Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

My son Jukie and I saw a fascinating musical at the Veterans Memorial Theatre Friday night. The Mystery of Edwin Drood is based on the last novel Charles Dickens started to write. Dickens would have finished it if he hadn’t died in the middle of the composition process. Insofar as we have no indication of how Dickens planned to finish this half-written novel – complete with male impersonators and exotic socialites from Ceylon – Rupert Holmes faced some challenges when adapting the novel into a Broadway musical.

Holmes decided to involve the audience, having members of the audience indicate by applause and, later, tallied interviews with individual audience members, which of the play’s characters they wanted to function as the detective, the lovers, and the murderer of Edwin Drood. The challenge to the actors, then, would be for different actors to perform the impassioned revelatory solos at the end of the play, when they had no way of knowing beforehand if they would be called upon to triumphantly conclude the play. The Davis Shakespeare Ensemble should be commended again for putting on such a thrilling show, with phenomenal acting and singing. Great fun!

I enjoy such challenges. Although I have been known to consult separate calendars for work, family, poetry, and internship activities, and although I use multiple applications to help me track projects and action items, I still highly value surprise, improvisation, and thinking on my feet. At a February writers conference I was asked to give a talk for an absent presenter (which I gladly did). A decade ago I was asked with a few days’ notice to teach a literary theory class that I had never taken or taught before, and I brought up the English Department’s averages on course evaluations. And the Pub Quiz itself gives me a chance to work with the material you give me to entertain on the fly. The microphone can sometimes be a dangerous thing.

And although I can write a passably-good poem on any particular subject given an hour, I have not yet attempted to freestyle, that is, to write poetry while speaking it from the podium, the way some of our best jazz musicians and rappers can do. Some performers take an especially ambitious approach to improvisation, such as the Sacramento band Instagon. Here’s how the Sacramento News and Review once described this local cultural force:

Approaching the concepts of Jazz and Improvisation using Chaos Theory, Instagon (founded in 1993), has a unique approach to the practice of being a band…it doesn’t practice! Instagon happens as a new ensemble EVERY time it happens, and it happens regularly…never the same band twice, ever…no rehearsal, no practice, everything in the instant.. and then gone.. hence “Instagon”… In the 17+ years so far, Instagon has appeared over 525 times and had well over 500 members of the “group”. Founded by conceptual artist LOB, Instagon plays many many different styles of music and sounds and has no boundaries as far as genres…but tends to mostly play a style called “Garage Jazz”. Instagon always promises to be an experience for both the band and the audience…and it always delivers to move and shake the audience and rock the night away.

Do you leave room for discovery and surprise in the way that you perform? I recommend that you investigate where a little chaos theory could make your life more exciting.

Tonight’s Pub Quiz will feature questions on species of fish: are they real, or did Dr. Andy make them up? Expect a four for four question on that. Expect also questions on the following topics: Latin American affairs, artificial intelligence, Best Buy, bushels of what, the Davis Shakespeare Ensemble, the best sportsman in the world, topics on which Musk and Wozniak agree, population losses, big planes, a tale of two cities, desserts, glands, corporate mascots, frightening robots, pounds of transition, a close look at binomials in bookstores, Napoleon’s schemes, visits to England, young actresses who hatch glue skis (anagram), X names, award shows, cassettes, verbs that have different definitions depending on how they are pronounced, guns, animals that are fourteen times better than a good dog, distant earths, ovalbumin, your daily bread, and Shakespeare.

We were off the hook crowded last Monday night, which I loved. You may want to arrive earlier this evening. I will do the same.

 

Your Quizmaster

https://www.yourquizmaster.com

http://www.twitter.com/yourquizmaster

http://www.facebook.com/yourquizmaster

yourquizmaster@gmail.com

 

Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:

 

1. Mottos and Slogans.   According to the slogan, and starting with the letter F, what is “Australian for Beer”? Foster’s

1. Countries of the World. According to a June 2015 Pew Research Center Poll on Global Attitudes and Trends, what country whose name starts with the letter P has the highest regard for The United States, at 92%? Hint available. Hint: The country is the 12th largest in the world, with over 100 million people. The Philippines

1. Newspaper Headlines.  According to a headline in this morning’s Fortune magazine, “Lockheed Martin is about to get even bigger by buying Sikorski.” The company Sikorski is famous for manufacturing what product with four syllables in its name? Helicopters

1. Four for Four: People born in 1928. Which of the following people born in 1928 are still alive? Noam Chomsky, Jack Kevorkian, Hosni Mubarak, Shirley Temple. (YNYN)

1. U.S. States. The second most oil-rich state (after Texas) is also the state with the lowest unemployment. What is this 19^th-largest state by area in the U.S.? North Dakota

 

P.S. What should be the prize for the Pub Quiz participant who submits the best contribution to the new Guide to Davis? See http://www.guidetodavis.com/how-to-participate/ for details.

 

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

Last week I told you about a Pub Quiz book that I have been working on: Your Quizmaster’s Book of (Pub) Quizzes: Trivia for Smart People. The rough draft is finished, and now I am rewriting questions that were perfect for 2014, but which a broader audience (in time and location) might find too regional or dated. I also have to write an introduction, explain the rules and how the book might be used, and stick in some (attempted) humor among the answers. A few of you will then be asked to give feedback, perhaps the only time that you are invited to argue with the Quizmaster.

My second book is a guide to Davis culture. “Will it be a pamphlet?,” asked someone who will not be invited to the book release party. Har har. Actually, Davis offers more culture, broadly defined, than most small towns in America. Because of our many theatre troupes, our galleries and public art, and our premier performing arts center on campus, one could argue that Davis is a cultural Mecca.

Of course, not everyone sees us that way, or at least not yet. One might reasonably argue that Davis needs more music venues, more urban culture, a poetry center (I’m working on that, too), and more people willing to donate to the organizations that work so hard to connect Davisites to their artsy enthusiasms. Like any city with aspirations, we can do more, and we shall.

Speaking of aspirational projects, I invite you to visit the website of my book, The Guide to Davis: An Exploration of the Cultural Offerings of California’s Most Relevant City. Find it at http://www.guidetodavis.com. The table of contents presents our main areas of focus, but no doubt we have neglected something or someone. We opted to include hotels and realtors, because such businesses help to bring new culture-lovers to Davis, but not banks or acupuncturists, for their connection to our main categories of artistic entertainment – visual, theatrical, literary, musical, and kinetic – is less causational. When I proposed that we should include martial arts studios, one of my helpers insisted, then, that we include yoga studios. This will ensure that L Street is sufficiently represented in the book.

On the website you can also see the introduction to the project, sample book sections (write-ups too short to be called “chapters”) on Logos Books and Newsbeat, as well as a selection of Frequently Asked Questions and, most importantly, an invitation to participate. I am hoping that Pub Quiz regulars will offer a long remembrance, a review of a restaurant or retail shop, or some opinions on what else makes Davis notable and welcoming. Anyone who contributes something substantive will receive a copy of the e-book when it is published, as well as a short bio in the book. I hope my Davis Guide will not only be about my hometown, but will also represent the voices of that town. If not, mine will have to do.

Regular Pub Quiz participant John suggested connections between this Guide to Davis, the Pub Quiz book, our weekly Monday meetings, and our need to revisit our common cultural literacy, as recently reviewed in an Atlantic article by Eric Liu. I appreciate this attempt to broaden and deepen the context of my summer projects, and I will see if I can work this into the introduction of one of the two books. Thanks, John!

The paperback of the book should be out by early next year, perhaps as early as the holiday shopping season. I will let you know.

Tonight’s Pub Quiz will test your knowledge of America and her heroes. We had such fun with the Hamlet question from last week’s quiz that I will ask yet another such question tonight. Perhaps you have time to reread the play before then? Expect also questions about Australia, Noam Chomsky, P standing for a place, Anglo-American poets, oil, extra innings, musical instruments, Alfred Hitchcock, nitrogen, mafia travels, keeping kosher, sailing trips, Academy Award nominees, British cities, Oklahoma, completing the local library, Captain Kirk’s earthly discoveries, antiheroes in charge, hard woods, minimal occupancy, groups with top-selling hits, Spain and Portugal, meanies, speaking from the gut, whistling for pigs, Harlem, abject and public failures, high regard, unemployment and, as I already mentioned, Shakespeare.

Come early tonight to claim a table inside! I will see you then.

Your Quizmaster

https://www.yourquizmaster.com

http://www.twitter.com/yourquizmaster

http://www.facebook.com/yourquizmaster

yourquizmaster@gmail.com

 

Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:

 

 

1. Newspaper Headlines: New Revelations Edition.  Living from 1884-1962, what American liberal icon used to pack a 22-caliber Smith & Wesson pistol in her purse?

 

1. Girls Named Elsa. According to data released by the Social Security Administration, 1,131 girls were named Elsa in 2014, up from 528 the year before. What F word accounts for the big jump?

 

1. The Eiffel Tower. When it was built in 1889, The Eiffel Tower became the tallest structure in the world. What American structure had previously been the tallest since being completed in 1888?

 

1. Great American Cities. In what decade did Davis become the first in the nation to vote via municipal referendum to divest from Apartheid South Africa?

 

1. Unusual Words. What E word do we use to refer to a weasel or stoat with a winter white coat?

 

 

P.S. The next Poetry Night is August 20^th. Mark your calendars now!

 

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

When I told some of my friends in a meeting that I was finishing three books this summer, one of them pointed out that he has an even longer reading list planned for his vacation months. Then I corrected myself, clarifying that I was going to finish writing three books this summer. I was immediately greeted by incredulous silence. When I recently revealed my summer plan to my friend Gena, she asked, “Three books? Why not five?”

Why is the newsletter a bit late today? Well, this morning I finished the first draft of one of the three books, the one with this working title: Your Quizmaster’s Book of (Pub) Quizzes: Trivia for Smart People. If you have been joining me for a while, and some of you have been joining me weekly for more than five years, then some of the content will be familiar to you, for I have been writing this book in weekly installments, without fail, with you in mind.

Some of the questions I ask made perfect sense at the time, but would be much more difficult to answer years later.

Here’s an example: What 6’4” tall action star, not Clint Eastwood, is missing from this news headline from yesterday? “Marked for Governor? Actor BLANKY BLANKY says he’s weighing bid for Arizona’s highest office.”

If you had just heard about this unlikely run at political office on NPR or in the Huffington Post that morning, you would know the answer right away, but 18 months in our busy lives can remind us how “trivial” some topical trivia questions can be.

I really enjoy the ephemeral nature of the thinking-person’s entertainment that I offer on Monday nights, but now that this book is scheduled to be published later this year, I have become more mindful of what hardy questions are “evergreen,” and which have especially short shelf lives. I’ve had to reword many questions, such as by mentioning someone’s year of birth, rather than her age.

Writing this book also reminds me of patterns of questions and topics that come up on the Quiz. Via Twitter, someone accused me today of writing only periodic table science questions. Then the quiz participant offered some alternative topics. I challenged the premise of the original objection, but I welcome the additional question topic categories. I love to have multiple perspectives represented in the Pub Quiz. I also love to remember your feedback on past quizzes as I improve, even further, on carefully composed questions. The two-person team Albatross, for example, has taught me important lessons about Admiral Ackbar (who was voiced by a veteran Berkeley actor who has never seen the first two Star Wars films).

If I remember, next week I will tell you about my second book – a Guide to Davis Culture – and let you know how you can participate in its composition, should you be interested, and should you feel that you could do justice to a favorite Davis haunt, or a favorite Davis hero.

Speaking of favorite Davisites, the great poet Julia Levine is reading at the Natsoulas Gallery this coming Thursday night at 8. Her most recent book, Small Disasters Seen in Sunlight, won the Northern California Book Award. The name Julia B. Levine is less well known in Northern California and in poetry circles than at least four of her five competitors, but Julia won. It’s a testament both to the highest quality of her verse, and to the perspicacity of the judges. I hope you will join us for that reading Thursday night.

Tonight’s Pub Quiz may feature questions on some of the topics I have raised above, as well as questions on monkeys, Silicon Valley, The White House, choices, kale and coriander, people who can’t stop (but really should), what Social Security teaches us about names, seafood, rising sands, stone, UC Davis apiculturist Eric Mussen, troublesome triangles, father figures, Muhammad Ali, French performers, Apartheid, fancy winter coats, undergraduates, when animals attack, coy volunteers, unpleasant climates, movie taglines, candidates, missed ice, impressive stadia, multi-decade hiatuses, the City of Davis, and Shakespeare.

I hope you can join us this evening.

 

Your Quizmaster

https://www.yourquizmaster.com

http://www.twitter.com/yourquizmaster

http://www.facebook.com/yourquizmaster

yourquizmaster@gmail.com

 

Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:

 

1. Mottos and Slogans.   Is the word “Pixar” in the famous Pixar logo with the bouncing desk lamp serif or non-serif?

 

1. Newspaper Headlines.  It was announced today that The Alamo and four Spanish colonial Catholic missions in Texas are being designated U.S. World Heritage sites by the United Nations. In what Texas city does one find The Alamo?

 

1. Beds. What model of bed is the signature bed of the Select Comfort bed company?

 

1. Pop Culture – Music. What hugely successful American vocal group consists of A. J., Howie, Nick, Kevin, and Brian?

 

1. Sports.   What NFL football player became the NFL’s all-time rushing leader, breaking the record formerly held by Walter Payton?

 

P.S. How much would you / someone pay for a book containing 1,500 top-notch pub quiz questions?

 

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

I hope you enjoyed the Independence Day holiday. I must admit that it was a rather surreal experience to walk out of the crowd of 5,000 or so who were enjoying live music, be introduced by Davis Mayor Dan Wolk, and then take the stage myself to read a commemorative poem, one of my duties as Poet Laureate of Davis. My son Truman followed me on stage to wave his American Flag while I read.

Below please find the text of my poem, followed by the hints about tonight’s Pub Quiz.

 

The Perilous Fight

In memory of the Charleston Nine

 

America, your founding documents

were written on animal parchment

with feather quill pens.

They were written by immigrants and revolutionists in white wigs

imagining what words would help us all

start afresh, once liberation comes.

Before CNN, before the telegraph,

before air conditioning

they argued on behalf of you and me.

 

Notwithstanding this colonial start,

our country is young, and getting younger,

dragging us into the future like a child

pulling her parents towards Community Park

on the 4th of July.

The future comes quick,

and we had better make ready.

 

Jose, Jamal, and Johnny, can you see

if that star-spangled banner still waves?

Its colors don’t run from oppression, from indignity,

from intolerance, or from the perilous fight.

The flag, it waves for you.

 

Millennials are helping us rewrite the narrative.

Outraged, and with resolve,

we take down the battle flag.

What shall we replace it with?

The American flag?

A rainbow flag?

Shall we replace it with a fist in the air,

with the Golden State bear,

with the rocket’s red glare?

 

One flag comes down; another flag goes up.

 

There is work to be done,

and the First Amendment assumes that you will contribute a verse.

This flag celebrates peaceable gatherings,

religious choice, and the curious reporter.

It celebrates the artist

who comforts the afflicted, and who afflicts the comfortable.

 

Under this flag we have marched with our heroes

who themselves have marched with the afflicted.

We celebrate Martin and Cesar,

we celebrate Susan B. and Sojourner,

we celebrate Harvey and Rosa,

and today we celebrate Ellen and Shelley,

and Francisco and Allegra.

As Americans, we aspire to march with you.

 

And we thank those whom we have lost.

We thank those who have assembled in peace,

in a circle of welcoming love and grace,

and we will not forget you.

We will repeat your nine names.

We thank you Cynthia, Susie, and Ethel.

We thank you Depayne, Tywanza, and Daniel.

We thank you Sharonda and Myra.

We thank you Clementa for your leadership,

and for your sacrifice.

Look how you have galvanized us!

 

Tonight’s rockets’ red glare also shines on a wing of the White House.

So does the orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet glare!

Justice come like a thunderclap,

and we must work to be worthy of it.

A week in our evolving nation

can seem like a lifetime,

and we must live that life.

We live it under this flag, our flag,

which on this day, of all days,

is so gallantly streaming!

 

 

Tonight’s Quiz will feature questions on bridges, film studios, big internet acquisitions, Silento, pyrotechnics, amateur actors, new American heroes, radio dramas, deciduous trees, fish, religious weddings, comparing Ireland to Germany, diary entries, sequels, inhuman throngs, primatology, St. James, paste, universities, intellectual fashions, The U.S. Civil War, the American Kennel Club, The New Yorker, dudes named Kevin, beds, Texas, fonts, summertime, fireworks safety, and Shakespeare.

See you tonight at 7 for the Pub Quiz!

Your Quizmaster

https://www.yourquizmaster.com

http://www.twitter.com/yourquizmaster

http://www.facebook.com/yourquizmaster

yourquizmaster@gmail.com

 

Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:

1. Mottos and Slogans.   Commercials for what kind of candy ask us to “taste the rainbow”?

2. Internet Culture. The most Twitter users, 33% of the worldwide total, come from what region: Asia Pacific, North America, Western Europe, or South and Central America?

3. Newspaper Headlines.   The governor of what Caribbean island and unincorporated U.S. territory said yesterday that the island’s debts are “not payable”?

4. Four for Four.     Which of the following composers, if any, were born in Germany? Bach, Beethoven, Berlioz, Brahms.

5. Sports.   Currently number three in the world, who defeated Roger Federer at the 2012 Olympic Games in straight sets to win the gold medal in the men’s singles final, becoming the first British singles champion in over 100 years?

 

P.S. Happy belated birthday to local pharmacist Chuck Snipes, the Pub Quiz contestant who has provided more swag for you and other players than any other. I appreciate all the trips to the thrift store!

 

P.P.S. Poetry Night next takes place on July 16^th, and features Julia Levine. Details next week.

 

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

What a week it has been since last we congregated at the Irish Pub for intellectual challenges and revelry! Here’s how my wife Kate put it on Facebook:

The myriad details of most days disappear from my mind by the end of the week. Friday was different — I suspect that June 26, 2015 will remain etched in many of our minds for years to come. My typical summer day includes carting my three kids to various activities all over the Sacramento valley. On that day, in between and throughout the swimming lessons and camp and medical appointments and therapy, I remained fixed on satellite radio following reports of the day’s events. And when I heard President Obama’s voice as he began to eulogize the nine church-goers slain in South Carolina, I stopped everything to listen to his remarkable performance.

A week like the last one takes a while to process and digest, and in my house, we’ve been talking about little else. Truman’s excitement, his consciously absorbing history as we all live through it, infects us with his hopefulness and curiosity. Tonight Andy and I plan to sit down with the kids to watch the eulogy together. During a week as memorable and important as this one, I’m so proud of my president and of my country.

Today’s news from the Supreme Court was less good from my ecologically-informed Davis perspective, with a ruling about the EPA’s restrictions on power-company smokestacks. According to today’s Washington Post, “The court’s 5-to-4 decision halts further implementation of the Mercury and Air Toxic Standards rule, which required hundreds of coal-burning plants to install equipment to control mercury, a substance linked in multiple studies to respiratory illnesses as well as birth defects and developmental problems in children.”

That setback aside, last week will be remembered for the decisions on Obamacare and Marriage Equality, and for the sad events that have catalyzed southern states to re-examine its relationship with the Confederate Battle Flag. Do you agree with President Obama that our union is somewhat more perfect because of the strong steps forward made by our country in June, 2015?

Tonight’s Pub Quiz will feature questions on some of the topics raised above, as well as composers, U.S. Presidents, the Caribbean, flags, Twitter, rainbows, bankruptcies, A&M Records, tennis, seeking to please in Latin, Massachusetts politicians, thorns, Finnish bullets, TV antagonists, the San Francisco Bay, alien invasions, adorable puns, marriage equality, revision, numbers that are divisible by 15, stars, hymns, beautiful titles, seasickness, populous islands, Cyprus, Harry Potter, red birds, the USDA, and Shakespeare.

See you this evening!

 

Your Quizmaster

https://www.yourquizmaster.com

http://www.twitter.com/yourquizmaster

http://www.facebook.com/yourquizmaster

yourquizmaster@gmail.com

 

Here are five questions from last week’s raucous quiz:

 

1. Film. Inside Out has been released to widespread acclaim and box-office success. Divisible by five, what is the total number full-length films released by Pixar?

 

1. Countries of the World. The names of eight of the 14 most populous cities in South Korea end with the same letter. What is that letter?

 

1. Consecutive Integers. The sum of the least and greatest of 3 consecutive integers (numbers in a row) is 60. What are the values of the 3 integers?

 

1. Science. Starting with the letter M, small grains of what common iron oxide (with a chemical formula Fe3O4) occur in almost all igneous and metamorphic rocks?

 

1. Sports. Starting with the letter B, what is the last name of the Cleveland Cavaliers head coach who said that it has been a “great honor” to work with LeBron James this season?

 

P.S. Congratulations to my son Truman, the nine-year-old actor who will portray Miles Standish on stage at B Street Theatre in Sacramento this evening, in a production called Many Plays by Children, a title that Truman came up with himself. He and I will be performing at the same time this evening, but in different cities, so I will get to see his dress rehearsal this afternoon while the rest of our family, and many friends, see Truman’s Sacramento premiere tonight.

 

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

 

Fathers have it lucky, to have the longest day of the year devoted to them. Or so said my son Truman as we drove home from the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, noting that it was still light at 9 PM.

We got to talk to one of the foremost dads of Davis, Bob Dunning, after a Saturday viewing of the new Pixar film Inside Out. Bob and my wife Kate delighted in the film for the same reason: it’s wise commentary on human emotions and personality. Because of the attentive shepherding of Bob and Shelley, the four Dunning children who listened to our conversation seem to be controlled by the emotions of “Patience” and “Equanimity.” My kids, meanwhile, seem to be controlled by “wanderlust” and “boisterousness.”

Speaking of what controls our personalities, my wife Kate and I took the same psychology class in London in the mid-1980s, and since then we have shared observations on the strange choices made by our friends and, later, our children. Lewis Black almost stole the film with his spot-on impression of anger, but Kate and I were even more excited to discover Paula Poundstone’s role as a “Forgetter,” one of those necessary creatures who vacuums up and gets rid of the unnecessary facts and memories in our heads, such as the phone numbers of our best friends from childhood.

Tito’s phone number was 337-7653. I couldn’t tell you the phone numbers of any of my friends today. Thanks, Google.

I recommend the film, and I recommend you checking out the writing of Bob Dunning to see if any Pixar imagery appears in his commentary in the coming days. Some films, like some memories, are haunting.

Tonight’s Pub Quiz will feature questions on Pixar, dads, scattered celebrities, the state of Utah (where I spent all last week), iPhones, integers, hot tellers, NBC, basketball, hungry antagonists, photography, hit-makers, football, cell phone market penetration, going gluten-free, Best Actor nominees, exuberance, impressive queens, superheroes, dogs, sweet barhops and other plurals, former dance scholars, Philadelphia pride, eco-friendly golf, invented titles of big books, the culture of Ireland, mathematics (for my teachers off for the summer), minerals, best-sellers, honors, Drood, Bangladesh, and Shakespeare.

I hope you will join us tonight. It’ll be good to see you.

 

Your Quizmaster

https://www.yourquizmaster.com

http://www.twitter.com/yourquizmaster

http://www.facebook.com/yourquizmaster

yourquizmaster@gmail.com

 

Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:

1. Dudes Named Claude. Neither the actors Claude Raines nor Claude Akins, nor the composer Claude Debussy is the most famous Claude who ever lived. Born in the 19th century, who WAS the world’s most famous Claude?

1. Pop Culture – Music. The title of Maroon 5’s highest charting song right now shares a name with a short-chain, soluble carbohydrate that most of us consume every day. What’s the one-word title of the song?

1. Sports.   According to ESPN, what left fielder born in 1918 was the best player ever for the Boston Red Sox?

1. Science.   What does the Scoville Heat Unit Scale measure?

1. Pop Culture – Television.   Tinky Winky was the name of a character on what children’s TV show?

P.S. Please send Pub Quiz topic suggestions to your Quizmaster at yourquizmaster@gmail.com or @yourquizmaster.

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

One of my favorite Davis Enterprise columnists is Debra DeAngelo because of her engaging prose and the seeming reckless abandon with which she reveals whatever is on her mind. Like many of us, she holds multiple jobs and thus is overworked. In addition to her Enterprise gig, she has made a career of encouraging many other talented columnists. Here is part of her bio at iPinion: “Debra is a columnist with McNaughton Newspapers, editor of the Winters Express newspaper, and is co-founder, co-editor and CEO for iPinion Syndicate. She has five First Place awards from the National Newspaper Association for column writing, two Seconds and two Thirds, and four Firsts and three Seconds from the California Newspaper Publishers Association.” How impressive!

As you can see in yesterday’s Enterprise, last weekend Debra attended a talk I gave at the University of the Pacific Writers Conference on the morning routines that will make practitioners more focused and productive, titled “Productivity Lessons from High-Performing Authors and Thought Leaders.” Here’s what Debra said in her column titled “Writing conference a necessary and enlightening indulgence”:

Of all the classes I attended (each one top notch — hats off to UoP professor Scott Evans for putting this conference together!), the real takeaway gem was led by UC Davis professor/Poet Laureate Andy Jones.

No, it wasn’t about poetry. I hate to break anyone’s heart here, but I just don’t have the patience for poetry. Poetry usually leaves me fighting the urge to plunge my fingers into my eyes and slowly dig. Get to the damn point already!

Anyway.

Jones’ focus was “productivity,” something I supremely suck at. (We’re allowed to end sentences in prepositions now. I read it on the internets.) That may seem odd, given that I manage to produce a column every week. But that’s work, not my “real” writing: books, novels and screenplays I’ve mapped out in my head, and in some cases even started, and then abandoned after three chapters because they weren’t perfect.

“Perfectionism and How to Overcome It.” Scott Evans, please add that workshop to next year’s conference.

Jones offered all sorts of productivity tips, and gave examples of two “daily writing rituals” from highly productive authors. I liked the “ritual” concept, because it implies a practical method of accomplishing something, and accomplishing “something,” or “anything,” would be a vast improvement over what I’m accomplishing now.

Although I appreciated that my talk was so helpful, one of my favorite parts of this story took place later on Facebook. A Pub Quiz regular asked if Debra was referring to “Andy Jones the Quizmaster?” Debra wrote back, “No, professor and Poet Laureate at UC Davis!”

My wife has often questioned the odd division I have imposed between two of my different selves: that scholar who gives talks, publishes essays, and has taught at UC Davis for 25 years, and the imperious entertainer who asks Monday night questions about 50 Cent and igneous rocks. Debra DeAngelo stays pretty current with current events (such as the ongoing controversy about what chemicals may be found in the fabric of Chinese-made Victoria Secret brassieres), but somehow I was able to conceal my secret identity from this esteemed local writer who has been a Facebook friend since 2011.

Thanks for mentioning me in your most recent published essay, Debra! Turnabout is fair play. We will see if the editor of the Winters Express adds herself to the Your Quizmaster mailing list, or even joins us some Monday night for the fun at de Vere’s Irish Pub.

Tonight’s Pub Quiz will feature questions on U.S. states, flying cars, schools releasing their students, protocols, heat flares, attentive doctors, the difference between Bilbo and Bilbao, French dudes who are not named Debussy, homelessness, heavy lifting, famous raisins, animal titles, trilogies, interactive history exhibits, five-syllable words that start with the letter I, long roads ahead, bringing the heat, out of left field, short chains, colors other than optic yellow, marginal comments, faraway capitals, Tonys, famous neighborhoods, marijuana, famous feathers, courthouses, silly debuts, adding an E, and Shakespeare.

Congratulations to all our graduating Pub Quiz competitors, and welcome back to all the Blue Devil alumni who will be filling the packed pub this summer for the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz!

See you tonight.

Your Quizmaster

https://www.yourquizmaster.com

http://www.twitter.com/yourquizmaster

http://www.facebook.com/yourquizmaster

yourquizmaster@gmail.com

 

Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:

 

1. Mottos and Slogans.   What N product has used the slogan “Spread the happy”?

 

1. Internet Culture. Which Microsoft Windows operating system will arrive July 29 of this year? I’m looking for a number.

 

1. Newspaper Headlines. Divisible by 5, how much older is Hillary Clinton than her new Democratic primary opponent, former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley?

 

1. Four for Four.    Which of the following Presidents of the United States, if any, attended the funeral of Eleanor Roosevelt? Calvin Coolidge, Dwight David Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Harry Truman.

 

1. Famous Actresses. What actress and singer whom you have heard of but have unlikely seen in a film dated all of the following people? Humphrey Bogart, Ernest Hemingway, Greta Garbo, George S. Patton, Edith Piaf, Frank Sinatra, Adlai Stevenson, John Wayne, Joe Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, and President John F. Kennedy. In some of these cases, “dated” is a euphemism. Name the actress and singer.

 

P.S. My UC Davis colleague Laurie Glover will be one of the featured poets at the June 18 Poetry Night. Joining her will be La Quinta (Coachella Valley) poet and teacher Laura Johnson-Bickford. In the late 1970s, Johnson-Bickford edited the book No Where Else in Town: The Davis Poetry Anthology. Anyone have a copy I could borrow?

 

 

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

Welcome to June! June 1^st marks the anniversary of the 1967 release of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, ranked first on Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the Greatest Albums of All Time. Considered by many to be the first “concept” album, SPLHCB inspired Bob Dylan to say to Paul McCartney “Oh I get it, you don’t want to be cute anymore.” Paul felt that they were done being boys, entertainers to tens of thousands of screaming (mostly female) fans. In the Barry Miles book Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now, Paul is quoted as saying “we’d now got turned on to pot and thought of ourselves as artists rather than just performers.”

I am intrigued by this idea of personal evolution, and of discovering the work that one is meant to do. This past weekend I touched on such topics in a couple talks presented at the University of the Pacific Writers Conference in Stockton. Organized by popular UOP professor and Davis resident Scott Evans, the conference gave participants an opportunity to discuss craft, writing genres (e.g., paranormal werewolf-centric romance novels), and the business of writing and publishing. One theme of the conference, and of perhaps of every writers conference in 2015, is that much of the money to be made by midlist authors will be made in what is now called independent publishing, thus necessitating the term “indie author.”

Joanna Penn’s definition could be helpful here: “At its most basic, indie means there is no separate publisher involved. Many indies may have setup their own micro-press, so their books still have a publisher name that is not the author’s name but the publisher is not one of the author services companies. The indie author most likely owns their own ISBNs. The indie pays the bills and is paid by the distributors e.g. Amazon/Smashwords directly. The only middleman is the distributor.”

(Did you know that Smashwords has an office right here in Davis? You could hit its roof with a ballista bolt shot from the roof of de Vere’s Irish Pub.)

So obviously it’s a lot of work to do, this becoming a publisher and publicist, as well as an author. We all have to decide how we are going to grow.

How does all this connect to The Beatles? Well, McCartney’s comment about members of the band seeing themselves as artists, and as men rather than boys, reminded me of a comment made this morning by a prominent local journalist who had attended my session titled “Productivity Lessons from High-Performing Authors and Thought Leaders.” The local author said this:

“If there was ONE thing from the creative writing conference workshop I attended over the weekend that is THE gem, THE game-changing thing I MUST do… it’s take responsibility for how I spend my time. (Thank you, Andy Jones!) So… I did that this morning. Got up at 5 a.m., paid attention to what I’m doing and for how long, and limiting my Facebook time. So: if you really need to reach me, please email/PM/call. I am trying (at the age of 55) to be an adult now.

Sayonara for now, and let’s start a new trend: Mindful Monday… how will YOU spend this 24 hours of your life?”

“Taking responsibility for how [she] spend[s her] time,” my friend the journalist has opted to become an adult at 55. Paul McCartney gave it a go at 24 and a half, while I myself am still struggling. But I agree with my friend that each of us should “pa[y] attention to what [we are] doing,” and resolve to spend our time in the ways that best help us reach our artistic, spiritual, and professional goals. What’s on your agenda?

Our Pub Quiz this evening won’t necessarily cover anything raised above. If I had weaved in talk of Helen Keller, Eleanor Roosevelt, Hillary Clinton, and a bunch of other notable American women, then that would have been relevant. Expect also questions about odd foods, Academy Awards, culminating contests, characters from Star Wars, best-selling authors, people seemingly named after birds, weak and unopinionated interlocutors, Canada, Ireland, film sequels, Presidents of the United States, static children, ladies born in faraway countries, the liberation that comes with defenestration, three-war veterans, famous Nobel Prize-winners, whether or not Sepp Blatter should go away, missile words, Scottish people, normal functions, “sports,” top sellers, Edith Piaf, the Kennedys, and Shakespeare.

Tonight’s Pub Quiz, filled with strong women, will be dedicated to Lisbeth Petty, one of my favorite players on one of my favorite teams, The Mavens. I have been sending the previous night’s Pub Quizzes to Lisbeth most weeks since learning of her cancer diagnosis, and was saddened to read of her passing last month. On behalf of all Lisbeth’s appreciative competitors, I send words of appreciation and condolence to the Petty family during this difficult time.

Lisbeth (also known as Lisa) was the Shakespeare expert on her team, so I shall conclude this week’s newsletter with some words from Shakespeare’s Sonnet #60:
Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,

So do our minutes hasten to their end;

Each changing place with that which goes before,

In sequent toil all forwards do contend.

 

I hope you can join us for the Pub Quiz this evening.

 

Your Quizmaster

https://www.yourquizmaster.com

http://www.twitter.com/yourquizmaster

http://www.facebook.com/yourquizmaster

yourquizmaster@gmail.com

 

Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:

 

1. London Architecture. When its refurbishment is complete, an large private home in London, named Witanhurst, will have about ninety thousand square feet of interior space, making it the second-largest mansion in the city. What is the name of the largest mansion in the city?

 

1. Pop Culture – Music. What Billy Corgan band features a cultivar of the squash plant in its title?

 

1. Great Americans. What general had command of all Union armies in 1864?

 

1. Pop Culture – Television. Produced by Hanks and Spielberg, what American war drama miniseries won the 2001 Emmy and Golden Globe awards for best miniseries?

 

1. A Music Question About Dudes Named Josh. Who charted in 2007 as the number-one best selling artist in the United States, with over 22.3 million records in the nation?

 

P.S. The great Davis poet Francisco X. Alarcon will be reading at the John Natsoulas Gallery this coming Thursday evening at 7. There will be music, as well. You should join us.

 

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

Last night we sat down as a family to watch The Wizard of Oz, with all three of the children seeing it for the first time. My wife Kate and I had forgotten much of the Kansas part of the film, while the Technicolor sections remained vivid and familiar, perhaps because of the repeated playing of the soundtrack in my Washington DC home. The Wizard of Oz continues to be important to generations of young people, and remains the most watched film of all time, because of its implied commentary on the magic of filmmaking, and by extension, of the imagination. The scene of Dorothy stepping through the doorway, from sepia Kansas farmhouse to the rainbow-hued sculpted gardens of Munchkinland, reminds us that film and other arts can stir us to wonder, to curiosity, and to our own brave acts of creativity.

Filmgoers in America and elsewhere needed a cinematic never-land to escape to, for just a week after the release of the film, Germany invaded Poland, initiating World War II. Four years after the release of the film, Bob Hope introduced Judy Garland so she could sing “Over the Rainbow” for American troops fighting in World War II. The song had become an American anthem, where the eventual stability of post-war life stateside had become the “somewhere” of the song’s refrain, rather than the film’s earlier focus on escaping Kansas.

Music and other arts can sustain us during trying times, including during international conflict. Churchill is purported to have been a fan of the arts. It was once suggested to Winston Churchill that he cut funding to the arts to pay for Britain’s war, to which he responded “Then what would we be fighting for?” Sadly, no one could find a precise source for this popular quotation which has been pasted as a meme on a thousand Facebook walls. We do know that French Canadian author Gabrielle Roy said, “Could we ever know each other in the slightest without the arts?” The source? The back of every Canadian $20 bill. Do Britain and Canada know something about the arts that we have not embraced in the U.S., home to Judy Garland, Jackson Pollock, and Jazz?

We have used our homespun creativity to remember those who have given their lives so that we might freely debate such topics. Since the Civil War, we have chosen a Monday in the spring to celebrate our war dead by decorating their tombstones with the plethora of available flowers, another example of Americans using creativity and artistry to brighten all of our lives, even during an otherwise somber occasion. Happy Memorial Day to you and your families. Let’s remember that today’s holiday was earned.

Some of the aforementioned topics will come up on today’s and future pub quizzes. Expect also questions on English kings, thrilling finishes, mansions, Nobel prizes, Emily Dickinson, poisons, unexpected tallies, European destinations, GDP in Euros, Kurt Russell, familiar books, linguistics, Captains, serving requests, beer, rainbow varieties, a hero’s broader worth, purposeful flowers, courage, general command, public enemies, squash cultivars, London real estate, video games, imagined destinations, and Shakespeare.

See you this evening!

 

Your Quizmaster

https://www.yourquizmaster.com

http://www.twitter.com/yourquizmaster

http://www.facebook.com/yourquizmaster

yourquizmaster@gmail.com

 

Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:

 

1. Film. The Breath of God, The Word of God and The Path of God are the names of the three tests that what recognizable cinematic hero had to pass to reach the Holy Grail?

 

1. Irish Culture. Are potatoes the 1st, second, third, or fourth world’s largest food crop?

 

1. Countries of the World. According to a 2010 survey from the Pew Research Center’s Religion & Public Life Project, 80% of the people in Burma practice what religion?

 

1. Standing Armies. Starting with the letter C, and about 4400 kilometers from Los Angeles, what country permanently abolished its army in 1949, becoming the first of only a few sovereign nations without a standing army?

 

1. Science. How long does it take sunlight to reach the Earth? Is it closest to 8 seconds, 80 seconds, 8 minutes, or 80 minutes?

 

P.S. This summer I hope to launch a service that would allow Pub Quiz enthusiasts to subscribe to our weekly quiz. Do you know non-Davisites who might be interested in such an opportunity?

 

P.P.S. “Valor grows by daring, fear by holding back.” Publilius Syrus