Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

Reading newspaper headlines, I have been reflecting on what measles once was, how writers remembered it, how we briefly escaped it, and how we are now, quietly and dangerously, returning to it.

According to the Mayo Clinic, before the first measles vaccine in 1963, nearly all children in the U.S. got measles by age 15, and annual epidemics caused millions of infections (and hundreds of deaths) each year. 

While statistics can tell us the scale, literary texts written in or about the 19^th century remind us of the stakes.

A line in chapter six of Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist tells us that “The oldest inhabitants recollected no period at which measles had been so prevalent, or so fatal to infant existence.”

Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind introduces us to Scarlett O’Hara’s first husband, Charles Hamilton, a character that triggers Scarlett’s early frustration and grief:

“Five weeks passed during which letters, shy, ecstatic, loving, came from Charles in South Carolina telling of his love, his plans for the future when the war was over, his desire to become a hero for her sake and his worship of his commander, Wade Hampton. In the seventh week, there came a telegram from Colonel Hampton himself, and then a letter, a kind, dignified letter of condolence. Charles was dead. The colonel would have wired earlier, but Charles, thinking his illness a trifling one, did not wish to have his family worried. The unfortunate boy had not only been cheated of the love he thought he had won but also of his high hopes of honor and glory on the field of battle. He had died ignominiously and swiftly of pneumonia, following measles, without ever having gotten any closer to the Yankees than the camp in South Carolina.”

The poets I studied as an undergraduate wrote about the measles the way that some of us wrote about Covid-19 in late March of 2020, reminding us of the concerns that gripped us then, including fear, isolation, uncertainty, waiting, and the fragility of the ordinary world.

Emily Dickinson wrote this in a letter to Abiah Root in September 1846: “I have been very well this summer… though many of my friends have had the measles. I have been almost a hermit… for there were so many cases of the disease that I felt it was best to stay within doors.”

A few years later, in May of 1851, Elizabeth Barrett Browning shared her fears in a letter to Henrietta Barrett: “The measles are all about us, and I am in a state of perpetual terror for the child… It is a treacherous disease, and one never knows where it will end, even when it seems to have passed away.”

For Barrett Browning, measles was a “perpetual terror.” But as the 20th century progressed, in the United States and in other countries, that terror was silenced by science. With the widespread adoption of the MMR vaccine, the United States was formally declared to have eliminated measles in 2000. We didn’t just eliminate the disease; we began to eliminate our memory of its cost.

For a generation of Americans, measles became something we encountered only in old novels and yellowed letters. We thought we had overcome this national challenge. We were wrong.

Consider these headlines, all from January 6, 2026, to see what the return of measles looks like in real time:

1. South Carolina measles outbreak continues to grow into 2026, health officials say — WBTV (South Carolina)  
2. Measles vaccination rates in Colorado are lagging — Axios Denver/Colorado  
3. Additional Children Positive for Measles in North Carolina — North Carolina Dept. of Health and Human Services press release  
4. South Carolina measles outbreak grows in wake of holiday season — HealthBeat / news outlet report  
5. South Carolina Department of Public Health: DPH Reports 26 New Measles Cases in Upstate, Bringing Outbreak total to 211 — SC DPH Jan. 6 release  
6. US builds case to retain measles elimination status as infections mount — with outbreaks starting in Texas and spreading to states like Utah, Arizona, and South Carolina — Reuters  
7. Possible measles exposure linked to travel in Albuquerque — New Mexico Department of Health, January 6, 2026  

This next one from late December also concerned me because my son sometimes flies through Newark to get back to college. Suddenly, the “perpetual terror” Barrett Browning described in 1851 feels less like a mere historical curiosity.

• “N.J. health officials warn of potential measles exposures at Newark Liberty Airport” — CBS New York (Dec 29, 2025).

If the poets wrote from a place of unavoidable fear, today’s headlines suggest a fear that is being actively invited back. Rather than an accident of nature, the return of measles in America resulted from the dismantling of the very scientific consensus that once saved us. Enter Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.:

1. RFK Jr sparks alarm after backing vitamins to treat measles amid outbreak — The Guardian — Mar 4, 2025  
2. Top vaccine official resigns from FDA, criticizes RFK Jr. for promoting ‘misinformation and lies’ — AP News — Mar 29, 2025  
3. RFK Jr and health agency falsely claim MMR vaccine includes ‘aborted fetus debris’ — The Guardian — May 1, 2025  
4. US Health secretary Kennedy revives misleading claims of ‘fetal debris’ in measles shots — Reuters — May 2, 2025  
5. CDC Slashes Universal Vaccine Recommendations — Time — Jan 6, 2026 
6. US builds case to retain measles elimination status as infections mount — Reuters — Jan 6, 2026  
7. NYC health boss rips RFK Jr. for cutting back on childhood vaccinations, warns of ‘deadly consequences’ — New York Post — Jan 7, 2026  

I’m a big fan of science and the work scientists have done to protect us from infectious diseases. It’s regrettable to see their work sabotaged by official government policies.

As gripping as these headlines are, I find myself turning again and again to those writers who can best personify epidemics. When institutions fail us, the consequences always upend individual lives.

I will close with the words of Roald Dahl, a short non-fiction piece he wrote in 1986:

“Olivia, my eldest daughter, caught measles when she was seven years old. As the illness took its usual course I can remember reading to her often in bed and not feeling particularly alarmed about it. Then one morning, when she was well on the road to recovery, I was sitting on her bed showing her how to fashion little animals out of coloured pipe-cleaners, and when it came to her turn to make one herself, I noticed that her fingers and her mind were not working together and she couldn’t do anything.

‘Are you feeling all right?’ I asked her.

‘I feel all sleepy,’ she said.

In an hour, she was unconscious. In twelve hours, she was dead.

The measles had turned into a terrible thing called measles encephalitis and there was nothing the doctors could do to save her. That was…in 1962, but even now, if a child with measles happens to develop the same deadly reaction from measles as Olivia did, there would still be nothing the doctors could do to help her. On the other hand, there is today something that parents can do to make sure that this sort of tragedy does not happen to a child of theirs. They can insist that their child is immunised against measles.

…I dedicated two of my books to Olivia, the first was ‘James and the Giant Peach’. That was when she was still alive. The second was ‘The BFG’, dedicated to her memory after she had died from measles. You will see her name at the beginning of each of these books. And I know how happy she would be if only she could know that her death had helped to save a good deal of illness and death among other children.”

Reading those old letters and novels, and then reading today’s headlines, I keep returning to the same uneasy realization: measles has returned. We once learned its costs. We once learned how to prevent them. And now, through carelessness and misinformation, we are forced to learn those lessons again. 

As Roald Dahl reminds us, these are lessons we cannot afford to fail.

---

There will be no rain tonight, so plan to join me outdoors for the pub quiz at 2001 2nd Street in Davis. I invite you to join the regulars and irregulars for the social event of the week featuring 31 questions on a variety of topics you should know something about, this week with special questions connected to the life and hobbies of Dr. Andy. Today’s pub quiz comes in at 948 words, still smaller than the number of miles I walked in 2025.

In addition to topics raised above and below, expect questions tonight on the following: nets, heroes, toxicology, presidents, conductors, MVPs, storms, winds, joyful moments, common words, slim daggers, place names, median readers, photography subjects in 1846, Palo Alto rests, Paul Simon, dreams, colors, birds, American generals, moons, parades, euros, French cuisine, frontrunners, best-sellers, romance, new leaders, weeds, jobs, Oscars, new jobs, pop charts, 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 90 Patreon members now, including the new paid subscribers Christine, Bobby, Esther, James, Damian, Jim, and Meebles! I should write a question for Bobby. 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. Hello to Bill and to Jude’s dad. 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 birthday girl Maria, to whom I send sustained compassion. 

Best,

Dr. Andy

P.S. Trivia from the final pub quiz of 2025, with questions about 2025:

1. In 2025, Robert Provost was elected to a new office. What is his job?  

2. In 2025, Beyoncé finally won the Grammy Award for best album of the year. Name the album. 

3. What 2024 film with a one-word title won the most Oscars in March of this year, with five? 

Dear Friends,

Happy New Year to you and your families. If you are in Davis on New Year’s Eve, I invite you to join us for a pub quiz. We will also be counting down the ball drop in New York at 9 p.m., with a free pilsner toast provided by Sudwerk staff.

Today I am thinking about 2025 experiences, accomplishments, reconnections, and losses.

Most of my heroes (many of them also mentors) are older than me, but one exception would be my friend Gretchen Noah, a remarkable friend who we lost to brain cancer earlier this month.

My wife Kate was very close with Gretchen, for she and Gretchen ran the Smith-Lemli-Opitz Foundation together, laughing through many formal and informal meetings on the phone, via Zoom, and in person.

To honor my friend Gretchen, whose funeral mass took place this morning, I am including below both what Kate wrote about her friend, followed by a poem I wrote that I recorded and which was played at the funeral service last night.

Treasure your time with your loved ones, both tonight and on every day of the years to come.

Dr. Andy

---

From Kate Duren.

I am heartbroken to share the news of the death of my dear friend, Gretchen Noah.

Gretchen and I met about 18 years ago when she called me on our landline phone, having tracked down my number after reading something I had written in a Smith-Lemli-Opitz Foundation newsletter about Jukie. We bonded instantly over her search for a diagnosis for her son. The Mayo Clinic had incorrectly ruled out SLO, but Gretchen felt her boy looked and seemed so much like my Jukie. I supported her and advised her on where and how to proceed to get the correct diagnosis. She did — and, of course, her son did have Smith-Lemli-Opitz syndrome, just as we suspected.

We talked late into the evening that night and became fast friends. Gretchen was like that — warm, engaging, and always quick to find the humor in life.

We chatted on the phone regularly, and a year or two later she flew from her home in Fargo, ND, to surprise me at my home in Davis, CA. She had come to attend the Oscar party I was throwing that weekend. When I answered the door, I thought she was the stranger coming to look at a cabinet I was selling. I didn’t recognize her until she silently removed her sunglasses and gave me the biggest Gretchen smile. We stood hugging and crying on my doorstep until I finally remembered to invite her inside.

Thirteen years ago, we began working together — she as president and I as vice president of the Smith-Lemli-Opitz Foundation. We were a perfect match, with opposite but complementary skills. She handled the business side; I managed communications, media, and family support. We both felt we were exactly where we were meant to be.

Gretchen often said that God brought us together. We shared a deep sense of purpose and a desire to help families affected by Smith-Lemli-Opitz syndrome in every way possible. And anyone who knew Gretchen knows she made it fun. We worked hard, and we laughed often. I will miss her laughter and her smile more than words can say.

I have so many fond memories of Gretchen and our time together. We traveled for work to San Diego, New Orleans, and Germany, and planned and hosted SLOF conferences in Boston, Seattle, Washington, D.C., Portland, Denver, and Cincinnati. I visited her lake house in Minnesota, filled with Gretchen’s unmistakable charm. We met up in so many cities, always making time to explore the local cuisine and culture. Gretchen truly loved life.

It feels impossible that such a strong, positive force in the world is gone. It was a joyful privilege and an honor to work alongside Gretchen all these years, and so many of us are enriched and inspired from having known her. Her legacy lives on in the SLO community and will always live on in our hearts.

---

Gretchen’s Smile
A poem for Gretchen Noah, written by Dr. Andy Jones

I want to talk about Gretchen’s smile.

Not just because it was magnificent,

not just because I got to see it light up a conference room every two years,

but because her smile carried in it a sense of purpose,

a sense of momentum,

a sense that she had created something important 

and that we were all part of it.

Gretchen embodied steadfast care for people who were exhausted,

for children whose small victories she knew how to read,

for families navigating what no one is ever prepared for,

for the work in front of her.

She believed in what must be done,

and then she did it.

Gretchen set goals for the Smith-Lemli-Opitz Foundation that most people would have quietly scaled back.

She did not scale back.

She leaned in.

She carried expansion forward through sheer will, tireless humor, 

and an unmistakable smile that told you,

yes, this is ambitious, and yes, we are absolutely going to make it happen.

I see her at the back of a conference room,

arms crossed, watching families talk,

our representative and our witness —

already thinking about what else they might need,

already planning what comes next,

starting with endowments from everyone.

I see her late at night with a laptop open,

numbers on the screen, Diet Coke nearby,

hatching plans, sending texts,

still working when everyone else has gone quiet,

raising money for children she would never meet,

raising hope for families she would never stop caring about.

I see her moving through crowded hotel ballrooms,

name badges swinging, voices overlapping,

and Gretchen somehow knowing every name, every story,

the longing of every parent, the burden of every caregiver, 

the brave patience of every child.

I hear her on the phone,

calls that always ran long,

where the work and the friendship,

the agendas and the laughter, were never really separate,

just two parts of the same devotion.

Our president, Gretchen was the energy behind the family conferences.

She and Kate took the Foundation show on the road — again and again —

convincing pharmaceutical companies to invest,

inspiring doctors,

inspiring parents,

inspiring all of us.

I see her in a room of doctors and researchers,

not at the center of the circle,

but at its heart,

asking the questions that kept the human stakes visible,

never letting the work forget the children.

And I see her at the end of a long day,

after a successful event,

chairs stacked, lights dimmed,

Gretchen still standing there, 

always the last to leave, smiling —

satisfied, grateful,

and already thinking forward.

We ache in her absence,

but what she built remains.

What she inspired remains.

What she made possible continues to unfold.

So, when we gather,

when we plan,

when we fundraise,

when we advocate,

when we care for families and children and one another,

we are still moving in Gretchen’s direction.

And if we do it with courage,

with ambition,

with laughter,

and with that same sense of resolve that once lived so naturally in her smile,

then we are doing the work the way she taught us to do it.

Thank you, Gretchen.

We will carry this forward.

---

Because of the rain tonight, the New Year’s Eve Sudwerk pub quiz will take place inside at 2001 2nd Street in Davis. I invite you to join the regulars and irregulars for the social event of the week featuring 31 questions on a variety of topics you should know something about. Today’s pub quiz is over 1,000 words long, longer than usual because so much happened in 2025.

In addition to topics raised above and below, expect questions tonight on the following: national chains, categorized innovators, flagship facilities, provosts, geology in France, encores, non-volleyball Wilsons, six-letter words, Zillow findings, Great Scots, normal guys, hydrogen, consecutive games, LPs, Caribbean happenstances, incomes, music genres, boilers, ousters, motorcycles, famous battles, ESPN opinions, holiday traditions, Kentucky realizations, economic theories, moments dead people, ice babies, one-word titles that are barely words, trades, alliterative names, cinematic universes, alphabetical lists, food banks, cubs, Oscars, new jobs, pop charts, 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 90 Patreon members now, including the new paid subscribers Christine, Bobby, Esther, James, Damian, Jim, and Meebles! I should write a question for Bobby. 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. Hello to Bill and to Jude’s dad. 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 birthday girl Maria, to whom I send sustained compassion. 

Best,

Dr. Andy

And now five questions on the same topic from a 2018 Christmas-era pub quiz. That week’s topic is 2018 Films with Four Words in their Titles. Notice that, atypically, I am providing the answers to these tricky questions from the last decade.

1.     What are the four words in the title of the film that just enjoyed its second week at the top of the box office? Ralph Breaks the Internet

2.     Animated, and largely forgotten by 2025, what is the second-highest grossing Benedict Cumberbatch film of 2018? Dr. Seuss’ The Grinch

3.    What Chris Pratt film opened in more theatres than any other film released this year? Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom

4.   What film that features Dave Chapelle as George “Noodles” Stone has already won the National Board of Review Award for Best Director, Best Actress, and Best Supporting Actor? A Star is Born (2018)

5.  What is the title of the most recent and probably last Insidious sequel, one that actually has the word “last” in its title? Insidious: The Last Key

And thus end our questions on 2018 Films with Four-Word Titles.  And thus ends 2025, and this newsletter. See you in 2026. May it be a better year for all of us.

Dear Friends,

This year our family watched The Muppet Christmas Carol on a Wednesday evening rather than my hosting a Pub Quiz. Out of habit, I wrote five questions about our experience, the results of which I invite you to enjoy.

And now, five questions on the same topic. This week’s topic is The Muppet Christmas Carol.

1.    The Muppet Christmas Carol was released the same year that Dr. Andy and his wife Kate were married. Name the decade.  

2.    What Oscar-winning actor plays Ebenezer Scrooge in The Muppet Christmas Carol?  

3.    In The Muppet Christmas Carol, both Beaker and his scientist lab boss play rejected charity collectors in the beginning of the film. Who is Beaker’s boss?  

4.    In The Muppet Christmas Carol, Kermith the Frog plays Bob Cratchit and Fozzie Bear plays Old Man Fozzywig. Who plays Charles Dickens?  

5.    In this version of the story, what odd number of ghosts visit with Ebenezer Scrooge?

And thus ends our round of questions on The Muppet Christmas Carol.

Here are the answers. 1992, so the 1990s; Michael Caine, Dr. Bunsen Honeydew; The Great Gonzo; five – the Ghosts of Christmases Past, Present, and Future, as well as the two ghosts of the Marley brothers, played by Statler and Waldorf

Merry Christmas! I hope you can join us for the New Year’s Eve Pub Quiz at Sudwerk!

Dr. Andy

Dear Friends,

Imagine how happy your friend would be if you were to purchase them a year-long subscription to all the pub quizzes I write in 2026! This is possible through Patreon.

I had been writing in my head a long newsletter about grief and perseverance during dark times, but as I am still processing, I am turning instead to one of my favorite singers of carols, if not Christmas carols, and that is Walt Whitman:

I Hear America Singing

I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear,

Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe and strong,

The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam,

The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work,

The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deckhand singing on the steamboat deck,

The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing as he stands,

The wood-cutter’s song, the ploughboy’s on his way in the morning, or at noon intermission or at sundown,

The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at work, or of the girl sewing or washing,

Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else,

The day what belongs to the day—at night the party of young fellows, robust, friendly,

Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs.

Happy holidays to all of you. I hope you get to enjoy some time off with your family or with whatever laborers and compatriots you get to spend a well-earned break.

---

It’s 64 degrees outside as I write this on the 17th of December, so I hope all of you will join me outside so we can open this meteorological gift together. I invite you to join the regulars and irregulars for the social event of the week featuring 31 questions on a variety of topics you should know something about, especially because we won’t see each other again until December 31st. Today’s pub quiz is 844 words long, if we include the answers.

In addition to topics raised above and below, expect questions tonight on the following: Christmas lights, grand chronologies, strong football records, Hazels, Carrs, portable happiness, Colorado records, military physicians, early Ph.Ds, diamond awards, MVPs, organs, jobs, randomness, tall mountains, New York City, inspirations, departures, hours of light and dark, herbivorous mammals, collars, Oceans, Pew Research polls, ports, grief, young adult novels, terminals, beginnings and endings, comedies, royalty, source materials, spellers, pop charts, 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 90 Patreon members now, including the new paid subscribers Bobby, Esther, James, Damian, Jim, and Meebles! I should write a question for Bobby. 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

Questions from last week:

1. Books and Authors. Who wrote the 1952 classic American novel Invisible Man?  
2. Sports. The current NBA leader in effective field goal percentage and true shooting percentage is the 23-year-old center Ryan Kalkbrenner. For what Southeast Division team does Kalkbrenner play?  
3. Shakespeare. Shakespeare died at the same age as Abraham Lincoln and George Orwell. With a two-year margin of error, tell me that age.  

Happy Holidays from our family to yours!

Dear Friends,

This week’s newsletter is adapted from a talk that I wrote while walking to the Pamela Trokanski Dance Workshop to celebrate the birthday of the first-ever poet laureate of Davis, Allegra Silberstein. 

I knew the dozen other performers would share poems, songs, and dances, so I wanted to mix it up with a speech, much like the speaking I do as Master of Ceremonies at the poetry readings that I’ve been hosting in town for about 20 of Allegra’s 95 years.

Welcome, everyone, and thank you for inviting me to speak today on this momentous occasion. 

Allegra and I live in a world where, if we don’t know what to say on a special occasion (as the speaker before me just said), we just write a sonnet.

I’ve been hosting poetry readings for almost 20 years. I’ve been hosting a poetry radio show for 25 years, and over those decades, there is no poet whom I have introduced more often as a featured performer, and especially as an open mic performer, than Allegra Silberstein. She is the heart of the poetry community of Davis, and of the Poetry Night reading series. She brings encouragement, admiration, and a patient, attentive ear—typically a cupped ear—to every event that I host.

Allegra is someone who has fused poetry and consideration. She has kept a poem in her pocket for occasions when a friend or a stranger clearly needed a poem. She has kept her seat filled in the front row of just about every poetry event in Davis and Sacramento. And she has kept us all in her huge heart. She is the Grandma Moses, the Twyla Tharp, the Joan Baez, and the Mr. Rogers of Davis.

It’s hard to sustain attentiveness to poetry in this world. I know this because every time I tell Siri that I’m excited to read a poem, she translates it as my wanting to read a “palm.” When I tell her that I have found the verse that I’m looking for, she darkly substitutes the word “worst” for “verse.” And when I start to type the letters Allegra, such as to text a friend that I am looking forward to hearing what “Allegra” will read at Poetry Night, Siri seeks to autocorrect that to the word “allegiance.”  

Usually I complain to Siri; usually, in my head, I berate her for her resistance to poetry. But on this occasion, I’d say that Siri got it right. I do pledge allegiance to Allegra Silberstein, to the compassion and the artistry of which she stands, and for her fierce attention—a poet’s attention—to liberty, justice, equity, inclusion, and especially a big smile and sustaining kindness for all.

Thank you, Allegra, and Happy Birthday!

---

I hope you will get to hear Allegra read a poem sometime soon. She is always the last poet introduced at the open mic portion of Poetry Night, so she is celebrated every first and third Thursday of the month by her poetic fans. Our next event is January 15.

The heaters may be warming us tonight, so I hope you will join me outside. You might want to bring an extra layer or two to warm your lap. Some teams will sit inside, and who could blame them? I invite you to join the regulars and irregulars for the social event of the week featuring 31 questions on a variety of topics you should know something about. Finally I get to eat again with The Mavens! Today’s pub quiz is 880 words long, if we include the answers.

In addition to topics raised above and below, expect questions tonight on the following: runs, great presidents, dystopian authors, bards, percentages, electrified rugs, hunger, digital bullies, cuts, New York frames of mind, kettlebells, computers, unknown facts about famous people, educational frameworks, volcanoes, calendars, TikTok interests, historical dramas, young adult authors, joyful exits, first wives, famous sayings, surprising betrayals, loquacity, Disney memories, rainbows, valves, power rankings, accessibility, ethics of zen practitioners, bellies, dates, elements, hive minds, people over 7 feet tall, southeastern obsessions,  acids and bases, 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 Bobby, Esther, James, Damian, Jim, and Meebles! I should write a question for Bobby. 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. Here are three questions from last week.

1. Unusual Words. What short C adjective can mean “reluctant to give details, especially about something regarded as sensitive”?  
2. Swiss Millionaires. Did Swiss voters approve or reject a 50% inheritance tax on multimillionaires intended to combat climate change?  
3. Pop Culture – Television. Originally starring Scott Bakula and Dean Stockwell, what 1989 time travel TV show was revived with a new cast in 2022? 

Dear Friends,

Having run a bimonthly poetry series in town for the last 19 years, I find that one of my favorite events does not include impressive UC Davis faculty, East Coast traveling poets, or Bay Area poetry superstars. Instead, it features junior high students talking about climate change.

Because of the inspiring work of Julia Levine, the fifth poet laureate of the City of Davis (I was the third), on the first Thursday in December the John Natsoulas Gallery is filled with more than a dozen first-time performers. Supported by a grant provided by The Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowship, Julia works with Da Vinci Junior High students to help them understand, reflect upon, and write about climate change, and the earth that we older citizens of the world are leaving them.

Encouraged by parents, family friends, and Poetry Night regulars, the young poets are introduced by Julia before taking the microphone to share their best poem. Sometimes confident speakers will also read the poem of a classmate who couldn’t attend the event, or who was too shy to speak before the crowd.

The poetry is authentic, surprising, and poignant. Often the peers will cheer the loudest after one of their classmates finishes performing a poem.

Below find an excerpt from the press release for this special event. I hope you will consider joining us to cheer, to reflect, and to buy a copy of the new anthology To the Human Race. I also encourage you to join us every first and third Thursday at 7 for The Poetry Night Reading Series at the John Natsoulas Gallery in Davis.

Dear Friends of Poetry,

The Poetry Night Reading Series will feature Davis junior high poets and their new book, To the Human Race. We will meet at 7 PM on Thursday, December 4th, 2025, on the first floor of the John Natsoulas Gallery, 521 1^st Street in Davis.

Our December 4th night of poetry will feature young poets who have worked with Davis poet laureate emerita Julia B. Levine to write poems about resilience and climate change. The poems have been collected in a 16 Rivers Press book titled To the Human Race. Most of the authors whose work has been anthologized in this special collection will read their individual poems. Courtesy of Julia B. Levine and others, food and drink will contribute to the festive atmosphere.

December 4th is also the 95th birthday of Allegra Silberstein, the poet laureate of our hearts. We hope she will join us for this special event and to be appropriately feted.

An open mic will follow the young featured performers. Open mic performances will be limited to four minutes or two items, whichever is shorter. As Robert Southey says, “Be brief; for it is with words as with sunbeams – the more they are condensed, the deeper they burn.”

 The open mic list typically fills by 6:35 PM, so please arrive early if you would like to perform something during the 8 o’clock hour. Attendees who request to be added to the list after 7 PM will be invited to try again at a subsequent event.  

The Poetry Night Reading Series, taking place on first and third Thursdays of the month at 7 PM, is generously supported by the people and poets of the Sacramento Valley, by John Natsoulas, and by Lacee and the other members of the staff at the John Natsoulas Gallery. Your host will be Dr. Andy Jones, poet laureate emeritus of the City of Davis. 

Find out more about the Poetry Night Reading Series in Davis, California by visiting https://www.poetryindavis.com. Invite your friends to sign up for the mailing list.  

Readers scheduled to perform in 2026 include Gabrielle Myers, Pamela Pan, Grant Faulkner, Susan Wolbarst, Matt Mitchell, Connie Johnstone, Bob Stanley, Mercedes Ibanez, Wolf Fox, Molly Fisk, and Bill O’Daly.

The Poetry Night Reading Series has been committed to serving the literary and arts community in the city of Davis since 2006. Happening every 1st and 3rd Thursday of each month at the Natsoulas Gallery, each reading contains two featured poets followed by an open mic. Poetry in Davis was voted “Best Open Mic” in The California Aggie’s “Best of Davis″ edition and has been featured in Davis Life Magazine. The more than 400 featured poets have included UC Davis faculty Francisco X. Alarcón, John Boe, Zinzi Clemmons, Joshua Clover, Luci Corin, Iris Jamahl Dunkle, Jack Forbes, Lynn Freed, Sandra Gilbert, Laurie Glover, Rae Gouirand, Brad Henderson, Pamela Houston, Andy Jones, Clarence Major, Sandra McPherson, Maceo Montoya, André Naffis-Sahely, Cindy Ok, Katie Peterson, Kim Stanley Robinson, Margaret Ronda, Gary Snyder, Joe Wenderoth, and Alan Williamson, as well as many regional and traveling poets, including Molly Peacock, Jane Hirshfield, Dana Gioia, and James Ragan.

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It will be unseasonably warm this evening (for December), but there will be a breeze. I hope you will join me outside. Perhaps bring an extra layer to warm your lap. I invite you to join the regulars and irregulars for the social event of the week featuring 31 questions on a variety of topics you should know something about. Bring some friends! Today’s pub quiz is 912 words long, if we include the answers.

In addition to topics raised above and below, expect questions tonight on the following: rappers, time travel, tax avoidance, federal-style homes, produce in California, hopping puns, VeggieTales, climbing, GenAI, minor characters, drummers, the gaits of bears, black comedies, U.S. presidents, kings, disasters, domestic witches, buddies, hills, shy words, postwar greats, clubs, runs, trail hikes, the planet Venus, holiday favorites, itinerant teams, hilarious landlords, important jobs, African heroes, gold markets, rampant anger, viral marketing, protecting children, borders, film villains, sunshine, world capitals, U.S. states, geography, current events, and Shakespeare.

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

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

I also want to recognize those who visit my Substack the most often, including Luna, Jean, Ron, Myrna, and Maria, to whom I send sustained compassion. My newest subscriber on Substack is Darca! I’m almost to 300!

Best,

Dr. Andy

P.S. Three questions from last week:

1. Mottos and Slogans. What company used to promise us that they are “The Best Part of Wakin’ Up”?   
2. Internet Culture. What company is facing an FAA probe after its delivery drone snapped an internet cable in Waco, Texas?  
3. Newspaper Headlines. According to today’s New York Times, the gastronomic guide Michelin has singled out three restaurants that serve Cheesesteak, setting off a loud local debate about tradition and innovation. Name the city.  

This coming Friday, after putting up the Christmas tree, Kate and Truman will likely watch the holiday classic It’s a Wonderful Life. It is a film famous for its concluding scenes, where George Bailey finally recognizes just how lucky he is.

Thanksgiving should make us all feel that way, especially if we get to gather and relax with family members, taking a day off from labor and worry. 

During my walks this week, I reflected on the essay I might write today, a piece that explores gratitude and togetherness.

Writing a public essay about gratitude carries risks. Such writing could sound like self-praise rather than reflection; it might drift into a narrative of personal virtue. Hearing my teaching stories, my daughter taught me the term “virtue signaling.” Few want to hear anyone imply they sit atop a moral hierarchy.

Gratitude lists can imply shared conditions where none exist. I am grateful for the stability of my unusual family, and the breathing room that has resulted from our living so frugally, but for someone living with precarity, loss, or strain, the subtext of such an essay could be painful, as if I were saying “Imagine if you had these things.” 

I want to avoid sounding insulated from our world’s woes, or complacent about them. I see and acknowledge that most people have not benefitted from a three plus decade marriage or the professional flexibility that allows my son Jukie and me to walk so many miles every day.

All those caveats stated, I will name what I value, and what prompts my feelings of gratitude.

I value a family that anchors me. I appreciate the support of Kate, a beautiful partner whose presence steadies me, and whom I support in turn; the meals I get to share with my children, especially my walking buddy Jukie, who prefers the contents of other people’s plates to his own. I treasure the time spent with our French bulldog, Margot, who always seems ready to enable, and even enforce, a nap on the couch.

I value a vocation, not just work. Every day in the classroom, I get to inspire, dramatize, and exemplify curiosity, realization, growth, and love of learning. After 35 years, my performative work before my students and my painstaking work with their prose feels more like a craft than duty. In my (mostly unpaid) side gigs, I get to host Poetry Night in a beautiful art gallery, the Pub Quiz outdoors with competitors who have become friends, a radio show where I get to talk about poetry and other forms of creativity with master craftspeople, and online forums where I get to reconnect with UC Davis faculty from across the disciplines. In these spaces where people gather, we also speak together, laugh, and feel less alone.

I value a body that still carries me far into each day. As I often note in these newsletters, I will walk five, seven, or even ten miles a day. I also row on Kate’s rowing machine and do suitcase carries for five minutes at a time while brushing my teeth in the morning and evening. I stop for push-ups on many of the park benches that we pass on our walks. I am grateful for legs that carry me to campus on every teaching day, and through the greenbelts of south Davis and beyond.

I value a creative mind that refuses stillness. I write poems, and these years, especially love poems, with sensory detail and deliberate attention. In essays and in poems, I revise, refine, guard against cliché, and abjure weak verbs. I read, research, and plan, challenging and delighting students and bargoers alike with my clever assessments. I greet curiosity with more curiosity.

I value community that sustains me. Poets read under the lights of the John Natsoulas Gallery where I gather them twice a month. People gather outdoors on November evenings to hear me prattle on about mottos and slogans. Sixty-three university colleagues gathered this past Friday to hear me and others opine on digital accessibility and AI. If you count my radio show and the Summer Institute on Teaching and Technology, I get to host about 150 events a year. I should stop being surprised that strangers greet me by name on the greenbelt.

I value life still in motion. Even though I largely remain in our little town of Davis, I cover a lot of ground here. I have plenty of plans yet, plenty to do.

Raising a son with significant special needs has attuned me to the kindness of the people of Davis. I see it when they greet Jukie, but I also see it in quiet moments that have nothing to do with us. This past Sunday, I was meditating in the Chestnut Park with friends from my weekly meditation group. Two boys, perhaps nine years old, pulled a wagon overflowing with groceries and party supplies to a picnic area for a birthday party later in the day.

We sat on our zabutons, the rectangular cushions we use when we meditate together. Upon seeing us, the two boys signaled to each other that they would lift the laden wagon and carry it past us so as to make no noise that would disturb our meditation. Because it was unusually heavy, they paused every few steps, muscles visibly straining, but still they moved silently, step after step, until they were well past our hearing.

I want the parents of those boys to know what fine young men they are raising. Their quiet generosity embodied the grace I seek to notice and cultivate. This Thanksgiving, I am grateful to them and to their spirit of consideration and care. I want to grow up to be like those boys.

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I hope you can join us for the Pub Quiz tonight. You likely have tomorrow off for Thanksgiving, so you can start the celebrations this evening. The heaters will be turned up to eleven! I invite you to join the regulars and irregulars for the social event of the week featuring 31 questions on a variety of topics you should know something about. Finally I get to eat again with The Mavens! Today’s pub quiz is 1031 words long, if we include the answers.

In addition to topics raised above and below, expect questions tonight on the following: rappers, drifting lives, shots, rentals, fancy neighborhoods, tramping, American kings, western heroes, flavors, operatic inspirations, divas, traffic, Hall of Famers, dancers, plots, generosity, crosses, the absence of seeds, boys, nostalgic guilt-casting, baseball, décor, temporary presidents, disastrous Thanksgiving dinners, earth metals, debut albums, sequels, protons, restaurant reviews, drones, drinks, rivers, changed names, cacti, 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! 

Some trivia from last week:

1. Great Greeks. In Greek mythology, who beheaded the Gorgon Medusa?  

2. Unusual Words. Both the common words that contain three consecutive double letters start with the letter B. Name one of them.  

3. Hot Counties. The hottest county in the U.S. is not Yolo County, even though the county in question does have four letters and start with a Y. Name the county.  

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

I wrote a poem about the Washington Monument years ago that contains a stanza that I adapted for my book of poetry about Yolo County veterans coming home after serving overseas.

In 1865, after so much loss, all of us veterans, 

we were unrecovered, still confounded; 

we confronted you wearily.

Sometimes I feel that way about America now, with everything that we’ve been through in recent years, and everything that we continue to go through. So many of us feel like unwilling veterans of an American civil war that we didn’t sign up for.

I had originally written “we confronted you warily,” but then I thought about how tired we must have felt after such loss of life during the American Civil War. I substituted “wearily” for “warily.”

Today we are feeling wary, that is, cautious about ongoing possible dangers or problems, as well as weary, and our weariness can come from many sources.

Sarcopenia starts earlier than we would expect, compelling us to visit a gym or at least to step outside for a walk.

Economic strain and inflationary pressures have inspired recent political campaigns. In Davis, we consider especially the high cost of housing. The economic inequality makes me think of what sociologists call The Matthew Effect: “the advantage of those who already have advantages.” In Matthew 25:29, we learn that “For to everyone who has, more will be given.”

Digital overload and AI-related workplace insecurity encourage many of us to take breaks from our screens (though I appreciate the screen that allows you to read these words).

Sometimes persistent health and public health pressures, such as long Covid, saddle us with caregiver fatigue, even the fatigue coming from taking care of ourselves. An increasing percentage of the food we consume is ultra-processed, meaning that we risk our health even when we just eat what everyone else is eating.

I could go on, but instead I will recall the advice we usually receive when feeling overwhelmed, wary, or weary: 

1. If tasks overwhelm you, break them into smaller steps.
2. Prioritize and focus on what’s essential.
3. Rest, meditate, or take a break.
4. Reduce input and limit notifications or news.
5. Move your body. Your walking shoes or bicycle may be nearby.
6. Ask for help or delegate.
7. Reconnect to breath through slow breathing.
8. Reframe expectations and let go of perfectionism.
9. Hydrate and eat something simple and healthy. Try a food with just one ingredient.
10. Return to routines for stability.
11. Limit multitasking. If possible, limit tasking at all.
12. Use grounding or sensory reset techniques. I read of one psychologist who bites a lemon to reconnect with the now.
13. Talk to someone.
14. Engage in a small pleasure or micro-restoration.

My gathering tonight, with friends, our community, and the small rituals of shared play, remains for me one of the most reliable balms for weariness. As Francis Bacon said, “Friendship doubles our joy and divides our grief.” 

What’s more, on November 20^th, I get to hear live poetry by two of my favorite performers, Julia Levine and Mischa Kuczynski. What an opportunity!

If I’m lucky, I may also get to see you.

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The heaters may be warming us tonight, so I hope you will join me outside. You might want to bring an extra layer to warm your lap. I invite you to join the regulars and irregulars for the social event of the week featuring 31 questions on a variety of topics you should know something about. Finally, I get to eat again with The Mavens! Today’s pub quiz is 959 words long, if we include the answers.

In addition to topics raised above and below, expect questions tonight on the following: nicknames, California landmarks, Senatorial reviews, pilgrimages, juicy parts, mints, monarchies, taxes, odd numbers of decades, tunnels, committed domestics, 2025 tickets, dancing starts, Canadians, hometown baseball heroes, teaching gigs, European cities, wars of independence, jetliners, unsuccessful candidates for U.S. President, skinny writers, immediacy, counties, accountants, hooves, wells, mononyms, places that start with the letter A, Academy Award favorites, laundry, nature categories, hilarious currency jokes, places we spend our time, trading partners, 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

1. Mottos and Slogans. What watch company invites us to “Reach for the Crown”?  

2. Internet Culture. The white-collar job with the largest decline in job postings from 2024 to 2025, with a decrease of 32.7%, has the initials CGA. What do those initials stand for?  

3. Newspaper Headlines. Because his film Megalopolis bombed at the box office, Francis Ford Coppola recently had to sell which of the following: His film production company, his island in Belize, his winery, or his Pokémon cards collection? 

P.S. I will share my entire Washington Monument poem with subscribers on Patreon. Thanks for your support there!

Dear Friends,

This morning I was listening to the “Summer” section of Antonio Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, and the experience brought me back to a visit to Yellow Springs, Ohio during spring break of 1988.

I was driving from Washington, D.C. to Yellow Springs, Ohio in my family’s tan 1978 Checker Marathon, a full-sized, boxy rear-wheel-drive sedan that you might know from Checkers being used as taxicabs in old movies. As large as a van, our Checker featured two compact, hinged jump seats folded up from the partition behind the front seat, meaning that it could seat nine.

Because radio reception faded outside D.C. (the eight-hour trip took me across Virginia, part of West Virginia, and much of rural Ohio), I brought a box of cassette tapes, the plastic cases clicking together like a stack of smooth little bricks. Much of it was classical music, one of my then obsessions. 

I had so much to be thankful for in 1988. I was constantly feeding another of my obsessions, British and American poetry, by poring over the poetry in my textbooks and in my personal library. I was taking great classes with professors such as Christopher Ricks, Derek Walcott, Rosanna Warren, and Harry Thomas. 

My parents were alive and well and living just a couple miles from each other. I was living in my family home on Tunlaw Road in the Glover Park neighborhood of Washington, D.C., so I got to see my mom and brother every day that I was in D.C.

The two grandparents that I knew best were still alive, my best friend Tito was enjoying life at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. We encountered Bill and Ginger MacKaye on Beecher Street. eOur family friend John Davenport stopped by for weekly visits.

All these D.C. people are gone now, their voices echoing in the hilly alleys and sleepover row houses of my memory. I remember them fondly in the oppressively humid city they loved, a temple of artistry and excitement—with its video arcades, 25 movie theaters (see below), The (unblemished) Kennedy Center, and a dozen or more bookstores—a city that sustained my youthful absorption in urban, literary, and cinematic culture. Somehow, I knew to be grateful for what I had.

In that era, I was especially grateful to have just spent a semester studying poetry, Shakespeare, psychology, and urban life in London, England. Most beneficial was my living situation, for kismet and good fortune landed me in the same shared bedroom with Kate. Her nickname at B.U. became “my beautiful London roommate” – my Boston friends had to hear about her constantly.

Kate was the reason I found myself driving for eight hours to get to Yellow Springs, Ohio. I was so enamored of the fast-moving “tempest” movement at the end of the “Summer” section of The Four Seasons, so much so that I kept rewinding the cassette tape. 

Listening to that music again today reminded me that I wanted my favorite section to be playing when I finally arrived in Yellow Springs. As magical as it was, immersed in such beautiful music, I felt that car trip took just too long.

Much like a tone poem, what some critics have called orchestral cinematography, the final movement of Summer erupts in rapid, jagged rhythms with the cellos rumbling like thunder and the violins flashing like lightning across a darkened sky, urging me westward. The rapid scales and syncopation mirrored nature’s violence, but the harmonic turbulence also reflected my own youthful exuberance as I sped across Ohio to see my beautiful London roommate, and future wife, once again.

Postscript.

As regular readers know, I can’t resist a list; when I looked up those old D.C. movie houses, I felt the geography of my youth returning in neon and popcorn. Movies were such a big part of my life back then (my dad was a film critic, and I worked in the Tenley Circle Theatre), so for fun, I list here the D.C. theaters from that era. 

• American Theatre — L’Enfant Plaza, 10th & D Sts SW
• Jenifer Cinema I & II — 5252 Wisconsin Ave NW (2 screens)
• K-B Cinema — 5100 Wisconsin Ave NW
• Outer Circle — 4849 Wisconsin Ave NW (2 screens)
• Inner Circle — 2105 Pennsylvania Ave NW
• Circle Tenley — 4200 Wisconsin Ave NW (3 screens)
• K-B Studio — 4600 Wisconsin Ave NW (3 screens)
• Georgetown — 1351 Wisconsin Ave NW
• Key — 1222 Wisconsin Ave NW (2 screens)
• Circle MacArthur — 4859 MacArthur Blvd NW (3 screens)
• Casino Royal — 806 14th St NW
• K-B Fine Arts — 1919 M St NW (2 screens)
• K-B Cerberus III — 3040 M St NW (3 screens)
• Biograph — 2819 M St NW
• Circle Theatre — 2105 Pennsylvania Ave NW
• Circle West End 4 — 23rd & L Sts NW (4 screens)
• Circle Dupont — 1332 Connecticut Ave NW
• Circle Embassy — Connecticut & Florida Aves NW (2 screens)
• Circle Uptown — 3426 Connecticut Ave NW
• Circle Avalon I & II — 5612 Connecticut Ave NW (2 screens)
• K-B Janus III — 1660 Connecticut Ave NW (3 screens)
• Ontario — 1700 Columbia Rd NW
• Gayety Theatre — 508 9th St NW
• Senator — 3950 Minnesota Ave NE
• Capitol Hill — 507 Eighth St SE

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Tonight’s rain will start after the Pub Quiz has concluded, so I hope you will join me outside. You might want to bring an extra layer to warm your lap during the second half of the competition. I invite you to join the regulars and irregulars for the social event of the week featuring 31 questions on a variety of topics you should know something about. Come early to say hello to my friend and dining companion Jeff. Today’s pub quiz is 960 words long, if we include the answers.

In addition to topics raised above and below, expect questions tonight on the following: southwestern heroes, creative writing programs, Mexicans, ink shapes, tree products, graphics, watches, box office bombs, tennis, Korean bands, more and more sports, longevity, EDM, shared decades, vines and wines, rappers, fire sales, people with three names, fingerprints, hunger abatement, big fans, Metacritic scores, World words, motorsports, veterans, important directors, merchants, mental sports, 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

Thanks to Dan for being my substitute quizmaster when I was made unavailable. Three questions from last week.

1. Mottos and Slogans. Starting with the letter P, what company introduced Jif peanut butter in 1958, later adopting the slogan “Choosy moms choose Jif”?  

2. Internet Culture. Did ARPANET officially switch to using the TCP/IP protocol suite in the 40s, 60s, or 80s?  

3. Newspaper Headlines. What is the topic of the new Ken Burns documentary series that airs on PBS starting later this November?