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

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

Here are three questions from last week’s quiz:

Mottos and Slogans: California Edition. The new slogan of the home county of Disneyland is “Around the Corner, Ahead of the Curve.” Name the county.

Internet Culture. The acronym PDF most commonly stands for what?

Newspaper Headlines. Finish this recent headline with a proper name that starts with S. “Apple Shipped More Watches than BLANK in Q4 2017.” Hint: 11 letters.

P.S. Here’s the poem I read for Susanne Rockwell on Saturday:

Susanne’s Smile

(for Susanne Rockwell, 1952-2018)

Bathed in California sunshine,

a book in her hand,

a smiling ginger traveler sits on the dock,

her feet submerged

in the waters of a still pond.

She is surrounded by family,

some of them also her relatives.

“Families” sprouted around her,

whether they be international young tourists visiting her home,

her Friday morning Rotary buddies,

charged with incrementally saving the world,

or the coworkers whom she mentored atop the administrative building.

They were all drawn to her automatic smile.

The pond that submerged the feet of the ginger traveler

a book in her hand,

is filled with the still waters of compassion.

Look how she kicks with glee, how she roils the pond’s waters,

creating wave upon wave of benevolence, of kind-heartedness.

The waves splash upon the ankles of members of her family,

some in Spain, some in Maine, some on nearby shores.

She’s gone now,

but the ginger traveler’s waves in the still waters,

fueled by kindness, attention, and memory,

still roll outward in ever-growing concentric circles.

The traveler’s waves of compassion continue to comfort,

continue to inspire smiles almost as wide as hers,

continue to envelop us all.

The Unexpected Therapy Pig Encounter Edition of the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz Newsletter

by yourquizmaster on February 20, 2018

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

Imagine living on top of one of the steepest hills in San Francisco, and having to walk your arthritic bulldog a few times a day. The InterContinental Mark Hopkins San Francisco Hotel is surrounded by irrational inclines and concrete, with drop-offs immediately out the door when one walks north, east, or south. That left my bulldog Dilly and me only one choice, to walk west from this storied structure at 999 California Avenue, from which I write these words this morning. In that direction, one finds Huntington Park, which from Dilly’s point of view is Nob Hill’s dog sanctuary, and Grace Cathedral, where 5,000 people gathered to hear Martin Luther King, Jr. speak on the occasion of the completion of the cathedral in 1964 (having been started in 1928). My family and I gathered there ourselves just yesterday, staring up in awe at this magnificent structure.

Here for the San Francisco Writers Conference, an event that I’ve attended each of the last 13 years, I have been enjoying sampling urban life. From my bedroom window, I can see the Trans America Building, the Union Square neighborhood, the hills of Oakland, and even a Macy’s. Here since Thursday, I’ve grown used to the sound of the elevator taking revelers up to the Top of the Mark, and, many stories below, the cables always dragging those tourist-transporters known as San Francisco’s cable cars at a steady 9.5 miles per hour. I find it hard to believe, and regrettable, that while more than 30 American cities once had cable car systems (including cities in Rhode Island, Missouri, Montana, Oklahoma, and Oregon), San Francisco’s is the only such system that is still operational.

I brought my favorite Davis author with me on this trip, my wife Kate, and she has given me permission to conclude this newsletter with a Facebook post she wrote to accompany a photo collage representing our third full day in “The City by the Bay” (one of San Francisco’s ten nicknames, most of them disparaged by locals). Find her words below, and the hints thereafter.

Over dinner tonight, we recounted our favorite moments from Day Three in the City. For Truman, attending a “Teaching Poetry to Children” panel at the San Francisco Writers Conference made his list. He wrote and then performed a poem on the spot. In the park, Dilly made friends with a talented therapy pig named Lilou. Except for writers and the son of Charles Schultz, Lilou was our only celebrity sighting all trip. Jukie enjoyed pruning the fruit trees he encountered, and running full speed straight down the city’s vertiginous hills. I loved stepping into Grace Cathedral and happening upon the choir practicing with pipe organ accompaniment. Andy said his highlight was waking up next to me, our hotel suite illuminated by a hint of sunrise and the lights of San Francisco. When I told him I couldn’t include that, he said, “why not — it’s accurate.”

After dinner (Indian food, which Truman described as “unexpectedly good”), we found ourselves almost down to Fisherman’s Wharf, a few miles from the Mark Hopkins Hotel, with the temperature dropping a gazillion degrees, and the Pacific trade winds picking up. As none of us was keen on trekking back up to the top of Nob Hill, we hopped on the Mason Street cable car with the rest of the freezing tourists. Jukie had been hoping for some amusement park time on this mini-vacation, so he finally got to spend time on a one hundred-year-old “ride.”

We come home Monday afternoon. As Rudyard Kipling once said, “San Francisco has only one drawback. It’s hard to leave.”

In addition to topics raised above, tonight’s Pub Quiz will feature questions about the following: occupations, Dana Gioia, portability, San Francisco, abutments, lyrical questions for angels, apples, the nature of wonder, jealous poets, DNA, articles in The Atlantic, rear admirals, Mediterranean views, California counties, Oscar-nominated films, Lil B, bars in sketchy neighborhoods, Frank Sinatra, demonic names you should know by now, butterflies, the differences between miles and kilometers, metaphorical and actual mortar, ancestors, new words, European countries, the last word in clarity, expensive rides, great Americans, national student clearinghouses, corners and curves, and Shakespeare.

I expect that I will substitute at least one of these questions from the next chapter of my book Pub Quizzes: Trivia for Smart People. I sold a number of copies of my latest book at the conference, as well as copies of my three books of poetry. I hope you had an equally fruitful holiday weekend.

See you tonight!

Your Quizmaster

P.S. Here are three questions from last week’s quiz. You will also find some, with answers, in every Sunday edition of The Davis Enterprise.

Two-syllable D words. What two-syllable D word, an adjective, refers to sounds that are sweet and soothing? Think antonym to “obstreperous.”

Books and Authors. Whose works of poetry include “Paul Revere’s Ride” and The Song of Hiawatha? The answer to this question will also be mentioned in a question I ask you this evening.

Film. The highest-ever-grossing film that starts with the letter M, the 14^th highest of all time, came out in 2015. Name the film. Although I own this film, I would not list it among my top 200 favorites.

P.S. You are also working on a writing project of some sort, right?

The Super, Callous, and Fragile Edition of the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz Newsletter

by yourquizmaster on January 22, 2018

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

The first time I attended the Women’s March in Sacramento, I wasn’t sure what to feel. At first, I wondered if I, as a man, should even be there. Maybe women didn’t want to share the spotlight with me and other men like me, even though I saw myself as an ally to the women in charge. Secondly, I wondered if I participated primarily because I wanted to support the organizers and participants, or because I wanted to take part in some grand national celebration of authentic democracy.

My family has a history with inaugurations. A Washingtonian since the mid 1960s, my mom lives not far from Capitol Hill, so she walked over to see President Obama’s inauguration, securing a viewing spot only a few blocks from where that former constitutional law scholar and lecturer would take the oath of office. And in the last century, about a decade after she and my dad moved to town, she also took my brother and me to watch the post-inauguration parade down Pennsylvania Avenue, where we saw the new President Carter walking on his historical journey from the Capitol to his new home in the White House (walking down a public street against the recommendations of the Secret Service).

Having always commemorated the peaceful changing of executive power, I again wanted to celebrate something worthy and historical on the day after Inauguration Day, 2017. I remember that back then many people held out hope for the best from this new president – maybe the office would help him mature, some said – while many of us braced ourselves for the worst. And, of course, the worst was what we got. The excesses, failings, and scandals of the Trump presidency are ongoing, and too numerous to list here.

Nevertheless, we are fortunate that the checks and balances encoded into American democracy exert an analogous force at a level above the three-branched government. When the electorate believes the government is exerting insufficient control, thus letting the creative forces of chaos run amuck, they might elect a “law and order” candidate as U.S. President. On the other hand, when government leaders become totalitarian, despotic, and too illiberal for our tastes, we the people remember the meanings and responsibilities of democracy, and we storm the proverbial gates. As we don’t have a Bastille to overrun, we must find a proverbial key, and the key to the gates of power in this country is the ballot box. As one protest sign put it on Saturday, “GRAB ‘EM BY THE MIDTERMS.”

Women are answering the call. In a recent essay in The Cut, titled “The Other Women’s March on Washington,” Rebecca Traister quantifies the resolve felt by American women seeking to participate in the political process, sparked in part by last year’s march: “To date, 390 women are planning to run for the House of Representatives, a figure that’s higher than at any point in American history. Twenty-two of them are non-incumbent black women — for scale, there are only 18 black women in the House right now. Meanwhile, 49 women are likely to be running for the Senate, more than 68 percent higher than the number who’d announced at the same point in 2014.”

At the Women’s March this year, I found the tone and rhetoric to be more mature, less raw, and more resolved than the year before. My wife Kate and I brought our two sons to both Sacramento marches, and noted some important differences between the two; we also learned a few practical lessons. First of all, we arrived a lot earlier this year, and as a result situated ourselves towards the front of the crowd preparing to leave Southside Park on T Street. Some of those eager to start the parade seemed to have brought kettle drums, while others brought their trumpets. The resulting cacophony provided a hint of Mardi Gras.

Secondly, we noticed that the crowd was less shocked and angry this year, and more resolute. We could tell the difference in the nature of the chants, and in the tone of the protest signs: this year the signs were even more creative, more assertive, and more insistent on political action. A few favorites include “WAKE UP AND SMELL THE KREMLIN,” “I’VE SEEN SMARTER CABINETS AT IKEA,” and “SUPER CALLOUS FRAGILE RACIST SEXIST NASTY POTUS.”

Finally, the was a Return of the Jedi feel to the march and the marchers, as if the California home team had grabbed the momentum in this conflict. Since Donald Trump ascended (descended?) to the presidency, in special elections voters have pivoted left, and voted blue. I bet most Alabamans didn’t know who Doug Jones was a year ago, and now our newest U.S. Senator is America’s canary in the industrial coal mine. Likewise, nobody expected such a radical shift in Virginia state politics, exemplified by this lede sentence in a November 8, 2017 Washington Post story: “Virginia’s most socially conservative state lawmaker was ousted from office Tuesday by Danica Roem, a Democrat who will be one of the nation’s first openly transgender elected officials and who embodies much of what Del. Robert G. Marshall fought against in Richmond.”

During the speeches in Sacramento, I saw some local public servants and Facebook friends up on stage, including Davis’s own uber-politician Don Saylor and future mayor (one can hope) and occasional Pub Quiz participant Lucas Frerichs. The MC was a boisterous Sacramento poet, and thus a member of one of my tribes, and the head of the Muslim girl scout troupe, who brought the best speakers of the morning, was one of my UC Davis faculty researcher colleagues. Despite all these welcome connections, the goodwill was not reserved only for rediscovered friends and other recognized affiliates. Even before the rousing speeches, the entire event had a Whole Earth Festival tone to it, with everyone sharing goodwill and bonhomie.

Kate and I realized that during the march and as we gathered to hear speakers, we were surrounded by kind and committed people who were preparing to act, to mobilize, and, for many of us, to run for office. As the Ukiah-based singer and activist Holly Near put it, “If you have the guts to keep making mistakes, your wisdom and intelligence leap forward with huge momentum.” The women who organized and lead the march convinced me that momentum is on their side, and that our country is due for a welcome turn back towards democracy. I look forward to marching alongside such patriotic advocates for equality and justice through every such turn.

Tonight’s Pub Quiz will feature questions on horses, as well as the following topics: final act exculpations, alien invasions, the Oregon Trail, redheads, best-sellers that you’ve actually read, monsoons, fourth speeds, states that start with T, Irish sights and sounds, self-service opportunities, the women who are doing it for themselves, wishes fulfilled, new inductees, racing imaginations on an evening that featured no naps, disqualified earth, favorite films, recognizable Frenchmen, linguistic diversity, protein from haggises, that which is wetted, marvelousness, great lakes, stubborn lions, mechanics, sugar kanes, elegy for a loser, that which can and cannot be copywrighted, furloughs and shutdowns, the search for direction, and Shakespeare. Some questions may warrant more than one hint, more than one answer.

Thanks for reading to the end, and I look forward to seeing you this evening for the Pub Quiz. Science!

Best,

Your Quizmaster

Here are three questions from last week’s quiz:

Newspaper Headlines. In a closed-door immigration meeting last week President Trump revealed that he wants more people to move here from the happiest country in the world, at least according to the 2017 World Happiness Report. Name the country.
Mental Calculations. My son Truman was doing some dividing with the calculator and came up with the number 14.285714285714286. What smallest possible whole number did he divide by what other smallest possible whole number?
California Counties. The most populous county in Northern California was established in 1850. Name it.

P.S. I will have copies of the book Pub Quizzes: Trivia for Smart People with me at tonight’s Pub Quiz. A friend of mine heard that a third mutual friend had ordered five copies, so he ordered six. That’s the sort of competition I can get behind.

P.P.S. In March I will be raising some money to fund research into childhood cancers. If you care about this cause, please be thinking about how much you would be willing to donate. More to come.

The Antagonists with Bullhorns Edition of the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz Newsletter

by yourquizmaster on January 15, 2018

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

As I prepare poems to read at today’s celebration of Martin Luther King at the Sacramento Convention Center, I wonder what tone I should strike. Should I read something with the grain, benignly celebratory of shared values, or against the grain, drawing our attention to the social justice challenges that we continue to face? It’s not difficult to find antagonists to confront, politically or poetically.

Probably the most famous of the political and cultural antagonists of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was George Wallace. After Wallace was elected governor of Alabama as a Democrat (ouch!), with no Republican standing up to oppose him, he insisted on being sworn in standing on a gold start that marked the spot where Jefferson Davis had been sworn in as the President of the Confederate States of America. Wallace’s first speech as Alabama’s Governor in 1963 contained his most famous line, and one of the most prominent public pronouncements of racism in the 20^th century: “In the name of the greatest people that have ever trod this earth, I draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny, and I say segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.” Later that year he used similar rhetoric when he himself physically barred African-American students from enrolling in the University of Alabama.

Ironically, Wallace had been endorsed by the NAACP when he first ran (unsuccessfully) for Governor in 1958, for in that campaign he talked about improving roads and schools, but had lost to a candidate who inflamed racist tensions and divisions in Alabama, promising to keep African Americans from participating in the political process. Wallace himself adopted this strategy in subsequent elections. Like many villains of American politics, Wallace not only heightened divisions, but villainized those he opposed, primarily African Americans. Using the power of his bully pulpit and the media, Wallace convinced voters that such villains were to blame for their own tribulations in life. In his book The Politics of Rage: George Wallace, the Origins of the New Conservatism, and the Transformation of American Politics, historian Dan T. Carter points out that Wallace’s supporters saw the civil rights movement as an indication of the “erosion of the cultural values that underlay the social system.” When he ran for President in 1968, Wallace won a slate of southern states, including Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, and Mississippi. To this day, Wallace is the most recent third-party candidate to have earned pledged electoral college votes from any state.

I would like to say that our politics have changed significantly since George Wallace was earning votes. Certainly, today’s Democratic party would differ with Wallace on almost every issue, and the name of George Wallace the politician is not as well known today, with schoolchildren in many states learning about the racist former governor of Alabama only from Dr. King’s most famous speech, in which the segregationist is not even mentioned by name:

“I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of “interposition” and “nullification” — one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers. I have a dream today!”

But in many ways, there is much more work to be done. We still have lessons to learn from the man whose life we celebrate today. Reverend King’s words still resonate with us today because of their uplift, their hopeful message about Americans being defined by our shared ideals, rather by our divisions. Even in King’s lifetime, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibited “recipients of Federal financial assistance” (including sheriffs and the police) from engaging in acts of “discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin.” Other protected categories have been added since then, thus writing into law the application of American egalitarian and democratic ideals. With King and other leaders as our examples, I look forward to seeing how we might continue to strive towards those ideals, in 2018 and beyond. Happy Martin Luther King Day!

Tonight’s Quiz will feature questions about some of the topics raised above. Even the Shakespeare question will have a MLK theme to it. Expect also questions about cities with revealed similarities, Special K, Johnny Depp, Capricorn and other astrological signs, median heights, tart fruits, 24 pins, collective joy, Machiavelli, Liam Neeson, Las Vegas, Nobels, answering calls, botany, Kirk Douglas, big grosses, birthday presents, Germany, small coins, people named Tobin, famous novels, cities named after counties, favorite vegetables, Gary Oldman, American sitcoms, anticipating feathers, authoritarians, continental electricity, baseball teams, songs about singing, northern California, fun with calculators, and, as has already been mentioned, Shakespeare.

This coming Thursday night is Poetry Night in Davis. Trinidadian poet and storyteller Angela Davis and reformed lawyer Laura Rosenthal will be the featured performers at the Natsoulas Gallery at 8. You should join us!

Thanks to everyone who came to my book release party Friday at the Avid Reader. I will have copies of the book Pub Quizzes: Trivia for Smart People with me at tonight’s Pub Quiz. See you tonight!

Your Quizmaster

Here are three questions from last week’s quiz:

Mottos and Slogans. Found in Riverside County, Indio, CA uses the slogan “City of Festivals” because of cultural events held in the city every year. What is the most notable such festival?

Newspaper Headlines: New Laws for 2018. On January 1 of this year, which of the following became the last state in the nation where drivers are not allowed to pump their own gasoline around the clock? Is it New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, or New York? It’s true that people in Oregon now have to pump their own gas.

Four for Four. Which two of the following novels were written by Charlotte Brontë? Agnes Grey, Jane Eyre, Vilette, Wuthering Heights.

The Goals of Wine and Fancy Crackers Edition of the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz

by yourquizmaster on January 9, 2018

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

Many people are making resolutions this January, but how many of us will keep them? I’m reading a new book on this topic: Your Best Year Ever: A 5-Step Plan for Achieving Your Most Important Goals. In it productivity and leadership researcher and guru Michael Hyatt explains what sort of beliefs and habits limit us, how we are often haunted by our pasts, why we need to reflect on the best and necessary qualities of the goals we set for ourselves (and then write the goals down), why we set goals in the first place, and what tactics best help us take action and achieve the results we wish.

With regard to goals, I’ve read about the need for SMART goals for years. Hyatt insists that we make “SMARTER” goals, goals that are specific, measurable, actionable, risky, time-keyed, exciting, and relevant. I appreciate the addition of risk and excitement to the typical productivity consultant’s review of goals, for I for one like to push myself, that is, to take risks, and nevertheless to engage in actions that I enjoy. I should have completed this process at the end of December, I suppose, but right now I am working on my list of ten or so goals for the year. Now that I own Michael Hyatt’s new book, I will also spend some time considering the extent to which I can and should apply his criteria to the goals I have set.

Happiness researchers—and wouldn’t you like that job?—have determined the characteristics of happy people. Often, they compile and explain these habits and attributes in books, compelling those of us who seek out happiness to follow up to see if, when we adopt the habits of happy people, happiness itself will soon follow. When I first started teaching undergraduates as a nervous 23-year old, long before I had inherited any of my father’s ties, one of my mentors told me to embrace the imposter syndrome, to “pretend” to be confident and successful in the classroom. Before long, I was convinced by my performances, and so were my students. It can be like this with happiness, the researchers say. Impersonate a happy person, and before long your smile will feel unforced.

I have set a goal of selling a bunch of copies of my new Pub Quiz book, and to come out with a follow-up text (that is, the second in the series) by November of this year. Because Michael Hyatt wants me to make my goals actionable, and because I enjoy spending time with all of you, I have scheduled a book release party at the Avid Reader this coming Friday, January 12^th, at 7:30, and I would be pleased if you could attend. I will be reading from the introduction to Pub Quizzes: Trivia for Smart People, running a brief pub quiz right there in the bookstore, and then answering some questions that I did not write, including tricky questions about my early attempts to keep separate, or even hidden, the different personae that I adopt on different days and nights of the week. I will also have available some wine and fancy crackers.

If you have written down some goals for 2018, I would like to know what they are, especially the ones you consider RISKY and EXCITING. The title character of the new film Molly’s Game might point out that the Pub Quiz, like a game of poker, if a game of skill, not chance. That said, the smartest teams don’t always win. That must be why we don’t see so many of my UC Davis faculty colleagues: losing at the Pub Quiz, which has happened to just about every player I know except for Joshua Clover, can be a humbling experience. Humility, like failure, can be a path to nobility, which, I suppose, should be a goal for any of us in 2018. As Ernest Hemingway said, “There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.”

Tonight’s Pub Quiz will feature questions on at least one of the topics raised above, as well as the following: writing implements, productive Poping, that Amelia (who is always getting lost), a heightened loss of control, written names, spousal hires, generous blessings, so forths right up the middle, bombshells, numbers that end with 6, the need for pumps and pumping, misinterpretations of “Funkadelic,” Australia, metabolism, fair exchanges, accounting for meters, seats of federalism, pretty flowers, more counting, Irish women, monologues, Amazon reviews, coming in third, damnable seagulls, faded red/read pigment, 40-year achievements, textiles and fabrics, perfection, flammables, dork moths, American Kings (so to speak), billboard categories, contests with unusual vote-getters, people named Agnes, cowboys, the last of the new, gasoline, yearly festivals, riverside attractions, what ladies like, nine-letter words, highs and lows, Microsoft Word, elasticity, tabulations, transitions, last words, and Shakespeare.

I taught my first winter journalism class this morning, and Oprah has not yet announced that she is running for President of the United States. What’s new for you?

As was the case last week, one of the questions on tonight’s quiz will come from an early chapter of my new 350-page book, Pub Quizzes: Trivia for Smart People. They have copies at The Avid Reader, and there will be some for sale at the Quizmaster’s table at the pub. I have two left before the next print run arrives on Thursday. Although I hope you can join us on Friday, I also hope you will buy your copy at the Pub tonight so I can thank you in person.

Your Quizmaster

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

Internet Culture. Fill in the blank on this number one trending calorie-related Google query of 2017: “How many calories are in a BLANK Frappuccino?”
Newspaper Headlines. Will and Jada Pinkett Smith have been married for years, though not as long as my wife Kate and me. How long have they been married? 5, 12, or 20 years?
Four for Four. Which of the following civil rights leaders were born in Alabama? Ralph Abernathy; Coretta Scott King; Martin Luther King, Jr.; John Lewis.

The National Hangover Remedy Edition of the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz Newsletter

by yourquizmaster on January 2, 2018

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

Happy New Year! The political opinions expressed in this newsletter reflect only those of your Quizmaster. If you want to review some comments from readers who challenge or support these opinions, review a version of this essay in this the January 1 edition of The People’s Vanguard of Davis, and via the iPinion Syndicate.

In 2016, David Bowie and Prince died unexpectedly, and I was crushed. In 2017, Chuck Berry and Fats Domino passed away, and I was saddened. These inevitable endings remind us of our mortality, and of our powerlessness. Your love for Prince could not have saved Prince. He walked a path independent of your path, no matter how many of his songs you may have downloaded. At the end of 2017, we learned that France will miss Johnny Hallyday, and Mayberry will miss Gomer Pyle, but there’s nothing you could have done for these musical stars who likely didn’t sing to you.

To my mind, the greatest losses of 2017 were not people, but bedrock American values upon which we had come to depend. In 2017, I lamented the loss of important abstractions, such as respect the United States had earned from other nations, executive branch adherence to the laws and guidelines in our Constitution, and, perhaps the most valuable of all, our hard-earned traditions of our democracy. Unlike with the final curtain calls of favorite singing stars, this loss was our fault. As a nation, we elected Donald Trump.

While voters in red states mistakenly thought they were electing a Republican, complacent voters in blue and purple states missed the warning signs. We know now that we had ignored the rust belt and the people who lived there, we underestimated the anger of low-information voters, we failed to understand the extent that resentment, racism, and nationalist anger had taken hold of people with whom we largely chose not to interact. We had failed to recognize or confront our nation’s new enemies, such as alt-right internet trolls, and Russians who had weaponized our national digital distractions of Facebook and Twitter.

We believed, normalized, or neglected to defy the central “political” and entertainment figure who kept the media busy, and thus we elected a liar, a huckster, a flimflam man, a charlatan, and a self-hyping bigot. We somehow believed him when he said, “I alone can fix it,” even though, as Luke Skywalker says in The Last Jedi, “Every word in that sentence was wrong.” As we examine our current era’s calculating army of storm-troopers — the media manipulators, necktie-wearing xenophobes, and Russian provocateurs — we see that Trump depended upon collusions with such allies in order to rip up the social conventions of truth-telling and decency, and thus has begun to dismantle our representative government.

The difference between the loss of our musical heroes, on the one hand, and American Democracy, on the other, is that together we actually can fix the latter. We can band together, open our eyes, understand our nation’s enemies, foreign and domestic, and we can make some different choices. In 2016, we as a nation took some terrible risks, with terrible and embarrassing results in 2017. In 2018, we can take steps to address our nation’s ills, to confront outside agitators and domestic bigots. Women are stepping forward to run for office, as are people of color, LGBT folks, and a great variety of resolved and sometimes enraged citizens who have awakened to the military and ecological threats to Americans, and to humankind.

The recently-passed tax bill reminds us of the ways that we are not protected by the bubble over Davis, or the bubble over California. By eliminating some of the deductions we enjoyed for the significant state and local taxes we pay, the crafters of this partisan experiment in political punishment have disincentivized the investments we make in local schools — Davis schools are some of the best in the state — as well as the contributions we make in local non-profit organizations that champion our Davis values and causes.

We awaken on the first of the year as if suffering a hangover from a party we did not mean to attend. We all have felt the ill-effects in 2017, but the morning sun can bring with it a hope for change, for correction of our grievous national error. I look forward to supporting–with rhetoric, with contributions, and with deeds–those leaders who share our concerns and our outrage, and who seek to forge a new path of action, of resistance. In doing so, we might return to the bipartisan American values that have emboldened us during our historical battles with tyranny and fascism.

At the beginning of a new year, we must take heart, for I believe we are ready for this challenge. As Winston Churchill famously said, “Never give in — never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.”

Even though January 1^st is a holiday, we are still meeting for the Pub Quiz tonight, and I hope you can join us. Those who participate will find questions about the following topics: sentries, spousal devotion, gas supplies, abandonment, regal responsibilities, 1.3 million Americans, April popularity explosions, prominent chairmen, geology, what smart people know, Dave Chappelle, undersea creatures, curious shadows, notable disappearances, Mars, oil reserves, folklore, holiday threats, theatrical west, the jobs of actresses, fantastic women, titles that are never explained, what must be shown to a gentleman, lucrative residencies, and Shakespeare. Do you subscribe to the Pub Quiz newsletter via email? The version that comes out Monday mornings in the mail will have a few more hints than what you find here.

One of the questions on tonight’s quiz will come from chapter one of my new 350-page book, Pub Quizzes: Trivia for Smart People. They have copies at The Avid Reader, and there will be some for sale at the Quizmaster’s table at the pub. I hope you will buy your copy at the Pub tonight so I can thank you in person.

I hope you enjoyed the holiday break, and I hope to see you tonight for the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz! We start at 7, but I expect a New Year’s Day crowd, so you may want to come early to secure a table.

Your Quizmaster

P.S. Here are three questions from the Pub Quiz from December 21^st, 2009. Adjust accordingly.

Art and Art History. What is the subject of the most famous painting by James McNeill Whistler? I saw my favorite Art History professor in the Pub just yesterday!
Sports. George Gipp, Johnny Lujack, Joe Theisman and Joe Montana all played football for the same university. Name the university. Joe Theisman was kind to me when I met him at the theatre.
Science. Starting with the letter H, what is the branch of zoology concerned with the study of amphibians? E.B. White said that “Analyzing humor is like dissecting a frog. Few people are interested and the frog dies of it.”

P.S. Once about eight years ago I asked the local Andy Kaufman-style author and comedian Chris Erickson to guest-host the Pub Quiz when I was out of town. That experiment worked moderately well, and compelled some Pub Quiz regulars of that era to check out some of Erickson’s performances. Well this coming Thursday, Erickson is back, reading and performing characters from his fictional pieces as only he can. I hope you will join us for the January 4 Poetry Night featuring Chris Erickson. We start at 8 at the John Natsoulas Gallery.

The Unbreakable Ornaments Edition of the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz Newsletter

by yourquizmaster on December 18, 2017

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

I love the way that my wife Kate loves the music that she loves. She smiles, hums a bit, and almost shimmies with her shoulders, making me grateful as I watch her inhabit the music. In many ways, our musical tastes overlap. When she and I met 30 years ago this fall, we discovered that we shared a love of Bob Marley, Paul Simon, Aretha Franklin, and Suzanne Vega. Later together, and in person, we discovered Greg Brown, Mumbo Gumbo, and Too Many Zooz.

All that said, if Kate leaves the room while I am working from home, the music usually changes to some of my favorites that antedate our first meeting, including the music of Ray Charles, Rick James, Parliament Funkadelic, and James Brown. I often feel that I am kin with James Brown.

But on a recent evening when Kate ventured out to dine and catch up with a group of her closest friends, I did not switch off the Christmas choral music she was playing while preparing for her evening. The songs she had chosen were resonating with me, and they helped me refocus my thoughts on our family and our home this December.

Traditional holiday music, and for us that means primarily Christmas music, serves to connect us with rituals of yesteryear. When I was a child, we did watch some screens together, such as the yearly broadcast of It’s a Wonderful Life, the classic 1946 film that celebrates the end of World War II as much as it does Christmas, but mostly as families we actively participated in rituals together.

As a youth, I would walk with my mom to the Christmas tree vendor in our Georgetown neighborhood of Washington D.C., and then trudge back through the snow, dragging a Christmas tree that grew heavier by the block. Back home, I remember feeling the warmth of Christmas surround me, along with the smell of fresh pine. We would hang the same impossibly fragile ornaments that my grandmother had hung on trees in Pennsylvania when she was a girl. A few broke every Christmas, and by the time we sold our DC home in 1989, there were none left.

Those ornaments were unboxed as my mom sang along with the 1960 Nat King Cole album The Magic of Christmas. As I hear exalted choral voices share the magic of those carols now, and as I reflect on family Christmases of yesteryear, I realize that these were some of the few songs for which we knew all the words, even those of the obscure secondary verses about visiting angels:

Still through the cloven skies they come

With peaceful wings unfurled

And still their heavenly music floats

O’er all the weary world;

Above its sad and lowly plains

They bend on hovering wing.

And ever o’er its Babel sounds

The blessed angels sing.

Yet with the woes of sin and strife

The world hath suffered long;

Beneath the angel-strain have rolled

Two thousand years of wrong;

And man, at war with man, hears not

The love song which they bring:

O hush the noise, ye men of strife,

And hear the angels sing.

For lo! the days are hastening on,

By prophet bards foretold,

When, with the ever-circling years,

Shall come the Age of Gold;

When peace shall over all the earth

Its ancient splendors fling,

And all the world give back the song

Which now the angels sing.

Those angels still sing to us today. Whether you look for guidance from the unnamed angels in different versions of the biblical Christmas story, from what Abraham Lincoln called “the better angels of our nature,” or, as I do, from James Brown, we all hope our holiday breaks provide inspiration and togetherness. Uplifted by music that might make us feel less weary and that might hush the “men of strife,” we should all get to work on creating or renewing holiday traditions with loved ones, the traditions that will garnish our future memories like so many unbreakable ornaments.

Tonight’s Pub Quiz is the one where I arrive with copies of my Pub Quiz book for sale, $20 each. More on that after the hints.

Tonight’s pub quiz will feature questions on issues raised above, as well as on wookies, Michael Jordan, oranges, lost daughters, hipsters, bewitched sisters, rivalries, food staples, the color yellow, librarian choices, cubic feet, face dots, P as in proton, the color blue, William Faulkner, birds of prey, self-propelled vessels, government agencies, prized absences, California raisins, satisfactory driving, coveted Oscars, wildness incarnate, swift prey, singer-actors, a chapter per character, the importance of titles, Old French expressions, Instagram, inclement weather island visits, indigenous people, representatives that deserve impeachment, arts and crafts, retail clothing choices, choices of the Irish middle class, people named Quincannon, gross registers, American slavery, large cats, and Shakespeare.

Copies of Pub Quizzes: Trivia for Smart People have been picked up at the printer and are now on their way to Davis. I hope you will buy a copy or three this evening at the Pub Quiz. At 350 pages, 33 full-length quizzes, and over 1,000 questions, Pub Quizzes: Trivia for Smart People will keep you and your fellow holiday revelers busy, especially if sharing trivia questions is part of what you call revelry, as I do. You can stop by to buy a copy tonight even if you don’t plan to participate in the quiz. I will also have a signup sheet for people who want copies delivered to Davis friends and family on Friday. While the delivery is free, holiday gift-wrapping and/or gift-bags, to be provided by my daughter who arrives home from college Thursday night, will be $3 extra (for I will have to pay her). Use this form to register your intent to buy a book.

I hope to see you tonight for the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz! We start at 7, but I expect a crowd, so you may want to come early to secure a table.

Your Quizmaster