Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

From the point of view of a faculty member at UC Davis, commencement can be a time for emotion and reflection. I attended the Saturday evening graduation ceremonies of the College of Letters and Science (after receiving an email from the L+S Dean asking if I had planned to attend). Seven thoughts came to mind that I’ll share with you today.
 

1. UC Davis is huge. It took three different ceremonies Saturday for all of our Letters and Science students to be given their diplomas, and L+S is only one of the many colleges at our local university (albeit, the largest).
2. The Rec Hall, as we called it in the 1990s, has served commencements ably for decades. For example, I myself graduated twice in that same cavernous arena, the final time with my wife Kate, parents, and brother Oliver in attendance. In those benighted times, people had to take pictures with actual cameras.
3. Commencement makes me proud to work for UC Davis. Our students are so dedicated, hard-working, innovative, and creative. My colleagues and I have prepared the students well for upcoming vocational and life challenges. Also, commencement gives certain students an opportunity to share their humor and their singing of the National Anthem.
4. I wish I could teach even more classes. Because of my administrative duties, I teach just one four-unit class a quarter, and typically a few first-year seminars a year. I loved cheering on some of the students who I had in freshman seminars years ago, as well as the ones who I’ve been working closely with throughout this past school year. They bring so much to every classroom interaction.
5. I loved the opportunity to support the students with whom I have worked the most. My graduating assistant was there with his parents, siblings, grandparents, and a fiancée. He and I texted each other as the ceremonies were about to begin, if only so I could determine where he was sitting among his thousand classmates. Other favorites from past years, including the winner of the UC Davis Medal (who has received a lot of deserved press and praise recently), received texts or emails of congratulations from me right after they crossed the stage.
6. We are getting older. As Shakespeare said in one of his darker moments, “I wasted time, and now doth time waste me.” Cheering all the graduates whom I have gotten to know in ten-week chunks of life, I sometimes felt like I was watching one of the best parts of my professional life pass before my eyes. Whether they are walking across the stage at the Rec Hall or changing the world for the better in Oxford, England (Hello, Melissa Skorka! You make all your former UC Davis professors proud!), my students have often provided me the energy and inspiration to try to do my best work in the classroom, and I am grateful for that gift.
7. One should always bike to commencement.

Tonight’s Pub Quiz will feature questions on topics raised above, as well as the following: Dendrology, macadamia nuts, favorite sultans, greenhouse gasses, new national leaders, musical directives, record streaks, second commandments, contradictions, people named Leonard, meeting the press, medical donors, carrying the weight of a pub quizzer, pharaohs, big purchases, Swedish biking practices, the micronauts, gaunt people, percentages, islands where one can hire an illustrator or a game developer, Judi Dench, aesthetes, jeans, circles, internal caution signs, empirical discoveries, funny place names, new world songs, Mariska Hargitay, and Shakespeare.

Sacramento Poet Laureate Indigo Moor will be reading at the Natsoulas Gallery this coming Thursday at 8. Perhaps you would like to join us?

I hope to see you this evening at 7. Emily and other favorite players will also be graduating, so we should gather with great gusto to send them off!

Your Quizmaster
https://www.yourquizmaster.com
http://www.twitter.com/yourquizmaster
http://www.facebook.com/yourquizmaster
yourquizmaster@gmail.com

Here are three questions from last week’s quiz:
 

1. Internet and Video Game Culture. Because of viewers like you, the highest grossing video game movie in North America is instant classic, Pokemon: Detective Pikachu. The dethroned video game film was nominated for the Worst Actress Golden Raspberry Award in 2001. Name that film.  
2. Consumer Goods. What do the words Paperwhite and Oasis have to do with one another?  
3. Sports. The first European player to receive the NBA Most Valuable Player Award is the only player ever to play for a single franchise for 21 seasons. Name him.  

P.S. “A graduation ceremony is an event where the commencement speaker tells thousands of students dressed in identical caps and gowns that ‘individuality’ is the key to success.” Robert Orben

 

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

 

Sometimes when the temperature tops 100 degrees and I’m late in writing the Pub Quiz newsletter because of my morning-long trip with my son Jukie to the MIND Institute – the yearly review of his health, his demeanor, his medications – I just paste into the template a gecko poem, a love song to summer, such as this one:

 

Gecko at Noon

 

When it is hot –

when the ground sparks like the thought of lightning

and the air is so thin that the birds just wait it out –

that’s when I emerge

 

Hot hot hot hot hot

 

I sample the stunned insects –

big black beetles that scramble in my mouth –

green katydids that jumped too late –

the complacent moth

 

My neck twists like a rope –

my eyes are little suns

driven by absence, by lack, by

 

The sun, it is crushing, crushing

 

We are small and becoming smaller,

bug-eyed in the bush –

we are like mercury underfoot –

just as toxic.

 

Once it was cancer, the slow crab at the end –

Now we are becoming hormonal misfits –

each generation afraid of the next –

We dare not look into their faces

 

The land is like the original bush,

still burning after three thousand years –

still giving orders –

still blanching the locals

 

They are stuck in the book,

but they ache for a cycle

 

 

Tonight’s Pub Quiz might be the last for many UC Davis graduates. I heard that the youthful and enthusiastic team Roy Rogers, for instance, might be joining us for the last time this evening. We will miss them and the others whom shall never again enjoy a June day in Davis. Be well, succeed for all of us, stay subscribed to this newsletter, and send to the pub the friends who now must step up to replace you.

 

Tonight’s Pub Quiz will feature questions on the following: clubs that welcome everyone, detectives, aeronautics, Disney, Alpine climates, The Oxford Companion to Food, headlines, army pairs, villainous bosses, everyday electricity and chemistry, love songs, coinages, 2013 Gallup polls, children in peril, the Human Rights Campaign, lewd ogres with scalpels, people who are crazy for each other, castles, chartered planes, birds’ nests, agricultural bounty, Purdue University, drowsiness, banned words, Oscar winners, people named Mary, European exports, berries, bonus anagrams, floating syllables, Razzies, and Shakespeare.

 

Our next Poetry Night takes place on June 20^th and will feature Sacramento Poet Laureate Indigo Moor. Mark your calendar now so that there’ll be no chance that you inadvertently miss it.

 

See you tonight!

 

Your Quizmaster

 

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

 

1. Know Your Wars. What was the name of the military conflict that was fought from October 1853 to February 1856 in which the Russian Empire lost to an alliance of the Ottoman Empire, France, Britain and Sardinia?  
2. Martial Arts. Starting with the letter K, what word or phrase refers to Chinese martial arts?
3. Pop Culture – Music. Who joins Ed Sheeran on the new hit “I Don’t Care”?

 

 

P.S. Richard Nixon  said that “The Cold War isn’t thawing; it is burning with a deadly heat. Communism isn’t sleeping; it is, as always, plotting, scheming, working, fighting.” If not communism, what is burning you with a deadly heat?

 

 

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

As an unwise teenager, I scheduled my entire college career around geography. Growing up in the cultural Mecca of Washington DC, I resolved not to go to college in a small town like Davis, choosing to spend my undergraduate years at a colleges in big cities. If it were not for all the great friends and professors who I met at Boston University, on some days I wish I could go back in time to have a longer discussion with the college counselor about the sort of undergraduate experience would best suit me.

Perhaps public transportation and bike-riding contributed to my love of cities. While many high school students were looking forward to acquiring their first car, I treasured my bike rides through Rock Creek Park. As a result, today most people are “better at” cars than I am. For example, when my wife Kate drives us to a function or to pick up one of our kids at school, she will often comment on the cars in the parking lot, pointing out which cars belonged to which of our friends. My friend Evan points out the makes and models of fancy and expensive cars that he has encountered on the streets of Davis or San Francisco. I myself don’t have these abilities or enthusiasms.

As these examples about friends and design mastery indicate, cars mean different things to different people. Cars can stand for the ideas of community or status, but I would also argue that they can stand in for ideas themselves. As a writer, I’m always on the lookout for the topic or the angle of my next book or essay, for the image that might appear in my next poem or short story, or for a discovered fact or statistic that would warrant a Pub Quiz question. Sometimes the ideas come to me as often as the cars driving down Tunlaw Road, the busy street where I grew up. As a child, before falling asleep I would watch multi-colored shadows appear on my bedroom wall, cast there by the red, yellow, and green colors of the stop light at the corner of Tunlaw Road and Calvert Street. The Glover Park neighborhood was my haven.

When working on writing projects, some of us take in ideas the way that Tunlaw Road accepted motor vehicles. On some days there are too many to choose from, almost too many to count. One thinks of Russell and Carl Fredricksen counting the red cars and the blue cars in front of the ice cream shop.

I’ve also sampled rural. In addition to living in the small town of Davis in the big city of Washington DC, I have spent many a week of my childhood sitting on the front porch of my grandmother’s cabin in Beavertown, Pennsylvania, a Snyder County township that at the time had a population of about 800, many of them Mennonite and some of them Amish. One would see horse-drawn carriages with a large reflector on the back parked in front of the town’s only grocery store.

The family cabin was the last structure on Reservoir Road, about halfway up Shade Mountain. A car coming all the way to our neighborhood was an usual event, usually one that stopped the conversation or the card game on the porch: we would put down our cards and strain our necks to see who it was. Usually the driver was a visitor to our house, a visitor to Aunt Eunice‘s house next-door (Eunice was born in the 19th century), or a hiker, hunter, or water quality control worker driving farther up the mountain to the reservoir or to an adventure up the mountain.

Back to my extended metaphor, some of us collect ideas the way that the top of Reservoir Road welcomed cars: rarely, and only one at a time. Ideas that infrequent inspire reflection and conversation, rather than mere collection and evaluation.

I’ve been reading a trio of books on writing quickly, books that suggest that any author who limits himself to writing only a book a year is a rank amateur. And indeed when I’m working with some of my undergraduate assistants, imagining the scope and purpose of big writing projects, I consider so many project ideas that I feel like I’m watching cars on Tunlaw Road.

But when I’m taking long walks on the Greenbelt with Jukie and our French Bulldog, something I got to do three times yesterday, I feel like I’m back in Beavertown, wondering what friend or stranger, that is, what fresh, ponderable idea, is approaching Ternes Creek for a visit.

 

In addition to topics raised above, tonight’s Pub Quiz will feature questions about the following: insects, Smithsonian magazine, confessed love, renamed streets, love rules, faraway countries, social justice activists, letters of the alphabet, family drama, the example of Lithuania, outdoor comfort in New York State, films with happy endings, the populations of American cities, definitions of luck, the population of Davis and other cities, chips, commercial organizations, the majesty of California, hypodermics lost in bogs, the weather, confidence, frolicking Davis visitors, Olympia, John Goodman projects, ribs, the keeping of secrets, old luxuries, the long shadow of Britain, and Shakespeare.

Our next Poetry Night on June 6th will feature CSUS professor Brad Buchanan. Google this poet to learn more about the story he has to tell!

Happy Memorial Day to you and your families. I look forward to seeing you this evening at 7. If Pub Quiz keeps you up too late on Mondays, perhaps now would be a good time to take a nap so that you are ready.

Dr. Andy

 

Your Quizmaster

https://www.yourquizmaster.com

 

P.S. “Patriotism is not short, frenzied outbursts of emotion, but the tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime.” Adlai Stevenson

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

Of all the poets who I have worked with at UC Davis, the work of only two of them could be found in my childhood home of Washington, DC, and they are two of the kindest poets I know. Along with prizes, sustained kindness and renown among non-poets would be three of a poets’ three greatest accomplishments.

This past Thursday, I got to introduce both those poets, as well as one of California’s most important Hmong poets, to a standing-room-only auditorium of friends and poetry-lovers. I’m still buzzed from the excitement and the relish of the momentous evening.

The Hmong poet is Pos Moua, a man of about my age who earned an MA in creative writing at UC Davis 20 years ago. He read poets of great emotional richness and insight, as well as with an other-worldly sense of wonder that one might expect from a writer from a culture that has not widely embraced written literacy. I encourage you to pick up a copy of Karst Mountains Will Bloom (Blue Oak Press, 2019) online or at your local bookstore.

The ”poetic mother” of Moua, as he called her, was Sandra McPherson. Both she and my Boston University poetry mentor Robert Pinsky deepened their poetic writing with Elizabeth Bishop, an amazing craftswoman and one of the most important writers of the 20^th century. McPherson read about five poems Thursday night to start the evening, reminding us why she is admired and loved by writers who know her and her work.

The “poetic father” of Moua is Gary Snyder, the 89-year-old Beat-era poet who won the Pulitzer Prize for his book Turtle Island. Born exactly two years before my late father, Snyder amazed me with his cogency and wit. Any of us would be lucky to be so sharp at his age. So many people were amazed to be in the presence of the subject of Jack Kerouac’s 1958 novel The Dharma Bums that I estimate that a thousand pictures were taken that night.

Gary gave me his business card, so I hope to have another opportunity to introduce him. For now, I have completed one more item on my bucket list.

In addition to topics raised above, on tonight’s Pub Quiz, expect questions about the following: everyday objects, the blues, downtown businesses, rhythm and blues, extraordinary empathy, notable animals in hats, fictional characters who fly, communications about transportation, bad boys, river cities, political numbers, departed icons, writing implements, Italians who migrate, agricultural exports, bank accounts, really large numbers, first names of famous people, old Europe, changed names, continental hotels, World War II, digital examples, vertical names, petrochemical-derived materials, broaching the topic of yearly brooches, electrical currents, Spartan warriors, Boston, cars and trucks, islands, and Shakespeare.

Thanks for reading the newsletter, and for inviting your friends to our Monday night events. I feel that everyone is lucky who raises a glass with amiable friends at the start of a work-week.

Best,

Your Quizmaster
https://www.yourquizmaster.com
http://www.twitter.com/yourquizmaster
http://www.facebook.com/yourquizmaster
yourquizmaster@gmail.com

Here are three questions from last week’s quiz:

1. Figures of Speech. What is the three-syllable figure of speech in which a word or phrase denoting one kind of object or action is used in place of another to suggest a likeness or analogy between them?
2. Science.  In plants, what P word is used for transferring haploid male genetic material from the anther of a single flower to the stigma of another in cross-pollination? 
3. Sports: NBA Playoff Basketball.  Yesterday Kawhi Leonard won game 7 in a series with the Philadelphia 76ers with an insane buzzer-beater that bounced four times before going through the basket.” For what team does Leonard play?  

P.S. “Ultimately the bond of all companionship, whether in marriage or in friendship, is conversation.” Oscar Wilde

 

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

 

It was strange to spend Mother’s Day without a mother in the house. My wife Kate flew to Chicago Saturday morning to catch up with friends and family (notably, her own mom on Mother’s Day), and to pick up our daughter Geneva at college, put her stuff in storage, and return her home. Kate swapped 82° sunny Davis for 42° rainy Chicago, having a arrived at O’Hare in Birkenstocks and a hoodie; she was greeted by her beloveds in down coats and rain boots.

 

In our house, the youngest person in the family seems to set the agenda for our family activities. Thirteen-year-old Truman used to be in charge, arranging for trips to Disneyland and viewing parties of The Andy Griffith Show and The Mary Tyler Moore Show (which we rent from Bizarro World). But now that Truman convinced us to adopt Margot, our French bulldog puppy, she is the new youngest, so thus is newly in charge. The transfer of power was peaceful.

 

As a puppy, Margot has boundless energy, demanding multiple walks a day. This dynamic has kept Kate fit (she and Margot end up covering more than four miles a day along South Davis parks and greenbelts), and has kept the rest of us on our toes. Even if I am just taking Margot out for a brief visit to what we call the “Jukie Park” on the other side of our fence, I’ve learned to lock the front door after us, for often our extroverted puppy is unwilling to return right home.

 

Such was the case last night. After my Sunday evening office hours (five students showed up to Crepeville for help with their essays between 9:30 and 11), I came home to find Margot eager to greet me, as if I had been gone a 12 days instead of 120 minutes. Out we went, and out we stayed, for Margot kept spotting different quarry to chase, including a hoot owl and a number of nocturnal bugs that seemed to sacrifice themselves for Margot’s jowly chomping (and, I imagine, eventually for the owl’s evening meal). We also met two other “night owls,” a man and his dog who both recognized our “Frenchie,” as the man kept calling her. Margot makes friends by walking up to other dogs and then falling on her back. Except when taking up space in our bed, she is not what you would call “dominant.”

 

Finally I convinced our  youngest to return to our cul-de-sac. In the half-moonlight, Margot spotted our neighbor Meg, about a half-block in front of us, walking towards her house while sorting her mail. From behind, and from a distance, Meg’s dark hair looked like Kate’s auburn tresses. Tall and slender in her sleeveless shirt, Meg looked a bit like Kate, strolling away from us and into the darkness.

 

Margo started to scamper, wanting to close the distance with her mom. Even just the two days was the longest our youngest family member had been away from her Kate since being adopted. I sighed and had to hold the leash firmly. What words could I offer to convince her not to follow, both of us looking forward to an eventual moonlit reunion?

 

Tonight’s Pub Quiz will feature questions on the expected topics, including some facts that I learned on National Public Radio this week. Expect also questions about new jobs, unusual parenting techniques, babies, stops, conservationists, silly animations, unwelcome movie sets, local kings, a writer’s final days, opportune bounces, lovers of arches, middle tempests, names in the news, acts of cross-pollination, lies about likenesses, beautiful islands, space stations, categories of bigotry, short stories, government-sponsored news, insiders, peoples named Zachary, more new taxes, gossip, animals and leakers, vodka nerds who love Star Trek, the need to love somebody, things that are pulled, volume, presidential elections, mutants, super bowls, varieties of animals, party problems, really accomplished musicians, and Shakespeare.

 

Gary Snyder will be one of the featured poets at the Natsoulas Gallery on Thursday. He will join Sandra McPherson in introducing Pos Moua so he can read from his new book. You should join us. Meanwhile, though, I will see you tonight at 7!

 

Your Quizmaster.

 

Dr. Andy

 

P.S. Here are three questions from another quiz, this one from 2012:

 

1. Mottos and Slogans.    What Finnish multinational communications and information technology corporation uses as its slogan the phrase “Connecting People”?  
2. World Employers. The largest employer in the world, with 3.23 million employees, was also the largest single consumer of energy in the United States in 2006. Headquartered in Virginia, name the largest employer in the world.  
3. Four for Four.      Which two of the following Steve Martin films were released in 2003? Bringing Down the House, Cheaper by the Dozen, Father of the Bride II, LA Story.  

 

P.S. “When you listen to someone, you should give up all your preconceived ideas and your subjective opinions; you should just listen to him, just observe what his way is. We put very little emphasis on right and wrong or good and bad. We just see things as they are with him, and accept them. This is how we communicate with each other. Usually when you listen to some statement, you hear it as a kind of echo of yourself. You are actually listening to your own opinion. If it agrees with your opinion you may accept it, but if it does not, you will reject it or you may not even really hear it.” Shunryū Suzuki

 

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

My favorite quotation by the spiritual teacher Ram Dass is about silence: “The quieter you become, the more you can hear.”

I have more to say about that, but my assistant has just arrived at the office, and we have some work to get done.

Tonight’s Pub Quiz will feature questions about my trip to the movies yesterday, as well as the following: best men, gruesome endings, tropical Christmasses, street names, population growths, awards for the laziest snobs, managers, moments of joy, people named Daniel, a step up from cells, poster boys, leaders of the shadow people, claimed islands,  remaining records, life extensions, Pulitzer Prizes for Editorial Writing, Sacramento neighborhoods, absent women, biopics, decades, topics that twinkle with soul, hit dances, entertainment in 1929, celebrity takes, Japanese labor, U.S. presidents, the pleasures of walking, things to do in and away from Pocatello, American rock bands, early states, rude robots, American women, and Shakespeare.

I hope you will join us this evening for the Pub Quiz! We always have more fun when you are there.

 

Your Quizmaster

https://www.yourquizmaster.com

Tweets by yourquizmaster

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yourquizmaster@gmail.com

 

Here are three questions from a 2012 quiz:

 

1. Mitt Romney’s BFFs. With which current world leader is Mitt Romney closest friends? Hint: Back to the 1970s, both were young hotshots at the Boston Consulting Group.  
2. Islands. What is the largest island that is not a continent?  
3. Science.   A deficiency of what element with an atomic number of 53 gives rise to hypothyroidism? Iodine

 

P.S. “When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence.” Ansel Adams

 

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

I learned from a 2014 article in Variety that “U.S. teenagers are more enamored with YouTube stars than they are the biggest celebrities in film, TV and music.” Does that make any sense to you? When I read that, I feel like the parents of the first Beatles fans might have felt, wondering what all the fuss is about.

We are lucky to live in a city where our celebrities are thinkers, such as the professors at UC Davis or the authors of popular novels, such as John Lescroart and Kim Stanley Robinson. Once here in a Davis restaurant I ran into Henry Louis Gates. I called out to him, “Professor Skip Gates!” I didn’t know if he was more surprised to be recognized in Davis, or that someone in Davis knew his nickname.

Sometimes the airport is the only place you can run into celebrities. I had a conversation with personal hero Paula Poundstone in the Sacramento Airport once, and another time I encountered Marilu Henner at LAX. She probably remembers that encounter.

My favorite airport celebrity story takes place at O’Hare airport in 1992. About to get married, I was dispatched to O’Hare Airport to pick up some of my high school friends a couple days before the ceremony. Because the plane was late, I spent much more time than expected in Chicago’s O’Hare airport, finishing my book, and then wondering if I would see any celebrities. Walking the huge corridors of the O’Hare terminals, at first, the only celebrities I saw were those posing on the huge Gap “Individuals of Style” posters on the walls of the cavernous terminal. We saw Luke Perry, Naomi Campbell (remember her?), Spike Lee, Evander Holyfield, and Lenny Kravitz.

Because I was waiting for friends from high school, I decided to make some trouble, just like we used to do back in the day. We were often scallywags. I got a piece of paper from the airport bookstore, and then wrote in huge, block letters the name of the most famous of the Chicago celebrities. Can you guess who it was? No, not Al Capone, but Oprah Winfrey. My sign said simply “OPRAH W.”

I was not dressed like a chauffeur. Nevertheless, the arrival time of the late flight neared, a large crowd of people who also wanted to see Oprah gathered around us. When the plane finally landed, I recognized the first person off the plane because I had seen him recently. It wasn’t Oprah.

You know that phenomenon that occurs when you meet someone famous and only realize later what witty thing you should have said? For instance, when I met Stevie Wonder, all I could say was this: “Stevie, I would like to introduce you to my wife, Kate.” Evidently, Stevie Wonder hears all the time that couples danced to his music at their weddings. Clearly, I should have said something about that.

Using my Pub Quiz Quizmaster Voice, this is what I wanted to say when I saw the first person off the plane: “Ladies and Gentlemen, this is your Main Event of the Evening. From Atlanta, Georgia, appearing in gate A-17, wearing a three-piece suit that he probably got at the Gap, standing at 6’2” tall, weighing in at 205- and one-half pounds, with a professional boxing record of 28 wins and no losses, he is the reigning, defending, Heavyweight Boxing Champion of the world: Evander, “The Real Deal” Holyfield!”

Instead, I said nothing, for I wanted to see how long I could sustain my Oprah gag for the huge audience that had assembled around me. Seeing my silly sign, Evander Holyfield spoke first, sharing with me a kind of a warning against investing too heavily in the lives of the accomplished, rather than finding our own answers to life’s most important questions.

Evander Holyfield said these six words to me: “Oprah ain’t on that plane, man.”

Thanks, Evander.

 

In addition to topics raised above, tonight’s Pub Quiz will feature questions on final films, bad storms, indigenous peoples, focal actresses, Stanford University professors, differences in density, everyday Italians, notable hairdos, difficult topics to explain, fonts, population differences, football, gender differences among the accomplished, the things that mirrors do, fast-growers, shipping matters, ways that Germans no longer speak, things named after dogs, an unexpected place to encounter Florida, Victorian hazier flatbeds, voices,  places many would hope to visit, overzealotry, people seemingly named after weapons, changing waves, panthers, Richardsons, protein, dead heats, troubling announcements (for some), volunteer helpers for those needing it most, and Shakespeare.

Dozens of people say they are interested in the book release party Thursday night for Jackie Carroll’s first full-length poetry book, titled KUBABA! There will be wine and cheese, and performances by actors and musicians. You should join us at 8 at the John Natsoulas Gallery to be part of the fun!

Meanwhile, I hope to see you this evening. We start at 7, but come early to secure a table.

 

Your Quizmaster

https://www.yourquizmaster.com

http://www.twitter.com/yourquizmaster

http://www.facebook.com/yourquizmaster

yourquizmaster@gmail.com

 

Here are three questions from last week’s quiz:

 

1. Space Programs. Which of the following lasted the longest? The Apollo program, The Space Shuttle program, The International Space Station. 
2. Pop Culture – Music. Born in 1998, Melissa Viviane Jefferson is an American rapper, singer, actor, flautist, and songwriter whose albums include Lizzobangers and, released last week, Cuz I love You. What is Jefferson’s stage name? 
3. Science. What A word do we use for the science and technology of producing and using plants for food, fuel, fiber, and land reclamation? 

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

 

This newsletter contains a beginning, two sustaining middles, and an ending. Keep reading to see what I mean.

After sitting in the first two of five campus executive interviews this morning, I was released into the bright California air to write and send you this newsletter. Walking to my office, I encountered two large wagons fitted with a half-dozen occupied toddler seats each. The young ones in their floppy sun hats were facing outward so they could watch the scrub jays and the undergraduates racing by on their bicycles. The college-aged women in charge of this daycare field trip were singing songs in unison and pointing out the wonders of the day.

Mounting my bike early this morning, I felt a similar kind of exuberance after a speedy reunion. My fast bike had been in the shop for what felt like two months (with parts having been ordered from China). After meandering around town in a lugubrious rental for the last several weeks, I got my bike back for today’s commute and felt the way that Wall-E must have felt when, in one of the opening scenes of his film, he replaces his treads with those salvaged from one of his fallen comrades. With access to the necessary technology, he rebuilt himself, and his joy could be gleaned from his tone of voice! That’s how I felt today. Having hit all the lights, and pedaling hard on my favorite noble steed, I made it to campus from our south Davis home in the time it took to play a single Black Eyed Peas extended dance mix.

I’ve come to depend upon my bike (thanks, B&L Bike Shop – I prefer the word “and” to an ampersand, but I realize that “&” is part of your branding), just like the community of Davis, and many nichy communities outside of Davis, depend upon radio station KDVS, a campus resource that turns 50 years old this year. For the last 18+ of those years, I have hosted Dr. Andy’s Poetry and Technology Hour on Wednesday afternoons at 5, a favorite unpaid gig that allows me to interview all sorts of thought leaders and creative professionals.

Well, the spring KDVS fundraiser takes place this week, and I am hoping that you will phone in a tax-deductible pledge this coming Wednesday afternoon at 5 or 5:30 at the phone number 530-754-KDVS. With your help, I hope to raise a thousand dollars for the station. Small gifts matter significantly, for they will give my co-hosts and me a chance to ring the bell and thank a donor over the air. Your gift will help me sustain my energy, and together we will help to sustain one of the last free-form radio stations left in the United States. It’s the only place outside of the Pub Quiz where you can hear me talk about compute electronics, space programs, architecture, and Sherlock Holmes, as well as introduce a bunch of local and faraway poets. If you decide to donate online, make sure to check out the premiums, and to direct your donation to support Dr. Andy’s Poetry and Technology Hour. But mostly I hope you can phone in Wednesday between 5 and 6. Perhaps you should tell your phone or home speaker to set an alarm now.

Tonight at the Pub Quiz I will fête and bid farewell to my longtime work friend Steve, an amazing artist, illustrator, and cartoonist who will both be celebrating a momentous birthday today, and will be working his last day, after 29 years, at Academic Technology Services. I admire Steve highly, and am touched that his goodbye party will overlap with the Pub Quiz. As a result, tonight’s quiz will be a bit easier than typical, for I want my work friends to feel especially prepared to participate in Dr. Andy’s Monday night hobby. If you wish, feel free to stop by Steve’s table tonight to wish him well.

Speaking of questions, tonight expect questions on topics raised above, as well as on rural purges, Yukon adventures, famous pairings, words that start with vowels, scandal anniversaries, successful comedians, musical instruments, chemistry softballs, global events, domestic magic, adrenaline junkies, ambitious Americans,  inventive doctors, Oscar nominees, privacy enthusiasts, long lists, TV shows I actually watched, withdrawals, integrated circuits, immigration statistics, flautists, nearby frontiers, people who are full of love, fuel and fiber, California powerhouses, empty storefronts, Steves not named Rick, the finest of shrapnel, famous daughters, people who name things after themselves, people whose names are mispronounced, common sense, bio-engineering projects, musical talk, and Shakespeare.

Thanks to the almost 50 people who came to Thursday’s poetry reading, including some new folks visiting from Pub Quiz. As with all things, we are building momentum. Happy National Poetry Month!

See you tonight, and I look forward to hearing from you Wednesday at 5.

 

Your Quizmaster

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yourquizmaster@gmail.com

 

Here are three questions from last week’s quiz:

1. Books and Authors. What word did the first line of T.S. Eliot’s most famous poem “The Waste Land” use to describe April? 
2. Film. What actor appeared in films with the titles Black Panther, Fantastic Four, and Fruitvale Station?  
3.  Taxes. As of 2019, what is the standard deduction for single tax filers in the United States? Is it $6,000, $12,000, $18,000, or $24,000? 

 

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,

 

I woke this morning to an email from someone letting me know that a link had died on an article I had written for an online resource almost 20 years ago. The article was so old and likely neglected for so long that I was surprised that any of the links worked.

 

How sad that the Librarians Index to the Internet had been discontinued, but I suppose that makes sense. How can librarians keep up? Following the Yahoo! model, once upon a time a number of university librarians established a place where student researchers could find vetted sources and resources to support their writing and research projects. In the intervening years, Google has exercised increasing dominance in the search market, and now almost no one turns to Yahoo! first when trying to find information about what’s available on the web. Everything in “indexed” by Google, so we no longer depend upon indexes.

 

As I was walking the dog at 5:30 this morning, it occurred to me that many of us are like that outdated article on deterring plagiarism that I had written all those years ago. We keep alive old narratives about how the world works without always checking in to see if our impression of the world actually reflects reality.

 

Rather than organizing our thoughts according to logical and organized taxonomies that librarians depend upon, we humans tend to depend upon narratives to create, process, and access meaning. Sometimes these narratives loop inside our brains, often unspoken or unwritten. As productivity guru Michael Hyatt says, “Thoughts disentangle themselves passing over the lips and through pencil tips.” Unexamined, unchecked, or unexpressed, though, such narratives run the risk of becoming obsessions. 

 

In my journalism class this quarter, my students and I have been discussing the ways that what passes for news is often actually unhelpful and irrelevant posturing and gossip that distract us from the substantive matters that deserves our attention. Those who recognize these American patterns of distraction, our obsession with the relatively meaningless, can manipulate those of us who are glued to our cable news programs and social media feeds, but without gaining anything that feeds our souls. As Warren Buffet says, “The most dangerous distractions are the ones you love, but that don’t love you back.”

 

Speaking of people like Buffet, any of us would benefit from spending more time with the sort of mentors and thought leaders who can guide us towards a more principled and mindful approach to the consumption of facts, “facts,” and ideas. On this Tax Day (Happy April 15^th!), we should all take a moment to consider the extent to which our national investments reflect our highest principles and our top priorities. 

 

Today’s Pub Quiz will feature questions suggested by the abstractions shared above, as well as on the following: games, philosophers, songs that you can’t get out of your head, taxes, ports,  toys created by immigrants, faraway countries, dangerous stations, blood cells, the significance of the number 18,700, slandered music, homelessness in America, dog breeds, government criminals, high definitions, major newspapers, PQ words, cheesy loving with no tears, technological complexities, equestrians who are also cabaret singers, charges, poetry that might be read during National Poetry Month, record holders, sports predictions, political disappointments, Oscar nominated actresses, and Shakespeare. 

 

Poetry Night this coming Thursday will feature three Sacramento-Valley female poets with a touring show called “Poetry Unturned.” If you can join us Thursday night at 8 at the Natsoulas Gallery, add your name to the Facebook event. Because of the help of a new crop of interns, I am expecting a crowd of 40 or more this week, with many of them staying for the open mic.

 

Thanks, and I look forward to seeing you this evening at 7.

 

Your Quizmaster

https://www.yourquizmaster.com  

http://www.twitter.com/yourquizmaster 

http://www.facebook.com/yourquizmaster 

yourquizmaster@gmail.com 

 

Here are three questions from last week’s quiz:

1. Pop Culture – Television. What is the name of the American fantasy drama television series created by David Benioff and D. B. Weiss?  Not all the questions are supposed to be stumpers.
2. Another Music Question: Fill in the Blank in a Quotation by Billy Joel. “This may sound like sacrilege, but I think BLANK BLANK was more important than Elvis Presley.” If Vienna waits for you, you will probably know the answer.
3. Anagram.     Saskatchewan’s 100,000 lakes provide a great opportunity to enjoy a resonating soak. What are the names of the two most populous cities in Saskatchewan? Hint: The letters in both city names together can be rearranged to spell the three-word phrase A RESONATING SOAK. 

 

 

P.S. “I like to pay taxes. With them, I buy civilization.” Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

 

P.P.S. We are all thinking about the Cathedral at Notre-Dame. Devastating.