Thanks for the quiz, Auntie. I got numbers 3, 5, 7, 8, and 10.
Printable View
Thanks for the quiz, Auntie. I got numbers 3, 5, 7, 8, and 10.
Thanks for taking the quiz,DickZ. I had qualms about question #2, and had to go back and edit it -- wrong date!
But early this morning I saw an ad for Sting's new album, and he was singing that very song in the commercial! I guess that's what they used to say in the early days of Saturday Night Live: what a "Coinky-Dinky!"
Hope you --and anyone who happens to pass by this thread-- will get a chance to read that Time magazine article, "Boo,Humbug."
Oh, and what a fabulous poem that Ferlinghetti one is! It's encompasses childhood, sex, adolescence, the passing of time, and death in just a few highly accessible lines! Wow. You could
find the complete poem on line here:
http://www.litkicks.com/FerlinghettiSeeger/
And confidentially, if my question earlier this week hasn't worn you to a "Frazz"le the answer appears in today's comic strip. I can't believe I was actually right for a change, though it took a couple o' days to figure out the answer!
Among the volumes of rich stories about the Immigrant Experience, we have to include one Vladimir Alexandrovich Dukelsky. Although his family was connected to the Russian aristocracy, Vladimir may have been “a dreamer with empty hands who sighed for exotic lands.” He was still a teenager when his family arrived on these shores in 1921. A classical music prodigy since the age of 11, he developed both an interest in popular music and a friendship with none other than George Gershwin, who suggested the Americanized handle “Vernon Duke.” From then on until his death in 1969, Vladimir kept the “Dukelsky” for his classical charts and gigs, but it was “Vernon Duke” who in 1934 composed the classic American song: “Autumn in New York” with its bittersweet melody and words like this: “glittering clouds/and shimmering clouds/in canyons of steel./ They’re making me feel/ I’m home.”
Vernon Duke wrote his own lyrics for “Autumn in New York,” but he often teamed up with other lyricists, notably Yip “The Wizard of Oz” Harburg for “April in Paris.” Needless to say, Vernon got great mileage out of songs about and cities. Fortunately though, he didn’t buy into the “CSI” formula; otherwise we’d have such ditties as “September in Sandusky,” “October in Omaha,” and “Natchitoches in November.”
By now you may have guessed this week’s topic from the Duchess of Cornball : each q and/or a has something to do with the fall season and/or the Big Apple. Even without Vernon Duke’s gem, autumn is the season most associated with New York. For instance, when we watch the yearly telecast of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, we can see brightly colored leaves still attached to the trees lining 34th Street. And if we want to see something “fall,” all we have to do is go down to Wall Street and get a gander at the economy.
So before somebody bundles me up and hides me in a haystack of unsecured mortgages, let’s start running this New York City marathon which we like to call
Autumn and New York
1. Among the works of John Keats (1795-1821) are several poems addressed to such diverse items as melancholy, a nightingale, and a Grecian urn, but one begins with the lines “Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness/Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun.” What’s the title of the poem? (Hint: It’s NOT “To New York”)
2. Two American writers not only share New York as the setting of their novels--You Can’t Go Home Again and The Bonfire of the Vanities, respectively –but also their names! What is it?
3. Lines from “The New Colossus” by Emma Lazarus are etched on the base of which iconic New York City landmark?
4. What is the title of a 1925 novel which includes newsreels, stream of consciousness, and other innovative forms by the sadly-neglected John Dos Passos (1896-1970)? ( It also happens to be the name of a current popular jazz vocal quartet.)
5. British folks are still familiar with a 17th century jingle that begins “Please to remember the Fifth of November.” To what does that date refer?
6. Speaking of jingles, a darling of the critics is Mad Men, the current television miniseries set in the early 1960s , because it more-or-less accurately depicts which “commercial” industry concentrated on Madison Avenue in New York City?
7. What is the two-word American idiom describing “a loser, dupe, or victim” which originated in the 19th century with “rigged” wrestling matches?
8. Appearing in his second consecutive Auntie quiz is the name Lawrence Ferlinghetti, whose title for his 1958 poetry collection refers to a specific section in the NYC borough of Brooklyn which once was the site of an amusement park with rides, a boardwalk, and “famous” hot dogs. What is this place called?
9. In a 1608 Shakespearean tragedy, Antony is described by these lines: “For his bounty, / There was no winter in ‘t, an autumn ‘twas/That grew the more by reaping.” What is the name of the character who says this?
10. A short novel by the French philosopher Albert Camus features a former lawyer confessing his tale of woe and inertia to a fellow customer at a bar in a place whose name once formed part of the original name for New York City. So – what European city is the setting for The Fall?
11. Speaking of bars, one of the world’s most famous poems about the beginning of World War II begins: “I sit in one of the dives/On Fifty-second Street/Uncertain and afraid/As the clever hopes expire/Of a low dishonest decade. . .” The literary giant (1907-1973) who wrote those lines was born in York, England, became a US citizen in 1946, and spent many years living in Greenwich Village. Who is he?
12. When Thomas Hood (1799-1845) griped: “No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees/No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds–“ what was he complaining about?
13. And finally, Liza and Frank would stop their respective shows at the point when they’d sing “if I can make it here, I can make it anywhere.” And where would that be? (Say it twice, and it’s twice as nice.)
Answers
1. “To Autumn”
2. Wolfe (Thomas and Tom)
3. The Statue of Liberty
4. Manhattan Transfer
5. The Gunpowder Plot (Guy Fawkes Day)
6. Advertising
7. “fall guy”
8. Coney Island (The collection is A Coney Island of the Mind)
9. Cleopatra
10. Amsterdam (Under Dutch rule, NYC was called “New Amsterdam”)
11. W. H. Auden
12. November
13. New York, New York
Sources: Brewer’s, Reader’s Encyclopedia, British Poets of the Nineteenth Century (Page and Thompson, eds.), youtube.com. ,npr.org, and especially http://www.songwritershalloffame.org/
Well, I had some catching up to do. I had missed the previous two and so I just did three quizes!!
Trees, Shoots, and Leaves - I got six correct: 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10.
I'm kicking myself for not getting "shooting stars."
Trick or Treat - I only got four, how pathetic, correct: 3, 5, 6, 12.
Being a blues fan, I should have gotten "I Put A Spell On You."
I have to brag that I aced the Autumn in New York quiz. :D Of course I have an advantage. ;)
I got a whooping eleven correct, my best effort yet: 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13. :)
Thanks, Auntie, for another entertaining and challenging quiz. I started out pretty well but then hit some bumps in the road. I got numbers 1, 2, 3, 6, 8, and 13.
Today, November 11th is Veteran’s Day in the United States, a day of honor to the military who served. Our dear Auntie has given me leave to do the quiz in honor of this day. I tried to place enough questions in here that non-Americans may find engaging, so I hope this satisfies the general community. But I do realize it is a bit American-centric. Give it a shot.
1. Veterans Day began as Armistice Day to commemorate the end of World War I and to honor the veterans of that war. On which moment in time did the War hostilities cease?
2. Which US president actually signed Armistice Day into law?
3. Armistice Day officially became Veteran’s Day, a day to honor all military veterans who served. Which US president, a veteran himself, signed the change over into law?
4. World War I officially ended about six months after Armistice Day hostilities ended with the signing of this treaty in France.
5. Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia is the resting place of several hundred thousand veterans. Which US Civil War general’s wife did the property formerly belong to?
6. On top of the hill at Arlington Cemetery is the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Inscribed on the monument is “HERE RESTS IN HONORED GLORY AN AMERICAN SOLDIER KNOWN BUT TO…” Known but to Who?
7. The United States was not the first country to start a monumental tomb for an unknown soldier. Actually two other countries were ahead of the US in this custom. Name one of them.
8. Complete the last line of the British/American ditty: “Yankee Doodle went to town/A-Riding on a pony;/he stuck a feather in his cap,/…”
9. The most decorated American veteran for a single war is attributed to Audie Murphy, who received 33 American medals, five from France, and one from Belgium. In which war did Audie Murphy serve?
10. The most highly decorated soldier in American history is now considered to be Colonel David Hackworth, with an astounding 90 decorations. Name the three wars that “Hack” served in.
11. Which American general, widely considered one of the great tank battle strategists and served and survived both world wars, died ironically after returning home from WWII in an automobile accident?
12. Which American general, led the Pacific Allied forces during WWII, oversaw the surrender of the Japanese government, but is also famous for his amphibious landing and Battle of Inchon strategy during the Korean War?
1. On the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month in 1918.
2. President Woodrow Wilson
3. President Dwight D. Eisenhower
4. Treaty of Versailles
5. General Robert E. Lee's wife Mary Anna
6. God
7. United Kingdom (first), France (second)
8. “And called it macaroni.”
9. World War II
10. WWII, Korean War, Vietnam War
11. General George S. Patton
12. General Douglas MacArthur
Thank you so much for volunteering to write the quiz this week, Virgil. This is a nice tribute to our veterans as well as the men and women currently serving in the military.
The quiz is a good one, too. (I missed the question about Col. Hack. by saying he was in WWI, WWII, and Korea.)
Did you know that Audie Murphy was able to parlay his fame as a decorated soldier to a movie career? What's even more interesting is that the majority of the films in which he starred were Westerns rather than war movies:
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001559/
Thanks again, Virgil.
Great quiz, Virgil - nice job. But I have to differ with you on Audie Murphy's war, which was World War II.
I got all of them except for #3.
I found that out about Audie Murphy while reseaching this. I have never seen an Audie Murphy movie. Thanks on liking the quiz.Quote:
Originally Posted by AuntShecky
Oh my gosh, I got a question wrong on my own poll. :lol: You are right. For some reason I thought it was WWI, but it's not. I'll have to correct that. Thanks. ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by DickZ
Though gifted with an ironic wit, Benjamin Franklin was not entirely facetious when he proposed that the turkey – not the bald eagle – be named the National Bird of the newborn United States. Sadly, conventional wisdom regards Melagris gallopavo as a symbol of congenital ineptitude. The traditional main dish at Thanksgiving is an epithet often heard in a round of “The Dozens,” and many a waitress working the holiday has been spotted wearing a button with a cartoon dialogue balloon stating “You are what you eat.” So one might say that the turkey is the Rodney Dangerfield in the supermarket poultry case– it gets no respect.
It’s no wonder then that the word “turkey” is synonymous with an extravagant production that fails in a spectacular way – monumental bombs like Howard the Duck, Ishtar, Town and Country, and sequels that went to the franchise well one time too often (i.e., the last installments of Jaws, The Exorcist, Indiana Jones, Star Wars and their ilk. And I do mean “ILL-k.”) Another case in point was Moose Murders, a 1983 play which, according to Brendan Gill of The New Yorker, was such a piece of putrid meat that it “would insult the intelligence of an audience consisting entirely of amoebas.”
You’ve undoubted guessed by now the subject of this week’s disaster. Each q. and a. has some connection with a turkey that’s been stuffed with rottenness, and so utterly devoid of any Redeeming Social Value that it stinks. So let’s all throw some shoes and tomatoes at these fabulous flops, in a little quiz we like to call
The Good, The Bad, and The Turkey
1. What is the one-word term starting with “m” which refers to a word or phrase that arose from a mistake or a misconception, yet stubbornly remains in the language: for instance, “Indian” (for a Native American), “blindworm” for a creature that is neither blind nor a worm, and “turkey,” even though the bird never originated in that country?
2. Who (or what) is “Alan Smithee”?
3. This cult hit (1989-1999) featured a guy and two robots stranded on a space satellite by an evil scientist who forces the trio to watch painfully bad movies, upon which the three captives provide a running commentary. The one-liners, parodies, and comedy sketches made this show a post-modern classic. What was the title of the tv series?
4. Every list of the Biggest All-Time Box Office Failures includes Heaven’s Gate, a 1981 movie with a convoluted plot about a cattle war. The production went so far over budget that it nearly “single-handedly put United Artist out of business.” Ironically enough, the disgraced director, Michael Cimino, had previously helmed an epic about the Viet Nam war which brought him and the film itself a shelf full of Academy Awards. What was the title of that earlier, award-winning film of 1978?
5. Critics seldom are unanimous, but on one thing they are 100% in agreement, and that’s on the “Worst Television Sit-Com in History.” It starred Jerry Van Dyke as a guy whose closest female relative had been reincarnated as a 1928 Porter roadster. Despite its nefarious reputation, the show actually ran for 30 episodes in 1965. What was the title of this infamous series?
6. Who wrote the novel upon which Carrie, the abysmally wretched Broadway musical of 1988, was based?
7. In 1968, comedy writer and “2000-year-old man” Mel Brooks won numerous awards for his screenplay about a shady Broadway character and an initially-reluctant accountant who scheme to mount a deliberately-awful show, “Springtime for Hitler” in order to keep the investments when it most assuredly fails – or does it? Name the title of the original movie and later highly-successful Broadway version of this Mel Brooks classic.
8. Name the modern composer (1882- 1971) whose 1913 world premiere of his ballet, The Rite of Spring, in Paris so enraged the audience that they waged a full-scale riot.
9. He was an earnest director of science fiction “movies” such as Plan 9 from Outer Space, a production riddled with laughably inept special effects, such as using paper plates to stand in as flying saucers. Yet his legendary incompetence was matched by a preternatural optimism. What was his name, the subject title of a well-received 1994 biographical film starring Johnny Depp?
10. The flip side to numerous award shows in which movies are honored for their excellence, what is the name for the annual “award” which singles out “turkeys”? The name of the statuette is a shortened synonym for a “Bronx cheer.”
11. Who was the American playwright, Algonquin wit, and critic (1889-1961) who once opened a play review with the line, “There was laughter in the back of the theatre, leading to the belief that someone was telling jokes back there.”
12. A lavish 1963 movie was over-budget, over-schedule, and marked with such scandals as a “real-life” (by Hollywood standards) love affair between the leading lady and the leading man. The reviews dripped with venom. It was enough to make Shakespeare and the other authors of the source material to spin in their graves. The price tag for the 4-hour-long epic was $44 million ($259 million in 2009 dollars) while it grossed only $26 million. Some experts still rank this disaster as one of the worst box office turkeys of all time. What was it?
13. And finally, rolled out by the Ford Motor Company in 1958, this turkey with four wheels tanked when its sales fell flatter than a tire on a road riddled with potholes. What was it?
Answers
1. Misnomer
2. Official pseudonym in Hollywood used by a director who no longer wants his real name associated with a project. Thus, whenever you see the name “Alan Smithee” roll by in the credits, you know that the picture is a real dog, and you should demand your money back.
3. Mystery Science Theatre 3000
4. The Deer Hunter
5. My Mother, The Car
6. Stephen King
7. The Producers
8. Igor Stravinsky (By 1941, the formerly-offensive music was deemed family-friendly enough to be included in a segment of Disney’s Fantasia.)
9. Ed Wood
10. The “Razzie” (from “raspberry”)
11. George S. Kaufman
12. Cleopatra
13. The Edsel
Sources:
Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, The Video Hound's Golden Movie Retriever, International Movie Database, The Portable Curmudeon (ed. by Jon Winkour), npr.org and "Blaze of Glory by
Lesley Gibson:
http://www.act-sf.org/site/DocServer...ous_wop_31.pdf
I got 6,7,8,9,10 and 12. I kicked myself for not getting 1 and 4. been a while since i did this! :D
All caught up again. Whew!!
Yankees - 9
Trees - 10
New York - 10
Boo Hiss - 8 (boo, hiss)
Turkeys - 8
Thanks Niamh and Pablo for catching up on these. By the bye, I won't be posting a quiz during Thanksgiving week, but I do plan to post a couple of more quizzes in December, the good Lord
willing and the creek don't rise, and if Pong II (my PC) reboots when I need it to. Big changes will be coming to the quiz -- perhaps starting a new thread --with a substantial difference -- in January 2010. When that time approaches, I'll post the changes in me blog.
Thanks, Auntie. I'm wondering if it would be better to post a low score, considering the nature of the quiz. Wouldn't a high score correlate with a high personal index of turkeyism? I think I would prefer a low score on this one.
Anyway, I won't fudge my answers just for that reason. I got numbers 1, 6, 7, 8, 12, and 13, and I await the judgement of whoever is in charge of assessing who is a big fat turkey, and who isn't.
Dick, on no plane of existence in the universe, parallel or otherwise, would you ever qualify to be "a big fat turkey."Quote:
Originally Posted by DickZ
I'm the turkey. It's amazing how little of pop culture I know. Anyway, I got only four correct: 6, 7, 8, 13. I too should have gotten 1 and 4.
An achievement for which you should feel enormously proud!Quote:
Originally Posted by Virgil
It’s that time of year again! Already there have been a couple of flakes floating around,if not actually blanketing the ground, and there’s a definite chill in the air, a sign of something very special just around the corner. That’s right, ‘tis the season. . .for colds and flu.
The media have been bending over backwards to make sure we're all gosh-darned scared out of our longjohns because -- make no mistake-- we're all going to die! Unless, unless everybody gets a dose of vaccine –whoops! Sorry, folks, there’s a vaccine shortage. Even if you could find a flu shot, what kind of flu shot are you going to get? Let’s see, now, you've got your “regular” flu, your old-fashioned Asian flu, and lest we forget, the one flu over the cuckoo’s nest. (That would be bird flu.)
The latest “strain” as it’s called (because it strains our patience) is H1N1, although the media are fond of calling it “swine flu,” because that makes it sound nastier. What has dear old Porky Pig done to deserve such a libelous association? Warner Brothers should sue! Well, the inexplicably neglected British author Arnold Bennett (1867-1931) had it right when he had one of his characters say: “Ye can call it ‘influenza’ if you like. . .There was no influenza in my day. We called a cold a cold.”
At-choo! You might want to avoid this week’s topic like the plague, because it’s all about highly communicable and deadly diseases in literature. (I'd say “culture,” but I left it back in the lab.) As far as I know, my quiz file is virus-free. So before you stick a needle as long as US 1 in my business end and slap a quarantine sign on me, let’s inject the quiz, which you'll probably call
Sick, Sick, Sick
1. Which one of Shakespeare’s plays contains the curse, “A plague on both your houses!”
2. Name the U.S. Army physician (1851-1902) who helped begin a successful defense against yellow fever in the by discovering that a mosquito was the carrier of that deadly disease plaguing the Panama Canal zone.
3. Newscasters this week have heavily covered a notorious incident of party-crashing, but that security breach does not at all compare to the uninvited guest who infects a gala ball with a deadly disease in “The Masque of the Red Death.” Who wrote that 1842 tale?
4. Although the term itself did not appear until the 16th century, what is the three-word phrase for both the pneumonic and bubonic plagues which devastated Europe in the years 1348-1351? The term directly refers to the skin-darkening symptom of one of the diseases.
5. The AIDS epidemic is the theme of a millennial historic tableaux which won numerous prestigious awards for drama late in the century just past. What was the title of Tony Kushner’s play?
6. “Bring out your dead!” got a laugh in a Monty Python movie, but the line actually first appeared in 1722, with the publication of A Journal of the Plague Year. Name the author, whom we know as the creator of a certain resourceful shipwrecked sailor.
7. The French called it “la maladie anglaise,” which the English in turn called “the French disease.” In other parts of Europe it was known as the Italian disease, the German disease, and so forth. In reality, the microbe causing the epidemic originated in the New World, whence it hitched a ride with trans-Atlantic explorers and voyagers. (Maybe the old myth about sailors having “a girl in every port” has some truth.) Name this disease that evidently doesn't discriminate against nationalities.
8. Which significant German author wrote the 1924 allegorical novel, The Magic Mountain, ostensibly about a tuberculosis sanitarium?
9. Albert Camus also wrote a allegorical-philosophical novel about an epidemic, this time set in an Algerian port. What is the title of this 1947 book?
10. A world-famous essay by Robert Louis Stevenson praised a priest named Father Damien who did good works at a hospital colony on Molokai in the Hawaiian Islands. From which notoriously devastating disease did Father Damien’s patients suffer?
11. An innocuous-sounding nursery rhyme delights children to this very date, but its subject matter contains “folk memory” of a deadly plague. For instance, the verse refers to the practice of using flowers to mask the stench of decomposing corpses who'd had all succumbed to a disease that begins with a seemingly harmless sneeze. What is this nursery rhyme?
12.[Spoiler Alert! Skip this question if you haven't read the story.] The source material for two motion pictures, one good (1953) and one considerably less so (2005) is an 1898 science fiction work by H.G. Wells about a Martian invasion of our planet. The aliens are eventually defeated, not by the earthlings’ sophisticated weaponry but by tiny microbes. What’s the title?
13. And finally, in 1907 an Irish immigrant hired as a cook for a wealthy family on Long Island was discovered by the Board of Health to be the carrier of a certain, potentially-deadly infection, though she adamantly refused to admit that she was the source of the disease. Her name is so synonymous with spreading disease that to this day is a teasing jest. What is this common epithet?
Answers
1. Romeo and Juliet, ( III, I )
2. Walter Reed
3. Edgar Allen Poe
4. The Black Death
5. Angels in America
6. Daniel Defoe
7. Syphilis
8. Thomas Mann
9. The Plague
10. Leprosy
11. “Ring Around the Rosie” or “Ring a ring o’ roses” The actual rhyme goes like this: “Ring a ring o’ roses/ A pocket full of posies/ Ai-choo! Ai-choo!/ All fall down.” (A variation on line 3 is “ashes, ashes,” referring to smoke from bonfires, or possibly an allusion the substance, ashes or dust, to which we're all destined to revert, as prophesied in Genesis 3:19.)
12. The War of the Worlds (Fun factoid for MST3K fans: The name of Gene Barry’s character in the 1953 movie is “Dr. Clayton Forrester.”)
13. “Typhoid Mary”
Sources: Reader’s Encyclopedia, Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, imbd.com, and the “about twentieth century history” website.
Oh I did ver well. I got eleven correct!! Woohoo! I got 1, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13.
Funny about syphillis, how every country blames it on another. :lol:
Only 5 for me :(
1, 5, 7, 9, 11
Thanks, Auntie. It's great to have the quiz back after your well-deserved Thanksgiving break. I got numbers 1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 9, 10, and 11.
My results:
1.Romeo and Juliet.
2.I traveled through the Panama Canal and watched a documentary regarding this story, but the name has escaped me completely.
3.Edgar Allan Poe
4.“The Black Death.”
5.Sad to say I have no idea.
6.Robert Louis Stevenson.
7.Syphillis.
8.Thomas Mann.
9.The Plague.
10. Malaria.
11.Ring around the Rosy.
12.The War of the Worlds.
13.Typhoid Mary.
I figured question 6 would be wrong because you wouldn't give the name away in another part of the quiz, but couldn't come up with something better. I guessed malaria for 10, but leprosy is probably more devastating and certainly more notorious.
As for question 11, I've actually only known "Ashes to ashes, we all fall down." Reading the Wikipedia article on the rhyme was interesting; it appears that many and quite different cultures have the same kind of children's verse.
When you happen to notice Bruce Springsteen’s arrangement of a certain “iconic” holiday song blasting through the PA system of some retail store, you're not really hearing the original 1934 tune by J. Fred Coots and Haven Gillespie. That was one versatile songwriting team, for not only has “Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town” delighted generations of children, the duo also wrote one of the smokiest, steamiest, “adult-themed” torch songs of all time, “You Go to My Head” from 1939. I guess one could say that Messrs. Coots and Gillespie were a little bit sugar, a little bit spice – both nice and naughty.
“Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town,” is a catchy, magical ditty, despite its musical statement of St. Nick as Big Brother, who puts minors under constant surveillance, 24/7 in order to gain info to compile an incriminating dossier: “He’s makin’ a list and checking it twice/ Gonna find out who’s naughty or nice.” Wow, way to plant the neurotic seeds of a guilt complex into a four-year-old! This week’s topic, nevertheless, concerns characters from literature who are heroes or villains, or maybe a mixture of both, sort of like an angel food cake made with bad eggs.
When it comes down to zero hour on Christmas Eve, Santa strictly adheres to the “either/or,” nice/naughty dichotomy. Who knew the right jolly old elf would be so judgmental? But have you ever noticed how rich kids almost always seem to land on the “nice” list? Before somebody hurls a brick-hard fruitcake at me or shoves a lump of coal in my stocking, let’s swoop down the chimney to the quiz, which we like to call
Naughty or Nice
1. Name the Shakespearean play in which the chief character rises through the royal ranks through heinous acts, such as imprisoning two little princes in the Tower of London and who describes himself this way: “And thus I clothe my naked villainy/With odd old ends stol’n forth of holy writ,/ And seem a saint when most I play the devil.”
2. Herman Melville’s posthumous short novel features this young sailor who personifies innocence, even after committing an act of violent rage spurred on by a false accusation. His goodness is so innate that he even asks God to bless his executioner. Who is this title character?
3. A devious schemer in David Copperfield tries to convince his victims that he is otherwise by constantly describing himself as “ ‘umble.’ “ Name this memorable character created by Charles Dickens.
4. Generations of American adolescents have been captivated by Salinger’s portrait of an earnestly eloquent prep school student who goes AWOL in post-World War II New York City. Name this character who aspires to be a savior of the innocence of children, notably that of his beloved younger sister, Phoebe.
5. Who wrote the short novel featuring Dr. Jekyll and his evil alter ego, Mr. Hyde?
6. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “scarlet” woman suffers the condemnation of her community, yet bears her humiliation with the dignity of her humanity. Identify this heroine who is definitely more sinned against than sinning.
7. The first part of the 1587 tragedy, Tamburlaine, set in the region of the world that contains modern-day Afghanistan, depicts a lowly Scythian shepherd who becomes a great ruler with even greater potential, yet in the second part, his absolute power turns him absolutely rotten. Name this illustrious but short-lived author, the most famous playwright among Shakespeare’s contemporaries.
8. A title character created by George Eliot makes his living as a weaver but suffers through a lonely existence, largely caused by a deep-seated bitterness over having been wrongly suspected of theft. An even greater setback occurs when he himself is robbed of some gold, closely followed by a scene in the novel in which he finds a golden-haired orphan child. Adopting this little girl becomes the source of his eventual redemption. Who was this former miser who turns good?
9. Talk about your revenge fantasies! In 1321, an Italian poet famously put his political enemies in the nine circles of Hell. What is the title, the first of three parts of Dante’s classic epic poem?
10. Name the figure from British folklore who had nice motives for his naughty deeds -- stealing from the rich in order to give to the poor.
11. In his 1866 novel, Dostoevsky presents Raskolnikov, a student perhaps a little too contemplative for his own good, who through convoluted reasoning comes to a philosophical stance that he believes justifies his evil actions. As one may assume, the self-styled “amoral superman” receives his comeuppance. Yet the story ends on a note of penitence and redemption, helped by the pure love of a good woman. What’s the title of this provocative yet ultimately edifying novel?
12. In Arthurian legend, he was the purest and noblest Knight of the Round Table. The only one qualified for the quest of the Holy Grail, he healed the Fisher King and restored fertility to Britain. Unlike the contemporary myth cherished by single gals about the elusive “Mr. Right,” this hero wasn't too good to be true, even though,let's face it, he was fictional. Who was he?
13. And finally, at the beginning of Theodor S. Geisel’s parody of A Christmas Carol, he has a heart that is “two sizes too small,” which, by the end of the story, grows “three sizes that day.” Name this wildly popular Yuletide figure.
Answers
1. Richard III
2. Billy Budd
3. Uriah Heep
4. Holden Caulfield
5. Robert Louis Stevenson
6. Hester Prynne
7. Christopher Marlowe
8. Silas Marner
9. The Inferno (first part of The Divine Comedy)
10. Robin Hood
11. Crime and Punishment
12. Sir Galahad
13. The Grinch (the one who stole Christmas,
in case you were thinking of some other grinch.)
Sources: The Reader’s Encyclopedia and the Songwriters’ Hall of Fame website.
Coming Next Week: A superquiz to close out 09!
Thanks for another great quiz, Auntie. I particularly loved this one - not that I don't love them all - because I did better than I usually do. I got numbers 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, and 13.
As for number 1, I only specialize in Macbeth, Hamlet, Julius Caesar, and Romeo and Juliet. And on a few rare occasions, I can answer a Midsummer Night's Dream question. While I've heard of Marlowe in question 7, it's obviously not a very thorough familiarity, because I missed that one also.
Ha! I got eleven right again. If we stick to literature i do well. :) The two I got wrong were Silas Marner (I'm afraid my George Eliot is weak) and amazingly I got the grinch wrong! :D :D
I got the Grinch wrong as well!! I guessed Scrooge for whatever reason.
I got most of these by making educated guesses. I knew "Billy Budd" by title only. I knew "Silas Marner" because of a recommendation given by mono years ago. The only other one I missed was Marlowe . . . like DickZ I had heard of him (in my case, through secondary Shakespeare literature), but didn't come up with the answer either. The play sounds very interesting!
Good news! This is the last quiz o’ the “weak” for 2009. Come January, if my PC (“Pong II”) is still kicking, and if we have managed to pay the electricity bill, I'll start a brand-new quiz thread with some slight changes, the details of which will be posted soon.
Way, way back in my school days, the teachers used to warn that their final examinations would “separate the sheep from the goats.” I could never figure out which class of ruminants was supposed to be smarter or into which category of cud-chewers I fell. But I'll tell you something – those tests were “baaa”-ddd!
At this late date I must confess that I was never much of a test-taker. Even when the questions were giveaways, such as “Who wrote the autobiographical book The Education of Henry Adams?” or “Fill in the blank ‘To be or not to __’ , “ I still got them wrong!
So I was not a test-taker, but a quiz-maker. Throughout the postings on this thread there has been a little comedy, and also some inadvertent tragedy: less than two weeks after his name was mentioned in the quiz, the actor Gene Barry passed away at the age of 90. Most of the quiz questions concerned writers who had already died a long time ago, especially Shakespeare and Shaw, who appeared in the quiz more frequently than most. There was also a preponderance of American references –a coincidence, not a conscious act of jingoism.
Nearly everything in this year-end review has been culled from previous quiz questions, answers, and introductions – you did read all of my introductions, didn't you? If you get stuck on an item, all you have to do is scroll up through the thread. Time’s almost up, so let’s get to the last snore-fest of ‘09 which I hate to call
Final X-Zam
1. What was Herman Melville’s 1857 novel that takes place on a river boat on April Fool’s Day?
2. Who wrote Leaves of Grass?
3. Name the author from the Jazz Age who said, “In the dark night of the soul it’s always three o’clock in the morning.”
4. Who was the Dublin-born author (1845-1900) who observed that “Work is the curse of the drinking class”?
5. What is the Pentateuch?
6. Name the title of Henry Miller’s 1939 novel considered a counterpart to The Tropic of Cancer.
7. Who wrote A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers?
8. What is the one-word term that refers to both a literary device which directly addresses an absent person, place, or thing and a punctuation mark which few Americans know how to use appropriately?
9. According to Greek mythology, how many muses are there?
10. Which month of 2009 was designated Hispanic Heritage Month?
11. Who was the American literary giant (1835-1910) who categorized really old jokes this way: “The only way to classify the majestic ages of some of those jokes was by geological periods.”
12. What is the only Shakespearean play whose title refers to an occasion set in early January?
13. Who wrote the poem in which the albatross is a symbol of bad luck?
14. Name the leading poet associated with the Harlem Renaissance.
15. What was the pseudonym of Mary Ann Evans (1819-1880), author of numerous expertly-crafted Victorian novels?
16. Name the monumental English poet of the 17th century who wrote the lines “Come and trip it as ye go/On the light fantastic toe.”
17. Who was the versatile 20th century British author of such novels as The Power and the Glory, The Heart of the Matter, and The End of the Affair?
18. The adage, “Beware of Greeks bearing gifts” refers to which dubious offering portrayed in The Odyssey and The Aeneid?
19. His tombstone reads, “I had a lover’s quarrel with the world.” In which New England location would one find the grave of this 20th century literary giant?
20. Who wrote Crime and Punishment, as well as “The Grand Inquisitor”?
21. Aldous Huxley derived the title of Brave New World from a line in which Shakespearean play?
22. Name the seasonal song for which Vernon Duke wrote both the music and lyrics.
23. “Jarndyce v. Jarndyce” is the never-ending lawsuit in Bleak House. Who wrote that novel?
24. Name the Greek dramatist who wrote the satiric comedy, The Clouds.
25. What is the perennial holiday song composed by J. Fred Coots and Haven Gillespie?
26. And finally, according to a German legend, when a knight was attempting to pick some posies for his damsel, he slipped off the river bank and drowned. The name for these beloved spring flowers comes from this knight’s last three words. What were they?
Answers
1. The Confidence Man
2. Walt Whitman
3. F. Scott Fitzgerald
4. Oscar Wilde
5. The first five books of the Old Testament
6. The Tropic of Capricorn
7. Henry David Thoreau
8. Apostrophe
9. Nine
10. October
11. Mark Twain
12. Twelfth Night
13. Samuel Taylor Coleridge
14. Langston Hughes
15. George Eliot
16. John Milton
17. Graham Greene
18. The Trojan Horse
19. Bennington, Vermont, where, no matter the season, “Frost” is always in the ground.
20. Dostoevski
21. The Tempest
22. “Autumn in New York”
23. Charles Dickens
24. Aristophanes
25. “Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town”
26. “Forget me not.”
And that’s my “final answer.”
I was just about to attempt this, by copy pasting the questions when in scrolling down, I came upon the answers! Perhaps, Jeopardy-style, you meant to post the answers and have us guess the questions?
Competitive as I am, I'd have loved to have a shot at this, but alas...
All of this year's quizzes have the answers at the end, Prince.
Thanks, Auntie, for all the quizzes we've had this year. Since there are 26 questions in this week's, I won't itemize my successes and failures, but will just say I got 15 of them. I guess I should have gotten more, since this is a second shot at them.
I'm already looking forward with great anticipation to next year's quizzes - or should I say next years just to reinforce question 8?
I got 17 correct out of the 26: 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 17, 18, 20, 21, 23, 24.
Yes, thank you Auntie and looking forward to next year. :)
I did the last three, from last to first. For Final Exam I only got 10 correct. Boo, hiss!
Naughty or Nice: I only missed 2, 3 and 5. Cough it Up: I missed 7, 9, 10 and 12. Thank You, Aunt Shecky. You do an outstanding job. These are clever and so much fun.
I have a little cat that I named Phoebe, with Holden's Phoebe in mind.
Thanks everyone for participating in these "weakly" quizzes.
Big changes in quizland coming for 2010!
A brandy-new quiz thread will begin next week, which will invite --and strongly encourage!-- the entire LitNet community to write quizzes. The inaugural edition will be written by yours truly, but after that the thread will be open for others to contribute. Watch my blog for details.
Thanks again! All the best for the New Year -- which, no matter what happens, can't be any worse than the one that is almost over.
I'll second that! But the thought of writing a quiz? e-e-e-k!
So....what has become of this thread?Quote:
Originally Posted by AuntShecky
a seven-year absence, that's what! By the bye, Kiz Paws, you're the first to mention it in all those years. Assuming the role of Alex Trebeck was too time-consuming for the paltry ROI. But maybe if enoughfolks are interested, some ambitious NitLetter will revive it. Not yours fooly, though, as it's all I can do to knock out a humor piece once in a while. Thanks for remembering this, though!Quote:
Originally Posted by kiz_paws