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) James Patrick Sullivan is the name of the protagonist of WHAT 2001 film, the third-highest grossing film that year (both domestically and internationally), as well as the deuteragonist of its 2013 prequel?
2) The following is from the opening of a 1986 novel by Winston Groom, except that the first line has been omitted. NAME the novel.
People laugh, lose patience, treat you shabby. Now they says folks ‘sposed to be kind to the afflicted, but let me tell you — it ain’t always that way. Even so, I got no complaints, cause I reckon I done live a pretty interestin’ life, so to speak.
3) In the plot of the 2003 mystery thriller The Da Vinci Code, the main characters spend a frustratingly long time trying to come up with the five-letter answer to the below puzzle, which answer is WHAT?
In London lies a knight a Pope interred.
His labor's fruit a Holy wrath incurred.
You seek the orb that ought to be on his tomb.
It speaks of Rosy flesh and seeded womb.
4) NAME the captain of innovation born in 1889 who, in 1932, filed a patent containing the following description: “Specially shaped nuts or heads of bolts or screws for rotations by a tool characterised by the shape of the recess or the protrusion engaging the tool substantially cross-shaped.”
5) Kicking & Dreaming: A Story of Heart, Soul, and Rock & Roll is a memoir by sisters Ann and Nancy Wilson, which means that it’s a memoir about WHAT band formed in 1967 and inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2013?
6) WHAT unusual distinction is shared by each of the following works? The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946 film), The Towering Inferno (1974 film), The Big Lebowski (1998 film), Riding in Cars with Boys (2001 film), It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (2005— TV show), The Goldfinch (2013 novel), Toy Story 4 (2019).
Here are the answers from last time:
1) FILL in both blanks here: In 2000, Zack de la Rocha announced he was leaving the band [BLANK].* The three remaining members of that band, Tim Commerford, Tom Morello, and Brad Wilk, wanted to stay together and find a new vocalist. They linked up with Chris Cornell and became [BLANK], which was primarily active from 2001 to 2007.
*Note: Unless specified otherwise, a “[BLANK]” in these newsletters can stand in for any number of letters and/or words.
The bands are Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave. Cornell, previously the lead singer of the band Soundgarden, once said that he wrote “Black Hole Sun,” probably his most well known song, in about fifteen minutes—the song’s title comes from him mishearing a weather report.
2) WHAT film is being described by the review excerpted below, which review is entitled “Rats in a Cage”? (The brackets in the second sentence are my edit.)
Major American auteurs don’t usually sign on to do remakes of foreign hits. My guess is that what attracted [the film’s director]—apart from the paycheck—was the chance to fashion a fast, mean, relatively impersonal crime thriller in which everyone is damned to hell. There’s no mercy—not even for the audience. (The movie’s theme song is the Stones’s “Gimme Shelter.”) William Monahan’s dialogue is Mamet-speak played at Alvin and the Chipmunks speed with a broad Boston accent.
The Departed (2006) by Martin Scorsese, whose name I will never spell correctly on the first time, is being reviewed here. The film is a remake of Infernal Affairs, a 2002 Hong Kong film. The Departed has its share of memorable quotes, but the one I most think about:
Costigan: Families are always rising or falling in America, am I right?
Queenan: Who said that?
Costigan: Hawthorne.
Dignam: [makes a farting sound] What's the matter, smart***, you don't know any f****** Shakespeare?
3) It’s not that rare for someone to serve multiple Cabinet positions throughout their lifetimes—James Monroe was even simultaneously the Secretary of State and Secretary of War for a time. However, what is rare is for someone to be the sole officeholder of a Cabinet position during a presidency, and then, later, be the sole officeholder of a Cabinet position during a different presidency. NAME the former Secretary of Labor and Secretary of Transportation to most recently accomplish this.
Elaine Chao, the first Asian-American to be appointed to a Cabinet position, is the answer here. Chao is also one of 24 Cabinet members to have been born outside of the present-day United States—the list includes some of our most notable Cabinet members, such as Henry Kissinger, Madeline Albright, and Alexander Hamilton.
4) NAME the seven-letter variety of rice whose name literally means “fragrant” and that is traditionally grown in India, Pakistan and Nepal—it’ll have you coming back for more.
The answer here is “basmati.” In 2017, Brie Larson and Utkarsh Ambudkar starred in Basmati Blues, an attempt at an American-style Bollywood musical. The film was called “unbelievably and insultingly racist” by the Hindustan Times.
5) It’s the phrase you might scribble on something you weren’t supposed to receive, or it’s a 1962 Elvis Presley song about “a quarrel, a lover's spat.” WHAT’s the three-word phrase?
This is “return to sender”—the song was performed in the 1962 film Girls! Girls! Girls! starring Elvis.
6) WHAT unusual distinction is shared by each of the following film sequels? Short Circuit 2 (1988), The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997), Speed 2: Cruise Control (1997), Men in Black II (2002), Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle (2003), American Pie Presents: Band Camp (2005), The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part (2019).
Each of these films had a major character (or characters) from the prior movie not return for the sequel. The title of the newsletter, in addition to telling you the past newsletter was the 30th one in this series, referred to xXx: State of the Union, the 2005 film where Vin Diesel does not reprise his role as Xander Cage.
Question #1 was about a similar situation, but for bands. Question #2 had The Departed as the answer, alluding to folks who have left a series. Question #3 is thematically similar, referring to folks coming and going between administrations. Question #4 had the link of me referring to “coming back for more.” Finally, Question #5 had another allusion to returning/not returning.
The current Question #6 leaderboard can be viewed at this link.