apropos of nothing
TRANSCRIPT
APROPOS OF NOTHING – AN OPTION 44 QUIZ
April 2012 - Hari Parameswaran
RULES OF THE GAME
� 16 (relatively easy) written questions common to everyone in 2 parts� Each question gets you (10 – number of teams to
answer correctly) points� 40 “regular” questions
� 10 points for all questions� Infinite bounce� No part points anywhere – if the answer has two
parts, both parts must be given. Exceptions to this rule will be explicitly specified
� This is not a “rounded” quiz - there’s a heavy lit. bias, a fair amount of etymology, and almost no sports/biz stuff
� We’ll make up the other rules as we go along2
WRITTEN – 1.1
� The vipera berus, or the “true viper” can be found all over Europe. The name by which it is more commonly known by has nothing to do with any mathematical abilities it may have, but is rather a rebracketed version of the old English word for “snake” (early English versions of the bible used this word for the serpent in the garden).
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WRITTEN – 1.2
� John Watson Hawd arrived in Calcutta in July 1901 on behalf of his firm to investigate the prospects for their business in India. He quickly determined that there was a market here, although he felt that the local art form was “worse than Turkish but as long as it suits them and sells well, what do we care?”The company sent Fred Gaisberg to help, and with his help the first attempt was made on 8th November, 1902 – using two nautch girls, Soshi Mukhi and Fani Bala. Generally though, most people count the one on 12th
November by Gauhar Jan as the first one.What “first” are we talking about?
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WRITTEN 1-3
The meaning of the word that appeared in the title of this 1983 book was given as “A book, the contents of which are totally belied by its cover. For instance, any book the dust jacket of which bears the words. 'This book will change your life'.”Incidentally, the dust jacket of said book bore the words “This book will change your life”Give me the word or the book…
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WRITTEN 1-4
After his successful books “The Black Swan”, and “Fooled by Randomness”, Nassim Talebwrote this book that "contrasts the classical values of courage, elegance, and erudition against the modern diseases of nerdiness, philistinism, and phoniness.“The title of the book refers to a character from Greek Mythology, specifically to the object that is associated with his name.The name of this character can also be found in statistics, where “________ analysis” refers to the analysis of the distribution of a set of shapes, by optimally superimposing the shapes on each other to obtain a similar placement and size, by minimizing a measure of shape difference called the ________ distance between the objects. Name the book.
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WRITTEN 1-5
VIDEOThis is a scene from the TV Serial “Castle”. It depicts a fictitious “thriller writers” Poker Game. The two people already sitting are real-life bestselling authors.They go on to discuss movies based on their books.One of these authors had a movie based on their work directed by Clint Eastwood.The other had a movie based on his book directed by Martin Scorsese.
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WRITTEN 1-6
The picture below shows the dried berries of a small, seedless grape, the Vitis Vinifera, produced almost exclusively in Southern Greece.It takes its name from the Greek harbor from where it was exported.The Americans tend to prefix the term Zante to denote these, due to the fact that by the 17th century, the trade shifted towards the Ionian islands, particularly Zakynthos (Zante). By what name is this dried berry commonly known?
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WRITTEN 1-7
In 1892, Margaret Isabella Stevenson, mother of Robert, wrote the following about being able to celebrate the 4th of July twice in one year, that “ Surely now I have been round the world, since at last I have done that to which I used to look forward, I have ‘gained a day.“Where was she on this date?
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WRITTEN 1-8
That Ytterbium, Terbium, Erbium and Yttrium were discovered from Ytterby is well known. Three other lanthanide elements were discovered from the mines – one of them was named after a mythic name for Scandinavia, one after Stockholm, and the third after a chemist who was instrumental in the discovery of these. Name 2 of the 3?
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MAIN ROUND
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1
The UNESCO Collection of Representative works was a project that ran from 1948 to 2005 with an aim to translate masterpieces of world literature).This 1956 novel was translated as part of this project into � Hungarian as “A tenger törvénye”� Dutch as “Karoethamma en de Zee”� Macedonian as “Krutama i Parikuti”� Spanish as “Muralla de redes”� Polish as “Prawo morza”� Serbo-Croat as “Racici”� French as “Un amour indien”
Which book?
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2This two word term denotes an area that is approximately 14.1% of the Earth’s land surface area, and that has a population of ~600 million people.The term started with Michel Chevalier, who postulated that the people and the culture of this part originated from the ancient Romans. Napoleon IIIsaw a political opportunity and popularized the term, as he believed it would give him some sort of historical backing in his attempt to make France a cultural and political leader of the area, and to install an Emperor in one country of that region.What term?
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3
These paintings were part of a set of 4 that were done for the backdrop of a ballet called Aleko, based on Aleksander Pushkin's 1824 poem "The Gypsies.“. The music for the ballet was given by Tchaikovsky. The artist, who also did the costume design for the ballet, was a great fan of Pushkin’s and agreed to work on it when asked by the producer Leonide Massine. The ballet premiered in Mexico city, and among the audience were Diego Rivera and Jose Orozco. When it premiered in New York, a newspaper wrote the artist’s work “has turned into a dramatized exhibition of giant paintings... It surpasses anything ____ has done on the easel scale, and it is a breathtaking experience, of a kind one hardly expects in the theatre”Who was the artist?
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Among the early works of Science Fiction, the book called “The States and Empires of the Moon” talked about the journey of the narrator Drycona to the moon. According to Arthur C Clarke, the description (shown on the right) of one of the machines he uses in his attempt is actually a good description of the ramjet – the author had in effect espoused the principle of the modern ram-jet engine. Clarke also felt the author was the first to propose rocket travel to space.
Said author is now better known because of the works of fiction which have been “inspired” by his life, most notably an 1897 play. This play in turn has inspired multiple movies, plays, TV shows, and songs.
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I foresaw very well, that the vacuity that would happen in the icosahedron, by reason of the sunbeams, united by the concave glasses, would, to fill up the space, attract a great abundance of air, whereby my box would be carried up; and that proportionableas I mounted, the rushing wind that should force it through the hole, could not rise to the roof, but that furiously penetrating the machine, it must needs force it upon high.”
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Legend goes that there was a mystic who lived near Bikaner during the 14th century. She was supposedly an incarnation of Durga, and when one of the children in her clan died, she tried to bring the child back to life. Yama told her that the child had already been reincarnated. At that point she made a deal with Yama. In what form is this commemorated in that area today?
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In 1527 Marcus Hieronymous Vida, the bishop of Alba, published his poem called “Scacchia Vidus” in which he described a competition between Apollo and Mercury, watched by other gods. In it he says
“Tum geminae velut extremis in cornibus arcesHinc atque hinc altis stant propugnacula muris,Quas dorso immanes gestant in bella Elephanti “.Translation
"Then twin, as if at the ends, citadels in the corners,here and there stand ramparts with high walls,which, immense, are carried into war on [its] back by an elephant.".
What was the competition about, and what term can be seen as the result of this poem?
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The USPTO granted the patent number 219584 on Dec 29, 1970 for a new variant of the bucket seat specifically for racing cars. The inventor had found the existing seats to be extremely uncomfortable and decided to invent his own.
Who was the inventor?
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8In popular culture, the excesses of the Roman culture were, among other things, typified by having a specific room for vomiting (or barfing, for the lowbrow types). The story goes that the good folks would eat till they could eat no more, then go to the vomitorium, throw up, and then saunter back to the festivities and gorge up again.Alas, real life is much more mundane – “vomitaria” did exist, but they were passages situated below or behind a tier of seats in an amphitheatre, to allow the crowds to exit easily after an event.All that was a buildup to the actual question - the current association of the term came from a 1923 novel by AldousHuxley. Name the book, which takes its title from the following lines in Edward II by Marlowe "My men, like satyrs grazing on the lawn, shall with their goat feet dance an _______ _____"
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Two part question (part points)1. Two of the voices you hear are that of Manna Dey and
Kishore. Who are the other two singers?2. This is a form of singing where there are four
singers/groups singing, with the audience in between. This form was once popular in MP. What is this form of singing called?
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AUDIO
10After James Watt came up with the steam engine, he formed partnership with Matthew Boulton to capitalize on it. At that time, the major use of steam engines was for things like pumping of water from the mines, or to remove water from fields and canals. The business agreement was that Boulton and Watt would design the machine and make the parts. It would then be assembled at the site, and they would take 1/3rd of the cost the site would save on coal using the new engines. However, when it came to a new customer – a brewer called Samuel Whitbread, who wanted to use them at his Chiswell Street establishment, which was the first mass-production brewery in England. Their existing process did not use coal, so they needed to figure out a way to compute the savings. Watts examined their existing process for some time, and then used these observations to calculate that their existing method could raise 33,000 lbs of water one foot per minute. He then worked out the royalty based on this.What term, used commonly all over the world, resulted from this?
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John Tenniel started to work for Punch in 1850, and slowly built up his reputation. By 1859, he was their top artist.
Lewis Carroll was looking for an illustrator for his books in 1860, and wanted to try out Tenniel. He was unknown in literary circles at the time, so he wrote to a friend of his who worked at Punch, asking if they could be introduced. It was from here that the famous collaboration started.
This friend was a then well known playwright, and in 1874 became an editor of Punch. He had also worked as a public servant, and was professor of English literature at the University College, London. Besides his plays, he was also known for his biographies of English Artists.
Unfortunately his fame in the world of arts and literature did not last anywhere near those of the two people he introduced to each other, though his name is still recognized in certain circles.
Who?
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12
The original in Tamil (titled “AramavaraVilaccam” ) has been lost – what’s on the right is an English translation of the start of the text. It goes on to a discussion between Dhanvantri and Shakti (Shiva’s spouse) where the goddess talks about a new (and 6th) gavya (purifying product of the cow) she has created - the five traditional ones being milk, ghee, curd, cow urine, and dung.
Francis Whyte Ellis (who’ll reappear in this quiz), a British Civil servant working in the Madras presidency did the translation shown to the right. What was his intent behind this?
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Let’s continue with F W Ellis. He wrote the preface to the book on the right written by A D Campbell. In it he was the first to propose something that was later attributed to Robert Caldwell, an evangelist missionary and linguist.
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AUDIO
This is “T’ain’t no sin” from Tom Waits 1993 album “The Black Rider Album”. This features songs that Waits wrote for his play “The Black Rider: The Casting of the Magic Bullets”. The voice in this song is that of one of his co-authors on the play. This co-author has been called “one of the greatest and most influential writers of the 20th century”.
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15
There are two tales of how Orion became a constellation –the more “popular” one (from Hesiod) is that during his stay in Crete, he boasted to Artemis that he would kill every creature on earth. Artemis (or Earth) then sent this animal to kill Orion, which it did. After his death, the goddesses asked
Zeus to place him among the constellations.The creature that was sent to kill him was also added to the sky by Zeus. The constellation has 18 main stars, including Antares. Which constellation?
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16
Gellett Burgess coined a word (blanked out, and named after the character shown). He gave the meaning of the word as “a flamboyant advertisement; an inspired testimonial“. The word stuck, and the act it describes has thrived since then, despite being denigrated as “disgusting tripe” by George Orwell.
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The type of headgear shown here is made from the pelt of a type of lamb. The headgear takes its name from that of the sheep, which in turn takes its name from a city in the Bukhara province of Uzbekistan. Name the hat.
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18
This Sicilian pastry dessert takes its name from its shape, and literally means “little tube”. It consists of tube shaped shells of fried pastry dough with a sweet creamy filling. They became extremely popular after a scene in Godfather where Peter Clemenza tells Rocco “Leave the gun. Take the ______”.
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The word is traditionally translated as “feeling” or “sensation” in Sanskrit and Pali. Originally, all sensations (when our sense organs interact with external objects) was labeled thus. In Buddhism, the craving for, or attachment to this concept is what leads to suffering. The Buddha teaches that there are three modes for this – Sukha, Dukha and Adhukkam-Asukkha. The Pali canons go into various classes and modes for this term.
Today, however, the term is mostly associated with the feeling of “pain”. Which Sanskrit term?
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He served the nation as a member of IPS, and as an additional director of RAW. However, he is also known for his poetry – indeed, he won the SahityaAcademy award in 1984 for his collection “The keepers of the dead”. It has often been said that J P Dutta’s“Refugee” has been inspired by his short story. Said story is familiar to generations of NCERT students as it appeared in the 12th standard textbook.Who?
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WRITTEN ROUND – 2Eight questions
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WRITTEN 2-1
Originally the term meant a figurative or metaphorical use of a word or expression. In medieval music, it meant additions of new music to pre-existing chants. In the 20th century, the meaning in music has been that of an unordered collection of different pitches.All the meanings are based on the Greek word that mean “turn, direct”.Of late, it has come to mean a recurring motif in a genre, or a cliché. What word?
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WRITTEN-2.2
In 1974, a music producer was looking for a singer to record “I want to give you everything” written by Steve Weiss. The producer recruited a transplanted Jamaican singer he had met a year earlier for this task. He then asked the singer if he had some ideas on what should go on side B. As he recalled
He rattled of about four to five songs…one had the lyrics for _____ ______ ______. Since it was going to be on the B side I said ‘Fine, we’ll have a song called _____ _____ _____. So I started working out a melody for it. Nothing was taken very seriously. We put a lot of ‘hoos’ and ‘haas!’….
As it turned out the song on side B topped the charts, eventually selling nine million copies.
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WRITTEN 2-3
Identify the person (Was a video Q, a snapshot is given here)
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WRITTEN 2-4
I first heard of this word in a newspaper article about a DOB quiz. The story was that the person in the audience who answered this had mugged up a list of some 500 phobias, and was waiting for some QM to ask this. The word was invented here. What?
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WRITTEN 2-5
The rationale behind the development of the product, launched in 1929 , was to go Swadeshi. The name of the product was taken from a combination of and the Latin word for oil
The elephant was chosen as the symbol because of the association with Ganesha .What product?
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WRITTEN 2-6
Some rice cookers, especially those in eastern asia has a setting for “Congee”.What exactly is “Congee”? The word for the dish in Bangladesh and in most of south India is phonetically similar to “Congee”.
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WRITTEN 2-7
What was Marco Polo talking about when we wrote “There is also a vegetable that has all the properties of true saffron, as well as the smell and the color, and yet it is not really saffron”.This was also called “Indian Saffron” in medieval Europe. The English word for it may have been derived from the French for “worthy earth”.
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WRITTEN 2-8
For some reason, now forgotten, the man shown below – a Dhobi called Panchem Lal has always been the first to vote in this constituency. People just do not vote till he has voted at the Ram Nagar Primary School polling centre. Which constituency?
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MAIN ROUND
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The highest rank in the Royal Malaysian Navy (the equivalent of the Admiral of the fleet) is that of _________ Armada. The equivalent in the Indonesian navy is ______ Besar.The common word there (also used for admiral in both navies) is taken from a character in Indian mythology. Who?
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Life Savers, now owned by Wrigleys, can be considered to be a original version of candies like Poppins and Polo. In 1912, a Cleveland based chocolate, faced with the problem of selling chocolates in summer, thought of manufacturing and selling mints. He used a pill making machine, and accidentally found the process worked better if the mints were stamped with a hole in the middle.His name is largely forgotten, but his estranged son (who considered his childhood to be a “bloody battleground”) is considered to be among the greatest American poets. He wrote his best known work (inspired by one of the oldest suspension bridges in the USA) as a counterpoint to the bleak imagery in TS Eliot’s “The Waste Land”. Name the son.
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Cadbury (at that time Cadbury Schweppes plc) had filed a case in 2007 against a rival firm Darrell Lea, based out of Australia.Cadbury alleged that Darrell Lea indulged in misleading/deceptive conduct when they had used Pantone 2685C.What exactly is Pantone 2685C?
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The century of the self was a 2002 documentary by Adam Curtis, in which he described how the ideas of the man shown here, along with those of his uncle, and his cousin influenced the way corporations and governments have analyzed,dealt with, and controlled people.The documentary stated that the man on the right was the father of modern PR. Identify him.
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This famous first novel was released in 20 parts over a period of 19 months. (The last part was a “double issue” that included parts 19 and 20). Each part contained 32 pages of letter press, 2 illustrations, various advertisements, and came wrapped in a flimsy green-paper front and back cover. The price for each part was one shilling (except for the last "double issue," which was two).The Obesity hypoventilation syndrome, a condition in obese people in which poor breathing leads to lower oxygen and higher carbon dioxide levels in the blood is also named after the protagonist of this book.The full name of the book is “The posthumous papers of ____ _____ _____”, it is popularly known by a shorter name.
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The manuscript catalogued under call number MS 408 at Yale’s Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.The provenance of the document before 1912 is scattered, but it is known that the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II owned it for a while. C14 dating seems to indicate that it was created between 1404 and 1438.A Polish revolutionary, who also happened to be the son-in-law of George Boole bought it in 1912, and it has been known by his name since then.Which document?
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Dhivehi-bas is a language that is spoken by approximately 3,75,000 people today. The writing system for the language is called Thana, and is written from right to left. The first nine letters are derived from the Arabic numerals for 1-9, and the next nine letters are taken from the indic numerals.Where is this language spoken?
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The philosophical question of whether these two terms can be defined absolutely plagued Kant(in his Prolegomena), and Wittgenstein(Tractatus), among others. Science too seemed to have no answers, till physicist Chien-Shiung Wu, a Chinese-American physicist conducted an experiment in 1958 that demonstrated an asymmetry when atoms of Cobalt-60 are cooled close to absolute zero and placed it in a power magnetic field. What are the two terms?
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The current association of this phrase started with Rudyard Kipling. His 1888 short story “On the City Wall” describes a character thus“Lalun is a member of the most ____ ____ ____ ____ …. In the West, people say rude things of Lalun’s profession, and write lectures about it and distribute the lectures to young persons”
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VIDEO
The video of the Indigo commercial about them going international. The tune is from a comic opera that made it’s debut in New York on 31 December 1879. The librettist and the music director (who worked together) decided to debut in New York, because at that time USA did not provide copyright protection to foreigners. When their previous opera was a hit, hundreds of American companies put up unauthorised productions without paying copyright. They decided that they would put it up in USA themselves first to avoid this. The title was a reference to those Americans that they felt had robbed them of the money for their previous opera.Which opera are we talking about?
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The Tulip chair (later made popular by its use in Star Trek) was designed for the Knoll company in 1956 by a famous Finnish-American architect and industrial designer who was responsible for the design of the Gateway Arch in St Louis, The TWA terminal at JFK, and the Dulles airport, among others.
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32In 1961, this famous Jewish comedian received a letter from someone (also famous) known to be an anti-semite. The letter asked for an autographed photo. When he sent one out, he got a second one asking for a photo with the iconic moustache and a cigar. When this was sent, he got a reply that thanked him, stating that “This is to let you know that your portrait has arrived and has given me great joy and will soon appear in its frame on my wall with other famous friends such as W.B. Yeats and Paul Valery.”. The correspondence continued, culminating in dinner together at the London flat of the first correspondent. In his letters, the comedian was clearly in his element, writing things like � “My best to you and your lovely wife, whoever she may be”, and� the name Tom fits many things. There was once a famous Jewish
actor named Thomashevsky. All male cats are named Tom—unless they have been fixed.”
Name both of them.
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This 1886 painting by George Frederick Watts was the subject of a sermon by Reverend Frederick G. Sampson where he said "with her clothes in rags, her body scarred and bruised and bleeding, her harp all but destroyed and with only one string left, she had the audacity to make music and praise God ... To take the one string you have left and to have the ____ ____ _____”.What book took it’s title from this sermon?
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Books specifically meant for children were rather rare at the time, and this 1883 fairy tale, although targeted at children, also talked about the hard realities of life, including the need for food and shelter. Indeed the author had not originally intended for it to be a children’s book – the original version had the protagonist hanged at the end of it. However, he had the “fairy with the turquoise hair” rescue the protagonist and added 20 additional chapters to give it a happy and positive ending.The best known film adaption of the book was by Disney.
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Identify the two voices (Song from “The Millionairess”)
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AUDIO
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A 780 line anonymous Latin love poem became extremely popular throughout Europe. The poem had the title “______, seu de Amore”. The name of the hero of the poem was from the Greek for “Friend of everyone” By the second half of the 13th century it was read, quoted and anthologized in England, Provance, France and Italy. It reached Holland, Germany and Norway soon after. By the 14th century, the name of the poem was being used as a generic term for any text shorter than a book. It is still a widely used word in a narrow version of that meaning.
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When Nixon died, who wrote the obituary in Rolling Stones that started with “Richard Nixon is gone now, and I am poorer for it. He was the real thing -- a political monster straight out of Grendel and a very dangerous enemy. He could shake your hand and stab you in the back at the same time. ”and went on to“If the right people had been in charge of Nixon's funeral, his casket would have been launched into one of those open-sewage canals that empty into the ocean just south of Los Angeles. He was a swine of a man and a jabbering dupe of a president. Nixon was so crooked that he needed servants to help him screw his pants on every morning. Even his funeral was illegal. He was queer in the deepest way. His body should have been burned in a trash bin.”The writer of this “eulogy” committed suicide in 2005 at the age of 67.
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As a shape, the term is often used as a synonym for rhombus (in general, it means a thin rhombus). In heraldry, it refers to a diamond shaped charge (for example, Pippa Middleton’s coat of arms). The coat of arms of unmarried women and widows are shown in this form.Cough tablets often used this shape earlier, due to which the term is today almost always associated with them.
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The Athiratra Agnichayana is a 3000 year old Vedic ritual that is considered to be the oldest surviving ritual of mankind. This 12 day ritual, conducted by the Namboothiri Brahmins of Kerala, was never seen by outsiders before 1975. The altar of the Agnichayana was a 5 layer bird shaped structure dedicated to Agni.
In 1975, he, along with Robert Gardner, convinced the Namboothiris that this tradition should not be lost and should be documented. The ritual was performed from 12th-24th April 1975. He then wrote an acclaimed book ‘Agni – The Vedic Ritual of the Fire Altar’ on the ritual.
He was also among the first to argue that Panini has mastered the formal methods of linguisitics centuries before people with Emil Post and Chomsky.
Name this scholar, who passed away a couple of months back in Thailand.
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“The mill and the cross” was considered to be one of the standout films at Sundance 2011. Directed by Lech Majewski , and starring Rutger Hauer, it is set in the world of a painting by a Flemish renaissance painter and printmaker. Another of his paintings was the subject of two poems – one by Auden, and another one by William Carlos Williams.
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ANSWERS
� Written 1� Common Adder � The first gramophone recording in India� Liff� The bed of Procustes/Procustes� Michael Connelly (Blood Work) and Dennis Lehane (Shutter Island)� Currant (from Corinth)� American Samoa� Thulium, Holmium, Gadolinium
� Clockwise� Chemmeen� Latin America� Chagall� Cyrano De Bergerac� Karni Mata, She made a deal that people from her tribe would be reborn as rats till such time as they are
reborn back into the clan. Whence the rat temple� Chess. Term Castle/Castling came into vogue� Steve McQueen� Antic Hay� Bhupinder and Anand Bakshi. This is the song from Sholay. Chaar Bandh� Horsepower
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ANSWERS
� Clockwise (con’t)� Tom Taylor� - He fabricated this tract to encourage the local folks to take the smallpox vaccine. Since the original ones came
from the cowpox virus, he wrote this to convince them that this was a gift from the gods� - That these languages were from a separate family of “Dravidian” languages� - William Burroughs� - Scorpio� - Blurb� - Karakul� - Cannoli� - Vedana� - Keki Daruwalla
� Written 21. Trope2. Kung Fu fighting3. Theremin4. Arachybutyrophobia5. Boroline6. Kanji, Rice gruel, Rice porridge 7. Turmeric8. Amethi
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ANSWERS
� Clockwise (con’t)� Laksmana� Hart Crane� The purple color in the logo and on the wrapper of Dairy Milk etc.� Edward Bernays� The Pickwick papers� Voynich Manuscript� Maldives� How to tell left from right� Prostitution being the oldest profession� The pirates of Penzance� Eero Saarinen� Groucho Marx and TS Eliot� The audacity of hope� Pinnochio� Sophia Loren and Peter Sellers� Pamphlet� Hunter Thomson� Lozenge� Frits Staal� Peter Bruegel the Elder (The procession to Calvary)
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