Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Tuesday Trivia

  1. Which award-winning Canadian author collaborated with composers at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto on a piece of music for piano, bass, and string quartet titled “You Are Who You Are”?
  2. Which famous New England poet was actually born and raised in San Francisco?
  3. What famous satirist suffered from an ailment that also plagues current NBA free agent Steve Francis?
  4. Which young adult author ran away from his family at the age of 14 to join a carnival?
  5. Which young adult author was born in Philadelphia, PA but relocated to Florida with her family at age 5 due to her chronic pneumonia?

What does the name Mark Twain mean?

Twelve feet, in other words, the water was deep enough to allow safe passage for a steamship.


What “spokesman for a generation” has been nominated for a Nobel Prize in literature at least three times?

Bob Dylan


During cremation, which author’s heart simply would not burn and as a result became a keepsake for his wife?

Percy Bysshe Shelly died in a freak boat accident and was cremated shortly after. When his heart refused to burn during his cremation (possibly due to calcification), the heart was given to Mary Shelley who kept the heart in her desk.


Which poet was returned to his city of birth upon his death to be buried but was hidden in a wall to prevent anyone from stealing the corpse — a hiding place was forgotten until 1865, when a construction worker unearthed it during church renovations?

Dante died of Malaria in 1321 and was returned to his native Florence. A construction worker found the corpse during construction in 1865, and in the time it took to rebury him, several pieces of Dante’s body mysteriously went missing, taken as trinkets.

Which novelist, who published anonymously, was unintentionally insulted by her young niece when the girl threw down a copy of her aunt’s novel and exclaimed, “Oh that must be rubbish, I am sure from the title.”

Jane Austen




1 comment:

Anonymous said...

1. I'll bet it's Yann Martel -- you're all into Yann Martel these days. I mean, he's probably a nice guy and all, and Life of Pi had its moments, but you're like infatuated with him or soemthing!

2. Jack London. Or Robert Frost. I always get those two confused.

3. All satirists are a little sich, don't you think? Alexander Pope was short, but an NBA player probably isn't. Jonathan Swift had meniere's disease.

4. I used to know this one for real. I know it's not Yann Martel or Jack London. Maybe it's that guy who has only one name -- not Yanni the pianist -- or what's the name of the guy who wrote The Hatchet (or is it just Hatchet?) -- Gary Paulsen?

Avi? Is that the one-named guy's name?

5. Definitely a woman, or you wouldn't have said "her." Lois Sachar? Beverly Clearly? (Is she "young adult?") I don't think Jane Austen ever went to Florida. Or Philadelphia. Robert Louis Stevenson wasn't a woman.