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

The Absolutism of Uniqueness

by yourquizmaster on October 15, 2025

As someone who has taught college students writing for the last 35 years, I may be uniquely qualified to comment on the misuse of the word “unique.”

Actually, in the University Writing Program at UC Davis I have dozens of colleagues (all but one of them with less seniority than me) who could comment helpfully and cogently on the word “unique,” but you have stumbled your way into my essay, so I will give it a try.

In 1970, Los Angeles Times columnist Jack Smith declared that “it is almost a lost cause to argue that ‘unique’ means unduplicated… Everything is more unique than everything else.” More than half a century later, his lament still rings true. The word “unique” has drifted from its original sense—one of a kind—into a catchall for noteworthy, special, or different.

In the hundreds of classes that I have taught, I have seen this small erosion of meaning mirror a larger cultural trend: the surrender of precision to emphasis. I come across so many “emphasis” words – often adverbs, they include “amazingly,” “incredibly,” and “extremely” – that I have created an acronym that targets this problem. “ONI” means “omit needless intensifiers.”

Students (and podcasters and YouTubers) often seek to use “unique” as another intensifier, but doing so often halts the forward momentum of the reader who knows what the word actually means.

Unique is misused in so many ways that they deserve to be listed so we can discern and distinguish their “unique” properties.

1. The relative fallacy

Some students treat unique as if it were a sliding scale, writing that one thing is “more unique” than another. This is like claiming to be “more married” than your spouse, or that the water in your glass is “more wet,” the way Kristin Wiig’s hair-twirling Penelope is always trying to one-up people with her “deep breaths” and such on Saturday Night Live. In standard English, something either is or isn’t one of a kind.

2. The “special” substitution

Writers often use unique when they mean unusual or distinctive. A cat wearing a bow tie may be distinctive, but it is not unique. In a world with the Internet, we can safely assume there’s another cat in formalwear somewhere, especially so close to Halloween.

3. The unnecessary booster

“Very unique” and “kind of unique” sound earnest but self-defeating. “Unique” already carries its own emphasis. Adding modifiers to the word would be like putting training wheels on your racing bicycle in order to participate in the Davis 4th of July Criterium. As Jack Smith says, “There are no degrees of uniqueness, except in American advertising.”

4. The context-free compliment

“Her essay is unique” tells us little. Unique how? Because of the subject, the tone, or the number of exclamation points? A claim of uniqueness gains force only when the writer explains the basis for it. One thinks of the Cambridge dictionary definition of “faint praise”: “praise that is not very strong or enthusiastic, suggesting that you do not admire someone or something very much.” In American English, if you do not admire someone very much, you actually don’t admire him at all. At this point, everyone reading this is probably thinking of a man who is difficult to admire.

5. The praise-inflation problem

Even some teachers use the word “unique” as a generic thumbs-up. “Your argument is unique,” offered with a smile and a nod, usually means “I liked it.” Classroom leaders should instead describe what makes something work, such as its evidence, structure, or insights. Precision makes praise more believable and helpful. As Nabokov once said, “A writer should have the precision of a poet and the imagination of a scientist.”

6. The category confusion

Writers sometimes apply “unique” to a group: “Each student wrote a unique five-paragraph essay on the same topic.” If they all followed the same template, they are not unique. They are simply compliant. Groups are typically heterogeneous, and that’s why we like them.

7. The historical drift

The overuse of unique reflects a larger linguistic slide. We like intensity and exaggeration; understatement feels dull, or difficult to pull off. But restoring a word to its original meaning can remind students that clarity often carries more authority than excitement, and certainly more than insincerity. Many people allude to George Orwell in this era, so I will add a relevant Orwell quotation: “The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns, as it were, instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish squirting out ink.”

8. The modest proposal

Let us reserve unique for the truly one-of-a-kind: a solar eclipse, a live and improvised jazz solo, a poem no one else could have written, you. For everything else, English offers an abundant vocabulary of distinction. Most words do not require a superlative to prove their worth. Consider how much weaker James Brown’s best-known song would be if he were to repeat “I feel very good” or, worse yet, “I feel unique.”

The rain has concluded for now, and your outdoor seat will be wiped down by the time you arrive at the pub quiz this evening. Come early to claim a coveted outdoor table. I invite you to join the regulars and irregulars outside our favorite brewery tonight for a grand competition featuring 31 questions on a variety of topics you should know something about. There might be a larger crowd than usual, so come early. Today’s pub quiz is 953 words.

In addition to topics raised above and below, expect questions tonight on the following: aquatic beasts, dance moves, sneakers, populous cities, films with Oscar-winners, gentlemen, tigers, victors, hosts, instability, comedies, guides, cities long rivers, sequels, defunct companies, jealous husbands, arm swings, defections, sorcerers, sable heroes, ships and guns, singers, college stories, earthquakes, prizes, ribs, quarterbacks, fangs, color of water, state-owned enterprises, California heroes, electric vehicles, consoles, U.S. states, geography, current events, and Shakespeare.

For more Pub Quiz fun, please subscribe via Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/c/yourquizmaster.

Thanks to all the new players joining us at the live quizzes and to all the patrons who have been enjoying fresh Pub Quiz content. We have over 80 Patreon members now, including the new paid subscribers Kiera, Esther, James, Damian, Jim, and Meebles! I should write a question for Kiera. Thanks also to new subscribers Prescott, Bill and Diane, Tamara, Megan, Michael, Janet, Jasmine, Joey, Carly, The X-Ennial Falcons, and The Nevergiveruppers! Every week I check the Patreon to see if there is someone new to thank. Maybe next week it will be you! I also thank The Original Vincibles, Summer Brains, Still Here for the Shakesbeer, The Outside Agitators, John Poirier’s team Quizimodo, Gena Harper, the conversationally entertaining dinner companions and bakers of marvelous and healthy treats, The Mavens. I appreciate the Mavens’ kind words to me in the newspaper. Thanks in particular to my paid subscribers on Substack. Thanks to everyone who supports the Pub Quiz on Patreon. I would love to add your name or that of your team to the list of pub quiz boosters. Also, I sometimes remember to add an extra hint on Patreon. I appreciate your backing this pub quiz project of mine!

I also want to recognize those who visit my Substack the most often, including Luna, Jean, Ron, Myrna, and Maria, to whom I send sustained compassion.

Best,

Dr. Andy

Internet Culture. What S-word do we use for low-quality media made with generative artificial intelligence?

Newspaper Headlines. What universally-loved entertainer released an October 8, 2025 video saying that she has been facing some health issues, that she appreciates everyone’s prayers, even prayers from her talkative sister, but that she’s not dead yet?

Four for Four. Which two of the following American titans of industry were the children of immigrants: William Boeing, Henry Ford, John D. Rockefeller, Cornelius Vanderbilt?

P.S. Local educator Chris Erickson will be reading from his new novella HENRYTOWN this coming Thursday night at 7 at Poetry Night. You should join us.

Jazz, Beats, and Coyotes

by yourquizmaster on October 8, 2025

Dear Friends,

I am excited that the Jazz Beat Festival is returning to Davis this Saturday. Peter Coyote will be a featured speaker Saturday night, and other poets will be performing at the event, including Mercedes Ibanez, our current Davis poet laureate.

I will be reading the first section of Allen Ginsberg’s epic Beat poem Howl, which means that even though I don’t swear in private, much less in casual conversation, at this event I will be required to swear poetically before a large audience.

This conference has an amazing track record of phenomenal speakers and performers. This year’s highlight, Peter Coyote, will also appear on my KDVS radio show around 5:10 this afternoon.

Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones) — Poet, critic, and Black Arts Movement leader; Dr. Andy talked with Baraka for two hours during a drive from the San Francisco Airport to downtown Davis.
Ray Manzarek — Keyboardist of The Doors; appeared in Davis with Beat poet Michael McClure, playing a grand piano in the grand hall of the John Natsoulas Gallery.
Michael McClure — San Francisco Beat poet/playwright; performed with Manzarek and enjoyed meeting my then teenage daughter Geneva.
Dana Gioia — Poet, California poet laureate and former National Endowment for the Arts chair; poetry hero Gioia inspired Dr. Andy’s KDVS radio show.
Judy Chicago — Landmark feminist artist; danced with Dr. Andy outside the largest 19^th-century estate in South Davis.
Peter Coyote — Actor, Emmy-winning narrator of over 200 documentaries and audio books, counter-cultural hero and co-founder of the Diggers, Zen priest, memoirist, and poet; one of the adult leads in the film ET, The Extra-Terrestrial. Coyote will appear on my radio show this afternoon around 5:10.
Gary Snyder — Pulitzer Prize–winning poet of the Beat circle and retired UC Davis professor; Gary turned 95 in May.
David Amram — Composer/multi-instrumentalist and Beat collaborator; a dynamic pianist and bon-vivant.
George Herms — Seminal California assemblage artist linked to the Beats; I have one of Herms’ assembled paintings in my campus office.
Anne Waldman — Poet and co-founder (with Ginsberg) of Naropa’s Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics; performer, editor, and teacher associated with the Beat and post-Beat avant-garde.
Craig Baldwin — Experimental filmmaker and Other Cinema curator; friend of Davis cultural hero Jesse Drew.
Deborah Remington — Painter and Six Gallery alumna.
John Handy — Alto saxophonist and Bay Area jazz great.
Tom Mazzolini — Bay Area jazz/blues broadcaster and festival producer.
Phil Elwood — Influential San Francisco jazz critic/historian.

Many jazz bands will perform outdoors during the day on Saturday, followed by speakers, dancing by Linda Bair and her troupe, and ‘happenings’ at the Natsoulas Gallery in the evening. Check out the Gallery website to find out more. Perhaps I will see you there.

Andy

The pub quiz tonight will be so much fun, and not only because it should be easier than last week’s quiz. I invite you to join the regulars and irregulars outside our favorite brewery tonight for a grand competition featuring 31 questions on a variety of topics you should know something about. There might be a larger crowd than usual, so come early. I might even join you for dinner. As I said last week, festivity will abound! Today’s pub quiz is again 937 words, just like last week, if we count the answers. The answers always count, like that guy with the monocle on Sesame Street.

In addition to topics raised above and below, expect questions tonight on the following: faraway countries, small businesses, adventures, telegrams, unexpected antonyms to lazy, sturgeon jokes, AI, prayers, titans, estates, minor characters, funerals, engineers, European countries, fatal numbers, the Hot 100, outsiders, unusual verbs that rhyme with each other, sweaters, gasses, memorial birthdays, immigrants, crooners, the midwest, autocracies, playing cards, domestic terrorists, proportions, oceans, memoirs, plants, U.S. states, geography, current events, and Shakespeare.

For more Pub Quiz fun, please subscribe via Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/c/yourquizmaster.

Thanks to all the new players joining us at the live quizzes and to all the patrons who have been enjoying fresh Pub Quiz content. We have over 80 Patreon members now, including the new paid subscribers Kiera, Esther, James, Damian, Jim, and Meebles! I should write a question for Kiera. Thanks also to new subscribers Prescott, Bill and Diane, Tamara, Megan, Michael, Janet, Jasmine, Joey, Carly, The X-Ennial Falcons, and The Nevergiveruppers! Every week I check the Patreon to see if there is someone new to thank. Maybe next week it will be you! I also thank The Original Vincibles, Summer Brains, Still Here for the Shakesbeer, The Outside Agitators, John Poirier’s team Quizimodo, Gena Harper, the conversationally entertaining dinner companions and bakers of marvelous and healthy treats, The Mavens, whose players or substitutes keep attending, despite their ambitious travel schedules and the cost of the aforementioned avocado. I appreciate the Mavens’ kind words to me in the newspaper. Thanks in particular to my paid subscribers on Substack. Thanks to everyone who supports the Pub Quiz on Patreon. I would love to add your name or that of your team to the list of pub quiz boosters. Also, I sometimes remember to add an extra hint on Patreon. I appreciate your backing this pub quiz project of mine!

I also want to recognize those who visit my Substack the most often, including Luna, Jean, Ron, Myrna, and Maria, to whom I send sustained compassion.

Best,

Dr. Andy

P.S. Three questions from last week:

1. Mottos and Slogans. October 1st marks the anniversary of the motto “In God We Trust” first appearing on U.S. paper currency. Name the century.

2. Internet Culture. What are the three letters in the name of the satellite-based navigation system owned by the United States Space Force and operated by Mission Delta 31?

3. Newspaper Headlines. In a September 19, 2025 decision, did the US District Court for the Central District of California rule that nurses with doctorates could or could not call themselves doctors in clinical settings?

I Still Say No Thanks to Tanks in Davis

by yourquizmaster on October 1, 2025

Dear Friends,

I learned from a Substack titled The Haiku Daily that “Sacramento has just approved the purchase of over $1,000,000 of military equipment for its police.”

This gave me pause, not only because of the questionable constitutionality of deploying troops in American cities such as Portland, Chicago, and Los Angeles, but also because of growing concerns about how local law enforcement uses military equipment already distributed nationwide.

For example, in August LAIST published a story titled “Santa Ana police have been violating state military equipment law for 2 years: ‘We messed up.’” That article by Yusra Farzan reminded me that “California law enforcement agencies are required to track and publicly document how they use military equipment, including less-lethal bean bag shotgun rounds, drones and armored vehicles, under a state law passed in 2022.”

In June of this year, Abigail R. Hall wrote in an LA Times editorial that “Since the nation’s founding, laws have aimed to separate the roles of police and military. The police are civilian peacekeepers. They are expected to protect the rights of all individuals they encounter — victims and suspects alike — and to use force only as a last resort.”

Hall continues: “The military, in contrast, is trained for war: to engage and destroy enemies. Proactive, often violent engagement with enemy combatants is part of the job.”

I do not want myself, my family, or other peaceful protesters to be treated as enemy combatants by domestic law enforcement. Under the latest 1033 program, local police are required to use military equipment or risk losing it. I myself don’t want to live in a community where the police have bean bag shotgun round quotas.

I performed a poem about plans to bring a mine-resistant ambush protected vehicle (MRAP) to Davis on the evening that I became poet laureate of Davis in 2014. As you can see from the following, I did not want to encounter military vehicles while strolling up Sycamore Avenue on a Sunday afternoon.

I phoned then-mayor Dan Wolk to see if he wanted to hear my poem before I read it at the city chambers. He declined, explaining that he did not want to influence the content in any way. He had too much respect for the First Amendment to the Constitution. Even near the start of his legislative career, our youthful mayor was already thinking with the wisdom of a judge.

The poem was titled “The Blood Jet.”

The Blood Jet

“The blood jet is poetry, / there is no stopping it.”

Sylvia Plath

There is a giant shaking the second floor of the house,

and he wishes to have words with you.

There is a beast stretching his many limbs beneath your bed,

and he opens his mouths to speak.

The pool is sloshing, and a metaphor seeks to be born.

There’s a tank hiding in the city of Davis,

and the tank is a symbol.

A metaphor is hiding in the imagination of Davis,

and it is better hidden than the tank.

The contrarians of Davis will help us decide the uses of the tank.

Search and rescue!

Toxic oil train explosion recovery!

It shall never be used to quell.

We have learned much about quelling,

and the people will not be quelled.

The tank is a symbol.

A city that needs symbols has rejected its tank.

Some wish it to be a peace tank – a weapon of peace.

Pink and orange peace decals affixed to the tank!

Flowers in the turrets of the tank!

(It’s not a tank.)

Fill its un-turreted maw with flowers, then.

On Picnic Day, let David Breaux, our Man of Compassion,

Climb the tank and wave to the children of Davis.

Meanwhile, a thousand dollars a month for the tank!

Some say ten thousand dollars a month for the tank.

The tank needs to be fed, and flowers will not sustain it.

Even the peacefulness of David Breaux will not sustain the tank.

It is a symbol hungry for more than symbols!

Somebody wrap up the MRAP and send it on its way!

Shall its exit be our symbol?

Let it arrive elsewhere, postage due.

Goodbye to the tankhouse!

Goodbye to the tank!

But the giant is still shaking the second floor of your house.

The giant wants us to awaken!

It’s an impact tremor, that’s what it is!

Wake up Davis, for the temblor has tumbled you out of bed!

We must replenish the metaphors of the absent poet!

You mustn’t lose your spark of madness, the genie told us.

Who will replenish his metaphors?

What shall be our new symbol?

We have been jolted awake,

and the city is charged with the potential of metaphor.

Your alarm is ringing!

Do not hit snooze on the unwritten poem.

The morning star cares not for your snooze button.

Someone in Davis feels the blood jet of poetry.

Someone in Davis is trembling with emotion,

and shouldn’t that someone be you?

Fall is here! Yesterday Lucas Frerichs stopped by my outdoor class to give a guest lecture to my Arboretum students on mental health! We all need more mental health, walks in the Arboretum, and Lucas Frerichs! I invite you to join the regulars and irregulars outside our favorite brewery tonight for a grand competition featuring 31 questions on a variety of topics you should know something about. There might be a larger crowd than usual, so come early. I might even join you for dinner. As I said last week, festivity will abound! Today’s pub quiz is a muscular 937 words, if we count the answers. The answers always count, like that guy with the monocle on Sesame Street.

In addition to topics raised above and below, expect questions tonight on the following: faraway countries, navigation aids, US District Courts, godliness, Oscars, kings, big cities, beers, unusual Christmas gifts, monuments, French dairies, people with unusual names, places that are above the Alps, literary words, planets, acclaimed losers, princes, housing units, published stories, the additions of silent E’s, doctors, newspapers, Shakespearean love, titles, Supersonics, games, popular powders, flowers, trivia itself, nepotism babies, deserts, U.S. states, geography, current events, and Shakespeare.

For more Pub Quiz fun, please subscribe via Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/c/yourquizmaster.

Thanks to all the new players joining us at the live quizzes and to all the patrons who have been enjoying fresh Pub Quiz content. We have over 80 Patreon members now, including the new paid subscribers Kiera, Esther, James, Damian, Jim, and Meebles! I should write a question for Kiera. Thanks also to new subscribers Prescott, Bill and Diane, Tamara, Megan, Michael, Janet, Jasmine, Joey, Carly, The X-Ennial Falcons, and The Nevergiveruppers! Every week I check the Patreon to see if there is someone new to thank. Maybe next week it will be you! I also thank The Original Vincibles, Summer Brains, Still Here for the Shakesbeer, The Outside Agitators, John Poirier’s team Quizimodo, Gena Harper, the conversationally entertaining dinner companions and bakers of marvelous and healthy treats, The Mavens, whose players or substitutes keep attending, despite their ambitious travel schedules and the cost of the aforementioned avocado. I appreciate the Mavens’ kind words to me in the newspaper. Thanks in particular to my paid subscribers on Substack. Thanks to everyone who supports the Pub Quiz on Patreon. I would love to add your name or that of your team to the list of pub quiz boosters. Also, I sometimes remember to add an extra hint on Patreon. I appreciate your backing this pub quiz project of mine!

I also want to recognize those who visit my Substack the most often, including Luna, Jean, Ron, Myrna, and Maria Breaux, to whom I send sustained compassion. She can tell from my poem that I was always a fan of her brother. My new paid Substack Subscriber is Anne Da Vigo. Check out her mysteries! Thanks to new subscriber Carol Lynn Stevenson Grellas.

Best,

Dr. Andy

P.S. Three poems from last week:

Mottos and Slogans. ALCOA has used the tagline “The Element of Possibility.” What does the first A in the corporation name ALCOA stand for?

Internet Culture. Which company launched “Orion” AR glasses in 2025, replacing its earlier experiment with Ray-Ban Stories?

Newspaper Headlines. A new season of the TV show Survivorstarts this week. Is it Survivor 9, Survivor 29, or Survivor 49?

P.P.S. Two of my favorite poets are reading in Davis on October 2^nd at 7 PM at the Natsoulas Gallery: Lawrence Dinkins and Bob Stanley!

This week a list of books stands in for a newsletter

by yourquizmaster on September 24, 2025

Dear Friends,

My son Truman, a sophomore at Ithaca College, is studying creative writing and filmmaking, but he has read as many books as any English major or comparative literature major, or so it seems to me.

To prove my point, I will share here a list that he recently sent me, titled “Books I’ve Read.” My wife Kate and I wanted to get him a literary book he hadn’t read for his birthday, but we were having trouble finding gaps in his literary reading.

The Brothers Karamazov

King Lear

The Grapes of Wrath

Crime and Punishment

Hamlet

Blood Meridian

Pride and Prejudice

In Cold Blood

The Color Purple

East of Eden

The Picture of Dorian Gray

Beloved

Long Day’s Journey Into Night

Notes from the Underground

No Country For Old Men

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

The Poisonwood Bible

Sula

As I Lay Dying

The Joy Luck Club

The Old Man and the Sea

Giovanni’s Room

Macbeth

Death of a Salesman

Jane Eyre

Persuasion

The Bell Jar

Walden

To Kill a Mockingbird

All the Pretty Horses

Life of Pi

One Hundred Years of Solitude

Anna Karenina

Catch-22

If Beale Street Could Talk

Our Town

A Streetcar Named Desire

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

The Road

The Sound and the Fury

Waiting for Godot

Fahrenheit 451

Slaughterhouse-Five

The Metamorphosis

The Handmaid’s Tale

Wuthering Heights

Breakfast at Tiffany’s

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

The Last Picture Show

The Shining

Doctor Zhivago

Cat’s Cradle

Fences

Their Eyes Were Watching God

Frankenstein

Richard III

For Whom the Bell Tolls

Misery

To the Lighthouse

Julius Caesar

Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption

Dubliners

Emma

Invisible Man

Go Tell It on the Mountain

The Trial

Black Boy

The Piano Lesson

Lord of the Flies

Of Mice and Men

Brave New World

A Farewell to Arms

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

The Awakening

The Stranger

The Color of Water

The Importance of Being Earnest

Animal Farm

Little Women

On the Road

Great Expectations

Sense and Sensibility

The Year of Magical Thinking

The Catcher in the Rye

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Death on the Nile

The Great Gatsby

The Death of Ivan Ilyich

The Cherry Orchard

All Quiet on the Western Front

The Maltese Falcon

The Iceman Cometh

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead

Dracula

Oliver Twist

The Tempest

There There

Things Fall Apart

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

Lady Windermere’s Fan

Salomé

Heart of Darkness

The Giver

Dune

Candide

The Jungle Book

Hatchet

The Hobbit

The Call of the Wild

A Christmas Carol

A Clockwork Orange

The Lord of the Rings

The Long Walk to Water

Into the Wild

Lolita

Moby Dick

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

The Comedy of Errors

Ender’s Game

Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry

The Illustrated Man

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

The Crucible

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

Journey to the Center of the Earth

Treasure Island

At the Mountains of Madness

Behind the Beautiful Forevers

Angry Black White Boy

The Pearl

He may have added several books to this list since sending it to us last week. For the record, I have assigned many books for my university students to read over the years, but I did not assign Truman any of these.

I am reminded of a scene in that 1996 Danny DeVito film Matilda in which Matilda tells her teacher Miss Honey which loads of books she’s read “just this past week.”

Here’s the list Matilda gives:

• Nicholas Nickleby (Charles Dickens)

• Oliver Twist (Charles Dickens)

• Jane Eyre (Charlotte Brontë)

• Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)

• Tess of the d’Urbervilles (Thomas Hardy)

• Moby-Dick (Herman Melville)

• The Invisible Man (H.G. Wells)

• The Old Man and the Sea (Ernest Hemingway)

We later learn that Matilda is six and a half years old. I’m glad that Truman wasn’t taking on all those tomes at that age. He would have had no time to play!

Happy birthday on Friday, September 26^th, Truman! We sent you a book that’s not on your list!

It rained today and UC Davis has restarted, so summer is officially over! I invite you to join the regulars and irregulars outside our favorite brewery tonight for a grand competition featuring 31 questions on a variety of topics you should know something about. Festivity will abound! Today’s pub quiz is a muscular 807 words, if we count the answers. The answers always count

In addition to topics raised above and below, expect questions tonight on the following: faraway countries, NFL football, robots, flowers, scenic drives, titles that start with the letter I and the letter M, glasses, legacy shows, possibilities, metals, demands for music, German culture, sacks, the Indian subcontinent, Athens, foreign sports teams, Berkeley, wonders, murals, rivers, TikTok musicians, coming of age dramas, beers, locations of sustained belief, lakes, popular late-night hosts, religious traditions, deforestation results, cousins, planes, U.S. states, geography, current events, and Shakespeare.

For more Pub Quiz fun, please subscribe via Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/c/yourquizmaster.

Thanks to all the new players joining us at the live quizzes and to all the patrons who have been enjoying fresh Pub Quiz content. We have over 80 Patreon members now, including the new paid subscribers Kiera, Esther, James, Damian, Jim, and Meebles! Thanks also to new subscribers Prescott, Bill and Diane, Tamara, Megan, Michael, Janet, Jasmine, Joey, Carly, The X-Ennial Falcons, and The Nevergiveruppers! Every week I check the Patreon to see if there is someone new to thank. Maybe next week it will be you! I also thank The Original Vincibles, Summer Brains, Still Here for the Shakesbeer, The Outside Agitators, John Poirier’s team Quizimodo, Gena Harper, the conversationally entertaining dinner companions and bakers of marvelous and healthy treats, The Mavens, whose players or substitutes keep attending, despite their ambitious travel schedules and the cost of the aforementioned avocado. I appreciate the Mavens’ kind words to me in the newspaper. Thanks in particular to my paid subscribers on Substack. Thanks to everyone who supports the Pub Quiz on Patreon. I would love to add your name or that of your team to the list of pub quiz boosters. Also, I sometimes remember to add an extra hint on Patreon. I appreciate your backing this pub quiz project of mine!

I also want to recognize those who visit my Substack the most often, including Luna, Jean, Ron, Myrna, and Maria, to whom I send sustained compassion. My new paid Substack Subscriber is Anne Da Vigo. Check out her mysteries! Thanks to new subscriber Carol Lynn Stevenson Grellas.

Best,

Dr. Andy

P.S. Three questions from last week:

Mottos and Slogans. Founded in 1989, what company uses the slogan “Hand-crafted in Davis, California”?
Internet Culture. Roku recently announced its first TV projector. What is the size of its biggest screen: 15 inches, 150 inches, or 1,500 inches?
Newspaper Headlines. Today the Fed cut rates for the first time this year. By what percentage was its benchmark interest rate cut?

Nothing Rhymes with Neutral

by yourquizmaster on September 17, 2025

Dear Friends,

I began hosting the KDVS radio show Dr. Andy’s Poetry and Technology Hour in the year 2000 because I craved even more opportunities to bring together my seemingly separate interests of poetry, the subject of my doctoral dissertation, and instructional technology, a vehicle for keeping current on exciting changes (in communication, innovation, and education) that were sparked by all the energy and software emerging from Silicon Valley.

Last week, at the 30^th annual Summer Institute on Teaching and Technology (somehow SITT, which I also host, is even older than my radio show), we took a momentary break from all the substantive and compelling talks by my esteemed faculty to hear “The SITT Poem.” This year the SITT theme was “Reaching Every Learner,” so I also took on that topic in my poem, “Nothing Rhymes with Neutral.” Enjoy.

Nothing Rhymes with Neutral

The inclusive classroom

includes us, too.

With apologies

to that treasure,

our favorite professor

of Plant Pathology,

we may enter

with the sunny point of view,

with the celebratory oratory stories

of a Sara Dye, or,

likely, something darker.

Whether a logician

intoning about protocol,

or a circus barker

mishandling the whiteboard marker,

we are compelled, like a candle, to illume.

We ourselves resemble the room,

never neutral.

In time, we find

that nothing rhymes with neutral.

Every classroom chair can share a story.

Sometimes, cowed, the story whispers its name.

Sometimes it is proudly proclaimed

in the postscript of an overdue essay.

Don’t pass over

the student who hovers

at the door.

Reach out to the holdout.

One student adjusts glasses;

another cups her ear.

Whether the absentee,

or the favorite returner,

when it comes to learners,

each must be reached.

We build slides decks, yes,

but also ladders, ramps,

alternate routes through the thicket

of a perilous syllabus.

Some students seem ready

for the scenic path;

others need a shortcut and a machete.

Everyone needs a map.

A slight smile lifts

when the room’s quietest hand

rises, trembling, yet certain,

and the room tilts to listen

to the unexpected gift,

confidence rebuilt.

Some of us teach inclusively

From the tightrope,

improvisers suited for the high wire.

Others behold their students and light fires:

they deploy student amplifiers,

they hand the chalk to spitfires,

they enlist clarifiers.

Some of us follow trends;

some narrow the scope.

With captions I can read

that the bell tolls also for me.

My fallow mind tumbles

like a kaleidoscope.

In the end, each student,

humble peacemaker or spitfire, requires

a stubborn kind of hope.

A favorite Robert Redford quotation anticipates one of the points of my poem: “I try to avoid giving advice. The only advice I will give is to pay attention. I don’t mean to the screen in your hand. I’m talking about the natural world. I spent a lot of time educating my children about nature by putting them in nature. I said, ‘I want you to listen; I want you to look.’”

With stubborn hope,

Dr. Andy

The weather will be unseasonably hot tonight, so let’s pretend that it’s still summer! I invite you to join the regulars and irregulars outside our favorite brewery tonight for a grand competition featuring 31 questions on a variety of topics you should know something about. Last week we focused on a favorite boxer, while today we will look inward and downward. Today’s pub quiz is a muscular 977 words, if we count the answers.

In addition to topics raised above and below, expect questions tonight on the following: faraway countries, standards, definitions of style, planes, charts, fans, captains, detectives, scholarships, ambitious projects, sultans, American cities, beasts of burden, chases, souls, castles, East Technical High Schools, stages, records, stifled independence, famous criminals, lineages, Harold Bloom pronouncements, 19th century authors, boards, dashed expectations, military victories, mundanities, mates, departments, large voids, rare occupations, solopreneurs, cars, water sports, troubles, desserts, California companies, screens, reckonings, Memphis, the USDA, ducks, genes, royalty, U.S. states, geography, current events, and Shakespeare.

For more Pub Quiz fun, please subscribe via Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/c/yourquizmaster.

Thanks to all the new players joining us at the live quizzes and to all the patrons who have been enjoying fresh Pub Quiz content. We have over 80 Patreon members now, including the new paid subscribers Esther, James, Damian, Jim, and Meebles! Thanks also to new subscribers Prescott, Bill and Diane, Tamara, Megan, Michael, Janet, Jasmine, Joey, Carly, The X-Ennial Falcons, and The Nevergiveruppers! Every week I check the Patreon to see if there is someone new to thank. Maybe next week it will be you! I also thank The Original Vincibles, Summer Brains, Still Here for the Shakesbeer, The Outside Agitators, John Poirier’s team Quizimodo, Gena Harper, the conversationally entertaining dinner companions and bakers of marvelous and healthy treats, The Mavens, whose players or substitutes keep attending, despite their ambitious travel schedules and the cost of the aforementioned avocado. I appreciate the Mavens’ kind words to me in the newspaper. Thanks in particular to my paid subscribers on Substack. Thanks to everyone who supports the Pub Quiz on Patreon. I would love to add your name or that of your team to the list of pub quiz boosters. Also, I sometimes remember to add an extra hint on Patreon. I appreciate your backing this pub quiz project of mine!

P.S. Three questions from last week:

Current Events – Names in the News. Polly Holliday, who died recently at the age of 88, played a sassy waitress named Flo on what situation comedy TV show?
Sports. Cartavious Bigsby was recently traded from the Jacksonville Jaguars to the Philadelphia Eagles. By what nickname is Bigsby widely known among NFL fans?
Shakespeare. In all of Shakespeare, what character most tragically drowns in a stream?

Poetry Night returns on September 18 with John Bell and Carol Lynn Stevenson Grellas!

Opposites, Hats, and Sparks Stuck by Opposing Flints

by yourquizmaster on September 10, 2025

Dear Friends,

This week I feel like Bartholomew Cubbins from Dr. Seuss’s The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins (1938): I am wearing all my hats at once. I’m finishing a summer personal essay writing class, writing and performing poems for different venues, and, starting tomorrow, hosting a campus wide event for faculty at UC Davis.

Starting September 11, I get to host the Summer Institute on Teaching and Technology, better known as SITT, our annual gathering at UC Davis that brings together more than 100 faculty innovators to share ideas about teaching. One of my favorite events of the year, SITT allows me to reconnect with and learn from faculty colleagues from across the disciplines. This year I am especially eager to introduce our lead-off speaker, Tricia Bertram Gallant, author of The Opposite of Cheating: A Guide to Academic Integrity for Students. Coincidentally, I will also be interviewing Dr. Bertram Gallant on my KDVS radio show (and podcast), Dr. Andy’s Poetry and Technology Hour, today at 5 PM. I appreciate Bertram Gallant’s insights about ways students and educators alike can foster a culture of honesty, trust, and responsibility in higher education.

The title of this book set me thinking about opposites. Sometimes our understanding of the world (political, social, intellectual) takes shape not in isolation but in contrast, one idea shining brighter because it is set against its opposite. Amy Tan, who I saw give a talk at the San Francisco Writers Conference, called her collection of essays The Opposite of Fate, a title that suggests that we have some agency in the directions our lives take us.

Marina Keegan, in her brief and brilliant life as a Yale English major, left us the viral essay collection The Opposite of Loneliness, which might also make a great subtitle for a poetry reading or a pub quiz. Other relevant opposites include Sarah Pekkanen’s The Opposite of Me and Joshilyn Jackson’s The Opposite of Everyone. Even Justin A. Reynolds, in the realm of young adult fiction, played with time, love, and possibility in The Opposite of Always. Each of these titles prompts us to imagine knowing something fully by considering its inverse.

I am reminded of the Zen koan that concerns alternatives and oppositions. Two monks saw a flag flapping. One said: “The flag is moving.” The other said: “The wind is moving.” Their teacher, Huineng, said: “Not the wind, not the flag. Mind is moving.” Effects don’t always follow causes, and subjects and objects are not so easily distinguished.

Poets have explored similar truths. Pablo Neruda, in his book Odes to Opposites, catalogues the pairs that define our world: darkness and light, sky and depth, question and answer. His lines posit that opposites are not enemies but neighbors, necessary for balance. Robert Frost distilled opposition into nine unforgettable lines. Here is his poem, now in the public domain.

Fire and Ice (by Robert Frost)

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

Emily Dickinson made absence and death the silent partners of love and presence. William Blake announced that “without contraries is no progression,” insisting that our human story depends on the sparks struck by opposing flints.

European philosophers and sages have said much the same. Carl Jung argued that “the greater the tension, the greater the energy of the opposites, the greater the potential.” Elie Wiesel, who taught at Boston University and won the Nobel Peace Prize when I was at BU, famously warned in his Nobel acceptance address that “the opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference.” Simone de Beauvoir reminded us that “opposites do not exclude each other; they define each other.”

I find these thoughts from such ingenious thinkers both reassuring and bracing. As I tell my students, friction, difference, and debate are conditions of growth. I also invite them to examine the other side of every conviction. Smart and reasoned people may disagree with us, so we should listen. Furthermore, those of us who believe in community must follow Wiesel’s words and resist indifference.

So tomorrow, when SITT begins and Tricia Bertram Gallant takes the podium, I will be listening not just for her expertise about academic integrity, but also for her insights regarding what its opposite looks like. If you know someone with a UC Davis email address who would be similarly intrigued, invite them to join us. I read my SITT poem on September 11 at about 12:50. Stop by!

Happy September! The weather will be as pleasant as could ever be hoped this evening. I invite you to join the regulars and irregulars outside our favorite brewery tonight for a grand competition featuring 31 questions on a variety of topics you should know something about. Last week we focused on a favorite boxer, while today we will look inward and downward. Today’s pub quiz is a muscular 933 words.

In addition to topics raised above and below, expect questions tonight on the following: rhythms, deliveries, British dependencies, streams, peas, girlfriends, robins, Republican nominees, snowboarding, biospheres, regrettable diseases in humans, tiny pioneers, astronomy, pumps, opera, eagles, southern cuisine, natural compounds, bowlers, authors with mustaches, CDs, warm liquids, an example of people named Jeff, elevations, countries of the world, pendulums, animated films, unusual vehicles, kingfishers, acidic hot springs, U.S. states, geography, current events, and Shakespeare.

For more Pub Quiz fun, please subscribe via Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/c/yourquizmaster.

Thanks to all the new players joining us at the live quizzes and to all the patrons who have been enjoying fresh Pub Quiz content. We have over 80 Patreon members now, including the new paid subscribers Esther, James, Damian, Jim, and Meebles! Thanks also to new subscribers Prescott, Bill and Diane, Tamara, Megan, Michael, Janet, Jasmine, Joey, Carly, The X-Ennial Falcons, and The Nevergiveruppers! Every week I check the Patreon to see if there is someone new to thank. Maybe next week it will be you! I also thank The Original Vincibles, Summer Brains, Still Here for the Shakesbeer, The Outside Agitators, John Poirier’s team Quizimodo, Gena Harper, the conversationally entertaining dinner companions and bakers of marvelous and healthy treats, The Mavens, whose players or substitutes keep attending, despite their ambitious travel schedules and the cost of the aforementioned avocado. I appreciate the Mavens’ kind words to me in the newspaper. Thanks in particular to my paid subscribers on Substack. Thanks to everyone who supports the Pub Quiz on Patreon. I would love to add your name or that of your team to the list of pub quiz boosters. Also, I sometimes remember to add an extra hint on Patreon. I appreciate your backing this pub quiz project of mine!

Best,

Dr. Andy

Here are three questions from last week. You will likely get these:

Explorers. People from what country were the first Europeans to explore the Mississippi from end to end?
New Brides. The actress who played Hit-Girl in Kick-Ass, Abby in Let Me In, and Carrie White in the 2013 remake of Carrie married model Kate Harrison this past weekend. Name the actress.
Pop Culture – Music. The Canadian pop star Carly Rae Jepsen birthed a huge international sensation in 2012 with what viral hit song?

Serendipity and Friendships: Considering the Memories that We Treasure Most

by yourquizmaster on September 3, 2025

Sometimes we rediscover the value of our friends when we encounter them in unexpected places.

In about 1971, My mom and I first started running into my future classmate Tito at the Safeway in north Georgetown. Once we encountered Tito and his mom in the frozen meat aisle (back when I used to eat meat), and I remember delighting in the company of this new friend by acting silly, telling stories, asking questions. My mom commented that I had momentarily abandoned my shyness. Tito and I started at the same Washington Waldorf School at the same time (we were born a week apart), and I saw him every school day and many Saturdays for the next eight years.

As much as I loved having Tito as a classmate, I remember best our atypical adventures, whether it was swimming with really big fish in the pond at his family’s farm, secretly climbing a ladder to the top of the unfinished St. Paul’s Tower in the National Cathedral during the lunch break of the stonemasons, or hearing Tito speak at my wedding to Kate, 33 years ago this Sunday, just a year before he died.

Regrettably, I have forgotten thousands of the school day memories I shared with Tito, but I’m grateful for the unusual moments that my head and heart can summon up as if they had happened last week.

Sometimes geographic improbability will root an encounter in our memories. Once at the Art Institute of Chicago I encountered an artsy UC Davis grad who greeted me with gusto because I supported a GoFundMe that secured him a high-end camera. He told me, “Look what I am holding, Dr. Andy. I am still using that camera today!” As much as I appreciated his gratitude, the first thing I did was find Kate so I could impress her with this photographer’s thankfulness, a lifelong goal.

Other encounters, across oceans, have stayed with me as well. Once in late June of 1996, while I was working on my dissertation, I flew to Stirling, Scotland, on a travel grant arranged by one of my departmental colleagues. We were to give research presentations at a poetry conference where my literary heroes Sandra Gilbert, Helen Vendler and Seamus Heaney were also giving talks.

A Harvard professor and the foremost poetry critic of her generation, Helen Vendler and I happened to have lunch together; she talked to me about the subject of my doctoral dissertation and told me and other conference attendees stories about her teenage love for opera. Later at the conference the Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney signed my books and asked me to say hello to our mutual friend in Davis, Jim McElroy.

Anyway, during the long, long flight from San Francisco to Heathrow Airport in London, I stood up to use the restroom, telling the stranger sitting next to me that I hoped to read scholarly books about T.S. Eliot and Robert Lowell during the entire flight. Surprisingly, I encountered my graduate school classmate Kathryn Koo in another section of the plane, so I sat down in the empty seat next to her, and we proceeded to have a four-hour conversation, mostly about literary topics, including the UC Davis English Department.

Finally excusing myself, I returned to my seat and immediately told my row mate that he had better plan ahead, for the line for the bathroom was especially long. And then I went to sleep, smiling to myself over my good fortune. As Oscar Wilde said, “Ultimately the bond of all companionship, whether in marriage or in friendship, is conversation.”

Speaking of Scotland, one of my favorite people to encounter unexpectedly in Davis is Catriona McPherson. The Scotswoman first started attending my pub quizzes soon after she moved to Davis in 2010, and she and her VIP team have been my strongest supporters on Patreon. Outside of the quiz, I have encountered Catriona at Stories on Stage, Davis; at writers conferences; at her book events at the Avid Reader bookstore; and on my KDVS radio show. I think she has published about two books a year since I’ve known her, many of them award-winners, so we’ve had plenty to talk about during interviews.

But my favorite place to encounter Catriona is out on the street. Like the aforementioned Oscar Wilde, Catriona always has something witty, insightful, or hilarious to say. Unlike Oscar Wilde, who once told a New York customs agent that “I have nothing to declare except my genius,” Catriona is also self-deprecating, a quality that contributes to her charm and her empathy. In her novel Dandy Gilver and the Unpleasantness in the Ballroom, we learn that “The young are ever so; unable to believe that the decrepitude before it was ever firm young flesh or that they themselves will ever crumble.”

Catriona not only excels at my pub quizzes, but also at her craft as a novelist. The author of 38 novels so far, Catriona has won two Agatha Awards for Best Historical Novel, three Anthony Awards, six Lefty Awards, and two Macavity Awards. Clearly she has no reason to be humble, but she intimidates no one: other authors just adore her. Even those who compete against her for these important literary awards that she keeps winning still treasure her wit, humor, and company.

Unexpectedly, Catriona McPherson and her husband Neil McRoberts, the Scottish equivalent of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce in Davis, will be the featured authors at the Poetry Night Reading Series in Davis on September 4 at 7 PM. Perhaps you would care to join us?

While I can no longer encounter my best friend Tito in the local grocery store, and while I no longer present at poetry conferences in the United Kingdom, I can orchestrate my own serendipitous encounters by featuring America’s foremost Scottish novelist at the John Natsoulas Gallery in Davis. I know what to anticipate from Catriona at the podium, but my poetry regulars, and perhaps you, will be treated to an evening of surprise and delight, two reasons why we value our friends.

Happy September! The weather will be pleasant tonight. One thinks of Henry David Thoreau who said “Happily we bask in this warm September sun, which illuminates all creatures.” I invite you to join the regulars and irregulars outside our favorite brewery tonight, perhaps in the shade, for a grand competition featuring 31 questions on a variety of topics you should know something about. Last week we focused on the west, while today we will look to the south. Today’s pub quiz has just 865 words. Slender!

In addition to topics raised above and below, expect questions tonight on the following: mallow plants, levels of friendship, disasters, telekinetics, explorers, puffs of air, celebrated thieves, popular places, straight laces, Canada, thrillers, disaster aftermaths, inventors, dynamite and other tools, American cities, platforms, jungles, kicks, activists, navigation strategies, perils, rides, satellite photos, pretend pickaxes, cities that are literarily intercontinental, recalled airports, requiems, Alabama exports, indeterminacy, vampires, frank talk about labor and prices, transit authorities, ears, scissors, YA novels,, U.S. states, geography, current events, and Shakespeare.

For more Pub Quiz fun, please subscribe via Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/c/yourquizmaster.

Thanks to all the new players joining us at the live quizzes and to all the patrons who have been enjoying fresh Pub Quiz content. We have over 75 Patreon members now, including the new paid subscribers Esther, James, Damian, Jim, and Meebles! Thanks also to new subscribers Prescott, Bill and Diane, Tamara, Megan, Michael, Janet, Jasmine, Joey, Carly, The X-Ennial Falcons, and The Nevergiveruppers! Every week I check the Patreon to see if there is someone new to thank. Maybe next week it will be you! I also thank The Original Vincibles, Summer Brains, Still Here for the Shakesbeer, The Outside Agitators, John Poirier’s team Quizimodo, Gena Harper, the conversationally entertaining dinner companions and bakers of marvelous and healthy treats, The Mavens, whose players or substitutes keep attending, despite their ambitious travel schedules and the cost of the aforementioned avocado. I appreciate the Mavens’ kind words to me in the newspaper. Thanks in particular to my paid subscribers on Substack. Thanks to everyone who supports the Pub Quiz on Patreon. I would love to add your name or that of your team to the list of pub quiz boosters. Also, I sometimes remember to add an extra hint on Patreon. I appreciate your backing this pub quiz project of mine!

Best,

Dr. Andy

P.S. Three questions from last week:

Commonalities in Films. What do the following films have in common: 2012, The Hunger Games, The Messenger, No Country for Old Men, Triangle of Sadness, and Zombieland?
Trains. Living from 1948 to 2025, what English singer, songwriter, and media personality charted dozens of hits, the best-known being “Crazy Train”?
Pop Culture – Music. The Beatles released five songs whose titles were made up of a single two-syllable word. One was the cover “Matchbox,” and another was the Abbey Road song “Because.” The remaining three are even better known. Name one of them.

Waking to Howler Monkeys

by yourquizmaster on August 27, 2025

On Sunday mornings I used to wake to the sound of howler monkeys in Adams Morgan.

My dad and stepmom lived on Adam’s Mill Road in a neighborhood of Washington D.C. that adjoined The National Zoo. Some people living close to the Zoo heard the lions – the stomach-shaking roar that shocked and frightened our mute ancestors on the savannah – but we lived close to the monkey house, so we heard the howler monkeys.

The howler monkey, one of the largest New World primates, is distinguished not only by its prehensile tail and thick, shaggy coat, seemingly too warm for the DC summers, but also by the unmistakable sound that gives the howler its name. Native to the forests of Central and South America, howler monkeys spend their days high up in the canopy, where their resonant calls can travel for miles at dawn and dusk, serving as both territorial warnings and social communication. Even though the Zoo moved these majestic beasts into DC, I still felt like I was in their territory, rather than the other way around. I would not find my voice until many years thereafter.

As I learned when I visited the outside of their enclosures when we would walk over after breakfast, the howler monkey’s enlarged hyoid bone looked somewhat resembled ours, but in monkeys this oversized, horseshoe-shaped bone acts as a natural amplifier, producing a guttural roar that is among the loudest sounds made by any land animal. Their howls can reach around 110 decibels (at close range), comparable to a jackhammer or a rock concert.

Despite their fearsome voices, howler monkeys don’t bother with others and didn’t deserve to be uprooted thus. They spend much of their time quietly feeding on leaves, fruit, and flowers, moving deliberately through the treetops in cohesive social groups – families of tropical treetop grazers. To my sleepy ears on a Sunday morning, unmitigated by the typical DC car traffic, the howlers embody a striking paradox: They are creatures whose daily life is slow and almost meditative, like we all wish we could be, yet whose presence is announced with extraordinary, almost primeval intensity.

Six times a month I also get to interrupt the calm of others to announce that I have something to say. The cowbell and the PA system secretly show my appreciation, my imitation, and my emulation of the howler monkeys of D.C.’s National Zoo. Long may they sound their alarms.

Happy late-August to you! The weather will be pleasant tonight. One thinks of Wallace Stevens who said “The summer night is like a perfection of thought.” I invite you to join the regulars and irregulars outside our favorite brewery tonight, perhaps in the shade, for a grand competition featuring 31 questions on a variety of topics you should know something about.

In addition to topics raised above and below, expect questions tonight on the following: volcanos, views of the west, city visionaries, car manufacturers, catch phrases, directors, tall mountains, Triangles, twins, horses, people who actually enjoy the law, days of the week, pride in the color yellow, data centers, local theaters, enemies, authors who were born in one country but who now represent a different country, British actors, predicted disasters, real estate, warm temperatures, healthy lives, muscles, August obituaries, boxes, big breakfasts, hoods, paintings, talking robots, Warcrafts, new principals, cable cars, phones, gangsters, juices, The Beatles, messengers,, U.S. states, geography, current events, and Shakespeare.

For more Pub Quiz fun, please subscribe via Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/c/yourquizmaster.

Thanks to all the new players joining us at the live quizzes and to all the patrons who have been enjoying fresh Pub Quiz content. We have over 70 Patreon members now, including the new paid subscribers Esther, James, Damian, Jim, and Meebles! Thanks also to new subscribers Prescott, Bill and Diane, Tamara, Megan, Michael, Janet, Jasmine, Joey, Carly, The X-Ennial Falcons, and The Nevergiveruppers! Every week I check the Patreon to see if there is someone new to thank. Maybe next week it will be you! I also thank The Original Vincibles, Summer Brains, Still Here for the Shakesbeer, The Outside Agitators, John Poirier’s team Quizimodo, Gena Harper, the conversationally entertaining dinner companions and bakers of marvelous and healthy treats, The Mavens, whose players or substitutes keep attending, despite their ambitious travel schedules and the cost of the aforementioned avocado, which I prefer over onions on my weekly salad. I appreciate the Mavens’ kind words to me in the newspaper (details on that soon). Thanks in particular to my paid subscribers on Substack. Thanks to everyone who supports the Pub Quiz on Patreon. I would love to add your name or that of your team to the list of pub quiz boosters. Also, I sometimes remember to add an extra hint on Patreon. I appreciate your backing this pub quiz project of mine!

Best,

Dr. Andy

P.S. Thanks to Dan who filled in for me last week. Here are three questions he asked:

Retail in South Davis. Starting with the letter S, what seller of outdoor apparel and camping gear is now found in the old Office Max location?
Daylight Saving Time. Does a majority or a minority of the world’s population observe Daylight Saving Time?
Pop Culture – Music. Only one singer has his name on two top ten hits in America this week. His first name is Morgan. What is his last name?

P.P.S. What should I buy Kate to celebrate our 33^rd wedding anniversary?

Ten Reasons to Go for a Walk

by yourquizmaster on August 20, 2025

This fall I am teaching one of my favorite first-year seminars: “Journaling Our Long Walk Together.” On Tuesday mornings, I will be meeting my students in eight outdoor locations, take my students for a walk during which time I will offer facts and stories about the sights we encounter, encourage the class participants to talk with one another, and leave time at the end of each class for us to write in our hardback journals.

As much as I enjoy talking with my students about my 35 years of (hopefully relevant) experiences at UC Davis and in the City of Davis, I take the most delight in spotting a friend or colleague, introducing this unsuspecting local to my eager students, and then ask the “mark” to give a five-minute lecture on a campus or city-related topic of their choosing. Actual readers of this newsletter have been asked to speak to my students, as have a retired Spanish professor and jazz musician, a former Mayor of Davis who is a bicycling enthusiast, and the local artist who wrote the song of the City of Davis, which she volunteered to sing for my students.

I first offered this class during the pandemic. Students had returned to the dorms (everyone had a single), but not really to our classrooms. An outdoor class was deemed to be safe to teach, so my students were thrilled to be in the presence of their peers, even if in those early days we kept our social distance from one another.

The assigned readings concerned journaling, enjoying the outdoors, and walking. With that in mind, and to offer another text that I can assign my students, I present to you ten health-related reasons why I, they, and you should all go for a walk.

1. Walking strengthens the heart and circulatory system

Because I walk with my son Jukie, I could be accused of “moseying” or “meandering,” rather than walking quickly, but my students will be encouraged to pick up the pace. Walking briskly increases heart rate and circulation, reducing cardiovascular disease risk. Research also shows brisk walking significantly reduces cardiovascular risk factors like high blood pressure and elevated cholesterol

2. Walking improves endurance and energy levels

Regular walking builds stamina without the strain of high-impact exercise. Hippocrates allegedly said that “Walking is the best medicine,” anticipating what modern sports medicine confirms. I walk so much that I feel that when I set out on a weekend morning, I could walk all day. On rare occasions, and with pit stops at Jukie’s favorite restaurants and grocery stores, I actually do.

3. Walking aids in weight management

Walking burns calories steadily, especially if practiced daily, the way I practice it, and the way I hope will inspire my students to do the same. A 2015 study summarized by CBS News reported that “good old‑fashioned brisk walking on a regular basis may trump gym workouts and other types of exercise when it comes to managing weight.” Although I use the verb “supersede” rather than “trump,” I still agree with these findings.

4. Walking boosts immune system function

A Harvard Health article titled “5 Surprising Benefits of Walking” cites a study involving over 1,000 men and women (the original study is found in Archives of Internal Medicine from 2008). It reports that individuals who walked at least 20 minutes a day, 5 days a week had approximately 43% fewer sick days than those who exercised one day per week or less. I have yet to take a sick day at UC Davis (at least for my own illness), but it has only been 35 years. We’ll see.

5. Walking lowers blood pressure and supports cholesterol health

I hope this is true. Because my good cholesterol is a bit low, I have started requesting two orders or avocado on my salads, rather than just one. I could eat avocado with every meal.

6. Walking enhances balance and coordination

Especially in older adults, walking strengthens muscles and engages proprioception. Tai Chi master Cheng Man-ch’ing wrote of walking as “a discipline of balance in motion.” When I am out walking, I try to balance myself on curbs, walls, and parapets, my arms outstretched like those of a child.

7. Walking supports joint health

Contrary to myth, walking lubricates joints, improves flexibility, and helps those with arthritis, according to the Arthritis Foundation. At what age did I start talking about arthritis in my newsletters?

8. Walking helps regulate blood sugar

Post-meal walks can lower glucose levels. A 2013 study published in Diabetes Care, led by Loretta DiPietro at George Washington University, found that three short post-meal walks (15 minutes each) were as effective for reducing 24‑hour blood sugar levels as one continuous 45‑minute walk, especially among older adults at risk for impaired glucose tolerance. I’m definitely engaging in more health research than usual this week. Look at all these links!

9. Walking provides fresh air

Fresh oxygen intake improves alertness and well-being. The Romantic poet Wordsworth, who walked thousands of miles in his lifetime, claimed his imagination was “sharpened on the road.” Meanwhile, Canadian physician William Osler said, “Patients should have rest, food, fresh air, and exercise – the quadrangle of health.” Disappointingly, my doctor never brings up quadrangles.

10. Walking provides you opportunities to notice plants, trees, animals, and seasons

Biologist E.O. Wilson called this connection “biophilia,” or our innate affinity with life. A walk is a daily lesson in ecology. It’s also an occasion to write lesson plans and various sorts of assessments.

Enjoy this week’s bonus assigned readings! I’m sorry for your sake that the enrollment cap in my walking first-year seminar at UC Davis has already been reached.

As Kate is out of town, I’ve asked a substitute quizmaster, named Dan, to take the reins this evening. He has been training for years, mostly by wearing his beard like mine. I am sure he will do a rousingly good job. Thanks, Dan!

Happy mid-August to you! The weather will be hot tonight, hotter than we deserve, as one media personality might say. I invite you to join the regulars and irregulars outside our favorite brewery tonight, perhaps in the shade, for a grand competition featuring 31 questions on a variety of topics you should know something about.

In addition to topics raised above and below, expect questions tonight on the following: elevators, Times Square and other popular places, disappearances, ghosts causing fires, abandoned places, expensive spices,mountainous regions, complex arrangements, laureates, burrows, Oscars for playing real people, popular names last year, breakfast, Mongolians, alternatives to Cyprus, equator concerns, camping gear, bumpers, football clubs, people named York, powerful claws, Canadian birthplaces, cable fails, Neills, lowlands, conductors, passes, unpopular choices, poignant music, heavy makeup, nuclear research, Jedi mind tricks, U.S. states, geography, current events, and Shakespeare.

For more Pub Quiz fun, please subscribe via Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/c/yourquizmaster.

Thanks to all the new players joining us at the live quizzes and to all the patrons who have been enjoying fresh Pub Quiz content. We have over 70 Patreon members now, including the new paid subscribers Esther, James, Damian, Jim, and Meebles! Thanks also to new subscribers Prescott, Bill and Diane, Tamara, Megan, Michael, Janet, Jasmine, Joey, Carly, The X-Ennial Falcons, and The Nevergiveruppers! Every week I check the Patreon to see if there is someone new to thank. Maybe next week it will be you! I also thank The Original Vincibles, Summer Brains, Still Here for the Shakesbeer, The Outside Agitators, John Poirier’s team Quizimodo, Gena Harper, the conversationally entertaining dinner companions and bakers of marvelous and healthy treats, The Mavens, whose players or substitutes keep attending, despite their ambitious travel schedules and the cost of the aforementioned avocado. I appreciate the Mavens’ kind words to me in the newspaper. Thanks in particular to my paid subscribers on Substack. Thanks to everyone who supports the Pub Quiz on Patreon. I would love to add your name or that of your team to the list of pub quiz boosters. Also, I sometimes remember to add an extra hint on Patreon. I appreciate your backing this pub quiz project of mine!

Best,

Dr. Andy

Here are three questions from last week’s quiz:

Pop Culture – Music. What funk band had hits with “Jungle Boogie,” “Get Down On it,” and “Ladies Night”?
Great Americans. The Apollo 13 commander recently died at age 97. What was his name?
Unusual Words. What L word means “relating to a transitional or initial stage; in between two states”?

P.S. Poetry night on August 21 will feature new work by Rhony Bhopla and Mariam Ahmed. Join us at 7 PM at the John Natsoulas Gallery.

Summer Afternoon Thoughts: What Randall Boggs Wanted for Christmas

by yourquizmaster on August 13, 2025

On the afternoon of August 13, 2025, I recall something Henry James wrote in his 1911 memoir The Middle Years: “Summer afternoon—summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language.”

Even when teaching a summer writing class at UC Davis, I relish the slower pace of August. On this afternoon, for example, I got to talk with my daughter Geneva during a long walk home from campus. As she is also a teacher, a paraeducator at Patwin Elementary, we love sharing stories about our experiences in the classroom, and the funny things our students say.

I love that Geneva lives in Davis – we get to see her often, and I don’t take that for granted. Eager to be parents, but facing obstacles, my wife Kate and I had completed the international adoption proceedings when we learned of her pregnancy. We were so grateful to be parents late in 1997 that we paid close attention to every blessed moment with our cute and colicky baby. Reflecting on my first night shifts in those early days of parenthood (I did knee bends with the baby in my arms until late into the evening so Kate could slumber), I can think of few times when I was simultaneously so sleepy and so present.

Because of that, part of my cultural memory remains rooted in the era of the late 1990s and early 2000s when I would watch with wonder as my daughter took in a curated media diet of books, music, film, and even TV shows. If you were to ask, I could tell you all about the characters from Dragon Tales, Blue’s Clues, andCaillou, everyone’s favorite bald Canadian (other than Howie Mandel).

Today in my advanced writing class, I was riffing on student essayists’ obsessions and what they reveal. Before I could stop myself, I brought up the late 1990s TV show Teletubbies as an example of an obsession, trying desperately to wrench an insightful thesis from an improbable scenario. I imagined that a collector might someday empty his shelves of Teletubbies collectibles, but place them in storage for the day when he might have children. Then on one day, revealing his gifts for the lucky toddler, he could show as much precious love for this child as the baby in the sun did when shining down on Tinky Winky, LaaLaa, Dipsy, and Po. Seeing a few lifted eyebrows, I’m sure my students wondered what sort of class they had registered for.

With regard to films, I told my students that I believed Shrek was one of the only cultural touchpoints we had in common, Shrek and the MCU movies. Today I taught my students that deploying vulnerability in an essay shows your readers that the author is not an OPMC (overpowered main character). For example, the penultimate Avengers movie teaches us lessons about loss, while Endgame teaches us that, even against difficult odds, we must continue to struggle towards our goal, even when doing so with only half a metaphorical shield.

During our long talk on the phone today, Geneva told me that in 5^th grade she once wrote a two-page letter to Santa Claus from the point of view of the Monsters, Inc. villain Randall Boggs, and then shared it with her teacher, Ms. Sandoval. Why? As a way of using all her vocabulary words in a (mostly) functional way.

As I write this, Geneva texted me an image of the entire Santa letter, one where Boggs does not hide his nefarious inclinations. For instance, because one of Geneva’s vocabulary words was “smug,” I learned from this ancient missive that “[Randall Boggs] would like to give that clown Sullivan and that smug little cyclops Wazowski a good kick in the rump.” I wonder if that sort of talk tested the DJUSD anti-bullying ordinances. I can see why we didn’t take three-year old Geneva to that film about hidden monster nightmares when it was released in theaters. Instead, she (and the rest of us) watched it many times on DVD.

Looking through her elementary school effects, Geneva also shared with me that one of her (and everyone’s) favorite teachers, Barbara Neu, responded with written comments on every one of her first-grade diary entries, and then wrote a long comment at the end. Mrs. Neu also delivered our family a home-cooked meal when Geneva’s brother Jukie had ptosis repair surgery in March of 2004. I’m sure the writing work of that devoted teacher and her love of early Pixar classics were eventual reasons why Geneva majored in creative writing in college.

One Emily Dickinson poem proclaims that “There is no Frigate like a Book / To take us Lands away.” When we are ready and especially receptive, favorite films can also transport us back to a time when we experienced an awakening, a revelation, or just a sustained sense of awe. Because of my parents and my Waldorf school, my childhood was full of these qualities. And because of our much-loved Geneva, my wife Kate and I got to revisit such a sense of wonder whenever we (finally) got to sit down on the couch and laugh with our delightful daughter.

Happy mid-August to you! The weather will be cooler than we have grown used to this evening. I invite you to join me outside our favorite brewery tonight, perhaps in the shade, for a grand competition featuring 31 questions on a variety of topics you should know something about. At least one local reporter will join us for the fun tonight.

Because Kate will be out of town visiting family on August 20, a substitute quizmaster will be running the show that night. Thanks for your continued support!

In addition to topics raised above and below, expect questions tonight on the following: time travel, Soviet visitors, insects, African nations, S plays, the function of war, governing bodies, common multiples, American heroes, California geography, fancy shirts, metaphorical bridges, jungles, odd pairings with Alfred Hitchcock, UC Davis, competition with China, camel directions, hits awareness, lists, long lines, western locals, famous problems, coaches, Sacramento exits, platforming decisions, cities that sound German, kindred spirits, halls of fame, outrageous statements, scaly creatures, U.S. states, geography, current events, and Shakespeare.

For more Pub Quiz fun, please subscribe via Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/c/yourquizmaster.

Thanks to all the new players joining us at the live quizzes and to all the patrons who have been enjoying fresh Pub Quiz content. We have over 70 Patreon members now, including the new paid subscribers Esther, James, Damian, Jim, and Meebles! Thanks also to new subscribers Prescott, Bill and Diane, Tamara, Megan, Michael, Janet, Jasmine, Joey, Carly, The X-Ennial Falcons, and The Nevergiveruppers! Every week I check the Patreon to see if there is someone new to thank. Maybe next week it will be you! I also thank The Original Vincibles, Summer Brains, Still Here for the Shakesbeer, The Outside Agitators, John Poirier’s team Quizimodo, Gena Harper, the conversationally entertaining dinner companions and bakers of marvelous and healthy treats, The Mavens, whose players or substitutes keep attending, despite their ambitious travel schedules and the cost of avocado. Thanks in particular to Ellen and to my paid subscribers on Substack. Thanks to everyone who supports the Pub Quiz on Patreon. I would love to add your name or that of your team to the list of pub quiz boosters. Also, I sometimes remember to add an extra hint on Patreon. I appreciate your backing this pub quiz project of mine!

Best,

Dr. Andy

P.S. From last week, three questions on calendars!

What was the job title of the person who introduced the world to the calendar we use today?

Who introduced the Julian calendar?

Co-starring Oscar winner Cate Blanchett, what 2008 Indiana Jones movie references the Mayan Calendar?

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