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

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

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

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

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

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

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

by yourquizmaster on November 12, 2012

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Your Quizmaster

Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

by yourquizmaster on November 5, 2012

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

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

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

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

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

Your Quizmaster

Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:

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

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

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

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

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

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

by yourquizmaster on October 30, 2012

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

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

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

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

Your Quizmaster

Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Rainy Day Edition of the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz Newsletter

by yourquizmaster on October 22, 2012

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

My favorite Indian poet is Rabindranath Tagore, the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. I thought of him this morning while deciding what rain-soaked poem I would share with you today, the day of the first fall rains and an important marker, finally, of the end of summer in Davis, California. I’ve chosen Tagore’s “The Rainy Day”:

Sullen clouds are gathering fast over the black fringe of the forest.

O child, do not go out!

The palm trees in a row by the lake are smiting their heads against the dismal sky; the crows with their dragged wings are silent on the tamarind branches, and the eastern bank of the river is haunted by a deepening gloom.

Our cow is lowing loud, ties at the fence.

O child, wait here till I bring her into the stall.

Men have crowded into the flooded field to catch the fishes as they escape from the overflowing ponds; the rain-water is running in rills through the narrow lanes like a laughing boy who has run away from his mother to tease her.

Listen, someone is shouting for the boatman at the ford.

O child, the daylight is dim, and the crossing at the ferry is closed.

The sky seems to ride fast upon the madly rushing rain; the water in the river is loud and impatient; women have hastened home early from the Ganges with their filled pitchers.

The evening lamps must be made ready.

O child, do not go out!

The road to the market is desolate, the lane to the river is slippery. The wind is roaring and struggling among the bamboo branches like a wild beast tangled in a net.

You may have other obligations this evening, but I hope you will join us at the de Vere’s Pub Quiz. You can watch the Giants game in an Irish Pub filled with fans who feel the same way you do. And if there is some sort of political event going on tonight, as I have heard, make sure your DVR has enough room for whatever it is you decide to pre-record. That way, you can use your fast-forward button judiciously when you get home from the Pub Quiz, with your tummy filled with delicious food and perhaps a beverage, and your mind filled with the sort of guaranteed facts that seem rare during a debate. One thing I can guarantee you is you will be able to find a table when you come by tonight’s performance of the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz!

Tonight’s Pub Quiz will feature questions about Halloween in Davis, the state of Ohio, Dracula, Europe, comparing 2012 to 2008, New England, Toy Story II, Winners of Nobel Prizes whose names are neither Rabindranath nor Tagore, young accomplishments, classic rock and roll, Mitt Romney, electric neutrality, ax blows, self-help TV, members of superstar couples, songs that are artfully done, Albert Einstein, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Steve Jobs, hairstyles, abundant metals, Irish music, people named after flowers, Florida, wine, bloody ambition, Shakespeare, and grapes.

See you tonight!

Your Quizmaster

Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:

1. Mottos and Slogans. What company asks the question “What can Brown do for you?”

2. Internet Culture. What co-founder of Google was ranked first on Fortune’s “40 Under 40” list? Answer: Larry Page

3. Newspaper Headlines. According to this morning’s papers, everyone’s talking about the third season of an AMC TV show in which Rick and the other survivors finding a new home in an abandoned maximum security prison. Name the show.

4. Four for Four. Which of the following actresses, if any, are under 30? Scarlett Johansson, Keira Knightly, Samantha Morton, Carey Mulligan.

5. The Titanic. With a two hour margin of error, at what time on April 14th, 1912 did the Titanic strike the iceberg?

P.S. Sebastian Thrun and Sandra Gilbert are (separately) coming to Davis on November 1^st. What a great city we live in!

The Halloween Comes Early Edition of the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz Newsletter

by yourquizmaster on October 15, 2012

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

I spent a delightful afternoon at the Davis Cemetery yesterday. Although I had never been on the grounds of the cemetery, it seemed oddly familiar to me, in part because of all the time I spent in cemeteries as a child. My best friend Tito, later known on his pilot’s license as Montague David Lord, lived across the street from The Holy Rood Cemetery in the Glover Park neighborhood of Washington DC. Fascinated by ghosts, hauntings, and other spooky subjects, Tito and I spent many afternoons reviewing the names and the birth and death dates of the thousands of people buried there. Known when I was a child as the best-documented slave burial ground in the city, Holy Rood Cemetery has been in a state of disrepair for many years. Georgetown University, which owns the land, investigated the possibility of disinterring those buried there, but protests from relatives and people eventually hoping to be buried there with those relatives dissuaded the university from moving forward with that plan. This interest in Holy Rood among the living seems strange to me now, for during all our visits I don’t know that Tito and I ever saw a funeral take place at 2126 Wisconsin Avenue – I remember more graves of Civil War veterans than of soldiers who took place in our subsequent conflicts.

The Davis Cemetery District, by contrast, contains one of the best-maintained cemeteries I have ever encountered. Unlike almost everywhere else in Davis, it also has topography, by which I mean, it has a hill. To the east of the burial plots one finds a large expanse of lawns, mature trees, a huge number of recently planted trees, and some actual wildlife: my children counted two jack-rabbits and a dozen or so wild turkeys. It was a beautiful site for a poetry reading, and yesterday I got to perform with Amy X. Neuburg, the electronic musician and opera singer who impressed and surprised the older crowd of 50 or so art and music lovers who attended the event. I myself was surprised by the large number of my poems that included mention of graveyards and memorials. Perhaps without knowing it I return to the images and settings that were so important to Tito and me when we were first starting to understand history and mortality.

Tonight’s Pub Quiz will include some questions about dead people, so prepare yourself for that. Expect also questions about young and accomplished people, Scarlett Johansson, April 14^th, bands that have appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine, animation, undefeated people, China, opening doors, diamonds, former kings, dust, Iowa, eclipses, the Central Valley of California, dogs, spiders, Joe Biden, contiguous states, the US Senate, elderly protagonists, Americans with insufficient consonants, soybeans, the language of law, the Center for Reproductive Rights, Hungary, a man’s fist, the pronunciation of “Buscemi,” and Shakespeare.

The San Francisco Beat poet AD Winans comes to town this coming Friday night at 7 to read from his original work. Find out about Winans below, and about this weekend’s Jazz/Beat Festival at http://www.natsoulas.com/schedule/.

I hope to see you this evening for the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz!

Your Quizmaster

Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:

7. Pop Culture – Music. The number one song in the nation this week, "One More Night," is performed by what LA-based pop rock band?

8. Sports. You may have heard that Miguel Cabrera has recently achieved the baseball triple-crown. One of the three categories is home-runs. What are the other two?

9. Science. The Hardy-Weinberg Principle most concerns which of the following disciplines? Astronomy, Chemistry, Genetics, Physics.

10. Great Americans. In what year did Steve Jobs die?

11. Unusual Words according to Urban Dictionary. What P word do we use to describe a photo that has been ruined by someone or something that was not supposed to be in the photograph?

P.S. More on AD Winans: A native of San Francisco, Allan Davis Winans is a poet, essayist, photographer, and short story writer whose work has appeared in over 2,000 literary magazines and anthologies, including City Lights Journal, Poetry Australia, The New York Quarterly, Beatitude, Beat Scene, and Rattle. In addition, he has written 50 books of poetry and two books of prose. Winans was close friends with Beat poets Charles Bukowski, Bob Kaufman, and Jack Micheline, having participated in the Beat and post-Beat era starting in 1958. From 1972 to 1989 Winans edited and published Second Coming Magazine, which produced a large number of books and anthologies, including the highly acclaimed California Bicentennial Poets Anthology. In 2006, he was awarded a PEN National Josephine Miles Award For Excellence in Literature, and, in 2009, PEN Oakland presented Winans with a Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2010, Bottle of Smoke Press published a 300-page collection of Winans’ selected poems, and in February 2012 Little Red Tree Press published Winans’ San Francisco Poems. To find out more about A. D. Winans, visit http://www.adwinans.mysite.com/.

The John Lennon Lessons for Radicals Edition of the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz Newsletter

by yourquizmaster on October 8, 2012

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

Tomorrow is John Lennon’s birthday – he would have been 72 this week had he not been killed in 1980 outside his home in New York City. The Beatles’ Red and Blue albums seemed always to be spinning on our RCA record player when I was a child, and my interest in Lennon and his music spanned my earliest years, which were Lennon’s last, as well as the decades since his death. I remember my Lennon posters making one particular college roommate particularly uneasy. He came from a family of Republicans who taught him that Lennon was a radical, a communist, and an insurgent. It was known by then that President Nixon tried for years to have Lennon deported from his adopted country, in part because the anti-war activist participated in a large San Diego concert on the same evening as the 1972 Republican National Convention. The voting age had been recently lowered to 18, and Nixon was worried that Lennon would woo all those new voters, most of them Beatles fans, to the anti-war cause. Then-Senator Strom Thurmond even sent President Nixon a memo suggesting that “deportation would be a strategic counter-measure” to all of Lennon’s activism. History proved that Nixon had plenty to worry about, but McGovern wasn’t really one of them, for Nixon won the 1972 contest with the largest margin of any presidential election before or since, with McGovern winning only Massachusetts, and my hometown of Washington DC. On that election night, John Lennon attended a symbolic wake, and then separated from Yoko Ono. In documents that have been turned over to Lennon biographers, the FBI concluded, “Lennon appears to be radically oriented; however, he does not give the impression he is a true revolutionist, since he is constantly under the influence of narcotics.” I suppose that if you want to be a true revolutionary, you need to keep your head about you.

Speaking of political movements and rallies, a very different sort of President will be joining us in Davis tomorrow, as Bill Clinton campaigns on the Quad for local Democrats. I’ve seen Presidents Carter and Reagan from afar, and presidential candidates Jesse Jackson and Ted Kennedy up close. The crowds were too crazy the last time Clinton visited us – I think to spark interest in his wife’s candidacy four years ago – but I think there should be room for all of us on the Quad this coming Tuesday morning at 10:30. As we learned in November, the Quad can hold a large number of enthusiasts.

Expect a John Lennon question on the Pub Quiz tonight (a tie-breaker concerning two relevant songs). Tonight at de Vere’s you will also hear spicy film taglines, talk of fonts, comparisons to The Beatles, The Princeton Review, The US Civil War, Texas, LA-based pop rock bands, sports records, your choice of sciences, Urban Dictionary words that you can say on the radio, televised sports, Trivial Nail Canals, Triple A, the centers of things, Washington DC, Rick Perry (who?), California counties, buildings on the UC Davis campus, Irish actors, Paris, Spanish birds, medical maladies, presidential elections, The San Francisco Giants, and Shakespeare.

I hope to see you this evening for the Pub Quiz. The first team who introduces me to a team of six newly-recruited first-time players will be awarded a plate of fries with a serving of the delicious de Vere’s curry ketchup. Do come early to claim a table.

Your Quizmaster

Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:

1. Internet Culture. As of December 2011, version 3.0 of the most popular blogging system in use on the Internet had been downloaded over 65 million times. Name it.

2. Newspaper Headlines. The candidates for US President are preparing for this week’s first Presidential debate. On what day later this week does the debate take place?

3. Four for Four. Which of the following members of famous couples, if any, were ever married to each other? Bonnie and Clyde, Cleopatra and Antony, Hepburn and Tracy, Kahlo and Rivera

4. Dogs and Cats. With a 15% margin of error, what percentage of American dog owners own just one dog?

5. Film Quotations. In what 2011 film does the central character say “Do not try the free pistachio ice cream! It done turn!”?

P.S. Happy birthday to two of our most stalwart Pub Quiz participants. Professor Keith David Watenpaugh will join us tonight, as he almost always does, even though it’s his birthday, while his teammate Don Lipper celebrates tomorrow. These two members of POM recently ran into each other in the Denver airport, so I’m sure they shared potential trivia question topics until they had to board their planes. Happy birthday to Keith and Don, and thanks to all of you who joined me on Facebook recently to share your Pub Quiz question topics. Expect to see all those topics represented in the coming weeks of the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz!

The Davis Doppelgänger Edition of the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz Newsletter

by yourquizmaster on October 1, 2012

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

"Will the Real Mr. Howell Please Stand Up?" is not the title of an essay about the multimillionaires currently running for US President, but rather the title of an episode of Gilligan’s Island in which a man who looks uncannily like Thurston Howell III shows up on the island, and reveals his plan to take over the life of the ever-vacationing patrician. This might have been my first exposure to the concept of the doppelgänger, the twin that supposedly each of us has running around the world somewhere.

The image of a double spooked all of us who watched the 2010 film Black Swan. According to Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years, by the biographer and poet Carl Sandberg, Abraham Lincoln was even more spooked when he confronted images of his own two-faced twin:

A dream or illusion had haunted Lincoln at times through the winter. On the evening of his election he had thrown himself on one of the haircloth sofas at home, just after the first telegrams of November 7 had told him he was elected President, and looking into a bureau mirror across the room he saw himself full length, but with two faces. It bothered him; he got up; the illusion vanished; but when he lay down again there in the glass again were two faces, one paler than the other. He got up again, mixed in the election excitement, forgot about it; but it came back, and haunted him. He told his wife about it; she worried too. A few days later he tried it once more and the illusion of the two faces again registered to his eyes. But that was the last; the ghost since then wouldn't come back; he told his wife, who said it was a sign he would be elected to a second term, and the death pallor of one face meant he wouldn't live through his second term.

Although without the forebodings of doom that typically surround doppelgänger stories, I had two doppelgänger encounters yesterday that are beginning to convince me that I resemble a generic Davisite. Yesterday at the monthly Davis Flea Market that takes place across the street from de Vere’s, a woman mistook me for the head of a Davis Elections Commission, and thanked me for agreeing to accept her as a new volunteer. I had to confess to her that I don’t work for the Davis Elections Commission, and that perhaps she was mistaking me for Freddie Oakley, our County Clerk Recorder (who looks nothing like me).

Then yesterday afternoon after a KDVS meeting in Freeborn Hall on campus, a nice man who evidently recognized me introduced me to his wife and to their two year-old daughter. I always enjoy meeting people that I supposedly already know, even as I told myself that I can’t be expected to remember the context of everyone I meet on the streets or in the restaurants and art galleries of Davis. Then, as I started to bike away, the man told his wife that I was Professor McCarthy, Chair of the Food Science and Technology Department at UC Davis. If you check out the faculty page of Michael McCarthy, you will see that at least that guy looks somewhat like me, though Professor McCarthy earned his PhD a full decade before I did (no offense to me).

None of these people compare in likeness to my true doppelgänger, Ken Norman of the Psychology Department at Princeton, who once was a Fellow in our McDonnell Summer Institute in Cognitive Neuroscience. I was in de Vere’s for the after-party of a bi-monthly poetry reading, and a bunch of people asked if they could photograph me and share the picture with a friend who looks just like me. Ken sent me a nice note (Subject: Doppelgänger) soon thereafter that I must respond to. Because Professor Norman is an expert on how the brain remembers, maybe he can explain the psychological phenomenon of the doppelgänger. Have you met your doppelgänger, a discovered twin somewhere in the world?

Tonight’s Pub Quiz will feature questions on remembering, twins, American wars, Maine, fashion, famous marriages, blogging, the presidential campaigns, blood, dogs, Cleopatra, pistachio ice cream, boots, fighters, baseball, protein, expensive things, freeways, detectives, togetherness, raciness, likable levies, Oscar-winners, Italian cities, regarding fall elks, Chinese-born Americans, extant 60s rock bands, the middle ages, murals, SNL alums, Irish geography, political math, world capitals, red states, astronomy, magazines and journals, explosions, famous gangsters, shipwrecks, Shakespeare, and cats. According to my wife Kate, at least one of the questions that I will share tonight is too easy, but she is a close follower of the political scene. I expect everyone to score in the double digits.

I hope to see you this evening. October newbies will overrun the Irish Pub tonight, so come early to claim a table.

Your Quizmaster

Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:

10. Face Cards. Which suit is ruled by the suicide king?

11. Unusual Words. What verb with two consecutive F’s in it means “To reject (someone or something) in an abrupt or ungracious manner”?

12. Popular Films. According to the Library of Congress, what is the most watched motion picture in history?

13. Pop Culture – Television. Andy Griffith’s Andy Taylor was named No. 8 on TV Guide’s list of the “50 Greatest TV Dads of All Time” in 2004. What dad with the initials CH was number one?

14. Another Music Question. Who had a big hit in 2010 with “DJ Got Us Fallin’ In Love”?

P.S. I hope you will join me at a reading this Thursday by Davis therapist and award-winning poet Julia Levine. She will be accompanies by Ruth Schwartz, and between the two of them, they have authored a great number of books on topics that you will interest you if you care about the human condition. We start at 8 at the John Natsoulas Gallery. Add your name to the Facebook event!

The Politics and Pomodoros Edition of the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz Newsletter

by yourquizmaster on September 24, 2012

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

According to a story I heard on National Public Radio recently, the recent surge in the polls for Democrats has as much to do with science as it does ideology. More specifically, the scientific analysis of elections, also known as psephology, allows analysts to determine how best to encourage potential partisans to vote. Evidently Democrats have a big advantage in this field because of all the academics needed to get results – some of them leave graduate school for Washington think tanks, and they know how to work with data. I’m sure that in a few years the Republicans will catch up, but it may take them longer to build the armies of volunteers willing to walk precincts on behalf of their candidates. Until then, depending on what happens in the world and at the Presidential debates, the TPM Electoral Scoreboard may seem predictive as well as descriptive. What’s your favorite swing state?

The competing tool that Republicans are using is the new voting law. A study revealed yesterday by The Advancement Project reveals that “New voting laws in 23 of the 50 states could keep more than 10 million Hispanic U.S. citizens from registering and voting, . . . a number so large it could affect the outcome of the November 6 election.” A recent article in Harvard Magazine points out that “Several states, including Florida (once again, a battleground), have effectively closed down registration drives by organizations like the League of Women Voters, which have traditionally helped to register new voters; some states are shortening early-voting periods or prohibiting voting on the Sunday before election day; several are insisting that registrants provide documentary proof of their citizenship.” Even though “The Republican National Lawyers Association in a study found only 340 cases of voter fraud [in the U.S.] over the course of a decade,” as I learned from an August airing of The Daily Show, Fox News helpfully has a “Voter Fraud Unit” to protect all of us. Bill Clinton must not be watching Fox News, for he calls this obsession with fraud a form of vote suppression, and feels that the vote suppression tactics are targeting black churches and the elderly. Don’t the elderly constitute a large part of Romney’s base?

By the way, imagine if after mentioning swing states in the newsletter I were to actually ask you a question tonight about the meaning of the word “psephology.” It comes from the Greek word for “pebble,” which the ancients used to use as ballots. A question about “psephology” is known among quizmasters as a “tomato topic,” in that its obscurity would inspire participants to throw tomatoes (in Italy, pomodoros) in protest (and perhaps accuse me of another sort of voter suppression). One of my jobs is to challenge you intellectually – to tax your memory, logic, and learning – without exasperating you with the unfairness or the straightforwardness of my questions. That way, you can leave the tomatoes to the professionals in the kitchen at de Vere's Irish Pub in Davis.

Like out politicians, we expect pub quiz questions to draw us in, but neither to mystify nor condescend to us. It’s a challenging balancing act. As the poet Rumi puts it, “Your hand opens and closes, opens and closes. If it were always a fist or always stretched open, you would be paralyzed. Your deepest presence is in every small contracting and expanding, the two as beautifully balanced and coordinated as birds' wings.” Perhaps e. e. cummings had Rumi’s words in mind when he wrote “(i do not know what it is about you that closes / and opens;only something in me understands / the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses).”

Tonight’s quiz will include political questions, comfortable movements, the dawn of butterflies and the dusk of marriage, US states, watches and watching, retail sales, rock and roll heroes, teams that start with the letter B, Greek dawns, face cards, bicycle commuting, counties, The Library of Congress, Andy Griffith as Andy Taylor, effective DJs, nabbed fathers, breaking news, the 47%, rodents’ dentition, New England, poverty, employment, mathematics (hi Elaine!), dryer Londons, countries of the world, caterpillars, Irish culture, birth cities, children’s literature, doctor fathers, resignations, “name the sport,” the distance between Davis and DC, and Shakespeare’s Hamlet. In fact, I will go ahead and reveal that if you carefully reread Hamlet between now and 7 pm, you should be able to answer the Shakespeare question correctly. I keep the Collected Works of Shakespeare on my iPhone 4S for just such a literature-related exigency.

I’m excited for the students to return. Howabout you? I’m sure they will help to fill the Irish Pub tonight, for their responsibilities don’t begin until Thursday, if even then. As for tonight, come early to claim a table.

Your Quizmaster

Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:

5. Celebrity Birthdays. 50 Cent and Drew Barrymore were born the same year that Saturday Night Live premiered. With a one-year margin of error, name the year.

6. Famous Names. My research reveals that all of the following last names belong to famous people who share a first name. What is that first name? Lopez, Marchand, McKeon, Reagan, Walker, Wilson.

7. Pop Culture – Music. What are the five letters in the name of the electropop duo that had a big hit in 2011 with "Sexy and I Know It"?

8. Sports. How many minutes are there in each quarter of an NBA basketball game?

9. Science. Usually found on the underside of a spider's abdomen, to the rear, what three-syllable word do we use for a spider’s silk-spinning organ?

P.S. Thanks for making it to the end of a particularly long newsletter. I try to keep these under 1,000 words to leave you some time on a Monday to read some Shakespeare.

The Unexpected Costars Edition of the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz Newsletter

by yourquizmaster on September 17, 2012

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

Last Monday, just before Pub Quiz, I was interviewed by News 10 via Skype. Somehow at News 10 they know they can call me for a quote or a comment whenever there is an internet-related news story. I’m considered an expert on such topics because of my 12-year old radio talk show that covers technology, and because of my long tenure teaching at UC Davis, including seven or so years teaching for the Technocultural Studies Program. I may be in someone’s old Rolodex, for Emmy-winning reporter George Warren from News 10 interviewed me back in 1992 as a follow-up to my appearance (along with my new bride) on a national TV show to talk about the way that we met.

As this was my first interview via Skype, I appreciated the coaching from the reporter and producers that contacted me. They suggested, for instance, that I remove the teddy bear from the frame where I was sitting in my son Truman’s room. Once the interview started, I learned to stop checking to see how I looked on camera, and just stared into the eyes of the reporter as I spoke, as if she were in the room with me.

That night after Pub Quiz I got to see myself on the news, and found that I had been joined by an unexpected costar. Evidently as I was animatedly gesturing while offering insights about the day’s disastrous GoDaddy outage, I had unknowingly shifted the laptop. During my short clip on the news one could plainly see the top of my head as well as the Winnie the Pooh poster behind me. It looked very professional. Time to invest in a tripod!

Tonight’s Pub Quiz will feature questions on international urban geography, so people who have traveled outside the United States will have a distinct advantage. You might make room for such a person on your team tonight. Expect also questions on internet culture, Korea, cable news, flowers (x2), abductions, TV shows that premiered in the 1970s and are still on the air, people named Lopez, electropop, the NBA, arachnids, famous people born in states where Romney has about a 15% lead in the polls, easy targets, voting blocs, Greek mythology, petroleum, judges, mononyms, poncho clips, popular destinations, existential questions about flight, Jody Foster films, Irishmen, melons, Joe Biden, Diet Coke, anchors, underdogs, new titles in Shakespeare plays, and Swedish exports.

I hope to see you this evening. Until school starts next week, we will all have a bit of breathing room at the Pub Quiz. Nevertheless, come early to claim a table.

Your Quizmaster

Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:

1. Important-Sounding Brits. Was Thomas Henry Huxley a famous British Actor, Biologist, Novelist, or Politician?

2. Pop Culture – Music. What are the last two words of the title of the current Taylor Swift hit that begins with the words “We Are Never Ever Getting”?

3. Sports. On the 21st of what month this year did the NBA Finals conclude, with a big win for the Miami Heat?

4. Science. According to scientists and other thoughtful people, what insect is the most dangerous animal on earth?

5. Great Americans. William Penn and the pirate known as Blackbeard both died in the same year. Name the century.

P.S. This coming Thursday is Poetry Night in the city of Davis, so I hope all of you can join me for a reading by Alice Jones (no relation) at the John Natsoulas Gallery. A poet, physician, and psychoanalyst, Jones has seen her work published in myriad journals, magazines, and anthologies, including Ploughshares, Poetry, The Boston Review, The Denver Quarterly, Antioch Review, and Chelsea. Her honors include fellowships from the Bread Loaf Writers Conference and from the National Endowment for the Arts. In 1994, her work was included in The Best American Poetry, so she’s a big deal. Her newest book is titled Plunge. The reading starts at 8 Thursday, the open mic at 9, and the after-party at de Vere’s at 10. Join us for any or all of these events, and find details at http://www.poetryindavis.com. I’m trying to convince Joe Biden to call the Poetry Night Reading Series the “most powerful force in American poetry.” I’ll let you know when that happens.