Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,
Someone once called me “Davis Famous,” and since then I’ve wondered if she was complimenting me, or describing a box that encloses me. A teacher herself, my friend was probably also pointing out that, like so many other faddish things in life, fame is to be mistrusted. “A good commander is benevolent and unconcerned with fame,” Sun Tzu said. I try to be benevolent without even being a commander.
Some of these things are in our control, and some are not. As John Wooden warns, “Talent is God given. Be humble. Fame is man-given. Be grateful. Conceit is self-given. Be careful.” American philosopher and poet Henry David Thoreau took it a step further, saying, “Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.”
We can’t always account for how we might get noticed. Perhaps more people have heard my voice during my dozen or so appearances on Capital Public Radio and my dozen or so appearances on local TV (including last week on Channel 13), than during the 18 years of my public affairs radio show on KDVS. It might be that more people saw my TV commercials for Kid Power Shoes and Billy the Kid Action Wear (I only did commercials for companies that had the word “Kid” in their names and that would eventually go out of business) than saw my made for TV movie about Down Syndrome. It might be that more people saw me on The Oprah Winfrey Show in 1992 than who saw my TV commercials, made for TV movie, and appearances on local news in the 1970s and 1980s, combined. And most likely more people heard me talk about poetry on the BBC World Service, the world’s largest international broadcaster, with a listenership of over 300 million, than saw me on Oprah, with an audience typically ranging from 25-50 million.
But what does all that matter now? More meaningful to me has been the number of people who have stopped me at functions in Davis to say they appreciated my eulogy tribute poem to Susanne Rockwell, a delightful friend and “benevolent commander” of writers and do-gooders, a local hero who passed away last month. More meaningful than the publication of my first three books of poetry has been the “publication” of my most recent book, titled 25. Containing one secretly written love poem for each of my 25 years of marriage to Kate, 25 had a print run of just one. As I have joked, this is only somewhat smaller than the print runs of my previous books. But handing it across the table to its entire intended audience has been worth more to me than all my “fame,” whether it be Davis fame or exposure to an audience outside 95616.
Somewhat related to all this, I will quote Kate from something she posted on Facebook this morning:
On Saturday, Truman looked out the window and said, “someone’s put a new sign in our yard.” I asked him to read it to me:
With stronger eyes than mine, he could make out the words: “The new lovers kissed each other’s cheeks beneath a weeping willow with a long memory.”
“Sweet – I wonder who wrote it — that’s not what I expected,” I said, Later while walking around, I noticed similar looking signs with different poetic messages, all about trees, posted all over town. One read:
The tree’s myriad branches,
present a thousand different ways
to begin a single answer: YES.
And another:
After a long hike, seek rest.
The strongest trees
quiver solitary atop
the tallest hills.
What a lovely, tree-hugging town I live in — we sure do love our trees, I thought! When I mentioned to Andy how much I liked the signs, he asked me who wrote them.
Hmmm, lemme look…oh! Andy Jones, Davis Poet Laureate wrote them. Was I the last to know that my husband’s words were celebrating the City of Davis’ 40th Anniversary as a Tree City USA? And now one can find 20 such micro-poems all over town. What a fitting tribute to a city that loves its trees! 🌲🌳🌴💚
P.S. This morning, Jukie’s bus driver read the sign about new lovers on our front yard, and asked Andy if he and his wife need to be “new lovers,” or if he can go ahead and kiss her cheek beneath the weeping willow. “Go for it,” he responded. I suppose that eventually people turn to their local poet on matters of the heart.
Thanks to Kate for providing the emotional center of this week’s newsletter.
Tonight’s Pub Quiz will concerns issues raised above, as well as the following: ploys for hog gyms, islands of witchcraft, salaries for school-teachers, path-finders, pastries, barbecues, chimneys, fans, term memory and term limits, speeches full of thanks, barnyard adventures, home improvements, antibodies at work, Disney on TV, glee back east, GDP, heroic upstarts, multitudes of governors, multiple K names, arcane lenders, imagined success, humours, words with six syllables, best-sellers, architecture, classical music, the pulse of studies, Haiti, motivations to launch, Apples, and Shakespeare. Today I saw a trending story that platypus milk might save us from bacterial infections. Too bad the pub quiz is already written, or I could include that, as well.
Happy belated Arbor Day, and happy belated St. Patrick’s Day! I hope we can fill de Vere’s Irish Pub as we did on Saturday. See you at 7.
Your Quizmaster
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Here are three questions from last week’s quiz:
- Books and Authors. Once best known for his short stories, what George’s novel Lincoln in the Bardo won the 2017 Man Booker Prize?
- Actors and Actresses. What Oscar-winning Cockney octogenarian actor who introduced Woody Allen to Mia Farrow has said that he will never work with the Academy Award-winning director again?
- Science. Hot air balloon burners burn a liquid form of a three-carbon alkane with the molecular formula C3H8. Name it.
P.S. Did I tell you that with my head-shaving stunt I was able to raise more than $3,000 for children’s cancer research? If you want to see the names of the people who contributed, or add your name to their ranks, for there is still time, please visit http://bit.ly/balddrandy. By now, my hair is already starting to grow back. As I told one friend, “My hair is returning so quickly that I feel like Wolverine.” Thanks to the first family of Davis (according to me), Lucas and Stacie Frerichs, for their recent donation to the cause.
P.P.S. A reminder from Rilke: “Make your ego porous. Will is of little importance, complaining is nothing, fame is nothing. Openness, patience, receptivity, solitude is everything.”