“The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.” Chinese Proverb

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The trees are coming into leaf

Like something almost being said;

The recent buds relax and spread,

Their greenness is a kind of grief.

Phillip Larkin

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In 1989, not long before I graduated from Boston University, I had the pleasure of seeing a talk by the great literary critic Frank Kermode. My professor Christopher Ricks, the towering intellectual whom the author John Carey called “our greatest living critic,” introduced Kermode, and paid homage to the elder intellect.

In his seminal work The Sense of an Ending: Studies in the Theory of Fiction, Kermode writes a sentence that has informed my thinking about the work I do, or would like to do: “It is not expected of critics that they should help us to make sense of our lives; they are bound only to attempt the lesser feat of making sense of the ways we try to make sense of our lives.”

In a similar vein, and backing my students into a theoretical understanding of writing tasks, I recently quoted Mortimer Adler’s book Dialectic when I helped my Writing in Fine Arts students distinguish “statements of fact“ from “statements about facts” and “statements about statements,” the final of the three making up the best thesis statements.

Sometimes, thinking deductively, we know the thesis in the beginning and then seek specifics to support the claim. Sometimes, thinking inductively, we have only evidence so we move towards an insightful conclusion. In that case, the argument and the sense of the ending are realized around the same time.

Many books written since Kermode’s remind us how difficult it is to “end”  projects. I think about this when I consider my unfinished books. Clearly I should read or reread books such as Start Finishing: How to Go from Idea to Done by Charlie Gilkey, Finish What You Start: The Art of Following Through, Taking Action, Executing, & Self-Discipline by Peter Hollins, and Finish: Give Yourself the Gift of Done by Jon Acuff, all three of which are in my Audible library.

As I haven’t yet read those books, I should recognize that I might be better at starting projects than finishing them. I’ve been inspired by the sort of pithy quotations that typically fill these newsletters:

• “The beginning is the most important part of the work.” Plato
• “The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.” Walt Disney
• “Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.” Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
• “The secret of getting ahead is getting started.” Mark Twain
• “Do not wait; the time will never be ‘just right.’ Start where you stand, and work with whatever tools you may have at your command, and better tools will be found as you go along.” Napoleon Hill
• “Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world.” Harriet Tubman
• “The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.” Lao Tzu
• “Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.” Arthur Ashe
• “The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity.” Amelia Earhart

Speaking of beginnings, about ten years ago, on a whim, I founded a Facebook group called “Events in Davis.”I thought it could send more traffic to my poetry readings and pub quizzes. 

Like a tree planted in one’s youth, that group has been growing steadily. During this coming week, the third week of National Poetry Month in 2024, that Facebook group will reach my decade goal of 10,000 members, a great number of people, including the Davis musician Joan Ogden, who added her name to the group this morning. I’m glad I started this group! As Zig Ziglar said, “You don’t have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great.” 

What great and patient project will you start this week?

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The weather will be downright pleasant on this Wednesday night. If you are in Davis this evening, please join us at Sudwerk. Recruit a team and join us at the beautiful outdoor patio where we have room for everyone. Even though it is more work for me, we always have more fun with the bigger crowds and more voices. 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 satellites, last names, million dollar homes, shipwrecks, eastern conferences, sanctions, illustrated books, pines, Oscar winners, disputed countries, celebrities, famous dancers, Samuel L. Jackson, California zip codes, classroom occupations, knighted survivors, time-traveling comedic narrators, notable Germans, Tunisian favorites, National Poetry Month, technology milestones, white flowers, ostriches and storks, credit cards, extended contracts, nights and days, faraway universities, rock stars after who one of my cats was named in 1980 or so, California notables, U.S. states, current events, books and authors, and Shakespeare. 

Thanks to all the new 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. I so enjoyed running into members on Quizimodo on Tax Day near H&R Block. 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 PQ questions from last week:

1. Countries of the World. What country is bordered by Saudi Arabia to the south and east, Iraq to the northeast, Syria to the north, and the Palestinian West Bank and Israel to the west? 

2. Major Polluters. Starting with the letter E, what are the ten letters in the name of the investor-owned company that emits 1.4% of the world’s Co2 emissions, more than any other private company? 

3. Science. What is the name of the largest coral reef system in the world? 

P.P.S. The April 18^th Poetry Night will be a Wide Open Mic. Bring something by to perform without having to worry about clapping politely for featured poets.

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

This week’s newsletter comes courtesy of my wife, the writer Kate Duren.

The Big Update 

Where to begin? Many of you know that I went into the hospital for a total hip replacement last Monday. I was quite anxious about this procedure, as I’ve had way too many surgeries in the last few years, and they don’t typically go well. But because every step I walked, whether around the house or around the UC Davis Arboretum, was accompanied by pain up and down my left leg, I knew I had to address the problem of my left hip. I did my research, chose to be brave, trusted my surgeon and health care system and went for it! I was so ready to put constant and increasing discomfort behind me. 

Almost nothing went as planned. When I woke up from surgery, I could not feel my foot. At first I thought it normal to be numb right after surgery. Then I realized I couldn’t move my foot or ankle, and that my leg was also numb. Also, unable to think straight, I couldn’t sit up or focus my eyes. My surgeon came in and told us that she had no idea why I couldn’t feel my leg or move my foot. When she said she had never seen this before, I began to panic. 

(The long version of this story includes shockingly poor treatment from UC Davis Health, and from my surgeon. I am in the middle of a battle to get the treatment I need from a team that refuses to acknowledge the severity of my injury.)

Later that Monday, we learned that my sciatic nerve had been stretched or crushed during surgery. Physical therapists quickly put my foot in a boot to protect it and my ankle, and they wanted to get me up walking to test my hip. Two nurses had to pick me up out of bed as I thought to myself I have never been so tired in my life. I felt like the Earth had somehow tripled its gravity. I took a few steps, dragging my paralyzed foot along, said, “I feel dizzy,” and they got me right back to bed. 

What we have since learned is that my damaged nerve could slowly heal from such an injury, but the condition can also be permanent. There is no way to know which camp I’m in. Hoping that my attitude matters, I am choosing to be positive and hoping, hoping, hoping to regain the use of my foot. Still, I’ve shed many tears this week. When it comes to imagined recoveries, this is the scariest mountain I’ve hoped to climb. I should say that I am trying to climb it!

I wish someone told me that the reason I felt so sick and anxious and confused and weak was that I had lost so much blood during the surgery. Instead, everyone who entered my room commented that I looked extremely pale. I needed a blood transfusion. Watching the blood drip down the tiny tube and into the needle in my hand, going the reverse direction that it always had was a surreal feeling. Having donated a lot of blood in my life, I never thought I’d be on the receiving end. I’m grateful for whomever provided me that A negative. 

With the addition of new blood, I had enough strength to begin learning to walk with my new hip and my foot and leg in an AFO (ankle foot orthosis) brace to stabilize it. My PT named Joel taught me to get in and out of bed, and to climb stairs using the railing and a crutch. We practiced getting in and out of a fake car, which he adjusted to match the height of my Prius. 

One night in the hospital, I was wakened several times by strong jolts that felt like electricity to my left leg. Each time, my leg JUMPED as if I were surrounded by people activating all of my reflexes at once. Could this be my nerve trying to wake up, I wondered? I may have to wait many months to find out. 

While in the hospital, I found a few people around the world who have experienced this rare injury. We have become fast friends, and they’ve helped me tremendously. 

Of course I worry about the Davis New Parent Support Group I lead each week. Lovely mamas have raised their hands to offer to cover facilitating the group until I can return. One new mom offered to organize a meal train. How thrilled I was to see her today when she dropped off a delicious dinner. I cannot wait to return to my group!

I’m now home from the hospital and happy to be falling asleep with Andy’s arms around me and waking up to Margot sniffing my hair. Instead of antiseptic cleaners, I smell the jasmine growing along our fence. Truman has been doing the grocery shopping and cleaning the house. Jukie looks at my walker in puzzlement, and I tell him, “Mommy needs help with walking right now.” Geneva knew I needed my girl and a dose of Gene Wilder, so she came over and we all watched Blazing Saddles.

I’ve started home health OT and PT. In a week or so, I will start neuro PT. Meanwhile, Andy has learned how to hold my foot and gently lift it as I try to move it. While my left foot has little sensation and won’t yet respond to my directed thoughts, it still feels good to be in Andy’s warm hands. Surely his loving touch will help me heal. 

As I begin a long and uncertain road of recovery and rehabilitation, I have been reflecting not only on the challenges I face, but also on the many blessings I have already experienced. 

Nurses are heroes. I felt like I made a 12-hour friendship with each nurse I had. Two stood out. I will always remember the way Claudia saw my fear and vulnerability and took the time to reassure me and go out of her way to help me in ways I didn’t even know I needed.

Patricia told me she immigrated to the US from Poland, first moving to Chicago. We talked about how hard it is to live far from our moms. She fluffed my pillows, said I looked cold, and tucked me in with warm blankets. When I woke up the next morning, she greeted me with, “guess what I learned about last night?… Smith-Lemli-Opitz syndrome!” She had studied the SLO Foundation website. The love, kindness, and empathy that nurses bring to their jobs every day is so appreciated by their patients. It brings me to tears. 

I am surrounded by an army of loving friends. Word got out that my surgery came with serious complications, and the cavalry arrived. My fierce advocates sat with me in the hospital by day and then researched my injury after visiting hours. When my PT couldn’t fit my new brace in my shoe, one friend immediately said, “take mine!” She knew that her shoes were one size bigger. (She went home wearing my too-small left shoe. ) Knowing my extreme claustrophobia, one friend stayed with me when I had to get a late night MRI. She cradled my head in her hands during the long, noisy procedure, and sang to me in my ear the entire time. Everyone brought something special, whether it was a shoulder for me to sob onto or a deck of tarot that instructed me to receive the love around me and to give that love to myself. I do not know how I would have survived those days without my posse of loving friends. 

I still can’t even keep up with the messages I am receiving. That’s okay — keep them coming! You all are helping me so much. 

And so the update is that I walked into the hospital an able-bodied woman in the prime of life, and I left with a new hip and a paralyzed foot. While I am terrified that I’ll never be able to move my foot again, I am also going to do everything humanly possible to help that nerve heal. Along the way, I imagine that I will learn huge lessons in patience and hope. 

Thank you all for your love and kindness. I feel your positive juju, and it means the world to me. 

Kate Duren

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The weather will be comfortable on this Wednesday night. If you are in Davis this evening, please join us at Sudwerk. Recruit a team and join us at the beautiful outdoor patio where we have room for everyone. Even though it is more work for me, we always have more fun with the bigger crowds and more voices. 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 cofounders, farms, history lessons, driving distances, Winnipeg, villains named Ralph, Best Actress nominees, tigers, National Poetry Month heroes, entire overcrowded towns where they leave the lights on for you, mulligans, impressive women pioneers, theatrical devices, holidays, people who roam, TV actors, vegetables, leading edges, statisticians, baths, polluters, unfortunate public remarks, U.S. states, current events, books and authors, and Shakespeare. 

Thanks to my new patron Adam who has 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. 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 quiz:

1. Newspaper Headlines. Kirsten Dunst revealed today that she is open to starring in a remake of her most famous 2000 cheerleading movie. Name the film. 

2. Economic Entomology. Born in 1857, which of the following is the full name of the Leland who helped establish economic entomology as a profession in the United States: Leland Ossian Howard, Leland Stanford, or Leland Yee? Just for fun, for this question, I will provide the answer: Leland Ossian Howard (the other two were Californians who founded Stanford University and who served as a California State Senator until he was sentenced to prison for gun trafficking and other charges)

3. Pop Culture – Music. Living from 1926 to 1967, what saxophonist received numerous posthumous awards, including a special Pulitzer Prize? Hint: he was also canonized by the African Orthodox Church. 

P.P.S. Thanks for reading to the end of the newsletter. Have you considered becoming a patron?

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

An act of kindness sends ripples out into the universe that benefits people outside our circle, our town, and even our ever-expanding networks of friends.

Thirty-three years ago this March my Hemingway and Fitzgerald professor Peter Hays invited our entire graduate class to his home for a dinner (what Hemingway would have called a “feast”) at our final class meeting. Living on my own in a rented room in a new home on Elk Place in north Davis, I had not enjoyed many home-cooked meals with actual distinguishable ingredients. Sometimes a newcomer doesn’t realize that he belongs in his new hometown until someone invites him over for dinner.

In subsequent years, Professor Hays talked frequently and informally about books and about my progress as a graduate student. He also observed me giving a guest lecture on Emerson and wrote it up his assessment for my teaching file. He told his wife Myrna that “this young man is going places.”

Ironically, I did not go places. The same university that trained me also hired me, so a few years after that Emerson lecture I got to call Pete an English Department colleague right here at UC Davis. For a few years, his emeriti office was next to mine in Voorhies Hall. He stopped by on a number of occasions to tell me how much he enjoyed overhearing my one-on-one office hour sessions with students as we discussed writing, poetry, and creativity.

When Peter passed away unexpectedly in 2022, I reached out to his (and everyone’s) star student from the 1990s, Carl Eby, to commiserate. Like Pete, Carl is a leading Hemingway scholar, and I have heard both of them speak about the master stylist and novelist on many occasions. Carl and I also used to participate in a literary theory study group that took place at Sudwerk just a few years after the brewery and restaurant opened in 1989. Believe it or not, that was back before I drank beer. The Sudwerk waitresses would bring me cranberry juice.

Fast forward to 2024, and the widow of Peter Hays, Myrna, yesterday introduced me to a crowd of almost 50 residents in the large auditorium at the University Retirement Community. I gave a poetry reading, I talked about Gerard Manley Hopkins and other famous poets, I mixed in funny stories about my wife Kate and our kids, and I answered some questions.

At one point, in my response to a question about the writing process, I mentioned that I could offer substantive exegesis on one of my poems, but nobody wants Dr. Andy to put on his professor hat at a poetry reading. Then next questioner averred that she actually did want to hear from Professor Dr. Andy, so please start analyzing the poem. Of course, I complied.

As much as I enjoyed momentously intoning my poems, my favorite part of the entire event was thanking Myrna Hays for inviting me to join the retirees for the evening, and then telling the crowd about the hospitality of Myrna and Pete 33 years and two weeks previously. 

If we turn to the Muses during National Poetry Month, and if the Muses are the daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne, the goddess of memory, then this poet was pleased to share his memories of Myrna’s long-ago act of generosity and care. As Oscar Wilde says, “The smallest act of kindness is worth more than the grandest intention.” In the era in which we live, marked by challenges and division, such gestures of goodwill and benevolence weave together and strengthen the fabric of our community.

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I think that you know that I run a pub quiz every Wednesday night. If you are in Davis this evening at 7, please join us at Sudwerk. Recruit a team and join us at the beautiful outdoor patio where we have room for everyone. There will be no rain this evening. Even though it is more work for me, we always have more fun with the bigger crowds and more voices. As Saint Augustine allegedly said, “Good times and crazy friends make the best memories.” The Muses also want you to attend.

In addition to topics raised above, tonight’s pub quiz will feature questions on people who belong, college towns, cheerleading moves, leaves of grass, Manga, bills, Pulitzers, entomology, hilarious happiness, devices, philosophers, holders, best friends, unexpected revelations, occupations, loyal singers, heavy metals, iron ores, maritime borders, literary nicknames, reach weapons, alcoholic scientists, appoints above and below, heavy lights, beetles, assists, it girls, posthumous awards, sequels, unlikely heroes, compelling shapes, unstoppable singers, place names, hombres with leaflets, current events, books and authors, and Shakespeare. 

Thanks to my new patron Adam who has 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, and others who support the Pub Quiz on Patreon. 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’s quiz, hosted by Don Lipper:

1. Internet Culture. What does the acronym IoT stand for, where the O is lower case? Internet of Things

2. Newspaper Headlines. Recently-fired NBC political commentator Ronna McDaniel is the niece of what prominent, living Republican? Mitt Romney

3. Feeling Prideful. In June of what year during the Obama administration did the US Supreme Court rule that a fundamental right to marry is guaranteed to same-sex couples by the Fourteenth Amendment. Hint: It was the same year that the Climate Peace Accords were adopted. 2015

P.P.S. Davis poet laureate Julia Levine reads new poems tomorrow / Thursday night at the Natsoulas Gallery. Will any Mavens make an appearance?

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

“Laws of nature are human inventions, like ghosts. Laws of logic, of mathematics are also human inventions, like ghosts. The whole blessed thing is a human invention, including the idea that it isn’t a human invention. The world has no existence whatsoever outside the human imagination. It’s all a ghost, and in antiquity was so recognized as a ghost, the whole blessed world we live in.…Your common sense is nothing more than the voices of thousands and thousands of these ghosts from the past.”

Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

I’m grateful to Don Lipper for guest-hosting tonight’s Pub Quiz. 

I pride myself on my professional attitude towards work responsibilities. For example, I have yet to miss a day of work because of my own illness, but has only been 34 years so far. Who knows what the coming years will bring?

Even when I caught Covid in February of 2022, I was able to teach my writing students from the back yard via Zoom. I got to eat a number of meals in the back yard that February.

With my wife Kate and our bookend kids visiting Chicago this week, I considered bringing my disabled son Jukie with me to Sudwerk for the Pub Quiz. Because of the aforementioned Covid, Jukie hasn’t eaten inside a restaurant for the last four years, and it will rain this evening. He and I will spend this Wednesday as if it were just another weekday, probably with a long walk before the rains come.

On Wednesday, March 18^th, 2020, I texted Don Lipper’s Portraits teammate Keith David Watenpaugh a photo of my walk with the dog. I wrote him “This is the first Wednesday afternoon at 5 o’clock in 20 years that I’ve been out for a walk in the city of Davis. KDVS has gone dark!”

Back then my radio show was only 20 years old. This was Keith’s response: “Savor it.”

I did, and I do.

This morning, for example, while Jukie slept, I arose early and started work on my clothes. I culled about 15% of both my dress shirts and my shorts, filling two boxes of clothes to donate. Some of the shirts had belonged to my dad, who passed away 20 years ago this month, and he himself had held onto some of his shirts for more than 20 years back then. 

I will still be hearing my dad’s voice even while no longer wearing his shirts.

I sent a picture of my progress to Kate, and she wrote back “I thought you like that pink one for Poetry Night.” She was right. I’ve always been grateful for Kate’s wise counsel. Imagine all the boneheaded decisions I’ve avoided since 1987!

My best decision was deciding to study abroad in London that fall. My second-best was convincing her to move to California a few years later.

As I reread those last two sentences, I realize that I should now switch from prose to poetry and get to work on something for Kate. Meanwhile, I will send you this newsletter with my good wishes for a fun Pub Quiz tonight. I look forward to hearing back from Don, and perhaps from you, how it went.

Happy spring break, if you get one!

Dr. Andy

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If you are in Davis this evening, please join the fun at Sudwerk, despite the blustery weather. 

In addition to topics raised above, tonight’s pub quiz will feature questions on Sydney, internet acronyms, famous families, Reno reservoirs, public playhouses people who were caught stealing, misguided vetoes, works of literature that ask questions, climate change, county seats, famous scuba divers, big octaves, research centers, video games, pellets, people who laugh out loud, ranting voices, Emmy-winners, three dimes, economists, notable cities back east, bald people,  accords, big places, place names, superheroes, current events, books and authors, and Shakespeare. 

Thanks to my new patron Adam who has 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, and others who support the Pub Quiz on Patreon. 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 a past pub quiz:

1. Current Events – Names in the News. What is the job title of Rishi Sunak?  

2. Sports. What do the greatest Swiss tennis player of all time and the first runner to break the four-minute mile have in common?  

3. Shakespeare. Which Shakespeare play has secondary characters with the names Balthasar, Benvolio, Paris, and Tybalt? 

P.P.S. Davis Poet Laureate Julia B. Levine reads with Rebecca Foust on the roof of the Natsoulas Gallery on April 4^th at 7.

In novels and films, we often root for characters who are bit imbalanced, those whose rash decisions drive the plot, while in real life, we prefer our friends to be balanced.

The musician Patti Smith put it this way: “In art and dream may you proceed with abandon. In life may you proceed with balance and stealth.”

When my children were young, I would sometimes say surprising or outrageous things at the dinner table to see how they would react. Aristotle allegedly said, “The secret to humor is surprise,” and I love to hear my surprised children laugh. Once my daughter Geneva accused me of being silly (or unbalanced), like Mr. Noodle.

This fall my youngest son Truman will be heading off to college. Truman is a novelist who is trained as an actor and an improviser, but he also makes more measured decisions than most of his peers. Will his new roommates and lunch buddies consider him to be more or less balanced than the norm?

Henry Miller said that “All that matters is that the miraculous become the norm.” Perhaps the job of the novelist, the playwright, or the poet is to discover or create the miraculous? Such is a significant task, but eyes must be opened.

According to a 2022 report in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, if you can balance on one leg for 10 seconds or longer, you are unlikely to die anytime soon. To quote the article’s abstract, “Balance quickly diminishes after the mid-50s increasing the risk for falls and other adverse health outcomes.” Ironically, that sentence itself is imbalanced – it needs a comma after “mid-50s” the way a see-saw needs a fulcrum.

I’m not naming names, but I still remember who was the heaviest girl in my second-grade class. How did I know? From where my lightweight self had to sit across from her to keep the see-saw evenly balanced.

After I heard about that sports medicine study, I tried to balance on one foot for ten seconds. Even though I my age could be characterized as “after the mid-50s” (I’m around the age that Dante was when he finally lost his balance), I can balance well. I can still put on my socks and shoes, and tie my shoes, from a standing position without losing my balance. Bringing my feet up to my hips, such as to tie my shoes, is the only way I can touch my toes.

Before the pandemic, I found it easier to put on my shoes. For decades on teaching days I wore lace-less black dress shoes. Back then, I biked everywhere around town instead of walking. As my back bike tire went flat that fateful March week just over four years ago when all the (bike) stores closed in Davis, I just opted thereafter to walk. I found that I was less in a hurry than before.

While out long-walking with my son Jukie (he joined me for 15 miles this past Sunday), I will hop up on an elevated curb or greenbelt ledge and walk a stretch to test my balance. Sometimes I make Jukie do the same. With our strong legs, he and I can (immoderately) walk all day.

Like veteran skiers, Jukie has excellent physical balance. When he was younger, we used to play this game where I would sit on the floor at Jukie’s feet and then push and pull at his calves or thighs in a mock-attempt to knock him down. He would laugh and laugh, but never fall.  

Currently we Davisites are balanced between winter and spring, but meteorologically, spring dominates. Like a spring day just before dawn, our once-optimistic country also seems precariously balanced between darkness and light, between what the Bard called “the winter of our discontent,” and the way that he described spring in Love’s Labour’s Lost:

When daisies pied and violets blue

And lady-smocks all silver-white

And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue 

Do paint the meadows with delight.

I hope that this November every Californian and every open-eyed and mentally-balanced American will be filled not with discontent, but with delight.

But even after November, I hope you and your families enjoy many years of physical, spiritual, and work-life balance. If you feel your balance waning, I recommend that you invite a favorite companion on a long walk that is interrupted often by daring feats of balance and by Mr. Noodle-like whimsy. I have found that in many cases, like life, those two will be one and the same.

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Subscribers to my pub quizzes on Patreon have already received a bonus treat this week, the short pub quiz that I performed for the yearly Patwin Elementary Auction and Fundraiser. I was also the auctioneer. 

This bonus quiz has 15 new questions, and I transferred one of the trickier questions to tonight’s 7 P.M. Sudwerk pub quiz, so join me on Patreon to see that preview. Tonight also expect questions on big places, locators, Japan, championship games and series, forked lightning, tricky riddles, big cities, Hurricanes named Hugo, losing politicians, nannies, self-described legends, monkeys, Latin words, medieval lingo, first novels, TV sports, coastlines, orchestras, old animals, popular characters, place names, superheroes, game statistics, appointments back on planet Earth, words that could be Wordle answers if they were not proper nouns, fancy words for washing up, current events, books and authors, and Shakespeare. 

Thanks to new patron Adam who has 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, and others who support the Pub Quiz on Patreon. I would love to add your name or that of your team to the list of supporters. Thanks for considering backing this pub quiz project of mine! 

Best,

Dr. Andy

P.S. Science fiction icon Kim Stanley Robinson, himself the topic of a pub quiz question at least once a decade, will be reading poetry at Poetry Night on March 21^st at 7 PM at the John Natsoulas Gallery. Come early, for I expect on that we will run out of chairs.

Enjoy these three questions from our last Sudwerk Pub Quiz.

1. Renaissance Men. What poet, singer-songwriter, and cartoonist wrote the books A Light in the Attic, The Giving Tree, The Missing Piece, and Where the Sidewalk Ends?  

2. Books and Authors. First name Zadie, what White Teeth author and NYU creative writing professor was born in Britain to a Jamaican mother and British father?  

3. Film. First name William, what director has directed 14 actors to Academy Awards, more than any other director? Hint: His films include Roman Holiday, Ben-Hur, and Funny Girl, but not the Billy Wilder classicSome Like It Hot.  

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

I’ve been thinking about my writing styles, and really my writing identities, as I gather poems to read at my first headlining poetry reading since March of last year. I recognize the healthy ways that the person who has written my poems of the last couple years is different from those one who wrote the works that filled up my previous published and unpublished books. 

Tomorrow, Thursday, March 14^th, I will be reading 25 minutes of new poems starting around 8:30, with open mic performers performing before and after my feature. You should come by the Silver Lining Piano Bar at 1414 16^th Street in Midtown Sacramento to see the show.

As our parents have faced all sorts of health problems in the last few years, most of them cognitive, my wife Kate and I have adhered ever more closely to the brain health regimen recommended by neurologists. I’ve been a vegetarian for more than 40 years, and I don’t typically eat high-calorie or high-sugar baked goods or desserts, but in recent years I’ve recommitted to healthy eating, for Kate has started making me elaborate feasts packed with tofu and more than a half-dozen vegetables. These meals take Kate almost an hour to make, and they take me almost that long to eat. As only one in ten Americans eats the vegetables that they should, I assume that I eat more vegetables at one sitting than most Americans do in a week.

I started walking during the pandemic lockdown, and haven’t stopped since, averaging more than five miles a day since 2021. According to a recent article in The Telegraph, “Walking 15,000 steps a week for two years could add years to your life, a London School of Economics (LSE) study has found.” As I walk back and forth to campus, I hit that benchmark easily, and my son Jukie and I typically cover more than 15,000 steps every weekend day. This past weekend we walked 25 miles.

So my poems these days are fueled by healthy food, and many of them are composed (sometimes by dictation) while I am enjoying the greenbelts of Davis.

The other big change that affects my poetry? My going to bed before 11 PM every night.

I used to wait for everyone in my family to go to sleep before plumbing the depths of my poetic brain for material and quiet composition time. Franz Kafka journaled about his insomnia in his diaries, and some biographers think the wild imagery found in stories such as “The Metamorphosis” resulted from his lack of sleep. He died at age 40.

F. Scott Fitzgerald, Jack Kerouac and many other authors struggled with alcohol, and Charles Baudelaire and Hunter. S. Thompson were also drug addicts. All of them, like Woolf, Plath, and Hemingway, suffered from insomnia, and most of them died much too early.

Addressing my own sleep problems (starting with a sleep study) and choosing to go to sleep (early) when my wife Kate does have all improved my life. It has been refreshing to wake up feeling rested, and I nap a lot less than I used to, using that awake time to write poems during the day, rather than overnight.

But are the poems any good? I can tell that they are more controlled, less obstinately random. The comedian Stephen Wright once said, “I have to be asleep by one in thе morning because my dreams are going to start whether I’m sleeping or not, which can make for some pretty strange conversation if I’m still awake.” I have sometimes felt the same way about poems I wrote late at night, such as this one in which I tried to represent the kaleidoscopic descriptions of Kate’s first ocular migraine:

First Ocular Migraine

Transchromatic vision spiraled before her,

Void of calculations or of volition,

Rather, arctic icepick arpeggios,

Hyacinth river syringes, an antipathetic siren song, 

Synthetic shuddering childbirth of synapses,

Awakened autoplay of uneven blackative perforations,

Intermission from logic and pretension,

Like Carmen Miranda choking a parrot, furious tintinabulations,

Squawking polychromatic involuntary terrace table geyser-sabre fever-burst!

Waves of judgment, the snap of brain-stem hunger!

Somewhere a basilica is burning pestled crystals; 

they are the color of the world!

Hypertrophic painters have machine-blasted zigzag astronomical cracks. 

The imps are dancing to transparent friction idiophones, 

Two or three of them on the sides of her eyeball.

Blushing buzzer, besmirched blushing bloodstained barefaced bandit!

Hallucination independent of eyeball, of eyelid, of light source, 

Formless and inchoate, like the lacuna of an unborn star.

I don’t know if I could write such a wild and haphazard poem at two in the afternoon, but now that I am taking better care of myself, I will see if I can bring other strengths to bear to my writing processes and products. You will see evidence of my new verse at The Silver Linings Piano Bar if you join us tomorrow night at 8.

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The Sudwerk Pub Quiz happens tonight and every Wednesday night at 7. If you are in Davis this evening, please join us. Recruit a team and join us at the beautiful outdoor patio where we have room for everyone. At the end, we are left only with our thoughts, so I would love for your thoughts to be populated with your friends. 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 art museums, social media, 401K accounts, annoying people, football, elements, Florida losers, the year 1988, Beavertowns, expensive cities, second acts for athletes, secondary names, Oscars, NATO headquarters, Ryan Gosling, funny girls, books about teeth, notable novellas, things that are soft that you wouldn’t expect to be soft, crabs, imagined scenarios with the UC Davis alumni ski team, covers, scientific sub-disciplines, people who have been arrested, public domain characters, common sense, tennis stars, New York University, The Financial Times, job titles, centers of culture, SI units, current events, books and authors, and Shakespeare. 

Thanks to my new patron Adam who has 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, and others who support the Pub Quiz on Patreon. 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 five questions from last week’s Pub Quiz:

1. Mottos and Slogans. What was the most famous slogan of Wheaties?  

2. Internet Culture. What does the “QR” of a “QR code” stand for? 

3. Newspaper Headlines. In the city of Davis, did Measure N pass or fail?  

4. Four for Four. Which two of the following are native to North America: cabbage, cactus pear, carrots, cranberries?   

5. The Streets of San Francisco. What street is famous for a steep, one-block section with eight hairpin turns?  

P.P.S. Kim Stanley Robinson will be reading his poetry at Poetry Night in Davis on March 21^st, the first day of spring!

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

March 2^nd is always a day of reflection and remembrance for me. I got to go on a long walk with my son Jukie this past Saturday, May 2^nd, during which time I spent some hours thinking about two of my favorite people, both gone too soon.

March 2^nd, 2024, marks the 20^th anniversary of the passing of my dad, Davey Marlin-Jones. As I have written in this newsletter previously, “Davey Marlin-Jones was a magician, actor, theatre director, film director, theatre critic, film critic, and drama professor, roughly in that order, but with significant overlap.”

I have also written about “performing” with my dad (including interviewing him on my own KDVS radio show in 2002), about his childhood in Indiana, about his lifetime immersion in film, and about his work as a movie critic allowing me to be the first child in America to watch the film Star Wars.

As I prepare to send my youngest off to college, and as I reconnect with friends from childhood (more on that below), I realize what a special childhood I had. My librarian mom made sure that I was immersed in good books and curious about my home town of Washington, D.C., and my famous television personality dad made sure that my afternoons and weekends were filled with games, films, and talk about theatre and other forms of arts.

Strangers who watched my dad on TV also called out to my dad as if they knew him. As he and I would walk down Wisconsin Avenue, drivers would lightly honk their hellos, pedestrians would recognize him and smile, and even bus passengers would yell his name (“Hey Davey!”) from DC Metro busses. Because he was functionally blind, an unexpected restriction for a drama and film critic, my dad would green these people back like they were old friends, just to cover his bases. I think dad was such a big deal in Washington, D.C. not only because he came on CBS just before Walter Cronkite on most evenings, but also because everyone came away from interactions with the towering blind man with feelings of mutual appreciation. I try to emulate my dad in this way.

My dad died 20 years ago this week at age 71. That seems so young to me – he collected only a single year of social security payments – but actuarial tables reveal that males born in 1932 were expected to live only to age 67, and that number is lower for men born in Indiana than those born in California. I could have benefitted from dad’s wisdom and guidance over the last 20 years, but I am grateful for all time I got to spend with him, and his humor and showbiz energy continue to inform all my work with students and other audiences.

March 2^nd is also special to me because it is the birthday of my best friend Montague David Lord, known to his friends and family as Tito. I feel like I had spent most weekends at Tito’s house before my parents’ divorce, and most of my weekend’s at my dad’s house after the divorce.

Like my dad, Tito was also a renaissance man, just in different fields. He was the most dominant player on any baseball or cross-country team, and because of his fitness, my short friend Tito and an equally-fit friend would eventually win in two-on-two basketball because of the intense pace at which he played. Later he took to mountain climbing because of the ease with which his powerful limbs allowed him to brachiate up even the steepest inclines.

When still a college student at Trinity College, Tito saw his drawings from an archaeological dig in Peru appear in the New York Times, he learned to rebuild the engine of his Ford Thunderbird, and he started taking flying lessons. A philosophy and architecture major, Tito somehow had memorized all of “The Hollow Men” by T.S. Eliot, reciting it to me during a long drive from Connecticut to Washington D.C. during the spring break before I met my wife Kate.

Tito flew his plane to our wedding in 1992, and soon thereafter flew off to Alaska where he would pilot his last flight. His mom (and my 1970s backup mom) called me in August of 1993 to report that Tito’s plane had gone down. For eight days after his death on August 4 of that year, I thought to myself that Tito was still older than me, that he was still alive just earlier that month. Tito pointed out to me when we were youngsters that he was the wiser of the two of us because he was born on March 2^nd, eight days before me. When Tito died, I felt that I had lost a brother, or part of myself.

Many people knew or knew of my dad, even though he reviewed his last movie in December of 1987. Fewer people knew Tito, though he is remembered fondly by those who did.

I’m now going to fill a paragraph with the names of our Washington Waldorf School classmates. If one of them Googles themselves, or the self that they once were in Hearst Hall under the shadow of the National Cathedral, they will find this greeting, know that I am thinking of them, and know that Tito loved them, and that he is loved still.

Here are the names: Marty Benjamin, Jessica Case, Cassie, Chuck, Andy D’Angelo, Franceve Demmerle, Amanda Efron, Lucinda Eagle, Ben Foster, Aaron Gilmartin, Scott Glaser, Kirsten Sturman Hasslinger, Helen Hegland, Andrea Leigh Humphries, Bernie Keil, Tia Kirby, Ian Lent, Chris Lester, Chris McAulliffe, Emily Menezes, Maurice, Robert O’Hara,  Kristin Paddack, Jim Parmelee, Kirsten Parsons, Scott Portacarerro, Matthew Ramsey, Steven Robinson, Birgit Rudelius, Sean Scully, Tom Schweiker, John Singleton, Emily Stussi, Wes Taylor (happy birthday!), Rebecca Trimble, Stephanie Holman Thwaites, Ulrich Winkelmann, Raphael Cavalier Yanick. To this list I should add Montague David Lord, AKA Tito, his mom Anna Johnson, and his late stepdad Jim Johnson. Our teacher, a backup dad for me, is the esteemed Jack Petrash. The bolded names are current Facebook friends of mine, remarkably. I think fondly and often about all of you. If I have misspelled a name or forgotten someone, please let me know.

Meanwhile, treasure your family members, treasure your friends, and join me in raising a March 2^nd toast, actual or imaginary, to Davey Marlin-Jones and Tito Lord.

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I think that you know that I run a pub quiz every Wednesday night. If you are in Davis this evening, please join us at Sudwerk. With regard to tonight, recruit a team and join us at the beautiful outdoor patio where we have room for everyone. Even though it is more work for me, we always have more fun with the bigger crowds and more voices. 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 fruits, the City of Davis, carrots, Scandinavia, semi-autonomous regions, racy statures, French women, restaurants, ushers, CIA agents, Los Angeles Kings, Queens, islands, cabbage, cacti, breakfast cereal, suckers, insects, daughters, famous hammers, Chinese companies, romantic novels, prisms, big dinners, aeronautics, cinematic wrestlers, emojis, famous football players who died before even I was born, forms of dance, sources of energy, football, current events, books and authors, and Shakespeare. 

Thanks to my new patron Adam who has 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, and others who support the Pub Quiz on Patreon. 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

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

1. Midwestern Culture. What B word do Midwesterners use for turn signals?  

2. Unusual Words. What word with a Z in it that means “To deceive or cheat by trickery”?  

3. Pop Culture – Television. The primary female character in the TV show Succession shares a nickname with what weapon?  

P.P.S. Please join us for Poetry Night tomorrow night at 7, and every first and third Thursday night, at the John Natsoulas Gallery in Davis.

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

I Zoomed today with an author whom I met at the San Francisco Writers Conference. At the conference I get to consult with first-time attendees who wonder if their writing projects will find an audience. Some of them ask for a follow-up visit, or even a chance to work with me after the conference. Today this particular author found an audience with me for an hour, and I shared with him my unique perspectives on his unusual four book projects.

If “The secret of life is enjoying the passage of time,” as the musician James Taylor says, then I got to enact that secret for an hour, talking about creativity, writing, publishing, and the discoverability of an aspiring creative professional. I eventually cut the conversation short not because I wasn’t enjoying our chat, but because I wanted this author to value my time. Also, I wanted to attend to Kate.

Today’s conversation partner lives in a small town in Iowa, and he revealed that locally he couldn’t find the perspectives that I could offer him on non-sequential, poetic, and experimental writing projects. We discussed how discoverability as an author matters, too, because of inadequate local interest in what he writes. The long tail of the internet, and the frictionless ways in which any digital document can be purchased, means that any productive author with what Kevin Kelly calls “1,000 True Fans” can likely make a living from sharing one’s latest publications.

My friend the Sacramento novelist M. Todd Gallowglas has an army of followers, locally and out there in the world, who attend his online classes and writers’ salons, buy his science fiction books and books in other genres, and attend his (Sacramento only) regular storytelling performances, such as the two he put on this past Saturday. He calls them “Bard for Life.” His income is made possible in part from the books that he sells to his 1,000 true fans. I suspect he has more than 1,000.

I’ve been collecting poems for a reading that I am giving in a Sacramento piano bar on March 14^th, so I have been thinking about authorship as a producer as well as a consultant. Meanwhile, my French bulldog Margot sits in the family “comfy chair,” and my son Jukie was upstairs watching Encanto, though right now the house is eerily quiet. Both of these charges would like to go out for a walk, while I need to write up some notes for my new author contact in Iowa. 

I also need to look over the script for today’s airing of Dr. Andy’s Poetry and Technology Hour, my radio show that airs live Wednesday afternoons at 5 and drops as a podcast Thursday mornings at 9. So many authors from the writers conference have their own projects to discuss, and poems they would like to share with KDVS listeners.

I, too, have 1,000 true fans out there in the world, though many of them have but fond and fading memories of their writing, journalism, or poetry professor. I’ve been fortunate to draw a salary from UC Davis for the last 34 years. If I wanted to commodify and monetize all my creative work, I would spend more time ensuring my own discoverability, but I also recognize the pleasures of a Zoom conversation with a new friend, time preparing a meal for my son, the rough draft of a poem, or a late afternoon walk with the dog. 

As Robert Graves reminds us, “There’s no money in poetry, but there’s no poetry in money, either.”

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If you are in Davis tonight, please join us for the Pub Quiz at Sudwerk. The weather is warming up, and we have no rain scheduled for tonight, so recruit a team and join us at the beautiful outdoor patio where we have room for everyone. Even though it is more work for me, we always have more fun with the bigger crowds and more voices. 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 fruits, questionable medical advice, prototype computers, warriors, neurons, childish games, gold, capital cities that  you have never visited, reactions, all saints, posthumous heroes and their girlfriends, sports franchises, overdue retirements, Poles who move to Britain, final lines to films, named weapons, grasses, words translated into multiple languages, magic, record breakers, surroundings, Dilbert, girls’ adventures, candy, fake mountains, groups of girls, emotional goodbyes, orthodox countries, comical antagonists, donations, spurs, nails, trickery, pigs, current events, books and authors, and Shakespeare. 

Thanks to the 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, and others who support the Pub Quiz on Patreon. 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. Gold. More than half the U.S. gold reserve is found in what U.S. state?  

2. Forests. What country alone holds more than 20% of the world’s forests?  

3. Pop Culture – Music. The 2022 number one song “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” is sung by the cast of what film? 

P.S. Did you know that I post free bonus quiz questions on Patreon? I should start sampling those in my Wednesday quizzes.

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

Returning to the San Francisco Writers Conference every February is like returning to summer camp. Encountering many of the same friends that I’ve made there over the last 19 years, I get to teach lessons learned from previous talks to new writers, and I get to orient the new campers, the first time attendees, on approaching the process of writing, marketing, and selling a book.

My family didn’t have a lot of money, so I got to attend sleep-away camp only one pivotal summer, but I learned a lot from that experience about interacting with kids who were not oddball Waldorf types like myself and all my friends. At the World Community Camp (what I have jovially since called a “hippie training academy”), I was also introduced to vegetarianism.

Those lessons about expressing compassion for all sentient beings through our dietary choices resonated with me, and I have been a vegetarian ever since. My family didn’t know what to make of my dietary restrictions, just like they didn’t know what to make me for dinner. Some vegetarians define that term loosely by eating fish or chicken, but I myself have not. 

Nowadays vegans have lapped vegetarians in the self-congratulatory self-righteous department. You might not have known I was a vegetarian if you have never dined with me (and in recent days I have enjoyed many 6 PM meals with Mavens), because don’t I bring it up all the time. I have a vegan coworker who I lunched with today, and he will work the word “vegan” into most conversations.

After ten or more years of this, I once said out loud, at a meeting with all of us there, “Wait,  you are a VEGAN?! I had no idea!” Now I don’t joke about that anymore. At least he doesn’t do CrossFit or host a podcast, two other topics that practitioners will bring up unbidden in almost every conversation.

Sometimes I return to familiar topics the way that Chaucer says a tongue will return to a sore tooth. Tell us more about your radio show, Dr. Andy, I hear someone saying. You haven’t mentioned Poetry Night for thirty seconds. What’s the latest with Kate? Have you taken any long walks lately? Any new signups on your Patreon? Do you have a funny story about one of your students or about one of the celebrities who lived in your basement in the 1980s? People rarely request these topics, nor need they, for I will volunteer them myself.

At a writers conference, people instead bring up their book projects. Sometimes the conference program will indicate the time for the no-host bar and add the admonishment  “NO PITCHING.” Everyone there wants to pitch their books, and sometimes the agents need a break. Some agents will flip over their nametag on their conference-provided lanyard to indicate that they are off duty.

But I do love the laughter that comes from the Eclipse Bar and Kitchen at the Hyatt Regency San Francisco. I even made it a primary subject of the conference poem, which I wrote on Saturday night after the open mic (58 people signed up) and performed this past Sunday morning.

Peals of Laughter

Hear the deep resonant chimes of The Ferry Building clock tower bells.

Il est huit heur! 

It’s always 8 PM somewhere, the beginning of a night out,

or so say the answering bells of tourists on rented electric scooters,

scaring both the nocturnal rats and the diurnal pigeons, 

before stopping to stare 

at the new floodlit Embarcadero Center pickleball courts.

Hey, those weren’t here at last year’s conference!

The writers notice everything.

The only sound that is more joyous 

than tourist scooters or pickleball cheering 

is that of the laughter of authors, or so I keep hearing,

for my Hyatt Recency room 334 is right above the hotel bar. 

Every February I hear the authors gather there at breakfast 

and enjoy eggs over laughter. 

Every February I hear the authors gather 

there at lunchtime over martinis, 

some of them the best martinis they ever had,

sharing business cards, unsolicited pitches, and outrageous laughter. 

As we all can hear, the authors gather there late into the evening, 

long after I finished writing this poem, 

to sound the third floor rooms laughter alarms, 

the alarm clocks no one wishes to snooze.

To the smiling authors staring up at a Hyatt ceiling, 

higher than the belfry of Grace Cathedral;

to the joking authors 

attempting auctioneer-speed elevator pitches 

in elevators they discover ascend too quickly to the VIP rooms 

that are imagined to be briming with agents; 

to the thunderous back-slapping authors 

visiting the Hyatt atrium Eclipse Kitchen and Bar, 

every hour is happy hour.

Risible writers, I consider your insistent words 

a revolt against silence. 

Jocular journal keepers, I consider your comical words 

a revolt against mediocrity. 

Mirthful wordsmiths, agented and unagented 

synthesists who can create anything, 

lead the revolt against weekday jobs, 

for on this weekend, 

lit by the low, faux moonlight of a moonlit bar, 

the only traffic that slows us down 

is that of hopeful authors who traffic in inspiration, 

who traffic in community, 

and who traffic in our February palace home’s 

raucous, echoing, creative, literate, and irrepressible laughter.

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I hope you enjoyed the weekend. To commemorate it, I wrote at least one pub quiz question about U.S. presidents, even though most of the early ones seem less heroic today than they did when we were reading their illustrated biographies as children.

In addition to topics raised above, expect also questions about the following: 

In addition to topics raised above, tonight’s pub quiz will feature questions on snacks that go well with tea, winds, Rocky Mountains, keyboards, Oscar-winners, monologues, shooting guards, waves, vibes, popular TV shows, salmon, years, clouds, ceremonies, U.S. states, musical films, forests, European countries, Nebraska, bees, pies, long songs, horses, American sports, newsmen in the shed, billboards, current events, books and authors, and Shakespeare. 

Thanks to the Brooke, Jeannie, Becky, Franklin, and More Cow Bell. I also thank The Original Vincibles, Summer Brains, The Outside Agitators, John Poirier’s team Quizimodo, Gena Harper, and others who support the Pub Quiz on Patreon. 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! 

The rain has stopped for the day, so I look forward to performing tonight’s trivia contest outdoors. Will you join me there?

Best,

Dr. Andy

1. Film. What British actress had important supporting roles in the following 2010 films: Alice in Wonderland, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Pt. 1, and The Kings Speech, for which she was nominated for the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress?  

2. Countries of the World in 2021. True or False: The three countries in this sentence, Poland, Ukraine, and The United Kingdom, are arranged in order by population from lowest to highest.  

3. Desserts. What coffee-flavored Italian dessert is made of ladyfingers dipped in coffee, layered with a whipped mixture of eggs, sugar and mascarpone, flavored with cocoa?