Dear Friends,

Thanks to all of you who shared your fond memories of interacting with my friend John Poirier, the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz regular who passed away last week.

A wheelchair user who was paralyzed from the waist down, John was especially careful to protect himself from Covid, and that meant limiting in-person social activities, including our pub quiz when we returned to in-person events at Sudwerk.

I did get to meet with John a few times as Quizmaster during the pandemic, though, and that was by holding Zoom trivia contests for him and for others who wanted to test their knowledge remotely.

I will not get to Zoom with John again, but I will get to host another bonus Zoom pub quiz later this month, and I hope you will join us.

As many of you know, I’m a big fan of Sheila Allen, a local candidate for Yolo County Supervisor. If you look over her campaign website, you will see that she is eminently qualified to take on this role. If you were to chat with Sheila for a quarter-hour, you would learn that she also has the heart and drive needed to succeed as an advocate for the people of our county.

To do my part in amplifying the work of our best local public servants, I am hosting a bonus Zoom-based Pub Quiz for Sheila on Tuesday, January 30^th at 7 PM. 

Although there is no cost to participate, I hope that everyone who joins us will consider making a donation to Sheila’s campaign. You can bring your regular Pub Quiz team, form a team just for this event, or join one once you arrive in the Zoom room. Even though we will focus on fun and fellowship rather than competition, it’ll still be fun to see how the different teams do.

You need not be local to join us, so invite your faraway family, friends from college, or retired former coworkers to add themselves to your team. If you can make this special event, consider also recruiting locals who will appreciate the opportunity to learn more about Sheila Allen, her campaign, and her vision for Yolo County.

We will meet on Tuesday, January 30 at 7 PM

We will meet via Zoom at this link: https://ucdavis.zoom.us/my/andyojones

You can bring a team of up to six or add yourself to a team after you arrive

Register your interest in this event via Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/1412311316379171

There will be some campaign talk at the start, at halftime, and at the end, so bring your patience and curiosity for brief political interruptions. With so many public-spirited people in the Zoom room, surely we will make some new friends. We will also raise a remote toast of a beverage of your choice to our departed friend and big-time trivia fan John Poirier.

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Speaking of online events, have you seen the names of all the kind souls who have contributed to my fundraiser for the Smith-Lemli-Opitz Foundation? Readers of this newsletter, including the new Mayor of Davis and my favorite Chancellor, have been especially generous. Will you add your name to the list? Perhaps this week we could top $3,000.

If you are in Davis tonight, please join us for the Pub Quiz at Sudwerk. Recruit a team, dress for a January sunset when the temperature drops five degrees in an hour and a half, 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.” Someone should source that quotation.

In addition to topics raised above, tonight’s pub quiz will feature questions on bank holidays, maternal choices, patents, original songs, telephonic companions, melodious marches, halls of fame, rotten tomatoes, birth cities, southern places, turtle egg islands, golf bags, so-called aliens, mountain lions, inauspicious birds, Lennon favorites, creative bombs, people born before your parents, confluences, broil able hens, names that start with the letter T, poker hands, ridiculous words that comics love, notable poets, beetles, states with professional sports teams, currencies, people named Harris, kids, current events, books and authors, and Shakespeare.

Thanks to 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! Also, have you been following the bonus trivia on Patreon?

Best,

Dr. Andy

Here are three questions from last week’s quiz. Congratulations to the team “Summer Brains, Summer Not” for being the first team in the Sudwerk era to answer all 30 questions correctly! I predict no one will match their record this evening.

1. Mottos and Slogans. The big three index fund managers are Vanguard, State Street, and a third, the world’s largest asset manager, with US$9.42 trillion in assets under management. Using the slogan “We are committed to a better future,” what is the name of this company whose name starts with the color Black? 

2. Internet Culture: Two-Syllable Video Games. Released by Epic games, what 2017 popular co-op sandbox survival game was updated in 2023 with a “Festival”? 

3. Newspaper Headlines: The Consumer Electronics Show. Tony Stark would have been pleased that Samsung recently announced its first MicroLED TV screen that could be described with what three-syllable T word?  

Dear Friends,

Today I am thinking of John Poirier, a regular pub quiz attendee during all the years that I quizmastered at de Vere’s Irish Pub, a kind soul, and a good friend.

Regular attendees of my previous pub quiz will remember John and his team Quizimodo grabbing a table near my booth that accommodated his wheelchair. I would always stop to visit John’s table, and his team made up of Lynne, another John, and a cast of other substitutes, including Anna, Gretchen, and sometimes Cathy.

Sometimes players would stick around to thank me for the show or to discuss individual pub quiz questions, but none took the quiz as seriously as John. He always had suggestions for questions, onetime bringing a printout of great LGBTQIA figures from history so I could increase the diversity and queer representation in my pub quiz. We also talked about independent living for wheelchair users, Boston culture, scuba diving, and his life as a pharmacist.

I so valued such trivia question suggestions, as well as his trivia enthusiasm and his compassionate humanity, that I dedicated my first Pub Quiz book to him, writing “To John Poirier and all the other pub quiz participants who never miss a week of community, competition, and fun.” To me, John was always a winner.

Over our ten-year friendship, I have talked with John at cultural events, memorial services, and poetry readings, including a few that I hosted at the Natsoulas Gallery. I was grateful to see John at my crowded first pub quiz at Sudwerk, but he preferred playing with his regular group of Patreon subscribers via Zoom every Monday, their group welcoming players from around the country and even Canada. I’m grateful to my friend Lynne for keeping that group going and finding use for my weekly trivia content all through the pandemic.

As Lynne wrote me on Monday, “We had our virtual pub quiz tonight and John did not chime in. One of his neighbors on the team went to check on him and he has passed away.”

I’m thinking this week about John, his family, and the locals who loved him. He loved to talk to me about his team’s struggles with my unfair anagrams, so in honor of John, part two of tonight’s pub quiz will start with five easy anagrams. For example, if I were to ask you “What natives of ancient Etruria are the best kind of CENTAURS?” You would, of course, respond, that ETRUSCAN centaurs are the best kind of centaurs. I think John would have appreciated the silliness of questions about Etruscan centaurs.

Rest in Peace, John Poirier. I appreciate the humanity that you brought to our every interaction.

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Speaking of humanity, Pub Quiz participants and fans, including those who support this effort on Patreon, have contributed about half the $2,314 that I have raised so far for the Smith-Lemli-Opitz Foundation to support medical research that will help families of people who have Smith-Lemli-Opitz syndrome, such as my son Jukie. Thanks so much for that support! If you would like to participate, please check out the fundraiser on Facebook, or make a donation to the Foundation via its website.

If you are in Davis tonight, please join us for the Pub Quiz at Sudwerk. Recruit a team, dress for a January sunset when the temperature drops five degrees in an hour and a half, and join us at the beautiful outdoor patio where we have room for everyone. We will have some bonus friends joining us at Sudwerk tonight, friends and admirers or Natalie Corona (see below).

In addition to topics raised above, such as Etruscan centaurs, tonight’s pub quiz will feature questions on index funds, video games and other consumer electronics, sea travel, ornithology, raincoats, diseases, admirers, meteors, disco mainstays, breakfast cereals, knitting projects, cable cars, people named George, California taxpayers, secondary characters, World Series titles, unexpected appearances, hips and shoulders, carbohydrates, Black quarterbacks, bands not named Kayak or Racecar, electricity, optimization movement founding fathers, meditators, rare languages, the Persian Gulf, bills, animated films, transparency, long poems, current events, books and authors, and Shakespeare.

Thanks to 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 

1. Mottos and Slogans. Starting with the letter A, what is the trade name of a combination drug that contains four salts of amphetamine and is regarded as effective in treating symptoms of ADHD and narcolepsy? Hint: For years, advertisements for this drug used the slogan, “Schoolwork that matches his intelligence.”  

2. Internet Culture. We recently learned that the page for ChatGPT was the most visited Wikipedia page in 2023. If you think for a moment, you will quickly determine what is the most visited Wikipedia page of all time. Name it.  

3. Four for Four: The Four Tallest Buildings in California. Which of the following buildings is found in San Francisco: The AON Center, The Salesforce Tower, The U.S. Bank Tower, The Wilshire Grand Center?  

4. British Comedians. Born in 1961, what recent Golden Globe winner starred in the Hollywood films For Your Consideration (2006), the Night at the Museum film series trilogy (2006–2014), Ghost Town (2008), and Muppets Most Wanted (2014)?  

P.P.S. Today is the five-year anniversary of the death of Davis Police Officer Natalie Corona. Considering her life, her sacrifice, and our gloomy weather recently, I wrote this poem in her honor.

An Elegy for Natalie

Corona (astronomy): the rarefied gaseous envelope of the sun and other stars.

We are all tales etched in stardust,

Echoes of a celestial choir,

A transient brilliance, a cosmic spark

That kindles hereafter a heavenly fire.

Our heavy hearts cloud the day,

Overcast, like our abiding grief;

Nevermore will her kindness inspire;

The morning is cold; the sun weeps.

We admire the few who answer the call 

And note the beaming smile of the new recruit.

We will seek to shine here where she shone,

Each of us sharing a memorial salute.

Dear Friends,

This week we celebrate my son Jukie’s 23rd birthday!

Jukie turns 23 on January 4^th! He has graduated from school and thus we get to spend so much more time with him than we did when the school bus visited our home twice every weekday. Although he misses the rides, the time with his peers, and the adventures with his teachers, we have more time for long walks on the greenbelts of Davis, as well as leisurely meals at Dos Coyotes, Sudwerk, and his other favorite restaurants.

On this celebratory occasion, we are hereby announcing our annual fundraiser and our goal one day to fully fund The Jukie Jones Duren Endowment for the Smith-Lemli-Opitz Foundation.

Like many people with Smith-Lemli-Opitz syndrome, Jukie has limited communication skills, intellectual disability, and profound autism. Also like those young people, Jukie communicates his needs and his affection in ways that his family and caregivers have learned to interpret well.

Most families affected by Smith-Lemli-Opitz syndrome don’t have the support system that we have, for his mom Kate has a background in social work and worked with kids and adults with disabilities before she and Andy met more than 35 years ago. Jukie’s sister, Geneva, is now working as a paraeducator at Patwin Elementary, and she brings that expertise back home when she does respite work with Jukie. And Jukie’s younger brother Truman, who towers over him by about six inches, has often interrupted work on his writing projects to make Jukie a meal or start up a Pixar film for him.

Kate’s work supporting parents worldwide who have just discovered their child has this rare syndrome has driven home how much the help provided by Smith-Lemli-Opitz Foundation is sorely needed. These Foundation activities include funding SLO research “seed” grants, raising awareness of SLO to increase the rate of diagnosis, welcoming new parents with an online parent support group, supporting grieving parents with a parent loss support group, providing an equipment exchange program, distributing welcome packets for newly-diagnosed families, subsidizing the biennial SLO family medical and scientific conferences, connecting families to researchers and SLO specialists, and growing the research programs, such as an NIH natural history study that we and Jukie participate in.

We also think of all the affected families, like ours, that would benefit from additional treatments of this devastating syndrome, one with a high mortality rate. With that in mind, I hope you will help us raise money for The Jukie Jones Duren Endowment for the Smith-Lemli-Opitz Foundation. We hope that with your help, in the coming years we will make progress towards funding the five-year goal of funding an endowment of $50,000 that will provide a steady and everlasting yearly source of support for the Foundation that helps families affected by Smith-Lemli-Opitz syndrome. Through my own volunteer work, I’ve come to appreciate how this small nonprofit organization makes a huge impact.

All donations are tax deductible (Fed ID# 23-2635206), and all donations that mention the Jukie Endowment will help us take another step towards reaching that goal of $50,000. Amazingly, we have already raised $24,653.78. Because of you, after one year we are almost half-way to our five-year goal. We have four more years to raise the rest!

If Jukie cared about recognition, he would love that this endowment bears his name. I think he would mostly care that so many other affected children and their families will benefit from your donation and the amazing work of this non-profit organization.  

Please donate via Facebook or via the website giving page using the buttons below. If you use the website giving page, please include Jukie’s name on the donation form or interface. The Foundation leadership knows just who he is – you can find pictures of Jukie a few times on the Foundation website – and they will know just how to direct the funds. Thank you!

We hope in 2024 to raise $10,000 for the Foundation. We are grateful to a friend of Jukie’s, Gena Harper, who has already donated $2000 to give us a big boost towards our goal. For all the families that need our support, I hope you can help us the rest of the way.

With love and appreciation,

Andy and Kate

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If you are in Davis tonight, please join us for the Pub Quiz at Sudwerk. Recruit a team, dress for a winter sunset when the temperature drops five degrees in an hour and a half, 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 salts, popular destinations, tall buildings, ghost towns, spheres, chocolate, tragic love stories, record accomplishments, crestfallen subjects, parrots, famous queens, South American countries, ill tempers, wonderful lives, the number 40, cars in pubs, idols, contrarian voters, Saturn, successful tours, considerations, again with the Europe, 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. 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! And thanks to everyone who is supporting the SLO Foundation on Facebook or via the Foundation webpage!

Best,

Dr. Andy

P.S. Here are some trivia questions from the last Pub Quiz of 2023:

1. Science. The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle states that you cannot simultaneously know the exact position and momentum of what P word?  

2. Books and Authors. Whose novel Gone Girl has sold more than 15 million copies?  

3. Current Events – Names in the News. Tom and Dick were two brothers who were comedians and folk singers. They were also never shy about sharing their support of civil rights and their opposition to the Vietnam War. What was their last name?  

4. Shakespeare. Beginning with the letter C, what is the name of King Lear’s only loving and sincere daughter?  

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

As we approach the end of 2023, I am considering all the kindnesses that have been shared with me, my family, or others in my experience. Grandparents often specialize in kindness for, having worked hard for an entire lifetime, they have learned, just at the end, what is most important, and then they can share that unreservedly with the grandchildren. When I am in that situation, I will remember something I once read by Emerson: “You cannot do a kindness too soon because you never know how soon it will be too late.”

The poet, artist, publisher, and UC Davis Design professor DR Wagner got to share many kindnesses with his grandchildren and with the rest of us. Whenever my wife Kate would post a family picture on Facebook, DR would respond as if we were his own family. He took a special interest in the writing and acting projects of my son Truman, born around the time that DR retired from teaching at UC Davis.

When I introduced DR at a poetry reading on the roof of the Natsoulas Gallery this past October, he had many friends and supporters in the audience, and many more friends by the end of the evening, people who loved his imagistic, fanciful, vigorous, often transcendent poetry. DR has rightfully been called the Gandalf of American poetry, the godfather of Sacramento poetry, the stylized emperor of Locke, California, the slim and magisterial David Bowie of the local arts scene.

DR has read at my poetry series and appeared on my radio show a half-dozen times each, he has recruited poets and other experimental artists to come to Davis and to UC Davis, he has uplifted friends and colleagues with his exuberance, he has written dozens of books, and published hundreds of poets. He is a friend to many – he and I have over 200 mutual friends on Facebook – and an icon to many more, even though he himself was an iconoclast. He had over 2,000 followers on Facebook.

I remember one of the last things he said to me: “Andy, can you believe I am about to turn 80?” DR Wagner did make it to 80, but he didn’t make it to Christmas, passing away on the Winter solstice, making the day darker for all who knew and loved him.

Few poets were more widely published or more better known, nor have most artists seen their work so widely displayed in galleries and museums (from The Smithsonian to The Louvre). But in my family, and I suspect in the poetry community, we will remember DR best for what Wordsworth called the “best portion of a good man’s life, / His little, nameless, unremembered, acts / Of kindness and of love.”

DR, I will remember your many personal and Facebook-mediated acts of kindness. The rest of us can revisit your art and your poetry. I thank you for all the ways you made our lives richer.

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I recently received this email from a Davis VIP: 

“We have a slew of family interested in Weds Night Trivia.  We haven’t been to Trivia since the grand opening. 

We are wondering if reservations are needed inside, especially for dinner?  I assume you aren’t using the outside until the spring…

Looking forward to seeing you again!”

It is wise to assume that I wouldn’t hold the pub quiz outside during the winter, but I am not always wise. Certain teams have bundled up to join me outside during the Sudwerk Pub Quiz this fall, while many wiser teams, such as last week’s champions, “Summer Brains, Summer Not,” play indoors, even if playing masked after finishing their meals.

Today will possibly be the first Wednesday when rain will be falling during the actual quiz, and that may force all of us inside. Luckily, Sudwerk has a strong sound system and room for many teams, including yours, so I hope you will plan always to join us Wednesday nights at 7 with your team.

In addition to topics raised above, tonight’s pub quiz will feature questions on bold food choices, striking colors, source codes, boa constrictors and other animals, well-heated verandas, famous songs, labor statistics, devoted daughters, past champions, quenched fires, continental choices, hopeful acts, the methods of success, membranes, numbers that are divisible by six, hit songs, long movies, books that have sold more than ten million copies, tiny objects, riddles about time, anticipated precipitous drops, video games, the year in review, former leaders, cinematic gods, 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. 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! 

Happy New Year! Be safe Sunday night!

Dr. Andy

P.S. Here are three questions from last week’s Pub Quiz, where 21 points could have won you the top prize. As some of you will see, the version of the quiz published on Patreon is a bit easier.

1. Mottos and Slogans. Founded in 2002, the company that uses the slogan “Be a Hero” frequently partners with athletes such as with Kelly Slater, Jimmy Chin and Jonas Deichmann. What are the five letters in the name of this company? Hint: The fifth letter is capitalized.  

2. Internet Culture. The Silent Talk project is a DARPA government initiative to make telepathy possible. What does the D in DARPA stand for?   

3. Newspaper Headlines. On the 2024 Presidential Election Interactive Map of the website 270towin.com, the experts have the Democrats with 266 electoral votes and the Republicans with 235. Name one of the three essentially tied battleground states found on this map.  

P.P.S. Next week we celebrate my son Jukie’s birthday and launch my yearly fundraiser for the Jukie Jones Duren Endowment for the Smith-Lemli-Opitz Foundation. One regular reader of this newsletter already donated a tax-deductible $2,000, so, even before launching, we are already 20% towards achieving our goal of $10,000. Think now if you would like to participate, and I will provide the details next week. Thanks!

Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,

All my family members are finally healthy, the rains have come to refresh Yolo County and the rest of California, and the family photographic gifts have been constructed and mailed out to certain beloveds to arrive by Christmas. If your family is like ours, you are looking forward to pivoting now towards a holiday break.

Recently I reconnected with a former student of mine who helped my small family and me move to Davis in 1998. I sent out an email to a group of trusted friends to see who could help us move to our new neighborhood in south Davis. Our first house had just been built on El Segundo Avenue. 

My student Andrew showed up on moving day with the planning acumen of a project manager or an engineer, even though he was a humanities guy who was studying C.S. Lewis at UC Davis. He managed to fit more into the “Mom’s Attic” of that U-Haul than we probably could have fit into both our Honda Civic, bought in the 1980s, or our Saturn SL2, purchased that year so that we had a safer vehicle with which to transport our newborn daughter, Geneva. He was a hero.

After a seeming multi-decade break, I reached out to Andrew to see if he would like to read a sufficiently reverent poem on my KDVS radio show to commemorate the Christmas holiday.

This was his response:

“Dr Andy!! I’d love to—how long does your show run that night? My wife and I are teaching, but I’d love to read CSL’s poem ‘The Nativity.’”

Checking my friend’s page on Facebook, I saw that he had become a Reverend, had grown a white beard like mine, and had started dressing like a Bishop, which I thought was pretty cool. As Harry Winston says, “People will stare. Make it worth their while.”

Then Andrew reminded me how long we have known each other: “Do you realize that you were the person who introduced me to Google all those years ago…?” Even this son of a librarian finds it hard to remember negotiating the world before Google.

I apologized for the Google introduction, and then wondered to myself if I could give my old friend a hard time, as men do when they are showing affection, even though he is now such an established man of God who spends his time dressed in the cassock and zucchetto of a Bishop.

Looking again at Andrew’s Facebook profile, I made my next comment:

“Also, what a delightful author/speaker wife you have! Did you use hypnotism to convince her to marry you?”

Then there was a long pause in our texting conversation. Had I crossed a line?

Finally, the Rector at the Church of the Messiah responded:

“Hahaha—divine mercy and, likely, bad judgment/eyesight!”

That was the sort of response I was hoping for. I wonder if in divinity school they teach rectors how to be self-deprecating at the pulpit. 

H.L. Mencken once said that “God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh.” I don’t know if that true, but I know that I remain full of respect for any community leader who can inspire others with talk of great books, who has a sense of humor, and who answers your call when you have to move your impoverished self from one city to another.

I hope your holiday break is spent with people who have at least two of these qualities. Happy holidays.

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Please consider purchasing a friend a year-long subscription to the Pub Quiz as a holiday gift. The friends who fund this enterprise on Patreon keep these newsletters coming and ensure that faraway friends can partake in your Pub Quiz joy remotely.

It may be raining now, but it is due to conclude by 6. Perhaps my friend the Bishop put in a good word for me? If you are in Davis tonight, please join us for the Pub Quiz at Sudwerk. Recruit a team and dress for a foggy winter sunset at wiped-down tables and chairs. 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 Jimmy Chin, telepathy, poker games, sad tales, the LA Dodgers, button-up shirts with gold decorations, memorable antagonists, Daniel Day-Lewis, creatures that are native to South America, old parks, Wikipedia searches, avoiding unrighteousness, Hilary Swank, submarine bases, Oscar winners, architects, whales, ideal rib cages, night fevers, quantitative reviews of plant biomass and soil process responses to combined manipulations of CO2 and temperature, TV networks, cities that are not London, Marisa Tomei, drafts and fascinations, U.S. presidents, connections between Julius Caesar and Jim Carrey, athletes that require pronunciation guides when introducing them, large islands, big numbers, Jon Voigt, interactive maps, ambitious projects that border on magic, 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, including those who are trying it out for the first time. 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 sample questions:

1. Newspaper Headlines. Citing weak holiday sales, what parent toy company of Dungeons & Dragonsand Magic: The Gathering is cutting about 1,100 Jobs?  

2. News Media. What three letters refer to the busiest news website in the world in October of 2023, with 1.2 billion visits?  

3. Alan Rickman. Alan Rickman made his feature film debut at age 42 playing Hans Gruber in what alleged holiday film? 

P.P.S. “Courage, dear heart.” C.S. Lewis

Dear Friends,

I recently read an original holiday poem at the final Poetry Night of the year:

The Entangled Angel

“Be not forgetful to entertain strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.” 

HEBREWS 13:2

Like a single tear balanced upon a lattice of lashes,

An angel had entangled himself in my holiday lights,

Breathing deeply with the sound of distant trumpets.

He had dropped his lance of light at the base of my fir tree.

The dog stared curiously, tilting her ear towards the earth,

Never having beheld anything so brilliantly alabaster.                                   

Had the children been awake, I would have explained

That this is not what was meant by hospitality,

That angels of all colors and classes, from the seraphim to the cherubim,

are welcome in our neighborhood. Furthermore,

I would explain, not all angels present themselves thus.

Some disguise themselves in simple clothing,

Perhaps even baseball caps, or in the jerseys of opposing sports teams.

The unfamiliar gear and faces of these travelers                   

Make it more likely that they traffic in holy words

That may be whispered, that may be muffled beneath balaclavas,

That may be extended to us via the midnight whistles

Of late night passenger trains, their cargo sleeping, or wishing for sleep.

Each stranger is a gracious presence. Here, help me untangle him.

Join me in dividing my bread. Hand him up his lance, his dropped anklet.

Be grateful for the visitor, whether he bathes us in illumination,

Or arrives faded and weary after a long journey. Each deserves rest.

Gratitude may shine from his eyes, or be realized in his work,

The echoes of distant trumpets. As the holiday carols insist, prepare him room.

Allegra Silberstein thanked me for reading one of her favorites of my works. At 93, she has a better memory than most 20-somethings I know.

Happy holidays!

Dr. Andy

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If you are in Davis tonight, please join us for the Pub Quiz at Sudwerk. Recruit a team, dress for a winter sunset when the temperature drops 15 degrees in an hour and a half, 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 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 Ebenezer Scrooge, company headquarters, leadership changes, Dungeons and Dragons, expositions, the birthdates of American Presidents, spin-offs, long titles, quirky Californians, lithium, capital cities, New England topics, countries that start with the letter I, Jello tenors named Hercules, second-tier billionaires, unusual words that start with the letter N, Elizabeth Warren, busy websites, allegedly holiday films, drummers and guitarists, obstacles at new boarding schools, defeats in Germany, classic novels, energy varieties, state legislatures, transcontinental countries, robots 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. 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

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