Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

Every Monday my second-grader Truman is given a writing assignment: he must recount what he did over the weekend. The anxiety that this expectation has contributed to the household comes not from any concerns about writing, but rather from his repeated insistence that we actually “do something!” on both Saturday and Sunday. Yesterday, for instance, our family of six (counting the dog) walked over to the new pet food store in South Davis to meet and behold Tillman, the handsome bulldog who holds the Guinness World Record for “Fastest 100 m on a skateboard by a dog.” Tillman had to be dissuaded by his owner from expressing his interest in our bulldog, Dilly, too ardently. Dilly, meanwhile, was much more interested in Tillman’s owner’s organic dog treats and precise and knowledgeable back-scratching than in his celebrity dog. Like my brother Oliver who writes for People Magazine, some of us are just not that impressed with celebrities. At least Truman will have something to write about in school this morning.

Friday night I met a teacher who told the story of a student who her family “adopted” for a semester so that he could finish his school year while his family moved to a city with a somewhat less stellar school district. After a few weeks with the family, Jose remarked that he was impressed with his temporary adopted brothers, and that they were really smart. Without taking direct credit, their mother agreed, and listened for Jose’s next question. “Is it fun to be smart?” he asked. His host insisted that it is fun to be smart, and then started explaining why, with lots of examples from family outings and discoveries. She might have used our Pub Quiz as an example. From all the laughter I hear, especially from teams that don’t take their scores too seriously, I conclude that my job is too remind all of you how much fun it is to be smart. Our little weekly show won’t compete well with a World Series game or with a skateboarding bulldog, but at least you can enjoy a couple uninterrupted hours with your friends and apply what you have learned. As the German Romantic philosopher and poet Novalis told us, “Learning is pleasurable, but doing is the height of enjoyment.”

Before I jump to the clues, I want to recognize two heroes of mine who passed away over the weekend. My uncle Chuck Ternes was a World War II veteran, a boxer, a photographer, and the dad to three incredible kids who inspired me all through the 1970s and 80s. I will remember him fondly.

As you know, Lou Reed was the lead singer of the Velvet Underground. In a 1982 interview, musician Brian Eno remarked that the Velvet Underground’s first album only sold 30,000 copies during its first five years but that “everyone who bought one of those 30,000 copies started a band.” This morning the aforementioned Oliver introduced me to Reed’s 1989 song about AIDS in New York City titled “Halloween Parade” that is worth a listen.

Speaking of Halloween, I will be coming in costume tonight, and I recommend that you do the same. Here’s the wording of Question #6: “What is the evident and recognizable (or at least interpretable) costume worn by one of the members of your Pub Quiz team? Is that costume impressive, or lame?” I’m sure that you will earn a point for that question. I like it when everyone scores in double digits. Teams with all members in costume will earn extra kudos. Remember to take pictures.

Tonight’s Pub Quiz will feature questions on Halloween topics, including costumes, pumpkins, and candy. Expect also questions on presidential elections, impressive Republicans, macroeconomics, mobile apps, change-ups, classical composers, measuring one’s life with coffee spoons, professional basketball, the Kennedys, big cities, mountains that can be seen from far away, Charles not in charge of his own drinking, Futureshock author Alvin Toffler, Americans who have been nominated to be VPOTUS, Greek mythology, weights and measurements, baseball heroes, uncles, fictional band names made up by Dr. Andy, growing actresses, the genes of orioles, stories that begin “once upon a time,” aliens, countries by the numbers, rumble snouts, dry locales, the letter Z, Irish ancestors, Bermuda mishaps, whether or not the good die young, incredible acreage, and Shakespeare. The answers to the science questions will be five and three syllables long.

Next week’s quiz takes place on Kate’s birthday. Should there be cake? See you tonight, and in costume! The TVs will be on, so you’ll be able to multitask, if you care to.

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 T, what magazine has as its slogan “For People Who Love to Sew”?

2.         Internet Culture. According to a new study, 61 percent of teenagers cite BLANK as their favorite social media site, ahead of Facebook (55 percent) and Twitter (22 percent). Fill in the blank.

3.         Newspaper Headlines.   Evidently the single “Do What you Want (with My Body)” will be released tomorrow. Name the artist.

4.         Sandra Bullock. Bullock and Tom Hanks have been battling for box office primacy for the last couple weeks. In what 2011 Oscar-nominated film did the two both appear?

5.         Pop Culture – Music. In the Kenny Rogers song “The Gambler,” what does the title character request in exchange for the advice that makes up the song’s chorus?

P.S. Kim Stanley Robinson and Andy Stewart, two masters of science fiction, will be reading at the Natsoulas Gallery on November 7^th at 8 PM. You should join us.

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

When I asked a friend what we should see at Apple Hill, he warned us to bypass the first and most popular orchard, the one with the train and the huge crowds. But once we spent an unexpected extra hour in slow-moving traffic, the children impressed upon us their hunger for apples, or the experiential gratification that they represent on an October Saturday, so that first orchard was right where we stopped. Of course, my friend was right: the train ride was underwhelming, and the crowds smothering. We found too many things to buy, none of them of any value. Somehow the “redneck wind chimes” made up of Budweiser cans hanging from twine and banging against one another did not appeal to us. Having overdressed for a natural walk in the foothills, we found the October heat oppressive, and before long we hurried away from the commercial throng.

Down the road we found smaller crowds at an orchard that was less initially impressive; thankfully, it had no train. We bought a freshly-made pie there that our “party” of five divided up and devoured. The dog pulled at her leash as we were finishing, so we took her down to the “nature walk” with low expectations, wondering if this experience might be as prefabricated as the “lake” that the expensive little train encircled earlier in the day. Instead we found hilly paths through deep forests, a quiet brook with what Truman called “the world’s smallest waterfall,” and clean and cooler air. We slowed our pace, delighted in that green sensory data, and reflected on our good fortune. Pictures were taken, the dog imagined herself in heaven, and laughter echoed among the Douglas Fir trees. Sometimes one must leave the beaten path in order to find the right path.

I’m sure you plan to beat a path to de Vere’s before 7 tonight for tonight’s Pub Quiz. In addition to geography, trees, and apples, tonight’s Quiz will feature questions about sewing with needles, monkeys, Lake Yosemite, Facebook and other social media, the habits of teenagers, specific kinds of rings, barges, fossils, the first names of friendly people, American geography, lively water, predilections, advice that you might receive on a train, left-handed people. Petroleum, voting rights, beer, Beatles history, people born to prattle, aridity, potent potables, literature of the 1820s, primates, wrenches, snowmen, geometry, Frenchmen, missing appendages, silver oars, beauties (hello, Kate), and Shakespeare.

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.    Novo Nordisk is a global healthcare company that uses the slogan “Changing BLANK” where the blank is a metabolic disease that 18% of Americans 60 or older have. Name the disease.

2. Internet Culture. What American multinational software corporation acquired the Nokia mobile unit in 2013?

3. Newspaper Headlines.   Speaking of phones, according to Bloomberg, what company is taking out full-page ads in newspapers worldwide in a bid to convince carriers, consumers and partners that they shouldn’t abandon the struggling smartphone maker?

4. Four for Four.      As you probably know, the largest land-dwelling species of the weasel family is the wolverine. Which of the following three are among the AKA names of the wolverine? Carcajou, Quickhatch, Skunk Bear, Wolf Weasel.

5.  Explorers. What was the name of the Portuguese explorer who named the Pacific Ocean the same year that he was killed in The Philippines?  Bonus newsletter hint from Jerry to George: “So I guess it’s fair to say you’ve set different goals for yourself than say, Thomas Edison, [Portuguese explorer name], these types of people.”

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

Morning meetings make for a late newsletter, and my Sunday evening office hours (9-11 at Crepeville) make it difficult for me to publish the newsletter before dawn on Mondays, as some of you prefer.

Some of the students attending my office hours last night have enrolled in my first-year seminar titled “The Cultural Offerings of the City of Davis.” As you would expect, in this class I introduce my students to the art, history, theatre, poetry, and café culture of our hometown, mostly via field trips. This past Friday afternoon, for example, I was backwards-walking 15 of my freshmen along 1^st Street in downtown Davis when I encountered my friend Jackson and his friend d’Artagnan. Naturally I stopped the two 16 year-olds and asked them to tell us what they most appreciate about our fair city. An irregular Pub Quiz participant, Jackson has grown used to me asking him ridiculous questions, so he played along amiably, talking about the walkability of Davis, and his love for live music.

I soon realized that, like my KDVS radio show, my classes are more fun when I can put the guests in charge, rather than talking up my audience myself. So when a couple blocks later we encountered Art Studio professor Annabeth Rosen, I immediately asked her to share some inspiring words with students about the public art downtown (our topic for that day). Professor Rosen commented knowledgeably about Susannah Israel’s pipe sculpture “Circus” (we were standing next to it at the time), but she was more interested in challenging the students in the class to make their own art.

A few blocks later I called to Kevin Roddy, the retired Medieval Studies lecturer, and winner of multiple UC Davis teaching awards, to ask him to share his thoughts on the art in downtown Davis, as well as to introduce students to Village Homes, Kevin’s beautiful neighborhood in West Davis. Still astride his bicycle, Kevin painted word-pictures of the meandering streets, the communal yards, and the eco-aware architecture. By the end of his unprepared but especially eloquent remarks, I think all my students had resolved to visit the streets named after Tolkien’s characters and place names from The Hobbit.

My students and I realized from our walking tour that while we can all be proud of our city’s public commitment to the arts, it is actually the people who live here, and our shared commitment to cultural surprises, creativity, and discovery, that make Davis so remarkable and habitable. I hope your explorations of the arts in Davis are as rewarding.

This evening’s pub quiz will feature questions on multinational corporations, weasels, US states, The Philippines, cowboys and other people who ride horses, wizards, actors, metabolism, Oscar nominees, prime numbers, long London commutes, diseases, horror movies, long science words, wings, record-setting longevity, crickets, Native Americans, Spanish words, Disney (regrettably), dictators, expanding one’s vocabulary, Irish actors, accomplished teenagers, violent storms, people wearing masks, Harry Potter (upon request), Roger Ebert, connecting countries, Nobel Prizes, fruits, short words, scientific definitions from the world of Ecology, Book titles that start with the letter B, football coaches, hot springs, and Shakespeare.

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 brand of potato chip is famous for the slogan “Betcha can’t eat just one”?

2.         Internet Culture – Computer Science. According to the website Wolfram Math World, what four-syllable word means a “specific set of instructions for carrying out a procedure or solving a problem”?

3.         Four for Four.      For which of the following American bands, if any, were three or more of its performers born in Oakland, CA? blink182, Green Day, Pierce the Veil, Tower of Power.

4.         Pop Culture – Music with Children’s Instruments. Playing on children’s instruments, what late night talk show host recently joined his show band and Muppet residents to tell us all how to get to Sesame Street?

5.         Sports.   What member of the Boston Red Sox led the team in batting average, home runs, and RBIs during the 2013 regular season?

P.S. Poetry Night is this coming Thursday night at 8 at the John Natsoulas Gallery. Alan Williamson will be the featured poet. He has met and/or worked with T.S. Eliot, Robert Lowell, and James Franco, all previous answers on the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz.

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