Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,
How do I love the Pub Quiz? Let me count the ways.
I love the Monday afternoon writing prompts, the delicious mix of protein and healthy fat in the Dr. Andy Salad, the tasty cocktails, the time spent with Kate and often one or more of our kids at the pre-PQ meal, the reading I get to do while preparing quizzes, my necessary attentiveness to world events, the simplicity of the Monday evening wardrobe, the opportunity to clean out my home two swag items at a time, the brief chats with the proprietors of Bizarro World (appreciated donors of weekly swag), the building thrum of revelers waiting for the chime to ring, the vainglorious buffoonery of the opening spiel, and the sight of the slow early-meal eaters skedaddling out the door once the boisterous and near-deafening welcome begins.
But most of all I appreciate the friendships I have made at the Irish Pub, and at the other events where I have hosted pub quizzes at charity, school, or corporate events. I have dined (even outside the pub) with pub quiz friends, helped them move furniture, delivered books to their homes, met them for Hollywood movies, attended their yard sales, attended their readings at The Avid Reader, consulted with them during my public office hours, attended pool parties at their homes, met them at a Sacramento nightclub (that was years ago), written them letters of recommendation, visited their art openings, donated to their charity events and fundraisers, thanked them for attending my own head-sheering events for children’s cancer research, greeted them at poetry readings, sang for their birthdays, and even, on a couple occasions, joined them at a competing trivia night. Isn’t that scandalous!?
Sometimes our activities together have transcended the incidental. Pub Quiz participants have counseled my daughter at Davis Senior High School, visited the house during times of family injury of illness, and babysat my children. I have even officiated the marriage of two couples who got to hear my voice first at a Pub Quiz. Imagine that!
These days, I typically stay up past one in the morning only when grading my student essays, when I am working on a writing project, or when I can’t put down an inspiring book. But this past Saturday, I stayed up talking past that hour with friends whom I have encountered at many different events, restaurants, and street corners here in the city of Davis. After much interrupted planning, Kate and I got to dine at the home of local friends whom we would not know so well, or feel so endeared to, were it not for the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz. I’m grateful for that, and for them.
I once encountered a memorable tweet by a Mormon comedian and commentator. It read simply, “Nobody talks about Jesus’ miracle of having 12 close friends in his 30s.” I know thousands of people, but close friends are a modern miracle, I think, one that I am celebrating and expressing thanks for right here at the end of the personal essay portion of the weekly Pub Quiz newsletter. I hope that you can sustain such miracles in your own personal life, no matter your age or proximity to affectionate, note-taking religious acolytes.
Tonight’s Pub Quiz may touch on topics raised above, but it will certainly take on the following this evening: twins with secrets, the Beyoncé trajectory, the airport problems with hamburger, press conferences, shipwrecks, hidden hotspots, chickens, unlikely landslides, obstructions, places to drink juice, gun rights and wrongs, the really rich, the question of metabolism, jeering music critics, bicycles, traitors, famous brothers, social media experts, Primetime Emmys, unstable economics, significant predators, relative taxation, Caribbean vacation opportunities, Viking diets, Jason Statham, incomplete swimming lessons, grand islands, the question of Africa, young Californians, oil money, dented gums on The Simpsons, and Shakespeare.
Don’t we have fun? I hope you will join us this evening for the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz!
Your Quizmaster
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Here are three questions from last week’s quiz:
- Word Puzzles. Using capital letters, what five-letter present-tense verb looks the same whether right-side-up or upside-down?
- Pop Culture – Music. The top-selling Ed Sheeran song of 2018 begins with these two lines: “I found a love for me / Darling just dive right in.” Name the song. If you were going to answer “Shape of You,” that’s wrong.
- Sports: Basketball. Former Rookie of the Year Damian Lillard received four NBA All-Star selections and is one of four players in his team’s franchise history to become a four-time All-Star. Name his team.
P.S. Gary Snyder is reading at the Natsoulas Gallery this coming Friday night at 7. Once in a lifetime!