Trivia Contest
I took part in the trivia contest last night at Murphy’s Pub. Chris Badgely was the host and MC; a bunch of his friends, including me, showed up to support him by drinking beer and vying for cash prizes in the bar-wide competition to answer factual questions about history, geography, science, movies, current events, and so on.
Our team, which we called the “Falafels” was, if I do say so myself, the Harlem fucking Globetrotters of the trivia world. We crushed our competition in all three rounds of the night, earning, for the seven of us to split, the princely sum of 13 dollars, as well as 10 dollars off one whole pitcher of beer.
It was fun to play and also sort of interesting to see the different kinds of things people knew about. My moment in the sun was knowing what the number four cash crop in the US is—marijuana, of course—although I couldn’t for the life of me recall what Seattle’s watershed is—the Cedar River.
It got me thinking about all the information we carry around in our heads and the extent to which a good deal of that really is trivial. Does it make any difference in the world that I know that Elvis Presley never won a Grammy for rock n’ roll? Or that Prohibition ended in 1933? Or even that hydrogen is the most common element in the universe?
And I started wondering if there is anything I know which isn’t trivial. Maybe anything that’s knowable is necessarily trivial. It it’s not trivial, then perhaps it’s can’t really be known.
For instance, here, I think, is a non-trivial claim: sometimes, just going through the motions is enough. Or as Woody Allen said, “80 percent of success is just showing up.”
Or to put it another way, anything worth doing is worth doing badly.
Do I know that, though? Maybe not, but maybe I’ve illustrated it with this piece.
Our team, which we called the “Falafels” was, if I do say so myself, the Harlem fucking Globetrotters of the trivia world. We crushed our competition in all three rounds of the night, earning, for the seven of us to split, the princely sum of 13 dollars, as well as 10 dollars off one whole pitcher of beer.
It was fun to play and also sort of interesting to see the different kinds of things people knew about. My moment in the sun was knowing what the number four cash crop in the US is—marijuana, of course—although I couldn’t for the life of me recall what Seattle’s watershed is—the Cedar River.
It got me thinking about all the information we carry around in our heads and the extent to which a good deal of that really is trivial. Does it make any difference in the world that I know that Elvis Presley never won a Grammy for rock n’ roll? Or that Prohibition ended in 1933? Or even that hydrogen is the most common element in the universe?
And I started wondering if there is anything I know which isn’t trivial. Maybe anything that’s knowable is necessarily trivial. It it’s not trivial, then perhaps it’s can’t really be known.
For instance, here, I think, is a non-trivial claim: sometimes, just going through the motions is enough. Or as Woody Allen said, “80 percent of success is just showing up.”
Or to put it another way, anything worth doing is worth doing badly.
Do I know that, though? Maybe not, but maybe I’ve illustrated it with this piece.
posted by Professor Dave at 10:08 AM
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