Below are six trivia questions. If you’d like to participate, you can either reply to this e-mail or submit your answers via Google Forms by using the button below. Like most trivia, the answers can be readily found via Google, so you’re on the honor system (i.e., do not use external resources to help you answer any of the questions). The SIXTH question of each set is generally designed to be a question that cannot be easily Googled; correct answers to those will be tracked and recognized in the next newsletter. The answers, and the next set of questions, will be published on Mondays and Thursdays.
1) The interaction of ozone molecules and isoprene, a volatile hydrocarbon naturally released by trees as a means of protection against heat and insects, produces a haze that is commonly believed to give WHAT mountain range, a part of the Appalachian Mountains, its name?
2) A fictional diamond with a distinctively shaped flaw was the titular object in WHAT 1963 film, which spawned a media franchise of almost a dozen films, as well as a series of animated shorts?
3) WHAT name is given to the thought experiment first devised by Richard Dawkins in his 1976 book The Selfish Gene, based upon an idea proposed by evolutionary biologist W.D. Hamilton in 1964, that is intended to explain selective altruism among individuals of a species? In the thought experiment, a particular vivid example of a detectable phenotypic marker causes its carrier to behave altruistically towards individuals who display the same marker.
4) Erwin Wardman, the editor of the New York Press, is generally credited with being the first to publish WHAT phrase to describe the sensationalistic reporting that characterized Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World and William Randolph Hearst’s New York Journal in the late 1890s?
5) Please answer either of the following questions: (a) NAME the author and illustrator who created the Arthur series. He also served as an executive producer for the same-named PBS television show that holds the distinction as the longest-running children’s animated television show in American history; OR (b) WHAT is the alliterative term oft-applied to overly ornate text that distractingly takes away from even an obsequious reader’s enraptured attention by producing a too-liberal font of fanciful adjectives and unnecessarily lurid adverbs?
6) Of the 363 colleges and universities that participate in NCAA’s “Division I” in men’s basketball, only one of them fits the theme of this newsletter. NAME the team. (One word is acceptable.)
Trivia Newsletter CII Recap
1) The character Mars Blackmon, a shoe-loving fan of the New York Knicks who first appeared in the 1986 film She’s Gotta Have It, was played by WHOM? The character went on to appear in Nike commercials for the “Air Jordan” line of basketball shoes.
This is SPIKE LEE, who also directed She’s Gotta Have It. Lee has appeared in eleven of the films he’s directed. In 2006, Michael Jordan and Spike Lee released the “Jordan Spiz’ike” line of shoes to celebrate Lee’s historic relationship with the brand.
Lee’s 2015 film Chi-Raq, a reimagining of the ancient Greek comedy Lysistrata by Aristophanes, was the first original film to be distributed by Amazon Studios, which also distributed films such as Manchester by the Sea and The Big Sick. Chi-Raq’s plot involves, in part, the protagonist being inspired by Leymah Gbowee, a Liberian peace activist who helped bring an end to the Second Liberian Civil War in 2003. Gbowee shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 2011, together with Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (one of Gbowee’s collaborators, who was elected president of Liberia in 2006 and in doing so became the first elected female head of state for Africa) and Tawakkol Karman (a Yemeni journalist and activist).
2) The 1973 parody story “A Trekkie’s Tale,” written by Paula Smith for her Star Trek fanzine Menagerie, features “the youngest Lieutenant in the fleet—only fifteen and a half years old,” who, in the course of a few paragraphs, wins over the crew of the Enterprise, performs heroic feats, and passes away. WHAT was the lieutenant’s name in “A Trekkie’s Tale”? The term is now generically used in writing communities to refer to inexplicably competent and virtuous characters, usually women.
This is “MARY SUE.” A “Mary Sue” character is generally meant to refer to a silly unbelievable self-insert character in writing. You’ll find people, though, who argue that the term is overapplied and used in bad faith against all sorts of female characters in fiction—Wikipedia has a good summary of these arguments.
Here, you can read the entirety of “A Trekkie’s Tale” right now:
"Gee, golly, gosh, gloriosky," thought Mary Sue as she stepped on the bridge of the Enterprise. "Here I am, the youngest lieutenant in the fleet - only fifteen and a half years old." Captain Kirk came up to her.
"Oh, Lieutenant, I love you madly. Will you come to bed with me?"
"Captain! I am not that kind of girl!"
"You're right, and I respect you for it. Here, take over the ship for a minute while I go get some coffee for us."
Mr. Spock came onto the bridge. "What are you doing in the command seat, Lieutenant?"
"The Captain told me to."
"Flawlessly logical. I admire your mind."
Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, Dr. McCoy and Mr. Scott beamed down with Lt. Mary Sue to Rigel XXXVII. They were attacked by green androids and thrown into prison. In a moment of weakness Lt. Mary Sue revealed to Mr. Spock that she too was half Vulcan. Recovering quickly, she sprung the lock with her hairpin and they all got away back to the ship.
But back on board, Dr. McCoy and Lt. Mary Sue found out that the men who had beamed down were seriously stricken by the jumping cold robbies, Mary Sue less so. While the four officers languished in Sick Bay, Lt. Mary Sue ran the ship, and ran it so well she received the Nobel Peace Prize, the Vulcan Order of Gallantry and the Tralfamadorian Order of Good Guyhood.
However the disease finally got to her and she fell fatally ill. In the Sick Bay as she breathed her last, she was surrounded by Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, Dr. McCoy, and Mr. Scott, all weeping unashamedly at the loss of her beautiful youth and youthful beauty, intelligence, capability and all around niceness. Even to this day her birthday is a national holiday of the Enterprise.
3) On August 16, 1986, a 45-year-old Pete Rose played his final full game with the Cincinnati Reds. On the next day, in the eighth inning, Rose became the most recent (and probably last-ever) person in MLB history to do WHAT? He ended up going 0-for-1 in the game with a strikeout.
Look, Pete Rose is a “bad guy” in baseball history. Trivia Factorial takes the not-so-bold editorial position that players or managers gambling on their games is bad. MLB’s Rule 21 is posted in every clubhouse:
“Any player, umpire, or club official or employee, who shall bet any sum whatsoever upon any baseball game in connection with which the bettor has no duty to perform shall be declared ineligible for one year. Any player, umpire, or club or league official or employee, who shall bet any sum whatsoever upon any baseball game in connection with which the bettor has a duty to perform shall be declared permanently ineligible.”
We’re throwing in this disclaimer because on August 17, 1986, the now-disgraced and not-that-great-of-a-person Pete Rose was the last person to do the coolest thing a person can possibly do in the game of baseball. For basically the entirety of professional baseball history until last year, the National League required pitchers to have a spot in the batting order and hit for themselves. The Reds are, of course, a National League team. Pete Rose was the player-manager of the Reds. His starting pitcher, Chris Welsh, had a bad day, and Rose was juggling his bullpen and facing a multi-run deficit most of the game. Rose put in Tony Perez as a pinch-hitter in the 5th inning to try to move over a runner from second. Rose then put in Eddie Milner as a pinch-hitter in the 6th inning as the Reds began to rally. Finally, running out of bench players and down by four runs in the bottom of the 8th inning, Pete Rose INSERTED HIMSELF INTO THE GAME AS A PINCH-HITTER.
Isn’t that wild? Sports needs more of that. I want to see Craig Counsell, the current manager of the Milwaukee Brewers and who batted .178 as a player in 2011, pinch-hit himself and draw a walk. I want to see Bill Belichick, tired of yelling at a special-teams player lining up at the wrong spot, insert himself as a gunner on a punt return.
Oh, by the way—NAME THE HALL OF FAMER who struck out Pete Rose in that final plate appearance. One of the earliest manifestations of what is now the modern closer, he played for nine MLB teams, most notably the New York Yankees and the Chicago White Sox. The answer’s at the end of this newsletter.1
4) Usnavi de la Vega is a major character in WHAT musical that opened on Broadway in 2008? Usnavi, a bodega owner in a certain Manhattan neighborhood, takes his unusual name from the fact that, upon coming to America, his parents saw a ship with the words “US Navy” on it.
This is IN THE HEIGHTS, the Lin-Manuel Miranda musical. Miranda, no stranger to inserting himself into his works, played Usnavi in the Broadway run of In the Heights. The musical takes place in Washington Heights (the “certain” neighborhood in the question).
**Spoiler alert for the musical Hamilton**
The closing song in the musical Hamilton (also by Miranda) is the song “Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story.” In that somber song, Eliza Hamilton sings:
Oh, can I show you what I'm proudest of?
(The orphanage)
I established the first private orphanage in New York City
(The orphanage)
I help to raise hundreds of children
That’s true, by the way—Eliza Hamilton did establish the first private orphanage in New York City.
Miranda came up with In the Heights as a college student in the late 1990s and worked on it throughout the early 2000s. Hamilton came later; Miranda got the idea for it while reading Ron Chernow’s biography of Alexander Hamilton while on vacation during the Broadway run of In the Heights. So, imagine it: Lin-Manuel Miranda, who grew up next to Washington Heights, who has brought this neighborhood to life in In the Heights, is doing research for Hamilton. He learns one day that the first private orphanage in New York City, founded by Eliza Hamilton, a major character in the musical he is writing, was located in—you guessed it—Washington Heights. Maybe it’s because I write a semiweekly newsletter all about the unexpected connections between things, but can you imagine how he felt when he learned that the subjects of his two major life works had this close connection? I wonder, but can’t possibly prove, if this tweet was posted on the day he learned that fact (Hamilton debuted off-Broadway just over a year later):
That orphanage is still around, by the way.
5) The following quote, excerpted from a work that was written approximately 2400 years ago, is (within the work) said by WHOM?
However, I think that I could afford a minae, and therefore I propose that penalty; Plato, Crito, Critobulus, and Apollodorus, my friends here, bid me say thirty minae, and they will be the sureties. Well then, say thirty minae, let that be the penalty; for that they will be ample security to you.
The speaker is SOCRATES, as this is the Apology, the Socratic dialogue written by Plato. The Apology, Euthyphro, Phaedo, and Crito are the four dialogues detailing the final days of Socrates.
The “Euthyphro problem” is formulated by Socrates in the same-named dialogue as “Is the pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods?” The same question is discussed in the context of modern-day religions—as Leibniz put it, is the good and just “good and just because God wills it or [does] God wills it because it is good and just”? Or, to quote another great philosopher:
I'm wondering if a thug's prayers reach
Is Pius pious 'cause God loves pious?
Socrates asked whose bias do y'all seek?
All for Plato, screech
6) WHAT notable distinction is generally believed to be shared by each of the following works of art? At the Moulin Rouge (Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec), The Desperate Man (Gustave Courbet), Las Meninas (Diego Velázquez), The Procuress (Johannes Vermeer), The Prodigal Son in the Brothel (Rembrandt), The Wounded Deer (Frida Kahlo), Young Sick Bacchus (Caravaggio).
Each of these contains a DEPICTION OF THE ARTIST (or a SELF-PORTRAIT).
Generally, self-portraits in art are identified as such (like van Gogh’s Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear). These are some examples of notable works of art that are not explicitly identified as self-portraits, but are. (We threw in the “generally believed” caveat to avoid a reasonable objection based upon being able to definitively know any artist’s intent, and whether that intent matters or not when interpreting a work.)
The newsletter was setting up an idea of people inserting themselves into their works (which is what a self-portrait also is):
Question #1: Spike Lee put himself into the described movie that he directed.
Question #2: A “Mary Sue” is a notable example of an author self-insert in writing.
Question #3: Pete Rose inserted himself into the game he was managing.
Question #4: Lin-Manuel Miranda cast himself in In the Heights.
Question #5: Plato mentions himself in the dialogue he wrote.
Newsletter Title: “Parrot Itself,” besides being on point for the phenomenon we’re describing, is an anagram of “self-portrait.”
Question #6 Leaderboard
The Question #6 leaderboard can be viewed at this link.
RICH “GOOSE” GOSSAGE.