“Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

I find it disproportionately rewarding to fill our trash can, compost can, and recycling can every Wednesday morning before wheeling the three of them out to the curb.

How glorious to be rid of things, to make the house lighter, to lessen one’s load. Amazon Prime members seem to be surrounded by boxes, opened or unopened, and always walking them out to the recycling bin. As we have been taught since we first started separating our recyclables as children, eventually some of these boxes may return to us in the form of boxes recycled from the previous boxes.

But we don’t know this. We just trust that our empty plastic water bottles will serve another drinker in the form of a picnic table or a play structure in a neighborhood park. I like to hold on to these hopes, these illusions. That’s why I didn’t click on the Atlantic story titled “Plastic Recycling Doesn’t Work and Will Never Work.”

We recently had a new garage floor put in (largely against our will, but that’s another story). Right now, our garage is empty. The concrete has been curing, — hardening, preparing for our footfalls, our vehicles, and the weight of our bins and boxes — for more than a month. Our garage probably didn’t look this nice when our home was built in 1992. As part of the preparation process for the newly-poured slab, we donated a few vanloads of stuff to Goodwill, filled our garbage cans so full that it almost took two of us to wheel them to the curb, and sent a lot of 1970s and 1980s furniture to the Yolo County Landfill. But much of the contents of our garage sits in a POD in our driveway, a daily visual reminder of all our stuff, stuff we might use someday, stuff that our kids will really appreciate owning after we are gone. Keepsakes and such. Valuable stuff.

You are probably familiar with the ways that comedian George Carlin talked about all this in his famous comedic rant about Americans and their stuff: “Actually, this is just a place for my stuff, ya know? That’s all; a little place for my stuff. That’s all I want, that’s all you need in life, is a little place for your stuff, ya know? I can see it on your table, everybody’s got a little place for their stuff. This is my stuff, that’s your stuff, that’ll be his stuff over there.

That’s all you need in life, a little place for your stuff. That’s all your house is- a place to keep your stuff. If you didn’t have so much stuff, you wouldn’t need a house. You could just walk around all the time. A house is just a pile of stuff with a cover on it. You can see that when you’re taking off in an airplane. You look down, you see everybody’s got a little pile of stuff. All the little piles of stuff. And when you leave your house, you gotta lock it up. Wouldn’t want somebody to come by and take some of your stuff. They always take the good stuff. They never bother with that crap you’re saving. All they want is the shiny stuff. That’s what your house is, a place to keep your stuff while you go out and get…more stuff! Sometimes you gotta move, gotta get a bigger house. Why? No room for your stuff anymore.”

When our Saturn was stolen from in front of Crepeville in downtown Davis one evening about ten years ago, we were despondent. We loved that car. It was an example of stuff that we actually used. It was discovered in a midtown Sacramento alley a few days later, smelling like an ashtray. The thieves had taken the car seats (probably to make room for more smokers) and the DVDs of jazz and recorded poetry that National Endowment for the Arts Chairman Dana Gioia had given me, but not my signed copy of the late Amiri Baraka’s Transbluesency: The Selected Poetry of Amiri Baraka/LeRoi Jones (1961-1995).

When I told English Department professor Jack Hicks this Saturn story, he remarked, “I wish someone would steal my car for a while and remove the contents of my trunk. I keep my garage unlocked for the same reason.” I bet it took Jack more than a weekend to clean out his office when he retired.

I’ve been reading about renunciation in recent years. Some Christians renounce the devil and all his works and temptations, but I’m sure that many of them notice that replacement temptations can be mailed to the house, sometimes the same day. I bought a microphone this morning, and it has already arrived at the house. Soon poets will be speaking into that mic on the rooftop sculpture garden of an art gallery. I am not yet ready to renounce this new treasure, but perhaps we always say that of our most recent purchases.

In the Buddhist tradition, we refer to the Pali word “nekkhamma” when we talk about renunciation. It coincides with the first practice in the Buddha’s Noble Eightfold Path: “Right Intention.” This is how the Buddhist nun Pema Chödrön talks about it: 

“Renunciation is realizing that our nostalgia for wanting to stay in a protected, limited, petty world is insane. Once you begin to get the feeling of how big the world is and how vast our potential for experiencing life is, then you really begin to understand renunciation. When we sit in meditation, we feel our breath as it goes out, and we have some sense of willingness just to be open to the present moment. Then our minds wander off into all kinds of stories and fabrications and manufactured realities, and we say to ourselves, ‘It’s thinking.’ We say that with a lot of gentleness and a lot of precision. Every time we are willing to let the story line go, and every time we are willing to let go at the end of the out breath, that’s fundamental renunciation: learning how to let go of holding on and holding back.”

Even though she uses the word “insane” in her first sentence here, Pema Chödrön is nevertheless framing renunciation positively, indicating that gentleness and precision await those who renunciate foolishness, needless distraction, and pettiness. In his book Beyond Religion, the Dalai Lama uses the words “compassion” and “discernment” to communicate the same principle. These contexts for renunciation resonate for me.

We seek to live according to our systems of ethical beliefs, even when we are taking only small steps in the right direction. As Abraham Lincoln said, “I walk slowly, but I never walk back.” As for me, Wednesday is around the corner, and I will seek once again to fill the recycling bin and recycle my cardboard. I feel more like a renunciant as I’m shedding my life of acquired stuff than I do when I unlock our huge POD and behold and mentally catalogue its contents.

Amongst the hundreds of audio books that I have acquired, one in particular is calling me. We will see if minimalist Joshua Becker’s new book Things That Matter will guide me towards keeping my mental and actual garages tidy, to lessen my own cognitive and spiritual loads. As Becker says, “The first step in crafting the life you want is to get rid of everything you don’t.” 

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I hope you value these missives! Subscribing to the weekly Pub Quiz is inexpensive via Patreon, and it will add nothing to your garage as long as you don’t print out the quizzes, as I used to do every week when I was performing the quiz in person. This week’s Pub Quiz will feature questions on Apple developers, driven ambition, funny names that start with L, founding fathers, chipmunks, titles with five words, spiders, job seekers, Trojans, islands, World Series winners, Ben Stiller, African cities, Ireland attractions, overworked musicians, legends of past ages, Nebula awards, famous speakers, odd syntax, notable mayors, Academy Award-winners, the example of roses, beverages, southern cities, intransitive verbs, Johns Hopkins, Pacific voyages, current events, and Shakespeare.

Thanks to new subscriber Jasmine and to all my regulars. I so appreciate your monthly support.

Be well.

Dr. Andy

P.S. Here are three questions from last week’s Pub Quiz:

1. Mottos and Slogans. Starting with the letter R, what company uses this tagline: “The best ideas are often the simplest, like streaming made easy”?  

2. Internet Culture. The search engine PimEyes allows one to search for what?  

3. Newspaper Headlines. The University of California has announced that it is waiving fees and tuition for what category of students?  

P.S. Happy June to all the graduates!

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

Last Tuesday I enjoyed an appointment with an endodontist, an expert in root canals. I remember the very phrase “root canal” inspiring pity and fear in me when I was a child, when my stepmother endured multiple iterations of the procedure. She had my sympathy, but I never asked her for details about the experience.

My new specialist explains the upcoming tortures thoroughly. In the town of Davis, Dr. Ramesh Thondapu treats us with the respect of a colleague. Thinking of the medical professionals, thinking of their patients, I estimate 10 or more doctors in the building, including myself. I suppose that we all deserve thorough explanations. An informed consumer and a mentor teacher, I appreciate expert instruction from my dentist. After four years of regular meditation training, I’m also grateful for my expertise in sitting still.

That said, today I am on the move. Looking at the clock, I drive home briskly from the appointment. An inveterate walker, I’m not used to driving, but Kate is still recovering from (driving) foot surgery, so I am the family chauffeur and gofer. I arrive home with only 30 minutes available for the 40-minute walk to campus; I grab my safari hat and a snack and head out.

Running late for class, I can’t process the day’s news. Kate texted me during the lessons from the endodontist: “The news is devastating.” She sent me a broken heart emoji for each person reported killed in an Uvalde elementary school. She would send more such hearts later in the day, and video of an impassioned speech by Steve Kerr.

Race-walking to work with my tooth still in pain, I’m reminded of Dustin Hoffman’s character, history graduate student Thomas “Babe” Levy, in Marathon Man. I first watched that movie as a runner, and long before I was a graduate student. Even though I also read the book, details of the film are fading from my memory; nevertheless, I remember the film’s central question: “Is it safe? Is it safe?” This query was a sort of a sick refrain shared by Lawrence Olivier, and the allusion was then repeated as a bad joke to the rest of us since 1976. 

The Olivier line is more haunting and less corny than the joke a dental hygienist once told me: “Only floss the teeth you want to keep.” Can this tooth be saved? Is it safe?

In order to make a 40 minute walk in 30 minutes I accelerate my pace, take the shortest route, and never take a breath. Forswearing my earbuds, I cross diagonally across intersections. Is it safe?

Marathoner Levy is shown to be training in the beginning of Marathon Man, emulating his hero, Abebe Bikila, the first Ethiopian Olympic gold medalist and the first athlete to successfully defend an Olympic marathon title. Levy is shown sprinting around The Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir in Central Park, an area of New York City that I also got to explore in the 1970s. The camera crew probably encountered Jackie O. while filming some of the film’s famous scenes around that reservoir. 

Levy’s training as a runner came in handy later in his adventures, inspiring me to keep up with my own training as a runner. That film made me want to run as Bikila did (though with athletic shoes, rather than barefoot). On this Tuesday, my own training as a walker – more than seven miles a day so far in 2022 – makes it possible for me to make it to class on time.

I wanted to focus on my task, but I walk past Montgomery and Peregrine Elementary Schools, where I know children, parents, and teachers. Later I walk past the Campus Early Childhood Laboratory, a nursery school mostly for the children of my UC Davis colleagues. I see mothers and fathers picking up their children.

No one hears gunshots, except in our imaginations. No one is stopped by the police from reuniting with their kids. I imagine that the car radios are left off as the schoolchildren are asked about show and tell and snack time. So much love in those cars.

Because a new surge of Covid has ravaged the bus driver workforce, my son Jukie is kept home today. I hugged him before leaving for work. Is he safe? Jukie is safe.

I think of Jukie’s older sister Geneva, finishing up a shift as a paraeducator at Patwin Elementary. She is safe. All the children there are safe. 

I think of our youngest, Truman, as at that hour he bikes home from the high school. There were no incidents at the high school today. Is he safe? He is safe.

I imagine the trees waving their branches to me like cheering bystanders as I reach Olson Hall. Above us, I see only sky. I make it to class with 90 seconds to spare. I imagine smiles behind my students’ masks. They are weary, but still ready to get to work.

An echoing question fades as I stand up at the whiteboard, blue marker in my hand. 

Is it safe?

If you enjoy these newsletters, please subscribe via Patreon! Thanks to all the sustaining supporters, especially the Outside Agitators, the Original Vincibles, and Quizimodo. Heroes come in all sorts of guises.

This week’s Pub Quiz will feature questions about issues raised above, as well as the following: Simple ideas, beautiful faces, mountaintops, religious warnings,  free rides, bachelor composers, dangerous collections, equality before the law, long streaks, steep escarpments, forms of reparations, the Honourable East India Company, violent delights, welcome targets, public servants, best men at weddings, unusual rain showers, literary destinations, numerous islands, Benedict Cumberbatches, fabled treasures, first and last sermons, alternatives to gutter journalism, protest songs, new attorneys, couches, moral superiority, current events and Shakespeare.

Be well.

Dr. Andy

P.S. Here are three questions from a previous quiz:

1. Countries of the World. With a population of over 200 million, what is the world’s most populous Roman Catholic-majority country?  

2. Spices. Both starting with the letter C, two different spices in the parsley family are confused with one another. Name one of them.   

3. Books and Authors. In Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy, Virgil refers to what author as “Poet sovereign,” or the king of all poets?  

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

This morning I encountered a meme that one might only find on Instagram. A man is shown doing push-ups on a lawn in what looks like Hawaii. The caption reads, “I woke up. I have clothes to wear. I have running water. I have food to eat. Life is good. I am thankful.”

After being up all night with a broken-tooth toothache – did you know that dental offices in Davis get to take Fridays off? – I finally slept from about 7 AM to 10 AM, meaning that my wife on crutches let the dog out, cleaned the kitchen, and made our son Jukie a three-egg spinach omelet. When I awoke, I felt like that self-congratulatory fitness buff in Hawaii. My meme would sound like this: “I woke up. I have soft t-shirts to wear. I have running water. I have Kate. I am enjoying a short respite from demoralizing tooth pain. Life is good. I am thankful.”

Speaking of gratitude, right now I’m listening to Stop Making Sense by Talking Heads, an album that spent more than two years on the Billboard 200 chart, a crucial time period that for me lasted from my junior year in high school to my freshman year in college. I probably would not have loved the album so much if it had not been for the 1984 concert film directed by Jonathan Demme, a film that just last year was selected for preservation by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.” Accompanying my friend Moose to the Circle West End Theatre on 23^rd Street in Washington DC, I was simultaneously introduced to concert films and to Talking Heads.

I wrote much of this week’s pub quiz in an Adirondack chair in the back yard, with our French bulldog Margot looking under the trampoline for Charlie, the neighborhood cat who seems to love our yard the most. Later I am going to take a long walk with Jukie as we wend our way towards a favorite Mexican restaurant. I will call my mom so I can hear whatever updates she has to share. The pain is not as bad during the day.

This month Kate and I spent tens of thousands of dollars propping up our sinking home and getting the garage floor redone. Such are the vagaries of the ownership of a home built on unstable farmland the same year (1992) that Kate and I got married. I’m grateful that we have built our relationship on a sounder foundation than that of our expensive house. I think of the beginning of a favorite Talking Heads tune (“Girlfriend is Better”):

I, who took the money?

Who took the money away?

I, I, I, I, it’s always showtime

Here at the edge of the stage

Later Kate and I folded some clothes together, and then decided which of our remaining t-shirts are bookcase-worthy – we are waiting on replacements after giving our long-serving dressers away to our daughter Geneva after she moved into an apartment on the west side of town. My favorites are the four Oxford University t-shirts that somehow always make it onto my shelf, even though my former student, Melissa, sent shirts for everyone in the family. We don’t know what happened to Melissa, but we do know that Daddy loves to sleep in the softest shirts we’ve ever been gifted.

With the warm and lazy mid-May sun heading towards the west, and with my tooth pain held in abeyance for a few more hours, I think of what the poet and essayist Cynthia Ozick says: “We often take for granted the very things that most deserve our gratitude.” Resolving to take note of what matters most, I myself am grateful finally to have had some sleep this morning, I’m grateful for the weekend that is almost as long as my dentist’s, I’m grateful for Benzocaine, and I’m grateful for a partner who makes me laugh and smile while we put away our socks, shirts, and bows. Only one look from Kate, and that’s all that it takes. As Talking Heads say at the end of that song “Girlfriend is Better,” “I got a girlfriend with bows in her hair / And nothing is better than that (is it?).”

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This week’s Pub Quiz will touch on topics raised above, as well as the following: Expectations, California islands, esports, promising sequels, the time that Cher stood alone, George Orwell, volcanoes, the story of one’s life, tennis standouts, local kings, old people in swimsuits, French classics, performing organisms, Irish band locations, regional temperature records, ambassadors, government languages, Klugman projects, autobiographies, national parks, renamed frogmen, glamorous songs, three-word titles, prolific actors, ridiculousness, people named Peter, buteos, prominent nicknames, Russian empire exports, famous hams, current events, and Shakespeare.

If you enjoy these newsletters and would like to support me, and thus subscribe to the weekly pub quiz, please check me out on Patreon. Thanks to the teams the Outside Agitators, the Original Vincibles, and Quizimodo who support this effort generously. 

Also, as of this week, my KDVS radio show, Dr. Andy’s Poetry and Technology Hour, is now a podcast. I would love to count you among my subscribers! Please check out https://poetrytechnology.buzzsprout.com to add my weekly show to your subscription list. Thanks! 

Dr. Andy

P.S. Here are three questions from last week’s Pub Quiz:

1. Newspaper Headlines. NASA’s Curiosity Rover has evidently spotted which of the following on the planet Mars: A doorway, an obelisk, a tombstone, a waterfall?  

2. Stephen King Cinematic Remakes. What movie released this week did Rolling Stone call “A Four-Alarm Disaster”? 

3. Celebrity Birthplaces. All of the following Americans were born in what city that starts with the letter L: Bob Hope, Jerry Springer, Slash, Elizabeth Taylor?  

P.P.S. “You cannot do a kindness too soon because you never know how soon it will be too late.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

If “fear is pain arising from the anticipation of evil,” as Aristotle says, then perhaps joy is the gratification arising from the anticipation of a well-earned accomplishment.

I teach at a prominent public university with over 40,000 students. This means that we start graduating students around now (mid-May) and don’t finish until a month later (mid-June). As a parent of three and a potential incidental mentor to 40,000, I continue to be impressed with all these students, so I am grateful to be given an opportunity to celebrate their victories and accomplishments.

Later today, for example, all our UC Davis King School of Law graduates will be commemorated in the next-door Mondavi Center. I got to know one of them, Alexander Joel Watson (we use middle names when speaking of graduation ceremonies), for he is the son of a high school friend and classmate of mine, one whom I will get to lunch with today for the first time since we were graduating together more than 35 years ago.

UC Davis is ranked eighth in the nation for offering students excellent social mobility opportunities. I see this as good news not only for our students, but for the communities where our students go on to live, work, and “mobilize.” Having encountered Alex at a number of Black Lives Matter rallies over the last couple years, I am eager to follow the ways that this young lawyer will improve the world. Congratulations to Mr. Watson, Esquire, and his family!

I send a different sort of congratulations also to one of my fellow Boston University graduates and a best friend from college, Teresa. It seems like just yesterday that Teresa and I were donning our bright red robes to watch then President George Herbert Walker Bush and then French President Francois Mitterrand give commencement addresses on the occasion of the 150^th anniversary, or sesquicentennial, of our expensive private research university. (Ted Kennedy was also there, and I would have loved to have heard him speak again, having been inspired by remarks he made on the steps of the U.S. Capitol.)

Born and raised in Micronesia, Teresa as a college freshman expressed amazement at everyday sights in New England, such as snow. Later she brought her fresh perspectives and penchant for insatiable hilarity to our house on 2454 Tunlaw Road in DC’s Glover Park neighborhood when she secured positions at U.S. PIRG and later, if I remember correctly, the aluminum company Alcoa. She was definitely “going places” at the same time that I was going to California to study poetry.

Fast forward to the present, and Teresa is visiting Venice. She shared this via social media this morning: “The Viking Sea is a beautiful well-appointed ship with several lounge areas, bars and five places to eat. We spent the afternoon at the pool, played Scrabble before dinner and had a delicious Italian meal. After dinner, we sat on the top deck and watched lightning streak across the sky. And then we took a walk around the ship before heading off to bed.”

I’m so happy for Teresa who is finally getting to realize her dream of a Venetian vacation. Whether we are breathing deeply from the deck of a cruise ship on the Adriatic Sea or on stage at the Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts, we only get so many opportunities to experience actual or figurative lightning as it streaks across our skies. I commemorate the joy inherent in these accomplishments, I celebrate life-long friendships, and I wish for all our UC Davis graduates that they realize great merit from their committed years of curiosity, ingenuity, and hard work.

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I hope you get to see this week’s Pub Quiz. It has questions on topics raised above, as well as the following: Tyranny, Apple products, curiosities, electric utilities, critical race theories, warriors, faraway countries, sovereign poets, common compounds, spices, populated countries, Star Wars characters, rivers and creeks, road rage, novelistic sea voyages, pop musicians, tragic moms, bleak crashers, port cities, matriarchs, stamp acts, meanings of stuffing, woke OGs, nautical terms, mononyms and duonyms, iconic Americans, four-alarm fires, current events, and Shakespeare.

Thanks to all the supporters on Patreon who make all this happen, especially the Outside Agitators, the Original Vincibles, and Quizimodo. Some team captains who pledge for their entire team. I do offer Pub Quizzes for special occasions, so please reach out to me if you are interested in that!

Best,

Dr. Andy 

P.S. Here are three questions from last week’s quiz:

1. Sports. Who is the only player in NFL history with more than 20,000 receiving yards?  

2. Science: Space Exploration. Divisible by six, what is the number of people who have walked on the moon?  

3. Great Americans. A Yolo County judge named Tim, the author of Running for Judge, shares a last name with what season?  

P.S. Please do join us for Poetry Night this Thursday at 7 at the Natsoulas Gallery!

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

Happy Mother’s Day to you and to all the mothers you know and who love you. 

We are not so materialistic, so I bought my wife Kate some Whole Earth Festival earrings, and I wrote her a poem. The spouse of a poet reasonably expects to be compensated with works and dedications.

Shakespeare’s fair youth, for example, was the recipient of Shakespeare’s most famous sonnets, many of them encouraging that youth to find a mother for his future children. When I read “Love’s Philosophy,” I imagine Percy Shelley writing one of the Romantic Era’s most famous love poems to his wife Mary, and mother to four of their children.

One of our kids has moved out, one will be our perpetual housemate, and one has been thinking high school sophomore thoughts about current writing projects and future college applications. They all live perpetually in our hearts. My three kids don’t often come up in the poems I write to Kate, but the love we share for them infuses our mutual love, and our life for them.

Even though it is filled with private allusions, in honor of Mother’s Day, I share with you the poem I wrote to share with Kate on this day for celebrating all moms.

To Have and To Hold

I will hold your hand throughout the ongoing pandemic

I will hold your hand as the peace dividend is drained

I will hold your hand as bombs fall on Ukrainian hospitals

I will hold your hand as blowhards mobilize belligerent xenophobes

I will hold your hand as the Supreme Court overturns precedents

I will hold your hand during the coming revolution

I will hold your hand postoperatively, as soon as they let me

I will hold your hand while you hold the railing

I will hold your hand as you grip the crutches

I will hold your hand to keep you upright

I will hold your hand at the play, the dance recital, the poetry reading

I will hold your hand as we are skimming stones

I will hold your hand during accordion lessons

I will hold your purse in the shopping mall

I will hold the leash for you

I will hold the extra jackets when we grow warm from walking

I will hold two keys: one for each of us

I will hold your hand as the house sinks unevenly

I will hold your hand when there’s a midnight knock at the door

I will hold your hand for the 3 AM phone call

I will hold your hand as we read the test results

I will hold your hand when we can’t find the dog

I will hold your hand when our texts go unanswered

I will hold your hand as our mothers forget us

I will hold your hand even after your hand has been holding your cold phone

I will hold your hand when NPR announces the deaths of our heroes

I will hold your hand as the children, one by one, go

I will hold your hand as your eyes share bad news 

I will hold your hand while reading you love poems 

I will hold your hand after I have forgotten our home phone number

I will have you and hold you and have you and hold you

I will forget much, dear one, but I will not forget to hold your hand

Thanks for reading. Enjoy the day.

If you forgot to send a Mother’s Day gift, I’ve got just the thing! Thanks to all the supporters on Patreon who make all this happen, especially the Outside Agitators (who won first place at a recent charity event I hosted), the Original Vincibles, and Quizimodo. I’m always grateful to players such as these who pledge for their entire team. Speaking of play, I am repeatedly ask when I plan to “bring trivia back.” Trivia permeates all that we read and talk about, like the Force. What Davis restaurant should be the new home of the Pub Quiz? Let’s look forward to a time when we can all gather again to play with our friends! 

I hope you get to see this week’s pub quiz. Nothing else can hold a candle to it. Expect questions about judges, long S words that no one ever uses, ghost towns, pervasive Disney, museums of play, favorite birds, postage stamps, errors, balls, incorrect sparkles, losses, receptions, new faces, the problems of downsizing, physical terms, ownership of old documents, hot corners, notable figures, favorite flowers, candles, magnetism, big cities, people who are as rare as onions, famous daughters, political incorrectness, frozen tunes, grammar quandaries, current events, and Shakespeare. I hope you get to read it!

Be well.

Dr. Andy

P.S. Here are three questions from last week’s quiz:

1. Mottos and Slogans. Did Wheaties first become “The Breakfast of Champions” in the 1920, the 1940s, or the 1960s?  

2. Internet Culture. Activision Blizzard stockholders recently voted in favor of the company being acquired by what tech giant?  

3. Newspaper Headlines. Ted Nugent passed on hosting this year’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner, so they chose someone else with his initials. Who was it?  

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

Usually when I appear on the radio program Insight (weekday mornings at 9 on Capital Public Radio, KXJZ), the host starts with an apology. I know from hosting a radio show myself for the last 22 years that conversations can run a little long, so the people at the end of the show (where my stories inevitably were, after the crime or forest fire stories) get less time than they might have been promised.

This status of coming at the end of the broadcast is a family tradition. My dad, Davey Marlin-Jones, was the theatre and film critic for the CBS affiliate in Washington DC all through the 1970s and most of the 1980s. The movie reviews came last because the arts are almost always seen as the least newsworthy element of the day’s news. This meant that my dad had to heed the hand signals that he was getting from camera operators; one told him to chat amiably with the anchors after his review, while the other told him to talk faster because the broadcast had to conclude exactly on time so that locals could watch the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite.

Ironically, going last on Channel 9 enhanced my dad’s local star-power considerably. In an era when most people got their information about the world from TV news, and at a time when Walter Cronkite was the most trusted man in America (could you imagine a journalist having that designation today?), and at a time when people gathered to watch the news because they didn’t yet own VCRs, all the local news junkies knew my dad as that wacky guy on Channel 9 who reviewed the films. At Boston University I made friends with a guy named Paul who told me that he often tried to convince his parents that Davey Marlin-Jones must have owned the TV station, for why else would they let him do such nutty things on the air?

Because of my dad’s local celebrity, people would yell his name from passing Metrobusses on Wisconsin Avenue, he would get sat immediately in nice restaurants (I later learned that he would habitually tip the maître d’), and he’s get into conversations with Vice Presidents of the United States. Once my dad noticed a bunch of armed men in suits visiting our sandwich shop (at the corner of Wisconsin Avenue and Macomb Street), so he told my brother and me to get ready to duck under the table. Then Walter Mondale walked in, and ordered a sandwich. They had to dine outside because Eleanor Mondale wasn’t wearing shoes. As we were leaving not long thereafter, Mr. Mondale spotted my dad and waved him over for a conversation and for the shy children to meet each other. I got the sense that reported wild child Eleanor was not terribly interested in Oliver or me, but we still had to make small talk while our dads chatted about film and politics.

None of us could have imagined Twitter back then, but on this past Thursday I was the lead-off guest to talk about Elon Musk buying Twitter, and what it will mean for online micro-discourse. I invite you to listen to my lead-off appearance on the KXJZ’s Insight website. I enjoyed the conversation, losing my words only once, channeling my mom who has outlived my dad by a couple decades so far, and who now has trouble with conversation. As Eliot’s J. Alfred Prufrock says, “It is impossible to say just what I mean!” Many of us feel that way, whether we are chatting with vice presidents in sandwich shops or discussing Elon Musk’s attempt to take over what he calls “the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity will be debated.” 

When it comes to the media, these are strange times and likely to become stranger, with a concentration of media ownership and influence in the hands of an ever shrinking number of men. Not only does Musk have more followers (almost 90 million) than Walter Cronkite had more viewers (almost 30 million), Musk will soon own the medium, just as my friend Paul thought about my dad and Channel 9 in Washington DC in the late 1970s. I look forward to commenting on these changes. Look for me at the end of the broadcast.

In addition to topic raised above, this week’s Pub Quiz will feature questions on the following topics: breakfast cereals, blizzards, hurricanes, detectives, Madison Square Garden, pool players, gladiators, habitable landmasses, plant materials, best pictures, Ireland exports, French terms, oily misinformation, delish words, mountain peaks, golden shovels, museum finds, uplifting spoonfuls, little puffs, Superbad resignations, recipients of calls, Roman gods, people born overseas, categories of delicacies, successful singers, music videos, current events, and Shakespeare.

Thanks to all the supporters on Patreon who make all this happen, especially the Outside Agitators, the Original Vincibles, and Quizimodo, who sustain this enterprise. Kudos to the players who pledge for their entire team! Let’s look forward to a time when we can all gather again to chat amiably over sandwiches. 

Be well.

Dr. Andy

P.S. Here are three questions from last week’s Pub Quiz:

1. Internet Culture. Increasing in popularity, is “BeReal” a new dating app, music platform, photo sharing social medium, or video game?  

2. Newspaper Headlines. The city of Tver is a “city of oblast significance.” In what country is it found: France, Israel, Russia, Turkey?  

3. The City of Dixon. According to the city of Dixon’s 2019 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report, the top employer in the city has 470 employees. Name it.  

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

Today is Picnic Day in the city of Davis, and the excitement is palpable.

Returning after a two-year Covid hiatus, the boisterous shindig that celebrates UC Davis and the mostly agricultural history of our top public university will bring thousands of people to the campus and to the city of Davis. Most of the activities take place outside, though regular campus denizens will be expected to complete their symptom surveys before entering any buildings. I hope everyone departing this big party at the end of the day, or even right after the parade, will remain healthy and symptom-free for the rest of the springtime.

Speaking of the parade, I’m excited to return to my role as grandstands Picnic Day Parade Announcer, a function I have performed perhaps a dozen times before, starting in 2009 or so. It wasn’t my award-winning UC Davis faculty status that first inclined a long-since graduated group of undergraduates to choose me for this honor, but rather my proven ability to read copy with enthusiasm, a skill I have honed on the radio and behind the Poetry Night microphone for decades. Did you know that Picnic Day is the largest student-run event in the country?

The aforementioned “grandstands” refers to the beginning of the Parade, where leaders in the Associated Students of UC Davis (student government) gather to be recognized, give speeches, introduce the UC Davis Chancellor, and introduce the Parade Marshall Dr. Nam Tran. Dr. Tran and I are very different sorts of doctors. He is the senior director of clinical pathology at UC Davis Health, which means that he has been a key figure in local COVID-19 testing. He said, “I will be there to represent the many UC Davis laboratory professionals who joined the fight against COVID-19.” I look forward to meeting him. I wonder if he will be wearing gloves, as well as two masks. Will he shake hands or want to bump elbows?

The theme for Picnic Day this year is “Rediscovering Tomorrow.” While many people will be happy just to rediscover their way back to campus, as a Buddhist, I would be happy just to see more people rediscover their todays, or their nows. As the Buddha said, “The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, worry about the future, or anticipate troubles, but to live in the present moment wisely and earnestly.” C.S. Lewis said something similar more succinctly: “This moment contains all moments.”

Speaking of now, the time has come for me to walk over to campus to be given my commemorative T-shirt, my bottle of water, and my microphone, everything I need to start the Picnic Day Parade at UC Davis’ 108th Picnic Day, being held in person on the Davis campus this morning and all day on Saturday, April 23. Perhaps I will see you there!

Be well.

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This week’s Pub Quiz will feature questions on topics raised above, and on the following: Reality, kings found in America, significant regions, funny nicknames for scandal-ridden scalawags, Black Panthers, football clubs, sub accounts, crayfish, forestry, southeastern Europe, Oscar-winners, Romantic poets and poems, losing streaks, lovely peaks, British colleges, things that are built to stay free, American princes, outdoor dining, people from Toronto who speak Esperanto, binary compounds, draft picks, sweet children, common surnames, friends in Dixon, current events, and Shakespeare.

Thanks to all the supporters on Patreon who make the Pub Quizzes and the newsletters possible, especially the most stalwart supporters: the Outside Agitators, the Original Vincibles, and Quizimodo. I’m always grateful to players who pledge for their entire team. Speaking of the future, let’s look forward to a time when we can all gather again to play with our friends! 

Happy Picnic Day!

Dr. Andy 

P.S. Here are three question’s from last week’s quiz (which I will gladly send to  you if you request it via email):

1. Internet Culture. Which one of the Big Five American information technology companies has Andy Jassy as its president and CEO?  

2. Newspaper Headlines. Starting with the letter V, what is the name of the den of voter fraud allegations that calls itself America’s premier Active Adult Retirement Community located in sunny central Florida?  

3. Taxes. The U.S. office of Commissioner of Internal Revenue was created during what war in which the United States took part?  

P.P.S. Thanks to Peggy Stein for making the jump from Pub Quiz regular to Poetry Night attendee! Our next event is on May 5^th, and will feature Joseph Millar and Dorianne Laux, two huge names in poetry.

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

Welcome, ROTARY friends! Please join me on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/yourquizmaster.

On this rainy Saturday I get to perform a 31-question Pub Quiz before a live audience. I used to do this every week, but now I am semi-retired from this work, sending quizzes out to a select number of devoted Patreonsubscribers, perhaps including you.

In her most famous song, Joni Mitchell asked the immortal question, “Don’t it always seem to go / That you don’t know what you’ve got / Till it’s gone?” I felt incredibly lucky to connect with my Pub Quiz friends and the many enthusiastic strangers every week, but, like so much of our lives, like walking without fear into an art museum or a used book store, I didn’t pause to imagine what life would have been like without the rituals that we had come to depend upon.

Consider this photograph of Princess Elizabeth at 14. You can tell that she is finishing a book, and probably had a lot of time for reading in 1940, when she wasn’t raising money for, say, the Queen’s Wool Fund, that bought and collected wool for soldiers’ uniforms. Elizabeth was born April 21, 1926 (she turns 96 next week), and Britain declared war on Germany on September 3, 1939, so she had just over 13 years for play, leisure, reading, and family before everything changed.

Like all of us beginning in March of 2020, Princess Elizabeth stayed home when war broke out, but which home? It was proposed that the heir apparent be evacuated to Canada, but her mom (later the Queen Mother, who outlived Princess Diana) objected. She said, “The children won’t go without me. I won’t leave without the King. And the King will never leave.” I’m sure King George VI of England inspired his citizens much the way that the rapidly-aging Volodymyr Zelenskyy inspires the people of Ukraine and the people of the world today.

Princess Elizabeth spent much of her early teens holed up in the Balmoral (Scotland) and Windsor Castles, where her castle was her home. After she came of age, she trained as a driver and mechanic, and was given the rank of honorary junior commander. That’s probably not the title that comes up most often. When Elizabeth turned 21 during an overseas trip to Africa, she made this pledge: “I declare before you all that my whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your service and the service of our great imperial family to which we all belong.”

Queen Elizabeth’s life has indeed been long, practically the longest of anyone with a job like hers. She is the longest-lived and longest-reigning British monarch, beating Queen Victoria by seven years so far. Elizabeth is the longest-serving female head of state in history, and if she maintains her spot on the throne for another year and a half, she will beat the record of Louis XIV of France. Even older than Dianne Feinstein, QE2 is the oldest and longest-serving incumbent head of state. Assuming her memory is intact, she has stories to tell about meeting most of the important figures from most of the 20^th century, including, for example, Winston Churchill, Harry S Truman, Charles De Gaulle, and Barbra Streisand.

Like Charles Foster Kane, Elizabeth probably misses simpler times. As we are all younger than she is, and probably somewhat more nimble, we might consider that we need not wait to reminisce about earlier times. The present is the earlier time. Let’s be present with the present, take gaps to notice the fickle weather, and gather with our friends for a drink or a performance, just as we did all the time, not knowing how lucky we were.

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This week’s Pub Quiz will be sent out Saturday night, for first I will present it to a large group sponsored by the Sunrise Rotary Club of Davis. When it arrives, you will recognize questions about topics raised above, as well as the following: Fast runners, big five leaders, famous roses, incessant questioning, golden gloves, prominent poets, medical adjectives, people who are ahead of Germany, Coliseum workers, Boston notables, upper Manhattan, young lovers, best-selling books, odd smells, cocktails, financial trackers, aromatic treats, world geography, valuable toes, sure ladies, nee-Westerns, low ebbs, trellises, bellwethers, basketball teams, California cities, one-word titles, current events, and Shakespeare. Some of these hints refer to the same questions as other hints.

Thanks to all the supporters on Patreon who make all this happen, especially the Outside Agitators, the Original Vincibles, and Quizimodo. Please join these players on Patreon! I’m always grateful to players who pledge for their entire team. Let’s look forward to a time when we can all gather again to play with our friends and competitors! Until then, I appreciate your remote support.

Best,

Dr. Andy

P.S. Here are three questions from last weeks’ quiz:

1. Four for Four. Of the following oldest buildings of their kind still in operation, which opened for the first time in the 19^th century: Airport, movie theatre, shopping mall, zoo?  

2. Martial Arts. What Michigan-born actor and Aikido practitioner was granted Serbian and Russian citizenship in 2014?  

3. Pop Culture – Music. Born in New York City, what singer-songwriter enjoyed a 20+ year solo career, during which time he produced 33 top 40 hits in the U.S., all of which he wrote himself? Hint: He had three number one hits in the 1980s.  

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

Today my daughter Geneva is moving into her first post-collegiate apartment. Now that she has a job as a paraeducator at Patwin Elementary, the school her brother attended and for which I have hosted a number of fundraisers over the years, she and her girlfriend can afford the outrageous rents that students pay to be close to the corner of Sycamore and Russell here in the city of Davis.

They chose that location because of its walkable proximity to Patwin, but also because their new home is across the street from Trader Joe’s. My wife Kate and I lived across the street from a small grocery store in London, so we remember how convenient it is to stroll a mere 20 yards from one’s front door to pick up ingredients for the evening meal. Some Davisites might remember how overjoyed we felt when Trader Joe’s came to town, thus precluding trips to Sacramento to stock up on favorite signature products, such as their seasonal butternut squash macaroni and cheese. Geneva and Amanda will have all those inexpensive food and wine options a 90-second walk from their home, allowing them to save money that they will instead hand over to their new landlord.

So late last night I drove over a vanload of boxes and small furnishings, including furniture donated by local friends, double-parking with the hazards lights on as groups of UC Davis students strolled by in the dark, laughing, some of them in party dresses. I almost asked a group of six young men if they would like to help my daughter move into her new digs by carrying the contents of the van to her first-floor apartment all at once, rather than my having to make 30 trips, but then I remembered that I was behind on my steps for the day (I ended up with 15,678), and I needed the invigorating workout. 

I enjoy physical activity and labor (Kate and I even got married on Labor Day, 1992). In my head, I’ve always mistranslated the Biblical phrase “every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labour” as “labor is its own reward.” I feel this way about physical labor, for I know that I sleep better after a day that included lifting weights or lifting boxes, though I should quickly add that I expect to be compensated fairly for my scholarly labor. After all, UC Davis is not UCLA, which recently posted an assistant adjunct position in Chemistry, with an expectation that the successful applicant would not be paid: “Applicants must understand there will be no compensation for this position.” Ouch!

While the new opportunity for Geneva is exciting for her, we will miss having her at home. I enjoy our walks along the greenbelt, and hearing her stories about the spirited children she gets to support at Patwin. Geneva knows I also appreciate hearing about her (often online) interactions with her far-flung friends from Davis Senior High School and Beloit College. She runs Dungeons and Dragons games for two or three groups of friends, so she is always creating encounters, challenges, and adventures in her head and in her notebooks. We love hearing the laughter coming out of her room, and the muffled voices of her friends on Zoom and Discord. 

Sometimes during one of these marathon sessions I find myself delivering to Geneva’s room (the room where she has lived since 2004) a burrito or one of her mom’s famous omelets. That’s when I hear the phrase “Hold on: There’s a knock at the door.” Her online friends inevitably grow anxiously quiet when she says this, knowing that the knock might come from an ogre or a displacer beast in the world she has created. Instead, it’s just her dad, hand-delivering a meal, communicating in one of many small ways how much we appreciate having all five members of the family under one roof.

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This week’s Pub Quiz will feature questions on topics raised above, and on the following: Central images, union labels, unmentionables, Will & Grace, ice breakers, New York City boroughs, happy ladies, tall hills, cleansers, arcs and arches, catfish tunics, old zoos and airports, Serbian citizens who were born in water winter wonderlands, popular valleys, reality TV shows, African countries, charts and the absence of charts, singer-songwriters, people named Andre Iguodala, propulsion and signaling, French ladies, prophetic dreams, difficulty concentrating, rails, Brendas, rails, dogs with famous names, horns, land bridges, vengeful villains, current events, and Shakespeare.

Thanks to all my subscribers. If you value these newsletters, please consider subscribing via Patreon. Those who help out at the $10 level or higher get the Pub Quiz every week: 31 questions and 31 answers. Shout-out to the regular subscribers who came to see the Julia Levine poetry reading this past Thursday!

Enjoy today’s invigorating winds!

Dr. Andy

P.S. Here are four questions from last week’s Pub Quiz:

1. California Culture. What notable (now late) Californian said, “If you are working on something that you really care about, you don’t have to be pushed. The vision pulls you”?  

2. Books and Authors. The first musician (and first non-European) to win the Nobel Prize for Literature (1913) was Rabindranath Tagore. Who is the most recent lyricist and musician to win the same prize?  

3. Sports.  The AUDL is the top professional ultimate league in the world. What does the D in AUDL stand for?  

4. Shakespeare. To what does Shakespeare refer with the phrase “the green-eyed monster”? 

P.S. If there’s a smallish kitchen or dining-room table in your Davis garage that you would like to see go to a good home, I will gladly come pick that up today. Thanks!