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

Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:

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

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

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

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.

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?

The Gem of Responsibility Edition of the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz Newsletter

by yourquizmaster on June 2, 2015

Ballista

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

Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:

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?

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

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

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

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.

The Judy, Jackson, and Jazz Edition of the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz Newsletter

by yourquizmaster on May 25, 2015

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

Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:

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?

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

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?

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?

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

The Cognitive Liberty of Bicycling Edition of the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz Newsletter

by yourquizmaster on May 18, 2015

bicyclists peddling alongside the Taedong River across from the Juche Tower in Pyongyang, North Korea

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

When Time Magazine published an article last week about the bicycle-friendliest cities in America, of course Davis was on the list. Just about a quarter of our residents commute by bicycle, more than any other American city. Other cities like Chicago and Washington DC have recently installed new bike lanes, while Portland has been bike-friendly for years.

This image shows bicyclists peddling alongside the Taedong River across from the Juche Tower in Pyongyang, North Korea. The setting looks not too different from my teenage bike rides alongside the Reflecting Pool on the Mall in Washington DC. The river looks about as broad as the Potomac, a famous waterway that separated the towpaths where I would bike for hours with my dad, and the Commonwealth of Virginia across the way.

Bicycling has been a source of joy for me for more than 40 years, just as I hope it is a source of satisfaction in Pyongyang, where there are far fewer options, especially options for displays of what my friend Wrye Sententia would call “cognitive liberty.” Of course, Mark Twain reminds us (perhaps apocryphally) that “The man who doesn’t read good books has no advantage over the man who can’t read them.” Could it also be said of bicycles, that the person who rides no bike in Davis has no advantage over those who own no bikes, or who don’t live in Davis?

Perhaps something similar could even be said about those of us who frequent our beloved Irish Pub. As Ray Oldenburg might remark, people who never attend their local café, family pub or other “third place” have no advantage over people who lack such advantages in their hometowns. We must support such places, I think, lest our future grandchildren be left to meet their friends only at the mall or the parking lot of every city’s Walmart.

And for the record, although I bike commute every day, I prefer to drive our Prius to the Irish Pub on Monday nights. We like to make sure that everyone from our circle of friends gets home safely after Monday night revels. As someone who moves from wine or a Moscow Mule to mineral water by halftime of the Quiz, I’m the best qualified to be a designated driver. I hope you also plan for such contingencies when traveling home from the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz.

Tonight’s Pub Quiz will feature questions on comedy, literacy, royalty, preferences, foolish displays, long poems, the science behind the Beatles “little darlings,” diminution, that which was gladly abandoned in 1949, blonde actresses, world religions, staple foods, the Holy Grail, well-paid ghostwriters, extant cash, daily scientific measurements, literary wrestling, enshrined fame, personification, paying the rent, drummers, commentary on marriage, televised familiarity, philistinism, lonely gaps, ball categories, baseball, musical rumors, name the state, runners with vowels, frauds, corner stores, popular music, and Shakespeare.

Congratulations to rock and roll drummer and sentence algebra inventor Brad Henderson and his lovely girlfriend Sharon Campbell Knox, a couple of local authors who met each other at one of my Pub Quizzes, and who this week celebrate six years together. I don’t expect drummer Brad to join us tonight, but I’ve included one question especially for him.

UC Davis has a few weeks of school, yet, but many other smart people are done with school for the year, and they need the intellectual stimulation of Pub Quiz. Expect a crowd tonight.

Your Quizmaster

Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:

Mottos and Slogans. What insurance and financial services company has used the slogans “Own a Piece of the Rock” and “Strength of Gibraltar”?

Newspaper Headlines. What plural M word completes this recent important news headline? “Marvel Confirms Scarlet Witch And Quicksilver Are No Longer BLANKS.”

World War II. Exactly how many years did ago this week did the Allies declare victory in Europe?

Four for Four. Which of the following people with M nicknames were adversaries of Batman? The Mad Hatter, The Man-Bat, Metallo, Mr. Freeze.

Buddy Comedies. What is the title of the Reese Witherspoon and Sofia Vergara buddy comedy that opened this weekend and that was not helped by critics, one of whom dubbed it “not in any way worth watching”?

P.S. Award-winning poet Greg Glazner and his band will be playing and sharing poetry this coming Thursday night. When Glazner is not teaching literature and writing classes at UC Davis, he is playing a mean and bluesy guitar at gigs throughout California. See Poetry in Davis for details, or just join us at the Natsoulas Gallery at 8.

Greg Glazner with Guitar

The Surmounting Hills in Cemeteries Edition of the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz Newsletter

by yourquizmaster on May 11, 2015

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

When I recently told some friends and colleagues who work at Academic Technology Services at UC Davis that I was going to “finish three books this summer,” at first they thought, perhaps reasonably, that I planned only to finish reading three books this summer. I had to reveal that I plan to finish writing them.

This will be the first year that I won’t have taught summer classes for UC Davis in about 20 years. With Kate running the new parent support group at Mother and Baby Source, and other welcome additional income streams, I finally have enough of a buffer to get some serious writing done. And then this past weekend I met via telephone with a new client who needs help from start to finish with an ambitious book project, so my team and I will step in to make sure that that book also will be ready to share in 2015.

As busy as I will be, none of that compares to the incredible dedication to craft, productivity, and talent that we see in some of our Pub Quiz regulars. Some examples: John Lescroart’s book The Fall was just released last Tuesday, and the critics are eating it up, calling it a riveting, engaging, and suspenseful thriller. And then Friday Catriona McPherson shared Come to Harm at a big Avid Reader event that my son Jukie and I got to attend. Catriona plays Pub Quiz on the same team as Eileen Rendahl, author of Veiled Intentions and many other books. And then this August we will see the publication of Landfalls, the 18^th-century adventure and discovery novel written by Naomi Williams, who often plays Pub Quiz with the Mavens. Hemingway said “There is no friend as loyal as a book,” but these loyal friends remind us that both books and friendly teammates are worth our time.

Did you know that you were surrounded by such creativity every Monday evening? You should keep attending the Pub Quiz, I think, so that some of it rubs off on you. It has worked for me.

Speaking of which, I myself have two events coming up soon: Thursday night at 7:30 I will be reading original poetry at Logos Books on 2^nd Street. And then Sunday at 1:30 I will be reading poetry at the Davis Cemetery and Arboretum’s “Celebration of Life.” Nestled between performances by the Bakuhatsu Taiko Dan Drummers and the Free Range Singers, I am hoping that my poems about the simultaneous ascension of James Brown and Gerald Ford will not be too anticlimactic. The Cemetery is home to the only natural hill in Davis, I believe: definitely worth surmounting.

Are you also working on a book? Tell me more!

Tonight’s Quiz will feature questions on books, vocabulary words, rocks, The Atlantic, topical witches, mad hatters, interest in police, categories of performances, the bad habits of baseball players, air, lawsuits, Ebola, homophobia, the possibility of awards in six categories, foundlings, something that is not owned by Jay-Z, imitation games, people named Benjamin, the tropics, gladiators and their friends, threshing in ruby fedoras (anagram bait), queens, railroads, executive parties, US citizens, seemingly donut organisms, David Letterman, hall of famers, buddies that are not worth watching, ceremonies, current events, popular groups of consumables, and Shakespeare.

I hope that you get to consume part of a good book today. I look forward to seeing you and your team at 7.

Your Quizmaster

Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:

Mottos and Slogans. What product available today used the 2009 slogan “Open Happiness” and the 1906 slogan “The Great National Temperance Beverage”?

Trending on Twitter. What former cast-member of the TV show Cheers was briefly trending on Twitter last week?

Pop Culture – Music. “Shut up and Dance” is a big hit from a band that derives its name from the song “Walking on the BLANK” by The Police. Fill in the blank.

Four for Four. Which of the following Americans, if any, were Civil War generals for the Union side? General Ambrose Burnside, General Stonewall Jackson, General George McClellan, General William Tecumseh Sherman.

Great Americans. What independent US Senator from Vermont announced his candidacy for US President last week?

The May The Fourth Be With You Edition of the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz Newsletter

by yourquizmaster on May 4, 2015

Truman with Light Saber (photos by Kate)

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

Happy May the 4^th! Ever wonder if May the 4^th will be an actual national holiday 50 or 100 years from now? It certainly is in my family. This morning my wife Kate was seen in our front yard photographing a very young Darth Vader in shorts and a Star Wars T-shirt, wielding a light saber. A few years ago, Truman played Vader for Halloween, while his sister portrayed Princess Amidala. And one of their brother Jukie’s favorite picture books reveals the wise sayings of Yoda.

I shared some of these obsessions a long time ago in a city far, far away. Jack Valenti (Google him) once recommended an upcoming film to my dad, suggesting that his young son Andy would enjoy it. We headed off to the critics screening room at the American Film Institute, and as the lights were dimming, I remember asking my dad what the name of the film was. He couldn’t remember. Then we heard the opening bars of the John Williams soundtrack, and my world changed.

Within a year, Star Wars was everywhere. We had our rudimentary costumes even back then, not to mention posters, books, trading cards, and the endless figurines. But I felt privileged to have seen the film first, before all but about 12 men (and Jack Valenti) in Washington DC, the critics who filled that screening room in 1977. While today Star Wars is one of the most widely-recognized cultural phenomena of the 20^th century, there was a week or more during my youth when all that richness, fantasy, and supernatural heraldry was a private matter, undisturbed by what theorists call the “preformed symbolic complex.” Of course, as I learned that summer, the fun comes not from hoarding the magic, but from sharing it.

This lifelong flirtation with imaginative hoarding is the burden that unpublished authors carry with themselves everywhere: we are the creators of imagined worlds that have not yet been shared. Many of us choose to practice such world-building every November during National Novel Writing Month, a shared sprint towards drafts of novellas that, as was the case for George Lucas (with help from Alan Dean Foster), might just turn into something worth experiencing. Grant Faulkner, the Executive Director of National Novel Writing Month (did you know that months required executive directors?) will be speaking about NaNoWriMo in Davis this coming Thursday night, and reading from his new collection of short stories titled Fissures. I hope you can join us that Thursday evening at 8 at the Natsoulas Gallery.

Tonight’s Pub Quiz features questions on some of the above, as well as favorite beverages, Celtic freezing, delightful dishes, new American heroes, news-gathering, concluding verbs, bonds of sharing, digital devices, Asia, lovely ladies, the streets of Ireland, comic books, creditable receipts, impossibly big cities, filling costumes, directorships, Anders Ericsson, composers, special messages to my friend Carin (Happy birthday, Carin!), knights, tropical evergreens, old movies, the number 13, temperance, digital discoveries, minimalism, the police, cheeriness, Twitter, illicit substances, the Civil War, Pew research studies, and Shakespeare.

I hope you will join us tonight. If you see Carin at Kate’s table, make sure to wish her a happy birthday. May the Fourth be with you.

Your Quizmaster

Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:

Films with One-Word Titles. At almost $180 million domestic, Kevin James’ highest grossing film had only his male co-star on the movie poster. Name the one-word title of this 2005 film.

The City of Davis. Pollinate Davis is the new co-working facility in Regency Square, found at the corner of two streets in Davis. Name just one of those two streets.

Great Onetime Americans. Isadora Duncan and Harry Houdini both died rather suddenly within about a year of one another. Name the decade.

Four for Four. The month of April begins with the letter A and ends with the letter L in which of the following languages, if any? French, German, Indonesian, Vietnamese.

Sports. What former NBA player was a six-time NBA champion, a six-time NBA MVP, and a four-time NBA blocks leader, among many other laurels?

P.S. Two other events worth adding to your schedule: Pub Quiz irregular (and regular newsletter reader) John Lescroart’s book release party takes place tomorrow night, May the 5^th, at Odd Fellows Hall at 6:30. You might have read the recent article about John in the Davis Enterprise. Secondly, Saturday night at 7:30 at the Pence Gallery I will be performing a short story by Becky Mandelbaum as part of Stories on Stage Davis. I look forward to seeing you at least twice this week.

The Friends in Nepal Edition of the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz Newsletter

by yourquizmaster on April 27, 2015

Nepal Poet Yuyutsu Sharma

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

I happen to be friends with one of Nepal’s foremost poets, Yuyutsu Sharma. He came to Davis about five years ago, and I got to co-host that event, and hear him read. At that reading in Voorhies Hall, and then again earlier this month in Sacramento, Yuyutsu regaled us with stories about his mountainous home, and with beautiful and heartfelt poems. Certain writers – one thinks of Seamus Heaney, Octavio Paz, and California’s own James Ragan – seem to be writing for all of humanity, rather than (or in addition to) representing their own perspectives that are limited by autobiography or geography. Yuyutsu is one such writer, revealing and exploring qualities of longing and discovery that we all share in common.

Because of the region about which he writes the most often, Yuyutsu also tells stories of peril: anecdotes that feature concerns about blizzards, the threat of landslides, and earthquakes. His poems represent the perspectives of villagers who live outside of (and above) many of the civil engineering feats that we take for granted. In one of his poems, a village elder speaks of the first time he had ever seen a car: it had been carried into the central square of his village on the shoulders of Sherpa guides.

We need a poet of Yuyutsu Sharma’s stateliness to represent the trauma that has befallen his home over the weekend. To quote a Thomas Fuller piece from the front page of today’s New York Times, “Residents of remote mountain villages say houses collapsed, food is running out and so far no one has arrived with aid. As rescue teams began to arrive in Nepal from around the world, much of the stricken area remained inaccessible.” As we prepare to play our game tonight, as we necessarily steep ourselves in frivolity and camaraderie, let’s remember those Nepalese families who are scared, hurting, and mourning.

Our local used bookstore Logos Books has been supporting relevant Nepal-related charities for years. As today’s Time magazine says, “Save the Children is an international charity that has been in Nepal since 1976 and is therefore in an exceptional position to help after years of operating within the country.” And in 2014 alone, Logos Books donated a total of $47,000 to Save the Children and another important charity at times like this, Doctors without Borders. As I have, I hope you will join Logos in supporting these important causes. Find the relevant Nepal Earthquake Relief donation page for Save the Children here.

Tonight’s Pub Quiz will feature questions on singers who are actors (and vice versa), concrete tests, circular logic, bodies of water, sailor syntax, final days, biopics, anthology favorites, that which cannot be outrun, names that century, the international meanings of April, birth cities, selfies, islands, too much salt to lick, the ACLU, unexpected and sudden endings, a Phoenician hangout, media sensations, bank holidays on the Emerald Isle, a favorite of Richard Nixon, number one albums from the past (when we used to buy albums), six-syllable words that start with the letter N, New York City, tinny chimaerae (anagram bait), first ladies, dynamite, HBO, space, regrettable neckware, pesticides, Smith and Hunt, the Streets of Davis, perfect for Mrs. Claus, available offices, Indonesian months, one-word titles, obesity myths, and Shakespeare.

You should know that some questions get multiple hints. I am thinking of starting a regular new question category: Something we learned from the newsletter. A good idea?

Thanks to everyone who participated in the KDVS Fundraiser. Because of a past Pub Quiz champion and guest-Quizmaster Rob Roy, and another donor who wanted to match Roy’s generosity, I surpassed my $1,000 for my fundraiser show by almost $100. Roy, also a popular musician and (almost popular enough) Davis City Council candidate, is teaching English and perhaps skullduggery in the United Arab Emirates.

I hope to see you this evening. The weather is beautiful, even warmer than yesterday, so I’m sure the outdoor seating will fill up fast.

Your Quizmaster

Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:

Internet Culture. In 1965, what young engineer penned a now legendary paper with the scholarly title, “Cramming More Components onto Integrated Circuits”?

Newspaper Headlines. Who taught Malia Obama how to drive?

The Clintons. In the middle of which decade did Bill and Hillary Clinton marry?

Four for Four. Which of the following UC Davis alumni were born in California? Astronaut Stephen Robinson, US Congressional Representative Jackie Speier, Former UNICEF Director and Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman, Chef Martin Yan.

Pop Culture – Music. Singing with her backup band, what now 70 year old vocalist known as the Empress of Soul had more than 20 top-20 singles between 1961 and 1987 (but no #1 hits, so of course the answer is not Diana Ross or Aretha Franklin)?

P.S. Grant Faulkner is coming to Davis on May 7th at 8 PM at the Natsoulas Gallery. Mark your calendar!

The KDVS Fundraiser Week of the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz Newsletter

by yourquizmaster on April 20, 2015

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

We all have different enthusiasms when it comes to American and world culture. As you may have gathered, for me, poetry is central. I host of poetry radio show, run a poetry reading series, and read poems to a variety of unsuspecting and sometimes even unwilling audiences as the Poet Laureate of Davis (Have you seen my business card?). For others, the cultural expression of choice may be the visual arts, dance, storytelling, opera, or theater.

For many, a primary obsession is music. Plato opined that, “Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything.” While many people could benefit from more charm and gaiety in their lives, just about everyone recognizes the importance of music. And while some people purport not to care for modern dance, Italian opera, or even, can you believe it, poetry, everyone likes one form of music or another. Music gives us an opportunity to transcend language, and even momentarily transcend thought. As Hans Christian Anderson said, “Where words fail, music speaks.”

It could be argued that corporatist forces have “dumbed down” and diluted the force or depth of available music. Do you ever get the sense that the same 100 or 500 songs are played on the radio over and over again? I sometimes acknowledge the “trivial” in contemporary music by asking trivia questions about current pop hits, the sort that pass by like transitory fads. Do you expect to return to the most popular hits of 2015 in 10 or 20 or 50 years? I suspect not.

We are lucky to have a resource in Davis that is devoted to music that confronts faddism. That resource is KDVS, our campus and community radio station. Staffed by the equivalent of music professionals, curators, and librarians, KDVS offers us an unrestricted free-form perspective on our musical opportunities. KDVS can offer the discriminating listener a glorious variety of musical schools, genres, and talents, thus ensuring discovery and surprise. In 2014, for instance, I played only North African music between the guests and recorded poems on “Dr. Andy’s Poetry and Technology Hour,” the show I have been hosting for the last 15 years. I don’t believe the host of any other American radio show can make that claim.

As I do with my poetry outreach, the KDVS on-air personalities work as volunteers, devoting long hours of research, often in KDVS listening booths, so that those DJs can offer a listening experience that reflects careful attention and curation. All of us in the Sacramento valley benefit from their enthusiasm, expertise, and long hours of devoted volunteership.

Now is the time when we can show our thanks to KDVS and its staff of volunteers. If you visit the KDVS Fundraiser page, you will see how close the station is to its $60,000 goal, and how easy it is for you to contribute. Those who do can choose from a variety of premiums, including music in a variety of genres, books, posters, and gift certificates.

Of course I hope you will contribute during my show. “Dr. Andy’s Poetry and Technology Hour” airs this coming Wednesday at 5, and my co-host will be the educator, novelist, and stand-up comedian Chris Erickson. I have set a goal of $1,000 for the hour, something I could easily reach if all of you called in Wednesday at 5 p.m. with a pledge of merely $5 (though I know many of you can afford to give even more generously). The phone number is (530) 754-KDVS, and your donation will be fully tax-deductible. You could contact them now with your pledge, or set an alarm for Wednesday. I always love reading out the names of the donors, so I hope you can call in with a pledge of any amount while I am live on the air.

The three highest donors will receive a signed copy of my book, Where’s Jukie?, and the most generous of all the donors will also receive an original poem that I will write on a topic of your choosing. Join in on the fun! Pledge Wednesday!

Thanks to my good friend Jason for guest-hosting the Pub Quiz last week. I am grateful to have had the time to read at the MIND Institute fundraiser poetry reading – we raised bunch of money for research into autism.

Tonight’s Pub Quiz will feature questions on four-letter brand names, cramming components, followers and those who choose never to follow, titles that start with the letter B, astronauts and chefs, red tides, cities in common, presidential aspirants, soulful people, royalty, Homo sapiens, trees, big numbers, excellent writing, mighty beatings, the letter Z, people who are not Celine Dion, grapes, people who rush, jasmine, beer culture, actresses who are unknown to me, centripetal forces, names in the news, unwise races, fringed wings, the KDVS fundraiser, David Letterman, and Shakespeare.

I hope you enjoyed Picnic Day. See you tonight!

Your Quizmaster

The Guest Quizmaster Edition of the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz Newsletter

by yourquizmaster on April 13, 2015

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

An old friend with a strong, stentorian voice will join us this evening as the guest Quizmaster. Jason is a pop culture enthusiast, and a reader of great books and small, some of them with pictures. He has a penetrating acumen, a sharp wit, and an occasional flair for the dramatic. Captain of the Hall of Fame team “The Penetrators,” he is remembered well by teams who aspired to second place.

Once a year I take a Monday off in April to participate in the annual evening of poetry and art at the MIND Institute in Sacramento. Featuring poets and authors whose lives have been touched by autism, the event raises money for the research and outreach work of the Institute, through sales of art and books, and through donations made by people who are granted emotional highs and lows provided by the assembled poets, and who then want to help.

Regular readers of this newsletter know that my most recent book, written with my wife Kate, is part of our year-round effort to raise money for similar research. All proceeds from book sales of Where’s Jukie? are donated to the Smith Lemli Opitz Foundation to support research into this rare syndrome. As the volunteer Communications Director of the Foundation, Kate also counsels concerned parents around the world, many of whom are just learning of the syndrome after discussions with a doctor in the maternity ward. Tonight Kate will read a stirring essay about both time travel and living in the moment. If you can join us tonight at 7 in Sacramento, bring some Kleenex!

As it is National Poetry Month, I have been steeped in verse, even more than usual. Yesterday I wrote a poem about the time that Joseph Campbell helped me find my bicycle. It’s not about autism, except insofar that poems about children with autism are always adventure narratives. How will the young man with autism leave home to begin his quest? Is he not an expert at “living the questions,” as the poet Rilke teaches us to be? As a poet and dad, I am still fiddling with these ideas — they will have to addressed more thoroughly a year from tonight. The final reader at this event, I will read my long poem, “The Last Pterodactyl,” and a few poems from Where’s Jukie? As I might have said in the previous paragraph, you are welcome to join us.

If you wish not to leave Davis, but still want to do your part for poetry, tomorrow night at 7:30 Paul Breslin and Jeanne Foster will read at 126 Voorhies Hall (at 1st and A Streets). That event featuring accomplished poets and professors is sponsored by the UC Davis Department of English. And then Thursday the John Natsoulas Gallery and I will welcome Mary Zeppa, Bob Stanley, and Bob Stanley’s banjo. As Bob says in one poem, “the banjo was always ready to embrace the boy with its staccato tones.” Join us Thursday for the warm embrace of poetry.

Actually, a warm embrace is more than most of you want from poetry. Such people are encouraged to sit in the back of the Natsoulas Gallery on Thursday at 8, arms crossed, and resist. I wager that something you hear that night will woo you. And then the after-party starts at 10.

For tonight’s Quiz, Jason has written questions both tricky and tantalizing. Expect him to cover topics such as corporate sexism, emoji, celebrity painters, helpful robots, sweetness, space travel, middle names, champions, remedies, British singers, surnames, fan fiction, tetralogies, islands, cars, surprising continents, clothing, logos, honest stewards, California aspirations, railway traffic, pronunciations, deliberative bodies, scryers, the waters of the Caribbean, weak minds and strong, and Shakespeare.

I hope you can join Jason or me tonight for a different sorts of adventure. I will be back next week.

Your Quizmaster

Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:

Mottos and Slogans. What is the most famous two-word commercial tagline of the California Milk Processor Board?

Canada. Home to its capital and largest city, St. John’s, what is the most easterly province of Canada?

Pop Culture – Music. What singer joined Boyz II Men for the 1995 single “One Sweet Day,” a song that spent a record 16 weeks at number one on the Hot 100 list?

Sports. The first Westminster Kennel Club show was first held on May 8, 1877, making it the second-longest continuously held sporting event in the United States. What is the oldest, originally held in 1875?

Great Americans. Who said “In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes”?

The Radical Empathy Edition of the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz Newsletter

by yourquizmaster on April 6, 2015

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

One of my favorite past Mayors of Davis was Julie Partansky. She believed in protecting the “historic” (that is, unpaved) alleyways of central Davis, in curbing light pollution in our city, and in playing klezmer music at the Farmers’ Market. She served on the City Council from 1992-2002, and was Mayor of Davis from 1998-2000. Two white butterflies were released at her swearing-in ceremony.

I was hosting a pub quiz around the time of Julie’s passing, in 2009, so of course I included a question about the former mayor. Not everyone follows the news as closely as I did, so it was my quiz question that presented this sad news to some of the participants. Even more awkward, some teams cheered to themselves when they answered the question correctly. I resolved then to practice extreme sensitivity when choosing Pub Quiz topics, carefully tip-toeing around difficult topics, whether it be the most recent massacre, conflict, or plane crash.

Such was the case with the murder-suicide that occurred when I was vacationing with my family over the spring break. One way to show respect would be not to bring up the names of the two people involved at our weekly game of chance and skill. Although that guy Andy Jones has no Facebook friends in common with Whitney Engler, for example, Your Quizmaster has three such friends. And no doubt those friends were hurting, as all of us in the Davis and UC Davis community are.

But like any of us, I still found myself thinking about the life, the selflessness, and the promise of Whitney. I was also touched by the outpouring of love for this veterinary graduate student who was mere weeks away from finishing her studies when she was killed. The (successful) community search for Whitney’s cats and dog also rooted my interest.

As you may know, I have other public-facing jobs, in addition to that of Quizmaster. As the Poet Laureate in Davis, I am asked to write and read “occasional” poems on a particular subject or event, such as the yearly 4^th of July celebration in Central Park. I’ve taken to reading such poems every other month or so at Davis City Council meetings, starting off the evening’s work of these public servants with a poem in the way other meetings do with a pledge or a patriotic song.

A poet observes closely, remembers purposefully, and practices radical empathy. I tried to engage in these three duties when writing the poem that you read below, one that I read last Friday at a Sunrise Rotary meeting at which I was the featured speaker. I didn’t anticipate that the dean of the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine would be in the audience, or that I would be asked to reread the poem before Whitney’s parents and a couple hundred of her friends at a memorial service that afternoon. I was honored to do so.

“The Telephone – An Elegy”

For Whitney Joy Engler

The veterinary brain behaviorist opens her blinds.

She stretches in light clothing, and uncovers the birds.

She remembers the San Diego dawn that illuminates the hills above the bay,

the lights and shadows bestowed by childhood windows.

Today the woman squints her eyes.

She is buffeted by the morning light, and can’t help but smile.

Creatures alive today loved her before they loved anything.

After breakfast, she leaves her telephone at home.

Welcomed by uncaged birds in the enlivening spring,

she is the only stroller through Village Homes

who belongs to the Westminster Kennel Club.

She knows about breed standards, urinary tracts, and the slobber of jowly dogs.

In her mind she reviews such facts, and the quizzical faces of small animals.

They look up to her.

She trains her service dog to serve someone else,

a bond that is severed before anyone is ready.

Rosie is trained not to bark at the telephone.

She plays piano recordings for her pets, others’ pets:

the intimate delicacies of Chopin spilling into the back yard,

ineffable suggested patterns in the Delta breeze,

Aeolian harps rather than the telephone.

Back at work, she reserves empathies for the pit bulls, the Chihuahuas,

for what her professors call “the relinquished.”

She imagines herself Dr. Doolittle, a vet with a following.

In the break room, cats slept on her chest.

What does she own?

She has registered no weapons.

She owned a telephone.

The telephone rings and rings.

I hope the Engler family finds some comfort in having spent some time with the many here in the city of Davis who knew and loved Whitney.

Tonight’s pub quiz will feature questions on the following topics: polar bears, Irish cities, Tumblr vs. Instagram, mottos and slogans, diseases, two-syllable words that start with H, bad jokes, Hawaii, 16-week successes, animals, taxes, philosophy, non-American actresses, gas, movie theatres, Beatles, green energy and green layovers, US Presidents, repeated words, sculptures, Disney characters, tall buildings, chompers, the practices of rich people, law degrees, Academy Awards, journalism, and Shakespeare.

Nothing else is going on tonight, such as in Indianapolis, so you should really join us at the Irish Pub tonight. See you then!

Your Quizmaster