Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,
I wonder if all private and public social bonds between strangers and friends begin with the idea of hospitality.
Our first great poet, Homer, communicates the importance of hospitality in the opening stanzas of The Odyssey when the son of Odysseus, Telemachus, receives a lone stranger to his father’s house. “Welcome,” said he, “to our house, and when you have partaken of food you shall tell us what you have come for.” Telemachus doesn’t even ask the visitor’s name before making sure he is fed and comforted.
The ancients called this xenia hospitium, or “guest-friendship.” The hospitality of Telemachus led the stranger – actually the goddess Athena in disguise – to help his father return from his adventures. Such private hospitality bonds laid the foundation for local alliances and even major treaties in ancient Greece and Rome. As the Aeschylus asks in his play The Libation Bearers: “What is there more kindly than the feeling between host and guest?”
Someone close to me recently visited someone’s home and was surprised to be treated inhospitably, even accusingly, by her host. I hear the story through my friend’s tears, and the incivility still stings me.
The cruelty my friend experienced should remind us all of our obligations to one another. For example, this experience has led me to consider my own duty, as the “host” of college classrooms, a radio show, a poetry series, and, of course, a pub quiz, to treat all attendees and participants as honored guests.
I think of the AAA repair technicians who have visited my driveway to jumpstart my car and of the drivers delivering us packages or meals during the pandemic. Each of these essential workers is an angel in disguise. I think also of international students, honored travelers from afar, who spend part of their education at UC Davis; each of them enriches me with the time, attention, and stories that they bring to my classroom. Each such visitor should be welcomed with friendly questions and compassion.
All of us can recall excellent hosts. I think of the hospitality that my wife Kate shows to parents who have just discovered that their newborn has a rare genetic syndrome. Representing the Smith-Lemli-Opitz Foundation, Kate welcomes them to an online community, an extended family of parents who recognizes their struggles. Strengthened by significant challenges, this community of kind-hearted people appreciates the dignity and humanity of their new far-flung friends, even if just previously they were strangers.
The love Kate shares with struggling parents, whether they be members of the new parent group that she runs here in Davis, or parents coping with their baby’s unwelcome diagnosis, makes me proud to be her husband. I wish that we all might treat our guests with such kindness.
In the end, our riches and our accomplishments matter less than the compassion we share with those who visit our city or enter our homes. As Maya Angelou said of hosts and guests alike, “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
In addition to topics raised above, tonight’s Pub Quiz will include questions about transport, speaker systems, mathematicians, medical centers (the words “hospital” and “hospitality” come from the same root), calendars, big numbers, one-word titles, Russia, nosy summer hammocks, soul, confused passengers (all of us?), goats, lackeys, strange bedfellows when doing right, the needs of a fire, American cities, bank notes, Arizona, Irish influences, Portuguese exports, supposed brothers, double times, birthdays (Happy Birthday to esteemed subscriber Ted!), warm states, marines, current events, and Shakespeare.
I extend special thanks to all the teams who pay extra on Patreon to support the Pub Quiz. I call out especially The Original Vincibles, Quizimodo, The Outside Agitators, and Bono’s Pro Bono Obo Bonobos. Compassionate people may be reincarnated as the especially good-natured bonobos. Also, one team will soon receive a copy of How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America by Clint Smith, the author of the best-selling non-fiction book in America.
Emily Hughes will be visiting the John Natsoulas Gallery from Brooklyn this coming Thursday at 7 and will be reading new poems for Poetry Night. You should join us!
Ever thankfully yours,
Dr. Andy
P.S. Here are three questions about China from a 2010 Pub Quiz:
- Here in the US, we have the dollar. What is the primary base unit of modern Chinese currencies?
- Which of the following is the name of the second largest river in China (by volume)? The Diamond River, The Emerald River, The Jade River, The Pearl River.
- Compassion, moderation, and humility are the three “jewels” of what religious practice or philosophical tradition?
P.P.S. “You cannot do kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late.” Ralph Waldo Emerson