The LitNet Forum Game Quiz o' the Week

Auntie! Thanks for the quiz. I've missed seeing them. This one seemed much easier with the multiple choice - I got 9/13. I got #4-8 and #10-13. I was excited to see Ferlinghetti in there because when I lived in San Francisco, I used to go to his bookstore "City Lights" all the time!

Admittedly, I've never heard of Doctorow; I'll have to go check him out. And though I've seen Barth's books around, I've never actually picked one up. But your question on him made him sound really interesting.

Can't wait for next week's quiz!

Arguably one of the best-known works of American verse, “The Road Not Taken” has been “taken,” all right, by editors of countless high school anthologies. Although teachers and students alike find much to admire in the works of Robert Frost, this particular work has been subject to misguided interpretations (see below.)* The readers must have taken a wrong turn when their GPS systems went on the fritz.

Scenic paths, highways, and byways run for miles through numerous stories and songs. The summer may be over for tourists, but construction season lingers on. If you’re being directed to a detour, or fighting gridlock, or stuck in traffic jam, you might like to pass the time by taking our little quiz, which we like to call

Caution: Road Work Ahead

1. “Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road./Healthy, free, the world before me” are the opening lines of “Song of the Open Road.” Who wrote them?
(a.) Walt Whitman (b.) William Wordsworth (c.)William Carlos Williams (d.) Walt Jocketty.

2. Whose most famous work is The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy?
(a.) Douglas Adams (b.) Adam Corolla (c.) Adam West (d.) Douglas Brinkley

3. We may already have had more than enough post-apocalyptic novels by 2006, but in that year who published The Road, winner of several prestigious literary awards?
(a.) Kevin McCarthy (b.) Russell Banks
(c.) Cormac McCarthy (d.) MacKinlay Kantor

4. Whose song advised hipsters to “Get your kicks on Route 66"?
(a.) Nelson Riddle (b.) Count Basie (c.) Bobby Troup
(d.) Bobby Short

5. ALL of the following are names of characters in Jack Kerouac’s On the Road EXCEPT:
(a.) Dean Moriarity (b.) Carlo Marx (c.) Gregory Corso (d.) Sal Paradise

6. According to conventional wisdom, the Road to Hell is paved with what?
(a.) gold (b.) the sins of the fathers (c.) good intentions (d.) municipal bonds.

7. Name the 2007 winner of the Kentucky Derby:
(a.) Street Smarts (b.) Street Sense (c.) Bellamy Road (d.) Quality Road

8. What’s the title of the Tony award winning musical which features G-rated puppets speaking racy lines and singing R-rated songs?
a.) Avenue A (b.) Street Scene (c.) Poppyseed Street (d.) Avenue Q.

9. Which of the following is the most famous poem by Alfred Noyes?
(a.) "Cherry Blossom Lane" (b.) "The Highwayman" (c.) "Road Warrior" (d.) "Walk, Don’t Run"

10. Which former U.S. President is credited with the creation of the Interstate Highway System?
(a.) FDR (b.) Eisenhower (c.) JFK (d.) LBJ (e.) Nixon

11. Bob Hope and Bing Crosby took the Road to. . .” ALL of the following EXCEPT:
(a.) Rio (b.) Hong Kong (c.) Utopia (d.) Ruin (e.) Zanzibar

12. Among the following, who is most associated with the song, “Hit the Road, Jack”?:

(a.) Jamie Foxx (b.) Mary Wells (c.) Ray Charles (d.) The Coasters (e) The Temptations

13. And finally, long before we were born Fred Astaire introduced this in a movie, but a few of us were here by the time Frank Sinatra had a smash hit with this song by Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer. What was it?:
(a.) "Where the Streets Have No Name" (b.) "Easy Street" (c.) "On the Street Where You Live"
(d.) "One for My Baby and One More for the Road"





Answers
1. a 2. a 3. c 4. c 5. c 6. c 7. b 8. d 9. b 10. b 11. d 12. c 13. d

*Here's the link to the critical article about the "The Road Not Taken":
http://www.thescreamonline.com/essay...01/poetry.html

Auntie, I've seen that article before and think it's great. I need to share it with all my students. I did a bit better this week; I got 9/13 correct: #1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and 12. The last one was a complete guess...I got lucky there!

I was excited to see a Derby question here. I've never noticed how many of our top Thoroughbreds have road/street related names (Giant's Causeway, Cherokee Run, Forward Pass, Raven's Pass, and Conduit also spring to mind). But I suppose we owe much of that to the Street Cry craziness since Street Sense won the Derby. On a random note: Bellamy Road is one of the most beautiful Thoroughbreds I've ever seen.

2,4,6,10 and 11. How embarrassing!

Thanks to you both for taking the quiz. And Pen, I hadn't seen your screen name lately --it's nice to see you back.

Thanks for the quiz Aunt Shecky - even though I only got 5 right :eek:

I had no hope with the Kentucky Derby Winner though :p

Thanks, Auntie. I got 1, 6, 9, 10, 11, 12, and 13.

Surprise! We finally have a quiz. Eleven of the thirteen questions are multiple choice; for the remaining two you're on your own. Let's get right to this week's fright-fest, which, surprisingly enough, we like to call

October Surprise


1. Which of the following poets rhapsodized about "October's bright blue weather?":
(a) Elinor Wylie (b) Sara Teasdale (c) Emily Dickinson (d) Helen Hunt Jackson

2. The phrase "a tankard of October" refers to what kind of libation?
(a) ale (b) beer (c) wine (d) hard cider

3. Of the following works by Edgar Allen Poe which one specifically takes place on Halloween?
(a) "Annabel Lee" (b) "The Raven" (c) "Ulalume" (d) The Tell-Tale Heart.

4. A scene about a witches' sabbath can be found in which work by Nathaniel Hawthorne?
(a) The House of the Seven Gables (b) Tanglewood Tales (c) "Young Goodman Brown" (d) Ethan Brand

5. The October Revolution occurred in which country?
(a) France (b) Russia (c) Italy (d) Cuba

6. Most of us are familiar with Washington Irving's legendary Halloween tale. Name the real geographic location of "Sleepy Hollow."
(a) Kinderhook NY (b) Secaucus NJ (c)Tarrytown NY (d) Paterson NJ

7. Which seventeenth century English poet wrote "Witchcraft by a Picture"?
(a) Herrick (b) Marvell (c) Crashaw (d) Donne

8. Robert Frost wrote all of the following EXCEPT:
(a) "After Apple-Picking" (b) "Nothing Gold Can Stay" (c) "The Witch of Coos" (d) "Solomon and the Witch"

9. Name the historically significant event occurring on October 24, 1929.

10. October is our tenth month, but for the ancient Romans it was the eighth month. Why?

11. Who wrote "The Goblin Market"?
(a) Dante Gabriel Rossetti (b) William Morris (c) Christina Rossetti (d) Elizabeth Barrett Browning

12. Which American novelist wrote Goodbye, Columbus?
(a) John Irving (b) Philip Roth (c) John Updike
(d) Bernard Malamud

and finally, it's MLB playoff time!--

13. Name the former major league baseball star most associated with the sobriquet, "Mr. October."
(a) Stan Musial (b) Henry Aaron (c) Willie Mays (d) Reggie Jackson





Answers
1. d 2. a 3. c 4. c 5. b 6. c 7. d 8. d (Yeats)
9. The Stock Market crashed. 10. The Roman calendar began in March. 11. c 12. b 13. d

Hi Auntie,

I really enjoyed taking the quiz, though I completely tanked on it. I got 6/13. I got #5, 6 (by pure luck), 8, 9, 10, 11. I really struggled with the Hawthorne question because I'd read (b) and (c) so long ago I barely remembered them, and the answer to the Poe question was the only one I hadn't read.

Thanks for introducing the Donne poem to me. I hadn't heard of that one and it sounds fascinating so I must go check it out.

A final question: What does Goodbye, Columbus have to do with October? (Obviously, I haven't read it.)

Thanks for the quiz, Auntie. I only got five right – numbers 5, 6, 10, 12 and the bonus question. I guess I'll have to study October a lot more.

Allllllll Riiiiigghhhtttt I forgot how much fun these quizes were even though I only got 5 correct. (The bonus question saved me)

Oh I had missed the quiz on the road. I got nine correct there (1,3,4,6,9,10,11,12,13)

On the October surprise I got only got seven (4,5,6,9,11,12,13).

Thanks for these Aunty. I always enjoy them. :)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Wilde woman

A final question: What does Goodbye, Columbus have to do with October? (Obviously, I haven't read it.)

---

Some parts of the western hemisphere celebrate --or used to commemorate --Columbus Day on October 12.

Thanks Aunt Shecky - I only got 6 right, but still enjoyed taking the quiz :D

Here's a little quiz to get your glucose pumping against the autumn chill. The questions aren't all that difficult, but what's really baffling is why the sportswriters awarded an MLB Gold Glove to. . .Derek Jeter? In any event, like a fallen oak leaves in the wind, let's skip over to the
quiz which we like to call

November? No Kidding!

1. Who wrote the following lines:
No comfortable feel in any member--
No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees,
No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds!--
November!(a) Emily Dickinson (b) Gerard Manley Hopkins (c) Wordsworth (d) Thomas Hood

2. In the United States, the first Tuesday of November is often designated as Election Day. Which one of the fifty states produced more American Presidents than any other?
(a) Virginia (b) New York (c) Pennsylvania (d) Massachusetts

3. Speaking of states, one of them was the site of the historic "First Flight" by the Wright Brothers. Even though that event occurred in December (of 1903), November is nevertheless National Aviation Month. Not only that, this state entered the Union in the month of November
(of 1789.) What was it?
(a) South Carolina (b) North Carolina (c) Delaware (d) Ohio

4. "November's sky is chill and drear,
November's leaf is red and sear."Who wrote that? (a)Robert Burns (b) Helen Hunt Jackson
(c) Sir Walter Scott (d) Tennyson

5. Bonfires are set each November 5 on Guy Fawkes Day, a reference to the Gunpowder Plot, a failed attempt to destroy which English ruler?
(a) James I (b) Charles I (c) Charles II (d) James II

6. In what year was Thanksgiving permanently established as a National Holiday, officially to occur each year on the fourth Thursday in November? (a) 1621
(b) 1863 (c) 1941 (d) 1956

7. Name the significant American novel in which the opening paragraph includes the line: "Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul. . ."
(a) O Pioneers! (b) Moby Dick
(c) The Sound and the Fury(d)An American Tragedy

8. The Major League Baseball season is already long, and in recent years the expanded postseason has made it even longer. Not that I'm complaining, but if this keeps up, the groundskeepers are going to have to add another piece of equipment to the lawn tractors and tarps-- a snowplow! Even so, North America still can have pleasant weather throughout the autumn. Of the following major sporting events, which one usually takes place in November?
(a) Masters Tournament (b) Indianapolis 500 (c) Boston Marathon (d) Breeders' Cup

9. Because their year began in March, the ancient Romans considered November to be the ninth month. The Saxons in Britain called it "Wind-monath" because this was the month in which they did what?
(a) put up wooden shutters on their windows (b) pulled in their fishing boats until the following spring (c) finished their wine-making for the season (d) swept their chimneys and checked them for down-drafts.

10. Today, November 10, 2010 is the 235th birthday for which branch of the U.S. military?
(a) Army (b) Navy (c) Marine Corps (d) Coast Guard

11. November 11 has been designated as Veterans' Day in both Canada and the United States, but the it has not always gone by that name in the U.S. Between 1946 and 1954, it was called Remembrance Day" in order to honor those who had given their lives in the Second World War. By what name was this important day called between 1918 and 1946?

12. Match the following Memorials in Washington, D.C. with the dates of their dedication and/or official public openings.
(1) Vietnam Memorial (2) Korean War Memorial (3) World War I Memorial and (4) World War II Memorial
Dates: (a) 1931 (b) 1993 (c) 1995 (d) 2004

13. And finally, a major figure of American Literature was born on November 30, 1835, the same year that Halley's Comet made its rare appearance. The author correctly predicted that his death would come when the comet returned again. Who was he?



Answers:
1. d
2. a
3. b
4. c
5. a
6. c
7. b
8. d
9. b
10. c
11. Armistice Day
12. 1B, 2C, 3A, 4D
13. Mark Twain

Thanks, Auntie, for another very entertaining quiz. I was able to get a few of them right - namely, numbers 2, 3, 6, 8 (only because a filly with an amazing record participated in this year's event), 10, 11 (only because I'm old enough to have lived through the other names), 12, and 13.

Please keep these coming. I can appreciate how difficult it is to produce them, having tried a couple of times without much success.

Thanks for the quiz, Auntie! I enjoyed it, though I always feel humbled by your seemingly infinite store of knowledge. I got 6/13...2, 3, 5, 6, 8, and 9. I just realized none of those were literary, but historical. That's actually quite depressing....I'm supposed to be a student of literature. :(

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by DickZ

8 (only because a filly with an amazing record participated in this year's event)

---

Are you as depressed about Zenyatta's loss as I am?

Fair to Middlin'-I got them all correct! Hooray for me! Hopefully I'll get to your newer ones tomorrow, Aunty.

Yay, Q! You got them all right! By the bye, love the quotes in your signature. Did you know that somebody took Rumsfeld's tortured syntax and published it as a collection of "found poems." (A critic said they were like bad Wallace Stevens.) Frankl, by contrast, is a great writer,
whom more of us should read.

Well here we are again, watching the year getting ready to pack up and take off for parts unknown, and "good riddance to ye," we say! Meanwhile here is the final quiz of 2010, whose content consists of random bits of material culled from previous quizzes. All right, call them "repeats" if you will, but that's no different from what the TV and cable networks do. Hey, I love It's a Wonderful Life as much as the next gal, but that movie seems to have more lives than a vampire's pet cat. With that, I bid adieu until 2011-- when we do hope more LitNutters will participate in this thread and post quizzes of their own devising - and without further ado, here's a little thing we like to call

The Super Duper, Lolapalooza, Suretomakeyousnooza Lit Net Forum Games 2010 Final 'Zam

1. Which novel opens with a scene about a down-at-the heels farmhand getting so stinkin’ drunk at a fair that he literally sells his wife and baby?

(a) The Mayor of Casterbridge.
(b) The Vicar of Wakefield
( c ) The Mill on the Floss
(d) Tess of the D’Urbervilles.

2. Which author wrote “The Hunger Artist,” about a man who, like a sideshow freak, starves himself for the entertainment of audiences?

(a) Dostoevsky
(b) Kafka
(c) Ray Bradbury
(d) Tolstoy

3. According to conventional wisdom, the Road to Hell is paved with what?

(a.) gold
(b.) the sins of the fathers
(c.) good intentions
(d.) municipal bonds.

4. “He had been for eight years upon a project for extracting sun-beams out of cucumbers which were to be put into vials hermetically sealed and let out to warm the air in raw, inclement summers” is a satiric bit from of an extraordinarily famous work, whose “Voyage to Laputa” has been modernized and will be released as a “Major Motion Picture” in the U.S. on Christmas Day under the original title, what was it, and who was its author?

5. Shakespeare wrote all of the following lines EXCEPT:
(a) “I am too much in the sun”
(b) “. . .nothing like the sun”
( c ) “Out of heaven’s benediction comest to the warm sun”
(d) “The sun also rises”

6. “Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road./Healthy, free, the world before me” are the opening lines of “Song of the Open Road.” Who wrote them?

(a.) Walt Whitman
(b.) William Wordsworth
(c.)William Carlos Williams
(d.) Walt Jocketty.

7. In the following works, all by Mark Twain, which one is about a commoner switching roles with a royal figure switches roles with a member of royalty?

(a) Puddin’head Wilson
(b) A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court
(c )The Prince and the Pauper
(d) The Mysterious Stranger

8. Name the two heroes of antiquity so devoted to each other that one was willing to substitute his own life when the other was about to be executed by a tyrant.

(a) Scylla and Charybdis
(b) Achilles and Hector
( c ) Tigris and Euphrates
(d) Damon and Pythias

9. Of the following which name is not the title character of a novel?

(a) Silas Marner
(b) Adam Bede
(c) Daniel Deronda
(d) George Eliot

10. What is the literary term for repetition of the same sound, such as the beginning consonants in a cluster of words?
(a) anachrony
(b) alliteration
(c) asyndeton
(d) epistrophe

11. Who wrote the play, Candida, about a young man infatuated with a much older woman?
(a) Oscar Wilde
(b) Voltaire
(c ) Plautus
(d) George Bernard Shaw

12. Which poet wrote the following lines?:
“Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.”

(a) Burns
( b ) Tennyson
( c ) Eliot
(d ) Auden






Answers


1. A 2. B 3. C 4. Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift 5. D 6. A 7. C 8. D 9. D 10. B 11. D 12. B

Thanks for another enjoyable quiz, Auntie. I got 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11.

I hope you have a wonderful Christmas and a very happy new year, and thanks so much for making this a fun place to be.

Hallelujah, I got them all right!! :cornut: By no means did I know all the answers, but took educated guesses on about half of them and got them all! What luck! I should go buy a lottery ticket now.

I love that the Hunger Artist came up. It's probably my favorite of Kafka's short stories. And I swear I could recognize Tennyson's verse anywhere. His poetry reads so simply, but has a really timeless quality.

By the way, I'm fascinated by this Candida play. I need to go check it out, especially since one of my New Year's resolutions will be to finally read some Shaw.

All but 2 and 12. Not bad

Help! Call the cops, call out the National Guard, call Dr. Clayton Forrester! My television has been invaded –not by intergalactic aliens but by boiling battalions of competing chefs. In the past, dignified gourmet cooks like Julia Child and James Beard brought a soupcon of class to the TV schedule, but now every time I turn on the idiot box, all I see are toque-wearing hot-heads foaming at the mouth and wielding steak knifes like Samurai swords. If it’s not temperamental cooks on the screen, it’s food. I don't mean just the commercials. Never did I dream that I'd be paying the cable company for the privilege of watching a thirty-minute show about barbecue sauce. The programmers are just reflecting the desires of their audience whose eyes are way, way smaller than their stomachs. If you don't believe Americans are obsessed with food, just take a look at the long lines in front of local restaurants on “All You Can Eat Nights.”

Well, if you can't beat ‘em, feed ‘em. Hence the topic this time is all things comestible. It’s high in calories, low in taste, but there’s no danger of growing a Walmart shopper’s waistline. Just get your rotten vegetables ready to throw at the current quiz fare which we like to call

Food for Naught

1. The ancient Greek Gods punished a king for spilling the beans about their secrets by forcing him to stand up to his chin in a river of Hades with a bunch of delectable fruit hanging above his head. Every time the king tried to drink or eat, the waters would recede and the fruit would remain just out of reach. This myth directly links to which
modern English word?

(a) tantalize (b) tempting ( c ) stymie
(d) frustration


2. “The world’s no blot for us/ nor blank; it means intensely, and means good:/ to find its meaning is my meat and drink.” Which British poet composed those lines?

(a) Byron (b) Browning ( c ) Burns (d) Betjeman


3. Aside from a title of a novel by H.G. Wells, what is “The Food of the Gods?”

(a) angel food cake (b) peach Melba ( c ) ambrosia
(d) free salad bar


4. A major figure in America’s cultural heritage, he gave The Atlantic Monthly its name and contributed a series of fiction, verse, and essays to a series called “The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table.” Who was this physician/professor/poet?

(a) James Russell Lowell (b) Ralph Waldo Emerson
( c ) William James (d) Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

5. According to a character created by British novelist Evelyn Waugh (1903-1966) what is the “gravest sin” a gentlewoman can commit before lunch?

(a) gluttony (b) make dinner plans
(c) read a novel (d) invite William S. Burroughs over

6. In the Satyricon by Petronius Trimalchio, is the ancient Roman counterpart of a billionaire flaunting his wealth in extravagant ways, such as throwing an over-the-top orgy, er–dinner party. Trimalchio’s Banquet was the original title of an early 20th century American classic which was changed to what?

(a) The Great Gatsby (b) Greed ( c ) A Moveable Feast(d) Dinner at Eight

7. Who was the inspiration for a character or characters in Cakes and Ale by W. Somerset Maugham?

(a) the respective owners of the bakery and pub in the author’s Canterbury neighborhood
(b) Thomas Hardy ( c ) Paul Gauguin
(d) Miss Sadie Thompson


8. Which of the following dessert items whetted the narrator’s memory in Proust’s magnum opus?

(a) meringue (b) croissant ( c ) Napoleon
(d) madeleine

9. What is the title story of one of the short story collections by Sherwood Anderson?

(a) “The Egg and I” (b) “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”
( c ) “A Dill Pickle” (d) “The Triumph of the Egg”

10. In a famous literary work of the 19th century, who are the pitchmen who recite the spiel which begins: “Come buy, come buy/Apples and quinces/Lemons and oranges/Plump unpack’d cherries/Melons and raspberries/Bloom-down cheek’d peaches. . .”

(a) street vendors in Oliver Twist (b) the Duke and Dauphin in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
( c ) witches (d) goblins

11. Who wrote the well-known short poem essentially consisting of a thank you note to his wife for leaving a dish of plums for him in the refrigerator?

(a) William Carlos Williams (b) Kenneth Koch
( c ) Kenneth Rexroth (d) Kenneth Patchen

12. Which time-honored metaphor or -- if you prefer – cliché refers to keeping the populace contented (and thus not contentious) with free food and entertainment?

(a) soup to nuts (b) bread and circuses
( c ) bread and cheese
(d) a loaf of bread, a jug of wine, and thou

and finally–

13. Which 1977 dubious use of celluloid can be found on lists of the worst movies ever made– maybe, since it’s a parody of horror flicks, intentionally so?

(a) "The Eggplant that Ate Chicago "
(b) Banana Splitz
( c ) Attack of the Killer Tomatoes!
(d) Dinner for Schmucks





Answers
1. a 2. b 3. c 4. d 5. c 6. a 7. b 8. d 9. d 10. d 11. a 12. b 13. c

Thanks, Auntie. I got 1, 3, 4, 7, 12, and 13.

As history always repeats itself, bread and circuses are rearing their ugly heads again. Or as Littlechap promised all who would vote for him when he decided to run for public office in the musical Stop the World – I Want to Get Off: “Free false teeth for all!!!”

I got 8/13 correct: #1-3, 8, 10-13. Not bad, considering I guessed on a bunch.

#6 is a fascinating fact...I had no idea! And I've never heard of #12...I thought it was going to be something about the peanut gallery. And I completely guessed on #11 because it totally sounded like something WCW would write. :biggrin5:

You know that the proverbial inmates are running the asylum when the news media devote more ink, bandwidth, and air time to pseudoscience rather than the real thing. A case in point was the recent disclosure that Everything You Always Thought About the Zodiac (and were too busy to ask) Was Wrong! More about this earth-shattering news here:

http://www.online-literature.com/for...98#post1001298

Meanwhile, since Jupiter is aligned with Saturn, as Mercury getting its brakes re-aligned, and Venus is in the seventh house, putting roaming spouses in the dog house, but mainly because I can't come up with a better topic, here’s the current quiz, which we like to call

Hey, Baby, What’s Your Sign?

1. Which erstwhile Broadway musical featured the song “The Age of Aquarius”?
(A.) Grease (B.) Hair ( C.) Godspell (D.) Hairspray

2. The constellation and namesake sign “Pisces” means “The Fish.” Regardless of the birth dates and consequent “signs” of the following winners of the Nobel Prize for Literature, which one wrote a pro-feminist novel titled The Flounder?
(A.) J.M. Coetzee (B.) Gunther Grass (C.) Isaac Bashevis Singer (D.) Patrick White

3. In his prologue to The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer alludes to which particular sign of the Zodiac?
(A.) Aries (B.) Capricorn (C.) Cancer (D.) Virgo

4. According to ancient wisdom, each sign of the Zodiac corresponds with one of the four elements: earth, air, fire, and water. By the Middle Ages, when people still took astrology seriously, astrologers attributed certain human characteristics to the influence of specific astrological signs, while the medieval forefathers of pop psychologists delegated the substances phlegm, choler, blood, and black bile as governing certain human personality traits. When all 4 were in "balance," the person was assumed to be ok, but if one of the four substances dominated the other three, than the person would be thought to be phlegmatic, choleric, sanguine, or melancholic. These traits were thus grouped under what general term?:

(A.) The Ages of Man (B.) The Four Seasons (C.) The Four Humours (D.) The Four Tops

5. In what year did the Ford auto company begin producing one of their most popular models, the Taurus?
(A.) 1959 (B.) 1968 (C.) 1986 (D.) 1997

6. Both the constellation and its namesake Zodiac sign were named after what famous mythological twosome?
(A.) Romulus and Remus (B.) Castor and Pollux (C.) Pantagruel and Gargantua (D.) Scylla and Charybdis

7. Name the exquisitely literate yet expressively down-to-earth novelist who created the steamy
The Tropic of Cancer and the satiric The Tropic of Capricorn?
(A.) Henry Miller (B.) D. H. Lawrence (C.) William S. Burroughs (D.) Vladimir Nabokov

8. To date, for which of the following has there been a total of thirteen named “Leo”?:
(A.) Newborn cubs in the Bronx Zoo (B.) Go-to guys for Martin Scorsese’s casting director (C.) Models for the MGM logo (D.) Popes

9. Which astrological sign, concurrent with the autumnal equinox, correlates with a constellation roughly resembling a scale, evidently symbolizing the equal “weight” of day and night?
(A.) Virgo (B.) Scorpio (C.) Aries (D) Libra

10. Up until the recent declaration by astrologists, what would be your sign if you were born on Halloween?
(A.) Libra (B.) Virgo (C.) Scorpio (D) Sagittarius

11. The constellation and astrological sign named Sagittarius derives from a Latin root word which means what?
(A) arrow (B) hunter (C.) bear (D) drinking gourd

12. It is unknown whether aficionados of astrology are in the same group as conspiracy theorists, but folks who are convinced that the Apollo 11 mission was fake and that the alleged moon landing occurred on a soundstage might champion a 1978 movie entitled what?
(A.) Scorpio Rising (B) Capricorn One (C.) Under Capricorn (D) The 40 Year Old Virgo

13. And finally, the newest and 13th sign of the Zodiac is called Ophiuchus, a constellation that is supposed to look like a man wrestling a bunch of snakes. Allusions to serpents can be found in the Bible and various ancient mythologies, including an episode in The Aeneid, also depicted in a Roman sculpture exhumed in the sixteenth century. The tale told of a hero who after expressing his misgivings about accepting The Trojan Horse, was subsequently punished by the gods. Name this poor soul who was strangled by sea serpents.

(A.) Lamia ( B.) Laocoon (C.) Kraken (D.) Cecil




Answers
1.B 2.B 3.A (“The Ram”) 4.C 5.C 6.B 7.A 8.D
9.D 10.C 11.A 12.B 13. B

Thanks, Auntie. I got 1, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 13.

WHAT? There's a new zodiac sign??!! WHY? My sign has changed and I'm now no longer comfortable with my identity. :nonod:

But I got 11/13 right on the quiz. I guess I'll have to console myself with that.

Thank you Dick and Wilde Woman for taking the quiz and commenting.

Among all the thousands of popular songs over the years, nearly every last one of them is about the same subject – Love: looking for it, finding it, enjoying (or suffering) through it, praising it, losing it, and damning it. Yet of all of these ditties, only one well-known song mentions the word “valentine.” We talking of course about “My Funny Valentine,” composed way, way back in 1937 by Richard Rodgers and his first -- some say his best – lyricist, Lorenz Hart.

One of the lyrics in that song asks the musical question: “Is your figure less than Greek?” Unlike the Greeks, I've never been seen bearing gifts. But I do have a quiz. More about gifts in the
anti-humor thread, but right now it’s time for our romantic encounter in which we ixnay on the foreplay and skip the um, "details" in-between and go right to the falling asleep part with this lovely little quiz which we like to call:

The Four Letter “L” Word


1. Ah Love, your magic spell is everywhere, including in these lines: “Hail, Bishop Valentine whose day this is,/ All the air is thy Diocese.” Who wrote them?
A. Plutarch
B. Dante
C. Shakespeare
D. Donne

2. Adam, who was a “first dude” in a literal sense of the term, candidly confesses his feelings: “After all these years, I see that I was mistaken about Eve in the beginning; it is better to live outside the Garden with her than inside it without her.” Which American author created Adam’s Diary?
A. Sherwood Anderson
B. Frank Sullivan
C. Mark Twain
D. James Thurber

3. Literally translated the word means “little loves.” What are amoretti?

A. Miniature chocolates given to schoolchildren in Venice on St. Valentine’s Day
B. Itinerant troubadours in Italy in the 16th and 17th centuries
C. Small glasses of an orange and hazelnut flavored liqueur served as an after-dinner cordial.
D. A cycle of 88 sonnets written by Edmund Spenser and presented to his bride-to-be.

4. Speaking of sonnets, name the poet who wrote the one which begins:
“Love is not all: it is not meat or drink/ Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain;”
A. Swinburne
B. Shakespeare
C. Edna St. Vincent Millay
D. Elizabeth Barrett Browning

5. Who defined love as “a temporary insanity cured by marriage”?
A. Nietzsche
B. Ambrose Bierce
C. Samuel Johnson
D. Elizabeth Taylor

6. Same word, different definition: “Love is the delightful interval between meeting a beautiful woman and discovering that she looks like a haddock.” Who said it?
A. Woody Allen
B. W. C. Fields
C. John Barrymore
D. Groucho Marx

7. Speaking of definitions, who described the ideal marriage as “a union between a deaf man and a blind woman”?
A. George Bernard Shaw
B. Samuel Taylor Coleridge
C. Oscar Wilde
D. Henny Youngman

8. In the late twentieth century, Walker Percy wrote a novel “Love Among the Ruins.” Name the British poet who wrote a poem with that same title much earlier?

A. Thomas Hardy
B. Kipling
C. Robert Browning
D. Robert Burns

9. We've all heard it hundreds of times, maybe we'll experienced it more than a few times, but who first coined the phrase “It’s better to have loved and lost/Than never to have loved at all”?

A. John Dryden
B. Cervantes
C. Voltaire
D. Tennyson

10. An incurably optimistic philosopher who sees our world as “the best of all possible worlds” would naturally have a sanguine view of love but —would this positive attitude also include the downside of love, including, ewwwww!–venereal disease? Well that’s exactly as he calls it in a extremely witty poem by Richard Wilbur (1921– .) Guess the title:

A. “Ever Since Columbus”
B. “Love Calls Us to the Things of This World”
C. “A Reckoning”
D. “Dr. Pangloss’s Song”

11. Name the usually less-earthy poet who wrote the following lines:
“A woman can be proud and stiff/ when in love intent./Love has pitched its mansion in/ The place of excrement. . .”
A. Pope
B. Yeats
C. Blake
D. Eliot

12. Who said “Free verse is like free love; it is a contradiction in terms.”
A. G. K. Chesterton
B. Robert Frost
C. Byron
D. Auden

13. In 1967 Howard Nemerov (1920- 1991) wrote some lines that were acutely topical then but surprisingly enough do not seem at all dated in the year 2011. It begins:
“Lovers everywhere are bringing babies into the world/Lovers with stars in their eyes are turning the stars/Into babies, lovers reading the instructions in comic books/ Are turning out babies according to the instructions. . .” What's the poem’s title:

A. Make Love Not War”
B. “Love Goes Out the Window When the Pram Wheels Into the Hall”
C. “Ah, Love Your Magic Spell is Everywhere”
D. “Family Values”

14. And finally, name the singing group whose 1957 Top 40 hit was “Bye, Bye Love”:

A. Ray and Bob Eberle
B. The Everly Brothers
C. The Brothers Four
D. The Righteous Brothers


Answers
1. D 2. C 3. D 4. C 5. B 6. C 7. B 8. C 9. D
10. D 11. B 12. A 13. A 14. B

I haven't done one of your quizzes in ages. I only got seven right here. It seemed I should have done better. Anyway, I got 1,3,5,9,10,11,14 correct. Thanks Aunty. :)

Thanks, Auntie. I only got 5, 8, 9, and 14. I never even dreamed that I would flunk Valentine’s Day.

I am apparently love-retarded. I only got 5/13 - #1, 3, 8-10. To make up for it, here's some juicy Valentine's Day trivia. The first recorded mention of St. Valentine's day in association with romantic love is Chaucer's 1382 poem, the Parliament of Fowls, although Chaucer places it in May rather than in February. In the poem, Chaucer gives some randy descriptions of the god Priapus and goddess Venus, as well as an adorable scene where all the birds of the world choose their mates under the guidance of Lady Nature.

#3C is really bothering me:

Quote:

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Small glasses of an orange and hazelnut flavored liqueur served as an after-dinner cordial.

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What are these called? I know it's amor-something.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Wilde woman

I am apparently love-retarded. I only got 5/13 - #1, 3, 8-10. To make up for it, here's some juicy Valentine's Day trivia. The first recorded mention of St. Valentine's day in association with romantic love is Chaucer's 1382 poem, the Parliament of Fowls, although Chaucer places it in May rather than in February. In the poem, Chaucer gives some randy descriptions of the god Priapus and goddess Venus, as well as an adorable scene where all the birds of the world choose their mates under the guidance of Lady Nature.

#3C is really bothering me:



What are these called? I know it's amor-something.

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Oh I made that up for the quiz! If I had said "almond" liqueur you might have thought of "Amaretto."

How 'bout that Eddie Spenser though! How come 21st century guys don't write their sweeties a 88-poem sonnet cycle?

I think you're absolutely right about the Chaucer
allusion. But the Feast of St. Valentine goes back much further, I'm thinking.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by AuntShecky

Oh I made that up for the quiz! If I had said "almond" liqueur you might have thought of "Amaretto."

How 'bout that Eddie Spenser though! How come 21st century guys don't write their sweeties a 88-poem sonnet cycle?

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Yes, amaretto! That's what I was thinking of. Obviously, I don't know my liqueurs, but that's partially because I don't have the budget (I'm a grad student!) to indulge in fancy booze very much.

As for Valentine's poems...I'd be happy if my boyfriend wrote me a half-decent limerick. :p

This is the worst I've ever done, I think. I only got 2, 4, and 14 right, but I loved taking it. Thanks, AuntShecky.

2/17/11 quiz

I hear tell that once upon a time, the milieu for small talk and pleasant conversation was the cocktail party. This was back in the day before Internet chat rooms and Twitterers (Tweeters?-- “I twaght I taw a puddy cat.”) Anyway, one of the more popular ice-breakers was the question, “Have you read so-and-so’s novel?” prompting an equally popular yet truthful answer, “No, but I saw the movie.” Even though yours fooly has never been spotted within a 100-mile radius of anything resembling a cocktail party –nor for that matter, a movie theater lately -– books and movies have something to do with today’s topic: novels, poems, and movies about the movies.

Movies about movies– that opens up a whole viper’s nest of clichéd metaphors, such as “biting the hand that feeds you.” Or “a snake swallowing its own tail.” Come to think of it, not everybody in the Hollywood community is a stunt person, but they all seem to be contortionists. That’s because Hollywood has the double-jointed ability to pat its own back, especially on the big award ceremony coming up on Feb. 27. I didn't get an invitation to that soiree either– my invitation must be lost in the mail, just like my nomination to “Who’s Who in American Colleges and Universities, ” which I've been eagerly awaiting for four decades. (It should be here any day now.) Meanwhile, ahead of schedule and well below budget is this week’s Feature Presentation, which we like to call:

Roll ‘Em


1. A prominent figure in French New Wave, Francois Truffaut directed the picture which won an Academy Award (TM) for the Best Foreign Language Film. The fictional plot depicted the goings-on among cast and crew both on and off-camera. What was the title of this partially satiric, partially affectionate movie about the making of a movie?

A. Life is Beautiful
B. Cinema Paradisio
C. Day for Night
D. Night and Day

2. “Double Feature” depicting the speaker’s experience upon exiting a movie theatre after a matinee, comes from a poet who usually finds his inspiration in gardens and the greenhouse. Who is the author of this fine lyric poem?

A. Theodore Roethke
B. Seamus Heaney
C. Carl Sandburg
D. Archibald MacLeish

3. To this day, George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) never fails to surprise his audiences, through his works and from quirky anecdotes about his unusual life. The fact that Shaw himself had helped adapt one of his own stage plays into a movie script was interesting enough; even more interesting was that the adapted script had won a major award. Most interesting of all was the fact that when informed about the honor, Shaw had no idea what it meant– he had to ask just what an “Academy Award” (TM) was. What was the title of both the film and the movie?

A. Pygmalion
B. My Fair Lady
C. Major Barbara
D. Candida

4. The breakthrough for this writer’s career began in the 1920s with the publication of critically acclaimed and financially successful short stories. Later years found the author working in Hollywood, the setting and subject for the 1941 novel, The Last Tycoon, whose chief character was supposedly based on the legendary studio head, Irving Thalberg. Who was this author?

A. William Faulkner
B. Ernest Hemingway
C. F. Scott Fitzgerald
D. Dorothy Parker

5. One of Robert Frost’s subjects is a former movie queen, “the picture pride of Hollywood,” aging, down on her luck, and working as a cleaning lady. What is the title of this poem?

A. “Provide, Provide”
B. “Directive”
C. “The Bearer of Bad Tidings”
D. “The Witch of Coös”

6. “Homer Simpson” is the protagonist of “The Day of the Locust,” but this Homer is far from the hilarious character on the current animated TV series. This 1941 novel is a dark, nearly-apocalyptic vision of Hollywood, though incidentally, its author’s brother- in-law was the American humorist, S. J. Perelman. Name this author.

A. Dashiell Hammett
B. Nathanael West
C. George S. Kaufman
D. Budd Schulberg

7. A critically acclaimed picture of 1992 is a fictional and satiric look at the movie business today, celluloid warts and all, with questionable compromises, shady deal-making, chewing up and spitting out creative types, and the resulting resentment, along with the shadow of
a crime. Directed by the inimitable Robert Altman, its script by Michael Tolkien has been often used as a model in college-level screenwriting classes. What is its title?

A. Sunset Boulevard
B. The Player
C. Barton Fink
D. Swimming With the Sharks

8. Though most known as a director, Woody Allen did not direct but appeared as the title character of The Front, a 1976 dark comedy about the movie business and how it works around the obstacles caused by which historical event?

A. How World War II affected the film industry
B. The Hollywood Blacklist
C. The Great Depression
D. The arrival of a new competitor, television

9. Speaking of Woody, which one of his movies follows the romance between a neglected housewife and a movie character who literally steps out of the screen and into “real” life?

A. Stardust Memories
B. Sweet and Lowdown
C. Melinda and Melinda
D. The Purple Rose of Cairo

10. “The Bridge” by the American poet Hart Crane (1899-1932) was inspired by the Brooklyn Bridge, but another one of his poems took its subject matter from way over on the other coast and depicts a poignant scene inspired by a figure from the silent film era. Who was this famous movie star?

A. Mary Pickford
B. Harold Lloyd
C. Buster Keaton
D. Charlie Chaplin

11. An overly earnest movie director has ambitions to make an influential world- changing movie he wants to call “O Brother, Where Art Thou,”-–incidentally, the same title of a relatively recent comedy by the Coen Brothers and starring George Clooney. When the would-be auteur disguises himself as a hobo and goes on the road to do research, he discovers something which audiences want and need much more than social enlightenment. What is the title of this 1941 classic movie written and directed by the great Preston Sturges?

A. Sullivan’s Travels
B. Hail, The Conquering Hero
C. The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek
D. The Great McGinty

12. And finally, this movie about movie-making always makes the top of every list of Greatest Movie Musicals of all time, and often among the greatest movies of all time. What is the name of this beloved 1952 classic about Hollywood’s transition from silent pictures to talkies?

A. All About Eve
B. A Star is Born
C. There’s No Business Like Show Business
D. Singin’ In the Rain

Answers
1.C 2. A 3.A 4.C 5.A 6.B 7.B
8.B 9.D 10.D 11.A 12. D

I probably should just keep quiet on this, but I only got #4. I thought I knew the movie adaptation of Shaw's play Pygmalion was called My Fair Lady, but I guess it wasn't. And to make things even worse, I don't know the difference between a film and a movie.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DickZ

I probably should just keep quiet on this, but I only got #4. I thought I knew the movie adaptation of Shaw's play Pygmalion was called My Fair Lady, but I guess it wasn't. And to make things even worse, I don't know the difference between a film and a movie.

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Apparently, the award-winning screenplay which Shaw himself helped adapt was based on the original play for the stage. My Fair Lady was much later -- a musical version of Pygmalion. I think it was Lerner and Loewe, but please don't quote me.

I don't know the difference between a "film" and a "movie" either, except maybe the former gets taken more seriously and the latter comes with $7 popcorn.

Finally, I'm having second thoughts about these quizzes. They're a lot of fun to write but time-consuming yet are not generating enough interest ("hits") to keep 'em comin'. What do you think I should do, Dick?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by AuntShecky

. . .
Finally, I'm having second thoughts about these quizzes. They're a lot of fun to write but time-consuming yet are not generating enough interest ("hits") to keep 'em comin'. What do you think I should do, Dick?

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I can well imagine they are very time-consuming to write, as I've tried to come up with some myself and have failed miserably. Mine had nothing like the creativity and imagination that yours always have. I would certainly understand if you abandoned the project and turned your attention to other efforts.