Things You Should Contemplate: Firstly, Engine House 9 Quiz Night

Many of Tacoma’s drinking establishments feature quiz nights these days. Villagers huddle together over sheets of paper, quaffing intellectual stimulants and excreting knowledge like a dirty secret, safe from the potential eavesdroppers. I’ve attended quiz nights at a few different venues in town, but I’ve only found one quiz master who routinely fails to irritate me: Marty Higgins, Quizzard at Engine House 9 (Engine House Nine Quizzard on Facebook.)

Before I go any further, I should acknowledge to you that this article will lack journalistic balance. Marty is my friend. It doesn’t matter if he agrees that we are friends, because I would continue to proclaim it anyway. His thorough, odd nobility prevents me from feeling any differently. He also composes beautiful quizzes – And they are exactly that – cohesive compositions of absurdly related queries, on a breakneck gallop through the carefully addled mind of Mr. Higgins. When the contest comes to a close, you’ll feel the urge to ask for your quiz to be returned to you, so you can keep it for a brainy chuckle on a rainy day.

Some people hold the office of Quiz Master in a distant esteem, and may not want to know too much about the shadowy individual who grades their papers and plumbs the depths of trivia. Perhaps they fear that their illusions would be shattered if they were to acquire any sense of the Quiz Master’s humanity. With Marty Higgins, there is no need to fear this. Approach him. Shake his hand without trepidation, for you cannot know him. His soul is no more knowable than the secrets of the French Foreign Legion, with which he served twelve glorious years. He does not speak of those days, but you can feel them in the folds of his hands. He is an enigma – an hilarious enigma.

Out of all the places to go enjoy a Quiz Night (The Ram, The Tap Room, The Office, Doyles, The Ale House, to name a few), why go to Engine House 9? It’s not new or fashionable. It’s adamantly unassuming. It hasn’t been redecorated in ages. There are places with better beer. But few places can boast the dignified history of that building. The bricks in its walls are saturated with Tacoma’s past, and with the heavy sleep of exhausted heroes from fire crews long since passed. When Marty’s quizzes cover the topic of local history (as they most always do), you can’t help but be cognizant of the roof over your head, and all it has witnessed. There are other equally historic pubs in town, but only E9 has The Quizzard.

So, next Wednesday at 6:30, when you are wondering what to do, I submit that you consider attending Quiz Night at Engine House 9. Sometimes, I’m there. On those nights, you have no chance of winning, but it would be cute if you showed up anyway.

Do you go to any local quiz nights? What’s your favorite? Which venues have I failed to mention?

Engine House 9 Quiz Nights
When: Every Wednesday, 6:30pm
E9 Website
611 N. Pine Street