control, and to set ambitious schedules for ourselves (I’m guilty of the latter), then mishaps can quickly become seeming disasters.

This week I’ve been meeting with couples to help them plan their wedding days. A registered minister, I get to officiate three weddings this summer, including my first same-sex wedding this coming Saturday. The people I counsel during such meetings usually look to me for some wisdom about ceremonies and relationships. Sometimes I start to offer the new couples reflections on my own wedding day, but I quickly realize that the perspective of that day seems so remote to the eager young betrotheds whom I seek to advise. What can be learned from a 1963 or 1992 wedding story? For our part, Kate and I were joined by seven parents, five of whom participated by reading original poetry or stories during the ceremony. The patient congregation seemed to enjoy the talent show.

As atypical as that day was, my parents’ wedding day may have been even more unusual and ambitious in a different way. Davey Marlin-Jones and Mary Ternes married at 10 (joined only by a minister, and a couple friends who served as witnesses and offered a toast). Then the newlyweds watched the afternoon showing of Lawrence of Arabia, a 222 minute long film, not counting the overture, intermission, and exit music. Then they rushed on to a fancy Italian restaurant before running out the door to see She Loves Me on Broadway.

My mom enjoyed the movie, but slept through most of the play (because of exhaustion, rather than because of the quality of the production, which won Jack Cassidy a Tony). Only when my mom told me this story last week did I understand the importance of the production’s title song, “She Loves Me,” being played on the record player so often in my family home during the early 1970s. The song triggered memories of a happier time.

Well, as the poet and divorce statistics remind us, our best laid plans “gang aft agley.” While my mom slept through the original production, my son Jukie and I endeavored to see the Davis Shakespeare Ensemble’s excellent presentation of She Loves Me this past Thursday. Well, we saw most of it. Late in the play, Jukie decided to “harmonize,” rather loudly, with the actors, necessitating our quick exit, just before the character Georg was joyously to sing the show’s most famous number. I missed it.

Walking the greenbelts of Davis with Jukie yesterday, I wistfully whistled “She Loves Me,” wishing I could share my theatre experiences – and so many others – with my late theatre director father. Reviewing the song again via YouTube (for we have the world’s songs available to us from any smartphone), I reflected on these lyrics, thought of my wife Kate, and remembered that not all plans go awry:

She loves me

And to my amazement

I love it knowing that she loves me

She loves me,

True, she doesn’t show it

How could she,

When she doesn’t know it.

Yesterday she loathed me, ah!

Now today she likes me, ah!

And tomorrow, tomorrow…

AAAAAAAAAAAh!

Not tomorrow, but a week from tomorrow, Kate and the bookend kids return from Chicago. She just saw a production of Godspell (written by Academy Award-winner Stephen Schwartz, who once lived in my basement), and we will have many stories to tell about music, theatre, and what Schwartz in a song title once called the “Gifts of Love.” We should all welcome such gifts, I think, as well as the gifts of poetry, theatre, and music. The arts can play the important role of helping us remember and relive the emotional highlights of our lives, and thus allow us to cross the gulfs of distance caused by distance, time, and death.

Tonight’s Pub Quiz will feature questions on the effect of time on data, Central America, guitars, the Wonders of the Modern World, ashes, dark shadows, books that should remain closed, the presence of God, Asian leopards, sitcom families, stature casting, pinball machines, overalls, deer hangouts, causation badges, hotels, my frostier cribbage (incomplete anagram hint), Liverpool, 12 multiplied by a number with a bunch of zeroes in it, Percy, Pearl, the population of American cities, Frederick Douglass Boulevard, geology (hello geologists), poetic mononyms, showering, basketball and football, only daughters, balloons, Ireland, and Shakespeare.

I hope you can join us tonight – we always have more fun when you are there.

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 unveiled in 1967 used the advertising slogan “Other potato chips just don’t stack up”?
2. Newspaper Headlines.   Yesterday the New York Times Editorial Board called for the federal legalization of what?
3. The United Nations. The number of past and current Secretaries General of the United Nations is equal to the atomic number of oxygen. What is this only positive Fibonacci number, aside from 1, that is a perfect cube?
4. Pop Culture – Music. What’s the M name of the Canadian reggae fusion band that has the country’s top hit this week, titled “Rude”?
5. Sports.   Thai, Burmese, Indian and French are all sub-categories of what specific sport?

P.S. Poetry Night returns to Davis this coming Thursday with a celebration of the Blue Moon Literary and Art Review. Join us at 8 PM for poems and stories, an open mic, and then the after party right here at the Pub (starting around 10).

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

I was “outed” in the newspaper last week. It’s true. It may be an “open secret” in many circles that I host a weekly trivia contest in an Irish pub in downtown Davis, but many of my colleagues at the University don’t know that I spend my time thus. On many an occasion I have encountered professional workmates at the Pub who impressed upon me how much respect they once had for me as a scholar and teacher. Perhaps this is why you won’t find my last name on my website or in the signature file of emails that I send out as your quizmaster. My lovely wife Kate has often questioned whether my attempts to maintain these two identities, and really, it should be said, a number of other identities as well, were at all practical or practicable. During my 14 years of hosting “Dr. Andy’s Poetry and Technology Hour” on local radio station KDVS, and in my professional resume which now stretches to an unwieldy 27 pages, you won’t find me mentioning the words “pub quiz.”

That said, this is how a Davis Enterprise recent article begins, ostensibly on the topic of my elevation to Davis Poet Laureate: “It’s hard not to run into UC Davis professor Andy Jones. On Monday nights, the English prof becomes the quiz master at de Vere’s Irish Pub, where he circles the crowded bar, microphone in hand, issuing questions to trivia fans.”

The article continues in this way: “On Wednesdays from 5 to 6 p.m., Jones broadcasts his long-standing radio show, “Dr. Andy’s Poetry and Technology Hour,” for which he’s interviewed everyone from novelist and poet Margaret Atwood to the late political cartoonist Rex Babin.”

“And on the first and third Thursdays, you’ll find him at the John Natsoulas Gallery, hosting a poetry reading, which he’s done for the past eight years.”

“Now as the city of Davis’ third poet laureate, Jones will be even more prominent as the city’s most well-known advocate for the arts.”

I feel like I am writing a Bob Dunning column, insofar as I am quoting others to fill my quota! Thanks to Enterprise reporter Rachel Uda, for getting the facts right. That’s refreshing.

So, how should I change my life and practices now that people know that Dr. Andy Jones is the Quizmaster at de Vere’s Irish Pub? Stay tuned.

Tonight’s Pub Quiz will feature questions on men’s jobs, famous Brits. The United Nations, hammers, The New York Times and other newspapers, YouTube, rude people, shoes, dogs, abs, protocols, poisons, science and technology, dissolution, the stature of great senators, movies that launched superstars, timeless sins of distraction, the death of John F. Kennedy, being in time, international cities, films without aliens, basketball, Tolkien, great novels, and Shakespeare.

Kate is out of town, so I have shared the quiz with her already, and will hear back if it is too difficult. Adjustments may be made. I hope you can join us tonight!

Your Quizmaster

https://www.yourquizmaster.com

http://www.twitter.com/yourquizmaster

http://www.facebook.com/yourquizmaster

yourquizmaster@gmail.com

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

yourquizmaster@gmail.com

Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:

1. 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”?

1. 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.

1. 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?

1. 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.

1. 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?   

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

On July 10 I attended the commemoration and launch of a new universally accessible play area at the north end of Central Park. The event was hosted by city councilmember Rochelle Swanson, and supported by other city dignitaries such as Davis School Board member and onetime Pub Quiz champion Gina Daleiden, and former competing quizmaster Will Arnold, a field representative for Senator Lois Wolk, and longtime supporter of Summer House, the nonprofit that supports Yolo County adults with developmental disabilities. I was really touched by the words of the community activists and government officials who inspired and oversaw the construction of this new playground at our first civic park, and not only because I knew that my family would immediately benefit.

As the parent of a son with special needs, I really appreciate the convivial feeling of inclusion that I and other such parents felt when entering this welcoming gated community of exploration and fun. The “Sway Fun” seesaw, for example, features a small table, long seating areas for groups of friends, and room for a wheelchair or two. Even more fun for us, a sizeable adult such as myself can make the entire apparatus sway vigorously back and forth while those seated enjoy the ride. “This reminds me of Disneyland,” my son Truman exclaimed generously, recognizing that the city has become a lot more fun, safe, and inclusive for all the children of Davis.

While Truman most appreciates the working water pump that allows him to fill the concrete sluice and thus send water down to the sand pit, my son Jukie loves the swings and the oddly-shaped balance bar, a mostly vertical structure that invites climbing and lounging, as well as spinning. The built-in xylophone, suspended climbing islands, and edgeless “omnispinner” will all reward the curiosity of eager children. When Jukie cooled down on a hot day by lying down in the sluice that other kids had just filled with water, he reminded us that kids with special needs will often find unexpected ways to take advantage a public play-spot. One need no longer visit Napa to enjoy some water spa time!

I went on a different sort of adventure yesterday, visiting The Academy of Sciences, which evidently is the top ticketed attraction in San Francisco. I could see why, with the four-story self-contained Amazon rainforest (with butterflies and tropical birds flying about), the dynamic earthquake simulation, and the exhibition of just about every imaginable bird and animal skull available for close inspection. Traveling with a party of seven, I splurged on the family membership, which will work out financially only if we return at least once more in the next calendar year. So expect at least one Pub Quiz question about what I learned at the Academy yesterday, and a few more after my next visit with Jukie. I will give you many future reasons to yell out the de Vere’s greeting of “Science!”

I practiced several questions on 16 year-old Geneva and her cousin this morning, and they did quite well, so we may have a high-scoring quiz this evening. I hope that compels you to join us. Tonight will feature questions about actors, precious stones, the optimism that comes from change, conspicuous consumption, South Africa, people named after staves, Ireland, African countries, sustainers, luck, Ryan Seacrest, what Moses supposes, pianists, birds, first basemen, arguably our greatest Americans, risk, time travel, mammals, people who (unlike your Quizmaster) who are inaccurate from time to time, oppressors and the oppressed, forests, seahorses, heroes who are not superheroes, famous Sacramentans, hungry insects, and Shakespeare.

I hope to see you soon at the newest playground in Davis, and tonight for the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz!

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. Mathematics. I remember that once my daughter Geneva took an algebra test with twenty questions worth 100 points.  The test consisted of True/False questions worth 3 points each and short answer questions worth 11 points each.  How many short answer questions were on the test?

1. Newspaper Headlines.   October of this year will mark the release of Pink Floyd’s new album The Endless River. This will be the British rock group’s first album in how many years? Is it 10, 20, 30, or 40?

1. Blameworthy Habits of Bill Clinton. According to Bill Clinton, all of his poor decisions can be blamed on what? Hint: the correct answer is an anagram fro the common phrase A RELIEVED TOPSPIN.

1. Pop Culture – Music. Opening August 1, the film Get On Up chronicles an American musician’s rise from extreme poverty to become one of the most influential musicians in history. What musician is the subject of this film?

1. Sports.   Coors Field is the home stadium of what MLB baseball team?

P.S. This coming Thursday night at 8 Eve West Bessier, our current Poet Laureate, will be unveiling a new project titled Poet Tree, featuring videos of some of the most prominent poets of Davis reading and reciting a representative poem. The selection committee even included me reading one of my poems “The Time of the Rubber Duck.” I hope you can join us Thursday night at the John Natsoulas Gallery. The Open Mic starts at 9, and the after-party at 10 at our own beloved de Vere’s Irish Pub in Davis.

The Edgeless Omnispinner

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

I’m pleased to announce that the Davis City Council has confirmed me as our city’s next Poet Laureate. I begin that important work in September, and will let you know, should you be interested, when I am sworn in and when I will be holding my first Poet Laureate events. I’m sure that by the end of my reign, in 2016, skittish schoolchildren and Davis politicos will cross to the other side of the street when they see me coming, lest I impose upon them yet another self-important poem about our fair city of Davis.

One might wonder how I would have time to take on yet another honorary role. Regular readers of this weekly newsletter know that my unpaid public service to Davis already includes a 14-year radio show on KDVS, the poetry series that I run at the John Natsoulas Gallery, my work as Chair of the Cultural Action Committee of Davis, and my hosting of various fundraisers for Davis causes. How exhausting! As Sartre said, “Commitment is an act, not a word.”

But what about over-commitment? I’m reading a book now titled Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown. In it, McKeown argues that “Essentialism is not about how to get more things done; it’s about how to get the right things done. It doesn’t mean just doing less for the sake of less either. It is about making the wisest possible investment of your time and energy in order to operate at our highest point of contribution by doing only what is essential.” Non-essentialists say yes to everything (an accusation that has been leveled at me), while Essentialists say no to most things, even attractive opportunities, so they can focus on core avocations and the best opportunities.

The Pub Quiz is, by its nature, an inclusive and varied enterprise, and therefore one might wonder if it is indeed necessary: “trivial” and “essential” certainly qualify as antonyms. Yet I’ve decided that it is essential for me to spend time with friends such as yourselves, and for me to dine out with my wife, Kate. And our Pub Quiz gives me those opportunities. What’s the tradeoff? For me, I’ve given up watching television and collecting material goods. It’s liberating, really, to shed one’s needless habits. My bookend kids are both collectors, so I wonder to what extent it is my duty to help them find joy in this world without bringing home mementos of that joy. As Kate keeps telling me, the best swag is the swag you can give away.

Pub Quiz questions about starlets, cable TV shows, and Harry Potter may seem non-essential at first, but they provide an excellent balance to the trickier questions that I will ask tonight about Constitutional amendments, John Milton, and the beginning of the Cold War (all weighty and important topics). I call our weekly competition a “Pub Quiz” rather than merely “trivia” for many reasons, chief among them that one needs a Pub for a Pub Quiz, and because spending time with friends and teammates qualifies as essential. Expect also questions about big tech companies, connectors, football, people born the same year that Jay Silverheels passed away, fictional professors, great American authors, elasticity, alleged allergens, Canada, coinages, legendary creatures, recent films, recognized geniuses, Neanderthals, sleep, Capital cities that start with P and that none of us will ever visit, the United States of America, crossover albums, processed metal, retired presidents, the little things that hide in our soil, conservative beer, hot rhythm and blues, inflatables, relieved topspins, really long rivers, algebra tests (that is, a real math question), and Shakespeare.

Last Monday we filled every seat in the Pub, and with your help, we will do that again tonight. I hope you can join us in this effort.

Your Quizmaster

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yourquizmaster@gmail.com

Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:

1. Internet Culture. A recent marketing study revealed that “YouTube’s mobile ads are three times more effective if people are given the option to BLANK them.” Fill in the blank.

1. Newspaper Headlines.   A new study reveals that the most religious state in the U.S. is also the most corrupt. Name the state.

1. Celebrity Birth-Years. Anne Frank, Martin Luther King Jr., and Barbara Walters were all born the same year. Within one year, name it.

1. Four for Four.     Which of the following colleges, if any, are found in New Hampshire? Dartmouth, Franklin Pierce College , Northeastern University, St. Olaf College.

1. Celebrity Assaults in Elevators. Last month Jay-Z was assaulted by his sister-in-law in an elevator. Starting with the letter S, what is the name of the Knowles in question?   

P.S. On July 17^th, our current Davis Poet Laureate, the extremely talented Eve West Bessier, will be performing at the John Natsoulas Gallery as part of the Poetry Night Reading Series. The show starts at 8, with an open mic at 9, and then the after party at everyone’s favorite Irish Pub starting at 10. Please add this event to your calendar.

Jay Silverheels

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

For many, vacations have finally begun in the City of Davis. As the school-year bicyclists retreat to their hometowns and cities, the percentage of helmet-wearers shoots up to new records. Last week a close friend was visiting Davis, and it took us a full five minutes of talking and walking Davis streets before someone came up to us to greet me by name. I think that’s also a record.

Our city becomes lighter, and our Pub Quiz has become even more crowded and raucous (both welcome developments). Perhaps subletters (who some Brits call “underletters”) love trivia questions. More likely, many of us who are left in the city find ourselves with fewer responsibilities, and more parking spaces downtown. The breathing room effect reminds me of a visit to Davis in 1989 (the first year that I drove through town). I hope time travel appeals to you!

Speaking of time travel, tonight’s Pub Quiz will feature questions about a few of the most famous people who lived in the last century, as well as questions about unusual words that you are more likely to encounter in the drawing room than the war room (no scimitars or claymores this time). Expect also questions about gasoline, air travel, long states, that which is gleefully avoided, Olaf, Oscar-winners, elevators, cups, redundancy, misspellings of the best possible owls, short words that pack in the syllables, herbaceous plants, feuds, flags, colors, celebrated actors, US Presidents, big companies, women who grew up, Snakes, dancers who love to crank their lower hips, verbs that accompany annoyance, fabrics, dark tan moles, glue, mutants, politic speech, Ireland, isolation, peninsulas (not peninsulae?), Senators, badly-reviewed films, Vogue, and Shakespeare.

My marketer friends remind me to mention my newly-published book with every newsletter, but then they express disappointment that Kate and I are giving away all the book proceeds to charity. You can’t please everyone.

I hatched a new book idea this last week, so I may be sharing sections from future chapters right here, even though it is not (purposefully) a book on trivia. Seth Godin, who appears in the new book, says this about regular blogging: “Habits like blogging often and regularly, writing down the way you think, being clear about what you think are effective tactics, ignoring the burbling crowd and not eating bacon. All of these are useful habits.” Some useful habits are more easily accomplished in crowded pubs than others.

You should expect a crowd tonight. I do!

Your Quizmaster

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yourquizmaster@gmail.com

Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:

1. Mottos and Slogans.    “The choice of a new generation” is an advertising slogan of what product?  Ironically, people of an older generation were more likely to answer this correctly than those of a new generation.
2. Internet Culture. On the entertainment and news website Reddit, what does the acronym AMA mean?  No barriers to web-speech!
3. World Leaders. With almost 1.5 million followers on Google+, what country’s 15^th and current prime minister is named Narenda Modi?  I didn’t know Google+ had that many followers total.
4. Name the Category. Blackhawk, Apache, and Comanche are all Native American tribes and, one might say, victims of genocide. But they are also examples of what H word? All words that once (and perhaps still do) cause fear in those who hear them, or hear from them.
5. Pop Culture – Music. The number of piano concertos written by Ludwig van Beethoven is the same as the atomic number of boron and the category of the most destructive hurricanes. What is that number?  We pretended that this was also a math question.

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

The Pub Quiz is back tonight after a brief hiatus to give the Pub waitstaff an opportunity to recover from the rush of graduation revelers. If I were graduating from UC Davis (again), I would make sure to invite my parents and other supporters to celebrate me at the most authentic pub in Davis (so I can see why de Vere’s has been so busy).

Tonight’s Pub Quiz will feature a special guest, the political consultant, guitarist, and rock historian Bobby Nord. Bob and his wife, Susi, a former Democratic member of the New Hampshire House of Representatives, have been working tirelessly for progressive causes in the Granite State for many years. I would love to ask some pub quiz questions about New Hampshire tonight, such as about its State Wildflower (The Pink Ladyslipper), but that wouldn’t be fair to everyone else, for Bob and Susi will actually compete in the Quiz tonight.

One could say that Bob is partly responsible for the entire Pub Quiz, for during our freshman and sophomore years in college, Bob shared my wanderlust and love of the novels of Jack Kerouac, and helped me act on it. He agreed with Seneca, who believed that “Voyage, travel, and change of place impart vigor.” We loved that term “wanderlust,” but today in Germany some use the term “Fernweh,” a word that was coined as an antonym to Heimweh (or “homesickness”).  Fernweh means “farsickness,” or a fondness for a place one has never seen. Bob and I decided that we shared a fondness for the unseen California, so one summer we drove here for a car deliver service, I found a “climate [that] suits my clothes,” and I resolved to return as soon as I was set free as a college-educated scholar and poet. And here I’ve stayed.

Speaking of travel, I’ve traveled to another country since I saw you last, by which of course I mean Utah. Situated in Park City, Utah, home to June snowstorms with significant accumulation, InstructureCon featured extensive discussions about teaching, instructional technology, and decentered learning. While at this august and serious scholarly event, I collected action figure swag for my children, and got to meet heroes such as Captain America, Wonder Woman, and Wolverine. Even more impressive a hero was Robert Reich, former U.S. Labor Secretary and the InstructureCon keynote speaker. The UC Berkeley professor and intellectual powerhouse shared these thoughts on education: “I teach because it’s the best way to have a positive impact on the future. As historian Henry Adams once wrote, ‘A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.’”

Eternity will stop for a couple hours at de Vere’s Irish Pub tonight at 7, and I hope you will be there to see it. Expect questions on a wide variety of topics, including geography, television, twins, Africa, shipwrecks, special correspondents, the dreams of animals, zoology, hilly towns and cities, ports, entrepreneurs, men, mononyms, congresses of electricity, the NFL, HBO, fictional restaurants where one can “enjoy” nachos with Mel Gibson, great musicians, not Volvo, articles in the LA Times, sesquipedalian and underprepared flashes of insight and discovery, famous people who were born and who died in Maryland, Hercules, Houston, Beethoven, Native American outrage, impressive Google+ numbers, tech-niche acronyms, and the power of choice, and Shakespeare.

If you were there, you know that our last Pub Quiz filled every chair in the Irish Pub. Should that happen again tonight, I hope my newsletter readers will come early enough to claim favorite tables. See you tonight at 7. And feel free to greet Bob Nord tonight, the diminutive man with the increasingly silver ponytail who (indirectly) made all of this happen. 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 the last quiz:

1. Mottos and Slogans: US States. What “Garden State” has the motto “Liberty and Prosperity”?

1. Revolutions. The Hungarian Revolution was the name of a spontaneous nationwide revolt against the government of the Hungarian People’s Republic and its Soviet-imposed policies. In what decade did it take place?   

1. Pop Culture – Music. According to the book Smogtown: The Lung-Burning History of Pollution in Los Angeles, in 1967 one of the most famous singers in the world moved from Los Angeles to Palm Springs, California, to avoid the smog. Name this singer who moved from LA at the age of 52.

1. Sports. The four Olympic disciplines in Figure Skating are men’s singles, ladies’ singles, pair skating, and ice WHAT?

1. Great Americans Who Have Been Nominated for Five Oscars.  Born in 1930, what retired actor and former Marine famous for playing villains won acting Academy Awards in 1971 and 1992?
   

   Pink Lady Slipper