Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,
Like so much of America, I am thinking of the people who died in that Los Angeles helicopter crash yesterday morning:
Kobe Bryant, 41.
His 13-year-old daughter, Gianna “Gigi” Bryant.
Gianna’s basketball teammate Alyssa Altobelli.
Alyssa’s father, John Altobelli, 56, the baseball coach at Orange Coast College.
Alyssa’s mother, Keri Altobelli.
Christina Mauser, a basketball coach at the nearby Harbor Day School, where Gigi Bryant attended.
Payton Chester, a middle-school student.
Sarah Chester, Payton’s mother.
Ara Zobayan, the helicopter pilot.
I woke up this morning to texts from my college senior, Geneva. She has just seen a film, Rabbit-Proof Fence, that she recommended we show to her 14-year-old brother, Truman. In turn, I sent her a photograph taken from her brother Jukie’s room of the sun coming up over the trees of our cul-de-sac. She responded that the skies over Wisconsin this morning are all white, as if mirroring the snow on the ground.
Such everyday happenstances take on a greater resonance when one considers the families who woke up this morning to the same sudden and grim realization.
Because of Kobe Bryant’s prowess and prolific scoring on the basketball court, and his two-decade commitment to the Los Angeles Lakers, an entire generation of sports fans are feeling his loss profoundly. Not a Kobe fan because of some of his activities off the court, my brother Oliver still appreciated Bryant’s support for women’s basketball. Yesterday he sent me a November picture (see above) that he snapped of Kobe and his daughter Gianna talking with players and coaches after a game. One can see the love and enthusiasm in Kobe’s demeanor when talking basketball with his daughter, something noted by other sports stars who conversed with Kobe post-retirement.
Like the Bryant, Chester, and Altobelli children, my son had a playdate yesterday, only rather than being shuttled to a basketball game, he and a friend joined their moms at a showing of Gone with the Wind on the big screen. Unlike the junior-high students in Los Angeles, these two boys returned home to Davis without incident, full of images and stories from one of Hollywood’s greatest films, one that also highlights the tragic loss of a child.
Thinking last night about all the people I love, those in the house, those in faraway homes, and those who are even farther away than that, I hugged my teenage son a little tighter than usual before tucking him in for an evening of safe and restful sleep.
Tonight’s Pub Quiz will cover some of the topics raised above, as well as the following: royal placements, bicycling, a year for frets, relabeled tribes, hockey, applications, place names, snakes, recent polls, Russian literature, broken ties, the letter R, church duties, ice barriers, Oscar-winners, comparisons to stones, role playing games, the distance between major cities, punching down, musical counterpoint, languages, alliterative names, suckers, baseball stars, racist neighbors, Mexico, caucuses, hurricanes, flowers, and Shakespeare. There will be no questions this week about John Bolton.
This afternoon I will be reading a poem on the same stage as Chancellor May and a few other notables. Relive the video of that experience here. This event might have to be the topic of next week’s newsletter. Meanwhile, I look forward to seeing you this evening.
Best,
Your Quizmaster
yourquizmaster@gmail.com
https://www.yourquizmaster.com
P.S. Here are three questions from last week’s pub quiz:
1. TV Stars. What TV star and comedian appeared in the films Diner, Beverly Hills Cop, and Aliens?
2. Pop Culture – Television. Henry Cavill plays Geralt of Rivia in what Netflix series?
3. Another Music Question. I will give you the first (stage) name of a rapper, and you tell me his last (stage) name: Busta.
P.P.S. “Parents were the only ones obligated to love you; from the rest of the world you had to earn it.” Ann Brashares