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

Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:

1. Mottos and Slogans. What American company invited us to “Put a tiger in your tank”?

2. Internet Culture. What is the three-word title of the comedy video website founded by Will Ferrell and Adam McKay’s production company, Gary Sanchez Productions?

3. Newspaper Headlines. What did today’s New York Times call “maybe the most bleeped award show in history”?

4. Four for Four. Which of the following, if any, are edible (and have been served in restaurants). Kipe, Lipe, Snipe, Tripe.

5. Powerful Women. Christine Lagarde has been named the 9th most powerful woman in the world by Forbes Magazine. She is the Managing Director of WHAT?

Friends of the Pub Quiz, and those curious about all the fun and fuss associated with the Pub Quiz, should come to de Vere’s Irish Pub in Davis (217 E Street), the highly esteemed pub and restaurant that fills up every night because of the superb quality of food, drink and company that can be found there. The de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz takes place every Monday at 7pm, though players are encouraged to arrive early to claim a table. As always, find out more about the Pub Quiz by visiting https://www.yourquizmaster.com. For more on de Vere’s Irish Pub, visit http://deverespub.com/.

The Cutting for Stone Edition of the Pub Quiz Newsletter

by yourquizmaster on August 30, 2011

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

If you join enough book groups, it’s almost like attending graduate school. At least that’s what my wife Kate is discovering as she keeps up with the reading for her various book groups made up of Davis moms (and in one group, moms and daughters). They’ve read a wide variety of adult and young adult novels, my favorite of which has been Cutting for Stone, the Abraham Verghese masterpiece that won the 2009 fiction award from the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association. I interviewed Verghese for my KDVS radio show, and found the author to be especially knowledgeable, personable and funny. Because mine is in part a technology show, we talked about a communications technology initiative at Stanford University (where Verghese is Professor for the Theory and Practice of Medicine at Stanford’s School of Medicine and Senior Associate Chair of the Department of Internal Medicine). For this project, Verghese and other professors take pre-written questions from Stanford freshmen about their disciplines, life at Stanford, and their expectations for students in their classes, and then the faculty are filmed answering those questions in their offices. The virtual office hours project is perfect for harried faculty like Verghese who wear many hats, and thus must answer to many constituencies.

I should say as an aside that he also answers his email, at least his email from me. We corresponded for a number of weeks after his appearance, and Verghese kindly offered to blurb my next poetry book. I don’t know how much overlap there will be between his many readers and my very few, but I do appreciate his willingness to lend his name recognition to the efforts of another writer, as The World According to Garp author John Irving did with Verghese himself. Of Cutting for Stone, John Irving wrote, “That Abraham Verghese is a doctor and a writer is already established; the miracle of this novel is how organically the two are entwined. I’ve not read a novel wherein medicine, the practice of it, is made as germane to the storytelling process, to the overall narrative, as the author manages to make it happen here.”

Part of my new and additional position at UC Davis (as Academic Associate Director of Academic Technology Services) requires that I research how universities such as Stanford are effectively using new media to support academic and learning objectives. In this coming year I will be investigating new and innovative ways that faculty can use video, podcasts, personal response systems and blogs to communicate with students, and to foster the sort of deep thinking and collaborative learning that are necessary for students to make meaningful discoveries at UC Davis.

Thank goodness I can take a break from such heavy cogitation on Monday nights when I make people answer questions about Lady Gaga and sing jazz standards. Do you know any jazz standards? If so, please join us this evening, a night when we will also review petrochemical companies, Will Ferrell, semi-precious gems, tigers, television censorship, snipe hunts, messengers, Twinkies, French ladies, motorcycles, musicians with alliterative names, gunslingers, the NCAA, American mammals, the Supreme Court of the United States, silly videos, British kings, tables, unusual words that come up in the dojo, Harry Potter, Native Hawaiians, costume design, onetime nitrates, zombies, cheap shots, People Magazine, avant-garde artists that hope not to kill people, Australia, gurus, angry Americans, the meaning of jihad, basketball, and Brooklyn.

There won’t be any questions tonight on Hurricane Irene, but if you hope to discover more about how you can help with domestic and international disaster relief efforts, you might look over this recent collection of organizations listed by writers at the Huffington Post.

Tonight’s swag will be augmented by the folks at Haute Again, my favorite environmentally-conscious consignment store in Davis. I like to stop by to see the offerings and Nina the proprietor when I am walking down to the John Natsoulas Gallery to see the poetry readings on first and third Thursday nights of every month. I believe Nina will be joining me for dinner, so please stop by to say hi if you arrive a little early.

I hope you can join us tonight for another edition of the Pub Quiz!

Your Quizmaster

Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:

1. Great Americans. If you saw the Spielberg film Amistad, you probably know who was the first and only ex-President of the United States to later serve in the House of Representatives. Name him.

3. Another Music Question. What one-named Wisconsin-born musician was the highest paid entertainer in the world from the 1950s to the 1970s?

4. Pop Culture – Television. The actress and recording artist who played Carly Shay has broken her ankle and will not be coming to Davis for her scheduled appearance. What is her name?

5. Nuclear History. What was the name of the US bomber that dropped an atomic weapon on Hiroshima, killing over 60,000 instantly?

6. Anagram. The name of the American actor primarily known for playing Sylar on Heroes and Spock in the 2009 film Star Trek is an anagram for the common phrase QUIZ TO ANARCHY. What is his name?

Friends of the Pub Quiz, and those curious about all the fun and fuss associated with the Pub Quiz, should come to de Vere’s Irish Pub in Davis (217 E Street), the highly esteemed pub and restaurant that fills up every night because of the superb quality of food, drink and company that can be found there. The de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz takes place every Monday at 7pm, though players are encouraged to arrive early to claim a table. As always, find out more about the Pub Quiz by visiting https://www.yourquizmaster.com. For more on de Vere’s Irish Pub, visit http://deverespub.com/.

The Third Place Edition of the Pub Quiz Newsletter

by yourquizmaster on August 23, 2011

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

Great news! I saw a favorite waitress for the first time in months today. Lauren the waitress stopped by my table at lunch today, wearing civilian clothes that showed off her stylish tattoos, and revealed to me that she’ll be returning to work after a long hiatus. Waitresses like Lauren are necessary to make restaurants and other “third places” to be welcoming to regulars. When I was a child, my “third place” was the home of my best friend, Tito. But as we get older some may think it strange to spend all of one’s time at a friend or neighbor’s house, Kramer style, riffling though the pantries and cupboards until in their scant scarcity, they resemble Mother Hubbard’s .

Lucky towns such as Davis have a number of places that are neither home nor school or work, places that allow us all to interact and dine and discover or strengthen our sense of community. In his book The Great Good Place: Cafes, Coffee Shops, Community Centers, General Stores, Bars, Hangouts, and How They Get You through the Day, Ray Oldenburg explains that we need such places to encourage sociability and sanity. Speaking of this book, Lynne Breaux, the owner of Tunnicliff’s Tavern in my former hometown of Washington, D.C. wrote “This wonderful and utterly important book verifies our need for fun through conversation in ‘great good places.’ Oldenburg writes passionately of our country’s current and urgent problems resulting from our ever-increasing social isolation and provides us with a very simple solution. America must read and react to this rational common-sense solution to salving our stressed lives. And our government needs to promote, permit, and zone responsible neighborhood hospitality, recognizing the value of ‘a vital informal life.'”

Just as Norm always returned to the bar named Cheers, and Jean-Luc Picard sought out the counsel of the 700 year-old bartender Guinan, each of us, Oldenburg argues, needs a place where we can go to talk with people and thus remember our civic responsibilities and our sense of place. The city of Davis prides itself on the variety of its third places, whether they be Farmers Market Park, the E Street Plaza, or the many cafes and restaurants downtown. I’m pleased to have provided a minor weekly excuse for you to congregate in our old City Hall building and be willingly “assessed” on the variety of usual and unusual topics I research for you, from Shakespeare and dog breeds to Star Trek characters and Franz Kafka.

Tonight at the Pub Quiz you should expect questions about American cars, Apple wannabes, the National Mall, Regis Philbin, rap singers, sports I don’t watch, excitable cells, Wisconsin natives, well-heeled musicians, broken ankles, nuclear history, songs about loss (do you know one?), anarchy quizzes, Star Trek, the letter T, nuclear vessels, famous trials, Harry Potter, Frank Lloyd Wrights, the Middle East, Greek goddesses, living on earth, newlyweds, Jerry Seinfeld, professional baseball, Shakespeare, small towns in Maine.

See you tonight! We should have room for you!

Your Quizmaster

Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:

2. Toy Technology Culture. A recent TechCrunch headline recently shouted that a particular company’s “New Vortex Blasters Shoot Discs! And They’re Awesome!” They are made by the same company that manufactures the N-Strike, N-Force and Dart Tag. Name the Hasbro-owned company.

3. Newspaper Headlines. What multi-multi-billionaire published a “raise my taxes” op-ed in yesterday’s New York Times titled “Stop Coddling the Super-Rich”?

4. Four for Four. Which of the following 19th century novelists were alive during any part of the 20th century (which we’ll say started in 1901)? Jane Austen, Joseph Conrad, Charles Dickens, Franz Kafka.

5. The City of Davis. According to the City’s 2009 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report, the second-largest employer in the city (measured by number of employees) has five words in its title. What is it?

6. Lizards. What’s the six-letter Greek word for “lizard”?

Friends of the Pub Quiz, and those curious about all the fun and fuss associated with the Pub Quiz, should come to de Vere’s Irish Pub in Davis (217 E Street), the highly esteemed pub and restaurant that fills up every night because of the superb quality of food, drink and company that can be found there. The de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz takes place every Monday at 7pm, though players are encouraged to arrive early to claim a table. As always, find out more about the Pub Quiz by visiting https://www.yourquizmaster.com. For more on de Vere’s Irish Pub, visit http://deverespub.com/.

The Disappointments of M. Night Shyamalan Edition of the Pub Quiz Newsletter

by yourquizmaster on August 15, 2011

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

As many of you know, my day job (well, one of my day jobs – I acquired a new one last month) is that of writing teacher. This past quarter I got to teach an advanced poetry writing workshop – one of my favorite classes to teach at UC Davis – but most of the time I teach students how to write effective and seamless prose. Not only the newspaper, but also Hollywood reminds how important good writing is. Recently the actor Tom Hanks was confronted in a gas station by two patrons who love him but didn’t care for the writing in his movie Larry Crowne. As Hanks was also the author of that screenplay, he apologized for disappointing the couple, and refunded the $25 that they spent on the film. I attribute Hanks’ attitude to the influence of his Sacramento schooling.

Nobody can refund the time I spent fast-forwarding through The Last Airbender, the film whose poor acting was surpassed only by the poor writing. Someone determined that if M. Night Shyamalan continues to make movies, soon a film of his will break the Rotten Tomatoes evaluation rubric by being the first with a negative score. See

to see his slumping career plotted graphically. Remind me never to ask a Pub Quiz question about The Last Airbender (even though it was a popular film when it showed last summer in Davis’s best theatre, The Varsity). Shyamalan would do well to hire one of my students to go over his future scripts.

By contrast, check out the excellent lyrical work of actor and musician Ricky Gervais as he offers the red monster Elmo a celebrity lullaby. (See .) That’s fine writing, I think – everyone loves a surprise. In honor of almost 42 years of Sesame Street, tonight’s Pub Quiz will feature at least two questions whose correct answers will start with the letter N.

We will also have questions about toys, presidential politics, birth control, billionaires, Charles Dickens, local jobs, lizards, people named John (if you had to sing a song by a guy named John, what song would you pick? Go ahead and start practicing), Greek words, the recent history of baseball, car safety, Alessandro Bolta, megachurches, sheep, butterfly puddles and other invented silliness, sitcoms, musicians with just one name, food and drink, lowered matinees, dumb jokes involving cringe-worthy puns, novels you should have read in college, Asia, world capitals, extinct empires, Buddhism, bears, accepted apologies, Native Americans, rams, comedians, passerines, best-selling books, country music singers (again?), record-holding quarterbacks, and the effect of Kings on the plays of William Shakespeare.

August and September are turnover months in Davis, so why don’t you turn over a new leaf and resolve to join us tonight at the Pub Quiz? I bet we will have room for you tonight.

Your Quizmaster

Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:

21.

Books and Authors. Jean Jacques Rousseau, author of The Social Contract, lived and died in the same century. Name the century.

22. Film. Jason Bateman and Ryan Reynolds star in a new film that opened this past Friday. Name the film.

23. Games. What is the fewest number of moves that a player playing with black chess pieces can move to checkmate his opponent? Is it 2, 4, 6, or 8?

24. Countries of the World. Until the year 1600, St. Basil’s Cathedral was the tallest building in what world capital?

25. Numbers. The number of countries in Africa is the same as the number of milligrams of caffeine in a can of Mountain Dew. Both numbers are divisible by 18. What is the number?

Friends of the Pub Quiz, and those curious about all the fun and fuss associated with the Pub Quiz, should come to de Vere’s Irish Pub in Davis (217 E Street), the highly esteemed pub and restaurant that fills up every night because of the superb quality of food, drink and company that can be found there. The de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz takes place every Monday at 7pm, though players are encouraged to arrive early to claim a table. As always, find out more about the Pub Quiz by visiting https://www.yourquizmaster.com. For more on de Vere’s Irish Pub, visit http://deverespub.com/.

The Wind-Beat Whitebeam Edition of the Pub Quiz Newsletter

by yourquizmaster on August 9, 2011

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

August is vacation month for many, the last chance for most local children, or the parents of those children, to travel before the fall semester begins. Me, I’ve just returned from Mount Shasta, a weekend trip with the family to spend time with some old friends who own a second home there. Remote, quiet, and unhurried, the area where they spend the summer seemed impressively close to the stars. I was reminded of a poem by my favorite Jesuit priest, Gerard Manley Hopkins:

The Starlight Night

Look at the stars! look, look up at the skies!

O look at all the fire-folk sitting in the air!

The bright boroughs, the circle-citadels there!

Down in dim woods the diamond delves! the elves’-eyes!

The grey lawns cold where gold, where quickgold lies!

Wind-beat whitebeam! airy abeles set on a flare!

Flake-doves sent floating forth at a farmyard scare!—

Ah well! it is all a purchase, all is a prize.

Buy then! bid then!—What?—Prayer, patience, aims, vows.

Look, look: a May-mess, like on orchard boughs!

Look! March-bloom, like on mealed-with-yellow sallows!

These are indeed the barn; withindoors house

The shocks. This piece-bright paling shuts the spouse

Christ home, Christ and his mother and all his hallows.

All those exclamation points indicate the poem’s sublime tone, as if the speaker can’t quite fathom the numinous overwhelm of the celestial lightshow, the “wind-beat whitebeam.” Perhaps we need poetry to help us imagine the infinite entertainment provided to receptive viewers and listeners. Were all our senses more finely tuned, more responsive, before the era of television, radio, or even mimeograph? Who needs the internet when you could instead watch “airy abeles (also known as white poplar trees) set on a flare”?

If you are going to be in town tonight, I hope you will join us and others from your bright boroughs for the faux-intellectual pursuit that itself can provide some raucous respite from your job, your commute, and those many other responsibilities. Tonight’s Pub Quiz will feature questions on electronics, Google+ (do you have your account yet, or did you stop joining social networks at about three?), our limping economy, Beatles songs, northern cities, Thomas Edison, California palindromes, those hip-hop and/or rap songs that you would most enjoy singing in a crowded, a lousy job, Superbowls, indulgence, kindness, groundwater, country music stars (x2), comedy-drama on television, color theory, two anagrams, uncorked bait, superhero movies (because I cannot resist), scars, scorpions, ancient urban skyscrapers, Africa, Mountain Dew, poetry, cologne, and the kings of Shakespeare. Today at lunch my wife and daughter got about a third of the questions right – they thought one of the country music questions was too easy. I wonder what you will think.

At this hour we have a few tables left, so call in to see if you can claim one. And thanks for the shout-out on Twitter from @Yasmine730, joining us for the last time tonight. Expect some bonus sweet potato fries, Yasmine, symbol of largesse at everyone’s favorite.

Your Quizmaster

Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:

1. Mottos and Slogans. What company’s slogan is “Number One in Tennis”?

2. Internet Culture. As has been announced often in the news over the last few days, Apple Computer evidently has more money in the bank than WHAT? Hint: the correct answer is an anagram for the common phrase EARTHY SUTURES.

3. Newspaper Headlines. What 51 year-old candidate for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination, the only one to have served in the administrations of four United States presidents, is also the only one to buck the Tea Party by announcing his support for the debt deal announced yesterday in Washington?

4. Four for Four. Which of the following characters from the Harry Potter books, if any, spent time in the wizards’ prison known as Azkaban? Sirius Black, Barty Crouch, Jr., Igor Karkaroff, Bellatrix Lestrange.

5. Greek Mythology. What legendary King of Ithaca was husband to Penelope and father to Telemachus?

Friends of the Pub Quiz, and those curious about all the fun and fuss associated with the Pub Quiz, should come to de Vere’s Irish Pub in Davis (217 E Street), the highly esteemed pub and restaurant that fills up every night because of the superb quality of food, drink and company that can be found there. The de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz takes place every Monday at 7pm, though players are encouraged to arrive early to claim a table. As always, find out more about the Pub Quiz by visiting https://www.yourquizmaster.com. For more on de Vere’s Irish Pub, visit http://deverespub.com/.

The Eidetic Memory of Harry Potter Edition of the Pub Quiz Newsletter

by yourquizmaster on August 2, 2011

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

Whenever I ask on Facebook what topics people would like to see represented, one of my favorite past participants, Kayla, always answers with “Harry Potter.” As someone with three degrees in English, I was made skeptical about the Harry Potter phenomenon by an essay I read years ago by the eminent literary critic Harold Bloom. Bloom decided once to read the first Harry Potter book – he reads a book or more a day, for he has an eidetic memory – and resolved to draw a hash mark on a nearby envelope every time the narrator or a character said that he wanted to, as the cliché goes, “stretch his legs.” Soon, according to this fascinating narrative by Bloom, the envelope was black with hash marks.

On the other hand, as someone who has hosted a radio show about reading and creativity for ten years, and as someone who has given many lectures meant to inspire schoolchildren to read (with an emphasis on poetry), I am grateful for any author who can inspire so many to read so much. My daughter, like the tween and teen sons and daughters of many families, has read all of J.K. Rowling books, a total of more words than I have read by, say, Dickens or Emerson (but not Tennyson or Thoreau). And I never heard Geneva complaining about all the leg-stretching that so perturbed Harold Bloom. Frankly, I appreciate any literary force that compels young people to turn away from their screens, and return to the word (though with the popularity of the Amazon Kindle, I should perhaps rethink that analogy).

Tonight’s Pub Quiz will feature questions on Harry Potter, mathematics (hello Leslie!), Republican allies and opponents of the Tea Party, Barty Crouch, Ithaca, the city of London (where I met my wife) and other big cities, prolix users of taxicabs, China, Miles, shoes with loud voices, medical dramas, unbidden guests, Greek mythology, songs about places where we fall in love, the shared interests of Brian De Palma and Martin Scorsese, finance protection tactics, more than one anagram, the diet of Lewis and Clarke, Islam, best-selling books, cunning heroes, sports leaders with names that are difficult to spell, Alamosa-class cargo ships and Shakespeare.

This coming Wednesday is the last Poetry Night. Hereafter we move to first and third Thursdays at the John Natsoulas Gallery (521 First Street). For our final Poetry Night, we welcome crowd pleaser Bob Stanley, the Poet Laureate of Sacramento.

I hope to see you this evening.

Your Quizmaster

Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:

1. Mottos and Slogans. In one iconic television commercial, a man sitting on the edge of his bed with a rather ill look on his face says “I can’t believe I ate the WHOLE thing.” Name the product.

2. Internet Culture. Worth about 360 billion dollars, Apple, Inc (as of this quarter) is the second-most valuable company on earth, worth more, for example, than the combined worth of Microsoft and Intel. What is the MOST valuable company on earth?

3. Newspaper Headlines. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has formally requested an ethics investigation of Representative David Wu, a Democrat from what state that borders California?

4. Four for Four. Which of the following musicians, if any, died at the age of 27? Janis Joplin, Jimmy Hendrix, Sid Vicious, Amy Winehouse.

5. Famous Mormons. The founder of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was killed by an anti-Mormon mob in Illinois. What was his name?

Friends of the Pub Quiz, and those curious about all the fun and fuss associated with the Pub Quiz, should come to de Vere’s Irish Pub in Davis (217 E Street), the highly esteemed pub and restaurant that fills up every night because of the superb quality of food, drink and company that can be found there. The de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz takes place every Monday at 7pm, though players are encouraged to arrive early to claim a table. As always, find out more about the Pub Quiz by visiting https://www.yourquizmaster.com. For more on de Vere’s Irish Pub, visit http://deverespub.com/.

The Vice-Presidential Film Recommendations Edition of the Pub Quiz Newsletter

by yourquizmaster on July 25, 2011

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

Growing up in Washington DC, with the Washington Post as my hometown newspaper, I was steeped in both news and politics. And because my father reviewed films on the local evening news just before Walter Cronkite began his newscasts, I ended up watching Cronkite until my father returned home from the TV station. As a result, and because of my NPR addiction, I end up reading and hearing a lot of the news of the world. And now I research news stories and many other topics every week for the Pub Quiz. Following the news so closely can be a wearisome practice, however, especially when so little of the news is welcome. Few of you want to hear questions about the struggling economy or about future leaders of Norway being gunned down by a nationalistic madman. Even the oft-retweeted news of the death of Amy Winehouse doesn’t seem to merit a question: most of what people know about her involves her hair, her death, and her refusal to go to rehab.

Instead this week I will ask you questions about numbers (years, months, measurements, etc.), as well as about local history. One of my favorite Pub Quiz participants, a returning college student who grew up in Davis), keeps requesting questions about our fair city. I worry that such questions privilege the “townies” who have lived here for ages, rather than the “gownies” who visit from Sacramento, the Bay Area, or southern California. I got to give a poetry reading in Berkeley yesterday afternoon, and as I was driving back I kept trying to turn off the perhaps malfunctioning air conditioner in my car. It took me a moment (I was concentrating on my driving rather than, say, thinking) to realize that the cold air rushing into my car was actually ambient: Berkeley evenings are refreshingly cool. That must be one of the reasons I moved to Berkeley as a new Californian back during the George H.W. Bush administration. That same President Bush – the better one, most people say – shared a video rental store (remember those?) with my Dad when Bush was Vice President, and sometimes they would find time to discuss movies while scanning titles. The proprietor of Georgetown Video once quoted my Dad to me from a conversation he over heard: “For you, Mr. Vice-President, I would consider a Dirty Harry flick.”

There will be questions about movies and Presidents tonight, as well as indigestion, Apple, the US Congress, Amy Winehouse, religious leaders, big cities that you have never heard of, songs with attitude (do you know any?), Arnold Schwarzenegger, China, angry young men, African heroes, International System of Units units, the history of Boston, textiles and clothing, namesake drummers, rock and roll, News Corp., dates and more dates, famous judges who don’t understand the criminal justice system, funny actors, Sacramento, peasants, animated film characters, a ribbon of highway, Canada, astronomy, children’s book authors, World Series winners, Jefferson and Lincoln, New Hampshire, and William Shakespeare.

I hope to see you this evening.

Your Quizmaster

Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:

21. Books and Authors. What American Nobel laureate wrote the 1970 novel The Bluest Eye?

22. Film – Superhero Movies. What is the three-word title of the best-rated superhero film on the Internet Movie Database? The film was released in your lifetime.

23. Native American History. The Wounded Knee incident began February 27, 1973 when the town of Wounded Knee was seized by followers of the American Indian Movement (AIM). The occupiers controlled the town for 71 days while the United States Marshals Service and other law enforcement agencies cordoned off the town. Name the state where one find the town of Wounded Knee.

24. Cities of the World. In 1536 Pedro de Mendoza of Spain founded what is now the 17th largest metropolitan area by population. Name the city.

25. French Film Directors. What Frenchman directed the film Jules and Jim and had a major acting role in the Spielberg film Close Encounters of the Third Kind?

Friends of the Pub Quiz, and those curious about all the fun and fuss associated with the Pub Quiz, should come to de Vere’s Irish Pub in Davis (217 E Street), the highly esteemed pub and restaurant that fills up every night because of the superb quality of food, drink and company that can be found there. The de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz takes place every Monday at 7pm, though players are encouraged to arrive early to claim a table. As always, find out more about the Pub Quiz by visiting https://www.yourquizmaster.com. For more on de Vere’s Irish Pub, visit http://deverespub.com/.

The Minotaurs and Medusae Edition of the Pub Quiz Newsletter

by yourquizmaster on July 19, 2011

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

Seeing the film Super 8 recently reminded me of how much I loved monsters as a child. My father the movie buff (and reviewer) kept many books in the house about Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, and Lon Chaney (among others). I delighted in reading about and watching the cinematic evidence of their raw power, their other-worldliness, and their amoral ferocity. Perhaps my interest in monsters began with all the stories and myths we reviewed in my Washington Waldorf School classes – stories of medusae and minotaurs, and the heroes who defeated them. Perhaps in my lifetime the only the match for the myth-making resonance of those old stories was the title character of the film Alien. Do you have another candidate?

We’ll be reviewing some monsters this evening at the Pub Quiz, along with a number of bigshot authors, video games, singer-songwriters, Franklin and Houston and Gray, rom-com stars, the Universities of California, great guitarists (can you play air guitar?), actor-directors, basketball centers, blue fish but no red fish, blue eyes and brown eyes, shiny elements, Revolutionary War veterans, people who are always on time, Spielberg films, variety shows, wan sealants, Nobel laureates, superheroes, Native Americans, men who play in the sand, metropolitan areas by population, the Super Bowl, famous Italians (according to Shakespeare), and Central Valley cities. Which is your favorite, after Davis?

This coming Thursday the longtime Professor of Design and author of more than 20 books, D.R. Wagner will be reading his poetry at the John Natsoulas Gallery at 8pm. To find out more about this poet and publisher of works by Rexroth and (Jim) Morrison, please visit http://bit.ly/drwagner, and to find out about the Poetry Night Reading Series, visit http://www.poetryindavis.com.

I look forward to seeing you this evening.

Your Quizmaster

Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:

1. Internet Culture. What social network recently surpassed MySpace in US traffic to become the second most-used in the Untied States?

2. Newspaper Headlines. What is the name of the British weekly tabloid newspaper, that began publishing in 1843 and ended its run yesterday?

3. Four for Four. Which one of the following comedians spoke Spanish as a first language? Lenny Bruce, Louis C-K, Chris Rock, Carrot Top.

4. Film. The cast of what 2003 film included, in alphabetical order, Alec Baldwin, Dakota Fanning, Sean Hayes, Mike Myers, and Kelly Preston, as well as the voice of Dan Castellaneta?

5. Founding Fathers. Who famously said that “Those who would give up some of their liberty in order to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety”?

Friends of the Pub Quiz, and those curious about all the fun and fuss associated with the Pub Quiz, should come to de Vere’s Irish Pub in Davis (217 E Street), the highly esteemed pub and restaurant that fills up every night because of the superb quality of food, drink and company that can be found there. The de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz takes place every Monday at 7pm, though players are encouraged to arrive early to claim a table. As always, find out more about the Pub Quiz by visiting https://www.yourquizmaster.com. For more on de Vere’s Irish Pub, visit http://deverespub.com/.

The Memory Interregnum Edition of the Pub Quiz Newsletter

by yourquizmaster on June 27, 2011

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

I recently encountered a passage in Jane Austen’s novel Mansfield Park that reminded me of one of the (many) reasons that I enjoy writing and hosting our Pub Quiz. Austen writes,

If any one faculty of our nature may be called more wonderful than the rest, I do think it is memory. There seems something more speakingly incomprehensible in the powers, the failures, the inequalities of memory, than in any other of our intelligences. The memory is sometimes so retentive, so serviceable, so obedient; at others, so bewildered and so weak; and at others again, so tyrannic, so beyond control! We are, to be sure, a miracle every way; but our powers of recollecting and of forgetting do seem peculiarly past finding out.

Do Austen’s words resonate with you about your own memory? The ubiquity of Google’s services in 2011 has no doubt weakened our memories, and perhaps cheapened them. Why keep all that information in one’s head when one can literally “ask” Google the facts that one would otherwise have to recall? I appreciate the Pub Quiz, by contrast, because it rewards knowledge, schooling and autodidact curiosity, as well as collaborative learning, rather than thumb-speed. How and why is it that a group of six friends in a booth can call up facts that none of the six could produce separately? Pub Quiz participants talk it through, enjoy flashes of brilliance, and even make discoveries. We share our memories at work.

When my daughter Geneva joined me for dinner last night after the family watched the new film Cars 2, I was peppering her with Pixar questions, testing future Pub Quiz questions for their perceived difficulty. Whip-smart, and a bit obsessed with Pixar, Geneva answered my questions even before I could finish my well-crafted sentences. Geneva is only five or so years younger than another memory master, Robert Lipman, the pop culture enthusiast and DHS student who has helped to keep the Pub Quiz team Portraits of Mohammed in the Winners’ Circle for the last three years. Robert is about to venture off to Oxford, England for a number of weeks, so we’ll see how well his team can do without all of his youthful brainpower. Some are predicting that we are about to begin an interregnum in the era of POM dominance. The value of that prediction may depend upon you, your teams, and whether you remember to make reservations early for the typically sold-out Pub Quiz.

In addition to the topic of memory, tonight’s Pub Quiz will cover Starbucks, French clothing, corruption, Nevada, depilation, Halloween, vicious cycles, numbers (what is your favorite song with a number in its title or lyrics?), baseball, classics of American literature, illegal drugs, gay rights heroes, communists, cathedrals, astronomy, Illinois, depreciation and disapproval, Richard Pryor, popular music, isolated incidents, James Bond, living novelists, Stephen Colbert, film quotations, the Pulitzer Prize, Presidents of the United States, common birds, the 15^th century, Star Wars, hockey, and William Shakespeare.

I hope you enjoy the 4th of July with your families. I look forward to seeing you tonight, and on July 11^th for another edition of the Pub Quiz!

Best,

Your Quizmaster

Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:

1. Mottos and Slogans. According to the ads, what is “The Happiest Place on Earth”?

2. Internet Culture. What Canadian electronics manufacturer reached its peak in market share at 21% in the third quarter of 2009, but has been eroding market share steadily since then, such that now its products are being abandoned for cooler and flashier-looking alternatives?

3. Newspaper Headlines. Euro zone finance ministers recently gave what country the “austerity for loans” ultimatum?

4. Four for Four. Which of the following, if any, are heptalogies? The Chronicles of Narnia, The Harry Potter books, The Oz books, The Ring of the Nibelung

5. American Cities Anagram. The names of the second and third largest cities in New England can be spelled from the words in the title of the infamous religious horror film CONCEIVED PEW TERRORS. Name both cities.

Friends of the Pub Quiz, and those curious about all the fun and fuss associated with the Pub Quiz, should come to de Vere’s Irish Pub in Davis (217 E Street), the highly esteemed pub and restaurant that fills up every night because of the superb quality of food, drink and company that can be found there. The de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz takes place every Monday at 7pm, though players are encouraged to arrive early to claim a table. As always, find out more about the Pub Quiz by visiting https://www.yourquizmaster.com. For more on de Vere’s Irish Pub, visit http://deverespub.com/.

The German Carpenter Edition of the Pub Quiz Newsletter

by yourquizmaster on June 20, 2011

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

Last Monday a remarkable and unprecedented event happened at the Pub Quiz: a team earned a perfect score on the. The team, Portraits of Mohammed, scored a perfect 30 out of 30, and even answered the tiebreaker correctly. Of course, POM has participated in the Pub Quiz every Monday for the last three years, so they’ve had lots of practice. They also make a point of stacking their team with people with a wide variety of areas and expertise and qualities, including youth. Someone on the POM team last week suggested they should now retire, but I don’t think they will. Congratulate them tonight, if you are so inclined. You’ll find them at table 11.

I don’t know where “my” team will be seated. My wife Kate and her brother will be captaining a team tonight – he just arrived this afternoon from Seattle, and he always enjoys the show. Because I don’t include questions on topics that Kate and I have talked about extensively, the Pub Quiz takes some strange turns when she joins a team. Feel free to stop by and greet us, as well, and tell my Brother-in-Law Paul how much you enjoy the Pub Quiz.

As I am teaching an advanced poetry workshop this summer session, you would think that I would have nothing but poetry on my mind as I free associate, inventing Pub Quiz questions. Of course, like Quizmasters, poets can write on just about any topic. Tonight you should expect mottos for places (rather than shopping-cart consumables), internet culture, Canada, The Wizard of Oz, Europe, conceived pew terrors, comedic actresses who has had the third or fourth lead in some really big movies, songs from the 1970s, basketball, dragons, Hungarians, German carpenters, reality TV, snobs, textiles and clothing, needling heliports, this new X-Men movie that opened a couple weeks ago, two Shakespeare plays, baseball, radio, a City of Davis question (on request), Disney, places that you have heard of (but never visited), popular drugs, obituaries, South America, the Guinness Book of World Records, madcap comedic actors, and Shakespeare.

I hope you can join us tonight. I look forward to projecting over the din of a sold out night!

Your Quizmaster

Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:

10. Great Americans. What 19th century author in his most famous work that “If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.” Henry David Thoreau in Walden

11. Unusual Words. What three-syllable adjective beginning with the letter D means “Having a sophisticated charm”? Debonair

12. Another Music Question. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart lived and died in the same century that Tristam Shandy author Laurence Sterne lived and died in. Name the century. The 18th century

13. Pop Culture – Television. What is the name of the Amy Poehler American comedy television series that debuted on NBC on April 9, 2009 and was recently picked up for a fourth season? Parks and Recreation

14. Italian Islands. The two largest islands in the Mediterranean are both Italian. Name them. Sicily and Sardinia

Friends of the Pub Quiz, and those curious about all the fun and fuss associated with the Pub Quiz, should come to de Vere’s Irish Pub in Davis (217 E Street), the highly esteemed pub and restaurant that fills up every night because of the superb quality of food, drink and company that can be found there. The de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz takes place every Monday at 7pm, though players are encouraged to arrive early to claim a table. As always, find out more about the Pub Quiz by visiting https://www.yourquizmaster.com. For more on de Vere’s Irish Pub, visit http://deverespub.com/.