Auntie's Quiz O' the Week

[Wilde woman]

but WW, do you have cable and if you do, do you ever watch Turner Classic Movies? Some of the old films really creak (like me bones!) but some of them are really "classic." You owe it to yourself to see the original From Here to Eternity.

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!

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.

[qimissung]

I only got 2, 3, 6, 9, 12, and 13. Oh well. (discouraged sigh) O.K. now I'm ready for the next one!

[AuntShecky]

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.”

[Taliesin]

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.

[Nightshade]

1, 4, 5, 7, 9, , 11, 12, 13.

8!!

I knew 2 was began with an L and I even thought anicent egypt but I kept getting Opium poppy

[Virgil]

Still strugglineg. I got six: 1, 2, 8, 9, 10, 12. I was thinking the river styx and Athena instead of Helen.

[ShoutGrace]

Hey special hello to Shoutgrace. Perhaps now that he's discovered Auntie's quiz of the week, he'll drop by for them.

Hi Virgil . I don't think I'll be able to resist!

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!

[DickZ]

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.

[AuntShecky]

Taliesin, Nightshade, Virgil, Shoutgrace, and DickZ:
Your astute and learned (accent on the "ed") responses to my little quiz make the effort worthwhile. Thanks.

[AuntShecky]

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 ...

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."

"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.)

[Wilde woman]

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!

[AuntShecky]

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.

[Virgil]

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.

[qimissung]

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?

[DickZ]

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.