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/.