Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,
Now that Anthony Fauci has told us that we may not be back to normal until the end of next year, we are taking stock, wondering to what extent our homes can accommodate serving as our offices, gyms, and movie theatres for the foreseeable future. There is nothing inherently dangerous about those indoor places, but we must keep our distance from the people they attract. Like our souls, the coronavirus thrives when we socialize with friends and strangers. Keeping away from those communal activities will help to ensure that we stay safe, if perhaps lonely.
In preparation for our unsuccessful move to west Davis, my family and I started purging our household of items in June, and for us, that process continues. We continue to excavate, as it were, in our closets and garage, and If something sparks more exasperation than joy, it has to go. On Friday, despite the poor air quality, I dropped another 15 boxes by Goodwill, and a box of DVDs by Bizarro World, the comic book shop that has so kindly provided pub quiz swag for the last couple years. Some of these items would have made excellent swag, to be sure, but for right now we are happy to be unburdened.
As I have already chronicled exhaustively, this summer we had planned to move into a larger home with a lot of built-in shelves, so we sold and gave away desks and shelves that we now miss. Moving much of our stuff back into the house from storage means that we are living out of boxes in a different way from what we anticipated. Kate’s heroic work of unpacking sometimes feel like an anti-climax: I find myself wishing that many items could just stay in storage. For instance, while I gave away more than half my pants (evidently pleats are out, as is the threadbare look I adopted as a graduate student), I still own too many shirts, including black ones for the Pub Quiz and flamboyant paisley ones for Poetry Night. All our important papers and photographs from the pre-digital era may necessitate that we acquire a (lockable) filing cabinet for Jukie’s room. He won’t mind. Although he had been handed down (or up) many toys from his siblings, these days Jukie’s needs are simple, and in that way, he is enviable.
With the air so bad, Jukie and I do miss our long walks together. While he and I averaged more than five miles a day in July, in September my phone indicates that on a typical day indoors I am not walking much more than 500 yards. Jukie peers out the window with a look of longing and forlorn, so we have had to find other ways to stay active. Sometimes we play disco in the morning – thank you, Donna Summer – so the resulting dancing gets us moving, and reminds me of the summer that I spent in roller skates. Rather than kneepads or a helmet, such as what I would wear today, back in 1980 I would often just don a cape.
Back to our choked and infectious dystopian future, much of our workout equipment is still in storage, and the stores have largely sold out of dumbbells, but at home we had left behind two kettlebells and a yoga mat, so I have been getting by with those and killer workout videos that I have purchased for streaming on demand. Even though I have been intermittently attempting Jillian Michaels’ “Six Weeks to a Six Pack” for about six years, I still don’t have a six pack. I’m sure Michaels would be disappointed in how I interpret “intermittent.” Yesterday I attempted “Raise Some Bell: The Ultimate Kettlebell Workout” with Amy Dixon, and was left with the impression that such videos are intended primarily to train teenage cheerleaders, Olympic decathletes, and professional dancers. Maybe I could have kept up back when I roller-skated every day. Let’s just say that last night the living room fans and air purifiers were working overtime, along with me. Nevertheless, I would call exercise to energetic music the best sort of work, the work we reserve for the weekend, when we get to play in our little castles like children stuck home on a sick day.
And now, on to the hints for the first full-length new quiz that I have written since March! ! In addition to topics raised above, tonight’s Pub Quiz will feature questions on the following: New York City, exercise equipment, Harry Potter, idevices, St. Louis, your elders, queens and princes, Australians, the book projects of political candidates, regrettable diagnoses, double India pale ales, sweet tigers, narrow strips, cheesecake, baseball, film trilogies, free-form anger, total market capitalization, consumer video, transitions in power, sailing ships, famous addresses, panthers, laundered money, rung bells, nautical terms, generals, molecular formulae, fish, pioneers, energy fields, and Shakespeare.
If you would like something different to do on your day or evening stuck at home, perhaps you would like to see tonight’s Pub Quiz? There are a number of ways you can do that, most of which involve joining us on Patreon, as Gadi, Lynne, and Bruce (and their teams) have done, and as the Vocal Art Ensemble and Wallace-Everitt teams have done, mostly at the Gold or higher tier. Also, thanks so much to THE MAVENS for their ongoing support of the Quiz — they have attended almost every Monday for a decade! The gold tier ensures receipt of new pub quizzes every Monday, and as one team will be reminded today, the platinum tier comes with an audio performance of the Quiz. Thanks to my first patrons!
Pub Quiz fans who join us at Patreon at ANY tier (even the $4 a month bronze tier) will get that first week’s quiz immediately as a thank-you gift. On many days, I also send bonus questions to my patrons, just so they have something to noodle on if it happens to be a non-Monday. Patreon will also provide us a way to sustain the community of Pub Quiz regulars once we have more people joining.
If you just want to see any particular week’s quiz without any sort of monthly commitment, send a me PayPal or Venmo contribution of $5 or more (along with your email address), and then you will have it straightaway. As has been the case at the pub, each quiz is 31 questions long, divided into familiar categories, perfect to use to play with friends. You will receive a copy with no answers, and then one with, so you can test yourself. The contributions will go to paying my web hosting and newsletter service bills for the last year; eventually I will hire an assistant to help distribute all the goodies to the Patreon Patrons.
With thanks,
Dr. Andy
P.S. Here are three questions from last week’s quiz:
- Science. What three-syllable plural word correctly fills in the blank? BLANKS are found in almost every ecosystem on Earth and are the most abundant type of biological entity.
- Current Events – Names in the News. What celebrity tweeted this in 2014? “Guess what? @DavidBurtka and I got married over the weekend. In Italy. Yup, we put the ‘n’ and ‘d’ in ‘husband.'” Hint: Elton John performed at their wedding reception.
- Sports. Born in 1980, what former American football quarterback and sports analyst played in the National Football League for 14 seasons with the Dallas Cowboys?