Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

Someone asked me recently if the number of poetry readings in Davis has outgrown the hunger for poetry among the local citizenry. My friend wondered if Davis Poet Laureate James Lee Jobe hosted too many readings.

I reminded my friend that we are all bound to read something. Even those who shackle themselves to their TV remotes, their bingeable content, their subscribed YouTube channels, will reach on occasion for the cereal box, the alumni magazine, or the fortune cookie fortune. Our phones sit obediently on our hips or in our purses, offering even the aspirationally anti-literate (like my friend) the addictive murmur of the fake news headline, the shareable tweet, or the hashtagged Instagram viral photo caption. Readers who depend upon only on this slight content, who read unwittingly, almost unwillingly, think they don’t pay a cost. One thinks of the isolated man, buried amid his own belongings, who thinks the air will last longer if he takes shallower breaths.

I say, step outside, breathe deep, and mix in a book (or at least a poem) once in a while. For me, if it is a sin to covet poetry on a Thursday night or a Sunday afternoon, then I am the most offending soul alive. I say, envy not the man who Barcalounges with his remote and the uncaring company of the televised golf announcer, whispering bogeys and birdies into his numb ear, or the football announcer (is it football season yet? I don’t even know) who pricks the adrenaline nerves of the once-muscled teeth-gritting shut-in, the angry man who hungers for he does not know what, but thinks he can feed it on any given Sunday.

I could be wrong, but I don’t think such a person would join us at the Pub Quiz or join me at a poetry reading. No, let such a man, sequestered in his quiet querulousness, rest comfortably in his home seemingly unawares, even though his dulled unconsciousness tallies with each passing missing metaphor the opportunity cost of his inactivity. For this man and for many others, this day will be immediately forgotten, breakfast itself forgotten by lunchtime, the forgone conversations missed, the walks untaken, the books unread. And SCIENCE unscreamed.

But me, I shall long remember this day, the gentle August breeze that blows us to towards E Street on Monday evenings, the bass-line of almost discernible songs heard on the Irish Pub speakers, the friends waving their greeting as they pass our regular booth, and the relations joining me – a family of five once more before Christmas – for a family and community ritual that warrants putting down our remotes and our devices and joining we few, we happy few, to laugh and compete with the best of Davis once again.

Tonight’s Pub Quiz will feature questions on topics suggested above, as well as on the following: Pashtuns, beneficiaries, Kermit the Frog, esteemed peers, soccer teams, locks of love, debut novels, mathematics, ice carvings, lakes, Spanish explorers, comedic relief on the Serengeti, cardinal directions, names that are not Giorgio or Guillermo, oil refineries, Latin initials, literary decades, bays, dystopic robot visits, populous cities on the water, positional egos, notable couples, heavenly introductions, world records, bunches and collections, Twitter trends, scoops, University of Chicago, nodelessness, famous Fords, missy, challenging suburbs, photovoltaic power, and Shakespeare.

I hope you can join us this evening (evening is almost here). We love it when you join us.

Your Quizmaster

P.S. “Lateness showed that serene contempt for the illusion we call time which is so necessary to ensure the respect of others and oneself.” Rose Macaulay , Mystery at Geneva

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

Two of my children wear a MedicAlert bracelets with their names on them. One has a deadly peanut allergy and a bleeding disorder, and the other was born with Smith-Lemli-Opitz Syndrome, is nonverbal, and has been known to “elope.” I thought of them both this morning when I was getting ready to take our French bulldog on the long morning walk that is necessary if our puppy is going to remain calm during these long hot summer days in Davis.

Rather than a bracelet, I typically carry my phone and three sets of keys: one for the weekend, and two for work. They represent my identity, I suppose, as well as access to my home, my bike lock, and my on-campus offices. It’s rather silly that I also grab my driver’s license and a credit card when I leave for these walks. On the one hand, if I keel over on one of the arboreal greenbelts of South Davis, I would want the paramedics to find evidence of my identity when they rifle through my pockets, if only to know to which house they should return my dog and my son.

On the other hand, I’ve never had to show my driver’s license while out on a walk (police officers almost never ask for my papers), and I’ve not yet had to buy anything on the greenbelt. What do the contents of our pockets say about what we value? For example, I wonder how many of us associate our senses of self with where we live, what we drive and what we can buy.

I’m reading a book right now titled In Love with the World: A Monk’s Journey Through the Bardos of Living and Dying by Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche (an early chapter of the book actually inspired the anagram for tonight’s Pub Quiz). In this spiritual memoir, the author explores this concept of identity when he leaves the abbey that he heads (he’s an abbot) and begins a multi-year unaccompanied trip as a wandering mendicant. The book invites us to ask ourselves who we would be without the trappings of our status, whether those trappings include a Chase credit card, or a monk’s robes.

Spending our time insisting on our identity, and grasping after the objects that make us ourselves, we ensure dukkha, the sort of suffering that Buddhists translate as “unsatisfactory and painful.” When we recognize the temporal and physical limitations on that identity, and therefore our own ephemerality, we might be taking the first step towards increased equanimity.

For most of us, even people who meditate every day, this equanimous state of mind is more an aspiration than a practice. And practices succeed best when we undertake them every day. This morning, for example, my pockets mostly empty, I got to practice a favorite form of meditative circumlocution, as well as attentive loving shared with my son and my dog, two of my many attachments that bring me the most joy.

Tonight’s Pub Quiz will feature questions on the topics raised above, as well as the following: Georgia, American firsts, mendacity, Somalia, musical instruments, melting reactors, farm animals, one-word titles, rankings, illustrated books, chlorides and oxides, unsteady steps, languages and cultures, engines, books that were once extremely popular, pirates, the names of TV stars, bodies of water, sleep leaders, internet culture, stirring speeches, French operas, designers, civil rights, strange fruits, players who become coaches, unusual sports, hoods, pen names, table grapes, series of series, compassionate and musical kings, island adventures, train stations, and Shakespeare.

Please join us for the fun this evening!

Best,

Your Quizmaster
https://www.yourquizmaster.com

P.S. Poetry Night takes place Thursday. Our featured performers are retired Davis physician Charles Halsted – he has a new poetry book out – and poet, storyteller, and musician Angela James, visiting us from Sacramento. This would be a great week for you to join us! We meet at the Natsoulas Gallery Thursday night at 8, and I would gladly add your name to the open mic list.

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

The newsletter is arriving late today because Kate and I went on a double-date last night, dining with new friends at the time that I am typically hard at work writing questions for your Pub Quiz. I love making new friends. Jim Rohn said famously that “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with,” so I thought I would arrange to dine with a couple for whom the husband seems as adoringly devoted to his wife as I aspire to be with Kate. Cynical people (most of us?) probably grow fatigued with all that adoration at the same table at the Tower Café in Sacramento.

Speaking of restaurants, I try not to, but sometimes I dine in restaurants other than de Vere’s Irish Pub (which, for the food and the service, remains my favorite). In the last couple weeks, Kate has been craving the fresh-fruit milkshakes made by the staff at Redrum Burger, so I obliged, bringing her home creamy delicacies with evidence of locally-grown raspberries and strawberries in each straw-ful or spoonful. During one of these trips to the restaurant formerly known as Murder Burger (a restaurant name that suggests truth in advertising?), I saw a dad who was bringing his wife and 18-year-old son to his favorite former haunt. The son was visiting six schools, I overheard, including Stanford and UC Berkeley, but the oversized dad ensured with this trip that his alma mater UC Davis was also on the list. Furthermore, he told the restaurant owner, he wanted to bring his son to the restaurant where he had packed so many calories while training to be a linebacker for the UC Davis football team.

Everyone was full of smiles and nostalgia during this visit, but only the proprietor knew that this would be this family’s final visit to the local diner, for the final closing time had already been scheduled, if not announced. My daughter Geneva and I recently stopped by the restaurant after seeing a marvelous Davis Shakespeare Festival musical, only to be told that Saturday night they were “out of food” because of the rush  of people wanting to visit Redrum Burger one last time. Come back tomorrow, we were told. The long lines shared on social media kept us away, and as of today, the restaurant is closed forever, another part of old Davis for Bob Dunning to reminisce about in his daily column in The Davis Enterprise.

The philosophers, the dharma-teaching Buddhist lamas, and the poets are better equipped than Your Quizmaster to remind us that life is ephemeral, and perhaps cyclical. Having recently reread the Tennessee Williams summer story “Happy August the Tenth,” I will share here a Williams poem that might  compel you to reflect a moment on what has been lost, that some losses must be welcomed if there is to be a renewal, and that we can grow if we can let it go. (So literary! Expect a few more questions today on books and authors than usual.) Here’s the Williams poem, “We Have Not Long to Love”:

We have not long to love.

Light does not stay.

The tender things are those

we fold away.

Coarse fabrics are the ones

for common wear.

In silence I have watched you

comb your hair.

Intimate the silence,

dim and warm.

I could but did not, reach

to touch your arm.

I could, but do not, break

that which is still.

(Almost the faintest whisper

would be shrill.)

So moments pass as though

they wished to stay.

We have not long to love.

A night. A day….

In addition to topics raised above, tonight’s Pub Quiz will take on the following topics: German technology, cohosts, (poems about) remade kelp, early anagrams, movies you’ve seen, Iron Maiden, people with beautiful names, agriculture, hilarious spies, green hardware, multiple births, frenemies, official clocks, spelling bees, retirement buddies, Oakland, names in the news, deep activities, long roads, psycho action, lake countries, minimal rainfall, Berlin welcome committees, two pieces for Jade, chaotic cutlery, superstitions, famous factotums, Charles Xavier, textiles and clothing, Hungary exports, outstanding parts, jobs for Saint George, California. former heroes without capes, broken hearts, sunset songs, hydrogen, findings, universities, seasonal starts, advancements, and Shakespeare.

Please join us for the Pub Quiz tonight, for I appreciate what you contribute to the conversation.

Your Quizmaster

P.S. Here are three questions from a 2016 quiz. Even I don’t know all the answers:

1. Pop Culture – Music. Speaking of groups that start with the letter C, C+C Music Factory had a huge 1991 hit with a song titled “Gonna Make You Sweat,” though everyone knew it better by its subtitle. What is that subtitle?
2. Sports.   Born in 1981, who is the only male tennis player to win five consecutive US Open titles? 
3. Science.   Starting with the letter S, what species of animal has a field metabolic rate that is the lowest ever recorded for any mammal in the world? 

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

Do you ever wonder what people will say about you at your funeral? Yesterday I attended a celebration of life of France Kassing, a friend I made through KDVS, our Davis campus and community radio station. France had started her public affairs program a year or so before I began mine (at the end of the last century), and thus she was one of the veteran hosts who had welcomed me into the radio community of learned talkers with disparate interests.

France shared what would become appreciated and needed broadcasting advice with me back in 2000, but more notably, she shared with me and everyone who knew her a wide smile and a kind demeanor. Although France struggled with the multiple sclerosis that eventually took her life, moving from a cane to a walker to a wheelchair over the course of the first several years that I knew her, her smile never flagged.

While France had to figure out how to work with mobility challenges, her most important work was changing and expanding the minds of her listeners, infusing the progressive attitudes shared on her radio show with book-learning and sustaining compassion for her guests, her callers, and her KDVS colleagues. A commitment to engaged talk radio was evidenced by the patient and perceptive ear that she brought to every interaction. As I was often reminded at the Davis Farmers Market, France always remembered a friend’s previous conversation, whether from the previous week or the previous year, making you feel during your minutes with her that you were at the center of her awareness. Her show was aptly titled It’s About You.

At France’s funeral service, people repeated the words and concepts that I have exemplified above, speaking of France’s kindness, her attention, her compassion, her ready laughter and wit, her commitment to progressive ethics, and her smile. Neither wealthy nor famous, neither authoritarian nor intimidating, France lived a life of principle, service, and joy, and thus she was rich, indeed. We might all consider ways to emulate her example so our acts of kindness could be recharged and relived in the people who tell our stories at our funerals.

In addition to topics raised above, tonight expect questions on long words, zoology, Ace Hardware, valves, companies that care, lineages, French pastries, the youth of South America, chiefs, baseball greats, writers with high expectations, alkaline batteries, light slips and other categories, movies that tower over other films, life lessons, musicians working in nature, magical synonyms, negotiators, false Irish actors, science fiction TV with haircuts, goblets (not goblins), tutors, men or Muppets, musical instruments, Dungeons and Dragons adventurer professions, coffin nails, power shortages, and Shakespeare. Tonight we will have ten or more visitors from different Universities of California, so I added a couple questions just for them. Everyone should score in double digits tonight.

Poetry Night takes place Thursday night at 8 at the Natsoulas Gallery. Carol Lynn Stevenson Grellas has a new book out from Finishing Line Press: Epitaph for the Beloved. Opening for Grellas will be former Sacramento poet laureate Bob Stanley. You should also join us.

Meanwhile, I look forward to seeing you tonight. If you are bringing new players, please let me know so I can meet and welcome them properly.

Your Quizmaster

P.S. Did you know that some of my pub quiz questions appear in the Davis Enterprise every Sunday? I hope you are supporting local journalists, whether they work in print or radio. Someone has to stand up for us, and often it will be them. Here are three questions from last week’s quiz.

1. Mottos and Slogans. What brand of deodorant and body wash enticed men with the hilarious slogan “Smell Like a Man, Man”? 
2. Internet Culture. Launched in 2010, what social medium is currently floating the idea of removing the public visibility of likes on posts? 
3. Newspaper Headlines. As we were reminded by 50^th-anniversary celebrations this week, what was the spaceflight that first landed humans on the Moon? 

P.P.S. “Guard well within yourself that treasure, kindness. Know how to give without hesitation, how to lose without regret, how to acquire without meanness.” George Sand

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

We all recharge in different ways, if at all, and sometimes we recharge best when the summertime provides us a needed respite from our busy schedules. Although most of us are neither farmers nor schoolchildren, we still vacation as if we were members of one of these two groups, hopefully setting aside part of the summer for our play.

The choice to take a break in mid-July might make sense for those of us who live in Davis or Washington DC, two cities known for their oppressive summer heat, for before air conditioning, people in these cities found that the air did not circulate quickly enough. I assumed that the barriers provided by the heat were on the mind of the wistful checker at Trader Joe’s when she told me yesterday that the evening temperatures dropped quickly during her recent week at Lake Tahoe: “At nighttime, we had to dig out our SWEATERS,” she said. She wished she were back there, and at that moment I felt like checking Airbnb for the availability of an alpine cabin to which my family and I could escape.

Of course, we’d have to find a vacation spot that accepts dogs. I’ve been staying up late at night with our puppy Margot (I wonder at what age I will stop calling our diminutive French bulldog a “puppy”), both to catch up on my writing when everyone else in the family is asleep, and to let the house cool down, the whole house fan circulating the cool night air with a determined velocity that John Adams or the Colonel Joseph Ballinger Chiles could only have dreamed of. The whole house fan also muffles the sounds of I-80, almost convincing my sleep-deprived and hopeful self that the recurrent susurrus of speeding cars, trucks, and motorcycles are in fact the sounds of surf. We will be so close to the geothermic attractions of the mountains and the ocean, we said to ourselves while signing the mortgage on our Davis home.

Sacramento is also close by. Today my 13-year-old son Truman heads off to acting camp at the B Street Theatre in Sacramento. This has become a summer tradition for our little thespian; for five years in a row he has appeared in one-act plays that he has taken part of his summer to help craft and shape, following the lead of the veteran local actors and educators Kurt Johnson (now a UC Davis employee) and Greg Alexander. Thoughtful and considerate, Truman leaves a lasting impression on his teachers at acting camp, even if he is not initially as loud and attention-gathering as some of his more boisterous classmates. I enjoy watching him grow and continue to blossom (do boys blossom?) every summer.

It could be argued that “acting camp” is a metaphor for our ongoing forays into adulthood, where first we try to convince others, and then eventually ourselves, that we can pull off the roles that we have been assigned. Some people continue this sort of thespian experimentation for decades before they are found out to be imposters. But then, because of earned seniority and the incipient retirement opportunities, it’s too late: we just own the role, and look forward to counting down our final years with the help of a gold watch.

We hope to reach our retirement years without what tennis players call “solo mishaps.” Sometimes trauma taxes our ability to maintain our lives’ roles convincingly. I am closest to someone who is recovering from recent (Friday) surgery, and she continues to work remotely on important projects, smile for the kids, and maintain a busy home, when, because of the swelling and the discomfort, she’d rather just curl up with an ice pack and MSNBC for the next several weeks, or months. She is mighty mighty, as Lionel Richie would say, and knows that her family depends upon her strength during this difficult time.

I have another friend who was in a horrific bike accident last week, having been struck and run over by semi-trailer truck on the streets of Davis. Despite multiple bone fractures to both his legs, he sent his other friends and me texts whose tone reflected his typical irreverent alacrity, all while being ambulanced to the UC Davis Medical Center for significant surgery and a week or more of hospitalization thereafter.

Whether formal or informal, our acting classes come in handy during such times, for they provide the training we need to persevere, to step into the spotlight, even when we feel that we are not ready. Substituting habit for heartbreak, or perseverance for panic, we continue the work that needs to be done.

So many people depend upon us to maintain character, whether in the tradition of character that David Brooks explores in his 2015 book The Road to Character, or the ringleader sense of the word that PT Barnum has recently been re-enacted cinematically; we remind ourselves, as my actor and theatre director father used to say, that “The show must go on.” Unaware of our difficulties, somewhere, an audience demands it. As actors, as performers of the selves we wish to project to the world, we pause, reflect for a moment, tap that well of inner strength, and then push on.

Even though we find ourselves in the depths of summer, in need of relief from our jobs and the weather, we might find ourselves repeating the line that we’ve heard in too many movies, from All That Jazz to The Incredibles: “It’s showtime!”

Tonight’s Pub Quiz will feature questions on topics raised above, as well as the following: balms for sore hearts, evening scents, the last remaining payphones, conservative heroes, tightropes, monosyllabic cities, stumbling consumerism, retired Olympians, responses to mistreatment, famous clubs, sustaining barracudas, cashing in on anthropomorphizing, Bible study, capital banks, notable high school runs, unusual mammals, comedic poles, the elephant not in the room, odd holidays, grey stone categories, expensive pines, bright surfaces, overcoming resistance, lies told to saltcellars, adapted country songs, quick maths, the decade of an earned nickname, shushing one’s critics, little packages, top rankings, missed opportunities, admirable people with their many prizes, apparel, and Shakespeare.

If you enjoy these newsletters, and you think others would, as well, invite them to subscribe, even if they never attend our quizzes. Perhaps the fear of missing out will eventually convince them to join us, as I hope you will do this evening. By the end of the quiz, everyone will wish they were sitting outside.

Dr. Andy

Your Quizmaster

https://www.yourquizmaster.com

Here are three questions from last week’s quiz, and different questions than those you might see in the Davis Enterprise every Sunday:

1. Science. In the world of physics, what A word do we use for the maximum extent of a vibration or oscillation, measured from the position of equilibrium? 
2. Books and Authors. The books Goals! and Eat That Frog! were written by a man whose first name is Brian. His last name could be the first name of a woman or a man or a police detective created by Chester Gould. What is that last name? 
3. Shakespeare. Speaking of soccer, the only Shakespeare play title that ends with a G sports this quotation: “A victory is twice itself when the achiever brings home full numbers.” Name the play.  

P.S. Let’s close with some words from one of my favorite bons vivants: “Good evening, ladies and gentleman. My name is Orson Welles. I am an actor. I am a writer. I am a producer. I am a director. I am a magician. I appear onstage and on the radio. Why are there so many of me and so few of you?” Orson Welles

P.P.S. Speaking of shows, I loved seeing the new Davis Shakespeare Ensemble production of The Tenth Muse last week. And yesterday my daughter, who is not in the habit of seeing historical dramas about Mexican national heroes and poets, saw the play, and she also loved it for its humor and wit. Highly recommended!

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

Counting our weekly pub quizzes and my KDVS public affairs radio show, but not counting the classes I teach at UC Davis, I would estimate that I host about 150 events a year. That means that on about three sevenths of the days in any particular year, I’m speaking into a microphone, standing before a crowd, or introducing new content or new performers to an audience.

You’d think that I would take a break from such abundant speaking duties when on vacation, but actually I was back at it in Washington, D.C. last week, sharing with others three different facets of my public personae. On day one of the Smith-Lemli-Opitz Foundation Scientific and Parents Conference, I got to facilitate the self-introductions of all the parents, some visiting from Canada, England, and Wales. A couple days later, I got to present a simplified pub quiz to a crowd that previously thought I was merely a mild-mannered and genial Californian who loves kids. And then on day three of the conference, for my favorite speaking gig of the week, I got to co-present with my wife Kate on the topic of “Self-Care Strategies for Parents of Disabled Children” (that’s my updated title).

Kate had written the entire presentation, but she had asked me to create the Keynote slides and to take the second microphone and share the stage with her as she spoke on a topic that she has been presenting to Davis moms for the last 20 years. I was happy to do so. Rather than rehearsing together, as professionals do, we read over Kate’s notes separately, both preparing the gems and bon mots that we hoped would complement what the other speaker had to say.

I was pleased with the result. If we succeeded with our presentation, it was partly because the audience was hungry for what we had to share. They had sat through a couple days’ worth of scientific presentations, along with a necessary mix of practical talks that provided information crucial to parents who typically knew no one else in their region, or even their state, with their children’s rare syndrome. Kate knew how to connect with these folks, many of whom she had counseled via Facebook for years. She had written a talk that had touched the hearts of the attendees, reminding them that a supportive community of people understood their challenges, and were ready to stand with them as we march together into a sometimes-difficult future.

It’s rare that a talk so inspires me, especially if I am the one holding the microphone. Luckily, I get to support a woman (a social worker, an author, a counselor and friend) who provides a heartfelt balm for exhausted parents of fragile kids. In an age that the television represents as distracted and event heartless, I can think of no more honorable cause.

Tonight’s Pub Quiz might take on some of the subjects raised above. Expect also questions about popular music, road trips, American heroes, people named Joss, stains on a nation, iambic four-syllable words, resonant voices, butterflies and moths, G sports, invasive species, the sustainability of radio, vast edifices, universal donors, humanism, the value of a dollar, the times when spelling counts, detectives, frogs, positions of equilibrium, the problems with fireworks, drownings, action movies, canine activities, big questions, prize-winners, associations with stripes, short titles, Indiana, numbers that go with letters, people whose adopted names are Peter, Disney, and Shakespeare.

I enjoyed running into some of you at the 4^th of July celebrations in Community Park. Congratulations to our Davis poet laureate James Lee Jobe for his heartfelt poetic performance just before the fireworks.

See you tonight! It’ll good to be back.

Your Quizmaster

https://www.yourquizmaster.com

http://www.twitter.com/yourquizmaster

http://www.facebook.com/yourquizmaster

yourquizmaster@gmail.com

Here are five questions from the quiz for July 1, 2013:

1. One-Hit Wonders. My brother Oliver thinks that of course more than 50% of the teams playing tonight will know who sang the 1981 one-hit wonder “Mickey,” sometimes called “Hey Mickey,” which begins with the repeated assertion that Mickey is, indeed, so fine. I disagreed. Who performed the song? 
2. More on Mickey. Which of us was right, Uncle Oliver or Dr. Andy?
3. People Named Roscoe. The American silent film actor, comedian, and director who mentored Charlie Chaplin, and discovered Buster Keaton and Bob Hope, had the first name of Roscoe. What was his last name? 

P.S. I enjoyed learning more about mentorship when I was in DC last week. Here’s what Emerson says about this: “Our chief want in life is somebody who will make us do what we can.”

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

I worked as an usher and a cashier at the Tenley Circle Theatre in Washington DC the Friday that the Prince film Purple Rain opened. People lined up early, and we were not anticipating the impressive noontime size of the turnout. As I was getting the theatre ready – setting out the stanchions and the velvet rope barriers for crowd control, counting the till, and popping the popcorn – people kept asking me the same question: What time will the box office open? Eventually I created a sign saying “THE BOX OFFICE WILL OPEN AT 12:30,” but still the questions kept coming. Like me, film-goers were excited to see this film, and ours was one of the few theaters showing it in my hometown of 600,000 people. So the questions kept coming, and I found myself repeating, over and over again, that the box office will open at 12:30.

Fast forward 35 years to yesterday, and we found another Washingtonian in a predicament similar to mine, but requiring much more patience. Yesterday, my wife Kate walked into the National Portrait Gallery and asked the woman at the front desk where one can find the portraits of the Obamas. She was told that President Obama’s portrait is found in the America’s Presidents exhibit on the second floor, and that Michelle Obama’s portrait is found in the 20^th Century Americans exhibit on the third floor.

Ten seconds later, a woman walked up to same employee and asked where the Obamas’ portraits can be found. She was told that President Obama’s portrait is found in the America’s Presidents exhibit on the second floor, and that Michelle Obama’s portrait is found in the 20^th Century Americans exhibit on the third floor. The woman thanked her and left, upon which time a man approached the museum employee to ask the same question. The museum employee looked at him and responded as if she were being asked that question for the first time today, or ever.

And I thought I have it bad when I ask a new Pub Quiz team if they have any questions, and then I hear this response: “Yes. What are the answers? HA HA HA!” Having hosted more than 750 pub quizzes, I smile a prepared smile when I hear this line. As President John Quincy Adams once said, “Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish.” Repetitive challenges teach us patience, and thus compassion.

Anyway, like milk in the supermarket, the Obamas’ portraits were placed as far away from the museum entrances as possible, thus requiring museum-goers to see as many other portraits while on their quest. These celebrity portraits have their own stanchions and velvet ropes before them to help fans know where to line up for their photo opportunities. And line up we did! Extra guards were present to oversee the frivolity.

(A partisan aside for 2019: I overheard someone say that it will be a shame to see the next presidential portrait added to the Portrait Gallery’s presidential collection, except that it will mean the end of the current era. And then a member of my party commented that at one point during our DC visit the closest Starbucks was in the Trump International Hotel, but that, even though she was thirsty, she refused to go in. These are strange times indeed.)

Tomorrow we fly home from Washington D.C., from one home to another, and reunite with our friends and our French bulldog. Unlike the repetitions of Obama portrait directions that must haunt the dreams of certain museum employees, for us the repetitive sameness of our Davis life – walking the dog on the greenbelts of South Davis, descending the stairs into the basement of Freeborn Hall on Wednesday afternoons, and dining with friends in our favorite Davis restaurant and pub – is a source of comfort. You will have a substitute Quizmaster this evening (thanks, James), but soon I will return to my many posts and provide the cheerful and practiced Monday-night entertainment that you have comes to expect.

Tonight’s Pub Quiz will feature questions on topics raised above, as well as the following: American royalty, the Pew Research Center, musical metaphors, grand avenues, summer songs, American rivers, BAFTAs, research aides, garbled hawk anagrams, the Santos family, famous Pearls, windowpanes, Mandarins, dinner in the lounge, roaring loyals, adaptation on the micro level, the context of fancy cocktails, the New York Yankees, peg-climbers, little women, nature without life, notable governors, women in books, cultural capitals, that which splits, unwelcome heat, words for “intelligent,” articles of clothing, big cities, Roman generals, cells, champions, the Florida Keys, holidays, coffee as fuel, and Shakespeare.

Happy 4^th of July week! This Friday, the state poet of Nebraska, Matt Mason, will be reading at the Natsoulas Gallery at 8 PM. What a fun night that will be. Happy birthday, America!

Enjoy yourself at the quiz this evening.

Your Quizmaster, Dr. Andy

Three sample pub quiz questions:

1. 1920s Books and Authors. Who wrote To the Lighthouse and Orlando: A Biography?

2. Sports. Little Caesars Arena is home of the Detroit Red Wings and the Detroit WHATs?

3. Shakespeare. The title subject of a history play, under whose reign did the Church of England renounce Papal authority in 1534?

P.S. “I can get a better grasp of what is going on in the world from one good Washington dinner party than from all the background information NBC piles on my desk.” Barbara Walters

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

Probably one of the bravest things I ever did was move to California without any support structure there. This week’s headlines about the 30th anniversary of the release of the film Batman reminded me where I was and what I was doing 30 years ago this week. 

With the help of a traveling buddy and at least one auto repair shop, my 1975 orange Datsun B210 survived the trip from Washington, D.C. to Berkeley, California. I had visited Berkeley just two years previously with my friend Smoker Bob, and had fallen in love with the place, resolving to move back if I didn’t have any better offers upon graduating from Boston University. I knew that I wanted to earn a PhD in English, and that the University of California offered the strongest PhD programs that I could afford. And Berkeley, I decided, was the best place for me to earn my California residency.

Bedraggled and relieved after the cross-country drive, we arrived in Berkeley in this week of 1989, and saw the lines outside the Shattuck Avenue theatre. We didn’t have housing or a plan, but we still locked the “Pumpkin” (as we called the Datsun) and escaped to the magic of Gotham City, eager to see if the guy who played Betelgeuse could also play a superhero.

30 years have passed, and tomorrow I return to my onetime hometown of Washington DC for a medical conference and some time with family. My definition of “family” has changed. My father the film critic passed away halfway between 1989 and today. My DC friends have scattered, as if some centrifugal force compelled us to escape the confines of our childhood dreams, and expectations of our parents. Our children have arrived in the interim decades. As Jerry Seinfeld says, they are here to replace us. 

My hometown has changed radically, sometimes in unwelcome ways, but certain parts, what William Butler Yeats called “monuments to unageing intellect,” remain. On this trip I will introduce my 13-year-old history buff to the some of the same museums that I first entered as a child, slack jawed with awe. We will visit the parks and the streets where I was awakened to joy and wonder. 

And we may pass by movie theatres where people are lined up outside to see superhero movies. I guess that in addition to showing gratitude to those who helped launch me towards the west, I should also be grateful that some things never change.

Tonight’s pub quiz will cover topics alluded to above, and to the following: playthings, cats, the stock market, textiles, first responders, splash damage, recipes, thunder, goodwill, Detroit, aspirational fiats, gasoline, novelists, shape-changers, river walks, Oscar-nominees, bees, Asian-Americans, dreams of stageplay, notable predecessors, breaks with authority, wires from the Avengers, famous moms, famous counties, feet, early American policies, symbols, butterflies, the unemployment rate for you, exits, The Economist, Byzantine examples, and Shakespeare.

I hope you can join us tonight. If so, please be as noisy as possible when appropriate.

Your Quizmaster

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Here are three questions from a June, 2013 quiz:

1. Mottos and Slogans.    According to Time Magazine, what was the top political campaign slogan of 2008? 
2. Internet Culture: Modern Acronyms. What does the “mp” stand for in the term “mp3”? 
3. Four for Four.      According to the animated series Teen Titans, which of the following are members of the Teen Titans? Beast Boy, Cyborg, Robin, Talon. 

P.S. See you tonight!

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

From the point of view of a faculty member at UC Davis, commencement can be a time for emotion and reflection. I attended the Saturday evening graduation ceremonies of the College of Letters and Science (after receiving an email from the L+S Dean asking if I had planned to attend). Seven thoughts came to mind that I’ll share with you today.
 

1. UC Davis is huge. It took three different ceremonies Saturday for all of our Letters and Science students to be given their diplomas, and L+S is only one of the many colleges at our local university (albeit, the largest).
2. The Rec Hall, as we called it in the 1990s, has served commencements ably for decades. For example, I myself graduated twice in that same cavernous arena, the final time with my wife Kate, parents, and brother Oliver in attendance. In those benighted times, people had to take pictures with actual cameras.
3. Commencement makes me proud to work for UC Davis. Our students are so dedicated, hard-working, innovative, and creative. My colleagues and I have prepared the students well for upcoming vocational and life challenges. Also, commencement gives certain students an opportunity to share their humor and their singing of the National Anthem.
4. I wish I could teach even more classes. Because of my administrative duties, I teach just one four-unit class a quarter, and typically a few first-year seminars a year. I loved cheering on some of the students who I had in freshman seminars years ago, as well as the ones who I’ve been working closely with throughout this past school year. They bring so much to every classroom interaction.
5. I loved the opportunity to support the students with whom I have worked the most. My graduating assistant was there with his parents, siblings, grandparents, and a fiancée. He and I texted each other as the ceremonies were about to begin, if only so I could determine where he was sitting among his thousand classmates. Other favorites from past years, including the winner of the UC Davis Medal (who has received a lot of deserved press and praise recently), received texts or emails of congratulations from me right after they crossed the stage.
6. We are getting older. As Shakespeare said in one of his darker moments, “I wasted time, and now doth time waste me.” Cheering all the graduates whom I have gotten to know in ten-week chunks of life, I sometimes felt like I was watching one of the best parts of my professional life pass before my eyes. Whether they are walking across the stage at the Rec Hall or changing the world for the better in Oxford, England (Hello, Melissa Skorka! You make all your former UC Davis professors proud!), my students have often provided me the energy and inspiration to try to do my best work in the classroom, and I am grateful for that gift.
7. One should always bike to commencement.

Tonight’s Pub Quiz will feature questions on topics raised above, as well as the following: Dendrology, macadamia nuts, favorite sultans, greenhouse gasses, new national leaders, musical directives, record streaks, second commandments, contradictions, people named Leonard, meeting the press, medical donors, carrying the weight of a pub quizzer, pharaohs, big purchases, Swedish biking practices, the micronauts, gaunt people, percentages, islands where one can hire an illustrator or a game developer, Judi Dench, aesthetes, jeans, circles, internal caution signs, empirical discoveries, funny place names, new world songs, Mariska Hargitay, and Shakespeare.

Sacramento Poet Laureate Indigo Moor will be reading at the Natsoulas Gallery this coming Thursday at 8. Perhaps you would like to join us?

I hope to see you this evening at 7. Emily and other favorite players will also be graduating, so we should gather with great gusto to send them off!

Your Quizmaster
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yourquizmaster@gmail.com

Here are three questions from last week’s quiz:
 

1. Internet and Video Game Culture. Because of viewers like you, the highest grossing video game movie in North America is instant classic, Pokemon: Detective Pikachu. The dethroned video game film was nominated for the Worst Actress Golden Raspberry Award in 2001. Name that film.  
2. Consumer Goods. What do the words Paperwhite and Oasis have to do with one another?  
3. Sports. The first European player to receive the NBA Most Valuable Player Award is the only player ever to play for a single franchise for 21 seasons. Name him.  

P.S. “A graduation ceremony is an event where the commencement speaker tells thousands of students dressed in identical caps and gowns that ‘individuality’ is the key to success.” Robert Orben