Below are six trivia questions I’ve written. You can reply to this e-mail if you’d like to participate. Like most trivia, the answers can be readily found via Google, so you’re on the honor system. The SIXTH question of each set is designed to be a question that cannot be easily Googled, so correct answers to those will be tracked and recognized in the next newsletter. The answers, and the next set of questions, will be published every Monday and Thursday.
1) “Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame, With conquering limbs astride from land to land;”—these are the first two lines of a sonnet written by Emma Lazarus in 1883, which sonnet is most prominently located on a bronze tablet affixed to WHAT?
2) On August 22, 2016, content creator Jon Bois and SB Nation released a YouTube video ranking each NCAA FBS football team by its mascot’s weight—for example, the Ohio State Buckeye (a dark brown nut) came in as the lightest, at 0.02 pounds, Minnesota’s Golden Gopher clocked in at fifteen pounds (the estimated weight of a life-size gopher statue made of gold), and the Michigan Wolverine was said to weigh 38 pounds. WHAT is the name of Tulsa’s mascot, which easily won this competition?
3) Smilodon, one of the most well-known prehistoric mammals, is a genus of the extinct machairodont subfamily of the felids—WHAT is the generic two-word name by which we commonly know Smilodon? This generic name was first given to Smilodon in 1842 by combining a term for “scalpel” or “two-edged knife” together with the tool that Smilodon used to kill its prey (most commonly large herbivores such as bison or camels).
4) In the mid-1940s, a reporter asked Antoinette Perry, the wartime leader of the American Theatre Wing, “Why do you devote so much of your money and time to such thankless activities?” Perry replied, “Thankless? They’re anything but that. I’m just a fool for the theatre.” Perry, a devout Christian Scientist and an inductee into the Colorado Women’s Hall of Fame, is almost certainly most prized for being the namesake of WHAT, specifically?
5) The French poet and novelist Victor Hugo was born on February 26, 1802—however, he believed incorrectly that he was born on a specific date several months prior. On WHAT date did Hugo believe he was born? Hugo gave the protagonist of Les Misérables a numeric “prison code” based on this date—the code appears twice in the novel and is frequently stated in the musical.
6) WHAT unusual distinction is shared by each of these films? Swordfish (2001), The Fountain (2006), Happy Feet (2006), Prisoners (2013), Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb (2014), Chappie (2015), Deadpool 2 (2018), Free Guy (2021).
Here are the answers from last time:
1) France’s third-largest city (and second-largest metropolitan area), the former capital of the Gauls at the time of the Roman Empire, can have its letters rearranged to form one of the most common and versatile words in the English language, which can be used as an adverb, adjective, or conjunction. WHAT’s the city?
The city is Lyon, the letters of which can be rearranged to yield “only.” Lyon is about 300 miles southeast of Paris, not too far from the Swiss border. The city is where Auguste and Louis Lumière invented the cinematograph, becoming two of the earliest filmmakers in history, and is the headquarters of Interpol.
2) Scott Joplin, known as the “King of Ragtime,” is the “Joplin” in the following quote about Marvin Hamlisch, who is one of two people in history (together with Richard Rodgers) to win an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony, and Pulitzer Prize:
“[Hamlisch] got the Oscar for music he didn't write (since it is by Joplin) and arrangements he didn't write, and 'editions' he didn't make. A lot of people were upset by that, but that's show biz!”
WHAT is the 1973 film being alluded to above, which film led to a revival in interest in Joplin’s music? For years, radio stations would announce “The Entertainer” as the theme from the film in question, by Hamlisch, rather than as Joplin’s song.
We wanted The Sting, a caper film starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford as two professional grifters. Released on December 25, 1973, it became the highest-grossing film released in 1973—or, it would have been, if The Exorcist hadn’t come out one day later.
3) The NBA rulebook states that a player, while his team controls the ball, must not remain for more than three seconds “in that part of his free throw lane between the endline and extended 4’ (imaginary) off the court and the farther edge of the free throw line.” That’s a lot of words to say the “paint,” the “lane,” or WHAT three-letter word? In zone defenses, it’s common to have a player defend the “top of” this area.
The answer here is the “key.” Here’s an image of a court from the 1940s that shows you how different the key used to be—today, different levels of basketball continue to use varying key sizes and shapes.
4) WHAT city’s walls serve as the only intact example of a fortified colonial settlement in North America north of Mexico? Portions of the city, together with its historic ramparts, were designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1985.
The answer here is Quebec City in Canada. The ramparts, completed in 1690, withstood sieges by the French in 1760 and by the Americans in 1775. There are 1,154 World Heritage Sites in the world; Italy has the most with 58, followed by China with 56. There are two World Heritage Sites in Illinois—the Cahokia Mounds directly across the Mississippi River from St. Louis, and (counting as a single site, as part of Frank Lloyd Wright’s works across the country) the Robie House in Hyde Park in Chicago and the Unity Temple in Oak Park.
5) In 1998, Brenda Chapman became the first woman to direct an animated feature from a major studio when she directed DreamWorks Animation’s film The Prince of Egypt. Fourteen years later, she co-directed WHAT film, becoming the first woman to direct a full-length Pixar film and the first woman to win the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature?
Brave was the answer here—Chapman’s daughter was apparently the inspiration for Merida, the protagonist of Brave. Almost certainly the most famous person from Beason, Illinois (population 189), Chapman returned to DreamWorks shortly after the release of Brave, saying of Pixar that “The atmosphere and the leadership doesn't fit well with me.”
6) WHAT unusual distinction is shared by each of these films? The Manchurian Candidate (1962), Hoosiers (1986), The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! (1988), National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (1989), The Sum of All Fears (2002), Zombieland (2009), Moneyball (2011), The Dark Knight Rises (2012), Grudge Match (2013).
Each of these films has a scene where the national anthem is sung or played (either as part of the soundtrack or diegetically as part of the film’s events). The first words of Questions #1 and #2 were “France’s” and “Scott,” and the answer to Question #3 was “key,” as a hint to get to the author of “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Question #4 referred to Quebec City’s “ramparts,” a word that rarely appears outside of the anthem, and the answer to Question #5 was brave, the last word of the anthem. Finally, the newsletter’s name was “You Canoe Essay,” which is an anagram of “O Say Can You See” and is my tongue-in-cheek way of describing what “The Star-Spangled Banner” is (since it was literally written on a boat).
The current Question #6 leaderboard can be viewed at this link.