Dear Friends of the Bistro 33 Pub Quiz,

I’ve been impressed with the turnout at the Bistro 33 Pub Quiz this summer, despite these being traditional vacation months. We can thank one of my favorite educational reformers, Horace Mann, among others for the timing of our summer vacations. In the 1840s, (a decade before becoming the founding President of Antioch College, alma mater of both my father and my wife Kate), Mann worried that crowding schoolchildren into humid classrooms would encourage the spread of diseases, and that the overstimulation of young minds would drive children to agitation, and even insanity. Oliver Wendell Holmes was a schoolchild around that time, and he must have agreed with Mann, for he once said, “Insanity is often the logic of an accurate mind overtaxed.” One can only conclude from this logic that you should bring your “accurate” and overtaxed mind to Bistro 33 tonight to answer some tough questions. As Holmes also said, “A man may fulfill the object of his existence by asking a question he cannot answer, and attempting a task he cannot achieve.” You can start on those tasks and questions tonight at 9!

Speaking of your regular attendance at the Quiz, it has been brought to my attention that sometimes on the same Monday night that the Bistro 33 hostesses have turned away teams of players who wish to participate in the Quiz (as may be the case tonight), other teams have gladly enjoyed the entertainment and camaraderie that we have grown used to on Monday nights, but chosen to order almost no food or drink. Although I get to focus only on the fun and challenge of amusing you for a couple hours, I do recognize that Bistro 33 is a business that pays for the time and labor of the excellent wait staff and barkeeps that keep you happy and nourished while I prattle on about Supreme Court Justices and educational reformers. So if you enjoy the show, please support the restaurant that provides you that show. Other folks (folks who don’t plan ahead or remember to call 756-4556 by Sunday or so) are often available to take your booth if you don’t fill it – sometimes you see these folks crowding around the bar, hoping that SportsCenter will provide them an advantage on questions numbers eight and twenty-nine.

In addition to making Pub Quiz happen, Bistro 33 also supports the Poetry Night Reading Series. This coming Monday night, before Pub Quiz, the reading series brings UC Davis alumnus James Kaelan to town. You might have seen Kaelan on the cover of the current Poets and Writers magazine, talking about his Zero Emission Book Project book tour – Saturday he left Los Angeles on his BIKE, and he is stopping in cities and bookstores from LA to Vancouver as he wends his way up the West Coast this summer. He’ll be stopping at The Avid Reader on 2^nd Street this coming Monday, July 19^th. I’ll be hosting that event at 7:30, just before hosting our trivia event at 9, so this week I will have to read Kaelan’s novel We’re Getting On. To find out more about Kaelan’s bike tour (with maps, pictures and movies), visit http://www.zeroemissionbook.com/, or register your interest in attending this event via Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=107634285951344&ref=ts .

Here are the hints regarding tonight’s Pub Quiz. Expect questions about publishing companies, internet culture, Canadians, state flowers, potent potables, philosophical economists, Chaka Khan (karaoke hint!), football, insects, Sesame Street, public servants, words beginning the letter “E,” fight songs, those who labor in freedom, basketball, actors and more actors, novelists, questions whose answers you can find on DavisWiki.org, Gary Saylin, Seeds and Grasses, famous socialists, California cities, remarkable California buildings, the obligatory LeBron James question (sort-of), and a Shakespeare play that you might actually have seen. I hope you have fun tonight.

See you tonight for the Bistro 33 Pub Quiz!

Your Quizmaster

P.S. Last week’s Pub Quiz can be found in its entirety on the new website of the Your Quizmaster. I will be launching the site for real perhaps next week.