Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,
When the power went out in south Davis as I sat down to write my newsletter, I resolved that the universe was directing me to continue the vacation I had started the week before in Los Angeles and San Diego, so that’s exactly what I did. Thanks for your patience with the delay.
Most of us live with the constant thrum of empowered sound all the time. In our house, for example, we try not to use the air conditioner much, so a fan is always going, approximating a breeze, but so is its accompanying whir.
When the power went out, Kate texted me to not let our son Jukie open up the refrigerator, and I was reminded of the time when we moved into our first Sacramento apartment together (1801 H Street). Our only piece of furniture was a solid and not terribly comfortable futon which we had assembled in our small living room. As we were falling asleep that first night, I commented that the noise from the refrigerator was a distraction, and Kate said she hadn’t noticed it until I said something.
Alone last week in our home during the power outage, I noticed that I couldn’t hear a fan or a refrigerator or even the noise from nearby I-80. The only sounds were my typing fingers and the slight snore of the French bulldog on the couch. The lack of power in our house yielded a welcome silence.
Los Angeles, by contrast, is noisy with car traffic, and it requires immense power to keep it going. A friend texted to ask if we had begun our vacation yet, so I stepped out the door of our hotel to take a picture of the power lines above us, the ones that crackled with sound if you were to stop to notice, approximating the sound of a drizzling rain that we knew would not visit LA this August. The photograph of those powerful electrical conduits (see the accompanying image) told him all he needed to know: we weren’t in Davis anymore.
We visited LA to see my brother Oliver and his family, and my mom, who had moved to be closer to Oliver so that first he, and later the staff of a retirement and care center, could keep an eye on her. Mom still had flashes of her old humor and obstinacy, but I could tell that, as will happen to most of us, her batteries were slowly draining. Like my home, she was negotiating periodic outages.
Conversations with a beloved selective amnesiac in her late 80s remind one always to remain in the present. Mom has largely been released from the responsibilities of continuity, but she clearly loves and takes delight in our children and our dog Margot. In many ways, my conversations with mom these days are much like what I imagine our first conversations were like: identification of small discovered treasures, and wondrous commentary on the observable phenomena of the natural world.
In my 9th grade geometry class 41 years ago, our teacher Mrs. Ketcham explained to us an example of when we might want to identify the intersection of two graphs. She explained that her beloved mother’s mental faculties were deteriorating perhaps at about the same rate that her toddler daughter’s faculties were growing. If these opposite-direction phenomenon could be graphed, one could find the point when the two lines intersected, the moment when her daughter’s cognition overtook that of her mother.
Then stoic Mrs. Ketcham turned to us, still holding a piece of chalk in her hand, and stared at us, blinking slowly as if to ward off tears. It seemed odd to me that she suddenly stopped speaking to us, though as I write this today, I can imagine the conversation in her head. The noise of high school seeming to have stilled, and we, unknowing and naïve, we stared back up at her, none of us making a sound, all of us recognizing the power present in an extended moment of silence.
I hope you get to see this week’s Pub Quiz, for I love sharing them with friends old and new. Expect questions on topics raised above, and on the following: mythical characters that come in groups, American jobs, dragons, constables, uses of energy, football matches, singer/actors, Oceans of the world, lyrics about sleep, births outside marriage, socks, pins, Spider-Man, blade runners, Latin phrases, state anagrams, European artists, platinum hits, quarter-centuries, the population of California, snakes, languages you likely don’t know, mottos and slogans, news of the world, and Shakespeare.
Thanks to my supporters on Patreon who make all this happen, especially the Outside Agitators, the Original Vincibles, and Quizimodo. I’m always grateful to players who pledge for their entire team. Please subscribe so you can share the fun of the Pub Quiz with your friends and neighbors. We all need to keep our memories working. The rest is silence.
Best,
Dr. Andy
P.S. Here are three questions from last week’s pub quiz:
- Four for Four. Which two of the following are the most-consumed tree nuts in the world: Almonds, hazelnuts, peanuts, walnuts?
- Billboards. Only four U.S. states have banned billboard: two far flung states, and two in New England. Name one of the four.
- Signees of the Declaration of Independence. In what month in 1776 did most signees actually sign the Declaration of Independence? Hint: It wasn’t July.
P.P.S. I get to introduce the poets Bill Gainer and Laura Martin at the Natsoulas Gallery on Thursday night at 7. It would be a treat to see you there. According to the Facebook event, already 25 people are going or interested. Add your name!