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Isn’t it annoying when you are a prolific and relatively well received author in your time; you win two major (and I mean major) literary awards; but then you are best remembered by contemporary audiences for the film versions of your two award winning novels? An author who was born this week in 1869 in Indianapolis would probably be furiously nodding his head in agreement right around now if he hadn’t died in 1946.

Can you name this frustrated author? Can you name his two most famous books/movies? If you can do any of these things then please let me know.

Last week I wanted to the names of the still dynamic duo of entertainers who defeated the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon game by appearing in a movie together in 2000. The unlikely couple? Phyllis Diller and Art Linkletter who rack up almost 200 years between the two of them. The name of the movie? Let me in, I hear laughter which is a documentary about the Friars Club that features a veritable who’s who of the biggest names in comedy circa 1930 – 1950.

I had some people who knew at least one name, but the closet Vaudevillians who got both names are –

Peter Erickson
Jan Pinkerton

Thanks everyone who played

Posted by Andrea Hudson at 04:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Looking at a list of people celebrating birthdays on July 17th two names caught my eye. On the surface these two people don’t seem to have anything in common besides both being entertainers in their 90’s. My first reaction was “Cool!” I thought I could finally beat the whole Six-degrees-of-Kevin-Bacon-thing by coming up with the names of two people who could not possibly be linked by six movies. Right?? Wrong!! It turns out that this couple who rack up 187 years between the two of them appeared in the same movie in 2000. Now I am not saying this was a big movie, I am not even sure it came out in the theaters, but in all fairness how many documentaries about venerable private clubs for comedians that have gone on to become summer blockbusters can you name?

So with the precious few clues I have dribbled before you, can you name the seemingly incongruous duo with only one degree of separation between them? If you can let me know. And while you are at it throw in the name of the movie because it actually looks pretty interesting.

Last week’s question revolved around a famous French author who did wonders for marketing a real cemetery in Paris by including it as the location for the burial of some of his fictional characters. The author? None other than Honoré de Balzac. The cemetery? None other than Père Lachaise Cemetery which now boasts such famous ‘residents’ as Isadora Duncan, Édith Piaf and Jim Morrison. I really appreciate the people who took the extra time to research this question when all you really had to do was to watch this funny video for the answer. The French history scholars and Cher fans on campus this week are –

Marianne Hageman

Matthew Koenen

Peter Erickson

Thanks to everyone who played!

Posted by Andrea Hudson at 02:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

July 8th marks the city of Paris’ 2057th birthday and the city’s rich cultural history is apparent in its landmarks, architecture, museums and graveyards. One Parisian graveyard in particular was made famous by a 19th century author who ‘buried’ the title character of one of his most famous books there making it an instant tourist destination. Talk about product placement! Ever since then it is one of the most ‘in’ places to be buried and the roster of who is resting there reads like a ‘Who’s who’ of modern French history, although the occasional Brit and American has snuck in. Speaking of Americans, in 1999 Cher reserved a plot there as her final resting place. I suppose her impact on French culture is greater than I initially thought.

Long story short, I would like to know the name of this graveyard and if you can come up with the name of the author of many classic works of realism then all the better for you.

There are two ways to tackle this question, you can go the highbrow history of French literature route in some of our literature or history databases, or you can approach it from the Cher angle and look for newspaper stories from that time. I promise to not judge your methods on finding the answer.

I was not yet around in 1962, but I do know that ‘Where were you in ‘62’ was the tagline to ‘American Graffiti’ and the personality I was looking for from that movie was DJ and all around fixture of 1970’s popular culture - Wolfman Jack. The campus 70’s nostalgia buffs are

Marianne Hageman
Jan Pinkerton
Peter Erickson
Matthew Koenen

Thanks to everyone who played.

Posted by Andrea Hudson at 09:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)