Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,
Morning meetings make for a late newsletter, and my Sunday evening office hours (9-11 at Crepeville) make it difficult for me to publish the newsletter before dawn on Mondays, as some of you prefer.
Some of the students attending my office hours last night have enrolled in my first-year seminar titled “The Cultural Offerings of the City of Davis.” As you would expect, in this class I introduce my students to the art, history, theatre, poetry, and café culture of our hometown, mostly via field trips. This past Friday afternoon, for example, I was backwards-walking 15 of my freshmen along 1st Street in downtown Davis when I encountered my friend Jackson and his friend d’Artagnan. Naturally I stopped the two 16 year-olds and asked them to tell us what they most appreciate about our fair city. An irregular Pub Quiz participant, Jackson has grown used to me asking him ridiculous questions, so he played along amiably, talking about the walkability of Davis, and his love for live music.
I soon realized that, like my KDVS radio show, my classes are more fun when I can put the guests in charge, rather than talking up my audience myself. So when a couple blocks later we encountered Art Studio professor Annabeth Rosen, I immediately asked her to share some inspiring words with students about the public art downtown (our topic for that day). Professor Rosen commented knowledgeably about Susannah Israel’s pipe sculpture “Circus” (we were standing next to it at the time), but she was more interested in challenging the students in the class to make their own art.
A few blocks later I called to Kevin Roddy, the retired Medieval Studies lecturer, and winner of multiple UC Davis teaching awards, to ask him to share his thoughts on the art in downtown Davis, as well as to introduce students to Village Homes, Kevin’s beautiful neighborhood in West Davis. Still astride his bicycle, Kevin painted word-pictures of the meandering streets, the communal yards, and the eco-aware architecture. By the end of his unprepared but especially eloquent remarks, I think all my students had resolved to visit the streets named after Tolkien’s characters and place names from The Hobbit.
My students and I realized from our walking tour that while we can all be proud of our city’s public commitment to the arts, it is actually the people who live here, and our shared commitment to cultural surprises, creativity, and discovery, that make Davis so remarkable and habitable. I hope your explorations of the arts in Davis are as rewarding.
This evening’s pub quiz will feature questions on multinational corporations, weasels, US states, The Philippines, cowboys and other people who ride horses, wizards, actors, metabolism, Oscar nominees, prime numbers, long London commutes, diseases, horror movies, long science words, wings, record-setting longevity, crickets, Native Americans, Spanish words, Disney (regrettably), dictators, expanding one’s vocabulary, Irish actors, accomplished teenagers, violent storms, people wearing masks, Harry Potter (upon request), Roger Ebert, connecting countries, Nobel Prizes, fruits, short words, scientific definitions from the world of Ecology, Book titles that start with the letter B, football coaches, hot springs, and Shakespeare.
See you tonight!
Your Quizmaster
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Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:
1. Mottos and Slogans. What brand of potato chip is famous for the slogan “Betcha can’t eat just one”?
2. Internet Culture – Computer Science. According to the website Wolfram Math World, what four-syllable word means a “specific set of instructions for carrying out a procedure or solving a problem”?
3. Four for Four. For which of the following American bands, if any, were three or more of its performers born in Oakland, CA? blink182, Green Day, Pierce the Veil, Tower of Power.
4. Pop Culture – Music with Children’s Instruments. Playing on children’s instruments, what late night talk show host recently joined his show band and Muppet residents to tell us all how to get to Sesame Street?
5. Sports. What member of the Boston Red Sox led the team in batting average, home runs, and RBIs during the 2013 regular season?
P.S. Poetry Night is this coming Thursday night at 8 at the John Natsoulas Gallery. Alan Williamson will be the featured poet. He has met and/or worked with T.S. Eliot, Robert Lowell, and James Franco, all previous answers on the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz.