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I wish I had cable, but alas I'm a poor college student. My boyfriend has a huge collection of movies so if we watch any classics, it's because he has them readily available. The last one I saw was La Dolce Vita. Beautiful!Quote:
Originally Posted by AuntShecky
Come to think of it, the only reason I got An Affair to Remember was because one of my favorite singers redid the song recently and I was inspired to watch the movie.
I only got 2, 3, 6, 9, 12, and 13. Oh well. (discouraged sigh) O.K. now I'm ready for the next one!
Previous quiz clue: Forget
Maybe you've seen the television commercial that begins with a guy trying to reset his home alarm system. He’s standing in front of the key pad and yells, “Honey, what’s the code? “ then adding, “No, I don't know your mother’s birthday!”
In just a few seconds the ad presents the age-old Battle of the Sexes in microcosm. Men, of course, are from Mars, while women are from the grocery store, the PTA meeting, and the school soccer field. Adult males are single-minded (in more ways than one.) Because women use both sides of the brain, they're natural multitaskers. They can have their eye on the big picture, as well as on all the little details. And those details are where the devil is.
This is why a wife may temporarily forget where she left her car keys, but in the space of a nanosecond, she may resurrect a personal affront from the distant past, such as that night in 1989 when her hubby stayed out to 2:30 am without calling. The incident may be forgiven (but will never, ever be forgotten.) It will stay carved in her memory long after Mt. Rushmore tumbles to the ground.
H. H. Munro (1870-1916), the frequent anthologized tale-spinner better known as Saki observed, “Women and elephants never forget an injury.” But there is a crucial different between women and elephants – our skin is much, much thinner.”
So, before it slips my mind, let’s go to the quiz:
Aw, Forget It!
1. Though known for his adventure stories and narrative poems set in India, who wrote the solemn “Recessional,” which contains the phrase “Lest we forget?”
2. What was the term for the characters in The Odyssey, who when they ate of a certain tree, forgot their family and friends and the desire to return to their homeland?
3. In his campaign speeches and later “Fireside Chats” Franklin Delano Roosevelt frequently used a three word phrase to describe the ordinary, hard-working, and decent American citizen. What was this famous phrase, coined by an American sociologist in 1932?
4. The literary source for the 1975 adventure movie
The Land that Time Forgot originated with an author most famous for Tarzan of the Apes, created in 1914. Who was this writer?
5. According to German legend, the hyphenated name for this flower was the last words uttered by a knight who had drowned while trying to pick a bouquet of them on a riverbank for his lady love. What are these prolific yet delicate little blossoms called?
6. She was born in Maine, lived the high life in Greenwich Village, and was buried at an upstate New York writer and artist’s colony that bears her name. One of her poems deviates from her usually joyous themes, in which a mother has the unenviable task of breaking the bad news to her children that their father has died. Who wrote this poem, “Lament,” which ends with the lines: “Life goes on./ I forget just why.”
7. Homer may have documented the first example of a drug used as a medicine, in this case nepenthe, an opium derivative, given to Telemachus to relieve his grief. The translated passage reads: “Presently she cast a drug into the wine. . .to bring forgetfulness of every sorrow.” The gal who administered the dose evidently had nurturing skills as well as drop-dead beauty. Who was she?
8. On Father’s Day in 1991, Natalie Cole released a pop album in which she sang duets with her late father, through the miracle of reel-to-reel master tapes recorded decades earlier. The title track of the new album was Nat King Cole’s signature song. What was it?
9. Name the German psychiatrist who at the turn of the twentieth century identified a generative disease usually found in -- but not limited to – the elderly, of which the first symptom is severe memory loss.
10. Found in television studios and hidden in the podiums for major political speeches, this is the electronic equivalent of the “cue card,” to help performers remember their lines. What is this high tech gizmo called?
11. According to Alexander Pope, these waters tend “to blunt the sense” of departed souls. What is the river in Hades whose name means “forgetfulness?”
12. Overly employed as a plot device in many a TV soap opera, what is the one-word term for total loss of memory, caused by brain injury, emotional shock, or injury?
13. And finally, what was the 2008 cute but featherweight romantic comedy starring Jason Segel as a musician who attempts to lose his troubles in Hawaii after his girlfriend dumps him?
Answers
1. Kipling
2. The Lotus-Eaters
3. The Forgotten Man
4. Edgar Rice Burroughs
5. Forget-me-not
6. Edna St. Vincent Millay (No credit for “Edna St. Louis Missouri,” unless you're Stan Freberg.)
7. Helen of Troy
8. “Unforgettable”
9. Alois Alzheimer (Extra credit for announcers who pronounce his last name the same way three times in a row.)
10. TelePrompTer
11. Lethe
12. Amnesia
13. Forgetting Sarah Marshall
Sources:
The Mind by Richard M. Restak (#7 and #9)
Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (#2,#3, #5, and #11.)
Usual suspects, the World Wide Web, anthologies, dictionaries, and other reference materials (#1,#4, #6,
#8, #10, #12, and #13.)
Next quiz topic in the missing word in this passage from Proverbs:
“Let him _____(?) and forget his poverty and remember his misery no more.”
Got 2 , 4(I read the Tarzan-tales when I was around eight - I just loved them. I'd rather not touch them again and spoil my childhood memories), 5,9 (my grandfather had it and yes, I can pronounce it three times in a row),11 and 12. Half right- not bad, I guess.
Tended to get the Greek mythology ones right, although I thought the person who gave Telemachus drugs was Penelope.
1, 4, 5, 7, 9, , 11, 12, 13.
8!!:banana:
I knew 2 was began with an L and I even thought anicent egypt but I kept getting Opium poppy :rolleyes:
Still strugglineg. I got six: 1, 2, 8, 9, 10, 12. I was thinking the river styx and Athena instead of Helen.
Hi Virgil :). I don't think I'll be able to resist!Quote:
Originally Posted by Virgil
For this quiz I got questions 1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 9, 10, and 12 correct.
I was able to get the first question out of a basic understanding of Kipling.
I was able to get the second because I once read a study guide for Ulysses, and "The Lotus Eaters" was the only segment of The Odyssey having anything to do with eating, as I recall.
I'm not sure when exactly I learned of Edgar Burroughs, but I do recall one of my uncles encouraging me to read the Tarzan books sometime in grade school (he had fond memories of reading them when he was young).
I wanted badly to get question 5, because I'd actually learned that story previously, but couldn't recall it.
I guessed Edna St. Vincent Millay for question 6, but now I'm curious; are the themes in her poems typically "joyous"? The poems of hers which I've read have tended to be reflective and serious, sometimes even disconsolate ...
As for question 7, "drop dead beauty" was too conspicuous - I didn't remember that particular incident, but had to guess Helen.
As for question 9, it is funny, I never thought of the word "Alzheimer" as being German, which it so clearly is.
I too guessed Styx for question 11. Although I remember reading about Lethe, I think, in Milton's poem Lycidas.
Thanks Auntie for another entertaining quiz!
Thanks for another wonderful quiz, Auntie. I don’t know how you come up with these on such a regular and frequent basis, because they are so much more than just a series of questions. You obviously put a lot of care and thought into the quizzes.
I successfully tackled number 1, remembering (even though sometimes I forget) the story about the person who was asked “Do you like Kipling?,” to which he replied “I don’t know; I’ve never kippled.” I also got number 2 – it’s one of the few things from The Odyssey that I can still remember, even though I've never eaten any lotus, as far as I know.
And I got number 3, having recently read a fantastic book by Amity Shlaes. The title of that book coincidentally happens to be the answer to your question. This is a very well-written account of activity intended to get us out of the Great Depression, and the people who are supposed to be designing our current economic recovery effort would be very wise to read Ms. Shlaes’ excellent book.
I got numbers 4 and 5, even though I misspelled Burroughs (I left out one of the Rs), so I hope you won’t hold that against me since I really didn’t even have to tell you that and you wouldn’t have had any way of knowing it if I had kept my mouth shut.
I missed number 6 outright, and I should have gotten numbers 7 and 8, but I didn’t. For number 9, I only knew his last name but since you didn’t say both names were required, I’ll take credit for this one.
Anyone who watches the news these days should get number 10 because it’s much discussed, and I do so I did.
The only river from mythology that I know is called Sticks, or something like that, so I missed number 11.
I guess I watch too many TV soap operas, because it took me no time at all to come up with number 12. I never heard of number 13.
So in summary, I got 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 9, 10, and 12.
Taliesin, Nightshade, Virgil, Shoutgrace, and DickZ:
Your astute and learned (accent on the "ed") responses to my little quiz make the effort worthwhile. Thanks.
She's famous for "burning the candle at both ends," remember? Also, spending an all-nighter riding back and forth on the ferry. The first line of one her poems reads: "We were very merry." The Reader's Encyclopedia says: "Her second volume of poems,A Few Figs from Thistles, celebrated Bohemian life, love and moral freedom with lyrical gaiety and freshness."Quote:
Originally Posted by ShoutGrace
"Renascence" is quite serious and philosophically astute for someone as young as Edna was when she wrote it in 1917. About a dozen years or so ago, I was in Camden ME where I saw the "hills" above the bay which inspired some of the images in that poem.
Her mother evidently supported her poetic ambitions, which was atypical for the era in which she lived (1892-1950.) A resident of Rockport where Edna was born told me that she wasn't really a victim of an overly-severe upbringing. There is a legend about how once during winter their kitchen floor had been flooded and froze and that the kids actually ice skated there! I don't know about the family's financial status, but it couldn't been too bleak, as Edna graduated from Vassar, which was expensive even then.
I've visited the Millay colony, but it's seldom referred to its original name of "Steepletop." From what I can gather, the place is doing better than "The Mount," Edith Wharton's estate which is just over the state border in MA. The administrators of Wharton's estate are asking for financial bailouts. (Not that there's anything wrong w. that.)
Ooh, me likey this quiz, Auntie! I got 9 right this week - #1 (total guess), 2, 5, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, and 13. Go Classics! I wracked my brain remembering Helen, but your "drop-dead beauty" gave me the key. I am kicking myself, though, for forgetting the author of Tarzan.
Can't wait for next week's quiz!
Previous clue: Drink
[Stay tuned for an important announcement at the conclusion of this week’s snooze fest.]
Aw, alcohol-- the nectar of the Gods and demon rum! Civilization has always had a love/hate relationship with liquid spirits, alternately praised and condemned, occasionally within the same paragraph. To wit, this observation from Lender and Martin’s Drinking in America: A History:*
A congressman was once asked about his attitude toward whiskey. “If you mean the demon drink that poisons the mind, pollutes the body, desecrates family life, and inflames sinners, then I’m against it. But if you mean the elixir of Christmas cheer,the shield against winter chill, the taxable potion that puts needed funds into public coffers to comfort little crippled children, then I’m for it. This is my position, and I will not compromise.”
Another illustration of the time-honored relationship between politicians and booze was the infamous “Drunken Parliament” of 1661, in which the members were almost never sober. And Mark Twain’s defined a demagogue as “a vessel containing beer and other liquids.”
Speaking of which, in these politically correct times it may be no longer appropriate to tell jokes about booze, such as this one, aged longer than the oldest Scotch: Q. “What’s the difference between an alcoholic and a drunk?” A. “A drunk doesn’t have to go to all those damn meetings.” Each year the numbers of victims of drunken drivers and the statistics affecting the aforementioned “family life” tell us that wine and spirits are not all fun and games. Alcoholism, lest we forget, is not a moral failing but a devastating disease. But what’s a comedian to do?
Some of the best jokes involve tipplers. On the old Andy Griffith show, Otis-- perhaps the only resident of Mayberry resident who wasn’t a teetotaler -- used to lock himself in and out of Sheriff’s Taylor’s jail. Jack Paar’s frequent guest, Oscar Levant, used to boast that he had one drop of blood in his alcohol system. And mild-mannered lonesome old George Gobel once said his uncle was the town drunk, adding "And we lived in Chicago.”
With that under our belt, and with our opinions about alcohol no longer bottled up but half in the bag and three sheets to the wind, let’s send a taste of the grape, a bit of the bubbly, down the hatch in a little ignoble experiment we like to call:
Dipso Mania
1. Identify the poet (1859-1936) who wrote “A Shropshire Lad” and these immortal lines: “Oh many a peer of England brews/Livelier liquid than the Muse,/ And malt does more than Milton can/ To justify the ways of God to man.”
2. Who was the six-foot tall, hatchet-wielding Kansan who was the most famous member of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union? Legend has it that John L. Sullivan, the prizefighter, used to run and hide whenever she stormed into his saloon.
3. Released in 1945, a movie about an alcoholic on a desperate four-day quest for a drink was very bold for its time. What’s the title of this film, directed by Billy Wilder and starring Ray Milland?
4. Name the ancient Greek god of wine.
5. The subject of at least nine operas, this larger-than-life character appears in four of Shakespeare’s plays, most memorably as the drinking companion to Prince Hal. Who is he?
6. (This question just went on the wagon.) In which poem do we find these lines by Samuel Taylor Coleridge: “Water, water everywhere/With not a drop to drink”?
7. A winner of multiple awards, this 1962 movie stars Jack Lemmon as a social drinker who degenerates into alcoholism while dragging his wife down with him. What’s the title, derived from a beautiful line by the poet, Ernest Dowson?
8. Which contemporary of Shakespeare began a poem with this line: “Drink to me only with thine eyes?”
9. Leaving Las Vegas is a 1995 movie about a man who resolves to drink himself to death in Sin City. Name the actor who won numerous awards , including an Oscar, for the leading role. (Hint: He didn’t win for the horrendous remake which desecrated The Wicker Man.)
10. The phrase “drink like a fish” was first coined by which early 17th century playwriting duo famous for tragicomedies such as The Maid’s Tragedy?
11. In 1 Timothy, why does St. Paul entreat us to “use a little wine”?
12. The 1987 movie, Barfly, starring Mickey Rourke and Faye Dunaway, is the alcohol-fueled autobiography of which diamond-in-the- rough poet of the late 20th century?
13. As a juggler in a Vaudeville act, he was a teetotaler; as a Hollywood actor his elbow-bending was legendary. Who was this “high”-ly quotable star (1880-1946) who said, “A woman drove me to drink, and I never had the courtesy to thank her”?
14. And finally, this song by Johnny Mercer and Harold Arlen was introduced by Fred Astaire and became a huge hit for Frank Sinatra and Bette Midler. Name the title of the tune that begins: “Quarter to three/ No one in the place except you and me. . .”
Answers
1. A. E. Housman
2. Carrie Nation
3. The Lost Weekend
4. Dionysus
5. Falstaff
6. “Rime of the Ancient Mariner”
7. Days of Wine and Roses
8. Ben Jonson
9. Nicolas Cage
10. Beaumont and Fletcher
11. “for thy stomach’s sake”
12. Charles Bukowski
13. W. C. Fields
14. “One for my Baby (and One More for the Road)”
Clue for the theme of the next quiz in the missing word in the following:
When someone preached to humorist Robert Benchley that his drinking would kill him with its slow ______(what?), Benchley replied: “So? Who’s in a hurry?”
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 9. 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 (for intro): The Little Brown Book of Anecdotes, edited by Clifton Fadiman
(for question #2): "The American Experience" page
of www.pbs.org. Both the network and website are
valuable --and often entertaining -- resources for
writers and readers.
(for various questions): Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable,www.imdb.com and other reference books.
Urrh, so many movie questions. I'm lucky I got a couple of them right. Let's see I got seven altogether: 1, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 14.
Well, on the last one, which I just did, I only missed four! That's the best I've ever done.
But on this one I only got 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 right.
I remember watching "The Days of Wine and Roses" in high school. My parents let me stay up late to see it. It made a big impression on me. Cage was excellent in "Leaving Las Vegas." That one was hard to watch. Well, they both were.
For some reason I've never seen "The Lost Weekend." Is it worth a look?
Thanks, Auntie. I just don’t know what will happen if there’s not a quiz on some future week. I’m now addicted to these things and would be very distressed to face a week without one.
I started out pretty lucky, with educated guesses that turned out to be correct for the first two. I know the third outright since I watch a lot of Turner Classic Movies, which is the best channel on the air these days.
After missing the deity of wine, which I should have known, I got the next three. Being an ancient mariner myself helped considerably with Coleridge’s poem. And I have seen the Jack Lemmon/Lee Remick movie several times.
After missing 8 - 12 without having even a clue for any of them, I finished strong by nailing the last two.
In summary, I got 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 13, and 14.
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.
Better late than never, Pablo. Glad to see you back.Quote:
Originally Posted by PabloQ
If you listen to the word "paradiddle" it has the same number of syllables as "papa daddy." Apparently, student drummers are occasionally instructed to say "PA PA DAD DY" as a way to give each beat the same amount of stress. But of course saying "PAR A DID DLE"would work just as well.
Looking forward to seeing your question, as well as those from numerous LitNutters!
Previous topic clue: River
Fans of heavy metal rock may be familiar with a band which called itself “Styx,” but the name itself goes back to antiquity. Mythology buffs would know that’s the river to which Milton referred as “a flood of deadly Hate,” and just to let everybody know it meant business, it encircled the infernal regions nine times. Named for a daughter of a god, the Styx also flowed through the ancient land of Arcadia. It was said that whenever a god made a false oath on its banks, he would be forced to sip from a glass of its toxic waters, which rendered him speechless for a full year. (Kinda makes me want to --ahem-- buy some certain parties a “drink”, if you catch my drift.)
I know the rules against cracking wise about certain politicians, alas. Even so, New York state officials are all gaga about the quadricentennial celebration of the discovery of the lengthy stream often called “The Rhine of America.” In 1609 a British explorer was hired by the Dutch to find the coveted Northwest Passage. What Henry Hudson found instead was the great river that would one day be named after him. Henry must've known something was up. The minute he started heading due north of New York harbor, he was stuck with two speeding tickets and waylaid by a bunch of wild-eyed guys insisting that they squeegee the Half Moon.
With that, let’s sail on to the quiz.
A River Runs Through This
1. Name the military and political leader (102-55 B.C.) who upon crossing the Rubicon River said some Greek words, most often quoted in Latin as “Iacta alea est.” (“The die is cast.”)
2. What was the acclaimed novel by James Dickey and 1972 movie about four urban men whose wilderness experience on a fictional river in Georgia deteriorates into a struggle to survive?
3. Name the influential poet (1885-1972) and colleague of T. S. Eliot who wrote English versions of Chinese works such as “The River Merchant’s Wife.”
4. Who was the Austrian composer (1825-1899) whose most famous waltz was “The Blue Danube” ?
5. What was the rock on the banks of the Rhine better known as the name siren who sat atop it, as she lured river boatmen to their deaths?
6. What’s the four-syllable “r” word that means “of, adjacent to, or living on the banks of a river or, occasionally, a lake or a pond”?
7. Eminent 19th century author and nature-lover Henry David Thoreau saw his first book published in 1849. What was its title?
8. Name the poet (1902-1967), the most famous contributor to the Harlem Renaissance, who wrote these lines: “I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young./ I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep. . .”
9. What is the mammal whose name literally means “river horse”?
10. When Thomas Wolfe submitted the sequel to Look Homeward, Angel, his editor Maxwell Perkins made him cut out some thousand pages and then publish the manuscript as two separate volumes, the second of which was called The Web and the Rock. What was the title of the first one?
11. Name the promising actor ( Stand by Me, My Own Private Idaho, and a portrayal of the young Indiana Jones) who met his tragic end outside a Hollywood nightclub in 1993.
12. What was the title of Mark Twain’s 1883autobiographical work, the first part of which recalled his experience as a riverboat pilot?
13. And finally, what is the three-word phrase that’s a slang term for being sent to prison, specifically to Sing Sing, a few miles north of New York City?
Answers
1. Julius Caesar
2. Deliverance3. Ezra Pound
4. Johann Strauss
5. Lorelei
6. Riparian
7. A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers
8. Langston Hughes
9. Hippopotamus
10. Of Time and the River
11. River Phoenix
12. Life on the Mississippi
13. “up the river”
Next topic clue:
Fill in the missing word in the song by The Standells about the Charles River, often played as part of victory celebrations at Fenway Park: “I love that dirty _____(what?)”
LitNutters are cordially invited to send me, via PM, questions and answers on this topic for the next quiz.
Sources:
Dictionaries, The Video Hound’s Golden Retriever, The Reader’s Encyclopedia, and Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. (Publishing info previously noted.)
Small related fact: drummers learn to keep 7/4 time by saying Gina Lollabrigida, which is ONE two three four ONE two three.Quote:
Originally Posted by AuntShecky
GEE na lol la BRIG i da
I don't know why I find that satisfying, but I do.
Not too bad. I got eight: 1,3,4,8,9,11,13. I should have gotten the Twain and Thoreau questions. :(
Thanks, Auntie. I got stuck in a procrastination mode and never got around to contributing a question. I’ll try to do better next week, since I’m a Red Sox fan and should be able to figure out next week’s topic.
I got the first two, thanks to my high school Latin classes and watching movies. I missed #3, but got #4, #5, and #6. I missed #7, as the only Thoreau work I’m familiar with is On Walden Pond, which isn’t a river but does coincidentally have water in it. I also missed #8, but got the last five.
In summary, I got #1, #2, #4, #5, #6, #9, #10, #11, #12, and #13.
And I’ll try not to put off next week’s quiz question suggestion until it’s too late, as I did for this week’s.
Previous clue: Water
It’s the season for swimming, diving, and other aquatic sports, though some folks wonder about water polo – how do they keep the little ponies from drowning? For the rest of us human landlubbers, I'd like to say a few words about summer.
Aw, there’s nothing like a quiet summer afternoon, interrupted with the sound of lawnmowers, jackhammers, backhoes, and beeping trucks, or inexplicably-wealthy teenagers driving their own vehicles with stereo systems that sound like coal being dynamited out of a mountainside. Lest we forget, summer brings the shrieking cries of kids, on parole from school; like bees to nectar or addicts to dealers, they squeal with delight as they chase after the ice cream truck whose incessantly repetitive canned jingle is enough to drive St. Teresa of Avila to drink. Not only that, you've got your blackflies and your mosquitoes intensifying the discomfort of already-scorched skin (not that most females expose that much of ourselves, since we've all been reading about our swimsuit-aggravating “figure flaws” for the past three months.)
How about the summer’s special smells: the freshly-spread fertilizer on prize-winning lawns, the nostril-burning fragrance of charcoal lighter fluid permeating a six-mile perimeter around the neighborhood, newly-poured asphalt on a suburban road, mixed with the aroma of an angry skunk, and the sulfur smell of spent firecrackers? And did I mention their unique eardrum-splintering, nerve-crumbling noise? Legal or not, fireworks were formerly a special part of the 4th of July in the US; now from Memorial Day to Labor Day, they can explode on any given peaceful summer night, even a rainy one (perhaps lit by moisture proof matches.)
In one way, a summer thunderstorm is a welcome respite to the heat and humidity, for occasionally a storm will bring a refreshingly cooler breeze that will last, oh, maybe ten or twenty minutes. A thunderstorm, along with thousands of air conditioning systems running on “11" in the area, more likely may bring a power outage, putting the compressors of one’s refrigerator, freezer, and/or room air conditioner in jeopardy, without the compensation of the use of an electric fan. If lightning fries an electronic device, the owner can forget about calling a repairman--as a matter of fact, one can forget about reaching any human being on the telephone. Everybody is on vacation.
Vacation is where we'd all love to be. Lucky are they who have close friends or relatives who own a second home on a lake and are the type of people who aren't stingy with invitations, if you catch my drift. There’s nothing like lounging on a Adirondack chair and looking out over the water – that is, until the motorboats frighten away the fish and the waterfowl.
Ah yes, there’s nothing like summer -- thank God. Let’s float over to the quiz –
All Wet!
Our first question was sent in by LitNutter DickZ:
1. Samuel Taylor Coleridge was a poet who penned the words, among lots of other memorable lines: Water, water, every where, And all the boards did shrink; Water, water, everywhere, Nor any drop to drink. However, he has always been accused of using a performance-enhancing drug to help him with his poetry. What was it?
2. Name the 19th century American poet (1807-1882) who wrote the lines: “From the waterfall he named her,/Minnehaha, Laughing Water.”
3. According to Greek mythology, what is a “naiad”?
4. Name the New World phenomenon unsuccessfully sought by the explorer Ponce de Leon.
5. What is the title of Ambrose Bierce’s 1890 short story set during the American Civil War about a suspected spy who seems to escape a hanging?
6. Name the Transcendentalist nature-lover who wrote about his experiences on Walden Pond in Massachusetts.
7. Which prominent English poet (1688-1744) wrote these evocative lines: “As the small pebble stirs the peaceful lake; /the centre mov’d, a circle strait succeeds,/ Another still, and still another spreads. . .”
8. What was the collective name for the group of writers including Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Southey, who hailed from a particularly scenic area of England?
9. In 1841, a group of idealists formed the social experiment called Brook Farm. Who was the former member who based his novel, The Blithedale Romance, upon this Utopian community?
10. Legend has it that after King George I heard three suites played on a barge cruise on the River Thames, he liked it so much he ordered the 50 musicians to play it again – and even then, one more time! What is the collective name for this composition by Handel?
11. Which Irish poet (1865-1939) wrote that he wanted to arise and go to the “Lake Isle of Innisfree”?
12. According to Arthurian legend, Merlin’s sweetie Vivien returned his affections by imprisoning him in a tower. In his Morte D’Arthur Malory alluded to her mystical powers as it was her arm reaching out of the depths of a body of water to hand Arthur his sword, Excalibur. She also kidnapped the infant Sir Launcelot. Who was this extremely busy gal?
13. And finally, what was the one-word term for the 1972 Washington, D.C. scandal which spawned an Academy Award winning film about two reporters who uncovered the plot and scored a Pulitzer Prize for their newspaper?
Answers:
1. Opium
2. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
3. A nymph of a lake, fountain, river, or stream.
4. The Fountain of Youth
5. “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”
6. Henry David Thoreau
7. Alexander Pope
8. The Lake Poets
9. Nathaniel Hawthorne
10.” Water Music “
11. W.B. Yeats
12. The Lady of the Lake
13. Watergate
Clue for the next quiz topic is in the missing word in the following line by the poet referred to in Question # 2:
“ By the shore of Gitchee Gumee,/By the shining Big-___(what?)-Water. . .”
That’s the clue, but I can't really say when this next quiz will appear, the reason being that this PC, “Pong II” looks as if it’s preparing to go on vacation. Whatever the destination, it’s going barefoot – as it absolutely refuses to boot up! In any event, the next quiz will appear when the PC has been shod. Until then, “sea” you later!
Source(add to previous lists):
The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, Third Edition
Thanks for another great quiz, Auntie. I got numbers 1, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 11, 12, and 13.
I sure hope you can get Pong III pretty soon, so we don't have to go even one week without a quiz. I don't know if I can make it without one.
Thank you, DickZ, and thanks for submitting a question.
Looking at this, I think the intro is way, way too long! Sorry.
Hope the next quiz is posted soon, as I say, Pong is on its last legs.
Well, Pong II is still here for now, and we're hoping it's still here when the next quiz is posted. So, if there's anyone who wants to send me a question (and answer) via PM for tomorrow's quiz, please do so today.
Previous quiz topic clue: sea
Since seventy-five percent of the earth’s surface is covered with water, mostly by saltwater oceans, it is no wonder that the sea has fascinated mankind for eons. Although we are landlubbers,we're also sea-lovers, for the great deep never fails to stir the soul, be it through the romance of adventurous voyages or the romance of. . .well, romance. Concerning the former, in ancient times the sea was the only venue for exploration of lands waiting for discovery and naval battles to be fought. As for the latter, personal ads for the lovelorn contain so many wistful desires for “moonlit walks on the beach” that the reader almost believes that if she shook the newspaper, grains of sand would fall out. But soon the waves of reality sweep in, as the experts warn that someday the beach will become a geological fossil, if global warming and constant erosion have their way, that is, if the real estate agents for the rich haven't already swallowed up the entire world’s wealth of “waterfront property.”
Oh well, tide and time wait for no one, so let’s launch the quiz.
Now Sea Here
1. The first question was sent in by LitNutter DickZ:
Name the British Poet Laureate who penned these words:
"I must down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by…"
2. We find the symbol of the albatross as a bird boding bad luck for ships in which poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge?
3. Who was the Russian author who wrote the 1896 play, The Sea Gull?
4. What’s the title of the T.S. Eliot poem containing the lines: “I should have been a pair of ragged claws/Scuttling across the floors of silent seas”?
5. Posthumously published in 1924, a novella by Herman Melville depicts an innocent young seaman who is so innocent that his last words invoke a blessing upon the Captain who ordered his execution. What is the title of this short but transcendent study of good and evil?
6. The twentieth of this month will mark the fortieth anniversary of the first manned lunar landing, during which the astronauts proclaimed “We came in peace for all mankind.” What is the aptly-named area of the moon’s surface where the two space astronauts took those historic (and actual) steps?
7. Name one of the three plays by Shakespeare in which a sea voyage and/or a shipwreck is an integral plot point.
8. What is the title of one of Virginia Woolf’s novels which is also the historical military term for the women’s section of the U.S. Naval Reserves?
9. What is the anonymous Old English poem from the 8th century about the joys and sorrows of a mariner’s life as well as a comparison between this world and the next?
10. Based on Herman Wouk’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, what was the title of the acclaimed 1954 movie in which Humphrey Bogart portrays the obsessive-compulsive Captain Queeg.
11. Now one more movie title, please: Starring Al Pacino and Ellen Barkin, what is the steamy 1989 thriller whose title was derived from an R&B hit single by Phil Phillips?
12. The author of the 1904 novel, The Sea Wolf, was (for a time, anyway) the highest paid and most widely read writer in the United States. Who was he?
13. And finally, who was the spirited thoroughbred (1933-1947) whose winning ways lifted spirits up from the depths of the Great Depression?
Answers:
1. John Masefield
2. “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”
3. Anton Chekov
4. “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”
5. Billy Budd, Foretopman
6. The Sea of Tranquillity (Mare tranquillitatis)
7. The Tempest, Twelfth Night, or The Merchant of Venice
8. The Waves (WAVES)
9. “The Seafarer”
10. The Caine Mutiny
11. The Sea of Love
12. Jack London
13. Seabiscuit
Clue for the next quiz:
Whether we like it or not, at some point in our lives, many of us might have a need for a member of the profession described by the missing word in this definition from Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable:
“A seaman who is constantly arguing about his rights . . .”[or]”nautical slang for a shark” is a sea ______(what?)”
sources: the usual suspects, previously noted.