Dear Friends,

I am just tickled that a teacher has been chosen as a candidate for Vice President of the United States. Like many of us who have recently discovered Tim Walz, I admire his character, his eloquence, and his authenticity. I hope these qualities matter in the coming months of debates, discussions, and deliberations.

Another teacher who eventually went into politics, Lyndon Baines Johnson taught speech and debate at Sam Houston High School in Houston, Texas. One 1931 photograph shows the future president with members of his debate team. Just as Walz did with football, Johnson led a statewide championship in debating.

A great storyteller, Johnson told an interviewer in 1965 how he was offered a much-coveted teaching job at one of the state’s best high schools (in Houston) even though he had already promised to serve as principal at a much smaller rural school. Johnson turned down the plum job via wire, an indication of the sort of moral strength that would serve him well later in life. I will include here an entire paragraph of his reminiscing: it gives you a sense of President Johnson’s speaking style:

That night, I guess it must have been about a Friday, I had a date with one of the teachers and in the course of the conversation she asked me what had happened in Houston and I told her. Saturday night she had a date with the coach. The coach lived with the superintendent. I swore her to secrecy but it didn’t matter, she told the coach, and the coach Sunday morning told the superintendent. So Monday morning the superintendent called me in. I thought he was going to lecture me about it. He said that he understood I had an offer and I said, “Yes.” He said, “Do you remember our conversation when you told me that you would stay?” And I said, “Yes.” He said, “What have you done about it?” I pulled out a copy of the wire I had sent to the superintendent. And he said, “Well, I thank you and I appreciate it.” [He said] he thought that that was what I would do, that the coach had told him that he had heard from this lady teacher that I had told her that I had been offered a job, and it had troubled him over the weekend. [He said] that he had a young boy and that if some man in subsequent years happened to be superintendent and refused to release his boy when he had a chance to go into Houston and have the chance to move up, why, he would never forgive him. And [he said] he had thought about it so much that he thought that I ought to go take it. I told him that I couldn’t do it, I had turned it down and I was going to stay with him. He said, “I just feel like a criminal tying you here. I will be both superintendent and principal if I have to. But this is such a wonderful opportunity that I want to urge you to take it.”

Just as I can recount stories about favorite teachers like Jack Petrash, Marcia Clemmitt, Will Layman, Sir Christopher Ricks, or Sandra Gilbert, Johnson had all the details of his story about admired teachers ready for the interviewer. Like these heroes, Walz has inspired many young people, and he will likely continue to do so. As Henry Adams said, “A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.”

I hope you can join us on an especially warm evening for a pub quiz at Sudwerk in Davis. Bring your team to the beautiful outdoor patio where the misters are misting and where we have room for almost everyone. The jollity will be unfiltered. As Ralph Waldo Emerson allegedly said, “It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them.” Tonight some will want to play indoors. I encourage you to come early to snag a table. We filled the restaurant and patio last week, and I expect that we will continue to do so throughout August.

In addition to topics raised above, tonight’s pub quiz will feature questions on shoes, layoffs, automobiles, big houses in California, detectives, Doja Cats, early Britain, vertebrates, dumb moves, delightful flowers, literature Nobel Prize winners, gold mines, punishers, dudes, people no longer named Eugene, AI, motorcycles, rain storms, crossover hits, mythical places, human body specialties, rappers and riders, current events, books and authors, and Shakespeare. Sometimes a question is substituted at the last minute because of the day’s news.

Thanks to all the new players joining us at the live quizzes and to all the patrons who have been enjoying fresh Pub Quiz content. Thanks especially to new subscriber Sophie! Every week I check the Patreon to see if there is someone new to thank. I also thank The Original Vincibles, Summer Brains, The Outside Agitators, John Poirier’s team Quizimodo, Gena Harper, the scintillating Mavens who carefully take note of casual adjectives and precise pronunciations, and others who support the Pub Quiz on Patreon (where I am also sometimes sharing drafts of poems). Congratulations to the team with a future Jeopardy! player among them — they have won two in a row! I would love to add your name or that of your team to the list of supporters. I appreciate your backing this pub quiz project of mine! 

Best,

Dr. Andy

P.S. Find here three questions from last week’s Pub Quiz:

1. Charades. Living from 1904 to 1986, what actor starred in the films Notorious, To Catch a Thief, Operation Petticoat, and Charade? 

2. Science. On July 31^st, 2023, at Brights Zoo, in Limehouse, Tennessee, a distinctive giraffe was born, the only one in the known world with a certain trait. What makes this giraffe special? 

3. Current Events – Names in the News. We recently learned that a New Jersey elementary school will remove a home state senator’s name from its building after his conviction on federal bribery charges. Name the U.S. Senator from New Jersey who is not Cory Booker. 

Dear Friends,

Sometimes when I join others meditate in Chestnut Park in Davis on Sunday mornings, I count the sounds that I hear. Doing so slows my breathing and helps me focus on embodied acts of perception, that is, taking note of the perception of being alive, rather than just following my recursive thoughts where they might go.

Each sound is noted, heard, understood, and recorded with the objective of excluding it from being counted again. Once, a mother red-tailed hawk, accompanied by her two fledglings, perched in the tree above us. Their sharp, high-pitched cries and intermittent chattering filled the air for the entire hour of our meditation. After that experience, in my counting practice I resolved that if I hear the same bird make two different sounds, I count that once, even though for most birds I’m not yet qualified to differentiate and identify the different avian vocalizations I hear. 

On the other hand, if a person in squeaky shoes walks past my meditation spot while talking on the phone, I count that twice. As I gradually awaken to a sonorous world, from my summer spot in the shade or my winter spot in the sun, I hear the rhythmic thwack of tennis balls being hit back and forth, a soccer coach’s enthusiastic shouts after each of his sole player’s attempted goal, children calling out hide and seek instructions from a distant play structure, a fenced dog barking a greeting to every passerby, squirrels scampering through the branches of a nearby black walnut tree (Juglans hindsii), the rumble of a truck driving down Chestnut Lane, and the plaintive wail of an ambulance siren slicing through traffic on Covell Boulevard, six blocks away.

As my ears became more sensitive, I would sometimes imagine using sonar to “map” the nearby east Davis areas where my son Jukie and I would walk on weekend afternoons. Once an especially loud motorcycle seemingly encircled our adopted neighborhood, driving south on what I estimated was L Street until it reached E. 8^th Street, whereupon it made a left, drove east on E. 8^th Street until it reached Pole Line Road, and then drove north until finally around Nugget Fields it escaped my earshot, perhaps on its way to visit the ears of Woodland residents.

With my eyes closed, I felt like Matt Murdock of Daredevil fame, my ears having opened to sounds that for most of us, and for me most of the time, go unnoticed. The psychiatrist Karl Menninger wrote that “Listening is a magnetic and strange thing, a creative force. The friends who listen to us are the ones we move toward. When we are listened to, it creates us, makes us unfold and expand.” Breathing calmly, settling my restless mind, and listening to the world’s sounds is a similarly expanding experience.

The counting practice is really an unplugging practice, a means of connecting to my entire self, rather than to be ruled only by my head. Any poet, such as myself, would agree with Voltaire who posited that “The ear is the avenue to the heart.” I hope you get to roll down the windows and drive down that avenue sometime soon.  

I hope you can join us on an especially warm evening for a pub quiz at Sudwerk in Davis. Bring your team to the beautiful outdoor patio where the misters are misting and where we have room for almost everyone. The jollity will be unfiltered. As Saint Augustine allegedly said, “Good times and crazy friends make the best memories.” Tonight some will want to play indoors. I encourage you to come early to snag a table. We filled the restaurant and patio last week.

In addition to topics raised above, tonight’s pub quiz will feature questions on library users, balloons, defensive specialists, sinewy sleeping habits, vacating leaders, masked men, stations, bicycle culture, American chemists, common materials, members of halls of fame, strong winds that bring good news, numbers of championships, suddenly high vacancy rates, car maintenance, odd teethers, school names, sound machine settings, Limehouses, questionable leadership, love songs, words that start with the letter E, missed Emmy Award winners, screaming matches, river towns, political statements, California heroes, bacteria, sustainable bravery, peace messengers, distinguished men who wear hearing aids, declarations of independence, population centers, current events, books and authors, and Shakespeare. Sometimes a question is substituted at the last minute because of the day’s news.

Thanks to all the new players joining us at the live quizzes and to all the patrons who have been enjoying fresh Pub Quiz content. Thanks especially to new subscriber Sophie! Every week I check the Patreon to see if there is someone new to thank. I also thank The Original Vincibles, Summer Brains, The Outside Agitators, John Poirier’s team Quizimodo, Gena Harper, the scintillating Mavens who carefully take note of casual adjectives and precise pronunciations, and others who support the Pub Quiz on Patreon (where I am also sometimes sharing drafts of poems). Congratulations to the team with a future Jeopardy! player among them — they have won two in a row! I would love to add your name or that of your team to the list of supporters. I appreciate your backing this pub quiz project of mine! 

Best,

Dr. Andy

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

1. Mottos and Slogans. According to Kamala Harris, what happens when we fight? 

2. Newspaper Headlines. We learned this week that sharks off the coast of Brazil have been testing positive for which of the following: Cholera, Cocaine, Covid?  

3. Festivals. Which Indian festival is known as the Festival of Lights?  

P.S. Tomorrow is Poetry Night in Davis. Join us August 1^st at 7 PM at the Natsoulas Gallery. Find details about this special event here.

Elizabeth Sudemeier in about 1937

Dear Friends,

If you were ever to live next door to a retired superspy, say a James Bond or Jason Bourne, would you be surprised if you never knew it? The spy I knew was never seen doing wind sprints through local parks, lifting weights in the basement, or cleaning guns, as you might expect from an off-duty field agent. When this spy came in from the cold, it was me who shoveled the snow from her front walkway.

From about the time I was born until the time I graduated from college and moved to California, I lived next door to Elizabeth Sudmeier, one of the founders of the CIA, and a trailblazer who broke a glass ceiling for women who worked in intelligence agencies. She evidently had nerves of steel and could speak many languages. Like me, she was an English major in college. She went on missions, developed sources, and trained recruits.

I knew none of this. To us, she was the slightly odd woman next door with a living room that featured a pink Victorian chaise lounge and matching fancy chairs. I never felt well-dressed enough or clean enough to sit in her home, but when I was invited over, I would always be eyeing the individually-wrapped hard candy in a cut glass bowl with a pedestal base. Candy was such an important part of childhood back then.

Elizabeth’s large framed landscapes seemed like originals to me, likely representations of the rolling prairies of the land around Timber Lake, South Dakota, where Elizabeth was born and raised. She had a Poodle named “Gigi,” and sometimes her sister would visit with her two Boston Terriers. Elizabeth attended church regularly, though I don’t remember which one.

Elizabeth and my family lived in almost identical row houses (we had adjoining porches separated by a low gate that, as I finally grew taller as a teenager, I could simply step over). Depending on where the sun was, sometimes our pug Spindle would lounge over on Elizabeth’s porch, listening to the constant humming exhalations that Elizabeth made while nursing a drink and sitting on our elevated porch overlooking the alley. She could see easily into the back yard of Dischord House, where Ian MacKaye, Alec MacKaye, and Amanda MacKaye buried their iguanas and formed their punk bands. Alec would eventually inherit Elizabeth’s Ford Galaxie.

I have memories of playing in Elizabeth’s basement while her housekeeper Mercedes did laundry. I remember watching Happy Days in the spare bedroom on the second floor. I remember looking through catalogues of themed birthday cakes – one year it was a Beatles cake, another it was a pool party with surfers and surfboards – that Elizabeth would get out about a month before my birthday and my brother Oliver’s birthday.” Cake and birthdays were a big deal back then. I remember her address at 2456 Tunlaw Road and her phone number: 202 338-1380. That number is currently disconnected.

I seemed eager to eat those birthday cakes, to let my dog Spindle do his business in Elizabeth’s ivy-covered side yard, and to be paid to mow Elizabeth’s yard or shovel the snow from her walkway or driveway, but I don’t know that I ever sat down with Elizabeth to ask her questions about her youth, about her family, or about her work in government. She had wonderful stories to tell, though she was likely not permitted to tell most of them.

Luckily, The Wall Street Journal has done some uncovering of this spy who lived next door. Journal author Nathalia Holt published a story (“The Women Who Helped to Build the CIA”) on September 24, 2022 that begins with this paragraph:

“Elizabeth Sudmeier loitered outside a cafe in Baghdad one day in early 1954, taking care not to draw attention to herself. It was not easy for a young American woman in the Middle East to blend in, but Sudmeier, her colleagues would later attest, was practiced in making herself disappear in any setting. In a few minutes, the man she had been anticipating, the one she had spent months persuading to meet her, arrived, handed her an envelope and moved on. Sudmeier, one of the female intelligence officers who helped start the CIA, had just stolen Soviet secrets. In her hands were the blueprints for the MiG-19 jet fighter, just gifted by Moscow to the Iraqis to gain favor in the region.”

Reading a Wikipedia page and the CIA page about her special commendation, and learning more about her work in Baghdad from this excerpt from the Nathalia Holt book Wise Gals, I discovered all this about superspy Elizabeth Sudmeier long after I moved from Tunlaw Road (she died three months after we sold out house – maybe she missed us that much?), long after I moved to California, and long after my memories of our neighborly conversations had faded from my aging brain.

I’m approaching the age now that Elizabeth Sudmeier was when she was forced to retire from her work as a spy. I’m grateful for any time that she spent watching my brother or me while my parents were away, I’m grateful for the many birthday cakes, and I’m grateful for all the hard candies that I surreptitiously palmed while passing by her cut-glass bowls, all paid for by her CIA pension.

Looking back at the self-centered and hopelessly irreverent boy that grew up on Tunlaw Road, I think I could have been a better friend or neighbor. With all the decades between 2024 and my last missed opportunities to converse meaningfully with Elizabeth Sudmeier, how does one make amends?

I hope you can join us on an especially warm evening for a pub quiz at Sudwerk in Davis. Bring your team to the beautiful outdoor patio where the misters are misting and where we have room for almost everyone. The jollity will be unfiltered. As Saint Augustine allegedly said, “Good times and crazy friends make the best memories.” Tonight some will want to play indoors. I encourage you to come early to snag a table. We filled the restaurant and patio last week.

In addition to topics raised above, tonight’s pub quiz will feature questions on streaming music, Texas stories, tribes, Cary Grant, pugilism, Brazil, people named Morgan Jones, hot water jobs, securities, perceptual properties, toast, pseudonyms, dystopian players, beliefs, swing states, Vietnam vets, Roman emperors, faraway lakes, government jobs, comforting forests, technology drops, alternatives to Singapore, laces, a question that becomes a name, pre-history, muffins, TV hosts, Ohio heroes, people you would like to greet, permissions, committees, old people, AI artwork, sequel reunions, current events, books and authors, and Shakespeare. Sometimes a question is substituted at the last minute because of the day’s news.

Thanks to all the new players joining us at the live quizzes and to all the patrons who have been enjoying fresh Pub Quiz content. Thanks especially to new subscriber Sophie! Every week I check the Patreon to see if there is someone new to thank. I also thank The Original Vincibles, Summer Brains, The Outside Agitators, John Poirier’s team Quizimodo, Gena Harper, the scintillating Mavens who carefully take note of casual adjectives and precise pronunciations, and others who support the Pub Quiz on Patreon (where I am also sometimes sharing drafts of poems). Hello to Ellen. I would love to add your name or that of your team to the list of supporters. I appreciate your backing this pub quiz project of mine! 

Best,

Dr. Andy

P.S. Find here three questions from last week:

1. The California Legislature. What is the term length for a California State Senator? Four years

2. Science. What three-letter acronym do we use for a nucleotide that provides energy to drive and support many processes in living cells? Adenosine triphosphate (ATP)

3. Books and Authors. The title of what Joseph Heller novel has become a synonym for an absurd or contradictory choice? Catch-22

P.P.S. “Opportunities are never lost; someone will take the ones you miss.” Andy Rooney

Dear Friends,

The comedian Steven Wright once asked, “If you saw a heat wave, would you wave back?” Well, this past Thursday night we saw the heat waving to us, and we decided to wave goodbye, at least for 48 hours. 

This past Friday morning, well before the temperatures reached towards 111 °F, we pointed our family van towards San Francisco where later that day we found temperatures a full 50° cooler a mere 70-minute drive from home.

Kate discovered a hotel, the Marriott Marquis on Mission Street, that had two queen-size beds to a room, necessary when you have to accommodate a French Bulldog who prefers to sleep horizontally across one’s feet, and a son, Jukie, who prefers to sleep diagonally while somnolently claiming all his patient brother Truman’s covers and both his pillows.

Even before checking in to the Marriott we drove right to our favorite San Francisco restaurant, The Hard Knox Café on Clement Street, to enjoy some soul food. Still recovering from getting four wisdom teeth extracted, Truman enjoyed the relatively soft choice of French toast with berries, while I dined heartily on a veggie scramble with grits and a corn muffin. Jukie sought to dash El Yucateco hot sauce across his entire meal, especially the red beans and rice.

Fueled up, Kate was eager to try her favorite SF hike, Lands End, for the first time since her April 1^st hip replacement surgery and subsequent foot injury and paralysis. Friends will be happy to know that Kate has long since been liberated from her boot and crutches, and, with the help of physical therapists and assiduous attention to her nightly hip, knee, ankle, foot, and even toe exercises, Kate has returned to her regular walking habit.

She still uses an AFO brace in her larger left sneaker, and she wears a special compression sock when donning her summer-fashion Birkenstocks, but she was determined not to let a little concern like a fully (and now partially) paralyzed foot from keeping her from walking many miles, first in flat Davis, and more recently, up and down the hills along the San Francisco Bay.

Everyone is impressed with her excellent progress, especially the experts who understand how serious such an injury can be. The healing process with nerves takes a long time. But by all accounts, she seems to be ahead of schedule. She still attends neuro PT sessions regularly because she knows that the hard work will pay off, and because she’s determined to regain full use of her foot. 

For packing insulated hoodies for our visit to San Francisco, which felt like the refrigerated room at Costco, and for walking all over those City hills like a billy goat (well, a billy goat who would take my arm from time to time), Kate is our hero! Diminutive Margot and I are so pleased to have our walking partner back.

Still locked out of her Facebook account after someone tried to assume her identity, Kate misses seeing updates from her friends, so people have been turning to me to discover “How is Kate doing?” Now you know! I will make sure that she sees whatever messages you have for her here.

Happy mid-July to you. I hope all of you are also enjoying triumphant adventures.

I hope you can join us tonight for a pub quiz at Sudwerk in Davis. Bring your team to the beautiful outdoor patio where the misters will be misting and where we have room for almost everyone. The jollity will be unfiltered. As Saint Augustine allegedly said, “Good times and crazy friends make the best memories.” Tonight some will want to play indoors. 

In addition to topics raised above, tonight’s pub quiz will feature questions on stalwart coaches, Florida exports, national newspapers, the height of writers, swim meets, wing men with sharp quills, absurd choices, energy and drive, reasonable terms, crossroad locations, gorillas, transport options, heat waves goodbye, new competitions, WalletHubs, vacancies, deep cuts, late arrivals, granted wishes, fast paces, celebration dates, actors we’ve lost in 2024, days of the week, precise numbers, weevils, international armies, briefly famous mountains, clever riddles, aspirations of the polyglot, serious pulls, Spotify standouts, current events, books and authors, and Shakespeare. Sometimes a question is substituted at the last minute because of the day’s news.

Thanks to all the new players joining us at the live quizzes and to all the patrons who have been enjoying fresh Pub Quiz content. Thanks especially to new subscriber Sophie! Every week I check the Patreon to see if there is someone new to thank. I also thank The Original Vincibles, Summer Brains, The Outside Agitators, John Poirier’s team Quizimodo, Gena Harper, the scintillating Mavens who carefully take note of casual adjectives and precise pronunciations, and others who support the Pub Quiz on Patreon (where I am also sometimes sharing drafts of poems). I would love to add your name or that of your team to the list of supporters. I appreciate your backing this pub quiz project of mine! 

Best,

Dr. Andy

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

1. Unusual Words. Starting with the letter G, what adjective means “lean and haggard, especially because of suffering, hunger, or age? 
2. Island Chains. The Outer Hebrides is an island chain off the west coast of mainland what? 
3. Pop Culture – Television. What was the name of the Starfleet captain of the USS Voyager? 

P.S. Poetry Night is tomorrow! Check out www.poetryindavis.com for the details, and plan to join us July 18 for Carol Lynn Stevenson Grellas and Rina Wakefield.

Dear Friends,

People who earn PhDs in English don’t automatically know how to teach writing. It might be argued that the cerebral, erudite mastery of abstruse rhetorical flourishes that fill doctoral dissertations nudge their authors away from the sort of clear, thoughtful, and audience-centric writing that best serves a college upperclassman or new employee.

At UC Davis, I learned how to communicate effectively with the most distinguished and poetic professors of the previous generation—a skill of questionable marketability outside elite English programs like the one I attended.

Fortunately, my self-funded PhD program required me to work, allowing me to teach writing and introductory literature classes throughout the 1990s. Teaching such skills required me to learn about rhetoric and composition, composition theory, and writing across the curriculum. My years of teaching writing prepared me for this work just as my PhD in English prepared me to analyze and discuss literary texts.

Should I have earned a second PhD, the way that Stephen Strange, Reed Richards, and Bruce Banner did? Not a Marvel superhero, I chose to stick with just the one. In the real world, even our smartest and most ambitious scholars don’t earn multiple PhDs. They are too busy writing books in their fields of specialty.

This month of July, 2024, I got to wield my poetry PhD in a new kind of classroom, a class and workshop series that I am teaching at the University Retirement Community. Working with almost a dozen students ranging in ages from 20 to 40 years older than I am, I have returned my first love: conversations about poetry. I’ve been quoting poems that I’ve carried around in my head for decades, connecting comments made by class participants to the joy of a creative life, and lectured about literary topics without notes, a skill that I’ve learned from teaching all those writing classes. So far this summer we’ve been reading and discussing poems by Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Hayden. Next week we cover a former professor of mine, Robert Pinsky.

In 1989, I asked Pinsky what classes I should take when I start graduate school. He told me that I should focus not on the courses, but on the horses. Choose professors with a long track record of inspiring and enthusing students, without regard to the subjects they are teaching. I did this largely by auditing classes even after my classwork was done, taking multiple classes with Sandra Gilbert, Alan Williamson, and David Van Leer (RIP). In some of those classes, we’ve read and discussed texts by authors and professors whose works and personalities I got to know when I lived back east, including Seamus Heaney (RIP), Paul Muldoon, Roger Shattuck (RIP), Rosanna Warren, and Howard Zinn (RIP).

As for myself, I haven’t always taught the courses that my first and only PhD trained me for, but I’ve tried to be the professor whose lessons, lectures, and inspiring words continue to matter long after my students were launched just as my multiple degrees launched me.

When it comes to teaching, I agree with horse trainer Pat Parelli: “A horse doesn’t care how much you know until he knows how much you care.”

I hope you can join us on an especially warm evening for a pub quiz at Sudwerk in Davis. Bring your team to the beautiful outdoor patio where the misters are misting and where we have room for almost everyone. The jollity will be unfiltered. As Saint Augustine allegedly said, “Good times and crazy friends make the best memories.” Tonight some will want to play indoors. Understandable!

In addition to topics raised above, tonight’s pub quiz will feature questions on terrifying technologies, fronts, airports, southern states, concession stands, classical music, sluggers, tissues, famous streets, boxers, crime novelists, national heroes, co-authors, fabric dates, American idols, masks, decades of cars, shared atoms, board games, superhero actors, grateful friends, place names, evolutionary biology, ducks, philanthropy in action, emaciation, islands, birds, steamy actresses, captains, tornados, colonies, New York City, summoning whistles, current events, books and authors, and Shakespeare. Sometimes a question is substituted at the last minute because of the day’s news.

Thanks to all the new players joining us at the live quizzes and to all the patrons who have been enjoying fresh Pub Quiz content. Thanks especially to new subscriber Sophie! Every week I check the Patreon to see if there is someone new to thank. I also thank The Original Vincibles, Summer Brains, The Outside Agitators, John Poirier’s team Quizimodo, Gena Harper, the scintillating Mavens who carefully take note of casual adjectives and precise pronunciations, and others who support the Pub Quiz on Patreon (where I am also sometimes sharing drafts of poems). I would love to add your name or that of your team to the list of supporters. I appreciate your backing this pub quiz project of mine! 

Best,

Dr. Andy

Three questions from a previous Pub Quiz:

1. Mottos and Slogans. Starting with the letter N, what company, according to its slogan, invites you to “See what’s next”?  

2. Technology Culture. If we were to say that the Jet Age started with The British de Havilland Comet, the first jet airliner to fly, the first in service, and the first to offer a regular transatlantic service, then in what decade did the Jet Age begin?  

3. Newspaper Headlines. Starting with the letter B, what powerful hurricane recently struck Jamaica before heading towards Texas? This hurricane shares a name with a British-born Kenyan author who is known for her memoir West with the Night.  

P.S. The next Poetry Night will feature Carl Lynn Stevenson Grellas at the Natsoulas Gallery on July 18^th at 7 PM. I hope you can join us that night!

Dear Friends,

“Trees are poems that the earth writes upon the sky.” — Khalil Gibran

Walking home from the UC Davis campus after teaching a class yesterday, I found myself charting a route that provided me the most shade. Even when the temperature hits 105 degrees in the bright sunshine, it might feel 15 degrees cooler under the shade of a tree.

I developed this habit as a boy who was not burdened by vigilant supervision. In the summers of my childhood, both my parents worked seemingly more than 40 hours a week, and I I spent almost as many hours every summer week exploring my neighborhood, and, when I became older and could run farther, more of Washington, D.C. My friends and I invented games, invented quests, and even built forts in public lands, typically not sharing the details of our adventures with our parents.

As a fair-skinned child who was not told to sunscreen before leaving for the day, I hugged the shade or burned, typically the latter. Unlike in Davis, D.C.’s humidity held the heat, meaning that on some nights it might still be 90 degrees outside at 11 PM. On such nights, we set out the futons and Japanese mattresses on the living room floor where the window AC unit was the strongest.

As a young reader, I would revel in those passages of classic novels that showed characters who loved the environments they explored as much as I did. For instance, consider this passage from Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë: “I lingered round them, under that benign sky; watched the moths fluttering among the heath, and hare-bells; listened to the soft wind breathing through the grass; and wondered how anyone could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth.”

Consider also the decidedly less literate narrating of Huckleberry Finn: “Sometimes we’d have that whole river all to ourselves for the longest time. Yonder was the banks and the islands, across the water; and maybe a spark – which was a candle in a cabin window – and sometimes on the water you could see a spark or two – on a raft or a scow, you know; and maybe you could hear a fiddle or a song coming over from one of them crafts.”

We have to turn to Steinbeck for representations of the intense heat we are feeling today: In The Grapes of Wrath, we learn that sometimes California clouds just give up trying: “The sun flared down on the growing corn day after day until a line of brown spread along the edge of each green bayonet. The clouds appeared, and went away, and in a while they did not try anymore.”

The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck makes us glad that most of us don’t have to labor outdoors on a day like today: “The sun beat down upon them, for it was early summer, and her face was soon dripping with her sweat. Wang Lung had his coat off and his back bare, but she worked with her thin garment covering her shoulders and it grew wet and clung to her like skin.”

The wind was still blowing at dawn this morning when my son Jukie set out to claim our daily quota of steps, so far 15,829, while we still dared. As we cut through the increasing heat, I was reminded of Hilda Doolittle’s poem “Heat”:

O wind, rend open the heat,

cut apart the heat,

rend it to tatters.

Fruit cannot drop

through this thick air—

fruit cannot fall into heat

that presses up and blunts

the points of pears

and rounds the grapes.

Cut the heat—

plough through it,

turning it on either side

of your path.

I don’t know where your path will take you on this hottest day of the year so far, 109 degrees as I write this Wednesday afternoon, but as you go, give thanks for the trees that protect us, and visit every water fountain that you encounter on the way. As Frost says in his poem “Directive,” “Here are your waters and your watering place. / Drink and be whole again beyond confusion.”

I hope you can join us on a record warm evening for a pub quiz at Sudwerk. Bring your team to the beautiful outdoor patio where we have room for everyone and misters that will keep you from deep-frying. As Saint Augustine allegedly said, “Good times and crazy friends make the best memories.” Tonight some will want to play indoors. Understandable!

In addition to topics raised above, tonight’s pub quiz will feature questions on sequences, twins, coffee drinks, Greek gods, good fortunes, fake dukes, dynamic Canadians, shorts, hot and lucky visas, marmalade, football teams in Texas, Brooklyn tensions, composers, good dogs, singers who play title characters, ivy league colleges, monarchs, foundational interactions, Arab countries, aviatrixes, different ages, hot days, rivals with funny names, Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients, Oscar winners, U.S. presidents, Arizona notables, current events, books and authors, and Shakespeare. Sometimes a question is substituted at the last minute because of the day’s news.

Thanks to all the new players joining us at the live quizzes and to all the patrons who have been enjoying fresh Pub Quiz content. Thanks especially to new subscriber Sophie! Every week I check the Patreon to see if there is someone new to thank. I also thank The Original Vincibles, Summer Brains, The Outside Agitators, John Poirier’s team Quizimodo, Gena Harper, the scintillating Mavens who carefully take note of casual adjectives, and others who support the Pub Quiz on Patreon (where I am also sometimes sharing drafts of poems). I would love to add your name or that of your team to the list of supporters. I appreciate your backing this pub quiz project of mine! 

Best,

Dr. Andy

P.S. Thanks to everyone who came to the bonus Pride Pub Quiz that I hosted last week. Here are three questions from that event:

1. Notable Davisites. What local politician served as Mayor of Davis during most of the Coronavirus pandemic lockdown?  

2. Harvey Milk. Was the town of Woodmere where Harvey Milk was born found outside Boston, Chicago, Houston, or New York City?  

3. People Named James. What essayist and novelist wrote the influential 1956 novel Giovanni’s Room, which explores queer themes?  

P.P.S. Happy Independence Day! 

Dear Friends,

I met this morning with a number of leadership figures at UC Davis, including a campus expert on network and computer security. The conversation drifted to talk of AI, like so many of these conversations, and the computer security expert talked about some bracing realizations that she had made at a conference yesterday. She always brings insights to such conversations, likely in part because of everything that she learns at conferences.

I don’t get to travel as much as I once did, so I admitted my envy when it comes to all the conferences she gets to attend. She responded that, understandably, she sometimes finds such conference presentations tedious.

At this point in the conversation, I would like to say that I quoted Socrates: “He who is not contented with what he has would not be contented with what he would like to have.” Instead, I nodded and we moved on. I can locate significant relevant wisdom if I have a few minutes to conduct research, but like most of us in the age of Google, I don’t seek to keep all such quotations in my head. As productivity guru David Allen says, “Your mind is for having ideas, not holding them.”

Instead of quoting Socrates, I shared a New York Times article that I have assigned my writing students this summer: “My Secret to Creative Rejuvenation? Conferences.” This May 21 Julia Cho piece favors conferences over vacations for their likelihood to refresh and inspire the attendees.

Cho says, “Vacations provide an escape; the best conferences give me momentum. For a little while, I forget about my aging parents, my daughter’s looming college search and my own midlife malaise. I think about possibilities instead of obligations.”

I like Cho’s emphasis on “momentum,” a favorable state that is not typically provided by a few hours on the beach, whether that’s during a beach trip to Coronado or an easeful retirement in an area near the shore, as pleasant as those prospects would be.

People who attend conferences, and perhaps people who attend pub quizzes, like to stay intellectually engaged, believing, with Stephen Covey, that “Your most important work is always ahead of you, never behind you.”

Reflecting on a question I posed to my new advanced writing students yesterday: Should intellectually engaged individuals focus more on the process, or on the final product, often referred to in business as ‘deliverables’?” I don’t have many “products” that resulted from my 24 years hosting an interview show on local radio station KDVS, for example, but I am grateful for the experience, for all the people I got to meet on the telephone or in 14 Lower Freeborn Hall at UC Davis.

Likewise, most teams who participate in a trivia contest don’t win a prize, but what we gain from the experience ends up being more valuable than a gift card. In his recent book How to Know a Person, David Brooks explores the ways that shared experiences create a common ground among friends or colleagues, thus building a sense of camaraderie. More than would be the case with a job interview, activities like playing charades or participating in a pub quiz can inspire a new friend or potential employee’s authentic reactions and behaviors, thus providing the group insights into a person’s true nature.

Any of us who get to spend time frolicking with our friends in a brewery are lucky indeed. Recognizing this is a sure way to nudge ourselves towards contentment. As the Buddha says, “Health is the greatest gift, contentment the greatest wealth, faithfulness the best relationship.” 

I hope you can join us on a warm evening for a pub quiz at Sudwerk. Bring your team to the beautiful outdoor patio where we have room for everyone. The jollity and the misters will be on high. As Saint Augustine allegedly said, “Good times and crazy friends make the best memories.” Tonight some will want to play indoors.

In addition to topics raised above, tonight’s pub quiz will feature questions on famous stages, the dogs of authentication, Elton John, Oscar winners, groups of friends, straw men, the work of detectives, bar greetings, newspapermen, skin concerns, all-time leaders, talking animals, warm climes, The Beatles, taxes, famous settings, relieved winners, free birds, Texas stories, brain plays, unlikely musicals, beer capitals, mom roles, notable Mississippians,  multiple foxes, current events, books and authors, and Shakespeare. Sometimes a question is substituted at the last minute because of the day’s news.

Thanks to all the new players joining us at the live quizzes and to all the patrons who have been enjoying fresh Pub Quiz content. Thanks especially to new subscriber Sophie! Every week I check the Patreon to see if there is someone new to thank. I also thank The Original Vincibles, Summer Brains, The Outside Agitators, John Poirier’s team Quizimodo, Gena Harper, the scintillating Mavens who carefully take note of casual adjectives, and others who support the Pub Quiz on Patreon (where I am also sometimes sharing drafts of poems). I would love to add your name or that of your team to the list of supporters. I appreciate your backing this pub quiz project of mine! 

Best,

Dr. Andy

P.S. Find here three pub quiz questions from last week:

1. Countries with the Greatest Remittances. Which country in 2023 received $125 billion from people working outside the country almost twice as much as the $67 billion received from people working from outside of Mexico? 

• Operettas About Mammals. Die Fledermaus is a famous operetta composed by Johann Strauss II that premiered in 1874 in Vienna. The word “Fledermaus” is German for what kind of mammal? 

• Pop Culture – Music. Less than three minutes long, Elvis’s 40th and final Top Ten hit on the Billboard US charts had a two-word title. The second word in the title is “love.” What is the first?  

Dear Friends,

For years, I’ve been telling my writing students the story of when I first met Ulrich Winkelmann.

Ulrich’s family moved to Washington DC from Germany when Ulrich and I were in the third grade. He joined our class not knowing a word of English, so I decided to get to know him better.

My mom taught me to seek out people who felt awkward, excluded, or disconnected from the group, and then, as we would say decades later on Facebook, to befriend them. As my mom was sometimes awkward and excluded herself, she always appreciated when people first broke the ice that encased her and that seems to encase many devoted introverts.

(Speaking of ice, yesterday Jimmy Kimmel joked that it is so hot back east that Donald Trump is requesting that Melania be even colder to him.)

Back to Ulrich. 

Luckily, I knew some German. At the Washington Waldorf school, for the first few grades, all of us were taught some Latin, some French, and some German. Our principal, Carl Hoffman, spoke several languages, easily shifting from among the three that I just mentioned, but he also sometimes talked to us in Spanish, Italian, and Mandarin. Or so he told us. As these were not our languages, how would we know?

Wanting to get to know Ulrich, and wanting to expand my vocabulary, I would lead Ulrich around the playground, asking him what was what. “Ulrich, was ist das? “Das ist ein Baum.” That is a tree. “Ulrich, was ist das?” “Das ist ein Lehrer.” That is a teacher. One of my favorite words that I learned that day was “Spielplatz.” That is a playground.

I use this charming and ancient anecdote to remind students that they know myriad verbs, the mitochondria of their sentences. They should not limit themselves to only the verbs I knew in German in third grade. They should challenge themselves to assert the meaning, the function, the purpose and the action of the nouns in their sentences, rather than insisting, as I did with Ulrich, merely that things exist. “To be” verbs can enervate a promising sentence.

This week I installed the Chat GPT application on my phone, and I’ve been reliving my memories with Ulrich. Today the gaps in my education are not German nouns, but instead are found in the natural world.

For many years I would call my naturalist friend Roy and ask him to identify the bird I was looking at from my synchronous description of it. Roy eventually grew tired of this, and sent me links to bird guides and, eventually, to online bird databases.

Now if I can snap a photo of the bird in question, Chat GPT will identify the bird for me and tell me all about it. This is also true with the trees, shrubs, and flowers that I pass by every day on my ambitious walks. Yesterday I got help identifying Silver Birch trees (Betula pendula), with their white and papery bark with dark and diamond-shaped fissures, and Crape Myrtle trees (Lagerstroemia indica) with their smooth, mottled bark and clusters of white flowers.

Some readers of this newsletter already know these trees and many others on sight, but many such naturalists grew up in California surrounded by your California flora. My mentor naturalists stayed back east when I moved west, and I have not taken any recent classes with the ebullient Laci Gerhart (in Evolution and Ecology) or with Gary Snyder (the last living Beat poet, you will find him in your American literature textbooks).

I’ve been asking mentors questions primarily about texts for the last 50 years. Now I have a portable friend who can teach me about nature, as well as culture. Yesterday I was joking with a friend in Michigan that if I keep this up, in six months, people will mistake me for Charles Darwin, and not only because of my long white beard.

—

I hope you can join us on a warm evening for a pub quiz at Sudwerk. Bring your team to the beautiful outdoor patio where we have room for everyone. The jollity and the misters will be on high. As Saint Augustine allegedly said, “Good times and crazy friends make the best memories.” 

In addition to topics raised above, tonight’s pub quiz will feature questions on restaurants, chatbots, comprehensive partnerships, usurping brothers, great structures, nets, public schools, the difference between having character and being a character, artists, European countries, John Travolta, literary characters who are not Tarzan, wrestlers, Israel, funeral games, stables, respectful ghosts, liminal spaces, volcanos, country life, isotopes, memoirs, types of love, mammals, remittances, current events, books and authors, and Shakespeare. Sometimes a question is substituted at the last minute because of the day’s news.

Thanks to all the new players joining us at the live quizzes and to all the patrons who have been enjoying fresh Pub Quiz content. Thanks also to Brooke, Jeannie, Becky, Franklin, and More Cow Bell. Every week I check the Patreon to see if there is someone new to thank. I also thank The Original Vincibles, Summer Brains, The Outside Agitators, John Poirier’s team Quizimodo, Gena Harper, the scintillating Mavens who carefully take note of casual adjectives, and others who support the Pub Quiz on Patreon (where I am also now sharing drafts of poems). I would love to add your name or that of your team to the list of supporters. So please join. I appreciate your backing this pub quiz project of mine! 

Best,

Dr. Andy

1. Mottos and Slogans. Starting with the letter Q, what restaurant chain uses the commercial slogan “Mmmmm… Toasty!”? 

2. Internet Culture. At 1,441 employees, what well-known company employs more people than any other entity in Emeryville, California? 

3. Newspaper Headlines. First name Emmanuel, the French President recently called for early legislative elections. What is the last name of the President of France? 

P.P.S. I hope you will join us Thursday night at 7 at the Natsoulas Gallery for Bob Stanley, the poet Laureate emeritus of Sacramento. His latest book has just been published! Visit Poetry in Davis to find out more.

Dear Friends,

Thanks to the almost 400 friends on Facebook who congratulated my son Truman for graduating Davis Senior High School last Friday. He will be starting at Ithaca College in August. His mom and sister will be delivering him (via a plane this time, instead of a massive road trip). He will study film, communication, and creative writing.

At 18, Truman has read more classic works of literature than many adults I know. In fact, I did some mental calculations in my head, and I think that he had finished more books on the 1990 UC Davis Department of English Master’s Degree Exam Reading List as a high school student than I had as a college graduate.

When UC Davis offered me a spot in its PhD program in April of 1990, as well as a job, I asked them what I should read to prepare for graduate school, and they sent me a list of the 80 or so books for which I would be responsible in order to earn my interim recognition of a Master of Arts in English. It started with Chaucer and ended with Toni Morrison. I wonder who would be the last (living) authors on the list today. Perhaps Jhumpa Lahiri or Zadie Smith. 

I earned a high pass on that master’s exam, as we called it, because the passage I was asked to identify and analyze concerned a speech from King Lear that I knew well. I had read the play for three classes at Boston University, and I had seen Anthony Hopkins in the title role on stage. In my essay, I channeled interpretations I remembered well from a Shakespeare class taught by Sir Christopher Ricks.

When King Lear came up in my son Truman’s AP Comp Lit class, he had already read the play on his own (he just told me it was December of 2022, when we were getting the kitchen remodeled). We had also seen a production of the play in Sacramento.

Ithaca, New York is about as far as you can get from Davis and remain in the lower 48 states. It takes three planes to get there. One could probably fly to London faster.

Ithaca may also be the topographical opposite of Davis. While our beloved hometown is dry and flat, Ithaca is hilly and fed generously by the Finger Lakes. Using the slogan “Ithaca is Gorge-Ous,” the area is famous for its waterfalls. I’m sure you want examples:

                  1.             Located within the city itself, Ithaca Falls stands at 150 feet tall.

                  2.             Buttermilk Falls, found in nearby Buttermilk Falls State Park, cascades down 165 feet.

                  3.             Taughannock Falls is located in Taughannock Falls State Park, this is one of the tallest single-drop waterfalls east of the Rocky Mountains, with a drop of 215 feet.

                  4.             Situated in Cascadilla Gorge, the Cascadilla Falls are a series of waterfalls totaling around 400 feet in height. I would want to take pictures there all day.

                  5.             Located at Cornell University, Triphammer Falls is part of the aforementioned Cascadilla Gorge. The name seems Asgardian.

                  6.             Lucifer Falls is found in Robert H. Treman State Park. During his solo visit to Ithaca College, Truman’s future dean recommended he visit this park, which he did, because of the name (the name Treman, not the name Lucifer). 

                  7.             Enfield Falls features several smaller waterfalls. Sticking with the undead theme, I thought this place should have been named Renfield Falls.

In total, there are over 150 waterfalls within a 10-mile radius of Ithaca. I wonder what the closest waterfall to Davis is. Probably Kim Stanley Robinson knows.

Congratulations, Truman! We will buy you some hiking boots with strong treads so that you feel empowered to visit all those falls without falling. You can bring a book with you on your hike.

I hope you can join us on an especially warm  evening for a pub quiz at Sudwerk. Bring your team to the beautiful outdoor patio where we have room for everyone. The the jollity and the misters will be on high. As Saint Augustine allegedly said, “Good times and crazy friends make the best memories.” Tonight some will want to play indoors. Understandable!

In addition to topics raised above, tonight’s pub quiz will feature questions on salted foods, the names of boats, successful pyramid schemes, movies with one-word titles, cell phones, restaurant chains, California employers, presidents, San Francisco, lakes, unalike sisters, tennis stars, American bands, Siberian sites, productions that are so large that they require two parts, stars, champions, alternative rock bands, child actors, butter, sea monsters, captives, Steve Jobs, little people, changes to Minneapolis, displays, high rents and related birds, Antarctica, dystopias, jobs for women, German words, godmothers, trees, current events, books and authors, and Shakespeare. Sometimes a question is substituted at the last minutes because of the day’s news.

Thanks to all the new players joining us at the live quizzes and to all the patrons who have been enjoying fresh Pub Quiz content. Thanks also to Brooke, Jeannie, Becky, Franklin, and More Cow Bell. Every week I check the Patreon to see if there is someone new to thank. I also thank The Original Vincibles, Summer Brains, The Outside Agitators, John Poirier’s team Quizimodo, Gena Harper, the dependable Mavens, and others who support the Pub Quiz on Patreon (where I am also now sharing drafts of poems). I would love to add your name or that of your team to the list of supporters. I appreciate your backing this pub quiz project of mine! 

Best,

Dr. Andy

P.S. Three questions from last week:

1. Dungeons and Dragons. If your D&D character is a Tabaxi, it resembles which species of animal of which there are more than 100 million in the United States? 

2. Pop Culture – Television. Now age 90 (in 2024), name either the actor or the character who is the lone survivor of Gilligan’s Island, so to speak. 

3. Another Music Question. What was the one-word title of the 2017 longest-running number-one on the Hot Latin Songs chart with 56 weeks? 

P.P.S. Congratulations to a favorite Pub Quiz participant, and this week still a current champion, Lillian Jones, now Dr. Lillian Jones. I’ve enjoyed working alongside her on multiple projects.