Thank you, Virgil, qimissung, and DickZ for taking the quiz.
If you haven't already done so, don't forget to send me a PM with your contributions for the next quiz. (If my PC, "Pong II," doesn't die, it should appear around its usual day and time.)
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Thank you, Virgil, qimissung, and DickZ for taking the quiz.
If you haven't already done so, don't forget to send me a PM with your contributions for the next quiz. (If my PC, "Pong II," doesn't die, it should appear around its usual day and time.)
Previous topic clue: Poison
[Stay tuned for an announcement at the conclusion of today’s quiz.]
For centuries poison was a plot device in tragedies and fairy tales, but with the glut of mayhem-mottled movies these days, it rarely shows up as the murder weapon. Though it’s effective and takes a complete autopsy to detect, poison doesn't explode, doesn't make a big bang, doesn't splatter blood all over the screen. When the leading man appears to save the world, in one arm he'll be holding a love interest, twenty or thirty years the hero’s junior. In his other hand will be an Uzi or at least a pistol, or at last resort, a knife. But a bottle of Ipecac? I don't think so.
Speaking of show biz, earlier this week viewers of the Tony Awards saw a spectacular opening number which included an incident that was completely ad-libbed. A wooden curtain fell down banging the bean of Bret Michaels, the veteran rock musician. I've heard of Broadway actors “chewing the scenery,” but this is the first time I've ever seen it bite back! What has this have to do with today’s topic? Well, I always thought that Bret Michaels would merge his original band with a similar heavy metal 80s outfit. Then they could call the combined group “Ratt Poison.”
Well, before we go to get our collective stomach pumped, let’s swallow the quiz:
Name Your Poison
Our first question was sent into us by fellow LitNutter DickZ of Virginia:
1. Name the British notable sitting next to Lady Astor at a formal dinner party when she told him “If I were married to you, I'd put poison in your coffee” - to which he replied “If you were my wife, I'd drink it.”
2. Seemingly harmless produce such as the tomato, potato, and eggplant belong to the same family that also includes an extremely deadly species. What is this plant from which belladonna is derived?
3. Who was the ancient Greek philosopher whose political enemies forced him to take his own life by drinking hemlock?
4. What’s the term for a play or a movie whose subject matter and/or stars have the potential to keep audiences away?
5. A neurotoxin that causes paralysis is the secret ingredient in the cosmetic process which reduces facial wrinkles. By what name is this pricey though popular product known?
6. What is the phrase which refers to a written message, usually anonymous, and rife with invective and threats?
7. Recently evidence has come to light concerning a thirty-one-year-old case of an assassination of a Bulgarian dissident in London. This man, Markov, died after having been allegedly poked by an umbrella tip containing deadly poison. Formulated from the seed coverings of the castor bean plant, what is this lethal toxin called?
8. Long a workhorse for innumerable high school drama classes and community theatre groups, this play by Joseph Kesselring involves two sweet-natured ladies who serve their gentlemen callers elderberry wine spiked with poison. What is the title of this classic comedy, also the basis for a 1944 Frank Capra film starring Cary Grant as the (understandably) surprised nephew?
9. A centuries-old rumor has it that this dame wore a hollow ring which she frequently used to poison drinks of her enemies. Who was this blonde bombshell of Renaissance Italy who did her part to advance her family’s Machiavellian schemes?
10. Hah, and they say literature doesn't do anything “useful.” In 1977, a little Arab girl had been flown to a London hospital, where the doctors were completely mystified by what was ailing her, until a nurse noticed that the child’s symptoms matched those of the murder victims in a novel she was reading at the time. Once it was learned that the poison was thallium, the little girl was treated accordingly. She was able to recover and return home thanks to the work of the queen of British mystery writers. So – who was the author of the life-saving book, The Pale Horse?
11. In Walt Disney’s very first feature-length animated film, a wicked queen attempts to kill her unsuspecting young rival with a poisoned apple. What was the name of this classic movie, first released in 1937?
12. What is the beautiful perennial flower highly toxic to livestock yet which also helps produce digitalis, a life-saving drug used to treat congestive heart failure?
13. And finally, “You're gonna need an ocean/ of calamine lotion,” if you're going to listen to which song by The Coasters?
Answers
1. Winston Churchill
2. Nightshade (no relation to a LitNutter we know and love.)
3. Socrates
4. Box office poison
5. Botox
6. Poison pen letter
7. Ricin
8. Arsenic and Old Lace
(strych)9. Lucretia Borgia
10. Dame Agatha Christie
11. Snow White and the Seven Dwarves
12. Foxglove
13. “Poison Ivy”
And now the missing word concealing the clue for the next quiz topic:
In a famous Nathaniel Hawthorne short story, Beatrice Rappaccini is drop-dead gorgeous –literally- as she thrives within the toxic garden cultivated by her ______(what?)
Announcement: If you have guessed the missing word above, you know the next topic. Feel free to compose questions on that theme and send them to me via PM before 3 pm next Tuesday, June 16. Please include the answers (Just click on the screen name AuntShecky in the left-hand corner and click the “send private message option.”) All LitNutters whose questions are used in the next quiz will receive appropriate credit.
Sources: CBS website, Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, Little,Brown Book of Anecdotes, HowStuffWorks.com, Brooklyn Botanical Garden website, and Video Hound Golden Movie Retriever, published by Visible Ink.
Got eight: 1, 3, 5, 6, 8, 9 10, 13. I got lucky with a few guesses but I can't believe I missed Snow White. I said Sleeping Beauty. :lol: And love Churchill quotes. :D
I got 1, 2, 3, 4 5, 6, 8, 10, 11, and the bonus question. Very good quiz, AuntShecky. Yes, Virgil, the Churchill quote is priceless, is it not?
Yes. :) You know I never try that bonus question.Quote:
Originally Posted by qimissung
Thanks, Auntie. I’m so relieved that you fixed your computer, because I have been very nervous most of the week that we might not have a quiz.
Wow, Auntie, you’re so right about the trend in today’s movies, and how poison would be so inappropriate. When all my children (who are grown and on their own) proudly showed me their television surround sound systems, I had to wonder what I would do with something like that, since I intentionally avoid movies that would benefit from surround sound. I’m not all that interested in explosions or car crashes or machine-gun bursts.
As for the quiz itself, I was able to get #1, #3, and #5 with no difficulty, but didn’t have a clue for #2 or #4. At this point, I was beginning to get paranoid about being some kind of an oddball or something.
This fear of succeeding only on odd numbers was fortunately quelled by my getting #6 and #8 right, while missing #7 and #9. I should have known Lucretia Borgia for #9 but couldn’t think of it. This getting old is for the birds.
Then I reverted to my original pattern, by missing #10 and #12, while getting #11 and #13 correct.
In summary, I got #1, #3, #5, #6, #8, #11, and #13.
I’m trying to figure out the bonus question now, and if I succeed, I’ll try to send a question for next week’s quiz.
Oh, I wish you would give it a shot. (Pour yourself a shot while you're at it. I'm sure your (ahem) father wouldn't mind.Quote:
Originally Posted by Virgil
If you guess the bonus clue, maybe, pretty please, you'd send me a question for the next quiz? Every q. that's sent in means one fewer question I have to write!
Thank you, q. and DickZ for taking the quiz.
Keep those questions coming!
Clue from previous clue: Father
Success, as is often said, has many fathers, but failure is an orphan. Not only that, some men can achieve greatness in one area of life while striking out miserably in another. For instance, in Samuel Butler’s The Way of All Flesh, Ernest Pontifex’s old man is a terrible parent, quick with the reprimands and glacially slow with the compliments--if indeed, he ever had a kind word for his son at all. But Butler’s example of the cold and emotionally distant father figure is common in modern literature.
Speaking of stereotypes, what’s with the gender bias in Rodgers and Hammerstein’s song that contains the line: “You can have fun with a son but you've got to be a father to a girl?” (Huh? Don't sons need “parenting” as well?) Not only that, we often hear how the giant of Baroque music fathered a total of 20 children yet still had time to compose, but nobody ever mentions the composure of J. S. Bach’s two successive wives whose composure gave him the freedom to dabble on the harpsichord. Not to mention keeping down the NOISE! Comedian Martin Mull nailed it when he said “Having a family is like having a bowling alley installed in your brain.”
Another stock figure is the bumbling dad in American sitcoms. In a typical tv family consisting of a sarcastic mother, and one or more wise-cracking but insufferably cute children, Dad is odd man out. Although Robert Young was a fount of patriarchal wisdom in Father Knows Best, in most of the comedy series of the fifties and sixties(e.g. Make Room for Daddy, My Three Sons) Dad is either the butt of jokes or nearly irrelevant. Today, tv days are still fools, as is the preternaturally stupid dad in Family Guy and of course, Homer in the brilliant, long-running animated series, The Simpsons.
Not all real-life fathers are buffoons, of course. So to all of our nerve-rattled, beleaguered, dads out there, happy Father’s Day!
Now before we all get taken behind the woodshed for a good thrashin’, let’s go to the quiz:
So’s Yer Ol’ Man!
Our first question was sent in by DickZ
1. What famous 19th century British author was appalled to see his wild and free-spending father incarcerated in a debtor’s prison for four months? The author was only twelve years old at the time of his father’s arrest, so he hadn't yet officially been designated as an author. But even at that early age, he had some pretty great expectations along those lines.
This next one is from Virgil
2. Who is the American author commonly known as Papa and known for his masculine writing style?
3. Which Shakespearean character and father of three famously exclaimed: “How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child!”
4. Which British author (1874-1936) wrote a series of mystery novels featuring Father Brown, a detective who was also a Catholic priest?
5. Based on the childhood memoir of Clarence Day, Jr., what was the long-running Broadway play and subsequent movie about a stubborn yet loving head of a family in New York of the 1880s?
6. He was completely bald, and his oval-shaped eyes often had a, um, “vacant” look, but he was a generous and loving gentleman. Which classic comic strip character became the guardian of Little Orphan Annie?
7. We know him as the creator of Alice and her adventures, but he also wrote a famous poem parody called “Father William.” Who was he?
8. The same two word phrase which drum instructors use to teach the 4-beat paradiddle appears as the name of a character in the famous Eudora Welty short story,“Why I Live at the P.O.” What is this term?
9. Name the bearded and scythe-carrying figure of folklore who is seen only once a year, on New Year’s Eve – and even then he’s gone by midnight.
10. It sounded like a baby’s first word for his father, but it was a literary and artistic movement founded in Zurich in 1916. A frequent crossword puzzle term, what were the repeated-syllables in the name for this anarchistic, deliberately chaotic forerunner of surrealism?
11. “Big Daddy” is a pivotal character in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, a steamy play dripping with raw emotion by which eminent 20th century American playwright?
12. In the original movie 1950 Spencer Tracy played the title character, a host who is constantly made to feel superfluous. After being charged with checking on the amount of the champagne for the guests, the bartender tells him, “Don't worry, Pal – you'll get yours!” Name this comedy classic, remade with Steve Martin in 1991.
13. And finally, what’s the affectionate nickname given to David Ortiz, the current designated hitter and occasional first baseman for the Boston Red Sox?
Answers
1. Charles Dickens
2. Ernest Hemingway
3. King Lear
4. G. K. Chesterton
5. Life With Father
6. Daddy Warbucks
7. Lewis Carroll
8. Papa Daddy
9. Father Time
10. Dada
11. Tennessee Williams
12. Father of the Bride
13. “Big Papi”
The clue for the next quiz topic can be found in the missing word:
An iconic song from Showboat! by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein is “Ol’ Man _____(What?)
Thank you DickZ and Virgil for supplying questions for this week’s quiz. If any members of the LitNet online community would like to contribute a question (and its accompanying answer) for the quiz containing any aspect of the topic hinted in the clue, please send it in a PM to me before 3 p.m., Tuesday, June 23.
Source (in addition to the usual suspects): Benét’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Third Edition, published by Harper & Row.
Ol' Man RIVER? :)Quote:
Originally Posted by AuntShecky
Enjoyed the quiz, got 1, 2, 7, 9, 10, and 11 -- wow, things are lookin' up for me! ;)
Thanks again for another great quiz, Auntie. I have always loved the song My Boy Bill from Carousel, so thanks for working it in. I always thought it very effectively captured the difference between how a father views a girl as compared to a boy.
I was able to get the first three, but missed #4. I got #5, #6, #7, and #8, but never heard of that drum instructor’s paradiddle-teaching device, and I’ll have to look up paradiddle to boot.
And I closed out with getting #9-#13 all correct. Related to #13, I’m an avid Boston Red Sox fan, and there’s a blog run by Big Pupi, who is a cocker spaniel also devoted to the Red Sox. In fact, he ran for President of Red Sox Nation a couple of years ago, but was soundly defeated. My cat Eleanor used to participate on the Big Pupi blog, because the idea was to have dogs and cats doing all the talking about the baseball games. But Big Pupi recently switched to Twitter, and Eleanor doesn’t want to have anything to do with Twitter due to its similarity to texting.
So in summary, I got #1, #2, #3, #5, #6, #7, #9, #10, #11, #12, and #13.
And I think I have solved the mystery of next week’s quiz, even before kiz paws let the cat out of the bag, so I’ll start working on a question to contribute.
I got eight: 1,2,3,4,9,10,11,13. I can't believe I said CS Lewis for Lewis Carrol, and Daddy Warbucks was on the tip of my tongue but wouldn't come out.
O.K. I got 1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12 and the bonus.
I should have known 5, I've heard of G.K. Chesterton, but I don't think I've read anything by him, and I have read "Why I live at the P.O," but unfortunately that was a number of years ago (ahem). Hilarious story, by the way. Virgil, DickZ, good questions. AuntShecky, hats off to you. You do an amazing job. How long does it take you to make these quizzes up?
DickZ, that is so cute about your cat blogging! At first I thought you had just misspelled "papi" until I looked a little closer! :lol:
It takes a while, but it will take less time if I get some contributions from all the smart LitNutters (actually, if you're a LitNutter, you're already smart!)Quote:
Originally Posted by qimissung
So keep those questions comin' in!
I hate playing catch up, but I got 8 out of 13 on the Poison quiz. Had I got the clue the week before I might have submitted this question:
Name the 1980s hair band most likely to make you jam knitting needles through your ears.
Opportunity lost.:D
Moving on to Who's Your Daddy. Well apparently I am. I only missed number 5 (which I should have gotten, but went with Cheaper by the Dozen) and 8. When my son learned paradiddle's he learned them by saying paradiddle. I'm going to check it out with him.
Trying to work up a question for next week.