Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,
My Washington Waldorf School education came in handy often while I was earning my undergraduate and graduate degrees in English. Master teacher Jack Petrash patiently and continually told my classmates and me stories that were filled with magic and wonder. Because many of these stories were also central myths and parables of the world’s religions, and because many of them recounted the foundational narratives of world literature, I have drawn upon that deep well often in class and in conversation, providing context for students, for example, as reminders of what we should know in order to be educated.
Such narratives are even more important for what they do for us, rather than just because of the new information that we carry in our heads. Jack Petrash was patient in the retelling of these stories, in this way he taught us patience, too. Listening to a long story is a kind of meditation that we become practiced at when we are children, if we are lucky, and become unaccustomed to when we are older, choosing instead to chase after distractions on big screens and small. Partly for this reason, I have returned to listening as a form of meditation, consuming a couple books a month while bicycling to and from campus.
Stories are important, too, because of their transformative effect, and even, to coin a term, their transportative effect. Art critic John Berger puts it this way: “When we read a story, we inhabit it. The covers of the book are like a roof and four walls. What is to happen next will take place within the four walls of the story. And this is possible because the story’s voice makes everything its own.” Reading is liberating for the imagination and the soul.
Aristotle famously spoke on the transformative emotional effect a great play can have on its playgoers. My grade school teacher Jack Petrash introduced me to Aristotle in the 1970s, and at UC Davis I’ve been lucky to teach a number of sections of “Introduction to the Principles of Literary Criticism: Plato to Coleridge” in the intervening decades. Nothing roots a seminal text like Aristotle’s Poetics in one’s mind more than teaching it; the patient professor is reminded that teaching itself can be a form of meditation, a form of storytelling.
I’ve thought a great deal about Aristotle’s concepts of “pity and fear,” of “discovery” in the plot of a literary work, and of the necessary qualities of a character who is worthy of an investment of time and attention. Great rewards await readers who engage in such identification. As George R. R. Martin once put it, “A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies . . . The man who never reads lives only one.” One also takes risks as a reader, for the person who consumes great works of literature – and perhaps this might also be said about stirring films – might also experience many deaths, giving each of us a different sort of reflective process that focuses necessarily on departures, on loss.
Such losses remind us intellectually of the ephemeral quality of life, but the jury is still out on whether such literary and cinematic losses can prepare us for the more bracing life challenges that await us. As Shakespeare says, “Everyone can master a grief but he that has it.”
Tonight’s Pub Quiz will feature questions on topics raised above, as well as on the following: Wesley Snipes, Woody Harrelson, animated characters, Marvel movies, comedy, notable queens, active predators, world initiatives, blizzards, notable losses, domiciles, actresses, big games and matches, legislators, memorized lines of poetry for National Poetry Month, the unexpected groupings of monosyllabic nouns (such as dance, fur, gas, light, and sound), emperors, architects, heads of state, population counts, classic films with sequels, poetic pronouncements, U.S. presidents, magic, wildcats, angry adjectives, deficiencies, odd-numbered years, stopping only when sated, food and drink, and Shakespeare.
As I will be hosting a bonus poetry reading with Jane Hirshfield this evening, for today is the last day of National Poetry Month, today you will be quizzed by a substitute quizmaster, James Haven. James describes himself this way: “James Haven has been a DeVere’s pub quiz regular for over the past five years. He moved to Davis in 2008 to finish his BA in Philosophy and, since 2009, he has been employed by the city of Davis in transportation services for the elderly and disabled. He grew up in the Fellowship of Friends, a pseudo-cult located in the foothills of Yuba County where he was exposed to classical music, art, all things Greek, and Shakespeare (the only plays the youth acting troupe were allowed to perform). James enjoys the nerdier things in life including Dungeons & Dragons, Magic the Gathering, and the marvel comic universe especially the X-Men (DC comics need not apply). James is probably most recognized in Davis by his adorable Corgi companion, Lord Buckingham Reginald McMorecourt Chesterfield or “Bucky” for short.” Intriguing!
I hope you will still join us for the fun. I may be able to return in time to help with the grading. Thanks very much to James for stepping in for me this evening.
Your Quizmaster
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Here are three questions from last week’s quiz:
- Mottos and Slogans. Nicknamed “The Sport of Kings,” what was an Olympic sport from 1900 to 1936?
- Internet Culture. According to a headline in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, “Who Has More of Your Personal Data Than Facebook?”
- Newspaper Headlines. Which of the following stars of the 2013 comedy film Last Vegas today is older than the marriage of George Herbert Walker Bush and Barbara Bush? Robert De Niro, Michael Douglas, Morgan Freeman, Kevin Kline.
P.S. Poetry Night is also Thursday. See Poetry in Davis for details. You should really attend one of the poetry readings I host before we all die (decades and decades from now, I’m sure).
