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

The Indigenous Peoples’ Day Edition of the Pub Quiz Newsletter

by yourquizmaster on October 12, 2010

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

One of my favorite Native American friends (outside the family) was born on Columbus Day, she once pointed out sardonically. When she was my student, she affirmed to me that she would never leave her California roots, and now she is a happily married academic and accomplished musician living not far from Little Italy on the Near West Side of Chicago, home of The World Columbian Exposition of 1893. She has escaped familial restrictions (and, she tells me, limitations), but will she ever be able to shake Columbus and his admirers? Really, will any of us be able to shake the legacy of Columbus, and would we want to? It’s hard to imagine a modern Columbus. As Justice Arthur Goldberg once said, “If Columbus had an advisory committee, he would probably still be at the dock.”

Two great cultural resources came to my attention this last week, and I bet one of them would interest you. The first is the movie Howl, showing until Thursday at the Varsity Theatre on 2^nd Street in Davis. You know from past newsletters that I am a fan of Allen Ginsberg. I also respect James Franco (playing Ginsberg in this film) as an artist, mostly because of how much time he spends in MFA in writing classes with my heroes, poets such as Alan Williamson and Frank Bidart. And the reviews are pretty good for this film, too. A. O. Scott of The New York Times said “Not quite a biopic, not really a documentary and only loosely an adaptation, Howl does something that sounds simple until you consider how rarely it occurs in films of any kind. It takes a familiar, celebrated piece of writing and makes it come alive.” Now that the downtown Davis Jazz and Beat Festival has concluded, I am going to try to see this film before it leaves town.

The other resource is The Davis Dirt, a new monthly culture calendar that has appeared in bookstores and cafes all over town. It’s bright orange for October – have you seen a copy? I interviewed two of the editors on my radio show Wednesday, and they seem like they are deeply committed to the spirit of our city and to informing us all about the rich array of cultural opportunities available to all of us, from artsy movies to poetry readings to musical performances all over town. Find The Davis Dirt at http://www.thedavisdirt.com/, http://www.dirtyindavis.blogspot.com/, and, on the Davis Wiki at http://daviswiki.org/The_Davis_Dirt .

Tonight on the Pub Quiz you’ll hear questions about frog capitals, websites, ancient kings, African countries, single ladies, David Letterman and his guests, show tunes (you should prepare yours), post-season baseball, elements, short vocabulary words that begin with the letter T, pendula, Prokoviev, diaries, Japan, American universities, zany earmarks, roses, holy cows, Captain John Miller’s only defeat, ninjas, ball bearings, children’s picture books, Star Wars, phobias, the Alps, people named Penny, demons, apples, lawyers, basketball and Shakespeare the familiar.

We will have a full house tonight. I hope you are planning to join us for the Pub Quiz!

Your Quizmaster

Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:

2.Internet Culture. Pew Research recently unveiled a study concluding that two tech companies most written about by the press are what?

3.Newspaper Headlines.Connections to the office of US Solicitor General has forced one US Supreme Court Justice into a recusal for 25 upcoming cases. Name the Justice.

4.Four for Four.Which of the following musicians or bands have had top-40 hits on Billboard’s US charts? Bob Marley, Metallica, The Ramones, Tenacious D.

5.Capital Cities that are Fun to Say. Montevideo and its metropolitan area, home to 1.4 million of its country’s total of 3.5 million people, is the capital of what South American country?

6.Film Quotations. Name the 1997 Paul Verhoven film in which the central character of Johnny Rico says “These are the rules. Everybody fights, nobody quits. If you don’t do your job I’ll kill you myself. Welcome to the Roughnecks.”

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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 Hands Across America Edition of the Pub Quiz Newsletter

by yourquizmaster on October 5, 2010

Do we have unclaimed tables left for tonight? Yes we do!

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

Did you see the Bike Parade yesterday? From what I saw, hundreds of Davisites pedaled Downtown to show off for the photographers and officials from the Guinness Book of World Records. The last time I wanted to participate in such a record-breaking event, it was March of 1986 and Hands Across America, a chain of seven million Americans that crisscrossed much of the country with the exception of the Pacific Northwest and of New England, where I was attending college. Celebrities that participated included Emmanuel Lewis, Tip O’Neill, Tony Danza and R2D2 (all my favorites), and millions of dollars was raised for charities addressing hunger and poverty in the US and in Africa. Soon after the event, The Ramones parodied the event with their music video for the song “Something to Believe in” with an event titled “Hands Across Your Face.” Needless to say, it wasn’t a number one hit. Of course, Phish and Harry Connick Jr. never had number one hits, either.

ABBA struck rock gold with “Dancing Queen,” and you can still the played in my house. Repeatedly. Other topics that you might hear discussed in my house (and which will appear in some form on tonight’s Pub Quiz) include Shakespeare plays, our favorite tech companies, Bob Marley, the Supreme Court, South American cities and culture, action movies, the Olympics, onetime starlets whom you can’t believe are still alive, Billy Joel, muppets, world religions, young adult fiction, Abraham Lincoln, songbirds, US states, Athens, and Arlington Cemetery. We actually don’t discuss fuel additives, the SF Giants, or Christine O’Donnell (for we are kind). Sometimes we discuss deep-sea fish, such as the ones you can find in this Dorine Jennette poem:

To The Rescue Crew

Open me up

with the jaws of life,

you’ll find I’m full

of fish: the deep-

sea kind, whose

dewlaps dredge a trench.

Minding their veils

of milk silt and slime,

my bulge-eyed denizens

sound their scales.

It’s the pressure

does it, and the dark.

Dorine will be performing her work at Wednesday night at 8. Details at http://www.poetryindavis.com.

I hope you can join us tonight at the Pub Quiz. We start at 8!

Your Quizmaster

P.S. Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:

21. Books and Authors. What was the name of the Woodland realm elf played by Orlando Bloom in Peter Jackson’s live-action version of the book The Lord of the Rings?

22. Film. What 1970s film that won three Oscars includes this line of dialogue? “I think we make a real sharp couple of coconuts – I’m dumb, you’re shy, whaddaya think, huh?”

23. Musical Theatre. What is the most successful Broadway musical to take place in a shtetl?

24. Countries of the World. The country with the largest number of troops per capita (418.9 per 1,000) has more total troops (about 9.5 million) than every other country in the world but Russia’s 21 million. Name the country.

26. Science – Astronomy. Triton and Nereid are the names of two of the 13 moons orbiting what planet?

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/.

Posted via email from yourquizmaster’s posterous

The Abbie Hoffman Memorial Edition of the Pub Quiz Newsletter

by yourquizmaster on September 27, 2010

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

The last time I checked, we had about five tables left for you and your teams. Have you made a reservation yet to join us at tonight’s Pub Quiz?

As someone who has taught college classes for 20 years (starting 20 years ago this month), I always find the first day of class to be so exciting. In those early years, I remember being filled with trepidation, while today I recognize that the opportunity to make a first impression appeals to the theatrical proclivities of any teacher. As I looked upon the flushed faces of my bicycle-commuter students on this day of record-breaking heat, I remembered what Abbie Hoffman said about the First Amendment: “Free speech means the right to shout ‘theatre’ in a crowded fire.” I met Abbie Hoffman in Boston when I was an undergraduate at Boston University. He was about to give a (free) speech before a crowd protesting Boston University’s refusal (at that time) to divest from apartheid-era South Africa. The air was electric before Hoffman came out, almost what in the 19^th century we would have called diamagnetic! Although he looked a lot different from the radical leader we knew from 1968 pictures and newsreels – some say that he had had plastic surgery in order to hide from tax collectors – it was clear from his demeanor and rhetoric that he still considered himself the patron saint of the free speech movement, and that he had only just begun to fight, and we were all grateful to History professor Howard Zinn for bringing such a zany and principled character to BU. Sadly, Hoffman died by his own hand just a month or so before I graduated from college and moved to California.

I hope you will join us at the Pub Quiz this evening. We’ll have questions about kids TV, inventors, healthy diets, Star Wars, the people of Africa, Indiana, favorite old songs, basketball, famous physicists, people named George, the Revolutionary War, making excuses, long-ish words that start with the letter E, films starring four (eventually) Academy-award winning actors, Shakespeare’s histories, Ronald Reagan projects, unlikely cinematic couples, Broadway musicals, World Series baseball, seasoned athletes, and more Shakespeare. No Milton this week.

And below find five questions from last week’s quiz. See you soon!

Your Quizmaster

http://www.twitter.com/yourquizmaster

9. Science – Name the Species. The males of what species are called bucks, boomers, jacks, or old men; while the females are called does, flyers, or jills? Hint: The collective noun for these creatures is a mob, troop, or court.

10. Great Americans. Four men were President of the US in the 1920s. Name three of them.

11. Unusual Words. What five-letter one-syllable adjective that begins with the letter “A” means “cunning, crafty, and/or sly”? Hint: This word has a much more recognizable meaning as a noun.

12. Another Music Question. The #1 hit single on this week’s Billboard Top 100 Chart, “Teenage Dream,” is sung by the 25 year old who will play the voice of Smurfette in the 2011 film The Smurfs. Name the performer.

13. Pop Culture – Television. What American teen drama television that premiered on The CW on September 19, 2007, features an omniscient yet unseen blogger voiced by Kristen Bell, and revolves around the lives of privileged young adults on Manhattan’s Upper East Side in New York City? In its run so far, it has won 14 Teen Choice Awards.

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 Indian Summer Edition of the Pub Quiz Newsletter

by yourquizmaster on September 20, 2010

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

If you dropped by the Farmers’ Market Saturday, or tried to drive anywhere in Davis since the weekend, you know how our city has changed: They’re back. The students have returned to Davis, flocked with their parents to our favorite restaurants, and descended upon our bicycle stores and supermarkets (Safeway was almost cleaned out of cereal and pasta sauce last night). The energy that students bring with them is frenetic, and prompts questionable driving and biking choices, but it also distinguishes our city from others nearby. We have so much intellectual energy in this town that is creative – UC Davis garnered more than $600 million in research funding last year – but downtown the strolling faculty who represent this mature studiousness can seem a bit sedate to our newcomers. Fortunately for all of us, the hurried students, brimming with eager energy and potential, represent a welcome complement to our slower “townies.” But this influx of people also means that the competition on Monday evening – for prizes, as well as for tables – will intensify. Since September 1^st, we’ve usually had reservations available on Pub Quiz Day, but now that summer is ending, you may soon have to show up earlier to participate in the show.

Summer is a relative term in our warmer world. I remember East Coast Septembers where we had to bundle up in the morning only to stuff our jackets into our backpacks on the way home from school. Some of us had to wear raincoats, or even winter jackets, over our Halloween costumes to protect ourselves from the torrents of autumn. But in 2010, with our globe significantly “warmed,” Davis summer temperatures extend on and on almost to November, and today the mercury in St Louis, Topeka, and Denver will hit 92 degrees. In another generation, perhaps what we once called “Indian Summer” will simply be known as “fall.” This term that might be offensive to Native Americans was in use when Emily Dickinson observed a brief respite from fall chills in New England, as presented in this excerpt sometimes titled “Indian Summer”:

These are the days when birds come back,

A very few, a bird or two,

To take a backward look.

These are the days when skies put on

The old, old sophistries of June, —

A blue and gold mistake.

My quick review reveals a Pub Quiz tonight that may be easier than some, so there will be less room for that single “blue and gold mistake.” In my experience, teams wearing blue and gold rarely make careless mistakes. Expect questions tonight on beer, classified ads, Michael Bloomberg, the color yellow, ascending in Paris, the end of the dark ages, 1980s movies where Tom Cruise played a cocky protagonist, gateways, football, bucks and jacks, US Presidents whose significance you might have trouble characterizing, Thomas Jefferson, crafty words, little blue creatures, bloggers, Protestants, Kevin Costner, the polka, the midwest, freedom, Spaniards, Africa, New York City entertainments, assigned poems, late night comedians, basketball, and Shakespeare plays you should have read in high school.

I’m planning on some new bonus competitions surrounding the website (https://www.yourquizmaster.com), so stay tuned for those. Visit the website to see how you can follow me on Facebook and Twitter.

See you tonight!

Your Quizmaster

P.S. Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:

8. Sports – Major League Baseball. What Ohio-born former Rookie-of-the-Year holds the record for at-bats and the most outs?

9. Science – Multiple-Choice. Amber is fossilized WHAT? Heartwood, resin, paraben, sap.

10. Great American Dams. The Hoover Dam, so named in 1947, had a different name when President Franklin Delano Roosevelt dedicated it in 1936. What was its original name?

11. Unusual Words. What two-syllable word beginning with the letter M means both 1. An area of muddy or boggy ground, and 2. A complicated or confused situation?

12. A Music Question. What hit Lady Gaga song includes these unforgettable lyrics? “K-kinda busy / K-kinda busy / Sorry, I cannot hear you, I’m kinda busy.”

P.P.S. Seen any good plays recently?

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 “Whitman in California “Edition of the Pub Quiz

by yourquizmaster on September 13, 2010

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

We still have tables available for tonight’s Quiz. Phone (530) 756-4556 to reserve yours.

Some regular Pub Quiz participant have joked about hacking into my computer to see what sort of research I do each week to research, write and wordsmith new Pub Quiz questions. Because I like to inspire research, if not illegal activity such as black-hat hacking, I’ll share with you a resource that I discovered this week, and which has already inspired a number of Pub Quiz questions. It’s the Phrontistery, which is a noun meaning “thinking place.” Winnie the Pooh had a thinking place (he actually called it a “thinking spot”), and now, so do I, at least when I want to think about obscure adjectives, such as the long list of “Adjectives of Relation” found at http://phrontistery.info/genitive.html. Expect to see at least one of those words on tonight’s Pub Quiz.

This coming Thursday people who love poetry, Japanese culture, and travel stories are in for a treat, for Alan Botsford, Professor of American Literature at Kanto Gakuin University in Yokohama, Japan, will be giving a public reading at the John Natsoulas Gallery. Botsford’s new book, Walt Whitman of Cosmic Folklore (Sage Hill Press, 2010), is filled with stories, essays, poems and even dialogues about everyone’s favorite grey-bearded poet, Walt Whitman. One of Allen Ginsberg’s most famous poems, “A Supermarket in California,” imagines running into the great poet down 1-80 in Berkeley. Here’s a short excerpt:

I saw you, Walt Whitman, childless, lonely old grubber, poking among the meats in the refrigerator and eyeing the grocery boys.

I heard you asking questions of each: Who killed the pork chops?What price bananas?Are you my Angel?

I wandered in and out of the brilliant stacks of cans following you, and followed in my imagination by the store detective.

We strode down the open corridors together in our solitary fancy tasting artichokes, possessing every frozen delicacy, and never passing the cashier.

If you would like to overhear a fuller conversation about Whitman, or the many other topics that might come up during Professor Botsford’s talk and reading this Thursday, please visit http://www.poetryindavis.com to find out some of the specifics. We start at 8pm at 521 First Street.

Tonight’s Pub Quiz will feature questions on ebook readers, inebriation, John Thune and other Republicans who might challenge President Obama in 2012, Alfred Hitchcock, edible animals, the medieval history of the Iberian peninsula, investment acronyms, the police and other law-enforcers, famous baseball players, really old tree parts, the legacy of Herbert Hoover, architecture, unusual words (of course!), really popular music, dancing Aggies, Welsh gorgons, fruits and vegetables, swords, plows, crop-dusting, countries of the world, popular characters, those who are named Garfield, organs, Monty Python, economists and Shakespeare.

See you tonight for the Pub Quiz!

Your Quizmaster

P.S. I’ve heard that participating in a spelling bee is much more harrowing that participating in a Pub Quiz. If you would like to see a local celebrity on stage this weekend or next as she or he is grilled by judges on the spelling of difficult and obscure words, then you should check out The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, the play that opens this weekend t the Main Theatre on the UC Davis campus. The Washington Post (my former hometown newspaper) called the show “Funniest Thing on Seven Consonants.” Also this weekend, Pub Quiz irregular Gia Batista will be starring in a production of Romeo and Juliet in the Arboretum. To find out more about both productions, see http://dateline.ucdavis.edu/dl_detail.lasso?id=12913.

Posted via email from yourquizmaster’s posterous

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 Labor Day Edition of the Pub Quiz Newsletter

by yourquizmaster on September 7, 2010

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

Happy Labor Day! Happy end of the summer! Happy celebrations of workers! Happy day off to spend time with family, with a televised football game, and with your friends tonight at the Pub Quiz!

I am reminded of two sorts of celebrations every Labor Day. The first has been well-represented by Walt Whitman in his “varied carol” to America and its workers, that part of Leaves of Grass called “I Hear America Singing”:

I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear;

Those of mechanics—each one singing his, as it should be, blithe and strong;

The carpenter singing his, as he measures his plank or beam,

The mason singing his, as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work;

The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat—the deckhand singing on the steamboat deck;

The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench—the hatter singing as he stands;

The wood-cutter’s song—the ploughboy’s, on his way in the morning, or at the noon intermission, or at sundown;

The delicious singing of the mother—or of the young wife at work—or of the girl sewing or washing—Each singing what belongs to her, and to none else;

The day what belongs to the day—At night, the party of young fellows, robust, friendly,

Singing, with open mouths, their strong melodious songs.

This poem resonates for me for familial reasons, as well as lyrical. My grandfather, Marlin Jones, was run out of Oklahoma by hired strike-breakers who didn’t care for his union organizing activities. He heard one afternoon that he was to be roughed up, even killed, the next day, so he brought all the money he had to the bus station and asked how far he could go on what he had. The answer, Winchester, Indiana, ended up being the birthplace of my father and his sister. My father, who worked in a sporting good store and a glass factory before turning to a life in theater, would tell me that story at least once a year, often on Labor Day.

And then I am also reminded that it was 18 years ago this weekend that I had the good fortune to marry my wife Kate, with dozens of friends and family joining us in Hinsdale, Illinois. Tradition says that I should buy her something porcelain on our 18^th anniversary. Of course, I don’t know that such a gift would work with the wind-tunnel décor of our home. I shall consider other options.

I hope you have left open the option of joining us this evening for the Pub Quiz. Tonight you can expect to labor upon the answers to questions on the following topics: citrus, telecommuting, Joan Baez, Cinderella, UC Davis, drums, NFL football teams that you’d sooner see on Sunday than Monday, rhinos, early American history, unusual one-syllable words that begin with the letter S, a famous suicide, reality TV shows (ones that, again, I have never watched), Marvel superheroes, a hormone jest, religions of the world, The Beatles, Kevin Spacey, Polish history, friends of Clinton, films that have been nominated for more than a half-dozen Oscars, Europe, young actors, mathematics, your favorite independent bookstores, the heroes of orioles, and a play by everyone’s favorite bard.

See you tonight!

Your Quizmaster

P.S. You can also follow your Quizmaster on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/yourquizmaster.

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 Combating Social Isolation Edition of the Pub Quiz Newsletter

by yourquizmaster on August 30, 2010

The Combating Social Isolation Edition of the Pub Quiz Newsletter

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

If you didn’t respond to my earlier reminder to confirm that you would like to stay on this mailing list, then this will be the last newsletter that you will receive that is chock full of hints about an upcoming iteration of the Pub Quiz. If you have confirmed as much via the Aweber link, then you are all set. You’ll have one more chance to confirm via next week’s newsletter. Many of our old and favorite friends have been graduating to other cities this summer, so I hope you will recruit some new friends to join us at Monday Nights. For instance, right now we have a bunch of tables open, and I would glad to see you and your team seated at one of them. If you bring five or more newbies, count on me to spring for the sweet potato fries – just let me know.

It’s a lot easier in 2010 to do Pub Quiz research than when I was a Pub Quiz regular a decade ago. Faraway friends and relatives send me question ideas, my RSS reader collects topical and substantive details from the day’s news and from history, and a variety of iPhone aps present me possible new topics any time that I care to check. As you might have read, this past week Netflix started streaming movies to iPhones, as well, making it easier for me to review certain scenes for favorite and memorable movie quotations. This new opportunity to stream content though one’s smart-phone represents a continuation of the trend of personalized media; we have moved from movie theaters to television sets to laptop computers to watch movies, and now we can enjoy, on the smallest possible screen, our favorite cinematic offerings in any location and at all times. At UC Davis, for instance, faculty who teach film classes in many cases will no longer need to hold screenings of assigned films or even make them available in a media library, for every student at UCD has access to a computer, and most of them carry around smart-phones as well. A movie theater in every pocket!

Of course, as you might have read me being quoted in today’s Sacramento Bee (http://www.sacbee.com/2010/08/30/2991705/netflixs-iphone-app-adds-another.html), there are potential dark sides of this move to ubiquitous connectedness to streaming video. With these advancements in personal tech and media, we face greater dangers of isolation and the further fragmentation of cultural consumerism. We can almost imagine a scenario whereby a married couple will sit in bed before going to sleep each watching their separate streamed Netflix movie using headphones, and never having to converse once. Gone is the age when we would fight over TV remotes. Now, instead, we can all remain in our separate corners. That is, unless we still seek out communities and camaraderie along with our entertainment, as so many of us choose to do Monday evenings at the Pub Quiz. Almost nobody shares a high five after watching a movie on an iPod or even earning a high score on a video game. But we, we get to share them every week, even if it’s a quotation (what film do you think is most quotable – Animal House?) from a one inch by one inch movie that has us so excited.

This week Pub Quiz participants will get excited about questions about Malta, asking directions, ultimate luxury goods, butterflies, cheap food, three birds, insects, energetic particles and waves, the midwest, five-letter adjectives beginning with the letter S, pop music, religion, song and dance men, tallest mountains, hives, flight patterns, the shoulder of Orion, miracles and castles, members of the House of Lords, famous sequels, New Orleans, China, Jack Kevorkian, Newton, the name of a rose, and unions that begat Presidents.

I hope you can join us tonight at 8 for the Pub Quiz!

Your Quizmaster

P.S. Danny Romero will be performing his poetry on Wednesday, September 1^st at 8pm. You should join us! Read below, or visit http://www.poetryindavis.com for more information.

Danny Romero was born and raised in Los Angeles. He has degrees from University of California, Berkeley and Temple University in Philadelphia, where he taught writing for many years. He currently teaches at Sacramento City College. Romero’s poetry and short fiction have been published in literary journals throughout the country, such as Bilingual Review, Colorado Review, Drumvoices Revue, Paterson Literary Review, Pembroke Magazine, Permafrost and Solo. His work can also be found in a number of anthologies, including West of the West: Imagining California (1989), Pieces of the Heart: New Chicano Fiction (1993), Under the Fifth Sun: Latino Literature from California (2003), Latinos in Lotusland: An Anthology of Contemporary Southern California Literature (2008) and Pow Wow: Charting the Faultlines in the American Experience – Short Fiction from Then to Now (2009). He is the author of the novel Calle 10 (1996) and two chapbooks of poetry. A poetry collection is forthcoming from Bilingual Press. He lives with his son in Sacramento, California.

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/.

Posted via email from yourquizmaster’s posterous

The Linguistic Adornment Edition of the Pub Quiz

by yourquizmaster on August 23, 2010

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

I came home one afternoon last week to find a frightening artifact on the kitchen table: a long and thick lock of hair. My four year-old, as many four year olds will do, had started playing the adult scissors, and decided that a first haircut was in order. You are probably wondering why I’ve never had my child’s hair cut, only a few bangs trimmed so he could see. We so adore his hair, and we’ve let it go this far, that now we can’t bear the thought. Plus, its fun to watch him strut down E Street like Samson, shrugging off the comments to me about what beautiful hair my daughter has. When the fateful day of the haircut finally comes, I shall post before and after pictures at https://www.yourquizmaster.com.

The sight of the lone lock on the table almost inspired a poem right there on the spot. Of course, it wouldn’t have been the first time. As any English Major could tell you (and it’s always good strategy to bring an English Major to the Pub Quiz), Alexander Pope wrote one of his most famous poems about such an incident: The Rape of the Lock. If you were fortunate enough to take a Pope class with retired UC Davis professor Max Byrd, you might remember that Pope compares the taking of a single lock of heroine Belinda’s hair to the abduction of Helen of Troy, (the aftermath of which we can read about in long poems by Homer). You might also recall this Pope couplet:

Fair Tresses Man’s Imperial Race insnare,

And Beauty draws us with a single Hair.

Although many enjoyed Pope’s tempest-in-a-teapot humor, I suppose that today a poet might not find success using the central metaphor of this poem, for “rape” is one of those terms that is so charged and inflammatory that one can’t use it in a casual, metaphorical, or certainly humorous way. In 1998 The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda recognized rape during a time of war as a potential crime against humanity, and women’s crisis centers have taught awareness about sexual assault for almost 40 years. Environmentalists once casually used phrases like the “rape of the earth,” but I don’t believe that language is often used today. I suppose words drop from the working vocabulary of most Americans every year, but I’m sure there are ways that we can compensate with new linguistic discoveries. I will do what I can to help you adorn your word choices with new flavors and varieties of diction.

Speaking of language, and poetry, as a poet I enjoy writing these Pub Quiz Newsletter hint paragraphs, for I’m forced to think associatively and analogically, to give the impression of my meaning, rather than to just come out and say it plainly. Perhaps you’ll be inspired to think or write the same way, and compose something of your own. At tonight’s Pub Quiz you will hear questions about cascades, reaching out, The Beatles, flowers, personable and familiar DJs, stomaching jazz, Bristol, our heavy earth, decorations, mammoth caves, famous people born in 1947, Emmy-winning TV shows, the Commonwealth of Nations, The Simpsons, no Betty White (unfortunately), the aforementioned Homer, Scottish culture, pairings of Oscar-winning actors, baseball (two questions!), African-American actors, and a play be Shakespeare!

Last week at the sold-out Pub Quiz we were joined by three celebrity participants. I expect at least two such luminaries this evening. And I hope that you can join us as well tonight for the Pub Quiz!

Your Quizmaster

P.S. This coming October Pub Quiz participant Scott Fischbein is participating in bikeathon to raise money for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. If you would like to support him in this effort, please visit http://main.nationalmssociety.org/goto/scottfischbein .

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/.

Posted via email from yourquizmaster’s posterous

The Instrumental Jazz Edition of the Pub Quiz Newsletter

by yourquizmaster on August 16, 2010

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

Although my parents played some jazz on the phonograph when I was a child, it was actually my younger brother Oliver who introduced me to jazz. Having dabbled in the genre here and there, mostly by listening to evening jazz on KDVS and KXJZ, I resolved to teach a class at UC Davis called “Jazz and Literature,” mostly so I could again teach the short story “Sonny’s Blues” by James Baldwin and some of Langston Hughes’ jazz poems. Oliver came to my rescue that quarter by loaning me his jazz library of about 20 books, and his 500+ CDs. It took me weeks to do the research, but of course I could do it while reading books and playing with the children. Now the Pandora Miles Davis Channel gets ample play in our house, so that means I also get to hear John Coltrane, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, and Lester Young. I also know that I can choose freely from the huge jazz CD and record collection at KDVS when I am playing bumper music for my public affairs radio show, for I know that I won’t accidentally encounter any swearing. What’s your favorite kind of instrumental music? You may have a chance to answer a question or two on that subject this evening if you can join us at the Pub Quiz.

Another form of low-cost entertainment is the local poetry reading. This coming Thursday at 8pm at the John Natsoulas Gallery the local poet and publisher Jill Stengel will be performing her work. Jill runs a “micropress” called “a+bend press” that has published more than 41 chapbook titles, with more in the works. How lucky we are to have her as a cultural leader in our city of Davis! Jill’s own work, including the chapbooks lagniappe, late may, and may(be) can be viewed online at www.dusie.org, and her first full-length collection is due out in early 2011 from Black Radish Books. Having lived for many years in Los Angeles and Davis, Jill will be giving her first Davis reading on Thursday, and I get to host the event. You are invited to join us. For more information, see http://www.poetryindavis.com.

On tonight’s Pub Quiz, you should expect questions on buying and selling, Apple, Inc., Irate Robbers, movies whose narrative structures resemble those of video games, special months, Jersey Shore (forgive me), songs in Spanish that you might sing in the shower, Football, prime numbers, research conducted by Men’s Health magazine, American cities, a preference for Pablo Picasso, Missouri, The 4^th of July, rich celebrities who are nevertheless difficult to dislike, blundering helmets, palindromes, Republicans, stoneworks (kinda), the New York Yankees, radical jingles, college basketball, Coney Island, Walt Disney, government programs, legal terms, Valentine’s day, gravity bombs, tennis, New Orleans, and Shakespeare.

I hope you can join us tonight for the most simultaneously raucous and intellectual Pub Quiz in town!

Your Quizmaster

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P.S. Inaugural player Rob Roy will be returning from Korea to play the Pub Quiz this evening. Greet him at table 12 or so if you see him.

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/.

Posted via email from yourquizmaster’s posterous

The Davis Bikes and Buskers Edition of the Pub Quiz Newsletter

by yourquizmaster on August 9, 2010

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

If you are a Davis resident, you are lucky to live in a city that cares so much about parks and bicycles. As I write this, I can see from my vantage point a juggler in Central Park (sometimes called Farmers’ Market Park) who somehow can juggle seven balls at once. If this guy were performing this feat in Boston or London, where I went to college and enjoyed interacting with all the buskers, he’d have a guitar case full of bills and change in front of him. But here in Davis, with so much wide-open space where one can practice one’s juggling, play Frisbee, or enjoy live music with a hundred or more friends picnicking nearby, such a sight is almost typical. Some of the people walking by in pairs are laughing, clearly committed to their conversations, and the Davisites biking by are wearing helmets, so obviously they value bike safety and won’t be distracted; neither party thinks to look up as the juggler’s ostentatious ovals become more and more elliptical.

I was thinking about our parks and playgrounds while out on outdoor adventures with my two sons in Davis this weekend. There’s a partially-shaded play structure off Elk Place in far North Davis that offers a view of farmland to the northeast, and almost a mile of bike paths to the south. As is the case with the juggler, we sometimes disregard such quotidian peace and beauty in Davis, having taken such outdoor leisure space for granted. Imagine being a child in a town where the city seems to be designed for play in the sunshine! The designers of our fair city were thinking of our such children when they imagined our city, especially after we had committed ourselves to supporting and making room for our bike-commuters. I learned from my friend Paul Dorn to associate our bike paths with retired Psychology Professor Bob Sommer, the author of many bike-centric (and train-centric) essays that you might have read in the Davis Enterprise. With more than 600 publications on his CV, Bob is what you might call a productive scholar, one who in the 1960s had a bicyclist’s vision of our city; Bob’s plan has benefited so many of us since, whether we use our available green geography for rest or play, for dining or for sports.

“Sports Geography” would make a great Pub Quiz topic. Other topics you should expect tonight include dialogic responses to movie taglines, rich proponents of economist Lawrence Summers, people named “Hutton,” Bank of America, two US states where you likely haven’t spent much time, the swordplay of angry and fated kings, supermodels, volcanoes, the US Constitution, CNN, guitarists, Tony-award-winning producers who have also taught acting, razorbacks, Nicaragua, three sports where Americans excel, poets laureate, San Francisco actors, South Asia, midwestern states, medicine, the territory ahead, CEOs, bears, statues, flight attendants, and Shakespeare.

I hope you will join us tonight. New faces and new teams are always welcome!

Your Quizmaster

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/.

Posted via email from yourquizmaster’s posterous