Dear Friends,
I encountered with such an unusual series of mishaps at the San Francisco Hyatt Regency earlier this month that a friend asked me to write about my adventure in this week’s newsletter.
For the last 20 years I have presented at the San Francisco Writers Conference. We did about 14 years at the Mark Hopkins International Hotel, and the last six at the Hyatt Regency. I typically travel with my family, and they prefer the Hyatt because of the proximity to restaurants and small urban parks where we can walk our French bulldog, Margot.
This year when I arrived on a Thursday morning to register at the Hyatt, I saw that an army of employees had been mobilized to attend to an unlikely flood in the lobby. Evidently an electrical short had sabotaged the fountain in the world-famous lobby (the largest in the world), so hundreds of gallons of water were pouring across the floor.
I saw bellhops with mops, maids with cleaning aids, and waiters tossing the nearby restaurant’s tablecloths onto the standing water like so many Indonesian penjala ikan (or net-throwing fishermen). I also saw black-vested employees with huge industrial cleaners that they hoped would soak up all the water before it reached the still-operating escalators and the elevator shafts. Because the staff had no sandbags, some of those tablecloths were also bunched into thick, rolled mounds, forming makeshift sandbags to slow or divert the flow.
The electrical problems had just begun. Although they could keep the elevators working, a subsequent planned power cut (to repair the electrical problems) lasted not 20 minutes, as we were told, but the rest of the afternoon and evening. Managers with flashlights were handing out business cards and apologies, and a member of the staff handed out those phosphorescent sticks like the ones I used to buy at Rehoboth beach for 50 cents in the late 1970s.
We went to bed early in our dark hotel rooms. As I tried to fall asleep, I heard an impossibly-loud car stereo play “Like a G6” over and over again. I thought to myself that the rhythm (but not the content) of the song could be fruitfully adapted for a Dr. Andy poem.
The next morning, I performed a short breakfast pub quiz in a romantically-lit large ballroom. Like me, all of the attendees who had stayed in the hotel the previous night took cold showers Friday morning. Luckily, both the power and the heat came on later that afternoon in time for me to introduce keynote speaker Tommy Orange.
Saturday the director of the conference joked about the “Domino of Disasters” that had been the experience of the conference attendees, but all of us were in good spirits. Fifty-three people signed up for the marathon open mic Saturday night.
And then Sunday morning, as per the tradition, I performed a just-written occasional poem to close out the conference. I called it “A Domino of Disasters.” Find it below.
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 temperatures will be in the 50s this evening, so I invite you to join me outside at Sudwerk tonight. On such days, I especially love hosting an outdoor Pub Quiz. I plan to move the quiz along quickly, entirely possible because it is only 938 words long.
In addition to topics raised above, expect questions tonight on the Academy Awards, short verbs, the colors of hip-hop, books about socks, quixotic quests, Olympians, patriotism, employers, popular sports, the English countryside, semiconductors, notions, bodies of water, anarchist fighters, back braces, sunshine, trees, the plurals of genus, basketball stars, younger brothers at the wheel, voters, restful sleeps, rainbows, gravity, biomass, endangered companies, criminals in Davis, exchange non-profits, rivers, cleaned-up lyrics, lagen, second places, trips via horse, current events, books and authors, 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. We have over 60 members now! Thanks especially to new subscribers 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. 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, who keep attending, despite their ambitious travel schedules and the dropping temperatures and the cost of avocado. Thanks in particular to Ellen. 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. I appreciate your backing this pub quiz project of mine!
Best,
Dr. Andy
P.S. Three questions from last week:
1. Mottos and Slogans. Starting with the letter F, what insurance company uses the slogan “We know a thing or two because we’ve seen a thing or two”?
2. Internet Culture. At the 2018 Webby Awards, what then new game from Epic Games won the People’s Voice Award for Best Multiplayer/Competitive Game?
3. Newspaper Headlines. According to a February, 2025 headline in the New York Times, who has “Scrambled the California Governor’s Race Without Entering It”?
P.P.S. Our next Poetry Night is March 6.