Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,
When Kate and our bookend kids leave town for one of their summer trips, Jukie and I listen to a lot of jazz and eat a bunch of pistachios.
My son Jukie, who will be attending the entire pub quiz this evening, is a young man with autism, intellectual disabilities, and the inability to speak. My constant companion, he likes to hang back on our long walks on the greenbelts of Davis, sometimes strolling 100 yards behind me in areas that are well removed from car traffic. Just this morning a mom who passed us stopped to make sure that someone was watching out for this unusual seemingly solo walker.
Because of his OCD, if I ever want Jukie to catch up with me, I just wear my backpack on one shoulder, instead of two, and then he will sprint up (or, like Simone Biles, “spring” up) to my position to help me wear my backpack properly. He doesn’t like things to be out of place. Earlier this week at Dos Coyotes he noticed that someone’s laptop wasn’t closed all the way, so he walked right up to the table and slowly pushed down on the laptop lid until he heard that satisfying click. People in Davis typically smile at me when Jukie engages in such behavior. Everyone accepts my apologies.
We will see what sort of village it will take to corral or redirect Jukie at tonight’s pub quiz. I’m especially grateful to my friend Don, who will be arriving tonight with newly-purchased comic books and a willingness to intercept Jukie is he heads for the parking lot while I am busy being Quizmaster.
To give you a better understanding of Jukie’s lively and curious spirit, I will share here a poem I wrote a decade ago that continues to reflect his sense of wonder.
Sunday in the Back Yard
A blur of a boy in new clothes,
superhero-themed, sent by grandparents,
races round and round the backyard,
shaded by fences eight feet tall.
Far above, the lichens and birds’ nests call to him.
Next to the picnic table, our boy baptizes the bulldog,
his unwilling and unsturdy steed.
The praise he sings with gospel lungs
rings sympathetic with the morning’s
distant soccer-game cheers,
and nearby yellow-billed magpies.
Our pale angel brandishing wooden spoons
knocks doggedly on the garden gates, dark cedar,
with crossbeams resembling ladder rungs.
Wishing for someplace more remote,
a place beyond the memorized and mangy lawn,
he imagines a jubilee where dragonflies
and honey are their own reward:
a celebration of unremembered sunshine,
sublime and jaunty in the gallops of air
that gleam beyond ego, beyond experience.
Who’s to say that this boy, unworded and noisy mystic,
keeper of everyone’s secrets, chronicled unlearner,
does not commune hourly with an aspect of God?
I look forward to seeing you this evening. Should you attend this event, whether you are a village elder or a village leader, you may see an opportunity to see that it sometimes takes a village to prevent an elopement. How exciting!
I hope you can join us on this warm evening for a pub quiz at Sudwerk in Davis. Bring your team to the beautiful outdoor patio where the misters are misting and where we have room for almost everyone. The jollity will be unfiltered. As Ralph Waldo Emerson allegedly said, “It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them.” I encourage you to come early to snag a table; that way, we won’t have a line out the door as I first ring the cowbell. We filled the restaurant and patio last week, and I expect that we will continue to do so throughout August.
In addition to topics raised above, tonight’s pub quiz will feature questions on Paula Poundstone, sunshine, dashikis, big thoughts, declining Americans, San Antonio, magical island spirits, USA teams, flight opportunities, sets of books, continental facts, ranked countries, cute dogs, again with the Wolverine, hypocrites, global warming, songs that might even have been hits before your mother was born (if you are young), levees, supportive machines, friends indeed, U.S. states, inevitability, Nobel Prizes, non-jazz albums, agencies, kindly costars, red blood cells, lifetime achievement awards, current events, books and authors, and Shakespeare. Sometimes a question is substituted at the last minute because of the day’s news.
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. Thanks especially to new subscriber Sophie! Every week I check the Patreon to see if there is someone new to thank. I also thank The Original Vincibles, Summer Brains, The Outside Agitators, John Poirier’s team Quizimodo, Gena Harper, the scintillating Mavens who carefully take note of casual adjectives and precise pronunciations, and others who support the Pub Quiz on Patreon (where I am also sometimes sharing drafts of poems). I would love to add your name or that of your team to the list of supporters. I appreciate your backing this pub quiz project of mine!
Best,
Dr. Andy
Find here three sample questions from last week’s quiz:
- Books and Authors. Bill and Ted stars Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter are making their Broadway debut together in 2025 in what Samuel Beckett play?
- Film. What 2024 animated film recently kicked The Avengers out of the worldwide all-time box office top 10?
- Youth Culture. Speaking of Marvel movies, is the Deadpool and Wolverine film the first, fifth, or 11th R-rated Marvel (not MCU) movie?
P.S. Tomorrow is Poetry Night in Davis, and 21 people have already responded to the Facebook event pagefor this reading by Mercedes Ibáñez and Jean Biegun at 7 PM on Thursday, August 15th, 2024 at the John Natsoulas Gallery. I hope you can join us!