Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,
I woke this morning to an email from someone letting me know that a link had died on an article I had written for an online resource almost 20 years ago. The article was so old and likely neglected for so long that I was surprised that any of the links worked.
How sad that the Librarians Index to the Internet had been discontinued, but I suppose that makes sense. How can librarians keep up? Following the Yahoo! model, once upon a time a number of university librarians established a place where student researchers could find vetted sources and resources to support their writing and research projects. In the intervening years, Google has exercised increasing dominance in the search market, and now almost no one turns to Yahoo! first when trying to find information about what’s available on the web. Everything in “indexed” by Google, so we no longer depend upon indexes.
As I was walking the dog at 5:30 this morning, it occurred to me that many of us are like that outdated article on deterring plagiarism that I had written all those years ago. We keep alive old narratives about how the world works without always checking in to see if our impression of the world actually reflects reality.
Rather than organizing our thoughts according to logical and organized taxonomies that librarians depend upon, we humans tend to depend upon narratives to create, process, and access meaning. Sometimes these narratives loop inside our brains, often unspoken or unwritten. As productivity guru Michael Hyatt says, “Thoughts disentangle themselves passing over the lips and through pencil tips.” Unexamined, unchecked, or unexpressed, though, such narratives run the risk of becoming obsessions.
In my journalism class this quarter, my students and I have been discussing the ways that what passes for news is often actually unhelpful and irrelevant posturing and gossip that distract us from the substantive matters that deserves our attention. Those who recognize these American patterns of distraction, our obsession with the relatively meaningless, can manipulate those of us who are glued to our cable news programs and social media feeds, but without gaining anything that feeds our souls. As Warren Buffet says, “The most dangerous distractions are the ones you love, but that don’t love you back.”
Speaking of people like Buffet, any of us would benefit from spending more time with the sort of mentors and thought leaders who can guide us towards a more principled and mindful approach to the consumption of facts, “facts,” and ideas. On this Tax Day (Happy April 15th!), we should all take a moment to consider the extent to which our national investments reflect our highest principles and our top priorities.
Today’s Pub Quiz will feature questions suggested by the abstractions shared above, as well as on the following: games, philosophers, songs that you can’t get out of your head, taxes, ports, toys created by immigrants, faraway countries, dangerous stations, blood cells, the significance of the number 18,700, slandered music, homelessness in America, dog breeds, government criminals, high definitions, major newspapers, PQ words, cheesy loving with no tears, technological complexities, equestrians who are also cabaret singers, charges, poetry that might be read during National Poetry Month, record holders, sports predictions, political disappointments, Oscar nominated actresses, and Shakespeare.
Poetry Night this coming Thursday will feature three Sacramento-Valley female poets with a touring show called “Poetry Unturned.” If you can join us Thursday night at 8 at the Natsoulas Gallery, add your name to the Facebook event. Because of the help of a new crop of interns, I am expecting a crowd of 40 or more this week, with many of them staying for the open mic.
Thanks, and I look forward to seeing you this evening at 7.
Your Quizmaster
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Here are three questions from last week’s quiz:
- Pop Culture – Television. What is the name of the American fantasy drama television series created by David Benioff and D. B. Weiss? Not all the questions are supposed to be stumpers.
- Another Music Question: Fill in the Blank in a Quotation by Billy Joel. “This may sound like sacrilege, but I think BLANK BLANK was more important than Elvis Presley.” If Vienna waits for you, you will probably know the answer.
- Anagram. Saskatchewan’s 100,000 lakes provide a great opportunity to enjoy a resonating soak. What are the names of the two most populous cities in Saskatchewan? Hint: The letters in both city names together can be rearranged to spell the three-word phrase A RESONATING SOAK.
P.S. “I like to pay taxes. With them, I buy civilization.” Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.
P.P.S. We are all thinking about the Cathedral at Notre-Dame. Devastating.