Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,
My favorite John Ciardi poem is “Most Like an Arch This Marriage.” In the 1980s I used to hear Ciardi (1916-1986) comment on words and word histories on Morning Edition on National Public Radio. I’m sure many English majors were inspired by his wit and erudition found in the musings in a writer’s love of language.
Remembering this poem, I have used this idea of “most like an arch” in teaching writing at UC Davis since 1990. For advanced undergraduate writers, successful arguments will embrace necessary complexity and sometimes acknowledge the limitations and contradictions of those arguments. Some theorists believe that through writing we actually construct reality, and thus that challenging writing assignments will give students opportunities to practice constructing new methods of understanding the world, and of creating their own futures and value systems. As they do so, we would hope that their practice of acknowledging distinctions, limitations and contradictions will allow them to clarify and deepen their thinking.
As Ciardi puts it in his poem:
Most like an arch—two weaknesses that lean
into a strength. Two fallings become firm.
Two joined abeyances become a term
naming the fact that teaches fact to mean.
I remind my students often that they are obligated to disagree with me at least once a quarter, for in doing so they give me opportunities to strengthen and clarify my own thinking, as well as my goals for them as learners and writers. Together we can be like Ciardi’s arches, “two weaknesses that lean / into a strength.”
When a version of last week’s Pub Quiz newsletter was published in the Davis Enterprise Wednesday, it elicited a range of opinions, from the entrenched (“’White privilege’ is an overused cliche among white liberals who are doing nothing more than trying to congratulate themselves on their sensitivity”), to the dismissive (“For a place like Davisdorf [sic] to have a ‘poet laureate’ is pretentious, to say the least”), to the thoughtful (responses such as those from Elaine Musser and John Blue that I will encourage you read for yourself by visiting the Davis Enterprise website).
My favorite objection so far came from Tom Camden, a fellow south Davisite who phoned me at work Friday afternoon to discuss his concerns. He pointed out rightly that my article hadn’t represented the motivations of those who had occupied the Malheur National Wildlife Headquarters in eastern Oregon (not southern Oregon, as I had written). Camden pointed out the different ways that the Department of the Interior significantly inconveniences locals in that part of the country, and how the concerns and freedoms of those same locals are not taken into account when the US government makes decisions that affects all of them.
The protest that led to the occupation of the government building also concerned disproportionate sentencing for local ranchers and hunters who had, either inadvertently or advertently, set fire to government land that bordered property that they owned. Minimum sentencing guidelines stipulated that those found guilty of such an offense spend at least five years in prison. During a time of drought, everyone is anxious about wildfires.
Even though we only talked for about 15 minutes, I learned a lot from Tom Camden. I acknowledge the concerns of rural complainants, even though I have much deeper sympathies for residents of those urban neighborhoods who have been subjected to aggressive and sometimes lethal policing. No matter our differences, I appreciate Camden and others who disagree with me in a civil and thoughtful way, and who take the initiative to speak their minds. I try to teach similar rhetorical strategies and executive skills to my students (and my children) so that the next generation can be properly equipped to interconnect and communicate, and thus not be so easily swayed by what conservative columnist David Brooks last week called the “dark and satanic tones” of some of our prominent candidates for U.S. president.
Although in the pub the Quizmaster presents himself as infallible, in the opinion section of your local newspaper, no one has a monopoly on accuracy or the truth. As Walt Whitman says, “the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.”
Tonight at the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz we will review a variety of topics with light and cerebral tones. Although the Golden Globes took place last night, I will ask you a number of questions about the Oscars. Expect also questions about snack foods, roads in Davis, Ted Cruz, mathematics (yes, a real math question) carnivorous amphibians, cities that were incorporated in the year 1900, the changing articles of popular music, American leagues, “spout” as a verb, sports writers, princesses and other royalty, acids, rancor, tom toms, how much we miss Jon Stewart, Russian armaments, single digits, missed opportunities, famous dead poets, today’s headlines, fast ships, inversions, fragrances, huge industries, great films that I have only begun to watch, great American novels, wits, meager savings, college dropout criminals, Mount Zion, fighters’ inverted brows, angry percussion techniques, tank engines, and Shakespeare.
I had written this newsletter before learning of the death of David Bowie yesterday at the age of 69. The great music and fashion icon deserves his own newsletter, but for right now I will leave you with these words from our departed courage-teacher, taken from his final album’s first song, “Lazarus”:
Look up here, I’m in heaven
I’ve got scars that can’t be seen
I’ve got drama, can’t be stolen
Everybody knows me now
I hope you can join us this evening as we raise a toast to David Bowie.
Your Quizmaster
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Here are three questions from last week’s quiz:
- Unusual Words: Three-letter verbs that start with the letter T. What such verb refers to handcrafting a particularly durable lace from a series of knots and loops?
- Star Wars Characters. What character in a Star Wars film speaks this famous line? “He’s no good to me dead”?
- Name the Band. Dave Grohl, Pat Smear, Nate Mendel, Taylor Hawkins, and Chris Shiflett.
P.S. Congratulations to the Pub Quiz team Portraits – they earned a perfect score last week, the first time that has happened in the history of the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz.