I moved to Arlington from the Los Angeles area in January 2015, just in time for a winter storm. The sunny, 75-degree temperatures I’d just left lingered in my psyche. California dreamin’ on such a winter’s day, indeed.
During those initial despairing January and February months, I had no local contacts, the sun set nightly at 4:30 p.m. and the job prospects I’d hoped would materialize from the journalism fellowship that brought me here began to seem increasingly unlikely. What got me through? Joining a local trivia group.
I’ve long enjoyed trivia, ever since I competed with my Connecticut high school’s quiz bowl team on the New England televised competition As Schools Match Wits. Even though my teammates never let me live down the moment when, asked which woman’s face adorned the silver dollar, I confidently replied “Sacagawea,” only to be told it was Susan B. Anthony.
To ride out the winter, I joined a Meetup.com group called NoVa Bar Trivia Players that competed at several Arlington venues, including the now-closed Heavy Seas Alehouse in Rosslyn. My teammates and newfound friends Andrew, Deb and Eric helped me navigate the heavy seas of my new location and new life.
Two years later, I pivoted from competing to hosting trivia nights around Arlington. What’s not to love? Not only do I get paid to stand at the microphone, in addition to revealing the correct answers, I get to quote The Simpsons and make whatever puns and Washington Wizards basketball game predictions I want.
Another nice perk: Most trivia contestants don’t realize I’m reading the answers off a screen. While I often do know the answers, I’m not Ken Jennings—I don’t know everything. But most players think I legitimately have archived in my brain obscure facts about forgotten 1800s vice presidents or capitals of the world’s smallest nations. Unless asked, I don’t see a reason to disabuse contestants of this notion.
There are some idiosyncrasies that reflect Arlington’s proximity to the nation’s capital. A few months ago, a question asked: What is the national economy’s current interest rate? Though the “official” answer was 5.5%, one player came up to me and noted that the Federal Reserve technically sets a narrow range—which at the time was 5.25% to 5.5%. Sure enough, this guy worked for the Fed.
Trivia questions occasionally reveal Arlington’s blind spots, too, like the time multiple teams guessed Ruth Bader Ginsburg to be the first woman Supreme Court justice when the correct answer was Sandra Day O’Connor. Perhaps that’s to be expected in an area where “The Notorious R.B.G.” T-shirts and “You can’t spell truth without Ruth” bumper stickers abound.
Still, for the most part, the trivia teams here are good. Perhaps even too good. I audition annually to be on Jeopardy, optimistic that I’ll get the call, but this area supplies an abundance of contestants on the show. One infamous local team called The Proper Villains is so named because their roster consists almost entirely of former Jeopardy champions. In the words of Wilt Chamberlain, “Nobody roots for Goliath.” And that team is Goliath.
Through the years, I’ve hosted trivia at several Arlington venues, starting with Courthaus Social, where I emceed on Wednesday nights until Covid put a halt to public gatherings. In the March 11, 2020, match—the last such event before the world shut down—first place went to a team called Quentin Quarantine-o.
Post-pandemic, I switched to Bar Bao in Clarendon, where a husband-and-wife pair of lawyers, Sean and Krista, usually earned first or second place. Sean once corrected me that, even though the political redistricting practice known as “gerrymandering” is pronounced with a soft g, its namesake, former Massachusetts Gov. Elbridge Gerry, actually pronounced his last name with a hard g. (Clearly, Krista is a saint.)
This spring, I jumped to Quincy Hall in Ballston, where I currently emcee on Tuesday nights, often to a packed house. One recent face-off drew a whopping 39 teams and 155 players. I recommend the pub’s “Ballston Banger” pizza with sausage, roasted garlic, tomato sauce and mozzarella.
Though the victors do get money knocked off their tabs, these contests aren’t as much about winning as they are about being out in the community, supporting the local economy and having a great time with friends. Exhibit A: the squad called Drinking Team with a Trivia Problem.
Nevertheless, the intellectual currency of this area is evident. I moved here from L.A., where, as Dorothy Parker once quipped, the only two things people read are screenplays and the Hollywood sign. Here, most people probably know that the silver dollar depicts Susan B. Anthony. And thanks to my vaunted spot on the microphone, they think I do, too.
Jesse Rifkin is a writer in Arlington. His work has appeared in The Washington Post, Politico, Roll Call, USA Today, the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times and CNN Opinion. His three best trivia categories are probably movies, music and American history.