Dear Friends,

We are losing our notable nonagenarians. 

Rosalyn Carter was less dynamic or  glamorous than other first ladies, but she attended Cabinet meetings and worked side by side with her husband Jimmy to build houses for humanity.

I have distinct memories of watching the Channel 9 Eyewitness News newscast on the day in July of 1981 when President Reagan announced Sandra Day O’Connor as the first woman Supreme Court Justice. O’Connor only found out the day before the announcement was made. She didn’t even know that she was a finalist for the position. I guess everyone today knows if they are finalists.

How do I remember it so well? Because I accompanied my dad to the TV station that day to see him review a movie. Perhaps it was For Your Eyes Only, the James Bond film which I watched with him in the theatre the week before. I think he preferred that film over Arthur, which was to be released a couple weeks later.

And then there’s Henry Kissinger, who outlived the comedians who impersonated him (well, Robin Williams, but not Al Franken) and Michael T. Kaufman, who had written most of Kissinger’s obituary for The New York Times.

Today in the Times, one finds the obituary of Norman Lear, the television producer and progressive icon who died overnight at the age of 101. With his television comedies, Lear probably affected my life more so than these other recent losses.

He also produced films that my dad the film critic loved, such as Fanny and Alexander, This is Spinal Tap, Stand By Me, and The Princess Bride.

That last film came out the year my dad stopped reviewing movies. It’s funny to think that, even though he was born in the 1930s, as a performer and critic, my dad could always look up to the work of his elders such as Dick Van Dyke and Mel Brooks, who are still with us, and Carl Reiner and Norman Lear, who have recently passed.

Speaking of people born in the early 30s, I checked in with retired teacher and first Davis poet laureate Allegra Silberstein on her birthday Monday. At 93, she is doing well. She has attended just about all the poetry readings I have hosted over the last 20 years, and most of the readings in Davis and Sacramento where I have performed. I expect to see her Thursday night at the Natsoulas Gallery.

Allegra reminds us that, especially when it comes to the arts, all of us should plan on enriching the world for many decades. The lucky ones will succeed. As Steve Jobs said, “We’re here to put a dent in the universe. Otherwise why else even be here?”

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Thanks for reading to the end of the newsletter. Congratulations to Pub Quiz regular Catriona McPherson on the publication of her new novel, Hop Scot.

If you are in Davis tonight, please join us for the Pub Quiz at Sudwerk. Recruit a team, dress for a December sunset, and join us at the beautiful outdoor patio with heaters where we have room for just about everyone. We always have more fun with the bigger crowds and more voices. As Amy Poehler says, “Find a group of people who challenge and inspire you, spend a lot of time with them, and it will change your life forever.”

In addition to topics raised above, tonight’s pub quiz will feature questions on games, emoji, expensive purchases, Jamie Foxx projects, economics, breaches, departing grandmothers, brothers in ignominy, charging connundra, sound barriers, Leonard Martin, people who have left the building, instruments that we can count on, places called Washington, South America, art and art history, sad bribes, socks, professional teams, deathbed emails to science fiction authors, rockabilly songs, median incomes, Oxford University, people from Indiana, planets in synchrony, winning records, Oscar winners with brothers, current events, books and authors, and Shakespeare.

Thanks to The Original Vincibles, Summer Brains, The Outside Agitators, Quizimodo, Gena Harper, a new guy named Spencer (welcome!) 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. Books and Authors. In the film Pulp Fiction, we learn that “The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men.” The book of the Bible that Jules Winnfield quotes is named after a likely 7^th century BCE man who has been acknowledged as a prophet in the Jewish, Christian, and Islamic traditions. Name him.  

2. Film. What 1983 superhero sequel film was nominated for two Razzie Awards, including for a Worst Supporting Actor Razzie for Richard Pryor? 

3. Queens of the World. What future queen was born 24 May 1819 in Kensington Palace with the original first name of Alexandrina?  

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

Thanks to everyone who subscribes to the Pub Quiz via Patreon.

Back in the 1990s, everyone watched Seinfeld. This meant that conversationally, when people at the cocktail parties I attended (though this was before I drank cocktails) brought up a substantive, interesting, or literary topic, someone would inevitably say “Yes, and that’s like that one Seinfeld episode when . . . .” and then everyone would switch over to Seinfeld, abandoning the initial topic altogether.

In 2023, we’ve seen the same phenomenon, except that these days conversations that start on one particular topic end up being hijacked by talk of AI, especially ChatGPT. So when I gave a noon talk today on “Generative AI in Higher Education,” 92 people joined me in the Zoom room.

Calling back to my work as a graduate student who studied both structuralism and deconstruction as I tried to make, frame, and then challenge “meaning” in the current era, I asked my audience to follow me though the swirling cosmos of current talk about AI, where I imagined binary oppositions could help us understand various actors’ AI philosophies, policies, discoveries, and tensions. 

Regarding binary oppositions, I asked my audience to consider the AI cheerleaders and the prohibitors, the AI destigmatizers and the scolders, the AI futurists and facilitators, the AI Tool-Users and the AI Replacement Fusspots, and the Boomers and the Doomers. 

Learning designer and scholar Dr. Philippa Hardman categorizes AI folks into three camps: Team Avoid, Team Ban, and Team Embrace. Hardman and I both think that while most of us who must negotiate with and navigate generative AI have once found ourselves in one of the first two camps, more and more of us will capitulate and join Team Embrace.  

In my talk, I included a number of quotations, as I do in these newsletters. Will Hunting appeared, chastising a Harvard graduate student with these words: “You wasted $150,000 on an education you coulda got for $1.50 in late fees at the public library.” Notably, Will Hunting did not own a TV set.

As we are about to celebrate the one-year anniversary of ChatGPT, with which many of us have had long conversations that have functioned as computer programming, I also think of Andrej Karpathy, the academic who designed and was the primary instructor for the first deep learning class Stanford. He says, “In this era, the hottest programming language isn’t code but the English language itself.” As a poet who writes exclusively in English, I can support this trend.

One programmer created a GPT (sponsored by OpenAI) called “Flow Speed Typist.” Imagine typing your freeform documents without the shackles of accuracy concerns, for the AI interprets what you likely meant and then substitutes those words wholesale. All of us could type blind, and as quickly as possible. I usually depend upon my wife Kate to finish my thoughts for me, but I suppose an AI could also give it a try.

As I concluded my talk, the Zoom chat buzzed with comments and curiosity about how generative AI might challenge some pedagogical practices and enhance others. We must keep at this work, ask challenging questions, and provide guardrails that will protect us all, such as from Q-Star (OpenAI), and, as announced today, the AI business assistant Q from Amazon.

I will finish with some words by J. Orville Taylor , the now forgotten proponent of public education. In an 1838 meeting, he said this about the need for schools: “We must agitate—agitate. The cause of education is like a top; the moment you cease to whip, it falls.—We must not only ‘strike while the iron is hot,’ but we must make it hot, and keep it hot by striking.”

Here’s to hoping that all your irons remain hot.

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If you are in Davis tonight, please join us at 7 for the Pub Quiz at Sudwerk. Recruit a team, dress for sunset, and join us at the beautiful outdoor patio where we have room for almost everyone. Latecomers will find a table to play inside. Even though it is more work for me, we always have more fun with the bigger crowds and more voices. As Helen Keller says, “Alone, we can do so little; together, we can do so much.”

In addition to topics raised above, tonight’s pub quiz will feature questions on sun stories, quarantines, people named Carter, musical groups, excitements in Denver, official languages, guitarists with repeating letters in their names, ungulates, grandchildren of famous people, periods of time, scatter-brained actresses, musical instruments, palaces, Golden Raspberry nominees, questions of access, famous prophets, European countries,  football teams, right and left hands, neighborhood heartbeats, the nature of water, places that start with W, things that taste awful, prompts, clever NPR headlines, usual words, four cities (Albany, Atlanta, Bakersfield, Pittsburgh), astronauts, local crimes, play demarcations, current events, books and authors, and Shakespeare.

Thanks to The Original Vincibles, Summer Brains, The Outside Agitators, Quizimodo, Gena Harper, a new guy named Spencer (welcome!) and others who support the Pub Quiz on Patreon. We also had the Vikstroms join us last week. 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.    Internet Culture. As of this morning at 11 AM, who is the CEO of OpenAI? Sam Altman

2.    Newspaper Headlines. We learned this week that the second presidential debate in 2024 will take place on October 1 at Virginia State University in Petersburg, Virginia. With regard to presidential debates, what is novel or unprecedented about Virginia State University? Virginia State University will be the first historically black college or university to ever host a general election debate

3.    Assets. What S-word do we use In the United States for a tradable financial asset of any kind? Security / Securities

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

I’m listening to jazz and thinking about Paris.

Right now my Davis home is filled with the famous Sonny Rollins tune “St. Thomas.” Perhaps if you asked your smart speaker to play it for you know, you would recognize the tune.

I think of jazz musicians in Paris because of the warm reception Jim Crow era African-American maestros would receive in Paris, where French audiences were thought to appreciate this American art form more than American audiences did. Also, with segregation the law in the southern birthplaces of jazz, musicians found that their artistry was noticed and remarked upon more so than their racial heritage. All of us like to be appreciated for the artistry that we can share with our communities.

Right now I am reading Nobody Knows My Name: More Notes of a Native Son by James Baldwin in which the prose stylist reveals, the collection’s first essay, “The Discovery of What It Means to Be an American.” A longtime resident of Paris (he moved there to escape segregation and discrimination in 1948), Baldwin explored questions of belonging and race, and the ways he felt simultaneously alienated and comforted in both Paris and New York (but for different reasons). People interested in identity politics and social justice, as well as masterful and philosophical prose, can still learn lessons from James Baldwin.

I had read some Baldwin during my first year in college, but his importance was driven home to me by a certain kind of curatorial artistry practiced by my librarian mom. In December of 1987, soon after I returned from my first trip to Europe, the trip when I met my wife Kate in London, I stopped by D.C.’s Martin Luther King Memorial Library where my mom worked in the Washingtoniana Division. Because my mom was in charge of the voluminous photo morgue donated to the library by the defunct Washington Star, she was asked to create a pictorial remembrance of James Baldwin, who had died earlier that month. As I reviewed the many photographs and read the captions, my appreciation of Baldwin deepened, and I resolved to read more of his work.

In 2001, my UC Davis colleague Anne Fleischmann and I created a series of online literature resources for those taking the AP exam in English. That included a unit on Jazz and Literature and on the amazing short story “Sonny’s Blues.” My favorite of Baldwin’s paragraphs comes penultimately:

“Then they all gathered around Sonny and Sonny played. Every now and again one of them seemed to say, amen. Sonny’s fingers filled the air with life, his life. But that life contained so many others. And Sonny went all the way back, he really began with the spare, flat statement of the opening phrase of the song. Then he began to make it his. It was very beautiful because it wasn’t hurried and it was no longer a lament. I seemed to hear with what burning he had made it his, and what burning we had yet to make it ours, how we could cease lamenting. Freedom lurked around us and I understood, at last, that he could help us to be free if we would listen, that he would never be free until we did. Yet, there was no battle in his face now, I heard what he had gone through, and would continue to go through until he came to rest in earth. He had made it his: that long line, of which we knew only Mama and Daddy. And he was giving it back, as everything must be given back, so that, passing through death, it can live forever. I saw my mother’s face again, and felt, for the first time, how the stones of the road she had walked on must have bruised her feet. I saw the moonlit road where my father’s brother died. And it brought something else back to me, and carried me past it, I saw my little girl again and felt Isabel’s tears again, and I felt my own tears begin to rise. And I was yet aware that this was only a moment, that the world waited outside, as hungry as a tiger, and that trouble stretched above us, longer than the sky.”

This paragraph and Baldwin’s other creations continue to affect and inspire me. I have read four of James Baldwin’s novels and essay collections since discovering “Sonny’s Blues,” and I have a few more in my Audible library, queued up for my enjoyment.

I have enjoyed Paris vicariously through the prose of Dickens, Hemingway, and James Baldwin, and this week I am enjoying it vicariously through the texts and pictures shared with me by my wife Kate, who has returned to Europe, 36 years after we lived there together. She is accompanied by our son Truman, taking his first international trip.

According to Kate’s photographs, The Eiffel Tower is as majestic as it was when Hemingway first beheld it as a teenage World War I veteran, when it was the tallest manmade structure in the world. She and Truman got to visit the top today and discover why, even more than 150 years after the first gas street lamps were lit there in the 1860s, Paris is still called the City of Lights.

I look forward to revisiting those lights and sights with Kate next summer. Meanwhile, I hope your Thanksgiving is also filled with family and with light and that, like Sonny at the piano in “Sonny’s Blues,” you are able to give something back.

Join us for Pub Quiz tonight. Even though Thanksgiving is tomorrow, we will gather for the Pub Quiz tonight! Come early to grab a spot near one of the outdoor gas heaters!

If you are in Davis tonight, please join us for the Pub Quiz at Sudwerk. Recruit a team, dress for sunset, and join us at the beautiful outdoor patio where we have room for almost everyone. Latecomers will find a table to play inside. Even though it is more work for me, we always have more fun with the bigger crowds and more voices. As Walt Whitman says, “the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.”

In addition to topics raised above, tonight’s pub quiz will feature questions on cosmetics companies, numerical titles, famous birds, ponds, memoirs, gold tunes, Pixar films, Presidential Medals of Freedom, gratitude, water journeys, things that have sold over a billion copies, fun in the mountains, privileged ladies, stakeholders, people who are no longer irrelevant, twins, rocket men, universities in the news, prime ministers, assets, award winners, lights you can hear, relocation votes, insects, federal men, countrysides, Patreon supporters of Dr. Andy, art history, backpacks (hello Keith!), backing vocals, joyful tango rituals, hormones, Interstate 80, flowers, final books, current events, books and authors, and Shakespeare.

Thanks to The Original Vincibles, Summer Brains, The Outside Agitators, Gena Harper, a new guy named Spencer (welcome!) 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! 

See you tonight!

Dr. Andy

P.S. Here are questions from a recent quiz:

1. Books and Authors Named Audubon. Ornithologist John James Audubon and William Beaumont, the father of gastric physiology, were born the same year that Jean-Pierre Blanchard demonstrated the parachute as a means of safely disembarking from a hot air balloon. Name the century.  

2. Film Questions with Numeric Answers. Directed by Peter Weir and starring Russell Crowe and Paul Bettany, a 2003 Napoleonic War-era British naval drama was nominated for ten Oscars, winning two. What is the odd number of words in the long title of this film?   

3. Wrestling Culture. Born on November 15 in 1952, the Wrestler Macho Man Randy Savage used to enter the arena to the music of “Pomp and Circumstance March no. 1,” a tune familiar to anyone who has participated in a graduation ceremony. Name the composer.  

Photo credit: Kate Duren

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

I will be masquerading as a single parent for the next ten days, for my wife Kate is on a business trip to Germany, with my son Truman for company and support. 

I’m on solo Jukie duty for almost a fortnight. When we had our third child, I remember joking with friends that Kate and I were moving from man-to-man defense to a zone defense, with one of us always guarding two positions while preparing to set a pick. 

The sports fans among my friends understood what I was saying. I used to watch a lot of basketball 18 years ago when Truman was born, but now I have given that up, along with other television programs, to focus on parenting, teaching, administrating, and other work-related gerunds. As Warren Buffet said, “The difference between successful people and very successful people is that very successful people say ‘no’ to almost everything.”

I would settle for successful, rather than “very successful,” if that means I can make time for my family, my students, and my faculty and staff colleagues at UC Davis. That said, I don’t like disappointing people or animals. No one regrets time spent walking one’s dog.

According to the American Heart Association, dog owners tend to live longer than non-owners. I think we so appreciate a dog’s loyalty that we resolve to live longer to repay the kindness they have shown us. They need us to open cans for them, so we persist.

The walks help. An article in yesterday’s New York Times says that, indeed, people who take walks live longer than those who don’t. The Times also wants us to run, as you might be able to guess from the article’s title: Running vs. Walking: Which Is Better for Lasting Health? I would go for a run if I knew that my son Jukie would keep up with me.

Jukie has already told me in his way that he misses his mom and his brother, but this morning he did pet the dog. As the Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk said, “Dogs do speak, but only to those who know how to listen.”

I will try not neglect the household’s healthy habits while Kate is gone. Married men live longer than unmarried men, according to Harvard Health Publishing, likely because their spouses tell them to eat well and get regular checkups. My wife Kate cooked four platters of a tofu egg scramble for me to eat over the next four day, meaning that I will still be benefitting from her love and care even while she is making connections with Smith-Lemli-Opitz researchers in Lower Saxony.

I look forward to hearing about Kate and Truman’s European adventures. Tomorrow night they are staying overnight in a castle. Meanwhile, I see on the family calendar that Kate has already scheduled my next physical for after her return. I look forward to that and to the patient stories that are best shared during reunions. As Audrey Hepburn said, “The best thing to hold onto in life is each other.”  

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If you are in Davis tonight, or the night before Thanksgiving, please join us for the Pub Quiz at Sudwerk. Recruit a team, dress warmly for a mid-November sunset, and join us at the beautiful outdoor patio where we have room for almost everyone. Even though it is more work for me, we always have more fun with the bigger crowds and more voices. As Walt Whitman says, “the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.”

In addition to topics raised above, tonight’s pub quiz will feature questions on cosmetics companies, crimes in the news,  Broadway theaters, rustlers of the bland variety, patriotism, monthly expenses, Disney+, comedians, birthdays, gypsum, tobacco (shocking!), tourists, the placement of one’s heart, managers, the number 101, bilingual dictionaries, epistles, crossing cerebral isles, uncooperative people, fathers, paintbrushes, summer Olympic events, cars, small and big numbers, explorers, midnight appearances, people who are worth your attention, the exception of grind house, cities that might sound the same if one is a mumbler, savage wrestlers, the far side, physiology, Grammy awards, trailers, Australian horses, current events, books and authors, and Shakespeare.

Thanks to The Original Vincibles, Summer Brains, The Outside Agitators, Gena Harper, a new guy named Spencer (welcome!), 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. Current Events – Names in the News. First name Mike, what is the last name of the Speaker of the House of Representatives?  

2. Sports. Before moving to the Midwest, what NFL football team played in two Super Bowl games, losing to the New York Jets in Super Bowl III and defeating the Dallas Cowboys in Super Bowl V?  

3. Shakespeare. Which Shakespeare comedy follows its heroine Rosalind as she flees persecution in her uncle’s court, accompanied by her cousin Celia to find safety and, eventually, love, in the Forest of Arden? 

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

I wrote poems from time to time for specific occasions, a practice I started when I was Davis poet laureate, back when I would write poems for city council meetings and for rallies and memorials. I had written one book of poetry about Yolo County veterans, and thus was asked to read poems from the book at Memorial Day and Veterans Day ceremonies at the Davis Cemetery. I will be reading one such poem to begin Stories on Stage Davis this coming Saturday (Veterans Day) at 7:30 at the Pence Gallery.

Most of the poems I write for people or for occasions are for my wife Kate, and I often return to such compositions when I am starting a Pub Quiz newsletter on a Wednesday afternoon, but with many meetings and obligations between newsletter time and the time I take the stage. Today, for instance, I will be delivering one family member to the doctor and another to the dentist and a third to a fourth family member (we don’t all live in the same house anymore), all between now and when I start my KDVS radio show at 5.

So happy belated birthday (November 4) to my wife Kate. For her “birthday week” (which is ongoing), I wrote her two poems and let her choose which one to pose on Facebook. The second one, this one, would get posted on Instagram:

The Two of Cups

You entice like a riddle

Your legs never end

You prefer banjo to fiddle

I’m in love with my friend

The artist at the griddle

Has her boy’s plays to attend

You call our dog “Liddle”

You’re my workweek’s weekend

You make my heart giggle

Your eyes, they transcend
We’ve just now reached the middle
You are the poem that I’ve penned

My high-end godsend birthday girlfriend

I’d marry you again and again and again

It’s rare that I wrote poems where the only punctuation marks are quotation marks, and this time even those might be superfluous. Happy birthday, Kate!

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If you are in the city of Davis tonight, please join us for the Pub Quiz at Sudwerk. Recruit a team, dress for sunset, and join us at the beautiful outdoor patio where we have room for almost everyone. As it gets cooler, some of you may want to find a table to play inside. We always have more fun with the bigger crowds and more voices.  

In addition to topics raised above, tonight’s pub quiz will feature questions on getting things done with oil, radios, yachts, ducks, county seats, hospital bills, compounds that you may remember from 11th grade, seals, tall athletes, orchestral necessities, deciduous trees, Albania, Iranians in California, famous forests, sports in the Midwest, people with common and uncommon names, plows, Greek mythology, big countries, dramas about race relations, cities that change names, Brown characters, musical queens, Oscar-winners, Roberts, Novelists with opinions on late starts, winners of the Pulitzer Prize, southern states, National Parks, current events, angry whales, books and authors, and Shakespeare.

Thanks to The Original Vincibles, Summer Brains, The Outside Agitators, 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 Pub Quiz questions from last week:

1. Film. The top-grossing film from this past weekend, Five Nights at Freddy’s, was adapted from which of the following: Another film, a novel, a TV show, or a video game?  

2. UC Davis Youth Culture. What is the most popular location on the west side of the UC Davis campus where students watch the sun set?  

3. Science. In the field of genetics, what P word do we use for the observable traits of an organism?  

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

When David Byrne appears with a portable cassette recorder and his guitar in the opening moments of the concert film Stop Making Sense, the stage is bare. He says, “Hi! I have a tape I want to play,” and then the pre-recorded backing track accompanies him as he plays a solo version of the band’s first hit, “Psycho Killer.” 

One admires Byrne’s ostentation, and later his athleticism. As an additional bandmember joins Byrne on stage, and later as the set for the concert is built behind and around the other Talking Heads, David Byrne rolls out new dance moves that are at times innovative, athletic, and even frenetic. He soaks through several shirts and later, famously, a really big suit. 

Driving home from The Varsity Theater last night, we remarked that it’s a good thing that Jonathan Demme filmed Stop Making Sense over four days, for no one would be able to move that much, that quickly, and that artfully in 90 minutes. As one ancestor of mine remarked about the children many years ago, “Where do they get that PEP?” Byrne has moves and restlessness like Jagger. Stop Making Sense is a musical version of one of those martial arts films where the punching-and-kicking gymnast hero never tires or has to use the bathroom.

My son Truman insisted that we see the film on the big screen, and of course, he was right. Over the past two years, Truman has been experiencing fine film the way that I experienced classic masterpieces during the early years of my PhD. The author James Clear would say that Truman is engaging in the sort of “deliberate practice [that] requires focused attention and is conducted with the specific goal of improving performance” (Deliberate Practice: What It Is and How to Use It).

Truman will have to decide what sort of performances his practice of film research and enjoyment will improve. Isn’t that what college is for? He’s working on his applications now.

The best part of attending a concert is the opportunity (nay, the necessity) to dance while a favorite band is playing. On October 21^st, 1986, a friend and I attended a Billy Joel concert at The Centrum (in Worcester, MA) as part of his The Bridge tour. My friend and I got up to dance from our cheap seats after a few songs, only to be told by a big dude that we were blocking his view. And then when Joel started “Only the Good Die Young,” everyone jumped up to dance, and the big dude had nothing more to say to us.

As I was watching The Talking Heads perform last night, I wondered to myself why I wasn’t dancing. First of all, I didn’t want to embarrass my son who was still costumed like Agent K from Men in Black. Also, I noticed that I wasn’t 17, the age I was the last time I saw this film in a theater. Also, like that big dude in Worcester, I might have felt it was too early in the concert to leave my seat.

But then when the song “Slippery People” began, two women from the audience behind us did jump up to descend the stairs to the front of the theater, and to dance. Hooray for them, I said to myself, and then I accidentally started writing this newsletter in my head, planning to conclude that all of us should be the ones in this life who step up to dance, rather than the ones who just watch the dancers with admiration from our seats. 

I agree with Kool and the Gang. In their song “Get Down On It,” they share these immortal words:

How you gonna do it if you really don’t wanna dance
By standing on the wall?
(Get your back up off the wall) 

After the film ended and the lights came up, one of the dancers exclaimed, “Hi Truman!” It turns out she was Truman’s retired chemistry teacher, and a subscriber to this newsletter. If such an esteemed and respected member of our community can get her back up off the wall, shouldn’t the rest of us, at least once in a lifetime, follow her lead? 

—

I look forward to hosting a Pub Quiz this evening, hopefully with you in attendance. If you are in Davis tonight, please come by Sudwerk at 7 PM. Recruit a team, dress for sunset, and join us at the beautiful outdoor patio where we have room for almost everyone. Latecomers will find a table to play inside. Even though it is more work for me, we always have more fun with the bigger crowds and more voices. 

In addition to topics raised above, tonight’s pub quiz will feature questions on people who are powerful, Halloween, our fellow citizens of Earth, the Vatican, Jimmy Carter, famous sayings, jobs in common, Romanian philosophers named Emil, straps one would use to hold down an orca in your RV, successful hosts, flowers, jokers, vitamins, job-seekers, teenage musicians who make good, post-season play, outraged peers, portable kitchens, famous novels, personal traits, dead Americans, countries of origin, UC Davis, adaptations, French culture, self-confidence, puzzles, The Beatles, sweaters, National Parks, current events, books and authors, and Shakespeare.

Thanks to The Original Vincibles, Summer Brains, The Outside Agitators, Gena Harper and others who support the Pub Quiz on Patreon. They receive the weekly quiz and all the answers in their inboxes every week. I would love to add your name or that of your team to the list of supporters. I appreciate your backing this endeavor! 

Best,

Dr. Andy

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

1. Unusual Words. Starting with the letter Q and ending with a C, what adjective means “Extremely idealistic and unrealistic, often to the point of being impractical”?  

2. Pop Culture – Television. Sharing a seven-word title with a Poe story, what 2023 gothic horror drama television miniseries on Netflix includes the line “Roderick Usher, your family is a collection of stunted hearts.” 

3. Another Music Question. What instrument does James Galway play?  

P.S. Speaking of which, esteemed flute maestra Rachel Geier will open for California poet laureate Lee Herrick at Poetry Night tomorrow night at 7 at the Natsoulas Gallery. What an amazing night this will be! Dancing will be encouraged.

“When we plant trees, we plant the seeds of peace and seeds of hope.  We also secure the future for our children.” Wangari Maathai, The Green Belt Movement: Sharing the Approach and the Experience

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

As I write this, my French bulldog Margot has her paws up on the windowsill of a second-floor bedroom, looking out the window at the greenbelt below.

As is the case with me, some of her happiest outdoor moments take place on the greenbelt that winds around and through the city of Davis, connecting neighborhoods with tree-lined walkways that encourage lacing up walking shoes or mounting a bicycle rather than grabbing car keys.

I’ve been reading about retirement lately, imagining that time a decade in the future when Kate and I will have to rely on what we’ve saved rather than what we will be earning to meet our daily needs. Although California is considered the second most expensive place to retire in America (aloha, Hawaii), we will likely stay in Davis because of our friends, because of the community, and because what we love about living here doesn’t cost a lot of money (with the exception of property taxes).

Although my day today has been full of meetings, so I may break my streak, so far this October I have been averaging ten miles a day in walks, with my son Jukie joining me for most of those miles. Living right on the greenbelt, we work in walks the way that I imagine some folks add a cup of coffee or a cup of tea into their routine: without much thought. As a result, the miles add up.

While out on these walks, we sometimes encounter large groups of what I assume are retirees exploring the greener parts of Davis together, white-haired citizens walking quickly, as if following the advice of their doctors. Some of these folks are already taking required minimum distributions from their 401Ks and 403Bs, but the ones I wave to seem to be focusing on spending time wisely (walking in nature with friends) rather than their money profligately.

Will Kate and I (or, more likely, Kate and Jukie and I) spend the 2030s traveling the country and the globe, as we hope? Or will we be satisfied with lower-cost pursuits in our hometown? Like our walks, a game of chess with a friend, a poetry reading, an hour spent journaling, or a talk at the library all come at no cost. A burrito and a water can be had for less than a ten-spot. This year I discovered that the non-alcoholic beers at The Beer Shoppe on G Street are sold at cost (to incentivize designated drivers), so I can enjoy a couple beers with friends there for less than $5, just as my mom used to do at The Grog and Tankard on Wisconsin Avenue in the 1970s.

The Stoic philosopher Seneca reminds us that “It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor. ” I’m grateful that our civic leaders have invested our aforementioned property taxes in Davis schools, libraries, and parks and greenbelts, for those are the riches I crave. If you are a Davisite, I will likely see you in our hometown soon, and I’m grateful for the rewards such encounters bring.

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I host a Pub Quiz every Wednesday at 7 at Sudwerk’s in Davis, and I would love to see you there tonight. If you can join us, you will have a chance to answer questions about topics raised above, and the following: saving money, Halloween, rocks and stones and pebbles, New Hampshire lights (hi Bob!), shipwrecks, people named Taylor, famous islands, Caldecott Medals, local plants, people with three-syllable last names, distinctive flags, fallen heroes, the forgotten names of uncles, knights, faraway countries, notable people with the same name, amazing athletes, taxonomic distinctions, fierce Italians, beautiful instruments, gothic horrors, horror films, Gilbert and Sullivan, remembered battles, impressive muscles, youthful musicians, kids’ choices, devoted pets, current events, books and authors, and Shakespeare.

Thanks to The Original Vincibles, Summer Brains, The Outside Agitators, Quizimodo, Gena Harper and others who support the Pub Quiz on Patreon, where American chess champion John Langreck just checked in. I would love to add your name or that of your team to the list of supporters. I appreciate your backing this endeavor! 

As I mentioned last week, two of our PQ regulars will be reading at a Killer Authors at Folsom Library event this Saturday,  October 28, at 1 PM. Find the details for such (Catriona McPherson) events at http://catrionamcpherson.com/news.

Best,

Dr. Andy

P.S. Here are a few questions from a recent quiz:

1. Film. The first line of which Toy Story movie is “It’s raining cats and dogs out there!”? 

2. Countries of the World. Starting with the letter N, in what country do viewers of Raiders of the Lost Arkfirst meet Marion Ravenwood?  

3. Journals. Starting with the letter B, what kind of journal is made of quality paper laid out with dots?  

P.P.S. California poet laureate Lee Herrick will be reading in Davis at the Natsoulas Gallery on November 2 at 7 PM. Plan to join us!

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

In my house, we have multiple reasons to celebrate. As the Roman playwright Plautus said, “Let us celebrate the occasion with wine and sweet words.” I’m sure he would accept beer, if that’s your preferred beverage.

Anyway, on to the celebrations! We have been attending multiple showings of the successful run (so far) of my son Truman’s production of 12 Angry Jurors. He plays the Henry Fonda role with the sort of bravery and eloquence that any of us would hope we could display were we transported into the 1957 Sidney Lumet production of 12 Angry Men. You can still see the play this coming Thursday evening at 7, or Saturday or Sunday afternoon at 2. So worth it!

My wife Kate’s parents arrived by train into the Davis train station this morning, coming from Chicago via Portland, Oregon. They didn’t originally plan to travel through Portland, but evidently one of their intended trains was stuck in a snowdrift. I love that these impressive octogenarians who spent most of their lives in the 20^th century have been bravely traveling the way we did in the 19^th century. I’m glad they did not come via horseback, or we would worry.

Finally, Halloween is almost upon us, and I have written a spooky poem to celebrate. It’s called “Exhuming the Sphinx.”

Exhuming the Sphinx

Breathing dust, we followed incongruous paw prints 

Across the baked earth to the forsaken tomb

And saw how the entangled amaryllis blooms darkly, 

Its thorny spine thick with hemorrhaged 

Snakeroot, a thousand fists shaken, 

But now unclinched, skeletons in the sand.

Cosmic castaways beneath a penumbra

Of palm trees, each revealing where, parasitic, 

They succumbed to the windy mane’s incessant ache,

A mind’s splinter, a map without bearings.

An immaculate apparatus, once a glowing engine

Attuned to the earth’s supersonic percussion,

Like the forgotten oracle, lies wrapped in ragged tapestry;

The desiccated tumbledown remnants of its spells

Now tatter in this sickbed, scorched by an infertile sun.

Once the hectares of stone pyramidions suggested

Solar alignment, nebular umbilical; the sidereal display case

Is now torchstruck, devoured by hourglass pathogens,

The aspiring human blood-knot cut, the specimens splayed,

Impossible to record, too fearful for any bible. 

We imagined answers heliotropic, a starved cosmos,

A bitter army of lesions, jigsaw salted amputations,

Artful carvings behind the shadow of the sand’s only rock, 

Seared zombic blood the antipode of water,

Makeshift altar where snapping Anubis anointed a jackal.

Ever unrecovered, the sacrificial knife still scalds

Across the centuries, one imagines, errant incantations

Where someone once sacrificed an entire nocturnal flock.

Dig deep enough beneath Thebes, disassembled nuclei

In the lamentation of desert heat, and you’ll encounter Eden.

I don’t know if that will spook you more than a Poe tale, but I will enjoy reading it at Poetry Night tomorrow evening (at the open mic after a D.R. Wagner and Dave Boles performance on October 19^th at 7 atop the John Natsoulas Gallery). One joy of poetry is that we get to read and write the sort of unusual words, such as “torchstruck” and “pyramidions,” that don’t come up in everyday conversation, or even in one’s reading.

You might find something from the above in a past or future pub quiz. For instance, careful readers will recognize last week’s supersonic percussion anagram nestled into line 12.

If you are in town tonight, please join us for the Pub Quiz at Sudwerk. Members of my family may be joining us, perhaps even my actor son and my sleeper railway car enthusiast in-laws. Although an earthquake struck our region soon after they de-trained, they are still getting used to stable ground beneath their feet. I guess that could be said for many of us.

In addition to topics raised above, tonight expect questions on the following: feeling like a shape-shifter, social media alternatives, beaks, eyeball obsessions, summer cities, financial recourses when “No pill’s gonna cure my ill,” nearby interstates, title characters, famous founders, better angels, long adjectives that I used in graduate school, chart-toppers, gender-indeterminate television stars, muscles, deserters, forgotten first names, tiny machines, galvanizing bands, early friends, misguided kings, circus examples, football teams, Gay books, taxonomies, Mongols, international airports that you have unlikely visited, people with accents in their first names, hospice work, final compositions, Nabokov inspirations, people named Stella, Dr. Spock, evolutionary biology, current events, books and authors, and Shakespeare.

Thanks to all of you who have signed up for the Pub Quiz mailing list at yourquizmaster.com. Thanks also to The Original Vincibles, who joined us with a new name last week, as well as to Quizimodo, Summer Brains, The Outside Agitators, Gena Harper and others who support the Pub Quiz on Patreon, where you can find a picture of Leonard Nimoy surprising Carol Burnett and a baby. I would love to add your name or that of your team to the list of Patreon supporters. I appreciate your backing this endeavor! 

Speaking of favorite Pub Quiz attendees, two of the regulars will be reading at a Killer Authors at Folsom Library event on October 28 at 1 PM. Find the details for such (Catriona McPherson) events at http://catrionamcpherson.com/news

Best,

Dr. Andy

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

1. Mottos and Slogans. Starting with the letter E, what magazine uses the slogan “Where Black Women Come First”? 

2. Internet Culture. What three-word phrase does Alexa use to tell that she is changing the subject to a suggestion of something you should buy from Amazon?  

3. Newspaper Headlines. What actress in her new memoir, titled Worthy, reveals that she has been separated from her even more famous husband since 2016?  

P.P.S. If you are looking for free events to attend, I would love to see you tomorrow night at Poetry Night! And Friday at noon I am hosting a Zoom forum on designing online classes. Be well.

I moved to California in 1989, the same year that I graduated from college. The mom of a high school friend heard that I would soon be driving from Washington, D.C. to Berkeley, and she insisted that I look up an old friend of hers, public broadcasting pioneer Daniel Del Solar, and that I stay with Daniel until I get situated.

Daniel soon became my housemate, offering me a room in the basement apartment of a large home a few doors down from Indian Rock in North Berkeley. Later Daniel left Berkeley to live with his future wife, selling me his futon for $20. 

Before he moved out, Daniel would post cards from his friends around the home. Frequently when I was brushing my teeth, I used to read a postcard over and over again that Daniel had propped writing-side out on the credenza next to the sink. It came from a friend of his who attended a party in Los Angeles.

I can still remember the writing:

And who do you think was the surprise guest at this party? 

*M*A*D*O*N*N*A*

1989 was the Like a Prayer era, back when, according to the BBC, “critics first [began] to describe Madonna as an artist, rather than a mere pop singer.” The critics loved the release more than her previous albums, though it hadn’t thrilled fans as much as True Blue or Like a Virgin, each of which had sold more than 20 million copies. Even though the Queen, Whitney Houston, Mother Teresa and Princess Diana were all alive in 1989, back then Madonna was arguably the most famous woman in the world.

How strange it was for this guy from Washington, D.C. to move to California, where the aroma of star jasmine filled the air, where weekend athletes pretended to climb mountains on a rock up the street from my house, and where people attended dinner parties with Madonna.  

I benefitted from a different California musical experience from this past weekend in Davis. To celebrate a birthday at Tres Hermanas restaurant downtown, a large party had hired a mariachi ensemble. Even though they were directed to serenade members of the birthday party, all the diners enjoyed the music as much as if management had hired the musicians to play for them. Total strangers were singing along with the performers or sharing their own uninvited gritos, those sudden vocalizations of joy that heighten the elation of the evening. As local hero Julie Saylor said to me as she was leaving the restaurant with her husband and daughter, “Isn’t this delightful?”

Impromptu singers hoping to harmonize with Mariachi did not hit all the notes with perfect pitch, but nobody minded. Joy trumps precision every time. Whether it’s a serenade at Tres Hermanas or a double rainbow above an inclusion rally in Central Park, you never know what unexpected gifts life might offer you.

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If you are in Davis tonight at 7, please join us for the Pub Quiz at Sudwerk. Recruit a team, dress for sunset, and come by the beautiful outdoor patio where we have room for almost everyone. Latecomers will find a table to play inside. Even though it is more work for me, we always have more fun with bigger crowds and more voices. As Walt Whitman says, “the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.”

In addition to topics raised above, tonight’s pub quiz will feature questions on silly outfits, first and last names that start with the same letter, the U.S. Senate, winners of the Pulitzer Prize in fiction, magicians, groups of animals, comedians, post-disco anthems, supersonic sounds, bandleaders,  smiling blondes, measurements of temperature and other phenomena, Toronto Raptors, Ken Burns, famous fathers, queens, a kind of writing, the locations of famous fires, good luck charms, cats and dogs, magazines you may have seen in a supermarket, revenge tales, Pixar films, marketing strategies, worthiness, categories of Nobel Peace Prize winners, frightening statistics, local stars, the state of sports, expensive tissues, explorers, current events, books and authors, and Shakespeare.

The Davis poet Beth Suter just signed up for the Pub Quiz mailing list at yourquizmaster.com. Welcome, Beth! Thanks also to The far-flung Original Vincibles, as well as to Quizimodo, Summer Brains, The Outside Agitators, Gena Harper and others who support the Pub Quiz on Patreon. I appreciate your backing this endeavor, and I hope to see you tonight!

Best,

Dr. Andy

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

1. Japanese Seasonings That Start with the letter M. What traditional Japanese seasoning is a thick paste produced by fermenting soybeans with salt and kōji (the fungus Aspergillus oryzae)?   

2. Pop Culture – Television. What odd number of months were the late night talk shows off the air because of the recent writers’ strike?  

3. Another Music Question. Born in 1933, what funk progenitor was known as “the hardest working man in show business”?  

P.P.S. There will be no questions at this week’s pub quiz about the topic that most of us have been thinking about with horror and regret: the terrible loss of civilian lives in Israel and now Gaza. I feel for everyone grieving the deaths of innocents from this past weekend.