Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,
Fathers have it lucky, to have the longest day of the year devoted to them. Or so said my son Truman as we drove home from the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, noting that it was still light at 9 PM.
We got to talk to one of the foremost dads of Davis, Bob Dunning, after a Saturday viewing of the new Pixar film Inside Out. Bob and my wife Kate delighted in the film for the same reason: it’s wise commentary on human emotions and personality. Because of the attentive shepherding of Bob and Shelley, the four Dunning children who listened to our conversation seem to be controlled by the emotions of “Patience” and “Equanimity.” My kids, meanwhile, seem to be controlled by “wanderlust” and “boisterousness.”
Speaking of what controls our personalities, my wife Kate and I took the same psychology class in London in the mid-1980s, and since then we have shared observations on the strange choices made by our friends and, later, our children. Lewis Black almost stole the film with his spot-on impression of anger, but Kate and I were even more excited to discover Paula Poundstone’s role as a “Forgetter,” one of those necessary creatures who vacuums up and gets rid of the unnecessary facts and memories in our heads, such as the phone numbers of our best friends from childhood.
Tito’s phone number was 337-7653. I couldn’t tell you the phone numbers of any of my friends today. Thanks, Google.
I recommend the film, and I recommend you checking out the writing of Bob Dunning to see if any Pixar imagery appears in his commentary in the coming days. Some films, like some memories, are haunting.
Tonight’s Pub Quiz will feature questions on Pixar, dads, scattered celebrities, the state of Utah (where I spent all last week), iPhones, integers, hot tellers, NBC, basketball, hungry antagonists, photography, hit-makers, football, cell phone market penetration, going gluten-free, Best Actor nominees, exuberance, impressive queens, superheroes, dogs, sweet barhops and other plurals, former dance scholars, Philadelphia pride, eco-friendly golf, invented titles of big books, the culture of Ireland, mathematics (for my teachers off for the summer), minerals, best-sellers, honors, Drood, Bangladesh, and Shakespeare.
I hope you will join us tonight. It’ll be good to see you.
Your Quizmaster
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Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:
- Dudes Named Claude. Neither the actors Claude Raines nor Claude Akins, nor the composer Claude Debussy is the most famous Claude who ever lived. Born in the 19th century, who WAS the world’s most famous Claude?
- Pop Culture – Music. The title of Maroon 5’s highest charting song right now shares a name with a short-chain, soluble carbohydrate that most of us consume every day. What’s the one-word title of the song?
- Sports. According to ESPN, what left fielder born in 1918 was the best player ever for the Boston Red Sox?
- Science. What does the Scoville Heat Unit Scale measure?
- Pop Culture – Television. Tinky Winky was the name of a character on what children’s TV show?
P.S. Please send Pub Quiz topic suggestions to your Quizmaster at yourquizmaster@gmail.com or @yourquizmaster.