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: https://forms.gle/XKDiQ1CLvyMRDgsP8. 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 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) Stanley Kubrick, describing a 1971 film he directed, said the following: “[BLANK] makes no attempt to deceive himself or the audience as to his total corruption or wickedness. He is the very personification of evil. On the other hand, he has winning qualities: his total candour, his wit, his intelligence, and his energy…” WHAT first name fills in the blank, describing a character named by the American Film Institute as the twelfth-greatest villain in film history (but not your history)?
2) Seven coordinating conjunctions can be learned by memorizing the mnemonic acronym FANBOYS; for example, “S” stands for the word “so” (not “soo”). WHAT does “A” typically stand for in the acronym?
3) Take a word that means “the act of setting one free” that sometimes appears together with words such as “theology” and “sexual”—now, remove two letters, and you’ve got a word that means a ritualistic pouring of something (typically a liquid or grain) but that, especially in the bar/restaurant industry, has taken on a connotation of simply “an intoxicating drink.” WHAT two letters were removed?
4) Ah, geez, I got red quadrilaterals all over my chart! What I need to know is the ACTOR primarily associated with the character obscured by the green rectangle in the image below; he, the actor, has won three Saturn Awards and has been nominated for three Annie Awards. What’s his (last) name, man?
5) WHAT three-letter word, in addition to its more common definition, is a word used to describe British high society during the Regency era? The French helped out by providing the phrase (meaning “good manners” or “good form”) that the word originates from. One last hint: this three-letter word appears at the end of the names of at least three cities that make up the fifty most populous U.S. cities as of today.
6) Exactly one individual is missing from this list of individuals sharing a certain distinction. NAME the individual. George Washington, Henry Knox, Josiah Harmar, Arthur St. Clair, James Wilkinson, Henry Dearborn, Jacob Brown, Alexander Macomb, Winfield Scott, George McClellan, Henry Halleck, Ulysses Grant, William Tecumseh Sherman, Phillip Sheridan, John Schofield, Nelson Miles.
Here are the answers from last time:
1) NAME the two-word alliterative edition of Barbie doll released in 1992, the name of which conveys that the doll is an adolescent that articulates thoughts out loud. The doll caused controversy because one of its pre-programmed phrases was “Math class is tough!”; this controversy was later parodied by The Simpsons, an episode of which showed a “Malibu Stacy” doll saying phrases such as “Thinking too much gives you wrinkles!” and “Don't ask me, I'm just a girl.”
This is TEEN TALK BARBIE. Lest you think that alarm bells around “political correctness” are some creation of the past fifteen years, here’s Bob Greene from the Chicago Tribune writing on the controversy on October 13, 1992:
But in its own way, the Case of the Talking Barbie tells us as much about the strange turn our national life has taken as does any debate featuring men who yearn to become president. Especially in the always-tender area of relationships between men and women, the Case of the Talking Barbie is all the proof you need that we may all be beyond hope.
When the Mattel toy company manufactured a new set of talking Barbie dolls, the firm did not expect any controversy. The last thing giant companies want in this oh-so-sensitive new age of ours is to offend anyone.
Greene was later forced to resign from the Tribune after admitting to a prior “unconsummated extramarital sexual relationship” with a high school student.
2) Sheet, tubular, funnel, tangle (associated with the family Theridiidae), and spiral orb (associated with the families Tetragnathidae, Araneidae, and Uloboridae) are some types of WHAT that can be find in the wild (or at home)?
These are types of SPIDER WEBS. The big clue here was meant to be Araneidae, inconspicuously slipped into the middle of the question—spiders are of the order Araneae and the class Arachnid.
Arachne is a character in Greek mythology and is the origin of our word “arachnid”—let’s have the fantasy novel The Last Unicorn (1968) recount that story:
“Arachne of Lydia,” [Rukh] told the crowd. “Guaranteed the greatest weaver in the world -- her fate's the proof of it. She had the bad luck to defeat the goddess Athena in a weaving contest. Athena was a sore loser, and Arachne is now a spider, creating only for Mommy Fortuna's Midnight Carnival, by special arrangement. Warp of snow and woof of flame, and never any two the same. Arachne.”
Wait, is the story of Arachne just the plot of the song “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” without the spider part at the end?
3) In 1964, a famous speech known as “A Ballot or the Bullet” included the line “And when I speak, I don't speak as a Democrat or a Republican, nor an American. I speak as a victim of America's so-called democracy.” Later that same year, another speech known as “A Time for Choosing” was given in support of presidential candidate Barry Goldwater and included the line “And therein lies the road to war, because [peace activists] don't speak for the rest of us.” NAME either speech’s speaker.
The speakers here are MALCOLM X and RONALD REAGAN, respectively. In terms of its eventual importance to American history, “A Time for Choosing” is right there with William Jennings Bryan’s “Cross of Gold” or Barack Obama’s “Audacity of Hope” in terms of how it launched Reagan’s political career.
The premise of “A Ballot or the Bullet,” in which Malcolm X repeatedly spoke those five words, is roughly as follows:
That's why, in 1964, it's time now for you and me to become more politically mature and realize what the ballot is for; what we're supposed to get when we cast a ballot; and that if we don't cast a ballot, it's going to end up in a situation where we're going to have to cast a bullet. It's either a ballot or a bullet.
…
No, if you never see me another time in your life, if I die in the morning, I'll die saying one thing: the ballot or the bullet, the ballot or the bullet.
Malcolm X was assassinated in New York City about ten months after giving this speech. I was reminded of the sentiment in the above passage when I recently read the below excerpt (specifically, the “law of the jungle” portion) from Bill Russell’s book Go Up for Glory—Russell, the legendary NBA player and activist, passed away on July 31, 2022, and so folks online have been sharing stories about him. Here, Russell is describing his decision to travel to Mississippi in 1963 after the murder of Medgar Evers, an influential civil rights advocate:
I didn't want to go to Mississippi. I was like anyone else. I was afraid to get killed. My wife asked me not to go. Some friends said the same thing. A man must do what he thinks is right. I called Eastern Airlines and ordered my ticket.
Men like Medgar Evers were dead and other men had taken up his flag. Charlie Evers was a man marked for death, who slept with a pistol in his hand. The first night in Jackson I had no pistol, but I stayed with a friend with the door bolted. It would be rattled once in a while. There were noises in the alley. My friend couldn't sleep. 'They're coming for us, they're after us,' he said. The kind of men who come after you in the darkness do not frighten me. I went to sleep.
Cars followed us down the road. Full of drunken red-necks. Later, they would shoot a soldier, a lady, a kid. They would shoot the unarmed ones. They would lose their taste for it when they came abreast of our car. They would see guns and they would pull back and fall away, the headlights fading into the background. A coward will never fight a man who is equal. The sadness is that in the darkness of Jackson it had to be men who were equal only with guns.
I was having dinner in Jackson with two priests. Four red-necks came in. Paunchy, sick, loudmouth men who were drinking. They showed their guns as they took the table next to us. They began talking about the priests. I am not overly religious, but they were good men. I said: 'I know how you are at praying, but can you fight?' I laughed. They laughed back. The red-necks kept on our backs. I stood up and went over to their table. My knees were shaking. Was it anger? Was it fear? I stood beside the big one. 'Baby,' I said, 'I am a peaceful man. But to me life is a jungle. When people threaten me or mine, then I go back to the law of the jungle. Now I tell you--which law are we living by here? Because if this is the jungle then I am going to start killing.' They jumped up and left. The priests and I went back to our supper. Was it hatred? Was it bitter anger? Who am I? Why should I go through this?
4) NAME the artist who released a song in 2000 that includes the lyric “This is for the ones who stood their ground / For Tommy and Gina who never backed down.” The lyric is a reference to a previous song by the same artist that tells us about Tommy, a dockworker, and Gina, a waitress—they’re going through tough times, but they have each other, and that’s a lot.
This is BON JOVI; the 2000 song is “It’s My Life,” and the prior song is “Livin’ on a Prayer.” The question was worded to invoke “Livin’ on a Prayer”:
She says, we've got to hold on to what we've got
It doesn't make a difference if we make it or not
We've got each other and that's a lot for love
We'll give it a shotWoah, we're half way there
Woah, livin' on a prayer
In 2017, in a listicle on the website ShortList, a writer named Dave Fawbert ranked “Livin’ on a Prayer” as the song with the fourth-best WHAT in music history? The answer here, a two-word phrase, occurs at the 3:24 mark of the song; some other songs on the list include Taylor Swift’s “Love Story,” Sisqo’s “Thong Song,” Michael Jackson’s “Man in the Mirror,” and the Backstreet Boys with “I Want It That Way.” The answer’s at the end of this newsletter.1
5) The species of fern known as G. monstraparva (from Latin for “little monster”) was given its name after the fans of WHAT singer/actress, whose given name is Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta?
This is LADY GAGA—the way in was just to know that “little monsters” has been a longstanding term to refer to fans of Lady Gaga. According to biologists, the ferns apparently bear a close resemblance to Gaga's costume from the 52nd Annual Grammy Awards and also bear a distinct DNA sequence spelling GAGA.
Lady Gaga has won thirteen Grammy Awards, tying her with Ella Fitzgerald, Emmylou Harris, and Leontyne Price. Fitzgerald is a must-know for Jeopardy!; they’ll go for phrases like “jazz legend,” “scat singing,” and “First Lady of Song” to get you to think of her. Leontyne Price, generally credited as the first African-American soprano to receive international acclaim, comes up every once in a while, almost always for that distinction. Emmylou Harris, a legendary country singer, has been a correct Jeopardy! response exactly once (“The trio singing in ‘Trio’ & the follow-up album ‘Trio II’ are Linda Ronstadt, Dolly Parton & this woman”). The female artists with more Grammys are Beyoncé (28), bluegrass-country singer Alison Krauss (27), Aretha Franklin (18), Adele (15), Alicia Keys (15), and gospel singer CeCe Winans (15).
6) The following films all share a specific distinction. WHAT film, in addition to being this newsletter’s theme, shares the same distinction as the films in this incomplete list? Gone with the Wind (1939), All About Eve (1950), Kramer vs. Kramer (1979), Tootsie (1982), The Color Purple (1985), Almost Famous (2000), Gosford Park (2001), Chicago (2002), Babel (2006), Up in the Air (2009), The Fighter (2010), The Help (2011), The Favourite (2018).
Let’s start with the newsletter title, which was “Works on Contingency? No, Money Down!”. This is an old joke from The Simpsons (which is why we referenced the show in Question #1 to make that link more apparent). In the relevant episode, Bart visits Lionel Hutz, the shady attorney character, with a physical copy of an advertisement by Hutz stating that he works on contingency and does not require any down payment. Hutz sees the ad and says “Oh! They got this all screwed up,” and edits the ad as shown in the image below:
Whether you picked up on this five-second joke from a television episode that first aired in 1996 or not, the idea was for you to recognize the insertion of the comma in “No, Money Down!” as something that completely changes the meaning of the sentence.
From there, the next point of entry was to realize that this was a newsletter about the rock band No Doubt:
Question #1: Reference to “Just a Girl,” one of No Doubt’s top songs
Question #2: Reference to “Spiderwebs,” another notable No Doubt song
Question #3: “Don’t Speak,” No Doubt’s biggest song, appears in both excerpts of the speeches quoted in the question
Question #4: No Doubt covered a different song also called “It’s My Life” in 2003, which was one of No Doubt’s big radio hits
Question #5: Stefani is Lady Gaga’s first name and the last name of No Doubt lead singer Gwen Stefani
Finally, the list of films was a list of films for which MULTIPLE ACTRESSES WERE NOMINATED FOR BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS. If you’re a film/Oscars buff, you may have independently realized this, and there were several films from the 1940s through the 1970s we omitted for brevity’s sake that would have been acceptable (All About Eve and The Last Picture Show are two such examples). However, the intended answer was Doubt (2008), for which Amy Adams and Viola Davis were nominated. So, once you realized this was a No Doubt quiz, you just put in the comma, and the answer was “No, Doubt!”
The current-ish* Question #6 leaderboard can be viewed at this link.
*typically updated 4-6 hours after each newsletter is released