Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,
Longtime participants in the Pub Quiz have come to expect questions this holiday Monday that address the legacy of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. King was a hero in my Washington DC home, his picture found in our dining room amid the family portraits. As a child I often visited my mother at her workplace, the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library, where I beheld a huge mural that presented Dr. King’s life and accomplishments. I remember a Reverend King quotation (From his final book, Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community) that I read many times in that library, one that is especially relevant today:
“Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars…. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”
What would Pub Quiz regulars not expect? Essay questions. Questions that would allow for and welcome a wide variety of answers, such as those I ask in my writing and literature classes. Here’s a topical sports and Hollywood question that I won’t ask tonight: Explain the allusions and humor behind the following Tweet from my favorite People Magazine writer:
“If Ricky Gervais finds himself short on job offers after this, I am sure the New York Jets can give him a job on their sidelines.”
If you are reading this at https://www.yourquizmaster.com, feel free to leave your answers to this Gervais/Jets question in the comments section of this blog entry!
As for tonight’s quiz, we had only one or two tables still available this afternoon. I hope you will grab one of them. Here are the topics to expect, so choose your team’s members accordingly: Government agencies, the CEOs of big tech companies, a metric ton of gold, Martin Luther King, Jr., American art, horror movies, Berlin, golf, Chinese leaders, medical breakthroughs, the Grand Canyon, five-letter verbs with just one vowel, musical colors (again), New Jersey, war poems, American presidents, Harvard academics, novels you have actually read, George Bernard Shaw, Pakistan, Chicago, world heroes, troubled leaders, piano movies, and Shakespeare. You’ve been warned.
Speaking of entertainments, Christian Kiefer and Michael Spurgeon are going to be performing at the John Natsoulas Gallery Thursday night, and I get to introduce them. I have known Christian for many years, and you may have heard him interviewed on NPR’sAll Things Considered. As a musician, Christian Kiefer has performed, collaborated, and recorded with some of the leading lights of the American independent rock and avant-garde sound communities and has been featured twice on NPR’s All Things Considered. As a poet, Kiefer has seen his work appear in Santa Monica Review, The Antioch Review, andBlackbird. He holds a Ph.D. in American Literature from University of California Davis and teaches English at American River College. The result of Kiefer’s collaboration on a triple CD, Of Great and Mortal Men: 43 Songs for 43 U.S. Presidencies, has been used as a teaching aid in many American history classes, and I have grabbed a few Pub Quiz topics from it, too. His new novel, The Infinite Tides, is making the rounds. Find out more about Christian Kiefer at http://xiankiefer.wordpress.com/. A tenured professor at American River College, Michael Spurgeon is the faculty adviser to the American River Review, the nation’s most highly acclaimed undergraduate literary and art magazine. Like Kiefer, Spurgeon is also an established poet. You are heartily invited to join us to that event, too. Seehttp://www.poetryindavis.com for details.
See you tonight for the Pub Quiz!
Your Quizmaster
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P.S. Here are five questions from last week’s Pub Quiz:
8. Sports. The current third baseman for the New York Yankees is the youngest player ever to hit both 500 and 600 home runs. What is his name?
9. Science. New Subcategory – Science Vocabulary Anagrams. What two-syllable adjective meaning “Resembling, branching like, or shaped like a tree” is an anagram for the common phrase DROID DEN?
10. Food and Drink. What are the three primary ingredients found in a Caffe Mocha?
11. Unusual Words. What three-syllable verb starting with the letter T means to be “born anew in another body after death”? (Only a couple teams answered this question correctly)
12. Another Music Question. The music video of what new one-word Katy Perry hit shows insecure people in Budapest finding the courage to confront their fears amid multicolored pyrotechnics?
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/.