Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

Driving through midtown Sacramento yesterday, I reminded myself of one important reason why Kate and I chose to move there back in 1991: The trees! Huge oaks and maples line the streets where we used to walk, grateful for the shade on hot afternoons in our “City of Trees.” Someone thought that Paris had more impressive tree cover than California’s capital, but that just isn’t so. As Hillary Louise Johnson wrote for Sactown Magazine, “Paris’s “meager 8.8-percent tree canopy coverage can’t touch Sacramento’s 23.6 percent with a 10-foot branch. In other words, when it comes to Mother Nature’s trunk show, the only way the French capital is greener than we are is, dare we say, with envy.”

Somehow, I don’t think Paris is very envious of Sacramento, despite the younger city’s impressive canopy coverage, allegedly the third greatest in the world (after Vancouver and Singapore). But obviously Sacramento has earned its nickname, also a onetime nickname of my childhood home of Washington DC, where I frequented an illegally-constructed tree fort in Glover Archibald Park.

Although filled with more new neighborhoods than midtown Sacramento, Davis can look to its beloved greenbelts for tree cover, as well as those famous walnut trees heading west on Russell Boulevard, planted by the LaRue family in 1876. We in Davis rightfully love our UC Davis Arboretum, but sometimes that quaint redwood grove there seems like a teaser, especially to those who have lived in the Bay Area, as I have. I loved the redwoods of Marin County so much that I took Kate to Muir Woods to propose marriage to her. We had to walk deep into the forest to separate ourselves from the (other) tourists, finding a spot by a brook that was as green as the Forest Moon of Endor. Acknowledging the importance of trees to our growing family, we even gave our son Jukie the middle name of “Forest” (with one R).

As Davis Poet Laureate, I have been asked to write some poems in preparation for a city Arbor Day celebration in February, even though Arbor Day is in April. How soon should one begin such poems? Well, as the Chinese proverb goes, “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.” With their beauty, majesty, and necessity, trees remind us not to procrastinate, whether it be for a planting project or a poetry project.

Updating the Chinese proverb, and perhaps as a warning to future presidents, Franklin Delano Roosevelt once said this: “A nation that destroys its soils destroys itself. Forests are the lungs of our land, purifying the air and giving fresh strength to our people.” That which is most valuable to us usually has no price tag.

Even though recent winds have shaken the pollen out of our city’s trees, and felled trees that knocked out our electricity while I was writing this newsletter, I hope that you, too, are purified and given strength by the tress you pass by today. Kahlil Gibran, whom I have quoted often as a wedding officiant, said in “Sand and Foam” that “Trees are poems that the earth writes upon the sky.” Grateful for my bicycle commute along the grand trees nourished by Putah Creek, I shall try to draw inspiration for pedaling as well as poems. I wish the same for you.

 

Tonight’s Pub Quiz will feature questions on some of the topics raised above. Expect also questions about rotund bellies, the Caribbean, Winston Churchill, agricultural colleges, Don Lipper’s birthday, Spaniards, habitats, counted centuries, the meaning of “mega,” changed names upon exit of the colonialists, incomplete prognostication, sparsely populated islands, ersatz avengers, beginnings and endings, India, a letter that starts the name of four cities, relevant horns, Oscar-winners, being sorry about having trouble understanding right now (as Alexa says upon being awakened after a power outage), exports of Israel, multiple opinions, intermediate materials, California celebrities, eastern conferences, the world music awards, C words, an opponent’s headquarters, coastal surprises, unusual transportation options, religious groups, and Shakespeare.

I hope to see you this evening, and that from tonight’s Pub Quiz you will learn something new that you can use later. As Emerson observed, “The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn.” Keeping Emerson in mind, I will help you turn over some fresh soil, but only figuratively!

Your Quizmaster

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yourquizmaster@gmail.com

 

Here are three questions from the quiz of October 3^rd, 2016, when we were all so much younger:

1. Books and Authors.   The authors and philosophers H.G. Wells, Henri Bergson, and Albert Einstein were all deeply interested in the same specific topic on my answer sheet. Name the topic. 
2. Sports.  The United States defeated Europe in gold at Hazeltine yesterday, taking a decisive 17-11 victory. What cup did the Americans win? 
3. Shakespeare.   According to her father, what prime number age is Juliet in the play Romeo and Juliet? 

 

P.S. You have but two more weekends to see the current production of Midsummer Night’s Dream. See the website http://www.shakespearedavis.org for details and to buy tickets. Thanks, Davis Shakespeare Ensemble!

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

Miles Davis is bugling unhurriedly through “Nuit Sur Les Champs-Elysees,” the jazz tune that I chose to silence the caffeinated talkers at the café table next to me as I despair the gun violence in Las Vegas, and reflect upon the world in which we live. I never got to see Miles Davis or Dave Brubeck play, though they were both younger than John Lee Hooker, whom I once saw perform in San Francisco. I had my chance to see those jazz masters, but I’m sure that I was distracted. What were the distractions? A lifetime ago, they might have been television shows or New Yorker cartoons or some other combination of pixels: the ephemera of our digital age. Eventually, I would resolve to become less distractible, perhaps learning a lesson from Jack Kerouac: “Great things are not accomplished by those who yield to trends and fads and popular opinion.”

Saturday comedian Paula Poundstone told a Vacaville audience that she wonders sometimes if she will soon wake up from a bizarre and frightening nightmare, meaning the strange world in which we live. Older even than me, most of the NPR-addicted audience nodded in agreement and understanding. When I was a teenager, my friends and I told “Bedtime for Bonzo” jokes when the former actor Ronald Reagan was inaugurated several miles from my childhood home of Washington D.C., but at least we had to acknowledge that he had once governed a populous state out west. You Californians had vetted him.

Trump had no such experience, and he has proved to be just as isolated and underprepared as we might have feared. Because President Trump hasn’t the help of an administration that is completely staffed, principled, or sufficiently experienced, Trump’s callow and unscrupulous machinations are reshaping our government in ways that daily heighten our anxiety and concern. When one thinks of the president’s days-long pause before beginning to mobilize help for people of Puerto Rico (who, notably, do not participate in the Electoral College), or when one considers his use of Twitter to insult past presidents and to undermine his own Secretary of State’s attempts to de-escalate the war of words and threats with North Korea, one can’t help but be alarmed.

Whether our anxieties are sparked by Donald Trump or by calamities and tragedies in the news, we each cope with our resulting worries in different ways, perhaps legal or illegal drugs, therapy sessions, or long walks in the UC Davis Arboretum. I posit that at a time like this we should find comfort in the arts. In my poetry seminar this past Friday, my students and I discussed Walter Pater’s assertion that “All art constantly aspires towards the condition of music”; after hearing early Miles Davis for an hour or two, I understand better what Pater meant. Such music elevates the soul and the sensibilities, reminding one of those forces and influences in the world that seek to counterbalance the crudity evidenced in contemporary politics, and the sadness that results from disasters caused by nature or by man. For me, poetry also works this sort of magic, whether it be a beloved classic from Shakespeare, Lord Byron, T.S. Eliot, Elizabeth Bishop, or Langston Hughes, or something fresh and surprising by a living poet; for example, the spoken-word maestro Fong Tran performs in Davis at the John Natsoulas Gallery on October 5^th, while the older Pulitzer Prize-winner W.S. Merwin still turns out amazing and understated masterpieces. Such poetic comfort, discovery, or re-discovery helps us center our thinking, and reflect upon the emotional truths that uplift and endure outside the battling choleric angers and mind-numbing tragedies of our age.

I know or know of storm-ravaged American citizens in Puerto Rico, grieving families in Las Vegas, a forlorn librarian in Portland, and a mom here in Davis who are struggling, who are suffering this week. Many of them are not ready to let in a song or a poem, much less to visit a museum or watch a documentary. The timing or the intensity of their struggles precludes the receptivity and calm needed to receive musical or poetic magic. As the Indian proverb says, “A healthy person has many wishes, but the sick person has only one.” That said, the arts remain for us, ready to help us imagine or eventually make our many wishes.

After telling us about her metaphorical nightmare from which she sometimes wishes she could awaken, Paula Poundstone told us that nevertheless she hoped she wouldn’t wake up until after her conversation with the audience in Vacaville. She recognized the power of performance, and of humor: these were her gifts to us. An obsessive talker, Poundstone also treasured having interlocutors with whom she could share her ideas, her idiosyncrasies, and her comedic reflections on the challenges we all face. Like some candidates for president, cable news is meant to alarm us about an incipient threat, something that would keep us agitated and wanting more, either more reassurance, or more actionable information. By contrast, art, music, and poetry aspire towards the condition of permanency, something outside this era of widespread instability, tribulation, and mourning.

Insofar as they discourage cell phone use and encourage commune, a pub quiz or a poetry reading might just present you a moment of relief from the savage burdens of time, a distraction from the smoke in the air, and the restive and blustery winds that are shaking and emptying our trees in the first weeks of autumn. Join me for such a communal escape this week so that, with a bit of distraction and artistry, I might just be able to help you carry your psychic load.

 

Tonight’s Pub Quiz will feature questions on some of the topics raised above. Expect also questions on the following: The U.S. Constitution, Emily Dickinson, former Pub Quiz champions, ethical codes, innovators, local basketball teams, last words, kite flying, polls of Brits, difficult starts, fancy clocks, gold stars, understanding conflict, sciences with multiple paradigms, differences from Manhattan, CEOs, Allen Ginsberg, Italian capitals, leaders, unforgettable strolls, physics, eternal rhymes, notable tears, Yoda, Sicily, boa hurricanes, pit bulls, human anatomy, Walt Whitman, really unusual words, constants, Tom Petty, and Shakespeare.

The winds are due to die down by the time the Pub Quiz starts at 7 this evening. I hope you will join us!

 

Your Quizmaster

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Here are three questions from last week’s quiz:

 

1. Another Film Question. Grossing over half a billion dollars domestically, what are the six words in the title of the top-grossing film released in the last 365 days?      

 

1. Science: The Dining Habits of Raccoons. At 40%, which of the following makes up the largest percentage of a raccoon’s diet? Invertebrates, Plants, or Vertebrates.  

 

1. Books and Authors. Ezra Jack Keats earned the Caldecott Award for his 1962 children’s book about a boy named Peter exploring his neighborhood after the first snowfall of the season. What are the three words in the title of the book?  

 

P.S. Please visit https://www.fongtran.com to see who we have featuring at the John Natsoulas Gallery this coming Thursday night at 8. View the video presentation of his poem “White Hipsters.” Tran is an accomplished performer who deserves our attention.

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

The most poignant part of our family trip to Alcatraz yesterday was listening to the audio of what the C and D Block convicts would have heard on New Year’s Eve. On that west side of the island, the cells were warmer, and the sea breezes would bring in sounds of celebration and jollity from the nearby St Francis Yacht Club, less than two miles from the prison. Especially on New Year’s Eve one would hear champagne glasses clinking, fireworks exploding and, the most desperate sound of all, women’s laughter, traveling across the frozen waters of the San Francisco Bay.

Whereas the size of the cells, five feet by nine feet, meant that each convict got his own room (meaning some privacy and fewer incidental assaults), this also meant that the isolation took a heavy toll on the “numbers” there (the incarcerated were not referred to by name). In the early years of the prison, the convicts were not allowed to speak to one another except during meals and in the recreation yard. Some used More code to reach out to others. In the later years, isolation in a pitch-black cell waited for those who broke the rules. One convict told the story of closing his eyes tight in a dark cell until he saw a light, transforming the hallucinated light into a TV screen, and then watching TV shows of his own invention while crouching on the concrete floors of D-Block isolation cells. As Voltaire said, “Optimism is the madness of insisting that all is well when we are miserable.”

Need one be imprisoned to feel as these convicts have? Poets have explored this theme, revealing psychological truths that returned to me during my time in prison yesterday. In his poem “London,” William Blake wrote famously of the social and mental limitations to which we have all become accustomed:

 

In every cry of every Man,

In every Infants cry of fear,

In every voice: in every ban,

The mind-forg’d manacles I hear.

 

How many people you know, how many of us, wear mind-forg’d manacles?

As I walked through the Alcatraz cell blocks yesterday, many of them familiar to me from the 1979 Clint Eastwood film Escape from Alcatraz, I kept hearing in my head two relevant sections from T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land:

 

After the agony in stony places      

The shouting and the crying          

Prison and place and reverberation          

Of thunder of spring over distant mountains      

He who was living is now dead      

We who were living are now dying

With a little patience

 

And my favorite:

 

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

 

One can’t un-visit Alcatraz after the first visit, as this was for me. Our imagined extended stays there reshape us, and perhaps make us grateful for the influences we’ve enjoyed, and the choices we’ve made. On the other hand, after such a visit, one doesn’t need to hear a distant woman’s new year’s eve laughter or read a poem by T.S. Eliot to understand desolate metaphors for isolation.

Confucius said, “There are three methods to gaining wisdom. The first is reflection, which is the highest. The second is limitation, which is the easiest. The third is experience, which is the bitterest.” I hope sufficient reflection might help you shake off whatever “mind-forg’d manacles” are limiting you today.

 

In addition to topics raised above, tonight’s Pub Quiz will cover the following: unusual draft picks, strong records, Russian farms, inadvisable flights, the habits of DJs, neighborhood explorations in a red cowl, religious festivals, real names of millionaires, a bandit’s diet, stories about rebels, knights named Ivan, Jane Seymour, famous birds, the minds of the incarcerated, grateful emergences, biology basics, dancing musicians, New Orleans exports, “reality,” months on the calendar, checkbook comparisons, Firestones, iterations of pop, admirable bends, where Diego went, Bruce Lee, media matters, the United Nations General Assembly, light switches, and Shakespeare.

If you are the first person to show me evidence that you have recruited a new team – yours or another group’s – to join us at the Pub Quiz this evening, I will spring for a delightful serving of pub chips, perhaps with curry ketchup and the gravy on the side. See you tonight!

 

Your Quizmaster

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yourquizmaster@gmail.com

 

Here are three questions from last week’s quiz:

 

1. UC Davis Chancellors. You may or may not know the last name of the new Chancellor at UC Davis. Name him.  

 

1. Pop Culture – Television.   The first season of what superhero TV show featured the following actors? Mike Colter, Mahershala Ali, and Simone Missick.  

 

1. Another Music Question. Who sang her songs “Love Drought” and “Sandcastles” at the most recent Grammy Awards ceremony, in February of 2017?  

 

 

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

There are four giants of 20^th century American theatre who are also huge figures in American literature: Eugene O’Neill, Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, and Edward Albee. Sometimes added to this list are Sam Shepard, who died in July, as well as August Wilson, Lorraine Hansberry, David Mamet, and Amiri Baraka. As someone who has read and studied plays by all these playwrights, I have come to learn that if you ever have a chance to see a play by one of these American masters, you go.

I met Edward Albee only once. He came to UC Davis 13 years ago, and stopped by Sproul Hall to talk to a small group of professors and graduate students. The iconic playwright was gruff and a bit impatient, as I discovered when I asked him an informed question. He spent a few uncomfortable minutes interrogating me back with his own questions, perhaps to discourage the others from pressing him as I had. Before an audience of my departmental colleagues and mentors, Albee and I talked about his being awarded the Margo Jones Award for the advancement of American Theatre (which my dad also won), and about the local theatre scene, including plays I had recently seen at the B Street Theatre in Sacramento.

Fast forward a decade and a half, and B Street has just launched its first Albee production, the ambitious Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? My wife Kate and some friends and I got to attend the opening night performance this past Sunday, and dine and chat with the director and some of the cast. We talked about Albee and this play, but also about the seemingly decade-long plans to open a brand new B Street Theatre in the almost-finished the Sofia Tsakopoulos Center for the Arts at 27^th and Capital Avenue, a block from historic Sutter’s Fort, and near a great number of fortunate restaurants and coffee shops.

Having been a subscriber at the B Street since before I moved to Davis in the late 1990s, I am certainly partial, but we just loved this production. I was reminded all over again of the impact of watching a world-class play, in this case, one that won the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award and the 1963 Tony Award for Best Play. It was considered too controversial to be presented the Pulitzer. The favorite play by director Dave Pierini, this production reminded me of a Greek tragedy in its conflicts, revealed secrets, and intensity, but with lots of laughs and intrigue along the way. The substance, complexity, and payoff of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? are symphonic, leaving one amazed and intrigued, even the next day.

The two leads, Kurt Johnson and Elizabeth Nunziato, have more B Street productions under their belts than the rest of the company combined, and their experience really shows, convincingly inhabiting their roles as they exchange lines such as these:

Martha: Truth or illusion, George; you don’t know the difference.

George: No, but we must carry on as though we did.

Martha: Amen.

Great actors do indeed find truths to share in the communally fabricated illusions of a play. Taken up by the intensity of this production, I couldn’t help but (positively) compare Johnson and Nunziato’s portrayals of George and Martha to those of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, the B Street production offering somewhat more subtlety and somewhat fewer broken dishes than in the Mike Nichols film, nominated for thirteen Academy Awards, in every eligible category.

The psychologically gladiatorial combat between George and Martha provides the play its ruthless power, as well as some of its best lines. Jason Kuykendall and Dana Brooke co-star as Nick and Honey, the audience for and recipients of some of the older couple’s derision and academically-informed wordplay (George and Nick are history and biology professors, respectively). As an actor, Kuykendall in particular has really matured, his characterization becoming necessarily deeper than other roles given him in recent years, such as that of often shirtless Spike in the B Street production of Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike. Dana Brooke does a fine job letting her boozy expressions and tremulous voice reveal her growing understanding of the play’s dark narratives and startling enigmas.

The play’s tone alternates between comical and brutal, but at the end I found the play to be cathartic and appropriately exhausting. The friends with whom we saw the play harbored none of our preformulated positive biases, but still loved the play as much as we did, one of them writing this: “Amazing. If you’re anywhere near Sacramento and can spare 3+ hours, I strongly recommend it.” I understand that enthusiasm, and share the recommendation. If you have a chance, go see Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf,” showing at the B Street Theatre in Sacramento until October 29^th.

 

Tonight’s Pub Quiz will feature questions about some of the topics raised above, as well as about maritime travel, favorite channels, chiefs, deltas and gulfs, Academy Awards, piano instruction, breaking one’s own record, social media, people named Rousseau, delightfully cute meerkats, picking out the American actors, fabrications, advertisements, normalizations, Italian job titles, marines, people named Simone, American heroes, UC Davis, antlers and shoes, famous couples, those Russians, current events, American football, murderousness, fast runners, people named Jones, Batman, chairmen, Frenchmen who may not be French, about five other topics yet to be named, and Shakespeare.

See you tonight at 7 for our own show!

Your Quizmaster

https://www.yourquizmaster.com

http://www.twitter.com/yourquizmaster

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yourquizmaster@gmail.com

 

Here are four questions from last week’s quiz:

1. Irish Culture. What Irish actor starred both in the big-budget epic Alexander and the dystopian black comedy The Lobster?  
2. Countries of the World.  What is the most populous Province in Canada?  
3. Local Libraries. After what UC Davis founder was the primary library building at UC Davis named? Last name is sufficient.      
4. Science.  The lightest of all the metals (an alkali metal) has an atomic number of three. What is it?  

 

P.S. Poetry Night (with Lisa Abraham and Denise Lichtig) is Thursday. Have you joined the Poetry in Davis Facebook group? Sometimes I sneak clues in there, as well.

 

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

I spent a few hours in the Davis Public Library with my son Jukie on Saturday. Sitting at a high table back in the “Friends Book Sale” area, I could see down the aisles of books and audio books to the library entrance and the checkout desk, both hubs of activity. A Sacramento City College professor I know came almost to our table, looking at books and magazines, and then made a turn and thus didn’t see me or Jukie (whom I have taught to keep silent in this Mecca of books). I saw a mom checking out out a pile of books for her ten-year-old daughter, who suddenly felt compelled to turn around to give her mom a long hug, even before the mom could get out her library card. The librarian waited patiently.

On Sunday morning, I wrote most of the pub quiz without the help of internet access, for I was sitting at a shaded picnic table in Arroyo Park while Jukie frolicked on the play structures, sometimes giving pause to the smaller children. Nearby a soccer coach was teaching a team full of tweens how to make “crisp” passes to their teammates. Occasionally earbud joggers would lumber past, some of them carrying their water in various plastic containers, either strapped to their hips or nestled in their loose grips.

Surrounded by halcyon scenes of learning, prosperity, and calm, I couldn’t help but think of the libraries in Houston and other cities drowned by Hurricane Harvey, with the water in some places not measured in inches or even feet, but in storeys of buildings. Some residents were told not to congregate in their attics, but instead to gather on their roofs to await rescue by the Coast Guard or other emergency personnel or, even more likely, by fellow Texans who might have lost their homes, but not their flat-bottom power boats. I learned from news coverage that one can survive being trapped in a flooding vehicle by opening the window, not the door, and then swimming out of one’s car.

Sunday Margaret Atwood tweeted her concern for all in Florida, singling out her friends at the @MiamiBookFair and the @MiamiPublicLibrary. So many books were lost in recent weeks in Texas, and so many over the last couple days in Florida, along with the homes, historic buildings, pets, and their owners. After Katrina, some schoolchildren never returned to their flooded schools, and even missed an entire year of instruction. I was thinking of these storm-surged disasters and their victims while typing peacefully in our public library, or watching Jukie swing on the swings. How different these scenes would be if they were submerged in six feet of water, or if they were battered by a 12-foot storm surge.

Last week as we listened to Hurricane Harvey coverage on NPR, I told Truman that if such a storm were to visit Davis, I would grab Kate and the kids, my backpack (with laptop), my Kindle, and our wedding album. Truman said he would grab his GrandDavey’s favorite bowler hat, and the Roald Dahl bookmark that had kept his place in so many books, including the Harry Potter books. Speaking of books, Kate said that she would grab the book I presented to her on our anniversary Thursday, a collection of 25 new and original love poems, one for each year of our marriage. When our public libraries are threatened, we might all consider what books we would reach for in a time of disaster. In this disaster scenario that we were imagining in the car last week, I see that, even if we remembered to bring our phone chargers, clearly there would be lots of reading going on in all those evacuation centers!

The need is great on this national remembrance day, and the federal leadership is suspect, so all of us should consider how we might help those in need. Like me, I hope you are considering making a donation for Harvey or Irma hurricane relief.

 

In addition to the topics raised above, expect questions on the following topics: Tuesdays, national mottos, heaths, book markets, osteoporosis, actresses, Canada, dystopias, rakes, black comedies, challenging anagrams, Rubies in 1950, biopics, people named Shonda, books about pants, major mistakes, rhombi, rockets, yarn, little women and big women, names with three and a half vowels in them, people who moved to London, the help of Ken Jennings, identical one-word song titles, best friends, simultaneous threats, years that end with a 4, the initiation of mock joy, geese, the National Weather Service, mountain sports, lonely souls in 1942, pregnancies, cities in California, extortion, disaster days, film pioneers, green fields, storm surges, and Shakespeare.

And I hope you and your teammates can join us this evening. I can’t do the Pub Quiz without you!

 

Your Quizmaster

https://www.yourquizmaster.com

http://www.twitter.com/yourquizmaster

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yourquizmaster@gmail.com

 

Here are three questions from last week’s quiz:

 

1. Current Events – Names in the News.  Of all the current U.S. governors, only the governor of Texas has a last name that starts with an A. What is that last name? 

 

1. Sports.  From 1996-2010, what wide receiver holds the record for the most seasons with four or more touchdowns, at 15? 

 

1. Shakespeare.   Later this month the Davis Shakespeare Ensemble is presenting a production of a popular Shakespeare comedy that includes the characters Robin Starveling, Francis Flute, and Tom Snout. Name the play.  

 

 

P.S. “There is no chance, no destiny, no fate, that can circumvent or hinder or control the firm resolve of a determined soul.” Ella Wheeler Wilcox

 

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

This week marks the 30^th anniversary of my meeting my wife Kate in London, and the 25^th anniversary of our Labor Day marriage. With this in mind, I have been reflecting with wonder on the people we were all those years ago, and on the people we are today.

In the 1980s, I faced many of the same educational and vocational insecurities that my UC Davis students face today, with troubling questions about what I would do and how I would make a living hanging heavy over my plans. While my parents paid for my undergraduate tuition, I was on my own for graduate school, and rightfully so. I moved from my childhood home in Washington DC and my college “home” of Boston to California so I could start reading the books necessary to begin graduate studies in English. I also needed to become a Californian in order somehow to afford attending a UC.

English majors and poets are familiar with poverty, and so it was with me, but Berkeley libraries and the running hills above North Berkeley where I lived provided me the intellectual and recreational resources that I needed to sustain my uncluttered life of reading and running. Owning no television or computer, I read and listened to classical music every evening that I wasn’t out with friends. As the philosopher Immanuel Kant says, “We are not rich by what we possess but by what we can do without,” and found I could do without a lot.

But I found it difficult to convince others, such as my future bride, living a comfortable life in Illinois, that I had the prospects that would attract an A-list partner such as herself. Kant might have been right about the psychological and intellectual freedom that can come with studious penury, but one can’t pay a mortgage with philosophical truths. As the late poet John Ashbery said, “What is the past, what is it all for? A mental sandwich?”

If one fast-forwards a few decades, I am overjoyed to say that I have found a bride who also doesn’t elevate the material over the familial or the psychological. With a home, jobs, and a family in Davis, we are comfortable enough to help pay for my daughter Geneva’s college costs, and dine out regularly at our favorite Irish Pub. Even more importantly, we fill our days with support, affection, and laughter, as well as time spent with our three kids.

Our needs are still relatively simple. Kate has a ring and a Vespa and wireless headphones, and I will take her and the boys on an additional trip or two this fall. The question presents itself, then: What is the best silver anniversary present for the wife of a poet? The obvious answer is a poem, so I have been searching my heart and rejecting inapt word choices and images. If my task is a poem, let’s just say that I am ready for Thursday, the 7^th of September.

At the end of a long and happy life, one is lucky to have family and community of friends, all audiences for great stories. As an essayist and photographer, Kate also offers me and our beloveds a wonderful record of the love we have and share, while I can offer a number of poems that seek to capture a moment’s emotional richness or yearning. As John Ashbery suggested, the poet endeavors to discover if “Sometimes a musical phrase would perfectly sum up / The mood of a moment.”

With these artistic gifts, such as the ones I was developing like a craftsman during my year of studious and literary poverty, poets and other creative professionals can also seek to mythologize the past and the present, creating memories that are so supported with creative works that they are not likely to be dislodged from our private emotional or physical libraries. To put all that more plainly, I have made a vocational life from writing and talking to others about writing, and after 25 years of gratitude, I feel lucky that I can offer Kate celebratory words, a poem or two, that indicate my love and esteem more fully than a thousand ephemeral baubles.

Happy Silver Anniversary, Kate!

 

In addition to the topics raised above, tonight expect questions on the following: the Mid West, entire sectors that were saved by Republican closet poet Dana Gioia, Twitter, the deep south, best-selling authors, twins, W.E.B. DuBois, bacon, the Choctaw, people named after woodwinds, touchdowns, sites of conflict, mirrors, Texas, Jim Gaffigan, fearful symmetry, jewelry from India, twins, Goliath, monthly rental costs in Euros, hilarity ensuing for three weeks, the demands of Methodists, birds in peril, the letter B, American states, big cities, glib bookings, popular daddy figures, six of ten, unforgotten dignity, whatever CW might stand for, unfurled flags, small streams, white gloves at rest, Houston by the numbers, Stephen King, and Shakespeare.

Welcome to September and, for many players, a new lease in Davis. With all the new puzzling intellects in town, I hope you will invite friends to join your team or to form their own, for we like to keep the pub filled and the competition lively. We also need new subscribers to the newsletter to take the place of those who have moved out of town. Please direct such people to https://www.yourquizmaster.com to sign up for this free weekly missive.

See you 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. Film. What is the title of the 2017 Amy Schumer / Goldie Hawn film in which a mother and daughter are kidnapped while vacationing in South America?
    
2. Name the State. Buddy Holly died in the same mid-western U.S. state where John Wayne and Buffalo Bill Cody were born. Name the state. 
3. Science. What six-letter plural word completes this definition? Phytochemicals are chemicals derived from WHAT? 

 

P.S. Poetry Night continues this coming Thursday, September 7^th (a holy day for me). Come see Nancy Aidé Gonzalez and Cathy Arellano at the John Natsoulas Gallery. James Lee Jobe will be the guest-host while I spend some time with Kate.

 

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

YouTube recently played me a song that its magic algorithms somehow knew I was ready to hear: The Rolling Stones covering that Buddy Holly classic, “Not Fade Away.” One of the Stones’ first notable songs – Buddy Holly had been dead only a handful of years before the Stones’ version became the British group’s first top-ten hit in Britain – the classic tune still popped with rhythm and blues gusto, mostly because of Brian Jones’ harmonica and Mick Jagger’s vocals and vigorous maracas.

The song brought back mixed memories. On the night of a bad breakup during my sophomore year in college, I played Buddy Holly’s version of “Not Fade Away” on repeat while pedaling full throttle on my absent roommate’s exercise bicycle. Each repetition of the two-and-a-half-minute song utterly exhausted me, so I recovered while rewinding the cassette tape in the huge boom box for 30 seconds before again hitting “play.” Reveling in my precious agony at being dumped, and seeking out physical hardship to match my teenage emotional anguish, I must have thought this obsessive musical reiteration to be delicious torture.

The song’s lyrics were appropriately cruel in their irony, I thought. “I’m gonna tell you how it’s gonna be / You’re gonna give your love to me.” No one ever again will give her love to you, I told myself, pedaling furiously, sweat or perhaps tears pouring down my face. I remember thinking that my love was “bigger than a Cadillac,” not that it mattered anymore. Over and over again, I listened to the song, reminding myself that Buddy Holly’s cheerful brand of bubble-gum pop rightfully went down with his plane outside Clear Lake, Iowa in 1959, never to return.  

After this dark night of the soul, I considered that song to be medicine I never wanted to taste again, even though I later tolerated hearing cover versions by The Stones, The Grateful Dead, or Cheryl Crow. Although I was once a big fan of Buddy Holly, I left that favorite tune alone for more than 30 years.

But then last night I had Alexa call up that 1957 hit from the vault, and played it again on repeat while brushing my son Jukie’s teeth. Dancing with my shoulders to the Bo Diddly Beat, I sang the Cricket’s backup vocals for Jukie – “Mm Bop Bop Bop-BOP!” – and he delighted in the silly rhythm and the wide smile on my face. Daddy’s spirited lullaby, a re-introduction to both of us to early rock and roll, widened Jukie’s eyes in wonder and infectious joy.

With Jukie’s help, the needless 30-year spell had broken. Now after everyone’s asleep, I dance alone in the living room to Buddy Holly’s version of “Not Fade Away,” made possible by Beats by Dre headphones, and perhaps my somewhat more mature perspective on romantic love. I forgave young Andy for having been so histrionic, reminding myself that on that sad night when I cycled to (and through) that song, I had not yet met my wife, Kate. No WONDER I felt so woefully alienated from meaning and from love.

Now as I climb into bed, I reflect on 25 years of marriage and see that Buddy Holly was right. Still winded from my silly dancing, and inches from Kate’s face, I whisper this favorite song’s closing lyrics like renewed vows to my own pretty, pretty Peggy Sue, sleeping angelically beside me in the summer moonlight:

Love to last more than one day

Love is loving and not fade away

Love is loving and not fade away

 

In addition to some of the topics raised above, expect questions tonight on the following topics: awful hurricanes, discreet madness, rookie records, groundskeepers, teen comedies, Facebook, service to one’s country, U.S. Presidents, significant drives in Latin America, vodka servers, invitations to the Obama White House, invitations to Gerald Ford, Newsweek chiefs, friendly chemicals, Union forces, utmost quasars, the Midwest, even numbers, knee-slapping comedies that were seen by insufficient numbers, smuggled heaviness, sister acts, breezes, Romantic poetry, flowers for the sweet, secret messages about San Diego at the end of this newsletter, cemeteries, letter mysteries, jumps, unfortunate songs, two apologies, improbably three syllable destinations, Mitch McConnell, lovely elements, top states, carpe diem, and Shakespeare.

August has five Thursdays, much to the relief of parents of school-aged children, for it means that the parental summer stretches and stretches. Poetry Night returns on September 7^th, but for this evening, I hope you will return to de Vere’s Irish Pub, Davis, despite the heat. Come early to claim your table and to enjoy the air conditioning. For some Davisites, the lease is up, so tonight will be their last chance to play for a while. Let’s fill the place and cheer them with gusto!

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. Countries of the World.  When combining active, reserve, and paramilitary forces, what country has the second-largest army, at about 7.7 million soldiers, as well as the largest ratio of soldiers per citizen, at over 305 soldiers per 1,000 citizens?  
2. Dr. Andy’s Driving Trip to San Diego.    The four words in our favorite sign on the way to San Diego started with the letters LLCO. You too have probably seen this sign. Name it.  
3. Science.  What F word refers to “the ripened ovaries of flowers containing one or more seeds”?  

P.S. You might remember the newsletter I wrote two weeks ago about my family’s trip to a San Diego beach. If you’d like to read a version of that again, find it in yesterday’s Sacramento Bee, now retitled “For Californians from all over, a walk on a beach in a gem of a state.” If you are curious or would like to leave a comment, see http://www.sacbee.com/opinion/california-forum/article169238542.html#storylink=cpy.

 

P.P.S. If  you haven’t already done so, please follow Dr. Andy or Your Quizmaster on Twitter! See you there!

 

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

 

My favorite line from Jennifer Egan’s award-winning novel, A Visit from the Goon Squad, is this one: “Sure, everything is ending,” Jules said, “but not yet.”

A huge fan of vampire movies that I watched obsessively with my best friend Tito, I used to play a thought game when I was a child. If I were a vampire, how would I safely negotiate traveling around my mom’s workplace, the huge public library downtown, during the daytime? The sun’s rays must be avoided, I told myself. I became an expert at a needless skill, knowing which sections of a four-story block-large public building were the darkest.

Fast forward a few decades, and I realize that my wife and I often discuss how to adjust the shades in our south Davis home so that we protect the interior of our home from the summer sun at every hour, and thus save on our air conditioning bills. My daughter Geneva’s room faces due north, so as a vampire she could safely read and sleep in without our even having to buy her room-darkening shades.

As I write this, I am sitting in the direct morning sunlight of my son Jukie’s room, situated over the garage on the east side of our home. Despite the season and the warm morning, Jukie’s curtains have been thrown open, and his room is bathed in light.

While this setup would be unsafe for vampires, I am enjoying the light knowing that it is a finite resource this morning, for today is the day of the solar eclipse. I hear there are certain areas of Oregon where Hotel 6 rooms were rented for $500 or more last night, because of the relative scarcity of space for eclipse-watchers. The camp grounds were awash with tents this morning. Some people are sitting in stadiums today, so they can watch the midday shadows engulf the others like a wave at a baseball game. Others have found perches atop ridges, so that the magic of darkness can be beheld in a valley below before it engulfs the viewer. Today scientists expect animals and even some plants to “freak out.”

Today is the first day of school for my son Jukie, who attends Greengate School in Woodland. With our San Diego vacation behind us, today is the first step in an inexorable countdown towards the end of summer. First the back to school sales, then the five days of vacation, then the “paper parade” at Patwin Elementary where all the students learn the names of their new teachers, then the last weekend of summer (did you enjoy it?), then Jukie’s school-bus arriving at 7 AM on eclipse day, then the newsletter hurriedly typed in direct morning sunshine, then the spooky partial darkness, then the last day of summer for Truman (tomorrow), then the first day of school at DJUSD (Wednesday), and then Geneva flying back to college (Thursday).

Alice walker once wrote, “Time moves slowly, but passes quickly.” Indeed, when one is older, the years pass by so quickly that it almost seems unfair. However, if one is both self-reflective and pays close attention, sometimes one can watch the days, the hours, or even the minutes go by at an unhurried, almost dawdling, pace, much like watching the moments of daylight extinguish during the uncanny, creeping midday darkness on the day of a solar eclipse.

 

In addition to topics raised above, tonight expect questions on the following topics: the mottos of pubs, particular favorite months, notable antagonists, World War II, Venezuela, end-of-career renunciations, slim people, football, public villains, historians, ovaries, travel opportunities, cities that are bigger than Davis, science fiction romantic comedies, Latino culture, millionaires and billionaires, audited media, Oscar-winners in Sacramento, aimless and boldly impudent women, the nothing that can come of nothing, nighttime, people in low regard, improbable prisoners, Italian words, Science articles from 1990 (the year I moved to Davis), a city of hills, Oscar nominees, Troy Garrity, faraway assassins, and Shakespeare.

Thanks to my colleague Dr. Ted for hosting last week’s Pub Quiz. I will be hosting this evening, and forever more. I hope to see you.

 

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. Irish Culture. The flag of India and the flag of Ireland both feature the same three colors. What are they?  

 

1. Textiles That Start with L. What word do we use for a delicate fabric made of yarn or thread in an open web-like pattern?  

 

1. Science.  What kind of acid gives lemon its sour taste?  

 

P.S. Cecil Day Lewis, no vampire, says that “Summer has filled her veins with light and her heart is washed with noon.”  

 

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

As Jukie and I walked south along Coronado Beach, we could see Tijuana, Mexico on the horizon. Called the best beach in the world in 2012, Coronado Beach is home to the famous Hotel del Coronado, filming location for arguably the best film comedy, Some Like It Hot.

During our walk, Jukie and I passed a family of Frenchmen – a dad and three sons – who had made soccer goal markers out of the abundant seaweed. One of them had overshot the goal, sending the ball ten meters into the Pacific, which promptly gave it back. I could almost decipher some of their French exclamations. Perhaps ten years older than me and with a look of concentration, the father had better soccer skills but less gusto than his sons. He had opportunities to hone his skills when each new son came of age, perhaps preparing for this afternoon on Coronado Beach.

Soon we encountered three middle-aged Americans – a man and two women – digging ever deeper with juice pitchers. They were determined, but not frantic. Soon the man got out his metal detector again, and accepted the advice of the women as to where to place and how to angle the cumbersome machine. “We will just have to dig deeper,” one said. I expected that eventually they would find a metal bolt rather than a diamond ring.

Farther along the beach a Middle-Eastern couple in their 50s were walking with their daughter in her 20’s. Thinking of racial tensions in Charlottesville, I offered a friendly greeting, and they returned it. They might have been locals, or they might have been visiting from 8,000 miles away. I’m about as far from Davis as one can be and still be in California, but I still want people to know that we love and welcome strangers here. The most diverse state in the union, we depend upon the great mix of thinkers, inventors, and workers to power our state, and keep the ongoing dialogue lively and engaging.

The Middle-Eastern family had paused to take pictures, and I could see why. Well after 7 PM last night, we had reached that “magic time” for photographers when the sun’s light is diffused by the rising marine layer. It makes us all feel and look beautiful, especially on film. At that hour Jukie and I could see an engagement photographer, a family photographer, and many amateurs who wanted to take advantage of the incredible light.

Jukie lead the two of us for a mile or more on the wide beach. If it were not getting darker, we might have walked for a few more miles until we heard the actual sounds of Tijuana nightclubs. We soon received a text from my wife Kate – I’m freezing, she said – so we started walking back, the setting sun filling our faces with light. By the time we returned to Kate, we saw the photographers packing up their equipment and nodding optimistically to their clients, we saw the French dad walking arm and arm towards the del Coronado Hotel, and we saw the middle-aged Americans climbing out of their hole to exchange a high five.

Perhaps, like Kate with her photography of Truman jumping over waves, and like Jukie and me on our walk, these three prospectors had finally found their diamond ring in the sand.

 

Tonight’s Pub Quiz will be hosted by my colleague Dr. Ted, heroically filling in for me while I continue to vacate. I will be back next Monday, and, before then, I will be hosting Poetry Night on Thursday the 17^th at the Natsoulas Gallery. I’ve written tonight’s quiz, so I know that you should expect questions tonight on topics raised above as well as the following: textiles, championships, smiling doctors, foreign and domestic kings, strange citizens, that Black guy, Aggie standouts, calendar quandaries, favorite acids, Europe of yesteryear, that which is webly, C cities,  meal locations, California history, newspaper headlines, trade colonies, lip hair, pomposity, three-word titles, church leaders, virtuosi, store brand bargains, not Jefferson, people named Ted, frightening ratios, meta-films, Dr. Andy’s summer vacations, and Shakespeare.

 

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. Mottos and Slogans.    In what decade did Yahoo start using the slogan “Do you…Yahoo!?”  

 

1. Internet Culture. CEO Ben Silbermann summarized his “P” company, founded in 2010, as a “catalog of ideas,” rather than as a social network. Name the company.  

 

1. Newspaper Headlines.   In what U.S. state did the governor recently welcome President Trump with the news that he, the governor, had switched from being a Democrat to being a Republican?  

 

P.S. I appreciate your continuing to support the Pub Quiz when I am on vacation. I have also been working on my Pub Quiz book, out by Christmas and selling for $15 a copy. Unlike (perhaps) my poetry books, this one will make a great gift, even for people who know nothing about the Quiz. How many can I put you down for?