Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,
Saturday I got to visit a 5,000 square foot four+ story home in north Berkeley owned by a gracious woman who told me that she loves to entertain. She and her husband evidently throw parties often, using their expansive darkwood-paneled home with a view of the San Francisco Bay as a gathering place for followers of their progressive causes, as well as potential future alumni of the small liberal arts college that helped her launch the sort of career that might lead to the purchase of such a vertical mansion.
Our decidedly more modest Davis home doesn’t accommodate large parties, but I still send out many invitations. The “parties” I host take place in other people’s buildings, whether it be meeting rooms at UC Davis, the John Natsoulas Gallery, or our own beloved Irish Pub. When I worry that I may send out too many invitations, I remind myself that people are encouraged to turn me down. Both the Poetry in Davis and de Vere’s Irish Pub mailing lists have hundreds of subscribers, but typically less than 10% of those on the list actually come to any particular event. The same is (even more true) for events that I host for UC Davis faculty interested in improving their teaching to learning about new instructional technologies. We all have competing obligations and responsibilities. A friend’s presence is a gift, and one’s absence merely extends the pause between chances to catch up.
Some parties represent a last hurrah. I can think of a number of people last seen at my 1992 wedding to Kate or at my last visit to my Mom’s Washington DC apartment who can no longer receive my invitations or smile at my Facebook updates. At least I reached out, I say to myself. At least they accepted that one last invitation. We are all getting older, but before they checked out, at least my invitees knew they were wanted. So whether the event is a pub quiz or a poetry reading, I keep inviting, excited to see what new combination of friends will gather to meet at my next event.
Tonight, this coming Saturday, and Sunday afternoon are times of three atypical events that I hope you will consider attending.
In order, then. Tonight after Pub Quiz I will be holding my annual de Vere’s Irish Pub birthday party. Because the kitchen closes at 9 on Mondays, and because I am expecting a bunch of friends to show up at 9:15, tonight’s Pub Quiz will be speedy. The sound check will begin a few minutes before 7, the introductions will be brief, and the questions will be shorter and even more clear than usual. I hope to be assessing completed quizzes by 8:45 and reading correct answers before 9. I will need your help tonight to pull that off. I won’t need any presents, though, except perhaps a donation to KDVS, our Davis campus and community radio station that starts its April fundraiser right after Picnic Day.
Saturday night (March 12) I am hosting a bonus Pub Quiz for Davis Rotary at the Davis Senior Center. This one benefits a number of non-partisan and non-sectarian local non-profit organizations. Past winners have included healthcare organizations in Woodland, environmental organizations in Davis, and even a local theatre troupe. The participation fee is $50 per person or $400 for a table of eight, but that includes dinner, entertainment, and time spent with some of the most philanthropic and fun-loving people in Davis. Also, babysitting will be provided (though not this year by my daughter Geneva, who will be participating in the penultimate performance of The Eden Project at the Brunelle Theatre at Davis Senior High School). See the Davis Enterprise article for details on the Rotary Pub Quiz Saturday — I believe tickets are still available, and can be had from Chuck Snipes, a Pub Quiz regular.
And finally Sunday, March 13th at 1 PM at the Davis Cemetery I will be performing poems from my just-published book, In the Almond Orchard: Coming Home from War. The book grew out of a commission I earned from Yolo Arts to write a poem about war veterans re-acclimating to life in California after serving overseas. Funds from book sales will fund the Charles Ternes Prize, a creativity prize named after my Uncle Chuck, a World War II vet and photographer. The award will benefit veteran students at UC Davis. For sale for the first time on March 13th, the book contains some of Chuck’s photographs from the 1950s and 60s, and almost 100 pages of my poems. I’m excited.
I extend to you an invitation to all three of these events. These won’t be my last invitations to you, for I have significantly more hosting to do, and books to write.
Tonight’s Dr. Andy’s Birthday Pub Quiz will feature questions on the following topics: great races, relevant symbols, transformative jesters, three-pointers, Halls with financial security, the National Book Award, rodents, sylvan locales, Africa, bodies of water with unsurprising names, thin white dukes, tides, Oscar nominees with attractive names, supermodels, smile leaders, rock and roll HOF inductees, people who are younger than you would think, asterisks, popular prejudices (and ways to confront them), words that start with the letter D, baseball players, antagonists who become love interests, Ben Carson’s new habits, people named Zellweger, old and young people, pests, and Shakespeare.
So I hope to see you tonight at 7 or at 9, and preferably for both. Come judge me by the company I keep!
Your Quizmaster
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Here are three questions from last week’s quiz:
- Mottos and Slogans, or their Absence. What brand of high end clothing whose logo is a polo player astride a horse does not use slogans to advertise?
- Internet Culture. What is the last name of the American computer programmer, 2016 Libertarian Party presidential candidate, and developer of the first commercial anti-virus program which once bore his name?
- Newspaper Headlines. Donald Trump recently blamed a “lousy earpiece” for his unwillingness to denounce what white nationalist leader on CNN?