And we’re back!
Thank you to everyone who sent kind words regarding our one-year anniversary last week. We announced last time that we were putting on a fundraiser, and in response you all gave a total of $75.00 to CARPLS and $177.50 to Nourishing Hope. As promised, we matched earlier this week (receipts below). That means our little newsletter caused a total of $505.00 to be given to these great organizations. Thanks for participating!
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) With one career win in 1979, two career wins in 2000, and many more wins in between, WHO is the only driver in NASCAR history to record at least one win in four different decades? He perhaps would have won more, but for his untimely death in February 2001.
2) A Forbes article describes two television shows as follows:
Both stories are driven by mystery, slowly drip-fed to a ravenous audience, who are so fiendishly good at devouring clues, they spoil the show for themselves. Both stories take place inside a self-contained, warped reality, where the inhabitants are desperate to escape into the real world. Both utilize multiple timelines to mix up the narrative, provide bonus character development, and obscure incoming plot twists.
NAME both shows. One aired from 2004 to 2010, and the other began airing in 2016; its fourth season was released earlier this year.
3) The musical Million Dollar Quartet dramatizes an impromptu jam session that occurred in Memphis on December 4, 1956. The four members of the quartet were Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, and WHAT man, who has since been inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and the Gospel Music Hall of Fame?
4) WHAT ten-letter word, besides being a term applied to quarterbacks such as Brett Favre, is in the name of a 1982 dark-fantasy novel of which Roland Deschain is the titular character? Despite the word being closely associated with certain individuals of the nineteenth century, the word did not come into use until the early twentieth century.
5) An “EGOT winner” is a person who has won each of an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony Award. Had the musical Fela! won the Tony Award for which it was nominated, and had the television show Cobra Kai won the Primetime Emmy Award for which it was nominated, then a certain backer of Fela! and executive producer of Cobra Kai would be an EGOT winner. NAME this person, who won four Grammys in the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s, and who won his first Oscar for a 2021 film.
6) What is the theme shared by each of the answers to Questions #1 through #5 of this newsletter?
Trivia Newsletter XCVII Recap
1) A 2010 article entitled in part “Mixed Messages to North: Anger, and a Christmas Tree” concerned a Christmas tree visible from the city of Kaesong and thus was an article discussing the relationship between WHAT two countries?
This question is about NORTH KOREA and SOUTH KOREA.
Youn Yuh-jung was born in Kaesong in 1947. She has been a Korean film and TV star for decades. More recently, she made her Hollywood debut in the 2020 film Minari, for which she won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, making her the first Korean person to win an Academy Award. Minari, directed by Lee Isaac Chung, is about a family of South Korean immigrants who move to rural Arkansas and try to make ends meet; it is a semi-autobiographical film about Chung’s upbringing.
This interesting Vulture article about Yuh-Jung and Minari begins:
This wouldn’t have happened in Korea, she thought. For one, she wouldn’t have been scheduled at 10 a.m. on the first day of a movie shoot only to be kept waiting. Imagine keeping Meryl Streep baking in the Oklahoma heat for four-to-five hours in the middle of July. But the force field of celebrity was gone. Here in the Ozarks, she wasn’t Youn Yuh-jung, the 73-year-old actress with a career that spans over half a century. On the set of Minari, she was an old Korean lady. “A Far East nobody,” she tells me, taking a long drag from a slim white e-cigarette. As in a classic American tale, she would have to start from scratch.
2) NAME the activist who founded the anarchist journal Mother Earth. In 1919, she was arrested as part of the Palmer Raids and was deported to the Soviet Union; she later wrote My Disillusionment in Russia describing her time there.
This is EMMA GOLDMAN.
Let’s quote part of Goldman’s preface to My Disillusionment in Russia:
Just because I am a revolutionist I refuse to side with the master class, which in Russia is called the Communist Party.
Till the end of my days my place shall be with the disinherited and oppressed. It is immaterial to me whether Tyranny rules in the Kremlin or in any other seat of the mighty. I could do nothing for suffering Russia while in that country. Perhaps I can do something now by pointing out the lessons of the Russian experience. Not my concern for the Russian people only has prompted the writing of this volume: it is my interest in the masses everywhere.
On September 6, 1901, William McKinley was shot by Leon Czolgosz, an anarchist; McKinley passed away days later. Czolgosz had previously attempted, and failed, to befriend Goldman and her circle of companions. Goldman was heavily suspected of being involved in the assassination and spent weeks in jail before being released, as no link could be established between Goldman and the assassination. Many anarchists of the time thought that the assassination was a very bad idea that would severely set the movement back (a concern that bore out). Despite having no ties to Czolgosz, Goldman would have none of it:
3) Beamer, Calligra Stage, MagicPoint, Persuasion, and Keynote are all examples of software that have competed with WHAT Microsoft program first released in 1987?
This is MICROSOFT POWERPOINT. A company named Forethought, Inc. created PowerPoint, and Microsoft purchased the software from Forethought the same year. You can read more about that in this surprisingly good article about PowerPoint.
By the way: During your search for the pink flamingo in Trivia Newsletter C, you will reach a golden door that is opened with a keypad. You will be asked for an eight-digit number, and there will seemingly be no hints. The number that you need to use in order to progress is “87539319”.
4) "I used to hate constant references to my mom because I wanted to be known for myself,” once said Mariska Hargitay of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit fame. NAME Hargitay’s mother, who together with Marilyn Monroe and Mamie Van Doren was known as one of “The Three M’s” by the press.
Hargitay’s mother is JAYNE MANSFIELD. The 1963 film Promises! Promises! is the answer to the question “What was the first Hollywood film of the sound era to feature nudity by a mainstream star?” The fact that Hargitay is Mansfield’s daughter was entirely unknown to me until days before writing this newsletter, and I gather that most people who know their pop-culture trivia are already familiar with that fact, but:
Although Wikipedia is a miracle, we try not to over-rely on it here, instead deferring to primary sources where we can (as you probably see if you click through the links in our recaps). Sometimes, though, the Wikipedia editors have a way with words—there is not a funnier item that could have followed “ambitions” and “infidelity” in describing Mansfield’s first marriage:
After a series of marital rows around Jayne's ambitions, infidelity, and animals, [she and Paul Mansfield] decided to dissolve the marriage. It was a long process.
Let’s turn back to Hargitay. WHAT DISTINCTION does she share with each of the following persons: Taylor Swift, Selena Gomez, Kendrick Lamar, Lena Dunham, Hailee Steinfeld, Serayah, Gigi Hadid, Ellie Goulding, Martha Hunt, Cara Delevingne, Zendaya, Hayley Williams, Lily Aldridge, Karlie Kloss, Jessica Alba, Ellen Pompeo, and Cindy Crawford? The answer’s at the end of this newsletter.1
5) In civil litigation, having your case dismissed sometimes means you can swallow your pride and refile the case in the future; sometimes, though, dismissal means that you are barred from ever filing the same case. This distinction depends on whether the case was dismissed with, or without, WHAT?
The word here is PREJUDICE. I’m not doing a whole aside here about civil litigation—law school had enough of that. Just go read the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure if you want your fill. Rule 2 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure says the following: “There is one form of action—the civil action.”
A Civil Action (1998), a film about a civil action, has a stellar cast. You might know that John Travolta stars in it and that Robert Duvall was nominated for an Oscar for it. William H. Macy is in it too, coming fresh off of Fargo, Wag the Dog, and Boogie Nights. John Lithgow’s in A Civil Action as well. But the list keeps going:
Did you know Monk from Monk (Tony Shalhoub) is in it?
Or how about Kathleen Quinlan, probably most famous for Apollo 13? Quinlan also starred in a little movie called I Never Promised You a Rose Garden (1977) that happens to be Mel Gibson’s film debut.
James Gandolfini is in the movie too. A Civil Action came out in theaters sixteen days before the first episode of The Sopranos, which Gandolfini starred in, first aired.
Bruce Norris, who won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Drama (Clybourne Park), is in the movie.
Peter Jacobson played Dr. Chris Taub in a bunch of seasons in House, and he’s in this movie. House, of course, starred Hugh Laurie as Dr. House. Laurie, who is NOT in A Civil Action, first came to prominence as part of the comedy act “Fry and Laurie” with Stephen Fry, the English actor/broadcaster/comedian. Fry has been in lots of movies and TV shows, did the UK audiobooks for the Harry Potter books, and guess what? Stephen Fry is in A Civil Action too.
Remember Season 1 of 24 when Dennis Hopper plays the main bad guy? Sure you do—Željko Ivanek is in fifteen episodes of Season 1 of 24 as Dennis Hopper’s kid, and he’s in A Civil Action.
Sydney Pollack directed films like Three Days of the Condor, Out of Africa, and The Firm, and he’s in A Civil Action.
David Thornton is Cyndi Lauper’s husband, and he’s in the movie.
You thought this list would peter out with more obscure folks? Nope! Kathy Bates has an uncredited cameo in A Civil Action.
6) Each of the above questions, or answers thereto, relates to a specific work. WHAT novel completes the set of works in this newsletter?
The answer is SENSE AND SENSIBILITY, the novel by Jane Austen. Austen completed six novels in her lifetime, and each question pointed you towards one of the five other novels. I feel some confidence arguing that Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility are Austen’s two most famous novels—the goal here was for you to pick up on the theme and then notice that one of these two was missing, even if you don’t know all of Austen’s novels.
Question #1: The headline “Mixed Messages to North: Anger, and a Christmas Tree” was placed in the question to point you towards the novel Northanger Abbey.
Question #2: Emma Goldman, the answer, was to get you to the novel Emma.
Question #3: Persuasion, listed as one of the competing presentation software examples, was to get you to the novel Persuasion.
Question #4: Jayne Mansfield, the answer, was an allusion to the novel Mansfield Park.
Question #5: The reference in the question to “swallow your pride,” together with the answer (prejudice), was pointing you towards Pride and Prejudice.
Newsletter Title: “South by Southwest” (or SXSW) is a conference/festival regularly held in Austin, Texas, and “Austin” is a homophone of “Austen.”
Question #6 Leaderboard
The Question #6 leaderboard can be viewed at this link.
They all appear in the music video for the song “Bad Blood” by Taylor Swift (feat. Kendrick Lamar); the music video won the Grammy for Best Music Video and the MTV Music Video Award for Best Video, though it was not to my knowledge filmed in Montevideo.