Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,
Last night I hosted a special fundraiser for the Yolo Food Bank that featured Davis vice-mayor Lucas Frerichs reading the holiday classic “A Visit from St. Nicholas” by Clement Clarke Moore. I myself performed “A Child’s Christmas in Wales” by Dylan Thomas. Yolo Food Bank executive director Michael Bisch spoke about the work of his organization to address food insecurity throughout the year, but especially during the holidays, when many of us eat with gusto and abandon.
Michael also referenced a poem I wrote that appeared in the holiday card sent by the Food Bank to all its supporters (a great honor to me). With the hopes that I might inspire you to make a donation (or an additional donation) to the Yolo Food Bank this month, I am reprinting the poem here.
Hunger
By Dr. Andy Jones, UC Davis
“A hungry man is not a free man.” Adlai E. Stevenson
Practiced at gauging want, slender Pablo
has attuned to everyday aches,
the ways his parents’ eyes turn downward
in weary increments, like little frowns.
It makes no sense, his father working so hard,
To have so little. Wiry and strong from incessant labors,
Guillermo finds that his wage neglects
To provide his family even the minimum.
The people Guillermo serves couldn’t imagine that he
And his wife and son all sleep in the same room,
Also the kitchen: So much happening in the one room,
But also not enough. Pablo eats at school.
Pablo would like to lean into growing, his only job,
But he carries a simple sack filled with absence
The way that his classmates carry backpacks
Filled with permission slips and packed lunches.
Pablo feels unauthorized, that he has no permission.
His hunger, punishment for transgressions
He has not yet lived long enough to make,
Is inscrutable, like the weight of negative numbers.
The freeform unfairness of the absence distracts,
Gnaws at him the way his stomach gnaws on itself.
Every thought he starts, it stumbles,
Like his own bisabuela, too weary to walk.
The refrigerator light reveals a bag of tortillas,
But no ingredients for them to enfold and deliver.
The tortillas are the walls of the overexposed grocery store:
They contain everything, but to him, provide nothing.
This poem was prompted by my encountering a haunting photo from a photo essay on poverty, and by the beautiful word “bisabuela,” meaning “great-grandmother.” As Michael Bisch pointed out, many of the farm workers who have been called “essential” worked throughout the pandemic and are now finding that they themselves don’t have enough healthy food to eat. Many feel that society fails to reward them for their essential work. If you believe ironic injustices like that should be addressed locally (as well as nationally), please consider giving a donation to the Yolo Food Bank before the end of 2021.
This week’s Pub Quiz will feature questions on the following topics: Google searches, childhood friends, anthropology, famous artists, guest musicians on holiday, dreary words, gratitude, mankind, Renaissance men on the move, future kings, Oklahoma City notables, old friends, vampire encounters, the wonders of agronomy, inventiveness, thick liquids, electric vehicles, world wars, Mary Tyler Moore, Aramaic among the nine languages, wool cereal in Chicago, physics, sports options, working-class heroes, unpopular baby names, Hermann Hesse, wired counties, missed marines, holiday marketing campaigns, current events, and Shakespeare.
Thanks all year to the Patreon sponsors of the Pub Quiz, including Quizimodo, The Outside Agitators, and The Original Vincibles. If you would like to sign on as a new sponsor on Patreon, even at the lowest level, I will be sure to send you all my December Pub Quizzes.
Thanks, and I hope you get to spend some time with your loved ones in the coming weeks. That said, stay safe.
Best,
Dr. Andy
P.S. Here are three questions from last week’s pub quiz:
- Mottos and Slogans and Sayings. “Fortune favors the bold” is
spoken by a chief antagonist in The Aeneid. Name the author.
- Internet Culture. Starting with the letter D, what best app or service of 2021 did CNET call a “fun, functional approach to learning a language”?
- Newspaper Headlines. As we recently learned, what city became the largest municipality in the U.S. to allow noncitizens to vote in local elections?
P.P.S. “A vacation is what you take when you can no longer take what you’ve been taking.” Earl Wilson