I did great on this one Aunty. Being Italian-American i think I made Columbus proud. :)
I got nine correct: 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 11, 13. I'm kicking myself for not getting the Barber of Seville. I knew that, but it just wouldn't come to me.
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I did great on this one Aunty. Being Italian-American i think I made Columbus proud. :)
I got nine correct: 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 11, 13. I'm kicking myself for not getting the Barber of Seville. I knew that, but it just wouldn't come to me.
I'm so gratified that folks are doing better on these things.
Finally, finally, maybe the questions are getting better --but you LitNetters keep getting smarter all the time!
Perhaps others, but you can't possibly be referring to me. :DQuote:
Originally Posted by AuntShecky
Viva Hispanic Heritage Month! Way, way, way back in my schooldays the only multi-cultural items you could find were a can of chili con carne and an occasional Perez"Prez" Prado tune on the AM radio. The teachers spent mucho tiempo telling us about European male explorers and the white-washed exploits of the conquistadores. There was never a word about José Marti (1853-1895), the great Cuban poet and essayist, or novelist George Lamming from the island of Barbados, or playwright Francesco Arrivi from Puerto Rico. Back then the curriculum not only failed to recognize the literary contributions of Latinas, but also made a point of mostly ignoring women writers of every ethnicity. Recent years seem to have brought recognition to the works of Haitian-American writer Edwidge Danticat and Jamaica Kincaid, born in Antigua as Elaine Potter Richardson in 1949. But if we had depended on the former “establishment” in the U.S. to teach us about inclusiveness, all we would know about the rich, diversified culture of some our neighbors to the south would be the pejorative term (and retail clothier) “Banana Republic,” voodoo dolls and zombies, and the Johnny Depp pirate movie franchise.
This week features Caribbean and Central America along with as a more northerly group of colonizers in a little ditty we like to call:
“Yanqui, Go Home!”
1. The word “Yankee,” a diminutive of “John,” derived from the language of Europeans who settled in New Amsterdam and the Hudson Valley, as well colonizing much of the West Indies. What was the nationality of the people who called the
British colonists "Yankees"?
2. Cuban refugee Nilo Cruz won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for a work about immigrants who work in a Florida cigar-factory while a “lector” helps to relieve the tedium by reading to them a novel by Leo Tolstoy. What is the name of this play?
3. What is the body of water whom the Spanish colonizers named after their word for the indigenous people who lived on its islands, which in their own language meant “brave?”
4. What’s the title of a simple song popular during the American Revolution which features a foppish British soldier, a pony, and a feather?
5. Starring Yves Montand, a 1955 masterpiece by French film director Henri-Georges Clouzot depicts a Central American town whose people are exploited by an American oil corporation and focuses on a small group of men who try to escape by transporting a truckload of nitroglycerine, ostensibly to extinguish a fire in a remote oil well. What’s the title of this movie, remade in 1977 by William Friedkin as The Sorcerer.
6. Mostly known as having been on the losing side of a famous duel, who was the first Secretary of the Treasury of the United States, the only American founding father who had been born in the West Indies?
7. Jean Rhys (1894-1979), born in the West Indies of Welsh and Creole parents, achieved acclaim in 1966 with her novel, The Wide Sargasso Sea. Though setting on a Caribbean island, the chief character is the first Mrs. Rochester, so this book could be considered a latter-day “prequel” to which prominent Victorian novel?
8. Beginning his life in 1930 on the island of St. Lucia, Derek Walcott grew up to write poems such as “Crusoe’s Island” which attempt to move toward a reconciliation between diverse, or often antagonistic, cultures. His poetry blends native rhythmic patterns with more conventional verse forms. A recurrent theme is an intense personal responsibility tempered with peaceful resignation, as in these lines in “Codicil”:
"To change your language you must change your life./ I cannot right old wrongs." What is the distinctive literary honor which Derek Walcott shares with only one other person in the world? (So far.)
9. What is the two-word phrase that can refer to, among many other items: a New England sailing ship of the 19th century, a Boeing seaplane, a specific major league baseball player from the 1940s and 50s, and the Apollo 12 Command Module?
10. What is the geographical term for the type of narrow land area on which the Panama Canal was constructed?
11. In his later non-fiction travel pieces Mark Twain was a champion for the Third World nearly a century before the term was first coined. But he was best known as a comic novelist. What is the title of his time-traveling satiric novel whose chief character is a superintendent of a Hartford factory?
12. In 1816, an ocean away from Central America, the Victorian poet John Keats wrote the stirring sonnet, “On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer.” The poem is gorgeous throughout, but – like all of us! – Keats made one little factual error in these lines:
“Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes/He star’d at the Pacific– and all his men/Look’d at each other with a wild surmise–/Silent, upon a peak in Darien.” What was the mistake?
13. And finally, in a Broadway musical and movie based on a 1954 novel by Douglas Wallop, a middle- aged baseball fan makes a Faustian deal with the devil in order to get on the starting roster of the Washington Senators. Name this show, in which you might hear these lyrics sung in the clubhouse locker room: “So what’s the use of cryin’/ Why should be curse/ We gotta get better/ Cause we can’t get worse!”
Answers
1. The Dutch
2. Anna in the Tropics (as in “Anna Karenina”)
3. Caribbean Sea
4. “Yankee Doodle”
5. The Wages of Fear
6. Alexander Hamilton
7. Jane Eyre
8. Along with V.S. Naipaul, a British novelist born in Trinidad who received the honor in 2001, in 2003 Derek Walcott is the only other person born in the West Indies to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.
9. “Yankee Clipper”
10. Isthmus
11. A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court
12. Keats had the wrong explorer. Balboa, not Cortez, is credited with having discovered the Pacific Ocean.
13. Damn Yankees
Thanks for another great entertaining quiz, Auntie. I got numbers 4, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, and 13.
Please give yourself credit for #1, DickZ. It wasn't worded clearly, but I have since corrected it. --AS
I got seven correct: 1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 10, 11. I should have done better though. I should have gotten Yankee Clipper and Damn Yankess. Shame on me. ;)
I never knew that "Yankee" was a variation of John.
Thanks for taking the quiz, Virgil. In the Yankee Clipper question I thought about actually mentioning Joe DiMaggio's name, but I wasn't really sure of how to spell it.
By the bye, your blog is a GRAND SLAM!
Why thank you. I probably would have gotten Yankee Clipper if you had mentioned DiMaggio. ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by AuntShecky
Sometimes I wonder why I get all worked up over the fact that the proper use of the apostrophe is virtually unknown anywhere in the contiguous United States (as well as Hawaii and especially Alaska.) After reading an article from a link in Virgil’s blog, I've discovered that I may be a “Snoot.” --
http://grammar.about.com/od/grammarf...atisasnoot.htm
If I am indeed a full-fledged member of Snoothood, I would be proud to count myself among such great Snoots as the late William Safire and Lynn Truss, author of Eats, Shoots & Leaves: A Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation.
Instead of gassing over grammatical gaffes and directing diatribes toward the punctuation-deprived, I should perhaps direct my passion and energy toward more culturally significant issues, such as why does the NHL insist on calling Toronto’s team “The Maple Leafs?” Additionally, this time of year renews my confusion over distinguishing between maples and sycamores. So far the only difference I can see is that you don't have to apply for a third mortgage in order to buy a bottle of sycamore syrup.
This week we're attempting to tell the forest from the trees with questions and answers about things arboreal, some deciduous, including a few stems just beginning to sprout. Since I'm already “past peak” and couldn't be less “poplar,” it “wood” be best to start climbing down to the quiz, which we like to call
Trees, Shoots, and Leaves
1. What is the title of the hit song from 1955, a real “fall classic,” which includes Johnny Mercer’s lyrics about the seasonal phenomena that “drift by my window?”
2. Like comets, meteors were once thought to be bad omens, as described in Hamlet, I,1: “. . .with trains of fire and dews of blood/Disasters in the sky.” What is the two-word term for these celestial streakers in the night sky?
3. Name the playwright whose Desire Under the Elms (1924), inspired by Greek tragedy, concerns a patriarch and his much-younger second wife who seduces her stepson in order to conceive an heir.
4. “Song of Myself” is one of the most famous of Walt Whitman’s poems, collected in a volume whose first edition appeared in 1855. What is the title of this poetry collection?
5. A (necessarily) gigantic tree binding together all of heaven, earth, and hell was thought to be the Tree of Life and Knowledge, as well as of Time and Space. In which mythological tradition would we find this tree called “Yggdrasil”? (Be still, Spell-Check!)
6. Throughout his spectacular career, he had won such honors as the Pulitzer and Nobel Prizes, but his 1950 novel, Across the River and Into the Trees, drew mostly yawns from the critics. Who was he?
7. Name the kind of leaves from which the ancient Greeks fashioned wreaths to crown their athletic heroes, who in turn could “look to,” but never “rest on” them.
8. At Fredericksburg, a 96-year-old Civil War heroine confronted Confederate Gen. Stonewall Jackson with the lines: “ ‘Shoot, if you must, this old gray head/ But spare your country’s flag,’ she said.” What is the 1863 eponymous poem by John Greenleaf Whittier in which those lines appear?
9. Speaking of the Old Line State, Maryland-born Munro Leaf (1905-1976) was a former English teacher who wrote, among other children’s books, Grammar Can Be Fun. What is the title of Leaf’s most famous work about a Spanish bull who prefers smelling wildflowers to fighting?
10. Name the poet who begins one of his 154 sonnets with the lines: “That time of year thou mayst in me behold/When yellow leaves, or none, or few do hang.”
11. Because of its references to “God” and “prayer,” it probably no longer appears in the syllabus of public schools, but years ago the poem was a huge favorite in elementary classrooms, though literary critics abhorred it. What is the one-word title of this 1913 poem by Joyce Kilmer?
12. Who wrote the 1907 short story, “The Last Leaf,” about an ailing young lady who resolves to cling to life as long as a single autumn leaf remains attached to a branch outside the window of her Greenwich Village apartment?
13. And finally, the American playwright and raconteur George S. Kaufman (1889-1961) once wielded power as the drama critic for the New York Times. When a press agent asked how he could get the name of an actress he was representing printed in the paper, what was Kaufman’s two-word reply?
Answers
1. “Autumn Leaves”
2. Shooting stars
3. Eugene O'Neill
4. Leaves of Grass
5. Scandinavian (Norse)
6. Ernest Hemingway
7. Laurel(s)
8. “Barbara Frietchie”
9. The Story of Ferdinand
10. Shakespeare
11. “Trees”
12. O. Henry
13. “Shoot her!”
Sources: Brewer’s, Reader’s Encyclopedia, The Portable Curmudgeon (Jon Winokur,ed.)
and “Why English Teachers Can't Read Poetry,” by John Kilgore:
http://www.eiu.edu/~ipaweb/pipa/volume3/kilgore.htm
Great quiz, Auntie. I'm always amazed at how you pick such timely topics for your quizzes. You certainly put lots of thought into these quizzes, and I hope everyone recognizes this fact.
I got numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 8, 10, and 11, but I have to admit that the only reason I got number 10 is the fact that Shakespeare is the only writer I know of who wrote so many sonnets. I am not familiar with the particular one you cited here.
That one would be #73, which, according to some interpretations, could be an allusion to aging. But what's remarkable about that second line:Quote:
Originally Posted by DickZ
When yellow leaves, or none, or few do hang
is that the reader can see the speaker (the "I" of
the poem) actually changing his mind before our eyes. More prosaic writers may have had the leaves in a more or less chronological order, (leaves. . .none. . .few), but here he defies logic; it's as if he's saying, no -- "let's leave a few leaves left on the trees,I don't want to go as far as
having the tree totally bereft of leaves, i.e., I'm aging, but I do have a few years left."
It has been said that one of the reasons Mozart is so great is that when we're hearing one of his works, we think we know what the next note will be, but Mozart throws in something entirely different -- but one that is exactly right!
That's what art,music, and poetry is supposed to do-- surprise us, even confuse and perplex us! That's especially true of Shakespeare --and of Frost, which is exactly what John Kilgore says in that article linked in "sources" above.
What's interesting about that sonnet is the way the metaphors move from seasons, to a leafless tree, to the setting sun, and finally to a dying fire. It gets gradually more hopeless as you realize that the speaker is not only speaking of aging, but of death. Then you get that sweet little couplet about how that all makes loves so much better ;).
Anyway, I got 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 10, and 13.
As to the name of the hockey team, the official story is that it is named after a regiment from the Toronto region that served in WWI called the Maple Leaf regiment. Thus, as a proper noun, people who belong to the Maple Leaf regiment are Maple Leafs.
Well, for the Phillies quiz I got 1, 4, 7, 10, 12, and 13.
And for this one I got 1, 4 5, 7 8, 9 and 10.
I should have gotten 2 and 11, of course! I've read that story in 13, but couldn't bring his name to mind, nor Eugene ONeill's name. Doh!
Don't get me wrong -- I like chocolate and pumpkins (eaten separately, of course), but if I ever said that Halloween was my favorite holiday, I'd have to have my gourd examined. I don't want to sound like a calendar-challenged Ebeneezer Scrooge*, but All Hallow’s Eve is just an excuse to cause mayhem with the alternative of shaking down folks for free junk food. Around here we call that “legalized extortion.” Anybody who celebrates Halloween should be lit like a candle in his own Jack o’ Lantern with the pointed end of a piece of candy corn staked through his heart.
Nah, I kid, I kid. But the most disturbing fact about how the ancient pagan ritual is commemorated in the US is the high percentage of adult celebrants! Among those superannuated revelers, many actually dress up in costumes. They would look ridiculous dressing up like their children’s favorite animated characters, even if they could find a Tickle Me Elmo or a Bratz doll in Size XXX Lrg. Adults occasionally go in a really scary costume, like a monster (a bank that’s “too big to fail”), or a vampire (the “deductible” on their health insurance plan.) They could rip their outfit, Law and Order style, “straight from the headlines “-- such as a mask of Bernie Madoff, whose face might not be instantly recognizable but whose multi-billion dollar Ponzi scheme certainly rings a bell. Or maybe they could get really creative by going as a hot air balloon – either as the reality-show obsessed family or the instantly-inflated monthly payment on the adjustable rate mortgage. In any event, every adult who dresses up for Halloween ultimately looks like the same creature – an overgrown kid. And that's really scary!
To this week’s quiz, in which each q and/or a in our hair-raising (er, hare-brained) haunting has something to do with a sweet snack or devious hijinks, such as practical jokes and the like. So before some ghoul throws toilet paper all over the lawn or pelts me with eggs that didn't even come from free-range chickens, let’s go to the fright-fest, which we like to call
Trick or Treat
1. Found in the myths from Africa and Native Americans of both continents, this shape-changer was a god, a human, or an animal, whose raison d’etre was to make trouble, or to shake up the status quo. Often given the name of Raven or Coyote, what is the one-word general term for this archetypal prankster?
2. A folk song about these delectable treats can be found on an album by Peter, Paul, and Mary (the recently-departed Mary Travers.) What were these edibles distributed to the poor in front of many a church door in Britain on November 2, the day after All Hallow’s Day?
3. This American author wrote a whale of a book as well as several tales set in the South Seas, but one of his masterworks concerned a master of disguises who succeeded in fooling the passengers on a riverboat cruise. So who was the novelist who created The Confidence Man?
4. There are two movie versions of Roald Dahl’s fanciful book about a confectioner and the young lad who wins a contest to tour his manufacturing facility. What’s the original title of this book?
5. Who was the Homeric hero known for his 20-year quest to return home, but especially known for his cunning and devious tricks, such as pulling the wool over the eyes (or eye) of the Cyclops?
6. An “Abram-man” or a “Tom o’ Bedlam” was the name of a beggar, who, dressed in a distinctively strange get-up, engaged in crazed behavior in order to elicit alms from passers-by. What exactly was “Bedlam”?
7. An early 20th century American song by Harry McClintock which referred to “lemonade springs where the bluebird sings.” Far from being family-friendly, however, the lyrics also extolled cigarette trees and whiskey trickling down the hills. What is the name of this song? Fans of Wallace Stegner might know it as the title of his first novel.
(What? You're not a Wallace Stegner fan? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallace_Stegner)
8. Known for a novel about Paul Gaughin as well as his masterpiece, Of Human Bondage, who was the British author (1874-1965) who wrote Cakes and Ale, a comic novel about Rosie Driffield, the long-suffering spouse of a “Grand Old Man of Letters” the character thought to be based on the real-life Literary Light, Thomas Hardy.
9. What was the “squat, plump little cake,” the “cookie” which served as the memory- trigger for the narrator of Swann’s Way, the opening volume of Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past? (Hint: the name of the cookie is also a feminine name, which doesn't necessarily mean that a female carrying that name is squat, plump, and little.)
10. Characters in this “iconic” American author’s books were no strangers to tricks, pranks and practical jokes, such as using reverse psychology to get out of an unpleasant painting chore or witnessing one’s own funeral. In his later years, the writer, truly a “media celebrity “a century before that term appeared, never appeared in public unless he was wearing his trademark costume – an elegant white suit. Who was he?
11. Christina Rossetti (1830-1894) wrote a long, fantastic poem about two sisters tempted by the sweet and delectable wares sold by a group of little troll-like traveling salesmen. Though lines such as: “ ‘Come buy, come buy,’/with its iterated jingle/Of sugar-baited words” sound as if they came from a 21st century commercial, critics believe the poem itself is a religious allegory full of sexual undertones. What’s the three-word title of this poem?
12. “The pennycandy store beneath the El/is where I first/ fell in love/ with unreality/ Jellybeans glowed in the semi-gloom/of that September afternoon/A cat upon the counter moved among/the licorice sticks/and tootsie rolls/and Oh Boy Gum” begins a delicious poem by Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Born in New York, he relocated to San Francisco in 1951, where he established the City Lights Bookstore and Publishers, which first published the works of Kerouac, Ginsberg, Corso, and Burroughs – a group of poets known by what term?
13. And finally, in his 1956 hit, what did Screamin’ Jay Hawkins say he did?
Answers
1. Trickster
2. Soul-cakes
3. Herman Melville
4. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
5. Odysseus
6. A mental hospital, or a lunatic asylum. (In order to free up space, the seemingly less dangerous inmates were let out onto the street and left to their own devices. Sort of an “early-release” program, I suppose.)
7. “The Big Rock Candy Mountain”
8. W. Somerset Maugham
9. Madeleine
10. Mark Twain
11. “The Goblin Market”
12. The Beat Poets
13. “I Put a Spell on You”
Sources: Reader’s Encyclopedia, Brewer’s, Youtube.com, referencecenter.com
*and “Boo, Humbug,” by Michael Elliott
http://www.time.com/time/columnist/e...525415,00.html