Showing posts with label literature. Show all posts
Showing posts with label literature. Show all posts

Friday, March 8, 2013

Question 1469:Do it Gently

"X" included a reference to "Y" in the original radio version of "Z", in which he describes the main characters surveying the landscape of an alien planet, while their android companion, hums a song by "Y". This was cut out of the CD version. "X" also compared the various noises that the kakapo makes to "Y studio out-takes" in his nonfiction book on endangered species, "W"
X's official biography shares its name with a song by "Y". "X" was friends with "Y" guitarist "A". In fact once on  X's birthday, he was invited to make a guest appearance at Y's 28 October 1994 concert at Earls Court in London, playing guitar on two songs. "X" chose the name for Y's 1994 album, "B", by picking the words from the lyrics to one of its tracks. "A"  also performed at X's memorial service, and what would have been X's 60th birthday party.
Here is some more:
"X" was a friend of  the lead singer, pianist and songwriter of Procol Harum, Gary Brooker. "X" invited him to one of the many parties that he held at his house. On one such occasion, Brooker performed the full (4 verse) version of  A Whiter Shade of Pale  and also performed at X's memorial service.
"X" appeared on stage to perform In Held Twas in I at Redhill when the band's lyricist Keith Reid was not available. On several other occasions he introduced Procol Harum at their gigs.
"X" would listen to music while writing, and this would occasionally influence his work. On one occasion the title track from a Procol Harum album was playing and his thoughts were:

"Suddenly in the middle of the song there was this huge orchestral climax that came out of nowhere and did not seem to be about anything. I kept wondering what was this huge thing happening in the background? And I eventually thought ... it sounds as if there ought to be some sort of floorshow going on. Something huge and extraordinary, like, well, the end of the universe".

I only want X,Y.


Answer:

Saturday, March 2, 2013

Question 1468

Starts with Prima autem et manifestior via est, quæ sumitur ex parte motus, from The Argument of the Unmoved Mover, going through The Argument of the First Clause, The Argument from Contingency, The Argument from Degree, ends with Ergo est aliquid intelligens, a quo omnes res naturales ordinantur ad finem, et hoc dicimus ____ , from the X Argument which states/proves in the end that Y exists. All of them are proposed proofs taking the form of scholarly arguments. Gimme Y and Identify.

Answer:

Monday, February 25, 2013

Question 1466

Identify. Too many clues there. Sorry I'm bored and running dry at the moment.



Answer:

Sunday, February 3, 2013

Question 1462:Atithi Devo Bhava

A fairly simple one..
X was living at Nether Stowey (a village in the foothills of the Quantocks). It is unclear where the event  actually took place..

On awakening he(X) appeared to himself to have a distinct recollection of the whole, and taking his pen, ink, and paper, instantly and eagerly wrote down the lines that are here preserved. At this moment he was unfortunately called out on business by Y, and detained by him above an hour, and on his return to his room, found, to his no small surprise and mortification, that though he still retained some vague and dim recollection of the general purport of the vision, yet, with the exception of some eight or ten scattered lines and images, all the rest had passed away like the images on the surface of a stream into which a stone has been cast, but, alas! without the after restoration of the latter!
What?

Answer: Kubla Khan and the Person from Porlock

Answer:

Sunday, December 2, 2012

Question 1449

Funda?









Answer: Flipkart

Answer:

Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Question 1447:Eyes on you

X is a programming language and platform in the tradition of Smalltalk and Self being developed. The platform includes an IDE, a GUI library, and standard libraries.
It is is a class based language. Classes may be nested, as in BETA. This is one of the key differences between X and Smalltalk. All names in X are late-bound, and are interpreted as message sends, as in Self.
X is distinguished by its unusual approach to modularity. The language has no global namespace. Top level classes act as module declarations. Module declarations are first class values and are stateless.
The name X is inspired by "Y". The heading on the programming language's website says "It's doubleplusgood". The motivation for the name is that the Y language grew smaller with every revision; the team views this as a desirable goal for a programming language. Connect.

Answer:

Sunday, July 15, 2012

Question 1426


In politics, a X is a situation in which a seat in a deliberative assembly is vacated during that assembly's term. Such a situation arises through the death, resignation or disqualification of the sitting member. Xs have the effect of eliminating or reducing representation for the member's constituency. Accordingly, many jurisdictions provide by law for the speedy filling of these vacant seats. Xs can also occur in non-governmental assemblies, such as boards of directors and committees of voluntary organisations.

What 2-word term is X? Its been quite in the news recently.

Here's a hint:



Answer: X: Casual Vacancy, the title of J.K.Rowling's new book. Tom Hollander(pic) has been chosen to read the audio-book.

Answer:

Friday, July 13, 2012

Question 1424

This practice may have begun as early as the 1930s, according to witnesses, and continued annually until 2009. Each year, at dawn on January 19, an all-black-clad person, face covered by a scarf or hood would enter the burial ground in Baltimore. At the site of X's original grave, which is marked with a commemorative stone, he would raise a cognac toast and place three red roses on the grave marker, along with the unfinished bottle of cognac.

On several occasions, this person left a note often expressing devotion. There have been instances of cryptic messages too. In 1999, a note announced that the original person had died the previous year and had passed the tradition to his son. Subsequent eyewitnesses noted that after 1998, it appeared to be a younger individual. The 2001 note referred to the Super Bowl of that year between the Baltimore Ravens and the New York Giants. Never before had the note referred to current events.

2009 marked the bicentenary of X's birth; despite this milestone, the crowd was smaller than in past years, and no note was left. In 2010 the person failed to appear. A witness who was present every year from 1976 on had no explanation, but did speculate that if the person intended to end the tradition, the 2009 bicentennial would mark a logical ending point.


What practice is this? (I am looking for a specific 2 word term)

Answer: The Poe Toaster, a person who, for over seven decades, paid an annual tribute to American author Edgar Allan Poe by visiting the stone marking his original grave in Baltimore, Maryland in the early hours of January 19, Poe's birthday.

Answer:

Friday, July 6, 2012

Question 1418

The following is a short parody of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's famous poem Kubla Khan. The poem, written by X takes pot-shots at Y and describes X's experiences of co-scripting one of the greatest films of Y's career.

For MGM did Y, ____
A stately astrodome decree
While Art, the s.f. writer, ran
Through plots incredible to man,
In search of solvency....
So twice five miles of Elstree ground
With sets and props were girdled round...
A savage place! as eerie and enchanted
As ere beneath a flickering arc was haunted
By child-star wailing for her demon mother...
For months meandering with a mazy motion
Through stacks of scripts the desperate writer ran
Then reached that plot incredible to man
And sank, enSCUBA'd in the Indian Ocean.
And midst the tumult Y heard from far
Accountants' voices, prophesying war!

Identify X and Y.
Answer: X: Arthur C. Clarke Y: Stanley Kubrick. (The film is 2001: A Space Odyssey)

Answer:

Thursday, July 5, 2012

Question 1417

X is a horror fiction novel by Susan Hill which has been adapted into a 1989 made-for TV film, a 2012 film and also a stage play. It is the second longest-running play in the history of the West End, after The Mousetrap by Agatha Christie.

In the 1989 television film, the main protagonist of the novel was played by actor A while the same role was portrayed by B in the 2012 film adaptation.

A and B are more famous for portraying a father-son pair in one of the highest grossing film series of all time and remains both of their careers' most famous role till date.


Solve for X, A and B.
1 point for X. Half points each for A and B.

Answer: X: The Woman in Black A: Adrian Rawlins B: Daniel Radcliffe

Answer:

Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Question 1415

Possible origins of the name of a certain fictional geographical entity are:

1) The author, the creator of this fictional entity created the word from root words from the Algonquian language. Experts have said that the author based the name on a river in Massachusetts called the Housatonic river and some others say it's derived from the name of a tribe descended from the Native Americans of Massachusetts.

2) The name is formed when you drink one too many whiskeys and tonic and ask the bartender for just one more, and then when he fails to apprehend the meaning of your words, you try to write it on a cocktail napkin, but the W comes out upside down somehow.

This name is also shared with a valley and a University in the same fictional universe.
What name?

Answer: Miskatonic, the author being H.P. Lovecraft.

Answer:

Thursday, March 15, 2012

Question 1376: If some Trivia could help!

Which person do all these songs relate to?

  1. Bullah ki Jaana - Rabbi
  2. Chaiyya Chaiyya- Dil Se..
  3. Bandeya Ho - Khuda ke Liye
  4. Ranjha Ranjha - Raavan
  5. O Yaar Mere - Wednesday

Answer: Songs that have used verses from the kafis of Baba Bulleh Shah.

Answer:

Friday, March 9, 2012

Question 1373: Funda?


Answer: Ben Affleck, Clint Eastwood and Martin Scorcesse directed those three movies respectively, which are all based on books of the same names written by Dennis Lehane.

Answer:

Thursday, March 1, 2012

Question 1368: Saving the best

X died of pneumonia in 1910 at a train station, after falling ill when he left home in the middle of winter. His death came only days after gathering the nerve to abandon his family and wealth and take up the path of a wandering ascetic, a path that he had agonized over pursuing for decades. He had not been at the peak of health before leaving home; his wife and daughters were all actively engaged in caring for him daily. He had been speaking and writing of his own death in the days preceding his departure from home, but fell ill at the station not far from home.

The police tried to limit access to his funeral procession, but thousands of peasants lined the streets at his funeral. Still, some peasants were heard to say that, other than knowing that "some nobleman had died," they knew little else about X himself.

Identify X.


Answer: Leo Tolstoy

Answer:

Saturday, February 11, 2012

Question 1350: Die to Remember


(right-click and open to enlarge)

The first page of a story written by Jonathan _____, which first appeared in Esquire Magazine's March 2001 issue.
Which story? Which movie did it inspire?

Answer: 'Memento Mori' by Jonathan Nolan, brother of Christopher Nolan who adopted it for the movie Memento. Memento Mori stands for "reminder of death" in Latin.

Answer:

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Question 1331 : You get high after this.

Sitter, identify.

1.Knowledge of Literature - Nil.

2.Knowledge of Philosophy - Nil.

3.Knowledge of Astronomy - Nil.

4.Knowledge of Politics - Feeble.

5.Knowledge of Botany - Variable. Well up in belladonna, opium and poison generally. Knows nothing of practice gardening.

6.Knowledge of Geology - Practical, but limited. Ability to differentiate between different soils.

7.Knowledge of Chemistry - Profound.

8.Knowledge of Anatomy - Accurate, but unsystematic.

9.Knowledge of Sensational Contemporary Literature - Immense.

10. Plays the violin well.

11.Expert boxer.

12. Has good knowledge of law.

P.S I would just like to emphasize that, yes, Rohan Danait is indeed an ungrateful prick.



Answer: Sherlock Holmes.

Answer:

Saturday, December 31, 2011

Question 1325: Tring! Tring!

Red Book : CD-DA
Yellow Book : CD-ROM
Orange Book : CD-MO/CD-R/CD-RW
White Book : VCD
Blue Book : E-CD/ CD+
Beige Book : P-CD
Green Book : CD-i
Purple Book : DDCD
Scarlet Book : SACD
________ : DVD/Blu-ray

Above are a set of certain standards. What are they collectively called? FIB.


Answer: Rainbow Books for CD standards. Interestingly no book is assigned yet for the popular DVD & Blu-ray formats.

Answer:

Saturday, December 24, 2011

Question 1321

Identify the author.



Answer: Jairam Ramesh

Answer:

Monday, December 19, 2011

Question 1318: And it was found!

Connect:










Well here's a cryptic hint!






Answer: The Lost Man Booker Prize
Books published in 1970 were not eligible for the Man Booker Prize due to a rules alteration; until 1970 the prize was awarded to books published in the previous year, while from 1971 onwards it was awarded to books published the same year as the award. The prize was won by J. G. Farrell for Troubles.

Answer:

Monday, December 5, 2011

Question 1306: What you looking at?

 From one of the Asterix and Obelix comics: This pic derives inspiration from which iconic work of art?



Answer: The Raft of the Medusa by Théodore Géricault.

Answer: