Picture by JLHopgood (Flickr)
Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,
The modern gym is a playground for adults where children are rarely tolerated. I was excited that a gym was being built a block from my home in south Davis, but I soon discovered that it was a gym for gymnasts, with not much there for an adult to do. On the first Saturday after they opened, my nine-year-old son Truman insisted that we check out the open house, and so we went.
A place where the coaches and young gymnasts take their sport seriously, Davis Diamonds offers plenty of room for tumbling, swinging on rings, pivoting round and round a pommel horse and attempting to remain parallel on parallel bars. Perennial non-participants, we parents were invited to watch all the activity from movable benches and stools on the west wall, tapping our toes to the quick and familiar beats of Abba and Parliament Funkadelic.
Just as we parents were growing accustomed to the irregular sounds of unstructured play, the perky coaches interrupted our complacent reverie (and our children’s freedom) by clapping rhythmically in patterns that all the gym’s regulars recognized and soon mimicked. This unexpected percussion signaled the end of free play and the time for us to focus attention on exhibitions of talent put on by the “girls’ team” and the “boys’ team.”
Ladies first. The girls sped towards the floor exercises with the sort of power and grace that neophyte gymnastics spectators such as myself see only on television, and even then typically only once every four years. The most practiced of these powerful sprites spent much of their time in the air, bouncing about as if their legs and spines were made of springy coils. Flipping backwards and forwards, often not letting their feet touch the ground, these young women in spandex seemed to spinon an invisible shoulder-high pivot, rotating impossibly like thrown tomahawks.
The young men resembled extras in kung fu films. With the grips of veteran mountaineers, they clasped the smooth high bars or rings, their chalked gloves protecting them from friction, and then hurled themselves forward in ever quickening circles, exploring centrifugal forces like muscled propellers. Their arms and torsos showed an independent understanding of angles, pitch, and propulsion; they twitched with anticipation and aspiration, and with each rotation, these young men inched closer and closer to unassisted flight. Already accomplished athletes, the oldest among these young men was merely a high school senior.
The tumblers’ peers cheered them on by name, while the rest of us—parents and supporters—applauded after each improbable feat was completed. Some children just watched in stunned silence, hoping for a future of such strength and grace. Their awe and the genuine applause softened my skepticism about the need for such a gym in the neighborhood.
One little girl also heard the applause. Perhaps three years old, she was relishing open play at Davis Diamonds. Her brown curls pulled back into a ponytail, this tot suddenly found no line for the long and narrow trampoline while everyone else was watching the show. Unsteady at first, but with increasing speed, she heaved herself with uneven bounces towards a pit filled with blue cubes of foam, landing with great joy while at the same time a muscle-bound boy dismounted from the rings. As the auditorium filled with applause, she scrambled out, thinking that the ovation was for her alone. With her eyes squeezed shut, she bowed towards the crowd with her arms stretched out like wings, trying unsuccessfully to suppress a confident smile.
And just like that, a gymnast was born in Davis!
With regard to hints, for many of you the salient part of these newsletters, tonight’s Pub Quiz will surely feature questions on the 87th Academy Awards. What did you think of the telecast, or of the big winners, such as Birdman? I watched the ceremony on television, noting what topics would make for good pub quiz questions. Any Oscar ceremony makes me think of hundreds of other favorite films, and the importance of film as a shared receptacle of storytelling, entertainment and culture. Expect also questions on the Grammy Awards, online video, the importance of money, Mexican culture, Irish culture, British culture, car companies, Dickens, poetry, the City of Davis, chemistry, cities I have never visited, organs, several questions I haven’t written yet, for my life is packed with responsibility and joyous time spent with family and friends, and so is yours, and Shakespeare.
Perhaps tonight I should ask you to remind me on what nights one can enjoy performances at the poetry Night Reading Series. Just so you know, those events take place on first and third Thursdays of the month, as you can discover at PoetryInDavis.com.
See you tonight!
Your Quizmaster
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Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:
- Internet Culture. To Irish sports fans, GUI stand for the Golfing Union of Ireland. To what internet topic does the GUI acronym refer?
- Newspaper Headlines. A crucial meeting of Eurozone finance ministers over the future of what country’s bailout broke down in acrimony today?
- American Cities. Starting with R, what US city of 233K people is 735 m. from Phoenix, 578 m. from Portland, and 2996 m. from the other Portland?
- Pop Culture – Music. Ranked by VH1 as number 14 in their special 100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock, what Seattle grunge rock band was formed in 1984 by singer and rhythm guitarist Chris Cornell, lead guitarist Kim Thayil, and bassist Hiro Yamamoto, and had a number one album in 1994 with Superunknown?
- Science. What plural R word refers to mammals that are able to acquire nutrients from plant-based food by fermenting it in a specialized stomach prior to digestion, principally through bacterial actions?
P.S. Have you made it to the end of the newsletter? I thank you. Here is a poem I read today.