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

Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:

Internet Culture. Which of the following Gillian Flynn thriller novels was the most-reviewed book of 2012 on the website Goodreads.com? Dark Places, Gone Girl, Sharp Objects.

Girl Scouts. According to Michelle Tompkins of Girl Scouts of the United States of America, what percentage of US girls are girl scouts? Ages were not specified in this statistic. Is it 8, 18, 28, or 38%

New Year’s Eve in the Movies. In what 1989 film does one of the title characters say this on New Year’s Eve? “I came here tonight because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.”

Pop Culture – Music. 1. According to Pollstar, what 54 year-old performer from Bay City, Michigan had the highest grossing concert tour in 2012, raking in nearly $300 million?

Sports. Born in 1962, what 1985 Heisman Trophy winner was the first athlete to be named an All-Star in two major American sports?

P.S. Some of the question topics on the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz present themselves to me when I am helping my daughter with her homework. A frequent participant on one of our smartest teams teaches my daughter ninth-grade Shakespeare, and often helps her own ninth grader with his homework. Fair, or unfair? Are any of us smarter than a ninth grader?

The Bunches of Dynamos Edition of the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz Newsletter

by yourquizmaster on December 31, 2012

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

Welcome to the last Pub Quiz newsletter of 2012. December 31^st is a time to take stock of the year, and our own experiences and accomplishments. Many consider these to be uneasy times, uneasy because of our ever-fragile economy as we try to recover from ill-advised decisions made by past political leaders, and uneasy because of the violence and heartbreak that we see in the news. In returning President Obama to office, we might consider what to make of his first term, perhaps with more optimism for his second. Years from now we might think of Obama as the president who oversaw the radical diminution of government effectiveness, largely because of legislators that make Harry Truman’s “Do Nothing” 80^th US Congress look like a bunch of dynamos. Or we might remember Obama as our Mourner in Chief, a president called upon repeatedly to console the nation after a terrible tragedy, usually involving gun violence. If you’d like to see Obama’s sense of humor, as well as his public compassion, I invite you to review this collection of photos of President Obama from 2012. My favorite, and that of occasional Pub Quiz participant Naomi Williams, is of Obama giving a shoulder massage to Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison.

I’m grateful for a number of people when I look back on 2012. The year makes me think of Kate and our children, of our dear friends here in Davis and beyond, of the incredible colleagues that I get to work with at UC Davis, and of my many hard-working and engaging students. Publicly, I get to interact with a great number of Davisites through all my volunteer and community work: my radio show, the poetry series, and my arts advocacy work with the Cultural Action Committee (see below for Thursday night’s reading at the John Natsoulas Gallery). And every Monday you kind people let me assess and harass you while enjoying a 20-ounce Guinness. What fun!

Tonight’s Quiz, not surprisingly, will touch upon the year in review. You can also expect questions about Poland, the month of December, girl scouts, the color red, other colors, fish, New Year’s Eve and its traditions, concordances, the letter D, traffic accidents, Michigan, our crust, veins, all-stars, Portugal, secure communications, Copernicus, visible eyebrows, demonyms, sticks, Bach’s Goldberg Variations, teenagers, Beavertown, hands, jazz and disco, Hawaii, big films, Irish peninsulas, current events, and Shakespeare. Somehow, I ended up asking no questions about Neil Armstrong, arguably the most famous person to have died in 2012, so I will just mention him here.

The terrific de Vere’s manager, Karli, wrote me to say that there will be a New Year’s Special tonight: slow roasted prime rib served with potato croquette, broccolini, red wine braised shallots and au jus (which is French for “with its own juice” – Karli speaks French fluently). I hope you can spend part of your New Year’s Eve at de Vere’s tonight, and that you will be safe in all your travel choices tonight and early tomorrow morning.

See you tonight!

Your Quizmaster

Here are five questions from the December 17 quiz:

Words in Common. What do the following words have in common? Clay, Eight, Ford, Hill, Hudson.

Versatile Actors. What Oscar-nominated actor in the 1990s played Arthur Dimmesdale, Ludwig van Beethoven, Lee Harvey Oswald, and Count Dracula?

Pop Culture – Music. The name of the performer who won the BET Award for Best Female Hip-Hop Artist a record five times is an anagram of the phrase LIMITLESS TOY. Name the performer.

Sports. What Dominican-American professional baseball first baseman hold the record for the most home runs in the month of April, at 14. He broke this record in 2006.

Science. In a 2006 study conducted in Louisiana, 79.8% of the stomach contents of adult alligator snapping turtles were found to be comprised of which of the following? Armadillos, muskrats, opossums, other turtles.

By the way, this coming Thursday night is Poetry Night in the city of Davis, and BRIONY GYLGAYTON will be the featured poet. Gylgayton in 2013 will finish her MFA in Creative Writing at the University of Iowa Writers Workshop, the top-rated such program in the world. Her masters thesis, titled LOAD SAVE GAME, about survival horror video games and folk and fakelore, is in progress.

Gylgayton has won multiple awards for her writing, including placing second for the University of California system-wide 2010 Ina Coolbrith Memorial Poetry Prize and placing for both creative writing categories in the 2010 Pamela Maus Contest for Creative Writing, winning first in fiction and second in poetry.

Gylgayton graduated summa cum laude from the University of California, Davis in June 2010 with a BA in English-Creative Writing and a minor in Art Studio. Her Creative Writing Honors Thesis was awarded the 2010 Elliot Gilbert Memorial Prize for Best Undergraduate Honors Creative Work. She currently teaches Interpretation of Literature at the University of Iowa. A web designer, Briony also created the website for Your Quizmaster.

P.P.S. Thanks to the late Kevin Quinn for many years of friendship and laughter.

The Beauty and Devotion Edition of the De Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz Newsletter

by yourquizmaster on December 17, 2012

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

This past Saturday I attended two radically different performances, and they both affected me profoundly.

The first was the graduation ceremony of UC Davis students who finished their coursework in the fall of 2012. One of my favorite students invited my son Jukie and me to join his friends and family at the celebration in The Pavilion, the same building where I graduated UC Davis with a PhD so many years ago (though back then we called it the Rec Hall). I saw proud smiles on the faces of graduates and their families, but a barely repressible sadness overshadowed the event. After the processional music and the entrance of the graduates, the MC of the morning’s ceremony, Dean Jessie Ann Owens (mu dean, incidentally), invited us to observe a moment of silence to remember and keep in our thoughts those who were so senselessly killed and wounded in Newtown, Connecticut the day before. As almost all five thousand of us stood in remorseful silence, we found ourselves listening to the impatient cries of the youngest siblings and cousins who didn’t wish to be made to sit still. These young ones cried and cried, playing for all of us our own internal, wailing, national soundtrack. Inviting catharsis, they cried for all of us there, and for those for whom all crying had ceased.

That Saturday night I saw my youngest son star in the Davis Children’s Version of The Nutcracker. I say “star” in the way that every parent feels that his or her child is the “star” of the show, even if he plays only one of the adorable bears, as my boy did. I was happy to see a few Pub Quiz regulars in the audience, and look forward to hearing what parts your kids played. I had seen the same show Thursday night – the night before the elementary school shootings – and was struck then by the novelty of all these children, many of whom I knew, playing their roles so confidently and waggishly. But Saturday night, despite the inevitable hilarity, I found the poignancy of the performance almost too much to bear. Wide-eyed and attentive, as parents we watched our children at their most joyful and confident. From the audience, I felt as if our children’s moments on stage were like graduation ceremonies, family reunions, and Christmas mornings all wrapped up into one moment of intensity. We recognized that these beloveds would look forward to their own graduations, to first loves and heartbreaks, to winning the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz, to lifetimes of passion and discovery and loving familiar support. In our time of mourning and loss, this was a moment for all of us to recognize how lucky we are to be in the presence of such miracles and wonders.

At a time like this, I am grateful for the peacemakers, the “helpers” (as Mr. Rogers would say in a recent internet meme), the mental healthcare workers, the teachers, and the gun safety advocates; I hope their voices are heard and heeded during the national debate and the legislative action that we have now, finally, been promised. I am also grateful for the artists: the poets, painters, choirs of angelic singers and child actors who can help us better understand and express how and what we feel when our emotional load is so heavy and distressing. Not all of us can lobby for new weapons regulations before Congress, but all of us can support those local organizations that spark and guide the imaginations of our children, and that support the expressions of empathy, creativity, and artistic accomplishment of all of us who participate. We are lucky to live in a community that recognizes education, the natural world, service, collaboration, and the arts as forces that can help us all to grieve, and to give hope to a troubled soul. As Leonard Bernstein said after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, “This will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before.” I hope some artist, composer, singer or poet will help you and your families celebrate, and be comforted by beauty and devotion, during this difficult time.

I hope you can join us for tonight’s pub quiz. It will feature questions on oil, Microsoft, Brazil and Indonesia, clays and hills, Dimmesdale, limitless toys, a Christmas song, political talk shows, fresh and salt, Dominican-Americans, amusing use of punctuation, current events, armadillos and muskrats, Oedipal nature poetry, Latin phrases, hobbits, BAFTA, rock and roll, woodbine blurs, groups of people that have something in common, fast Americans, Scots, the history of consciousness, Irish culture, handicaps, past presidents, trees, royals, comic strips, wells, US cities, misery, fish, the magazine industry, big spenders, baseball, and Shakespearean antagonists.

We will not be holding a Pub Quiz on Christmas Eve, but I eagerly anticipate seeing all of you on New Year’s Eve at 7pm, even if other sorts of celebrating await you after the Quiz.

Your Quizmaster

Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:

1. Mottos and Slogans. “A fair day's wage for a fair day's work” is the motto of the American Federation of WHAT?

2. Internet Culture. The woman who wrote what is considered to be the first computer program was also the only “legitimate” child of the poet Lord Byron. Her name is an anagram for the common imperative: EVADE A LOCAL. What is her name? You probably knew that her name is Ada Lovelace – Google featured her on its home page on the day of the Quiz.

3. Newspaper Headlines. International hero Nelson Mandela is resting in hospital today. Within three years, how old is the former South African President? (Hint: he is older even than the Jazz great Dave Brubeck was when he passed away last week.)

4. Four for Four. NASA's 35-year-old space probe may be about to leave the solar system more than 11 billion miles from Earth, CNET says. Which of the following is the name of that space probe? Endeavor 1, Enterprise 1, Explorer 1, or Voyager 1. This question didn’t stump many people.

5. Fleeing the US Senate. US Senator Jim DeMint currently represents which state of 4.7 million people?

P.S. Poetry Night returns to Davis on January 3^rd with Briony Gylgayton. I hope you can join us then at the John Natsoulas Gallery.

The Mae West Welcome Disasters Edition of the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz Newsletter

by yourquizmaster on December 10, 2012

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

One of my favorite Mae West quotations reads, “When women go wrong, men go right after them.” My friends in Berkeley might call that “heteronormative,” but it still makes me smile. As a teacher who relies heavily on improvisational techniques in the classroom, I actually appreciate it when things go “wrong” with my students. Unexpected “teachable moments” do not present themselves when everything (and everyone) works according to plan. Fortunately, spirited and creative people rarely follow plans or directives, and, as a result, they have a great deal to teach us, but only if we are receptive to their lessons.

A patron of de Vere’s Irish Pub in Davis seemed to be following the Mae West model of “going wrong” last Monday, for she had evidently consumed a number of drinks before inserting herself into the middle of a Pub Quiz team playing at the bar. What’s more, she had some firmly held assertions to share with all the new friends at the bar, and most of those opinions concerned her poor opinion of the Quizmaster. According to this seeming-inebriate, the Quizmaster (or “announcer,” as she called him) is loud, he announces the Quiz in a garish sing-song voice, and he lords his rules over everyone in the Pub, telling people, for instance, when they may and mayn’t use their cell phones. The complainer in question also couldn’t figure out why everyone on her team was “making such a big deal” about her criticisms, and why they were “all freaking out” about what she had to say. She might have made this point because most of her teammates were asking her to share more of her concerns about the Quizmaster, while one of her work friends – the guy who brought her to de Vere’s on a Monday evening – was suggesting that she tone down the disparagements that were so funny to the rest of her team. Most of us think that we are much more interesting after having had a drink or two, but in this case, such a belief was merited.

Evidently it was about halftime that I came upon this team at the bar, stood behind my texting denigrator, and announced a reminder of Rule Number Three, that no cell phones are to be used during the Pub Quiz. Evidently this was the last straw for this half-hearted participant, so she gathered up her things and stormed out. Everyone on the team was disappointed that their new friend had no chance to discover that the woman with whom she had shared all these unfriendly comments was actually my wife. No wonder there was so much laughter at that table that night, and between Kate and myself as we walked back to the car after the Quiz. For someone who appreciates minor disasters, I found this to be my favorite disaster story in a long time. I hope this patron returns on a Monday evening soon. Certainly there is merit to the concerns she was expressing.

As you may have already read on my Facebook page when I shared this information this morning, tonight at the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz you can expect questions on computer programs, old presidents, wages, space travel, retirees in the deep south, cones, markets, machines, pot, Alfred Hitchcock, World Series winners, reproduction, Greeks, unusual words that start with the letters B and H, dancers, antonyms, The Beatles, amortizing pink cattails, birds and more birds, happiness, chambers, Tolkien, countries of the world, languages of the world, trespassers, weights and measurements (disguised as a science question), Latinos, basketball, baseball, football, and Shakespeare.

We sold out last Monday, and John Lescroart’s team plans to join us this evening, so I recommend that you come early. The chime and garish announcing begin at 7.

Your Quizmaster

Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:

1. Mottos and Slogans. Beginning in 2004, what company used the commercial slogan "so easy, a caveman could do it"?

2. Internet Culture. What is the last name of the Yahoo CEO who took only a week for maternity leave after giving birth to a boy in September? Hint: She shares this name with a meat company and a film studio.

3. Newspaper Headlines – Film. This past weekend the film Killing Them Softly had the worst live-action wide-release opening for what A-list actor who starred in it?

4. Four for Four. Of the 29 languages spoken natively by a million or more citizens of India, which two of the following are the most widely-spoken? Bengali, Hindi, Punjabi, Urdu.

5. Lady Godiva. Lady Godiva was an Anglo-Saxon noblewoman who, according to a legend, rode naked through the streets of Coventry in what century? Was it the 6th, 11th, 16th, or 20th?

P.S. Did you know that Dr. Andy also hosts a radio show?

The Welcome Storm Edition of the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz Newsletter

by yourquizmaster on December 3, 2012

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

I hope you’ve been enjoying this past weekend’s storms. After sweeping floodwater away from the foundation of our home yesterday, my sons and I took the dog on a long walk to survey the downed branches and the deep gatherings of leaves on the greenbelts of South Davis. The sun was out and strong by noon, so we didn’t even bring jackets. Despite the recent intense winds, our weather events certainly seem shorter and milder than what others have endured in New Jersey or Louisiana. Like Frederick Douglass, I will always welcome a strong storm with thunder over a gentle shower. Douglass famously said, “It is not light that we need, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake.” Of course, unlike most of us, Frederick Douglass probably never lived through an earthquake.

I got to thinking about literary storms, and the extent to which a writer can represent the tumult of an ongoing storm. Probably the most famous storm in literature and film is the one that sent Dorothy Gale on her adventure:

“The north and south winds met where the house stood, and made it the exact center of the cyclone. In the middle of a cyclone the air is generally still, but the great pressure of the wind on every side of the house raised it up higher and higher, until it was at the very top of the cyclone; and there it remained and was carried miles and miles away as easily as you could carry a feather.

It was very dark, and the wind howled horribly around her, but Dorothy found she was riding quite easily. After the first few whirls around, and one other time when the house tipped badly, she felt as if she were being rocked gently, like a baby in a cradle.”

The dramatic and tragic events late in Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God are prompted by the 1928 Okeechobee hurricane. At one point, the protagonist Janie is huddled in a flimsy shack with two friends:

“The wind came back with a triple fury, and put out the light for the last time. They sat in company with the others in other shanties, their eyes straining against crude walls and their souls asking if He meant to measure their puny might against His. They seemed to be staring at the dark, but their eyes were watching God.”

My favorite literary storm is, not surprisingly, more poetic:

Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!

You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout

Till you have drench’d our steeples, drown’d the cocks!

You sulphurous and thought-executing fires,

Vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts,

Singe my white head! And thou, all-shaking thunder,

Strike flat the thick rotundity o’ the world!

Crack nature’s moulds, all germens spill at once

That make ingrateful man!

This comes, of course, from Act III, Scene II of King Lear, one of my favorite Shakespeare plays. Is there another storm that stirs you more than these?

Tonight’s Pub Quiz will feature questions about meat companies, soft opens, India, dogs, elementary schools, The Civil War, Anglo-Saxon noblewomen, brothers that we’ve heard of but couldn’t pick out of a lineup, meager homes, fearsome creatures, Europe, anchormen, musical time travel, the NBA, roses, winners and losers, random three-syllable adjectives, Canadian and Californian cities, Islam, songs to dance to, simian restrooms, security guards, pulp fiction, having character, wedding parties, Dublin, films with multiple Oscars, unemployment, Lincoln, names in the news, Shakespeare and, for a second time in two weeks, Moses. I hope this is helpful.

I’m hosting a poetry reading Thursday night – details after the sample questions. See you this evening!

Your Quizmaster

Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:

10. Great Americans. In office for more than four years, who preceded Condoleezza Rice as Secretary of State? People who got this wrong seemed to have blocked the first four years of the George W. Bush administration.

11. Unusual Five-Syllable Words That Start with the Letters ACC. What word denotes the process of adopting the cultural traits or social patterns of another group?

12. Food and Drink. What is the primary ingredient in a lassi, something that you might order in an Indian restaurant? By the way, lassis come in all sorts of flavors, not just mango!

13. Pop Culture – Television. Who played Norm on Cheers? Most teams answered this correctly.

14. Another Music Question. What 50 year-old musician and actor won an AMA award and a Golden Globe in 1991 for his song “Blaze of Glory”? I would not have known the answer to this question. I’ve almost already forgotten it!

P.S. This coming Thursday night at 8 The Poetry Night Reading Series will be proud to welcome Joshua McKinney. He will be performing at the John Natsoulas Gallery at 521 1st Street. Joshua McKinney is the author of three books of poetry: Saunter, co-winner of the University of Georgia Press Poetry Series Open Competition in 2002; The Novice Mourner, winner of the Dorothy Brunsman Poetry Prize in 2005; and Mad Cursive, just published in 2012. Details at http://www.poetryindavis.com. Please join us!

The Egyptian Power Grab Edition of the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz Newsletter

by yourquizmaster on November 26, 2012

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

Happy belated Thanksgiving! I hope you enjoyed the break with family and friends, and that you were able to stay away from malls. Longtime friend to the Pub Quiz (and terrific high-end consignment store) Haute Again benefited from a “Cash Mob” that occurred at the store on Saturday during “Small Business Saturday.” My wife Kate and I supported a small business by stopping by de Vere’s Irish Pub Saturday night for a meal and a beverage. On Thanksgiving Day Kate tried to explain to her parents why she appreciates the food and décor at de Vere’s Irish Pub, even though she would never be found in a typical “bar,” in Davis or anywhere else. It might be that the staff at de Vere’s are so friendly and attentive, or it might be that the sort of seedy characters that would dissuade Kate from entering a bar gravitate to other establishments (or maybe to other cities). Me, of course I’ll follow Kate to any location she chooses.

That said, I have been thinking about additional ways of throwing around my considerable weight and influence, just as Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi has recently decreed he should be able to do. Morsi has claimed that his power grab is only temporary, while some of the protesters in Tahrir Square are arguing that there’s a new Pharaoh in town. Kate pointed out that she doesn’t imagine that she and the children would abide any power grab of my own, domestically, so instead I will try out some new rules at the Pub Quiz. Tell me what you think of these:

Rule 7: All-female a cappella singers during halftime.

Rule 8: If Dr. Andy is a little chilly during the Pub Quiz, participants must provide scarves.

Rule 9: More tofu.

Rule 10: During the noisy introduction to the Pub Quiz, participants should applaud inappropriately between sentences, the way I inadvertently do between movements of a symphony.

Rule 11: Bottomless Guinness.

And finally,

Rule 12: If during halftime Dr. Andy asks a team if they have any questions, no one should respond, “Yes. What are the answers?”

I’ll be (mildly) curious to know if you think these new powers are warranted. Meanwhile, expect questions on tonight’s quiz about new pharaohs, food and drink (x2), internet video, water, characters named Wanda, geese, ticks without tocks, films that (refreshingly) are not sequels, platinum debut albums, NBA players, assassins, islands, 60s TV shows, gorillas and squirrels, the Wizard of Oz, statesmen with multiple Z’s in their names, words that start with the letters ACC, globes, Indian delicacies, 50 year olds who some consider still to be cool, shabby clams, people named Mary, slow news weeks, football, longtime dowagers, people named Stanley, first authors, heat, and Shakespeare.

It’s been such a pleasure to see the Pub filled up by 6:30 on a Monday night. If you and your team plan to join us this evening, leave extra time. See you tonight!

Your Quizmaster

Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:

Mottos and Slogans. What Finnish multinational communications and information technology corporation uses as its slogan the phrase “Connecting People”?

World Employers. The largest employer in the world, with 3.23 million employees, was also the largest single consumer of energy in the United States in 2006. Headquartered in Virginia, name the largest employer in the world.

Food and Drink. Which of the following snacks is being released in a new caffeinated version? Cracker Jacks, Jiffy Pop Popcorn, Reeses Pieces, Triscuits.

Four for Four. Which two of the following Steve Martin films were released in 2003? Bringing Down the House, Cheaper by the Dozen, Father of the Bride II, LA Story.

Pop Culture – Music. “Diamonds” is the name of the hit single by the recording artist who has achieved a total of eleven number one singles on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, becoming the youngest solo artist to achieve the feat. What is her name? Hint: She’s two years older than Taylor Swift.

The Priming the Operatic Pump Edition of the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz Newsletter

by yourquizmaster on November 19, 2012

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

I tell my students in the “Writing Across Media” class that I teach for the Technocultural Studies Program every winter that, as creative professionals, they have a responsibility to report to the class on their culturally ambitious weekends. One great advantage of being a creative professional (or a Quizmaster) is that all of our cultural and intellectual experiences can be made relevant to our work. One must “prime the pump.” This past weekend, for example, I enjoyed a David Sedaris performance at the sold-out Mondavi Center, saw the Spielberg film Lincoln, and saw my friend Malcolm Mackenzie perform the title role in The Barber of Seville. I’m grateful to be married to a woman who is also culturally curious, who appreciates comedy, history, and classical music, as I do, and who was willing to accompany me to all these cultural adventures.

Like most of you, I don’t see a lot of opera. I regret to say that heretofore I have looked askance upon opera in the way that many otherwise culturally-curious people allow themselves to look upon performed poetry, that this particular genre of the performing arts can be ignored or avoided because of its potential for pretentiousness, obscurity, pomposity, and remoteness from one’s current interests and concerns. Some might think, as I have, that opera is a throwback art form reserved for wealthy Eurocentric people. As Moliere said more than 350 years ago, “Of all the noises known to man, opera is the most expensive.”

But of course we find in opera what we look to find in the best examples of other artistic genres. Susannah composer Carlisle Ford said, “Like any other composer of opera, I choose a subject not for polemical reasons, but because it contains vivid characters in highly charged dramatic situations.” We look for these same qualities in film, though a character like Daniel Day-Lewis’s Lincoln is more subtle, folksy, and discursive than the characters in a typical opera. My advice: buy a recording of the opera you plan to see – as I did with a Maria Callas version of The Barber of Seville – and then listen to it a few times before you head to the show. On the day of the performance you’ll be so familiar with the music that you can focus on the spectacle, the sets, the comedy, and the acting, as Kate and I did. You will soon wish not to be anywhere else in the world. You will even want to take a break from Facebook – a welcome respite.

And it helps if you know someone in the cast. Occasional Pub Quiz participant Malcolm Mackenzie is an incredible baritone – it’s amazing what these singers do with their voices – and he was rightfully presented last for the curtain call. What an ovation! Coming home from the opera last night, I told Kate that while I find being your Quizmaster to be really rewarding, never will 2,000 people give me a standing ovation as they did yesterday for the baritone barber Malcolm MacKenzie. She pointed out that I am not the Quizmaster of Seville.

Tonight’s Pub Quiz will contain no questions about my new interest in opera – I’ll save one of those for next week. But there will be a classical music question, and questions about Finland, Virginia employers, Canadians, Steve Martin, Jennifer Anniston, haters, linear algebra involving hockey, Cuban baseball players, pig-rats, Abraham Lincoln, islands, mad men, hardened ivory huts, things that you might learn in People Magazine, books translated into English and other languages, people we are trying to save, The Irish Times, again with the Middle East, small states, Americans born in 1809, gymnastics, football, the FBI, and Shakespeare. There will be one true-false question, several easy questions, and perhaps one stumper. We shall have to see.

Enjoy Thanksgiving with your families. I am grateful every time I see you and members of the other teams at the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz.

Your Quizmaster

Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:

1. Mottos and Slogans. "A mind is a terrible thing to waste" is the slogan of the UNCF. What do the letters UNCF stand for?

2. Internet Culture. Microsoft first introduced an operating environment named Windows in what decade?

3. Newspaper Headlines. Lance Armstrong has stepped down as a board member of the cancer-support charity he founded in 1997. What is the name of that charity?

4. Four for Four. On the album Motown #1s, which one of the following #1 Motown hits was longer than three minutes? “I Heard It Through the Grapevine” by Marvin Gaye, “My Girl” by the Temptations, “Please Mr Postman” by The Marvelettes, “Where Did Our Love Go” by the Supremes.

5. Veterans. Three states in the US have more than a million veterans. California is first with 1.9 million veterans, and two other states have 1.6 million veterans. What are those two states?

P.S. I believe next week marks the one-year anniversary of the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz. What shall we do to celebrate?

The Nobility of Spirit Veterans Day Edition of the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz Newsletter http://www.aweber.com/t/IGYUA

by yourquizmaster on November 12, 2012

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

My favorite Veterans Day message came this morning from my friend Indigo Moor, the multi-award winning poet and essayist who was posting, as so many of us do when we have an important message, on his Facebook wall:

10 years in the Navy: Desert Storm, Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal and a Kuwaiti Liberation Medal. My ex asked my oldest grandson if he knew that I was a veteran. Michael replied "yeah… there's a kid in my class, he's a veteran, too." LOL. Off to work.

Indigo’s words reminded me of a quotation I read recently by the Italian conductor Riccardo Muti, who is also the musical director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra: “Nobility of spirit has more to do with simplicity than ostentation, wisdom rather than wealth, commitment rather than ambition.”

One way to honor veterans is to thank them for their selflessness. I wonder if President Obama carried the veteran-heavy states of Virginia and Florida in the election this year because of the ways that his campaign focused on the needs of returning veterans (especially helping them find jobs). Because this was the first election in 80 years where no one on the ticket could point to military service as a qualification in his run for office, perhaps President Obama had an opening with veterans who saw that he genuinely cared for their well-being and their futures.

Expect a couple Veterans Day-themed questions on tonight’s de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz. Also, expect a crowd. The monthly Art About is bringing more and more outsiders to downtown Davis, and many of them this past Friday tried to get a table at de Vere’s. Tonight the crowd will be more focused, less frenetic, and more ready to participate in their own entertainment. With some favorite teams returning from vacations and other forms of hiatus, I bet we will sell out.

Tonight’s Quiz will also include questions about Microsoft, popular charities, Motown, 50 years of Bond films, funky music, puppets, sugar, American royalty, quarterbacks whose names are spondees, baritones, cloaking, islands, Star Trek, Oscar-winners, heavenly tunnels, (northern) Italy as a setting, people with the last name of Fett, fireflies, lovely summers, spouses who share birthdays, clones, the ages of bunches of celebrities, vacancies, parks, islands, the Caribbean, religious leaders, Persia, fun with atoms, time spent with ghosts, states full of women, veterans, and Shakespeare.

I hope to see you this evening, and happy Veterans Day.

Your Quizmaster

Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:

1. Unusual Bicycle Words and Acronyms. When referring to bicycles, what does the acronym BMX stand for?

2. Aristotle. According to Aristotle, the secret to humor is WHAT?

3. Pop Culture – Television Hosts. Huell Howser is best known for hosting a TV travel show titled California's WHAT?

4. Another Music Question. In what Beatles song does one find the line “Got to be good looking ‘cause he’s so hard to see”?

5. Anagram. What was the last-released full-length non-animated film that included Mike Myers in its cast? Two hints: The 2009 film made $120 million domestically, and its title is an anagram for the common phrase A BED RUINS UROLOGISTS.

P.S. I hope you’ll come out to the John Natsoulas Gallery this coming Thursday night at 8 to see two of UC Davis’s best poets perform: Joe Wenderoth and Joshua Clover. You should leave your children at home for this event.

The Musical Stimulants Edition of the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz Newsletter

by yourquizmaster on November 5, 2012

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

Many of my friends on Facebook are telling me and their other friends how and why they are grateful this month. So far they have been talking mostly about friends and family – for example, my wife Kate thanked me for convincing her that we should have a third child – but I’m sure tomorrow or Wednesday people will express thanks that the presidential election is over. Television networks may be less thankful that the campaign season will end, for I’m sure between the endless stream of crass political ads and the partisan focus on either Fox News or MSNBC, network executives were feeling that their work was relevant again, or at least necessary in our age of retail politics. Like many of you, I have long ago grown impatient with television – especially commercial television – having switched years ago to print and internet sources for our news. Let’s hope that Americans rediscover new reasons to be thankful starting Wednesday night, starting perhaps with the other people in their homes, those natural resources and parks that have not yet been depleted or neglected, and the silence in a room where two or more people are reading actual books.

As an aside, I should add that classical music suits me for reading books, whereas I use energetic dance music when I am grading papers. Never a coffee drinker or a taker of psycho-stimulants, I find that music can serve these functions if you have a wide-enough musical palate, and access to online music through Pandora, Spotify, or the web-available radio stations of the world. Some day I will attempt a music round at the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz, though today is not that day.

Tonight’s Quiz will feature five questions on “things I learned last week from reading the newspaper.” I read rather widely, and often with you, the quiz-taker, in mind. I hope you have also been keeping up with the news. Expect also questions about burgers, Google and Microsoft, November, Hurricane Sandy (also called a “super storm”), countries that start with the letter I, social thinkers and philosophers, rookies, historical miracles, portrait painters, great American films, people born in Hawaii, baseball greats, gasses, bicycling, California travel, Beatles songs, reclining ruined urologists, films that have made more than $100 million, CBEs, blogs, trees, the election, swing states, Philadelphia, a sibling’s directives regarding guns, red states, Vietnam, carnivores that never eat people, novels, and Shakespeare.

I hope to see you this evening. It will get dark early tonight, so at the Pub Quiz you can pretend that you are out late even though you should be able to be home and in bed tonight by 9:30, depending on how long it takes you to brush your teeth.

Your Quizmaster

Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:

22. Fear the Beard. What Beach Boy shares a name with a pitcher playing for the World Championship San Francisco Giants?

23. Davis Culture. The City of Davis grew around a Southern Pacific Railroad depot that was built around the time of the end of what US-involved war?

24. Countries of the World. Five of the twelve largest cities proper in the world are found in what country?

25. Food and Drink. What grain-like crop whose name starts with the letter Q is grown primarily for its edible seeds?

26. Science. What five-syllable word do we use to name the branch of natural science concerned with heat and its relation to other forms of energy and work?

The Divided Attention Edition of the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz Newsletter

by yourquizmaster on October 30, 2012

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

The nation’s attention is divided into about three different directions. First, of course, is the presidential election. My brother-in-law Paul told me when I visited him in Seattle last week that he checks Nate Silver’s 538 blog every day to see how Silver interprets the latest swing state polls, and what percentage chance President Obama has to keep his current job (it’s currently at about 75%). Paul, who is not much of an Obama fan, even though he fears the alternative, is relatively optimistic, while his wife Andree, a devoted Microsoft employee and fan, worries every day about the outcome. She knew Obama a bit when they were both in Harvard Law School together.

The other two directions, of course, are the San Francisco Giants, and Hurricane Sandy. Expect questions on both at tonight’s de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz. Tonight’s Pub Quiz will also feature questions about waves, video games, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Late Night with David Letterman, Saturday Night Live, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Hills, minor celebrities and their pets, words that start with the letter Q (the letter of the day), clowns, poetry, taxes, beach boys, People.com, people named Jim, bodies of water, slim people, the World Series, the silence of the lambs, seismology, three-letter words, war heroes, jail sentences and other punishments, religious adherents, heavy Manillas (the “bracelet” currency of West Africa), Booms, popular shows, horror films (Halloween coming up), wars, food and drink, and all of Shakespeare (that is, not only Hamlet).

No debates or baseball games should keep you on the couch tonight, unless it’s the couch in the library of de Vere’s Irish Pub. See you this evening?

Your Quizmaster

Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:

1. Mottos and Slogans. Starting in 1912, what company or product used the commercial slogan “When it rains it pours”?

2. Davis Culture. The storefront at the current home of the Halloween Store at 212 F Street was previously occupied by three businesses that all sold the same product. Name it.

3. Newspaper Headlines. On Saturday, Ohio's largest newspaper, the Plain Dealer, endorsed the Democratic incumbent for President, as it did for then-Senator Obama in 2008. What Ohio city is home to the Plain Dealer?

4. Four for Four. Which of the following horror films, if any, were released in the 1930s? The Bride of Frankenstein, Dracula, Frankenstein, The Wolf Man.

5. Presidential Politics. According to Nate Silver of the New York Times, what are the chances this election cycle that President Obama will fail to carry one of the states that he carried in 2008? Is it 50%, 75%, 85%, or 99.5 %?

P.S. Sandra Gilbert, one of the most important feminist literary critics writing today, will be reading from some of her dozen or more books of poetry this coming Thursday night at 8 at the John Natsoulas Gallery, with the after-party taking place at de Vere’s Irish Pub at 10. Please see details at http://www.poetryindavis.com.