Six trivia prompts follow. If you want to join in, you can transmit data my way as to this circulation or turn in your opinions via this link. Similar to most trivia, solutions abound via Bing, so this quiz asks you for good sportsmanship (that is, do not look up solutions). That SIXTH prompt that follows is difficult to Bing; I track and account such in a following circulation. Truths and prompts go out on Mondays and Thursdays.
1) Hold that ringing communication tool for a bit, lipogram aficionados! Music hath charms to calm a wild bosom and a charming thing is a joy always in WHAT gimmicky 1939 book? If you don’t know, try an Australian stand-up artist who is on a tour now that is known as Body of Work.
2) A family of Italian siblings, following an arthritis diagnosis, thought up in 1956 a J-300 pump for putting in a bathtub to assist with ministrations. WHAT word dubs both that family and that family’s most-known product?
3) WHAT’s both (i) a 2007 action/horror film that draws from a Hitchcock film about a back window, and (ii) a 2008 pop song by Rihanna?
4) Babbitt is a 1922 book by Arrowsmith’s and Dodsworth’s author. That book’s protagonist, in wording and in disposition, was an inspiration for WHAT alliterative titular protagonist of a 1937 book?
5) It’s okay if you know nothing of a particular TV show that was airing from 2011 to 2019; fanatics of that show (and books) know that “R + L = J.” WHAT’S “J” stand for?
6) An individual word in this circulation, supra #1 through #5, sticks out! Only this word has a particular quality. WHAT word is that?
Here are the answers from last time:
1) Jay Ski, C.C. Lemonhead, and JeLana LaFleur, despite not being from (or near) the cities of Davenport, Bettendorf, Moline, or Rock Island, formed a group of disc jockeys, so to speak, most closely associated with WHAT animated film?
These are the members of the Quad City DJ’s, the group primarily associated with the theme song to the 1996 film SPACE JAM, which teamed up Bugs Bunny and Michael Jordan. Those cities are the Quad Cities in Iowa and Illinois. (People throw in East Moline too, but I figured that it would be easier to get to “Quad Cities” if I made the list four cities.) The group formed in Jacksonville, FL.
Jacksonville is one of two U.S. cities that starts with the letter “J” and that has a population of over 200,000 people. WHAT IS the other such city?1
2) The partially redacted chart shown in the image below shows a 300-year distribution of WHAT?
These are the dates on which EASTER occurs from 1900 to 2199. Easter occurs on the first Sunday following the full moon that occurs on or just after the ecclesiastical spring equinox. Further complicating this is that the people who figure out when Easter is don’t use the actual full moon; they use the paschal full moon, which does not correspond directly to any astronomical event, but is instead the 14th day of a lunar month. Therefore, it may differ from the date of the actual full moon by up to two days. Or, just check Google to figure out when Easter is, I guess.
3) Take a controversial rock musical that debuted in 1967 that featured, among other things, irreverence for the American flag and nudity, and add a certain set of five letters to its name; now you have a different musical that debuted in 2002 and is based on a 1988 film starring Ricki Lake in her first film role. WHAT five letters were added?
These musicals are Hair and Hairspray, so our letters are SPRAY. Ricki Lake’s talk show is mentioned in a few different songs, including some heavy-hitters (in terms of popularity/airtime) such as “Pretty Fly (for a White Guy)” by The Offspring and the Kesha and Nicki Minaj remix of Britney Spears’s “‘Till the World Ends.”
4) NAME the author first responsible for collections of stories centered in a forest that, if its name is to be taken literally, takes up 0.15625 square miles or 404,686 square meters.
The stories are the Winnie-the-Pooh stories, and they take place in the Hundred Acre Wood (hence those above measurements); so, the author is A.A. MILNE. Winnie-the-Pooh is based on Winnipeg, a bear that Milne saw one day at the London Zoo with his son, Christopher Robin. Hey, write what you know, I guess.
5) NAME the artist responsible for the sculpture that today holds the record for the most expensive work sold by a living artist at auction; the sculpture was sold for $91.1 million in May 2019. The artist in question is sometimes criticized for producing art that is kitsch, crass, and based on cynical self-merchandising.
This is JEFF KOONS—he’s most famous for sculptures of balloon animals. Here’s an image of Rabbit, the one from the above question that is about three feet tall and that sold for $91.1MM (the buyer was Steve Cohen, the guy who now owns the New York Mets):
6) WHAT distinction is shared by each of the following films? Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975), Fatal Attraction (1987), Akira (1988), Con Air (1997), Donnie Darko (2001), Inland Empire (2006).
Each of these films, generally prominently, features a RABBIT (or HARE), whether an actual rabbit, a plush toy rabbit, or someone in a rabbit costume.
Question #1: Alludes to Space Jam, which “stars” Bugs Bunny.
Question #2: Relates to Easter, which is associated with the Easter Bunny.
Question #3: The musicals share “Hair,” a homophone for “hare.”
Question #4: “Rabbit” is a Winnie-the-Pooh character.
Question #5: The sculpture in question is called Rabbit and is a depiction of a rabbit.
Newsletter Title: The four major ingredients used in beer, as you will learn immediately on any brewery tour, are grain, water, yeast, and hops. We named the first three to try to get you to think of “hops,” which is what rabbits do.
The current-ish* Question #6 leaderboard can be viewed at this link.
*typically updated 4-6 hours after each newsletter is released
JERSEY CITY, NEW JERSEY.