The View Outside my Window
Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,
From where I write this on this Monday morning, I can see a welcome sprinkling of snow on the eaves outside my window, a hint of precipitation in an alpine region that would seem parched with thirst were it not for the huge lake nearby.
The cover of yesterday’s Sacramento Bee showed unused ski lifts above miles of rocky soil. Has the ski season ever ended so early? The stores and restaurants at Kings Beach should be inundated with skiers and their families, but instead, we find parking spaces quite easily, and take hikes in walking shoes rather than in snow boots. I hope this bit of snow at least raises the spirits, if not the fortunes, of the folks we’ve been meeting in this tourist destination.
One such person was an elderly man we encountered in the Kings Beach Safeway yesterday. He was sitting near us in the Safeway Starbucks (and by the way, must there be a Starbucks in every store we enter? We are so lucky to have Mishka’s in Davis!). I noticed that he was reading the aforementioned Sacramento Bee, so I couldn’t resist pointing out that I had an op-ed in the Opinion section, a reflection on the sources of courage that you might remember a version of in our March 2nd newsletter.
He was surprised to find a journalist in his midst, and thus immediately began regaling me with stories of his travels since escaping violence in Hungary as a child, and coming to California as an immigrant. He remembers being amazed by the fresh fruit, the oranges and bananas, that were unknown to him as a child, except as props in picture books.
I am grateful to hear such immigration stories, for they remind us of how lucky we are to live in a country that attracts talented and eager people from all parts of the world. My friend and former student Kitty, for example, impressed me and all her friends when she earned her Commercial Driver’s License, and then started driving 18-wheelers back and forth across America.
As you can read about in Kitty’s most recent blog entry, when she came to the US from China at 13, this artist and future truck driver was bewildered by religion. A number of life experiences opened her mind and her heart, and now she has just been accepted to Harvard Divinity School, whose graduates include Ralph Waldo Emerson. Kitty’s personal statement convinced me of her readiness to join such august company. Here is a favorite section:
Being distanced from religion growing up, I found an eager and respectful openness to many faiths as I explored them. Last year, I began studying texts across three major religions: Catholicism, Buddhism, and Daoism. From Summa Theologica to The Diamond Sutra to I-Ching, everything I read seemed meaningful yet ambiguous: God is absolutely simple, yet omnipotent.
Kitty was a star student in the large Introduction to Poetry class that I taught to 100 mostly freshmen and sophomores in the fall of 2005, the quarter that my son Truman was born. Whether it’s an elderly Hungarian man whose shock of white hair likens him to Magneto, or a truck-driving hospice chaplain from China, I feel lucky to get to meet so many impassioned and creative people because of my jobs here in California, including my opportunity to interact with new and established friends on Monday nights at a favorite restaurant.
Tonight’s Pub Quiz will feature questions of travel, as Elizabeth Bishop would say, as well as urban greetings, operating systems, Elisabeth Hasselbeck (which is much more enjoyable to say than to watch), baseball in the movies, recognizable titles in alphabetical order, midwest surprises, times when the eyes have it, muses, the weather, fitness, the 25 biggest crowds, counties, beasts, beloved authors who jolt rinks, the question of scuba, state capitals, dead celebrities, a place where you could wash your elephant, butter, the tarmac blues, nationalism, layabouts, current events, resting places, bones, sports jerseys, US states, crowded staterooms, people whose life journey took them from Utah to Hawaii, taking power, something mentioned in the newsletter, and Shakespeare.
Tonight’s swag will be provided by Screaming Squeegee, which somehow claimed the valuable Squeegee.com internet property many years ago. As you probably know, Screaming Squeegee provides custom-printed apparel and promotional products for regional businesses and non-profits. If you have a logo, and I suppose our Pub Quiz needs one, the screamers could help you display it on shirts, hats, decals and even beer glasses. I thank graphic designer Claire Impens and her friends from Screaming Squeegee for their support of the Pub Quiz.
Happy spring break, if that applies to you. If I can drive all the way back from Lake Tahoe for tonight’s event, I bet you could drive or bike downtown to de Vere’s Irish Pub Davis this evening for the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz. See you then.
Your Quizmaster
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Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:
- Internet Culture. PDFs can be opened by just about any word processor or operating system. What do the letters PDF stand for?
- Newspaper Headlines. Marvin Gaye’s family has won $7.4 million in a trial involving what recent pop song?
- Companies Whose Names Start with K. BLANK Industries is the second-largest private company in the U.S., with interests in manufacturing, trading, and investments. Name the company.
- European Rivers. Ulm, the birthplace of Albert Einstein, is a city on the banks of what river?
- Pop Culture – Music. Of the 13 major genres of music, which was the only genre to have its digital album sales decline, year-on-year, between 2011 and 2012?