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

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

Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:

1. Mottos, Slogans, and Spokespeople. Stephanie Courtney, who plays insurance saleslady Flo, said in a 2008 interview that the GEICO gecko “puts out more sexual vibes than Flo does.” For what insurance company does Flo work?

2. Newspaper Headlines. Today a judge tossed out the New York City ban on large WHATs?

3. Film. What 2013 film’s title character is to a con artist who woos Midwestern women with purportedly antique music boxes?

4. Four for Four. The Honey Badger is native to which of the following continents, if any? Africa, Australia, North America, South America.

5. Drugs. The name brand of the top pharmaceutical product by sales revenue (7.7 billion) in the US in 2011 started with the letter L. Name it.

P.S. Thanks to Ria de Grassi for bringing scientists to my Pub Quiz. I know you wish for more STEM questions. Tonight we’ll stick with human anatomy. Thanks also to Pat Phillips for Pat’s devotion to the weekly newsletter.

The March Again Birthday Edition of the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz Newsletter

by yourquizmaster on March 11, 2013

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

Our friends at de Vere’s Irish Pub in Davis have invited me to host a separate event after Pub Quiz tonight: a birthday celebration for the Quizmaster. Beginning at about 9:15, a limited spread of Irish cuisine will be displayed like the evening spread out against the sky. I would be pleased if you would join us. I don’t expect the grilled cheese sandwiches, pub salads, and several unsortable meats to last long, for undergraduates may attend, but I myself should last at least until 11. If you are anything like my friends and family, two hours of me will be plenty, but you may wish to stick around to meet some of your weekly Pub Quiz competitors.

I am on an anti-materialist kick these days, so I hope you will consider your presence a present enough at this mild little celebration. Better yet, please consider making a contribution to one of my favorite charities: The Smith Lemli Opitz Syndrome Foundation. All year long the SLO Foundation is raising money for research into the causes and treatments of this rare syndrome that affects children such as my son Jukie. My wife Kate sits on the SLOSF board of directors – see the excellent SLOSF website at http://www.smithlemliopitz.org/ and the donations page at http://www.smithlemliopitz.org/donations/. Some of our friends from KDVS will also be attending tonight, hopeful that you will make an early pledge in anticipation of the 2013 KDVS fundraiser that begins the Monday after Picnic Day. Details can be found at http://www.kdvs.org.

Thanks to de Vere’s for hosting this informal party. I can guarantee that fewer politicians will be making speeches than was the case last year.

Because of my extended celebrations yesterday, the Pub Quiz Newsletter will contain fewer hints than typical. Rest assured that you will see questions on New York City, the indeterminate sexuality of the Geico gecko, drugs, music boxes, con artists, rock and roll hall of fame inductees, baseball, the Periodic Table, martial arts, a St. Louis sports question for Elliott, nouns that start with the letter A, producers in baseball caps, superspies, comic book heroes, working girls, aviators, malice, President Roosevelt, Irish culture, Harry Potter, science guys, people from Kentucky, sports, and Shakespeare.

I hope to see you this evening at least once, and perhaps twice. Come early to claim a table.

Your Quizmaster

P.S. This coming Wednesday afternoon and evening marks the annual celebration of St. Baldrick’s Day at de Vere’s Irish Pub!

The March Again Birthday Edition of the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz Newsletter

by yourquizmaster on March 11, 2013

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

Thanks to de Vere’s for hosting this informal party. I can guarantee that fewer politicians will be making speeches than was the case last year.

Because of my extended celebrations yesterday, the Pub Quiz Newsletter will contain fewer hints than typical. Rest assured that you will see questions on New York City, the indeterminate sexuality of the Geico gecko, drugs, music boxes, con artists, rock and roll hall of fame inductees, baseball, the Periodic Table, martial arts, nouns that start with the letter A, producers in baseball caps, superspies, comic book heroes, working girls, aviators, malice, President Roosevelt, Irish culture, Harry Potter, science guys, people from Kentucky, sports, and Shakespeare.

I hope to see you this evening at least once, and perhaps twice. Come early to claim a table.

Your Quizmaster

P.S. This coming Wednesday afternoon and evening marks the annual celebration of St. Baldrick’s Day at de Vere’s Irish Pub!

The Baker Street Silhouettes Edition of the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz Newsletter

by yourquizmaster on March 4, 2013

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

We’ve been talking about Sherlock Holmes in my house. A generation ago, my wife Kate and I used to take the London Underground to the Baker Street station before emerging for our stroll through Regent’s Park to Regent’s College, where we took classes on poetry, Shakespeare, and psychology. The nearby home of the fictional character Sherlock Holmes was 221B Baker Street, now the address of The Sherlock Holmes Museum. When I lived in London, one could see Holmes placards and flags above ground on Baker Street, and Sherlock Holmes silhouettes painted onto the tiles of the tube stop underground. I wonder if some people found it strange to spend so much time commemorating someone who didn’t exist.

Today Holmes exists in the movies and on television. My daughter Geneva has started watching the acclaimed BBC television series Sherlock, and I couldn’t be happier to have her invest her time in a show with such excellent writing, characterization, and acting. Now, like her father once upon a time, she wants to move to London. That said, she sometimes watches the show with the Roku Box subtitles feature enabled so that she can follow the dialogue despite the accents. Even with subtitles, some parts need explanations, such as why Brits use the words “cheers” and “ta” to express thanks.

Is Hannibal Lector the American Sherlock Holmes? Lector seems like a more patient genius observer and logician, as well as a less (even less) stable one. Ra's Al Ghul calls Batman detective, but I think it’s not primarily Batman’s detective work that draws us to all those sequels. Can you think of other candidates for another master detective in American culture? Clearly we should gather more evidence before assigning the title of “American Sherlock.” As Arthur Conan Doyle’s protagonist says in “A Scandal in Bohemia,” “It is a capital mistake to theorize before you have all the evidence. It biases the judgment.” Someday I will ask five questions on Sherlock Holmes, but not today.

Instead, tonight at the Pub Quiz we will cover snack foods, the calendar, dated imperatives, Broadway musicals, happy places, Apple, dance moves, the NBA, threat displays, American Presidents, waterfowl, philosophers, Yiddish words, American comedy-drama TV shows, Beatles lyrics, blurting slanderers, US states, Nate Silver, cheese, people born in India, Academy Award-winning actors, TV hosts, Irish history, lachrymose songs, naming the sport, hounds, and Shakespeare plays that even I have not seen.

Poetry Night in Davis comes Thursday, with insanely popular UC Davis Design lecturer D.R. Wagner giving a reading at the John Natsoulas Gallery. Details below! If I hold a birthday party after Pub Quiz on March 11^th – should I? – I will invite Wagner, so maybe you could meet him then.

You’ve probably noticed that we’ve been packing the Pub on Monday nights. I hope you will join us this evening – come early to claim a table.

Your Quizmaster

Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:

1. Mottos and Slogans. Apple called the first iPad “A magical and revolutionary device at an unbeatable price.” Did the first iPad have a camera?

2. Internet Culture. Google has the largest share of the search engine market, at 83%, while Bing is third at almost 5%. What is second, at 7.83%?

3. Newspaper Headlines. Use a four-syllable word that starts with S and that means triggered budget cuts to finish this USA Today headline from today’s newspaper: “Obama enlists governors' help on BLANK.”

4. Music. What was the title of Aretha Franklin’s only Billboard 100 #1 hit?

5. Word Games. What word referring to items of clothing becomes a kind of alloy when you add an “S” to it?

P.S. Poetry Night is Thursday!

The Poetry Night Reading Series is proud to welcome poet D.R. Wagner on Thursday, March 7th at 8:00 p.m. He will be performing at the John Natsoulas Gallery at 521 1st Street.

D.R. Wagner is a visual artist, poet, and musician. He has had over thirty one-person exhibitions, and he has published over twenty books of poetry and letters, including his SpiralChap, A Limited Means of Expression, released in April 2011 (Rattlesnake Press). His most recent books include a chapbook entitled Pentecost (Green Panda Press) released in 2012, and Personal Archeology (Bottle of Smoke Press), set to premiere in 2013.

Wagner has been the recipient of many awards, including the Fibers West Award, and an award for Traditional Technique at the International Textile Competition, Kyoto ’87, Kyoto, Japan. Over the past thirty years he has been a prominent figure in the arts community; amongst his many titles, he is the special Consultant to the California Art Council in Technical Services, Director of the California State Art in Public Buildings Program for Office of the State Architect, and Director State of California Housing and Community Development Art Gallery.

The founder and former editor at Niagara Press and Runciple Spoons Press, Wagner has read with Jim Morrison of the Doors in a legendary reading with Morrison and Michael McClure, amongst many other poets. His visual poetry has been exhibited in venues ranging from The Musee de Arts Decoratifs, Paris, at the Louvre, to the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C.

The Witty Brevity Edition of the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz Newsletter

by yourquizmaster on February 25, 2013

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

Shakespeare, as we all know, tells us through Polonius that “Brevity is the soul of wit.” The effect is ironic, for Polonius is one of the most garrulous characters in all of Shakespeare, even though he gives some fine advice, such as these words for his son Laertes:

Neither a borrower, nor a lender be;

For loan oft loses both itself and friend,

And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.

This above all: to thine own self be true,

And it must follow, as the night the day,

Thou canst not then be false to any man.

Good advice, no?

Tonight’s Pub Quiz will feature questions on The Academy Awards. I don’t watch the Grammies or the Golden Globes, but I do watch (and study) the Academy Awards. Expect also questions about Apple and Google, Obama in the news, O Canada, Michael Jackson videos, grammar (fun!), word games, King Lear (rather than Hamlet), alloys, garments, band names that I just learned this morning, science and religion, clean jokes involving priests, space travel, speed, humorous critics, I-80, number one hits, the beginning of belching (anagram), torn bonds, Honda, Hollywood bigwigs, worth its weight in gold, procedures, Dublin, Israel, announced retirements, left turns, blowing winds, and more Shakespeare.

Despite the brevity of this newsletter, I expect a big crowd tonight. You come too.

Your Quizmaster

Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:

Newspaper Headlines. What did Jerry Buss most famously own?

Food and Drink. The honey and malt whiskey liqueur known as DRAMBUIE comes from what country? Canada, Ireland, Scotland, or Wales.

Pop Culture – Music. What is the title of Adele’s best selling album ever?

Sports. Johnny Unitas Golden Arm Award winners Carson Palmer and Matt Leinart both attended the same California college or university. Name it.

Science. Starting with the letter U, what is the name of the groups of mammals which use the tips of their toes, usually hoofed, to sustain their whole body weight while moving?

P.S Have you ever seen the great local poet and UC Davis professor D.R. Wagner perform? He will appear as part of the Poetry Night Reading Series on March 7. Details next week!

The Incredulous Enthusiasm of RL Stine Edition of the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz Newsletter

by yourquizmaster on February 19, 2013

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

Happy Presidents’ Day! I need this day off, for I have spent the weekend participating actively – I served on five panels – at the San Francisco Writers Conference, the foremost such event in the country. This weekend I got to see Apple evangelist Guy Kawasaki speak on the topic of his new book APE: Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur-How to Publish a Book. Kawasaki is an excellent speaker – he typically is paid five figures to speak at technology conventions and trade shows – so I was certainly entertained by his remarks, but I think everyone’s favorite keynote was presented by R.L. Stine, whom you probably know as the author of the Goosebumps books, which have sold more than 350 million copies. Telling us the story of how he got started in publishing, Stine informed us that he came to New York from Ohio to write humor. He had been the editor of the humor magazine at Ohio State University, and was hoping to continue such work on a larger scale. Funny and self-deprecating, Stine included choice quotations from some of his favorite letters from children. My favorite was from a boy who wrote, “Dear R.L. Stine. I have read 40 of your books. They are really boring.”

Lucky me, I got to talk with Stine and his wife for about 45 minutes at the VIP party Saturday night. I asked him about the inspiration of his interest in humor. He told me about his love for Burns and Allen, Sid Caesar, Jack Benny, and others. These were all radio comedians that I knew well, for in my childhood home we had records of those old radio shows that I would listen to repeatedly, with the encouragement of my father. I told Stine that my brother and I had grown up hearing routines by these comedic masters, as remembered by my father who had studied their work as a young magician, and then later as a college student when he hosted a live kids puppetry and variety show on Columbus television called Davey Jones’ Locker.

That’s when R.L. Stine revealed to me, with incredulous enthusiasm, that he and his brother Bill watched my Dad’s TV show every week, regaling me with stories of my father’s attempts at humor, and what he used to do with puppets. He couldn’t believe the coincidence. Evidently his love of comedy, and mine, were fostered by the same source: My Dad.

Tonight’s Pub Quiz will feature questions on books not written by R.L. Stine, online education, Wild Watermelon, food and drink, best-selling albums, physics, World War II, football, keeping on your toes, cities that start with the letter A, mammals, wild fruits, gardens of roses, transformations, genetics, scorpions, unusual modes of travel, English novelists, bonus sports topics, basketball, Europe, chickens, macho sheep sweat, security guards, power plants, Americans born overseas, 80s detectives, RJ, science fiction, blind women, Ireland, hometown newspapers, and Shakespeare.

My wife and her brother will be joining us at the Pub Quiz tonight as players (unless too many friends volunteer for the team, in which case they will audit). See you tonight at 7!

Your Quizmaster

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Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:

State Parks. Bashful Peak, at 8005 ft., is the tallest mountain in Chugach State Park, the third-largest state park in the United States. In what state is it found?

Film Quotations. The title character of what 2004 film says the following words: “I’m very important. I have many leather-bound books and my apartment smells of rich mahogany.”

Pop Culture – Music. What is the mononym of the musician who had hits, of sorts, with the songs “Trouble,” “Sober,” “Funhouse,” and, this week, “Try”?

Sports. Michael Vick has agreed to a pay cut, and to continue to work with his coach, Chip Kelly. In what city does Coach Kelly coach?

Science. What is the chemical symbol for GOLD on the periodic table?

P.S. As a special treat, we will be joined at the intermission of tonight’s quiz by The Spokes; I believe they are the best all-female a cappella group in California. They are prepping for Hella Cappella on March 1.

de Vere’s Irish Pub, 217 E Street, Davis, CA 95616

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The Berkeley Bowl Magnet Edition of the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz Newsletter

by yourquizmaster on February 11, 2013

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

This coming Friday and Saturday I’ll be giving talks, serving on panels, and hosting performance events at the yearly San Francisco Writers Conference. Having served on the SFWC faculty for the last eight or so years in a row, and I’ve come to look forward to seeing some of the same presenters and participants every year. Almost everyone has a new book to hawk, so every year I return to Davis with book ideas and firmly-held resolutions. While typically such resolutions fade in the face of more immediate deadlines and responsibilities, this year I hope at least a chapbook version of my current collection of books and essays will be ready for Friday. If and when that book is ready, I’ll be sure to let you know, and think of ways to compel you to purchase a copy, especially because all the profits will go to a good cause. Details to come.

Meanwhile, I’m thinking about San Francisco. A cultural and employment magnet hovers over cities such as San Francisco, Los Angeles, Portland and Seattle, or so say the students of mine who flee our fine city as soon as they graduate from UC Davis (recently named by Business Insider to be one of the Best Colleges in America). I ran into one such recent graduate this weekend, and she shared that she’s working at The Berkeley Bowl and trying to decide what to do next with her life. If you are too cool or indecisive to adopt a prospective career path early in your undergraduate years, you may end up working at the equivalent of The Berkeley Bowl (as I did). Today my LinkedIn connections list is filled with my former writing and Technocultural Studies students, each hoping that the connections they forged while in Davis will help to secure them better jobs, or really any sort of meaningful employment at all.

Such students teach me to wonder whether it makes more sense to value a job, or a city, even if that city is filled with the closest friends made at UC Davis, and even a future spouse. With that last criterion in mind, I value the city of London the most of all (and I’ll have to save that story for a future newsletter). Did a job bring you to Davis, or do you think that it’ll be a job that will send you on to the next city you call home?

Tonight’s Pub Quiz will feature questions on the University of California, Indian tribes, mononyms, popular websites, tall mountains, history, fruit, soap, words that start with C, tropical hardwoods, trouble, gold records, Facebook, submarines, airports and seaports, strings, ages, categories of drama, mixed drinks, comedies, televised breakdowns, private jets, borsht and what follows, military ranks, the 1960s, people named Richard, tragedies, intercollegiate sports, popular names, Oscar nominees, thieves, wealthy people, Austrian hardships, and Shakespeare. Should I also ask a question about the Pope?

I hope to see you this evening. Even though the undergraduates should be studying for their midterms, we’ve been filling every table at the Pub Quiz. Come early to claim a favorite spot!

Your Quizmaster

Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:

Internet Culture. What’s a LAN?

Newspaper Headlines. The last British king to have been killed in battle was recently found under a parking lot in Leicester, 100 miles north west of London. Name him.

Mathematics. In our American system of mathematical progressions, what denomination come after million, billion and trillion?

Pop Culture – Music. The musical group Earth, Wind and Fire was founded on the last year of what decade?

5. Sports. In 1999, who was crowned "Sportsman of the Century" by Sports Illustrated & "Sports Personality of the Century" by the BBC?

P.S. From this morning's USA Today:

“Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, elevated to cardinal in 2010 and head of the Pontifical Council for Culture, is so smart, says [National Catholic Reporter Vatican specialist John] Allen, ‘if you were picking a quiz bowl team in the College of Cardinals, most people would start with Ravasi.’” I’m sure that if Cardinal Ravasi were to join the other three members of Trivia Newton John, that new team would win the Pub Quiz every week. If that happens, you’ll learn about it in a future newsletter.

The Paratactic Fever Edition of the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz Newsletter

by yourquizmaster on February 4, 2013

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

I hard a fascinating story on National Public Radio this morning. Evidently Autism researchers don’t have enough brain tissue samples to do the research they would wish to on the causes and possible treatments of the disorder. The most compelling part for me was hearing the perspective of Jonathan Mitchell, one of the most eloquent people with autism I have ever heard. He speaks of being “embittered” because of his life’s missed opportunities, but hearing him speak, I was just struck by the absorbing way in which his sentences become rapid-fire paragraphs.

Although I have my own personal connections to Autism, Mitchell’s words resonated with me this past weekend because of the ways that the fever I was wrestling with on Friday and Saturday has inhibited, complicated, and warped my own thinking patterns. Mitchell said, “I have an impaired ability to relate to people. I can't concentrate or get things done," and I, too, found that this weekend I could get almost nothing done but write tonight’s Pub Quiz. (For instance, one of my children gave himself a haircut while I was napping on Saturday.)

More a poet than a scientist, I was fascinated by the ways, as I tried to sleep, my febrile brain would race ahead of its own thoughts, not bothering even to attempt to make logical connections, or even suggest a sequence between one thought and the next. Ezra Pound called this poetic composition method of juxtaposing images “parataxis” (as did others before him), and it is in part this sort of paratactic thought that makes modern poetry so difficult, as exemplified by the beginning of Pound’s “Three Cantos”:

HANG it all, there can be but one Sordello!

But say I want to, say I take your whole bag of tricks,

Let in your quirks and tweeks, and say the thing’s an art-form,

Your Sordello, and that the modern world

Needs such a rag-bag to stuff all its thought in;

Say that I dump my catch, shiny and silvery

As fresh sardines flapping and slipping on the marginal cobbles?

(I stand before the booth, the speech; but the truth

Is inside this discourse—this booth is full of the marrow of wisdom.)

Perhaps one reason some people were / are turned off by modern poetry is its willful resemblance to the ravings of a madman. Of course, one finds great treasures in such a poem once one learns the tactics and vocabulary to approach it.

I think you will find tonight’s Pub Quiz approachable, for it will contain no mention of Ezra Pound, parataxis, or even modern poetry. I shall save those topics for later in the year. Also, I am feeling much better, and am eager to share some thoughts on topics cinematic and otherwise this evening.

Tonight’s Pub Quiz will be dedicated to the memory of Melanie Michailidis, a faculty member at Washington University (and former visiting professor at UC Davis) who was killed in a car accident Friday evening. I got to know Melanie only briefly when she participated at a previous iteration of our Pub Quiz, but I mourn her passing today with friends who knew her well, members of the Pub Quiz team formerly known as Portraits of Mohammed (now Bards Against Humanity). Please take a moment to read about Melanie’s life in the Ladue-Frontenac Patch, a sister publication to the Davis Patch where one encounters this weekly newsletter. Elizabeth Childs, the chair of the Department of Art History and Archaeology where Professor Michailidis taught, said “She was an exceptionally bright and thoughtful scholar, an energetic and rigorous teacher, and always an extremely kind and generous colleague.” I’m sure she will be missed by her students and colleagues, as well as by friends in Davis.

Tonight’s Pub Quiz will feature questions about yesterday’s Super Bowl, film, the distance one can see on a clear day, denominations, oranges, fairyland creatures, funky music, great athletes, astronomy, mathematics, Italian words, Ohio State, greens, HBO, Swedes, hopped-up sinners that have been nominated for Academy Awards, miles, the Hastings Racecourse Fact Book, whites, other colors, social science, Ireland, remakes, actors and actresses, medications, closets, dragons, relations, parking lots, and Shakespeare.

Thanks to members of The Wilhelm Screamers, who offered to sub for me if I were to be too ill to perform my Quizmasterly duties, but I will be there tonight, most likely sipping something other than my favorite pint of Guinness. I hope to see you.

Your Quizmaster

Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:

2. Internet Culture. Starting with the letter D, what is Adobe’s best-selling web design and development application?

3. Newspaper Headlines. The spokesperson of what 102-year-old Dallas-based organization said today that it “is discussing potentially removing the national membership restriction regarding sexual orientation”?

4. Four for Four. When Rolling Stone magazine compiled its 100 greatest albums of all time, The Beatles rightfully had four in the top ten. Which of the following groups or performers, if any, had two albums in the top ten? The Beach Boys, Bob Dylan, Marvin Gaye, The Rolling Stones.

5. The Fictional Rich. Starting with the letter S, what is the five-letter name of the richest fictional character (according to the most recent such list from Forbes Magazine)?

6. The US Government – Know Your Cabinets. In addition to being the world’s largest employer, the US Department of Defense is also the largest Cabinet department in the US government. Name the second or third largest Cabinet department, as measured by number of employees, in the US government.

P.S. Come to Poetry Night this coming Thursday night! Zara Raab will be reading at the John Natsoulas Gallery at 8. The afterparty begins at about 10 at the Irish Pub. You are invited.

The Stewardship and Sustainability Edition of the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz Newsletter

by yourquizmaster on January 28, 2013

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

Saturday night I attended a high school reunion in San Francisco. This fact will surprise regular readers of the newsletter, for you might remember that I was born in Washington DC, and was raised in the glorious Glover Park neighborhood, around the corner from both the family of Fugazi lead singer Ian MacKaye, as well as various Vice Presidents at the US Naval Observatory. My bike commute from 2454 Tunlaw Road to my high school at 2126 Wyoming Avenue brought me past embassies, an imposing statue of Winston Churchill, and a number of entrances to the 2,000 acres of Rock Creek Park, but nowhere near San Francisco. Since graduation, my classmates and I have dispersed in mostly northern and western directions, and enough of us ended up in the Bay Area to warrant a yearly reunion, especially now that The Field School is celebrating its 40^th anniversary. And whereas no one from my graduating class of 40 came to the SF reunion (not surprisingly), I got to catch up with two of my favorite teachers, including the blues musician and jazz journalist Will Layman – he’s one of the intellectual heroes who inspired my interest in reading and writing.

Also at the reunion I met Leo Buc, the CFO of Common Vision, a nonprofit organization that seeks to plant orchards on the grounds of California schools, and teach schoolchildren and their teachers about permaculture and sustainability. Also drawn by the opportunity to catch up with Layman, Buc and his wife drove down from Ukiah, an even more impressive drive than mine from Davis. Buc’s zeal and vision reminded me of our own sustainability efforts at UC Davis, widely recognized today as the coolest school in the country. Sierra Magazine awarded us that special honor not only because of the inherent coolness of, say, radio station KDVS, the UC Davis contingent of hipster students, and at least 5% of our faculty (many of them teaching in Technocultural Studies). Sierra also recognized our campus-wide efforts to emphasize sustainability, green living, recycling, and renewable energy, such as turning organic CoHo food into the energy faculty, students and staff need to pedal about our beautiful campus.

In recognition of these efforts, I have invited members of the Office of Environmental Stewardship and Sustainability to join us at the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz this evening, and in return I have promised to ask five questions inspired by widely available “Cool Facts” about UC Davis. Because they have been tipped off to a significant amount of the content of tonight’s quiz, and because I value the integrity and fairness of the Quiz above all other Quizmasterly concerns, I’d like you to have the same advantage. Visit and study this web page to come as ready as our friends from our friends at the Office of Environmental Stewardship and Sustainability. As Louis Pasteur said, “Fortune favors the prepared mind.”

Also expect questions about rich people and creatures, the greats of 20^th century rock and roll, web design, seeing America, know your cabinets, whistling, professional basketball, facts that I learned from Sir Richard Attenborough’s science documentary on the magic of flight, czars in quotation marks, millennials and job interviews, US wars, actresses who have been nominated for Oscars and Emmys, nothing, again with the soundtracks, sustainability at UC Davis (five questions – see above), swoony antiheroes, Benedict Cumberbatch (who will not be the correct answer), cities with made-up names, the TV show Friends, science words that start with K (worth 5 points in Scrabble), authors whose names you actually know, uncooked nursemaids, low-scoring sports, Reddit, and Shakespeare’s influences.

The sustainability enthusiasts will be crowding the pub tonight, probably asking complex questions about the ingredients of the delicious food on the menu, so I encourage you to come early to claim a table. See you tonight!

Your Quizmaster

Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:

1. Four for Four. Which of the following former US Presidents, if any, attended today’s inauguration of Barack Obama? George Bush, George Herbert Walker Bush, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton.

2. The First Family. The name “Sasha” in this instance is actually a nickname. What is Sasha Obama’s given first name?

3. Film Quotations. In what 2012 film does Jack Black, playing himself, speak these words? “Where am I? Why am I so fancy? This is not good for my image!”

4. Pop Culture – Music. The best-selling soundtrack of all time came from a 1992 film with 12 letters in its name, and features the best-selling song of 1993. Name the film.

5. Sports. Who won 2012 Kia NBA Most Valuable Player Award?