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

Here are three questions from last week’s quiz:

Four for Four. Which of the following animals, if any, were domesticated by 5,000 BCE? Cats, Dogs, Horses, Siamese Fighting Fish.

Pop Culture – Television. What Andy Samberg TV show was recently cancelled after five seasons?

Another Music Question. Whom did Rolling Stone describe as “the most revered jazz trumpeter of all time”?

P.S. “I will not let anyone walk through my mind with their dirty feet.” Mahatma Gandhi

The Mighty-Mighty Moms Edition of the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz Newsletter

by yourquizmaster on May 14, 2018

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

I hope you enjoyed Mother’s Day. I’ve been thinking about my own mom, who I get to see in DC later this week, and about my wife Kate, who I am seeing right now as I write this.

Because of her ailing knees, When Kate finds herself on a couch or in a restaurant booth, she feels most comfortable when she extends her legs over something sturdy to support her, and that usually means my legs. I’m grateful that Kate is quick to lean on me. I know she misses the constant pressure of our departed bulldog, for Dilly often rested her head on Kate’s feet while she cooked, or snuggled up next to or upon Kate when she would (rarely) sit down in a comfy chair or love seat.

Studies show that our pets make us happier and healthier. In class last week, one of my students nominated “minimize stress” as one of the five ways we can sustain good health. Everyone nodded, but some modified their perspectives on stress after my subsequent lesson on positive psychology and “flow.” I reminded my audience that our writing class and other UC Davis classes seek to strengthen students — strengthen their brains, their habits, their resolve — rather than to eliminate the stressors in their lives. Students who spend a lot of time playing intramural sports or exercising in our Activities and Recreation Center know that they must appropriately challenge and stress their bodies in order to become stronger.

Our family has been relearning this lesson in recent weeks and months, Kate in particular. For instance, while Kate’s knees look as cute as ever, X-rays and MRI imaging suggest possible reasons for her ongoing discomfort. Let’s just say that if Kate were drafted, she could use her two sets of under-kneecap Texas longhorn bone spurs to defer her military service, only legitimately!

But none of the knee issues or other ailments compares in intensity to the severe heartsickness that we all feel in our house, a house that has been without our bulldog for a long and lonely week. At home, Dilly had been Kate’s constant companion, and her absence has brought her and the rest of us unwelcome trials of sadness.

Of course, this mom has been responding heroically. Kate and a friend primed our living room and dining room on Dilly’s last full day on earth, and then painted both those rooms on the first full day that she was gone. On Thursday, the day of Kate’s double knee injections, with strict orders to rest, Kate instead painted two coats in the bathroom, solo. Kate has sought to bring order to the house at a time when we all feel chaotic and unmoored. The new bamboo floor will be installed tomorrow, with a couple Pub Quiz irregulars stopping by late tonight to help us move the heavier furniture off the carpet.

Times like these remind me what a powerful woman Kate is, and how beautiful she is while in action, whether it be spending hours on a tall ladder with funky knees, or walking slowly from the car to the Mondavi Center for our date night seeing David Sedaris. (As an aside, it was David’s sister Amy who said, rather sardonically, “Sometimes losing a pet is more painful than losing a human because in the case of the pet, you were not pretending to love it.”)

While I can quote many writers and humorists on grief or beauty, often at such times I turn to the poetic stylings of the Commodores when thinking of my strong and lovely wife. As we are told in “Brick House,” a song that could have been written for Kate herself, “she’s mighty-mighty.”

I commend my Kate, my mom, and all the mighty and marvelous moms out there who struggle for their families, and become stronger and even more beautiful because of it.

Tonight’s Pub Quiz will feature questions on topics raised above, as well as the following: regal names, unforgettable images, karaoke for small audiences, untold wealth, noisy creatures, unwelcome love letters, the Appalachian Trail, shared authorship, vowel endings, domestication in Siam, the absence of vitality, the measure of a gram, states that start with A, hazards in New Zealand, oceanography, a million dollars, under covers, popular songs, calls and responses, statuary, the meaning of mountains, the Google effect, a defined period of time for comedy, quarter runs, puns with time and money, military service, multicultural authors, African animals, composers who are neither Rod Stewart nor Al Stewart nor Jimmy Stewart, fighting bellboys, the opinions of the writers of Rolling Stone, delightful colors, absent future presidents, ornithology, living where you work, slumping popularity, and Shakespeare.

This coming Thursday night we are featuring a memoirist at Poetry Night: Janelle Hanchett, author of the new book I’m Just Happy to Be Here. A former student of mine, Janelle has been building audiences with her blog for years, and now her book is selling madly. Check out the reviews on Amazon, and then join us Thursday night at 8 the Natsoulas Gallery. Because my son Jukie and I fly out of town early the next morning, I myself won’t be able to attend the after-party, but the reading and open mic will be memorable and well-attended. Next week’s pub quiz will be hosted by James Haven, the longtime player who did such a good job on April 30^th. I will see you tonight.

Your Quizmaster

Here are three questions from last week’s quiz:

Yet another question about U.S. States. What is the only U.S. state to border the Canadian provinces Manitoba and Saskatchewan?
Science. According to an April 30th publication in Circulation magazine, Harvard researchers say five things will help you live longer, and the list isn’t all that surprising: 1) exercise, 2) eat a healthy diet, 3) maintain a healthy body weight, 4) don’t drink too much, and WHAT?
Sports. The LA Dodgers recently put what left-handed pitcher on the disabled list with biceps tendinitis?

The Interrupted Sleepover Edition of the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz Newsletter

by yourquizmaster on May 7, 2018

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

Usually when a dad returns to the site of the sleepover, the hosting parent has called with the news that the kid in question wants to sleep in his own bed, after all. This past Saturday afternoon, I returned to fetch our 12-year-old without being called. One of the assembled boys asked, “Why does Truman have to leave?” The eyes of the hosting mom were misty as we walked to the car.

During the drive to the South Davis Veterinary Center, we talked about illness and death. I reminded Truman that while all creatures die, some come to the point in their illness when they can or should be offered a “good death” (from the Greek: “Eu” for good, as in “euphoria,” and “Thanatos” for “death”). Euthanasia spares a pet unneeded suffering at the end of his or her life.

Truman endured the lesson unwillingly. From his perspective, the car couldn’t move fast enough along Covell Boulevard towards South Davis, and by the time we pulled up to the vet, he jumped out of the car and ran into the empty lobby of the veterinary office, not knowing in which direction to run to find and embrace his bulldog, Dilly.

Daffodil “Dilly” Jones joined our family in March of 2012, having been improbably discovered at a kill shelter in Modesto. Seeming full-pedigree English bulldogs are not often found in such shelters – we’ve often wondered if she had escaped from a puppy mill – for breeding bulldogs is an expensive and difficult enterprise. We were on a rescue list for a French bulldog, but the kindly woman who saved Dilly told us of this particular dog’s angelic disposition, a necessity for this family eager to meet her. We didn’t know if Dilly was one, two, or four years old, but we loved this wheezy and jowly gargoyle immediately, welcoming her to our home and into our hearts.

Although thinner and with a forlorn look in her eyes, the version of Dilly with whom Truman reunited Saturday afternoon looked not much different from the one we adopted all those years ago. Half in my wife Kate’s lap, and half comfortably stretched across her favorite maroon blanket, Dilly was repositioned into Truman’s arms as soon as he sat next to her on the floor of the examination room.

“Is today her last day?”

“Yes, I’m afraid so.”

The four of us used up a box of Kleenex before Kate, Jukie, and Truman said their last goodbyes, reminding Dilly that she was the best dog our family could ever have hoped for, and that we would keep her alive in our hearts.

Then I alone was left to comfort our family’s first dog, and, as Truman told us, our only dog ever. Dr. Mueller and Angie the vet tech had stayed after closing hours to attend to Dilly, a longtime favorite patient, for the last time. She could not have asked for better care.

Dilly was already calm, so not much sedation was necessary to help her relax further and into sleep. I thought she had quickly fallen asleep when a distant and unanswered office phone began to ring. Hearing the fourth ring, Dilly looked up at me, seeming to ask, “Are you going to get that?” The ringing continued, echoing in empty offices, as she drifted away.

I told Dilly that she was loved, that we were grateful for the affection and devotion that she shared with our family. The last thing she heard in this world was that she was a good dog.

Afterwards, the darkness in the hallway of the South Davis Veterinary Center matched my demeanor as I clutched Dilly’s blanket and strode uncertainly towards the exit, and then stepped, blinking and diminished, into the late afternoon sun.

The next day I told my son Jukie that Dilly would not be coming home, that she was gone. Our non-verbal boy signed “all done” to me, and then fetched one of his favorite books, Elmo’s New Puppy, leafing through the pages while holding his plastic bulldog.

Tonight’s Pub Quiz will feature questions on the following: privacy laws, Avengers, words that end in Z, Katie Couric, great Americans, people in holes, skeletal calcium, Rolling Stones, Washington Post headlines, islands, private emptiness, authors with monosyllabic first names, Circulation magazine, Canada, variants, principal photography, the difference between micrograms and milligrams, Netflix and Uber, urchins that have been bitten by the Oscar bug, Gertrude Stein, actors who can’t help but work for Disney, 11% margins of error, prominent mothers, languages other than English, people named Washington, vitamins, karate, colds, abecedarians, not sake, transportation costs, people born in Germany, freedom, profound thanks, the age of Love’s loss, movies with short names, food science, a question of trust, subjects of Suzanne Vega songs, and Shakespeare. Sadly, “Be Best” came too late for today’s pub quiz. Sorry, Melania!

I hope you can join us tonight, for I look forward to catching up with some friends. Speaking of friends, if you and your team can convince the largest number of friends to sign up for this free newsletter, I will reward your team this evening with a bread pudding. Remember to bring this to my attention before the kitchen closes!

Your Quizmaster

Here are three questions from last week’s quiz:

Classic horror movies. What movie franchise debuted in 1980 and went on to have nine sequels between 1981 through 2001, a cross over movie in 2003, and a reboot in 2009?

Countries of the World. Justin Trudeau is the Prime Minister of Canada, but who is its head of state?

Actors and Actresses. First name Joan, what Chinese-born actress who now lives in San Francisco came to prominence for her work on the film The Last Emperor?

P.S. Thanks to Quizmaster stand-in James, whom I hear did a spirited and effective job substitute-hosting the Pub Quiz last week. It helps to entertain such many talented people when one is looking for substitute quizmasters. Thanks also to the team Quizzers with Attitude for giving up one of their strongest players. See you this evening!

The Storytelling as Meditation Edition of the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz Newsletter

by yourquizmaster on May 1, 2018

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

My Washington Waldorf School education came in handy often while I was earning my undergraduate and graduate degrees in English. Master teacher Jack Petrash patiently and continually told my classmates and me stories that were filled with magic and wonder. Because many of these stories were also central myths and parables of the world’s religions, and because many of them recounted the foundational narratives of world literature, I have drawn upon that deep well often in class and in conversation, providing context for students, for example, as reminders of what we should know in order to be educated.

Such narratives are even more important for what they do for us, rather than just because of the new information that we carry in our heads. Jack Petrash was patient in the retelling of these stories, in this way he taught us patience, too. Listening to a long story is a kind of meditation that we become practiced at when we are children, if we are lucky, and become unaccustomed to when we are older, choosing instead to chase after distractions on big screens and small. Partly for this reason, I have returned to listening as a form of meditation, consuming a couple books a month while bicycling to and from campus.

Stories are important, too, because of their transformative effect, and even, to coin a term, their transportative effect. Art critic John Berger puts it this way: “When we read a story, we inhabit it. The covers of the book are like a roof and four walls. What is to happen next will take place within the four walls of the story. And this is possible because the story’s voice makes everything its own.” Reading is liberating for the imagination and the soul.

Aristotle famously spoke on the transformative emotional effect a great play can have on its playgoers. My grade school teacher Jack Petrash introduced me to Aristotle in the 1970s, and at UC Davis I’ve been lucky to teach a number of sections of “Introduction to the Principles of Literary Criticism: Plato to Coleridge” in the intervening decades. Nothing roots a seminal text like Aristotle’s Poetics in one’s mind more than teaching it; the patient professor is reminded that teaching itself can be a form of meditation, a form of storytelling.

I’ve thought a great deal about Aristotle’s concepts of “pity and fear,” of “discovery” in the plot of a literary work, and of the necessary qualities of a character who is worthy of an investment of time and attention. Great rewards await readers who engage in such identification. As George R. R. Martin once put it, “A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies . . . The man who never reads lives only one.” One also takes risks as a reader, for the person who consumes great works of literature – and perhaps this might also be said about stirring films – might also experience many deaths, giving each of us a different sort of reflective process that focuses necessarily on departures, on loss.

Such losses remind us intellectually of the ephemeral quality of life, but the jury is still out on whether such literary and cinematic losses can prepare us for the more bracing life challenges that await us. As Shakespeare says, “Everyone can master a grief but he that has it.”

Tonight’s Pub Quiz will feature questions on topics raised above, as well as on the following: Wesley Snipes, Woody Harrelson, animated characters, Marvel movies, comedy, notable queens, active predators, world initiatives, blizzards, notable losses, domiciles, actresses, big games and matches, legislators, memorized lines of poetry for National Poetry Month, the unexpected groupings of monosyllabic nouns (such as dance, fur, gas, light, and sound), emperors, architects, heads of state, population counts, classic films with sequels, poetic pronouncements, U.S. presidents, magic, wildcats, angry adjectives, deficiencies, odd-numbered years, stopping only when sated, food and drink, and Shakespeare.

As I will be hosting a bonus poetry reading with Jane Hirshfield this evening, for today is the last day of National Poetry Month, today you will be quizzed by a substitute quizmaster, James Haven. James describes himself this way: “James Haven has been a DeVere’s pub quiz regular for over the past five years. He moved to Davis in 2008 to finish his BA in Philosophy and, since 2009, he has been employed by the city of Davis in transportation services for the elderly and disabled. He grew up in the Fellowship of Friends, a pseudo-cult located in the foothills of Yuba County where he was exposed to classical music, art, all things Greek, and Shakespeare (the only plays the youth acting troupe were allowed to perform). James enjoys the nerdier things in life including Dungeons & Dragons, Magic the Gathering, and the marvel comic universe especially the X-Men (DC comics need not apply). James is probably most recognized in Davis by his adorable Corgi companion, Lord Buckingham Reginald McMorecourt Chesterfield or “Bucky” for short.” Intriguing!

I hope you will still join us for the fun. I may be able to return in time to help with the grading. Thanks very much to James for stepping in for me this evening.

Your Quizmaster

Here are three questions from last week’s quiz:

Mottos and Slogans. Nicknamed “The Sport of Kings,” what was an Olympic sport from 1900 to 1936?

Internet Culture. According to a headline in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, “Who Has More of Your Personal Data Than Facebook?”

Newspaper Headlines. Which of the following stars of the 2013 comedy film Last Vegas today is older than the marriage of George Herbert Walker Bush and Barbara Bush? Robert De Niro, Michael Douglas, Morgan Freeman, Kevin Kline.

P.S. Poetry Night is also Thursday. See Poetry in Davis for details. You should really attend one of the poetry readings I host before we all die (decades and decades from now, I’m sure).

The Twiney Handles and Red Canyons Edition of the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz Newsletter

by yourquizmaster on April 17, 2018

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

Some people delight in complaining about their ails and travails on social media. I myself do not. So when I contracted a debilitating case of poison oak over spring break, one that later became a staph infection, almost nobody knew about it. “To live is to suffer,” Nietzsche said (the Buddha might also have said something similar), and “to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering.” So over the last couple weeks I got to practice my willpower, and to reflect on the mind-altering side effects of the drugs I was prescribed. As this is National Poetry Month, I also found myself “finding some meaning” by writing poems, including one I unveiled at a Davis Arts Center reading yesterday, titled “Prednisone.” Containing a Pub Quiz allusion right at the start, this poem will stand in for my newsletter this week. Enjoy.

Prednisone

Ladies and gentlemen, it’s time for prednisone.

Yes, it’s prednisone, that oral steroid

and immunosuppressant that will cure what ails you!

When I told my doctor, himself a former marine,

that I was feeling a bit off, as if I had been topped off,

actually filled to the brim, and beyond the brim,

when I told him that because of the prednisone

maybe I was ‘roided up

like the strut-damnable villain in an action movie;

when I told him all this I could tell that he was taken aback.

His chair actually moved backwards.

He reminded me that prednisone differs significantly

from the anabolic steroids taken by professional wrestlers,

weekend weightlifters,

and high-school linebackers with muscle dysmorphia.

This drug prednisone is a horse of a different color.

I asked him, Is it a rainbow horse? Time to saddle up!

Tell me more about the side effects, doctor!

Talk me through my feelings. Be my therapist! Earn your co-pay!

Prednisone! It’s a corticosteroid!

Perfect for conditions such as arthritis, blood disorders, breathing problems,

severe allergies, skin diseases, eye troubles, and immune system disorders.

I wondered how one drug could be perfect for so many troubles.

Medical science seems to be dumbing down the standards for perfection.

Even more fun than the disorders would be the side effects.

These include weakness, weight loss, nausea, muscle pain,

headache, tiredness, and dizziness.

Ha! Where do I sign?

Not typically a drug user, once too tough for Tylenol,

and unaccustomed, for example, to caffeine,

my body responds to medications atypically, and intensely.

I wanted to tell the good doctor that I was a special case,

a sensitive poet, if you will.

At least I was sensitive before the prednisone.

Weight loss? Yes.

I finally dropped down to 160 lbs this week,

training weight, fighting weight,

but otherwise the side effects don’t apply:

I am feeling strong, rather than weak,

awake, rather than tired,

and tightrope sharp, rather than dizzy.

Someone bring me a tightrope.

What could go wrong? I’m on prednisone!

Boy, you look nice this evening.

Speaking of wrestlers, I will just move this couch for you by myself

with my remaining good arm.

That’s OK, I don’t need help carrying in these twelve bags of groceries,

for I am insensible to the many ways their plastic twiney handles

cut red canyons into my poison oak hands, my ragged claws.

I think we deserve a song at this juncture.

Nobody asked me to scat right about now, but that won’t stop me.

Brace yourself for my fricatives, plosives, and open vowels.

Anticipate my arpeggios as they inform the melodic lines

like a blooming calla lily, each petal a riff, you know,

a rough, the good stuff, the sniffed snuff.

This is the good stuff.

Come on, come on, help me do.

I’ve been feeding the rhythm.

Help me feed the rhythm.

The aging bulldog stops on each stair,

but is nevertheless eager to ascend to the second floor

where her mistress awaits.

Every household should have a Queen of Sheba.

Wishing to encourage the bulldog, I skip

up the stairs next to her, and then run back down.

I take the stairs two at a time

next to her, and then run back down.

She’s almost there. I take the steps three at a time.

Cassius says that Caesar “doth bestride the narrow world / Like a Colossus,”

but nobody speaks of jealous Cassius today.

Meanwhile, the bulldog is still climbing.

Hey Bulldog, some kind of innocence is measured out in years,

and you don’t know what it’s like to listen to your fears.

I commend you for your effort, dear bulldog,

but my new friend prednisone

and I beat you to the top of the stairs.

Knock knock!

In additions to some of the topics raised above, tonight’s pub quiz will feature questions on the following: bank robberies, notable universities, narrowness, football teams, books mentioned on the Times Online website, Persian legends, crime-fighters, lurches towards extinction, the one that got away, our silent seas, the end in mind, Pulitzer Prizes, angels in America, hearts, poetry in April, troublesome transitions, Tonya Harding, butterflies, automatic trust, the wives of race car drivers, data plan deserts, Disney films, mythical creatures, shadowy mangoes, brooks and rivers, plastics, U.S. presidents, manifestations of expressions, world capitals, the state of looming, current events, and Shakespeare.

After the jump, look for some information about Thursday’s Poetry Reading at the Natsoulas Gallery. We have Modesto poet laureate Stella Beratlis, and award-winning Stegner fellow Dana Koster. Meanwhile, I love how busy the pub has been on our Mondays together. I hope you can join us this evening.

Your Quizmaster

Here are three questions from last week’s quiz:

Black Panther. Last week the film Black Panther claimed the number three spot on the all-time domestic box office chart, not adjusting for inflation. What film did it displace from that position?

Anagram. What can make landfall in Northern California from October to April? Hint: The correct answer is an anagram of the common phrase ALPINE SEX PEPPERS.

Charles Darwin. What is the name of the Cherokee-class 10-gun brig-sloop of the Royal Navy that is most closely associated with Charles Darwin?

P.S. Here’s the poetry reading information I promised you:

Poets Stella Beratlis and Dana Koster will read in Davis on April 19th!

The Poetry Night Reading Series is proud to feature two notable Modesto poets: Stella Beratlis and Dana Koster. They will perform on Thursday, April 19th at 8 P.M. at the John Natsoulas Gallery at 521 1^st Street in Davis.

Stella Beratlis is the Poet Laureate of Modesto. Beratlis grew up in a Greek-American family in Northern California. Her work has appeared in Quercus Review, Penumbra, Song of the San Joaquin,In Posse Review, California Quarterly, and other journals, as well as in the anthology The Place That Inhabits Us: Poems from the San Francisco Bay Watershed (Sixteen Rivers Press, 2010). She is coeditor of the collection More Than Soil, More Than Sky: The Modesto Poets (Quercus Review Press, 2011). Beratlis is a librarian in Modesto, where she lives with her daughter. Alkali Sink is her first collection of poems.

Lee Herrick, author of Gardening Secrets of the Dead, writes of Beratlis, “Stella Beratlis writes unforgettable poems that stir inside you long after you’ve finished reading them. Alkali Sink is simultaneously domestic and wild, urban and rural, full of surprises and wisdom. Your axis may shift after reading this remarkable book. Beratlis is a fierce talent whose beautiful mind encompasses the land, the open road, the kitchen window, and the heart’s inconstancies. Her first full-length collection is one of the best debuts I have read.”

Reading with Stella Beratlis will be Dana Koster. Dana Koster was born in St. Paul, Minnesota and grew up in Ventura, California. She earned her English degree from UC Berkeley and MFA in poetry from Cornell University. From 2011-2013, she was a Wallace Stegner Fellow. She lives in Modesto, CA with her husband and sons, where she works as a wedding photographer.

Koster’s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in EPOCH, Indiana Review, Southern Humanities Review, The Cincinnati Review, PN Review, Muzzle, Thrush Poetry Journal and many others. She has work in the anthologies Drawn to Marvel: Poems from the Comic Books, Haiku of the Living Dead and More Than Soil, More Than Sky: The Modesto Poets. In 2012, she was the recipient of a Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Prize and a Theodore Christian Hoepfner Award. Her first book, Binary Stars, was published by Carolina Wren Press in 2017.

The World Autism Awareness Day Edition of the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz Newsletter

by yourquizmaster on April 3, 2018

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

In her blog, titled Thriving in Holland, my wife Kate has written eloquently about the importance of April 2^nd as World Autism Awareness Day. She opens, “On this day, we shine a light on autism in the hope that those living with autism will feel less alone and know that people around the world celebrate, support, and welcome their difference, their uniqueness.”

I originally recommended that Kate add the word “blue” to that light we shine on autism, acknowledging the efforts around the globe to raise awareness exemplified by the blue lights that today illuminate some of the world’s most famous landmarks, including the statue of Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro, the Empire State Building, and the tallest building in the world, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai.

Even though our family shall be wearing blue today as we celebrate our boy Jukie, Kate pointed out to me that many people with autism feel uncomfortable with the organization behind the “Light It Up Blue” campaign, Autism Speaks. Founded a dozen years ago by GE vice chairman Bob Wright, Autism Speaks has been accused of deploying disease metaphors when addressing autism. We might wonder if autism should be “cured,” for example, when people with autism see autism as inherent to their sense of themselves. They express similar concerns about rooting out the causes of autism, in part because of concerns about choices people might make once we have a better understanding of such causes.

Any parent of a child with autism, such as Kate or myself, becomes an advocate for autism awareness in the act of advocating for a beloved child. And Jukie’s loss of skills and language when he was young continues to be a source of heartbreak for us. All that said, people with autism rightly question the extent to which well-meaning advocates may functionally silence those people with autism because of the focus on proxies, such as parents and organizations, rather than those who might more accurately and eloquently speak on behalf of those with a version of this syndrome, the people with autism themselves.

Indeed, an author friend of mine in Japan saw my retweet of Kate’s link to her blog entry and responded with typical insight: “It’s evident that your support comes from a place of love. You might not know, though, that many many #ActuallyAutistic people (including me) feel that Autism Speaks (the #LightItupBlue folks) do[es] harm to autistic people. You can read here, for example: http://metro.co.uk/2018/03/26/this-is-why-i-will-never-light-it-up-blue-for-autism-awareness-we-do-not-need-a-cure-because-autism-is-not-a-disease-7408706/ .”

I agree with the opinion shared in that Autism Speaks critique that we should all show more respect and love with people with neurological variance, and that more people with autism should serve on the board of such organizations. I also know that if he were asked to serve, our wordless and curious boy Jukie (whose particular form of regressive autism deserves newly-discovered and better therapies and treatments) would quickly grow bored by the required meetings. Jukie would lead me out the boardroom door into the bustle of E. 33^rd Street so that we could gape like hayseed tourists at the actual Empire State Building which towers over New York a block from the Autism Speaks headquarters. And then our nature boy would walk me over to nearby Bryant Park or Madison Square Park to see how Manhattan playgrounds compare to those in Davis, California.

And I would follow Jukie to where he takes me, because that’s what I do, on World Autism Awareness Day, and every day. Happy April 2^nd!

Tonight’s Pub Quiz will have an international flavor. Expect also questions on constant improvement, Louis Armstrong, lists of records, walled settlements, W.E.B. DuBois, the problem with sin, Russian cities, early start times, a break from the children, Catholic research, Al Antz, National Poetry Month, Jimi Hendrix, canine nicknames, millions of thrillers, an odd use for glass, capturing General Washington, prime numbers, Burkina Faso, trips to earth, jogged memories, notable people named James, reasons to visit London, Jim Morrison, your cute uncle Noel, remixes, cartoons, the French navy, foreign languages, facts about plants, volatility, Swedish exports, candy, Trump Tower regrets, Janis Joplin, words that rhyme with taxi, and Shakespeare.

Thursday night is Poetry Night in Davis. Join us April 5^th at the Natsoulas Gallery. We gather at 8 PM to hear from out of town poets Richard Robbins and John Dooley.

See you tonight!

Your Quizmaster

Here are three questions from last week’s quiz:

Science. Not rodents, rabbits are instead what L word?

Books and Authors. Born in Pakistan, the Trump critic author of the book This is Our Constitution: Discover America with a Gold Star Father was written by an author whose first and last names start with the same letter. Tell me that letter.

Current Events – Names in the News. Today we learned of the death of Linda Brown, made famous by a hallmark 1954 Supreme Court case. In what state did Linda Brown attend elementary school?

The Steadfast Bravery of the Children, our Leaders, Edition of the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz Newsletter

by yourquizmaster on March 27, 2018

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

As we marched for our lives up Capital Avenue towards the growing and boisterous crowd on 10^th Street, the sounds of the chants echoed off the sides of the tall office buildings on either sides of us. Sometimes a chant would start farther east from us, a distant and rhythmic roar, and then finally be heard and discerned by the time the chanting surrounded us, filling us with energy and resolve, like ancient warriors marching into battle.

The difference is that these were signs of peace that we saw all around us. A rainbow sign implored: “DON’T PROTECT GUNS. PROTECT US.” It was held by a child. Another said “ARM TEACHERS WITH RESOURCES, NOT GUNS.” Another said, “PACK LUNCHES, NOT HEAT.” Every sign celebrated the lives and innocence of children, the commitment and importance of teachers, and the steadfast bravery of those Americans who are taking on the National Rifle Association.

The sights were inspiring, but mostly I noticed the sounds. With so many children present, the chants and cheers resounded at an octave higher than one might expect at a political march. And I heard joyful greetings from people I know. The Campus Counsel of UC Davis was walking his bike and his kids when he called out “Dr. Andy!” I pointed out to him that we had run into each other at about the same place at the first Women’s March in 2017.

Some people greeted my son Jukie by name, including our friend Joe, the Superintendent of the Davis Cemetery. He was carrying a long pole with an American flag, reminding us all that, as Thoreau said about Americans, “Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty.” Landfalls author and Pub Quiz fan Naomi J. Williams took a picture of Jukie and me, and soon it was accruing likes on Instagram. I feel lucky to know so many admirable Davisites!

The people around us who we didn’t already know were just as friendly as those who knew us. The man behind us noticed my son’s interest in his gummy worms, and offered Jukie a handful. Once I looked away for a moment, only to discover Jukie picking lint of a stranger’s wool coat. The man in wool halted my reprimand in mid-sentence, saying that he was a special education teacher, and that my son was doing a great job being patient and attentive. Later when Jukie started to walk off, ten or so of the people around us made sure I knew where he was. So filled with kindness and civic responsibility, chanters at a progressive rally are some of my favorite strangers.

At times overcome with emotion, reminded often of the occasion that generated the expressions of love and concern, I tried to be still and just take in the moment. The sound system for the adults and children who were chosen as speakers was not strong enough to reach us, even though we were near the front of the pack. First I tried to listen, but then I took to imagining how much my experience was like Jukie’s, whose receptive language is limited (though he knows every day that he is cherished). Like Jukie, I knew that people were speaking, but our ears couldn’t make out, or need to make out, what was being said. Instead, Jukie and I just noticed that we were surrounded by love, the sort that is necessary to confront acts of evil or derangement, the sort that is necessary to draw every young person into our circle of respect and caring, the sort that is necessary to transform a protest into a movement.

Holding Jukie’s hand in the noonday sun next to the towering capitol, standing upon the Seal of California with its promise of idealism and progress,, and almost hearing the proclamations of resolve from the teenagers on the capitol steps, I was filled with optimism and hope. I couldn’t help but think of Isaiah 11:6: “The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them.”

Many celebrate a spring break this week. If that is you, I hope you will join us tonight. You might need a break from your break. Tonight expect questions on some of the topics raised above, as well as on the following: Kings and queens, famous siblings, military might, African-American firsts, apologies, Michael Pollan, outdoor companies, Inuit culture, American gangsters, additional luck, wicks, pensions, George Bernhard Shaw, Super Bowls, unexpected good fortune, doing something about the weather, Starbucks, Indian exports, car brands, the U.S. Constitution, scientific categories, Science in March, zanier jabs, currency, heart healing without surgery, nicknames, teenagers, hypochondriacs, axis accidents, family zoos, titles of ponies, Oscar-winners who are civilians, domestication, what to do with your final quarter, date nights, and Shakespeare.

I hope you are up to something. As Tolstoy says in Anna Karenina, “Spring is the time of plans and projects.” See you tonight, and Happy Spring!

Your Quizmaster

Here are three questions from last week’s quiz:

Name the Category. All the following belong to what category? Archeology, barbecue, chimney, fan, paint, pastry, wire.

Pop Culture – Music. I am thinking of an American conductor, pianist and composer who is the music director of the San Francisco Symphony and artistic director of the New World Symphony. His name is Michael Tilson WHAT?

Sports. I’m thinking of a 20-year-old Haitian-American-Japanese professional tennis player who yesterday won her first to win the first title of her career yesterday. Her first name is Naomi, and her last she shares with the third most populous city in Japan, where she was born. Name the city.

P.S. Poetry Night is April 5^th. Add that to your calendar now, while you are thinking of it.

The Benevolent Commander of Trees Edition of the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz Newsletter

by yourquizmaster on March 19, 2018

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

Someone once called me “Davis Famous,” and since then I’ve wondered if she was complimenting me, or describing a box that encloses me. A teacher herself, my friend was probably also pointing out that, like so many other faddish things in life, fame is to be mistrusted. “A good commander is benevolent and unconcerned with fame,” Sun Tzu said. I try to be benevolent without even being a commander.

Some of these things are in our control, and some are not. As John Wooden warns, “Talent is God given. Be humble. Fame is man-given. Be grateful. Conceit is self-given. Be careful.” American philosopher and poet Henry David Thoreau took it a step further, saying, “Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.”

We can’t always account for how we might get noticed. Perhaps more people have heard my voice during my dozen or so appearances on Capital Public Radio and my dozen or so appearances on local TV (including last week on Channel 13), than during the 18 years of my public affairs radio show on KDVS. It might be that more people saw my TV commercials for Kid Power Shoes and Billy the Kid Action Wear (I only did commercials for companies that had the word “Kid” in their names and that would eventually go out of business) than saw my made for TV movie about Down Syndrome. It might be that more people saw me on The Oprah Winfrey Show in 1992 than who saw my TV commercials, made for TV movie, and appearances on local news in the 1970s and 1980s, combined. And most likely more people heard me talk about poetry on the BBC World Service, the world’s largest international broadcaster, with a listenership of over 300 million, than saw me on Oprah, with an audience typically ranging from 25-50 million.

But what does all that matter now? More meaningful to me has been the number of people who have stopped me at functions in Davis to say they appreciated my eulogy tribute poem to Susanne Rockwell, a delightful friend and “benevolent commander” of writers and do-gooders, a local hero who passed away last month. More meaningful than the publication of my first three books of poetry has been the “publication” of my most recent book, titled 25. Containing one secretly written love poem for each of my 25 years of marriage to Kate, 25 had a print run of just one. As I have joked, this is only somewhat smaller than the print runs of my previous books. But handing it across the table to its entire intended audience has been worth more to me than all my “fame,” whether it be Davis fame or exposure to an audience outside 95616.

Somewhat related to all this, I will quote Kate from something she posted on Facebook this morning:

On Saturday, Truman looked out the window and said, “someone’s put a new sign in our yard.” I asked him to read it to me:

With stronger eyes than mine, he could make out the words: “The new lovers kissed each other’s cheeks beneath a weeping willow with a long memory.”

“Sweet – I wonder who wrote it — that’s not what I expected,” I said, Later while walking around, I noticed similar looking signs with different poetic messages, all about trees, posted all over town. One read:

The tree’s myriad branches,

present a thousand different ways

to begin a single answer: YES.

And another:

After a long hike, seek rest.

The strongest trees

quiver solitary atop

the tallest hills.

What a lovely, tree-hugging town I live in — we sure do love our trees, I thought! When I mentioned to Andy how much I liked the signs, he asked me who wrote them.

Hmmm, lemme look…oh! Andy Jones, Davis Poet Laureate wrote them. Was I the last to know that my husband’s words were celebrating the City of Davis’ 40th Anniversary as a Tree City USA? And now one can find 20 such micro-poems all over town. What a fitting tribute to a city that loves its trees! 🌲🌳🌴💚

P.S. This morning, Jukie’s bus driver read the sign about new lovers on our front yard, and asked Andy if he and his wife need to be “new lovers,” or if he can go ahead and kiss her cheek beneath the weeping willow. “Go for it,” he responded. I suppose that eventually people turn to their local poet on matters of the heart.

Thanks to Kate for providing the emotional center of this week’s newsletter.

Tonight’s Pub Quiz will concerns issues raised above, as well as the following: ploys for hog gyms, islands of witchcraft, salaries for school-teachers, path-finders, pastries, barbecues, chimneys, fans, term memory and term limits, speeches full of thanks, barnyard adventures, home improvements, antibodies at work, Disney on TV, glee back east, GDP, heroic upstarts, multitudes of governors, multiple K names, arcane lenders, imagined success, humours, words with six syllables, best-sellers, architecture, classical music, the pulse of studies, Haiti, motivations to launch, Apples, and Shakespeare. Today I saw a trending story that platypus milk might save us from bacterial infections. Too bad the pub quiz is already written, or I could include that, as well.

Happy belated Arbor Day, and happy belated St. Patrick’s Day! I hope we can fill de Vere’s Irish Pub as we did on Saturday. See you at 7.

Your Quizmaster

Here are three questions from last week’s quiz:

Books and Authors. Once best known for his short stories, what George’s novel Lincoln in the Bardo won the 2017 Man Booker Prize?
Actors and Actresses. What Oscar-winning Cockney octogenarian actor who introduced Woody Allen to Mia Farrow has said that he will never work with the Academy Award-winning director again?
Science. Hot air balloon burners burn a liquid form of a three-carbon alkane with the molecular formula C3H8. Name it.

P.S. Did I tell you that with my head-shaving stunt I was able to raise more than $3,000 for children’s cancer research? If you want to see the names of the people who contributed, or add your name to their ranks, for there is still time, please visit http://bit.ly/balddrandy. By now, my hair is already starting to grow back. As I told one friend, “My hair is returning so quickly that I feel like Wolverine.” Thanks to the first family of Davis (according to me), Lucas and Stacie Frerichs, for their recent donation to the cause.

P.P.S. A reminder from Rilke: “Make your ego porous. Will is of little importance, complaining is nothing, fame is nothing. Openness, patience, receptivity, solitude is everything.”

The Anonymous Hero Fights Cancer While Remaining Unrecognized by his Wife and Kids Edition of the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz Newsletter

by yourquizmaster on March 13, 2018

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

One of the great advantages of living in a small city like Davis is that I can always count on running into friends whenever I head downtown. Sometimes people greet me before I recognize them, and sometimes people greet me whom I don’t recognize at all. This used to happen to my dad all the time in Washington D.C. While he had the added disadvantage of being functionally blind, I nevertheless learned some lessons from him in patience and grace as he was approached by all sorts of well-wishers who knew him from his regular film and theatre reviews on TV. I will also know a larger percentage of people on the streets of my town than my dad did on the streets of his town. Never having partaken in the crutch of Facebook, he nevertheless did a better job than I did in remembering names. Of course, he was also a magician.

But since I got my recent haircut – OK, it’s more that I was shorn like a shocked and bleating sheep – another dynamic has manifested: People who know me don’t recognize me. In downtown Davis, I can walk right past acquaintances without their making eye contact or recognizing who I am. And then Friday, I was waiting in front of our favorite Irish Pub, where I told my wife Kate I would meet her, and she looked right past me, as if I were an invisible ghost or someone worthy of a snub. We love our bald friends, but Kate’s eye is not yet trained to look for such people when out and about (and I stay away from mirrors altogether).

Our son Jukie was walking several yards ahead of his mom and was heading into the Irish pub when his dad’s voice appeared from seeming nowhere, telling him to wait for his daddy. Jukie had walked right past me, not only not stopping for a customary hug, but this time also not seeing me at all. I felt like a spy in my own city, a master of disguise who could infiltrate unseen, even though others who know me well had been alerted to my presence.

And then Friday night at a fundraiser that I was hosting for the local Rotary club, I got to unleash my now recognizable voice on a roomful of 200 people who were wondering if I had shaved my head in order to look older – more distinguished, like Charles Foster Kane at the end of the Orson Welles movie – or to look younger, to pretend like Bruce Willis that my new baldness was purposeful, rather than to conceal how old, grey, and balding I would be if I were to let my hair grow.

Either way, at the fundraiser local dignitaries and Pub Quiz occasionals presented me with cupcakes that, like the celebrant, had been recently shaved, only of frosting rather than of hair. What a hoot to be both mocked and fêted in the same ceremony, as if I were both myself, and this new guy, a member of the bald guy club who can walk the streets of Davis undisturbed, unstopped, and unrecognized. Yesterday I suspected that it took B Street Theater founding artistic director Buck Busfield about two minutes of conversation before he remembered who I was, as if I was unaccountably wearing a costume to a non-costume party.

We will see how long my new anonymity lasts. Meanwhile, thanks for the birthday wishes online and in person, and thanks to everyone who has donated or continues to donate to my ongoing fundraiser fighting children’s cancers, this weekend and beyond. You still have time to give, and help me break $3,000 raised for children’s cancer research. It is a Cause célèbre, even if the minor celebrity espousing it has been functionally forgotten. Here’s the link.

And here are some clues for tonight’s quiz. In addition to the topics raised above, expect also questions about garrulous villains, funny nicknames, American authors, burners, keyboards, large connections, big cities, tournaments, rising stars, notable ends, favorite continents, fast chaps, Thailand, balloons, Greek mythology, molecular formulae, repeated diction, crickets, spousal introductions, diversification, notable Americans, rates of occurrence, surprises for inventors, Spanish and English, the question of SI, hardened ivory huts, final tracks, silly announcements, thoughts about numbers, metaphorical birds, German scientists, baseball, generous plans, four notables, bus rides, San Diego, and Shakespeare.

Poetry Night is Thursday! This time we will feature DR Wagner and Dave Boles. Join us March 15^th (the Ideas of March) at the John Natsoulas Gallery for a performance by these standout poets.

Your Quizmaster

Here are three questions from last week’s quiz:

Mottos and Slogans. A favorite among musicians and their pets, what 1966 Beach Boys album was originally promoted with the slogan “the most progressive pop album ever”?
Internet Culture. Amazon has recently revealed it will stop selling latest-generation smart thermostats and other space-age gadgets from Nest. What California-headquartered company owns Nest?
Newspaper Headlines. What single country is the top exporter of steel and aluminum to the U.S.?

The Name-Dropping with Uncle Roy Edition of the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz Newsletter

by yourquizmaster on February 26, 2018

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

Cicero said that “The life of the dead is placed in the memory of the living.” Confronting death at every turn, I have been exercising my memory this past week, as I suppose a good poet should.

Last Monday while hosting the Pub Quiz I received word that a longtime colleague and an important figure to the cultural life UC Davis and the City of Davis had passed away unexpectedly from the cancer that she had been battling over the last year. UC Davis web editor and Sunrise Rotary stalwart Susanne Rockwell brought encouragement and cheer with her wherever she went, as well as a discerning intellect. Looking over emails and social media messages from Susanne and her husband Brian, I find statements of appreciation for the various Rotary events that I had hosted or contributed to over the years. No doubt many people benefitted from her goodwill, for over 400 friends, colleagues and admirers attended her celebration of life Saturday. Hers is a great loss to our city. At the end of this newsletter, I will share the poem that I wrote and performed for Susanne’s service.

While I was listening to the eloquent speakers at that service, I received word that venerable local poet and retired Sacramento City College Professor Jerry Fishman had died. Jerry came often to the Poetry Night Reading Series that I run on first and third Thursday nights, challenging listeners with long poems that were delightfully informed by urban and radical sensibilities.

I celebrate the lives of these friends, but in the newsletter today I am going to take a moment to remember my Uncle Roy Meachum, a veteran columnist and broadcast journalist who contributed mightily to my life in over five decades, and who died on Wednesday, the 21^st of February. He is notable for what he did – he was a script-writer for First Lady Lady Bird Johnson, he was a TV and radio broadcaster in Washington D.C., and he was a thoughtfully-progressive columnist for a number of paper and online newspapers, most notably for 20+ years at the Frederick News Post. But Uncle Roy was also famous for the people he knew. He had a close friendship with, among many others, Duke Ellington and with Jack Valenti, the man who brought us the actual movie rating system we use today when he was president of the Motion Picture Association of America.

If you are curious, you could review this column, one of hundreds, on time that Uncle Roy spent with Bob Hope and Danny Kaye during World War II. Here’s another favorite, titled “White House Days,” in which Uncle Roy recounts his conversations with Mamie Eisenhower, Jessica Tandy, Helen Hayes, and Marian Anderson. My mom even appears in this one, as Roy accompanied her to a Ford White House function when my father was out of town. Although Roy recognized friends on the White House staff, the post-Watergate tone was much different from what he had remembered in that same building when Johnson was in charge.

Having been born in 1926 in New Orleans, Roy once told me that a kindly and impossibly old African-American man named Joseph who took care of him when he was a little boy. Also from New Orleans, Joseph had been born into slavery. I tell that story to my students whenever I make the point that slavery in America and the War Between the States are not as distant as we would like to think. I typically finish that anecdote by saying, “And my Uncle Roy is still alive!” Now I will need to give that story a new ending.

Rest in Peace, Roy Meachum. Thanks for being a kind and intellectually energetic uncle for decades before you actually married my Aunt Sharon. In Frederick, Davis, and St. Petersburg, you will be missed.

Tonight’s Pub Quiz will touch upon topics raised above, and also pose questions on the following: Rivets, authors named Emily, the Winter Olympics, toast, U.S. News and World Report, world capitals, names with seemingly too many vowels, mythical creatures, other newspapers, best-selling authors of the 19^th century, bodies of water, rejected heroes, the futility of quietness, big cities, congress people, ice baby, notable professions, name changes, China and the definition of “east,” exports, blowing winds, notable playwrights, Yolo County, Russian favorites, girls who deserve a shout-out, the south, Canada harbors, popular TV, people named Hamilton, late animators, Redding, successful Republicans, a few topics I haven’t chosen yet, and Shakespeare.

Poetry Night offers a wide-open mic this coming Thursday, March 1^st. Bring a musical instrument or a poem to the John Natsoulas Gallery at 8 P.M. We would love to see you on stage.

See you tonight!

Your Quizmaster