Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

 

The title of this week’s newsletter, surprisingly, does not refer to yesterday’s Super Bowl, though I suppose all of us lost who expected an exciting game. So many of you viewed the game yesterday that I feel compelled to include some relevant questions on tonight’s quiz. I hope the time with friends and family rewarded your investment of time and attention.

 

One striking Loss from yesterday was the death of Philip Seymour Hoffman at age 46. James Lipton, the host of the TV show Inside the Actors Studio, called Hoffman the “greatest actor of his generation,” comparing him to Brando, Nicholson, and de Niro. My wife Kate recognized Hoffman’s talent in his earliest films, and would set aside time to see each new film as he became more recognized and event more talented. I have mentioned him dozens of times on the Pub Quiz, and he will reappear this evening as we celebrate his life and work.

 

One Win, for me, was a reunion of sorts with my favorite teacher from high school, Will Layman. He and two of his colleagues from that small private school, The Field School in Washington DC, were in San Francisco over the weekend, so yesterday my son Jukie and I woke as early as we would on a school day and drove out to the Café de la Presse for some breakfast. I was pleased to see that the maitre d’ was just as snooty as the Yelp reviews had lead to me expect, asking us twice, with some incredulity, if indeed we had no reservation for our 9 AM meal. The food was delicious, and the conversation even better. Now a musician and a jazz critic as well as a beloved teacher, Will Layman (with others) inspired me to jump into the literature racket, to invest deeply in learning and reading, and to consider ways to inspire others’ discoveries. We might say, then, that Will Layman is indirectly responsible for all my brash and public artistic pursuits, including the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz.

 

The final Loss, for me, is my loss of respect for Woody Allen. I should wait to see if the allegations against him are corroborated, but to imagine an aesthetic hero of mine acting in such a way fills me with grief almost as much as reading of the death of Hoffman. Perhaps this is how the Chris Christie partisans feel as more revelations are revealed.

 

In addition to what is mentioned above, expect questions tonight on insurance, diminutive stars, introductions to a boyfriend, heroes, impoverished tropical paradises, wings, solar politics, the imagination, POTUS, American rappers, monsters, unusual words with Fs and Ps, more candy from Jay Leno’s doo-to-be-vacated desk, living American authors, surf instrumentals, rock journalism, wars, flowers and dancing, books of maps, houses of worship, the roots of American music, ethnic groups, countries in Europe, loud noises, Canadian menaces, nothing, ketchup, and Shakespeare.

 

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 US company founded in 1903 has used these two commercial slogans? “American by Birth, Rebel by Choice” and “It’s not the destination, it’s the journey.”

 

2. Newspaper Headlines. The front-man of Nine Inch Nails tweeted his pique over being cut off towards the end of yesterday’s Grammy Awards ceremony. Name this musician who won an Oscar for scoring the film The Social Network and who Spin magazine described as “the most vital artist in music.”

 

3. Know Your Historical Events. Using letters only, tell me the order of these three historical events: A) The Founding of the French First Republic (with the resulting end of the French Monarchy), B) The Founding of San Francisco by Spanish colonists, and C) The Founding of the United States of America.

 

4. Four for Four.      Which of the following Davis parks have a play structure or any kind of apparatus that includes a slide? Central Park, Community Park, Oxford Circle Park, Slide Hill Park.

 

5. Kid Culture. What’s the name of the human handler and adoptive father of Alvin & the Chipmunks?   

 

 

P.S. This coming Thursday the Poetry Night Reading Series will feature a reading and book-signing by highly acclaimed Nevada City poet Molly Fisk. Fisk will be reading from her most recent book: Blow-Drying a Chicken: Observations from a Working Poet. I hope you can join us Thursday night at 8 for this event at the John Natsoulas Gallery.

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

 

I’ve talked to many strangers since I saw you last.

 

In addition to the growing audience of my radio show, to whom I introduced Nina Amir, the writing coach and author of the book How to Blog a Book, Thursday I spoke at the UC Davis Design Museum about my former professor and colleague Sandra McPherson. Sandy, a beloved poet and teacher, had donated all 67 of the quilts she had collected, all of them created by African American female artists, most of them in the southern US. I got to read one of Sandy’s poems, titled “Artists,” and talk about what an important voice she has been for poetry, and for her students.

 

Then Friday I presented a talk at a writing conference in San Francisco, a paper titled “It’s All About the Caption: Understanding and Encouraging Students’ Use of Social Media to Create Multi-Modal Compositions.” Therein I talked about how rewarding it is to work with such talented Technocultural Studies students at UC Davis, and how I love encouraging them to take their knowledge of images, film, animation and sound, and create multimodal compositions in response to my assignments. They repeatedly delight and surprise me with their creativity and originality.

 

Then Saturday I gave a talk before the Ina Coolbrith Poetry Circle in Lafayette about the importance of radio on poetry and literacy. Kate brought the kids to that event, and several people came up to us afterwards to remark on how well-behaved our children are. That was almost as gratifying as hearing people laugh at my impersonations of Dylan Thomas (Born 100 years ago) and the late Amiri Baraka. Speaking of people born 100 years ago, a poet named Ben Slomoff shared a poem with us that had won a prize last year when Ben was 99. Now he is 100. My new friend Ben earned a master’s degree in conflict resolution in 1997 from the University of Massachusetts. What an admirable fellow.

 

And then on Sunday, like Ben Slomoff, I rested. Both Ben and I had earned it. How was your weekend?

 

Tonight’s Pub Quiz will feature questions on the following topics: dogs and dog breeds, staged violence, football defense, enforcers and where they come from, gothic novels, Heart favorites, Swedes, big cities, Ireland (the island itself), films that are not titled Shrek, infectious diseases, meadows, radically progressive statements about women, menaces, dudes named Jack, young royals, absent flavor varieties, venerables, the poem “The World is Too Much With Us,” Harvard, alcohols, Julie Andrews, handlers, famous foundings, slides, newspaper headlines, Apples, American rebels, California cities, 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. Great Americans.  Who the first person to fly solo from Honolulu, Hawaii to Oakland, California?

 

2. Unusual Words. What C verb means “To modify, especially to increase, the rate of (a chemical reaction)”? Verbs only, please.

 

3. American Cities. What American city is home to NASA’s Johnson Space Center, where the Mission Control Center is located?

 

4. Pop Culture – Television.     The name of the 1980s TV sitcom title character ALF is actually an anagram for what?

 

5. Another Music Question: Three-Vowel First Names. Who had big 2010 hits with “Dynamite” and “Break Your Heart”? 

 

P.S. Poetry Night returns on February 6 with a reading by Molly Fisk. Stay tuned for more information!

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

 

Happy Martin Luther King Day! I’ve previously written in this space about my family’s connections to and admiration of Dr. King. In recent years, Dr. King’s birthday has become a National Day of Service. A visit to the Davis Wiki Events Board reveals that as I write this two different local community spirit and beautification groups are planting native plants in Winters and North Davis. Elsewhere across the country people are painting murals at schools, boarding up abandoned homes, and picking up trash and cigarette butts in public parks. I hope that this has been a fruitful “day on” rather than just a day off for you.

Speaking of cigarette butts, thanks to our friends at Breathe Free UC Davis for providing the swag (six T-shirts!) and a reason to remind everyone about the well-established dangers of smoking cigarettes. According to a recent CNN story, the acting Surgeon General has new findings on smoking: “For the first time, the report found that smoking can cause diabetes, erectile dysfunction, rheumatoid arthritis, macular degeneration, ectopic pregnancies and impaired immune function. Smokers have a 30% to 40% increased risk of developing Type 2 diabetes compared with nonsmokers.”

Smoking seems like a great way to try out old age before you are due. That said, some of my smoker friends have told me that their addiction to death-sticks has made them more contemplative, for their addictions have forced them outside to take a break from work and consider sunshine and the view. In large organizations, smokers often know the best gossip, and more people from different departments, because they make friends while huddled outside as they administer nicotine and the hundreds of other chemical pollutants infused in their cigarettes. Of course, one could also turn to poetry – reading or writing – to encourage deep thinking. The side effects are far less dangerous.

Business and social media marketing guru Chris Brogan has said that smartphones have replaced cigarettes. Fans of Mad Men and people who remember Elvis before he was fat know well how it used to be: immediately after a dinner out with friends everyone would light up a cigarette and begin conversing (and coughing). Today people turn on their smartphones to see what important messages and events they had missed during the previous hour. Some people don’t even wait for the meal to end. Just yesterday I saw two sisters in their 20s enjoying burritos, but not each other’s company or conversation, for they both spent the entire meal silently staring into the small screens of their phones.

As the host of a weekly trivia contest, perhaps I should encourage your obsession with the transitory and the trivial, and thus smile when I see teams submit their scorecards without looking them over one last time, if only to be reunited with their smartphones, and thus alleviate the pain of separation. Instead I sometimes think of how Henry David Thoreau responded to a friend who insisted on walking into Concord once a week to read a copy of the New York Times. Thoreau said, “Read not The Times; read the eternities.” What are you reading?

Tonight’s Pub Quiz will feature questions on the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King. Expect also questions about monadnocks, the San Francisco 49ers, people who have been nominated for five Oscars, 2013 films, fairy tales, trivia questions found in back-copies of the Christian Science Monitor, distilled spirits, countries that are not Indonesia, aliens, minimalist absurdity, cinematic debuts, American cities, breaches, living authors of substance, silly film anagrams, The Journal of Pain, milk, the potential of wine, key Irish people who you should not snub, dogs, problems, unusual verbs, fliers, people who are not Gay, stars, dance, light wits, marches, films online, east Carolina, Navajos, and Shakespeare.

See you tonight! I will be the one dressed in black.

 

Your Quizmaster

https://www.yourquizmaster.com

http://www.twitter.com/yourquizmaster

http://www.facebook.com/yourquizmaster

yourquizmaster@gmail.com

 

Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:

 

1.         Science.   Some casual students of the Periodic Table of the Elements believe that, when arranged alphabetically, ZINC is the last element. Which element with an atomic number of 40 proves them wrong?

 

2.         Unusual Words. What J verb means “to drop (someone, such as a lover) capriciously or unfeelingly”?

 

3.         Actors. What actor in recent years played both Johnny Storm and Captain America?

 

4.         Pop Culture – Television.    Andy Samberg won a Golden Globe last night for what action comedy television series that airs on Fox?

 

5.         Another Music Question. What singer/songwriter is responsible for the repeated refrain “This place about to blow”?

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

 

“Nourish beginnings, let us nourish beginnings. Not all things are blest, but the seeds of all things are blest. The blessing is in the seed.” ~Muriel Rukeyser

 

Stories of romance and of coming of age are always about beginnings. We cherish the unstained potential, the optimism of possibility. I myself revisit often in my mind’s eye the moment I met my wife, Kate, in a Spartan room on 45 England’s Lane in London, England. My good luck, to have met this particular Chicagoan a few blocks from Hampstead Heath, seemed both so improbable as well as entirely fated. Sharon Olds explores this theme more darkly from a daughter’s perspective in her poem “I Go Back to May 1937”:

 

I Go Back to May 1937

 

I see them standing at the formal gates of their colleges,

I see my father strolling out

under the ochre sandstone arch, the

red tiles glinting like bent

plates of blood behind his head, I

see my mother with a few light books at her hip

standing at the pillar made of tiny bricks,

the wrought-iron gate still open behind her, its

sword-tips aglow in the May air,

they are about to graduate, they are about to get married,

they are kids, they are dumb, all they know is they are

innocent, they would never hurt anybody.

I want to go up to them and say Stop,

don’t do it—she’s the wrong woman,

he’s the wrong man, you are going to do things

you cannot imagine you would ever do,

you are going to do bad things to children,

you are going to suffer in ways you have not heard of,

you are going to want to die. I want to go

up to them there in the late May sunlight and say it,

her hungry pretty face turning to me,

her pitiful beautiful untouched body,

his arrogant handsome face turning to me,

his pitiful beautiful untouched body,

but I don’t do it. I want to live. I

take them up like the male and female

paper dolls and bang them together

at the hips, like chips of flint, as if to

strike sparks from them, I say

Do what you are going to do, and I will tell about it.

 

I hope your year has begun well. This past week I got to be interviewed by the BBC on the passing of the great American poet Amiri Baraka, and I got to perform the prose of Anthony Marra before a crowd of 100 at The Pence Gallery as part of Stories on Stage. How auspicious for 2014! And what fun! I hope you are also working on your bucket list.

 

Tonight’s pub quiz will include questions that touch upon the following topics: Amiri Baraka, Madison Avenue’s Advertising Walk of Fame, thresholds, the big three, trees with attitude, Gallup polls, surprised swallows, unilateral disengagement, U.S. States, underwater hunger, remarkable women, fabrics, Razzie awards, English departments, tobacco, South Americans, nosey musketeers and other great Frenchmen, the dispersal of demons, avoiding cancer, the vindication of echoes, hit songs with refrains that are not grammatically correct, Brooklyn, the piano, female authors, periodic tables, college football, things that are cold, Oscar-winning actors, big purchases, things that will be released in 2015, and Shakespeare.

 

All the tables were occupied last week during the Pub Quiz, and my quizmaster Twitter account has been attracting new followers every week, so I expect another sold-out Quiz this evening. I hope you will join us!

 

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.    The 3-part slogan of the TV show Survivor is Outwit. Outplay. WHAT?

 

2. Internet Culture. Inexplicably, Internet Explorer has the largest international market share of web browsers, at about 58%. What web browser has the second-largest global market share, ahead of Google’s Chrome?

 

3. Chimpanzees. Starting with the letter C, what river divides the native habitats of the two species of chimpanzee?

 

4. Pop Culture – Music. When last night at 9 I checked the temp in the birth-city of Bob Dylan, it was -18. Name this birthstate also of Judy Garland and F. Scott Fitzgerald.

 

5. Sports.   What retired baseball pitcher holds records in career no-hitters, strikeouts and base on balls?

 

 

P.S. This coming Thursday night at 8 I will be hosting a celebration of the life of Amiri Baraka at the John Natsoulas Gallery. The event will feature award-winning poets from Sacramento and Davis. You are invited to come read something of Baraka’s or to just enjoy the show. See you then, and see you tonight.

 

P.P.S. Happy early birthday to Pub Quiz irregular John Lescroart!

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

 

Happy New Year to you and your families. I hope you enjoyed what little holiday and new year’s respite you could. The Wednesday appearance of the two major year-end holidays left many of us wondering when we should take our breaks from work. What can be done with (or over) a five-day weekend?

 

In my family, we have a tradition of visiting snowcapped peaks over the holiday break. Last year we ventured to Mount Shasta with some close friends, while this past week my wife’s mother and our bulldog joined us for a few days and nights at Lake Tahoe. Both trips resulted in a doctor’s visit for me. Have I grown too used to the uniform horizontalness of Davis?

 

Sometimes we read of celebrities who never quite recover from a fall at home. Others, like Charles Rosher, the first great Hollywood cinematographer, and crusader Henry II of Champagne, died outright from a fall. These were some of the names that were not running through my head as I regained consciousness after a bad fall on the ice. Instead, I heard these helpful words: “Do you want me to get Mommy?” I must have said yes.

 

I was brought to the emergency room of the Barton Memorial Hospital, where I was treated especially well. Kate might have been remembering another fall that did not turn out so well, that of inexperienced skier Natasha Richardson. I was more sanguine about my experience, for I could easily answer the admitting nurse’s questions about where I was and what the day’s date was. Kate remarked later that a Quizmaster should expect harder questions if they are to test his relative mental acuity. I’m glad I wasn’t asked about Henry II of Champagne. I’m also grateful for health insurance, and for the thick wool cap I was wearing during the mishap.

 

On the way home to Davis, it was suggested that I figure out how to work the word “concussion” into the title of my weekly newsletter. I prefer the phrase “dying fall” made popular by Shakespeare,

 

If music be the food of love, play on;

Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,

The appetite may sicken, and so die.

That strain again! it had a dying fall:

O, it came o’er my ear like the sweet sound,

That breathes upon a bank of violets,

Stealing and giving odour!

 

And by Eliot,

 

For I have known them all already, known them all:

Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,

I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;

I know the voices dying with a dying fall

Beneath the music from a farther room.

So how should I presume?

 

I’m sure you can name the sources for these lines. If not, bring an English major to the Pub Quiz tonight, as well as someone who could speak authoritatively on the following subjects: slide rules, insults, people who are “marked,” recognizable colors, live and dead stars, blood, people with good luck, the NSA, London, faeries, anime, sequels, Honey, symphonies, people named Pike, rock bands, browsing the web, tallying votes, Emmy-winning actors, Disney, dads, people named Phillip, 2013, clinicians, Nashville, televised competitions, nights, making news, the U.S. Constitution, 2013, Brits, famous married couples, R.F. Foster on talking about faeries with guns and the occult on YouTube, baseball and football, primates, people who make good choices with their money, and Shakespeare.

 

Welcome to the new subscribers to this newsletter! 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. US States. It turns out that South Carolina, Kansas, and Indiana don’t have the most restrictive abortion laws in the US. They are tied for third. Neither does Utah, in second place. Which state has the most restrictive abortion laws in the country?  It’s not Texas.

 

2. The EU. What is also the most widely spoken first language in the European Union?

 

3. Sports.   The FIU men’s basketball team failed to finish 2013 on a happy note, losing to the Georgetown Hoyas 92-57 on the Saturday before Christmas. What do the letters FIU stand for?

 

4. Texas. The second most-populous city in Texas has more people in it than Dallas. Name the city.

 

5. Another Music Question. What English singer and lyricist rose to prominence in the 1980s as the voice of the band The Smiths? 

 

 

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

 

Congratulations to the Bjerke family of Davis, California, on the arrival this week of Lyla Bjerke, a beautiful baby girl. Before she started having babies, Jenny Bjerke would help me with the grading of the Pub Quiz, and Mark Bjerke competed just last week, winning the 7^th Place Bonus Prize provided by de Vere’s Irish Pub. As I follow the Bjerkes on a variety of social media, I’ve seen pictures of their beautiful family, but this new Bjerke may be the most beautiful Bjerke of all. Congratulations, Bjerkes!

The Bjerkes will benefit from a 2013-long tax deduction because of the addition of Lyla Bjerke. My son Jukie was born on January 4^th, just a few days from being the first child in Davis to be born in the new millennium. No retroactive tax deduction there, but he has rewarded us in many other ways. Jukie won’t be joining us for the Pub Quiz tonight, but he’ll be cheering us on in other ways.

 

Of course, I am no accountant, so I look to the new year for other milestones and opportunities. Most people who make resolutions at this time of year resolve to become more fit, and recent research supports such a decision. As you might have seen in yesterday’s USA Today, “Studies show that exercise reduces the risk of early death, helps control weight and lowers the risk of heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes, depression, some types of cancer, anxiety disorders, cognitive decline and hip fractures. It can help improve sleep, memory, concentration and mood.” As Exercise Cure author Jordan Metzl puts it, “Exercise is the best preventive drug we have, and everybody needs to take that medicine.”

 

Although I canceled my underused gym membership this last year, I have been exercising like a fiend in recent months, asking increasingly heavy children in my home to balance themselves on my back as I do push ups. As I am not a medical doctor, and as I have a sore back, this anecdote is not meant to substitute for medical advice about your own exercise plan, which I hope you will restart for the sake of your own health and happiness.

 

Because I am teaching classes about creativity in the winter and spring quarters, I look to different sorts of thought leaders for inspiration as I consider goals and paths for 2014. One such constant source of inspiration for me is Robert Pinsky, the former US Poet Laureate who taught me a crucial class when I was an undergraduate at Boston University, and who has since taught many others in a variety of media. A much sought-out public speaker, Pinsky gave a commencement address at the Concord Academy last year that reminded me fondly of his mini-lectures in our lyric poetry class. Pinsky speaks of the importance of struggle, and of taking on difficult challenges, as we do every week at the Pub Quiz. Perhaps my having grabbed the answer to a Pub Quiz question from his remarks will compel you to investigate the video.

 

In addition to topics raised by Dr. Pinsky, tonight’s Pub Quiz will also feature questions about independent music, madness, gangsters, anchors, admiration, home runs, absentee dukes, formerly hailed, outage magnets, American poets, Jills, nonviolence, cities in turmoil, the symbols of humankind, perilous journeys, abortion rights, the Irish diaspora, 2013 obituaries, what we Google, pretty and just gluts, lead singers, stage names, rich ladies, southern states, not so swift boats, Europe, states that are not South Carolina or Indiana, and Shakespeare.

 

Thanks to all of you who have informed me via email and Facebook that your erstwhile teams will be re-forming this evening for the Pub Quiz. I anticipate another full house. 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. Books and Authors.  What essayist, playwright and humorist created the diary of Crumpet the Elf?

 

2. The City of Woodland. What is the largest highway to intersect Woodland?

 

3. Battleships. The fastest and the last of the British Royal Navy’s battleships, the HMS Vanguard, was launched in what year? 1924, 1944, 1964, or 1984.

 

4. Science.  The antiparticle of the electron is the positively charged electron, which is produced naturally in certain types of radioactive decay. What is the three-syllable word we use to name a positively charged electron? 

 

5. Shakespeare.   Which of Shakespeare’s title characters says this? “I go, and it is done. The bell invites me. / Hear it not, Duncan, for it is a knell / That summons thee to heaven or to hell.”

 

 

P.S. There will be no Poetry Night Thursday because of the proximity to New Year’s Day. I know that some of you will still be recovering. See you in 2014! Happy New Year!

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

 

“Do They Know It’s Christmas?” is the name of the 1984 song orchestrated by Bob Geldof and others in order to raise funds to provide relief to those suffering from a famine in Ethiopia. The song title asks a question that we might pose today. Back in 1984, I remember, one would only see convenience stores and Chinese restaurants open on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Today a great number of retailers and restaurants are calling employees in for a shift rather than sending them home to spend time with their families.

 

One thinks of Ebenezer Scrooge, who was described with a “frosty rime … on his head, and on his eyebrows, and his wiry chin.” Dickens wrote that Scrooger “carried his own low temperature always about with him; he iced his office in the dog-days; and didn’t thaw it one degree at Christmas.” Despite his famously sour outlook on Christmas, even Scrooge gives Bob Cratchit Christmas Day off, agreeing begrudgingly to “pay a day’s wages for no work!”

 

Sacramento political satirist John Marcotte, a “Proud Dad of Two Geek Girls” who has appeared many times on my KDVS radio show, has begun a movement to shine a light on those among us who are asked to work on national holidays by sharing homemade cookies with non-essential employees (and, I’m sure, some essential ones) on Christmas Day. Here’s how Marcotte put talked about his “Cookie Project” in an interview published in the December 20^th Sacramento Bee:

 

“Nobody should be forced to work on Christmas . . . . We realize there are exceptions: Police, firefighters, drugstores in case you have a sick child. But do we need Church’s Fried Chicken and Sizzler open, too? We put our idea out on Facebook and it spread virally. This Christmas, we’ll have volunteers distributing cookies in Los Angeles, San Francisco and St. Louis, too. People are joining at such a rapid clip, the project has gone nationwide.”

 

Some Davis restaurants are opening their doors on Christmas Eve and even Christmas Day this year, but de Vere’s Irish Pub will not be one of them. The de Vere White family has made a point of giving their employees both days off so they can all spend time with their loved ones, and I hope you will do the same. I also hope you can join us for tonight’s festive Pub Quiz, and that you might consider showing some extra appreciation to the servers and barkeeps who have helped to ensure the success of our weekly entertainment every Monday for the past year.

 

Tonight’s Pub Quiz will feature questions on the following topics: the Christmas season, elves, Muppets, and candy; celebrities from Pittsburgh, baby names, Spielberg projects, elevated places, fish, comedians, the aforementioned Paul Ryan, vanguards, ex-cons, ethereal hikes, atypical sports, Germans, nuptials, piccolo purveyors, cheery words, kinds of hats, not eggnog, Emmy-winning actresses, monosyllables, singing loudly, weight, humorists, Europe, radioactive decay, booksellers, title characters, materialism, current events, and Shakespeare.

 

I’ve been contacted by a several of you, including by local dignitaries, asking if indeed we will be holding the Pub Quiz tonight. We sure will! Bring those family members who are visiting from out of town. Tonight’s quiz will be easier than usual (I think!), and have no questions about Benedict Cumberbatch.

 

I wish you a Merry Christmas, or whatever holiday you observe in December. 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. Twitter in 2013. The most retweeted photograph of 2013 included the caption “Cory will forever be in my heart.” What was the first or last name of the woman who shared the photograph?

 

2. Sports.   The first public baseball game between all-black teams, The Brooklyn Uniques and the Philadelphia Excelsiors, was played in what year? 1835, 1865, 1895, 1925.  Baseball began sooner than usually understood.

 

3. Science.   Granite consists mainly of quartz, feldspar, and what four-letter mineral? Thanks for all the geology suggestions!

 

4. Unusual Words. What ten-letter adjective starting with A means “promising success, favored by fortune; prosperous”?

 

5. Pop Culture – Television.    What kind of animal is Arthur of the TV show Arthur and Friends?

 

P.S. Thanks to those of you who came to Poetry Night last week (and to the after-party).

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

I have a friend in Wales who has never visited Scotland or Ireland. I have a friend in Citrus Heights who doesn’t leave the house. Immanuel Kant was also a homebody. The philosopher was born in Königsberg, then in the Kingdom of Prussia, and attended college there before earning a chair in metaphysics at that same University of Königsberg in that same city where he eventually died. It is said of Kant that he never traveled more than 10 miles beyond Königsberg, which would be the equivalent of living in Davis your entire life, and never visiting Sacramento. For Immanuel Kant, his small town was the set of a Truman Show, but without the cameras.

 

We stick with what we know. Here’s how science fiction writer Aldous Huxley put it: “The vast majority of human beings dislike and even actually dread all notions with which they are not familiar… Hence it comes about that at their first appearance innovators have generally been persecuted, and always derided as fools and madmen.”

 

Although I have traveled widely, I, too, could be accused of such parochialism. When I last returned to my childhood hometown of Washington DC, I beheld a large DC map that my Mom had tacked on the wall of her Waterfront neighborhood apartment, I was amazed to see that in all my explorations of the city as a youth, I had actually stayed largely within about three blocks of Wisconsin Avenue as a youngster, and then largely within three blocks of Connecticut and Massachusetts Avenues as a teenager.

 

I never visited the neighborhoods that today are associated with much of the city’s cultural energy, partly because when I was a teenager we heard stories of what our foolhardy classmates encountered when they went to such places to buy illegal drugs. Things have changed, for DC has been rebounding for a while. One formerly dangerous neighborhood, at 14^th and U Streets, is today home to the cultural hotspot and restaurant Busboys and Poets which, according to the restaurant’s website, offers “a space for art, culture and politics to intentionally collide.”

 

Like Busboys and Poets, the best restaurants offer books on public shelves, such as those in the library of our city’s de Vere’s Irish Pub. In such a place we are invited to purchase a beer or a pot of tea and curl up with a book, the sort of entertainment that Stephen King believes to be ideal: “no commercials, no batteries, hours of enjoyment for each dollar spent. What I wonder is why everybody doesn’t carry a book around for those inevitable dead spots in life.” Of course, a counter-narrative exists, that being that we should bravely venture out into the world without regard to how much we have read. As St. Augustine famously said, “The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only one page.”

 

I received a letter from a Pub Quiz regular last week suggesting that, like the man who does not travel, I have been limiting the topics of my questions to my favorite topics; that I, too, stick with what I know. Some have suggested that my quirky personal topics, such as quotations from Dr. Andy’s Heroes, or Famous People Who Have Lived in Dr. Andy’s Basement, unfairly advantage those who know me well, such as my wife when she plays. My wife reminded me this week that no team on which she has played has won a prize at the de Vere’s Irish Pub Quiz, so Pub Quiz nepotism hasn’t worked out for her thus far, but she will keep trying.

 

A fairer accusation would be that teams who attend the Pub Quiz every week gain a certain advantage from learning how the Quiz works. It might be assumed that the Pub Quiz resembles every one of life’s endeavors: we become experts with practice. A team of six that attends the Pub Quiz every week for five years accumulates almost half the 10,000 hours that Malcolm Gladwell contends we must invest to become experts. Of course, that hypothetical team would also spend some of its time outside the pub learning about subjects that might come up on a quiz. Some of us have impressive memories, pay attention to the week’s news, or work jobs that necessitate the accumulation of otherwise impractical facts.

 

Nevertheless, the accusation against me has merit. Like Immanuel Kant, I travel the small town of my brain, my reading, and my experiences, returning to the same streets week after week. Those of you who have walked those streets with me on a Monday evening will sometimes encounter a familiar shopkeeper named Benedict Cumberbatch (who has appeared in two questions, as a correct and an incorrect answer, in this history of the quiz), or come across a recognizable motto or slogan at a fork in the road. Such are the advantages and travails of attending a Pub Quiz hosted by a Quizmaster who writes his own questions, and who treasures our intentional collisions at de Vere’s Irish Pub. One would hope that, like Königsberg, this small town we travel together has enough intellectual, cultural, and social attractions for you. If it does not, other attractions await you, and I hope you will experience them all.

 

To make up for lost Cumberbatch opportunities, tonight’s quiz will include the word “Cumberbatch” three times! Expect also questions about switches, blood, Cyberdine Systems, smiles for Republicans, Norway, The LA Times, a dog’s life, Julian Barnes, words that start with A and with M, great years in film, fortune and men’s eyes, President John F. Kennedy, polymers, short persons with big challenges, screwy transports, biological maracas, queen consorts, synthesis, an expected person, principles of math, biology, South Africans who come to the US, geology, baseball and football, no soccer this week, gossip, tragic deaths, more science than usual, cinematic heroes, Eugene O’Neill, and Shakespeare. Also, Cumberbatch.

 

Please tell your family visiting for the holidays that new teams are especially welcome at the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz!

 

Your Quizmaster

https://www.yourquizmaster.com

http://www.twitter.com/yourquizmaster

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yourquizmaster@gmail.com

 

Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:

 

1. Film.   Gal Gadot has been cast as what storied character in one of the most anticipated films of 2015? Name the character.

 

2. Irish Culture.  Niall, Zayn, Liam, Harry, and Louis make up what English-Irish musical group? 

 

3. Countries of the World.  Three countries have Atlantic and Mediterranean coastlines. Two are Spain and France. Name the third.

 

4. Syndromes. According to pages 22-25 of the July 1999 FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, the FBI’s Hostage Barricade Database System shows that roughly 27% of victims show evidence of a syndrome named after what city?

 

5. Science.  What W word do we use to refer to the flow of gasses on a large scale? 

 

 

P.S. This coming Thursday the year-end Poetry Night will feature authors published in the most recent edition of The Blue Moon Literary and Art Review. The fun will start Thursday the 19^th at 8. There should be some food and drink, an open mic at 9, and then an after-party right back home at de Vere’s. You should join us for this free event.

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

Imagine that President Obama became so fed up with the antics of the Tea Party that he decreed that anyone who challenged the policies of the Obama administration would be labeled a “fascist.” Imagine that Obama would then declare that fascist activities and organizations were illegal, and that organized protest against the Obama administration would be prosecuted a federal offense. I bet that many of us would consider ways that we might challenge such an administration.

 

Such was the challenge that Nelson Mandela faced in 1948 when the white supremacist Nationalist party came to party, decreed that anyone who opposed its policies were communists, and then passed the Suppression of Communism Act. As a result of such legislation, Mandela and many other ANC leaders were arrested in 1952 and many times thereafter for their opposition to white supremacy in South Africa. As Newt Gingrich recently wrote on his website, “Mandela was faced with a vicious apartheid regime that eliminated all rights for blacks and gave them no hope for the future. This was a regime which used secret police, prisons and military force to crush all efforts at seeking freedom by blacks.” I invite you to view Gingrich’s videotaped remarks showing that he has broken with many conservatives by showing respect for Nelson Mandela.

 

Even though the Republican-controlled US Senate eventually overrode President Reagan’s veto of The Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act of 1986 (which imposed strict sanctions on the apartheid regime), some in the House of Representatives agreed with the South African government that Nelson Mandela was a terrorist. Future US (Vice-)President Dick Cheney was one of them, also voting later against a simple House Resolution stating that Mandela should be freed from prison.

 

When Mandela was freed, in 1990, he made a point of coming to northern California to thank his most ardent congressional supporter, Ron Dellums, for the congressman’s 18+ year campaign to spring Mandela from Robben Island Prison. Today in Mandela’s eight by seven foot prison cell one can see a single candle lit to represent Mandela’s hope, and his triumph over adversity. Like so many other Californians who were optimistic about a free South Africa, I got to see Mandela speak at Oakland Coliseum Stadium on June 30^th, 1990. The South-African leader finished his speech that day with these words:

“IN THE MEANTIME, I want to tell you that Oakland is the last city that I am visiting in the course of my tour. Let me assure you that, despite my 71 years, at the end of this visit I feel like a young man of 35. I feel like an old battery that has been recharged. And, if I feel so young, if I feel like an old battery that has been recharged, it is the people of the United States of America that are responsible for this. It is you, the people of Oakland, the people of the Bay Area, who have given me and my delegation strength and hope to go back and continue the struggle. You must remember that you are our blood brothers and sisters. You are our comrades in the struggle. Remember that we respect you. We admire you, and above all, we love you all.”

 

In this the week of the passing of Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, I’ve enjoyed reading all the ways that that love he showed us has been returned.

 

Tonight’s Pub Quiz will feature questions about Nelson Mandela. Expect also questions about automobiles, currency, hostages, the Irish town of Granard, geometry, rivers, alcoholic drinks, people who wear funny hats, US presidents, maximum absolute values, dragons, generosity and forgiveness, winter sports, singers on stage, foreign variance drains, drafts, happiness, domes, British poets, education, hell-raisers, that which we serve, dictionaries, Israeli combat troops, musical groups, the Mediterranean, ghost writers, large scale gasses, vengeful people with tiny dogs, Wales, football, 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. Rich People. If he were alive today, Walt Disney would be the richest Oscar-winner of all time, with a net worth of about $5 billion. Today only two living Oscar-winners (not counting honorary prizes, such as the one Oprah won) are billionaires, and one of them is a composer. Name either man.

 

2. Food and Drink. What is the first ingredient in gazpacho?   

 

3. Pop Culture – Music. What 22 year-old red-headed English singer-songwriter saw his song “The A Team” nominated for Song of the Year at the 2013 Grammy Awards, and spent 2013 touring as the opening act for Taylor Swift?  I like one team’s answer, “Boy Ginger,” but that’s not correct.

 

4. Sports.   The name Vincent Edward Scully is most associated with what professional sports team?

 

5. Science.    What alkali metal has an atomic number of 3, and occurs in nature only in compounds?