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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) NAME the children’s novel by Katherine Paterson first published in 1977. The book, routinely challenged and censored by critics for its profanity and ostensibly sacrilegious themes, was adapted into a 2007 film starring Josh Hutcherson, AnnaSophia Robb, Bailee Madison, and Zooey Deschanel.
2) “She did the drawings people think of when they think of Frank Lloyd Wright,” a scholar said of WHAT architect born in 1871 who is generally considered an original member of the Prairie School and who was instrumental in designing Canberra, the capital of Australia?
3) “Yes, we can!”, a slogan of Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign, likely owes its existence to WHAT motto that was originated by Dolores Huerta in 1972 and that is today a registered trademark of the United Farm Workers of America?
4) “The Extraordinary Story of the Largest Covert Operation in History” (and later “The Extraordinary Story of How the Wildest Man in Congress and a Rogue CIA Agent Changed the History of Our Times”) is the subtitle to WHAT 2003 non-fiction novel that later became a 2007 film, the last film directed by Mike Nichols?
5) “Even when we saw the writing credit which said ‘N Diamond,’ we thought it was a Jamaican artist called Negus Diamond,” said a member of the musical group UB40 in describing WHAT song? UB40 released a cover of the song in 1983.
6) Of the thirty Major League Baseball teams as they exist today, name EITHER of the two teams that fit within the theme suggested by the answers to this newsletter’s questions.
Trivia Newsletter CXXXV Recap
1) “The Munsters,” “Rehearsal,” “Connor’s Wedding,” “Honeymoon States,” and “Kill List” are titles of episodes of WHAT television show that have aired for the first time this year?
This is SUCCESSION.
For those of you who are fans of the Dune novels and also fans of Succession, here’s a post for you:
2) From 1999 to 2008, the U.S. Mint released commemorative quarters honoring each of the fifty U.S. states. Multiple presidents (or depictions thereof) are on certain of the quarters; for example, Mount Rushmore is depicted on South Dakota’s quarter. NAME the two presidents, in perhaps a technical sense, depicted on New Jersey’s quarter.
The reverse of the New Jersey state quarter looks like this:
The depiction is of Emanuel Leutze’s painting Washington Crossing the Delaware. Turning to a catalogue of American paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art:
Thus, the two presidents are GEORGE WASHINGTON and JAMES MONROE.
The drawing is all wrong when it comes to the historical facts, but then art often is:
Washington’s boat was much larger than is painted; the men in the painting’s ship represent a diverse group of 12 soldiers; and the flag in the image was not actually designed until after the event took place. Leutze’s work was more of a representation of what the event, and Washington, specifically, symbolized. (Although Leutze tried to be accurate, he also hoped to inspire a greater purpose). Even with these deviations from the facts, his portrait has become intermixed with the history of the moment itself, making it difficult for some to separate reality from folklore.
Leutze painted three different versions (that word doesn’t seem right. Copies? That doesn’t seem right either) of Washington Crossing the Delaware. One was in his native Germany and was destroyed in a World War II bombing raid. One is at the Met in New York. The third, a smaller version of the one at the Met, sold last year in a Christie’s auction for just over $45 million.
3) The Loud House, an animated television show that debuted in 2016 and airs on Nickelodeon, has been nominated for five GLAAD Media Awards and six Daytime Emmy Awards. The show centers on the alliteratively named middle child (and only boy) amongst the titular family’s eleven children, whose first name is WHAT?
This child’s name is LINCOLN (and was meant to be a bit of a back-solve once you got the theme—more on that later).
Handing it over to a blog to describe one of those GLAAD nominations:
The Loud House has been nominated for the “Outstanding Individual Episode (in a series without a regular LGBTQ character)” award in the 28th Annual GLAAD Media Awards for the episode “Attention Deficit”, in which Lincoln begins spending time at Clyde's house when Clyde McBride's fathers, Harold and Howard, give him more attention than he gets at home. The episode has been nominated for the award for including and portraying gay parents in a positive light. Clyde parents are voiced by comedians voiced by Wayne Brady (The Wayne Brady Show, Whose Line Is It Anyway?, Everybody Hates Chris, Let's Make a Deal) and Michael McDonald (All Grown Up!, Invader Zim, Futurama, Ghostbusters: Answer The Call (2016), Spy, Scrubs).
Although the network’s first-ever married same-sex couple, Harold and Howard McBride aren't the network’s first same-sex couple. In 2014, the series finale of Nickelodeon's hit original animated series The Legend of Korra ended with Korra and Asami, two of the show’s female characters, embarking on a romantic relationship, with fans endearingly calling the couple 'Korrasami'.
4) Catherine Keener plays the novelist Harper Lee in a certain 2005 film. Other characters in the film include convicted murderers Richard Hickock and Perry Smith, investigator Alvin Dewey, and novelist Jack Dunphy. What is the FIRST NAME of the titular character of the film?
The film is Capote and so we’re looking for TRUMAN Capote, who is most famous for writing the novella Breakfast at Tiffany’s and the true-crime novel In Cold Blood—the film Capote is primarily about the events that occurred as Capote wrote In Cold Blood.
“Unspoiled Monsters,” “Kate McCloud,” and “La Cote Basque” are the titles of three of the chapters of WHAT UNFINISHED NOVEL of Capote’s? The title of the novel comes from a quote ostensibly by Saint Teresa of Ávila: “More tears are shed over [TWO WORDS OMITTED] than [ONE WORD OMITTED] ones,” where the blank that says “[TWO WORDS OMITTED]” stands in for the name of the novel. That answer’s at the end of this newsletter.1
5) Give the LAST NAME of the environmental lawyer and author, accused by many of promoting vaccine misinformation, who on April 5th filed paperwork to run as a Democrat in the 2024 U.S. presidential election.
This person is Robert F. KENNEDY Jr., the son of Senator Robert F. Kennedy and the nephew of President John F. Kennedy. Kennedy’s role these days is largely saying outrageous things and sometimes apologizing for them.
I forgot to write a question in the recap last Monday, so we’ll do a second one today. Besides Kennedy and (as of last Tuesday) Joe Biden, WHO IS THE THIRD PERSON who has formally announced that they are running for the Democratic nomination for the 2024 U.S. presidential election? This person, who was born in 1952, ran during the 2020 campaign as well but dropped out before the Iowa primary. The answer’s at the end of this newsletter.2
6) The song “Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be)” serves an important part in the plot of the 1956 Alfred Hitchcock film The Man Who Knew Too Much; snippets of the song are also sung in the films Please Don’t Eat the Daisies (1960) and The Glass Bottom Boat (1966). What is the LAST NAME of the actress and singer who sung the song in each instance, as well as in the opening credits of a sitcom she starred in that aired from 1968 to 1973?
This is DORIS DAY. The sitcom in the last lines of the question was The Doris Day Show. Her association with the song “Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be)” led to tributes like these when she passed away in 2019:
The relevant scene from The Man Who Knew Too Much is not hard to find, especially if you follow this link.
7) Julia Louis-Dreyfus (12) and Mary Tyler Moore (10) have been nominated the most times and second-most times, respectively, for Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series. What is the LAST NAME of the actress and comedian who has nine such nominations, primarily for Maude and The Golden Girls (and not at all for the made-for-TV Star Wars Holiday Special)?
This is BEA ARTHUR.
Too much has already been written about the Star Wars Holiday Special, which I make sure to watch at least once a year, so rather than adding to that body of work, here’s an excerpt from a Jon Bois piece:
It's amazing. Television is all about super-reality: things happen more quickly than they could possibly happen in real life, and characters say things more dramatic and witty than any unscripted human has ever said. This right here is sub-reality. It stretches out the silence and nothingness that permeates our real lives and just lies in it like a hammock.
It hits me in the heart. It feels like every morose wintry Sunday night, dreading another cold week of the fifth grade. It's a dim, long, protracted yawn. "This was bad," it says. "Nothing happened, and now you have to leave."
It's made beautiful by that sleepy John Williams reprise, warbled by decades of sitting unplayed in the dusty home of the person in Dayton, Ohio, who bothered to record it in December of 1978. We know this person was in Dayton, because station identification graphics pop up once in a while throughout the recording. Since no official copy of this was ever released by Lucasfilm, and since this is pretty much the best copy we've got, I guess that means that Dayton, Ohio is part of the Star Wars universe. Dayton is canon.
8) “The scene they went to witness would produce one of the most famous screen images in history -- [BLANK], in simple summer white, standing on a subway grating, cooling herself with the wind from a train below. But what sent [BLANK] into a fury was the scene around the scene.” What are the LAST NAMES of both individuals, a married couple, that are redacted from this quote describing a 1954 event?
This passage describes Marilyn MONROE and Joe DIMAGGIO on the film set for what would become The Seven-Year Itch (1955). More famous than that film, almost certainly, is the shot of Monroe standing over the sewer grate:
9) The 2013 biopic Behind the Candelabra, starring Michael Douglas, concerns the last years of the life of WHAT person, who passed away in 1987, and that person’s relationship with Scott Thorson (played in the biopic by Matt Damon)?
This is LIBERACE. If Jeopardy! wants you to say “Liberace” (a rarer proposition these days than it was twenty or thirty years ago), they’re going to spot you things like “candelabra,” “Las Vegas,” “piano,” and the fact that he is no longer living (he passed away in 1987). Of course, then someone actually goes on Jeopardy! and gets asked “It took Yamaha 4 years to build the "Million Dollar Piano" this man used for more than 200 shows at Caesars Palace” and says “Liberace” incorrectly, so that’s the lesson—never try to learn anything ever.
By the way, WHAT RESPONSE would have been correct for that Jeopardy! prompt? The question is at the end of this newsletter.3
10) What is the LAST NAME of the Italian conductor born in 1867 who was at times the music director of La Scala in Milan and the New York Philharmonic? Most famously to Americans, perhaps, he was the music director of the NBC Symphony Orchestra from 1937 to 1954. Among his many accomplishments, he conducted the world premiere of Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings.
This is Arturo TOSCANINI.
Some background on him, including his admirable stance against fascism in the 1930s:
Arturo Toscanini began his conducting career at the age of 19. Touring South America as a cellist with an opera company, he was chosen as a substitute conductor for Aida when the company went on strike to protest the incompetence of the locally hired conductor. Despite his youth and inexperience, he was an instant hit and went on to conduct the world premieres of Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci and Puccini’s La bohème in 1892 and 1896, respectively. In 1898, he was appointed principal conductor of La Scala, a post he retained until 1908. He then became principal conductor at the Metropolitan Opera.
Toscanini, universally admired in later years as “The Maestro,” made his Philharmonic debut in January 1926. He shared the Music Director post with Willem Mengelberg from 1928 to 1930, jointly overseeing the Philharmonic’s merger with the New York Symphony Society. In 1930, Toscanini led the Philharmonic on a highly successful tour to Europe. The following year, he was attacked and beaten while in Italy for his refusal to play the Fascist anthem, and his opposition to Nazi persecution of the Jews made the front page of The New York Times in April of 1933. Toscanini’s Beethoven cycle with the New York Philharmonic during the 1932–33 season was seen by many as a musical repudiation of tyranny that matched his public opposition to Hitler. At the end of the season he notified Siegfried Wagner that he would not conduct at Bayreuth as previously planned, despite, or perhaps because of, a request to honor German music signed by Hitler himself.
11) What is the LAST NAME of the wide receiver, now a Hall of Famer, who played for the Indianapolis Colts from 1996 to 2008 and is in the top-five in NFL history in receptions and receiving touchdowns? His son, who currently plays for the Ohio State University, is widely considered to be one of the top receivers in college football as of today.
This question described Marvin HARRISON.
The NFL Draft is tonight, and Ohio State quarterback C.J. Stroud will be one of the top picks. (This author’s suggestion is to ignore all the hype that QB Will Levis has gotten lately and to expect Stroud to go second to the Houston Texans.) If you follow that, you will surely see Marvin Harrison Jr. appear several times in Stroud’s highlights.
12) “No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice, and family. In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than once they were.” This quotation, first made publicly available on June 26, 2015, has since been incorporated into many wedding ceremonies. What is the LAST NAME of the quote’s author?
The quote is from the majority opinion in Obergefell v. Hodges, the Supreme Court case that ruled that various provisions of the U.S. Constitution guarantee same-sex couples the fundamental right to marriage. Thus, the answer is that opinion’s author, Justice Anthony KENNEDY.
Justice Clarence Thomas’s concurring opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, the recent Supreme Court case overturning Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, makes it fairly clear that, at least in his eyes, Obergefell and opinions like it are up for grabs (internal citations removed):
For that reason, in future cases, we should reconsider all of this Court’s substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell. Because any substantive due process decision is “demonstrably erroneous,” we have a duty to “correct the error” established in those precedents.
13) Oh no! We misprint this newsletter! This newsletter is composed in part with questions that point to a false theme that should be ignored! Even worse, there may be similarities between some of the false-theme answers and some of the true-theme answers.
Look, there’s no use trying to determine who ignited this disaster. The true-theme questions, whichever they are, should lead you to three pairs of certain individuals. Each of those pairs has something in common with the other pairs. These three pairs happen to be half of the total number of such pairs that have this particular quality. NAME one of the missing pairs. (Your answer should be two people, and there are three possible pairs that will be marked as correct answers.)
[As a warning: Any answer to this question that mentions this newsletter’s false theme will not receive credit, even if the correct answer is also mentioned.]
The intended path to solving this newsletter is below. (For our newer readers: This newsletter theme was significantly more convoluted than our typical editions.)
Attempt to suss out which questions were the true-theme questions and which questions were the false-theme questions.
Realize that the newsletter title (“Greenwich”) has no connection to the questions, but does point to, historically, where the earth’s prime meridian lay (hence the convention of GMT, or “Greenwich Mean Time,” when talking time zones).
See the extra hint where we italicized and bolded the phrase “we misprint,” which is an anagram of “twin primes.”
Notice that it was a bit odd for me to use the word “composed” in the second sentence of Section #6, and that that was a further small hint that the “composite”-numbered questions were the false ones.
Realize that the prime-numbered questions were #2, #3, #5, #7, and #11 (in addition to #13 itself) and focus on those for the true theme.
This wasn’t critical, but realize that #2 had two answers because “2” is typically not considered one of the twin primes, whereas 3, 5, 7, and 11 are all parts of twin primes.
Solve the questions to get these three pairs:
Question #2: Washington and Monroe
Questions #3 and #5: Lincoln and Kennedy
Questions #7 and #11: Arthur and Harrison
Realize these are pairs of U.S. presidents, and think about what they might have in common.
Figure out that the number “1” is neither composite nor prime, and therefore might be a useful place for a clue. Determine that the answer to Question #1 is “Succession.” Think about whether the people who succeeded these pairs of presidents have something in common.
Determine that both Washington and Monroe were succeeded by someone named Adams; that Lincoln and Kennedy were both succeeded by someone named Johnson; and that Arthur and (Benjamin) Harrison were both succeeded by someone named Cleveland.
Try to determine another such pair—the easiest answer, I thought, was Reagan and Clinton (both succeeded by a Bush), but Van Buren and Cleveland (Harrison) and McKinley and Hoover (Roosevelt) were other acceptable answers.
The false theme (Truman, Day, Monroe/DiMaggio, Liberace, Toscanini, Kennedy) was deliberately designed to overlap the main theme, as there are presidents, including some of the same ones you needed for the main theme. These folks, of course, are all individuals mentioned in the Billy Joel song “We Didn’t Start the Fire.” We gave you a clue in Question #13 when we told you “Look, there’s no use trying to determine who ignited this disaster”—this was trying to tell you not to worry about “We Didn’t Start the Fire.”4
Question #6 Leaderboard
The Question #6 leaderboard can be viewed at this link.
Capote’s unfinished novel referenced above is ANSWERED PRAYERS (“More tears are shed over answered prayers than unanswered ones.”).
Besides Kennedy and Biden, the third person who has officially thrown their hat into the ring of Democratic contenders is MARIANNE WILLIAMSON.
A correct response to the Jeopardy! prompt “It took Yamaha 4 years to build the ‘Million Dollar Piano’ this man used for more than 200 shows at Caesars Palace” would have been “WHAT IS ELTON JOHN?”
Recalling this was not strictly necessary, but long-time readers may also recall the Trivia Factorial Guarantee, which we proclaimed almost seven months ago in the recap to Trivia Newsletter LXXXVI: “The central theme of a newsletter will never be ‘All of these people/things were mentioned in the song ‘Vogue’ by Madonna or the song ‘We Didn’t Start the Fire’ by Billy Joel.’”