Your Quizmaster — Home of the Quizmaster of Sudwerk Brewing Company in Davis

Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:

1. Mottos and Slogans. Beginning in 2004, what company used the commercial slogan "so easy, a caveman could do it"?

2. Internet Culture. What is the last name of the Yahoo CEO who took only a week for maternity leave after giving birth to a boy in September? Hint: She shares this name with a meat company and a film studio.

3. Newspaper Headlines – Film. This past weekend the film Killing Them Softly had the worst live-action wide-release opening for what A-list actor who starred in it?

4. Four for Four. Of the 29 languages spoken natively by a million or more citizens of India, which two of the following are the most widely-spoken? Bengali, Hindi, Punjabi, Urdu.

5. Lady Godiva. Lady Godiva was an Anglo-Saxon noblewoman who, according to a legend, rode naked through the streets of Coventry in what century? Was it the 6th, 11th, 16th, or 20th?

P.S. Did you know that Dr. Andy also hosts a radio show?

The Welcome Storm Edition of the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz Newsletter

by yourquizmaster on December 3, 2012

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

I hope you’ve been enjoying this past weekend’s storms. After sweeping floodwater away from the foundation of our home yesterday, my sons and I took the dog on a long walk to survey the downed branches and the deep gatherings of leaves on the greenbelts of South Davis. The sun was out and strong by noon, so we didn’t even bring jackets. Despite the recent intense winds, our weather events certainly seem shorter and milder than what others have endured in New Jersey or Louisiana. Like Frederick Douglass, I will always welcome a strong storm with thunder over a gentle shower. Douglass famously said, “It is not light that we need, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake.” Of course, unlike most of us, Frederick Douglass probably never lived through an earthquake.

I got to thinking about literary storms, and the extent to which a writer can represent the tumult of an ongoing storm. Probably the most famous storm in literature and film is the one that sent Dorothy Gale on her adventure:

“The north and south winds met where the house stood, and made it the exact center of the cyclone. In the middle of a cyclone the air is generally still, but the great pressure of the wind on every side of the house raised it up higher and higher, until it was at the very top of the cyclone; and there it remained and was carried miles and miles away as easily as you could carry a feather.

It was very dark, and the wind howled horribly around her, but Dorothy found she was riding quite easily. After the first few whirls around, and one other time when the house tipped badly, she felt as if she were being rocked gently, like a baby in a cradle.”

The dramatic and tragic events late in Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God are prompted by the 1928 Okeechobee hurricane. At one point, the protagonist Janie is huddled in a flimsy shack with two friends:

“The wind came back with a triple fury, and put out the light for the last time. They sat in company with the others in other shanties, their eyes straining against crude walls and their souls asking if He meant to measure their puny might against His. They seemed to be staring at the dark, but their eyes were watching God.”

My favorite literary storm is, not surprisingly, more poetic:

Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!

You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout

Till you have drench’d our steeples, drown’d the cocks!

You sulphurous and thought-executing fires,

Vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts,

Singe my white head! And thou, all-shaking thunder,

Strike flat the thick rotundity o’ the world!

Crack nature’s moulds, all germens spill at once

That make ingrateful man!

This comes, of course, from Act III, Scene II of King Lear, one of my favorite Shakespeare plays. Is there another storm that stirs you more than these?

Tonight’s Pub Quiz will feature questions about meat companies, soft opens, India, dogs, elementary schools, The Civil War, Anglo-Saxon noblewomen, brothers that we’ve heard of but couldn’t pick out of a lineup, meager homes, fearsome creatures, Europe, anchormen, musical time travel, the NBA, roses, winners and losers, random three-syllable adjectives, Canadian and Californian cities, Islam, songs to dance to, simian restrooms, security guards, pulp fiction, having character, wedding parties, Dublin, films with multiple Oscars, unemployment, Lincoln, names in the news, Shakespeare and, for a second time in two weeks, Moses. I hope this is helpful.

I’m hosting a poetry reading Thursday night – details after the sample questions. See you this evening!

Your Quizmaster

Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:

10. Great Americans. In office for more than four years, who preceded Condoleezza Rice as Secretary of State? People who got this wrong seemed to have blocked the first four years of the George W. Bush administration.

11. Unusual Five-Syllable Words That Start with the Letters ACC. What word denotes the process of adopting the cultural traits or social patterns of another group?

12. Food and Drink. What is the primary ingredient in a lassi, something that you might order in an Indian restaurant? By the way, lassis come in all sorts of flavors, not just mango!

13. Pop Culture – Television. Who played Norm on Cheers? Most teams answered this correctly.

14. Another Music Question. What 50 year-old musician and actor won an AMA award and a Golden Globe in 1991 for his song “Blaze of Glory”? I would not have known the answer to this question. I’ve almost already forgotten it!

P.S. This coming Thursday night at 8 The Poetry Night Reading Series will be proud to welcome Joshua McKinney. He will be performing at the John Natsoulas Gallery at 521 1st Street. Joshua McKinney is the author of three books of poetry: Saunter, co-winner of the University of Georgia Press Poetry Series Open Competition in 2002; The Novice Mourner, winner of the Dorothy Brunsman Poetry Prize in 2005; and Mad Cursive, just published in 2012. Details at http://www.poetryindavis.com. Please join us!

The Egyptian Power Grab Edition of the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz Newsletter

by yourquizmaster on November 26, 2012

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

Happy belated Thanksgiving! I hope you enjoyed the break with family and friends, and that you were able to stay away from malls. Longtime friend to the Pub Quiz (and terrific high-end consignment store) Haute Again benefited from a “Cash Mob” that occurred at the store on Saturday during “Small Business Saturday.” My wife Kate and I supported a small business by stopping by de Vere’s Irish Pub Saturday night for a meal and a beverage. On Thanksgiving Day Kate tried to explain to her parents why she appreciates the food and décor at de Vere’s Irish Pub, even though she would never be found in a typical “bar,” in Davis or anywhere else. It might be that the staff at de Vere’s are so friendly and attentive, or it might be that the sort of seedy characters that would dissuade Kate from entering a bar gravitate to other establishments (or maybe to other cities). Me, of course I’ll follow Kate to any location she chooses.

That said, I have been thinking about additional ways of throwing around my considerable weight and influence, just as Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi has recently decreed he should be able to do. Morsi has claimed that his power grab is only temporary, while some of the protesters in Tahrir Square are arguing that there’s a new Pharaoh in town. Kate pointed out that she doesn’t imagine that she and the children would abide any power grab of my own, domestically, so instead I will try out some new rules at the Pub Quiz. Tell me what you think of these:

Rule 7: All-female a cappella singers during halftime.

Rule 8: If Dr. Andy is a little chilly during the Pub Quiz, participants must provide scarves.

Rule 9: More tofu.

Rule 10: During the noisy introduction to the Pub Quiz, participants should applaud inappropriately between sentences, the way I inadvertently do between movements of a symphony.

Rule 11: Bottomless Guinness.

And finally,

Rule 12: If during halftime Dr. Andy asks a team if they have any questions, no one should respond, “Yes. What are the answers?”

I’ll be (mildly) curious to know if you think these new powers are warranted. Meanwhile, expect questions on tonight’s quiz about new pharaohs, food and drink (x2), internet video, water, characters named Wanda, geese, ticks without tocks, films that (refreshingly) are not sequels, platinum debut albums, NBA players, assassins, islands, 60s TV shows, gorillas and squirrels, the Wizard of Oz, statesmen with multiple Z’s in their names, words that start with the letters ACC, globes, Indian delicacies, 50 year olds who some consider still to be cool, shabby clams, people named Mary, slow news weeks, football, longtime dowagers, people named Stanley, first authors, heat, and Shakespeare.

It’s been such a pleasure to see the Pub filled up by 6:30 on a Monday night. If you and your team plan to join us this evening, leave extra time. See you tonight!

Your Quizmaster

Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:

Mottos and Slogans. What Finnish multinational communications and information technology corporation uses as its slogan the phrase “Connecting People”?

World Employers. The largest employer in the world, with 3.23 million employees, was also the largest single consumer of energy in the United States in 2006. Headquartered in Virginia, name the largest employer in the world.

Food and Drink. Which of the following snacks is being released in a new caffeinated version? Cracker Jacks, Jiffy Pop Popcorn, Reeses Pieces, Triscuits.

Four for Four. Which two of the following Steve Martin films were released in 2003? Bringing Down the House, Cheaper by the Dozen, Father of the Bride II, LA Story.

Pop Culture – Music. “Diamonds” is the name of the hit single by the recording artist who has achieved a total of eleven number one singles on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, becoming the youngest solo artist to achieve the feat. What is her name? Hint: She’s two years older than Taylor Swift.

The Priming the Operatic Pump Edition of the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz Newsletter

by yourquizmaster on November 19, 2012

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

I tell my students in the “Writing Across Media” class that I teach for the Technocultural Studies Program every winter that, as creative professionals, they have a responsibility to report to the class on their culturally ambitious weekends. One great advantage of being a creative professional (or a Quizmaster) is that all of our cultural and intellectual experiences can be made relevant to our work. One must “prime the pump.” This past weekend, for example, I enjoyed a David Sedaris performance at the sold-out Mondavi Center, saw the Spielberg film Lincoln, and saw my friend Malcolm Mackenzie perform the title role in The Barber of Seville. I’m grateful to be married to a woman who is also culturally curious, who appreciates comedy, history, and classical music, as I do, and who was willing to accompany me to all these cultural adventures.

Like most of you, I don’t see a lot of opera. I regret to say that heretofore I have looked askance upon opera in the way that many otherwise culturally-curious people allow themselves to look upon performed poetry, that this particular genre of the performing arts can be ignored or avoided because of its potential for pretentiousness, obscurity, pomposity, and remoteness from one’s current interests and concerns. Some might think, as I have, that opera is a throwback art form reserved for wealthy Eurocentric people. As Moliere said more than 350 years ago, “Of all the noises known to man, opera is the most expensive.”

But of course we find in opera what we look to find in the best examples of other artistic genres. Susannah composer Carlisle Ford said, “Like any other composer of opera, I choose a subject not for polemical reasons, but because it contains vivid characters in highly charged dramatic situations.” We look for these same qualities in film, though a character like Daniel Day-Lewis’s Lincoln is more subtle, folksy, and discursive than the characters in a typical opera. My advice: buy a recording of the opera you plan to see – as I did with a Maria Callas version of The Barber of Seville – and then listen to it a few times before you head to the show. On the day of the performance you’ll be so familiar with the music that you can focus on the spectacle, the sets, the comedy, and the acting, as Kate and I did. You will soon wish not to be anywhere else in the world. You will even want to take a break from Facebook – a welcome respite.

And it helps if you know someone in the cast. Occasional Pub Quiz participant Malcolm Mackenzie is an incredible baritone – it’s amazing what these singers do with their voices – and he was rightfully presented last for the curtain call. What an ovation! Coming home from the opera last night, I told Kate that while I find being your Quizmaster to be really rewarding, never will 2,000 people give me a standing ovation as they did yesterday for the baritone barber Malcolm MacKenzie. She pointed out that I am not the Quizmaster of Seville.

Tonight’s Pub Quiz will contain no questions about my new interest in opera – I’ll save one of those for next week. But there will be a classical music question, and questions about Finland, Virginia employers, Canadians, Steve Martin, Jennifer Anniston, haters, linear algebra involving hockey, Cuban baseball players, pig-rats, Abraham Lincoln, islands, mad men, hardened ivory huts, things that you might learn in People Magazine, books translated into English and other languages, people we are trying to save, The Irish Times, again with the Middle East, small states, Americans born in 1809, gymnastics, football, the FBI, and Shakespeare. There will be one true-false question, several easy questions, and perhaps one stumper. We shall have to see.

Enjoy Thanksgiving with your families. I am grateful every time I see you and members of the other teams at the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz.

Your Quizmaster

Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:

1. Mottos and Slogans. "A mind is a terrible thing to waste" is the slogan of the UNCF. What do the letters UNCF stand for?

2. Internet Culture. Microsoft first introduced an operating environment named Windows in what decade?

3. Newspaper Headlines. Lance Armstrong has stepped down as a board member of the cancer-support charity he founded in 1997. What is the name of that charity?

4. Four for Four. On the album Motown #1s, which one of the following #1 Motown hits was longer than three minutes? “I Heard It Through the Grapevine” by Marvin Gaye, “My Girl” by the Temptations, “Please Mr Postman” by The Marvelettes, “Where Did Our Love Go” by the Supremes.

5. Veterans. Three states in the US have more than a million veterans. California is first with 1.9 million veterans, and two other states have 1.6 million veterans. What are those two states?

P.S. I believe next week marks the one-year anniversary of the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz. What shall we do to celebrate?

The Nobility of Spirit Veterans Day Edition of the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz Newsletter http://www.aweber.com/t/IGYUA

by yourquizmaster on November 12, 2012

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

My favorite Veterans Day message came this morning from my friend Indigo Moor, the multi-award winning poet and essayist who was posting, as so many of us do when we have an important message, on his Facebook wall:

10 years in the Navy: Desert Storm, Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal and a Kuwaiti Liberation Medal. My ex asked my oldest grandson if he knew that I was a veteran. Michael replied "yeah… there's a kid in my class, he's a veteran, too." LOL. Off to work.

Indigo’s words reminded me of a quotation I read recently by the Italian conductor Riccardo Muti, who is also the musical director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra: “Nobility of spirit has more to do with simplicity than ostentation, wisdom rather than wealth, commitment rather than ambition.”

One way to honor veterans is to thank them for their selflessness. I wonder if President Obama carried the veteran-heavy states of Virginia and Florida in the election this year because of the ways that his campaign focused on the needs of returning veterans (especially helping them find jobs). Because this was the first election in 80 years where no one on the ticket could point to military service as a qualification in his run for office, perhaps President Obama had an opening with veterans who saw that he genuinely cared for their well-being and their futures.

Expect a couple Veterans Day-themed questions on tonight’s de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz. Also, expect a crowd. The monthly Art About is bringing more and more outsiders to downtown Davis, and many of them this past Friday tried to get a table at de Vere’s. Tonight the crowd will be more focused, less frenetic, and more ready to participate in their own entertainment. With some favorite teams returning from vacations and other forms of hiatus, I bet we will sell out.

Tonight’s Quiz will also include questions about Microsoft, popular charities, Motown, 50 years of Bond films, funky music, puppets, sugar, American royalty, quarterbacks whose names are spondees, baritones, cloaking, islands, Star Trek, Oscar-winners, heavenly tunnels, (northern) Italy as a setting, people with the last name of Fett, fireflies, lovely summers, spouses who share birthdays, clones, the ages of bunches of celebrities, vacancies, parks, islands, the Caribbean, religious leaders, Persia, fun with atoms, time spent with ghosts, states full of women, veterans, and Shakespeare.

I hope to see you this evening, and happy Veterans Day.

Your Quizmaster

Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:

1. Unusual Bicycle Words and Acronyms. When referring to bicycles, what does the acronym BMX stand for?

2. Aristotle. According to Aristotle, the secret to humor is WHAT?

3. Pop Culture – Television Hosts. Huell Howser is best known for hosting a TV travel show titled California's WHAT?

4. Another Music Question. In what Beatles song does one find the line “Got to be good looking ‘cause he’s so hard to see”?

5. Anagram. What was the last-released full-length non-animated film that included Mike Myers in its cast? Two hints: The 2009 film made $120 million domestically, and its title is an anagram for the common phrase A BED RUINS UROLOGISTS.

P.S. I hope you’ll come out to the John Natsoulas Gallery this coming Thursday night at 8 to see two of UC Davis’s best poets perform: Joe Wenderoth and Joshua Clover. You should leave your children at home for this event.

The Musical Stimulants Edition of the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz Newsletter

by yourquizmaster on November 5, 2012

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

Many of my friends on Facebook are telling me and their other friends how and why they are grateful this month. So far they have been talking mostly about friends and family – for example, my wife Kate thanked me for convincing her that we should have a third child – but I’m sure tomorrow or Wednesday people will express thanks that the presidential election is over. Television networks may be less thankful that the campaign season will end, for I’m sure between the endless stream of crass political ads and the partisan focus on either Fox News or MSNBC, network executives were feeling that their work was relevant again, or at least necessary in our age of retail politics. Like many of you, I have long ago grown impatient with television – especially commercial television – having switched years ago to print and internet sources for our news. Let’s hope that Americans rediscover new reasons to be thankful starting Wednesday night, starting perhaps with the other people in their homes, those natural resources and parks that have not yet been depleted or neglected, and the silence in a room where two or more people are reading actual books.

As an aside, I should add that classical music suits me for reading books, whereas I use energetic dance music when I am grading papers. Never a coffee drinker or a taker of psycho-stimulants, I find that music can serve these functions if you have a wide-enough musical palate, and access to online music through Pandora, Spotify, or the web-available radio stations of the world. Some day I will attempt a music round at the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz, though today is not that day.

Tonight’s Quiz will feature five questions on “things I learned last week from reading the newspaper.” I read rather widely, and often with you, the quiz-taker, in mind. I hope you have also been keeping up with the news. Expect also questions about burgers, Google and Microsoft, November, Hurricane Sandy (also called a “super storm”), countries that start with the letter I, social thinkers and philosophers, rookies, historical miracles, portrait painters, great American films, people born in Hawaii, baseball greats, gasses, bicycling, California travel, Beatles songs, reclining ruined urologists, films that have made more than $100 million, CBEs, blogs, trees, the election, swing states, Philadelphia, a sibling’s directives regarding guns, red states, Vietnam, carnivores that never eat people, novels, and Shakespeare.

I hope to see you this evening. It will get dark early tonight, so at the Pub Quiz you can pretend that you are out late even though you should be able to be home and in bed tonight by 9:30, depending on how long it takes you to brush your teeth.

Your Quizmaster

Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:

22. Fear the Beard. What Beach Boy shares a name with a pitcher playing for the World Championship San Francisco Giants?

23. Davis Culture. The City of Davis grew around a Southern Pacific Railroad depot that was built around the time of the end of what US-involved war?

24. Countries of the World. Five of the twelve largest cities proper in the world are found in what country?

25. Food and Drink. What grain-like crop whose name starts with the letter Q is grown primarily for its edible seeds?

26. Science. What five-syllable word do we use to name the branch of natural science concerned with heat and its relation to other forms of energy and work?

The Divided Attention Edition of the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz Newsletter

by yourquizmaster on October 30, 2012

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

The nation’s attention is divided into about three different directions. First, of course, is the presidential election. My brother-in-law Paul told me when I visited him in Seattle last week that he checks Nate Silver’s 538 blog every day to see how Silver interprets the latest swing state polls, and what percentage chance President Obama has to keep his current job (it’s currently at about 75%). Paul, who is not much of an Obama fan, even though he fears the alternative, is relatively optimistic, while his wife Andree, a devoted Microsoft employee and fan, worries every day about the outcome. She knew Obama a bit when they were both in Harvard Law School together.

The other two directions, of course, are the San Francisco Giants, and Hurricane Sandy. Expect questions on both at tonight’s de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz. Tonight’s Pub Quiz will also feature questions about waves, video games, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Late Night with David Letterman, Saturday Night Live, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Hills, minor celebrities and their pets, words that start with the letter Q (the letter of the day), clowns, poetry, taxes, beach boys, People.com, people named Jim, bodies of water, slim people, the World Series, the silence of the lambs, seismology, three-letter words, war heroes, jail sentences and other punishments, religious adherents, heavy Manillas (the “bracelet” currency of West Africa), Booms, popular shows, horror films (Halloween coming up), wars, food and drink, and all of Shakespeare (that is, not only Hamlet).

No debates or baseball games should keep you on the couch tonight, unless it’s the couch in the library of de Vere’s Irish Pub. See you this evening?

Your Quizmaster

Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:

1. Mottos and Slogans. Starting in 1912, what company or product used the commercial slogan “When it rains it pours”?

2. Davis Culture. The storefront at the current home of the Halloween Store at 212 F Street was previously occupied by three businesses that all sold the same product. Name it.

3. Newspaper Headlines. On Saturday, Ohio's largest newspaper, the Plain Dealer, endorsed the Democratic incumbent for President, as it did for then-Senator Obama in 2008. What Ohio city is home to the Plain Dealer?

4. Four for Four. Which of the following horror films, if any, were released in the 1930s? The Bride of Frankenstein, Dracula, Frankenstein, The Wolf Man.

5. Presidential Politics. According to Nate Silver of the New York Times, what are the chances this election cycle that President Obama will fail to carry one of the states that he carried in 2008? Is it 50%, 75%, 85%, or 99.5 %?

P.S. Sandra Gilbert, one of the most important feminist literary critics writing today, will be reading from some of her dozen or more books of poetry this coming Thursday night at 8 at the John Natsoulas Gallery, with the after-party taking place at de Vere’s Irish Pub at 10. Please see details at http://www.poetryindavis.com.

The Rainy Day Edition of the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz Newsletter

by yourquizmaster on October 22, 2012

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

My favorite Indian poet is Rabindranath Tagore, the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. I thought of him this morning while deciding what rain-soaked poem I would share with you today, the day of the first fall rains and an important marker, finally, of the end of summer in Davis, California. I’ve chosen Tagore’s “The Rainy Day”:

Sullen clouds are gathering fast over the black fringe of the forest.

O child, do not go out!

The palm trees in a row by the lake are smiting their heads against the dismal sky; the crows with their dragged wings are silent on the tamarind branches, and the eastern bank of the river is haunted by a deepening gloom.

Our cow is lowing loud, ties at the fence.

O child, wait here till I bring her into the stall.

Men have crowded into the flooded field to catch the fishes as they escape from the overflowing ponds; the rain-water is running in rills through the narrow lanes like a laughing boy who has run away from his mother to tease her.

Listen, someone is shouting for the boatman at the ford.

O child, the daylight is dim, and the crossing at the ferry is closed.

The sky seems to ride fast upon the madly rushing rain; the water in the river is loud and impatient; women have hastened home early from the Ganges with their filled pitchers.

The evening lamps must be made ready.

O child, do not go out!

The road to the market is desolate, the lane to the river is slippery. The wind is roaring and struggling among the bamboo branches like a wild beast tangled in a net.

You may have other obligations this evening, but I hope you will join us at the de Vere’s Pub Quiz. You can watch the Giants game in an Irish Pub filled with fans who feel the same way you do. And if there is some sort of political event going on tonight, as I have heard, make sure your DVR has enough room for whatever it is you decide to pre-record. That way, you can use your fast-forward button judiciously when you get home from the Pub Quiz, with your tummy filled with delicious food and perhaps a beverage, and your mind filled with the sort of guaranteed facts that seem rare during a debate. One thing I can guarantee you is you will be able to find a table when you come by tonight’s performance of the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz!

Tonight’s Pub Quiz will feature questions about Halloween in Davis, the state of Ohio, Dracula, Europe, comparing 2012 to 2008, New England, Toy Story II, Winners of Nobel Prizes whose names are neither Rabindranath nor Tagore, young accomplishments, classic rock and roll, Mitt Romney, electric neutrality, ax blows, self-help TV, members of superstar couples, songs that are artfully done, Albert Einstein, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Steve Jobs, hairstyles, abundant metals, Irish music, people named after flowers, Florida, wine, bloody ambition, Shakespeare, and grapes.

See you tonight!

Your Quizmaster

Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:

1. Mottos and Slogans. What company asks the question “What can Brown do for you?”

2. Internet Culture. What co-founder of Google was ranked first on Fortune’s “40 Under 40” list? Answer: Larry Page

3. Newspaper Headlines. According to this morning’s papers, everyone’s talking about the third season of an AMC TV show in which Rick and the other survivors finding a new home in an abandoned maximum security prison. Name the show.

4. Four for Four. Which of the following actresses, if any, are under 30? Scarlett Johansson, Keira Knightly, Samantha Morton, Carey Mulligan.

5. The Titanic. With a two hour margin of error, at what time on April 14th, 1912 did the Titanic strike the iceberg?

P.S. Sebastian Thrun and Sandra Gilbert are (separately) coming to Davis on November 1^st. What a great city we live in!

The Halloween Comes Early Edition of the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz Newsletter

by yourquizmaster on October 15, 2012

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

I spent a delightful afternoon at the Davis Cemetery yesterday. Although I had never been on the grounds of the cemetery, it seemed oddly familiar to me, in part because of all the time I spent in cemeteries as a child. My best friend Tito, later known on his pilot’s license as Montague David Lord, lived across the street from The Holy Rood Cemetery in the Glover Park neighborhood of Washington DC. Fascinated by ghosts, hauntings, and other spooky subjects, Tito and I spent many afternoons reviewing the names and the birth and death dates of the thousands of people buried there. Known when I was a child as the best-documented slave burial ground in the city, Holy Rood Cemetery has been in a state of disrepair for many years. Georgetown University, which owns the land, investigated the possibility of disinterring those buried there, but protests from relatives and people eventually hoping to be buried there with those relatives dissuaded the university from moving forward with that plan. This interest in Holy Rood among the living seems strange to me now, for during all our visits I don’t know that Tito and I ever saw a funeral take place at 2126 Wisconsin Avenue – I remember more graves of Civil War veterans than of soldiers who took place in our subsequent conflicts.

The Davis Cemetery District, by contrast, contains one of the best-maintained cemeteries I have ever encountered. Unlike almost everywhere else in Davis, it also has topography, by which I mean, it has a hill. To the east of the burial plots one finds a large expanse of lawns, mature trees, a huge number of recently planted trees, and some actual wildlife: my children counted two jack-rabbits and a dozen or so wild turkeys. It was a beautiful site for a poetry reading, and yesterday I got to perform with Amy X. Neuburg, the electronic musician and opera singer who impressed and surprised the older crowd of 50 or so art and music lovers who attended the event. I myself was surprised by the large number of my poems that included mention of graveyards and memorials. Perhaps without knowing it I return to the images and settings that were so important to Tito and me when we were first starting to understand history and mortality.

Tonight’s Pub Quiz will include some questions about dead people, so prepare yourself for that. Expect also questions about young and accomplished people, Scarlett Johansson, April 14^th, bands that have appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine, animation, undefeated people, China, opening doors, diamonds, former kings, dust, Iowa, eclipses, the Central Valley of California, dogs, spiders, Joe Biden, contiguous states, the US Senate, elderly protagonists, Americans with insufficient consonants, soybeans, the language of law, the Center for Reproductive Rights, Hungary, a man’s fist, the pronunciation of “Buscemi,” and Shakespeare.

The San Francisco Beat poet AD Winans comes to town this coming Friday night at 7 to read from his original work. Find out about Winans below, and about this weekend’s Jazz/Beat Festival at http://www.natsoulas.com/schedule/.

I hope to see you this evening for the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz!

Your Quizmaster

Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:

7. Pop Culture – Music. The number one song in the nation this week, "One More Night," is performed by what LA-based pop rock band?

8. Sports. You may have heard that Miguel Cabrera has recently achieved the baseball triple-crown. One of the three categories is home-runs. What are the other two?

9. Science. The Hardy-Weinberg Principle most concerns which of the following disciplines? Astronomy, Chemistry, Genetics, Physics.

10. Great Americans. In what year did Steve Jobs die?

11. Unusual Words according to Urban Dictionary. What P word do we use to describe a photo that has been ruined by someone or something that was not supposed to be in the photograph?

P.S. More on AD Winans: A native of San Francisco, Allan Davis Winans is a poet, essayist, photographer, and short story writer whose work has appeared in over 2,000 literary magazines and anthologies, including City Lights Journal, Poetry Australia, The New York Quarterly, Beatitude, Beat Scene, and Rattle. In addition, he has written 50 books of poetry and two books of prose. Winans was close friends with Beat poets Charles Bukowski, Bob Kaufman, and Jack Micheline, having participated in the Beat and post-Beat era starting in 1958. From 1972 to 1989 Winans edited and published Second Coming Magazine, which produced a large number of books and anthologies, including the highly acclaimed California Bicentennial Poets Anthology. In 2006, he was awarded a PEN National Josephine Miles Award For Excellence in Literature, and, in 2009, PEN Oakland presented Winans with a Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2010, Bottle of Smoke Press published a 300-page collection of Winans’ selected poems, and in February 2012 Little Red Tree Press published Winans’ San Francisco Poems. To find out more about A. D. Winans, visit http://www.adwinans.mysite.com/.

The John Lennon Lessons for Radicals Edition of the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz Newsletter

by yourquizmaster on October 8, 2012

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

Tomorrow is John Lennon’s birthday – he would have been 72 this week had he not been killed in 1980 outside his home in New York City. The Beatles’ Red and Blue albums seemed always to be spinning on our RCA record player when I was a child, and my interest in Lennon and his music spanned my earliest years, which were Lennon’s last, as well as the decades since his death. I remember my Lennon posters making one particular college roommate particularly uneasy. He came from a family of Republicans who taught him that Lennon was a radical, a communist, and an insurgent. It was known by then that President Nixon tried for years to have Lennon deported from his adopted country, in part because the anti-war activist participated in a large San Diego concert on the same evening as the 1972 Republican National Convention. The voting age had been recently lowered to 18, and Nixon was worried that Lennon would woo all those new voters, most of them Beatles fans, to the anti-war cause. Then-Senator Strom Thurmond even sent President Nixon a memo suggesting that “deportation would be a strategic counter-measure” to all of Lennon’s activism. History proved that Nixon had plenty to worry about, but McGovern wasn’t really one of them, for Nixon won the 1972 contest with the largest margin of any presidential election before or since, with McGovern winning only Massachusetts, and my hometown of Washington DC. On that election night, John Lennon attended a symbolic wake, and then separated from Yoko Ono. In documents that have been turned over to Lennon biographers, the FBI concluded, “Lennon appears to be radically oriented; however, he does not give the impression he is a true revolutionist, since he is constantly under the influence of narcotics.” I suppose that if you want to be a true revolutionary, you need to keep your head about you.

Speaking of political movements and rallies, a very different sort of President will be joining us in Davis tomorrow, as Bill Clinton campaigns on the Quad for local Democrats. I’ve seen Presidents Carter and Reagan from afar, and presidential candidates Jesse Jackson and Ted Kennedy up close. The crowds were too crazy the last time Clinton visited us – I think to spark interest in his wife’s candidacy four years ago – but I think there should be room for all of us on the Quad this coming Tuesday morning at 10:30. As we learned in November, the Quad can hold a large number of enthusiasts.

Expect a John Lennon question on the Pub Quiz tonight (a tie-breaker concerning two relevant songs). Tonight at de Vere’s you will also hear spicy film taglines, talk of fonts, comparisons to The Beatles, The Princeton Review, The US Civil War, Texas, LA-based pop rock bands, sports records, your choice of sciences, Urban Dictionary words that you can say on the radio, televised sports, Trivial Nail Canals, Triple A, the centers of things, Washington DC, Rick Perry (who?), California counties, buildings on the UC Davis campus, Irish actors, Paris, Spanish birds, medical maladies, presidential elections, The San Francisco Giants, and Shakespeare.

I hope to see you this evening for the Pub Quiz. The first team who introduces me to a team of six newly-recruited first-time players will be awarded a plate of fries with a serving of the delicious de Vere’s curry ketchup. Do come early to claim a table.

Your Quizmaster

Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:

1. Internet Culture. As of December 2011, version 3.0 of the most popular blogging system in use on the Internet had been downloaded over 65 million times. Name it.

2. Newspaper Headlines. The candidates for US President are preparing for this week’s first Presidential debate. On what day later this week does the debate take place?

3. Four for Four. Which of the following members of famous couples, if any, were ever married to each other? Bonnie and Clyde, Cleopatra and Antony, Hepburn and Tracy, Kahlo and Rivera

4. Dogs and Cats. With a 15% margin of error, what percentage of American dog owners own just one dog?

5. Film Quotations. In what 2011 film does the central character say “Do not try the free pistachio ice cream! It done turn!”?

P.S. Happy birthday to two of our most stalwart Pub Quiz participants. Professor Keith David Watenpaugh will join us tonight, as he almost always does, even though it’s his birthday, while his teammate Don Lipper celebrates tomorrow. These two members of POM recently ran into each other in the Denver airport, so I’m sure they shared potential trivia question topics until they had to board their planes. Happy birthday to Keith and Don, and thanks to all of you who joined me on Facebook recently to share your Pub Quiz question topics. Expect to see all those topics represented in the coming weeks of the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz!