Ken Jennings's Trivia Almanac (24 page)

FEBRUARY 9

1867
T
HE “WALTZ KING,”
Johann Strauss, debuts his best-loved work,
The Blue Danube,
at a Vienna concert. It doesn’t go over well. “The Devil take the waltz,” Strauss tells his brother Josef.

WALTZ TIME

1.
What Jazz Age celebrity published a single novel,
Save Me the Waltz,
before dying in a 1948 fire at a mental hospital?

2.
What is the “waltzing Matilda” in the title of that traditional Australian song?

3.
What brief tune was Chopin’s attempt to describe a puppy chasing its tail?

4.
Which Beatle and which Rolling Stone joined the Band for the jam session at the end of
The Last Waltz
?

5.
Why have three bars of Francisco Tárrega’s “Gran Vals” been called “the world’s most heard tune”?

1895
YMCA
COACH
W
ILLIAM
M
ORGAN
coins the name “Mintonette” for the new indoor sport he’s created. Today we know it as “volleyball.”

ATHLEXICON

What sport’s vocabulary uses each of these words?

Easy

1.
Mulligan

2.
Buttonhook

3.
Scrum

4.
Peloton

5.
Pickle

Harder

1.
Cesta

2.
Catenaccio

3.
Roval

4.
Googly

5.
Schuss

Yeah, Good Luck

1.
Oche

2.
Caballerial

3.
Bonspiel

4.
Manchette

5.
Fistmele

1957
T
HE MOST SUCCESSFUL VERSION
of “The Banana Boat Song” peaks at number four on the pop charts—and it’s not by Harry Belafonte! A year before Belafonte started the calypso boom, a folk trio called the Tarriers had their own hit singing “Day-o.” One third of the trio: future actor (and
Little Miss Sunshine
Oscar winner) Alan Arkin.

ONE-HIT WONDERS

1.
Who released only a single album during his lifetime, the ominously named
Ready to Die
?

2.
Who based her only novel on her father, a Monroeville lawyer named Amasa?

3.
Who replaced Stanley Kubrick on the western film
One-Eyed Jacks,
making it the only film he ever directed?

4.
What tale of the cross-dressing Leonore was Beethoven’s only opera?

5.
What’s the name of the Giants right fielder whose one-game major-league career—one inning and no at-bats on June 29, 1905—was immortalized in the novel
Shoeless Joe
and its film adaptation,
Field of Dreams
?

FEBRUARY 10

1940
MGM
RELEASES
Puss Gets the Boot,
a cartoon about a mouse-hungry tabby cat named Jasper. When the cartoon is an unexpected hit, Jasper is renamed Tom, and the Tom and Jerry series is born.

TOMMY, CAN YOU HEAR ME?

What author created these literary Toms? And can you name each work?

Easy

1.
Tom Joad

2.
Uncle Tom

3.
Tom Sawyer

4.
Tom Marvolo Riddle

5.
Tom Robinson

Harder

1.
Tom Bombadil

2.
Tom Swift

3.
Tom Buchanan

4.
Tom Jones

5.
Tom Hagen

Yeah, Good Luck

1.
Tom Brown

2.
Tom Tulliver

3.
Tom Wingfield

4.
Tom Gradgrind

5.
Tom Snout

1997
G
ARRY
K
ASPAROV BECOMES
the first reigning chess champion ever to lose to a computer, IBM’s Deep Blue. “I can still beat it every time at Minesweeper!” an angry Kasparov snarls to reporters.

SINGIN’ THE BLUES

1.
The Linke Scale is used to measure the blueness of what?

2.
Who did Gargamel create using ingredients like crocodile tears, the tip of an adder’s tongue, and a hard stone for a heart?

3.
What Blue Ridge peak in North Carolina is the highest point east of the Mississippi?

4.
When do “blue laws” prohibit certain activities?

5.
Having installed blue AstroTurf in 1986, what’s the only NCAA team to play football on a nongreen surface?

6.
According to the last song on Joni Mitchell’s
Blue,
when
was
“The Last Time [She] Saw Richard”?

7.
Who was the only cast member to appear in every episode of
NYPD Blue
?

8.
Ever since 1948, when Syngman Rhee moved in, the “Blue House” has been the official residence of whom?

9.
What Crayola color became “midnight blue” in 1958 to remove an out-of-date geographical term?

10.
What trio plays unusual instruments like the PVC, the Tubulum, the Shaker Gong, and the Piano Smasher?

11.
What was studied by Project Blue Book?

12.
What 2002 movie was developed under the title
Surf Girls of Maui
?

13.
What St. Louis Blues wing had the highest-scoring non-Gretzky season in NHL history in 1991, with eighty-six goals?

14.
At what national capital does the White Nile join the Blue Nile?

15.
What branch of the U.S. armed forces do the Blue Angels belong to?