Dear Friends,
This week I feel like Bartholomew Cubbins from Dr. Seuss’s The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins (1938): I am wearing all my hats at once. I’m finishing a summer personal essay writing class, writing and performing poems for different venues, and, starting tomorrow, hosting a campus wide event for faculty at UC Davis.
Starting September 11, I get to host the Summer Institute on Teaching and Technology, better known as SITT, our annual gathering at UC Davis that brings together more than 100 faculty innovators to share ideas about teaching. One of my favorite events of the year, SITT allows me to reconnect with and learn from faculty colleagues from across the disciplines. This year I am especially eager to introduce our lead-off speaker, Tricia Bertram Gallant, author of The Opposite of Cheating: A Guide to Academic Integrity for Students. Coincidentally, I will also be interviewing Dr. Bertram Gallant on my KDVS radio show (and podcast), Dr. Andy’s Poetry and Technology Hour, today at 5 PM. I appreciate Bertram Gallant’s insights about ways students and educators alike can foster a culture of honesty, trust, and responsibility in higher education.
The title of this book set me thinking about opposites. Sometimes our understanding of the world (political, social, intellectual) takes shape not in isolation but in contrast, one idea shining brighter because it is set against its opposite. Amy Tan, who I saw give a talk at the San Francisco Writers Conference, called her collection of essays The Opposite of Fate, a title that suggests that we have some agency in the directions our lives take us.
Marina Keegan, in her brief and brilliant life as a Yale English major, left us the viral essay collection The Opposite of Loneliness, which might also make a great subtitle for a poetry reading or a pub quiz. Other relevant opposites include Sarah Pekkanen’s The Opposite of Me and Joshilyn Jackson’s The Opposite of Everyone. Even Justin A. Reynolds, in the realm of young adult fiction, played with time, love, and possibility in The Opposite of Always. Each of these titles prompts us to imagine knowing something fully by considering its inverse.
I am reminded of the Zen koan that concerns alternatives and oppositions. Two monks saw a flag flapping. One said: “The flag is moving.” The other said: “The wind is moving.” Their teacher, Huineng, said: “Not the wind, not the flag. Mind is moving.” Effects don’t always follow causes, and subjects and objects are not so easily distinguished.
Poets have explored similar truths. Pablo Neruda, in his book Odes to Opposites, catalogues the pairs that define our world: darkness and light, sky and depth, question and answer. His lines posit that opposites are not enemies but neighbors, necessary for balance. Robert Frost distilled opposition into nine unforgettable lines. Here is his poem, now in the public domain.
Fire and Ice (by Robert Frost)
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
Emily Dickinson made absence and death the silent partners of love and presence. William Blake announced that “without contraries is no progression,” insisting that our human story depends on the sparks struck by opposing flints.
European philosophers and sages have said much the same. Carl Jung argued that “the greater the tension, the greater the energy of the opposites, the greater the potential.” Elie Wiesel, who taught at Boston University and won the Nobel Peace Prize when I was at BU, famously warned in his Nobel acceptance address that “the opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference.” Simone de Beauvoir reminded us that “opposites do not exclude each other; they define each other.”
I find these thoughts from such ingenious thinkers both reassuring and bracing. As I tell my students, friction, difference, and debate are conditions of growth. I also invite them to examine the other side of every conviction. Smart and reasoned people may disagree with us, so we should listen. Furthermore, those of us who believe in community must follow Wiesel’s words and resist indifference.
So tomorrow, when SITT begins and Tricia Bertram Gallant takes the podium, I will be listening not just for her expertise about academic integrity, but also for her insights regarding what its opposite looks like. If you know someone with a UC Davis email address who would be similarly intrigued, invite them to join us. I read my SITT poem on September 11 at about 12:50. Stop by!
Happy September! The weather will be as pleasant as could ever be hoped this evening. I invite you to join the regulars and irregulars outside our favorite brewery tonight for a grand competition featuring 31 questions on a variety of topics you should know something about. Last week we focused on a favorite boxer, while today we will look inward and downward. Today’s pub quiz is a muscular 933 words.
In addition to topics raised above and below, expect questions tonight on the following: rhythms, deliveries, British dependencies, streams, peas, girlfriends, robins, Republican nominees, snowboarding, biospheres, regrettable diseases in humans, tiny pioneers, astronomy, pumps, opera, eagles, southern cuisine, natural compounds, bowlers, authors with mustaches, CDs, warm liquids, an example of people named Jeff, elevations, countries of the world, pendulums, animated films, unusual vehicles, kingfishers, acidic hot springs, U.S. states, geography, current events, and Shakespeare.
For more Pub Quiz fun, please subscribe via Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/c/yourquizmaster.
Thanks to all the new players joining us at the live quizzes and to all the patrons who have been enjoying fresh Pub Quiz content. We have over 80 Patreon members now, including the new paid subscribers Esther, James, Damian, Jim, and Meebles! Thanks also to new subscribers Prescott, Bill and Diane, Tamara, Megan, Michael, Janet, Jasmine, Joey, Carly, The X-Ennial Falcons, and The Nevergiveruppers! Every week I check the Patreon to see if there is someone new to thank. Maybe next week it will be you! I also thank The Original Vincibles, Summer Brains, Still Here for the Shakesbeer, The Outside Agitators, John Poirier’s team Quizimodo, Gena Harper, the conversationally entertaining dinner companions and bakers of marvelous and healthy treats, The Mavens, whose players or substitutes keep attending, despite their ambitious travel schedules and the cost of the aforementioned avocado. I appreciate the Mavens’ kind words to me in the newspaper. Thanks in particular to my paid subscribers on Substack. Thanks to everyone who supports the Pub Quiz on Patreon. I would love to add your name or that of your team to the list of pub quiz boosters. Also, I sometimes remember to add an extra hint on Patreon. I appreciate your backing this pub quiz project of mine!
I also want to recognize those who visit my Substack the most often, including Luna, Jean, Ron, Myrna, and Maria, to whom I send sustained compassion. My new paid Substack Subscriber is Anne Da Vigo. Check out her mysteries! Thanks to new subscriber Carol Lynn Stevenson Grellas.
Best,
Dr. Andy
Here are three questions from last week. You will likely get these:
- Explorers. People from what country were the first Europeans to explore the Mississippi from end to end?
- New Brides. The actress who played Hit-Girl in Kick-Ass, Abby in Let Me In, and Carrie White in the 2013 remake of Carrie married model Kate Harrison this past weekend. Name the actress.
- Pop Culture – Music. The Canadian pop star Carly Rae Jepsen birthed a huge international sensation in 2012 with what viral hit song?