February 1
Quick Hits
Hi. Been busy with the day job.
Questions
My last Oscars question, for now. Amy Madigan was just nominated for her performance in the film Weapons. That is her second nomination in her career, with her first nomination coming forty years earlier, for the 1985 film Twice in a Lifetime. Believe it or not, that is not the longest gap between nominations ever. In fact, it is not even the second-longest, as there was a gap of 41 years between Henry Fonda’s nominations for his performances in The Grapes of Wrath and On Golden Pond. Which actor holds the record, at 42 years? His first nomination came for work in a film that won the Oscar for Best Picture, and his second was the result of a scene-stealing appearance as a retired lion tamer who advised the main character of the film to “follow your art, and you won't be able to do anything else.”
The “Great Writ” of habeas corpus originates not with the Magna Carta, but with a document issued almost fifty years prior to that agreement. Coming during a time of recent civil war in England, with much of the nobility away fighting the Crusades compounding the instability, the measure artfully strengthened royal power by creating a legal mechanism for traveling judges to assert their power to adjudicate crimes like murder and theft. Additionally, this document may have been the first statement of the legal right to a trial by jury of one’s peers. What is the name of this document? It was promulgated from the same Wiltshire palace (shown below is what is left of it) where a series of sixteen articles were issued by the same king as part of his attempt to restrict the power of the Church to maintain its own criminal justice system separate and unanswerable to royal authority.
Shown below is a structure found in Ancona, Italy that is probably the most famous of its kind in existence today, largely due to how expansive and well-preserved it is. What is this kind of building called? The first building of this particular sort was built in Venetian lagoon on the island of Santa Maria di Nazareth - which led to the coining of a particular word that, because of the association of a religious figure with a not-dissimilar institution, led to that word becoming the word that we use today. This same word also serves as the title to the 2014 follow-up to Blunderbuss.
The author of the following redacted headline missed an opportunity for some word play when reporting on the story of what happened when Robert Pattinson sat down to interview for a role in a film being made by what production company?
First, read the excerpt below, and consider the name of the “babe” mentioned in it. Later that person would be described as “the most peerless piece of earth, I think, / That e'er the sun shone bright on.” Second, consider the name of the genus that has three extant member species, as tapanuliensis was given its own distinct classification in 2017. The name of the genus is attributed to Andrew Battel, an English sailor who used the word to describe a gorilla that he saw while he was being held captive in Angola - so how that word came to be applied to animals from a completely different continent is not clear. When you combine the two words above, you get the two main protagonists of what novel adapted for the screen?
First and last name required. According to the live music trade publication Pollstar, the September 27, 2025 concert by what performer (below) set the record for the most ticketed attendees in American history? The audience of 112,408 at Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor heard songs like “Something in the Orange,” “I Remember Everything,” and “Pink Skies,” as well as a cover of “Friend of the Devil” - the latter perhaps a nod to the 1977 show by the Grateful Dead at Raceway Park in New Jersey which had the previous record for a ticketed audience at 107,019.
Shown is an image combining data taken from the Hubble Space Telescope and the Very Large Array. The image is said to depict a “RELHIC,” short for a “Reionization-Limited HI Cloud,” an object believed to be a ring of dark matter surrounding a cloud of hydrogen gas. The particular discovery highlighted is notable because it is thought to be completely starless, suggesting that it is an example of failed galaxy formation and thus a “relic” of the early universe. What nickname has been given to this particular example of what may be a new kind of interstellar object? This name is shared by what is perhaps the best-known play of Caryl Churchill, with the derivation of this heavenly phrase unclear, with some speculation that it originates in an image found in a reference work published by the International Meteorological Commission in 1896.
In his 1881 painting The Luncheon of the Boating Party (Le Déjeuner des canotiers), Pierre-Auguste Renoir depicts a number of his friends. In particular, who is the man wearing a straw boater’s hat, highlighted below? A painter himself, this man was featured at an exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago last year that offered a survey of some of his most important work, including what probably is his most famous painting (already on permanent display at the Art Institute) as well as the painting shown below, which usually is on display at the Musée d’Orsay. As the painting shown is titled The Boating Party, I wonder if it was meant to show a snippet of the pre-party activities of the same group depicted by Renoir three years later.
Some airlines allow for carry-on luggage, while others will even permit carrion. The photograph below, from 2017, captured a not-uncommon occurrence in the Middle East - a plane rented out to transport falcons, in the instance shown for a competition held in Jeddah. Among those on the manifest were gyrfalcons, peregrine falcons, and members of what other species of falcon? This particular bird (one example is shown second) is the second fastest bird in level flight after the swift, and it only trails the peregrine falcon and the golden eagle in dive speed. Those attributes might explain why it is the most expensive of the birds used in falconry to purchase (going for millions of dollars) as well as why it is the national bird of several Middle Eastern countries, including the United Arab Emirates.
Members of a particular list include the Silver Sevens, the Millionaires, the Shamrocks, the Thistles, the Victorias, and the Wanderers. Chronologically speaking, what would be the first American-based member of that list?
