As a lifetime lover of the performing arts, I’ve sat through long orchestral performances and let my attention drift. 

Wearing a blue blazer and my first necktie, I was taken to performances by the National Symphony Orchestra that became the resident orchestra of the newly-opened Kennedy Center. Later I would see Boston Symphony Orchestra performances, though my $4 student price tickets often allowed only partial visibility of the performers. I remember the lights being dimmed and my being carried away by the music, and even sometimes carried towards slumber. 

Determined not to repeat my childhood lapses, I took a strategic nap before this Sunday’s festival. This time, the stakes were higher: I wasn’t in the back of the hall. I was sitting on stage at The Mondavi Center.  

The Wennberg Orchestra Festival gathers every level of student orchestra in Davis into a single afternoon, and this year, as the Master of Ceremonies, I got to welcome the audience of 400 or more and introduce each group. That meant sitting at a lectern just a few feet from the musicians, right behind the second violins.  

As I tried to communicate with my enthusiastic introductions, every entrance mattered. The tuning of all those instruments, led by the concertmaster, seemed to go on too long. One performer was recognized by the conductor taking the stage after the tuning had concluded; he made it to the performance just in time, despite a flat tire on his car. One could imagine him sprinting across town and then across campus, carrying his violin case like a misshapen football. I watched from the lectern as he slipped into his seat, breathless but almost ready,

Sitting so close to the action, I realized that I, too, was part of the set dressing. I remained visible, modeling an attentive silence for the audience without ever pulling their focus away from the sharply-dressed performers. I watched the student musicians tracking the conductor, bows rising together, eyes lifting and settling. 

I enjoy speaking into a microphone before 400 people, but I didn’t always know how to negotiate the silence after each piece ended. I could sense the audience looking at me, waiting for permission to clap. Meanwhile, I was looking at the conductor, waiting for a nod. For three or four seconds that felt much longer, nobody moved. As the MC, I felt like the bridge between the sacred silence of the stage and the eruptive energy of the audience.

From the perspective of the audience, an orchestra is a unified wall of sound. From eight feet behind the second violins, the sound is engulfing. From my seat, the orchestral balance vanished; I heard the gritty, intimate details of the violins rather than the polished “wall of sound.”  Perhaps only the performers and I could hear the audible breath of the woodwinds before a musical phrase. Under the stage lights, I could see the rosin dust rising from the bows.

The confidence, increasing complexity, and sustained excellence of the performances belied the youth of the performers. A familiar movement from Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony appeared late in the program, and I reminisced about the well-worn cassettes that provided the orchestral soundtrack of my last two years of college. When that close to the performers, one actually feels the timbre of the orchestral pieces. The stringed instruments immersed me in sound. The kettledrums resonated in my chest cavity.

By the end of the afternoon, the stage belonged to the students and the conductors (especially Angelo Moreno) who had mentored them. The students carried the sound, held the tempo, and stayed with one another through the harder passages. Introducing the performers, and congratulating them after each rousing finale, I was filled with admiration and gratitude for their performances.   

Neither teacher nor parent of these musicians, I left the stage proud of a community that still finds value in the slow, disciplined alchemy of turning rosin and wood into art. After each performance, and especially during the encores, the musicians could hear applause before and behind them on the Mondavi stage.

---

It’ll be breezy tonight, so bring your paperweights and your friends with weighty knowledge. Expect 31 questions on a variety of topics you should know something about, this week with questions on British heroes who died elsewhere. Today’s pub quiz comes in at a svelte 858 words, my slimmest quiz all year.

In addition to topics raised above and below, expect questions tonight on the following: albums, anthems, anxieties, apartments, arenas, Asian nations, athletes, astronomical bodies, bands, banks, bars, borders, capitals, capsules, characters, clothes, comedians, controllers, credits, dad jokes, decades, detectives, directors, disquietudes, dogs, dukes, economies, elements, epics, eras, forms, franchises, gambling halls, glass enclosures, Greeks, hearings, households, idols, journeys, kings, Koreans, long jokes, machines, magicians, merchants, metals, minerals, movies, novels, poems, presidents, quarterbacks, refusals, remotes, satirists, satellites, sidekicks, sitcoms, songs, sports, stones, taxes, tickets, tournaments, trousers, verbs, U.S. states, geography, current events, and Shakespeare.

For more Pub Quiz fun, please subscribe via Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/c/yourquizmaster.

Thanks to all the new players joining us at the live quizzes and to all the patrons who have been enjoying fresh Pub Quiz content. Certain friends have upgraded their memberships recently, which I really appreciate.

We are now past 100 Patreon members, including people who have upgraded their paid memberships! You know who you are, and I salute you! I also incidentally salute Cathy, Christine, Bobby, Esther, James, Damian, Jim, and Meebles! Thanks also to new subscribers Prescott, Bill and Diane, Tamara, Megan, Michael, Janet, Jasmine, Joey, Carly, The X-Ennial Falcons, and The Nevergiveruppers! Every week I check the Patreon to see if there is someone new to thank. Maybe next week it will be you! I also thank The Original Vincibles, Summer Brains, Still Here for the Shakesbeer, The Outside Agitators, John Poirier’s team Quizimodo, Gena Harper, the conversationally entertaining dinner companions and bakers of marvelous and healthy treats, The Mavens. Hello to Bill and to Jude’s dad. Thanks in particular to my paid subscribers on Substack. Thanks to everyone who supports the Pub Quiz on Patreon. I would love to add your name or that of your team to the list of pub quiz boosters. Also, I sometimes remember to add an extra hint on Patreon. I appreciate your backing this pub quiz project of mine! 

I also want to recognize those who visit my Substack the most often, including Michael, Luna, Jean, Ron, Myrna, Maria, to whom I send sustained compassion. 

Best,

Dr. Andy

Three questions from last week:

1. Film and Film Critics. About what 2026 Pixar film was film critic William Bibbiani speaking when he wrote that the film “isn’t just James Cameron’s Avatar (2009) if it had feelings, it’s also James Cameron’s Avatar if it was good”? 

2. Youth Culture. Why has Bebe the parrot gone viral: Alerting Ukrainian soldiers to drones, exploring the Bahamas in a submarine, or accompanying Justin Bieber on stage at Coachella 2026?  

3. Countries of the World. How many European countries have a larger population than that of Iran: One, three, or five?  

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

This Friday I have a 9:20 a.m. doctor’s appointment at 2660 West Covell Boulevard in Davis, approximately 4.7 miles from my south Davis home. My son’s van picks him up at 7:45, setting the schedule that shapes the rest of my morning. Google Maps estimates a one-hour and 47-minute trek. If the van pulls away at exactly 7:45, I’ll arrive with a razor-thin three-minute margin. It’s a gamble against the clock. Should I walk?

I want to, but a bicycle is also calling out to me. It reminds me of another weekday earlier this year when I met my wife at a north Davis medical appointment. I ended up biking past four different Davis public schools and was reminded what a bike-friendly town we live in.

From South Davis, I biked over Pole Line Road, past my favorite Davis brewery, and then through Chestnut Park where I meditate on Sunday mornings. I heard the familiar singers – the American robins, the northern mockingbirds, the house finches and the white-crowned sparrows – their chorus forming the soundtrack of my morning sit.

I encountered many other bicyclists, most of them ages 12–15, on Drexel Drive on the way to Holmes Junior High School, and was delighted to find a welcoming committee at all the nearby intersections. When I am driving (which happens rarely these days), I plot routes that avoid schools because of the stopped traffic. By contrast, on my bicycle, I was directed to breeze through all the stop signs by crossing guards in reflective vests, meaning that I sped through town. Even when I would slow down, these public servants would wave me through with big smiles on their faces, looking at me as if I had never biked in Davis before.

I have been treated like a VIP a few times in my life: When my theatre critic dad and I would show up to a sold-out play and be ushered to some of the best seats in the house just before the lights dimmed; when visiting Disneyland with my disabled son Jukie, and thus being guided past long lines and onto the amusement park rides that he could handle; or biking past Holmes Junior High or North Davis Elementary during the 8 a.m. hour. With my dad at the theatre, I felt important by association. With Jukie at Disneyland, I felt grateful that the world had made a little room for him. And on my bike in Davis, I felt prioritized by design, like a protagonist in a town built for two wheels.

Walking and biking entail different ways of taking in the city, with the walk a meditative slow -burn, and the bike ride a kinetic release. On foot, I can dictate emails, write drafts of poems, or see what Kate has posted on Instagram. My step count, once hovering around 18,000 a day, has dropped to about 15,000 since I developed plantar fasciitis last December and started supplementing my low intensity exercise regimen with time spent at Planet Fitness, trading circuitous greenbelts for stair-climbers and weight machines. Craving steps, I am inclined to walk.

But on a bike, I feel liberated, speedy, and empowered. Each straightaway invites acceleration and exhilaration. My bike eats up the miles, racing past pedestrians and slower bicycles as if they were stuck in place. Imagining wings, I create my own breezes, revisiting the joy that I first discovered at Stoddert Park in Washington D.C. when I first learned to bike in 1976. Speed sharpens the world, narrowing my focus to the line ahead and the rhythm of the pedals. The wind whistles through the ventilation slots of my helmet.

The question remains: Should I walk and stay present or bike and feel free? Which would you choose?

---

April is the cruelest month if you live in The Waste Land or if you owe a bunch of taxes yet, but in Davis, April seems kind, with warm temperatures cooling into the evening, and a sunset pub quiz waiting for all of us on this Beautiful Wednesday. Expect 31 questions on a variety of topics you should know something about, this week with questions on British heroes who died elsewhere. Today’s pub quiz comes in at a svelte 856 words, my slimmest quiz all year.

In addition to topics raised above and below, expect questions tonight on the following: absurdist comedies, acts, animated films, anagrams, appreciated kings, backup careers, basic biology, blockbusters, calling codes, chains, championship firsts, colorful creatures, corporate timelines, country music notables, disappearing MCs, draft histories, electrical measurements, elite educations, European populations, fan fiction, genre crossover artists, skylines, housing statistics, hungry insects, independence movements, international visitors, lachrymose names, late-night luminaries, literary outputs, media personalities, multi-hyphenate performers, population comparisons, prison dramas, scenes, sports records, streaming features, surnames, tattoos, tourism patterns, video games, viral animals, vocabulary words, U.S. states, geography, current events, and Shakespeare.

For more Pub Quiz fun, please subscribe via Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/c/yourquizmaster.

Thanks to all the new players joining us at the live quizzes and to all the patrons who have been enjoying fresh Pub Quiz content. Certain friends have upgraded their memberships recently, which I really appreciate.

We are now past 100 Patreon members, including people who have upgraded their paid memberships! You know who you are, and I salute you! I also incidentally salute Cathy, Christine, Bobby, Esther, James, Damian, Jim, and Meebles! Thanks also to new subscribers Prescott, Bill and Diane, Tamara, Megan, Michael, Janet, Jasmine, Joey, Carly, The X-Ennial Falcons, and The Nevergiveruppers! Every week I check the Patreon to see if there is someone new to thank. Maybe next week it will be you! I also thank The Original Vincibles, Summer Brains, Still Here for the Shakesbeer, The Outside Agitators, John Poirier’s team Quizimodo, Gena Harper, the conversationally entertaining dinner companions and bakers of marvelous and healthy treats, The Mavens. Hello to Bill and to Jude’s dad. Thanks in particular to my paid subscribers on Substack. Thanks to everyone who supports the Pub Quiz on Patreon. I would love to add your name or that of your team to the list of pub quiz boosters. Also, I sometimes remember to add an extra hint on Patreon. I appreciate your backing this pub quiz project of mine! 

I also want to recognize those who visit my Substack the most often, including Michael (thanks Michael!), Luna, Jean, Ron, Myrna, Maria, to whom I send sustained compassion. 

Best,

Dr. Andy

Three questions from last week:

1. Science. Starting with a P, what is the term for the open ocean zone that is not near the bottom or the shore?  

• Books and Authors. Happy National Poetry Month! Which young poet became nationally known after the 2021 U.S. presidential inauguration?  

• Current Events – Names in the News. Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s 16-year grip on power may soon be coming to an end in what country?  

Rather than grappling with the danger of voter fraud, today instead we face the political use of its myth to undermine democracy.

The Brennan Center for Justice is clear on voter fraud in the United States: “[Every] legitimate study ever done on the question shows that voting by noncitizens in state and federal elections is vanishingly rare.” I love that use of the word “vanishingly.” Math people might call this a horizontal asymptote, a line a curve approaches but never meaningfully reaches.

Like that horizontal asymptote, the gap between the fear of voter fraud and its actual occurrence is something the numbers make plain — if you’re shown the numbers. As the Brennan Center puts it, “we must be careful not to undermine free and fair access to the ballot in the name of preventing phantom voter fraud.” 

Some would say this delegitimizing of elections is the goal, not the undesired by-product. In an era of increasing authoritarianism in the United States, citizens should recognize that manufacturing doubt about elections is intended to determine winners. This fear isn’t just a misunderstanding of math; for some, it is a deliberate tool of control. As Joseph Stalin is purported to have said, “The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything.”

It’s important to count votes, but in an era of manufactured doubt, it is equally vital to count the bodies in the streets.

Sunday, The Guardian newspaper reported “More than 8 million people showed up across 3,300 No Kings protests on Saturday, calling for an end to the war in Iran, immigration agents in their communities and what they see as Trump’s creeping authoritarianism. Organizers say it’s the greatest number of protests in a single day in US history.”

My family and I were happy to have participated in No Kings 3 this past Saturday, but I think we might have also thrown off the official count.

Vacationing in the North Bay this past weekend, we followed a path towards a steady crescendo of dissent. We began Saturday morning in Bodega Bay, where a small, salt-aired rally felt intimate against the vast, quiet backdrop of the coast and along the busy State Route 1. As we moved inland from the coast, the energy began to thicken. In Petaluma, the mood was a communal hum, a few thousand of us marching past the Singing Resistance singers in front of Copperfield’s Books, and then gathering in Walnut Park like a massive, purposeful picnic.

By the time we reached Santa Rosa, the trickle had become a flood. We joined 12,000 marchers, and the atmosphere shifted from peaceful and determined to electric. The quiet determination of the coast was gone, replaced by a younger, louder, and more exuberant roar that filled Old Courthouse Square. The square vibrated as new waves of marchers arrived to diversify the energy.

At similar protests that I’ve attended in Davis, Woodland, and Sacramento, I’ve encountered many friends. So much hugging! I found myself scanning faces, looking for familiar ones, but finding none. Even without friends around me, I felt that I belonged. 

While I would never engage in voter fraud, I might be guilty of protester head count fraud. Instead of counting as four people and a dog, we somehow became twelve people and three dogs. Perhaps an executive order is in order.

One woman standing on a platform wearing an anti-MAGA shirt saw me marching hand in hand with my disabled son Jukie. Jukie’s shirt reminded everyone that BLACK LIVES MATTER, while mine said “Make Racism Wrong Again.” 

After we walked by, she called out to me: 

“Hey you! Hey Dad!” 

When I turned around, she said, 

“I see you and your son! We appreciate you!” 

Squeezing Jukie’s hand, I smiled to her and to Kate. 

---

The cooler temperatures may keep some folks inside today, but the heartiest of us will gather outside for some pub quiz fun.  Expect  31 questions on a variety of topics you should know something about, this week with questions on waterways. Today’s pub quiz comes in at a hefty 1008 words.

In addition to topics raised above and below, expect questions tonight on the following: ages in weeks, airports, American novels, amplifications, band names, California cities, chiefs, classic films, contemporary poets, dancers, emotions, European politics, experimental cinema, forgeries, geniuses, glasses, global cities, governors, Greek culture, indie bands, legislative math, marine biology, Mexican geography, mythical creatures, New York cities, opinion polls, poetic terms, political satires, punk rockers, quarterbacks, rodeos, sitcoms, surprise endings, tortillas, vitamins, war comedies, well-heeled tourists, wits, world capitals, U.S. states, geography, current events, and Shakespeare.

For more Pub Quiz fun, please subscribe via Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/c/yourquizmaster.

Thanks to all the new players joining us at the live quizzes and to all the patrons who have been enjoying fresh Pub Quiz content. Certain friends have upgraded their memberships recently, which I really appreciate.

We are now past 100 Patreon members now, including people who have upgraded their paid memberships! You know who you are, and I salute you! I also incidentally salute Cathy, Christine, Bobby, Esther, James, Damian, Jim, and Meebles! Thanks also to new subscribers Prescott, Bill and Diane, Tamara, Megan, Michael, Janet, Jasmine, Joey, Carly, The X-Ennial Falcons, and The Nevergiveruppers! Every week I check the Patreon to see if there is someone new to thank. Maybe next week it will be you! I also thank The Original Vincibles, Summer Brains, Still Here for the Shakesbeer, The Outside Agitators, John Poirier’s team Quizimodo, Gena Harper, the conversationally entertaining dinner companions and bakers of marvelous and healthy treats, The Mavens. Hello to Bill and to Jude’s dad. Thanks in particular to my paid subscribers on Substack. Thanks to everyone who supports the Pub Quiz on Patreon. I would love to add your name or that of your team to the list of pub quiz boosters. Also, I sometimes remember to add an extra hint on Patreon. I appreciate your backing this pub quiz project of mine! 

I also want to recognize those who visit my Substack the most often, including Michael (thanks Michael!), Luna, Jean, Ron, Myrna, Maria, to whom I send sustained compassion. 

Best,

Dr. Andy

Questions from last week:

Countries of the World. Argentina is named after what metal? 

Science. What is the name of the fluid that lubricates joints?  

Books and Authors. Dorothea Brooke searched for purpose in what George Eliot novel published in 1871 and 1872? 

My step-great-grandmother Zillah used to say that we entertain in order to attend to our homes, and we travel in order to attend to our wardrobes. 

We prepare for the gaze of others and discover what no longer fits.

There is a story about Denis Diderot that haunts me any time I consider buying something for my home.

In a 1769 essay titled “Regrets on Parting with My Old Dressing Gown” (French: Regrets sur ma vieille robe de chambre), Diderot reflects upon the ways his life is upended by a gift.

He receives a beautiful new dressing gown, elegant and finely made, and suddenly everything else in his home looks shabby by comparison. The chair where he was once satisfied to sit and read? It no longer belongs. The desk where he writes his essays and his 28-volume Encyclopédie? It feels wrong. The humble room itself begins to accuse him. So he replaces one thing, then another, then another, until everything matches the robe. In doing so, he ruins himself. The gift did not elevate him. Instead, it rearranged his sense of what belonged.

When our friend Evan recently came for a visit, my wife Kate began to see the house as he might see it, rather than as we see it from within, accustomed to its compromises. She looked at the fraying dining room rug the dog had started chewing a few years ago, drawn to its thick weave. She looked at the ottoman we’d bought as a placeholder twenty years ago and never gotten around to replacing. She looked at the back yard recliners, worn down by weather and time and our indifference to both.

We bought much of this furniture twenty-two years ago, when we first moved into our Davis home, when pine and pressboard sufficed. Now, those pieces have become static artifacts of a household we’ve outgrown, though we hadn’t noticed the growth until the afternoon light hit the dust just right.

One replacement leads to another: the rug, then the end table, then the chairs. The house begins to shift.

I find myself looking forward to living in a slightly finer version of our home. Unlike Diderot, I will not be replacing my 34-year-old robe, a favorite wedding present from one of my first babysitters, the late novelist John Davenport, a gift I still use every day.

Of all the gifts I received on my wedding day, the only gift that gets more use than my terrycloth robe is the golden band that I haven’t removed since.

For me, the robe stays. The band stays. That is enough.

---

The city is empty because of spring break, so surely you will find a table this evening! Please join me tonight for an outdoor pub quiz (or you could sit inside), also known as the social event of the week. Expect  31 questions on a variety of topics you should know something about, this week with questions on waterways. Today’s pub quiz comes in at a svelte 839 words.

In addition to topics raised above and below, expect questions tonight on the following: AI tools, arsonists, capital cities, civil liberties, college basketball, college teams, debt scares, dental concerns, drainage systems, eavesdroppers, film reviews, helpers, inlets, interstate raiders, lubricants, metals, morning programs, mountainous Latin roots, novel heroines, numbers that are divisible by seven, nutrition comparisons, odds, pop artists, pop star birthplaces, powerhouses, progressive organization founders, reality shows, retail chains, roses, seed, state leadership categories, TV crimes, viewership scales, waterways, whips pop charts, U.S. states, geography, current events, and Shakespeare.

For more Pub Quiz fun, please subscribe via Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/c/yourquizmaster.

Thanks to all the new players joining us at the live quizzes and to all the patrons who have been enjoying fresh Pub Quiz content. Certain friends have upgraded their memberships recently, which I really appreciate.

We are almost to 100 Patreon members now, including people who have upgraded their paid memberships! You know who you are, and I salute you! I also incidentally salute Cathy, Christine, Bobby, Esther, James, Damian, Jim, and Meebles! Thanks also to new subscribers Prescott, Bill and Diane, Tamara, Megan, Michael, Janet, Jasmine, Joey, Carly, The X-Ennial Falcons, and The Nevergiveruppers! Every week I check the Patreon to see if there is someone new to thank. Maybe next week it will be you! I also thank The Original Vincibles, Summer Brains, Still Here for the Shakesbeer, The Outside Agitators, John Poirier’s team Quizimodo, Gena Harper, the conversationally entertaining dinner companions and bakers of marvelous and healthy treats, The Mavens. Hello to Bill and to Jude’s dad. Thanks in particular to my paid subscribers on Substack. Thanks to everyone who supports the Pub Quiz on Patreon. I would love to add your name or that of your team to the list of pub quiz boosters. Also, I sometimes remember to add an extra hint on Patreon. I appreciate your backing this pub quiz project of mine! 

I also want to recognize those who visit my Substack the most often, including Michael (thanks Michael!), Luna, Jean, Ron, Myrna, Maria, to whom I send sustained compassion. 

Best,

Dr. Andy

Three questions from last week:

Books and Authors and Plays and Movies. Was Little Shop of Horrors originally a 1990 children’s picture book by William Steig, a film by Roger Corman, or an off-Broadway show with music by Alan Menken and lyrics and a book by Howard Ashman? Hint: Your guess is probably wrong.  

Film. One Battle After Another won six Oscars; Sinners won four. What 2025 film came in third with three Oscars? 

Youth Culture. To be released December 18^th of 2026, what cinematic space opera with a $200 million budget and five Oscar-nominees in its cast is likely to be one of the top-grossing films released in 2026? 

Once when I was going through a difficult time, my dad visited me with great concern on his face. He asked me why I hadn’t turned to him for advice and counsel. I told him that he had died 14 years previously and thus was unavailable. I thought he would be taken aback by this news, but he just nodded sagely, holding onto my shoulder the way he always did when I was a youth. When he did that, I couldn’t always tell if he was trying to communicate something telepathically (he was a magician), or if he was just holding me up.

My dad directed plays, so he was practiced at solving problems; he has brought that same attitude to our conversations in my dreams. My mom has visited a few times since she died, but mostly just to check up on me. Mom loved the company of her sons, and she supported us unreservedly, but rarely did she advise us on solving problems or tell us what to do, unless it was to ask for another Schlitz from the refrigerator. We miss her kindness, humor and irreverence.

Most of these visits take place at around 4:00 a.m. Sometimes living people visit me, but more often the dead. My best friend Tito is always 26 when he visits me. When he first started visiting my dreams in 1993, I kept telling him that I would miss him so much. Even asleep, I could not fathom the loss. During our reunions these days, Tito just smiles. 

Sometimes the discoveries are startlingly wonderful. My son Jukie sometimes talks to me in my dreams, as he did back at age two. By age three, he was done with words.

You see what stirs my 4:00 a.m. mind: visitation, memory, and whatever inward unrest keeps summoning both. Such visitations make a favorite Emily Dickinson poem feel not only metaphorical, but also diagnostic. The first couple stanzas of Dickinson’s “One Need not be a Chamber  — to be Haunted” anticipate ideas that subsequent philosophers, psychologists and neurologists discuss with clients: anxiety, intrusive thoughts, memory loops, and psychological fragmentation.

One need not be a chamber—to be haunted—
One need not be a House—
The Brain—has Corridors surpassing 
Material Place—

Far safer, of a Midnight—meeting 
External Ghost—
Than an Interior—confronting—
That cooler—Host—

Dickinson suggests that interior specters frighten us more than external ones, that we all carry around ghosts in our heads (or in our hearts).

Dana Gioia’s poem “Unsaid” also feels “haunted” to me, especially for those of us who have unfinished manuscripts. His poem concludes with these lines:

What we conceal 
Is always more than what we dare confide. 
Think of the letters that we write our dead.

I have often heard Gioia tell the story behind this six-line poem (you can watch him share the story and the poem on YouTube) before reciting it, and its message continues to resonate with me.

Monday morning at 4:00 a.m. I traced these thoughts that you are reading now, imagining metaphors, picking out poems by Dickinson and Gioia. Sometimes I worry, relive regrettable narratives, revisit open loops, remember rejections, and ponder people who have ghosted me. Sometimes I think I hear actual ghosts, the ones Dickinson calls “External Ghosts,” different ones from the arguably interior conversational specters that want to get caught up.

Am I being rude to these visitors when I insist on going back to sleep? They know when I start counting my own deep breaths that the time has come for them to pack up and see themselves out. As a meditator, I have learned to slow my unhelpful obsessions and instead practice calm and composed noticing. 

I also engage in cognitive shuffling, or what psychologist Luc Beaudoin calls “serial diverse imagining.” Are you familiar with this practice? I’m grateful to have found it. Instead of chatting with my departed childhood friend or wondering why a friend whom I supported steadfastly inexplicably ghosted me (I hope she’s happy, wherever she is), I start listing neutral nouns that start with the letters found in a random word. For the word “TABLE,” I think of taxicabs, aardvarks, banisters, lighthouses, and elbows. Then I start over with the word ELBOW.

I recognize the cold, necessary cruelty of cognitive shuffling. To get back to sleep, I choose a banister over my father. I prioritize the mental image of a neutral aardvark over the memory of Tito’s smile. This ghost-eviction exercise fills Dickinson’s “corridors” with so much clutter—lighthouses, taxicabs, elbows—that my mind leaves no room for the dead to stand.

During the day we might be reminded of the famous St. Augustine quotation: “The dead are not absent, they are only invisible.” Dreams manifest the invisible. At night, we may welcome visits from the dead, or, necessarily, we may bless them and send them on their way.

---

Summer has struck Davis even before spring has begun! Please join me tonight for an outdoor pub quiz (or you could sit inside). Come early to reserve a table. The regulars and irregulars will meet for the social event of the week featuring 31 questions on a variety of topics you should know something about, this week with questions on people who return to the arena. Today’s pub quiz comes in at a svelte 928 words, with 9/25 corresponding to the birthdate of Confucius, who said something that every pub quiz regular knows: “Is it not a pleasure, having learned something, to try it out at due intervals?”

In addition to topics raised above and below, expect questions tonight on the following: local fashions, PCs, Midwest geography, Nobels, health statistics, colonial controversies, successful albums, pitching records, atomic structures, royal meals, foster cares, everyday verbs, keyboard designs, island competitions, Irish notables, kitchen objects, empowered women, returning leaders, late novels, sports returns, calculations, rattled windows, thinking tools, famous singers of yesteryear, classical performances, church songs, Texas heroes, generous cowls, carnivorous comedy, Oscars, third place tallies, desert futures, woven traditions, American folk culture, hive minds, modernist names, notable feminists, nicknames and cities, Italian laws, pop charts, U.S. states, geography, current events, and Shakespeare.

For more Pub Quiz fun, please subscribe via Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/c/yourquizmaster.

Thanks to all the new players joining us at the live quizzes and to all the patrons who have been enjoying fresh Pub Quiz content. Certain friends have upgraded their memberships recently, which I really appreciate.

We are almost to 100 Patreon members now, including people who have upgraded their paid memberships! You know who you are, and I salute you! I also incidentally salute Cathy, Christine, Bobby, Esther, James, Damian, Jim, and Meebles! Thanks also to new subscribers Prescott, Bill and Diane, Tamara, Megan, Michael, Janet, Jasmine, Joey, Carly, The X-Ennial Falcons, and The Nevergiveruppers! Every week I check the Patreon to see if there is someone new to thank. Maybe next week it will be you! I also thank The Original Vincibles, Summer Brains, Still Here for the Shakesbeer, The Outside Agitators, John Poirier’s team Quizimodo, Gena Harper, the conversationally entertaining dinner companions and bakers of marvelous and healthy treats, The Mavens. Hello to Bill and to Jude’s dad. Thanks in particular to my paid subscribers on Substack. Thanks to everyone who supports the Pub Quiz on Patreon. I would love to add your name or that of your team to the list of pub quiz boosters. Also, I sometimes remember to add an extra hint on Patreon. I appreciate your backing this pub quiz project of mine! 

I also want to recognize those who visit my Substack the most often, including Michael (thanks Michael!), Luna, Jean, Ron, Myrna, Maria, to whom I send sustained compassion. 

Best,

Dr. Andy

Three questions from our last pub quiz:

1. Books and Authors. Born in 1946, what recently discredited alternative medicine doctor and new age guru wrote the books Quantum Healing and Ageless Body, Timeless Mind?  

2. Film. What was the subtitle of the most recent Avatar film?  

3. Youth Culture. Actress Kathryn Hahn recently announced she is officially playing Mother Gothel in the live action version of the most expensive animated feature film ever made. What was the title of this 2010 Disney film?  

Last night, Kate took me out for my birthday.

She chose a fine Italian restaurant and reserved a table for two in the courtyard, where tall trees framed our evening meal and outdoor fireplaces cast warmth upon nearby tables. The courtyard contained a small world of pleasures: shaded stone, soft light, and voices rising and falling. Friends were recognized across the way, and the wait staff, including our attentive new friend Mateo, carried plates that looked like works of art.

At the table beside us sat a couple from out of town (or so I learned as they talked to their waitress). They dressed elegantly, ordered with confidence, and seemed comfortable with the menu’s ambitious prices. Each had a new iPhone standing upright on a stand. Although they faced one another, both lowered their eyes toward separate screens. Through the length of our meal, I do not remember hearing a single sentence pass between them.

Across from me sat my wife of thirty-three years, smiling, attentive, fully present. Kate wore a necklace made by our daughter, one that complemented her lovely auburn hair. Happy to be treating me to a fancy dinner, Kate held my gaze through story after story. We talked about our children. We talked about her work with the Smith-Lemli-Opitz Foundation. She had already spent the day answering dozens of emails from board members and vendors, and from parents struggling to understand a diagnosis that had suddenly altered their lives. She had already given much of herself before dinner began. Yet once we arrived, our phones stayed down. Masterful at the lost art of conversation, Kate made me laugh several times.

The meal rewarded our attention. Kate chose a salad, a bowl of soup, and risotto. I began with a beet salad and moved on to pasta with a mushroom sauce so rich and satisfying that I joked I could have eaten the same plate two more times and still welcomed another forkful. Whoever designed the portion understood both appetite and restraint; the plate looked modest when it arrived and was emptied almost at once.

I also drank my first glass of wine of the year. Kate recommended it. I accepted the suggestion gladly, tasted it slowly, and welcomed the rare realization that nothing and no one could distract me just then.

On the drive home, I thought about birthdays, about kind messages arriving through text, email, and social media, and, at home, about cards and presents. I appreciated all of them. Yet the gift I treasured most filled those two hours across a table for two, where conversation replaced screens and mutual attention filled the evening.

I was left with this question that birthdays tend to raise: How do we meet the best moments of our short lives with the attention they deserve?

Sometimes the answer arrives through pleasure: a good meal, a new taste, a voice across the table. Sometimes the answer comes when someone willingly takes on something they might reasonably avoid.

Last Friday I watched my friend Michael French do exactly that.

Michael has appeared on my radio program many times during his years at UC Davis. For decades, his salaried job of running arts administration and promotion there left little room for the stage work where he began. Then, after a hiatus of more than twenty years, he stepped back into rehearsal and accepted the lead role in a new production of the Tony Award-winning musical The Drowsy Chaperone.

Before opening night, he wrote to me about how far outside his comfort zone the experience had taken him. Younger actors, performing ambitious choreography, surrounded him, flying constructed planes, roller-skating while blindfolded, and singing impressive arias. Rehearsals demanded energy, memory, timing, and trust. Yet I could sense his thrill and exhilaration upon returning to the stage lights that he knew well in his youth.

That exhilaration reached the audience.

Michael anchored the production. His framing scenes revealed the confidence, wit, and timing of a veteran performer. He held the evening together, guided transitions, sometimes comically interrupted scenes, and drew the audience steadily into the show’s madcap hilarity. At curtain call he emerged last. Most of the audience had already risen, but several of us waited for that final entrance before standing fully, because we had come in part to witness his triumphant return.

Michael is even older than I am. He too will retire one day from university life. Yet long after titles and committee work fade, he will still carry the memory of that applause, the sight of a full room rising in recognition of his work in his final theatrical performance.

Late last night, as March 10 drew toward sleep, I thought of Michael and understood a small kinship: the theater’s fading warmth, Kate’s company still present.

He had his applause.

I had eye contact, clinked glasses, a shared meal, and the company of one person who still makes a date night feel memorable.

At moments like that, one attentive presence fills the room more completely than any crowd. On this birthday, I feel lucky that an audience of one often proves enough. 

---

If you want to recognize my birthday, add your name to the almost 100 treasured supporters on Patreon.

The weather seems perfect. Come out to stare into the eyes of friends and strangers at Sudwerk tonight. Keep your brain sharp by exercising it in public with no judgment until the end when I read out the scores of the teams. Laugh at the funny team names. Order via QR code or visit the overworked bartenders. Try a mocktail, as I do every Wednesday. If you are like me, you’ll add avocado to everything. We start at 7 p.m., but you might not get a table outside if you wait until then. Be a Californian by sitting outside. The pub quiz tonight is 1007 words long, which means that it is prime, like Optimus.

In addition to the topics raised above, expect tonight questions on the following largely alphabetized topics: acids, alphabetical endings, the Arabian Peninsula, band arithmetic, bank shots, blue dominance, broiled crowns, casino densities, cellular sets, crickets, dashboard chatter, the dead-ball era, despairs in candlelight, disco bars, Disney icons, Erics, fictional Italians, frontier bafflements, heroic machinery, inventors, knee problems, machine intelligence, Opie awards, pearls in Paris, plumber’s names, quantum promises, reformers, riverside beginnings, Russell Crowe confrontations, sequins and piledrivers, South American relationships, spinning kicks, survival stories, the tablet beside the spoon, thrice fingers picked, tower hairdos, vanishing feelings and squandered chances, current events, countries of the world, and Shakespeare.

For more Pub Quiz fun, please subscribe via Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/c/yourquizmaster.

We are almost to 100 Patreon members now, including people who have upgraded their paid memberships! You know who you are, and I salute you! I also incidentally salute Christine, Bobby, Esther, James, Damian, Jim, and Meebles! Thanks also to new subscribers Prescott, Bill and Diane, Tamara, Megan, Michael, Janet, Jasmine, Joey, Carly, The X-Ennial Falcons, and The Nevergiveruppers! Every week I check the Patreon to see if there is someone new to thank. Maybe next week it will be you! I also thank The Original Vincibles, Summer Brains, Still Here for the Shakesbeer, The Outside Agitators, John Poirier’s team Quizimodo, Gena Harper, the conversationally entertaining dinner companions and bakers of marvelous and healthy treats, The Mavens. Hello to Bill and to Jude’s dad. Thanks in particular to my paid subscribers on Substack. Thanks to everyone who supports the Pub Quiz on Patreon. I would love to add your name or that of your team to the list of pub quiz boosters. Also, I sometimes remember to add an extra hint on Patreon. I appreciate your backing this pub quiz project of mine! 

I also want to recognize those who visit my Substack the most often, including Michael, Luna, Jean, Ron, Myrna, Maria, to whom I send sustained compassion. 

Best,

Dr. Andy

Questions from last week:

1. Youth Culture. Who was born first (and in the 20^th century); Sabrina Carpenter, Billie Eilish, or Olivia Rodrigo?  
2. Countries of the World. Quito is the capital of what South American country?  
3. Books and Authors. What 2018 novel by Madeline Miller retells the story of the witch from Homer’s Odyssey and became a long-running bestseller? 

This morning, I was talking with a favorite friend whom I encountered on the greenbelt. Whenever he encounters a trusted friend, he drops his dog’s leash so that his Jack Russell Terrier can walk right over to greet the lucky walker. Another friend standing with us gave my dog Margot a treat, something that she joyfully communicated that she was expecting.

As my son Jukie and I walk more than five miles a day on Davis greenbelts, we often encounter people whom we know. This morning an elderly woman stopped me to ask  about the absence of my young walking companion. When I told her that he was in “boot camp” (as we jokingly call his morning program), she didn’t ask what that meant, but commented that maybe she would see us this afternoon. I love these incidental interactions with neighbors. As Wendell Berry says, “Community is the mental and spiritual condition of knowing that the place is shared.”

Because many people on these walks greet me by name without me being able to reciprocate (I’ve given up guessing how these walkers know me), I’ve started taking notes about the people we encounter. Like the title character in the children’s novel Harriet the Spy (1964) by Louise Fitzhugh, I keep secret notes about people in my neighborhood. While Harriet spies on neighbors and makes records that are candid and sometimes judgmental, I mostly take note of people whom I would like to greet properly during our next encounter. 

My father had an amazing memory for names, a skill that compensated for his poor eyesight. He admitted that he applied many practices espoused by Dale Carnegie, who once asked us to “Remember that a person’s name is, to that person, the sweetest and most important sound in any language.”

Our new elderly friend Martha lives about two miles from us on our regular walking route. At first, I could not remember her name, so I found myself checking my notes when seeing her from a block away. Then, like a mnemonist, I imagined her dancing like Matha Graham, singing like Martha and the Vandellas, or acting on stage like the Sacramento poet and actor Martha Kite. Now I can’t forget it.  Very kindly, Martha insists that Jukie give into temptation and lightly smack the wind chimes next to her front door.

Jukie and I first encountered our friend Peter Shahrokh on the same street where Martha lives. Although he was walking his dog Lola in a holiday sweater, he insisted that he was not in a Christmas mood. During that first conversation, Peter told me the story of having attended a trivia contest in an Irish pub in which his friends called upon him, with his background in English, to remember the name of Othello’s naive lieutenant whose reputation and career are ruined by Iago’s manipulations. “I remembered the name: Cassio, like the watch.”  Since then, Peter has appeared on my radio show twice, and we’ve had many conversations, in person and via text, about writing, books, families, and his artwork.

I look forward to our incidental interactions. When I have Margot with me, recently certified the cutest French bulldog west of the Mississippi, she attracts conversations. And something about Jukie’s presence seems to invite kindness from strangers. People slow down, smile, and stop to talk.

These small rituals of recognition stand in sharp contrast to a national trend. Evidently not all neighborhoods are so replete with smiles. Retiring New York Times columnist David Brooks often quotes The General Social Survey, a long-running sociological survey that collects data on demographic characteristics and social attitudes. 

Since the early 1970s, the General Social Survey has asked Americans, “Generally speaking, would you say that most people can be trusted or that you can’t be too careful in dealing with people?” In recent decades the results typically show about a third of those polled believe that  “most people can be trusted,” while about two thirds believe that “you can’t be too careful.”

Davis citizens frequently debate controversial topics. Readers of the comments section of The Davis Vanguard will find spirited discussions about affordable housing, treatment of members of the LGBTQIA+ communities, food insecurity, military conflicts, and Yolo County courts.

Despite those concerns, to my mind our city has made commitments to recognizing and celebrating our diversity, maintaining our beautiful parks, partnering effectively with UC Davis, and keeping our citizens safe. As I walk our streets and greenbelts, I am grateful to live in a place where the people I encounter can be trusted not only to watch out for you, but also to offer insights about global relations, to share fond memories about conversations about Shakespeare, or to drop a leash so that an adorable dog can run over to say hello.

---

No rain today, so please join me tonight for an outdoor pub quiz (or you could sit inside). Come early to reserve a table. The regulars and irregulars will meet for the social event of the week featuring 31 questions on a variety of topics you should know something about, this week with questions on notable people with whom any of us would like to converse. Today’s pub quiz comes in at a svelte 925 words, with 9/25 corresponding to the birthdate of Mark Hamill, whom I enjoyed meeting in May of 1980. He sent me an autographed picture about 20 years after we met.  

In addition to topics raised above and below, expect questions tonight on the following: springs, British poets, exclamations of superheroes, presidential elections, computers, primetime Emmy Awards, egocentric people, lightning, Canadians, Indonesia, dreams, lions quarterbacks, banks, witches, places called hope, Howard Stern, sports metaphors, winter, parties, the function of cotton, baseball, risks, mountains, guys without dolls, counties, trains, Latin phrases, sunshine, yard work, world capitals, carpenters, espionage dramas, Saturday Night Live alums, second cousins, rushing yards, pop charts, U.S. states, geography, current events, and Shakespeare.

For more Pub Quiz fun, please subscribe via Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/c/yourquizmaster.

Thanks to all the new players joining us at the live quizzes and to all the patrons who have been enjoying fresh Pub Quiz content. Certain friends have upgraded their memberships recently, which I really appreciate.

We are almost to 100 Patreon members now, including people who have upgraded their paid memberships! You know who you are, and I salute you! I also incidentally salute Christine, Bobby, Esther, James, Damian, Jim, and Meebles! Thanks also to new subscribers Prescott, Bill and Diane, Tamara, Megan, Michael, Janet, Jasmine, Joey, Carly, The X-Ennial Falcons, and The Nevergiveruppers! Every week I check the Patreon to see if there is someone new to thank. Maybe next week it will be you! I also thank The Original Vincibles, Summer Brains, Still Here for the Shakesbeer, The Outside Agitators, John Poirier’s team Quizimodo, Gena Harper, the conversationally entertaining dinner companions and bakers of marvelous and healthy treats, The Mavens. Thanks in particular to my paid subscribers on Substack. Thanks to everyone who supports the Pub Quiz on Patreon. I would love to add your name or that of your team to the list of pub quiz boosters. Also, I sometimes remember to add an extra hint on Patreon. I appreciate your backing this pub quiz project of mine! 

I also want to recognize those who visit my Substack the most often, including Michael (thanks Michael!), Luna, Jean, Ron, Myrna, Maria, to whom I send sustained compassion. 

Best,

Dr. Andy

1. Mottos and Slogans. “Fish. Family. Freedom.” is the political slogan of Mary Peltola, candidate for U.S. Senator of what state with one of the highest per capita incomes in the United States?  

2. Internet Culture. Did British-American chemist M. Stanley Whittingham conceive intercalation electrodes and create the first rechargeable lithium-ion battery in the 1920s, the 1970s, or the 2020s?  

3. Headlines. Former US Secretary of the Treasury Larry Summers recently announced his retirement from what university? 

P.S. Poetry Night is Thursday, March 5^th. Join us at 7 that night to see Connie Johnstone and Bob Stanley!

Dear Friends,

The recent Bad Bunny Super Bowl halftime show, and its suggestion that Puerto Ricans should enjoy a seat at the American table, has helped a great number of Americans (including myself) discover the music of Bad Bunny and begin to research the history, the strengths, and the valid complaints of the people of Puerto Rico.

Residents of Puerto Rico, like those who live in the American territories of Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa, and the Northern Mariana Islands lack voting representation in Congress. They also generally do not pay federal income tax on locally earned income. That question of representation, whether it be who matters, who votes, and  who is heard, has shaped American political life since our founding.

People who live in in Washington, D.C., where I grew up, also have no voting representatives in the U.S. Congress, but unlike residents of those other parts of America, Washingtonians pay federal income taxes. Many D.C. license plates remind locals that they live under the sort of rule that led colonialists to rebel: “TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION.”

The Reverend Jesse Jackson knew this well, for he sought to speak for and amplify the voices of those who were not otherwise heard or heeded. In his rousing “Rainbow Coalition” speech at the 1984 Democratic Convention, Jackson said that “My constituency is the desperate, the damned, the disinherited, the disrespected, and the despised. They are restless and seek relief.”

Jackson’s words resonated deeply with me. As a young D.C. resident, I welcomed his concerns and was stirred by his oratorical zeal. I was not alone. After delivering his “Rainbow Coalition” speech in 1984, Jackson entered the presidential race, propelled in part by crowds in Washington and elsewhere who responded to his speeches with chants of “RUN, JESSE, RUN!” His message landed with growing and diverse audiences. By the time he ran again in 1988, his margin in the D.C. Democratic primary exceeded Ronald Reagan’s 1984 margin in Wyoming, an extraordinary measure of how fully the voters of the District embraced him.

Jesse Jackson didn’t win, but neither did he forget the constituency that he represented back in 1984. In 1990, he ran for and won the office of the (unpaid, non-voting) Shadow Senator from Washington, D.C. During his time in office, he advocated strongly for the people of my former hometown, arguing that those Americans should be represented equitably in Congress. The District has about as many citizens as Alaska, and more than the populations of Wyoming and Vermont, both of which have had Senators representing them since the 19^th century. But still, they continue to be taxed without being represented.

As someone who named his first son Jackson (my son Jukie’s given name), I can say that I have always admired Jesse Jackson. A towering figure in civil rights and progressive politics, he represented coalitions that look much like the people who I call my friends, both when I lived in Washington, D.C. in the 1980s, and where I live now in Davis, California, in the 2020s.

From the islands of the Caribbean to the streets of Southeast D.C., the fight for a vote and a voice continues. In naming my son, I chose to remember the man who told us with his typical rhyming cadence that “red, yellow, black, and white, / we are all precious in God’s sight.” May the memory of Jesse Jackson, Sr. be a blessing, and may we all keep hope alive during dark times.

---

According to the weather report, we are done with rain for a while, and the temperatures will warm in the coming weeks, so I hope you can join me outside for the pub quiz this evening. Come early to reserve a table. The regulars and irregulars will meet for the social event of the week featuring 31 questions on a variety of topics you should know something about, this week with questions on music performed in your lifetime. Today’s pub quiz comes in at a svelte 939 words, with 9/39 corresponding to the birth month of Lily Tomlin, whose telephone operator Ernestine I can’t help but think of when I hear an actual telephone ring.

In addition to topics raised above (hint) and below, expect questions tonight on the following: vampires, dancers, hidden storks, huts, otters, elements, ringtones, declarations of independence, French people in conversation, heroes, 10th grade symbols, Latter Day Saints, baskets, happiness, horses, space ships, evolving bands, kill counts, universities, electrodes, fish, Mays, families, eyes, laziness, snow, substitutes, heaths, unlikely breakfasts, metaphorical bread, families, people named Anita, infamous cities, composure, freedoms, colors, dance crazes, pop charts, U.S. states, geography, current events, and Shakespeare.

For more Pub Quiz fun, please subscribe via Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/c/yourquizmaster.

Thanks to all the new players joining us at the live quizzes and to all the patrons who have been enjoying fresh Pub Quiz content. Certain friends have upgraded their memberships recently, which I really appreciate.

We are almost to 100 Patreon members now, including people who have upgraded their paid memberships! You know who you are, and I salute you! I also incidentally salute Christine, Bobby, Esther, James, Damian, Jim, and Meebles! Thanks also to new subscribers Prescott, Bill and Diane, Tamara, Megan, Michael, Janet, Jasmine, Joey, Carly, The X-Ennial Falcons, and The Nevergiveruppers! Every week I check the Patreon to see if there is someone new to thank. Maybe next week it will be you! I also thank The Original Vincibles, Summer Brains, Still Here for the Shakesbeer, The Outside Agitators, John Poirier’s team Quizimodo, Gena Harper, the conversationally entertaining dinner companions and bakers of marvelous and healthy treats, The Mavens. Hello to Bill and to Jude’s dad. Thanks in particular to my paid subscribers on Substack. Thanks to everyone who supports the Pub Quiz on Patreon. I would love to add your name or that of your team to the list of pub quiz boosters. Also, I sometimes remember to add an extra hint on Patreon. I appreciate your backing this pub quiz project of mine! 

I also want to recognize those who visit my Substack the most often, including Michael (thanks Michael!), Luna, Jean, Ron, Myrna, Maria, to whom I send sustained compassion. 

Best,

Dr. Andy

Three questions from last week:

1. Countries of the World. In 2025, just over one in five residents of what NATO country with a population of almost 70 million named immigration as their number one concern, statistically tied with mentions of the economy. Name the kingdom.

2. American Cities. What is the only American city to have reached a population of one million people and then drop below one million?  

3. Science. Starting with the letter E, what is the term for animals that maintain a constant internal body temperature?  

Dear Friends,

When I performed a poem to close the final day of the 2025 San Francisco Writers Conference, the crowd went wild, largely because my poem commented wittily on our mutual experience of staying in a flooded hotel with no electricity, and because the poem was based on “Like a G6” by Far East Movement.

Find that poem below.

This year my conference poem, based on one of the most famous Bob Dylan songs, was met with silent respect and polite applause.

Pretty Good Stories

For the Minnesota heroes of Alex Pretti, Renée Good, and Bob Dylan

Come writers and poets, 

Let’s pick up our pens.

Men in black masks

Are harassing our friends.

Sharpen your hearing

And narrow your lens

Upon a frozen purgatory.

Read Dickens’ book about

The worst of times again,

For we need your pretty good stories.

Totalitarianism 

Is not welcome here.

They’re attacking the nurses,

The Blacks, and the queers.

Schoolchildren and poets

Are running in fear,

For compliance feels mandatory,

But if we’d all just read the latest

Change the World book by Nina Amir,

We’d prepare our pretty good stories.

Yeah, thanks Dr. Andy, 

But we’re in the Hyatt Hotel.

My insular writing loft 

Is far from the groundswell.

I’d have to check with my writing group

And my new agent as well.

My writing’s not typically derogatory.

I say stay glued to your keyboard

And couch as long as you tell

Your own pretty good story.

You crime writers

Should write about crimes.

You historical novelists

Can stay far from the front lines.

We chroniclers know how

To shift paradigms.

You might just find glory

In criticizing what you do understand.

Our imaginations make this our time

To tell some pretty good stories. 

Like UC Davis students and UC Davis faculty, writers conference attendees get younger and younger every year (at least relative to me). Despite the recent Oscar-nominated biopic, many young people know generally about Bob Dylan the way that you know about Scott Joplin.

Today I am headed to campus to consult with faculty of an entire department to discuss the ways they can AI-proof their writing assignments. As Dylan said, “the slow one will later be fast,” and a great number of my faculty colleagues feel like they are in the slow lane.

But because of my bonus work duties today, this week’s newsletter features two poems and minimal analysis. Enjoy.

A Domino of Disasters –

The Poem for the 2025 San Francisco Writers Conference

By Dr. Andy Jones

Flippin’ pages in the dark, reading thrillers

When the lights flickered out, we got chiller

The dragons in my book, they wield magic

Writers reading in the dark, under glow sticks

Under glow sticks, under glow sticks

I’m practicing my pitch under glow sticks 

Under glow sticks, under glow sticks

I’m choosing stronger verbs under glow sticks 

All the linens in this place, they’ve gone missing

The plumber in the crawl space yells the fountain is a hissing

The lobby is a mire beset by dehumidifiers

There’s a poet on her knees helping with her hair dryer

Fire Drill, Fire Drill

Light it up, glow stick-light it up

When poets start recitin’, they be actin’ like they tough

The jazz night poets all be actin’ like they tough

And all the novelists around me, they be acting like they stuck 

Under glow sticks, under glow sticks

I can’t charge my phone with my glow sticks 

With my glow sticks, with my glow sticks

I’m taking a cold shower with my glow sticks

We have falling dominos of disaster

We need a working mic for the quizmaster

She’s from Ithaca, he’s from Madagascar

The basement engineer is staring up at the plaster

The writing that we do is worth the hardship

We come here for a lift, for the kinship

We’ll make our readers read, we’ll make them click

On our funny stories about writing under glow sticks

---

The rain won’t return until almost midnight tonight, so I hope you can join me outside for the pub quiz this evening. The beer hall will be filled with a private party, so plan to bundle up! Come early to reserve a table. The regulars and irregulars will meet for the social event of the week featuring 31 questions on a variety of topics you should know something about, this week with questions on music performed in your lifetime. Today’s pub quiz comes in at a svelte 930 words.

In addition to topics raised above and below, expect questions tonight on the following: flowers, homes, nouns that are not pronouns, book days, temperatures, city drops, kingdoms, social media, Robin Williams projects, universities, cities that are difficult to pronounce, peaceniks, giants of American literature, grandmothers, job umbers, reading habits, rains, short actors, novellas, philosophers, great Scots, Lords,  RIAA certifications, exiting barrels, domesticated and wild animals, varieties of sources, short appearances, cryogenics, Texans, the frequency of love, old rivalries, bells, umbrellas, fast creatures, UNESCO, pop charts, U.S. states, geography, current events, and Shakespeare.

For more Pub Quiz fun, please subscribe via Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/c/yourquizmaster.

Thanks to all the new players joining us at the live quizzes and to all the patrons who have been enjoying fresh Pub Quiz content. Certain friends have upgraded their memberships recently, which I really appreciate.

We are almost to 100 Patreon members now, including people who have upgraded their paid memberships! You know who you are, and I salute you! I also incidentally salute Christine, Bobby, Esther, James, Damian, Jim, and Meebles! Thanks also to new subscribers Prescott, Bill and Diane, Tamara, Megan, Michael, Janet, Jasmine, Joey, Carly, The X-Ennial Falcons, and The Nevergiveruppers! Every week I check the Patreon to see if there is someone new to thank. Maybe next week it will be you! I also thank The Original Vincibles, Summer Brains, Still Here for the Shakesbeer, The Outside Agitators, John Poirier’s team Quizimodo, Gena Harper, the conversationally entertaining dinner companions and bakers of marvelous and healthy treats, The Mavens. Hello to Bill and to Jude’s dad. Thanks in particular to my paid subscribers on Substack. Thanks to everyone who supports the Pub Quiz on Patreon. I would love to add your name or that of your team to the list of pub quiz boosters. Also, I sometimes remember to add an extra hint on Patreon. I appreciate your backing this pub quiz project of mine! 

I also want to recognize those who visit my Substack the most often, including Michael (thanks Michael!), Luna, Jean, Ron, Myrna, Maria, to whom I send sustained compassion. 

Best,

Dr. Andy

Three questions from last week:

1. Film. What three words do Christopher Nolan’s two highest-grossing films have in common?  

2. Youth Culture. Before seeing Shrek’s face for the first time, Fiona asks, “What kind of knight are you?” Shrek responds with a four-word phrase starting with the letter O. What is it?  

3. Countries of the World. What country has coastlines on the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to the east, and the disputed territory of Western Sahara to the south?