Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,
Who will be the third?
That was the question asked of me by a friend after we realized that Lauren Bacall had died the day after Robin Williams. The “rule of threes” applies to celebrity obituaries, we have been told, and so when two movie stars die in quick succession, we look for the third. Ed McMahon died in June of 2009, and then two days later we lost Michael Jackson and Farah Fawcett. Some conjected that the three appeared on the Tonight Show on the same day, but it turns out that that the two guest appeared a day apart, and Doc Severinsen was the guest announcer. We can be sure that the three encountered each other separately.
I remember looking through some old photographs after the death of my father, and seeing my dad on stage at some sort of awards ceremony in the 1970s with the late Andy Warhol and the late (columnist) Art Buchwald. These moments when iconic figures appear together remind us that we don’t often recognize the magic of synchronicity, or perhaps lucky happenstance. Amazingly, all the cast members of The Empire Strikes Back that I had met in 1980 – 34 years ago! – are still alive, and at least five of them will appear in the new Star Wars movie that is being filmed now (for the record, Alec Guinness did not do press for the Star Wars films, and Anthony Daniels was sick the day that I was walking around the Kennedy Center collecting autographs from Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Dave Prowse, and the like).
Still, a week after the death of Robin Williams, whose comedic energy and genius informed the lives of so many people born in the 60s, 70s, and 80s, we are left with the question: who is the third?
To many, the question is silly. I was shocked and saddened by the death of Robin Williams – on my radio show I spent 30 minutes discussing the meaning of his life and work with my own personal John Keating, jazz critic Will Layman – but when we consider the history of our nation, many say the more important death was that of Michael Brown, the African American teenager who had been shot six times by a Ferguson (Missouri) police officer, despite eyewitnesses reporting that Brown was unarmed and had his hands up in the air. His last words were “I don’t have a gun –stop shooting!”
Earlier this month a 22 year-old named John Crawford was talking to his mom on his cell phone while walking through the toy aisle at WalMart. Evidently another shopper had seen the young African American man picking out a toy gun, and had become alarmed. His last words, spoken to the police, were “it’s not real.”
Although no police were involved, we remember well what happened in Sanford, Florida two years ago. Some believe that 17 year-old Trayvon Martin’s last words were “What are you following me for?”
The 1955 kidnapping and murder of 14 year-old Emmett Till by men who, protected against “double jeopardy,” later admitted their crimes, helped to spark the Civil Rights movement.
What will the death of Michael Brown spark, beyond unrest and distrust in Ferguson, Missouri? We will have to see. Whether or not observers of the “Rule of Three” recognize Brown as the third notable person to have died last week, we can all be prompted to consider how we see the importance and function of celebrity in our culture. Although they can be entertaining, I doubt that weekly trivia contests help us value the important over the faddish.
Are you holding out for a hero? If one man has won over the community of Ferguson, it is Missouri Highway Patrol Captain Ron Johnson. Here’s what he said to a packed Greater Grace Church on Sunday:
“We all oughta be thanking the Browns for Michael, because Michael’s going to make it better for our sons, so they can be better black men, better for our daughters so they can be better black women. Better for me so I can be a better black father, and you know they’re gonna make our mamas even better than they are today.”
The people of Ferguson need to hear such encouraging words, but time will tell if Ron Johnson and other Missouri and government leaders can restore the peace, justice and freedom from police mistreatment that all of us deserve.
Tonight’s Pub Quiz will feature questions about celebrities and other amusing diversions. They will include Irish students, Fifes, hits that mattered, living legends, young adult literature, chromosomes, supervillains with German nicknames, fresh water, proposals, islands, runners and more runners, Mark Twain quotations, Kurt Weill and other composers, public radio, people named Davis, Billy the Kid, Anthony Tommasini, thigh crawlers, African American heroes, old shows, Czechs, words that start with the letter C (such as compromise), free states, shrubs, coffee, the City of Davis, movie theatres, dogs, social networking, and self-referential commercial slogans.
This coming Thursday is Poetry Night in Davis. Read below for details.
See you tonight in the packed auditorium known as de Vere’s Irish Pub, Davis!
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Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:
- Mottos and Slogans. Starting with the letter F, what 2005 book has the following tagline (subtitle): “A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything”?
- Internet Culture. Which of the following is the fastest-growing demographic on Twitter? 15-25, 35-45, or 55-65.
- Newspaper Headlines. For which film did the late actor and comedian Robin Williams win an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor?
- Four for Four. You know what the four largest US states are when measured by square miles of land, but which of the following, if any, are among the 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th largest? Arizona, Montana, New Mexico, Oregon.
- Young Actors. Named one of TIME magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in The World in 2010, what 28 year-old started his acting career by playing Cedric Diggory in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire?
P.S. This coming Thursday at 8 the Bakersfield poet Marit MacArthur will be reading at the John Natsoulas Gallery. Opening for her will be the Davis poet Mischa Erickson.
Marit MacArthur, Associate Professor of English at CSU Bakersfield, earned her MFA in poetry at Warren Wilson College in 2013. Her poems, reviews and translations from the Polish have appeared in Southwest Review, American Poetry Review, World Literature Today, Verse, The Yale Review, Contemporary Poetry Review, Poetry International, ZYZZYVA, Peregrine, Airplane Reading. In 2013 she won the Elizabeth Matchett Stover Award from Southwest Review. Her first manuscript of poems, Things to Do in Bakersfield in August, which won a grant from the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund, is making the rounds seeking a publisher.
The open mic will start at 8, and the de Vere’s Irish Pub after-party at 10. Join us for any or all!
Coming in Threes