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. You can find our rules and guidelines by following this link.
1) The below image relates to the plot of WHAT film that was shot primarily in the San Fernando Valley, including several scenes in and around a motel called (in real life) the Travel Inn?
2) NAME the stadium that was home to the Federal League’s Whales from 1914 to 1915 and a different league’s Bears from 1921 to 1970; its most famous tenant has been playing there since 1916.
3) Charles Michelson is believed to have first employed WHAT term to describe shanty towns of unhoused individuals at the beginning at the Great Depression and to attack the president at the time? That president lost the next election, leading to the creation of alphabet-soup programs responding to the Depression such as the CCC, TVA, and FDIC.
4) In 2020, political opponents of Bernie Sanders pointed to a 1988 video showing Sanders, on a trip to Moscow with a delegation of Burlington citizens, praising the Soviet Union for, in the words of the Washington Post, its “[BLANK]-filled transit stations.” WHAT word, also the name of a 2014 song by Sia, fills in the blank in the preceding sentence?
5) NAME the writer and activist, nicknamed the “Scarlot Harlot,” who is generally credited with coining the term “sex work.” A street in Charlotte shares its name with this original member of ACT UP who was once called “the fairy godmother of the early AIDS direct action groups of San Francisco.”
6) Nowhere near Las Vegas and probably disapproving of it in a sense, WHAT country is the only country that answers this question and fits into the theme of this newsletter?
Trivia Newsletter CXIX and CXX Recaps
For each of the below questions, the version that appeared in Trivia Newsletter CXIX is presented first and the version that appeared in Trivia Newsletter CXX is presented second.
1) Yeah, uh-huh, you know what it is: the title of a certain 2010 song that is about the singer’s Dodge Challenger, as well as about the city he grew up in, contains two colors. Of those two colors, WHICH ONE is most associated with the body of water in which one can find Snake Island, an island that prominently figured into world affairs in 2022?
1) Yeah, uh-huh, you know what it is: the title of a certain 2010 song that is about the singer’s Dodge Challenger, as well as about the city he grew up in, contains two colors. Of those two colors, WHICH ONE is most associated with the river with its source in the Bayan Har Mountains and that flows out to the Bohai Sea?
As a prelude: You might be wondering “why did these two newsletters have such similar questions?” The purpose was for you to read the second set of questions, which came out on February 2nd, and briefly wonder whether I had made a mistake or whether you were reading Monday’s questions again. This is because February 2nd is Groundhog Day, and that moment of confusion—wondering whether you’re repeating part of your life—is integral to the plot of the film Groundhog Day. The origin of this idea was the thought “I want to do a Groundhog Day newsletter that isn’t actually about Groundhog Day at all.” I have no idea whether this succeeded or was fun for you, but the perk of never turning on comments on these posts is that I will not find out!
The song relevant to Question #1 was “Black and Yellow” by Wiz Khalifa, referring to the city of Pittsburgh and the colors of many of its professional sports teams. Thus, our answers were, respectively, BLACK and YELLOW, referring to the Black Sea and the Yellow River.
The catchiness and simplicity of “Black and Yellow” have led to the song being repeatedly parodied. Perhaps the most famous version is “Green and Yellow” by Lil Wayne, referring to the Green Bay Packers, who defeated the Pittsburgh Steelers in the Super Bowl just a few months after “Black and Yellow” came out. Others include “Purp & Yellow” by The Game, Snoop Dogg, and YG (the Los Angeles Lakers) and, unbelievably, a version called “White and Purple” by Chet Hanks, Tom Hanks’s son, about WHAT UNIVERSITY, which is not traditionally associated with elite athletic success? The answer’s at the end of this newsletter.1
2) In the 2010 NBA Eastern Conference Finals, a team led by Paul Pierce, Ray Allen, and Rajon Rondo took on Dwight Howard, Jameer Nelson, and Vince Carter’s team. NAME the city that the winning team in that series played (and plays) in.
2) In the 2010 NBA Eastern Conference Finals, a team led by Paul Pierce, Ray Allen, and Rajon Rondo took on Dwight Howard, Jameer Nelson, and Vince Carter’s team. NAME the team that lost that playoff series.
The answers here were the BOSTON Celtics and the Orlando MAGIC.
The Magic are one of ten “Big Four” North American sports teams with a team name that does not end in “S”—the others are the Chicago White Sox, the Boston Red Sox, the Colorado Avalanche, the Minnesota Wild, the Seattle Kraken, the Tampa Bay Lightning, the Oklahoma City Thunder, the Utah Jazz, and the nearby Miami Heat. The Kraken are a recent addition to that list, having only started playing in late 2021. Something I didn’t know until recently (and something Jeopardy! will occasionally expect you to know) is that the word “kraken” comes from Norwegian.
3) The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, originally a radio broadcast created by Douglas Adams, was adapted into several other formats, including six novels. In one of those novels, the protagonist Arthur Dent meets his soulmate, a woman named Fenchurch, who is named after (and was conceived at) London’s Fenchurch Street railway station. Adams said that Fenchurch’s character was inspired by a different station, but he picked Fenchurch in order to avoid confusion with WHAT other fictional character?
3) The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, originally a radio broadcast created by Douglas Adams, was adapted into several other formats, including six novels. In those works, the titular guide is described as the encyclopedia that many civilizations prefer over competitors for two reasons: First, the Hitchhiker’s Guide is slightly cheaper, and second, it has WHAT TWO WORDS inscribed in large friendly letters on its cover?
The answers here are PADDINGTON BEAR and DON’T PANIC.
I think a lot about this Hitchhiker’s Guide quote:
The major problem—one of the major problems, for there are several—one of the many major problems with governing people is that of whom you get to do it; or rather of who manages to get people to let them do it to them.
To summarize: it is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it.
To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.
One more, perhaps relevant to me as I prepare Trivia Newsletter CXXII, our next edition:
This must be Thursday. I never could get the hang of Thursdays.
4) A 1958 album sometimes cited as “the first British comedy LP created in a recording studio” starred WHAT actor and comedian? He is famous for his many roles in film and television, and sometimes his many roles in the same film, such as in The Mouse That Roared (1959) and Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964).
4) A 1958 album sometimes cited as “the first British comedy LP created in a recording studio” was produced by WHOM? One of a few people sometimes called the “fifth Beatle,” he produced most of the albums by the Beatles and produced the songs “Goldfinger” and “Live and Let Die” for the same-named James Bond films.
The answers here are PETER SELLERS and GEORGE MARTIN.
The Encyclopædia Britannica, completely unsurprisingly, has an article on The Beatles. Martin naturally is mentioned:
The man in charge of their career at Parlophone was George Martin, a classically trained musician who from the start put his stamp on the Beatles, first by suggesting the band hire a more polished drummer (they chose Starr) and then by rearranging their second recorded song (and first big British hit), “Please Please Me,” changing it from a slow dirge into an up-tempo romp.
When you click on the link for Martin (the one above is the same one as the one in the article, at least as of this writing), it takes you to an article about George R.R. Martin, most famous for appearing as himself in Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No!2 and also famous to some as the author of some of the A Song of Ice and Fire series. Suffice to say, the guy responsible for the White Walkers was not responsible for the White Album!
This is obviously just a silly little error on the encyclopedia’s part, but we reported it anyway:
5) “Espero Alegre la Salida – y Espero no Volver jamás” (“I joyfully await the exit – and I hope never to return”) were the last written words of a certain artist, who passed away in 1954 and who then lay in state at the Palacio de Bellas Artes under a Communist flag. WHAT is that artist’s first name?
5) “Espero Alegre la Salida – y Espero no Volver jamás” (“I joyfully await the exit – and I hope never to return”) were the last written words of a certain artist, who passed away in 1954. Before writing those words, though, she wrote WHAT three words on her last painting, which words (whether meant earnestly or sardonically) translate to the English phrase “long live life”?
These answers are FRIDA (Kahlo) and “VIVA LA VIDA.” Here’s that painting:
The painting is full of vibrant colours and depicts watermelons in still life in various cut shapes including whole, sliced in half, sliced in a quarter, and sliced in a flower-like shape. The watermelons each have different shades of green, perhaps symbolising changes in ripeness and therefore growing older or passing through various stages of life.
Despite being in poor health in 1953, Frida was able to complete this painting showing a lively scene with a fruit symbolising the vibrancy of life. During the Dia de los Muertos, watermelons were often used to symbolise connections to the dead or being consumed by the dead. The sharp reds contrast nicely with the softer greens and blues used in the painting. Showing these reds allowed Frida to exude a sense of life from within the watermelons, which itself contrasts with her poor health and subsequent death. This type of dualism is frequent in her works. She also completed many other still life paintings, many of which include melons and other tropical fruits.
Frida's last work includes her signature style of dualism as well as the clear and intentioned use of bright and vibrant colours to delineate the viewer's attention from the flat and darker colours from the main area of focus. Here, it appears to be the red pulp within each watermelon that draws the most attention. Inscribed eight days before her death, the lower watermelon says within its red pulp: "VIVA LA VIDA – Coyoacán 1954 Mexico," which denotes in English "Long live life" followed by her place of birth and death as well as the date of the painting.
6) Each of the answers in this newsletter can, at least in part, be associated with WHAT specific word? (A hint to avoid frustration: One of the answers in this newsletter is only used for its first syllable.)
6) Each of the answers in this newsletter can, at least in part, be associated with WHAT specific group?
The respective answers were MARKET and COLDPLAY.
Trivia Newsletter CXIX:
Question #1: Black (as in a black market)
Question #2: Boston (for the restaurant chain Boston Market)
Question #3: Paddington Bear (for the investing phrase “bear market”)
Question #4: Peter Sellers (for a “seller’s market”)
Question #5: Frida (for “free market”—that was the answer we told you only used one syllable)
Newsletter Title: “How Bazaar,” in addition to relating to the bizarre nature of the questions repeating in the next newsletter, was a clue, as “bazaar” is a synonym of “market.”
Trivia Newsletter CXX:
Question #1: Yellow (“Yellow” is one of Coldplay’s hit songs)
Question #2: Magic (“Magic” was another big Coldplay song that went platinum)
Question #3: Don’t Panic (“Don’t Panic” was another early Coldplay song)
Question #4: George Martin (meant to be a hint for Chris Martin, their lead singer)
Question #5: Viva La Vida (Coldplay’s song “Viva La Vida” was explicitly named as a reference to Kahlo’s painting and is probably the band’s biggest hit)
Newsletter Title: “Something Just Like This,” besides referring to how this newsletter was a lot like the last one, is the name of a hit song that Coldplay did with the Chainsmokers in 2017.
Question #6 Leaderboard
The Question #6 leaderboard can be viewed at this link. We’ve just wrapped up Series 6, so this newsletter will begin our new leaderboard.
NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY
A passable bar trivia question, I think, would give you all of the Sharknado film subtitles and ask you for Sharknado. Those are The Second One, Oh Hell No!, The 4th Awakens, Global Swarming, and It’s About Time—the sixth Sharknado film (in full, The Last Sharknado: It’s About Time) is literally about a time-travel plot.
This footnote about Sharknado and time travel is the perfect opportunity for me to share my favorite Clickhole recurring joke with you. In 2016, they ran an article entitled “If People Think There’s A Quick Fix To Illegal Immigration They’re As Misguided As The Scientists In My Screenplay ‘Chronotaur: Labyrinth Of Time’”—the bit is that the article sets out to make some fairly innocuous political point, but does so by repeatedly and at great length referencing the author’s hypothetical screenplay for a hacky film (the tagline is “How do you outrun that which is everywhen?”) about the Chronotaur, a minotaur that guards the “Time Maze” and the integrity of the space-time continuum. The article is written with a lot of love, and it’s incredibly amusing to me. It was probably amusing to someone else too, because Clickhole wrote two sequels: “Abstinence-Only Education Is As Doomed To Fail As The Robo-Chronotaur Built To Fight The Chronotaur In My Screenplay ‘Chronotaur: Labyrinth Of Time’” and “America’s Middle Class Is Being Erased By Income Inequality Like The Scientists Erased From Existence After The Clone-otaur Changes The Past In My Screenplay ‘Chronotaur 3: Hoof Of History.’”