First, an announcement: We have a new name!
Up until now, this newsletter technically has been called Trivia! because I had to write something and not leave the name field blank when I was making my small friends-and-family trivia newsletter. As of today, though, the name of this newsletter is Trivia Factorial.1 Why that name?
In mathematics, the factorial of an integer is the product of all positive integers less than or equal to it. The factorial of 4, for example, is 24, because 4 times 3 times 2 times 1 equals 24. The factorial function is denoted by an exclamation point: 4! = 24. In a way, the name hasn’t changed; Trivia Factorial is just how you’d say Trivia! out loud.
Factorials, to oversimplify, make things bigger.2 10 minutes is roughly how long it takes to read this newsletter, but 10! minutes is almost seven years. That embiggening is what we’re trying to do with trivia. Each Trivia Factorial question asks about a discrete fact, but also builds towards an overarching theme. The most fun part of trivia, at least for me, is going from the question mark (“How would anyone know this? How are these connected?”) to the exclamation point (“Aha!”), and that’s what Trivia Factorial is all about.
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/cvks8zB2tBKykUwZ6. 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) A human hand has 27 bones: fourteen phalanges (in the fingers), eight carpal bones (in the wrist), and five of WHAT bones, comprising the middle part of the hand between the carpal bones and phalanges? (A hint: the answer is already partially in this question; it’s just missing a prefix.)
2) Bianyifang and Quanjude are restaurants particularly notable for WHAT classic dish, characterized by its method of preparation (roasting) and by its thin crispy skin? Legend has it that the dish, named after a city, was a favorite of Henry Kissinger’s following a secret visit he made in 1971.
3) The following is the first few lines of a poem by a Welsh poet who later in her life went by Jane Winscom. According to the poem’s title, the poem is an elegy to Jane’s WHAT, specifically? (One word of the poem has been replaced with a [BLANK] below.)
Adieu, dear [BLANK], which birth and Nature gave—
Lo! at the altar I’ve interr’d dear Cave,
For there it fell, expir’d, and found a grave.Forgive, dear spouse, this ill-tim’d tear or two,
They are not meant in disrespect to you.
4) Kata Tjuṯa is a group of large, domed rock formations located about 220 miles southwest of Alice Springs in central Australia. WHAT large rock formation, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of Australia’s most recognizable natural landmarks, is located about sixteen miles away from Kata Tjuṯa?
5) The Greatest is a 1977 biographical film about the life of WHAT person, who plays himself in the film?
6) WHAT distinction, also this newsletter’s theme, is shared by each of the following places? Cape Verde, East Timor, Ivory Coast, Macedonia, Swaziland, Turkey, Zaire.
Here are the answers from last time:
1) The Italian poet Dante Alighieri wrote about his passion for WHOM in his work La Vita Nuova, a collection of lyric poems? In the third and final part of the Divine Comedy, this person is also Dante’s guide, as he is not barred from entering paradise.
This is BEATRICE, symbolic of divine grace throughout The Divine Comedy. At the beginning of the events of the Inferno, Virgil comes to Dante and says that he was sent by Beatrice to be Dante’s guide—later, at the end of Purgatorio, Beatrice takes over tour-guide duties because Virgil, as a pagan, cannot enter heaven.
Princess Beatrice (who has no relation to the above other than sharing the name) was born in 1988 and is the oldest daughter of Prince Andrew, Duke of York, who himself is the third child (and second son) born to Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. Here is an excerpt from Prince Andrew’s Wikipedia page’s table of contents, by the way:
According to the official website of the British monarchy, Princess Beatrice today ranks IN WHAT POSITION in the line of succession to the throne? For example, Charles, Prince of Wales, is the heir apparent and is first in the line of succession. The answer, which should be an ordinal number, is at the end of this newsletter.3
(An editing hiccup on my part: I realized about two hours after publication that I probably should have written “as Dante is not barred” at the end of the question instead of “as he is not barred.” Dante was the intended antecedent of “he,” but that was unclear. This choice had no effect on the question’s veracity, but it may have been misleading.)
2) A thing that I enjoy is that the following persons share the same name, which is WHAT? (1) Of the core animators of the Walt Disney Company from the 1930s through the 1970s known as the “Nine Old Men,” the last alphabetically, responsible for iconic scenes such as the spaghetti dinner scene in The Lady and the Tramp, and (2) the only MLB player in the 1990s to win the American League Most Valuable Player Award in back-to-back seasons.
That name is FRANK THOMAS. Frank Thomas, the baseball player, won those MVPs and played the majority of his career with the Chicago White Sox. Twice in Jeopardy! history, the show has wanted contestants to know that his nickname is “The Big Hurt.”
Frank Thomas the animator started at Disney in 1934, shortly after his 22nd birthday. Besides the spaghetti scene referenced above, he is responsible for animating the scene from Snow White and the Seven Dwarves where the dwarves cry over Snow White’s “dead” body and the scene from Bambi where Bambi and Thumper skate on the ice—the point is, these are some top-shelf scenes in the history of animation. In 1981, Thomas and Ollie Johnston (another of the Nine Old Men) co-wrote Disney Animation: The Illusion of Life, generally regarded as the “bible” of character animation.
In the Pixar film The Incredibles (2004), Thomas and Johnston have voice cameos as passersby—here’s a YouTube video of that:
“Hey, did you know that a guy who animated part of Snow White has a role in The Incredibles, which came out 67 years later?” is one of those fun facts that animates (hah) why we do this newsletter.
3) Paulo Coelho wrote WHAT international bestseller, originally published in 1988, about a boy who has a recurring dream of finding a hidden cache of wealth in Egypt? The novel takes its name after a type of person who might be interested in chrysopoeia, another term for what is essentially wizardry relating to gold.
This is The Alchemist. The novel has never been adapted into a film. There have been a few attempts, most recently one involving Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith (yes, really) as co-producers, but that effort appears to be in development hell as well.
In August 2019, Kobe Bryant, the legendary NBA player, reached out to Coelho and suggested that they write a book together about underprivileged children overcoming adversity through sport. Coelho was working on a draft, but when Bryant suddenly and unexpectedly passed away in January 2020, Coelho shared on Twitter that he would delete the draft:
4) In 2018, The CW began airing a reboot of WHAT television show that had originally run on The WB from 1998 until 2006? It wasn’t just fans who criticized the reboot and instead wanted to see a continuation of the original story in exactly the manner it already existed; Holly Marie Combs and Alyssa Milano both also criticized The CW for not involving the original cast and crew. The reboot, praised for its focus on diversity and representation, aired its final episode on June 10, 2022.
This show is CHARMED.
On the social media website Reddit, a bit alarmingly to me, the Charmed (1998-2006) and Charmed (2018-2022) communities are not the same subreddit; the former is r/charmed and the latter is r/charmedcw. From my few minutes of reading, the original subreddit is occasionally a bit grumpy about the reboot’s existence:
I’m robbing myself of a newsletter theme, but what do the opening credits of the television shows Charmed, Falcon Crest, Full House, Jackie Chan Adventures, Monk, My Sister Sam, Phyllis, and Suddenly Susan all have in common? That’s right, they all SHOW THE GOLDEN GATE BRIDGE (in at least one version of the opening credits). I suppose they also all just show San Francisco generally.
5) NAME the actor who won both (1) the MTV Movie Award for Best Kiss (with Will Ferrell) for a sports comedy film, and (2) in the same year, the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for a different film that he also wrote and produced, which centers in part around a character’s attempt to tell Pamela Anderson “I want to tie the knot.” The relevant films did not come out in 2009!
This is Sacha Baron Cohen, for his roles in Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (2006) and, more notably, Borat! Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (2006).
I’ve never seen Borat, but apparently part of the film’s soundtrack is a satirical version of Kazakhstan’s national anthem. You can look up the lyrics, but among other things, it praises the fact that the nation has the second-cleanest prostitutes in the region; it is, in short, ridiculous. In 2012, Mariya Dmitriyenko of Kazakhstan won the Emir of Kuwait International Shooting Grand Prix, but at the medal ceremony, the event’s organizers accidentally played the Borat version of the Kazakh national anthem instead of the real version.
Borat and its 2020 sequel have sparked controversy. The country denounced the first film as a libelous smear, and the Kazakh American Association denounced the sequel for promoting racism. Protesters rallied outside of the U.S. embassy in Almaty on the day that the sequel came out. A last bit of trivia—Almaty is Kazakhstan’s most populous city; you may have expected that title to go to Kazakhstan’s capital, Nur-Sultan (formerly Astana).
The question strongly urged you not to answer with any film by Cohen that came out in 2009? Why, well…
6) WHAT song, which is otherwise this newsletter’s theme, completes the following ordered list of songs sharing a particular distinction? (As always, a [BLANK] may represent one word or more than one word unless specified otherwise.)
“Drop It Like It’s Hot” (Snoop Dogg), “Don’t Forget About Us” (Mariah Carey), “Ridin’” (Chamillionaire), “Hips Don’t Lie” (Shakira), “This Is Why I’m Hot” (Mims), “Don’t Matter” (Akon), “Nothin’ on You” (B.o.B.), “Stronger (What Doesn’t Kill You)” (Kelly Clarkson), “Can’t Hold Us” (Macklemore & Ryan Lewis), “God’s Plan” (Drake), [BLANK]
“WE DON’T TALK ABOUT BRUNO.”
This list is every song in the past twenty years that (i) has been #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for multiple consecutive weeks, and (ii) has a contraction in the title of the song. The missing song is “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” from the 2021 film Encanto; the song was a huge hit this past winter.
How were you supposed to get there? The list of songs was not meant to be entirely arbitrary to you. It may have been recognizable that each song title had a contraction, that each song was a “big deal” in terms of popularity/radio play, and most importantly that the songs were listed in release order, cluing you in that the missing song was probably a very recent song.
The recommended path, though, was to pick up on our two themes in the newsletter. The first theme was that each question alluded to TITLES OF SONGS BY BRUNO MARS, but never explicitly mentioned him or the songs (because we don’t talk about Bruno Mars!). We put each of those allusions in italics in the original newsletter:
Question #1: barred from entering paradise = “Locked Out of Heaven”
Question #2: A thing that I enjoy = “That’s What I Like”
Question #3: hidden cache of wealth = “Treasure”
Question #3: wizardry relating to gold = “24K Magic”
Question #4: exactly the manner it already existed = “Just the Way You Are”
Question #5: tie the knot = “Marry You”
(We gave credit to anyone who came up with the Bruno Mars connection, since that was the key inference of this newsletter.)
As a more subtle theme, the first four questions were meant to tie the newsletter to Encanto, and the fifth was meant to provide one last hint:
Question #1: “Beatrice” sounds like Stephanie BEATRIZ, the main voice actress in Encanto
Question #2: Encanto is a Disney film, referenced in the question
Question #3: Encanto, like The Alchemist, borrows from (or exemplifies depending on your point of view) the literary tradition of “magical realism” popular in Latin America
Question #4: “Encanto” is a Spanish word roughly meaning enchantment or charm
Question #5: We strongly encouraged you not to answer with the 2009 film Brüno (we don’t talk about Brüno!)
Newsletter Title: “Taboo” meant to reinforce “not talking about something”
One for the road: “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” broke the all-time record for the most credited singers (seven) on a #1 hit.
The current-ish* Question #6 leaderboard can be viewed at this link.
*typically updated 4-6 hours after each newsletter is released
Thanks to perennial leaderboard member Casimir “CK” Ksiazek III for the original suggestion for the name change.
Except when you take the factorial of 1 or 2.
N/A, because strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Just kidding, the answer is TENTH. I’m fearful of how the formatting of this footnote is going to go on your end, but here’s the order:
1) Charles, Prince of Wales (Elizabeth’s son)
2) Prince William, Duke of Cambridge (Charles’s son)
3) Prince George of Cambridge (William’s son)
4) Princess Charlotte of Cambridge (William’s daughter)
5) Prince Louis of Cambridge (William’s son)
6) Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex (Charles’s son)
7) Archie Mountbatten-Windsor (Harry’s son)
8) Lilibet Mountbatten-Windsor (Harry’s daughter)
9) Prince Andrew, Duke of York (Elizabeth’s son)
10) Princess Beatrice (Andrew’s daughter)
…
14) Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex (Elizabeth’s son)
…
17) Anne, Princess Royal (Elizabeth’s daughter)
Anne is the first member of the British royal family to compete in the Olympic Games, by the way—she participated in the equestrian events in 1976.
“Hey, wait a minute,” you might wonder. “Anne was born before her brothers Andrew and Edward! Why is she below them on the list?” Well, that’s because this is a completely ridiculous system no one should ever learn or take seriously the 2011 Perth Agreement and the Succession to the Crown Act (2013) altered the laws of succession to replace male-preference primogeniture with absolute primogeniture. However, the changes only apply to people born after October 28, 2011; the existing lineage was grandfathered in.