Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

 

I’m pleased to announce that the Davis City Council has confirmed me as our city’s next Poet Laureate. I begin that important work in September, and will let you know, should you be interested, when I am sworn in and when I will be holding my first Poet Laureate events. I’m sure that by the end of my reign, in 2016, skittish schoolchildren and Davis politicos will cross to the other side of the street when they see me coming, lest I impose upon them yet another self-important poem about our fair city of Davis.

 

One might wonder how I would have time to take on yet another honorary role. Regular readers of this weekly newsletter know that my unpaid public service to Davis already includes a 14-year radio show on KDVS, the poetry series that I run at the John Natsoulas Gallery, my work as Chair of the Cultural Action Committee of Davis, and my hosting of various fundraisers for Davis causes. How exhausting! As Sartre said, “Commitment is an act, not a word.”

 

But what about over-commitment? I’m reading a book now titled Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown. In it, McKeown argues that “Essentialism is not about how to get more things done; it’s about how to get the right things done. It doesn’t mean just doing less for the sake of less either. It is about making the wisest possible investment of your time and energy in order to operate at our highest point of contribution by doing only what is essential.” Non-essentialists say yes to everything (an accusation that has been leveled at me), while Essentialists say no to most things, even attractive opportunities, so they can focus on core avocations and the best opportunities.

 

The Pub Quiz is, by its nature, an inclusive and varied enterprise, and therefore one might wonder if it is indeed necessary: “trivial” and “essential” certainly qualify as antonyms. Yet I’ve decided that it is essential for me to spend time with friends such as yourselves, and for me to dine out with my wife, Kate. And our Pub Quiz gives me those opportunities. What’s the tradeoff? For me, I’ve given up watching television and collecting material goods. It’s liberating, really, to shed one’s needless habits. My bookend kids are both collectors, so I wonder to what extent it is my duty to help them find joy in this world without bringing home mementos of that joy. As Kate keeps telling me, the best swag is the swag you can give away.

 

Pub Quiz questions about starlets, cable TV shows, and Harry Potter may seem non-essential at first, but they provide an excellent balance to the trickier questions that I will ask tonight about Constitutional amendments, John Milton, and the beginning of the Cold War (all weighty and important topics). I call our weekly competition a “Pub Quiz” rather than merely “trivia” for many reasons, chief among them that one needs a Pub for a Pub Quiz, and because spending time with friends and teammates qualifies as essential. Expect also questions about big tech companies, connectors, football, people born the same year that Jay Silverheels passed away, fictional professors, great American authors, elasticity, alleged allergens, Canada, coinages, legendary creatures, recent films, recognized geniuses, Neanderthals, sleep, Capital cities that start with P and that none of us will ever visit, the United States of America, crossover albums, processed metal, retired presidents, the little things that hide in our soil, conservative beer, hot rhythm and blues, inflatables, relieved topspins, really long rivers, algebra tests (that is, a real math question), and Shakespeare.

 

Last Monday we filled every seat in the Pub, and with your help, we will do that again tonight. I hope you can join us in this effort.

 

Your Quizmaster

https://www.yourquizmaster.com

http://www.twitter.com/yourquizmaster

http://www.facebook.com/yourquizmaster

yourquizmaster@gmail.com

 

Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:

 

1. Internet Culture. A recent marketing study revealed that “YouTube’s mobile ads are three times more effective if people are given the option to BLANK them.” Fill in the blank.

 

1. Newspaper Headlines.   A new study reveals that the most religious state in the U.S. is also the most corrupt. Name the state.

 

1. Celebrity Birth-Years. Anne Frank, Martin Luther King Jr., and Barbara Walters were all born the same year. Within one year, name it.

 

1. Four for Four.     Which of the following colleges, if any, are found in New Hampshire? Dartmouth, Franklin Pierce College , Northeastern University, St. Olaf College.

 

1. Celebrity Assaults in Elevators. Last month Jay-Z was assaulted by his sister-in-law in an elevator. Starting with the letter S, what is the name of the Knowles in question?   

 

 

P.S. On July 17^th, our current Davis Poet Laureate, the extremely talented Eve West Bessier, will be performing at the John Natsoulas Gallery as part of the Poetry Night Reading Series. The show starts at 8, with an open mic at 9, and then the after party at everyone’s favorite Irish Pub starting at 10. Please add this event to your calendar.

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

For many, vacations have finally begun in the City of Davis. As the school-year bicyclists retreat to their hometowns and cities, the percentage of helmet-wearers shoots up to new records. Last week a close friend was visiting Davis, and it took us a full five minutes of talking and walking Davis streets before someone came up to us to greet me by name. I think that’s also a record.

Our city becomes lighter, and our Pub Quiz has become even more crowded and raucous (both welcome developments). Perhaps subletters (who some Brits call “underletters”) love trivia questions. More likely, many of us who are left in the city find ourselves with fewer responsibilities, and more parking spaces downtown. The breathing room effect reminds me of a visit to Davis in 1989 (the first year that I drove through town). I hope time travel appeals to you!

Speaking of time travel, tonight’s Pub Quiz will feature questions about a few of the most famous people who lived in the last century, as well as questions about unusual words that you are more likely to encounter in the drawing room than the war room (no scimitars or claymores this time). Expect also questions about gasoline, air travel, long states, that which is gleefully avoided, Olaf, Oscar-winners, elevators, cups, redundancy, misspellings of the best possible owls, short words that pack in the syllables, herbaceous plants, feuds, flags, colors, celebrated actors, US Presidents, big companies, women who grew up, Snakes, dancers who love to crank their lower hips, verbs that accompany annoyance, fabrics, dark tan moles, glue, mutants, politic speech, Ireland, isolation, peninsulas (not peninsulae?), Senators, badly-reviewed films, Vogue, and Shakespeare.

My marketer friends remind me to mention my newly-published book with every newsletter, but then they express disappointment that Kate and I are giving away all the book proceeds to charity. You can’t please everyone.

I hatched a new book idea this last week, so I may be sharing sections from future chapters right here, even though it is not (purposefully) a book on trivia. Seth Godin, who appears in the new book, says this about regular blogging: “Habits like blogging often and regularly, writing down the way you think, being clear about what you think are effective tactics, ignoring the burbling crowd and not eating bacon. All of these are useful habits.” Some useful habits are more easily accomplished in crowded pubs than others.

You should expect a crowd tonight. I do!

Your Quizmaster

 

https://www.yourquizmaster.com

http://www.twitter.com/yourquizmaster

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yourquizmaster@gmail.com

 

Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:

1. Mottos and Slogans.    “The choice of a new generation” is an advertising slogan of what product?  Ironically, people of an older generation were more likely to answer this correctly than those of a new generation.
2. Internet Culture. On the entertainment and news website Reddit, what does the acronym AMA mean?  No barriers to web-speech!
3. World Leaders. With almost 1.5 million followers on Google+, what country’s 15^th and current prime minister is named Narenda Modi?  I didn’t know Google+ had that many followers total.
4. Name the Category. Blackhawk, Apache, and Comanche are all Native American tribes and, one might say, victims of genocide. But they are also examples of what H word? All words that once (and perhaps still do) cause fear in those who hear them, or hear from them.
5. Pop Culture – Music. The number of piano concertos written by Ludwig van Beethoven is the same as the atomic number of boron and the category of the most destructive hurricanes. What is that number?  We pretended that this was also a math question.

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

The Pub Quiz is back tonight after a brief hiatus to give the Pub waitstaff an opportunity to recover from the rush of graduation revelers. If I were graduating from UC Davis (again), I would make sure to invite my parents and other supporters to celebrate me at the most authentic pub in Davis (so I can see why de Vere’s has been so busy).

Tonight’s Pub Quiz will feature a special guest, the political consultant, guitarist, and rock historian Bobby Nord. Bob and his wife, Susi, a former Democratic member of the New Hampshire House of Representatives, have been working tirelessly for progressive causes in the Granite State for many years. I would love to ask some pub quiz questions about New Hampshire tonight, such as about its State Wildflower (The Pink Ladyslipper), but that wouldn’t be fair to everyone else, for Bob and Susi will actually compete in the Quiz tonight.

One could say that Bob is partly responsible for the entire Pub Quiz, for during our freshman and sophomore years in college, Bob shared my wanderlust and love of the novels of Jack Kerouac, and helped me act on it. He agreed with Seneca, who believed that “Voyage, travel, and change of place impart vigor.” We loved that term “wanderlust,” but today in Germany some use the term “Fernweh,” a word that was coined as an antonym to Heimweh (or “homesickness”).  Fernweh means “farsickness,” or a fondness for a place one has never seen. Bob and I decided that we shared a fondness for the unseen California, so one summer we drove here for a car deliver service, I found a “climate [that] suits my clothes,” and I resolved to return as soon as I was set free as a college-educated scholar and poet. And here I’ve stayed.

Speaking of travel, I’ve traveled to another country since I saw you last, by which of course I mean Utah. Situated in Park City, Utah, home to June snowstorms with significant accumulation, InstructureCon featured extensive discussions about teaching, instructional technology, and decentered learning. While at this august and serious scholarly event, I collected action figure swag for my children, and got to meet heroes such as Captain America, Wonder Woman, and Wolverine. Even more impressive a hero was Robert Reich, former U.S. Labor Secretary and the InstructureCon keynote speaker. The UC Berkeley professor and intellectual powerhouse shared these thoughts on education: “I teach because it’s the best way to have a positive impact on the future. As historian Henry Adams once wrote, ‘A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.’”

Eternity will stop for a couple hours at de Vere’s Irish Pub tonight at 7, and I hope you will be there to see it. Expect questions on a wide variety of topics, including geography, television, twins, Africa, shipwrecks, special correspondents, the dreams of animals, zoology, hilly towns and cities, ports, entrepreneurs, men, mononyms, congresses of electricity, the NFL, HBO, fictional restaurants where one can “enjoy” nachos with Mel Gibson, great musicians, not Volvo, articles in the LA Times, sesquipedalian and underprepared flashes of insight and discovery, famous people who were born and who died in Maryland, Hercules, Houston, Beethoven, Native American outrage, impressive Google+ numbers, tech-niche acronyms, and the power of choice, and Shakespeare.

If you were there, you know that our last Pub Quiz filled every chair in the Irish Pub. Should that happen again tonight, I hope my newsletter readers will come early enough to claim favorite tables. See you tonight at 7. And feel free to greet Bob Nord tonight, the diminutive man with the increasingly silver ponytail who (indirectly) made all of this happen. See you tonight!

 

Your Quizmaster

https://www.yourquizmaster.com

http://www.twitter.com/yourquizmaster

http://www.facebook.com/yourquizmaster

yourquizmaster@gmail.com

 

Here are five questions from the last quiz:

 

1. Mottos and Slogans: US States. What “Garden State” has the motto “Liberty and Prosperity”?

 

1. Revolutions. The Hungarian Revolution was the name of a spontaneous nationwide revolt against the government of the Hungarian People’s Republic and its Soviet-imposed policies. In what decade did it take place?   

 

1. Pop Culture – Music. According to the book Smogtown: The Lung-Burning History of Pollution in Los Angeles, in 1967 one of the most famous singers in the world moved from Los Angeles to Palm Springs, California, to avoid the smog. Name this singer who moved from LA at the age of 52.

 

1. Sports. The four Olympic disciplines in Figure Skating are men’s singles, ladies’ singles, pair skating, and ice WHAT?

 

1. Great Americans Who Have Been Nominated for Five Oscars.  Born in 1930, what retired actor and former Marine famous for playing villains won acting Academy Awards in 1971 and 1992?
   

   Pink Lady Slipper

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

 

I have a rare treat in store for those of you who can attend this evening’s Pub Quiz. The flamenco guitarist, vocalist and songwriter Aaron Gilmartin will be performing a song during the intermission of tonight’s Quiz, and then a few more songs while I am grading your answers. I have known Aaron for about 40 years, and have been impressed with his work as a musician in recent years, much of which can be enjoyed online. As you can find out at http://www.aarongilmartin.com, Aaron is supremely talented and accomplished.

 

In addition to grading essays and seeing films with my wife Kate, I spent much of this weekend reviewing European and American history flash cards with my daughter, Geneva, a sophomore (for another week) at Davis Senior High School. At one point Geneva expressed surprise at my understanding of former French President Charles de Gaulle. Little did she know that during World War II, de Gaulle lived at 99 Frognal in Hampstead, about a mile from where I first met Kate (at 45 England’s Lane). Without regard to the years between us, de Gaulle was my former neighbor! Despite England offering him a friendly location for his temporary exile from France during the war, de Gaulle didn’t always feel obliged to return the favor to Britain, as we see in this paragraph from his Time Magazine obituary in 1970:

 

“Like most crusaders, de Gaulle was extraordinarily farsighted but sometimes, maddeningly, his imperious manner and fragile sensibilities infuriated his nation’s closest allies. In a vain effort to force French leadership on Europe, he twice vetoed Britain’s entry into the continent’s first economic cooperative, the Common Market. At home, he stinted on public welfare in the form of new roads, telephones and a thousand other needed improvements, to pay for symbolically important but ultimately hollow shows of prestige, like the nuclear Force de Frappe.”

 

De Gaulle also featured prominently in an Adam Gopnik essay in this week’s New Yorker titled “What de Gaulle Won on D-Day,” in which we discover the difference between self-congratulation, and self-regard. Our weekend discussions of American and European conflicts reminded me that I needed to write something about our weekly Monday evening competition, the one that we enjoy on Monday evenings. I look forward to seeing you tonight, and to enjoying the free concert by Aaron Gilmartin. Invite some new friends to join us, and I will see you at the Quiz!

 

Oh, did you want some hints? Tonight’s Pub Quiz will feature questions on wizards, an odd mix of celebrities (Arnaz, Freeman, Griffith and Quinto), universities, instruments, things that are big and little, world capitals, Dublin, repeat assignments, suspected antagonists, U.S. Presidents, drowned emus, pot-smokers, France, the triumph of the good, The Rolling Stones, preemptive apologies, nuclear physics, the portrayal of villains, burdens, famous Italians, unexpected dancers, the daunted and undaunted, award-winning retirees, bacteria and mold, ice, WebMD, Palm Springs, Soviets, Smogtown, commodities, Ray Charles, cord-cutting, liberty, prosperity, and Shakespeare. Tonight we also welcome back one of my favorite teams, In Vino Veritas.

 

Your Quizmaster

https://www.yourquizmaster.com

http://www.twitter.com/yourquizmaster

http://www.facebook.com/yourquizmaster

yourquizmaster@gmail.com

 

Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:

 

1. Mottos and Slogans.    “Is It In You?” is the slogan of a beverage currently manufactured by PepsiCo and distributed in over 80 countries. Name the beverage.

 

1. Internet Culture. According to this morning’s Apple developers’ conference keynote, which iOS app is used the most often on the iPhone?

 

1. Pop Culture – Music. According to the American Film Institute, what is the most important song sung in the film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs?

 

1. Four for Four: Megalodon Edition.  Which of the following assertions about the giant extinct shark, the Megalodon, are true? Megalodon had the most powerful bite of any creature that ever lived; Megalodon ate mostly prehistoric krill; Megalodon’s closest living relative is the Great White Shark; Megalodon’s teeth were up to 20 inches long.

 

1. Sports.   Born in 1941, what living baseball player made 17 All-Star appearances at an unequaled five different positions (2B, LF, RF, 3B, & 1B)?

 

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

 

Kate and I got to see former Poet Laureate Rita Dove perform her poetry Friday night. Here’s a favorite Rita Dove poem, titled “Exit”:

 

Just when hope withers, the visa is granted.

The door opens to a street like in the movies,

clean of people, of cats; except it is your street

you are leaving. A visa has been granted,

‘provisionally’-a fretful word.

The windows you have closed behind

you are turning pink, doing what they do

every dawn. Here it’s gray. The door

to the taxicab waits. This suitcase,

the saddest object in the world.

Well, the world’s open. And now through

the windshield the sky begins to blush

as you did when your mother told you

what it took to be a woman in this life.

 

And then Saturday night, we saw a play at the B Street Theatre: Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike. Here’s what the LA Times said about this inventive play: “Rarely has middle-aged despair over dashed dreams and squandered hopes been put to more hilarious effect than in Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, Christopher Durang’s giddy farce on Chekhovian themes that won the Tony for best play last year.

 

One of the best parts was running into my old friends Bruce and Diane, two members of the Pub Quiz team The Ice Cream Socialists who ruled the Quiz for an entire summer. Bruce and Diane were ushering, and they seemed to be having more fun than anyone else in the theatre, at least until the play began. I encourage you to go see it.

 

Tonight’s Pub Quiz will feature no Chekov questions tonight. Instead, think Megalodon. Also expect questions about repeated words, beverages, Apple, Germany, Sam’s date, Spain numbers, Prince, astronomy, freed slaves, musical notes, simple jewelry, art history, big films, story time, colors, TV shows that I don’t watch, oases, Brazil, actors who were also soldiers, words lacking an I (such as “team”), a hero’s enthusiasm for couches, famous authors, young adults, little creatures, dead Brits, current events, Chicago, Juan Carlos, and Shakespeare. Also, Lupita Nyong’o has joined the recently announced cast of Star Wars: Episode VII – that won’t be on the Quiz, but I just wanted to be the first one to tell you.

 

Thursday night at 8 the great Design professor D.R. Wagner will be performing his poetry at the John Natsoulas Gallery. Wagner has written more than 20 books, and has won many important prizes. He also looks great when dressed as a wizard (but then don’t we all?). I hope you can join us.

 

But first, contact your team for tonight’s de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz!

 

Your Quizmaster

https://www.yourquizmaster.com

http://www.twitter.com/yourquizmaster

http://www.facebook.com/yourquizmaster

yourquizmaster@gmail.com

 

Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:

 

1. Mottos and Slogans. What beverage is known as “The Uncola”?

 

1. Internet Culture. You would think that with its 250 million users Pandora would be the top source of streaming music, but it’s not. What is the #1 source of streaming music?

 

1. Pop Culture – Music. The singer who has a big hit this week with the song “Fancy,” and who features on the hit “Problem” shares a first name with one of my favorite punk rockers. Tell me the singer’s first or last name.

 

1. Sports.   A three-time world champion, Elvis Stojko competed in what sport?

 

1. Science.   By what monosyllabic word do we know the fluid that circulates throughout the lymphatic system?

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

 

When I lived in London in the 1980s, I noted that remembering World War I, and the British soldiers who died in that war, was still a national preoccupation. Many knew of family members (almost all of them young men) who had died in that war, and occasionally Kate and I would see a televised interview with an actual World War I veteran. Seemingly, a generation of youths was lost. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission had listed 888,246 war dead for the U.K and Colonies, or about 2% of the British population at the time.

 

As I was studying poetry at the time, I noticed on Remembrance Day (November 11^th) when this particular poem was posted in the Underground and on telephone poles to commemorate the Second Battle of Ypres (in western Belgium):

 

In Flanders Fields

 

In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,

That mark our place; and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

 

We are the Dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved and were loved, and now we lie,

In Flanders fields.

 

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders fields.

 

Inspired by this poem authored by Canadian physician John McCrae, more people are wearing poppies on November 11^th and on other remembrance days this year as we approach the 100^th anniversary of the beginning of World War I.

 

Happy Memorial Day to you and your families.

 

Tonight’s Pub Quiz will feature questions on one or more of the topics raised above, as well as on beverages, favorite sources of music, long-standing conflicts, something rich and strange, team accomplishments, the ivy league, 13 letters in common, smiley people, a lot of nerve, reruns, multi-syllabic country names, babbles and snorts, Irish waiters, Doctors who make poor choices, fraternities, U.S. states, the evils of tobacco, unusual languages, lead characters, the idea of Switzerland, breakfast staples, colorful M words with many meanings, captains, the U.S. Supreme Court, monosyllabic liquids, Elvis, fancy problems, deans, people named after Greek heroes, spiky-haired reporters, and Shakespeare.

 

Tonight’s anagram contains the hint of sex, violence, and off-color language; nevertheless, it is still safe for family hearing. How will I pull this off? You and your team will have to join us tonight to find out. See you at 7!

 

Your Quizmaster

https://www.yourquizmaster.com

http://www.twitter.com/yourquizmaster

http://www.facebook.com/yourquizmaster

yourquizmaster@gmail.com

 

Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:

1. Mottos and Slogans.    What motto on the crest of what famous boarding school is “Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus” which of course translates as “Never tickle a sleeping dragon”?  I wasn’t even going to translate the Latin, but someone suggested that the first question of the Pub Quiz shouldn’t require conjugating.

2. Actors and Actresses. What English-born Australian actor’s second, third, and fourth highest-grossing films were Clash of the Titans, Terminator Salvation, and Wrath of the Titans, which he later apologized for making?  Somehow I missed all three of these movies.

3. Pop Culture – Music. What 33 year-old American singer-songwriter and actor has a hit this week with the song “Not a Bad Thing”?  Some critics disagree.

4. Sports.   According to the American Academy of Ophthalmology, basketball and WHAT cause the most sports-related eye injuries?  Hint: Boxing and MMA matches only endanger two people at a time.

5. Science: Flora.   Oak woodlands, pine woodlands, and, in California, walnut woodlands can all be described with what six-syllable adjective that begins with the letter M?  I learned the answer to this question from Elaine Fingerett in the Davis Arboretum.

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

 

This morning my son’s bus driver, John, told me that his son spent much of this past weekend flying to Saudi Arabia. I thought to myself that I want to visit Saudi Arabia. Past Pub Quiz regular, and one-time regular champion, Rob Roy lives next door to Saudi Arabia, having moved to The United Arab Emirates to teach English in the city of Ras al-Khaima, home of the dramatic sand dune races every winter. I hope that Davis summers have prepared Rob for Ras al-Khaima summers, where the average high temperature is above 100 degrees from May until September.

 

Speaking for myself, I would rather visit India than Saudi Arabia, and perhaps rather visit Nigeria or Argentina than the United Arab Emirates, but of course I would welcome a world tour of all these places. I don’t know about you, but when summer comes, I crave adventure. Those of us who cannot travel as Rob Roy does can read longingly of others’ adventures, and bide our time, waiting for the promise of a summer or winter jaunt. The British novelist and poet D.H. Lawrence, who traded his manuscript of his first great novel, Sons and Lovers, for a 160-acre ranch near Taos, New Mexico, said this about travel:

 

When we get out of the glass bottle of our ego and when we escape like the squirrels in the cage of our personality and get into the forest again, we shall shiver with cold and fright. But things will happen to us so that we don’t know ourselves. Cool, unlying life will rush in.

 

I’m not sure what to make of “unlying life,” but I appreciate these words of a poet. One of Lawrence’s favorite authors as a child, Robert Louis Stevenson, was more plain-spoken about travel: “There are no foreign lands. It is the traveler only who is foreign.” I hope all of us can embrace the spirit of Roy, Lawrence and Stevenson this summer, and become foreigners ourselves.

 

The Pub Quiz will be meeting both tonight and next week, the evening of Memorial Day. Soon our city will be brimming with Davis High alumni, returning home from college and looking for some way to stay intellectually vibrant while reuniting with old friends downtown. We shall provide that opportunity, but I hope you can help me enlist some new teams to join us, both in these waning days of May, and throughout the travel season of summer. What would be an appropriate enticement for such first-time pub quizzers? Pub fries with curry ketchup? I welcome your suggestions via email or in the comments of today’s newsletter at the Pub Quiz website: https://www.yourquizmaster.com.

 

Tonight’s Pub Quiz will feature questions about one or more of the topics raised above, as well as favorite schools, graphical user interface elements, pay equity, shopping sprees, energy producers, apology-worthy films, road races, British composers, the wisdom and criticism of George Bernard Shaw, journalism and vindications, science fiction, Marketing, free associations in fiction, sequels (with which we Americans have grown too comfortable), rummy card games played in the desert, lugging bovine urine during the summer of 2001, great songs, animated television, annus horribilis, illiberalism, great U.S. states, opthamology, trick questions, and Shakespeare.

 

I hope you can join us this evening at 7, or a bit before to claim a table at the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz!

 

Your Quizmaster

https://www.yourquizmaster.com

http://www.twitter.com/yourquizmaster

http://www.facebook.com/yourquizmaster

yourquizmaster@gmail.com

 

Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:

1. Mottos and Slogans. Born in 1884, what US President came up with the personal slogan “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen”?  We learned last week that FDR was too wealthy to spend much time in the kitchen.

2. Internet Culture. Because of a $3.2 billion dollar purchase rumored by Apple, who is about to become what he calls “the first billionaire in hip-hop,” even though he hasn’t dropped an album in 15 years?  Actually, the man in question will only have about $800 million from this deal. Another disappointment.

3. Name the Category. The following all refer to different types of what? Adjustable Bend, Artillery Loop, Ashley’s Bend, Axle Hitch.  I bet Ashley would be proud to be included on this list.

4. Four for Four.      Between 1968 and 1980, which of the following cities, if any, hosted the Summer Olympic Games? Mexico City, Montreal, Moscow, Munich. Is every four for four a trick question?

5. A Topic Suggested on Facebook: Harry Potter. “BLANK’S WARNING” is the title of the second chapter of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Whose warning is it? Thanks to Kayla for this topic suggestion.

 

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

 

I was reminded again this weekend why I love living in Davis. The Whole Earth Festival gave me a chance to dance to some live music with my family amid the scents of patchouli and incense, and then Saturday night my wife Kate and I enjoyed Stories on Stage Davis, where the kind organizers gave away a copy of our new book, Where’s Jukie?, as a door prize.

 

Last night after my Sunday evening office hours I received a Facebook message from a former student of four years ago; she was expressing concerns about the extent to which such cultural offerings are available to everyone, especially when considering the high cost of living in Davis. She wrote, “Hi Dr. Andy. Many of my peers have expressed the concern that Davis as a town is now largely socio-economically unequal and overrun by its affluent, “white” residents. As a poet living in Davis, do you have an opinion about this sentiment?”

 

This was my response:

 

Hi Mariam,

Well, your friends are right about the economic challenges of living in Davis. Rents are high, and median home prices are unaffordable to most new families, thus likening the housing market here to some of the more expensive ones in the Bay area. Like most cities under 100,000 in the U.S., the city is also majority Caucasian. That said, Davis has a large Asian population, as you know, and a growing Latino and African American population. The city is also younger than you might expect, with about half the population under 25, and almost 75% under 45. As a progressive city, Davis makes a point to tax itself more heavily than other Central Valley cities, with most of those extra taxes going to support education, which is a significant leveler when it comes to income inequality.

In recent years, city and business interests have made significant investments in the arts and culture. Most (but not all) of that is concentrated downtown, thus attracting visitors and new residents to Davis who care about quality of life issues outside of one’s financial comforts. A city with a strong library, bike-able streets that are also served by a vibrant public transportation system, public and performing arts venues (such as Third Space), and some inexpensive restaurants, is a city that has made an investment in attracting and keeping a significant diversity of citizens.

UC Davis will always be a feeder engine for the City of Davis, which means that as the university attracts more and more ethnically and economically diverse students, we can hope that more of them will move here (or move back here) to raise families and contribute to the cultural richness of 95616 and 95618. When Kate and I moved (back) here in 1998, we could barely afford our mortgage, but now we are thankful for the great schools that our property taxes help to fund.

If you are implying that Davis needs to do more to welcome poets and poetry, I agree with you. My KDVS radio show, the Poetry Night Reading Series, and the extra poetry classes I teach represent some of my efforts, but I’d like to see more widespread interest and investment in the literary arts in Davis.

I have some friends on the Davis City Council whom I am sure will want to chime in about ways they have addressed some of the concerns you raise. I wouldn’t be surprised if thoughtful folks such as Joe Krovoza, Dan Wolk, Brett D Lee, Lucas Frerichs, and Rochelle Swanson chime in. We might even hear from some folks who hope to serve on the City Council in the future, such as Robb Davis and Sheila Allen. If you end up having conversations with any of these public servants, I would be interested to hear what you learn. As a UC Davis alumna and a talented poet, your opinion matters, and should be heard. Thanks for writing.

 

So what did I leave out of my assessment of our fair city? I look forward to hearing your opinions, too.

 

Tonight’s Pub Quiz will feature questions on kitchens, cities that begin with the letter M, words that start with “A” (such as “artillery” and “axle”), a topic suggested by one of you on Facebook, authors with names that start with H, victory, Cervantes, sports that Americans don’t follow, the Philippines, U.S. states, the acreage of Ireland, Tiffany, injurious sports, the Greek alphabet, the death penalty, wine, waves, Doris Day and Nancy Reagan, experimental music, the culture of rugged geography, birds of prey, songwriters, mothers, crimes, U.S. Presidents, TV networks, a Poe boy, actor-directors, boats, metals and voles and worms, climate change, St. George, and Shakespeare.

 

See you tonight!

 

Your Quizmaster

https://www.yourquizmaster.com

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yourquizmaster@gmail.com

 

Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:

 

 

1. Mottos and Slogans.    What San Francisco-based country is known for the slogan “Quality Never Goes Out of Style”? Most of you use more of this company’s products than I do.

 

1. Internet Culture: Again with the Web Browsers. The Yuba City horse that won Saturday’s Kentucky Derby shares a name, partially, with a web browser. Which browser is it? Yay, California!

 

1. Film Quotations. What film includes the line “Into the garbage shoot, flyboy!”  Thanks to Truman for this question suggestion.

 

1. Pop Culture – Music. OMG. The lead singer of Maroon 5 has totally dyed his hair platinum blond. What is his name?  Do we call a male blond “platinum”?

 

1. Sports.   Yesterday we enjoyed this baseball headline: “Wil Myers Hits 3-Run Inside-the-Park Home Run Despite Jogging to 1st Base.” Myers has hit four home runs against the Yankees this season. For what team does this outfielder play?  I myself always enjoy watching a batter round the bases while Yankee outfielders look on.

 

 

P.S. Poetry Night this week is an entirely Open Mic. Thursday at 8 at the John Natsoulas Gallery.

 

 

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

 

I’ve agreed to give a talk at the University of the Pacific Second Annual Conference on Creative Writing. Organized by Davis resident and University of the Pacific professor Scott Evans, this conference features presentations by many of northern California’s most accomplished and innovative writers, including New York Times bestseller James Rollins, local television journalist and devoted dad Sam Shane, and Pub Quiz regular John Lescroart, whose new novel The Keeper will be released tomorrow, May 6. I hope you have reserved your copy, as I have.

 

At the Conference I will be speaking on a subject that I’ve researched and practiced often, but presented on rarely: personal productivity. Here’s how it will read in the program:

 

Productivity Lessons from High-Performing Authors and Thought Leaders

 

“This session will sample some of the theories and practices of productivity gurus such as David Allen, Seth Godin, and Tim Ferriss. We will discuss maintaining focus, eliminating distractions, and meeting deadlines. Participants in this session will learn the meanings of terms such as GTD, Pomodoro, the Four-Hour Workweek and the 10-Minute Hack.”

 

Does that sound enticing? The organizers of the conference picked this and a social media platform presentation from the six options that I presented them. Funny that my PhD in English and 25 years of university teaching are evidently less valuable to aspiring writers than what I’ve learned about productivity and social media marketing over the last decade.

 

Are your most valuable skills the ones you were schooled in, as it were?

 

Tonight’s Pub Quiz will feature questions about current events, first base jogs, web browsers (again with the web browsers), Romantic poets, Jimmy Stewart, the 1970s, American rivers, human rights (unfair, I realize), divisive holidays, garbage, blondes, Nyle C. Brady & Ray R. Weil’s 2009 book Elements of the Nature and Properties of Soils, Emmy-winning shows, 30 pounds of muscle, moving in a circle, people named Zachary, rooflessness, Semisweet inns (sounds like an anagram), percentage jumps, sequels, big cities, power, divisible integers, independents, Wordsworth, iPods, books about books, mechanical devices, literary prize-winners, American rallying teams, Alan Rickman, salads, the volume of gas, and Shakespeare.

 

Tomorrow night’s John Lescroart book release party, complete with wine and food and live music, will take place at the Odd Fellow’s Hall at 6:30 p.m. As with the Pub Quiz, I encourage you to come early to reserve a seat. John always puts on a good show, and the critics love his new Dismas Hardy book, The Keeper.

 

Meanwhile, I hope you will join us tonight for some trivial fun!

 

Your Quizmaster

https://www.yourquizmaster.com

http://www.twitter.com/yourquizmaster

http://www.facebook.com/yourquizmaster

yourquizmaster@gmail.com

 

Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:

 

1. Mottos and Slogans.  The only major sportswear brand without a slogan is a German company named after a genus of large cat. Name the brand.

 

1. Newspaper Headlines.   A surprising announcement revealed what about George Clooney yesterday?

 

1. Complete the Quotation. The saying that “BLANK is a good walk spoiled” is often attributed to Mark Twain. What one-syllable word completes the quotation?

 

1. Pop Culture – Music. Only four named bands were among the top 15 highest-grossing musical acts of 2013. Name just one of them.

 

1. Sports.   Fill in the blank from the FIFA.com website: “A match is played by two teams, each consisting of not more than BLANK players, one of whom is the goalkeeper.” Fill in the blank.

 

P.S. UC Davis professor Joe Wenderoth is reading at the Black Box Theatre / Lab A at Celeste Turner Wright Hall (the UC Davis Theatre Building) this coming Thursday night at 8. Parental discretion advised.

 

P.P.S. Did you see that last week’s newsletter appeared later Monday evening in the Sacramento Bee?