Ken Jennings's Trivia Almanac (80 page)

MAY 15

1970
J
OHN
S
IMON, OF
N
EW
Y
ORK
MAGAZINE,
runs his infamous review of Diana Rigg’s nude scene in
Abelard and Heloise:
“Diana Rigg is built like a brick mausoleum with insufficient flying buttresses.”

MORTAR, SHE WROTE

Are you an expert on brick bric-a-brac?

1.
Gold, ice cream, or heroin—what is the title object of the 2006 film
Brick
a brick of?

2.
What word for mud bricks comes to us from the ancient Egyptian word “dbt”?

3.
What teenage trauma did Ben Folds commemorate in his 1997 hit “Brick”?

4.
“The Brick Testament” is a website that re-creates the Bible in what form?

5.
What Tennessee Williams title character is married to Brick Pollitt?

6.
Why did PETA buy a brick at San Diego’s new ballpark that reads “Break open your cold ones—Toast the Padres—Enjoy this champion organization”?

7.
What port, its state’s largest city, is nicknamed the Brick City?

8.
Saluting a 1977 hit, what soul band was inducted into the National Brick Distributors’ Hall of Fame in 1991?

9.
What TV show’s eateries include The Brick tavern and Roslyn’s Café?

10.
What redbrick complex lies between the Alexander Garden and Red Square?

1997
T
HE
W
ASHINGTON
B
ULLETS
are officially renamed “Wizards,” beating out the other finalists: the Dragons, Express, Stallions, and Sea Dogs.

I’M A MAGIC MAN

Can you conjure up these answers about ten different wizards?

1.
What was the real name of TV’s
Mr. Wizard
?

2.
Who did sports fans know as “the Wizard of Westwood”?

3.
Who sings “Pinball Wizard” in the film
Tommy
?

4.
What former KKK imperial wizard used the pen name “Dorothy Vanderbilt” to pen a 1976 book of sex tips for women?

5.
What baseball player titled his memoir
Wizard
?

6.
What wizard is seduced and left powerless by the evil Nimue?

7.
Who met her first husband, Victor Willis of the Village People, while understudying the role of Glinda in
The Wiz
on Broadway?

8.
What name is given, in the

Harry Potter
books, to someone who can’t do magic, despite having wizard heritage?

9.
Thomas Edison was “the Wizard of Menlo Park” in what U.S. state?

10.
Who’s the only actor ever to be Oscar-nominated for playing a wizard?

MAY 16

1866
A
CCORDING TO
C
ADBURY
-S
CHWEPPES,
pharmacist Charles Elmer Hires brews up the first batch of his eponymous root beer on this date, inspired by an herbal tea he’d been served on his honeymoon in New Jersey.

ROOTS ROCK

Get to the bottom of this quiz about roots.

1.
What kind of dental specialist performs root canals?

2.
What slave name does Kunta Kinte’s owner force him to adopt in Alex Haley’s
Roots
?

3.
What plant’s roots are used to make tapioca?

4.
Ten is, of course, a square root of 100. What other number is as well?

5.
In First Timothy, what does Paul say is “the root of all evil”?

6.
The Roots’ album
Things Fall Apart
begins with a snatch of dialogue between Denzel Washington and Wesley Snipes, taken from what movie?

7.
The Bitterroot Range of the Rockies is located on the border between what two states?

8.
What plant takes its name for the Chinese words for “man root”?

9.
What trademark is used in public relations to refer to phony grassroots campaigns?

10.
What country is home to Roots, the company that outfits the U.S. Olympic team?

1929
W
INGS
WINS
the Best Production award at the first Oscar ceremony. It’s often remembered as the first Best Picture, though the more prestigious award that night was called “Best Quality of Production” and was won by F. W. Murnau’s (much better) film
Sunrise.

A MATTER OF A PINION

Questions about wings, avian and otherwise.

1.
What novelist’s most famous character is the aptly named Isadora Wing?

2.
The Detroit Red Wings are one of only two NHL teams with a monochromatic (white and just one other color) logo. What’s the other one?

3.
Whose young neighbor Stewart always wears a Winger T-shirt?

4.
On what island is the TV series
Wings
set?

5.
What American TV actor plays himself as a fallen angel in Wim Wenders’s
Wings of Desire
?

6.
What hinged surfaces on a plane’s wingtips allow the aircraft to roll?

7.
Before he formed Wings, what’s the only song Paul McCartney ever composed with the word “wings” in the lyrics?

8.
The “Wandering” species of what bird has the longest wingspan in nature?

9.
Where would you find the countries of Qumar and Equatorial Kundu?

10.
What Greek goddess is depicted in the famous Winged Victory of Samothrace?