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

Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:

1. Mottos and Slogans. What organization adopted the motto “Semper Fidelis” (or “Semper Fi”) in 1883?

2. Internet Culture. A five-letter word beginning with B refers to the fifth most-trafficked website in the world, that of a search engine and the first Chinese company to be included in the NASDAQ-100 index. What is the name of this Chinese equivalent of Google?

3. Newspaper Headlines. Israel’s recent statements on the conflicts in Egypt indicate that it A) backs the military, B) backs the protesters, or C) seeks to remain neutral.

4. California. The Farallon Islands are found off the coast of what California city with a population of about 825,000? John Lescroart’s team answered that one correctly, not surprisingly.

5. Countries Whose Names Start with the Letter B. The Keel-billed Toucan is the National Bird of the country with the lowest population density in Central America. Name it. (It’s not Brazil or Bolivia, which are both in South America)

P.S. Former Sacramento Poet Laureate Bob Stanley will bring his banjo and copies of his many books to the John Natsoulas Gallery for our next Poetry Night on September 5^th. Details next week. See you tonight!

The Hair-Twirling Swellhead Edition of the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz Newsletter

by yourquizmaster on August 19, 2013

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

Why would you write about Penelope in the newsletter, my wife Kate asked. It’s a fair question. How do I choose any of these topics, really? Whereas I collect Pub Quiz question topics over the course of my busy workweek, I typically save the newsletter topics for the moment I sit down to the keyboard. Perhaps you can tell. I wish for these little essays to be more lyrical than expository or, say, argumentative. I have to explain and argue enough in my other jobs. When writing these newsletters, I summon up my training as a poet, and thereby trust the creative process. I do the same in the classroom when I share moments of creation and discovery with my students, so that every class can offer something new and unexpected.

“Penelope” might make one think of the actresses Penelope Ann Miller or Penelope Cruz, or perhaps even the Kristin Wiig character Penelope, the neurotic hair-twirling swellhead who is even more competitive than regular PQ participant Keith David Watenpaugh (Hi Keith!). But of course I was thinking of the wife of Odysseus. As you may remember, the hero of The Odyssey was delayed on his return home from the Trojan War, primarily because he had angered Poseidon by blinding the god’s son (long story), thus spurring the ocean god to hamper the wayward hero’s return to Ithaca. Meanwhile, over the course of 20 years, Penelope used a variety of tricks to discourage and hold off her 108 suitors, even though it wasn’t clear that she knew Odysseus was still alive. Not to spoil the ending, but Tarantino has optioned the final confrontation scene between Odysseus and the suitors.

There are no suitors or unstringable bows in my house. Instead, I’ve been managing children for the last two and a half weeks as we wait for the hero of our household, my wife Kate, finally to come home from her childhood home of Chicago. The weeks have seemed like decades in part because of how much we all rely on her, and because I’ve instituted a ban on television and junk food during Kate’s absence. This afternoon the children and I will have a powwow in the living room in order to discuss our hazy memory of what the house looked like before Kate left, and how we might possibly return it to that state by tomorrow afternoon. If you are reading this, Athena, some divine intervention would be appreciated.

In honor of Penelope, expect a question on fidelity this evening. Tonight’s Pub Quiz will also include questions on the following topics: China, Israel, and American islands; two people named Hilton, toucans, popular bands, the word “the,” bans, Paul McCartney, angry people who died with no friends, Richard Gere, searches, refraction, celebrated soldiers, banana imports, Great Scots, speed demons, syndicates, seaport cities, summer songs, Brad Pitt, visas that arrive just in time, leftists, unlikely teenagers, therapy candidates, Fridays, ecology, gangsters, elitism, famous parks, and Shakespeare.

Alzada Knickerbocker, the owner of The Avid Reader bookstores, has expressed some interest in our Pub Quiz. I think the least I can do to repay her for all the years we’ve spent in her bookstore would be to add a few more bookish questions when she joins us for the first time. I will let you know when that is. Meanwhile, I encourage you to purchase your books locally: you have three 2^nd Street bookstore choices within a block of de Vere’s, and each of them deserves your patronage. Two of them also host regular author events, thus spreading cultural goodwill in our fair city, as I try to do every week with the Pub Quiz.

See you tonight!

Your Quizmaster

Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:

1. Newspaper Headlines. What is the name of the meteor shower that peaked this past weekend?

2. TV Actors. What well-known television actor had small roles in the following films?Get Shorty and Fallen in the 1990s, The Man Who Wasn’t There and All The Kings Men in the 2000s, and Killing Them Softly and Zero Dark Thirty in this decade?

3. Pop Culture – Music. What are the first and last names of the American harpist and singer who is both Andy Samberg’s fiancée and the second cousin, twice removed, of the Lieutenant Governor of California?

4. Sports. The most-recognized of all football players holds the record for the most yards gained in back-to-back games, at 476. Name the player.

5. Science. Also known as a dwarf leopard and by its Latin species name, Leopardus pardalis, what is the three-syllable common name of the wild cat distributed extensively over South and Central America?

The Fleeting Muscle Memories of Summer Edition of the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz Newsletter

by yourquizmaster on July 22, 2013

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

I spent an hour or so this morning at the UC Davis Rec Pool, watching my seven year-old son Truman enjoy a private swimming lesson. Such lessons help to transform the potential fear and peril that a youngster might associate with the water into a feeling of independence and confidence. And such a setting! As you probably know, the rec pool is ringed at a distance with pine and palm trees whose branches’ habitual sway offers plenty of shade to the parents to relish as we shift our lawn chairs with the shifting sun. I see parents of the youngest children hover nearby, with an eye on the instructor to whom they have entrusted their futures, while the parents of the older kids are eager to catch a break; they pair and triple up in the shade, sharing gossip, stories and jokes. Or so I imagine. Only their laughter can be heard to a faraway viewer such as my wife Kate or myself.

Similar positive energy emanates from the instructors, especially Truman’s teacher, Taylor, who kept telling Truman that his attempts at pencil dives and side-breathing were “super-good” and “really awesome,” the language that sometimes creeps into the rough drafts of my students’ essays. With Taylor’s constant stream of encouragements came an absolute focus on our boy, the sort of attention that is necessary if she is to inspire the trust of children and their parents. Like a dance instructor, Taylor guided, cajoled and directed with her arms, lifting and stabilizing Truman while he tried earnestly to hear her instructions through his earplugs, and meet her expectations. Sometimes even our muscle memories are fleeting.

Meanwhile, the gentle morning heat lazes above the families and the swim instructors, reminding us all that we should move, think, and work more slowly on a summer day than we do during the other nine moths of the year. Immersed in the poolside sounds of summer, and the warm morning like a comfortable silk garment, each of us pretends for a moment that we are the children that we see around us, with nothing more pressing than the thoughts of an unhurried brunch of berries, a play-date with a friend from school (remember school?), and the water that buoys our underwater dreams and explorations.

Today might be a forgettable day, for nothing momentous or calamitous has happened, or is likely to. But today, this day, still matters, for it is also representative of that which we might treasure in recollection, in those rare moments of reflective tranquility, for the rest of our lives.

And now for the part of the Pub Quiz newsletter that Elliott and the other studious Quiz participants print out and study as they wait for the 7 PM chime at 217 E Street. Tonight’s Quiz will feature questions on superheroes, as constant a summer recreation as a dip in the pool. Expect also questions about three-letter acronyms, Lucille Ball, The Davis Food Co-Op, Whigs, breasts, North Carolina, pop music, the NFC, nine-letter genres, Greek heroes, muscles, people born in Connecticut, deceit, Superman, obituaries, stark tests that are difficult to beat, stockings, giant meddlers, seasons, hope, animated films (as promised on Facebook, though the answer will not be Turbo), Spain, great orators, the order of languages, cities that begin with vowels, loud speakers, not the prince you were expecting, presidential elections, people born in Kenya, and Shakespeare.

It was crowded last week, with many playing on the patio, and it will be crowded again this week. No cell phones during the Pub Quiz, please.

Your Quizmaster

Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:

Mottos and Slogans. What FedEx competitor uses the commercial slogan “We Keep Your Promise”?

Newspaper Headlines. What pitcher threw a no-hitter against the Padres last week?

Bad TV Movies. What has been called the “most terribly good TV movie of the summer” was not titled “Velocirapture” or “Piranhacane.” What was the title of this much-discussed SyFy network release this past weekend?

Name the Year. Sitting Bull and Van Gogh died the same year that Eisenhower & Lovecraft were born. Within five years, name the year.

Pop Culture – Music. In 2012, after a trip to Jamaica, Snoop Dogg announced a conversion to the Rastafari movement and a new alias. What is Snoop’s new name?

Editor’s note: Since this was originally published, we’ve learned that a Prince of Cambridge has been born, and that the American actor Dennis Farina has been died (the momentous, and the calamitous).

The Lucid Dreaming about Trayvon Edition of the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz Newsletter

by yourquizmaster on July 15, 2013

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

I once heard a comedian say recently that if you are not Dr. Martin Luther King, people are not going to be interested in your dreams. My friend the LA record executive and poet Brian Felsen, however, has expressed fascination with my practice of lucid dreaming, a phenomenon where the dreamer is aware that he is dreaming, and where he may even be able to exert control over the substance of his dream. I find myself able to lucid dream usually if three conditions have been met: I am well rested when I go to sleep (rather than utterly exhausted), I have an occasion to sleep seven or more hours (rare for me), and in the dream I find myself in some sort of perilous situation. Viewers of the film Inception know well the sort of peril that can face the experienced lucid dreamer.

This past Saturday I took both a morning and an afternoon nap (ahh, July), and then went to bed relatively early, perhaps wishing to sleep away the distress I felt about the Trayvon Martin verdict that had been announced a few hours before. While dreaming, I discovered that Ultimate Fighting Championship President Dana White sought to do me in, and that he had ordered many of his most famous mixed martial artists to pursue me, many of them on skis. My heart beginning to race, I woke up just enough to realize that I was dreaming, and then “went back in” to inform Mr. White that he and his goons would not be able to approach me, for I had grown wings and was armed with a laser spoon. As these deterrents were only minimally effective, I then warned Mr. White that I had affixed a great number of grand pianos high in the sky, and that if he or his hoodlums approached me, I would have to cut the ropes and let them drop. I fired a warning piano to indicate the seriousness of my threat. Sadly, the first piano went unheeded, and eventually additional Steinways had to be launched by the man with wings and a rope-cutting spoon. The conflicts in the dream began to resemble those of a Tarantino film, but I remained unharmed (if revulsed by the off-camera carnage). Before long I woke to realize, with some relief, that there was no spoon.

Dream interpreters might have made much of my antagonist being called “Mr. White” at a time when, as a nation, we are debating what happens when some people with easy access to weapons are further emboldened by white privilege. Others might have fixated on the piano, noting that in my dream, music calmed, or at least immobilized, the “savage beasts” that were chasing me. Do we know for sure what dreams mean, or even if we should be looking to dreams to have meaning? Perhaps we should look to dreams to do what poems do, to communicate to us a succession of emotions, and to give us downtime opportunities to sort through our concerns, such as our renewed national concerns about fairness and justice.

As despicable as it seems for a man with a concealed weapon to follow (some would say “stalk”) a 17-year old local boy armed only with Skittles and iced tea, the Florida “stand your ground” law required the six jurors to focus exclusively on the conflict that Zimmerman had initiated, and to determine whether if, when Trayvon Martin responded to the challenge, the older man with the firearm felt threatened or fearful. Zimmerman’s lawyers convinced the jury that, in short, he was afraid. Many who followed the case closely felt that, given the court’s instructions to the jurors, the not guilty verdict was likely.

Yet we still feel stung by the loss of the young man, and begin to ask questions about what in the Pledge of Allegiance we have called “liberty and justice for all.” I’m sure many young people are re-examining their understanding of justice in America, perhaps asking Tolstoy’s question: “What is to be done?” When John was asked that in Luke 3:10, he responded, “Whoever has two coats should share with somebody who has none, and whoever has food should do the same.”

Many believe that “stand your ground” laws promote vigilantism. Indeed, in a society where we are encouraged to see people outside our immediate social group, and young African-American men in particular, as “suspicious” or even “ dangerous,” we can be sure that many more such young men will be stalked and confronted. African-American pundit Cord Jefferson wrote Saturday night that “For people of color, [the killing of Trayvon Martin is] a vivid reminder that we must always be deferential to white people, or face the very real chance of getting killed.” We should remember that we all benefit when we seek to understand, to appreciate, and to communicate our concerns peacefully rather than to exert the sort of unreasoning power and authority that we do in our lucid dreams.

Tonight’s Pub Quiz will feature questions about the promises we keep, franchises, Sean Connery roles opposite Audrey Hepburn, online photographs, outrageous plots, Ireland, the Rastafari, Phoenix and other places in Arizona, scientific TLAs, jazz musicians with second jobs, large antagonists, devoted spouses, ogres, UC Davis students, MJ, evaluating haystacks, film directors, superheroes, Angelina Jolie, famous cats, Winters, Academy Awards, Tennessee, diapers, Scientology, coenzymes, thrillers, California employment, films that take place in fast-food restaurants, dictionaries of color.

Congratulations to frequent past Pub Quiz participant Cami Beaumont for her directorial debut in She Creatures, a play that opens this weekend at the Barnyard Theatre. Are you seeing enough plays this summer?

I expect a full house this evening, so come early to claim a table.

Your Quizmaster

Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:

1. Internet Culture. What has Apple made the default search engine for Siri in iOS 7?

2. Newspaper Headlines. The tabloids still call the mother of the child who will be the first ever Prince or Princess of Cambridge by her nickname and maiden name. What is that name?

3. Banners. “The Star Spangled Banner” was made the US national anthem by a congressional resolution on March 3, 1931, and was signed by which President of the United States?

4. Dance! What is the name of the dance fitness program (some call it a “craze”) created by Colombian dancer and choreographer Alberto “Beto” Perez during the 1990s?

5. Pop Culture – Music. For the 2011 Guinness World Records, who was named the “Most Charted Teenager” following her 29th US Billboard Hot 100 chart entry on November 7, 2009 with “Party in the USA”? Who is she?

The Exploring Frivolity Edition of the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz Newsletter

by yourquizmaster on July 8, 2013

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

I hope you can join us again tonight, for we have such fun at the Pub Quiz, especially in the summertime when so many old friends can return to Davis from their other jobs and responsibilities to explore frivolity. We set aside a couple hours on Monday evenings to separate ourselves from the world – no cellphones! – and to take a break from our responsibilities. The Greek stoic philosopher Epictetus reminds us that “The key is to keep company only with people who uplift you, whose presence calls forth your best.” So it is at de Vere’s Irish Pub in Davis! Epictetus also inspired David Mamet’s “Practical Aesthetics” acting technique, so in honor of the two, we should expect at least two theatre / acting questions on the Pub Quiz this evening.

In order for the Pub Quiz to revitalize participants after a long Monday at work, I feel that it should celebrate those local, national, and global forces that might uplift us, rather than returning to the tragic and sensational that we might find in many subgenres of television news. I keep this in mind when writing pub quiz questions; I also need to be careful not to inadvertently stumble into some controversy or newsworthy calamity. For example, in today’s quiz I had planned an anagram that had included the phrase “unfit ace” and actors who play failed airmen. Now that we are discovering that pilot error and inexperience contributed significantly to Saturday’s Asiana Airlines plane crash at SFO, I decided to save that anagram for another night (and opted instead for something light about Nazi labor camps). Perhaps a better pub quiz topic would be the heroic flight attendants who saved so many lives on the tarmac Saturday.

As a Quizmaster who writes his own questions, I am limited by (and saddled by) what I know. Those who have attended the Pub Quiz for years might have figured out how to attune their own reading, research and receptivity to my limited ken of understanding, so I find myself obligated to ask questions about silly celebrities and internet memes, as well as expected topics, such as Irish playwrights and my favorite American artists. If you ever notice a significant absence in the covered Pub Quiz topics, please inform me of the oversight so I can make adjustments on future quizzes. That said, if a typically winning team asks for more questions on nautical terms or album rock music from the 1960s and 70s, I may just nod politely and misplace that mental note, for I like to see everyone in the winners’ circle, sooner or later.

Tonight the winners will be those who can answer questions about search engines, princesses, Longfellow, US Presidents, Alps, primates, fitness, teenagers, Colombian exports, yearly agricultural festivals in California, pitchers among my ancestors, fruit production, crescents, people born in San Francisco, wild swine, men who carry axes, Buzz Aldrin, hot gnomes, pre-history, human anatomy, the lessons of fear, proper gentlemen, rebirths, ripening, true or false questions about lawyers, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, American energy sources, horrific heroes, people named Zod, that which is extinguished, actresses born in 1948 who are not Georgia Engel, political punch lines, spiders, funeral services and other transitions, the Chicago Bears, and Shakespeare. Speaking of political punch lines, I regret to inform you that there will be no questions tonight about Texas Governor Rick Perry, who announced today is intention not to run for re-election as Governor. One can only hope that he tries for the presidency again.

See you tonight! Come early to claim a table, for I expect another sold-out show.

Your Quizmaster

Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:

Mottos and Slogans. What company started using the commercial slogan “Leave the Driving to Us” in 1956?

Internet Culture. According to its trademark application, what will be the likely name of the wrist-mounted computer to be released by Apple, Inc.?

People Named Roscoe. The American silent film actor, comedian, and director who mentored Charlie Chaplin, and discovered Buster Keaton and Bob Hope, had the first name of Roscoe. What was his last name?

Sports. How many of the top six all-time scorers in the NBA once played for the Los Angeles Lakers? Is it 3, 4, or 5?

The Science of Food. What is the name of the protein composite found in foods processed from wheat, barley and rye that gives dough its elasticity?

P.S. Theatre in the Arboretum again this coming weekend, thanks to Common House Productions.

The Dangers of Paula Deen Edition of the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz Newsletter

by yourquizmaster on July 1, 2013

Dear Friends of the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz,

One of the regular readers of this newsletter commented on my diatribe against mobility scooters for largely able-bodied people who refuse to exercise, and shared a request that I next take on Paula Deen’s racism. I’ve actually never seen Paula Deen on television, not even when she appeared in a lachrymose state to make and deny confessions on The Today Show. I regret that a 60-something woman from the south has held or shared racist views, but from what I’ve read, she has shown some contrition, and since expressed anti-racist opinions during her apology tour.

Much more important would be Deen’s inimical effect on the health of the Americans who prepare her recipes or purchase her pre-processed foods. When one Google’s Deen’s name, one finds the USA Today headline “Paula Deen: The new face of type 2 diabetes” and the Business Insider article indelicately titled “The 10 Most Disgusting Things Paula Deen Has Ever Put In Her Mouth.” Here’s the first paragraph:

Chocolate pizza, butter cake ice cream, and Krispy Kreme pudding. Welcome to Paula Deen’s recipes, where Candyland gumdrop dreams come to fruition.

The gluttonous impulses that Deen’s (former) empire seemed to depend upon evidently don’t actually lead one to happiness. Today’s Atlantic includes an article titled “Study: People With a Lot of Self-Control Are Happier.” The Atlantic article finishes likes this:

What [the researchers] figured out is that instead of constantly denying themselves, people high in self-control are simply less likely to find themselves in situations where that’s even an issue. They don’t waste time fighting inner battles over whether or not to eat a second piece of cake. They’re above such petty temptations. And that, it would seem, makes them happier … if still just a little bit sad.

Speaking of my addictions, my wife Kate is back from a week in Pittsburgh where she helped to organize a conference to promote medical research into Smith Lemli Opitz Syndrome. Finally we will get to enjoy a meal this evening (including fries dribbled with cheese, because one should not deny too many pleasures in this life). As my boy Truman said when Kate was away, “Cupid is a genie who grants just one wish.” For me, that would be accurate.

Paula Deen will not appear on tonight’s Pub Quiz, though some of the topics raised above will appear in different forms. Instead, expect questions on driving, apples, national security, Disney, my brother Oliver, Los Angeles, quiet comedians, basketball superstars, silent Js, small Catholic countries, trials, protein, American women, gathering summons, words that start with M and C, union additions, intrusive hammocks, bays, glacial activities, pop songs from centuries ago, art and artists, superheroes, British girls, dangerous places, fashion designers not know for their fashion designs, astronomy, castles, baseball, bards, and Swiss winter resorts.

Thanks to all of you who expressed surprise that I didn’t include some expected topic or another in last week’s Quiz. I especially appreciated hearing from the Shakespeare scholar who was disappointed that I didn’t include a Midsummer Night’s Dream question on Midsummer’s eve. I will continue to present you with something unexpected at the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz. See you tonight!

Your Quizmaster

Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:

1. Mottos and Slogans. What business calls itself “The Nation’s Largest Used Car Retailer”?

2. Internet Culture. What is the name of the Twitter-acquired mobile app that allows users to post six-second video clips?

3. Newspaper Headlines. Jeffrey Skilling had a decade shaved from his 24-year prison sentence last week. Of what company was Skilling the former CEO?

4. California Mountains. Starting with the letter T, what mountain range is found southeast of Bakersfield and the Central Valley, and west of Mojave and the Antelope Valley?

5. Pop Culture – Music. Ragtime began as dance music in the red-light districts of African American communities in two American cities years before being published as popular sheet music for piano. Name one of the two cities.

The Disneyland Mobility Scooters Edition of the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz Newsletter

by yourquizmaster on June 24, 2013

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

As many of you know, earlier this month I spent almost a week at Disneyland, also known to children and Disney marketers as “The Happiest Place on Earth.” I myself have a rather vexed relationship with Disney, for I have concerns of how Disney films have unduly sweetened the fairy tales that I enjoyed as a child, how Disney films have taught girls to aspire to be princesses, and how Walt Disney’s own brand of conservatism manifested itself in his films and hiring practices. Neal Galber’s book Walt Disney: The Triumph of American Imagination reveals that Disney executives said they would “consider” the requests by 1963 civil rights activists to hire some African American people at Disney theme parks.

I saw plenty of diversity at Disneyland and California Adventures last week, for a cross-section of Americans flocks to the parks, liberally spending the money that many working class families have been saving all year. I also saw some fabulously wealthy families, including some that looked like their Disney adventures were being supported by Middle-East oil money (as suggested by hints such as jewelry and bodyguards). My wife Kate was concerned by how many niqābs we saw, for she sees the face-covering cloth veil worn by some Muslim women as indicative of oppressive patriarchal structures (in countries such as Saudi Arabia). I myself was struck by how out of shape America seems to be, for the rates of obesity of Disneyland guests are much, much higher than that of, say, Davisites or California university students.

With this in mind, I was grateful that at least the Disney theme parks to force Americans to take long walks (those who don’t rent the sort of mobility scooters that sometimes made me feel like I was on the set of the film Wall-E). In a country where, according to the CDC, one third of American adults are obese, the intense amount of walking and standing necessary to participate in the Disney experience means that many Americans will sample northern California personal transportation practices, as well as southern California weather. The huge parking lot that used to sit adjacent to Disneyland had long ago been turned into California Adventures, with actual topography (hills!) added to some parts of the park. The only people I saw on bikes were The Dapper Dans, a barbershop quartet riding a bicycle built for four. I guess Davis itself is a sort of theme park for bicyclists, an attraction that we should do even more to publicize.

I will say more next week about the extent to which the Disneyland experience has become a participatory advertisement for Disney merchandise, while I continue with this advertisement for tonight’s Pub Quiz. Tonight we will feature questions on cars, human anatomy, mobile applications, marriages, stings, mountain ranges, US citizens, red-light districts, net sports, World War Z, horses, superlative baseball pitchers, swamps, police, celebrities over 50, winter resorts, first names, TV shows that I had to discover for tonight’s Quiz, actors whose names are fun to say, people not named Alden or Brandon, noisy roof carnivals in California (anagram), musicians who act, math questions that involve taxicabs and really long numbers, German champions, astronomical portmanteau words, professional basketball, cover-ups, Minnesota radio, and Shakespeare comedies.

I hope to see you tonight. Thanks to Nat from The Wilhelm Screamers (a Hall of Fame team) for guest-hosting last Monday while I was away being happy.

Your Quizmaster