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Post by Hermes on Jun 18, 2012 7:59:54 GMT -5
As part of 667's anniversary celebrations, I will be organising a trivia contest. For the next five days, at around lunchtime in Britain/early morning in America, I will post a set of questions. Answers should be sent by PM to me (hermes). You may either send a set of answers each day or keep them all till Friday, as you wish. Please do not post answers or speculation here.
All answers, for the first three rounds at least, can be found in the works of Lemony Snicket. (In a couple of cases contestants might be well advised to look at some threads in the 'Wretchedly Wrong Questions' section.) While each question has a straightforward answer, you may if you like add background details; these may be useful in the event that we need to break a tie. Where possible, please include a page reference to Snicket's work.
Round 1 coming up!
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Post by Hermes on Jun 18, 2012 8:02:47 GMT -5
Round 1: Who.
In the writings of Lemony Snicket, who said (or wrote) the following?
1. The last safe place is safe no more. 2. You’re alive. That’s lucky. And I’m sure we can think of something else. 3. It all depends on how you look at it. Eventually we’re all going to die. 4. Please, do not become the thing you dread most by adopting the destructive tactic of our most villainous enemies: playing with fire. 5. The central theme of Anna Karenina is that a rural life of moral simplicity, despite its monotony, is the preferable personal narrative to a daring life of impulsive passion, which only leads to tragedy. 6. Abelard. 7. I’m nine years old, but I’m concerned that this kind of disruption will seriously affect our younger members. 8. Some believe that the world can be decoded by performing research in a library. Others believe that the world can be decoded by reading a newspaper. 9. I know your children may not understand the sad life of a dowadger, or what would have leaded me to this desperate akt, but please know that I am much happier this way. 10. They did nothing but complain. They complained when we put them in a cage. They complained when we trapped them inside a fountain. Complain, complain, complain. 11. ‘Murder’ is the word for a group of crows, like a flock of geese or a herd of cows or a convention of orthodontists. 12. If you have to hide a headquarters, it’s a beautiful place to do it. Aside from the remains of the fire, this is a very lovely view. 13. People love to talk about themselves, Mr Snicket. If you find yourself wondering what to say to any of the guests, ask them which secret code they prefer, or find out whom they’ve been spying on lately.
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Post by Hermes on Jun 19, 2012 8:57:52 GMT -5
Thanks to all who have sent in answers so far. If you haven't, there is still time. Without further ado:
Round 2: Where.
Where, according to the works of Lemony Snicket,, might one find the following? 1. Famous donkeys. 2. A library with only three books. 3. A carving of a black bird, and a gem that shone like an Indian moon. 4. Curdled Cave. (Be precise.) 5. A church, a cathedral, a chapel, a synagogue, a mosque, a temple, a shrine, and a shuffleboard court. 6. Biographies of famous Finnish fishermen. 7. Peanut butter, grape preserves, salt water taffy, condensed milk, pumpkin pie filling, and glue. 8. A large flat piece of wood, painted to look like a living room. 9. A box of toothpicks, a small hand puppet, and a ring made of dull metal. 10. An enormous globe, a rare and valuable piano, and a valuable postage stamp. 11. Nylon rope, floor wax, soup bowls, window curtains, wooden rocking-horses, top hats and fibre-optic cables. 12. Octopi kept in long, narrow caves. 13. A test tube containing one (1) Lachrymose Leech.
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Post by Hermes on Jun 19, 2012 9:33:13 GMT -5
Amendment to the rules of the contest: answers without page numbers will be accepted, provided you clearly state that you are doing it blind. Answers with page numbers remain equally acceptable - doing it that way is clearly still a challenge, since you have to know where to look.
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Post by Hermes on Jun 20, 2012 8:30:42 GMT -5
Round 3: What.
This round is about the meaning of words and phrases found in Lemony Snicket's work, both SunnySpeak and 'words which her mean' - and one which isn't exactly either. Good luck!
What, according to the works of Lemony Snicket, might be meant by the following? 1. Gack. 2. Merganser. 3. Busheney 4. Jojishoji. 5. Etartsigam. 6. Pietrisycamollaviadelrechiotemexity. 7. Individual practitioner. 8. Austere. 9. Misnomer. 10. Arcane. 11. Detritus. 12. Ephemera. 13. Apprentice.
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Post by Hermes on Jun 21, 2012 7:38:22 GMT -5
Round 4: Why.
This round takes a slightly different approach: instead of being directly about Snicket's works, it is about the people, events and books alluded to in them (thus addressing the question 'Why did Snicket write it that way?'). Hence, for this round, page references aren't required.
1. Who created the character of Clarissa Dalloway? 2. By what epithet (also the title of a film) is John (or Joseph) Merrick widely known? 3. What is the name of Lemony’s associate who wrote The Corridors of Power? 4. Who is the likely inspiration for the character of Uncle Elwyn (owner of a prize pig)? 5. What links the names of the islanders Bligh, Fletcher and Pitcairn (and possibly Thursday)? 6. Why (at least according to legend) is the name Nero suitable for the Vice-Principal of Prufrock Prep? 7. Of what novel by Lewis Carroll does The Walrus and the Carpenter form a part? 8. By what name is Mr Sirin, the lepidopterist, better known? 9. What is the best-known work of Thorstein Veblen, the likely inspirer of Veblen Hall? 10. The volunteer who recruited Dewey said that one can remain alive long past the usual date of disintegration if one is unafraid of change, insatiable in intellectual curiosity, interested in big things, and happy in small ways. Who might she have been? 11. What is the correct title of the poem by Robert Frost quoted in The Slippery Slope? 12. One of the first volunteers said ‘Though boys throw stones at frogs in sport, the frogs do not die in sport, but in earnest’. What was his name? 13. What famous stone, inscribed in three languages, may possibly have been found by Violet in the Gorgonian Grotto?
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Post by Hermes on Jun 22, 2012 8:21:32 GMT -5
Round 5: When.
This final round is about events which happened in the past from the point of view of ASOUE - in most cases I'm not asking literally when (since there are very few actual dates in the series) but some detail about what happened. (Once again page numbers are required unless you declare you are doing it blind.)
1. How old was Lemony when he first met Beatrice? 2. At the age of five, Violet won her first invention contest. What did she invent? 3. Who proved that the Royal Gardens fire was arson? 4. At what hotel did Sunny have carrots for breakfast, and first learn to blow bubbles? 5. By what name was the Prospero previously known? 6. What costume did Lemony wear at the Duchess of Winnipeg’s masked ball? 7. What is the name of Violet’s friend who gave her elevator blueprints for her birthday? 8. What Hobson’s choice did Mrs Baudelaire offer Sunny? 9. How old were the Denouement triplets at the time of the schism? 10. On what farm was the cantaloupe grown which the guardian of one of Ishmael’s pupils had once used to kill a man? 11. At what river did the picnic take place to which Mr Baudelaire forgot to bring silverware? 12. What was the cause of the argument in which the woman with hair but no beard broke her finger? 13. Who invented the Devil’s Tongue knot, and when?
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Post by Hermes on Jun 22, 2012 8:25:38 GMT -5
Remember that the deadline for this, as for all contests, is 11.59 p.m. EST (WHICH IS GMT MINUS FIVE, IGNORE WHAT I SAID EARLIER) tonight. I'm a bit worried that entries seem to be falling off - I only got one set of answers yesterday - but there is still time. Don't be deterred if you can't answer every question.
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Post by B. on Jun 22, 2012 10:06:28 GMT -5
Do we have to answer every round? (round four was hard going). If so, I'll probably just PM it to you with round five.
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Post by Hermes on Jun 22, 2012 10:14:00 GMT -5
Well, if you don't answer every round you're unlikely to win. But for fun, you can do what you like - there are no horrible punishments planned for those who submit incomplete sets .
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Post by Gigi on Jun 23, 2012 11:07:48 GMT -5
I'm just curious as to when the judging will be finished and the winner (and answers) announced.
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Post by Hermes on Jun 23, 2012 11:10:19 GMT -5
I'm tabulating the answers now. It's going a bit slowly because I prefer to have printouts when doing something that involves comparing more than one document, and my printer is being annoying.
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Post by Dante on Jun 23, 2012 11:28:58 GMT -5
Don't believe him, Gigi. He's just building the suspense.
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Post by Hermes on Jun 23, 2012 11:54:51 GMT -5
Answers:
I. Who. 1. Sunny Baudelaire – TPP 344. 2. Phil – TMM 192. 3. Rabbi Bligh – TE 263. 4. Kit Snicket (in a letter to Gregor Anwhistle: it is Fiona who reads the letter) – TGG 161. 5. Klaus Baudelaire (in answer to a Vernacularly Fastened Door) – TSS 146. 6. Beatrice Baudelaire Jr. (not Sunny) – Chapter 14 p. 3. 7. R. (probably Ramona rather than the Duchess, though we can’t tell for sure) in the VFD building committee meeting – TUA 38. 8. Lemony Snicket (as part of his answer to ‘What can be coded?’) – TBL, LS to BB #5. 9. Josephine Anwhistle (in her ‘suicide’ note: Klaus reads it out) – TWW 68. 10. Fernald/the hook-handed man – TSS 51. 11. Hector – TVV 31. 12. Violet Baudelaire (to which Quigley, of course, replies ‘Very lovely indeed’) – TSS 211. 13. Beatrice Baudelaire Sr. – TE 38
II. Where. 1. The Vineyard of Fragrant G/Drapes (‘vineyard’s famous donkeys’ being a subtle VFD reference) –TCC 202. 2. Lucky Smells Lumbermill –TMM 59. 3. The Arboretum on the island – TE 198 4. Directly across from Damocles Dock and just west of the Lavender Lighthouse – TWW 123. 5. The second floor of the Hotel Denouement (200 standing for religion in the Dewey decimal system) – TPP 63 . 6. The F aisle of the Library of Records at Heimlich Hospital – THH 81. 7. The pantry of the freaks’ caravan – TSS 10. 8. The stage of Olaf’s theatre – TBB 134 (also alluded to at TE 275). 9. Gorgonian Grotto – TGG 151. 10. Veblen Hall, as lots in the In Auction (the postage stamp is Lot 49) – TE 173. 11. The Last Chance General Store – THH 18. 12. Stain’d-by-the-Sea – WCTBATH 27. 13. Café Kafka, in an envelope also containing the manuscript of TWW. and other things – TRR, letter to the editor.
III. What. 1. ‘Look at that mysterious figure emerging from the fog’ – TBB 4 and TGG 316. 2. ‘Tomorrow morning there will probably be another poem from Isadora in the same spot’ – TVV 125. . (This comes from a part of TVV where Sunny uses a lot of bird names.) 3. ‘You’re an evil man with no concern whatever for other people’ – TSS 107. 4. ‘I don’t believe that abridging the freedom of expression and the free exercise thereof is the proper way to run a community’ – TE 223. (The word here spoken by Sunny was chosen, in honour of his father, by Joey Shoji, who won an auction in aid of the First Amendment Project.) 5. ‘The initials were J.S.’ - TGG 100. (The word being an inversion of ‘magistrate’, Sunny has presumably spotted that they could stand for ‘Justice Strauss’.) 6. ‘I must admit I don’t have the faintest idea of what is going on’ – THH 152. 7. According to Olaf, ‘a life of crime’, but according to Sunny, who is probably right, ‘someone who works alone, instead of with a group’ – TSS 54. 8. ‘Stern and severe’ - TAA 84: or ‘that Mr Remora’s stories were particularly boring, Mrs Bass’s obsession with the metric system was particularly irritating, and Nero’s administrative demands were particularly difficult’ – TAA 101. Thank you, Sherry Ann, for finding this second definition. 9. ‘A very wrong name’ (in relation to ‘Incredibly Deadly Viper’) – TRR 29. 10. ‘Abstruse’ – TUA xiv. (‘Abstruse’ in turn means cryptic, ‘cryptic’ means enigmatic, ‘enigmatic' means mysterious, and ‘mysterious’ means arcane.) 11. ‘All sorts of strange items’ – TE 28. 12. ‘Documents and items which I feared had vanished, and may soon vanish again’ – TBL, letter to the editor. 13. ‘Person who works under me and does absolutely everything I tell him to do’ – WCTBATH Chapter 1.
IV. Why. 1. Virginia Woolf. 2. The Elephant Man. (Note: Lemony calls him John, which is also the name used in the film, but apparently his real name was Joseph.) 3. C. P. Snow. 4. E. B. (Elwyn) White, author of Charlotte’s Web, a book about a prize pig. (Note: One contestant proposed ‘E. B. White’s Elwyn the Crow’. However, so far as I can tell this character appears only in the film of Charlotte’s Web, which was released after TAA was published, not in the book, so it is a parallel allusion, not the source.) 5. The mutiny on the Bounty (a real event, though recounted in books and films): Captain Bligh, Fletcher Christian, leader of the mutineers, Pitcairn Island, where they settled (and Thursday October Christian, a son of Fletcher). 6. The Emperor Nero is alleged to have fiddled while Rome burned. 7. Through the Looking Glass (and what Alice found there). 8. Vladimir Nabokov (a lepidopterist, as well as a writer, in real life; and ‘Sirin’ was a pseudonym he used). 9. The Theory of the Leisure Class. 10. Edith Wharton. 11. ‘The Road not Taken’ (not, as Lemony claims, ‘The Road Less Travelled’). 12. Bion of Borysthenes. 13. The Rosetta Stone.
V. When. 1. Eleven – TBL LS to BB #1 . 2. An automatic rolling-pin – THH 231. 3. Jacques Snicket – TGG 99. 4. The Hotel Preludio – TPP 27 and 328 . 5. The Pericles – TE 216-7. 6. A bullfighter – TAA 167. 7. Ben – TEE 124. (Everyone got this. I’m not sure why he’s so memorable.) 8. Bath or pink dress – TGG 147. 9. Four (though it was the eve of their fifth birthday) – TPP 179. 10. Lucky Smells Melon Farm – TE 215. 11. Rutabaga River - TAA 85-6. 12. A game of backgammon – TPP 295-6. 13. Female Finnish pirates in the fifteenth century – TBB 117.
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Post by Hermes on Jun 23, 2012 12:40:10 GMT -5
There were four complete submissions and a couple of partial ones. Several contestants chose to do all or part of the contest blind.
Here are the results in reverse order. (Do people still recognise that line?)
Third, with 42.5 points (some judgement calls were involved here), and the best fully blind result, is Dante.
Second, with 63 points - particularly creditable as she did the last round blind - is Sherry Ann.
But first, with 64 points (I marked a bit strictly in a couple of places, considering the narrowness of the margin) is Gigi.
Congratulations to all of them!
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