Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz

My grandfather was a taciturn man who loved his children and his many wives. Born in Oklahoma when it was still “Indian Territory,” my grandpa had to leave his home state in his 20s because his union activities endangered him. He ended up in Winchester, Indiana, which has about the same population today as it did when my father was born there in 1932. From this unlikely location, Davey Marlin-Jones launched his show-business career, entertaining Randolph County children and then eventually adults with his magic tricks. Grandpa Marlin became this magician’s manager, driving the phenom to all his bookings in Indiana in the 1930s and then also in neighboring states in the 1940s.

I got to “perform” with my dad only a few times, once in the 1970s and once in the 1980s; on both occasions, TV crews carried cable and huge cameras into our homes to give viewers a sense of the homelife of Washington D.C.’s wackiest film reviewer. A few decades later, during his last visit to Davis in the summer of 2002, I interviewed dad on my radio show. We shared a stage, as it were. Reflecting on that visit, I miss his flamboyant theatricality, and his stories. Now my own kids join me on the radio to read and tell me their stories, and one of them sometimes plays the saxophone.

Show business trailblazers share tips and sometimes the stage with their famous children. Think of the advantages that Rob Reiner, Marlo Thomas, and Kiefer Sutherland had when they were starting their TV careers, with such fathers to look up to. And for the viewers, a generation growing up enjoying performances by one member of the family are always curious to see how the torch is passed to the children.

We recognize this phenomenon in other fields, as well. This coming Thursday, for example, the retired Sacramento State professor Kathryn Hohlwein will read her poetry with her daughter Laura Hohlwein in an art gallery that is filled with the younger Hohlwein’s art. What a talented family! While the pair’s genius will be on full display, I’m most pleased that Poetry Night on Thursday can play a part in making memories that will last the rest of the lives of this mother and daughter duo.

I think of what memoirist Maya Angelou wrote this about her mom in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings: “To describe my mother would be to write about a hurricane in its perfect power. Or the climbing, falling colors of a rainbow.” I hope you get to create some memories with your hurricanes and rainbows, whoever they are, and no matter what sort of art or performance you two create together.

In addition to issues raised above, tonight’s pub quiz will feature questions on American states, days of the week, chocolate bars, images of grandparents, proud moms, Billboard charts, mispronounced French names, starches, the example of Monarch butterflies, wolves in strange places, big games, angular momentum, nicknames, popular beams, populous islands, high temperatures, pollinators, accomplished prospects, best-sellers, numbers of flags, states that are not Oklahoma, cities with basketball teams, people who don’t hole up with tycoons, predators, maladies, heavenly mistakes, beautifications, labor, beards, dangerous substances, monsters, foodstuffs, and Shakespeare.

I hope to see you tonight for Pub Quiz with some special guests, and Thursday night for an evening of Hohlwein artistry!

Your Quizmaster

https://www.yourquizmaster.com

http://www.twitter.com/yourquizmaster

P.S. Here are three questions from last week’s quiz:

P.P.S. “I think this to myself even though I love my daughter. She and I have shared the same body. There is a part of her mind that is a part of mine. But when she was born she sprang from me like a slippery fish, and has been swimming away ever since. All her life, I have watched her as though from another shore.”Amy Tan in The Joy Luck Club

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

Having learned to read with the help of my mom the librarian and the daily arrival of The Washington Post, I remember well the Carter years when Post headlines lamented how difficult it was to take out any sort of loan. Around that time, Johnny Carson remarked that “Scientists have developed a powerful new weapon that destroys people but leaves buildings standing — it’s called the 17% interest rate.”

Compound interest is a powerful force, as Einstein reminds us. Most of us who buy houses pay more for the interest on our loans than the cost of our homes themselves. Because of this, many of us feel like that we work for the banks, even if we actually work for UC Davis or the local Irish Pub. Eventually, if you are lucky, compound interest also works in your interest, especially if you start saving early for retirement. Depending on how long we live, my wife Kate and I hope eventually for compound interest to benefit our children and our charities. Saving more than you owe is a marvelous feeling, I imagine, a feeling that comes to Americans later and later in their lives, if at all.

Many of us take years to try to control the deleterious effect of compound interest in our lives. Habits work that way, too. Many of us develop bad habits (especially when we are young), and then at the beginning of the year, we resolve to break all those habits. For example, I saw so many new faces gathered around me this past Sunday morning! I admire people who use time in the gym or time on the meditation cushion to reconnect with their best selves.

When we implement automatic plans to act on our best intentions, it could be said that the “flip” in our habits mirrors the “flip” in our (hoped for) relationship with interest and banks: our habits begin to work for us. Every January, we develop goals and resolve to check items off long lists. W.H. Auden once said that “Routine, in an intelligent man, is a sign of ambition.” [Editor’s Note: If he were writing today, Auden would surely note that this aphorism holds or should hold true for any person, regardless of gender or gender identity.]

Course syllabi, such as the ones that I’ve been revising over this holiday break, also represent a series of plans and promises. As a member of the professional writing faculty at UC Davis, I try in all my classes to remind my students of the relationship between clear and purposeful thinking, and clear writing. It takes many writers, such as myself, a lifetime (rather than the mere ten weeks of an academic quarter) to understand this dynamic meaningfully. The work towards a goal is usually more important than accomplishing the goal, for via the work, we grow.

We would all like to think and communicate more clearly, and to do so we form and implement our plans to open our eyes. With this wish in mind, some of us harness the power of mindfulness to interrupt all our routines, whether helpful or unhelpful, so that we might make purposeful decisions about our lives, rather than merely adhering unthinkingly to habits. Sometimes the most purposeful decision is to refrain from acting. Instead, we should more often take time to take notice, to reflect, and, at least once a week, to settle.

When Kate and I lived in London one long, dark, and stormy fall, we lamented the looming rainclouds and the constant rain. Kate remembers closing her umbrella on only a couple occasions during that entire semester, so that she might gaze with nostalgia and longing at a patch of blue sky. Meanwhile, a few decades later on the other side of the world we celebrate the rain, hoping for all our Californian sakes that precipitation would revisit us later than expected in the spring, and start earlier than expected in the fall, filling our mountaintops with deep snow. I wish such relief would visit all of us who need it. As I write this, an entire continent of people and animals are wishing in vain for rain.

You can’t always get what you want, Jagger and Richards promised us more than 50 years ago. When it comes to saving for a rainy day, the habits we make (or are told to make), or an entire season of rain, you might just find (if you take the time to notice) that what you need, what we all need from ourselves and from each other, is much different from what we wanted, and much more nourishing and sustaining than what we could have expected.

Tonight’s Pub Quiz will feature questions on topics raised above, and on the following: arrows, prime ministers, American dialects, equidistance, famous witches, actresses who dance like lank jogs, grand estates, musical genres, rules, x-rays, the question of symptoms, musical coaches, unexpected visitations at Christmastime, famous sisters, international gratitude, programmable memory, ways to live, tigers, exports, sequel exceptions, Texans, unlikely ideals, states of mind, fictional rude film critics, geographical inertia, transplanted oilmen, cut ties, cats, small dog comparisons, words that start with J, and Shakespeare.

I’m starting a new year with an experiment. If I send the newsletter out first thing in the morning, rather than on a Monday afternoon, will more subscribers open it, read it, and then resolve to attend the Quiz? I bet for the new year you would like to spend more time with friends, and away from your devices. If so, resolve to join us tonight. And happy new year!

Your Quizmaster

https://www.yourquizmaster.com

yourquizmaster@gmail.com

Twitter: @yourquizmaster

P.S. Here are three questions from the last Pub Quiz of the last decade:

1. Mottos & Slogans. For about 30 years, what product promised “the pause that refreshes”?  
2. Internet Culture. The internet has been buzzing over the character from The Rise of Skywalker whom critics say had unfairly limited screen time and who shares a name with a flower. Name her.  
3. Newspaper Headlines. According to the Health section of today’s New York Times, “[t]he average American eats about [how many] teaspoons of added sugar a day”? Is the number closest to 7, 17, or 37?  

P.P.S. “The past is a great place and I don’t want to erase it or to regret it, but I don’t want to be its prisoner either.” Mick Jagger

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

Trending this morning on Twitter was the phrase “page 364 of 365.” It’s almost time to turn the final page at the end of a long year, one which caps off a long decade. My mom, who was born in the 1930s, is about to enter her ninth decade. Kirk Douglas is about to enter his eleventh. In “The Hollow Men,” T.S. Eliot tells us that “Life is very long.” Meanwhile, John Lennon tells us that “Life is very short, and there’s no time / For fussing and fighting, my friend.” With these opposed forms of wisdom, can we work it out?

To focus on the length or brevity of a life is to embrace a particular narrative, or, if you prefer, to adopt a particular attitude. Shakespeare said, “there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so,” a positive approach, while the aforementioned T.S. Eliot took a somewhat darker tone in The Waste Land:

I have heard the key

Turn in the door once and turn once only

We think of the key, each in his prison

Thinking of the key, each confirms a prison.

For some, the 2010s has been a dark decade. For example, we know that fewer Americans own stocks today than did at the beginning of the recession of 2007 and 2008. We all must decide what sort of practices, attitudes, or narratives might help us to leave the darkness behind us. Having read books this month by Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, Pema Chödrön, and the 14^th Dalai Lama, I feel obligated to share a sample of what I have learned.

In particular, I’ve been reading about tonglen, a Buddhist meditation practice that involves both the Tibetan term of tong, which means “giving” or “sending,” and the len, which means “receiving” or “taking.” I understand this to mean taking (or breathing) in another’s concern, worry, or suffering, and then sending (or breathing) out coolness, freshness, and discernment as a momentary stay against the suffering.

I think of this practice as having three stages. In the first stage, one acknowledges with appreciation that others are suffering in the same way, or from the same cause, that I am suffering. This makes one feel less isolated, and more connected to others outside the self. John Lennon said that reality is “a dream we dream together.”

The second stage involves wishing that the relief that one knows, even momentarily, resulting from one’s sitting or meditation practice may be felt by all who suffer as one does. The third stage involves actually seeking out and taking in the suffering of others, holding it for a moment, and then breathing it out while also breathing out freshness and healing to those who suffer.

This might be a lot to ask of a simple meditation session, but this practice of tonglen also substitutes a positive narrative for the sorts of narratives that anguish us, whether they be reliving difficulties of the past, or reliving difficulties yet to come. It has been said that worrying is like praying for what you don’t want. Mark Twain said, “There has been much tragedy in my life; [and] at least half of it actually happened.”

Twain’s folksy optimism is welcome, but as this decade comes to a close, we all know many people who are struggling and who are suffering. For myself, I know some who have chronic illnesses, and some who have deadly illnesses. Some are estranged from those they love, including their families and extended families. Some are finding their talents or labors insufficiently recognized or remunerated. Some see multiple forms of injustice, and wonder if what they do is enough.

By focusing our attention on the alleviation of the suffering of others, we may find that the practice of tonglen or another form of mindful meditation allows us to strengthen ourselves so that we can better support others, as well as to create different narratives from those that vex us. I hope you find yourself ever growing, with your eyes ever opening, in this coming decade, and that all of us can free ourselves from those recursive narratives that needlessly limit our awareness and our potential.

 In addition to topics raised above, tonight’s Pub Quiz will feature questions on the following topics: title characters, sharks, lollypops, endangered newspapers, headphones, important signatures, rulers, the polls, centrifugal forces, matrimony, parents’ basements, attempts at equality, prime ministers, famous weddings, alternatives to insects and birds, refreshing pauses, flowers, teaspoons of sugar, Greek culture, contemporary inventions, our completed decade, addresses, hit singles, aces, acids, Oscar-winning producers, U.S. Presidents, big productions, powerful stars, science fiction films, beloved Americans, amazing names, classic novels, popular plays, Walt Disney, retrospective reflections, and Shakespeare.

I hope you can join us this evening for the final Pub Quiz of the 2010s! Thanks for spending so many Monday nights with me during this year, and this decade. I really appreciate it.

Your Quizmaster

Http://www.yourquizmaster.com

P.S. Poetry Night returns on January 16.

P.P.S. Here are five questions from our holiday quiz last week:

1. Science. What singular N word refers to the ability of the brain to change continuously throughout an individual’s life?  
2. Books and Authors. What is the name of the O. Henry story that tells of a young husband and wife and how they deal with the challenge of buying secret Christmas gifts for each other with very little money?  
3. Current Events – Star Wars.  Domestically, did the new Star Wars film take in closest to $80 million, $160 million, $240 million, or $320 million in its first weekend?  
4. Sports. What two CA sports teams will be competing against each other at the Staples Center on Christmas Day, 2019?  
5. Shakespeare.   Two of Shakespeare’s three mentions of Christmas appear in a play with three L’s in its title. Name the play.  

P.P.P.S. “Ring out the false, ring in the true.” Alfred Lord Tennyson

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

How grateful I am not to need anything for Christmas this year other than the company of family and friends, and a warm place for us to gather to tell stories and play with the dog. I hope you have all these things.

Many Californians are lucky to spend time in such a beautiful state, but because so many people leave their homes to come to California (or we once did), many of us can’t count on spending time with multiple generations this holiday season. My brother just spent a week in DC with our mom (Hi Mom!), and my wife Kate’s mom will be visiting us beginning on Boxing Day. My daughter Geneva has returned for her last Christmas as an undergraduate, and Truman will entertain us all with Christmas carols on his saxophone. (And Jukie is watching How the Grinch Stole Christmas as I write these words.)

But I remember times as a child when we could count on seeing 20 or more relatives in the same place, or in various places as we traveled to different neighborhoods in DC or Maryland to see these folks. We were so lucky to have access to people the age of my grandparents (now all gone) and of my parents (many of them gone). I sometimes wish that I had asked these folks more questions about their childhoods, about lessons they have learned, about the people and experiences for which they were most grateful.

We live in a time of abundance. For some (not in our house) that means plenty of money, but for all of us, it means an abundance of information. This leaves many of us feeling that we need more wisdom, and less data. With that dynamic in mind, I started a book this morning called The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom. Jonathan Haidt has written an especially apt book for people who have never taken an introductory psychology class or who have not been sufficiently exposed to the wisdom of great spiritual and philosophical traditions, but I too am appreciating the sagacity reflected in his explorations and summaries.

Haidt suggests that happiness is affected by the biological “set point” with which we are born, the conditions under which we are raised and where we find ourselves (which is another reasons why art galleries, music halls, and libraries are so important), and voluntary activities, over which we have choice and control.

In a university town, we are reminded often that there is much to learn, and that our brains can grow and change perpetually, and that we have access to many resources, many of them familial, that can continue to help us grow into the people we aspire to be. I hope the time spent sharing or requesting wisdom, insight, and stories gratifies you throughout the holiday season, and into the next decade whose beginning is fast upon us!

In addition to topics raised above, tonight expect also questions about famous origins, the extinction of drives, protest signs, upcoming calendars, famous men whose actual names we don’t know, celebrations, American architecture, whose woods these are  you may not know, the abundance of trees, poignant gifts, indebtedness, net populations, namesakes of various gods, beasts not found in nature, ghosts, New York City, animations, Homburgs without hats, therapy for actors, people who look like us who get all the blame, final films, successful records, Christmas symbology, oils, and Shakespeare.

I will be bringing copies of my most recent book, Pub Quizzes: Trivia for Smart People, to tonight’s Pub Quiz. Maybe there’s someone on your gift list who wants more than familial wisdom and time with the dog.

Happy holidays! See you tonight!

Dr. Andy

Your Quizmaster

https://www.yourquizmaster.com

P.S. Here are four questions from a previous quiz:

1. Continents of the World.  In 2016, was the population of Africa closest to 500 million, 1 billion, or 2 billion?  
2. U.S. States. Monmouth University, Stockton University, and Fairleigh Dickinson University are all found in the state with a 91% high school graduation rate, recently called The Smartest State in America? Name the state.  
3. Science.  What P word completes this recent headline? “Biologists Discover That Flower Shapes Evolve to Adapt to Their BLANK.”  
4. Books and Authors. The book Suspect is about the subject of Clint Eastwood’s new movie. Name the film.  

P.P.S. “It’s a fine line between Saturday night and Sunday morning.” ― Jimmy Buffett, who was born on Christmas Day.

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

I wrote a poem yesterday while walking the Greenbelt and the sent it to my wife, Kate. She liked it and suggest I use it in today’s newsletter. I thought I could turn it into prose (I did this once with a piece that ran in the Sacramento Bee), but then Kate said people should get over the fact that I’m a poet. So here’s a winter in Davis poem, starring familiar figures whom you know from past newsletters.

Winter Sunday on the Greenbelt

The most delicious part of my walk with Jukie

occurs when the French Bulldog notices

that we are too far ahead of her charge,

whom she has been taught to think of as

her brother, him seventeen years her senior.

When Margot’s herding instinct kicks in,

she cranes her wrestler’s neck behind us

to the spot where Jukie might have lingered,

amid or behind the municipal hedgerows,

momentarily lost in thought, wondering,

if this slight chill, this refreshing frosty dip

passes for winter in California.

If her quarry, her brother, eludes her,

sometimes she just sits right down, lodestonish,

refusing to budge until he reappears.

Meanwhile, Jukie prunes and preens the trees,

liberating individual leaves.

Removing a choice frond from a Sago palm,

trying its pokey substance upon

the texture of his feather down jacket,

singing a little song as it travels

up his arm and then down his arm,

whereupon he spins the frond unevenly

between his calloused thumb and forefinger:

Tip tap tap tip; tip tap tap tip.

He will never tire of this rhythm.

Everything is fresh – the world belongs to him!

He takes a dozen moments just to

notice: He notices the sky, the tops

of the green belt’s coniferous trees,

the encircling western meadowlark,

his own breath hanging like words in the air.

Sometimes far ahead he spies the distant

figure of his father, himself also

collecting arboreal images,

and holding the taut and unforgiving

leash of Margot, both leader of this pack,

compassion teacher, and patient herder.

I feel lucky every time we encounter a friend out on the Greenbelt. Perhaps once this winter break it’ll be you!

Tonight’s Pub Quiz will feature questions on the following: gratitude, mosquitoes, Japanese stars, Christmas names, painters, car care, Google searches, Catholicism, old books, e-commerce, big countries, tragic figures, border studies, biological discoveries, high school graduation rates, continentals, green Shamrocks, Mona Lisas, the color orange, Peruvians, John Wayne, escapes in red, popular movies, polka, trainloads of flowers in Singapore, heartlessness, fake IDs, somber colors, robots, and Shakespeare.

Thursday night is Poetry Night at the Natsoulas Gallery. The talented local teacher, performance artist, and author Chris Erickson will be performing stories and songs from his annual holiday special. You should join us! We start at 8 at 521 1^st Street.

Best,

Your Quizmaster

https://www.yourquizmaster.com

P.S. Here is the beginning of last week’s quiz:

1. Mottos and Slogans. I’m thinking of a two-word store chain that has more locations than either McDonalds or Starbucks, and its slogan is “Save Time, Save Money, Every Day.” The second word in this store’s name is “General.” What is the first?  
2. Internet Culture. Last week pair of co-founders gave up control of what company? Google / Alphabet  
3. Newspaper Headlines. Caroll Spinney died yesterday at age 85. With what fictional character is Spinney most associated?  
4. Four for Four. Which of the following cities, if any, is closer to Davis than San Jose is to Davis? Fremont, Modesto, Oakland, Reno.  

P.S. “As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.” John F. Kennedy

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

My wife Kate wrote an essay last night that is resonating with friends on Facebook, so, with her permission, I’m sharing her writing as the shank of our Pub Quiz newsletter for today, even though posting her reflections might seem self-congratulatory. Her creativity and emotional poignance will free up time for me to focus on grading long features for my journalism class. Thanks, Kate, for your sweet words about our boy Jukie!

Pure Presence

Andy and Jukie have the most purely present relationship I have ever witnessed.

Anyone who has seen these two together has noticed their special connection. Early on, Andy earned the title of Jukie Whisperer, for he can intuit Jukie’s needs and manage his sometimes challenging behavior with gentle, firm direction and greater ease than anyone else. Jukie listens to his daddy. And Jukie adores his daddy. They communicate differently than most fathers and sons as Jukie uses a combination of sign language, PECS, and his iPad to speak for him. But mostly, they communicate through love, laughter, and play. There is a delightful surplus of spontaneous affection in our home.

I often hear reports from friends and acquaintances of Jukie/Andy sightings around town. “I saw them riding down third street on their cargo bike,” they’ll say. “I saw them sharing kettle corn at the Farmers’ Market last Saturday.” “They were at an art gallery for a poetry reading, and Jukie was so well behaved.” People often compliment Andy’s parenting. He’s patient and sweet with our boy. He takes Jukie on adventures all over Northern California, and they are seen in museums, performance venues, and college lecture halls: places one might not think to take a kid with Jukie’s particular differences. What people don’t see is that Jukie is also teaching Daddy. Yes, Daddy works his parenting magic, but Jukie is the master teacher.

While Andy regularly practices Zen meditation, Jukie seems to live with Zen in his heart. Quietly attentive, Jukie’s natural state is peaceful and relaxed. He lives in the present with his attention sometimes focused on the beauty of nature: the wind in the trees, the clouds in the sky, and the French bulldog puppy in his lap. He studies pictures that he loves, pointing to show us what he notices. Sometimes out of context, loudly, and often, Jukie laughs, reminding us not to take life so seriously. He touches our faces when he wonders what we’re thinking. And he climbs in bed at the end of the day, and sometimes before the day has ended; Jukie always knows when he’s had enough.

If I’m being real, I need to add that it’s not always easy being Jukie’s mama. I worry all the time about issues that parents of typical kids don’t imagine. Sometimes his frustration overwhelms him, and he erupts. I fear that he could have an illness we will miss because he cannot tell us he’s in pain. I wonder if he yearns to communicate something more complex than what we understand. And I worry about his future life without the Jukie Whisperer and me.

When these thoughts threaten to overtake me, I think of Jukie’s teaching, and see the boy before me. I laugh with him. As we spin with our eyes closed, walk the greenbelts of Davis, take in the patterns of clouds after a storm, or taste each section of an orange as if it were our first, we are reminded of Jukie’s foremost lesson: We have today – be present.

http://kateduren.blogspot.com/2019/12/pure-presence.html?m=1

Tonight’s Pub Quiz will feature questions on the following topics, loosely interpreted: ornithology, that which is lost when money is saved, retirements, CNBC, wet bears, Davis boulevards, California cities, famous siblings, accomplished youngsters, gladiators, people who wear ascots, commonalities among colonial cities, Biblical chronologies, interpretations of 50, lifelong smokers who die early, cello music, the science of sound, alphabetical importers, popular religions, unexpected hits, voices in space, lake effects, swamp singing, short lives, GQ health committees, again with the prime numbers, tiny syllables, uneasy verbs, warping and folding, wealthy athletic counselors, and Shakespeare.

One of tonight’s questions is so tricky that I will allow you to ask another team about their impressions. Dress accordingly.

Our next Poetry Night features a holiday show with Davis teacher, author, and performance artist Chris Erickson. Join us on December 19^th at the John Natsoulas Gallery!

Best,

Your Quizmaster
https://www.yourquizmaster.com
yourquizmaster@gmail.com

P.S. Here are three questions from last week’s quiz:
 

1. Books and Authors. The novella A Christmas Carol was first published by Charles Dickens closest to which of the following years? 1800, 1825, 1850, 1875.  

2. Sports. Joe Burrow and the Tigers are at the top of the AP Top Rankings updated for this week in college football. Name the public research university’s football team that is so well this year.  

3. Tie-breaker. How many minority-owned firms were there in Montana in 2012?  

P.S. May you be happy. May you be well. May you be peaceful. May you be free.

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

The conversation this morning went something like this: I told my best friend Tito that he shouldn’t weigh more than I do, for I was four inches taller than him. He responded with a smile that he was heavier than me because he is so much more muscular than I am. He always was. I may never catch up to Tito, but I love catching up with him.

Seeing that film A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood yesterday, I couldn’t help but think about my late father. The film itself is about loss, but it’s also about an incipient loss, for everyone in the theatre watching knows that Fred Rogers, the televised child therapist we didn’t know we needed, isn’t with us anymore. Some of us remember how Mr. Rogers came out of retirement briefly after the events of September 11th to reassure the children of America, and maybe all of us, that we would be OK. He said, “Thank you for whatever you do, wherever you are, to bring joy and light and hope and faith and pardon and love to your neighbor and to yourself.”

My dad used to talk that way, about the abstract positives that we can bring to bear on any interaction, even though my dad, also a TV personality, was not a fan of Mr. Rogers’ slow and patient delivery. Seeing this movie (and the documentary about Mr. Rogers that was released last year during Father’s Day weekend) made me wonder about the sort of father-son conversations that would result if he had had the chance to see these films. As a film buff and a film critic, my dad probably saw something like 10,000 films during his 71 years, but he did not live long enough to see Mr. Rogers on the big screen. I remember discussing films with my dad, even catching up my dad on new films, in my dreams after he passed away, often realizing before the conversation was over that I was dreaming.

Dreams become more lifelike when we find ourselves acting on decisions in the dreamworld, perhaps the first step into lucid dreaming. In dreams, as in life, we will find stimuli to be positive, neutral, and negative, and we must decide how to respond to such stimuli. Usually we don’t decide, but are swept up by the reported 60,000 thoughts we have a day. And because, some psychologists say, 80% of those thoughts are negative, and 95% of them are repetitive, a life of uncontrolled thoughts might seem like some of the darkest scenes of the film Groundhog Day: futile, dispiriting, and dauntingly familiar.

We tend to repress these negative stimuli and thoughts, to deny them, to pretend they don’t exist, or to run from them as if they were monsters in a nightmare. Doing so, we end up feeding and empowering these hungry monsters, and thus we invite them to accompany us. This morning the Dalai Lama called this process “a source of trouble,” tweeting, “A source of trouble is that our minds are unruly. We need to effect an inner transformation, to understand that love and affection are a real source of joy. It’s important to be warm-hearted rather than selfish. We’ll be less sick, live longer and have more friends here and now.”

The American Buddhist nun Pema Chödrön suggests that we sit determinedly with the distracting thoughts and emotions that gallop up to us, noting that they could be labeled as positive, negative, or neutral. This practice might help us stop from reacting to an unpleasant or even terrifying emotion in an automatic or habitual way. Our habits sometimes numb us to our own experiences, especially when we don’t stop to notice that we are responding without thinking about how or why we do what we do. We have so many seductive and unhelpful habits to choose from!

Meditation can help us to become more mindful, for meditation allows us to step away from the repeated and thus memorized narratives that package up and skillfully present to us our least favorite emotions — perhaps including regret, fear, or grief. When we meditate, returning our attention to the breath or to an object, we give ourselves a means to sit with something other than our anxious narratives.

I’ve been trying to engage in this difficult but necessary process, and it has left me more mindful and aware, but also a little raw. When one is heartbroken or grieving, the heart is tender, maybe even tenderized, and thus more receptive to empathy and compassion. In the theatre yesterday, I was probably not the only one to become emotional when Tom Hanks has Mr. Rogers ask us to spend a moment with our beloveds, reminding us, as Rogers once did in real life, that “All of us have special ones who have loved us into being. Would you just take, along with me, ten seconds to think of the people who have helped you become who you are?” 

This brings me back to Tito, the constant companion of my entire childhood. For Tito, I have great love and compassion, mixed with the sort of longing that comes with grief. Tito died in a plane crash 26 years ago, and I will always be grieving that loss. Perhaps because his funeral will always be one of my life’s missed opportunities (we didn’t have the money in 1993 to fly me back to DC), in my dreams I still find myself writing up my prepared remarks for a celebration of Tito’s life.

Meanwhile, Tito visits me from time to time, reminding me of our private jokes, and of how strong he is. When I dream of Tito, lucidly or not, I remind him how loved he is. Some bonds, such as those with the people who have “loved us into being,” are so strong, stronger especially than our ephemeral bodies, that they can’t be broken. In our dreams and in our memories, we can revisit these beloveds with warm hearts.

In addition to topics raised above, tonight’s Pub Quiz will give you an opportunity to reflect upon the following: autodidacts, Star Wars movies, minority-owned firms, short titles, the direction of a life, the Associated Press, dropouts, a time for old men, monkeys, pizza, female artists, sports decades, colorful trees, friendliness, natural disasters, care packages, geometry, college majors, TV psychologists, New York borough exports, cameos, Montana, Christmas timing, third in a trio, countries of the world, majorities of voters, geology, anagrams about friendly fog visors, climate change, avengers, and Shakespeare.

We had a full house last Monday because of the Thanksgiving break. Tonight I suspect that we will have room for you. Join us!

Your Quizmaster

https://www.yourquizmaster.com

P.S. Here are three questions from last week’s quiz:

1. Current Events – Names in the News. In 1947, the same year as Jackie Robinson, Wataru Misaka broke the color barrier in what sport?  
2. Sports.  Who did the San Francisco 49ers beat 37-8 yesterday?  
3. Shakespeare. Who provides the prophesy in Macbeth?  

P.P.S. Thursday’s Poetry Night at the John Natsoulas Gallery will feature readings by Frank Dixon Graham and Len Germinara. Check out the Facebook event, and plan to join us. We start at 8.

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

Melissa Etheridge once said this about parenting: “I think being a parent is knowing how to love. Sometimes love is discipline, sometimes it’s humor, sometimes it’s listening.”

I look forward to practicing different flavors of love and support with my kids over this week’s Thanksgiving break. I was about to start a sentence with the phrase “When I was a kid,” a phrase used by the people who are safeguarding much of the wealth in America. Millennials own just 3.2% of America’s wealth, whereas people from the Silent Generation and the Baby Boomers own closer to 80%. No wonder many young voters, along with Bernie Sanders, harbor suspicions about the millionaires and billionaires running for president, as well as about anyone who is as old as Bernie Sanders.

That said, when I was a kid, we got just Thursday and Friday off from school for Thanksgiving, whereas now my DJUSD and Woodland school-kids get the whole week off. Maybe American families need more time to research Thanksgiving carb-loading strategies and Black Friday purchases?

NaNoWriMo is almost over, and my novel is undrafted. No one is to blame but myself, for I overfill my schedule, only with giving rather than consuming. Last night, for example, something like eight journalism students attended my Sunday evening office hours at Crepeville. And although I didn’t “have time” to go over their drafts with all of them, I delighted in doing so, for I think I teach some of my best lessons one-on-one in office hours. The last of my charges left my 8-10PM office hours at 10:55 PM (hence the late publication time of today’s newsletter).

Earlier in the day yesterday, I agreed to a series of meetings with the organizers of a series of lectures on anti-racist topics at the Davis Shambhala Meditation Center. They need a marketing consultant. This weekend I also booked guests for my Wednesday radio show, and sent out the press releases for the December 5^th reading at the Natsoulas Gallery.

None of this work for our community of culture-lovers equips me to buy more stuff on Black Friday. I guess instead my family and I will have to limit ourselves to long nature walks with the French Bulldog, Mondavi Center shows (we attended two just last week), and tree-lighting. I’m sure that each of these occasions will give me opportunity to follow the advice of Melissa Etheridge, though with a focus on the listening and the humor. I hope your Thanksgiving break is similarly filled with conversation, communion, and joy.

And if you anticipate any difficult conversations over the break, I will leave you with the advice of Robert Frost: “The greatest thing in family life is to take a hint when a hint is intended–and not to take a hint when a hint isn’t intended.”

Tonight’s Pub Quiz will feature questions on topics raised above, and on the following: chemistry, Latin clouds, bringing balance to the Force, living and dead singers, the letter A, popular and unpopular places to live in the U.S., letter carriers, World War II substitutions, scrying, lopsides, cordial logicians among the horses, analytic geometry, the example of Jackie Robinson, best-sellers, old specimens, the Prince of Wales, talk show hosts, notable rivers, writing about dead people, hard cutbacks, youthful hubris, complaining athletes, common and uncommon words, veterinary anagrams, people named Murphy, Asian nations, centenary battles, Vitamin C, people born in 1963, Guinness World Records, checks, three-letter answers, and Shakespeare.

See you tonight at 7! There may be Star Wars swag tonight.

Your Quizmaster
https://www.yourquizmaster.com
http://www.twitter.com/yourquizmaster
http://www.facebook.com/yourquizmaster
yourquizmaster@gmail.com

Here are three questions from last week’s quiz:
 

1. Star Wars. The antagonist of the new and the most recent Star Wars movies was named after what famous Star Wars character?  

2. Science. The bullfrog breeding season is closest to two weeks, three months, nine months, or year-round?  

3. Books and Authors. What four- or five-syllable M word completes the title of this book by Ian Stewart? Significant Figures: The Lives and Work of Great BLANK-BE-BLANK-BLANKS.  

P.S. When Kate read about my Sunday, she texted me her update on her Monday morning: “Well at least I am also working hard: cleaning out the gutters, getting my 10,000 steps in before noon, feeding the kids breakfast and lunch, getting all our medications at the pharmacy, finishing my book, and getting back to those gutters!” She also exhausted the bulldog, always a priority in our house. Peace.

P.P.S. Hat tip to Melissa Skorka, that other Melissa to whom I would always be happy to turn to for advice. We miss you, Melissa!

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

Much of my mentoring takes place in the classroom. Every quarter, I am charged to illuminate and instruct one or more classes full of UC Davis undergraduates, and every quarter they come away with stronger writing skills, with an appreciation of (hopefully) relevant stories, and with an understanding about the relationship between clear writing and clear thinking.

Some of my mentoring takes place during the more tailored conversations that take place in office hours. My nearly two-decades of radio interviews have taught me how to use a series of questions to discover a student’s foremost goals and his or her plans to complete them. We also talk about what student-written documents will present their authors in the best light to impress future executive audiences, such as graduate committees and interview panels.

On occasion, I also get to mentor young adults and graduate students at our very own Irish pub, home of thee Poetry Night after party. As you probably know, the Poetry Night reading series takes place on first and third Thursdays of every month at the John Natsoulas Gallery. We enjoy an hour of the featured poets, an hour of the open mic performers (some with instruments), and at least an hour of the after party in the Snug (“Señor Snug,” they sometimes call me).

We observe a certain number of rules at the after-party, including no pronouncements of poems, no baiting Dr. Andy into professing (that can be saved for the classroom), and no making others uncomfortable. Usually that last unspoken rule concerns the treatment of women, for sometimes members of the community see the after party as an opportunity to talk up, say, graduate student poets in ways that make them feel uncomfortable. Through modeling and sometimes choice words, I communicate to everyone present that the Snug on alternate Thursdays is a time of conversation, laughter, mutual respect, and no sexual harassment.

One of the ways that I let students know that they are supported is by subsidizing their food bill. If a graduate student has been helping me with publicity, setting up and taking down chairs at the readings, or even making the out-of-town featured poet feel appreciated, then I pay for that young person’s meal. In Korea, I have read, the oldest person at the table picks up the check. We don’t typically go that far, but I do pay attention to which Poetry Night participants could benefit from such largesse. And then sometimes the accomplished or careerist members of the entourage help me in this effort by Venmoing me an outsized portion of the final bill. It all works out at the end.

Once a couple years ago I had to miss the after party, either because of another poetry commitment (sometimes I give readings myself), or because of a family responsibility, such as picking up Kate at the airport. On this particular occasion, I gave the de Vere’s gift card to my former student, now a UC Davis alumnus, Joey, and asked him to use it to pay for his food tab and for the food of any of the helpers.

Well on this night, two female graduate student helpers and one older member of the community stayed until the very end of the after party, and Joey could tell that this gentleman was making the two younger conversationalists uncomfortable with his choice of topics and in the way he riveted his attention upon them. While he kept insisting that he walk them home, they communicated to Joey with their glances and facial expressions that they prefer he not do so. They were asking for help.

As the conversation moved outside, Joey suddenly engaged with the gentleman about an earlier topic that had come up in the Snug, and the man was delighted with the attention. Simultaneously, Joey signaled to one of the graduate students that now was her time to flee without being followed. She did.

A few minutes later, when it became clear that a member of the party had absconded, the man turned to Joey and said, “I see what you did there,” and then turned his attention to his second mark. Joey said to his new female friend, “Well, should I walk you to your car?” And then Joey, who can bench press well over 250 lbs, gave the older gentleman a firm look, suggesting that he not follow. The look was received, the parting was quick, and the good deed was done.

I myself cannot bench press over 250 lbs, so I focus on using verbal and persuasive means to keep the peace and correct those who need it. I was so pleased that Joey could play that role when I wasn’t present, and that he took my mentoring to heart, years after he was a student in one of my classes.

In addition to topics raised above, tonight’s Pub Quiz will feature questions on the following: Rumors, Italian sculptors, famous couples, repeated numbers, absolute ties, small casts, showcases, Democrats in California, great figures, concussions, the example of Jeremiah, colorful titles, solo artists, civil rights leaders, famous mentors, the effect of Theravada, expeditions, weavers, panic, speakers, Northampton, rock and roll, the 19^th century, branches of government, PA systems, odd numbers, capital Ws, U.S. Presidents, respected authority, big cities, lead appearances, forever and beyond, famous bands, and Shakespeare.

Poetry Night Thursday will feature Yolo County poet Katie Peterson. She’s also the chair of creative writing at UC Davis. Join us at 8 at the Natsoulas Gallery, and, if you like, at the after-party.

See you this evening!

Your Quizmaster

YourQuizmaster.com

Three questions from a previous quiz:

1. Science: Hydrology. When water condenses, does it cool or warm the environment around it?  
2. Current Events – Names. Tension is high in one particular landlocked South-American country following the resignation of the president, Evo Morales, after weeks of protest over a disputed election. Name the country. 
3. Shakespeare. What Shakespeare play anachronistically has the clock striking three, and has a key character adjust his doublet?  

P.S. KDVS is your campus and community radio station. Some of you were confused about that last week. You should listen, especially Wednesdays at 5.