Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,
The strong winds from this morning suggest change, most immediately a welcome change to fall-like temperatures.
With two raging and destructive fires burning homes and forcing evacuations in northern California, we think of what the winds mean to the firefighters, scrambling to dowse the tinder-dry fuel that our desiccated state has become. To many, favorite places are burning. Lake County’s Harbin Hot Springs, for example, a clothing-optional resort and workshop center, was known for its tranquil pools and wooded pathways. It was a place to escape the noise and rush of work responsibilities.
But no more. Today’s SFGate presents evidence of the worst-possible news for fans of this retreat: “the classic 19th-century springs and New Age healing retreat was leveled when the fast-moving Valley Fire tore through here Saturday.” The accompanying photographs are dispiriting.
Examine the fickle wind. Every birthday we blow out candles, but we also know that a blacksmith uses bellows to grow intensify his fire. As Roger de Bussy-Rabutin once said in a different context, “Absence is to love what wind is to fire; it extinguishes the small, it inflames the great.”
Each of us must decide how to face the winds of change. Some of us might consider ourselves modern Elizabeths. Elizabeth I said, “Though the sex to which I belong is considered weak, you will nevertheless find me a rock that bends to no wind.” Soon thereafter a storm helped destroy the threat of the Spanish Armada, as if Elizabeth herself could wield the winds, Storm-style.
Bruce Lee looked at the wind differently, saying, “Notice that the stiffest tree is most easily cracked, while the bamboo or willow survives by bending with the wind.” Bruce Lee believed that we should train ourselves to have a “mind like water.”
As a poet and a rapid bicyclist who finds myself inspired by a cool breeze on a September morning, I stand instead with William Butler Yeats: “Come Fairies, take me out of this dull world, for I would ride with you upon the wind and dance upon the mountains like a flame!”
There’s that flame again. Like our brave firefighters, that thin red line standing between us and new and ever more destructive conflagrations, we have trouble escaping the wind, and the symbiotic flames that accompany them. I invite you to choose your own metaphor: what sort of wind are you, or do you face, on this squally day?
Although it will not include the word “squally,” tonight’s Pub Quiz will touch on one of the topics raised above, as well as the state of being among schoolchildren, Sacramento, common greetings, boxes, UC Davis, grotesque beasts, streams, snow days without snow, people born in Greenwich, attributes of old buildings, Corinth, automobiles, MVPs, names that many prefer not to speak, starters, patient wives, metaphorical trains, astronomy, former Episcopals, archipelagos, famous rear admirals, the west (to some), castaways, big cities, Oscar-winning actresses, blarney softeners, three-letter acronyms (or TLAs), robots, world leaders, cathedrals, journeys from Tennessee to Texas, apparati, Kanye, blockbusters, early novelists, Irish culture, geography, and Shakespeare.
Come out of the wind, escape the smoke, and join us tonight at the Pub Quiz. At times of change, we need rituals to keep us centered, and our Monday night ritual works best when you participate.
Your Quizmaster
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Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:
- Mottos and Slogans. The company Smashbox has used the slogan “We Only Test on Party Animals.” What C word best describes the product or industry of Smashbox?
- Internet Culture. The iPad was first released the same year as the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Name the (even) year.
- Newspaper Headlines. Sarah Palin said in a recent interview that immigrants to the U.S. should learn to speak what “language” that starts with the letter A?
- Penguins. Dreamworks is responsible for penguins that are most associated with what country?
- Sports. Klay Thompson scored a record 37 points in the 3rd quarter of a game against the Sacramento Kings on January 23, 2015. For what team was Thompson playing?
P.S. Please come join us at Poetry Night Thursday. We will feature poet Josh Fernandez and storyteller Jodi Angel, both with recent books, and both with outrageous and meaningful stories to tell. Esquire Magazine called Angel’s book You Only Get Letters from Jail a “book of the summer.” And people who don’t know him follow Josh Fernandez on Facebook to take delight in his outrageous posts.
Poetry Night meets on first and third Thursdays at 521 First Street, the John Natsoulas Gallery, at 8 PM. The after party returns to the Irish Pub at 10 that night.