Brain Teasers from Your Field

smooochers 42

Hey show, I'll be your star pupil anytime. I'm so frustrated with school right now I'm happy to get something right. Besides, there is nothing that makes you feel better than having the respect of some you respect.

OK, here's a few simple ones..

How many grooves does an old fashioned 33&1/3 record have on it?

What was Steve Allen's biggest hit song?

Where was Julie Christie born and what did her father do?

What makes a mammal a mammal?

Re: smooochers 42

<span style="color:navy;font-family:helvetica;font-size:small;">Julie Christie was born in Chaku, Assam, India. Her father ran a British tea plantation.

Steve Allen's biggest hit was probably "This Could Be the Start of Something Big". (He had a couple of other biggies including "Impossible".)

Yikes! LPs! 766 grooves (?) 260 (each side) ??

Science--not up my alley... Definitely needed help! All mammals share three characteristics not found in other animals: 3 middle ear bones; hair; and the production of milk by modified sweat glands called mammary glands. (All mammals are warm blooded, their young are born alive (i.e. not in eggs and hatched outside the body), they are vertebrates, they have lungs to breathe air.) </span>

great job

Ok Rgal, you are one smart cookie (as if we didn't know)

Correct about Julie Chirstie

Impossible was a big hit, but you are right "something big..." was Steve Allens biggest hit, mainly because of commercials!

The record question is a trick one. There is 1 continuous groove on any record. How many "bands" there are is anyone's guess, especially for those pesky 14 minute Led Zepplin songs:lol:

And you are right about all the mammal stuff. The main difference is that they suckle their young from mammary glands. However, the Duck-Billed Platypus lays eggs and is considered a mammal, as is the Echidna both of which are indigenous to Australia

Re: Waugh and Voltaire Answers

I'm putting the answers here since anybody who is going to try to answer it has, I'm sure
1. What is the controversial structural feature of Evelyn Waugh's novel <em>A Handful of Dust</em>? 25pts
Interesting that this question aroused the most interest, at least among those who were interested. (What obnoxious conjugating ) Sorry to be late with this, but at least I got some provocative views on HOD from you guys. Anyway, the short answer is the seemingly unconnected jump from the story set in Edwardian England to the jungles of the Amazon. Note that the question states "controversial <em>structural</em> feature." When HOD first came out, critics were in an uproar about how the book seemed to be two unrelated stories mashed together. In fact, they kind of were. Mathman is right that the last section of the book, "In Search of a City," the Amazon sequence, was originally published in the US as a short story before Waugh's work on the novel began. The novelist Henry Yorke felt HOD was too "fantastic.... The first part is...a real picture of people one has met and may at any moment meet again," while the last part was simply unbelievable. Prior to writing HOD, Waugh himself had traveled in South America (he actually met the original Mr. Todd there), and in his letters, Waugh replied to Yorke that for him savages were indeed such people as one has met and defended the last section by saying the Amazon stuff had to be there to make the subversion work. According to Waugh, his intention was to show "Gothic man in the hands of savages--first Mrs. Beaver [John's mother] etc. then the real ones." (Remember how the book begins, with Mrs. Beaver talking about a near-tragic fire in terms of how she would profit from the damage.) The Amazon sequence also thematcally continues the first part of the novel because Tony and Brenda Last and Brenda's lover, John Beaver, live in a world where nobody accepts responsibility and nobody takes the blame, because it's a world beyond the individual's control. In the final image of HOD, Tony's cousins, who have inherited Hetton, contemplate how one of the vixens on their silver-fox farm keeps having her brush bitten off. Thus barbarism can never really be kept at bay. According to Waugh, what Tony ultimately learns but fails to understand is that London is no more real than El Dorado. In his letters, Waugh cites the words of the Epistle to the Hebrews, "We have not here a permanent city but we seek that which is to come"--i.e., all is impermanence--in discussing the use of Tony Last's pursuit of El Dorado. As one critic wrote, "Waugh's strength as a novelist is that, precisely as a sophisticated inhabitant of the city of man, he was prepared to face all the consequences of its being, in the end, an illusion."

Other HOD tidbits:
Evelyn Waugh takes the title from T.S. Eliot’s "The Waste Land":
. . . I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.

HOD also offended some reviewers because of what they saw as the arbitrary ending. But as one critic said, "I suspect Waugh did not see Tony Last and his family traditions as the center of his story. He used them to show ancient, trusting British tradition--and then he used Brenda, Beaver, and Mr. Todd to show the rise of a new class to which tradition meant nothing compared to selfish greed." Interestingly (oops, another one), an American serialization of HOD that came out after the book has a different ending than the British version. In the US version Tony returns to London, is reunited with Brenda, and takes over her flat in London in order to engage in his own infidelities. The US version is more urbane, but basically it restores rather than subverts civilization, which is the opposite of what the British version does.

HOD also does indeed evoke the legend of King Arthur, although of course Waugh subverts this too. I never knew this before, thanks Show! (Waugh is a self-taught author for me.) Rereading HOD over the last two days, I found great Arthurian references throughout, i.e., <em>A whole Gothic world had come to grief...there was now no armour, glittering in the forest glades, no embroidered feet on the greensward; the cream and dappled unicorns had fled...</em> p209

Another controversial tidbit re Waugh's books in general is that in his book <em>The Western Canon</em>, literary critic Harold Bloom lists the following novels as those he feels deserve to go into the "canon of great literature":
<em>A Handful of Dust</em>
<em>Scoop</em>
<em>Vile Bodies</em>
<em>Put Out More Flags</em>
Bloom does not include <em>Brideshead Revisited</em> and doesn't say why. But then Bloom discusses very few of his choices. A Waugh websit recommends his best works as <em>Scoop; The Loved One; A Handful of Dust;</em> and <em>Brideshead Revisited</em>.

Waugh tidbits, according to www.doubtinghall.com:
EVELYN WAUGH (1903-1966)
"You have no idea how much nastier I would be if I was not a Catholic. Without supernatural aid I would hardly be a human being."
Did you know?
During his first teaching job Waugh attempted suicide by swimming out to sea but turned back to shore after being stung by jellyfish.
Critical verdict:
Waugh was writing short stories from the age of four; his first published work was an essay on the Pre-Raphaelites, followed by Decline and Fall, which brought overnight success at a brat-pack age. An immensely skilled, consummately dry writer, his oeuvre includes social satire, war novels, travelogues and black comedy.

Mathman--I think most people probably reacted the way you did re <em>Brideshead</em> vs. <em>HOD</em>. One modern critic described HOD as a horror story.

2. What famous English author plays a role in <em>A Handful of Dust</em>? 25pts
Charles Dickens. In the Amazon, Mr. Todd makes Tony Last his reading slave, since Todd cannot read but loves the stories, especially those of Dickens. Last looks down on Dickens, which in itself is ironic on several levels since in a novel by Dickens the fate of the Last family would have been settled in sound dramatic terms and certainly would never end with a member of the British upper class up the Amazon without a paddle.

3. What other great writer is thought to have died on the same day as Shakespeare? 25pts. Any quixotic guesses?

4. (a) In what work by what author does the character Cunegonde appear? 5pts. <em>Candide</em> by Voltaire, as you all got, which is why it's only worth 5pts
(b) What character of Dante's does Cunegonde reflect? 10pts. Beatrice
(c) What part of Cunegonde's anatomy gets eaten off? 10pts. Righto, Sk8m8, one buttock.

5. What poem did Chaucer consider to be his masterwork? <em>Troilus and Criseyde</em>, which shows that Geoff couldn't tell his poems from a hoe in the ground. According to Harold Bloom, Chaucer considered <em>T&C</em> to be his masterwork, despite the fact that it is less original and canonical than <em>The Canterbury Tales</em>. It is thought that perhaps Chaucer undervalued the <em>The Canterbury Tales</em> precisely because of its originality. Nobody knows for sure, of course, but for some reason, Chaucer thought <em>T&D</em> was the superior work. <em>T&D</em> is one of a handful of great long poems, but compared to the <em>Tales</em> it just ain't all that.

-----------------------------------
Still up for grabs:
What play by another famous Irish writer also evokes <em>Hamlet</em>? 25pts Hint re the writer: Vladimir and Estragon are waiting, but not I.

How are <em>The Odyssey</em> and <em>Hamlet</em> used in <em>Ulysses</em>, especially since the characters of Odysseus and Hamlet have virtually nothing in common? 100 pts. C'mon, somebody try, just for the hell of it.
Rgirl
PS Sk8m8--Way to have a killer memory! Same for Show--You sure know your poetry!

Re: Waugh and Voltaire Answers

<span style="colorurple;font-family:helvetica;font-size:small;">Sorry not to have participated in your most recent list, Twinnie.

Miguel de Cervantes (Don Quixote) died April 23, 1616--same day as Shakespeare.

Hugs,
RG#1</span>

Re: Still up for grabs

rgirl - is it "Waiting for Godot" (??)

(If not, then it's "No Exit".)
I'll try to think of a brain teaser. Don't have one right now.

Re: Still up for grabs

Indeed, Aloft. Samuel Beckett's "Waiting for Godot" is where the reference to Hamlet ( among 1000 other things) is used for symbolism of Humanity's fraility and need to justify internalized motivation.

Re: Still waiting

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>"During his first teaching job Waugh attempted suicide by swimming out to sea but turned back to shore after being stung by jellyfish." -- Rgirl[/quote]. Well, DUH. Committing suicide is one thing, but nobody likes to get stung by jellyfish!

Multiple choice question about Waiting for Godot:

This play is:

(a) The most stupid and boring waste of time ever conceived. Then let's do it all over again in the second act, backwards, with all the roles switched around.

(b) Beckett's joke on the audience -- waiting for something interesting or intelligible to happen in this play is like waiting for Godot.

(c) So incredibly profound that it's no wonder that simpletons like Mathman vote for answer (a) or answer (b).

MM

Re: Still waiting

Oddly Mathman, people who hold the philosophy that most folks are inter-connected and have a spiritual life ( please don't turn that into a religious discussion) and a sense of coheisiveness in the universe may well pick answer a or b.

Oddly, one of the best critiques I've ever read about WFG was how prisoners who were serving long sentences and had very little variance in activity from day to day got a lot out of the play. It seems that futility is a central theme of the whole shebang. I find that those folks who are fully engaged and immersed in living and life can appreciate the play without neccessarily finding much in it with which they can relate. However, if you consider that the play was written by an Irishman who had seen mass social stagnation in his own country ( much of which had been established for centuries) you begin to get the idea of where the "woeful malaise" comes into play.

We are indeed fortunate to have the opportunity in our part of the world to persue self-actualization.

Re: Still waiting

An interesting response, Sk8m8, and food for thought. I rather expected that the GS literature mavens would jump all over me saying what a deep and thought-provoking work this is. Maybe it is thought-provoking in a different way than the author intended.

Mathman

Re: Waugh and Voltaire Answers

Rgal,
Right again. Cervantes and Shakespeared died on the same day (as best can be determined).

Aloft and Sk8m8,
Re What play by another famous Irish writer also evokes <em>Hamlet</em>? 25pts
You guys answered Samuel Beckett's <em>Waiting for Godot</em> so you definitely got the writer correct. (BTW, <em>No Exit</em> was written by Jean Paul Sartre.) And while Sk8m8 is right that WFG references <em>Hamlet</em>, the Beckett play that truly evokes <em>Hamlet</em> is Samuel Beckett's <em>Endgame</em>. It is often said of <em>Endgame</em> that it is WFG without the second act backward repetition. Many also think it is the superior of the two plays. The strongest connection between <em>Endgame</em> and <em>Hamlet</em> can be observed through the comparison of Hamm and Hamlet. In addition to the derivation of the name, Hamm’s presentation of the question—to end or not to end?—mirrors Hamlet’s to be or not to be soliloquy. Both Hamm and Hamlet ponder the questions of, Do I continue leading a life devoid of meaning, or do I take action, end the ludicrous game, and face what unknown sentence eternity holds as a result? Additionally, hidden within Hamm’s dialogue are Hamlet’s dying words, "the rest is silence." Early in <em>Endgame</em>, Hamm states, "Nothing stirs. All is—". Later Clov suggests a dream existence, "A world where all would be silent." Then, as Hamm presupposes the final end, he predicts being "alone against the silence." The moment of silence arrives at the end of <em>Endgame</em>. Hamm diminishes, "speak no more... You...remain." A pause of silence follows and the curtain closes.

Although both WFG and EG reference <em>Hamlet</em> (lots of literature does), <em>Endgame</em> is the one that overtly evokes <em>Hamlet</em>. In <em>Endgame</em> the two main characters are Hamm, the blind man confined to a wheelchair, and his lame servant, Clov. The two other characters are Nagg and Nell. The four exist inside a shelter; outside world is dead and the characters tell their stories to maintain some kind of life.

As for Mathman's multiple choice re WFG: Personally, WFG is not my favorite work of Beckett's. For one thing, because it is often performed, it is often poorly performed. Also, during the time WFG was first produced, I think Sk8m8's observation about the popularity of WFG among prison populations makes a great point. In 1957, inmates of San Quentin jail in San Francisco Bay staged a production of WFG. After release, some of the inmates formed their own theatre company, and toured the production.

In any case, we view any play, movie, book, etc. through the prism of our own times and experiences. In fact, WFG reminds me of "Seinfeld" (or I should say "Seinfeld" reminds me of WFG). When it was first performed in early 1950s Paris, it found universal resonance in being about the nothingness of everyday life much the way "Seinfeld" did in the 1990s. I didn't like "Seinfeld" and Beckett didn't like his own WFG. According to biographer Deidre Blair, Beckett thought it was a bad play. When Beckett died in 1989 he was still expressing disgust that WFG's popularity had overshadowed what he considered his best works, his novels, and his personal favorite play, <em>Endgame</em>.

In any case, whatever one thinks of WFG or any of Beckett's plays, his influence is both wide and strong. In fact, Beckett is written about almost as much as Shakespeare. As film director Conor McPherson said, "Without Beckett there would be no Monty Python, there would be no Pinter, no Mamet. Without Mamet there would be no Quentin Tarantino and without Tarantino there would be no independent cinema as we know it today." (I think McPherson gives way too much credit to Tarantino--let's talk Cassavetes or Scorsese until 1987 if we want to talk fathers of Indie cinema.)

OTOH, Beckett scholar Anthony Uhlmann feels Beckett's diffidence towards WFG is overstated. Uhlmann writes that Beckett wrote WFG "as a kind of diversion," to get him away from the difficult novels he was writing at the time. Uhlmann says he doesn't think a play that had major flaws would continue to be performed for so long and to continue to attract such attention.

The way WFG is usually defended is by critics who say that within the "nothing" of the play there is also "everything," that there are just tiny little things that get magnified by the characters--just as in day-to-day life. In WFG, as in life, the argument goes, there are very few neatly crafted plot lines leading to clear outcomes. "Seinfeld" used the premise that the little things can be very funny, opening out on to the farcical nature of what it is to be a person. But personally I didn't find "Seinfeld" to be funny--I felt they were trying too hard to do nothing and make it funny.

As for WFG compared to <em>Endgame</em>, WFG, with its open road and old moon, is still very close to dusty vaudeville and clown routines. In <em>Endgame</em> the dramatic language is much more condensed and harsher. There is a sense of claustrophobia in EG that one doesn't get in WFG. Still, in terms of influence--theatrical, literary, philosophically, etc.--WFG is considered to be "the rupture." As the late French theorist, Michel Foucault said, seeing WFG when it was first performed was a "breathtaking spectacle." Beckett influenced Foucault's interest in how language runs us as groups and how society constantly tries to keep marginal groups under wraps, though they keep escaping.

In fact both plays, but <em>Endgame</em> in particular, were written in response to the previously unthinkable catastrophes of the mid-20th century: The Nazi death camps and the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. These events were so terrible that it is said "God turned his face away." For most critics, Beckett's plays, but especially <em>Endgame</em> and WFG are fables for those who must continue on with life after these events.

Whether or not one is moved by them, Beckett's plays do have an enormous amount to say about human suffering and cruelty. You get a master and a slave in WFG and yet both Vladimir and Estragon are tramps, people who have nothing. Although most middle-class lives in the present-day US involve at least some degree of self-actualization, WFG and EG cross class lines as few other plays do. Perhaps no other work ever written has expressed the traumas as well as the dignity and courage involved in the process of waiting, something that may seem foreign to us in these days of insta-everything.

As once critic said, "[Beckett] was a great humanist. His works refuse to spread easy messages, or to preach doctrines of behaviour. His characters allow us to question what it means to be outside or inside society, to exercise power, to use language, to strive for meaning and beauty, to be alive. To go on."

So this summer while you're waiting for skating to start up again, think about Vladdy and Esty In the meantime, I'm going to write my own play "Waiting for Michelle." The two main characters will be named Mathman and Musiclady.
Rgirl

Mozart

I just realized that I never answered Eltamina... It was a "D" (low note in Osmin's aria)--Mozart seldom used E Major/Minor, although there is Sarastro's aria and a duet in Don Giovanni.

Re: Questions

RealtorGal, for comparison, what is the lowest note in the original score of Jerome Kern's Old Man River?

Rgirl, I thought that Seinfeld was pretty funny in the first few seasons. But what I didn't like about it was that the four main characters, by not taking responsibility for their actions, always ended up hurting somebody else.

The first time I saw Waiting for Godot the theater advertised free refreshments at the intermission -- stone soup. Only it really was stone soup, that is, warm water with a little stone at the bottom of the kettle. Somehow, this experience was supposed to enhance our appreciation of the play.

Naturally I told the serving lady, you know, this soup is pretty good as it is, but if you threw in a couple of carrots....

MM

Re: Waugh and Voltaire Answers

That Pesky Hamlet shows up everywhere.

In Tom Stoppard's "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead" These characters are obviously derivative of Hamlet.

George Bernard shaw uses pictures of famous actors of his day playing classic roles. One of which is Hamlet in "The Philanderer"

Lady ugusta Gregory often evoked Hamlet and other famous English literary characters in her works. She influence Yeats in many of his works that also give nods to the Danish Prince.

In a modern vein, Paul Rudnick's "I Hate Hamlet" evokes the old boy as well as any.

Re: Hamlet

I once saw a comic strip where two patrons were walking out of a theater where Hamlet was playing. One of them was saying, "Hmph, I don't see what's so great about Shakespeare. All he did was take a hundred famous quotes and string them together and make a play out of it."

MM

Re: Hamlet--He's Everywhere, He's Everywhere!

Mathman,
Re "Seinfeld" and lack of responsibility: Same theme as in <em>A Handful of Dust</em>. Tony and Brenda Last and John Beaver eschew responsibility (Brenda and Beaver especially, but also Tony in leaving the raising of his adored son mostly to staff) and what happens? Everybody else gets hurt.

BTW, I hate those gimmicks like serving stone soup at intermission. It reminds me of that scene in "Roger and Me," Roger @#%$'s documentary about General Motors and what happened when they pulled out of Flint, Michigan. They built a new jail because of the increase in crime and to help raise money to pay for it, they had a society gala where for $500 bucks you could spend a night in jail. So all the wealthy socialities in Flint got a kick out of wearing orange jumpsuits and getting locked up for the night, after they had dined on lobster and champagne, natch.

Re your cartoon about <em>Hamlet</em>, here's one of my favorite quotes:
"Have you ever observed that we pay much more attention to a wise passage when it is quoted than when we read it in the original author?" - Philip G. Hamerton, "The Intellectual Life"

Sk8m8,
True, kind of an icky question to ask about <em>Hamlet</em> and <em>Endgame</em> since <em>Hamlet</em> is freakin' everywhere. I thought Paul Rudnick's was pretty funny (not great funny, but good), but I did think the title was absolutely inspired. Haven't we all hated that self-absorbed, whiney little prince at some time or another? The most enjoyable of <em>Hamlet</em> I ever saw had nothing to do with the performance (it was the film version with an embarrassing performance by Swell Mel Gibson as Hamlet and Glenn Close as Mom). I saw it in a NYC theater in a very uncool neighborhood (mine) and all these heavily accented New Yawkers were yelling at the screen the whole time. Can't repeat what they were yelling, but I laughed harder at that version of <em>Hamlet</em> than I have at many comedies.

Another film version of <em>Hamlet</em> that I found myself liking in spite of being determined to hate it was the one starring Ethan Hawke (how that guy got Uma...). It's set in modern times, with much of it taking place in the Guggenheim Museum, IIRC. Usually I don't like the updated versions, but this one I did.

But for me, the all-time greatest film version, and one of the greatest versions period of any Shakespeare is Roman Polanski's <em>MacBeth</em>. Polanski even improves on Shakespeare's ending, if you can believe it. He doesn't change it, just adds on a short little coda. You can feel the mud, the cold, the iron, and the blood in every scene. Somehow Polanski just got it, IMO.

I have a tape of the WFG that was on PBS a couple of months ago, but haven't gotten around to watching it yet. Not a good time to watch a play about the futility of existence.
Rgirl