Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

This quarter I’m teaching a class on the Cultural Offerings of the City of Davis, and thus leading students to Friday afternoon discoveries of local art galleries, theatres, radio stations, cafes, museums and performance spaces. The true cultural discoveries can’t be limited to the schedule of any particular class, however, so often I find myself in situations where I tell myself that “my students should really see this.”

Such was the case yesterday/Sunday afternoon at 5 in Central Park, colloquially known as “Farmers Market Park.” On the south wall of the new public restroom built across the park from the Hattie Webber Museum the crowd had found a huge curtain and the artist herself, Heidi Bekebrede. Heidi is well known in town for her tireless work with children at the Davis Art Center, and for her distinctive ceramic work that can be seen in tile form at Crepeville, and in various forms at the Artery on G Street.

Sunday Heidi treated us to “The Davis Song,” which she had written way back in 1987. Are you familiar with the lyrics?

 

The Davis Song

By Heidi Bekebrede

 

16 miles from Sacramento, heading west on 80.

You will find an oasis where avenues are shady.

Laid out on a grid of alphabets and ordinal numbers,

You’ll find merchants selling pizza, cars, groceries and lumber.

 

Folks go ped’ling to and fro, to work, to shop, to classes.

Others sit and chat at cafes, clinking ice–chilled glasses.

Some would rather jog about, or do some skateboard jive.

Yes I guess, I really must admit, some people drive.

 

The city I sing of is DAVIS.

It’s the place the UC Regents gave us,

Over hundred summers are the norm I better warn ya.

D–A–V–I–S C–A Spells Davis California.

 

Aggies, bikes, tomatoes, Picnic Day, green belts and vet school,

Farmers Market and the Rec Pool

Amtrak stops here umpteen times a day,

What more could a person ask for, what more can I say? Oh!

 

Pu-tah Creek, the Ar–bor–ee–tum, Cen–tral Park, you just can’t beat um.

Solar homes and a sloooow freight train through town,

I don’t understand how any one can put it down.

 

The city I sing of is DAVIS. Where the peace of mind I crave is

If I ever move I know I’m gonna mourn ya,

D–A–V–I–S C–A Spells Davis California

Some may laim we’re in the sticks…please write 95616

…And now that we are oh so great, we’ve added 95618.

 

Written long before the de Vere family dreamed of a pub in our fair city, I wonder if Heidi would have included our Pub Quiz site if she were to write the song today. In any event, after singing us her song (which I had previously heard sung both at a Pub Quiz and at a Poetry Night event), she pulled the corner of the curtain to reveal to us a beautiful new mural for all of the assembled fans and citizens to ooh and aah at, as we will do throughout our years in Davis. I encourage you to bike over to the park to check it out. As you read each individual tile in order, you might even find yourself singing our city song. Congratulations Heidi!

I’m sending out this week’s newsletter extra early this morning because I am scheduled to discuss politics and media with Beth Ruyak on KXJZ’s Insight at 9. Tune in if you are so inclined.

One of my friends, the Davis poet and essayist Joe Wenderoth, has referred to Davis as “Canada.” Is that fair? Tonight’s Pub Quiz will feature questions on Canada. If you know something about Canada, this may give your team an advantage. Expect also questions about Wolfram Math World, tasty snacks, worn threads, astronomy, addiction, kidnappings, a cultural comparison between Oakland and San Diego, crime, small islands, the most famous “exit” of all, Harry Potter, introductory fights, children’s music, baseball, five-syllable “ology” words,” defamation, anniversaries, famous weapons, identifying colors, heartthrobs, things that make us proud, going home, salary silence, early explorers, The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., underwater adventures, people who are neither German nor Irish, announcements of losers, cultural capitals, states with vowels, murder jokes, basketball, rutabagas and Shakespeare. Did I already mention Canada?

I hope to see you tonight. Bring a new friend (or team) to the 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.         Mottos and Slogans.    Fill in the blank from the slogan of the top-selling spring water brand in America: “BLANK Spring. What it means to be from Maine.”

 

2.         Internet Culture. What magnate recently revealed that control-alt-delete was a design mistake?

 

3.         Newspaper Headlines.   For the first time in 34 years, last week a US President spoke on the phone with the leader of what country?

 

4.         Four for Four.      According to Stuart Laycock’s book All the Countries We’ve Ever Invaded: And the Few We Never Got Round To, which of the following countries, if any, has Britain invaded? Cuba, Iceland, Tajikistan, Vietnam. If you rarely score in the top ten, I have a bonus hint to share.

 

5.         Another TV Show I Never Watched. Six of the characters on the TV show The Fresh Prince of Bel Air have the same last name. What is that last name?

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

It seems that every fall I return to this quotation that is attributed to Aristotle: “It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.” Split between two worlds at UC Davis, I must simultaneously entertain two perspectives on teaching. I myself teach relatively small writing classes that depend upon work in groups, eye contact, investment in each of my students, and comprehensive evaluation of the essays submitted to me. At the same time, as an instructional technology expert, I am called upon to help my faculty colleagues from across the disciplines better understand how to “scale up” their teaching, that is, to use technologies such as video, animation, and automation to give each student the illusion of individualized attention and connection (and thus maintain or even improve the quality of learning), even as we accept more and more students to our university, and in our individual classrooms. Every new technology provides teachers (and folks working in other fields) new challenges and opportunities.

As instruction at UC Davis begins this week, I have been filled with eagerness. I get to meet two new classrooms of students, and impress upon them what from our class  I hope they will find to be engaging, practical, and essential. I know I can help students better understand how to write more clearly, and therefore how to think more clearly, but will I be able to inspire them, that is, to bring about individual commitments to sustained higher-order thinking? Will they keep or sell back their textbooks? I remember then NEA Chairman Dana Gioia previewing for me a 2004 study titled “Reading at Risk” that lamented the decline of reading of literary texts. Evidently Americans stopped reading books as soon as high school or college teachers stopped assigning them to read those books. Where is Oprah when we need her?

Do you continue to read interesting and challenging literary works even when you are not told to? I bet so, if you seek out the sort of challenges that I share every Monday evening. What new or favorite books would you recommend for other Pub Quiz regulars? Inspire me with your choices, and perhaps soon you will see them referenced on a future de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz.

Tonight’s quiz will feature questions on celebrities, stone carvings, banks, design mistakes, Maine, Cuba, Iceland, Tajikistan, Vietnam (444), aliens, cowboys, brushes with “greatness,” California cities in television shows, Dr. Andy’s basement, Asian-American firsts, lifetime salaries, comedy, Fingers, light, somnolence, presidential acronyms, made-up names, livestock, rock bands, telephones, Friends, authors who are tinged losers (anagram), the compulsion to travel, godfathers, questionable leadership, readers, hit musicals, boxing, recent films, poem syllables, Europe, wars on American values, armor, cells and molecules, basketball, and Shakespeare.

This coming Friday night at 7 The 2013 Jazz/Beat Festival begins with a dance recital, and then readings by two incredible poets: D.R. Wagner and Phil Weidman. Then I will be awarding the Jack Kerouac Poetry Prize to readers performing to live jazz. I will have my ear open the entire evening for Pub Quiz question topics, so you may benefit in more ways than just culturally if you join us. See the schedule of events at the Natsoulas Gallery website.

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.    According to the fragrance advertising campaign, “Between love and madness lies WHAT”?

 

2.         Internet Culture. Wikileaks has posted and refuted the entire Julian Assange biopic titled The Fifth Estate. What actor with three-syllable first and last names plays Assange in the film?

 

3.         Newspaper Headlines.   Recently Pope Francis said in an interview that the Catholic Church had become too obsessed with “abortion, gay marriage and the use of” WHAT?

 

4.         Four for Four.      Which of the following, if any, are typically among the “Heavy Events” at Highland Games competitions (locally called “Scottish Games”)? Anvil Heave, Caber Toss, Hammer Throw, Sheaf Toss.

 

5.         Medicinal Marijuana. According to last week’s edition of 60 Minutes, 20 states have legalized the use of marijuana for the treatment of the effects of chemotherapy, chronic pain, and what G word?

 Aristotle also had some impressive pupils!

 

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

When I first starting writing Pub Quizzes, I realized that my wife Kate made a great sounding-board for potential questions. Widely-read, media-savvy, and inherently fair, Kate would offer candid responses to the questions I would share with her, pointing out to me on more than one occasion that “normal people wouldn’t know such a thing.” No doubt she dramatically improved the quality of the Pub Quiz over the years, such that now I have internalized her wise voice and opinions when I am putting together questions, even when I haven’t shared possible questions with her ahead of time.

During one particular Pub Quiz, at another venue, Kate gathered together some of her smartest friends to form a team, and so she remained un-briefed on potential topics or wordings. Nevertheless, that week her team won first place. Professionally, I was aghast. What’s worse, she and her teammates named their team “Dr. Andy’s Family.”

You can imagine the uproar from the other teams. One player even wrote a letter of concern to management. I found out later that he made a habit of writing letters on a great number of occasions, to a great number of people, for he felt personally and perpetually wronged. Come to think of it, he is being wronged again right now. I’m sure he has moved on to grander windmills. The paranoid survive, as Andrew Grove said.

Anyway, after that experience I came up with what has been called “The Kate Rule.” Anytime Dr. Andy’s beautiful wife plays the Pub Quiz, your quizmaster may not ask a question that he knows she knows the answer to. The result was a series of over-challenging quizzes on topics obscure and literary: I really had to put my PhD to work during those weeks. Of course players would rightfully groan during and after those quizzes, and soon grow thankful not to see Kate appear in a booth with a group of other friends, all of them drinking wine and plotting strategies for difficult questions.

As I’ve become more experienced at this Pub Quiz business, I’ve found in recent years that I haven’t had to transform the Quizzes as I once did when Kate would join us. The thrill of winning is delightful, Kate’s teams realized, but it pales before other joys, such as the pleasure of the company of some of one’s closest friends (and without the interruptions of cell phones – babysitters are on their own). Now Kate and her smaller teams help me in other ways, such as by writing comically incorrect answers that serve to delight the rest of you when I work them into the presentation of the actual answers at the end of the evening. How else would I have learned about Lil Dwayne? The uproarious laughter I hear from the surprised and entertained teams helps me recognize a successful Quiz.

As my friend Denise reminded me last week, such teams are like those who keep their cell phones hidden in their pockets and purses for the entire night (rather than looking up all their questionable responses as soon as a scorecard has been submitted), for they maintain their eager anticipation until the end of the show. I think of a Kahil Gibran quotation that has been shared during many a wedding ceremony: “In the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures. For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.”

Tonight’s Pub Quiz will feature questions on pleasant fragrances, Pope Francis, Wikileaks, hammers, accomplished ladies, the silent T, sheaves, pot, cuckolds, people not named Kanye, sad cities, formulae, great Frenchmen, drama, nicknames, comedy, sports fans in Canada, guitar words, comedians, productive writers, rovers who are maniacs, love letters, high points (in meters), sugar, liberty, Academy Awards, the word “lachrymose,” blue skies, The Beatles, deaf culture, baseball, headwaters, Maggie Smith films, famous people who date each other, singers with new memoirs, Terry Eagleton quotations, Castille, banned books, lyrics, South America, compounds, and Shakespeare.

The students have returned, so come early to claim a table! 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.    What company promises that it is “everywhere you want to be”?

2.         Internet Culture: NASA Memes. What kind of animal was NASA referring to when in its recent comments on an Instagram launch photograph it wrote “The condition of the BLANK, however, is uncertain”?

3.         Newspaper Headlines.   Is the new Miss America African-American, Indian-American, Mexican-American, or Irish American?

4.         Animated Films. What 2012 animated film featured the voices of Adam Sandler, Andy Samberg, Selena Gomez, Fran Drescher, Steve Buscemi, Molly Shannon, David Spade and CeLo Green?

5.         Pop Culture – Music. On September 27, 2012, a 30 year-old rapper born with the name Dwayne Michael Carter, Jr. passed Elvis Presley as the male with the most entries on theBillboard Hot 100 chart with 109 songs. By what name is Carter better known?

 

P.S. Thanks to John from the Practicing Polymaths for attending my poetry reading Friday!

As this newsletter goes to press, we are learning terrible details about a shooting at the Washington Navy Yard. I feel silly talking about Facebook humor on such a dark day, but I suppose we all must press on. Often we turn to the words of Churchill at a time like this; he reminded us that “All the great things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope.”

 

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

Recently my wife Kate forwarded me a blog post about “7 Ways to be Insufferable on Facebook.” Although we may not agree with its premise, this humor piece draws our attention to the rampant insecure narcissism evident in almost every available status update. While as a rule I try not to read articles with numbered lists in them, in this case I made an exception because of the piece’s focus on two questions that I try to answer positively with my newsletters: 1) Is the topic interesting or informative, and 2) is the piece entertaining? As I read the blog entry, I realized that I try to maintain attention to these two concerns in my newsletters, so that you might have something to reflect upon before rushing on to the Pub Quiz hints that you see below.

We might wonder if Facebook is insufferable because of the ways that it offers a platform for our friends’ self-important sharings, or if it should be intolerable because of the hours lost. A Google search for the phrase “Facebook is wasting my life” reveals more than 25 million hits. Andy Borowitz reflected this concern in his send-up of Facebook Home, the Android phone overlay that replaces a user’s home screen with a steady stream of photographs from your friend’s Facebook updates.

Here’s how Borowitz put it in his fake press release:

Explaining the development of Facebook’s new phone software, Home, Mr. Zuckerberg said, “Our research showed that Facebook users still had a few hours a day when they were leading somewhat healthy and productive lives. Our new software will change all of that.”

Mr. Zuckerberg said his developers had worked for months developing Home, “which seizes control of your phone and makes it good for little other than Facebook—much like many Facebook users themselves.”

By bombarding the user with status updates on a twenty-four-hour basis, he boasted, “Home transforms Facebook from just a social network into something akin to a neurological disorder.”

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fourth edition renamed Attention Deficit Disorder to “Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder predominantly inattentive,” but we all know what it means. Either we, our friends, or our children suffer from it, or we are encouraged to by social networks and other distractions. Most of us recognize the problem, including in ourselves, but few of us are willing to drop a social medium such as Facebook. Our excuses to stay distracted are largely convincing.

I have to keep up with Facebook, because how else would I convince people to come to the poetry readings I host? For instance, this coming Thursday night at 8 the poet Jill Stengel will celebrate her book release party at the John Natsoulas Gallery. If you’ve never come to one of these readings, and you appreciate free food and drink, then this might be the Thursday to join us. Jill’s new book is titled Dear Jack, which the great Beat poet David Meltzer has called “Subtle, sly & wry, deeply moving in its deceptive simplicity.

And then Friday I myself will be giving a poetry reading with a local poet-hero of mine, James Lee Jobe. James and I will be reading original work at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Davis Friday at 7:30, and this event will also feature free wine and food (in this case, cookies). I will be reading some new poems, including a couple about my son Jukie.

There’s only one hint in the words above, and a great number of hints in the words below, for tonight you should expect questions on ubiquity, space travel, great artists (such as Picasso and Van Gogh), psychometrics, the letter “I,” animated films, people who have broken records set by Elvis, venerable changes, ESPN estimations, great Kings, matters of taste, US Senators, Groucho Marx, words that end with the names of women, food and drink, dark secrets and the letter “A,” mistyped nostalgic purses, alternatives to Corinthians, Stanley Kramer, final forays, musical lists, founding fathers, retails sales, US states, St. James, Ang Lee films, veteran sportsmen, fashion expenditures, and Shakespeare.

I look forward to seeing you this evening!

 

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.  Adopted in 1967, what US state’s state motto is “North to the Future”?

2.         Internet Culture and Biometrics. What F-word feature most excites enterprise computing experts and biometrics geeks about the new iPhone to be announced tomorrow?

3.         Islands in Michigan. Michigan’s Mackinac Island can be reached by private boat, by ferry, and by small aircraft. Some enterprising people sometimes visit the island using a form of transportation that was first patented in 1915. What are the ten letters in the name of this form of transportation? It’s not “hovercraft.”

4.         Simon and Simon. Which of the following Simons had the Simon of Simon and Schuster for a dad? Carly Simon, Neil Simon, Paul Simon the musician, Simple Simon.

5.         Sports.   EPL is the anagram for the UK’s primary football competition. What does EPL stand for?

 

P.S. Happy belated birthday to Pub Quiz regulars Kriss Nigliazzo and Brandon Winter!

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

Those of us who seek to defend the civil rights of gays and lesbians seem much more interested in marriage than we were one or two dozen years ago. Some young radicals who read and understand history feel disappointed that they missed their opportunities to march for women’s suffrage during the presidency of Woodrow Wilson, to march for civil rights with Dr. King during the presidency of John F. Kennedy, or to march for gay rights with Harvey Milk during the presidency of Jimmy Carter. Today, many of those young radicals – including many of my students – have found their time to heed the call for social justice, and thus earn their progressive bona fides, by marching for the expansion of marriage, thus ensuring that gay and lesbian friends can enjoy the same marriage benefits and privileges as anyone else.

One irony with all this progressive talk of marriage is the perception of marriage as a conservative institution. Created originally to solidify alliances between competing groups, and then to preserve or improve the financial stability of the participating families, marriages at one time reflected the needs of the older generation, rather than the young participants. Thomas Cranmer, the architect of English Protestantism, helped to create the basis for the modern wedding vows with the Book of Common Prayer way back in 1549. I think the same-sex marriage movement has so many conservative allies – one thinks of Dick Cheney and Ted Olson, among many others – because of the opportunity of gays and lesbians to participate in a centuries-old institution that has as its goals monogamy, families, stability, and, by extension, responsibility.

I’ve been thinking about marriage this week for two additional reasons. First, this summer marks the one-year anniversary of the first marriage that I have officiated (as Rev. Dr. Andy), and this past weekend marks the 21^st anniversary of my marriage to my lovely bride Kate. My marriage is now old enough to drink, and tonight Kate and I shall drink a toast to it. We’ve appreciated all the kind messages and “likes” that we’ve received from faraway friends, mostly due to the quality of the photo of the two of us taken by our youngest, Truman. Talking about how our life has changed over the last 21 years, Kate and I also remarked that while we don’t often see our friends and family who joined us in that park in Hinsdale, Illinois back in 1992, the support that our current community shows for our marriage has been both strengthened and more widely distributed through the medium of Facebook. While Facebook seems like the medium of so many interactions these days, we should make sure to sit down for a meal and a drink with our local friends from time to time; that way, our people can support us in person, rather than only through our myriad screens. I suppose that’s one reason why we gather together for a Pub Quiz on a Monday evening with new and old friends, with our little devices turned off for an hour.

Tonight’s Pub Quiz will feature questions on the following topics. The great white north, Michigan, Simon and Simon, the Latin names of animals, sportfishing, Mozambique, other people’s sports, geometry (Hi Elaine!), classical music, television co-hosts, silly celebrity actresses, poetry, the summer of 2013, Knavish kolas with automatic weapons, short stories, impervious mystics, exports, secret agents, geographic subregions, favorite continents, performances before the glitterati, Agatha Christie (indirectly), Nobel Prizes, Margaret Hughes, authentication, snowfall, US presidents, and Shakespeare.

I watched Return of the Jedi with my sons while finishing this newsletter, and managed to avoid including even one Jedi question this week. Look for Star Wars questions later in the year.

I hope you will join us tonight after our rare Monday break. The Pub Quiz is always more fun with you 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 our last quiz:

 

1.         Great American States.  In 1820 Maine voted to secede from what US state?

 

2.         Unusual Words. What word beginning with I means “A surface forming a common boundary between adjacent regions, bodies, substances, or phases”?

 

3.         Fashion. A dinner suit in British English is referred to as WHAT in American English?

 

4.         Pop Culture – Television.    Peter Dinklage gets paid $150,000 per episode of what TV show?

 

5.         Another Music Question. What musical group’s first top 10 hit was a 1979 song titled “Don’t Do Me Like That”?

 

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

Because of the Labor Day holiday, and the closure today of de Vere’s Irish Pub so the barkeeps, servers, and hosts can spend the last summer holiday with their families, there will be no Pub Quiz tonight. I look forward to seeing all of you on September 9^th.

I wish to take a moment to remember Seamus Heaney, the great Irish poet who passed away Friday in Dublin at age 74. Heaney towered over Irish literature the way that William Butler Yeats had during the first 40 years of the 20^th century, and for decades after his death. In fact, Heaney was thought by many to be the greatest poet writing in English. Schoolchildren throughout the UK were required to memorize his poems, and, according to a recent obituary in Slate, “In 2007, his books reportedly accounted for two-thirds of the poetry sales in the United Kingdom.” I met Heaney twice: once in the late 1980s, when I went to see him read at Harvard, and once in 1996, when he was the keynote reader at a conference in Stirling, Scotland where I gave a presentation on Robert Lowell. Heaney was just as good-humored and humble as he appears in his poems; he took some time to chat with me after signing a copy of his Opened Ground: Selected Poems, 1966-1996.

            Winner of the Nobel Prize and the T.S. Eliot Prize, Seamus Heaney would always be associated with the physical labor of his Northern Irish forbears, so it is fitting that we remember him today on America’s Labor Day. I will leave you with Heaney’s most famous early poem, “Digging.”

 

Digging

By Seamus Heaney

 

Between my finger and my thumb

The squat pen rests; snug as a gun.

 

Under my window, a clean rasping sound

When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:

My father, digging. I look down

 

Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds

Bends low, comes up twenty years away

Stooping in rhythm through potato drills

Where he was digging.

 

The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft

Against the inside knee was levered firmly.

He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep

To scatter new potatoes that we picked,

Loving their cool hardness in our hands.

 

By God, the old man could handle a spade.

Just like his old man.

 

My grandfather cut more turf in a day

Than any other man on Toner’s bog.

Once I carried him milk in a bottle

Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up

To drink it, then fell to right away

Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods

Over his shoulder, going down and down

For the good turf. Digging.

 

The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap

Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge

Through living roots awaken in my head.

But I’ve no spade to follow men like them.

 

Between my finger and my thumb

The squat pen rests.

I’ll dig with it.

 

 

Thanks for your interest in this newsletter. Please plan to join us on September 9^th for another edition of 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

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

This past weekend we celebrated the 50^th anniversary of the “March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom,” in which, as every Davis schoolchild could tell you, Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his most famous speech. I discovered a fascinating retelling of the history of that march on the website of the U.S. Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration. Titled “Getting to the March on Washington, August 28, 1963,” the long article describes all the chartered busses, trains, and roads that protestors used to come to DC.

My favorite part a 1963 New York Times article on one marcher, titled “Marcher from Alabama,” represents my former hometown as especially civil, especially when compared to the segregated and tense southern cities that many marchers traveled from. Hazel Mangle Rivers, of Birmingham, Alabama, shared these reflections:

“The people are lots better up here than they are down South,” Mrs. Rivers said. “They treat you much nicer. Why, when I was out there at the march a white man stepped on my foot, and he said, “Excuse me,” and I said “Certainly!”

“That’s the first time that has ever happened to me. I believe that was the first time a white person has ever really been nice to me.”

These words were still echoing in my head when, over Facebook, I tried this past weekend to convince my friend Marcel to move to Davis from our former hometown of DC (he never left) where we knew each other in high school and at the Tenley Circle Theatre, where we both worked as ushers. I remain grateful for the lessons about white privilege and his own personal relationship with racial discrimination that Marcel had taught me, though I valued our friendship primarily because of his sarcastic wit and our shared love of movies.

Would Davis be the right city for Marcel? I would like to think so. When I asked my friends what beyond the bikes and farmers market might compel one to move here, they mentioned KDVS, poetry and pub quizzes (sycophants), Ikedas, the schools, and the prolific parks. Others mentioned the public art, our yearly festivals and parades, and the food at de Vere’s. My favorite remark came from my friend France:

The general kindness of the residents — always willing to lend a hand. I have been in line at a light twice when the driver in front spaced out and not one person beeped their car horns at them.

That last remark reminded me of Hazel Mangle Rivers’ thoughts on the kindness of strangers in Washington DC in 1963. I hope we can all continue to meet the raised expectations of France Kassing, and thus make Davis a welcoming place for whomever can afford the costs of our ridiculous rents and mortgages.

Tonight’s Pub Quiz, regrettably, will offer no questions on the March on Washington. In fact, Dr. King might be disappointed to see how many questions on celebrities and musicians populate tonight’s Quiz (and our lives more generally). Expect questions on toys, exits, American Presidents of the United States (including Lincoln), lobes, basketball, Rio Vista, eating in Ireland, butterflies, bandits, overseas heroes, people that might be compared to Madonna, scientific principles that are relevant in linear systems, baseball, sinisters, US states, British and American English, adjacent regions and bodies, Frenchmen, marked festivals, speed-eating, unlicensed sales assistants, flesh, specious topics that trend young, hashtags, posthumous works, top brands, grocery stores, countries that are not China, people with the same last name, dexters, ways that Americans differ from Turks, and Shakespeare.

You might have noticed a long line out the door of de Vere’s Irish Pub last week at about 6:15, a line that reached all the way to Bizarro World. Regulars are encouraged to come early tonight. Irregulars could come later, though they may end up sitting outside (where last week’s first and second place teams sat).

 

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 organization adopted the motto “Semper Fidelis” (or “Semper Fi”) in 1883?

 

2.         Internet Culture. A five-letter word beginning with B refers to the fifth most-trafficked website in the world, that of a search engine and the first Chinese company to be included in the NASDAQ-100 index. What is the name of this Chinese equivalent of Google?

 

3.         Newspaper Headlines.   Israel’s recent statements on the conflicts in Egypt indicate that it A) backs the military, B) backs the protesters, or C) seeks to remain neutral.

 

4.         California. The Farallon Islands are found off the coast of what California city with a population of about 825,000? John Lescroart’s team answered that one correctly, not surprisingly.

 

5.         Countries Whose Names Start with the Letter B. The Keel-billed Toucan is the National Bird of the country with the lowest population density in Central America. Name it. (It’s not Brazil or Bolivia, which are both in South America)

 

 

P.S. Former Sacramento Poet Laureate Bob Stanley will bring his banjo and copies of his many books to the John Natsoulas Gallery for our next Poetry Night on September 5^th. Details next week. See you tonight!

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

Why would you write about Penelope in the newsletter, my wife Kate asked. It’s a fair question. How do I choose any of these topics, really? Whereas I collect Pub Quiz question topics over the course of my busy workweek, I typically save the newsletter topics for the moment I sit down to the keyboard. Perhaps you can tell. I wish for these little essays to be more lyrical than expository or, say, argumentative. I have to explain and argue enough in my other jobs. When writing these newsletters, I summon up my training as a poet, and thereby trust the creative process. I do the same in the classroom when I share moments of creation and discovery with my students, so that every class can offer something new and unexpected.

“Penelope” might make one think of the actresses Penelope Ann Miller or Penelope Cruz, or perhaps even the Kristin Wiig character Penelope, the neurotic hair-twirling swellhead who is even more competitive than regular PQ participant Keith David Watenpaugh (Hi Keith!). But of course I was thinking of the wife of Odysseus. As you may remember, the hero of The Odyssey was delayed on his return home from the Trojan War, primarily because he had angered Poseidon by blinding the god’s son (long story), thus spurring the ocean god to hamper the wayward hero’s return to Ithaca. Meanwhile, over the course of 20 years, Penelope used a variety of tricks to discourage and hold off her 108 suitors, even though it wasn’t clear that she knew Odysseus was still alive. Not to spoil the ending, but Tarantino has optioned the final confrontation scene between Odysseus and the suitors.

There are no suitors or unstringable bows in my house. Instead, I’ve been managing children for the last two and a half weeks as we wait for the hero of our household, my wife Kate, finally to come home from her childhood home of Chicago. The weeks have seemed like decades in part because of how much we all rely on her, and because I’ve instituted a ban on television and junk food during Kate’s absence. This afternoon the children and I will have a powwow in the living room in order to discuss our hazy memory of what the house looked like before Kate left, and how we might possibly return it to that state by tomorrow afternoon. If you are reading this, Athena, some divine intervention would be appreciated.

In honor of Penelope, expect a question on fidelity this evening. Tonight’s Pub Quiz will also include questions on the following topics: China, Israel, and American islands; two people named Hilton, toucans, popular bands, the word “the,” bans, Paul McCartney, angry people who died with no friends, Richard Gere, searches, refraction, celebrated soldiers, banana imports, Great Scots, speed demons, syndicates, seaport cities, summer songs, Brad Pitt, visas that arrive just in time, leftists, unlikely teenagers, therapy candidates, Fridays, ecology, gangsters, elitism, famous parks, and Shakespeare.

Alzada Knickerbocker, the owner of The Avid Reader bookstores, has expressed some interest in our Pub Quiz. I think the least I can do to repay her for all the years we’ve spent in her bookstore would be to add a few more bookish questions when she joins us for the first time. I will let you know when that is. Meanwhile, I encourage you to purchase your books locally: you have three 2^nd Street bookstore choices within a block of de Vere’s, and each of them deserves your patronage. Two of them also host regular author events, thus spreading cultural goodwill in our fair city, as I try to do every week with the 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.         Newspaper Headlines.   What is the name of the meteor shower that peaked this past weekend?

2.         TV Actors. What well-known television actor had small roles in the following films?Get Shorty and Fallen in the 1990s, The Man Who Wasn’t There and All The Kings Men in the 2000s, and Killing Them Softly and Zero Dark Thirty in this decade?

3.         Pop Culture – Music. What are the first and last names of the American harpist and singer who is both Andy Samberg’s fiancée and the second cousin, twice removed, of the Lieutenant Governor of California?

4.         Sports.   The most-recognized of all football players holds the record for the most yards gained in back-to-back games, at 476. Name the player.

5.         Science.   Also known as a dwarf leopard and by its Latin species name, Leopardus pardalis, what is the three-syllable common name of the wild cat distributed extensively over South and Central America?

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

I spent an hour or so this morning at the UC Davis Rec Pool, watching my seven year-old son Truman enjoy a private swimming lesson. Such lessons help to transform the potential fear and peril that a youngster might associate with the water into a feeling of independence and confidence. And such a setting! As you probably know, the rec pool is ringed at a distance with pine and palm trees whose branches’ habitual sway offers plenty of shade to the parents to relish as we shift our lawn chairs with the shifting sun. I see parents of the youngest children hover nearby, with an eye on the instructor to whom they have entrusted their futures, while the parents of the older kids are eager to catch a break; they pair and triple up in the shade, sharing gossip, stories and jokes. Or so I imagine. Only their laughter can be heard to a faraway viewer such as my wife Kate or myself.

Similar positive energy emanates from the instructors, especially Truman’s teacher, Taylor, who kept telling Truman that his attempts at pencil dives and side-breathing were “super-good” and “really awesome,” the language that sometimes creeps into the rough drafts of my students’ essays. With Taylor’s constant stream of encouragements came an absolute focus on our boy, the sort of attention that is necessary if she is to inspire the trust of children and their parents. Like a dance instructor, Taylor guided, cajoled and directed with her arms, lifting and stabilizing Truman while he tried earnestly to hear her instructions through his earplugs, and meet her expectations. Sometimes even our muscle memories are fleeting.

Meanwhile, the gentle morning heat lazes above the families and the swim instructors, reminding us all that we should move, think, and work more slowly on a summer day than we do during the other nine moths of the year. Immersed in the poolside sounds of summer, and the warm morning like a comfortable silk garment, each of us pretends for a moment that we are the children that we see around us, with nothing more pressing than the thoughts of an unhurried brunch of berries, a play-date with a friend from school (remember school?), and the water that buoys our underwater dreams and explorations.

Today might be a forgettable day, for nothing momentous or calamitous has happened, or is likely to. But today, this day, still matters, for it is also representative of that which we might treasure in recollection, in those rare moments of reflective tranquility, for the rest of our lives.

And now for the part of the Pub Quiz newsletter that Elliott and the other studious Quiz participants print out and study as they wait for the 7 PM chime at 217 E Street. Tonight’s Quiz will feature questions on superheroes, as constant a summer recreation as a dip in the pool. Expect also questions about three-letter acronyms, Lucille Ball, The Davis Food Co-Op, Whigs, breasts, North Carolina, pop music, the NFC, nine-letter genres, Greek heroes, muscles, people born in Connecticut, deceit, Superman, obituaries, stark tests that are difficult to beat, stockings, giant meddlers, seasons, hope, animated films (as promised on Facebook, though the answer will not be Turbo), Spain, great orators, the order of languages, cities that begin with vowels, loud speakers, not the prince you were expecting, presidential elections, people born in Kenya, and Shakespeare.

It was crowded last week, with many playing on the patio, and it will be crowded again this week. No cell phones during the Pub Quiz, please.

 

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 FedEx competitor uses the commercial slogan “We Keep Your Promise”?

 

2. Newspaper Headlines.   What pitcher threw a no-hitter against the Padres last week?

 

3. Bad TV Movies. What has been called the “most terribly good TV movie of the summer” was not titled “Velocirapture” or “Piranhacane.” What was the title of this much-discussed SyFy network release this past weekend?

 

4. Name the Year. Sitting Bull and Van Gogh died the same year that Eisenhower & Lovecraft were born. Within five years, name the year.

 

5. Pop Culture – Music. In 2012, after a trip to Jamaica, Snoop Dogg announced a conversion to the Rastafari movement and a new alias. What is Snoop’s new name?

 

Editor’s note: Since this was originally published, we’ve learned that a Prince of Cambridge has been born, and that the American actor Dennis Farina has been died (the momentous, and the calamitous).