Auntie's Quiz O' the Week

[AuntShecky]

Previous Quizzes:
Fall Classics Quiz
http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?t=38309

Happy and Not So Happy Landings
http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?t=38171

In the Beginning
http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?t=38011


Labor Day Quiz
http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?t=37667


Pseudonyms, Pen Names, and Aliases
http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?t=37263


No, But I Saw the Movie
http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?t=37476

Olympics Quiz
http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?t=37113

Baseball quiz
http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?t=36755&highlight=Baseball+quiz

Here's this week's quiz:

The inspiration for this week's thingamajig comes from a NY Daily News article
http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/movies/toplists/hollywoods_most_brilliant_inventors/hollywoods_most_brilliant_inventors.html

about the new movie, Flash of Genius. That movie reportedly is about a real inventor of an actual device, as certain kind of windshield wiper.
This week's quizzz concerns fictional inventions, devices, and gizmos. Let's crank 'em up and see if they work:

1. The cloak of invisibility is just one of many useful items in the bag of tricks used by this young wizard/ contemporary cultural phenom. Name him.

2. Medieval Jewish folklore features this man-made walking mannikin shaped from clay. What's the term for him or it?

3. In the same vein as question #2, Karel Capek's play "R.U.R" brought which term for a mechanical man into the language?

4. First published in 1869, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea presented an submarine which actually came into existence and widespread military use decades later. Name the author.

5. Fred MacMurray played the title role of"the absent-minded professor" in the 1961 Disney movie. What comically volatile substance did he invent?

6. In some Arthurian legends, the future king comes his mighty weapon from a magical lady in a lake. In others, he acquires it by extracting it out of a huge rock. What's the name of this sword?

7. A time-traveling device appeared in an 1895 British novel by which visionary writer?

8. And speaking of time travel, in a wildly-popular movie trilogy, Doc Brown and his protege, Marty McFly, race back to the future in a device inside his souped-up DeLorean. What was it called?

9. This character, good or evil depending on how you look at him, used a musical instrument as part of a city-wide extermination business. Who was he?

10. "Ice Nine" was a scientific breakthrough with deadly results -- namely it could freeze every molecule of water on the planet, effectively ending Life As We Know It. Name the iconic American novelist who featured "ice nine" in Cat's Cradle He passed away in 2007.

Answers
1. Harry Potter 2. golem 3. robot 4. Jules Verne 5. flubber 6. Excalibur
7. H. G. Wells 8. flux capacitor 9. The Pied Piper 10. Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

[DickZ]

Thanks for posting this, Auntie. I know it's a lot of work to put together.

I got several right this time: #s 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, and 8. I should have gotten #9 also, but didn't go to the trouble of giving it more thought. I refuse to read Harry Potter, so I drew a blank on #1, and I somehow missed the movie The Absent-Minded Professor. I haven't discovered Vonnegut yet.

See, thanks to your continuing to put out these quizzzes, I'm actually getting a lot smarter. This is the best I've done so far. Well, except for the baseball quiz because I sort of specialize in baseball.

[ntropyincarnate]

All i got were 1, 4, 6 and 9 :(

[Il Penseroso]

I only missed number 2.

[Pendragon]

Missed 8. and 9. Danged DeLeorean time car!

[AuntShecky]

A Whole New World

Every question in this week’s voyage to obscurity concerns a certain Italian explorer honored in the USA every year on the Monday that falls around October 12. The answers could allude to his name, the “ocean blue” on which he traveled, the year in which the voyage began, and so forth. Ready to set sail? Let’s hope we don't fall off the edge of the earth.

1. Name the character in Winnie the Pooh whom the author, A.A. Milne, based on his son?

2. Ferdinand and Isabella, the co-ruling monarchs who financed the 1492 exploratory voyage, also spearheaded one of the most nefarious incidents in European history. What was it?

3. In recent years, many corporations have ballooned so large that they transcend national borders, with the result that exporting, importing, and capital have been inextricably linked. What is the word referring to the world-wide economy?

4. What was the birthplace of the great American humorist, James Thurber?

5. Name the movie studio whose logo was a statue of a woman holding a torch.

6. What was the primary reason for the dangerous 1492 voyage?

7. Founded as King’s College in 1754, it is one of the oldest institutions of higher learning in the United States. More than 60 Nobel Prize winners have been associated with it, and such luminaries as FDR, Lou Gehrig, Paul Robeson, and Jack Kerouac were students there. What’s its name?

8. Antonin Dvorak was Bohemian, but he composed his masterpiece exactly 400 years after the famous voyage in – of all places -- Spillville, Iowa. What’s the better-known title of Dvorak’s Symphony Number 9 in E minor?

9. The oldest continuously published periodical in the United States began in 1857. It printed the works of James Russell Lowell, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and Oliver Wendell Holmes, and it’s still going! Name this magazine.

10. What was Phillip Roth’s 1959 breakthrough novella?


Answers
1. Christopher Robin. 2. The Spanish Inquisition 3. Globalization. 4. Columbus, Ohio 5. Columbia Pictures. 6. Columbus believed in Ptolemy’s theory that the world was not flat but spherical and thus he sought a trade route to China and India by sailing west. 7. Columbia University
8.“From the New World” 9. The Atlantic Monthly 10. Goodbye, Columbus

[Niamh]

I got five.

[djy78usa]

Only missed #8 and #10... woo-hoo!

[DickZ]

Thanks again, Auntie. You put a lot more time and effort into these quizzes than lots of people put into what they call stories.

The trend continues - I get smarter the more quizzes you put out!

This time I only missed #9 The Atlantic Monthly, as I said Saturday Evening Post. I probably should have known better than to think it was the Saturday Evening Post.

[Pendragon]

Bleeping bleep of a bleep!! Only 3 :(

[qimissung]

I got 1, 3, 4, 6, and 10

[AuntShecky]

Body Parts

The answers for this week’s corporal punishment all allude to an aspect of the human body. So keep a head on your shoulders (as opposed to elsewhere) and stay on your toes:

1. What was the 1968 Broadway “hippie musical”?

2. The script was by Budd Schulberg, the director was Elia Kazan, and the stars were Andy Griffith and Patricia Neal. What was this 1957 movie about a country singer who becomes a political demagogue?

3. Who was the culinary guru (1903-1985) who was known as “the father of American gastronomy?

4. Thornton Wilder won a Pulitzer Prize for his 1940 drama with two body parts in the title. Can you name it?

5. In 1970, Toni Morrison (who later won the Nobel Prize for literature) wrote this novel centering around a little girl who worries about being beautiful. What’s the title?

6. Frank Sinatra starred in a film version of what 1949 Nelson Algren novel about a drug-addicted drummer and card dealer?

7. Speaking of movies, remember the line “What we have here is a failure to communicate” ? The late Paul Newman didn't say that line, but he dominated that 1967 film. What was it?

8. Dr. Seuss wrote the script. Tommy Rettig appeared in it year before the “Lassie” TV series. Hans Conreid played the title character. Name this 1953 movie about a little boy who hated practicing his piano lessons.

9. He was a character in folk tales, the title of a Henry Fielding burlesque, and a locomotive circa 1829 on the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. Name him.

10. What was the 1912 Jean Webster novel about a young lady’s mysterious benefactor? (The answer is also the alternative term for the arachnid known as a “harvestman.”)

BONUS: Both Academy Awards won by Daniel Day-Lewis were for movies that contained a part of the human body in their titles. Name them.



Answers
1. Hair. 2. A Face in the Crowd. 3. James Beard 4. The Skin of Our Teeth.
5. The Bluest Eye. 6. The Man With the Golden Arm. 7. Cool Hand Luke.
8. The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T. 9. Tom Thumb 10. Daddy Long Legs
Bonus: My Left Foot and There Will Be Blood.

[DickZ]

Thanks, Auntie for all your thought and effort on these quizzzes. My trend of getting more and more correct answers as the weeks progress has just been reversed. I only got #1 and #7.

[Pendragon]

Likewise. 1 and 7 were all I knew... :blush:

[AuntShecky]

Where Do They All Come From?

My earliest memory of the UN was way, way back in the day when I was a little girl and TV was all new. The 15-minute news broadcast on NBC, the only channel that we could pull in on our Crosley television set, showed sessions of the UN. All I can remember were seeing the dignitaries donned with their headphones, and that most of those guys of were asleep! (Sort of reminds you of these quizz-zzes, doesn't it?)

So this week’s quiz-zzz is in honor of United Nations Day, October 24. All you have to do with the questions below is identify the writers’ countries. (Specific answers may or may not be actual member countries of the U.N., but now that the General Assembly has 192 members, the odds are pretty good that they are.) So, let’s run them up the flagpole and see who salutes:

1. With what nation or nations do we associate novelist Gabriel Garcia Marquez?

2. Margaret Atwood, Robertson Davies, and Brian Moore come from the same land in which Saul Bellow was born. Name this large country.

3. What is the homeland of Wole Soyinka, the 1986 winner of the Nobel Prize, and Chinua Achebe, the author of Things Fall Apart?

4. What is the nationality of Isak Dinesen (Out of Africa) ?

5. What country is the setting for Ernest Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls?

6. Which nation can boast of geothermal energy, The Edda, and Halidor K. Laxness, who won the 1955 Nobel Prize for Literature?

7. And speaking of Nobelists, where does the poet Derek Walcott come from?

8. What is the homeland of Pablo Neruda and Isabel Allende?

9. Samuel Beckett wrote most of his works in French, but his country of origin is . . .?

10. Lafcadio Hearn, an American journalist of Irish and Greek descent, wrote fantastic tales and non-fiction books about a place in the Far East with which he fell in love. What was his adopted homeland?

11. In what country was 1973 Nobel Laureate Patrick White a citizen?

12. What nation forms the settings for The Plague and The Stranger by Albert Camus?


Answers:
1. Colombia (Some sources list him as “Colombian-Mexican” as well.) 2. Canada 3. Nigeria 4. Danish 5. Spain 6. Iceland 7. West Indies (St. Lucia)
8. Chile 9. Ireland 10. Japan 11. Australia 12. Algeria

[DickZ]

Thanks for your UN quizzz, Auntie. I'm still going downhill as a trend from the last quizzz, as I only got #s 4, 5, and 6. I should have also gotten #12, but I said Morocco instead of Algeria.

Maybe I should be embarrassed to say this in public, but as much as I've always wanted to read some of Hemingway's works, I still haven't gotten around to doing that yet. For Whom the Bell Tolls has been on the top of my list because I always admired the poet who came up with that phrase in the first place. I think his name was Don Johnne, or something like that.

[Niamh]

I got 2,3 and 9.

[DickZ]

As I'm sitting here with pins and needles waiting for Aunt Shecky's October 30-31 quizzz, I'm going to make a prediction that it will be associated with Thanksgiving or some other great holiday.

So I'm going to start studying all I can about Thanksgiving so I'll be ready when the quizzz hits the top of my desk and the teacher says "GO." Am I prepared - or what?

[AuntShecky]

Suffrage Succotash

This coming Tuesday, November 4, Americans will vote for a new President as well as numerous local, state wide and Congressional offices. (If nothing else, once Election Day comes and go we won't have to “suffer” through any more political ads.) But the electoral process served as inspiration for many works of literature; hence, the topic of this week’s quiz. Take the quiz early and often, and if you're unsatisfied with the results, we'll give you a recount! Ready to pull the levers?

1. What was the 1976 movie about the two reporters who covered (and uncovered) the Watergate scandal?

2. Name the acclaimed Robert Penn Warren novel about Willie Stark, a rural politician said to have been modeled upon Huey Long.

3. In 1939, Jimmy Stewart played a wide-eyed, fresh faced, soon-to-be-disillusioned Congressman in which Frank Capra movie?

4. Based on a novel by Richard Condon, this movie featured Frank Sinatra, Laurence Harvey, and Angela Lansbury in a taut thriller about brainwashing and an assassination plot. Name the 1962 film directed by John Frankenheimer.

5. After a drunk sells his wife, his guilty conscience makes him reform so much that he rises to a high municipal political office. Does Demon Drink capture him again? Name this 1866 novel by Thomas Hardy.

6. During the Great Depression, the brothers Gershwin, George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind collaborated on a play about a happy-go-lucky guy who becomes President largely because of his resonant name, “John T. Wintergreen.” So what was the first musical to win the Pulitzer Prize for drama? (Hint: the title comes from a line in “My Country ‘Tis of Thee.”)

7. What was the 1972 movie starring Robert Redford as an idealistic young man running for the Senate?

8. What was Gore Vidal’s play about a Presidential Campaign whose title makes one think it’s about a wedding?

9. In 1975 Masterpiece Theatre aired a miniseries originally produced by the BBC about the women in the Pankhurst family and their fight for women’s right to vote. What was the title? (Hint: The title could have qualified it for the body parts quiz from a couple weeks ago.)

10. A teacher played by Matthew Broderick becomes increasingly irritated by Reese Witherspoon’s character, Tracy Flick, a ruthless and ambitious high school student who wants to be Student Council President. Name this 1999 movie.


Answers:
1. All the President’s Men 2. All the King’s Men 3. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
4. The Manchurian Candidate
5. The Mayor of Casterbridge 6. Of Thee I Sing 7. The Candidate 8. The Best Man
9. Shoulder to Shoulder
10. Election

[DickZ]

Gosh Auntie, I studied the wrong holiday!

And because of that, I only got numbers 1, 2, 3, and 7 right. I should have gotten number 4 as well, because I had the answer on the tip of my tongue, but couldn't get it off the tip and onto my quizzz paper.

And thanks for all your efforts in putting these quizzzes together. You spend a lot more time preparing them than our combined time spent in composing our responses. It doesn't hardly seem fair, somehow. Or maybe that should be hardly doesn't. I can never remember the rule.

And I'm certainly with you on how great it will be not to have to suffer through those TV commercials - or to have to take all those phone calls where you don't want to talk even to the people who are working for the party of your choice because even they are driving you nuts.

[Pendragon]

1,2,3, and 6. How do you come up with these toughies? :)

[Niamh]

I only got no.5! :blush:

[papayahed]

I only knew 5. 1,2,3,4, and 10.

[AuntShecky]

Oh, For Art’s Sake. . .

...and for Stlukesguild, the LitNets maven of the fine arts, to whom this week's quiz is dedicated.)

The answers all involve movies, music, and literary works about paintings and painters. Get the picture? Don’t worry if you color outside the lines.

1. Which Oscar Wilde novel concerned a reprobate who lives high while a portrait of himself deteriorates?

2. In the 1956 movie, Lust for Life, Kirk Douglas played which nineteenth century Dutch painter?

3. What's the title of Robert Browning’s famous dramatic monologue in which nobleman stands under a portrait of his late wife while talking about her to a visitor?

4. Mussorgsky originally composed a set of piano pieces which Ravel later orchestrated into a concert program. What was the title of this work which musically walks a patron through an art museum?

5. What was the title of Stephen Sondheim’s well-received Broadway musical about the French pointillist painter, Seurat?

6. What was the title of the 1965 Technicolor extravaganza about the painting of the Sistine Chapel in which Charlton Heston played an over-the-top Michelangelo and Rex Harrison was miscast as the Pope?

7. Who wrote “The Man With the Blue Guitar,” a modern American poem about a Picasso painting?

8. John Huston’s 1952 movie, Moulin Rouge, concerned which diminutive French post-impressionist painter?

9. Marcia Gay Harden won an Academy Award in 2000 for her acting this film, which also featured brilliant performances by Jennifer Connelly and Ed Harris in the title role. Name this movie about an abstract expressionist painter.

10. Name the one-word title of the 1998 Tony Award winning drama centered around three friends and a controversial painting consisting of a blank white canvas?

Answers
1. The Picture of Dorian Gray 2. Vincent Van Gogh 3. "My Last Duchess"
4. Pictures at an Exhibition
5. Sunday in the Park With George
6. The Agony and the Ecstasy (Moviegoers one surmises experienced more of the former than the latter.)
7. Wallace Stevens
8. Toulouse-Lautrec 9. Pollock 10. Art

[DickZ]

Great quizzz, Auntie, even though art isn’t my strong suit. Come to think of it, I don’t have any strong suits.

However, I was able to get numbers 1, 2, 4, 6, and 8 right. I even knew van Gogh’s first name so I hope I can get some extra credit to make up for the questions I had no idea about.

I agree with your comment on number 6 – I loved the book, but couldn’t make it through the entire movie despite trying at least three times.

[Niamh]

I'm pathetic. I only got 1,6 and 8

[Nightshade]

I only got one and two :(

[Virgil]

I got five correct: 1, 2, 3, 6, 7.

[Niamh]

I got five correct: 1, 2, 3, 6, 7.

rub it in why dont ya! :p

[Pendragon]

1 and 2 How pathetic for me! ;)

[PabloQ]

1,2,4,8, and 9. Are these graded on a curve?

[AuntShecky]

What’s “In,” What’s “Out”?

Have I got a preposition for you! The literary and cinematic works below will invite you in and then show you the way out. (Me, I don't know if I'm coming or going.)

1. What is the title of John McCrae’s most famous poem about World War I?

2. “In Memoriam,” written between 1833-1850 , considered to be one of the greatest elegies in the English language, is a big poem by a big name. Name the poet.

3. What is Truman Capote’s non-fiction novel about two ex-cons and their 1959 murder of a Kansas family?

4. What is the title of Ernest Hemingway’s short story collection (1924) which featured episodes in the life of his young alter ego, Nick Adams?

5. Who wrote Intruder in the Dust and A Light in August, two novels dealing with racism in America’s deep south?

6. Who was the hugely significant figure in American poetry who wrote “Out of the Cradle, Endlessly Rocking”?

7. Name the title of what is considered to be Isak Dinesen’s literary masterpiece and the film adaptation of which was a tour de force for actress Meryl Streep.

8. What is the title of John Sayles’s 1988 movie about the Chicago “Black Sox” scandal? (The cast includes Studs Terkel, who passed away last week, as well as the director himself in the role of Ring Lardner.)

9. Which Shakespearean character screamed “Out, out damned spot!”?

10. Name the 1947 movie considered a film noir masterpiece which also made actor Robert Mitchum “an overnight star.”

Answers
1. “In Flanders Fields” 2. Tennyson 3. In Cold Blood
4. In Our Time
5. William Faulkner 6. Walt Whitman 7. Out of Africa 8. Eight Men Out
9. Lady Macbeth 10. Out of the Past

[Virgil]

wow, seven out of ten this week. I got 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 9. :D

[DickZ]

Thanks, Auntie.

I got numbers 1, 2, 3, 7, 8, and 9. I had to get number 7 because it played a major role in one of my stories a while back.

I think this is the best I’ve done yet on any of your quizzzes, so I’m a living testament to the fact that your quizzzes can make us smarter.

The answer to question 1 is one of my favorite poems. I’d like to post the poem here since it’s not very long – along with an abbreviated version of some background info that I just found today.

IN FLANDERS FIELDS the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Abbreviated Background:

After witnessing seventeen days of combat at Ypres during the Great War in 1915, McRae, a Canadian military doctor thought:"I wish I could capture on paper some of what I just saw. At the end of the first day if anyone had told us we had to spend seventeen days there, we would have folded our hands and said it could not have been done."

One death particularly affected McCrae. A young friend and former student, Lieut. Alexis Helmer of Ottawa, had been killed by a shell burst on 2 May 1915. Lieutenant Helmer was buried later that day in the little cemetery outside McCrae's dressing station, and McCrae had performed the funeral ceremony in the absence of the chaplain.

In the nearby cemetery, McCrae could see the wild poppies that sprang up in the ditches in that part of Europe, and he spent twenty minutes of precious rest time scribbling fifteen lines of verse in a notebook.

When McCrae finished, he handed his pad to young soldier nearby, who was moved by what he read, and who then said:

"The poem was an exact description of the scene in front of us both. He used the word blow in that line because the poppies actually were being blown that morning by a gentle east wind. It never occurred to me at that time that it would ever be published. It seemed to me just an exact description of the scene."

[PabloQ]

3, 5, 7, 8, 9 I stink.

[AuntShecky]

“Thanks” and “Giving”

Because of Thanksgiving, there won't be a soporific Auntie quiz-zzz next week. (Maybe you won't need a substitute sleep-aid between the boring football games and the tryptophan-laden turkey.)

Which brings us to the theme of this week’s snore-fest. The following questions and/or answers each contain some form of the words “thanks” and “giving.”

1. One can find the words of Emma Lazarus (“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free. . .”) on which American monument?

2. What was Bob Hope ’s theme song?

3. The phrase “Thank you, Miss Rosa” resounds through a Neville Brothers song in honor of an ordinary citizen who became an inspiration to the Civil Rights movement. What was her full name?

4. Who wrote the following?
“There’s plenty of boys that will come hankering and gruvelling around when you've got an apple, and beg the core off you, but when they've got one and you beg for the core and remind them how you gave them a core one time, they make a mouth at you and say ‘Thank you’ ‘most to death, but there ain’-a-going to be no core.”

5. You love ‘im, you hate ‘im, or maybe you love to hate ‘im, but which Shakespearean character says lines such as “I am not in the giving vein to-day”?

6. Who was the nineteenth century British poet wrote these lines (from “The Garden of Proserpine”)?
“From too much love of living
From hope and fear set free,
We thank with brief thanksgiving
Whatever gods may be”

7. What’s the missing word from this rhyming couplet from Coleridge:
“O Lady, we receive what we give
And in our life alone does Nature ____ “(?)

8. Identify the title character from a Shakespeare’s tragedy who complains:
“How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child!”

9. Who was the was the author, songwriter, and cartoonist for Playboy Magazine who wrote the 1964 classic children’s book, The Giving Tree?

10. Douglas Adams (1952-2001) is best known for
The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to Galaxy series of comic SF novels. The title of the fourth volume derives from a message thought to have been left by dolphins. Adams’s fans liked to use this phrase as a substitute for “goodbye.” What was it?


Answers
1. The Statue of Liberty 2. “Thanks for the Memory”
3. Rosa Parks
4. Mark Twain 5. Richard III 6. Swinburne 7. live
8. King Lear
9. Shel Silverstein.
10. So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

[Niamh]

man i suck at these!
I only got 2 and 10...and 2 was a guess!

[PabloQ]

I did pretty good at this one...only missed 5 and 6. Happy Turkey Day Shecky!!

[DickZ]

Thanks, Auntie, for putting this quizzz together. I got numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and 8 so I made 50% and don’t have to face a runoff.

I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving, and give yourself a well-deserved rest from these quizzzes, which obviously don’t compose themselves in some sort of automatic mode. There's a lot of work and creativity that goes into these.

And while I have the microphone, I'd like to encourage people to vote in the 2008 Short Story Competition, which has all the best stories from throughout this entire year. Here's where you can find the competing stories and the ballot:

http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?t=39280

We could use more voters here because these stories deserve more attention than they've gotten so far.

[Pendragon]

Hey, I got 1,2,3,4, 7,9, and 10! Not bad!

[Virgil]

I got 1, 3, 6, 7, 8. That's five. But this week was a hard one. ;) Yes, and taking the lead from Dick, we give thanks to our wonderful Anuty for putting these together. I enjoy them :)

[AuntShecky]

The Deep Freeze

Some of the questions are slushily easy; others stiff as the ice on an Adirondack lake. Either way, this week’s quiz will leave you cold. All of the questions and/or answers have something to do with the first month of winter and the final month of the year.

1. Not only does the name of this American poet fit the category, so does his most famous work, “Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening.” Who is he?

2. What is the 1982 Saul Bellow novel about a college administrator facing a mid-life crisis in two cities: Chicago and Bucharest?

3. Name the 1983 Lawrence Kasdan movie about aging baby boomers gathering after the suicide of a member of their college crowd. It starred Tom Berenger, Glenn Close, William Hurt, Kevin Kline, and Kevin Costner as the corpse.

4. Which 1940 play by Eugene O’Neill sets takes place entirely within Harry Hope’s saloon?

5. What was the nickname Austrians gave Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden because “he was kept together by the cold, but would melt and disappear as he approached a warmer soil” ?

6. We’re told a “sad” story is best for this time a year in Shakespeare’s 1611 play featuring King Leontes and Queen Hermione and the romantic pair of Florizel and Perdita. What’s the title?

7. What was the title of both the Richard Condon novel and the 1979 movie starring Jeff Bridges and John Houston about the effects of a Presidential assassination upon the victim’s brother fifteen years after the tragedy?

8. Name Maxwell Anderson’s acclaimed verse drama based on the Sacco-Vanzetti case.

9. Which Hemingway short story features a burnt-out writer named Harry, a safari, and a vision of a legendary gigantic leopard?

10. And finally, according to Shelley’s “Ode to the West Wind,” if Winter’s here, can (what?) be far behind?


Answers
1. Robert Frost 2. The Dean’s December
3. The Big Chill 4. The Iceman Cometh
5. The Snow King 6. A Winter’s Tale
7. Winter Kills 8. Winterset
9. "The Snows of Kilimanjaro" 10. Spring

[DickZ]

Thanks for making the quiz, Auntie. I would have hated to go two weeks without one so I’m ecstatic that you put this one out after your hard-earned Thanksgiving reprieve.

I got numbers 1, 4, 6, 9, and 10 completely right.

On Question 2, I didn’t know what the novel was that dealt with a mid-life crisis in Chicago and Bucharest, but my mother’s parents came over from Bucharest and wound up in Chicago back in 1903 so I hope you’ll give me partial credit for this one even though I really don’t deserve any and maybe you should even take off a few points for my using a run-on sentence like this one. Maybe I'll get a copy of that book from the library.

P.S. Maybe I should confess that I only knew number 9 from having seen the movie, because I never read the actual book. Since you wouldn't have known that without my mentioning it, I'm still claiming full credit for this answer. Please don't tell anyone else that I only saw the movie.

[Niamh]

I got 1, 4, 6, and 10. better than the last few rounds i did. :(

[Pendragon]

One and ten. Terrible. :sick:

[PabloQ]

1, 3, 4, 6, 9, and 10.

[Virgil]

I got 1, 4, 6, 9, 10. I guess that's about average.

[Joreads]

this is my first time at this I got 1 4 5 6 7 and 9

[AuntShecky]

Oh, you people are so wonderful! I'm gratified that you've been giving my little quizzzzes a shot. You should have seen my dismal results for the cluster of quizzes I just took on the MSNBC website. It was an exercise in humility, I'll tell ya.

[Virgil]

Oh, you people are so wonderful! I'm gratified that you've been giving my little quizzzzes a shot.

Are you kidding? I love these quizes and look forwward to them. :)

[AuntShecky]

Party Patter

‘Tis the season. . .to suffer through another one of those office parties, especially the cheaper, “scaled back” fare offered this year with the economy having become a latter-
day Scrooge. But you can brighten up the joint by sparkling with some witty repartee.

This week’s quiz-zzz offers some quips you can use. All you have to is identify the original speaker of the line. (Even if you forget to give credit where credit is due, though, no one will sue you. All of these people have since gone to the Great Soiree in the Sky. So if you think you see any of these folks at a party, that might be a good time to switch to plain ginger ale.)

1. “Fasten your seatbelts – it’s going to be a bumpy night.” (She won awards for saying that, as well as other lines, in a movie.)

2. “If you can’t say anything good about someone, come sit by me.”(A daughter of a former U. S. president.)

3. “A woman drove me to drink,and I never had the courtesy to thank her.”
(Comic actor, radio star and legendary toper.)

4. “Let’s make this one Christmas program where nobody sings ‘Silent Night.’ “ (Playwright and Broadway critic. As a panelist on a tv show, he got fired for saying this line.)

5. “I never met a man I didn’t like, but in your case I’ll make an exception.” (Film star, early television legend.)

6. (After a woman told him he was drunk): “Madam, you are ugly. In the morning I will be sober." (Statesman, orator, author.)

7. “An alcoholic is someone you don’t like who drinks as much as you.”
(Welsh poet whose first name became the last name for an American music legend.)

8. “I’m going to memorize your name and throw my head away.” (Outstanding concert pianist, occasional movie star, and frequent guest on Jack Paar’s television show.)

9. “It’s not the men in my life that count. It’s the life in my men.” (Curvaceous celeb for whom a life preserver was named.)

10. “Santa Claus has the right idea. Visit people just once a year.” (Concert pianist and comedian.)


Answers:
1. Bette Davis 2. Alice Roosevelt Longworth
3. W. C. Fields 4. George S. Kaufman
5. Groucho Marx 6. Winston Churchill
7. Dylan Thomas 8. Oscar Levant
9. Mae West 10. Victor Borge

[Pendragon]

2,3,5,6,9, 10. Not bad this round! :p:lol:

[DickZ]

Thanks as usual for the quiz, Auntie. I got numbers 1, 6, 7, and 9 right.

However, I have to admit that I only got number 7 because of your hint and wouldn’t have known it otherwise.

I’m disappointed that I didn’t know number 10, because I was a big fan of Victor Borge, and treasure the fact that I once had the opportunity to meet him. I even got to trade some jokes with him, sitting alongside the swimming pool at a hotel in San Juan, Puerto Rico sometime in the mid-1960s. His jokes were much funnier than mine.

[papayahed]

I only got 1 and 9

[Virgil]

Only got four this time. 1, 3, 6, and 7.

[Joreads]

I got only three for this one. My favorite is number nine (yes that was one of the ones I got right)

[PabloQ]

3,5,9,and 10 Not so hot this time.

[Niamh]

I got zilch!

[AuntShecky]

Holiday Hits and Myth(es)

Hope “yule” like this last snore-fest of Ought Eight – right in time for a “long winter’s nap.” The questions below examine some of the facts and misconceptions about year-end celebrations.

1. What is the name of the spinning toy with which children play during Hanukkah?

2. Last week an Australian astronomer revealed his findings about the heavens above the Holy Land circa the time of Christ’s birth. He not only believes that The First Christmas fell on June 17 in the year 3, but he also states that the Christmas Star was not a star at all
but a rare conjunction of what?

3. Which ancient Roman festival began on December 19 and lasted for seven days full of – according to Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, “ freedom from
restraint, merrymaking, and often riot and debauchery” ?

4. In one of the opening staves of “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens, two fund-raisers try to hit Scrooge up for a contribution for the poor. What was his reply?

5. In a “very special episode” of the television series, Seinfeld, George Costanza’s father celebrated a completely fabricated “holiday” called what?

6. In “A Visit from St. Nicholas,” what classical literary device did Clement C. Moore employ in these lines: “As dry leaves before a hurricane fly/ When they meet with
obstacle, mount to the sky,/So up to the house-top the coursers they flew. . .”?

7. She may or may not be a parasite, and her kisses may or may not be poisonous, but this holiday plant is both, though the Druids considered it to be sacred. What's its name?

8. Three red, three green, and one black candle symbolize seven community principles commemorated between December 26 and 31. What is the name of this celebration?

9. A traditional carol doesn’t refer to Christmas, but it does mention snow, the feast of St. Stephen, and noble acts of charity. By what title is it known?

10. The opening passages of a magnificent medieval poem occurs at a New Year’s Eve celebration that gets a little out of hand, mainly because the festivities are marred by
the beheading of an uninvited guest. Despite the seemingly-mortal attack, the victim speaks! He forces the poem’s hero to promise to appear at a far-off place
in a “year and a day” so this victim/villain can return the favor, so to speak.

We don’t know the name of the poet who wrote it, but we do know the title of the poem.
What is it?

11. What is the literary term defined as “a sudden manifestation of the essence or meaning of a thing” and which, when capitalized, refers to the Feast of the Adoration of the Magi?

12. In a lengthy carol, what did “my true love give to me” on the first day of Christmas?

Answers:
1. Dreidel
2. Planets
3. Saturnalia
4. Scrooge asks the men if the prisons and workhouses are still in operation.
5. “Festivus– for the rest of us.”
6. Homeric simile
7. mistletoe 8. Kwanzaa
9. Good King Wenceslaus
10. “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight”
11. Epiphany
12. A partridge in a pear tree ( I was going to ask what the
gifts were on the twelfth day of Christmas, but I didn’t want to do all that typing!)

Note: This will be my last quiz of Ought Eight. If Pong II, yours truly, and the world all make it to Ought Nine, the next quiz will be on or around New Year’s Day. There may be a short story or two by yours truly before then.

In the meantime, please consider posting an entry in the Subject Poem Contest and the Form Poetry Contest in the “Poetry Contests and Games” forum on this LitNet.
The form for current round of the latter contest is a parody, due by January 2.
Happy Holidays!
Auntie

[DickZ]

Thanks, Auntie, for another great quiz. I will really miss your quizzes during the holidays. I once tried to pinch hit when you didn't post the weekly quiz because you were off doing something important, but I didn't do a very good job at it. My questions were nothing like yours, so I don't think I'll try to pinch hit again. I'll think about it.

For this one, I only got numbers 1, 2, 5, and 12 right. And I wouldn't have gotten number 12 if you had stuck with your initial intention.

I thought I was pretty close on number 3, but Bacchanlia is spelled somewhat differently than Saturnalia. And I thought I had number 4 with "Bah, humbug" but I was wrong again.

And I have now learned that Homer could smile, which I never knew before.

I hope you have a wonderful Christmas and a great New Year. And I hope there will be a Guy Lombardo special on television this New Year's Eve because I can't take these new folks.

[Joreads]

2, 7, 4 11 and 12 this time. I love this thread.

[papayahed]

doh! 1,5,9 this time. I don't seem to be doing any better.

[Virgil]

Alright Auntie, another quiz!! :) :)

Thank God you had extra in this one, because I needed the last two to get a good score. I got seven: 1, 2, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12. I should have known festivus but it just wouldn't come to me.

[Virgil]

doh! 1,5,9 this time. I don't seem to be doing any better.

You didn't get a partridge in a pear tree? :lol: How many times have you heard that one?

[papayahed]

You didn't get a partridge in a pear tree? :lol: How many times have you heard that one?

oh yeah, I got that one too.
:lol:

[PabloQ]

Got 1.2.5.7.8.12 Did a mental coin flip on 9 and lost. Fell into the same traps as DickZ for 3 and 4.
Do love this thread though.

[DickZ]

Pinch Hitting for Quizzzmistress - 26 December 2008

Trying to compose a quizzz in Aunt Shecky’s place (because she’s busy celebrating the holidays) gives one a clearer understanding of just how hard Auntie works in coming up with her gems. Here’s my sad excuse of a substitute quiz, but before you write it off as a pathetic failure, try to make up one yourself. It’s not so easy.

In fact, I think everybody should try to put together at least one quiz in which all the questions have a common link, since that’s a restriction that Auntie always imposes upon herself. You certainly don’t have to post your quiz because it might be as bad as mine, but I think it would do us all a world of good just to go through the exercise of making one – or at least trying to.

Anyway, here goes:

1. The doctor in A Tale of Two Cities had a last name which matched the first name of the head cheerleader in my high school. What is that shared name?

2. The main lady in The Scarlett Letter had a first name that was identical to the last name of a college classmate of mine. What is that shared name?

3. Jonathan Harker’s fiancée in Dracula had a nickname as that was the same as the first name of one of my students back when I taught Sunday School during my college days. What is that shared name?

4. Jonathan Harker’s fiancée in Dracula had a girlfriend whose first name was the same as that of an early television comedy character, as well as one of my aunts, yielding what is sometimes called the triple concertina of coincidence. What is that shared name?

5. One of the powerful Greek warriors in The Iliad had the same first name as the cleanser in my kitchen. What is that shared name?

6. The main character of Robinson Crusoe found himself a trusty helper who had a first name that matched the last name of a Lost Angeles police sergeant who always caught bad guys on radio and television. What is that shared name?

7. The chief mate on the whaling ship Pequod in the great classic Moby Dick had a last name that matched the name of a coffeehouse near my apartment. What is that shared name?

8. The lady who told all those stories in the Book of One Thousand and One Nights (also called Arabian Nights) had a name that was identical to the lady about whom the great Russian composer Rimsky-Korsakov wrote a symphonic suite, and on top of all that, she had a name that matches the name of one of our esteemed moderators, thereby yielding another triple concertina of coincidence. What is that shared name?

9. The young boy who goes off to all those adventures on Treasure Island has the same first name as the Lord about whom Joseph Conrad wrote in an entirely separate piece of fiction that had no connection with Treasure Island. What is that shared name?

10. In the great American classic Huckleberry Finn, Huck goes down the Mississippi River on a vehicle that matches the last name of an American movie star whose first name was George and who frequently played the role of a tough gangster. What is that shared name?


Answers:
1. Manette
2. Hester
3. Mina
4. Lucy
5. Ajax
6. Friday
7. Starbuck
8. Scheherezade
9. Jim
10. Raft

[Virgil]

Great try in pitch hitting Dick. I definitely enjoyed it. But I don't think yours was as difficult as Auntie's typically are. I got seven right: 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9.

I hope someday Auntie will let me take a swing at the plate. ;)

[papayahed]

I got three - 2,5,8.

[Virgil]

Yay, Auntie's given me permission to also pinch hit for her. :banana:Now I know this comes on the hells of Dick's quiz. So if you haven't taken Dick's pinch hit quiz up in post #67 do so, but here is another for you to try. You get two back to back within the same week. :)

The subject of my quiz is blood. :D Yes I've had a bloody week; you might even consider it a bloody year. Read about it if you're so interested in my blog here: http://www.online-literature.com/forums/blog.php?b=7049.

So the quiz will center on the nature of blood, mostly in literature. Here you go:

1. What Shakespeare character did not think that “all of Neptune’s ocean” could wash his bloody hands clean?

2. In what state of the United States was Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood set?

3. Which English author came up with the concept of blood consciousness, where certain knowledge is inherent to the blood, the author who happens to be on which I wrote my Master’s thesis?

4. In what William Faulkner novel is the character Joe Christmas castrated and as his blood drains from his body feels his life ebb out of his body?

5. Bela Lugosi is the actor best known for playing Bram Stoker’s Dracula, the greatest of the blood sucking vampires, in the movies; from what country was Lugosi from?

6. Who was the author of a short story where the narrator kills an old man, chops up his body, hides the pieces under the floor boards, and then realizes he hears the dead man’s beating heart?

7. Ann Rice created a series of vampire novels, the first made into a movie with Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt; what was the name of that movie?

8. Which two great characters were blood brothers, a ritual of sharing blood from a wound, made famous by the American author Mark Twain?

9. Based on Christ’s last supper, the notion that bread and wine at a Roman Catholic (and some other denominations as well) mass is converted to the body and blood of Christ is call what?

10. In Homer’s Odyssey, Odysseus sacrifices the male and female version of which animal and uses the blood to attract the dead spirits in the underworld?



I have to echo Dick's words here. This does take a bit of time to put together. Now I really appreciate all the work Aunt Shecky does here. Thank you for let me put this out Auntie and thank you for all the work you do in putting these quizes out. :)









1. MacBeth (Act II, scene ii)
2. Kansas
3. DH Lawrence
4. Light In August
5. Hungary/Romania chose either
6. Edgar Allan Poe, “The Tell-Tale Heart”
7. Interview With A Vampire
8. Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn
9. Transubstantiation
10. Sheep

[Dark Muse]

Blah I got 5: 1, 3, 5, 6, 7

[Virgil]

Blah I got 5

You didn't get who I did my master's thesis on? I would have thought you would have gotten that one. ;)

[Joreads]

Wow Virgil that was something else I got 6 this time 1,2,4,5,7,6

[DickZ]

Thanks, Virgil, for putting out your quiz.

I got 1, 2, 5, 6, and 8.

I have to get around to reading some of Faulkner's works, as I never have, and lots of people really like him. Then maybe I'll be able to answer #4. But by then someone will say my answer comes too late.

Have a Happy New Year, Virgil, and everybody else for that matter. I won't be back on the internet until 2009.

Does your t-shirt that you're wearing in your blog say BOSTON? Are you a Red Sox fan, too?

[Dark Muse]

You didn't get who I did my master's thesis on? I would have thought you would have gotten that one. ;)

Yes I did, that was # 3 which I said I got.

Sorry if you misunderstood me. I said I got 5 questions right, and the ones I got right were

1, 3, 5, 6, 7

[SleepyWitch]

Nice quiz, Uncle Virgil. I got all except 4 and 5

[Virgil]

Yes I did, that was # 3 which I said I got.

Sorry if you misunderstood me. I said I got 5 questions right, and the ones I got right were

1, 3, 5, 6, 7

Oh yes, I misunderstood. I thought you said you only got number 5 correct. Now I understand. :) Five is not bad.

[papayahed]

I got 6 correct!! - 1, 2, 3, 6, 8, and 9.

[Pendragon]

Virgil, 1,5,7,9. Oh well. :sick:

[Pendragon]

Dick, I got all but 1,5,7. Not Bad! :)

[kiz_paws]

OK, Virgil -- I got correct -- 1, 5, 6, 8, & 9 :)

[kiz_paws]

And Dick, I only got 6. & 10. correct! That was difficult, but I loved the quiz. You are right -- we should all go through the effort of putting one together (with a common theme, of course). That would indeed be a challenge. :)

[PabloQ]

Well, on DickZ's attempt I got 5-10.
On Virgil's I got all but 4 and 9.
Interesting typo there, Virg, "on the hells of Dick's quiz". Wow, slings and arrows!!:)

[PabloQ]

Well, on DickZ's attempt I got 5-10.
On Virgil's I got all but 4 and 9.
Interesting typo there, Virg, "on the hells of Dick's quiz". Wow, slings and arrows!!:)

[Virgil]

Interesting typo there, Virg, "on the hells of Dick's quiz". Wow, slings and arrows!!:)

:lol: You're right. I had to go back and check. I meant "on the heals of Dick's quiz."

[AuntShecky]

Thank you DickZ and Virgil for volunteering to write some
quizzes.

It’s About Time

Last night the PBS science series Nova asked “Is There Life on Mars?” The results were inconclusive, but one thing I now for sure is that New Year’s Eve on Mars is
a helluva lot livelier than it is at Chez Auntie.

Tomorrow we’ll all be hanging up new calendars, and if you’re still using the Julian version, it’s time to upgrade to a Gregorian. Meanwhile, here’s this
week’s quiz:

1. “Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow,” was composed by the same songwriter who gave us “Killing Time,” “Time After Time,” and the perennial hit, “Just in Time.”
Name him.

2. The narrator/protagonist of Laurence Sterne’s innovative masterpiece almost wasn’t conceived because at the critical moment, his mother asked his father
if he remembered to wind the clock. What is the name of this 1759 off-the-wall novel?

3. Produced in 1941, Watch on the Rhine was one of the first anti-Nazi plays in America. Who was the dramatist?

4. Led by Lt. Colonel James Doolittle, the first bombing raids on Japan formed the subject of a 1944 movie starring Spencer Tracy and Robert Walker, as well as Van
Johnson who died this week. Name the title.

5. During the American Revolution, what was the term for the scrappy New England volunteers who, according to legend, could be ready for battle within a moment’s
notice?

6. Name the 2002 film for which Nicole Kidman won an Oscar for her portrayalof Virginia Woolf.

7. What is the title of the 1939 Nathaniel West novel about Hollywood in which the title character is named – I kid you not – “Homer Simpson”?

8. Written in 1849, what is the title of Thoreau’s first book?

9. What is the title of the 1850 Turgenev play about the eternal triangle?

10. Daniel Defoe sounded as if he were an eyewitness to the effects of an epidemic which, in reality, took place when the author was only five years old. What was
this book, written in 1722?

11. What was the title used for two works, the first a poetry collection by W. H. Auden and the other a ballet danced to Leonard Bernstein’s Second Symphony?

12. Back to Methusaleh (1921) is a five-part play cycle which ends in the year 3l,920 A.D. For this satiric fantasy and his other ground-breaking works its author
won the Nobel Prize four years later. Who was this British dramatist?




Answers
1. Jule Styne 2. Tristram Shandy
3. Lillian Hellman 4. Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo
5. Minutemen 6. The Hours
7. The Day of the Locust
8. A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers
9. A Month in the Country
10. Journal of the Plague Year
11. The Age of Anxiety
12. George Bernard Shaw

[Virgil]

Eeek, I did horrible on this one. I got four: 2, 5, 10, 12.

[Petrarch's Love]

I hadn't seen this thread before. A fun discovery for the new year. Just took Virg's quiz and Aunt Shecky's latest. I got all of Virg's questions except the Bela Lugosi one (5). Aunt Shecky's was pretty tricky. I got nine: # 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, 11, & 12. Happy New Year all. :)

[Virgil]

I hadn't seen this thread before. A fun discovery for the new year. Just took Virg's quiz and Aunt Shecky's latest. I got all of Virg's questions except the Bela Lugosi one (5). Aunt Shecky's was pretty tricky. I got nine: # 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, 11, & 12. Happy New Year all. :)

Uh-oh. We got a ringer in here now. Perhaps one day you can write up t=our own. ;) Just don't make it too hard for us common folks. :p

[DickZ]

Wow, I only got #5 right. Since I did so poorly, I thought about not saying a word - and maybe I should have stayed with that approach.

[Psycheinaboat]

I am subscribing to this thread so that I can view it when I have more time. Just letting you all know that I shall return. ;) lol

[Schokokeks]

Ooooh, why haven't I noticed this thread earlier?! :D

I just took your quiz, Uncle Virgie, and got 8 right: # 1, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10.

I'll try Aunt Shecky's once I'm fully awake...

[Niamh]

3, 6, 7, 8, 9
Think thats the best i've ever done!

[Virgil]

Did you take my quiz Niamh? It's a page or two back. The one on blood. :D

[Niamh]

3, 6, 7, 8, 9
Think thats the best i've ever done!


Did you take my quiz Niamh? It's a page or two back. The one on blood. :D

Oops! well i followed your link and thats the one i got the answers right to. didnt realise it till now that there has been another one since!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[mona amon]

1,6,8 and 10 on the previous quiz (Virgil's) and only 2 and 12 on Auntshecky's.:blush:

[Pendragon]

Only #5 on Aunties. :blush::blush::blush:

[AuntShecky]

The World, The Flesh, and The Devil

The troublesome trio gets the testy treatment – - serves all three of ‘em right after leaving me off their Christmas card list:

1. In 1700, The Way of the World garnered such a poor reception that its author gave up writing plays completely, yet it turned out to be his masterpiece. Who is the playwright?

2. Which Shakespearean character wished that “this too, too solid flesh would melt”?

3. Who wrote the 1937 short story, “The Devil and Daniel Webster” in which the revered statesman argues for the soul of a New England farmer in front of a demonic jury?

4. Which British poet began an 1807 sonnet with the line: “The world is too much with us; late and soon”?

5. Whose 1903 posthumous novel, The Way of All Flesh, satirized the English middle class, the clergy and the prevalent child-rearing practices of the day?

6. Name the Elizabethan dramatist who wrote such tragedies as The Duchess of Malfi and The White Devil.

7. Upon whose tombstone, located in Bennington, Vermont, are carved the words: “I had a lover’s quarrel with the world”?

8. Derived from the medieval Latin and old Italian languages and associated with Mardi Gras festivals, what is the word that means “the putting away of flesh”?

9. In The Devil’s Disciple, an unprincipled man surprises himself by allowing himself to be arrested in the place of a pious parson during the American Revolution. Who is the author of this funny yet emotionally affecting melodrama?

10. Who wrote the 1978 novel The World According to Garp?

11. In which book of the New Testament would one find this passage: “And the Word was made Flesh and dwelt among us”?

12. And finally, hope you guess the name of the rock group which in 1968 released a monster hit with the song, “Sympathy for the Devil.”


Answers
1. William Congreve
2. Hamlet
3. Stephen Vincent Benet
4. Wordsworth
5. Samuel Butler (1835-1902)
6. John Webster
7. Robert Frost
8. carnival
9. George Bernard Shaw
10. John Irving
11. The Gospel of St. John
12. The Rolling Stones

[Niamh]

2, 10, 12...

[Virgil]

1, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12. Eight!!! I think that's the best I've ever done. :) Of course number 12 was handed to me. :D I think Auntie knows I'm a big Stones fan. :)

[Pendragon]

3, 11, 12... I do so poorly on these things... :blush:

[DickZ]

I only got three right - numbers 2, 3, and 5. Either these quizzes are getting harder or I'm getting dumber.

[AuntShecky]

Hey, Guys -- nobody's keeping track of your scores. Sorry if
the questions are a tad obscure. I had to look 'em up meself.
On the other hand, it's a "literature" site, correct?

[Virgil]

Hey, Guys -- nobody's keeping track of your scores. Sorry if
the questions are a tad obscure. I had to look 'em up meself.
On the other hand, it's a "literature" site, correct?

Auntie, we would still be complaining if it were too easy. ;)

[mona amon]

2, 5, 9 and 11 :)

[AuntShecky]

Freedom Fighters

Some are born great; others achieve greatness, but all I can do is thrust upon you a quiz about the greats.

1. Where was Dr. Martin L. King when he wrote the following lines on April 16, 1963?: “. . .Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects us all indirectly. . .”

2. Name the Venezuela-born freedom fighter who earned the names El Libertador and “The George Washington of South America.”

3. Who was the leading poet of the Harlem Renaissance whose themes recurrently examined “a dream deferred”?

4. Name the folksinger and advocate for migrant workers who was the subject of the 1976 movie, Bound for Glory.

5. Who was the “great-souled” political and spiritual father of modern India?

6. Which twentieth century political event formed the setting for Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls?

7. Which part of the U.S. Constitution guarantees freedom of worship, freedom of speech, and freedom of the press?

8. The French Revolution is the dynamic, glorious, and tragic background for which masterpiece by Charles Dickens?

9. What is the title for both the Laura Z. Hobson novel and the courageous 1947 movie in which the hero takes a stand against anti-Semitism in the United States?

10. Where and when did the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King give his iconic “I have a dream” speech?



Answers:
1. (Letter from) Birmingham Jail
2. Simon Bolivar
3. Langston Hughes
4. Woody Guthrie
5. Mahatma Gandhi
6. The Spanish Civil War
7. The First Amendment (Bill of Rights)
8. A Tale of Two Cities
9. Gentlemen’s Agreement
10. Washington, DC, August 28, 1963

[Virgil]

This was relatively easy one for me. I got seven, numbers 1, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10.

[kiz_paws]

I only got three right, #4, #5 and #8

[Virgil]

I only got three right, #4, #5 and #8

Oh a number of the questions are American specific, so I can see how this might be a little difficult for non Americans.

[DickZ]

Thanks, Auntie, for continuing to come up with these quizzes, which are a lot of fun. And the way you work in clever statements like "... thrust upon you ..." provides as much fun as the quiz itself.

I got numbers 2, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 10 completely right. And I’m going to take half credit for number 4 because I said Arlo Guthrie instead of Woody.

And I knew number 5 even before that Seinfeld episode came out about volunteers to help senior citizens.

I wonder if I can take some extra credit for knowing that Don Johnne wrote the poem with the title that Hemingway borrowed for his book in number 6. Or maybe I just have that backward - maybe Johnne borrowed the name of Hemingway's book when he (Johnne) wrote his poem.

[DickZ]

Oh a number of the questions are American specific, so I can see how this might be a little difficult for non Americans.
That's a good idea, Virgil. Maybe someone will put out a non-American counterpart every week. Then we'd have twice as much fun.

[AuntShecky]

Oh a number of the questions are American specific, so I can see how this might be a little difficult for non Americans.


By what criteria are Gandhi and Charles Dickens considered
"American"? Simon Bolivar is American, but South American, not North.

I just can't please people, can I? Sigh.

[Virgil]

By what criteria are Gandhi and Charles Dickens considered
"American"? Simon Bolivar is American, but South American, not North.

I just can't please people, can I? Sigh.

Well, those questions aren't but two very specific Martin Luther King questions (I bet non Americans have never even heard of Birminghamor perhpas even Alabama), Langston Hughes (are non Americans aware of Harlem, let alone of the Harlem renaissance?), Woody Gutherie, and The First Admentment to the American Constitution I do think made this fairly American centric. Not that I'm complaining.

[mona amon]

I'd be a wretched example of an Indian if I didn't get #5. :)

Other than that, only #6 and #8.

[PabloQ]

8.5 for me. Totally missed 9. Didn't know the date for the Dream speech, but knew he delivered it on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

[Virgil]

Well, to be honest I didn't know the date either (I thought it was in 1969 just before his death), but I knew it was at the Lincoln Memorial.

[AuntShecky]

Well, those questions aren't but two very specific Martin Luther King questions (I bet non Americans have never even heard of Birminghamor perhpas even Alabama), Langston Hughes (are non Americans aware of Harlem, let alone of the Harlem renaissance?), Woody Gutherie, and The First Admentment to the American Constitution I do think made this fairly American centric. Not that I'm complaining.


Wait a minute, I DID do a quiz with more international material. Check back to reply #6 on this thread, Virgil, please.

Oh, and here's a BONUS QUESTION containing a hint about next week's topic:
One of the many hits by the Beatles was "Money (That's What I Want)". But do you know who the original artist was? I'll give the answer in the beginning of next week's quiz. You probably can guess what the topic is, and yes, I'm afraid it will be heavy on the Americana.

Aw, what're ya gonna do? Your old Auntie is extremely limited.

And myopic.

[AuntShecky]

Well, to be honest I didn't know the date either (I thought it was in 1969 just before his death), but I knew it was at the Lincoln Memorial.

Dr. King was assassinated on April 4, 1968

[Virgil]

Aunty I didn't say all your quizes were American centric. I said this one was. All I said was how this quiz this week could be harder for some who were not American. I wasn't criticizing this quiz or any quiz. I was just empathizing with a couple of people who got low scores on this one. I don't want you to change anything. Your quizes are great and I and many look forward to them. Honest I'm not criticizing you. :)

[AuntShecky]

Aunty I didn't say all your quizes were American centric. I said this one was. All I said was how this quiz this week could be harder for some who were not American. I wasn't criticizing this quiz or any quiz. I was just empathizing with a couple of people who got low scores on this one. I don't want you to change anything. Your quizes are great and I and many look forward to them. Honest I'm not criticizing you. :)

Aw, I know, Virgil. I was just trying to be funny. You know me: I kid, I kid.

Meanwhile, start thinking about what I told you about next week's topic (in which I will really try to include more than just damn yanquis.)

And don't forget the song that's the theme of the upcoming
quiz. . .

[papayahed]

alll riiigghhtt I got 7, although I am kicking myself for not getting 2 and 4.

[AuntShecky]

[The answer to last week’s Bonus Question is: Barrett Strong.]


The real life generosity of legendary comedian Jack Benny belied his shtick as a tightwad. In a famous sketch, a robber demanded “Your money or your life!” The only response was silence, and as the pause grew longer and longer, the laughter from the studio audience grew louder and louder. After what – in broadcast terms – seemed like an eternity, Benny finally spoke: “I'm thinking! I'm thinking!”

To the quiz:

1. What is the unit of currency which is the medium of exchange in Ireland, Germany, Austria and nine other countries?

2. What did the Roman satirist Horace say to do: if not “honestly,” then “somehow”?

3. Name the title of the work by the Scottish writer Adam Smith extolling the virtues of a “laissez faire” economic system.

4. Which character in Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby is described as having “a voice full of money”?

5. Who is the French novelist who wrote about “the majestic egalitarianism of the law, which forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread”?

6. Name the character from Greek mythology who could change everything he physically touched into gold.

7. Who is the NY Times columnist awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2008?

8. In which Shakespearean play does a money lender demand a pound of flesh as payment for an overdue loan?

9. Name the Italian film director whose movies include
A Fistful of Dollars and For a Few Dollars More.

10. Who was the writer who first used the phrase “the haves and have-nots”? (Hint: His work first appeared in the early 17th century, and the language he used was not English.)

11. According to the Gospel of St. Matthew, it’s easier for what to happen than it is for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven?

12. And finally, complete the title of this humor book by Jean Shepherd: “In God We Trust -----“



Answers:
1. The Euro.
2. make money
3. The Wealth of Nations
4. Daisy Buchanan
5. Anatole France
6. King Midas
7. Paul Krugman
8. The Merchant of Venice
9. Sergio Leone
10. Cervantes
11. “. . .for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle.”
12. “All Others Pay Cash”

BONUS QUESTION, whose answer contains a hint about the next topic, which will be revealed in the posting of the next quiz:

Complete this line from the first chorus of the song “Ain’t We Got Fun” (Whiting-Kahn-Egan):

“The rich get rich and the poor get —“ (what?)

[papayahed]

oh, I only got four correct.

[Virgil]

Lets see, I got 1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 11. I got seven right.

[PabloQ]

I tied with Virgil - 1,3,6,8,9,11,12

[DickZ]

Thanks, Auntie. I got numbers 1, 3, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, and 12 outright. And maybe you will give partial credit for answering number 4 as Mia Farrow.

[Niamh]

1, 2, 8, 10...

[Pendragon]

1, 6, 8, 11, 12. 5/12 Poorly!

[Virgil]

1, 6, 8, 11, 12. 5/12 Poorly!

Pen I would say that's roughly average. That's what I normally get on the quizes. I did a little better this time but I don't think it was typical.

[AuntShecky]

The answer to last week’s bonus question is: children.

It’s been said that having children is a blessing. Well, hearing about the California woman who recently gave birth to octuplets made me count my blessings. Number one on the list is I'm glad that poor lady isn't me. To the quiz:

These Kids Today, I'll Tell Ya!

1. Name the song from the musical Bye, Bye Birdie containing the line: “Why can't they be like we were, perfect in every way?”

2. What is the 1959 German novel by Gunther Grass in which the narrator/protagonist is so emotionally traumatized by the Nazis that he refuses to grow up beyond age 3?

3. Many of us are familiar with the eternal child, Peter Pan, via the animated Disney movie and the Richard Rodgers musical which starred Mary Martin in the title role. Who was the playwright who wrote the original 1902 dramatic fantasy?

4. Name the 18th century portrait artist whose most famous painting is Blue Boy.

5. In Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, Hester Prynne’s daughter is described as an “outcast of the infantile world.” What’s the little girl’s name?

6. The 1949 movie, The Fallen Idol, stars Ralph Richardson as a butler whose duties include caring for a boy who admires him to the point of obsession, that when circumstances seem to frame the servant for murder, the kid fabricates alibis which only serve to implicate his idol further. Name the versatile 20th century British author who wrote both the screenplay and the short story upon which this fictional dilemma was based.

7. Which orphan created by Dickens famously – and naively – asked for “some more” gruel?

8. Which song composed by Hoagy Carmichael contains these lyrics by the great Frank Loesser: “Stay in shallow water” and “You ain’t the biggest catfish in the sea”?

9. Name the 1886 Robert Louis Stevenson historical novel whose adventures include a shipwreck, a murder, and a miserly character who wasn’t created by Dickens, though his name was Ebeneezer.

10. The movie version of a childhood classic once infamously pre-empted an NFL telecast at a crucial point in the progress of the game. What was its title which will forever live in infamy among long-time football fans?

11. Name the 1901 Kipling novel about an Irish orphan raised in India.

12. The bustling life of a burgeoning family raised by parents who also happened to be industrial engineers formed the basis for film versions starring Clifton Webb in the earlier version and Steve Martin in the remake. What is the title shared by the original memoir and both movies?


Answers
1. “Kids”
2. The Tin Drum
3. J. M. Barrie
4. Thomas Gainsborough
5. Pearl
6. Graham Greene
7. Oliver Twist
8. “Small Fry”
9. Kidnapped
10. Heidi
11. Kim
12. Cheaper By the Dozen
BONUS QUESTION containing a clue about the next topic: Complete the title of this bouncy song introduced in 1937 in the Marx Brothers classic
A Day at the Races :

“All God’s Children Got —“ (what?)

[PabloQ]

Number to shoot for is 8. I missed 4, 5, 8, and 12.

[Pendragon]

Only got 3.7,9, and 11

[DickZ]

Thanks, Auntie. I got numbers 1, 3, 4, 5, 7, 10, 11, and 12.

I should have gotten 9 right too, but I said David Balfour instead.

And I got number 12 by only seeing the original with Clifton Webb, as I refuse to see the remake.

[Virgil]

Oh my, this was my worst showing yet. I only got two, 2 and 11. I should have gotten The Scarlet Letter one. I guess it's been too long since I read it. I can't believe Pablo and Dick got eight correct. Outstanding.

[AuntShecky]

The answer to last week’s bonus question is: Rhythm


This week we're all about rhythm, music, and dance, so snap those fingers, tap those toes, and get ready to cut a rug.

It’s Got a Good Beat and You Can Dance to It

1. Soon after his Philadelphia-based afternoon dance show became a pop culture institution when it went coast-to-coast, this television personality parlayed his success by hosting game shows and the annual New Year’s Eve celebration from Times Square. Who is this celebrity often dubbed “America’s oldest teenager”?

2. Who is the major poet in English literature who wrote these lines from 1645:
“Come and trip it as ye go
On the light fantastic toe”?

3. “Who could ask for anything more?” is a question from a Gershwin standard. What’s the title? (Hope you “get” this one.)

4. One-word literary term to describe the “unit of poetic meter, which in English verse consists of a fixed combination of stressed and unstressed syllables.” (Hint: the word is the same as that for the part of the body that moves in a dance “step.”)

5. What is the term for the macabre motif found in medieval mystery plays, woodcuts by Hans Holbein, and, notably, the Ingmar Bergman classic film
The Seventh Seal
in which departed souls link arms in a procession that, alas, only goes one-way?

6. Evolving from French origins, and traveling on a "circuit," this type of entertainment offered a variety of acts including acrobatic stunts, magicians, and especially song-and-dance teams which favored crowd-pleasing steps such as the “soft shoe” and the buck-and-wing. Name this now-defunct show biz medium, sometimes called the "Three-a-day."

7. What is the general term for the part of an orchestra or band that includes congas, cymbals, maracas, tambourines and other percussive instruments?

8. What was the name given to the group of earnestly hip writers such as Ginsberg and Corso who railed against the cultural repression of Post-War II America?

9. The muse Terpsichore is commonly pictured sitting down, but her area of expertise is dance. According to Greek mythology, how many Muses are there?

10. The title of a 1984 movie by Francis Ford Coppola featuring musicians and gangsters from the Roaring Twenties is the same as a landmark nightspot in Harlem. What is it?

11. She was a niece of the pioneering film-maker who specialized in Biblical epics, but in her own right she was a groundbreaking choreographer known for her work on Rodgers-Hammerstein musicals such as Oklahoma! Who was she?

12. And finally, name the Grimms’ fairy tale about a bevy of beauties who mysteriously go out stepping each night.


Answers
1. Dick Clark
2. Milton
3. “I Got Rhythm”
4. Foot
5. “The Dance of Death”
6. Vaudeville
7. Rhythm section
8. The Beat Poets
9. Nine
10. The Cotton Club
11. Agnes DeMille
12. “The Twelve Dancing Princesses”

Bonus Question: Containing a hint about the topic for the next quiz:
What was the Whitney Houston megahit originally written by country music queen Dolly Parton?

[Virgil]

oooh, I got eight this time: 1,2,4,6,7,8,9,10. Wow, five in a row at one point. That's got to be my personal best. :) Thanks Auntie.

[DickZ]

Thanks, Auntie. I got numbers 1, 3, 4, 6, 7, and 10 correct. I don’t know why I wouldn’t know number 11, because I recently watched a documentary about musicals on the silver screen. I may have fallen asleep during the part in which they were discussing Agnes DeMille. I should have paid more attention to your clue about her being the niece of the Biblical epic specialist, because that should have tipped me off. I definitely remember Eleanor Powell, Ginger Rogers, Cyd Charisse, and a few other dancers, though. I just don't remember any choreographers - except for Bob Fosse.

And I think I know the answer to the bonus question, assuming it once appeared in a movie.

[papayahed]

Alll Rriiiigghhhtt I got 7 and I know the answer to the bonus question.

[Virgil]

I didn't even see the bonus question. But now that I do, I have no idea to the answer. :D

[AuntShecky]

Yeah, Virg, there has been a bonus question for the past few weeks, mainly to give a clue about to the next topic. Think about the song title and the themes of most pop songs , and then look at the calendar and see which holiday is coming up. But even if you guess the song title correctly, it will only give you a very broad idea of what the quiz topic is.

And yes, Dick Z, that Whitney song was in the "Bodyguard"movie but I think it was on the charts long before the movie was released. (The movie stunk, by the way, although beloved by fans of the Diva, such as my older daughter.)

Another trivia fact about Ms DeMille. My long-suffering spouse said that she had been married
to the Zorba the Greek actor, Anthony Quinn, but
no, he was married to Agnes's cousin, Katherine.
Cecil B. DeMille was Quinn's father-in-law. (I guess that's one way to get work in Hollywood.)

[DickZ]

...then look at the calendar and see which holiday is coming up....
.....My long-suffering spouse said .......
Thanks for the reminder, Auntie. I almost forgot which holiday is coming up, which would have caused me to be 'long-suffering' too!

And what is your spouse suffering from? Or should we not ask?

[PabloQ]

Notched 7 this time. And I too know the bonus question and the theme for next week, but I'm not sure what Abraham Lincoln has to do with that song.

[AuntShecky]

The answer to last week’s bonus question is: “I Will Always Love You.”

St. Valentine’s Day usually finds us quoting poets of passion, but how about the wild and crazy guy who hung out with a sea-going geezer and created exotic places beginning with “X”? I'm talking Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1774-1834)who joked that the perfect marriage would be between a deaf man and a blind woman. He also wrote: “He who begins by loving Christianity better than Truth will proceed by loving his own sect or church better than Christianity and then by loving himself best of all.”

Hence, the quiz topic: lovers of self, narcissists, egotists, and folks who send valentines to themselves, all devotees of

The Greatest Love of All

1. Who was the Irish author, playwright, and wit who said “To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance?”

2. From Greek mythology, name the youth who fell in love with his own reflection in a fountain, and thus drowned.

3. What’s the word that means an extended or far-fetched metaphor, or an inflated sense of self-esteem?

4. Who was the prominent American poet (1819-1892) who wrote “Song of Myself?”

5. Derived from Greek tragedy, what’s the term for a character’s overweening pride, presumption, or arrogance?

6. Who was the Russian-born novelist
(e.g. The Fountainhead ) who fanatically promoted a philosophy of self-interest?

7. Describe the off-beat way in which the protagonist of the musical comedy, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, sings the love song, “I Believe in You.”

8. Which character in David Copperfield takes great pride in announcing how “ ‘umble” he is?

9. Name the English poet (1608-1674) who wrote a monumental epic in which these lines appear: “Oft-times nothing profits more/Than self-esteem. . .”

10. According to Proverbs 16:18, what goeth before a fall?

11. Name the French monarch who allegedly boasted,
“L’Etat, c’est moi” (“I am the State”)?

12. And speaking of “C’est Moi,” that’s the song sung by a full-of-himself Sir Lancelot in which Lerner and Loewe musical?

13. And finally, the line “You took the part that once was my heart” comes from a song recorded by, among others, Billie Holiday and Count Basie. Name this title, shared by a 1984 slapstick comedy starring Lily Tomlin and Steve Martin, directed by Carl Reiner.


Answers

1. Oscar Wilde
2. Narcissus
3. conceit
4. Walt Whitman
5. hubris
6. Ayn Rand
7. He sings it to himself while looking into a mirror.
8. Uriah Heep
9. John Milton
10. “a haughty spirit.” (I said “pride,” but evidently, pride goeth before “destruction.”)
11. Louis XIV
12. Camelot
13. “All of Me”

BONUS: It spells out a clue for the next quiz topic. Finish this title of a song made famous by Thomas “Fats” Waller:
“I'm Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a ______” (what?)

[Pendragon]

1,2,3,4,6,8,10,11,12! Not Bad this round!

[Virgil]

Seven correct. I got, 1,2,4,5,6,8,11. I'm kicking myself for not getting 3 and 9. I should have gotten those.

[DickZ]

Thanks, Auntie. Not only did I get last week’s bonus question, but I think I have this week’s as well. I guess I won’t know for sure about this week’s until next week, though.

I was able to come through on numbers 1, 2, 5, 6, 8, 11, and 12. I said Longfellow instead of Whitman so I guess I shouldn’t get any credit for that one despite the fact that they were both Americans and lived during the same century.

I also said pride for number 10, so I’m going to take partial credit since you did the same thing.

I asked my congressman if he could add a line to the stimulus bill for an allocation to Aunt Shecky because she makes such educational quizzzes and lots of us are getting pretty intelligent thanks to her, but he said "no dice" if I was supposed to be an example of pretty intelligent. I told him I'm voting for someone else next time.

[PabloQ]

Tied Virgil. 1,2,4,6,7,12,13 for me. Picked the wrong damn Louis.

[DickZ]

Next 5 on the Shelf: The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms, The Old Man and the Sea, ...
Well, Pablo, you should add For Whom the Bell Tolls to your shelf, while it still has room.

[AuntShecky]

The answer to last week’s bonus question is “Letter”

On this week’s quiz, methinks, will suit you to a “t.” I'm sure you'll be A-O.K. You might find it as easy as a-b-c. Get the idea?

Letter Perfect

1. What do the letters A.D. mean after historical dates?

2. What’s the only letter in the English alphabet that is a homonym for an insect?

3. Which alphabet is used in Russian, Bulgarian, and several Slavic languages?

4. Who was the amateur detective who broke the blackmail case in Poe’s “The Purloined Letter”?

5. Novels such as Richardson’s Pamela solely written in the form of letters or journal entries are called what?

6. What is the term for the adjustable setting on a camera lens?

7. From which classical language are borrowed the names of college fraternities and sororities?

8.Who is the female protagonist in The Scarlet Letter?

9. What do we call characters or symbols representing an idea or thing in written languages such as Chinese?

10. What is the title of a controversial Biblical translation which contains for the initial letter of the name the unknown author uses for God? Its editor, Harold Bloom, postulates that these New Testament books were written by a woman.

11. What is the name of the Irish town which in the early-ninth century was the home of an exquisite illuminated manuscript of the Four Gospels in Latin?

12. In the Periodic Table, the letters “Pb” represent which element?

13. First used by cabalists as a charm to ward off such ills as ague, flux, and toothache, this word was made up from the initials of the Hebrew words for the Father (Ab), the Son (Ben), and the Holy Spirit (Ruach Acadsch.)The word has come down through the ages as “Abracadabra,” often intoned in what kind of show biz act?

14. Borrowing a letter often employed in the realm of mathematics, what is a common expression which means “to an indefinite power” or “to an infinite extreme”?

15. According to the Book of the Apocalypse, what expression did Christ use to say that he was “the beginning and the end”?

16 and 17. It could have originated as an admonition to children learning how to write the alphabet, or scoring up the tab in public houses, but it came down through the language as a warning to watch what one is doing. What is the expression?

18. What was the archeological discovery of 1799 which provided a key to the deciphering of three different ancient languages?

19. What is the Morse Code distress signal, tapped out by three dots, three dashes, and three dots?

20. What is the only letter in the English alphabet which is a homonym for a beverage?

21. What are the initials used in popular culture to describe an aeronautical device of unknown origin?

22. What is the title of a 2005 movie starring Natalie Portman about underground rebels attempting to undermine a totalitarian regime in Great Britain set in the near future?

23. What are the five “W’s” in journalism?

24. What’s the title of a popular American TV series and two movies about FBI agents Mulder and Scully investigating the answer to question #21?

25. What is the name of the still-relevant 1916 novel by Ring Lardner consisting of a series of letters written by a semi-literate rookie pitcher?

26. And finally, what is the name of the 1969 Oscar-nominated political thriller starring Yves Montand and directed by Costa-Gavras?


Answers

1. Anno Domini
2. B
3. Cyrillic
4. Dupin
5. Epistolary novel
6. F-stop
7. Greek
8. Hester Prynne
9. Ideograms
10. The Book of J
11. Kells
12. Lead
13. Magic (or Magician)
14. N th degree
15. “I am the Alpha and the Omega”
16. Mind your P’s. . .
17. . . .and Q’s
18. Rosetta Stone
19. SO S
20. T
21. UFO
22. Vis For Vendetta
23. Who, What, Where, When, and Why
24. The X -Files
25. You Know Me, Al
26. Z

I almost forgot the BONUS question! Answer the question, and your “award” will be a clue about the next quiz topic:

What do the letters “AMPAS” stand for?

[Pendragon]

All but 5, 10, 11, and 25 Not Bad! :thumbs_up:

[Niamh]

the valentine one i got 1,2,9,11,12

the letters one i got
1,2,7,11,13,19,21,22,24

[Virgil]

Darn, I was doing so good, but I screwed up toward the end. I got 19 correct. I got these wrong:

6. F-stop
9. Ideograms
11. Kells
22. Vis For Vendetta
24. The X -Files
25. You Know Me, Al
26. Z

I may dispute number 6. Focus control might also work. I should have gotten gotten Kells. Ideograms I had no idea, and as you can see I know very little of pop culture.

[PabloQ]

bombed on 5 (even though I knew it was rooted in epistle), 9, 10, 11, 22 (couldn't think of what V was for), 23, and 25.

[Wilde woman]

Ooh, this looks like fun. I only got 14 right on the last quiz (don't have much knowledge of the Bible). Can't wait for next week's!

[DickZ]

Gee, Auntie. I wish I was a little quicker on the draw. By the time I got to number 24, it hit me that these answers were in some sort of alphabetically-consecutive-sequential arrangement, but by then it was too late to go back and change any of my earlier responses.

I got 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 23, 24, and 25 correct, for a grand total of 20.

You are giving Jack Keefe a lot of extra credit in question 25 when you describe him as semi-literate. You Know Me, Al is one of the funniest things I’ve ever read. In fact, I think I’ll pick it up again this evening – thanks to your reminder.

I think I know the answer to the bonus question, which makes me look forward even more eagerly to next week's quiz.

[AuntShecky]

The answer to last week’s bonus question is:
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

This week’s quiz topic is movies, including award winners and some which didn't win, but should have. And wouldn't you know it, another year has gone by, and yours truly didn't get a single nomination! I'm shocked. Shocked! But as a perennial host of the Oscar telecast once said, “Welcome to the Academy Awards, or as we call it at my house, ‘Passover.’ “ It saddens me that the younger generation never saw Bob Hope on “live” TV, though kids owe it to themselves to rent some of the old Bing Crosby and Bob Hope “Road” pictures from Paramount, which I loved when I saw them on the Late Late Show – -on school nights when I was supposed to be asleep! So while I kiss my horse and head into the sunset (or the other way around) here’s the quiz which, unlike "Webster’s dictionary," isn't "Morocco-bound."

Quiz Show

1. Name the satirical singer-songwriter who had sixteen Oscar nominations before he finally won. In his acceptance speech he thanked the Academy for having humiliated him so many times.

2. A searing portrayal of social injustice earned the 1947 movie Crossfire five nominations, but it brought its director, Edward Dmytryk, tragic attention from the House Un-American Activities Committee. What was the name of the notorious HUAC dossier that ruined the lives of many creative people?

3. Speaking of HUAC, which some have termed a “witch hunt,” who was the American playwright who in 1952 told the committee, “I cannot and will not cut my conscience to fit this year’s fashion”?

4. Speaking of fashion, name the costume designer who over the years was nominated 40 times and took home 8 Academy Awards.

5. Who is the early 20th century American poet who wrote “Chaplinesque,” a verse which captures the essence the Little Tramp?

6. Who was the real-life gangster apparently shot by FBI agent Melvin Purvis in front of Chicago’s Biograph Theatre in 1934?

7. In the late 1920s, movies made the quantum leap into the realm of “Talkies.” A 1952 musical comedy that spoofs this part of our cultural history appears on nearly every film critic’s list of the best movies ever made, although it won 0 Oscars. What was the title of this cinematic gem starring Gene Kelly, Debbie Reynolds, and Donald O’Connor?

8. Who is the only woman to win an Oscar for acting and another one for adapted screenplay?

9. TRICK QUESTION ALERT! So far there has been only ONE person who has won both an Academy Award and a Nobel Prize. TRUE or FALSE?

10. Although this mid-twentieth century American poet is called the “Greenhouse Poet,” his “Double Feature” is an emotional and evocative lyric about leaving a movie theatre. So who is he?

11. Johnny Depp masterfully plays the title role in a 1994 feature about the less-than-optimal techniques of a real-life film-maker. (Of course, in this we're using the term “film-maker” very, very loosely.) Name this movie, which brought an Oscar to Martin Landau for his outstanding supporting role.

12. And finally, about eight years after winning an Academy Award for a hilarious 1968 screenplay, this writer-director created Silent Movie in which not one syllable of spoken dialogue was used until the end, in which there was a single word, uttered by. . .a mime! Name this comedy veteran, though still considerably less than 2,000 years old.


Answers
1. Randy Newman
2. The Black List
3. Lillian Hellman
4. Edith Head
5. Hart Crane
6. John Dillinger
7. Singin’ in the Rain
8. Emma Thompson
9. Absolutely true, except it may not be the person you think. Al Gore is indeed a Nobel Prize winner. Although he rightfully came up on the stage when the Oscar for outstanding documentary feature went toAn Inconvenient Truth, the former Vice President was not the official recipient of the award. The only person in the entire world to have won both a Nobel Prize and an Academy Award was George Bernard Shaw. Legend has it that when GBS was informed that his 1937 screenplay of Pygmalion had won, someone had to explain to him exactly what an Oscar was.
10. Theodore Roethke
11. Ed Wood
12. Mel Brooks

BONUS QUESTION (containing the next quiz topic.) Finish the title of this classic movie:
A Letter to Three _____(what?)

And that’s a wrap!

[PabloQ]

I got 1, 2, 4, 6, 8, 11, and 12.

[DickZ]

I only got numbers 4, 6, 7, and 12. While I said TRUE for number 9, I didn’t have the right guy, so I don’t get any credit there. And I don’t know the bonus question for next week, either.

I would say I have to get out to the movies more often, but they’re all so lousy these days. Maybe I’ll just watch Turner Classic Movies more.

[AuntShecky]

I would say I have to get out to the movies more often, but they’re all so lousy these days. Maybe I’ll just watch Turner Classic Movies more.


I never get a chance to get out of the house, so I don't know a cineplex from plexiglass. But TCM is the source of most of the movies I ever see.

If you said "true" on the trick question, then you got it right.

And to you and Pablo, thanks for taking the quiz.

[Pendragon]

Only 2 and 6 :flare:

[AuntShecky]

Thank you so much, Pen, for doing these little quizzzzzes o mine. If you have cable tv, and if you get the Turner Classical Channel ("TCM") please try to catch "Singin' in the Rain" the next time they run it. You will love it.

[AuntShecky]

The answer to last week’s bonus question is: Wives.

“Woman was God’s second mistake.” Do you agree with Nietzsche on that one? Fact of the matter is that for millennia womankind has been oppressed, repressed, and pressed into service when some guy wants his pants pressed.

For too many centuries women have been the butts of too many jokes. I read somewhere that the old chestnut “That was no lady, that was my wife” dates back to ancient Rome. I wish I could type the original version, but my Latin is rusty.

Speaking of which, years ago I was about to begin subbing for an advanced class in English as a Second Language when I heard two young Asian men yukking it up in the back of the room. Fortunately, their English was more advanced than my Chinese (which was non-existent). When I asked them politely what they were laughing about, they replied that they were telling mother-in-law jokes. I guess humor is the universal language.

But we women are more than mere fodder for jokes. We are grandmothers, mothers, sisters, daughters, aunts, wives, girlfriends, yet – to cop a phrase from late night infomercials – “Wait! There’s more!” Hence, this week’s quiz:

Extraordinary Women

1. Who was Chaucer’s lusty teller of tales who provided an alternative to the medieval anti- female mind-set? She describes herself this way: “Hosbandes at chirche dore I have had fyve.”

2. Who wrote the novel Little Women?

3. For Book III of his masterpiece Edmund Spenser created a female knight. Her name is Britomart; her motto: “Be bold, be bold, be not too bold.” What is the title of the entire poem, written between 1590-1596?

4. Who was the 20th century American lyricist (1905-1974) who was the only female songwriter to appear on a U.S. postage stamp. You’ll also find her “on the sunny side of the street.”

5. Name the George Bernard Shaw’s title character who is an officer in the Salvation Army.

6. Which early American First Lady urged her husband to “remember the ladies?”

7. Cole Porter’s smash hit, Kiss Me Kate, was loosely based on which Shakespearean comedy?

8. Identify the reclusive but extremely significant 19th century American poet who said she wrote “a letter to the world that never wrote to me.”

9. Who was the very first female to receive the Nobel Prize? (In physics, yet! So take that, Larry Summers!)

10. Who was the first Black American ever to be awarded a Pulitzer Prize? She won it for her 1950 volume of poetry, Annie Allen.

11. Who was the mild-mannered yet courageous publisher of The Washington Postduring the Watergate scandal?

12. She was the novelist who gave the world Middlemarch, Silas Marner, and The Mill on the [/I]Floss, but she didn’t use her real name, Mary Ann Evans. Instead her books were published under which masculine pseudonym?

13. Born in 1917, she truly was a pioneer, as she broke into the male-dominated realm of stand-up comedy with her endearing self-deprecating humor. Who said, “I was in a beauty contest once. I not only came in last, I was punched in the mouth by Miss Congeniality.”

14. Considered by many to be the best novelist of her era, in 1813 this writer opened one of her books this way: “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that asingle man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.” Who is she?

15. In 1959, Lorraine Hansberry was the youngest person and the first Black American ever to receive the Best Play award from the New York Critics Circle. The title of her work is derived from a line by Langston Hughes. Can you name it?

16. Name the Greek goddess of war and wisdom.

17. Born in 1941, this songwriter was a mere teenager when she worked in the Brill Building and cranked out such hits as “One Fine Day” and “Up on the Roof,” as well as Aretha Franklin’s famous “Natural Woman.” It wasn’t until 1971 before she had a best-selling album of her own. Who is she?

18. Who was the Shoshone woman who was indispensable as a translator and guide for the Lewis and Clark expedition?

19. Christina Rossetti was more into writing poetry than shopping but her most famous work depicts two sisters tempted into buying forbidden fruit from grotesque vendors. What is the title of this 1862 allegorical poem?

20. And finally, who was the widely-quoted Algonquin Wit who wrote pithy poems, sardonic short stories, and sarcastic drama reviews in which she quipped “The House [/[I]I]Beautiful is the play lousy?”

Answers
1. The Wife of Bath
2. Louisa May Alcott
3. [I]The Faerie Queene
4. Dorothy Fields
5. Major Barbara
6. Abigail Adams
7. The Taming of the Shrew
8. Emily Dickinson
9. Marie Curie
10. Gwendolyn Brooks
11. Katherine Graham
12. George Eliot
13. Phyllis Diller
14. Jane Austen
15. A Raisin in the Sun
16. Athena
17. Carole King
18. Sacajawea
19. "The Goblin Market"
20. Dorothy Parker
Sure and you’ll be knowin’ the topic for next week’s quiz if ye guess the missing word in this title:
“Did Your Mother Come from _______?” (What?)

[DickZ]

Thanks for another great quiz, Auntie. I hope you are aware of how much some of us appreciate the clever little zingers you put into you work – like the one leading up to the guy who wants his pants pressed. Things like this, and the ways in which you word your questions, yield a great deal of delight.

I got numbers 1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 14 (but I have to admit 14 was a guess), 16, and 18. I thought I knew a few Dorothy Parker quotes, and I knew she used to sit at some Algonquin Round Table somewhere, but I didn’t know that particular quote. I would ask you to zero in on Dorothy Parker quotes that I’m more familiar with, but you might claim that you don’t know which ones those are.

And since I’m a big fan of Frank Patterson and Anthony Kearns, I not only got the bonus question, but I’m also very ready for next week’s quiz. And all this despite the fact that my own mother came from somewhere else.

[AuntShecky]

thank you, Dick Z. I'm assuming that Frank and Anthony are the songwriters who came up with the title of the bonus question. (I just knew the song, not the composers.
Shame on me.)

Re: Question #3. We had to read "The Faerie Queene" back in school, when considerably closer to its original publication date of 1596. Spenser had planned to write
12 books, but he had only finished 6. So when asked "How many books of The Faerie Queene have you read, they'd get themselves into trouble by replying "12." The safer answer would be Gov. Palin's famous answer, "All of 'em."

By the by --"Britomart" Sounds like a discount store in
London, right?

[Taliesin]

Got only 2, 5,7, 9 and 17.
Lots of American culture in it, so I guess that I can excuse myself with that.

[Virgil]

Whoa, Aunty, somehow I missed the one on the movies. But it's a good thing. I knew nothing there, not one, zippo. I know nothing of those things. :blush:

Now this week on women, well I apparently know women very well. :brow: And I love my wife and my mother and my sister and all the women in my life and on lit net. :)

Ok on this quiz I got twelve: 1,3,5,7,8,9,10,12,14,15,16,18.

[DickZ]

thank you, Dick Z. I'm assuming that Frank and Anthony are the songwriters who came up with the title of the bonus question. (I just knew the song, not the composers. Shame on me.)...
No, Frank Patterson and Anthony Kearns are singers, who sing the song that happens to be the bonus question. I have no idea who the composers might be.

[AuntShecky]

Now this week on women, well I apparently know women very well. :brow: And I love my wife and my mother and my sister and all the women in my life and on lit net. :)



As well you should! (But God Bless ya, for't!)

12 out of 20 correct? Good. Then I'm on the right track.
My goal is to write a quiz, not too difficult and not too easy,
in which somebody hits 'em all.

[qimissung]

I got 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8,14, 15, 16, 17, 18, and 20! Which means that I still got only about half of them right, whcih is how I usuallly do with your quizzes, Auntie. I got half of 11-I knew her first name was Katherine.

[AuntShecky]

The answer to the last bonus question is: Ireland.


‘Tis March and your aunt’s arrived once more,
this time to bring minutiae of Celtic legend and lore:
how tiny Esirt, the poet of King Iubhdan’s band,
could fit in the palm of the dwarf, Aedh’s, hand;
toward tyranny, old and new, vows ever t’ renounce
in language of wit in words I can never pronounce;
how the strangers ‘cross the sea, stirring mighty dread,
well met the shillelagh’s wrath upside o’ the head;
or wrenching one’s back for a hard kiss o’ the Stone
brings a gift o’ the blarney to cajole ye t’ the bone;
the Inferno’s circles that did Dante once tell,
naught but fairy rings beside the Saint’s vision of Hell,
inspiring Eire’s Faithful toward God’s judgement to fear
with His love for the auld sod forever kept near.
Yet in all of these grand t’ings that Eire has held dear
not one, I’ll be tellin’ ya, mentions green beer.

Sure, and t’is well to be goin’ straight to th’ quiz now:

1. A plant from several species of Trifolium and Oxalis, used by St. Patrick to explain the Trinity, serves as the national symbol of the Republic of Ireland. In ancient Rome Pliny the Elder said it was the only plant that a serpent wouldn't touch.

2. And speaking of serpents, legend says that St. Patrick once drove them all off an cliff into the Irish Sea. It’s true that no snakes exist in Ireland, but this is the result of which geophysical phenomenon from the earth’s history?

3. No Country for Old Men is an award-winning film derived from the first line of which poem by William Butler Yeats?

4. Which Irish-born playwright refers to the Emerald Isle in a play called John Bull’s Other Island?

5. This satirist and cleric (1667-1745) was born of English parents in Dublin. One of his works features tiny creatures resembling leprechauns. Who was he?

6. Who was the Galway-born noblewoman (1852-1932) who was also a scholar of folklore, a patroness of literature, and a playwright in her own right as well as creating the Abbey Theatre?

7. James Joyce’s masterpiece is Number One on the list of most important books of the twentieth century, but it took a Federal District Court decision to reverse its ban in the United States. What is the title of this novel?

8. Who was the poet, born in 1939 (the year that Yeats died), who received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1995? His works include Death of a Naturalist and Door into the Dark.

9. What is the general name for the turmoil-tossed region from which in 1920 six counties were placed under the jurisdiction of Northern Ireland while the remaining three stayed in the Republic of Ireland?

10. The beauty of this Irish patriot, philanthropist, and actress(1866-1953) was widely- renowned, but her chief claim to fame was her nearly-omnipresent role as the muse for W.B. Yeats. Who was she?

11. Born in a slum, he grew up to be not only a fierce fighter for Irish independencebut also one of Ireland’s most important playwrights, though some productions caused riots. He wrote Shadow of a Gunman, Juno and the Paycock, and The Plough and the Stars. Who was he?

12. The notion that there have been more people of Irish heritage in the United States than have ever lived in Ireland has inspired the themes for many Irish-American works. The assimilation of Jewish and Irish immigrants into American life was the topic of a 1922 long-running play by Anne Nichols that held the Broadway record for decades. What was the title of this romantic comedy?

13. What catastrophic event occurring in Ireland in 1845 caused a million people to starve?

14. What is the nuclear particle which quantum physicists named after a word they found in Finnegans Wake by James Joyce?

15. James Stephens (1882-1950) collected and translated Irish folklore but is best known for a prose fantasy whose title is a symbol for the elusive treasure that allegedly sits at the end of the rainbow. What was the name of this 1912 work?

16. One of the most significant figures in 20th century literature, this playwright, novelist, and poet (1906-1989)was Irish-born but he wrote his works mainly in French. Still he often exemplified the dual Gaelic character of twinkling wit and deep despair. One of his most famous lines is “I can't go on, I'll go on. . .” Who was he?

17. And finally, name the Irish county which gave the always-funny and often-bawdy 5-line rhyming verse its name.



Answers
1. Shamrock
2. The ice age.
3. “Sailing to Byzantium”
4. George Bernard Shaw
5. Jonathan Swift
6. Lady Gregory
7. Ulysses
8. Seamus Heaney
9. Ulster
10.Maude Gonne
11. Sean O’Casey
12. Abie’s Irish Rose
13. The Potato Famine
14. quark
15. The Crock of Gold
16. Samuel Beckett
17. Limerick
and begorra, here’s the Bonus now, which will be givin’ ye the topic of the next quiz.
Fill in the blank:

The Aran Islands on the West coast of Ireland often form the _______ for J. M. Synge’s plays.

[DickZ]

Thanks, Auntie. I was able to get the bonus question from last week, but I still missed more than I got right on this week’s quiz. I got numbers 1, 7, 9, 12, 13, and 17 right. I’m taking credit for number 13, although I said the Potato Latke Famine, after placing too much importance on number 12. I hope that’s all right.

[Niamh]

Got all of them bar no. 12! Go me! lol!
I know the ins and outs of the bonus question too, but i will go on forever if i write it down. I'll get carried away. J.M.Synge is after all my favourite Irish Playwright! :D

[AuntShecky]

Thanks for takin' the quizz, DickZ and Niamh. For the both of ye
as well as the rest o' ye now, a heartfelt toast from th' auld sod:

Slainte 'gus Saol agat!

[Niamh]

Go raibh mile maith agat!

[Virgil]

I got nine right: 1, 3, 5, 7, 8, 13, 14, 16, 17. I should have gotten a few others but memory lapses suck. I'm actually taking credit for number 1, even though I called it a three-leaf clover. I think that's the same thing.

[AuntShecky]

The answer to the previous bonus question is: setting.

If you're a fan of the Science Channel, you might have seen various programs about string theory and “parallel universes,” in which could exist a multitude of different versions of our world and everything on it (including you me.) I don't know about you, but I'm pretty sure that just one of me is more than enough for any number of universes!

But if you buy the parallel universe notion, then it would also make it theoretically possible for a person to be simultaneously in more than one place. I've got news for you – it’s already possible to be in two places at once. Case in point: At this moment you are sitting in front of your computer, out there in Upper Sandusky or
Outer Mongolia, wherever. Yet at this self-same moment, you are also “on” the LitNet, ergo, two places at once. Yeah, I know, that’s neither here nor there. Let’s make it three places and go to the quiz:

Everybody’s Got to Be Someplace

1. Who was the 20th century poet whose trademark lower-case letters could be found in such graceful poems as “somewhere i have never traveled, gladly beyond”?

2. When a well-known character asks a fairy where she’s been, she answers “Over hill, over dale. . .” adding, “I do wander everywhere.” Name the Shakespearean comedy in which this passage appears.

3. An anonymous saying, cited by the author of The Romance of the Rose as well as St. Bonaventure, defines “a circle of which the center is everywhere and the circumference is nowhere.” Whose “nature” is so described?

4. In 1923, what was the question posed to George Leigh Mallory in which he famously replied, “Because it was there”?

5. The Unnameable, the last part of a novel trilogy, consists of a stream of conscious monologue by a narrator whose head is encased in a glass jar set in an alley behind a downscale restaurant. Who was the author?

6. What is the title of E.M. Forster’s first novel, culled from a line by Alexander Pope?

7. Because of theological technicality, some souls, which are barred from heaven and hell yet not guilty enough to be sentenced to purgatory, required a kind of permanent holding area. What is the name of this place, which is also the name of a dance which originated in the Caribbean islands?

8. Inspired by a passage in Plato’s Republic and written in Latin, Utopia depicts an idealized island community. Who wrote this 1516 fantasy?

9. On a similar theme, Samuel Butler’s 1872 satire uses a future world to poke fun at social and political institutions which actually existed circa 1872. Name the title, which is an anagram of a common English word we use every day.

10. Where did heroic Scandinavian warriors go after they were slain on the battlefield?

11. According to songwriters Harold Arlen and Yip Harburg, where do “bluebirds fly”?

12. What is the title of Sartre’s absurdist play in which three characters are imprisoned in a room where the door won't open?

13. And finally, in 17th century England it was rare for women to forge literary careers, but one woman fought the tide and became a celebrated playwright. Even though most of us never heard of Aphra Behn, we often quote her lines. Finish this famous saying:
“Here today. . .” and what?


Answers
1. e e cummings
2. A Midsummer Night’s Dream
3. God
4. “Why did you climb Mount Everest?”
5. Samuel Beckett
6.Where Angels Fear to Tread
7. Limbo
8. Sir (or Saint) Thomas More
9. Erewhon (an anagram for “nowhere”)
10. Valhalla
11. “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”
12. No Exit
13. “. . .gone tomorrow.”

Bonus Question
( in which is set a hint about the next topic.) Finish this phrase from a line from King Lear:
“That way madness ____” (what?)

[DickZ]

Thanks, Auntie. For number 1, I knew it was either kd lang or ee cummings because they are the only two people with brains that I know of who use lower case letters for everything. I tossed a coin and it came up ee cummings so I’ll take credit for a right answer. I also guessed A Midsummer Night’s Dream, so I started out really strong.

After missing number 3, probably because I don’t go to synagogue as often as I should, I got number 4. I guessed To Err is Human as the title borrowed from Alexander Pope for number 6, so it shows that you can’t just keep guessing and do all that well on an Auntie Quiz. I also guessed calypso instead of limbo for number 7, again proving it’s better to know the material than to guess.

Since I remember seeing The Wizard of Oz when I was about five, and a few times since, I got number 10 right. I got numbers 11, 12, and 13 correct also, and I didn’t even have to guess on them.

So to recap, I got 1, 2, 4, 8, 10, 11, 12, and 13.

[AuntShecky]

Thank you for taking the quiz, DickZ. I appreciate your feedback.

[Virgil]

Ooh, I did extremely well on this one, even thouogh I felt tentative with each answer, but they turned out to be correct. I got eleven correct, all correct from 1 through 10 and 13. I think you transposed the answers for 10 and 11 in your answers list.

[AuntShecky]

[QUOTE=Virgil; I think you transposed the answers for 10 and 11 in your answers list.[/QUOTE]


Whoops! Won't be the first time I made a foolish mistake on the "Internets." All fixed, mehopes. Thanks for bringing this to my attention, Virgil.

[PabloQ]

Well, only 1, 2, 4, 7, 8, 10, 11, and 13, but better than half correct.

[AuntShecky]

The answer to the previous bonus question is: lies.

A couple of years ago an urban myth surfaced out of the pop culture underground about some plainclothes detectives who'd ginned up a devious scheme in order to get a probable perpetrator to confess to a crime. After hauling the poor schlub down to headquarters, the
cops hooked him up to a device which they led him to believe was a lie detector. In reality it was an office photocopier. Each time the suspect answered a question, a button would be pushed, producing a print-out which proclaimed: “He’s lying!”

That possibly apocryphal anecdote reminds me of the one about the mad scientist who crossed truth serum with hair-growing tonic in order to concoct a potion thatcould detect bald-faced lies.

By now you've probably surmised that the theme for this quiz is truth-benders, prevaricators, and fork-tongued four-flushers. (Good thing it’s against the rules to mention current politicians, or we'd be here all day.)

Would I Lie to You?

1. Nearly every culture has a version of this tale in which a shepherd boy continually calls out false alarms in order to make fun of his fellow villagers. Who is he?

2. What is the title of Melville’s 1857 tour de force set on a Mississippi riverboat on April Fool’s Day in which a master of disguises deceives everyone on board with his philosophically astute and humorous lies?

3. In Shakespeare’s Othello, who is the character addressed in the following lines: “You told a lie, an odious damned lie/Upon my soul, a wicked lie!”?

4. The first-time effort by director Steven Soderberg was a complex plot involving adultery, truth, and a technological invention which in 1989 was still a novelty in many households. What was the title of this movie, which won top honors at the Cannes Film Festival?

5. In Acts 5:1-11, what happened to Ananias and his wife Sapphira after they each told consecutive lies about a real estate deal?

6. A nonce word, “Newspeak,” was coined by George Orwell to describe the language used by the government in which novel that’s a perennial favorite on the LitNet?

7. Who wrote the lines: “O what a tangled web we weave/ When first we practice to deceive?”

8. In 1917, U.S. Senator Hiram Johnson said that truth is the first casualty of what?

9. According to Matthew 26, who lied by saying “I do not know the man” three times before the (rooster) crowed?

10. This next quotation has been quoted time and time again, but few know that it originated with Lord Byron. Can you finish the line? “Truth is stranger than (what?)”

11. Pinocchio was created not by Disney but by an Italian writer whose pen name was Collodi. What is the curious thing that happens to the little puppet every time he tells a lie?

12. The 1951 movie Royal Wedding features a song that may have the longest title in filmdom: “How Can You Believe Me When I Said I Love You When You Know I've Been a Liar All My Life?” The film’s star, undoubtedly a straight-forward gent in real life, was a Hollywood icon, perhaps best known as half of a dancing duo. So who was he?

13. And finally, name the prominent American author (1835-1910) who wrote this line: “One of the striking differences between a lie and a cat is that a cat only has nine lives.”


Answers
1. “The Boy Who Cried Wolf”
2. The Confidence Man
3. Iago
4. sex, lies, & videotape
5. They both dropped dead.
6. 1984
7. Sir Walter Scott
8. War
9. Peter the Apostle
10. fiction
11. His nose grows.
12. Fred Astaire
13. Mark Twain

BONUS: For a God’s-honest-true clue about the next quiz fill in the missing word in the title of this song by Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers:
“Why Do _____ Fall in Love?”

[Virgil]

Eek, I only got seven: 1, 3, 6, 9, 10, 11, 12. Good one Auntie. :)

[DickZ]

Thanks, Auntie, for all your efforts on these entertaining quizzes.

I got number 1 about The Boy Who Cried Wolf, mainly because I know so many people who do exactly the same thing as the boy and then they get upset when I fail to agree with them that the world is coming to an end again today just like it was yesterday and just like it was the day before that and just like it was the day before that and how come the hardships just never end for them?

I also got number 3 (Iago) thanks to the fact that my memory of the characters’ names from Othello is limited to just three (Othello, Iago, and Slyshock), which jacks up the probability of a correct guess from about 5% to about 38%.

I missed number 5 because I said they got interviewed by Donald Trump, which is pretty stupid on my part since Donald Trump wasn’t even in the Bible.

I got number 6 because I read that book once, and I was able to remember that even though it was several years before 1984 when I read it.

I missed number 7 because I could have sworn that the spider Charlotte said that.

I got number 8 just because I happened to remember that quote about truth being the first casualty of war. I think the news reporters always say that whenever a new war starts – and it applies to MSNBC whether there’s a war on or not.

I missed number 9 because I only know stuff about the Old Testament, since most of us Jews don’t know much stuff about the New Testament.

I got number 10 except that I feel guilty taking credit for it since I had no idea that Lord Byron said it first.

I got numbers 11 and 12, but I don’t really know why and besides, you probably don’t even care.

In summary, I got numbers 1, 3, 6, 8, 10, 11, and 12. I missed all the others.

And I know the answer of next week’s bonus question mainly because I know so many people who fall into that same category, despite the fact that some of them say I fall into that category as well. Of course, the ones who say that are total morons.

[qimissung]

I got 1,4,6,9,10,11,12, and 13 correct, and the bonus question-one of my favorite songs. Which means that I got 5 of the questions wrong-which is actually pretty good for me! :D

[AuntShecky]

Thanks Virgil, DickZ, and qimissung not only for taking the little
quiz but also for your most helpful comments!

[AuntShecky]

The answer to last week’s bonus question is: Fools.


National Poetry Month begins today. That it’s also April Fool’s Day is just a coincidence, right? Here are some lines from Alexander Pope (1688-1744):

“Sir, I admit your gen’ral rule
That every poet is a fool,
But you yourself may serve to show it,
That every fool is not a poet.”

Whether we write verse or not, today is a day when we're all susceptible to becoming victims of practical jokes, yet, according to Horace (65-8 B.C.) everybody should have a chance to let loose once in a while: “Mix a little foolishness in your serious plans.” That’s just fine for April 1, but now I've got to come up with an excuse for the remaining 364 days of the year! Meanwhile, to the quiz:

Fools Rush In

1. What’s the term for writing paper, usually 13 ½" by 16 ½," often yellow in color? The company which manufactured this stationery originally used a watermark in the shape of the kind of hat worn by jesters.

2. Derived from the Greek, what is the word often synonymous with a “wise fool,” i.e., immature and overconfident, like a certain student who has only limited experience?

3. The character of the Fool is said to represent Truth in which Shakespearean tragedy?

4. In ornithology, it refers to a coastal aquatic member of the Larinae subfamily; in Elizabethan and Restoration comedies, a stock character, usually a high-born gentleman who is easily duped. What’s the word?

5. By what name is the mineral pyrite more commonly known?

6. What would one call a fruitless enterprise or a trivial pursuit or a wild goose chase?

7. In 1975, Foolish Pleasure won which significant thoroughbred race for three-year-olds?

8. Name the English essayist (1561-1626) who noted that “Silence is the virtue of fools.”

9. A favorite – and evidently anonymous – quotation among lawyers is the line about a man who acts as his own attorney. What does he allegedly have?

10. Name the author from upstate New York noted for his 1993 novel, Nobody’s Fool.

11. What is the activity which Dr. Johnson (1709-1784) is credited with describing as having “a stick and a string with a worm at one end and a fool at the other”?

12. P. T. Barnum stole the line “You can fool all of the people some of the time and some of the people all of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time.” Who said it first?

13. And finally, name the humorist and novelist who said: “First the good Lord made idiots. Then, when he had achieved sufficient practice, he made school boards.”


Answers
1. Foolscap
2. Sophomore
3. King Lear
4. Gull (Mentioning it in The Tempest, V,i, Shakespeare also uses the word "geek." I kid you not!)
5. Fool’s gold
6. A fool’s errand
7. The Kentucky Derby
8. Francis Bacon
9. “A fool for his client.”
10. Richard Russo.
11. Fly-fishing. (Trout season opens today–another April Fool’s coincidence?)
12. Abraham Lincoln
13. Mark Twain. [Twain got a lot of mileage out of that one line, substituting “fools” for “idiots,” and other groups, such as printers or Congress(men) for “printers.]


Bonus question, containing a clue for the next quiz. Supply the missing word:
“There’s no fool like an ___ fool.” (Present company excepted, of course. . .ahem.)

[PabloQ]

I got 9 out of 13 on the Lies quiz, but boy did I take a beating on this one. I only got four (5, 7, 11, and 12). Yikes!!

[DickZ]

Thanks for another creative quiz, Auntie. I got numbers 1, 4, 5, 7, 9, 12, and 13 correct. You sure fooled me on all the others.

And I know answer to the bonus question.

[DickZ]

I got 9 out of 13 on the Lies quiz, but boy did I take a beating on this one. I only got four (5, 7, 11, and 12). Yikes!!
That must mean you're a bigger liar than you are a fool. Maybe that's a good thing - or maybe not.

[Niamh]

jeez i was pathetic with that one. :blush: only two!

[AuntShecky]

The answer to the previous bonus question is: old.

There’s an old saying that up here in my neck o’ the woods there are four seasons:Almost Winter, Winter, Still Winter, and Construction. Judging by the temperature outside, it’s Still Winter, though the calendar says Spring, when the fancy of a young man (and at least one old woman) turns to thoughts of. . .baseball!

What has the grand old game have to do with this week’s topic, especially when the demands of the big league necessarily define it as a “young man’s game?” Toward the end of his legendary career, the colorful Major League manager, Casey Stengel (1890-1975) was asked, given his longevity, how he was doing. Casey replied, “Not bad. Most people my age are dead. You could look it up.”

Similarly, no one really knew the exact chronological age of Leroy Robert “Satchel” Paige, who nonetheless might have been the greatest pitcher who ever lived. Satchel said, “I don't know how old I am because the goat ate the Bible that had my birth certificate in it. The goat lived to be twenty-seven.”

With that, let’s play ball!

Everything Old is New Again

1. Who or what is the whippersnapper whose age is estimated to be between three and five billion years old?

2. Oscar Wilde famously ridiculed the pathetic death of a character in an 1840 Dickens novel widely criticized for its excessive sentimentality. What was the title of the novel?

3. What is the collective name given to the group of great artists who flourished in Italy, Holland, and Belgium from the 13th through the 16th centuries?

4. In relatively recent years, a long-running Broadway musical was loosely based on a 1939 book of whimsical verse titled Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats. Who was the poet?

5. London’s “Old Vic” theatre was noted for its productions of whose plays?

6. If one uses the influence of one’s male relatives and close family friends in order to secure a plum position in the workplace, he is said to be connected to the “old” what?

7. By what term do scholars call the first five Books of the Old Testament?

8. The Old Maid is a 1924 novella from a collection titled Old New York by which American novelist?

9. It’s the title of 1595 satirical play by George Peele and a 1908 novel by Arnold Bennett, but we know it best as an expression referring to a superstitious belief to which many folks, especially older women cling. What’s the phrase?

10. Name the highly significant Irish poet who began a 1892 poem with the line:
“When you are old and grey and full of sleep”?

11. Of the few nursery rhymes for which we know the origin, which is the one which was written in the relatively recent date of 1805 and whose subject is an actual person who worked as a housekeeper in South Devon in England?

12. In a 1915 poem called “Sunday Morning” the speaker doubts whether the Resurrection on the first Easter ever took place, yet he exults in the glory of the natural world. Name this eminent American poet who composed the line “we live in an old chaos of the sun.”

13. And finally, it’s a sure “bet” that this song by Stephen Foster (1826-1864) is played at a famous sports venue on the first Saturday in May. What’s the title?



Answers:
1. The earth
2. The Old Curiosity Shop
3. The Old Masters
4. T. S. Eliot
5. Shakespeare
6. The Old Boy Network
7. Pentateuch
8. Edith Wharton
9. Old Wives’ Tale
10. Yeats
11. Old Mother Hubbard
12. Wallace Stevens
13. “My Old Kentucky Home”

This week’s bonus question, containing a clue about the next quiz topic, yadda-yadda-yadda:
Fill in the missing word in the title of the first volume of Isaac Asimov’s autobiography:
“In Memory Yet _____” (what?)

[DickZ]

Thanks for another great quiz, Auntie. I was afraid we wouldn’t have one this week since you probably do a big Easter celebration, and wouldn’t have the time to do this.

I was out of the gate in fantastic order by getting number 1 correct, even though it was partially a guess. While I’m hesitant to take credit for number 2, since I only knew that from something you had said long ago in response to something I said about the book whose title is the answer, I’ll go ahead and take credit since I actually read the book.

I came close on number 3, saying the Dutch Masters, even while recognizing that Italy isn’t really all that Dutch. So I won’t take any credit for that one – I was probably thinking about those cigars I smoked in my younger days.

As an incredible coincidence to question 4, just last night I was playing one of my Andrew Lloyd Webber CDs, and they were going through some of the highlights of Cats, which is one of my favorites. Well, the third time my brown tabby Eleanor heard the line “Was there ever a cat so clever as magical Mister Mistoffelees?” she went over and turned off my stereo. So I knew number 4 also. By the way, that’s Eleanor who appears in my profile.

I got number 5 also, because I used to read some of that guy Shakespeare’s stuff, but it’s been a long time. I should get back to his works before I forget everything I ever knew.

After missing number 6, I got number 7 even though I’m not actually a scholar.

I should have known number 8 because I’ve read a few of Edith Wharton’s books, but not that one, so I missed it.

I got number 9, just from the theme of the quiz, because I didn’t even know there were plays or novels with that title. I feel guilty taking credit, but I’m going to do just that.

I didn’t know number 10 at all. I should have gotten number 11 just from the theme of the quiz, but I didn’t.

I never heard of number 12, but I got number 13 because I sometimes watch that race you mentioned.

In summary, I got 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 9, and 13.

I hope you have a wonderful Easter, Auntie.

[AuntShecky]

Thank you, DickZ, and thanks for your detailed and witty
reply.

[PabloQ]

Well, I only missed numbers 3, 8, and 12. I guess if we use DickZ's logic from a previous post, I'm an old liar, which we can argue just might be better than an old fool. Thanks for another great quiz Auntie S and Happy Easter!!

[Virgil]

Oh I had missed the April Fools quiz. I got seven correct on that one: 2,3,5,6,7,9,12.

On the last one also go seven correct: 1,4,5,7,8,10,12.

There were a few I should have known in both.

[AuntShecky]

Thanks Pablo for taking this and all the other quizzes. Happy Easter to you as well -- and a belated congrats to NC for winning the NCAA.

And Virg, thank you too. Seven must be your lucky number. Next time you're @ a racecourse that's the one to play!

[AuntShecky]

The answer to the previous bonus question is: Green

Now that Earth Day is on the horizon, it’s interesting to note that the buzzword du jour – “green” – describes one who is environmentally conscious (and conscientious.) I wonder if this connotation is more or less arbitrary, other than the obvious fact that green is the color of natural phenomena: leaves, flower stems, and the legal variety of grass. Occasionally the word “green” doesn’t even mean green, as the rubric of Noam Chomsky’s famous line illustrates a sentence that is linguistically perfect while making no semantic sense at all: “Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.”

The English language is as just as alive as any frog awakening in an April pond, and since they are living things, words change constantly. For instance, today the word “transparent” has a positive quality, meaning to be willingly open to scrutiny, but not so long ago a “transparent” person meant one could see right through him. (Such is the trivia picked up by watching cable news shows. But if I never hear the word “counterintuitive” again I’ll be a happy woman.)

So far “green” can be either good or bad according to the context. When used to describe slime or mold, green can be nasty. Remember the scene from Neil Simon’s
The Odd Couple when Felix is shocked by what he finds in Oscar’s refrigerator? When the ultra-neat Felix asks his cleanliness-challenged roommate to identify
the disgusting leftover, Oscar shrugs and says: “It’s either very young cheese or very old meat.”

With that, to the quiz:

How Green Was My Auntie?

1. Who was the prominent American who began a short poem with the line “Nature’s first green is gold”?

2. What is the term to describe a tyro or an absolute beginner?

3. What were the legal tender notes first issued by the U.S. in 1862?

4. For a television series which ran between 1955 and 1960, Richard Greene portrayed this beloved character.
Who was this folk hero, who is, incidentally, usually clad
all in green?

5. Which 1943 Rogers and Hammerstein musical was based on Green Grow the Lilacs, a play by Lynn Riggs?

6. In Shakespeare’s Othello, what is meant by the phrase “the green-eyed monster?”

7. Who was the highly-regard British novelist-playwright-screenwriter (1904-1991) who wrote serious novels with religious themes (The Power and the Glory) as well as political thrillers and detective stories (The Quiet American and The Third Man)?

8. What did Eric the Red discover in 985?

9. In a 14th century poem, perhaps one of the finest in the English language, Sir Gawain manages to keep a cool head, so to speak. Who is the other main character
mentioned in the poem’s title?

10. In 1775 Ethan Allen led a band of Vermonters who rose up against British occupation. What is the nickname given to these intrepid revolutionaries?

11. A person who has a natural affinity for and success with gardening is said to have what?

12. What term refers to the backstage area where performers wait just before their cue to go on?

13. And finally, name the actor who famously proclaimed in a 1973 SF movie, “Soylent Green is people!”


Answers
1. Robert Frost
2. greenhorn
3. greenbacks
4. Robin Hood
5. Oklahoma!
6. Jealousy
7. Graham Greene
8. Greenland
9. The Green Knight
10. The Green Mountain Boys
11. A green thumb (or “green fingers”)
12. The Green Room
13. Charlton Heston

A clue for the next quiz can be found in this BONUS question:
Supply the missing word in the title of this 1923 e e cummings poem:
“All in green my love went______” (what?)

[Virgil]

I only got seven. I should have done much better on this. I'm upset at myself I didn't get Frost. I got these correct: 2,3,6,7,8,9,11.

[MissScarlett]

I got eight right: 2, 3, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12. I'm upset I didn't get Frost, too, because I've been studying him.

[DickZ]

Thanks for the quiz, Auntie, and for the time and effort you spend in composing these gems.

I must have gotten really lucky this time – even though I missed the first one, the only other one I missed was number 5. And I have read some Robert Frost works within the past year, and I just watched Oklahoma again about two weeks ago!

I have to admit a couple of them were lucky guesses – for example, I wouldn’t have gotten The Green Knight were it not for the theme of this quiz, and Charlton Heston was the only actor I could think of in Soylent Green, which I never actually saw.

[AuntShecky]

Thanks for taking the quiz, Virgil, and Miss Scarlett, don't beat yourself up for not getting the Robert Frost one. I had to look in every anthology I have until I found his poem, "Nothing Gold Can Stay. And Mr. Z:


. . . Charlton Heston was the only actor I could think of in Soylent Green, which I never actually saw.

You haven't missed anything, believe you me. The late
Phil Hartman once did a dead-on impression of Charlton emoting that line on SNL.

[AuntShecky]

The answer to the previous Bonus Question is: Riding


Whoever said “Getting there is half the fun” never had the experience of suffering through airport security or endless delays on the tarmac. Depending on the degree of convenience involved, travel can be either a pleasure or a pain in a certain region of the body.

Henry Ford’s right-hand man William Knudsen once explained the demand for the automobile thus: “Everybody wants to go from A to B sitting down.” Last year when the price of gasoline – to use the media’s pet verb - “skyrocketed” -- folks were sure to get their pictures in the local newspaper by getting to work or school via horseback. And if you ever become saddle sore, you won't feel like sitting down for a week.

Although the theme of this week’s jaunt concerns various modes of transportation, the great humorist Robert Benchley famously quipped that there were only two kinds of travel: first-class and with children. With that, let’s “go”— to the quiz:

Primp My Ride

1. This question would have fit the topic of an earlier quiz, but what is the title of Katherine Anne Porter’s only novel, as well as a 1494 allegorical work by Sebastian Brant?

2. “The Five Forty-Eight,” a taut short story taking place on a commuter train, was written by an American writer (1912-1982) known for uncovering the angst and guilt beneath suburban affluence. Who was he?

3. 1939 was a banner year for movies: Gone With the Wind, The Wizard of Oz, and this masterpiece
by John Ford. What was the title of this classic western?

4. Speaking of movies, there have been three filmed versions of this hit Broadway musical by Jerome Kern, all adapted from a novel by Edna Ferber. What is it called?

5. What was the highly-unusual mode of transport which Hannibal used to cross the Alps in the Second Punic War (ca. 218 BC)?

6. According to the History Channel, the multi-million dollar spectator sport NASCAR arose from a tradition born in the mountains of southeastern America. What was the whimsical name for the folks who souped up the engines of their vehicles in order to elude the “revenuers”?

7. What was the derogatory nickname for Henry Ford’s Model T, a metaphor that mixes a metal with a diminutive for a feminine name?

8. What is the title of William Inge’s bittersweet play, adapted into a 1956 movie which featured Marilyn Monroe in the finest performance of her career?

9. In the opening number of On the Town (Comden/Green/Bernstein),which mode of transport
is referred to in the line: "The people ride in a hole
in the ground?"

10. What was the transportation-related “day job” of Antoine de Saint-Exupery, author of Night Flight and The Little Prince ?

11. If you’re singing a certain traditional American folk song, what have you been doing “all the livelong day”?

12. What is the 1843 opera by Richard Wagner based on the legend of a Dutch ship captain doomed to wander around the Cape of Good Hope for all eternity, unless he can find a woman willing to sacrifice everything for his sake?

13. And finally, a week from Saturday is the day for the 135th running of the Kentucky Derby, the first leg of thoroughbred horse racing’s Triple Crown, which hasn't had a winner in thirty-one years. What was the name of the last Triple Crown winner?



Answers
1. Ship of Fools
2. John Cheever
3. Stagecoach
4. Showboat
5. Elephants
6. moon shiners
7. Tin Lizzie
8. Bus Stop
9. NYC subway system
10. Aviator (pilot)
11. “I’ve Been Workin’ on the Railroad”
12. The Flying Dutchman (Der Fliegende Hollander)
13. Affirmed

The theme for the next quiz can be found in the BONUS QUESTION:
Supply the missing word: In 1940, Lionel Hampton (1908-2002) was traveling on a airplane when he composed his signature song, “Flying ____” (what?)

[Wilde woman]

AuntShecky - your quizzes are great fun. Thanks for taking the time to compose them each week!

I only got five right - #5, 9, 11, 12, 13. Admittedly, the only one I knew for sure was 13, because I've never seen a Triple Crown and every year the hope is renewed.

[Virgil]

This was a tough one. I got only four: 1, 2, 5, 9.

By the way Hannibal only had a couple of dozen or so elephants. It wasn't like his whole arny was on elephants.

[DickZ]

Thanks for the quiz, Auntie. Your timing is great, as I just returned last evening from a five-day visit to my brother and sisters in Texas and actually experienced firsthand several of the transportation modes you covered in your quiz.

I got number 1, as I actually read that book, but I had no idea that it was her only novel. I wrote Ms. Porter a letter telling her how much I enjoyed the book, and cited several samples of what made it so great. She was kind enough to answer, but I wasn't smart enough to save her answer well enough to be able to find it now. I sure thought I had her letter in the book, which I still have, but the letter isn't there. It's hard to believe the book was published in 1962 - it seems almost like yesterday.

After missing numbers 2 and 3 (although I should have gotten 3), I was able to get numbers 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9. I wrongly guessed bus driver for number 10, but I got numbers 11, 12, and 13 right. I only knew the English version of 12, so I hope that's OK.

[PabloQ]

OK, I went back and took the Green one and I only missed the first question. I will admit that I totally guessed on question 5. Great quiz as always, Auntie.

[PabloQ]

10 of 13 on the Transportation, missing 2, 4, and 8. These are always so much fun. Keep them coming.

[AuntShecky]

Auntie (in quizmaster mode) -- Thanks Virgil, Wilde Woman,
Dick Z, and Pablo for playing our game.
I'd "tell you what you've won" viz a viz "parting gifts" but we're
all out of Lee Press-On Nails today. But I kid, I kid.
These things are fun to write.

[AuntShecky]

Previous bonus question answer: Home


“A man’s home,” so it’s oft said, “is his castle.” If that’s the case, where does that put the lady of the house?-- not, one certainly hopes, where Orson Bean, the erstwhile professional talk-show guest said to put her: “in the stove!”

Fortunately, the Women’s Liberation Movement changed all that. Now women have equal rights to a full day’s work – and to come home to another full day’s work.

Humans generally delegate housekeeping duties to the distaff side, but in the world of our feathered friends, gender roles are reversed. For instance, the male bower bird of Australia doesn't merely construct a home for his beloved – he becomes a veritable interior decorator, festooning the elaborate edifice of moss and twigs with feathers, flowers, pretty pebbles, and shells, all without the benefit of the latest issue of Better Nests and Gardens. Not only that, while the bower bird is busily prettifying the premises, he has to keep his eye out for predators – especially the ones hawking sub-prime mortgages.

With that, let’s make ourselves at home, have a cup of tea, and visit with the quiz:

“Dumbesticity”

1. According to the speaker in Frost’s “Death of the Hired Man, ” Home is the place that when you have to go there, “ what has to happen?

2. Who was the British poet whose 1845 poem, “Home-Thoughts from Abroad” begins, “Oh, to be in England now that April’s there?”

3. In 1922 an American poet known for his iconoclastic style wrote a more conventional, albeit harrowing, autobiographical novel called The Enormous Room. Who was he?

4. The ancient Romans gave their Lares and Penates sacred personalities; in modern times we may almost worship what the late George Carlin called our “stuff.” What are they?

5. What’s the title of the 1852 Dickens novel centered around a interminable court case called Jarndyce vs. Jarndyce?

6. Name the adventure novelist and poet who wrote these famous lines: “Home is the sailor home from the sea and the hunter home from the hill.”

7. What was the title of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s 1851 novel about a curse and its effect upon a spinster and her brother and their ingénue cousin and her sweetheart?

8. “You Can't Go Home Again” is advice one might want to take with the proverbial grain of salt, but it also serves as the title of a 1940 posthumous novel by a voluminous though brilliant American writer. Who was he?

9. It has nothing to do with the culinary skills of the concessionaires, but what is the term from sports slang referring to a team’s perceived advantage on its own turf, or possible preferential treatment by referees, or a cheerleader-like slant by the sportscasters calling the game?

10. Modern feminists adopted this 1892 American short story by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, in which the female narrator descends into madness before the reader’s eyes. What is the title?

11. Set in the home of a sea captain, this work is a powerful anti-war allegory which blames “apathy, confusion, and lack of purpose” as the sources for the world’s problems. What is the title of this poignant 1920 play by George Bernard Shaw?

12. Who wrote The Kitchen God’s Wife, an acclaimed 1991 novel which is a loving portrait of the experience of Chinese immigrants in California?

13. And finally, what’s the title of the perennially popular, 1964 rock classic by The Animals which contains the lyric, “It’s been the ruin of many a poor boy/ And God, I know, I'm one?”

Answers:

1. “They have to take you in.”
2. Robert Browning
3. e e cummings
4. Household gods
5. Bleak House
6. Robert Louis Stevenson
7. The House of the Seven Gables
8. Thomas Wolfe
9. “home cookin’ “
10. “The Yellow Wallpaper” (Not to be confused with the dying words of Ronald Firbank:
“Either that wallpaper has to go – or I do!”)*
11. Heartbreak House
12. Amy Tan
13. “The House of the Rising Sun”
*There is dispute about the source of this quotation. If this is important to you, please read
this:
http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?p=716649#post716649


A clue for the next quiz topic: What’s the subject of the most famous song by Howard Johnson (1887-1941) that begins “M is for the Many things she gave me?”

[DickZ]

Thanks for another clever quiz, Auntie. I didn’t do nearly as well as I have in the past few weeks, so I won’t think I am getting smarter any more.

I got number 2, mainly because I’ve always loved that poem, and I got number 6 for the same reason. I got number 7 because I read that book, although I didn’t really love it.

I was happy to get number 8, but I have only read Look Homeward, Angel. I plan someday to read the other Wolfe books, because he has such a gift with words. His stories aren’t all that great, but his words are so magnificent that they make the stories better than they would be otherwise. And he has an uncanny ability to come up with such intriguing titles.

And I got number 9, because I’m a big baseball fan and the announcers use the term so often, as you explained.

In summary, I got numbers 2, 6, 7, 8, and 9, which isn’t even going to win me a set of press-on nails.

But I do know the answer to the bonus question.

[Wilde woman]

I did slightly better this week - 7 correct. I got #2, 4, 5 (but only because of this week's theme...I'm not a Dickens fan), 7, 9, 10, and 12.

Oh, and "dumbesticity" made me laugh. I love it! Where do you come up with this stuff? Props to you, Auntie.

[Virgil]

Previous bonus question answer: Home


“A man’s home,” so it’s oft said, “is his castle.” If that’s the case, where does that put the lady of the house?-- not, one certainly hopes, where Orson Bean, the erstwhile professional talk-show guest said to put her: “in the stove!”

Fortunately, the Women’s Liberation Movement changed all that. Now women have equal rights to a full day’s work – and to come home to another full day’s work.


Don't I know it. And more importantly my wife knows it. I ain't no King in this castle. :lol:

I'm in a slump. I've been in a slump for the last few. I only got five this time: 7, 8, 10, 12, 13. Though I think I want to protest number nine. I said "home field advantage" which I think fits as well.

[AuntShecky]

Thanks for playing our game, Wilde Woman, and Virgil, number nine is fine-- you had the word "home" in yr. answer

[Virgil]

Oh good. So now I got six right. :D

[PabloQ]

Maybe I should run away from "home". First, I have to cringe when I see poets and lines from poems. Unless it's Dr. Seuss, chance are it's a swing and a miss or I'm just guessing. I too will take credit for "home field advantage". So give me 6 on the old scoreboard. 5,7,8,9,12, and 13. Yikes!!

[AuntShecky]

Previous topic clue: Mother


Ah, motherhood!– ranks right up there with baseball and apple pie. According to Oscar Wilde, “All women become their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That’s his.”

Then we have the notorious Philip Wylie, whose
devastating diatribe, A Generation of Vipers
blamed “Momism” for the emasculation of America. In addition of being guilty of every kind of character flaw you could possibly imagine, “Mom”
he says is “the bride at every funeral and the corpse at every wedding.” In the 1955 edition Wylie back-pedaled a little, insisting that, of course, he hadn't meantevery middle-aged woman,but by then the damage had been done.

The more traditional view of Mother, however, depicts her in a more endearing and elegant way. You might remember learning in your high school Latin class about Cornelia of the Gracchi. A rich matron visits Cornelia’s domicilium and after haughtily brandishing her bling-bling, demands of Cornelia, “Now let me see your jewels.” At that very moment, Cornelia’s two sons enter the room and Cornelia replies, “These are my jewels.” If your mother is anything at all like Cornelia, you've got it knocked!

Stop crying! And don't throw those tissues on my clean floor! What were you, born in a barn? This is the thanks I get for working my fingers to the bone! You'd better watch your step, or I'll send you to bed without any quiz!

Mom’s the Word

1. Imagine a relationship so shocking that Freud names a complex after it! Who is the protagonist in the drama by Sophocles who is destroyed by a revelation about the woman who is his “old lady” (in more ways than one)?

2. What is the term for the main part of a computer that contains the circuitry for the central processing unit, the keyboard, and monitor?

3. In the 8th century Anglo-Saxon epic, the hero Beowulf confronts this monster in an underwater wrestling match before ultimately beheading her with a magic sword. Who is she?

4. By what name are nursery rhymes, as well as Charles Perrault’s 1697 book of fairy tales, Contes de Ma Mère l’Oye, more commonly known?

5. What is the inner iridescent layer of the shells of many bivalve mollusks, especially that of a certain species of oyster?

6. She always said that she didn't tell jokes, just the facts. Yet she was a great influence on all who followed her, including Richard Pryor and Whoopi Goldberg. Who was the very first Black American stand-up comedienne (1894-1975)?

7. Known for his collages, who was the artist (1915-1991) who was a pioneer in Abstract Expressionism?

8. Katherine Hepburn created a film portrayal of this queen (1122-1204) whose sons included Richard I and King John. Who was she?

9. What was the title of Bertolt Brecht’s 1939 antiwar play about an itinerant peddler and her family on the battlefields of the Thirty Years War?

10. According to legend, she found the relics of the True Cross. According to history, she was the mother of Constantine, the Roman emperor who converted to Christianity in the year 313. Who was she?

11. To which Shakespearean character are these lines addressed?: “Seems, Madam! I know not ‘seems’. . .’Tis not above my inky cloak, good mother. . .that can denote me freely.”

12. Having coined the term “the Lost Generation,” this influential writer (1874-1946) almost played the role of mother hen to expatriates in Paris following WWI. She also wrote the libretto for a Virgil Thompson opera, The Mother of Us All. Who was she?

13. And finally, who is the titular subject of the Ernie K-Doe song that includes the line: “If she'd leave us alone, I'd have a happy home?”


Answers
1. Oedipus
2. Motherboard
3. Grendel’s mother
4. Mother Goose
5. Mother-of-pearl
6. Jackie “Moms” Mabley
7. Robert Motherwell
8. Eleanor of Aquitaine
9. Mother Courage and Her Children
10. St. Helena
11. Gertrude (Mother of Hamlet)
12. Gertrude Stein
13. “Mother-in-Law”

A clue for the next topic is the missing word in the title of the 1961 surrealistic World War II spy novel by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr (1922-2009) as well as the 1996 movie adaptation starring Nick Nolte:
Mother _____.

[Niamh]

1,2,3,5,9, 11

[Nightshade]

I got 7 :banana: 1,2,3,4,5,8,11

[Wilde woman]

I did well this week - 9/13. I got 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 10, 11, and 12 right. I had fun with this week's quiz.

For #8, that brought back wonderful memories of watching The Lion in Winter in my humanities class as a high school freshman. Amazing movie.

And yes, Cornelia. The story you told is the only thing I remember from my Latin class! :lol:

[Virgil]

I got seven again. That seems to be my most frequent number. Correct were: 1, 2, 3, 4, 8, 11. 12.

Oh Happy Mother's Day to all our wonderful mothers here. :)

[DickZ]

Thanks for the entertaining and clever quiz, Auntie.

I started out like gangbusters, getting the first six right, but then cooled off by missing 7-10. Had a slight comeback, getting 11 and 12 correct. So I got a total of 8, which is much better than I did last week.

And Happy Mother's Day to you and all the other mothers out there. I know that besides being an aunt, you're also a mother.

[Virgil]

And Happy Mother's Day to you and all the other mothers out there. I know that besides being an aunt, you're also a mother.

Oh is Aunty a mother? I didn't know that. Happy Mother's Day then Aunty. :)

[Wilde woman]

Yes, Happy Mother's Day, Auntie!

[qimissung]

yes, I'm a little late, but I got 1-6,9 and 12. I missed 7,8,10,11 and 13.

[AuntShecky]

Answer to previous clue: “Night”

Regarding the subject of “embarrassing moments,” when it applies to yours truly here have been hundreds -- with doubtlessly many more to come. I still blush nevertheless when I think of EM #849, which occurred over a quarter of a century ago. The workplace was closing for the weekend, and I asked one of my colleagues if she had a heavy date scheduled for that evening. “Not tonight,” she replied. “My boyfriend works on Friday nights.” “Oh?” I said, “what is he, a bartender?” “No,” she answered, as her smile disappeared. “He’s a rabbi.”

I have sympathy for people who have to tweak the natural human circadian rhythm in order to work nights. Speaking of “night shifts,” I wonder from where the expression “lobster shift"came. What is it about lobsters that they are the marine version of night owls? Unlike nocturnal crustaceans, species of fish must be morning people,especially on “school” nights.

Some folks shine with the sun; others find their element when the stars come out – (and if you see a Hollywood star before noon, it’s more likely he or she is heading home rather than heading out.) Me, I'm not particular – I can sleep any time of the day or night. No Ambien necessary. Just prop me in a chair in front of a televised Atlanta Braves game, and I'm stacking up zzzz’s quicker than a Congressman at a health care committee meeting. Listen, when you get to be my age, you'll see the truth in the words of Yogi Berra:

“It Gets Late Early”

1. What’s the word for a painting of a night scene, or in music, an evening song?

2. In a 1955 movie, Robert Mitchum plays a menacing preacher. What’s the title of this, the only film ever directed by British actor Charles Laughton?

3. According to F. Scott Fitzgerald, “In the dark night of the soul, it’s always. . .”(what?)

4. Which playwright (1911-1983) wrote the 1961 drama, The Night of the Iguana?

5. Identify the title and the creator of these lines: “Day and night/Under the hide of me/There’s oh such a yearning, burning down deep inside of me.”

6. Broadcast between 1956 and 1984, what was one of television’s oldest daytime dramas?

7. Who wrote the most famous villanelle in English, “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night”?

8. Name the song from West Side Story which stops the show with its breathtaking four-part harmony and which shares its title with America’s oldest late night talk show.

9. Who was the Romantic poet who wrote “Ode to a Nightingale”?

10. Name the “visionary” title of a 1948 film noir or its more familiar theme song that became a jazz standard for Horace Silver, Sonny Stitt, and John Coltrane, as well as pop hits for Bobby Vee and for the Carpenters.

11. What is the informal name for the collection of stories featuring such fabulous creations as a flying carpet and a stone door which opens only with a secret magic word?

12. What is the Shakespearean play whose dramatis personae include a duke named Orsino, Sir Toby Belch, a Puritan named Malvolio, and Feste, a clown?

13. And finally-- since this is the World Wide Web where spelling apparently doesn't count-- which National Leaguer was the Most Valuable Player in the 1986 World Series?


Answers:
1. Nocturne
2. The Night of the Hunter
3. “three o’clock in the morning.”
4. Tennessee Williams
5. “Night and Day” by Cole Porter
6. The Edge of Night
7. Dylan Thomas (Score no points if you said “Bob Dylan”)
8. “Tonight”
9. Keats (Give yourself half-credit if you said “Shelley.” Who doesn't confuse those two guys?)
10. “The Night Has a Thousand Eyes.”
11. A Thousand and One Arabian Nights
12. Twelfth Night
13. NY Mets third baseman Ray Knight

Clue for next quiz topic:
Decades before James Cameron’s blockbuster, Titanic, Walter Lord (1917-2002) published his book about the tragedy, A Night to _______(What?)

[Virgil]

I got seven. Maybe I'm coming out of my slump. I got 4,5,7,9,11,12,13. (I should have known numbers 1 and 8).

I've never heard of the "lobster shift." In my dealings with factories in my career, the 12AM to 8AM shift has always been reffered to as the "graveyard shift."

[DickZ]

Thanks, Auntie, for the clever quiz, and for working Yogi Berra's classic line into it.

I got numbers 4, 7, 8, 11, and 13 correct, and will take you up on your offer for half credit on 9 since I’m like Marilyn Monroe in that she lamented how hard it was to distinguish Sheets from Kelly.

Number 13 was quite painful though, since I’m a Red Sox fan and we lost that series to the Mets in 1986.

I loved your bonus question, because my father gave me the Walter Lord book in 1956.

[Wilde woman]

Just prop me in a chair in front of a televised Atlanta Braves game, and I'm stacking up zzzz’s quicker than a Congressman at a health care committee meeting.

Haha! For me, it's golf. Every time my grandpa puts that on, I fall asleep. When I wake up on the couch, my grandpa is then inevitably asleep with the golf still running on TV. Which begs the question....why do we watch golf??? :lol:

I got 7 correct on this week's quiz...not as good as last week. :(

Got #1 (thanks Chopin!), 5, 7, 8, 9, 11, and 12.

I, for one, like Keats a lot better than Shelley.

[AuntShecky]

Clue from previous quiz: “Remember”

In the emotion-laden days following the tragedies occurring in the United States of America in 2001, officials proposed that the eleventh of September be declared a National Holiday. After a few cursory mentions, the matter was dropped and perhaps that is a good thing. For the first few years, commemorations of the fateful date would undoubtedly consist of prayer services or secular ceremonies. A short time later it would deteriorate into a less solemn occasion.

Some Americans might consider the day off from school or work as an opportunity to take advantage of the fine weather in late summer. Armed with festive fare and beer, they'd head for the beaches, parks, or the campgrounds armed with festive fare and beer. The increase in traffic, along with intoxicated drivers, might cause a spike in motor vehicle accidents.

In time, the poignant significance of the date itself will yield to the appeal of the three day weekend, and the official holiday will be moved to the Monday after Labor Day. The inevitable picnicking and partying will gradually shed the unseemly appearance of impropriety. Discount stores and malls will advertise special sales, and the day itself most likely would topped off with fireworks.

Don't shake your head and cluck your tongue at this scenario -- it’s exactly what happened to Memorial Day.

All seriousness aside, let’s go to the quiz:

1. In the doo-wop era, The Five Satins added the parenthetical phrase, “I Remember” on the label of their recording of a tune to distinguish it from a Cole Porter standard. What’s the title which both songs share?

2. The subjective experience of memory as well as an analysis of the nature of love are just two of the themes in a 16-volume work written by a prominent French novelist who called it “In Search of Lost Time.” Name the title and author of this monumental work.

3. Who is the prominent artist (1899-1977) perhaps best known for the novel Lolita who also wrote a memoir of childhood called Speak, Memory?

4. A mental trick employed to help one’s memory (which upon typing this term might send the Spell-Check into overdrive) is called what kind of device?

5. In his role of Pruitt, a soldier serving in Pearl Harbor on the days prior to and including December 7, 1941, Montgomery Cliff plays a particularly poignant bugle solo of “Taps.” Name this award-winning 1953 film based on a novel with the same title.

6.What was the long-running series from the so-called “Golden Age of Television” which starred Peggy Wood as the matriarch of a family of Scandinavian immigrants?

7. Who was the British poet who wrote “In Memoriam,” a long poem written between 1833-1850 that is described as one of the “finest elegies in the English language”?

8. Remade in 1994, name the original 1957 movie, a “weepie” starring Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr as lovers daunted but not defeated by ill luck.

9. Which Shakespearean character wanders around in a confused state while gathering wildflowers -- one of which, Rosemary, is known for “remembrance”?

10. Which centenarian songwriter/pianist (1883-1983) co-wrote the song, “Memories of You”?

11. Name the American novelist (b. 1915) honored last fall by the Library of Congress and who wrote the 1978 work, War and Remembrance, upon which a successful miniseries was based.

12. In Stardust Memories, a 1980 semi-autobiographical work, an extraterrestrial creature offers this advice: “You want to do mankind a service? Tell funnier jokes.” Who was the director as well as the star of this movie?

13. And finally, the mishaps of a Midwestern boy preparing for and attending his high school prom provide the content for Wanda Hickey’s Night of Golden Memories, created by which prominent American humorist (1921-1999)?


Answers
1. “In the Still of the Night”
2. Remembrance of Things Past, Marcel Proust
3. V. Nabokov
4. Mnemonic
5. From Here to Eternity
6. I Remember Mama
7. Alfred Lord Tennyson
8. An Affair to Remember
9. Ophelia
10. Eubie Blake*
11. Herman Wouk
12. Woody Allen
13. Jean Shepherd

Clue for the next quiz topic can be found in the missing word in this title of a 1935 song by Rodgers and Hart: “It’s Easy to Remember and So Hard to (What?)”

*Someone is going to read this quiz with all its old timey references and think that the author is a centenarian herself. I'm not – though I don't doubt that I look it.

[Nightshade]

annoyingly, I only got 1 (number 9) , oh I knew several of the other ones but I just couldnt think of the answer :rolleyes:

[Wilde woman]

Hi Auntie,
Fun times as always. I got 6 this week - 2, 3, 4, 7, 8, and 9. Oh, I just realized I got the bonus question from last week too!

By the way, the Tennyson poem is one of my favorites. Very moving.


*Someone is going to read this quiz with all its old timey references and think that the author is a centenarian herself.

Haha! Oh Aunty...you're only as old as you feel. And judging by the energy and effort you put into your quizzes, you're quite young indeed. :nod: I will say, though, that many of the movies you reference are before my time.

[ShoutGrace]

Auntie,

I've been ignorant of this thread from the time of its inception, and have only just discovered it. What fun it is! The content of these quizzes is interesting and varied, but I most appreciate the introductions, which are so very clever and subtle.

You have a talent. I wish I had even a smidgen of the creativity exhibited by yourself and others here at LitNet.

As for this quiz, I was able to answer questions 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 9, 11, and 12.

[AuntShecky]

Thank you, ShoutGrace and Nightshade, and Wilde Woman, but WW, do you have cable and if you do, do you ever watch Turner Classic Movies? Some of the old films really creak (like me bones!) but some of them are really "classic." You owe it to yourself to see the original From Here to Eternity.

[Virgil]

Oh my God, I'm getting worse. I know nothing of movies. I only got three: 2,3,4. I can't believe I got Ophelia wrong. I had said King Lear. He wandered the country side too. I am really stinking lately. :D

[Nightshade]

not so bad really virgil, I thought lear in the first minute ( I guess because people have been discussing lear on the litnet :idea: ) but there is a whole thing about the rosemerry and I wrote an essay on it at aschool so it hit me pretty quick.

[DickZ]

Thanks, Auntie, for the quiz and for remembering the true meaning of Memorial Day. Very few people do that anymore. If we have any current or former servicemen in this forum, thank you for your service.

I had no idea of the first question, even though I’m old enough to have known it, but I knew about Proust’s work – just not well enough to know it was that many volumes, or that it had another title. So I missed the first two.

Then I got hot – I remember Lolita, but none of the other Nabakov books. Besides, he’s in lots of crossword puzzles.

And don’t get me going on mnemonic devices. I know HOMES for the names of the Great Lakes and there’s another one for remembering the colors of the spectrum, but I always forget what it is. And then there was the one I learned in school for the cabinet succession to the US presidency that was called ST DAPIACL back then in the early days, but now there are so many more cabinet departments that they probably can’t come up with an acronym for the succession anymore.

I didn’t watch the TV series I Remember Mama, but I knew about it. However, I watched the movie of the same name, on which the TV series was based, so I got that one too.

I knew the writer of In Memoriam, and I even think I know the name of the person for whom it was written – his initials are AH but it’s not Alexander Hamilton, nor is it Andy Hardy.

The movie you described for number 8 is one of my favorites, so I had no trouble with that one, either.

It didn’t hit me until AFTER I saw the name Ophelia in your answers that Ophelia was out picking flowers after her major trauma, so I can’t say I got that one. But I should have.

And then I missed the last four as well. I knew 11 was either Wouk or Uris, but I went with Uris.

I’m almost embarrassed to say that the only Jean Shepherd work I’m familiar with is A Christmas Story.

So I got 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8.

[Virgil]

not so bad really virgil, I thought lear in the first minute ( I guess because people have been discussing lear on the litnet :idea: ) but there is a whole thing about the rosemerry and I wrote an essay on it at aschool so it hit me pretty quick.

Thanks Nightie. I was averaging seven to nine correct, but lately I can't seem to break five. And this time only three. I haven't read Hamlet in a bit so perhaps that's why I forgot Ophelia. Definitely remember the rosemary quote. However I don't remember her wondering the countryside. That's what threw me.

Hey special hello to Shoutgrace. Perhaps now that he's discovered Auntie's quiz of the week, he'll drop by for them. :)

[AuntShecky]

Thanks, Auntie, for the quiz and for remembering the true meaning of Memorial Day. Very few people do that anymore. If we have any current or former servicemen in this forum, thank you for your service.

I second that!
I had no idea of the first question, even though I’m old enough to have known it. . .
If you get a chance, go to YouTube (not that I'm promoting that site, nor that it needs any promotion.) But that's the site where you might find "In the Still of the Night" by the original Five Satins. Love that tune, but Cole Porter's song of the same name is one of the most
beautiful ever composed in America.

And don’t get me going on mnemonic devices.
there was the one I learned in school for the cabinet succession to the US presidency that was called ST DAPIACL
A new one on me! I'll have to jot it down and try to remember it.
I knew the writer of In Memoriam, and I even think I know the name of the person for whom it was written – his initials are AH but it’s not Alexander Hamilton, nor is it Andy Hardy.
I've got the book in front of me, and I see that "A.H.H." was Arthur Henry Hallam, Tennyson's bff as well as the intended of Tennyson's sister, Emily. Tragically, AHH passed away before the marriage could take place.


So I got 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8.

Thanks so much for taking the quiz, DickZ. I can't tell you how much I appreciate it.
Auntie

[AuntShecky]

Virgil, thanks for taking the quiz. I can see where "wandering the countryside" might make somebody think of King Lear.

Also, there's a case to be made for not watching movies, especially the ones being produced at present --all sequels and remakes!

[Wilde woman]

but WW, do you have cable and if you do, do you ever watch Turner Classic Movies? Some of the old films really creak (like me bones!) but some of them are really "classic." You owe it to yourself to see the original From Here to Eternity.

I wish I had cable, but alas I'm a poor college student. My boyfriend has a huge collection of movies so if we watch any classics, it's because he has them readily available. The last one I saw was La Dolce Vita. Beautiful!

Come to think of it, the only reason I got An Affair to Remember was because one of my favorite singers redid the song recently and I was inspired to watch the movie.

[qimissung]

I only got 2, 3, 6, 9, 12, and 13. Oh well. (discouraged sigh) O.K. now I'm ready for the next one!

[AuntShecky]

Previous quiz clue: Forget

Maybe you've seen the television commercial that begins with a guy trying to reset his home alarm system. He’s standing in front of the key pad and yells, “Honey, what’s the code? “ then adding, “No, I don't know your mother’s birthday!”

In just a few seconds the ad presents the age-old Battle of the Sexes in microcosm. Men, of course, are from Mars, while women are from the grocery store, the PTA meeting, and the school soccer field. Adult males are single-minded (in more ways than one.) Because women use both sides of the brain, they're natural multitaskers. They can have their eye on the big picture, as well as on all the little details. And those details are where the devil is.

This is why a wife may temporarily forget where she left her car keys, but in the space of a nanosecond, she may resurrect a personal affront from the distant past, such as that night in 1989 when her hubby stayed out to 2:30 am without calling. The incident may be forgiven (but will never, ever be forgotten.) It will stay carved in her memory long after Mt. Rushmore tumbles to the ground.

H. H. Munro (1870-1916), the frequent anthologized tale-spinner better known as Saki observed, “Women and elephants never forget an injury.” But there is a crucial different between women and elephants – our skin is much, much thinner.”

So, before it slips my mind, let’s go to the quiz:

Aw, Forget It!

1. Though known for his adventure stories and narrative poems set in India, who wrote the solemn “Recessional,” which contains the phrase “Lest we forget?”

2. What was the term for the characters in The Odyssey, who when they ate of a certain tree, forgot their family and friends and the desire to return to their homeland?

3. In his campaign speeches and later “Fireside Chats” Franklin Delano Roosevelt frequently used a three word phrase to describe the ordinary, hard-working, and decent American citizen. What was this famous phrase, coined by an American sociologist in 1932?

4. The literary source for the 1975 adventure movie
The Land that Time Forgot originated with an author most famous for Tarzan of the Apes, created in 1914. Who was this writer?

5. According to German legend, the hyphenated name for this flower was the last words uttered by a knight who had drowned while trying to pick a bouquet of them on a riverbank for his lady love. What are these prolific yet delicate little blossoms called?

6. She was born in Maine, lived the high life in Greenwich Village, and was buried at an upstate New York writer and artist’s colony that bears her name. One of her poems deviates from her usually joyous themes, in which a mother has the unenviable task of breaking the bad news to her children that their father has died. Who wrote this poem, “Lament,” which ends with the lines: “Life goes on./ I forget just why.”

7. Homer may have documented the first example of a drug used as a medicine, in this case nepenthe, an opium derivative, given to Telemachus to relieve his grief. The translated passage reads: “Presently she cast a drug into the wine. . .to bring forgetfulness of every sorrow.” The gal who administered the dose evidently had nurturing skills as well as drop-dead beauty. Who was she?

8. On Father’s Day in 1991, Natalie Cole released a pop album in which she sang duets with her late father, through the miracle of reel-to-reel master tapes recorded decades earlier. The title track of the new album was Nat King Cole’s signature song. What was it?

9. Name the German psychiatrist who at the turn of the twentieth century identified a generative disease usually found in -- but not limited to – the elderly, of which the first symptom is severe memory loss.

10. Found in television studios and hidden in the podiums for major political speeches, this is the electronic equivalent of the “cue card,” to help performers remember their lines. What is this high tech gizmo called?

11. According to Alexander Pope, these waters tend “to blunt the sense” of departed souls. What is the river in Hades whose name means “forgetfulness?”

12. Overly employed as a plot device in many a TV soap opera, what is the one-word term for total loss of memory, caused by brain injury, emotional shock, or injury?

13. And finally, what was the 2008 cute but featherweight romantic comedy starring Jason Segel as a musician who attempts to lose his troubles in Hawaii after his girlfriend dumps him?


Answers
1. Kipling
2. The Lotus-Eaters
3. The Forgotten Man
4. Edgar Rice Burroughs
5. Forget-me-not
6. Edna St. Vincent Millay (No credit for “Edna St. Louis Missouri,” unless you're Stan Freberg.)
7. Helen of Troy
8. “Unforgettable”
9. Alois Alzheimer (Extra credit for announcers who pronounce his last name the same way three times in a row.)
10. TelePrompTer
11. Lethe
12. Amnesia
13. Forgetting Sarah Marshall

Sources:
The Mind by Richard M. Restak (#7 and #9)
Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (#2,#3, #5, and #11.)
Usual suspects, the World Wide Web, anthologies, dictionaries, and other reference materials (#1,#4, #6,
#8, #10, #12, and #13.)

Next quiz topic in the missing word in this passage from Proverbs:
“Let him _____(?) and forget his poverty and remember his misery no more.”

[Taliesin]

Got 2 , 4(I read the Tarzan-tales when I was around eight - I just loved them. I'd rather not touch them again and spoil my childhood memories), 5,9 (my grandfather had it and yes, I can pronounce it three times in a row),11 and 12. Half right- not bad, I guess.
Tended to get the Greek mythology ones right, although I thought the person who gave Telemachus drugs was Penelope.

[Nightshade]

1, 4, 5, 7, 9, , 11, 12, 13.

8!!:banana:

I knew 2 was began with an L and I even thought anicent egypt but I kept getting Opium poppy :rolleyes:

[Virgil]

Still strugglineg. I got six: 1, 2, 8, 9, 10, 12. I was thinking the river styx and Athena instead of Helen.

[ShoutGrace]

Hey special hello to Shoutgrace. Perhaps now that he's discovered Auntie's quiz of the week, he'll drop by for them. :)

Hi Virgil :). I don't think I'll be able to resist!

For this quiz I got questions 1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 9, 10, and 12 correct.

I was able to get the first question out of a basic understanding of Kipling.

I was able to get the second because I once read a study guide for Ulysses, and "The Lotus Eaters" was the only segment of The Odyssey having anything to do with eating, as I recall.

I'm not sure when exactly I learned of Edgar Burroughs, but I do recall one of my uncles encouraging me to read the Tarzan books sometime in grade school (he had fond memories of reading them when he was young).

I wanted badly to get question 5, because I'd actually learned that story previously, but couldn't recall it.

I guessed Edna St. Vincent Millay for question 6, but now I'm curious; are the themes in her poems typically "joyous"? The poems of hers which I've read have tended to be reflective and serious, sometimes even disconsolate ...

As for question 7, "drop dead beauty" was too conspicuous - I didn't remember that particular incident, but had to guess Helen.

As for question 9, it is funny, I never thought of the word "Alzheimer" as being German, which it so clearly is.

I too guessed Styx for question 11. Although I remember reading about Lethe, I think, in Milton's poem Lycidas.



Thanks Auntie for another entertaining quiz!

[DickZ]

Thanks for another wonderful quiz, Auntie. I don’t know how you come up with these on such a regular and frequent basis, because they are so much more than just a series of questions. You obviously put a lot of care and thought into the quizzes.

I successfully tackled number 1, remembering (even though sometimes I forget) the story about the person who was asked “Do you like Kipling?,” to which he replied “I don’t know; I’ve never kippled.” I also got number 2 – it’s one of the few things from The Odyssey that I can still remember, even though I've never eaten any lotus, as far as I know.

And I got number 3, having recently read a fantastic book by Amity Shlaes. The title of that book coincidentally happens to be the answer to your question. This is a very well-written account of activity intended to get us out of the Great Depression, and the people who are supposed to be designing our current economic recovery effort would be very wise to read Ms. Shlaes’ excellent book.

I got numbers 4 and 5, even though I misspelled Burroughs (I left out one of the Rs), so I hope you won’t hold that against me since I really didn’t even have to tell you that and you wouldn’t have had any way of knowing it if I had kept my mouth shut.

I missed number 6 outright, and I should have gotten numbers 7 and 8, but I didn’t. For number 9, I only knew his last name but since you didn’t say both names were required, I’ll take credit for this one.

Anyone who watches the news these days should get number 10 because it’s much discussed, and I do so I did.

The only river from mythology that I know is called Sticks, or something like that, so I missed number 11.

I guess I watch too many TV soap operas, because it took me no time at all to come up with number 12. I never heard of number 13.

So in summary, I got 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 9, 10, and 12.

[AuntShecky]

Taliesin, Nightshade, Virgil, Shoutgrace, and DickZ:
Your astute and learned (accent on the "ed") responses to my little quiz make the effort worthwhile. Thanks.

[AuntShecky]

I guessed Edna St. Vincent Millay for question 6, but now I'm curious; are the themes in her poems typically "joyous"? The poems of hers which I've read have tended to be reflective and serious, sometimes even disconsolate ...



She's famous for "burning the candle at both ends," remember? Also, spending an all-nighter riding back and forth on the ferry. The first line of one her poems reads: "We were very merry." The Reader's Encyclopedia says: "Her second volume of poems,A Few Figs from Thistles, celebrated Bohemian life, love and moral freedom with lyrical gaiety and freshness."

"Renascence" is quite serious and philosophically astute for someone as young as Edna was when she wrote it in 1917. About a dozen years or so ago, I was in Camden ME where I saw the "hills" above the bay which inspired some of the images in that poem.

Her mother evidently supported her poetic ambitions, which was atypical for the era in which she lived (1892-1950.) A resident of Rockport where Edna was born told me that she wasn't really a victim of an overly-severe upbringing. There is a legend about how once during winter their kitchen floor had been flooded and froze and that the kids actually ice skated there! I don't know about the family's financial status, but it couldn't been too bleak, as Edna graduated from Vassar, which was expensive even then.

I've visited the Millay colony, but it's seldom referred to its original name of "Steepletop." From what I can gather, the place is doing better than "The Mount," Edith Wharton's estate which is just over the state border in MA. The administrators of Wharton's estate are asking for financial bailouts. (Not that there's anything wrong w. that.)