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

The Smiling Mandelaris Edition of the Pub Quiz Newsletter

by yourquizmaster on September 20, 2011

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

As a child, I did not relish my trips to the dentist. Ironically, my dentist (at the Bethesda Medical Building) was Dr. Broring, a name I found to be appropriate because “Broring” was the sound his drill made while he was eagerly boring into my teeth. I mention this because I took my three kids to the dentist this afternoon – that’s why this newsletter is being published later than usual – and it was a delightful experience. Most veteran Davis parents know of Dr. Mandelaris. One of my colleagues joked today that he and I together have paid for the graduate school tuition of all the Madelaris children (or at least paid for the arcade games and elevated trains that distract the Mandelaris patients). Dr. Mandelaris is full of wisecracks, reassuring banter, absurdist asides, and everything that you could hope from a pediatric dentist. After my 13 year-old’s x-ray, we were given a printout of smiling photographs from her last 25 or so visits. She practically grew up in that Oak Street office. Whether it’s her dentist, her heroic pediatrician Dr. Reinhart, Geneva and many other Davis natives have had innumerable opportunities to exchange kind words with many business owners and front-line customer service representatives here in Davis, a town where we do customer service particularly well. I don’t know that I forged such bonds with the people who took care of my brother and me when I was a child. We are lucky to live where we do.

The veteran Pub Quiz team In Vino Veritas will be reforming for a special appearance this evening. Brianna, the heart and soul of the team, moved to Oklahoma a number of months ago, but has returned for a family visit. I’m honored that she will spend some of that trip with us this evening. Stop by Table 11 (given up this week by Portraits of Mohammed) to meet Brianna and her charming family.

Tonight’s Pub Quiz will feature all sort of intriguing questions on a variety of topics that you know something about. Or at least that’s my hope. I’m sending out this newsletter before the Quiz is done (blame the dentist), so the following list is all conjecture, invention, and whimsy, with a few nuggets of accuracy thrown in. At least I’ve done all my research. I’ve researched topics that include (but are not limited to) superheroes, people in groups of three, books in French, leading ladies, revamped fairy tales, Harry Potter, a number of monkeys, polydactyly, people that were born in the year 2000, the members of Abba who were not blonde or Swedish (might not use that one), the blank of nuclear war, going solo, eagles and other high-flying birds, crow vindicators and the cars they drive, popularity in Washington, Alaskan Malamutes (also a red herring), The Guinness Book of World Records, Oscar-winning directors, public apologies, The Emmys (full disclosure: I did not watch the Emmys), far-flung people who speak French, Shakespeare, French explorers (by request), and several others on topics I haven’t conceived of yet. When I am overworked and behind on researching the Quiz, I turn to film. I probably should have just double-majored in film. This week you can expect no questions on Vitaliy Klychko or Cher.

I was pleased to meet so many new people at last week’s Quiz. If your team is new, please identify yourselves to claim your prize.

Your Quizmaster

Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:

1. Mottos and Slogans. “We’ll leave the light on for you” was selected by Advertising Age magazine as one of the Top 100 Advertising Campaigns of the Twentieth Century. Name the company.

2. Internet Culture. Carol Bartz has resigned from the board of directors that she blasted for firing her as what Sunnyvale company’s CEO last week?

3. Newspaper Headlines. As of this last week, General David Petraeus has a new job in Washington DC. What is it?

4. Four for Four. Fayetteville, North Carolina has a population of about 200,000 people. Which two of the following four cities has a larger population? Anchorage, Alaska; Corpus Christi, Texas; Flint, Michigan; Ventura, California.

5. A pre-K question about K. What are the four vowels in the Japanese word, starting with a K, that refers to singing along with a video game or teleprompter, such as we do with questions 7 every week?

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 Chawbacons Beware Edition of the Pub Quiz Newsletter

by yourquizmaster on September 13, 2011

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

“Education is the best provision for old age,” said Aristotle, who lived into his early 60s. Did he mean that thinking people live longer, or that the elderly will have more to reflect upon if they can look back on a life full of rich learning experiences? According to a recent study from the US Census titled “Education and Synthetic Work-Life Earnings Estimates” (by Tiffany Julian and Robert Kominski), pursuing a higher education is also the greatest way to guarantee making a comfortable living. We’ve been thinking about this because of the debate about how to support, encourage and employ the 14 million Americans (a number larger than the population of Illinois) who are unemployed and looking for jobs. Investing in educating our current and future workforce will certainly make those people more employable, and our country more productive and competitive.

As a poet, I try not to think much about productivity and competition, but as a teacher and a Dad visiting Harper Junior High School on Back to School Night, I found myself wondering how well our schools are preparing our teenagers for the improved job market that I hope is waiting for them. Fortunately, this year my wife Kate and I were especially impressed with the teachers we met as we rushed through an abbreviated version of my daughter Geneva’s schedule. One Spanish teacher used the book she had written as a graduate student as a prop. Another math teacher talked so excitedly about algebra that we almost wanted to enroll ourselves. I’ll be copying Geneva’s homework assignments a few times this quarter to see how well you do with some of the word problems that have been giving me pause. I was only three years older than my daughter the last time I took a math class, and the rust is showing as I “help” her with problems about the calories in apples and pears. As an always-curious autodidact, I have some work to do.

I hope you can join us for tonight’s Pub Quiz. In addition to two questions about unusual fruits, we’ll learn about and discuss hotels, internet companies, general changes, Corpus Christi, Texas and other faraway hotspots, Japanese words that we hear every week, London streets, famous people not known by their original first names of Alfred, people who thrive in their 50s in fields dominated by youngsters, German inventors, people you wouldn’t expect to have PhDs, weights and measurements, confetti wilds, chawbacons, singers known by their first names, animated television, food herders, deduction, Star Wars, musical instruments, two-syllable colors, Canadian actors, Latin words, OPEC, patents, the western US, football, statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Shakespeare.

There will also be one question on September 11^th, 2001.

People are moving to Davis! If you bring a new team to the Pub Quiz tonight, I shall reward both of you. See you tonight!

Your Quizmaster

Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:

1. Mottos and Slogans. “Hello Moto” is the commercial slogan of what telecom company?

2. Internet Culture and Video Games. What is the name of the character portrayed by Angelina Jolie in the 2001 film subtitled Tomb Raider?

3. Newspaper Headlines. What Italo-French songwriter, singer, actress, and former model, born in 1967, announced today that the media will never get photos of her baby (after it is born)?

4. Four for Four. Subcategory – Turtles. The earliest known turtles date from 215 million years ago. This makes this reptile group older than which of the following, if any? Crocodiles, Humans, Lizards, Snakes.

5. Actors and Actresses. What Oscar-nominated actor and comedian is the frontrunner to host the Academy Awards next year?

P.S. I am hosting a poetry reading at the John Natsoulas Gallery on Thursday. You are invited!

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 Eye-Popping Labor Day Edition of the Pub Quiz Newsletter

by yourquizmaster on September 5, 2011

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

19 years ago this Labor Day, most of my closest friends and family joined my bride Kate and me in Hinsdale, Illinois, to watch us tie the knot, as they say. As a result, this holiday is always a joyful time for us, as well as a time when we reflect on the labor activism of our parents and grandparents, especially my grandfather, the union activist who was chased out of his native Oklahoma by hired thugs with axe handles.

Recently I wrote a poem reimagining our wedding day here in Davis, a city where I know far more people than I do or did in Hinsdale.

Wedding Day

She said her vows on their wedding day,

while he has repeated his every day,

even all these years later, to himself,

like an obsessive and demanding mantra;

he recounted also the guests in his head,

the great aunts and uncles not yet dead,

the unforgotten cousins, each

realizing that this was not their day;

he recounted also their precise

and chosen seating arrangements,

each in a folding chair, just dried of dew,

the women respectfully holding

flowers, and all the guests admiring

the milklight morning view

from the banks of Putah Creek

where the chapel, momentous

and holy, should have been.

He freezes his thoughts in that place,

and at that time, with the trees unmoving,

and the uninvited ducks about to quack,

so as to resist everything that would change him.

I am off to a bike ride with the family, so I will leave you to reflect on this slight poem, and on the plight of the working man in our country, as evidenced by these 10 Eye-Popping Labor Day Stats, courtesy of Mother Jones magazine.

In addition to these topics, tonight’s Pub Quiz will feature questions about the telecom industry, Angelina Jolie, the baby-hungry paparazzi, turtles, captains, South Asian cuisine, comedians, duets (if you had to, would you rather sing a duet by yourself, or with a teammate?), women in sports, common chemical elements, people with two or more identities, dynamite, diminution with a knife, flowers, dragons, the US Navy, the HMS Titanic, girls’ fashion choices, apple sauce, only children, comic book stores, hit films, big countries, world-famous Brits, controversial books, endangered world leaders, college football, and Shakespeare.

If you have any friends who would like to form a team and join us tonight, let them know that Dr. Andy will pay for their first order of sweet potato fries. You might also direct them to the website for the Pub Quiz, https://www.yourquizmaster.com.

See you tonight! I’ve created a Facebook event for tonight’s Pub Quiz. You don’t need Facebook to tell you what to do, but you are welcome to add your name to the “confirmed” list!

Your Quizmaster

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/.