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 California organization reminds us to “Slow for the Cone Zone”?

2. Internet Culture. The open source web application framework sometimes nicknamed RAILS runs on the Ruby programming language. What is the full three-word name of this web application framework?

3. Newspaper Headlines. According to a decision announced Saturday, girls will be allowed to play sports in private schools for the first time in what country with a population of 29 million people?

4. Four for Four. Which of the following, if any, were named after the Italian explorer Marco Polo? The airport in Venice, a swimming pool game in which the child who is “IT” pretends to keep his eyes closed, a Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China, a species of sheep.

5. Film Franchises. Released in your lifetime, what four-film film franchise starred Alexa Vega as Carmen Cortez and Daryl Sabara as Juni Cortez?

P.S. The prose writer Lynn Freed will be headlining Poetry Night at the John Natsoulas Gallery this coming Thursday. A creative writing professor at UC Davis, Lynn Freed is a South African writer and novelist whose work has appeared in The New York Times, Ploughshares, Vogue, The Washington Post, Newsweek, The Atlantic Monthly, Tin House, and The New Yorker. Her short story “Sunshine” won the 2011 PEN/O. Henry Prize, the nation’s highest honor for short fiction, and her story “Ma: A Memoir” was performed on NPR’s Selected Shorts. Several of her novels, as well as her collection of stories, The Curse of the Appropriate Man, have appeared on The New York Times “Notable Books of the Year” list.

Lynn Freed will be reading this coming Thursday, May 16^th at 8 PM at the John Natsoulas Gallery. The open mic starts at 9, and the after-party at de Vere’s at about 10. Add yourself to the Facebook event at https://www.facebook.com/events/305985849531838/

The Hazarding Writer Edition of the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz Newsletter

by yourquizmaster on May 6, 2013

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

As someone who has been teaching writing at UC Davis for more than 20 years, I have great faith in the practice of writing as a means of edification and transformation, a means of becoming who we wish to be. If we agree with Socrates’ statement that “an unexamined life is not worth living,” then writing because existentially necessary, for it is the way (outside of a therapist’s office) that most of us conduct such self-examinations, even if we don’t realize it at the time.

As the father of a wordless son with Autism, I am grateful for the opportunity to turn off my fast-connecting and fast-processing problem-solving brain on weekends, and spend some time on a walk, in the park, or on some other adventure in unconcerning activities that might have caused Socrates concern. My weekend respite is both the reason I can do so much over the course of any particular week, as well as a reason why I must scramble during the week in order to accomplish it all. These Monday morning stints of writing for you, in the form of these oddly-titled newsletters that I publish on The Davis Patch, represent my re-entry into a thinking person’s world. On Mondays I am suddenly required to make sense in a first draft, and perhaps to make sense of my previous weekend, or even of myself. As E.L. Doctorow once said, “Writers are not just people who sit down and write. They hazard themselves. Every time you compose a book your composition of yourself is at stake.”

One of my favorite local authors often attends our Pub Quiz, which makes sense because before he hit the big time as the creator of Dismas Hardy and many other endearing literary characters, he used to augment his income with game show winnings. I think that would be a much more pleasant way to earn writer’s time than, say, filling out applications for fellowships at various writers’ retreats sponsored by small colleges and other non-profit organizations. I mention this because the author in question, John Lescroart, has a book coming out tomorrow titled The Ophelia Cut, and he deserves props for his productivity, and all the work he does to keep his readers entertained (and reflective). John will be feted at an event tomorrow evening at the nearby Odd Fellows Hall (415 2^nd Street). Capital Public Radio’s Donna Apidone will be hosting the event, which will include appetizers, live music, and a brief reading and book signing by Lescroart himself. If you care about writing and writers, as I do, perhaps I will see you tomorrow night at this event, or at one of the other readings and book-signings as John launches his 24^th novel, The Ophelia Cut.

Tonight’s Pub Quiz will feature talk of writers and writing, including a question about an American novelist born in the 19^th century (so that excludes John Lescroart). Expect also questions about cones and rails, women in sports, famous Italians, film franchises, cruelty, pianos, Marx, human villains, mononyms, basketball, medical terms that you should know even if you have no doctors on your team, John Kenneth Galbraith, unforced errors, youth, Twitter, football, keys, Nosey yogis, musketeers, democracies, London trains, millionaire actors who once attended Julliard, romantic comedies that may appeal to your demographic, words that start with the letter M, Victorians, famous sophomores, and the plays of William Shakespeare. There will be three musical questions this evening, one of them the anagram.

I hope to see you tonight. You might do better on the Quiz if you were to reflect on the topics mentioned above. Consider doing so with a pen in your hand.

Your Quizmaster

Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:

1. Internet Culture: Internet Memes. What television personality famously and repeatedly said “We’ll do it live”?

2. Newspaper Headlines. Of the 20 best-read cities in the US (according to Amazon.com), only one California city makes the list, and, shockingly, it’s not Davis. Name the California city.

3. Pop Culture – Music. What country music start who passed away recently appeared often on the TV show Hee Haw, as well as on 150 albums?

4. Four for Four. Which of the following counties, if any, border part of Yolo County? Amador, Colusa, Napa, Solano.

5. Sports. What athlete has been on the cover of Sports Illustrated the most times, at 50?

The Exuberantly Bouncy Edition of the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz Newsletter

by yourquizmaster on April 29, 2013

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

My son’s bus driver John might be the kindest man I know. Certain jobs require such kindness: nursery school teacher, children’s librarian, and anyone who works with kids with special needs come to mind. I think all of us could learn lessons about patience and wonder from such people, and, as a dad, I am lucky to get to interact with a great number of them.

This morning I told John about how my son Jukie had spent most of the weekend in one bouncy house or another, for we attended a carnival at the Mind Institute on Saturday, and then attended two different outdoor birthday parties on Sunday, complete with piñatas, water balloon tosses, and, at one, another bouncy house. The parks of Davis are magical enough on their own, but they seem especially so when filled with exuberantly bouncy children who are hopped up on cake and ice cream.

John the bus driver told me how pleased he was that I spend so much time capering about with my children on various outdoor adventures on the weekends. Evidently John’s father was too busy working to spend much time at John’s sporting events in elementary and high school. John resolved “always to be there” during his sons’ track meets and other competitive events, and just last week his sons remarked how much they appreciated all the time they got to spend with their parents, how their support was evident and constant. Evidently John had broken the cycle of well-meaning parental neglect, for his sons also set aside time for their children, cheering (as many Davis parents do) along the sidelines of soccer fields and baseball diamonds.

Imagine the cheering tonight if you answer even two-thirds of the questions right on tonight’s Pub Quiz, which may be a little trickier than others, even though I’ve included a few questions about expected topics in the news. Some people are already comparing Jason Collins to Jackie Robinson. Expect questions on other topics, such as board games, internet memes, books and the people who read them, California counties, the seed storage of horticultural crops, Italy, billion-dollar actors, cover models, genetics, senators, donkey noises, weasels that glint, stinging insects, ambitious interviewers, comedians, table riddles, The Beatles, Star Wars, repeats, optometry, diamonds, deficiencies, fish culture, Egypt, poets, Samuel L. Jackson, shoes, languages, super-villains, British culture, candidates for Congress, ancient Romans, chimpanzees, and Shakespeare.

Thanks to all of you who participated in the KDVS fundraiser, including the following folks who contributed during my show: John, Lynn, Chuck, and The Mavens. I enjoyed reading your names on the air. Please let me know if you or a member of your team has contributed (and they will still take your donation today at http://fundraiser.kdvs.org) if you want me to read your name or team’s name on “Dr. Andy’s Poetry and Technology Hour” this coming Wednesday.

I hope to see you this evening. We shall have some fun.

Your Quizmaster

Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:

1. Great Americans. Born in 1954, who calls himself “King of All Media”?

2. Unusual two-syllable nouns that starts with W. What word has the following meanings? “An odd or fanciful idea,” or “a quaint or fanciful quality.” If you are looking for synonyms, you might consider caprice, fancy, vagary, or fad.

3. Magazines. What is the name of the international news magazine devoted to music and the music industry?

4. Pop Culture – Television. America’s most appealing celebrity, according to a market research firm, evidently appears in the TV sit-com Hot in Cleveland. Name the celebrity.

5. Another Music Question: Songs with Five Words in Their Titles. What was the only 1980 Queen song to be certified platinum in the US?

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

by yourquizmaster on April 22, 2013

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

In my “Writing in Fine Arts” class last Tuesday, the day after the horrific bombings in my former hometown of Boston, I was thinking about the fun we have at Pub Quiz, and how sometimes the best college classes also focus on answering questions, though often ones without “correct” answers. I began class Tuesday with a quick lesson on inquiry-based learning, which Indiana University, Bloomington calls “Learning [that is focused] around a meaningful, ill-structured problem that demands consideration of diverse perspectives.” I then had my students self-select (via voting, no more than seven to a group) into four groups with different tasks.

They could analyze a Louis Menand New Yorker essay that was quickly written on the Marathon bombings;
They could discuss and apply concepts raised in Arthur Miller’s 1949 essay “Tragedy and the Common Man”;
They could support an assertion on the ways that photography is insufficient to represent tragic events;
Or they could answer the question “How does art heal?”

Because my students actually are allowed outside help, that is, access to networked computers, I asked the students themselves had to research answers to the final two questions, using the computers in the classroom to find the content of the lesson, and then to organize their thoughts with enough time to offer insights and supported arguments about that content. I was impressed with my students’ analysis and assertions, and I did my best to facilitate the discussion, sometimes noting connections between the findings of the different groups.

That night I received this email from one of my students:

“Dear Dr. Andy,

I just wanted to say that I really appreciated you adjusting the lesson plan today to talk about the Boston bombing. Most of the time when things like this happen, other professors go on like nothing had happened. It always confused me and made me feel like I should cover up the sadness. I am very glad that you decided to talk about it. Thanks again.”

Classes like Tuesday’s class remind me how appreciative I am to have had an opportunity to pose challenging questions to smart people on the radio every week (on my KDVS radio show “Dr. Andy’s Poetry and Technology Hour”), for that’s exactly how I ran the class. I also get to ask you smart people even trickier questions about even more random topics. Like Pub Quizzers, UC Davis students excel at meeting high expectations and answering tough questions.

The KDVS Fundraiser started today, and you can expect two questions whose answers can be found in the following sentence: the Fundraiser edition of “Dr. Andy’s Poetry and Technology Hour” will air this coming Wednesday, April 24^th, at 5 PM on KDVS, 90.3 FM; during that hour I hope to raise $1,000 for your campus and community radio station, and I could use your help. Set an alarm now for Wednesday at 5 so you can call 530 754-5387 or visit http://fundraiser.kdvs.org/.

Tonight’s Pub Quiz will include questions about the KDVS fundraiser, professors, Marvel superheroes, beverages, systems, machines invented more than 200 years ago, walking feet, baseball, beasts, kings, fancy, appealing celebrities, trade magazines, farmer heels, famous women, Central California heroes, Nobel Laureates, chapels, odd pairings, physics, poetry, and Shakespeare. I also have to write a few more questions yet.

I hope to see you this evening for the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz!

Your Quizmaster

Here are five questions from last week’s Pub Quiz:

1. Mottos and Slogans. What company that has a store at the Arden Fair Mall tells us that “Every Kiss Begins with Kay”?

2. Internet Culture. The world’s largest private solar array powers a data center in Maiden, North Carolina. What company owns it?

3. Newspaper Headlines. What baseball team scored a triple play last week? Hint: It was the first in the team’s home stadium since 1968.

4. Four for Four. Including direct to DVD, which of the following film franchises, if any, include 5 or more films? Fast and the Furious, Madea, Pirates of the Caribbean, Shrek.

5. Sports. Sacramento UFC star Uriah Faber wrestled for what university?

The Wounds Inflicted by Reason Edition of the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz

by yourquizmaster on April 15, 2013

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

I write this morning’s newsletter with deep concern and a heavy heart, for two of our fellow Davisites were found killed in their South Davis home last night, a home just a few doors down from what my wife and I called “The Geneva Park,” a beautiful neighborhood sylvan retreat that we once visited every day with our new daughter. The motives or victims of this crime are not yet known; while the police do their work, all of us should be grateful for the safety of our local family members. We can expect coverage of this unfortunate story from The Davis Enterprise and Davis Patch throughout the day.

It’s Tax Day, National Poetry Month, as well as KDVS fundraiser month (that starts next Monday). Expect a poetry question tonight, this time on a British poet. Here are a few definitions of poetry to put you in a creative mood for this evening:

Poetry heals the wounds inflicted by reason. ~Novalis

Out of the quarrel with others we make rhetoric; out of the quarrel with ourselves we make poetry. ~W.B. Yeats

“Therefore” is a word the poet must not know. ~André Gide

Poetry is the rhythmical creation of beauty in words. ~Edgar Allan Poe

Poetry is the synthesis of hyacinths and biscuits. ~Carl Sandburg

The poet is a liar who always speaks the truth. ~Jean Cocteau

This coming Thursday night at 8 Davisites will get to enjoy a reading by Sacramento Poet Laureate Jeff Knorr. A Sacramento City College professor, Knorr is the author of three collections of poetry: The Third Body, Standing Up to the Day, and Keeper. I saw Knorr read recently at the delightful little bookstore Logos Books, and am pleased to have a chance to introduce him to a larger audience at the John Natsoulas Gallery on Thursday night. You should join us.

Tonight’s Pub Quiz will feature questions about North Carolina, baseball, films that spawn sequels, romances, John Travolta, automobiles, potatoes, The Beatles, Aggies, excitable cells, apples, Pirates, breathlessness, The Today Show, brouhahas, the US military, home-spun anagrams, ballistics, energy security, standing armies, famous characters, Danny DeVito, population drops, jewels, the Mediterranean, big (but not biggest) cities, identifiable insects, presidential inaugurations, justice icons, athletes, de Vere’s Irish Pub, and Shakespeare.

Thanks again to Nat for subbing the Pub Quiz last week. Tonight, I shall lead the fun myself, and I expect a full house. Please plan accordingly.

Your Quizmaster

Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:

1. Mottos and Slogans. According to the old commercial slogan, “Sometimes you feel like a nut, and sometimes you don’t.” What candy bar would you choose if you wanted to feel like a nut?

2. Newspaper Headlines – Today’s Obituaries. Annette Funicello and Roger Ebert were the same age when they died, both 17 years younger than Baroness Margaret Thatcher when she died today. How old was Annette Funicello this morning?

3. Food and Drink. What is the shape of the variety of pasta known as farfalle pasta?

4. Sports. David Beckham played the last two years on what LA-based soccer team that is the reigning MLS Cup champion?

5. Medicine. The medical condition “Median Neuropathy at the Wrist” is better known as what?

P.S. The KDVS Fundraiser is coming up. Please set an alarm for April 24 at 5PM, for at that time I will try to raise $1,000 for the station where I have volunteered for the last 13 years. I could use your help!

P.P.S. Happy Picnic Day on Saturday! Be safe!

The Adaptations of Roger Ebert Edition of the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz Newsletter

by yourquizmaster on April 8, 2013

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

I suppose Roger Ebert was a hero to all of us who were steeped in one particular struggling industry, such as journalism, and would wish to transition successfully to new challenges and opportunities provided by the cloud-based communities where so many of us spend so much of our time. When I met Roger Ebert, he was portly, loquacious, and generous with his time, especially to a pushy teenager (me) with a bunch of questions and comments. He and Gene Siskel gladly signed the document I thrust before them, a misprinted payroll report that we were using as scrap paper at the Washington DC’s Tenley Circle Theatre, where I worked the summer of 1984, the year of the visit and DC photo op of Siskel and Ebert.

As we know now from the obituaries, Ebert turned his love of the novels of Thomas Wolfe to a career as a high school and college sports reporter. Before long he moved to writing screenplays (unsuccessfully) and reviewing movies, first for the Chicago Sun Times (the lesser of the two city newspapers), and later, concurrently, on television with Gene Siskel and others.

Impressively relevant to today’s college students, Ebert had a third act as a blogger and tweeter, offering both sustained arguments and cutting quips on topics that internet-obsessed readers cared about: not only films, but also video games, Macs vs. PCs, and Democratic politics. My father started reviewing films in DC and Detroit around the time that Roger Ebert did in Chicago, but he never felt the need to transition to the digital age. At his funeral, my father’s students (at UNLV) spoke of having felt that “a library has burned down” because of my dad’s encyclopedic knowledge of film and theatre. We all might have felt some of that with the death of Roger Ebert, in part because of the many ambitious means (his blog, Twitter, etc.) he used to share his insights, especially after losing his voice (and much of his jaw), to cancer. We should all be so adaptable, and so appreciated. One editorial cartoon showed Siskel in heaven telling the arriving Ebert that he had, indeed, saved an aisle seat for his old frenemy. Another showed a theatre marquis telling us with large letters that “The Balcony is Closed.”

Tonight’s Pub Quiz will feature questions on Roger Ebert, Margaret Thatcher, People Magazine content, nuts, belligerent people, cowherds, butterflies, highs and lows, bending it, neuropathies, baritones, galaxies, storms, weights and measurements, ensemble dramas, colorful songs, Guinness, ocean engineering, mad brie, high points, fictional Roman generals, magnesium, the American poet William Carlos Williams (as this is National Poetry Month), lethal remedies, cruelty, Saturday Night Live, Ireland, bears, social security, words that start with the letter K, toys, first novels, superheroes, left-handed pitchers, and Shakespeare plays that even I haven’t (yet) seen.

Tonight’s Pub Quiz will be guest-hosted by local trivia enthusiast Nat Sternbergh. A teacher at Da Vinci Junior High, Sternbergh has loudly recited Percy Shelley’s “Ozymandias” to an unwilling audience at The Louvre, he has played that beloved character Gandalf on stage, and he has been paying attention to my memorized Quizmaster patter for weeks, knowing that some day this night would come. I have no idea what he will be bringing as swag. Perhaps furniture? In any event, as an actor, he will surely be up to the task this evening, and I hope you will be receptive to his amplified antics.

Tonight during the Pub Quiz hour I will be giving a poetry reading at the Mind Institute in Sacramento; I will be joined on stage by three other poets for whom the topic of Autism is centrally important. If it weren’t such an important cause, I might have declined the invitation, but I anticipated that you folks would understand, and appreciate a different take on Quizmastering. See you next week!

Your Quizmaster

Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:

1. Comic Books and Authors. Donald Duck has appeared in more films than any other Disney character and is the fifth most published comic book character in the world after Batman, Superman, and two Marvel superheroes. Name one of those superheroes.

2. Film. What violent ensemble film starring actors who have been nominated for a total of ten acting Oscars was moved to a January 2013 release out of sensitivity to those shaken by the shootings in Aurora, Colorado?

3. Children’s Literature. Who wrote the 1964 children’s book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory?

4. Books and Authors. How did T.S. Eliot famously describe April? You should expect another poetry question tonight, as it is National Poetry Month.

5. Current Events – Names in the News. Wouldn’t it be sad if you received a monkey for your 19th birthday, but then when you traveled on tour to Germany with that monkey, German authorities put your monkey in quarantine because your monkey didn’t have all its papers? This exact thing happened last week to what celebrity?

P.S. If you are wondering what show to see this coming weekend, I hope you might consider Nightingale, an original play presented by The Davis Shakespeare Ensemble. You should also consider April 24^th, the day that Dr. Andy will hold his fundraiser radio show on behalf of KDVS. More to come.

What a life this young man had waiting for him!

The Mystical Traveling Elders Edition of the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz Newsletter

by yourquizmaster on April 1, 2013

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

This has been an Easter weekend full of magic. Saturday I taught my first-grader Truman how to ride a bike. No one was more surprised than he was, laughing out loud while pedaling wildly along the greenbelt, yelling “I’m doing it” over and over. As the afternoon skies darkened, two Mormon Elders came by to watch Truman do figure eights in our cul de sac, drawn to the simultaneously precarious and dreamlike quality of what they were watching, as well as to their mission to talk to me about my post-life plans. When I told them that I was a Buddhist, one of them blurted out that that was “awesome.” Evidently these particular Elders were not taught in proselytizing class how to deal with Buddhists, so we just went back to watching Truman. Nice fellows.

And then yesterday afternoon I convinced the kids to pause the DVD they received from the Easter Bunny and instead watch the thunderstorm that I’m sure you also noticed shaking the town od Davis. We think it was Truman’s first daytime thunderstorm, and he kept us all updated on what he was seeing and feeling. At one point, after a flash of lightning lit up the living room, to the delight of the spectators, I asked Truman if he knew what came after lightning. He thought for a beat and then responded, “Frankenstein?” Ours is a home full of stories, new and old.

My outreach and performance adventures next week will keep me from hosting the Pub Quiz (there will be a sub). I will be participating in the Sacramento Poetry Center 4th Annual Autism Benefit Reading: Poetry and Art at the MIND Institute. As some of you know, I’m an advocate for autism research and awareness, and like to support local efforts in any way I can. I will be performing poems with the amazing poets Michelle Bitting, Rebecca Foust, and Connie Post, all of whom have written blurbs for my next book of poetry. If you are inclined, you are invited to join us at 2825 50^th Street in Sacramento next Monday at 7:00 PM. Dennis Hock will be the host.

Our substitute Quizmaster on April 8 will be Nat Sternbergh, the local teacher and regular Pub Quiz participant who likes to dress up like Gandalf and loudly recite Percy Shelley poems at the Louvre (though not necessarily at the same time). He also has a background in theatre, so he should be able to keep up. Expect to learn more about him in next week’s newsletter.

Tonight’s Pub Quiz will features questions on sports apparel, books, internet culture, vengefulness, café culture, art, classical music, quarterbacks, American presidents, take-aways, judges, sea battlers, television, avoiding motels, musical honorifics, bike thieves, words that start with the letter G, crusts, comic book characters, pop music, films with Oscar-nominated actors in them, Irish people, constitutions, chocolate, people who love maps, well-worn phrases from poems, Germany, commerce, and Shakespeare.

Joe Wenderoth and Oliver Jones (yes, a blood relative) will be performing adult-themed essays at the John Natsoulas Gallery this coming Thursday. You should join us! We’ll probably visit de Vere’s both before and after this event, because Oliver can’t get enough of the Irish Pub phenomenon.

Last week the Pub Quiz spilled out onto the patio, so I advise you to come early to claim a table tonight. I’m not joking.

Your Quizmaster

Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:

1. Mottos and Slogans. If you are told to “Taste the Rainbow,” what are you actually tasting?

2. Internet Culture. The best-selling PC game throughout the 1990s started with the letter M. What was its name? Hint: It’s not “Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing.”

3. US States and Emancipation. The number that is the earliest age in years that the emancipation of minors can occur in the U.S. is also the number of US States that do not have the letter A in their names. What is that number?

4. Sports – Baseball. What baseball player born in 1934 holds the record for the most RBIs, and the most total bases?

5. Science. What chemical element with the atomic number of 27 is also a color and a compact car introduced by Chevrolet?

P.S. I’m listening to KDVS online this week via Soundtap at http://soundtap.com/kdvs. If you sign into the site and keep your virtual radio on KDVS, our beloved local radio station will reap all sorts of benefits. Everyone loves a bracket!

The Grateful Burn Edition of the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz Newsletter

by yourquizmaster on March 25, 2013

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

Just because you don’t typically do something doesn’t mean that you can’t, and just because you can do something doesn’t mean that you should. These are the nuggets of wisdom that I’m reflecting on this afternoon, several hours before tonight’s Pub Quiz at de Vere’s Irish Pub.

My family lives towards the east side of South Davis, while my son’s elementary school is almost halfway to Winters. As it is pretty far to walk, heretofore we have driven him to school, usually carpooling with friends. This morning, though, Truman and I biked the full 8.5 miles, getting to Fairfield Elementary School at 8:25, enough time for him to add his name to those who bike commute to school, despite its location amid the farmlands that haven’t changed much since the school was first built in 1866. As the lead rider and pedaler on a tandem bike, I am still feeling that commute in my sore legs. It’s a grateful burn, one that I now wish I had felt many times before.

By contrast, last week after Poetry Night and the after-party at de Vere’s, I drove my wife’s minivan home. A 2001 Honda Odyssey. It has the best turning radius of any car I’ve ever driven, and much better than that of the Saturn SL2 that we bought to bring (now 15 year-old) Geneva home from the hospital. I love how that Odyssey allows you to park pointing in one direction, but then exit the street in another direction. But does this mean that I should take full advantage of that turning radius when leaving downtown Davis? No. Or at least that’s what I learned from a very polite police officer who pointed out to me – who knew – that U-turns are not allowed anywhere in the downtown shopping district. I also learned that just because you are friends with an officer who works for the Davis Police Department, that doesn’t mean that bringing that fact up casually in conversation with another policeman is a good idea. At least it won’t get you out of a ticket.

I also learned this week that even though your bulldog is well behaved everywhere she goes, that doesn’t mean she should accompany you into the home of New York Times best-selling author John Lescroart. As Will Rogers once said, “Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment.”

This week’s de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz will feature questions on a variety of topics that I don’t know particularly well. Coincidentally, it should also be easier than last week’s Pub Quiz. We’ll see. Expect questions on clothing, hammers, things that must be smashed, computer games, emancipation, US States, agriculture, spelling variations, jazz musicians, countries that are not Indonesia, India, or Eithiopia, baseball and basketball, Chevrolets, great Americans not named Will, restraints, biggest cities, old ladies, American albums, fashion, Gossip Girl, naturism, Africa, pieces of silver, wild beasts, local markets, local cafes, tribalism, nodal nitwits, domesticity, gawking art-goers, Norse Mythology, disentegrations, an iron horse tied to a tree, NCAA, Dutch towns, and Shakespeare.

I hope we can welcome onetime regular Pub Quiz participant Robert Lipman home from Chicago, where it is still winter. He has stories to tell about University of Chicago Library policies, among other things. Just because you can smuggle delicious food into the library, that doesn’t mean that you should.

See you tonight!

Your Quizmaster

Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:

Finals Week. Which downtown F Street hotel has invited UC Davis students to study in its Courtyard Lounge, offering free WiFi, Coffee, and breakfast vouchers during Finals Week?

Happy Endings. According to a study involving a staggering 2.4 million people, on which of the following days are you most likely to die? Your birthday, Christmas Day, Mother’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day.

Pop Culture – Music. What 1980s pop band’s song “Don’t You Want Me” begins with the line “You were working as a waitress in a cocktail bar”?

Sports. “Webber’s Folly” refers to a decision to call a timeout when his team had none. Name the college basketball team or its college.

Science. What part of the brain, when translated from Latin into English, means “tough body”?

The Bella Merlin and Gail Finney Edition of the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz Newsletter

by yourquizmaster on March 18, 2013

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

Irrelevantly, this week’s newsletter mentions two of my favorite UC Davis faculty colleagues. As far as I know, neither one is a punk rock pioneer, though you will encounter one of those below, too.

Thanks to all of you who attended my birthday Pub Quiz last Monday, and who signed the giant Shakespeare-themed card. I’m grateful to have a place where I can gather my dearest comrades together, and to have made friends with so many of the staff members at de Vere’s, a restaurant known for its great service. Yesterday my de Vere’s salad was so delicious that even my sons were seen stealing from my plate.

While my family and I were dining at the Pub yesterday evening, I got a sense of how loud it must be when we pack the place on a Monday night, especially with me prattling on so brashly about internet memes and orange juice. Like those celebrating St. Patrick’s Day in the only Irish pub in town, people waiting for the chime to ring at the Pub Quiz will feel, I hope, that the experience and the food and the intensity are all worth the noise. Some of you, I’ve discovered, are not sports fans, so perhaps the Quiz gives you your only chance to cheer. For me, theatre performances and poetry readings also provide such an opportunity.

Speaking of poetry, this coming Thursday evening, March 21^st, two notable creative trailblazers from Nevada City will be coming to perform at the John Natsoulas Gallery. Poet and world traveler Dave Boles is the publisher of Primal Urge Magazine and the driving force behind Cold River Press. Meri St. Mary is a punk rock musician, poet, and radio journalist. Her entry on Wikipedia is nine paragraphs long. I hope you will join us for this Thursday event, details of which can be found at PoetryinDavis.com.

Tonight’s Pub Quiz will overflow with questions about viral photographs, reading habits, fresh slogans, Adam Duritz, menaces, finals week at UC Davis, 19^th century stories, final days, viewing habits, cocktail bars, college basketball, tough bodies, Latin words, island nations, prominent generals, gay marriage, clasps and brooches, coastlines, proclivities for synonyms, beer, TV shows that I hear are funny, happy endings, detectives, Norm’s condo, gay marriage, money-making films, moon titles, comic strips, lyrics from the 1930s, mailmen, English-speaking countries, US states, Dr. Gail Finney’s thoughts on trauma theory, pesky vegetarians, and Shakespeare. By the way, did anyone else see Richard III this past weekend? Congratulations to Bella Merlin and her crew.

At least one of those clues is meant to be a distraction. See you tonight at 7!

Your Quizmaster