1. Insects breathe via the tiny holes located on the sides of their abdomens. What are those holes called?

2. Which indie darling played the role of Buddy Holly, the waiter, in the film Pulp Fiction?

3. What do men who are fans of My Little Pony, Friendship is Magic call themselves?

4. While plastic bottles represent a huge amount of the litter in the oceans, what is the most abundant item that litter’s the oceans?

5. Perhaps the most famous gift of all time, which French sculptor designed the Statue of Liberty?

  If you readily know the answers to these questions, you may be a perfect candidate for participating in the Monday night pub quizzes at  The Republican in Salt Lake City. If not, you can find the answers at the end of this article.

  Josh Stasinos has been running  The Republican’s quiz night for the past four years. “Monday nights used to be slow. It would be me and a couple of customers. Sometimes we pulled out Scrabble,” he says. Josh did some traveling and was impressed by pub quizzes he witnessed in other cities. He brought the idea back to Salt Lake and spent three months formatting it to make it a good fit for the Republican. On the first night he filled the bar.

  The quizzes run about 100 questions, and typically a dozen teams compete each night. There is a five-person team limit, but Stasinos says you can be a team of one if you are cocky enough to think you can beat a team with five people’s knowledge to draw on. The answers are written down, and scores are correlated throughout the night until the winners are announced at the end.

  Competitors match strengths through five rounds, starting with round-one general questions, name that tune in round two, and for the final three rounds the theme varies with topics from Olympic questions to geography, independent movies, comics and anything currently topical. Some of the questions are definitely adult content, which the patrons seem to enjoy. The one category that is the least popular with the Republican crowd – sports.

  The top 12 places are announced at the end of the night starting with the team coming in 12th. Josh announces the places from 12 to 4, and then takes a break to announce the bonus activity – anything from funny hats to wearing green – for the next week. Then the top three prize winning teams are announced. He found that this method gets most of the people to stick around to the end and not leave when they figure they aren’t going to win. Prizes can be restaurant gift cards, Lego minifigures, bar glasses, theater tickets and t-shirts.

  On February 10th The Republican celebrated its 200th pub quiz. Josh figures he has written all but five of the 200 quizzes. He draws the questions from things he hears on the news, social media, hanging out with friends and pop culture. He uses lots of questions about movies, TV and music. And even though the demographics of the crowds changes, he does not repeat quizzes. He always finds new ideas and questions.

Since Josh started the popular quizzes, several Salt Lake bars have followed suit, but The Republican claims sole title to the original.

Answers to questions:

1.  Spiracles

2.  Steve Buscemi

3.  Bronies

4.  Cigarette butts

5.  Frédéric Bartholdi

 The Republican is located at 917 South State Street